Jesus is the Messiah OR Jesus is a 55 Gallon Drum Liner’s Worth of Nutbag!

By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

The lynchpin of the entire Christian faith is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah, from the dead.  This is the method of God’s mercy to bring new birth and living hope.  The new birth promised begins with the new birth of Jesus at His resurrection.  He was, to use that worn out yet loaded term, literally, born again. 

Now choose.  You believe Jesus was resurrected, brought back from the dead, by the power of God, or you don’t.  If you believe it, the system makes sense, Jesus the final blood sacrifice, Jesus the instrument of God’s perfect mercy, Jesus the First Born of the New Creation.  If you don’t believe it, if you consider Jesus simply to be a ‘moral leader’ or a ‘teacher of good’, my question is how?

If it wasn’t all true, Jesus exhibited suicidal tendencies, he was definitely delusional, probably manifesting a full blown break with reality.  He advocated very strange religio-cannibalistic behavior and the Romans did us a favor by killing him.  Despite all that, he was the charismatic leader extraordinaire, because he inspired his followers to perpetuate the most effective cover up in history.  That charismania continues to this very day, because people who don’t believe in the whole death to life thing can ignore all the crazy talk and still praise him for his ethical teachings.  You can’t have it both ways. 

Jesus is the Messiah OR Jesus is a 55 gallon drum liner’s worth of nutbag!

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the lynchpin of Christianity.  It is the ultimate demonstration of God’s merciful power, to return us from the judgment of our sins-death-to life, but not simply as it is now, but a life made new in Jesus.  From here, we look to what that means for us.

To quote Ripley, “A man came back from the dead…believe it, or not.”

Salvation History, Rooted in the Jewish Faith

By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

God is giving us a new birth.  The implication is that the old one is all messed up.  Peter is writing to a Jewish audience in the First Century.  What was the expectation of the “old birth”?  What was the expectation of the “living hope”?  There was not the distinction of Christian thought and Jewish thought at that time as there is today.  How do we understand this?

There are expectations of a Messiah throughout the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament.  Peter’s familiarity with that book (the New Testament had yet to be written) draws a consideration of basing these understandings on what he would have understood.

A new birth contrasts to the old birth.  The old birth returns to the beginning of Genesis, to the creation of humanity-its birth, and its fall and separation from God.  Under the ‘old birth’, was there hope in making things right with God?  Yes, through the Law of Moses.  There was a system of animal sacrifice, blood for blood, to provide a substitute to atone for sins committed.  The ‘living hope’ seems to a sacrifice that continues to live.  And Jesus is the provider of both, as we are to see in the next phrase.

But this is the foundation of interpreting the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  The foundation is that in God’s great mercy, God gave a new birth and a living hope.  At the time of its writing, these expectations were drawn from the Jewish audience to whom Peter is writing.  These expectations were not made up by Peter as he wrote. 

What disturbs me, as a Christian, is the divide we have today from the roots of our faith.  That divide makes Christians responsible for horrible atrocities committed against our Jewish brothers and sisters.  But without God’s covenant with and care of the Jewish faith, we Christians would have nothing.

I thank the Lord for the gift of the whole of our Scripture, the entire unfolding of Your will.

Mercy; God Reaching Into The Muck 1 Peter 1: 3-5 or so...

By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

 “By his great mercy…”  This is the reason for all God has done for humanity.  It has been done out of mercy.  If not for mercy, there is condemnation.  This is the black and white (to use an outdated metaphor), good and bad, the absolutes of God’s perfection.  Obey or die.  It is that absolutist mentality that has led many to despair that God doesn’t care.  It is that same mentality that has led many others to believe they can kill in God’s name in some warped sense of God’s justice.

The experience of life is an experience of shades of gray, between good and evil.  For we, the broken sinners who make up humanity, we are coming from the evil side and seeking justification that all our bad behavior has shades of goodness within.  Systems of sacrifice, codes of behavior, obligations, these are all means by which we, as humans, seek to reach levels of goodness, higher levels of acceptance, trying to achieve ever lighter shades of grey. 

God’s mercy flips that on its ear.  God comes to us from the good side, mercy reaching down into the broken, sinful lives of people.  We act from desperation, God acts without expectation.  There is not a code to follow, there is simply acceptance of His mercy.  He reaches down, will we take His hand?  He shines a light into the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.

Sidebar: Are we really so bad and broken?  Well, we’ve tied the metaphor of “white and black as good and evil” to our racial profiles.  Slavery, murder, and genocide have all resulted from it.  We cannot even talk about ‘shades of grey’ without snickering comments about there being 50 of them (I rewrote this section three times to overcome my own amusement at the word play). 

Thank you Lord for reaching to us because we are never going to reach You.

Salvation History in Under A Hundred Words

1 Peter 1: 3-5 (approximately)

"By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."

Peter has blessed God.  Here, he lays out why this blessing is so appropriate.  In one sentence, he lays out the promise and process of God's saving plan for us all.  It is a primer to the whole of our faith experience.

