Waiting for the Light of Truth

In the Christian Calendar, this past Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent – that time of waiting and preparation for celebrating the birth of Christ and anticipating His reappearing in glory. Most of us probably feel the tension of “waiting for the celebration of His birth” more than we do “His reappearing in glory.”

 

But it seems to me that many thoughtful followers of Jesus are especially longing for His reappearing these days. The tension in our culture is so apparent it is as though we are walking through some sort of dense and devilish fog. Civility – or the lack thereof – makes us wonder what is going on. 

A week or so ago I ran across the name Carl Ketcherside. Many who are reading this will remember the great work he did back in the 1960s/70s is trying to get believers to take Jesus’ prayer that we all be one more seriously. At one time I had some of his books, but some how they aren’t around anymore. I did a search on Amazon’s used book link and discovered several of Ketcherside’s book and ordered Adventure of Faith.  There is no publishing date in the book, but my guess is that it was in the mid-1960s.

Though a bit dated in places, it has been well worth reading! Here’s my favorite quote: 

It is a sad error to mistake being loyal to a party or to partisan position with being loyal to Jesus and the ideals which He espoused and for which He died. It is possible that nothing else in our day so stands in the way of genuine Christian living as sectarian prejudice. It places a blindfold over the mind shutting out the light of truth. It acts as a shackle for the heart making further progress impossible. We need men who will rise above narrow concepts of brotherhood and restore to our aching hearts the real Jesus, in all the glory and majesty of that divine love which sent him to an unworthy world filled with sinners. (Pages 51, 52)

Did you notice the phrase “it is possible that nothing else in our day so stands in the way of genuine Christian living as sectarian prejudice”?  I think that is the tension so many of us feel right now. Neither the left nor the right is innocent on this issue and it is as though we are being crushed by a massive vice that seeks to squash out any sense of being Jesus to the world around us. 

My favorite Advent Hymn is O Come, O Come Emanuel. Among the prayers of that great hymn is “and ransom captive Israel.” It is hard to forget the glorious words of its refrain, “Rejoice, Rejoice, Emanuel, Shall come to you O Israel.” There it is – a longing for ransom and hope that He comes. That seems to be a very good idea of what Advent ought to be about.

Ketcherside’s words are convicting. My focus for Advent this year, and I invite you to join with me, is that I will find a way to “rise above narrow concepts of brotherhood and restore to our aching hearts the real Jesus, in all the glory and majesty of that divine love which sent him to an unworthy world filled with sinners.” 

A longing for ransom and hope that He comes.  Let’s celebrate together.

Courage, Not Safety

“Amid global attention on ISIS in Iraq and Syria for its persecution of Christians, in Nigeria two other groups of Muslim extremists – Boko Haram and the Fulani – have killed and displaced even more believers in recent years.” (“How Long Will It Be?”  Christianity Today. November 2018. Page 32)

That quote is from the lead article in the November 2018 issue of Christianity Today. In that same issue you can find an article titled, “Burma’s Beleaguered Baptists.” There’s also a news article about Christians in China titled “Government targets house churches, online ministries.” An additional article on China is titled “China Cracks Down – Again.” 

In the “China Cracks Down – Again” article, Mark Galli, editor in chief of Christianity Today, notes “So the government is removing crosses from their steeples and replacing them with the national flag; inside, the crosses are being replaced with pictures of President Xi. Congregations must sing patriot songs in worship. Parents can’t bring their children in church.” (page 22)

By the way, this particular issue of the magazine is not focused on global persecution of Christians.

A professor of New Testament at Kachin Theological College and Seminary in Burma named Layang Seng Ja is quoted as saying “I understand if the secular world has no interest in us, but where is the body of Christ? We are the fruit and labor of American missionaries, so where are the Christians?” (“Burma’s Beleaguered Baptists.” Christianity Today. November 2018. Page 14)

For some believers, the answer to her question will be something like “we are working to make sure the new governor of Georgia will, unlike the current governor, sign a religious freedom act.” I’m certainly not opposed to freedom – including religious freedom – it’s just that I can’t think of a single moment in my life where my religious freedom was in jeopardy. As far as I can tell, the first amendment to the United States Constitution – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” - is still in place. 

Of more concern to me is once you start allowing the state legislature to define religious freedom, who gets to be in charge of what that means? I heard someone describe a particularly difficult boss he once worked for by saying “give him an inch and he will take your ruler.” It makes me nervous when the state gets into the business of regulating my faith – especially when the reality is that politics are so subject to being “tossed to and fro  by the waves and carried about  by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” to borrow language from Ephesians 4. 

To believers living under the oppressive thumb of Nero, Paul said – paraphrasing a bit: “respect government’s place in the world; pay your taxes; stay under the radar.” Again – that’s paraphrase, but I think it reflects the essence of Paul’s word to the Romans. (13:1-7) Would he say the same to us? Obviously our freedom to influence government is much different than was that of first-century believers, but does the kind of faith that would overthrow slavery in the Roman Empire eventually, or assist in overthrowing oppression behind the Iron Curtain centuries later, or the kind of faith Paul would describe as “the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16) need a state legislature and its governor to protect or empower it? 

