Do you know people who have green thumbs? These folks could plant a water lily in a desert and have it grow. I am not one of these people. It simply wasn’t part of my life growing up. I never learned the “joy of gardening.” Yard work was always a chore. Our “gardens” simply meant more work.
When we built our home we had some landscaping done, professionally. We did this because we knew we wouldn’t do it on our own. As we met with the landscaper we told him we want as little maintenance as possible. He came through in a big way! We have, what I consider to be beautiful landscaping and it doesn’t require much from me.
Yet, even in the midst of my low-maintenance landscaping I have had to learn about some basic plant care. One of the things that I have learned is the importance of pruning. The other thing that I have learned is that from death comes life in the garden. There is a beautiful glory that comes from my garden as every blooms. Yet, it couldn’t have happened apart from the pruning and death of the winter.
Jesus talks about this with regards to himself in John 12. He says for him to be glorified, he must first die. Check it out,
Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. (John 12:20–26, ESV)
Just like the grain of wheat dies and then bears fruit, so too does Jesus, and not just him, but those who would come after him.
For Jesus, like all of creation, life comes from death. It is a hard reality for us. But, it is true. Jesus had to die for there to be life. His death, like the grain of wheat, brought life.
Jesus says, that we must hate our life in this world if we want to experience eternal life. What does that mean? Are Christians to be melancholy kill-joys? No. That’s not how Jesus lived. Are we to be dualists who see the natural world as evil? No. That’s not what Jesus did. So, what does it mean? To die to this world means that die to ourselves. We die to our desires. It means that we live to serve Jesus. How do we serve him? We serve him by following him where he goes. His way, ultimately, is the way of love.
As followers of Jesus we are commanded to have the attitude or mind of Christ. One way to live that out is to die to ourselves for the love of another. Will you?
What happens when you challenge the status quo? If someone rocks the boat those in power get really uncomfortable. When you start doing things and saying things that force people to look at the world differently then folks who guard the normal begin to try and stop you.
Jesus made the religious leaders really uncomfortable. He did things that were relegated to God to only. Jesus pushed back against the normal and the expected, he forced the world to look at itself in a new way.
Check out John’s telling of “The Triumphal Entry.” It’s like a behind the scenes account as opposed to those in Mark, Matthew, and Luke.
When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.
The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,
“Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming,
sitting on a donkey’s colt!”
His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.” (John 12:9–19, ESV)
I have read this passage many times over the years. What I don’t think ever caught my attention was this little statement, “So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well…” Jesus had so shook the power base and structure of the religious authority that they were turning to violence. Not just violence against Jesus but violence against Lazarus too.
These leaders were willing to commit murder as opposed to change their mind in the face of fact.
We look at this incredulously. Yet, we see this happen all the time. It is standard fair of the human condition. When presented with facts that counter our deeply beliefs we can either change or seek to suppress the truth. If we have enough power then we can suppress the truth, even through violence.
Human history is a series of the powerful seeking to suppress and oppress change in light of truth. This is usually through violence.
Yet, here is Jesus, the one riding on donkey. His victory march into the city of Jerusalem is not on a noble steed but a humble donkey. The one who taught us to be peacemakers and turn the other cheek. The one who changed the world by undoing death through love.
The crowd that followed Jesus from Lazarus’ tomb “continued to bear witness.” They had seen him do something so remarkable that they couldn’t stop bearing witness about him. In spite of those in power who would commit violence to stop this Jesus, the crowds wouldn’t stop.
This is beautiful.
So, what have you seen Jesus do? What can you not stop bearing witness to?
The music is bumping and the lights are shining. The singers take the stage and belt out an amazing performance. The crowd is screaming and clapping.
“…and now our next President!”
The music is bumping and the lights are shining. The politician takes the stage and the crowd is screaming and clapping.
“…your 2018 Sports Team!”
The music is bumping and the lights are shining. The team takes the stage and the crowd is screaming and clapping.
As I read through the Bible it continues to strike me that the people of God are easily attracted to idols. Every other page, it seems, there they go worshiping the Baals and the Asherah poles. It’s a never ending cycle. Round and round they go. For a moment they are worshiping the God who saved them from oppression and slavery only to find themselves drawn again to the Baals and Asherah poles.
I think that we often look at these stories with disbelief. We think to ourselves, “What is wrong with these people? How can they leave God so easily? Seriously, what is their deal?” Then we turn our hearts and attention to our musicians, politicians, or sports teams (not to mention our families or friends).
It is interesting isn’t it? We see in the people of the Bible such brokenness but we don’t see it in ourselves. We might not worship the Baal or Asherah poles any more but we sure do worship many other idols.
Why?
