Tag: Thoughts and Prayers

Theodidacti by Prayer

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]

Introduction

“Thoughts and prayers.” Any day of the week, on any social media website you will see people sending “thoughts and prayers” into tragic situations—either global or local. The sentiment is kind and hints at “emotional solidarity.” As our world becomes increasingly more violent—violence seeming to be our primary form of communication—the sending of “thoughts and prayers” increases. What else can we do but say: hey, I’m praying for and thinking about you during this time. There’s nothing wrong with it.

Until there is. Typing (and speaking) “thoughts and prayer” to those who are suffering and grieving makes us feel like we’ve done something. To some extent, we have; we spoke to and someone’s pain. And even though that dopamine surge feels good, it doesn’t do anything for their pain, and it certainly doesn’t do anything to address the issue. Now, to be gentle here, many of us feel like we can’t do much to overhaul a violent, polarized, and death dealing atmosphere and landscape. Many of us may feel that God needs to step in and set it all straight. Some may feel that our socio-political activity has nothing to do with our faith and so, to be faithful, we opt out of action and lean in to prayer.

Is everything really that helpless and hopeless? I don’t think so. Without jettisoning our orientation toward “thoughts and prayers” we can (maybe!) see that our prayers and thoughts are just the beginning of our socio-political activity in the world to make this place better for our neighbor who is grieving because they have experienced its trauma firsthand. In other words, when we shift our perspective and see prayer as our first step and not our last (ditch) effort, we might find a way to push our activity beyond uttering “thoughts and prayers” and living it in the world to the wellbeing of the neighbor and to the glory of God.

1 Timothy 2:1-7

In Paul’s first letter to Timothy,[2] he begins with an exhortation to prayer (in all its forms), Therefore, first of all things I urge petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings to be made on behalf of all people, on behalf of kings and all the ones being in authority so that we might pass time with a quiet and peaceable life in all piety and respectability (v1-2). Paul centers the life of prayer within the life of the believer. Why is this important[3] for Paul? A few reasons.

First, Paul understands that both Timothy and his flock will come under pressure not only from the opposition of the false teachers in Ephesus (who are antagonistic to Paul’s mission[4]), but that they will also come under fire by the local culture who will demand conformity to its status quo.[5] For Paul, prayer—the whole kit and kaboodle—will help to ground the believers and form and shape their lives, strengthening and uniting them together against these oppositional forces.

Second, the church, for Paul, is to be both missiological and present in their community (despite the opposition). Rather than being compliant to the surrounding socio-political realities by either playing nice through their “thoughts and prayers” for those others in their society[6] or living quietly off the radar bringing no attention to themselves by being good and obedient citizens,[7] Paul sees prayer as a feature of their corporate and private life of worship that will position these believers in the world by bringing the gospel in word and deed and serving their society by means of living out the gospel and it’s law of love.[8] This includes praying for all people; thus the believers cannot pick and choose subjecting themselves to an insular mindset.[9]

Third, prayer is to promote and provoke the believer in conformity to God’s will (which happens in the event of prayer) to be those who are Christ’s representatives and who participate in God’s mission in the world.[10] This means that as they pray for others and (especially) the rulers and those in authority they are praying for a specific outcome that will align with God’s mission in the world in which they participate. This is more than just nice thoughts and kind prayers for these leaders, it’s requesting God’s intervention by power of the Holy Spirit to change the hearts of these leaders and authorities.[11] The believers are to pray that their leaders are able to bring forth such a quiet and peaceable life, respectable and able to be godly; this is not that the believers are to live quietly while falling in with the demands of society and its leaders,[12] it’s about their being able to live according to the ethics of the reign of God within the kingdom of humanity with an eye to overhaul it where needed.[13],[14] This form of prayer, resulting in robust space to participate in God’s mission in the world to the glory of God and the well-being of the neighbor, is vital for the life and praxis of the church in the world and conforms to God’s will for the church’s life and praxis in the world.[15] This is doing church.

