Pastor Rob Recommends ... (January 10, 2022)

Pastor Rob recommends …

 

Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heave, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

N.T. Wright (2008)

 

The subtitle says it all.  This is one of the most helpful books on the resurrection and on what happens when we die on the market today. It’s readable, biblically sound, and, as the title indicates, a word about hope.

Plausibility of the Resurrection

 

            With the advances of scientific research too intricate and numerous to recount or even summarize here, it is apparent that the present age is one in which ‘what happens’ can be weighed, measured, timed, and, thus, explained.  That is, phenomena can be explained in concrete terms.  People sometimes accept things that happen outside the boundaries of scientific explanation, but even in those cases the claim has to make sense.

            If one claimed the moon was made of cheese, such a claim would be quickly and easily rejected.  Simply examine rocks brought back from the moon and the physical properties of cheese, and look at the process by which cheese is made, and the fact that there are no milk-producing animals on the moon, and the claim is shown to be absurd.

            On the other hand, what about this claim?  “Love makes my head swim.”   This is not a statement any law of physics can account for.  Yet, if someone spent time with me and saw that I had trouble concentrating, could not wipe the silly grin off my face, and walked around in a dreamlike state, they might readily accept the conclusion: “he’s in love alright!”  So, in our science-ruled age, non-scientific ideas are accepted by people all the time, but non-provable ideas do have to make sense to gain a hearing.

            I write these words as a Christian pastor two days after the Christian’s highest holy day: Easter.  Can we Christians make a plausible case for the resurrection of Jesus?  Resurrection cannot be tested the way theories and laws of physics are tested.  Who would want to be a test-subject in trying to determine that the dead will rise?  And, what would be used as a catalyst?  Christians accept the resurrection by faith, but why should anyone outside of Christianity even give the idea any consideration? 

            Several New Testament scholars have tackled this question and their work is helpful and thus worth the time of church-goers who don’t do scholarly research in theology or Biblical studies.  I say this because the 21^st century is a science-ruled, rational age.  If the Christian faith wants a voice in this age, it must be conveyed in the language of this age, even in moments when Christianity defies the core principles of this age (like the resurrection of those who are completely dead).

            Mike Licona, Gary Habermas, and N.T. Wright are scholars who deal extensively with the evidence, or at least indicators, that the resurrection of Jesus is an event that happened in history.  Licona, in The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (IVP Academic, 2010) weighs what he calls the ‘Resurrection Hypothesis’ against that of hypotheses of various Bible scholars who reject the notion that Jesus rose because resurrection violates natural law. These skeptics propose a number of explanations for why first century Christians claimed that Jesus rose when they knew he actually did not.  Licona compares his Resurrection Hypothesis with that of the skeptics.

            His basic argument is as follows.  Jesus died by crucifixion at the hands of the Romans.  The earliest sources (Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians) claim that Jesus rose from the grave and appeared to his followers.  There is early source documentation that is as reliable as any source from this period of history.  That Jesus rose and appeared to his followers adequately explains the birth of Christianity.  And the actual resurrection is more plausible, as it is described by the Bible, than the thought that what Paul and the gospel writers present might be an intentional fiction. 

If these early, first century Jews wanted to concoct a fiction they hoped others would take as true, they would not have had women as the earliest witnesses.  The testimony of women was considered unreliable in court cases in first century Israel.  They would not have re-conceived the idea of resurrection.  None of the Messiah-claims included a story about a crucified-resurrected Messiah.  This would have been so unrecognizable, it would be unlikely to convince any 1^st century skeptics, of which there we as many as there are today.  And finally, they would not have claimed a resurrection the authorities opposed to the movement could disprove by producing the corpse of the one they claimed to be alive. 

Of course, there’s much more to Licona’s argument and the other authors mentioned above significantly add to the discussion.  What believers today wanting to show the viability of Christianity need to understand is when it comes to resurrection, there is cogent argument to be made.  Licona bases his argument on the following points: (1) the resurrection provides explanatory scope of the events in question; (2) it possesses explanatory power; (3) it is plausible; (4) it is less ad hoc than other arguments; there’s no filling in the gaps with a retreat to ‘this doesn’t accord with the laws of nature”; and, (5) it illuminates the evidence (Licona, p.600-606).

Christians are free to believe Jesus rose simply as an expression of faith.  Christians can leave it at that.  Christians can defiantly declare, “The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it.”  But it doesn’t settle it for those outside the church. We are called to be witnesses declaring what God has done to those outside the church.

