Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief

Transcription

1 Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief 4. The Peace Dividend (He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again) Sunday, February 15, to 10:50 am, in the Parlor Presenter: David Monyak

2 Primary Reference Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief, Rowan Williams, Westminister John Knox Press, Louisville, London, 2007

3 Primary Reference Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief, Rowan Williams, Westminister John Knox Press, Louisville, London, 2007

4 The Most Revd. Rowan Williams is the 104 th Archbishop of Canterbury. He was enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral on 27th February 2003

5 Born 1950 Studied theology at Cambridge DPhil at Oxford 1975 Priest to 1992: taught theology at Cambridge and Oxford 1986: Lady Margaret Professorship of Divinity at the University of Oxford 1991: Bishop of Monmouth in Anglican Church of Wales 1999: Archbishop of Wales Dec 2002: confirmed as the 104th bishop of the See of Canterbury Considered by many the best Protestant theologian in the world today Also a noted poet and translator of Welsh poetry

6 Tokens of Trust An Introduction to Christian Belief Jan 25. Who Can We Trust? (I believe in God the Father almighty) Feb 1: The Risk of Love (maker of heaven and earth) Feb 8: A Man for All Seasons (and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord) Feb 15: The Peace Dividend (He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again) Feb 22: God in Company (And I believe in one catholic and apostolic Church) Mar 1: Love, Actually (I look for the resurrection of the dead)

7 Almighty Father, who gave your only Son to die for our sins and to rise for our justification: Give us grace so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that we may always serve you in pureness of living and truth; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Collect for Friday in Easter Week, Book of Common Prayer,, p. 224

8 Last Week: 3. A Man for All Seasons (and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord)

9 A Man For All Seasons God as Father and as Son In Jesus, we see: divine purpose, power, and action but also: humility, responsiveness, receptivity Jesus prays to his Father and puts his will and his decisions at the service of his Father. He is in a relationship of dependence on the one he prays to as Father

10 A Man For All Seasons God as Father and as Son Therefore, if Jesus is God as Son, then our concept of God must include more than: power and initiative. It must also include: receiving, reflecting back in love and gratitude God as Father,, and as God as Son (= God as Jesus) suggests God s s love is: both a giving and receiving, both a flowing out and reflecting back, both an initiative and a depending God is not the life of a heavenly individual on his own, but mysteriously, a life within which there is relationship, inner movement, differentiation.

11 A Man For All Seasons Jesus as Fully God and Fully Human In the gospels we read how Jesus was a human being who suffered and wept, slept and awoke. He was vulnerable and mortal. Yet we also see in Jesus the incarnation of the eternal God, proclaiming the kingdom of God was breaking into creation, forgiving sins, healing the sick, commanding the winds and the waves. How do we mesh these two pictures together: Jesus as a human being, and Jesus, God as Son?

12 A Man For All Seasons Jesus as Fully God and Fully Human An analogy from music: When you look at a great musician playing a piece of music, you are looking at one human being playing at the limit of their skill and concentration. All their strength, their freedom, and even their love, is focused on bringing to life the work and vision of another person, the composer. As the vision and imagination of the composer comes through, it does not displace the human particularity of the performer, but might be said to saturate the performer's being for the time of the performance.

13 A Man For All Seasons Jesus as Fully God and Fully Human Now imagine an entire lifetime given to such a performance. Throughout his life, Jesus, the human being, is performing God s s love, God s s purpose, without a break, without a false note, without a stumble; yet he is never other than himself, with all that makes him distinctly human taken up with this creative work.

14 A Man For All Seasons Why Was Jesus Life Required? We have talked about WHO Jesus is But WHY exactly is this life, Jesus life, required?

