Getting to Know Your Risen Savior

If what you are wanting is a Savior who mostly stays out of your way, a Lord who makes no demands on your time, energy, or priorities, or a Teacher whose ideas you are free to pick through and select what parts you like best, then perhaps the Roman government did us all a favor. A dead Jesus is a much easier Jesus to deal with.

Jesus' journey to the cross, beginning with his birth and continuing to his death is largely shaped by a downward movement. In Philippians 2, Paul shares a hymn about the life of Jesus:

Though he was in the form of God, (he) did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

He released his claims to divine glory. He reduced himself to servanthood. He poured out whatever was left in his death on a cross; mocked and humiliated. His execution left him so thoroughly devalued by the world that the apostles wouldn't think of going to see him early on that Sunday morning, instead allowing a few servant-hearted ladies to rise up early and go to do the dirty work of preparing his body. (I saw some irony in the story this very morning, knowing that several servant-minded women came to our church much earlier than anyone else to do the dirty work of preparing for today's activities. If the first resurrection appearance tells us anything, it's that God has a special place in his heart for servant-minded women like these.) Since Jesus hadn't died well in their minds, at least they could give him a decent burial.

When Jesus is dead, we can do with him what we want. His commands can be reduced to suggestions. His demands can be reduced to options. Much like any other historical person or artifact, we can poke, prod, and determine value, chewing up and swallowing what we like while spitting out what we don't.

Perhaps on this Sunday morning you've come here for a viewing of the body. He was, after all, an innocent person who died unjustly. Perhaps you came with a funeral in mind. Let's hear a few favorite memories, share some of his better quotes, and pay a few respects before we get back to doing with our lives whatever we please.

But if you came this morning to pay your respects to a dead Savior, I'm afraid you've just missed him. Don't be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here. Though you could go and see the place where they laid him, he isn't there. He's gone on ahead of you, making preparations for you, and when you get there you'll see him, just as he told you. Meanwhile, be sure to go and tell the others the good news.

Before we could even finish preparing the body, before we could even work out the details of a proper funeral, Jesus came back. Death couldn't hold onto him. It is not a dead hero whom we've come to respect this morning, it is our risen King who is now reigning at the right hand of God.

This is a new type of Jesus we are experiencing, and we would all benefit from getting to know our risen Savior. Jesus may have emptied himself to the point of death on a cross, but because of his obedience, he snatched victory out of the hands of death and is now glorified again in the presence of God. That Christian hymn that Paul quoted speaks of his humiliation, but it also speaks of Jesus' restoration to glory:

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The Revelation that God gave to John contains several striking images of our risen Lord; all of which are worthy of reflection, but I wish to reflect on the vision found in Revelation 1. Jesus will go on to give specific messages to specific churches, but he begins with a few words that should mean something to all Christians in every church.

Allow yourself to get caught up in John's vision of this mysterious Savior we follow:

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

In fact, before he even speaks, the mere appearance of Jesus in this setting tells us something about him. There is a lot of symbolism going on here, just as there is in much of Revelation. We have the lampstands with their candles burning, representing churches, all of which should keep our lights burning to shine hope on our community.

But John also references that Jesus had seven stars in his right hand. The stars, we are told, represent the angels; God's messengers to the different churches. The word "angel' in the original languages also means "messenger," and this is significant, because much of the ancient world believed the stars contained messages. The stars, they believed, contained a map of human history and determined its course. So they read their horoscopes and stared into the sky with great diligence, desiring insight into how to navigate the confusing waters of life. The stars would often be symbolized by the seven most prominent heavenly bodies, the ones that could be seen with unaided human eyes: the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. Much in the way we Americans display "In God We Trust" on our currency--whether we mean it or not--ancient coins would sometimes indicate what they believed determined the course of history. 

Here in our encounter with Jesus, we find a Lord who holds the seven stars in his hand. Whether you trust in the stars, the stock market, or your favorite cable news network, the clear message here is that whatever it is you believe drives the course of human history, it is subservient to the will of Jesus Christ. The Lord of Lords is the one who determines the course of human history, and holds it within his hand.  

In the presence of one as powerful as Jesus is presented here in John's vision, what would you do? Fight or flight only works when you can overpower or outrun someone, and to try either would be obviously futile. So instead, John falls down as if he were dead. Jesus places his right hand on John's shoulder, and speaks to him. I believe Jesus' introductory words here are meaningful to all Christians in every generation.

Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.

FEAR NOT

Christians need not waste our time with some of the world's hypothetical questions. If you knew you couldn't possibly get hurt, what would you do? If you knew you couldn't possibly fail, what would you try? The one who leads us has conquered death. There exists no adversary whom he has not already bested. The only questions we should be wrestling with are: What does Christ call me to do next? and What could possibly be holding me back from trying? It is not only the difficult things that we can do with Christ's help, it is often the things we believed were impossible. 

