[This message was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, during worship yesterday morning.]
Luke 10:38-42
You know the incident recounted in today’s gospel lesson, Luke 10:38-42, well.
Last week I suggested that this passage serves as the exclamation point to Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, which was part of last Sunday's gospel lesson.
The two passages, taken together, dismantle the idea that there’s anything that you and I can do to earn eternity with God.
Eternity with God, along with the forgiveness of our sins and the Holy Spirit’s reconstruction of our personalities and priorities, is the work of God the Holy Spirit in people who daily turn from sin and trust in Jesus Christ as their God and Savior!
All of this happens by God’s grace through faith in Christ Jesus alone. Period. End of Sentence. Full stop!
But the incident involving Martha and Mary is more than an exclamation to Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan.
These five verses tell us something about the revolutionary kingdom of God that Jesus has brought to all who believe in Him.
How can I say that? Letting Scripture interpret Scripture, which is what we Lutherans try to do, let’s take a look at the gospel lesson and consider other passages of Scripture that might help us more deeply understand what’s going on here.
Verse 38: “As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.”
It’s unimaginable that any other first-century rabbi would have abided Martha’s invitation to her house or said yes to the invitation!
Although Jesus constantly was complicit with women who violated this taboo, it was strictly forbidden for a woman, who was not a wife, mother, or sister, to speak to a man in public, let alone invite the man to her house. Yet Jesus is not scandalized and there's not a hint to scandal in Martha's invitation.
Martha also seems not to have gotten the permission of her brother, in that culture, the head of the house, if she could issue her invitation to Jesus.
Whatever negative conclusions we may draw about her from the rest of this incident, Martha understood that the kingdom that Jesus came to bring was and is different from the kingdoms of this world.
The apostle Paul would describe this difference well. He said that for those who are in Christ, who believe in Christ and are part of His Church: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
But even Martha, who rejoices in the salvation and direct access that God graciously gives us through Jesus, because Jesus is truly God and truly human, doesn’t understand the implications of this very well. Verses 39-40: “She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’”
Now, we often view this just as Martha being resentful of her sister not doing the work that Martha is doing. But there’s more to it than that.
You see, for most women in first-century Judea, welcoming Jesus and His other disciples with extravagant hospitality was more than a social duty, it brought them dignity and appreciation.
Do you remember when Jesus visited the home of the apostle Peter and found Peter’s mother-in-law sick with a fever? Luke 4:39 says that Jesus “...bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.”
I used to think it terribly unfair that as soon Jesus healed the woman from her fever, she had to start serving the guests. But for Peter’s mother-in-law, as perhaps for Martha from today’s gospel lesson, exhibiting radical hospitality was her holy calling, her area of spiritual giftedness.
Martha’s problem was that she thought that all of Jesus’ female disciples had the same calling that she had. They were, she thought, all to act as hostesses while the men listened to Jesus.
As conservative and Anglican New Testament scholar N.T. Wright notes in his commentary on this passage: “to sit at the feet of a teacher was a decidedly male role.”
And to sit at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him intently, as Mary was doing, was not just an act of worshipful adoration. You see, rabbis--teachers--gathered students to prepare them to become rabbis or teachers to others.
The Church needs hostesses and hosts, just as the Church needs accountants, handypeople, Sunday School teachers, worship leaders, musicians, small group leaders, Scripture lesson readers, cooks and bottle washers, folks who take care of the altar, ushers, youth and children’s leaders, and others. It also needs preachers and teachers of the Gospel Word. And that is what Mary’ was saying her call was when she sat at Jesus’ feet to listen to Him.
Martha thought Mary was being uppity. Martha is really telling Jesus, “Lord, tell Mary to go back to the kitchen where she belongs.” Some women and some men do belong in kitchens. It’s where they’re gifted. But other people--women and men--belong in the pulpit.
This is essentially what Jesus is telling Martha in the last few verses of our gospel lesson. “‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered [the double use of Martha’s name denoting Jesus’ sadness for her], ‘you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’”
To, through faith, experience Christ living in us and to see the Holy Spirit using our own unique gifts and callings to bring God glory and to tell the world about Jesus is a calling that cannot be taken away from the Christian.
“Martha,” Jesus is telling her, “just because Mary’s discipleship doesn’t look like yours, doesn’t mean she’s less faithful than you. Just because only men have been preachers and teachers in the past doesn’t mean that’s how it’s going to be or got to be in my Church. Her discipleship, though rooted in the same truth, the same will of God, the same Word of God, and the same Gospel, won’t look exactly the same as yours.”
In The Horse and the Boy, a book in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, a young girl asks Aslan, the Christ figure of those books, about what will become of her old nurse back in her home country. “Child,” Aslan answers, “I am telling you your story, not hers. No one is told any story but their own.”
This is Jesus’ message to Martha and to us as well. Yes, as members of Christ’s body, we are accountable to the Word of God and to one another, but we dare not presume to take the place of God by telling others what the story Christ has written for them must be.
Martha was to employ her gifts within the body of Christ, just as Jesus was calling Mary to use her particular gifts in that same body. We need each other and each other’s gifts as Christians and it would be wrong--not to mention boring--to expect every other believer in Jesus to be exactly like us.
Martha seems to have gotten what Jesus taught her. The Gospel of John tells us that just before Jesus was crucified, He was back at the home of Martha, Lazarus, and Mary for yet another dinner. John says that, “Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair.” (John 12:2-3)
Martha serves without bellyaching and Mary once more becomes a lightning rod for criticism by doing another controversial thing. (That’s an occupational hazard for preachers.) This time, it isn’t Martha who attacks Mary. Martha seems by now to appreciate her sister’s calling and giftedness. This time the attacker is Judas, the one who will betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. “‘Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages,’ [he bellows]. He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.” (John 12:5-6) Maybe somebody should have told Judas to focus on following Christ himself. Maybe that message would have fallen on deaf ears. Maybe it was too late for Judas to hear it.
But it’s not too late for us! Jesus has called each of us to follow Jesus with our own unique gifts and personalities.
The differences between us as disciples of Jesus aren’t something to be lamented, not something to be complained about, not something that should cause us to try making others conform to our image. Our call as Christ’s body is to encourage one another to follow Christ so that He can reconstruct us in His image, so that Christ, His lordship, and His love will be manifest in each of us in the unique ways He has in mind for us.
