Advent 1 Keep Awake!
Jesus Christ is personally returning to this planet.
For now, Jesus has ascended into heaven. For now, only God the Father knows when Jesus will return. As it was is the day of Noah so it was in the day Jesus preached. People were caught up in the daily events of their lives: eating, drinking, marriage, birth and death.
As it was in the day when Jesus preached so it is now in this Church Age, the Age of Grace. People pursue their lives. We eat and drink, we work and play, we experience pleasure and pain. Marriage, births and deaths. The world goes on as it has for thousands of years.
The world goes on but one thing changes. Every day that passes brings the day of Jesus’ return to Earth one day closer.
In the First Century most people missed the Real Presence of God in Jesus Christ. Some were indifferent. Some wanted to use Jesus to advance their own plans. Some resented and rejected Jesus. Few, perhaps only four at the end, understood that faith is more important than belief. Those four: Holy Mother Mary, her sister Mary, Mary Magdalene, and the beloved apostle John had slowly come to understand that Faith is a personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ.
Jesus’ command and encouragement to his followers to keep awake is an invitation to wake up from the stories we tell ourselves and each other about life, other people and God. These stories lull us into a half life of borrowed dreams.
For many in Jesus’ day the borrowed dreams were of aggressive military conquest, power and dominance. For others, the borrowed dreams were cast in the seductive illusions of pleasure and withdrawal from the world. For others the dreams involved submission to a set of laws, rituals or philosophies.
Jesus entered into the world to call us to wake up and pay attention. Jesus is not just another religious leader who brings temporary relief from life’s trials and tribulations. Jesus is the Incarnate Word of God, the Logos, the very Pattern, Plan, and Purpose of the universe.
In Jesus Christ God offers us a new life and a new way of living. In Jesus Christ God reveals to us the essential truth of Creation. Jesus just doesn’t offer an opinion about truth, Jesus is the Truth.
Jesus just doesn’t offer us an alternative way of being religious. Jesus is the Way we can be fully alive, fully human, and fully awake. Jesus is the origin and source of life.
Jesus asks us to wake up. Observe. Question. Reflect. Pray. Engage fully in life. Receive the great blessing of God in the unconditional love of God.
During Advent, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church invites us to consider how we can respond to the gift of God in Jesus Christ. Where are you still asleep and living some one else’s borrowed dream? Where are you placing you trust? How are sleepwalking through life, living by default?
The invitation to keep awake is the invitation for each of us and all of us to make a real choice to live in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ. It is an invitation to pay attention. Observe. Watch.
The invitation is to pay attention to the world as it is not as we want it to be or demand it should be.
The invitation to pay attention is to come to the altar of God regularly to immerse our minds, hearts, and wills in the eternal love of Jesus Christ in the blessed sacrament of the altar.
The invitation to pay attention is the invitation to wake up to the new Way of living, the fundamental truth of life, and to the very origin and source of life: Jesus Christ.
Two thousand years ago the co-eternal Son of God became a human being. He was born as we are born. He grew up as we grow up. He lived a quiet obscure life as most of us live. For three years he preached the Good News of the Kingdom of God. People looked at him but did not see him. People listened to him but did not hear him. People placed their hopes and fears on him without any regard for who he was. Those hopes and fears nailed him to the cross. As he died on the cross, Jesus transformed those hopes and fears by the power of unconditional eternal love.
Jesus offers us a new life and a new way of living. Have you received that new life? Are you waking up and claiming the new way of living? The Christian Faith is not a set of beliefs. The Christian faith is a personal relationship with the Living Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus invites us to wake up to the reality of his Presence and to stay awake in the new way of living he gives us. He is coming back to this planet. We have a responsibility to prepare ourselves to greet him. We have an invitation to help others to wake up into the new life of grace.
Jesus came to make a difference in our lives here and now. In the here and now Jesus invites us to wake up. Pay attention. Watch. Watch for our moment of grace. Watch for the opportunities to worship God and to help other people. Watch over the choices we make. Choose wisely. Stay awake. Jesus will make a difference in our lives as we listen to him and live fully present in the world as it is. The world “as it is” reveals the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, God with us and God for us.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving 2010 Do not worry
Do not worry. The command is easier said than done.
There is a lot in the world that inspires worry, fear, anxiety. Jesus names some of them. Strangely, Jesus has a very different attitude about all of these things that bring so much anxiety into our lives.
Jesus asserts that the things that can lead to worry have no essential power to cause the worry. Poverty, starvation, scarcity all are serious challenges to human life. But none of these things can of themselves impose fear, anxiety and worry on us. Even death lacks that power.
So, where does the worry come from? Jesus reveals to us that it comes from within our souls. It comes from the place of separation. It manifests in the fear that if anything can go wrong it will go wrong. It distorts our attitude towards life, other people and even God with the phrase: what’s in it for me?
Separation from God produces a story we tell ourselves and each other. The story is grounded in the concept of scarcity. The story is: there isn’t enough. The story is that life is a struggle and then you die. The story is that we are all victims and someone else or something else is always to blame. The story produces worry and the justification for a life lived in defense against all manner of potential threats to our well being.
