Rodney Reeves on what the resurrection life of Christ looks like in the life of a believer/follower of Christ

So what does resurrection power look like on earth? On the outside it looks like death. It looks like weakness and groaning. It looks like loss, foolishness and failure. It looks like a hopeless cause, a problem that never goes away, a wasted effort. Indeed, it looks like a man who labors in vain. But even as “our outward nature is wasting away,” Paul believed “our inner nature is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor 4:16). “Because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen,” believers operate with an abiding hope that God is at work in our lives in mysterious ways. Our transformation is incomplete. Resurrection growth is hard to track. It isn’t quantifiable.  You can’t point to a measuring stick and say, “See how much I’ve grown this past year?” But that doesn’t stop us from counting up our days, taking inventory of our lives and wondering “out loud” like Paul whether our life’s work was in vain. It’s the human condition; we all want to know if we’ve made a mark on things, left an indelible impression, found immortality. That’s because we have no doubts about our mortality. We know we’re going to die. What we don’t know is whether we have truly lived. Thus the nagging speculation, how’s it going to end? is eclipsed by the more troubling question, did my life matter at all?

At times Paul acted like that question wouldn’t be answered until the parousia of Christ. He envisioned the day when he would be vindicated, when all doubts would be put to rest, when every question would be answered—the day he presented all of his converts to Christ as blameless children of Abraham. Then and only then would Paul’s boast be legitimized: “For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you?” (1 Thess 2:19). Paul longed for the day when he would stand before Christ, with every Gentile convert standing behind him as an eternal witness to the truth of the gospel he preached. (By the way, I love Paul’s vision—that one day I will stand with all the Gentiles who have believed in Jesus Christ. A vast multitude behind the apostle to the Gentiles, we will all celebrate that his work was not in vain.) At the same time, Paul also spoke of a confidence, a boldness of resurrection faith that gave him courage to face every trial with a sense of divine blessing (1 Thess 2:1-2). Regardless of how things looked on the outside—his body wasting away, his enemies hindering his mission, his converts ignoring his instructions—Paul was convinced he was experiencing the resurrection of Christ on the inside. A renewed mind. An encouraged heart. A satisfied soul. An undefeatable Spirit. Indeed, only the glorious resurrection of Christ could explain how a man could undergo such a radical transformation from the inside out (2 Cor 3:4-4:1).

Rodney Reeves, Spirituality According to Paul: Imitating the Apostle of Christ, 172-173.

the Lord is risen!

John 20

The Empty Tomb

¹ Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. ² So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

³ So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. ⁴ Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵ He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. ⁶ Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, ⁷ as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. ⁸ Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. ⁹ (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) ¹⁰ Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

¹¹ Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹²and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

¹³ They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” ¹⁴ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

¹⁵ He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

¹⁷ Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

¹⁸ Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

NIV

meditation for Good Friday: witnessing Jesus at the cross

Thankfully we have the clear narrative from the gospel accounts of the four evangelists of Jesus’ suffering, crucifixion and death (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). And from the prophet Isaiah we gather more of the brutality which Jesus endured out of love.

It is good to mediate and ponder on those events, what Jesus did for us. Our church has a most wonderful Stations of the Cross which can be quite helpful for us to slowly walk through and consider what Jesus suffered for us, and its meaning- past, present and future.

Of course Jesus’ death is not only for us, but for the world, and indeed for all creation. In that death the old order is judged and the prince of this world is driven out. And in the resurrection the new order comes in, the new creation to be completed when heaven and earth become one, but which begins even here and now in and through Jesus.

But we need to pause and ponder what Jesus did for us in his death. We need to behold him on the cross. Taking some time. Not just a passing thought.  We need to put our faith in him as the crucified one, our now resurrected and ascended Lord. Perhaps a renewal of our faith. Nothing can help us do that more than to attempt to fix our eyes on Jesus who out of love and for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame. And is now seated at the right hand of God. To reappear, but now ever present by his Spirit in the world.

May each of us take time to ponder and think through this great love of God in Jesus. Together in Jesus for the world.

N.T. Wright on interpreting Jesus’ death in light of God’s kingdom come in him

…in John’s account, the last words of Jesus are reported as being, “It’s all done” (John 19:30), in other words, “It’s accomplished” or “It’s completed.” The echo is of Genesis: at the end of the sixth day, God completed all the work that he had done. The point was not to rescue people from creation, but to rescue creation itself. With the death of Jesus, that work is complete. Now, and only now, and only in this way can new creation come about.

