I gave this message five times between 5 p.m. this past Saturday and 12:30 p.m. on Easter Sunday.
My memory worked well almost every time -- some sermons have a "flow" that is easy to maintain and recollect, and this was one of them.
It also has one of my favorite bottom lines:
The power that resurrectED is still resurrectING.
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You know that phrase, “a little part of me died inside?” It’s pretty common; it’s the first cousin of when you tell someone: “you’re dead to me.” Only we don’t so much use it to talk about others; we use it to refer to ourselves: dreams dashed, hopes halted, plans prevented. Sometimes it’s lighthearted and other times it’s heavy handed. Sometimes it’s all too real.
You know what I’m saying. A little part of you died inside when the party was a bust, when the date didn’t turn out well – or when she wouldn’t go out with you in the first place! – when you were a new mom and you’re mom just couldn’t help but criticize your parenting skills.
Goodness, I know mine. From roughly age 8 to age 18 -- when, unfortunately, I often looked like this:
(That was my passport photo at age 14 -- can you believe they let me back
in to the country?)
-- during that time in my life, I had one dream, one thing alive inside of me: grow up to be a pro tennis player. And then when I was 18 I played in a small-time pro tournament in Amarillo, Texas & I lost. And BOOM I realized: I’m not good enough and I’m likely not going to be good enough. And little – no, a big – part of me died in the Texas panhandle.
Or you may not even know this, but all growing up our very own Chris Macedo wanted so much to become this:
But instead of
that, we got
this. And we love him because he can actually fit into skinny jeans.
But there’s more. In here. Someone here dreamed of a white picket fence and what you have is a couple of divorces behind you and blended family challenges in front of you. And when that white picket fence got torn down, a little bit of you died inside. Or someone else had that dream of a degree and a career but you never could afford the degree so you never could get the job. And that dream died inside. Or even a few of you have that dream of happiness but then depression settled in and you had to adjust your dreams: just get off meds, please. And I know for sure more than a few of you have had this idea for ministry but for a variety of factors it hasn’t happened and that little part of you died inside. Things large, things small, things trivial, things painful, and the truth is a little part of us so many of us has died. Your brought that death in here with you, even on Easter.
And all that is why we’re culminating the 4U series today. It’s been a series of talks coming from four short verses in Romans, a section that most stands out because of the three times repeated for us. We’ve seen over the last couple of weeks to our great delight that God – in spite of evidence to the contrary – is not alienated from us, not distant from us, not ignoring us, not even made at us. He is fundamentally for us, for you, no exceptions. And when you know that, you realize that anyone or anything that is against you has no chance. And the most striking thing in today’s verse –
34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
– is that we see Paul NOT writing, but
dictating a letter to a whole collection of Roman Xns who have had a lot of things die inside them – security & prosperity chief among them – precisely because they follow Jesus. And Paul’s reminding them that God’s not just with them; he is so for them that he is ahead of them. Anyway, you see how it is that he is composing/dictating in 8:34: Who is the one who condemns? No one! Christ Jesus who died – WAIT! (I can’t forget this, Tertius!) More than that, who was raised to life! . . . I love that. It’s one of a couple of examples in Paul’s letter where you can literally see his dictation process at work.
Was raised to life. Huh. Before I go further, that’s true you know. We come together on Easter not to remember a myth but to celebrate an event. Not to concentrate on a philosophy but to commemorate history. Real, live, pulsing with love event.
The grave could not contain the power of his name. Think about it this way, people: if the Roman government in charge of Jerusalem at that time had been able to squash the rumors that Jesus had risen from the dead and to kill the burgeoning Jesus movement – both of which they desperately wanted to do – all they would have had to do was produce Jesus’ corpse, put it on display in the city center and say, “here is your risen Savior!” But they didn’t. They didn’t because they couldn’t. Hallelujah! They didn’t because they couldn’t! The power to reverse molecular decay, the power to empty a grave was alive in Jesus. All that from Paul’s can’t-contain-himself pause there in the first part of 8:34!
But then the next part which is actually the best part.
is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us
That right hand of the Father doesn’t mean that they are on a set of Lay Z Boys but it was an ancient way of declaring he rules. He is God. The right hand is the same as. And is interceding for us. Praying, maneuvering, invading, working. Not in the past – WAS RAISED – but present: is seated and is interceding. Why? The last two words! Against us! Nope! For us. See while we at GS are very careful and a little bit emphatic to teach & say the rez happened – literally, bodily, historically – for Easter 2015 I am drawn to what continues to happen. And the thrilling implication from Paul’s dictation is that the power that accomplished Jesus’ resurrection is still working on yours. Not tomorrow. Today. Not then. Now. So you are not abandoned or ignored or tolerated but you are his work in progress.