Jesus came into the world to address the problem of separation. In his own body he united divinity with humanity. In the way he lived his life he demonstrated that it is possible to live with a different story. The story Jesus tells is a story of the abundance of God’s love. The abundance is grace: the gift of God to all people everywhere.
The abundance comes from the reunification of our souls with the infinite and eternal love of God. The new story is the Good News of God with us. God is our loving heavenly Father who is consistently concerned about us. Our Heavenly Father knows our every need and is more than willing to help us meet those needs.
The new story invites us to live from the place of thankfulness for the many blessings God gives us constantly and unfailingly.
Jesus asks: do you believe this? Where do you place your faith? Do you place your faith in laws, rituals, knowledge, yourself? Or, do you place your faith in the incarnate co-eternal Son of God?
Jesus lived his life by the constant prayer: heavenly Father, not my will but your will be done. Jesus took the human tendency to ask of life: “what’s in it for me?” and transformed it into a different question: “how may I help?”
Jesus invites into a new life: a life of abundance in the peace, love and joy of the Holy Spirit. Jesus offers to help us to participate in a new way of living: an undefended way of living that trusts God to protect us and to provide for us.
Salvation in Jesus Christ is about the way we experience our lives here and now. We are personally responsible for our lives. We can choose. We can choose a story of scarcity, fear, self will and worry. Or, we can choose a story of abundance, faith, divine will and peace.
Jesus encourages us to examine the stories we tell ourselves. Do we say life is a struggle and a problem? Do we tell ourselves we are victims? Or, do we embrace the Good News of the story Jesus tells us: God is real. God is personal. God is love. God is for us and with us in the Real Presence of the Living Lord Jesus Christ?
Jesus asks: do we make a real choice to live our lives by grace through faith in the goodness of God? Will we live from the place of Thanksgiving for all of the many blessings God pours into our lives, our hearts, our minds, our souls?
Jesus asks us to re examine our priorities. He teaches the best and most fulfilling priority is the personal relationship with God that he himself gives to us as a gift. If we start from that place, the personal relationship God offers us in Jesus Christ, all other things will find their proper place.
Jesus tells us how we can live life without worry when he gives us a new story with a new priority: seek first the Kingdom of God. Seek first a personal relationship with God. As you do that, as you live into that choice, you will experience the abundance of Divine love. The worry will yield to the faith as you live from the place of grace, the gift of God in Jesus Christ.
Do not worry. The command is easier said than done.
There is a lot in the world that inspires worry, fear, anxiety. Jesus names some of them. Strangely, Jesus has a very different attitude about all of these things that bring so much anxiety into our lives.
Jesus asserts that the things that can lead to worry have no essential power to cause the worry. Poverty, starvation, scarcity all are serious challenges to human life. But none of these things can of themselves impose fear, anxiety and worry on us. Even death lacks that power.
So, where does the worry come from? Jesus reveals to us that it comes from within our souls. It comes from the place of separation. It manifests in the fear that if anything can go wrong it will go wrong. It distorts our attitude towards life, other people and even God with the phrase: what’s in it for me?
Separation from God produces a story we tell ourselves and each other. The story is grounded in the concept of scarcity. The story is: there isn’t enough. The story is that life is a struggle and then you die. The story is that we are all victims and someone else or something else is always to blame. The story produces worry and the justification for a life lived in defense against all manner of potential threats to our well being.
Jesus came into the world to address the problem of separation. In his own body he united divinity with humanity. In the way he lived his life he demonstrated that it is possible to live with a different story. The story Jesus tells is a story of the abundance of God’s love. The abundance is grace: the gift of God to all people everywhere.
The abundance comes from the reunification of our souls with the infinite and eternal love of God. The new story is the Good News of God with us. God is our loving heavenly Father who is consistently concerned about us. Our Heavenly Father knows our every need and is more than willing to help us meet those needs.
The new story invites us to live from the place of thankfulness for the many blessings God gives us constantly and unfailingly.
Jesus asks: do you believe this? Where do you place your faith? Do you place your faith in laws, rituals, knowledge, yourself? Or, do you place your faith in the incarnate co-eternal Son of God?
Jesus lived his life by the constant prayer: heavenly Father, not my will but your will be done. Jesus took the human tendency to ask of life: “what’s in it for me?” and transformed it into a different question: “how may I help?”
Jesus invites into a new life: a life of abundance in the peace, love and joy of the Holy Spirit. Jesus offers to help us to participate in a new way of living: an undefended way of living that trusts God to protect us and to provide for us.
Salvation in Jesus Christ is about the way we experience our lives here and now. We are personally responsible for our lives. We can choose. We can choose a story of scarcity, fear, self will and worry. Or, we can choose a story of abundance, faith, divine will and peace.
Jesus encourages us to examine the stories we tell ourselves. Do we say life is a struggle and a problem? Do we tell ourselves we are victims? Or, do we embrace the Good News of the story Jesus tells us: God is real. God is personal. God is love. God is for us and with us in the Real Presence of the Living Lord Jesus Christ?
Jesus asks: do we make a real choice to live our lives by grace through faith in the goodness of God? Will we live from the place of Thanksgiving for all of the many blessings God pours into our lives, our hearts, our minds, our souls?
