November Newsletter: The Last Adam and the Image of the Heavenly Man
November Newsletter (PDF)
O the leadership of this Crucified One
O the leadership of the Lamb
and he’s plotting my death
and he’s digging my grave
O he works all things for good.
The other week found me singing this simple chorus in my car and, now, at the end of our Christology class a month later, I find it to be the perfect summary of all that encompasses the beauty of this most excellent man. He, Jesus Christ, who is the sum of our thoughts, our obsession, our meditation, and as Paul puts it so elegantly “who is your life” (Col. 3:4) is the most perfect of leaders, the most radiant of companions and the most excellent of friends.
“This is my beloved and this is my friend” (Song 5:16) the maiden calls out and we the Church, his body, call him our head (Col 1:18). He is the “captain of our salvation” (Heb 2:10), the “author and finisher of our faith” (Heb 12:2) and it is fitting that he would be called also in his life and death the “last Adam” (I Cor. 15:45) and with glory in his resurrection, the “second man” (I Cor. 15:47).
The program of the Son of God was not merely the improvement of humanity through a social program to rehabilitate them from sin. Christ instead came to put the race of Adam in the ground for all eternity. Humanity was married to Sin and any attempt to leave her husband and be united to another was adultery. The plight of all the sons of Adam and all the daughters of Eve was their marriage to sin and their bondage to death (Rom. 7:1-6). Jesus Christ came to put to death all the Children of Adam, that through our union to his death and resurrection, we might pass from death, our marriage to sin, to life, our union to him.
The Mystery then is that every son of Adam will lie locked in the grave and burn in the Lake of fire. Jesus came as the last of that race to put an end to its progeny. What is more mysterious is that whenever anyone is “in Christ there is a new creation” (II Cor. 5:17). When he arose with light and the glorious splendor of resurrection power, Christ was shown to be the second man. He is the firstborn and father of an entirely new Humanity and those united to him are a part of a new race of mankind.
While it may not look like it presently, there are two races of Humanity walking upon the surface of the earth; one is of Adam, destined to destruction, and the other is of Christ, destined for a resurrection such as his. The mystery of the gospel is that, right now, those in Christ, those walking around unified in to death and resurrection do not now know what they will be. “Your life is hidden with Christ in God”
(Col 3:3), because you “died with Christ” (Rom. 6:8) and the life you now live you “live by faith in the Son of God” (Gal 2:20) and so it is that “when Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:4).
And so, as I drive to class, as we got throughout our lives; face circumstance, hardship, suffering disappointment, joys, and elation, I entrust my life and my song to the leadership of this most glorious One. Our Resurrection is as sure as his was, our vindication as confident as the Son of God’s, our hope as sure as his. He came to put Adam in the grave, and it is all unto my good, that I might shed my linage, be “born again” (John 3:3), become a “[child] of God”(John 1:13), a member of the New Humanity — a new creation (II Cor. 5:17) — and ultimately rise in “the image of the heavenly man” (I Cor. 15:49).
The Departure of the Apostles to Preach the Gospel
The supremacy of Jesus is the issue at the end of the age. Though all sorts of secondary issues may assail the church as to distract us from this plain truth, the New Testament is clear that the most important confession concerning a believer is that concerning the person of Jesus Christ. While we might be tempted to move on from what some would consider the “elementary doctrines of the faith,” Paul makes it irrevocably clear that if we move ahead and build upon “any other foundation than that which is in Christ Jesus” then we are in danger of joining the way of unbelievers.
The testimony of the preaching of the early Church is the same as that which is to be preached in the context of the end of the age. When Peter stood up at Pentecost (Acts 2) the whole diving focus of his preaching was that God had exalted Jesus and “made him both Lord and Christ.” For the early church this was no light thing. The revelation of the New Testament was that a man now shared the divine throne and that this one who had been crucified in their midst was that same Lord of Glory who had created the Heavens and the Earth. Paul and Peter both use the same Old Testament concept that “whoever calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved” (Joel 2) to declare that it is Jesus Christ who one must acknowledge as the Lord in order to be saved.
The reason which the church must have clarity concerning Jesus Christ is that he is the active participant in the drama of the end of the age. That which the Old Testament tells us YWH will do at the end of the age is what the New Testament reveals Jesus will do at the end of the age. The event of the end times are meant to confront the earth with the Identity of YHWH, and the name which that Identity carries is ‘Jesus.’ He is the one to whom all the nations will bow and whom they will confess as Lord. If the church does not have clarity concerning this man then we too will be deceived into offense at the way by which YHWH confronts the nations and forces them to reckon with his identity.
