Resurrection Trouble
Easter is hopeful and scandalous all at the same time. It is scandalous because its message insists that what we think we know about death – that it is inescapable – has been escaped by Jesus. It is hopeful because there is something about death’s demise that strikes in us a chord of longing.
Sadly, the message of Easter – that Christ has risen in space and in time and in His body – has often been reduced to little more than a message about general hope for tomorrow and a slightly more spiritual-sounding non-descript existence after death. But it was not this way in the beginning. As N.T. Wright explains:
Death is the last weapon of the tyrant, and the point of the resurrection, despite much misunderstanding, is that death has been defeated. Resurrection is not the redescription of death; it is its overthrow and, with that, the overthrow of those whose power depends on it. Despite the sneers and slurs of some contemporary scholars, it was those who believed in the bodily resurrection who were burned at the stake and thrown to the lions. Resurrection was never a way of settling down and becoming respectable.
The resurrection caused trouble in that world – and it can still cause trouble in this world.
To the tyrant who murders to secure your power – the resurrection will destroy you.
To the disease that saps and sucks the life out of bodies – the resurrection will undo you.
To the hopelessness and helplessness and grief that can set in when a loved one dies – the resurrection will conquer you.
To the devil himself – the resurrection has already defeated you.
This is what we mean when we declare, “Christ is risen.”
And He has, indeed. Alleluia.
Help Needed
Moses had gotten himself in too deep. As he and the children of Israel were traveling through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land, he had not only taken on the role of leader, but of judge:
Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. (Exodus 18:13)
The Israelites were going a bit stir crazy in the wilderness, and they were getting into so many disagreements and disputes with each other that Moses was spending all day trying to arbitrate their altercations. He had time for nothing else.
When Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, comes to visit his son-in-law, he is impressed by what God has done for Israel, but is concerned over what Moses is doing with Israel. He says to Moses:
What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. (Exodus 18:17-18)
Jethro knows that Moses needs help. He cannot judge alone.
Jethro’s words hearken back to God’s words when He saw that the first man He created, Adam, had no one to help him through and with life:
It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. (Genesis 2:18)
So, God created Eve.
In a world where it is noble to be a self-made person and self-sufficiency rules, Jethro reminds us that our limits are blessings. We cannot do it all. We need help. Contrary to our cultural myths of independence and autonomy, it is not good for us to be alone and to try to carry every burden alone.
We don’t always like to hear this, because our limits humble us. Sometimes, we’d prefer to live under a delusion that we are, if not theoretically and theologically, at least functionally omnipotent. But our limits are ultimately meant to bless us. Because they create opportunities for us to form relationships with others who we need – and who need us.
Who do you need to ask for help? The help you ask for may just be the start of a beautiful friendship that you need. And that is good.
Thorny Lies
Satan loves to send malicious messages. This was something the apostle Paul struggled with. When writing to the church he planted in Corinth, he admits:
I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. (2 Corinthians 12:7)
Paul struggled with a thorn. Exactly what this “thorn” was, we don’t know. Some people think it was a physical malady like a loss of sight while others conjecture that he battled some spiritual temptation. Whatever it was, Satan used this thorn as his messenger to torment Paul.
Satan does the same thing with us, too. When we struggle with and suffer from life’s thorns, Satan loves to say:
“This thorn is because God is angry at you for a sin.”
“This thorn means God does not care for you.”
“This thorn proves you are unworthy of others’ love.”
“This thorn will never end. You’ll be miserable forever.”
Have you ever struggled with thoughts that sound something like these? Satan is tormenting you with his malevolent messages.
Do not believe them. Do not believe him.
Paul certainly doesn’t. Because at the same time Satan is seeking to torment Paul with his deceptive messages, God is speaking loving words to Paul:
My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
God responds to Satan’s lies of human worthlessness with the truth of His worthiness, which He gladly and freely shares with us out of His grace. When Satan tells us we are insufficient, God reminds us that His grace is wonderfully sufficient.
Satan may try to speak to us through thorns, but these thorns, instead of destroying us, are taken for us. They’ve all landed on Jesus’ head. And, in exchange, He gives us grace.
Believe that. Believe Him.
