Category: Spirituality

At tonight’s Good Friday service at church, the chairs in the sanctuary were arranged in a circle around a large cross. The sanctuary was mostly dark except for lights that illuminated the cross. A sign outside the sanctuary said “Please enter the sanctuary in reverent and worshipful silence.” It felt a bit like entering a funeral home for a viewing — but a Christian funeral in which the grief is limned with hope. It was a beautiful scene. During the service the each person congregation had the opportunity to approach the center of the sanctuary and drive a nail into the cross, as a symbol of our sins being nailed to the cross of Christ. We then took communion and filed out quietly, with the nail-studded cross sending us on our way.

There are so many wonderful layers to this, but one that struck me is how I would like people to see things at my own funeral some day. I hope they enter the sanctuary in reverent silence and see the cross at the center of the room. I hope they will see that a lifetime of sins have been absorbed by that rough wood. I hope they will see a way of life in sacrificial love, the way of Jesus. I hope what remains when I’ve left the room for good is not my words or work, but rather the overwhelming presence of the God who became like me to set me, and the whole creation, free.

The reason the Kyrie in Rutter’s Requiem is so appealing is the sense of resolution it brings to the tension built up in other sections of the piece. It is a metaphor for the release of tension at the end of a Christian life well-lived. The Christian story is all about this sense of tension waiting to be resolved. In Romans 8, Paul says “[w]e know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” This universal sense of frustration and brokenness, of waiting and straining for resolution, captures us all, as Paul continues in the next verses:

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.

Why doesn’t God resolve every problem and question now? Why is it that even Christians — especially Christians — feel a painful sense of longing? Because resolution now is not what our present faith and hope are about. Our faith and hope concern a resolution that only begins to break into the world now. The beginnings of that resolution make us long for its fulfillment.

What is its fulfillment? We often speak of some sort of an individual “heavenly reward.” That is part of it, I suppose, but only a small part. It is really about the resolution of the longings of all of creation. It is about the setting to rights of injustice, the healing of brokenness, and the restoration of loving relationships, through the consummation of the peaceable reign of Christ. It is about coming to “Aslan’s Country,” and finding it filled with richer songs, deeper stories, more fruitful industries, all more “real” and beautiful than any present shadow.

I’ve been reading Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov lately, and came across this little snippet from a portion of the book that sketches the “talks and homilies of the Elder Zosima.” Zosima is of course a fictional character, but some of this section on his talks and homilies is drawn from homilies given by St. Isaac the Syrian, an early Christian ascetic. Here is what caught my eye — actually what struck me to the heart:

One may stand perpelexed before some thought, especially seeing men’s sin, asking oneself: ‘Shall I take it by force, or by humble love?’ Always resolve to take it by humble love. If you so resolve once and for all, you will be able to overcome the whole world. A loving humility is a terrible power, the most powerful of all, nothing compares with it. Keep company with yourself and look to yourself every day and hour, every minute, that your image be ever gracious. See, here you have pased by a small child, passed by in anger, with a foul word, with a wrathful soul; you perhaps did not notice the child, but he saw you, and our unsightly and impious image has remained in his defenseless heart. You did not know it, but you may thereby have planted a bad seed in him, and it may grow, and all because you did not restrain yourself before the child, because you did not nurture in yourself a heedful, active love. Brothers, love is a teacher, but one must know how to acquire it, for it is difficult to acquire, it is dearly bought, by long work over a long time, for oune ought to love not for a chance moment but for all time.

The best apologetic is humble love.

Now that Christmas is over — I can’t believe it! — it’s time for New Years’ resolutions. I’m not so big on resolutions, which depend on my own resolve. Here instead are some hopes, goals and prayers:

My fundamental prayer for the new year is that I would become more like Jesus. Ok, stop rolling your eyes. I mean it. I want to be deep, rich, and masterful at loving God and loving others. I want to see those who are cursed be blessed; those who are imprisoned be set free; those who are afraid be calmed; those who are mourning be comforted. I want to see cycles of oppression broken, conflicts resolved into peace, lost sheep found.

