Monday Morning Music Ministry

10-4-21

Warning label; truth-in-packaging: I don’t have the definitive answer to this eternal question about God allowing evil in the world, but I believe I have come the closest I will ever come to being satisfied. It is, of course, a challenge that has confronted every person who ever has drawn breath.

We first must acknowledge that there is an aspect to the question Why does God allow evil in this world? that essentially is a word game. It is similar to the question Can God create a rock so heavy that even He cannot lift it? Those are questions framed, but also limited, by the constraints of logic. Logic is something we think is a tool that will explain all things. But ultimately it is a mere construct on a par with intuition, perceptions, deduction, traditions, and superstitions. Even Science frequently is disproven by Science; facts become fiction. The pertinent quickly can become impertinent.

Regarding questions that are as flimsy as a child’s curiosity about nature or as “profound” as a philosopher’s life-work of deductions – which, in their contexts, are questions of equal validity, substance, and weight – we must be humble. If we question Almighty God, or have questions about His sovereign ways, we can do no other than put on cloaks of humility.

A step toward clarity is to view the sweep of humankind’s history and recognize that life – Creation, the universe, the “in the beginning” – originally was innocent and perfect. And that life – the “New Creation,” the end of time, Heaven – will someday again be peaceful and perfect. Paradise lost and paradise regained. In between, it pleased God to created humankind, and it pleased Him to endow us with intelligence and free will.

You might have noticed that human nature, thus set free to follow its inclinations and choices, invariably has ruined the Plan. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. When everyone chooses rebellion, we can expect corruption in our world. Sin is a stain that spreads through individuals’ lives, and poisons the well of humanity in every aspect, every time, every place.

“Who is perfect?” and (after the Jesus-answer) people often think of Mother Teresa as a great example. St Paul called himself chief among sinners; as he wrote, “None is righteous, no, not one.” Martin Luther was overwhelmed by the consciousness of the sin nature. And Mother Teresa herself strongly disclaimed any special possession of righteousness as she would stand before God.

So between Creation and Heaven – when God left us in charge, so to speak – we humans messed things up, and still do. The devil only tempts, but does not force anyone to sin. And as God in His dispensation sent Jesus to be the means of redemption and salvation, the promises of humanity’s past and the promises of humanity’s future were manifest. And still, the world rejected Him.

To our original question, some answers include:

Jesus came to us, not to eliminate sin, but to free us from the bondage of sin and its punishment.

The Holy Spirit was given so that we might have the power to resist the devil and all his ways. (I wonder if “evil” is the root of “devil.” I mean in philology.)

Confronting the question directly – and allowing for the technicalities of language and limitations of our “logic” – it is not really the case that God allows evil. God allowed humans to make choices in life… and, by making choices to sin, WE “allow” evil. Again and again we allow it, exercise it, encourage it, perpetuate it.

How dare we blame God? He “allows” evil? He “permits” it? HE created it?

In further examples of impertinence against the Holy God, we invariably tend to judge Him by our puny standards (which is the sad aspect of human history, our pride being the subtext of the Bible’s entire story). By this arrogance we sin and expect no punishment. We permit evil and then blame God.

For misery and death, for disasters and sickness, there are indeed mysteries under a sovereign God… and the consequences of the corruption we ourselves have unleashed on the world. That God is Lord of all does not mean that He is the Master Puppeteer; He lovingly created human children, not robots.

For those of you who are mathematically inclined, think of how many times each day you might sin (“minor” or serious) or permit evil (allowing misconduct or tolerating injustice). It’s not hard to do – Mother Teresa herself calculated such things in her life. Then multiply that number by seven days; then by the weeks in a month; then by the months in a year; then by the years in your life. Those are a lot of sins; that’s a lot of evil.

How quickly will people then continue to maintain that God allows evil?

Not to avoid an answer to our question, but to draw closer to an answer, we should revisit what I mentioned about judging God by our self-righteous and self-delusional standards. We love free will until we need to shift the blame for the sins we commit and the evils we cause.

Let us not ask how God can allow evil in this world… but how we can allow it.

How and why do we allow evil? How and why do we permit the evils of sin, hatred, injustice, abuse, intolerance, unforgiveness? Throughout history a rebellious human race has blamed God, and not ourselves, for these things.

Why does God “allow” suffering in life? Let us think more, and more often and more seriously, how in the world we allow suffering in this life.

God Himself awaits our answers to this question.

