Eucatastrophic Resurrection

Mar31

I was thinking about the resurrection of Jesus on the way home from church this morning, this being Easter Sunday and all. I’m going to try to reconstruct my thoughts here in this post, but we’ll see how successful I am.

You know when you’re reading a story, especially a thriller or a mystery and there’s a lovely little (or big) twist at the end that is completely unexpected? It’s not where you thought the story was headed, not how you thought it would end, but it works. The ending or surprising climactic scene is something you never would have predicted, and at the same time it’s just what the story needed to tie or untie all the plot knots and make everything feel right. The story, factually and in mood and quality, succeeds.

Well, Jesus’s resurrection is sort of like that unforeseen but perfect ending. If I were the Author (thank God I’m not) of the story of creation, sin and redemption, I wouldn’t have been able to dream up the resurrection, not in a million years. My story, if I had been creative enough to write one at all, would have ended with the crucifixion. Jesus, a good man, lived and taught and died—an innocent sacrifice to the cruelty and blindness of both the Romans and the Jews. It’s a sad story, a tragedy, but perhaps one with a moral to it: we humans are hopelessly lost, and we have a tendency to kill those who tell the truth and demonstrate radical love and self-sacrifice.

Maybe we’ll do better next time, having learned the lesson of Jesus. Probably not.

Jesus is dead at the end of my story. He’s really, truly dead, by the way; this isn’t the sort of story where the hero was only mostly dead but turns out to be revivable. A Roman spear was thrust into his side. His body is sealed in a tomb with a big rock across the entrance, a seal of some kind over the rock, and Roman guards posted outside so that no one can steal the body and pretend to resuscitate it. Jesus’s followers are scattered, demoralized, and discouraged.

And then—the surprise hits me in the face, if I haven’t become inured to the shock from having heard the story so many times. On Sunday some women go to visit Jesus’s tomb, and they meet an angel who tells them that Jesus is not dead. He’s alive!

Whoa, whoa, whoa—wait! You mean the story is that he didn’t really die; he just got badly injured, but he was able to recover and make his way out of the tomb. Or he was a magician with a magic protection coat that made spears and nails seem to pierce him but not really hurt him at all. You mean he became a ghost and appeared to people in a spirit form. Or he was just asleep and looked dead.

Nope, Jesus was dead, and now he’s alive again. Resurrected, as Christians term it.

Could you have predicted that the Author of the human story would have inserted himself into history, allowed himself to suffer and to be killed at the hands of his own creatures, and then . . . come alive again? JRR Tolkien invented the term “eucastrophe”, meaning “a dire situation which is nevertheless salvaged through some unforeseeable turn of events.” (Wikipedia, Eucatastrophe) A resurrection is a really unforeseeable turn of events.

But, and here’s the kicker, the resurrection makes the story work. Without the resurrection, we have a weak, powerless, probably dead god who maybe had good intentions? Without the resurrection of Jesus there is no resurrection, no life after death, for any of us either. Paul said in I Corinthians 5:17, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” If Jesus is not alive, we have no hope of knowing God or having friendship with Him or making any kind of connection. He’s either dead or so distant that we can never get there from here. Without the resurrection, the whole story of human history, including the story of that “good man” Jesus, is essentially meaningless.

When I say story, I mean a True Story. If we are real, actual entities living in a real, fallen world full of real evil, we need a Real, Resurrected Savior who physically not only died but rose from the dead to reign over all things eternally.

And lo and behold, eucatastrophe!(I like that word), in a three-day turn of events I could never have scripted or invented or predicted, Jesus not only died and was buried, but he also rose from the dead and lives eternally. “Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.” (Hebrews 7:25)

We serve a living, creative God of eucatastrophic artistry and imagination. And we have a Risen Savior because of the story-making ability and sacrifice of that same God.

Hallelujah! Eucatastrophe! (Thanks, Tolkien, and with some intellectual indebtedness to my pastor’s sermon this morning.)

Edith Schaeffer, 1914-2013

Mar30

Edith Schaeffer, wife of theologian and Christian apologist Francis Schaeffer, and an author and teacher in her own right, died today and went to be with the Lord.

I knew her through her books, some of which were and are my favorites. I’ve read and enjoyed the ones in boldface.