We need lots of Marthas, Marys, Lazaruses, and others to fulfill the mission Christ has given us to pursue together: to be and to make disciples of Jesus Christ.
May we always honor God by respecting one another’s uniqueness as children of God. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Showing posts with label C.S Lewis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label C.S Lewis. Show all posts
Monday, July 22, 2019
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Fight the Good Fight!
2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
A pastor once told a group of us who were meeting together his theory on communicating information to people. “Just about the time you’re sick of hearing yourself say it,” he said, “is probably just the time that people are beginning to hear what you’re saying.”
As we come to our second Bible lesson for today, we may suspect that the apostle Paul had a similar theory about communication.
In 1 Timothy, the first letter he sent to the young pastor, Timothy, Paul wrote, “ I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well…” (1 Timothy 1:18).
Later in that first letter, Paul wrote, “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.…” (1 Timothy 6:12)
And in today’s lesson, Paul encourages Timothy to learn from Paul’s life, telling Timothy, even as Paul faced what he regarded as the certainty of execution for his faith in Christ, “ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.…” (2 Timothy 4:7)
Don’t misunderstand, though! Jesus is the Prince of peace, of course. Paul himself wrote about how, in Christ, God made peace with the human race and offered us the incredible peace of knowing that all who trust in Christ belong to God forever. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:18 about how “God, who reconciled us to himself [or made peace with us] through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation…” Through Christ, we can have peace with God, with others, and even with ourselves. And we are called to share that peace.
But that doesn’t mean that following Jesus Christ in this world will be without its struggles.
Sometimes, those struggles will be within us, as we battle to stay faithful in the midst of experiences we can’t explain and, that we fear, are beyond our endurance. Or, when we struggle to justify our own sins despite the will of God made clear in His Word.
Often though, those struggles will come in the form of conflict with other people. Mark it down: Hold onto Jesus and you will sometimes be in conflict with others, sometimes with people you once thought were close to you.
“Do not suppose,” Jesus says in Matthew 10:34-38, “that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”
Each week during worship, through the words of either the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed, we confess that the God we know in Jesus Christ is the only rightful Lord and King of the universe. We confess that only Jesus is worthy of our ultimate allegiance. And we also confess that it is only through faith in Jesus Christ and repentance for sin in His Name that humanity can find joy, healing, hope, forgiveness of sin, reconciliation with our Maker Who we push our of our lives when we sin, and everlasting life.
Make confessions like these, both Jesus and Paul tell us, and you will have a fight on your hands! And that's especially true if your faith in Jesus Christ is more than just words recited in this sanctuary on Sunday mornings. When we dare to carry Jesus beyond these walls, we may find ourselves in a fight or two.
Whenever, for example. we, in Jesus’ name and in the power of the Holy Spirit, dare to love the unlovable or forgive the unpardonable, we will offend people and get a fight.
But even in the face of resistance, we must ask God for strength to keep fighting the good fight: to keep making disciples by sharing Jesus and our lives with others.
The reason for this is simple. C.S. Lewis puts it this way in Mere Christianity: “Christianity is a fighting religion.”
As Christians, our call isn’t as Paul reminds us elsewhere, to struggle against flesh and blood, other people. We fight the devil and the demonic powers who want to hold people for whom Jesus died and rose eternally captive to sin, death, and darkness.
But we don't fight alone...or even in our own power!
God fought for us--for our very lives--all the way to the cross and then, after Jesus’ crucifixion had seemingly signaled that nothing about us could be made right, the Father pulled the Son up from the grave and gave Him life again, a life that He shares with all who turn from sin and trust in Him.
This good news--this gospel--changes the lives of those who follow Jesus forever! We have victory no matter what the devil may hurl at us!
Today, it’s our task, no matter how we may be buffeted, rejected, ignored, or scoffed at, to fight the good fight to communicate over and over, however many times we may need to repeat it in words and actions and service and love, that God really did so love the world that He gave His only Son so that all who believe in Him will be not be separated from God and the life that only God can give, but live with God and God’s people for all eternity!
Sharing and living this message is the good fight of faith. And friends: It’s the only fight worth our time or attention!
I know that in the midst of a hotly contested election season, that may be hard to remember. But we must remember it! A president will be elected and serve four or eight years. But Jesus is Lord, Savior, God, and King for eternity. No accomplishment of any president or king or emperor or prime minister comes even close to what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross!
It’s this message of new, eternal life with God for dying sinners that Paul felt worth repeating again and again, in many different ways and circumstances. It's a message worth building our lives on too!
When life throws you a bad break, fight the good fight: hold onto Jesus.
When you find yourself disagreeing with God about what constitutes a sin, fight the good fight: repent and ask God to help you to live according to God’s will, not your own.
When a friend loses a loved one, don’t make yourself scarce, afraid of saying the wrong thing; pray God to give you the right words and the right listening silences, and go to that friend. That’s fighting the good fight, too.
When you see a classmate mistreated or a co-worker shafted, fight the good fight; go to them and be the loving presence of Christ and pray with them.
When you see someone struggling with life without a clue, fight the good fight; go to them, pray with them, and tell them about the hope you have in Jesus Christ.
Pastor George Hartman, a former missionary, was the senior pastor of Saint John Lutheran Church in Grove City for many years. I first got to know George when I was the twenty-five year old Elder of our home church on the west side of Columbus and Saint John was part of the same cluster of congregations. I came to know George better when Saint John was a mission partner to the mission congregation I pastored in Cincinnati, Friendship. George Hartman was absolutely sold-out, no turning back, no-doubt-about-it in love with Jesus Christ! He wanted people to be saved from sin and death by becoming Jesus’ disciples.
I’ll never forget one Sunday afternoon about twenty-five years ago. The people of Friendship were invited to Saint John for a joint worship service celebrating and praying for our partnership. (At that time, Friendship had grown to a whole 20 members, including my family!) I preached.
Sitting in the front row was George Hartman. I explained that though Friendship was small, already we had seen several adults come to faith in Jesus Christ. “Thanks to you, your prayers, and your gifts” I told the people of Saint John, “there are people you will meet one day in heaven, even if you never meet them on earth, people who, without your commitment to Jesus, might have been lost to God for all eternity.”
