4/25/09
Growing in the Desert (Lorraine)
If you are from my home state of North Carolina, anywhere other than the southwest, or if you go by the name of Lucy Jones (my mother-in-law), when you think of the desert you probably think of dry, hot, hot, hotter, and why in the world would anyone want to live there. Even though I am from the beautiful tree smitten, rolling foothills of North Carolina, I have come to fall in love with the desert. The desert is a place with great significance, yet many wonder how anything could heal or even grow in such a difficult place. Well, as I learned through living in AZ and as my 2nd graders learned this year, there are many things, many beautiful things that grow and prosper in the desert. Kyle and I spent the first few years of marriage in AZ , and for me, the desert was a place of open space for thought, healing, and time spent growing and learning.
We spent our first year in AZ being very lonely. We knew hardly anyone and found it difficult to meet new people, especially people with common interests, in the large city of Phoenix. But with time, we found churches, small groups, and friends who we came to love dearly and who came to make us feel so loved and care for. It wasn’t easy leaving AZ and all these people the first time to come to Haiti, and it was even harder the second time last October! But these people, along with many others we’ve known from the past or have met since, also later send us to Haiti where we would face joys and difficulties alike, a place where we would come to know there love in more deeply.
The desert is a setting found in several parts of the bible. Moses was call out to the desert to grow and hear from God before he was sent out with the great task of freeing the Israelites from captivity in Egypt. Jesus often escaped into the wilderness- the desert- to pray and find solitude. We all no of the famous temptation of Christ. He was called out to the desert for 40 days where he fasted (eating absolutely nothing), prayed and was challenged and tempted by Satan.
As most of you know Kyle and I have recently been through our own sort of desert-like place spiritually. Even though Kyle and I both normally consider ourselves to healthy people, the last several months have been very difficult for us with the multitude, and seemingly unending, sicknesses. Almost like Jesus out in the wilderness starving and being tempted by Satan, we too have been challenged by this series of health problems.
I will not delve into it all but, specifically with all of kinds physical illness, we have been through a lot within the last eight or nine months. And to be honest at one point, I was absolutely drained and in a terrible place emotionally. A while ago, Kyle had sent out and email to family, friends, and supporters saying that things were looking better only to come home to a wife about to have a nervous breakdown. These difficulties challenged our trust in God, our faith in Him and his will for our lives and work, and lets not forget our pride as well. But this is where the whole desert is a good thing comes in.
Because we’ve been through so much (and continue to do so), we’ve had to rely only on God for healing, his faithfulness, love, and provision. We have had to humble ourselves and fully depend on God to lead us and provide for us in very unexpected ways. I have always found it difficult to ask for anything or be given anything when in need. But we have been placed in so many positions, where we could do nothing else. We have continued to be put us in these positions, but God has remained faithful to by placing a person or church or group with the desire to love us, care for us, and to fill our exact need! The benevolence that has been bestowed upon us has been so great that we would not be able to pay it back even if we tried. Time and time and again he proved Himself, our friends, family and churches faithful, loving and kind, generous and amazing. Yet we could not have known this immense love and care, if we were not in a position of dryness, need, and starvation for it.
Because we have been through the fire and come out on the other side, we are now able to fully appreciate our lives and the abundance we have in be given by Him and in Him. We have been sifted and refined and proved to be at least somewhat worthwhile, and of course so has God. Because we have been cared for, because we have been healed and have grown in the midst of a desert, I have never felt more called to be where we are more than ever.
This has been a tough year for many people, not only us. With the economy in dire straights and with many things unstable this past year or more, I am afraid many people, maybe even you, find yourselves in a place where you must rely on God. Maybe you or someone you know has found themselves in the desert. But remember this is where God will prove himself faithful. Surprisingly, there is abundant life and beauty found in such a harsh place, but you must to go there, experiencing the heat and the dryness, to find it.
4/15/09
The Foolishness of the Resurrection
When Christians celebrate Easter, what are they really celebrating? Certainly they are celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, but what impact does the resurrection have on us if anything? I am not strictly wondering this from the perspective of the cross, but simply in terms of the resurrection itself. The answer that I have come to find out is that the resurrection has everything to do with everything we are as Christians.
The thought of the resurrection is simply foolishness to most people, though, because none of us has personally seen anybody be resurrected unless someone is referring to someone who was clinically dead and then ten minutes later came back alive. This, however, is not the same thing that Christians believe I must suggest. Christians who take scripture seriously, believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead after three days of being dead; but even more than that because Jesus never died.
