This is part 3 of a 3 part series. You can find part 1 and part 2 here: Part 1 Part 2

(Originally published on March 7, 2016)

Practicing Priesthood

In the previous posts in this series, we looked at the need to set the culture in regards to depression, as well as provide training for the church. Now we come to the third aspect to consider, namely, we are a royal priesthood and are called to act as priests toward one another (1 Pet. 2:9). These are the trenches of one-anothering. Our maturing and training is lived out within a culture for the purpose of aiding one another in growth. A person struggling with depression feels isolated and alone. They scream out into the darkness, “Why?!” not, “How?!” He or she is not looking for steps but for meaning. We can easily err in this priestly role and try to be engineers—dealing symptomatically to restore normalcy. In walking with someone who suffers with depression, the priest seeks to help with the deeper struggle.

Recently Jennifer (not her real name), who battles depression, told me that, “It feels like I can’t live, but I can’t die either. My heart is continually ripped out over and over again.” Such words echo Bunyan’s Giant Despair in The Pilgrim’s Progress, “Why should you choose life, seeing it is accompanied by so much bitterness?” The Proverbs tell us that, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Pro. 13:12). Such hearts need voices of hope, to speak into their pain. In endeavoring to impart hope, we must ensure that the hope we impart is Gospel hope.

We can easily impart false or trite hopes in an effort to lighten spirits. Gospel hope, however, is the sustaining wind that carries us through the storm to our desired haven (Psalm 107:30).

Below are four different ways we can seek to unveil this hope:

Befriending

Just this week, I spoke with Edward (not his real name) whose neighbour committed suicide. Edward, oblivious to his neighbour’s depression, assumed his neighbour was simply avoiding relationship. While he may have been avoiding relationship, it was expressive of his isolation. But the greater our suffering, the greater will be our sense of feeling alone. Hope says, “You are not alone.” “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Pro 17:17). Befriending one who suffers, brings Christ near to them through his Body. God said he would never leave us nor forsake us (Deut 31:6). He declares us His friends (John 15:15). We can model the hope of God’s presence in befriending those struggling with depression.

Remembering

Second, when we remember people, it tells them that, even though we are out of sight, they are still in mind. In Ed Welch’s book, Side by Side, he says, “If we are affected by someone’s suffering, we will remember it, which is one of the great gifts that we give to each other” (pg. 103). The Apostle Paul certainly communicated this in his prayers for the church, “I always remember you in my prayers” (I Tim 1:3, see also Eph 1:16; Phil 1:4). Remembering communicates,“You matter.” It is certainly true that we are created for a purpose, and we are meant to be shaped by one another (Pro 27:17). Remembering brings solidarity, and there is beauty in solidarity, “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them… since you also are in the body” (Heb 13:3).

Sufferers of depression often feel that they are incapable of expressing their anguish. Our remembering their anguish says that at some level, “I feel your pain.” Knowing another feels their pain helps unbolt the doors of solitude. This too is a reminder that we have a high priest who can, “Sympathize with our weaknesses” (Heb 4:15). The fact that weaknesses is plural means we cannot exclude a category of weakness (such as depression), from Christ’s sympathies.

Grace Hunting

Third, as we enter into their pain, we obtain a new vantage point. Our first response tends to be going on an idol hunt. We want to find the sin or the idol that is at the heart. Whilst there is a place for this, the depressed person is likely heavily engaged in morbid introspection and thus would be greatly helped seeing signs of God’s grace at work in them. Saying something like, “You are so courageous. God has given you grace this week to get out of bed and get the kids to school.” We want to commend manifested grace where we see it. For those who feel hopeless and alone, this is a reminder that God is near and working even in the mundane.

Jesus’ Suffering

Fourth, the suffering of Jesus is both our example and help. We may want to speak of the glories of heaven obtained by Jesus’ suffering. But there is also consolation in Christ’s suffering itself. Spurgeon, who suffered from depression, said, “It is an unspeakable consolation that our Lord Jesus knows this experience.” Zack Eswine, in his book Spurgeon’s Sorrows writes, “To feel in our being that the God to whom we cry has Himself suffered as we do enables us to feel that we are not alone and that God is not cruel.” Here we can begin to see our burden as belonging to him.

When Amy Carmichael struggled with an unbearable burden in India, she considered Christ and his burden bearing in the Garden, “Under one of those trees our Lord Jesus knelt, and He knelt alone. And I knew that this was His burden not mine. It was He who was asking me to share it with Him, not I who was asking Him to share it with me.” She found great comfort knowing that she was partaking in the sufferings of Christ. Jesus not only knows our pain, he endured it, and we kneel beside him in it.

Continuing Work

God is a redeeming God, who continually works his redemption into us. As we walk with depression sufferers, God is not only continuing to work in them, he is continuing to work in us. We mutually grow, building one another up in our most holy faith, as we await the day when all sin, sickness, and death gives way to the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rom 8:21).

“Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” For sin is the sting that results in death… But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:54-56, NLT).

We all live in and observe the same world. We all see and experience the same basic things. The world isn’t as it should be. It’s broken. In the words of Bob Dylan, “Everything’s Broken.” Bad things happen to good people. People who should love each other hurt each other. The spiritual, moral, emotional, physical, and environmental landscape of this world is horribly broken.

Though we all live in and observe the same world, we interpret the data differently. There are countless explanations and interpretations for what’s broken, why it’s broken, and how it can all ultimately be fixed. But even the brightest optimist, the person with the best life imaginable, has to come to grips with the one thing that inescapably says that something’s horribly wrong: death!

In this fallen world the majority of men and women think of death in a very small, personalized way. They think of it as an event.

Death is something that happens to someone who’s living. “They died.” They think of it as an inescapable outcome of existence. You have a birth certificate and a death certificate. The first records your entrance into the world, and the second records your exit. Everyone gets both of those certificates.

Everyone welcomes birth. When a baby is born, cigars and “congrats” are handed out. Colorful helium-filled balloons abound saying, “It’s a____!” We celebrate the date of our birth. Loved ones gather and celebrate the day their loved one was born. We have a name for it: “birth-day party.”

People don’t celebrate when a loved one dies. No cigars, no “congrats,” no balloons. There’s no such thing as a death-day party. People grieve and ache and have to find a way to deal with the gaping hole that someone’s death has left in their world.

Others view death as the termination of life. There was life, and then it was terminated. Death looms as the great terminator of everything they don’t want to end, the loss of everything they worked so hard to gain and don’t want to lose.

Death is surely not less than those things. But death is far greater than than all of that. Death is a “something” that came into a world that only knew life! The world didn’t always look like the News at 10 AM or on our web browser.

The Bible tells us that when God finished creating the world, preparing it for man, and then creating man, God said it was “very good!” Man lived in a perfect world. It was environmentally perfect. Everything was organic! Nothing needed to be labeled as “sustainably grown.” It was socially perfect.

No need for marital counseling. No need for police. It was biologically perfect. There was no need for health insurance because there was no such thing as sickness. There was no such thing as life insurance because there was no such thing as death.

So where did death come from? What is the ultimate “cause of death?” What happened to usher in this inexorable power which now holds sway over what was once a world of life? The Bible informs us that death entered into that perfect world by way of sin.

“For sin is the sting that results in death…” (1 Corinthians 15:56).

“When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone” (Romans 5:12).

God had warned our first parents that sin would do that (Genesis 2:17). The New Testament tells us that sin has an outcome: “the wages of sin,” is “death” (Romans 6:23).

While fallen man processes the problem of death on one dimension, the Bible informs us that this thing we call “death” exerts its power on three levels. There’s spiritual death, there’s physical death, and there’s eternal death. To help us understand the nature and workings of death, and what it is we’re celebrating on Easter, let’s start with the one dimension of death that fallen man does understand: physical death.

Physical Death

First — The power of death does something to the body. A dead body can’t stick together. It’s falling apart. Death causes someone who was once beautiful to look ugly. When someone is dying of an aggressive form of cancer, you see death at work while they’re still alive. The complexities of anatomy lose all sense of integration. The body falls apart — and the person begin to waste away. When we bury someone, the corpse begins to dis-integrate. There’s no such thing as a beautiful corpse. Death makes once beautiful things ugly.

Second — A dead body can’t respond to stimuli. We have five senses. Those five senses make us fully aware of what’s going on outside of us. I’m aware of what’s outside of me through my eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and skin. I’m aware. I can see, smell, hear, taste, and touch. Death brings an end to the senses. It doesn’t respond to visual, olfactory, auditory, gustatory, or somatosensory stimulation. No more senses. No sensation. It doesn’t respond to stimuli.

Finally — A dead body can’t exert itself. It’s powerless — it can’t move.

A dead body doesn’t possess the desire to move, or the power to move.

Such is the power of death, the grip of death.

Man has no remedy for it.

He’s powerless to overcome physical death.

Spiritual Death

The Bible *informs us* that physical death was preceded by, and *followed from, *spiritual death. Before death impacts a person’s body, death impacts man in his relationship with God. God told Adam and Eve that if they disobeyed Him, they would die. They disobeyed, yet they didn’t immediately experience biological death. They did immediately experience spiritual death. Sin brought death into the realm of their relationship with God. Even though our first parents were physically alive, they were spiritually dead. They were the original “Walking Dead.”

First — The wages of sin makes us spiritually ugly because we’re no longer fully integrated. God, who is triune, said, “Let us make man in our image.” God made man body, soul, and spirit. Fully integrated. The body and intellect/emotions were designed to be subordinate to, and influenced by, man’s fellowship with God.

Death touched the part of us where we are able to know God — to derive life from God! The outcome was *dis-*integration. Separated from the life of God, fallen man is governed by his fallen emotions, fallen intellect, fallen passions.

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world….among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:1-3).

Spiritual death makes us ugly. It makes us turn even good things into bad things by making them ultimate things! When good things become ultimate things, they become ugly: sex is perverted, wealth is perverted, and power is perverted. That truth changes the way we explain and interpret the world around us. That truth changes the diagnosis and the treatment of what’s broken!

Spiritual death (that makes us ugly on the vertical axis of our life, causing us to be dis-integrated in our relationship with God) makes us ugly on the horizontal axis of our lives, causing our human relationships to dis-integrate. We no longer image God well. Instead of bearing the image of the giving, servant heart of God, our first impulse is SELF: self-gain, self-serving, self-promotion, self-preservation. No sooner did sin destroy man’s relationship with God than we have the record of the first murder. It was premeditated murder driven by self-concern. Cain was envious and jealous of his brother, Abel.