The crisis of the Western Church today is that almost everything else is preached except Jesus. Whereas in the New Testament writings, Christology is the predominate theme which is addressed — his preeminence being established in almost every circumstance, doctrine, and teaching — today in the church the topic of Christ is rarely preached with its full weight. We are satisfied to let Christ simply remain a peripheral issue, a figure relegated to the sidelines and left in the shadows while the Church pursues a Christless and often unscriptural spirituality devoid of any transformative power and all to often “without God in the world.”
Instead of our lives, confessions, songs, preaching, meditation and practice being consumed with the glory of this man it is all to often consumed by almost all other form of distraction. Preaching is often centered instead around how Christianity can perhaps garner us comfort is this lifetime, this next year or even this next week, rather than preaching Christ and the splendor of his glory in the hope which is to be revealed. The central indictment of Evangelical Protestantism in the earth today is that it is shallow, baseless, and often unspiritual all because it lacks the foundational rootedness in the person and work of Jesus Christ the Son of God.
The New Testament writings make it clear that the wave of delusion which is going to come upon the whole earth is to begin in the Church first. Whereas in the last days an ultimate man will arise and lead the nations into apostasy, long before that takes place the crises facing the nations will be the delusion which will sweep through the Church of Christ. When the true gospel and the centrality of Jesus are not preached and upheld the very bedrock upon which the Christian faith is built erodes away and gives rise to delusion within the body of Christ.
The supremacy of Christ is answer to all the perpetual woe of the Church. All our rootless spirituality, our endless neurotic striving for the “next thing” which will placate our hearts and sooth our souls finds answer and satisfaction in gazing upon this one most beautiful God-man. He, himself; the knowledge of him, the pursuit of him, intimacy with him, is the whole of the Christian faith. He is the substance around which all our desires and wants find fulfillment.
The apostle John writes of Christ by saying “in him was life” (John 1:4) but it is the apostle Paul who takes this reality one step further and expounds on our relationship to Christ in the most absolute of terms. In Colossians 3 we find that that our very lives are hidden in Christ. The mystery then is that we do not even know what our life is outside of Christ. The very sum total of our existence is summed up in him. What we truly are, our desires dreams and plans are all hidden in him.
Paul goes on to call Jesus “Christ, who is your life.” The totality of our existence, the whole of everything that makes up what it means to live, to be human, to exist, from the most complex and lofty thoughts of hope, love, and joy, to the most simple and base activities such as simply breathing are summed up, contained, transcended and find fullest expression in Christ Jesus the Lord. There simply is nothing other than him.
He is the fullness of deity dwelling bodily, the most elegant revelation of who the eternal one is. To see him is to see God, because he is God. There is no other obsession which should captivate the heart of a believer as meditating on this most beautiful one should. He is the fairest of ten thousand, the sum of all our thoughts, and the heart of our dreams, desires and goals. Outside of him is only darkness, in him is only light. Christ Jesus must be out preeminence. He will be our preeminence or we will not be his. As the apostle said, the Lord has “fixed a day” (Acts 17) to judge the earth by this man and in that day there will be no question as to his identity. He will be shown as YHWH to the whole world. “Come; let us press to know the Lord” now so that that day does not come upon us like a trap.
The Resurrection of the Dead in Michelangelo's Last Judgement
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day…Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
- John 6:40, 54
One of the driving questions of Christianity in last 2000 years has been “Where will you go when you die?” (I might of made up the “last 2000 years” part, so if you feel particularly perturbed by that, you can substitute any number that is at lest over 200). In fact, forget Christianity, it has been the driving question of the West for centuries. Thanks to our Judeo-Christian roots almost everybody thinks of their future life in the terms of “going” and “dying.”
This of course would be okay (in fact excellent for evangelism since even the non-Christian were already spouting out your own lingo, hopes and questions) if this was the language the bible used to speak about the afterlife. The problem is, other than the fact that the Bible doesn’t use the word ‘afterlife,’ is that the Bible does not really speak of ‘going’ either. While we all talk about “going to heaven,” “going to hell,” the “sweet chariot coming for to carry us home,” and being a “pilgrim in the earth” (a word that has picked up a little too much baggage ever since the Mayflower but nonetheless vouches for the fact that Catholics were not the only ones to wear funny hats) the bible is more ready to speak of “waiting” “coming” and the really kicker; “resurrection.”
In a manner which is about as foreign to us as ancient Greek or Hebrew (though I will praise Richard Liantonio for trying to make ancient Greek all a little less foreign to us all), the Bible presents the future hope not that someday you will die and your ‘immortal soul’ will be whisked to that “Spirit in the Sky” but that instead when you body hits the grave it won’t stay there but on a glorious future and eschatological day (actually ancient Greek, from eskhatos ‘last,’ referring to the study of the last things. I could write a whole post on how that word can be used) a trumpet will sound and all those whose hope was in YHWH, maker of heaven and earth, will arise from the dead to new glorified bodies that do not know death, darkness, sin, or decay.