And fourth, thanksgiving helps to form those who recall God’s wonderful work in the world and in this way they find their hope in what God will do, giving assurance to their prayers that the God to whom they pray in the name of Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit is the same God who is oriented toward love, life, and liberation, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.[16]

Paul then affirms, This is good and acceptable in the presence of God our savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come into the knowledge of truth (vv3-4). Through prayer and thanksgiving, the believers become formed to the will and mission of God. In this way they can go into the world as Christ’s representatives and bring Christ (thus God) to those in their society.[17] Prayer is so closely linked to God’s mission of salvation that we can see that it’s crucial to the believer’s discipleship formation and causation. Through the humble posture of prayer, the will of the one who prays is conformed to the will of the one to whom they pray. As believers pray for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven, they are also praying for their will not to be done and to be replaced with God’s will so that they can be active participants in God’s reign coming and God’s name being hallowed. As the believers in Ephesus are conformed to God’s will and move out and work in the world, God’s mission of salvation goes forward in and through them and truth (real truth) is knowable.

Paul then says, For God [is] one, and one mediator [between] God and humanity the person Christ Jesus, the one who gave himself [as a] ransom on behalf of all people, a testimony for the due season, into which I, I was placed [as a] herald and apostle—I speak the truth, I do not lie—a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth (vv5-7). According to Paul, all have access to God because God is one,[18] and this one God has a mediator who is Jesus Christ through whom all have access to God.[19] Jesus Christ is the one who liberated (all!) humanity from death by means of his death and resurrection. This is the good news and the very thing believers not only believe but through which they are conformed to God’s will and mission in the world. For Paul, the church is responsible[20] to this person, Jesus Christ, who identified with humanity in its plight; it is also for this person they are to be his representatives in the world and the foundation of their faith and love for God and for others.

Conclusion

[21]Dorothee Sölle’s and Fulbert Steffensky write, in Not Just Yes & Amen, “[God] stands on the side of life and especially on the side of those to whom life in its wholeness is denied and who do not reach the point of real living. He is not on the side of the rulers, the powerful, the rich, the affluent, the victorious. God takes sides with those who need him. He sides with the victims.”[22] Where God sides is the location—the starting point, the continuing point, and the end point—of Christian existence and praxis in the world toward the neighbor to the glory and in the will of God. Thus, Christians are exhorted by their life of Christ and by their own faith to dare to move beyond the deafening silence of “thoughts and prayers,” extend their voices and hands beyond the heartless “yes and amen,” and lay claim to the long dormant divine “No!” This is done not by the believer’s own strength or alone, but by and in the strength of Christ and in the witness of the community witnessing to Christ in the world.

In Romans 13:14, Paul exhorts his audience to “to put on [as clothes] the Lord Jesus Christ and do not allow the flesh provision toward inordinate desires.” Christians are to clothe themselves in Christ, to shed the cloaks and covers of the kingdom of humanity, to shrug off the mythologies of power and privilege peddled by church clerics and state councils aimed toward inoculating Christians against active participation in the world as Christ for the well-being and benefit of the neighbor. To put on Christ is to participate in Christ’s life in this world now as Christ did in his own witness to the love and will of God more than 2000 years ago. This exhortation is echoed in Philippians 2:5, “Let the same mind be in you that is in Christ Jesus…” The believer is to be clothed in and have the same mind as Christ. The inner and outer person is to be aligned to the image of Christ who witnessed to God’s life affirming and liberative love in the world for the oppressed, for the victims. To be as Christ, to be formed—inwardly and outwardly—to the image of Christ comes with comfort and liberty in God by faith, but it also comes with a great burden to be as Christ to the neighbor. As theodidacti[23] through prayer, Christians are summoned to hear the silent cry and to respond by joining the divine revolution of life, love, and liberation for the beloved. Beloved, we pray first, and then we act for the wellbeing of the neighbor and to the glory of God.

[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[2] I’m using traditional language for the author of this letter so I can just keep it simple for the audience. I am aware of the debates of authorship and dating.

[3] Towner, Timothy, 165. “If the church has discerned the mandate character of this letter, it understands that Timothy’s task is to ensure that these instructions be implemented.”

[4] Philip Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus, TNICNT, ed. Gordon D. Fee (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 162. “The context throughout will continue to be that of false teaching and opposition to the Pauline missions.”

[5] Towner, Timothy, 162. “…the church will often still feel the presence of opponents and their teaching activities, and the latter will come up for specific treatment in several place…the local culture is also exerting pressure on community life in a way that causes Paul to intervene forcefully.”