I think it’s because there is an instant gratification that can be experienced when we worship something other than God. The reason? Because ultimately what we are worshiping in those moments are ourselves. They are ultimately our very own creations. It is easy to worship our creations. They give us something we desperately want, power and control.
When we worship God it requires us to give of ourselves. If God is not a self-creation and if God is truly transcendent then our worship will be sacrificial. It will cost us something.
In our current cultural milieu we think that when we go to worship we should “get something out of it.” Should we? I am not so certain. Worship it seems is something we give.
I often hear people say, “I need church to help me get through the week.” Or the cheesy, “We all need a dose of Vitamin JC.”
What if living life throughout the week was designed to bring us to a place where we could worship? Stay with me here. What if we are to engage in spiritual practices like reading Scripture, prayer, service, and the rest so that when we come to worship we have something to offer?
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God — this is your true and proper worship. — Romans 12:1
Could it be that this is what Paul is calling for here?
Yet, the idol factory is open and it is winning.
If I am honest, my heart is easily drawn to things that I have created. My worship, my “living sacrifice,” is given over to my sports teams and my family. I fear that when I stand before God he will call me to account for my idol worship. I see the same cycle in my own life as I see in the stories of the Scriptures, idolatry turns to exile turns to repentance turns to reconciliation.
How about you? Is the idol factory open and is it winning?
“A black-and-white shot of a woman putting a finger over her lips in a gesture of silence” by Kristina Flour on Unsplash
I opened up my Twitter one day and saw the critique of white pastors, “You speak privately, but not publicly.”
I opened up my Twitter one day and saw the critique of men, “I’m disappointed in the men who said nice things about your moms, wives, and daughters because that wasn’t the point of International Women’s Day.”
I opened up my Twitter one day and saw the critique of evangelicals, “You don’t challenge the Christians who are doing horrible things loud enough.”
I opened up my Twitter one day and saw the critique…
Some of us seek to speak for the oppressed and the marginalized. We are coming to recognize what is obvious to everyone around us, that we have tremendous power. As a result, there is a need to leverage that power for those whom we have set aside and created a system to oppress.
Many of us, don’t want kudos. We don’t need an “atta boy” for doing things that are right and just. I don’t think I need to celebrate my kids for doing their chores and I don’t think folks in the minority culture need to celebrate a person like me for doing what I should have been doing all along.
Please hear me, we do not need to be acknowledged nor do we have an expectation of acknowledgment for simply doing what is right. I am also not speaking to those, in this moment, who are in the minority culture.
I am speaking directly to those of us who want to stand in the gap and want to be the kind of people who are not satisfied with the status quo. We need to recognize that hearing critique is hard to hear when your whole paradigm is being shifted. The critique of our engagement can be draining and it can make us feel like we are never going to be enough. This simply is not true.
For those of you, who like me, are trying to speak up and love well, you are enough. Do not become discouraged by critique. We, I, deserve and need to hear the critique. We must continue to do better and to do so demands that we hear from those we seek to platform and lift up.
Yet, in this know that you are enough.
Keep working at it. Keep listening. Keep trying to be better.
Don’t stop.
Our friends who are women, black, Latino, or of any other minority culture can’t take a break from being who they are. You can’t take a break either. You can’t decide to just take a break for a few days.
What we can do is recognize that we are enough. You and I, we won’t get it right every time. There is a fundamental change in our thinking and perspective that has to shift. You and I have to recognize our implicit role in the systemic brokenness that plagues our world. It is the air we breathe and that means it is really hard to recognize. So, we listen and we hear critique and we try to do better the next time. Remember, it’s not about being right, it’s about getting it right. Those are two very different things.
Those days that you open your Twitter or Facebook and you see the critique of you as an ally, take a deep breath, reflect, and try again. You may grow weary, frustrated, and even annoyed. In those moments step back and ask yourself what must it be like in the shoes of our friends who walk around in a world every day where the deck is stacked against them. Demand from yourself tenacity and resolve.
We are enough. We won’t be perfect but we can acknowledge our willingness to be in process. When we do that we are able to hear the critique as not an attack but an invitation into loving well.
Do you think that revolutionary moments in our thoughts happen like a lightning strike or like the turning of the Titanic? I don’t know for sure but I think the answer might be, “yes.” I remember hearing an interview with someone who was an “over night success.” This person said that they hated that phrase because their success was built on years of work. Yet, to the watching world it appeared as though they came out of “nowhere.”
I recently had one of those moments about Jesus.
Yes, a pastor can still have revolutionary realizations about Jesus. I think of myself as someone who thinks well and thinks with theological clarity. Yet, this past year has been a time of wandering and wondering for me. I have had many questions that I was struggling to find answers for. In particular, I was struggling with the reality that my faithfulness was, in some dark moments, less than ideal. Was I still a Christian in my doubt? What happens when we doubt? I was really wrestling with some heavy questions about God and the answers were frustratingly distant.
