City Church of Christ

The Magnetic Cross

2009-12-01T01:00:00.000-08:00

"And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself" (John 12:32)

The magnetic cross of Jesus Christ!!! For Paul, this was the true mystery, the wisdom of God, the only thing we could glory in. And what is so magnetic about the cross of Christ? In being obedient unto death, Jesus expressed his solidarity with sinners and mortals. All of us sin, and all of us die. What other God has come down to earth, walked among us, shared our poverty, suffering and sorrow, our joys, riches, and expectations, but most of all, our journey towards the ultimate shadow, only to conquer that shadow and give the gifts of eternal forgiveness, resurrection, eternal life and glory in heaven? Those who come to the cross make the final admission that this world can give us nothing, has given us nothing, and will continue to give us nothing. In the Cross, we recognize the gift of everything, the gift of God himself for humanity. Through the Cross God inverts death and makes his own self-sacrifice a symbol of hope and love for all people.

Jesus said that when he was lifted up--crucified on a cross--he would draw all people to himself. Through his death and resurrection, we have salvation. This is the revelation he gave to Nicodemus: "No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:13-16). There are indeed many myths about gods and goddesses dying and coming back to life: Osiris, Adonis, Ishtar, Tammuz, Quetzalcoatl, Orpheus, Balder, Mithras, Dionysius. And yet, none of these deities existed in real history or created communities that would draw all peoples to themselves, the way Jesus of Nazareth really existed in history, and lives today; his teachings, which we call Christianity, have drawn men and women of every social class, race, language, lifestyle, or trade. At the foot of his very Cross, an unlikely mingling of Jewish women and Roman soldiers gazed in wonder and devotion at this Son of God on the Cross: "And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, 'Truly this man was the Son of God!'" (Mark 15:39); "Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene" (John 19:25). In what other circumstances could we see such diametrically different gender roles, races, cultures, and language groups joined in a common wonder, a common participation in an otherworldly event? Already, Christ's prophecy was becoming fulfilled. Paul would remind the Christians in the early Church of the cosmopolitan and universal nature of Christ's mission, saying: "Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all" (Colossians 3:11).

Today we look at globalization as a largely negative thing. It has had damaging effects on local economies, it has elevated mass production to the level of religion, it has made a god of the market and has exploited and enslaved millions. Many of these things are true in some way. And yet, there is a great benefit to this globalization. Now we cannot live comfortably ignorant of our human brothers and sisters on the far sides of the globe. Christ is always embracing our world, always calling out to the lost and drawing them to his cross. And he makes us a part of this calling out to one another, serving one another, sharing with one another, for he recreates us in his image and pours the love of God into our hearts. The evils of globalization have now become our spiritual workplaces, challenging us, stimulating faith, making highways and byways for expressing love to the orphaned, unloved, the ugly and the sick, the downtrodden and the shamed, the dirty and the betrayed. And now we can come together, in the shadow of his cross, washed in baptism and renewed by his Holy Spirit, brought together into his one body to live by love. You would think that nobody in his or her right mind would shun world peace if it were offered to him or her, and yet we shun it every day when we reject the global savior, Christ who died for the sins of the world: "And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the savior of the world" (1 John 4:14). Would you like a better world? Believe on Jesus today, and then go invite your friends to believe on him, for Jesus is wisdom, Jesus is peace, Jesus is love, and Jesus is salvation.

Life In Christ

2009-11-07T11:17:00.000-08:00

"We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, 'The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.' For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragment grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. For I telly ou that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy." (Romans 15:1-8)

In his instructions to the First Century Christians, Paul made some powerful statements about ethics and holy living. The ethics of Paul is deeply christological--that is, it is not based merely on reasoned arguments or quarrels about logic, nor is it merely a list of rules. Human reason has failed ethically for milennia. And time and again, Jesus showed the Pharisees how they had manipulated holy rules in unholy ways. This does not mean that Christ wanted us to abandon reason or God's commandments for living, either. Paul says here that we need instruction in what was written in the former days--that is, the Biblical writings available to the early church. It is these Scriptures that give us encouragement and hope. What does he mean?

What was the ethical landscape like in the Roman Empire of the 1st Century? Not terribly different from what we have today. Life was cheap, people bought and sold each other on slave markets, tax farmers--or publicani--exploited the populace in much the same way that banks and creditors exploit people today, powerful families called negotii bid for government and military contracts to increase their capital and overseas holdings, the Roman Army opened up new markets and made more countries dependent on the imperium, local leaders competed for power in political blood sport, revolutionaries died by the hundreds in failed attempts to glorify themselves or replace Roman imperium with their own tyranny. War, romanized urbanization and other causes wrecked the environment in some places. Abortion, murder, theft, wrongful lawsuits, adultery, infanticide, forced prostitution, alcohol and drug abuse, arms dealing--all of these existed in supreme degree in the empire that crucified our Lord Jesus. In other words, the situation seemed as hopeless then as it does today. The Roman writers Juvenal, Petronius, Martial, Catullus, and Ovid give quite a lurid picture of Roman life. And despite certain historical differences, it can be like looking into a mirror of our times.

Despite the seemingly hopeless situation, however, Paul writes that through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Why? Is Paul merely talking about the family values, virtues, or social teachings in the Gospels that give us our ethics? I do not think so. I think that the Scriptures have rich wisdom in terms of ethics, but trying to read Scripture as a textbook on ethics won't help us at all. Paul is hinting at something much more scary, something much more challenging. Paul says that Christ is our ethics, because Christ became a servant to humanity, to take away our reproaches, to show God's truthfulness, and to teach us to be servants, too. When we are clothed in Christ, we are clothed as servants--all of our ethics must be about the Cross and cross-bearing. Since Christ did not live to please himself, but to please others, we too are called to live in a same manner of self-sacrifice and love of others.

What will be the benefits of such an ethics? What are we actually doing? It means to build our neighbors up, whoever they are; to show God's truthfulness, to live by drawing hope from the Scripture, to have one voice, and to welcome each other into the glory of God that Christ has welcomed us into. Paul's ethics is thus not merely a christology that leads us into glorification, but it is one that is unmistakably about relinquishing self and power, taking on the role of servants and carrying our crosses in love for God and for all people that God created.

As the Morning

2009-10-08T17:49:00.001-07:00

"Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward. Then thou shalt call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am." Isaiah 58:6-8

Sometimes we feel the absence of God, a sense of desolation. Where is God? Why is he not listening to us? All we see around us are signs of trouble, a physical and spiritual famine eating away at the world. Our despair and sinfulness blind us to His presence in the world. Isaiah makes a most provocative statement in the 58th chapter: by doing the things God does, we will know His presence. The passage above bears close similarities with the Messianic prophecy in chapter 61: "The Spirit of the LORD GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD" (Isaiah 61:1-2). This is the very passage Jesus claimed as his own, saying: "This day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4:21) after reading the very same scroll (Luke 4:18-20). James, the Lord's brother, reminds us of this duty, when he said: "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world" (James 1:27).

To know God is to know Jesus (John 14:1-11). And if we are to know Jesus, to be in Jesus and have his Spirit in us, we must do the works he does: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:12). What were Jesus works and what were they for? We know that He came to teach, to show the Way, to give us faith, forgiveness, and the hope of resurrection, to destroy the distance between God and us through his being as Immanuel, but we so often forget that Jesus came to heal, to free, to take care of, to show solidarity, to feed and to love the unloveable. Isn't His grace the fact that we are able to do his works? The works of Jesus are signs to the world of what is concretely meant by "faith, hope, and love" (1 Corinthians 13:13). Unless we clothe the naked and feed the hungry, unless we listen to the lonely and share with strangers, unless we lovingly meet the Other, how will the world know what faith is, what hope is, what love is? Jesus calls us to show the world who He is.

Isaiah says that the proper "fast" or religious observance that God will accept is to live the life of love, to look after the hungry and naked. When we do this, our light will break forth as the morning, and when we pray God will say: "Here I am". And the very glory of God will be our rearguard (rereward in the old King James English). Wouldn't it be lovely to live in the glory of the Lord, to live in Jesus by accepting his invitation to follow Him and do the works that He did? Wouldn't it be lovely to show the world that we need no longer suffer the absence of God, that we can know God here and now through our lives of loving each other and loving God? Let us pray together:

Our Father in Heaven,
May all nations come to know you and praise your holy name,
May your kingdom come into the hearts and lives of individuals and communities throughout this fractured globe,
May your will be done on this earth, as it is done in heaven, that we work the works of Your Son, that we live peacefully, cooperatively, lovingly, sharing and looking after each other, forgiving each other and striving to live by your gracious commandments which reveal You to us, that we no longer treat your earth as a garbage can or an unmarked grave for the dead we have tried to ignore or forget, that we no longer treat the world as the arena of our prideful competition or the stage of our lustful and suicidal dramas, but as the fields for sowing your Word and harvesting souls to eternal bliss,
May we receive our daily bread from You Lord, so that we can share it with others, and not just the physical bread that feeds our frail bodies, but also your spiritual bread, Jesus, who came down from heaven to give us light and life.
May we receive forgiveness of our sins, Lord, as we forgive others, may we never dare to stop forgiving others and trying our utmost to remember that all of us haven fallen short of Your glory so that the Son of God died for our sins that we might be united in Him into his Body,
May we be protected from every kind of evil--from the evil desires in our hearts that defraud and do violence to our neighbors, from the greed, oppression, rapaciousness, hypocrisy and lying of corporations, governments, and tyrannical individuals who follow the first tyrant, the Devil, from all those evils that thwart the glorious radiance of your Light and the spread of the Gospel,
For the glory and the kingdom and the power are Yours, Lord, always and forever,
And where you are, there is hope for us in this world and in the world hereafter.
Amen

The Very Form of the Cross

2009-09-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

"The very form of the cross, extending out into the four winds, always told the ancient Church that the Cross means solidarity: its outstretched arms would gladly embrace the universe" (Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Heart of the World 13)

Without a cross you cannot design a compass to orient yourself and direct your navigation. Without a cross, you could not build a structure of many stories. Building and navigating are pivotal to the mission of Jesus when we consider what He accomplished through his death and resurrection. There is nothing more global than the passion of Jesus our Lord. As Paul writes: "Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, growns into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:12-22).

