It is because the God of the Cosmos is no mere local god, no spirit dwelling in a tree or a river or a tiny shrine, but the God containing within him galaxies and the universe itself, the God who made molecules and atoms – it is because he is the God of the Cosmos, the Shema, that he can afford to be the God of the Lynched, the weak and sick and poor and lowly and despised and falsely accused.
The lesser gods cannot afford such a thing. Their powers are too weak and local and poor.
But to show his power and the breadth of his care, this God of the Cosmos not only is known throughout Jewish and Christian Scriptures as the God of the falsely accused and lynched – but he is also the God who allowed himself to be falsely accused and lynched, in order that the lowest of humans may know the power of his dignity that he gives to us.
He is also the God who takes terrible, violent and powerful men like Paul, who have the authority to o jail and beat others, and he makes these men to become his servants, his chief missionaries – to be homeless and jailed and beaten and falsely accused and put to death.
In fact, it is because this is his character, because he says, “if anyone would come after me, he must take up his cross and follow me,” and his chief missionary says “when we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; … I urge you to imitate me [in this blessing and endurance]” – it is because this is the verifiable teaching of Christ and the chief writer of the New Testament and chief missionary, Paul, that we can say the following:
Any missionary who is a colonist is verifiably not carrying his cross, not imitating Paul. It is a quite literal and easy to test hypothesis.
Still, this same God can put up with being falsely accused yet again, having false missionaries (colonizers) claim to carry his name, and having people forget about the prominence of Christ and Paul and the actual content of the New Testament.
He will endure it, for this God, when he is cursed, he blesses, and when he is persecuted, he endures it – he is known for making his chief persecutors to become his chief and most humble missionaries, raising up the lowly at their own cost and humiliation.
“Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation,” as the Apostle James says.
This is the logic of the Shema and the Cross.
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(Again, see 1 Corinthians 4:8-20, Philemon 1, 2 Corinthians 11, and Hebrews 11:35-12:15. The truth is not hiding about who this God is, even though some attempt to hide it, and others forget the depth and breadth of his care.)
Perilous Resonance 