Soul Thoughts

Faith and relevance in the 21st century

Category: Jesus (Page 8 of 12)

God’s Gift to a Broken World

April 4, 2012 / / 0 Comments

We live in a world of immense suffering, and whether we call ourselves Christian or not, we are often faced with the universal question of why such suffering occurs in a world which was made by a good and loving God.

At Easter we remember that when Jesus was dying on the cross, he also asked why, and said “into your hands I place my spirit.” It was an act of trust that God is good despite what we see around us.

In our society we are bombarded with the message every day of our lives that life is found in having more. Gordon Gekko’s ‘greed is good’ mantra from the heady days of the late 1980s is the philosophy we are encouraged to live by today. Yet study after study shows that ‘money can’t buy me love’, as The Beatles sang fifty years ago. The American psychologist Martin Seligman has conducted research showing that the rate of depression in Western nations has increased tenfold since the Second World War ie. we now have ten times the amount of people who are depressed than we had seventy years ago. On top of that, Brene Brown points out that we are the most in-debt, obese, addicted and medicated people in history. All this is during a period in which we have never been wealthier. Something is not adding up; it looks suspiciously like we have been sold a lemon.

And if that is not enough, our affluent way of life is leading to a greater gap between rich and poor, as well as to the dreaded spectre of a changing climate. Jayakumar Christian, National Director of World Vision India, says that while everybody talks about the booming Indian middle-class, with economic growth rates of 7-8%, no one talks about the growing gap between rich and poor in that vast land, and the fact that there are 836 million poor people in India. And you just need to talk to just about every climate scientist as well as every aid and development worker in places like Africa to learn about the effects that climate change is already having on their farming practises. No wonder the author and pastor Brian McLaren calls our way of life the ‘suicide machine.’

It’s all depressingly bleak, and enough to drive you to despair. But despite all this, we don’t have to be stuck in that mindset. The comfort we can find at Easter is that Jesus identifies with our pain and with our questions. But it’s more than that. If that is all he did, we wouldn’t have any hope. Thankfully we are told that in Jesus, God came to earth not only to die for our wrongs, but to reconcile all things to himself. But again, if that is all there is, there still wouldn’t be any hope. The New Testament is open about this. The apostle Paul says that if Christ was not raised from death we are to be pitied more than anyone. Christian faith lives or dies on the physical resurrection of Jesus as a historical event. If Jesus was not raised, then Christian faith is pointless, as death would not have been defeated and life is meaningless. But our joy and hope come from faith in Jesus, that as well as dying on Good Friday, he was raised on Sunday. As Nick Cave sings, death is not the end. And, as only he can, American preacher Tony Campolo adds, “it’s Friday but Sunday’s a-comin!”

Hope is alive. There is no line on the horizon; heaven and earth are slowly overlapping. There is no reason to despair and there is nothing to fear. The Christian message says that it is because of the resurrection of Jesus on that first Easter morning that we have hope that death will not triumph in the end. Life, justice, peace, hope and love will triumph. Nothing is surer. And it is all because God came and dwelt among us and defeated the scourge of death.

Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, we are shown how to live, we are offered forgiveness for our many wrongs, and all things are reconciled to God. All things. Our hearts, so we can be at peace with God; our society, so we can live at peace with each other; and the rest of the whole created order, so we can live at peace with it. To the question of why God doesn’t seem to be doing anything about the suffering and pain in the world, we can assuredly say that God already has. Through the life of one man, we see a glimpse of the wonderful kingdom come; through the death of that one man on a dark Friday afternoon, we are offered forgiveness for our wrongs; and through the resurrection of that one unique man on the most wonderful Sunday morning in history, all things are made new.

What we remember at Easter is what drives us; it is what drives our continual struggle for a better world, for peace on earth, for shalom. One day there will be no more tears; one day there will be no more pain, no more ‘stupid poverty’ as Bono calls it, no more war and no more injustice. One day everything will fit; it will all make sense. And it will all be because of Jesus. And we get to live this resurrection life here and now, working with God to renew the world, living out the compassion of Jesus, and standing in the tradition of the prophets to work for a world in which one day everything will be made complete. That is the hope of Easter. May you have a blessed one.

