Baffled

Baffled, I've been feeling quite baffled lately. Oxford Dictionary defines baffle as: to make someone feel puzzled; a device for controlling or stopping the flow of gas, sound, light or fluid. (How those 2 definitions go together, I don't know).

Earlier this week I was baffled when I heard what Rosie O'Donnell said on the View - that radical christians in America were just as dangerous as Islamic jihadist. Huh?
Doesn't take too much of the brain to think through the idiocy of that statement.

Second bafflement. I was cruising some bloggers and came across a snippet of a speech given by a lady from the Voices of Sophia - a presbyterian "fringe" group.

"One of the great controversies to emerge from Re-Imagining was our rejection of the atonement, the idea that the torture and execution of Jesus Christ saved the world. My theological career has been spent dismantling that doctrine. I want to tell you today that I am convinced that atonement theology is the deepest betrayal of Christianity ever perpetrated. It is not just one way to understand salvation, but a betrayal of salvation, a doctrine that abandoned the life and ministry of Jesus Christ for loyalty to Caesar and his legions."

Huh? What's the point in following Christ if his sacrifice wasn't real-that what he did (or didn't do)didn't really bring us in closer relationship with the Creator of the Universe, didn't take away the sin which brings death? I can only conclude that she (the speaker) cannot fathom a god who would sacrifice his son to someone who hates him, rejects him, so she must reject that concept. I know I wouldn't be able to do such a thing with my children. But really that's putting God in a neat little box to fit our own understanding. God is WAY beyond our understanding. And thank God! In Islam Jesus was taken down from the cross so he didn't die because they reject the idea of God allowing such a crime (they also reject that Jesus is God's son, he was only a good prophet).

God is not to be trifled with and not to be edited to fit our liking. He is the Creator of all things. He is capable of what we cannot imagine (or re-imagine). He has plans that are perfect, beyond our understanding that we will see and then stand in awe of his perfection. We will have an A-H-A moment when we see how his plans will play out.

Yeah, I know this all sounds super-spiritual but today, after hearing such baffling statements, I had to lean on God's ways, which are so much brighter, higher, more perfect than ours.