We can do this.  We can express this faith in a way that speaks convincingly to skeptics in a secular age ruled by naturalism and rationalism.  Will such a presentation convince someone to turn to Jesus and put their faith in him?  Probably not.  Conviction of the heart is achieved by the Holy Spirit, not powerful arguments.  But, arguing for the plausibility of the resurrection in a way that’s intelligible to a scientists’ rational mind will help that skeptic see that Christian faith is more than an easily dismissed fantasy.  When Christians present their faith in a well-reasoned argument, skeptics will see that there’s something there; something worth exploring further.

"Completed Beauty" (Isaiah 65:17-25)

Sunday, November 17, 2019

          “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth,” says the Lord in Isaiah 65.  A new heaven?  A new, better, cleaner, earth that’s more just?  Who wouldn’t want that?

          I’ll tell you who would want and want it right now: you, the people of our church family.  Last week, the sermon was about resurrection.  At the back door as people were leaving, one worshiper stopped to tell me there were times she felt “homesick for heaven.”  Anyone who’s read Philippians knows Paul felt the same way.  Then midweek, I was talking with another church member who said to me, “I would love it if Jesus came, the sooner, the better.”

          Life can be a real struggle.  That’s why so many of us long to be close to Jesus and relieved of the daily pressures that make it hard for us to thrive.  God’s Isaiah 65 promise to make all things new in some ways is a return to the ideal of Eden before Adam and Eve disobeyed God.  New creation is this fallen world remade, made new.

          In his book Rumors of Another World, Philip Yancey paints a picture of struggle as he observes giant leatherback turtles laying their eggs on the beach in Costa Rica. 

The turtle reached down in the soft sand, one muscular flipper at a time, to scoop out and then fling the sand behind her.  As she worked her way down, each scoop required more and more effort.  The sand got wet and heavy, and she had to fling it above the rim of the hole she was digging.  Eventually she reached a depth of three feet, her body fully submerged in the sand.  Now, each fling of sand thrust her whole body to the side, and despite her best efforts much of the sand still fell back in the trench.  She scooped it up again and flung it toward the surface. 

Finally, after an hour’s hard labor, the trench satisfied her and she began to drop shiny white eggs the size of billiard balls. 

Her task completed, the leatherback clambered slowly out of the nest and began a forty-five minute process of filling it in with sand.  … Exhausted, she lumbered off, dragging herself toward the sea.  She would never see the result of her efforts.  When the 60 or so eggs hatch, the baby turtles burrow to the surface and make a mad dash to the sea, with only a third surviving the onslaught of coyotes, raccoons, and sea gulls.[i]

          Predators.  Two steps back for every three steps forward.  Limited success.  Fruit for which we labor but never actually get to touch or taste.  Talking about turtles, we could be talking about the myriad speedbumps and roadblocks that make life hard.  Should life be this hard? 

          Life is hard because of sin – my sins, yours; the sins of other people; our ancestors’ sins.  Humanity’s collective cruelty, jealousy, selfishness, and greed shows up in your life and mine in small ways, in our little cruelties, jealousies, selfish words and thoughts, and greedy deeds.  God can see that life is tough and promises something better for us. 

          I don’t know if in the new earth God promises giant leatherback turtles will struggle so mightily just to lay eggs.  I don’t know if there will be giant leatherback turtles in the new earth.  I hope there are.  Our daily struggles and pains won’t be a part of the new earth.  Walter Brueggemann writes “this promised action of [God] [in Isaiah 65] is clearly designed to overcome all that is amiss, whether what is amiss is caused by [God’s] anger, by [our disobedience], or other untamed forces of death.”[ii]  This is how God makes things right.

          Imagine the conditions to which God is responding in this vision.  Jerusalem, having been utterly defeated by the Babylonians, was a pile of rubble.  The city walls were torn down, and the temple was burned and smashed; completely destroyed.  Picture a city like Beirut after a bombing campaign or the trash-strewn underbelly of the poorest sections of the world’s most densely populated cities.  To this wretched condition God says, “I am about to create Jerusalem – the city – as a joy, and its people as a delight. … No more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress” (Is. 65:18b, 19b).

          Because of disease, poverty, lack of education, and lack of access to healthcare, many places in the world have high infant mortality rates.  This is intolerable and God is more offended and heartsick by this than we are.  So, in the new earth he says, “No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days” (v.20a).  In fact all babies in new creation grow up healthy and life spans will be long.  “One who dies at a hundred” will be considered a youth.  Recall the crazy old ages of the patriarchs mentioned in the early chapters of Genesis.  Isaiah reaches back to that era. 

          Also think of places and times when people, perhaps indentured servants or coal miners or migrant pickers and farmers, work but see little to no fruit for their labor.  In unjust systems, the wealthy grow fat off the backbreaking labor of powerless peasants.  Not in the new earth.  “They shall build homes and inhabit them.  They shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit.  They shall not build and another inhabit.  They shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall be the days of my people, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands” (v.21-22).