Now, you might say, everyone believes that, it’s in the creeds, (First Council of Constantinople 381 AD “we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.”) my response to that would be “you know the creeds?” (Extra points if you come from a non-liturgical Protestant or Charismatic background). So yes, it turns out that the resurrection is in the creeds, but most do not think of it as their primary hope. The Resurrection of the Dead is sort of like the lollipop the waiter brings you after the meal, its an add-on to the real reason you came, and since no one can look cool sporting a dum-dum sticking out of their mouth, it tends the evoke the response of “now what do I want this for?”
The resurrected body sort of becomes that moth eaten suit of your grandpa’s that you have to lug around everywhere because your mother won’t let you throw it away, even though no one really wants and is darn ugly to boot (a corduroy suite, seriously?). When all we have been told about life after death is some cloud covered place of gold, whiteness and light screaming of a bad gospel music video from the eighties it might come to quite a shock that this is not really the way in which the “place Christians go when they die” looks like (mostly because that is not really something the bible talks about that much). Whatever the intermediate state (that time between when you buy the farm and that Resurrection Day) looks like, the bible seems to make it rather clear (based on its relative silence on the intermediate state) that it is not the Christian hope.
Course, the problem about actually saying this is rather obvious, the Christian hope then, unfortunately is, well, not the Christian hope. And as it turns out, when people spend their whole lives hoping for something they seem to respond a little strongly when you tell them the thing they are hoping for is, well, not what the Bible tells them they should be hoping for. So more than telling people just that their hope is wrong, let us introduces, as Hebrews says, not just a different hope, but a “better hope” (pretty sure I am taking this phrase out of context, check out Hebrews 7:19 to prove me wrong).
And that is the thing; the Resurrection is a better hope. The reason, because it addresses one of the fundamental problems concerning the Christian hope: that, well, it was dubious whether or not it really should be called hope. Lets just admit it, we saw the pictures, heard the stories; the white flowing robes, the clouds, the harps, all that gold, and while the choir got up to sing another song about our heavenly abode we smiled, sang along, and pushed to the back of our minds that voice screaming “I never want to go there.”
The reason I long for the resurrection is because it is not some ethereal pie in the sky neverland where I am suppose to be happy and yet have no basis for why other than the fact that Jesus is there. And while being in a 4×4 cell in complete darkness with Jesus would be better than all the beautiful glorious wonders of the world without Jesus, that doesn’t keep me from wanting to avoid incarceration as much a possible. I long for resurrection because as much as I sometimes am frustrated with my body (I am sort of sick as I write this) I still love the physical world, I love texture and feeling and rough sawn wood and nature glens and rivers and sun and stars and somehow being with Jesus without those things wouldn’t really be like being with Jesus, mostly because it wouldn’t be like being.
We need to forget the old hope our hymns, gospel songs, and old-time preachers were trying to sell us and embrace an older, better hope that the bible talks about. We sang “Give me that Old-Time Religion” but the religion that was “good for the prophet Daniel” was the resurrection from the dead. Death is not just a transition to a better world; it is an unnatural terrorists which violently rips the fabric of reality. Going to haven does not make death better, because death is not something that can just be merely redefined. The Lord came not just to save souls, but to save people; body, soul, and spirit. He did not come to redefine death but instead to destroy it. The resurrection of the dead is, at the end of the day (and the beginning of a new day) the destruction of this last enemy which is death. The Hope of Humanity is not going away to escape a world of death, it is New Creation, Resurrection, invading the present age and destroying that last enemy named Death.
The Wild Thing who wanted a King and the Boy pretending to be a Wolf, pretending to be a King
Family is hard.
— KW
Where the Wild Things Are might catch some people off guard. What was believed to be a children’s book turned movie on the joys of imagination turns out to be more about divorce and loneliness than a ‘wild rumpus” of childhood fun. Of course these themes were hinted at in the book, yet it is in a bold move (or perhaps not so bold considering the trend) that Spike Jones elevates the themes of existential angst to the forefront in a way that, more than inviting us into an imaginary world to forget all our troubles, reminds us perhaps too clearly of our own childhoods and the weight of cosmic longing.
Somewhere early in the film as Max’s cried for attention amidst a world that is suddenly far too grown up for him, his mom’s would be boyfriend says what might be one of the most naive and insightful statement in the whole film. In the chaos, as Max bites his mom and then runs for the door, her boyfriend responds with something to the effect of; “he can’t treat you that.” And that is perhaps exactly the point. In a perfect imaginary world, where the sun isn’t going to die and Max’s father isn’t gone and his mom doesn’t have to hold a job, try to make a relationship work, and take care of a highly-imaginative son all at the same time the boyfriend is right; Max can’t treat his mom like that. But that is not the world Max lives in and though it does not make it right, this is the world that they find themselves, and, be it this world or any other, relationships are messy and all to often someone bites someone — if not flat out eats them.
