“Now and Forever”

Revelation 1:4-8[1]

What would it look like to you if you could say you finally “made it” in life? Our cultural version of the “American Dream” is rather frightening. The MTV show “Cribs” (slang for homes) gives shape to this “dream.” It’s a show where twenty-something instant millionaires take us on a tour of their mansion and show off all their toys. I’m afraid that there are all too many of us who long for that kind of “good life.”

The problem is that your “dream” defines not only your hopes; it also sets the agenda for how you live. We see the “American Dream” in slogans like “money talks,” “time is money,” “never let them see you sweat,” or “you have to go out and take what you want because nobody will give it to you.” All of this sends us the message that you have to be forceful, be egotistical, be greedy, and be aggressive to be happy.

Around here we mouth the words fairly often in prayer to God “through Jesus Christ our Lord, who reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever”. I wonder if they mean anything to us in terms of what our lives are all about. The book of Revelation would seem to be the last place to go for a dream of what the meaning of life is. Visions of total annihilation and strange monsters pasted together from body parts of different animals aren’t very compelling to us today. At least not as compelling as a mansion with 25 rooms and 6 brand new cars parked out front!

But Revelation isn’t about the weird beasts and the gruesome battles. It’s about the one who sits on the throne—the one who is, and who was, and who is to come. It’s a reminder that “Our God is an awesome God; he reigns from heaven above; with wisdom, power, and love; our God is an awesome God.”[2] And it’s about the one who stands at his right hand—the faithful witness, the lamb who was slain and who has triumphed.

You see, in the first-century world, Christians had to face alternative visions of what life is all about just like we do. Except the ideal in their day was defined by Rome, and it was a dream of power through conquest, exploitation, and domination. The presence of Roman legions throughout the Mediterranean world constantly reinforced that vision.

I would think that vision of reality posed a significant temptation for the Christians of that day. Some of them had lost their jobs and their businesses because they would no longer participate in the obligatory sacrifices to various idols. Some of them had been excluded from families who could not fathom why anyone would turn their backs on the culture of power and glory, prosperity and success, and its “family values”.

As they made their way early on Sunday morning to a home for worship, they might see a patrol of Roman soldiers with their golden standards walking through the streets. They might walk past one of the ancient world’s beautiful temples to Zeus or Aphrodite or another deity. And they then would come to worship and the central affirmation they would hear and say was: “Jesus is Lord”! All around them, however, were images that contradicted that statement.

The book of Revelation was written to remind those Christians that at the heart of their faith was an alternate vision of what life is all about. It was a vision of the one who sits on the throne, who bends everything that happens, both evil and good, toward love and peace and justice and beauty.[3]

It was also a vision of the lamb who overcame all the so-called “powers” of the world by dying. He is the one who alone has the right to sit in judgment over the kings of the earth. He is the one who will one day make the “kingdom of the world” into the kingdom of our Lord, and “he shall reign forever and ever” (Rev. 11:15)!

At the heart of the Christian faith is a vision of a reality that is ultimately true; it is more true than this reality defined by violence and greed and lust. What’s more, at the heart of the Christian faith is the conviction that this ultimate reality is already present and working in our lives—it already subverts all the boastful claims of the rich and powerful.[4] One day it will overthrow them all for the kingdom of peace and justice, where all people will beat their swords into ploughshares and the wolf and the lamb will lie down together (Isaiah 2:4; 11:6)!

Do we find this “dream” at all compelling today? Our Confession of 1967 puts it this way: “It is the will of God that his purpose for human life shall be fulfilled under the rule of Christ and all evil be banished from his creation.” But we don’t have to wait from here to eternity for some kind of pie in the sky utopia. In the reign of Christ as Lord and King, God is already working to heal the wounds and to right the wrongs. God is already working to overcome violence with peace, to end all forms of oppression, and to expose all the lies. God is already working to establish his reign, which will bring “justice and compassion for all people, everywhere.”[5]

When we affirm our faith in the reign of Christ as Lord “now and forever,” we affirm that this vision is what defines the meaning of our lives. We affirm that it’s the dream we long for, and it sets the agenda for how we live our lives! It is a dream that cries out to be realized in and through us.[6]

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[1] A Sermon preached 11/26/06 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX.

[2] Rich Mullins, “Our God is an Awesome God,” 1988, BMG Songs, Inc.

[3] Stephen Shoemaker, GodStories, 67-68.

[4] Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 99, 190-91, 254.

[5] Shirley C. Guthrie, “The Way, the Truth, and the Life,” Presbyterian Outlook (Feb. 11, 2002); at http://www.pres-outlook.com/HTML/guthrie030602.html. Cf. also Emil Brunner, Dogmatics, vol. 2: The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 299.