          The new heaven and new earth is a reversal of the pains plaguing humanity.  God hears every prayer.  Even the natural violence between predators and pray will cease.  “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together. …They shall not hurt or destroy on God’s holy mountain” (v.25). 

          Philip Yancey talks about living in Colorado compared to the time he spent living in Chicago.  First he describes his wilderness home where he routinely sees all manner of animals and birds outside his window.  He has a front row seat to the pristine purity of nature.  Then he writes,

In downtown Chicago, my day proceeded very differently.  Most mornings began with a run through the park.  I saw few animals, other than squirrels and pigeons. … I saw instead winos and homeless people sleeping under newspapers and smelly blankets; prostitutes sleeping in doorways next to discarded condoms; well-dressed yuppies standing in neat lines at bus stops; foreign-born nannies pushing the carriages of those yuppies’ children; garbage collectors, janitors, street sweepers, sewer workers, and others who perform the undesirable jobs that keep a city running.[iii]

          Aesthetically, the Colorado wilderness holds more appeal than the grimy inner city streets.  But the image of God is not in the red squirrels, gray foxes, and brown bears Yancey admired from his warm home.  The image of God resides in the yuppies, nannies, prostitutes, and sewer workers.  God created nature’s most spectacular beauty to be enjoyed and admired by each of those millions of city dwellers, his image-bearers. 

          We know that out of His great, grace-filled love for us, God will eventually restore the world.  The wretched underclass will enjoy creation’s splendor.  That new creation will come at the end of history when Jesus returns and we join him in resurrection.  How does God begin now the work of ushering in His eternal kingdom?  God works through His body, the church. 

          We are the tellers of the redemption story - God in human flesh, Jesus; his tragic but necessary death on the cross, and his spring morning victory at the empty tomb; Easter!  We are God’s story-tellers.

          We are the inviters.  In Isaiah 60:3 God declares that the nations will come to Israel’s light.  The world will be drawn to the gathering of the people of God, which in our day is the church.  But for the world to know that God can be worshiped and loved and know, we need to invite. We need to tell God’s story and actively, energetically, invite people to hear our telling of it.

          We are the point of contact where a lost and dying world meets the Savior God.  Jesus’ final command to the disciples and continuing commission to us is “go and tell.”  Obeying this command, we help people see beyond the temporary world as it is to the eternal world of God’s blessing so many are currently unaware of even when they get little glimpses.  We are where the lost world meets the Savior God.

          New Testament scholar N.T. Wright thinks of it this way.  In an attic, a collector finds a faded manuscript of music written for piano.  He contacts a dealer who sees it and then contacts another expert.  They all put their heads together pondering this score, sure that what they’ve found is a previously unknown work by none other than Mozart. 

          How wonderful!  A new work by greatest composer ever.  Yet, as they study it, they realize it seems incomplete.  There are long periods of rest, and it dawns on the collectors and dealers that what they have is indeed by Mozart, but it is written for more than one instrument.  They only have the piano part.  What’s the other instrument or instruments? Cello?  Violin?  Flute?  “If those other parts could be found they would make sense of the incomplete beauty contained in the faded scribble of genius now before them.”[iv]

          When God finishes re-making the world, his earth and his heaven made new and brought together, we, his image bearers, his church, the body of Christ, will become His completed beauty.  Until that day comes, we lean toward it, pray for it, anticipate it, and invite each other and those outside the church to imagine it and find hope in it. 

          Until that day comes, we work for justice and help one another with the struggles of our day.  They are real but so too is God’s promised new creation.  It makes sense that we would long for it.  God placed that longing in us.  That longing drives us to look to God constantly and reflect his hope to the world.

          AMEN

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[i] P. Yancey (2003).  Rumors of Another World: What on Earth are we Missing?  Zondervan (Grand Rapids), p.47-48.

[ii] W. Brueggemann ((1997).  Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy.  Fortress Press (Minneapolis), p.549.

[iii] Yancy, p.53.

[iv] N.T. Wright (2006).  Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense.  HarperOne (New York), p.39-40.

A New Way of Being Human (Romans 4:23-5:5), 3rd Sunday of Lent

Someone messes up and he’s really hard on himself.  “I can’t believe I did that!”  I’ve experienced this and you probably have too.  I fumble or say something I shouldn’t, something hurtful.  Or, I forget something, and it’s the 4^th time.  My forgetting disrupts things for other people.  My mistakes hurt not only me, but others. 

