Archive for april, 2010
Painting: Titian, Polyptych of Jesus’ Resurrection, 1520-22
In Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 8, he brings the resurrection of Jesus into confrontation with the “sighing” of all creation, longing to be liberated from decay. This sigh of existence is something which is admitted by all human beings, and something we all experience personally. There is something about life which cries out for cosmic redemption. A cry for eternal life in the midst of ever-present death. And then we begin to rationalize. We say, after reflection, in the cold light of day: “It can’t be helped. Death is part of life.” And yet, when a loved one dies, we feel the loss deep in our bones, and we cannot say with such cool rationality: “O well, that’s that, death is part of life.”
Paul says: Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of God’s “great reversal.” The “curse” which He laid upon the creation due to man’s rebellion, this curse He is going to lift. He has lifted it. By the first coming of Jesus to this earth, by Jesus’ death and resurrection from the dead, there are forces at work in creation which will one day mean that death no longer is part of life. Things will not go stale. Human beings will no longer ache with unbearable loss. Incredibly, the entire creation, and here I think we must think of the animal and plant kingdom, next to human life, will be set free. Life will rise up and never go down again.
Secular thought accuses religions of trying to “escape” from reality. For in this view, death is the final end, nothingness wins. There is no hope for man or this earth beyond the grave. This is the pessimistic verdict of Western rationality about the reality of our existence in 2010. Yet at the same time this secular thought longs for “solutions” to the problems of earth: poverty, sickness, injustice, the abuse of creation, even death itself. The tension here is palpable.
Jesus’ resurrection means that there is real hope for our world. Not in an escape from reality. But in God’s promise that what He has begun, by Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, He will continue till there is a new earth under a new heaven. Unimaginable? Yes, if our rationality is limited by our own conceptions of the inevitability of death. No, if the God of Jesus’ resurrection really is there. And if Jesus really rose from the dead.
Continue Reading april 24th, 2010
Painting: Raphael, Paul in Athens, 1515, Victoria and Albert museum, London
In the book of Acts, chapter 17, we see the apostle Paul in Athens. Although the political and cultural capital of the Roman empire at that time was Rome itself, Athens still had the allure of the source of the Greek wisdom, art, and philosophical religion which Rome had copied and tried to make its own.
Paul, a Jew, and a Pharisee, had been raised in Tarsus in what is now Turkey, and educated under one of the leading Rabbi’s of that day. After a period of intense hostility to the “Jesus movement,” he came to faith in Jesus as the Messiah for Israel and the nations. This was on the road to Damascus, recorded in Acts 9. From that moment on he believed that Jesus had risen bodily from the dead, and that that resurrection, next to Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross, was the pivotal moment in all of human history. He talked about it everywhere he went, and tried to get all the people he met to believe that Jesus, the Messiah, had been raised from the dead.
Paul was a close observer of the cultural landscape he travelled through. When he came to Athens, he was stirred by all the temple worship there. He also found a temple with the inscription, “to an unknown god.” He began to try to engage the Athenians at the Areopagus, “Mars’ hill.” He speaks of the striking polytheism and worship of statues of gods in Athens. This was at variance with some of the Greeks’ own philosophers, who had said that we are God’s children. “If we are God’s children, how come you all are worshipping statues?” Paul said. He went further to speak of God who made all things. Paul said: the “unknown god,” I saw named in that temple, I’m talking about Him. Paul said: this living God has given a special sign of a coming judgment of the world. God had raised a man from the dead, as a convincing sign to all people that the judgment day is coming. God is moving history to its climax. History is not meaningless. It is not an endless repetition of the same things. History is going somewhere: to a renewal of our world, but also to judgment of men who don’t want to worship God forever.
Paul said: this sign of Jesus’ resurrection is proof to all that God will judge the world through this man, Jesus. To many Athenians who heard Paul that day, this sounded utterly ridiculous. Jewish nonsense. But some listened carefully, and came to faith that day. Others came to faith later. Faith in Jesus, the resurrected Messiah.
Continue Reading april 16th, 2010
Etching: Rembrandt, Jesus preaching, 1652, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
“Question Authority.” Have you seen that bumper-sticker? We live in a time in the West of distrust of all authority. Tim Keller has recently written a good article on the subject of “Authority,” with a cogent analysis of our age (see Continue Reading). His opening words: “The root idea of modernity is the overturning of all authority outside of the self. In the 18th century European ‘Enlightenment’ thinkers insisted that the modern person must question all tradition, revelation, and external authority by subjecting them to the supreme court of his or her own reason and intuition. We are our own moral authority.”
While on the basis of the Bible we must indeed be wary of merely human authority, Jesus himself, at the end of Matthew 28, proclaims himself be the source of absolute authority on earth: “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18). If we may trust that these words really come from Jesus (liberal theologians doubt this), these are either the words of a madman, an evil manipulator, or someone who was, incredibly, speaking the truth.
In this same passage Jesus calls his followers to make disciples of all nations, to obey all his words, with the promise that he will be with them all the days till his return. These are the four “all’s” of this famous passage: Jesus has all authority, all nations are to be discipled, all of Jesus’ words (including, finally, the entire Bible) are authoritative, and the promise of his presence all the days until his Second Coming.
Keller in his article connects Jesus’ Lordship with the call to see the entire Bible as God’s Word. If we want to trust and obey Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, then a willingness to accept this Word as God’s Word is unavoidable. We cannot be selective, but must be willing to subject our hearts and minds to everything he says, trust everything he promises, and seek to obey everything he demands.