[6] Henri J. M. Nouwen, in Bread for the Journey, quoted at http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/practices/practices.php?id=32&g=1.

“Promises to Keep”

Psalm 25; Jeremiah 33:14-16[1]

It seems to me that we are a people for whom promises don’t mean much. There may have been a time when your word was your bond, but these days their lawyers want to talk to our lawyers and everybody else’s lawyers to make sure none of lawyers are pulling a fast one!

If you’re like me, you may feel a bit jaded by too many promises broken. Political campaigns have become comical for the outlandish promises candidates will make just to get your vote—of course, with no intention of ever fulfilling them. The sad thing isn’t that we know they have no intention of ever fulfilling all their promises; it’s that they know we know, and they make the promises anyway!

Biblical faith is a faith that is very much defined by promise.[2] From the days of ancient Israel to today, there have been prophets who promised that better things were in store for those who wait in faith. Was this just manipulation? In some cases, I’m sure that has been a factor

For some, the divine promises in Scripture become a tangible key that unlocks not only the mysteries of the Christian life, but also the details of the future. About 20 years ago, a man named Edgar Whisenant wrote a booklet called “88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Come in 1988.” He sent it to pastors of various denominations. In it, he claimed not only to be able to predict the return of Christ, but also all of the events that would occur over the next 1,000 years! I would say placing one’s faith in that kind of thing is just about as foolish as believing the promises most politicians make these days!

What basis do we have for believing that the biblical promises are more than just religious campaign promises? In the first place, we view them from the perspective of God’s character. The idea that God is faithful is one that echoes throughout Scripture. The first true “revelation” of who God is comes to Moses in the cleft of the rock: “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exodus 34:6-7). That refrain echoes again and again throughout the Psalms and prophets. Our Psalm text for today puts it this way: “All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ps. 25:10).[3]

Even in the presence of the Babylonian siege, Jeremiah obeys God’s command to buy his cousin’s field. The field stands as a tangible reminder that “Fields shall be bought in this land,” because God promised he would bring the people back and restore their fortunes (Jeremiah 32:43-45). God promised: “I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah” and make a branch from the house of David arise to bring new justice to the people (Jer. 33:14-16)

Why would Jeremiah or anyone else believe this? It was the experience of God’s faithfulness in the midst of the hardships of life that gave them confidence. It was the assurance that: “See, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too hard for me?” (Jer. 32:27). It was the same assurance that enable Paul, at the end of a ministry that encompassed countless sufferings, to say, “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day” (2 Tim. 1:12).

The conviction of God’s faithfulness emerges from the experience of God’s steadfast love in the midst of all the changes of life.[4] That’s what leads the biblical prophets to affirm that the essence of God’s being is fidelity. That’s why biblical faith cannot fathom a God who breaks promises. Rather, biblical faith views God’s promises from the stand point of Isaiah 55: “as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose” (Isa. 55:10-11).

The other reason for believing biblical promises like this is that they point toward a future with hope and meaning.[5] One contemporary prophet has called it “God’s particular future.”[6] It consists of promises like “I will wipe away every tear,” and “they will all know me, from the greatest to the least,” and “they will beat their swords into ploughshares,” and “I am making the whole of creation new.”

Christian faith is at heart the hope that the coming God will redeem this world, and that God has begun to do just that through Jesus Christ.[7] But the very act of speaking those words calls our attention to the fact that those promises have not been fulfilled. And so there is a tension to biblical faith in the promise of God.[8] It is like the Jewish messianic hope that recognizes that this world and those of us in it are still in a very real sense fundamentally unredeemed. The Christian faith is one that “must often be expressed against all outward evidence.”[9]

This season of Advent is a time not only for looking backward joyfully to the birth of the Christ child, but also looking forward longingly to the coming of the Risen Lord. We are still a people who wait for promises to be kept.

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[1] A sermon preached 12/3/06 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX.

[2] J. Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 16, 20, 30-32, 40-44, 85-89, 102-229.

[3] Moltmann, 115: “God is the same God all the way from promise to fulfillment.”

[4] Moltmann, 106, 117, 119.

[5] Moltmann, 24-25.

[6] Peter Gomes, Strength for the Journey, 182.

[7] J. Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 26-27, 28, 30, 32-33.

[8] Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 104.

[9] William Dyrness, “In Distress” The Christian Century ( Nov 16, 1994), accessed at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_n33_v111/ai_15969376; cf. Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 118.

“An Open Door”

Hebrews 10:19-25[1]

Religion is not generally known for its openness. To the contrary, it would seem that most religions are defined more by the boundaries they prescribe, or by the barriers and restrictions they impose.

