The face of God

I've been reading a number of excellent books this holiday as part of my research for an essay on the Kingdom of God. Not least among them for good thinking material has been 'The Challenge of Jesus' by N.T. Wright, as well as his bigger tome 'Jesus and the Victory of God'.

The main thrust of Wright's argument is that Jesus' parables and teaching about the coming of YHWH to Zion, as well as his Temple prophecies (e.g. Mark 13, Luke 19) were primarily intended for his contemporary audience, to be fulfilled in their lifetimes and most centrally in Jesus himself. He argues that Jesus was concerned first of all with revealing God's purposes right now (i.e. in 30 A.D.) and was not principally interested in revealing his 'second coming' - something which would have made no sense to disciples who were still coming to grips with the nature of the 'first'.

Despite his focus on (re)discovering the historical Jesus, I was struck by his high view of Jesus and not only his description of Jesus as God, but his redrawing of God in light of Jesus. I'll let him speak for himself:

“I suggest that we think historically about a young Jew, possessed of a desperately risky, indeed apparently crazy, vocation, riding into Jerusalem in tears, denouncing the Temple, and dying on a Roman cross – and that we somehow allow our meaning for the word ‘god’ to be recentred around this point.” (p.92)

“The portrait [of God] has been redrawn. At its heart, as disclosed in biblical writings, we discover a human face, surrounded by a crown of thorns.” (p.92)

“The Shekinah glory turns out to have a human face.” (p.89)

(All quotes from 'The Challenge of Jesus' by N.T. Wright.)

All of this reminds me of a quote I've been meditating on these last few months from one of my favourite people, Greg Boyd. As he's fond of repeating in sermons, "God looks like Jesus Christ."