The Waking Dreamer: Cross

Showing posts with label Cross. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 02, 2026

In the Face of Evil

Romans 12:9-21[1]

Our world is a beautiful one. The presence of God’s love shines through so much of our world. Focusing on the beauty of the earth helps us find joy in the goodness of creation. But our world also includes a disturbing presence. We have word for it. We call it “evil.” I’m not sure we even know what that word means any longer, to be honest. Many of us live our lives without really having to come face-to-face with evil on a day-to-day basis. We know it’s there but may not even recognize evil in our very own community. On the other hand, some of us have been so deeply affected by evil that it has always defined our lives. That’s a tragedy. Most of the people I know who live with the lingering effects of evil are doing everything in their power to set themselves free from it. And that’s a good thing. But make no mistake, we live in a world that includes evil.

To some extent, “evil” is a matter of perspective these days. Is it “evil” to take unfair advantage of someone in a business deal? Sadly, I think the answer these days depends on which side of the deal you’re on! Most people will say that it’s “evil” to deprive a person of their life savings simply to ensure a “win” in the stock market. Most people also agree that the violence that takes innocent lives is “evil.” Especially when it’s “murder.” But when it’s “collateral damage” in the context of war, we may not take it so seriously. It may take the violence of war touching your life directly for you to use the word “evil” for the violence of war. I guess I would say any violence that takes innocent lives is always evil in my opinion!

In our lesson from Paul’s letter to the Romans for today, he addresses the issue of how we as followers of Jesus Christ should respond to the evil in our world. It’s one of the more difficult teachings of the Bible: in effect Paul says, “don’t repay evil with evil but rather with good”! Perhaps the first step for us to try to live out this principle is to become aware of what is truly evil in our world. Unfortunately, I think things have gotten pretty confused here. We tend to see the “evil” that is far away from us. We may not even know the people we’re pointing the finger at, but we label them “evil,” whether rightly or wrongly. But when it comes to the “evil” that lies at our front door, or lies within us, we tend to turn a blind eye. We do that because it feels safer that way, I think. It’s certainly more convenient for us.

Jesus took a different approach: he called “evil” out where he saw it. And he saw it not in the failings of the people who were labelled “sinners” or “outcasts” or “other.” He called out “evil” when he saw people with power and privilege using that power and privilege to take advantage of others in such a way that they were doing real harm to them. I would say things haven’t changed much on that score. All too often, the “evil” that Jesus called out was being perpetrated by the leaders of his day, including the religious leaders. It’s hard for us to swallow, but I know for a fact that there are religious leaders who have so abused their position that they have done real harm. And all too often, they have done it in Jesus’ name!

One of the reasons why Paul’s teaching about how to respond to evil is so difficult for us is because Paul is following Jesus! He’s most certainly referring to Jesus’ teaching when he says, “Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them” (Rom 12:14, NLT). Jesus taught his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount to love their “enemies” and to pray for those who mistreated them (Mt 5:44; Lk 6:27-28). But there’s more to it. When Paul says, “Never pay back evil with more evil,” he’s not only following Jesus’ explicit teaching not to “resist an evildoer” (Mt 5:39), even when they strike you, even when they try to take away your most basic necessities! Paul’s going back to the original command to “love your neighbor as yourself” in Leviticus. The beginning of that verse in the original Old Testament context says, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge … but you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18)! The Bible is full of passages that resound with the same approach: don’t repay evil with evil, but rather with good!

I’ll be the first to admit that goes against the grain for most of us. Our tendency is to resist evil; we want to take the side of the victims and rush to their protection. But Paul follows Jesus and the witness of Scripture when he tells us not to resist evil, but to seek to redeem evil. I think his words reflect the wisdom that when we respond to evil with force, we only give it more power. It’s impossible to avoid the truth that “fighting fire with fire” leads inevitably to the point where we become what we’re fighting.[2] When that happens we’ve abandoned the love that God wants us to practice in the world so that we can take part in his work of redeeming the world!

I think one of the hard truths that Jesus and Paul are trying to get across to us is that only a love that is willing to suffer has the power to truly overcome evil and redeem it.[3] That’s hard to take in. But that is precisely the response God made to evil in Jesus Christ. As Frederick Buechner says, “Christianity … ultimately offers no theoretical solution [to the problem of evil]. It merely points to the cross and says that, practically speaking, there is no evil so dark and so obscene—not even this—but that God can turn it to good.”[4] We may not like it, it’s hard for us to hear, but one of the lessons of the cross is that there really is no other way to solve the problem of evil in this world! Only the willingness to respond to hostility with peace, to respond to hatred with forgiveness, to respond to violence with love, can redeem evil.[5]

That all sounds fine and good, but the question has practical dimensions that we all have to face. When someone breaks into my home and threatens to harm me or my family, what am I supposed to do? It’s a difficult question. I probably can’t answer that question for anyone but myself. But what I know is that when it comes to facing these difficult decisions, asking “What would Jesus do?” always leads me in the right direction. For myself, I would say that I would consult with home safety experts about finding ways to protect myself or my loved ones without resorting to violence. But that’s my answer to a question that’s a very personal one. At the end of the day we all have to come up with our own answers to those very personal and practical questions about how we’re going to respond to evil in our world. But we must remind ourselves that the whole Bible, from Moses to the Psalms to Jesus to the Apostles, teaches us not to repay evil with evil, but rather to respond to evil in a way that can turn it to good.

[2] Cf. John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, 477, where he says that the one who “attempts to overcome evil with evil, may perhaps surpass his enemy in doing injury, but it is to his own ruin.”

[3] Jürgen Moltmann, “Love and Sorrow,” in The Gospel of Liberation, 74-75; cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 284, where he refers to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's ideal of a "religionless Christianity" that eschews the "religious" tendency many Christians have had to look to God for "magical" intervention (like a deus ex machina), and therefore tends to be so "otherworldly" as to neglect God's redemptive purpose for the world. Instead, he advocates for a "godly worldliness" in which the effort to "seek first the kingdom of God" leads to a love that shares the sufferings of this world as "God's suffering over the world." Moltmann concludes, "the way of life in the messianic era is stamped by messianic suffering. It is hardly ever recognizable in any other way, for "dying, and behold we live" (alluding to 2 Cor 4:10). See further Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 204: “Anyone who participates in ‘Christ’s sufferings’” becomes a witness “to the coming truth against the ruling lie, to coming justice and righteousness against the prevailing injustice, and to coming life against the tyranny of death.”

