Jesus Christ, a righteous man who never once sinned in His entire life, willingly gave His body to be beaten beyond recognition, for nails to be driven through His wrists and ankles, to die a horrible death.......He gave His soul over to be tormented by all your sin and mine, to be completely separated and cut off from God His Father......
FOR US.
WHETHER WE CARE OR NOT.
Does it seem to you that at as the river of blood flowed that day at Golgotha, a choir sang to encourage Him? That a stirring sermon drew the hearts of the audience? That a fasting vigil was maintained by people appreciating His sacrifice? That Jesus died with loved ones standing by and marveling? Like in an impressionist work of art? NO!!
There was no one.
It was a lonely, grisly death, in horrible pain and agony, at a lonely place in (literally) a God-forsaken corner of this world. Just one more death in the never-ending cycle of death and life. Just one more breathing body just snuffed out in the most macabre way possible. No one came to sing, offer consolation, grieve, shed tears or commemorate. There was no memorial service.
He died alone......whether we care or not.
Today we go to church. We sing about Him and that day. We pray. We remember. We glibly mouth our 'thanks'. We preach it. Teach it. Hang it round our necks, some of us. Fast. Momentarily forgo our hideous appetites for pleasure. All the time, we think, perversely and ill-judged, of 'paying back'.
But that day.....there was no one to share His crust.
********************************************************************************
We will not always have Good Friday with us. Warm singing, solemn preaching, a few crumbs of pleasure sacrificed during a few days a year. Whether there is a Good Friday or not......He still died alone one day for you and me.
I cry out to myself...BE REAL FOR ONCE!!! This is no joke. He'd never have to die if not for me. And because He died, and only because He died, there's just a chance that I might live forever. This has nothing to do with observance of seasons or mundane ritual. This is life or death. And I have to decide. ALONE. Without the songs, without the sermons, without church, without family or friends standing by, without Good Friday, Easter or Christmas. In utter silence, in the immensity of eternity. Just like He died alone.....I MUST DECIDE ALONE.
I must decide whether I really care; and what I must do if I indeed care. I must decide whether I forget this man, His lonely death, and shut the story out; or, let it in. Come apart, be undone, crumple into a broken mess at His feet. And live with its shadow all my life.
I must decide whether it matters to me that one person in this entire world really cared for me enough to subject Himself to this lonely death.....and He did it whether I care or not. If I never cared, and I was the only human being, He'd have done it anyway. I need to know whether I can continue to live......knowing this, or whether I should just die and let Him put me back together again and do as He wishes with me.
Walk away from this one lonely death if you will. I dare you.
********************************************************************************
And one day, my dear friend.......again, there will be no one.
When this our earthly sojourn ends, there will again be no one with us in the dim, clean, antiseptic corridors of death. We will walk alone.
The songs will have ceased, the sermons over; there will be no one to tell us anymore of this one lonely death at Golgotha.
Who will take us through?
*******************************************************************************
Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
The Gospel is unpalatable, and so should it be
How palatable is the Christian message? I submit, totally and utterly unpalatable. Any attempt to make it sound palatable is diluting it to a point where its potency is taken away.
So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, "Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey." I took the little scroll from the angel's hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour.
- Revelation 10:9-10
It is THE bitter pill (putting it mildly), THE surgery without an anaesthetic, THE rawest of severed nerve endings. It is first death before it gives life (and only in that order).
Christianity's accusation - ALL have sinned!!
It was Blaise Pascal who said, "If you make people think they are thinking, they will love you. If you REALLY make them think, they will hate you".
The Christian message will have none of these things - mollycoddling, ego-massaging, flattery, false hope, placebo, Crocin-for-cancer, etc. It always tells the unvarnished truth - THAT WE ARE TO BLAME FOR IT ALL. It cannot liberate us prisoners, except by first placing us in the dock. It does not try to anaesthetise us and then perform surgery while we're out for the count - it seeks to 1) confront us with our culpability 2) convict us, pronounce sentence 3) elicit acceptance of culpability 4) summarily execute the proud man within us, bury him and 5) create a new, right man, by putting God's own uncreated life into us. Christians are not just "enlightened" people - they are actually part of a NEW (a second, if you like) creation. God has donned His creator hat once more!
