Second Birth

During this Advent season, I love reflecting on the words one of the most widely sung Christmas hymns of all time, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” Disregarding the alterations George Whitefield made to the hymn in 1753, I’m certain the original author, Charles Wesley, would be pleased with how often we sing it. Wesley, one of the fathers of Methodism, sought to spread Methodist theology through congregational singing. He believed that singing our faith shapes our hearts and minds. Consider these lines from Wesley’s beloved hymn, “Mild he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die, born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth.” In this one verse, Wesley sums up the gospel. Our God laid aside his glory and humbled himself in the form of baby. This baby was born to die on a cross and to be resurrected on the third day. His death and resurrection gives birth to eternal life.

It has been said that the number one cause of death is birth. Think about it. The prospect of death makes bringing children into the world a hard reality. We recognize that in birth, a young child, so beautiful and warm, is suddenly susceptible to the human condition. This inescapability of death makes the incarnation of God’s only Son that much more amazing. God, the creator all that is good and eternal, unites himself with the limitations of human flesh. This Advent season, we find our God wrapped in swaddling clothes and exposed to the consequences of broken relationships, germs and violence. Through the birth of Jesus, God reveals his desire to understand our experiences. As St. Paul says in Hebrews, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.”

Yes, it is true that the number one cause of death is birth. Yet, we Christians look beyond physical death into the hope of eternal life. The number one cause of second birth, of eternal life with God, is Jesus Christ. Wesley’s words about the Christ-child ring true: “Born that we no more may die.” In God’s coming to earth lies the meaning of Emmanuel, the God who is with us. This Advent season, as we prepare for the birth of God’s son, I pray we will receive the second birth. Continue to sing your faith about what our God has done through his coming to us. Through our second birth in God’s Spirit, we no more may die. Come, O come, Emmanuel.

Community, Cross and New Creation

Images help bring clarity to our life. In fact, our culture communicates primarily through images. If any of you have ever used The Facebook you realize how much we depend on pictures and icons to help us tell the story of our lives. Christian images too help provide focus for our faith journeys. In his book, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, Rev. Richard Hays selects three focal images from the New Testament to tell the Christian story. He selects the images of community, cross and new creation.
The community aspect of Christianity is evident throughout the New Testament. Paul writes to churches and reminds them they make up the body of Christ together. God has called this community to live differently than the world around it. The Christian people are “to be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:3). As we consider our worshipping community, we recall how Christ has given us an opportunity to share in his life through our worship of God and our love for each other.
The cross stands as the central model for discipleship as we are reminded of our Lord Jesus Christ whose suffering and sacrifice expressed God’s incredible love for his people. The cross calls us to share in Christ’s suffering and to obey Jesus’ command to take up our cross and follow him. If we are truly Christians, we cannot avoid the cross. There is simply no way around it.
The new creation expresses how God is busy bringing about a new age. As Paul writes, “The whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now,” (Romans 8:2-23). The powers of the old world are passing away and God is creating a new way of living. Yet, we have not seen this new creation in its fullness. The best is yet to come. Christians realize God is transforming us and all his creation into something new. Indeed, the best is yet to come.
I hope these images will help provide us some clarity about our God and his relationship to us. God has given us a community. God has called us to carry the cross. God will create his people and world into something completely new.

Trinitarian Ministry

What are the different functions of the Trinity? I am accustomed to thinking of the Father as the creator, the Son as the redeemer and the Holy Spirit as the sanctifier. In returning to the early Christian father, Gregory of Nyssa, however, I am reminded that each person in the Trinity works together and not independently of each other. He writes,

We do not learn that the Father does something on his own, in which the Son does not co-operate. Or again, that the Son acts on his own without the Spirit.

I wonder if this understanding of the Trinitarian relationship will help the church move forward in its mission. This one God in three persons always acts co-operatively. Thus, when Christ hung on the cross, the Father and the Holy Spirit both worked through Christ's sacrifice. When the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost, the Father and the Son were both involved in empowering the first disciples for ministry. The Trinitarian relationship expresses how one God in three persons works co-operatively in order to govern the universe and save God's people. This relationship models how God's people are to engage in ministry. God calls His people to work through relationships with one another.

Relational ministry can be hard to nurture in churches. In larger membership churches, we often find the missions committee, evangelism committee, children's ministry, youth ministry, older adult ministry and others form the make-up of congregations. My worry is that in a society so bent on being independent, the church may follow suit and forget its relational emphasis within the congregational life. I have hope. In our church, our youth group host an annual Valentine's dinner for our older adults. Later in the year, the older adults pass around a red cup for the youth group's summer mission enterprises. That's a Trinitarian expression of ministry. I pray our church will continue to function not as independents, but as people working together to carry out God's will.

