Preface Note: This is part of a family email chain that I wrote during Advent 2014. I want to add that the re-creation that Jesus works in us through our Baptism, that lives in us, isn’t just a remaking but a NEW making. We are a NEW creation, and this describes what I meant by re-creation! In being made new in our Baptism there is being (soul stuff and whatnot) added to us that we did not have before, that Jesus added to us for his glory, for our participation in his love.
Cross that arose in World Trade Center Wreckage.
Advent 2014: Christ is the king of wreckage and the re-creator of broken things. The way of the world is to swim in wreckage, rearrange it, shine it, and ask people to come and buy it, or approve of it, or laud and honor it. The re-arranged wreckage is the idol of the self, that part of us that sees the wreckage and says “there must be some way to salvage this. It can‘t really be as bad as it looks. Lets rearrange, recast, re-frame!” And the people who are best at this sort of thing are the idols of this world, and no matter how much we hold them up they always seem to fall apart in the end.
In the worldly sense wreckage is only rearrange-able, but God doesn’t have to try to rearrange that which he can re-create. That is why he hung on a broken tree, nailed to it by broken people. This is why he reigns from the throne of wreckage, because he already knew how beautiful his re-creation would be, he already knew how beautiful his creation already is. The king of wreckage ordained every piece of wreckage for a particular purpose in his plan of re-creation. Every piece is invaluable, unnecessary in worldly terms while at the same time irreplaceable in terms of God’s love.
Those being remade differ from those who are suffocating in the self. Those who are being remade suffer the revelation of just how broken they are while those who are perishing hide in their wreckage, preferring a worldly shine to a remade heart. There is a kind of camouflage working in this process of dying and of being remade. The one dying appears as though they are thriving while the one being remade appearsas though they are dying. And God makes those to whom he is near appear to the world as all wreckage, and this is for their protection. Without appearing as such they would fall into pride, and if they appeared in their glory they would be murdered on the spot.
annunciationblog.com 