Human beings have had problems with "blame" all through time. Typically, blame is okay as long as we are not being blamed ourselves. And when we are blamed, the primal instinct, as old as time itself, is to deflect blame on to someone or something else, whether or not blame is justified. Therefore, the universal antipathy with and opposition to Christianity's Original Sin theology.
A range of reactions have resulted over the sands of history to this seemingly monstrous, inexorable accusation of Christianity that we are to blame for our condition:
Denial
This is a wide, vast, stunningly varied collection - we deny both culpability as well as any basis for culpability. Witness how carefully we are told today that not only are we not to blame, but that blaming in itself is bad and has no basis. It gets deeper - we deny not just culpability, but any structure or framework, narrative, ideology or philosophy that espouses our culpability.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
- I John 1:8-10
Denial is one of the most dangerous of reactions, because it claims that because there is no disease, there are no symptoms, and also because it lulls one into a false sense of security.
Defence
How often are we told that human beings have "weaknesses" and "defects", but not "culpability"? This is a construct that actually begins in denial and then ends up in defence.
Independence and self
So what if we're culpable? The indomitable human spirit can redeem anything we lost! We have science, we have evolved brains.....Can you hear the positive thinking pundits and the "self-realisation" gurus?
Now this reaction would be okay if it were indeed true that we can help ourselves. Truth is, we probably can whitewash the tomb, but who will bring the dead man to life again?
Offence
We seek to tear down and destroy any thinking that tells us we are culpable; we reason desperately that if we kill the accuser, the accusation will go away. It also might arise from the white anger that seizes us when someone or something calls our bluff - deep-down we do feel our culpability, but it is very uncharitable for anyone to actually expose it and bring it to the light; and we are driven to even killing anyone or destroying anything that has the temerity to expose us. In a very twisted sense, this is rather better than denial or defence, because it at least begins with acceptance of the fact that we're culpable. Never mind; the end result is still the same.
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.
- John 3:19-21
Little wonder, then, that the one way of life in this world that is subject to the most relentless attack and vilification, is Christianity. New warriors turn up everyday to defraud historical evidence about Christianity, to de-legitimise the Bible, to claim that it does not speak the truth about Jesus, and so it goes....
Fear, guilt and sorrow
The accusation of our culpability produces in us a palpable sense of fear, guilt and sorrow. Here again, those who live in denial will say that such fear is just a reaction where none is warranted, because there is nothing to fear, etc....
Fear is an important response, because it can push us in desperation towards any of the other responses - either towards what Christianity calls the "hardening" reactions - denial, defence, independence and offence, or the "transforming" reactions - acceptance and repentance. It is a compelling factor, like it or not, one way or another.
Acceptance and repentance
For us who are Christians, 1) acceptance of the accusation (this is called belief, and it comes by faith, through the grace of God) and 2) repentance from living that ties us up in culpability - these are the biggest keys. These are the best possible reactions to Christianity's accusation.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
- I John 1:9
*********************************************************************************
Why are we trying to make the gospel palatable?
Its very nature is that it brings first death, then new life. It cannot redeem except we be in bondage. The "bitter pill" first kills the patient entirely, and then injects new life. And all this, not under anaesthesia, but in full consciousness. The WHOLE MAN has to willingly accept and recognise culpability, and the WHOLE MAN has to willingly repent. It cannot be done in a sedated, never-never haze while under the influence of God-Loves-You placebo messages, where the mind and will have relinquished control. The man has to be first confronted with culpability, and then, having accepted it, willing, in all his fullness, to DIE, to lose it all, risk life itself, to become a new creature; and this must be done in full consciousness and willingly. So why are we trying to sedate people into accepting the gospel?