Second — Spiritual death destroys the capacity to respond to stimuli. When you’re spiritually dead, it means you can’t see beyond the realm of the physical. Everything else is more interesting than God, His Word, and His Wisdom.

For example, how many people in your neighborhood, school, and workplace want to take a couple of hours on Sunday to gather with others to acknowledge God, worship God, and learn of God? For the *vast *majority of them, the newspaper is more interesting than the Bible; playing a round of golf is more desirable than praising God; being in the stands at a football game (or on the couch watching one with friends) is more interesting than being in a room full of people worshipping Jesus.

That’s because spiritual death makes us incapable of perceiving the reality of the love of God, the cross of Jesus, heaven and hell. You’re as aware of the reality of those things as a corpse is aware of the people at his funeral. Your saved spouse talks about the joy of the Lord, and you aren’t touched by it. Your Christian friend tells you how “blessed” they were reading the Bible, and you’re dead to that reality.

THIS IS HUGE — If you see the world wrong, you live wrong. If you see life as all about your story and your glory, you get wrong all of your responses to life.

Finally — Spiritual death has left us powerless — without the power to do anything about our condition. The following verses explain how spiritual death has left us powerless.

“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6).

“When we were utterly helpless” (Romans 5:6).

“For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:7-8).

Spiritual death leaves us powerless, utterly helpless, in the realm of motive and in the realm of ability. In the physical realm, I have to want to pick up a Bible. That desire has to be connected by way of my nervous system to my muscles, so I can do what I want to do. Spiritual death leaves us without the power to want God and powerless to reach out and grab Him.

Many might say — and I surely used to say and think this — I might not love God as much as I should, I might not have faith in God like I should, but I’m not dead. I have some moral sensation, and I have some moral strength. I’m not dead. You and I might define that as life, but God doesn’t! That’s not life as God defines it. That’s not the life God intended for us to experience. (Think of the TV series “Walking Dead.” Think of how “alive” the “walkers” are compared to real humans). The Bible says that we’re not just sick because of our sins. The Bible says we’re *dead.*

The World’s Diagnosis & Remedy

The world at large has a different diagnosis: man’s not dead, just sick. The world at large has a different prognosis. Give man enough time and he’s going to get better. The world at large offers countless remedies that are the inventions of dead men. Those things are the basis of hope for broken men and women in this broken world. But here’s the problem:

Hope is only real hope if that hope can fix what’s broken.

Think about this: Mankind is obsessed with eliminating the causes of physical death. There are great campaigns against cancer, AIDS, and other diseases. Billions of dollars are spent on medical research and educational campaigns. There are great campaigns against poverty and starvation, substance abuse, drunk driving, and the latest, against guns. (By the way, while countless billions of dollars are funding these campaigns that war against various “causes of death,” a good chunk of a billion dollars is spent by our government every year to KILL nearly 4,000 babies per day. THAT is how ugly and blind sin has made us!)

Every one of those campaigns are against the “causes of death.” But have you noticed that no one has ever just come out and said, “Let’s have a global campaign against dying”? You see, all of those campaigns to cure the various causes of death only prolong the inevitable. One out of every one person born will die.

The Bible’s Diagnosis & Remedy

The Bible has a very different diagnosis: *Ephesians 2 *is the death certificate. Apart from Jesus, we’re all in the morgue. It’s only a matter of time — the body will eventually catch up with us. We NEED to be SAVED.

But the Bible offers real hope. The Bible tells us that God did something to fix the problem of death on every level! God launched a great campaign against death. His great campaign against death began with a campaign against *the *Cause of Death: SIN!

As John Lennox explains, “sin entered the world to wreak endless havoc. So serious is that moral infection that the business of restoring men and women to fellowship with their Creator will involve something much bigger than creation itself: nothing less than the Creator becoming human, dying at the hands of his creatures and rising again in triumph over sin and death.”

Jesus Came to Destroy Sin & Death

The Bible tells us that something happened in history that we can’t ignore. Something happened that changes everything!

In The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis writes, “Once upon a time in our world, in a little stable, there was something that was bigger than the whole world.”

The Bible says that 2,000 years ago there was something inside a stable that was bigger than the world. 2,000 years ago, God came in human flesh. Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem. That’s what we celebrate on Christmas!

Death was not inescapable for Jesus. Jesus said, “No one takes my life — I lay it down…” Jesus said that He came to “give His life for a ransom.” Jesus is God come in human flesh for the sole purpose of destroying sin and death. On Good Friday, we gather to remember how Jesus was brutally beaten and then nailed to a Roman cross. 700 years before Jesus died on the cross, the prophet Isaiah told why all of that happened:

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:4-6).

Jesus Put Death to Death

Jesus would save us from our great enemies sin and death by His death on the cross in our place for our sin. There on the cross, when the Father laid the sins of the world on Jesus, Jesus experienced separation from God the Father. There on the cross, Jesus experienced biological death. Before He breathed His last, He shouted in victory, “It Is Finished!” Divine justice was satisfied. Our forgiveness was paid for in full. They took Jesus down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb.

Tim Chaddick puts it like this: “The empty cross is not good news without the empty tomb!”

Three days after Jesus died, He rose from the grave — PROVING that on the cross He had truly conquered our great enemies sin and death! The resurrection of Jesus Christ guarantees the final defeat of sin and death.

The Bible calls it a living hope (1 Peter 1:3). It’s a living hope because Jesus is alive! The Christian alone has real hope because their hope — JESUS — fixed what was broken! Jesus put death to death.

“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades (Revelation 1:17-18).

We were hopelessly dead to God. We were powerless to overcome the power of that death. But when we were dead to God, God did what we couldn’t do.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (Ephesians 2:4-5).

Spiritual death made us spiritually ugly. The glorious resurrection power of Jesus is at work to make something beautiful of my life. Day by day the resurrection power of Jesus takes what was made ugly because of sin and causes my mind, desires, and passions to integrate with the heart and wisdom of God. The things that I once made ultimate ends for my gratification or glory (time, talents, and treasures) I now, by the resurrection power of God, use for His pleasure and His glory. I now have the life and love of God working in me, causing me to look more like Jesus: loving others and serving others, for His glory and my joy!

Spiritual death made me incapable of seeing beyond the physical. But the resurrection power of God enables me to be stimulated by the things of the Spirit, and helps me hunger for the Word and desire to pray. Spiritual death left me powerless. But the same power that raised Jesus from the grave is now working in me to want and do that which pleases God.

“For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

Eternal Death

The question remains — “If Jesus put death to death, why do I have to die physically?” Again, when we look at death’s entrance into the world in Genesis 3, we see that the power of death first touched man’s relationship with God. Physical death was secondary. The victory of Jesus over death begins where death began — by restoring our relationship with God, who is our life. The final stage of the destruction of death is over the grave.

This is huge. Physical death for the unbeliever is actually the last act in a progression toward eternal death — separation from God for eternity!

But because of the resurrection of Jesus, physical death for a Christian is the last and final act in a progression completely away from death.

I’ll tell a story that illustrates this: There was a Christian man who was dying of cancer. Whenever he was asked, “Do you believe God will heal you?” he said, “Oh, absolutely. I know God will heal me; I’m just not sure if He’s going to do it before I die or after.” In his case, it was after. But what he also used to say is, “If He heals me before, it’s just a temporary thing until He actually heals me after.”

Because Jesus conquered the grave, physical death is the door into a life forever in the presence of God. Death actually has no power over you. None at all. Physical death is actually going to be the last gasp of death in your life.

“Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” For sin is the sting that results in death…But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:54-56).

I heard someone describe it like this: “Jesus conquered sin and death so you wouldn’t be defeated by them. Jesus walked out of His tomb so you could walk into life eternal. The resurrection of Jesus Christ means you’ll be invited to the one funeral you’ll want to attend: the funeral of death.”

Victory!

THAT’S why Jesus isn’t an option; Jesus isn’t a choice among many choices.

Religion can’t conquer death.

Moralism can’t conquer death.

ONLY JESUS CAN!

Conclusion

You can’t rejoice in the empty tomb if you haven’t been to the cross. Repent of — turn your back on — the lie of lies and trust in the cross and resurrection of Jesus to save you from your great enemies sin and death. Faith means that you’re so convinced that Jesus loved you and died for you that you’ll live for Him. You’ll trust, worship, serve, and obey Him.

If you’re alive — you get to be the agent of His life in a dead world! You get to communicate the life of Jesus by the way you live and by the words you say. You’re strategically placed in this world to use all that you are — all that you do — as ambassadors of the One who conquered death!

As we come to Good Friday, I thought it might be good to refresh our minds on what happened on the cross of Calvary 2,000 years ago. Although many died by crucifixion under Roman rule, there was one whose death was unique.

The death of Jesus of Nazareth was unlike any other death.

The Bible tells us that Jesus died in our place, not merely in a physical sense, but He died in our place in the greater spiritual sense. He died the death of a sinner under the wrath of God for the punishment of sin. The Scriptures teach that Christ died an atoning death, paying for the sin of the entire world. “The just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). This is truly a wonderful message but strangely offensive to many.

I’ve heard people say that it would be immoral for an innocent person to be punished for someone else’s sins. They refuse to believe that Christ died for the sins of the world. Actually, there’s a whole school of thought that attributes this aspect of Christian teaching to Paul rather than to Jesus. They say Jesus never taught that He would die for the sins of the world; this idea was all part of the mythology that was concocted by His followers, Paul being the main culprit.

Some years ago, when I was living in London, I met an Englishman who had converted to Islam under the influence of his Middle Eastern wife. As I spoke to him about Christ, he told me that my version of Christianity was not anything that Jesus originally taught. He was extremely offended by the idea of the blood of Christ making atonement for sin. He said that Paul had invented the idea, and one only needed to be a good person to be accepted by God. So I asked him, “Do you really think Paul invented the Christian faith?” “Yes,” he answered, “Before Paul, no one believed that Jesus died for the sins of the world.” I replied, “Interesting, because Isaiah (written 700 years before Christ’s birth) says, ‘He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one, to his own way; and the LORD laid on Him the iniquity of us all.… For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked–but with the rich at His death …’ (Isaiah 53:5-9). That’s the Old Testament saying that the Messiah was going to give His life as a sacrifice for sin. Paul didn’t invent the idea of Christ making atonement for sin, God did!” The man stood speechless.