In his escape, Max finds himself on the other side of the sea with the wild things. And they are indeed wild; running through the woods, throwing dirt clods, sleeping in piles, howling, and building fortresses and fires, and unfortunately eating their kings and alienating their loved ones. Max becomes their King and he is expected to do what all kings are expected to do — fix things. But as Douglas eventually notes, Max is no king; he is just a boy, pretending to be a wolf, pretending to be a king. And that is what the story is about, pretending. Because the truth is that everyone is walking around pretending that the things that are wrong aren’t and that someone else can fix the problem.
Carol wants a king, but perhaps not because he knows what a king is, but rather because he doesn’t know what love is. He wants a king to make things right, because things being right should mean that KW likes him, or that he isn’t sad, or that they are started living life family. And Max can’t do those things. Max wants to be their king for the exact same reasons they want him to be their king — so that things can be right and so someone will like him, perhaps most of all himself. Carol discovers a king cannot fix his problems, and Max discovers that imagination cannot fix his loneliness, because no matter how big a fort they build, his mom does not have time to come and see it, and the wild things are not sleeping in one big pile. Max is just as powerless in his own imaginations as he is in the real world he is running away from.
In the end everyone wishes Max was a king. Wouldn’t it be great if his powers were able to set things right and fix everything that was broken in the world. The truth is though; the problem is not ‘out there’ as everyone might wish it to be. Max could not just fix the sadness because the sadness was in his soul, not just something separate from himself, out there in the world that got only came around every once in a while.
Max might have been the first king that they didn’t eat, yet that is more to their ability to finally see what they had been blinded too all along — that Max was no king (and neither were any of the other folks they had thought were their king) and more importantly, that it wasn’t a king that could fix what needed fixed. What was broken was their own hearts, their own selfishness. Carol was waiting for the perfect world to come where everything would be okay but he was unwilling to realize, until perhaps the end, that the perfect world was had not come and he had to stop being so angry waiting for it to come so he could learn to love the people around him, even if they didn’t always love him back.
In the end KW was right. Family is hard. As long as people are broken, relationships are broken too. What Carol, Max, and really all of us have to learn is that we can’t just run from hurt. Nobody gets healed but running, it is only in coming home, quietly walking through the door and creeping down the hallway afraid of what we will find that we have the opportunity to meet the ones we bit waiting there for us, with a hot plate of food and a piece of chocolate cake, just grateful we made it home safely.
Christ Offers To Redeem Man
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.
2 Corinthians 8:9
There is no adequate way by which to talk about the poverty that our Lord Jesus Christ embraced to carry out his messianic mission. There is no comparison within the totality of human experience, how ever monumental or drastic, which would even come close to being synonymous with the depth of poverty to which the God/Man descended for the sake of his redeemed. The choice was not one of passing whim, or curious wonder, or quaint self-sacrifice, like some rich kid from the suburbs spending a night sleeping in a cardboard box downtown or a homeless shelter in the ghetto to ‘experience’ what poverty is like.
What Christ entered into was a permanent and ontological altercation in fabric of Triune God. From this point on a member of humanity would be incorporated into the Identity of Deity. The Trinity, the eternal fellowship of loving communion, would now include one who had passed through the waters of the womb and walked the earth in the obscurity of humanity. Had Jesus mission been merely to live among his creation and never extend himself in ministry then his presence amongst his people would have gone without notice altogether. So ordinary, so painfully mundane he became that no observer of his appearance would ever have arrived at the conclusion that he was anything other than an ordinary man.
The mystery of the incarnation is not that the metaphysical cloud of boundless energy which philosophy labeled Deity somehow shrunk himself into the minuscule form of a man. This, while perhaps perplexing the mind, does not move the heart, and does nothing to come close to the reality of what took place in this awe-inspiring incarnational event. The mystery at its heart is that YHWH, the God of Israel who was exalted above all else and separate from all other reality came near to his people in a way which would have held in stunned wonder all who beheld it.
God had always sought to draw near to his people. Throughout their history, the God of Israel had established a form of worship, a tabernacle and then a temple, by which he could enter into dynamic relationship with his people, but never before had the Holy One of Israel come this close. In one glorious step from the highly exalted riches, comfort and pomp of the heavenly courtroom to the zygote in the water’s of a virgin womb, the God of the cosmos lowered himself to enter into the human experience in an unprecedented way.
