Jesus is more than a boyfriend

So in the lead up to Valentine’s Day, I’ve seen quite a few posts making the very adamant point that “Jesus is not your boyfriend.”

Well….

Clearly the motivation seems to be one of annoyance, that is people wanting to be very clear that the sort of relationship you have with Jesus is one of the Creator of the universe to creature. That’s a valid point. There should always be an awesome admiration and reverence before God. So no, you shouldn’t act like Jesus is your boyfriend in that sense of casual romantic involvement. You shouldn’t listen to romantic songs and just replace the words “baby” with “Jesus” (what? I don’t watch Southpark, people just tell me about it, besides that one’s really old). It’s a bad idea. You shouldn’t go into your prayer time, or devotion time, or time at church thinking you are going to “date Jesus”, not even if you are single and it’s really hard.

Here’s the thing though.

In a way, Jesus is much more than a boyfriend. And the bible very openly uses the metaphor of a husband and wife to talk about our relationship with Jesus. So no, Jesus is not your boyfriend. He’s your husband, or at least your fiance (that whole “I go to prepare a place for you and I will come back again,” and “Drinking the cup of the covenant of my blood” stuff has marriage proposal written all over it for first century Jews).

So what does that mean?

The picture is clearly not meant to be romantic. But, if you think marriage is built solely (or even primarily) on romantic love, you may have bought into the lie of the culture that it’s all about sex. Granted, romance is an important part of human marriage, but it’s not the only part, nor even the foundation.

Did you ever hear married people talk about being married to “my best friend?” Perhaps you’ve used the phrase yourself, if you’re married. If a marriage is working like it’s supposed to work, that’s completely true. A best friend is one who “sticks closer than a brother.” This is a love that is concerned primarily with the well being of the other person, not temporary personal happiness or pleasure. It’s not “me” centered but “you” centered kind of love. How else could you live with someone willingly after you’ve seen them at their worst? After they’ve openly passed gas in front of you? (if it hasn’t happened, it will. You can only hold out for so long). It only makes sense if it’s not about you.

So, no Jesus isn’t your boyfriend. He’s a lot more than that. And he wants an intimate relationship with you where you can be yourself and know that you are still loved in spite of it. The creator of the universe, wants that kind of relationship with you. He already knows you pass gas, it’s not like it’s a secret to him. He just wants you to be able to admit that you do it (and much worse) and that he loves you anyway. God loves you, way more than a boyfriend.

Dust and Transformation: Ash Wednesday and Lent Reading Plan

Ashes and Death

Well this has, in some ways, been a rough year (in many others it has been fantastic, but that’s not the point of this post). I’ve been to too many funerals (by the way, one is too many), and had friends and acquaintances nearly be killed instantly by cars, or be diagnosed with aggressive forms of cancer, and with it the looming specter of death. When I really thought about it, rarely are we ready or prepared for people to die. Even when we say we are ready, we always wish for one more conversation, to tell them about this one thing they missed, to say I love you one last time. Yet we cannot.

Life is fragile. As I drove in my car the other day I thought, any second I could be hit by another car and that would be it. Done. I don’t think of myself as ready to go, and I’m fairly certain it would be a heavy blow to my family. I know I’m not the only one. The same scenario would hold true for many people, and every day, at least one person in the world dies suddenly, unexpectedly, leaving a gap behind them. Not ready to go. It wasn’t her time. He was so full of life. A shock. Here as though there are years left, and gone in an instant. As J.R.R. Tolkien put it “It’s a dangerous business…, going out your front door.” And yet we do it every day. We think of ourselves as strong, as impervious. We make plans for upcoming years, yet actually have very little control over whether we will be around in those years to come. We are all of us ashes. Embers that burn quickly and then are no more.

Dust and Creation

As the bible puts it, we are dust. We are ephemeral, and cannot be gripped too tightly. We blow away in the wind. Here today, gone tomorrow. Yet the metaphor for dust, as I noted last year at Ash Wednesday, is not just for the fragility of life, but to remind us of our origin. God formed humanity from the dust of the ground and breathed life into him.

Dust you are and to dust you will return.

Rather than a statement of outright sorrow, though there is that, this is also a reminder of the new creation just around the corner. God makes something out of dust and breathes life into it. Lent is not a buildup to Good Friday, and the death of the Son of God. Lent is an anticipation of His Resurrection and the life that comes out of death. And by pointing to the Resurrection of the Son of God, it points to ours as well. In the midst of sorrow, joy. In the midst of death, life. As things are given up, new creation takes root.

