January Topic

For the majority of what I would call "my mature Christian life", I thought thinking about the afterlife was a waste of time. I could never see the practicality of reflecting on something that there is no clear picture about. I had an opinion of what I thought it would be, and for a long time I didn't have a problem if I told someone that their view of the afterlife was ignorant. (If you don't know me personally, know that my past is founded on arrogance.) Yet, at the base of my theology I have always thought that love held and place. This caused a problem. When death finally faced me it was something that my "knowledge" did nothing to help show love to those mourning. The little grief I have experienced has not been desperate nor particularly cold, but it has been one of the view things in life that I will sight as evidence in my theological thought. It is a pit of confusion for me, and I have to admit I am being somewhat selfish in choosing this topic. I know it will help me think to read through it.

Basically, my idea is that we should each take a look at what the afterlife is to us. I don't want us to get into one view versus another based on anything too finite, but rather examine how the idea practically reflects itself in our lives. If it hasn't, think about how it could. How do we minister from it? Should it have an effect on our actions? How do we handle this thing that is so important to so many? Whatever you want to ask, go where you want with it. I know not everyone will come at it from an "afterlife" point of view. Even if your idea of what's next is a progression, that's what I am asking about, but make sure to mention how it practically effects your relationship to others.

The Meaning of Advent (to me)

I have only become aware of the concept of Advent in the most recent years in my Christian walk. As of late, the Advent has become increasingly meaningful to me.

I have for a long time held in my mind the image of John the Baptist (or John the witness) who is ever pointing to the Christ. John the Baptist is the ideal vanguard of the Kingdom of God. He sees the coming glory of God on earth and compels others to react, repent, and prepare themselves for the coming of the Christ who will begin the restoration of order upon the creation that has turned to chaos in the hands of humanity.

The Advent season reminds me of my responsibility to also be a messenger of the good news: “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” This imminent shift of the ages from chaos to God’s order and justice is brought to visibility through Jesus who is the Christ—the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God. Jesus comes not to overthrow the political and economic systems that have damned and oppressed the people; he is not a political leader nor an economic theorist, he is the inaugurator of the Kingdom. The presence of the Christ demands love and justice for all of humanity; this love and justice causes a break in the structure of the political and economic powers. They cannot stand on a foundation of evil. The right order of God brushes away evil and injustice through the suffering service of one person to another. Jesus lives and dies as the ultimate display of the ethic and lifestyle of the citizen of God’s Kingdom. Jesus has made the kingdom real; it is not a physical kingdom because it is the servanthood of all of humanity to one another as children of God. The siblings of salvation now are to act as representatives and harbingers of the Kingdom of God, which receives its validity and hope in overcoming evil by the power of God in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Being raised from death is a display of God’s power to overcome even the greatest of evils experienced by every person in all classes and cultures. The resurrection gives sight to the ability to overcome the impossible for “with God, nothing is impossible” (cf. gospel of Luke) and the hope to overcome even the greatest of injustices.

Advent means preparing for the coming kingdom; it means pointing ever to the Christ as the tangible sign of God’s presence and power in the world we live in. Advent means living a life the disallows injustices and strives for love and mercy, forgiveness and just action—not for the sake of ourselves but for the glory of God in the restoration of all of creation and humanity into the order that God had created and intended for all.

Brotherhood

Like it is for many children, when I was small Christmas was the most exciting day of the year. My parents did the Santa Claus thing with my brothers and me. I know every family does this differently, but they simply set the gifts out a few hours before we thought about getting out of bed. No wrapping paper, just organized into a clump for each of us. It was the entry into the room that was the process of unwrapping for us I suppose. When we moved out of my Grandmother's house into our own house, Ben and I shared a room. It was here that we had one of our deepest bonds of brotherhood. Christmas eve night would fall on us, and we would lay in bed unable to fall asleep from excitement. It was here we would talk about all of the things we hoped we were getting and what we were going to play with first, but it was also a place where we started to scheme. I hope that anyone with siblings can relate to the relationship that comes out of mischief. Ben and I certainly could. We would get in our minds that every little noise we heard was Santa coming down the chimney to leave our gifts, and we youthfully thought we could catch him in the act. Every Christmas eve we made a score of attempts to catch him in the living room leaving gifts without waking our parents. These plans began to become fairly involved over the years and started to revolve around cookie baited traps. It was something Ben and I did together. When I moved into my own room across the hall it only increased. A new objective was added to Operation Catch Santa. We first had to get to each other, and then we had to work together on some devious plan. These are some of my fondest memories. A lot has come between Ben and me since, and the memories have certainly become fonder. My heart beats faster to look back on the days when all we had was Brotherhood.

The Will to Believe

Please refer to my post from October for the back story to this post.

The magic is gone. It took the world falling apart for me to realize that life really is every bit as terrible as people keep telling me it is. I look out my window and hate what I see all around me. There are people living on the streets and in houses that barely deserve that title. There are hungry people. There are people who don't have families. If my separation from my family, my meager housing (which is a castle by comparison), and my penny-pinching at the grocery store have taught me anything, it is to sympathize ever so slightly with these people. If I have a longing for home and security, imagine their emotions of a similar kind! I hate that these people have little choice about their situation.

The season of Advent is supposed to make us want Christ's coming all the more. It has certainly fulfilled that goal in my life. This Advent, I have been faced with a picture of the sick monster that is at the core of the world. It breaks apart relationships both human and divine. It creates greed and hostilities. It forges bitterness and despair. Call it what you will, but do not consider that the world is a safe place. There is of course goodness, virtue, and right relationship in the world, but do not neglect the existence of its dark alternative as I did.

