CommonChristianity: life

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Monday, May 18, 2020

705 - Fellowship and Life

5:00 PM | Posted by Common Christianity | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column #705

May 19, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Fellowship and Life

By Bob Walters

“And he took bread, gave thanks, and broke it …” – Jesus, Luke 19:19

“This cup is the new covenant in my blood …” – Jesus, Luke 19:20

I was on the schedule at my church this past Sunday to present the “communion meditation,” a short homily preceding our weekly celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

That schedule – published late last fall for our Traditional services in 2020 – was obviated (i.e., “blown to smithereens”) by the COVID-19 shutdown. We still partake in the Lord’s Supper in our online service (at home) but with no Traditional service homily.

Months ago, pre-shut-down, I hit on an idea for the homily and made notes. When my phone calendar chime reminded me last week to prepare the communion meditation, I dug out the notes and figured, column! Here is my communion thought:

“The broken body and the spilled blood of Christ.” That’s the phrase we hear so often as we encounter the Lord’s Supper, our commemoration of Jesus at the last supper in the upper room. Jesus there instructed His disciples, going forward, to eat the bread and drink the cup “in remembrance” of Him. In the ensuing hours, Jesus – the perfect and innocent lamb – would be arrested, tried, beaten, and crucified. Jesus’s broken and bloody body hung on the cursed cross sacrificed to defeat death, forgive humanity’s sins, and complete His mission of salvation in perfect obedience to God.

That’s a story we all know, but frankly I don’t always like the way it is told. Jesus died a violent but purposeful death and his resurrection proved His truth. But scripture tells us that Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, would have no “broken” bones (Exodus 12:46, Psalm 34:20, John 19:36). And though Jesus bled, crucifixion is not a “blood” sacrifice – death comes from multiple trauma and agonizing asphyxiation on a “cursed tree.”

Listen closely to the words of Luke 19:19: “He took bread, gave thanks, and broke it.” Jesus was breaking the bread of sustained fellowship with His disciples and instructing all believers for all time to remember and replicate the holy communion the disciples had with Jesus and each other. Fellowship, not brokenness, is the point.

And hear Luke 19:20: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood …” Blood is the locus of life, we are taught in the Old Testament, and this new cup of Christ indicates not only His bloody death but the blood – the new life of faith – in the New Covenant.

Let us always encounter the bread and the cup of the Lord’s Supper with joy and fellowship, in both our communion with Christ and in loving each other. Why would we celebrate a guilty remembrance of a brutal death, or a shaming reminder of our sins, failures, and fallenness? When did Jesus say to believers, “Remember your guilt!”?

No! In communion with the gracious, risen Christ we are to joyfully and properly share in his eternal gifts of hope and peace. “Go and sin no more!” Jesus said. In this supper we commemorate the glory and love of God, the perfect truth and obedience of Jesus, and the abiding comfort and peace of the Holy Spirit. The bread and the cup remind us that we are Christians commissioned to shine Jesus’s light on mankind and that Jesus commanded us, as faithful servants, to love God and to love each other.

In a world where Satan’s darkness is close, we are citizens of a Heavenly light in communion with the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and each other. Let’s remember that.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is fixed and gathered, not broken and spilled. He attends East 91st Street Christian Church, Indianapolis.

Labels: bread, broken body, communion meditation, Covid-19, cup, fellowship, life, Lord’s Supper, Luke 19:20-21, new covenant, online church, perfect sacrifice, Psalm 34:20, remembrance, spilled blood, thanks | 0 comments

Monday, April 13, 2020

700 - When Empty is Good

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Spirituality Column #700

April 14, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

When Empty is Good

By Bob Walters

“ … and in Christ you have been brought to fullness.” – Colossians 2:10

What an irony that an empty grave was humanity’s first sign of salvation when what salvation means is humanity’s fullness in Christ.

In the Jesus-generated hubbub of Holy Week – the triumphant entry, trashing the temple, his teaching, the last supper, new commandments, Jesus’s arrest, trials, horrible death on the cross, entombment, arisen and bodily seen on the third day, humanity’s forgiveness and salvation at last! – easily overlooked is the sure reality that Jesus was the human, divine, tactile proof of God’s existence and truth.

The disciples were frightened, disillusioned, and dispersed during the crucifixion. The empty grave confounded everybody. The believers were then stunned Jesus was no longer dead; many saw Him, talked to him, touched him, ate with him. He was real.

And as for what it all meant, initially, to the believers, it meant joy mixed with confusion. Over the years we have come to talk about Easter and perhaps over-focus our faith on the gracious forgiveness of our sins by the cross and, by the empty grave, the gift of eternal life with God through faith in Christ. Sins forgiven; death defeated.

But we mustn’t stop there. It took even the disciples a while to figure it all out.

Everything the disciples needed to know about Jesus’s resurrection, who He was – God in the flesh – and what their task would be going forward, Jesus had already told them the past three years and especially in that eventful final week. Little of His infinite significance – what “Son of God” actually meant – truly sank in, at least not right away.

