His Only Son

November 23, 2015

It is quite fitting that the bulk of the Apostles' Creed centers on the person and work of Jesus Christ; after all, it is (apart from the Scriptures themselves) one of the primary documents of the Christian faith. After distinguishing which god we worship (the Father Almighty), the Creed speaks of Jesus Christ as Lord, which designation as we noted two days ago, is far more demanding of us than any of the modern counterparts in contemporary government. But three little words slip in almost imperceptibly: "his only Son." It is a common error to associate this phrase with the words that follow concerning the conception and birth of Jesus, but when the Bible and the Creed speak of the Sonship of Jesus Christ, they are not speaking of something that happened in time, as if the Second Person of the Godhead became "the Son" upon his birth to the Virgin Mary. Not at all! Christ is eternally the Son of God. In Isaiah 9:6 we read, "Unto us a child is born, a Son is given." The wording is specific: the Son is not born; he is given. That is because the Son is eternally who he is; he didn't suddenly become the Son upon the birth of the child Jesus.

Sonship in Biblical time indicated primarily two things: identity and authoritative inheritance. Ancient Hebrew didn't have adjectives like ours. One didn't say for example, "That man is devilish." Instead it would be said that "he is a son of the devil." In the same way, a godly man would be called a "son of God." So when in John's Gospel Philip asks Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus replies, "he who has seen me has seen the Father." Why? Because Jesus is the Son of God, i.e., like his Father.

We tend to think of the terms "Son of God and Son of Man" in almost the reverse of their original intent. As Son of God, Jesus the man showed us in human flesh what God is like. "Son of Man" however, has its roots in Daniel where that designation refers to divinity. It only remains to examine that word his "only" Son. That is where we might say divinity kicks in. Jesus Christ in human flesh uniquely reveals the Father to us; no one else can even come close to the revelation we see in him. Again, as Jesus told Philip, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father."

People have all kinds of ideas about God. Some are pretty imaginative, many are completely inaccurate, only one gets it right, and that's Jesus. For most of my adult life I lived under a cloud of guilt, some of it rightly deserved, some of it merely an overactive conscience. No matter what I read in the Bible, I felt as if God were mad at me. It took years for me to understand that Jesus' words to the woman caught in adultery (John 8) applied to me, too: "Neither do I condemn you." And if Jesus doesn't, neither does God, for which I am thankful tonight. And guess what? He doesn't condemn you, either.

It's Foggy Tonight

November 22, 2015

Is it really gratitude if one doesn't feel it? Perhaps even more at those times. In recent weeks I've been thinking about purpose and direction. For most of my working years, I had a pretty good idea of what my purpose was and what I needed to do to get there. Sure, there were those times along the way when I lost sight of it, or when I had to make minor and major adjustments in order to keep moving along, but as a pastor, I knew my job and did my best to fulfill the responsibilities it entailed. When Linda retired, I advised her to not make any major long-term commitments for a year, so as to give her time to sort out how life looked for her. I've tried to do the same thing myself, and realize now how frustrating that can be. When one's purpose stared you in the face every morning, you get up and do what you have to do, whether you feel like it or not. When that purpose is unclear, everything tends to get lost in a fog with no landmarks.

When I retired, I told pastor Joe that for the first year I wouldn't do anything that even looked pastoral unless he requested it, and I think I've done a pretty good job with it. People have asked how I like retirement, and I can truthfully say I have no desire to go back. I look at what pastor Joe is doing; the energy and enthusiasm he brings to the job, and know I made the right decision at the right time. Nevertheless...

I'm still sorting things out, and finding myself torn between wanting that purpose that gets me up in the morning and wanting to be free of any responsibilities that require long term commitment, but getting more and more ready to dive into the future. I just don't know where the diving board or even where the pool is. All of which leaves me somewhat nonplussed. I feel bad for those who have never known the exhilaration of knowing their purpose. It's not a pleasant place to be, and no number of hobbies or distractions are adequate substitutes. But I'm learning that it is very possible to substitute doing something for being the person I need to be. Sometimes even one's purpose in life can take the place in one's heart that belongs to Christ alone. Bill Hybels said it best years ago: "Be careful that the work of Christ doesn't destroy the work of Christ in you." I'm finding that there is a world of difference reading the Bible for preaching and reading it to hear from God. To be honest, I'm struggling with the latter these days.

