Easter People

St. Augustine once said, “We are Easter people and alleluia is our song!”

A few weeks after the Boston bombing, the Texas explosion, the horrific Gosnell trial, and whatever else has tried us in the last few days, it becomes easy to forget about Easter that we celebrated a few weeks ago. When tragedy strikes, we often watch the news anxiously for the next detail to come to light: who was it? why did they do it? are they going to catch them?  As we continue to watch the coverage, we begin to despair over the condition of our world. We believe that things are falling apart, that the end may be near.

Things may be falling apart, and the end could be near. Or it could be another 10,000 years.  Either way, our job as Christians  live everyday in light of the Resurrection. To live as though Jesus really did rise from the dead. Our God has brought Jesus through the worst pain that the world has to offer, through death, and then to new life again.

We don’t stick our heads in the sand and pretend nothing is wrong. Nor do we throw our hands in air, giving in to the world’s message of gloom and despair. No, we must call to mind once again, that Christ has risen from the dead, and we are raised with him. And as people of the new creation, God has place us here to live out the resurrection life.

God has not given us the Spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.  Often what is reported in the media doesn’t affect us directly, and we cannot change what happens in the world around us. But we can change how we interact with the people we come in contact with. We can help our neighbors. We can encourage our families. We can teach our children the gospel, and the Jesus inspired morality the springs from it, including the sanctity of every human life.  We can live new life through power of the resurrection.

This is the Easter season, and we are the Easter people! Alleluia is our Song!

The Season of New Life

Its been nearly two weeks since Resurrection Sunday, but according to the traditional church calendar, it is only the second week of a seven week Easter Season. This season is a time to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, new life, and new creation. It is no coincidence that this period on the Church calendar occurs during the time of the year where we see nature come to life.  Just this week, we have seen beautiful sunny skies, the Dogwood and Bradford pear trees bloom and the grass getting greener – and taller.

It is Spring. The cold gives way to warmth.  The ground is broken up and readied for planting. Dormant seeds come alive.
And Christ is risen. Alleluia! The Lord is Risen Indeed!

The Curse of the Cross

Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree – so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles…..”

What is this curse of the law the writer is talking about? Back in Deuteronomy chapter 28 Moses tells Israel that they will receive blessings for obeying the law, and curse for disobeying the law.  For obeying the law, God would bring blessings of fruitful labor, prosperity, and peace.  The first fourteen verse of the chapter is a picture of human flourishing: blessings of children, livestock, and land.

The next fifty-three verses of curses is a dark portrait of human anguishing. God would curse their labor and their livestock, and cause them to be defeated by their enemies. They would “grope at noonday, as the blind grope in darkness”. They would become a “horror, a proverb, and a byword” among the peoples of the earth. In other words, they would become an object of ridicule and scorn.  Verses 65 – 67 sum it up: “The Lord will give you a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul. Your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life. In the morning you shall say, ‘if only it were evening!’ and at evening you shall say, ‘if only it were morning!’  because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and the sights that your eyes shall see.”

This is the curse of the law. The curse that Israel deserved, because they did not obey the law. The same law which Jesus said could be summed up in two commands: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  We also have failed to obey this law.  And as a result, we deserve the curses. When we fail to love God, our very source of life, we no longer deserve to flourish as living human beings. We deserve the anguish any living being goes through when it is cut off from its source of life.

Yet, Christ become a curse for Israel and for us on that Friday long ago. He was cursed. His labor of love and healing was rejected by the people. He was tortured by his enemies and nailed to a tree (a curse in and of itself according to Jewish law – see the Galatians verse above).  He became an object of ridicule among both the Jews and Gentiles.  He bore the curse, so that we might receive the blessing.

In his Image

Our sin is bad not so much because we break a list of rules, but because we misrepresent our Creator. As humans we were created to bear the image of God and to take dominion over the earth for God (Genesis 1:26). As image bearers of our creator, we are called to reflect God’s goodness to the rest of creation.  As dominion takers, we are given the job of maintaining and cultivating planet earth for the glory of God.