I wasn’t going for sentimentality, just stating the facts. But just as I said that, I caught sight of George. Tears were streaming down his face as he thought about the people saved by the sharing of Christ’s gospel who he would one day see in heaven. Folks, those were the joyful tears of a follower of Jesus committed to fighting the good fight of faith, fighting to ensure that every lost soul has a chance to know and follow Jesus!
Among our neighbors, family members, co-workers, and classmates, there are people you and I know who face their days without Christ and without the help that only He can bring.
There are people we know facing an eternity without Jesus Christ, of eternal separation from God and an eternity in hell.
There are people we know who need Jesus Christ.
Doesn’t that make you fighting mad at sin, death, and the devil, the devil who has always tried to deceive people into believing that they can be their own gods, that their sins aren’t so bad?
Don't you want, every single day, to fight for the eternal salvation of such people?
Please, in Jesus’ Name, I beg you to pray for the people in your lives who don’t know Jesus.
Serve them in Jesus’ Name.
Help them to know Jesus.
Help them to see how your perfect Savior is helping you, loving you, and saving you despite your imperfections.
Start a Bible study with them. (I’ll direct you to materials to make it happen.)
Pray with them.
Be there for them.
More than ever before, the world needs Christians to fulfill the mission Jesus has given to us: to be and to make disciples of Jesus Christ.
That’s the fight of our lives!
It’s a fight fought with the love of Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, the truth of God’s Word, and the prayers of disciples who know that all is hopeless without Jesus.
When we fight this fight, the devil opposes us, (the devil always opposes faithful churches and faithful people) but God-the God Who died on a cross and rose from the dead and gave us faith--stands with us, just as He did with Paul.
Fight the good fight of faith in Christ. It truly is the only fight worth fighting in this world. Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This message was shared at both worship services this morning.]
A pastor once told a group of us who were meeting together his theory on communicating information to people. “Just about the time you’re sick of hearing yourself say it,” he said, “is probably just the time that people are beginning to hear what you’re saying.”
As we come to our second Bible lesson for today, we may suspect that the apostle Paul had a similar theory about communication.
In 1 Timothy, the first letter he sent to the young pastor, Timothy, Paul wrote, “ I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well…” (1 Timothy 1:18).
Later in that first letter, Paul wrote, “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.…” (1 Timothy 6:12)
And in today’s lesson, Paul encourages Timothy to learn from Paul’s life, telling Timothy, even as Paul faced what he regarded as the certainty of execution for his faith in Christ, “ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.…” (2 Timothy 4:7)
For any who have grown sleepy with an unchristian sentimentality over the Bible’s description of Jesus as “the Prince of peace,” all of Paul’s talk about living out faith in Christ as a “fight,” may be a bit jarring.
Don’t misunderstand, though! Jesus is the Prince of peace, of course. Paul himself wrote about how, in Christ, God made peace with the human race and offered us the incredible peace of knowing that all who trust in Christ belong to God forever. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:18 about how “God, who reconciled us to himself [or made peace with us] through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation…” Through Christ, we can have peace with God, with others, and even with ourselves. And we are called to share that peace.
But that doesn’t mean that following Jesus Christ in this world will be without its struggles.
Sometimes, those struggles will be within us, as we battle to stay faithful in the midst of experiences we can’t explain and, that we fear, are beyond our endurance. Or, when we struggle to justify our own sins despite the will of God made clear in His Word.
Often though, those struggles will come in the form of conflict with other people. Mark it down: Hold onto Jesus and you will sometimes be in conflict with others, sometimes with people you once thought were close to you.
“Do not suppose,” Jesus says in Matthew 10:34-38, “that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”
Each week during worship, through the words of either the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed, we confess that the God we know in Jesus Christ is the only rightful Lord and King of the universe. We confess that only Jesus is worthy of our ultimate allegiance. And we also confess that it is only through faith in Jesus Christ and repentance for sin in His Name that humanity can find joy, healing, hope, forgiveness of sin, reconciliation with our Maker Who we push our of our lives when we sin, and everlasting life.
Make confessions like these, both Jesus and Paul tell us, and you will have a fight on your hands! And that's especially true if your faith in Jesus Christ is more than just words recited in this sanctuary on Sunday mornings. When we dare to carry Jesus beyond these walls, we may find ourselves in a fight or two.
Whenever, for example. we, in Jesus’ name and in the power of the Holy Spirit, dare to love the unlovable or forgive the unpardonable, we will offend people and get a fight.
But even in the face of resistance, we must ask God for strength to keep fighting the good fight: to keep making disciples by sharing Jesus and our lives with others.
The reason for this is simple. C.S. Lewis puts it this way in Mere Christianity: “Christianity is a fighting religion.”
As Christians, our call isn’t as Paul reminds us elsewhere, to struggle against flesh and blood, other people. We fight the devil and the demonic powers who want to hold people for whom Jesus died and rose eternally captive to sin, death, and darkness.
But we don't fight alone...or even in our own power!
God fought for us--for our very lives--all the way to the cross and then, after Jesus’ crucifixion had seemingly signaled that nothing about us could be made right, the Father pulled the Son up from the grave and gave Him life again, a life that He shares with all who turn from sin and trust in Him.
This good news--this gospel--changes the lives of those who follow Jesus forever! We have victory no matter what the devil may hurl at us!
Today, it’s our task, no matter how we may be buffeted, rejected, ignored, or scoffed at, to fight the good fight to communicate over and over, however many times we may need to repeat it in words and actions and service and love, that God really did so love the world that He gave His only Son so that all who believe in Him will be not be separated from God and the life that only God can give, but live with God and God’s people for all eternity!
Sharing and living this message is the good fight of faith. And friends: It’s the only fight worth our time or attention!
I know that in the midst of a hotly contested election season, that may be hard to remember. But we must remember it! A president will be elected and serve four or eight years. But Jesus is Lord, Savior, God, and King for eternity. No accomplishment of any president or king or emperor or prime minister comes even close to what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross!
It’s this message of new, eternal life with God for dying sinners that Paul felt worth repeating again and again, in many different ways and circumstances. It's a message worth building our lives on too!
When life throws you a bad break, fight the good fight: hold onto Jesus.
When you find yourself disagreeing with God about what constitutes a sin, fight the good fight: repent and ask God to help you to live according to God’s will, not your own.
