The Cross is Not Enough: Why the Christian Story Needs Easter

Five years ago yesterday, the reality of human mortality pierced my soul like a dark, cursed knife that causes no physical harm, but mortally wounds, nonetheless. Before dad died, death was an abstraction, a thing to be vaguely aware of, a philosophical problem to be discussed. Death was a rabid dog, sure, but one who lacked fangs.

Some of us are graced with a life that avoids the pain of death for decades. Some of us face it much earlier. But if there is one thing true about death, it is that none of us can escape it. Before our own deaths, we will all experience that deep puncture of the soul, that knife twisting and doubling us over in pain.

All of us.

We cannot hide.

And great art calls us out of our hiding…even if, at times, it has no solution.

For authors in particular, and therefore for we who enter their stories, death is the great narrative driver. Always the ultimate Dark One, death creates and destroys characters, manipulating plots, and at times leaving us in awe of its power. And so, in any great narrative, it is the one thing that must be defeated if the story is to progress. The grave cannot be the end of our stories.

In the narrative of contemporary Christianity, we are too quick to jump on Christ’s cross as that which secures the afterlife for us. We are waiting for eternity, waiting for the halos and the angels. We are waiting for, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

But what good is the afterlife if death is not defeated? What good is a Messiah who stays in the grave? What difference does forgiven sins make if death still reigns? If we merely go to heaven when we die, then this world is not set right…it’s just forgotten. And if this world is not set right, then God loses! 

This is why the cross is not enough. This is why the Christian story needs resurrection. Because the resurrection says the Dark One cannot win. The cursed knife will be blunted…no, destroyed. The rabid dog with the deadly fangs will be put down. Evil and injustice will not merely cease to exist, they will be put to rights. Justice will prevail in the end, not merely because there will be an absence of evil, but because evil will be defeated.

We are waiting, not for an afterlife where we get to forget about this life. We are waiting for resurrection. A defeat of death, itself. An elimination of it’s power. A memory renewed so that all the death that ever was will be swallowed up in life…not forgotten, but set in a better context. In the context of a God who took on human skin, lived a life of justice in confrontation with evil, died at the hands of that evil, then resurrected from the grave in defeat of the powers of evil. He defeats death. He defeats evil, something we could never do on our own. And then enables us to turn around, and in the power of his Spirit, work for the defeat of death and the defeat of evil in our world.

Death is no abstraction. It is no philosophical concept. It drives our narrative as the great antagonist. But the resurrection of Jesus, soon to be seen, means that the grave is not the end of our stories. Because resurrection is also no abstraction or philosophical concept. It is the great protagonist. Or rather, the One who resurrected is the great Protagonist.

Your days are waiting…to end. But the end is now. Five years ago death became real to me. But in the five years since, resurrection life has become even more real.  Easter Sunday means there is more to the Christian story than the cross. In a sense, the cross is not enough. Without resurrection, our story goes nowhere…it’s a permanent tragedy.

How I Met Your Mother and Made Her “The One” (Part A)

I mentioned in my last post on How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) that American culture is obsessed with this idea that there’s “one person” out there for us, and that all our steps and missteps will be providentially used by a benevolent guiding hand (God, gods, the Universe, whatever) to ensure we encounter this person. This is how Ted tells his love story in HIMYM, and this is how many of us think about our own love stories.

But I’m convinced this idea of “the one” is neither true nor healthy for our marriages and relationships.  I don’t know that we can truly say that there is “one” person out there for whom we were created. I don’t know that God created “one” person out there specifically for me.

Rather, I think we filter a lot of potential “ones” and make one of them into “the one” through our mutual choices.  

Let me explain this thought through the lens of HIMYM: I think Ted could just as easily have made Stella or Robin “the one” if they also wanted to make him their “one.” Ted approaches his romantic life with the idea that there is just “one” person out there for him, but I think Ted is mistaken. I think there are a lot of potential “ones” out there for Ted, and his story could easily be titled, “How I Met Your Mother, Robin,” or “How I Met Your Mother, Stella.” 

But the fact is, neither Robin nor Stella wanted to make Ted their “one,” even though he wanted to make them his “one.” In these cases Ted’s potential “ones” are filtered for him (because he can’t force Robin or Stella to love him in return), but in other cases, his potential “ones” are filtered by him by virtue of his experiences, values, and choices.

As Ted’s story progresses, we see that what began as a huge pool of “ones” eventually becomes “the one” through things Ted does and things that are done to him.  But none of this is truly the design of a benevolent guiding divinity. It occurs through Ted’s complex choices and the choices of the potential “ones” he encounters. It occurs through the willingness of bothparties to choose each other, and only each other, over, and over, and over again for the rest of their lives.

And what I will suggest in the next post is that this same thing is true for us. That is, we each start out with a lot of potential “ones” but as our values form, our experiences expand, and our beliefs get settled, the pool of potential “ones” gets filtered down to a smaller, select group over time, eventually ending in us making one of those potential “ones “the one.”

So stay tuned for the next episode of How I Met Your Mother and Made Her “the One.” 

Prayer As Engagement, Not Escape

I’ve always imagined when I’m praying that my spirit is transferred up to the throne room of God in that moment. That while my body is kneeling beside my bed or driving in my car, my spirit is raptured into the holy of holies, into the presence of God…who is there, but not necessarily here. 

For several years now, however, I’ve been increasingly convinced that the biblical idea of “Kingdom of Heaven” is a very this worldly reality. That the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus in this world means that the Kingdom of Heaven is not elsewhere, but present and active here. 

It’s funny how paradigm shifts tend to take a while to apply.

The implications of the hereness of the Kingdom of Heaven immediately convinced me that a place called Heaven is not the ultimate goal of the Christian life. But up until recently my imagination in prayer still took me up to a remote, distant, heavenly throne room.

Reading this morning in the Sermon on the Mount (Jesus’ most explicit delineation of the Kingdom of Heaven!), I saw the error of my praying ways. Jesus prays for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The implication here is that prayer, like church gatherings, aren’t mini Christian vacations into heaven. They are not temporary forays into the next life or another world. Prayer, like church gatherings, are a full engagement with this world. Prayer takes place within and for this world. It does not long for a time to escape, it is an expression of a soul already fully engage in God’s redemptive purposes for this world. I love how Eugene Peterson says it, “Prayer is not an escape from what is going on around us. It is gutsy participation in every earthly detail.”

If heaven is God’s throne, then earth is his footstool. And I can pray at His footstool because that’s where God’s feet touch our ground.

When Light and Life are Extingished, Love Must Ignite.

I’m working on my sermon on Jesus washing the disciple’s feet in John 13. Structurally, it’s the opening scene that leads to the cross, in John’s gospel.

And I’ve come across some interesting verbage stats…

For the first 12 chapters, the words light and life appear in John’s gospel a combined 82 times.

But from chapter 13 on, the words occur a combined 6 times.

So the light and life are being extinguished as the story moves toward the cross.

BUT

 

In the first 12 chapters, the word love occurs only 6 times. But in chapters 13-17, alone, he uses the term 31 times.

So even as light and life are being extinguished, John’s emphasis on love grows.

Tell me there’s not some awesome spiritual realities happening there! This  Jesus who washes the feet of a man about to betray him to death, is saying in word and deed that even as our enemies extinguish our life and light, our love should be ignited!

How I Met Your Mother Through Functionally Atheist, Yet Providentially Designed, Circumstances

In case it’s not obvious, as this is my second post on How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) in the last week, I like the show. While there are certainly some objectionable parts, there are redeeming qualities, too, especially as the seasons progress and you see the characters change – I’m especially thinking of Barney.

One of the things that intrigues me most about the show, and, really, I think it’s a contradiction within the characters, is the fact that the whole premise of the show is that everything that happens in Ted’s story necessarily (almost deterministically) leads him to his future wife – the “one” for him.

Though Ted is telling the story from the future, 2030, he tells it as if there is a guiding hand, a benevolent divinity, or a personal universe leading each step, ensuring that none of his efforts are wasted as his character is formed into the kind of person ready to meet his future wife. Even his accidents and happen-chance events are determined by some higher force arranging the contingencies to ensure that he will one day meet this woman.

But the contradiction I see in Ted’s character lies therein. He believes there is a benevolent hand leading him to “the one” for him, but at the same time, he never consults that benevolent being (aside from one time when we see him doing an Indian rain-dance) for guidance. He believes a hand is determining his every step, but this belief never translates into tangible, concrete interaction with this being.

In fact, as far as Ted’s character goes, in every other way, he is functionally an atheist. He tells his story with this guiding hand leading him to The Mother, but the guiding hand never impinges upon his life in a way that would cause him to reflect on who he is or what he was created for.

But, interestingly, while I see a contradiction in the writing of Ted’s character, the fact is, I think the writers of HIMYM are actually quite realistic in their writing of these contradictions.

In our culture, we have this romantic notion that there’s “one person”* out there for us, and that all our steps and missteps will be providentially used by a benevolent guiding hand to ensure we encounter this person. But the contradiction within most of us is that, though we talk about “the one” this way, every other part of our lives contradicts a belief in such a benevolent hand. In fact, even people who are intellectual atheists still talk as if there is “one person” out there for them. But this “one person” idea actually necessitates a belief in some kind of God or gods…and more specifically, good and loving ones who care about our happiness.

Ted’s a functional atheist in every way except in his belief that his story must climax with a divinely ordained encounter with The Mother of his children. But this contradiction is the very same contradiction represented in many American lives where people are functionally atheists or a-religious, but when it comes to romance, they are more than willing to talk about it as if a providential, loving hand was guiding them.

Of course, that loving hand has no definitive name, qualities, or character, but that’s a discussion for another time. Right now, I’m just intrigued by the outright contradiction we Americans seem happy to live with…or remain oblivious to.

 

So what do you think? Where else do you see this contradiction at play in our culture? In your own life? 

 

 

*Expect one more post from me on this notion of “the one” for everyone.

Attracting Lightening Bugs

Your fire will attract lightening bugs. If you are impassioned by Bible study, you will attract others who want to study the Bible. If you are impassioned by service, servant hearted people will be drawn to you. If you are impassioned by hospitality, you might find that others are in need of welcome. If you are impassioned by the environment, the Tree Huggers will cling to you like smog over New York City.

Your passions are what attract people to you. They are a source of refreshment and encouragement to others. They reveal see a heart set aflame by the Holy Spirit, who is the giver of passions. A good  leader is a leader who knows and leverages his/her passions for the good of the community.

So what lights you on fire? What gives you more fulfillment and excitement than anything else? What makes your faith light up? What so impassions you that people are attracted to you when you’re doing it?

The world doesn’t need more leaders going through the hum-drum motions. The world needs to see leaders moved by a passion for something specific and unique. They need to see leaders who see God in their passions, who see God in the things that set their hearts on fire.

Your fire will attract lightening bugs. So don’t be afraid to light yourself on fire. You might be surprised what will happen.

To “Hear” and Not “Do” is to to Not “Hear”

Your application might be the most dangerous time of your sermon.

Seriously.

It’s the place in the sermon where you tell people, “Now, here’s what you’re supposed to go do with everything I just told you.”

If you fail to tell people to go do anything, then they leave with a whole lot of head knowledge, but no clear direction for life change. And knowledge without life change is, well, just knowledge….the kind that makes us prideful.

On the other hand, the application part of your sermon is equally dangerous when you do tell people what to go do. It’s dangerous because some people actually go do it!

As I mentioned before, I learned the power of the sermon’s application in a deeply tangible way in Advent, when I said this in my sermon on John the Baptizer’s message to the crowds in Luke 3:10:

“So here’s what I say. I say, begin by taking John’s advice. Go home and look at your house. Start with your closet. Sift through everything you have and ask yourself, “Do I need this? Heck, do I even wear this?” And if the answer is no, then give it away or sell it and give the money away to Anchorage Children’s Home, the Priscilla Home, or the UM Children’s Home…Prepare for a king who was born in extreme poverty by helping out those who are less fortunate than you…It’s awfully hard to celebrate a king who came in poverty when we’re drowning in all our new things.”  

Immediately following the sermon I started getting phone calls, emails, and texts from people telling me they were going to go through their closets and their houses to get rid of extra stuff.

Even more awesome, because of one family’s passion for this, we’re probably going to start a clothing center of some sort (we had our first meeting tonight) to help the less fortunate in our county.

And then I got a phone call from a father just this morning, 2 months after this sermon was preached, telling me that his daughter got around $250 for Christmas, spent half of it on herself, and then asked her father to take the other half and use it to buy Christmas gifts for a teenager he knows who lost both of his parents and is living at a children’s home!

I have been completely amazed at how powerful application can be the last few months. It’s not just a practical “add-on” to the expository truth, it is the point of the truth. Truth must produce life-change.

To “hear” and not “do,” in scripture, is to not really “hear” at all.

Preachers need to know their responsibility both to have application present in their sermons, and also understand the huge impact their application can have in their community. Understand that the application may be the most life-altering thing you say.

And for that reason, the application is possibly the most dangerous part of the message.

 

Your turn…

What is the best sermon application you’ve ever heard? Why did it stick with you all this time? How has it changed your life? 

Isn’t it Ironic? Don’t You Think?

As I reflect on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, I’m reminded that the larger theme of the section within which Luke places this parable is that of great reversals that occur between this life and the next. In particular, the great reversal of, in this life, the rich “receiving good things” and the poor “receiving bad things,” while in the next life the rich “are in agony” and the poor “are comforted.” (Luke 16:25)

The theme, so glaring in this parable, was actually subtly hinted at in the parable of the Shrewd Manager, where the message was, if you, in welcome to the poor, leverage your social status in this life, in the eschatological future, when your social status/wealth mean nothing, the poor will welcome you into eternal bliss.

This is what makes the Shrewd Manager so shrewd.

And this is exactly what makes the Rich Man in this parable foolish.

The two parables/characters are sort of foils or contrasts to one another. I love how my friend Caleb said it in yesterday’s comment section, “This rich man had a great chance during his time on earth to “make friends” with Lazarus by means of his wealth, resulting in the rich man’s being “welcomed into the eternal homes” by Lazarus. Instead, it appears he merely squandered his wealth on himself, leaving Lazarus only the crumbs.”

In the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Rich Man fails to act shrewdly (gain the friendship of Lazarus) with his worldly wealth by leaving the sick, poor, and crippled Lazarus at his very gates. He watches this man day after day get eaten alive by dogs. He watches this man’s life slip away.

And he does nothing about it.

Therefore, when the day comes that they both find themselves in the afterlife, Lazarus is unable to help the Rich Man.

Isn’t it ironic that in life, the Rich Man was able to help Lazarus if he was only willing to show hospitality, but in the next life, Lazarus is unable to help the Rich Man, even if he wanted, because of the Rich Man’s refusal of hospitality while he was living? 

Isn’t it ironic that the gate protecting the Rich Man from outsiders was the very gate that held the possibility of opening to welcome Lazarus to life, but now, the chasm that separates the two men has no possibility of being closed to welcome the Rich Man to life?

Friends, in this life, we have gate, after gate, after gate that creates potential relationships of welcome and humanization. In this life, that gate can remain closed or it can remain open. It’s really our choice now, but it will not be our choice in the next life. Welcome now equates to being welcomed then. That’s the irony of it all. 

When the Tables Get Reversed in Hell

In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), Jesus continues his emphasis on this-worldly hospitality’s intimate connection with next-worldly rewards or retribution. I will probably write more on my thoughts on this in the next few days, but as a preliminary discussion, there was something really interesting I observed in the text that I’d like your thoughts on.

The Rich Man and Lazarus have died and gone into the afterlife – Hades, the realm of the dead. But in Hades there seems to be a compartment where the righteous are collected to Abraham’s side, living in comfort. But the wicked are away from Abraham’s side (across a great chasm) in a place of torment.

On the far side of the chasm, the Rich Man looks up and sees Abraham and Lazarus with him. In his torment, he commands (!) Abraham, “Father Abraham, be merciful to me and send Lazarus to get me some water.”

The command to have Abraham “send” Lazarus was initially just interesting to me. I could have read implications into it, but didn’t…at first.

But then I noticed it again in vs. 27, “Send* Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers.”

That twice the Rich Man tries to get Abraham to “send” Lazarus peeked my interest.

It seems to me, not only is the Rich Man incredibly presumptuous, even in eternal torment, to assume he can command Abraham to do anything. But even more presumptuous, he still assumes Lazarus is beneath him. He is treating Lazarus like a servant, a slave, a messenger boy, someone to do his bidding…someone who only exists for my needs.

Even Abraham he treats as a lesser person. Though he calls him ‘Father,’ he assumes he can command Abraham to obey his imperatives. He even argues with Abraham and tells Abraham that he knows better about what his brothers will or won’t listen to, when it comes to revelation to his five brothers.

Even in his torment, this guy still clings to his supposed superior identity and superior status. And even Hades doesn’t change his attitude. Though he thinks Lazarus is a slave, it turns out he is a slave to himself.

Be careful how you treat people – especially people “beneath” you, people everyone else considers expendable, people everyone else overlooks, people everyone else wants to distance themselves from. The tables may very well be reversed someday.

So you tell me: Tell me about a person you know, who, despite their high status, has done a good job at reaching out toward those people who are “beneath” them? I’d love to have a few models for this. 

*This second time, the Greek verb is a subjunctive, not an imperative, but that’s a little aside from my point here.

What Basketball Taught Me About Preaching #3: 3 Pointers Aren’t Always Necessary

I’m in love with the 3 point shot in basketball. Reggie Miller is my favorite player of all time, followed closely by Larry Bird.

In days yonder, when I had the time, I used to shoot hundreds of 3′s a day.

This obsession with 3 pointers, though, actually blinded me at moments. Anytime the game was on the line and my team was down by two, I wanted to go for the win with a 3 pointer.

But going for the win with a 3 pointer isn’t always the best basketball play. While the 3 pointer is glorious, when the game is on the line and you’re down by two, the best basketball play is to drive the lane for the tie and try to get fouled and thereby get your 3 pointer “and-one” style at the free throw line. When the three pointer works, it is, of course, amazing. But it doesn’t always work. And it’s often counterproductive. Getting to the free throw line and winning the game on point at a time is the best basketball play. 

I don’t think three point sermons are inferior or immature in any way. There are preachers who have made great use of them time and again. In fact, there is an entire generation of preachers that were trained to preach this way: “3 points and a poem.”

I think this kind of preaching has it’s place, and can often win the game.

But I also want to contend that, valuable as they are, 3 point messages don’t always win on Sunday mornings. Sometimes the best thing to do is get in the lane, get fouled, and try to win the game at the line – one point at a time.

If your sermon has one, clear, well stated point, your audience is a lot more likely to walk away remembering what you said and knowing how to apply it.

I’ve heard a ton of 3 point sermons in my life. And I’m sure they’ve been helpful to me. But I don’t remember any of them. 

But when I’ve heard 1 point sermons, with that point clearly articulated, I remember them so much longer and more easily. 

Andy Stanley says it this way, “If you have three points, you have three sermons.” I think he’s right.

Sometimes 3 pointers win the game. But more often than not, getting to the free thow line and shooting for the win one point at a time is the way to go.

It’s a shame Reggie can’t help us shoot game winning 3′s.