Friday, April 17, 2009

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Easter Passover Reflections

I truly love exploring the story of redemption and specifically meditating on the last few hours that Yeshua spent with His disciples. I’m just going to ramble a bit with thoughts of what Passover means to me. Reflection and meditating doesn't mean any of us have it all figured out. Thankfully our salvation isn't dependent on perfect theology. Perhaps the simplest prayer of salvation is found in the declaration of the thief on the cross, who said, "remember me". Luke 23:42

Dating

This year Easter and Passover are very close together. For observant Jews, Passover will begin at sunset on Wednesday, April 8th. This is likely as close to alignment with the majority of Christian expressions regarding the timing of the celebration of Yeshua’s sacrifice as we will get.

Most Christians use dating that was instituted in 325 AD, with heavy emphasis being placed on venerating Sunday. It's up to you why the Jewish dating was rejected. My guess is that it is rooted in anti-Semitism and was done to ensure a clear separation between the gentile church and Judaism.

Friendship

In the business of Christianity an important thought process is woefully neglected: Yeshua’s using his final hours to emphasize over and over His desire for us to be friends with Him and each other. John 13-17.

I was just talking with someone the other day and they told the story of leaving a church after 9 years of attendance and no one called or even noticed. Sadly, this is not an isolated story. The general rule of thumb is, "out of sight, out of mind."

Yeshua said the world would know we are His disciples by our love for one another. "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:34,35

That sounds like people that notice each other. In the quest for larger numbers as the ultimate symbol of "success", is it possible we have forgotten to draw closer to each other and simply not noticed what is happening in each other's lives? In some circles accountability is emphasized and yet friendships are a much more natural and dynamic way of encouraging and building up one another.

The Cup

Let’s move on to Yeshua’s most significant time of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. I actually had the privilege of being in Israel in 1995 and had a chance to share this message with a group of fellow pilgrims in the very garden itself.

Yeshua’s act of intercession in the garden is portrayed with his wrestling with his duty and identity.
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." Matthew 26: 39

This passage has often been interpreted to mean that Yeshua was not wanting to go to the cross. As if He would have balked at the very purpose for which He came. What if it is as simple as Him knowing that no matter how much he loves his children, that many will reject His love and be forever separated from Father and him. His agony was not about himself and what he was to endure but the loss of others for all of eternity.

His disciples were told that we are to drink the same cup as Him.
You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said to them. "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?"

"We can," they answered.
Jesus said to them, "You will indeed drink from my cup,
Matthew 20:22-23a

Is the cup our taking on sin or is it to intercede for those who have rejected our savior and to feel the anguish of Father over that loss?

Abandonment

I don’t know how many times I have heard it preached that Father turned his face away from Yeshua based on his cry,

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from the words of my groaning?
Psalm 22:1

And yet in the same Psalm we read,

For he has not despised or disdained
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.
Psalm 22:24

Or listen to Yeshua as he prepares his disciples for his death - and what he will achieve with the words “you will be scattered….. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.” John 16:32

Abandonment theories simply do not help me appreciate Father more.

Became Sin

A passage from Paul's writings in 2 Corinthians is often cited to prove that Yeshua became sin.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Cor. 5:21

And yet an equally appropriate interpretation is that He became a sin offering for us.

I find nothing in the Old Testament about the sacrifice for sins being anything other than unblemished innocence. There is no indication that the sacrifice became sin. And it is in the Old Testament that we find the first picture of atonement that was to be completely fulfilled in Yeshua, who is the lamb of God.

Even the scapegoat did not become sin but rather carried sin away from the people. Lev. 16: 20-22 I believe there was even a tradition within Jewish thought that if the scapegoat returned after being sent into the wilderness that they celebrated. Not only were their sins carried away but they got the goat back.

In essence, Yeshua carried away our sins and then returned to us.

Either Father is Love or Is He Just Plain Cruel

More often than not, Father is portrayed as a vengeful tyrant that if you don’t play by His rules, He will ultimately whack you. The picture given of the cross is that Father is angry at his children’s sin. In order to forgive them, He turns on His son and beats him to death and then punishes him in hell for 3 days. A strange notion when you consider Yeshua said this to the thief on the cross. "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." Luke 23:43

Just imagine your friend hurting you and then coming to you for forgiveness. You say to him, I will forgive you but in order for me to do that I will have to go back to my house and kill my son. Would your friend want that kind of forgiveness?

Yeshua said, "If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." John 14:7

If I can’t picture Yeshua doing something like killing someone, why is it so easy to see Father doing it? Let's not forget who the real killer is. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10

The purpose of the cross is to bring us back to Father. Let's reflect on the fact that ALL of what Yeshua did was to reveal His Father to us and for us to enjoy being in His presence.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Why Sunday?

Saying No to Sundays

March 2009 by Tom Ehrich, Religion News Service

For five decades and in growing numbers, American Christians have been saying no to Sunday church. I think it is time we listened.

We have labeled them “unchurched,” “nonbelievers,” “former Christians,” “happy pagans,” “lost,” and a “mission field” that’s “ripe for harvest.” These negative terms imply that the absent have a flaw that needs to be addressed.

