Come and Go
Sunday school with Dr. Frank Carver and Dr. Herb Prince for Easter Sunday, 20
April 2014 at San Diego First Church of the Nazarene
An Easter (?)
word from Rotterdam!
Heaven is
where:
the police are
British,
the chefs
Italian,
the mechanics
German,
the lovers
French,
and it is all
organized by the Swiss.
Hell is where
The police are
German,
The
chefs British,
The mechanics
French
The lovers
Swiss,
And it is all organized by the Italians.[Found
recently on the Facebook page of Jacob Overduin, formerly District
Superintendent in the Netherlands, now pastor of the Church of the Nazarene in
Rotterdam, Holland.]
“the hope that
is in you” [1 Peter 3:15.]
Easter 2014
Lectionary
Readings for Easter Sunday: Psalm 118:1 Give thanks to Yahweh, for he is good,
for his
loving kindness endures forever.
2 Let Israel
now say
that his
loving kindness endures forever.
14 Yah is my
strength and song.
He has
become my salvation.
15 The voice
of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous.
“The right
hand of Yahweh does valiantly.
16 The right
hand of Yahweh is exalted!
The right
hand of Yahweh does valiantly!”
17 I will
not die, but live,
and declare
Yah’s works.
18 Yah has
punished me severely,
but he has
not given me over to death.
19 Open to
me the gates of righteousness.
I will enter
into them.
I will give
thanks to Yah.
20 This is
the gate of Yahweh;
the
righteous will enter into it.
21 I will
give thanks to you, for you have answered me,
and have
become my salvation.
22 The stone
which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.
23 This is
Yahweh’s doing.
It is
marvelous in our eyes.
24 This is
the day that Yahweh has made.
We will
rejoice and be glad in it! [ Jeremiah 31: At that time, says Yahweh, will
I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. 2
Yahweh says, The people who were left of the sword found favor in the
wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest. 3 Yahweh appeared of
old to me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore
with loving kindness have I drawn you. 4 Again will I build you, and you shall
be built, O virgin of Israel: again you shall be adorned with your tambourines,
and shall go out in the dances of those who make merry. 5 Again you shall plant
vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant, and shall
enjoy its fruit. 6 For there shall be a day, that the watchmen on the hills of
Ephraim shall cry, Arise, and let us go up to Zion to Yahweh our God.is also
listed. ]
Colossians
3: If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are
above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the
things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth. 3 For you died,
and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, our life, is
revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory.
Acts 10: 34 Peter opened his mouth and said, “Truly I perceive that God doesn’t show
favoritism; 35 but in every nation he who fears him and works righteousness is
acceptable to him. 36 The word which he sent to the children of Israel,
preaching good news of peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all— 37 you
yourselves know what happened, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea,
beginning from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached; 38 even Jesus of
Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went
about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was
with him. 39 We are witnesses of everything he did both in the country of the
Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they also[a] killed, hanging him on a tree. 40 God
raised him up the third day, and gave him to be revealed, 41 not to all the
people, but to witnesses who were chosen before by God, to us, who ate and
drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the
people and to testify that this is he who is appointed by God as the Judge of
the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him, that through
his name everyone who believes in him will receive remission of sins.”
[Footnotes:a.
Acts 10:39 TR omits “also”]
John 20: Now
on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went early, while it was still
dark, to the tomb, and saw the stone taken away from the tomb. 2 Therefore she
ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and
said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know
where they have laid him!”
3 Therefore
Peter and the other disciple went out, and they went toward the tomb. 4 They
both ran together. The other disciple outran Peter, and came to the tomb first.
5 Stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths lying, yet he didn’t enter
in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and entered into the tomb. He saw
the linen cloths lying, 7 and the cloth that had been on his head, not lying
with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 So then the other
disciple who came first to the tomb also entered in, and he saw and believed. 9
For as yet they didn’t know the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10
So the disciples went away again to their own homes.
11 But Mary
was standing outside at the tomb weeping. So, as she wept, she stooped and
looked into the tomb, 12 and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the
head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. 13 They told her,
“Woman, why are you weeping?”
She said to
them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have
laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing,
and didn’t know that it was Jesus.
15 Jesus
said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?”
She,
supposing him to be the gardener, said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him
away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”
16 Jesus
said to her, “Mary.”
She turned
and said to him, “Rabboni!”[a] which is to say, “Teacher!”[b]
17 Jesus
said to her, “Don’t hold me, for I haven’t yet ascended to my Father; but go to
my brothers, and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my
God and your God.’”