[6] Towner, Timothy, 163. Misconception 1 needing to be addressed, “…the church has often understood the text to lay down a broad commission to pray for all people and for government leaders without really stipulating what direction such prayer ought to take. But the real concern, as close attention to the argument wills how, is for the prayer that supports the church’s universal mission to the world. That is, Paul urges Timothy to instruct the Ephesian church to reengage in an activity it had apparently been neglecting—prayer in support Paul’s own mandate to take the gospel to the whole world.”

[7] Towner, Timothy, 163. Misconception 2: “Dibelius saw this text as introducing the new shape that Christian existence took following the departure of the apostles and as a result of the disappointment over the delay of Christ’s return. In his estimation, prayer for all and for those in authority sought the goal of the quiet and peaceful life—that is, a Christian existence characterized by outward behavior conforming to secular notions of ‘good citizenship.’”

[8] Towner, Timothy, 163. Solution:  in Romans 23 (and 1 Peter 2) “There Paul lays down a theology of the church-world dialectical reality in which the church is to find itself in a position of missiological service to society.”

[9] Towner, Timothy, 167. For all people, “to counter a tendency toward insular thinking in the Ephesian Church brought on by an elitist outlook or theology.”

[10] Towner, Timothy, 165. “The theological interests and the universal theme reveal that the prayer practice Paul sought to reinstate in Ephesus had the evangelistic mission to the Gentiles as its target.”

[11] Towner, Timothy, 1623-164 “In our text with its specific evangelistic focus, it may be argued that the church’s commitment to acknowledge the secular power structure and society’s expectations is to be expressed in its payer for salvation and effective political leadership.”

[12] Towner, Timothy, 169. “The two terms (‘quiet and peaceful’) that initially describe this life express the Hellenistic ideal (conveyed variously) of a tranquil life free form the hassles of a turbulent society It is obvious enough that Paul envisions the state with God’ help, as being capable of ensuring the conditions that would make such a life possible.”

[13] Towner, Timothy, 169. “The next phrase, ‘in all godliness and holiness,’ describes this life’s character and observable shape. …Yet when the theological reshaping of these concepts is taken into account, it becomes clear that Paul had others aims—namely, to express the theology of a dynamic Christian ethics by means of the language of the day. This technique would of course ensure intelligibility. But Paul almost certainly intended also to reinvent the language and subvert alternative claims about the nature and source of godliness associated with politics and religious cults in the empire.”

[14] Towner, Timothy, 170. “Prayer for the tranquil setting is prayer for an ideal set of social circumstances in which Christians might give unfettered expression to their faith in observable living. This distinction allows us to place the second prayer (for leaders) into the missiological grid of the passage: the church is to pray for the salvation of ‘all,’ and it participates in that mission by making God present in society in its genuine expression of the new life for all to see.”

[15] Towner, Timothy, 177. “Thus Paul explains that prayer for the salvation of all people, and specific prayer for the effectiveness of the civic powers, conforms to the will of God. It is not simply an optional church practice that pleases God, but a practice as integral to the church’s life with God as was sacrifice in the time before Christ.”

[16] Towner, Timothy, 167. “…thanksgiving not only bolstered confidence by focusing reflection on God’s past responsiveness to petition, but also was an expression of confidence in anticipation of God’s future response…”

[17] Towner, Timothy, 179. “In the Ephesian context of false teaching Paul emphasize that salvation and adherence to the apostolic message are inseparable. God’s will is that all people will commit themselves in faith to the truth about Christ.”

[18] Towner, Timothy, 180.

[19] Towner, Timothy, 180.

[20] Towner, Timothy, 183. “Paul invites the church of Ephesus to view its own location within God’s redemptive story and its responsibilities in relation to the appearance of this ‘human.’”

[21] This portion is taken from my unpublished dissertation (University of Aberdeen, 2024), Leaving Heaven Behind: Paradoxical Identity as the Anchor of Dorothee Sölle’s Theology of Political Resistance.

[22] Soelle and Steffensky, Not Just Yes & Amen, 82.

