Posts tagged ‘Church’
Luther on Christ’s Resurrection…And Ours
On this Easter Monday, I thought I would share with you some words from a series of seventeen sermons preached by Martin Luther in 1533 on 1 Corinthians 15. In this chapter, the apostle Paul speaks of the resurrection of Christ and the hope and assurance that it gives us that we too will be raised on the Last Day:
Because Christ is risen and gives us His resurrection against our sin, death, and hell, we must advance to where we also learn to say: “O death, where is thy sting?” [1 Corinthians 15:55] although we at present see only the reverse, namely, that we have nothing but the perishable hanging about our neck, that we lead a wretched filthy life, that we are subject to all sorts of distress and danger, and that nothing but death awaits us in the end.
But the faith that clings to Christ is able to engender far different thoughts. It can envisage a new existence. It can form an image and gain sight of a condition where this perishable, wretched form is erased entirely and replaced by a pure and celestial essence. For since faith is certain of this doctrine that Christ’s resurrection is our resurrection, it must follow that this resurrection is just as effective in us as it was for Him – except that He is a different person, namely, true God. And faith must bring it about that this body’s frail and mortal being is discarded and removed and a different, immortal being is put on, with a body that can no longer be touched by filth, sickness, mishap, misery, or death but is perfectly pure, healthy, strong, and beautiful…
God did not create man that he should sin and die, but that he should live. But the devil inflicted so much shameful filth and so many blemishes on nature that man must bear so much sickness, stench, and misfortune about his neck because he sinned. But now that sin is removed through Christ, we shall be rid of all of that too. All will be pure, and nothing that is evil or loathsome will be felt any longer on earth. (AE 28:202-203)
Luther’s final words beautifully summarize the hope of Easter: “All will be pure, and nothing that is evil or loathsome will be felt any longer on the earth.” Because Christ is risen, the evils of sin and death will be destroyed. Or, in the words of the poet John Donne, because of Easter, “death, thou shalt die!”
Christ is risen! And this means you will too.
Clothing the Naked
“The Taking of Christ” by Caravaggio, 1602
It must have been a terrifying ordeal. The man who twelve men had followed, loved, learned from, and staked their lives on was being arrested by an angry mob, led by a man who used to be among their ranks: Judas. Mark depicts the scene like this:
Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Rabbi!” and kissed Him. The men seized Jesus and arrested Him. Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. “Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture Me? Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest Me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.” Then everyone deserted Him and fled. A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind. (Mark 14:43-52)
This final detail about this young man who flees naked is unique to Mark’s Gospel, leading many scholars to believe that it may have been Mark himself who, overcome with fear, fled the scene. But what is recorded here is more than an incidental historical detail. What is recorded here is a tragic historical pattern:
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” (Genesis 3:8-10)
Mark wasn’t the first to flee the Lord naked and afraid. Adam did too.
In the Bible, nakedness is often used as a symbol of shameful sin:
- “Your nakedness will be exposed and your shame uncovered. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.” (Isaiah 47:3)
- Jerusalem has sinned greatly and so has become unclean. All who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns away. (Lamentations 1:8)
- “I am against you,” declares the LORD Almighty. “I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness and the kingdoms your shame.” (Nahum 3:5)
Sin and nakedness go hand in hand. But the promise of Scripture is that when sin leaves us shamefully naked, Jesus clothes us with His righteousness: “I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of His righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10). Even as we flee from the horror of the cross naked in sin, Jesus draws us back to His cross, covering our nakedness with His atoning blood. The death on a cross that once caused everyone to flee now beckons all to its promise of salvation. During this Holy Week, this is what we remember. And this is what we believe.
Has The Bible Been Corrupted?