Even we today are often distracted by the Good Friday misery of death and the joyous Easter-morning relief of life revived. “He is Risen!” For the most part we have figured out, believe, and cherish the gifts of divine grace, the big “whew!” of our sins covered and behavioral debts canceled, and the secure knowledge that heaven, eternal life, and our adoption into God’s family and Kingdom are the sure goals of our hope.

That’s all great, but really it is only fullness for us. What about fullness for God?

That fullness is the life we are to give to others going forward. That is the glory of God Jesus brought to mankind. Jesus had fully briefed the disciples how His presence, life, death, and resurrection would define their mission ahead. And for a couple of obvious reasons, it was not the disciples’ mission to accompany Jesus into death. They were dispersed after Jesus’s arrest because 1) they had to be around later to tell about Jesus, and 2) death was something Jesus had to go through … rejected and alone.

Jesus finished His mission on the cross; their mission was then to tell the world.

Think of the whiplash juxtaposition: on Friday the disciples thought they had seen their hope turn into a cruel lie and their mission into an empty hoax. On Sunday, hope became proof of God’s surest truth, and their mission would come to change the world.

Much, much more happened, of course. It took many years and many people to put those amazing events into the fulfilling context of truth and salvation for all mankind.

But that empty grave?

It will remain empty forever, and thankfully, it is one we will never occupy.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), who won’t be surprised if his own grave is a tad itchy, notes that the stone was rolled away not to let Jesus out, but to let us see in.

Labels: Colossians 2:10, death, disciples, Easter, empty grave, forgiveness, fullness in Christ, glory, Holy Week, life, mission, theology | 0 comments

Monday, February 3, 2020

690 - Getting the Picture

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Spirituality Column #690

February 4, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Getting the Picture

By Bob Walters

“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed,” Jesus in John 12:24

God’s glory is a tricky, mysterious, and seemingly impossible thing.

It never changes, but it always grows. We cannot make God’s glory greater or smaller, yet our faith in Christ is for the glory of God. We were created in God’s image for God’s glory, but were given the freedom to pursue God’s glory or not.

The purpose of our life is to glorify God, which we accomplish by loving God and loving others. But the ultimate demonstration and revelation of – the revealing of –God’s glory and God’s love is not the life Jesus lived but the death Jesus died. Jesus died in obedience to the Father; but Jesus also died in a profound act of divine love so that all humanity might live.

We view our own human glory – most often – as conquest and comfort in life. Jesus lived so that God’s glory would be revealed through his own sacrifice and death.

God’s glory very truly is a life and death matter, and in Jesus we see the truest picture of why life and death matter so much. Life matters because it is our opportunity to freely pursue God in love as we know He pursues us. Death matters because that is where we grow into and discover perfect sinless fellowship in the Kingdom of God.

Jesus didn’t die so the Romans and Jews could be rid of His rebellion; Jesus died so all humanity could discover God’s truth and the assured hope of eternal life. His resurrection showed us that God’s promise would bring life and what Jesus’s obedience mysteriously meant: that our own death is the doorway to God’s eternal glory.

Human glory is not nearly so mysterious. What we see as our own glory in the course of our earthly lives will ebb and flow, shrink and grow, stumble here, succeed there and generally be entirely situational and, to paraphrase author Tom Wolfe, a bonfire of our own vanities. It’s all about us until we lock into the visual of Christ on the Cross in His perfect obedience to/of God and eternal love for God and God’s creation.

Then we begin to catch on that the “kernel of wheat” falling into the ground, as Jesus mentions, is what transforms a static and until-then useless piece of flora into a useful, life-giving, and gloriously growing exhibition of God’s endless creativity. The seed – Jesus, us, our faith – goes into the ground and responds with new life.

We trod this earthly stage for a season, limited by our appetites, yearnings, fears, death, and a hooded understanding of God’s eternal reality. But we are encouraged by our discoveries, faith, accomplishments, hopes, and loves. We survive good days and bad; we want more comfort and less discomfort. We want to get “more” in this life, but wisdom teaches us that joy is learning to give away that thing most valuable to us: life.

That is the single, magnificent seed of Jesus. We needn’t ask Jesus what we get for our faith; let’s instead seek the thrill of being invited into divine life’s renewed picture.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) concedes you may well have your own answer(s) to the question, “Why are life and death important?” He encourages you to think about it.

Labels: death, eternity, forgiveness, glory, John 12:24, kernel of wheat, life, rebirth, transformation | 0 comments

Monday, June 24, 2019

658 - You Better Believe It

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Spirituality Column #658
June 25, 2019

Common Christianity, Uncommon Commentary

You Better Believe It

By Bob Walters

“…that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” Jesus, John 3:15

Perhaps you are among those of us who have to concentrate extra hard when trying to understand the words of Jesus in the third chapter of the Fourth Gospel.

John 3 – home to the famous John 3:16 verse “For God so loved the world …” etc. – opens with bold and inquisitive Pharisee Nicodemus visiting Jesus. Under the cover of darkness this esteemed Jewish leader has come to investigate this startling Rabbi whose wisdom has so obviously come from God and who performs miracles that are so obviously signs of the divine. Nicodemus wants to know more, but let’s not miss that the Bible offers no clue as to whether Nicodemus has come in humility and maybe burgeoning faith, or to gain advantage over his peers. Motive isn’t mentioned.