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Click: Nearer, My God, to Thee

4-4-21

He’s Alive.

Those two words are the most consequential in humankind’s long history, or ever will be.

He’s Alive.

For Christians, these words overshadow everything, for if there be no Resurrection, our faith is in vain.

He’s Alive.

For believers in any, and every, other religion, there is not one founder or leader about whom it is claimed that once dead, that figure came back to life.

He’s Alive.

For agnostics and atheists, you simply must confront the Biblical record, eyewitness accounts, and words of people like the historian Josephus, who recorded acts of the risen Christ.

He’s Alive.

For the skeptical, if you think the life, ministry, and resurrection of Jesus was a hoax, tell us how Christianity spread like wildfire after the Resurrection; and why so many people – including 11 of the Disciples – would endure their own torture and death… for a hoax.

He’s Alive.

For the wise, study His words, and explain how Jesus was anything but one of these: a brilliant swindler; a delusional fool; or… the Son of God.

He’s Alive.

For the logic-minded, calculate the odds of multiple hundreds of prophecies and predictions, written over centuries by many hands in many lands, that came true to the finest detail and timing.

He’s Alive.

For those who don’t “believe in miracles,” like the acts He was recorded as performing, or that He fulfilled by rising from the dead, start counting the number of other things you can’t explain in life, but “take on faith.”

He’s Alive.

For those who are tempted to think that this God or this Jesus might have been real once upon a time, and acted 2000 years ago, but not now…

Talk to someone whose life has been transformed;

Talk to someone who suffered awful depression, but now lives joyously;

Talk to a sinner who has turned from his or her ways;

Talk to someone who endured a fatal disease or injury… and has been healed;

Talk to an addict who now is “clean”;

Talk to someone who hated… and has learned to love;

Talk to someone who could not forgive, and was touched by someone else’s forgiveness;

Talk to someone who carried oppressive burdens of guilt, but now feels free;

Talk to that little baby who smiles back at you;

Talk to…

Well, talk to Jesus. He will answer you if you listen. He will lead you if you need. He will love you as if He has known you all along.

… because He has. He’s been waiting. When He left that tomb, by some sort of miracle, He came out looking for you.

He’s alive.

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Click: He’s Alive

3-29-21

I hope the words of that title, and the kiddie-pop version of all we hold dear does not remind you of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.” But in our cultural cocoon it would not be surprising if some children grow up thinking that the Easter Bunny was at the manger scene; or Santa Claus went to the cross.

Exaggeration, perhaps, but I will not cop to sacrilege… except as our whole culture has become sacrilegious; secularized; post-Christian. And include most of our churches themselves as complicit in the apostasy.

Palm Sunday used to be universally celebrated in Christian churches. Now it is barely observed. Catholics would burn the palms and save the ashes for the subsequent year’s Ash Wednesday. When I was a boy our church and Sunday School were festooned with palms that were distributed at the end of services; and in our house, anyway, we arranged them behind the picture frames with Jesus and Bible scenes.

Why palms? They were symbols and reminders of the palms – and flowers and garments – laid before Jesus as He entered Jerusalem for the Passover. No power to salvation, they survived the centuries as spiritual Post-It Notes: This is how the people received Jesus as His power and glory became known in that city.

For three years he had performed miracles. Walked on water. Healed the sick. Raised the dead to life. Read minds. Forgave sins.

He had followers, slowly growing in numbers. The word spread, just as the Word spread. Yet through the small towns in the region of Galilee, after more than three years of such ministry, His adherents were numbered as a cult following. Skepticism? A lot of it. Suspicions, too, that he was a magician or prophet at best. Or the “miracles” were exaggerations or coincidences or swindles…

By the time He entered Jerusalem, Jesus knew it was His final visit. He knew the word-for-word prophecies from Isaiah and other Scriptures that would be fulfilled a hundred times over before the week was out. Followers, even Scribes and Pharisees, did not connect the dots.

The city fairly went crazy to welcome Him. A virtual parade. His path strewn with elements of welcome. Music and cheering; crying eyes; workers and housewives taking time to welcome the Messiah.

But my question today is, Do you ever think back, either because of (or in despite) Jesus movies, or Sunday-School bulletins? Have you imaged the scene? “Why is He on a donkey?” “He asked for one!” The mystery was lifted when people eventually realized that it was another puzzle-piece of prophecy from 700 years earlier.