[23] Martin Luther, Freedom of a Christian

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Behold, Christ’s Feet

Psalm 4:1 Answer me when I call, O God, defender of my cause; you set me free when I am hard-pressed; have mercy on me and hear my prayer. (27)

Introduction

I’m not afraid of physical pain—the sore and strain of bones and muscles.[1] As an athlete, one must endure pain to be good. To build muscle, muscle must be torn down and rebuilt, a painful process. I am eager to learn new skills, so, know the demands for discomfort that comes with learning. It’s physically awkward to learn new moves, new postures, new holds. I wasn’t afraid to enter 14 hours of heavy contractions without medication as my son Jack attempted to make his debut on a hot August day in 2008. (With every contraction, Jack hit every bone he could before the midwife called the c-section—his head being too big to pass through my structure.) I’m that ridiculous person who says: no pain, no gain. If something is too easy, I immediately think: what am I doing wrong. Always looking for the next level because, to quote Will-I-Am as Pedro in the animated movie Rio: “Come on! This ain’t the level. The next level is the level.”

However, throw in a sudden shot of mental anguish and everything changes. While I won’t flee from physical pain, mental anguish is something altogether more painful to me. The mind takes over and anxiety surges in the body. Chaos starts to swirl in my mind and around me; my refuge of safety—my mind palace—is under siege. I am ushered into the crevasse opening under my feet, threatening to swallow me. Trying to fight against the discomfort (working, reading, running, tasking, scrolling, etc.) or pretending that everything is just fine (#fakeittillyoumakeit), makes it worse. The harder I fight and ignore, the worse the discomfort gets. I am no match to resist this Apollyon[2] seeking to destroy me on this journey, eager to drive me to the brink and edge of myself into oblivion.

Luke 24:36-48

Now, as they were saying these things, Jesus himself stood in the middle of them and said to them, “Peace to you.” But being terrified and becoming full of fear, they were thinking they were looking at a spirit. And Jesus said to them, “Why are you disturbed and why are thoughts coming up in your hearts? Experience my hands and my feet that I am[3] myself. Touch me and experience that a spirit has not flesh and bones just as you behold me having.” Then after saying this he showed them [his] hands and feet.

Luke 24:36-40

Luke is clear about the mental anguish of the disciples when Jesus appears in the middle of them.[4] He is clear: Jesus showing up didn’t immediately bring the comfort we might think/hope it would. The language Luke uses is thematically like the language Mark used to describe the women arriving at an open tomb on Easter morning. Divine movement in human time and space is terrifying even if it’s good.[5],[6] Divine activity here always alters reality as we know it—there’s nothing comforting about this. When God moves, things will change; we don’t like change, especially when it destroys what we know to be true. The tomb is opened; the women were terrified and seized with fear. The Crucified Christ shows up; the men are terrified and full of fear.

Jesus declares: Peace to you! Yet, fear and trembling persisted. Even if this declaration of peace was understood as the shalom that is peace with God thus salvation, it wasn’t all that the disturbed disciples needed.[7] These men were in mental anguish; speaking “peace” wasn’t enough. Jesus recognizes this. His response? He names what is going with these men: why are you disturbed? Why are reasonings coming up in your heart? I am myself![8]In other words, I see you and feel you. Jesus is truly there with them; in solidarity with them. But calling a thing what it is isn’t all Jesus does.

He knows something else must happen to relieve the disturbedness. Behold my hands; gaze upon my feet; see for yourself that I am who I am and that I am here with you! These terrified people needed to touch Jesus to know he was real. It wasn’t enough for Jesus to speak peace; he needed to show them his wounded hands and feet. He stood among them and held out his hands, experience the holes from the nails that held me to the cross; gaze at death’s feeble attempt to keep God and my beloved apart; behold, not even death can exile you from me. And they touched him. When they did, their terror and fear turned to doubt because of joy (v.41); this was too good to be true. Doubt still existed, but it’s source was the good news they felt with their hands as they touched the body of Jesus.[9] They reached out with trembling hands, like the shepherds did back at Christmas, and touched the very flesh of God and were not reduced to dust but into new life. The Lord is Risen!

Conclusion

The only way the disciples moved from their fear and terror at Jesus’s presence was through and not around. So it is with us. The only way for me to pass through my mental anguish, my fear and terror, my panic and anxiety is to sit and feel, to face and acknowledge, to look it in the eyes, touch it, call it for what it is, and exist there. Referring to the EnneaThought for this past Friday, “…if we stay present to our discomfort, we will also feel something else arising—something more real, capable, sensitive, and exquisitely aware of ourselves and of our surroundings.”[10] The beginning of release comes in facing the reality of what is and moving through and from there; this becomes our sure foundation: embracing the truth, naming the feelings, and admitting our weakness and problem.