Here it is:
The power that resurrectED is still resurrectING. That’s it! It’s who God is and what God does!
See, you come in to church, I come in to church with parts of us that have died and so Jesus is busy working in ways large and small, visible and invisible to bring those back to life.
I know this. I’ve seen this. I’ve lived this. Even that gonna be a tennis pro dream that died inside of me? What rose back up. This! 5:00 last night, 7, 8:30, 10, and 11:30 this morning! Praise God, this. I joke about being bitter, but I’m not. This is a much better way of using my life than wearing shorts and waving a racket!
Lord, about eight years ago now I had this dream of being as cool as another church up north. And that dream died when I realized we were horrible at being them. And yet it rose to life in another form with inviting all people . . . We’re not half bad at being us.
The power that resurrectED is still resurrectING.
Do you know why this is true? Because God is not an ED, he is an ING. He’s not God of the past, somehow trapped in the pages of an ancient library; he is God of the now, an ING God. When you come to grips with that, just think of all that ING that he is involved in: ANNOYING, PURSUING (you who’ve run away from him, he is faster!), OPPOSING, SURPRISING, REMINDING. Man, I’ve got a guy in my life who every time I see him is this visual, vivid reminder: Pray. He’s not preachy about it, just authentic in it. That’s God reminding me, resurrecting in me the part of me that had died to prayer because I was too cool or sophisticated or blasé.
God has done that for you, too. God has done that through you, too. You look back in the rear view mirror of your life and you can identify those parts of you that died – finance, marriage, ministry – and now you realize several years later he resurrected it. He is resurrecting it.
That power that resurrectED is still resurrectING.
But now I need to tell you what you already know and are probably suspecting: what raises is not the same as what died. Related, often, but fundamentally different. Jesus’ own body, after all, was recognizable after the resurrection but quite different. He could appear & disappear; he could move through doors; he could even veil his identity like with the two travelers to and from Emmaus in Luke 24. It’s why I love that woman in our church who in the 90s (remember them? A century ago?) had a good Charlotte life: good job, happy marriage, great city. But then she began to lose her vision. And despite prayer and medicine, she kept on losing it. Gradually, she had to stop driving, then stop working, then give up most of her independence. An enormous part of her -- the part that sees! -- died inside. But
Jean Obi decided to allow God to resurrect something else. She realized that though she was legally blind, she could still coordinate meals within this church -- meals to people who are sick or grieving or celebrating a baby. And we did the math - and between 1997 and 2014 Jean Obi coordinated the distribution of
4,612 meals. Tell me that's not
The power that resurrectED is still resurrectING!
Our ING God is doing the same thing in here, right now. It’s hitting some of you now. Raising a woman who is strong enough to endure a divorce; a man resourceful enough to thrive in unemployment; an adult who had part of you die when mom and dad always withheld approval and it hurts to this day, and yet now you have that sweet certainty that in Christ you have been stamped: APPROVED. Tattoed: LOVED. Sealed: FORGIVEN. And that realization of who you are in Christ more than makes up for who your parents weren’t for you.
The power that resurrectED is still resurrectING.
And lets’s be truthful: when part of you dies . . . sometimes it needed to. Sometimes Jesus was doing you an enormous favor by ensuring its death. If Jesus was an ED Lord instead of an ING Savior, you would have self-destructed long ago. Thank God for those smaller deaths that pave the way for the biggest rez.
And here’s the thing about Easter. You know how sometimes you get those direct marketing letters in the mail telling you that you have PREQUALIFIED? Prequalified for a new car, a better house, or may favorite,
mountain property?! Well, that’s what the resurrection does: it prequalified you for eternity. Because – and you know this – there is coming a day when it won’t just be part of you that dies, but all of you. And today I want you to surrender to that. He is resurrecting your spirit. I know there are a few of you today and the part of you that died is that part that believed in Jesus. Bad luck, busy life, just plain sin . . . but that’s what died. And I wouldn’t want you to leave here today without realizing and responding to the overwhelming reality that he is resurrectING that, today. And he invites to respond to his ING with surrender to belief, trust, hope; to joining his side. You’ve been prequalified for eternity; today’s the day to sign up . . .