How then can we interpret Jesus’ death? What models, what metaphors, what constructions can we find to do justice to it? It is, of course, easy to belittle it, to treat it as yet another example of a good man crushed by “the system,” another eager revolutionary who gave his life for the cause. Of course, there is a sense in which that’s true, but if we are to understand Jesus’ own intentions, it is far from the whole truth.

Equally, it is easy to belittle Jesus’ death theologically. This can be done by placing it solely within a framework that speaks of Jesus as the ultimate example of love—although why, without more of a framework, his death would be an act of love it is interestingly difficult to say. Or it can be done by making Jesus the representative model who goes through death to new life and thereby enables us to make the same journey “in him” or “through him.” Or, notoriously, it can be done by imagining a straightforward transaction in which a God who wanted to punish people was content to punish the innocent Jesus instead. This always, of course, leaves unanswered the question of how such a punishment could itself be just, let alone loving.

Each of these models, though, has its point to make. First, as I have argued above, there is undoubtedly a vital sense in which Jesus’ death is exemplary. At every stage in the narrative we see, acted out in the small but vital human details, that sense of healing and forgiveness, that sense of a powerful love going out to rescue and restore, that we saw in the earlier details of Jesus’ public career. He hasn’t, in other words, stopped being the same kingdom-bringing Jesus; on the contrary, what he does on the cross is the culmination and retrospective explanation of all that earlier work.

Likewise, second, there is indeed a sense in which Jesus was “representing” his people, and through them the whole world. He lived in a world of understanding in which it made sense to see the Messiah as standing in for Israel and Israel as standing in for the rest of humankind. But, important though this theme is not only in the gospels but in Paul and elsewhere, it will scarcely carry all the weight required.

There is too, third, a massive sense in which Jesus’ death is penal. Jesus has announced God’s imminent judgment on his rebel people, a judgment that would consist of devastation at the hands of Rome. He then goes ahead of his people to take precisely that judgment literally, physically and historically upon himself. “Not only in theological truth, but in historic fact, the one bore the sins of the many.”* This is both penal and substitutionary, but it is far bigger and less open to objection than some other expressions of that theory. Once you put it together with the previous model (Jesus as Messiah representing Israel and hence the world), you draw the sting of the main objections that have been advanced against it.

But I have become convinced, the more I have read and studied and prayed the story of Jesus, that all these constructions need to be put within a larger one again—the larger one that the gospels themselves are trying to insist on and that seems to me exactly in line with the aims and motivations of Jesus himself. Somehow, Jesus’ death was seen by Jesus himself, and then by those who told and ultimately wrote his story, as the ultimate means by which God’s kingdom was established. The crucifixion was the shocking answer to the prayer that God’s kingdom would come on earth as in heaven. It was the ultimate Exodus event through which the tyrant was defeated, God’s people were set free and given their fresh vocation, and God’s presence was established in their midst in a completely new way for which the Temple itself was just an advance pointer. That is why, in John’s gospel, the “glory of God”—with all the echoes of the anticipated return of YHWH to Zion—is revealed in and through Jesus, throughout his public career, in the “signs” he performed, but fully and finally as he is “lifted up” on the cross.

__________
*G.B. Caird, Jesus and the Jewish Nation (London: Athlone, 1965), p. 22.

N.T. Wright, Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters, 184-186.

prayer for the Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday

Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer

living out one’s baptism

We are told in Romans 6 and in another place in Paul’s writings (see here, as well) that to be baptized (I take this as water baptism) is to be identified with Christ, to put on Christ. More specifically we are baptized into his death so that we may share in his death and resurrection in this life. Romans 6 goes on to tell us that we’re therefore not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies, that sin shall not have dominion over us, since we are not under the law, but under grace. And that in light of this we’re to present our bodies to God as those who have been brought from death to life.

I find this helpful for me in my off and on ongoing struggle especially with anxiety. Or whatever other struggle I may be having. God is at work through our baptism into Christ so that our old self is being done away with, and our new self, or person in Christ is coming to the fore. This process can be quite painful. Although it may be more painful to live where we’ve been living. On the other hand we can become quite settled in our ways so that any change is unwelcome.

Perhaps my own biggest problem is my own propensity to solve my problems myself. Yes, with reference to scripture and God’s revelation in Jesus I imagine, but I can solve it. When in reality I’m not solving it at all, but just managing my sin. What Dallas Willard calls “the gospels of sin management.” Really no gospel at all, at least not the gospel of God in Christ. The funny thing is that after I resolve it, it sooner or later will bob its head up again, and I have to deal with the same issue again. And again and again.

