Month: April 2009

I realize that I’ve neglected the blog for over a week, but the Lenten observance of daily posting left me somewhat blogged-out.  I’m hoping that from here on out, I’ll be posting on a more than once a week basis.

In addition to the practice of daily posting, I was reading a devotional by N.T. Wright entitled Reflecting the Glory which proved to be immensely helpful in focusing my thoughts in anticipation of Easter.   I recently acquired another book by Wright called Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision.  It is something of a response to John Piper’s critique of Wright’s “New Perspective” on Paul.  While I believe that this particular theological conversation is immensely important, my guess is that most would be bored with the debate.

Boring theology noted, Wright’s makes some observations concerning certain understandings of “the gospel” that are worth repeating here.

God made humans for a purpose: not simply for themselves, not simply so that they could be in relationship with him, but so that through them, as his image-bearers, he could bring his wise, glad, fruitful order to the world.  And the closing scenes of scripture, in the book of Revelation, are not about humans beings going off to heaven to be in a close and intimate relationship with God, but about heaven coming to earth.  The intimate relationship with God which is indeed promised and celebrated in that great scene of the New Jerusalem issues at once in an outflowing, a further healing creativity, the river of the water of life flowing out from the city, and the tree of life springing up, with leaves that are for the healing of the nations … God is rescuing us from the shipwreck of the world, not so that we can sit back and put our feet up in his company, but so that we can be part of his plan to remake the world. We are in orbit around God and his purposes, not the other way around.

I should probably read that last sentence once a week day.

I’m not really sure how U2 does it, but I guess being the biggest rock and roll band in the world gives them license to do pretty much whatever.  And yet, I’m still amazed that they can record songs that are so overtly “Christian” and simultaneously sell out arenas and stadiums around the globe.  While their music frequently has religious themes woven into it, not since ’40’ has one been so blatantly theocentric.  So my little Easter present to you is this modern day hymn.

“Magnificent”

Magnificent
Magnificent

I was born
I was born to be with you
In this space and time
After that and ever after I haven’t had a clue
Only to break rhyme
This foolishness can leave a heart black and blue

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar

I was born
I was born to sing for you
I didn’t have a choice but to lift you up
And sing whatever song you wanted me to
I give you back my voice
From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise…

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar

Justified till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent
Magnificent

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love unites our hearts

Justified till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent
Magnificent
Magnificent

Easter is about real life, not escapist fantasy. Easter is about God’s judgment, calling the world to account and setting up his new, glorious creation of freedom and peace, and summoning all people everywhere to live in this new world. Easter is about God’s rich welcome to all humankind. We Easter people are called to celebrate all of that in practical ways as well as in glad and uninhibited worship.

Word.

Despite the unusual name, it is another amazing find in the Natural State.

I saw this yesterday and wanted to share…

Lykke Li…

Lots of my thoughts today have been turned towards the celebration of Easter.  A recent reading from Reflecting the Glory has sort of stuck with me.

… the Spirit of truth will come and guide them into all truth.  This is one of the great promises by which the church stands or falls.  The church can only continue to exist if it believes that the Spirit is present, leading us into the truth while we struggle to hold on to the love of Jesus and the revelation of God’s glory.

Two things really stand out to me about these comments.  One is the affirmation of the role of the Spirit to guide in all truth.  As people thoroughly steeped in Western Rationalism, we have a tendency to be suspicious of the work of the Spirit.  To be dependent on the Spirit to lead us into truth seems just a shade to subjective.  How can we really know it is the Spirit?  Maybe it isn’t “the Spirit” at all, but simply our own point of view justified with Spirit language?  Not to mention looking at some of our more Spirit-led brethren and thinking that isn’t what I’m interested in at all.  And yet, the affirmation of Jesus in John 16:12 is simply that the Spirit will in fact “guide you into all truth.”  It sounds like Jesus expects us to trust the leading of the Spirit.