Jesus asks us to re examine our priorities. He teaches the best and most fulfilling priority is the personal relationship with God that he himself gives to us as a gift. If we start from that place, the personal relationship God offers us in Jesus Christ, all other things will find their proper place.
Jesus tells us how we can live life without worry when he gives us a new story with a new priority: seek first the Kingdom of God. Seek first a personal relationship with God. As you do that, as you live into that choice, you will experience the abundance of Divine love. The worry will yield to the faith as you live from the place of grace, the gift of God in Jesus Christ.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Christ the King Sunday 2010
Christ the King Sunday (Luke 23:33-43
“Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Jesus forgave those who rejected him, tortured him and killed him.
How is this possible?
From the first moment our first parents separated from God in a choice we now call Original Sin, God worked in human history to rescue us from the terrible consequences of that choice.
Separation shatters the image of God in our souls. The Image is still there, but the soul can no longer hold it with clarity and purpose. The soul is lost in the pain of isolation. The soul rebels against God, other people, the Creation itself. The soul seeks to dominate out of the confusion of fear and pride.
A lost soul is a soul that is frustrated, confused, fearful and demanding. A lost soul seeks to dominate other people, the world, even God in order to restore meaning and purpose. Sadly, the lost perpetuation separation by their every action or inaction. Separation is self perpetuating. The more you try to overcome the pain of separation by your own will, the more you recycle that pain into suffering, and the more you perpetuate that pain in your own soul.
All of these aspects of Original Sin were present at Calvary. The religious authorities had long since abandoned the personal God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They had moved God far away into the esoteric realm of philosophy and transcendence. They had allocated to themselves the authority of Moses and the Prophets.
They rejected Jesus because he was a threat to their own plan of salvation. They not only believed they knew who God was and what God wanted; they knew that they knew. Their beliefs were detailed, specific and inflexible. Jesus challenged these detailed, specific and inflexible beliefs.
Belief without faith leads to death.
Jesus came to Israel to remind them that God is real, God is love, God is personal. Jesus came to Israel to remind the people that above all else God seeks a personal relationship with humanity. In that relationship, God finds the lost who do not want to be found.
The relationship is not in the Law, the ritual or even the religion as important as they are. The relationship is in the friendship our Heavenly Father offers all people in the person of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
When God asks us to do something, such as coming to church once a week, this is not a command to restrict our choices. It is an invitation to experience a unique opportunity to immerse our selves, our souls and bodies in the Infinite and Eternal Love of God in Jesus Christ.
Those who convicted Jesus of blasphemy for claiming to be God were caught in a feedback loop of fear, self will and pride. In order to maintain what they knew they knew they could only react to a different image of God by destroying that image.
Even at the last, the religious leaders and the soldiers taunted Jesus with his last temptation: come down from the cross, be who we demand you to become, and then we will not only follow you- we will worship you.
They thought they knew. They actually knew they knew. But, they were lost in a false belief system that blocked their ability to see and hear the very Presence of the Living God in their midst.
Jesus prayed to his heavenly Father to forgive them all because they were lost and incapable of breaking their own chains of rebellion, self will and sin. They had so constructed their beliefs about God, the creation and other people that there was no room for Emmanuel- God with us. There was room only for knowledge and power and Law.
They acted out of pain, the pain of separation. And so, on the Cross Jesus sealed the breach between humanity and divinity. They acted out of fear that Jesus would destroy the certainty of their beliefs and in the wake destroy their position in society and their very existence. Jesus took that fear into himself on the cross and transformed it back into faith.
They acted of Pride that they knew, and they knew they knew, what was best for everyone in all circumstances. Jesus took that pride into himself on the cross and transformed it back into love.
They acted out of self will that perpetuates separation through a never ending and never to be satisfied demand: my will be done. Jesus took that self will into himself and transformed it by his own constant prayer: heavenly Father not my will but your will be done.
Jesus died on the cross because it was the only way to overcome the power of separation. Jesus fully embraced and experienced the full consequence of separation in the sin and death of all people who have ever lived and will ever lived. He died and in his death he transformed death back into life.
The Bible is very clear about the human condition. We are lost in the pain of Original Separation and we do not want to be found. We do not want to know that we are lost. We do not want to know that life is not about our search for meaning and purpose, for knowledge and power, for possessions and pleasure. Life is about a personal relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ.
As Jesus prayed from the cross for the religious leaders and the soldiers, so he prays for all people everywhere. Heavenly Father, they are lost and do not want to be found. They are lost in the pride of what they think they know and even more in what they know they know. And so it must be that the Son die on the cross so that sin and death die on the cross with him.
What is it that hinders us from transformation in divine love and holiness? What do we think we know and perhaps even know we know that needs to die on the cross so Jesus can transform it and give it back to us in its purity as God’s original blessing?
On this Christ the King Sunday we remember that Jesus reigns from the cross so that we may surrender our self will, fear and pride to be transformed back into the original blessing of faith, hope and love.
Jesus reigns from His throne of glory in Heaven with Holy Mother Mary, the angels and the saints having accomplished our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation on the cross.
Jesus reigns from the altar in the blessed sacrament of the altar where he offers his very body and blood to feed us, nurture us and transform us with his own eternal life.
