The Paradox That Relieves All Tension

 

How can we relieve tension in our daily lives—through arduous human effort and toil, through obedience to societal norms, through meditative contemplation, through science and philosophy, through the combined resources of an enlightened civilization? The problem is that all of such human-centered effort just leads to more tension and conflict.  Is there a better way?

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:18 that salvation, and the corresponding relief of all tension, contradiction and complexity arising from daily life, results from the the cross of Christ: foolishness to the Greeks and a scandal to the Jews, verse 23. 

 The good news for us is that the difficult work of the cross was done by Christ and Christ alone.  It is not a burden that any of us must bear.  We also don't need to go to some elite school for rigorous academic training to condition our minds to receive it; neither must we engage in difficult physical activity to prepare our bodies to obtain it.  We need not run a race or climb a mountain or pass an exam or, for that matter, do anything especially arduous or difficult.  All we need is faith in Jesus. Even a little child can do that. Thus, for us the paradoxical and stressful nature of life is completely resolved by Christ on our behalf.  As a result, all may partake of salvation, the foolish and the wise, the weak and the strong. 

Life need not be, as most secularist thinkers would tell us, some booby-trapped obstacle course full of hurdles and failure.  The Christian message of the Cross, as paradoxical as it might seem, removes all the worldly paradoxes, tensions and complexities associated with daily life.  See e.g., Micah 7:19, "You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea," and Isaiah 43:25, "I, yes I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake and remembers your sins no more."

Nevertheless, even if the paradoxes and tensions and contradictions of our lives are blotted out, we may still feel some anxiety about them anyway from time to time.  The Bible tells us that this anxiety will go away, too, if only we have just a little faith.  See e.g., Matthew 8:26, "He [Jesus] replied, 'You of little faith, why are you so afraid?' Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm."

 This simple Christian message of salvation is thus an anathema to most communities and societies throughout history.  They want to do it their way, not Christ's way.   

By relieving us of the burdens of attaining our own justification, righteousness and salvation, Christ frees us from all the worries and constraints of life and death and thereby allows us to go forth in this life and be good citizens by making a real contribution to our communities and to human betterment.  This contribution, however, the world frequently rejects, often violently, because it is not based on human effort but rather on God's grace.  Just as Adam rejected life in the Garden, our natural inclination is to reject God's free gift of eternal life beginning now in the flesh.  What a paradox! Let us receive and embrace the paradox of the Cross that leads to life.