In his beautiful little book Living the Sermon on the Mount, Glen Stassen asks, “What greater meaning in life can there be to participate, even in a little way, like a mustard seed, in the deliverance that God brings in Jesus?” (LTSM at 44). Stassen notes that “[l]iving the Sermon on the Mount is the way of grace. It is the way of Jesus. It is the way of the breakthrough of the reign of God.” (LTSM at 184) This is how I want to live in the coming year.

Here, then, are some specific things I’ve been thinking and praying about as ways in which I think the reign of God hopefully can continually break through in and through me:

In church this morning, our pastor had some kids read from the accounts of Jesus’ birth in the Bible, and then asked them some questions about what they had read. One girl read the angel’s words to Mary in Mark chapter 1: “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”

“How do you think Mary felt when she heard those words from an angel?”, the pastor asked the girl. The girl was a bit awestruck at the fact that she was standing in front of hundreds of people, being asked a question by the pastor. She couldn’t respond, and stood there quietly. “I think you’re right,” the pastor said, “Mary was probably amazed!”

What a wonderful moment! The king of kings and lord of lords, the eternal logos, the maker of heaven and earth, emptying himself of privilege to become one of us, to redeem us. We are right to be awed and amazed. And then, as Mary did, to sing with joy:

“for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.” (Mark 1:49-50)

Merry Christmas!

I’ve been having a little back and forth with Bill Dembski and some of his supporters on Uncommon Descent concerning a video mocking Judge Jones of Kitzmiller fame, for which Dembski provided voice over. The thread is worth a read, I think. To me, this sort of thing is quite disheartening. Here’s one comment I made on how I feel about it a bit down in the thread:

Bill Dembski asked: What have you done lately, dopderbeck, to jar Dawkins out of his dogmatic rampage?

I’m not sure I understand what Richard Dawkins has to do with showing respect to judges as required by Romans 13. In any event, search my blog, Through a Glass Darkly (http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html) and you will see that I’ve written many times in criticism of Dawkins and his brand of materialism. You can also find similar writing from me in the ASA email list archives and in other places. I don’t claim to be any great voice in this regard, but I’ve unashamedly and publicly explained my Christian faith many times.

Your references to OT prophets are misplaced because they specifically were appointed by God as prophets within the context of the theocratic state of Israel and its role among surrounding nations. For us in the Church today, Romans 13 is normative, as I’m sure you’ll agree.

The reference to Paul and the Judaizers is even further misplaced, as Paul was speaking there as an Apostle in the context of snuffing out a heresy within the Church. Again, Paul’s instruction to us with respect to secular governmental authorities is clear in Romans 13.

I’m a bit disheartened that you think this video could serve as a “means of grace” to Richard Dawkins. Do you really believe that? Is this really “speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15)? Does it satisfy the standards of Col. 4:6: “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone”? How about Romans 12:14: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” Or the entire teaching of Matthew 5?

I hope you take this rebuke in the spirit in which it’s offered, and not as a personal attack. Heaven knows, I have often failed to live up to the standards of Romans 12 and 13, Ephesians 4, Colossians 4, etc. As a brother in Christ, and a fellow academic who takes seriously the cultural mandate, I beseech you to think again about this method of discourse, and about the strategy of making personal attacks on a judge who wrote an opinion contrary to your views. I think you will agree with me that there is much, much more at stake here than one judge’s opinion in one case concerning one version of how to integrate science and faith.

Take the long view, the Kingdom perspective; play the part God gave you with humility and grace and let Him handle the ultimate results, for He secured the victory long ago on the cross. I can say at least that this is the ideal towards which I strive, though I often fail. But imagine what could happen if all us Christians who are concered about the culture humbled ourselves and began to pray for and love our enemies, to tell the truth truly in love, to live the Sermon on the Mount ethic taught by Jesus in Matthew 5 and echoed throughout the New Testament. Imagine if all the anger and ink and pixels we spill in culture “wars” were instead spent in sacrificial love and in patient, humble, careful and thorough explanation of the truth. Imagine if the Church were to be truly the Church. That’s the passionate cry of my heart.