[4] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking, 24.

[5] Cf. N. T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” in New Interpreters Bible 10: 715, where he says that God’s people are to meet the evil in the world “in the way that even God met it: with love and generous goodness.”

Tuesday, November 25, 2025

Backward Victory

Luke 23:33-43[1]

We live in a world where somebody has to lose for anybody to win. As I mentioned earlier this year in connection with the NCAA basketball tournament, in some cases, a lot of people have to lose for somebody to win. There are all kinds of examples of this win-lose scenario in life. Mathematicians and economists call it a “zero-sum game.” Although I wouldn’t say that I fully understand all the details, the idea is that if someone has to lose in order for someone else to win, then there is no real net benefit for the whole “system.” The alternative is a “win-win game,” where a win for one can be a win for many. In my mind, the many “collaborative” games out there, where everyone works to “win” together, are a good example. They point out the option that I wish the human family would learn: we gain more when we all win together than when we try to “beat” everyone else!

I realize that there are so many aspects of our lives that reinforce the “win-lose” scenario that a “win-win” scenario may seem positively alien. It’s almost as if we believe it’s the “American way” for there to be at least one loser (if not many) in order for there truly to be a “winner.” But there are so many examples in daily life that disprove that. Like when one farmer is injured and can’t harvest crops and the rest of the community pitches in to help out. I know that I’m an idealist, but I believe that everyone wins in that situation. I may also be a fool, but I think the world would be a better place if we all adopted that approach toward more than just the people we know. When you think about all the resources in this world—food and other commodities, money and the ability to generate it, talented and hard-working people—it really makes no sense for us in a global economy to think of anyone as an “enemy.” I may be a foolish dreamer, but I believe that if all the peoples of all nations worked together, we could make this a much better world.

Some of you may consider that to be “backward” thinking. I’m okay with that. There’s a lot about our faith that can seem “backward.” For example, today is the day in the Christian calendar when we remind ourselves that we believe that Christ reigns over all things and all people. I can think of no more “backward” way of doing that than with a Gospel lesson that describes his death on the cross! Kings don’t get dragged before their subjects and mocked by them. Kings don’t allow themselves to be spat upon and beaten. They’re the ones who are usually doling out those punishments. And on the rare occasion when a King or any other powerful person is publicly humiliated, that’s pretty much the end of their “reign.” But here we are, on this Sunday when we celebrate our faith that Christ is reigning over us all, reading the “good news” of his death on the cross.

The irony in this has raised questions since the day Jesus faced that ultimate test—especially for people who look at Jesus’ life and ask whether he actually accomplished anything. He gathered some disciples. He stirred up the Jewish leadership. And he got himself killed in the end. And while he was hanging there on that cross, vulnerable, showing all the weakness of his humanity, some in the crowd asked the question that many have repeated through the centuries: “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” (Lk 23:35). In the light of Jesus’ humiliating death, many have asked what a Jewish preacher from the First Century can do to make my life any better in the Twenty-First Century. And many have concluded that Jesus may have had some fine ideals, but he really can’t do anything to help us in this day and time.

But that conclusion misses some important signs that point out just how powerful the reign of Christ is, even in this passage that apparently presents Jesus at his weakest. One thing we need to notice is that in Luke’s Gospel, while hanging on the cross, enduring unimaginable agony, Jesus has the presence of mind to respond to his hecklers by saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk. 23:34). And when Jesus dies, he simply says, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk. 23:46). In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus gives up his life calmly and intentionally, full of trust in God.

But there’s another detail that we’re familiar with, but I think it’s easy to miss point. While Jesus is hanging on the cross, seemingly undergoing the ultimate humiliation, one of the criminals with him saw something that most all of those who witnessed this event firsthand missed. He saw that there truly was something about Jesus that set him apart. And so he took an amazing step of faith: hanging there on a cross, he looked at Jesus and asked, “remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Lk 23:42). How or why he had the faith to see Jesus hanging on the cross and believe that one day he would come into a “kingdom,” we may never know. But he did, and he asked Jesus to remember him.

I think what we need to pay attention to is Jesus’ response. It really was astonishing, if you think about it. There he was, having been beaten, having been humiliated by some of the Jewish leaders, having been strung up to die by the Roman empire. And he said to this man, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk. 23:43)! If you think about it, there was nothing about the situation that would have made anybody believe such an incredible claim under normal circumstances. And yet Jesus made the claim: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” The unnamed criminal left his request open-ended: “when you come into your kingdom, remember me.” He expresses faith, but he doesn’t pin Jesus down to anything specific. Jesus makes that astonishing claim any way: “Today,” not at some indistinct point in the future, “whenever.” “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” By doing so Jesus demonstrated not only that he was more than just an “exceptional man,” but also that what he was doing was not weak in any way. It was the ultimate display of the power of the one is the truest example there has ever been of a “king.”[2]

Despite the fact that it all seems “backward,” I think it is ultimately fitting to remind ourselves that Christ reigns over us with this story, because his death on the cross defines the way in which he exercises that reign even now. As one of our confessions puts it, “With no power but the power of love, Christ defeated sin, evil and death by reigning from the cross.”[3] The reality is that the only way for Christ’s reign of justice, peace, and freedom to be truly established in this world was through the path of the cross, where he exercised no power but the power of love. But his cross also led to his resurrection and ascension, where he was exalted, as St. Paul puts it, “far above … every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come” (Eph. 1:21). And that means that “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.” We associate those words with Georg Friedrich Handel, but he was quoting from Revelation: “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev 11:15, RSV). When you take the cross by itself, it can seem like the early Church got it all backward. But in light of the resurrection and ascension, I would say that they were able to see the true victory that came from giving up his life for us all.

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 102, where he says that when we celebrate Christ as “king” it represents “the most radical reversal of the ideal of rule that can be conceived.”

[3] The Study Catechism, question 41.

Sunday, September 21, 2025

Not Too Difficult?

