Finally Some Good News: Raised on the Third Day

Posted on December 8, 2020 by salooper57

Watch here (sermon starts at 24:01 and last approximately 30 minutes) or read below.

(1 Cor. 15:1-5) Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.

All writers – whether they are writing plays, novels, essays, textbooks, comic books, cookbooks, or the First Epistle to the Corinthians, it doesn’t matter – write with an awareness of what is coming. When the Apostle Paul started this section we know as chapter 15 – but really, when he penned the first words of this long letter to the Corinthians – he knew where he was headed. He knew he was going to write about the resurrection.

It was one of the chief reasons Paul wrote this letter in the first place. There were people in Corinth who were distorting the teaching of the resurrection and misleading church members – quite possibly in the public meetings Paul described in the previous section.

Paul knew that people who get the resurrection wrong will get lots of other things wrong too. If you are working on the most complex differential calculus equation ever and get 2+2 wrong, you will get everything else wrong as well. What basic addition is to mathematics, the resurrection is to faith in Jesus.

Yet it is worth noting that Paul, while taking the Corinthians’ error very seriously, does not condemn people for their wrong thinking. He doesn’t tell them that they will be accursed unless they get the doctrine of the resurrection right. It is not Paul does not use that kind of language; he does, just read Galatians. But he reserves it for people who abandon Jesus, not for people who get their theology wrong.

On the Sunday before Easter, a Sunday School teacher asked her class of four and five-year-olds: “Does anyone know what today is?” A little girl’s hand shot up and she said, “Today is Palm Sunday.”

The teacher said, “That’s right, Kara! That’s very good. Now does anyone know what next Sunday is?” The same hand shot up again. After waiting to see if any of the other children wanted to answer, the teacher said, “Yes, Kara?” And Kara proudly answered, “Next Sunday is Easter.”

“That’s right,” the teacher said. “And does anyone know what happened on Easter?”

Of course it was Kara who answered. “Jesus rose from the grave.”

But before the teacher could congratulate her on yet another right answer, she went on: “and if he sees his shadow, he has to go back in for seven weeks!”

That teacher didn’t kick Kara out of the class for getting the wrong answer and neither did Paul kick the Corinthians out of the church. Wrong answers call for instruction rather than discipline because it is faith in Jesus, not doctrinal correctness, that is necessary to salvation. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do our best to get our doctrines right, nor does it mean that we, if we get our doctrines wrong, won’t lose out because of it. Errors are costly.

Some of the Corinthians were getting the resurrection wrong, which is why Paul reminds them of the gospel of the resurrected Christ, which the apostles preached, they believed, and on which they had taken their stand (1 Cor. 15:11). But after Paul moved on, some of the Corinthians melded the gospel with popular beliefs in a way that was distorting the gospel.

The melding of ideas from different belief systems is called syncretism. That word is generally used to describe the blending of ideas from different religions. When I was in Senegal, I met people who identified as Muslims but who thought nothing of offering sacrifices to dead ancestors, a practice that has no place in Islam. Haitian Voodoo is the classic example of syncretism, blending elements of African and Caribbean religions with Catholicism.

But just as dangerous (and far more subtle) is the kind of syncretism that threatens us. It blends contemporary cultural beliefs with faith in Jesus – and it is not the cultural beliefs that suffer under that arrangement. Then Christianity becomes a component in a larger belief system. This was characteristic of the post-war United States in which I grew up. Many well-meaning people regarded Christianity as an important part – but a part nonetheless – of “truth, justice, and the American way” – and thought they were giving Christianity a place of special honor by doing so!

But Christianity, if it is truly faith in Jesus, doesn’t work that way. It is the belief system into which everything else either fits or falls away. If the American way can fit into faith in Jesus – wonderful! If not, it is the American way that needs to go.

In recent decades, the American way has included a politics of condemnation, a sexual libertarianism that resists all limits, a knee-bending devotion to the economy, a worship of youth and health, an addiction to distraction, and a rejection of aliens, which, in some cases, calls the baby in her mother’s womb an alien.

To discern what fits and what does not fit into the way of Jesus can be extremely challenging. We should expect that. We were born into a belief system before being born again into the faith of Jesus. We were immersed in that belief system before we were immersed in the waters of baptism. Recognizing contradictions under these circumstances takes time, instruction and, most of all, the illumination of the Holy Spirit. This is not something new. It has been true of Christians in every culture around the world and in every era since Christ walked the earth.

It was certainly true in Corinth, where people lived and moved and had their being in the landscape of Platonic idealism. The friends and family they loved, as well as the celebrities and public figures they looked up to, took the truth of their culturally sanctioned ideas for granted. We’ll see how that affected their understanding of the gospel in a moment. But just keep in mind that we live and move in the landscape of post-modern ideals. People we know and respect – family, friends, as well as celebrities and public figures – take for granted ideas that are contrary to the way of Christ. We, like the Corinthians, need instruction and insight from the Holy Spirit even to recognize it.

First century Greeks scoffed at the idea of resurrection. When Paul spoke about resurrection in Athens (just 50 miles from Corinth), people sneered and called him a babbler. It was crude. It was 300 years out of date. Are there really people who still believe that stuff? Let that sink in: 2,000 years ago, people were thinking, “We’re too advanced to believe that kind of stuff anymore.”

Isn’t it interesting that people today repeat those same lines with the same supercilious arrogance, only now it is faith in God, biblical inspiration, and Christian sexual ethics they mock? I have been ridiculed by readers who have accused me of being ignorant, unsophisticated, and simply irrelevant because of my faith in Jesus.

The Corinthian Christians found themselves in a bind. The gospel they believed and on which they stood declares that Christ was raised from the dead. There is no wiggle room there. Yet their culture regarded a belief in resurrection as primitive and anti-intellectual. So some of the Corinthians compromised. They engaged in syncretism.

They continued to affirm the gospel truth that Jesus the Son of God died and rose from the dead but they also affirmed the culturally accepted view that humans are bound for a bodiless afterlife in a platonic heaven, where they will live a purely spiritual existence, free forever from the bondage of physical matter.

They managed this seeming contradiction by holding that Jesus’s resurrection was a one-off event. Yes, the Son of God rose from the dead but the rest of us don’t rise. Only people stuck in the past, uneducated and naïve, could believe such a thing in today’s world.

The subjects have changed in the last 2,000 years but the attitude hasn’t. People aren’t mocking resurrection these days, but if you believe in a Creator God, practice sexual chastity, and uphold the value of the nuclear family, you’ll draw the same kind of comments. If you can’t stand being called simple or unsophisticated, you are going to have a hard time following Jesus.