“Very Good”
Creation was never intended to be what it has become. Wars. Disease. Hunger. Refugees. This world has come a long way from what God called “very good” when He first made it (Genesis 1:31).
When Jesus arrived, part of His mission was to restore what God had made “very good” to its intended and original state. This is why Jesus preached peace, healed disease, fed the hungry, and gave a place in His kingdom to the displaced of the world.
The German theologian Jürgen Moltmann captures this mission in Jesus’ ministry well when he writes:
When Jesus expels demons and heals the sick, He is driving out of creation the powers of destruction, and is healing and restoring created beings who are hurt and sick. The lordship of God, to which the healings witness, restores creation to health. Jesus’ healings are not supernatural miracles in a natural world. They are the only truly “natural” thing in a world that is unnatural, demonized, and wounded.
What Jesus does, Moltmann argues, is the work of recreation in a world where the destructive and demonic powers of de-creation are hard at work.
This begs a question: where has your life been de-created? Are you struggling with a sin? Is your body ravaged by illness? Are you mired in depression and despondency? Are you somehow unable to provide for yourself or your family adequately?
At moments like these, we often pray for miracles – acts of power that are supernaturally wrought by God Himself. But perhaps we also ought to pray for Genesis 1:31 to come to pass in our life. Perhaps we should pray that the most natural thing fathomable would come to pass in our lives – that we, and the world around us, would be restored to its God-ordained and God-intended created state – that of “very good.”
A New Genesis
The Old Testament opens with these famous words:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
In Greek, one word for “beginning” is genesis, which is why we call the first book of the Bible “Genesis.” It is a book about humanity’s beginning.
The New Testament opens with these words:
This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham. (Matthew 1:1)
In Greek, the word for “genealogy” is genesis. Matthew opens with a genealogy that describes Jesus from the beginning, which echoes the beginning described in Genesis 1:1 because, as John notes, Jesus “was with God in the beginning” (John 1:2). In other words, there was never a time – even in the very beginning – when Jesus was not.
But there’s more.
A little later in Genesis, we read:
This is the book of the generations of Adam. (Genesis 5:1)
What follows is a genealogy of Adam’s descendants, just like in Matthew we get a genealogy of Jesus’ ancestors. And the Greek word behind “generations” is again genesis.
But by Genesis 5, there is a problem. Adam has fallen into sin and has reaped the consequences of sin, including pain, struggle, and death. In other words, Adam’s beginning is now marching toward a tragic end. He will perish.
The story of Scripture, then, is that of a struggle and search for a new beginning that will not inevitably end in pain, struggle, and death. And in Matthew 1, the Scriptures show us that ever since the beginning of Genesis 1, God has been planning to give us a new beginning in Jesus Christ. Genesis 1 is not the only genesis we have. We have a new genesis in Jesus.
So, where do you need a fresh start? A second chance? A new beginning? What has tragically ended for you in this life? A relationship? A hope? A dream?
Christ takes your first beginning – the one we have in Adam – and nails it to a cross and exchanges it for another beginning that will not end. No ending in this life can stop what will endure eternally in the next life.
Now that’s the kind of new beginning we all need.
The end.
What’s So Great About God?
In Hebrew, the name “Micah” means “Who is like the Lord?”
In the Old Testament, the prophet Micah concludes the book that bears his name with the question his name asks:
Who is a God like You? (Micah 7:18)
Right before he asks this question, Micah speaks of God’s unmatched power on behalf of Israel:
“As in the days when you came out of Egypt, I will show them My wonders.” Nations will see and be ashamed, deprived of all their power. They will put their hands over their mouths and their ears will become deaf. They will lick dust like a snake, like creatures that crawl on the ground. They will come trembling out of their dens; they will turn in fear to the LORD our God and will be afraid of you. (Micah 7:15-17)
Just as God dazzled the world when He rescued the people of Israel out from under their slavery to the world’s preeminent superpower at that time – Egypt – God will do so again during Micah’s day when, again, He rescues His people out from under their oppression under the likes of the Assyrians and Babylonians.
But this unlimited and unmatched power is not what makes Micah’s God unique. It is not just that Micah’s God can “beat up” on other nations’ gods.
