As I kid, I struggled to understand why such a tragic day could be called “Good Friday”. It seemed to me that “Bad Friday” would have been a much more fitting name. Now, as an adult, sometimes I still struggle with it. If you’re like me, we struggle to understand what happened on that day because, on the one hand, the concept of “substitutionary atonement” is difficult to wrap our minds around, and, on the other hand, if it’s a doctrine that we understand only in our minds without it being a living reality that grips our hearts, we still aren’t getting it. It’s about a man’s suffering, but it’s not only about the magnitude of his suffering. It’s about who he was and why he suffered and why it matters to us. Dwelling on the magnitude of his suffering without understanding it in its context and experiencing it in our souls will not yield the desired effect. We will be analysts rather than being experiencers. We will be audience rather than being actors. We will be spectators rather than being participants. There is a world of difference between saying “I believe that Jesus died for the sins of the world” and saying “Jesus died for me, and that is the one thing that I most cherish about being alive”. Getting the cross right means getting our life right and getting our eternity right. We must properly understand, and we must properly experience. We can’t approach this trivially. There is too much at stake.
Why would one person give his or her life for another? A policeman or a fireman or a lifeguard puts his or her life at risk in order to save another life. A doctor or nurse or other hospital or nursing home worker may risk getting sick and possibly dying in order to preserve the lives of those under his or her care. Organ donors put their lives at risk in order to preserve the lives of their friends. A traffic cop rushes into the middle of a busy intersection, putting his or her own life at risk to save the life of child who is about to be hit by oncoming traffic. Parents will put themselves into harm’s way in order to protect the lives of their children. We can picture a parent saying “take me, but save the life of my child”. These kinds of examples start to move us in the right direction, but they fall far short of what Jesus accomplished on the cross on that tragic but beautiful Friday afternoon. Let’s start by looking at the theology of the cross. Here’s how the apostle Paul explains it in his Epistle to the Romans: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus”. (Romans 3:23-26) So we are all sinners; we have all offended a holy God. How can God be both just and justifier? If God forgives our sins by overlooking them, that would make God less than just. A just God can’t overlook sin without compromising his own sense of justice. So here’s the “dilemma” (not really a dilemma but in human terms, by human logic, it looks as though God is in a dilemma). God is loving, so he wants to forgive us our sins. God is just so he can’t forgive our sins without compromising his own sense of justice. So God does the unthinkable. God becomes a man. God comes to earth. God takes the punishment for our sins. As prophesied in Isaiah 53 “The chastisement for our iniquities fell upon Him. And by His stripes, we are healed”. By presenting Himself as our substitute, God pays the penalty. God exacts the penalty, and then God comes to earth to pay his own penalty. Now God can forgive our sins in a way that does not compromise his own justice. Because of what Jesus did on the cross, can can forgive our sins without overlooking them. He didn’t overlook them; he paid for them. The penalty has been paid. The punishment has been taken— by God Himself. That is what allows God to be both just and justifier. Jesus died so God could forgive us of our sins in a way that makes Him both just and justifier. Two planks of wood and some nails are arranged in a pile. That’s all the equipment He’ll need. Painful, bloody steps to the place of execution, the place of the offering, the place of reconciliation. The hands now pierced with nails: Cold, sharp, painful nails mercilessly hammered through the hands of the One who loved because He is Love. Friends and enemies stand to witness the self-sacrifice of the Lamb, for love of God, for love of man. Friends and enemies brought together to this place, at this time to watch, to weep, to wonder. God and man brought together in this place, at this time to witness and experience the ultimate act of reconciliation, and the price is death—slow, painful, excruciating death. The dark death of Friday’s cross was not for the man who died. This death was for the world—no, for me! “Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost”. (John 19:29-30). Jesus is on the cross, and he is thirsty, so they give him some vinegar on a sponge. That’s like telling a prisoner “We have to feed you but you don’t have to like what we give you. It’s this or nothing. Take it or leave it”. They stick it on a piece of hyssop so it could reach up to his mouth. It’s not much but it will have to do. The Son of God comes to earth and all that we humans can come up with to give him is some vinegar in a sponge on a piece of hyssop. He gave his life for us. We give him vinegar on a sponge. Our little token efforts don’t amount to much. All of our best efforts come to sour wine— “filthy rags”. And then Jesus utters the words “It is finished”— “tetelestai”— you can almost hear that word echoing through the mountains, as it was portrayed so beautifully in the movie, “The Passion of the Christ” — “tetelestai, telelestai, tetelestai”. What was finished? Not only his life, but also the entire assignment that God the Father had given him, and the whole work of redemption. Sins atoned. God and humanity have been reconciled, for those who would receive it. The work is finished. Our debt, which we could never pay back, has been paid in full. The God who had created the world came to die for it. He took the punishment that we deserve. He died in or place, as our substitute, wearing our name tag. He suffered and died that we might live— the just for the unjust. The death of Jesus was for us, so that we could be forgiven, but it was also for God, so that He could have the world reconciled back to Himself, as He deserves. Jesus could have stopped the process at any time. He could have pressed the “abort mission” button, but, had he done that, you and I would still be in our sins, with no hope of salvation, no hope of forgiveness, no hope of an intimate relationship with God, no hope of a life-transforming spiritual awakening, no hope of meaning for our earthly existence, no hope beyond the grave, no hope of eternal life in intimate relationship with God forever. We would be condemned to live forever in existential isolation and darkness under the shadow of Dante’s sign “Abandon all hope here”. Jesus could have saved himself, but by saving himself he would have left us alone to wander in our own self-imposed darkness. He suffered our darkness so that we might live in the light. He died our death so that we might experience his life. He suffered the penalty for our sins so that we might experience God’s unconditional love and forgiveness. In this strange sacrifice where priest and offering are one, God reconciled the world to Himself. God reconciled me to Himself. Immense gratitude is the only response that is fitting. How little we understand the great price that God Himself paid for our redemption, and how little we understand how undeserving we are. Humanly speaking, it was a very bad Friday— the worst day in history, for it was the day that the world put God on a cross and killed him. From God’s perspective, though it was ugly and horrible and painful and tragic, it was also beautiful. It demonstrated the greatness of God’s love for us. It made a way for God to be both just and justifier. God accomplished His goal of overcoming sin and death and reconciling a sinful and rebellious world to Himself. It was not humanity killing God. It was God sacrificing Himself for humanity. It was God giving Himself up for us, because of His great love for us, so that we might know Him and live with Him and glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. If God’s plan of redemption is more about God than it is about us, then what is our role? It’s to receive His gift of grace and mercy with joyful gratitude, and to live in such a way that our lives bring as much glory and honor to our God as possible, not to pay Him back, but out of a sense of immense gratitude, because our greatest delight is to love the one who loved us so deeply. What is an adequate response? I am reminded of the phrase that was used by the Moravians as they prayed for 100 years straight and as they went to the ends of the earth as radically obedient missionaries, even at one point being wiling to sell themselves into slavery if that was what it would take in order to reach people for Christ: “May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of his sufferings”. Let’s not place ourselves at the center of God’s plan of redemption. Let’s place God at the center of God’s plan of redemption. We benefit, but it’s not about us; it’s about God. God got back His world. God deserves to have the world reconciled to Himself, and now, because of what was accomplished by Jesus on the cross on that Friday, it has happened. Now God can be rightly glorified, as He deserves. Our brokenness and alienation sin and death have been overcome, so that we can give to God the glory that He so rightly deserves out of hearts of joyful gratitude. God gets back the world that he created, humanity becomes a beautiful reflection of God’s greatness and beauty and mercy, and God receives the glory that He so fully deserves. We get to be reconciled to our Creator, and to glorify Him by enjoying Him forever. Though I deserve condemnation, I get to spend eternity as the beloved son of my loving heavenly Father, to whom I have been reconciled— and so do you, if you will receive it. From that perspective, it was a good Friday— a very good Friday indeed.
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I remember a scene from “Les Miserables” that took place the night before the great battle. The men who would be fighting the next day knew that they were far outnumbered. They knew that most, if not all of them, would lose their lives in the next day’s battle, but they weren’t about to back down now. They knew they were doing the right thing, and they had every intention of finishing what they had started, even if it meant that they would all die together. At least they would be giving their lives for a worthy case, and so they gathered together one last time, and said their last good-byes to each other.
