The Christian idea of God as a three-personed being is brilliant. It makes conceptual sense of the idea that God is love.
Gerald Sittser writes:
"Over roughly four hundred years Christians came to two startling conclusions. First, they concluded that God is a relationship of love; God is one in community, or a tri-unity. God is love not simply because he loves his creation but because he is love within himself. The Father loves the Son; the Son loves the Father. The Holy Spirit, who lives in our hearts, is the perfect, pure and personal essence of that relationship, thus drawing us into the love that exists within the very being of God.
Second, they concluded that Christ is both perfectly divine and perfectly human... "
(Green Lake Christian Conference Center, Wisconsin)
(I am re-posting this to keep it in play.)
We are engaged in a battle over beliefs.
Beliefs are expressed in statements.
Statements are houses built with words, whether written or non-written.
To control words, statements, and beliefs - that's Orwellian totalitarianism.
Johnathan Haidt (one of my favorite thinkers today - see this, e.g.) expresses our situation this way.
"What would it have been like to live in Babel in the days after its destruction? In the Book of Genesis, we are told that the descendants of Noah built a great city in the land of Shinar. They built a tower “with its top in the heavens” to “make a name” for themselves. God was offended by the hubris of humanity and said:
Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.
The text does not say that God destroyed the tower, but in many popular renderings of the story he does, so let’s hold that dramatic image in our minds: people wandering amid the ruins, unable to communicate, condemned to mutual incomprehension.
The story of Babel is the best metaphor I have found for what happened to America in the 2010s, and for the fractured country we now inhabit. Something went terribly wrong, very suddenly. We are disoriented, unable to speak the same language or recognize the same truth. We are cut off from one another and from the past."
At Redeemer we love the word "freedom." I love this word! Jesus said, in John 8:32, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." The truth will set you free... from what? The answer is: from either oppressive rule, or no rule at all. Both are forms of bondage. The latter form of bondage (no rule at all) is called "anarchy." A(n) - arche; literally, "no ruler." Think of nations where governments fall and, for a period of time, there is no rule. When you think "anarchy" think, e.g., of Somalia, or Syria. Who's in charge? Who is leading? When no one leads in a good and loving way, the people suffer. Anarchic situations are physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually brutal. "Freedom" is essentially related to "rule" or structure. This is a mistake some Jesus-followers, especially young and immature ones, make. If they come from fundamentalist law-oriented families it is not uncommon to see them go berserk with new-found freedom. Or, to flirt with sin, as if they are "free" to do so, oblivious to the fact that sin is precisely the prison house they have been set free from. The pendulum swings from oppressive structure to equally oppressive non-structure. "I am free to do anything I want!" is the cry of the Christian "anarchist" who is seduced by the lie that freedom is the absence of structure. The truth is that freedom is always a function of structure, and there are structures that oppress and structures that liberate. And, there are plenty of religious structures that, in the name of Christ but not the truth of Christ, make people more miserable than when they were imprisoned in their sins. (Note: I am not talking about the kind of liberating anarchism found, e.g., in Christian Anarchism: A Political Commentary on the Gospel.) As a guitar player and instructor I know that any musician who wants to excel and be creative on their instrument must learn technique. Guitar techniques are massively rule-bound and structured. Every guitarist who is worth anything practices patterns and structures and disciplines themselves to do so. There's no such thing as "structureless freedom." "Structureless freedom" is the logical equivalent of "square circle" or "married bachelor." To live anarchically in this sense is to use one's freedom to choose imprisonment. Any free choice that increases your bondage or addiction or the bondage and addiction of others is evil. Like, e.g., being "free" to indulge your sexual appetites outside of marriage. Put in Jesus' way, it is untruthful. Choose your structure carefully and live within it. Use your freedom in Christ to dwell in the freedom-bringing structure of his kingdom. Use your freedom to love and build up others and to engage in the prison-breaking, redemptive activity of God. The term "Christian anarchist" is an oxymoron, since the true Christian anarchist does place himself or herself under a "rule" and within a structure, that rule and structure being the the Lordship of Christ. True Christian anarchy is not the absence of rule under the pretense of freedom, but the refusal to come under the rule of the kingdoms of this world as if, and with the hope, that our solution is yet another political one. As Jesus said in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” These words have proven especially redemptive to the many Jesus-followers who live in the "Somalias" of this world. We all live under some rule or reign. The day I chose to live in Christ was my prison break, and I have no desire to use my freedom to go back.
(Sunrise in the park, across the street from our house.)
