death: a protest, a taunt, and a triumphant resignation

I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately. It constantly invades my consciousness, and when it retreats it still lurks in the shadows of my mind, ready to pounce again. It’s always there.

I don’t just mean the cessation of biological life. I’m talking Death with a capital D, Death the Great Enemy, Death the Destroyer of all that is good, all that is Life. The sort of Death portrayed in those early stories of Genesis and recalled in Isaiah and John and Paul: “death” as the consequence of human disobedience of the divine will, the result of human disregard for the divine design, the “wages of sin”; “death” expanded as a comprehensive accursedness, encompassing shame, hostility, oppression, futility, separation, pain, and yes, the cessation of biological life. It is all this Death that has been much on my mind – and I’d like to register a protest.

Death, I am done with you. I want nothing more to do with you. I’m tired of experiencing futility in my life and seeing it in the eyes of so many others. I’m weary of navigating the waters of human hostility, of negotiating the chasms of broken relationship, of standing helpless in the face of oppression as power crushes weakness. I’m finished with pain and suffering of all kinds, breaking body and soul and heart and spirit and mind, spiralling down, down, down toward that final separation, that last oppression, the last breath vanishing in death.

Leave me alone! Leave us all alone!

But I know you won’t. You will haunt my dreams, you will hunt me day and night, you will hound me until you capture me in your cold embrace, sucking life from the marrow of my being.

And that will be your undoing.

For you have been defeated, haven’t you? You have failed before. And you know it, don’t you, Death? You whipped Him with all the enmity you could muster, multiplying pain with pain; you crushed Him in the downward press of shame; you divided body and soul, stretching Father from Son from Spirit as you squeezed the life from His frail frame. But you failed. Ha! You failed! He lives again! He lives! And hostility has been changed to forgiveness, oppression has morphed into victory and vindication, shame has turned to glory, the separated has been reconciled - death has been swallowed up by life!

So where, O vaunted Death, is your victory? Where, O Death so feared, is your sting? O Death, once so powerful, you stand before us naked, cold, shivering, shamed! You who oppressed kings have been subjugated by Love! You who tormented slaves have been enslaved by Life! You who wrapped God’s image-bearers in futility are now futile yourself – the greatest insult, for you have been made meaningless, void of any significance!

So go ahead, Death, do your worst. Bombard me with shame and hostility, oppression and futility. Shell me with pain and separation, with breath-sucking death. Haunt my dreams, hunt me day and night, hound me until you capture me in your cold embrace. For in that moment, in all those moments of death until that final death, you will be thwarted once again. Life will win, love will conquer all - because Life has already won, Love has already conquered: the Crucified One is the Risen One, the Dying Servant is the Lord of Life…

publication updates

Life just doesn’t seem to slow down enough for me to breathe, let alone to blog (and when I have a moment, I’d rather breathe than blog). So my apologies to the myriads of faithful readers out there who have been waiting with bated breath for me to resume blogging regularly. Next week? Maybe.

I do have some updates to give on three books I’ve been involved in:

• From Resurrection to New Creation is now out. This has been noted on other blogs (thanks Mike and Daniel!), but I haven’t noted it here yet. Click on the link to find out more, to buy multiple copies for all your friends (!), and even to link to a free partial preview of the book.
• There is also a free partial preview of Discerning the ‘Word of the Lord’ available at Amazon.com. Click on the link to check that out. I won’t ask you to buy multiple copies of that book…
• The Sacred Text, co-edited with Mike Bird, is in press and nearing publication. Click on the link to find out more about the book including a list of essays and contributors.

time flies

Wow, has it really been over a month since I last posted anything on my blog? What happened to the last 35 days ?! Oh yeah – Christmas and New Year’s, then right back to a main course of preaching and teaching with a side order of publishing responsibilities and public lectures.