Fundamentally, lent is also about something new, something creative, something constructive.

A Constructive Lent

This year, then, I’m not giving up something for Lent. I’m a Baptist and I have that option (we’re not really liturgical, just some of us pretend from time to time). Instead, though, I’m going to do something constructive. If you are going to celebrate Lent, and you haven’t decided what you will give up, let me encourage to you to instead do something constructive. Participate in God’s already present kingdom here on earth, and in so doing catch a glimpse of his return and the new earth he will refine out of this one. Don’t be legalistic about it, be constructive, building a picture of God’s Kingdom. Part of doing something constructive is something I did last year, a reading of a book of the bible for Lent. This year, we’re going to go through James (to look at last year’s where we went through Galatians, see the link at the top of the page). Below is the reading plan. If you just can’t come up with anything else to do for Lent, then perhaps you could join me in the reading plan (or if you want to add to what you have done).

James is a little bit shorter than Galatians, so the readings will be shorter. Also, I will try better this year to keep my own reflections relatively short as well. Most days it is 3 verses, sometimes 4, occasionally 2, and one day is only 1 verse. I think that should be manageable. I’ll be posting them shortly after midnight on the day marked, so if you do your bible reading in the morning it will be ready when you are. The other posts for this blog will come up later in the day, but if you only want to follow the lent readings you can either click the “Lent Series” Category marker, the tab at the top of the main page that will link to this year’s Lent reading calendar (also click here).

Martin Luther King, JR day

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr Day. Also, it being a Monday, I have in the past addressed “difficult passages” in the bible. Today, in light of the day it is, I offer a passage that we likely understand in thought, but fail to put in practice.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28 (KJV)

How do we as Christians reconcile this with the quote often attributed to the Rev Martin Luther King, JR:

The most segregated hour in America is eleven o’clock, Sunday morning.

It was true then and its true now. The two should not be. Think on this and how we, the Church, should be one as Christ is one with the Father.

By Phil Stanziola, NYWT&S staff photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Quick word for the new year

Just a quick word of hope on this, the second day of the New Year.

In the words of John Calvin, “Post tenebras Lux“

It translates “After darkness, light,” and though it appeared in various times throughout Church History, it was used most frequently and effectively by John (Jean) Calvin, before being adopted by most Protestants. The primary meaning is to give hope. Night is always followed by dawn. Since we think about new beginnings on the New Year, it may be helpful to just take this reminder:

Whatever you’ve done, whatever you’ve neglected to do, what ever you’ve thought or said, whomever you think you are, God isn’t done with you, and after the darkness is light.

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Rev 21:5a)

 

Hello 2013

What are you excited about this year? Do you have any plans or goals for this year? Are you going to try to read through the bible, or the New Testament? I’d love to hear it. I’ve got a few, mostly practical, such as finishing my degree and finding a job. The one less practical one is that I think I’ll try to start, in earnest, my own popular book.

What about you? God bless you.

New Every Day

Today is New Year’s Eve. Some of us will stay up until midnight, while many will only make it to the live showing of the New York ball drop and then go to sleep at whatever time that is locally (and yes I have some California friends who have done that, no judgment here). We’ll sing a son we don’t really understand based upon a Scottish drinking poem about the good old days, itself based upon an older poem that you probably need an advance degree in Celtic to understand.

Then we will go to bed (or if you are young and without kids, will stay up for a few hours before going to bed), and wake up to a new year. A new year, one of promise and hope. We will make resolutions (most of which will be broken) and frantically try to find that can of black eyed peas or cabbage or whatnot. It is good to mark of the years with some sort of celebration, I think. It is good to take stock of what has happened, to thank God for the year behind and commit to him the year ahead. It offers up goals and markers and commitments and can make our lives easier.

Yet, as a baptist, I am reminded of the reason we don’t strictly follow the liturgical calendar. While it is still Christmas for most Christians, baptists don’t have a “season” for most days. There is one exception. Resurrection Sunday (or Easter). For Baptists, not only do we celebrate every Sunday as a commemoration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (as do most Christians), but we live perpetually in the season of Easter. We don’t have a Lenten period of mourning (though some of us may opt to practice aspects of it from time to time), and while we are always waiting for the return of Christ, we don’t have the anticipatory Advent season. It is perpetually Easter. Easter changed everything. Christ has already come. God already dwells with man. God has turned our mourning into laughing.

