The Internet Monk Archives

Scott Lencke: Space and Place: In the Aftermath of Notre Dame

Cathedral of Notre Dame. Photo by David Merrett at Flickr

Scott Lencke
Space and Place: In the Aftermath of Notre Dame

This past week the world learned of the fires that burst aflame in the Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris. There have been a lot of responses across the spectrum, both amongst religious and non-religious folk.

I myself have been interested in the response of religious folk, Christians especially. In particular, I came across a social media post in which, on the day of the fire, someone responded with a paraphrase of Acts 17:24: God does not dwell in temples made with hands.

From this post, and my subsequent interaction with the person, what he was basically saying was this: “God doesn’t care about buildings. There are more important things, spiritual things, things of the Spirit.”

Something of that effect, as far as I can make out.

And, you know what? Not too long ago I would have argued the same exact sentiment. Even more, at base level, I can understand what was meant by this post. Truly God’s work is much bigger than a specific building – whether a nearly millennium-old, magnificent cathedral in Paris or a small, cement-brick building in Lusaka, Zambia.

But I think we’ve gotten off track. I’d argue we’ve been duped into believing a kind of half-truth – that the spiritual is much more important than the physical. This has led to our disdain of a beautiful gift of God. Honestly, I believe we’ve swung the pendulum so far that we could be embracing a type of gnostic dualism if we aren’t careful.

You see, a few centuries ago, things changed in the world. I am no great historian, nor philosopher, but I am aware that people like René Descartes and the Enlightenment changed things for the western world (which is now changing things across planet earth).

“I think, therefore I am.”

This mantra of Descartes set in motion a sweeping movement across multiple generations to being to primarily embrace the internal and slowly dis-embrace the physical.

The church even bought into it as well. But we fancied it up and called it “spiritual.” But it was still internal. It affected everything we are and do.

It was all about the spirit and not about the body.

Heaven was a spiritual, ethereal place (perhaps “up there”) with no physical, tangible component to it.

We abandoned regular, liturgical rhythms of the church like weekly participation in the eucharist, the physical bread and wine in which we would meet Christ.

Water baptism was preferred, but never required to enter the community of God’s people. What mattered is what had happened in the heart.

Remember, I used to hold to these “internal” ideas as well.

And this is where Notre Dame comes in. We left behind our buildings as having any significance in our faith formation. The church is God’s spiritual people; the building means little to nothing. We can meet (“have church”) anytime, anywhere, etc.

Of course, in a sense, that is true. But the fruit of such thinking – seeing the faith as primarily about the spiritual, seeing our final goal as a disembodied heaven, believing church happens anytime and anywhere, and now mixed ever more with our modern technological advancements – has led to our abandonment of the beauty and sacredness of place.

I’m currently reading a book by Dr. Jennifer Craft, Placemaking and the Arts: Cultivating the Christian Life, and it spends some time addressing this very reality much better than I could. She’s putting to words what I have been pondering about the evangelical faith for the past few years.

We have basically abandoned all things physical, all things tangible.

Place is no longer important. Or at least we think it isn’t.

But in doing so, we have deserted a major element of our faith.

Our faith is one that engages all five senses – hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, smelling. All of them!

This is why God created the world and declared it good. The good world is something we hear, see, touch, taste, smell.

This is why Christ became a real Jewish human being in the first century. He is one we hear, see, touch, can even taste and smell.

Here is an interesting point to consider. We, humans, actually love space and place. It’s just that we channel it into the “secular” much more than we do the sacred.

Why do we love our favorite restaurant with our spouse? For what it means and what we encounter with the food, the setting, the atmosphere, the live music or quietness, etc.

Why do we love certain vacation spots? For what they mean to our family, the memories, the sand on the shore, the mountains in the background, etc.

Why do we feel homesick when we’ve been away from home for weeks, months, years? For what that space means to us with the familiarity, smells, tastes, sights, etc.

This is something Craft argues up front in her book. We already enjoy and treasure place, but we have swallowed the half-truth that place doesn’t matter when it comes to our faith.

So, back to Notre Dame and the quoting of Acts 17:24: The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.

Yes, God does not live in temples. Though I think we’ll do well to consider the larger context of what Paul is addressing with the philosophers in Athens. But this is not to say God cannot be encountered within physical structures. Of course, he can! And he does! This is why we have the good earth. This is why we have the human Christ. This is why we have the word not simply spoken but written down. This is why we get into the baptismal waters. This is why we eat the bread and drink the wine weekly. And this is why we deem a specific place the gathering of God’s people.