The promise from the very beginning (Genesis 3:15) was that God would send a redeemer who would crush the head of the serpent (Satan), and in the process, have His heel bruised (a reference to Christ’s death to save us from sin).

People often say in regard to the Old Testament sacrificial system, “Why were all those animals slain and sacrificed; it’s all so bloody and barbaric! What was God thinking?” God was seeking to communicate to us dull-minded, hard-hearted people that the price for sin was the shed blood of an innocent victim. It’s as though God was saying, “This is what it cost to restore your relationship with Me, and all of these sacrifices are just a picture that I’m painting for you of the one who will come and give Himself as the ultimate sacrifice–the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

On the cross, Jesus died to pay the ransom for sinners.

For my sins and your sins, for the sins of everyone who has ever or will ever live. That is mind-boggling. As the psalmist said, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it” (Psalm 139:6). Although this is true and we can never fully comprehend what happened that day on Calvary, let’s take some time today to reflect and give thanks to the one who showed the greatest love of all as He by the grace of God tasted death for everyone.

_{Originally Published on April 14, 2017}

Today (this weekend), people worldwide are remembering and celebrating the greatest event in human history- the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead! All human discovery and achievement, all scientific breakthrough and advancement, pales in comparison to this most glorious event- which was essentially the abolition of death and meaninglessness and the ushering in of genuine hope for the world.

On Easter Sunday, I could tell you that:

Jesus didn’t swoon on the cross but genuinely, truly, died. And it was seen-to by professional executioners.

They buried him in a well-known location, and yet three days later, the tomb was empty.

Women were the first to see him risen from the dead (which brought no credit to the claim in those days because of women’s low role in society). Why mention the women at all? Because it’s actually how it went down.

Five hundred people saw the risen Jesus at one time.

Jesus ate, drank, talked & walked with his closest friends and followers for forty days after his resurrection. His appearance was not just a one-time hallucinated experience.

After witnessing his resurrection, Jesus’ own family members, who were skeptical of him, accepted him as Messiah and God.

Each of the Apostles (excluding John) died gruesome deaths for their claim that Jesus was Messiah and Lord.

I could tell you that people back then were not more gullible about these things than we are. No one in the 1st century (besides the Jews) believed in “resurrection,” or wanted it for that matter – The Greeks had a very low view of the body and afterlife.. and yet the claim that Jesus rose from the dead and was Lord over all changed the world.

These facts concerning Jesus’ resurrection are of enormous importance, but they aren’t delivered to us via scripture as cold facts from a textbook waiting to be dusted off once a year around this time. No, the Christian life is to be one continual celebration and observance of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead!

N.T. Wright, in his book Surprised By Hope, says, “The message of Easter is that God’s new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you’re now invited to belong to it.”

The Apostle Peter also develops this idea of living out or practicing resurrection in his 1st epistle. He speaks of God’s people as having a living hope, an inheritance, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Peter wants us to think about the real-life implications of the resurrection of Jesus and bring that to bear upon our everyday rhythms.

To Peter, the resurrection of Jesus is a life-altering, earth-shattering, historical event. So significant is the resurrection that it changed the course of history and the possibilities for every human that has ever lived. Peter says that Jesus’ resurrection means that we can now set our hope entirely on the coming Kingdom of God – with 100 % certainty. His call to all Christians is this: set your hope wholly on the grace brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The phrase “the revelation of Jesus Christ” refers to the Day that God will seal up and finish everything that he did at the Resurrection of Jesus. The day that he will destroy death and bring new life to this world, the day when he will make all things new. This hope is everlasting, totally secure because Jesus alone has risen from the dead, never to die again. He has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, and He alone has the keys of hell and death. Now he sits at the right hand of God the Father with all authority and power guiding all things to this end; until the time when he will bring his kingdom to reign on earth, in righteousness and peace, world without end.

I love the way that Tim Keller uses this Tolkienism to refer to the new creation when he says, “The resurrection of Christ means everything sad is going to come untrue and it will somehow be greater for having once been broken and lost.” -Tim Keller, The Reason for God.

That is the Kingdom of God – Peace, Shalom – complete healing and wholeness to all relationships in all of creation. In the Kingdom of God, we will be fully reconciled to God, to nature, to one another, and to ourselves.

Since all of this is guaranteed to us through Jesus’ resurrection, I want to follow suit with the Apostle Peter and the famous American poet Wendall Berry and say to you, ‘Live out that Hope, Practice Resurrection!’

But what does it look like to practice resurrection?

To the extent that that future is real to you, it will change how you live in the present. We call this “Eschatological Ethics.” Living out the kingdom of God in the here and now.

This idea breaks down into two categories: the calculated and the care-free.

The Calculated

If Jesus Christ is risen from the dead – that means we should calculate all things in light of the final resurrection and the coming kingdom. It means that everything we do in this life has eternal weight and merit to it. Directly following Pauls’ teaching on the truth and effects of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, he concludes –

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15).

N.T. Wright says, “The point of the resurrection…is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die…What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it…What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether (as the hymn so mistakenly puts it). They are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom.” – N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope

Part of the church’s task consists of implementing that achievement of Jesus and anticipating the future kingdom by doing righteousness, justice and bringing peace to the places and people of our city where it is absent.

I see here a correlation to Jesus’ parables of the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price. The exhortation of these stories is to give everything you have for the working and building of the kingdom of God. To live our lives as though the kingdom were here now. To begin to practice now the language and characteristics of faith, hope, and love in our everyday lives. For this is the language they speak in the courts of the kingdom of heaven.

Again, N.T. Wright, “Every act of love, every deed done in Christ and by the Spirit, every work of true creativity – doing justice, making peace, healing families, resisting temptation, seeking and winning true freedom – is an earthly event in a long history of things that implement Jesus’ own Resurrection and anticipate the final new creation and act as signposts of hope, pointing back to the first and on to the second…” – N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope

The Care-free

Tim Keller, in his book, Jesus the King, asks a series of questions that help us to realize the everyday implication of the power and freedom that the resurrection of Jesus offers to our lives. He asks,

“Why is it so hard to face suffering? Why is it so hard to face disability and disease? Why is it so hard to do the right thing if you know it’s going to cost you money, reputation, maybe even your life? Why is it so hard to face your death of death of loved ones? It’s so hard because we think (and act) as though this broken world is the only world we’re ever going to have. It’s easy to feel as if this money is the only wealth we’ll ever have. If I only have one life to live, I better live it to the fullest by bringing ultimate satisfaction to myself. “But if the resurrection is true, then this is not my only life, nor is it my best life, but the best is yet to come.” – Tim Keller, Jesus the King.

Not only is the best to come, but it is “imperishable, undefiled, unfading and reserved in heaven for us, protected by God!

Because of this, we are free. Free to love all people liberally. Free to show kindness to all. Free to forgive. Free to think the best of people. Free to loosen our control and worry. Free to give more away. Free to take ourselves less seriously. We’re free to spend more time being with people, invest in their lives, and less time securing our own little kingdoms. We are free to bless the people who hate and curse us. Might I even suggest free to read another story to our kids or spend more time playing with them? We are free to throw a great party or plant a garden.

People who have no belief in God or the Resurrection – who have no hope in a restored heaven and earth, say stuff like this all the time. How much more can Christians live care-free? Indeed, if Jesus rose from the dead, your life should be care-free, but not because of flippancy. Your life should be care-free because of such great certainty and underlying hope about the future and the kingdom of God.

If you’re lonely in this life, in the resurrection, you will have perfect love. If you’re empty in this life, in the resurrection, you will be fully satisfied.

If you and I know that this is not the only world, the only body, the only life we are ever going to have – that we will one day have a perfect life, a definite, concrete life – then who ultimately cares what people do to you, and what happens in this life?

Because of the resurrection, we can be free from ultimate anxieties in this life; we can be brave and take risks. We can sacrifice greatly. We can face even the worst things with joy and with hope because it doesn’t end there. Death, chaos, and destruction do not have the final word over our lives – Jesus the resurrected Lord does.

It’s because of this hope we can freely give our bodies in obedience to God, to his use, and for his glory. We can have the mind of Christ, who did not hold onto his glory and comforts but laid them aside for others. We can be humble, like Jesus. We can make ourselves the servant of all, like Jesus. We can die to ourselves, our will, our self-preservation for the sake of others and receive a great reward in the Kingdom of God.” Only in the gospel of Jesus Christ can we find such enormous hope to live in. Only the resurrection promises us not just new minds and hearts but also new bodies. Only the resurrection promises that the best is yet to come!

Listen to the voices of the prophets, and just let this vision sink into your bones.

“On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation” (Isaiah 25:6-9)

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:1-5)

Last thing

“If you believe the resurrection is true. If you believe that Jesus has died to save you – to redirect your eternal trajectory irrevocably toward God. If you believe that God has accepted you, for Jesus’ sake, through an act of supreme grace. You are a part of the Kingdom of God which means – a guaranteed new heavens and new earth, a healed material creation, absolute wholeness and well being- physically, spiritually, socially, and economically.” – Tim Keller, Jesus the King.

If you believe this, then Practice Resurrection.

What does “advent” mean? Well, the word itself means: “The arrival of a notable person or thing.” At this time of year we celebrate the arrival of the most notable person of all time, Jesus Christ. Advent has taken on different traditions throughout the course of Christian history, the advent calendar, lighting the advent candles, and in some Christian traditions, it is marked by a time of fasting.

Advent is a time to prepare for the celebration of the birth of Christ.

To help us think more deeply about the significance of Advent, let’s examine the first few verses of the Gospel of John to learn about the incredible gift of God that the world received when Jesus was born in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago.

The first four verses of the Gospel of John state: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:1-4).

Each of the four Gospels highlight a different aspect of Jesus. The Gospel of John emphasizes the deity of Jesus. Why didn’t John, like the other Gospels, begin with the story of the stable in Bethlehem or the beginning of His ministry? Why doesn’t he refer to Jesus as Jesus, but instead calls Him “The Word?” Well, it was to indicate that Jesus existed long before there was ever a stable in Bethlehem, long before He was ever given the name Jesus, He was.

