Philippians 3.4b-14, John 12.1-8 Christian men have always been in search of more forceful, more rugged expressions of their faith than 'gentle Jesus, meek and mild'. 'Thank God for testosterone,' as one American worship leader put it. On the other side of the fence, however, stands the "chick lit" version of Jesus, who is touchy feely and romanticised, the wounded healer, the person to whom we can cling for a deeper relationship and a true expression of what love really means. The danger of both extremes, of course, is that - as someone once said - 'they redecorate Jesus, in our own image'. That's what Cynewulf 's 'Dream of the Rood' does. Cynewulf was an Anglo-Saxon poet who wanted to glamourise the crucifixion for the warrior class who were in charge of ancient England at the time. This is how he describes Jesus being crucified. It's important to note that he is telling the story from the perspective of the tree from which the...
A blog by a Methodist minister in the UK