The Waking Dreamer: Salvation

Showing posts with label Salvation. Show all posts

Saturday, July 18, 2026

One Day at a Time

Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9[1]

Last week we talked about the Twelve-Step slogan, “Let Go and let God.” Another familiar slogan from the Twelve-Step movement is “One Day at a Time.” It’s one of the tools that people who are trying to live in a healthy way use to deal with “bad” days. Because the truth is whether you’ve been practicing “recovery” for decades or for days, everybody has “bad” days. The idea behind the slogan “One Day at a Time” is that, even on the worst of your “bad” days, you can handle whatever comes your way for one day. To be sure, there are days when it all seems too much to handle. But usually, that’s because we’re viewing our problems from the perspective that they’ll never change. It’ll always be this way. When you think you’re going to have to deal with your problems for the rest of your life, it can become overwhelming. But when you frame it as something you just have to handle today, it usually gets more manageable.

There’s another point to the slogan “One Day at a Time.” It’s related to the fact that we’ll never perfectly fulfill our goals in this lifetime. But if we keep our focus on doing the best we can today, we may wind up pleasantly surprised with how well we do. And after a while of doing our best “One Day at a Time,” we usually realize we’ve made a whole lot more progress than we could have imagined when we first started out. I think those of us who take living the Christian life seriously have a similar experience. There are wonderful times when we know the joy and peace and freedom we have from God through Jesus Christ. And then there are other days when the way we practice the Christian life can best be summed up by the phrase, “three steps forward, two steps back”!

I think we see some of this reflected in our lesson from Paul’s letter to the Romans for today. There, Paul emphasizes that the Holy Spirit poured out on us is the one who makes it possible for us to experience this new life of joy and peace and freedom right now. And when you pay close attention to what Paul says, it sounds very much like he is promising that we already have the fullness of salvation, right now. That’s because everything necessary for us to experience the fullness of joy and peace and freedom in this life has already been done for us by God in Jesus Christ. And it’s also because of what God is doing in our lives through the Spirit right now, to this very day. Paul puts it this way: because the Spirit of the one “who raised Jesus from the dead” lives in us, that means God is also working to give us a new life like the one Jesus has now in the presence of God (Rom 8:10-11, NIRV).

That’s quite a promise. We can have a life like the one Jesus has in the presence of God right now because of what God is doing in our lives through the Spirit. And I would absolutely affirm that’s a true statement: we can have a life like the one Jesus has in the presence of God right now because of what God is doing in our lives through the Spirit! But the other side of the truth is the fact that we never experience the fullness of the life of the risen Lord Christ in this life. We do experience joy and peace and freedom as a gift from God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. Theologically speaking, we already have everything we need to know this new life now. But practically speaking, our experience (and the teachings of Scripture) remind us that we will not know that new life fully until we are standing face to face with him. In the meantime, we live our Christian lives in the tension between the promise of new life now and the full experience of it when we stand face-to-face with Jesus.[2]

I would say that our Gospel lesson for today also addresses this question, but from a different perspective. The parable is a familiar one. A farmer goes out to plant seeds in a field. In those days, planting seeds was much less precise and involved perhaps even more risk (if that’s possible!). Farmers would just scatter seeds, hoping some of them would take root and grow and bear fruit. Of course, Jesus wasn’t really talking about agriculture in this parable. Among other things, he was trying to warn those who want to follow him that not all the seeds they planted would bear fruit. Faithfulness doesn’t always guarantee results. Sometimes we find ourselves sowing and not reaping.

But there’s a deeper issue here, one that goes beyond the typical observation that the seeds need the right “kind” of soil in which to bear fruit. That kind of thinking leads many Christians to wonder which kind of “soil” they belong to and even to doubt whether they’ve “done enough” to bear fruit in their lives. Or it leads to a too easy assumption that because we’re in church we’re automatically in the “good soil” category. But something that the famous Swiss Reformed Theologian Karl Barth pointed out is that in this parable, the farmer isn’t planting four fields. The farmer is planting seeds in one field.[3] Therefore, he suggests that we must reckon with the truth that we all—including those who are within the Christian community and those who are not—are among “those who hear” the “Word” of the gospel. That means there is always a mixture of “ignoring” the “Word” that fails to put it into action on the one hand, and on the other hand responding to the “Word” with “understanding” that leads to fruitful Christian living.[4] And that mixture of “ignoring” and “responding” to the “Word” is in all of us.[5] We all respond to the gospel in all these ways outlined in the parable in differing measures.

That brings us back to where we started. We all have good days and bad days when it comes to the Christian life. There are times when our experience of can best be summarized as “three steps forward, two steps back.” That brings us back to “One Day at a Time.” I think the slogan applies to our Christian living as much as it does to the recovery movement. We do our best “One Day at a Time” to respond faithfully to the promises of God’s word and the demands that go along with them. We do our best “One Day at a Time” to live fruitful lives as followers of Jesus Christ. That doesn’t mean that we have to wonder every day whether we’re doing it “good enough.” But it also means that a faithful response to Jesus Christ can never be something that we do once and then we sit back and think we’ve done all we have to do.

We live our Christian lives “One day at a time.” Sometimes we respond to the Word of the Lord like the hard path: it just “bounces off.” Sometimes we respond like the rocky soil: initially, we’re enthusiastic, but the Word never really takes root. Sometimes we respond like the thorny ground: we respond to the Gospel but the other things in our lives that distract us choke it out. Sometimes we respond to the Word of the Lord in a way that bears fruit in our lives and in the lives of those around us. This is true for all of us. That doesn’t mean that we get discouraged because we don’t always get it right. We live our Christian lives in hope: the hope that the light that shines in this world through the love of God in Jesus Christ will always be more powerful than the darkness in this world that we all participate in and at times may even contribute to![6] Despite any apparent success or failure, we keep on following Jesus “One Day at a Time,” not because we put our confidence in ourselves, but because we trust in God to fulfill his promises to us. And somehow, someway, God always turns our imperfect faith into fruit that benefits not only the Christian community but also all those with whom we share God’s love.

[2] Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 105, calls the hope of new life that Paul holds out in Romans as the “impossible possibility of our redemption.” Later in Romans 8:23 Paul talks about “groaning” for the full experience of new life.

