Category Archives: Faith and Practice

Something about the resurrection…

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“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again
to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…”
(1 Peter 1:3 ESV)

I make it a point not to talk about politics, too much.  I don’t want my position as pastor, nor my pulpit and the message of the Gospel that I proclaim, to be too closely identified with one particular party or another.  I will not put campaign signs in my yard.  I will not financially support one candidate or another.  I have in the past been asked to pray at the opening of a county-wide rally for a particular party, and if asked by the opposing party, I would gladly offer the same prayer for them as well.

That being said…

Tuesday President Obama spoke at a Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House about the amazing ability of the resurrection to “put everything else into perspective.”

Here’s the content of the President’s message:

“I wanted to host this breakfast for a simple reason – because as busy as we are, as many tasks as pile up, during this season, we are reminded that there’s something about the resurrection – something about the resurrection of our savior, Jesus Christ, that puts everything else in perspective.”
“We all live in the hustle and bustle of our work… but then comes Holy Week.  The triumph of Palm Sunday.  The humility of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.  His slow march up that hill, and the pain and the scorn and the shame of the cross.
“And we’re reminded that in that moment, he took on the sins of the world – past, present and future – and he extended to us that unfathomable gift of grace and salvation through his death and resurrection.
“In the words of the book Isaiah:  “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities:  the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
“This magnificent grace, this expansive grace, this “Amazing Grace” calls me to reflect.  And it calls me to pray.  It calls me to ask God for forgiveness for the times that I’ve not shown grace to others, those times that I’ve fallen short.  It calls me to praise God for the gift of our son – his Son and our Savior.”
(Source CNS News www.cnsnews.com)

First, let me say “thank you” to our President for publically affirming his faith, but also the centrality of the teaching that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, our Savior, who died for our sins, and was raised from the dead for our salvation.  Any opportunity to have that message proclaimed is welcome.

Secondly, it is so true that as we recall the events of Holy Week, we can begin to get our priorities back in order.  Jesus willingly took that road of suffering which led to the cross for us, he bore our sins in his body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24), the righteous for the unrighteous (1 Peter 3:18).  This was the ultimate demonstration of God’s love for us (Romans 5:8), and the love which His disciples are to show to one another (John 13:34-35).  Truly the events of Holy Week are a great reminder to repent of our cold and unmoving love, our reluctance to take up our cross and follow Christ, and a motive to praise God for the gift of His Son, in whom we have our victory.

However, is this all that “something about the resurrection” does?  I don’t fault the President here.  He is not the “Pastor in Chief” or the nation’s resident theologian, so I do not expect an exhaustive answer here.  But as a pastor, I must add that the resurrection must do more than just “put things in perspective.”

The resurrection is the sine qua non of the Christian faith.  Without the resurrection of Christ, Christianity is meaningless, deceitful, and we Christians are pitiful fools (1 Corinthians 15:12-19).  Before the resurrection, the disciples were ready to give up and go back to fishing.  Without the resurrection, Jesus would have gone down in history as another good teacher and prophet, no different than all those who had come before.  But because of the resurrection, Jesus is revealed to be the Son of God (Rom 1:4), those who believe in Him are justified by God (Rom 4:25), we are assured of our victory over death and of the resurrection to eternal life (1 Cor 15:50-57; 1 Thess 4:13-18); and the life we now live we live in the power of the risen Lord (Rom 6:4, 8:11).  The resurrection is so much more than an adjustment of our priorities – it is the confirmation of God’s gift of life and peace to those who believe in Christ the Lord.

SDG

The Real Presence of Christ

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In the past couple of weeks I’ve had numerous conversations about the meaning of the Lord’s Supper and the Presence of Christ in communion.  It’s not like I’ve had a flashing neon sign saying, “Hey, ask me about this…”, so obviously something has sparked people’s curiosity. 

This Thursday at our Maundy Thursday worship service I will be preaching on this before we receive communion, but I thought today I’d post some of my initial thoughts in a brief outline list:

  • He is present when the Word is proclaimed
    • The sacraments of Baptism and the Lord Supper are an enactment of the Word of God, a visible demonstration of the Gospel.
    • As the Word of God is proclaimed, we also see the Word demonstrated for us in the sacraments.  Christ Jesus, being the living Word of God, is fully present whenever and wherever the Word of God is faithfully and prayerfully proclaimed and heard.
    • Jesus said in John 14:23 “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”  There is a “sacramental” connection between the proclamation of the Word and the very real presence of Christ.
      • This is one reason why, as Calvin put it, when the congregation does not celebrate the Lord’s Supper, the worship service is like a “dry run.”  Everything is the same, just the material of the supper are missing.  Christ is fully present when the word is faithfully preached, with or without the celebration of communion.  On those days, however, when the Lord’s Supper is received, the Word is accompanied by such a powerful demonstration of grace, to aid and strengthen our faith.
  • He is present spiritually in the hearts and minds of the faithful
    • One of the hindrances we moderns face is the trivialization of the Spiritual.  We have little to no concept of what a spiritual presence means.  We hear “spirit” and immediately think of some floating apparition from the movies.  Spiritual is no less real than physical.  The Spiritual presence of Christ is very real and powerful.
    • Those who are in Christ are in Christ because His Spirit dwells in us.  The Spirit of Christ “guides us into all truth” (John 16:13), produces in us the essential characteristics of the life of Christ (Galatians 5:22), and quickens us for new life in Christ (Rom 8:11) 
  • He is present in the congregation – the church is the body of Christ.
    • Jesus taught us that, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matt 18:20).  Too often we are quick to point out that Christ is present in the hearts and minds of all believers who receive him in faith, but Christ is present in the congregation as well.  The church is the body of Christ, and when the body of Christ is gathered, especially for sharing of a meal of communion (with one another and with Christ), Christ is truly present.
  • Christ is in heaven, interceding before the throne of God for us.
    • The Second Helvetic Confession teaches that “The body of Christ is in heaven at the right hand of the Father; and therefore our hearts are to be lifted up on high, and not to be fixed on the bread, neither is the Lord to be worshiped in the bread.”
    • The logic is this, Spiritually, Christ is really present with us here, in the preaching of the Word, in the hearts and minds of the faithful, and in the corporate body as it is gathered.  But physically, Christ has ascended on high and now intercedes before the throne of God for His church, He rules and reigns over His people, and is bringing all things under his authority.  Are we, in the celebration of the sacrament, to drag the physical existence of Christ out of heaven?
    • No, instead, we are mystically transported in the Lord’s Supper to His table.  In the Supper, we have a foretaste, a momentary glimpse, of the Heavenly Banquet that  awaits us in the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9).
    • In this line of thinking, Calvin penned this as the Sursum Corda, the liturgy of the Genevan Supper: With this in mind, let us raise our hearts and minds on high, where Jesus Christ is, in the glory of his Father, and from whence we look for him at our redemption. Let us not be bemused by these earthly and corruptible elements which we see with the eye, and touch with the hand, in order to seek him there, as if he were enclosed in the bread or wine. Our souls will only then be disposed to be nourished and vivified by his substance, when they are thus raised above all earthly things, and carried as high as heaven, to enter the kingdom of God where he dwells. Let us therefore be content to have the bread and the wine as signs and evidences, spiritually seeking the reality where the word of God promises that we shall find it.

Well, I hope this helps, and I hope it gets cleaned up before I preach it on Thursday. 

SDG