Enduring the Cross

Holy Week helps us rehearse annually the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ for us. This morning, while reading through Matthew's account of Jesus' last week, my mind turned to what must have been on the Lord's mind those last few days before his cruel death. Walk with me for a bit, will you?

Crucifixion was a horrifying death, yet Jesus knew that was

The End of Conflict

Last night some friends and I discussed part of a book called "Life Together." A German pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about church life, during the Nazi persecution of the Lutheran church in Germany during WWII.  Brother Dietrich realized that if the church didn't

Being, Becoming and Doing as the Church

Last week I used football as an illustration of how, as followers of Jesus, our 'being and becoming' leads to doing Jesus' will, and how as we grow in 'becoming' like Jesus, we grow in 'doing' too. If you missed that post, click here to read it.  But did you realize the same

He Felt Our Sorrows

Is the Gospel relevant? It is as relevant to our lives as the newspaper or its online equivalents. Lately, we've been hit with the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, and the recurring Israel-Gaza conflict, with over 2,000 dead and no proper end in sight -- just to name two out of thousands of conflicts right now. How does the Gospel apply to all these? Here are a few

A New Childhood

God calls himself our Father, and he calls us his children. Jesus called little children to himself (Luke 18:15-17 for instance) to explain visually what it means to be God's kids (not just so he could explain humility -- he also took them in his arms and blessed them). The imagery that God accepts us "as his kids" should include our own memories of safety, love, warmth, comfort, care and security. That's how it should be.

But for some of us, childhood

"It Is Finished!"

The sky was dark and brooding, as if responding to the horror happening below.  Three men had been hanging on their crosses for hours now, but in typical Roman cruelty, they could be there for days, twisting in agony, begging for mercy and gradually slipping away into death.  The middle of the three, Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee, had been beaten so badly by a Roman scourge that he had not even a palm-sized patch of skin without lacerations and bruises over his entire body.  He was sinking fast.  "I am thirsty" he rasped, and a soldier dipped a sponge in sour wine and held it to Jesus' lips. 

Jesus' thirst was physical, because he was fully human and was thirsty from the loss of blood and lack of water; but it was also a reference by Jesus to Psalms 42:1-2 and 63:1, where the writer has a spiritual thirst for God comparable to being physically parched.  Various commentators point out the irony of the Source of Living Water (John 4:14, 7:38-39) being thirsty in death.  The soldier's response was an unwitting fulfillment of the betrayal listed in Psalm 69:21, "they offer me sour wine for my thirst."  

"It is finished" was Jesus' final cry recorded in John 19:30.  The Greek verb "tetelestai" he used is in the form that means a completed action creating an ongoing state of being.  It's a similar word to "finished" and "fulfilled" in verse 28.  Here, Jesus didn't say "I am finished" to refer to his own condition, but "it is finished" an emphatic, triumphant statement of victory!  The grand plan of God becoming man -- to be one of us and to fully experience our humanity, then in one bold stroke to absorb all our sin, guilt and shame so there will never be any more barrier between God and us -- that plan had now been accomplished with complete success.  There was, and is, nothing left to do to rescue us and reunite us to our Father.  You are now reconciled to God through Jesus his Son (2 Cor. 5:18-19).  It's a done deal. 

Luke records Jesus saying "Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands" in 23:46.  It was time now, and okay now, for Jesus to breathe one last breath and die.  Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, fully God and fully human, died.  If he hadn't been human, he couldn't have died for you; if he hadn't been God, he couldn't have died for you.   
 
But the story is not over...

God's Love, Our Life

I've been writing about how God tells us he has already redeemed us through Christ, and we don't have to earn his love.  So how we can more fully live in that amazing reality of God's love and acceptance?  How can we deal better with everyday life, with its struggles, temptations and failures, learn to "imitate Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1) and show God's power and love to others?  We will find that the answer to all these questions is the same:  a more focused daily walk, using some common and very useable tools.

We were created "in the image of God" (Gen. 1:26) with the capacity for a relationship with God.  But because of humanity's initial and ongoing rebellion against God, we have been wandering around in the dark and subject to death (Rom. 5:12-14).  It took another "Adam" -- Jesus Christ -- to set things right, including restoring that broken image of God in us (1 Cor. 15:45).  Because of Jesus, and only through Jesus, we have a new, clear and open relationship with God.