I have seen websites advertising ways to clean up your reputation. You may have an online reputation that is less than marketable. These websites promise to sanctify "you" by removing your sins (real or rumored) and producing a shiny, sparkling, attractive "you." This is called "reputation
management." I kid you not. Your sordid reputation can be manipulated, for a cost. But what about your character? Money cannot help you here. Your reputation, which money can airbrush, is not your character. Your character is about the real "you." Money cannot change that unless, perhaps, you begin sacrificially, and from a heart of compassion, giving it away to the poor. The real "you" includes who you are when offline. This is what God cares about. God develops character, not reputation. Everyone has a reputation. Jesus did. Isn't he just the "carpenter's son?" "He's from Nazareth, right?" Reputation may align with character. You may have a reputation of being a kind person. If you are kind, in character, which means kind at home, kind on the road, kind in the workplace, kind to your spouse, kind when alone, then your reputation of being kind aligns with who you truly are. Several years ago I was one of the presenters at an ecumenical prayer gathering. As I entered the auditorium a Roman Catholic leader approached me. He said he was surprised to see me here, because he had heard that I hate Roman Catholics. I told him that was untrue. I shared how one of our city's priests, with whom I was friends, had invited me to speak at the annual Unity Service. I have no idea where he got that from. Such is the nature of "reputation." Forget about what people repute you to be. Focus on connecting to Jesus, who is forming himself in you. Grow and mature into Christ. Let God take care of whatever follows.
Yesterday was Easter Sunday. The oldest words written about the resurrection of Jesus are in the ancient creed that followers of Jesus recited, within months after the resurrection.
It's found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7. This is the "gospel." (See 1 Cor. 15:1-2.)
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
he was buried,
he was raised on the third day
according to the Scriptures,
he appeared to Peter
He appeared to the Twelve.
After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
(Johnny Lang singing one of my favorite songs, "That Great Day.")
Easter Day - That Great Day
The greatest days of my life so far are...
... One day in May, 1970,
when God became real to me in a very experiential way. I knew He existed, and
that He incarnated Himself in Jesus.
... August 11, 1973. I
married Linda.
... July 10, 1982, and
September 25, 1985. My sons Dan and Josh were born. (And my stillborn son David
died...)
And... the days my grandson Levi (now 5) and granddaughter Harper (now 3) were born!
My life is formed
and shaped around these events. They color everything I do, and will do, for all my earthly existence.
The greatest holy day of my Jesus-life is Easter Sunday. That's today! As I
worship this morning I'll close my eyes and say, for the bazillionth time,
"Thank You, God, for rescuing me." It's fifty-five years since my
rescue.
My heart will overflow with gratitude this morning at
Redeemer. The chains of self-hatred and death that bound me have been broken.
I'm
thinking of Romans 5:12-21. It's about the reign of condemnation and death
brought about by Adam's sin, and the grace-gift of righteousness effected by
Christ's death and resurrection. In Adam, death reigns. In Christ, grace
reigns. Even more than this, we who are in Christ now reign in life.
Sometimes I go to a cemetery to pray. I stand in a field of tombstones.
Because I am in Christ, I'm also standing in fields of grace (Romans 5:2).
In the kingdom of God tombstones don't rule. Grace does. Empty tombs reign in
the kingdom of heaven, because one tomb opened 2000 years ago.
Sin produces condemnation. "Condemnation," from the Greek word katakrima, has the root idea of separation or
discrimination. Katakrima means:
judgment coming down on someone. Because Grace Reigns, there's no more
condemnation, no more separation. Grace and mercy are pouring down on me.
THIS IS HUGE! This
morning I celebrate this with my Redeemer brothers and sisters and 2.5 billion
others around the world.
You can't out-sin the grace of God or out-fail the mercy of God.
The greatest day in history: one Passover Day around 37 A.D. (That's
right.)
That Great Day when sin, condemnation, shame, and death were defeated.
And, in my life,
there's one more Great Day to come...
REFLECTION
1. Take time today to thank God for...
- sending Jesus to rescue humanity from sin, condemnation, and death
- rescuing you from sin, condemnation, and death
2. Pray that you may experience and know what it means to "reign in
life" through Christ, and by the Holy Spirit.
57 As evening
approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself
become a disciple of Jesus. 58 Going to Pilate, he asked
for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. 59 Joseph
took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 60and placed
it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone
in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. 61 Mary
Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.
62The
next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees
went to Pilate. 63 "Sir," they said, "we
remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I
will rise again.' 64 So give the order for the tomb to be
made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal
the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last
deception will be worse than the first."
65 "Take a guard," Pilate answered. "Go, make the tomb
as secure as you know how." 66 So they went and made
the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard."
WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THESE VERSES?