[3] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.3.1:189. I realize that the “interpretation” of the parable of the Sower in Matthew 13:18-23 encourages the idea that the different “types” of soil represent different “types” of people who hear the Gospel and respond in different ways. I would agree with the view that this so-called “interpretation” reflects the views of the early Church as much as and perhaps even more than they represent the views of Jesus. It is perhaps a very early understanding of Jesus’ parable, but not necessarily the only “authoritative” one. I think Barth’s interpretation, which is based more on the primary parable itself, reflects insights into how the early Church transformed into “Christendom” and how the original parable challenges the sense of entitlement and exceptionalism that arose from that transformation.

[4] Barth summarizes this dilemma well when he says that we all alike “both those who know and those who do not know” (ibid., 192).

[5] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.3.1:188-93, where he interprets the parable of the sower through the perspective that it describes the “antithesis” in which we all live out the Christian life: “the light of life shines in the darkness.” That is always true whenever the light of the gospel shines: it shines in darkness. And we are still a part of that darkness.

[6] Cf. Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer, 76, where he says that this hope is the true motivation for Christian leadership. I would say it is also the true motivation for Christian living in general. It is the hope that enables us to “keep pointing to new life even in the face of corruption and death” and that what God has done for us through Jesus Christ, especially in raising him from the dead, is a definitive affirmation that there is “light on the other side of darkness.” I would say it also points us to the hope that this “light” in the world will always and inevitably overcome the “darkness.”

Wednesday, July 01, 2026

Alive to God

Romans 6:1-11[1]

Reading Paul’s letters in the New Testament can be an exercise in frustration. Perhaps, hearing a sermon on a passage from Paul’s letters can be an exercise in frustration! Of course, many of our favorite “memory verses” come from Paul. Verses like “Nothing in all creation can separate us from God's love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Rom 8:39, CEV). Or, “the peace of God which transcends human understanding, will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:7, Phillips). These are wonderful verses. And we keep them close, because they bring a great deal of comfort and assurance. But when you really try to dig in and understand the meat of Paul’s letters, they can get really confusing really fast. I’m saying that as a person with PhD in New Testament studies and someone who has spent forty plus years trying to dig in to the meat of Paul’s letters! It helps to read a version that is more than a translation, but also attempts to “translate” Paul into language we can understand. I think that’s why Charlie Noren always liked to read from The Message version when he served as liturgist!

One of the reasons why Paul’s letters are so difficult to understand is because he’s trying to explain our salvation in depth. He lays out the groundwork for our salvation in what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. He calls all people, Jewish and Gentile alike, to respond to the Gospel with faith. And he talks in some detail about what it looks like to live the life of faith. But in doing so, he uses language and figures of speech that are not only 2000 years old, but also are steeped in the metaphors and thought world of the Hebrew Bible. I’m probably stating the obvious when I say that language is quite foreign to most of us. Anyone who’s made a serious effort to read the Old Testament might agree with that evaluation.

One of the problems we have understanding Paul’s letters is that through the history of the church, two very different views about how salvation works have emerged. One view insists that there’s nothing we can for our salvation. Our faith and the way it changes how we live is an act of God. Only God in Jesus Christ, working in our lives through his Spirit can create the kind of faith that leads us to live for God and for one another in the way that God wants us to. The other view insists that we have to do everything for our salvation! In order for what God has done for us and in us to truly make a difference in our lives, it has to be met with the willingness to change our attitudes and our actions, to open ourselves to what God wants to do in and through us, and to set aside all that gets in the way of our growth in faith. One view emphasizes that our salvation is the work of God from start to finish. The other view emphasizes that our salvation is something we have to work out in our own lives.

Part of what makes this question so challenging is that both of these views are true. As with many aspects of our faith we have to hold them together in balance. But as is the case so often, holding these two perspectives in tension takes skill and practice. Unfortunately, a lot of people tend to fall off on one side or the other. Some will insist that there’s nothing they can possibly do to save themselves because it’s the work of God. And that’s true, but it doesn’t go far enough by itself. Others will insist that the only way to experience salvation is to put faith into practice. For them, salvation is all about what they do for themselves. Again, there is some truth to that, but downplaying the role of God in this life change strips it of its power.

From my years of ministry and interacting with people, I would say that of the two, the bigger obstacle to faith these days is the notion that I can “do it myself.” We hear it in those who seem to have their sights fixed on the idea that “I have to be good enough to make it to heaven.” For some people this is official church teaching. If you want to “make it to heaven,” you have to check off certain “boxes.” For others, it’s simply the message they’ve always heard. For whatever reason, if you really get down to what people believe about all this, they tend to think that their “salvation” is something they do for themselves. Because of that, they may throw themselves into the obligations they think will enable them to “make it to heaven.”

Of course, we’re all taking something for granted here: that the life of Jesus, a Jewish man who lived in a faraway land so long ago can really make a difference in our lives today. We take it for granted because we’ve experienced throughout our lives. But not everybody does. To some extent, we have to reckon with the fact that what Jesus did for us will always be something that has taken place “outside us.” Besides the fact that it took place long ago and far away, it’s not something we’ve done for ourselves. It will always be something someone else did. When push comes to shove, most of us aren’t comfortable relying on what anyone else does for us. But the mystery of the gospel is that what Jesus did was also “for us” and therefore it is something that can make a change “within us.”[2] These are common phrases in Paul’s letters. In our reading for today he calls attention to the mystery this way, “if we died with Christ, we have faith that we will also live with him” (Rom. 6:8, CEB). And he says, “just as Christ was raised from the dead …, we too can walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4, CEB). The mystery of the Gospel is that what God did in and through Jesus can and does make a difference in our lives today. What he did makes it possible for us to be “alive to God” just as Jesus is alive to God.

How do we let this really sink in and take root in our own lives so that we trust the promise of salvation? How do we get past those notions that somehow, some way we all have to “be good enough to make it to heaven?” I think that somehow we need to find a way to believe that changing how we live is a real possibility for us. This is where Paul’s teaching about the Cross and the Resurrection, as challenging as it can be to understand, can help us. The Cross and the Resurrection together represent a divine act that in a manner of speaking “interrupts” the normal “way things work” in this life and opens up for us the real possibility of living a life that is truly “alive to God.” The forgiveness we have through the Cross gives us the freedom to turn from old ways. The Resurrection points us to the new life as something that can be just as real for us today as it is for the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

The two sides of what we call “salvation” always go together. What do we have to do to make it to heaven? “Nothing!” And, “Everything!” They go together. Do people ever really change in this life? We tend to think not, but Paul says the answer is “Yes!” and it’s because of what Jesus did for us. His death on the cross breaks the grip of old ways on our lives. His resurrection opens up the very real possibility of living a whole new life, “just as Christ was raised from the dead.” Our salvation is all about what God does for us.[3] That’s always the foundation for our salvation. But the New Testament teaches that we also have to “work out” our own salvation.[4] For the change of life that the Bible calls “salvation” to be effective, we have to both open ourselves to what God wants to do in our lives, and we have to take steps to “work the program,” so to speak. We have to hold the two in balance.[5] Being set right with God through the forgiveness accomplished by Jesus on the Cross works hand-in-hand with his Resurrection to create the opportunity to live a life that is truly “alive to God.”

