Our readings from Sunday, April 26 speak of the mysterious but powerful presence of the risen Christ. In the story of the travelers on their way to Emmaus we are told the risen Jesus appeared unrecognized to two of his followers and told them how the Law and the Prophets foretold that the Messiah would suffer, die and be raised from the dead. But for the Jews of Jesus’ time, and for us, the Old Testament’s predictions of a crucified and resurrected Messiah are not obvious. Peter was horrified when Jesus said he would be killed, and as our reading from Mark below points out, even when the crucified and risen Jesus was standing right in front of his disciples they still didn’t understand or believe what was happening. If the whole of the Old Testament speaks of a crucified and risen Messiah it must do so in more subtle terms, otherwise the disciples and even Jesus’ opponents would have been quick to understand who Jesus was. How does the Old Testament prepare is for a suffering and resurrected Messiah?
On one level there are a number of individual stories in the Old Testament that have death and resurrection themes. Abraham almost sacrifices his son, Isaac, but at the last minute God stops him; Isaac nearly died but was restored to life. Joseph, Jacob’s beloved son, was presumed dead by his father but in reality was sold as a slave in Egypt, with his time as a slave and a prisoner a kind of death before he rose from the depths and was seated at the right hand of Pharaoh and then restored to his father. Decades later, a different Pharaoh, who did not know of Joseph, became afraid of the growing Hebrew community within Egypt. He ordered all newborn Hebrew males to be drowned in the Nile to curb the Hebrew population. Moses’ mother, to save her son, put him in a waterproof basket and left him in a spot on the river where she knew he would be found, and like Joseph Moses was raised in Pharaoh’s household. In each of these stories beloved sons face death but are instead given life.
One can look at the broader story of Israel as one of death and resurrection. Perhaps the best example of this is Ezekiel 37, where the nation of Israel is described as a valley full of dry bones – of corpses – that is resurrected by God. For Ezekiel this image is a way to describe Israel’s experience of exile. In exile Israel is not just cut off from their land, but from everything that gave their life purpose, direction and meaning. Israel’s exile is not just about being forcibly removed from their homeland. It’s about their broken relationship with God. Time and again the prophets describe a time when Israel’s relationship with God is restored and then Israel will be able to return to the Promised Land. The readings below from Jeremiah and Hosea speak of God restoring his people from their “death” in exile to life in their Promised Land. In Jeremiah we hear images of the passion, or the suffering, of Israel in their distress and of God acting to save Israel from their time of great distress.
Perhaps as the risen Jesus explained how the Law and Prophets foretold his death and resurrection Jesus did not use specific proof texts to show that he would suffer, die and be raised. Instead perhaps Jesus retold the story of Israel as a story of suffering, death and resurrection that matched Jesus’ own story. For exiled Israel resurrection was not primarily about what happens after death, but about a renewed sense of purpose, meaning and direction that allowed for life even in the midst of suffering. This helps us see that resurrection is not only about what happens after death, although resurrection is certainly about this as well. Resurrection is also about a renewed relationship with God that brings about a new sense of meaning, purpose and direction, grounded in love for God and for neighbor, that is mindful of the suffering and injustice in the world but allows us to live creatively as resurrected people who are no longer bound by sin.
Understanding Jesus’ death and resurrection in this way can help us engage more fully the Scriptures of the Old Testament. In many ways Israel was always on the verge of either death or resurrection, always on the verge of losing their identity as God’s distinct people yet sustained by the promise God would never forsake them. While we don’t face slavery in Egypt we do face powers that dehumanize us. How does the Law “resurrect” us in the face of such dehumanizing powers and help us live differently? Neither do we face the threat of exile in Babylon, but worldly powers do attempt to seduce us away from the Gospel of the crucified and risen Christ. How do the Prophets help us identify these worldly powers and provide for an alternative life based on God’s act of restoration and resurrection?
What stories do we have of “death” and “resurrection,” of “exile” and “homecoming?”