Just about every religion, it seems, has some sort of prescribed ritual for entering the presence of the deity. [2] Only the authorized priests may conduct the ritual, and they must exercise meticulous care to follow the prescribed ritual to the letter. Not only is it forbidden for an ordinary individual to approach God, it is positively dangerous. Sometimes it’s even dangerous for the priests! They and only they can enter the sacred places to conduct the ritual of worship.

All of these boundaries and limits presuppose God as someone or something unapproachable. Many religions developed animal sacrifices in order to resolve this problem of approaching an unapproachable deity. Animal sacrifices were believed to have a kind of magical power to soothe God’s demeanor and render God favorable and gracious toward humanity that falls short and goes astray.

While all of this would seem to run counter to the New Testament lesson for today, the reality is that the Christian religion hasn’t been very different from other religions in this regard. Priests and meticulous rituals and sacred places with boundaries have been a regular part of the Christian religion throughout history.

But the letter to the Hebrews reminds us that they are not a part of the Christian faith. Hebrews offers in place of all that a “new and living way” that has been opened by Jesus the Christ. It is new in that there are no sacrifices you have to meticulously follow in order to enter this way. It is living in that it is a way that truly leads to life (cf. the “path of life” in Ps. 16). Through Jesus’ death on the cross, the path that leads to life is open for anyone and everyone.[3] There is no gate-keeper who has the authority to keep out those who don’t belong. There is no special password you have to learn in order to be allowed to follow Jesus on the path that leads to life.

This message is the heart of the Christian faith, yet it has puzzled humankind for 2000 years. How is it that the death of this Jewish rabbi on a Roman cross in a backwater Mediterranean country makes it possible for us to have an open door to God? Throughout history, there have been many theories proposed to explain just exactly why Jesus died on the cross and what his death accomplished. But through the ages the best theological minds have not been able to explain the cross in a way that has satisfied the whole church so much that we have embraced it in something like the Apostles’ Creed. [4] It is a “truth which cannot be demonstrated but which is not without witnesses.”[5]

I think the best we can do is to stick with what the New Testament does—the Apostles were content to describe the effects of Jesus’ death on the cross without being able to explain all that it involved.

Our Study Catechism puts it well, I think, when in response to the question “Why did Jesus have to suffer as he did?” it says: “Because grace is more abundant — and sin more serious — than we suppose. … The cross in all its severity reveals an abyss of sin swallowed up by the suffering of divine love.”[6] Essentially, Jesus died to break the power of that which keeps humankind from the life God intends for us to have—call it sin, or selfishness, or alienation.[7]

But Jesus also died to open the door to a relationship with God that is meaningful and fulfilling.[8] The biblical idea of sin is not just that our lives are marred, but also that we have broken the relationship God intends for us to share by our willfulness, our resistance, our violence, our pride, and our greed. The good news of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ is that God takes the initiative to heal the breach. We are the offending party, yet we are the ones who need to be reconciled. God holds no grudges against us; God does not need to be softened up toward us. God already loves us unconditionally and irrevocably.[9] God is the one who seeks us out like a shepherd searching for a lost sheep. God does not need to be reconciled to us—we need to be reconciled to God. [10]

But because of the seriousness of the breach, our restoration requires “the cross in all its severity” as our catechism puts it. What that means is that God takes on the consequences of our willfulness and pride and greed. God endures the pain of our sins, but by so doing it becomes a pain that heals us (Isa. 53:4; 1 Pet. 2:24: “by his wounds we are healed”).[11]

I don’t think that we have to endorse a certain theory of atonement that involves some sort of substitution or satisfaction to recognize that Jesus’ death on the cross restores our relationship with God that was broken by human sin. Much of that kind of thinking seems to me to boil down to a return to the belief that a sacrifice involving blood has some special power to soothe God’s demeanor![12]

We don’t have to go there to recognize that Jesus has opened a door so that we can have the kind of relationship God has always intended for us to have—one that leads to life.[13]

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[1] A sermon preached 11/19/06 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX.

[2] Harry Emerson Fosdick, A Guide to Understanding the Bible, 208-210

[3] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1:92.

[4] Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 309. Paul Tillich expresses this idea by saying that the Cross and the Resurrection must be seen as both events and as symbols; Systematic Theology II:150-58.

[5] Otto Weber, Foundations of Dogmatics II:169. He adds: “He who persists at the level of the verifiable will miss the truth which breaks through our untruth, therapeutically lays bare our hybris, and corrects our perversity.”

[6] Study Catechism, q. 45.

[7] J. Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 181-83; cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1:97.

[8] Moltmann, in The Way of Jesus Christ, 188-89, points out that this is not merely a restoration of life to its original state, but rather it is the transformation of life that points to a new creation; cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV. 1:13, 110.