This past weekend in worship and ABC, we discussed some of the biggest objections and obstacles that people present to trusting in Jesus. One of the objections and obstacles I covered in ABC had to do with the reliability of Scripture. Bart Ehrman, a skeptical scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explains why so many people call into question the Bible’s reliability:
Not only do we not have the originals [of the biblical manuscripts], we don’t have the first copies of the originals. We don’t even have the copies of the copies of the originals, or the copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later – much later. In most instances, they are copies made centuries later. And these copies all differ from one another, in many thousands of places…These copies differ from one another in so many places that we don’t even know how many differences there are. Possibly it is easiest to put it in comparative terms: there are more differences in our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.[1]
Many people wonder if that which is recorded in the Bible is historically accurate. Recently, popular news commentator Bill O’ Reilly called into question the historicity of the biblical stories of Adam and Eve and of Jonah, saying, “I was taught, in my Catholic school, that a lot of the stories in the Bible are allegorical.”[2] Bart Ehrman takes it a step farther. He not only questions if what is recorded in the Bible is historically accurate, he questions if what is recorded in the Bible was even supposed to be there at all! He notes the many ancient copies we have of the Bible differ from each other, thereby undermining their veracity, at least in Ehrman’s eyes. After all, if no two ancient manuscripts completely agree with each other, how can we know which manuscripts record what was actually written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, et al?
In their book Reinventing Jesus,[3] three biblical scholars make some helpful distinctions concerning the types of variants, or differences, that we find in ancient biblical manuscripts. In order to understand what is truly going on with the differences we have between ancient copies of the Bible, it is worth it to review their categories.
Spelling Differences
The majority of the variants we have in the New Testament are either alternate spellings or misspellings of a given word. For instance, the name John is in some manuscripts spelled Ioannes, while in other manuscripts, it is spelled Iaones. One “n” or two? It doesn’t really matter. Regardless of how this name is spelled, we know to whom the manuscript is referring.
Differences That Do Not Affect Translation
There are some differences between ancient copies of the Bible that have no affect on how we read something in English. For example, Greek allows for definite articles before proper names, but does not demand them. Thus, instead of referring to “Mary,” a biblical Greek text may refer to “the Mary.” Or, instead of referring to Jesus, a Greek text may read “the Jesus.” Because Greek allows for but does not demand these definite articles, some ancient Greek texts contain the definite articles in front of names while others do not. This, however, does not affect the translation or meaning of a given biblical text. Rather, the decision to retain or forgo a definite article is merely a matter of style.
Meaningful Variants That Are Not Viable
There are some differences between ancient biblical copies that do indeed affect the meaning of a text, but one of the variant readings is simply not viable. For instance, ancient versions of 1 Thessalonians 2:9 refer to “the gospel of God” while a late medieval manuscript of this same verse refers to “the gospel of Christ.” Though the gospel is indeed Christ’s gospel, because only one late medieval manuscript has this reading while almost all other ancient manuscripts refer to “the gospel of God,” the reading that refers to the gospel of Christ simply isn’t viable. Too many other texts militate against this reading.
Meaningful and Viable Variants
Finally, there are some variants between ancient biblical copies that both affect the meaning of a text and are viable. Romans 5:1 has variants that read, “We have peace” as well as “Let us have peace.” Scholars are split on which one is original. But even if scholars are split on which one is original, both statements are theologically correct. After all, we are both promised peace through Christ and commanded to be people of peace by Christ.
It is important to note that the variants which are both meaningful and viable make up only about one percent of all textual variants. Moreover, even with the many, but small, differences in our many ancient biblical manuscripts, not one of these differences – even the meaningful and viable ones – compromises a biblical doctrine. Throughout all of these manuscripts, doctrines like the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, and salvation by grace through faith are taught. Indeed, Ehrman is finally forced to admit that the vast majority of variants in ancient biblical manuscripts are insignificant when he writes, “Most of these differences are completely immaterial and insignificant.”[4]
So what does all this mean? It means the text of the Bible we have is the text of the Bible as it has always been. Thanks to the faithful and diligent efforts of many scribes and scholars over many centuries, the words of the apostles and prophets have been faithfully handed down from one generation to the next. What we read now in the Bible is what the Christian Church has always believed, taught, and confessed. Christ has preserved His Word from corruption by His grace. Thanks be to God!
[1] Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (New York: Harper Collins, 2005), 10.
[2] Melissa Barnhart, “Robert Jeffress Argues With Bill O’Reilly Over If Jonah, Adam and Eve Stories Are Real,” Christian Post (3.8.13).