What is wrong with the world? Paul speaks of two major problems. Man is estranged from man, and more importantly, man is estranged from God. Through Jesus Christ, man may now rejoice with man, and find love in God. Jesus Christ builds us into a temple, makes us into one united kingdom of holy citizens, triumphing over the death of this world, over the running down of the universe! Sometimes people ask me, "Are there extra-terrestrials? If there are, would Jesus have to die on every planet?" I have even heard a similar comment made in a recent film or television program, the exact name of which escapes me at the moment. I do not know if there are extra-terrestrials other than angels and demons, "cosmic powers" and "spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12), but I do know that if there are, they are subjected to Christ, and that Christ's one redeeming death conquered the entire universe. Christ embraces the universe, because it is to save the universe that He died and rose from death.

There is no other story known to man as powerful as the Good News. The Good News is a story about the Son of God, who lived a perfect life, helped people, and taught us the meaning of life and the truth about our being. Though he was murdered unjustly, he then conquered death through resurrection. Just as an electrical cord will only fit into its proper socket, so the Good News is the one story that fits our cosmic and personal problems. Jesus Christ is not an answer to life; Jesus Christ is life (John 14:6) and the only answer to life. He is embracing you whether you know it or not, and wants you to open the door and invite him into your life. Again, it may sound minimalistic, and it may sound childlike, but make no mistake: the New Testament teaches us that Jesus Christ is the answer to all global problems, all natural problems, all existential problems, all personal problems: "There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

Let us draw near to God through our Lord Jesus that we might be transformed, that our thoughts might take on the very form of the cross, that we too might reach out to embrace the world in love, faith and hope and thus be the true children of God.

Do Not Be Silent

2009-08-04T23:17:00.000-07:00

"O God, do not remain quiet; do not be silent and, O God, do not be still" (Psalm 83)

Many theologians, mystics and spiritual writers speak of silence as an essential part of spiritual formation. One of the prophets says: "But the LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him" (Habakkuk 2:20). There is a time to be silent and a time to speak (Ecclesiastes 3:7). Sometimes we need to just be still and know that our God is Lord (Psalm 46:10). In this vast silence, when we have hushed the clamoring of our cluttered brains, when we have drowned out the noise of chaotic modern living, or when we have taken time to be alone and remember who we are and what we were created for, we can begin to feel God's presence and appreciate his love. We are ready to pray. And yet, sometimes we pray and all we receive for an answer is silence.

There are times when God is silent, to teach us deep truths. God's name, for example, is never mentioned in the Book of Esther, and yet what a spiritual treasure that book is. God works through words of life (John 6:68) and through silence--sometimes lasting some 400 years, as during the inter-testamental period. Perhaps God speaks to us with silence when we have belabored Him with our vain words: "You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, 'How have we wearied Him?' In that you say, 'Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and He delights in them,' or 'Where is the God of justice?'" (Malachi 2:17); "Your words have been arrogant against Me,' says the LORD." (Malachi 3:13). Sometimes, after reading of the visions and experiences of the prophets and apostles, it is easy to feel that we have lived in a long period of silence--a period without miracles, visions, and direct communication with God that has lasted since about 100 AD. And yet, this is the era of the Scriptures, the era when God has spoken the most. Every day new Bibles roll of the press in newer translations, in newer languages. God is speaking--but have we entered into our own silence to listen to Him?

I wonder if we do. There are more scholarly journals, reference books, professional associations, debates, radio shows, televisions shows, documentaries, online resources, bookstores, libraries and conferences dedicated to Christianity than at any other point in our 2000 years of history. Trying to research a religious topic can be overwhelming from the sheer volume of materials available. Can we hear God speak through all this print? As Solomon once said, "The writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body" (Ecclesiastes 12:12). And John wrote, "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written" (John 21:25). This was no exaggeration. This was a well-thought out, calculated and prophetic statement. Of books, we have no shortage, but we hunger for God more than ever before. We can surgically analyze and comment on the texts of the Bible, but we cannot hear the Word speak. The cacophony of theological literature has brought us a different kind of silence from God.

I do not think God wishes to always be silent with us. The way he conversed with Adam (Genesis 2) and the way Jesus conversed with his followers amply shows the desire of God for conversation (Isaiah 1). This conversation happens not just through the reading of the Scripture, but also through humble prayer. And there are many ways to pray. Abraham respectfully argued with God (Genesis 18:22-33), Jacob wrestled with an angel (Genesis 32:24-32), Hannah cried and prayed silently (1 Samuel 1:12-18), Paul and Silas sang hymns in prison (Acts 16:22-40). And how did Jesus pray? With joy and confidence (John 17), with tears and sweat drops of blood (Luke 22:44), with an agonizing cry in the midst of crucifixion: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34). In various ways, people of faith have lifted up their voices to heaven for one thing, and one thing only: to hear and know the Word (John 1).

Our God speaks to us through Jesus, and it is through Jesus that God will not remain silent and will not be still, but will stretch forth His hand to touch your life and change you forever. Jesus will be there with you when you cry, because he cried. Jesus will be there when you bleed, because he bled and died for you. Jesus will laugh and rejoice when you are happy, because he knew that God works good for those that love Him. And Jesus will teach you how to pray and how to come to the Father.

Our world needs two things: Christianity that is actually interested in Christ and his teachings and a Christianity that respects the Word of God. Our world needs Jesus: "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world" (Hebrews 1:1-2).

The photograph above is by Kuwabara Shisei, and depicts someone suffering from Minamata disease. Sometimes when we have time to pray, we think we do not know what to pray for. If you ever have this experience, pray for any number of the people suffering in this world, such as the person in that photograph; you will never run out of things to say to God, and He is waiting for you to speak to Him so that He may in turn speak to you.

A Glass of Water

2009-07-19T09:55:00.001-07:00

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” (John 4:10)

The conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan Woman began with a simple request. Our Lord wanted to drink some water. If there had not been any cultural tensions between the Jews and Samaritans, she probably would have complied immediately, hospitality being an important part of the ancient way of life (Genesis 24:10-33). Even today, most citizens we meet are helpful with our simple requests, when we ask for directions, when we ask to borrow a telephone, or when we need a glass of water or some small favour from a neighbour or friend. We think nothing of asking, and hopefully we think little of granting these requests made of us. Common courtesy is expected in the Bible to such an extent that Jesus warns us not think of good deeds as being merely a matter of manners: “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:46-48). As Christians, we have learned that granting requests is an important part of our walk of faith. Or have we? We are good at granting human requests, it seems, but what about the requests of our Lord?

The disciples, who became the Lord’s apostles, were only too happy to do as their Master bid them, whether it was finding the donkey for the triumphal entry (Mark 11:2-6) or making preparations for the Last Supper (Mark 14:13-16). If they were willing to follow Him in such little things, how much more were they willing to obey when it came to deep spiritual matters (Luke 9:17)! And yet, today, there are many who find a commanding Jesus offensive to their taste, impossible to reconcile to their preconceived image of a suffering servant (Isaiah 53). This is nonsense! Jesus clearly suffered and came as a lowly servant for our sake—but that does not mean He invites us to be His master! On the contrary, He invites us to be servants, too, to follow His example. How can a servant learn to serve without following the commands of the Master? We are willing in our daily lives to comply with so many requests from the world, can we not also comply with the commands of our loving Saviour? Jesus makes this request to us every day: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). And His commandments are not burdensome (1 John 5:3). This is not law—this grace! It is through his commandments that we know Him more and experience His freedom more each day.

To understand the request Jesus makes to the Samaritan woman, we need to read the text more closely. Jesus says, “If you knew the gift of God...you would have asked him”. Our loving Jesus is the gift of God, and when we do not wish to respond to Him, whether it be in prayer, in service, or in keeping his commands, then we show that we do not know Him, or do not understand His gift. Since He is the gift, His requests and commands are also gifts by which we drink more deeply of the living water. He commands in order that we may have life and light. He requests in order that we may drink and be refreshed: “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).

Tomorrow's History

2009-05-31T23:16:00.001-07:00

"And if the Lord had not cut short the days, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days...Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away" (Mark 13:20-31)

General Motors, one of the greatest manufacturers of modern history, faces bankruptcy. This is a serious blow to the United States of America and Canada. Many will lose their jobs. Cities that depend on automobile plants and related industries will suffer. Our identity as North Americans will suffer, even if temporarily we spitefully think that it is about time one of the giants came tumbling down. Even the enemies of the West and its economic power will find themselves hurting if the recession continues to grow. Critics of industry should remember that it is easy to forget how in so many ways we depend on the giants. And an even more shocking thought--we often depend on our enemies. This is why Jesus taught us to pray for our enemies, and not revile them (Matthew 5:43-48). The anarchist naturalist Peter Kropotkin discovered that nature achieves far more through mutualism and interdependence than it does through adversarial competition. Times of sorrow remind us of how much we need other humans, even the ones we do not especially like.

The fall of an industrial giant seems tragic, and history often seems to wear the tragic mask. Empires rise and fall. Philosophical systems come and go. Jesus explained this to his disciples: "And Jesus said to him, 'Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.'" (Mark 13:2). This makes many people uneasy. Is our time up? Will we make it? What is going to happen? All of these questions contain a kind of absurdity: the attempt to know the history of tomorrow. For mankind, history is not about tomorrow, though. Only the Lord may speak of the future in the past tense, as we read so often in prophets, because His will is perfect and accomplished, and He presides over the world and the entire universe in His eternity without our mortal limitations. Our Lord, however, teaches us some important things about history, even tomorrow's history, that should give us hope as Christians.