A few points to remember before we start to talk about specific tools:
First, these are 'tools' not 'rules.'  These help us on our journey, they're not more and burdensome commands (sigh) to remember. 
Second, these are not ways to convince God to reward us; they are part of "a process of involvement in God's gracious work" through the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ, according to M. Robert Mulholland, Jr. in his well-written book, Invitation to a Journey.  
Third, we don't change ourselves; we are changed by God in the process of walking with Jesus, caught up in his relationship of love with the Father.  We are not in control, God is; so the best thing we can do is surrender to his plan for us "to become like his Son" (Rom. 8:29.
Fourth, these are ways to remove the veil that is over our eyes so we can see Jesus more fully.  Paul writes in 2 Cor 3:16-18, "But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image."
Fifth, it's a process, not something we do just once.  Life with Jesus is a relationship, like two friends taking a long walk together, or a marriage. 
Sixth, being conformed to Christ means new and renewed relationships with others.   As we become more like him, we will be able to relate to others with his love and not our own brokenness.  (Isn't that alone worth the whole journey??)

So as we look at these tools one by one, we will see why each one fits into God's plan to conform us to a whole new Person, Jesus Christ (Eph. 4:13). 

Wings

One of the comforting pictures from the Hebrew Scriptures is that of the faithful resting 'under God's wings.'  It's found five places in the Psalms:  17:8, 36:7, 57:1, 63:7, and 91:4 .   It's also used in Ruth 2:12, when Boaz shows favor to Ruth and says "May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."  This is a figure of speech comparing God to a mothering bird, protecting her chicks from the eyes of predators and sheltering them from rain, sun and harm. 

Does God have wings?  Hardly; God isn't hampered by physical form, although he has sometimes appeared as a human (for instance, Genesis 18).  But his loving care for us is described in many different ways in Scripture, including this picture of providing and protecting.  Jesus didn't have wings either but he picks up this word-picture, as recorded by Matthew and Luke.  In Luke 13:34, he says "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me."  Jesus' people refused his offer of protection, preferring their own blindness to his offer of God's redemption through his suffering.

But he was put to death on a cross, which was most likely an upright stake (the basic meaning of the Greek word used) with a crosspiece which he was forced to carry to the hill where he was killed.  The soldiers nailed him to the crosspiece, and put a sign over his head (Matthew 27:35-37) proclaiming him, ironically, "King of the Jews."  

Now, this is total speculation on my part -- this interpretation doesn't appear in Scripture so I can't claim it's authoritative, just a word picture in my own head.  As Jesus' arms were spread out and his hands nailed to the crosspiece of his stake, with the sign above naming him as King of the Jews, he 'spread out his wings' in a manner of speaking, to provide shelter and protection for all people -- his own nation as well as all of us Gentiles.  Though he died a criminal's death, it was to save us from our crimes against him:  "I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said" (1 Cor. 15:3).  


Colossians 1:20 says, "Through [Jesus] God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross."  God has already brought you back to himself, through Jesus' blood.  The only question is whether you find yourself "under the shadow of his wings" as he says you already are -- or whether, like Jesus' own people, you stubbornly prefer your way -- a way that didn't work for them either?  God lets you choose.  I pray you choose life. 

Pictures from the Old Testament: the Rock

Our ongoing series on the pictures in the Old Testament (the Hebrew scriptures) that point to Christ, takes us to a lot of humans; but today, to another object, not a human but a rock.  In the history of the newborn nation of Israel, fresh out of Egypt, Moses twice asks for water from a rock for the thirsty people. 

First, in Exodus 17:1-7, the thirsty people ask for water and blame the lack of water on Moses.  God tells Moses "I will stand before you on the rock...Strike the rock, and water will come gushing out. Then the people will be able to drink."  In Numbers 20:1-13, the people are thirsty again (and cranky as usual), so God tells Moses to speak to the rock, "and it will pour out its water."  Instead of speaking, Moses yells at the people, then strikes the rock with his staff.  The water comes out anyway but God corrects Moses and doesn't allow him to take the people into the Land of Promise because he "did not trust me enough to demonstrate my holiness to the people of Israel." 

Normally, water ran down the riverbeds during rainy season, or there were pools in the wilderness from springs deep underneath the earth.  These sound like truly supernatural events, with water coming from an unexpected spot. In one story the rock is to be struck, in another Moses is to speak to the rock but strikes it instead.  What's it all mean?

