"Is It madness To Believe Such A Thing?"

 

¹³And when he forgave us all our trespasses, ¹⁴erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.(Col 2)

The word “erasing” has once again caught my imagination.  

In the Greek the verb — erasing — is: to dissolve, blow out, turn or switch off, extinguish and douce.

I am thinking this morning of how unbelievable this erasing is to the majority of the Christian world, not to mention the entire universe. 

Is there a God who is so gracious and understanding?

Is there such a God who actually said:  

as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us.    

Or: ....for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. 

¹⁰ He does not deal with us according to our sins,
   nor repay us according to our iniquities. 
¹¹ For as the heavens are high above the earth,
   so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him; 
¹² as far as the east is from the west,
   so far he removes our transgressions from us. (Ps 103)

31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ³²It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. ³³But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31)

Does this truly mean that the most horrible of sins can be erased?  

Gone forever?

To quote a famous theologian in his book, ‘A Room Called Remember, ’ Frederick Buechner writes:  “Is it madness to believe such a thing?  That is a serious question.  Is it madness to believe in God at all let alone in a God who speaks to us through such obscure and fleeting moments as these and then asks us to believe that these moments are windows into the truest meaning and mystery of the cosmos itself?  It is a kind of madness indeed.” (p.28)

Now to clarify, Buechner was  talking about the Exodus 3 text. When God spoke to Moses out of burning bush.  When God ask Moses to go and save the Israelites from Egyptian’s oppressive slavery.

None-the -less, erasing sins is as impossible as having God talk to us from a burning bush after all. 

Or anywhere else for that matter. 

                                                  Right?

And yet, as I sit and think about all of the centuries that have past since God talked to Moses, and Paul wrote to the Colossians.  And our world is still looking to the hope offered from the story of a God who came to earth in Jesus skin. 

There is still a thing called worship that draws all kinds of people to come and to hear the word of God spoken.

Down through the ages the madness -- God’s truth -- still pulls at people’s hearts and minds.

So there must be something to this madness after all.

Don’t you think?

Human Wisdom Has Lead Us astray

 I am still thinking about the my last blog where I talked about all of the diverse messages that surround us daily

The Apostle Paul is writing to the Colossians about the presence of false teachers who assume a superior way of thinking about how this world should think and be — over against the teachings of Jesus.  

We know of such teachers in our present day.

Paul is asking them to remember their true “roots..”  Ignoring those who would lead you away from God.

¹⁸Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking,…

How often do we tend to listen to the ways of "human thinking?"

We get caught up in the rules and regulations of our earthly culture; and then make decisions, and form opinions, according to today's worldview. 

That must have been happening with in the Colossians community as well.

All these centuries, how do we learn to separate the ways of Christ with the way of our modern cultural human understanding of how to live together?

 20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations,… 

This issue is huge in our nation and all over the world -- the need to own power and authority. 

Just stop for a moment and think about all of the myths that inform our day-to-day living. 

If nothing else the nightly new casts are enough to prove Paul's point.

I am inviting you to attempt to remember a world other than what we hear on the news, about all the deceitful philosophies and power hungry leaders who claim to be about "your own interests."

 

It is my honest assessment anything -- anything -- that temps us, or tries to lead us away from what Jesus came to teach and model for us, are simply philosophies and empty deceits.  According to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ.  

So I am wondering how you and I start to remember -- reflect on-- how we reorder our thought processes???

When is it that we start to say 'no' to all those who cleverly gain our attention away from the wisdom of Jesus?

When will we begin to live according to God's original design.  You and I "as His image?"

20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations,…

6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, ⁷rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. 8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. ⁹For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, ¹⁰and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority….

16 Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. ¹⁷These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. ¹⁸Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, ¹⁹and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.

20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations,…(Colossians 2)

Have We "Dethroned" Jesus

 Richard L. Eslinger writes in his Theological perspective :

“One other temptation confronts the church….The tactic is familiar and chronic: when faced with a pluralistic world with all kinds of gods and causes, just ratchet down your Christology to make Jesus fit in. Diminish your Jesus until he will not disturb or upset anyone……...  But what if Jesus Christ is the image of God?  Imagine — all things created through him, all things fulfilled in him, creator of all that is, both seen and unseen.  Consider all these powers — these “thrones” and “dominions.”  If Christ is the “firstborn of all creation,” then these powers were created by him and through the cross have been “dethroned.”   They can no longer enslave. What if everything holds together in the One who is the image of God?”  (Feasting on the Word Year C, Volume 3, page 261)

Have we, in our cultural world, actually “dethroned” Jesus?

I invited you to reflect on that for some moments.

In my truth we have dethroned the One who came to reveal to us the God of all creation.

We have reduced his identity to just someone who once roamed the world doing Good, healing people and teaching about the love of God.

We don’t perceive, nor understand, the man Jesus was/is.

I may have told you this but one evening, just before confirmation class, a young man came into my office and sat down.  He made a statement that caught my attention:  “Pastor Marcia I believe in God.  I just don’t get were Jesus fits.  What is the need for Jesus in the story?”

I don’t remember now what I answered.

However, that question clearly hangs out loud in our world today, doesn’t it?

There is an entire denomination that has moved away from Christianity because of such questions ask by that confirmation student that evening.

 

But what if Jesus Christ is the image of God?  

And why does this matter anyway?

In my imagination it matters because, in my understanding, the God of the Old Testament realised that his human creatures had gotten very mixed up and turned in opposite directions.  

They had lost the real truth about their God.

They needed some help coming back to the original purpose that God made them in the first place.

So God decided to actually come down to earth and walk among his confused people. 

            God incarnated!

                                   God actually with us in the skin of Jesus.

He came to begin again, in person, to adjust their understanding of the who, and what, and why of God; and God’s true character.

He came to broaden their archetype of this God that the human mind had limited by their lack of understanding.