Kevin spoke last week about how part of the fulfillment of God's great prophecy is the formation of a particular group of people. This means that God's plan to redeem the world came, in part, through the everyday worship and faithful living of the people of God. Our Old Testament tells of this plan - that through creation in Genesis, law-giving in Exodus through Deuteronomy, prophecy, worship, sin, and repentance God was preparing a people who knew him, loved him, and followed after his ways which were given in his word and in his law. I don't know many Jewish people, so I experience them primarily through the OT. Perhaps many of us do. But even if that is true, we should remember that not just anybody wrote the Bible, but a particular people who lived, dressed, ate, and related to one another in very specific ways according to what God had revealed to them.
If we remember that, behind the life-giving words of the Old Testament were actual lives, we will remember that we're no different. We speak what we live. We live what we speak. Traditions come from the way we live together over time. Traditions characterize our church life. They also characterize our family life. They shape and form our year, forming pillars around which we decorate. Valentine's in February. Birthdays. Easter in March or April. Halloween in the October. Church on Sunday. Thanksgiving in November and Christmas now.
Traditions are hard to sustain. I once started a tradition of watching "Mary Poppins" with my family on New Year's Day. It fizzled out after a few years. Even nations that seem like they'll go on forever seem to have an expiration date. Rome was called "the Eternal City" and its empire sure seemed to fit the bill. When it collapsed, after 1000 years of existence, it caused a crisis. It may be hard to believe that we are only several hundred years into our American government! Now think of the Jews! Their traditions have survived for over 3000 years! This is because the Jews were never people who read their Bible in private, but folks who developed their whole life around reading, praying, worshiping God, sacrificing, confessing, observing sacred days such as Passover and Pentecost. They did this as a whole community, presenting every person, animal, acre of ground, and thought to God so that they would be formed into his people. Israel - the ones who love God and love one another.
As Christians, we believe that the gospel - that Christ came, lived, died, and rose from the grave - allows us to live, die, and rise in Christ so that his Holy Spirit can come and form within us this holy life that God revealed to his people over so many centuries. The gospel makes us gospel people - living risen-from-the-dead lives in freedom. Just like the Jews, in fact because of them, we offer every person, place, and thing in our lives to God in worship. We can't do that as private Christians. We need each other for this. None of us can live the Christian life alone.
Reflection Questions:
1) Do you have someone with whom you can share your prayers and experiences of who God is?
2) What seasons and traditions most form the rhythms of your life?
3) What opportunities are there for you to live the Christian life with others this coming year?
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Thursday, December 6, 2012
The Promise (A Reflection on the 12/2 sermon)
Gary Parrett, a professor of ministry at Gordon Conwell, tells a story of teaching in Sri Lanka. He was addressing a group of pastors about implications of the Fall of humanity. He spread his hands outwards and downwards and said as pointedly as he could: "Everything fell apart."
Parrett continues: "My translator - a dear friend and key church leader in Sri Lanka - did his part well, matching me not only in word but also in gesture. As he spread his own hands outward and downward, his right hand struck a glass full of water on the table in front of us. The glass flew onto the concrete floor and shattered, water flowing everything. After a moment's pause, I remarked, "Perfect!" and, following the translation, we all laughed at having witnessed, accidentally, the ideal illustration for my point." (Parrett, Teaching the Faith, Forming the Faithful, 24)
It is hard for me to imagine my life like this. I am "flawed", "not perfect", "rough around the edges", "a work in progress". I struggle to look at my life like this shattered glass. Because even with my flaws, I like to think that I'm still functional. I'm still good. But unless I were an artist, I can't think of a single functional use for this sort of shattered glass. Indeed, Parrett's story continues. A pastor in the front row quietly swept up the glass and threw it away.
He notes that God might have easily done the same.
How differently the story would be if that were the case. Imagine how small your Bible would be if it only ended at Genesis 3! 99% of your Bible tells the different story - the story of a promise-making God, a redeeming God, who has a plan to make it all right again. A God who did not sweep us up and throw us away.
As we continue in the sermon series, we will see what God did with us instead of throwing us away. After making his promise, he chose for himself a people. Then, he informed them of his plan. Finally, "in the fullness of time" he set the place, and arrived as the person.