Moreover, John emphasizes here that Jesus was not merely a man who walked the earth for 33 years, doing some miracles, but that He is God, and that it was Jesus who created our universe. When we think of the beauty of our planet, sometimes we must take a step back and just wonder at God’s creation. But even the wonder of our planet rotating in its place is dwarfed by the magnitude of our raging, fiery sun and the pristine, swirling rings of Saturn, the raging storms and murky atmosphere of Jupiter, the comets, meteors, moons and stars, the vast expanse of our solar system, spanning for thousands of light years. The spectacular phenomenon of dark stars existing invisibly, still pulling moons and planets with only the void of the place they once held in the universe. Black holes and dark matter bend the capacity of the human mind. Yet even the wonder of our galaxy and the billions of stars found in it are eclipsed by the multitude of countless other galaxies which exist and swirl in the realm of God’s creation. As you sit and read this, out there the universe moves and shapes, stars explode, meteor showers clash and crash, and God knows it all.

God made it all, and God holds it all together. This universe was spoken into existence by “the Word.” How unfathomably powerful is God? Yet, to me, what is even more incredible than God’s creation, is that He chose to come to earth as a baby. He, whom all the wonders of the universe emerged from, the intelligence, the science, the creativity, the power, the detail, the size, scope and enormity of Him, He became “made.” He came as a baby, powerless, tiny, helpless, dependent, insignificant, impoverished, vulnerable, and from the beginning, threatened by the very ones He had made. This is what God did, this is who Jesus is. He came to live as a human, so He could understand our humanity, He lived as a man, and we are told, “He was tempted in every way, yet was without sin” (Hebrew 4:15). He was and is, God, clothed forever in the body of a man, He is fully God and fully man; He is Jesus.

This period of Advent is a time to celebrate the coming of Jesus into our world.

But let us also remember that Christmas foreshadows Easter as birth foreshadows death; the Christmas tree eventually becomes the tree of Calvary.

As we read here in John 1:4, “In Him was life.” This is true in the most literal sense. He literally was life. The tiniest proton to the most enormous sun comes from Jesus, and yet He who was “life,” died. He died to take the sin of mankind upon Himself; He died to once again bring life to us. And the most wonderful part is that death could not hold Him. He rose again. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.” Nothing is more powerful than God, no matter how dark things may seem to you today. Do not forget His magnitude. Do not forget His power. Do not forget His great love for you. If Christ is in you, the darkness cannot overcome you, so put your trust in Him.

If you are reading this today and you have not chosen to follow Jesus, I just want to remind you of the verse we read today in John 1:4, “In Him was life, and that life was the light of man.” Jesus is the source of everything, you included. He is the one who throws “light” on our lives, how can we know or understand ourselves; how can we discern why we are here, or why we exist at all without knowing the one who made us? Come to Jesus during this Advent season, so that you can know His love, grace and salvation in your life; and so that He can fill you with light and understanding to know your God given purpose on this earth.

Merry Christmas to you all!

“I don’t hate black people, so I’m not part of the problem. Racism is bad, but it’s an individual sin that some people commit. I’m not one of those people, so why am I being held responsible for other people’s racism?” Since the beginning of the protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, I’ve seen variations of the above comment again and again, including from a number of white pastors. A common addition is an accusation of “cultural Marxism” whenever the idea of systemic racism is broached. It’s a valid question, and I hope my words might help to shed some light.

I know it’s hard to listen to positions that are not comfortable for us. Perhaps you’ve made comments similar to the one above. Perhaps you feel confused or even offended by all the talk of systemic racism. More specifically, maybe you’re put off by the idea that you are somehow complicit in systemic racism. After all, you love Jesus; you try to love everyone and hold no ill will against people of any color. Maybe you even have some friends who are black, Latino, etc. I hope to show in this article that systemic racism is not a Marxist invention, but rather a valid category based on the biblical doctrine of sin. And therefore it’s one we need to consider seriously.

A Church History Analogy

Let’s start with an analogy. Some readers will be familiar with the name Pelagius. For those who aren’t, Pelagius was a monk from the British isles who taught around the turn of the 5th century A.D. Pelagius is infamous for denying the doctrine of original sin. He taught that Adam’s sin led only to Adam’s personal fall. While that provided a bad example to the rest of humanity, each person is sinful only if they commit sins personally. In other words, Pelagius denied any kind of inherent or systemic sinfulness in mankind. Pelagius and his teaching were condemned as heretical at the ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D.

In contrast to Pelagius, the Bible teaches that sin is more than just our individual transgressions. It’s also a state into which we are born. It’s something inherently passed on to us by our ancestors. Sin is something inculcated into us by a fallen society before we’re even capable of conscious choice. Thus, it is accurate to say that sin, in the biblical view, is both individual and corporate—or systemic. We can see this relatively easily if we stop to consider an example.

A Sin-riddled System

Let’s consider a favorite sin of modern western society: materialism. Greed is part of the sin nature we’re born with. Those of us with children know this. No one has to “teach” a toddler to want more things or want what others have. It’s innate. At the same time, that child—and all of us—are born into a culture that quietly celebrates materialism. Even if we reject the brash motto of “greed is good,” we are still part of a system that pushes us towards greed in innumerable ways. Commercials and marketing add fuel to the fire to convince us that what will make us happy is more stuff.

Of course, we are skilled at self-justification—another effect of our sin nature. We tell ourselves that we’re not greedy. After all, we’re not stealing. We’re not neglecting our family and health to get rich—most of the time. We’re not taking part in ethically dubious schemes to accrue wealth at the expense of those with less. We just want a little more—and that seems reasonable, not greedy. John D. Rockefeller was purportedly interviewed once when he was literally the richest man in the history of the world. The interviewer asked him, “How much money is enough?” His answer is profound and somewhat convicting. He replied, “Just a little bit more.”

We are prone to deny our materialism because we’re not committing brazen, conscious acts of greed. But given the culture that we find ourselves in, and our inherent sinful inclination, the question we ought to be asking is, “How much greed is in my heart?” To deny its presence entirely is to admit that it has quite a firm hold on us. The truth is that we could do a similar analysis with any sin: lust, pride—or racism.

A Pelagian View of Racism

It seems that in the current discussion on systemic racism, a number of white Christians are committing a doctrinal error similar to Pelagius. Far from being a product of “cultural Marxism,” the systemic nature of racism proceeds from the systemic nature of sin itself. Few, if any, readers would argue with the conclusions of the Council of Ephesus that Pelagius was promoting a shallow, hyper-individualized, and unbiblical view of sin. And yet the question we should ask ourselves is: “Am I holding to a Pelagian view of racism?”

One fundamental mistake Pelagius made was relegating sin to only the realm of individual, conscious acts. While personal transgression is certainly part of the definition of sin, it is not the only part. Sin is much more pervasive. It goes much deeper, to the very fabric of our nature and society—just like racism.

Some current popular rhetoric tells us that, “No one is born a racist.” And yet, as with the example of greed, no one has to teach a toddler to look askance at someone of a different race and think, “That person doesn’t look like me—are they safe?” It is likely a rotten fruit of our inherent self-righteousness that the less like us someone seems, the more suspicious we are of that person.

Moreover, as with greed, we are all born into a culture that still promotes racism in numerous ways. This is evidenced in everything from policing practices¹ to wage disparity² to educational opportunities.³ The current push to confront racism openly in society is a start in the right direction, but it is not enough to undo centuries of egregious oppression of other humans based only on the color of their skin.

So while we might not be personally guilty of brazen, conscious acts of racism, that does not mean that we are not complicit in overall systemic racism. We are born fallen into a fallen system, which means there are myriad ways this inherent racism has affected us, and even many ways we participate in it. As with the example of greed, the question we ought to be asking ourselves is, “How much racism is in my heart?” To deny its presence entirely is a sign that it still has a firm hold on us.

How Should We Move Forward?

The first answer to this is personal prayer and repentance. We must ask the Lord to discover in our hearts the ways that we have absorbed and been complicit in racism, even if we would never think of ourselves as openly hostile to people of other races. We might be hesitant to do this. Perhaps we feel ashamed or afraid of the possibility that the Lord might reveal something. But the good news of the Gospel is that Christ took our shame on himself. It is because of grace that we can practice deep, sincere repentance without fear.

However, beyond dealing with our own hearts, how should Christians seek to address systemic racism? I’ve seen one line of reasoning almost as frequently as the denial of systemic racism: “Even if there is systemic racism, only the Gospel can change hearts. Therefore, we should focus on preaching the Gospel and not concern ourselves with addressing systemic racism.” I will deal with this line of reasoning in a follow-up article.

Notes:

¹Hall, A. V., Hall, E. V., & Perry, J. L. (2016). “Black and blue: Exploring racial bias and law enforcement in the killings of unarmed black male civilians” [Electronic version]. Retrieved June 27, 2020, from Cornell University, SHA School site.

²“Stark black–white divide in wages is widening further,” Economic Policy Institute, accessed June 27, 2020.

³Quinn, David M.. (2020). “Experimental Effects of ‘Achievement Gap’ News Reporting on Viewers’ Racial Stereotypes, Inequality Explanations, and Inequality Prioritization”. (EdWorkingPaper: 20-237). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University.

Further Reading:

Alexander, M. (2020). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Anniversary ed.). The New Press.

Schoenfeld, H. (2018). Building the Prison State: Race and the Politics of Mass Incarceration (Chicago Series in Law and Society) (1st ed.). University of Chicago Press.

Rothstein, R. (2018). The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (Reprint ed.). Liveright.

Darby, D., & Rury, J. L. (2018). The Color of Mind: Why the Origins of the Achievement Gap Matter for Justice (History and Philosophy of Education Series) (1st ed.). University of Chicago Press.

_{While the following resources provide much excellent content, they are not written from a Christian perspective. Therefore, as always, read with readiness to learn, but weigh all things according to Scripture. CalvaryChapel.com does not necessarily endorse or agree with every message or perspective in the diverse resources listed. By providing these resources, we hope to help you stay informed of important events and conversations taking place in the world that are relevant to the Christian faith.}

I can’t breathe.

