over all: Psalm 93

The LORD is king; he is robed in majesty;
the LORD is robed; he is girded with strength.
He has established the world; it shall never be moved;
your throne is established from of old;
you are from everlasting.

The floods have lifted up, O LORD,
the floods have lifted up their voice;
the floods lift up their roaring.
More majestic than the thunders of mighty waters,
more majestic than the waves of the sea,
majestic on high is the Lord!

Your decrees are very sure;
holiness befits your house,
O LORD, forevermore.

Psalm 93; NRSVue

God reigns in Christ. The Spirit is poured out from the throne. It is the reign in and by which we as followers of Jesus live.

It is now in the way of the cross, the way of both death and resurrection, the way of Jesus. Above and beyond all that is in opposition and imagine otherwise.

God is with us *in the midst of trouble*

 

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
God will help it when the morning dawns.
The nations are in an uproar; the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice; the earth melts.
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

Come, behold the works of the LORD;
see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations;
I am exalted in the earth.”
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

Psalm 46; NRSVue

Looking at “trouble” in the psalms from the NRSVue translation helps us see that it is mirrored there in all the complexity of life. Sometimes, maybe even oftentimes in our experience, God seems absent in the midst of trouble (Psalm 10:1). The psalms are faith filled in the real world, running through the gamut of human experience.

Jesus tells us that in this world we will have trouble, but that he has overcome and is victorious over the world (John 16:33). That is only in Jesus’s victory, not in the victory of Christendom or Christianity as we too often see it today, or any day. Once again, we turn to the pages of Scripture to find out what Christian is supposed to mean, beginning with the four gospel accounts. The trouble Jesus speaks of is actually more in line with persecution, or as the NET puts it, “trouble and suffering.” To really follow Jesus will never be to fall in line with empire or the dictates of the state, though we comply insofar as that does not violate our allegiance to Christ.

In trouble we often are in lament and lament is a most neglected yet powerful place and even source of faith for the faithful. There’s really no end to the help we can get from Scripture, but we have to be in it, together in community as well as in our individual daily lives. Psalm 46 pointing to God’s saving help in the midst of trouble.

 

willingness to make hard changes

In contrast, God is why you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

1 Corinthians 1:30-31; NRSVue

Listen to advice and accept instruction,
that you may gain wisdom for the future.
The human mind may devise many plans,
but it is the purpose of the LORD that will be established.

Proverbs 19:20-21; NRSVue

Wisdom is evident, made known in life, and especially revealed in Jesus himself, if often not in the religion that bears his name. The priority is love, love for all things, and without leaving anything behind, especially love for people made in God’s image. We can see that this is God’s priority in the coming of Christ in his incarnation, life, teachings, death and resurrection with all the promise that comes with that.

Openness to change is important if we’re to follow on well in the path of wisdom. Whatever holds us back from entering more fully into love for neighbor needs to be questioned. That begins with priority to family. Another point important in this is that not one size fits all. What might be wise and helpful to one person, couple, or family may not work well for another. Each of us has to work through this ourselves. While we should listen to the counsel of others, especially those we know to have wisdom and experience, in the end it will be up to us to make the final decisions.

All of this can be hard, no matter what decision we make. As followers of Christ, we need to learn to rest in Christ, in the priority he has set. It is one of love, both giving and receiving. That can help us to sort out what we should or shouldn’t do to see the best worked out in our lives. In this, there probably is not just one right answer. But whatever we decide, the priority must be love of neighbor, without leaving anything else of proper, loving concern behind.

does God love everyone, or not?

The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked,
and his soul hates the lover of violence.

Psalm 11:5; NRSVue (see also Psalm 5:5-6)

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.

But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning, for I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.

Then the LORD said…”…should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals?”

Jonah 3:10-4:2,11; NRSVue

…in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:19-21; NRSVue; (see also John 3:14-17; 1 John 2:2)

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; 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 Collect for Ash Wednesday

Most of the traditions and denominations in Christianity are in agreement that God loves everyone. There are those who hold that God loves only the elect, those whom God has predestined to be saved. The rest, not.

If we read some of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament on its own, we’re hard pressed to say that God loves everyone. Indeed it appears that God hates some. Side by side with that are other indications that God’s love and care extend to all nations (Genesis 12:1-3; 22:18). Especially noteworthy is the repentance of the most violent, hated Assyrian Ninevites in the story of Jonah. In it we see that God’s people are called to be God’s instruments of love and grace in the world.

The clincher for me to be assured that God loves every human being in a special way as those made in God’s image is Jesus himself in his incarnation, teachings, life, death and resurrection and what follows in God’s promise for all. Jesus said that to see him is to see God, and God’s Word in this day is always mediated through God’s Son, whether people acknowledge that or not (John 14:8-11; Hebrews 1:1-4).

