CommonChristianity: March 2020

Monday, March 30, 2020

698 - Who Knew?

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Spirituality Column #698

March 31, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Who Knew?

By Bob Walters

“He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” – John 1:10-11 KJV

The King of all Creation rode a donkey into Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

Nobody recognized Him.

God who promised to return one day to the temple, fulfilling all prayer, prophecy, and promise of delivering-out-of-evil not just Israel but all the world, would prove his absolute obedience and faithfulness later that week.

Nobody had a clue.

Millennia before that, with a rainbow and dove, the One True God and Creator of All that Is, promised all creation He would one day renew the hope of the entire world, heal its fallenness, and take His throne as its King.

That week in Jerusalem God would be lifted up as King, but onto Calvary’s cross.

God long ago promised sinful but faithful Abraham that he would use Abraham’s children – the still-to-be-established nation of Israel – as his chosen, special people to deliver his ultimate and divine judgment, truth, peace, and mercy into the whole world.

And on what we now know as Palm Sunday this enigmatic but wonderful miracle-working, sin-forgiving, cadaver-raising, truth-telling, status-quo-breaking priest, rabbi, prophet, or whatever various things Jesus appeared to be, God was making good on his eternal promise to inaugurate his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

It was to be the most transformative week in human history, but in that cosmos-rebirthing moment no human yet but Jesus knew the King of Kings was upon them.

This Jesus, eternally present in creation, was utterly unexpected by hopeful Israel and something the larger world had no idea even existed. It was Israel’s calling all along as God’s instrument to reveal this king to the world and even they ‘knew him not” when Jesus – fully human, fully God, fully without precedent – arrived in their midst.

As renowned British theologian N.T. Wright describes in his recent book, The New Testament in Its World (p. 373), “Jesus was not a new god … He [Jesus] was and is the human being in whom yhwh, Israel’s one and only God, has acted within cosmic history, human history, and Israel’s history, to do for Israel, humanity, and the world what they could not do for themselves.”

And nobody saw the King of Kings coming.

We tend to look out for ourselves, and hopefully each other, but usually it’s on our own human terms – power, safety, comfort, pain-aversion, and fear-mitigation. In the obedient life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we encounter God’s righteous terms.

Israel, as the Gospels describe, had forgotten God’s terms. The rest of the world, we must understand, didn’t know that Israel’s God had terms. Believers in Christ now are Israel in the loving, faithful, gracious, and surprising terms of the one true God.

Salvation and forgiveness rode into Jerusalem – along with God’s glory, Israel’s perfection, and humanity’s only true hope – on that donkey 2,000 years ago.

Who knew?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) offers these thoughts heading into Holy Week.

Labels: Holy Week, Israel, Jerusalem, John 1:10-11, King of Kings, knew him not, Labels: donkey, N.T. Wright, Palm Sunday, The New Testament in Its World, YHWH | 0 comments

Monday, March 23, 2020

697 - A Lenten Fast

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Spirituality Column #697

March 24, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

A Lenten Fast

By Bob Walters

“Interesting times they are. And all the more interesting that – as we are made to slow down, to live in the moment, to deny ourselves the pleasures to which we are accustomed, and to think about our neighbors – it is Lent.” A recent text from a friend.

It strikes me that the November-December Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season would be the very most inconvenient time of year to have a pandemic.

But early spring can’t be far behind.

Where Christmastime is the season of largesse and lights, families and friends, traditions and get-togethers, springtime is the province of sports and spring breaks, school plays and senior class shenanigans, of flowers and showers and … oh yeah in Indiana in March … basketball. Lots and lots of basketball.

This would have been the week leading up to the 110^th Indiana boys basketball high school state finals played every year since 1911 – 109 years in a row surviving two world wars. But now, not 110. Our 2020 NCAA March Madness died the day it was supposed to start – depending how you count – when the Big Ten men’s (and other conference tourney games) were cancelled as teams were warming up in the gym.

