Spirituality Column #787

December 14 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Life of the Party

By Bob Walters

“I am the way and the truth and the life.” – Jesus to the disciples, responding to Thomas at the Last Supper. John 14:6

At his birth, the one we celebrate at Christmas – the baby Jesus – brought into the world the promise of restored, revived, renewed, and hope-filled life for all humanity.

Of course, almost nobody at the time knew about it: about Jesus and salvation, I mean.  For the few who did, there was only the faintest understanding of who Jesus was in God’s kingdom and no comprehension at all of whom He would become in human history.  Jesus arrived with the cry of a baby, not the trumpet of a conqueror.

Those who knew Hebrew scripture hoped, someday, for a marauding but wise and holy Messiah warrior fixing the world’s ills and establishing Israel as the ascendant kingdom of the world.  What they got instead was a humble, helpless, entirely unknown peasant baby boy born among shepherds at the far ends of the Roman empire in a poor, rural, backwater peasant town who as a man would be killed as a Jewish heretic.

Oh … if the world truly had been paying attention to the gift Jesus presented.

Jesus was life itself; He restored to humanity – on offer to all through faith in Him as the Son of God – mankind’s originally created life made in the image of God Himself.

We lost that image in man’s Fall in the garden.  The First Adam’s disobedience led to us desiring to be gods without the authority of God.  So, we created idols and worshiped ourselves and the things we ourselves made and thought.

Despite all that was given to us in the Second Adam, Jesus, we still do that today.

In ancient scripture God promised Israel He would use its obscure nation – His chosen nation – to restore and return all humanity to His love, image, and relationship.

Jewish prophecy about this restorative Messiah Christ abounded, but the coming of Jesus wasn’t what anyone expected.  Perhaps it’s a minor misnomer to say the world wasn’t paying attention, because the resurrection and the ensuing growth of “The Way” which became the Christian church, and the name Jesus itself, have influenced all life and history ever since.  Yes, the world noticed Jesus, but continued to idolize itself.

Science and philosophy are tireless in their academic efforts to explain, define, and “own” all aspects of our existence: life, thought, sense of self, consciousness, and all manner of physical and rational propositions.  Humanity, for the most part, still hasn’t figured out what this “life” is, exactly, or where it came from or what it’s for. 

Over the weekend I read a review of a new book, Being You: A New Science of Consciousness.  It was in Friday’s Wall Street Journal under the headline, “Why We Have A Sense of Self.”  I had this immediate, simple answer: “We have a sense of self because God gave us one and wants us to use it to find him, love him, and love others.”

Then, I tensed up and read the review.  As expected, there was no mention of, nor faintest allusion to, God, faith, truth, life, Jesus, sacrifice, Spirit, hope, love – i.e., reality – from these supposedly “smart,” sentient, deep, praiseworthy people. Sigh.    

They laud impotent idols of knowledge and ignore life’s true answer: Jesus.

Christmas is a party, Jesus is life, and people never understand it without faith.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows life comes from God, new life comes from Jesus, and the knowledge of truth comes from the Holy Spirit. Duh. It’s in the Bible.

Spirituality Column #786

December 7, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Story Time

By Bob Walters

“Jesus did many other things as well.  If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” – John 21:25

The Gospel of John is the last Gospel presented in the Bible, there exists little doubt it was the last Gospel written – probably late in the first century – and John 21:25 is the last verse of John’s last chapter.

And what John is saying in this closing verse of the Gospels is, “There is so much more.”

The story of Jesus is the Greatest Story Ever Told, and it is a story we will never fully grasp in this lifetime.  The Bible is the guiding light of the Holy Spirit’s largesse, sharing the magnificent story of God, creation, humanity, sin, salvation, love, and grace.

Stories are how humans communicate, and it may be God’s most under-rated gift that our narratives and languages spark creative relationships among individuals, families, neighbors, and nations.  We rarely think of stories as “a thing.”  Yet it is our unique and varied stories that bind humans together, tear us apart, define life as we know it, and make us curious to answer the greatest of all questions: “Why?”

I think it’s an easy answer: Q. “Why?”  A. “For God’s glory.”  If one pursues the plainest truth and purest proof of purpose, reason, logic, and the unmistakable presence of human instincts that go far beyond elemental survival, God gave humans the great gift of stories and language to investigate, discover, describe, expound, discern, and most importantly share all that we come to know, think, feel, hope, and believe.