Paul reminds us in Romans 8:1-2:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 

We are to be people characterized by hope and courage, because in Christ, there is nothing left to fear. 

I AM THE FIRST AND THE LAST

Sometimes when we want to refer to the entirety of something, we refer to the beginning and the end. We've studied everything, we say, from A to Z. We've been everywhere from coast to coast. We've looked it over from top to bottom. Jesus will later say he is the Alpha and the Omega. He is our beginning, he is our end, and he is our everything in between. 

In a similar vein, John introduces Jesus to us in his Gospel in the following way:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

If what we desire is a meaningful life, then we should follow the one who is before us. We should acknowledge the one who remains after us. We should honor the one who knows us better than we know ourselves. In Jesus we find life as it is meant to be lived. His life is our light. By looking to him, we can see enough to take the next step on a path that leads us where we want to go. Getting to the end takes patience, but taking one simple step with true light is better any day than taking many stumbling steps into uncertain darkness.

I DIED, AND BEHOLD I AM ALIVE FOREVERMORE 

All elements of this are important. It is significant that Jesus actually died, because it means that he experienced the very worst of what humanity could do to him. We could use our greatest weapons of deepest treachery, and after we had done our worst, he overcame and conquered them all. 

Jesus says clearly that he had died, but now he is alive, and there remains nothing that can kill him again. Had Jesus merely died, we would have no reason to be here. There are many great teachers who have lived and died, and none of them warrants a weekly period of remembrance, or the constant commemoration of their life. We are free to disagree with and dispense of dead teachers. If Jesus were just another dead teacher, Paul believes this would create a domino effect of bad implications in the life of the church, which he describes in I Corinthians 15:

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

It is bad enough to be mistaken. But if Jesus isn't risen, we are liars about God. Our faith is a waste, and we are pitiable more than anyone else in the world. But because Jesus is risen, we can read Paul's ideas in reverse.

"Behold! I am alive forevermore," Jesus says. And so we know that because Jesus is raised, our teaching is valuable, and so is our faith. We are God's true representatives because we are telling the truth about Jesus' power over death, through which he redeemed us from our sins. Those who have fallen asleep in Christ are now reigning with Christ. Because of he hope we experience in Christ, we are of all people most to be envied, for we've found a fountain of life that can nourish the soul of every person who drinks from it.

I HAVE THE KEYS OF DEATH AND HADES

The image we should have in our head of Jesus as he broke the chains of death is not that of a hero making a narrow escape of a dangerous situation. Jesus' actions more resemble an explosion of dynamite, crumbling the walls and breaking through the gates of death, who had absolutely no chance of holding the King of Kings. Jesus has taken over, and he is the one who now holds the keys.

I am reminded of a story about a factory. It was a business with a long history, and one gentleman in particular who had worked there for many years. As it grew in complexity, he understood better than anyone else how it all functioned, and the different components worked together. As the years went by and the factory came under new management, the younger management wanted to cut costs, and saw little use in paying an older person so much, when they could hire younger guys for a lower cost and longer hours. So they unceremoniously let the older gentleman go. After a few weeks, something went wrong. Production came to a halt. The young hotshots tried what they knew, but to no avail. It became clear that the only solution short of tearing down and rebuilding the whole factory was to give a call to the gentleman who had been released. A humble phone call was made, and he agreed to come for an hour or so to have a look, understanding he would bill the company as a consultant. After only a few minutes with the machines, he went to one in particular, took out a piece of chalk from his pocked, and marked one section of the machinery with a giant "X". "Here's the problem," he said. "Remove the cover, replace these parts, and it will all work fine." They did what he said, and everything happened as he said it would. The people were pleased to be back in operation. A few days later they received a bill from the gentleman, with the cost being $10,000. The bookkeeper was indignant. How could he charge that much money for only a few minutes' work? So they demanded an itemized list, explaining the cost. The man sent them a second bill, this time itemized:

1 piece of chalk: $1
Knowing where to draw the X with the chalk: $9,999

It's good to be the one who holds the keys. And if you aren't the one who holds the keys, you want to be on good terms with the one who does.

We can disregard him or devalue him if we want, but Jesus is the one who holds the keys to the afterlife. There is no Plan B; no option that allows us to bypass him if we want to have entrance to the presence of God. Jesus wants us not to be afraid, because even though he died, he now lives forevermore, and if we clothe ourselves in him, there is nothing strong enough to take us from the grip of his grace. He shows us the road to where we want to go, and he holds the keys to the kingdom. We can't afford to neglect him, and can find comfort in knowing he hasn't neglected us.