Monday 4/27
Jeremiah 30:1-11
I John 3:10-16
Tuesday 4/28
Hosea 5:15-6:6
II John 1-6
Wednesday 4/29
Proverbs 9:1-6
Mark 16:9-18
Read Psalm 150 each of these three days
Monday, April 27, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
At One
One of the readings for this Sunday, April 26 is from Acts 3. Peter and some other disciples had gone to the temple for daily prayer, along with many other Jews. On the way into the temple courts they saw a crippled beggar and healed him. The crowd is astonished and Peter told them he was able to do this through the power of the crucified and risen Jesus, who was rejected by the Jewish people and put to death. Yet Peter acknowledges the people acted in ignorance, and the suffering of Christ fulfilled what was foretold in the prophets. And it is through the crucified and risen Jesus that there is repentance and forgiveness of sins.
At first reading it may seem that Peter is laying the blame for Jesus’ death at the feet of the Jewish people by calling them “Christ killers,” a terrible term that has been used all too frequently in Christian attitudes toward Jews. But the reading below from Daniel 9 helps us to see Peter’s speech in a different light. Daniel was a devout Jew who was forcibly brought into exile in Babylon. Like his fellow exiled Jews, Daniel longed for a restored relationship with God that would allow God’s people to return to God’s Promised Land. So in prayer before God Daniel acknowledges not only his sin and rebellion, but the rebellion of all God’s people, from the kings and priests on down to the common folks. After confessing the sin of all the people of God, Daniel seeks God’s mercy and asks God to restore God’s people and the holy city of Jerusalem. In this prayer Daniel is not blaming anyone for what has happened, he is simply acknowledging that all people, from least to greatest, failed to head God’s word and presence in their midst. Yet despite this God is compassionate and merciful and can act to save. This is the gist of what Peter is doing. Peter is not blaming the Jews for Jesus death. Like Daniel he is acknowledging that the people have rebelled but that God is still rich in mercy, that through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection the breach between God and humanity has been healed.
But how does Jesus’ life, death and resurrection heal this breach between God and humanity? How does Jesus atone for our sins? The words “atone” and “atonement” were created by John Wycliffe, the first person to translate the entire Bible into English. When he tried to translate Hebrew, Greek and Latin words that speak of how Jesus’ death saves us he could not find the right English word, so he created one. “Atone” literally means at one. Jesus makes us at one with God. The Eternal Son of God who was one with the Father since before the creation of the world, became fully human in Jesus and made the story of humanity God’s own.
In Sunday’s reading from Luke’s Gospel the resurrected Christ appears to some disciples and said, “Everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” It is interesting that Jesus mentioned the psalms, for these psalms are not primarily God speaking to human beings, as are the Law and Prophets. The Psalms are human prayers of joy and sorrow, of triumph and agony, of steadfast faith and of confusion addressed to God. On the cross Jesus quoted two Psalms: Psalm 22 (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?) and Psalm 31 (Into your hands I commit my spirit), and in the New Testament the Psalms are often quoted to help us understand who Jesus is. In his reliance on the Psalms Jesus is making our longings, our story, his own, and therefore God’s own. In his life, death and resurrection Jesus both brought the presence of God “down to earth” and lifted our human story “up to heaven.”
In their prayers and speeches Daniel and Peter retold the story of God’s relationship to God’s people, a story as applicable to the Church as it was to the Jews Daniel and Peter addressed. In Jesus Christ the story of this relationship is also retold: Both the people of Israel and Jesus had humble origins and were under the thumb of worldly powers (Egypt, a corrupt monarchy for Israel, Babylon, Persia and Greece for the Jews; A corrupt monarchy and Rome for Jesus). Yet God chose both Israel and Jesus to be God’s image in the world. Israel struggled with this call and in its disobedience experienced the godforsaken feeling of exile from all that gave their life meaning and purpose. On the cross Jesus made his peoples’ exile his own, crying out in godforsakeness as death ruptured his relationship to the Father. But the story does not end there. Resurrection is not just a happy event for Jesus, but God’s promise that all who know what it is to be exiled, lost and cut off will be redeemed.