Yes, God’s calls to all to respond to God’s embrace carries with it many issues. At the heart of it all is love as one would expect in the God who is love (1 John 2:2; 4:16), revealed fully in the Word, Jesus.

Certainly just a preliminary sketch.

faith because of Christ, overcomes/conquers all (“the world”)

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

1 John 5:1-5; NRSVue

1 John along with the entire Bible is a great case study in the story that unfolds and is completed in Christ of the victory of God in Christ over all the forces of evil, night (figuratively speaking) and death/Death.

I realize that on some of my posts the Scripture passage quoted at the start is long and likely to be scanned or skipped over by any reader. It is always good to discipline oneself to read it all (I plead guilty to not always doing that myself). In this post, the point made is especially germane to the words of the passage quoted above, and in this case it isn’t long.

What we find is that Christ has overcome and gained the victory (see NET footnotes on 5:4 included in the link above). This victory in 1 John was over the false teachers who watered down Christ’s coming as something other and less than what it was. The conquest has been completed both by Christ’s incarnation and death, death shorthand here for Christ’s death and resurrection, which ultimately includes his ascension with the promise of his return.

What is it in our lives as believers in Christ which puts us under, overcomes us, so to speak? Whatever that is, and there are myriads of answers depending on each person and the circumstances faced along with other factors, but whatever that is has already been overcome in and through Christ. That is key. But what is also key is our faith laying hold of that. Unless by faith we lay hold of that, we won’t experience it, and will remain submerged under “the world” so to speak, the world representing all that is in human opposition to God and God’s good will and reign on earth “as it is in heaven.”

Obeying God’s commandments is linked to this faith that overcomes. Without that faith, we can’t, but with it, we can and will believe and love as God has called us to, and reject or disregard all that is contrary to that.

We have to live in this light. By faith we conquer not in the sense of doing so ourselves, but of entering into the victory of God in Christ. Taking the text literally, we do so together and I think that’s where it starts. But it plays out in individual victory available to us all, yes over whatever plagues and ills us in this life. Something that is once for all done on Christ’s part, but not once for all done on our part. We have to keep laying hold of that victory day after day in the faith which overcomes the world.

burial: a part of our faith

I am one who has seen affliction
under the rod of God’s wrath;
he has driven and brought me
into darkness without any light;
against me alone he turns his hand,
again and again, all day long.

He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;
he has broken my bones;
he has besieged and enveloped me
with bitterness and tribulation;
he has made me sit in darkness
like the dead of long ago.

He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
he has put heavy chains on me;
though I call and cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer;
he has blocked my ways with hewn stones;
he has made my paths crooked.

The thought of my affliction and my homelessness
is wormwood and gall!
My soul continually thinks of it
and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”

Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24; NRSVue

Phil Yoder recently gave the most thought-provoking message I’ve ever heard on the issue of what it means to give up on one’s hopes and dreams maybe even in the midst of living them out, all of that “buried” so that by and by something better can emerge. That’s my own description of it, but if you do nothing more, stop and listen to this.

During Holy Week, Saturday is the day when Jesus is buried, and all the hopes and dreams of his followers buried with him. All hope was gone, or at least in their experience it certainly seemed so. Jesus had told them on at least three occasions that he would suffer, be killed, and on the third day rise again. But they simply didn’t understand what he was saying. It made no sense to them at all in their understanding of Scripture and the scheme of things.

A lot of Christians seem to look at Holy Week as Easter week, just skipping over everything prior to get to Jesus’s resurrection. Others will include the other days, especially Good Friday and maybe Maundy Thursday as well, but Holy Saturday is just a footnote. But carefully considering everything in that story as well as in the rest of Scripture like in the passage above from Lamentations, we do much better to stop on this Holy Saturday and dwell on and in this day.

Something mighty and most wonderful was going to happen, but it was hidden from the disciples. We do well to stay here. In the Christian faith death is always followed by burial and only then comes resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3-4; Romans 6:4). And as noted above, a necessary metaphorical burial of sorts is a part of this life. All the hopes and dreams in us, every one of them important, but necessarily submerged into the darkness of death, with the promise that the full good and life of such will emerge and break forth.

life can be found, only when lost

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew, then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say: ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. The crowd answered him, “We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” Jesus said to them, “The light is in you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.”

After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them.

John 12:20-36; NRSVue

How easy is it to feel sorry for oneself? Pretty easy, at least I can speak for myself. When you look at Scripture, especially the psalms, there seems little doubt to me that some of that is dripping, even running from those in trouble. It’s like they feel abandoned, that no one cares, wondering if God even cares.

Even though God might be hidden for a time, at least from our awareness, God does answer our prayers, God cares, God acts. You can see a hint of it in the above passage, but in other passages in today’s “Tuesday of Holy Week” liturgy, this comes out clear. God does reward God’s servants.