I wonder if that is something similar to how the disciples felt when they were gathering with Jesus one last time on Thursday night, the night before the day of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. They may have sensed what was on the horizon. They probably saw what was coming. Jesus had gathered them to be with them on one last occasion, to teach them about His and their loving Father one last time, to pray one last prayer for them, to have one last supper with them. They may have understood that when he shared the bread and the cup with them, it was the last time they would eat and drink together before his death. It was their last opportunity to be together, and they could sense the gravity of the moment. They could tell by what he was teaching them, by how he prayed for them, by the tone of his voice and by the look in his eyes, that this would be their last good-bye. As recorded in John 13-17, Jesus used the occasion to wash their feet, assuming the role of a humble servant, so that they would wash each other’s feet in humble service to each other. Notably, he even washed the feet of the man whom he knew would betray him. Then he began to prepare them for what was ahead by pointing them toward the future. He helped them to see the bigger picture of the unfolding of God’s plan. He told them that he was going to prepare a place for them, and that he was going to come back to them. He reminded them of his great love for them, and of the Father’s great love for him, and for them. He gave them the promise of the coming Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the “One called alongside to help”. He wanted them to experience his joy and his peace, for he knew that nothing less would sustain them. He warned them that they would face the same hatred and persecution that he had experienced. He granted them the privilege of praying in His name. He prayed that His Father would keep them and preserve them from evil. He prayed that they would see the glory of the Father. On that night, the disciples had been given very much to process. So much information, so little time. Jesus wanted their last hours with Him to be as valuable as possible. As his last hours with them turned into his last minutes with them, the time was becoming more and more precious. Every last minute mattered. And then came the events of the Garden of Gethsemane, as recorded in John 18. Crossing a brook— no turning back. Betrayed by a friend— but he knew all along that he would be betrayed by those whom he loved. Promises of allegiance that he knew could not be counted on. He knew that on the next day there would be a trial, where he would be considered guilty before the trial even began. He knew that a robber would be released and that he would be condemned— but hadn’t he come to die in the place of sinners? This was his mission. This was the will of the Father. This was the only way that the Father’s plan of redemption could be accomplished. No turning back. What he had started he would finish, for the joy set before him, in obedience to the Father, in fulfillment of God’s perfect plan of redemption. Thursday— the night he ate the meal. The night he struggled in prayer in the garden. The night he needed the prayers of his friends who had fallen asleep. The night he was betrayed. Traditionally the Church refers to this special night as “Holy Thursday” or “Maundy Thursday”. Was it a holy night, or was it an unholy night? Perhaps it was both. It was an unholy day because, humanly speaking, it was a night of sadness and loss. It was a day of betrayal and injustice. Jesus was betrayed by Judas and turned over to Pontius Pilate. None of this was fair. There was no justice for the man who was condemned to die. There was no justice for his friends who needed to mourn the loss of their master and friend, and would have to go on without him. It was a night that was covered by the fingerprints of an unjust and God-rejecting world that knows neither justice nor grace. It was a night when the world showed its true colors by rejecting the way of peace and truth and by exchanging the truth for the lies of power and corruption and political expediency. When a sinless God comes to a sinful world, don’t expect the world to bring Him flowers. Humanly speaking, it was a very unholy night. But it was also a very holy night. It was a night when Jesus established a meal that would commemorate his love for us that would be celebrated by all believers, globally, throughout all generations. It was the night when he reminded us of the utter necessity of loving each other, of loving God, of being aware of God’s intense love for us, of walking in God’s joy and in God’s peace. It was a night of trust and obedience, when Jesus demonstrated that he was able to obey his Father completely, because he trusted Him completely, leaving this example of trust of and obedience to the Father for us to follow. It was a night of crossing a brook and never looking back. It was a night of intense and honest struggle, followed by the stunning and courageous and determined declaration: “Not my will, but yours be done”. It was a night that has marked and defined the followers of Jesus right down to the present day. It was indeed a holy night. From the human perspective, it was the worst possible scenario. A good man was betrayed by a friend and was turned over to be condemned unjustly by a kangaroo court, leaving his friends devastated, their hopes dashed and their hearts broken. From God’s perspective, everything was happening right according to script. God was setting things up for the redemption of humankind, and the Son of God was persistently obeying the Father’s plan, right down to the most minute detail. God’s plan was unfolding. It was his good and perfect plan. It was his holy plan. Whether Thursday night was a holy night or an unholy night is a matter of perspective. From man’s point of view, everything was falling apart. From God’s perspective, the perfect plan for the perfect solution to all that is wrong with the world was being set up. God was at work, and no one could stop him. The One who had created the world was now setting the stage to bring about its redemption. It was the fulness of time. It was God’s setting of the stage for the ultimate checkmate against all that is evil, and for the ultimate fulfillment of all that is good. “Holy” is the only word that can adequately describe the things that God was putting into motion on that holy night. Those of us who are followers of Jesus call it Holy Thursday, because a holy God was accomplishing His holy purposes in His holy way. Let’s celebrate this holy night by remembering that while on the surface things may appear to be falling apart, beneath the surface God is accomplishing what only God can accomplish by providing a God-sized solution to a God-sized problem— the problem of sin and death. Let’s partake of the bread with joy, for his body was broken for us. Let’s partake of the cup with gladness, for his blood was shed for us. Let’s wash each other’s feet, as humble servants of one another. Let’s love each other from the heart, for this is what Jesus taught us and showed us and wanted for us. Let’s follow Jesus’ model of radical obedience based on unqualified trust of a Heavenly Father who is loving enough to want only what is good, wise enough to know how to bring it about, and powerful enough to accomplish it, for God deserves nothing less than that quality of obedience based on that quality of trust. Let’s celebrate the fact that God was setting in place all that was necessary to reconcile a sinful world to Himself, for His own glory, yielding our great joy! Think about this: The most amazing human being who has ever walked the earth, who lived the most meaningful and beautiful life that has ever been lived, who conquered sin and death, who was none other than God in the flesh, comes to us and says “Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to become more like me. I’ve given you the Bible to show you the way, I’ve given you the Holy Spirit to transform you from the inside out, and I’ve given you the Church to build you up and to keep you in line. You have everything you need for life and godliness. As you continue to walk out what I show you, every day you’ll be more like me than you were the day before. Some days you will crawl, some days you will walk, some days you will run, and some days you will fly, but you will be learning to become more like me, a little more every day. Just keep your eye on the goal, keep your head down in humility, never look back, and keep on moving. Go!”
“Salvation by grace through faith” is true and necessary and biblical and crucial, and we can’t know God without experiencing God’s grace through faith, but it should lead us into the adventure of becoming more like Jesus, rather than becoming a stale substitute for the real thing in a way that leaves our hearts untouched and our eyes dim and our souls cold and lifeless and our lives without transformation. I am so tired of the “ask Jesus into your heart so you won’t go to hell” kind of Christianity, as well as the “just go to the right church and vote for the right person” kind of Christianity. Jesus calls us to the adventure of a lifetime— the adventure of becoming more like him! Why would we ever want to settle for a cheap substitute? I’ve been reading The Priestly Kingdom by John Howard Yoder, which has gotten me thinking about civil religion in America, which has gotten me thinking about “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. I’m not sure which of the old hymns of the Church is my favorite, but I know that my least favorite is The Battle Hymn. The hymn, if it can be called that, confuses God’s purposes with America’s purposes in a way that I find troubling at best, idolatrous at worst. Is it a patriotic song cheering on American soldiers as they conquer their enemies, or is it a hymn waging spiritual warfare against sin and celebrating the victory of Christ over sin and death? The hymn seems to confuse the two, as though they were one and the same agenda. It seems to assume that America’s victory over her enemies is the same as Christ’s victory over sin.