Jesus reigns in the hearts and minds and lives of His faithful people who receive the gift of divine love by faith. By that faith we experience a new life and a new way of living. By that new way of living we proclaim in thought, word and deed that Jesus Christ is king of kings because he is king of steadfast holy love.
Jesus has already forgiven us from the cross. His passionate desire is that we receive the new life and the new way of living made possible by his death and resurrection. It is his passionate desire to say to each of us here and now and all the days of our lives: today you are with me in Paradise. Today you are found. Today you are being filled with the Original Blessing that makes all things new now, and tomorrow and forever. Amen.
“Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Jesus forgave those who rejected him, tortured him and killed him.
How is this possible?
From the first moment our first parents separated from God in a choice we now call Original Sin, God worked in human history to rescue us from the terrible consequences of that choice.
Separation shatters the image of God in our souls. The Image is still there, but the soul can no longer hold it with clarity and purpose. The soul is lost in the pain of isolation. The soul rebels against God, other people, the Creation itself. The soul seeks to dominate out of the confusion of fear and pride.
A lost soul is a soul that is frustrated, confused, fearful and demanding. A lost soul seeks to dominate other people, the world, even God in order to restore meaning and purpose. Sadly, the lost perpetuation separation by their every action or inaction. Separation is self perpetuating. The more you try to overcome the pain of separation by your own will, the more you recycle that pain into suffering, and the more you perpetuate that pain in your own soul.
All of these aspects of Original Sin were present at Calvary. The religious authorities had long since abandoned the personal God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They had moved God far away into the esoteric realm of philosophy and transcendence. They had allocated to themselves the authority of Moses and the Prophets.
They rejected Jesus because he was a threat to their own plan of salvation. They not only believed they knew who God was and what God wanted; they knew that they knew. Their beliefs were detailed, specific and inflexible. Jesus challenged these detailed, specific and inflexible beliefs.
Belief without faith leads to death.
Jesus came to Israel to remind them that God is real, God is love, God is personal. Jesus came to Israel to remind the people that above all else God seeks a personal relationship with humanity. In that relationship, God finds the lost who do not want to be found.
The relationship is not in the Law, the ritual or even the religion as important as they are. The relationship is in the friendship our Heavenly Father offers all people in the person of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
When God asks us to do something, such as coming to church once a week, this is not a command to restrict our choices. It is an invitation to experience a unique opportunity to immerse our selves, our souls and bodies in the Infinite and Eternal Love of God in Jesus Christ.
Those who convicted Jesus of blasphemy for claiming to be God were caught in a feedback loop of fear, self will and pride. In order to maintain what they knew they knew they could only react to a different image of God by destroying that image.
Even at the last, the religious leaders and the soldiers taunted Jesus with his last temptation: come down from the cross, be who we demand you to become, and then we will not only follow you- we will worship you.
They thought they knew. They actually knew they knew. But, they were lost in a false belief system that blocked their ability to see and hear the very Presence of the Living God in their midst.
Jesus prayed to his heavenly Father to forgive them all because they were lost and incapable of breaking their own chains of rebellion, self will and sin. They had so constructed their beliefs about God, the creation and other people that there was no room for Emmanuel- God with us. There was room only for knowledge and power and Law.
They acted out of pain, the pain of separation. And so, on the Cross Jesus sealed the breach between humanity and divinity. They acted out of fear that Jesus would destroy the certainty of their beliefs and in the wake destroy their position in society and their very existence. Jesus took that fear into himself on the cross and transformed it back into faith.
They acted of Pride that they knew, and they knew they knew, what was best for everyone in all circumstances. Jesus took that pride into himself on the cross and transformed it back into love.
They acted out of self will that perpetuates separation through a never ending and never to be satisfied demand: my will be done. Jesus took that self will into himself and transformed it by his own constant prayer: heavenly Father not my will but your will be done.
Jesus died on the cross because it was the only way to overcome the power of separation. Jesus fully embraced and experienced the full consequence of separation in the sin and death of all people who have ever lived and will ever lived. He died and in his death he transformed death back into life.
The Bible is very clear about the human condition. We are lost in the pain of Original Separation and we do not want to be found. We do not want to know that we are lost. We do not want to know that life is not about our search for meaning and purpose, for knowledge and power, for possessions and pleasure. Life is about a personal relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ.
As Jesus prayed from the cross for the religious leaders and the soldiers, so he prays for all people everywhere. Heavenly Father, they are lost and do not want to be found. They are lost in the pride of what they think they know and even more in what they know they know. And so it must be that the Son die on the cross so that sin and death die on the cross with him.
What is it that hinders us from transformation in divine love and holiness? What do we think we know and perhaps even know we know that needs to die on the cross so Jesus can transform it and give it back to us in its purity as God’s original blessing?
On this Christ the King Sunday we remember that Jesus reigns from the cross so that we may surrender our self will, fear and pride to be transformed back into the original blessing of faith, hope and love.
Jesus reigns from His throne of glory in Heaven with Holy Mother Mary, the angels and the saints having accomplished our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation on the cross.
