The one who endures to the end

Ever had one of those experiences where you've read a passage time and time again, but then you see something you'd never seen before? I had one of those recently, reading up on desolation and God's presence.

Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. (Matthew 24:9-13)

I have usually thought of standing firm in terms of not being deceived, not giving in to the increase of wickedness, not falling away in the face of persecution if it comes to that. True enough; it's all there. I had managed to miss how central a part of "standing firm" is not letting our love grow cold, how central a part of falling away is betraying and hating each other. How often do we Christians figuratively hand each other over to those who hate us? How often do we think that the god-haters of our day would like our group (our group must be the good guys of the Christians, right?) if only we publicly disown each other (the other group that contains the bad guys, of course). Or even inside my own home, when exhaustion kicks in, it is easy to see perseverance in the easy terms of getting through another day. Is getting through another day really what it means to persevere?

The devastating effect of the increase of wickedness is that love grows cold. Given that Jesus speaks of goodness -- the greatest of the laws -- as being love, that deserves a second look. Given that love is the very nature of God, letting our love grow cold deserves a second look. Wickedness causes our love to grow cold, and coldness is wicked. Perseverance with Christ is not a grim determination. It is a determination that our love will not grow cold, for either him or our family and neighbors.

Lord, have mercy.

The abomination that causes desolation v. the cross of Christ

Jesus, and before him Daniel, prophesied concerning an abomination that causes desolation. In the holy place, in the Temple, something was set up and worshiped besides God -- therefore, the presence of God left the Temple. Desolation.

Years ago someone pointed out to me that Jesus announced "This house is left to you desolate, for you will not see *me* again ..." (Matthew 23:38-39) the last time he left the Temple before his crucifixion. He equates the Temple being desolate with leaving it himself; interesting, as far as understanding his identity. In the next conversation, he speaks of the abomination that causes desolation and the destruction of the Temple. One obvious fulfillment was during the invasion in 70 A.D., when sacrifices were offered in the Temple to a pagan idol rather than to the only God.

But Daniel's prophecy seems to keep fulfilling itself. I think whenever we worship something besides God, that's the abomination, and desolation is sure to follow. It tends to happen in the holy places -- where somehow, something goes badly wrong when people try to control a religion which was never ours to control in the first place. Jesus had spent the majority of Matthew 23 talking about abuses of religion at the hands of religious leaders. It had come to the point where the leaders of the holy people did not recognize that they themselves were a key part of the destruction. This pattern has repeated itself throughout history: the holy place which ought to be kept pure is instead the center of corruption. It even becomes the center of enmity towards God. Then there is no more holy place. God walks out and does not look back except to field questions about when, how, and why this place must be destroyed.

When there is no more holy place, where do you look for God? Following Jesus' movements the last few days of his earthly life, when God leaves the holy place he goes to the accursed place. If his people cannot come to him, he will go to them. If there is no more holy place, then he will hallow every place, even a supposedly condemned and accursed place like the hill where the executions take place. And so even the desolation of the Temple is turned for our good; now all places harbor the presence of God. Especially the accursed ones. There is no darkness so deep that he is not deeper still.

The gospel: how central is Jesus' death and resurrection?

The gospel of Matthew has 28 chapters; the last 8 of them are spent on the week stretching from Palm Sunday to the Resurrection. The other gospels have a similar emphasis: not only the largest section, but the pride of place as culmination and climax is given to Jesus' death and resurrection.

I remember, years ago watching Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, the scene -- was it a flashback? -- where a woman caught in sin was forgiven by Jesus. The look in her eyes when Jesus was led off to execution seemed to ask a question: if Christ is executed, is forgiveness still the last word for me? Or am I next?

Death takes all of Jesus' miracles and gives them over to the powers of darkness, where we hear a mocking, "So what?" to them all. If Jesus stays in the tomb, eventually the miraculous bread is gone, the storms are back, sickness is back, forgiveness is gone, death is back, and that is the last word. If Christ is not raised, that forgiveness he announced to us is not the last word. If Christ is not raised, the powers of darkness win and the kingdom of God is not among us.

I have heard some Christians say that some groups over-emphasize the cross of Christ: that it is not so central to Christianity, that Jesus should not be portrayed on it, that Christian thought and devotion and artwork overemphasizes what happened there. But Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, and Paul all put the focus on Jesus' death and resurrection. We can shy away from it because it is difficult to wrap our minds around. We don't necessarily appear at our most sophisticated when we struggle to grasp and articulate everything that has happened there. Paul said it very succinctly, that given the choice of talking about miraculous signs, or wisdom, or Christ crucified, he knew what he would choose: "While I was with you, I resolved to know nothing but Christ, and him crucified."

My proverbs for parenting

I was scanning through Proverbs looking for material on parenting. I found a whole collection, but wanted to mention just the two that struck me the most. First, this familiar one:

Hatred stirs up strife,
but love covers up all faults.
(Prov 10:12, & echoes in 1 Peter 4:8)

Which reminded me that it's not strictly true that love is blind; more that it is cleansing and redemptive. It is cause to celebrate when someone loves us, and our own love likewise has the power to give others cause to celebrate with relief and the gladness that comes with acceptance.

Proverbs 31 also has a gentling, humanizing vision of being a parent:

The Torah of kindness is on her tongue (Proverbs 31:26)

The gospel: How did Christ want us to think of him?

