Article: EMERGENT GOD: "Did God grow old and grow up?" by Daryl Underwood

We are created in God's image and we have ways of trying to explain or understand that truth. Wouldn't it be refreshing to take it as it stands? That is, to grasp that we reflect him in our journey, we are "like" him though he is "otherly". One of the predominate ways we "grow up" is through experience. We figure it out as we go. What if it was that way for God? Perhaps he "knows" the outcome but lives the experience and is often "surprised" as indicated in scripture by outcomes in the narrative of Tanahk. He seems to transition in emotion or personality in the same way that we do. Initially, in the creation, he is bold and simply "speaks" creation into being. He seems tenuous when Babel is being constructed; a bit insecure about where they are going, perhaps a bit alarmed by their confidence which mirrors His to a tea.

As time goes on God takes the risk of becoming a friend of particular men. He is "the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob." He in relationship reveals himself. He is sometimes not so welcomed or appreciated. Did this "hurt" the divine being? As the relationship He has with "the people as their God" and notice in passing the subtle shift that occurs whenever we engage in relationship. A shift from his ownership to their ownership so to speak. They "own" him as a personal God. No longer does he sit austere from the heavens and speak forth, he now engages at the table and negotiates. Once He spoke and Abraham listened dutifully. In two short generations we see Jacob making demands that He must meet in order "to then be my God". What is intriguing is that God meets his demands. As god reached down, bends down for relationship, man ascends to influence and confidence.

As time passes the quarrel between God and Israel (the name now given to represent Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) becomes heated. It reaches a crescendo in the book of Job which is in "the writings" of Tanakh, the final section of the Hebrew metanarrative. When this argument is finalized we hardly hear from God at all. The conversation ends tensely when God says, "How dare you challenge my moral integrity" and stomps off ne'er to be heard from again. We can presume he is in his room, or perhaps his cave. The books of Nehemiah, Esther, and Ruth, for example, hardly mention His name, although His influence is written all over his people who carry, like an ex-wife or lost child or departed friend his marks. They carry on in his absence.

And who of us hasn't experienced that.

It is as if God is sulking, withdrawing after this heated, drawn out, ongoing relationship. He is separate. Tired. (See article entitled The tired God of Tanakh below.)

And who of us hasn't done that. Withdrew, sulked, retreated. Image bearers. We can "get it" when it is told honestly.

This wound is so deep that God becomes utterly silent during the ensuing intertestimental period. It is as if He is trying to determine whether or not to continue. Maybe He will leave, jump ship, head to Baltimore Jack. He works it out.
He decides to "remake himself" and using the history he now has, He enters the world again, this time not as a brash confident creator...but as the most vulnerable creature we know. He empties Himself of vestries and becomes flesh, a baby. When the time comes, and its noteworthy to remember He does this following His baptism of repentance...and what is He repenting of, what did he do? Fail in His relationship with His beloved. Hurt them in recoil when he was wounded, taken for granted, or ignored? Perhaps He who demanded that His people "shall not kill" is feeling the blood on His hands from His various forays into genocide...when this time comes He enters the stage and reveals Himself in experiential wisdom. "You have heard it said...but I say unto you”. Now where did they hear it "said"...why, in the scriptures of course, and the traditions born of them. This is the obvious answer. That is why it is said that Jesus spoke with an authority unheard of amongst the religious elite at that time. It is said, but I say unto you, indeed.

But now God is shifting his position.

I once heard a prominent theologian, once very quietly ask, as if he were treading on "holy ground" and in danger of being struck down...this question.

What if God realized that violence wasn't working?

What if He needed to repent (it wouldn't be the first time, at several points in the Tanakh He bemoans the fact that he created and threatens to "undo His creation") for His part in this mess. This is the kinder, gentler Jesus that has emerged after a long silence to represent God's recommitted heart to this covenant. The question now becomes what will we do with the man who has surrendered or suspended His power.
The crisis is in Jerusalem. It is the same scenario in our own heart everyday in every generation. This story becomes utterly believable because we live in it.

And sadly, we, with power, often use it to "seize the kingdom", the very thing God was fearful (at Babel and other points such as when Israel begged for a king to rule over them like the other nations) we would do. Seizing the kingdom has to do with the attitude that we can do this well along without you; it is the fall of autonomy. But God has become wise in His time alone thinking. He knows where this may go...and He goes now willingly. This will be the end of the first relationship He so dearly fought for. This decision to "empty Himself" will be expensive.

It will cost Him his life.

And it will set Him free to recreate life again, fresh...which He longs to do. Don't we all?

And who of us doesn't want a second chance?
Why not God?

And isn't that "second chance" the grace we so cherish. Isn't it the amazing thing that breaks our heart? Turns the brash slave traders into gentle parsons. It is amazing. To blow it, get it, and have a chance to make good? Makes a blind man see, this kind of second shot.

I close with this:

"In the course of this book we are repeatedly told about the differences between the Lord of the Old Testament and Jesus of the New Testament, and the changed relationship with his followers: ''Once he demanded that they offer sacrifice to him; now he sacrifices himself for them. Once he demanded that they serve him; now he serves them. Once he demanded that they love him; now he loves them 'to the end." -Jack Miles in "God: A Biography"

What a tremendous story we live in.

>> Listen to the song "Hurt" with this story in mind...notice the brashness of the young Cash, the distance from June, the loneliness amongst having it all..."what have I become my dearest friend, everybody leaves...in the end". Notice the entrance of the figure of Christ and ponder His presence in the song. Let the story breath.