I knew from my theological study and from the creeds and confessions that Jesus utterly saves those who trust him. He does it perfectly because he was fully God and fully man and his self-sacrifice was perfect for us.
But I didn’t feel that way.
I wasn’t feeling “saved.” I was doubting God in ways that I don’t think I have ever doubted before. I felt angry and I felt hurt. My prayers felt like they were bouncing off the ceiling. I wondered if God really existed. Reading the Bible, which has always been a source of joy for me, felt hollow and empty. The answers that I had were unhelpful and felt condescending.
There was a radical disconnect between my mind and heart. I had always been taught that if I simply believed rightly then feelings would naturally follow. I couldn’t shake the feelings I had. I didn’t know what to do with them. My evangelicalism didn’t have space for them.
Over the last ten years I have been wrestling through what it means to be “reformed” and “covenantal” and “presbyterian” and “evangelical.” This is my tribe. During this recent season of doubt and searching I started really wrestling with the nature of the gospel itself. What did Jesus do? What did he accomplish? How does it work?
As I poured over the Scriptures I found some interesting mentors the writing of N.T Wright, Eugene Peterson and Michael Horton. I think these guys would say that they disagree on some important things. But, I think that where they would agree is on this one thing that has brought me out of the darkness, this one idea that has re-ignited my heart and my feelings.
What is this one idea?
Jesus is faithful.
Grace is based in the faithfulness of Jesus. Forgiveness is rooted in the covenantal faithfulness of Jesus. Jesus was perfectly faithful to God’s covenant. When my faithfulness wanes it is Jesus’ faithfulness that I can rest on. He is at the right hand of the majesty on high as my mediator. That will never change. The covenant has always been a covenant where faithfulness is what matters. In the old covenant it was about the people being faithful. In the new covenant it is about God being faithful through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Where is the radical reorientation? It is in this: For many years I have believed that it was my trust and my faithfulness that mattered. The reality is that it isn’t. The gospel, is at its core, not about me. It is, at its core, about the faithfulness of Jesus.
We are able to doubt, we are able to wrestle with God, we are able to be brutally honest and authentic about where we stand because his acceptance of us is not about us. It is about Jesus.
There is great freedom in the reality that it isn’t about me.
How about you? Is your faith about you or is it a resting and trusting in the faithfulness of Jesus?
One day my pastor invited me to join him on a pastoral visit to a nursing home. I wanted to please him, so I said I would go. I had no desire to be there. I didn’t know this woman we were going to see, but I knew once we got that out of the way we would go to lunch and we could discuss theology.
I have never liked nursing homes. In high school and college it seemed like I was always connected with some group of people who wanted to go Christmas caroling at “the old folks home.” I loathed that time. The place was depressing. The old people sat there in their wheelchairs staring out into nothingness or nodding along silently clapping their hands. The places also smelled. They smelled “too clean.” They were always so institutional and if you had been in one, you’d been in them all.
This day with my pastor we walked into the room. It was filled with pictures. It was quiet and the sun was streaming in the windows. I could barely see the woman in her bed. She was simply bones wrapped in skin buried under a pile of blankets. I will never forget her eyes. As she saw Pastor Bob they gleamed. He knelt next to her, eye to eye, and spoke with her.
“How are you?” he asked gently and quietly.
Unable to speak her eyes fell. The pain apparent on her face. When she opened her eyes the glimmer was gone and replaced with sadness.
“Do you want to be with Jesus?” he asked ever more gently.
Again her eyes closed and when they opened there was an unadulterated joy in her countenance. Her eyes glimmered with a hope that went beyond anything I had ever known before.
He prayed. He prayed for her to be able to join her Savior, where there would be no more pain, where her tears would be wiped away, and that she would be made whole.
Her eyes were so full of joy and peace.
My mind was spinning a million miles an hour. I was both offended and moved by the prayer. I was confused. I didn’t know what to expect walking in and I didn’t know what to think or even feel as we left.
Something was changing in me though. I was not the same person I was fifteen minutes before, or was it an hour. To this day, that experience felt like a dream.
We got back into the car and he looked me in the eye and said, “That is pure and undefiled religion, Dan, being there with her in these moments. This is what it is to minister like Jesus. (James 1:19–27)”
There was silence for a while.
Looking back on that day I realize that God began a work to help me understand that faith was more than intellectual ascent.
Faith is lived. Real faith is displayed in our bodies in the physical acts that we live out every day.
“Faith not works!”
“Don’t be a Pharisee!”
“Grace!”
“Faith not feelings!”
These are the ideas that have dominated much of my Christian life. I grew up into my faith in the Evangelical and conservative stream that has shown itself to be empty. These ideas, while not bad in themselves, created in me a very real dichotomy between the mind and the body.