[2] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.4:18-21, where he discusses the idea that what Jesus does extra nos (“outside us”) is also pro nobis (“for us”) and therefore effective in nobis (“in us”).

[3] Cf. Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 1933, 207: “Grace is the power of the resurrection … . Grace is the existence begotten of God, the new man created and redeemed by God … .”

[4] Cf. Barth, Romans, 221: “Grace means that God reckons men’s whole existence to be His and claims it for Himself. … Grace seizes visible life and demands that it be presented to righteousness.” Cf. also, ibid., 222: “Grace means: thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven … .”

[5] Cf. Barth, Dogmatics, 4.4:22, where he discusses this balance between what God does for our salvation and what we do: “the omnicausality of God must not be construed as His sole causality. The divine change in whose accomplishment a man becomes a Christian is an event of true intercourse between God and man. If it undoubtedly has its origin in God’s initiative, no less indisputably man is not ignored or passed over in it.” He adds that it is also one’s own “decision and act” (ibid., 23).

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

Cheating?

1 Timothy 2:1-7[1]

We have a saying, “Cheaters never prosper.” Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in this world who “cheat” in some way or another and get away with it. That doesn’t sit well with most of us. We don’t like it when someone takes unfair advantage and gets away with it. Of course, except when we do it. And, of course, when we do it, it’s not “cheating” or “taking unfair advantage.” It’s “being smart.” Or “maximizing our opportunities.” Or “getting ahead.” We don’t like “cheaters,” but what most of us tend to overlook is the fact that we all have advantages that we didn’t necessarily work for. They were handed to us at birth. And in this world, our advantages represent a kind of “cheat” to those who don’t have them.

We tend to look at religion the same way. We believe that “heaven” is reserved for those who, like us, do things the “right” way. And those who fail to live up to the standards we have worked hard all our lives to maintain rightfully deserve to be denied access to “heaven” and its blessings. I think we have a hard time grasping the idea of a God who loves all people with no strings attached.[2] It seems that in our experience with life, there are always strings attached. Or expectations we have to live up to. The idea that God simply loves us, and that there’s nothing we can do to change that love, is one that just doesn’t compute with many of us. In fact, we may think of it as “cheating” that some people who don’t live up to our standards get to enjoy the same love that we do. The idea that God loves us all unconditionally and irrevocably just doesn’t seem quite right, or perhaps even quite fair.

Despite all that, That God loves us all is precisely the message of our Scripture lesson for today from First Timothy. Simply put, “God our Savior … desires everyone to be saved” (1 Tim. 2:3-4). And to that end, “Christ Jesus … gave himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim. 2:5-6). The language is clearly all-inclusive, embracing “everyone.” That may come as a surprise to you, because it’s not the typical way in which we understand God’s “plan of salvation.” We tend to think of salvation not as a gift of God’s grace, but as a transaction. Those of us who do the right things, like believing in Jesus, going to church, and living the right kind of life, receive salvation as a reward for our efforts. Those who don’t get what they “deserve”

This view of salvation has been around for a long time. From the earliest days of the church, the accepted view was that “outside the church there is no salvation.” This makes the statement from our Scripture lesson problematic, to say the least. When you take that point of view, it’s hard to believe that God “desires everyone to be saved.” And so we have come up with ways to “adjust” this bold declaration to make it more palatable. Some will say “God desires everyone to be saved,” but “everyone” equals all kinds of people, not all people. Others say “God desires everyone to be saved,” but “everyone” equals all those whom God has chosen for salvation, not all people. The conclusion seems unavoidable that what they are really saying is that “God does not desire everyone to be saved”![3]

I think there are a variety of reasons why we take this verse of Scripture and twist it around to mean the opposite of what it says. For one thing, we want life to be fair. If you’re like me, and you’ve been in church all your life, it can seem unfair that God offers salvation to everyone without conditions. I’ve had a long-standing member of a Presbyterian church ask the question, “If God is going to save everyone, then why do we go to church?” Of course, this betrays the assumption that we can somehow earn God’s love by attending church. In reality, that kind of thinking has it all backwards. We don’t go to church in order to earn God’s love. We go to church because we’ve encountered the incredible love God gives all of us, and in response we want to live our lives by loving God in every way we can.

I think another reason for this kind of thinking is that we think that people ought to get what they deserve. It can seem like “cheating” for someone who has lived however they pleased to get to experience God’s salvation just the same as those who have tried to practice kindness and justice. I also had a church member tell me “There are some people I want to go to hell!” Again, this misses the point of the gospel. The gift of salvation isn’t something we can somehow do enough good to “deserve.” The message of Scripture is that none of us can ever “deserve” God’s love. That’s why it’s a gift—for everyone. That’s a good thing for all of us—regardless of what we think we “deserve.”

I can accept and endorse the fact that there are different interpretations of the Christian faith. There always have been, and there always will be. But I never have and never will embrace a view of God that excludes the vast majority of humanity from the gift of salvation through Christ. I choose to take the Scripture at face value when it says “God desires everyone to be saved”! And I believe it is valid both biblically and theologically to hope for and believe in God’s eventual redemption of all people.[4]The foundation for this faith is nothing less than God’s character: it’s who God is—God our Savior. [5]

I realize this sermon may leave some of you scratching your heads. It may not sound like any sermon you’ve ever heard before. Unfortunately, the idea that we have to earn God’s love by doing enough good to deserve salvation has been around for a long time. But I would say that idea is not consistent with the message of Scripture. The Bible teaches us that God loves us simply because that’s who God is. And there’s nothing we can ever do to deserve that love. The flip side of it is that there is nothing we can ever do to lose God’s love. The good news of the Gospel is that God loves us all, and because of that love he “desires for everyone to be saved.” That is the purpose and the goal toward which God has been working throughout the centuries. And nothing and no one will be able to prevent God from accomplishing that goal. It may seem like “cheating” to some, but I call it “grace.”

[2] Cf. Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 136, where he (as a Reformed theologian) points out that the doctrine of dual predestination “has caused much uncertainty and has robbed many Christians of the joy of the Christian faith.”