With that warning, let’s look at Paul’s argument. He raises the subject of the gospel in verses 1-11 not because the Corinthians didn’t believe these things but because they hadn’t thought through what they believed and what it meant for their daily lives.

This first section’s key verses (in terms of literary construction, not theology) are verses 1 and 11. Verse 1 is: “Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.” Verse 11: “Whether, then, it is I or they,” (that is, the other apostles) “this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.”

Do you see what Paul was doing? He had known when he started this letter that he needed to address the issue of resurrection. But before doing so, he wants to remind the Corinthians of two things: (1) that all Christians everywhere hold the resurrection to be an indispensable part of God’s good news; and (2) that the Corinthians themselves believed it and took their stand on it. Paul is not saying, “I want to convince you of something new,” but “I want you to know what it means to believe what you say you believe.”

He places in front of the Corinthians a truth they would not and could not deny: they did believe that Christ rose from the dead. Given that they still believe it, his reasoning goes like this (this is the argument of verses 12-20): If you believe Christ rose from the dead, you must believe that you too will rise. Your resurrection and his are indivisible. If you admit his resurrection, you must expect your own. If you disavow your resurrection, you have disavowed his, as well. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot have Christ’s resurrection without yours. “If (and this is the big if) we have been united with him like this in his death (through faith in Christ), we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection” (Romans 6:5). The two are inseparable.

Throughout this carefully worded argument, Paul never refers to Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection as if they were two different things. Jesus’s resurrection is a part of the resurrection. Or it might be more better to say that the resurrectionflows out of Jesus’s resurrection. The two cannot be isolated from each other any more than a sunbeam can be isolated from the sun. One resurrection, two phases. Paul is adamant: Christ was not merely raised; he was the beginning of the resurrection. As I’ve said before, Jesus was the first stone in an avalanche.

Why is this important? Because resurrection is about more than a spirit being reunited to a body following death, which seems to be what the Corinthians were assuming (and what many contemporary Christians assume as well). That is far too individualistic a way of looking at it. Resurrection is the pivot on which God’s program to “make all things new” turns. It is the key event in God’s plan to bring blessing on creation. Resurrection inaugurates the new age, begins the Great Renewal, and forms the bridgehead by which the kingdom of God breaks into our world. When we say we believe in the resurrection, this is what we mean. This is why resurrection is gospel – good news.

Most of Paul’s fellow Jews already believed something like this about resurrection. What they didn’t realize was that resurrection had already begun … in Jesus. That was the Christians’ stupendously good news. It was not just that people go on living after they die – most of the world believed that then and believe it now! It was that the new age, the age of God’s kingdom and the Renewal of all things, had already kicked off …when Jesus rose from the dead.

Because Christ’s resurrection and ours are inseparable, the Corinthians’ claim that we will not be resurrected was tantamount to saying that God doesn’t reign, doesn’t win, and the good news of the kingdom is a baseless rumor. But the gospel announcement is that Christ “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” Do we know what that means?

It does not mean – as is often taught – that the spirits of faithful people get to live forever in “future disembodied bliss.” That was Plato’s heaven, not St. Paul’s. Paul would not even have considered such spirits saved, because they would not be saved from death and corruption.[1]

If the resurrection is nothing more than spirits flying off to heaven, then God has given up on earth and on his plan for universal blessing. He has settled instead for shuttling decent people off the planet before it blows. He has given up on creation, on his covenant promises, and on bringing all things together under one head, even Christ. Apparently that was too ambitious a goal. He wasn’t able to pull it off.

But resurrection is much more – and far different – than shuttling disembodied spirits off to heaven. Resurrection means God has begun the rescue of his people. He has neither given up nor has he given over his wayward people to death. Resurrection means he is keeping his promise.

Do you see? God has not abandoned us in life – in this messy life with viruses and cancers and divorces and injustice and doubt. And he will not abandon us in death. “For this God is our God forever and ever; He will be our guide even unto death” (Psalm 48:14). And beyond.

The resurrection means that Jesus and no other is the Son of God, the Messiah. Right at the beginning of Romans, St. Paul lays this out. He claims that Jesus “…through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 1:4). There is more in that one verse than we can possibly unpack in the time we have, but I’ll mention a couple of things.

The resurrection demonstrated that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God. Son of God was one of the titles Jewish people gave to Israel’s messiah, whom they expected to establish God’s kingdom over all the nations of the earth. Because of this, the resurrection was political dynamite. It’s no wonder the government in Israel was so anxious to squelch talk about Jesus rising from the dead.

But if Jews called the Messiah the Son of God, guess who the Romans (to whom this letter was written) called the Son of God? Nero Claudius CaesarAugustus Germanicus, also known as Our Lord Emperor Son of God. Uh-oh. Jesus Son of God and Nero Son of God, and neither brooks any rivals. From the very beginning, Jesus claimed his follower’s loyalty over all others – even country, even family.[2] Opponents tried to use Christians’ loyalty to Jesus against them, dragging them into court and charging them with treason: “They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus” (Acts 17:7).

Caesars and Sadducees then and government leaders now are never happy with people who put loyalty to Jesus before loyalty to them. In ancient Rome, citizens throughout the empire were required to offer an annual sacrifice to Caesar, bow to him, and confess him as “lord.” Things haven’t changed much. Today, the Chinese have a massive loyalty program in place for their people. North Koreans are ranked on their devotion to the Kim dynasty.[3] If people insult the president of Azerbaijan, they can spend up to two years in prison. In Venezuela, it is up to 40 months, Bahrain as much as seven years.

Leaders live in fear of being ousted from power. Our leader does not. The invasion has begun, the great battle won, the turning point in the conflict is past. All nations on earth, all people on earth, will bow their knees – not to Caesar, not to Kim, not to China, not to America but to the powerful Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord.

The resurrection means that his kingdom has been inaugurated. We’ve seen D-Day, and we are waiting, working, and hoping for Victory Day. The resurrected Christ is unstoppable. Because Christ has been raised, we will be raised. Because Christ has been raised, death itself is neither deterrent to our obedience nor threat to our success. Because Christ has been raised, our end will be better than our beginning.