First, the most important thing in history will always be the death and resurrection of Jesus. Not only is this true for Christians--it is true for the entire human race, whether or not men acknowledge him as Lord. As John Lukacs the renowned historian has written, "And now--especially, but perhaps not exclusively for Christians--I must argue for the recognition of our central situation not only in space but also in time. In sum, that the cmoing of Christ to this earth may have been? no, that it was, the central event of the universe; that the greatest, the most consequential event in the entire universe has occurred here, on this earth. The Son of God has not visited the earth during a tour of stars or planets, making a Command Performance for us, arriving from some other place and --perhaps--going off to some other place. And: only two thousand years ago!" (At the End of the Age. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. 223). Though Jesus' mortal life ended two thousand years ago, He continues to live and advocate for the human race, especially for Christians. And because He never changes, Jesus is relevant to every age. Every generation faces the same trials and sorrows, and is bothered by the same absurdities--especially, the dark questions of sin and death. And only Jesus can give life to those who are dead. Thus, Jesus is forever relevant, because He never changes, and He always offers life. Only if life is irrelevant can He be irrelevant. As Scripture says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). As history progresses, His Cross will continue to be the sign of hope and the sign of His Lordship.

Second, history--the past that we may know to an extent through investigation as well as the unwritten history of the future that we may not know--belongs to Jesus Christ. The Cross and Resurrection placed all things under His feet: "And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:8-11). The universe, and all of the time and history therein, belong to Jesus. Jesus is the meaning of history, "the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to the saints" (Colossians 2:26). We cannot understand our existence, our mystical yearnings, our clumsy attempts at religiosity, our philosophical, artistic and scientific endeavors, our wars and economic struggles, our plagues and our renaissances, without knowing who Jesus is and what He did. Without Him, history is just an absurd tragedy, and all things should be damnatio memoriae. Nevertheless, thanks be to God our Father who sent Jesus Christ to save the world and to invite us out of the death of history and into everlasting life! Only death and sin should suffer damnatio memoriae; our lives will be kept forever in His glory.

Our last thing to remember is that history, especially tomorrow's history that we face, is shaped by Christ for the sake of the Gospel. This is why Jesus said that the days of trials were shortened, "for the sake of the elect" (Mark 13:20). Jesus warned us not to speculate about apocalyptic things (Mark 13:5-8; 13:21-23), nor to live in fear. Our path is one of faith, hope and love (1 Corinthians 13). As Jesus told the disciples, God intervenes in historical events for the sake of the elect. Who are the elect? They are those who believe in Jesus the Son of God. It is the believers whom God chooses to be His own. Moreover, the words of Christ, the light that breathes forth from the Gospels, will endure and continue to illuminate generation after generation: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away" (Mark 13:31). Nothing can strip the Gospels of their power to convert, transform and enlighten people. Tomorrow's history is in the work of the Gospels. After Jesus came into history, history became a part of Jesus' work (John 3). It is no longer the story of mankind alone. It is the story of the Son of Man, bringing all things into reconciliation with God (2 Corinthians 5). And where is this history going? As Paul said, "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good" (Romans 8:28).

Our Savior Jesus is real. The photograph above is of the gate where Pilate said Ecce homo! Behold the man! when presenting the Son of Man to the angry crowds that called out for his crucifixion.

Come and See

2009-05-03T20:58:00.000-07:00

"The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples; and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, 'Behold, the Lamb of God!' The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, 'What do you seek?' And they said to him, 'Rabbi (which means Teacher), where are you staying?" He said to them, 'Come and see.' They came and saw where he was staying; and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour." (John 1:35-39)

Who is Jesus? This is the question that drove Andrew and the other disciple--perhaps John the evangelist and apostle--to follow Jesus and spend the day with him. They had heard John the Baptist speak of him; they had seen Jesus be baptized, but they wanted to know more. That they were curious seems clear from Jesus' own question: "What do you seek?" What are we seeking as human beings? There are many questions that we can ask about the world, in our walk of faith, in the numerous issues we can struggle with, but more often than not, we will feel disappointed when our questions bring no answers, or they bring answers whose impact on our life is so small as to be disappointing. On the other hand, the question Who is Jesus? when asked by an honest heart, brings about life-changing results. Something about Jesus captivated Andrew and the other disciple. Christ is contagious. Andrew went to tell his brother Peter (John 1:40-42). When Jesus called Philip with the simple words "Follow me", Philip went and found Nathanael to tell him about Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:43-45). When Nathanael asked if anything good could come out of Nazareth, Philip repeated the Master's own words: "Come and see" (John 1:46).

And that is all Jesus is asking of you. He is asking you to come spend time with him, to come and see for yourself who he is, what he offers, and how he changes your life. Many people have come to me at various times with deep and painful questions, questions far too big for my limited experience, miniscule wisdom, and weak heart. Most of the time, the only advice that I can give them is to "Come and see" Jesus Christ--to spend time with Jesus. Most often, this advice is discarded as being too simplistic. Some Christians are surprised when their faith suffers, even though they are not spending time with Christ in prayer, searching his character in Scripture, and seeing his presence in other Christians. Why should they be surprised? It is ridiculous to suppose that one can know anything about a subject without spending time with it. My poor skills in mathematics are the result of years of neglect--starting very early in school. The less time you dedicate to knowing someone or something, the poorer your results will be. Many relationships end because friends cease to communicate, spend time with each other, or continue to explore one another's characters and virtues. Without curiosity, without a desire to dedicate time, it is very difficult to find intimacy and communion with the Lord, and it is impossible to gain any kind of knowledge, wisdom or faith without the desire for the presence of Christ.

Andrew and the other disciple wanted to see where Jesus lived. Where does Jesus live? First of all, if you are a baptized believer, Jesus lives in your heart, and you can speak to him anytime you want through praying: "But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (Matthew 6:6). Jesus said that there is a reward for praying to the Father as individuals in secret. This is the personal aspect of our relationship with Jesus, the rewarding life of communing every day with a loving Lord who gave his life for us, and wants to be with us at all times: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me" (Revelation 3:20). When we pray to the Father, we are speaking to Jesus, because He is in the Father and the Father is in him (John 14:6-14). There is another aspect to our spirituality, and this is the corporate worship, or communal prayer, as we see in church. Jesus is present in our worship: "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20). More importantly, Jesus is present in the church, because the Holy Spirit is in each of us, and as we share in the Spirit, we are united into the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12). Moreover, by celebrating the Lord's Supper and proclaiming the death and resurrection of Jesus, we participate in Jesus' presence: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Corinthians 10:16). Though Jesus lives in heaven at the right hand of the Father (Acts 1:11, Acts 7:56), he also lives in those who have been saved, and in the communion of the saints. Come and see where Jesus lives, spend time with Jesus, and you will know more to the question Who is Jesus? More importantly, you will want to continue to know more and more. Through fellowship with Jesus and God the Father, we have fellowship with one another (1 John 1), and come to know that God is love (1 John 4:8). And what is more important, more beautiful and more sustaining than love?

Are you an unbeliever? Is your faith weak? Have you lost your faith? Remember that faith is not just belief. It is also curiosity and desire. It begins with something small, and grows into something wonderfully expansive: "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches" (Matthew 13:31-32). Come and see Jesus of Nazareth. Commune with Jesus both privately and publicly. Following him and sharing with him is like the planting of the mustard seed. For those of you who do not know him, you will discover a man without flaws, a man like none other. For those of you who once believed, remember how loving and kind Jesus is, remember his grace and his truth, and the words of life he shared with humanity. Moreover, remember that he came to this world and died for our sins, because of his great love for us (John 3).

The photograph above is of a carpenter's shop in Capernaum, the town where Jesus lived when his ministry began (Matthew 4:13).

The Man Who Thought

2009-04-02T08:10:00.000-07:00

One day a man stops to think about the various ideas that are floating around him. He hears that it is unreasonable to believe in God. There is no possible evidence for God. Most phenomena are explicable through scientific inquiry. In fact, the tendency to have religious belief is most likely a sensitivity in the temporal lobe, perhaps a genetic predisposition. Not to mention the fact that museums are overflowing with fossils that reinforce the doctrine of evolution. Moreover, any ethical teachings associated with a notion of God are quite contrary to contemporary ideas about what is wrong and right that he encounters in newspapers, television programs, internet media and in the lifestyles of most people around him. The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that the very existence of the idea of God is quite miraculous. How was God ever dreamed up in the first place? It’s true, the people at the dawn of time did not have modern science to provide these answers he so conveniently has. Perhaps our early ancestors can be forgiven for their superstition. When they saw lightning—they saw a godlike force. Here is the problem, though. If God had not existed in their minds prior to their fear of lightning, how did they come to personalize this utterly impersonal, inhuman force? Where did the idea come from? What is divinity, and how did it acquire such a tremendous lock on human consciousness? Was it loneliness that made the first men and women anthropomorphize their environments at the dawn of time? It is true that anthropologists probably have answers to these questions—but at best, they are only theories, since none of us were eye-witnesses to these prehistorical events and we have no reliable recorded data or experiments from this time period that can be verified or reproduced. All we have are interpretations. None of us truly understand all the workings of consciousness today; we cannot rationally presume to even begin to understand the consciousness of a hominid some millions of years ago. There is no way we will ever really know.

