Soul Thoughts

Faith and relevance in the 21st century

Month: February 2010

Why was Jesus so secretive?

February 20, 2010 /

I’m currently studying the content and setting of the Gospels, and the first Gospel we’re looking at is Mark (mainly because it is widely acknowledged as being the earliest gospel).

One of the striking features in Mark’s Gospel is how often Jesus tells people not to spread the word of what he has done. Why does he do this? Isn’t ours a missionary faith? Weren’t the 12 told to go throughout all the world and make disciples? Indeed they were, but it was only after Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection that they were told to do this. And that is the whole point of what Mark is trying to get across. Listen to what Hurtado says:

One of [Mark’s] major points is that Jesus’ crucifixion was his key work and that all else—even the exorcisms, healings, and other miracles—was only an incomplete hint of Jesus’ true nature and meaning. This is why no one is allowed to acclaim Jesus openly as Son of God or Messiah, for any acclamation uninformed by the crucifixion is misleading and invalid. This is why, also, the people and the disciples are presented in Mark (much more than the other gospels) as bewildered and even stupid. In Mark’s view, no one could understand the true meaning of Jesus and his work until Jesus had actually completed it by his death as a ransom for others (10:45). Thus, there is a theologically profound reason for the emphasis on secrecy, mystery, and the dullness of crowds and disciples.

L. Hurtado, Mark (Hendrickson, 1989), p. 10

Jesus’ miracles (or mighty deeds) cannot be understood apart from the context of his suffering. His mighty deeds were not the main point of his ministry. There were many other wonder-workers in those days, and Jesus was emphasising that he was different, because the main point of his life was suffering and death, and then resurrection.

Jesus’ point was not that he was the Son of God because he worked these amazing deeds, but that he was the Son of God because of his suffering and death, and then his rising to life.

And that is where it relates to us. In a day when there is still much emphasis on the feel-good factor in worship, we need to hear the call of Jesus again through Mark – that “if anyone would follow me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me”. Any worship of Jesus cannot be done apart from the context of his suffering. There is no resurrection without death.  Alan Cole says it well:

Part of the reason for Jesus’ reluctance to reveal his true identity was that he did not wish to be known as a mere wonder-worker. Perhaps this is a word of warning for us today, in the midst of times of spiritual renewal in which we all rejoice, for such times bring their own danger. Jesus saw his task rather as that of bringing the good news about God and his rule, and that is why he warned healed people not to tell of their healing. It also explains why he escaped the crowds when there was a danger of his mission becoming a mere ‘healing campaign’ and no more.

Alan Cole, ‘Mark’ in D. A. Carson et al, New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition (IVP, 1994), p. 948

We live in a society where life is all about comfort and avoiding pain. But the way of Jesus is the way of the cross. Read Mark’s Gospel right through in one sitting and you will understand this. As Hurtado again says:

Mark was concerned to emphasise that the cross was not only the key work of Jesus but also the pattern of discipleship

                                                       L. Hurtado, Mark (Hendrickson, 1989), p. 11

The community of the forgiven

February 19, 2010 /

I love the idea of the church being a community of the forgiven. The truth which is bandied about – and which I used to see on bumper stickers – of Christians being ‘not perfect, just forgiven’ makes me cringe because it is so often seen as an excuse for our own hypocrisy. At the same time however, there is a freedom and attractiveness about the fact that we can be part of a community that genuinely cares. Larry Crabb calls it the safest place on earth and that’s exactly what the church is called to be.

This is the ideal vision of people of faith – a place where you can be yourself, warts and all, and you are still accepted for who you are because if you have done some bad stuff in your life, then we have too, and chances are it is worse.

A community of care is a place of forgiveness, and forgiveness is healing. I am reminded of U2’s White as Snow in which Bono sings,

‘Once I knew there was a love divine. Then came a time I thought it knew me not. Who can forgive forgiveness when forgiveness is not? Only the lamb, as white as snow’

As individuals, purity is our ultimate destiny, and we will never be satisfied until we’re there. I don’t mean purity just in the sense of sexual behaviour, although that is a crucial part of purity. By purity, I mean a Christlikeness, having the mind of Christ within us day by day. While we’ll never reach that state this side of death, He still came that we might have life and have it to the full. That life has already begun. When we surrender our lives to Christ, asking that His will be done and not our own, it is then that we become a part of, as distinct from ‘apart from’, and we can hopefully experience, in a loving community, a little bit more of what it is to be part of the community of the forgiven.

