Category: the cross

Y is for Yes (an alphabet for penitents)

“Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”” (Matthew 26:39, NIV)

“No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”” (John 10:18, NRSV)

Yes was Jesus’s answer to God in submitting to the cross. Yes is God’s answer to us through the cross.

It was late in the evening as Jesus knelt in the garden, full of dread at what awaited him— the desertion of the disciples, night time trials, beatings, flogging, mockery, and derision from law enforcement, the rejection of his people, and death on a Roman cross. Luke’s gospel tells us that he the sweat on his brow as prayed was like drops of blood (Luke 22:44). He was in anguish, anxious about the horrors he’d soon face. He prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.” He knew how hard it would be and part of him didn’t want to do it.  But then he adding his yes to God, “Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

When he refused to offer a spirited defense of the trumped up charges against him, he was willfully accepted his fate. Nobody took his life from him. He laid his life down of his own accord.

✝✟✝

Why the cross? Why did our salvation take this shape? If you spend time in Christian circles, you have probably heard debates about the nature of Christ’s atonement—the way the cross saved us from our sin. The dominant theory for Evangelicals since the Reformation is a penal understanding: God is just and therefore must punish sin, we are sinful deserving of death, Jesus—both God’s Son, and sinless human—took our punishment for us on the cross. This is just one understanding of the work of Christ, but there are others: Christus Victor and Ransom models(Jesus’ victory over the powers), Moral Influence and subjective models(Jesus dies on a cross to make vivid the love of God for us), the Satisfaction model (like penal substitution, but more focused on God’s honor),  Sacrifice, mimetic atonement (Jesus breaking the cycle of  mimetic human violence), and variations on each of the above.

I don’t have a definitive answer for why the cross. I know that there are caricatures of God we need to avoid in whatever atonement theory we ascribe to or construct (i.e. ones that make the crucifixion seem like divine child abuse, and those that deny the unity of God in His plan for salvation) and I would say the cross is some combination of all the above. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor 5:19). The Triune God was acting to welcome humanity back into their (His) embrace.  In the wisdom of God, this was the plan, God’s  yes.

✝✟✝

My seven-year-old daughter asked recently, “Why do we call it Good Friday when it is the day Jesus died?” Anyone who has grown up in the church has asked that same question. Today could have just as easily been called Bad Friday, the day we killed God. We call today good because of what the cross accomplished, the way Jesus’s death opened for us. There he hung—his arms stretched out while his body slumped forward, a”Y”— God’s yes for us.

 

S is for Salvation (an alphabet for penitents).

“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” -Matthew 20:28

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. -Colossians 1:19-20

Salvation is the scarlet thread running through Scripture. It is the unifying theme of the entire biblical narrative. We read about our need for salvation beginning in Genesis 3, when our human ancestors sinned and the need for deliverance sounds throughout the rest of the story.  Only in the last pages of the Bible, Revelation 21-22, do we get a glimpse of the work of salvation completed (i.e. a New Heaven and Earth, the New Jerusalem, Eden restored, etc). Salvation is what the whole story is about, and it is the heart’s cry of the penitent.

The two big salvation motifs in the Bible are Israel’s exodus from Egpyt, and the cross of Christ. This coming week, the Jewish Seder and Holy Week coincide ( just like the first time). We remember both. The children of Israel were saved from Egypt, walking through the Red Sea as on dry land. Jesus bled and died on a cross to save us from our sin and give us the gift of eternal life. Common to both stories is that God himself is the prime actor behind the people’s salvation. Salvation is not something we do. It is the thing God does and has done. Self-help books may be helpful for curbing bad habits and succeeding in business, but there are no self-salvation books. Salvation is God’s work.

Salvation is thought of in a couple of ways. Some people emphasize God’s salvation as being fundamentally about securing our eternal destiny. Because of our ‘sin problem,’  we are unable to have a personal relationship with God and are destined toward eternal separation from Him (hell); however, Jesus acted decisively to bring about our salvation through His death on the cross. When we personally respond by trusting in him as our Savior and Lord, we get to share in God’s life for all eternity. Other folks describe salvation in less ethereal and spiritual terms, choosing to focus on the here and now. Like the Jews rescued from the hand of Pharoah, these folks look for God’s saving action in the face of structural and systemic evils: poverty, racism, injustice.

