After wading through, or rather trying desperately to keep my head above water, one of our books for this semester - Reformed Dogmatics (even the title makes me want to apologetically put a brown paper book cover on it) - my expectation was to finish the book with some understanding of at least the gist of it. I had no expectation that God would use a book, so dense and thick for this sparse and casual brain, to reveal Himself. Reveal Himself in way this brain could understand. That was basically the thrust of the book. God, infinite and incomprehensible, reveals Himself to His creatures, finite and limited, in ways in which we are able to understand.
Within His word we are able to begin to formulate our understanding of Him not through studying Who He is (which is ultimately impossible for us) but rather what He does (which is tangible to us). For example, when we see God deliver His people, Israel out of Egypt, we begin to form an understanding of God as Deliverer. When we see Him pull Joseph out of a death pit and into a king's presence, we see Him as Rescuer.
But what I didn't expect was, during worship last week, to use this same line of thinking in understanding God when it comes to the cross. The cross, at the center of the sanctuary's front wall, became a vivid reminder to me of not only what Jesus had done for us (which is typically the phraseology I use for the cross) but one of the boldest definitions and understandings of Who God is. As Christ is on display crucified, we see who God is. God is just. God is wrathful. God is humble. God is mercy. God is pursuer. God is rescuer. God is deliverer. God is perfecter.
God is King. God is love. At the intersection of the cross we see Jesus, through His actions declaring loud and clear "this is our God."