As a new Jesus-follower many years ago there
were factual, historical pieces of evidence that strengthened my new-found
faith. One fact is this: Jesus' dead body was placed in a tomb owned by
Sanhedrin member Joseph of Arimathea. This provides a piece of evidence that,
along with other facts (esp. Jesus' postmortem appearances), forms an
inductively strong argument for the resurrection of Jesus.
On thE Saturday following Good Friday Jesus' body lay inert in Joseph of Arimathea's family tomb.We
can be certain, historically (which means "inductively certain"),
that this was the case. How so? Here are two reasons:
1) this story, in the 4 Gospels and Paul, is found in independent sources that
together attest to this; and
2) by the "criterion of embarrassment" a story of a member
of the Sanhedrin helping Jesus' family is unlikely, and not plausibly
invented by Christians. This argues in favor of its historicity.
1) We have sources that together attest to Jesus' burial in a tomb owned
by Joseph of Arimathea.
Paul
Barnett writes: "Careful comparison of the texts of Mark and John indicate
that neither of these Gospels is dependent on the other. Yet they have a number
of incidents in common: For example, . . . the burial of Jesus in the tomb of
Joseph of Arimathea" (Paul Barnett,Jesus and the Logic of History,
1997, pp. 104-5).Regarding the burial stories, the
differences between Mark and the other Synoptics point to other independent
sources behind Matthew and Luke.
So
what's the point? It'sthis. If, e.g., a police officer
had multiple, independent (unrelated) witnesses to a crime, and they all gave
the same report (even if worded differently and with variations), this would
provide stronger evidence than if only one report had been given. We have this,
re. the burial stories, in the Gospels and Paul. Here is the key Pauline text.
1
Corinthians 15:3 ff.:For what I received I passed on
to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures,4thathe
was buried, that he was raised on the
third day according to the Scriptures,5and that he appeared to
Cephas, and then to the Twelve.6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of
the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living,
though some have fallen asleep.7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,8and
last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
About
this William Lane Craig writes:
"This is an old tradition, handed on by Paul to the Corinthian church,
which is among the earliest traditions identifiable in the NT. It refers to
Jesus' burial in the second line of the tradition. That this is the same event
as the burial described in the Gospels becomes evident by comparing Paul's
tradition with the Passion narratives on the one hand and the sermons in the
Acts of the Apostles on the other.The four-line tradition handed on
by Paul is a summary of the central events of Jesus' crucifixion,burial
by Joseph of Arimathea, the discovery of his
empty tomb, and his appearances to the disciples."
2) Most NT scholars say it
is highly likely that Jesus’ body was placed in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea.
Sometimes I hear someone say, "OK, but Christians just made these stories
up." This is improbable. As a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin that was
against Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea is unlikely to be a Christian invention. In
this regard New Testament New Testament scholar Raymond Brown says
burial by Joseph of Arimathea is very probable. Why? Because it is almost
inexplicable why Christians would make up a story about a member of the Jewish
Sanhedrin who does what is right by Jesus. This would, for a Jesus-follower in
the days after Easter weekend, be an embarrassment.
Craig Keener writes: "Given early Christian experiences with and feelings
toward the Sanhedrin, the invention of a Sanhedrist acting piously toward Jesus
is not likely." (Keener,The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio- Rhetorical Commentary,
690)
Why
is this important? It's important because the location of the tomb where Jesus'
body was placed was known.Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" (the
mother of James and Joseph) knew where it was, as did the chief priests and the
Pharisees. Tomorrow, this tomb will be empty. If Jesus' body was still in the
tomb, it could and would have been seen or exhumed on the days following
Easter.
Why
would Joseph of Arimathea do such a thing? The answer is: he had become a
disciple of Jesus. (Matt. 27:57) Both he and Sanhedrin member Nicodemus saw
something in Jesus and stepped out of the box to follow Him. Joseph is a risk-taker who is willing to put aside his place of political and
religious power to go after the truth and love he sees in Jesus. He doesn't
realize what's going to happen on Sunday. But he wants to make sure his new
Lord receives a proper Jewish burial. REFLECTION
1. Joseph of Arimathea risked his reputation and career to follow Jesus.
Reflect on if and how you are risking all for Jesus .
From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THESE VERSES?
As Jesus hung suspended on a cross an unnatural darkness began in the middle of the day and continued into the natural darkness of sunset.
