Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?

Five times in the last two weeks I have stood with grieving families with these words of hope – “In my Father’s house are many rooms … I go to prepare a place for you.” (John 14) Looking to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, I have reminded all those gathered ‘round a grave of the promise of the resurrection secured by Christ Jesus who showed us that we can live forever. "For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive." (1 Corinthians 15:21-22, NIV)  Monday I visited a beautiful little cemetery on the mountain a couple of miles from my home – where my wife’s body was laid to rest five months ago to plant roses. And I remember that though her body lies there, she lives beyond my reach.

I am increasingly a creature of eternity; my heart loving the hopeful promise of heaven as my home. Are you?  Have you lost sight of eternity? 

The heavy responsibilities of daily life, getting the mortgage paid, keeping the kids fed, putting supper on the table can, and too often did in my past life, make us forget that we are “aliens and strangers in the world .‘  How many sermons in your church remind you of the brevity of life and the promise of life beyond the grave. Even Christian funerals are sometimes more celebration of the memories than a proclamation of the HOPE– our resurrection life assured in Christ Jesus.

We have become deluded by the idea, a lie by the way, that we can find Heaven on earth, a utopia. And we manage, some of us for many years, to preserve an illusion that our life will never end.  N.T. Wright observes that for centuries Christians walked to worship past cemeteries.  They entered a place used “weekly for prayer, Eucharist, celebration, for baptisms and weddings, for the whole worshipping life of the community … there is something wonderful and profound about entering church through the churchyard where are buried those who worshipped there in centuries past.”  (Surprised by Hope) This was a powerful reminder that they would in due time enter their rest in Christ, awaiting the Resurrection.  Morbid, you say? Or, would it help us to grow past our insistence on a fluffy, happy, ‘don’t make me think about hard choices,’ religion that passes for discipleship in so many lives today?

There will be NO great sacrifice, NO costly service, NO passion for building the Kingdom of God unless we have a view of life that prominently includes the promise of our eternal life and an awareness that each one of us will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, our Lord, to receive our just reward. (And, then too, there is that grim counter-truth of those who exist outside of His light and life for eternity!) Has the quest for perpetual youth and beauty, those prayers for blessings and trouble-free lives, hidden Heaven from sight?

Resurrection life begins on this side of eternity!  “Walk worthy of the high calling,” the Bible demands. We need not be overtaken by the emptiness reflected in the words that Shakespeare put in the mouth of Macbeth: “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”   

We know that this life is the opening scene for the unfolding divine plot to bring us from death to life, from ‘this perishable to the imperishable.’   The 15^th chapter of 1 Corinthians celebrates our resurrection- "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." (1 Corinthians 15:56-58, NIV)

Here is a word from the Word. Savor the promise. Make it real for life, not just for funerals and times of grief. I have read the end of the Book, and here’s what it says:  "I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son." (Revelation 21:1-7, NIV)

Because He lives, I too shall live.  So, I am oriented to eternity. How about you?

___________

Sweet Beulah Land

I'm kind of homesick for a country

To which I've never been before

No sad good-byes will there be spoken

For time won't matter anymore

I'm looking now across the river

Where my faith will end in sight

There's just a few more days to labor

Then I will take my heav’nly flight

Beulah land I am longing for you

And someday on Thee I'll stand

Where my home shall be eternal

Beulah land sweet Beulah land

(Beulah means ‘married’ in Hebrew and is a metaphor for that time when we are taken to our Heavenly Husband’s home)

Squire Parsons Jr.© 1979 Kingsmen Publishing Company (Admin. by Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing, Inc.) CCLI License # 810055

Keeping it legal?

You see the police cruiser on the horizon and you … Slow down? Drop the cell phone? Grab for the seat belt? Or, if you are doing nothing wrong, you just keep driving. Most of us do not ‘love’ the laws that govern us so we when we see an officer that could enforce consequences, we feel the need to change our behavior. What if we adjusted our attitude toward those laws and observed them not to avoid a citation but because we see the value in them to protect public safety?

Jesus taught those of us who follow Him that “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20) Pharisees were excellent rule-keepers! They parsed the Law of Moses and wrote long texts to apply it in their daily life situations. But, they were something like us with police officers. They looked for ways to keep it legal but failed to appreciate the spirit of the Law which was to show them how to please God and find a whole life.  Do you serve Christ in a similar way? Do you look for the line of minimal discipleship, just enough to keep your conscience from feeling too much guilt?

Jesus addressed attitudes more than actions.  

Regarding the commandment not to murder, Jesus moved the line way back and told us that the issue we needed to change was our anger that led to contempt for another person. When we take the stance towards another that says - “You are a worthless individual,” it is an issue of concern to our Heavenly Father.  

Regarding the commandment about adultery, Jesus said that an attitude that devalues another person, making him or her into an object to satisfy our lust is as much a concern to our Father as having sexual intercourse.