[9] J. Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 87, 95-96.

[10] A. Ritschl, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation; cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1:88-89, 122-23.

[11] Tillich, Systematic Theology II:174-75; cf. also Moltmann, Church in the Power, 86: “man’s sufferings become Christ’s history, and Christ’s freedom becomes man’s history.”

[12] Fosdick, Guide to the Bible, 254.

[13] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1:14, 22, 36, 38, 47, 113

“Vulnerable Messiah”

Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45[1]

We don’t like vulnerability, not in our dog-eat-dog world where it seems so often that you have to fight to survive. Vulnerability reminds us of two facts that we would rather avoid: other people often have the power to take advantage of us, and we are powerless to do anything about it.

Yet vulnerability is a part of what it means to be human. As C. S. Lewis observed, “to love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one …. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; …. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”[2]

The last thing anyone in the First Century was looking for was a vulnerable Messiah. They expected a conquering hero to come riding in on a stallion—the ancient equivalent of an armored vehicle like a Humvee. They expected the Messiah to be a powerful warrior who would overthrow their enemies and give them back the “good old days.”

But the New Testament insists that Jesus came not as a warrior but as a servant. Jesus came to hope to the hopeless, to bring freedom to captives, to bring healing to those who were “inoperable”, to give acceptance to outcasts, and to bring God to the godless.[3]

We catch a glimpse of Jesus’ vulnerability in the book Hebrews: “while Jesus was on earth, he begged God with loud crying and tears to save him” (Heb. 5:7, CEV). It sounds like Jesus’ experience in the garden of Gethsemane. After his Last Supper with the disciples, he went out of the city to the garden to pray. He took Peter, James, and John with them and said, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me” (Matt. 26:38).

There, the Gospels tell us that Jesus prayed fervently, asking God to take away the suffering he was facing. Some ancient versions of Luke’s Gospel add, “in his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground” (Lk. 22:44). It suggests that Jesus was so anguished about what lay ahead that he was drenched with sweat!

Of course, that is only one episode from Jesus’ life—a life that was lived under the motto, “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk. 10:45). And because he came as a vulnerable Messiah who called into question the hypocrisy of a religion that promised blessing and security and prosperity, they crucified him.

Why would anybody have followed a crucified Messiah? As Paul explained (1 Cor. 1:23), a Savior who was lynched like a common criminal was utterly foolish to the civilized world. And to Jewish people it was nothing short of blasphemy to claim that one who was accursed enough to be strung up was in fact God’s anointed one.[4]

Why would anybody follow a Messiah who was vulnerable enough to be executed? We spend our time running after things like safety, happiness, and status. How can a crucified Messiah possibly help with that? We hedge everything in our lives, from redundant computer systems to insurance up to the neck—all to stave off the inevitable losses of life. How does that fit with faith in a Messiah who calls us to lose our lives?

We follow a vulnerable Messiah because he reveals to us a vulnerable God. [5] As one contemporary prophet puts it, “Only those who stand beneath the cross and watch him suffer and die will be convinced that at the heart of reality is One who enters into suffering.”[6] For most of our lives we have revered and feared a God who was so exalted as to be remote, so supreme as to be incapable of personal relationships, so all-powerful as to be untouched by our heartaches and struggles.[7] But in Jesus, the vulnerable Messiah, we see the God who “has moved into … our guilt, our alienation, our suffering, our death”[8] and has overcome them all!

God’s vulnerability doesn’t mean that God is not majestic or powerful. God is exalted, but not remote! God is supreme, but that does not stop God from being supremely capable of personal relationships![9] God is all-powerful, but God is also deeply touched by our struggles.[10] God is not separated from us, but loves us so completely that God is intimately involved with every aspect of our lives.[11] God is both majestic and merciful.

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[1] A Sermon preached 10/22/06 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson TX.

[2] C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, 121.

[3] Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, 242-45, 248, 276.

[4] F. F. Bruce, Paul, Apostle of the Heart Set Free, 70-71

[5] William C. Placher, Narratives of a Vulnerable God, 15, 17-19; cf. Clark Pinnock, Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness, 27, 58, 81-2, 88-92, 94.

[6] Bishop Kenneth L. Carder, “Why Follow a Crucified Christ?” The Christian CenturyAugust 27, 1997:753, accessed at http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=655.

[7] Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God, 139-41, 183-84, 187, 242-43.

[8] Carder, “Why Follow?”

[9] Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 75, 96, 127, 157, 178, 209-212.

[10] Moltmann, Crucified God, 246-47, 277. Moltmann, Trinity, 38-39, 57, 60.

[11] Cf. Pinnock, Most Moved Mover, 57.