These words are haunting. After more than 100,000 Americans lost their breath due to Covid-19, the words of one man still echo in the American psyche: I can’t breathe. We watched for more than eight excruciating minutes as the breath of life was snuffed from George Floyd’s body in a prolonged act of police brutality.

Only a few weeks earlier, we watched a video of the attack and murder of Ahmaud Arbery as he jogged down a Georgia street. The racial slur uttered by his attackers over his lifeless body reminds us there is something deeply broken in the American soul.

And then came the protests, riots, and looting. Police attacking protestors. Protestors attacking police and property. These images flooded the televisions in our living rooms and social media feeds creating a disorienting cocktail of anger, sadness, confusion, and frustration. And all of this came on the heels of three months of isolation, fear, loss, and economic uncertainty brought on by Covid-19.

Most people I talk to are just tired—2020 was not supposed to turn out this way. But in spite of the numbing exhaustion, the gospel compels us to seek a way forward because, as God’s people, we’re called to the ministry of reconciliation.

Reconciliation is defined as the restoring of a broken relationship.

It sounds so simple, right? But we all know reconciliation is hard and uncomfortable work. If you’ve been deeply hurt by someone or something, you know the struggle to forgive and restore the love and trust that once made that relationship strong. The work of reconciliation was uncomfortable for Jesus, too. Our own story reminds us that sin had broken our relationship with God and created a separation that no one could bridge. Only Jesus could restore what had been stolen. Coming from heaven to earth, trading glory for humility, trading worship for ridicule—it was uncomfortable, but Jesus chose this work because of His love for us.

It’s Our Turn

And now, it’s our turn. We’re called His ambassadors. As citizens of another kingdom, we’ve been entrusted with the same mission. Above all else at this moment, we must love like Jesus.

As in Jesus’ day, some will argue the work of the Church is to pray, read the Scriptures, and preach the gospel, but Jesus Himself reminds us that it’s possible to create a faux religious experience void of justice and mercy. He minced no words in calling out this form of systemic injustice and religious hypocrisy:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill, and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former” (Matthew 23:23, NIV).

The gospel is not only about proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God, but about embodying the values of the kingdom as we preach. Anything less is a truncated gospel.

Seizing the Moment and Representing Jesus

And so at this moment, how do we gain the right perspective about what’s happening in our world and our response as God’s people? For me, I’ve found the picture of boats in a storm helpful. Right now, we’re all going through a storm, but we’re not all in the same boat. We see this in our Covid-19 experience. This pandemic has affected us all, but it has affected us all so vastly different. Some of us have been in a proverbial cruise ship and gotten mildly seasick, while others have ridden out this storm in a rowboat and have experienced great loss. Same storm, different boat.

One of my good friends contracted Covid-19 and battled for his very life. Another friend lost his brother to Covid-19. Others lost jobs, businesses, and quickly learned to juggle homeschooling kids all while working full-time. At the same time, other friends have enjoyed the pause. No more rush-hour traffic. Dinners with family. Walks around the block. Game nights. Sure, there was economic uncertainty and the loss of retirement assets, but generally, Covid-19 didn’t create an upheaval of life for most of us. Same storm, different boat.

This explains the great divide in the responses to this global pandemic. Some of my friends wonder what the big deal is, while others think getting back to normal too soon is foolish and irresponsible. Like Covid-19, it’s hard to believe racism still exists, unless you’re experiencing it.

The enormity of racism in our country’s past and present is a lot like that storm. We all feel the effects of it but in vastly different ways. For my white brothers and sisters, this moment has created a seasickness—I can’t watch this and feel good about where we are as a country. But for my black and brown brothers and sisters, moments of racially charged killings and police brutality in the present brings centuries of pain, loss, and grief back into the present. Same storm, different boat.

And to be honest, this disparity is really uncomfortable. Doesn’t it feel easier to say nothing and hope this moment will pass. Can’t we just get back to normal? But as a Church, we’re compelled to represent Jesus at this moment.

So, what can we do? The vastness of century-old issues can feel paralyzing. If this couldn’t be solved for the last three centuries, what hope do we have now? The truth is, no one person can solve this, but everyone can do something. There are some simple things we can do and should do because the Gospel of Jesus Christ compels us. And now is our time, not to shrink back, but to love like Jesus. I’ve found the following biblical framework a helpful guide to our response: Listen. Lament. Repent. Act.

Listen

Pursuing justice and mercy starts with listening. When human beings go through tragedy, the first and most powerful thing we can do is show up—and listen.

The only thing Job’s friends did well as they watched him go through unimaginable losses was to sit with him until he was ready to talk. The gift of presence is powerful.

“Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was” (Job 2:13, NIV). This is also why James, the brother of Jesus wrote, “Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires” (James 1:19-20, NIV). Everyone can listen.

Recently, I joined a group of white, black, and Hispanic pastors and Christian leaders on a video call where we simply listened to each other. Some were leaders I’d known and worked with for more than a decade. As I listened to my black and brown brothers and sisters share, I had a growing sense I’d missed the mark as a friend and partner in our gospel work.

“I was profiled last week walking in my neighborhood. I’m tired and afraid.”

“I feel overlooked.”

“I’m angry.”

“Pray for me. My heart is getting hard.”

“I’ve never jogged with my ID on me, but now I feel like I have to.”

“I call my son 3-4 times a day just to make sure he’s ok.”

The words and emotions poured out of shared experience and pain—a pain that was foreign to me. After dinner and a brutally honest discussion about her journey with racism, one of my close friends said, “I want to apologize if I said too much.” Too much? I thought our friendship was a safe and trusted place. I assumed all my friends felt safe to speak their minds—but I had made too many assumptions.

Maybe I made these assumptions because I don’t consider myself a stranger to the black experience. I spent a summer working in a housing project in Atlanta, where the expressed mission was to immerse college students in the inner-city experience. I worked for years in a predominately black school as a public school teacher. My wife and I are raising two adopted sons of color and live in a predominantly black neighborhood. We regularly have friends of color in our home. Though I’d heard the stories, gotten angry, and advocated where I saw injustice, I’d clearly failed to listen and feel the pain of my friends. Everyone can listen. And if we listen closely, we can learn to lament.

Lament

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4, NIV).

Jesus shared these words in what Christians affectionately refer to as the Beatitudes— words meant to shape the attitudes of those who follow His kingdom. In 1 Corinthians 12:25-26 (NIV), the apostle Paul instructs, “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.” As Christians, we’re called to be one family and one body. If we don’t feel the pain of our brothers and sisters when they suffer, there may be something wrong with us. But as we weep with those who weep, together we find the comfort and healing Jesus promised to His family.

Where Job’s friends went wrong was in their attempt to diagnose the reason Job was suffering. As Job is cross-examined in the midst of his suffering, he speaks a powerful truth, “Those who are at ease have contempt for misfortune” (Job 12:5, NIV).

Let’s be honest, it makes us feel better when we can justify why bad things happen to people—it helps us enjoy what we have without the guilt. If we could just find out what George or Ahmaud did to deserve this, then we can confirm our own biases, go back to our comfortable theological boxes, and feel a sense of relief. The problem is God will not fit in our box. Our echo chamber is not reality. Job’s friends spent the better part of 30 chapters pontificating from their limited viewpoint, and in the end, heard a direct indictment from God Himself. Their love got lost as they searched for the cause—and if we’re not careful that can happen to us. When we love, we listen, and we lament. And this requires very few words.

As I listened to the call last week, I began to feel pain. One of the pastors described the great vacillation between despair and hope at this moment—it was the same feeling he had experienced when his brother died. His wife could see the pain on his face, and he said it’s that sorrow that is a shared experience among most in the African American community.

As he described the events of the week that brought all the pain of the past back into the present, my thoughts wandered to a long-suppressed memory of an interaction with my youngest son when he was in kindergarten. I remember him coming home from his Christian school and bursting into tears sobbing as he said, “A boy at school called me a n-gger.” I’m not going to lie—my first reaction was just straight-up anger. But my son was more sad than angry. As I held him and his tears fell on my arm, my tears joined his. What kind of world was he growing up in, and how would I have to prepare his heart for the many times in his life he would have to experience that feeling?

This was the first time I felt the pain of racism in my body, in an emotion that was more than anger. It was sadness. It was momentary, but I still remember it. As Christ-followers, when we watch the video of George Floyd’s life ebbing away, we should feel pain. If we don’t, we should ask God to soften our hearts.

A good friend of mine took his son to a rally last week and they kneeled on the ground for almost nine minutes as they honored the life of a man they never met. As he kneeled beside his son, my friend began to weep. George Floyd was a son—and he felt that pain in his own body. When we as Christians feel the pain of others—we’re embodying the work of reconciliation that Jesus felt for us.

“Remember also those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies” (Hebrews 13:3, NLT).

Everyone can lament. And if we lament well, then we can repent well.

Repent

I’ve heard many white people say to me in the last two weeks, “What are we supposed to do?” Some are well-meaning, others want to see this moment pass. But the Scriptures are clear—our next action after we listen and lament is to repent. We have to see where we’ve been thinking or acting wrongly. We have to acknowledge that we don’t have all the information and that others can teach us.

Very few people I’ve met would say they have a racial bias. By the same token, very few people would admit they are hypocrites. Yet both of these tendencies thrive in the recesses of the human mind and heart. If we’re honest, all of us struggle with certain people of different races, genders, or cultures. They seem so different from us. We also struggle to live out what we say we believe, which is the definition of hypocrisy. So, the bad news is that all of us suffer from subtle forms of racism and hypocrisy. Fortunately for all of us, there is a way forward.

Repentance is our way forward, and it’s not a one-time event. Repentance is described in the Bible as a sorrow that leads to a change of thinking and behavior—an acknowledgment that comes from a combination of confession and conviction that something needs to change. In repentance, we sometimes have to use difficult words: Sin. Racism. Systemic injustice. White privilege.

Often, I hear white Christians say, “Slavery and systemic racism are clearly wrong, but how can we repent from something we weren’t a part of?” This is a really important question. And we actually see clear examples of this in the Bible.

Daniel and Nehemiah were both leaders who prayed prayers of repentance for a nation’s sins in which they did not directly participate. There is something powerful about leaders taking responsibility for sins, even if they didn’t actively commit them. After all, isn’t that what Jesus did for us in His work of reconciliation?

