colinlindsay
25th May 2008, 01:43 PM
This is from Brian Maclaran - A Generous Orthodoxy.
The early church leaders described the Trinity using the term perichoresis. (Peri – circle, choresis – dance). The Trinity was an eternal dance of Father, Son and Spirit sharing mutual love, honour, happiness, joy and respect. Against this backdrop, God’s act of creation means that God is inviting more and more beings into the eternal dance of joy. Sin means that people have stepped and are stepping out of the dance, corrupting its beauty and rhythm, crashing and tackling and stomping on feet instead of moving with grace, rhythm, grace, harmony, creativity and reverence. Then, in Jesus, God enters creation to restore the rhythm and beauty again.
If the evangelical Jesus saves by dying, the Pentecostal Jesus by sending His Spirit and the Catholic Jesus by rising from death, then the Orthodox Jesus simply saves by being born, by showing up, by coming amongst us. In Jesus’s birth, 2 wonderful things happen. First, God takes the human life of Jesus into God’s eternal life and in so doing, Jesus’ people (the Jews), species (the human race) and history (the history of our planet and our whole universe) enter into-are taken up into- God’s own life. God’s intense and all-encompassing and overwhelming life, love, joy and power are so great that our death, hate, pain and failures are eradicated, swallowed up, cancelled, extinguished and overcome by being taken up into Him.
How did God do this?
Once upon a time, there was a good and kind king who had a great kingdom with many cities. In one distant city, some people took advantage of the freedom the King gave them and started doing evil. The profited materially by their evil and began to fear that the King would interfere and throw them into jail. Eventually, these rebels seethed with hatred for the king.
But soon with everyone doing what they wanted, disorder reigned in the city. There was violence, hatred, lying, oppression, murder, rape, slavery and fear. The King thought, “What should I do? If I take my huge army and conquer the city by force, the people will fight against me, and I’ll have to kill so many of them, and the rest will only submit through fear or intimidation, which will make them hate me and all I stand for even more. How does that help them – to be either dead or imprisoned or secretly seething with rage? But if I leave them alone, they’ll destroy each other, and it breaks my heart to think of the pain they’re causing and experiencing”
So the King did something very surprising. He took off his robes and dressed in the rags of a homeless wanderer. Incognito, he entered the city and began living in a vacant lot near a garbage dump. He took up a trade-fixing broken pottery and furniture. Whenever people came to him, his kindness and goodness and fairness and respect were so striking that they would linger just to be in his presence. They would tell him their fears and questions and ask his advice. He told them that the rebels had fooled them, and that the true king had a better way to live, which he exemplified and taught. One by one, then two by two, and then by the hundreds, people began to have confidence in him and live in his way.
Their influence spread to others, and the movement grew and grew until the whole city regretted its rebellion and wanted to return to the kingdom again. But ashamed of their horrible mistake, they were afraid to approach the king, believing he would certainly destroy them for their rebellion. But the king-in-disguise told them the good news: he himself was the king, and he loved them. He held nothing against them and he welcomed them back into his kingdom, having accomplished by a gentle, subtle presence what never could have been accomplished through brute force.
Would the Orthodox recognise this?
The early church leaders described the Trinity using the term perichoresis. (Peri – circle, choresis – dance). The Trinity was an eternal dance of Father, Son and Spirit sharing mutual love, honour, happiness, joy and respect. Against this backdrop, God’s act of creation means that God is inviting more and more beings into the eternal dance of joy. Sin means that people have stepped and are stepping out of the dance, corrupting its beauty and rhythm, crashing and tackling and stomping on feet instead of moving with grace, rhythm, grace, harmony, creativity and reverence. Then, in Jesus, God enters creation to restore the rhythm and beauty again.
If the evangelical Jesus saves by dying, the Pentecostal Jesus by sending His Spirit and the Catholic Jesus by rising from death, then the Orthodox Jesus simply saves by being born, by showing up, by coming amongst us. In Jesus’s birth, 2 wonderful things happen. First, God takes the human life of Jesus into God’s eternal life and in so doing, Jesus’ people (the Jews), species (the human race) and history (the history of our planet and our whole universe) enter into-are taken up into- God’s own life. God’s intense and all-encompassing and overwhelming life, love, joy and power are so great that our death, hate, pain and failures are eradicated, swallowed up, cancelled, extinguished and overcome by being taken up into Him.
How did God do this?
Once upon a time, there was a good and kind king who had a great kingdom with many cities. In one distant city, some people took advantage of the freedom the King gave them and started doing evil. The profited materially by their evil and began to fear that the King would interfere and throw them into jail. Eventually, these rebels seethed with hatred for the king.
But soon with everyone doing what they wanted, disorder reigned in the city. There was violence, hatred, lying, oppression, murder, rape, slavery and fear. The King thought, “What should I do? If I take my huge army and conquer the city by force, the people will fight against me, and I’ll have to kill so many of them, and the rest will only submit through fear or intimidation, which will make them hate me and all I stand for even more. How does that help them – to be either dead or imprisoned or secretly seething with rage? But if I leave them alone, they’ll destroy each other, and it breaks my heart to think of the pain they’re causing and experiencing”
So the King did something very surprising. He took off his robes and dressed in the rags of a homeless wanderer. Incognito, he entered the city and began living in a vacant lot near a garbage dump. He took up a trade-fixing broken pottery and furniture. Whenever people came to him, his kindness and goodness and fairness and respect were so striking that they would linger just to be in his presence. They would tell him their fears and questions and ask his advice. He told them that the rebels had fooled them, and that the true king had a better way to live, which he exemplified and taught. One by one, then two by two, and then by the hundreds, people began to have confidence in him and live in his way.
Their influence spread to others, and the movement grew and grew until the whole city regretted its rebellion and wanted to return to the kingdom again. But ashamed of their horrible mistake, they were afraid to approach the king, believing he would certainly destroy them for their rebellion. But the king-in-disguise told them the good news: he himself was the king, and he loved them. He held nothing against them and he welcomed them back into his kingdom, having accomplished by a gentle, subtle presence what never could have been accomplished through brute force.
Would the Orthodox recognise this?