New congregations have harvested some of these former mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churchgoers. But even their numbers rise and fall — especially when the founding pastor slips up or retires, and the overall trend in church participation remains down. In some Western states, Sunday churchgoing has fallen below 10 percent of the population.

When this slide commenced in 1964 as baby boomers began graduating from high school, many church leaders didn’t even acknowledge it. For years, they kept counting the absent as present. Then, when the losses couldn’t be ignored, they blamed them on whatever hot-button issues were roiling the religious establishment, as if new liturgies, women in leadership, and liberals (or conservatives, take your pick) had driven people away.

We need to see that these “formers” aren’t saying no to God, or to their Christian identity, or to their yearning for faith. Many are simply saying no to Sunday church.

They are expressing a preference for something other than getting up early on Sunday, driving across town, sitting in a pew for an hour or more, making small talk with people they don’t really know, and driving home again.

They are saying no to Sunday, the only day they can get a slow start in this everyone-works-hard era.

They are saying no to being an audience in an age of participation and self-determination.

They are saying no to institutional preaching, repetitive liturgies, and assemblies controlled by small cadres usually older than themselves.

They are saying no to being told what to believe.

They are saying no to having their questions ignored.

Instead, they find spiritual enrichment on the Internet and on television. They read faith-related books. They pray on their own. They find their own networks of faithful friends.

The problem isn’t their faith. The problem is Christianity’s delivery system. We are stuck in trying to lure people to physical locations at a time of our choosing, to do what we think they ought to do, and to be loyal in paying for it. It is time we looked beyond the
paradigm of Sunday church.

I think the future lies in “multichanneling’’: a combination of on-site, online, workplace and at-home offerings that create networks of self-determining constituents, many of whom might never attend Sunday church.

The first challenge, however, is to recognize how deeply wedded we are to Sunday on-site participation as the only true expression and measure of faithfulness. Almost everything about our institutions — facilities, ordination training, staffing, budgeting — aims to draw people to a central location on Sunday.

We need to see that what works for some doesn’t work for others. Not because the others are flawed, nor because our culture has collapsed and turned against God, but because things change. Just as Jesus took his ministry out of the synagogue and radically rethought the meaning of Sabbath, so God is drawing us away from “former things,” even ones we treasure and consider our duty.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Ehrich (see web site) is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project.)

Friday, April 3, 2009

Only on April 1

This is Wayne Jacobsen having a little fun on April 1.

A Most Amazing Meeting

Orlando, Fl April 1, 2009 — They arrived by first class or flew in on their private jets for this first-ever gathering of mega-church pastors from all over the United States. They had gathered to trade secrets of their success and form a new denomination called Church of the Champions.

But in their first session as Bob Johnson, a renowned media analyst who was going to brief them on new strategies to exert pressure on the media and to take back the culture for God, started to speak a bright light suddenly appeared over the lectern and many reported later that a voice spoke out of rafters: “Pastors, pastors, why are you persecuting me?”

Observers say everyone sat spell-bound in their seats for a moment. Nothing in the room moved. Soon many of them began to weep and fall to the ground confessing the error of their ways. Some confessed to dividing the body of Christ by competing to be the biggest and best church in their area. Some admitted that they had supplanted Jesus in the lives of their followers by teaching the people to follow them instead of following him. Others said they had lived lavish lifestyles on the backs of those who lived in need. Still others confessed to manipulating people’s need for approval instead of freeing them to live as loved children of God, to providing a public persona different from the reality of their own doubts and struggles, to being in love with power and influence instead of the simple reality of the kingdom.

After nearly two hours of soul-purging confession they read together Matthew 23, admitting that they had created the same realities that Jesus had warned the Pharisees about. By unanimous acclimation they agreed to abandon their plans to form a new denomination, and instead go home and tell the people the truth, apologize for their short-sited ambitions, dismantle the institutions that blinded people to God’s reality and start living in the honesty of their own spiritual journey.

In what might be a related story, scientists that have been observing the fires of hell from the Haney Terrascope buried deep within the earth outside Lubbock, Texas have observed strange white matter appearing on the surface of hell’s lake of fire. “It looks like ice,” one scientist said, “though I know that doesn’t make any sense. We’ll have to run more tests to be certain.”

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Jesus Yeshua

Several years ago I changed my name to David. It took awhile for friends and family to make the switch. Even to this day when I meet friends from my pre David days, it takes them awhile to get comfortable with the switch. I guess because of this I'm a little sensitized to the value we place on our names.

I don't want to make a big deal of this but I was wondering why we don't use the Hebrew pronunciation for our savior? When I was introduced to him it wouldn't have mattered to me if I called him Jesus, Yeshua or Bob. Historically the pronunciation got trapped in the Greek translations. Some of that is likely rooted when some anti-semitic church leaders from the 2nd century and on, were trying to separate Christianity from its roots in Judaism.

So now that I know that His name would have been pronounced Yeshua in Hebrew, I think I'm going to try to create a habit of saying it that way. This isn't some weird doctrinal thing, it's just something that interests me.