[3] J. Ed Komoskewski, M. James Sawyer & Daniel B. Wallace, Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss the Really Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2006), 53-63.
[4] Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 10.
The Questions God Won’t Answer
It had to be a frustrating experience for the disciples. They wanted Jesus to answer what they thought was a perfectly appropriate and critically important question: “Lord, are You at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6)? This question seemed fair enough. After all, when the disciples pose this query, Jesus has already risen from the dead and has been periodically appearing to His in a dazzling demonstration of His dominion over death. And now that Jesus has conquered death, the only thing left for Him to do is to usher in the utopia of God’s kingdom. But Jesus gives His disciples a less than satisfactory answer to their question about God’s kingdom: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by His own authority” (Acts 1:7). Jesus says to His disciples, “God’s kingdom is coming, and My Father knows when it’s coming. But He’s not going to tell you. It’s not for you to know.”
The refusal of God to provide satisfactory answers to all the questions Christians ask has been a conundrum that has frustrated the faithful for millennia. Questions that range from the mildly curious – “When did the dinosaurs go extinct according to the Bible?” – to the direly critical – “Why does God allow evil to continue to rage in world?” – are left unanswered, at least in toto – by what God reveals in holy Writ. Yes, there are partial answers these questions and to others like them, but there are not complete answers. And this leaves many discouraged and despondent.
Like many other countless Christians throughout the ages, Martin Luther too struggled with why God did not answer everything everyone might want to know. After much reflection, Luther came to this conclusion: “Whatever God does not tell you, or does not want to tell you, you should not desire to know. And you should honor Him enough to believe that He sees that it is not necessary, useful, or good for you to know.”[1] Luther was willing to trust that God knew – and knew how to manage – what Luther himself did not.
Perhaps the reason God does not tell us everything we might like to know is this: a lack of knowledge compels trust. In other words, when we do not know something that God knows, we are compelled to trust that God knows what He’s doing even if we happen to be left in the dark. Our lack of a comprehensive answer to every question we might have can actually be used by God to increase our faith! And growing in faith is far more important than growing in mere knowledge.
And so, what would you like to know about God? God may not give you every answer to every question, but you already have His answers to the questions that matter most. Does God love you? Yes! Can you be redeemed by the blood of Christ? Yes. Can you trust that God knows what He’s doing and has your best interest at heart? Yes.
How much more do you really need to know?
[1] Martin Luther, What Luther Says, Ewald M. Plass, comp. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), §209.
The Price of Shame
I’m not sure the framers of the sexual revolution of the 1960’s ever envisioned this. What they dreamed of was the freedom to sexually express themselves without having to answer to what they thought were the stifling restraints of a traditional – and, in their view, outdated – sexual ethic. What they wound up sowing, however, were the seamy seeds of sexual objectification and oppression among subsequent generations.
Cole Moreton, in his article for The Telegraph titled “Children and the Culture of Pornography,”[1] offers a disturbing peek inside a generation who has managed to shake itself free of the moral manacles which once guided the intimate encounters of yesteryear. I must warn you: the frank tone of his article is not for the faint of heart. He opens with the story of a thirteen-year-old girl named Chevonea. A boy had pressured her into performing a sex act on him, which he recorded with his cell phone’s camera and subsequently showed to all his buddies. Chevonea threatened to a jump from a window if he did not delete the recording. But before she could have second thoughts about her desperate threat, she slipped and fell sixty feet to her death. Chevonea’s story is nauseating. But her tale is, devastatingly, one among many spawned by a culture gone sexually mad.
The majority of Moreton’s article discusses the ease of access to pornography and how it distorts our children’s view of themselves and others. Indeed, many of our young people have gone from consuming these illicit materials to creating them with nothing more than the video recorders on their phones, as in Chevonea’s case. And many of the children who home grow these pornographic videos aren’t even teenagers yet.
So what are the consequences of growing up in such a so-called “sexually liberated” culture? Moreton explains the effects are especially severe on girls: “Sexual pressure can cause girls to contemplate suicide, self-harm, develop eating disorders, or try to lose themselves in drugs or alcohol.” For a movement that began as one of liberation, this hardly sounds like freedom to me.
