Brach Jennings outside First Lutheran Church.

Lutheranism offers a particular way of seeing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which can speak to life’s greatest challenges and joys.

This lens is revealed through what Martin Luther termed the theology of the cross. The theology of the cross posits that the only way Christians can truly know God is through the crucified Christ. Christ on the cross shows God’s profound love for humankind and creation in the last place humans consider looking for God — the crucifixion of Christ. This understanding of God is not commonly found in American culture. However, the theology of the cross is a gift of Luther’s theology for today.

The theology of the cross is contrasted with what Luther termed the theology of glory. The theology of glory seeks to know God in majesty, beauty, and power, through reasoning that God must be perceptible in events that seem to disclose the glorious and beautiful characteristics of God. Think of the number of times God is referenced in a gorgeous sunset, or a beautiful piece of music, but so often is not referenced in the child who goes hungry at night, or the person who escapes from an abusive and destructive relationship. The theology of the cross says God is first to be found in the latter examples, rather than the former.

Finding God decisively in the sufferings of this world says that God suffers with us in the hells of this life, and frees us for serving our neighbors in the world.

Brach Jennings is an intern pastor at First Lutheran Church in Astoria.

“(That person) deserves to be called a theologian … who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God as seen through suffering and the cross”

— Martin Luther

Heidelberg Disputation, 1518.