Tag: Resurrection

Death Is Not a Part of Life

MaxPixel.freegreatpicture.com-Tombstone-Cemetery-Rip-Grave-Death-D-2036220.jpg

When the gritty reality of death threatens to destroy the creature comforts and status-saturations of a decadent life, the resulting tension can be enormously uncomfortable.  This tension was on full display last week in an admittedly scintillating article from the tabloid newspaper The Sun, which declared in a headline, “To Infinity & Beyond: From ‘young blood’ transfusions to apocalypse insurance – weird ways tech billionaires are trying to live forever.”

The article chronicled attempts to cheat death by such luminaries as Jeff Bezos, who is funding research to try to find a “cure” for aging, and Peter Thiel, who is rumored to have interest in transfusing blood from young, healthy people into those who are elderly in an attempt to make them young again.  Though these schemes sound, on their face, cockamamie, they are also oddly understandable.  Death is intransigently menacing.  So, it feels natural to want to try to figure out a way to deal with it – to face it down, to cut it down, and to turn it back.  But try as we might, death always seems to find a way to do to us what we want to do to it – to face us down, to cut us down, and to turn us back…into dust.

Two weekends ago, a heart-rending article appeared in the Sunday Review section of The New York Times by a self-avowed atheist mother who lost her four-month-old infant son.  Amber Scorah’s description of her struggle is potent:

Several years after leaving my religion, I felt sure I had encountered all the situations I might possibly need to get used to in my new life.

What I had not prepared myself for was death.  Grief without faith.  Which is to say, death without hope …

My son was almost 4 months old when he stopped breathing at day care.  It was his first day there, the first time I had left his side.  Neither the doctors nor investigators could tell us why it happened …

Days passed, days in which nonsensically I lived while my son did not …

If belief were a choice, I might choose it.  But it’s not.  I don’t trade in certainty anymore. If there is something more, it’s not something we know.  If we can’t even grasp how it is that we got here, how can we know with any certainty where, if anywhere, we go when we die? …

This is the one comfort that unbelief gives you, that this life will end and the pain you carry along with it.

Amber’s memoir is impossible to read without getting choked up.  Here is pain, raw and real.  But her pain, in many ways, poses only more questions.  If there is nothing beyond this life, and this is just a fact of life, from where does our hatred of this fact come?  After millions of years of evolutionary progress, hewed out by unrelenting broadsides from death, why can’t we just get over life’s end already?

Perhaps the reason we can’t get over life’s end is because we shouldn’t get over life’s end.  Perhaps our hatred of death – whether this hatred be in the form of a tragic loss like Amber’s or in the form of awkward attempts to bankroll immortality by the world’s super rich – betrays a bias against death that is appropriate, right, and even natural.  Perhaps we are hardwired to know, deep down, that things are not supposed to be this way.  And no amount of atheist and evolutionary philosophizing and rationalizing can convince us otherwise.

Amber tries to salve her longing for life by devoting herself to the study of this life, or so she claims.  She writes:

Asked about death once, Confucius answered, simply, “We haven’t yet finished studying life, so why delve into the question of death?”  The question of my son’s death – the mystery of it, why he vanished – remains without answer.  And so I ask the questions of life:  What force grew this little child?  How did those limbs form themselves from nothing inside of me?  Why did I have the power to make him, but not to bring him back?  

While claiming she has devoted herself to the study of this life, she manages to lapse right back in to pondering her son’s death.  Death, it seems, finds a way to successfully stalk her life.

Jesus once said, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25).  He was, like Amber, a student of life.  But He was also, like Amber, stalked by death.  And so, Jesus claims to be the answer to the billionaires and grieving mothers alike who struggle with death – He can face down, cut down, and turn back death.

Try as we might, we can’t quite seem to normalize and naturalize death – which just might mean that the claim that Jesus makes of being resurrection and life is worth our investigation.  It just might mean that Jesus is not so much calling for us to suspend disbelief for the sake of the supernatural as He is calling for us to admit what we already intuitively know is very natural – that death is not a part of life, but an enemy against life that must be defeated.

We can’t help ourselves.  We hate death and want life.  Jesus promises to defeat death and give life.  And if His promise is true – and I believe that it is – then He is the answer to our irretractable longings.