Living in the light of the Easter morning also means we don’t wait for one day a year to start over. It also doesn’t mean we lost that chance at our first slip up. Living in the light of the Resurrected Christ means that his mercies are new everyday. A line that used to be popular in the adult baptisms of baptists (but is being fazed out, it seems, as too archaic) is that we are “buried with Christ in baptism, and raised [with him] to walk in the newness of life.” It’s not just new the one time, it is continually new, perpetually being renewed, rescued, redeemed and transformed. New Year’s day is a date on the calendar that comes every year, but doesn’t really change anything. The new life of the Christian is based upon a Resurrection that happened once in history for all time, and changed everything, and can change everyone, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Every day we are made new and raised to life again with him. Day by day, moment by moment.

St Nick isn’t always so Jolly

So, I wasn’t posting to my blog in the lead up to Christmas. But if you were friends with me on Facebook, you may have seen these pictures before. Even though Christmas has passed, we are still, technically, in the midst of the 12 day Christmas season (yes that is the origin of the song, Christmas is day 1). So I’d like to give a bit of back story on St Nicholas.

We know two things for sure about St Nicholas. 1) He gave large sums of money to poor families, usually when they were considering the terrible decision of whether to sell a child into slavery to save the life of both the child and the rest of the family. Sometimes he gave presents to small children. Often times he is credited with dropping the presents or bags of money through the roofs or through the windows of these families. 2) During the Arian controversy, when Arius suggested Jesus was, while divine, somehow less divine than God, St Nicholas slapped him. He was asked to apologize for doing so, which he did.

For some reason, we like to celebrate the former and not the latter. To help rectify that, I give you one of the most specifically targeted memes I’ve ever seen (I don’t know the original sources):

Merry late (but not really because it’s not yet epiphany) Christmas

A Torch Relay contrasted to a Triumphant Spectacle

So yesterday the torch relay came through our neighborhood on its way to the Olympic stadium to mark the start of the London 2012 games. There was a great buzz of excitement all throughout our neighborhood, as I’m sure there was in every neighborhood through which the torch passed. Essentially, the relay is an extended one person parade as people line the streets to see the procession of the torch as it makes its way to the main show at the stadium here in Stratford (East London). Different people carry the torch as it is passed from one person to another, and there is an excitement surrounding it. These torch bearers are all local or nati0nal heroes, generally selected for outstanding service to the community of the country. It is a unique and interesting, and genuinely exciting, thing to witness.

For some reason, however, the torch relay got me thinking about something else. There’s this theme used in Corinthianian correspondence of a parade. There, it is referring to the “triumphal procession.” It’s not really that related to the Ancient Olympics, despite the fact that Corinth had an early parallel in the Isthmian Games (named for the isthmus that Corinth straddles), but is a very Roman parade. In the parade, a general who had recently conquered new territory for the Roman Empire, was given a huge honor. As part of this honor, he would get to lead a lengthy parade through various parts of the empire. The general would lead the parade, coming as a national hero, followed by his officers and generals and new captives in the back. They would wind their way through most of the major cities finally ending in Rome, the capital, where a fire was lit and they were given an honor by the emperor.

Throughout each of these cities, however, and including up until Rome the general would hold a long chain in his hand. The chain would stretch back throughout the parade, past the officers, and cavalry, and foot soldiers, past most of the captives to the very back. There, at the tail end of the procession, was the conquered leader or king, being led like a dog. Rather than a king, he was a prisoner. At the end of the lengthy procession, once the fires were lit, he along with some of the captives, would be sacrificed

A relief of captives being led by a collar in ancient Rome, via Wikicommons

for the glory of the kingdom (Rome in this instance). The entire process was meant to humiliate the conquered king, who was essentially a walking dead man, and bring honor to the one leading the triumphal procession. With that in mind, let’s look at these two passages, first from 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 (NIV),

But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task?

and then from 1 Corinthians 4:9 (NIV).

For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings.