15 This Week: 4. The Peace Dividend (He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again)

16 Breaking the Web of Original Sin

17 Original Sin The Kingdom of God Breaking In In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus (= God as Son), the kingly rule of God (= the Kingdom of God ) ) began to break into the human world. Human nature was transfigured, allowing those who say yes to what Jesus is saying to transform their lives and reveal to the world a foretaste of the Kingdom of God in all its glory. We can say: the Kingdom of God has broken into the human world. It is ALREADY.

18 Original Sin The Kingdom of God Not Yet But the Kingdom is also NOT YET We don t t see the promises of God: peace and praise, reconciliation and delight, abundantly in our world. We have the freedom to reflect the image and likeness of God, but often use our freedom only to protect ourselves Our world has set up potent defenses that separate individuals, nations, ethnic groups, classes and religions An economy of gifting = living by one another's generosity, is acknowledged in our: exchanges of family affection routine courtesies or kindnesses But most of the time, we avoid giving to each other.

19 Original Sin Inhibiting Us From Full Humanity The tangle we are in that inhibits us from being fully human and fully reflecting the image and likeness of God, is what we mean by Original Sin. Original Sin is: not a metaphysical curse hanging over humanity, but rather: the observation that learning how to exist in this life is now woven with learning that does not enhance our life or joy

20 Original Sin Inhibiting Us From Full Humanity We live entangled by webs: of rejection and defense, of drastically false accounts of who and what we are, that block or ensnare our freedom to make good choices. This tangle of Original Sin is a consequence of the wrong turns we and people of the generations before us have made: Miss a right turn on a highway, and it isn t t so simple to get back on course. Add multiple such missed turns over generations We are no longer human enough (full humanity = reflecting the image and likeness of God) to break the webs that entangle us.

21 Original Sin Breaking the Webs Yet a human act is needed to break through these webs and allow fearlessness in giving find its place at the heart of human relationships Only a human act will heal the process of human history: some moment in history that evinces and permanently changes the possibilities for human relationships.

22 Original Sin Jesus, The Human Event Jesus is the human event that breaks these webs that entangle us. Jesus humanity is soaked through with God as Son; it is a life without restriction, rivalry or envy in its capacity for giving. Or in other words: Jesus is perfect love made flesh and blood.

23 Original Sin Jesus Pays the Price of Sin Jesus perfect love and goodness however is unsettling and suspect in our world: The only fully human person (full humanity = fully reflecting the image and likeness of God) is seen as the enemy of humanity He pays the price of our ingrained revolt against who we really are (human beings, made in the image and likeness of God) Sin: the state of revolt against truth If we live in untruth, in self-deceit, we will ultimately destroy the life that is in us. In his violent death on the cross, Jesus pays the price of sin.

24 Original Sin Jesus Becomes Sin 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 NRSV) Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us for it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (Galatians 3:13 NRSV) More than that, in his dreadful physical suffering, his mental and spiritual torment as he cries to God asking why he has been forsaken Jesus: becomes a sort of embodied image for what we are = he becomes sin = he takes on himself the curse that we had laid on ourselves

25 He Suffered and Was Buried

26 He Suffered and Was Buried Sacrifice A common New Testament image for Jesus suffering and death on the cross is sacrifice. Sacrifice,, in Hebrew scripture, is a gift that makes peace with God. When we are alienated from God because of moral or ritual irregularity, that which we need to give to restore the relationship may be costly. There is also the sense in the Hebrew scriptures of obedience as a kind of sacrifice

27 He Suffered and Was Buried Sacrifice Jesus life and death may be seen as sacrifice in: The sense of his perfect obedience to God s purposes, an obedience that led to his death, The sense that his blood was shed, like that of the sacrificial animals under the Law of Moses, so to restore a broken relationship with God and the world

28 He Suffered and Was Buried Ransom Another image of Jesus death is a ransom, paid to our kidnappers (the powers of destruction) A punishment which we may deserve, voluntarily borne by another

29 He Suffered and Was Buried Images, Not Theories We should appreciate these images, but not treat them as conflicting theories on why Jesus life had to be given up, one of which must be right and the others wrong. All we can affirm for sure is what the Creed of Nicea says: he died for us and for our salvation He did not die because a vengeful and inflexible God demands satisfaction; rather: the state of our world somehow made it unavoidable that the path to our freedom lay through the self- giving of Jesus, even to the point of death.