One thing worth noticing is that no ceremonial, laudatory, or even cordial greeting is offered by Jesus to his visitor: no signal of Nicodemus’s esteemed title or station, no “Thank you for coming,” no “Nice to see you,” no “What can I do for you?”

Jesus starts in commandingly with, “I tell you the truth…”

I love that. Jesus tells the truth and tells it straight away on his terms, not ours.

Jesus proceeds to expound on the truth of the Kingdom of Heaven, of being “born again,” of water and Spirit, of flesh, of the wind blowing, of truth, of His testimony, of believing, of earthly things, and of heavenly things. Jesus then talks of love, of light, of darkness, of condemnation and salvation. And then He talks some more about light and darkness, of evil deeds, and the light of truth. Nicodemus is mystified.

Here, it’s OK to shake one’s head. What the heck is Jesus talking about?

Nicodemus is still stuck back on “reborn” and “the mother’s womb.” He is – at this point – utterly opaque to the wonderful story and opportunity Jesus is laying out before Him and, later through the Spirit in this Bible we now know, before all mankind.

Jesus does not belabor Nicodemus’s sin, disobedience, and guilt; He points to Nicodemus’s and all the Pharisees’ lack of Godly understanding, their eternal peril of darkness, their misdirected faith in earthly things, and their lack of belief in Him.

Notice that nowhere in this passage does Jesus mention forgiveness. Instead His emphasis is on truth, faith, light, the Spirit, and repeatedly … about believing.

I am thankful my sins are forgiven but the lesson of John certainly isn’t narrowly about forgiveness of our earthly and worldly sins; it is about thoroughly believing the divine and eternal truth of the love of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Over the years I’ve developed an ear for hearing when Christians are focused on sin and forgiveness vs. when Christians are focused on belief, faith, truth, love, and the person of Jesus Christ; it is the difference of legalism vs. freedom; of fear vs. joy.

In this most powerful scripture passage we discover our key to the Kingdom of Heaven laid out plainly as a matter of God’s love, our belief in Jesus … and nothing else. Be thankful for that, and trust Jesus in all that He says.

Even when it makes you shake your head.

Maybe especially when it makes you shake your head.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) suggests that a nod is even better.

Labels: belief, born again, condemnation, forgiveness, John 3:15-16, Kingdom, life, light, Nicodemus, Truth, understanding, words of Jesus | 0 comments

Monday, May 25, 2015

445 - Life and Death and ... Life

9:14 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post

Spirituality Column #445
May 26, 2015
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

Life and Death and … Life
By Bob Walters

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” – Jesus, John 14:6

Life – human life, that is – can be large or small. Joyful or joyless. Purposeful or purposeless. Faithful or faithless.

Typically it’s some combination of all that, laden with hopes, fears, aspirations, successes, failures, wonders and surprises. God’s love is life’s greatest component, Satan’s hateful trickery its worst. Our great challenge as humans is sorting out the things of God that lead to life, and the things of Satan that lead to death.

It’s not always an easy call. We are taught in today’s world to nurture and revere our inward-directed passions amid a culture that increasingly equates freedom with irresponsibility and irreverence, and assigns God a station of irrationality and irrelevance. The ironic, life-diminishing, misdirecting, incomplete, self-centered, message is everywhere: “Life is what we make it.”

In our busyness to “make it” in life, we are systematically directed to replace the source of love and life, God, with the foundation of sin and death, Satan. It usually doesn’t feel like that’s the choice we’re making because Satan is the purveyor of earthly comforts; he’s a fan of man and an enabler of our appetites – power, money, sex, whatever. It just so happens that his goal is to leave us with Godless, eternal death.

One of Satan’s great tricks is to encourage us to replace God the Father with “god the other.” Worship the earth, worship power, worship money, worship your family or worship a political stance, a choice, a sports team or an academic cause celebre. “God the other” provides no eternal promises, no salvation from sin, no participation in divine glory, no relationship with God the Father, and no rest in the Kingdom of God. “God the other” offers a single end-game, one goal, and one outcome – death.

Not that the temporal overcoming of human discomfort with technology is a bad thing; who doesn’t like fast travel, modern healthcare, instantaneous communication and air conditioning? How easy it is to mistakenly pursue comforts as an end in themselves – which makes comfort a god – rather than understanding that the God of all comforts is the exclusive purveyor of life everlasting.

Why is life everlasting important? Because God’s glory is important, which makes the life God gives us important, which makes all the choices we tender regarding this life important. Life is so much bigger than what we see; and death is so much worse than we can imagine. Christ is the way to join God in His life.

The choice is ours, but Jesus is telling the truth.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) thinks life is overlooked as a gift from God.

Labels: appetites, death, god the father, god the other, John 14:6, life, life everlasting, power, Satan, sin, technology, worldly, worship | 0 comments

705 - Fellowship and Life

700 - When Empty is Good

690 - Getting the Picture

658 - You Better Believe It

445 - Life and Death and ... Life

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