If you have thought about that jubilant scene, you likely did not see yourself as a scoffer or skeptic or hater. These types were hard to find! As we know, the Roman officials tried to ignore the whole “Jesus thing.” The only opposition, and bitter it was, came from the religious leaders. Not the Jews in general, not at first, because the cheering crowds were Jews. It was the religious Establishment who hated Him.

Rejecting Jesus as Messiah, but also nervous about their own positions and security, they ignored Scripture and colluded with the political Establishment. As we know.

You might have pictured yourself in that adoring, welcoming throng. Of course! But how often have you pictured yourself in that crowd beneath Pilate’s balcony only a few days later… screaming for Barabbas to be pardoned and Jesus to be executed?

Have you pictured yourself as a member of the mob who watched, approving, as Jesus was scourged to a bloody pulp?

Have you pictured yourself as someone in the crowd along the Via Dolorosa, as Jesus was forced to carry His cross; were you, too, jeering, spitting on Him?

And after your love had turned to hate, were you then so indifferent to this innocent Man’s suffering that you wandered away from Golgotha? – Probably so, because most of the Disciples were not there at His feet with His Mother Mary.

WHY would any of us think we would have been any different that the population of Jerusalem? Happy welcome? Join the party. “Crunch time”? Spit on the Great Pretender. Fair-weather faithful.

Manipulated by the mob… when you are part of the mob. Swayed by the Establishment… and its version of the news of the day. Knowing Scripture… to the extent it could be cited to justify your changing but comfortable notions. Doubting, disbelieving, rejecting. God forbid we do such things again!

I have been asking if you ever pictured yourself “there” during Holy Week. But you don’t have you. Jesus Himself pictured you there. At every event that week, from jubilation to tortured death. He looked into the crowds, but saw the faces of you and me.

Beyond our faces, He looked – and still looks – into the hearts of you and me.

On Palm Sunday, however, we commemorate His entry… into Jerusalem; into fulfilled prophecies; into our lives. No turning back! And, for us, no ignoring Him.

More audacious, really, than a Virgin birth, or the astonishing miracles, or the timeless wisdom He left us… is the very thought of the Incarnation: that the Creator of the Universe became flesh and dwelt among mankind. That He LOVED that much.

That He LOVES that much. Humankind should rush toward Him, yet He came to us.

They sang “The King is coming!” But He is still coming, still wanting to enter our lives, our minds, our hearts. He’s coming for you. Will you welcome Him? Can you picture that?

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Click: The King Is Coming

4-15-19

The week started great, remember? Jesus enters Jerusalem, hailed by throngs on all sides with praise and Hosannas.

In rapid succession, it dissolves. Conspiracy, trumped-up charges, accusations, kangaroo court trial, arrest, persecution, torture, betrayal, denial, imprisonment, humiliation, death sentence, crucifixion, agonizing death.

And the crowds that sang His praises only days earlier, now cursed and spat at Him.

What could be worse than that Friday? In world history, what could be worse – from the perspective of confused followers of Jesus, I have tried to picture the excruciating period between the death on the cross and the Resurrection.

Where did He go? What did we do? What about His promises? What happens now? Is hope gone…?

In the larger sense, for followers and observers alike, many would have seen irony in the fact that this day would come to be called Good Friday. Remember, the earth shook, the sky turned dark, the veil in the Temple was rent top to bottom. Even a Roman centurion said, “Surely this was the Son of God.” The Jewish historian Josephus, who never was to believe, nevertheless recorded the facts of the crucifixion, Resurrection, and Jesus’s subsequent appearances.

Indeed people still wonder, through it all, why it is called Good Friday.

“Good”?

There are etymological theories that the German Gottes Freitag (“God’s Friday”) or Gute Freitag (“Good Friday”) were the origins; the Ancient English Godes Friday (“God’s Friday”) is also cited. In parts of Europe the day is called “Great” or “Holy,” not “Good.” In Denmark the ancient Angle term “Long Friday” still survives. In Greek Orthodox practice, the day is called “Holy and Great Friday” in the Greek liturgy. In parts of southern Europe, “Holy Friday”; in middle Europe Karfreitag (“Sorrowful Friday”).

Clearly – no mystery – we understand that in God’s view, in His holy plan, the sacrificial death of His only-begotten Son was good for Him, and we humans, if we would realize it. We have a means to be reconciled by that substitutionary death.

Anyone who has lost a child knows how horrible it was for God to allow – no, to plan – the death of His son. But it was good; it was good for the rest of His children.