Note: This sermon was preached on April 16, 2017 at the Kings Crossing Church of Christ, Corpus Christi, Texas. 

The Contemplative Preacher: The Word in Different Flesh

In my previous posts, I've talked about looking at Scripture in small chunks. Here I want to talk about looking at Scripture in ways that bring out the larger picture. 

It can be refreshing to experience Scripture in physical forms that are different than the traditional black, small-font, leather-bound book. There's nothing wrong with this format, but as its intention is to fit a lot into a small package, there are limitations to it. It doesn't lend itself well to note-making. Also, if you spent a lot on a Bible, you don't want to mess it up with ink that bleeds through those thin pages too much in certain places, or comments too full to allow space for future comments. 

Here are three ways I've been trying to bring Scripture out of the traditional bound book so that I can have different kinds of interactions with the text.

Method 1: Out Loud
As simple as it sounds, there is real benefit to reading Scripture aloud. I now do this with every book in preparation to preach from it. Until you give it a voice, you might not pause to consider many of the sounds and emotions involved. "When Jesus made this statement, did he speak quickly or slowly? Was he happy, angry, or disinterested?" When you try to give a voice to the words, it forces you to put yourself more into the passage. 

As you are reading out loud, it helps you to notice refrains. You'll more likely remember a similar phrase from an earlier passage when you are reading large chunks aloud in a single setting. 

One of the best aspects of reading aloud is that you cannot skip over anything. If you commit to verbalizing every word, you cannot stick only to the familiar or favorite parts. All receive at least some of your attention.

Of course, audio Bibles can be useful for this also, if you can avoid letting yourself tune them out with other thoughts. I've found audio Bibles to be especially useful in studying Proverbs. Where I rapidly jump from verse to verse, it is refreshing to have to listen and wait for a narrator to let you progress to the next bit of wisdom. One great way to get the Bible out of its binding is to return it into a spoken word format, as much of it was originally given.

Method 2: Mega-Scroll

In the last couple of years, my good friend Les Chapman showed me a method he uses for in depth Bible study that has been really helpful to me. He prints out the entire text of a biblical book, then tapes all the page edges together with clear packaging tape. Do all your taping on the back side. Also, it is good to apply a line of tape all along the outer most edge of the entire scroll, as it helps it to hold together and resist tearing.
What this gives you is a printed version of the Biblical text on paper thick enough for really making notes. In preparation to preach, I like to read through a book multiple times. I will experiment with reading through for different purposes, each time using a different color to make highlights of a certain emphasis. 

For example, I'll use one color for words of admonition, another for words of warning, another for Old Testament references, and another for descriptions of actions or deeds.
The benefit of the large scroll is that you can really see connections between passages that would not otherwise be visible to you. 

Sometimes I print the text plain, and do all the highlighting by hand. Other times, I do a lot of it in the document I'm preparing of the text, then supplement it by hand. The Revelation text in the image I prepared on my computer, then added to by hand. I had it on display in the teen classroom as we studied Revelation, and it was really helpful for them in understanding the flow of the book, and things like the patterns of seven. You can download the full Revelation text as I prepared it for printing here. Look at the last page of the document for a key to how I used different colors in preparing the text.

At Kings Crossing, I have been preaching through James. Here is the full text of James I printed, then read through multiple times, looking for themes and points to highlight. On this particular text, I opted to include no verse number or divisions, forcing myself to decide what I believed the logical breaks and transitions were. It's a healthy way to immerse yourself in the text.

The most ambitious scroll I ever created contained all of the minor prophets. This was a whopper that took up an entire bulletin board on a classroom wall. Originally, these books occurred together on one scroll called The Book of the Twelve. I wanted to read the minor prophets together in light of each other, and this method really brought out some fascinating connections. For example, themes emerged from the endings of some books next to the beginnings of others, making the thematic, rather than chronological arrangement of the Minor Prophets seem very intentional. Also, Hosea and Malachi create bookends through their emphases on marital fidelity and divorce. These are things you notice when you can look at all of the books at once, rather than flipping through small pages as you go.

Method 3: Printed Pages
For a less ambitious version of Method 2, there is still great benefit in printing out the biblical book on nice paper, and putting it in a binder. A recent Kickstarter project called Bibliotheca has attempted something similar to this. Though I intend to buy a copy, there's no real reason to have to spend so much when you can do your own without much trouble. 

I like using BibleGateway.com for this, because if you click on the little gear next to the Scripture, you can choose options such as whether or not you want the text to have headings, verse numbers, or footnotes. I copy and paste all the text from the website, having selected my text version and options.

When you paste it into a document, you have great options, such as creating huge margins for notes. You can pick a font and font size that is especially pleasing to your eye. Removing verse numbers and headings will help you read passages in context, rather than letting scholars guide you into what should be considered a section of thought. Play around with it!