18 Mary
Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he
had said these things to her.
[Footnotes:
a. John
20:16 Rabboni is a transliteration of the Hebrew word for “great teacher.”
b. John
20:16 or, Master](World English Bible
1 Peter 3:15: “In your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready
to make your
defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that
is in you.”
It is consistent with what we know of God through Christ to believe
that in the life beyond there will be continuance of the individual soul,
fellowship with those we love, a lifting of earthly chains of pain and
suffering, a chance to grow in the things of Christ, the glory of God’s nearer
presence.[Georgia Harness, The Dark Night of the Soul (New York:
Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1945), 94.]
Eternal life is not another and second life, beyond the present one. [Karl
Barth: Letters 1961-1968, Edited by Jȕrgen Fangmeier and Hinrich Stoevesandt,
translated and edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1981), 9.]
“lead me in the way everlasting” [Psalm 139:24.]
Introduction
As we did Easter Sunday 2012, it is appropriate to remember again those
whom we have lost by death over the years from our midst who remind us of
death’s reality, inevitability, and finality, and our hope of the resurrection.
We gratefully remember the presence among us of
Margerie Elon Fisher (11/19/11)
Cecil Miller (4/28/10)
C. William Fisher (10/11/10)
Mary Irvine (5/15/08)
Donald Powell (6/24/08)
Robert Irvine (12/9/07)
Lois Brown (1/25/07)
Dick Willis (11/23/03)
Betty Kochendorfer (2/14/03)
Debbie Nixon (1/31/02)
Don Kochendorfer (4/14/99)
Dorothy Dykman (3/7/99)
Larry Finger (2/18/99)
Frank Ernst (5/21/96)
Today is Easter Sunday, a day in which we give special attention to the resurrection of Jesus and
to the faith-reality of life after physical death. A look at the lectionary
readings for today discovers some verses that relate to our theme of hope:
Psalms 118:1, 24
O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his steadfast love endures forever! . . .
This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Colossians 3:1-4
So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the
things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set
your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you
have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Acts 10: 34, 36, 39-41, 43
Then Peter began to speak to them: . . . You know
the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he
is Lord of all. . . . They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God
raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all people but to
us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he
rose from the dead. . . . All the prophets testify about him that everyone who
believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
John 20:2, 8
So she ran and said to Simon Peter and the other
disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord
out of the tomb, and we do now know where they have laid him.” . . . Then the
other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw, and
believed.
One morning early this year, as I was reading slowly through the Greek
text of 1 Peter, I came across an expression that caught and captures my
attention:
“the hope that is in you.”
The context of the expression is a threatened persecution of the
Church; our verse is preceded by an exhortation,
Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what
is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do
not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify
Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from
you an accounting for the hope that is in you” (3:13-15).
The question immediately arose, how do I articulate in plain words the
hope that is within me as a Christian? How do I express that hope in down to
earth language in a way that relates to who I am and how I think now? In terms
of my real every-day world, with what concepts and images do I define “the hope
that is within me”? John’s picture of “the holy city . . . coming down out
heaven from God” for some reason just does not cut it for me:
The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as
glass. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel. .
. . And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl,
and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass (Revelation 21:1,
2, 18, 21).
Why would walking on streets of gold that I can see through like glass fill
me with as much pleasure even as walking in the green meadows that follow the
creek that winds its way through the ranch-land of my youth? What expressions,
even metaphors can I realistically use to convey “the hope that is within me” as
a Christian? I am asking for your help!
I.
“the hope
that is in you”
So I put the question to you, “How do you put words to the hope is that
is within you if you stay away from ‘unreal’ metaphors and images like ‘golden
streets’”? And what is a “real” image? I would suggest one like that reported
of Moses in Exodus 33:11, “Thus the LORD used to speak with Moses face to face,
as one speaks to a friend.”
I skimmed through lines of the hymns on “Life Everlasting” in our
current hymnbook giving attention to the images and metaphors employed. Many of
the hymns are meaningful, heart-warming, and a joy to faith. The only hymn
lines that I could find, however, that are near to biblical reality are in the
hymn “Face to Face”:
Face to face with Christ, my Savior,
Face to face—what will it be
When with rapture I behold him,
Jesus Christ who died for me.
Face to face- O blissful moment!
Face to face- to see and know;
Face to face with my Redeemer,
Jesus Christ who loves me so! [“Face to Face,”
Sing to the Lord (Kansas City, MO: Lillenas Publishing Company, 1993), #661.