[3] Cf. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.23.1: “since election itself could not stand except as set over against reprobation … those whom God passes over, he condemns.” Calvin was influenced by Augustine of Hippo, who argued that God’s desire for “all people to be saved” only applies to those whom God has predestined to salvation, and excludes all others, even infants who die without being baptized. See Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace, 14.44; On the Predestination of the Saints, 18.36; Enchiridion, 27, 103; cf. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition I:321; Johannes Quasten, Patrology IV:443. On infants, see Augustine, On the Soul and its Origin, 4.11.16; cf. Pelikan, Christian Tradition I:297-98.

[4] Many throughout the history of the church have endorsed this view, beginning with Origen of Caesarea, and including Gregory of Nyssa, Juliana of Norwich. See J. Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, I: 151-52; V:116-17, 224; J. Quasten, Patrology II:87-91; III:289-90. In more recent times this view was represented by Catholic theologians like Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, and by Protestant Theologians of all traditions. In the Reformed tradition, both Karl Barth (eventually) and Jürgen Moltmann, both of whom were influenced by the 19^th Century German pietist Christoph Blumhardt, endorsed this viewpoint.

[5] Cf. James D. G. Dunn, “The First and Second Letters to Timothy and The Letter to Titus” New Interpreters Bible XI:798, where he says that this is “a statement that is as clear as any assertion of ‘Christian universalism’: God wills the salvation of everyone.”

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

The Great Mystery

Colossians 1:15-28[1]

One of the blessings and curses of our culture is the way we put everything in a “box.” That was how philosophers and scientists taught us to make sense out of the explosion of knowledge that began a couple of hundred years ago. We might not even be aware of the “categories” we use to understand our world, but of course it is the role of philosophers and scientists to point out these things to us. Some of us are familiar with the mail-order catalogues that used to come from department stores like Sears and Roebuck or J C Penney. I’m not talking about the flimsy little ones we get these days. These were catalogues that included “everything, including the kitchen sink”! They were the “Amazon” of their day. But unlike Amazon, where you can just start typing what you’re looking for into a search box, those massive catalogues had a huge index at the back. That’s how you found what you were looking for. The index was an alphabetical listing of all the items for sale with an indication of the page number where you could find what you wanted. But even the index was so big it was divided into categories.

I think most of us have just become used to looking that the world through the lens of a huge “catalogue.” It just seems “natural” to us to break things down into their parts and sort them into the “right” categories. But there are other cultures that emphasize the connections all things and all beings have with one another. It’s a different way of looking at the world. I would say the world into which Paul wrote the lesson from Colossians for today was more like that than like our world. I think that’s especially the case with the way Paul connects Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord with everything and everyone. Because he is the “is the visible image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15, NLT), he’s connected to all of creation. That includes not only the world and everything and everyone in it, but the entire universe. I know that’s hard for us to wrap our heads around, but Paul can say not only that “through him God created everything” but also that “he holds all creation together” (Col 1:17, NLT). Paul’s view of Jesus Christ goes far beyond the simple teacher from Nazareth who died on a Roman cross outside Jerusalem. He’s that, but he’s also so much more.

What makes the difference here is Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and his ascension to the right hand of God. That pointed the Apostles back to Jesus’ existence as God’s son from all eternity, and therefore his role in the work of creation. But it also convinced them that Jesus is the one who rules over all things in God’s name now, and who one day will bring all God’s plans to fulfillment. This is the “great mystery” that belongs to Jesus the Christ. We see this in our lesson from Colossians as well: the purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection was for God to “reconcile everything to himself” (Col 1:20, NLT), or as version we read for today puts it, “so that all beings in heaven and on earth would be brought back to God” (Col 1:20, CEV). We might say, “all beings in the whole universe.”[2]

Again, that language might sound strange to us. There are some places in the New Testament where the language of the Gospel, including Paul’s preaching and teaching, seems to limit salvation to only a few. In the Jewish world, salvation was for Jewish people, and only for Jewish people. All the gentiles, or the “heathen,” were condemned for their ignorance. Unfortunately, there have been many theologians up to this day who have promoted that mindset. Tertullian, a Third-Century teacher said it first, “extra ecclesia nulla salus est.” That means “outside the church there is no salvation.” Only those in the church experience salvation, and no one else. That line of thinking was carried on by some of the most influential theologians in the history of our faith, and many believe it to be the “received truth” of the Christian faith to this day.

But there have always been other Christian scholars and teachers who have taken the language of our lesson for today more at face value. While we cannot ignore Jesus’ real humanity, there is much more to who Jesus Christ is. Paul alludes to this in our lesson for today when he tells gentile believers that God’s “wonderful and glorious mystery” is that “Christ lives in you, and he is your hope of sharing in God’s glory” (Col. 1:27, CEV). What we may have a hard time imagining is just how hard it would have been for any Jewish person living in the First Century to say that about any Gentile person. I agree with a number of others who think that the fact that people who would have been assumed to be permanent outsiders responded to the Gospel in faith made the Apostles rethink a lot about their faith, especially whom they included and whom they excluded.

For too many people, the church in our culture has been known primarily for whom we exclude, especially to those who are outside the church. I would say this is another reason why some people avoid church so much these days. But I believe that we can take seriously the hints that in Jesus Christ, God is up to something bigger than perhaps we’ve ever dared to imagine or dream. That “something bigger” is nothing less than fulfilling the promise of the resurrection that says that “In Adam all of us die. In the same way, in Christ all of us will be made alive again” (1 Cor 15:22, NCV). Paul says it a little differently elsewhere: “Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone” (Rom 5:18, NLT). And in our lesson from Colossians for today, we hear the astounding statement that the Gospel ultimately extends to everyone and everything in the whole universe! Paul calls this the “mystery of Christ.”[3]

What difference does this “great mystery” about God’s work through Jesus Christ make for us in our daily lives? Well, for one thing I think it calls us to be open to the fact that our faith contains more than we can put into our “boxes.” God is bigger than we can imagine or conceive. And in our lesson for today, we learn that so is Jesus Christ! Despite what the psalmsinger said, God does not resolve the problem of injustice in our world by “breaking down forever” the villains (Ps 52:5). In Jesus Christ, God resolves the problem of injustice by reconciling all things to God. God undoes the evil of those who arrogantly presume to abuse their power, as the prophet Amos describes. But he does so by “making peace” through Jesus’ death and resurrection. Essentially, he brings us all, oppressed and oppressors alike, back to God. That version of salvation is hard to put into any “box.”