By his great mercy…  “his”, God’s great mercy, His mercy being delivered to us instead of deserved judgment.

he has given us a new birth into a living hope …  It is a fresh start in our existence to a new and better way.

through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴… In this act, mercy, new birth, and a living hope come together, risen from the dead.

and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, …  Note how this language connects back to some of the descriptions of God!

kept in heaven for you, ⁵... There is an eternal aspect to this inheritance.

who are being protected by the power of God through faith … Fort Knox and the Bank of England have nothing on this protective power, but note its source.

for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  “Last time”, sounds like the Book of Revelations.

Blessings, God, and Jesus…

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

 In one sentence, we see three of the most significant words in the Christian faith.  Moving forward, references to God and to Jesus, unless there is something new to unpack from them, will be connected to the context in which they arise.  That is, there won’t be a fresh posting every time “Jesus” comes up.

Peter is blessing God.  What comes next unpacks this thesis.  Peter starts by explaining why God is to be blessed, outlining what God has done in the lives of all believers.  That will carry us to verse 6 in the next sentence.  From there, Peter outlines why rejoicing is the proper response to these gifts from God.  This paragraph is completed by Peter’s recognition that although his readers are not eyewitnesses to Jesus, there is still reason to rejoice.

So we will look to this first theme of Peter’s letter, why the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is truly to be blessed.

 

Our 'Lord Jesus Christ' is NOT a Name in the Order of 'Neal Patrick Harris'!

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

He is ours and God is his Father.  That is the first thing to note about Jesus.  The second thing to note is that his last name isn’t “Christ”.  He is not Jesus Christ, son of Joseph and Mary Christ of Bethlehem and Nazareth. 

 

Some Greek is appropriate here.  Christ is from the Greek word “Christo”, which means “the Anointed One”.  So, he is Jesus, the Anointed One.  The Anointed One refers across the Bible to the Messiah, in the Old Testament this is he who is promised by God to redeem God’s people.  Priests and kings, servants of God, were also anointed in the Old Testament, but the Christ, THE ANOINTED ONE, has unique significance, combining the powers and responsibilities of both offices.

 

As our “Lord”, Jesus is our Royal Ruler, our King, our Boss, and our Master.  O Captain, my Captain…Jesus is he.  It is a class difference (divine versus human) and can easily rub against our democratic ideals of all people being created equal.  Jesus, being God and human, is outside our usual parameters for defining ‘people’. 

 

“Jesus” is the best part.  It is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew name “Joshua”.  Joshua (when translated from the Hebrew, means “God saves”!!) was the war leader of the Israelites who led them into the Promised Land.  There is an entire theology of name significance and historic parallels that can be built between Joshua and Jesus. 

 

So, to sum up, “our Lord Jesus Christ” becomes ours-belonging to us-our King and Ruler, Joshua (like the kick-butt guy in the Old Testament) who is the Anointed One of God and Promised Messiah to save everybody.  Our Lord Jesus Christ is much easier on the ears.

And Neal Patrick Harris is pretty cool too.

How Do We Understand God the Father?

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

“The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…”  Our focus is on God and Father.  They are the same ‘person’ in the Trinity, but the second helps to define the first.  When we say “God”, we are attempting to define the undefinable.  Here is one attempt:

Q. 7. What is God?

A. God is a Spirit, in and of himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness, and perfection; all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty; knowing all things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.

 

This is given courtesy of the Westminster Larger Catechism.  What are not included here are the fourteen footnotes outlining a summary of the biblical passages from which this description of God is drawn.

 

Peter narrows what he wants us to understand about God in this sentence as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God here is the parent-figure.  Here is the wall we run into: Father?  What about Mother?  Is God a male at the expense of the female? 

 

So, consider metaphor.  The bible uses language we understand and are familiar with in an attempt to establish a relationship with God (The bible writers were never interested in helping us ‘define’ God).  On the one hand, God is neither male nor female.  On the other, male and female are created in God’s image.  To understand God as Father is to understand God as Mother, is to understand God as Parent.

 

But God is a particular kind of Parent.  God is NOT abstract.  Therefore, if we were to update the language of the Lord’s Prayer, I would not like opening the Lord’s Prayer with “Our Parent who art in heaven…”  I would prefer “Our Father and Mother who art in heaven…” 

 

But, I don’t use that language.  I use the traditional male dominant language of “Our Father who art in heaven…”

 

Now we are about to go off track, no longer connecting to God and Father, but to sinful males and females.  I am not going there today.

 

The metaphor of Father and Mother as connected to God is rooted in the definition of God, in Question 7 of the Westminster Catechism.  Some of the words that really appeal to me are ‘wise, holy, just, merciful, gracious, and longsuffering (a really cool if ancient word for ‘patience’).

 

In other words, God is the ideal Father and Mother.  In our sinful world, Father and Mother are loaded with all the baggage of our sinful natures.  If you are coming to God and the only image you have of a ‘father’ is the abusing bastard who turned the life of your whole family into a living  hell or the only image you have of a ‘mother’ is someone who decided your family was not worth her happiness and disappeared, you are not coming to God to argue about gender issues in divine naming.

 

You are coming to God to find healing.  You are coming to God to learn what a father and a mother can truly be.  You can look at the mothers and fathers of families around you where love exists and you can find that love for yourself in God.  The image of parent can be redeemed as surely as Christ has redeemed us all.

 

But that is a story for tomorrow.