The resurrection does not mean that we get to go on living after we’re gone (though we do). It means that we can start living while we’re here. And it means we have something worth living – and dying – for: the kingdom of God and its king, Jesus Christ our Lord, who “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”

[1] Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, p. 332

[2] See Matthew 10:37

[3] https://www.ibtimes.com/north-korea-ranks-people-based-loyalty-kim-dynasty-study-701796

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Getting into Heaven Is not the Point

Posted on December 5, 2020 by salooper57

Christian faith is often pictured, by Christian and non-Christian alike, as a kind of insurance policy that secures a person on Judgment Day from a guilty verdict and a sentence of eternal damnation. Some people choose to purchase the policy, some choose not to, and others ignore it altogether.

This picture misrepresents the story the Bible actually tells. It is a caricature, having less to do with what the Bible says than with the concerns we bring to it, chief of which is saving our own skin. Or, failing that, our own soul.

God wants to save our souls and our skin even more than we do, hence the importance of the biblical doctrine of the resurrection. But God has other concerns as well. Humanity is but one part, albeit an important part, of the larger creation which God, according to the biblical revelation, intends to save and restore.

If asked, many people – both those who attend church and those who don’t – would say the whole point of Christianity is to get into heaven. Death is looming, eternity awaits, heaven is the much-preferred destination, and Christianity offers an affordable plan for getting there.

Were someone to lay out this synopsis of the faith to St. Paul, he would not recognize it. If we told him we had come to this understanding through his letters, he would be appalled.

Christianity purports to explain how to come to God, not how to get to heaven. People who have no interest in coming to God will certainly not find heaven to their liking. This is hard for people to accept or even to hear, since so much of western Christianity, both pre- and post-Reformation, has been focused on getting to heaven.

Does this mean that heaven and the afterlife are just a myth? Not at all. The Bible presents heaven as a real, joyous, and glorious place. But God’s goal for humans involves much more than mere relocation, even to a better neighborhood. His stated goal for humans is that they should live and reign with him, they as his people and he as their God. God himself, in all his boundless joy and endless energy, is humanity’s future hope.

Because so much attention has been focused on how to get to heaven, many people have missed the biblical teaching that heaven is coming to earth; this despite the fact that tens of millions of us regularly pray, “Thy kingdom come.” “Going to heaven” only make sense when a person has aligned with heaven’s kingdom here on earth, joined God’s people, and committed to his cause.

Imagine working for Citizenship and Immigration Services where it is your job to decide whether people are granted citizenship or not. There are criteria on which to base this decision but, even so, you are often uncertain about what is the right thing to do. There are times, however, when the decision is perfectly clear.

Such was the case when one applicant bluntly stated: “I don’t believe in this country. I won’t sacrifice anything for this country. I believe my country of origin is better and I will serve that country and be a propagandist for it.

“Further, I cannot promise to be loyal to this country, knowing that prior allegiances may get in the way. And I admit that I intend never to pay a cent in taxes to this country if I can possibly help it. However, in accordance with Article 8, section 1, clause 4 of the U.S. constitution, I am applying for citizenship and the privileges it entails. I ask you to grant it.”

What would your decision be? I know what mine would be.

Do we think God’s decision should be different? Should he grant us kingdom citizenship while we are serving another kingdom? Have we any right to expect a place in the very command center of his kingdom?

The good news is that God wants to confer kingdom citizenship on as many people as possible, but he will only do so if they will confess Jesus as Lord. No one can enter God’s kingdom while refusing to be ruled by its king.

(First published by Gannet)

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“According to the Scriptures”: What does that mean?

Posted on December 1, 2020 by salooper57
Sermon begins at 22:50

This is our sixth sermon in a series titled, Finally, Some Good News. We have been seeing what the good news is, according to the Bible, learning why it is good news, and figuring out what we ought to do about it. The last time we dug into this, we looked at the astonishing first bullet point in St. Paul’s summary of the gospel, “Christ died for our sins.” We want to go further today and try to get a handle on the explanatory phrase, “according to the Scriptures” and the second bullet point, “was buried.” We will take the burial first.

I know that means going out of order, which will drive some of you to distraction, but the inclusion of the burial here powerfully illustrates a truth we looked at several weeks ago, so going there first will serve as a brief review before we move on. Besides that, the line about Jesus’s burial frequently gets skipped over altogether. But Paul included it, as did each of the Gospel writers and, what’s more, Paul even mentioned it his evangelistic preaching,

But why? What is there to say? He was buried. Stuck in a hole in the ground. There is not a lot of color commentary to go along with that. When preachers go to their illustration files for something to highlight the burial, they usually come up empty-handed.

In the recent past, historically speaking, some preachers and apologists have focused on the empty tomb as proof that Jesus rose from the dead. Those who deny Jesus’s resurrection, they say, need to explain the empty tomb. And people have tried. Some suggest that the women, confused and overcome by grief, simply went to the wrong tomb. When they didn’t find Jesus’s body, they recalled something he had said and jumped to the conclusion he had been resurrected.

There are all kinds of problems with that theory, starting with the chauvinistic assumption that women are overly emotional and directionally challenged. But even if these women were, the disciples who buried Jesus knew where his body lay. And so did the authorities, who were desperate to squelch the news that he had risen. If they could have refuted the error – “Those over-emotional, directionally-challenged women went to the wrong tomb; it is as simple as that. His body is right where we left it” – they would have.

Others have suggested, including Israel’s leaders at the time, that the disciples overpowered the Roman soldiers who were stationed there, removed and hid the body, then claimed Jesus had been resurrected. Again, there are all kinds of problems with this theory, beginning with the idea that a few frightened disciples with two swords between them could somehow overpower a Roman military unit.

But besides that, as Kevin pointed out three weeks ago, everyone of those disciples endured torture and/or execution because they insisted that Jesus rose from the dead. Th torture and executions didn’t happen all at once but over a period of decades and across thousands of miles. The idea that these disciples would die independently of each other over numerous decades for what they knew to be a lie is simply unbelievable.

There is much more that could be said about this. The burial of Jesus, when combined with the empty tomb, is a compelling argument for Christ’s resurrection but that is not why Paul includes it as the second bullet point in his gospel summary. As an apologetic for the resurrection, the empty tomb argument didn’t develop until much, much later. The biblical writers simply didn’t think of it that way.

Then why does the burial merit a place in this brief summary of the gospel? That takes us back to something we saw earlier in the series. The gospel is an announcement of something that has happened. It is not an advertisement. It is not an argument. It is not the offer of a sweet deal. It is a news report. That is why the burial is included. It happened. It was part of the story.