Luke 14:25-35[1]

Like many of you, I do love a challenge. I’ve recently decided to start taking guitar lessons again. I took them 20 years ago, and learned to play guitar solos from classic rock songs and chord melodies from Jazz standards. Over 20 years, you can forget a lot. It’s a bit humbling to start over again, but that’s life. I’ve tried to keep up on my own, but you just learn more, and more quickly, when you have a teacher you have to meet with on a regular basis. I’ve always been that way about loving a challenge. I took all the “hardest” professors in college, just to prove to myself I could. I’ve tried to read the books that have been considered “difficult.” And in the middle of working on my PhD dissertation, I took my family to Germany for a year of study abroad. One of the reasons I did that is because one of my professors encouraged me to do so. He believed I would be up for the challenge. Some, perhaps many, might call taking a wife and two small children overseas “crazy” rather than stepping up to a challenge. But for me, it made a significant difference in my ability to step outside the box I had been living in when I was working in the Baptist world. I don’t regret that, and I don’t think I’ll ever regret rising to a challenge.

In our Scripture lesson from Deuteronomy for today, Moses encourages the people of Israel that the challenge of obeying God’s commands and following God’s ways was not “too difficult” for them. Rather, he urged them to follow the inclinations of their hearts. He believed that if they only followed the voice inside that was telling them what was right, they would be able to live up to the challenge he presented to them. Unfortunately, the history of the people of Israel demonstrates that it’s not quite that simple. Because along with the voice of conscience telling us what is right to do, we all have other voices. Especially the voice that tells us to do whatever we please. It’s a voice that tells us to take the easy way out and just avoid having to do what’s difficult. Then Jesus came along and did the most difficult thing. He gave up his life in obedience to God’s will, and then he called us to follow him in that same path! I’m not sure we always fully appreciate just how difficult that is for us to do in our daily lives.

I think our Gospel lesson from Luke illustrates that difficulty. The call to follow Jesus is one that demands that we shape our whole identity based on the kingdom of God. It’s a call to a way of life that defines all of life. Of course, none of us starts out there in our faith journey. Most of us start out simply hoping to have a better life here, and in the afterlife a home in heaven. But Jesus spoke about something more: about the kingdom of God that is in the process of changing all things and all people here and now. Most of us don’t start out with that in mind. If we continue to seek God’s kingdom, however, we will have to face a call that claims our whole lives, just like it did Jesus’ life.

One of the reasons why this can be difficult for us is because we don’t have to face the likelihood that following Christ will mean the loss of family ties, being cast out of our circle of friends, or even being stripped of the means of making a livelihood. We celebrate the fact that in this country we’re free to embrace our faith without suffering the hardships that many people have suffered for Christ throughout history, and many others still suffer to this day. It’s good to have the freedom to worship according to our conscience. But I think it makes it harder for us to appreciate how difficult it is to follow as our “Savior” and our “Lord” one who suffered a humiliating death.

I believe our Gospel lesson for today places this question front and center. In fact, it’s hard to avoid when you read this passage and really listen to it. It’s one of the hardest things Jesus ever said. Some of what Jesus says here about what it means to follow him can sound pretty harsh to us. Because of the difficulty of this passage, it’s easy to miss the “forest” for the “trees.” I think the point is that Jesus is calling us to shape our whole identity, from the roots up, around our commitment to following him and to seeking God’s kingdom. It’s a call to a way of life that defines all of life. And that means being willing to “leave everything behind,” at least to let go of it in our hearts.

Right off the bat we hear the challenge: Jesus says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:26)! Cannot be my disciple! It’s just plain jarring to hear. As is often the case with difficult passages of Scripture, we have to look elsewhere to gain the proper perspective. I don’t believe that Jesus wanted anyone to literally “hate” their families, or that he wanted anyone to literally “hate” themselves. But I would say that we have plenty of evidence that the Christians for whom Luke’s Gospel was intended actually went through this kind of thing. Their choice to follow Jesus literally put them at odds with their families. Their choice to follow Jesus meant they had to leave everything behind.[2]

Jesus follows this up with another hard demand, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:27). For us, the cross is a symbol of our faith. We decorate it with flowers and make jewelry out of it. But no one in the First Century would have made jewelry out of a cross. It would make about as much sense as making jewelry out of a hangman’s noose. There was nothing “pretty” about the cross in the First Century. We’re familiar with the sentiment of “taking up our cross,” because Jesus had earlier called those who would follow him to “deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23). I’m just not sure we understand what it means for us to take up our cross. After telling them that his path of seeking God’s kingdom was going to lead him to die on the cross, he called them to follow a similar path. He called them to “take up your cross daily.” Again, I think this brings us back to what it will cost us to follow Jesus: our very lives, and more than that, all of life.

Perhaps even more difficult for us is that Jesus sums up what it means to follow him by saying, “none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions” (Lk 14:33). This is not so much offensive as it seems downright impossible. Who can afford to give up everything they own? But perhaps the idea here is broader than just our “possessions.” Some translations say, “none of you can be my disciple unless you give up everything you have” (GNT). That’s the way older versions translated this passage. I think it’s more to the point: Jesus calls us to leave everything behind just as he did the first Apostles (Lk 5:11, 18). I think that means holding everything we have “loosely,” recognizing that it belongs to God anyway, and holding it with the freedom of offering it all back to God to use however he pleases. Jesus calls us to a way of life that defines all of life. And that means letting go of everything else. We may still “have” it, but we don’t “hold” it so tightly. It doesn’t define us.

I don’t believe that Jesus wanted anyone to literally “hate” their families or themselves. That makes no sense! I also don’t believe Jesus expected everyone who follows him to literally become a martyr for their faith, although many have done so. I believe that Jesus made the shocking statements in this passage to make clear that the kind of demands it would take for people to follow him would claim their whole lives. He was calling people to shape their whole identity based on the way of living he demonstrated for them. And he said that it was nothing short of leaving everything behind for the sake of the kingdom of God. And he used the shocking language of this passage to impress upon all who would follow him how difficult it would be to actually do that.