(That was my passport photo at age 14 -- can you believe they let me back in to the country?)
-- during that time in my life, I had one dream, one thing alive inside of me: grow up to be a pro tennis player. And then when I was 18 I played in a small-time pro tournament in Amarillo, Texas & I lost. And BOOM I realized: I’m not good enough and I’m likely not going to be good enough. And little – no, a big – part of me died in the Texas panhandle.
Or you may not even know this, but all growing up our very own Chris Macedo wanted so much to become this:
But instead of that, we got this. And we love him because he can actually fit into skinny jeans.
But there’s more. In here. Someone here dreamed of a white picket fence and what you have is a couple of divorces behind you and blended family challenges in front of you. And when that white picket fence got torn down, a little bit of you died inside. Or someone else had that dream of a degree and a career but you never could afford the degree so you never could get the job. And that dream died inside. Or even a few of you have that dream of happiness but then depression settled in and you had to adjust your dreams: just get off meds, please. And I know for sure more than a few of you have had this idea for ministry but for a variety of factors it hasn’t happened and that little part of you died inside. Things large, things small, things trivial, things painful, and the truth is a little part of us so many of us has died. Your brought that death in here with you, even on Easter.
And all that is why we’re culminating the 4U series today. It’s been a series of talks coming from four short verses in Romans, a section that most stands out because of the three times repeated for us. We’ve seen over the last couple of weeks to our great delight that God – in spite of evidence to the contrary – is not alienated from us, not distant from us, not ignoring us, not even made at us. He is fundamentally for us, for you, no exceptions. And when you know that, you realize that anyone or anything that is against you has no chance. And the most striking thing in today’s verse –
34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
– is that we see Paul NOT writing, but dictating a letter to a whole collection of Roman Xns who have had a lot of things die inside them – security & prosperity chief among them – precisely because they follow Jesus. And Paul’s reminding them that God’s not just with them; he is so for them that he is ahead of them. Anyway, you see how it is that he is composing/dictating in 8:34: Who is the one who condemns? No one! Christ Jesus who died – WAIT! (I can’t forget this, Tertius!) More than that, who was raised to life! . . . I love that. It’s one of a couple of examples in Paul’s letter where you can literally see his dictation process at work.
Was raised to life. Huh. Before I go further, that’s true you know. We come together on Easter not to remember a myth but to celebrate an event. Not to concentrate on a philosophy but to commemorate history. Real, live, pulsing with love event. The grave could not contain the power of his name. Think about it this way, people: if the Roman government in charge of Jerusalem at that time had been able to squash the rumors that Jesus had risen from the dead and to kill the burgeoning Jesus movement – both of which they desperately wanted to do – all they would have had to do was produce Jesus’ corpse, put it on display in the city center and say, “here is your risen Savior!” But they didn’t. They didn’t because they couldn’t. Hallelujah! They didn’t because they couldn’t! The power to reverse molecular decay, the power to empty a grave was alive in Jesus. All that from Paul’s can’t-contain-himself pause there in the first part of 8:34!
But then the next part which is actually the best part.
is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us
That right hand of the Father doesn’t mean that they are on a set of Lay Z Boys but it was an ancient way of declaring he rules. He is God. The right hand is the same as. And is interceding for us. Praying, maneuvering, invading, working. Not in the past – WAS RAISED – but present: is seated and is interceding. Why? The last two words! Against us! Nope! For us. See while we at GS are very careful and a little bit emphatic to teach & say the rez happened – literally, bodily, historically – for Easter 2015 I am drawn to what continues to happen. And the thrilling implication from Paul’s dictation is that the power that accomplished Jesus’ resurrection is still working on yours. Not tomorrow. Today. Not then. Now. So you are not abandoned or ignored or tolerated but you are his work in progress.
Here it is: The power that resurrectED is still resurrectING. That’s it! It’s who God is and what God does!
See, you come in to church, I come in to church with parts of us that have died and so Jesus is busy working in ways large and small, visible and invisible to bring those back to life.
I know this. I’ve seen this. I’ve lived this. Even that gonna be a tennis pro dream that died inside of me? What rose back up. This! 5:00 last night, 7, 8:30, 10, and 11:30 this morning! Praise God, this. I joke about being bitter, but I’m not. This is a much better way of using my life than wearing shorts and waving a racket!