The God of Suffering Love

April 4, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Many of us have probably seen Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ movie. When it was released in 2004 it caused quite a stir amongst different groups of people, not least for its gruesome and bloody portrayal of the torture that Jesus endured during the last twelve hours of his earthly life.

The word ‘passion’ has its origins in the Greek verb ‘pasch?’, to suffer. So when we talk about the Passion of Jesus, we are referring to the suffering he endured, particularly during the last week of his life. In a matter of days, from the time that he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, receiving wild acclaim from the crowds laying palm branches in front of him and hailing him as the coming King, to the utter humiliation of being crucified at the hands of the Romans, Jesus’ life was turned completely on its head.

He knew his days were numbered of course. The unfolding events of that tumultuous week came as no surprise to him. Luke 9 tells us that he resolutely set out for Jerusalem, telling his disciples that he will suffer and die at the hands of the authorities in that centre of power. His disciples were expecting him, as the Messiah, to overthrow the oppressive Roman regime, violently if need be. So for Jesus to speak about his upcoming death was something the disciples were simply unable to comprehend. No wonder Peter earlier rebuked him and said this must never happen (Mark 8:31-33).

While Jesus knew full well what he was up to, we also see, in all four Gospel accounts, that his attitude was one of service. That was in fact the very reason he was heading to his death, “to serve, not to be served, and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage.” (Mark 10:45). For his disciples this required a complete change of mindset to understand what he was on about. The saying ‘everything you know is wrong’ was one they would have come to intimately relate to. And so, as they were squabbling over who would be the greatest in this new kingdom that Jesus was bringing in, Jesus turned it all around and said to them that if they want to be first, then the way to do it is to serve. And, as always, Jesus walked his talk. By leading the way himself, he had the moral authority to tell his disciples that the way of life was the way of putting yourselves out there for others. And that inherently involves suffering.

If we watch the news every day we are reminded that we live in a world of suffering. Despite great progress towards poverty alleviation over the years, there are still 22,000 children who die every day from poverty-related diseases. The Christian faith proclaims loudly and clearly that the cries of the poor are heard by God, for this is a God who has been in their shoes. He does not sympathise from afar; he empathises from within. We see Christ in the eyes of those who suffer. This is God come to earth as a human person and walking in our footsteps. This is a God who says in the Garden of Gethsemane that he is troubled to the point of death, who is so anguished that he sweats drops of blood as he contemplates the incomprehensible enormity of what he is about to go through, all for love, all to make a better world in every way. Who could imagine a God who is anguished, a God who suffers, and a God who, through all of this, serves? Is this not love at its best, continuing to give despite the cost?

Such extravagant love is of course what inspires us millions of Christians to work for the betterment of our world, to work to bring in the kingdom of God. The love of God gives us the strength to be the best we can be in our efforts to set the world right. Love shows us the way, love we see personified in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

India article 3 – India and the gospels

February 24, 2012 / / 0 Comments

This third post on my time in India last year looks at some of the similarities between current Indian society and what we see portrayed in the gospels. Such similarities make the Gospel come alive in a place like India, moreso than in my hometown of Melbourne, Australia.

Another issue that was highlighted to me in India was the plain falsity of the idea that our Western version of Christianity is what the world needs to hear. Most of the Bible was written by people who were under oppression. When we view it in that context, it is simply incomparable to our own interpretation. This is where a book like Robert McAfee Brown’s Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes is so helpful. We need to read the Bible through the eyes of the poor, but more importantly, through the eyes of those who wrote it, because they were mainly poor, but also because they knew their own culture better than we ever will thousands of years later.

Read the post here.

India article 2 – Jesus’ approach to poverty

February 4, 2012 / / 0 Comments

In this second post on my reflections on India, I discuss how being in India reminded me of some stories from the gospels which came more alive to me after being there. What really struck me was how Jesus treated everyone with such complete dignity, and the transformation he gave was in every way – social, emotional, spiritual and personal. Read the post here.

Thoughts on the American psyche

September 11, 2011 / / 1 Comment

My wife and I recently returned from spending some time in the United States. Having been there a few times now, and having some family over there, I have decided to pen my thoughts on this country of contrasts, of opportunity and of deprivation.