Jesus calls us to a way of life that defines all of life. And here we learn that “leaving everything behind” to follow Jesus applies not just to the first disciples, but to us all. That’s difficult for us to hear. We begin our faith journey hoping that it will make for a better life for us. When we hear something like this it may sound like Jesus is taking all that away. Because it doesn’t fit in with our approach to faith, we may be tempted to ignore it. But we cannot do that! Although they are difficult for us to hear, I believe we must pay attention to Jesus’ demands in this passage. The fact that they are so difficult for us to hear today, and they probably always will be, makes this passage so important. They create a tension that I think is purposeful on Jesus’ part. It was meant to draw us continually deeper into our commitment to following Christ. I’ve been reading this passage personally, professionally, and academically for over 40 years, and it continues to challenge me to this day. I hope it continues to challenge you as well. I think that’s the point: these demands continually call us to follow Jesus in a way of life that defines all of life. That means continually learning what it means for us to leave everything “behind,” to let everything go, for the sake of the kingdom of God! Perhaps Moses was right in that this means we have to seek to put into practice what our hearts are telling us is right, even and especially when the whole world may be telling us it’s wrong! But despite what Moses said about it being “not too difficult” for us, I think that’s always going to be difficult.

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 204, where he expresses the value of the decision to follow Jesus in discipleship: “Anyone who participates in ‘Christ’s sufferings’” becomes a witness “to the coming truth against the ruling lie, to coming justice and righteousness against the prevailing injustice, and to coming life against the tyranny of death.” This by definition sets those who follow him at odds with the current status quo.

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

The Depth of God's Love

The Depth of God’s Love

Philippians 2:5-11[1]

Sometimes our faith can seem to contradict the reality of our lives. Or perhaps it would be better to say that the reality of our lives seems to contradict our faith. Last week we talked about Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension to the Father as the crucial event by which God is working in the world to make everything new, already here and now. Just as the light dispels the darkness, Jesus spoke of his being “lifted up” as depriving the so-called “the ruler of this world” from any and all power. But in reality, that’s something we all have to choose to believe, and choose to see in this world. And I choose to believe that’s the truth about God and the truth about us and our world. But as I mentioned last week, there’s all too much evidence that the darkness in this world is just as deep and just as powerful as ever.

However strong our faith may be, there is a dark side to life that I think most of us would rather avoid. But whether we’re willing to look at them or not, there are dark places all over the world. There are dark places in our country, in our State, in our county—and in our town! For some, the darkness consists of a loneliness that may feel like it’s choking the life out of you. For others, it may be a sense of grief that you just cannot process. For still others, it may be a job that’s suffocating, or addictions that slowly erode the soul. For all too many, the darkness consists of mistaking what may feel good right now for “happiness.” However much we may believe that God is truly in the process of making all things new right now, there remains a dark side to life.

It’s no wonder that most of us would rather avoid facing the darkness in our world or in our own lives. But the hard truth of the matter is that the only way to overcome darkness is to have the courage to face it squarely. And that usually means taking a journey into that darkness that can be painful and frightening. The only way out of the darkness that we feel trapped in is to go through it. As we allow ourselves to wrestle with the pain and fear and doubt within, the very process itself heals us. And as we become healed, we grow strong enough to recognize the darkness without giving in to it. We grow strong enough to enjoy the freedom to live in the light. We grow confident that our faith is not misplaced, but rather that we have good reasons to believe that God is working in and through us for good right now.

I believe that’s a part of what our New Testament lesson from Philippians for today is about. It’s about Jesus’ journey into the very heart of the darkness that oppresses the human family in order to set us all free from its power. That journey led him not only to give up his rightful place with God to become a human being, just as vulnerable as the rest of us. His journey took him farther than that: he not only “emptied himself” to become human, he also subjected himself to the humiliation of a cruel execution and actually tasted death for us all. He went into the very abyss of all the darkness and suffering we can experience in this world and took it upon himself.

If we had not heard this story all our lives, I think at least some of us would venture to ask why Jesus would do such a thing. When you look at our world and the darkness in it today, you do see a few brave souls who are willing to enter some aspect of it, at least for a time. But the idea of someone actually taking on all the darkness of this world strains our ability to understand how anyone could possibly do such a thing. In the death of Jesus on a Roman cross there is something more going on than simple human compassion in action. In Jesus we see the depth of God’s love in all its life-changing power at work. I think that’s the key to understanding how Jesus could take on all the darkness in this world. And we learn from this that God’s love is a love that will not rest until it reaches out to every dark place we can possibly go to bring all of us back home to the light.

Of course, that answer is also a part of the faith we’ve been taught all our lives. But it seems to me that if we think about it, this too raises questions that may not be easy to answer. If we’re honest with ourselves, we have to at least wonder why this particular expression of God’s love was the one chosen to set us free from the darkness. Many have tried to understand this in human terms and imagine that Jesus volunteered to take God’s wrath toward us all on himself. The idea is that his death was the punishment that we deserved. It’s embedded into our faith not only through Scripture, but also through the hymns we sing. But I don’t find that perspective to be very compelling. That only reinforces the idea that we have to cower in fear before an angry God who may strike us down at any moment. And I don’t think that’s what was going on when Jesus embraced his death on the cross.

Jesus embraced the suffering of the cross because that’s who God is: a God who loves us enough to suffer for us so that we can be whole. The God of the Bible is not an angry God, but rather one who constantly suffers on behalf of his chosen people. That’s the lesson of much of the Hebrew Bible. And beginning with some of the prophets, and especially in Jesus, we see that love extended to the whole human family. That’s how the God of the Bible chooses to love us all, time and again. And the God of the Bible is a God who never quits loving us this way. Part of the mystery of our faith is that it was God who was suffering on our behalf on that cross. St. Paul said it this way, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). Somehow, some way, it’s God who takes on the suffering we endure when we wander into the dark places of this life. That’s the depth of God’s love for us all!

Now some of you may be feeling like I’m only taking you further down the “rabbit hole.” The love of God poured out for us in Jesus on the cross is indeed, as one of our confessions puts it, a mystery beyond our understanding.[2] So if you’re wondering how God could suffer for us on the cross, the only answer is a short one, though it is far from being a simple. The answer is that in Jesus we see the mystery of God’s love. It’s a mystery how God could suffer for us on that cross. In Jesus, we see the God who is the redeemer of the despised, the savior of the hopeless, the one who chooses the unwanted. It bears repeating: the death of Jesus on a cross shows us that God’s love reaches into the very depth of any darkness into which we can go and will not rest until we are all back home with him.