Lord, about eight years ago now I had this dream of being as cool as another church up north. And that dream died when I realized we were horrible at being them. And yet it rose to life in another form with inviting all people . . . We’re not half bad at being us. The power that resurrectED is still resurrectING.
Do you know why this is true? Because God is not an ED, he is an ING. He’s not God of the past, somehow trapped in the pages of an ancient library; he is God of the now, an ING God. When you come to grips with that, just think of all that ING that he is involved in: ANNOYING, PURSUING (you who’ve run away from him, he is faster!), OPPOSING, SURPRISING, REMINDING. Man, I’ve got a guy in my life who every time I see him is this visual, vivid reminder: Pray. He’s not preachy about it, just authentic in it. That’s God reminding me, resurrecting in me the part of me that had died to prayer because I was too cool or sophisticated or blasé.
God has done that for you, too. God has done that through you, too. You look back in the rear view mirror of your life and you can identify those parts of you that died – finance, marriage, ministry – and now you realize several years later he resurrected it. He is resurrecting it. That power that resurrectED is still resurrectING.
But now I need to tell you what you already know and are probably suspecting: what raises is not the same as what died. Related, often, but fundamentally different. Jesus’ own body, after all, was recognizable after the resurrection but quite different. He could appear & disappear; he could move through doors; he could even veil his identity like with the two travelers to and from Emmaus in Luke 24. It’s why I love that woman in our church who in the 90s (remember them? A century ago?) had a good Charlotte life: good job, happy marriage, great city. But then she began to lose her vision. And despite prayer and medicine, she kept on losing it. Gradually, she had to stop driving, then stop working, then give up most of her independence. An enormous part of her -- the part that sees! -- died inside. But Jean Obi decided to allow God to resurrect something else. She realized that though she was legally blind, she could still coordinate meals within this church -- meals to people who are sick or grieving or celebrating a baby. And we did the math - and between 1997 and 2014 Jean Obi coordinated the distribution of 4,612 meals. Tell me that's not The power that resurrectED is still resurrectING!
Our ING God is doing the same thing in here, right now. It’s hitting some of you now. Raising a woman who is strong enough to endure a divorce; a man resourceful enough to thrive in unemployment; an adult who had part of you die when mom and dad always withheld approval and it hurts to this day, and yet now you have that sweet certainty that in Christ you have been stamped: APPROVED. Tattoed: LOVED. Sealed: FORGIVEN. And that realization of who you are in Christ more than makes up for who your parents weren’t for you. The power that resurrectED is still resurrectING.
And lets’s be truthful: when part of you dies . . . sometimes it needed to. Sometimes Jesus was doing you an enormous favor by ensuring its death. If Jesus was an ED Lord instead of an ING Savior, you would have self-destructed long ago. Thank God for those smaller deaths that pave the way for the biggest rez.
And here’s the thing about Easter. You know how sometimes you get those direct marketing letters in the mail telling you that you have PREQUALIFIED? Prequalified for a new car, a better house, or may favorite, mountain property?! Well, that’s what the resurrection does: it prequalified you for eternity. Because – and you know this – there is coming a day when it won’t just be part of you that dies, but all of you. And today I want you to surrender to that. He is resurrecting your spirit. I know there are a few of you today and the part of you that died is that part that believed in Jesus. Bad luck, busy life, just plain sin . . . but that’s what died. And I wouldn’t want you to leave here today without realizing and responding to the overwhelming reality that he is resurrectING that, today. And he invites to respond to his ING with surrender to belief, trust, hope; to joining his side. You’ve been prequalified for eternity; today’s the day to sign up . . .
Anyway, in that book, Stapleton goes to great lengths to distinguish between telling about the biblical passage you are preaching on and giving an experience of that text.
Telling about creates distance from the text. Giving an experience of brings people into the passage in all of its messiness and all of its clarity.
For example, a couple of years ago I did a sermon on drunk, naked Noah in Genesis 9. Telling about that story would have gone in one of two directions: 1) explained why Noah got drunk; or 2) exhorting the people in the church not to do the same!
Yet giving an experience of that story involved: 1) acknowledging that you don't find Genesis 9 in any illustrated children's bible ever; 2) explaining the extraordinary lengths to which Shem and Japheth had to go to clean up and cover up their father's nakedness; 3) asking, almost painfully, who has to clean up after you?
My prayer was that people in the church didn't learn about Noah; they saw the ways in which they are Noah. And that they did some serious moral inventorying as they consider who has to clean up after their mess.