Jesus reigns from the altar in the blessed sacrament of the altar where he offers his very body and blood to feed us, nurture us and transform us with his own eternal life.
Jesus reigns in the hearts and minds and lives of His faithful people who receive the gift of divine love by faith. By that faith we experience a new life and a new way of living. By that new way of living we proclaim in thought, word and deed that Jesus Christ is king of kings because he is king of steadfast holy love.
Jesus has already forgiven us from the cross. His passionate desire is that we receive the new life and the new way of living made possible by his death and resurrection. It is his passionate desire to say to each of us here and now and all the days of our lives: today you are with me in Paradise. Today you are found. Today you are being filled with the Original Blessing that makes all things new now, and tomorrow and forever. Amen.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Pentecost 25
Pentecost 25 (Luke 21:5-19)
Beware that you are not led astray.
The Good News of God’s love in Jesus Christ brings division to the world.
Those who reject Christ reject those who follow him. For the first three hundred years of the Christian Faith it was illegal to be a Christian. It is still illegal in many parts of the world.
When Jesus spoke of the persecution his followers would face he never authorized the Church to fight and kill for the Faith. He asks us to live for our faith. And, sometimes he asks us to endure persecution for our Faith.
Not all who associate with the Church are willing to live for the Faith. Not all who associate with the Church are willing to endure ridicule, rejection and outright persecution. There is a tendency to adjust the Faith to the surrounding culture.
Jesus warns us that those who seek to make such an accommodation are in danger of being led astray.
There are three basic sources of this erosion of Faith. They are the world, the flesh and the devil.
The world is the surrounding culture. The world says it’s OK to be religious but all religion says the same thing. The world presses hard to redefine Christ according to its own perceptions and values. The world sees Jesus as one among many religious teachers. The world says: it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are a good person.
The world also seeks to change faith into belief and belief into opinion. For the world. It doesn’t matter if Jesus ever lived. He is an ideal not a reality.
Finally, the world teaches that there is no evidence for religious belief.
Therefore, religion is less important and less significant than knowledge, power, pleasure, prestige. The world seeks to turn the Faithful into lukewarm Christians who see Jesus as one option among many for our time and attention.
The flesh is the distorted desires and demands of our mind, heart and will. These desires generally place the distractions of entertainment and pleasure as their first priority. The demands of the flesh say: church is fine if I’m not too busy and have nothing else to do.
The devil, Satan, works through the world and the flesh to seduce people away from our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation in Jesus Christ. Satan is most effective when people think of him as a cartoonish myth used to frighten children. Satan works by corrupting language, leaders and love.
The corruption of language is the tendency to obscure the meaning of words. Satan seeks to influence language through writers, artists, academics, advertisers, politicians and religion. The greatest form of linguistic confusion is the assertion that there is no absolute truth and that everything is relative to our own individual tastes and desires.
The corruption of leaders follows the corruption of language. Satan is powerful but limited. He focuses on seducing leaders in society to abandon Biblical values and then relies on them to do his work in the name of progress, science, or enlightenment.
The final corruption is the corruption of love. God is love. Satan knows very well who this love is and how this love created the universe, redeems the universe and can transform the universe. Satan uses a very old bait and switch technique whereby he redefines love as self indulgence.
And so, temptation to sin often comes with the words: if you really loved me. Or, I’m just not in love with you any more. Or, how can it be wrong when it feels so good?
Satan corrupts our understanding of love by confusing the meaning of the word and then encouraging popular culture to portray love as romantic idealism and self indulgence.
The ultimate Satanic Seduction is through religion. Satan targets the religiously inclined and seeks to subvert Faith by distorting belief. Satan is an expert in creating religion and then fomenting divisions within religion. Atheists very astutely observe that religion kills, divides, and contradicts. Of course, this is exactly what Satan wants. It is a form of negative advertising that creates confusion and disgust with all religion so people resist the Plan of Salvation as just one more unsubstantiated mythology.
The ultimate expression of false religion is the anti-Christ. An anti-Christ offers an experience of the divine that rejects the Incarnation of the co-eternal Son.
Why does this matter? After all, if God is love surely he will forgive our mistakes and confusions. That is perhaps the most subtle of Satan’s lies.
For God does indeed forgive. There is in fact no condemnation in the steadfast holy unconditional love of God. The problem is not with God. The problem is with us.
God the Father designed us to live in an eternal relationship with God the Son through the presence and power of God the Holy Spirit. Sin is the choice we made to separate from God. Jesus Christ is the solution to the problem of separation.
Jesus died on the cross not just to satisfy the demands of the law or some spiritual debt. Jesus died on the cross to transform separation back into reunification. Jesus died on the cross to transform death back into life.
Jesus just doesn’t show us a way to seek God. Jesus is the way, the only way, God finds us, restores us, and transforms us.
Jesus knows very well that human beings lost in sin are also lost in the distortions of fear, self will and pride. The Bible is not a book about man’s search for God. The Bible is a two thousand year record of man fleeing from God. The Bible is also a book of how God nevertheless patiently and persistently seeks and finds the lonely, broken and lost.
If religion alone were the answer to the fundamental problem facing the human race then Jesus would never have had to die on the cross. Moses would have been sufficient. The Temple in Jerusalem would have been enough.