The Scriptures remind us that sexual freedom can only be truly found within the context of sexual commitment. God’s created order for intimacy rings as true today as it ever has: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). God sets a clear pattern: sexual intimacy which results in the joining of two fleshes into one is to take place only after a man is willing to “hold fast to” (i.e., commit to, or marry) his wife. Such commitment, in turn, results in true freedom: “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25).
As I read those final words from Genesis 2, I can’t help but think of Chevonea and the overwhelming shame she must have felt after a pushy boy devastated her dignity and betrayed whatever little trust she may have had in him by flaunting a sickly conceived video. This young man may have used his sexually liberated sensibilities to pressure a young girl to engage in acts completely outside the bounds of common decency, but such sexual freedom turned out to be nothing more than a Trojan horse in which were hidden the stifling shackles of shame.
Ultimately, when it comes to our sexual behavior, we must answer a fundamental question: To what do we want to be beholden? Because we will be beholden to something. We will either be beholden to the slavery of shame that masquerades as sexual liberation or we will be beholden to the constraints of divine law which free us to live without shame because we are within the comforting assurances of God’s will.
I know which one sounds better to me. Which one sounds better to you?
[1] Cole Moreton, “Children and the culture of pornography: ‘Boys will ask you every day until you say yes,’” The Telegraph (1.27.2013).
Sharing the Gospel…Even When It’s Hard
How far would you go to share the gospel? Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 9 constitute a rallying cry to “pull out all the stops,” as it were, to get the gospel to those who need to hear it:
Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)
Paul’s call to “become all things to all men…for the sake of the gospel” has been a topic of many a conversation about what is involved in showing and sharing God’s love to a world that is hostile to the exclusive claims of Christ. Though many things could be said about proclaiming the gospel in a world like this, there is one thing in particular that I would focus on in this post: Proclaiming the gospel to a world adverse to its message often involves pain.
Proclaiming the gospel involves much more than just being familiar enough with the culture around you to speak the gospel in a way that is intelligible to that culture, it involves enduring persecution from that culture when it takes umbrage with the gospel’s message. This was certainly the case with Paul. Paul writes, “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews” (verse 20). To become like a Jew was no easy task for Paul, especially since his Jewish comrades considered his message of a crucified Messiah blasphemous. And the punishment for speaking blasphemy was nothing less than a beating. This is why Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:24: “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.” Interestingly, a compendium of Jewish rabbinical teaching called the Mishnah considers lashes to be only a secondary punishment for blasphemy. The primary punishment was that of being cut off from the Jewish people. The rabbis wrote, “All those who are liable to extirpation who have been flogged are exempt form their liability to extirpation” (Mishnah Makkot 3:15). The primary punishment for blasphemy, then, was that of being excommunicated from the Jewish community, but if a person could not stand the thought of excommunication, he could instead choose to be lashed. Paul chose the lashes over the shunning. But why? It certainly wasn’t because he took any particular pride in being a Jew by birth. Paul says of his Jewish pedigree: “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 1:8). Paul chose the lashes because he could not stand the thought of being excommunicated by his Jewish comrades. After all, such excommunication would spell the end of his efforts “to win the Jews” (verse 20). Paul was so desperate to share the gospel with his Jewish community, he was willing to be beaten within inches of his death to do so.
The apostle Peter writes, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps” (1 Peter 2:21). Sometimes, becoming “all things to all men…for the sake of the gospel” means suffering for the sake of the gospel. By the Spirit’s enabling, may we be prepared to face adversity and pain to share and spread God’s message and power of salvation!
When A Little Is A Lot
It has long struck me how God can do so much with so little. A little bit of water and the name of God spoken over us in baptism – and we are brought into the family of Christ. A little bit of bread and a little bit of wine – and we receive Christ’s body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins. It doesn’t take much for God to do great things!
I was reminded of this point once again as I was teaching Daniel 10. In this curious chapter, Daniel receives a vision of “a man dressed in linen, with a belt of the finest gold around His waist. His body was like chrysolite, His face like lightning, His eyes like flaming torches, His arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and His voice like the sound of a multitude” (Daniel 10:5-6). The characteristics of this man are strikingly similar to those used to describe Jesus in Revelation:
I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man,” dressed in a robe reaching down to His feet and with a golden sash around His chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of rushing waters. (Revelation 1:12-15)
Daniel, it seems, is having an encounter with the pre-incarnate Christ.
