The Bible and Some "R" Words

Not long ago, I saw a pastor holding a leather-bound copy of the New Testament. It was, if one pays attention to such things, a great book. It was nicely sized, well bound, and looked like it was a very comfortable book to use.

As lovely as it was, I could not help remind myself that, without the Old Testament, the New Testament offers only a part of God's message to humanity. Indeed, a nice study version of the New Testament is a great tool! But to overlook the text of the Old Testament is like reading the last book of a series without reading the ones that come before it.

Over-simplified and taken as a whole, the Bible represents God's plan for being in relationship with humanity and how humanity, in response to a right relationship with God, might be in relationship with each other. Beginning with Adam and Eve, we can see repeated cycles of "R" words that represent God's relentless pursuit of a relationship with humanity.

For this discussion, we'll jump into the cycle at Right Living. There are places in the Bible where we see humanity doing well and living rightly. This is what God hopes for and for what humanity was created to do. We are meant to enjoy our relationship with God and let that relationship lead us to Right Living.

Inevitably, however, we will see that Right Living is followed by humanity's Rejection and Rebellion. From Adam and Eve and onward, the Bible demonstrates that the people God created will turn away and pursue those things outside God's will.

The consequences of this always lead to less than ideal circumstances for the one who rebels. Consider as an example the "Prodigal Son" whose rejection and rebellion led to his demise. The nation of Israel shows us repeated examples of the consequences of falling away from God's will.

Humanity's hope lies in the truth that, even in rebellion, God continues to pursue relationship. God seeks out humanity, waiting on us to turn back. At the lowest of lows, Repentance (humanity's action) and Redemption (God's action) converge to put humanity back on the path toward Right Living.

Following Repentance and Redemption, God and humanity join in the process of Restoration. The people of God return to living in accordance to God's best plans for them.  In time--sometimes slowly, sometimes suddenly--the people of God resume Right Living.

Thus, we see the cycle repeated:  

Right Living

Rejection/Rebellion

Repentance/Redemption

Restoration

Right Living

God, seeing humanity fail over and over again, ultimately took action to establish a final process of redemption, and we see that in the closing chapters of the Gospels with the crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Then, from the first chapter of Acts and through the rest of the New Testament, we are shown how humanity should, therefore, live rightly in response to that once-and-for-all act of redemption.

We see this cycle repeated in various New Testament writings. For instance, Romans can be roughly (and over-simply) broken down into six chapters about humanity's rejection of God and the consequences, six chapters of God's act of redemption, and from chapter 12 onward, how humanity should rightly live in response to relationship with God.

There are many ways to apply what we see in the Bible, but the most direct application is to us as individuals. Our aim is to reside in Right Living--to live in relationship with God and let that reflect in our relationship with others.

Locate yourself on the cycle and do what you must to get back to Right Living.  

What about Santa?

I personally don't have a problem with Santa. Acknowledging that the Santa tradition is just for fun puts Santa, in my view, along side Frosty the Snowman and Christmas trees. They are elements that brighten the winter just as fresh flowers brighten the summer.

However, believing in Santa--that is, believing Santa is real--can be confusing to some when it is contrasted with belief in Jesus Christ. Some will argue that when we teach our kids to believe in Santa and to also believe in Jesus, we are confusing them. We tell them, one day--oh, yeah, all that Santa stuff was not true.  What, then, are they left to think when we tell them to go on believing Jesus is real?

How do we deal with criticisms that the two icons of Christmas, one secular and one sacred, Santa and Jesus respectively, merit the same treatment with regards to belief in them? How do we respond to the premise that believing in Jesus is just as whimsical as believing in Santa?

The problem believers face is that, from a secular point of view, belief in Santa IS just like belief in Jesus. Secular historians will say that Christ is resurrected and lives on in the lives and memories of those that believe and do what He taught. He lives, from the secular point of view, because the traditions and teachings followed by those who believe in him make him alive.

This view is like saying an ancestor lives on in the lives of his or her descendents. Someone might say, "Well, little Johnny is carrying on the family traditions of Grandpa…"

From this perspective, Santa lives on and is real, too. The traditions and ideals of Santa are carried out by people. Thus, from this point of view, Santa IS real. Santa lives because people keep Santa alive by adhering to the Santa ideals and by practicing the Santa traditions.

This point of view will heretically insist that Christ was resurrected only in the memories and obedience of the early Church, and that Christianity is the hand-me-down legacy of that first encounter with Christ. Using that same line of reasoning, if the ideals of Santa are carried out, then Santa lives on, too, and thus, Santa is real just like Jesus.

But belief that Christ is real is dramatically different from believing that Santa is real.  It is two entirely different things.

The difference is that Christ, indeed, rose from the dead, and the Spirit of God works in the world. It is a real, spiritual thing. It is not just the ideals and practices that make Jesus Christ alive and real. The truth is that Jesus is alive and real independent of anything believed or done by people. This fact draws a sharp distinction between Santa being real and Jesus being real.

Jesus does not depend on humanity to be real; Jesus is alive and real, with or without humanity's belief or practice. Santa, on the other hand, is alive and real only because people uphold the Santa ideal and perpetuate the Santa tradition.

People uphold the ideals of Christ and adhere to Christian practice, not (as in the case of Santa) to make Jesus real, but rather because Jesus is real. 

NOTES
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Take care not to compare the giving of gifts from Santa to the God's giving humanity his Son, Jesus Christ. The Santa tradition insists that he gives gifts to the good girls and boys. God's gift is given by grace through faith, not as a result of any good behavior on the part of a person. 