In that sense, “stories,” I believe, have a divine organizational kinship with “time.”  Both are God’s gifts to humanity that we tend to neither notice nor appreciate.  God is outside of time in eternity, which remains a mostly-opaque notion to my human mind.  Christ, as Jesus, stepped into time and into humanity to communicate the love, glory, truth – the story – of God’s salvation for a fallen world: Jesus beats Satan’s hate with God’s love.  

Science, you ask?  Note that math and science don’t provide stories; they provide facts.  Where the Bible is all about “why” and stories; science is God’s gift to humans about how things work.  Science replaces God’s purpose?  No, science reveals God’s “How.”  Equations and elements and physics, discovered and defined by humans, are God’s universal language: they are the same everywhere for everybody.

New science discoveries alter man’s understanding, but they don’t alter God.

Stories, everywhere for every person, are unique and changing and gloriously promote or monstrously destroy human understanding and relationships.  Stories we errantly construct can also destroy our understanding of, and our relationship with, God.

But they can’t destroy God; He is so much more than we can fully comprehend.

Humans have God’s special spark because we think in stories.  Animals are unencumbered with such existential awareness.  If you want to assign “emotions” on pets, fine, but it is we who imprint “stories” on them.  They possess instincts, notice patterns, can be trained, etc., but who imagines an animal asking, “Why am I here?”

I say all this because I read the Bible as the Truth of God and Creation, and I’m thankful humans have the great power of experiencing and sharing God’s endless story. 

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) often tells stories to his dog Kramer, who listens.

Spirituality Column #785

November 30, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Thanksgiving Leftovers

By Bob Walters

- “… give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” – Paul, 1 Thessalonians 5:18

- “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven – the Son of Man.” – Jesus to the Pharisee Nicodemus, John 3:13

- “The time came when the beggar [Lazarus] died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side …” – Jesus to the Pharisees, parable of Lazarus, Luke 16:19-31

- “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen!” – Heavenly host, praising God, Revelation 7:12

‘Tis the latter season of thanks, and I’m praying I’ve not now put more on my plate than I can digest.  But I had a thought recently that gave me pause:

When we get to Heaven, will we be thankful to be there?

I’m serious.  “Thanks” is the humble and relational coin of our earthly realm; might relational currency in Heaven be vastly different?  Will we still be “thankful” in Heaven – once we’re there, saved and serving – or just absorbed into the glory and praise and peace of eternal life in God’s presence, knowing Jesus, and living in the Spirit among the saints?

Might “thanks” no longer be necessary due to the absence of envy, strife, turmoil, confusion, sickness, and alternatives in a perfect paradise?  Is thankfulness in this fallen earthly life merely a condition ordained by God as a coping mechanism for fallen humans to connect with Him and nurture hope?  I see nothing about gratitude in Genesis 1 or 2.

I ponder this because in life today, the glory and joy I have in Jesus is the gratitude I feel now for His truth, love, presence, promise, reality, forgiveness, etc.  Nearing His own end, Jesus didn’t pray to thank God; He prayed to glorify God and himself. Perhaps that’s a model to heed.

The above four perhaps seemingly disjointed scripture bits might lend some clues …   

-       1 Thess 5:18 – Paul knows we won’t always be happy in this life, but that our joy in Jesus comes from always being thankful in Christ, no matter our circumstances. 

-       John 3:13 – Jesus is saying to Nicodemus that no one has been to Heaven yet except Him, Jesus, who came from there (and the Spirit, I’d presume); so it’s all new for us. 

-       Luke 16:19-31 – Jesus, to be specific, doesn’t say Lazarus is in Heaven; Lazarus is wherever Moses is, and those tormented in hell can see them.  We read only of the Rich Man’s hellish lament, nothing of Lazarus (who has no lines) being thankful.

-       Ahhh … but in Revelation 4:9 (and 7:12, 11:17), the heavenly host of worshipers – angels, elders, and the “living beings” – attribute the quality of “thanks” to God along with His glory, wisdom, honor, power, and strength. So, “thanks,” in Heaven is, maybe, a purely God thing?

I used to sit with a friend, minister Russ Blowers, over lunch and occasionally we’d ponder, “What would not be in heaven.”  And not the easy stuff like sin, war, fear, envy, illness, deceit, and so forth.  Marriages are apparently out (Matthew 22:30). Will there be competition?  Fun? There were labors in Eden; will we have jobs?  Bosses? What about competition, success, winners, losers, sports fans? What about artists? Aspirations? Challenges? Is justice an issue?