These symbols are interpreted for us in the New Testament, primarily in two passages.  In John 7:37-39, Jesus says "anyone who is thirsty" can come to him and drink, and John interprets that as meaning the Holy Spirit. So the physical water given to Israel was just a picture of the greater reality, the Holy Spirit, given from Jesus, the true Rock.  In 1 Cor. 10:4, Paul writes, as part of a warning not to take God's provision lightly, that the Israelites ate and drank "spiritual" food and drink in the wilderness, drinking from the "spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ."  The manna pictured Christ's body given for us, and the water from the rock pictured the Holy Spirit to be given, so we should read "spiritual rock" as being a picture of Christ, not an actual rock dragging itself around in the desert sand.  God's faithfulness was with them, as it would be later in sending his Son -- who was "struck" in order to provide life for us.  (Some have read this verse as indicating that the second Person of the Trinity is 'the one' who accompanied the Israelites; but let's remember, God is one, not divided in any way, so "all of God" was there, not just one Person.) 

So, Jesus, the Rock of our salvation, is also the source of the promised Holy Spirit, whom he sent to be with us.  The Hebrew Scriptures agree perfectly with the Greek Scriptures, that the plan and purpose of God is fully presented in his Son Jesus, whom we know as the Christ.  Salvation and reconciliation with God through Christ is the main theme of the entire unity of Scripture.  Will you accept what he has worked so hard to offer you?

We Are All One (5): Building Bridges

We've been talking a lot about how, under the skin, we're all pretty much the same. But the exterior differences, combined with our human way of mis-trusting each other and being suspicious of differences, have made our relationships less than open, to put it mildly. (Sometimes it's important to be wary, but that's different.)

On the higher plane, the spiritual one, we've all been made 'one people' in Jesus Christ. The Son of God, the immortal Word, took on human flesh with all its weaknesses, and by doing that as our 'representative', he completely brought us back to the Father. Not just the people at the time, and in fact, not just those who already believe it today (but that's a story for another time.) So every single human has been re-united with God, and that means we are all together in one family.

Paul gave this message, in terms of his culture of Jews and Gentiles, saying this in Ephesians 2:
"He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death. He brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews who were near. Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us."

In today's culture, that would say, perhaps: "He made peace between the races, and all the language groups, by creating one new people in himself from all peoples. So no matter where our parents came from, we are all one family of God through the same Holy Spirit, because of what Christ did for us." Maybe we also have to say, "Whether they believe this or not, we're going to believe it, and we'll treat them like it's true."

That's the truth, on the spiritual plane. Which means that's also the truth in our physical lives. So when I meet people of some other race or nationality or language, in the post office or grocery store or out for a walk, what's my response? I have to admit, it isn't always the welcoming smile or handshake that I know I should offer another person in the image of God.

And I have to stop and remember, kind of like this: I know God loves me, because of what his Son, Jesus did for me; hold on, Jesus also did that for the other guy too. Even if that other guy believes in Vishnu and karma and all that stuff. So what he really needs is for me to treat him like I really believe that Jesus united us all. That might change his opinion about people unlike him, and he might become willing to give Christianity a fair hearing, too.

I think it's worth a shot. How about you?

We Are All One (3)

A Man with a Big Nose

We all tend to accept people who look, sound and dress like us more readily than someone who is of a different skin color or uses language differently. We may have learned in school about other cultures, or we may have been taught that it's best to keep an open mind and learn about the other person before making judgments; but typical human behavior is to hold back until we're sure.

Renaissance artists knew this. There are a lot of paintings, sculptures and stained-glass windows of Bible characters, including Jesus, created by artists during that period. They tended to dress the characters in the same kind of attire worn by people of their culture. Now, perhaps they didn't have access to all the archaeological data showing the dress and manner of people of that time; or maybe, as artists, they were exercising their privilege to interpret the subject matter in the way they wanted! Or perhaps they were trying to steer their audiences toward acceptance of their work by making it look more familiar.

Some film-makers in the last century have tried to portray Jesus as understandable, 'like us but more so'. "Jesus of Nazareth" (1977) for instance, has a blue-eyed, British-accented actor in the lead role. Others tried to be more realistic, showing someone as Jesus who looked, maybe, a little Middle Eastern, in a robe we might recognize as looking something like maybe what they wore back then. There have been several movies with a black Jesus too. But they were all good-looking actors, the kind you might invite over for a barbeque this summer.

What did Jesus really look like? We don't know, except that the prophet Isaiah said in chapter 53 "There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him." And in the Gospels, the authorities had to have Judas point out Jesus for his arrest (see for example Matthew 26:47-49). And he was, undeniably, Jewish; so he looked Jewish, including perhaps a larger nose than Caucasians like me. And he dressed like the average Jewish man of his day, with a tunic (like an oversized t-shirt) and probably a robe over that most of the time. And he probably had longer hair than I wear, and it was probably wrapped up in a turban that had the ends of it hanging loose. So he might not make it through airport security today without a pat-down and some extra questions!