Sri Lanka, Persuasion, and Resurrection

4601530639_15bbe47d24_b.jpg
Credit: Ronald Saunders / Flickr

There is this telling line that describes the way in which the apostle Paul conducted his ministry: “Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks” (Acts 18:4).  Paul, when it came to sharing the gospel, sought to persuade.  And, by all accounts, he was quite successful.  What began a small group of hundreds of Christians in the first century now numbers 2.18 billion.

The Christian faith has always had an affinity for persuasion.  There is a whole subset of Christian teaching categorized as “apologetics,” which is meant to defend the faith against those who would attack its integrity and persuade those who question its credibility.  Indeed, persuasion is critical to the Christian mission.  Christians are called to make winsome, reasoned, intelligible arguments as to why Jesus is the Messiah in the confidence that God’s Spirit will bring people to faith in Jesus as the Messiah.

Not everyone, however, operates in this way of persuasion.

Last Sunday, as Christians in Sri Lanka were celebrating the resurrection of Christ, a spate of coordinated, terrorist attacks were launched by nine suicide bombers at three churches and three hotels in the island nation’s capital, Colombia, killing around 250.  There were warnings in the days and weeks before the attacks, which Sri Lankan officials failed to heed.  One of the suicide bombers had been previously arrested, but was then released.  ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks, although the extent to which the terror group was involved remains unclear.

Tragically, these kinds of attacks have become unsurprising.  In 2017, 18,814 people were killed in terrorist attacks worldwide.  This represents a whopping 27% decline in deaths from the year before.  Many, many people have lost their lives in these acts of evil.

Behind terrorism lies an ideology that those who disagree with you, whether their disagreement be theological, philosophical, ideological, or political, cannot and are not to be persuaded.  Instead, they are to be defeated and destroyed.  This way of thinking is as horrifying as it is frightening.  But it is also, ultimately, unsuccessful.

At the dawn of the third century, when Christians were being severely persecuted by the Romans, a church historian named Tertullian famously wrote to the Church’s persecutors:

Your cruelty, however exquisite, does not avail you; it is rather a temptation to us.  The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.

And seed it was.  When Tertullian wrote these words, there were around 19,000 Christians in Rome, about 4% of the city’s population.  50 years later, that number had grown to 78,000, around 17% of the city’s population.  By the year 300, there were nearly 300,000 Christians in Rome, which constituted over 66% of the city’s population.  Christians were killed.  But the Christian Church could not be stopped.  The persecutors’ terrorizing overtures were unsuccessful.

As it was in Tertullian’s day, so it is in our day.  The threats of those who despise Christians are simply no match for the persuasive and attractive truth of Christianity.  Those who lost their lives in Sri Lanka while worshipping the risen Savior on Easter are not extinguished.  They are simply now waiting – waiting for the One who, on the Last Day, will call forth their bodies from their graves.  To quote Tertullian once more:

The resurrection of the dead is the Christian’s trust … Life is the great antagonist of death, and will in the struggle swallow up for salvation what death, in its struggle, had swallowed up for destruction.

A terrorist may be able to take a life with a bomb, but he cannot extinguish that life for eternity.  Just like some soldiers, a long time ago, were able to take a life with a cross, but they could not extinguish that life for longer than three days.  Of this we are called to persuade people.  Of this I am fully persuaded.

Christ is risen.  And because He has risen, Sri Lankan Christians will rise.  And so will we.

The Rebuilding of Notre Dame and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Screen Shot 2019-04-16 at 5.57.47 PM.png

The world watched in horror as a medieval Gothic treasure was wrecked last Monday when flames ripped through Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  Parts of the building, the construction of which began in 1163, still stand.  But much of the roof, which was made out of timber and original to the structure, along with the cathedral’s grand spire, also made out of wood and iron and rebuilt in 1844, is no more.

Reports indicate that many of the cathedral’s priceless relics, including what is claimed to have been the crown of thorns Jesus wore during His crucifixion, were rescued from the blaze.  Other relics, like a supposed piece of Jesus’ cross, may not have been so fortunate.  Its status is still unknown.  Parisians, Catholics, Protestants, and countless others across the world are still coming to terms with how a landmark as staid and majestic as Notre Dame – which withstood everything from the French Revolution and its virulently anti-Theist cult of reason to Hitler’s invasion of Paris and his order, thankfully disobeyed by one of his generals, to trigger explosives placed inside the grand façade – could come crashing down due to an accidental fire, likely triggered by an electrical short circuit.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, vowed to rebuild the cathedral under an ambitious timeline. “We will rebuild Notre Dame even more beautifully and I want it to be completed in five years,” the president said in an address last Tuesday.  This is indeed a highly aggressive timeline and one of which many experts are skeptical, suspecting that the rebuilding may take decades instead of years.  When the structure was first built, it took 182 years to complete.