He was in possession of all the power in the universe, the ability to do whatever he pleased and yet he determined not to use his power to do anything that might preserve his own right or promote his own agenda. He established in himself that with all the right, privilege and power he possessed he would uses it only to further the advancement of his creation. Being in the form of God; exalted, revered and regarded by all who saw him as the Holy One who was due all worship and adoration, he bowed low and chose, rather than to use his identity as claim to privilege, that he would make himself nothing, of no reputation, and embrace instead a life of servanthood, suffering, and being mistreated, abused and hated by those who saw him.
This is what it means that he became poor. He was the one with all the wealth of the world at his disposal, all power to accomplish anything, demand anything, cause anything he desired. Had he longed for comfort, luxury and ease he could have demanded it at any time. He could have lifted his voice and all of the arsenal of heaven would have been set against any who opposed him. Yet when the garrison came to take him away he went quietly, before the court he stood silent, and when the nail head and the hammer came to meet his flesh, which he could have easy rendered impenetrable with but a thought, the iron barb pierced skin, flesh, and tendon to fasten his bleeding frame to the cruel tree.
His consideration was never for his own needs or to placate any desire for ease and comfort. When presented with the choice to remain away in heaven unblemished by the assaults of his creatures and insolated from the pain and suffering of humanity his response was a resounding ‘no.’ His actions seem foolish; casting off care and restrain, recklessly loving without counting the cost, giving all with no thought to reward, with pure abandon embracing a world which answered up with but a crown of thorns.
He had spoke the world and it was, brought low mighty Egypt with a fierce blow, the horse and the rider sank in the sea, before him kingdoms fell and at his voice all the cycles of nature hold their rhythm, he raised up kings and tore down rulers, before him all humanity laid bare and but by his word not one breath beat of a heart takes place and yet he gave himself to the ransom of humanity. When the kingdoms of the earth advanced by violence, the gears of the war machine greased with blood and swear of slaves, his kingdom was advanced by love, his rule carried forward by the sweet surrender of servanthood.
He who could have made in an instant the whole of the cosmos bow before him instead bows before his disciples to wash their feet. His way was that of poverty, of laying down his rights of embracing a lifestyle that not even the weakest of the weak would ever consciously choose. He entered into the human experience at the least opportune of times, in a nation of national unrest, to a people group despised by their overlords, to a poor family without even the means to offer a proper temple sacrifice for the dedication of their son.
His sojourn amongst his people was mundane and tenuous. Rather than his identity affording him any comfort or accommodation, he was instead the object of scorn, disbelieved by his brothers, abandon by his followers, betrayed by the closest of friends. This was the poverty which the Lord of Glory embraced for his people. That in all his being poor he might ransom for himself a people who are rich in faith, in love for God, and who stand before him fully forgiven. His shame became our glory, his humiliation our exaltation, his passion our redemption. In all the history of all the worlds there has never been one such as this who bowed so low in love that the object of his affection might be lifted so high.
And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
Matthew 9:35-37
There is a richness to the emotional life of the God-man that is unparalleled in all the writings of all the languages. Here is truly the only selfless man. For whatever other personality which might captivate the public attention and seek to whoa away her heart, there has never been one so pure in his attentions, so enlightening in his countenance, so radiant in his personhood as to approach the excellence of this Man, Jesus the Christ. When all the heroes erected by culture crumble and fall, there is left only this one stalwart pillar of purity left to her. All the mudslinging of all the generations has not stuck to him. Just as in the Jewish Sanhedrin court two thousand years previous, so it is true to today that while many may come wishing to besmirch his image or tarnish his name, none of their stories align and while the public might slouch away disbelieving of his testimony or even turn to the streets shouting with the rest, “crucify,” they are still left with that sinking feeling that no accusation; however strong, however brazenly convincing in the adrenalin-rush heat of the moment, is adequate to truly deface his most holy visage.
All others are mere shadow men compared to the hot-white light of his towering humanity. He walks head and shoulders above all the giants of history. Mother Teresa is forgotten at his sight. All her good deeds, her compassion, tenderness and kindness fails to elevate her life to even a pale glimmer of a refection of his goodness. As a speaker, all the best orators of history, from antiquity; Thiruvalluvar, Julius Caesar, Quintus Hortensius; to modernity; Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, Jr.; fail to compare to his ability to capture the attention of his audience. Had he put a pen to the page surely all the writings of the best poets, bards and novelists in the world have been put to open shame; the tales of Homer would have lost their flavor, the plays of Shakespeare would ring as hollow, the novels of Dickens, Tolstoy and Hemingway be counted as rubbish beside his works.