Some might say that if places like Iraq, Syria, Burma, China, Nigeria – just to mention a few troubled spots in the world – had a religious freedom protection law, the awful things noted above wouldn’t happen. The problem with that idea is that in many places in the world where awful persecution happens daily, it is often done in the name of religion drunk with power and emboldened by the government. Power and government can be a dangerous combination for people of faith – just ask some Chinese believers.

I pray regularly for my two daughters. I don’t want them to live in a place where government gets so out of hand that being a follower of Jesus could require the kinds of sacrifices it does in so many places in the world. But I pray even more that the kind of faith they have learned from their parents and others in their lives is strong enough to stick with God no matter what the state does or doesn’t do. 

A friend of mine who, along with his family, has served as a missionary in one of the most difficult places in the world for over forty years once said to a group of students at Point, “don’t pray for our safety, pray that we will be courageous.”

It just seems a bit odd to me that believers who live in the freest place in the world, with the greatest portion of the world’s resources and income, and are protected by the mightiest army the world has ever seen would think investing time in “safety” is more important than being “courageous.”

Not too far from where I live there a house with a huge flag pole near the front door. A United States flag and a Georgia state flag proudly fly on that flag pole. Hanging at an angle on one of the porch posts is a Christian flag. It looks like it is bowing down to the American and Georgia flag. That’s the image I see in my head every time I read of another politician who is determined that Georgia have a religious freedom bill. 

At Thanksgiving this year I am especially thankful for the freedom I have to live out my faith in Christ. I’m thankful for the chorus of witnesses – living and dead – who faced far worse moments than I ever have or likely will – and remained faithful. 

My prayer is that believers will talk more about courage to be Jesus to the world around us than we do some sense of need for safety provided by the state legislature.

Welcome!

The theologically dense and tightly wound neighborhoods of Romans 1-8 and 9-11 can sometimes cause us to miss the equally challenging “therefores” of 12-15. But Paul seems unaware of the possibility of thinking that what you believe (orthodoxy) and how you behave (orthopraxy) can ever be separated. As N.T. Wright suggests, “It isn’t about a moralistic framework in which the only question that matters is whether we humans have behaved ourselves and so amassed a store of merit (“righteousness”) and, if not, where we can find such a store, amassed by someone else on our behalf. It is about the vocational framework in which humans are called to reflect God’s image in the world and about the rescue operation whereby God has, through Jesus, set humans free to do exactly that.” (Paul: A Biography. Page 408)

Think about that as you read the words of Romans 15:7: “Therefore welcome one another just as Christ has welcomed you, to the glory of God.”  Were I to paraphrase those words, they might sound something like “receive into your own place in life one another in the identical way that Christ received you into His own place in life. When you do that, God is glorified.”

The intensity of these words is controlled, at least to some extent, with how we define “one another.” If I want to lessen that intensity, then I will quickly say “one another” means fellow believers. But if I want to think more like Jesus – I’m pretty sure he redefined “one another” when He told that in-your-face story we call The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25ff). Somehow it seems I need to define “one another” in the context of a Jesus who welcomes me, but also a Jesus “who came into his own world and his own people received him not.” (John 1:11) How the world responds to me should impact how I welcome it. 

If, as a follower of Jesus, my “citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20ff) that seems to suggest that as an undocumented alien, Christ welcomed me into this new status with Him.  That seems all together consistent with the more “dense and tightly wound” words of Romans 5:6: “For while we were still weak, in the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” Think about “welcome one another in the same way Christ welcome you” in the context of those words! If you want to get it even more convicting, add Ephesians 2:11, 12 to the mix: “Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called ‘the uncircumcision’ by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands – 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 were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” (ESV) Those verses are loaded with “status” language and the bottom line is that until Christ welcomed me, I had no status!

If “the one another” of Romans 15:7 includes “without status me” in its spirit of welcome, then that takes away most of the pushback I might have when it comes to being a kingdom person with a welcoming spirit.

Here’s what I know for sure. The person Jesus welcomed into His kingdom when He welcomed me didn’t deserve to sit by the charcoal fire and share in a breakfast of grilled fish and bread. (John 21:9ff) Nevertheless Jesus said, “Come and have breakfast.”

That invitation reflects God’s heart. My vocation as a human in love with Jesus is “to reflect God’s image in the world and about the rescue operation whereby God has, through Jesus, set humans free to do exactly that.” 

If those of us who authentically desire to follow Jesus would start “grilling some fish on a charcoal fire” and say “Come and have breakfast,” we might just change the world.

As Thanksgiving Day approaches, I can only say how grateful I am that He welcomed me to breakfast one morning and everything has changed.