What is striking is that even though Jesus and God is the triumphant general leading the march, Paul does not consider himself to be among the officers, but among the king who must be killed. There is a real recognition that my own achievements are, as Paul says, rubbish (well that’s the clean translation of Philippians 3:8). He has truly died to himself and his old self is a walking dead man. He mixes his metaphors a bit to talk about the “aroma.” In the triumphal procession, as the captive king approached the stadium, he would begin to smell the fires burning and to him it would be an aroma of death. To the officers and generals, however, it was an aroma of life. For Paul he sees that for his old self it is the aroma of death, but for his new self that is Christ living through him and transforming his very being, it is an aroma of life. At the root though, rather than an honor before people, he sees his service to Christ as a his own humiliation before the entire universe. I’m not saying we shouldn’t give some sort of honor to those who clearly benefit our communities and the world around us, of course we should. I am saying, however, that the Christian should work with no thought for an immediate reward, but only to bring glory to Christ, even if it means humiliation. In contrast to a parade celebrating the honor of human achievement (even if it is for genuinely good work), Paul sees his work as only bringing honor to Christ. So the question, one that we all struggle with, is for whose honor or glory are you working?

Where does your allegiance lie?

Today is July 4. While that doesn’t mean much to my British friends, they know that for our family and for Americans around the world, this is the day of our greatest national pride. I’ve taken the day off to celebrate with my family, in a foreign land as it were, this day of independence. I’d just like to offer a few quick thoughts and questions for you to reflect today.

Jesus came to this world in order to redeem it from its present ruling. In a very genuine way it was a divine rebellion. However, it was not God who had rebelled, but us with our action and inaction. Thus God came to start a revolution and bring us back to him. Although Christ declared that his “kingdom is not of this world,” it seems he came to make a part of this world. More correctly, he came to redeem this world in order to reclaim it for the kingdom that it was always meant to be. God took us, rebels against him that we were, and changed the focus of our rebellion. Instead of against the king of the universe, we began to rebel with the king against the rulers of this present evil age. To be a Christian is to be inherently counter cultural. To be a Christian, genuinely, is to always withhold devoting your fullest allegiance to a secular state, because your truest allegiance is as a citizen of a different kingdom, one that is invading this one. This doesn’t mean we deny our citizenry in a secular state entirely, at least not yet. It does mean, however, that we love our God more than any country or government. It does mean that we are called to keep in mind a wider perspective beyond the politics of this present age. With that in mind, let me ask a few questions for you to keep in mind today.

Do you sometimes devote more attention and energy to politics than you do to advancing the kingdom of God? What would happen if we expended the amount of energy we do on politics on advancing Christ’s kingdom on earth?

If your country (I realize I’m primarily talking to fellow Americans, but it could apply to anyone) was genuinely opposed to the kingdom of God in its policy and action, would you forsake your country to demonstrate allegiance to Christ?

Is the way someone votes of more importance to you than whether or not they are working to advance the Kingdom of God on a personal level?

Where does your primary allegiance lie?

Happy Independence Day, but recall from where your truest independence comes.

A Different Kind of…Everything

He is Risen!

This holy week I’ve been talking about how the events marked during this week change everything. Jesus instituted a different kind of revolution, a different kind of covenant relationship, and revealed himself as a different kind of king. The resurrection confirmed all of these things, and so much more. The resurrection, it turns out, changes everything.

I’m not going to take the time to argue about the historical veracity of the resurrection of Jesus. Those arguments have been made and will continue to be made. I will say a brief word about it, though (apologies if I get too technical, I’ll try to resist). Personally, I like the arguments for the historicity of the resurrection made by Wolfhart Pannenberg, but considering I’m doing my thesis work on him I’m probably not impartial. Nevertheless, Pannenberg seems to really understand the historical impact that the resurrection makes, and he makes two statements about it. First, the veracity of the Christian faith rises or falls with genuineness of the historical event of Jesus’ bodily resurrection. Second, the resurrection of Jesus is the most historically verifiable event in all of history. Why is it thrown into question, then? Pannenberg astutely notes that the problem is not the evidence for the resurrection. Where the actual point of disagreement lies, whether acknowledged or not, is in the presuppositions. Simply put, there is a built in bias against the resurrection because it is assumed a priori (prior to any evidence) that people simply do not rise from the dead. If you have that as your starting point, then no amount of evidence will convince of the truth of Jesus’ resurrection. This, it seems, may have been the primary problem with the Jewish leaders and the resurrection.