(Incidentally, that sermon will be Chapter Five of the upcoming Abingdon release The Storm Before The Calm.)
Why am I posting this during Holy Week?
Well, on Sunday . . . do you suspect I'll try to tell you about resurrection or give you an experience of it?
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Will it be weird for you all if I start a message just before Easter and that WILL look at Jesus’ cross through Paul’s eyes in Romans 8 . . . by looking at an ancient story from Genesis? Will you hold it against me if the launch pad for Jesus is Abraham who lived about 2000 years BEFORE Jesus came? And will you hold it even more against me if the story I want to glance at as we begin is one people often tell me is one reason they has such trouble believing what I believe? People say the story gives such a primitive, barbaric picture of God that who would want to follow that? And when folks say stuff like that to me, I am completely flummoxed for a good answer because I’m a better “think to talker” than a quick on my feet “talk to thinker”? Is all that OK. Sure, I knew it would be.
Because the briefest snapshot I want to give you is of a story some of you know well & others of you have never heard of before, but it comes from Genesis 22 (4k yrs ago!) where in this beautifully told tale, God tells Abraham to take Isaac, “his only son,” put him on an altar, and sacrifice him. And Abraham does it, right to the point where he has his knife raised ready to give his son up to God and at the last moment, in a scene of unbearable tension, God intervenes and says in so many words, “Just kidding! You don’t gotta go through with it!” Abraham almost but not all the way has to give up his son. And maybe you, like my mom, read that and in spite of the happy ending, you can’t quite believe in a God who would test a dad like that. Is it OK if I start this message there? Well, I already have, so there.
Why? Because Paul. Jewish. Descendant of Abraham. Memorized the book of Genesis as a whole. Why do I say that? H was bar mitzvahed, he was a scholar, and that’s what they did in those days! And Abraham’s story would have been so deeply embedded in his mind and in his vocabulary that it was part of who he was. More than that, Paul knew that Abraham’s story was but a part of the elaborate rescue plan God had been forging ever since our first parents blew it in the Garden. That God was shaping a people to be a light to rescue the rest of the world from itself. Paul knew that and knew that Jesus was the great culmination of the ancient rescue plan. We need rescue from ourselves – because I don’t know if you knew this or not, be we really are our own worst enemy. Some of you come into church today all-too-aware of this while others are oblivious. But it’s true. The temper you lost this morning. The unspeakably harsh words you spoke to the people you should love the most. The regrets you have and the shame you carry. The same sex attraction that sometimes overwhelms you. The gluttony that defines you. The impulsiveness that makes you ruin jobs, relationships, and even church.
You don’t like yourself afterwards in the wake of these things, they impact others, and it’s now making sense why I am saying you are usually your own worst enemy. Some people call this stuff character defects, others call it brokenness, but the oldest and most accurate word for all of it is sin. And know this: all of your issues are but symptoms of that most fundamental issue of sin. The sins you commit are all because you first have a hard-wired nature towards sinning. And here is the essence of sin: the absence of God. Think about it: when you sin, you choose to act as if there is no God. Both sins of OMISSION (good things you don’t do cuz you don’t care) and sins of COMMISSION (bad things you shoulnd’t oughta do but you do anyway.) You bring the absence of God into your life.
But here’s the other deal about that sin (or character defect!): there has to be consequences. Because if you don’t punish your kids when they act up, what are you begging for? More acting up! You can’t have that, so you gotta punish. God is not different. Rebellion has consequences and because God is so holy and can’t be in the presence of sin or defect, the ultimate consequence of sin is his absence. It’s like, “ok, if your sin comes because you act as if there is no God, I’m gonna give you what you want: no God.” The absence of God. Which we call hell. It’s why in prison solitary confinement is such torture . . . it doesn’t SOUND so bad to us who’ve never had it but it is the surest way to madness in a prison environment. Fascinating: absence is both the cause of and the consequence of our sin. We’re our own worst enemies because we wish there was no God and, w/o rescue, we head to an eternity where . . . there is no God.
Well. So now you’re thinking, “that’s fine, that’s good Talbot. You don’t usually hear talk such as that at a Methodist church, but I’m with. I feel like dirt now, but I’m with you. But I gotta ask you, preacher, ‘what in the world does all this have to do with Abraham! Why’d you start there?” Remember Abe from 10 minutes ago? The guy at the earliest stages of the rescue plan ALMOST kills his son, his only son. Lot of people: that’s so barbaric I can’t believe in that God.