            “I’m such dope,” I say, being hard on myself.  But then a friend comforts me.  “Don’t worry about it,” he says trying to smooth things over, “You’re only human.”

            Only human.  Is that the mark of humanity?  Do we understand our humanness by the blunders we commit?  You’ve heard that old saying.  “To err is human, but to forgive is divine.” 

            God had something else in mind when humans were created.  “Let us make humankind in our image,” God said (Genesis 1:26).  To err is human?  Not according to God.  From God’s standpoint, to be human is to be the zenith of creation, the high point.  To be human is to be that created being that is most like God and related to God in a way no other created thing is. 

            I make a mistake and shrug it off, “Well, I am only human.”  No says God.  When we sin, we’re something other than what God intended for humans.  But we all sin and history has shown we don’t have the will power to stop.  We give in to temptation.  We say hurtful things.  We turn away from God’s path.  We lie, cheat, steal, and hoard.  Some even kill.  We disrespect, disregard, withhold help, withhold forgiveness, and withhold love. 

            That’s why Jesus came.  The only way to conquer sin was to allow it to reach its ultimate consequences – death.  When Jesus went to the cross, he carried sin with him.  When he died on the cross, he killed the eternal effect of sin.  When he rose, he conquered death.  In 2^nd Corinthians 5:17, the Apostle Paul writes that in Christ, there is new creation.  Commenting on this and on Paul’s concept of what happens when we turn to Jesus, the scholar N.T. Wright says, “Paul points to a new way of being human.”[i]  

            However, when we think back to God’s original creation intent, this ‘new way of being human,’ which is, I think the correct way of seeing Paul’s vision, this new way is actually a reclaiming of God’s original idea.  It’s not that we go back to Eden and live the way Adam and Eve did there.  But, we have the life with God that God always wanted humans to have with Him.  To be human is to be in relationship with God, free from sin and with no fear of death.

            Let’s follow Romans 5 to see how Paul presents a new kind of humanity that we experience and live when we give our lives to Jesus and decide to follow him as our master and Lord. 

            First we must refer back to Romans 4.  There Paul talks about Abraham the great man of faith in the Old Testament.  Paul’s point about Abraham is that he was considered righteous by God, but not because he did anything great.  Abraham did not earn the righteousness credited to him.  God gave Abraham favor because Abraham believed God (4:3).  Abraham trusted God and changed his entire life because God told him to.  Abraham moved his household to a new place because God told him to. 

At the end of Romans chapter 4, Paul writes this was true not only of Abraham, but also of us.  When we believe in God who raised Jesus from the dead, when we follow Him, and when we give our lives to Him, we are counted as righteous. Everything Paul writes about Abraham and about faith applies now to people who follow Jesus.

What does this mean?

To be counted as right with God because we believe in Jesus and live in his grace means we have peace with God.  Sin makes peace with God impossible.  When we benefit from lies and deception and get ahead in life by pushing others back, we can’t have peace with God.  When we participate in racist systems and fail to fight the evils of our day, our relationship with God is injured.  When we speak harshly to one another and do not show love, we’re cut off from our Heavenly Father.  But in Christ, all sins are forgiven and we have peace with God. 

Because of this peace, it says in verse 2 that we have access to God.  God may be a mystery we will never fully understand, but we are invited to step into that mystery.  We become a part of it. Within that mystery, because of Jesus, we are sons and daughters of God.  We stand in grace, and though we have made mistakes in life, those sins no longer cling to us or color us.  We are seen differently.  At the end of Romans 5:2 it even says we share the glory of God.  I don’t honestly know what that means.  I only have glimpses.  But I joyfully hold on to the promise that I will know more and more of the glory of God as I grow in Christ and even more when I enter the promised resurrection.  The blessings are here and then more so in the future. 

Yet this is not just feel-good, pie-in-the-sky, babble divorced from reality.  Paul knew better than most the hardships of life.  In 2^nd Corinthians 11 he recites his own resume of pain, suffering that came precisely because he was Jesus’s disciple.  Shipwrecked, flogged, beaten with rods; it all came about in the course of following Jesus.  In our reading, Romans 5, Paul declares the benefits of even these painful experiences. 

He sees God in the suffering and the suffering produces endurance.  He finds out who he is as a man in the most trying of times.  I have sat with people in hospital waiting rooms, visited people incarcerated, had conversations at the funeral home; people often have their most profound moments with God in these hard places.  From righteousness affixed to us by God when we believe, to an invitation into the mystery of God, to the audacious promise of sharing in God’s glory, to the sense that we even meet God in times of suffering, we grow into a knowledge of how life is different when we follow Jesus.