We who are Christians in 2010 have been influenced by our questioning age. It is important for us to listen to our Lord, as our source of absolute authority, and seek to listen to his voice in the pages of Scripture. This is not to murder our intellect, or to diminish our humanity, but to find our true identity as human beings made in God’s image. “Jesus is Lord” is an expression of faith, and also a call to worship and obedience, all our days, till his return in glory.
Continue Reading april 11th, 2010
Painting: Caravaggio, The incredulity of Saint Thomas, 1601-1602, Neues Palais, Potsdam
The apostle Paul wrote within 25 years of Jesus’ death that there were good grounds for believing that He had come back from the dead. In the 15th chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians he says that there were more than 500 people who had seen Jesus alive after His death, and most of them were still living at the time he wrote 1 Corinthians. This appeal to witnesses concerning an historical event which is a central belief of a religious conviction is extraordinary.
The German philosopher Lessing said that religion could not be based on historical events, but Paul does just that in 1 Cor. 15. Paul makes his case for the historical reality of Jesus being vibrantly alive after His crucifixion, and says that if that is not the case, faith in Jesus as the Savior of the world is pure nonsense. Everything depends upon it. Liberal theologians since the 18th century have tried to tone down Paul’s enthusiasm for the bodily nature of Jesus’ resurrection body, but their attempts at reconstructions of Paul’s belief have failed miserably. Paul is not saying: Jesus’ life has the effect on me as if He is really alive; or: Jesus’ spirit lives on, whether or not He physically came back from the dead or not; or: it doesn’t really matter if Jesus’ grave was empty or not. None of this. Paul says: I saw the physical body of Jesus with my own two eyes, and I was not the only one.
This assertion challenges all readers to do something with it. Basically there are only three choices. You can say Paul (and the other 500 witnesses) are lying. A monster conspiracy to manipulate the facts. This seems to me to be quite improbable, psychologically impossible, really. The second possibility is that they are sincerely wrong: they did see a vision of Jesus, but they didn’t really see Jesus’ body. This is calling into question their competence to judge whether it is really a human being I am talking with or not. The fact that there were at least 500 people who claimed to have seen Jesus’ body after His resurrection is in any case for Paul a strong argument for the truth of what he and they were saying.
The third possibility is that Jesus really did come back from the dead and appeared to all these people. You could say: so what? Many unusual things are possible in this world. But if Jesus really did come back to life, and not as an emaciated zombie, but as a living Lord, and if this is a confirmation of His teaching about Himself and about God’s plan, then this means everyone who hears about Jesus’ resurrection is summoned to trust in Him as the Savior and Lord He proclaimed Himself to be.
How about you?
Continue Reading april 9th, 2010
Today is Easter day, and Jesus’ resurrection is being celebrated around the world. For the first time in recent history, the majority of the Dutch don’t know that Easter is such a celebration. They think in terms of Easter eggs and nice meals.
The first disciples did not expect Jesus back from the dead. They thought there was no more hope, now that Jesus had been crucified and buried. He appears, and they are shocked. They think they see a ghost. They begin to be joyful when they see him closer up. But they still can’t believe it’s him. He shows them his hands and feet, with the prints of the nails of Good Friday clearly visible. This is amazing, but they are still not totally convinced. Jesus eats a bit of leftover fish from their evening meal before their eyes. Then begin to realize: he is really back from the dead, physically, bodily. And after he explains from the whole Old Testament what his coming means, that he came to suffer and die according to Isaiah 53, and to come back to life, as Psalm 16 prophecies, they begin to trust that God’s salvation has come to pass in this risen Jesus.
We worship the risen Jesus Christ! In the words of Bach’s Easter Oratorio, in a recitative: Wir sind erfreut, Dass unser Jesus wieder lebt (we are joyful because our Jesus lives again), and in the words of the closing chorale: Christus, der hat in dieser Schlacht gesieget un uns frei gemacht (Christ, who has won the victory in this battle, and made us free).
Continue Reading april 4th, 2010
Living in The Netherlands is a curious experience. Churches are dying, yet nowhere on earth do more people (proportionately) go to see performances of J.S. Bach’s Matthew Passion around Good Friday and Easter than here. Why? I think people are impressed by the story of Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion, supported by sublime music in historic churches and concert halls which give you a sense you are connected to your cultural past.
Bach was an orthodox Lutheran, though he was willing to have a musical function in Köthen, where the Prince was Reformed (Calvinistic), and where he wrote the wonderful Brandenburg Concertos. Bach wrote the Matthew Passion for a church service: sections for choir alternate with aria’s as musical “faith reflections” on the story of Jesus’ suffering leading to his death on Good Friday, which is narrated by the “evangelist” in recitatives, balanced by the voices of Jesus himself and others in the story. The choir sections and aria’s display Bach’s own faith as a Christian. The poetry, to our modern taste, is quite “romantic,” in the sense of excessively emotional. Yet Bach was not doing it just to get a “tear-jerking” response from the congregation. He really believed that Jesus’ death was the greatest moment of salvation and new life the world has ever known. In doing this, he was reflecting the faith of the Bible itself. The apostle Paul says: I preach Christ and Him crucified.
We who are Christians pray that God will use performances of the Matthew Passion (and the John Passion, and other Christian musical works of art) to reach a generation of Dutch people who don’t know much about Jesus. The words of the New Testament, in the hands of Bach’s supreme artistry, could be the means of reigniting a living faith in Jesus as the Savior and Lord we who have come to know him, know he is.
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Continue Reading april 2nd, 2010
