Restoring Jerusalem

For Sunday, May 25, 2008
Isaiah 49:8-16a
Proper 3

Whenever I read prophecies about Jerusalem I come back to the question of how to understand them. Are they referring to Jerusalem in history, Jerusalem in its present state, or Jerusalem in its heavenly state? One of my seminary professors provided a very helpful metaphor for forming an answer to this question: the prophetic telescope. The idea is that when you look through a telescope distances get compressed. An object much farther away can appear to be next to a much nearer one. In the same way, the prophetic telescope compresses chronology. Often immediate fulfillment appear alongside more ultimate ones.

Such appears to be the case here. Some of this prophecy may indeed have been fulfilled in post-exilic Israel. Some may have found its fulfillment with the restoration of the Jewish state in 1948. Yet the ultimate fulfillment clearly has not yet been realized and so is most likely to come with the establishment of the heavenly Jerusalem. This seems consistent with the Apostle Paul's own understanding in Gal. 4:24-31, where he says, "But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother" (v. 26). Note too that what is above now will be coming down then, because not only is God creating a new heaven, but a new earth.

So ultimately Isaiah 49 is a vision of God's people in God's place, and for those of us who believe, and who are members of the church, we are already experiencing a foretaste of what this blessing will be. It will be a place of fidelity, where desolate land and inheritances are restored. Captives will be set free and those in darkness will discover new light. There will be food and pasture in plenty, without scorching sun, hunger, or thirst.

What should our response be to this? "Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains! For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones." May our lives this day and this week reflect the comfort and compassion the Lord has already showered upon us.

One practical way to do this is to enjoy a Sabbath rest this Sunday. Don't worry about all those household projects or all that mail that needs attention. Let your priority today be to receive comfort and compassion from your Heavenly Father who loves you and blesses you so richly. Rest, be refreshed, and rejoice.

global warming - straight thinking?

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Why among the cultural elites is it okay to be a skeptic on some topics, like Christianity, but not on others, like global warming? Regarding the latter, there are some questions that keep rattling around my brain loud enough to snap me out of the cultural stupor that seems to hypnotize so many:

• What caused the end of the last Ice Age if it wasn't SUV's?
• If the earth is millions of years old what meaningful conclusions can be drawn from a slice of data that is only 150 years wide?
• To what extent might increased solar activity explain recent warming?
• To what extent might asphalt explain measurements indicating recent warming?

It amazes me that in my State of Wisconsin we've already mandated 10% ethanol, largely as a response to global warming, only to discover that having done so has both increased costs of both fuel and food, and actually creates more greenhouse gas than it eliminates.

Here is a website that seems to have a good deal of helpful information for informed thinking on the topic of global warming: http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/index.cfm.

It profoundly bothers me that I am being forced to put ethanol in my gas tank almost as much as it bothers me that I will soon be forced to use inferior light bulbs in my house. I'm all for environmental stewardship but this is not it.

Christ Ascendant

Acts 1:6-14
For Sunday, May 4, 2008
Seventh Sunday of Easter (Ascension Sunday)

One of the benefits of worshipping based on the Revised Common Lectionary is to have a sense of continuity throughout the year. Easter doesn't just come and go. It endures. Maybe this is why there are seven Sundays of Easter on the calendar.

Now that Christ is ascendant what is to be the focus of our lives? Too often we get caught up in the cultural concern of the day and miss what ought to be our priority. This was true of the first generation of disciples. Their concern immediately after Jesus' resurrection was understandably to know when Jesus was going to set up his government to replace the despised Romans. While this was the cultural concern of the day, Jesus' concern was elsewhere: "you will be my witnesses" (Acts 1:7). The Expositor's Bible Commentary says the entire book of Acts can be summarized in that phrase. This is what the Book of Acts is about. This is what the first century believers were about. They took up the challenge, were blessed immeasurably, and changed the world.

How would I like to be blessed immeasurably while being part of a movement that changes the world? All that is required is a shift in my concerns. What is the cultural concern of our day? Maybe establishing successful careers, raising healthy families, or even finding oneself. We will only find true and lasting success when we align our lives with God's mission to the world. "You will be my witnesses."

With regard to being witnesses, in my last post I said that I would let you know what happened at the art fair we attended. We conversed with a couple of artists and mentioned our former work as missionaries in Russia. Circumstances didn't allow us to carry that conversation further, but even that was a witness to what God is doing in the world. Maybe there will be a conversation this week in which I can go farther, and ask for instance, "Has anyone ever shared with you the central message of Christianity?"

So many of us work in the marketplace, which is such a strategic platform. The relational networks are vast and the opportunities to be a witness are staggering. Let's seize the day that the adventure, blessing, and impact of the first century church might be ours as well.

What Would Paul Do?

Acts 17:22-31
For Sunday, April 27, 2008
Sixth Sunday of Easter

A popular trinket in evangelical circles over the last few years has been the WWJD bracelets. WWJD stands for "What Would Jesus Do". This is a wonderful question to ask and those who commit themselves to live out the answers will discover lives of remarkable significance and blessing. Yet this passage, Acts 17:22-31, invites a related but different question: WWPD - what would the Apostle Paul do?

Acts 17 gives us a wonderful model for how Paul engaged a multicultural and unchurched audience with the gospel. If Paul were ministering here in my city of Waukesha, Wisconsin, here is how he might get started:

• identify a place to connect with religiously inclined people of the day (v. 17) (e.g. Cooperating Congregations of Waukesha County)
• identify a place to connect with religiously un-inclined people in the marketplace (v. 17b) (e.g. Starbucks)
• engage people in these contexts in a process of reasoning (v. 17a)

Regarding the last point, what might a "process of reasoning" look like? In a multicultural climate in which the only shared value is absolute tolerance a good first step might be to ask people empathetic questions and then listen carefully to their responses. Here are some questions that I'm starting to enjoy asking:

• what is your greatest aspiration in life?
• what are your core values? how are you striving to live your life based on those?
• do you have a philosophy of life? if so, what is it? if not, why not?
• what do you think is most wrong with the world?
• what needs to be done to fix this?

If Paul were to coach my church, or me personally, I think his key message might be: "Let's get out there and engage!" I know a way to give this a try today. I just received an email from a friend who is an artist. I love connecting with art and artists. She'll be part of a Gallery Night tonight in Milwaukee's Old Third Ward. If the Apostle Paul were in town today, I bet this is where he would go as well. I'll let you know how it goes.

My apologies - I wasn't successful in posting a follow-up to my previous Acts post. Life intervened. I'll just leave that to you and the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost: What's Going on Here?

Acts 2:14a, 22-32
For Sunday, March 30, 2008
Image: El Greco, "Pentecost"

Acts chapter 2 describes a remarkable scene. Before we can understand and appreciate these verses we therefore need to spend some time understanding what is going on here.

The twelve apostles were gathered together in a house. Suddenly, a loud sound like a tornado filled the house. Tongues of fire could be seen resting on each of them. They began speaking in other languages. (Other ‘tongues’ is really an antiquated translation, as in “Oh For a Thousand Tongues to Sing”).

It just so happened that at this time in Jerusalem were staying God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. They heard the tornado and came running to see what was going on. These Jewish foreigners were amazed to hear the apostles speaking in the foreigners’ own languages.

What was going on? “Well, they must have been drinking,” someone chimed in. Then Peter stands up and says, “These men are not drunk. It’s only 9:00 in the morning!” Peter then goes on to explain from the Scriptures what was happening. He himself was tremendously excited because he realized that Old Testament prophecy was being fulfilled in their very midst. At the same time the significance of two key Scriptures was becoming clearer to him.

The first Scripture Peter cited was from the Prophet Joel, who foresaw a time when the Spirit of God would be poured out on all people in a new way. This would be marked by a large number of people prophesying at the same time as well as signs and wonders from heaven, and was happening right before their eyes.

Peter then goes on to say that the true significance of this event (which came to be known as Pentecost) could only be understood in connection with the other incredible event that had just taken place: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The connection, Peter says, is that Christ has been “exalted to the right hand of the Father in heaven” and is now himself who has “poured out what you now see and here” (v. 33).

All of this, Peter continues, has been foretold, not only by the Prophet Joel, but also by King David himself. Peter then points his listeners to two passages from the Psalms of King David where this can be seen.

The first passage, which is the focus of this reading, is from Psalm 16:8-11 (v. 25,ff.). Peter says essentially this: “Look, the resurrection of Christ was something that King David himself foresaw. When David said 'nor will you let your Holy One see decay' he was neither deluded nor exaggerating, because at this point David wasn’t talking about himself. Rather, he was foretelling the resurrection of Christ."

Okay... but so what? Here's the so what: if we are to understand our own time we have to realize how central the resurrection of Christ and Pentecost are to it. Nothing of greater significance has happened in the last 2,000 years - not 9/11, not World War II, not the founding of the United States, not the Enlightenment, not the Reformation, and not even the fall of the Roman Empire. The significance is this: we live in a time when in which the Spirit of God lives not merely among his people in a temporary manner, but within his people permanently. Once we understand this, we’ll never be able to look at either ourselves or our circumstances as we did previously. We’ll begin to experience what my pastor Mel Lawrenz is calling in his present series “Life in the Spirit”. I can say from my own experience that this is the way we were meant to live and I recommend it most highly.

Now that Peter has pointed out how King David foresaw the Resurrection he then wants to explain how King David also anticipated Pentecost. This will be the focus of next week's reading, which continues from where we're leaving off today.

America and Iraq

I think part of being a spiritual person is to think and act about contemporary affairs in light of the gospel. As Karl Barth put it, Christians ought to be reading with the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. One of the most important world events over the last five years has been the Iraq war. The Wall Street Journal published a very insightful editorial recently entitled "America and Iraq".

This article did a good job of acknowledging the mistakes that have been made while also pointing out what really is at stake, not only for Iraq, but also for Afghanistan, and for the worldwide war against Islamic fascism.

What we're fighting is not a 'War on Terror'. We're only concerned about Islamic fascist terrorism. We're not fighting against terrorism per se, nor against Islam per se. Why not just state this plainly?

Another aspect of the article that I think is very helpful is the notion that one of the reasons for our invasion of Iraq was to provide a strategic counter-balance to both Iran's Shiite Islam and Saudi Arabia's Sunni Islam. This makes sense to me, but again, why wasn't this explained at the time, and why isn't it being explained now?

Has invading Iraq been worth the 4,000 American lives that have now been lost? If it helps prevent a nuclear detonation in an American city, which would claim many many more lives than 4,000, absolutely. This is a real danger that we must face squarely.

This war has touched my family personally. Some friends of ours lost their 22 year-old daughter to this war. Another acquaintance of ours was one the Marines who led the assault on Fallujah. I treasure the freedom we have in this country, and believe that it is worth fighting for, and must sometimes be fought for. This is one of those times.

Good Friday is good... right?

El Greco, "Christ Carrying the Cross"

This was the question a co-worker put to me yesterday as I the elevator door was closing between us. I didn't get a chance to answer then but appreciated the question. Another co-worker had asked yesterday, "What does Maundy mean?" so let's tackle both of these.

Let's start with Maundy Thursday. Wikipedia has a great article on this here. 'Maundy' you'll remember derives from the Middle English and Old French mande'. ... You didn't remember that, did you? Neither did I. In fact, one of the only people who would is Milt Rosenberg of Extension 720 fame. In one show a few months ago he couldn't resist reading through Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Middle English. Very funny. Anyway, continuing on, mande' then is a derivation of the Latin mandatum, which means "commandment". It is a reference to the first word in the Latin for the Gospel of John chapter 13 verse 34: "Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos". Translation: "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another even as I have loved you." So, in summary, 'Maundy Thursday' really means "Commandment Thursday", and the command being referred to is that believers in Christ love others the way that Christ has loved them. Cool...

So, turning then to Good Friday, what's good about it? The Wikipedia article (see prior link) doesn't explain this but there is an interesting note on this in the discussion section for the article. Another term used with reference to 'Good' is 'Passion', which is a reference to Christ's 'passion', or the event of His death on the cross. What's good about Good Friday is that this was the day that God's one and only Son went to the cross to secure victory over humanity's curse. This curse is called sin, which means alienation from God.

Presumed in all of this story is a key question: what is wrong with us? Whenever I hear about torture, starvation, and other profound cruelties I'm reminded of this question. It's a question that each of us has to answer for ourselves. The answer that I've come to is that the Bible has it exactly right: what is wrong with us, ultimately, is that we need God in our lives. The secular culture in which we live, which wants to divide the sacred from the secular (or "earthly"), and wants to hold the sacred at arm's length with both skepticism and disdain, can distract us from acknowledging or even recognizing this need. Yet at the same time our own brokenness reminds us daily that something is indeed very wrong.

The good thing about Good Friday is that it is an opportunity to recognize what is wrong with us, accept God's offer of forgiveness in the form of Christ dying for our sin on the cross, and then to invite God to be with us, heal us, and bless us.

Good Friday is good.. right? If we will say 'yes' to God it is good indeed.