We were in Florida on the 4th of July, and we spent the evening with a few hundred other people watching the fireworks and celebrations. As I watched and took on the reactions of the people, I was impressed by how much Americans love their country, and by how genuinely patriotic they are. While I do believe that Americans go over the top with their sense of patriotism, there is a reason for it, and on the other hand, I don’t think Australia goes far enough with it. And frankly I am sick of people who constantly bag America for this and other reasons when they have probably never even been there. It is easy to be judgmental from afar.

Americans really believe they are the greatest country in the world, not necessarily in the sense of being superior (though of course there are indeed many Americans who believe their country is superior than others; and that attitude is not just limited to those who believe that America is somehow God’s promised land), but in the opportunities they have in this country. Freedom is everything in this land; it is what has made it great. But it has also led to an arrogance that will one day be its downfall. For example, for Barack Obama to say, in response to the recent downgrade of the US credit rating, that “no matter what some agency may say, we’ve always been and always will be a triple-A country” was the height of American hubris.

But despite the claims of freedom that this country is built on, I am convinced that Australia has more freedom than the US. Our health system is not out of reach for millions of our citizens, we do not live in nearly as much fear of a major terrorist attack on our shores, and our level of poverty is generally not as high as in many places in the US.

As I watched the fireworks and was impressed by the love of Americans for their country, I was equally impressed by the view that America does not have a right to impose itself on the rest of the world. No country, however powerful, has that right.

Martin Luther King once made the point that a true patriot is one who loves their country enough to criticise it. He was responding to those who said his criticism of America came out of a hatred of its ideals. King though, loved his country, and wanted it to be the best it could be, to live out its ideals of equality and freedom for all. His criticism did not come out of any resentment or an attitude of judgmentalism or superiority. It came out of a dream he had for his country.

Any criticism must come out of a motivation of love. Otherwise it is tainted with self-interest. I tend to think that there will be many people gloating over the problems America is facing at the moment, looking forward to the decline of the American empire. I have to admit I struggle win that myself at times, but it is not the way of Jesus.

It is easy to be seduced by America and the very consumer culture that is the source of many of its problems at present. The ideal of freedom of enterprise, private ownership of property and individual opportunity are the unshakable bottom lines of this nation, and they have provided both opportunity and heavy costs over the years.

My relationship with America is one of both love and anger (as opposed to hatred; I don’t believe in hatred). Having a brother who has lived there for half his life, and having been there myself a few times, I see both sides of what, in my limited opinion, is both good and bad about this country.

One of the privileges we had while in the US recently was watching in person the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis, the final launch of the shuttle. The word ‘awesome’ is bandied around everywhere these day to describe things which are really incredibly mundane. But watching this live was, for me, truly awesome. To watch as people are blasted into space was to realise, as my brother who was with me at the time said, that this is the very frontier of exploration. It was estimated that 750,000 people lined up on the Florida coast that July morning. It was a sight to behold, seeing the enormity of what a country can do in terms of technology. No wonder the patriotism on that day was so strong.

It must always be remembered though that, while this technological brilliance of America has certainly driven its innovation, it has been at the expense of social safety nets for the millions of less fortunate and less free, those who miss out because of billions of dollars spent on the space program.

Perhaps my response to the shuttle launch was also linked with my thoughts on the cultural hegemony of this nation. When we were in America, it hit me about how much we are infiltrated by American culture through television. It is so constant that we aren’t even aware of it. This cultural hegemony is largely what makes America so powerful. Through television, American culture has for years been exported around the world. The idea of American freedom and the American way of life has been shown to billions around the world, non-stop, 24/7, and, quite simply, it is part of our identity. That is why, when many people visit certain parts of the US, it feels familiar, they feel like they know the place; there is a level of comfort with the surroundings. Such familiarity also gives America more power. Image and perception is everything, and the America that is exported around the world is the America of Hollywood and dreams, whereas the other side of America is often hidden, for instance the side that has 46 million of its citizens living in poverty. This is one example of the lack of liberty that many people experience in the land of the free.

A final word must be taken from the Gospels. America was founded on the belief of many that they were a nation blessed by God, a light on a hill. And the constant refrain we hear from American Presidents at the end of every speech is ‘God bless the United States of America’. Well, my word toAmericais “be careful what you pray for.” The God in whom the Pilgrim Fathers placed their faith said “blessed are the poor, blessed are those who mourn, and blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” The way of Jesus is inevitably the way of suffering. And this is the tension with which America lives. It is truly a remarkable nation, one that has given much good to the world, but it is also one which has inflicted untold suffering on innocent millions in the name of the very freedom which it proclaims to the world.