But I'm not discouraged. Even on days like today when I don't feel particularly grateful, I can give thanks. After all, gratitude is a choice, not a feeling. And I choose to see life through this lens, and to give thanks no matter how I feel. I am blessed in so many ways, one of which is the ability I have been given to see through the fog of feelings so as to plant my feet firmly on God's promises and know that no matter what the future brings, I know who holds the future, and he also holds my hand.

Lord and King

November 22, 2015

Pastor Joe reminded us this morning that in the Christian liturgical calendar, today is "Christ the King" Sunday, which often gets lost in the shuffle of Thanksgiving celebrations. Strange it is that the same Christians who are upset over the commercialization of Christmas and whether or not Starbucks has a plain red cup, have allowed the secular culture's Thanksgiving usurp this particular observance of the Christian year, but that's an entirely different matter than what I have in mind today.

Since 1776, we Americans have distanced ourselves from the concept of kingship. Though it's a respected office and has many of the opulent trappings of royalty, our presidency is quite a different bird than any monarchy. And for most of the world, monarchy is but a shadow of what it once was, with ultimate political, social, legal, and military power concentrated in a single person who holds that power by virtue of lineage alone. Perhaps the best known monarchy today, that of England, is more titular than actual. It wasn't always this way.

Yet in our faith, we remain saddled with terminology that while historic, doesn't fully convey the meaning it once did. We speak of Jesus Christ as King, or as the Creed says, "I believe in Jesus Christ our Lord," (another monarchial term), without really grasping the significance of the word. We think more in democratic terms in which our leaders are elected by virtue of popularity and hopefully competence, and know that we can fire them in the next round of elections. A king or lord on the other hand, has absolute and utter power over his subjects. He rules by divine right, not by the will of the people (at least until the people rise up and depose him through insurrection or war).

When we claim Jesus Christ as Lord, it is much more than boss or manager, whose power may be real, but is never absolute. Perhaps the closest to the concept is the Don of mafia infamy, but without the corruption. When I say, "Jesus is Lord," I am relinquishing all say in the matter of my life. My choices, my will mean nothing; his is everything. It is a pretty solemn statement, which we should not take lightly. And yet how often have I mouthed the words while clinging to my independence and insistence upon my rights? To claim Jesus as Lord takes a huge weight of responsibility off our shoulders, but at the same time lays a heavy burden upon us to yield all things in life into his hands-not an easy task by any means. Nevertheless, I am grateful to be able to say, "Jesus is Lord;" it gives me my goal, even when I fall short.

Trinitarian Faith

November 21, 2015

The Apostles' Creed is built around a three-fold declaration of our faith in God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Christianity is Trinitarian, which simply means that we believe in One God, manifested in three Persons. Beyond this simple declaration, things often get sticky. Some have tried to describe Trinitarian faith as God revealing himself in three different ways, but that makes God out to be merely one Person who wears different masks at different times. Trinitarian faith declares that God is Three in One, eternally Father, eternally Son, and eternally Holy Spirit. Yeah, I don't understand it either, but I believe it. We try to understand it with analogies: an egg is white, yolk, and shell; water can be liquid, solid, or vapor, but analogies ultimately break down before the reality that is revealed in Scripture. And it is from Scripture that we derive our understanding. We would never have thought this up on our own.

When we declare our belief "in Jesus Christ, [God's] only Son our Lord," the very least we are saying is that this person we believe to be on the same level as God, the Father Almighty. After all, it would look pretty ridiculous to insert my name or yours into the Creed at this point, but it doesn't strike us as odd to do the same with the name of Jesus Christ. That alone hints at what is to follow. I believe in Jesus Christ in a different way than if I were to say I believe in you. And the only reason I can say this at all is because of what we learn about this man in Holy Scripture. Despite what the cults, agnostics, and other religions say about Jesus, the only sure record we have of this man's life clearly indicate how unique he was, so much so that the same kind of language used of God is regularly applied to him. And by devout monotheistic Jews, no less! One can choose to disbelieve the record of the New Testament, but it is impossible to deny that its authors believed that this man was who he claimed to be: God himself, in the flesh.

I need this God in the flesh. It means that God has a human face. This One so different than me in my weakness and sinfulness is like me, has chosen to rub shoulders with me. This God is not some distant, detached deity; he is nearby, he understands, and he cares enough to become one of us. For this, I am grateful tonight.