However, we were not content to be God’s image bearers. We often want to bear our own image – to glorify ourselves. This is known as pride. And instead of taking dominion for God, we tend to take dominion for ourselves. This is the scandal of our sin: We created to bear God’s image, and we have tarnished that image. Because of our sin, we misrepresent God’s goodness. Further, we were created to be stewards of his creation as dominion takers for God,  and we have twisted this calling to be dominion takers for ourselves.

Fortunately God came to earth to restore us to be his image bearers. The New Testament says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Christ came to be what we could not be: the perfect image bearer of God. And through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ – and the power of the Holy Spirit – God is making us into the image of his Son (Romans 8:29). In Christ, we are restored to be the image bearers of God.

The Grateful Self Righteous Mind – Part II

In my last post, I referenced the story of the self-righteous Pharisee and the penitent tax collector. The Pharisee attempted to hide his self-righteous disdain for other sinners behind a veil of gratitude for his own supposed godliness. He was quite happy to report to God that he was not “like other men; extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” Yet, by the end of his prayer of thanks, it is quite clear that he is no much grateful as he is ignorant of God’s own law – the very thing that he takes pride in keeping. He had forgotten what Jesus called the two greatest commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind….and…you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

These weren’t just Jesus’ new ideas – these were actual Old Testament commands. However, Jesus does take them farther than anyone ever had before, saying, “on these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Maybe if the Pharisee had remembered that his first duty was to love God with all of his being, he would have immediately recognized that he had fallen way short, and his prayer of thanks might have actually been a prayer of repentance. But, because he saw no sin in himself, he saw no need for the God who is fully of mercy, abounding in steadfast love, and ready to forgive. And if you don’t know this God, you just don’t know God.

Perhaps he should have prayed this old prayer of the Church:

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.

The Grateful Self-Righteous Mind

Pharisäer und Zöllner – Fresko (F3), Basilika Ottobeuren (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“He (Jesus) also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt:  “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’  But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” – Luke 18:9-14 (ESV)

Before God, we are all miserable sinners. The only difference is that some acknowledge this and plead for nothing but mercy. Others thank God that they are not the same kind of sinner as their neighbor.  The Pharisee in this story thinks that because he has not committed the obvious taboo sins of his culture, he is fine. Even more he fasts regularly and tithes on everything. All good thing things. Yet, he forgot about the one sin that leads to all others: Pride.

It was pride that caused the fall in Eden and it is pride that causes my fall and yours today. We compare ourselves with others, seeking to justify ourselves in the sight of God and men. To do this, we must paint a very bleak picture of our neighbors’ morality, and a very charming portrait of our own goodness. In highlighting our goodness and focusing on others’ failures, we become self-deluded, thinking that our sins are trivial. We begin to see no need for repentance and mercy, only “thankfulness” that we are not like those we hold in contempt.

The remedy for us is humble repentance. As Jesus said, “…everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” That’s why we have the Lenten season – to humble ourselves once again so that we may be exalted with Christ as Easter.

Salvation and Grace… a different perspective.

Titus 2:11-14 looks at salvation and grace from a different perspective than we normally do:

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”

God’s grace has been given to enable us to lead self controlled and godly lives in the present age. We often think of salvation as the thing that will give us rest and an easy future in heaven. Salvation does bring rest, but it also brings a challenge as it “trains” us to give up our worldly passions and exchange them for a life of Christian discipline.

Our culture often bulks as the idea of self-control, and I must admit my own guilt in this area. We often find discipline to be a vice – an invention design to suppress  our authentic expressions of our true selves. The gospel brings us back to reality and says that actually much of our “authenticity” is the problem: our true selves are like sheep that have gone astray, with every one going along on his own way.

This gospel of Jesus Christ brings salvation to the lost sheep, with God forgiving them for straying from his path. The gospel also brings transforming grace that enables us to live with more self-control, as we put off our old selves and become his new creation here on earth.