The psyche of America is indeed a wounded one. Today of all days the nation will be feeling this. The Founding Fathers seemed to have great motivations for the new country, but it has been greatly misguided over the years, leading to equally misguided hatred on the part of those who would destroy it.

On the statue of Liberty in New York harbour, the sign proclaims “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. And in Matthew 25 when the nations are brought together, it will be those who treated these very people as Christ did who will go into the glory set aside for them. Will America heed the call? On this day when many are mourning, may God truly bless the United States of America.

Edward Kelly

September 7, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Ned Kelly has been in the news again here, with news that his skeleton (minus the skull) has finally been found. Australia has tended to glorify great losses and disasters, and the underdog, whether they were successful or not. Consider Gallipoli – nothing less than a military disaster – but enormously significant for its stories of heroic sacrifice and mateship. Simpson and his donkey is another one. And of course Ned Kelly is another. A bushranger who lived a tough life, doing his best to make ends meet.

Opinions are strong and rife about the legacy of Ned Kelly. As Steve Grace sings, ‘some say he was a good man, some say he was a bad man, some say he was just fighting to be free.’ Whatever our thoughts about the man, some things need to be called for what they are. Ned Kelly’s crimes can never be excused. They can be understood but never excused. However nor can the circumstances of his time. His was an incredibly hard life. From reliable reports of the time, he was not given a fair trial and should never have been allowed to hang.

Another thing we need to get straight is our tendency, even amongst some Christians, to glorify Ned Kelly as an Aussie hero because of his rebellion against injustice. And in so doing so we tend to overlook his crimes. There is indeed a Christlikeness about his standing up for what he believed in, for taking a stand. But the path of violence is always the path of death. That’s another reason why I love Jesus. In contrast to Ned Kelly, Jesus took the path of least resistance and in the process exposed the weakness of violence.

Whatever we think of Ned Kelly, I reckon the following lyrics ask some pretty good questions when considering his place in Australian folklore.

 

‘Edward Kelly’ by Steve Grace 

There was a man born in this land on 1855

Edward Kelly was his name

Raised by a poor man, and hated by the law man

‘Til they laid him in his grave

 

Brought up in the hard times on a farm in Victoria

He learned to fight for all that he believed

And with his brother Daniel, Steven Hart and Joseph Burns

They lived and died with rebel dignity.

 

Some say he was a good man, some say he was a bad man. Some say he was just fighting to be free

Were those who judged him of his crime

As guilty when you draw the line between the chains of hell and liberty.

And sometimes I wonder why, Edward Kelly

Sometimes I see you riding with the boys

And sometimes I wonder why, Edward Kelly had to die

 

Is the justice done when the jury makes its choice

Some say he was a good man, some say he was a bad man. Some say he was just fighting to be free

Were those who judged him of his crime

As guilty when you draw the line between the chains of hell and liberty.

 

And sometimes I wonder why, Edward Kelly

Sometimes I see you riding with the boys

And sometimes I wonder why, Edward Kelly had to die

Is the justice done when the jury makes its choice

Is the justice done when the jury makes its choice

Is the justice done when the jury makes its choice

Is the justice done, is the justice done

Faith is a verb – a theology of love

August 31, 2011 / / 0 Comments

There is a line in the famous movie Ben Hur in which one of his relatives goes to hear Jesus speak. She comes back enthralled. The way she describes Jesus is by saying that he is like no one she has ever met before – he speaks words of life.

And so he did speak words of life. And the Gospel writers add that he spoke as one who had authority. The Message version interprets this as meaning he lived out what he spoke. Your life will have impact most powerfully when you live what you speak. And Jesus is the perfect example of this. Over 2000 years he has captivated people of all races and colours. There is something about this man that is like no other. He speaks words of life and he lived those same words. He loved his enemies, he walked the extra mile, he denied himself, took up his cross and lived a life of obedience to the Father.