Oh, well look at Romans 8:32 where Paul, THE BAR MITZVAHED JEW WHO MEMORIZED GENESIS says this:
32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Ah! No accident in that language! Paul, the descendant of Abraham is letting us know: In Jesus, God did what Abraham didn’t. He subjected HIMSELF to the same thing from which he had PROTECTED Abraham! Abraham & Isaac is not a story of barbarism; it’s a prelude to beauty! God includes the Abraham story to prepare you for the awfulness of what he actually went through! The beautiful ugliness of the cross. I love the bible! Genius connections that run through centuries of living and struggling! Linking Abraham’s “almost” with God’s “did it” puts what happened on the cross in an entirely new light. Because it lets you know in an entirely new way the obstacle God had to overcome on the cross.
Huh? Yeah, I never thought of it this way until I saw the Abraham connection. Why would it have been so hard for Abraham to “finish the job” with Isaac? Because he loved him! Father-son, parent-child, me-Riley . . . you know this. But did you also that also includes the Father & the Son within the Godhead? The Father didn’t discover Jesus while he was walking on earth! He didn’t adopt him because he looked down and thought “Huh, he’s a really good guy!” No! The Son & Father along with the Spirit have 3 in 1 forever. And those relationships are characterized by love. Treasuring, cherishing, fondness. Just like Abe had for Isaac; like I have for Riley. And look at what Romans 8:32 says: he “gave him up.” Unlike Abraham who ALMOST, the Father really did. I can’t understand it, I just believe it and for the first time in 2015, I’ve felt it. And once the Father overcame that obstacle, once he went through with the painful sacrifice of his only Son whom HE loves, well, everything else he gives to us is easy.
And look at why he gave him up: for us. Oh, wow. Not in spite of us, not for us to wear as jewelry, not for us to put on a steeple as proof we are a church, but for us. Because do you remember what Jesus cried out on the cross? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Total, solitary confinement. A momentary grasp of what an eternity of God’s absence is like. Hell on earth. For us. He takes the hell – he endures the absence – so that we don’t have to. And then, and then, it’s all clear. The rescue plan: completing what Abraham didn’t, a plan to bring people home, the cry on the cross, everything FOR YOU and here it is: Jesus endured the absence so you can enjoy the presence. He went through what we deserve – and the Father endured something profound by giving him up – so that by faith we can enjoy our Father’s house, where the son now dwells.
And it’s all for us. For you. For your divorce, a divorce you can’t honestly say was “all” her fault or “all” his fault. For your same sex attraction. For your temper. For your arrogance. For your gossip. For your self-destruction. For your underlying sin nature that leads to all those sinful acts. He did it, he suffered it, he endured it and somehow his endurance opens up the way for your enjoyment. Because here is some really cool news: remember I said that sin has its consequence? And that its consequence is the absence of God? But LOVE as a consequence as well! And the consequence of God’s love is presence with God, in your father’s house, in eternal rest. And on the cross, God’s hatred of sin collides with God’s love for you and LOVE WINS! For you! What Abraham started, Jesus finished and we enjoy. Jesus endured the absence so you can enjoy the presence.
The cross shows he’s not mad at you; he’s madly in love with you.
The cross reveals that he’s not ignoring you; he’s intervened for you.
The cross proves that he is not removed from you; he is moved by you and for you.
Jesus endured the absence so you can enjoy the presence.
But here’s the response needed: for you to look at the cross and admit you’re so messed up that’s what you need AND so loved that’s what you got. I mean, if God could have forgiven us any other way, he would have. But he couldn’t! He can’t. Forgiveness – PRESENCE – comes only through sacrificial absence. That’s just how messed up you are. That’s just how loved you have become.
A few weeks ago, a young boy was waiting for me in the lobby after church. I was yakking away to people and he and his mom stood there very patiently. Finally, when I was done with conversation, I asked, “what can I do for you?” And showed me a crucifix (AV), almost like a Roman Catholic wall ornament. “I’m going to put this up in my room,” he said, “and I’d like you to bless it for me.” Who would turn down a request like that from an 8 year old? So I placed hands on it and prayed, “Lord every day let this cross remind _________ what you went through to bring him home.”
Jesus endured the absence so you can enjoy the presence. 
If God is for us who can be against us?
Answer:
No one. No thing. No how. 