Let’s explore this. The nations have an agenda: to make themselves strong at any cost, even if means that they must conquer their enemies in the process. A nation “goes marching on” by getting rid of the obstacles in its path, so that it can make itself stronger. A nation exists for its own self-advancement, for its own self-protection and self-promotion, and for the sake of preserving and promoting its own self-interests, even if it must be at the expense of other nations. A nation’s agenda will normally cause the nation to be at odds with other nations that have opposing agendas. The so-called “truth” that goes marching on is “whatever works for us; whatever helps us to accomplish our national goals”. God has an agenda: To glorify Himself by redeeming a fallen world by sending His Son to die on the cross for our sins, to resurrect from death, to ascend into heaven, and to return to the earth to set up His kingdom. The truth is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, and ideally is demonstrated to the watching world in the life of the Church. What goes marching on is the proclamation of the Gospel. The truth is that God sent his Son to die for sinners. It is the truth that God has spoken by giving us the written Word, the Bible, and by sending the living Word, His Son, who said “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”. Truth is the message of the Gospel as found in the Bible and as revealed in Christ and as demonstrated to the watching world by the life the Church, which expresses reality as it really is, as established by God, who is the Definer of reality. To the nations, the "truth" is whatever works to promote the interests of the nation. To God, the truth is whatever actually corresponds with reality, as defined by God and embodied in Christ. What happens when we confuse the two agendas? We not only confuse our purpose for existence as the Church, but we confuse two different definitions of truth. Which definition of truth goes marching on? Which definition of truth are we proclaiming? Which agenda are we promoting? When the Church confuses the two agendas, it becomes less than it was meant to be. Instead of being the proclaimer of truth, the “city that is set on a hill” of which Jesus spoke in Matthew 5:14, it settles for becoming the handmaiden of the State. When we allow this to happen, then the Church sees its role as existing to bless and legitimize the agenda of the State, and loses its ability to speak critically and prophetically to the State. Instead of the Church existing to do the will of God, even if that means opposing the State, the Church exists to support whatever the State has set up as its own agenda. Yoder would say that the church becomes a “chaplain” to the state. The Church blesses whatever the state determines to do, because it is assumed that the Church and the State have one and the same agenda. For example, during World War II, Americans used to encourage each other in the war effort by singing “Praise God and Pass the Ammunition”. It was a way of confusing the two agendas. God was being asked to bless and legitimize the killing of human beings who were created in the image of God, because it was assumed by both the Church and the State that the advancement of the purposes of the nation was equal to the advancement of the purposes of God. Did no one see the folly in this? Chaplains were called in to pray that the soldiers would have success in killing their enemies. Did no one notice the hypocrisy of asking God to bless that which He hates? This is what happens when we confuse a nation’s agenda with God’s agenda. We end up asking God to bless our tanks and bombs and guns and our selfish policies and nationalistic agendas. We end up asking God to bless our sin. In Luke 6, Jesus said “But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who are abusive to you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic from him either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. Treat people the same way you want them to treat you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. But love your enemies and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil people. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:27-36 NASB). This is not the way in which the nations operate. If the followers of Jesus are taking the words of Jesus seriously, then the Church becomes a threat to the State, not a legitimizer of its agenda. Nations build power and wealth, but followers of Jesus surrender power and wealth. Nations are quick to take revenge, but followers of Jesus are forbidden to take revenge. Jesus taught his followers to be merciful, to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. Nations are not merciful, and they don’t go around loving their enemies. They kill them. Followers of Jesus are to do the will of God, even if it means opposing the agenda of their own nation and exposing its sins as evil. The nations have no desire to glorify God and to seek His purposes, but will try to use God and God’s people as tools that will help them to accomplish their own purposes. They expect God and God’s people to bless and legitimize their own self-interests. Unfortunately, Christians who confuse the two agendas are all too happy to oblige. I understand that a nation cannot operate on the same principles upon which followers of Jesus operate, but if we are willing to admit that, then we also have to be willing to admit that there is no such thing as a “Christian nation”. If we take the words of Jesus seriously, then we’ve got to stop giving our hearty approval to pursuing the interests of a strong and powerful America (buttressed by a strong and powerful military that is always ready, willing and eager to pounce upon our enemies) when those interests contradict the revealed will of God through Jesus Christ. Perhaps the nations of this world have no choice but to operate in the ruthless ways that the nations of this world have always operated, but Christians should not be cheering them on. We should be prophets to the nations, not cheerleaders. We exist to show the world a better way, not to bless and buttress the world’s way. By taking our stand for Jesus, at least on some issues we will need to take our stand against our own nation, as the Hebrew prophets stood against Israel. We can’t have it both ways. We can’t be promoting the glory of God if we are promoting the selfish interests of our own nation. God will not bless that of which he does not approve. Christians who confuse the two agendas are unable to see this. When God’s agenda contradicts the nation’s agenda, Christians who confuse the two agendas will be likely to not notice the contradiction. They will filter out the contradiction because it doesn’t make sense within their frame of reference. They will be blind to the truth because they have already decided that God’s agenda and America’s agenda are one and the same. Therefore they will block out any evidence to the contrary. For example, if you have a child and you believe that your child is incapable of doing anything wrong, and you get a call from the police saying that your child has been caught committing a horrendous crime, you will try to find a way to explain to yourself that your child really didn’t do what he or she has been accused of doing. Maybe it was a case of mistaken identity. Maybe the witnesses are lying. You will find some way to rationalize it, to hide yourself from the truth that your child really is capable of committing a horrendous crime, and that he or she has actually committed such a crime. We can’t see what we’ve already decided doesn’t exist. In the same way, if some American Christians believe that God’s agenda and the American agenda are the same, then they will find a way to explain away any contradictions, because they have taught themselves not to consider the possibility that America might actually be opposed to what God is doing, and that God might actually be opposed to what America is doing. They won’t be able to see the contradiction because they’ve already decided that the contradiction can’t exist. The Hebrew prophets were quick to point out the sins of their own nation. Many American Christians seem intent on blessing the sins of the nation, because they are incapable of seeing America as anything other than a promoter of God’s values and purposes, so they go on singing The Battle Hymn, and they go on telling themselves that as the American agenda goes marching on, God’s truth goes marching right alongside. They have been caught in the delusion that says that God’s agenda and America’s agenda are the same agenda. They might as well start singing “Praise God and Pass the Ammunition”, for they have not learned from the sins of the past. The “city that is set on a hill” of which Jesus spoke in Matthew 5:14 is the Church of Jesus Christ, not the United States of America. We can’t be singing the praises of our God if we are so intent on singing the praises of our nation that we do not even notice when our nation’s agenda contradicts God’s agenda. It’s not our role to ask God to bless America’a agenda. It’s our role to stand with God, which at some points will put us on a collision course with self-interests of our own nation. There is a time and a place for a qualified patriotism, but there is a point at which Christianity and patriotism must go their separate ways. There is a point at which it is better to kneel to protest racism than to stand to sing the anthem. There is a point at which we must curse the ammunition if we are to bless God. There is a point at which our pledge of allegiance to the flag contradicts our pledge of allegiance to God through Christ. We’ve got to stop singing “dancers who dance upon injustice” unless we are willing to condemn the injustices and the oppression and the racism of our own nation, not to mention the mass murder of the unborn, that are being perpetuated or tolerated by or within our own nation. Otherwise we will end up blessing what God has cursed, and we will be doing it in the name of God. We will end up dragging the name of God through the mud, which is exactly the opposite of what the Church has been called to be and do. God will not be used as a tool to accomplish a nation’s agenda, and He will not allow His name to be tied to a godless agenda, even if we fail to recognize that it is godless. We cannot give our unyielding allegiance to God if we are also giving our allegiance to the selfish interests of our nation, and then asking God to bless those interests. We’ve got to stop singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, for it is idolatry. How did Jesus explain the impact that his followers were to have on the world around them? The answer is complex, and there are many passages of Scripture that we could study, but one of the places where Jesus addresses this issue in his Sermon on the Mount:
“You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father”. (Matthew 5:13-16) The Apostle Paul uses a different word picture: “But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this?” (2 Corinthians 2:14-16) Jesus describes the impact that his followers are to have as salt and light, while Paul describes it as a fragrance (whether pleasant or repugnant, depending on the perceiver). What do salt, light, and fragrance have in common? They influence the way in which we perceive the world. The taste of potato chips or pretzels or nuts is different when we add some salt (sense of taste). The appearance of a room is different when we turn on a light (sense of sight). The air smells differently when there is a fragrance or an odor in the room (sense of smell). We perceive the world differently when there is salt or light or a fragrance added to the environment. Same world, different perception. How should the people who live and work and study around Christians understand the world differently because Christians are present?