30 He Suffered and Was Buried The Depth of Human Experience Jesus has plumbed the depths of human experience, including the terrible sense of abandonment by God that he endured on the cross; he has maintained his own peace with the Father throughout it, even in the heart of the protest wrung from him as he cries, Why? Why? He has travelled to the outermost limit of what our sin and untruthfulness produce to the edges of hell.

31 He Suffered and Was Buried The Depth of Human Experience Some theologians (Reformer John Calvin, Roman Catholic writer Hans Urs von Balthasar) ) have suggested that Jesus literally endured hell while on the cross Hell = the experience of final alienation from God Such ideas have difficulties, but do highlight that the cross is a sign of God s s willingness to accompany us through all the consequences of sin and finally to bring us back from the furthest point of distance from him that we could imagine.

32 He Suffered and Was Buried Descended into Hell In the Apostles Creed we do find the phrase he descended into hell The meaning intended here is that found in Ephesians 4:9-10, that Jesus descended to the lower earthly regions in order to fill the whole universe

33 The Peace Dividend

34 The Peace Dividend A New Creation When the Cold War ended, there was talk of a peace dividend since the monies and energies spent on war materials could be now channeled to new purposes. Out of the events of Good Friday and Easter, we might say there was also a peace dividend Out of the events of Good Friday and Easter came a New World, the New Creation St. Paul writes of.

35 The Peace Dividend God as Physical Presence The Resurrection of Jesus and the stories following tell us a remarkable fact about God s s love in this New World, this New Creation: Just as people met God s s absolute love before the crucifixion in the physical presence of Jesus of Nazareth, so they still do. After the Resurrection, we see Jesus doing what he always had done, calling the disciples to him, breaking bread with them, teaching them what the Scriptures say, making God present in his actual presence, his voice and touch. The Resurrection displays God s s triumphant love as still and for ever having the shape of Jesus.

36 The Peace Dividend The Spirit, The Breath of Jesus Life And there is something more. St Johns gospel tells us Jesus breathes into his disciples his spirit,, the breath of his life, and they then become equipped to do what Jesus does, to speak with Jesus voice to God and to the world. By breathing into the disciples, Jesus sets up a chain of human contact coming down to our own day, a chain of voices and faces in which He is active.

37 The Peace Dividend The Spirit, The Breath of Jesus Life Disciples to this day who have so received the breathe of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, become Jesus body in the world. To be in contact with a human being who has received the breath of Jesus life is to be in contact with Jesus.

38 In the Atmosphere of the Holy Spirit

39 The Holy Spirit The Risen and Ascended Jesus Jesus of Nazareth the human individual no longer inhabits the earth; he has ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. at the right hand of the Father means: When you look at God, you cannot help but see Jesus Jesus is inseparable from what God is; he is forever part of our sense and understanding of the Divine life.

40 The Holy Spirit A Contact Before It Is A Message Christianity is a contact before it is a message : The risen and ascended Jesus is not merely an idea, but remains a living person. We meet Jesus in the flesh and blood persons who have received the breath of Jesus life, the persons who (whatever their individual failings and fears) have been thus equipped to take responsibility for Jesus tangible presence in the world.