Instead, what makes Micah’s God truly unequaled is something other than His power:
Who is a God like You, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; You will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. (Micah 7:18-19)
What makes God matchless, according to Micah, is His mercy. All other religions and gods find their foundations in merit – you do your best, and the gods will perhaps sweep in and do the rest. But Micah reminds us that even when we do our worst, God, though He may discipline us, ultimately takes our worst and hurls it down into the deepest ocean trench and, in exchange, gives us His compassion.
Power, then, is not what foundationally makes God, God. Mercy is. Yes, we should fear God’s judgment on our sin. But we can actually see God’s mercy for our sin. Because “we do see Jesus” (Hebrews 2:9). And there is no one like Him – One who would die for our sin.
Fair-Weather Faith
In 2 Samuel 7, David, king of Israel, comes to the prophet Nathan with a concern:
Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent. (2 Samuel 7:2)
David wants to build a temple for God, whose place of residence has, up until this point, been a tent that the Israelites took with them across the wilderness on their way from Egypt to the Promised Land.
In Psalm 132, we learn more about just how committed David was to procuring a more permanent residence for God:
He swore an oath to the LORD, he made a vow to the Mighty One of Jacob: “I will not enter my house or go to my bed,I will allow no sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, till I find a place for the LORD, a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.” (Psalm 132:2-5)
The oath that David swears as he is considering building a temple for God is the same oath that David will hear just chapters later after he has committed adultery with another man’s wife.
When David sleeps with Bathsheba, the wife of one of his military commanders named Uriah, and gets her pregnant, he tries to cover up the affair by summoning Uriah in from the battlefield and encouraging him to go home and “enjoy” his wife so that no one will suspect she has been forced into sleeping with another man. But Uriah refuses, telling David:
The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing! (2 Samuel 11:11)
Like David four chapters earlier, Uriah refuses to go to his home while the ark of God is in a tent and his men are on a battlefield. But the same oath that David once made has now become a liability that David has. So, David commands his general, Joab:
“Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.” So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died. (2 Samuel 11:15-17)
It turns out that David’s oath to God was a fair-weather oath. It was fine for a building project that would make David look good, but it was discarded when David was caught in a sin that made him look bad.
We are called to be more than fair-weather fans of God. Our faith in Him is refined not when it’s easiest to commit to Him, but when it’s hardest. In the words of one of Jesus’ followers named Peter, who himself struggled to stick with his faith when things got tough:
Trials have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:7)
May the oaths that we make be the oaths that we keep. May we be faithful. After all, God has been, is, and will continue to be faithful to us.
Russia Invades Ukraine
Last Thursday, the world changed.
When Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Russia’s neighbor to the southwest, Ukraine, tanks rolled in, troops marched in, missiles were launched, military and civilian casualties were sustained, and the world stood aghast. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg thundered in response to the invasion:
Russia has attacked Ukraine. This is a brutal act of war. Our thoughts are with the brave people of Ukraine … NATO is the strongest alliance in history, and make no mistake we will defend every ally against any attack on every inch of NATO territory. An attack on one ally will trigger a response from the whole alliance.
Certainly, Russia’s aggression has put much of the world on edge.
Like Ukrainians today, ancient Jews were no strangers to invaders. First it was the Assyrians who invaded northern Israel. Then the Babylonians invaded the southern half of the nation. Then the Persians conquered the Babylonians and ruled Israel followed by the Greeks who conquered the Persians. By the first century, it was the Romans who were occupying Israel. Also like Ukrainians today, ancient Jews struggled and suffered under a steady stream of invaders. This is why so many ancient Jews were looking for a militarized Messiah. They wanted someone who could depose their intruders.
Jesus, however, did not turn out to be that kind of Messiah. As He told Pontius Pilate when He was on trial:
My kingdom is not of this world. (John 18:36)
Often, it is assumed that Jesus was waxing poetically about some “pie-in-the-sky” otherworldly kingdom that sounds nice theologically, but is of very little value practically in a world where realpolitik rules. But this interpretation of Jesus’ words is a misinterpretation of Jesus’ words.
