The Welcome Interruption

When is the last time your day was interrupted by impossibly good news? We suffer interruptions all the time. We plan our day and set our tasks, then the interruptions come along one after another. Yet some interruptions are a good thing: Luke 24 reminds us that when we least expect it, Jesus himself would like to break in.

You know the story. Two guys, despondent over the death of Jesus, make the long walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They are leaving the city. Worse: they are leaving their dreams as well. They had dared to place their hope in someone else, and those hopes have been crushed. They were returning to the routine and the mundane, each convinced that they should never let their hearts get carried away again. The road from Jerusalem to Emmaus is downhill. It’s not a difficult walk, but then, the pathway to despair and broken dreams is always downhill.

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Monday's Meditation: Grenade!

Nearly every World War II war movie ever made contains the sacrificial scene: in the middle of a firefight a hand grenade bounces into the foxhole. Some expendable character in the movie dives atop the thing before it explodes. The hero of the movie sees the valour and sacrifice of his buddy and leads the good guys to victory.

My warped sense of humor wonders about the timing device on the grenade. What if--after covering the grenade with his body--there was a moment’s delay before the explosion? “Dang!” thinks the guy lying on the ground. “I probably had time to pick this thing up and BOOM!” Too late.

I see a connection between cheesy WWII movies and these words of Jesus: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9: 23) Death on the installment plan is much more difficult than dying in a single moment.

Under the right circumstances anyone could give their life once. To give it up  daily is something else altogether. The call of discipleship begins with “come and follow.” We follow Jesus in his devotion to the Father. We follow him in his ministry to the masses. And we discover as the first disciples did, we follow him to the cross. The cross of Christ was unique because the perfect Son of God paid what no one on earth could afford. The cross of each disciple is unique because the life of Jesus waits to flow through each one to the waiting world. The cross is the pathway to the resurrection kind of life.

Once you’ve been to the cross, everything changes. Stumbling blocks and foolishness turn into power and wisdom. The Cross changes everything. If something’s pursuing us, then perhaps the event that will change everything is the Cross. If nothing is changing, maybe we haven’t been to the Cross. We cannot carry the same world-changing cross Jesus took up the hill, but we can carry a cross capable of changing our world. It’s smaller, it fits us, and it waits for us each day.

This week’s meditation isn’t morbid or self-loathing. It merely asks whether we have given our lives to the Lord only once or whether we make the same choice each new morning. It looks to imitate the Lord himself with the same hope of reward. Am I willing to die each day, again and again? If so, the resurrection kind of life can become a daily fact of life.

Why Don't North American Christians Raise the Dead?

Jessica lives among the poorest of the poor just north of Lima, Peru. As a very young child she fell ill, languished for a few days, and died. In her neighborhood there were no telephones--no electricity, no running water. Her mother gathered the women in the neighborhood and began to pray. She sent others to find her husband, and still others to find the elders of the church, who showed up within a couple of hours and joined in prayer. After hours more of prayer, Jessica came back to life.

I met Jessica when she was about eight years old. Her mother told me how Jesus had raised her daughter from the dead. I suggested that perhaps her daughter had been very sick, but not dead. With typical North American smugness, I reasoned with the woman that God most certainly had healed the girl, but remained skeptical of outright resurrection. The woman became incensed and told me she knew very well that her daughter had died, and that Jesus brought her back. Mom was pretty angry with me.

Now, every semester I tell my students of the day I met a little girl raised from the dead. Then I watch them process the story--as I did when I first met Jessica. Then we talk about why North American Christians don’t raise the dead.