There would be no 2020 Big Dance, and no Big Dance card. Just … cancelled. Surely somewhere a Sweet 16 is prepping for this weekend’s NCAA Regionals? Nope.

My more philosophically-minded friends noticed early on that it was healthy to look at this culture-jerking, school-cancelling, sports-crushing, restaurant-and-retail-closing season as an opportunity for introspection. My erudite friend quoted above put it in the Christian context of Lent, the Holy season of privation leading up to the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross at Golgotha. I like my friend’s perspective.

Not every Christian observes a Lenten fast, but the Easter season is an apt and prayerful counterpoint to the raucous secularism of cultural Christmas. Lent prior to Easter gives Christians six weeks of daily opportunity – in the spring, in this season of renewal – to encounter and reflect on their relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

As we are mindful that the reason for the cultural shutdown, social distancing, and basketball void is an impending burst of disease – a tidal wave I am convinced is nearly at hand – we can pray for clearer understanding of God’s grace and mercy.

I look at Jesus as the locus of my peace and hope, not of the world’s fear and disaster; that’s Satan’s party. The cross of Christ was ugly – as ugly as anything in human history – but Lent provides this opportunity to meditate on the beauty of God’s love within the Father-Son-Spirit Trinity, His love for us, and our love for Him and others.

We are still in the adventure phase of this coronavirus ordeal. When sickness draws nigh the dynamic will change quickly from curiosity and inconvenience to, I pray, one of strength, courage, forbearance, and peace that passes all understanding. We’ll need to be strong for our families, friends, and communities … and vice versa.

Of everything one can give up for Lent, I can’t think of a better fast than fear.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) does not feel like a lamb led to slaughter; he feels like an American Christian blessed with freedom, responsibility, opportunity, and hope.

Labels: Big Dance, busy life, coronavirus, courage, fasting, fear, inconvenience, introspection, Labels: basketball, Lent, love, renewal | 1 comments

Saturday, March 14, 2020

696 - What I Really Really Think

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Spirituality Column #696

March 17, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

What I Really Really Think

By Bob Walters

“And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:20

For anyone who thinks church is only about the building, the preaching, the music, or the gathering on Sunday mornings … we’re about to find out if they are right.

Spoiler alert … they’re not. The true church of Jesus Christ is in the human heart; the rest of it is a grace blessing that we get to share in good times and may have to adapt, adjust, and overcome in times like these. The Christian spirit of love and peace will shine now just as surely as the mischief of Satan’s sour, divisive, glory-robbing character will attack. Pick your path, discern your conviction, choose wisely.

What we make of this Covid-19 inconvenience – and I’m talking about the procedures and the politics of it, not the virus – will govern our spiritual and mental health in the weeks (months?) to come. Somebody said, “Don’t expect a blizzard; expect a winter.” If that’s so, Jesus is my overcoat, galoshes, hat, scarf, gloves … and love is my snow shovel. (I just looked outside and whaddya know … it’s snowing. Seriously.)

I see America through the lens of freedom, opportunity, and hope … always hope. We’ll be better tomorrow than we are today, even when that brightest “tomorrow” may be a ways off in eternity with Jesus. That’s the Christian promise, but so is Christ’s promise cited above at the very end of the Gospel of Matthew: “And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.” Everything else passes.

I was buoyed on Friday by all the online activity I saw from not just my own East 91^st Street Christian Church but churches all over that were resolved and scrambling to adapt, adjust, and overcome this public-gathering shutdown. Online services, outreach by cards and email, helping neighbors, special accommodations for the Holy Mass and Communion so critical to our Roman Catholic brethren – ideas and love in full-bloom.

We mustn’t immediately demand answers from the church for “How are you going to fix this for me?” because the healthy attitude and reality is, “I am the church.” This is an opportunity for each of us to look in new places for peace, serving others, helping our community, and aiding our churches and staffs. Read the fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, and get creative. If you’re angry, look at Galatians 5:19-21, noting especially “hatred and discord.” That’s a bigger danger than the Covid-19 virus.