Some of them – Joseph and Nicodemus – were the ones to perform the burial. Some of them – the two Mary’s, Joanna, and others – watched as Jesus’s body was placed in the tomb. The inclusion of the burial in this brief summary reminds us that the gospel is the announcement that something tangible, actual, has happened in real time, something orchestrated by God.

But before he was buried, Jesus “died for our sins.” That was the first bullet point. The Messiah, the kingdom-of-God-bringing king, died. The words “Christ died” feel like an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. The Christ doesn’t die! The very idea is preposterous. When, in John 12, Jesus signified the kind of death he was going to die, people responded this way: “What are you talking about? We have heard in the law that the Messiah will last forever” (John 12:34).

Yet the gospel announcement is that Messiah died. The rescuer was killed in the act of rescuing people. The king died at the very moment of establishing his kingdom. It is the Bible’s most unexpected twist – unexpected by us anyway. But it was not unexpected by Jesus. He had been warning his friends about what was coming for months.

Nor was it unexpected by God. He knew “before the creation of the world” that his anointed one, the Christ, the Messiah, would die for sins. That had always been the plan. So Paul says, “Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3).

That prepositional phrase has sent preachers and Bible scholars scrambling through the Old Testament in search of the texts that Paul had in mind. And the idea wasn’t just in Paul’s mind. All the disciples shared it. Jesus himself had told them, “This is what is written [in the Bible]: The Messiah will suffer and rise” (Luke 24:45). To Cleopas and his friend Jesus said, “How slow you are to believe the prophets. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things?” (Luke 24:25).

But where in the Old Testament is it written that the Messiah would suffer these things? The hunt usually begins in Genesis 3:15, with the curse of the serpent: “he (the offspring of the woman) will crush your head, and you will strike his heal.” We find symbolism in Genesis 22, when the beloved “only” son Isaac is offered as a sacrifice. We go to Psalm 22, with it odd lines about pierced hands, “counting all my bones,” and laying in the dust of death. Psalm 69 mentions being given vinegar to drink, which, of course, happened to Jesus on the cross. We turn to the symbolism of Jonah, which Jesus himself sanctioned when he said, “As Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40). We find Zechariah’s prophecies of the gentle king who is pierced. There are many others.

Yet, more than any other passage, we think of Isaiah 53, which is quoted directly by New Testament writers on six different occasions. “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). “…the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). “…he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death” (Isaiah 53:9). “Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days” (Isaiah 53:10). “…he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12).

We know the Gospel writers had these texts in mind because they referred to them again and again. Yet when Paul says, “according to the Scripture”; when Jesus said, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44); they both had more in mind than isolated texts which in hindsight appear to refer to the Messiah’s death. When Paul writes, “according to the Scripture,” he has in mind the story the whole Bible tells.

Remember that Paul was writing this to Gentiles living in Corinth, some of whom had never seen or heard the Bible before he arrived. With his help, those Gentiles had learned how to read the story of the Old Testament. More than that, with his help they were learning how to read that twisting story of sin and rebellion – and redemption – as their story.

Now they had a story long before Paul arrived with the gospel. They were Corinthians. Their city had been around for thousands of years. They had one of the most prestigious universities in the world. They had the Corinthian Games, which rivalled the Olympics and drew elite athletes from around the Mediterranean. They were affluent and influential and cosmopolitan. They were also an economic powerhouse.

The Corinthian story was impressive. When people asked, “Where are you from?” the first readers of this letter could answer proudly, “I’m from Corinth.” Their people had fought successfully in the Peloponnesian wars. They were part of the Achaian League. Their entire city had been rebuilt in 44 B.C. and was, in Paul’s day, a modern, beautiful, thriving place.

But Paul was teaching the Corinthians to locate themselves not on the Isthmus of Corinth but in the pages of the Bible. How absolutely crucial that is to success in the Christian life. They might be proud of Corinth’s history, but when they joined Christ it was the Bible story that became most important for them. It was the Bible story that revealed their true identity. The Bible story signaled who they were now.

The same thing is true of us. It is absolutely crucial that we find ourselves in the pages of the Bible. The most important parts of your story (if you are a Christian) didn’t happen in Michigan or Indiana or Ohio. They happened in Egypt and Babylon and, especially, in Israel. They didn’t happen in your lifetime. They happened thousands of years before your introduction into the narrative. They didn’t happen because of something you did. They didn’t happen because of something your parents did. They didn’t happen because your grandpa fought in the Battle of Midway, or George Washington led the charge at the Battle of Monmouth, or Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

I’m not saying you should not be proud of your grandpa or your country or your state.  I’m saying you should be even prouder of Jesus. Your identity has much more to do with the victory won at Calvary than the victories won at Midway or Saratoga. Our story is the story of the Bible and that is where our identity is found.

Our story is the story of Adam and Eve, the rebels who rejected the rule of God, were exiled from the Garden, and found themselves under the curse. But the story of sin, loss, and alienation – which has been repeated in every human life – doesn’t end there. It goes on to tell of the God who refused to give up on his creation, who chose Abraham and made a covenant with him to reverse the curse and bring blessing to all the people of the earth. It is the story of slavery and exile, but also of redemption and rescue, and it is our story.

Someone might say it is the worst kind of cultural appropriation to filch the story of Israel for ourselves. But this isn’t Israel’s story. It is God’s story. He brought Israel into it through Abraham, and he brought us into it through Jesus, and the story continues to this day. Did we think the world started with us?

It is a story of exile – lostness, weakness, and oppression by powers greater than us. (That is Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Chronicles.) But it is also the story of redemption, release, and return. (That is Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah). It is especially the story of the return of the King and the establishment of his kingdom (2 Samuel 7; Isaiah 52; Daniel 7; Zechariah 12). And we have a place in this story.

The gospel, the good news we share, is always the good news that God’s kingdom has arrived though Jesus Christ. That is the “according to the Scriptures” story. “Christ died for our sins” means what it means according to the Scriptures”; that is, within the story of the restoration of God’s rule – his kingdom – over all the earth. Because he died for our sins, we can be admitted into God’s kingdom as citizens and agents.

But for what sins did Christ die? Surely a little anger, sloth, pride, lust, or greed isn’t enough to bar a person from God’s kingdom? Why, everyone on earth is guilty of such things. If God were to exclude us from entering his kingdom because of sin, there would be no one in his kingdom!

That’s not true. There still would be one person in the kingdom: the messiah, the servant of God, the promise keeper, the covenant mediator, the Rescuer-King, Jesus. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). He was what God’s people were meant to be. He did what God’s people were meant to do. He is Israel personified. He is humanity summed up.

