Resurrection Reading

In today’s reading, Alister McGrath brings two Resurrection topics together. He weaves the truth of the victory over sin with the idea of the “already not yet of the Kingdom.” McGrath asks the question this way, “…if the power of sin, death and evil has been broken, how can we make sense of the fact that i still continues to plague us?” The second half of the essay answers the question with a borrowed metaphor from the Second World War. Just as much of Europe was occupied, we were gripped by sin. But when word of allied victories came there was a change in outlook even though the occupation continued. Then, eventually, the victory was fully realized. McGrath closes the comparison, and the essay, with this conclusion. “Their (sin, evil and death) back bone has been broken, and we may begin to live now in the light of that victory, knowing that the long night of their oppression will end.”

Knowing the truth of God’s Word recorded in Scipture is vital to living in light of that victory.Memorization and careful study are practices that grow us spiritually and are worthy goals to go after. The Word of God finds its full meaning in and through Christ. The Bible should not be used to bully, or just to win an argument. It is a declaration of God’s character, and his heart for the recreation of fallen creation.

11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Hebrews 4:11-13

Resurrection Reading

In today’s reading, Fredrica Mathewes-Green, compares the childlike frivolity of Christmas to the perceived boredom of Easter. Mathewew-Green tries to reconcile the jubilation associated with Christmas with the passing blase sometimes associated with Easter. From a theological Biblical perspective it is clear that Easter celebrates the essential act of Christ’s incarnation. Without the resurrection, argues Mathewes-Green and others, the birth of Christ bares little significance. She is not arguing for a damper on Christmas celebrations nor for Easter celebrations to adopt Christmas traditions. What is being highlighted is the profound praise to God the resurrection calls for because of its victory over death. Mathewes- Green distills the significance of Resurrection and our celebration well with the following,

Easter tells us of something children can’t understand, because it addresses things they don’t yet have to know: the weariness of life, the pain, the profound loneliness and hovering fear of meaninglessness. Yet in the midst of this desolation we find Jesus, triumphant over death and still shockingly alive, present to us in ways we cannot understand, much less explain.

Jesus is “shocking alive” and “present.” As we revel in life over death we celebrate. Praise of God is central to our worship and living in Him. May that praise ever be on our lips as we travel this often treacherous life. Psalm 113 calls us to this kind of praise in our spiritual formation.

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord, you his servants;
    praise the name of the Lord. (Ps. 113:1)

Resurrection Reading

Today’s reading comes from C.S. Lewis’ essay directly entitled “Resurrection.” In it, Lewis uses, at least in part, his Trilemma argument from the whole foundation of Christ to argue for a true, revolutionary resurrection. The Trilemma stated that Jesus was either Lord, Liar, or Lunatic. For the Resurrection it is more like Lewis’ dualemma. Either God came down into humanity and pulled humanity out of death (Christian view) or it’s a crazed deception (lunacy or lies). Evidence, historical and literary, points to an empty tomb and a real resurrection. This reality was brand new in creation. This was death to life and that reality leaves us with a choice that Lewis characterizes succinctly, “You must accept or reject the story.” The acceptance of the resurrection leaves us not with just a speculative, “wow that changes everything.” It should leave us with the introspective question of “how does it change me?” Lewis turns the essay into a conversation. Coming from the point of a person who’s life has been changed by the realness of Jesus, Lewis asks readers to consider if it might also be real for them. This is part of Spiritual formation, as the Spiritual truths of Christ become real for us they show up in real life in real conversations among our various human relationships. John 3:1-16, Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, is an example of this kind of conversation. Jesus, with patience and respect, talks to Nicodemus, starting from Nicodemus’ perspective and going towards Spiritual truth. Some us were taught that “good” Christians show up at a strangers’ front door and recount the bullet points of an evangelistic tract. At least in John 3 we don’t see this as the example from Jesus. The resurrection changes everything, so maybe it should change our conversations as well.

Resurrection Reading

Being the first day after Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, we move into readings on the Resurrection and the possibility of our own Spiritual growth as those who are alive in Christ. I will continue to use the readings from Bread and Wine and incorporate Scripture and challenge for Spiritual Formation with credit to www.oklahomabaptists.org.

The entry poem for the section on Resurrection has become one of my favorites since I first came across it last year. It is the “Seven Stanzas at Easter” by John Updike. Updike implores Christians to touch, taste, and be empowered by the literal Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The fourth Stanza gets direct,

Let us not mock God with metaphor,

analogy sidestepping, transcendence,

making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the

faded credulity of earlier ages:

let us walk through the door.

And as we walk through that door we are called to a new life of vitality that we must grow into steadily. This a fair way to think of Spiritual formation. That we might be transformed into mature, walking, talking, followers of Christ gaining inches day by day in our journey to and with Jesus.

1 John 2:15-17 The Message (MSG)

15-17 Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

The Message (MSG)

Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson

Passion Reading

Matthew 27: 50-54

Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many. Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son!’ 

I often struggle with the connection between Good Friday and Easter. I understand that they are inextricably linked, but I don’t want to pass one at the expense of not fully taking in the other. In his brilliant essay The Cosmic Cross, Paul TIllich connects the two against the back drop of the response of the tangible, natural things of creation. Tillich talks through the above Scripture and shows how the sun, the temple, and the foundations of the earth bow before the glory of God encapsulated in the suffering of the cross. Tillich ties in the Resurrection with this, “Resurrection is not something added to the death of him who is the Christ; but it is implied in his death, as the story of the resurrection before the resurrection, indicates. No longer is the universe subjected to the law of death out of birth. It is subjected to a higher law, to the law of life out of death, by the death of him who represented eternal life.” We should, we must focus today on the death of Christ and as we do observe this new law of life coming out of death. This is revolutionary, this is Good Friday.

In an additional thought, I want to relay a story to the connection between nature and the crucifixion. Our administrative assistant, Margueritte, gave me permission to relay this story. Margueritte was driving south down Park St. and crossed Chicago St. looking west towards the building. On the brick wall of the building the sun cast a shadow of the telephone pole and three dark crosses appeared against the early morning sky. In a small way there it is, there’s the truth. Good Friday.