When a friend loses a loved one, don’t make yourself scarce, afraid of saying the wrong thing; pray God to give you the right words and the right listening silences, and go to that friend. That’s fighting the good fight, too.
When you see a classmate mistreated or a co-worker shafted, fight the good fight; go to them and be the loving presence of Christ and pray with them.
When you see someone struggling with life without a clue, fight the good fight; go to them, pray with them, and tell them about the hope you have in Jesus Christ.
Pastor George Hartman, a former missionary, was the senior pastor of Saint John Lutheran Church in Grove City for many years. I first got to know George when I was the twenty-five year old Elder of our home church on the west side of Columbus and Saint John was part of the same cluster of congregations. I came to know George better when Saint John was a mission partner to the mission congregation I pastored in Cincinnati, Friendship. George Hartman was absolutely sold-out, no turning back, no-doubt-about-it in love with Jesus Christ! He wanted people to be saved from sin and death by becoming Jesus’ disciples.
I’ll never forget one Sunday afternoon about twenty-five years ago. The people of Friendship were invited to Saint John for a joint worship service celebrating and praying for our partnership. (At that time, Friendship had grown to a whole 20 members, including my family!) I preached.
Sitting in the front row was George Hartman. I explained that though Friendship was small, already we had seen several adults come to faith in Jesus Christ. “Thanks to you, your prayers, and your gifts” I told the people of Saint John, “there are people you will meet one day in heaven, even if you never meet them on earth, people who, without your commitment to Jesus, might have been lost to God for all eternity.”
I wasn’t going for sentimentality, just stating the facts. But just as I said that, I caught sight of George. Tears were streaming down his face as he thought about the people saved by the sharing of Christ’s gospel who he would one day see in heaven. Folks, those were the joyful tears of a follower of Jesus committed to fighting the good fight of faith, fighting to ensure that every lost soul has a chance to know and follow Jesus!
Among our neighbors, family members, co-workers, and classmates, there are people you and I know who face their days without Christ and without the help that only He can bring.
There are people we know facing an eternity without Jesus Christ, of eternal separation from God and an eternity in hell.
There are people we know who need Jesus Christ.
Doesn’t that make you fighting mad at sin, death, and the devil, the devil who has always tried to deceive people into believing that they can be their own gods, that their sins aren’t so bad?
Don't you want, every single day, to fight for the eternal salvation of such people?
Please, in Jesus’ Name, I beg you to pray for the people in your lives who don’t know Jesus.
Serve them in Jesus’ Name.
Help them to know Jesus.
Help them to see how your perfect Savior is helping you, loving you, and saving you despite your imperfections.
Start a Bible study with them. (I’ll direct you to materials to make it happen.)
Pray with them.
Be there for them.
More than ever before, the world needs Christians to fulfill the mission Jesus has given to us: to be and to make disciples of Jesus Christ.
That’s the fight of our lives!
It’s a fight fought with the love of Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, the truth of God’s Word, and the prayers of disciples who know that all is hopeless without Jesus.
When we fight this fight, the devil opposes us, (the devil always opposes faithful churches and faithful people) but God-the God Who died on a cross and rose from the dead and gave us faith--stands with us, just as He did with Paul.
Fight the good fight of faith in Christ. It truly is the only fight worth fighting in this world. Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This message was shared at both worship services this morning.]
Monday, January 07, 2013
5 Thoughts on Prayer for the New Year
The beginning of a new year is often a time when people resolve to have a more active prayer life. But through the years, I've seen people who make this resolution with sincerity find it tough to pursue. So, here are a few thoughts on prayer to help you have a fulfilling prayer life.
1. Remember that prayer is a lot simpler than you may think. "What should I say?" people have asked me.
Jesus says that He calls those who follow Him and obey Him by trusting in Him for their salvation are His friends (John 15:5; John 6:29).
So, ask yourself, "How do I talk with my friends?" Before you get together with your friends, do you sit down and put together an agenda?
Formal, public prayer may sometimes require more forethought and planning. But if the God made known to all the world in Jesus Christ is your friend, just talk with Him.
2. Remember that prayer is a lot more complicated than you may think.
I love something C.S. Lewis writes in his classic, Mere Christianity:
3. Remember that it's likely your most genuine, authentic praying will happen when you are so overwhelmed by your circumstances that you don't know what to pray.
The Bible teaches that God's power is brought to bear perfectly in our lives when we are strong enough to admit our vulnerability and weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
This is why Ole Hallesby, a great Lutheran pastor and teacher of the last century, said that there are two elements that must be present in order for prayer to actually be prayer:
4. Nothing you pray about, no request you make, is stupid.
As you continue to submit to God, He may show you through His Word, the Bible, and through counsel consistent with the Bible that you hear or learn in other ways, that some of your requests as ill-advised or even contrary to the will of God.
But never be afraid to speak your mind and heart to God!
Someone, Bill Hybels among others, has said that, as Jesus promises, God always answers prayer offered in Jesus' Name. But God may answer our prayers in four different ways:
5. It's good to keep God's priorities for prayer in mind. When God in the flesh, Jesus, was asked by His disciples how to pray, He gave as a model what we call, "the Lord's Prayer" or the "Our Father."
The prayer is divisible into sections and prayer petitions, as Martin Luther does in The Small Catechism:
The Lord's Prayer represents a way we can ask God to move us away from selfishness to holiness in our praying.
The introduction and the first three petitions are all about God's Name and will being honored by the world and us. It isn't until the fourth petition that Jesus teaches us to pray for something for ourselves and even then, He doesn't tell us to pray for a iPad or a Mercedes-Benz, but what we need this day to live.
Seeking to have our prayer lives reflect the kind of concern for God and for others that Jesus models in the Lord's Prayer is a good goal.
I'm still working on that myself and, because I'm a sinner saved only by the grace God grants to those who surrender to Jesus, I no doubt will have to continue working on it until the moment I draw my last breath on earth.But some goals are worth pursuing no matter how outrageous the odds!
1. Remember that prayer is a lot simpler than you may think. "What should I say?" people have asked me.
Jesus says that He calls those who follow Him and obey Him by trusting in Him for their salvation are His friends (John 15:5; John 6:29).
