Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Good Friday

In Southern Illinois we have been having Thunderstorms for about a week and a half. I am usually a large proponent of thunderstorms, but I don't think I actually experienced t-storms like the ones we have been getting. Usually these storms will come in and storm for about an hour and then move on. These storms have come and come and come.

On Good Friday it stormed all night. The Thunder was shaking the house, the wind was ghostly, and the lightning light the house up when the power went out. As I was lying in bed and listening to this storm I thought of the cross. I reflected on the feeling of the cross as sleep evaded me.

While the cross was interrupted human history, we often forget that all of Creation was influenced by the cross. As I was lying in bed I was thinking of the moments after Christ's last breath. In Matthew the scene is mind altering. The earth and the rocks shake, and the dead bodies that have been within the earth are resurrected and walk, or float themselves, into the city.

None of the other Gospels speak of the natural implications of the Cross. Matthew is the only writer that mentions the natural reaction to the death of Christ. As the thunder was knocking on my roof I was reminded of the all encompassing redemption that was intended for the world.

Psalm 22

My husband and I went up to his folks for Easter on Sunday. After church we drove up to Shelbyville, Illinois and spent some time with his family. Monday I had a meeting with my Seminary adviser in regards to my vocational endeavors. Before I met with him we went through Decatur and saw an old friend who I had interned with my Senior year of college. We spoke of our passion for the church and the challenges that we all were facing. It was very encouraging to see a brother in Christ. As we were leaving Dan hugged me and told me "Don't lose your faith!"

After my meeting we caught up with a college professor who was very influential in my husband's life. We sat and talked with him for a couple of hours about our losses and our wins within ministry. As we left he continued to say, 'pray and God will answer your prayers, be encouraged, be faithful'.

Through our rich conversations we were reminded that we are not alone in this work. We were reminded that God had worked within the lives of these men in their past ministries and He was continuing to work.

These Christian fathers encouraged us to keep the faith, and to continue to seek God, and to continue to study, and to continue to serve. Through their lives, they had seen God do wonderful things, and they continued to believe that God was still at work.

These catch up conversations reminded me of Psalm 22. Waylon preached on Psalm 22 on Sunday in reflection of the resurrection. Psalm 22 was written by David and has some prophetic inkling to the crucifixion of Christ. The first verse in the Psalm is "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" This famous statement that Jesus makes on the Cross was not a question driven by Theodicy, but rather was a prayer. Jesus was praying Psalm 22 on the cross.

Psalm 22 is a Psalm written by David within his despair. David is feeling abandoned and alone. Not only is David feeling this way about his God, he is also feeling this way about his community. As the Psalm goes on he is describing in detail, his spiritual and physical despair.

David is longing for deliverance, and God is no where to be seen.

However, even though God is not immediately delivering David, David still remembers the presence of God within his people's history. David remembers the deliverance God provides his people from the Egyptians. David remembers that God has been ever present within David's own life. As David is wallowing in his despair he is continually encouraged, because as God delivered his chosen people within the past, David can trust that God will continue to deliver him in the future.

As God has worked his redemption out within our history, he will continue to work his redemption out within our future.

Even when God does not deliver us in our present despair, we can trust that God will continue to deliver us within the future.

Jesus prays this Psalm on the cross. While, Jesus is in utter despair, he knows the plan. Because of Jesus' humanity the despair is very real and very painful, however, because Jesus is fully divine, he knows that deliverance will be given to all humanity through his Resurrection.

Just as my older brothers in Christ can look back on their lives and see the deliverance and redemption of God the father, they can look forward and trust in the ultimate deliverance that was given to us through the cross and resurrection.
This ultimate deliverance will free us entirely to be complete human beings.

Kingdom people will no longer be enslaved by their chains, but will be free in the despair and the deliverance of Christ.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Okay

So, I am not the best hymn writer. I think I will stick with regular, non rhyming words from now on. I have been doing some writing, some thinking, and some reading, and I have stumbled onto a couple of questions.

What if our presuppositions were cause for a greater Christ? What if our presuppositions led us to a contextual Christ? Is the historical Christ more important than our contextual Christ? Or are they both on equal playing fields?

For example, clearly Christ has not lived in the twenty first century. Now spiritually he has lived through the Spirit, but I am talking about being born, living through the treacherous adolescent years, and eventually dying. Jesus Christ actually lived and died back in the first century. The question I am pondering has to do with the importance of the historical Jesus in regards to our own presuppositions. Most of us did not grow up with an indoctrinated view of the historical Jesus. Most of us grew up in Sunday morning kid's church, learning about the great miracles of Jesus, and about how God love's all the little children of the world, no matter what color you are.

So, we grow up and maybe some of us never come to terms with this 'historical' Jesus. Maybe some of us live in the spiritual world of miracles, and love, and grace, and forgiveness. But, the historical Jesus lived. Thanks to Josephus we know that there was an actual Jesus who was called the Christ.

However, because we cannot time travel out of our own living contexts and into the first century we do not hear Jesus' words first hand and we do not know this living dying, living Jesus.

All that rambled, the question I have is; who is more important to our theology, the historical Jesus or our own contextual Jesus?

Now, this question, from a logical and restored stand point is easy. Everyone who chooses to study the Bible is called to understand the historical implications of scripture. Because a parable about farming within the first century might look and feel different than a Midwestern farming today. However, when we unveil the historical side of scripture, does it really matter. Does that Midwestern farmer in the pulpit say, wow that parable has nothing to do with the drought I am facing with, this scripture really means this....

When we are facing our own despair do the historical implications matter? Let's be honest, we cannot actually 'know' the truest historical situation, without the historian's presuppositions of history anyway, so does this historical Jesus truly matter to our theology? Can we ever get through the layers of everyone's presuppositions to reach a pure, untainted view of Jesus? Or is this historical Jesus a scapegoat for our spiritual apathy? Do we cling to the history behind the text so that we do not truly have to live out the text in our own context?