What is Christ doing before His incarnation? What He does after His incarnation: fighting the forces of evil. He says, “I will return to fight against the prince of Persia” (Daniel 10:20). Many scholars take this reference to “the prince of Persia” as a reference to a fallen angel and not to the human leader of Persia at this time, Cyrus. After this prince of Persia, Jesus says, will come the king of Greece. And then, Jesus ends the chapter by saying, “No one supports me against them except Michael, your prince” (Daniel 10:21).
It is verse 21 that especially struck me. It is just the Son of God and His archangel Michael against the many and varied forces of darkness and evil. Daniel 11 goes into detail concerning those many and varied dark forces. It’s two forces for good marshaled against a countless number of forces for evil. It’s a little against a lot. And yet, good carries the day:
At that time your people – everyone whose name is found written in the book – will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:1-2)
Evil is consigned to everlasting contempt. The redeemed of the Lord enjoy everlasting life. The seemingly little forces for good defeat the massive forces of evil.
Throughout the Bible, evil constantly seeks to gain power using sheer numbers. The Psalmist writes about how “the kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One” (Psalm 2:2). But no matter how many forces evil may be able to marshal, evil is no match for the goodness of God. The quantity of evil foes is no match for the perfect quality of God’s goodness. As Luther writes in “A Mighty Fortress” of God’s power against the devil and minions: “One little word can fell him.” One little word of God can destroy vast army of evil. And that little word has already by spoken from the cross: “It is finished” (John 19:30). From the cross, Jesus sealed Satan’s fate with just a little word. For “It is finished” means “Satan is finished.” This little word defeated great evil and saved us.
So never overlook the little things of God. A little can do a lot. After all, what the world thought was nothing more than an insignificant execution on a cross wound up offering salvation to all humanity. From a little cross flows big hope.
ABC Extra – Some Much Needed Rest
This past weekend in worship and ABC, we talked about the importance of working smarter rather than harder. The poster child for the opposite – working harder rather than smarter – was Moses, who, after he explained to his father-in-law Jethro how he was serving as the sole arbiter and judge for all of Israel’s disputes, was told by his father-in-law, “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). Blessedly, Moses humbly swallowed his pride and, in Exodus 18:24, we read, “Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said.”
Moses may have had the good sense to listen to his father-in-law and delegate some of his duties to other trustworthy Israelites, but, even with some much needed help, Moses’ responsibilities did not suddenly became light and easy. Jethro admits as much when, after encouraging Moses to share his workload with others, he says, “If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain” (Exodus 18:23). Moses’ responsibilities, though fewer, will continue to be straining and stressful. There will still be plenty for Moses to do.
Perhaps you can relate to Moses. After all, you, like Moses, have probably been told of the importance of working smarter and not harder. Yet, no matter how many time management principles you implement and no matter how many tasks you delegate, you, like Moses, may still find yourself awash in a sea of obligations and unexpected troubles that can become overwhelming at times. What do you do when the principles of working smarter rather than harder fail you? Jesus shows the way.
Mark 6 proves to be one of the most tragic in the Gospel. Jesus’ dear friend and cousin, John the Baptist, is beheaded at the behest of Herod Antipas’ stepdaughter. Jesus is understandably distraught. But Jesus’ jam-packed calendar of ministry marches on. In the episode immediately succeeding John the Baptist’s untimely death, Mark notes, “So many people were coming and going that Jesus and His disciples did not even have a chance to eat” (Mark 6:31). Jesus may be mourning, but the crowds still want to see Him.
It is with the memory of Jesus’ cousin weighing in on Him and the throngs of curiosity seekers pressing down around Him that Jesus issues an invitation to His disciples, “Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31).
Jesus’ invitation is fascinating. Though Jesus Himself is certainly tired and emotionally spent, Jesus’ primary concern is not with Himself, but with His disciples. The verbs of His invitation – “come” and “get some rest” – are second person plural verbs. That is, Jesus is saying to His followers, “You come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and you get some rest.” Jesus, knowing that His disciples are exhausted even as He is exhausted, nevertheless has compassion on His disciples and invites them to get some rest by spending time with Him.