To be clear, it is not that, aside from the relatively small group of Sadducees, the Jewish leaders denied that a resurrection would ever take place. Instead most Jews in the first century fully expected a resurrection of the dead to occur. They simply expected it to be an eschatological resurrection, one that Jesus himself preached. In fact, this may have been behind the early church’s anticipation that the end of the world was about to occur. If Jesus had been raised from the dead, along with certain other people, then the early church seemed to draw the conclusion that they were in the last days. This is also why it came as something of a shock when members of the congregation started to die and not immediately come back to life. What Pannenberg argues, though, is that the resurrection of Jesus is actually an eschatological event., despite the continuation of history long after it. In short, he says that at the resurrection, God interrupted the flow of time and brought the end of the world into the midst of our history. At the resurrection we see a glimpse of the world’s end, and it is overwhelming. The resurrection, then, means a number of things a few of which we can immediately identify and I will discuss, from this and from the gospel accounts.

He is Risen Indeed!

1) The resurrection changes death. While it is still appropriate to mourn for those who have died and to long to see them again, for the Christian, this mourning takes on a different meaning. In some ways mourning for a deceased loved one is more powerful and meaningful for the Christian, and in other ways it less brudensome for the Christian than the non-Christian. For the committed atheistic materialist, they may mourn for a loss, but their sorrow can only be selfish in nature (if they deny this, then they are not committed to materialism). In materialism there is no value in the person objectively, only in the value that the mourner perceives them to have selfishly. For the Christian, however, because a person’s death is not the end, it is appropriate and can be unselfish to mourn their death. Why? Because they are not temporary, but eternal, and they are valued by an eternal God. This can only mean that every person has objective value. Thus we can mourn out of a sense of longing, but in an appropriate manner (such as someone may long for justice or some other objectively valuable thing). And this longing will one day be fulfilled and so the sorrow felt at death is also somehow less burdensome.

On the flip side, our mourning isn’t as burdensome as the non-Christian because death does not have the same finality that it does for those outside the faith. As Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 15, we do not mourn as those without hope. Instead death is “swallowed up in victory” and has lost its sting. This is very powerfully put, I think, in the final line of John Donne’s poem “Death be not Proud.”  Donne has said that despite the fact that death has many weapons in its arsenal and all people succumb to it, death is temporary. He concludes his meditation with the line: “And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.” There will come a day when death is no more and all will be life.

2) The resurrection changes life. Jesus said he came that we would have life and have it abundantly. This is a life that begins in the here and now. This isn’t for “someday” yet to come, but now. The truth is, until you meet Christ you are already dead. The majority of the world is walking around not living. They have not yet grasped the life that is truly life. They are still dead in the trespasses and sins, without freedom and without hope. But in Christ, who allows us to truly love, we are able to move from death to life. This is only possible because our deaths are somehow thrown on to his death. By uniting ourselves to Christ in his death, so we are united with him in his rising again. And that resurrected life begins now. We put to death our sinful nature, that binds and traps us, and put on the holiness that only comes from a resurrected and living God. The resurrection changes life here and now.

3) The resurrection changes the world. If the resurrection is the entrance of God’s future into the midst of human history, then the very nature of time is turned all around. That means that God’s future, is not only assured already, but is in some way already here. The kingdom of God has already been established. The time of us meeting God and having him as the light of our city is now. God in Christ has risen victorious over the grave not only to assure us of a final victory, but to actually win that final victory. As Jesus said multiple times “a time is coming and is now here.” The reign of Satan, death, and all kinds of evil is over. The reign of God has begun, and with it his transforming power. The resurrection is a call to take part in that transformation of the world and to tell others about its impact.

While the death of Christ may be met with somberness and quietness appropriate a personal encounter, the resurrection is too public to be ignored. The gospel account of Matthew leads directly into a commissioning. King Jesus is sending out his ambassadors into the uttermost parts of the world. There are given a single task: make disciples. It is an interesting juxtaposition to put the language of a royal commissioning up against the term “disciples.” Jesus does not say “make subjects” on one extreme or “make believers” on the other. He declares that true resurrection power is found only for the disciple, the one who follows, not merely agrees with a statement of facts, but one who does so willingly, not because they are somehow forced into it. This is the way that King Jesus will change the world, through his disciples. And it is a different kind of war, not one that tries to subjugate others, but seeks them as a friend to journey and learn alongside us as we follow Jesus. This is how the world is changed: through the church, through you and me, through the resurrection, and finally by the return of the resurrected Jesus. This is because Jesus, through the resurrection, changes everything. This post has only begun to scratch the surface of the lasting impact because Jesus’ resurrection is the point on which all history turns and on the other side of it we can see a different kind of everything.

What do you think? What other things does the resurrection change? Has the power of the resurrection been present in your life?