• North American Christians don’t raise the dead because we don’t ask. Death has the final word in our society: call the doctor, call the coroner, call the funeral home. Let them make the pronouncement and carry the dead away. Affluent societies are insulated from the dead. The dead are whisked away, cleaned, dressed and embalmed by professionals while we weep and mourn at home. It doesn’t occur to us to stay by their side and ask God to intervene. When a woman named Tabitha died in Joppa, the believers asked Peter to come help. (Acts 9) They didn’t accept death as the final word.
• North American Christians don’t raise the dead because we don’t see death as an enemy. We attribute every death with God’s sovereign plan, and comfort ourselves with superstitions like “everything happens for a reason.” Yet the Apostle Paul makes it clear that death is indeed the enemy of humankind, “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” (1 Corinthians 15: 25-26) Death is real, and inevitable, but we have forgotten it is also our foe.
• North American Christians don’t raise the dead because because we have not learned from Jesus. Jesus taught by his actions as well as his words. Bill Johnson, pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, CA, reminds us that Jesus ruined every funeral he attended. True, his actions spoke of his own coming resurrection, but perhaps there was something else to learn from his example. Perhaps Jesus raised the dead because not everyone dies in God’s perfect timing. A quick study of those raised from the dead in the gospels and Acts reveal that Jesus and his disciples intervened in the deaths of those who were young, or who died accidentally.
• North American Christians don’t raise the dead because we have pushed all resurrections into a single event at the end of time. It is a day to be desired: the grave will give up its dead, we will meet him in the clouds. But our faith is about more than the End Times. An illustration: when a local college-aged girl died of a mysterious illness a few years ago we sent a team to pray over her body. One local minister snorted--why would anyone want to bring her back from the dead? She’s happier with Jesus, isn’t she?” The minister could think of no compelling reason for resurrection apart from the Last Day.

Jesus himself gave these instructions to his disciples: “As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10: 7-8) The scripture presents the example of Jesus, Peter, and Paul, all involved in resurrection ministry. It’s true that we will all taste death eventually, but it’s not true that all death is for us to taste. The Kingdom of God message should be met with Kingdom of God demonstration. Forgiveness, justice, mercy, community, healing, and yes, resurrections are all signs of the in-breaking of God’s Kingdom.

Four bullet points aren’t enough to change anyone’s mind. But they should be enough to open the discussion: why don’t North American Christians raise the dead? Believers in Asia, Africa, and South America do. We cannot dismiss their experiences. In many respects believers on those continents are more familiar with death than we are. And more familiar with resurrection.

This is no academic exercise. This discussion is important to individual followers of Jesus. We need to embrace all possibilities of life in Christ, especially, perhaps, the ones that blow our minds.

What do you think? Should we raise the dead? Can we raise the dead? Why are North American and Europeans Christians the exception?

Why Jesus Wasn't in a Hurry to Leave

Each spring, in the days between Easter and Pentecost, Students of Jesus have an opportunity to re-assess the mission we’ve received from Jesus. We are big on Easter, and rightfully so--God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, putting an exclamation mark on the life of his Son. Some branches of the faith are big on Pentecost, celebrating the coronation of Jesus in heaven, and the overflow of the Spirit which dripped down on the earth.

The forty days between Easter and Pentecost are less distinct, yet they provide us an opportunity to reflect on the significance of the resurrection in our lives. The risen Jesus didn’t leave in a hurry: he hung out with his disciples and put the finishing touches on three years of training. He wants to do the same for us. The first eleven verses in the the book of Acts suggests that we, too, can go deeper with Jesus and discover what he has in mind for us. Here are a few suggestions:

• The resurrected Jesus stuck around for 40 days. Apparently he had more to say and do. The very first verse in Acts teaches us that the gospels were about “all that Jesus began to do and teach.” The rest of Acts teaches us that Jesus was still doing and teaching in the days, weeks, months and decades after the gospels. The work of the first century church was the work of Jesus. Is that still true today? It’s all too easy to substitute our work for his, to engage in ministry apart from his direction. What is Jesus is doing and teaching in our day? Are we still working with him or simply working for him?
• Jesus’ message in the 40 days of resurrection was really no different than his message during his three years of ministry: the Kingdom of God (Acts1:3).  During that time Jesus continued to speak about the Kingdom of God. It’s worth noting that the book of Acts opens and closes with the Kingdom of God front and center. The very last verse in the book shows us Paul, three decades later, proclaiming the Kingdom of God (Acts 28: 31). Have we meditated on the meaning and importance of the Kingdom, or have we reduced the message of Jesus to only his sacrifice of the cross? Individually and corporately, we need to rediscover the Kingdom message.
• The gospel accounts end with Jesus saying, “Go!” In Acts Jesus says, “Wait!”  What was so important that Jesus told his disciples to stay in Jerusalem? In our day many Christians are familiar with the Great Commission (Matthew 28: 16-20) but are we aware that Jesus commanded us to wait? Jesus said, in effect, “Don’t go anywhere, don’t do anything until you receive all that I have for you?” Have we meditated on the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives? We can work for God without any special empowerment. We cannot work with him apart form the Holy Spirit.
• Jesus told his followers plainly that there were some things we would not know, especially regarding the times and the seasons of the last days. Yet this very topic is of great interest in the church today: Harold Camping’s foolish predictions are just a symptom, the true illness is a church preoccupied with an exit strategy when our mission is stay and represent. Biblically speaking, we’ve been in the “last days” for 2,000 years. Jesus tells us to focus on the mission, not the culmination of the mission (Acts 1: 7-8). Have we meditated on the wrong subject in our day?
• The angels who were present at the ascension asked a pretty good question: “Why are you looking toward heaven?” (Acts 1:11) It’s a question worth considering. Frequently we are more concerned with heaven than with the Kingdom of God. The breathtaking sacrifice at Calvary purchased the forgiveness of sins and the hope of heaven, but in our generation many followers of Jesus have limited his work and message to heaven and heaven only. We should ask: if the gospel is only about going to heaven, why did Jesus invite us to take up the yoke of discipleship?