We fail to understand why sin should be an obstacle to the kingdom of God because we don’t know what sin is. We think of sin as an I shouldn’t have done that but I’ll do better in the future kind of thing (though, left to ourselves, we won’t do better in the future because sin always grows deeper in and further out).

But sin doesn’t keep us out of God’s kingdom because it is a mistake but because it signals a rebellion. Sin is a seed that bears bitter fruit – greed, lust, anger, sloth, and pride – but the kernel of that seed is always rejection of God’s rule. Our story is about people – starting with Adam and Even but continuing right down to us – who turn away from God and reject his rule.

It is the story of humans suppressing the truth, ignoring God, and replacing him with other gods, ones they themselves have made. You say, “That was thousands of years ago when humans were superstitious and illogical. 21st century people don’t do that kind of thing.” But I say, “The gods have always been shape-shifters and they are as present today as they ever have been. In the prophets’ day, Baal and Molech were among the gods that could make someone successful. People sacrificed a great deal to them, on occasion even their own children. Today the shape-shifting gods have assumed other names: education, economy, science, and politics. If you think people aren’t still sacrificing to these gods – sometimes even their own children – you are fooling yourself.

I’m not saying that education and science and these other things are bad. Quite the opposite: In themselves they are good and it is important we understand that. But when they become a substitute for the God who made us; when we trust in them instead of him; when we turn from him to embrace them – which millions of people across our country have done and are doing – we are on the wrong side. C. S. Lewis was right: “…fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must laydown his arms.”[1]

Imagine you work for Citizenship and Immigration Services and it is your job to decide whether someone is granted citizenship or not. One person you interview tells you: “I don’t believe in this country. I won’t sacrifice anything for this country. I believe another country is better and I will serve that country and be a propagandist for it. I don’t promise to be loyal to this country and, if I can find any way around it, I will never pay a cent in taxes. However, I am applying for citizenship and the privileges it entails and I think you should grant it.” What would your answer be? You know what it would be.

But we want God’s answer to be different? We want him to grant us kingdom citizenship when we are serving another kingdom? God wants to grant us kingdom citizenship, but only if we will confess King Jesus as Lord. We simply cannot enter God’s kingdom if we refuse to be ruled by Jesus. That is a contradiction in terms.

Yet that is the nature of sin – to refuse, reject, and replace God. Do you see? We are still in “the according to Scripture” story – the kingdom of God story of rebellion and ofredemption, of sin and of the Rescuer-king who dies for our sin. And, because it is still going on, it can also be the story of forgiveness, a new start, and a life that is finally on track for those who give their loyalty to “Christ [who] died for our sins, according to the Scriptures.”

[1] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952; repr., San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 56.

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Forego Thanksgiving, Try Again Next Year?

Posted on November 28, 2020 by salooper57

2020 has been called the annus horribilis (“the horrible year”) and described as hellacious, apocalyptic, awful, and exhausting. The pandemic rages on, with some areas seeing higher infection rates than ever before. Many people are out of work and out of money and, as the coronavirus spikes, some are out of time.

Those who manage to avoid the virus can’t sidestep the measures taken to prevent its spread. In my state, restaurants are closed, mask requirements are in place, high schools and colleges have moved online, and theaters are shut down. Sports stadiums are empty. Churches, like ours, are seeing half their members attending worship gatherings.

Experts warn that the pandemic is causing anxiety, stress, stigma, and xenophobia. A review published in The Lancet linked an increase in mental health problems to the boredom, loss of freedom, and uncertainty caused by quarantine. Children and teens are most at risk.

We have heard the welcome news that an effective vaccine is around the corner, but many Americans are wary of taking it. Even those who are eager for the vaccine may be looking at the summer of 2021 before they are able to get it.

As if the pandemic was not bad enough, there was also the election. Usually after a general election, the nation recovers and, to some degree, reconciles. This year’s election did little to decrease divisiveness but rather increased it. Many people have lost faith in the election process, while others have doubts about the transition process.

The pandemic brought many things screeching to a halt. One thing that did not stop was war. There are serious conflicts in Yemen, Afghanistan, the South China Sea, on the Indo-Tibetan border, in Mali, Nigeria, Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and elsewhere. If only countries and warring tribes would practice greater social distancing.

This year has earned the title of annus horribilis for many reasons, most of which can be located under three categories: loss of comfort; loss of faith; and loss of hope. The first category includes sickness, bereavement, financial need, isolation, stress, and the other physical and emotional conditions that have accompanied the pandemic.

The second category includes loss of faith in experts and authorities. How, under the circumstances, could it not? So-called “expert opinion” can be claimed for almost anything one wants to believe in both science and politics. Experts contradict each other and sometimes themselves – witness the changes regarding the effectiveness of masks and the length of quarantine periods. Who can one trust?

The third category, loss of hope, seems to me to be the most devastating. People can live and even thrive with pain, but without hope they can only shrivel.

So, should we forego Thanksgiving in 2020 and try again next year? Or is it possible to expand our field of vision and find things for which we can genuinely be thankful? That may depend on the person. As someone who believes in God and a larger spiritual reality, I find gratitude not only possible, but also reasonable and powerful.

It is possible to be genuinely thankful in painful circumstances, as long as we retain our faith and hope. I have known people, characterized by friends and family as spiritual, who have demonstrated not only gratitude but joy in the midst of pain. I saw this repeatedly when I worked with Hospice and have seen it many times since.

These thankful people were people of faith. They might not have trusted the experts and authorities, but they had a robust faith in the Expert and Authority – in God. They trusted his intentions, his ability, and his character. Whether they lived or died, they were convinced that God was for them and would take care of them.

They were also hopeful people. It is inspiring to be around someone with a terminal diagnosis who is nevertheless overflowing with hope. I have sat with them, their hope undiminished and their faith unshaken, even as death stole into the room.

If what they (and I) believe is true, we have good cause for faith and for hope. Giving thanks is more than reasonable; it is warranted. Even in 2020, the annus horribilis.

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Thankfulness Is a Predictor of Spiritual Vitality

Posted on November 26, 2020 by salooper57
Photo by Pro Church Media on Unsplash

(First published by Gatehouse Media in 2018)

The holidays are the season for giving, for getting together with family, and for watching movie sequels and prequels. This will be the first Christmas since 2011 that there has not been a hobbit or a stormtrooper in the movie theaters, but Mary Poppins will be back. 