When Jesus says His kingdom is not of this world, He does not mean that His kingdom has no effect in this world. Quite the contrary. Jesus’ kingdom is over all earthly kingdoms, which means that every earthly kingdom – both ruthless and righteous – will not and cannot escape accountability to Jesus’ eternal kingdom.
Injustices will be righted. Lives taken will be vindicated. And Jesus will be our peace. As our world grapples with yet another war, may this be our hope.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27)
Meaning in Life
David Foster Wallace’s final unfinished novel, The Pale King, describes a handful of IRS employees looking for meaning in life. One employee, Lane Dean Jr., seems to be particularly overwhelmed by the apparent tedious and utter meaninglessness of his job:
The rule was, the more you looked at the clock the slower the time went. None of the wigglers wore a watch, except he saw that some kept them in their pockets for breaks. Clocks on Tingles were not allowed, nor coffee or pop. Try as he might, he could not this last week help envisioning the inward lives of the older men to either side of him, doing this day after day. Getting up on a Monday and chewing their toast and putting their hats and coats on knowing what they were going out the door to come back to for eight hours. This was boredom beyond any boredom he’d ever felt.
Lane Dean Jr. tries to browbeat his boredom into beauty by imagining a beach, full of sunshine and warmth, but after just an hour of work:
The beach was a winter beach, cold and gray and the dead kelp like the hair of the drowned, and it stayed that way despite all attempts.
Lane Dean Jr. could not seem, try as he might, to conjure meaning in what felt to him to be a meaninglessness job.
Lane Dean Jr.’s struggle for meaning was a reflection of Wallace’s own intensely personal and desperate struggle. For all of his success as an innovative and creative novelist, who is still widely read and well regarded to this day, he too was on a search for meaning in life. But try as he did, he was simply not resourceful enough to create meaning ex nihilo in his admittedly brilliant novels. And his struggle cost him dearly as, tragically, he took his own life.
Wallace’s sad struggle with meaning in life is nothing new. It was King Solomon who once cried:
Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless. (Ecclesiastes 1:2)
Solomon, like so many others before and after him, struggled to see meaning in life. Indeed, the Hebrew word for “meaningless” here is hebel, which refers to a “vapor” or “mist.” Solomon knew that so much of the stuff in life that we tout as meaningful – our jobs, our successes, our paychecks, our social networks, and even our morality – always and eventually evaporate before our eyes. They do not and cannot be lastingly meaningful in and of themselves.
So, what is the solution to our futile and desperate attempts to create meaning in life? It is to trade our obsession to create meaning in life for a humble and sincere desire to seek the meaning of life. For life to have lasting meaning, meaning must come from somewhere beyond life and from something larger than life. Humans cannot create true meaning ex nihilo. Instead of being created, true meaning must be revealed. This is why Solomon, after declaring all human attempts to create meaning futile, concludes:
Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body. Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. (Ecclesiastes 12:12-13)
People may write volumes upon volumes of books, as did David Foster Wallace, seeking to make life meaningful, but only God and His Word can provide true and lasting meaning. It is in His Word that the true and lasting meaning of life is revealed – to obey God’s commands and to be loved by Him even when we do not.
Is this the foundation of your meaning?
Never Left Without a Blessing
Reaping the consequences of sin is terrible and tragic. When Adam and Eve fall into sin, God proscribes many devastating consequences:
To the woman He said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” To Adam Je said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:16-18)
There will be pain in childbearing, pain in work, and eventual death. This sounds awful. Indeed, it sounds hopeless. But then, in the very next verse, we read:
Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. (Genesis 3:19)
Eve’s ability to have children is notable, because God blessed people with the gift of children before they fell into sin:
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” (Genesis 1:28)
Even as God curses people because of their sin, He does not leave them without a blessing in their sin. Even though Adam and Eve will die, new life will come from them, resulting in, supremely, the birth of a Savior.
It can be tempting to believe, when we struggle with sin and experience and endure the consequences of sin, that God has forsaken us because of our sin. But as with Adam and Eve, even when we suffer under the curse of sin, God never leaves us without a blessing. He never leaves us without a promise of a new life.
Eve’s blessing was to be the mother of all the living. Our blessing is to be loved and blessed by the One who came from Eve and redeemed her – and us.
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