I’d love to get the podcast of everything Jesus taught in those 40 days, but it hasn’t shown up on iTunes yet. In the meantime, he invites us to work with him just as closely as the first disciples.

Why His Physical Resurrection Matters to Me (And You)

From Gandalf the Grey to Harry the Potter, resurrection is all the rage. Anyone can do it, as long as you’re a fictional character.

Reality is another matter: God became man: daring, but commonplace among the gods of the ancient world. God suffered the shame and agony of a torturous death: more scandalous, because when the gods become men they usually stack the deck in their favor. But God--risen from the dead? Still fully Man and fully God? That’s off the charts.

There is a Man seated on the throne of heaven: born of a woman, toiled in sweat, bled and died, risen in body, seated on the throne, and still human, always divine. God begot himself, and he sits enthroned, surrounded by humanity worshipping the image of God in a Man, because that Man is God.

Not everyone thinks so. Consider theologian Marcus Borg: “What would it mean to say that the risen Jesus is a physical/bodily reality? That he continues to be a molecular, protoplasmic, corpuscular being existing somewhere? Does that make any sense? How can the risen and living Jesus be all around us and with us, present everywhere, if he is bodily and physical?” I’m not fit to carry Dr. Borg’s theology books, but yes, Marcus, it makes sense to me.

Perhaps you’ve never taken time to consider the possibility: there’s a Man on the throne of heaven because a Man was raised from the dead. He is the Last Adam and the firstborn over all creation. He completes the work of creation in the Garden, and begins the work of the New Creation, anticipating the day when there is a new heaven, a new earth, a new Jerusalem, filled with people, each born of woman, each worshipping their Older Brother. This means that Easter is not only about the Father has done in Jesus Christ, it is also about what awaits us.

The Apostle Paul riffs on this very idea in First Corinthians:

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. ~ 1 Corinthians 15: 20-22

Anticipating Mr. T by nineteen centuries, Paul pities the fool who only follows Jesus in this life, without hope for a life to come--a literal, physical, “corpuscular” life in the next age. He assures us that the bodily resurrection of Jesus is not only Jesus’ victory over sin and death, but also the Father’s promise that we, too, will be raised up in the same manner as Jesus: that is, in a corpuscular body. (In my disagreement with Marcus Borg I’m grateful that he has taught me a new word. I learned, too, that some of us are more corpuscular than others. And it’s fun to say. Try it: “corpuscular.”)

In this resurrection chapter Paul teaches us that every kind of body has a “splendor.” Animals, birds, fish, and men had splendorous bodies. But the world has only gotten a short preview of the most splendorous body of all: the body of  Jesus, the risen Lord. It is an amphibious body, capable of operating in this age and the age to come. The body of the risen Jesus could walk, talk, eat, and drink, yet it was not constrained by bothersome things such as doors and locks. The body of the risen Jesus was frightening, beautiful, and strangely unrecognizable--until he spoke your name or broke the bread of life, after which you wonder why you didn’t know it was him from the start. It is a body that can be seen with human eyes, hugged by human arms and touched with human hands.