I agree places can lose their significance. I believe edifices can be newly erected and God is never present. This happens for me in darkened auditoriums with a multi-light production on Sunday.

But none of this changes that God is encountered in real place.

Though I was never able to visit Notre Dame, even after living in Brussels, Belgium for five and a half years, I have visited many breathtaking and beautiful buildings that provided a true sense of God’s presence. To see, touch, hear, even smell these places has helped me encounter the living God.

I think God meant it that way.

I believe God inhabits place.

Randy Thompson: It’s Spring, Sort of

Mud Season. Photo by Matt Jorgensen at Flickr

Randy Thompson
It’s Spring, Sort of

Spring typically conjures up images of robins, flowers and bright yellow forsythia blooms. That’s the way spring is supposed to be for most of us.

But, the reality of it here in New Hampshire is a bit different. Spring is mud season. We’re grateful for the warmer weather, but warm weather means that the snow starts to melt, and when the snow melts, mud takes its place. Spring is also when the signs announcing “Frost Heaves” appear, warning us to expect washboard roads ahead. Then, later, around Mothers’ Day, come the black flies.

Our lives can be like this. Our expectation of the way life should be often clashes with the way life really is. Pastors often enter ministry with an expectation of the way things ought to be, and often quickly discover that their expectations and reality are seemingly at odds. No one told them about their churches’ mud, frost heaves and black flies.

It’s spring! We can walk to the mail box and not worry about slipping on the ice. But, it’s spring, and the driveway is soggy and muddy, and there’s no crocus in sight. The church is the bride of Christ! Yet, the bride often seems sullen, moody and distracted.

Spring in northern New England is a season where we learn to manage our naive expectations about the way things should be, and learn to wait, patiently, for the spring of our expectations to arrive. Soon, the snow will have melted away, and the ground will dry out in the sun. The well-watered soil will begin to generate crocuses, daffodils, and snowdrops, intimating that it’s about time to prepare the garden for planting. Soon, the black flies will disappear just as mysteriously as they appeared.

Our expectation of a pleasant spring isn’t wrong, it really is spring despite what seems to be evidence to the contrary. The problem is, our expectations are impatient. We want spring, now! Pastors want to see the Kingdom come in their churches, now! We want what we want, now!

We forget that though we have little time and are always in a hurry, God never hurries, and God has all the time in the world, as 2 Peter reminds us: “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).

The late Dallas Willard counseled, “Hurry is the enemy of spiritual life.” We can let our impatience for flowers blind us to the fact that it is indeed warmer out, despite black flies and frost heaves. We fail to feel the warm air on our skin because we’re ankle-deep in mud. More seriously, we fail to notice God’s comforting presence in life as it comes to us because we’re preoccupied with and distracted by our quest for spiritual goodies. We lose touch with God’s quiet presence in our lives in our quest for the pizzazz, excitement, and spiritual experiences that wild-eyed worship leaders seem to offer. We mistake excitement for newness of life and spiritual depth, both of which requiring patience.

Despite the mud and the sogginess, spring is here and the snow will be gone and the flowers will bloom. Despite a moody and distracted congregation, the Kingdom will come and all will be made right. Our time is not God’s time. Spring really is here, but it will take awhile for us to see it in its fullness. The Kingdom has come in Christ, but it will take awhile before we see him put things to rights.

So we plod through the mud, endure the bone-rattling frost heaves, and shoo away the black flies, and that’s OK. It’s spring. Winter’s ice is thawing. The mud slowly turns to garden soil, and the black flies disappear. The old self gives way to the new one.

It turns out, the signs of spring were all around us–the mud, the frost heaves, and the black flies–but we didn’t have eyes to see. The signs of spring were there all along. They weren’t the signs we wanted, but they were signs nonetheless.

And to what do these signs point? To the coming of crocuses, hyacinths, and snow drops, to robins and chipping sparrows. And, if we had but eyes to see, we could see God’s signs all over the place, even in the muck and mire, pointing us toward that for which we pray, “Your Kingdom, come!”