Would you invite someone like that to your barbeque? Maybe not. But the Gospel writers and the authors of the rest of the Bible say this is the one who came to die for us; to make us all into one family (Eph. 2) and bring us into God's presence forever, with no separation (Colossians 1). And if he has accepted all of us, with all our differences and all our weaknesses, and made us one, then can we accept one another in the same way?

I praise God that in many ways we have. And I pray that we can grow in it.

We Are All One (2)

All humans came from the ground, and we're going back there too, eventually. We all came from original parents, so sooner or later we are all related, have a lot of the same genetic material in our cells, and are far, far more alike than we are different. So it might follow, logically, that we all see each other as part of the same extended family -- somebody you'd run into at the buffet during a family reunion.

But that's not what we see in the world around us, is it? We have a category of felony in the US called a "hate crime". People in Africa who belong to different tribes, differences I can't see from looking at their pictures, are slaughtering each other. Same goes for other parts of the world. We cry "Why?" It doesn't make sense.

Here's a possible root cause. When Adam and Eve, our first parents, turned their backs on God and decided to work out life on their own, they did it because of a basic mistrust: believing that God had held back something good (see Genesis 3). Then they had to work out life by their best estimates, since they refused to hear their Maker's wisdom. And lo and behold, the same lack of trust got extended to each other. (Shoot, if we can't trust God to take care of us, why should we trust someone we don't know, or who looks and sounds different from us, to do the right thing?) And face it, we have been mistreated by others, every one of us, from our childhood. So why should we trust others?

So we lock our car doors for safety when we're stopped at a busy street corner, and we watch the other people in the parking lot when we're walking to our car -- afraid that somebody might attack us. And all that goes double if the people around us appear to be of a different people group than our own.

If that's the cause, what's the cure? Seems to me that it means going back to where we came from -- back to trusting God for everything, believing that he alone has the answer to all our questions and insecurities. Listening to what he has to say -- then doing it. And remembering that, not only are we all children of Adam and Eve, we have been brought back from our silly dead-end rebellion against God by his own Son: "Adam brought death to all of us, and Christ will bring life to all of us" (1 Cor. 15:22).

The Son made us all one again, the whole river of humanity, no matter what we look like: "For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. 28 There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:26-28).

That's the spiritual reality. If the physical reality doesn't look like that, then you and I need to go back to the spiritual reality and ask God to help us see the physical with spiritual eyes. And then start treating one another according to reality. Need hands-on help? I know a bunch of people who treat each other this way already. I go to church with them every week.

We Are All One (1)

Dirt and Humanity

A little boy was learning from his father that God had made the first man, Adam, out of dirt, and that eventually, all humans turn back into dirt when we die. ("For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return", taken from Genesis 3:19) A funny look came over his face, and he blurted out, "Well, I looked under my bed this morning, and it looks like somebody's either coming or going!"

The Hebrew words in that verse in Genesis show a connection between the first man ("Adam") and the dirt ("adamah") that he came from. I think God was trying to remind him, and maybe us, not to get too 'uppity' as my mom used to say. But isn't that what we tend to do, get uppity? It's sure easy for me to start thinking I'm something better than the rest of the people around me.

Am I, really? Are you, really, better than others? Well, according to God, we all came from the same source: him! And he made us all from the same dirt, and since we all came from the same original parents, then it looks like we are the same, in so many ways. Scientists have figured out how to 'read' our DNA strands, and tell us how very closely we are all related genetically. (Even the science of genetics comes from the same Latin root as Genesis, or beginnings.)

When we see others, though, we tend to look at differences: he's taller than me and has bigger muscles. She weighs less than I do, and has better hair. He's got dark skin, I wonder where he's from. She looks Chinese or Korean or something, not from around here. And the envy or the distrust starts to arise, and the next reaction to that is defensiveness and self-protection, shutting others out instead of including them.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, God told the Israelites not to mingle with the nations around them -- not because they were inferior peoples, but so Israel wouldn't pick up the false and destructive religions of those people. (See Numbers 33:51-55, Deuteronomy 7:1-8, Deuteronomy 12:29-31, etc.) But the New Covenant is a relationship with God where everybody belongs, no matter where we're from: "Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. You were called “uncircumcised heathens” by the Jews, who were proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not their hearts...Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death." (Ephesians 2, especially verses 11 and 16).

The spiritual reality is greater than the physical reality of our external, visible differences. In Christ, we are one. How does that play out when we like different foods, use different grammar, enjoy different music, and naturally think ours is better? Let's keep considering those ideas in the next few posts.