Imagining Redemption

David Kelsey, Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School, asks a very simple, yet tormentingly powerful question: What earthly difference can Jesus make here?

I’m in my eighth year of higher theological education; attempting to complete my third degree that carries theological weight; I’ve been ordained by and am pastoring a community of grace and together we help each other discern how to partner with God in the ongoing creation of the world. We claim our allegiance to a king and to a kingdom. We sing and pray to the God of the Universe. We pray intercessory prayers expecting this God to affect us, move us, change us, encourage us, sit with us, help us, and love us. Our theology is biblical. Our effort is true. Yet at the core of who I am . . . the center of my being I keep asking the question: What earthly difference can Jesus make here?

I think about the woman who found out her husband (the man who was supposed to be her best friend and confidant) cheating on her with another woman and having a separate family simultaneously. What earthly difference can Jesus make there, in that situation, for that family? What about the children in the second family who didn’t know their father had a separate wife? What difference does Jesus make with those precious girls lives?

Or how about the family that who lost electricity last night because the father keeps lying about money and not telling his family that last month he lost his job? What earthly difference can Jesus make there . . . for that family?

What about the community that was hit by a typhoon and lost the town square, business buildings, electricity, and even hope for a future? What earthly difference can Jesus make there?

What about anti-gay bullying and the families of the boys and girls who killed themselves because of the incessant teasing and bullying over sexual identity or because of scandalous pictures being texted or ‘sexted’ across phones? What earthly difference can Jesus make in these situations?

What about the flood in Pakistan? What about the children still traumatized in Haiti? What about a country that still feels threatened that the US military is going to kill them? What about the high school shootings? What about the evil we see every day? What about poverty? What about the millions that die from preventable diseases? What the children that never meet there dad because he died in an unjust war? What about the debt that befell you from a dying parent? What about the terrible illness you’ve had to endure? What about your family struggles? What about your pornography addiction? What about your personal burdens? Your pains? Your struggles?

What earthly difference can Jesus make here . . . now . . . for us?

My words say that God intervenes in our lives. My soul believes that God is among us, present, holy, authentic, vibrant, and immanent. My theology says that redemption happens in a concrete way in a concrete circumstance. God redeems on a level where we can see it, feel it, touch it, experience it, have it, hold it, accept it, own it, believe in it, relish in it, participate in it, strengthen it, and partner with it. Redemption, for me, occurs daily. But am I wrong? God is a God who makes all things new – right?

Is this just wishful thinking?

What earthly difference can Jesus make now? How do you imagine redemption?

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