Start by simply acknowledging that “liberty and justice for all” are not enjoyed equally by everyone in our country. Acknowledge the fact that the privilege you may have enjoyed your entire life was not shared by everyone. After that acknowledgment and confession comes repentance—and repentance asks questions like: “How can I extend the privilege I’ve enjoyed to others?” and “How can I use my influence to bring equity where it does not exist?” Isn’t this, after all, what Jesus taught us to do when He said, “Do to others what you would have them do for you” (Matthew 7:12, NIV)?

True repentance leads to a sorrow that leads to an action that leaves no regret (2 Corinthians 7:10-11). This gives us the foundation to walk with humility and wisdom that can see beyond our experiences to the viewpoint of God Himself. God wants us to have His mind, so we can do the hard work of justice and mercy in the world.

The prophet Micah reminds us that this is what God requires: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8, NIV).

After walking through the process of listening, lamenting, and repenting, there inevitably will be a time to act.

Act

Doing justice is about making right the things that are wrong. The gospel puts demands on our soul in regard to justice, and we can’t be more committed to order than justice. Justice is a part of the gospel ethic, not reducing the gospel to what happens after we die, but joining God in the renewal of all things. Where inequities still exist, God’s people can be advocates to bring kingdom renewal.

The first action everyone can take is to build a diverse community. It’s been said that in life, we should begin with the end in mind. It only makes sense to work to build now what we will ultimately experience. As Christians, one day soon we will stand before Jesus in the greatest family reunion of all as we worship “from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Revelation 7:9, NIV). Justice looks like working towards what our future looks like—on earth as it is in heaven. This beautiful expression of the Church doesn’t have to wait until heaven. In fact, it was Jesus’ passionate prayer in John 17 that it would happen on earth. You can answer that prayer today.

If you have a trusted friend of color, invite them over for dinner. Ask them to share their story—unfiltered. As you listen, you‘ll learn how racism affects real people. If you have no black or brown friends, pray that God would direct you to a person who can guide you on your journey. Sadly, we know the gospel can be distorted by racism; we see these effects so tragically played out through history. But I want to remind you of a greater hope—racism is vulnerable to the gospel.

And the Holy Spirit is still working to break through these barriers.

The move of God’s Spirit at Pentecost displayed the power to bring sons of Babel back together as their new tongues spoke of the God who saves and renews. That same Spirit we see in the early church saves a son of Ham (Ethiopian eunuch), a son of Shem (Saul of Tarsus), and a son of Japheth (Cornelius the centurion). God brings together this natural band of enemies and makes them into a family—unified through something greater than what divided them, or should I say someone.

The second thing everyone can do is learn to be an advocate. An advocate is simply someone who speaks for a person who has no power to speak for themselves. This is what Jesus does for us before the throne of God (1 John 2:1).

History is full of Christian advocates like William Wilberforce, Frederick Douglas, and Harriet Tubman who all skillfully used their voices and influence to build bridges between an oppressed people group and a majority culture who possessed the power to bring justice. And they approached this journey with both urgency and patience. The urgency was driven by the reality that every day real people were being crushed by injustice. The patience was an acknowledgment that the strongholds of injustice wouldn’t fall in a day and needed a sustained effort with incremental victories over time. As an advocate, both urgency and patience are necessary.

To do what justice requires, a cause-of-the-week trend on Twitter and Instagram will not suffice. Justice requires sustained attention. After the protests and social media wars wane, the need to build bridges will continue for years to come. For my white brothers and sisters, justice looks like acknowledging your privilege and working to extend it to others.

You can’t tackle racism in the world all by yourself, but you can advocate for someone you know. The battle for justice often happens with one person, one conversation at a time. Maybe you’ve heard it said, “Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone.” If we all found one person who needed a bridge to be built between their need and those who had the power to meet that need, we would be the change the world needs.

My wife and I put that challenge to the test a few years back with a former foster child. It was amazing to see how differently we acted toward her when we began to do for her what we would normally do for a member of our own family.

And finally, the most important thing everyone can do is to do everything in love. There are many mysteries in the Bible, but there’s no mystery about our call to love others. Jesus calls it the greatest commandment: to love God and love your neighbor (Luke 10:27).

He told a story about a Good Samaritan, where He illustrated how love breaks through centuries of entrenched racial barriers. Jesus said everyone would know we are His disciples by the love we demonstrate to one another (John 13:35). We can’t control how non-Christians engage in rhetoric or division, but as followers of Jesus, we can make sure the motives behind our words and actions are done in love.

Pause for a moment and think about your recent social media posts and conversations you’ve engaged in both online and off. Were they spoken in love? Even if you think your words are right, if the motive behind them is not love, then they’re what the apostle Paul’s calls “a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1, NIV).

Through the lens of love, we’ll see with new eyes—kingdom eyes—and we’ll not be so easily offended. We’ll not be so quick to cut people off when we don’t agree. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not easily angered. The love of God exemplified in and through His people trusts, hopes, and endures all things.

The love of Jesus never fails. It’s our turn to be those people.

“Do everything in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14, NIV).

Tune in for FB Live prayer sessions happening 24/7, every hour, on the Calvary Chapel FB page. Pastors/ministry leaders have agreed to host a prayer time throughout each day.

We know that God is on the throne and will help us through this time. Please join us on our Facebook page, as we come together in prayer.

God Bless,

– The CalvaryChapel.com Team

Tune In to the Live Prayer

I had to make a phone call last week that I didn’t want to make. A call that many have had to make over the last several weeks. A call that many have received. The call went a little like this, “I am so sorry to say this, but because the economy is shut down, we’re going to have to furlough you until further notice. We are so thankful for your service and absolutely love having you on the team.” I hang up the call. I take another deep breath. Then I move on to the next one.

See, in addition to pastoral ministry, I manage a local bookstore, and as we all know, these are difficult days for small businesses. I am fortunate that everybody I work with is a believer, and that I was able to pray with them at the end of the call. But what do you say when you’re the one sharing the bad news with somebody else? What kind of encouragement can you give after this? Or where do you receive strength when you are the one on the receiving end of the phone call, and suddenly, tomorrow is more uncertain than ever before?

There are no easy answers. I’ve had had moments of anxiety over the past six weeks. With every new report on “mortality rates, stay at home orders and economic collapse,” I’ve felt my heart pounding just a little harder. I know my anxiety comes less from the fact that tomorrow is unknown, but more because I realize I have absolutely no control over any of it. I’ve had several nights over the last few weeks, where I lay awake and could not fall back asleep. One night, in particular, I laid there for hours, thinking about where we are at this point in the world, hoping to wake up the next morning and hear that this nightmare is over, and praying for God to graciously speak to me and give me a fresh word from His heart. It’s in these moments where all we can do is wait patiently for the Lord to speak and to move. It’s quiet, it’s dark, it’s difficult, and we continue to wait.

The next morning, as I opened my Bible, I happened to be in Psalm 16. As I began to read, the words suddenly became my prayer. The same kinds of words I searched for the night before. “Protect me, Lord, for I take refuge in you. I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have nothing good besides you” (Psalm 16:1-2). I stopped and considered how true this is. Anything good I have, anything I have at all, comes from Him.

I continue to read, “Lord, you are my portion and my cup of blessing; you hold my future” (Psalm 16:5). Wow! So the Lord has all of this in His control. As faithful as He’s been yesterday, He’s going to be faithful tomorrow, and He will be my portion. My future is safe because it is in His hands. It’s true; I don’t know what tomorrow holds. But I know the One who holds tomorrow.

Verse 7 continues, “I will bless the Lord who counsels me, even at night when my thoughts trouble me, I always let the Lord guide me because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” It was here where I immediately knew God was speaking to me and answering my prayer from the night before. Even at night, when my thoughts trouble me and I tremble before the unknown, I have my Helper at my right hand. He will guide me, and even if everything around me gives way, I will not be shaken.

We are not in control and never have been. This idea can bring us great anxiety, or it can bring us great freedom. “Anxiety” is asking what we will do about the things that are out of control. But prayer is asking God what He will do with the things that are within His control. So I can worry for the illusion of control that was never there, to begin with, or I can surrender the reigns of my life to His loving control as He walks me through this pandemic.

I thought of the people I had called on the phone that day. It’s true; there are no easy answers. For all of us, however, this is what it means to walk by faith, not by sight. To trust and take the next step even when we cannot see where it leads. To be assured in our hearts that He is our guide into the unknown. To rest in knowing that because He has me, He will provide when I am lacking, and I will not be shaken.

In the words of dear Corrie Ten Boom, “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” And so we trust Him today, and we will trust Him again tomorrow. This is the walk of faith.

_{This article originally appeared on calvarychapel.flywheelsites.com on April 14, 2017.}

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

As we approach Easter Sunday and celebrate the death of death in the life of the Resurrection of Jesus, we come to this great day through the path of Good Friday. On Easter we celebrate the resurrection; on Friday we contemplate the meaning and implications of His death. It is good for us to slow down and journey with Jesus, as it were, in His work on our behalf so as to absorb the story and the verity therein as it pertains to His mission of rescuing us from our sin and reconciling us to God.

As we take time to reflect on Good Friday, we consider the cross, where the love of God towards sinners was expressed in the wrath bearing obedience of His Son. There are numerous ways we can go with such a massive topic. For instance, the cosmic plan of redemption, and how God brought it all to pass just as He intended (Acts 2:22-24; 4:27-8), the spectacle and injustice of how His trial was handled, and on and on and on.

In this post, I want to address the nakedness of Jesus and what can be theologically deduced from it.

Jesus was crucified naked

It seems most renderings of Jesus on the cross have His loins covered, but it seems that in all actuality He would have been naked on the cross. It has been pointed out that for Jewish sensitivities a cloth may be provided so as to reduce the sense of shame that was certainly intended in the act of crucifixion. Yet it hardly seems from the Gospels that this would have been a concern of the Jews who could have influenced such a thing, but rather that they did not want His Jewishness to be an issue (John 19:21). I am of the opinion that Jesus was absolutely naked as He hung on the cross as was the Roman custom.

All of the Gospels speak of Him being stripped and beaten (Matthew 27:28, 35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:34; John 19:23). I admit there is no scholarly consensus as to whether Jesus retained an article of clothing or not. Yet upon reading John 19:23-4, the evidence seems to point to the absolute nakedness of Jesus.