When Jesus walked the earth, he overturned condemning material systems birthed from human judgment. In his resurrected material[11] life, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, flips time and space—like he did tables in the temple—and brings with him the women and men whom he encounters into the divine reign. Christ’s resurrected material presence on earth among people indicates that God’s reign is not merely spiritual, but physical, too; this (all) is God’s good creation.[12]

The rest is in making our home where we live and standing in solidarity with our neighbors rather than escaping it through fighting against Apollyon and turning blind eyes.

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
And no dawn, no day, I’m always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart

I took the stars from my eyes, an then I made a map
And knew that somehow I could find my way back
Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too
So I stayed in the darkness with you[13]

Florence and the Machine “Cosmic Love”

The material presence of Christ with the disciples makes it impossible for us to reduce problems and their solutions of our world to the spiritual. In other words, our presence in the world toward our neighbor must be more than “thoughts and prayers” or the ludicrous assertion people should pull themselves out of their suffering and oppression by their own bootstraps. We must look at the violence in our country and call it what it is: life denying and anti-human. To quote the biblical scholar, Justo Gonzalez, “The Lord who broke the bonds of death calls his followers to break the bonds of injustice and oppression,”[14] that which causes death. The material presence of Christ with people after his resurrection is a sure sign that, to quote womanist theologian, The Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas of Union Seminary,

The resurrection asserts the sanctity of human life as it overcomes all the forces that would deny it. The resurrection in effect makes plane the ‘wrongness’ of the crucifixion, and thus of all crucifying realities. It shows that death does not have the last word. [15]

The Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, Stand Your Ground

In our encounter with God in the resurrected Christ of Easter in the event of faith, we are made into new people in the world. In our new life in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit we are called to love God with our whole selves and to also love our neighbor as ourselves. In this encounter we are remade and reshaped (the product of repentance[16]), we will be “wholly transformed” through death into new life to conform to the image of Christ in the world.[17] If we think this means merely speaking peace and not attempting to perform this divine shalom into the world, then Jesus is still in the tomb, and we follow phantoms.

But we don’t follow a phantom; we follow the materially risen Lord Jesus Christ who fully affirms life (for all people, and especially the oppressed and suffering people[18]). Hope is not lost; faith is not abandoned. Prayer informs our praxis, rendering the space of our activity divine space. We are indwelled with the holy spirit, God of very God. Where there is death, we bring life; where there is midnight, we shine light; where there is hunger, we bring food; where there is terror and fear we, the beloved, bring comfort to the beloved. Our hands extend to the downtrodden and we lift up, behold Christ’s hand. Our feet stand in solidarity with black and brown bodies threatened at every turn; behold Christ’s feet.

[1] I’m not including here physical pain from chronic illness. I group that under mental anguish because of the toll it takes on the mind and body. Also, as someone who has not suffered with chronic illness, I cannot speak to it. I wanted to add this here so people know I’m aware of the physical pain of Chronic Illness.

[2] Reference to the antagonist in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress

[3] The εγω ειμι here is a loaded term, so I emphasized it. The Greek reads “…εγω ειμι αυτος” thus a literal translation would be “I, I am myself.” Whenever you see the personal pronoun with the verb in Greek there’s a needed emphasis. I also think Luke is intentional with the wording and order; the great I AM is with them. God is with the Beloved.

[4] Gonzalez Luke Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds. Ay Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. Louisville, KY: WJK, 2010. 279 “The theological emphasis of this passage lies on the true, physical resurrection of Jesus. The disciples think that what they are seeing may be his ghost, a story parallel to the reaction of other disciples in Acts when Peter returns to them unexpectedly.”

[5] Joel B. Green TNICNT The Gospel of Luke Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 1997. 852 “…the Evangelist [Luke] places a premium on ‘seeing.’…Initial points of contact with accounts of angelic appearances signal the wonder of this moment, while points of contrast indicate the reality of Jesus’ resurrection. …Luke’s narrative affirms a resurrected Jesus over against these other options for the afterlife current in the Hellenistic world.”