Easter Monday 2019: A Quiet, Personal Easter

Pasque Flowers. Photo by Michael Levine-Clark at Flickr

Easter Monday
A Quiet, Personal Easter

If there is ever a day when the church goes all out, it’s on Easter Sunday. And this is as it should be. From the earliest days of the church, the Sunday of the resurrection has been the primary festive occasion of the church. The resurrection is the very reason we worship on Sundays, and in church tradition, every Sunday is to be treated as a “little Easter.” So, when we get to Easter Sunday itself, churches and communities around the world tend to pull out all the stops.

On Easter Sunday in Sicily, they celebrate with a parade called “Kiss Kiss.” The parade has two processions. In one a statue of the Risen Christ is carried and the other carries a statue of the Virgin Mary, clad in black and in mourning. They go around the streets until the two processions meet. The Virgin’s black cloak is torn away to reveal brilliantly colored clothes and her statue is held out to plant two kisses on Jesus. At that moment, bands start playing, church bells ring, and fireworks are set off in celebration.

In Florence, Italy, a decorated wagon is dragged through the streets by white oxen until it reaches the cathedral, and when the Gloria is sung inside, the Archbishop sends a dove-shaped rocket into the cart, igniting a large fireworks display.

Eggs are a prominent part of Easter celebrations. Of course, here, many of us color eggs, hide them, and have Easter egg hunts for the children. Sometimes those can get pretty crazy. I was part of a church once that had an Easter egg hunt for the kids on Saturday that included the spectacle of flying in the Easter Bunny in a helicopter.

In Germany, eggs are not hidden, but displayed in trees along the streets. Thousands of richly decorated eggs festoon the town. In Bulgaria, people don’t hide their eggs — they have egg fights! Whoever ends the game with an unbroken egg is the winner who will have success in the coming year. In a small town in the south of France, each year in the town square they prepare a giant omelet with 4,500 eggs and feed 1,000 people.

One of America’s great cultural celebrations since the late 1800s has been New York City’s Easter Parade.

This is the one Irving Berlin wrote a song about:

In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it,
You’ll be the grandest lady in the Easter Parade.
I’ll be all in clover and when they look you over,
I’ll be the proudest fellow in the Easter Parade.

In this parade, women wear elaborate fashions and hats and magnificent flower displays adorn the streets and churches.

Some of the megachurches in the U.S. have gone a little crazy in recent years, trying to attract people to come to their Easter services. Some of them give away cars, vacations, electronics, free gas and groceries, and gift cards.

Some of the megachurches in the U.S. have gone a little crazy in recent years, trying to attract people to come to their Easter services. It’s all a bit over the top and pretty silly in some cases. Some of them go so far as to give away cars, vacations, electronics, free gas and groceries, and gift cards to lucky church-attenders.
Others use pop culture themes to try and get more people in the seats. In one recent year, I saw a church that had a Star Wars theme, complete with costumes and videos and Star Wars related messages and activities. Another approach has tried to build upon the popularity of zombie movies and TV shows such as The Walking Dead, using themes from these, I suppose, to illustrate certain themes about life beyond death.
Other churches take a more traditional approach, with elaborate pageants, plays, and choral productions. Big churches like to go even bigger on Easter.

These are just a few examples, but they all serve to make the point that there is something about Easter that demands festivity and celebration. Even if we don’t go crazy, many of us buy new clothes and take family pictures with everyone dressed in their Easter finery. (Pictures that most of us regret years later!) We gather together. We feast. It’s a great holiday of celebration.

Combined with the return of color and warmth and the revival of life in nature in the springtime, and after the somber reminders of Lent and Holy Week, Easter explodes with color and sound and food and festive gatherings. The music of Easter has always been exuberant and upbeat and bright, with trumpets and brass and choirs singing the Hallelujah Chorus. It’s a day to let loose, to go big, to laugh and sing and dance with joy and enthusiasm. The sun has overcome the darkness! Death has been defeated! The power of the grave has been broken! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

All this is as it should be. But it is interesting to compare all this rejoicing and revelry with the relatively quiet events of that first Easter Sunday morning that we read about in the Bible. In the Gospels, Easter and the resurrection is experienced in quiet, personal, and even intimate ways.

The angels who announce that he is risen do not fill the skies as they did at his birth. The glory of the Lord does not shine down from heaven, dropping the disciples to their knees. Nor does the risen Christ himself appear in splendor and majesty. Rather, when he appears he comes quietly, personally. There are several times, in fact, when his friends do not even recognize him when he stands right in front of them. Jesus unexpectedly enters the rooms where they have gathered, bringing a quiet, reassuring word of peace. He walks with them down the road. He teaches them from the scriptures. He breaks bread with them at the table. He has breakfast with them on the shores of the lake. He has private conversations with many of them. He has them touch him to assure them he is not a vision or a spirit.