It's because we sugar-coat and soft-pedal the message, that we have "Christians" who have never really died in their inner man; who never really repented; who never really understood (or in many cases, even cared about) the Cross; who have only ever had decisions made for them while floating in a haze of feelgood and when the mind and will were on holiday; and most tellingly, who live the same lives today as they lived before they "believed" the gospel. So what did being "informed" profit them?
My guess is, if the decision to believe did not change my life....then I am not a Bible-Christian. I might as well end the charade and bravely say I do not believe. What does new life mean except new life in all its fullness - mental, spiritual, physical, volitional, emotional? Can it possibly mean dressed-up old life? or merely "informed" old life? If Christianity espouses any "life" at all, it is only NEW life - the old life is heading towards death.
If we are going to want to see God to produce true Christians, then we must be willing to preach the unvarnished Gospel, not its palatable, defanged placebo version.
*********************************************************************************
What does the Cross of Christ evoke in us?
No response? Response on Sundays? Mild, merely intellectual mind-engagement? Indifferent resignation? Amusement? Intrigue? Anger? Sorrow? Fear? Guilt? Repentance? Our complete undoing?
It's my prayer it evokes SOME response in us, hardening or transforming, for the Spirit of God can use ANY response as a starting point. And it's my prayer this 'season' that we clamour to hear from the Word of God, something that will draw us to the single greatest event in human history, the only one that matters - the Sacrifice of the Lamb; because it is indeed the only event that truly explains history.
Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, "Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?" But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals."
Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song:
"You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth."
- Revelation 5:1-10
And it is my prayer that we respond, in complete acceptance and repentance....and may our lives be transformed :)
So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, "Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey." I took the little scroll from the angel's hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour.
- Revelation 10:9-10
It is THE bitter pill (putting it mildly), THE surgery without an anaesthetic, THE rawest of severed nerve endings. It is first death before it gives life (and only in that order).
Christianity's accusation - ALL have sinned!!
It was Blaise Pascal who said, "If you make people think they are thinking, they will love you. If you REALLY make them think, they will hate you".
The Christian message will have none of these things - mollycoddling, ego-massaging, flattery, false hope, placebo, Crocin-for-cancer, etc. It always tells the unvarnished truth - THAT WE ARE TO BLAME FOR IT ALL. It cannot liberate us prisoners, except by first placing us in the dock. It does not try to anaesthetise us and then perform surgery while we're out for the count - it seeks to 1) confront us with our culpability 2) convict us, pronounce sentence 3) elicit acceptance of culpability 4) summarily execute the proud man within us, bury him and 5) create a new, right man, by putting God's own uncreated life into us. Christians are not just "enlightened" people - they are actually part of a NEW (a second, if you like) creation. God has donned His creator hat once more!
Human beings have had problems with "blame" all through time. Typically, blame is okay as long as we are not being blamed ourselves. And when we are blamed, the primal instinct, as old as time itself, is to deflect blame on to someone or something else, whether or not blame is justified. Therefore, the universal antipathy with and opposition to Christianity's Original Sin theology.
A range of reactions have resulted over the sands of history to this seemingly monstrous, inexorable accusation of Christianity that we are to blame for our condition:
Denial
This is a wide, vast, stunningly varied collection - we deny both culpability as well as any basis for culpability. Witness how carefully we are told today that not only are we not to blame, but that blaming in itself is bad and has no basis. It gets deeper - we deny not just culpability, but any structure or framework, narrative, ideology or philosophy that espouses our culpability.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
- I John 1:8-10
Denial is one of the most dangerous of reactions, because it claims that because there is no disease, there are no symptoms, and also because it lulls one into a false sense of security.
Defence
How often are we told that human beings have "weaknesses" and "defects", but not "culpability"? This is a construct that actually begins in denial and then ends up in defence.
Independence and self
So what if we're culpable? The indomitable human spirit can redeem anything we lost! We have science, we have evolved brains.....Can you hear the positive thinking pundits and the "self-realisation" gurus?
Now this reaction would be okay if it were indeed true that we can help ourselves. Truth is, we probably can whitewash the tomb, but who will bring the dead man to life again?
