Monday, April 15, 2019
648 - The Culture of Life
Spirituality
Column #648
April 16, 2019
Common
Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
The Culture of Life
By Bob
Walters
“But small is the gate and narrow the road
that leads to life, and only a few find it.” – Jesus, Sermon on the Mount,
Matthew 7:14
Human
life ordained by God has purpose, glory, creativity, freedom, and love.
To
me, that sounds pretty attractive. In
Genesis 1:31, just after creating man, God declares his creation “very good.” And later with the introduction of Jesus
Christ we further discover that God is merciful, gracious, and forgiving, and
that God pursues us more hotly and robustly than we pursue Him. In Jesus, we discover the purpose of the Old
Testament stories and humanity’s end game: ultimate joy in God’s kingdom.
But
on the cross of Christ we are reminded that God is righteous, just, true, and
that He means what He says. Hence, Good
Friday is a hard day; death is agonizing.
The
Resurrection on the third day – Easter, the raising of Christ from the dead –
assures humanity that God’s hand is with us, that Jesus is the son of the
living God come to save us from death, and that His is an eternal culture of
life, hope, and truth.
With
a deal like that, you’d think the “narrow road” would be jammed with people
looking for the “small gate.” Where the
disciples and early followers had to “figure it out” as Jesus taught, died, and
returned, humanity today has had 2,000 years of church, scripture, scholarship
– and let’s not forget about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit – to learn with
authority and depth about God’s plan, purpose, love, and life in Jesus.
Yet,
culture today continues to flock to the broad expanse of self-interest: We want
it “my way.” We “gotta’ be me,” or “I am
who I say I am.” And the shallowest whine
of all: “God wants me to be happy being me.”
The Bible never says that.
“Happy,”
of course, is fine, but “joy in the Lord” is both better and an entirely different
take on life’s purpose. Joy includes sacrificial
love for God and for others. We are
happy when our appetites are sated, our lives are easy, and those we love are
safe, healthy, and thriving. But I don’t
think God will ever ask us if “we are happy.”
What He asks us – what He judges – is, “Who do you say Jesus is?” Our life’s body of “work” will be the way we
loved God and loved others, not how we loved ourselves.
Easter
is the great annual celebration of the everyday reality of Jesus’s culture of
life. Loving God and loving others means
that we – like Jesus – discipline our desires and sacrifice ourselves to honor
God in joy and fellowship with His creation. We don’t do it lightly; we do it
with strength, courage, faith, and trust in God’s ultimate good.
Modern
culture continues to mimic that crowd in Jerusalem – not the crowd shouting
“Hosanna!” on Palm Sunday but the crowd shouting “Kill Him!” a few days later.
We know now that Jesus had to die in order to be resurrected, but the Jerusalem
crowd didn’t know that. Today, even with
all we know, we as a culture still look at the truth of Jesus and shout “Kill
him!” We kill our babies, we kill our ability
and desire to create more life, we kill our sexual identity, we kill our
families, and when we can, we kill the infirm and aged. To be “happy” in this life, we systematically
kill God’s goodness.
Jesus
offers a comprehensive culture of life – He
came for us all (John 3:16) – but we respond with narrow understanding of
His love and a broad appetite to “do it my way.” That way is a culture of death;
a gaping chasm of destruction apart from God.