A World Apart – Faithful Representation

I’ve just looked at two levels of standing apart in the world, through community and through personal demonstration of our redemption for Christ’s glory, as otherworldly people. Not in any great detail, mind you, but enough, hopefully, to give you some background for the three Easter Weekend blogs that I’ll be doing. This is the central point of the faith, and so I’m going to try to be faithful in its presentation. I’ve titled this one Faithful Representation to remind you of some of the themes that have been cropping up here and there in what I’ve been writing over the past few months. We’ll see what happens.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

A World Apart – Byzantium

The phrase ‘Byzantine intrigues’ is a reference to the kingdom of Byzantium, but the details of that phrase would lead to a very, very large entry, which would break the mandate of brevity for the World Apart series. My thinking on Byzantium leans primarily towards the examination of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, and the ‘otherworldliness’ that springs from the churches and arts of the culture. It’s really the otherworldliness that I want to talk about here, just because it’s the current theme of my entries.

The Orthodox church places a lot of emphasis on ikons. For example, this one:

called the Christ Pantokrator. The whole idea of the ikons is to emphasize the otherworldliness, the holiness of the depiction. for more information, see the Wikipedia entry on iconography.

In a sense, we too are meant to be images reflecting holiness; not our own, but Jesus’. We are otherworldly, in a sense, because we know of and have hope in the redemption of this world.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

A World Apart – Monasticism

I’m a big fan of the monastic lifestyle for a number of reasons. It’s always been something of my nature to seclude myself, withdrawing from the world for a time and just doing my own thing, and I’m also a big fan of the discipline of retreat. Spiritual disciplines are an entire realm of entries themselves, which might spin off from this next week, but for now I’m just going to look a bit at what it means to be a literal world apart, sequestered unto the Lord.

Thinking about St. Patrick’s Day has got me thinking about the missions of the Celtic saints, and what it was that drew new members to them. What, in fact, all mission should be like, if you think about it at all. Short-term missions work is usually deeds-oriented, offering solutions to practical problems and doing the theology tourist thing. I’m not decrying that form of missions, not at all, but I do want to suggest that it’s not the only kind. Much of a missionary lifestyle is demonstrating the fact that the character is different. That there’s something better than sin, better than Satan. And the monastic communities that won Pictish converts were built as self sustaining, committed communities. Not to impose a belief on pagans, but rather to witness through one’s life and work. To show that there was something honourable, good and holy in the Lord. That’s where we keep slipping up, we frail and foolish creatures. We don’t do any better than the culture we find ourselves in unless we have within us the true knowledge that we have been set apart. That, itself, is something that may take a very long time for any of us to come to terms with.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

A World Apart – Letting Go

As people tend to do, we hold on to things. We try and manage everything, control everything around us and pretend to ourselves that we have the power to do so. That even includes what might traditionally be understood as missional work. We try and control what God does in the lives of the people we seek to save. Missionaries, of course, will laugh at this statement, because they know better. They know that God’s the only one who decides what God will do. Look, for example, at Matthew 8:1-4:

“When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. and behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.’ And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying ‘I will; be clean.’ And immediately he leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.’”

I understand this to say that it is entirely under the sovereignty of the Lord to heal or not heal as He sees fit, and I consequently extend this to point to the necessity of letting go of those things we want to hold up and say ‘look, I did this’ or ‘look, have I not been blessed to do this?’ The point I want to make is simply this: The job of a Christian is to live according to the new life in Christ that he has been given, and let God do the work of getting a hold of the heart. I have friends who say that the chances of fully converting them are slim, but present, and at that I smile inwardly and say, God, I’m just here to do the work I can. I can seek to become more Christlike, to share Him as he lives and works in me, but I can’t do the work in man’s heart to incline it towards Christ, or to remove it and give him a heart of flesh. That’s what the world doesn’t really understand with hope. That while many things are beyond our control, they are not beyond God’s.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

A World Apart – The Offensive Christ

I like Star Trek, now and again.

I’ve long since lost all shame in admitting that, but I say it now because to many, the Ferengi may not stand out. Orange skinned, huge-eared, capitalist. A commercial society…no relation at all to the real world. One of their favourite pastimes is the sexual technique known as oo-mox – rubbing the lobes of their ears, which are erogenous zones. And, just like the Ferengi – remember, no relation at all to the real world , people like having their ears tickled. They like hearing that they’re good, that what they do is going to earn them a place in heaven or a higher state of enlightenment, or that it’s going to end up well for them regardless of how their life is lived. I’m going to say flat out that they are dead wrong. There is no hope past this life except for those who are in Christ Jesus. This is the essence of what it means to be Christian. To understand that Jesus is the only way, the only truth, the only life.