So, ask yourself, "How do I talk with my friends?" Before you get together with your friends, do you sit down and put together an agenda?
Formal, public prayer may sometimes require more forethought and planning. But if the God made known to all the world in Jesus Christ is your friend, just talk with Him.
2. Remember that prayer is a lot more complicated than you may think.
I love something C.S. Lewis writes in his classic, Mere Christianity:
An ordinary Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get in touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him [God the Holy Spirit, Who comes to us in Holy Baptism]. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God--that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying--the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on--the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal Being [the Holy Trinity, one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers.Every prayer we offer is an instance of God empowering us to militate against our inborn impulse to self-sufficiency and self-will. And that is a complicated miracle of grace. Never lose your wonder at that!
3. Remember that it's likely your most genuine, authentic praying will happen when you are so overwhelmed by your circumstances that you don't know what to pray.
The Bible teaches that God's power is brought to bear perfectly in our lives when we are strong enough to admit our vulnerability and weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
This is why Ole Hallesby, a great Lutheran pastor and teacher of the last century, said that there are two elements that must be present in order for prayer to actually be prayer:
- faith in the God revealed in Jesus Christ and
- helplessness, the realization that only God and not we ourselves can make happen the things for which we pray.
...we do not know how to pray as we ought, but...[the Holy] Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words...Go to God. God will take care of the rest.
4. Nothing you pray about, no request you make, is stupid.
As you continue to submit to God, He may show you through His Word, the Bible, and through counsel consistent with the Bible that you hear or learn in other ways, that some of your requests as ill-advised or even contrary to the will of God.
But never be afraid to speak your mind and heart to God!
Someone, Bill Hybels among others, has said that, as Jesus promises, God always answers prayer offered in Jesus' Name. But God may answer our prayers in four different ways:
- God may say, "No"
- God may say, "Maybe"
- God may say, "Wait"
- God may say, "Yes"
5. It's good to keep God's priorities for prayer in mind. When God in the flesh, Jesus, was asked by His disciples how to pray, He gave as a model what we call, "the Lord's Prayer" or the "Our Father."
The prayer is divisible into sections and prayer petitions, as Martin Luther does in The Small Catechism:
- The introduction: Our Father, Who art in heaven
- The first petition: Hallowed be Thy Name
- The second petition: Thy kingdom come
- The third petition: Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven
- The fourth petition: Give us this day our daily bread
- The fifth petition: And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us
- The sixth petition: And lead us not into temptation
- The seventh petition: But deliver us from evil
- The conclusion (added by the Church, based on Scripture): For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen
The Lord's Prayer represents a way we can ask God to move us away from selfishness to holiness in our praying.
The introduction and the first three petitions are all about God's Name and will being honored by the world and us. It isn't until the fourth petition that Jesus teaches us to pray for something for ourselves and even then, He doesn't tell us to pray for a iPad or a Mercedes-Benz, but what we need this day to live.
Seeking to have our prayer lives reflect the kind of concern for God and for others that Jesus models in the Lord's Prayer is a good goal.
I'm still working on that myself and, because I'm a sinner saved only by the grace God grants to those who surrender to Jesus, I no doubt will have to continue working on it until the moment I draw my last breath on earth.But some goals are worth pursuing no matter how outrageous the odds!
Monday, April 23, 2012
What Do Christians Mean When Confessing "the Resurrection of the Dead"?
[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, on April 22, 2012.]
Luke 24:36-49
To begin this morning, let’s look at two great verses about the greatest promise God gives to all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ.
First, Romans 10:9: “...if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Now, turn to one of my favorite passages, John 11:25-26. Jesus spoke these words to His friend, Martha, grieving over the loss of her brother, Lazarus: “I am the resurrection and the life. [All] who [believe] in Me, though [they] die, they shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.”
Both of these passages--and many more--tell us that Christ shares His Easter resurrection with all who entrust their lives to Him. They bring God's comfort and power into our lives!
But they can trouble and baffle us too.
A woman in my first parish had just lost her husband. “Pastor,” she said, “what exactly do we mean when we say that we believe in ‘the resurrection of the dead.’ I’ve said it all my life. But I’m not sure I understand it.”
Her confusion was understandable.
Ask the average Christian what happens to believers after they die and they may say something like: “Well, I guess that our immortal spirits go to live with God.” This is the kind of thing that the ancient Greeks and Romans said happened to people when they died. It’s not what the Bible teaches.
First of all, the Bible doesn’t say that we have immortal spirits. It says that we are mortal beings, completely dependent on the breath or the Spirit of God to live. Genesis says that when God created the first man, He did so by scooping dirt from the earth He had just created and exhaling life into it. We have no immortal spirit; either we have the breath or spirit of God within us and live or we don't have God's life within us and die. This is why we often say at grave sites, "Ashes to ashes; dust to dust."
And, according to the Bible, as believers in Christ, you and I are not destined to be airy murky ghosts.
When you and I, as believers in the promises of God recorded in both the Old and New Testaments, confess a belief in “the resurrection of the dead,” we’re saying something different from what any other religion or popular belief system has asserted.
Take a look at 1 Corinthians 15, starting at verse 51. These words written by the apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit in the first century and are addressed to believers in Christ: “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed--in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible [this not only means they can no longer sin, but also that their bodies will no longer deteriorate, age, or decay], and we shall all be changed. For this corruptible [nature] must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality...”
When believers in Christ are resurrected, it will be the result of God making a brand new creation. It’ll be a new Genesis.
We will, in some sense, look the same as we do here and now and we will have the benefit of all the lessons this life has taught us, but we who were once simply people of earth will become people of both earth and heaven.
On a day known only to God the Father, Jesus will show up on this earth and bring His new, eternal creation to supplant the old, tottering, death- and sin-infested creation in which you and I now live and we will rise, not as wispy spirits, but as new human beings.
It may happen long centuries after we have died, our skin and bones already reduced to dust or ashes, but God can bring new life from ashes. And God will not forget us! He will raise up all who have believed in His Son.
This is not a new teaching. Job is probably the oldest book in the Old Testament. Yet Job expressed belief in the resurrection that would come to all who believed in the God Who would, in the fullness of time, come into the world to die and rise again. Look at what Job says in Job 19:25-26: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He shall stand on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know: That in my flesh I shall see God.” In my flesh I will see God; not from the perspective of some ghostly phantom!