See hymns #650-666.]
So--“How would you go about expressing the hope is that is within you without
relying exclusively on “unreal” metaphors and images? We are listening! Talk to
us about your Christian hope!
[A
stimulating discussion followed.]
Reading recently Georgia Harkness’ The Dark Night of the Soul I came
across a testimony from an interview of a person who endured what Harkness
describes as “the dark night of the soul”:
“I hungered to know God. . . . Internally I lived
in hell though I walked the earth.
But I no longer live in hell. I still walk the
earth, but I live in heaven. How did I get there?” [Georgia Harkness, The
Dark Night of the Soul (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1945), 62.]
As suggested by this exclamation from one who has gone through deep
mental and spiritual agony, I believe that a fundamental expression of “the
hope that is in us” is that of the first of P. T. Forsyth’s three great
affirmations about the Christian hope:
“The other life then is the other life now.” [A. M. Hunter, P. T.
Forsyth (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1974), 116-117, ]. The
other two affirmations are (1) “Immortality is a gift” and (2) “The future
there is the fruition of failure here.”]
We will reflect on Forsyth’s
affirmation by looking first at some quotations and then at some selected
Scripture texts that lend themselves to the vision of the essential continuity
between “this life and the next.”
II.
Quotations
that Elaborate
From P. T. Forsyth, This Life and the Next: [P. T. Forsyth, This
Life and the Next: The Effect on this Life of Faith in Another (Boston: The
Pilgrim Press, 1948 [1918]), 62, 68, 92, 94. This was Forsyth’s last book.]
We are living the life beyond. . . . Our eternal
life is not at the end of our days but at the heart of them the source of them,
the control of them.”
Time is sacramental of eternity. . . . Life means
even more than the poets tell. . . . It is more than everlasting. It has a holy
and eternal worth.
In the Christian faith “we die but once, but we are born twice.”
Immortality . . . is behavior in a new dimension.
When we die it is into an immortality which is only a new departure in
the old rebirth and its new life.
From N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: [N. T. Wright, Surprised by
Hope: Rethinking Heaven, The Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New
York: HarperOne, 2008), 193.]
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.
From Rob Bell, Love Wins: [Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book About
Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (New York: HarperOne,
2011), 44-45, 58-59.]
Jesus teaches us to live now in such a way that
what we create, who we give our efforts to, and how we spend our time will all
endure in the new world.
when Jesus talked about heaven, he was talking
about our present eternal, intense, real experiences of joy, peace, and love in
this life, this side of death and the age to come. Heaven for Jesus wasn’t just
“someday’; it was a present reality. Jesus blurs the lines, inviting [us] into
the merging of heaven and earth, the future and present, here and now.
Eternal life is less about a kind of time that
starts when we die, and more about a quality and vitality of life lived now in
connection to God.
Eternal life doesn’t start when we die;
it starts now.
It is not about a life that begins at death;
it’s about experiencing the kind of life now that can
endure and survive even death.
III.
Scripture
Texts the Relate
Psalm 139:23-24:
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
The way that lasts!
Matthew 6:10:
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven”
Now!
John 17:3; 1 John 5:11-12:
And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
Sea
God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his
Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does
not have life.
To know God in Jesus his Son is already eternal
life!
Romans 5:2, 5:
. . . we have obtained access into this grace in
which we stand, . . . and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has
been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Receive the Spirit!
2 Corinthians 1:21-22 (5:5); 5:15, 17:
But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ
and has anointed us, by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our
hearts as a first installment.
And he died for all, so that those who live might
live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. .
. . So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has
passed away; see, everything has become new!
The death and resurrection of Christ have brought
about a second and new creation in which to live!
Colossians 3:1-4:
So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the
things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set
your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you
have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Since as Christians we have already “died,” we are “raised
with Christ” and our
lives now are “hidden with Christ in God.”
Hebrews 3:1, 6; 4:1, 3, 9:
Therefore holy brothers and sisters, partners in a
heavenly calling. [Using the NRSV, but putting the adjective “holy” where
the Greek text has it. “Partners” could also be translated as “partakers” or
“sharers.”] . . . Christ, however, was faithful over God’s house as a
son, and we are his house if we hold firm the confidence and the pride that
belong to hope. . . .
the promise of his rest is still open. . . . we who
have believed enter that rest . . . --a Sabbath rest.
