Our time and culture is one of the customized material goods and a generalized God. What I mean by that is we can have our burger our way and get 300 formulas of shampoo, but there are no limits or descriptions that apply universally for God. The culture believes God is love and that is all. Any attempt to say something even as minimal as God is love in Jesus Christ is too restricting for many today. It limits there “searching” ability. It smack of being religious, but not spiritual.
The problem with this is the revelation of God – and the only way we know anything about God is through revelation – the revelation is specific. It is specifically Jesus Christ. When we go spiritually searching we are throwing ourselves against the hidden God. That hidden God promises and delivers nothing. So we often fill it out, customize, that hidden God to our hearts content. When a church points at the very specific Jesus Christ on the cross, the revealed God, it blows away all those false hidden gods of our own making. Which is why the culture only permits a general God – don’t limit my ability to project onto my own hidden god, to search for my god.
But God has revealed himself and everything that is necessary for peace. The revealed God may be humble and gory and slightly embarrassing, but He came to us, and He comes with a purpose and a promise – to reconcile sinners. Jesus, the revealed God on the cross, is the same revealed God who stopped the coronation to weep over Jerusalem. A Jerusalem that preferred its hidden gods to the very God before there eyes.