And at the center of this one true Man was his emotions. None has felt even close to that which he felt. None so opened their soul to those who surrounded them as this man did. Every public figure has had their secret life. Every politicians has retreated to their private getaway and eluded the masses by shrewd means and hiddenness. In the history of humanity there has never been one who walked so unguarded as this man, so open to every type of individual. He ate with the wealthy aristocrate and prostitute alike and rather than participate in the graft of the former or the immorality of the latter he instead turned both from their wickedness. His heart was open to all the cries of humanity and his ear attentive to all their needs. He raised no wall between their prodding and himself, no barrier between their inquisitiveness and his open heart beating with compassion.
All the other greatest lovers of the human experience, those who are elevated as gems within the human experience for their selfless capacity and altruistic nature, are revealed as selfish, arrogant and base in light of this burning pillar of affection, joy and compassion. None cared as he cared. None were moved as he was moved. None even approached the capacity of ‘soul-space’ necessitated to feel the way in which he felt. To be of the race of Adam was to have a truncated soul unable to feel in the way in which this bright light of the New Humanity felt for the entirety of his days. There was in him no hindrance to his body, mind, or soul to keep him from loving with the deepest of feelings, the most ardent of emotions.
Yet never did his emotional attachment — his self-giving love, compassion and joy —approach that tainted manifestation to which the basest of human attentions so readily given. Never did a touch of the hand over-extend its supposed intent to betray an ulterior motive luring under the surface. Never did a piercing look metamorphosis into the scandalous gaze as to reveal some dark flight of fantasy behind the before innocent face. Never did the weight of authority his words carried transform to some macabre demand for fulfillment of the fallen lusts which, with an iron grip, held all other humanity captive. His love was pure, his gaze altogether clean and holy. There was in his interactions no spot, taint, or question as to accuse his motives of being anything but pure.
Truly “in him was life and that life was the light of all humanity.” He was the bright beckon to which all others would be drawn. His personality was of the rarest bread. Truly he was the first of his race, the firstborn from the dead and the first of all creation, for he shows all of the Adamic race what true humanity reborn is meant to be. He was more than a man, he was YHWH in the flesh, and yet he was no less than a man. He was the singular personality shining above the darkening din of all human history. In him was wrapped all the charisma of history’s most luminous persons, wells of compassion deeper than the most altruistic of men and women, joy beyond the most radiant of individuals, hope inexpressible, purity unmatched, love defined in servanthood, heart wide open in ardent desire. In Christ Jesus the Lord was found a singular entity unmatched in all human experience and not to be out shown in all ages since or to come.
The Sharp-Tongued St. Gregory of Nazianzus
While I am sure much could be said of this great man, I simply want to present to us the literary master which is Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. Below is the Wikipedia blurb on the man, but my actually point of interest is the two quotes following ,which clearly set Gregory apart with his piercing literary talent for ruthlessly cutting off the propagators of heresy from the faith. It is not enough to say you can’t show up to mass next week, it must be done with a supreme eye for style. Certainly making it his mission in life to tag-team with St. Peter in keeping unwelcome guest from trespassing through the pearly gates, Gregory uses his full reservoir of brazen wit in dealing with these unorthodox malcontents within the church and make sure they understand just how severe their own teachings really are.
Gregory of Nazianzus (330 – January 25, 389 or 390) (also known as Gregory the Theologian or Gregory Nazianzen) was a 4th-century Archbishop of Constantinople. He is widely considered the most accomplished rhetorical stylist of the patristic age. As a classically trained speaker and philosopher he infused Hellenism into the early church, establishing the paradigm of Byzantine theologians and church officials.
Gregory made a significant impact on the shape of Trinitarian theology among both Greek- and Latin-speaking theologians, and he is remembered as the “Trinitarian Theologian”. Much of his theological work continues to influence modern theologians, especially in regard to the relationship among the three Persons of the Trinity. Along with the two brothers, Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, he is known as one of the Cappadocian Fathers.
Gregory is a saint in both Eastern and Western Christianity. In the Roman Catholic Church he is numbered among the Doctors of the Church; in Eastern Orthodoxy and the Eastern Catholic Churches he is revered as one of the Three Holy Hierarchs, along with Basil the Great and John Chrysostom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_of_Nazianzus
If anyone has put his trust in Him (Jesus) as a Man without a human mind, he is really bereft of mind, and quite unworthy of salvation. For that which He has not assumed He has not healed.
Gregory of Nazianzus
To Cledonius The Priest Against
Apollinarius.
If any assert that He has now put off His holy flesh, and that His Godhead is stripped of the body, and deny that He is now with His body and will come again with it, let him not see the glory of His Coming. For where is His body now, if not with Him Who assumed it? … If anyone assert that His flesh came down from heaven, and is not from hence, nor of us though above us, let him be anathema[1].
Gregory of Nazianzus
To Cledonius The Priest Against
Apollinarius.