It can be hard to understand what’s going on in a story if you don’t know the backstory. This is not only true in the movies; it’s true in everyday life. The dynamics of the workplace will confound you unless you know that the woman in HR who is married to the boss used to be married to your department supervisor. Knowing the backstory is also important when it comes to understanding the Bible. 

One of the fascinating backstories in the Scripture has to do with the relationship between Jews and Samaritans – as in the “Good Samaritan.” The northern Jewish kingdom of Samaria was conquered in the Assyrian War, its inhabitants deported, and the land resettled by people from other conquered nations. The new residents, known as Samaritans, and their southern Jewish kingdom neighbors did not get along. 

When the Samaritans offered their help in rebuilding the devastated Jewish temple, the Jews refused and told them they were unworthy. Later, according to the biblical scholar William Barclay, a “renegade” Jew married the daughter of a well-known Samaritan leader and preceded to build a rival temple to the one in Jerusalem. A famous Jewish general led a raid into Samaria and destroyed the temple. The Samaritans responded by vandalizing and contaminating the Jewish Temple. 

This is the backstory to the Bible’s chronicle of Jewish-Samaritan relations. It helps the reader understand why Jesus’s disciples wanted to call fire down from heaven on a Samaritan village. It also explains why Jesus’s disciples were shocked to find him speaking to a Samaritan woman – something no other Jewish rabbi would have even thought of doing. 

One of the Bible’s more famous “Samaritan stories” comes from the Gospel of Luke. Jesus was traveling along the border of Samaria and Galilee, on his way to Jerusalem, when he encountered a band of lepers. In the Bible, the term “lepers” signifies people with a variety of contagious skin diseases. Such people were completely cut off from society.  

This particular band was comprised of nine Jews and one Samaritan. They pled, from a distance, for Jesus to heal them and he did. He sent them to the priest, the person authorized to readmit former “lepers” into society, and they all rushed off to resume their old lives. All except one: the Samaritan. 

He came running back to Jesus, shouting praise to God, and threw himself at Jesus’s feet, overwhelmed with gratitude. Jesus looked around to see if any of the Jewish members of the band had returned, but they had not. Disappointed, he said: “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?” 

There are fascinating aspects to this story. For one thing, we see how isolation can make strange bedfellows. Before contracting leprosy, the Jews and the Samaritan would have had nothing to do with each other but being rejected by society brought former adversaries together. One can see how something similar might happen among Christian traditions that have historically snubbed each other. If society ever anathematizes Christians, which is conceivable, liberals and fundamentalists, Catholics and Protestants, Calvinists and Arminians might finally learn to get along with each other. 

It is also interesting to see that the Samaritan, whose theology was all wrong – Jesus says as much in John’s Gospel – was the only one to get it right. Apparently, being wrong-headed is not as harmful as being wrong-hearted. Perhaps this is a truth political rivals should consider before demonizing their opponents. It is certainly one people of faith should consider before demonizing anyone. 

One would expect that the Samaritan, like his Jewish companions, had a life waiting for him, perhaps a family and a job. Yet he paused to give thanks, suggesting that he did not merely see God as a means to an end but as the end for which life was a means. This, in turn, suggests that ethnicity and religious training are not good predictors of spiritual vitality, but thankfulness is.  

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Deuteronomy and the Root of Bitterness

Posted on November 25, 2020 by salooper57

When I have preached on Hebrews 12 in the past, I have taken the “root of bitterness” that “grows up and defiles many” to refer to personal bitterness harbored toward another for real or imagined ills that have been done. I have warned people against harboring bitterness and urged them to forgive those who have wronged them.

If a person misses the grace of God (I have said), “there will be a price to pay – or, to be more precise,there will be hell to pay: a bitter root will grow up, a root that springs from the very soil of hell; and it will ’cause trouble and defile many.’”

Many years of pastoral experience have led me to this conclusion, and I believe it is an accurate one. I have seen people’s lives, marriages, relations to children and parents, and mental health destroyed because they harbored bitterness and refused to forgive.

I believe this warning remains true. I further believe it has biblical support. I have begun to doubt, however, that this is the point Hebrews 12:15 is making.

This past week, I was reading Deuteronomy 28-30, one of the foundational passages for coming to grips with how Jews in the post-exilic period understood their situation, when I came upon Deuteronomy 29:18. The NIV translates: “Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.”

I noticed the similarities with Hebrews 12:15. “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” Knowing that the author of Hebrews routinely quotes from the Septuagint (the Greek-translation of the Old Testament, completed prior to Christ), I looked up the Deuteronomy passage in the LXX (the Septuagint). Greek readers can find the passage below.

Deut. 29:18 (17 in LXX) μή τίς ἐστιν ἐν ὑμῖν ἀνὴρ ἢ γυνὴ ἢ πατριὰ ἢ φυλή, τίνος ἡ διάνοια ἐξέκλινεν ἀπὸ κυρίου τοῦ θεοῦ ὑμῶν πορεύεσθαι λατρεύειν τοῖς θεοῖς τῶν ἐθνῶν ἐκείνων; μή τίς ἐστιν ἐν ὑμῖν ῥίζα ἄνω φύουσα ἐν χολῇ καὶ πικρίᾳ; [2]

Now here is Hebrews 12:15 in Greek: ἐπισκοποῦντες μή τις ὑστερῶν ἀπὸ τῆς χάριτος τοῦ θεοῦ, μή τις ῥίζα πικρίας ἄνω φύουσα ἐνοχλῇ καὶ διʼ αὐτῆς μιανθῶσιν πολλοί,[1]

Note the repetition of 8 words from Deuteronomy. Also note the similar sounding ἐνοχλῇ (Hebrews) and ἐν χολῇ (Deuteronomy). I have no doubt that the author of Hebrews was thinking of Deuteronomy when he wrote.

That may give a different meaning to what the author of Hebrews wrote than what I have understood in the past. Falling short of the grace of God may be in his mind parallel to ἐξέκλινεν ἀπὸ κυρίου τοῦ θεοῦ ὑμῶν (“turning away from the Lord your God”) to the worship/service of the gods of the nations. This seems especially fitting when we remember the warnings against drifting away, turning away (3x), and falling away made elsewhere by the author of Hebrews.

If this is so, the root of bitterness is not the bitterness I feel toward another person but the bitterness I suffer (as in Deuteronomy) for missing the grace of God by turning away from him and to other things. It is a bitterness that spreads, affecting not only me but the people around me.

I am sure than many people have seen and commented on this. Somehow I had missed it until now. There are always new and interesting (and often challenging) things to discover in the Scriptures.

