With us or against us?

"Are you with us or against us?"
That familiar and chilling phrase has rung in the world's ears since George W Bush asked it just after 11 September 2001. It was his call for a world alignment against terrorism - and backs up his current calls about war on Iraq.

It might sum up an underlying question that many people have about God - is he with us or against us? On the face of it, the evidence would suggest "against". Personal tragedy or world suffering may be enough to convince us of that.

When Christians are faced with that question about God, they point to a symbol that has marked the Christian faith from the earliest days - the symbol of a cross.

The claim is that, when Jesus died on that cross, in some sense God was making a positive statement: "I am with you and I am for you. I am not against you."

Some years ago, I was in a group where we were asked to write our personal credo on a piece of paper. I found myself writing these four words: I AM FOR YOU. I wrote them across the way - and then down the way, so that they formed a cross:
God says to us: I AM FOR YOU.
We say to each other: I AM FOR YOU.
God invites us to respond to him: I AM FOR YOU.

The No 1 problem
If I were to ask you to name the world's No 1 problem today, what would it be? Whatever the problem, I suggest the underlying issue would be human relationships gone wrong.

It is ironic that we have the best of technological communication, but fail in personal communication. We can watch people take a space walk and we can pass e-mails across the Atlantic; but a husband and wife cannot communicate about their conflicting feelings, an office is made a hell because of an office bully, and 21st century humans still think that wars solve problems - a syndrome known as the "myth of redemptive violence".

Something inside us longs for a better way of relating to each other. And occasionally we are given a glimpse of it.

Last week Yoni Jesner, a young Jewish student from Glasgow, was killed by a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv. This week his family donated his kidney to a baby Palestinian girl called Jasmin - unconditional giving reaching out by a death to offer a sign of reconciliation amidst the conflict.

Christians believe that when Jesus died, God was involved in that very act, offering the world unconditional love and forgiveness to open up the communication blocks between God and humankind.

Think of that cross again. The upright points to a new relationship with God. The horizontal cross bar points to a new relationship with each other. If only we lived out that kind of love. Try it! It is tough!

Death Row
Recently I sat in an upstairs room in a flat in Lothian Road with a few people. The room was gently lit with candles. The music was ambient chill-out music. In the middle of the floor were a plate of bread and a cup of wine.

A young man read from a book by an American on death row by the name of Mamia Abu Jabal. It was a passionate account of a man who was waiting for a death sentence. His claim was that many of his fellow inmates were there because of police corruption and injustice.

As I heard the account, my eyes were locked on the bread and wine. They are the symbols that Christians have used for 2000 years to remind them of why Jesus died - bread standing for his body and wine standing for his life given for the world.

Listening to the words of Mamia Abu Jamal brought home the harsh reality behind the symbols - how Jesus was an innocent man framed by corrupt authorities; how Jesus had been on death row and taken that final walk to his execution outside Jerusalem. "Dead man walking."

That was the raw commitment of this man to being "for us".

Regime Change
We began with a phrase from George W Bush and we will end with a phrase from George W Bush - "regime change".

It has been said that "truth is the first casualty of war". If the current circumstances end in war we will hear a new set of metaphors to mask the horror of the events - remember carpet bombing and surgical strikes? "Regime change" is the current masking metaphor for deposing Saddam Hussein.

The Christian faith is a faith about "regime change". Christians do not believe in a God who is indifferent to evil. God is passionately "for us", but also passionately "against evil", including in the human heart.

Furthermore, the Christian faith stops us passing the buck - and invites us to face up to the fact that most of the evils of the human condition begin in the human heart - selfishness, pride, lust, sloth, fear and so on. These are at the root of our problems.

The cross is the place where God declares himself against these things - but offers a radically new way of dealing with them. He loves them out of existence… He forgives and forgets. When we realise that, the cross frees us up to admit that we could all do with a "regime change".

Trivialised?
I recall seeing a poster with a startling question: "Why is an instrument of torture hanging in Madonna's cleavage?"

Why indeed? Because most of us have forgotten what it means when this extraordinary event of the cross is reduced to a little piece of silver jewellery.

For 2000 years Christians have seen in the weighty event of the cross a sign of a God who is for us and with us - not against us.

I wonder if Madonna has discovered that yet?