But God’s death dealing through Christ is the only way that sin can begin to fall off of us. As we change and become a different person, really the renewed us in and through Jesus.

I don’t mean to dig at weaknesses and always bash them as sin. For example, in my case my propensity toward anxiety is indeed a weakness and has its grounding somewhere in my personality and past I would suppose. God understands our frame, that we are dust, and he has compassion on us. At the same time we don’t want to live as those dictated by our weaknesses. Rather we want to live the new life in Christ, which presses on regardless of what trials we face. We want to be changed, to become new people in and through Christ.

There may be some weaknesses which we can’t get rid of in this life. Like Paul’s thorn in the flesh. Through which he learned to delight in weaknesses, so that Christ’s power might rest on him. But that’s another matter altogether. And living in that way is certainly again on the basis of one’s baptism and identity with Christ.

This is positional truth I would call it, to be sure. Grounded in our baptism into Christ. But it is also intimate, part of God’s working in love. And yet it will often be uncomfortable, like an inner purging which seems to leave one unsettled. But the groundwork has been laid for the new life to be lived, a life in the Spirit, and in the love poured out by God in Jesus through the Spirit. A resurrection life in us, together for the world.

more on knowledge in the faith, a nonnegotiable presupposition

Yesterday’s post is about the nature of faith for followers of Jesus. How it’s about life. Faith doesn’t leave the mind behind, yet it goes beyond the mind in that we’re called to trust God in Christ. And not to lean to our own understanding.

But there is one nonnegotiable presupposition, of course more than one to get as far as the presupposition to be insisted on here, but there is one fact front and center that is required for the Christian faith to be intact as given in scripture. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

Whether or not we understand it, or whether or not it computes with us, by faith we must receive what is given as central to the good news of Christ, that he indeed did rise from the dead on the third day. And we do so within the context given, of the New Testament.

If we stumble here, Paul says our faith is worthless, and that we’re still in our sins. That Christ died, was buried, was raised on the third day, along with being seen by witnesses, that he ascended and is to return all seem a part of the good news as expressed in 1 Corinthians 15. The heart being his death and resurrection.

What if we struggle with doubts about the truth of Jesus’ resurrection. There are good sources to help us. The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright is a massive work which is considered most helpful. A shortened version to help one through this would be his book, Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters. Can a Scientist Believe the Resurrection? is a transcript of a lecture he delivered. On balance, I’d recommend Simply Jesus. For a quick read the online transcript is good. For a rather exhaustive study, The Resurrection of the Son of God should help. If you like to watch and listen, Did Jesus Really Rise From The Dead? by Wright would be good.  John Polkinghorne and his books can help us, he a renowned scientist and Anglican priest.

In my own thinking, while resurrection is contrary to what we see and understand, I consider both “creation” and “new creation.” Life coming seemingly from no where, out of the big bang. And life as promised in the new creation. So that Jesus’ life on earth, and then his resurrection overlap with both. A life now present in Jesus by the Spirit.

But even if I don’t understand it well, I take it by faith and go on. This is the faith in which I live, the air which I breathe, spiritually speaking. And it is the hope not only for us, but for the world. Our hope is in Jesus, in God’s work in and through him. Yes, beginning even together now for this world.

Scot McKnight on “Jesus and the undeserved cross”

Jesus,
though Son of God,
though Messiah,
though a Galilean benefactor,
though a teacher of wisdom,
though a prophet,
though righteous,
though compassionate and loving,
though a good man,
though a favorite of the people,
though steeped in Israel’s scriptures,
though aware of Israel’s traditions,
though hailed by crowds,
though accompanied by followers,
though in the City of David,
though staring at the seat of justice in Jerusalem,
though examined by the highest of authorities,
though capable of giving profound answers to life’s questions,
though responding to unjust accusations with grace,
though…though…though…all these things and many more…

… Was condemned to capital punishment and unjustly and publicly crucified at Golgotha. He was like an innocent lamb led to a slaughter, and the prophet Isaiah predicted that very thing about the Messiah (Isaiah 52-53). As the sun was eclipsed, so was justice. The darkness of the scene was the darkness of injustice. They chose to put him away, this Lamb of God, with the ultimate punishment: crucifixion.

Crucifixion is the ultimate obscenity.
Crucifixion is the ultimate deterrent.
Crucifixion involves stripping the victim in order to humiliate.
Crucifixion means a body would be picked apart by birds of prey.
Crucifixion sates the sadistic desires of the strong.
Crucifixion is reserved for vile criminals.
Crucifixion is synonymous with shame.
Crucifixion is synonymous with suffocation.
Crucifixion gives a lasting commentary on a person’s life.
Crucifixion means a person is cursed by God.