I would say another important lesson for us is that that we, as members of Christ’s “body” on earth, all participate in this “great mystery” right now. And more than that, we all have a role in fulfilling God’s big plan to save the whole creation. If you doubt that, perhaps your Jesus is too small.[4] Part of this great mystery is that every time we act with integrity and kindness, every time we seek to make love for God and love for others the principle of our lives, everything we do in this world to spread just a little of the justice, freedom, and peace of God’s kingdom to someone who needs it, we’re contributing to the fulfillment of God’s big plan. That’s not because we’re anything special, but rather it’s because Jesus Christ who reigns over all things as Lord even now is working in and through us to fulfill God’s big plan to save the whole creation. It may be hard for us to wrap our heads around all this, but I think our Scripture lesson calls us to marvel at the wonder of it all, and to be grateful that we have the chance to participate in something so awe-inspiring!

[2] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.3:756 speaks of “the alteration of the whole situation of man and his cosmos as already accomplished in Jesus Christ” as he is in the process of fulfilling God’s determination ” to reconcile everything to himself” (Col. 1:20). Some would dispute this theme in Barth’s Dogmatics. It’s true that he takes a different approach in the earlier volumes. But it seems unavoidable to recognize it in volume 4. It would seem that Barth underwent a transition in his thinking about the extent of salvation during the twenty plus years of writing the Dogmatics.

[3] Jürgen Moltmann in Sun of Righteousness, Arise!: God’s Future for Humanity and the Earth, 140, quotes Christoph Blumhardt, a 19^th century German theologian who believed the impact of God’s redemption extended beyond individual salvation, as saying that this is his “confession of hope”: “That God might give up anything or anyone in the whole world—about that there can be no question, neither today nor in all eternity … The end has to be: Behold, everything is God’s!”

[4] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions, 276: “in personal faith a rebirth is experienced which will one day extend to heaven and earth; and the church prefigures and foreshadows the temple of the Holy Spirit which the whole cosmos is destined to become. It is only the cosmic dimension which gives the human, historical experiences of Christ their all-embracing meaning. We can only think of Christ inclusively. Anyone who thinks of Christ exclusively, not for other people but against them, has not understood the Reconciler of the world” (emphasis original). Cf. also ibid., 278: “Christology can only arrive at its completion at all in a cosmic christology. All other christologies fall short and do not provide an adequate content for the experiences of the Easter witnesses with the risen Christ. If Christ is the first-born from the dead, then he cannot be merely ‘the new Adam’ of a new humanity. He must also be understood as the first-born of the whole creation.” He continues to discuss Karl Barth’s “cautious consideration” of this “possibility” in the passage cited above and intentionally “develops” it. As a result, he concludes, ibid., 285: “the church must be seen as the beginning of the reconciled cosmos which has arrived at peace.”

Monday, July 21, 2025

Partners

Psalm 8[1]

I think many of us wonder about the meaning of our lives. That’s not just something that we do when we’re young. Through all life’s changes, we can find ourselves wondering what our lives are about. For some of us, we find meaning in our families and our homes. For others, our lives are more geared toward our careers. For others, it’s all about community involvement. For still others, the meaning of life may be focused on the experiences we have the opportunity to enjoy. For many of us, we find meaning in life by trying to balance a combination of these factors. Life’s changes also mean that our quest for meaning in life is a moving target for most of us. At the different stages of life, we can find ourselves wondering “who am I?” and “what is the meaning of my life?”

The psalm singer who wrote our lesson for today reflects on that very question. Like anyone else, the psalm singer apparently was moved by the vastness of the night sky to wonder about our place in all of that. He asks, “When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—the moon and the stars you set in place—what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?” (Ps. 8:3-4, NLT). It’s a common experience to feel a sense of awe when you see the beauty of a clear night that seems so full of stars. And it’s common to wonder at our place in the universe when we feel that sense of awe.

But there are several ways in which the questions “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of my life?” are framed in a unique manner by the Scripture lesson. First, the wonder at our place in a universe that can seem overwhelmingly immense is framed by an affirmation that it is God who rules over all of it. The James Webb Space Telescope recently discovered a galaxy that is 45 billion light years away! As our technology has improved our understanding of just how vast the universe is has increased dramatically. It’s only natural that we should wonder at our place in this overwhelmingly immense universe. And yet, the scripture affirms that God rules over all of it! At the beginning and the end of his reflections, the psalm singer affirms, “O LORD, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!” (Ps. 8:1, 9, NLT). I think he could have just as easily said “, “O LORD, our Lord, your majestic name fills the whole universe!” The questions “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of my life?” begin and end with the affirmation that God is the one who reigns over all creation. While God’s great majesty may lead us to wonder at our place in things, at the same time, because we are God’s creatures, our lives are by definition endowed with significance.

The second way in which the psalmist frames the questions “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of my life?” is by placing them in the context of God’s care for all people. Notice that the psalmist doesn’t simply ask “What are mere mortals?” Rather, he asks, “what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?” (Ps. 8:4). Literally, in the Hebrew Bible the psalm singer wonders why God “remembers” and “visits” mortals. The acts of “remembering” and “visiting” sum up God’s works on behalf of his people Israel throughout the Hebrew Bible. That’s the language of God’s care. God continually made the people of Israel the object of his attention and care. But the psalm singer extends that care to include all mortals, the whole human family. Again, the thought that God pays attention to and cares for every human being is one that we might find so amazing that it’s hard to believe. But the psalm singer insists it’s a vital part of the answer to the questions, “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of my life?”

The third way in which the psalm singer frames these questions is by affirming the dignity of all human beings as partners in caring for God’s treasured creation. He says it this way, “You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority” (Ps. 8:6, NLT). It seems clear that the psalm singer is reflecting here on the description of humanity as a part of creation in Genesis chapter one. Unfortunately, however, the ideas of “ruling” (Gen. 1:26) or having “authority” (Ps. 8:6) over creation have too often been misconstrued. The point is not that this world and all that is in it is ours to do with as we please. Rather it is that we are called to be partners with God in his ongoing project of creation. Yes, there is a sense in which God “rested” on the seventh day from all that he did in creation. But Jesus could say in John’s Gospel that “my Father is working to this day” (Jn 5?), which alludes to the sense in which creation itself is an ongoing project. It can be awe-inspiring in and of itself to think that we mortals have been entrusted with caring for what is most dear to God’s heart: the natural world in which we live and all the people who life in it! In a very real sense, we are partners in the ongoing work of creation by the way in which we do simple things like planting a garden. Those tomatoes that will be turned into pasta sauce and salsa at the end of the season are still growing right now. Some of them are just flowering. That’s creation unfolding right before our eyes. And those who are involved in caring for those gardens are partners in God’s ongoing work of creation. We have all kinds of ways that we can exercise that partnership with God, including recycling and conserving resources.