The shattered glass is destined to be remade. As C.S. Lewis writes in his Screwtape Letters, "(God) did not create the humans - He did not become one of them and die among them by torture - in order to produce candidates for Limbo; 'failed' humans. He wanted to make Saints; gods; things like Himself." (193) Picture the stained glass window in the sanctuary! This is our destiny.
And this is what it means for the promise of Genesis 3 to be fulfilled, for the offspring of the woman to crush the head of the serpent. (Genesis 3:15) "The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet." (Romans 16:20) "For (Christ) must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet." (1 Corinthians 15:25) "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law..." (Galatians 4:4) "Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death." (Hebrews 2:14-15) "Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil." (1 John 3:8)
The life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ deals with our most formidable adversaries - sin, death, and the devil - which have hounded us from the beginning. We are destined to become like Christ in his resurrection - unable to die again. If we are in Christ, no sin is too great to hinder this promise. There won't be a piece of that shattered glass that God won't use in remaking you in Christ. None of it will be wasted. None of it thrown away. This is the Promise.
Reflection Questions:
1) What are some of the shattered pieces of your life that you hope for Christ to put back together?
2) Paul says that these shattered pieces, these sins, are nailed to the cross of Christ, and have died with him. How would your life look if you trusted that this were true?
3) What pieces of shattered glass from your life have you already seen God make into the beautiful stained glass window of your life in Christ? In other words, what failures on your part has God already used to make you more like him?
Parrett continues: "My translator - a dear friend and key church leader in Sri Lanka - did his part well, matching me not only in word but also in gesture. As he spread his own hands outward and downward, his right hand struck a glass full of water on the table in front of us. The glass flew onto the concrete floor and shattered, water flowing everything. After a moment's pause, I remarked, "Perfect!" and, following the translation, we all laughed at having witnessed, accidentally, the ideal illustration for my point." (Parrett, Teaching the Faith, Forming the Faithful, 24)
It is hard for me to imagine my life like this. I am "flawed", "not perfect", "rough around the edges", "a work in progress". I struggle to look at my life like this shattered glass. Because even with my flaws, I like to think that I'm still functional. I'm still good. But unless I were an artist, I can't think of a single functional use for this sort of shattered glass. Indeed, Parrett's story continues. A pastor in the front row quietly swept up the glass and threw it away.
He notes that God might have easily done the same.
How differently the story would be if that were the case. Imagine how small your Bible would be if it only ended at Genesis 3! 99% of your Bible tells the different story - the story of a promise-making God, a redeeming God, who has a plan to make it all right again. A God who did not sweep us up and throw us away.
As we continue in the sermon series, we will see what God did with us instead of throwing us away. After making his promise, he chose for himself a people. Then, he informed them of his plan. Finally, "in the fullness of time" he set the place, and arrived as the person.
The shattered glass is destined to be remade. As C.S. Lewis writes in his Screwtape Letters, "(God) did not create the humans - He did not become one of them and die among them by torture - in order to produce candidates for Limbo; 'failed' humans. He wanted to make Saints; gods; things like Himself." (193) Picture the stained glass window in the sanctuary! This is our destiny.
And this is what it means for the promise of Genesis 3 to be fulfilled, for the offspring of the woman to crush the head of the serpent. (Genesis 3:15) "The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet." (Romans 16:20) "For (Christ) must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet." (1 Corinthians 15:25) "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law..." (Galatians 4:4) "Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death." (Hebrews 2:14-15) "Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil." (1 John 3:8)
The life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ deals with our most formidable adversaries - sin, death, and the devil - which have hounded us from the beginning. We are destined to become like Christ in his resurrection - unable to die again. If we are in Christ, no sin is too great to hinder this promise. There won't be a piece of that shattered glass that God won't use in remaking you in Christ. None of it will be wasted. None of it thrown away. This is the Promise.
Reflection Questions:
1) What are some of the shattered pieces of your life that you hope for Christ to put back together?
2) Paul says that these shattered pieces, these sins, are nailed to the cross of Christ, and have died with him. How would your life look if you trusted that this were true?
3) What pieces of shattered glass from your life have you already seen God make into the beautiful stained glass window of your life in Christ? In other words, what failures on your part has God already used to make you more like him?
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