I understood my faith to be primarily an intellectual activity. There was little in the way of a physical connectedness in my faith. What I did didn’t matter as much as what I said I believed. If I could argue from the Bible my theology and show I was right, then my life didn’t matter that much.
This was particularly true because I was spending my days arguing for Christianity with non-Christians. A worthwhile and noble cause that freed me from caring about people beyond their minds.
That day was years ago and only recently am I understanding the significance of it. Why? Because I didn’t have words for what I experienced. I couldn’t say what it was that I experienced that day. I didn’t have words for what I was beginning to experience as I mobilized people to serve others. I didn’t have words for the hours of being there with my friend as he died this fall.
I have words now.
Embodied loyalty.
This is how one of my colleagues, Chris Winans, defined faith recently. This small phrase has given words to my experience of the last few years. This idea of faith being embodied loyalty has opened up a reality of what faith is. It has unified the grace and works divide that I have struggled with for years.
Faith is embodied loyalty.
What we do matters. Our feelings matter. The physical world matters. Here matters. This place matters.
When we begin to come to terms with faith as an embodied loyalty then faith becomes “real.” For me, it has opened my life to what is happening around me. The here and now-ness of faith demands my presence in the lives of people. It demands me to show up and be with folks. Prayer becomes something I do on the way and is not the end.
Faith is an embodied loyalty that makes all creation sacred.
So, when it comes right down to it, faith demands us to “Just Do It.”
I have written elsewhere about how the opening chapters of the Bible are becoming very important to me. I have also made mention that it is out of this idea that love of enemy and love of neighbor is born. C.S. Lewis said in his magisterial The Weight of Glory that your neighbor is the most holy object that you come into contact with apart from the Eucharist.
Why is this concept, “the image of God,” so central to the Christian’s understanding of humanity? What is the big deal?
My tradition is often accused of having a very negative view of humanity. We are the people who coined the phrase, “total depravity,” so I suppose the accusation is warranted. One of our most famous preachers is well known for his sermon, Sinners In The Hands of an Angry God. You don’t get much more negative than that title. Nonetheless, I would argue that this caricature is not truly accurate.
One of my favorite theologians, R.C. Sproul argues that instead of “total depravity” it would be better to call it “radical corruption.” The reason for this is that the idea of “radical corruption” points us to a deeper reality, that our brokenness is not our true selves. Our true identity, is that of image bearer. It might be corrupted but it is there, in all of us. We all reflect the image of our Creator.
When we come to grips with the reality that all people are image bearers it transforms the world around us.
I think that this is one of the things that Jesus was trying to do one day talking to an expert in the law,
“A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He encountered thieves, who stripped him naked, beat him up, and left him near death. Now it just so happened that a priest was also going down the same road. When he saw the injured man, he crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. Likewise, a Levite came by that spot, saw the injured man, and crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. A Samaritan, who was on a journey, came to where the man was. But when he saw him, he was moved with compassion. The Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds, tending them with oil and wine. Then he placed the wounded man on his own donkey, took him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day, he took two full days’ worth of wages and gave them to the innkeeper. He said, ‘Take care of him, and when I return, I will pay you back for any additional costs.’ What do you think? Which one of these three was a neighbor to the man who encountered thieves?” (Luke 10:30–39)
The priest and Levite did what they needed to do to stay ritually clean. Most of the people listening probably thought, “Yes, good, that makes sense.” The difference between them and the Samaritan is that the Samaritan was moved with compassion. He saw in the man, someone who most likely on a normal would have hated the Samaritan (for Jews despised Samaritans), something more. The priest and Levite saw an obstacle, the Samaritan saw a person. I would argue that the Samaritan saw in the man the image of God.
How do you see “the other”? You know that person who you can’t stand or a representative of a group of people you can’t stand. Do you see them as image bearers of God?
I have noticed a fascinating truth, when people are discussing hard issues their tenor and tone is very different in person than in the virtual space. Why do you think that is? Why are people more mean in the virtual space than in person? I think it’s simple, it is much harder to objectify a flesh and blood person sitting across from when you can see how your words impact them.
This same thing can be true when a conversation is taking place in person and we immediately place a label on someone: “Millenial,” “Boomer,” “Feminist,” “Conservative,” “Progressive,” and the list could go on. When we engage with someone based on a label then we are able to turn them into an object and dehumanize them. A label is not an image bearer, a person is.
When we are able to dehumanize our neighbor then we have, in effect, erased the image of God from them.
The concept of people being image bearers is so central because if it is true then it means that people have innate worth. We might not like someone but if we understand that they are an image bearer, just like us, then it means that they have worth and that at our core we are more alike than different.