Doesn’t really tickle the ears that much, do it now? But this is the offensive Christ, the man crucified for the sins of the world, for its people, for all time. This is the Christ who was publicly humiliated, and who Christians should preach so that they might be aware of their own sinfulness and Christ’s untainted glory for them; his sacrifice, for them. In everything He is to be raised up, and that includes jobs, churches, schools, homes. Everywhere we are, so He is to be.

Yet people find it so hard to do. We can’t measure up, we say. We can’t do it. no. We can’t. But He did. And when this Christ is preached, when this Christ is preaching, then we are offended. We are shown who we are, and we don’t like it.

Christians love it. But they don’t always recognize that that love might be misplaced, that the love that we have for Christ should not be for the fact that He made us good, but rather that He was the only one good enough to cover our wretchedness. We have none of it. But yet, we love Him for showing us that He has prevailed. This is the offensive Christ.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

A World Apart – "Are you the teacher of Israel?"

There’s a passage in John (I told you I like going back to it in the last post!) that sets some of what I want to talk about here up. It says:

“Nicodemus said to him ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him, ‘are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?’” (John 3:9-10)

I also want to refer you again to the passages in Luke that I began this series with, Luke 24:25-32. I’ll not go into it again here (see the post on Conviction), but I do want to allude to it because it bears on what I want to get into here, namely, Jesus as subject and author of all Scripture. I said last time that I wanted to spend the next post on Christ as hypertext, and I’ll give you a bit of an idea about that here.

When Christ interprets all that is in the Scriptures concerning Himself to people, the whole kaleidoscope of the Bible takes on new meanings. The Saviour in the Psalms – Jesus. The man of sorrows in Isaiah – Jesus. The redeemer – Jesus. Joshua’s ‘commander of the Lord’s armies’ – Jesus. There are hundreds of references to Jesus and about Jesus in the Old Testament, and the New Testament unpacks them. Thus, when we hear the teaching of Jesus ‘as one who had authority’, we are given teaching saturated in Old Testament promises and hints, partial revelations now complete. Christ only makes sense, in some ways, when seen through the eyes of the Old Testament. So do some of his teachings. His ministry is made up of multiple things, multiple intimations of the Spirit. So when Christians look at Christ, they have to look at him all the way through the Bible. And that’s an incredible gift.

Next time, the final Preaching Christ. Keep a weather eye out!

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

A World Apart – Teaching With Authority

There’s one verse in the culmination of what’s called the Sermon on the Mount, at least in the Gospel of Matthew version, that I want to begin with. It’s in Matthew 7:28-29, and it reads like this:

“And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.”

What does it mean to teach with authority, and not as a scribe? Simply put, what it means is that the power of the Holy Spirit is in the teaching. You may have heard different terms for it, such as an ‘anointing’ to speak, or the gift of teaching, or the empowered Word, but what it essentially speaks about is the awareness of the Spirit of God in the preaching being delivered. Very few are truly gifted in the preaching of the Word, but Jesus was, and it’s with this understanding that I approach the topic of Christ preaching, or, as I was itching to put in the title, Preaching Christ, though this time to be taken in a different way, with the focus shifted to the subject/noun rather than the verb. Thus, it could be understood as [The] Preaching Christ. Anyway, forgive an literature guy’s conceits. What I really want to talk about is what happens when Christ preaches.

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ longest recorded public statement and teaching, and it’s mind-blowing. We just finished a few months of it in the Bible study I attend, and there’s a lot in there. A lot to think about. I could spend several posts on meditations regarding the sermon, but I’m going to leave it at one thing today…Christ is living and active in the pages of the Bible, and his teaching through it is real. It sounds incredibly weird, but it’s true. To the Christian, the Bible is intended to be the living word of God, the revelation He has chosen to use to communicate with His people. It ’speaks’ to the soul. So, too, does Christ. It’s no coincidence that John is the gospel I most like to return to, because it includes so much of what Christ says to His disciples, his friends. To know Christ is to talk to Him as a friend, and to have Him talk to us as a friend. He comforts, instructs, rebukes, and holds you to who you say you are. And his teaching as recorded in Matthew is only one case of it. I think I’ll spend a post on the Bible as hypertext, next time, and talk a bit about what happens when we ‘hear’ Christ preach from the Word and can then refer to the places in the Bible he’s teaching from.

Until then;

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

A World Apart – Preaching Christ II: Conviction

Back to the World Apart content tonight, folks. I hope you enjoyed the last one, as Jennifer did, and now I want to get into the stuff I was thinking about just a few days ago.