I think it is appropriate for us to mark Easter and Jesus’ resurrection with festivity and colorful celebration. But I don’t ever want to forget the quiet, personal, intimate, and reassuring way the risen Christ comes to us.

One of the best resurrection stories to remind us of this is the account of Mary Magdelene in the garden in John 20. Let me read it to you from the New Living Translation:

Mary was standing outside the tomb crying, and as she wept, she stooped and looked in. She saw two white-robed angels, one sitting at the head and the other at the foot of the place where the body of Jesus had been lying. “Dear woman, why are you crying?” the angels asked her.

“Because they have taken away my Lord,” she replied, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”

She turned to leave and saw someone standing there. It was Jesus, but she didn’t recognize him. “Dear woman, why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who are you looking for?”

She thought he was the gardener. “Sir,” she said, “if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him.”

“Mary!” Jesus said.

She turned to him and cried out, “Rabboni!” (which is Hebrew for “Teacher”).

John’s Gospel loves to focus on individuals and the encounters Jesus has with them. This is one of most poignant and tender. Mary had come to the tomb earlier, had found the stone rolled away, and had left to tell Peter and John. After they checked things out, Mary returned to the tomb and was standing outside weeping. Her grief at losing Jesus was now compounded by the fact that his body was missing. The one she had come to honor and remember was no longer there, and she must have felt a profound sense of sadness, fear, and confusion.

Gathering her courage, she peeked into the cave. But instead of an unoccupied tomb, she saw two persons dressed in white. John tells us they were angels. They asked Mary why she was crying. They were not asking for information. They were gently trying to get her to see beyond her tears. Something had happened that she could not yet imagine. All she knows at that moment is that Jesus’ body is gone and the only explanation she can muster is that someone must have moved him.

Then, she becomes aware of another person in the garden. She supposes at that time in the morning that it must be the caretaker of the cemetery. He speaks, and again the question comes to her: “Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?”

It occurs to her that maybe this caretaker had been ordered to move the body for some reason. So she appeals to him, “I am ready to take the body into my care if need be; just let me know where he is.” The Bible tells us that Mary of Magdala was one of a group of women who supported Jesus’ ministry financially, so she had the means to take care of this if it was needed.

At that moment, the stranger speaks her name. “Mary.” And the light broke through. It was Jesus, the same Jesus who had said, “I call my sheep by name and my sheep hear my voice.” Nothing could be mistaken for that voice which spoke Mary’s name. It was the same Jesus who had healed her of a severe condition, who had delivered her from the power of evil, who had turned her life completely around, and whom she had followed faithfully ever since.

Immediately she fell at his feet and cried out in breathless wonder, “Teacher!”

And that, my friends, is Easter.

Easter is when the living Christ comes to me in the darkness and lets me know I’m not alone.

Easter is when I discover Jesus is with me, even when I cannot see him standing there, right in front of me.

Easter is when Jesus meets me right here, in the midst of my confusion, my doubts, my fears, and questions. When nothing seems right. When life doesn’t make sense. When I’m numb and dumfounded and can’t figure it out.

Easter is when the living Savior speaks my name and I know it’s going to be alright.

Easter is when I begin to get a glimpse that even death and hell and the power of the grave is no match for the relentless life and love of God.

When I’m so preoccupied that even angels cannot get my attention, when I can’t see anything clearly through the haze of my tears, when I keep repeating the same questions over and over again and can’t seem to fathom a way out of my quandary, Jesus speaks to me in a familiar way and suddenly I don’t need to know all the answers. It is enough to know that he is here, that he is with me, that I am loved. That is Easter.

So, decorate with all the flowers you want. Dress up in the finest clothes you can afford. Hide the eggs and set the kids free to find them. Raise your glasses and feast together at the table. Sound the trumpets. Cue the choir. Have a parade. It is appropriate for us to mark Jesus’ resurrection with festivity and colorful celebration.

But I don’t ever want to forget the quiet, personal, intimate, and reassuring way the risen Christ comes to us.

These things I have spoken to you, that in the living Lord Jesus Christ you may have peace.

In the world you will have trouble, but take courage — he has overcome the world.