Minus any challenge, will thanks be necessary? Justice? In Heaven?  It’s fulfilled. 

Whatever it is that comes next – Heaven, rewards, eternity, a perfect Earth, whatever … as my minister friend Dave Faust likes to say, once there, we won’t be disappointed. 

I suspect we may discover that thankfulness is what we do in this fallen life to recognize the great gift of new life now, and perhaps we’ll be thankful to a greater degree then.  Still, I cannot imagine being anything but forever grateful to Jesus … even in Heaven.  But maybe … ?

A simple “thanks” doesn’t cover it.  Perhaps expressing joy in our thankfulness – now – does, or comes as close as we can on this side of life.  Heaven will be all new, not leftovers.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes: Don’t worry about Heaven; love God and trust Jesus.

 Spirituality Column #784

November 23, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Hungry for Thankfulness

By Bob Walters

"Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish." - John 6:11, Feeding the 5,000

Since Thanksgiving is so much about eating, let’s look at the small boy who gave up his lunch of “five loaves and two fishes” so Jesus could “feed the 5,000” (John 6).

For openers, let’s understand these were not big, rich loaves of boutique bakery artisan bread.  Nor were the fish plump salmon, marinated and grilled with seasonings and garlic butter.  Nor was the boy wealthy or overladen with an excess of food.

John 6:9 tells us that Andrew told Jesus, "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will the go among so many?"  Think of five small biscuits and a couple of smoked smelt or maybe sardines.  They wouldn’t “go far,” and barley, remember, was the cheap grain of the poor.

The small boy on the one hand needs to be sainted for his generosity, but on the other, it’s a great lesson of kindness and compassion for its own sake, not for reward, gain, or recognition.  Note: nowhere does anybody thank the boy for sharing his lunch. 

Jesus gave thanks, but it was to God for the miracle He was about to perform that the hearers might come to know God the Father by His Son Jesus, the Bread of Life, “the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (John 6:33).

In summation, the boy’s small, humble gift allowed Jesus to glorify God.  Our gifts matter.  We should all – and always – seek to do the same. 

And when we do, to praise God, find joy, and be thankful for the opportunity

Also on Thanksgiving, consider the blessing and importance of our giving thanks, and of Jesus giving thanks, and God teaching us all to be thankful … all the time. 

Why is thankfulness a blessing?  Because thankfulness is a joy-generating, God-ordained human quality of humility and grace.  Thankfulness is a really good look.

Thanksgiving, the holiday, is mostly a civil affair as opposed to a traditionally religious affair.  Only a few churches have Thanksgiving Day services and when you try to look up traditional Thanksgiving holiday church hymns … the list is pretty short.

Thanksgiving of course is a civic metaphor for God’s grace and provision, but most people think of it, if they think of God at all (too many don’t), as a time to thank God for the good earthly things He provides.  We thank God for family, our homes, our being taken care of, our nation, our love, our “stuff.” I.e., “things that make us happy.”

Instead, we should focus and invoke our best thanks for our joy.

You see, I always assert that “happy” is different from “joy.”  I like to say that happy is a symptom, but joy is a condition.  Happy is usually about “my comfort and situation right now.”  Joy, at least the true joy I’ve found, is about doing things for others. 

And remember, Jesus came to humanity not to be happy, but for the joy of saving God’s creation, sacrificing Himself, and glorifying God. 

Thanks, when you think about it, is always directed at others, never ourselves.

Thankfulness done right makes us less greedy, more charitable, and facilitates God’s two greatest commands: to love God and love others.  When we are thankful, we are joyful – we can’t help it! – and that is a great, relationship-building gift of Jesus.  And more than simply obeying God, we nurture our own joy, ease our pain, and grow in our appetite and appreciation for Christ’s peace.  That’s a wonderful hunger to have.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures that our mantle of thankfulness makes us more loveable to each other as well.  Every little bit helps.

Spirituality Column #783

November 16, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Where Does It End?

By Bob Walters

“… even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” – 1 Peter 1:8-9

Pam and I joined a few thousand other joyful souls at Clowes Hall Saturday for the stage production of C.S. Lewis’s thought-provoking 1945 book, The Great Divorce.