When our understanding of salvation is just spiritual or just social, we miss out on the full-orbed flavor. I don’t want to minimize our real spiritual need, but putting the matter in purely spiritual (and private!) terms betrays the social dimension of the gospel of salvation. Salvation is both social and spiritual.

Israel left Egpyt to escape their economic, political and racial oppression at the hands of Pharoah, in the process they spent forty years in the wilderness learning how to walk in Covenant faithfulness with YHWH. Jesus gave his life as a ransom for many, but he died on a cross, the death sentence for revolutionaries, political subversives and any who threatened Empire. For Ancient Israel salvation meant coming up from slavery. For Christians, salvation means freedom from sin and union with God. But Israel’s salvation included a covenant and Christian salvation is tied up with the Kingdom of God and the reign of Christ on this earth. When we pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, we pray for God to save the world from sin, from sickness, war and violence, and oppression. The salvific work of the cross involves the reconciliation of all things to God. This means salvation is not just about our ‘spiritual needs’ but it is the redemption we long for in the realms of culture, politics, economics, ecology, and in our personal lives.

One day Jesus ate at the home of a tax collector named Zaccheus (Luke 19:1-10). Everybody knew how great a sinner Zaccheus was (Luke 19:7). He extorted money from the people and he aligned himself with the occupying powers of Rome. They couldn’t believe Jesus would go and eat dinner with such a man.  Zaccheus stood up at the supper table and promised to make restitution for the real wrong he had done, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount” (19:8). Jesus said, ““Today salvation has come to this house, because of this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (19:9) Salvation comes to our house too, as we extricate ourselves from our complicity with systemic injustice and invite the reign of Christ to show us a different way. 

 

N is for Non-Violence (an alphabet for penitents).

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

-1 Cor. 1:18

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. -1 Cor. 2:2

Non-violence is not passive pacifism. It is not a silent winking at injustice. Non violence is the way of the cross.

Violence is regarded both as a problem—gun violence, bullying, terrorism, war—and a necessity. How else are we going to quash terrorism, depose dictators, police inner-cities and create the conditions necessary for peace? While pacifism was the default position of the early church, Christian’s gradually accepted military service and war. Augustine’s famously articulated what has come to be known as Just War Theory— a statement on the conditions of when war is a moral good (or at least a moral necessity). John Howard Yoder rightly questioned whether the conditions of Just War have ever been satisfied, though even within the constraints of Just War theory, the cessation of violence is the goal, and war ought to be rare.

In the gospels, and in our celebration of Lent, we are reminded that Jesus’ answer to human violence was not war and violence but a cross. He didn’t kick-ass and take names. He rode a donkey foal into Jerusalem, knowing he would die there. He gave his life to bring an end to the cycle of human violence. Following Jesus means walking with Him on Calvary road. Our Model in life and conduct chose self-sacrifice over destruction and harm.

How do you combat the evils in the world? What should be our response to terrorism? The horror of ISIS and the refugee crisis? What about North Korean nuclear armament? Or Russia’s encroachment in Crimea? Or racial violence against African students in India?

Closer to home, what about policies like stop-and-frisk, the incarceration of minorities or injustice toward immigrant communities? What about the proliferation of hate crimes against Jews and Muslims? Violence How do we respond?

The answer is the cross. It was Jesus response, and it should be ours too.

Following Jesus means that our imagination is cruciform. We are shaped by Christ’s cross as we take up our own cross and follow him (Matt 16:24). Against the violence which pervades our culture and our world, we are being shaped into God’s non-violent people.

There are practical questions about what this means, especially as we aim non-violence at large systemic and trans-national problems.  But then again how was a crucifixion (a death sentence for failed revolutionaries) in a marginal province of the Roman Empire a decisive response to human sinfulness? The past century showed us several examples (Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela) of the power of non-violence to effect social change. But more than that if we participate with the Son of God in his cross, we can expect that God to continue his good work in us and our world.

 

 

The Sour-Faced Evangelists of Lent?

