Post-Resurrection Living

Jesus is Alive! Churches all over proclaimed the Risen Lord yesterday. Now it's Monday. Jesus is still alive. Is our faith? Is it vibrant, life-changing, decision-altering faith? A couple of decades ago Brennan Manning penned the following:

I can think of no other time in history when the name of Jesus has been so frequently mentioned and content of His life and teaching so thoroughly ignored.

Twenty years later I think Manning's words still hold the same sting. Our belief in a death shattering, living God should have more than a casual occasional impact on our living. Several years ago I shared a message series entitled "The Resurrection, Now What?" It's still a good question.

Good Friday

Early this morning I was picking up some things at the store. My attention was captured by the rows of "Easter Candy". I walked over and contemplated buying Lynn a chocolate bunny. While I was looking over the candy, a chocolate cross caught my eye. I paused at the cross. Here I was, in Walmart, on Good Friday staring at a chocolate cross. Unexpectedly, I was deeply disturbed. I'm not going to rant about the extreme over commercialization of every holiday and celebration. I could go on and on about how we manufacture holidays to fuel our consumer mentality. But, that's not the point. I was disturbed by this image of the cross that is so far from reality. I began this week with a desire to focus on the cross. The day that Jesus was crucified revealed the extreme ugliness of sin and the sufficient extreme love of our God. On the cross, the Holy One became our sin: every murder, every rape, every genocide, every child molestation and abduction, every lie, every jealous thought. Jesus became our sin. Maybe that's why I am fighting back tears as I think about a cross made of chocolate.

Chistian America

There's has been quite a bit in the news about whether America is a "Christian nation" or not. A recent Newsweek article entitled "The End of Christian America" reports the results of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. Among the results is a reported increase in the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation (15%). This percentage has nearly doubled since 1990 (8%). My reflections on this article are influenced by the fact that we remember "Holy Week" this week. The Newsweek article has much to say about the interrelationship between Religion, the Government and Christianity. I can't help but reflect on the fact that these same relationships were critical in the events that led to the death of my Savior on the cross. Religious leaders were in the forefront of the charge to crucify Jesus. Read through the Gospel accounts of Jesus death and it's hard to deny the political concerns that influenced Pontius Pilate's treatment of Jesus. Then there were the Christians. Although they were not called "Christians" yet, they were followers of Christ. With a few exceptions, the Christians do not receive a very positive treatment during "Holy Week" in the Gospels. The followers of Christ are among those who deny, betray, abandon and fall asleep at inopportune moments of crisis. What will the future hold for America? Are we entering a "post-Christian" slide? As a follower of Christ, I want to learn from those who were there with Jesus. I want to learn from their mistakes. And I want to learn from Jesus. In the midst of swirling political and religious issues many of His followers were uncertain. Yet, Jesus remained true to His mission. That is my desire.

Think about the Cross

There will be lots of talk about the resurrection this week. There should be. I agree with the Apostle Paul that without our belief in the resurrection we are miserable. Preaching is in vain. New life is not possible. But, I don't want to make a mistake this week by rushing past the cross to view the empty tomb. I want to meditate on the cross. I need to meditate on the cross. As I gaze upon my Savior I think about John's testimony in the fourth gospel. If Jesus is lifted up, He will draw us to Himself. Jesus allowed Himself to be crucified so that we could be drawn to His great love. Not only am I drawn to His great love, I am drawn to His words of forgiveness. It's not possible for me to count the number of times I have read the words. I don't know how many times I have heard them in a sermon. But, they still captivate me and they draw me to Jesus. It's as if He is speaking to me. "Father forgive Him". They take on fresh meaning in my life. How many times have I offended God? How many times have I disappointed Him? How many times has He forgiven me?

Idol Worship

In my recent Old Testament reading in the Bible I have noticed that the subject of "idolatry" gets a lot of coverage. It seems that idolatry was a continual threat to a pure relationship with God. Most of the time we tend to think of "idolatry" as an old forgotten sin that doesn't really manifest among followers of Jesus today. Is that true? I ran across an interesting definition of idolatry today. Eugene Peterson defined idolatry as "using God instead of worshiping God".
Does Peterson's definition change your mind about the importance of guarding against idolatry today? When was the last time you worshiped God, really worshiped God, without trying to "get" something from Him? Is that kind of worship a regular, consistent, non-negotiable part of your life everyday?

Leviticus

Leviticus isn't easy to read. Some of you may love it. It may be your favorite book in the Bible. But, I doubt that it is. I just finished reading through the book. As is so often the case, God breathed fresh life into passages. Unexpected blessings began to encourage me from a book that I did not look forward to reading. For example, Leviticus 26:12-13 declares "I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high". It's so easy to read through Leviticus and got bogged down in the sacrificial system and the requirements of the law and question the relevance of the rules that God gave His people at Mt. Sinai. It's easy to do that because that is so closely akin to our perspective of Christianity today. "Holiness" is becoming an old-fashioned word (Holy is word that is repeated often in Leviticus). But, you can't appreciate the beauty of Leviticus 26 without the journey that leads to it. God did not give rules because He wanted to burden the people. God gave the law in order to allow them to walk in freedom that could only come through a living relationship with Him. It's hard for us to grasp because we (especially in America) have come to associate freedom with individualism rather than a relationship with a holy God. Now, I'm not advocating a return to the Levitical Law. Jesus became our sacrifice and the sacrifices required in Leviticus are not longer necessary. But, the holiness of God has not changed. The character of the freedom that God provides has not changed. We hold our heads up - not in pride, but to look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

Answers in Acts

Reading through Acts is an adventure. It seems like the church grows with every turn of the page. Living in the midst of North American Christianity in the 21st century it may be easy to become a little detached from the reality of the miraculous work of God in the early church. It's too easy to have a "that was then, this is now" view of Acts. That's a sad way to read Acts. It misses the mark in a couple of ways. First, it tends to lead to a diminished view of God's activity in the church today. Second, we forget that Peter, John, Paul and Barnabas were real people. One of my reasons for studying Acts is to highlight the answers that Acts provides to real questions. As I read the first couple of chapters with fresh eyes, I have recognized that the questions that people in the first century were asking are not all that different from the questions we wrestle with today. Likewise, the answers provided through the dramatic story of the early church contain valuable insights for us today.