There are many ways we could approach the questions “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of my life?” We could approach them functionally, based on what we do. We could approach them philosophically, or from the perspective of psychology. And those approaches have important lessons to teach us about what it means to live fully as a human being. But from the perspective of the psalm singer, one cannot fully answer the question of the meaning of our lives apart from the God who created us and who reigns over all things.

It is fitting on this Trinity Sunday, the day when we remember that we worship the God who is not remote, but rather became one of us in order to redeem us, and who is with us through the Spirit’s continual presence, that we remember we are the objects of God’s unfailing love and care. Always and continually. That has a lot to say about who God is: not a God who is distant and absent, but a Creator who takes great delight in every detail of creation, including the flowers that will become tomatoes and peppers and zucchini our gardens. We see that in Jesus our Savior, and in the work of the Spirit as well. But the fact that God takes such great interest in us also has a lot to say about who we are: we are an important part of God’s project. All 8.2 billion of us are beloved and cared for by the God who is beyond the vast universe. However we answer the questions “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of my life?”, we cannot leave God’s love out of the equation. God loves us all, and that’s a very important part of answering the questions, “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of my life?” We are not “mere” mortals who live out our short lives with no significance, but rather we are partners with God in the ongoing project of creation and redemption. I think all of this challenges us to take our place joyfully in the ongoing work of creation and redemption as God’s partners. And we do that as we hold firmly to our confidence that God cares for us, and that we are valued, perhaps beyond our imagination.

Wednesday, April 09, 2025

Tears and Joy

Psalm 126[1]

Like many of you, I grew up in the days of the “Jesus movement.” Preachers like Billy Graham were taking advantage of the still relatively new technology of Television to preach the gospel to huge audiences. They called people to faith in Jesus in order to be “born again” and to receive “abundant life.” Of course, that language was taken straight from the Bible. But while the promise of “abundant life” here and now is true to the Bible, the way it was presented didn’t always take into consideration the realities of life. I wrestled for years trying to understand what “abundant life” was supposed to mean for people who carried deep and very real scars from the wounds that had been inflicted on them, sometimes in early childhood. The “reality” just didn’t seem to live up to the “hype.”

I think what I’ve learned over the years is that a lot of people got caught up in the enthusiasm of the time. Musicals like “Godspell” presented faith as something mainly positive. New songs (which are now “old favorites”) called people to follow Christ with joy. It was all very upbeat. But even the relatively upbeat “Godspell” had some features that were meant to call attention to the tensions of faith. Jesus’ followers are meant to be dressed like clowns at the beginning of the play. Over the course of the story, they eventually trade their “false” costumes for a more realistic appearance. It’s meant to symbolize the fact that the changes Jesus calls us to make in order to follow him don’t always come easily, and they can take time.

We’re decades removed from the “Jesus movement.” But there are still plenty of people who present the change of life that faith in Jesus calls us to as something that happens relatively quickly and easily. But that simply has not been my experience. The troubles of this life continue in the midst of the peace, hope, and joy we experience through our faith. The “abundant life” that Jesus promised to those who follow him doesn’t magically happen overnight. The new life God offers us through faith is something that takes root in our lives and changes us very slowly.[2] So slowly that at times we are tempted to think that there’s really nothing happening at all. But when we look back over years, or even better, over decades, we can see the difference faith makes in our lives.

I think this lesson applies to the faith in the Psalms as well. As I mentioned at the outset of our journey through Lent this year, the way the Psalms speak of the joy of those who know God’s comfort, care, and relief can lead us to think that this is the “norm” for everyone all the time. But again, we have to read each Psalm as a whole, the Psalms together as a collection, and set it all in the context of the Bible’s total message. As I’ve tried to demonstrate during our journey through “Faith in the Psalms” during Lent, the joy that God’s unfailing love brings into our lives takes place in the midst of the normal sufferings and troubles of this life. Our faith doesn’t exempt us from hard times, but it gives us a resource with which to get through them.

We see that reflected in the backdrop for our Psalm today. It very likely comes from the time after the people of Israel had lost everything and had spent decades living in exile far from their homeland. At the end of that exile, the prophets promised that the God who brought the people safely out of Egypt in the past would now bring them safely through their long journey home from Babylon. The same God who made “a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters” (Isa 43:16) at the Exodus promised to do something brand new: he would make a “way in the wilderness” (Isa 43:19). And the prophets promised that God would restore their lives when they returned to Jerusalem. I would imagine they kept that promise close during the long journey home.

But when they completed their journey and made it back to their own land, instead of finding the home they remembered and loved, what they found was an abandoned city in ruins. More than that, having made their dangerous journey, they found themselves in even more danger. The stories of Ezra and Nehemiah tell us how dangerous it was for the people who worked to rebuild the ruined city. Rather than the safety of home, they found themselves under attack from enemies who had taken control of the land in their absence. At one point, while working on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem to provide them with some protection, Nehemiah had to have everybody carry their swords with them as they worked (Neh. 4:17-18)!

It’s likely this was the context for our Psalm for today. It’s true that the psalm-singer speaks of their return from exile as a dream come true. But we know from the historical accounts that the dream took some time to realize fully. They may have come home, but they had all kinds of challenges to face. Not only did they have to fend off their enemies, but they also had to find a way to establish a reliable supply of food and water. They had their work cut out for them. And so they prayed that God would continue to “restore their fortunes” (Ps. 126:4).

In fact, they prayed that God would work in such a way that those who went out to sow their seeds in tears would come back rejoicing in the harvest. I can imagine that those who were sowing seeds in tears may have been like farmers who have endured several bad years, and they’re planting the last of their seed stock. If they don’t get enough rain to provide a good harvest this year, they might just be finished. And so they prayed, “Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses in the Negeb” (Ps. 126:4). Now, the Negeb is a desert in the southern part of Israel, where there are gullies that are dry most of the year. During the rainy season they fill up with water that the farmers would use to make their crops flourish. Essentially, they’re looking at their situation, one that seemed difficult at best and dangerous at worst, and they’re putting their faith in God to provide for their needs.