When Christ is preached, things happen. Things change. And it’s always miles beyond what anyone might expect. When Christ is preached, people really get their dander up for some reason, and people also get excited beyond what we normally consider excitement. There are excuses and there are shouts of rejoicing, and there are long and pregnant silences and loud choruses…at least, that’s what should happen. But where Christ is not preached, nor revealed by the Holy Spirit to the hearts of the hearers, a much narrower range of responses happens. Silences, yes, but hollow ones, expecting the next quick fix for the week. People sit and listen to a man – or a woman, but let’s not go there – speak for fifteen or twenty minutes, attempting vainly to draw connections between text and application, between what’s supposed to happen and what actually does, and not mentioning the very reason for the hope we have. What happens when Christ is preached with faith and hope is conviction.

Conviction in all of its senses, mind you. Conviction of sinfulness, but also conviction of a great and wonderful gift in grace. Conviction in His power to overcome whatever it is that we set our petty little minds on, whatever keeps us blind to the need of the world for such a level of amazement as Christ offers. And conviction of His presence in the very room in which you are meeting. This happens when Christ preaches and we are empowered by the Spirit to hear what He is saying, as well. For that, however, you’ll have to wait. That’s coming.

One other thing about preaching Christ: He declared this in Luke, and with this I’ll leave you:

“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)

and

“Their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. and he vanished from their sight. 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 24:31-32)

Conviction…’bout that.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

A World Apart – Preaching Christ

The purpose of the church comes out of the purpose of Christ (thank you Steve), and to that end I’ve decided to spend a few posts looking at what happens when Christ is preached, when Christ preaches (thank you Bible study) and what exactly that means. I was out for lunch with a good friend today, and one of the subjects of discussion was the preaching of Christ to the sick, the need for Jesus in this place particularly and in the world more generally. Because I think the way I do, I felt I needed to start reflecting on that more thoroughly here, so you get content for the next little while. This first post is going to focus on the church preaching the church and not Christ (apologies for the brief return to lament – it won’t be happening again this subseries), and then we’ll move from there outwards.

I may have mentioned it before, but I’ll return to it briefly – I grew up in the church, and I can’t honestly say that I also grew up in a personal relationship with Christ through that. I’m having to learn what that means now, but thank God that I’m able to really reflect on it and bring content out of it at this time and in this way. Equally unfathomable is the superfluity that I was satisfied with, when the heritage I call my own has such a weight of doctrine and tradition to draw from. It’s really a shame, but at the same time, it’s a gift. So why have I been satisfied with the milk of Jesus Christ for so long? The answer, faithful readers, is that I was never given to understand why I should crave the meat of Christ. There had to be meat beyond what I could ken, but I had no fundamental hunger for knowing who Christ is and was.

Looking back over that paragraph, I realize I’m using terms that seem strange, even frightening to those who have no Biblical background. Take this as an invitation to stay with me and learn more as I go onward and inward – but not to morbidity, as I’m also learning. So let me close with this: By saying that the church preaches the church and not Christ, I am declaring that the life led as a Christian and the life led as a churchgoer are not always the same thing. I am declaring that many of those who want to hear the church preached will and do not want to hear Christ preached, or Christ preaching.

Keep a weather eye out, my friends!

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

A World Apart – Rock and Salvation

There are some things that we don’t have the strength for in ourselves. I was just reading the story of Polycarp’s martyrdom in Christianity Today – I had no clue who he was prior to that – and it struck me anew that we just can’t do the things that God provides for us to do without looking to Him, and – cliched as it may be – fully relying on Him.

For those of you who may not be aware of the FROG phenomenon, there was a time when initials were all the rage in fashion accessories…What Would Jesus Do (WWJD), Fully Rely on God (FROG), Pray Until Something Happens (PUSH). You would see them on bracelets and necklaces, shirts and Bible cases, and in many cases the proliferation of these adornments left them without the weight of meaning that they should have. They became trendy in youth circles. They still appear now and again, though not with as much frequency.

But I digress. My point here is that the initials FROG or PUSH are sound doctrinal statements. You can PUSH and see tangible results, if God wills it, or maybe you may just find a new perspective of the heart. You find that to FROG becomes your nature. All of this, however, is meant to indicate one thing:

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13)

Praying until something happens is indicative of faith, as is to fully rely on God. But in all of it, nothing of our own merit is considered. Look at the verse again…I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Nothing in me is able to do all things. Martyrs are strong witnesses for one reason only: They, by dying, glorify God, the strength by which they have lived.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.