As the religious leaders of Jesus day rejected him through fear and anger and turned him over to the Romans to kill, so they eventually rejected the purpose for which God authorized the Temple. The Temple was built to be a house of prayer for all nations. The religious leaders turned it into a nationalistic symbol of pride and might.
Once the Temple became a political symbol of aggression against Rome, it became the preeminent rallying point for the nationalistic to wage war, and it became the preeminent military target in that war. In 70 AD terrorists seized the Temple, slaughtered the priests and led the people into a devastating war. They promised the people that God was on their side. They lost that war. The Romans killed everyone in Jerusalem then leveled the city and the Temple. The Temple has never been rebuilt.
Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. In his resurrection he has transformed death back into life. As we unite with Jesus by grace through faith we receive the great gift of God: reunification with the Father, through the Son, by the indwelling presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
The principle of salvation is very simple: we become like who we worship.
It is not entirely a matter of belief. It is entirely a matter of faith. The question the Bible asks is: who do you trust?
Jesus warns us that there will be many false teachers, false prophets and anti-Christs who will offer an alternative to our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. They are all spiritual dead ends. They are all spiritual deadly ends. Only Jesus can and has transformed death back into life, separation back into reunification, sin back into love.
Be warned. Be wary. Beware that you are not led astray.
Beware that you are not led astray.
The Good News of God’s love in Jesus Christ brings division to the world.
Those who reject Christ reject those who follow him. For the first three hundred years of the Christian Faith it was illegal to be a Christian. It is still illegal in many parts of the world.
When Jesus spoke of the persecution his followers would face he never authorized the Church to fight and kill for the Faith. He asks us to live for our faith. And, sometimes he asks us to endure persecution for our Faith.
Not all who associate with the Church are willing to live for the Faith. Not all who associate with the Church are willing to endure ridicule, rejection and outright persecution. There is a tendency to adjust the Faith to the surrounding culture.
Jesus warns us that those who seek to make such an accommodation are in danger of being led astray.
There are three basic sources of this erosion of Faith. They are the world, the flesh and the devil.
The world is the surrounding culture. The world says it’s OK to be religious but all religion says the same thing. The world presses hard to redefine Christ according to its own perceptions and values. The world sees Jesus as one among many religious teachers. The world says: it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are a good person.
The world also seeks to change faith into belief and belief into opinion. For the world. It doesn’t matter if Jesus ever lived. He is an ideal not a reality.
Finally, the world teaches that there is no evidence for religious belief.
Therefore, religion is less important and less significant than knowledge, power, pleasure, prestige. The world seeks to turn the Faithful into lukewarm Christians who see Jesus as one option among many for our time and attention.
The flesh is the distorted desires and demands of our mind, heart and will. These desires generally place the distractions of entertainment and pleasure as their first priority. The demands of the flesh say: church is fine if I’m not too busy and have nothing else to do.
The devil, Satan, works through the world and the flesh to seduce people away from our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation in Jesus Christ. Satan is most effective when people think of him as a cartoonish myth used to frighten children. Satan works by corrupting language, leaders and love.
The corruption of language is the tendency to obscure the meaning of words. Satan seeks to influence language through writers, artists, academics, advertisers, politicians and religion. The greatest form of linguistic confusion is the assertion that there is no absolute truth and that everything is relative to our own individual tastes and desires.
The corruption of leaders follows the corruption of language. Satan is powerful but limited. He focuses on seducing leaders in society to abandon Biblical values and then relies on them to do his work in the name of progress, science, or enlightenment.
The final corruption is the corruption of love. God is love. Satan knows very well who this love is and how this love created the universe, redeems the universe and can transform the universe. Satan uses a very old bait and switch technique whereby he redefines love as self indulgence.
And so, temptation to sin often comes with the words: if you really loved me. Or, I’m just not in love with you any more. Or, how can it be wrong when it feels so good?
Satan corrupts our understanding of love by confusing the meaning of the word and then encouraging popular culture to portray love as romantic idealism and self indulgence.
The ultimate Satanic Seduction is through religion. Satan targets the religiously inclined and seeks to subvert Faith by distorting belief. Satan is an expert in creating religion and then fomenting divisions within religion. Atheists very astutely observe that religion kills, divides, and contradicts. Of course, this is exactly what Satan wants. It is a form of negative advertising that creates confusion and disgust with all religion so people resist the Plan of Salvation as just one more unsubstantiated mythology.
The ultimate expression of false religion is the anti-Christ. An anti-Christ offers an experience of the divine that rejects the Incarnation of the co-eternal Son.
Why does this matter? After all, if God is love surely he will forgive our mistakes and confusions. That is perhaps the most subtle of Satan’s lies.
For God does indeed forgive. There is in fact no condemnation in the steadfast holy unconditional love of God. The problem is not with God. The problem is with us.
God the Father designed us to live in an eternal relationship with God the Son through the presence and power of God the Holy Spirit. Sin is the choice we made to separate from God. Jesus Christ is the solution to the problem of separation.
Jesus died on the cross not just to satisfy the demands of the law or some spiritual debt. Jesus died on the cross to transform separation back into reunification. Jesus died on the cross to transform death back into life.