I can see why this would be foolishness to so many people in our overly scientifically minded culture and society, and why it would be fool to our overly entertainment based culture. I mean let’s be honest, there has been a lot of Zombie movies over the past several years: 28 Days, 28 Days Later, I am Legend, Shaun of the Dead (comedic, but still zombie). When a lot of people here of the word resurrection they imagine bodies coming out of the ground, one hand at a time, like every possible zombie movie (or video game) that they have ever seen. It is true that imagining the resurrection as a bad, cheaply made zombie movie seems nothing but foolishness, but this certainly is not what the Bible teaches.
The biggest most conclusive and holistic presentation of the resurrection is found at the end of 1 Corinthians in chapter 15. Here Paul has a couple of things in mind: 1) the explain the significance of Christ’s resurrection, 2) to insist on our future bodily resurrection, and 3) to explain our future bodily resurrection. You see we are not the only people in history to challenge the message and validity of the resurrection, it happened within the lifetime of the first Apostles. Paul, though, makes it overwhelmingly clear in this passage that the resurrection is not something we can just throw out with the bath water, it is essential nature of our faith itself.
Paul says that if Christ didn’t resurrect than we are to be pitied more than any other people, and if Christ didn’t resurrect than our religion is worthless. The resurrection was everything to Paul for no other reason, except the hope that lies within it for him. You see if Christ didn’t resurrect, than neither will we resurrect from the dead; and this may be news to some people, but the resurrection is the ultimate goal of the Christian faith according to scripture. I think most people have this assumption that when they die there soul will just magically float up to some ethereal and metaphysical place where everyone flies around as a spirit and has their own mansion that puts MTV Cribs to shame. However, this is not what the Bible teaches. Sure Jesus mentions that he is going to go and prepare a place for us, but dreaming our wildest fantasies of what we would wish for here on earth is not at all what Jesus means. Besides this type of thinking avoids the real theological truth that Paul is trying to explain that we will all have a bodily resurrection much like Christ had a bodily resurrection. Believing in a disembodied spirit floating up to heaven is much closer to the teachings of Plato and the Neo-Platonists who would suggest that the body is evil and the Spirit (soul) is good than believing what the Bible teaches.
Let’s step back for a second and think about it logically like Paul does. If there is no resurrection of the body then there is no resurrection of Jesus. If there is no resurrection of Jesus then our faith is meaningless and we are still in our sins. Two logical truths and conclusions that are very scary, but let’s approach it from another view – death itself. Throughout the Bible and the teachings of Paul we see that death (or the death of our bodies more specifically) is the ultimate enemy and force that human beings are unable to overcome. If Christ did not overcome death through the resurrection then that proves that death is a more powerful force than God himself. Paul says the same then is true for us, if we (our bodies) cannot overcome death through the power of Christ, then death is more powerful than Christ. Of course as Christians we know this to be false, but we must realize that power to overcome death is most certainly available to us. If we can live in knowledge of a resurrection that is for the body and the spirit (soul), I think that has the power to give more hope and not less hope.
If, however, our bodies are to be raised from the dead, which the Bible clearly teaches, then in my summation it matters what we do with our bodies. This is true simply for doing evil things or corrupting (abusing drugs, alcohol, etc.) our bodies, but it is also true for the good things we do with our body. You see as people of the resurrection of Christ we are obligated to spread his kingdom on earth; this has many facets and nuances, but the main thing is we are required to use our bodies in service to our King. Our King longs for us to bring heaven to earth, and so we have responsibilities to help the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, work to abolish global slavery, work to bring clean water to everyone, stand up for the oppressed and broken, to protect the world’s precious ecosystems, to promote beauty in our world, and to always follow the voice of the shepherd who challenges and strengthens us to accomplish all of these lofty adventures. For Paul closes his long theological discussion on the resurrection with these words, “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Cor.15:58)
4/13/09
Foolishness
Without a doubt, Easter is the biggest Holiday and celebration for Christians during the course of the year; it is the full remembrance of the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What Easter weekend remembers is the acts which define us as Christians; without these acts, none of us could truly call ourselves Christians and as Paul says our faith would be in vain.
Throughout the last year I have been doing a lot of reading and studying (and even teaching) through the first letter to the Corinthians. This letter is both rich in its theology and rich in its controversy, but its lessons on the cross and the resurrection I find particularly meaningful. In the following post, I plan to reflect on Paul’s focus on the cross at the beginning of first Corinthians, and Paul’s focus on the resurrection at the end of the letter as I reflect during this season of remembrance and celebration.