Jesus himself is rewarded in the reality that even in his death, all people are drawn to him. Jesus likens this to a grain of wheat which has to break up and as it were die, so that the life in it in the mystery of soil and water might sprout, break through the ground and with more water and sun result in a plant to be harvested. This is what Jesus did, and we’re to follow him in that. We lose it all, so to speak, but in doing so, we find it all. Only when our lives are lost in Jesus will they be found in him.

Christ’s sacrifice the end of the false religion of appeasing God (and the gods)

But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), he entered once for all into the holy place, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!

For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant.

Hebrews 9:11-15; NRSVue

Christ’s sacrificial death puts an end to the old way of understanding sacrificial atonement. God’s no to that old system in the first covenant; God’s yes to the new covenant which finally takes care of the sins not only of those under the first covenant, but of the world, once for all.

There’s a tension in Scripture between the idea that God has to be appeased by sacrifice, by death, and the idea that God’s forgiveness comes from God’s love and is only a spoken word away in experiencing such. God makes it plain in the sacrifice of Christ, and in doing so, we could argue casts the old way of thinking about sacrifice as in appeasing God and God’s wrath, accepted in religions of old as appeasing the wrath of the gods, casting this way of thinking into oblivion.

It’s not that Christ’s blood and death doesn’t cleanse and free us once for all from our sins, because it does, and one might say from that, it’s the culmination of all sacrifice, what all the sacrifices in the Old Testament were prefiguring, looking forward to, and that’s true. But it also makes it clear that this old way of thinking never satisfied God, and as the writer of Hebrews says, could never take away sins. The adherents couldn’t get rid of their guilt and yearly atonement for all was required.

Christ’s death which we remember this Holy Week ends the false belief that God requires death for sin, for sinners. Sin results in death, figuratively in all kinds of ways and literally in that we are left to our mortal world and life. But in Christ through ironically what was done to him through the priesthood of Israel, not the Jews, as well as the empire of the known world at that time, it is clear that not only is this false notion of appeasing God overturned, but ingeniously, mortality ends up being overturned as well. In Christ’s death comes the end of the old, which in itself is crucial. And from that, the beginning of something entirely new, hinted at and pointed to in the Hebrew Bible, in the Old Testament, but appearing over the horizon towards the full light of Day in Christ.

finding the sweet spot

The heavens are telling the glory of God,
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth
and their words to the end of the world.

In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy,
and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens
and its circuit to the end of them,
and nothing is hid from its heat.

The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the decrees of the LORD are sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the LORD is clear,
enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever;
the ordinances of the LORD are true
and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
But who can detect one’s own errors?
Clear me from hidden faults.
Keep back your servant also from the insolent;
do not let them have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless
and innocent of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you,
O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

Psalm 19; NRSVue

Depending on a good number of things, people will find their sweet spot in different places. What do I mean by “sweet spot?” That place where one is most alive, we might say, most themselves, what God intended and intends for them.

This doesn’t mean that when people find this, it makes life easy. Life is what it is, challenging both externally with what happens, and internally with how we process it all. The external challenge seems greater today than at any point in my lifetime. Internally we not only react, but we have to process it in a way that is healthy to ourselves and others. That’s not easy, either, but necessary.

The psalmist lived in difficult times, too. And two places they look: God’s creation, and God’s Word. Somehow they get settled through both. It’s in terms of response as well as finding one’s footing and fulfillment.

I’ve been a Bible person much of my life, I personally don’t think all that good at that, but I’ve stayed in it. If I could do only one thing, I suppose it would be to have Bible in hand, maybe a good study Bible along the way, a cup of coffee, and classical music in the background. One thing I haven’t been consistent at is getting out in nature, in God’s creation. Not enough of that, though I have seen some of it.

Don’t underestimate the power of nature. Just getting out on the beach to enjoy the sand, the vast lake or ocean, the sky in all its glory, the birds, the breeze, the peace that comes with that, can do one a world of good in a short time. And then there’s places where there are trees, marshes, hills, mountains, etc. I’m not a nature guide, but I know there’s nothing like nature to fill one with a sense of awe and wonder, or at least to help ground one in a healthy stillness and peace.

The Bible seems to be an old, crusty, outdated book to many. And it definitely has not only its odd features, but sometimes seems lost itself, at least to me. The only intended way to make sense of it is to see and measure it according to the life, teaching, works, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. Each part has to be taken seriously on its own, but we have to come to see it all in the light of Jesus as revealed first in the four gospel accounts, and then what follows.*

If one is a novice to the Bible, to start in Genesis and read straight through to Revelation is commendatory, especially if you make it all the way through. I would recommend starting in the gospels. To make it simple, just read it through as it is in our Bibles: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Or maybe in more of a logical order: Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. Mark, Matthew, John, then Luke followed by Acts would be another logical approach. All the rest of Scripture must be seen in the light of those four gospels.