It is Ash Wednesday. Today many us will attend a service to receive the imposition of ashes–a dark smudge across our foreheads. This is just the first thing imposed on us in Lent, a season of self-imposed discipline. We give up chocolate, meat, coffee, alcohol, smoking–or anything that makes us happy.  Jesus suffered in the wilderness and on his long, winding road to Calvary. The Church has deemed that appropriately, we should suffer too. We wander through today our faces marked with soot and scowls. Fasting makes us hangry. Our head throbs from caffeine withdrawal. We snap at others because all our go-to-coping mechanisms are declared off limits.

Is this what Lent is about? Here are excerpts for the top three Google hits answering the question, “What is Lent?”:

What is Lent? Lent is a season of the Christian Year where Christians focus on simple living, prayer, and fasting in order to grow closer to God. (from UpperRoom.org -Lent 101)

Lent is a season of forty days, not counting Sundays, which begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Saturday. Lent comes from the Anglo Saxon word lencten, which means “spring.” The forty days represents the time Jesus spent in the wilderness, enduring the temptation of Satan and preparing to begin his ministry. (from umc.org- “What is Lent and Why does it Last Forty Days?”)

Lent is a period of fasting, moderation, and self-denial traditionally observed by Catholics and some Protestant denominations. It begins with Ash Wednesday and ends with Easter Sunday. The length of the Lenten fast was established in the 4th century as 46 days (40 days, not counting Sundays). During Lent, participants eat sparingly or give up a particular food or habit. It’s not uncommon for people to give up smoking during Lent, or to swear off watching television or eating candy or telling lies. It’s six weeks of self-discipline. ( from gotquestions.org – “What is the meaning of Lent?)

These definitions augment one another. Lent is a season of self-denial leading up Easter for the purpose of our growing close to God.  Lent is one of the two great preparatory seasons of the church. But whereas Advent is full of announcement of the in-breaking of the Kingdom, Lent reminds us that on Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem  suffering and death await.

I am guided by the conviction that Christianity is Good News.  Christians are God’s Good News People.  We believe that this good news culminates at Calvary where Jesus set us free from sin, death and spiritual oppression. This isn’t just a season of self-imposed suffering, self denial and sour-faces. Here we mark Christ’s confrontation and ultimate victory over the Powers.

So we can take up our cross and follow Jesus because this isn’t just a death march. Jesus wins and on his way to be crucified, he exposes the lies that propped up the political and religious hegemony of his day. Jesus died for us so that we would die to ourselves and rise again with our life in him.  We participate in Lent because we know despite the hard road Jesus walked, the brokenness and violence he suffered, he would bring wholeness and shalom to all who trust in him.

Give up coffee. Give up meat. Give up pleasure and lay aside vice. But don’t do it with a sour face. Don’t do it with the shallow hope of becoming a better you. Do so in the strong confidence that Jesus suffered every shame, every pain, every hurt at Calvary because he had something better for you–abundant life, peace with God, reconciliation and justice for all. Fasting is an appropriate response both to prepare and to mark the sacred moment of what Jesus may be doing in you. He didn’t avoid pain, we shouldn’t either. But in the midst of sorrow we have joy because our salvation awaits.

Jesus is on the road, his face like a flint toward Jerusalem. Whatever holds you in bondage Christ has come to set you free. This is good news.

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If God Were More Christlike: a book review

In John 14, before Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, he tells his disciples that if they have seen him, they have seen the Father (John 14:9). And yet often our image of God can look very different from Jesus. Our God could be a doting grandfather, a deadbeat dad or absentee landlord, a punitive judge, or some Santa Claus blend. If Jesus is God-in-the-flesh and our vision of what the Godhead is really like, then we desperately need to see this more Christlike God. This is just the vision that Brad Jersak casts in A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel. 

Jersak is an author I’ve read appreciatively in the past. His book Can You Hear Me? is one of my favorite books on listening prayer. He also wrote Her Gates Will Never Be Shut against the idea of Hell as eternal conscious punishment (like Rob Bell but with complete sentences) and has co-edited a volume critiquing penal models of the atonement (Stricken By God?). He was the pastor and church planter of Fresh Wind in Abbotsford, BC and got his PhD examining the political theology of Canadian philosopher George Grant. Additionally he edits a couple of online magazines (Christianity Without the Religion Magazine and the Clarion Journal). In recent years, Jersak has journeyed to Orthodoxy (OCA). He teaches New Testament and Patristics at the Westminster Theological Centre (Cheltenham, UK).  I do not always agree with Jersak. I tend to have a more of a classical evangelical outlook, but I appreciate his challenge and think he raises some important questions about how we understand God.

