Our focus this week is Luther’s theology of the cross, or what the author calls, “The hiddenness of God.”
The author points out that as human beings we would much prefer a theology of glory. As sinful human beings, we want complete and understandable answers, we want evidence of God’s power, and we want to see that power at work in our lives bringing us peace and happiness, physical health, and financial wealth.
But that’s not what God promises us –
As our Lutheran spirituality teaches, instead of a theology of glory, God gives us the cross.
The theology of the cross reminds us that God hid himself and all his glory in the man Jesus whose head was crowned with thorns, whose hands and feet were pierced with nails, and whose side was stabbed with a spear.
It is in this humble man on the cross, this place of shame and suffering, that the full power and glory of our Almighty God is hidden. And the same holds true for us in our lives today.
God continues to hide his glory in the most humble and unlikely places. First in the man Jesus, and now in the waters of Baptism, the bread and wine of Holy Communion, the simple words and pages of the Bible, as well as in our daily vocations as we go about living out our ordinary lives.
These are the places where the hidden God makes himself known to us, and to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear.