The way is open

In a striking and original act of imagination, the author of Hebrews reinterprets the temple veil as the human flesh of Jesus. Christ has gone ahead of us in his incarnate body as our forerunner, bringing our human nature along with him. The curtain that was a constant reminder of the exclusion of sinful humanity from the presence of God is gone forever. The temple has been figuratively destroyed and “raised up again in three days” in the body of Christ (John 2:19–21). No longer is the sanctuary forbidden, no longer is an intermediary required, no longer is there any restriction on access to the mercy seat and the remission of sin. Now — broadening the tent image to include the temple — there is no longer any hierarchy. The way is open for Gentiles, for women, for laypeople, for sinners of all sorts and conditions.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 269–70

The centrality of the passion in the early church

The portions of the four Gospels dealing with the life and teachings of Jesus were divided into short, discrete units (pericopes) suitable for reading and exposition in the context of worship in the early church. Once the Last Supper begins, however, the method changes. The portions describing the arrest, trial, suffering, and execution of Jesus are quite unlike the rest of the Gospels. These sequences are staged as long dramatic narratives, differing noticeably from the division of the earlier material into brief pericopes. The passion stories take up one-fourth to one-third of the total length of the four Gospels, and biblical interpreters generally agree that the material was shaped by the church’s oral traditions prior to being put into written form, in a way that forever indicates the surpassing importance of the suffering of Christ for the life of the earliest Christian communities.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 42

The transforming power of the gospel (Tozer for Tuesday)

If the gospel does not change a man, transform him and take the evil out of him, then he does not have the gospel in power. The gospel is a transforming power; otherwise you have a name to live and you are dead.—A.W. Tozer, Reclaiming Christianity, 102

Tozer for Tuesday

The presence of an honest Christian living an upright life in the midst of the Gentiles is God’s most powerful instrument to condition men for the gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ.—A.W. Tozer, Living as a Christian, 136

Tozer for a Tuesday

G. Campbell Morgan once said, "We ought never in our gospel preaching to offer men peace. We ought never in our gospel preaching to offer men repose from their conscience. We ought never to offer them anything short of life.” I wholeheartedly agree. We should never divorce any gift we offer to men from the Giver.—A.W. Tozer, Living as a Christian, 94

Not a self-help/self-improvement program

Paul is, however, hardly an optimist. Indeed, in his view our natural capacities to seek God and do the good—or to quench our thirst for truth and beauty—inevitably lead us away from that which we seek. Sin overpowers us, enslaves us, and makes us sick unto death. And no amount of spiritual exercise or striving against our illness can make us well. Recovery and repair come to us from the outside, from God’s side of the human predicament. Paul’s letters, therefore, are not lessons in self-cultivation or community organizing or social criticism or any such things in themselves. They are rather more like passionate summonses to receive and undergo the disciplines of the free life that only God can grant. Faith, not available knowledge of the immanent world, is the gift—and, subsequently, the virtue—that imparts true vision (Gal 3:15). And church is the name for faith’s “meantime,” reparative pattern of life in the world.—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, 111

Break our hearts of stone

328 C. M.
The hammer of God’s Word.

COME, O thou all-victorious Lord.
   Thy power to us make known;
   Strike with the hammer of thy word,
   And break these hearts of stone.

2 O that we all might now begin
   Our foolishness to mourn;
   And turn at once from every sin,
   And to the Saviour turn.

3 Give us ourselves and thee to know,
   In this our gracious day;
   Repentance unto life bestow,
   And take our sins away.

4 Convince us first of unbelief,
   And freely then release;
   Fill every soul with sacred grief,
   And then with sacred peace.
                  Charles Wesley
                  Methodist Episcopal hymnal (1870 edition)

What majesty and grace…

286 S. M.
Our debt paid upon the cross.

WHAT majesty and grace
   Through all the gospel shine!
   ‘Tis God that speaks, and we confess
   The doctrine most divine.

2 Down from his throne on high,
   The mighty Saviour comes;
   Lays his bright robes of glory by,
   And feeble flesh assumes.

3 The debt that sinners owed,
   Upon the cross he pays:
   Then through the clouds ascends to God,
   ‘Midst shouts of loftiest praise.

4 There our High Priest appears,
   Before his Father’s throne;
   Mingles his merits with our tears,
   And pours salvation down.

5 Great Sov’reign, we adore
   Thy justice and thy grace,
   And on thy faithfulness and power
   Our firm dependence place.
                  Samuel Stennett
                  Methodist Episcopal hymnal (1870 edition)

Prepare ye the way!

209 L.M.
Prepare ye the way of the Lord.

COMFORT, ye ministers of grace,
   Comfort the people of your Lord;
   O lift ye up the fallen race,
   And cheer them by the Gospel word.

2 Go into every nation, go;
   Speak to their trembling hearts, and cry,—
   Glad tidings unto all we show:
   Jerusalem, thy God is nigh.

3 Hark in the wilderness a cry,
   A voice that loudly calls,—Prepare;
   Prepare your hearts, for God is nigh,
   And waits to make his entrance there.

4 The Lord your God shall quickly come;
   Sinners, repent, the call obey:
   Open your hearts to make him room;
   Ye desert souls, prepare the way.

5 The Lord shall clear his way through all;
   Whatever obstructs, obstructs in vain;
   The vale shall rise, the mountain fall,
   Crooked be straight, and rugged plain.

6 The glory of the Lord display’d
   Shall all mankind together view;
   And what his mouth in truth hath said,
   His own almighty hand shall do.
                  Charles Wesley
                  Methodist Episcopal hymnal (1870 edition)

Necessary but not sufficient

There's a saying that I learned while I was a manager, "Necessary, but not sufficient." It means that without that quality/substance/whatever, the business won't function. But, that by itself is not sufficient. You need that plus something else.

Scot McKnight posted a devotional excerpt on John 2 from his next book. He ends with this paragraph:

Why did Jesus refuse to commit himself to these people? Because he perceived like no other what was in humans (2:25). His signs divide the audiences (9:16; 11:45-48; 12:37). Some surrender to him because of signs (2:11; 3:2; 6:2; 20:30-31); others accept the reality of the miracle but do not see through it to the identity of Jesus; yet others repudiate him completely. To see his miracles as signs one must perceive the identity of Jesus beyond the material miracle itself. One could say then that sign-faith is a first but not final step in the journey of true faith (Thompson, John, 67–68). True faith abides over time in trusting Jesus who abides over time in nurturing the believer.

In other words, necessary, but not sufficient. I fear that's where a lot of "signs and wonders" Christians are at. They see the signs and wonders, and they believe them, but don't press on further to the point of abiding in Christ. They sit by the door, admiring, but don't go "further up and further in" to quote from The Last Battle.

It would make an intersting DMin project for someone to follow up on those who were converted via a signs and wonders presentation and see what percentage stuck with the faith. And then compare it with a control group who were converted via a mass presentation like a Billy Graham crusade.

The Billy Graham people used to say that less than 5 percent of the "decisions" made at a crusade stuck. Do you think the number would be higher in a signs and wonders presentation?

I honestly don't know.

A cross perspective

Even though the cross is essential to the development of true spirituality, it does not hang over the life of Jesus and should never cast a pall over the life of His followers. Joy will always be the predominant spirit of Jesus’ approach to our life with God. Jesus was above all else a happy person, and a person remarkably free, free from the grip of material things, free from unhealthy attachments to people, free from obsessive hang-ups and neurotic needs. It is a pleasure to watch Him move so easily through life, even with His knowing the troubles that were always impending. He never allowed Himself to be obsessed with worry or with a sense of doom. Problems He handed over to His Father, as if that was His business. He just did what He knew He had to do each day. In living this way He was able to manifest a remarkable detachment and continually radiate a spirit of joy.— Never Alone, 111–12

<idle musing> And so ends this little book. Tomorrow we'll start going through Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, by Abraham Joshua Heschel.
</idle musing>

Es macht nichts!

There are sins a lot less honorable than prostitution, but we do not penalize their perpetrators. Take an upstanding judge who mercilessly sentences to ten or twenty years a poor black who cannot pull strings to plea bargain, when he would give perhaps only a suspended sentence to a middle-class white person with connections in the exact same circumstances. In the eyes of God that kind of sin is heinous compared to prostitution, but the judge will still be highly respected in the community, while the prostitute will be looked upon with contempt. The remarkable thing about God is that He will still take the judge as He is and see goodness in him as well, and will work to transform his life into something ultimately God-like. 84

The problem of "self-sufficiency"

The more practical and independent we are the more difficult it is to be reliant on God. We are so used to analyzing situations and working out solutions to problems that to abandon ourselves to God and be open to His grace seems almost like a cop-out and shirking responsibility. Many people find it near impossible to understand. Yet, it is necessary if we are to develop a partnership with God, and that is what spirituality essentially is. We can do nothing without God because He has the key to the complex mystery of our lives, but He also needs us to fulfill His own plans for the development of His creation, which by His intention is imperfect and incomplete. It is our function to help perfect His creation. He will not, however, violate our free will and force us to work with Him, even though He needs our cooperation to accomplish His goals in the world.— Never Alone, 44–45

It all has a purpose

You see the same thing in the lives of so many people who have had profound influence on others’ lives. What made them great was not an accident. It was the years of painful preparation and training as God steeled their souls for the future. They were scorched and burned and tried by fire and pain as God worked secretly in the depths of their souls sharpening their vision of life and focusing their wisdom and understanding for the work they were to do.— Never Alone, 37

<idle musing>
I was reading 1 Peter this morning. He has a lot to say about that. But it seems that christianity in the US has forgotten that part of the gospel, doesn't it? Or version of christianity is nothing but a vending machine god. And when he doesn't give us what we want, we do what you do with all machines that don't work: You kick it. If that doesn't work, you kick it harder. And if that doesn't work, you throw it away and find a new one...
</idle musing>

On letting go

So, from personal experience, I can see in a powerful way the value of detaching ourselves from our personal needs and ambitions and placing ourselves in God’s hands so He can guide us. It works.

Some might object that this approach detracts from the self-reliance we should have, and places us at the mercy of uncontrollable forces in our lives. That might be true if there were no God who cares. That would be blind abandonment to irrational forces. Our whole approach to spirituality, however, is based on the premise that there is a God, and that He is a God who cares. Now that I am older I can see the orderly way God works in people’s lives. Our early years, while they may seem rife with turmoil and pain and so many loose ends, when viewed from the distance of later life and our personal development, we can see as being the foundation and the training process for the rewarding work God has planned for our future. I don’t mean the job we may have for our subsistence. I mean the thrust of our personal life with all its encounters and relationships and the various ways we affect people as well as the influence we have on the world around us in our family and in our social as well as our business life.—Never Alone, 35–36

Scared?

Many people are afraid of giving themselves to God, and letting God into their lives, because they think all their fun will come to an end and life will become a bore. There is one thing God is not, though, and that is boring. The creative imagination of God is beyond comprehension, and the real fun in our lives just begins once we find God and He becomes an active partner in our lives. My own life became a whirlwind when I made up my mind that I was not going to forge my own way through life but instead would let God guide me. And it makes good sense. God didn’t create us haphazardly. He made each of us for a purpose and He is determined that we accomplish that purpose. He does, however, need our cooperation, and when we give Him our goodwill and open our hearts to Him (which is really all we have to offer), He sets in motion all the machinery we need to fulfill the task He has planned for us. That is always exciting and rewarding, because the gifts and talents He has given us are perfectly adapted to the work He has designed for us. That is the perfect blueprint for success, happiness, and fulfillment.— Never Alone, 26–27

Peace, peace, but there is no peace!

If there was one thing Jesus held out to his followers it was His promise of peace. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you.” He never tired of speaking about the peace that He would give to those who accepted His way of life. This theme threads its way through the whole Gospel message. It is a trademark of His spirituality, and should be a trait that singles out His disciples, in whatever age they live.

Why, then, we might wonder, do Jesus’ followers not stand out for their peacefulness? The answer is simple. His disciples through all time are not familiar with the message as Jesus delivered it. We are brought up to follow unquestioningly the practices of our religion, whatever our denomination. But obedience to customs and dictates of religion does not make a follower of Jesus. Though many talk about accepting the Lord Jesus and about commitment to Him, frequently that acceptance has little to do with Jesus Himself. It is acceptance of the teacher who has delivered the message and the way of life laid out by the teacher that people follow. It is not the message of Jesus that is being followed, but the guidance and interpretation of the teacher. He or she becomes the way of life. This is not an immediate personal relationship with Jesus.— Never Alone, 24

Fear not, little flock!

That is the beginning of spirituality, recognizing the need for God in our lives, and placing ourselves in His hands with complete trust, confident of the tenderness of our Father’s love for us. We may have a difficulty with this, because all of us are only too conscious of our many failings and feel we do not have a right to God’s kindness toward us. But that is precisely what makes God’s love so beautiful. It does not spring from the goodness He sees in us, but from the overflowing goodness of His own love and the compassion He has for us in our weakness and sinfulness. The crowd Jesus addressed on that occasion when He spoke of the birds of the air were just ordinary people, sinners like ourselves, if you want to call them that, although Jesus didn’t call them sinners. Jesus called people God’s children and “little flock.” It is touching the tender way Jesus spoke to the crowd that day assuring them of His Father’s concern, even though He was only too aware of the serious moral defects in their lives. So, when we begin our adventure with God, it is with the assurance that He is open to us and kindly disposed toward us. We do not approach Him as a nuisance. In spite of our past lives and frightful weaknesses, He is glad we are turning to Him. Like the prodigal father of the prodigal son, He greets us with open arms, and is only too ready to share with us His friendship and His boundless mercy. All is forgiven, all is renewed. Though our sins be as scarlet, He will cleanse us and make us white as snow, through a baptism if necessary, or through a reawakening of the baptismal life we have already received, and a healing reconciliation.— Never Alone, 15–16

It starts young

Parents may teach religion to children. Churches may do the same. But that is not spirituality. That, too, should begin in childhood. Children should be taught about God in a simple, loving way so they can learn to trust Him and begin to know Him as a kind and loving Father who made them, not perfectly but with all they need to grow in His love. They could be taught about Jesus and about His life and how He lived and how He loved people. They could be taught about Jesus as the Good Shepherd who cared for the hurting and the troubled sheep, so they can learn to run to Him when they have problems, and when they fall and make mistakes.— Never Alone, 11–12

The good shepherd

He Himself got a reputation for going to the homes of excommunicated people for parties, because as the Good Shepherd He continually reached out to the bruised and hurting sheep. We, on the contrary, tell the bruised and hurting sheep they cannot approach Jesus because they are not worthy.— Never Alone, 7