[T]o the extent that God in the fact of His revelation treats His enemies as His friends, to the extent that in the fact of revelation God’s enemies already are actually His friends, revelation is itself reconciliation (Karl Barth).[1]
Revelation is reconciliation. Well before Christ’s death and resurrection, God’s self-disclosure to people put an end to our alienation. Despite their (our) hostile posture, God said, “You are now my friends.”[2]
So with us. To disclose ourselves to others is to befriend them. Or at least doing so gives them the chance of being friends. God’s gracious love may be irresistible, as the Calvinist TULIP asserts,[3] but ours isn’t.
Yet we can open the door. And when we do, we imitate Christ.
For when we reveal ourselves to another, we put ourselves at risk. We give the other person the opportunity to reject us — or worse, to gather others in using the disclosure against us.
***
I wonder if part of what makes self-revelation so attractive is that others recognize the potential cost in our exposure.
I remember attending a General Assembly before COVID. During the question-and-answer period, one of the candidates told of a time when she botched a funeral. At that moment I thought to myself, “That’s it. She’s won.”
She might not have. The commissioners might have soured on her, deciding that someone who could fail in basic pastoral care should not be speaking for the denomination. Instead, I think, they chose to believe that here was someone who could set aside pride for the sake of leadership.
***
It doesn’t always go that way. Anyone who revealed themselves too freely in junior high knows what I mean.
I remember another time as a young parent. I acknowledged my struggles to a cousin with similarly aged children. He did not commiserate. Instead, he responded with, “It’s simple. Just be firm, fair and consistent.” And that was that. The door shut, not to reopen.
Sometimes overtures of friendship are rebuffed, not welcomed. And sometimes the rejection is far more severe than a dismissive adage.
***
But — and now I’m preaching to myself as much as anyone — if revelation and reconciliation are of a piece, then it is worth continuing to offer oneself in disclosure to others, even when doing so exposes us to rejection. For in those moments we build new bridges of relationship.
Recently my wife pointed out an article in the Wall Street Journal from Leslie John, a professor at Harvard Business School. John tells of a time when she shared a mortifying experience with her more senior academic colleagues, even while fearing that she might permanently lose credibility. Instead of dismissing her, they welcomed her in.
John observes that, even with its risks, exposing ourselves to others helps them see us as human. As she put it, it “opened a doorway.”
***
The risks are real. I mentioned junior high a moment ago. Some of us bear emotional scars from those days that will never fully fade.
But we of the Way believe that even in the rejections, something good happens. We become a little more like Christ. When self-disclosure risks potential loss of self, we participate in the nature of a God who fully lost self (Phil. 2) for the sake of befriending the world (2 Cor. 5:19).
In this week we remember that when the world saw God’s true character the world hated him and killed him for it. But God entered upon the path of revelation and reconciliation anyway — and overcame the alienation that led to Christ’s death.
Yes, some hated and killed him. But some responded differently. Some received his overtures of friendship. And to them, Jesus gave the name friends.
And not just them.
A blessed Holy Week to you —
Forrest
[1] Church Dogmatics I.1, p. 409. Quoted in Angela Dienhart Hancock, Karl Barth’s Emergency Homiletic, 1932-1933: A Summons to Prophetic Witness at the Dawn of the Third Reich (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013). p. 10. (By the way, this is a terrific and unexpectedly timely book. I’m only about a quarter through it and expect it will take me another twenty hours. But it has already loosened my stuck places in important ways. I highly commend it.)
[2] Yes, Paul identifies Christ’s death as the central act of friendship (Rom. 5:10). But the declaration has already happened. See, for instance, Jesus’s words to those in the upper room—and also to Judas.
[3] Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, Perseverance of the saints. Or, if you prefer breakfast meat to flowers, consider BACON: Bad people, Already elected, Completely atoned for, Overwhelmingly called, Never falling away.