My friend and colleague Paul Mussachio (Assoc. Pastor, Preston Meadow Lutheran Church, Plano, Texas) read my April newsletter article to my congregation and thought that I should share it with a wider audience. I hope you find this edifying! May you be touched and transformed by the Risen One this Easter season. --Nathan
It is not long now. Our waiting is almost over. In just two Sunday’s, this Lenten pilgrimage will be over and we Jesus’ disciples, will arrive once again at the ending and new beginning of the greatest TRUE story ever told. In the stillness of that morning, in the midst of the memory of the wet alkali smell of THE damp tomb, we will proclaim the GOOD NEWS of the Church:
HE IS RISEN!
HE IS RISEN INDEED!
The old time religion I was baptized into saw the cross as the culmination of God’s Good News. The Resurrection was really immaterial—just a happy ending to an otherwise tragic story: on the cross, Jesus died for my sins so that I can live with him in eternity should I make that choice and follow him.
But what I was never told, and would have to wait another fifteen years to discover, is that the old rugged cross, the pivot of salvation in the thinking of the Anabaptist faith tradition of my childhood, was simply meaningless without the quiet gasp of the tomb on the 3rd day.
I am NOT saying that the cross is not important. It is...and is still the crux (pun intended) of the matter. But it can only be God’s sign of salvation because in the end the tomb is empty.
The truth is this: you and I do not pay attention to Jesus because he died on a cross. Perhaps you were taught this. But the truth is that if Jesus had merely died on a cross, history would not remember him, and you and I as Jesus’ followers would not call him Lord and Messiah.
Thousands throughout the Roman era were tortured and killed on crosses. History does not remember them.
Just ONE. Only ONE name under heaven is remembered. We do not remember him because he died on a cross. We remember him because he didn’t stay dead! And today we DO in fact call Jesus Lord. But not because of the cross.
It seems like foolishness doesn’t it? That in a world where nothing is gained for free, in a creation where everything appears to need an earning, we in the orthodox Christian faith, proclaim the Good News of God’s FREE gift? Think about it: you weren’t consulted about whether or not you think you need God’s salvation. And yet Christ died for you. You weren’t asked whether or not Jesus should enter Hell for you as we affirm in the Apostles’ Creed. But he did, and he did that for you. He did that for me. He didn’t consult us on whether or not he should conquer the death we caused through the cross with his resurrection. Without our participation, he acted to give us a future and a hope. And he loved each of us enough to make sure that none of us got to vote on his saving work.
It is precisely because we were not involved that this is the best GOOD NEWS you and I will ever hear. God has been working for our restoration to his vision for us since the day we had to be run out of the Garden for trying to do life on our own terms, in our own way.
But in all of creation, there is and can only ever be one way if God is God. And that is God’s WAY. There can only be one vision. That vision is God’s VISION! There can be only one salvation. That is God’s SALVATION!
I’ve been abnormally thirsty for the Word recently. When the thirst started, I said to the Holy Spirit, “Where do you want me to read?” My Bible fell open to the letter’s of Paul. And so each evening, I’ve been reading a different letter. A few days ago, I was in Ephesians, the book that best expresses the nature of God’s FREE GIFT. It reads:
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
—Ephesians 2:8-10
Do you hear the message of this? God's grace and the very faith that makes it accessible to you is the very work of God; not a divine bandaid for the particular sins of your individual life. No, this grace and the FREE GIFT of faith are a part of God's plan for your life. They are an extension of God's vision for you and this mess of a creation. God's not done creating yet. He's not done creating you, and he's certainly not done creating me. And he absolutely refuses to leave us to our own devices...because he knows what we so often forget our real limitations. We fail at everything related to God and holy living. We are narcissistic, prideful, and totally uncapable of living into a covenant relationship with God. Unless, that is, God is really in the business of creating/re-creating us.
This is how Martin Luther heard and articulated the passage from Ephesians above:"I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, BUT instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith."
--The Small Catechism; Explanation to the 3rd Article of the Creed
During this Easter season, my prayer for you as your pastor is that the power of the resurrection will grasp and hold onto you, and that the passionate life that pours forth from the doorway of the empty tomb might fill your heart with the HEART of Jesus, your lungs with his BREATH, your eyes with his
Passionate for the Risen One and for you—
Pastor Nathan
No comments:
Post a Comment