The lesson to be learned here is simple; while you may make fun of their cloths or think that the nicely permed beard is perhaps a fashion step too far even for a doctor of the faith, one must be careful when speaking against their doctrine. Surely Gregory’s main hobbies involved constructing elegantly phrased ways in which he could cut one off from the Catholic faith, for what is a good excommunication without a little literary flair.
[1] anath·e·ma n. from Greek. a : a ban or curse solemnly pronounced by ecclesiastical authority and accompanied by excommunication b : the denunciation of something as accursed c : a vigorous denunciation.
October Newsletter (PDF)
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34-35
It is point of interest to all who would to follow Jesus that the line of demarcation that separates those who are a part of the family from those who are alienated from the inheritance of sons is the issue of Love. Jesus makes the dividing line between the sheep and the goats the issue of Love. The saints on the earth will not be identified by their piety, or by their dress, or even supernatural power. While these, each in the there place and in their time, have value, they are not that thing which distinguished the Christian witness from all others in the world.
To the measure that we become offended, taken aback or defensive at this truth is to the measure that we have failed to really grasp that which Jesus spoke of when he commanded us to Love one another. So alien from the definitions the world would seem to force upon the word, Jesus was bringing love to central place of his gospel is a striking way with equated true love with true obedience. Where before the Law and Love seemed ever at odds, Jesus in one glorious moment marries the two.
In commanding his disciples to Love he invited them into the path of humility, that they would serve, suffer and die all to contend for the faith of a people who would exemplify the new humanity. The Community which the early apostolic writers are contending for was one radically different from the immoral, licentiousness of the day. The Christian church was to be a haven where humanity lived life out in a new way exemplifying for the world the live of the age to come through the way in which people loved.
As a testimony to the transformative power of the gospel, the church was to be showing the world that there was a better way to be human than how they had always done it. Yes, the church was to be a community of radical holiness, high devotion and transformative faith, but this was only because it was a community that was first and foremost of real forgiveness, practicing patience, caring for its needy, giving to the poor, serving the downtrodden, and blessing their enemies.
The offense of the gospel the persecution it incurred was to be as result of the fact that they loved one another. Here was to be found a people who were free from backbiting, who rejoiced more in their enemies’ exultation than their own honor, who refused to claim their own rights, who walked the extra mile, believed the best, refused envy, and never insisted on their own way.
The Christian community was to be a beckon in the earth of what Humanity was always meant to be. Touched by the redemptive act of the God-Man and now filled with his Spirit; their mandate, our mandate, is to win over the world through extraordinary acts love; true love which is birthed in obedience, tempered in prayer, that costs nothing and demands no reward. The Church, to mend a broken world back to the creator must be those who Love.
Silent Retreat
One night not too long ago, while standing outside before our weekly small group was about to start, some of the guys in my class were looking up at the stars and mentioned how with our schedule we never really get out and see nature that much. This got me thinking about a way in which the men who are 2nd year FSM students on the NightWatch could get to know each other better and grow in their spirituality. This last weekend my idea became reality as we took a day to go on a silent retreat with seven of the guys from our Nightwatch class.
We drove about 5 hours south-west of Kansas City to one of the guys in our class’ parent’s house of in Oklahoma. After eating a great meal, laughing, and telling stories around the dinner table we went outside and started a fire and prepared for the night. The idea was to grow in fellowship with the Lord and each other by sitting vigil through the night in silence; being close to each other and yet choosing to savor the intimacy of silence.
We prepared for our time of silence by talking about the Lord Jesus Christ who suffered and died alone, that we, in our suffering, might have a companion with us, then read the first half of the 22nd Psalm and ended with the first four verses of the song “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” With the last words of the hymn — “when they laid him in the tomb?” — hanging somber in the air we began six hours of silence were we meditated upon the sufferings of our great Lord and Savior.
When we gathered together in the morning we broke our sober silence by singing four more verse to the song — “Were you there when he rose up from the grave?” — and read the rest of the 22nd psalm in great joy. The trip was a great experience to grow in love for one another and to get to know the Lord better. In the woods, under a starry sky, and midst shooting stars we were able to meet our suffering Lord in the place of our own suffering and their find fellowship with him.
Order of Service: NightWatch FSM Guy’s Silent Retreat (PDF)
And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
Luke 2:7
All the pomp of all of history should have been present at this event and even then it would not have come close to the honor due this one born in a cave surrounded my the domestic livestock and shivering in the night air. Augustine should have descended from his throne and walked to Bethlehem, Herod should have bowed in wonder before him, the kings on the earth should have offered up their palaces as his resident and the overcrowded inns should have emptied out and the mere mention of his drawing near.
The birth of this savior king was deserving of all the accommodations and luxury the entirety of humanity had to offer and even then, woefully short of all that he high and lofty one might demand, all humanity would hang in the balance relying only on his mercy for their staggering inability to welcome him as he truly ought be. Here the Lord of all the earth humbles himself to the lowest of forms and takes on the trapping of humility in such glorious lowly state that for the sight to elicit anything save tears is for one to testify of never truly having gazed upon it.