“When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, so they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.’” This was to fulfill the Scripture which says, “They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.”

Several important things here are to be noted. First of all His garments were divided and His tunic was attained by the casting of lots. Secondly, this was done in fulfillment of Scripture. The Scripture that is being fulfilled is Psalm 22:18. For a more detailed treatment of the grammar and literary issues involved in interpreting this fulfillment formula, I would point you to the work of Carson.¹

Nakedness in the Bible

The Roman reason that Jesus was crucified naked was to utterly humiliate Him, cause Him to feel shame and abandonment and warn the onlookers of the cost of crime and rebellion in Rome. That is the historic reason. Yet, I would also suggest that we can deduce a theological point from understanding how nakedness is treated in the Bible.

A Sign of innocence

In Genesis when God made the world, He made man and gave Him dominion over the world and commanded him to inhabit and fill it. There is an interesting phrase about Adam and Eve that is a shadow of the darkness to come after the fall. Before they fell into sin, it says of them in 2:25, “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

The implication is that in the original innocent state of mankind, nakedness was normal and was a sign of innocence. There was no need to hide or avoid physical vulnerability because there was no sin in the world and thus no guilt and no sense of separation. To be naked and not ashamed was to be in a state of innocence. While it is not the nakedness that is the main issue, but the heart’s relation to God, it is clear that nakedness is equated with the original state of man, as was innocence and the two are used in harmony to describe man before sin came into the world.

A Sign of guilt and shame

The sign of purity very quickly becomes a sign of sin due to the fact that man becomes a sinner by virtue of disobeying the command of God. Now the natural constitution of man is no longer purity, but defilement, corruption and separation. Now man who once operated in his natural state with no sense of shame has a deep sense of shame in his natural state because his natural state is now sin. His nature has changed dramatically. Nakedness is what man is. It was innocence, but now it is guilt. Thus when we see man fall into sin, nakedness is now embarrassing, awkward, and a sense of separation and avoidance have replaced the purity of freedom and unhindered fellowship.

“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself'” (Genesis 3:7-10).

Their sense of separation was immediate, and they sought to remedy the problem with urgency. Their connection to God has been broken, and now they fear Him and hide from Him. Their nakedness now represents their sinful state and separation from God. Nakedness is associated with guilt, which comes from sin. As Matthews points out how nakedness operated with a negative connotation in the Pentateuch and that the Hebrews associated it with guilt.²

There are also a few New Testament passages that may add to this theme as well (2 Corinthians 5:3; Revelation 3:17), although they are less obviously implicit than the ones noted above.

The Nakedness of Jesus

In view of what has been seen about nakedness, several valuable observations can be seen about the nakedness of Jesus:

His Humanity and Humiliation

When we picture Jesus hanging naked on the cross, there we seen Him in His true and raw humanity. As one of us, He died for us. There He experienced our shame and beyond that the agony of bearing our sin for us. He was gathering up our humanity in Himself and presenting it to God. His pain was real. His blood was real. His wounds were real. His thirst was real. There was nothing easy about what He endured. And as Paul said, it was His humility (Philippians 2:8) that caused Him to endure the cross. Rome wanted to humiliate Him in His nakedness, but it was His own humility there to be seen in the most raw and vulnerable conditions humans know… nakedness.

His Innocence and Identification

In seeing how nakedness both conveys innocence and sin, we can look at our naked Savior on the cross and see how He was both. His nakedness spoke of His innocence as the last Adam and simultaneously of the sin that was placed on Him from the people of the first Adam. Adam experienced shame in the garden and exchanged an innocent nakedness for a guilty nakedness. Jesus, the last Adam, despised the shame as He in our likeness suffered for our shame and nakedness. He was simultaneously innocent and bearing our sin. He, though innocent, identified with our fallen humanity and redeemed us.

Hanging naked in His innocence, He was clothed with our sin, that we in our guilty nakedness may be clothed with His righteousness.

Paul has this exchange in mind in several passages:

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13).

It was in being our substitute that He reconciled us back to God as a people constituted in Him as our federal head. This Good Friday, Behold your King there in your stead. Behold Him, our last Adam in all His innocence bearing our guilt and shame and giving us His life.

And the reason you came
Was to endure the pain

On the tree
On the tree

Bore my sin and my shame

Erased my guilt and my blame

Now I’m free
Now I’m free

Perfect liberty

Perfect freedom

For all those found in Christ

Perfect grace

Perfect love

God’s perfect sacrifice

– anonymous

Notes:

¹ D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 612.

² K. A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11:26, vol. 1A, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 225.

Of all the problems in the world, suffering is the hardest to face. Why is there so much suffering in our world, and why does God allow it?

Recently, Psalm 91 has been helping me to understand suffering in a new light.

It might strike you as a little strange because Psalm 91 would seem to indicate that we will never suffer any harm at all. It says things like, “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.” No “disease,” no “pestilence,” indeed, “No harm will befall you” at all.

It can be a bit confusing to read this psalm in light of the suffering that many of us go through in life. It might even lead us to ask the question: “Am I doing something wrong?” But this is not the correct way to read this psalm. In fact, the only way for us to understand this psalm correctly is in the light of the cross of Christ.

Let me explain that a bit more. It is interesting that the main extended metaphor in this psalm is the image of a mother bird. For example, “He will cover you with His feathers and under His wings, you will find refuge.” This image is one of a God who draws close to us, who pulls us in under His wings and protects us. This is God’s heart toward us. The whole psalm is God’s heart toward us. But, we live in a broken and fallen world, filled with pain and suffering; how can God ultimately protect us from all of the evils of man? Well, there was really only one way, and Jesus did it.

I’m speaking of the cross.

The way God comes through on His promises in Psalm 91 is on the cross. There is a story of a farm in the Midwest of America that suffered through a terrible hail storm. The hailstones were so big they destroyed many of the crops. When the farmer went out to check the damage the next day, he found a bird’s nest knocked to the ground. In it was a mother bird with her wings spread wide. When the farmer lifted her from the nest, he realized she was dead, but he found all her little chicks under her totally unharmed. How does God protect us from all harm the way He tells us He will in Psalm 91? He does it by dying for us. He did it on the cross.

In Luke chapter 4, when Jesus is being tempted in the desert, Satan quotes Psalm 91 to Jesus, saying, “Throw yourself down from the temple; the angels will catch you and not let you strike your foot against a stone.” Satan was trying to tell Jesus that nothing bad had to happen to Him, and He didn’t need to suffer. God wouldn’t let Him harmed, never mind sent to the cross. But suffering had to be a part of Jesus’ story, and sometimes, of ours too. Thankfully, Jesus didn’t succumb to Satan’s temptations. He stayed the course and walked bravely to the cross so that the promises of Psalm 91 could truly be fulfilled one day, and He could “wipe every tear from their eyes” so, “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:4).

Suffering is a bitter pill to swallow. But we serve a God who also ate the bitter pill. He suffered. He did it to defeat sin; He did it for you; He did it for me. When we read Psalm 91 in light of the cross, we realize that all of the promises of God’s heart to us in that psalm are “yes” and “amen” in Jesus Christ. No matter what befalls us on this earth, we can never be snatched from His hand.

Death itself has been defeated.

Jesus said in Mathew 23:37, “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” Jesus suffered; we suffer. But there is comfort in the suffering. There is comfort in the knowledge that our eternity is secure. Let us come close to Jesus and allow Him to gather us under His wings. Let us find peace in our Savior who gave everything for us.

Dominic Done wrote, “When we choose gratitude, we aren’t denying our frustration and pain; we’re planting seeds of hope in the midst of those fractured places. Gratitude leverages life’s brokenness to allow the light in. Gratitude is the soul’s war against despair.” In Christ, we have so much to be grateful for. He is our high tower, our ever-present help in time of need.

If you are in the midst of a broken and fractured place, know you are still surrounded by the love of God. Draw close to Him, and let Him draw you to Himself. He is a God who truly understands your pain. He is with you in your trouble, and one day, He will literally wipe every tear from your eyes.

More than likely, you’re aware that Joker is in theaters. Maybe the film’s marketing reached you. Or more likely, you read about it in the news. My local theater had to close their release screenings¹ of it, a story that was featured in national news. Other headlines describe nervous audiences,² nervous theater owners,³ even warnings from the military.⁴ While some remain blissfully indifferent to the agita that has surrounded the release of this film, many are troubled by the culture, the portents and the moral weather patterns that come with Joker. As Christians, those portents and patterns in our culture are worth paying attention to.

Inspiring Violence

People fear that the film will encourage violence by glorifying violence. They fear the titular character will be inspirational to potential mass-shooters. In an age where mass shootings happen with increasing frequency, there are fears that a movie like this will empower such people to carry out their dark visions, committing twisted acts of “justice” against the evils of society or venting personal frustrations in an outburst of bullets. Concerns have been raised about the glorification of the character himself, whom the filmmakers are portraying in a much more sympathetic/relatable light than in previous interpretations. Joker is given a “real world” backstory, one that doesn’t involve toxic waste or superpowers. His creation is much more human, much more heartbreaking and, therefore, much more identifiable, especially to those more likely to commit acts of real-world violence.

Many found the very idea of such a film distasteful in light of the perceived connections⁵ to the Aurora Colorado mass shooting during a 2012 screening of The Dark Knight Rises. While that film didn’t actually feature the Joker character, negative links were drawn to his character from the series’ prior film, The Dark Knight, which had come out four years earlier.

Regardless of subjective connections to the Aurora shooting, the new Joker film from director Todd Philips has received its share of bad press, receiving the stigmas of “insensitivity” and “irresponsibility” from the media and the public alike. And this is my biggest issue with the tempest surrounding the movie.

Allow me to illustrate: The film is about a person confronted with increasingly difficult circumstances. As he attempts to cope, he also attempts to restrain himself; he has the tools to deal with bad situations, but he doesn’t want to go there. He must resist the temptation to give in to his “true self.” However, when bad people push him too far, he takes action. And that action reveals the justification he needs to abandon his inhibitions: a just cause. Even though people die, his actions are justified by the viewer because:

• He didn’t ask for any of this (innocence).

• The bad guys deserve what they have coming (guilt).