The good news of the Gospel is that there is no depth of suffering that Jesus did not reach in his death on the cross. Truly does our affirmation of faith state that “An abyss of suffering” has been “swallowed up by the suffering of divine love.”[3] That means Jesus’ death on the cross has set us free from all the darkness we could ever experience —the loneliness, grief, agony, alienation, cruelty, abandonment, estrangement, despair, shame, rejection, and self-destruction. Jesus has taken all of that on himself. God has taken all of it into his love. For me, that means that no one can sink so deep as to be beyond hope, beyond the reach of God’s love. However far we may fall, the love of God has already been into the depth of the abyss in Jesus Christ and is waiting there to bring us back home.

[2] The Book of Confessions 2016, Confession of 1967 9.15, p. 289.

[3] “The Study Catechism,” question 45 (approved by the 210th General Assembly of the PCUSA, 1998).

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

All the Way

Luke 23:13-26, 32-49; Philippians 2:1-11[1]

Some of you know I’m not a huge sports fan, although I do love Husker Volleyball! One of the reasons for that is that I tend to like sports that involve endurance. That would explain my (crazy?) love of spending hours on my bike, riding long distances. Back in the day, I was a huge fan of professional cycling, and of Lance Armstrong in particular. Of course, my enthusiasm faded when it came out that not only was Lance using performance-enhancing drugs, but that the sport had be rife with that kind of thing for generations. Essentially, they were “cheating” to be able to ride father and faster. The sad thing about it is that those people have a natural ability to ride father and faster than most of us!

One of the aspects of the story of Jesus that I admire most is the fact that he endured everything that his opponents threw at him. More than that, when the time came, he sustained his faithfulness to God and his faith in God even when it led him to be rejected, beaten, and crucified. Now, in Luke’s Gospel, we’re told that Jesus also had some “help.” He lived his life in the power of the Spirit of God, who enabled him to endure all that he went through. But more than that, I believe it was his unswerving commitment to live out his faithfulness to God, and to hold firmly to his faith in God, that enabled him to endure such sacrifice on our behalf.

That’s one of the main points of our Gospel lesson for today: that Jesus faced all that he had to endure for our sakes through his faithfulness to God and his faith in God. We see this in what Jesus says from the cross in Luke’s gospel. Now, I want to pause to point out that, despite the long tradition of the church, there is no such thing as the “Seven Last Words of Christ.” No Gospel reports all 7 of the words of Jesus that have been “compiled” into that tradition. Matthew and Mark only have the one saying, the one we’re probably most familiar with: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” John has three others, and Luke has three of his own. The tradition of the “Seven Last Words” came from the desire to harmonize the Gospels with one another, but it fails to do justice to the unique message of each Gospel.

So I think it bears looking into the words of Jesus from the cross in Luke’s Gospel, because they present a unique point of view on the way that Jesus died. We need to remember that all three of these “words” are only found in Luke! The first one, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk 23:34), demonstrates Jesus’ compassion for the people, and even compassion for and forgiveness of those who had rejected him, falsely accused him, and turned him over to the Romans to brutalize him and eventually execute him. That statement in and of itself bears witness to Jesus’ faithfulness to God and faith in God.

The next “word” of Jesus from the cross was in dialogue with one of the criminals who shared his fate. As you may recall, the first one “blasphemed” Jesus by demanding that he free himself and them. But the second criminal came to Jesus’ defense, acknowledging that they deserved their fate, but insisting that “this man has done nothing wrong” (Lk 23:41). He then asked Jesus to “remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Lk 23:42), probably thinking of some time in the indefinite future. But Jesus knew that everything he had been doing was bringing the kingdom of God to all people. And so he promised this man, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk 23:43). Again, I would say this reflects Jesus’ unswerving commitment to the work of God’s kingdom.

Finally, in Luke’s Gospel Jesus dies with not with a cry of anguish, but with an affirmation of faith: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46). What we may not recognize is that Jesus is actually quoting Psalm 31:5 here. While it may be difficult to hear because we’re so used to thinking of Jesus dying with a cry of anguish, in Luke’s Gospel, with his last breath Jesus entrusted his whole life to God. I would say that Luke wanted us to see that Jesus died the same way that he lived: seeking to be faithful to God by means of his faith in God.

We might be tempted to think that this was Jesus, and he was a lot stronger that you or I am. But part of the point of the story of Jesus’ life is that, as St. Peter puts it, “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2:21). Now, he’s talking to people who were suffering unjustly, and encouraging them to follow Jesus’ example of entrusting himself “to him who judges justly” (1 Pet 2:23). I like the way Gene Peterson puts it in the Message: Jesus endured everything he faced because he was “content to let God set things right.” That’s a pretty good definition of faithfulness to God and faith in God!

One of the themes of the New Testament is that we all are called to follow Jesus’ example of “emptying ourselves,” of “humbling ourselves” to live in a way that is faithful to God and inspired by faith in God (Phil 2:5-8). I can personally bear witness that it’s never easy to do that. I’m sure many of you can as well. Again, however, I think that we’re meant to look to Jesus as our example. Just as he was able to follow God’s will all the way to the end, so I believe that we can look to him to find the faith, the courage, and determination to follow Jesus. We can look to him to learn how to follow him in faithfulness to God and by our faith in God all the way through our lives.

Monday, March 14, 2022

For the Sake of the Joy

Luke 13:31-35[1]

One of the difficult aspects of following the schedule of Scripture readings for our worship is that they demand a great deal from us. That’s particularly the case for our readings from the Gospel of Luke this year. As I’ve mentioned, the “good news” in Luke’s Gospel has an “edge” to it. Part of that “edge” is that Jesus emphasizes repeatedly the “cost” of following him. Hearing week after week that discipleship is going to cost us can wear on us, and perhaps even feel discouraging. The more we hear the demand to take up our cross and follow Jesus, the more discouraged we may get about how well we follow him.

One of the reasons for this is because Jesus focuses his attention so consistently on the fact that his faithfulness to God was leading him to die on a cross. And Jesus used his journey to the cross as a model for us to follow. We hear in many ways that following him will require us to give up our lives. But we have to remember that the cross was not the end of Jesus’ journey. His path would lead him through death to resurrection, to his exaltation to the right hand of God, and to his return with power to complete God’s final victory. The author of Hebrews puts it this way: “for the sake of the joy that was set before him he endured the cross” (Heb 12:2). I think we can take a similar approach to the cost of following Jesus.