For the one curious person out there, the preaching has been a series on the Church, for which I’ve contributed sermons on the unity of the Church, diversity in the Church, and the Church as God’s family. The publishing has involved all the final editing and indexing for two books: The Sacred Text edited with Mike Bird, and my biblical/narrative theological intro to Christian theology entitled From Resurrection to New Creation. And the public lectures are in a series on St. Paul and Christianity at Christ Church here in Edmonton: the first one on “Paul and Jesus: Friends or Foes?” went this past Sunday, my next (and last) on “The Origins of Paul’s Gospel: Tradition or Revelation?” is this coming Sunday. Lots in all this to think about, even to blog about, but the time to blog has been nowhere to be found.

Or rather, I should say that ”motivated time” for blogging has been non-existent. Somehow my kids have managed to rope me into playing a few games of Mario Kart Wii since Christmas…

an advent prayer

Jesus our Immanuel, come to us anew by your Spirit, dwell with us in our accursed state, sanctify our humanity in your flesh: be God-With-Us once and again and for ever.

Jesus our Redeemer, hear the cries of your people, save us from our woeful state, free us from the curse of sin and death: be our Deliverer once and again and for ever.

Jesus our Messiah, conquer evil and oppression in this world, reign over your people with justice and mercy, rule over all creation in God’s love and faithfulness: be our King once and again and for ever.

Jesus, our Immanuel, our Redeemer, our Messiah, dispel the darkness of this world with the glorious light of your presence, turn the night of this present age into the bright dawn of your eternal kingdom. Come, O Lord, our Lord.

my preferred canonical order

The canonical order of the New Testament has some logic behind it, to be sure: starting with the four Gospels as kerygmatic biographies of Jesus; then Acts, a bit of didactic history of the early Jesus movement; then a bunch of Letters, first those ascribed to Paul, then some others; and ending with an Apocalypse. But historically other orders have been suggested or provided, especially in the first few centuries after Jesus when “canon” itself was a fuzzy concept for these early Christian writings. For example, the earliest extant collection of Paul’s letters (P46, ca. 200 C.E.) has Hebrews right after Romans, reflecting the compilers’ belief that Paul was the author of this anonymous work.

While the entire biblical canonical order is firmly ingrained in my consciousness (learned by rote in some long-ago Sunday school class), my own study of the New Testament has forever altered the canonical order in my subconsciousness. I can’t be the only one, for example, who sometimes looks to the beginning of the New Testament for the Gospel of Mark, or who occasionally goes to the end of Colossians to find Philemon.

So for all those publishers of Bibles out there, I’d like to declare publicly my preferred canonical order for the New Testament writings. This reflects a mixture of historical conclusions, theological convictions, and personal idiosyncracies, and so carries no canonical authority for anyone but me. It also might change tomorrow, so be sure to check back with me on this.

• The Gospel of Mark
• The Gospel of Matthew
• The Gospel of Luke
• The Acts of the Apostles
• The First Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians
• The Second Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians
• The Letter of Paul to the Galatians
• The Letter of Paul to the Romans
• The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians
• The Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians
• The Letter of Paul to the Philippians
• The Letter of Paul to the Colossians
• The Letter of Paul to Philemon
• The Letter of Paul to the Ephesians
• The First Letter of Paul to Timothy
• The Letter of Paul to Titus
• The Second Letter of Paul to Timothy
• The Letter to the Hebrews
• The Letter of James
• The First Letter of Peter
• The Second Letter of Peter
• The Letter of Jude
• The Gospel of John
• The First Letter of John
• The Second Letter of John
• The Third Letter of John
• The Revelation to John

on humility

It’s no newsflash to say that Western evangelicals tend to understand Christian virtues in terms of personal or even private morality and not inter-personal or social ethics. The “fruit of the Spirit” become the “inner attitudes of the Spirit cultivated in the life of the believer” rather than the “outward actions of the Spirit cultivated among the believing community in the world.” However, without denying the importance of good personal attitudes and dispositions, it seems to me the New Testament focus for these Christian virtues is on the inter-personal, relational, and even broader social or community dimensions of life.

One of these virtues hamstrung by our tendency to individualize or privatize morality is the virtue of humility. It seems to be one of the favorite virtues for pious evangelicals to trumpet, particularly in response to perceived displays of pride in others. Sermons and blog posts decry the dangers of pride and describe the nature of true humility, which inevitably is all about what you think about yourself and how you portray yourself to others.