What ensues is a crusade of righteous indignation, as the “hero” rights the many wrongs that they (and especially the people they care about) have suffered. In the end, we applaud their vengeance because the hero did what we could never do: bring justice to an unjust situation and deliver some much-deserved retribution.

Now ask yourself this: What film or Netflix series did I just describe? Was that Tombstone or John Wick? The Equalizer or The Punisher? Perhaps a Tarantino? Or maybe the Taken series? Better yet, how many films can you think of that follow this formula?

Not a New Movie

This leads me to my first observation. This film isn’t new. What I mean is, it’s not an altogether new idea. It doesn’t cover new subject matter; it’s not a new plot; its essence isn’t new. Hollywood has been cranking out films very similar to this one for years. The context changes, the characters and their circumstances change, but the major plot arc is routine: Injustice occurs ↠ the protagonist is triggered to action ↠ moral lines are crossed ↠ retribution to evildoers ↠ the protagonist rests from his work. And far more than simply being prevalent, these sorts of movies are incredibly popular at the box office and among critics. So it shouldn’t be any surprise that direct similarities have been drawn between Joker and older films that seemed less worrisome, at the time, to the general public. Among those are works from renown director Martin Scorsese. What’s interesting to me is that his films have featured similarly disturbed characters, doing similarly disturbing things, but have been lauded by audiences, critics and the press for decades. Yet here we are, with a very similar film inciting fear and restlessness among modern audiences.

Another aspect that isn’t new about this movie is one of its key thematic ideas. It’s the concept of being yourself, being true to yourself, letting go of people’s expectations of you and becoming who you really are. But this idea is so commonplace. In a sense, the admonition is almost “Disney-esque:” “Believe in yourself; follow the desires of your heart, and all of your dreams will come true.” Scripture condemns this concept with a slap of reality: The human heart is desperately wicked and unknowable, and its depravity needs to be resisted. The syrupy advice from fairytales takes on a more insidious tone when you apply it to people whose heart’s desire is selfishness, who pay no heed to the harm they cause to others. The concept of surrendering to your desires is Edenic in origin: see and take. Don’t let anything hold you back from realizing your dreams, and you will find satisfaction. This has remained a prevalent and popular ethos in our culture from the very inception of humanity.

Not A New Character

Another observation about the climate surrounding the film: The Joker character isn’t new in the most literal sense. He’s been around for nearly 80 years. And for all of those years, he has embodied murderous chaos with a flair for theatrics and humor. His depravity has never been sugar-coated. From the beginning, he’s been portrayed as a remorseless, laughing, gloating serial killer/criminal mastermind nemesis for Batman. His methods and motives have been illustrated unflinchingly, from his first appearance in the Batman No. 1 comic, through Jack Nicholson’s portrayal in 1989, to Heath Ledger’s (posthumously) award-winning depiction of the character.⁶

Somehow though, our culture seems uneasy about embracing this newest depiction, in the form of Joaquin Phoenix’s troubled Arthur Fleck. But what makes me uneasy about the whole character is how joyfully our culture has embraced all of his previous incarnations. It seems much scarier to me, and much more telling about our culturally-endemic desensitization, that people laugh and clap approvingly at a Joker who can “humorously” murder people with pencils or spray people with acid from his prank lapel flower or dance and joke over the bodies of people he’s just poisoned. Shouldn’t the taking of life feel sorrowful? Shouldn’t it feel wrong? Why aren’t we relieved when, in a sea of movies that casually devalue human life, this film conveys that killing is wrong and that the taking of lives is a violation, or at the very least, negatively impactful?

We Don’t Like the Context

In part, the distaste comes from the portrayal of the people who die. In the case of those murdered by the Joker in 1989’s Batman, the people seem so ridiculous and fake that it’s hard to feel any emotional pull when they meet their demise. They’re almost like cardboard cutouts who simply get pushed over: We don’t know them or care for them. Sure, there are the bad gangsters who die and, in a sense, get what they deserve. But for the people in the art museum, or in the streets of Gotham, their deaths are handled so humorously, numerously and callously, that we can hardly connect or identify with them. However, the on-screen deaths committed by this new Joker feel intimate, visceral and heavy.

Another aspect could be that, in the new film, the “bad guys” who die aren’t people we necessarily believe to be bad. There are even some we think aren’t bad at all; their only perceived guilt comes from simply being part of an unjust system, or “guilt by association.” Unlike the scores of Nazis that are brutally, sadistically dealt with in one popular film, we don’t necessarily identify the victims in this film as evil. But those who are less affluent, with less hope or less opportunity in life might. Hence, the public support of the killings from the general population within the film. They view Joker as a symbol: one man standing up against the system of oppression. The people who are killed in Joker are all either liars, cruel antagonizes or people benefiting from perceived corruption. In some way, and from a particular perspective, they’re all part of a system of hurt and abuse.

The problem though is that we don’t like how subjective their guilt is. Nevertheless, isn’t that the point-counterpoint between secular humanism and Christianity? The secular humanist would argue that right and wrong are subjective to the individual, while Christianity would hold to the objectivity of God’s Word.

To that point, there is a pivotal scene in the film when Arthur Fleck asks the question: “What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? Exactly what you deserve!” From his unhinged, subjective perspective, he’s doing what is right, giving out what he thinks is deserved. In a sense, the unease that comes from seeing his insanity and the perceived rightness of his crimes should find relief in the concept of a just God whom humanity is accountable to. Instead, the film depicts a subjectivity to the concepts of guilt and sin. Granted that it’s told from the perspective of an unhealthy mind, but it’s nonetheless the subjectivity of this framework that should make us very uneasy.

Sadness and Compassion

This aspect is new to the Joker story, at least to the film versions. This is a sad, sad film. The story begins within a financially depressed economy, where the circles of work and homelife are permeated with the stench of crime, shame and inescapable poverty. Building on this is the weighty responsibility of caring for an ailing, elderly mother. Add to that the aforementioned mental illness countered only by prescription drugs and weekly, state-afforded counseling sessions. Finally, add a neurological condition that makes you burst into uncontrollable laughter when stressful situations arise. But this particular facet is handled humorlessly. The emphasis is on the social awkwardness that such a condition would create. Imagine how quickly any argument would escalate if, after listening to a person’s issue, you burst out laughing. This is Arthur Fleck’s reality. The result is misunderstanding and isolation, compounded by the weight of all the other difficulties that surround him. This establishing tale of the Joker character doesn’t involve an accident with toxic waste creating a criminal mastermind, arch-villain and crime boss. This film is told from the perspective of desperation, depression and hopelessness. This is someone with no means, no friends, no hope, trudging through life under the weight of very identifiable sorrow.

Making the film more complex, the handling of sin is theologically interesting. As my Professor, Gerry Breshears, recently remarked in class, psychology usually only deals with the sins committed TO a person, and pastors usually only deal with sins committed BY a person. But this story deals with both. The protagonist is laden with difficulty from outside: systemic poverty and the burdens of trying to “put on a happy face” for a loved one, all within a world that views him as worthless. He’s also burdened with difficulty from within: the portrayal of mental un-health is intimate, personal, sorrowful and disturbing. Between these paradigms, we sadly observe the abuse, deception, lying and disappointment that he endures at the hands of others.

But we also see the evils that he commits as just that: evil. In a fashion reminiscent of Sophocles, Shakespeare and Vince Gilligan, each evil action he takes is just as destructive to himself as to those around him. His environment doesn’t vindicate his monstrous actions; nothing does. And his actions are never justified by the outcomes; they simply add momentum to his downward spiral. While you feel compassion for him, you’re never led to thinking that he’s “right,” or that his actions are acceptable, let alone funny.

Controversially Thought Provoking

And this raises another interesting aspect about the film: It doesn’t cram a message down your throat. Maybe we wish it would have. Maybe the press would be less nervous in their reporting if this were a morality tale, teaching that evil actions come from an evil environment. Or that embracing evil leads to an evil end. Instead, the film leaves the viewer with the abstract, existential question of evil itself. What is it? Where does it come from? How do you deal with it without becoming it? How do you prevent it? These questions form great conversational springboards for the Christian. Everyone recognizes evil in the world. Engaging in conversations about ultimate evil and its ultimate answer in the form of The Ultimate Love of God is like a slow pitch for anyone looking to share the truth and comfort of the Gospel.

What’s really interesting is that the film doesn’t “say” much at all as far as conclusion or application. It’s more revelatory than didactic. It’s left to the viewer to understand and interpret the tale. And perhaps therein lies the problem. Maybe it’s the ambiguity of evil that has caused so much tension, anxiety and fear. The secular humanist has no explanation of evil, let alone advice on what to do with it. The Bible does, but that’s the one place that “rational secularists” aren’t allowed to go for answers. However, when a film or event reveals gaps in the collective reasoning of our secular world, we as Christians need to be ready to address the unease, to use God’s Word to explain it and to cast light on the darkness.

_Notes:

_{¹ Cameron, Dell. “U.S. Military Issues Warning to Troops About Incel Violence at Joker Screenings.” September 24, 2019. (accessed October 06, 2019).}

_{² Daniel, Anslee. Bristol, “TN Drive-In Bans Costumes for Showing of ‘Joker.'” October 5, 2019. (accessed October 6, 2019).}

_{³ Desta, Yohana. “The ‘Joker’ Didn’t Inspire the Aurora Shooter, but the Rumor Won’t Go Away.” October 02, 2019. (accessed October 08, 2019).}

_{⁴ Fry, Hannah. “Credible Threat Targeting ‘Joker’ Screening Forces Huntington Beach Theater to Close.” October 4, 2019. (accessed October 4, 2019).}

_{⁵ Reeves, Jay. “Security, NY Incident Leave Some Unsettled After ‘Joker’.” October 5, 2019. (accessed October 6, 2019).}

_{⁶ Ledger’s portrayal garnered him 32 award nominations, leading to a staggering 28 wins, including an Academy Award for “Best Supporting Actor,” a Golden Globe for “Best Actor in a Supporting Role,” and a SAG award for “Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture.”}

_{CalvaryChapel.com does not necessarily endorse or agree with every message or perspective in the diverse film reviews posted. By providing these film reviews, we hope to help you stay informed of important events and conversations taking place in the world that are relevant to the Christian faith.}

_{Joker is rated R for strong bloody violence, disturbing behavior, language and brief sexual images.}