And it was long prophesied: What man meant for evil, God meant for good (Genesis 50:20). It was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer (Isaiah 53:10).

All for us.

That is good.

Specifically, all for you. You, and me, individually. I believe that if had been possible that you or I were the only sinners in history, God would still have delivered Jesus to the cross, that the Atonement would be applied even to you or me.

That is good!

Can we comprehend such Love? Don’t try; it is overwhelming. Rather than fully understanding, we should wholly respond… in gratitude, honor, praise, contrition, repentance, humility. In… faith.

That is good.

When we are able to sincerely thank God for his Goodness, we have a sense that the Crucifixion, as horrible as it first seems to us, is God saying “You’re welcome.”

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Click: The King Is Coming

Saturday, 4-21-19

Luke 23: 33 And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

35 And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.

36 And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar,

37 And saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself.

38 And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, This Is The King Of The Jews.

39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.

40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?

41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.

42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.

43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

44 And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

45 And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.

46 And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

47 Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man.

48 And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned.

49 And all his acquaintance, and the women that followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding these things.

50 And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and he was a good man, and a just:

51 (The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them;) he was of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God.

52 This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.

53 And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.

54 And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on.

55 And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.

56 And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.

Luke 24: 1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.

2 And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.

3 And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.

4 And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:

5 And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?

6 He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee,

7 Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.

8 And they remembered his words,

9 And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.

10 It was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.

11 And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.

12 Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.

13 And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.

14 And they talked together of all these things which had happened.

15 And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.

16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.

17 And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?

18 And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?

19 And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people:

20 And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him.

21 But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done.

22 Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre;

23 And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.

24 And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not.

25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:

26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?

27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

28 And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further.

29 But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them.

30 And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.

31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.

32 And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?

33 And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them,

34 Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.

35 And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.

36 And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

37 But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.

38 And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?

39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.

40 And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.

41 And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?

42 And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.

43 And he took it, and did eat before them.

44 And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.

45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,

46 And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:

47 And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

48 And ye are witnesses of these things.

We are witnesses of these things. He is risen!

Click: The Night Before Easter

3-11-19

There are many “new” Christians, converts, and born-again believers, who experience many fresh insights into God; or at least their relationship with Him.

One of those feelings, and I speak from experience, is to be overwhelmed by an awareness of God’s majesty, and all those Omnis – Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent.

Sometimes that flood of awareness is manifested in the type of awe that makes us feel unworthy. We realize that we are “the apples of God’s eye,” and that He loved us so much that He sent His only-begotten Son into the world to provide a way for our salvation.

And we know that we can “boldly approach the Throne of Grace.”

But we become aware that our righteousness is still as filthy rags compared to the glory and holiness of God.

So many of us consider a proper prayer to begin with the confession that we are unworthy in His sight. We humble ourselves, begging that He deign to hear our prayers.

Even seasoned Christians, not only “baby Christians,” will pray to God in this manner. He created the heavens and the earth; and despite His knowing the numbers of hairs on our heads, it easy to see ourselves as microscopic sinners in the great hands of a God such as He. Whether He is angry or merciful, surely we should be humble and realize how insignificant we are –

– except that we are not.

If you want to pray properly, you should see yourself properly. That is, as God sees you. The Bible more often says “worthily.” Not to be Unworthy – meaning that Worthiness is to understand and respect God’s own perspective.

We are Worthy because it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.

We are Worthy because He loved us with an everlasting love, before we were formed or born.

We are Worthy because He became flesh and dwelt among us; the Incarnate Jesus identified with our pain and suffering and joys; He was persecuted, endured agony, injustice, torture, rejection, desertion, crucifixion, and death for us; and rose and ascended to assert His divinity that we can believe and be saved…

Would the Lord do all that if we are unworthy?

Ah, some might say, we were unworthy while we were yet sinners. And now things are different. Yes! Just so. But if you understand that dividing-line… do you act like it?

Without being presumptuous, we must realize that – whatever our sins of the past or present; or however we might feel about ourselves for the moment – God cannot see those things!

When you pray, and Jesus is in your heart, God sees not you, but Jesus. He hears your prayers, but sees not the “old you” but the Jesus in you. When He looks down, so to speak, you might think He sees the sinner, but when you are covered in the blood – the sign of atonement and forgiveness that was foreshadowed ages before Jesus, in the “Pass-over,” – He sees the Blood before He sees you. And He will hear your prayers, but you need to remember that the Holy Spirit also groans and sings and advocates for us.