Principalities and Powers

November 20, 2015

St. Paul toward the end of his letter to the Ephesian church spoke of the "principalities and powers, the rulers of the present darkness, and spiritual wickedness in heavenly places." The terms he uses are quite specific, borrowed from the political and religious language of the day. Unfortunately, except in religious circles, we rarely talk like this today. Outside of church and Hollywood's horror genre of movies, people occasionally speak of someone being an angel, but talk of demons and evil spiritual powers will get you branded as some sort of fanatic weirdo.

Even in religious circles, we don't really know what to do with this Biblical kind of talk. While some religious groups speak freely about demons, if you listen carefully, it often seems like their conception of such things are formed more by film than by Christian faith. I tread on thin ice here; just because I haven't personally experienced some of the strange manifestations others have experienced doesn't mean they are crazy. They might be, but it would be highly arrogant of me to assert that if I haven't experienced something, it doesn't exist.

Nevertheless, when I read of "principalities and powers, of demons and spiritual wickedness," I have to ask what Paul had experienced that made him talk that way. My assumption is that human experience hasn't changed much in the 2000 years since these words were written. For certain, life is modernized in a way that would have been miraculous to people of the first century, but people still experience love, hatred, joy, sorrow, oppression, and uncertainty. So I ask that question. "What did the Biblical writers experience that made them talk that way," and, "What corresponds in human experience today that we describe in different terms?"

Walter Wink, late professor of Biblical Interpretation at Auburn seminary, wrote three books dealing with the language of power in the New Testament, in which he explored this very concept. He asks what it is that we experience today that corresponds to what was experienced in the 1st century that they used this kind of language to describe. He was dissatisfied with how we conceive of "spirit," as if it were some self-existent ghostly entity. When we speak of "team spirit," it is very real, but ceases to exist if the team dissolves. The same can be said of a "mob spirit," or a "corporate spirit." It is interesting that we use these words differently in religious settings than we do in the corporate or sports world.

Wink describes "spirit" as the "interiority" of a person or group of people. The corporate spirit of Starbucks for example, is quite distinct from the corporate spirit of Anheuser-Busch. They both trade in liquid refreshment, but they are very different. And should these corporations disband, the corporate spirit would also disappear.

When St. Paul speaks of spiritual powers in heavenly places, he is describing something operating in this world that cannot be seen, but is very real. And according to him, it is evil. We've all felt it at different times. The young woman battling depression, the middle-aged man struggling with alcohol addiction, the couple in a macabre death-dance of abuse and victimization, the corporate executive driven to succeed at all costs, the courting of death shared by abortionists and ISIS alike, the political powers that ravenously consume everything and everyone that gets in the way of its voracious appetite for complete control--this is not adequately explained in psychological, medical, social, or political categories.

When the Bible talks of principalities and powers, it is to these very real human experiences it speaks. And it is with these realities we deal, clothed in the spiritual armor, fighting in prayer. And when the Creed speaks of "the heavens and the earth," it is to remind us that the world we see, and that which is unseen but very real and very powerful, was made by God. He still remains above and beyond it, yet deeply involved in it through the incarnation of his Son Jesus. When we recite the Creed, we are driving a stake in the ground, reminding both ourselves and the powers that seek to gain ultimate control over us that God is God, the Father Almighty to save. And for that I am eternally thankful.

Visible and Invisible

November 19, 2015

Yesterday I wrote about the phrase in the Creed that goes, "Maker of heaven and earth," but fell victim to the very fault I have found in others: I threw around some religious words that at best were unclear, and at worst, muddied up the waters considerably. In the second-to-last paragraph I wrote about God's creation of heaven and earth, and things went downhill from there.

I said, "We tend to think of heaven as being in the same physical category as earth, but St. Paul's use of the language in his letter to the Ephesians suggests otherwise. The "heavens" is the realm where God rules uncontested. They are that part of creation that we cannot see, but which is as real as physical matter. It is where angels and archangels...and the demonic spirits dwell." To anyone unfamiliar with Christianeze, this explains nothing, and due to the baggage certain concepts carry in our culture, I may have been more harmful than helpful. So tonight I'll try to rectify the matter.

In talking with people about heaven, it is common for people to think in purely physical terms. Heaven is up in the clouds; hell is somewhere below our feet. This is not unexpected, after all, most of us would prefer to have clouds over our heads rather than dirt. As our knowledge of the Universe has grown, we've gotten more sophisticated about it, but we still think in mostly physical terms. This is not altogether improper. Later in the Creed we speak of the resurrection of the body, a very physical matter indeed. Christianity takes this physical body and world of ours very seriously. Heaven and earth are destined to be renewed, not destroyed. In the Revelation, John sees a "new heaven and earth." Some of the cults have a better understanding of this than most Christians. But to speak of the heavens as where angels and demons reside is to miss the point and run the risk of descending into a fantastical and perhaps imaginary world that has more in common with science fiction than Scripture.