Jesus, as He began His public ministry, gazed upon the temple in Jerusalem, which would have been the ancient Jewish version of Notre Dame, and declared, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days” (John 2:19).  Apparently, President Macron’s ambitious building timeline has nothing on Jesus.  The temple had already been rebuilt once after being destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC.  Herod the Great had begun a restoration and expansion of the temple in 20 BC, which continued into Jesus’ day.  So, you can imagine the incredulity of those listening when Jesus declared that He could rebuild the temple from the ground up in three days.  This is why the people responded, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and You are going to raise it in three days” (John 2:20)?  But, of course, there’s a secret that the people listening to Jesus do not yet know or understand that John happily lets us in on: “The temple He had spoken about was His body” (John 2:21).

Yesterday, Christians all over the world celebrated the truth that Jesus’ building project was a stunning success.  He did at the end of His public ministry precisely what He said He would do at the beginning of His public ministry.  His body was crushed on a cross.  But in three days, He was not only rebuilt, He was resurrected.  Because of Him, even as the storied nave of Notre Dame sat sadly empty yesterday as a house of worship, hearts across the world were full of joy in celebration of the One who is to be worshiped.

When Notre Dame burned, the world lost a precious space.  But Christians did not lose their Christ.  And Christ did not lose His Church.  In the words of the old hymn:

Built on the Rock the Church doth stand,
Even when steeples are falling;
Crumbled have spires in every land,
Bells still are chiming and calling,
Calling the young and old to rest,
But above all the soul distressed,
Longing for rest everlasting.

Work on Notre Dame began 856 years ago because of this promise.  May work begin again on this grand old lady for this same reason.

+ In Memoriam: George H.W. Bush +

George H.W. Bush dead
Credit: Greg Mathieson /Rex / Shutterstock

When George H.W. Bush passed away nearly a week and a half ago, our nation lost a statesman, a war hero, and a president.

State funerals are relatively rare, but Mr. Bush, thanks in large part to his service to our nation as its president, received one.  However, when his son, George W. Bush, stood in the pulpit of the staid and storied National Cathedral to deliver a eulogy, he spoke not so much of Mr. Bush as a president, but as his father.  He reminisced:

To us, he was close to perfect.  But not totally perfect.  His short game was lousy.  He wasn’t exactly Fred Astaire on the dance floor.  The man couldn’t stomach vegetables, especially broccoli.  And by the way, he passed these genetic defects along to us.  Finally, every day of his 73 years of marriage, dad taught us all what it means to be a great husband.  He married his sweetheart.  He adored her.  He laughed and cried with her.  He was dedicated to her totally…

In his inaugural address, the 41st president of the United States said this:  “We cannot hope to only leave our children a bigger car, a bigger bank account.  We must hope to give them a sense of what it means to be a loyal friend, a loving parent.  A citizen who leaves his home, his neighborhood, and town better than he found it.  What do we want the men and women who work with us to say when we are no longer there?  That we were more driven to succeed than anyone around us, or that we stopped to ask if a sick child had gotten better, and stayed a moment there to trade a word of friendship?”  Well, dad, we’re gonna remember you for exactly that and much more.  And we are going to miss you.  Your decency, sincerity, and kind soul will stay with us forever.  So through our tears, let us know the blessings of knowing and loving you, a great and noble man, the best father a son or daughter can have.

It was this last line, at which the younger Bush choked up, that captured the hearts of many who were tuning into the service this past Wednesday, for his words were a reminder of what really matters in a life.  What is done from an oval-shaped office is certainly historically significant and nationally critical.  But what is done around a kitchen table is also significant and critical – perhaps even more so.  God calls us to love others personally long before He calls any of us to lead others politically.  George H.W. Bush knew this – and lived it.

In his book, The Road to Character, New York Times columnist David Brooks makes a distinction between what he calls “the resume virtues” and “the eulogy virtues.”  He writes:

Recently I’ve been thinking about the difference between the resume virtues and the eulogy virtues.  The resume virtues are the ones you list on your resume, the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to external success.  The eulogy virtues are deeper.  They’re the virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being – whether you are kind, brave, honest or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed.