The 3 Days — Easter Sunday 2019

Happy Easter! Photo by Theophilos Papadapolous at Flickr

Easter Sunday 2019

Praise and thanks
remain your song of praise
Hell and the devil are overcome
their gates are destroyed
Shout and cheer, you loosened tongues,
so that you are heard in heaven
Open up, you heavens,the splendid arches,
the Lion of Judah comes drawn in victory!

•

J.S. Bach
Easter Oratorio (BWV 249)
Final Chorus, translation by Francis Browne

The 3 Days — Holy Saturday 2019

The Grave of the Black Sheep. Photo by Hartwig HKD at Flickr

Holy Saturday 2019
God’s Godness in the grave of godlessness

There is a “faith” which has forgotten what it is to doubt; a way of hearing which no longer listens to the silence; a certainty that God is close which dares not look into eyes still haunted by divine remoteness; a hope for some glory other than a crown of thorns.

Such supposed but cowardly and inauthentic faith and hope has failed to wrestle with the conundrum of the grave, evading the possibility that God is God among the suffering and the dying, and that the King who rules the world is only a wounded lamb that has been slain. Whereas our three-day story — that “word of the cross” to which our faith and hope should be conformed — does indeed portray a God who prevails only by allowing place and recognition to the hostile opposition, saying “Yes” to the guilty and the doubting and the dying. That is divine affirmation of the very persons and realities which embody the world’s great “No” to God, the living expressions of its ugliness, destructiveness, and sin. But because God acknowledges all this negativity and lets it be, because the word God says is Yes not No, positive not negative, for life not against it, grace surpasses its antithesis, proving more creative than evil can be destructive. Thus, in its very affirmation, death is defeated; and thus the Son of God who lay in death among the godless of the earth rises to new life, and brings them with him: witnesses to God’s even greater presence within the absence of that presence, which was great enough.

• Alan E. Lewis, Between Cross and Resurrection

The 3 Days — Randy Thompson: Good Friday Meditation

Cross, cemetery near Chauchilla Cemetery, Nasca, Peru. Photo by Paul B at Flickr

Good Friday Meditation
Randy Thompson

It is noon, and I am sitting in the last pew, in the back of the church.

I am here because it is Good Friday. I do not have any deep thoughts. I do not vividly imagine myself at Golgotha. I am here because on this day I need to do something. So, I sit here quietly.

The light was darkened and Christ hung dying during this time, noon to three p.m. My presence here doesn’t change that or add to that. My being here is not a great witness to many people. It is a quiet witness, seen only by You, Lord. I need to do something, so here I am.

My being here will accomplish nothing. For many, I am wasting my time. Yet, this is where I want to be. It is that simple. I do not expect great revelations or deep spiritual experiences. I am not here for that. I am here, doing nothing this Good Friday, for it is all I know to do, and I do it for Jesus’ sake. If You can die for me, I can sit here, alone in this church for three hours, for You. My presence here is my way of inarticulately saying “thank you.”

I do this feeling nothing. I feel as though I should have deep feelings, that my recollection of your death should stir deep emotions. But no. I sit here, feeling nothing, yet I sense my sitting here is enough. This is my way of remembering, and I’m doing it with my body more than with my emotions.

Lord, I feel your pleasure in my being here.

You died alone. It is thus fitting that I sit here, in this church, alone. There were no “Hosannas” for you on this day. Your friends were gone and your disciples in hiding. It is fitting that I sit here, alone. Through this I participate in your loneliness. Through this, in a small way, I enter into it.

How brightly shines the brass cross on the Communion table. A fitting memorial, especially on this day. But, your cross wasn’t bright and shining like this memorial of it. Yours was dark, wooden and splintery. It was meant to hold your weight and slowly kill you, providing a cautionary spectacle of degradation and humiliation to passersby, your messianic kingship now serving as mockery.

I am not, sitting here, humiliated and degraded. Yet, my being here honors what you experienced. Although I feel nothing I am here, and I am with You. What You experienced from others that day matters to me. If I can’t feel humiliated with you, I can be here, in honor if your humiliation.

• • •

I find myself wondering, how much longer I have to be here. What is the time now?

• • •

I don’t do a good job of sitting here. My mind wanders. I feel an urgency to do nothing in particular. I anticipate the future at the expense of the present moment. Where do I have to go, or what do I have to do later this afternoon? I bring myself back to this moment, resisting the urge to look at my watch.