New Testament scholar R. T. France writes: “Given the symbolic significance of the darkness as a divine communication there is little point in speculating on its natural cause: a solar eclipse could not occur at the time of the Passover full moon though a dust storm (‘sirocco’) or heavy cloud are possible.” (France, Mark, 651)
N.T. Wright writes: “It can’t have been an eclipse, because Passover happened at full moon, so that the moon would be in the wrong part of the sky.” (Wright, Mark for Everyone, 215)
Craig Keener says that the darkness "could come from heavy cloud cover. But the Gospel writers use it to convey a more profound theological point. (Keener, Matthew, 685)
However it happened, this was a God-caused darkness. Jesus is bearing the load of the sins of all humanity. Sin causes separation; in this case, essentially from God. Sin separates us from Light. Sin and light cannot coexist.
Years ago Linda and I and our sons visited Cave of the Winds in Colorado Springs. We were guided into the depths of these tunnels to a place where we were told that, when the lights in the cave were turned off, we would experience "absolute darkness." I thought, "This is cool!"
The lights went off. We stood there, for several seconds. Our guide said, "You are now experiencing absolute darkness. Place your hand right in front of your eyes. You will not be able to see it."
Our guide was right. It was so completely dark that I could not see what was right before me. Had the lights failed us that day, we would not be able to see each other. I imagine we would say things like, "Are you still near me?" "Are you here?" "We've got to stay close to each other!" And, "Don't abandon me while I'm in this darkness!"
On that day 2000 years ago the darkness that covered the land was not absolute. But the existential darkness was. The thickness of all this world's sin and failure and shame and guilt weighed on the heart of One Man. Out of this physical and ungodly darkness Jesus screamed.
"Screamed?" I think so. The Greek wording here is: ἐβόησεν ὁἸησοῦς φωνῇ μεγάλῃ. Those last two Greek words are transliterated: phone megale. A mega-phone! Jesus mega-screamed these words over and over and over again and again, since the verb indicates continuous action.
He doesn’t call God “Father” but Ὁ θεόςμου ὁ θεός μου… “My God… My God…” Jesus is in relationship with Abba Father God, but it now feels like abandonment. Six hours after he was placed on the cross, three of them being hours of darkness, Jesus feels abandoned by God.
We don't know how long the feeling lasted. Assume three hours. Perhaps He screamed over and over for that long. And know that, for Jesus, it was utterly real and all-embracing. (Craig Keener comments that "the early church would hardly have invented Jesus’ cry of despair in uttering a complaint about alienation from God, quoting Ps. 22.” Keener, Matthew, 682)
As the weight of this world’s evil converged on Jesus He was giving his life as “a ransom for many” (Mt. 20:28). The sins of the “many,” which he is bearing, have for the first and only time in his experience caused a cloud to come between him and “Abba” – Father God. 1 Peter 2:24 explains it this way: He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. Paul, in Galatians 3:13, writes: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the lawby becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."
The curse of sin is that it makes a great divide between us and God. Sin breaches relationship. As Jesus bears our sin He experiences the Great Separation. Listen to how N.T. Wright expresses this.
“Out of the unexplained cosmic darkness comes God’s new word of creation, as at the beginning… And it all happens because of the God-forsakenness of the son of God. The horror which overwhelmed Jesus in Gethsemane, and then seems to have retreated again for a few hours, came back in all its awfulness, a horror of drinking the cup of God’s wrath, of sharing the depth of suffering, mental and emotional as well as physical, that characterized the world in general and Israel in particular. The dark cloud of evil, Israel’s evil, the world’s evil, Evil greater than the sum of its parts, cut him off from the one he called ‘Abba’ in a way he had never known before. And welling up from his heart there came, as though by a reflex, a cry not of rebellion, but of despair and sorrow, yet still a despair that, having lost contact with God, still asks God why this should be.” (N.T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, 216-217)
REFLECTION
1. Take time today to slow down in your heart, get alone by yourself, bow before God, and think of the passion of the Christ.
2. Resolve in your heart to never again take for granted what Jesus has done for you. Consider how and what it means that He bore your sins, and by His stripes you are healed.
3. Express in your own words thanks to God for what He has accomplished on the cross, which is: your justification; your being set right with God.
He died as he lived; viz., below the bottom rung of the honor-shame ladder. Jesus, the Supreme Somebody, was viewed as a nobody, and killed as a nothing.