The man continues to think. He daydreams of the time before evolution began, when Earth was just matter, lifeless matter. In this lifeless matter, random events occurred without any preordained plan. Through a series of chemical accidents too complex and too numerous to define in a short space, a plan was being formed. The code for all life—not just human life—was being written on the surface of the planet. Over a course of millions of years this took effect. And yet, logic tells him that there was a decisive moment, a moment every scientist would give anything to see, especially Theodor Schwann, who stated that “All living things are composed of cells and cell products.” Or Louis Pasteur, that scientific giant, who said: “Spontaneous generation is a dream.” Here, they would confront their own axioms being disproved. Truly an exciting time in the history of the universe! The moment between lifelessness and life. The moment between chaos and a code that would eventually lead to the production of rationality. The moment between irrationality and rationality might thus romantically be linked to this moment between non-life and life, even if the two moments did not coincide chronologically. It is a thought-provoking threshold between worlds. One second changed everything. Another truly miraculous thing, as miraculous as that sudden appearance of God in the consciousness of the early human beings.

The man thinks about the lifeless planet of primordial time, of all planets, stars, the sun and the moon, the countless galaxies, star clusters, nebulae, black holes, comets and meteors, the whole myriad of phenomena that he can only dream about, being earth-bound and only able to see what he sees in the night sky. What a vast universe filled with darkness, light, motion, beauty, boundlessness. In comparison to this seemingly infinite space of planets and stars and dark emptiness, he is less than a piece of straw or gravel. He is atomized. He must conclude that he is a lucky cosmic by-product, a fleck of stardust from the almost endless galaxies that began billions of years ago, most likely as a result of the Big Bang or some comparable cosmological event. It is likely that prior to this, there was no matter, no time, no energy. At best there was nothing. There was not even chance. Not even randomness. There were no numbers, no formulae, no plans. There was nothing observable or measurable. In short, there was nothing that the rules of logic or the scientific method could grasp, being utterly useless in a zone when (or where? did such words mean anything?) their apparatus could not exist.

It is at this point that the man begins to feel the vertigo of existence. Looking back as far as he can, he has imagined a place that is not a place, a time that is not a time, a possibility that is not a possibility. He has come to nothingness. This nothingness, he realizes, has produced all that thrives, pulses, shines, lives, laughs, thinks, burns, and deteriorates today. This lack of rationality, possibility, of intelligence or chance, of life and death, of patterns, forms, shapes, sounds, colors, light, dark, high, low, great and small—this nothingness is responsible for existence.

Something in him breaks down. Perhaps it is the abuse his logic has suffered. Perhaps it is the deception of emotion. Quoting King Lear, he says to himself: “Nothing can be made out of nothing.” And here is a quandary and a conundrum. Is it irrational to waste another thought on this? Or is it irrational to persist in believing that his intelligence, which he now uses to struggle towards understanding, is really built on and out of nothing? Which is it? A moment passes, and he recalls that Buddha once taught in India long ago that all existence is an illusion. This is only a temporary solution, though, tempting as it is. Because right now, the universe is really starting to look like one. An illusion, though, like a symbol, needs a referent or origin. Basically, the man is stuck with the irritating fact that nothing has produced everything, but without reason. In other words, for no apparent reason, nothing made everything in which reason exists.

Have I gone mad? the man asks himself. Or is it mad to worry about this? Rational people don’t try to solve these insoluble problems, but our man feels drawn into the depths of this intellectual whirlpool. It is enough to make one frantic, but he is not frantic, because he believes reason will get him through this one way or another. Perhaps this is one of his character flaws—he does have faith in something; he has faith in his reason. Nevertheless, this reason he trusts so much in has produced something of a nightmare. It is true that he can dismiss it all as a trick of his brain, his faulty logic, his sensitivity, his emotions, the Zeitgeist, cultural indoctrination, or the incomplete nature of human learning and discovery, but at the heart of it all, he returns again and again to the same devastating question: Why did nothing, for no apparent reason, make everything, including reason? The man thought some more, and recalled the first five verses from the Gospel of John, which say: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The man remembers that “Word” in the Greek New Testament can also be translated as “reason”. In short, in the beginning, there was a reason for existence, and this reason was God, and this reason was life, this reason was the reason for the man’s reasoning today.

The man thought some more. In his historical time period, which is to say ours, it is considered irrational to believe that in the beginning there was a reason for all existence, and that this reason is God. Instead, it is more rational to accept that in the beginning, there was no reason. All life came from non-life, all reason came from non-reason, all matter came from nothing. The man has changed his mind about many things. Though he risks being told that he is deluded, intellectually limited, possesses junk genes, or is too much of an idiot to find the right answer, he has followed the advice of King Lear and believes what the apostle John wrote. This has not stopped him from continuing to think deeply about things. On the contrary, he is thinking more than ever before, but as an individual with a unique mission in this strange, strange universe.

Of Arms And The Man

2009-03-02T10:18:00.000-08:00

"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18)

Arma virumque cano--"Of arms and the man I sing"--thus begins Virgil's classic Latin epic, The Aeneid. Some have said that by "arms" Virgil pays homage to the Iliad and by "man" he refers to the Odyssey. Naturally, we could also take it to mean the two halves of the long poem. The first six books seem to deal with the interior life of Aeneas the "man"--whereas the last six books deal with the wars that would settle the surviving Trojans in Italy to found the race of the Romans--thus the "arms". Throughout the epic, we come to know Aeneas the man, with all of his faults, and Aeneas the armed hero, who prevails and fulfills what Jove has planned for him.

The first line of the epic is therefore a convenient way of summarizing the whole epic. How would we summarize the Gospel? In this age of disputes, numerous factions, denominations, ideologies, and changing values, how would you summarize your faith? What is the heart of your spirituality?

Paul the apostle summarized Christianity quite beautifully when writing to a new congregation he had himself planted: "And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2). It is as if Paul were saying: "Of the cross and the Son of Man I sing". The heart of all of our faith, all of our teaching, all of our practice, all of our worship, all of our tradition, and all of our evangelism must be the Cross and the One and Only who died on it to be resurrected on the third day. This is the true power of our spirituality. The moment we look away from the Cross, none of the New Testament teachings make any sense. The instant we forget who Jesus is, we lose our faith and our wisdom. Moreover, we forget what love is. Rene Girard once remarked that what was missing from Christianity today was the Imitatio Christi--the Imitation of Christ. Having forgotten who our model is, we turn to worthless models for our behavior and our ideas, or we merely stumble through the darkness. What is more, we forget that the Good News is precisely that--good news, the goodness being the personality, the very life, the words of life, and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: "He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:18-20); "And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross" (Colossians 2:13-15).

Our epic is the Gospel. Our hero is Christ who died for our sins to give us eternal life through his resurrection. Our "arms" are the words of life; our "man" is Jesus, who wore a crown of thorns and preached words of reconciliation, hope, and love. Our heart is his glorified life.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T11:26:00.000-08:00

"Beloved let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so love us, we also ought to love one another. No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us." (1 John 4:7-12)

In the late 3rd Century, a priest or bishop of Rome named Valentine was martyred by the authorities of the Roman Empire. Next to nothing is known about him. Many legends sprang up about him. It was said that he tried to convert the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Claudius, also known as Claudius Gothicus or Claudius II, who responded by having him executed. In the early middle ages, Valentine became associated with love. While we know very little about the historical Valentine, we know that martyrs for the early church followed one of Jesus' most noble teachings: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). One unique and deeply mysterious aspect of Christianity is its teaching on love. While many religions teach love, there is no religion which is founded solely on love like Christianity. When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus said: "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these" (Mark 12:29-30). Our Scriptures begin with the love story of God for Adam and Eve, and end in the Revelation of God's love for the resurrected Christians. Our Scriptures include the great romances between Abraham and Sarah, Rebekah and Isaac, Ruth and Boaz, David and Abigail, the bride and the groom in the Song of Solomon, and are crowned with the wonderful love of Jesus for his followers, the poor, the afflicted, the sinners, the lost, and even his enemies and executioners. In the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles, we read of the early Christians' love for each other, of Paul's love for the churches he planted, of the Holy Spirit's work of love through the hearts of men and women called to the Good News. To know love one must know the God of Scripture, for nowhere else is true love shown in all its many manifestations. Jesus taught us to love the way God loves all things, and it is through love that we come into salvation and eternal felicity.

To learn more about God's love, you may want to read Ruth, The Song of Solomon, The Gospel of John and 1 John in the Bible. You may also want to read On Loving God by Bernard of Clairvaux.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends; as for prophecy, it will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13)

Sentences

2009-02-01T19:21:00.000-08:00

"See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men. Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the Spirit. Despise not the prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil. And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thessalonians 5:15-23)

Throughout the Middle Ages one of the most important theological texts studied in every university was the Sentences of Peter Lombard. While not exactly a commentary, the four books that made up this magnum opus consisted of opinions, judgments and comments by various scholars on passages of Scripture or ideas of church doctrine. At the end of Thessalonians, Paul gives us a different kind of sentence in the list of short, powerful exhortations with which he closes the epistle. Each of these sentences deserves as much close study and thought as Lombard gives to medieval doctrine, though perhaps not as much ink. Each sentence gives us a practical direction in which to strike out in our walk of faith, as we seek a closer union with God our Father through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Rejoice evermore (v.16): Evermore means from now on into eternity. The darkness of sin and death are behind us as Christians. Only joy remains, if our faith is right, and we walk with our eyes on the cross of Christ. Rejoice in the first breath you draw when you get out bed. Rejoice in the sorrows you suffer for Jesus during the day. Rejoice in the faces of your family and friends. Rejoice in the coffee you drink, the trees and flowers you pass by on the street, rejoice in the architecture of your workplace, rejoice in the grace God is giving you moment by moment. Just rejoice for the joy of rejoicing.