Power of a lyric – Love Rescue Me

February 12, 2010 /

‘Love rescue me, come forth and speak to me. Raise me up and don’t let me fall. No man is my enemy, my own hands imprison me. Love rescue me…I’m here without a name, in the palace of my shame…Love rescue me’ – U2, Love Rescue Me

Most, if not all, of what we say is spoken out of the deep recesses of our being. Out of the heart the mouth speaks. We are only so good at hiding what is really going on inside. Those with eyes to see however, and with hearts to care, will notice and gently bring to the surface the deep things that are troubling us. We are privileged if we have such friends in our lives.

In this haunting ballad, Bono seems to sing of a deep need for redemption. We are adept at bringing across an image of togetherness, of security. Our greatest fear is that we will be exposed in all our ugliness and as a result rejected – discarded on the scrapheap of life. Every day we bring across an image that all is well with our souls. The reality though is that, as we put on our make-up and get on the bus to struggle through another day, the way we look on the outside often betrays the reality of how we feel on the inside. Struggling through the tiredness as we head towards the office, we know that deep down there has to be more than this.

But love offers  a way out, indeed offers and – amazingly – provides a life beyond ourselves. Salvation is the restoration of the image of God inside us, and the glory of God is a human being fully alive, to quote some words of long ago.

The good news is that, as in the last verse of this song, and is in many of the Psalms, all is well that ends well. We can turn the first verse of this song around and sing ‘Love rescued me, came forth and spoke to me, raised me up and didn’t let me fall’. Here’s how U2 put it:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68De1d2bJHM]

The dumbing down of culture

February 5, 2010 /

I’ve been reading Colossians Remixed recently and I find I’m having to stop every page or two to make my own notes. This book has such profound things to say to our culture. Basically, this book looks at what Paul might say to our western culture if he were writing his letter to the Colossians today. One of the issues this great book discusses is how we are so captive to the consumerist culture we live in. Consider this quote, taken from Walter Brueggemann’s Interpretation and Obedience:

“The key pathology of our time…is the reduction of our imagination so that we are too numbed, satiated, and co-opted to do serious imaginative work.”

The authors of Colossians Remixed call this ‘disempowering us from dreaming that things might be otherwise’. Do you ever feel like you’re so busy that you don’t know what to do with all the choices you have? It’s sometimes called ‘choice anxiety’. Or as U2 put it some years ago, freedom looks like too many choices.

Our culture keeps us so busy, so wired, that we never stop to question our lives. As my Dad has said numerous times, “we’re living all wrong”, but we’re either too wound up in getting through each day to realise it, or it occasionally flickers like a dim light in the distance but then disappears again like a ship in the night. The fact is that we have fallen hook, line and sinker for the lie that more ‘stuff’ and being busier is what life is all about. And then we wake up one morning when we’re 65 and wonder where our life went.

I’ve said it before, but I find Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:26 to be some of the most timeless ever said – “what will it profit you if you gain the whole world but lose your very self in the process?” (my paraphrase). Deep down most of us know there’s something wrong with the way we live, we know we’re not really happy with our lives, but we feel powerless to stop it or we are paralysed by indifference to it. As Brueggemann says, we are numbed, or satiated to the effect that we are sleep walking our way through life.

A life focused on self and being ‘comfortable in captivity’ (another quote from Colossians Remixed) is an anti-life. Unfortunately much of the middle-class church is just as captive to this cultural numbness as the rest of society. Keith Green, referring to the church in this way, said it was asleep in the light.

Some years ago, Tim Costello wondered if God was actively working against the church. I have wondered sometimes if Tim is right. Like a frog in boiling water, we don’t even know we’re dying.

Fortunately there is a better way, the way of the Jesus, the road less travelled, a life less ordinary, to use a few clichés. But a cliché is a cliché because it is true. Jesus offers, and actually comes through, on a peace that passes all understanding, a joy that transcends our circumstances, and a freedom to be the people we really want to be – giving to others without counting the cost and loving extravagantly because we are loved beyond measure.

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