I’ve been reading a masterpiece of a book that is titled To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. One of the profound insights that Rabbi Sacks brings to the table (there are many such insights on every page of the book) is his perspective on the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai as recorded in Exodus 19: “‘Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me. And you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation.’ This is the message you must give to the people of Israel.’ So Moses returned from the mountain and called together the elders of the people and told them everything the LORD had commanded him. And all the people responded together, ‘We will do everything the LORD has commanded.’ So Moses brought the people’s answer back to the LORD”. (Exodus 19:5-8) What Rabbi Sacks points out is that the people agreed to the Law before it became binding. God did not impose it upon the people against their will. It was a covenant that God was offering to the people. It became binding only when the people accepted the terms of the covenant. God did not simply impose the Law; He waited for the people to respond. I find this very intriguing. Though the children of Israel were already God’s chosen people, there was a sense in which their response was what turned “the” people into “His” people. Though the descendants of Abraham had already become the people of God through a one-sided covenant that God had already made with Abraham, while Abraham was asleep and before Abraham even had any descendants who could agree or disagree with the covenant, the Mosaic covenant was different: It required buy-in. The people consented to be governed. They agreed to be governed by God, and by God’s laws. The people had a history with God, who had delivered them from Egyptian bondage and divided the Red Sea so that they could pass through. They knew their God well enough to trust in Him, and so they agreed to obey Him. It was not a white-knuckle obedience that was being demanded by an unknown God. It was loyal obedience born out of a history of relationship and trust. In light of the above, let’s examine what we are seeing today. In today’s Church we have several competing visions for the role of the Christian in society (no, I am not talking about Left and Right). Here are the competing visions, as I see them:
I see no biblical warrant for the first view, “change from the top”. Jesus never called the early Christians to take over the Roman Empire, and he does not call us to take over the United States of America or any other nation. The way of Jesus is the way of servanthood, not the way of domination. Our way of life is one of love and humility and servanthood, not one of political dominion. (This means that both the Christian Left and the Christian Right are equally misguided). We make a huge mistake when we try to tie Christianity to American nationalism or to a quest for political or military power or dominion. We cannot and should not use political power in an attempt to make America into a Christian nation. I believe that Jesus would be opposed to any notion of using political dominion to create a “Christian nation”. As we saw with the children of Israel, allegiance to God and to God’s ways must be freely chosen. When we try to impose God’s ways over those who do not claim allegiance to God, we stir up anger and resentment. Why should they be coerced through political power to obey a God they do not know or trust? They have no history with God. They do not know that He is a God of infinite love and infinite wisdom and infinite power, worthy of our trust and allegiance. They do not understand the price He paid in order to win us into a relationship with Him. They do not understand the power of forgiveness (both of God toward individuals and of individuals toward each other). They have no personal experience of God’s grace, and no experience of a personal relationship with a loving God. They are not positioned to obey God’s laws because they do not know God, the Giver of the laws. It is our role to invite them to join us in our repentance and to experience God’s life-transforming grace together with us. Trying to coerce them into living according to God’s standards through political domination is one of the worst mistakes that Christians can make. It will push them away from the Gospel and will harden their hearts against God and against us. It will have a boomerang effect. It will bring upon us the persecution we fear. The backlash will not come because the Christians are right and the rest of the world is wrong (though many Christians will interpret it that way). It will come because imposing Christian values through political domination is not God’s way. It is using God as a means to an end. God will not be used as a tool to fulfill anyone’s pursuit of political power. Our God is a roaring lion; He will not be mocked, and He will not be manipulated. The second view, “change from the bottom”, has some solid scriptural support but is not without its problems. As we have seen above, Jesus calls his followers to be “salt” and “light”, and Paul describes us as “fragrance”. It is true that if we are living as we should be living, Christians will have an influence from the bottom that will help those around us to see the world differently, which will affect the way they think, which will affect the way they vote. However, the problem with this view is that it still assumes that Christians should be influencing how people vote, so it still ends up pursuing political domination, though the path is now more subtle. Also, there is no agreement among Christians as to whether the values of the Right or the values of the Left are more closely aligned with the values of Jesus. The third view, “change from the outside”, also has some solid scriptural support, but may raise more questions than it is able to answer. According to this view, the Church exerts its influence over the world as salt, light, and fragrance, not through political activity, but simply by being the Church. We point to a better way, but we have no role in bringing it about here and now. God calls us to point toward the life of the world to come, not to make it happen through our own efforts (political or otherwise). Since the days of the Swiss Reformation, the Anabaptist/Mennonite movement has produced a volume of literature advocating that this is the true New Testament position, and their centuries of scholarship cannot be ignored. Jesus calls us to be “in the world but not of the world”. Does that allow for political involvement on the part of Christians? Should Christians vote, run for office, join a political party, participate in the military, serve on juries, pledge allegiance to the flag or to any earthly power, or do these allegiances run contrary to our allegiance to Christ? Can we say “Jesus is Lord” while still allowing for competing allegiances and alliances? Where does one draw the line between being “in the world” but not “of the world”? What does it mean to love our neighbors as ourselves? Where does our responsibility for the well-being of the world around us begin and end? Are we responsible to pursue the well-being of our family and friends, but not of our communities? Or of our communities, but not of our nation? Or of our nation, but not of our world? If we do have a responsibility to pursue the well-being of the world, what are the tools that Christians should or should not be using? There is much to be pondered here, and the answers are not simple ones. The truth seems to lie somewhere between the second and third views. Jesus never explains specifically what is the role of the Christian in a democratic society, so great wisdom is needed as we seek to discern the mind of Christ. In that spirit I offer the following guidelines:
“A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit”. — D. Elton Trueblood
“While walking along a road, a sage saw a man planting a carob tree. He asked him: ‘How long will it take for this tree to bear fruit?’ ‘Seventy years,’ replied the man. The sage then asked: ‘Are you so healthy a man that you expect to live that length of time and eat its fruit?’ The man answered: ‘I found a fruitful world, because my ancestors planted it for me. Likewise I am planting for my children.’” — Babylonian Talmud Ta'anit 23a I have been reading Carpe Diem Redeemed by Os Guinness. In chapter 5 Guinness discusses the flow between past, present and future that we sometimes overlook when we are overly-focused on the demands of the present. Guinness speaks of “short-termism”, which is how we tend to think if we allow ourselves to be swept along with the current of our culture. We live in a world that has forgotten how to plant trees. I suspect that many of us no longer think deeply enough about how the past affects our present and future, and how our decisions will affect the world that we will leave behind. To the extent that we have allowed our culture to push us into its mold, most of us have probably been far too preoccupied with the “here-and-now”. Sometimes we need to stop and ask ourselves: “Will the generations that follow us bless us or curse us?” “Are we passing something onto the next generation that they will treasure enough to want to pass on to the generation that follows them?” Some of our grandparents were immigrants from other countries, who came to the US, worked very hard, and died, having never seen the fruit of their labors. They didn’t expect to see it, because they didn’t do it for themselves. The came to the US to “make a better life” for their children and their grandchildren, at their own expense. They boarded overloaded ships and took the risky voyage to America, a strange land where people spoke a strange language and had strange customs and where there were huge steel bridges and very tall buildings that scraped the sky, and worked hard in very hostile environments so their children could go to college and get decent jobs and break the cycle of poverty that had existed in their home countries. They didn’t do it for themselves. They did it for all future generations. Missionaries move to foreign countries, make their way into remote tribal settlements in jungles and deserts where there is no electricity or running water so they can preach the Gospel to people who may well reject it, placing their own lives in jeopardy and throwing away any possibility of a comfortable lifestyle for themselves. They don’t do it for themselves. They do it for the glory of God, and for the sake of those who will hear, and for the many generations who will follow. Relief workers leave the comforts of home and move into remote villages where they build hospitals and schools so that present and future generations will have adequate healthcare and education. They work in refugee settlements so that those who are pushed from country to country will be able to survive until they can find a homeland— if they find a homeland. They work in inner cities, bringing hope into some very dark places where poverty and injustice are great and where hope is in short supply. They don’t do it for themselves. They do it for the sake of those who need them, and the many generations that will follow. They are fitting into a plan that is much larger than themselves. I like the motto of New York City Relief: “These things we do that others may live”. This doesn’t mean that in order to think in terms of the impact that we are having on future generations, we need to become a missionary or a relief worker. This does not require a major career change, unless God is calling us to that. This is a change of mindset that results in a change of lifestyle. It’s a way of thinking and a way of being that manifests itself in a way of doing. It’s a thousand decisions that we make every day, at our present jobs, at our present schools, with our present friends and neighbors and family, in our present circumstances. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this is only for those who have a “really big calling”. This is for the small stuff, like having a conversation or writing a letter or praying a prayer or writing a song or planting a tree. We all have a calling. We all need to fit into God’s cosmic plan. We all need to find our role. What does it take to live this kind of lifestyle? It takes being willing to abandon the quest for wealth, power, and pleasure in the “here-and-now”. It takes self-sacrificial investment into the needs of people, always with an eye toward future generations. It requires a sustained effort to take the well-being of others seriously, even if our own well-being must be sacrificed in the process. We’re not used to thinking this way, and we’re not used to living this way, but if we are open to it, the Christmas story can help us to regain our perspective. Let’s think about the Christmas story for a moment: Mary had a story that no one would believe. She was betrothed to the man of her dreams, but everything changed in a moment when she said “yes” to God’s strange plan. She would be misunderstood and ridiculed, she would have a difficult life, and then her heart would be pierced with great sorrow. She didn’t do it for herself. She did it for the sake of fulfilling her part in God’s great plan, and for the sake of all future generations; and all future generations have called her blessed. Joseph needed to play his part in a drama that was bigger than he was. He was getting married to a beautiful young maiden, and probably was looking forward to producing a tribe of beautiful Jewish children and grandchildren and showing them off at the synagogue. This is not the way he would have chosen it. He would be raising a son who would be his but not his, and who would be rejected by the synagogue. Why did he go along with such a strange plan? He didn’t do it for himself. He knew he had a part of God’s great plan that he needed to fulfill. He did it for future generations. Kings came and bowed down before the cradle. What an oxymoron. Kings don’t bow down before anyone, let alone a baby; their subjects bow down to them. They followed the star because they believed that some great event was happening in the cosmic order of things that had nothing to do with their own personal pursuits, but with another king born in another land. The kings came and found the baby and bowed down, because they realized that they were in the presence of a greater king. They were a part of a great cosmic plan that was bigger than their own kingly but puny ambitions, and they were humble enough to recognize their small part in a very great story, and so they followed the star, and they bowed before the infant king in the rickety cradle in the shabby stable on a chilly night in a faraway town on the outskirts of a weary city, surrounded by barn animals. Shepherds left their flocks and listened to the song of the angels, and then went and reported what they had heard to the people of the surrounding villages. No one wants a shepherd to be their neighbor, friend or son-in-law. How did lowly shepherds, probably considered the least important people in town who could find no respectable means of employment, become the first missionaries? They found themselves caught up in a story that had to be told— and so they told it. They were a part of a story, and they know that it was their calling and destiny to do their part to make it known. We know the story today because they reported it. Lowly shepherds had a big part in the story, and today we still remember them. How could anyone have possibly known that this baby was the self-emptying Son of God, who came to earth not for his own purposes, but to honor and obey his Father and to give his life a ransom for many, to sacrifice his life for the salvation of all who would believe, to lay down his life for his friends? He didn’t do it for Himself. He laid aside his heavenly privileges and came to earth as a man so that he could die on a cross in self-sacrificial love. He did it for the sake of His Father, and for the sake of His friends, and for the sake of all future generations who would trust in Him and follow in His ways. We each have a small part to play in a great cosmic story, but we will miss our part if we allow our culture to tell us that the pursuits of power, wealth and immediate pleasure are more important than the pursuit of knowing God and walking in His ways, for the sake of the glory of His Name, and for the sake of all future generations who will learn to walk in His ways. We need to abandon our own selfish pursuits if we want to invest our lives into the things that really matter. We need to do it for the glory of God. We need to do it for the sake of all future generations. Even if we are the last generation to appear on the earth before the return of the Lord, the decisions that we make now will affect the life of the world to come in ways that are yet unseen. We need to learn what it means to plant a tree under whose shade we will never sit. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:13-16) [Sources: Trueblood quote: https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2017/08/26/a-society-grows-great-when-old-men-plant-trees-in-whose-shade-they-know-they-shall-never-sit-an-ancient-greek-proverb/comment-page-1; Talmud quote: https://www.ritualwell.org/ritual/tree-planting-ritual; Scripture quote: Hebrews 11:13-16]. [This post was inspired by reading chapter 5 of Carpe Diem Redeemed by Os Guinness]. “But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John”. (Luke 1:13)
“And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; and they called him Zacharias, after the name of his father. And his mother answered and said, Not so; but he shall be called John. And they said unto her, There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name. And they made signs to his father, how he would have him called. And he asked for a writing table, and wrote, saying, His name is John. And they marveled all”. (Luke 1:59-63) “His name is John”. The world had tried to give him a different name. I can hear his relatives saying “Name him after his father. You’ve got to name him after his relatives. You need to honor his ancestors. Why introduce a new name into the family line? Why go against our religious and social and cultural conventions? Why can’t you just go along with the family traditions and name him Zacharias after his father? That’s the way we do things around here. Don’t make waves. Follow our traditions. Stick with the way things are. They way things are is the way things are supposed to be. This is no time for innovation. Don’t upset the applecart”. But his parents were persistent. His mother said and his father wrote “His name is John”. They knew what God wanted. They knew that God was doing a new thing. They knew that God’s script for what was about to happen was different from the old and predictable script that the family was trying to maintain— and so they said “His name is John”. “Zacharias” means “God remembers”. That would have been a very fitting name for someone who would go before the Messiah to prepare his way. God remembers his people and his promises and is sending his Messiah in fulfillment of His promises. Humanly speaking, it would have been a perfectly good name— but it was not name his parents chose, because it’s not the name that God had chosen. His parents knew better. They knew that a person’s name can easily become his or her calling and destiny. They wanted God to name the child because they knew that God would appoint the child’s destiny. God had told them to call him John, which means “The Lord has been gracious”. The child was ordained to be what God had called him to be— and so they said “His name is John”. God didn’t need another Zacharias in the world. God needed a baby named John, who would grow into a young man who was called John the Baptizer, who would be a man with a mission that came directly from the hand and heart of God; and this mission would be fulfilled in God’s way, in God’s timing, according to God’s perfect plan. God wrote the script. “His name is John”. What name has God given to us? If we are followers of Jesus, then we find the answer in Acts 11:26: “And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch”. The problem is that we’ve lost the wonder of what it means to be called “Christian”. Depending on our theological persuasion, we may think that being Christian means being a member of one of the world’s major religions, or that it means attending a particular kind of church, or that it means being born in a part of the world where most people call themselves Christians, or that it means being a person who can look back to a time and place where he or she first trusted in Jesus as Savior. All of these definitions fall short of what it really means to be a Christian. They rob us of the wonder of what it means to be identified as a follower of Jesus. I never want to lose the wonder of what it means to be called a Christian, so I think of Jesus, the carpenter’s son who became a traveling rabbi, who went about doing good toward everyone he met. I think of him walking through the streets of Galilee, touching the lives of many people with his love and compassion, healing them of their diseases, freeing them of demons, teaching them how to love God and how to love each other, reminding them of the great love that God has for them. I think of Jesus standing on a hilltop and teaching the people to love their enemies, to forgive those who wrong them, to pray for those who persecute them, to go the extra mile. I stand amazed at who he was and at what he taught and at how he lived. He was an absolutely amazing human being. He’s the kind of person I’d love to have as my mentor, as my neighbor, as my best friend. If I were living in Galilee when Jesus was around, I’d invite him to the Galilean equivalent of Starbucks in hopes of a long conversation over coffee, but I think he’d say “Instead, let’s go grab some food and share it with some homeless friends of mine, and we can talk on the way”. I’d hear about some horrific tragedy that was going on in a nearby town and would want to go and find Jesus so I could pick his brain about the theological and political implications of the event as it was unfolding, but I probably wouldn’t find him at home. He’d be on his way to that town to offer a helping hand, to help with the rescue effort, to offer a smile and a hug and a word of encouragement to those who were suffering from the tragedy, to remind them of the love of their Heavenly Father. I think he would surprise me again and again by his genuine love and compassion and his unselfish desire to help others, his authentic love for all people, and his eagerness to show them that God loves them, despite their ugly sins and sad failures and wretched histories and broken dreams. And then I zoom out to see the bigger picture. I remind myself that God came to earth as a man, and that man was Jesus. He not only taught us how to love, but he showed us how to love. He not only came to teach us about God, he came to show us