Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.09.2008, Page 32

now to come to light (Mark 4:22), the meaning of the Transfiguration that
is now to be proclaimed (9:9), the word from the tomb that was supposed
to be sent to Peter and the other leaders (16:7) for them to enact. Here, in
the open meeting of the community, the leaders are now to proclaim what
Jesus heard and saw at the Jordan and on the mountain, what the demons
knew as they were being cast out, what the passion predictions promised,
what the parables meant, what Peter confessed, what the dead and the deaf
and the blind experienced, what the crowds ate, what even those who were
killing Jesus attested to without knowing what they were saying, what left
the women at the tomb terrified and amazed — all of this is to be spoken
openly, clearly, boldly, without fear, in the power of the Holy Spirit (13:11).
A crucified man is Messiah and Son of God, the Holy One and the source
of life — just as an annual mustard bush is the tree of life with room for
all the birds, just as Elijah has come first even though they killed him, just
as an unnamed woman anointing Jesus for his death is at the same time
anointing the Messiah, just as a sponge filled with sour wine and put to the
lips of a tortured and forsaken man is the very fruit of the vine now drunk
new in the arriving kingdom of God, just as the stone that builders rejected
has become the cornerstone. In Jesus, God’s forgiveness, life-giving mercy
and reign of justice are placed there where we thought they could never be,
under the form of their opposites, in places of death, alienation, sin and
loss. God has acted and is acting for the life of the world.
According to this Gospel book, the community now is gathered around
this very mustard-bush-tree-of-life, this very Crucified-Risen-One, and the
book itself is the news the women were too afraid to announce (16:8). It
is the missing voice of those women now come into this assembly. It is
the very memorial of the unnamed woman, as if the words were a cont-
inued pouring out of her ointment on Jesus’ head. It is the secret — what
Lutherans call the “theology of the cross” — set free. As testimony to the
resurrection, the book is the beginning and basic principle — the arché (1:1)
— of the gospel of Jesus Christ now to be announced in the assembly and
so openly in the world. The book is Galilee in which the assembly sees
the Risen One, now, doing in its midst what he does in the story. As the
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