from the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and Congregational and Ministry Studies at Calvin College

Posts Tagged ‘Christ’

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He Shall Come Again

Friday, April 15th, 2011

One of my former pastors told me that in his (then) 27 years of ministry in five different congregations he had met only two persons—an elderly wife and husband—who lived in daily excitement at the fact that Jesus shall come again. At every day’s beginning they exclaimed to each other, “This could be the day! Let’s be ready to greet our Lord!”

But only two in 27 years. That, despite the fact that more than 300 times throughout the New Testament—in the four Gospels; in the Book of Acts; in the letters of Paul, Peter, and John; and in the book of Revelation—Scripture’s Spirit-guided authors remind us of the fact that very soon and very certainly our Lord shall return in triumph and shall complete, once and for all, his mission of turning this world right-side up again. Despite the fact, too, that ever since the time of the New Testament church, generation after generation of Christian thinkers and pastors has recommended the practice of “meditation on the future life” as a healthful exercise for vigorous Christian living (and dying). Consider John Calvin as an example: “Let us, however, consider this settled: that no one has made progress in the school of Christ who does not joyfully await the day of death and final resurrection…. Let us, then … not hesitate to await the Lord’s coming, not only with longing, but also with groaning and sighs…. He will come to us as Redeemer…. He will lead us into that blessed inheritance of his life and glory” (Institutes, III.x.5).

The New Testament writers claim that Jesus’ return will be sudden and unexpected. His coming again will be like “a thief in the night” (Matt. 24:43; 2 Thess. 5:2ff.). It will catch people unawares, like a housemaster who returns from a long journey “at a time you do not know” (Mark 13:34-36). It will be as a bridegroom who, “after a long time in coming,” finally arrives in the middle of the night (Matt. 25:1-13). Knowing all too well that his followers would become weary of waiting for him and tire of staying alert, Jesus warned: “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.”

How to counteract our tendency toward sleepy inattentiveness and slothful disregard of our Lord’s epic return? One way is to join weekly for worship with fellow expectant ones. There—“in the sanctuary” (cf. Ps. 73:17)—we can rouse one another to that appropriate sense of eager expectancy which ought to mark our waiting. There, through our reading and hearing of Scripture’s promises, our minds can take in again the truth that our Lord shall return. There we can participate in baptism and the Lord’s Supper, heaven-sent messengers for us to touch and taste and smell and see—and thus to remember—that indeed he is coming again. There we can affirm together the Church’s ancient confession: “He shall come again to judge the living and the dead.” There we can plead and pray together: “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!”

Unless from week to week we keep on practicing these holy activities—the listening, the communing, the affirming, the singing, the praying—our sense of expectancy gradually will become dulled, and our horizoned future become shriveled, short-sighted, and far too small.

So Marred, So Beautiful

Friday, January 14th, 2011

2 Cor. 5:14-21

About Jesus Christ, whose bleeding wounds and torturous dying has saved them from sin’s despair and eternal doom, Christians join mouths and hearts to confess:

He suffered under Pontius Pilate.

A sixteenth-century Reformed Christian statement of faith, the Heidelberg Catechism, expands upon this early Christian confession:

During his whole life on earth,
but especially at the end,
Christ sustained
in body and soul
the anger of God against the sin of the whole human race.
This he did in order that,
by his suffering as the only atoning sacrifice,
He might set us free, body and soul,
from eternal condemnation,
and gain for us
God’s grace,
righteousness,
and eternal life.

(Heidelberg Catechism #37)

Christians know and affirm, beyond the shadow of doubt or the slightest trace of maybe, that, in St.Paul’s words, “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20)

Their suffering Savior’s immense love for them, far beyond their mind’s feeble ability to grasp or comprehend, now prompts Christians to worship him. A stronger verb is more apt: It impels them toward worship—“squeezes” them, as Paul puts it literally in 2 Corinthians 5:14. In view of his supreme and costly gift to them, how could they not bend their knees and bow their heads, and offer him their entire lives in willing service?

So, whatever other laudable reasons Christians may give for why they congregate on Sunday morning to worship, this reason surely ranks very high among them: Jesus willingly endured deep anguish for them and gave his life’s full measure to save them. Now they, in turn, must—simply must!—swell the thronging multitude of those who gather to sing him their thanks. Now they must rouse one another to exclaim in rapturous wonder, awe and delight:

And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died he for me, for me who caused his bitter death.
Amazing love, how can it be, that you my Lord should die for me?

No matter how beleaguering the challenges which life may have hurled at them during the preceding week; no matter how much its circumstances may have wet-blanketed their joy, drained their hope, and dulled their vision and courage—when Christians enter the sanctuary and hear again of their Savior’s suffering love for them, then their hearts become alive again. Then their spirits take on fresh glow and energy. Then they know—for sure—why they’re alive and where they’re going in life.

Then they realize, too, that one too few times in life—always one too few, by their grateful measure—have they exclaimed in gratitude to their Savior:

Amazing love! How can it be
that you, my Lord, should die for me?

Worshipful intimacy with Jesus marks the life of every faithful Christian disciple. Nor ought this intimacy ever to become routine or dull, lockstep or flat. How can it, if one keeps meditating carefully and well what the Savior so willingly endured for her or him? And where better to cultivate such intimacy and to nurture it toward fuller maturity than by congregating with others to worship the One who suffered and died for them?

Dr Earl Stanley Jones (1884-1973), acclaimed Methodist theologian and missionary to India, told of seeing, for the first time, the famous sculpture of Jesus Christ by Bertil Thorwaldsen in Copenhagen Cathedral. Jones stood at some distance from the sculpture, taking in that full figure of Christ who towered above him in stateliness, dignity, and regality.