If we could come to grips with the reality that all people are created in the image of God then we might have a shot at true neighbor love. We might even have a fighting chance at enemy love. Who knows, maybe we can even catch a glimpse at why Jesus was willing to redeem us from exile and bring us back into relationship with himself.
I believe that the Scriptures are something more than a nice book or a collection of myths. I have come to the conclusion that “the Scriptures” are authoritative for my life. All of us have given authority to something or someone to shape who we are (even if it’s ourselves). For me it is the Scriptures.
Writing that feels odd. I don’t really know why, but it does. I think it’s because over the last few years I have really wrestled with the Bible and the way that many in my tribe worship it as a god or god. I have struggled with things that I have read in it and worked through questions in the Greek and Hebrew. There are still questions that I have, but I have come to the conclusion that at the very least, the Scriptures are the best way for me to learn and know about Jesus.
Yet, this question has haunted me, “What does it mean to live in accordance with the Scriptures?”
There are stories of people trying to “live biblically.” Basically, they try to follow every command in the Bible for one year. I don’t think that’s the answer. For some reason that seems really shallow when I read that things like, “If you love me, you will obey my commands.” Love of God drives the obedience to the Scriptures, so if it’s just following rules apart from relationship that, I think, misses the spirit of what the question is getting at.
I am coming to a few conclusions though. First, to live “according to the Scriptures” is to have a desire to live a life that looks like Jesus. I am beginning to think that this is the crux of “obedience” in light of loving Jesus. If I don’t have any desire to be like Jesus in my life, then why would I want to live in “accordance with the Scriptures”?
Second, it is to have the narrative of the Scriptures in you. This sounds a little weird. Too many people in the evangelical subculture treat the Bible like a textbook or an owner’s manual. It’s neither of those things. The Scriptures are living, active, and they speak to us. Not in some creepy or weird way, but in a similar kind of way that a great album might. Recently, I have been listening to a podcast where people are talking with an artist about his newest album. They are sharing their resonance and dissonance with it. It is beautiful. His music and lyrics are impacting their souls. The Bible is like that too. When it gets in us, it shapes us, it speaks to our deepest sense of self. Our lives begin to reflect the narrative arc of the Scriptures that progresses from union with God to brokenness to shame to exile to redemption to union again with God. To live a life that reflects this reality in our relationships with others and self moves us from isolation to communion and from shame to wholeness.
Finally, to “live in accordance with Scriptures” is to live with a sense of mystery. The Bible doesn’t have all the answers. The reality is that it speaks to the human experience up to the point where it stopped being written. There are principles to be learned and embraced that can and should help us navigate our world. But, that doesn’t mean that it is some sort of “Magic 8 Ball” or talisman that will open before us the secrets of the ages. When we live “in accordance with the Scriptures” we live a life that embraces the mystery of the moment. We see ourselves as part of a grand story where the final is still being written.
I’m still working through all of this. But, at the very least, I know that I want my life to look like Jesus, I am trying enter into relationships along that narrative of the Scriptures, and I am embracing mystery. As I’m doing these things, I am finding it easier to love, easier to listen, and easier to care about others. Is this because I’m living “in accordance with the Scriptures?” I’d like to think so. I’m asking different questions and in the midst of embracing mystery, it’s easier to come alongside others with humility.
I am beginning to realize that the opening chapters of Genesis are more important than I ever could have thought. They are a poem, an epic poem, that tells the story of humanity. We find our ultimate and foundational identity of “image bearer” described there. In that poem we discover the roots of our fall from that identity and the foreshadowing of our redemption.
Two things have particularly stood out to me in these opening pages of the Bible. First, humanity has a vocation, men and women, to create. This is an idea that has been a part of my understanding of the Christian faith for a long time. What is new is that little word, “vocation.” I have often referred to what God sets up for us to do as a “calling.” But that’s not really the best word. It is a vocation.
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (Gen 1:26–28)
Humanity has a job to do and that is to create and care for God’s good creation. I am beginning to understand Jesus’ statement that the law can be summarized into two commands, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; Love your neighbor as yourself,” in light of our vocation as image bearers. When we come to grips with the reality that every person we engage with is an image bearer and we also have as our “vocation” to care for the whole of creation, it begins to make more sense in my mind that we must love others as ourselves. I think in a very real way our vocation as image bearers is to love God and love people.
I think in a very real way our vocation as image bearers is to love God and love people.
The other side of this coin is what happened when humanity set aside its vocation. In that moment when Adam and Eve took and ate they did so because they “wanted to be like God.” They believed a lie. They set aside their vocation, they set down their God-given responsibility and placed themselves above their love of God and one another. The result? Shame and exile.
Up to that point in the story there was no shame. They were naked, they were exposed, and felt no shame. When they set aside their vocation which was rooted in their identity, shame was the result.