Our lives speak, whether we like it or not, and whether we think so or not. We are either speaking life or we are speaking death. Everyone has a worldview. This is what the debate about religious education in Australian schools earlier this year was about. Some have been insisting on Christianity being taught because it provides an overarching view of existence. What the proponents of a secular view seem to miss is that they are equally supporting a worldview, one which is not based on a spiritual view of the world. They want values-based education, as if that is somehow less biased than a religious-based view. Everything in our lives speaks something, whether we realise it or not.

If we want to have impact in our lives we need to live out love. As has been pointed out by many wise people over the years, talk is cheap. This is much of the problem with our theology. In the end you can have all the theology in the world but if you have not love you are nothing. If you’re like me and you love theology, you need to be very careful that your theology doesn’t become your master. Because ultimately the best theology is born out of a life of love. Love is the bottom line, not theology. We don’t get our theology right first and then live out of that. Jesus says “follow me” and that is where we learn our theology.

Love is about sacrifice. We come closer to God by living it out a life of sacrifice, of denying ourselves, taking up our crosses and following Jesus. In terms of theology, ours is a ‘doing’ theology. It is more about orthopraxy than orthodoxy. This is how the theologies of liberation in Latin America started. They were born out of deep suffering. As Jayakumar Christian, National Director of World Vision India, points out in his book, God of the Empty-Handed, “this theology (liberation or Dalit theology) is a call for theologians themselves to be converted, abandoning their ways and entering into the life of their neighbours, particularly the poor.” Good theology is useless unless it is applied.

It may surprise some readers that it is in John’s gospel that the call to a ‘doing’ theology is emphasized most. In evangelical circles this gospel is usually the one given to new Christians to give them a grasp of what it is to have eternal life and to believe in Jesus. But while proper belief is (rightly) emphasised by most evangelicals, I wonder how many new believers are taught the fact that, all throughout John’s gospel, faith is a verb. In John, the phrase ‘to believe’ is mentioned nearly a hundred times, and not once is it mentioned as a noun. It is a ‘doing’ word. So when John finishes off his wonderful gospel by telling its readers that it has been written that they may believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that by believing they may have life in his name, what he is really saying is that believing in Jesus cannot mean anything else but living out your faith. For John, believing in Jesus has nothing to do with mere intellectual assent. If we believe that faith in Jesus means nothing more than accepting him as your personal Lord and Saviour, we are not believing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Whilst John’s gospel is one of the more popular books of the New Testament for us evangelicals, the letter of James is possibly the least, mainly for its apparent over-emphasis on works. But the overarching message of James is, just like John, that faith is a verb. Both James and John affirm that faith without works is dead. James affirms John’s message that believing is more than intellectual assent by pointing out that the demons ‘believe’ too, and shudder. And John likewise affirms James’ message by emphasizing that the way to have life in Jesus’ name is by living it out, not by just saying you believe he is the Son of God. Both John and James believe in a ‘doing’ theology – a theology of love.

Belief and action can never be separated in the life of the real Christian, just as they were never separated in the life of Jesus. This was shown most beautifully earlier this year in the uprising in Egypt when we saw the inspiring images of Christians protecting Muslims while the latter were engaging in their daily prayers. Such an action would have no doubt been criticized by some Christians as heretical as it would be seen to be condoning idolatrous action. But, to the contrary, this was love in action. It was loving your neighbour and laying down your life for your friend. I have no doubt whatsoever that Jesus would have been right there with those Christians who linked arms protecting their Muslim brethren in those frightening days in Cairo.

A similar story to the beautiful one we saw in Egypt is told in the movie The Imam and the Pastor. This true tale tells of a Muslim Imam and a Christian pastor in Nigeria who were once bitter enemies, literally trying to kill each other, and encouraging their people to do the same. But after some time they saw the futility of their actions and instead wondered how they could resolve their differences and stop the killing. They eventually started to work together for peace in their battered country. They don’t agree with each other’s beliefs but they have matured enough to see past that and work for reconciliation between their people. When I first saw this movie, my blinkers went up and I struggled with the apparent ‘compromise’ the pastor was falling into by agreeing to work with a Muslim. Shouldn’t he be sticking to his beliefs and showing Jesus to this Muslim Imam? Then it dawned on me. He was in fact doing exactly that. He was putting his faith into action, just like John’s gospel says. He was loving his neighbour and living out his love for Jesus.

Our ultimate aim in life is to become more loving. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God and love our neighbour. As N.T. Wright says in Surprised by Hope, “Love is not our duty, it is our destiny”. This is the end of life. And it is only through living a life of following the greatest love the world has ever seen that we get our theology sorted out. It matters what we believe, and right believing only comes from following the One in whom we find the grace to love, the One whom we love because he first loved us. This is what love is, that he laid down his life for us. Love is action, faith is a verb, and only from this comes our best theology.

Tiredness, frustration, and trust

August 30, 2011 / / 0 Comments

In the U2 song, Peace on Earth, Bono sings of his frustration about our constant talk of peace without it ever really happening. Peace, peace, when there is no peace is the cry of the prophet he is echoing. All around we see power corrupting and people in power getting their way at the expense of those with no power. Over and over again it happens.

I have no trust in political and economic systems. Ultimately I trust more in Jesus, whose power did not corrupt and through whom our desires for power are redeemed. John Smith asked a question many years ago which is a challenge for everyone who claims to be a serious follower of Jesus. The question is this: who are your friends and who are your enemies? The point he was making is that, when you look at the life of Jesus, his friends were overwhelmingly the powerless, the marginalised and the oppressed. And his enemies were overwhelmingly the rich, the powerful and the oppressors. If our friends and enemies are the same type of people who Jesus had as friends and enemies, then chances are that we are following Him and can claim the name ‘Christian’. If our friends are the rich and powerful, and our enemies are the poor and powerless, then it is pretty much certain that you are not following Jesus and cannot legitimately call yourself a Christian. Harsh words, but I defy anyone to tell me that what I am saying is not biblical.

Another question that John Smith has asked is along similar lines. It is a study of Jesus’ encounters with the powerful and the powerless, and whether they were positive or negative encounters. Not surprisingly with Jesus, his encounters with the poor and powerless were overwhelmingly positive, whilst his encounters with the rich and powerful were overwhelmingly negative. Jesus was constantly in trouble with the authorities, and at the same time, the common people heard him gladly (Mark 12:37).

Until the day Jesus returns there will be injustice and abuse of power in this world. Humanity is too sick to change itself on its own. Martin Luther King knew this. On the day that President Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, King told his wife that the same would happen to him one day, because society is too sick to know any better. Tragically, this great prophet of the 20th century was right, cut down himself only five years later, one more person who stood up for the powerless being silenced in the ultimate manner.

I feel a deep sadness and frustration when I see the powerful abuse their power at the expense of the powerless. A clearly guilty white collar worker gets off because he can afford the best lawyers; executives give themselves huge bonuses while they decry any request for a pay rise by those lower down as dangerous for the economy, and politicians share the perks of office while their constituents struggle each day to make ends meet.

Who can we believe in any more? Who is trustworthy? And here is where I point the finger at myself. Am I trustworthy? Do I abuse my power to get what I want at the expense of those who don’t have the resources that I do?

It is at the times when I hear of power being abused that my faith in Jesus is strengthened. He is the only one who is ultimately trustworthy; He walked his talk, he lived out the courage of his convictions, and when abused himself, he continued to show the way of love. In him is our trust ultimately not misplaced. In him is our only salvation.

Invading grace – saving us from ourselves

August 17, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Here is a beautiful piece on grace and its saving impact on our lives:

Forever The world, invaded by death, was in a new state of chaos. Instead of people’s lives being organized by love for God, they were driven by the constant pursuit of here-and-now pleasure. Death had invaded. The world had gone mad. But the story was not over, because God would not sit and watch the demise of his plan.

So God, in his grace, invaded our here-and-now madness in the person of his Son. Jesus did not transgress God’s boundaries. He did not live for his own pleasure. He refused to ignore eternity. He lived a life that was perfect in his Father’s eyes.

But he did more; he willingly took the penalty of our selfishness on himself. On the cross he took our punishment and purchased our forgiveness… Because of [his] forgiveness and righteousness, we are accepted into God’s family forever. The crisis of the human existence is not that we are horizontally unfulfilled, but that we are vertically cut off.

Grace connects us once again to God, and in so doing to the one place where our hearts can find rest and where we can be given back our senses. Grace not only connects us to God, but delivers us from ourselves and from the madness of our propensity to make life about little more than us in the here and now.

Grace gives forever back to us. We see that the promise of the cruel cross and the empty tomb is profoundly bigger than a happy life in the here and now. The promise of the empty tomb is that we will live with God forever. And in this way we are given back our humanity. Grace guarantees to all who place their faith in Jesus that forever is in their future.

And what kind of forever? A forever that is not only free of punishment, but free of the madness of self-centered, pleasure-oriented here-and-now-ism, and the double death that goes with it.

–Forever: Why You Can’t Live Without It, by Paul David Tripp

This is the essence of life.  In a world where we are told by the media and our political leaders that life is all about you, grace gives something better – salvation from ourselves. Martin Luther King said once that the end of life is not to be happy but to do the will of God. And N.T. Wright has said that because we have been shown grace, we can show grace to others.

Suffering and knowing God

May 15, 2011 / / 1 Comment

I have mentioned previously that one thing I have noticed over the years of my Christian walk is that the people who really know God, who really know the heart of God, are people who have known what it is to deeply suffer. It is deeply wounded people who know the suffering of the God of the universe.

People who have an intimate experience of suffering are the wounded healers, as Henri Nouwen expressed it. It is these people who I respect deeply and who I listen to when they speak. I want what they have.

For these people, the pat ‘Christian’ answers aren’t enough. They have experienced the deep injustice that life sometimes deals out, and they have experienced it often. These are people who weep easily, not for themselves, but for the state of the world. Theirs is a godly sorrow. They might even come across as somewhat manic at times, and some people might even think that they are mentally unwell. But to the contrary, they are more than likely more in touch with reality than the rest of us.

People who know God intimately and who know deep suffering are like Job and the Psalmists. They sing the blues and they can cry out ‘why?’. But they have also come through the fire with their faith intact, and at the same time their faith is never the same as it was. It has made that longest of journeys from the head to the heart. It is no longer mere intellectual assent to the truths of the Gospel. It is a knowing, a knowing that ‘though I lay my bed in Hades, thou art with me.’

This morning at church I heard a sermon from someone like this. This is a person who knows God and who suffers deeply. For these people, being misunderstood and not feeling heard is a regular fact of life. Life is a lonely path for them. Often taunted, told to lighten up and not be so challenging all the time, these people are a prophetic voice speaking into our malaise. To the indifferent and the apathetic and the asleep, they continue to speak the cry of the prophet. They often feel like a voice in the wilderness. To hear them is often uncomfortable, but at the same time they touch something deep within us. Isn’t that just like what Jesus was like? They often talk about justice, they often challenge the lifestyles of comfortable Christians. For godly people like this, suffering is something they endure regularly.

These people are generally the first to not want to bring attention to themselves. They just go on and do God’s will. But they are sometimes tempted to go the easy way. Like Jesus in the garden, often it feels like too much and they cry out to God asking if they have to really go through all this. But deep down they know something we don’t. They know that this is the way to life, and in the end it will all be worth it. But that is also not their primary motivation. Their primary motivation is to do the will of God. As a pastor of mine said once, loving is sadness, and they are committed to loving, whatever the cost.

The New Testament Christians knew what it was to live like this. In the Book of Acts we are told that they considered themselves privileged to suffer for the Way. They got it. How different that is to the comfortable Christians of the Western church today, who have succumbed to the dominant ideology of the consumer culture.

It seems that if we are really serious about being followers of this Way, then we must be willing to suffer. There is no other way to be a genuine Christian. An honest appraisal of life and love does not leave us any choice. And if that makes us question whether we really are Christian, that is no bad thing. Jesus knew this. Those who thought his teaching too difficult took up their freedom to walk away, and when he asked his closest friends if they too wanted to leave because they thought it was all too hard, Peter spoke those immortal words, “to whom else would we go? You have the words of eternal life”.

With Jesus, the way of life is the way of death. The way up is down, and, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, when Christ calls someone to follow, He bids them come and die. There is only one way to know God, and that is to be willing to go the way of the crucified One. In the culture of Jesus’ day, when he said that anyone who wants to follow him must take up their cross, everyone who heard knew full well that this call was nothing less than a willingness to die. May I have that courage today.

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