At least, one could well assume those gathered were mostly joyful souls.  A grump – especially a narcissistic one – would have a hard time watching the production (or reading the book) without, I would imagine, feeling uncomfortably convicted.

Nonetheless, it’s a book I’d recommend to anyone I ever heard say anything like, “A good God would not allow …”.  Or, “A God of love wouldn’t allow …”.  Fill in the blanks.  Those blanks typically are what the members of the human race do to their fallen selves when taking the cue from Satan to blame or disobey God.

In others words what I hear is, “Here’s how I would run things if I were God.”

And what I understand in those words is that I’m listening to someone who is robbing themselves of knowing God’s love, truth, and joy; and who is subordinating – at least in those moments and thoughts – the entire purpose of human life: to glorify God.

Did you think life’s purpose was to be saved?  Or to “do the right thing”?  Or as one of the opening characters in the book asserts in a huff, “I’m just here to get my rights.”  We’re here to love God, sacrifice for others, and know Jesus is the saving, perfect Son of God … and revel in the joy and life of possessing that knowledge in faith.

The Great Divorce bills itself as the divorce of Good and Evil, which it is, but I’d define it as more the great divorce of our petty, self-directed, painful lives from, and into, the great joy and glory of God’s eternal otherness and wholeness nestled in Jesus. 

Hell, or Heaven?  We choose.  Christ has already done the heavy lifting.

The Great Divorce is Lewis’s work that poses the poignant question: “Are the gates of Hell locked from the inside?”  It is a fantasy dream treatment that examines the deceased who inhabit a dreary but not-too-bad Hell who can go to Heaven – by bus – to visit or stay, any time they please.  Many make the trip; few choose to stay.

What leads them back to lock themselves in dreary Hell is their inability to cultivate, nurture, recognize, accept, or even consider the totality of God’s purpose and righteousness juxtaposed with their misplaced human sovereign sense of “Who I Am.”

On stage, four actors played the book’s 20 or so characters in front of a large video screen backdrop and it was wonderful.  It was a one-show Saturday afternoon presentation and I’m no drama critic, so all I can say is I enjoyed it and had a nice conversation about it with Pam on the way home.  I’d re-read the book earlier that day.

The book, incidentally, is a quick 140-page read and ends with the adventure’s narrator – presumably Lewis himself – waking up from this very vivid but strange dream.

Where our journey of life ends – whether in Heaven or Hell – Lewis suggests, depends on whether we choose the joy, love, totality, supremacy, and utter reality of God over the pride, jealousy, fear, suffering, and stubbornness of our vaporous lives. 

Salvation is as simple as that but impossible for many. Where it ends is up to us.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows Jesus is the only reason Heaven is open to us.

Spirituality Column #782

November 9, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Out of Focus

By Bob Walters

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.” – Romans 8:5

Mary, Martha, the mourners, and the disciples all presumably gaped in astonishment when four-days dead Lazarus came out of his tomb (John 11:44).

I doubt anyone was more surprised than Lazarus himself – if in fact he somehow knew he had been dead.  Along with death’s physical fact of rapid bodily decomposition, a common Middle Eastern cultural and religious notion was that the human spirit left the body after three days.  Jesus tarried so all would know Lazarus was really, truly, dead.

As an aside, that makes me wonder, four days on, was Lazarus already in paradise, and maybe cognizant, when Jesus called him back into, as Shakespeare put it in Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech, “this mortal coil” at a tomb outside Bethany?

If so, what a truly, truly rotten deal for Lazarus.  Maybe that’s why Jesus wept.

But in all seriousness, let’s notice two prominent scriptural realities, one before Lazarus returned to this life, and one after.

In John 11:1-40 as the story of Lazarus is told, all except Jesus were focused on the death of Lazarus and the absence of Jesus.  Jesus could have done something right now but instead delayed his arrival to make a point, and everybody missed the point.

And the point was, Jesus’s identity as the Son of God, not the miracle of Lazarus’s revival.  All of Jesus’s statements in the story reveal his intention to lead His flock to the knowledge and faith in His true identity.  Everyone else points to Lazarus.

Even Jesus’s wonderful, out-loud prayer to God in John 11:42-43 is, “for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

Next Lazarus (v44) is called out, comes out, and (v45) “many put their faith” in Jesus. Then I notice something oddly missing from the story; there is no celebration.

Granted the point isn’t whether there was a celebration, but the scriptural fact is that whatever reaction there was, it is left for us to imagine. Jesus tells Lazarus to get dressed and go; that’s it.  Some “got it” and came to faith; maybe we should, too.