The Book of Daniel shaped the imagination of the Jews at the time of Jesus – Jesus’ reference to himself as “the Son of Man” comes from Daniel. In the reading from Daniel 10, Daniel encounters a divine messenger who comes in human form, and he is terrified at the sight. This messenger goes on to tell Daniel that even as God’s people are in exile God is uprooting the fallen powers of this world so that the kingdoms of this world might become the kingdom of God. When Jesus’ disciples see the risen Christ they have a similar response to Daniel when he encountered his divine visitor. A divine visitor revealed to Daniel that the suffering present in the world did not mean that God was not at work. The story of Jesus’ life death and resurrection tells us that God’s story is “at one” with ours, that in Jesus God both shares in our story of longing for a better world and has acted with power to redeem this world. How do we experience “at one-ment” with God through the story of Jesus?
Thursday, 4/23
Daniel 9:1-19
I John 2:18-25
Friday, 4/24
Daniel 10:2-19
I John 2:26-28
Saturday 4/25
Acts 3:1-10
Luke 22:24-30
Read Psalm 4 each of these three days.
At first reading it may seem that Peter is laying the blame for Jesus’ death at the feet of the Jewish people by calling them “Christ killers,” a terrible term that has been used all too frequently in Christian attitudes toward Jews. But the reading below from Daniel 9 helps us to see Peter’s speech in a different light. Daniel was a devout Jew who was forcibly brought into exile in Babylon. Like his fellow exiled Jews, Daniel longed for a restored relationship with God that would allow God’s people to return to God’s Promised Land. So in prayer before God Daniel acknowledges not only his sin and rebellion, but the rebellion of all God’s people, from the kings and priests on down to the common folks. After confessing the sin of all the people of God, Daniel seeks God’s mercy and asks God to restore God’s people and the holy city of Jerusalem. In this prayer Daniel is not blaming anyone for what has happened, he is simply acknowledging that all people, from least to greatest, failed to head God’s word and presence in their midst. Yet despite this God is compassionate and merciful and can act to save. This is the gist of what Peter is doing. Peter is not blaming the Jews for Jesus death. Like Daniel he is acknowledging that the people have rebelled but that God is still rich in mercy, that through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection the breach between God and humanity has been healed.
But how does Jesus’ life, death and resurrection heal this breach between God and humanity? How does Jesus atone for our sins? The words “atone” and “atonement” were created by John Wycliffe, the first person to translate the entire Bible into English. When he tried to translate Hebrew, Greek and Latin words that speak of how Jesus’ death saves us he could not find the right English word, so he created one. “Atone” literally means at one. Jesus makes us at one with God. The Eternal Son of God who was one with the Father since before the creation of the world, became fully human in Jesus and made the story of humanity God’s own.
In Sunday’s reading from Luke’s Gospel the resurrected Christ appears to some disciples and said, “Everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” It is interesting that Jesus mentioned the psalms, for these psalms are not primarily God speaking to human beings, as are the Law and Prophets. The Psalms are human prayers of joy and sorrow, of triumph and agony, of steadfast faith and of confusion addressed to God. On the cross Jesus quoted two Psalms: Psalm 22 (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?) and Psalm 31 (Into your hands I commit my spirit), and in the New Testament the Psalms are often quoted to help us understand who Jesus is. In his reliance on the Psalms Jesus is making our longings, our story, his own, and therefore God’s own. In his life, death and resurrection Jesus both brought the presence of God “down to earth” and lifted our human story “up to heaven.”
In their prayers and speeches Daniel and Peter retold the story of God’s relationship to God’s people, a story as applicable to the Church as it was to the Jews Daniel and Peter addressed. In Jesus Christ the story of this relationship is also retold: Both the people of Israel and Jesus had humble origins and were under the thumb of worldly powers (Egypt, a corrupt monarchy for Israel, Babylon, Persia and Greece for the Jews; A corrupt monarchy and Rome for Jesus). Yet God chose both Israel and Jesus to be God’s image in the world. Israel struggled with this call and in its disobedience experienced the godforsaken feeling of exile from all that gave their life meaning and purpose. On the cross Jesus made his peoples’ exile his own, crying out in godforsakeness as death ruptured his relationship to the Father. But the story does not end there. Resurrection is not just a happy event for Jesus, but God’s promise that all who know what it is to be exiled, lost and cut off will be redeemed.