Without Christ, we think money, or the things money can buy, or the security money and power can provide will give us peace.  We are told fantastic experiences like a trip to Hawaii or sky diving or a golf vacation, or even simpler things like a “gold-level” credit card or a certain kind of look or body image will bring happiness.  I am not railing against vacations or material prosperity.  I am not railing against anything.  I am suggesting that the things we can buy are not the things that will give our lives meaning.  Nor are materialistic delights the source of transcendent joy. 

When we talk about the different kind of human, the people we will be in the Kingdom of God, maybe the distinction is most easily seen in how individuals orient their lives.  The woman or man who is of the world has happiness as his or her ultimate life pursuit.  The new kind of human, the one living as God intends his image bearers to be has love as the determining force in his or her life.

Why love?  We’ve talked about sin being nailed to the cross and death defeated in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.  We’ve talked about the ways our life shifts when we are in Christ. We have peace with God, we have access to God, and in our sufferings and in hard times we grow closer to God.  Why we would claim that love is the ultimate value for the new kind of human?

Romans 5:5 says, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”  Note the direct connection between love and the Holy Spirit.  With the Holy Spirit in us, love is in us.  Imagine you are a coffee mug, one full of fresh, glorious, hot coffee; full to the brim.  Now imagine someone pouring a brand new pot into you after you’re already full.  It flows out everywhere.  That’s the Holy Spirit pouring into us.  That love of God keeps coming and coming until it spills out, and those around us are drenched with God’s love. 

Some Bible readers rightly point out that the term ‘trinity’ is never mentioned in the Bible.  So, they ask, why do we insist that we know God as three – one God existing in three distinct person, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?  I think the answer is love.  Jesus – God the Son, God in human flesh – was asked, what is the greatest commandment?  He answered, “Love.”  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.”  “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Jesus gave these as the ultimate commands for how human beings should live under God, but Jesus also knew that it would be impossible us to keep this command on our own power.  He never meant for us to live on our own power.  To be the kind of people wants us to be, we live in constant contact with God, depending on God for help in all things.  When Jesus gave these commands, he add this: we are to follow Him.

When Paul writes Romans, Jesus has already risen, ascended, and is seated in Heaven at the right hand of the Father.  But thought he has gone there, that does not mean we are without help.  At the end of John’s Gospel, Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit onto his followers (20:22).  In Acts chapter 2, the Holy Spirit spread like a wild fire to the hearts of people and they became followers of Jesus.  And here in Romans 5:5, it says God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus came, died, and rose, why?  Because God so loved the world.  Jesus in the flesh is God’s expression of love for us.  When asked how we should live life under God and into eternal life, Jesus said, “Love.  Love God and love people.”  Paul writes that love is poured into us by way of the Holy Spirit.  What holds the Trinity together?  Love.  How do the persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, work together to redeem humanity?  God shows love, exercises love, and gives love to the point of overflowing.

This brings us back to the quote from N.T. Wright I shared at the beginning.  Romans 5:5 is but one of many places where Paul hints at this new way of being human.  Filled with God’s love, love then pours from us in hundreds of ways.

·         A mom is forced to travel to another country and so has to leave her oldest child in charge of the younger ones while she’s gone; another mom brings that family food while she is away.

·         A husband takes a week of paid vacation so he can sit by his wife’s side as she recovers from a difficult surgery.

·         A small church offers financial help to a woman who cannot pay her medical bills.

·         A community of believers comforts a grieving family when the mother/grandmother dies.

·         A small group rejoices when one of the members gets a new job and throws a celebration/goodbye party.  At the party there is laughter and congratulations along with tears because they are happy for him and at the same time sad because he is moving.

·         A young professional who is just starting to make money in his first job, sets aside part of his paycheck to sponsor an impoverished child in another country because he wants that child to have a chance in life and to know Jesus.

These things are not exceptions and they are not few and far between examples.  These are normal occurrences for followers of Jesus because that Holy Spirit love has filled the church’s heart and now is pouring over.  When love floods out of the church, all in its path are blessed. 

N.T. Wright recalls the famous quote from Descartes, “I think, therefore I am.”  Paul’s teaching about God topples over this old axiom.  My existence is not affirmed by the fact that I have self-awareness.  That I think is not proof of my existence, and more importantly it is not why I exist.  Per Romans 5:5, we say, “We are loved, therefore we are.”  Love is why God does what God does, and when we are in Christ, love is why we are who we are and why we act as we do.

As we sing our final song, think about how you have experienced God’s love and how the experience has changed your life so that you live differently now because of it.  If you’d like to, go to the witness wall, as we are singing.  Go write a little note about how you’ve been changed as a result of experiencing God’s love. 