[1] Nestle, E., Nestle, E., Aland, B., Aland, K., Karavidopoulos, J., Martini, C. M., & Metzger, B. M. (1993). The Greek New Testament (27th ed., Heb 12:15). Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft.

[2] Septuaginta: With morphology. (1996). (Dt 29:17). Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft.

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How to Go Through Post-Election Withdrawal

Posted on November 21, 2020 by salooper57

Politics may be our most wide-spread addiction. With a dealer on every corner, it is always available. Media reporting and commentary provide an endless supply of partisan views.

As soon as someone starts coming down from the last high, a tempting report from CNN, or a Fox News update, or a tweet from the president can draw them right back in. During a general election year, it is possible to remain politically intoxicated for months.

Like other addictions, dosing on politics brings users pleasurable feelings which they then want to repeat. These feelings include the sense of belonging, the gratification of being right, and the heady shot of being in power.

There are deleterious side effects as well. Huffing politics can and often does lead to anger. It leaves one vulnerable to hatred of “the other”. Should one’s side win, it can result in arrogance; lose, and it can result in soul-wounding pride.

During the presidential campaign, I heard stories of how political addictions were destroying families. A pastor friend of mine related the bitter story of a married couple whose adult son warned them that he would disown them if they voted for the wrong candidate. He wasn’t joking.

That is the kind of thing addictions always do. They distort vision, turn priorities upside down, and redefine a person’s identity. They alienate friends and relatives and obstruct the performance of necessary duties. They drain previously enjoyed pastimes of their pleasure.

It is the nature of addictions to grow more demanding over time. This is as true of political addictions as any other. Watching the evening news was once enough. Then it was necessary to download the news app. It wasn’t long before checking the news several times an hour became a habit. Binge watching election results followed.

When something prevents the political addict from imbibing – say a job gets in the way – he or she begins sneaking looks at the latest headlines or covertly reading the president’s tweets. It is the political equivalent of carrying a concealed flask in an inside pocket. Thumb and finger rest on the alt and tab keys in case the boss comes near.

One of the signs that a person is hooked is that they cannot stay away from the object of their addiction. It beckons. It tempts. They can stop but they cannot stay stopped. They start to do something else but, almost before they know it, they are back for more.

A significant percentage of the population may now be on the verge of withdrawals. The election is over. If the president’s lawsuits fail to overturn the results, which seems likely, a new administration will take the reins. News organizations will actually need to look for stories once again. Viewership will diminish. The rhetorical volume will decrease.

It will be the perfect time to break the habit. Delete the news feed. Only check headlines once a day (or even once a week during detox), rather than once an hour.

Instead of watching the news, why not make some news? Attend city council meetings. Write legislators. Start a neighborhood improvement campaign. Join an effort to help people in need. Really, which will make the world a better place: watching cable news or delivering meals to the elderly?

The thing about addictions is that they don’t go away unless they get replaced. Instead of non-stop talk radio, try listening to good music. Put on a sermon a day from a great preacher. Listen to an audio book – try starting with the action-packed Gospel of Mark.

Rather than jumping into an online political brawl, use a Bible app to memorize helpful verses. Join a book club online and enter into discussions – but take care to avoid the latest political potboiler. If you simply must have something political, read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

It might be better to go offscreen altogether. Volunteer at the community food pantry. Get involved in the local church’s outreach efforts. Sign up to deliver Meals on Wheels or to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity.

Put down the phone. Lay aside the mouse. This is an opportunity to reassess values, reprioritize time usage, and create new and more productive habits.

(First published by Gannet)

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Can We Forgive When We Are Still Angry?

Posted on November 17, 2020 by salooper57

(Part three of a previously published series on forgiveness from a Christian perspective.)

One of the great examples of forgiveness in our time comes from Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch Christian woman who, during the Second World War, was arrested by the Nazis for harboring Jews. She was imprisoned, along with her sister, Betsie, in a concentration camp and subjected to brutal and degrading treatment. Betsie, and four other ten Boom family members, died as a result of the treatment they suffered in prison. Only Corrie survived the concentration camps.

Years later, at the conclusion of a speaking engagement, Corrie came face to face with the cruelest and most heartless of all her prison guards. The very thought of him had been too painful to bear. He had humiliated and degraded Corrie and her sister again and again. He had jeered and sexually harassed them as they stood in the delousing shower. He had treated them like animals. In her mind, this man was evil incarnate, the embodiment of the horrors of the Nazi concentration camp. To her surprise, he now approached her with outstretched hand and said, “Will you forgive me?”

Corrie later wrote, “I stood there with coldness clutching at my heart, but I knew that the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. I prayed, ‘Jesus, help me!’ Woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me and I experienced an incredible thing. The current started in my shoulder, raced down into my arms and sprang into our clutched hands. Then this warm reconciliation seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. ‘I forgive you, brother,’ I cried with my whole heart. For a long time we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I have never known the love of God so intensely as I did that moment!”

It may surprise you to know that this remarkable woman, who could in one extraordinary moment forgive her greatest enemy, was still at times plagued by bitterness and painful memories. On another occasion, after sincerely forgiving a person who had hurt her, Corrie found that she couldn’t stop rehashing the incident in her mind. After many sleepless nights, she cried out to God for help. She tells what happened next in her own words:

“His help came in the form of a kindly Lutheran pastor to whom I confessed my failure… ‘Up in that church tower,’ he said, nodding out the window, ‘is a bell which is rung by pulling on a rope. But you know what? After the sexton lets go of the rope the bell keeps on swinging. First ‘ding’ then ‘dong.’ Slower and slower until there’s a final dong and it stops. I believe the same thing is true of forgiveness. When we forgive, we take our hand off the rope. But if we’ve been tugging at our grievances for a long time, we mustn’t be surprised if the old angry thoughts keep coming for a while. They’re just the ding-dongs of the old bell slowing down’.”

Corrie continues: “And so it proved to be. There were a few more midnight reverberations . . . but the force – which was my willingness in the matter – had gone out of them. They came less and less often and at last stopped altogether.”

Like Corrie, if a person is to forgive, he must take his hands off the rope, and he mustn’t be surprised if the painful emotions and angry thoughts continue for a while. When such thoughts come, the best way to banish them is to pray for the offender – to pray for his well-being, his health, his family. This is in line with Jesus’ wise instruction: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44).

A person who reaches out to God in prayer every time angry, painful thoughts come, will find both their frequency and intensity reduced, and his or her disposition toward the offender transformed. But not only will the person’s relationship to the offender be changed, his or her connection to God will be significantly strengthened as well.