The Book of Daniel shaped the imagination of the Jews at the time of Jesus – Jesus’ reference to himself as “the Son of Man” comes from Daniel. In the reading from Daniel 10, Daniel encounters a divine messenger who comes in human form, and he is terrified at the sight. This messenger goes on to tell Daniel that even as God’s people are in exile God is uprooting the fallen powers of this world so that the kingdoms of this world might become the kingdom of God. When Jesus’ disciples see the risen Christ they have a similar response to Daniel when he encountered his divine visitor. A divine visitor revealed to Daniel that the suffering present in the world did not mean that God was not at work. The story of Jesus’ life death and resurrection tells us that God’s story is “at one” with ours, that in Jesus God both shares in our story of longing for a better world and has acted with power to redeem this world. How do we experience “at one-ment” with God through the story of Jesus?
Thursday, 4/23
Daniel 9:1-19
I John 2:18-25
Friday, 4/24
Daniel 10:2-19
I John 2:26-28
Saturday 4/25
Acts 3:1-10
Luke 22:24-30
Read Psalm 4 each of these three days.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Resurrection and Non Conformity
Apparently I gave up blogging for Lent, but now that Lent is over it’s a good time to begin again. The Scripture readings below come from a lectionary resource that divides the week into two parts. The readings for Monday – Wednesday help us reflect on Sunday’s lectionary texts, while the Thursday – Saturday readings prepare us for the readings for the coming Sunday. The readings for Sunday, April 19 and for the next few weeks include stories of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances to his disciples and they raise questions about who, and what, the resurrected Jesus is.
Perhaps the best way to begin to address these questions is to understand what the risen Christ is not. The risen Jesus is not a ghost or a spirit. In our reading from John the disciples touch him and see that he is flesh and bone just as they are. The risen Jesus is not the product of the hopeful but heartbroken imaginations of his disciples, the product of wishful thinking, like the way we may dream of or “talk to” loved ones who have recently died. Neither is the risen Jesus someone who had a near death experience but came back to life after having walked toward the light. From the stories we have of the risen Christ it is clear he is healthy and whole. While he bears scars from the cross he shows no other signs of the abuse he suffered. The risen Jesus is a real person with flesh and bones and not a ghost, not a product of wishful thinking, nor someone who flat lined for a few minutes before his heart started pumping again.
While we bring our own questions, many of them shaped by a scientific worldview, to Jesus’ resurrection, our questions were not the most pressing ones for Jesus’ first followers and for those who first heard the news of the crucified, dead and risen Messiah. Many Jews believed that the righteous dead would be raised, and they believed they would be raised at the same time. What would have been puzzling for the first disciples is that only Jesus, and not all of the righteous dead, was raised. The authors of the New Testament, especially Paul, understood Jesus’ resurrection to be a pledge, a promise, a kind of down payment made by God to assure us of our own resurrection and of the redemption of the entire world (I Corinthians 15:20-24). The redemption and recreation of the world has begun in Jesus’ resurrection, but it has not ended there. Jesus’ resurrection is indeed the first day of the week, the beginning of the new creation.
For the first followers of Jesus, his resurrection was the Father’s way of proving that the Son really was who he claimed to be, namely God’s Son who has been given all authority on heaven and on earth and the visible image of the invisible God. By raising Jesus from the dead God vindicated him before the powers of this world. This theme of vindication is common in the Old Testament. The readings below from Daniel tell of God vindicating the righteous in the face of worldly powers. In Daniel’s case he and his friends were vindicated in the face of the Babylonian Empire, who had conquered Israel. Daniel and his friends refused to obey mandates that forced all to bow down in worship before images of the king, and these laws mandated death for those who refused to acknowledge the Emperor of Babylon as the only legitimate authority in the world. But God vindicated Daniel and his friends, rescuing them from fiery furnaces and lions’ dens to prove that the God of Israel reigned over all nations and that this God’s servants were right in refusing to acknowledge worldly powers as God. In Sunday’s reading from John’s Gospel, Thomas professes his faith in the crucified and risen Jesus by exclaiming, “My Lord and my God!” What we often don’t realize is that “my lord and my god” was a title used to address the Roman emperor. Thomas isn’t just making a spiritual statement, he’s also making a political one about whose authority is legitimate and whose is not, just as Daniel and his friends know that it is God, and not the emperor, who reigns over heaven and earth.