"Jesus
was executedin the manner regularly reserved for insurrectionists." (N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God,
148)
God identified with the abandoned and godforsaken because Jesus the Son was executed in a manner regularly reserved for such people. The Word became expendable flesh, and suffered, and died as one of us. Tim Keller writes:
"Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture, and imprisonment. On the cross, he went beyond even the worst human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours as infinitely as his knowledge and power exceeds ours. In his death, God suffers in love, identifying with the abandoned and godforsaken." (Keller, The Reason for God, 29-30)
On a cross, God suffered. Can God suffer? Theistic philosopher Alvin Plantinga writes:
"As the Christian sees things, God does not stand idly by, cooly observing the
suffering of His creatures. He enters into and shares our suffering. He endures
the anguish of seeing his son, the second person of the Trinity, consigned to
the bitterly cruel and shameful death of the cross. Some theologians claim that
God cannot suffer. I believe they are wrong. God’s capacity for suffering, I
believe, is proportional to his greatness; it exceeds our capacity for suffering
in the same measure as his capacity for knowledge exceeds ours. Christ was
prepared to endure the agonies of hell itself; and God, the Lord of the
universe, was prepared to endure the suffering consequent upon his son’s
humiliation and death. He was prepared to accept this suffering in order to
overcome sin, and death, and the evils that afflict our world, and to confer on
us a life more glorious than we can imagine." (Alvin Plantinga, "Self-Profile," in Alvin Plantinga, ed. James E.
Tomberlin and Peter Van Inwagen, Profiles, vol. 5, 36)
He bore our scandal. By his stripes we are healed.
14When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. 15And he said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God."
17After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among you. 18For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."
WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THESE VERSES?
The cup Jesus takes is one of the four cups taken at the Passover meal. New Testament scholar Joel Green thinks it was the second cup. This is important.
Cup #1 – the head of the family gave a blessing over that cup. Cups 3 & 4 came after the Passover meal, and then Psalms 114-118 were sung – "The Great Hallel."
Cup #2 – that’s the point in the Passover Meal where the youngest son in the family asks the father, "Why is this night different from other nights?” “Why is unleavened bread eaten on this night?” And other questions…
Jesus, on that night 2000 years ago, took the second cup. It was a different night, and would change the world.
At the Passover meal the father, on taking Cup #2, would tell the story of the exodus, and give a message on Deuteronomy 26:5-11. The meal was interpreted as and seen as an act of remembering and thanking God for his past liberation of an oppressed people. It was a celebration of God’s faithfulness and hope for the future deliverance of God’s people.
They would eat lamb and bitter herbs. They would drink the series of four cups of wine.
At the original exodus Passover lambs were slaughtered. The blood of these lambs was applied to the doorways of the Jewish homes as a sign for the Angel of Death to pass over their homes and spare the life of their first born. When the father tells this story, the Jews at the meal imagine themselves right back in the world of Moses in Egypt. Haven't you ever heard someone tell a story in such a way that you feel as if you are right there? You feel the emotions that were felt back then, as if you could smell the food being described and sense the oppression yourself, and then...
… experiencing the incredible thing of being set free!
Here, unknown to Jesus' disciples, it was one of those different nights. The Jewish Meal of all Meals was happening, for the one-thousandth time. The original Passover WAS a night different from all other nights. It was the night when the avenging angel of death “passed over” the homes of the Israelites so God could liberate the people of Israel! But this night, recorded in Luke 22, is going to be very, very different from any other night. And it will be remembered forever, not just by Jews, but by the peoples of the world.
This quite-and-very-different night begins by Jesus talking, not of the Moses-Exodus story, but about His impending death, and His Kingdom that is coming in its fullness. Jesus is changing the meaning of Passover. This is shocking and unexpected.
Can we just stop here for a moment?
Change is hard. This change is beyond hard. Because up to this point Passover was celebrated in the SAME WAY ALL THE TIME! "We always have done it this way!” (These, BTW, are the 7 Last Words of the Church.) The same questions are asked. The same answers are given. And it has been this way, this very same way, for hundreds of years.
But ON THIS NIGHT, as Joel Green says: “Instead of the expected focus on the historic deliverance enacted by God in Israel’s past, Jesus talks about his own death and vindication, and the coming of God’s dominion.” (JG, Luke, 761) "As you drink Cup #2, thiscup, rememberMe. "What Jesus does on this night draws on the Exodus story. But, as N.T. Wright is so fond of saying, this is the "New Exodus.""
"After taking the [second] cup, Jesus gave thanks and said..." He did this on a night that is different from any before it, and from any that will follow. Jesus was showing that He was the "New Moses" who was leading not only Israel but all of humanity in the New Exodus and the liberation of all humanity.
On the night Jesus was betrayed, Jesus lifted the second cup.
It was the night before the day when all humanity would be set free.
REFLECTION
1. Had you been one of Jesus' disciples at that Passover Meal, how would you have felt when Jesus reinterprets hundreds of years of tradition in terms of His own life and sacrificial death?
2. Think of how Jesus has liberated you from your enslavement to sin. Count the ways He has done this. Give thanks to God for this.
.JPG)
