Spirituality of the Cross Revised Edition by Gene Edward Veith Jr

Author:Gene Edward Veith Jr. [Veith Jr., Gene Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Concordia Publishing House
Published: 2008-07-02T05:00:00+00:00

MASKS OF GOD

God is sovereign over every aspect of His creation. He did not just create the universe in one big bang and then let it run on its own. He keeps it in existence. “He upholds the universe by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3). Nor is He some abstraction or some elderly old man up in heaven who looks down upon this suffering world from far away and up above. Rather, He is incarnate, near, and ever-present. “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God governs and is intimately involved in everything that He has made, that is, everything that exists. This sovereignty includes the laws of physics and the motions of galaxies, the affairs of nations, and the fall of a sparrow (Matthew 10:29), and His providence extends over nonbelievers no less than believers.

Lutheran theology speaks of two kingdoms, that God rules both the spiritual and the earthly realm, though in different ways. This notion will be discussed in the next chapter, but for now it is important to remember that God is the king of them both. In both His spiritual and His earthly kingdoms, God is active, and He works through means. In the spiritual realm, He works, as we have seen, through the Word and the Sacraments. In the earthly realm, He works through vocation.

In the Lord’s Prayer, we ask that God give us our daily bread, which He does. He does so, not directly as with the manna to the Israelites, but through the work of farmers, truck drivers, bakers, retailers, and many more. In fact, He gives us our daily bread through the functioning of the whole accompanying economic system—employers and employees, banks and investors, the transportation infrastructure and technological means of production—each part of which is interdependent and necessary if we are going to eat. Each part of this economic food chain is a vocation, through which God works to distribute His gifts.

God heals the sick. While He can and sometimes does do so directly in a spectacular unmediated miracle, in the normal course of things, God heals through the work of doctors, nurses, and other medical vocations. God protects us from evil. This He does by means of the vocations of police officers, attorneys, judges, and the military. God teaches through teachers, orders society through governments, and creates beauty through artists.

Luther pointed out that God could have decided to populate the earth by creating each individual and each generation separately, from the dust. Instead, He invented families. God ordained that new life come into the world—and be cared for and raised into adulthood—through the work of a man and a woman who come together into a family. Husband, wife, father, mother are vocations through which God extends His creation and exercises His love.2

All of this simply demonstrates that, in His earthly kingdom, just as in His spiritual kingdom, God bestows His gifts through means. God ordained that human beings be bound together in love, in relationships, and communities existing in a state of interdependence.

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