Our lesson for today may not seem like a good fit for finding this kind of encouragement. One factor in trying to understand this passage is placing it in the context of Luke’s Gospel. In this section of Luke, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, where he knows he is going to complete his mission by giving up his life. As Luke tells the story of Jesus’ journey, he takes the opportunity to report Jesus’ teachings about what it means to follow him. And he does so over the course of half of his Gospel—ten chapters! While Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem to fulfill his calling, Luke tells us that he was preparing his disciples for what it would mean for them to follow him.

I think we do well to pay special attention to the final verses in our lesson for today. This strange passage starts off with an even stranger event: Luke tells us that some Pharisees came to warn Jesus that Herod was trying to kill him! We might be thinking that if they were Pharisees, they were probably trying to kill Jesus as well. But it’s important for us to recognize that not all the “Pharisees” were against Jesus. The reason there was so much friction between Jesus and the Pharisees is because they had the most in common among the Jewish groups in that day. And the Gospels name two Pharisees who actually supported Jesus: Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus (Lk 23:50-53; Jn 19:38-42).

But our lesson gets “curiouser and curiouser,” to quote Alice in Wonderland. Jesus responds to the warning by saying, “Go and tell that jackal for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work” (Lk 13:32). To say the least, it’s a confusing way to reply to a warning about a death threat! I think, however, that what we’re meant to hear is the phrase “today and tomorrow, and on the third day.” This reminds us of the way in which Jesus predicted his own death. I would say that Jesus knew he was going to die, and it wouldn’t be at the hands of Herod!

And so in the next verse, Jesus continues, “today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem” (Lk 13:33). It’s clear in this verse that Jesus knows he “must” go to Jerusalem to die. But again, we have this phrase, “today, tomorrow, and the next day.” I would say that this repeated emphasis of what Jesus would do over the course of three days points us to the fact that he would “finish” his work not only on the cross, but also on the “third day” when God raised him from the dead. Although he knew that he faced a brutal trial, he also knew that would not be the end for him, but that God’s power would prevail through him.

I think we see something similar at the end of our lesson, where Jesus says, “you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Lk 13:35). Although those very words were the ones the crowds used to welcome him to Jerusalem, Jesus was looking past that. I think he was looking beyond his death and resurrection to his return with power to complete God’s final victory. It’s hard to imagine the faith and courage it took for Jesus to face his death with so much resolve. But I believe, as Hebrews tells us, that he did it “for the sake of the joy that was set before him.” In other words, he faced the ultimate test of his faithfulness to God by his faith in the victory God would win for all people through him.

I think we can approach our commitment to following Jesus in a similar way. We may have to face hardships. We may have to make sacrifices. As Jesus said we may have to give up our lives in order to truly find life. None of that’s easy. And the road can get long and weary as we continue to follow Jesus. But like Jesus, we can remain faithful by remembering that all the hardships we may face, all the sacrifices we may make, all that we may have to give up serves to bring God’s love to hurting people in our world. And so we can follow Jesus “for the sake of the joy” that is set before us, because we trust that God is working through us as well!

Sunday, September 12, 2021

The Gift is Free, but It's Not Cheap

The Gift is Free, But Not Cheap

Mark 8:27-38[1]

I think we all come to faith with assumptions about what it means to be a Christian. We may think it relates primarily to how we participate in church or our hope for eternal life. In my case, phrases like “abundant life” and “new life in Christ” appealed to my dreams for a happy home for my children. But our faith challenges us to think more deeply than our dreams about “the good life.” To put it bluntly, our faith means we have chosen to follow a man who was executed as a criminal, accused of insurrection. More than that, our faith challenges us to think about what it means to even call ourselves “Christian.” What should we expect of our lives if we dare to call ourselves by the name of a Christ who died a shameful death on the cross?[2] If we let that sink in, I think we have to admit that while the gift of new life in Christ is free, it’s not cheap!

We believe that God gives us the gift of his love freely, unconditionally, and irrevocably. It’s easy to take that gift for granted, thinking since God will love me no matter what, it doesn’t matter what I do. But the truth is that the gift of love did not come “cheaply” for God, it was quite costly. And that means that we cannot take it for granted. We have to consider what God’s costly gift in Jesus Christ means for us if we call ourselves “Christian.” If we say we’re going to follow a Christ who died on the cross, we have recognize that decision will be costly to us as well. And the cost is that we cannot simply live our lives however we please.

As we have seen before, that is the point of our Gospel lesson for today. Peter confessed that Jesus is the “Messiah,” but when Jesus began to teach them that meant he would have to die, it became obvious that Peter didn’t understand at all. Jesus knew that his path of obedience to God would lead him to die on a cross. In fact, he says that he “must” face rejection, great suffering, and ultimately death in order to carry out his role as the “Messiah.” The necessity behind this was that it was the only way for him to carry out God’s plan to offer unfailing love to all of us as a free gift. But that gift comes to us at great cost to God: it comes at the cost of Jesus’ life!

If that weren’t shocking enough, Jesus proceeded to teach his disciples that their obedience to God would lead them on the same path! He told them point blank: “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” (Mk 8:35). We know from history that some of the early Christians literally faced death for the sake of their faith in Jesus. While we don’t face death for our faith, we still have to figure out what it means for us to “lose” our lives for Jesus’ sake.

One who actually followed Jesus to the point of death was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was teaching theology at the University of Berlin when the Nazis took control of Germany in 1933. At great personal risk, he led a movement of Christians who resisted the idolatry of the Nazi movement. That movement produced the “Barmen Declaration” that is in our book of Confessions today, and reminds us that Jesus represents “God’s mighty claim upon our whole life” and our “joyful deliverance from the godless fetters of this world.[3] When war was imminent, Bonhoeffer initially fled to the safety of New York, but he almost immediately returned to Germany to continue leading the underground church and resisting the Nazis. He was imprisoned in Berlin in 1943 and executed along with other resistance leaders on April 9, 1945.