Guilt is drowned out; guilt has been paid for; guilt has been erased.

Understanding our relationship with God – our true standing – makes us Worthy indeed.

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Click: Victory in Jesus / Power In the Blood

3-11-13

This is the Christian story: The Lord of the universe was pleased to create the earth and populate it with human beings. An aspect of His love was to imbue His children with free will, which no mortal has ever failed to use toward rebellion and sin. God delivered laws and commands to His Chosen People, called so because in His plan, when the Law would be recognized as insufficient for a rebellious humanity to be reconciled to Him; that from them, a Messiah would arise who would provide the means of that salvation.

These basics are widely known, even if non-Christians shrug their mental shoulders; even if Christians cease to be in awe of God’s plan, even taking for granted their astonishing inheritance. It has been calculated that the odds of all the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the birth, life, locations, miracles, and other circumstances surrounding Jesus (most not disputed, even by enemies of His and His disciples at the time) exceed a hundred million to one.

I sometimes wonder, given all this, why the Christian population of the world is approximately 3-billion; more than one-third of humanity. History, threads of religious traditions, logic, the personal testimonies of those who lives have been supernaturally touched – I wonder why 95 per cent of people do not claim Christ.

An answer has come to me. A very 21st-century outlook might be a matter of packaging, or “branding.” Just as, to me, the upcoming end of Lent will feature too much Bunny and not enough Easter, it might be that the church insufficiently communicates the reality of Holy Week as we look ahead.

Most of us know the stories, and the pictures, of Jesus humbly entering Jerusalem on a donkey, amidst adoring crowds. We know He was falsely accused; He was betrayed by one follower, and denied by another; He was chased down and arrested; He was tortured and abused; He was humiliated perhaps as no man ever has been; He died on a rough cross between two criminals; He was carried to a borrowed tomb; on the third day He rose, conquering sin and death.

As scripture prophesied, He was led like a lamb to slaughter.

But can it be that we place too much of our attention on His submission? Jesus could have called down ten thousand angels to lift Him from the cross, to strike His accusers dumb, to spare Himself the pain, humiliation, and (worst, in my book) the abandonment of His friends and disciples.

We must understand that Jesus was born to die. And to overcome death. He knew the Father’s plan to become the sacrificial lamb, to take the sins of the world – our sins, through history to you and me – upon Himself. From the wrath of God, everything we deserve for our rejection and rebellion, He spares us.

So in this view, I have another image. I know it is VIRTUAL, not the way the Bible describes it. Nevertheless it is true. I ask you to see Jesus, not ambling on a donkey into Jerusalem, but galloping full speed. I remind you that Jesus, at the Passover seder, did not stop Judas from ratting Him out, but hurried him on his way. I suggest to you that Jesus, silent before accusers in the temple and before Pontius Pilate, was virtually shouting, “Come on! Do your worst!” That, until He collapsed, a Man of sorrows and a man painfully bleeding, on the via Dolorosa, He carried His cross as if to say, “Let’s do this! For this I came to earth!”

… and that, instead of being stretched and nailed to a cross, it is spiritually the case that Jesus virtually scrambled up that cross. For us. “Forgive them; they know not what they do.” But Jesus knew what He was doing, and despite the portion of humanity with which we can identify (“if it be possible, let this cup pass…”) He was there for us. He was there. For us.

And then, looking forward to what we call Easter Sunday, we read the accounts of the risen Jesus appearing quietly to Mary, to pedestrians on the road, to His old disciples, to many hundreds of others – accounts recorded by the Jewish historian of the era, Josephus, and by the historians Origen and Eusebius. He quietly appeared and witnessed to people. But let us realize that Jesus metaphorically burst forth from that tomb. In that sense he ran out, shouting to everybody, “I’m Alive!!!” In words of Anthony Burger’s little son, ad libbing in a Sunday School pageant, “Here I come, ready or not!”

Then, and now, Jesus runs up to every person and says, “I live so that you may live also! Believe on me, and you shall have life for eternity!”

Let us return from the virtual and metaphorical. These truths, no matter what the details of their playing out, cannot leave us unchanged. We can make the life-changing decision to ignore Him, or the life-changing decision to accept Him. There simply is no middle ground.

If we see Jesus in this different way – that He was Savior not just willing to die for our sins, but EAGER, such is God’s love for us, and that He excitedly confronts us daily – then we might see Lent in another light. And the rest of the year. And the Lord Himself. And the condition of our souls.