But what happened next transformed everything for Jones. A young Dane came up to him and whispered in his ear: “Sir, you will not be able to see the Savior’s eyes until you come near and kneel at his feet.” Jones stepped closer to sculpture, got on his knees directly in front of it, and then looked up into the Savior’s face. Jones’ words: “When I knelt at his feet, I discovered my Lord’s eyes looking directly at mine. They spoke to me.”

If Jesus’ eyes could speak, they would declare, compassionately and urgently: “Fix your own eyes upon ours. Look deeply and directly into us. See in us what your Savior has endured for you. Behold his affection for you, and his willingness to endure anguish and death for you. Come closer to us. For by his loving, longing gaze, the Suffering Savior is now beckoning you home.”

The look in Jesus’ eyes carries his message of suffering for us, and of his mercy toward us. It is a look both so marred and so beautiful.

Prayer

My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine, For thee, all the follies of sin I resign My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art thou, If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ‘tis now. I love thee because thou hast first loved me, And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree; I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow, If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ‘tis now.William Featherstone

God Wearing Skin

Monday, December 20th, 2010

God’s Word declares: “And the Word became flesh.” (John 1:14) In response, Christians boldly confess: “I believe in Jesus Christ, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary.” The Heidelberg Catechism, a 16th century Reformed confession, clarifies this early Christian claim:

[T]he eternal Son of God
who is and remains
true and eternal God,
took to himself,
through the working of the Holy Spirit,
from the flesh and blood of the virgin Mary,
a truly human nature
so that he might become David’s true descendant,
like his brothers in every way,
except for sin.

Christians believe the transcendent, holy, and eternal God, who is pure Spirit, took on weak, decaying flesh. God began to wear skin, as Barbara Brown Taylor puts it—he took on skin to become our Savior. Astonishing claim, indeed—scandalous foolishness to many.

Affirming that God’s Son became human, followers of Jesus boldly declare that :

  1. One’s skin—his or her entire body—is precious to God.

    That’s Gospel news for an age like ours where “the modern scientific reduction of the body to biological matter overlaid by Victoria Secret ads,” as Taylor puts it, has left throngs of people pitiably ashamed of their bodies and not worth being loved.

  2. One’s body can be the arena daily to practice God’s call to be holy.

    “The practice of wearing is so obvious that almost no one engages it as spiritual practice;” says Taylor, “yet here is the place to begin—with tears, aches, moans, gooseflesh, heat.” Jesus used his body to bring his Father great delight. So, too, can we. Thus, to learn how to wear one’s skin well is holy work. For by our bodies we can bring greater delight—or sadness—to God the Giver. With them we can bring blessing or hurt to fellow human beings.

  3. God calls us to express solidarity with others by our bodies.

    Everyone has skin. It serves as tissue connecting us together. Again, Taylor:

    When the temperature outside is zero I am cold and the person next to me is cold as well—wearing my skin is not a solitary practice but one that brings me into communion with all other embodied souls. In Christian teaching followers of Jesus are called to honor the bodies of our neighbors as we honor our own…. [I]t is not possible to trust God loves all of me, including my body, without also trusting that God loves all bodies everywhere—the bodies of hungry children and indentured women along with the bodies of sleek athletes and cigar-smoking tycoons. While we might not have one other thing in common, we all [wear] skin. We all have breath and beating hearts. Most of us weep, although not for the same reasons. Few of our bodies work the way we want them to.”

  4. Bodies have a future.

    His task on earth completed, Jesus ascended bodily into heaven. Jesus’ ascension both provides a guarantee and also creates a longing within believers’ hearts. The guarantee:

    We [as Jesus’ followers] have our own flesh in heaven—
    a guarantee that Christ our head
    will take us, his members,
    to himself in heaven.

    The longing: Since they know that they, too, shall soon “be with the Lord forever” (1 Thess. 4:18), saints stand on tiptoe, awaiting with sturdy hope the grand reunion with their Lord. They cry out: “Come, Lord Jesus.” (Rev. 22:20)

    Skin is glorious. Jesus wore it on earth. He wears it now in heaven. So, too, shall we when we join him there forever.

    We Christians live in a society that tends toward polar opposite estimates of the human body. Each is false, and each fraught with sad, perilous consequences for living humanly and well. On the one hand, strong voices nowadays bid us to idolize (our) human bodies, to spend lavish sums of time and money on them, to expect from them the miracles they can’t deliver. Other voices depreciate the value of (our) human bodies, and urge us to view them as nothing but pieces of tissue and chunks of protoplasm of no great worth.

With society’s opposite siren calls relentlessly dinning themselves into our minds and hearts, how important for us Christians to gather regularly to hear our Lord’s word about (the status and value of) our bodies. God declares two central truths:

  1. He created our bodies, called them good, and gave them to us. Thus, skin—our fleshly existence—is neither divine nor demonic. It is what it is: God’s sheer good gift to each of us.
  2. Jesus Christ himself became flesh to save us, body and soul. God wore skin to make us his very own.

Through these twin central affirmations God invites us to see our enfleshed persons the way he sees them: as “good.”

Indeed, as “very good.”

Man’s maker was made man,
that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast;
that the Bread might hunger,
the Fountain thirst,
the Light sleep,
the Way be tired on its journey;
that the Truth might be accused of false witness,
the Teacher be beaten with whips,
the Foundation be suspended on wood;
that Strength might grow weak;
that the Healer might be wounded;
that Life might die.

Augustine of Hippo, 4th century, from Sermons 191.1

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