Jesus just doesn’t show us a way to seek God. Jesus is the way, the only way, God finds us, restores us, and transforms us.
Jesus knows very well that human beings lost in sin are also lost in the distortions of fear, self will and pride. The Bible is not a book about man’s search for God. The Bible is a two thousand year record of man fleeing from God. The Bible is also a book of how God nevertheless patiently and persistently seeks and finds the lonely, broken and lost.
If religion alone were the answer to the fundamental problem facing the human race then Jesus would never have had to die on the cross. Moses would have been sufficient. The Temple in Jerusalem would have been enough.
As the religious leaders of Jesus day rejected him through fear and anger and turned him over to the Romans to kill, so they eventually rejected the purpose for which God authorized the Temple. The Temple was built to be a house of prayer for all nations. The religious leaders turned it into a nationalistic symbol of pride and might.
Once the Temple became a political symbol of aggression against Rome, it became the preeminent rallying point for the nationalistic to wage war, and it became the preeminent military target in that war. In 70 AD terrorists seized the Temple, slaughtered the priests and led the people into a devastating war. They promised the people that God was on their side. They lost that war. The Romans killed everyone in Jerusalem then leveled the city and the Temple. The Temple has never been rebuilt.
Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. In his resurrection he has transformed death back into life. As we unite with Jesus by grace through faith we receive the great gift of God: reunification with the Father, through the Son, by the indwelling presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
The principle of salvation is very simple: we become like who we worship.
It is not entirely a matter of belief. It is entirely a matter of faith. The question the Bible asks is: who do you trust?
Jesus warns us that there will be many false teachers, false prophets and anti-Christs who will offer an alternative to our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. They are all spiritual dead ends. They are all spiritual deadly ends. Only Jesus can and has transformed death back into life, separation back into reunification, sin back into love.
Be warned. Be wary. Beware that you are not led astray.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Pentecost 24
Pentecost 24 (Luke 20:27-38 (God is the God of the living.)
God did not design human beings for death.
From the very first moment of creation, God designed human beings for life. The life derives from God who is life. God’s life is eternal.
Death entered the world when human beings chose to separate from God. As we separate from God we separate from Life, from Love and from Holiness. The result of this separation is sin and death. The effect of sin and death on the soul is to produce an existence characterized by fear, self will and pride.
From the first moment our first parents chose that original sin, that original separation from God, God set forth his plan of salvation to rescue us from sin and death.
God gave the Law to restrain the power of sin in our societies. God gave the law to serve as a perfect mirror to our souls to convict us and to convince us that we are lost in separation. God sent the prophets to call us to repentance and to preparation.
The prophets hold up the perfect mirror of divine law to remind us how far we have fallen. The prophets proclaim the coming of the Messiah to remind us that we are not only lost in sin but we are incapable of finding our way out of sin. The evidence of this is death.
Death is the first and final reminder that humanity is lost and cannot find its way back. The way back is the way of life, the way of love, the way of holiness. The way back is not the Law. If it were, people could choose perfection and claim immortality as a right.
The way back is not in religion. The Prophets clearly demonstrate that the religious are lost in separation and produce only further levels of separation.
The Sadducees are one of many religious groups that prove the point.
The Sadducees only accepted the first five books of the Bible as God’s word. The Sadducees asserted that God was so holy, so perfect, so transcendent that any human reference to God or name for God was not only inadequate but meaningless. God is the ineffable Mystery.
The Sadducees taught that any teaching about God is not only futile but counterproductive. And so, they also taught that miracles are superstitious interpretations of natural events. Angles are a figment of an over active imagination. And, life after death- especially the teaching of resurrection- is a narcotic that dulls the mind and weakens the will.
The Sadducees taught that belief in an afterlife undermined all human effort to live well in this life and to work to improve society here and now. They viewed the resurrection as particularly offense and nonsensical.
Resurrection means that at some future time God will recreate our bodies and restore not only our lives but our personalities to live in a new and perfect world. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection.
Sadducees believed dead is dead. Once the body dies the person dies. The body decays. Nothing remains and there is no mechanism by which any one, not even God, can reconstruct a dead body and restore to it life and personality.
Neither the Pharisees or the Sadducees believed in an immortal soul that was separate from the body and self existent apart from the body. Both groups believed dead was dead. The Pharisees also believed the resurrection of the body was the means by which the righteous would experience an afterlife.
Jesus spoke of the resurrection. So, the Sadducees challenged Jesus by presenting what they believed would be a plausible but absurd scenario about the resurrection.
Of course, the Sadducees were lost in their own logic and in their own self will. They did not want the resurrection to be real. They were a small segment of the population. They were rich, powerful, and dominated the Temple. Many temple priests were Sadducees. They were quite satisfied to perform the Temple sacrifices and rituals, to collect their fees and to dominate the religious life of the nation.
Jesus quoted Moses to confront their assumptions. They claimed to accept the religious authority of Moses. So, Jesus directs them to what Moses recorded when he heard God speak to him from the burning bush.
God reveals his name as “I am”. I am is eternal self existence. I am is life that has no beginning at some point in the past neither an ending at some point in the future. God says I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
As God is self existence, as God is eternal life, all who are in a relationship with God by grace through faith partake of that divine self existence, that eternal life.