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Humanity’s response to God’s plan, and the sacrifice of His Son so that we might be reconciled by the acceptance of Jesus’ substitutionary death, has taken myriad forms through the centuries. Indifference, sadly; to revelation about the availability of a personal relationship with our Savior; to expressions in art and music. The awesome mystery of this salvation plan often is met by the question, “Why Me, Lord?” We know the answer is “Because I love you,” yet our souls scarcely can comprehend the enormity of God’s love. A contemporary song is Kris Kristofferson’s classic plaint, “Why Me, Lord?” Here he explains to some friends how he came to write it, after he had a life-changing experience.

Click: Why Me, Lord?

4-4-11

Another Lenten contemplation.

A recently released book is raising dust in Christian circles. Frankly, the controversy probably is bigger than the book itself, but so it goes. Love Wins by Rob Bell presents the argument that most people, or all people, will eventually be redeemed from hell, if there is a hell, because Jesus’s death was an atonement for all of creation. Eventually, in this life or sometime in Eternity, souls will be persuaded to accept Him.

I believe I have summarized the book properly. One of the author’s tenets is that God is so loving, it seems impossible that He would let people go to hell.

If I have not properly summarized the book, then I have properly summarized dozens of very similar heresies and distortions of scripture from the past 2000 years. In brief, there is a theological proposition called Universalism, generally meaning that everyone since Calvary has been or will be “saved” from punishment – from the penalty of sin and rebellion against God. And maybe even retroactively, before Calvary. Some call it Universalism. I call it Wishful Thinking.

The Lenten season is useful to believers as we contemplate the implications of our sins, our need for salvation, the concept of Jesus’ substitutionary death, the triumph of His overcoming the grave, and the meaning of His ascension to Heaven. The truth of it all.

Another new book attracts attention: Megashift. Author James Rutz presents data to claim that the fastest-growing religion on earth is… Christianity. Counterintuitive to some of us. We sense that Christianity is declining in America and Europe. It is. We are aware that Christians are being persecuted with increasing ferocity in other parts of the world. They are. (This is partly a reaction to Christianity’s growth; and it partly inspires Christianity’s spread) We observe that “mainstream” denominations are shrinking. They are. (The rising tide of believers is mostly independent, Bible-believing, First-Century types; “New Apostolics” is Rutz’s label.)

I believe I have accurately summarized that book’s documentation. These two books illustrate the irony, or at least the evolution, of Christianity today. Many people from predominantly Muslim and Buddhist and Hindu and animist lands, and even from demonic traditions… are now on-fire Christians. These new believers send more missionaries, year after year, to the “Christian West” because of perceived spiritual needs! And traditional white-bread, culturally elite, and intellectually pretentious “Christ-followers” and “communitarians” and “emergents” (they can’t seem to say “Christian” for some reason)… no longer “get it.”

“It” is the way of the cross, the plan of salvation. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Our self-inflicted unrighteousness, which denies us entry to the presence of a holy God, has a provision. We cannot earn it, but Christ offered it: believe in Him and accept His loving assumption of our sins and guilt; and we will be reconciled to God.

Is that hard? It depends upon our response. Are there details about it that we don’t understand? Of course; we are not God. Do we deserve this crazy, illogical, outrageous, unspeakable “pass” against a lifetime of spiritual shortcomings and rebellion?

Of course not. That’s called Love.

That is the love that wins. By God’s grace, He provided a way. If there is no need for repentance, the Bible lies; no element of forgiveness, then Jesus suffered foolishly; no salvation decision, the cross is ridiculed. If mankind will go to Heaven en masse just because we all have pulses, the Easter story is a joke. There would be no reason ever again to sing Amazing Grace.

I will advance a theory of my own, and I hope I properly am consistent with scripture: Jesus was a man who suffered like no other; but as God incarnate, He had the ability to focus His thoughts as He was on the cross. And with all the torments and betrayals, all the billions of people who did live and will live in history, when He was on the cross, I was on His mind. And so were you.

When He looked down, He looked – through eyes encrusted with blood, but also through the years and through many generations in many places – into the individual faces of you and me.

Why in world (literally) would the Son of God endure all this, and offer all this? So that we might accept – believe, confess, and be transformed. Salvation is free, but not cheap, as many have said. Neither should it intentionally be cheapened, not in this Lenten season, or ever.

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Click: You Were On His Mind