So now, 2000 years after Christ, how do we think of him during his absence? Great moral teacher? No doubt. Once and future king? Maranatha, come, Lord Jesus. Example beyond all others? Yes, that too, I suppose. The last thing I want to do is suggest a limit to how we think of Christ. But Christ himself set a direction for how we are to think of him until he comes. Knowing he was going to be absent for a long time, he knew how he wanted his people to think of him in his absence.

In the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying "Take and eat. This is my body, given for you. Do this to remember me."

In the same way after supper he took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to all of them saying, "Take and drink, all of you. This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, to remember me."

I believe that, in doing this, Christ meant to frame for us how we think of him through this long stretch of time. He specified how we are to remember him -- how we should think of him in his absence. In telling us how to remember him, he framed how we should understand him, why he came, what he was doing.

He has no wish to be reduced to an abstract -- a teacher, an example, a king. He remains flesh and blood. He does not wish us to think of him first and foremost in terms of what we do, whether learning or obeying or following. He wishes us to remember him as a gift, given for us, poured out for us. We are to raise the cup and celebrate forgiveness in Christ. We are to remember him in all his humanity first and foremost as a gift, as forgiveness, as life-giving, as our very food and drink. Anything we do for "religion", it must begin with remembering him in all his earthy reality, because that is how he asked us to remember him.

Our hunger for God cannot be satisfied by the abstracts that we construct, or the theologies that we build, or our observances and devotion and study, any more than our physical hunger could be satisfied by reading nutrition labels and studying recipes. Our hunger for God can only be satisfied by God. It is not the kind of hunger than can be satisfied by thinking about God, or by taking God for our example, or by learning from God and obeying God; of course we do these things, but by themselves they are frustratingly empty. The only way to satisfy our hunger for God is by having God. That is what Christ has us remember: Christ given for us, God with us.

How many kinds of good news count as 'gospel'?

Here I want to take a close look at how many kinds of good news are presented in the gospel in the New Testament. When we talk about the good news, we often focus on Jesus' death and resurrection -- and for good reason. This pair of events, more than any other events, shatter our hopelessness and constitute good news. Still, there are other events that fill out the picture in the gospels.

• When Jesus calms the storm, it is good news. And we know the kingdom of God will not be a place where natural disasters threaten us.
• When Jesus heals the sick, it is good news. The kingdom of God is not a place where illness robs us of our strength or our lives.
• When Jesus heals the crippled and paralyzed it is good news, again a promise of what the kingdom of God is like.
• When Jesus feeds the hungry and gives drink to the thirsty it is good news; the kingdom of God is a place of plenty.
• When Jesus forgives sins it is good news; the kingdom of God is a place of forgiveness and relief, where God has created clean hearts.
• Even the visit to the Samaritan woman at the well is good news. The kingdom of God is not a place where shameful secrets in the past separate us from friendships with our neighbors.
• When Jesus turns water into wine, it is good news. He blesses the wedding feast as a foretaste of the feast to come.

The New Testament records many different events from the life of Jesus, many more than just these. How many kinds of good news count as "gospel"? All of them.

In the next post I will consider how we know that Jesus' death and resurrection are central to his mission and to how we should think of Christ. But for the moment, I'd like to ponder the wideness of the reach of God's goodness, and how many things are encompassed in the gospel.

Worst gospel presentation ever?

As Christians, Christ left us with a mission: to make disciples for him, baptizing them and teaching them. Because of this, some Christian groups have given their members guidelines on "presenting the gospel". The thing is, some of these gospels bear only a vague resemblance to the gospels in the New Testament. I think the word "gospel" needs translating these days, even for a Christian. The gospel is news about Christ -- an announcement that changes our knowledge of reality in such a radical way as to transform our lives.

I am putting together a future post on seeing what the gospel is -- of which the short version is "Jesus Christ" -- but here I want to separate that from my frustration at one approach to presenting the gospel. Here I will give what I believe may be the worst gospel presentation ever, something I consider to be a complete failure in the "good news" department. Certain parts may contain elements of truth, but that does not keep it from being a hideous distortion of the gospel. This is the distilled version of the worst of the worst I have heard over the years:

Every sin of thought, word, and deed is so abhorrent to God that you are sentenced to eternal torture. Even decency or living rightly with dedication and earnestness gets you no slack with God because you have not done it perfectly, and God demands perfection, which is beyond our reach. There is nothing within our power which can make things right. However, God in his mercy sent his son to bear our punishment, and God accounts our wickedness to him, and his goodness to us, if we believe it is true. Christ's death was acceptable in our place because of his innocence and because God subjected his son to the most horrible death imaginable for our sakes. Those who do not believe correctly about this are condemned in God's sight for not believing it.

The problems with this presentation run deep -- but it is close enough to many "gospel presentations" I have heard. It makes it sound as if our real problem is God's unreasonableness; with that as a starting point, there is no "good news" about us reconciling with him, and never will be. It also makes it sound as if the solution is satisfying God's appetite for wrath and torture on an innocent victim, with God being just as unreasonable as ever but now we're all clear to spend eternity with him. And then "faith" comes in -- here meaning the intellectual assent (or fearful capitulation, as the case may be) to the right set of propositions about why this all works and is good.

I wanted to voice my frustration with this presentation of the gospel before I move on to good news that we tend to forget or obscure.