Of course, the proof of this teaching is very close to the Sadducees, the Pharisees and every one else in that generation. The resurrection is not a fantasy, as the Sadducees claimed, nor an esoteric unproven belief as the Pharisees asserted. The resurrection is an historical fact.
It is the personal and physical resurrection of Jesus Christ at a particular moment in time and at a particular place on earth that establishes the fact of the general resurrection God promises to all people. The personal and physical resurrection of Jesus Christ is an event in human history that invites all people everywhere into faith.
Faith is not the same as belief. Belief is the object of speculation. Faith is the result of a personal encounter with the living God in Jesus Christ.
The resurrection can be an object of belief. It can also be the subject of faith.
Jesus reassures us this morning: God is life and all who enter into a relationship with God by grace through faith are reunited with that eternal life that has no beginning and has no end. For God is the God of the living who live forever in the steadfast holy love of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
God did not design human beings for death.
From the very first moment of creation, God designed human beings for life. The life derives from God who is life. God’s life is eternal.
Death entered the world when human beings chose to separate from God. As we separate from God we separate from Life, from Love and from Holiness. The result of this separation is sin and death. The effect of sin and death on the soul is to produce an existence characterized by fear, self will and pride.
From the first moment our first parents chose that original sin, that original separation from God, God set forth his plan of salvation to rescue us from sin and death.
God gave the Law to restrain the power of sin in our societies. God gave the law to serve as a perfect mirror to our souls to convict us and to convince us that we are lost in separation. God sent the prophets to call us to repentance and to preparation.
The prophets hold up the perfect mirror of divine law to remind us how far we have fallen. The prophets proclaim the coming of the Messiah to remind us that we are not only lost in sin but we are incapable of finding our way out of sin. The evidence of this is death.
Death is the first and final reminder that humanity is lost and cannot find its way back. The way back is the way of life, the way of love, the way of holiness. The way back is not the Law. If it were, people could choose perfection and claim immortality as a right.
The way back is not in religion. The Prophets clearly demonstrate that the religious are lost in separation and produce only further levels of separation.
The Sadducees are one of many religious groups that prove the point.
The Sadducees only accepted the first five books of the Bible as God’s word. The Sadducees asserted that God was so holy, so perfect, so transcendent that any human reference to God or name for God was not only inadequate but meaningless. God is the ineffable Mystery.
The Sadducees taught that any teaching about God is not only futile but counterproductive. And so, they also taught that miracles are superstitious interpretations of natural events. Angles are a figment of an over active imagination. And, life after death- especially the teaching of resurrection- is a narcotic that dulls the mind and weakens the will.
The Sadducees taught that belief in an afterlife undermined all human effort to live well in this life and to work to improve society here and now. They viewed the resurrection as particularly offense and nonsensical.
Resurrection means that at some future time God will recreate our bodies and restore not only our lives but our personalities to live in a new and perfect world. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection.
Sadducees believed dead is dead. Once the body dies the person dies. The body decays. Nothing remains and there is no mechanism by which any one, not even God, can reconstruct a dead body and restore to it life and personality.
Neither the Pharisees or the Sadducees believed in an immortal soul that was separate from the body and self existent apart from the body. Both groups believed dead was dead. The Pharisees also believed the resurrection of the body was the means by which the righteous would experience an afterlife.
Jesus spoke of the resurrection. So, the Sadducees challenged Jesus by presenting what they believed would be a plausible but absurd scenario about the resurrection.
Of course, the Sadducees were lost in their own logic and in their own self will. They did not want the resurrection to be real. They were a small segment of the population. They were rich, powerful, and dominated the Temple. Many temple priests were Sadducees. They were quite satisfied to perform the Temple sacrifices and rituals, to collect their fees and to dominate the religious life of the nation.
Jesus quoted Moses to confront their assumptions. They claimed to accept the religious authority of Moses. So, Jesus directs them to what Moses recorded when he heard God speak to him from the burning bush.
God reveals his name as “I am”. I am is eternal self existence. I am is life that has no beginning at some point in the past neither an ending at some point in the future. God says I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
As God is self existence, as God is eternal life, all who are in a relationship with God by grace through faith partake of that divine self existence, that eternal life.
Of course, the proof of this teaching is very close to the Sadducees, the Pharisees and every one else in that generation. The resurrection is not a fantasy, as the Sadducees claimed, nor an esoteric unproven belief as the Pharisees asserted. The resurrection is an historical fact.
It is the personal and physical resurrection of Jesus Christ at a particular moment in time and at a particular place on earth that establishes the fact of the general resurrection God promises to all people. The personal and physical resurrection of Jesus Christ is an event in human history that invites all people everywhere into faith.
Faith is not the same as belief. Belief is the object of speculation. Faith is the result of a personal encounter with the living God in Jesus Christ.
The resurrection can be an object of belief. It can also be the subject of faith.
Jesus reassures us this morning: God is life and all who enter into a relationship with God by grace through faith are reunited with that eternal life that has no beginning and has no end. For God is the God of the living who live forever in the steadfast holy love of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)