The one who would one day judge the nations with a rod of iron was here but an infant in a crib. Not even afforded a bed to lay in, his mother gives him birth on a straw and dirt floor amidst livestock and filth. Scared and alone, away from family and friends, her name scandalized by whispers of immorality and with a new husband who she barely knows Mary, the blessed of God, labors under the pain of the curse t bring forth this child to would be her salvation. Even in all the imaginations of her heart she could not have conceived the heartache, grief, and elation of joy that would follow this fateful night when the hopes and reams of all humanity hung like a shroud over Bethlehem and in a stable a baby boy was born.
Instead of the pomp which his arrival merited his only welcome is a band of shepherd encountered by the angelic hosts on the open field. The Angel beings, surely reeling in wonder that the one who had been their constant companion in the courts of heaven, to whom they had sang the trisagion and continually bowed before in worship was now absent from the courts of heaven and some how united to a human from in a stable far below. As if feeling not only the weight of his absence from the heavenly courts and even more the apparent unconcern of all humanity at his presence with us the Angel appears in the sky over the peasant shepherds that perhaps their Lord might have someone to greet his arrival.
Joined in the heavens are a host, so longing for the return of there King that they cannot resist to worship him here. These shepherds go to find the babe and welcome him with what meager ways they might. Their tale spreads through the villages and wonder fills the eyes of all those who hear of it. Something marvelous had happened that night, something that could not be explained and yet was all together wonderful. Yet one must wonder what happened to those shepherds, those first evangelists of his advent.
Thirty years later as he carried his cross up Golgotha did they still remember this boy who they had heralded in as their king. Did these follow him to Egypt, stay with his family. Were their sheep abandon on the hillside and their houses deserted as the hung all their hopes on this one theophany of Theophanies. He was not just God manifest, he was God in flesh. The clearest picture of what YHWH was like is a baby boy in a manger. Did his image captivate their imagination and stun their intellect. When they went to synagogue, when they worshiped in the temple, when they closed their eyes to pray did his face, his little hands and feet fill their vision. When, unexpectedly, his image flashed across their minds did the mere thought of the sight reduce them to tears?
All creation should have made him their obsession. He should have called all the kings of all the world to worship. His mere presence should have elicited the response of all the nations. He was deserving of all the imagination of all humanity being captivated by his coming for all humanity. Yet he came unwelcomed save by a pauper band, and he himself born to peasants in a cave and rocks and dirt. He was the most glorious one of all eternity, the one who all worship of Israel was directed and when he was incarnate — when the true tabernacle was brought forth in the little hillside town of Bethlehem, when the true Torah, the Holy Writ was birthed in a dirty manger — no body noticed, no a single one of the religious leaders came to see this one. Alone he entered the world and alone he would leave it. This most beautiful one was birthed without fanfare as mystery of mysteries and his cry ascended into the night with no one of notoriety present to hear and turn.
And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
Luke 24:25-27
The bubble has burst over Jerusalem. In a violent frenzy that had swept up the city, Jesus had been crucified and along with him had been crucified the hopes of those who had looked to him as their true messiah. Those disciples of Jesus who had come up to Jerusalem, either with him or for the Passover festival, had witnessed the crushing of the hopes of Israel and now returned home feeling the full weigh of their loss. Every arduous mile over their journey home worked into them the reality that nothing had changed, still Israel languished under Roman rule and there was no bright expectation just dawning on the horizon but merely the setting sun of despair as the two made there way to Emmaus
Then there comes, walking with them this strange man who knows not of the tragedy which had just befell in Jerusalem. The tell the tale, of the glory of Israel crushed, and his response is not to sympathize with their loss but to rebuke their unbelief. They should have known, he says, that this thing which has taken place had to happen, that the Messiah had to die. So clearly had the scriptures made it known to them and yet darkness shrouded their eyes that they did not see how he had done what must be done.
Here then Jesus speaks of himself from all the scriptures. It is not that he took every scripture and showed that it was truly about him, but it was that he showed himself as the sum end of all that the scriptures talked about. He lays forth for them the meta-narrative into which all of history consists and shows how He is the center, the one who gives meaning and definition to all which has taken place and all that will take place.
Jesus so clearly reveals himself as the one to whom all that the scriptures have pointed and in whom all those scriptures will find fulfillment. He is the Eschatological event which brings to a climax the totality of redemptive History. In him the bubble of hope has not bust, but has instead grown to fill all things. In the midst of despair Christ enters the story and presents himself as the one whose words rekindle the burning flame of hope which the violence of the world had put out.
They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”
Luke 24:32