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A Freedom That Does Not Ring Hollow

Posted on November 14, 2020 by salooper57

It’s been a long time coming. Back around 1969 or 1970, I read in a Popular Science Magazine that everyone would own a flying car by the year 2,000. When the millennium turned and everyone was looking out for Y2K, I was still on the lookout for flying cars. Popular Science did me wrong by getting my hopes up like that.

However, I may get a flying car yet. This month, Klein Vision released footage of a test drive/flight of its version of the flying car. Other design firms are busy with their own prototypes in Europe, Japan, and the United States. All I can say is it’s about time.

Why was I so enamored with flying cars? For the same reason, I think, that I dreamed – this went on once or twice a month for years – that I could jump into the air and sail at a leisurely pace wherever I chose. Flight, whether in a futuristic car or in a dream, represented freedom, the absence of restraint, the power of unimpeded motion.

Freedom is one of humanity’s big ideas. It goes back at least to the political freedoms of ancient Athens, though Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle each criticized the forms such freedoms sometimes took. The great Athenian orator and statesman Pericles once said, “The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life … in Athens, we live exactly as we please…”

No people since the Greeks have been more committed to freedom than Americans. James Madison called the spirit of the American people “a spirit which nourishes freedom and is in return nourished by it.” Samuel Adams called the right to freedom “the gift of God Almighty.” Thomas Jefferson cautioned that freedom can only be retained at the price of “eternal vigilance.” Ben Franklin reminded Americans that “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.”

Abraham Lincoln referred to freedom as “the last, best hope of the earth.” Dwight Eisenhower said that “America is best described by one word: freedom.” But what is freedom? Are people “born free” or are they, as the old spiritual intoned, on their “way to the freedom land”? What is freedom?

As a political ideal, freedom is embodied in specific rights. Hence, we have the right to assemble, the right to speak, the right to a speedy and public trial, the right to due process, the right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and more. Such freedoms are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

Yet any and all of these freedoms may be possessed by a person who is very unfree in his or her personal life. Such a person may be enthralled by passions, fears, and addictions at the same time they are receiving due process. They may be enslaved by illegal drugs while enjoying the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

Political freedom is worth fighting for but it is not the only, nor the highest, form of freedom. A just society requires political freedoms, such as those promised in the Bill of Rights, but a fulfilled life needs a more comprehensive freedom, personal in nature, spiritual in origin.

This is the freedom of which Jesus spoke when he claimed, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” St. Paul was adamant with his readers: “It is for freedom Christ has set us free.” It is a freedom that is consistent with our nature and can only be achieved by becoming one’s true self.  

God is the great emancipator. He desires people to be genuinely free. But this freedom, like political freedom, comes at a price. It is one of the great paradoxes of life: We become free only as we submit to God. As the Scottish poet George Matheson put it: “Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free.”

One major religion makes submission the goal of life, but Christianity sees submission as a means. Freedom is the goal (though not the only one), submission the vehicle, and confession of Jesus as Lord (to borrow biblical language) the path that leads to the goal. And no one is more pleased for people to reach that goal than God himself.

(First published by Gannett.)

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Clearing Away the Confusion Surrounding Forgiveness

Posted on November 12, 2020 by salooper57

(This is part two of a three-part previously published series on forgiveness.)

In what is arguably the most oft-recited Scripture text in history, Jesus teaches his apprentices how to pray. We call this, “The Lord’s Prayer,” or the “Our Father Prayer,” but it might be more accurate to call it, “The Disciple’s Prayer.” It was given as part of Jesus’ brilliant Sermon on the Mount and was meant to serve as a pattern for the disciple’s own prayers.

Jesus apparently felt one part of the prayer, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” required clarification. Immediately following the prayer, he explained: “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” With these shocking words Jesus puts us on notice: Our forgiveness is related to our choice to forgive.

Experience has taught me that many people struggle with this issue. They know, all too well, that they need forgiveness, and genuinely want to forgive those who have hurt them, but they don’t know how. When the pain of the past still washes over them like ocean waves, leaving a residue of bitterness and profound sorrow, what can they do?

The fact that God’s forgiveness is linked to our willingness to forgive can be unsettling, but one can learn to use that dynamic to one’s own advantage. A person who relishes God’s grace in forgiving his sins will find the grace necessary to forgive others’ sins, which is why Paul says, “Forgive, as in Christ God forgave you.” One ought to give thanks for God’s forgiveness, even bask in it. Only those who have experienced forgiveness can fully extend it.

“Forgive . . . as he forgave you.” If God’s forgiveness is the standard, then we must attempt to understand how he forgives. When God forgives us, for example, does he say, “Oh, don’t worry about it. Forget it. It was nothing”? Not at all. In fact, he takes sin so seriously that he sent his Son to die for it. Offering forgiveness never minimizes the seriousness of the offense.       

The idea that it does has prevented many people from experiencing the freedom that forgiveness brings. If I believe that forgiveness requires me to act as if abuse, deceit, or adultery – offenses that may have turned my life upside-down – are something trivial, best ignored, I simply will not be able to forgive. But the truth is, trivial things don’t require forgiveness; sin does. Forgiveness isn’t – and  needn’t – be offered for idiosyncrasies or foibles or personality conflicts. It is offered for sin. God won’t ignore sin. He takes it so seriously that he insists on forgiving it.

People who have suffered physical and sexual abuse as children often struggle with forgiveness right at this point. If forgiving one’s abuser implies that his or her sin was insignificant, then it can only mean that the victim’s life is also insignificant. But rather than implying that sin doesn’t matter, forgiveness insists that it matters very much.

Forgiving as he forgave us also means forgiving completely. Some people hold out forgiveness like a carrot on a stick or offer it a piece at a time so that they can be in control. But God forgave “all our sins” (Ps. 103:3). Some people use the possibility of forgiveness or the threat of unforgiveness as an instrument to manipulate another’s behavior. This is especially common with parents and their children, but it is always counterproductive. God does not act this way with us, and we must not act this way with others. Forgiveness cuts the chains of the past, it does not use them as marionette strings to control someone else’s behavior.                                    

Does forgiving as God forgave also require us to forget? No, we cannot forget on demand, but we can refuse to remember. Clara Barton, the founder of The American Red Cross, was reminded of an offense, but didn’t seem to remember. Her friend said, “Sure you remember what she did to you!” But Clara responded, “No, I distinctly remember forgetting that!” It’s not that she couldn’t remember, but that she chose not to, which is just how God forgives us.

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