The Shack

"What do you think about the The Shack?" friends have asked me. I figured it was time to read the darn thing. William Young's recent page-turner, The Shack, has quickly risen to #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list. Such popluarity over what has been characterized as theological fiction is intriguing in a nation where mainline Christianity is dying. Perhaps its popularity is due in large part to its unconventional way of asking and answering some of our most basic questions about God. In the book, Mackenzie Philips is trying to make sense of the brutal death of his innocent daughter Missy. In a shack near the murder scene of his daughter, Mack is given the unique opportunity to spend days with the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). Only the Father's name is Papa and wears a dress. The Son's name is Jesus and enjoys skipping rocks. The Holy Spirit's name is Sarayu. Sarayu hums while working in the garden.

This book is certainly helpful in redeveloping our imagination and the way we conceive of God and the Trinitarian relationship. However, I am concerned about the casual way in which the book depicts God and speaks on God's behalf. My worry is rooted in the way we understand scripture. Should "theological fiction" be able to speak for God in such concrete terms? The question is not whether fiction can portray truth. It certainly can. My worry is fiction that speaks on behalf of God will shade the way we read the Bible. Will such books form us to think of the Bible as theological fiction that illumines truth? We worship a risen savior who truly suffered under Pontious Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.

Just the same, the book provokes thought. I was especially intrigued when Mac is asked to judge his own children. He must choose only two of his children to spend eternity with God. Mac simply cannot do it. Finally, he ask, "Could I go instead? If you need someone to torture for eternity, I'll go in their place. Would that work? Could I do that?" Being placed in the seat of God helps Mac begin to understand the depths God will go to show his love for his people. It's a love that says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, son that whosoever believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." Now that's the truth.

Prayer in an effeciency-driven society

In one of his latest books, God's Companions: Reimagining Christian Ethics, Sam Wells reflects on the value of prayer in helping Christians identify sin. He writes, "an ability to identify and name sin is an indication that other aspcects of prayer are healthy: if thanksgiving is plentiful, pride is likely to be the more easily identified," (Wells, 86). When Christians thank God continually they are less apt to consider their own works and successes as the result of their own efforts. A life without thanksgiving is a life centered on the self. The sin of pride takes over without thanksgiving. For when we fail to recognize gifts and gains in relationship to God, we begin to believe the false narrative of the self-made person. Therefore, Christians are called to develop a life centered in prayers of thanksgiving. For through such prayers, our moral life is formed around the giftedness of God.

Wells also takes note how hard it is to pray in a 'fast food' world. Our society is built around the notion that time is a commoditity. We must use our time in the most effecient means possible. In such a fast paced world, we may lose the ability to be still before God. The scriptures attest to a savior in Jesus Christ who rhythmically took time for prayer in the midst of great needs from the people around him. Like Christ, we Christians are called to carve out time for our God. Developing the rhythm of prayer will take some adjusting. Wells rightly points out that, "becoming the kind of person who can be silent before God means realigning one's notions of efficiency, of productivity, and of time in general," (Wells, 87).

Wells also speaks to the sin of service without contemplation. When disciples serve without remembering to pray, we lose focus of Christ's activity in the world. Wells writes, "for the disciples who do not trust that God in Christ has reconciled the world to himself will never pause long enough to contemplate because they assume that the reconciliation must come from them," (Wells, 87). Without a continual reminder of Christ's activity in the world, discipleship can slip into humanism or the idea that we humans can save the world on our own. Salvation is always the work of Christ. The rhythm of prayer, though it may seem like a waste of time to the world, will remind us of a living Christ at work in the world through the Holy Spirit. As a Methodist, I name Christ's activity in the world as prevenient grace. May our prayers always return us to the source of all goodness, the living God from whom all blessings flow.

Holy Innocence

Today I watched a young child with his mother at our church. The child kept pressing the button to the elevator. He'd giggle each time he pressed it. His mother kept trying to pursuade him to quit pressing the button. This child, maybe 4 years old, dodged his mother and watched in amazement each time the doors to the elevator opened. He kept laughing. I thought to myself, "I wish I could get excited about an elevator." It reminded me that children inhabit a world of wonder and amazement. They see the world imaginatively.

I remember about 4 years ago, I viewed ministry in a very similar way. I stood amazed when I lead in acts of worship and taught Bible studies. The wonder of the moment was still filled to capacity. I still see the grace in ministry as I lead God's people in prayer and studies. But maybe these task have become too domestic of late. O, God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, help me see ministry again with the eyes of a child.