God held them accountable for their actions and exiled them from the Garden. This would be his mode of operation moving forward. When his people would set aside their vocation that was rooted in their identity he would exile them. They would experience a separation from God.
Yet, we see God do something interesting. First, he takes animals and creates clothes for Adam and Eve, covering their shame. He frees them from shame so they could once again experience relationship with him and one another. Second, he promises an end to exile. They even get a foretaste of this after they are exiled where God still spoke to them and their children.
Those were lots of words to set up the question, “Why forgiveness?”
Have you ever wondered why God forgave them or us? Why does God cover our shame? Why does God make a way back from exile?
I think we see the reason right back there in Genesis.
They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze… (Gen 3:8a)
In the opening pages of the Bible we see an intimate and personal relationship between God and humanity. When God would go walking in the evening we get the sense that it was a walk with humanity. It says that God called out, “Where are you?” God was expecting to see Adam and Eve. He was expecting to walk with them and talk with them and be with them. There was an intimacy of relationship that God and people had.
Why did God cover their shame? Why did God make a way back from exile? Relationship. God’s desire for relationship with his image bearers was such that he was going to do what needed to be done to restore that relationship. Because God is God he was bound by his perfect justice. Therefore, there was exile. Yet, right from the start God’s first concern was to cover their shame. Before he sent the man and woman out of the Garden into exile, he covered their shame.
God deeply loves his image bearers.
He cares for us.
He wants to be in relationship with us.
So, he forgives us.
At the end of the story we read this,
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3–4)
Why does he forgive us? Because he wants to live with us. He wants to wipe away our tears.
A missionary who has given his life to serving God and people is diagnosed with cancer. A loving father who is at the beginning of his journey of walking with Jesus develops what turns out to be an incurable infection. The child of a pastor who is highly regarded because of her faithful service to the community and Jesus dies of cancer before his life even begins. A woman with a gentle and quiet faith who prays and serves wakes up one day alone because her husband left her for another.
These brief snapshots are real life stories of people who I love and care for. They are all people who are authentically trying to follow Jesus. These are not people who are false or who simply sit in the back of worship service to be entertained. These are people who you want to be around and whose faith would cause you to stop and wonder about their God. These are the people of who it is said, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”
“God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life,” so begins an invitation to follow Christ that I have shared with hundreds of people. Is there anything inherently wrong or untrue about that statement? No. But, at the very least it is incomplete. It is missing something that is very important to an invitation into following Jesus. It doesn’t say anything about what that “wonderful plan for your life” might include. What happens when that “wonderful plan” includes pain and suffering, a cross.
For many years in my ministry I functionally believed that I needed to help the gospel out. I functionally believed that I needed to give it some PR because Jesus was a horrible salesman.
Jesus said these kinds of things:
“There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” (Luke 18:22)
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:34–38)
“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20)
Who would want to follow someone like this? This hardly sounds like a “wonderful plan.”
You might think that the first generations of Christians would have helped Jesus out a bit. As I read the Bible I discovered that they didn’t. The authors of the letters that were written to churches in that first generation of Christians said “…when you suffer…”
What the heck? What happened to a “wonderful life”? Seriously, suffering and pain and losing my life doesn’t sound much like a “wonderful life.”
How can the Bible writers say things like this and we in the 21st century turn around and say that “God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for you life”? It simply can’t be true, can it? Pain, suffering, loss of life, how can these things be “wonderful”?
My mentor, Bob Smart, has written extensively on Christian identity formation. In his book, Embracing Your Identity in Christ: Renouncing Lies and Foolish Strategies, he discusses the work of Charles Taylor, A Secular Age. Taylor lays out “five conditions of our age.” One of them is that we, as a culture, are “encased in Chronos.” Chronos is simply time, the tick of the clock without a recognition of anything beyond it. There is a second kind of time that Christians have long embraced known as “kairos.” This is when we recognize that God is breaking in and we are able to get a glimpse from a “God’s eye view”, so to speak. When we only see things from a chronos perspective there is no meaning in suffering or pain. It’s just another tick of the clock.
In his little book, How to Survive a Shipwreck: Help Is On The Way and Love Is Already Here, Jonathan Martin writes, “People try to offer us an explanation; God offers us a Eucharist.” What he means is that in our suffering we often are looking for “why” and that “why” can be hidden from us. But, what we find with God is care, empathy, and provision.
Martin writes,
“This fits the pattern of how God responds to human suffering: We come looking for answers; God sends a hot meal through a warm body. We come looking for reasons for our hunger; God sends provision to feed us. We come looking for a sermon that will explain the complexity of the cosmos to us and satiate our desire for understanding; Christ responds with, “This is my body, given for you; this is my blood, shed for you.”