Jesus doesn’t say anything else.  Martha, Mary, and the others don’t say anything.  The disciples are quiet.  In the entirety of the Bible, Lazarus never does say anything. He came back illustrating Jesus’s identity … and later died another death.

The Bible is so wonderfully and vividly written that we often focus on the characters in its stories – Lazarus, the Sinful Woman, the Prodigal Son, and so many others – perhaps because we can relate in the flesh of real-life to their situations of sickness, sin, despair, failure, rejection, pride, greed, hopelessness, and confusion.

But that’s on our worst days.  On our best days we read these stories and instead focus on and relate not to the dismal fleshly failures of our own fallen lives, but on the soaring spiritual hope and truth of the identity of Jesus Christ and His restorative gift of our salvation.  We then live in the comforting truth and peace of the Holy Spirit.

Not everyone finds Jesus just because they are hopeless; many find Jesus because they read the Bible, experience the church, focus on Jesus, and are hopeful.

It’s a matter of setting – and focusing – our minds on the right Spirit.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) saw the church, read the Bible, and “got it.” Amen.

Spirituality Column #781

November 2, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

I Am, and I Mean It

By Bob Walters

In reading the Gospels, do you notice that Jesus generally doesn’t get mad at sinners?

At least not at the garden-variety, run-of-the-mill, caught-up-in-the-flesh (or pride, greed) type of sinners.  In the Bible Jesus encounters many of them, and He is typically gentle, kind, always righteous and unyielding, but not harsh, condemning, or dismissive.

Jesus tries to help sinners understand who He is.  His mercy abounds.

But notice, Jesus roars like a lion when those who should know who He is, don’t.

We’ve been looking at the “I AM” statements of Jesus in our Thursday morning “Mustard Seed” Bible study at church, and this notion of Jesus’s demonstrable anger at the Pharisees and disciples – but not at common sinners – popped into my head.

Consider “the sinful woman” caught in adultery at the start of John chapter 8. Her sins obvious, she neither confessed, apologized, asked forgiveness, repented, nor called Jesus Lord, but Jesus saved her from stoning.   Clearly His purpose, first, was to expose the treachery of the Pharisees who were using the woman’s sin to trap Jesus into condemning her.  Second, we see His mercy and righteousness on the woman.

Jesus declares, “Let He who has not sinned cast the first stone,” and the Pharisees dropped their stones and slinked away.  Jesus then asked the woman, “Who has condemned you?” and followed with, “Neither do I.  Go and sin no more.”

What we notice in all four Gospels is that Jesus is kind and often encouraging to common sinners.  Think of the good thief on the Cross next to Him.  Or the centurion, or Zachaeus, or the woman who grabbed the hem of his garment, or the woman at the well.  Jesus was compassionate, and told them of not sinning again, of paradise, faith, restitution, grace, and living water.  Go, and sin no more.  Trust His mercy.

But woe to those who should have known, appreciated, and worshipped Jesus for whom He truly was, and instead denied His identity as the Son of God.  Of course, the Pharisees first come to mind because whether by argument, parables, or occasional rage, Jesus knows they should know. Their self-serving denials ultimately destroy them.

Jesus also levels angry charges of faithlessness at his often-doubting disciples who, up to the very end and even after the end, express doubt He is the Son of God.

Jesus’s first four “I Am” statements – bread, light, the gate, and the good shepherd – are all prompted by the intransigence of the Jewish leaders.  The fifth, “resurrection and life” is stated to Lazarus’s grieving sister Martha, and the last two – “way, truth, and life,” and “the true vine” to His disciples the evening of the Last Supper.

Jesus knew that His mission was to deliver humanity from its sins and restore its relationship with God’s glory through our individual faith in Him as Lord, Savior, and Son of God.  By declaring “I Am” – as God uniquely and undeniably identified Himself to Moses – Jesus as Christ revealed the final saving truth of mankind.  I Am.  He meant it.

The Pharisees hated Jesus for this truth.  His disciples and friends harbored doubts bred in the overwhelming mystery of encountering the One True God as a man.

We take comfort that when Jesus says, “I Am,” He means it for all eternity.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures “I Am” will be on the Judgment final exam. Btw, he also teaches the Mustard Seed Bible study at E91 Thursdays at 10:30.  All are welcome; email Bob for more info.