what God is like. He moved into our little corner of the universe so he could be with us, because God desires relationship with his people. And then, after a lifetime of showing us how to live and love, and how to relate to God as our loving Father, he gathered his friends around a table, he distributed bread and wine, and he told them “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”. And then he did just that: He died for his friends. He died for his enemies. He died for us. He died for me. He died so that I could be forgiven, so that I could personally relate to God as my loving Father, so that I could have eternal life. The man Jesus, who spent his whole life teaching us how to love, died as the ultimate act of love. He gave up his life for his friends. Despite my sinfulness, which makes me an enemy of God together with all the rest of humanity, he counts me as his friend. And them I zoom further out to see an even bigger picture: Before time and space exist, God says “Watch this!” and creates for Himself a spectacular universe out of nothing. The world rebels against God. God promises a Seed. God starts to work through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants to bring the world back to himself. God sends the prophets. God promises a Messiah. God sends his Son to earth, born of a virgin, to live a sinless live, to die on a cross as a substitutionary atonement for our sins, to resurrect from the dead, to ascend into heaven, to send us the Holy Spirit, to form a Church, which is his Body and Bride. The Church suffers and serves and sings and prays and worships and rejoices. Jesus one day comes back to earth in order to set up his kingdom— a kingdom defined not by the imposition of power over the powerless but by sacrificial love of God toward His people, ruled by the Lion who is the Lamb. I think of those who would come to know him personally, by grace alone through faith alone, experiencing the second birth, who will be forever praising him and worshipping him with grateful and joyful hearts. I then I zoom back into the smaller picture. Here I am sitting at my computer on this little speck called Planet Earth— and God calls me “Christian”. God calls me a follower of Jesus. Jesus calls me his friend, and I am invited to sit at the table and eat the bread and drink the wine with Jesus. I get to walk in the footsteps of the greatest human being who ever lived; the God who became a man, who loved me enough to die for me; the God who loved me enough to befriend me despite my sins and failures; the God who has called me not only to trust in Jesus as my Savior but to follow him as my Lord. I get to be a follower of Jesus, and there is no higher privilege than that! That’s my identity. God has given me a name. God has called me “Christian”. The world may try to give me a different name or a different identity, but I wouldn’t trade in the name “Christian” for anything. That’s why I can be hopeful in 2020 and in 2021. That’s why I can celebrate Christmas as more than just a holiday. Because a baby was born in Bethlehem, I know who God is. Because I know who God is, I know who I am and why I exist and what I will be doing forever— glorifying and enjoying the God who deserves my glory forever— and that’s worth celebrating! Constantine I, also known as Constantine the Great, served as the Emperor of Rome from AD 306 to AD 337. In AD 313 Constantine proclaimed the Edict of Milan, which tolerated Christianity in the Roman Empire. As a result of this edict, Christians, who had been despised and persecuted by the Roman Empire, could no longer be persecuted and were now granted legal status. This opened the doorway for a partnership between Christianity and the Roman Empire that eventually led to the Edict of Thessalonica, issued in AD 380, which made Nicene Christianity (Christians who agreed with the Nicene Creed) the official religion of the Roman Empire. This led to 1,700 years of what I like to think of as a “dance” between Church and State that we today sometimes refer to as “Constantinianism”. Constantinianism did not end with the fall of the Roman Empire. It continued, in a different form, in the various state churches of Europe, in Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox countries, both before and after the Protestant Reformation. Here are the rules of Constantinianism:
In other words, the Church and the State say to each other “We allow you to exist. We accept that your power is legitimate. We will not turn against you. We agree not criticize or challenge you. You agree not to criticize or challenge us. You help us to stay in power, and we will help you to stay in power”. It was a handshake between the Church and the State, for the mutual benefit of both. Constantinianism turned Christianity from a group of despised followers of Jesus into a respected world religion. In my opinion, this was not a good development for Christianity, for several reasons:
A form of Constantinianism came to the New World with the colonists. When the thirteen colonies were settled, the Puritans controlled Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Anglicans controlled Virginia. (The Baptists established Rhode Island and the Quakers established Pennsylvania, but those two groups were strongly in favor of the separation of church and state). When the thirteen colonies came together to form “a more perfect Union”, what would be the state religion? Would the new Union be controlled by the Puritans or the Anglicans? What about the smaller pockets of Dutch Reformed, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Mennonites, Moravians, Lutherans, Baptists and Quakers who populated the other colonies? The Founding Fathers wisely decided that there would be no state religion in the new Union. They attempted to form a Union that would be godly but Anti-constantinian. How would Jesus feel about Constantinianism? Is there a subtle form of Constantinianism at work in America today? If so, is that a good thing or a bad thing? I leave that for you to decide. “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ”. (1 Corinthians 2:16)
Following Jesus is like enrolling ourselves as lifetime students into the “School of Jesus”. It means learning to live as Jesus lived. The original band of disciples we learn about in the Gospels were literally followers of Jesus. Their learning environment was not a classroom. Learning was done by what we might call “peripatetic apprenticeship”, which is how masters trained their disciples. Wherever Jesus went, his disciples went. Whatever Jesus did, his disciples did. They traveled where he traveled, rested where he rested, ate what he ate and drank what he drank. They spent years of their lives listening to Jesus, watching how he lived his life, and following his example. And in the process, hopefully they were becoming more and more like Jesus. They were learning to love what Jesus loved, and to hate what Jesus hated. They were learning what provoked the anger of Jesus, and what caused his heart to break. By observing his lifestyle, by conversing with him, and by sharing their lives together, in the intimate moments of vulnerability as well as in the intense rigors of practical ministry, they were absorbing his values, feeling his heartbeat, and discerning his heart. Hopefully, in the process, they were gradually becoming more and more like him in their attitude, behavior, values, thoughts, emotions, and lifestyle. They were learning to see things through the eyes of Jesus. They were evaluating life through the lens of Jesus, and they were learning to adjust their own lifestyles accordingly. This means coming to embrace what the Bible calls the “mind of Christ”. This is the challenge for Christians in North America today: After decades of proclaiming a Gospel that is strong on “how to gain eternal life” but weak on transformative discipleship, we need to refocus not only on how to be “saved” but on how to become more like Christ, so that we might obtain “the mind of Christ”. We know that this is not done through a process of self-transformation. The Holy Spirit gradually transforms us as we study the Word of God. The Word of God and the Spirit of God work together to bring transformation into our lives as we yield to the work of God in our lives. The result is not merely a free ticket to eternal life or a free pass from eternal condemnation, but a Christlike lifestyle that flows from Christlike character. If we are not becoming more like Christ, then our “Christianity” isn’t working in our lives in the way that it was designed to work. Our character and lifestyle are molded by the way in which we look at the world around us, and by the things that we tell ourselves about God, about ourselves, and about the world. We all look at the world through the lens of our own perspectives, much like looking at everything that is going on around us through a pair of colored lenses. It’s like wearing colored shades or sunglasses at the beach. Wearing a pair of colored shades may be more comfortable than having to deal with the overbearing strength of the sun in our eyes, but it also changes the way in which we view the sky and the water and the colors all around us. We see them differently because of the lenses through which we are looking. The colors that we see through our lenses don’t match up with the colors as they actually exist in the world. Now, if our Enemy (Christians know whom I am talking about) wanted to change our perspectives of reality in order to effectively keep us from consistently understanding and embracing the mind of Christ, one tactic would be to get us to put on a set of lenses or colored glasses, without realizing that we were doing so. Then we’d be walking through life seeing everything in the wrong colors, but not recognizing that something is amiss, because we wouldn’t realize that were wearing colored lenses. Think about the effect of this over a lifetime. We always thought we knew what green and red and blue really looked like, because they have looked this way for as long as we can remember. We don’t remember seeing the colors in any other way, and we don’t remember that we ever put on a pair of sunglasses. We assume that how we are seeing things is accurate, because it is all that we have ever known. Looking at life through an altered perspective and not realizing that our perspective is off is a very great deception. So how do we get “undeceived”? How do we take off our lenses? If you’re still tracking with me, may I offer some words of advice? If you’re not tracking with me, then you can stop reading here. My goal is to encourage, not to judge or offend, and certainly not to give unwanted advice. 