In the Scriptures, the writer to the Hebrews says it like this,
“Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.” Hebrews 2:14–18
Suffering is part of our experience it is not something that we can escape. Following Jesus doesn’t pull us out of the world and help us to escape pain and brokenness. The “wonderful plan” of the gospel is that as we follow Jesus, as we bear our own crosses, he who bore the cross of the world is with us and will carry it with us. He is able to empathize not simply look on us with compassion. Because we know that God loves us and that he has a “wonderful plan” a plan that imbues all of life with meaning and purpose we are able to experience a peace that transcends understanding.
We do not simply suffer under the weight of a broken world. No, we carry a cross, we enter in with Jesus and he enters in with us.
A friend of mine reached out to me a couple weeks ago and asked me to train with him for a “Murph Challenge.” This is a physically grueling challenge where you run a mile, do 100 pull-ups, do 200 push-ups, 300 air squats, and finish by running a mile. I’ve never done a pull-up, ever. I currently can’t do a “real” push-up. I don’t know how I can accomplish this. He asked me to do this with him because, “I want to do this…I am so unbelievably far away from this and need someone to embrace the suck of it with me. Keep each other accountable and work towards it together. And then when we are ready meet up and do it together.”
Why do we “carry a cross”? Because as we do we are embracing the “suck of it” with Jesus. It’s not just suffering. There is so much more to it. It is part of a plan and purpose of God. Ultimately that plan and purpose will result in God’s glory and our joy, this is what we call providence.
As I enter into my own suffering and in the suffering of others, I am grateful that I know it is not without purpose and that I am not alone. I enter in with Jesus the one who bore the cross perfectly “for the joy set before him.” The “wonderful plan” is that in that in the midst of the suffering we will somehow glimpse that same joy because we are not alone we are with Jesus.
This meal at the center of Christian worship goes by many different names. Yet, regardless of your tradition Communion is of utmost importance. Some congregations celebrate it weekly, others monthly, and still others less frequently. It begs the question, why communion? Why is this celebration central to the worship of God’s people? Why has it been of such importance?
Communion Protects Against Disunity
The Apostle Paul wrote extensively about the Lord’s Supper in his first letter to the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 10, he is chastising the church about idolatry. As he does so, the Lord’s Supper is central to his teaching. He begins by explaining how communion brings unity to the body.
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Cor 10:16–17)
When we take communion we are announcing our unity with Christ and our unity with the whole body. By taking the cup we are unifying ourselves in his suffering. Eating the bread means that we are uniting with him and the whole church as his body and uniting with him in his incarnation. Communion is a proclamation that says, “I am with Jesus and with his body, the Church!” It is a line in the sand.
*On a side note check out 1 Cor 11:17–22 for more on unity and how it relates to communion. These Corinthians really had a hard time.
Communion Protects Against Idolatry
The context of that little passage in 1 Corinthians above finds itself in the midst of a larger teaching on idolatry. Check out the broader context:
Therefore, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols. I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar? What do I imply then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? (1 Cor 10:14–22)
To embrace communion is to set aside the worship of idols. When we take communion rightly it, necessarily, means that we are forsaking all others. Communion is the physical, right here, right now, reminder of the incarnational and transcendant Christ. He really accomplished something on our behalf. What have idols done? Nothing. Why? Because they are nothing. They are simply figments of our imaginations. We declare in communion that we are going to embody loyalty to Jesus and to him alone.
Communion Protects Against Sin
In 1 Corinthians 11 we see the full “words of institution” for the Lord’s Supper. They go like this,
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. (1 Cor 11:23–26)
Paul goes on to say,
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. (1 Cor 11: 27–29)
In many traditions first the words of institution are spoken and then the warning to “examine yourselves.” When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper it is a time set aside for us to examine ourselves. Is there unconfessed sin? Are we harboring unforgiveness? Have we trusted Christ for forgiveness? The results of taking communion lightly without examining ourselves is to “eat and drink judgment” against ourselves. For those in Christ we must understand that it is not a judgment of exile. Elsewhere Paul makes clear that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. It is a judgment of discipline. We will experience discipline as one who receives it from a loving parent. The Corinthians were so negligent in this that they were getting sick and some even died.
Communion Reminds Us What God Has Done
Finally, communion is the physical reminder of what God has done. He has reconciled the world through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. By the faithfulness of Jesus to God we are ransomed from exile. He reconciles his creation to himself and brings life to those who believe.
Jesus is the God-man. He broke into time and history. He “moved into the neighborhood” and lived among us. To remember the reality of what he has done, we celebrate with physical elements of the cup and bread. The cup is poured out, the bread is broken, and as we partake we are unified with him and one another. It is our time to “taste and see that the Lord is good,” in a very real way.
A Final Thought
Why communion? Ultimately because it draws us into the upper room with Jesus and the disciples on that last night. We find ourselves celebrating with them and yet filled with the same sense of weightiness about the need for the cross. The difference is, that when we take we do so as ones knowing the resurrection and the joy of that reality.