It seems to me, however, that the New Testament writings describe humility much differently. Perhaps the most significant text on humility in the New Testament is Philippians 2:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:3-8)

There is clearly an attitudinal dimension to humility described here, to be sure. But it’s not about how you think of yourself or how you portray yourself—but rather how you think of others in relation to yourself. And this attitude—if it’s going to be Spirit-prompted, Christ-like humility at all—will inevitably manifest itself in what you do for others, meeting the needs of others first even if it means sacrifice on your part.

Humility is not about keeping endorsements off your blog or shifting praise to someone else for something you’ve done well. Humility is about putting your own needs and desires after the needs of others, and acting to meet others’ needs. So let’s stop trying to “be humble”—striving for some self-abusive asceticism which merely has the appearance of wisdom but lacks any power to produce true humility—and start trying to “do humility” in the footsteps of Christ by the power of his Spirit.

Humility is as humility does. ”Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom” (James 3:13).

preaching the son of man

We’re in the middle of our Advent sermon series called “Ways We Know Him,” reflecting on different titles for Jesus in Scripture. This Sunday I’m preaching on Jesus as the “Son of Man.”

Now, the academic in me immediately goes to the scholarly debates surrounding the phrase: what is the essential meaning of the phrase? what was its significance in Second Temple Judaism, especially in eschatological or messianic expectation? what role does the Daniel 7 use of the phrase play in the significance of this phrase in the canonical Gospels? did Jesus use this phrase to describe himself, or do the Gospel occurrences reflect later Christian usage? etc. All this means that it would be easy enough for me to produce a lecture on the “Son of Man”—but how to preach on it?

I’ve decided to anchor the sermon more in Hebrews (esp. ch. 2) than in Daniel or the Gospels, though it’s impossible to speak on this topic without reference to these other texts. And I’ve decided to focus on the following as three dimensions of Jesus as Son of Man which have significance for Christian faith and life today:

• Jesus as the “Son of Humanity”: The fully human Jesus shared in the weakness and frailty of humanity in a world filled with suffering and evil. Jesus knows what it’s like to be human. Jesus understands pain and suffering, he gets rejection and abandonment, he knows what hunger and injustice and conflict and anguish are all about. Jesus knows. And so in Jesus the Son of Man we have someone we can turn to who has walked in our shoes, someone who can sympathize with us in our foibles and frailties. And therefore Jesus is able to be our perfect “high priest,” to bring us into the very presence of God to experience God’s mercy and grace.
• Jesus as the “Ideal Human”: Human beings were created in the “image of God” to bring about the “kingdom of God” on earth—Jesus fulfills this purpose, and shows us the way to fulfill this purpose in our own lives. Jesus had compassion on the needy around him—and so we are called to have compassion on the needy around us, to reach out in love to our neighbor. Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead—and so we are called to bring healing and new life to those around us who are in pain, those who are broken in body or spirit. Jesus welcomed the “sinners” of his day, those beyond the pale of acceptable morality, and forgave their sins—and so we are called to embrace the “sinners” of our day, to extend to them the love and forgiveness of God in Christ. Jesus suffered and died on behalf of all humanity, including those who would seem to deserve it least—and so we are called to give our own lives for the good of others, to love God with our whole heart by loving others as ourselves.
• Jesus as the “Exalted King”: Jesus the Son of Man, the fully human Jesus who shares in our weakness and frailty, the ideal Human who fulfills God’s purpose for humanity and leads us toward that purpose—this Jesus as Son of Man brings in God’s kingdom on earth, shares in God’s glory, and calls us to enter this kingdom. We find ourselves caught in a paradox: Jesus the Son of Man has brought God’s kingdom to earth in his first coming, and yet we still pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth, a reality left unfulfilled until Jesus’ return. This paradox, this dissonance, this tension of Christian existence in this world, should spur us to hope, expectation, anticipation, even deep longing—the very heart of the Advent season.