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There is a theology starting in modernity and continuing now that is true, but dangerously close to embracing heresy. Bonhoeffer said that the Christian church, filled with God's Spirit, is the way God works in the world today. He called the Christian church the visible community of God empowered by the indwelling Spirit of God to be the hands and voice of God. Post-modern language extends this to say that the Church is the current incarnation of God. That we Christians, indwelled by God, are God to the world.

I'm mostly okay with that language. But, if one dared subtract the indwelling Spirit of God, we are back to "God is alive because people practice the ideals and traditions.... blah, blah, blah, etc." We end up dangerously close to the premise that Jesus (or Santa) is alive and real because people make him so.

Let there be no mistake: God is alive and real, and not because of what we do! God has tasked believers to be servants, not for God's sake, but for theirs.

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Image: http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=25255&picture=santa-claus

'Tis the Season... For What?

Last week, the United States celebrated the holiday, Thanksgiving. Sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas, it seems this once-sacred holiday has become, for many, little more than a feeding frenzy before the shopping apocalypse now known as Black Friday. 

With the Halloween decorations, in recent years, sharing shelf space with Christmas decorations, my sons and I started calling the period of time from mid-October to December 26 "Halgivemas"--two months of commercial gluttony abandoning anything remotely resembling the historical origins of the holidays contained within.

Even Halloween, in its inception, had a religious connection. It was the eve of All Hallows' Day, a day set aside to remember the saints. However, my "bah, humbug" is centered, not on the trick-or-treat tradition, but on the decline of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The history books of my school days taught us that Thanksgiving was founded by the pilgrims--a group of highly religious people, the Puritans--as a way to show thanks to God for getting them through the early days and near disasters of their colonization. (Historical revisionists of the Twenty-first Century will critique this on many levels, pointing out the errant ways inherent in the practice of colonization, but that critique does not erode the Puritans' stated intent--to show thanks to God.)

What began as a religious observance, by the mid-Twentieth Century, was beginning to become a time to be thankful, less for God's blessings, but rather to be thankful for family and friends. Sports events and parades begin to take part in the day, giving people something with which to fill the time. After all, a whole day of giving thanks is a long time, right? By the turn of the Twenty-first Century, the religious aspect of Thanksgiving had all but been marginalized. Surely the Puritans would never have imagined that the day of thanks would require some people to have a designated driver to get them to and from the gatherings.

Now, the day after Thanksgiving marks two events--Black Friday and the beginning of what most call Christmas. Before the leftovers are eaten or thrown away, people of the United States have moved on to getting ready for Christmas. Seasonal decorations come out, seasonal music begins to play, and people go into hyper-consumerism mode.

Central to the current celebration of Christmas is the exchange of presents. This exchange necessitates the purchase of presents. Retailers thrive at this time of year, needing, in fact, to hire more people to handle the escalated shopping.

Indeed, many will include church services in their attention to the season. Yet, for many of those who include church, it is second to the parties and the presents.

What is lost starting with Black Friday is that Christmas marks and celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. The season starting four Sundays before Christmas (right after Thanksgiving) is actually the Advent season, the period of the year that we look forward to the Christmas season. It is a time to reenact the coming of Jesus Christ. Believers were meant to spend this time preparing themselves for the day when Christ's birth--the incarnation of God into the world--would be celebrated.

THEN for the next twelve days, Christmas season is to be celebrated. But most people in the United States, by the first day of Christmas, are so tired of everything, they take down all their decorations and start making plans to celebrate New Year's Day.

The whole purpose Christmas, the celebration of God's gift to humanity, is lost to the practice of giving gifts to each other. The important sacred moment is lost to the commercial, secular ending of Halgivemas season!

Church historians will tell us that Constantine appropriated the calendar period of a pagan holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ. People were already accustomed to celebrating at that time, so he adapted that celebration to a sacred celebration.

This change reflected the shift, at that time, of society's attitude toward an acknowledgement of the central importance of God in the lives of humanity.

So what does society's attitude shifting away from the sacred to the secular tell us?

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The True Meaning of Christmas video: http://youtu.be/hLE08Jm8csE

Photo: http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=28183&picture=christmas-background&large=1

Already There

At the risk of offending people... 

Don't you hate it when people start off that way? They know they are saying something that will offend people. Why?

As for me, I am writing this because I believe my thoughts on the forthcoming matter will enhance people's understanding of themselves. I believe they will ultimately be better off if they consider my remarks--my critique--knowing my reason for sharing them is to help them live better in relationship to God.

Photo credit below.

I have been in a number of churches and worship centers where people--either leaders or laypeople--have declared how excited they are that "God showed up" on that particular day. I have heard prayers saying something like, "Oh Lord, please come into this house..." or "we really need You God to come to us."

Well... God is already there. No, really.

IF there is a place in creation where God is not (an idea violating pretty much all of orthodoxy), would it be in a place where believers gather?

Now, before all the readers hit the back button, let me acknowledge that I have been in services where the people were strongly moved by the presence of God. I totally understand what it is that those asking for "God to show up" desire.

My critique is the words used to ask for it.

We do not need to ask for "God to show up." God is already there. We need the Spirit of God to drive out of US all those things that stand between us and God so that we can experience God's presence--a presence that was, is and will be, like the prodigal son's father, always there awaiting us.

When we do not feel the presence of God strongly, it is not because God is not present. It is because we are oblivious to God. We are wrapped up in those things we have made into idols that sit in the middle of our minds and lives. We are present in body, but our spirit is distracted by all the cruft that we bring into the worship setting with us. What needs to happen is that we submit our spirit to the Spirit of God and attend to God, not the world.

Our prayer should not be that "God shows up."

It should be that the Spirit of God drives all distractions from us so that WE show up. God is already there.

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Photo:
http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=24846&picture=religion&large=1