But how do we know that it’s true? In 1 Corinthians, Paul calls Jesus Christ “the firstfruits of the dead.” The resurrected Jesus is God’s prototype of what we will be like when those who follow Jesus are resurrected. 1 John 3:2 speaks to believers, “...it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when [Jesus] is revealed [at His return to this world], we shall be like Him...” The risen Jesus is the new Adam and those who believe in Him are destined by God to be like Him!
Turn to our gospel lesson, Luke 24:36-49 to see what we will be like.
Let's set the scene: It’s later in the day on the first Easter Sunday. Just before the events of today's lesson, Cleopas and another disciple had walked with the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus. But they only realized it was Jesus when Jesus, at the table with them, “took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.”
After Jesus disappeared, they tore back to Jerusalem to tell other followers of Jesus that the crazy story brought from the tomb by some of the women disciples was true. Jesus was risen from the dead. They had seen Him too! When they got back to Jerusalem, they were told that Peter too, had seen the risen Jesus.
While they were talking about all of this, Jesus suddenly appeared among them. Verse 37 says that all of the disciples--the eleven apostles plus other believers in Jesus--”were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.” Other translations say they thought they were seeing a ghost.
Why would they have thought that? After all, they had it from multiple witnesses by then that Jesus was raised from the dead.
The answer is simple: People with physical bodies don’t just show up in the midst of a crowd of people. They walk through open doors or, at least, slink in through open windows. But there had been no walking or slinking. Jesus had just appeared. Clearly, the resurrected Jesus isn’t constrained by the things that ordinarily constrain us.
In the face of their doubts, Jesus issues a challenge to the disciples in verse 39: “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.” Then, to underscore that He is no ghost, but a body of flesh and bone, in verse 41, Jesus looks around like a teenager at the end of a school day (or at the end of the 30 Hour Famine) and asks, “Got anything to eat?” (Actually, “Have you any food here?”) The disciples give Jesus boiled fish. Spirits don’t have bodies that can be touched. Ghosts don’t eat. Living bodies do.
So, what does all of this have to do with you and me?
First of all, it means that our bodies are important. As C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity: "God likes matter. He invented it."
The fact is that Jesus died and rose not to bring us to some murky, spiritual half-life. Jesus died and rose so that God can recreate us as physical beings, just as He originally intended when He made Adam and Eve.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:19, that the physical body of each believer in Jesus Christ is "a temple of the Holy Spirit." God cares about what we do to and how we care for our bodies.
Second, we can live each day in the confidence that whatever comes our ways in this life, we belong to a risen Lord Who has big plans for us. Romans 14:8-9 says: “For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again that He might be Lord of both the living and the dead.” The risen Jesus can be with us, filling us with His life, all the time.
Third, we know that repentance and belief are more than nice ideas. In verse 47 of our lesson, Jesus says that the reason He calls the Church into existence is to tell the world about His suffering and resurrection and so that “repentance and remission [or forgiveness] of sins should be preached in [Jesus’] Name to all nations...” It’s those who repent and believe who will share in Jesus’ resurrection. That needs to be lived out in our daily lives...and shared with others!
Finally, we should know this: While all the mysteries about what will happen the moment after we breathe our last in this world haven’t disappeared, we can be certain that those who have died before Jesus’ returns are with Him. The New Testament does say that those who have died believing in Jesus have gone to sleep and from the perspective of this world made imperfect and time-bound by human sin, that’s true.
But the Bible teaches that there are two dimensions of reality. On the one hand, there is the earthly. In this dimension, we’re constrained by things like time and space and sin. The other dimension of reality is the heavenly. It’s the place where God reigns.
The heavenly dimension has invaded the earthly reality through Jesus and is being invaded still every time we read God’s Word, receive Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, or pray and serve in Jesus’ Name. We pray for the fullest possible invasion of the heavenly dimension into our lives and the life of the world every time we pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
One day, when Jesus returns to the world, that invasion will be complete. The old will pass away and the new will take control forever.
And what happens in the meantime? Look at Luke 23:42. Jesus is dying on the cross between two criminals. One joins the crowd in excoriating Jesus. The other though says to Jesus: “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” Then Jesus makes a promise: “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise.”
Right now, this very moment, if you trust your past sins along with your present and future life to the control of Jesus, you are in His kingdom, though we do, in the Biblical phrase, see through a glass darkly.
And right now, those who have died believing in Jesus are with Him in paradise. We can’t see them now in their resurrected bodies and, from the perspective of this time-bound world, their resurrection has yet to happen. But in that other dimension--the heavenly dimension--they are with Jesus now in strong, youthful bodies.
They’re eating and drinking at the table of the Lord.
They’re laughing and rejoicing in a kingdom in which every tear has been wiped away, every physical ailment is banished, and sin is a forgotten affliction.
If, in the power of God, we will spend our lives turning from sin and entrusting our every moment to the risen Christ, the kingdom in which they live right now--the kingdom of Jesus--will be ours forever. The resurrection of Jesus shows us that it’s so.
Amen
Luke 24:36-49
To begin this morning, let’s look at two great verses about the greatest promise God gives to all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ.
First, Romans 10:9: “...if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Now, turn to one of my favorite passages, John 11:25-26. Jesus spoke these words to His friend, Martha, grieving over the loss of her brother, Lazarus: “I am the resurrection and the life. [All] who [believe] in Me, though [they] die, they shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.”
Both of these passages--and many more--tell us that Christ shares His Easter resurrection with all who entrust their lives to Him. They bring God's comfort and power into our lives!
But they can trouble and baffle us too.
A woman in my first parish had just lost her husband. “Pastor,” she said, “what exactly do we mean when we say that we believe in ‘the resurrection of the dead.’ I’ve said it all my life. But I’m not sure I understand it.”
Her confusion was understandable.
Ask the average Christian what happens to believers after they die and they may say something like: “Well, I guess that our immortal spirits go to live with God.” This is the kind of thing that the ancient Greeks and Romans said happened to people when they died. It’s not what the Bible teaches.
First of all, the Bible doesn’t say that we have immortal spirits. It says that we are mortal beings, completely dependent on the breath or the Spirit of God to live. Genesis says that when God created the first man, He did so by scooping dirt from the earth He had just created and exhaling life into it. We have no immortal spirit; either we have the breath or spirit of God within us and live or we don't have God's life within us and die. This is why we often say at grave sites, "Ashes to ashes; dust to dust."