The invitation to follow the crucified and risen Christ an invitation to entrust ourselves to God’s rule more than the rule of earthly powers. The readings from I John below give us hints of what God’s rule involves. Another guide is this, one of my favorite statements by Martin Luther King, Jr.: “The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.” How is God calling us to be disciplined non-conformists?
Monday, 4/20
Daniel 3:1-30
I John 2:3-11
Tuesday 4/21
Daniel 6:1-28
I John 2:12-17
Wednesday 4/22
Isaiah 26:1-15
Mark 12:18-27
Read Psalm 135 each of these three days.
Perhaps the best way to begin to address these questions is to understand what the risen Christ is not. The risen Jesus is not a ghost or a spirit. In our reading from John the disciples touch him and see that he is flesh and bone just as they are. The risen Jesus is not the product of the hopeful but heartbroken imaginations of his disciples, the product of wishful thinking, like the way we may dream of or “talk to” loved ones who have recently died. Neither is the risen Jesus someone who had a near death experience but came back to life after having walked toward the light. From the stories we have of the risen Christ it is clear he is healthy and whole. While he bears scars from the cross he shows no other signs of the abuse he suffered. The risen Jesus is a real person with flesh and bones and not a ghost, not a product of wishful thinking, nor someone who flat lined for a few minutes before his heart started pumping again.
While we bring our own questions, many of them shaped by a scientific worldview, to Jesus’ resurrection, our questions were not the most pressing ones for Jesus’ first followers and for those who first heard the news of the crucified, dead and risen Messiah. Many Jews believed that the righteous dead would be raised, and they believed they would be raised at the same time. What would have been puzzling for the first disciples is that only Jesus, and not all of the righteous dead, was raised. The authors of the New Testament, especially Paul, understood Jesus’ resurrection to be a pledge, a promise, a kind of down payment made by God to assure us of our own resurrection and of the redemption of the entire world (I Corinthians 15:20-24). The redemption and recreation of the world has begun in Jesus’ resurrection, but it has not ended there. Jesus’ resurrection is indeed the first day of the week, the beginning of the new creation.
For the first followers of Jesus, his resurrection was the Father’s way of proving that the Son really was who he claimed to be, namely God’s Son who has been given all authority on heaven and on earth and the visible image of the invisible God. By raising Jesus from the dead God vindicated him before the powers of this world. This theme of vindication is common in the Old Testament. The readings below from Daniel tell of God vindicating the righteous in the face of worldly powers. In Daniel’s case he and his friends were vindicated in the face of the Babylonian Empire, who had conquered Israel. Daniel and his friends refused to obey mandates that forced all to bow down in worship before images of the king, and these laws mandated death for those who refused to acknowledge the Emperor of Babylon as the only legitimate authority in the world. But God vindicated Daniel and his friends, rescuing them from fiery furnaces and lions’ dens to prove that the God of Israel reigned over all nations and that this God’s servants were right in refusing to acknowledge worldly powers as God. In Sunday’s reading from John’s Gospel, Thomas professes his faith in the crucified and risen Jesus by exclaiming, “My Lord and my God!” What we often don’t realize is that “my lord and my god” was a title used to address the Roman emperor. Thomas isn’t just making a spiritual statement, he’s also making a political one about whose authority is legitimate and whose is not, just as Daniel and his friends know that it is God, and not the emperor, who reigns over heaven and earth.
The invitation to follow the crucified and risen Christ an invitation to entrust ourselves to God’s rule more than the rule of earthly powers. The readings from I John below give us hints of what God’s rule involves. Another guide is this, one of my favorite statements by Martin Luther King, Jr.: “The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.” How is God calling us to be disciplined non-conformists?
Monday, 4/20
Daniel 3:1-30
I John 2:3-11
Tuesday 4/21
Daniel 6:1-28
I John 2:12-17
Wednesday 4/22
Isaiah 26:1-15
Mark 12:18-27
Read Psalm 135 each of these three days.
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