I think it would be better to think of heaven and earth in the terminology of the Nicene Creed which speaks of things "visible and invisible." To say that God created things we cannot see is different (and more) than to say he created the realm where spirits dwell. For most people today, that kind of language is meaningless at best, and misleading at worst. But to speak of things invisible is to speak of that with which we are all familiar. For example, I cannot see love. I can't touch it, can't weigh it. But it is just as real, perhaps more so, than the keyboard on which I type. Where did that love come from? Is love merely the accidental confluence of atoms and molecules in my brain? Is it limited to the electrical impulses that jump between the synapses or the dopamine that certain glands secrete? I don't know of too many people who would make such a claim, and of those that do, I can't imagine being satisfied with being told that any affection one might have towards me is merely these physical mechanisms. Can love be stripped so barren and remain love?

But if it is more than this, where did it come from? How did it evolve? When we declare that God created things invisible, it is this realm of which we speak. Of course, this invisible world also contains hatred, betrayal, lust and greed, but these are perversions and distortions of the good, not the opposite of them. It is in this invisible world where sin and salvation play out. But God created it, and deep down at its core, it is good. For that world I am thankful tonight. It is what makes this physical world beautiful. Tomorrow I'll write a bit on the angels and demons part.

What Do I Mean?

November 18, 2015

Sometimes a single line is worth the price of the whole book. Way back in another lifetime, an odd set of circumstances landed me in a liberal United Methodist Seminary, quite a contrast from my independent Baptist upbringing and Wesleyan Methodist collegiate experience. I felt back then and still do today that most of my seminary education was a waste of time. Except for that single line. It came in the form of a question written in red ink on a paper I wrote for a Systematic Theology class taught by Dr. Paul Hessert. I couldn't tell you the name of any other professor I had, which tells you something about the impression they, and Dr. Hessert by comparison, had on me.

If you wanted to know the subject of that paper I'd have to dig through my files to find it, but I can tell you the exact wording of Dr. Hessert's question: "When you say 'God,' what do you mean?" No one had so brazenly challenged my assumptions before. He followed up that question with a statement. "I want to know what you mean by 'God,' not what someone else has written." His question began a process in me that continues to this day of carefully choosing the religious words I use. I've discovered that there are plenty of preachers who throw words around without considering what they really mean.

The Apostles' Creed begins by affirming faith in "God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth." I wrote yesterday concerning the first words of the Creed. Tonight I've been thinking of the second phrase in this beginning declaration of faith. It is important that we do so, because we aren't here merely talking about the weather or the latest sports scores, but about what moves us, what remains when all else in life is removed. When that happens, we had better know what we really believe.

When I declare that I believe in God, the Father Almighty, I am by implication declaring also my faith in Jesus Christ, since God is our Father only because he is first the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is Jesus who taught us that God is our Father; we are his children secondarily, because we are "in" Jesus Christ, who is the firstborn, the only begotten Son of God. Those words are highly charged, and would require volumes to begin to unpack their significance, but for tonight, it is enough to know that it is by virtue of our being in Christ that God is our Father.

The Creed goes on to say that this God/Father is the Maker of heaven and earth. The Nicene Creed states this a bit differently when it says he created things visible and invisible. We tend to think of heaven as being in the same physical category as earth, but St. Paul's use of the language in his letter to the Ephesians suggests otherwise. The "heavens" is the realm where God rules uncontested. They are that part of creation that we cannot see, but which is as real as physical matter. It is where angels and archangels...and the demonic spirits dwell.

When the Creed says that God made all this, it means among other things, that he stands outside of it all. He is not subject to it, but rules over it. At those times in life when it seems no one is minding the store, to know that God made all that is, both visible and invisible, is reassuring. Heaven and earth declare God's glory, revealing in part his character, but they are not to be worshipped because they like us, are finite. Our God, the Father Almighty, made all that is, and as Maker, stands outside of it, all of which is subject to his eternal purposes that are wrapped up in Jesus Christ. All of which tells me that if I keep centered on Christ, all will be well. And for that, I am truly thankful tonight.