My minister friend David Faust noted smartly in an e91 blog Take Five, Give Five (link) the joy we can seek in this “pause” from church business as usual. We get to reimagine and investigate our own sense of adventure and relationship with Christ and other Christians by our actions, prayers, and creativity in what for us is this extraordinary time.

It occurs to me early Christians were fed to lions; this isn’t that bad.

Jesus is always with us. The Spirit is always with us. God is always on His throne. Out of curiosity I googled “I will always be with you” and the second thing that popped up was this link: What Does the Bible Say About I Will Always Be With You?

Our attitude conditions our actions, and fear kills faith and unity. Even as we are apart, it is critical that we are spiritually present for each other. Congregate online, read your Bible, and help a neighbor. Shine the light of Jesus; the world surely needs it.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is plenty ticked about the overt, willful, agenda-driven fear-mongering of the media and political narrative. Satan wants to cancel hope. Uh-uh.

Labels: America, cancellations, Christian spirit, church, Covid-19, David Faust Take Five Give Five, E91, freedom and opportunity, Galatians 5:19-23, hope, I will always be with you, Matthew 28:20, media, politics | 0 comments

Monday, March 9, 2020

695 - Lifeblood

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Spirituality Column #695

March 10, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Lifeblood

By Bob Walters

“Let His blood be on us and our children.” – the Praetorium mob shouting at Roman governor Pontius Pilate after persuading him to crucify Jesus, Matthew 27:25

In our current season of enhanced public-health-obsessive but probably prudent handwashing – thanks, Coronavirus – let’s look at the most famous handwashing episode of all time: Pontius Pilate washing his hands of the blood of Jesus.

First, to be clear, the one has nothing to do with the other – Pontius Pilate and Coronavirus, we mean. But we are a couple of weeks into the holy season of Lent leading up to Easter on April 12 moving toward that remembrance of the last days, arrest, trial, blood, cross, crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Throughout Christendom, much is always said about “the blood of Jesus.” It covers our sins, washes us, and heals us. The blood of Jesus – and only His blood – provides for our righteousness before God because in His grace our sins and fallenness are forgiven. Our faith in Jesus as the Son of God – that He was Who He said and showed He was – restores our divine relationship in the heavenly Kingdom. We were created in God’s image, and our faith in the blood of Christ is our passport back home.

We realize that to non-believers, that last paragraph is gobbledygook. But a Holy Spirit-infused faith shows us that the blood of Christ brings renewed life to humanity, though we are free to accept or dismiss the truth of the Bible. Pilate famously washing his own hands of Jesus’s blood (Matthew 27:24), just prior to the public chorus cited above (Matthew 27:25), often confuses the hopeful message Jesus actually delivered.

Pilate was perhaps the most reluctant executioner of all time. He knew in his soul Jesus was innocent, was of another realm, posed no imminent threat to the earthly sovereignty of the Roman empire, and himself became spiritually fearful while dealing with him. The crowd, shouting for the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus, forced Pilate’s hand as the Roman hoped to keep peace for the Passover in Jerusalem.

But Pilate had no peace, really. The crowd shouted, Pilate washed his hands of Jesus’s blood, and then loosed upon Jesus the ugliest beating and death imaginable.

Yet, it was as it had to be. The crowd inviting Jesus’s blood “to be on us and our children” – unbeknownst to them – was exactly as it was meant to be, but not as they ignorantly and self-righteously proclaimed. Jesus was going to the cross indeed, but, in truth, for them and for their children so they might one day know the peace of Christ.

When we see only the violence and ugliness of the cross, and when we embrace only guilt and the apparent punishment, penalty, payment, price of our sins – it is a wholesale sign that, like the shouting crowd, we are missing the grace of Jesus’s blood.

Jesus’s blood was shed for us not in destruction and rejection, but in healing, reconciliation, love, and life. It was poured out not “against” anyone, but “for” everyone.