If you don’t know what I mean, come and pray with me or with one of the others waiting to pray with you.  Come and ask God to pour His love into you today.  Come and do that as we sing.

AMEN

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[i] N.T. Wright (2005), Paul: In Fresh Perspective, Fortress Press (Minneapolis), p.173.

Science Lover Accounts for Faith

            ‘Finding God in the Waves’ is a moving tale of love of God, love of science, and the two loves finding space in one person.  I recommend this book to anyone who loves science but doesn’t want to abandon faith because of that love of science.  It is a well-told story full of feeling and twists and turns.  And depending on how you come out on the faith-atheist question, it definitely has a happy or disappointing ending.  The title makes that much clear.

            As much as I enjoyed the book, I have some specific critiques.  I will go into those in more detail in future blog posts, but will summarize them here.  My first critique is the entire notion that a true scientist will have trouble with many aspects of the Christian faith.  The author makes this assumption throughout the book.  I know plenty of scientists, MIT and UNC PhD’s, who have no trouble following Jesus and committing to excellence in their fields (chemistry, medicine, biology).  To assert that knowledge of science automatically leads to dismissal of certain tenets of the faith is a leap the author made that was unnecessary and is not the case for many scientists.

            Second, I was mostly disappointed that the author made no reference to the best resources that deal with the intersection of faith and science.  He said the internet is full of instances where atheists overwhelm Christians in debates.  He has apparently never watched the debates Oxford mathematician and devoted Christian John Lennox has had with atheist scientists; or, those of Oxford church historian and biologist Alister McGrath.  It is unfortunate that he never referred to McGrath’s work at all.  McGrath deals with questions of faith and science in depth in several of his books and is uniquely qualified to do so.  The same is true of John Polkinghorne whom McHargue also never cites.  He also make no mention of the ongoing work of the Biologos foundation.  He refers to one of the science authors who works with Biologos, but beyond that he does not seem to be aware of the best site out there for conversations about science and faith.

            A third critique comes in his clear prioritizing for scientific knowledge over faith knowledge.  He doesn’t claim that God must live within the laws of nature.  But he does believe all acts of God in this universe must be observable within the laws of nature.  Every faith axiom he proposes begins with a doubt and then the doubt is assuaged when he can account for it with brain science.  I don’t believe God is beholden to the limitations of the human brain and no matter how amazing the human brain is, it is limited.  God acts outside of the workings of the brain.  Every of God humans experience and describe is not confined to some part of our brain and how it stores information.  But, this author cannot accept anything as real unless scientific observation (mostly brain science) accounts for it.

            This leads to a fourth major critique: his treatment of the resurrection.  The author compares Oxford Bible scholar and historian N.T. Wright to Stephen Hawking in expanse of knowledge.  Wright is the ‘Stephen Hawking’ of faith, he says.  He also says the Gospels were written too late to be treated as reliable sources for events in Jesus’ life.  N.T. Wright disagrees.  In his exhaustive treatment of the resurrection he cites the gospels as reliable sources.  Wright, whom McHargue praises for his scholarship, believes the gospels and the other New Testament books can be shown to be reliant upon oral traditions that date back to the days of Jesus and thus used in a complex historical argument.  McHargue seems completely unaware of this and thus dismisses the possibility of the resurrection as an event in history.  If history is treated as a science, then history shows that the best conclusion is that the resurrection happened.  It was an event in history.  Wright shows this as does Gary Habermas and Mike Licona, each in their own lengthy scholarly studies of the topic.  McHargue has either not read this material, or disregards it.  Of course if he understood that history shows it had to have happened, it might throw him for a loop because it shows something in history happened that science cannot reckon.  He treats the resurrection as something that is not necessary for faith.  I agree that it is not.  But if one’s faith is Christian in nature, the resurrection has be a nonnegotiable.  McHargue does not deny the resurrection and he sees signs of it in creation, but there is evidence of it that he either doesn’t know or doesn’t accept.

            These are each meaty critiques that bear their own treatment, and I hope to get to each in future blog posts.  For now, I am very glad to have read ‘Finding God’ and I recommend to anyone who in interested in science and in faith.  In spite of my critiques, I rejoice at McHargue’s journey as I find his search for God moving and true.  Read this book and allow it to challenge your own thought about God.  It won’t be easy, but it is worthwhile.

Knowledge by Inquiry, Knowledge by Faith (1 Corinthians 15:1-5

Sunday, June 12, 2016

(On this Sunday, we baptized J_______).

        As Jeremy went under the water, I pronounced him “dead.”  This is not only about J______.  Recall your baptism.  I or another pastor took you down under the water, dead and buried in sin.  Then you are raised and we say, “Raised to new life in Jesus Christ.”  Sin leads to death, but because of Jesus, his death on the cross and his resurrection, we have new life.  We become new creations. We do not remain buried in the ground to return to ashes.  We are raised.