I wonder, when you were hanging under a darkened sky, if you anticipated the future–and, if so, were you anticipating death as an end to your suffering, or something greater and grander? What does one anticipate who cries out the Psalm, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

I sneak a look at my watch. Almost an hour has gone by.

• • •

I remember, as a boy, when churches were filled with people on this day. I remember dad taking me to Southern California Good Friday services several times, at Hollywood Presbyterian Church, at Church of the Open Door, and at our own church, Pasadena Covenant. At all these churches, there would be a series of services between noon and three which featured music, a hymn or two, and meditations or short sermons on the seven last words. There was a significant number of people at each part of this service (or at each of the separate services, depending on how you look at it).

In this simple way, I was taught as a boy that this day is important. What I remember most, now, was the solemnity of it. There was a stillness in the church that I didn’t notice at regular Sunday services. Despite the Southern California sunlight shining through the stained glass, I was aware of the mid-day shadows. What happened on this day mattered, I learned. Because of that this Good Friday, now, matters.

If we are not taught about Good Friday’s cross, if we are given no means of entering into that day, how can it matter to us? We give lip service to being “born again” or to being baptized, but we have come to avoid Good Friday and what it represents. “Jesus did it all” we think, and so don’t ponder the mystery, how our sin becomes his and our judgment his, and where we are reduced to grateful love by the God who suffers, dies, and is raised. The cross has become an ancient equation whereby we reckon ourselves forgiven to go about our business. We look past Good Friday to Sunday’s Easter eggs. We have forgotten that we have been baptized into your death. We are glib, and mistake it for joy.

Lord, thank you that I am sitting here, alone. Thank you that doing nothing here in your presence is better than doing anything else. Thank you, for those who saw to it so many years ago that I would be sitting here now, with you.

• • •

Writing this has been and is an exercise in being more fully aware of what my being here means. To write one’s thoughts is to think them more deeply, to understand them more thoroughly. It helps me sit here, and makes me alive both to this Good Friday, and to That One.

Yet, to write as I am writing here–is this writing for me, or for someone else? Or does that question even matter? If the act of writing enables me to be here, maybe it will enable others to be here as well.

• • •

It is good to be here, Lord, for this is all I can manage–to show up here and sit, while you die. I have nothing to say that adds to your death, and there is nothing I can do to make it more vividly real. The fantasies and images of my imagination are merely a distraction. I am here as a friend, helpless to prevent the death that is coming, yet out of love for you, I must be here. I must be present, and this is the only way I know how to be present to You this day.

And yet, I am not here merely as a mourner. I see up, through the deep chasm of death and abandonment to the far side, which is all the more beautiful and joyfully hopeful for seeing it from the depth of this side of the dark chasm of this day.

Can there be real, joyful hope without first knowing crushing despair? Can we truly appreciate life apart from knowing death? I think not. The road to the heights must take us first to the depths. It is there, in the depths, that You develop a capacity for joy and hope and life eternal within us. “To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace,” Paul tells us. The source of the Spirit is the crucified Jesus, for “we were buried with him by baptism into his death” that we might be raised with him (Romans 6:3-4).

True coming to Christ entails coming to his Good Friday death, and joining him through the washing waters of baptism and so into a new birth into a living hope.

Christ has died and I have died with him. That’s why I sit here today. I have died with him, and yet I live, and I live anticipating an even greater and grander life, a participation in the divine nature.

I have died with Christ, and so I sit alone in an empty church today, joined occasionally by a few others, who sense in their soul’s depths the depths of this day. I sit here sensing that I am sitting in the still, small point around which all things circle and converge. To be here, this day, is to sit peering into the center of all things. Nothing happens, yet everything has happened, and everything has changed. “It is finished,” Jesus cried out, and so it is. Nothing can be added to this death, and nothing taken from it. His death is a monolithic achievement we see and don’t see, the love of God a sin-blinded world cannot see with its own eyes. Truly, nothing can, now, separate us from the love of God other than our own hard-hearted indifference and arrogance.

• • •

“It is finished,” Christ cries, and all human life and striving is caught up in these words. Now, something new has happened and will be seen in the dawn light of the first day of the week. Now, heaven has come to earth, and earth taken up into heaven, so that the world, some day, really will be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

Yet, there are seemingly so few who see this–so few who sit alone with Christ in empty, Good Friday churches and ponder what happened in the darkness at Golgotha. So few that truly know they have been crucified with Christ.

