I was relieved to discover just now that at least my particular cell phone does not automatically offer “OMG” as an autofill option when I type an “O” and an “M” into a text message. Like (I’m guessing) many Christians my age, I’m flabbergasted by how a casual use of God’s name to express surprise or dismay has become such a commonplace that it even has an acronym.
Showing my age again, I tend to associate the frequent sprinkling of “Oh, my God” into conversation with an air head “valley girl” stereotype that arose not long after I moved away from the near vicinity of the San Fernando Valley in California. But that thoughtless voicing of a theological affirmation is no longer confined to teenaged young women or the area surrounding I405 north of Los Angeles. You can hear the words and see the acronym constantly on television shows and in media. Even Christian young people get pulled into this common violation of the third commandment.
There’s another misuse of the phrase “my God,” which Christians too often commit. We are apt to speak of “my God” as though it were a true possessive and separated the God we worship from lesser gods or non-gods of others. “Your god may be dead, but my God is alive and well,” for instance. Though there’s a bit of Old Testament justification for such distinction between the true and living God and the other gods worshiped on earth, the actual practice tends to imply that the very existence of God stems from the fact that He is “mine.” Somehow by claiming God as our own, we are empowered to assert His being. But the reality is just the opposite. We exist and live because God claims us as His own.
Despite its transformation into a disrespectful exclamation or into a belligerent assertion of Christian superiority, saying “my God” expresses a truth which we want to maintain. It’s a truth made possible by the work of Jesus which we are celebrating this week. That’s why in our Easter text, John 20:1-18, the Lord directs Mary Magdalene in verse 17 to tell the other disciples that He is “ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Because of what Christ has done for us in dying and rising, we have the right to say, “my God,” to claim Jesus’ God and Father as our own God and Father.
As the Son of God, Jesus regularly and constantly affirmed His relationship with God the Father, calling Him both “Father” and “my God.” By dying and rising to reconcile us to God and make us children of God together with Him, Jesus bestowed on us the gift of being able to say what He said with complete truth and confidence, “my Father, my God.” The gift of Easter is the gift of being raised into that secure relationship with God, along with Jesus.