babette’s feast

One of the ideas I’ve retained from previous editions of the Theology of Creation course I’m teaching at King’s is watching Babette’s Feast (IMDB) with the class, having them do a viewing assignment related to the film, and then discussing the film with them in light of a Christian theology of creation. The only change I’ve made is moving this to the end of the course. It’s proving to be an inspired idea: not only is the film a terrific way of engaging various dimensions of a theology of creation, it also means I can coast to the end with minimal class preparation…

god’s restorative justice

There is an undeniable tension between destruction and redemption, between punitive justice and restorative justice, in Scripture’s descriptions of God’s judgment of humanity and creation. Note the tension reflected between the first five and the last five of these ten sample texts:

• Matthew 25:41-42: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you give me nothing to drink…”
• Romans 2:6-9: “God will repay everyone according to what they have done…for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile…”
• 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9: “[God] will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might…”
• Revelation 20:14-15: “The lake of fire is the second death. All whose names were not found written in the book of life were thrown into the lake of fire.”
• 2 Peter 3:7, 10-12: “…the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly… But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done it will be laid bare… everything will be destroyed in this way… That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.”
• Romans 3:23-24: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
• Romans 5:18: “Consequently, just as the one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all.”
• Acts 3:21: “Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.”
• Romans 8:20-23: “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”
• Colossians 1:19-20: “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

I realize there are different ways of interpreting these and other such passages, but those differences in interpretation go both ways: that is, for example, some will interpret the redemptive “all” passages to mean not literally “all,” while others will interpret the punitive judgment passages in ways which provide more optimism for a full restoration of all things. While we must not minimize the reality of divine judgment of human sin if we want to take seriously the Scriptures as doctrinally authoritative, there are several factors which I think point to the primacy of redemption and restoration in thinking about this judgment:

• The nature of apocalyptic imagery. Many of the “destruction” texts reflect the imagery of ancient Jewish apocalyptic literature. This literature intentionally used extreme, even bizarre imagery to highlight the radical nature of the event being described. This imagery is not to be taken literally, but rather it emphasizes the seriousness of the judgment being imposed, the extreme change that will happen in the eschaton, and so on. This in itself doesn’t diminish the reality of judgment indicated by these passages, but it does caution us against pushing the language too far.
• The nature of righteousness and justification. “Righteousness” is often thought of as “adherence to an external, absolute standard of morality”; however, in its ancient Jewish context it more has the idea of “faithfulness to the obligations of a particular relationship,” or even in many instances “covenant faithfulness.” “Justice” in English is often understood as a separate but related idea to “righteousness,” the one being related more to an impersonal reality and the other to a more personal or individualized reality; however, in the biblical writings the same words are used for both “justice” and “righteousness.” Similarly, “justification” in English comes from a different root word than “righteousness”; however, in the biblical writings both words come from the same root word. In light of these linguistic and other factors, I would suggest that the basic idea of Paul’s language of “justification” is that one is considered “righteous” or considered to have fulfilled their relational obligations to God on the basis of the “faith of Christ,” Christ’s faithfulness or fidelity to God as reflected in his obedient suffering and death on the cross. This means that in Christ human beings can experience the “righteousness of God,” God’s faithfulness to his covenant with humanity—a comprehensive “righteousness” or “justice” that includes all peoples and all creation. Thus, God’s righteousness and justification through Christ is not about punitive justice on humanity and creation, but restorative justice.
• The nature of creation and humanity. When God created “the heavens and the earth”—including humanity “in his image”—he assessed his creation as “very good.” The essential goodness of creation and the reality of the image of God in humanity have not been lost because of human sin; rather, they have been distorted or degraded. Thus, for God to deliver humanity and creation from sin does not mean he must destroy creation or humanity; indeed, he has been reluctant to destroy that which still carries an essential goodness and those who bear his image. Rather, a redemption or restoration is much more in keeping with the ongoing goodness of creation and the imago Dei in humanity—and this is attested by the incarnation or “enfleshment” of Jesus, his very real death on the cross, and his bodily resurrection from the dead.
• The nature of God’s holiness and love. God’s “holiness” is often thought of in moral terms, as his “complete separateness from sin”; however, in its ancient Jewish context it is more basically ontological or (perhaps better) related to his identity, as his “complete otherness in relation to all else that exists”—the moral dimension of his holiness is secondary. This must be so: “sin” has no essence in itself but is merely the absence of or distortion of the good—it is not an inherent part of God or his creation—and so it makes no sense ultimately to understand God’s “holiness” in primarily moral terms. God is holy quite apart from whether or not sin exists. Thus, in the essential nature of God there is no real conflict between God’s holiness and his love: they reflect his transcendence and his immanence respectively in their active, personal dimensions, and it is because God is truly transcendent (holy) that he can be truly immanent (loving) within his creation. This means that God’s love for his creation and humanity, as a more basic attribute of God, constrains his moral holiness or separateness from sin, as a secondary attribute of God; in other words, God will always seek to do the most loving action toward his creation and humanity, even if that means allowing sin to exist in the world, and redeeming from sin rather than destroying for sin.