He spoke of keeping our marriage commitment and corrected the error of the Pharisees who thought divorce was acceptable as long as the paperwork was in order! “You can’t use legal cover to mask a moral failure." Jesus said. (Matthew 5:32, The Message)

When it comes to our words, Jesus warned about abusing words in a way that allows us to make one impression while leaving ourselves wiggle room to do what we want to do.  We need to memorize this - "Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." (Matthew 5:37, NIV)

Are you a good Pharisee or a beloved child of God?

That is the question, friend, that we must put to ourselves. If we reduce our Christianity to compliance with the commandments, even the more scrupulous observance defined in the Sermon on the Mount, we fall into a legal mentality, a fear-based religion that enslaves us to guilt and fear. The Gospel is not ‘do better, be better, get better.’  Christ came to save us from our sins, not by writing stricter rules for us, but by liberating us from the old cycle of fear and failure with love.  He is not lurking in the shadows alongside the road of life, divine radar at the ready, waiting to catch us so He can issue a ticket to us. He is inviting us to know and treasure Him so that the lure of temptation that comes our way pales in comparison to the glory of His love.

Let’s really ‘enter the Kingdom.’ Let’s pray for the Spirit to help us to delight in the Lord, heart-deep. Paul says that we learn to ‘keep step with the Spirit.’  "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives." (Galatians 5:24-25, NLT)  Sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father, we are loved and led to lives that leave behind the idea of just ‘keeping it legal’ to discover the joy of His holiness.

Here is a word from the Word.

"Sing a new song to the Lord! Let the whole earth sing to the Lord!

Sing to the Lord; praise his name.

Each day proclaim the good news that he saves.

Publish his glorious deeds among the nations.
Tell everyone about the amazing things he does.

Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise!

He is to be feared above all gods.
The gods of other nations are mere idols, but the Lord made the heavens!

Honor and majesty surround him; strength and beauty fill his sanctuary.

O nations of the world, recognize the Lord;

recognize that the Lord is glorious and strong.

Give to the Lord the glory he deserves!

Bring your offering and come into his courts.

Worship the Lord in all his holy splendor. Let all the earth tremble before him."

(Psalm 96:1-9, NLT)

A Stranger in a Strange Land

“I don’t understand the world in which I live anymore,” I sighed. It is not a joke. America has changed. The ‘majority’ culture, based on shared values about life that are largely derived from the Bible, is evaporating, being replaced by a secular one that has no meaningful place for ‘God,’ especially One who came to us and showed us His face in the Person of Jesus Christ. 

Russell Moore, in his book, Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel, tells of a conversation with a politically progressive, atheist lesbian woman. She was curious about evangelical Christians and they had a respectful discussion of core Christian beliefs and practices. She told him that he was the first person she had ever met who thought that sex belonged only in marriage between a man and woman. At the end of the conversation she said, “So, do you see how strange what you are saying sounds to those of us out here in normal America?”

Normal America is not what it once was. Do not stop reading because you think that this is a sad story of an old man who is longing for the ‘good, old days.’ Not here, not me. The myth of a “Christian America” is largely that – a myth. What is true is that the basic values that formed this country: honesty, monogamy, fidelity, thrift, industriousness, responsibility, and respect for individual rights – were and are drawn from the Scripture. Life was framed by the assumption that we came from a Creator and that when this life was over we would return to Him.  Even those who had no real knowledge of God were affected by the assumptions that formed the world they lived in. That world view is still existing, but not for long given that those who shape our society discarded even the forms of Christianity long ago.

So, how do Christians respond to this shifting culture?

Some are angry, ready to engage in culture wars, to use every lever of power to try to hang onto what once was.

Others are afraid, in full retreat, concluding that the best way to ensure the survival of Christianity is to live inside of an isolated sub-culture.

Many are trying to ‘accommodate’ by rounding off the edges of their faith to make Jesus more acceptable. The Cross is taken off the church walls. The call to holy living is unspoken. The urgency of evangelism is replaced by the hustle of a ‘health and wealth Gospel.’ The promise of both Heaven and Hell are replaced with finding ‘your best life now.’ A thin veneer of “Jesus” is laid over lives that are, for the most part, indistinguishable from those of unbelievers.

I believe that this time of sifting is a gift from God that will bring about a revitalized, robust faith. Will there be fewer numbers in our churches? Certainly! Will we enjoy the same kind of benevolence from government authority that we have had up to this point? Most likely not. Will trusting Jesus have a real cost in terms of rejection of friends, family loss, and perhaps even persecution? I think it will, within a matter of a few years. But, just as God used the exile in Babylon to reshape the Jewish nation, to preserve His Word and people in new ways when they returned to Jerusalem a generation later, I believe He will use this ‘loss’ to bring the Church back to Christ and His Cross, to hope in eternity, and to the Good News of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus describes His followers as ‘salt and light,’ engaged with the world in which they live as a preservative and flavor, yet as distinct from that world as light is from darkness! We need to study the opening part of Matthew 5 in depth, seeing how Jesus’ description of the ‘blessed life’ is much at odds with what we have made it. Here are those words. Read them thoughtfully. Ask, “am I finding true joy this life, or doing all I can to avoid it?”

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:3-12, NIV)

May Jesus’ love and beauty so fill us that the radiance lights our dark world. Amen.