At Mr. Bush’s funeral, the eulogy virtues were certainly on display.  And at a time when many are openly questioning whether or not these types of virtues really matter in public service, the life of George H.W. Bush reminds us that they certainly do.  The virtues we cultivate shape the decisions we make, the wisdom we display, and the legacy we leave.

With all of this being said, we must remember that, for all of George H.W. Bush’s commendable and imitable virtues, nobody is perfect.  The younger Bush said as much about his father.  But, of course, human imperfection goes far deeper and into much more shameful territory than the humorous examples given by George W. Bush of George H.W. Bush.  The younger Bush pulled a rhetorical sleight of hand as he spoke not so much of his father’s imperfections, but of his idiosyncrasies.  But each casket is a reminder that each of us has been infected by real imperfection, the wages of which is death (Romans 6:23).  This is why, as great and as needed as eulogy virtues are, they are not enough.  Something more is needed.

Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, pointed out that, at a certain moment in last Wednesday’s funeral service, during one of the prayers, Mr. Bush went from being referred to as “President George Herbert Walker Bush” and instead began being referred to as “our brother George.”  This was liturgically intentional.  The greatest thing that can be said about George H.W. Bush was not that he was a successful man with many resume virtues.  But it is also not that he was a good man with many eulogy virtues.  Instead, the greatest thing that can be said about George H.W. Bush was that he was a redeemed man, brought into the family of God by the blood of Christ – a brother in Christ.

The eulogy virtues extolled at last week’s funeral leave legacies, which make them of inestimable importance.  Redemption, however, gives hope, which makes it of eternal significance.  Our brother George may have been a good man, but, even better, one day, through faith in Christ, he will be a resurrected man.  His casket will be empty and last week’s funeral will be undone.  That’s Christ’s promise.  And that’s our hope.

Come, Lord Jesus.

A Journalist Is Murdered

26087328517_3ca468b832_k.jpg
Credit: POMED

When Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, he was planning to pick up some documents for his upcoming marriage.  Instead, he walked into an ambush that took his life.  The purported details of the ambush are grim – from dismemberment to acid being used to dispose of his remains.

Mr. Khashoggi wrote articles for The Washington Post that were critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s autocratic tendencies.  Suspicions are running high that behind Mr. Khashoggi’s murder is a furious Crown Prince.  In a phone call with President Trump, however, the royal vehemently denied any knowledge of or participation in the crime.

On the one hand, as an article by Kevin D. Williamson cautions us, there is still plenty we do not yet know about Mr. Khashoggi’s death.  This is why investigators are hot on this case.  Leveling ironclad accusations and jumping to confident conclusions now may damage our credibility later. Patience, to modify an old Latin proverb, often winds up being the mother of accuracy.

On the other hand, even as new facts continue to tumble in, there does seem to be a preponderance of circumstantial evidence that points to the Crown Prince’s involvement.  Thus, provisional, measured, and appropriately humble suspicions that call for further investigation are appropriate.

As it stands right now, this story could have all the makings of a modern-day crime of Cain.  Like Cain cultivated bitterness against Abel for bringing to light his faulty sacrifice, a ruler may have nursed jealously against a journalist for uncovering his ruthless rule.  Instead of rethinking his ways, he may have exacted his vengeance.  If this is, in fact, the case, this we can know:  the truth of this crime, one way or another, will come to light.  God discovers Cain’s crime against his brother when Abel’s blood cries out to Him from the ground (Genesis 4:10).  The victims of sin, it turns out, do not stay silent – even in death.  Sin always seems to get discovered and uncovered.

Thankfully, as Christians, we know that sin is not only inexorably revealed, it will also be eventually routed.  Abel’s blood spoke the truth of Cain’s crime.  But, as the preacher of Hebrews reminds us, there is a “blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24).  For this blood doesn’t just speak of foul play; it secures a holy redemption.  The blood does not just cry for justice; it confers justification.  This blood does not just point to death; it defeats death.  And this blood does not just spill because of man’s sin; it flows from the side of a perfect Savior.

Mr. Khashoggi was ruthlessly murdered in an ambush.  Jesus was ruthlessly murdered on a cross.  But Jesus was also raised.  And He is returning to raise those who have died in Him to live with Him.  And there will be nothing any royal regime, no matter how repressive and resentful, will be able to do about it.