Jesus, it seems, is a man of boundless compassion. He has compassion on His disciples when He invites them to rest with Him. When Jesus’ plans for a peaceful getaway are foiled because large crowds follow Him to His destination, Mark notes, “He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So He began teaching them many things” (Mark 6:34). Jesus has compassion on the crowds when He cancels His vacation plans to preach them a sermon. Following His sermon, when He finds out the crowds He has been teaching are hungry, He has compassion on the multitudes by holding history’s first potluck. When everyone else forgets to bring a side dish, Jesus takes the meager offering of a little boy – five loaves and two fish – and multiplies it to feed five thousand.
As He does on the disciples when they are tired and as He does on the crowds when they are spiritually lost and physically hungry, Jesus has compassion on you too. When your life is straining and stressful, Jesus understands. After all, He has gone through straining and stressful times too – losing loved ones and being exhausted by the rigors of day-to-day ministry. But Jesus doesn’t just empathize, He can also help. For the same invitation He offers to His disciples, He extends to you: “Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31). Or, as He puts it another time: “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
No time management principle – no matter how good it may be – can remove all stress and strain from life. For life is full of the unexpected. But no stress or strain – no matter how heavy – can destroy the peace and rest that Jesus gives. For the peace and rest that Jesus gives is not based on life’s circumstances, but on His promise. And His promise is stronger than life’s stresses.
So go away with Jesus and get some rest. You need it.
Worst Funeral Ever
It started with MTV’s “The Real World.” And ever since, television has never been the same. So-called “reality TV” has become a staple of both cable and network prime time lineups. It used to be “Big Brother,” “Survivor,” “The Bachelor,” and “Fear Factor.” Then came reality talent competitions like “American Idol” and “Dancing with the Stars.” These days, shows like “The Biggest Loser” and “The Voice” top the ratings. And now, new to the reality TV field is the surprise hit … “Best Funeral Ever”?
I wish I was making this up, but I’m not. TLC’s newest reality show features over-the-top funerals directed by the over-the-top Golden Gate funeral home in Dallas. The funeral home’s motto describes its philosophy: “You may be in a casket, but it can still be fantastic.” So far, the show has featured a Christmas-themed funeral complete with a mourner dressed as a snowman as well as a funeral for the singer of the Chili’s Baby Back Ribs jingle, Willie McCoy, which boasted a barbeque sauce fountain, ribs for the guests, live pigs, and a coffin shaped like a smoker.
The garishness of these funerals may provide a ratings boost for “Best Funeral Ever,” but its irreverence also invokes deep discomfort. Clinton Yates of the Washington Post lamented, “TLC’s exploitation of how families mourn their dead is shameful in an era in which we can barely focus on keeping each other alive.”[1] Turning mourning into a spectacle just doesn’t seem right.
Of course, there is a reason turning mourning into a spectacle doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem right because it isn’t right. Death and the mourning that it brings is an indicator of something gone terribly wrong and tragically awry. This is why death is referred to in the Bible as an “enemy to be destroyed” (1 Corinthians 15:26). Death is no joking matter.
The ancients were well aware of the gravity of death. After all, it was all around them. In first century Rome, the average life expectancy was a mere twenty years. And the Romans hated this. This is why when a person died, he was taken outside the city to be buried. This is why a Roman law mandated, “No body be buried or cremated inside the city.” People did not want to be near death. They did not want to confront the mortality that surrounded them.
But then, something changed. Rather than burying the dead far away from the living, cemeteries began to become a part of the local landscape. As Christians began to build houses of worship, many cemeteries were plotted directly on church grounds. To worship the living God, you would have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. In our day, we might find this unsettling. But for many early Christians, such a move was intentional. For these Christians believed that death was not only an enemy to be destroyed, but an enemy that would be destroyed. These Christians believed the somber scene of the cemetery was only temporary. Indeed, even the word “cemetery” is from the Greek word for “dormitory” – a place where one dwells only for a time. These cemeteries, then, were not tragically permanent dwellings, but only provisional dormitories. One day, the people buried in them would move out and move on to be with the Lord at the resurrection of the dead. There was no need to be scared of them.[2]
The tragedy of a show like “Best Funeral Ever” is that it replaces resurrection anticipation with TV tawdriness. Snowmen, barbeque fountains, live pigs, and smoker shaped caskets offer little in the way of true and lasting hope.