These are some ways I have found helpful in seeing Scripture more in context, keeping the larger picture in mind. What methods have been helpful to you?

Hitler, Dante, and the Insufficiency of Tolerance

Lately I've been a bit consumed with eschatology (the study of last things). This has been in part because I've been teaching Revelation to the teens class on Wednesday nights for the last quarter, and have had to seriously examine a lot of passages that describe the return of Christ. A relevant issue to all of this is the issue of Hell. 

Hell's pretty unpopular these days. Nobody wants to believe anybody will go to Hell, except for a few choice people like Hitler or Hussein. Those guys could sizzle like bacon for a pretty good while before it would start to bother us.

So I've been thinking about Hitler, and in the spirit of Dante, I've been pondering what his punishment might be like. Dante's Inferno is a fascinating read, and a quite imaginative work. Dante holds strongly to the idea that punishments will somehow correspond to crimes. For example, in the second ring of Hell, Dante describes people being punished who are guilty of lust. Their punishment is to have strong unceasing winds that blow them violently about, taking away their ability to ever get rest or relief. This corresponds to their unwillingness in life to control the desires that they chased in a number of ungodly directions. 

I was wondering what sort of punishment would be fitting of a man like Hitler. He was hungry for notoriety and power. He dehumanized his enemies and treated them as trash. I thought about someone as infamous as Hitler, and wondered what sort of fitting spectacle would be his punishment. And then it occurred to me that perhaps nothing would be more fitting than to see him quietly enclosed in a lonely place and punished secretly, with no pomp or circumstance; to abandon him with no sign at all that suggested this man was in any way worth remembering or acknowledging. 

Up until around the end of chapter 20, I understand Revelation to be a book that is similar to the scene in the Wizard of Oz where the curtain is pulled back so that Dorothy can see what is going on that no one else can see. John is in exile, when suddenly the heavens open up, and he is invited to see what God and his allies are up to while Christians are dealing with oppressive and bestial world powers. We hear Angels shouting victory and singing new songs. We see martyrs and leaders reigning with Christ, and we smell the incense of their prayers. But one group is strikingly absent. 

The lost are kept outside of the New Jerusalem. They are sent to a "second death" in the Lake of Fire. But in all the discussion that goes on for pages and pages of the action and excitement that happens in the presence of God, the lost are completely absent. They aren't protesting, banding together, or knocking on the gates. They simply aren't part of the future that God is bringing into existence. If their souls continue to exist, it is only in that they are tolerated to exist, but no value is attached to them once they've been cast aside to be discarded.

All of this led me to think about the great clamor we all hear these days about the importance of tolerance. In every setting, people are pushing for the perceived virtue of tolerance. (Tolerance isn't always virtuous.) But when you listen to what people are really wanting, tolerance isn't it. Tolerance means I let something exist, despite finding it a total bother. Many of the people I hear shouting for "tolerance" are themselves quite tolerated. They are allowed to exist, so why keep asking for it? The deeper thing I believe people are begging for is to receive respect. Respect goes beyond tolerance. Respect dignifies and acknowledges where it can. 

I read an excellent book a few weeks ago called Leadership and Self-Deception. The book is all about one important principle in dealing with people: no matter what people do or how they have disappointed you, always continue to treat them as human beings. The place we so often fall short is that we allow people to become nuisances, obstacles, or burdens, and in doing so, we cease to acknowledge the value of their humanity. This is why we will chew out a co-worker, we will humiliate a clerk behind a counter, or we will have no patience or second chances for someone who has disappointed us in any way. We mentally categorize them as less than human so that we can treat them as such. They become something we tolerate instead of someone in whom we see value. This is a Hellish way to live.

I believe God will have painful judgments for many people who have lived far beneath what they were created to be. But he will wait until the end of their days to deliver his verdict. A challenge for me is not to be a merely tolerant person, but to be a loving person. It is ok to acknowledge when someone has annoyed or frustrated me, but I can express this in a way that simultaneously acknowledges that I believe they have intrinsic value, having been made in God's image. I can express disappointment for people or condemnation of their behavior in that they were created to do things much better than what they've chosen to do, and with God's help, I know this is possible for them.

I don't know what God will do with Hitler. I don't fully grasp how all things will unfold as the Kingdom of God continues to break through into the corrupted world we're living in. But I do know that for my part, it is my job to proclaim good news to the poor, liberty to the oppressed, freedom to those who are captive, and the year of the Lord's favor to all who are willing to accept the good news. To love people in the way that God loves them goes beyond tolerance, because in every person it sees their value and seeks their redemption. 

May you live today in a way that God would deem worth remembering,

Mark