The mob’s words foretold not the implied curse, but described a truth no one yet understood: that in Christ’s blood was humanity’s redemption, salvation, and eternity.

I believe heaven is an open shop for the faithful, that Jesus came for all, and that the key into the Kingdom is the gracious blood of the New Covenant of Christ.

So yes Lord, please, let your blood be on us; and fill all our lives with your truth.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is not a universalist but prays for everybody. He is also going right now to wash his hands.

Labels: blood, Easter, handwashing, Matthew 27:24-25, Pontius Pilate, salvation | 0 comments

Monday, March 2, 2020

694 - Chef's Surprise

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Spirituality Column #694

March 3, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Chef’s Surprise

By Bob Walters

"If you want God to give you specific results, you have to pray for specific things.” – radio preacher a couple weeks ago.

Deja vu. That line was the theme-setting jump-in for last week’s column What I Really Really Want (2-25-2020): what we pray for vs. what results we should expect.

My reaction to that line, and it’s what I wrote, was that trusting God, I pray in Jesus’s name through the Holy Spirit for relationship more than results. We can ask for whatever we want, but the ultimate goal, I think, is not worldly comfort but that by our faith in Jesus, loving God, and loving others – in relationship – we contribute to and participate in God’s glory. That’s our salvation. That’s our ticket to heaven.

Granted, it is also a pretty general and specifics-free approach to prayer. My church friend Dave Deane sent me a quick note about that column, citing our late, wonderful minister Russ Blowers. “As Russ once told me,” Dave wrote, “’you don’t go into a restaurant and ask for food; you need to be specific.’”

Aha! A great line I’d heard before and oh, if I’d just thought of it last week. It would have fit right into that piece. A gifted storyteller, Russ had a knack for squeezing a lot of thought in to a few, memorable words. And I might add that when he prayed you had no doubt God was listening. Russ was that kind of pastor, and a great friend.

Anyhow Russ, who passed in 2007, was right. Whether in confession, questions, or requests, our prayerful details and specifics are critical. But those specifics are critical for our sake, not God’s. God already knows; we need to examine ourselves.

It’s our sinning but caring selves who benefit in prayer by carefully thinking through the particulars of our faith, life, and concerns. We can moan and God can murmur. Sometimes – oftentimes – the exactitude of what we’re praying about is bigger or more mysterious than we can comprehend. If we show up at the restaurant, take a seat and ask for food, we miss the relational experience and spiritual growth of considering all that is on that big, divine menu, and what’s going on back in the kitchen.

But don’t miss this, either. Whether in the plainest or fanciest restaurant, unless you’re already acquainted, the chef will have no idea who you are, what you like, what you need, how hungry you are, if you can pay the bill, if you’re allergic to shellfish, or can stomach kale. It’s only about your order, not Godly nourishment and relationship.

In response to prayer, I believe God feeds us in His will and time. In God’s restaurant the chef – He’s the chef – already knows us but delights in having us talk to Him, building our faith, trust, and relationship. As we grow to know Him, we learn to understand how He puts

His menu together and shows us how to order our thoughts, love, and priorities, not just how to order a meal. He’s the chef who already knows.

God knows the plans He has for us (Jeremiah 29:11). Jesus personally assures us in nearly a dozen places to ask – in faith – for whatever we want (Matthew 18:19, 21:22, Mark 11:24, John 15:7, et al), and it will be done even when it’s a chef’s surprise.

Our peace is in knowing – in trusting – that the chef always sends out His best.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) prefers spiritual nourishment over kale and shellfish.

PS - Last week's column is just below ... scroll down ...

Labels: Jeremiah 20:11, order a meal, relationship, restaurant, Russ Blowers, specific prayer | 0 comments

698 - Who Knew?

697 - A Lenten Fast

696 - What I Really Really Think

695 - Lifeblood

694 - Chef's Surprise

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