Advent is supposed to be about the hope for a brighter future. Having the resurrection in the back of my mind, I realize that there is nothing so dark as to overcome the Son of God. But believing it is sometimes more difficult than knowing it. I confess that I am a cynic by nature; hope is not something that comes easily to me. Hope is a choice that I have to consciously make. Ultimately, I have to decide whether or not I judge Jesus to be worth hoping in. He claimed that he would bless the poor, the meek, the peacemakers, the mourning, those persecuted for righteousness' sake, and those hungering and thirsting for righteousness. I don't see a lot of that when I look out my window. I don't see a lot of that when I look at my life. Perhaps others have clearer lenses than I and can easily point it out. I urge you to do so, for mine are too easily stained with despair. Chances are I am missing something; I certainly hope I am.

I want to believe in the hope Jesus represents. I just don't know that I can. William James offers a picture of the requirements necessary for believing in something without absolute proof. He claims that one requirement is for there to be a live option in the choice. One option is that God is at best capricious and at worst malicious or nonexistent. The other option is that God truly does care about humanity as Christ's life, death, and resurrection represent. Yet it seems to me that if option two is to be viable, there must be some evidence of such today.

This Christmas is unlike any other in my memory. This Christmas, I have doubts about Christianity. This Christmas, I have to make a choice whether to celebrate the coming of a Savior and the hope that he brings or to abandon that hope altogether. It seems illogical, but option two it is.

Prepare to Be Surprised

Narrative theology is at the heart of advent. Advent is a season of preparation. We are trying to put ourselves into the world before the Messiah, and prepare ourselves for his coming. But in another sense, we are also preparing for the Second Coming. This morning in church, we read from James 5:7-8:

Be patient, therefore, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

Be patient, and prepare. This is a good message for Advent. It was not a selection I had ever seen associated with the Christmas season.

And the sermon was on Matthew 11. From prison John the Baptist sent disciples to ask Jesus if he was the one, or if he should wait for another. His doubts may have stemmed from the fact that Jesus was not the Messiah anyone had expected. That got me to thinking.

The reason we need a narrative theology of Advent is because of this very fact. The devout had been preparing for the coming of the Messiah for centuries. And when he came, they didn't recognize him. Because he came in an unexpected way; he was a king born in a feeding trough, he was God in the barn.

Today, everyone has ideas about what the Second Coming will be like. Some expect him "riding on the clouds, shining like the sun at the trumpet call." I bet many first century Jews expected something like that. Maybe advent could remind us that we worship a Messiah who defies our expectations. So maybe we need to prepare to be surprised.

-Wyatt

December Topic

As we recently celebrated the beginning of Advent, I feel rather compelled to dedicate this space to the celebration thereof. Yet I don't want this blog to turn into a Max Lucado book about Christmas; not that there is anything wrong with Lucado. I merely wish to discuss Christmas from a more earthy prospective rather than waxing theological.

In my imagination, I like to picture some of my distant ancestors sitting around a Medieval fireplace telling stories to each other. I can remember my grandparents talk about family gatherings with music, singing, dancing, and lots of storytelling. Perhaps we have lost something by losing our fireplaces and front porches; I know of few families who get together like this.

At length, I come to the topic. What are the stories of family and friends that impact how you view Christmas? How has your conception of Advent changed over the years, and who played a part in that change? If God is with us as we gather in community as I believe he is, then is there a theology of gathering and storytelling associated with Advent? If so, what is it? How do we treasure that theology in our scattered status?

I give you a lot of facets to latch on to here; do not feel compelled to deal with each. Find one that you like and go with it. Have a great Christmas.

JC

Closer Together and Closer to God

The question at hand is a complex one. Salvation is among the vaguest theological term in use, and one of the most popularly misunderstood, to my mind. This misunderstanding, it seems to me, stems from the fact that folks of different traditions mean very different things by this term "salvation." In my tradition, salvation has typically used to express the idea of justification, which happens by faith alone. In a more catholic vein, salvation expresses the idea of sanctification, which is the process by which a person is made holy. I will not even bring into the discussion the concepts of Glorification and Deification, as they are clearly outside of our reach "on this side of Glory." It seems to me that both of these concepts, justification and sanctification, have bearing on the discussion at hand.

Obviously, justification is at work in an individual's life, quite apart from the church, when the individual comes to faith in Christ. Of course, the individual has most likely inherited that faith from, or at least was introduced to that faith in the context of a church tradition. Justification, however, happens in the individual as a result of their personal (not private) decision to turn to God. However, this raises a few important questions: What has the individual been saved from? and What has the individual been saved for?

What has the individual been saved from? Well, in short, sin. Sin is what separates a person from God, and so by turning to God in faith, one somehow begins to cross the bridge over the chasm of sin and separation, and return to God. Sin also, I believe, separates us from each other. And this leads us to the question of what we are saved for, in economic -that is to say this-worldly- terms.

One can model this disparity caused by sin by invisioning dots (individuals) arrayed around a center point (God). Sin causes those dots to travel extreme distances away from the center point. And you may notice that as those dots travel outward in straight lines, the dots themselves grow farther apart. And since they are doomed to travel on straight tracks, the only way to get back into contact with each other is for them all to travel back inward to God. Likewise, as they draw closer together, they are naturally drawing closer to God.

This process of drawing closer together and closer to God I will call sanctification. This is what we are created for, this closeness to God and this closeness to each other. And so I think my answer is that in order to most fully realize our salvation in this life, on "this side of Glory", we must live in community. We must have church. We must draw closer together and closer to God.