In the early years of the Nazi era when he was leading the underground church, Bonhoeffer wrote a book simply entitled “Discipleship.” There, he reflected on the tension between the fact that God’s gracious gift comes to us freely, but it is nevertheless costly. Bonhoeffer challenged what he called “cheap grace,” which for him meant grace as forgiveness that doesn’t change the way we live.[4] Bonhoeffer contrasted that with what he called “costly grace”: “it is costly, because it calls us to discipleship; it is grace, because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly, because it costs people their lives; it is grace, because it thereby makes them live.”[5]

If we choose to accept God’s incredibly generous gift and follow Jesus as his disciples, we cannot simply pursue our own quest for “the good life.” The gift of God’s love demands the very best we have to give, throughout our lives. Jesus not only taught us, he showed us that the way to truly live is to give yourself away for the sake of others. If we refuse that choice because the price of surrendering our hopes and dreams is too high, the consequence is that we will lose the very heart and soul of what it means to really live. But if we have the courage to follow Jesus, we will find that the path of self-giving is the way to the life that God offers each and every one of us. That’s the wonderful gift God offers: it’s free, but it’s not cheap!

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, 36-38: “Christians who do not have the feeling that they must flee the crucified Christ have probably not yet understood him in a sufficiently radical way.”

[3] “The Theological Declaration of Barmen,” The Book of Confessions (2016), 8.14 (p. 283).

[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 4), 43-44: “Cheap grace means grace as … cut-rate forgiveness; … grace without a price, without costs. … Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross.”

[5] Bonhoeffer, 45.

Sunday, March 28, 2021

What Wondrous Love!

Mark 15:1-47[1]

Love is a mystery. It’s wonderful and painful. It can bring out the best and the worst in us. We long for love and yet at the same time we are at least a little afraid of it (or maybe a lot!). Hopefully, all of us at some time in our lives have someone who embodies the best of love. They love us “just because,” without any conditions, exclusions, or limitations. And they keep loving us that way for as long as they’re a part of our lives, no matter where we go or what we do. Unfortunately, one of the greatest tragedies in this life is the fact that some of us never get to experience that kind of love from another human being.

It’s not the same thing, but I think that recognizing the love of God expressed for us by Jesus Christ can help us here. The Bible speaks of God’s “unfailing love” long before Jesus was born. But I think in Jesus our Savior we see just how far that love extends. There is no place we can go in this life where we are excluded from God’s love. Wherever we may find ourselves, even the most hopeless places, God has already been there in Jesus Christ to pave the way back to his love. In truth, even the love of those people who have loved us so wonderfully is “complicated” by their humanity. That means all of us will come to the place in life where we must look to God’s love to sustain us, because his is the only love that truly never fails.

I see that unconditional, unlimited, and irrevocable love displayed in the story of Jesus’ experience of being arrested, tried, beaten, mocked, and crucified. Our Gospel lesson for today includes it all. And one thing that amazes me is the fact that Jesus—who was fully human and subject to our physical limitations—endured that whole ordeal out of his unwavering resolve to carry out God’s saving purpose for us fully. When I think about all that he went through over the course of about 18 hours that day, it’s overwhelming. It’s hard for me to grasp that Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior willingly subjected himself to it all out of his commitment to be “obedient to the point of death” (Phil. 2:8).

I thought we might walk through the events of that day in order to have a better sense of all that Jesus endured. Prior to our lesson, Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane. His prayer revealed his anguish about what was about to happen to him. And to get an idea of the emotional and physical toll of the stress he felt over what he knew was coming, Luke’s Gospel tells us he was sweating profusely as he prayed. He felt the dread that any person would feel when faced with impending trauma.

That evening, Jesus was arrested and taken before some of the Jewish religious leaders, where he was interrogated all night. He was bound and was subjected to constant questioning. Mark’s gospel tells us he was assaulted by the false accusations of “many” lying witnesses. That takes its toll emotionally and physically. Finally, at daybreak, they sent him off to Pontius Pilate, the Roman official who was governing the province of Judea. We don’t know how long this interrogation lasted, but it seems that he endured more verbal attacks from his accusers for several hours. Remember that Jesus had been up all night, and the last food he had eaten was the evening before.

After that, Pilate brought Jesus and a rebel named Barabbas before the crowd, both of them bound as criminals. Perhaps he may have even recognized the faces of some of the people who had shouted, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” when he had entered Jerusalem a few days earlier (Mk 11:9). But now they were shouting, “Crucify him!” So Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified and had him beaten. Jesus was “scourged” with a whip made of leather straps to which were attached nails, glass, or rocks. Some who were “scourged” didn’t survive the beating. At this point, the soldiers who were going to crucify him staged a “mock coronation” for him as the “king of the Jews.” They struck him, they spat on him, and they placed a crown of thorns on his head.

Finally, they took Jesus to crucify him. He had endured the physical and emotional stress of no sleep, no food, and a constant barrage of verbal assaults. He was literally beaten to within an inch of his life. It’s no wonder he couldn’t carry the crossbeam they laid on him! One detail that sticks out to me is, after all that, Jesus still had the presence of mind to refuse the mixture of wine and myrrh that was intended to ease his pain. After all he had endured to this point, his determination to fulfill God’s saving purpose completely remained resolute. He was “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). After reading the full story, I think that may be something of an understatement!

When I stop to really think about all this, I find myself overwhelmed: I grieve to know that Jesus went through all of this for me. I’m humbled by his unflinching commitment. But perhaps most of all, I’m amazed by the love that I believe was behind it all, motivating him to endure everything he suffered for our sakes. As our affirmation of faith says it, “there is no sorrow he has not known, no grief he has not borne, and no price he was unwilling to pay” to enable us to know the unconditional, unlimited, and irrevocable love of God. All I can say in response is, “What wondrous love”![2]

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, 277: “There is no loneliness and no rejection which [God] has not taken to himself and assumed in the cross of Jesus.”

Sunday, February 28, 2021

A Cross-Shaped Life

Mark 8:31-38[1]

Most of us have some idea of the “shape” we want our lives to take. We all have hopes and dreams, desires and goals. Typically, we direct our hopes for our lives toward things that are good: our homes, our families, and our careers. We dream of building relationships that will last a lifetime. We long for work that is not only productive but also provides us with a livelihood. We plan for financial security so that we may retire comfortably and have the opportunity to pursue new interests. Because they are near and dear to our hearts, these are the things we cherish. Our hopes and dreams, our desires and goals shape our lives.

Seeking what we cherish most in life is only natural for us. And it is a good thing to pursue these good things. But as Christians, we have to recognize that we also have a higher claim on our lives. We are called to seek God with all our hearts, and to follow Christ in the way in which he consistently obeyed God. We are called to lay down our lives in service to others in the same way that Jesus laid down his life for us. That’s not the path most of us envision in our hopes and dreams, our desires and goals. Perhaps one of the greatest challenges we face as Christians is to figure out how to live our lives under the call of Christ to “deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.”