Pray without ceasing (v.17): A whole book--The Pilgrim's Tale--has been devoted to this one line. What does it mean to pray without ceasing? Some, like the pilgrim of the eponymous book, believe it means reciting the Jesus Prayer constantly: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner". That is indeed a beautiful prayer that echoes Scripture (Luke 17:13, Luke 18:38), and a useful one as an introduction to deeper prayer and meditation. More likely, Paul just meant that we should stay in constant dialogue with God, and any prayer with any kind of words would suffice. Prayer is the most beautiful thing we give God, for we open up our hearts to him, and acknowledge Him as Abba, our heavenly Father, the One who drew us into his kingdom and sacred family, the fellowship of saints buried in Jesus Christ.

In everything give thanks (v. 18): It stands to reason that the more thankful we are, the less discontent we will feel. The more thankful we are, the more we will praise God, as we were designed to do, and the more we will grow as Christians. Flowers draw on the sunlight and air to produce their own food, and then radiate their glory in their colorful petals. Likewise Christians rely on Christ and His words to sustain themselves, and the result is the immaculate lives we lead as a testimony to the world.

Quench not the Spirit (v. 19): Our baptism grants to us that the Holy Spirit, the most sacred entity in the universe, dwells in our hearts. This is a great mystery and a great miracle that God performs. You do not have to perform signs, speak in tongues, or have any special power to possess the Holy Spirit. History shows that those gifts passed away before the time of Irenaeus. The Holy Spirit is the free gift of God when you believe that Jesus Christ is your Risen Savior, and it does much more than the gifts--though the gifts were certainly wonderful in their time and places. Let us not look to the Holy Spirit as a source for magic or spectacle, as Simon mistakenly did (Acts 8:13-24). We often focus on Simon's sin as one involving money--hence the word simony. The story goes beyond verse 20, though. Simon still thought that the work of the Holy Spirit was like sorcery or illusionism--material manifestations. The work of the Holy Spirit may involve the material world, and in the past it has had tangible manifestations, but there is much more to the Spirit than that! Let us not make an idol of the Spirit, thereby depriving It of Its due reverence. The Holy Spirit interprets our prayres for us and seals us for resurrection to eternal felicity. Because God's Spirit lives in our hearts, we experience spiritual transformation, being formed more and more into the likeness of Christ. The more we pray and rejoice in God, the more the Spirit will work in shaping us. Let us not do the things that the Spirit hates, indulding in worldly pursuits or vain pleasures. These do not keep us on the path of righteousness, but lead us astray and grieve the Holy Spirit.

Despise not the prophesyings (v. 20): I have often heard people say that they want more spirituality, more spiritual instruction, or a closer relationship with God--that they do not want just another Bible study. While it is true that many Bible studies can ossify into academic, legalistic, or simply dry and unethusiastic readings that seem to lead nowhere, the fact is that without the Word you cannot become more spiritual. To think that you can be spiritual without listening to preaching, to religious conversation, or to the very words of Scripture is madness. When the Word is approached with love, humility, faith, joy and thanksgiving, and accompanied by unceasing prayer, then you will be overwhelmed at the effects. The Word is very powerful, and not to be despied but cherished and loved.

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good (v.21): This is probably often misunderstood to mean that we are to constantly test eachother's faith, or legalistically demand evidence for every opinion, thought, or action from our fellow Christians. That is not the case at all! Paul is speaking to very new Christians who had just recently "turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God" (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Paul wanted them to develop some critical thinking skills, guided by their faith and their possession of the Spirit. They suddenly had to learn how to live as Christians in the pagan world they had hitherto taken for granted as normal, but which was alien to righteous or holy living. In short, it was full of darkness. These Thessalonians did not have the advantage of growing up in churches or near believers. There were many things they did not know yet. There were many things Peter did not know yet--years into his apostolic ministry, even though he grew up with the word of God (Acts 10). How much more, then, did these new Christians have to learn! Thus, this sentence seems to me to be a methodology by which Christians can navigate the complex territory of a secular world, forming opinions on what is right or wrong by comparing them with what is known from Scripture. What God requires is that in our daily lives we ourselves test and prove what things in the world meet the Scriptural criteria for goodness, acting according to our consciences and the direction of the Holy Spirit (Romans 14). While obvious matters can be clearly seen and agreed upon by members of a community or a church, there are many things that may not be so clear. You cannot live your Christian life relying on what family values organizations or Christian political lobbies say. You read the Scriptures, think critically, and search your heart. Stop replacing the Holy Spirit with the latest announcement on a Christian television program, and live as one who has been charged to think critically yourself! It is your faith, your walk with Jesus, and you cannot truly be one (Ephesians 4:4-7) with other believers, if you have not comprehended your own individual spirituality, responsibility and personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Christ did not call us to be mass-produced, nondescript, identically similar robots singing a pre-programmed hallelujah. That is what Satan wants. Mindlessness leads to carnal living, no matter how many authoritative and seemingly holy names we give it. The Lord calls us to be true individuals harmonized by the Holy Spirit and transformed into the likeness of Christ.

Abstain from all appearance of evil (v. 22): Our reputations as Christians is of paramount importance. We claim to have the only truth and righteousness in the world (John 14:6), Jesus. If our lives do not conform to Jesus' teaching and way of living, then we are liars and the truth is not in us (1 John 1, 1 John 2), and we are truly a laughing stock for the world to point at and ridicule. Moreover, our actions teach as much if not more than our words. The Proverbs say: "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend" (Proverbs 27:17). The way we live and act influences those around us, whether we are aware of it or not. The more we curse, the more likely those around us will curse. The more we bless and give thanks and praise, the more likely others around us will give thanks and praise. The more we express our gratitude and love for our own spouses and children, rather than constantly mentioning or praising others' spouses or children, the more our neighbors will see the sanctity of marriage and the family. Instead of complaining about how secular, pagan, hedonistic, dark, or plain screwed up this world is, let us give thanks that God has given us the power to overcome all of it. When people start seeing that we truly have hope, purity, and righteousness through Jesus Christ in our actions and speech, maybe they will want to know this Jesus better.

The Scripture is full of practical advice on becoming more Spiritual for those who are willing to love and cherish the words of Christ and the prophets who came before Him. All Scripture is inspired, and comes from God, and the Bible abounds in sentences just like these that can help you start your day or week on the right footing, marching with confidence in "your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thessalonians 1:3).

May the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

The Flowers of the Field

2009-01-06T19:46:00.000-08:00

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious" (Matthew 6:28-31)

In times of sorrow or distress, we often read from the Sermon on the Mount, and try to console and remind ourselves that we are to be otherworldly, laying up our treasures in heaven and not on earth (Matthew 6:19-20). It is striking how Jesus draws our attention to the effortlessness of God's creation, how perfectly he forms flowers, archetypes of transience, which quickly dissolve back into the elements. Since he has such power and artistry for temporary things, how much more should we trust his power to shape us eternally and prepare us for unending bliss in His perfection.

Flowers are humble things to most people--but Jesus says that Solomon's wardrobe could not compete. Just how great was Solomon's glory? In terms of territorial conquests, not great--just a thin slice of the eastern Mediterranean. In terms of wealth, however, he had no rival. To pay for the building of his palaces and the temple, Solomon paid Hiram in twenty cities, although Hiram did not like the cities. Twenty cities! ( 1 Kings 9:10-11). Every year, Solomon received 666 talents of gold besides what came from "explorers and from the business of the merchants, and from all the kings of the west and from the governors of the land" (1 Kings 10:15). At current gold prices, this would be close to $630,812,456.10 USD. The richest man in the world today only makes a salary of $100,000. And this was only part of Solomon's yearly income. Solomon also had 12,000 horsemen. The current cost of keeping a horse ranges from $2000 to $10,000 a year, depending on circumstances. Since Solomon was probably not cheap with his horses, let us take the higher figure, and say that he spent 120 million dollars a year just on his horses. Solomon also had 1400 chariots, for which he paid 600 shekels of silver a piece. At the current price of silver, the chariots cost him $3,406,695.60. It is no wonder, then, that when the Queen of Sheba visited Solomon, she said: "The report was true that I heard in my own land of your words and of your wisdom, but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report that I heard." (1 Kings 10:6-7). And then she gave him $113,659,902 worth of gold, not to mention costly gems and spices. Astronomical figures in terms of worldly wealth, but nothing in comparison to God's grace and the riches that he gives to us.

Jesus said that a simple flower was much more beautiful than anything Solomon had, and that we Christians are infinitely more valuable to God than can be figured in sums, dollars, weights and measures. The year of our Lord 2009 begins with the black cloud of financial disaster looming over the Earth, but Jesus says that we should not worry: "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:20-21); "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself" (Matthew 6:33-34). Do not worry what awaits you this year, for you have a year of incalculable riches to win from the benevolent and glorious Father in Heaven, whose Son Jesus died for your sins, and wishes to give you a home in his eternal city.

The Star and the Gifts

2008-12-21T19:53:00.001-08:00

"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying "Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, "In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel." Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, "Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also." When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh." (Matthew 2:1-11)

The story of the wise men is fascinating, because it is the story of a mysterious caravan, not a trading caravan, not a caravan of spies or diplomats, but a caravan of astronomers in search of God. They crossed mountains and deserts; they probably spent months on the road, making a pilgrimage to meet the Savior of the human race face to face. They rejoiced when they met him, even though he was still a baby. They gave him the best they could offer--gold, frankincense and myrrh--the costliest things of the ancient world. The search for God ends in just this way. Through all the obstacles to faith, we travel and seek out the Way, Truth and Life of Jesus Christ (John 14:6), and find salvation and the promise of someday seeing God face to face. In the joy of possessing eternal salvation, we strive to give the best that we have. And what is the costliest thing we have? The thing that God wants more than any other gift? Our souls, our very lives, to love and be loved in eternal union with Him. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ Our Lord that we can make the same journey as the wise men, guided by the bright Morning Star of Christ, to find a home within the sacred family of His church, and to meet salvation face to face (1 Corinthians 13). May we all open up our treasures this season and give all that we have.