What stands out to me about this Psalm is the way it portrays God’s work of restoration. We might say, “God’s work of salvation.” It’s not all joy, all the time. It doesn’t promise that God’s deliverance makes us “happy all the day.”[3] It promises us that we can trust God to see us through the tears we may have to shed in this life. But I think the key to this Psalm is that the joy and the tears go together. There are times when we find ourselves crying out to God, desperate for his help, not even able to imagine what it would look like for God to answer our prayer to “restore our fortunes” (Ps 126:4). Those are times when we express our faith through tears. There are other times when we find relief, right here and right now, and we can say with the psalm-singer, “the LORD has done amazing things for us! What joy!” (Ps 126:3).

In my experience, that perspective on what God is doing in our lives is more true to life. Yes, the hope and joy and peace that our faith brings us makes it possible for us to live in a way that can be more genuinely happy. But those times of joy are combined with times when we are doing the work of sowing seeds of faith, “planting in tears” in the hopes of one day “harvesting with shouts of joy” (Ps 126:5). While we have times when we see the fruits of our labor and rejoice, at this stage in my life I tend to believe that the “harvest” of our faith is one that takes a lifetime to realize. We continue to plant seeds of faith, hope, and love throughout our lives. The work of cultivating the “harvest” of our labor, sometimes with tears and sometimes with joy, takes our whole lives. That’s the “abundant” life we’re called to live. Not a few simple steps that lead to non-stop happiness, but rather a lifetime of doing the work of God’s kingdom, sometimes with tears and sometimes with joy. But always trusting in the God who takes our efforts and uses them for good in this world.

[2] Cf. Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, rev. ed., 337, where he says that “To be a Christian … is not to have arrived but to be constantly on the way,” constantly growing toward “the whole or complete humanity of Christ.”

[3] We can see this in the way the hymn “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed” was altered in the version known as “At the Cross.” The original hymn was written by Isaac Watts in 1707 to express gratitude for the way Jesus’ death on the cross helps us with our burdens. In 1885 Ralph Hudson added the refrain, “At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away—it was there by faith I received my sight, and now I am happy all the day.” It was characteristic of the “revival” hymns of that time. But the refrain completely alters the tone of the hymn from one of thoughtful reflection on the gratitude we feel for what Jesus did to lift our burdens to an almost pollyannish approach to salvation that results in being “happy all the day” (in my opinion)!

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Assurance

Hebrews 10:11-25[1]

Lately I’ve been sharing with you stories about my journey with the Bible. I think it’s appropriate for us to talk about this in connection with the book of Hebrews. The first “serious” study of the Bible I engaged in was a study of Hebrews. I was in my Junior year of High School, and I had found a booklet that walked me through Hebrews with background information and questions to answer, much like the ones that are still available today online. In fact, the splash screen for my sermon on the PowerPoint this morning is a picture of the lesson from Hebrews in the Bible I used in those days. It’s a King James Version that I keep because it was one of the Bibles I used when I started my journey of following Jesus. At least when I became more intentional about that journey in High School.

One of the things that drew me to Hebrews was that it was obvious that there is a connection between the New Testament and the Old Testament. That has been an interest of mine for decades. In fact, one of the aspects of the Reformed Tradition that attracted me to the Presbyterian church is the fact that we focus on what has been known since the days of the Protestant Reformation as the “whole counsel of God,” meaning the full biblical witness. Many of the churches in those days identified primarily with the New Testament. Some of them even called themselves a “New Testament Church.” While I understand that, I was always curious about how a follower of Jesus could and should make use of the Hebrew Bible.

Another aspect of the book of Hebrews that attracted me is the fact that there are some confusing passages in the book. For example, “it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who … have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come—and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance” (Heb 6:4-6 NLT). That didn’t make sense to me in light of the affirmation of Scripture in general and the Gospel in particular that God’s love for us never fails. What I learned was that there are several of these “warning” passages in Hebrews. But each time, the warnings are followed up with an assurance. In this case, “Dear friends, even though we are talking this way, we really don’t believe it applies to you. We are confident that you are meant for better things, things that come with salvation” (Heb 6:9 NLT).

That brings to us to our lesson from Hebrews for today. Our lesson for today speaks of the assurance we have as we seek to keep following Jesus, even through the most difficult times of our lives. It assures us that “we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place” because “by his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way.” (Heb. 10:19-20, NLT). Therefore we can “go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him” (Heb. 10:22, NLT). I think the point is that God hasn’t left us to try to find our way to him on our own. We have an open door to God’s grace and mercy and love any time we need it. In fact, whether we realize it or not, that open door has flooded our world and our lives with God’s grace, mercy, and love. There’s no challenge we will ever have to face alone. There’s no hardship or injustice or pain that we can undergo without the presence of the living God who created all the heavens and the earth right there with us, supporting us every step of the way.

That’s what it means to “go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him” (Heb. 10:22). A more literal translation of that verse speaks of our being able to go into God’s very presence with the “full assurance of faith.” For example, the NIV says that because of what Jesus has done for us, we can go into God’s presence “with the full assurance that faith brings.” The letter to the Hebrews has already presented the message that Jesus died to break the power of everything that keeps us from the life God intends for us. And it has affirmed that Jesus became a human being in order to demonstrate that God loves us enough to enter our struggles, and his love is powerful enough to transform them into new life.

In our lesson for today, the Scripture defines that new life by taking it one step further. It tells us that Jesus also died to open the way to a relationship with God that is meaningful and fulfilling. An important part of the biblical idea of sin is that we have broken our relationship with God by our willfulness, our resistance, our pride, and our selfishness. But the good news is that God takes the initiative to heal that breach.[2] God holds no grudges against us; God does not need to be softened up toward us. God already loves us unconditionally and irrevocably. And so it is that, through Jesus, God seeks us out like a shepherd searching for lost sheep. And once we are found, he never lets us go! I think that’s what our Scripture lesson means when it speaks of a “new and living way” opened to us by Jesus. It’s new in that it is completely different from other ways people have taken to reach God. In this new way, we can “go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him” and have the assurance that he will always be there to welcome us and to support us on our journey.