        For what?  Jeremy has entrusted himself to Jesus.  You and I, if we have put our faith in Christ, also have entrusted ourselves to Him.  We are saved, born again, bound for resurrection.  Our baptism shows this.  What about our lives?  For what are we saved?

        In the 16^th century in Europe, a group of Christians called Anabaptists insisted that babies could not be baptized.  Baptism was for people who were able to consciously choose to follow Jesus and when baptism happened it had to be by immersion.  In the reformation, Protestant Christians separated from the Catholic Church.  Anabaptists, the ones denying the acceptability of infant baptism separated from other Protestants like Lutherans and the Reformed Church.

        As a result, over 1000 Anabaptists were arrested and killed by both Catholics and by other Protestants.  Their main crime was they allowed themselves to be re-baptized.  Women were drowned for this, and men burned at the stake for doing what Jeremy did today, undergoing immersion, believer’s baptism. 

        Dirk Willem was one such Christian, an Anabaptist follower of Jesus.  Imprisoned, awaiting execution in his home town of Asperen, Netherlands, he escaped.  He made a rope of cloths tied together, and fled over the wintry countryside as a guard gave chase.  He risked running right across a frozen pond.  The ice held, but when the guard followed, it gave way dooming him to a certain, frozen death. 

        Raised to new life in Christ.  For what?

        Dirk Willem stopped running, turned around, and helped the man who a moment ago had been chasing him.  Dirk had escaped and was in the clear, but he believed what Jesus said when Jesus said to love our enemies.  He pulled that man from the frigid waters and the man was ready to let him go, but this all took long enough for others to catch up.  For living as a part of new creation, as one who is of the Kingdom of God, Dirk Willem was burned at the stake on May 16, 1569.

        Near the end of his letter to the Corinthian Church, the Apostle Paul zeroed on the core Gospel.  Chapter begins, “Now I would remind you brothers and sisters, of the gospel … [on] which you stand” (15:1).  It all comes down to this.  Paul’s final word for them in this letter is the essential Gospel.

        Competing narratives vie for our soul.  Every one of us lives under the covering of a dominant story.  Maybe it is a national story or a social class story or a race story.  Whatever it is, this was true of the Corinthians; it was true for Dirk Willem which is why he was willing to go to his own death to save the man who represented the powers that killed him; and, it is true for you and me.   Competing stories position themselves to be the dominant story of our lives.  Paul wanted the Gospel to be the dominant story for all who would read this letter.

        Verse 2, we are saved if we believe.  Verse 3, Christ died for our sins, was buried, and raised.  Please note that each portion is equally critical in our story.  There is not more weight on the cross.  The cross is essential.  The burial is and so is the resurrection.  The gospel includes all of it.  Later in this chapter, Paul declares that if Jesus was not raised in a bodily resurrection, it’s all for nothing.  Without the resurrection, the cross is just a torture device.  Without the cross, the resurrection never happens. 

        And in beginning in verse 5 and running through verse 11 is another, equally essential element of the Gospel: the appearances of the risen Lord Jesus.  This testimony is here because Paul wants the original readers of this letter and every subsequent generation of readers to know that there were multiple eye-witnesses who attested to a literal, bodily resurrection. 

        New Testament writers worked to place the resurrection as an event history, something that literally happened.  In the opening verses of his Gospel, Luke asserts that he is writing history.  He took the same approach in the book of Acts.  In John’s gospel, the author claims to be an eye-witness to all that has been described including the resurrection (John 21:24).  A similar claim is made in Second Peter (1:5) and here in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul names several eyewitness. 

Theologian Paul Fiddes labels this approach to knowledge of Jesus as ‘scientific,’ affixing to the discipline of historical research the same standards of inquiry used in science (see Past Event and Present Salvation, chapter 3).  Fiddes thinks the resurrection cannot be determined by means of scientific inquiry because it is an event that cannot be reproduced within the boundaries of the laws of nature.  It is a supernatural event so the fact that it happened cannot be established by historical research.  Fiddes is not denying a bodily resurrection.  He just denies that we can prove it by the conventions historians use.  Rather, we know the resurrection happened because we know it by faith.  Fiddes believes this approach to knowing is as valid and as important as the knowledge we gain by scientific inquire.  In dealing with salvation, he feels both ways of knowing – by faith and by scientific inquiry - are essential.