[6] Green 855, In re Luke’s use of “Joy” “What they were experiencing was simply too good to be true.”

[7] Green 854, “Within the Third Gospel, ‘peace’ is metonymic for ‘salvation,’ so that, in this co-text, Jesus’ greeting takes on an enlarged meaning. The Emmaus travelers imagined that his rejection and crucifixion had rendered Jesus incapable of serving as Israel’s redeemer; here, following his death, though, he communicates or transmits continue salvation to those gathered.”

[8] Green 854-5, “…Jesus is now represented as alive beyond the grave as an embodied person. Jesus’ affirmation is emphatic—‘it is I  myself!’ ‘It is really me!’—intimating continuity between these phases of Jesus’ life, before crucifixion and after resurrection.”

[9] Green 855, “Nestled between these two demonstrations of materiality is a transparent indication that such exhibitions are insufficient for producing the desired effects This is consistent with the emphasis through ch. 24 on the inherent ambiguity of ‘facts’ and, thus, the absolute necessity of interpretation. Not even controvertible evidence of Jesus’ embodied existence is capable of producing faith; resolution will come only when scriptural illuminate is added to material data.”

[10]The Wisdom of the Enneagram, 37

[11] Gonzalez Luke 279, “The Jesus who repeatedly ate with his disciples, with sinners, with publicans, wand with Pharisees now eats his last meal before leaving his disciples in the ascension. He does this in order to prove that he is not a just a vision or a ghost, that he has really conquered death.”

[12] Gonzalez Luke 279, “The one whose life the church shares in Word and Sacrament is not a ghost or a disembodied spirit. He is the risen Lord. Those who serve him do not serve a moral or religious principle, nor just the natural spiritual urges of humankind; they serve one like themselves, yet Lord of all.”

[13] Florence and the Machine “Cosmic Love”

[14] Gonzalez Luke 280, “And, because his resurrection is not a merely spiritual matter, they cannot limit their service to purely spiritual matters. The Lord who showed his resurrection to his disciples by eating with them invites his followers to show his resurrection to the world by feeding the hungry.”

[15] Kelly Brown Douglas Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2013. 187 Here’s the full paragraph for context: “The resurrecting power of God is made fully manifest in the defeat of the ultimate power of evil represented by the cross. The resurrection is God’s definitive response to the crucifying realities. It clarifies the essential character of God’s power—a power that values life. The resurrection of the one who died such a hideous and ignominious death firmly established that God does not in any way sanction the suffering of human being. The resurrection asserts the sanctity of human life as it overcomes all the forces that would deny it. The resurrection in effect makes plane the ‘wrongness’ of the crucifixion, and thus of all crucifying realities. It shows that death does not have the last word.”

[16] Green 858, “Repentance’ will be a key term describing the appropriate response to the offer of salvation in Acts, and connotes the (re)alignment of one’s life—that is, dispositions and behaviors—toward God’s purpose.”

[17] Green 854, “‘Heart’ has already been used in vv 25 and 32, reminding Luke’s audience of the importance in these sense of the need for the inner commitments to these persons to be reshaped in light of the resurrection of Jesus. They must be wholly transformed—in disposition and attitude, cognition and affect, as well as practices and behaviors—but they continue to lack the categories for rendering this new experience of Jesus in a meaningful way. As with Jesus’ companions on the road to Emmaus, they are obtuse, slow of heart (v 25).”

[18] Douglas Stand Your Ground 188 “What the resurrection points to…is not the meaning of Jesus’s death, but of his life…The resurrection of Jesus thus solidified God’s commitment to the re restoration o life for the ‘crucified class’ of people. It reveals that there are ‘no principalities or power’ that can frustrate or foil God’s power to overcome the crucifying death in the world that not only targets but also creates a ‘crucified class’ of people  To restore to life those whose bodies are the particular targets of the world’s violence is to signal the triumph over crucifying violence and death itself….The crucifixion-resurrection event points to the meaning found in Jesus’ life, not his death. By understanding he resurrection in light of the cross, we know that crucifying realities do not have the last word, and, thus, cannot take away the value of one’s life. The meaning of one’s life, in other words, is not found in death and is not vitiated by it.”

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