The body of the risen Jesus exerts dominion over sickness and death, yet strangely bears the scars of it’s earlier existence. I have marveled at this for decades: the Father raised the body of Jesus to life, but chose to leave the scars of crucifixion in place. It tells me that we will carry the memories of our suffering from the past into our resurrected life, but the pain will be gone. In fact, the scars will become part of our testimony to the greatness of God. There is hope for every suffering person that their pain will be fuel to burn with testimony for Jesus.

Paul tells us that the good news of the Resurrection is first about Jesus and the glory of God, but that good news teaches us that we, too, will have a splendor and glory of our own, which we can offer to him in the age to come. This weekend, when we consider the majesty of Jesus: God, Man, Savior, and King, we can also catch a glimpse of the place he is preparing for us as well.

Easter Sunday: Choose Wisely!

What will Easter Sunday mean to you?  Choose carefully: how you celebrate Easter is an indicator of your potential as a student of Jesus. This “Holy Week”  is filled with powerful images of the Christian life: Jesus gave us a covenant meal on Thursday night--the very night he was betrayed. He suffered torture and death on Friday--a substitutionary death that paid the price for the sins of humanity. On Saturday he descended into the depths of Hades and kicked in the gates of Hell itself. And, of course, on Sunday he was resurrected with power, receiving the vindication of the Heavenly Father.

We can (and should) celebrate his death. His death on the cross is unique because of who he is—the sinless perfect Son of God: the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. No one else could accomplish what Jesus accomplished on the cross, because his perfect sacrifice came by virtue of his identity as God come to earth.  His sacrifice was for the sin of all people, in all times and in all places. His death was unique. One time. Once. For all. But I would like to ask a difficult question: Is Friday’s sacrifice enough?

When we concentrate on the substitutionary death of Jesus to the exclusion of his life and teaching we limit his ministry to a divine rescue mission—a rescue mission that only becomes effective for us when we die. Many Christians understand that they have no hope of heaven apart from the price Jesus paid on their behalf.  But apart from gratitude for his kindness there is little connection between what Jesus did then and how we can live today. Our appreciation for what he did does not empower us to fulfill his teaching. Our gratitude for his suffering does not release the wisdom, insight, or strength for each one of us to live as a new creation, a new kind of person.

Here is one of the secrets of the resurrection: on that first Easter Sunday Jesus opened not only the tomb, he opened new possibilities for everyone who would follow him. The resurrection was not only a supernatural event for Jesus, it also opened up the resources of heaven for all who would follow him. Jesus opened the womb of heaven. Picture him emerging from the garden tomb: something new came forth that day--the power of resurrection life operating in a human being. Resurrection life flowed into Jesus that day, but the Scripture reveals that it is now available to us as well: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” (Roman 8:11)  This verse is not about being raised up after we die, it’s about the power of the resurrection working in us now. Jesus was not only our model during earthly life, he is also a model of new creation operating in us even now: the nature and power of the resurrection dwell in each new child of God.  This is no mere formality. The womb of heaven has been opened by Jesus each believer has the potential to bring heaven to earth. Those who are born from above receive heaven’s DNA in them here and now. First Jesus, then us. Not only in resurrection from the dead but also empowerment for ministry.

Our ability to see Jesus as the firstborn among many is more than a Bible-study lesson.  Once we see him in this light, our role as children of God takes on new meaning, new possibilities, and new responsibilities.  He opened the way for us to continue his Kingdom mission.  Heaven’s resources poured into us.  Jesus relied upon the Holy Spirit to walk in obedience, and he sent the Holy Spirit to help us do the same.  He relied upon the Holy Spirit to do powerful works that authenticated his message, and he sent the Holy Spirit to do the same for us.

Jesus indeed came to save us from our sins; he also came to empower us to live Godly lives that can look substantially like his life. That empowerment burst forth from the grave on Easter Sunday. His mandate to disciple the nations is not possible apart from the power of the resurrection. The Book of Acts reveals what happens when students of Jesus operate in the power of the resurrection.

We must choose wisely during this Holy Week.  Are we celebrating sacrifice apart from empowerment? Are we celebrating history without receiving the gift of the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead? The open grave stands as a portal through which heaven flows into earth--not only on that first Easter Sunday, but everyday.