While he doesn’t delve into how we know, theologian James McClendon accepts the resurrection as an event in history.  Two theologian-historians, N.T. Wright and Mike Licona, have written lengthy volumes explaining why the best conclusion to be drawn from the available evidence is that Jesus actually did rise from the grave.  Whether that is enough to say that inquiry can establish the historicity of the resurrection, I cannot say.  But all the scholars I mentioned, Fiddes, Wright, Licona, and McClendon along with many others would agree that scientific inquiry cannot establish what the original followers of Jesus thought the cross and resurrection meant.

To understand meaning, we have to live in that other sphere of understanding Fiddes name – knowledge that comes by faith.  Fiddes says, “the living and incomparable Lord cannot be pinned down under the microscope of scientific investigation.  [We] need the eye of faith, and the power of the Holy Spirit to bring matters into focus before we can say [and believe] that ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself’” (p.37).  Paul and the other New Testament writers always operated with the eye of faith.  Even when they tried to establish hard, objective facts by way of insisting upon the eye-witness nature of their reports, those reports were packaged persuasively in an attempt to lead the reader to faith.  The apostle was at the same time objective, faith-based, and evangelistic. 

We understand the events of salvation, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the appearances of the risen Lord Jesus both by science and by faith.  I have spent a bit time explaining both ways of understanding specifically because we live in a post-enlightenment era.  We are science and technology dependent.  There are individuals who are happy to let science take care of our healing at the hospital and our entertainment with 1000 devices and our banking and our shopping and our military defense.  In all these ways, some individuals trust in technology, but when it comes to heaven, then switch and trust in God.  And never do the science and the faith meet. 

For others, that won’t do.  When everything rides on the next scientific advance, to then rely on something outside of science for the afterlife is just superstition.  Science has to have a say in our faith understanding.  However, science (including historical proof as science) cannot have the final say.  The resurrection is outside the parameters of science.  God is outside the parameters of science.  So is meaning.  Thus when we, as followers of the crucified/risen Lord who come from the scientific age, express our faith we need to do so in a way that is rooted in faith but understood by those rooted in science.  We have to talk about salvation in a way makes that makes sense to people today.

Jesus lived in first century Palestine.  Fact.

He was crucified when Jewish leaders collaborated with Romans leaders.  He was crucified, dead, and buried.  Fact.

He rose from death and appeared to his followers.  Call this fact or belief, but it happened.  Jesus literally rose in a bodily resurrection and first century people saw him. 

What we believe about God and salvation rest on these facts which we declare to be irrefutable. What these things mean has to do with the relationship that comes when the Holy Spirit reaches out to us and we respond.  This is faith knowledge and faith-living.  We declare both, what we know and the life we will commit to live in believer’s baptism by immersion. 

But then, what this all means, is only seen in how we live.  Prior to the resurrection, it was hard.  Jesus repeatedly told his followers that like him, they needed to walk the hard road, persevere through persecution, and endure in godliness and faith.  They just wanted to jump ahead straight to the New Age, bypassing hardship.  McClendon observes that if the disciples had had their way, there would have been no cross.  If Jesus had his way, there would have been 13 crosses (McClendon, p.235).  And we have to take up our cross and follow Him.  When we do that, when we’ve evaluated the evidence and responded to the Holy Spirit and we decide that because of what we’ve found and what we’ve felt we should then walk the footsteps of Jesus, then we have a full-bodied, lived salvation.

So, we study and pray. We think and feel.  We calculate, evaluate, and meditate.  All of it is done in hope and trust, believing that God will make us ready when our moment comes and our pursuer is about to fall through the ice.

Remember the opening story of the Dirk Willem who stop his escape to rescue the guard falling through thin ice.  In that moment, he was not engaged in deep theological analysis.  He was not moved by a deep warmth from God, I don’t think.  He was scared and running for his life.  But he stopped because deep inside himself he could hear the voice of Jesus telling him to love his enemy.  This enemy would drag him to the stake where he would be slow-roasted to death. 

When we are attacked verbally or relationally or maybe physically, when we are hit, do we hear Jesus telling us to love our enemies and do we obey?

When it gets really hard, do we run as fast as we can to safer ground, or do we stand and point to the crucified, risen Lord and declare, I am standing with Him and trusting in Him, no matter what?

When being a Christ-follower is costly, do we backtrack and settle for a watered down faith indistinguishable from any other worldview, or do we pay the cost, carry our cross, and follow Him?

The gospel is salvation: through the cross and the resurrection, Jesus saves us from sin and death and saves us to life eternal in His kingdom.  We know this salvation that we have through measured, reasoned study of the facts.  We know this salvation that we have through our deeply personal, emotional response to the Holy Spirit who whispers to our hearts that we are forgiven and beloved.  And our salvation is known when the watching world sees our lives and sees Jesus.

AMEN