The entire book of Hebrews as I read it envisions the life of the
Christian as one consistent package in continuity of essence between our life
now and our lives then. This we have seen in some of our recent discussions on
our journey through this marvelous sermonic document. In 3:1 we are now said to
be “partners in a heavenly calling,” that is, our calling is as “partakers of
heaven” (NASB), we are “sharing in heaven’s life” as our feet walk the dust and
dirt of earth.
Particularly, and almost overwhelmingly suggestive is the “sabbath
rest” of 4:1-11. Kevin Anderson in his recent thorough work on Hebrews has
shown convincingly that the concept of a “sabbath rest” (Greek: sabbatismos) in
Jewish and Christian literature is “an image of the world to come,” that is, it
is found in a “stream of interpretation that views the Sabbath rest as an
eschatological reality.” [ Anderson, Hebrews, 130.]
This takes us back to Genesis 2 to the image of “God’s rest” on the
seventh day of creation that defines the life of God himself in relation to the
heavens and the earth—to the dwelling of God in the cosmos as his temple. This
rest of God in his cosmos-temple is declared in Hebrews to be for the believer:
“we who have believed enter that rest.” The Christian’s rest in a Son,
therefore, partakes of the rest, the life, that the holy God himself enjoys, and
that without the limits of evening and morning.
The eschatological, the future sabbath rest of God has authentically
broken into the present, earthly life of the Christian. The rest is one
inseparable and continuous package between this life and the next that needs
only to come into full flower. [At this point, we wonder if the older,
useful at the time, distinction between the “already but not yet” eschatological tension, between “realized” and
“futuristic” eschatology does not fully fit here, perhaps even if the book of
Hebrews as a whole.]
Conclusion: How
Thin is the Veil Between?
Marcus Borg in the
final chapter, “A Vision of the Christian Life,” of the jointly written book The
Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (his and that of N. T. Wright), has a fascinating
paragraph:
Celtic Christianity
speaks of “thin places.” The metaphor has its home in a vision of reality that
affirms that reality has at least two layers or levels or dimensions: the
visible world of our ordinary experience, and the sacred, understood not only
as the source of everything but also as a presence interpenetrating everything.
In “thin places” the boundary between the two levels becomes soft and
permeable, the veil becomes diaphanous [of
a transparent texture] and sometimes lifts. Jesus was a “thin place,” as
are the stories and practices of the tradition that remembers and celebrates
him. Through these ways and more, the living Christ comes to us and transforms
our life, even today. [Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of
Jesus” Two Visions (HarperCollins Publishers, 1999), 250.]
The NASB translates Hebrews 10:19-20 as
Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place
by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us
through the veil, that is, His flesh. [NRSV: “Therefore, my friends, since
we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and
living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his
flesh).”]
Jesus’ flesh, his body, what he did in his physical life on earth, is
identified as “the veil” at the entrance of “the holy place” or the “sanctuary”
(tōn hagiōn). [The full interpretation of this imagery, not without its
difficulties, awaits a study down the road.] In Jesus, through “his
flesh,” the Christian enters the place where God supremely dwells; Hebrews
speaks of it as the heavenly sanctuary (8:1-2). In Jesus, for the Christian,
heaven and earth are now, in spiritual reality, “one place.”
How thin is the veil between heaven and earth? The veil is as thin as
Jesus, the Son of God—his person and work! He is the veil, the one that hangs between
us and the father, between heaven and earth. [This imagery could
fruitfully/theologically expanded with reference to Hebrews 6:19 and 9:3 as
well as to Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38; and Luke 23:45. What was once a barrier
to the Holy, is now the Way!]
How better can we
define “the hope that is in us” than in the person of the incarnate of Jesus,
the Risen Christ in whom we have put our faith and to whom we have committed
our lives? We already are “partners in a heavenly calling,” “our citizenship is
in heaven,” [Philippians 3:20.] and we live “in heavenly places” [Ephesians
1:20.] for the boundary between this life and the next is not a wall, but
a “veil, that is, His flesh.” Our “after-life” continues and is to be defined
by our life now “in Christ.”
We live in “a world where God remains God and humans remain creatures,
but in which God’s sphere, heaven, and the human sphere, earth, interpenetrate and
are, by design and in fact, mutually permeable.” [This is taken from an
unpublished lecture by N. T. Wright given at a Biologos conference. The lecture
was “Science and Religion in America: An Outsider’s View of their Back
History.” Wright is commenting on Genesis 1-3.See Easter April 8, 2012 from
which this quotation was taken.]
This is “the
hope that is in you”!
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