City Church of Christ wishes you a Merry Christmas, Peace on earth and good will toward all. Amen.

Freedom and Justice

2008-12-04T10:50:00.000-08:00

In a season of elections and controversies in North America, it is good to sit down and think quietly and seriously about what our freedom and justice truly mean. Have our concepts of freedom and justice come from God? Or have they come from man? Which is the more enduring freedom, which the more equitable and perpetual justice? Have we given power to godly men and women, or to the godless? Are we intent on seeing a republic of virtue and truth in our midst, or do we merely want what the unstable populace imagines it wants at the moment? During the turbulence of the English Reformation, the poet and scholar John Milton penned these following words:

"For it is of no little consequence, O citizens, by what principles you are governed, either in acquiring liberty or in retaining it when acquired. And unless that liberty which is of such a kind as arms can niether procure nor take away, which alone is the fruit of piety, of justice, of temperance, and unadulterated virtue, shall have taken deep root in your minds and hearts, there will not long be wanting one who will snatch from you by treachery what you have acquired by arms...Your peace will be only a more distressing war, and that which you imagined liberty will prove the worst of slavery. Unless by the means of piety, not frothy and loquacious, but operative, unadulterated, and sincere, you clear the horizon of the mind from those mists of superstition which arise from the ignorance of true religion, you will always have those who will bend your necks to the yoke as if you were brutes..." (Second Defense of the English People)

The Good Book has this to say about justice and governance:

"A false balance is an abomination to the Lord,

but a just weight is his delight.

When pride comes, then comes disgrace;

but with the humble is wisdom.

The integrity of the upright guides them,

but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them.

Riches do not profit in the day of wrath,

but righteousness delivers from death.

The righteousness of the blameless keeps his way straight,

but the wicked falls by his own wickedness.

The righteousness of the upright delivers them,

but the treacherous are taken captive by their lust.

When the wicked dies, his hope perishes,

and the expectation of the godless comes to nought.

The righteous is delivered from trouble,

and the wicked gets into it instead.

With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor,

but by knowledge the righteous are delivered.

When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices;

and when the wicked perish there are shouts of gladness.

By the blessing of the upright a city is exalted,

but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked...

The desire of the righteous ends only in good;

the expectation of the wicked in wrath.

One man gives freely, yet grows all the richer;

another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want.

A liberal man will be enriched,

and one who waters will himself be watered.

The people curse him who holds back grain,

but a blessing is on the head of him who sells it.

He who diligently seeks good seeks favor,

but evil comes to him who searches for it.

He who trusts in his riches will wither,

but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.

He who troubles his household will inherit wind,

and the fool will be servant to the wise.

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,

but lawlessness takes away lives.

If the righteous is requited on earth,

how much more the wicked and the sinner!"

(Proverbs 11:1~31)

Five Loaves And Two Fish

2008-11-01T16:17:00.001-07:00

"When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. 'This is a remote place,' they said, 'and it's already very late. Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.' But he answered, 'You give them something to eat.'" (Mark 6:34-37)

It is common for believers to say, "Christ does it all" or "There's nothing we can do--God does it all for us." In one sense, this is quite true. Without God, we are nothing, and without Christ's direction, nothing will come of our endeavors. In many other senses, this is completely false. Christ is constantly encouraging, commanding, and showing his disciples and followers how to do good deeds. This shows an expectation that we will learn to imitate Christ and do the things He has taught us to do. One of the most interesting things about the miracle of the loaves and the fish is that Christ teaches us to think about our spiritual work in a radically different way. The disciples only see minuses. They see what they do not have. Christ wants them to see what they already have, and then He miraculously builds upon that. It often happens in churches that believers will look to their preachers, elders and deacons and expect them to do everything. They must preach, teach, plant, water, sow, build, reach out, heal, help, forgive. Somehow rebuke, correct, request or direct often fail to fall into this category, our human nature being what it is. Perhaps the last thing we expect our teachers to say is: "Have some faith. You work out this problem. You find a solution. Get to work!" And yet, that is precisely what Jesus is saying to the disciples. It's not that Jesus is unwilling to do anything or that he cannot do anything--but if we are to be like him, then we have to be willing to reach out to the lost and the hungry, even when we do not have enough to help them, whether enough means money, programs, organization, skill, or resources. Jesus was among the poor--of course he didn't expect them to have enough! What he expected was that his followers would do more than just point out what was wrong. Unless we are willing to go find answers, it is poor manners to point out problems.

Jesus wants us to care, and he wants us to hope. It would have been easy to send the people away. Or, it would have been easier if Jesus had a financial advisor or some rich friends with caterers to accompany him on every trip into the countryside. Logically, it was the correct thing to do. Five loaves and two fish do not feed 5000 people. Then again, maybe God has had enough of our logic, and is waiting for our spiritual renewal, and maybe that begins with a faith that gets to work and finds a starting point. When the disciples actually find the five loaves and two fish, then Jesus is ready to show them something miraculous, something nobody expected--that five loaves and two fish can feed 5000, with 12 basketfuls left over.

Recent events in the world economy and in our churches can challenge us in two ways. We can continue to worry about our wages and how things will work out, or we can bring our five loaves and two fish to Jesus and ask him to provide. If we are not willing to carry baskets, though, we might not see the miracles we long to see. Miracles are not for the slothful, the apathetic, or the absent. We need to be close to Christ, and close to his concerns--those spiritually starved people we pass by on the street and in the mall every day.

May God bless you as you bring your five loaves and two fish to Him.

Prospects

2008-10-17T19:21:00.001-07:00

"The fear of the Lord adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short. The prospect of the righteous is joy, but the hopes of the wicked come to nothing. The way of the Lord is a refuge for the righteous, but it is the ruin of those who do evil." (Proverbs 10:27-30)

Lately, the newspapers and news programs have been filled with dire reports on the world market, and it seems that we are entering a time of recession, perhaps even depression. It is hard to know how long it will last, and to what extent it will cause us difficulties. I certainly have been worried, having received some scary news lately, which is not directly connected to the world situation, but sure helps me sympathize with those who are facing rough times. What can I do? I can only pray. I cannot do anything about the world markets. An economist or politician cannot do anything about it, either.

What I can do is continue to fear the Lord. The Proverbs promise me that this will add length to my life. It warns that the days of the wicked are cut short. I want to follow what the Lord asks of me, so that I need not worry about my days being cut short. The Proverb goes on to say that the plans of the wicked come to nothing! The wicked seem to be running the world, exploiting people with their greed and malice, but do not worry! God says the wicked will profit nothing from it--their plans will come to nothing. The prospect of the righteous is joy! A prospect is a fine view. Our view along the road of life is going to be joyful, even when stocks are down and banks are disappearing. Moreover, even though it might seem like we are at risk, God says that he has a sanctuary for us: "The way of the Lord is a refuge for the righteous".

The Proverbs are filled with good sayings for times like this (I have been reading chapters 10 and 11 this evening), sayings that remind us how strong we really are, because we do not rely on our own strength, but on the strength of the Lord. It is my prayer that all of my brothers and sisters in Christ will do well in these times, and suffer no severe want. It is my prayer that for the sake of the Gospel God will cut short these times of need. At the same time I pray that this downward turn in our economies will force all of us to become wiser, to be more thankful, and to turn our hearts fully to God, who waits eagerly for us to do so, so that he may shower us with his richest blessings, riches far greater in amount than the national debt or all the money in the World Bank. Who you vote for may not save us from hard times, but Who you pray to will.

To believers and unbelievers alike, I wish you well, and will be praying for you. Stay strong and hang in there! God loves you.

One Path

2008-09-18T18:45:00.001-07:00

Christianity does not have 613 laws, as in the Jewish tradition. It does not have five pillars, as in Islam. Nor does it have an eightfold path, as in Buddhism. This does not mean that Christianity does not have commandments or a path to follow. Christianity has one path, and that one path is Christ and his commandments (John 14:6). This might seem too vague to apply to everyday life or to the day to day affairs and business of the Church. Its meaning might seem symbolic rather than literal. This is not the case. As Jesus told his disciples on the night before he was crucified: "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him" (John 14:21); "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching" (John 14:23-24); "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love" (John 15:10). Clearly, in his final instructions, obedience to His words was paramount.

If Christians cannot follow or obey Christ, they cannot do anything: "If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). When Christ prayed for his disciples, or followers, he referred to them as those who had obeyed the message: "I have revealed you to those whom you have me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word" (John 17:6). Obedience comes first--if we are not willing to obey, we have no faith, and cannot perform any of the tasks that Christ would entrust to us. But how does this apply to us in everyday life?

1) Scripture: It is important to read scripture. We read it for pleasure, we read it for advice, we read it for spiritual knowledge. We should not forget that we read it for instruction. These are God's words, not our own, not ours to argue about. There are two things that are imperative when reading Scripture: First, we must be sure to not interpret them according to our personal desires or agendas (2 Peter 1:20-21). Second, we must be doers of the Word, not hearers only (James 1:22-26).

2) Believing: This might seem odd to mention. A Christian should already be a believer. However, it is quite common in today's society for Christians to stray and to cease believing in certain basic tenets of the Christian faith. The easiest method is for Christians to cherry-pick what they are comfortable believing and what they are uncomforable believing. When in history has the word obey had anything to do with an idea of comfort? It is important for us to remain true to the beliefs that God asks us to believe: the creation, the universal flood during the time of Noah, the virgin birth of Christ, the miracles of the prophets and of Jesus, the death and resurrection and ascension of Christ, the sacred nature and authority of the Scriptures, the Trinity, the strict moral teachings of the Bible, the Biblical definitions of what it means to be a human, a man, or woman, the Biblical teachings on baptism, church doctrine, management and government, and the work and indwelling of the Holy Spirit--to name some. When you start compromising with worldly opinions on the Bible, you have crossed the line, leaving the Christian camp for the darkness of the world. If you want to stay in the Kingdom, you must not be led away by strange and diverse teachings (Hebrews 13:9).

