Easter 2013

OK.  There are Christian doctrines I find suspect, certain dogmas that don’t square with my karma, certain traditional interpretations of Scripture I think bear bad fruit.  Good teaching should never bear bad fruit.   I also find the behavior of many within the larger Christian community inexplicable and hard to understand --- or endure. Some days I feel alive, born anew, and other days I feel as dead as I’ve ever been.  Nor am I always exactly sure of what I believe or why I believe it.

  Am I a supralapsarian or an infralapsarian or have I just lapsed ---into doubt?  Am I more complementarian or egaliatarian in my understanding of gender roles?  Is the historical-grammatical method of studying the Bible always better than an existential hermeneutical approach?  Does anybody understand these twenty cent theological terms I’m throwing around? Do I?  And how tall and how long did that wall in 1 Kings that fell on 27, 000 thousand soldiers to presumably crush them have to be anyway --- preposterously tall and long enough to make me question biblical infallibility?   Bit by bit my faith frays at the seams, but there's something about the resurrection that never ceases to thrill my soul.

  Jesus’ tomb was never venerated the way other martyr’s tombs were venerated.  Those early Christ-followers naturally and organically began to worship on the first day of the week instead of the last.  Why?  I think something happened.  Something happened that soon begin to drive and define and explain everything else.

 In the final analysis, at least based on my twenty years of trying to come up with another Easter sermon, the theories used to re-explain or out and out deny the resurrection  prove harder to get your head around than the truth of the resurrection itself.

 

  And once again my faith centers upon a life-changing, history defining event.  I’m scared and I’m humbled and I’m hopeful --- again, yet again --- because Jesus is alive.  So, in the words of N. T. Wright, “We had better learn to take seriously the witness of the entire early church, that Jesus of Nazareth was raised bodily to a new sort of life, three days after his execution.  There wouldn’t be a church or a witness without the resurrection.  The New Testament proclaims that Jesus’ death wasn’t a messy accident, or the end of a beautiful dream, but rather the climatic act of Israel’s God, the one God of all the earth, and the focal point of a more glorious destiny.”   OK.  I'm buying . At least this week. 

Models of Reality

 

 

 

 

 

The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.

―Wade Davis.

Philippians 4: 8

         I gazed out the window, pensive, worried about a seemingly impossible decision when I saw my twelve year old, walking across our front yard, with a look of carefree wonderment upon his face that said I am still a little boy and life is good because I am alive and can’t really even conceive of death.  The grass is wet between my toes and mommy is making pancakes in the kitchen. This is my home and it’s too early in the day to be bored.  His expression of exhilaration and contentment took me back to my own childhood because once upon a time (just like you) impossible dreams fueled my imagination, the knowledge that I was secure made me brave, and I couldn’t hate anyone or anything --- at least for long.

         I guess Thomas Merton was right, “when we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash - at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the "newness," the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse into the cosmic dance.” 

         In other words, all the beauty in this world reminds us of God who is good and worthy of praise.  Then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?  And the fact that cable news details death and decay 24-7, and that people can hate and hate so cruelly (behind the façade of their self-righteous "if you only knew smugness") makes me wonder at times if there is any rhyme or reason to life.  Sometimes I agree with Barbara Kingsolver who writes, “Why does a person even get up in the morning?  You have breakfast, you floss your teeth so you'll have healthy gums in your old age, and then you get in your car and drive down I-10 and die.  Life is so stupid I can't stand it.” 

       I don't suppose such a thought worthy of God, whose truth and goodness and excellence can be seen even within the fallen created order, and most especially in life of a man named Jesus.  In his final comments to the church at Philippi, the apostle Paul encourages his brothers and sisters to think thoughts worthy of God.  Philippians 4: 8 wasn’t written to serve as the gold standard of ethical discussions, nor does this familiar verse promote the Pollyanna, pie-in-the-sky power of positive thinking, but the apostle’s sound exhortation does blunt the negativity of a God-denying world as well as my own deceitful hearts. 

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

 

I think I'll give it a try.