From the beginning of Christianity, communion has been at the center. It is crucial to our worship. Communion calls us to unity, faithfulness, repentance, and awe.
There are some really weird things about Chrstianity. First among them is how we rejoice in blood. We sing songs about blood. Blood this and blood that.
Blood, blood, blood.
I remember one of the first times I heard the song, “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus,” and thinking that it was a little awkward singing about blood.
When we take communion we talk about eating the flesh and blood of Jesus. The first century Romans accused the early Christians of being cannibals as a result. Of course they also accused Christians of being incestuous and atheists too. But, it wasn’t lost on those early folks that this new sect of Judaism had a weird fascination with blood.
When Christianity was beginning animal sacrifice was a normal part of most worship in most religions of the time. Some were even sacrificing their children.
One would think that God, in Jesus, would have figured out a different way of doing this whole salvation thing than through blood.
As I was pursuing my minor in religion at Central Michigan University there was a conversation that took place often about, “the Christian God’s cosmic child abuse.” It showed up in many of my classes. It was one I thought was somewhat silly, yet, as I worked to understand the thinking of my classmates I was able to begin to see where their thinking was coming from.
Is the cross divine child abuse? Are Christians predisposed to violence with our constant talk about blood? Ultimately, what is going on with the cross?
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
Hebrews 2:14–18
I think this little passage is really helpful in understanding the cross.
First, a word about blood. Blood in these times was viewed as life. It was often referred to as “life-blood.” This is why Israel was forbidden to eat meat with blood in it (Leviticus 17:11–16).
Blood was life.
When God brought the people out of Egypt from slavery he had them put some blood over their doors during the last plague. The angel of death would passover the homes with blood over the doors, this marked them for “life.” Blood as the symbol of life allowed for them to be passed over and protect the lives of their firstborn sons.
What’s fascinating is that on the day of atonement the scapegoat is not killed (check out Leviticus 16). The scapegoat was a goat that the high priest laid his hands on and confessed the sin of the people over. This goat symbolically took the sins of the people and was then released into the wilderness. This goat took the punishment for the people by being exiled on their behalf. But it was not killed. Blood is not about death, it is about life, blood was needed for passover but not the atonement of the people’s intentional sin. The High Priest did make a “sin offering” using blood, but a sin offering was for the unintentional sin of the priest and the people. The blood in this case brought life where death had snuck in and made it so that God could meet with his people at the “mercy seat.”
If you’ve read this far you’re probably thinking, “thanks for the history lesson, but seriously, can we get back to the original question?”
Why the cross?
From the passage in Hebrews above we learn four things about why Jesus went to the cross for us.
First, he was fully human. He was one of us. He was not a bull or goat or lamb. He was human and as a result he was able to be our perfect representative. A goat was never able to fully represent us because it is not an image bearer. Only a human could be our perfect representative.
Second, his death broke the power of death and the fear of death. Remember, blood is life. His blood brought life where death had held sway. Just like on the passover. Where Jesus’ blood is there is no death. He is our champion. Like David, the champion of Israel, defeated Goliath; so Jesus, the ultimate champion of humanity, defeated the power of death (which is the devil). By defeating death humanity is freed from fear of death. Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10).”
Third, he became a high priest for humanity. One that is merciful and faithful in service. What was the reason for this? So that he could make atonement for the sins of the people. Remember, atonement was needed for the unintentional sin. Jesus’ act of atonement was not because we were in rebellion but because sin snuck in to kill and destroy. We have all “sinned and fallen short of the glory God (Romans 3:23).” God’s law, Paul says in Romans 3:20 makes us conscious of our sin. We can see it and therefore we fear death. Nevertheless, Jesus, our high priest makes atonement for our sin. Through his blood, which is life, he destroys death and sin, so that we don’t have to be exiled but we can be in the presence of God for eternity. He is our representative, our substitute.
Finally, he is able to help us in our suffering and temptations. We are not alone in a world filled with suffering and temptation. Jesus is not looking at us saying, “Suck it up buttercup.” No, he empathizes with us because he knew what it was to suffer. Through the cross he experienced ultimate suffering. Through his life he faced temptation, “yet was without sin.” Because he knows suffering and temptation he is able to enter in with us not as one who is unfamiliar with our pain but as one who knows it all too well. Jesus is the ultimate “wounded healer.”
I am learning that the Christian fascination with “blood,” rightly understood, is a fascination with life.Jesus is our life, not in some metaphorical sense but in a very real and ultimate sense. He tangibly gave us life by becoming one of us and defeating the power of death. Because Jesus is our representative, our substitute, we don’t have to experience death. Jesus experienced death for us, conquered it, and now gives us life.