I will continue to sit here this afternoon until the end, for I know I have been crucified with Christ, and have no place else to go. The life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God, and so I have no place else to go. And, because this Son of God loved me and gave himself for me, I have no place else to go.

This is my record of sitting alone with the crucified Jesus on this Good Friday, April 14, 2017. This is my gift of three hours.

It is not an impressive gift.

Thank You, that it doesn’t have to be.

Maundy Thursday 2019

Maundy Thursday 2019
Meal

When the time came for Jesus and the apostles to eat, he said to them, “I have very much wanted to eat this Passover meal with you before I suffer. I tell you that I will not eat another Passover meal until it is finally eaten in God’s kingdom.”

Jesus took a cup of wine in his hands and gave thanks to God. Then he told the apostles, “Take this wine and share it with each other. I tell you that I will not drink any more wine until God’s kingdom comes.”

Jesus took some bread in his hands and gave thanks for it. He broke the bread and handed it to his apostles. Then he said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Eat this as a way of remembering me!”

After the meal he took another cup of wine in his hands. Then he said, “This is my blood. It is poured out for you, and with it God makes his new agreement.

• Luke 22:14-20

“When Jesus wanted to give his followers — then and now — a way of understanding what was about to happen to him, he didn’t teach them a theory. …He gave them an act to perform. Specifically, he gave them a meal to share” (Tom Wright).

Luke’s Gospel makes it clear that this was a meal eaten at Passover time. It thus brings to mind the founding story of Israel with all that involves: exile and slavery under the powers of the nations, judgment on those nations’ gods, divine redemption, deliverance, and the gift of freedom to make a journey of faith in covenant relationship with the true and living God.

Jesus meets now at the table with his disciples as the climax and fulfillment of that story — the true Passover, the lamb sacrificed, the unleavened bread prepared and eaten, the blood painted on the lintels and doorposts. The body given, the blood shed, the meal shared, and life received. Food for the ongoing journey.

I can no longer conceive of weekly Christian worship without the family of God in Christ gathering around the Table. It is where the entire story comes together, where the people of God taste and are nourished by the good news of salvation. It is the heart of worship, the very act of worship for Christians. We may have our occasional prayer services or services of the Word, but these are the exceptions. Genuine Christian worship involves the Word of good news and the Table where we feast upon the bread of life.

On this evening long ago, Jesus, who during Holy Week has been announcing judgment on the powers that hold God’s people captive, now serves them the meal of freedom.

Let the New Exodus begin!

Wednesday in Holy Week 2019

Crucified Cross. Photo by jurek d. at Flickr

Wednesday in Holy Week 2019
Portent

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.’

…‘When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those inside the city must leave it, and those out in the country must not enter it; for these are days of vengeance, as a fulfilment of all that is written. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath against this people; they will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken away as captives among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

‘There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.’

• Luke 21:5-6, 20-28

Luke is not writing about “the Second Coming” in this text, nor was Jesus talking about it. Continuing the theme of the Temple as he moves throughout Jerusalem in Holy Week, Jesus now directly foretells the destruction of Israel’s sacred landmark. What he had earlier enacted in prophetic demonstration and narrated in parabolic allegory, he now proclaims openly.

Jerusalem will be surrounded by armies. Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles. Great distress, wrath, and violence will fill the city. Portents in the earth and sky will announce the coming devastation.

The Temple, the most beautiful building one could imagine, adorned and decorated by the skill and love of hundreds of years, and occupying the central place in the national life, religion, and imagination — the Temple itself would be torn down. It had come to stand for the perversion of Israel’s call that Jesus had opposed throughout his public career. If he was right, the present Temple was wrong; if God was to vindicate him, that would have to include the Temple’s destruction.

• Tom Wright, Luke for Everyone, p. 251

“The coming of the son of man” in this text should be understood in terms of Daniel 7. In this text, the son of man comes, not from heaven to earth, but to God’s throne in heaven where he and the people of God are vindicated against the nations that oppress them. Even so, Jesus will be vindicated as Lord over the nations, enthroned in the heavens, and his followers rescued.

‘Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.’ (Luke 21:36)

Jesus’ first followers had been warned. In just a few days, Jesus’ own experience at the hands of the earthly powers would further portend the difficult road ahead for them.

But then — the hope of vindication.