41 The Holy Spirit The Breathe of Jesus Life The divine life between God as Father and as God as Jesus, involves: both giving and receiving, both a flowing out and reflecting back, both an initiative and a depending This loving inner movement within God, this witnessing between God as Father and God as Jesus is what is being communicated in the mysterious agency we have called the breath of Jesus life, or more commonly, the Holy Spirit (literally, the Holy Breath )

42 The Holy Spirit The Atmosphere of the Holy Breath The fellowship of Jesus disciples is formed by their breathing together the atmosphere of the Holy Breath, the Holy Spirit. All who breathe the Holy Spirit can relate to God the Father just as Jesus did: In St. John s s Gospel: Jesus tells Mary Magdalene when he appears to her on Easter: I am returning to my Father and your Father (John 20:17 NIV) St. Paul tells us: you received the Spirit of sonship.. And by him we cry, Abba, Father (Romans 8:15 NIV) Abba = the same Aramaic word for Father Jesus used in his prayers

43 The Holy Spirit The Atmosphere of the Holy Breath Every time we say the Lords Prayer, Our Father who art in Heaven, we are proclaiming that Jesus is now the atmosphere we live in. In Jesus, in the strength of his Holy Breath, we can grow up into intimacy with God.

44 Already Versus Not Yet

45 Already Versus Not Yet The Second Big Bang When we celebrate Easter, we are celebrating a second Big Bang, a tumultuous surge of divine energy as fiery and intense as the physical energy of first Big Bang that began the universe. The atmosphere of the world has changed, charged with the Holy Spirit, and so St. Paul writes of a New Creation coming into existence (the Kingdom of God breaking in). Some Christians poets have spoken of Easter Day as an extra day of creation, an eighth day of the week, where everything before is taken up and begins again.

46 Already Versus Not Yet God Is At the End of Our Story But the tension between God s s Kingdom as ALREADY but NOT YET remains. Our history is still on-going, and remains all too visibly a history of suffering, rebellion, and uncertainty. We can be certain that God is the end of our story, and our history will not ultimately fall away into final, irredeemable chaos.

47 Already Versus Not Yet Hope Therefore, there is much to hope for. But hope by its nature is something projected in the darkness (St. Paul, Romans 8:24, NRSV: Now hope that is seen is not hope at all. Who hopes for what is seen?) Until Jesus comes again to judge the living and the dead, unknown trials and crises lie ahead of us.

48 Living in the Light of Christ

49 Living in the Light of Christ The Last Judgment At the Last Judgment, in the light of Christ everything and everyone will finally be shown for what they are, and find their true place. We do not know (and cannot know) the date of the final end. Therefore we must live our lives: 1. As if the end might be at any moment, and 2. With complete responsibility for the here and now In other words: we must learn to live now in the light of Christ s s truth.

50 Living in the Light of Christ Finding Balance The challenge in living in the light of Christ s s truth is finding the balance between: Doing what is required of us here and now Detaching ourselves from the pressures of here and now in light of the possible imminent coming of Christ We need to figure out what truly matters and what does not matter. We must take our responsibilities with deep seriousness; and then we must learn to say, If we don't succeed in the way we wanted, so be it; God is still God.

51 Living in the Light of Christ Lead Us Not Into Temptation When we pray in the Lord s s Prayer lead us not into temptation, we are asking God not to bring us immediately to a trial we are not prepared for. Don't bring us naked, fearful, helpless and confused into the presence of absolute truth and love; give us time to get used to the fierce light of Christ.

52 Living in the Light of Christ Living in the Light, Out of the Shadows The New Testament interweaves two themes of the second coming of Christ: The light, transparency, and glory of his coming, when everything and everyone will finally be shown for what they are. The necessary daily task of putting to death our selfish and fearful habits to prepare for that coming. We have to live in the light of the end not gloomily and fearfully, but trying to bring ourselves relentlessly out of the shadows where we hide from God and ourselves and each other.

53 Next Week: 5. God in Company (And I believe in one catholic and apostolic Church)

54 God in Company The Spirit That Gives Communion The Holy Spirit, the breath of Jesus life, is described in the Bible both as: the Spirit of truth the Spirit that gives communion, communion, or sharing This communion or sharing includes the sense of having something in common, of belonging to the same group or family. Next week: we explore what it means for us to be meeting God in company, in communion