As Christians, we know that what a funeral needs is not cheap antics, but an empty tomb. It is there that we find cause for real celebration, for it is there that we find God’s promise of life.
[1] Clinton Yates, “‘Best Funeral Ever’: Most frightening reality TV show to date?” Washington Post (1.7.2013).
[2] For a good discussion of how the Christian hope of the resurrection changed ancient views on death, see John Ortberg, Who Is This Man? The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 191.
Moving In Together…Or Whatever You Call It
“Now that we’ve come to some consensus on same-sex marriage, let’s move on to the next puzzle: what to call two people who act as if they are married but are not.” So begins Elizabeth Weil in her New York Times article, “Unmarried Spouses Have a Way With Words.”[1] Though I suppose I could quibble with whether or not judicial fiat or the vote of some states to legalize same-sex marriage really constitutes a “consensus” on this issue, that is beyond the aim of my thoughts here. No, the aim of my thoughts here is to address Weil’s call for a new vocabulary to address the ever-increasing number of cohabitating couples. Weil explains:
The faux spouse is a pretty ho-hum cultural specimen for such a gaping verbal lacuna. But none of the word choices are good. Everyone agrees that partner sounds awful – too anodyne, empty, cold. Lover may be worse – too sexualized, graphic, one-dimensional. Boyfriend sounds too young. Significant other sounds too ’80s. Special friend or just friend (both favored by the 65-and-over crowd) are just too ridiculous.
When it comes to people who are living together and are playing the roles of husband and wife, albeit without all the cumbrous pledges, but who are not legally or ecclesiologically husband and wife, there is a yawning verbal vacuum. Just what do you call these people?
The twentieth century French philosopher Jacques Derrida famously claimed, “There is nothing outside the text.”[2] Though this famous phrase has been unfairly disparaged and mischaracterized as a wild assertion that nothing exists outside of words in and of themselves, the context of this quote reveals Derrida’s claim to be far more modest. Derrida is countering a Rousseauian view of reality which see words as cracked and foggy lenses that inhibit and blur the experience of reality as it truly is. This is why Rousseau, in his writings, yearns to return to a time before language, for he believes that only in a proto-linguistic and, I might add, ruggedly individualistic society can people experience the fullness of reality.[3]
In contradistinction to Rousseau, Derrida takes a much more positive view of language. In his thinking, there is no such thing as an experience of reality which is somehow free from a person individual’s interpretation of it. Language, Derrida continues, provides the framework for this interpretation and can even provide a good framework to do good interpretations of the human experience. Words, therefore, have incredible formative power over our worldviews because words mediate and amalgamate our encounters and experiences with everything around us.
This leads us back to the vocabulary void that Elizabeth Weil decries. From the perspective of a Christian worldview, the dearth of terms for Weil’s mate that can make Weil feel good about her status and her relationship may perhaps reveal that, when it comes to cohabitation, there is not much to feel good about! For the vocabulary of marriage – terms like “husband,” “wife,” and “spouse” – grew up around marriage precisely because marriage between one man and one woman is a good and God-ordained institution that needed a full, rich, and positive cache of terms to describe it. Cohabitation can make no such claim. Thus, perhaps it is good for us to follow Derrida’s lead and let the vocabulary of one of society’s fundamental institutions inform the reality of our relationships. Perhaps we would do well to leave behind the verbal vacuum of cohabitation behind for the rich vocabulary of marriage. After all, words do matter. And words do shape worldviews. Why do you think Jesus came as the Word?
[1] Elizabeth Weil, “Unmarried Spouses Have a Way With Words,” New York Times (1.4.2013)
[2] Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1997), 158.
[3] See Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Essay on the Origin of Languages” (1781).
Pastor Zach's Blog 