I realize these musings place me on shaky ground in the eyes of some. I’m not sure myself how far this can be pushed and what all the implications may be. Does this “primacy” of the restorative dimension of God’s justice push the punitive dimension completely out of the picture? If not, how can we reconcile these two dimensions, even if we allow that restorative justice may be the primary one? And if so, how should we read the punitive texts in Scripture, or just as significantly, how can we acknowledge the legitimacy of the cry of the oppressed for justice on their oppressors?

The temptation for some may be to ask, like the anonymous questioner, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” (Luke 13:23). But Jesus’ enigmatic answer to this question leaves room for a Grand Surprise in the eschaton, calling his followers to look to their own spiritual state while questioning traditional assumptions about “who’s in” and “who’s out” (13:24-30; cf. 13:1-5). In a sense, the answer to this question is simply to ask another age-old question: “Will not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?” (Gen 18:25). I believe he will bring true justice—whatever that looks like, and regardless of what I or others think that looks like right now.

echoes of micah

I preached on Peace Sunday here about ten days ago (the Sunday before Remembrance Day), and in preparation for my sermon I was struck by the echoes of Micah in the letter to the Ephesians.

The Hebrew prophet Micah stood up and proclaimed condemnation against the false peace and injustice of his day (e.g. Mic 2:6-9; 3:9-11), knowing that all this would lead to further violence and ultimately the destruction of Israel and Judah. Hear his words in Micah 3:8-12:

But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, to Israel his sin… because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.

In response to a so-called “peace” without justice, Micah himself could only proclaim justice without peace: God will come and punish his people Israel for their acts of injustice and their lack of mercy, and Jerusalem itself will be destroyed. This was a truly prophetic message, a right message—although it was not the message Micah would wish to give to his people.

But Micah was aware that this was not the end of the story. Hear his words from Micah 4 and 5:

In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains… Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths…” …the word of the Lord [will go out] from Jerusalem. He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore… (4:1-5)

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel… He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God… And he will be our peace… (5:1-5)

For Micah, the only hope of true peace was a far-off one, “in the last days,” when “the word of the Lord” would go out from Jerusalem. At this time the Lord would bring real peace: shalōm, a blessed existence of all things under God. This would happen, Micah says, when the “ruler” comes out of Judah, the promised king like David who would “shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord”—and this shepherd-king, this Messiah, this Christ, “he will be their peace.” At that time, true justice and real peace would finally be wed—peace would be the banner over the earth.

A last-days prophet proclaiming peace, with this word of the Lord going out to all the nations? The message of a king, a Christ, who will himself be our peace? These thoughts reverberate through another text in Scripture: Ephesians 2:11-22. Note these words from Ephesians 2:

Now in Christ Jesus you Gentiles who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For Christ himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility… His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and proclaimed peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. (2:13-18)

The author of Ephesians draws on Micah’s prophecy as he crafts this passage. The shepherd-king like David has come! The Messiah, the Christ, has come! He has brought an end to hostility and oppression and violence and injustice; he has brought true peace, a real shalōm, blessed existence of all things under God, through his death on the cross. And, with his feet “fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace” (Eph 6:15), the Christ has been a prophet of peace, proclaiming peace to a world ensnared in cycles of hostility and inequity. Jesus Christ, the Messiah, is our peace.