And, according to the Bible, as believers in Christ, you and I are not destined to be airy murky ghosts.
When you and I, as believers in the promises of God recorded in both the Old and New Testaments, confess a belief in “the resurrection of the dead,” we’re saying something different from what any other religion or popular belief system has asserted.
Take a look at 1 Corinthians 15, starting at verse 51. These words written by the apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit in the first century and are addressed to believers in Christ: “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed--in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible [this not only means they can no longer sin, but also that their bodies will no longer deteriorate, age, or decay], and we shall all be changed. For this corruptible [nature] must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality...”
When believers in Christ are resurrected, it will be the result of God making a brand new creation. It’ll be a new Genesis.
We will, in some sense, look the same as we do here and now and we will have the benefit of all the lessons this life has taught us, but we who were once simply people of earth will become people of both earth and heaven.
On a day known only to God the Father, Jesus will show up on this earth and bring His new, eternal creation to supplant the old, tottering, death- and sin-infested creation in which you and I now live and we will rise, not as wispy spirits, but as new human beings.
It may happen long centuries after we have died, our skin and bones already reduced to dust or ashes, but God can bring new life from ashes. And God will not forget us! He will raise up all who have believed in His Son.
This is not a new teaching. Job is probably the oldest book in the Old Testament. Yet Job expressed belief in the resurrection that would come to all who believed in the God Who would, in the fullness of time, come into the world to die and rise again. Look at what Job says in Job 19:25-26: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He shall stand on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know: That in my flesh I shall see God.” In my flesh I will see God; not from the perspective of some ghostly phantom!
But how do we know that it’s true? In 1 Corinthians, Paul calls Jesus Christ “the firstfruits of the dead.” The resurrected Jesus is God’s prototype of what we will be like when those who follow Jesus are resurrected. 1 John 3:2 speaks to believers, “...it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when [Jesus] is revealed [at His return to this world], we shall be like Him...” The risen Jesus is the new Adam and those who believe in Him are destined by God to be like Him!
Turn to our gospel lesson, Luke 24:36-49 to see what we will be like.
Let's set the scene: It’s later in the day on the first Easter Sunday. Just before the events of today's lesson, Cleopas and another disciple had walked with the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus. But they only realized it was Jesus when Jesus, at the table with them, “took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.”
After Jesus disappeared, they tore back to Jerusalem to tell other followers of Jesus that the crazy story brought from the tomb by some of the women disciples was true. Jesus was risen from the dead. They had seen Him too! When they got back to Jerusalem, they were told that Peter too, had seen the risen Jesus.
While they were talking about all of this, Jesus suddenly appeared among them. Verse 37 says that all of the disciples--the eleven apostles plus other believers in Jesus--”were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.” Other translations say they thought they were seeing a ghost.
Why would they have thought that? After all, they had it from multiple witnesses by then that Jesus was raised from the dead.
The answer is simple: People with physical bodies don’t just show up in the midst of a crowd of people. They walk through open doors or, at least, slink in through open windows. But there had been no walking or slinking. Jesus had just appeared. Clearly, the resurrected Jesus isn’t constrained by the things that ordinarily constrain us.
In the face of their doubts, Jesus issues a challenge to the disciples in verse 39: “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.” Then, to underscore that He is no ghost, but a body of flesh and bone, in verse 41, Jesus looks around like a teenager at the end of a school day (or at the end of the 30 Hour Famine) and asks, “Got anything to eat?” (Actually, “Have you any food here?”) The disciples give Jesus boiled fish. Spirits don’t have bodies that can be touched. Ghosts don’t eat. Living bodies do.
So, what does all of this have to do with you and me?
First of all, it means that our bodies are important. As C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity: "God likes matter. He invented it."
The fact is that Jesus died and rose not to bring us to some murky, spiritual half-life. Jesus died and rose so that God can recreate us as physical beings, just as He originally intended when He made Adam and Eve.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:19, that the physical body of each believer in Jesus Christ is "a temple of the Holy Spirit." God cares about what we do to and how we care for our bodies.
Second, we can live each day in the confidence that whatever comes our ways in this life, we belong to a risen Lord Who has big plans for us. Romans 14:8-9 says: “For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again that He might be Lord of both the living and the dead.” The risen Jesus can be with us, filling us with His life, all the time.
Third, we know that repentance and belief are more than nice ideas. In verse 47 of our lesson, Jesus says that the reason He calls the Church into existence is to tell the world about His suffering and resurrection and so that “repentance and remission [or forgiveness] of sins should be preached in [Jesus’] Name to all nations...” It’s those who repent and believe who will share in Jesus’ resurrection. That needs to be lived out in our daily lives...and shared with others!
Finally, we should know this: While all the mysteries about what will happen the moment after we breathe our last in this world haven’t disappeared, we can be certain that those who have died before Jesus’ returns are with Him. The New Testament does say that those who have died believing in Jesus have gone to sleep and from the perspective of this world made imperfect and time-bound by human sin, that’s true.
But the Bible teaches that there are two dimensions of reality. On the one hand, there is the earthly. In this dimension, we’re constrained by things like time and space and sin. The other dimension of reality is the heavenly. It’s the place where God reigns.
The heavenly dimension has invaded the earthly reality through Jesus and is being invaded still every time we read God’s Word, receive Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, or pray and serve in Jesus’ Name. We pray for the fullest possible invasion of the heavenly dimension into our lives and the life of the world every time we pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
One day, when Jesus returns to the world, that invasion will be complete. The old will pass away and the new will take control forever.
And what happens in the meantime? Look at Luke 23:42. Jesus is dying on the cross between two criminals. One joins the crowd in excoriating Jesus. The other though says to Jesus: “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” Then Jesus makes a promise: “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise.”
Right now, this very moment, if you trust your past sins along with your present and future life to the control of Jesus, you are in His kingdom, though we do, in the Biblical phrase, see through a glass darkly.
And right now, those who have died believing in Jesus are with Him in paradise. We can’t see them now in their resurrected bodies and, from the perspective of this time-bound world, their resurrection has yet to happen. But in that other dimension--the heavenly dimension--they are with Jesus now in strong, youthful bodies.