Offence
We seek to tear down and destroy any thinking that tells us we are culpable; we reason desperately that if we kill the accuser, the accusation will go away. It also might arise from the white anger that seizes us when someone or something calls our bluff - deep-down we do feel our culpability, but it is very uncharitable for anyone to actually expose it and bring it to the light; and we are driven to even killing anyone or destroying anything that has the temerity to expose us. In a very twisted sense, this is rather better than denial or defence, because it at least begins with acceptance of the fact that we're culpable. Never mind; the end result is still the same.
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.
- John 3:19-21
Little wonder, then, that the one way of life in this world that is subject to the most relentless attack and vilification, is Christianity. New warriors turn up everyday to defraud historical evidence about Christianity, to de-legitimise the Bible, to claim that it does not speak the truth about Jesus, and so it goes....
Fear, guilt and sorrow
The accusation of our culpability produces in us a palpable sense of fear, guilt and sorrow. Here again, those who live in denial will say that such fear is just a reaction where none is warranted, because there is nothing to fear, etc....
Fear is an important response, because it can push us in desperation towards any of the other responses - either towards what Christianity calls the "hardening" reactions - denial, defence, independence and offence, or the "transforming" reactions - acceptance and repentance. It is a compelling factor, like it or not, one way or another.
Acceptance and repentance
For us who are Christians, 1) acceptance of the accusation (this is called belief, and it comes by faith, through the grace of God) and 2) repentance from living that ties us up in culpability - these are the biggest keys. These are the best possible reactions to Christianity's accusation.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
- I John 1:9
*********************************************************************************
Why are we trying to make the gospel palatable?
Its very nature is that it brings first death, then new life. It cannot redeem except we be in bondage. The "bitter pill" first kills the patient entirely, and then injects new life. And all this, not under anaesthesia, but in full consciousness. The WHOLE MAN has to willingly accept and recognise culpability, and the WHOLE MAN has to willingly repent. It cannot be done in a sedated, never-never haze while under the influence of God-Loves-You placebo messages, where the mind and will have relinquished control. The man has to be first confronted with culpability, and then, having accepted it, willing, in all his fullness, to DIE, to lose it all, risk life itself, to become a new creature; and this must be done in full consciousness and willingly. So why are we trying to sedate people into accepting the gospel?
It's because we sugar-coat and soft-pedal the message, that we have "Christians" who have never really died in their inner man; who never really repented; who never really understood (or in many cases, even cared about) the Cross; who have only ever had decisions made for them while floating in a haze of feelgood and when the mind and will were on holiday; and most tellingly, who live the same lives today as they lived before they "believed" the gospel. So what did being "informed" profit them?
My guess is, if the decision to believe did not change my life....then I am not a Bible-Christian. I might as well end the charade and bravely say I do not believe. What does new life mean except new life in all its fullness - mental, spiritual, physical, volitional, emotional? Can it possibly mean dressed-up old life? or merely "informed" old life? If Christianity espouses any "life" at all, it is only NEW life - the old life is heading towards death.
If we are going to want to see God to produce true Christians, then we must be willing to preach the unvarnished Gospel, not its palatable, defanged placebo version.
*********************************************************************************
What does the Cross of Christ evoke in us?
No response? Response on Sundays? Mild, merely intellectual mind-engagement? Indifferent resignation? Amusement? Intrigue? Anger? Sorrow? Fear? Guilt? Repentance? Our complete undoing?
It's my prayer it evokes SOME response in us, hardening or transforming, for the Spirit of God can use ANY response as a starting point. And it's my prayer this 'season' that we clamour to hear from the Word of God, something that will draw us to the single greatest event in human history, the only one that matters - the Sacrifice of the Lamb; because it is indeed the only event that truly explains history.
Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, "Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?" But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals."
Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song:
"You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth."
- Revelation 5:1-10
And it is my prayer that we respond, in complete acceptance and repentance....and may our lives be transformed :)
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