1) We need to start by accepting the fact that we are wearing colored lenses. We all are. It’s not possible to go through life without wearing colored lenses. We learn to view life by the way our parents and teachers and friends and relatives and neighbors have taught us to view life. It’s like the air that we breathe. It’s all around us, it’s all that we have ever known, and we don’t think very much about it. None of us can claim that the way we view life is 100% consistent with the mind of Christ. The only person who has the mind of Christ, 100%, is Christ himself. We need to be willing to admit that we are wearing colored lenses before we can start taking the steps that are necessary to take them off. 2) We need to ask God to help us to take off our colored lenses and to help us to embrace the mind of Christ. This is where faith comes in. 3) We need to immerse ourselves in Scripture. This means reading Scripture in such a way that our own ideas and opinions are challenged. We need to ask God to challenge our views that may be erroneous, rather than hunting for Bible verses that seem to reinforce our cherished views. That may be painful, but we need to be willing to endure the pain. It’s not easy to look at the sun when we’ve been wearing colored shades all of our life. 4) We need to spend much time in prayer. God is always speaking, but we hear from Him most clearly when we are in constant conversation with Him. 5) We need to beware of any “isms” that we have embraced that may be contrary to the mind of Christ. Whether it’s liberalism or conservatism or nationalism or globalism or patriotism or anti-patriotism or socialism or capitalism, as soon as we see the “ism” at the end of a word, that should be a red flag. “Isms” are colored lenses. “Isms” are much more likely to compete with the mind of Christ than to lead us into the mind of Christ. If we really want to embrace the mind of Christ, then we need to get serious about purging the “isms” out of our life. We need to take off the colored lenses of our “isms” before we can put on the mind of Christ, or we will end up looking through several sets of lenses simultaneously, sometimes confusing them with each other, and the results will be muddled. (Beware: The formula of “Christ plus ________ism" (fill in the blank with whatever “ism” grabs our attention and captivates our heart) is more likely to draw us away from the mind of Christ than to draw us into the mind of Christ. If we are not extremely cautious, this will lead us into compromised allegiances and unwarranted alliances that will draw us away from the mind of Christ and that will cause us to misrepresent Christ before the watching world. It will make us into very poor ambassadors. It will happen in very small steps, and we will not recognize that it is happening until we end up in a place where we are very far removed from the mind of Christ, without ever realizing it). Does this mean that all of our personal convictions are wrong and that we need to completely shut out all outside influences in order to gain the mind of Christ? No, but we need to be vigilant. We need to be Bible-based and Spirit-led critical thinkers. We need to read and study and think and pray and discuss and evaluate and sift and weigh and discern, but in all of our sifting and weighing and discerning we need to be surrendering all that is not of God, and we need to be seeking the mind of Christ, through intensive and disciplined study of the Word of God, as enlightened by the Spirit of God, as a part of a company of solid God-fearing and Christ-seeking worshippers of God (the Church). Remember, Jesus promised us that the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth (John 16:13). As we study the Word of God, the Holy Spirit will guide us into embracing the thoughts and values and convictions of Jesus, and will put the spotlight on and lead us to surrender anything that we may have picked up along the way from one of our “isms” that is contrary to the mind of Christ. Am I being judgmental? I certainly hope not, and I certainly don’t mean to be. I don’t claim to be better at this than anyone else. I’m wearing colored shades, just like everyone else, but I want to take remove mine, and I hope that you want to remove your colored shades as well. I want to see the sun as it really is. I want to see the Son as He really is, so that I might become more like Him. In a year that has been characterized by an unrelenting virus that has interrupted our lives in strange and sorrowful ways, by bitterly painful racial injustice that has torn open unhealed wounds, and by a nasty political polarization that is stirring up massive amounts of anger and resentment, let’s stop fighting against each other. Let’s be a little more gentle with ourselves and with each other. Let’s recognize the Enemy’s tactics. Let’s help each other to take off our colored lenses. Together we can learn what it means to be more authentic followers of Jesus—which is what the world needs to see if we are ever going to be able to gain a hearing for Jesus! Together we can learn what it means to more fully embrace the mind of Christ. We still have two months to turn 2020 into the year when we finally start to learn something about having 2020 vision. What the Enemy meant for evil, God can use for good. When the internet was invented, time started moving ten times faster. We could view the world through the screen of our computer, and the view was different than the view from our front porch. Suddenly we were confronted with a thousand perspectives that were not our own. Even when we could agree on the facts (which was rare), there were as many interpretations of the facts as there were observers. It was information overload, and it made some of us feel angry and irritated and overwhelmed. Reality was not so simple as what we had once thought. The internet helped us to come to realize that “spin” was much more real than we had ever imagined previously. Truth can be misrepresented. Lies can be made to look like the truth, and truth can be made to look like lies. We started to realize that the truth is filtered through the bias of the reporter, then through the bias of the editor or news agency, and then through our own personal bias. Some people grew up in this world, but I am old enough to have experienced the world both before and after the internet, so for me it was a force to be reckoned with. For many of us, it was like coming out of the Garden of Eden and suddenly finding ourselves living in a world that was no longer friendly or easily understandable. Paradise Lost.
Then COVID hit, and the problem became exponentially worse. Time started moving even faster. Social media became a series of knee-jerk reactions characterized by anger, resentment, frustration, name-calling, jumping to conclusions, taking sides. Opinions were being quickly formulated based on fear, anger, and misinformation. We began to lose the fine art of taking a breath, thinking things through, checking the facts, conversing with those of differing opinions, self-reflection, prayer, seeking the face of God. Time was moving too quickly for that. This is an over-simplification, of course, but when we used to sit on the front porch, we were like a gathering of chess players, carefully thinking before we made our move. Now that we sit in front of our computer screens, we are becoming more like a company of lawyers, more interested in quickly winning an argument than in embracing a slow and persistent pursuit of truth. By this time, most people had started to identify themselves so closely with their political positions that, in their eyes, to question their position was to attack their personhood. You were no longer a person who leaned to the left or to the right in your political views. You became “a liberal” or “a conservative”, reducing your personhood to your political allegiance. It’s easier to devalue each other’s personhood when we give each other labels and throw each other into categories. Increasingly, people were prone to define themselves by their labels, rather than by how they actually lived. For example, whether or not you were racist was defined by what you said on social media, not by how you actually lived and how you actually felt. As long as you could convince your Facebook friends that you were not a racist, it didn’t matter if you carried feelings of racial superiority in your heart. The real “you” was the person you presented on Facebook, not the person who really lived in your body. Image was the only thing that counted. The soul died, and the image replaced it. When the soul dies, all we have left of our personhood is the image of ourselves that we portray to the world. What’s on our tee-shirt or bumper sticker or Facebook post seemingly becomes more important than what is in our soul. Our souls can’t be saved or transformed if we barely acknowledge that our souls even exist. The “who I can convince you that I am” person becomes more important than the “who I really am when I am most honest with myself” person. This set the stage for what happened next: the rapid acceleration of political polarization. We were losing our souls, and we were losing our concept of truth, so there was nowhere else to go. For example, our response to the COVID pandemic became conditioned upon our opinions about the severity of the pandemic, and, in many cases, our opinions about the severity of the pandemic had become predetermined by our political ideology. What do we do about wearing masks, social distancing, limitations on indoor and outdoor gatherings? Most people responded predictably, according to their political allegiances. The “conservatives” and the “liberals” could see that about each other but they couldn’t see it about themselves. That’s the price we pay for giving ourselves and each other labels. The pursuit of truth was gradually becoming abandoned. Increasingly, many were settling for their pre-arranged political categories and letting their categories do their thinking for them. That was easier and less stressful than trying to look at the issues from as many perspectives as possible and sifting through all the facts and doing the necessary reflection and soul searching. It became more convenient to simply ignore the facts. Spin had taken its toll, and the effect was deadly. Spin became more important than truth. We had entered the post-truth era. Now we were miles from the Garden of Eden and quickly approaching the Tower of Babel. Somewhere along the line, we became less than who we are. Many people on both sides of the political fence became knee-jerk reactionaries. We forgot what it was like to be thinking, praying human beings who formulate wise and discerning responses that are not predetermined by our political allegiance. Collectively, we began to forget that we were human beings, made in the image of God, with the responsibility to think and act in a way that reflects the dignity of being God’s image-bearers. We began to act less like humans and more like Pavlov’s dogs. When we lose sight of God, we lose sight of the fact that we are made in the image of God. When we lose God, we lose humanity. (In his book, The Christian Mind, Henry Blamires tried to warn of these things back in 1963). The problem is that many Christians were caught unaware and were sucked into the polarization. Rather than taking the time to think, pray, discuss, and seek the mind of Christ, we drifted into our default political positions. We allowed ourselves to be taken hostage by our political ideologies because we jumped too quickly. Can we all take a deep breath so we can rethink all of this? We can’t continue in the trajectory of “Red Christians” and “Blue Christians” without doing major damage to the Body of Christ and, tragically, the name of Jesus. We need to determine what our response should be as followers of Jesus, not as “conservatives” or as “liberals”. Otherwise we don’t have a valid message to give to the world. The world already has plenty of think who think the way their political allegiances have programmed them to think. The world could use a few more people who are trying to figure out how to point to Jesus in all of this. By defaulting to our political positions, we fail to be the salt and light that Jesus called us to be. We have become the kind of salt that loses its saltiness and is good only to be thrown out and trampled upon. Jesus warned about these things in the Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 5:13). How do we respond to the COVID pandemic in a way that is consistent with everything that Jesus taught us? I am proposing that we should formulate our response by asking ourselves three questions:
If we want to be more like Jesus, I think the Sermon on the Mount is a good starting point, for the Sermon describes the character of those who will inherit God’s kingdom. I believe that it also describes the character or Jesus himself. God wants to populate his kingdom with children who are just like his Son, so as we study the Sermon and work out its implications in our lives, I believe that we are becoming more like Jesus. Jesus taught: “You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also. If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too. If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles. Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow. You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy’. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike”. (Matthew 5:38-45) This passage describes the kind of people that followers of Jesus should be becoming. We need a word of explanation here. The Sermon on the Mount is not a self-improvement plan. If we see it as that, it will drive us bonkers and we will quickly give up and burn out. No one can live this way on our own efforts. We can’t become this kind of person without being a part of a community (a local church) that seeks to live out these teachings as a body, standing on the shoulders of the generations of Christians who have gone before us, and on the shoulders of the Jews who came before the Christians, with a vision toward extending the way of Christ to the next generation, with the expectation of the return of Jesus to set up his kingdom on the earth, the consummation of all things, and the assurance of eternal life. We can’t do it unless we have experienced the redemption and grace that are found in Christ. We need the second birth. We need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. We need to abide in the vine. We need death to self. We need the fruit of the Spirit. We need worship and prayer and Bible study and fellowship and discipleship and accountability and spiritual warfare. There is a whole process of sanctification that we cannot discuss here, but Christians know what I am talking about. The kind of lifestyle that Jesus is calling us to embrace is unintelligible and impossible apart from larger context of the Christian history and experience and future and worldview. The point is that here Jesus is talking about the kind of people that we gradually become as we follow in his ways. We are all selfish people; even the most altruistic among us. When someone slaps us in the face, we don’t want to let him slap us again. We don’t want to give away our shirt when someone sues us for our coat. We don’t want an enemy soldier to order us to carry his pack for a mile, and we certainly don’t want to offer to carry it a second mile. We don’t want to love our enemies and pray that God will bless those who persecute us. This all goes against our selfish human nature. These are the very things that Jesus wants to address in the hearts of his followers. It’s not about legalistically following the rules. It’s about a radical transformation of the heart and soul. That’s a lifetime process. It’s learning to do the opposite of a knee-jerk reaction. How do we apply this to the COVID pandemic? We need to formulate Jesus-hearted responses to the issues of how we can help to prevent the spread of the virus, how we can care for those who are infected by the virus, what is the best way to pray during the pandemic, what we can say and do to help those who are struggling with the impact that the virus is having on our society (present and future) and on how it affects them personally (loss of loved ones, fear of illness and death, shattered plans for the future), how we can help others to deal with the financial impacts of the virus (loss of employment, loss of savings, homelessness), etc. As Christians, we need to respond to these issues in a way that would be impossible for anyone who is not a follower of Jesus, and always in a way that makes us more like Jesus. If we wade into the murky waters of politics at all, it should be for the common good, and ultimately, for the glory of God, not to advance our own interests, and only in a way that is consistent with our goal of becoming more like Jesus. We can start by taking a look at what our attitude should be toward the CDC guidelines. How do we respond to the guidelines in a way that makes us more like Jesus? We remember the words of the Sermon on the Mount and we apply them to the CDC guidelines. Let’s give this a shot: Jesus taught that if a soldier compels us to carry his gear for one mile, we carry it, and then we offer to carry a second mile. We carry it the first mile because we are required to do so by law. We carry it the second mile because that’s what Christians do. It shows that we love the soldier as a fellow human being, and it diffuses his anger toward us and our anger toward him (I’ve been reading about this in an amazingly insightful book, The Truth About Us by Brant Hansen). In the same way, if the government compels us to practice the CDC guidelines, then we exceed the guidelines; we embrace them more fervently than the government requires, because we are not motivated by fear of getting into trouble if we are caught breaking the rules. We are motivated by love of neighbor. If we truly love our neighbors, then we will not want them to catch the virus. We are motivated by a desire to be more like Jesus. We gladly and enthusiastically wear the masks and follow the rules and do what we need to do to stop the virus, beyond what is required, because we want that much to love our neighbor, and because we want that much to be like Jesus. We would do our part to stop the spread of the pandemic even if there were no Executive Orders, because that’s how love behaves, and because that’s what followers of Jesus do. Do we really have to have Executive Orders that force us to act in way that prevents our neighbor from getting the virus? We Christians shouldn’t need the Executive Orders. We are motivated by love of neighbor, not by fear of getting caught, so our attempts to stop the pandemic should be done enthusiastically, not begrudgingly— going the extra mile because we love our neighbor and because we want to be more like Jesus. Idealistic? Perhaps, but Jesus calls us to very high ideals. Why should we abandon his ideals, just because they are difficult? Of course there are judgment calls to be made; of course we may disagree with our politicians about what is reasonable and necessary and what is not, and it is appropriate for us to question their judgment if we have “done our homework”, but we don’t start there. We start with the motivation of wanting to be as much like Jesus as possible. When the attitude is right, then we can deal with the judgment calls. If we go straight to the judgment calls, then we are putting the cart before the horse, we are likely to default to our political positions, and loving our neighbor and becoming more like Jesus fade into the background. Christians need to keep them front and center. We need to be doing only what we think Jesus would be doing if he were in our circumstances, which means we need to take the time to stop and think and discuss and pray (not only as individuals but also as a community of believers) so we can properly discern what Jesus would do. 2) Does my response to the pandemic cause the name of the Lord to be magnified? Throughout Scripture we are constantly reminded that God does whatever He does “for the sake of the glory of His name”. If God is so concerned for the glory of his own name, which is the extension of His reputation as a God who is unspeakably good, wise, loving, just, powerful, compassionate, patient, beautiful, majestic and many other things (we use the word “glorious” as a way of catching all these characteristics of God and grouping them under one word), it should of utmost importance to us to see to it that His name or reputation is exalted in this way. So, how do we formulate responses to the pandemic that will advance the glory of the name of God? We need to ask ourselves whether our response to the pandemic gives people a better glimpse of the greatness of our God, or whether it obscures their view of the greatness of God. When people see our response to the masks, the social distancing, the restrictions on gatherings, are they compelled to say “What an unspeakably excellent God those Christians have!” or “What a pathetic god those Christians have!”? Here we must stand squarely on the shoulders of our Jewish spiritual ancestors, who were committed to this emphasis much more deeply than we are as American Christians in the twenty-first century. Forget the political squabbling. The glory of the name of God is the only question that matters, but we can’t bring glory to the name of God if we are devoting ourselves to advancing a political agenda. The answer to the question of whether or not the glory of God’s name is being exalted by as many people as possible is the only thing that will have repercussions throughout all of eternity. It’s the one thing we absolutely have to get right, even if we get everything else wrong. It’s the purpose of our lives, and it’s the purpose of the universe. We dare not take it lightly. Our response to the pandemic reflects upon the glory of God’s name. 3) Does my response to the pandemic give Jesus reason to rejoice over what his sufferings have accomplished? One of the great historic missionary movements of the Church, the Moravians (known not only for their intense missionary commitment but also for holding a prayer meeting that went for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for over a hundred years), is characterized by an incredibly meaningful and beautiful prayer: “May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of his sufferings”. When Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb of God who died to pay the penalty for our sins, looks over all that is happening in his name, is he pleased with what he sees? I think it all depends on what he is looking at. Some of what has been done in the name of Jesus throughout the centuries has been magnificently beautiful, but some has been disgustingly ugly. We know from Isaiah 53:11 that ultimately he will be satisfied, but a lot needs to happen before this works itself out in human history. God will glorify Himself, but He wants us to be working with Him. When Jesus sees our response to the pandemic, does he say “This is breathtakingly beautiful. This is what I died for”, or does he say “This is a pathetic misrepresentation of all that I stand for. This is not what I came to accomplish”? Now let’s bring this down our response to the pandemic. Let’s bring it down to our attitude regarding the masks, the social distancing guidelines, the restrictions on indoor and outdoor gatherings. Are we responding in a way that causes Jesus to see the reward of his sufferings, to be glad, and to rejoice in all that he has accomplished? That’s the question we need to be asking. Forget the political bickering. There is something much bigger at stake here. The glory of God is at stake, but we are too busy taking sides. We are missing the heart of the matter. |
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