“Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God”. (Psalm 90:1-2) The Hebrew and Christian Scriptures tell about a God who knows what He is doing. He creates a magnificently beautiful universe according to a master plan, with great precision. Everything connects with everything else in a massive complex of myriads of causes and effects. Somehow, everything works. According to the Scriptures, we live in a predictable universe where the galaxies don’t go crashing into each other, time doesn’t suddenly start going backwards, matter doesn’t suddenly morph into some new and foreign substance, time and space continue to be time and space, and the laws of mathematics and chemistry and physics are constant. This is the case because an intelligent God brought the universe into existence and sustains it according to His plan, supervising the execution of the plan right down to the minutest detail. If that is our starting point, then how do we account for war, violence, injustice, cruelty and oppression? And how do we account for natural catastrophes, diseases such as cancer, viruses such as COVID-19, and death itself? According to the Scriptures, God granted to humankind the gift of free will. Humankind chose to rebel against God. We call this rebellion “sin”. If God were to eradicate all of the war, injustice, cruelty and oppression in the universe, He would have to eradicate humankind, for all of humankind is sinful. The rebellion of humanity somehow knocked the earth out of sync, resulting in natural catastrophes, diseases such as cancer, viruses such as COVID-19, and death itself. God is still in control, but He has ordained that these be the tragic consequences of humanity’s rebellion against Himself. Actions have consequences. Sin against God brought a curse upon humankind. It’s the way God has set up His universe. The Scriptures also speak of what Judaism calls the tikkun olam, the “healing of the world”, which is associated with the coming of the promised Hebrew Messiah. For example, 2,700 years ago, the prophet Isaiah foretold: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious”. (Isaiah 11:1-10) This is the point where Judaism and Christianity start to move in different directions. According to the teachings of Judaism, the tikkum olam has not yet arrived because the Hebrew Messiah has not yet arrived. According to the teachings of Christianity, the Hebrew Messiah comes twice. He came the first time as the Lamb of God, to provide an atonement for the sins of humankind by dying on the cross as a substitutionary atonement for our sins, to rise from the dead, and to ascend into heaven. He will return to the earth in the future to establish the tikkum olam, the Kingdom of God upon the earth. (Not all Christians agree that there will be a literal Kingdom of God upon the earth, but that is a topic for another blog post). The Christian narrative is not properly understood in a vacuum. It makes sense only if we embed it into the larger Hebrew narrative. There is a reason that Jesus had to die. There is a reason that he had to rise from the dead and ascend into heaven. There is a reason that he is coming back. It’s all part of the plan; it’s written into the script that God wrote before the universe ever came into existence. It’s all about restoring what God had originally intended. Humankind has become so corrupted in our rebellion against God and His ways that it is impossible to remedy the dilemma in which we find ourselves and which we have brought upon ourselves. All we can come up with is a long series of attempts at trying to fix the problems of our world that may yield some limited success at managing our dilemma at certain times and in certain places, but that cannot ever eradicate it. Our best efforts to eradicate war tend to lead to more war. Our best efforts to fix our societal problems tend to lead to more societal problems. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to do what we can to make the world a better place, but it does mean that the best of human efforts can only take us so far. Humankind can try to manage the effects of sin as best we can, but there are limits as to what we can accomplish. Only God can eradicate sin and its effects. God had to take the initiative to heal the earth, and he did it by coming to earth Himself to live as a man and to die, taking upon himself the judgment and curse of humankind, and then by rising from the dead in a victorious celebration of over the destruction of sin and death, paving the way for the long-awaited tikkun olam, which will be established upon the earth when He returns. The Thursday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday narrative that Christians celebrated this past week is not just a series of pretty stories about the death and resurrection of a charming but controversial young rabbi. It’s God’s explanation of the cosmic order of things. It’s God’s analysis of the situation, and it’s God’s remedy. You may not believe it, but if you are an open-minded person you will at least need to consider that fact that it may just be the truth that explains everything, because it is the truth the flows from the mind of the Author of the universe, who is the Creator of reality and the Definer of truth. So what difference does all of this make on Monday morning? The difference is that the tomb is still empty. God has intervened. God has come to the planet to put into motion the plan that will eventually effect the tikkun olam. There is a solution to war, violence, injustice, cruelty and oppression. There is a solution to natural catastrophes, cancer, COVID-19, and death itself. God has intervened, and God will intervene. That is the meaning of the empty tomb. That is what gives us hope on Monday. It’s not a quick fix solution, but it’s a narrative that gives meaning to the whole. It’s not for the faint of heart. it’s not for those who would insist on finding an illusory sense of momentary happiness right here and now rather than find meaning in suffering over the long haul as we wait for and collaborate with God in the working out of His perfect plan, in His perfect way, in His perfect timing, steadily and consistently and persistently moving toward God’s magnificently glorious appointed destiny for the universe, for humankind, for His Church and for ourselves as individual believers. We do not bring about God’s Kingdom through the political and social mechanisms of our society, but we point to it as a future reality, living as citizens of a Kingdom that has not yet been established. While we participate in the affairs of this world, we do so in a way that models and points to Jesus, and we give our allegiance to another King. God doesn’t repair the world but ignore the individuals, but He also doesn’t repair (we prefer to say “redeem”) the individuals without redeeming the earth. The hope for the world and the hope for individual believers are tied together; they are both part of God’s great plan of redemption. What God began in the world he will complete, and the result will be glorious! What God began in me he will complete, and the result will be glorious! The empty tomb proves that God is still at work, and that nothing can stop God from accomplishing His magnificent work of redemption and restoration, both in the world in general and in the lives of individual believers who give Him our allegiance as our Savior, Lord and King. Those who want a quick fix will not find the Christian Gospel attractive, but some will understand and believe. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave a description of those who would inherit the Kingdom of God: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you”. (Matthew 5:3-11) Rather than dismissing the events of the death and resurrection of Jesus as quaint though maybe-inspiring fables, it would be wiser to seem them as parts of the larger narrative. As the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle don’t make sense until we can see the whole puzzle, the death and resurrection of Jesus don’t make sense until we can see the larger narrative of which they are a part. For those who are struggling with believing that the events that Christians celebrated this past week really happened, consider the larger narrative, and you just might be more open to accepting the parts that are harder to accept. The tikkun olam has not yet arrived. How do we live in the meantime? We live as people of the Monday Perspective. We learn to love God more deeply and to walk in His ways more fully. We continue to learn how to love one another. We continue to ask God to help us to become more like Jesus. We become people who care. By living as compassionate people who love God and who love each other, we point forward to the coming kingdom and we model it, as citizens of a kingdom that has not yet been established on the earth. We do not try to force the kingdom of God on those around us as though we could bring it about through human effort. We become a people who are known for our love, not for our politics. We offer the water of life to those who are thirsty. Those who are thirsty will come. For those of us who have come to know Him, the world doesn’t need for us to be angry, militant culture warriors who are trying to remake society in our own image. The world needs for us to be a joyful company of humble, gentle and courageous men and women who are forever marked and defined by the cross and the resurrection, people of hope in a hopeless world, people who point people to Jesus by being like Jesus, people who dare to believe that the joyful declaration of Resurrection Sunday didn’t end on Monday morning. After all, the tomb is still empty!
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