They’re eating and drinking at the table of the Lord.
They’re laughing and rejoicing in a kingdom in which every tear has been wiped away, every physical ailment is banished, and sin is a forgotten affliction.
If, in the power of God, we will spend our lives turning from sin and entrusting our every moment to the risen Christ, the kingdom in which they live right now--the kingdom of Jesus--will be ours forever. The resurrection of Jesus shows us that it’s so.
Amen
Monday, January 11, 2010
C.S. Lewis on Truth and the Christian Freedom for Liberality of Thought
Prepping for tonight's first gathering of a group that will spend several Monday evenings discussing and reflecting on the popular novel, The Shack, at our church, I remembered the cited paragraph below from C.S. Lewis' classic, Mere Christianity.
Christians don't believe that they have a corner on the truth market. But they do believe--I believe--that God has revealed Himself to the world, first, in general terms through the universe and its amazing order; then, more specifically through His people, Israel; and finally and definitively, in Jesus. Jesus is truth and His word is truth, both claims Jesus made for Himself.
One can hardly be accused of arrogance for learning the truth that 2 X 2=4 and being willing to share it with others.
On the other hand, Christians who go around acting as though the truth about Jesus is their truth, their discovery, or the result of their goodness, rather than something that God has graciously revealed to them, do a disservice both to God and to the world around them.
Read what Lewis, who, like myself, was once an atheist, says:
Of course, just as math teachers can share the multiplication tables or alegbraic equations arrogantly, lording their knowledge of certain information over their students in such a way that they're no longer teaching, but feeding their desire for superiority, Christians can share their faith arrogantly. Scripture specifically condemns this. Peter writes in the New Testament:
Or was he simply sharing the truth as he saw it, as he felt it had been revealed?
How is this different from what one would expect of any commentator?
If the commentator offers his or her take with compassion, as Hume clearly feels for Woods, to what are people really objecting?
Christians don't believe that they have a corner on the truth market. But they do believe--I believe--that God has revealed Himself to the world, first, in general terms through the universe and its amazing order; then, more specifically through His people, Israel; and finally and definitively, in Jesus. Jesus is truth and His word is truth, both claims Jesus made for Himself.
One can hardly be accused of arrogance for learning the truth that 2 X 2=4 and being willing to share it with others.
On the other hand, Christians who go around acting as though the truth about Jesus is their truth, their discovery, or the result of their goodness, rather than something that God has graciously revealed to them, do a disservice both to God and to the world around them.
Read what Lewis, who, like myself, was once an atheist, says:
I have been asked to tell you what Christians believe, and I am going to begin by telling you one thing that Christians do not need to believe. If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view. But, of course, being a Christian does mean thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong. As in arithmetic--there is only one right answer to the sum, and all other answers are wrong; but some of the wrong answers are much nearer bring right than others.This bears relevance, it seems to me, to the brouhaha that arose after Brit Hume's comments regarding Tiger Woods.
Of course, just as math teachers can share the multiplication tables or alegbraic equations arrogantly, lording their knowledge of certain information over their students in such a way that they're no longer teaching, but feeding their desire for superiority, Christians can share their faith arrogantly. Scripture specifically condemns this. Peter writes in the New Testament:
Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; 16yet do it with gentleness and reverence. (1 Peter 3:15-16)In fairness, can anybody say that when Brit Hume suggested that Christianity had the forgiveness and restoration that Tiger Woods might need and that Buddhism did not, the commentator was being arrogant?
Or was he simply sharing the truth as he saw it, as he felt it had been revealed?
How is this different from what one would expect of any commentator?
If the commentator offers his or her take with compassion, as Hume clearly feels for Woods, to what are people really objecting?
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Ringo's LP is Okay, But He Should Think Again About Jesus
Ringo Starr is no Bob Dylan. He has a below-average voice. His songs are mostly hokie. But he's a great drummer and, as the three members of the Beatles who invited him to replace Pete Best as they began their recording career knew, a tremendous personality. The Beatle-y spirit of fun lives on in the music he continues to produce.In January, Starr released Liverpool 8, timed to coincide with his concert in Liverpool, part of that city's degination as "culture capital" of Europe for the year.
The title track, co-written with Eurythmc Dave Stewart, is a fun remembrance of his hometown and the Beatles years. Overall, it's a nice little LP, although Starr's collaboration with Mark Hudson--who, along with longtime Ringo sidemen, the Roundheads, is co-composer and producer of all but one of the LP's tracks--is growing a bit tiresome and predictable.
I also enjoy the rather offbeat and evocative tribute to his late buddy, Harry Nilsson, Harry's Song.
Two of the tracks could be omitted: Pasodobles, a Spanish-tinged song that wouldn't be good even if Starr could sing it and R U Ready?
The latter song reflects Starr's apparently growing, if superficial, interest in spiritual things and in his own mortality. In it, he equates Jesus, Buddha, and Krishna. He sings at one point, "Jesus was a wise man and everyone's a Saint/Are you ready to cross over, are you ready?"
I'm glad that Ringo thinks that Jesus was a wise man. But if he thinks that makes him ready to face death and eternity, Jesus would ask him to think again.
Jesus made bigger claims for himself than being wise. "The Father and I are one," He says, equating Himself God. And He says, "“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
Starr's lyrics reflect one of the commonest ways of dodging Jesus' call to turn from sin and believe in the message that His death and resurrection are the way to life with God forever. People call Him a nice man, a good teacher, or one of many ways to God, but not the one and only Lord and God Jesus claims to be. These dodges are attempts to have it both ways, to have Jesus without following Him.
Jesus won't have any of it, though! When confronting Jesus' message about Himself, that He is God and the only way to eternity with God, we have, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, three alternatives: We can (1) call him a liar; (2) call him a madman; or (3) fall down before him as the Lord and God he claims to be.
If Jesus is lying about Himself, He can't be the wise man that Ringo and, it seems increasingly, many, dismissively call Him.
The problem with these common statements about Jesus is that they overlook what's been revealed about Him and chronicled in the very books--the New Testament gospels--that anyone would have to call upon to label Jesus as wise.
Ringo Starr is no Bob Dylan. And though I like him, he's no theologian. And clearly, logic isn't his strong suit either.
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