Our Gospel lesson for today marks a turning point in Jesus’ ministry. Up to that time, he had mostly occupied himself with proclaiming the good news—that he was truly bringing God’s kingdom of justice, peace, and freedom into people’s lives. That kind of language fired the hopes and dreams of Jesus’ first disciples, but their dreams were very different from what God had called Jesus to do. After Peter made a bold declaration of faith that Jesus was indeed the “Messiah” they had been waiting for, Jesus “burst” the bubble of their enthusiasm. He told them point-blank that “the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected …, and be killed” (Mk. 8:31). Peter’s shocked response only put into words that the others were thinking: this wasn’t what they had signed up for at all!

Jesus pressed the matter home by insisting that those who wanted to follow him must “deny themselves and take up their cross” (Mk. 8:34). I think at this point Jesus’ closest disciples must have been in a daze. They followed him, thinking that he was going to ascend the throne of David, throw off the yoke of the Romans, and restore the people of Israel to their former glory. And I’m quite sure they saw themselves playing an important role in that restored kingdom. Not only did he tell them that was not what he was called to do, he also told them that wasn’t what they were called to do!

Jesus knew that his path of obedience to God would lead him to die on a cross. What he revealed to his disciples at this point was that their obedience to God would lead them to follow him on that path! Some of the early Christians literally faced the same fate as he did.[2] The persecution they endured for their faith in many cases forced them to choose between their faith and their lives. And when the time came, many of them chose to go to their deaths for the sake of their faith in Jesus.

We don’t have to make that kind of sacrifice for the sake of our faith. But the call to “deny ourselves and take up our cross” still pushes us to think about our commitment to Christ in ways that may be uncomfortable. This language cuts so deeply against the grain of how we live I’m not sure we can even comprehend it! The kind of self-denial that Jesus calls us to practice means that we take all the things we cherish most in life, all our hopes and dreams, all our desires and goals, and we lay them all down at the feet of Jesus.[3]

What that means in actual practice is difficult to work out. For some, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it means that we make a break with all the ties and attachments we have in this life.[4] That’s what the call to follow Christ looks like for some. But those of us to are allowed to pursue our hopes and dreams in this life still have to figure out what it means to “deny ourselves.” I think part of the answer lies in recognizing that all those things we cherish most in life can lead us to become trapped in the prison of our own selfish interests.[5] But part of the answer also lies in being willing to give up what we cherish most to God, to recognize that “whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord” (Rom 14:5, NLT).

The plain but perhaps startling truth is that we are all called to make following Jesus the focus of our lives. This means “denying ourselves and taking up our cross.” It means devoting our time and energy not simply to fulfilling our own hopes and dreams, our own desires and goals.[6] It means following Jesus’ example by laying down our lives for the sake of serving others, especially those who are “least, and last, and left out” in this world. It means that the shape of our lives is determined by our commitment to follow Jesus on the path that leads to the cross.

[2] Cf. Harold W. Attridge and Adela Y. Collins, Mark, 408.

[3] John Calvin, in The Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.7, defines self-denial in terms of recognizing that we are not our own, we belong to God. David Garland, Mark, 327 says it means learning to say “not my will but thine be done.”

[4] Cf. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship (DBW, vol. 4, 2001), 86-87. He does discuss the possibility (p. 93-97) that this break may be “visible” (actual) or “hidden,” meaning the disciple continues to live in the normal relationships of life.

[5] Cf. John Caputo, On Religion, 2-3, where he defines self-interest in terms of being “caught up in the meanness of self-love and self-gratification,” and people who “love nothing more than getting their own way and bending others to their will.”

[6] Cf. Luke Timothy Johnson, Learning Jesus, 200, where he insists that nowhere in the New Testament is there “an understanding of Christian discipleship compatible with a life devoted to one’s own success, pleasure, comfort, freedom from suffering, or power at the expense of others.”

Sunday, May 10, 2020

In God's Hands, Part 1

In God’s Hands, Part 1

Psalm 31:1-16[1]

I would say that we who live in this society are accustomed to the idea that our lives are in our own hands. Many of us have been raised on the creed of individualism: hard work and independence. Others have embraced a more collaborative approach to life. They work in teams and believe that they accomplish more together than they can separately. Whether we are “rugged individualists” or “team players,” we all still seem to assume that “you only live once,” and what we get out of life is what we put into it. We assume that our lives are in our own hands.

Our Scripture lesson from the Psalms presents us with a different approach to life, one based on trusting God with all of life. The whole idea of trusting in God implies, as the Psalmist expresses, that the course of our lives is out of our hands. Our lives are in God’s hands (Ps. 31:15).^{^[2]} Recognizing this truth is at the heart of what it means to trust in God. More than that, it means entrusting all that we are, all that we have, all that we are concerned about, all those we love, into God’s care. And the Scriptures teach us that God’s care is infinite and unfailing.

I think this may explain why Jesus could look an excruciating death squarely in the face and pray “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46, quoting Psalm 31:5). In spite of the circumstances, we shouldn’t be surprised that Jesus prayed that prayer at the end of his life. Trusting God was the main focus of his whole life. When we think about the ultimate sacrifice Jesus made for us on that Friday so many years ago, I think we have to recognize that what enabled him to go through with it was his trust that the God into whose hands he had entrusted his whole life would be with him in his darkest hour.

A faith like that seems to me to be the highest expression of trust. It’s not easy to look at our lives, at all that we are, all that we have, all those we love, and essentially let go of it all by placing it into God’s hands. But that was the kind of faith that Jesus modeled for us throughout his life. It was that kind of faith that enabled him to live out the prayer “Into your hands I commit my very life” (Ps. 31:5, NIrV). And it was that kind of faith that enabled him to face the prospect of making the final sacrifice with the prayer, “not my will, but thine be done.” As we seek to deepen our trust in God, Jesus’ commitment stands for us as the defining example for our own faith. It challenges us all to give up thinking that our lives are in our own hands, and instead to entrust our lives, our whole lives, into God’s hands.

[2] cf. James L. Mays, Psalms, 144: “In the mouth of Jesus [this] sentence is surely a profound interpretation of his entire life.”

The Waking Dreamer