One contemporary preacher calls this experience of Jesus as presented in the letter to the Hebrews as the “parabola of salvation.” By that, he means that after Jesus “moves down into human history, experienced testing and suffering of every kind,” he is “then swept back up into the heavenly places.” But “this parabolic arc was not only the pathway that Christ traveled, it is also a pilgrim way of grace that we travel, a highway leading into the very presence of God” opened up for us by Jesus.[3] In a very real sense, just as Jesus came to experience our human existence fully, so also we are in a sense, “swept up” into his experience of suffering followed by new life in God’s presence. We all have the assurance that based on what Jesus has done, both at the cross and in the resurrection, we’re on the same path into the very presence of God that he took. And the good news is that this way is open for anyone and everyone. There is no gate-keeper who keeps out those who don’t belong. There is no special password. Jesus has already opened the way for anyone and everyone to have the kind of relationship God has always intended for us to have—a life of lasting peace, and heart-felt joy, and love that sustains us even in our darkest moments. That is the full assurance of our faith!

[2] Cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1:36-38, where he says this is a fulfillment of the covenant promise, “I will be your God and you will be my people,” which means that from the start “God willed to be God for [us].”

[3] Thomas G. Long, Hebrews, 104.

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, January 10, 2024

Unprecedented

Mark 1:1-11[1]

This is the time of year when people think about what will be “new” about the “New Year.” But for those of us who have made more than a few trips around the sun, turning over the calendar may just mark another day. We may find ourselves thinking along with the “preacher” of Ecclesiastes that “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl 1:9). Or to put it in a more familiar way, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” It’s the moral of the story of Sisyphus, the mythological Greek figure who thought he could outsmart the gods and even cheat death. As a result, he was sentenced to push a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down again, over and over and over. In both cases, the idea is that all our efforts are in vain.

This sentiment has been around for a long time—for millennia in fact! The myth of Sisyphus goes back to ancient Greece, and Ecclesiastes may be one of the older books in the Hebrew Bible. And yet, there are genuinely “new” things that happen for some of us. Students graduate from High School and move on to the next level. Or they complete their studies and start a career. Couples get married and start their lives together. Or they have children, which changes everything! Those are exciting times for all who are involved. But after a while, even a “new” career falls into a routine. Couples and even families can deal with the same thing. As the years continue to roll around, they may start to feel like every year turns into a repeat of the last one. Monotony sets in, and that leads to boredom. Our flourishing entertainment industry gives ample evidence of the fact that many of us, despite whatever “new” things come our way, feel like our lives are just an endless loop of the same old thing, day by day, month by month, and year after year.

To some extent, that’s a normal part of our human experience. Seasons come and seasons go. We rely on that. Our days and nights and weeks and months and years tend to follow a pattern. That’s not all bad. It’s comforting to know, for example, that the sun will actually come up tomorrow. Having a “normal” life gives us a sense of stability. But when stability turns into monotony, and boredom sets in, we can find ourselves struggling with the idea that none of it really matters. And that leads to despair, a state of mind and heart and soul that results from losing hope that anything we do or say makes any difference at all. More than that, despair cancels out any kind of faith: in God, in life, in the future, in anything. When we lose hope, and we lose faith, we also lose the heart and the will to truly live and love and find joy in doing so.

The message of the Bible, despite the pessimistic declaration of the “preacher” of Ecclesiastes, is a very different one. As the prophet Isaiah declares in the name of the Lord, “I am about to do a new thing” (Isa 43:19). In fact, the new thing that God promised to do would change everything. As the prophet said in the name of the Lord, “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind” (Isa 65:17). In that setting, the prophet was primarily talking about what God was going to do to set his people free from their captivity in Babylon. The promise was that God was going to change everything; in fact, God’s work was going to change even the heavens and the earth! As we’ve discussed, when the people returned from exile, the reality they faced wasn’t as “new” and as all-encompassing as they expected. There was a lot that stayed the same.

Some might think that God didn’t fulfill his promise after all. But the reason why things didn’t turn out quite the way they expected was because God wasn’t finished fulfilling his promise. The “good news” that the prophet Isaiah proclaimed almost three thousand years ago was a sweeping vision that included all God has in store for his precious creation. And, of course, the essential piece of that “good news” had to do with the birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and reign of Jesus Christ as Lord! We get a glimpse of that “good news” in our Gospel lesson for today. Not only does Mark tell us that the events surrounding Jesus’ birth were part of the fulfillment of God’s promises through the prophet Isaiah. He also demonstrates in several ways that the story of Jesus is the “good news” about the “Son of God.” Now there had been others before Jesus who were called “sons” of God, but Jesus fulfilled that role uniquely.

That’s the point of the affirmation that the Gospel of Mark opens with: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1:1). One of the ironies about Mark’s Gospel is that the only person who truly recognizes Jesus as the “Son of God” is the Roman Centurion who witnessed his death on the cross. Nobody else truly recognizes Jesus as the “Son of God” in Mark’s Gospel. I think the reason for this is that Mark believed people could only truly understand what it meant that Jesus was the “Son of God” in light of the fact that he suffered and died on the cross. In that day, “Sons of God” were supposed to do miraculous deeds, draw huge crowds of followers, enjoy tremendous success, and be recognized by one and all! “Sons of God” in the ancient world were the “stuff of legend,” the focus of mythical stories. But Jesus demonstrated that he was the true “Son of God” by following through with God’s purpose: he took all the suffering of the world onto himself by dying on the cross.

As important as it is that Jesus was born as “God-who-is-with-us,” as important as it is that Jesus died as “God-who-is-for-us,” as important as it is that Jesus was raised to new life and ascended to the right hand of God to reign over all things, as Mark reminds us, this is the “beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The change that God made in Jesus was only the beginning. The work of fulfilling the promise of making a whole new heaven and a whole earth would continue through the first Christians, as the New Testament tells us. Through those who were bold enough to declare the news that in Jesus Christ God had begun working to change the whole world, the “good news” continued to be fulfilled in the lives of all who heard the message and took it to heart.

I think what I want to emphasize today is that the “good news” is that God isn’t finished with his work even now. The “good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” is still in the process of being fulfilled. And God will not stop working to make all things new until he has changed everything and everyone by the power of his unfailing love. To those who say, “there is nothing new under the sun,” I say that through Jesus Christ God is continually doing something new among us, even now. To those who say, “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” I say that it’s time to open your eyes to see the light of God’s love in Jesus Christ that is still shining on us all to this day. To those who say that the promises of the Bible are just a lot of wishful thinking because life doesn’t ever really change, I say that it’s time to break the chains of hopelessness and despair. It’s time to open our hearts to the faith that the God who loves us will not stop changing everything until his work is finished, and it’s time to celebrate with joy the signs of God’s work that are all around us. In Jesus, God did something truly new and unprecedented. And he continues to do so among us and through us to this day.

The Waking Dreamer