Jersak’s case for the Christlike God unfolds in three parts. In part one he confronts our images of God and offers a vision of God, shaped by the Incarnation and the cross. In chapter one Jersak relays a conversation with a teenager he calls Jess who rejected Christianity because of God’s judgment, damnation and his-Old-Testament-genocidal tendencies, etc. (16-18). Jersak’s answer to Jess is to say to her every objection  is, “God is exactly like Jesus.”  Jersak then goes on to confront the various caricatures of God western Christians often present (chapter two), and confront the voluntarism underlying much of theology proper in Western thought (chapters three and four). In chapter five, Jersak points us toward the incarnation as a means of retooling our vision of the God revealed through Christ.

Part two further unpacks what this Christlike God looks like and what he does, giving special emphasis on how the cross shapes our vision of God. Jersak paints God as loving first and foremost. Because of this, God operates in the world most often via consent (Divine and human consent). This has implications for how we tackle the problem of theodicy. In part three, Jersak ‘unwraths’ God by recasting ‘wrath’ in the Bible  as metaphorical language describing God’s consent to our non-consent (of Him). Much of part three is dedicated to unfolding the New Testament metaphors of the atonement as non-punitive.

Jersak contrasts the ‘God of Will’ in Western thought with the God of Love revealed in Jesus by his cross. According to Jersak. the God of Will emphasizes freedom of action (61). In this understading, everything God does and wills is right, because it is God that wills it. Likewise, If this is our vision of God, we also seek our own freedom to act as we choose. The theology of this willful God tends towards triumphalism. In contrast the God of love comes in the form of Christ: a God who goes to the cross and is crucified by humanity. He doesn’t force his will on his creatures but has opened up a way for them through his self giving, self-emptying (kenotic) love.

To my mind Jersak does one of the best jobs of confronting and critiquing the problem of voluntarism (the primacy of the freedom of the will in God) in a way that a general reader can understand.  I think he is right to push us towards a more self-emptying vision of God. This is a far cry of triumphalism. Jersak writes:

A theology of the cross admits the obvious: namely, God is truly all-powerful and immovable in his love but also (though not only), is surprisingly, we often experience him as all-powerless in time, in the world. ‘All Powerless’? I only make such a bold statement advisedly, not to diminish God’s omnipotent love, but to resist human conceptions of power-as-coercion erroneously imposed on God. (170)

This is a challenge to any sort of Omnipotent-Might-Makes Right, sort of Will-to-Power picture of God.   This doesn’t make God weaker, it makes him less coercive. As Jersak says, “Yes, Christ is mighty to save, since his love is a power far greater than force: the left-handed scepter of enduring mercy” (178).  I think he is right to let this vision of Jesus shape his hermeneutic of scripture as he explores the image of God.

However I wasn’t completely happy with his handling of the Old Testament.  He favors strongly New Testament texts and tends to only quote the Old Testament favorably when it coincides with his vision of this ‘more Christlike God.’ Passages that are more retributive (i.e. Numbers 31, the conquest, etc) are dismissed because they are out of character for this God revealed in Christ (16-18). Or the wrathful parts of the Old Testament are cast as an early, immature vision of God in early Judaism, using James Fowler’s Stages of Faith (putting early Judaism on par with Fowler’s description of  school children’s faith development). There is something to the notion of progressive revelation in the Old Testament but I think Jersak’s canon seems too limited. Because of this, I think he commits the same error that many of those he critiques do: he offers an overly simple picture of God that does not do justice to all that God is.

That isn’t to say I didn’t really enjoy this and found reading it fruitful. Theologically Jersak pushes me in a good direction. I applaud his critique of where we done mussed up gospel. I want the more Christlike God that Jersak commends and share his discomfort with the way God’s wrath is described by many in the evangelical world. I also appreciate his pastoral insights into places that our vision of God can be detrimental to our life and soul. I give this book four stars and recommend it to everybody who reads John Piper.

Notice of material connection: I received this book via Litfuse Publicity in exchange for my honest review.