Foolishness of the Cross
Paul begins the letter to the Corinthians by drawing a sharp contrast between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. For the Paul the wisdom of God is most certainly his Son Jesus, and his death on the cross. The problem was that the surrounding Greek society thought that the cross was nothing more than foolishness, ignorance, plain stupidity, and the Jews rejected Christ because they “demand miraculous signs.” (1 Cor.1:22) To this Paul says “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor.1:28)
Why is it foolishness to the Greek and the Jews, though? The answer to this question lies firmly within differing worldview. For example, the Greek worldview was centered around the philosophies of the giants of old: Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato. Plato’s dualistic view of reality suggested that there were essentially two different worlds: a physical world and the world of the Soul (spiritual world if you will). To Plato the physical world was evil because it was comprised of physical substances, which were undoubtedly evil. This means the spiritual world was the good world. With this worldview it would be completely impossible to understand why a good God would enter into this world as a physical substance, and then resurrect back as a physical substance; this would just be plain foolishness and not wisdom. Now, I must admit that this is a oversimplification of the reasons why Paul says that “Greeks look for wisdom,” (1 Cor.1:22) which keeps them from believing in the cross.
The Jews on the other hand “demand miraculous signs.” These miraculous signs could be vast and many, but I want to once again suggest a worldview difference. The Jews believe that when the “messiah” comes, the world and history will end. They believe that everything that is talked about in the Prophets about the “Day of the Lord” will happen and history will meet its consummation. With Jesus, though, this simply did not happen: the world didn’t end, the Roman government was not overthrown, the Jews were not restored to their proper glory within the world, and the new Kingdom free of disease, sorrow, and evil was not established. Instead, the person who they thought had the potential of being the “messiah,” was brutally mocked, tortured, and killed; hardly deserving of the title of King or “messiah.” It is no wonder that the Jews thought that the message of the cross was “foolishness,” because our world knows not of any true savior or king who would be treated in such a way and end up with the worst possible death imaginable.
The temptation for the Christians in Corinth was not to abandon their faith completely, but rather to keep the parts of Christianity they liked and mix them with other worldly wisdom and philosophy to create in their mind a religion superior to Christianity. This is what we call syncretism, and is something that Paul simply doesn’t accept.
Unfortunately, all of the recent studies on Christianity in the United States show a pretty drastic decline in true believers. There are many reasons for this within American culture and society: Christians have a bad image, most Christians are at best nominal, but none more important than most overly open view of life, reality, and how the world operates. The American culture is pervasively, and yet subtly syncretistic, and Christians have fallen into this same trap. People may certainly talk about being a Christian, but they certainly avoid the mention of the cross and resurrection much like the people in Corinth did even though they are the truest essentials of the Christian faith. People readily syncretize certain aspects of Christianity with the self-help teachings of Dr.Phil or Oprah, with strands of Eastern philosophy and religion, with American ideals (the American dream, Manifest Destiny, Capitalism), and with many other things that have nothing to do with the gospel, but they sure seem to make our religion more presentable, and maybe even respectable. There are even many churches that I have read about and heard of that long for celebrities to come in and share their message with the people as an outreach. There is certainly nothing wrong with outreach, but at the heart of this lies the assumption, (whether a person likes it or not) that we need the status and words of a famous person to make our faith legitimate and to bring people to it. Our faith is not suppose to seem wise to the world, because it is not the world’s wisdom it is God’s wisdom. Our faith is legitimate not because a famous person says so in wise and persuasive words, but because it is the power and wisdom of God.
Paul says that when he first came to the Corinthians he did not “come with eloquence or superior wisdom,” (1 Cor.2:1) he did not come “with wise and persuasive words,” (1 Cor.2:3) but Paul came claiming nothing except “Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Cor.2:2) Nothing. And his claims at knowing nothing were not because Paul was an ignorant and uneducated man, but because Paul wants the focus to be where it needs to be – on the cross. Simplicity in the gospel message is always better than overly complex and philosophical ideals. Now, I am not suggesting that we all preach the same sermon every single week, quite the contrary, what I am suggesting, though, is that we stop trying to find cultural ideals to mix with our faith to make it more legitimate. Christianity is supposed to be foolishness to world, how can it not be if you really think about it. The world operates much differently from the way God operates, and thank goodness for that. Being disrespected by our peers is well worth it if we in turn have the respect, love, and power of our God.
Good Friday is a hard day to think about, and a certainly a day of reflection, or at least it should be. A day to reflect on the message of the cross that Paul claims only to know when he preaches, and a day to spend to reflect on how we handle this message with our family,our friends, and in our churches. If the cross truly is one of the two most important messages in the Christian faith then it is something that needs to be feared, revered, and celebrated regularly.
The Easter Holiday provides Christians with a great opportunity to remember and celebrate the work of Jesus on the cross, and to reflect on its importance to our Christian faith. As Christians, though, we must be willing to seem foolish in the eyes of the world, because although the cross is “foolishness to those who are perishing,” it is also “the power of God” to “those of us who are being saved.” (1 Cor.1:18)