Tuesday in Holy Week 2019

Cross in wall, east of Well Croft, Laycock, Keighley. Photo by Tim Green at Flickr

Tuesday in Holy Week 2019
Parable

A man once planted a vineyard and rented it out. Then he left the country for a long time. When it was time to harvest the crop, he sent a servant to ask the renters for his share of the grapes. But they beat up the servant and sent him away without anything. So the owner sent another servant. The renters also beat him up. They insulted him terribly and sent him away without a thing. The owner sent a third servant. He was also beaten terribly and thrown out of the vineyard.

The owner then said to himself, “What am I going to do? I know what. I’ll send my son, the one I love so much. They will surely respect him!”

When the renters saw the owner’s son, they said to one another, “Someday he will own the vineyard. Let’s kill him! Then we can have it all for ourselves.” So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

Jesus asked, “What do you think the owner of the vineyard will do? I’ll tell you what. He will come and kill those renters and let someone else have his vineyard.”

• Luke 20:9-16

All the Synoptic Gospels report that Jesus’ final week was characterized by public teaching, disputes and other encounters with the people and religious leaders in Jerusalem. One example in Luke is this parable.

This particular parable is straightforward and more allegorical than many other of Jesus’ stories.

Israel is traditionally symbolized as God’s vineyard (for example, Isaiah 5:1-7), so in this story God is the owner and the vineyard the nation.
The renters are the nation’s leaders, those responsible for stewarding God’s people, practicing and encouraging covenant faithfulness.
Israel’s prophets are portrayed by the servants God sends time and time and time again for his harvest.
Finally, the owner sends his beloved son to represent him, but the renters seize him and kill him. This, of course, is Jesus himself, who came to his own but his own would not receive him.
The owner executes judgment on the vineyard’s stewards and puts others in charge of it. This is a warning that the current leaders of Israel are about to lose their privileged status and the Gentiles will be brought in to share in the promise.

Again, this time through an allegorical parable instead of a prophetic action, Jesus tells the story of Israel and puts himself right at the climactic point of it. He is the One God sent as rightful heir and ruler of his vineyard.

This is not a story that is going to end well. Or so it seems.

Monday in Holy Week 2019

Monday in Holy Week 2019
Temple

When Jesus came closer and could see Jerusalem, he cried and said:

It is too bad that today your people don’t know what will bring them peace! Now it is hidden from them. Jerusalem, the time will come when your enemies will build walls around you to attack you. Armies will surround you and close in on you from every side. They will level you to the ground and kill your people. Not one stone in your buildings will be left on top of another. This will happen because you did not see that God had come to save you.

When Jesus entered the temple, he started chasing out the people who were selling things. He told them, “The Scriptures say, ‘My house should be a place of worship.’ But you have made it a place where robbers hide!”

• Luke 19:41-46

The way I’ve heard people talk about Jesus’ act of cleansing the temple is largely inaccurate and misses the point. This was not the day Jesus lost control. This was not about his anger. What he did was not an explosion of rage. Emotions were no doubt involved, but we are not to read this merely as an act of righteous personal indignation, acted out when the final straw had been added.

What Jesus did in the Temple in Holy Week was a prophetic action, a symbolic gesture — attention-getting in its violence, to be sure — and not a mere, spur of the moment expression of utter exasperation at the commercialization of the Temple grounds.

No, Jesus is pronouncing judgment on the whole Temple enterprise.

As Tom Wright explains:

The Temple had become the focal point of the national ideology. As in Isaiah’s day, it stood in the public imagination for the unshakeable promise of Israel’s God to keep Israel safe, come what may. Israel had to face the challenge that unless the promise was met with faith and obedience it would count for nothing, and indeed worse than nothing; it would turn into a curse. If you’re in covenant with the holy God, disobedience doesn’t simply prevent blessings, bringing you back, as it were, to square one. It calls down the judgment that a sorrowful God will pour out on his people when they reject him and his purposes.

You might think their history of having lost Temple, land, kingdom, and nation, and never having ever fully recovered from that might have created a sense of humility and openness to something new God could do in their midst. However, the fact that Jesus had to undertake this action shows that they were still placing their trust in the Temple as the presence, approval, and protection of God amongst them.

The Temple is a theme that reoccurs throughout this Holy Week as Jesus goes straight into the heart of his people’s religious life and presents himself as God’s promised One — the true incarnation of God — who came to truly restore them from exile and inaugurate God’s rule in their lives.

The dreadful alternative, should they reject his gracious offer of peace, is portrayed at the commencement of this Holy Week through Jesus’ striking prophetic action.