But the thing that Wright said that really captured my attention was the statement…  The church can only continue to exist if it believes that the Spirit is present. It isn’t enough for the Spirit to be present.  The Spirit is present whether we believe so or not.  But the church’s survival is dependent on actually believing that the Spirit is present.  The moment we cease to embrace the reality that the Spirit of God is in fact real and at work in our midst, we stop being the church.

At least we are no longer the church in the ways that count.  That isn’t to say that the activities of the church stop.  Services are still held.  Songs still sung.  Sermons still preached.  Programs still executed.  Work on behalf of the poor.  Attempts to “reach out” to the lost.  But a community of faith devoid of a strong conviction of the Spirit’s presence and work among them does all else in vain.  It seems silly to state something that is so very obvious, but the pull is there nonetheless.  To accomplish great works for God without actually depending on the Spirit that both guides and empowers.

This is one of the things I have continually appreciated about Wright.  He holds firmly in one hand his New Testament scholarship and in the other a robust view of the work of the Spirit in and through the church.  One would like to think that one would necessarily lead to the other, but experience has shown that the tendency is to gravitate towards either extreme.  Wright serves as a model for theology done with rigor and scholastic integrity that naturally leads to a greater appreciation for work of the Spirit among us.

The first time I saw the Indigo Girls live was over fifteen years ago, when I took a small group of students on an unofficial trip to see the Indigo Girls in Dallas.  There were several memorable things about that trip, including (of course) an incident with the 15-passenger van I was driving at the time.  We did finally make it to the show, and we loved it.  It was also my first introduction to an artist that I had heard of but only barely, David Wilcox.  He was opening and was right on my wavelength.  I’ve seen both a number of times since then both in Chicago and Seattle, and their live shows have always been a treat.  While my own musical tastes have changed some over the years, they have been consistently been putting out pretty good music.

Anyway, I thought I let you know that both have recently released new albums. You can listen to both free one time through at the links provided at lala.com. If you haven’t signed up for lala, you should. It is a great way to listen to music, and when you sign up you can ‘follow’ other people (sort of like twitter) to find out what your friends are listening to.

David Wilcox’s Open Hand.

Indigo Girls’ Poseidon and the Bitter Bug.

play…

Monday may be my favorite day of the week.  Here’s a list of reasons why…

1)  6am meeting with a group of guys who challenge, encourage, and pray.

2)  Fresh start on the work week.  Not very many people at the office, so usually can get plenty done.

3)  Meeting with my friend and co-worker.  Good things happen in that meeting.

4)  Lunch.

5)  Encouragers.  I split an hour tutoring two different students from Pike View Elementary.  I hope they get something out of our time together.  I sure do.

6)  Taking Cole to and picking him up from piano lessons.  Cole is a gifted musician, and this weekly shuttling him to and from reminds me of that about him.

7)  Ben usually has some sort of soccer thing.  He loves it!  And I love that he loves it.

“Children don’t grow up…”

My boy N.T. bringing the heat:

… we don’t think of love as confrontational, and we often have to learn that to love someone truly may involve confronting them when their way of life is destructive to them or to others.  The way of mere tolerance is a very low-grade substitute for true love.  Genuine love helps the beloved to see the truth, the way things really are, as Jesus did.

I realize that this may sound somewhat contradictory to what I described a few days ago.  It isn’t.

The missing ingredient from the sorts of confrontation that were being described in the previous post was love.  As always, love is the key for determining how to engage people.  Where love is present, one can rarely go wrong.  Where it isn’t, then whatever is trying to be accomplished is sure to fail miserably.

This morning, I challenged a group of middle school students to prepare for Easter by choosing to love the people around them.  It is a challenge that I’ll be taking up, as well.

Bonus: The above song accompanies the trailer to what is sure to be a wildly popular movie, Where the Wild Things Are.  You may remember the book by Maurice Sendak that captured the imagination of generations of children.  Check out the trailer, and enjoy the song all over again.

= awesome