Scot McKnight, One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow, 185-186.

giving up something for Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday, our church having a service tonight to begin Lent, symbolizing what our Lord has done for us in his death on the cross, and our repentance with ashes. I am a late comer to keeping (loosely) the church calendar year, but I think the more the better for me on that.

At the same time it is still a bit of a head scratcher to me when people talk about giving up something for Lent. Especially when they share what it might be. Seemingly meaningless, at least to my ears. Perhaps chocolate, or something else which seems trivial.

It’s interesting that the time of Lent stretching to Easter incorporates 40 church days, 46 overall on the calendar. It is thought that to rid one’s self of an old habit and start a new, takes around six weeks, or 40 days.

Actually Lent is to be a time of reflection on our Lord and his sacrifice of love for us and for the world. And a renewal of our commitment in faith to follow him. That renewal for us inevitably in this world involves ongoing repentance. So whatever one might choose to give up if one decides to keep this tradition, needs to be in that spirit and understanding.

There are certain sins which beset many of us, sins which we may easily fall into or may even have us in their grip. They may seem small and nagging, yet all sin looms large when it comes to real life, and the impact on it. Often they are sins which in one way or another violate love. And in a sense all sins do. I think here of love to God first, and then love to our neighbor as ourselves.

We could list sins. Some are noted today, even considered unavoidable by many. And then others are accepted with the idea that everyone does it. And then others are oh so subtle. They may even be couched with some good intentions. Or there may be good along with what is not good.

The question being, are we following our Lord truly in what we are doing? And if not, then we should repent of it, seek the Lord so as to follow him afresh, looking for no less than a change of heart along with practice.

And we need to occupy ourselves with something new in place of the old.   Just the thought of how we are following Jesus is a good one for this. It will end up something in terms of love and obedience to him and his commands. There ought to be in our hearts a desire to want to please him. This is not just a religious practice, but one of commitment and devotion to God in God’s love to us in Jesus.

Of course this is all grace. If one makes a commitment, but fails along the way, that is an opportunity then and there to repent and go on. Perhaps what you gave up is only temporary, so that you can strengthen your focus on our Lord. That is of course well and good, also.

I think I know what I’ll give up, starting today. In my case I may be able to go back to it, but it can become a sin to me. Part of the change God is working in me. As along with others in Jesus we follow on in this life in the way of the cross as those who by the Spirit begin to share in his resurrection with the hope of the full resurrection to come.

forgiving others

One important aspect of following Jesus is the ongoing need to forgive those who have wronged us. And to keep forgiving them.

That is part of the prayer Jesus taught us as his followers to pray:

And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Or the version in Luke’s gospel:

Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.

We do well to voice the Lord’s/our Father prayer, offering it as a prayer to God. And I think we do well to say out loud or under our breath, “I forgive so and so.” And on and on. And to keep doing that.

In Galatians we’re told to stop biting and devouring each other, or we may be consumed by each other. In other words being against someone and holding grudges is destructive to one’s spiritual health. Unity together as God’s people brings God’s blessing. Disunity seems to bring something of the opposite.

When I simply voice forgiveness for those who have wronged me, I am released from the hold they may have over me through God’s working in honoring and making real what I’m saying. I can let go of the grudge I have against them. What I’m suggesting is that with our step of faith in obedience comes the beginning of God’s blessing. It must not stop there.

Almost always, as Miroslav Volf has pointed out to us, when we are sinned against, we often sin back. So even if we were in the right in the matter or the victims, we end up sinning against the one who has hurt and victimized us. So that if they are aware of this, we may indeed have to ask them for their forgiveness in the pursuit of reconciliation. There may be exceptions to this rule with reference to people whose sickness may make them dangerous to others.

Of course all of this is possible only through Jesus and what he has done for us through his death on the cross. By offering himself, his body, he has broken down the walls that divide people. In and through himself, through his broken body for us. We are forgiven of our sins through his sacrificial death. And on the basis of what God has done in and through Jesus, we can forgive others. And ask for their forgiveness in the hope of at least the beginning of full reconciliation.

In a post to come I want to think through our need of asking for forgiveness. In the meantime give this video a look if you would, from a dear former pastor of ours, Pastor Ed Dobson. And how God worked in his life, and out from that into the lives of others.