3) Fellowship: Being with other Christians and worshipping God is essential for the Christian life. As the good book says, iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17). If you do not feel that you have time to schedule God into your life, then you are not ready to obey Jesus Christ. Too often, Sunday services are treated as non-essential activities that are occasionally encouraging, but play a minimal role in our walk of faith or salvation. Nothing should come before Sunday worship--not work, not recreation, not family occasions. We have become far too lax in our treatment of Sunday meetings, when this should be the high point of the week, when we gather around Christ to remember his death and resurrection through the Lord's Supper. Moreover, fellowship with other believers is a defining characteristic of the Christian. When the beloved doctor Luke reported on the lifestyle of the 1st Century Christians, he wrote: "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved" (Acts 2:42-47).

4) Prayer: James says that we should not plan anything as if we were working independently of God (James 4:13-17). We are not the true managers of the church; we are labourers. The Holy Spirit is the guide, the One who directs us (Acts 8:29-40, Acts 11:12, Acts 13:2-3), and we are led by the Spirit when we pray and seek God's counsel (Acts 1:14, Acts 6:4, Acts 14:23, Romans 12:12, 2 Corinthians 1:11, Ephesians 6:18, James 5:13-20, Philippians 1:9, Colossians 4:2, 1 Peter 3:12, Revelation 1:10).

5) Love: Love is naturally the most important aspect of the Christian walk, because God is love (1 John 4:8). How do we show love? We are obligated to love God and to love our fellow man, especially those in the Kingdom. We show this love by being kind to sinners, while refusing to tolerate their sin. We show this by doing this accoring to the Bible, and not according to man-made rules or traditions or marketing trends. We cannot love our fellow man if we are thinking of him as a statistic, a client, or an entity in a contract. We cannot love God and man without returning to the very basic meaning of love: to love means to value, to spend time with, to be involved with, to care for, to be at peace with, to serve--all of the things Jesus mentions in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, 7).

6) Faith: Let's stop worrying! God called Abram out of his own city of Ur, and sent him on a long journey--all to accomplish things that would take years with very little tangible encouragement along the way. And Abraham did it and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Some researchers believe the church is on its last gasp--other researches are alarmed that it is growing too rapidly and will soon swallow up the secular world. Who knows? What is important for us is to believe in God and in what he has entrusted to us. As Jesus said: "Do not fear; only believe" (Mark 5:36). Some Christians fear for their jobs, their families, their dreams. If we are in Christ, then fear is banished, and we rejoice (Philippians 4:4), because we have overcome and are overcoming every day in our Lord. There will be tragedies, sorrows, and problems--but nothing that we cannot handle when the Lord Almighty is by our side leading us with His Holy Spirit.

These are six basic things that you can do to stay true to the one path that is following Christ. When we start putting these six things ahead of ourselves, we will see our churches grow. Before you do anything this week, ask yourself: Would Jesus do it this way? Have I asked that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven? What would Jesus do? It might sound cliche--but it's Christ's command.

Christ is our way, truth and life. In obeying him, we find the right way to go about our daily work and our church work. In obeying him, we find the truth about what is right and what is wrong, what is joyful and hopeful and what is not spiritual or sound. And in following him, we sustain our lives and spread life. If we are not spreading life, we are spreading death like a cancer through everyone we meet. We ought to love Christ enough to submit to his will, to his teaching, and to the freedom he so graciously gives us by his sacrifice on the Cross.

Greatness

2008-08-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

"You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world." (1 John 4:4)

Most people do not believe in God today, because they do not believe in or understand greatness. Greatness has many meanings, but first and foremost, it refers to magnitude. To imagine something larger than the entire universe seems to stretch the mind to its very limits and beyond. There are other kinds of greatness. There is nobility, purity, power, intelligence, love--all of these have a share in greatness, and help to define it. And yet, since most of what we see in the world is dark or evil, it seems at first glance unreasonable to believe that there is truly someone so great as to have the intelligence to plan everything, the power to create everything, the nobility to allow everything to be independent of it and yet not abandoned, the purity to remain perfect despite the imperfections of what has been created, and the love to redeem everything created through self-sacrifice. And yet this is the kind of greatness that is God.

There is another kind of greatness. This refers to the best quality of the human character. It calls to mind fictional characters like Jean Valjean of Les Miserables and Gilliat of Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo orPrince Myshkin in The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky. These characters have a great capacity for love and for seeing the world from a completely higher and transcendent plane without using that understanding to wield power over others or chain them in darkness, but rather to help people and bring them into light. In history, we might recall men and women who epitomize the best of human nature--people like Raoul Wallenberg, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mother Theresa, and Thomas Merton, to name a few. It has become unfashionable to think of "great" men and women, because the aspiration for greatness is sadly lacking today. As soon as one commentator hailed Michael Phelps as the greatest Olympic athlete of all time, there were editorials in the newspapers criticizing and trying to deny his tremendous accomplishments. Why? Humanity has reached a critical, perhaps fatal, stage in its development where it has come to loathe greatness as much as it has loathed light. All that remains for it is a great darkness. Instead, we glorify smallness, the natural, the easy, the comfortable. All of our aesthetics, ethics and metaphysics seeks the simplest answer, the one that troubles us least, the one that requires no effort from us, the answer that will make us less than what we are and more chained than ever before.

"No! No one shall be forgotten who was great in this world; but everyone was great in his own way, and everyone in proportion to the greatness of what he loved. For he who loved himself became great in himself, and he who loved others became great through his devotion, but he who loved God became greater than all. They shall all be remembered, but everyone became great in proportion to his expectancy. One became great through expecting the possible, another by expecting the eternal; but he who expected the impossible became greater than all. They shall all be remembered, but everyone was great in proportion to the magnitude of what he strove with. For he who strove with the world became great by conquering the world, and he who strove with himself became great by conquering himself; but he who strove with God became greater than all. Thus there was strife in the world, man against man, one against thousands, but he who strove with God was greater than all. Thus there was strife upon earth: there was he who conquered everything by his own strength, and he who conquered God by his powerlessness. There was one who relied upon himself and gained everything, and one who, secure in his own strength, sacrificed everything; but greater than all was the one who believed God." Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard. Trans. Alistair Hannay. (London: Penguin Great Ideas, 2005). 15-16.

Only when people start seeking what is greatest will greatness return to our hearts, expand them with love and that great space that is God, and fill them with the living water of His Spirit. Only when people start seeing the greatness in the pure and untainted Scripture will mankind see himself as he is, and see beyond his limitations by finding his home in eternity, in the cross-bearing life of grace that comes through Jesus Christ.

Christ For All

2008-08-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

"For us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live." (1 Corinthians 8:6)

"The profoundest thought is connected with the personality of Christ--with the historical and external; and it is the very grandeur of the Christian religion that, with all this profundity, it is easy of comprehension by our consciousness in its outward aspect, while, at the same time, it summons us to penetrate deeper. It is thus adapted to every grade of culture, and yet satisfies the highest requirements." (George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The Philosophy of History. Dover: 1956. 331).

To know Jesus Christ is to step into a realm that is far deeper than anyone can imagine. It is not a backward realm, not a realm of darkness or of stunted intelligence. It is not a hiding place from truth, nor an escape from logic. To be a Christian is to be involved in the profoundest thought, in the most important experience of history, to be connected to the mystery of all creation and regeneration, to meet the center which turns the revolving spheres above us and every manifestation of nature and spirit. Being a Christian truly unites the universal and the individual in a way that no other system or path can offer. In the person of Christ we see truth in the flesh, perfect morality in action; we see true love as no romance has ever depicted it. In Christ, we come to know ourselves and why we are here. Through Him, we discover all that we can and will become, even if we do not always have the answers and live more by faith than by sight. It is exciting to be a Christian, to know God and to know that we are part of a great mystery. It is healing to be one with the Great Physician, encouraging and thought-provoking to meet the Counselor, and awe-inspiring to befriend the Wonderful. Moreover, it is restful to be befriended by the Prince of Peace, whose kingdom knows no end. In the kingdom of heaven, nothing is wasted. All obstacles become triumphs, all wounds become balm, and every disappointment can be converted into a victory for the Almighty, if we are willing to believe and follow Him.

The Mystery of Life

2008-07-23T14:49:00.000-07:00

"Religion, society, nature; these are the three struggles of man. These three conflicts are, at the same time, his three needs: it is necessary for him to believe, hence the temple; it is necessary for him to create, hence the city; it is necessary for him to live, hence the plow and the ship. But these three solutions contain three conflicts. The mysterious difficulty of life springs from all three." Victor Hugo. Preface. The Toilers of the Sea. Trans. Isabel F. Hapgood. Signet 2000.

Victor Hugo was by no means interested in promoting organized religion. Whatever interest he took in spirituality was limited by his romantic rationality, his personal prejudices, and the turbulent climate of religion and society in 19th Century France. And yet, his dissection of the human condition into these three spheres is very significant and useful for examining our existence. Of the three--religion, society, nature--only religion deals with origins, eternity, and the telos, or goal, of society and nature. Without this goal, it is very difficult to build or struggle in any productive or meaningful way or to find harmony between the demands of nature and the demands of creating.

In our city, we often speak of sustainability, without ever asking the question: are we a sustainable people? Are we sustaining the right things? Why are we sustaining? It is a wonderful word with which we cloak our anxieties and lack of answers regarding the current status quo of society and nature. Alone, the word provides no true goal, no framework, and no methodology for developing our city, our province, or our country. It says nothing concrete about the human condition.