An essential is easily lost in all of this for us who live in an individualistic world. This psalm is actually meant to be read to, or read and heard by God’s people together. We have limited ourselves by making everything an individual endeavor and have lost an untold amount in the process. The appreciation of God’s world and Word is by far best appreciated in community and especially community in and through Jesus. Yes, we need those times alone, too. I highly value some solitude. But Jesus is especially present in the communion of people gathered together in his name. We will be blessed in ways we didn’t recognize at the time, when we make community in Jesus an ongoing priority in our lives.

Where do you find your sweet spot? I don’t think it always has to be in nature and Scripture, though where you find it will be related to both. Nature, we could say includes what comes natural to us, what makes us tick, what we have a knack for and more than interests us.  God’s Word is evident everywhere, if we just develop an ear for it.* In both, extended out in vast, limitless ways, we can find our sweet spot, a continued endeavor from the gift of God.

*Nonviolent Word: Anabaptism, the Bible, and the Grain of the Universe, by J. Denny Weaver and Gerald J. Mast

note, too, related to this post, The Strange New World Within the Bible, a sermon by Karl Barth which he delivered in 1917

“remember Lot’s wife”

 When they had brought them outside, [the angels] said, “Flee for your life; do not look back….“

Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven, and he overthrew those cities and all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Genesis 19:17a, 24-26; NRSVue

Wisdom rescued a righteous man when the ungodly were perishing;
he escaped the fire that descended on the Five Cities.
Evidence of their wickedness still remains:
a continually smoking wasteland,
plants bearing fruit that does not ripen,
and a pillar of salt standing as a monument to an unbelieving soul.

Wisdom 10:6-7; NRSVue

“Remember Lot’s wife. Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it.“

Luke 17:32-33; NRSVue

One of the marks of the Genesis story of God raining down fire and brimstone in judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah because of an ongoing rampant, destructive violation of love for neighbor is the turning back of Lot’s wife. The story of Abraham and his nephew Lot begins actually in Genesis 12:4 (also 11:31), right at the beginning of Abraham leaving for Canaan, Lot with him. They separate, Lot soon getting into trouble from which he’s rescued by Abraham (Genesis 13-14). And then Lot and his family settle down in Sodom into what must seemed to have been a stable life, but amidst what probably amounted to troubling unneighborly wickedness (2 Peter 2:6-8).

Jesus referred to this when speaking about God’s coming reign. Unlike Lot’s wife, who violated God’s command by looking back, Jesus’s disciples were to press on in the way of Jesus, the way of the cross. Or in the context, with a heart and eye only on God’s coming reign in Jesus. All else is subordinated, even consumed under that. We’re to remember Lot’s wife.

What might tempt us to look back like Lot’s wife did? To understand that, we have to turn to the teaching of Jesus which ends up being in line with the prophets before him. This ends up being a matter of discipleship, of what it means to be true followers of Jesus. In the words of Jesus in this immediate context: Seeking to make our life secure. That seems rather harsh. It only seems natural that people in any place or situation would want security to survive and hopefully thrive. Just what is Jesus getting at?

I think to begin to have a complete understanding of this, we have to see what follows. First we have to consider Jesus’s life and teaching. It’s about living even sacrificially with the love of neighbor as top priority as the expression of love for God. Jesus is then crucified, dies and is resurrected. Jesus appears to his disciples in his resurrection body for forty days before he ascends into heaven, into another sphere. The Holy Spirit is poured out, and the church as the body of Christ in the world by the Spirit comes into being. After that, all of life is lived within that community, individual believers and followers in and as part of the community of the faithful.

We live our baptized, committed life in Christ within the community of Christ, yes as individuals out and about in the world, but as part of Christ’s body. This is all but lost in our individualistic western and especially American culture. Individual liberty is emphasized to the point that community is mostly all but lost, or at least quite secondary to that. But in Scripture, not so. Thus, there’s a tendency for believers to be on their own, more or less fending for themselves, yes in a personal relationship with Jesus, the church largely existing to help believers in that. Hopefully, but not necessarily some relationships come out of such church existence (church life too strong, unfortunately). The Spirit will be at work in spite of this to help churches be what by the Spirit they are. But the worldly way of existence and thinking ever presses against that. Not unlike what Lot’s own world did.

We’re not to look back. Instead, we’re to be looking ahead, another direction altogether. I don’t think we’ll do this as well as we need to, nor are we actually meant to just as individuals. We need to be in this together with other believers and committed followers of Christ. That doesn’t for a minute lessen our individual responsibility, but we are one body, together in this in Christ.

May God help us all to begin to understand, especially in discernment together what that means for us now.