The mystery of life is that we have a basic need to live, and have to do so in the face of death. Our struggle in society and against nature is a struggle against the two great imperfections that define our limitations: sin and death. Without dealing with sin, we can never develop sustainable societies. Without conquering death, we cannot perpetuate ourselves, our children, our lives. Some two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ said that those who believed in him would not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). And he also said that he was the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). In other words, Christ offers us something far more valuable than mere survival or mere sustaining. Christ overs us the methodology, the truths we need to implement this methodology, and the life we need for sustenance and endurance. Christ is the solution to sustainability--on both a temporal and eternal scale. On a temporal scale, Christ teaches us how to take care of ourselves and the environment, training us to be good stewards, responsible citizens, and loving human beings building and preserving the light for civilization. On an eternal scale, Christ grants us a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21, 22) where we may dwell forever in perfection, face to face with God, once our mission in this world has been complete. As William Barclay once said: "Here is the essence of Christian belief. God neither abandoned the world, nor destroyed the world...in Jesus Christ He entered into the world to bring men back to Himself, to make men accept Him instead of rejecting Him, to make men submit to Him instead of rebelling against Him, to make men love Him instead of disregarding Him or hating Him. To put it quite simply, God in Jesus Christ pleads with men to come back to Himself and shows them the way to come back. So then we must teach that God is Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer of the world." (William Barclay. Fishers of Men. London: Epworth, 1966. 62.) Elsewhere, he writes: "Life is not a road that leads to nowhere; it is a road that leads to God; and the tremendous importance of this life is that it is the training-ground for eternity" (69).

Without religion, we cannot solve the struggles of nature and society. Without religion, we cannot penetrate and comprehend the mystery of life. Without Christ, we cannot have true religion. Christ is inviting you now to come to Him, and learn at his feet, to come and be free of sin and death, to find true sustainability in his salvation.

"For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory'. 'Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?'...Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 15:53-58)

Christ the King

2008-07-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

"The world is filled like a field with the fragrance of the name of Christ; and his is the blessing of the dew of heaven, that is, of the showers of divine words, of the richness of the soil, that is of the gathering of the peoples. His is the abundance of corn and wine, that is, the multitude which the corn and wine gather together in the sacrament of his body and blood. It is Christ whom the nations serve, and to whom the princes do reverence...He who has cursed him is accursed; he who has blessed him is blessed. Our Christ, I repeat, is blessed" (St. Augustine. The City of God)

Whether someone believes in Christ or not, Christ's dominion and glory cannot be diminished. It can only increase, since he is Lord of all things and the Savior of the world. What the world mocks and curses as superstition and backwards religiosity, Christ accepts as worship and service to him in his eternal kingdom. It is sad today that many Christians, lacking confidence in their faith, have attempted to bridge the gap between Christ and the world by resorting to worldly ideas and worldly ways of living. There can be no compromise between the two worlds, though. If Christ is the Prince of Peace and his dominion the Kingdom of Heaven, then the world belongs to the Prince of Darkness, and its kingdom is the kingdom of Hell. The only way to bridge the gap between light and darkness is to shine more light into the darkness--not to clothe ourselves in darkness.

Why do we turn back into the ways of darkness? Why do we try to make Christ more palatable to society? A doctor or pharmacist would never change a prescription or treatment to give a patient worse results or less healing. A confectioner would never think of making his candy taste horrible, just to appease those who do not like candy. A great chef would never change his recipes to match the low quality food of a cafeteria. Why should Christ be expected to change his message? All possible richness, goodness and truth are in Christ. Nothing can replace him and nothing can replace his sacred words. No activity, no hobby, no work can replace worshipping him in spirit and truth every Lord's day and serving him daily.

Christ is the good wine, that was saved for last (John 2:1-12). In this sense, we are blessed to live in the best age, because we live in the last times, when Christ has been made known to the world. Though we live in the midst of such abundance, we all suffer from famine--we are starving to death, because we do not lay down our lives and follow him. Those who truly seek Christ will not exchange the good wine for dirty water. It is time for Christians everywhere to be honest, to return to their discipleship in Christ, to return to his words and away from the meaningless words of men, to return to the love of God, which is our peace and security. Regardless of whether we answer this call or continue to ignore him, Christ will reign, for Christ has already overcome the world. And whether or not we remain faithful and love him, he will be faithful and he will be glorified. Our Christ is truly blessed.

God Has Spoken

2008-06-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

"Man is an insatiably inquisitive creature. His mind is so made that it cannot rest. It is always prying into the unknown. He pursues knowledge with restless energy. His life is a voyage of discovery. He is always questing, exploring, investigating, researching. He never grows out of the child's interminable 'Why?' When man's mind begins to concern itself with God, however, it is baffled. It gropes in the dark. It flounders helplessly out of its depths. Nor is this surprising, because God, whatever or whoever he may be, is infinite, while we are finite creatures. He is altogether beyond our comprehension. Therefore our minds, though wonderfully effective instruments in the empirical sciences, cannot immediately help us here. They cannot climb up into the infinite mind of God. There is no ladder, only a vast unmeasured gulf. 'Can you find out the deep things of God?' Job was asked. It is impossible. And so the situation would have remained if God had not taken the initiative to remedy it. Man would have remained for ever agnostic, asking indeed with Pontius Pilate, 'What is truth?' but never staying for an answer, because never daring to hope that he would receive one. He would be a worshipper, for such is his nature; but all his altars would be inscribed, like the one in Athens, 'To an unknown god'. But God has spoken. He has taken the initiative to disclose himself. The Christian doctrine of revelation is essentially reasonable. God has 'unveiled' to our minds what would otherwise have been hidden from them. Part of this revelation is in nature: 'The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.' 'What can be known about God is plain to them (that is, men), because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.' This is commonly called God's 'general' revelation (because it is made to all men everywhere). But this is not enough. It certainly makes known his existence, and something of his divine power, glory and faithfulness. But if man is to come to know God personally, to have his sins forgiven and to enter into relationship with God, he needs a more extensive and practical revelation still. God's self-disclosure must include his holiness, his love and his power to save from sin. This too God has been pleased to give. It is a 'special' revelation, because it was made to a special people (Israel) through special messengers (prophets in the Old Testament and apostles in the New). It is also 'supernatural', because it was given through a process commonly called 'inspiration', and it found its chief expression in the person and work of Jesus...Christianity is a religion of salvation, and there is nothing in the non-Christian religions to compare with this message of a God who loved, and came after, and died for, a world of lost sinners. God has spoken. God has acted. The record and interpretation of these divine words and deeds is to be found in the Bible. And there for many people they remain. As far as they are concerned, what God has said and done belongs to past history; it has not yet come out of history into experience, out of the Bible into life. God has spoken; but have we listened to his word? God has acted; but have we benefited from what he has done?...God has sought us. He is still seeking us. We must seek him." (John Stott. Basic Christianity. London: Inter-Varsity Press, 1958. 12-16).

The Cup of Salvation

2008-06-02T01:08:00.000-07:00

Psalm 116:1-13

I love the Lord, for he heard my voice;

he heard my cry for mercy.

Because he turned his ear to me,

I will call on him as long as I live.

The cords of death entangled me,

the anguish of the grave came upon me;

I was overcome by trouble and sorrow.

Then I called on the name of the Lord:

"O Lord, save me!"

The Lord is gracious and righteous;

our God is full of compassion.

The Lord protects the simplehearted;

when I was in great need, he saved me.

Be at rest once more, O my soul,

for the Lord has been good to you.

For you, O Lord, have delivered my soul

from death,

my eyes from tears,

my feet from stumbling,

that I may walk before the Lord

in the land of the living.

I believed; therefore I said,

"I am greatly afflicted."

And in my dismay I said,

"All men are liars."

How can I repay the Lord

for all his goodness to me?

I will lift up the cup of salvation

and call on the name of the Lord.

Sayonara!

2008-05-13T22:55:00.000-07:00

"But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God." (Acts 20:24)

When Paul said farewell to the Church at Ephesus, he knew that many difficulties awaited those from whom he parted, and those to whom he was being sent. More importantly, he knew that his own life was going to be endangered time and again. And yet, he went on to Jerusalem to face the afflictions that were promised to him. This is the kind of courage that a missionary needs, the kind of boldness and nobility of soul that Christ requires of his followers.

For sixteen years, Vancouver has enjoyed the presence of Stephen and Marcia Hasbrouck, missionaries and Bible teachers who have opened their home to the community, worked with immigrants, taught numerous Bible classes, worked in small groups, served in one church and planted a brand new one, all the while training the younger generation to work hard for the sake of the Gospel. We are thankful for all that they have done in this city for the sake of Christ. Now, they have turned their hearts back to Japan, where they served for thirty years before coming to Canada, with the hope that they can continue to serve the Lord Jesus Christ as missionaries. They are at a crossroads in life, a time of life when most people are planning vacations, thinking about retirement, or settling into a quiet and comfortable routine. Instead, they have chosen to return to one of the most difficult mission fields in the world--Hokkaido, Japan, renowned for its harsh winters of long-lasting blizzards, its sad economic history, and its abandonment of Christianity (it had initially been a very productive field for churches in the late 1800s and early 1900s). Our prayers go with them, as we hope with them that many souls in Hokkaido will hear the call of Jesus and follow Him on the Way of the light, love, and truth that is only found in the Word. Stephen and Marcia Hasbrouck will be leaving this month. The work at City Church will be continued by Stephen Hasbrouck, Jr., their son, by the grace of God and with the help of all the brothers and sisters at City Church of Christ and in our supporting congregations around the world. We will be needing your prayers!

God bless you, Stephen and Marcia! You have been parents to all of us, and you have let your lights shine among many, like a city on a hill that cannot be hid. May God grant your heart's desires, and may your ministry bear much fruit in Christ.

Sayonara!