1969. Lâ€™Abri.
1971. The Hidden Art of Homemaking: Creative Ideas for Enriching Everyday Life.
1973. Everybody Can Know.
1978. Affliction.
1975. Christianity is Jewish.
1975. What is a Family?
1977. A Way of Seeing.
1981. The Tapestry: the life and times of Francis and Edith Schaeffer.
1983. Common Sense Christian Living.
1983. Lifelines: Godâ€™s Framework for Christian Living.
1986. Forever Music.
1988. With Love, Edith: the Lâ€™Abri family letters 1948-1960.
1989. Dear Family: the Lâ€™Abri family letters 1961-1986.
1992. The Life of Prayer.
1994. A Celebration of Marriage: Hopes and Realities.
1994. 10 Things Parents Must Teach Their Children (And Learn for Themselves)
1998. Mei Fuh: Memories from China.
2000. A Celebration of Children.

I need to look for the rest of these books.

“God does not promise to treat each of his children the same in this life. God does not say that each one of his children will have the same pattern of living or follow the same plan. God is a God of diversity. God can make trees—but among the trees are hundreds of kinds of trees. God can make apples trees, but among the apples on that tree no two look identically alike. God is able to make snowflakes, and make each snowflake differently. God has a different plan for each of his children—but it all fits together.” Everybody Can Know: Family Devotions from the Gospel of Luke by Francis and Edith Schaeffer

“Don’t be fearful about the journey ahead; don’t worry where you are going or how you are going to get there. If you believe in the first person of the Trinity, God the Father, also believe in the Second Person of the Trinity, the One who came as the Light of the World, not only to die for people, but to light the way… This one, Jesus Christ, is Himself the Light and will guide your footsteps along the way.” ~Edith Schaeffer

Tim Challies on the life and influence of Edith Schaeffer.
Frank Schaeffer: Good-bye, Mom.
Brenda at Coffee, Tea, Books and Me eulogizes Mrs. Schaeffer.

Saturday

Mar30

I thought Iâ€™d post a few times today and tomorrow about the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and what it means to me and to some of the authors and fictional and actual characters that I have on my bookshelves. Iâ€™m going to take turns blogging and house-cleaning and see how that goes.

“Holy Saturday is the ‘no manâ€™s land’ between death and Resurrection, but One has entered into this ‘no manâ€™s land.'”

“Christ strode through the gate of our final loneliness; in his Passion he went down into the abyss of our abandonment. Where no voice can reach us any longer, there is he. Hell is thereby overcome, or, to be more accurate, death, which was previously hell, is hell no longer. Neither is the same any longer because there is life in the midst of death, because love dwells in it.”

“I find myself before the last leg of my lifeâ€™s journey, and I donâ€™t know what awaits me. I know, however, that the light of God is here, that He is risen, that his light is stronger than every darkness; that the goodness of God is stronger than every evil in this world.”

The above quotes are from Pope Benedict XVI, the now-retired primate of the Catholic Church.

“But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples . . . ” ~Justin Martyr, 150 AD.

So today is the “day of Saturn”, no-man’s land, Holy Saturday, Sabbatum Sanctum, the time between times. And I sometimes find myself living in that between time, that no-man’s land. I know and believe in the resurrection, but there are things in my life and especially in the life of my family that are shrouded in darkness. I live in hope, knowing that the resurrection of Christ is true and trustworthy, but I also live in the reality of a dark Saturday in which my hopes have not yet been realized in many ways.

Yes, it IS finished. He has done it. Life conquered Death. “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit.” (I Peter 3:18-19)

But wait and watch with me for a little while on this Holy Saturday as I pray for those I love who have not yet experienced the loving power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Some of those I love are still dead and in the tomb of their own sin, and although I believe in a resurrection for them, too, it hasn’t happened yet.

It’s still Saturday. And Jesus is here.

The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer

Mar30

“With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” Mark 15:37-39.

“Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. As well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us. We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment. We must prepare ourselves for an ordeal of suffering in some measure like that through which our Saviour passed when He suffered under Pontius Pilate.

Let us remember: when we talk of the rending of the veil we are speaking in a figure, and the thought of it is poetical, almost pleasant; but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free.

Let us beware of tinkering with our inner life in hope ourselves to rend the veil. God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust. We must confess, forsake, repudiate the self-life, and then reckon it crucified.”

Aiden Wilson Tozer was born April 21, 1897 to a farming family in Pennsylvania. As a teenager, “while on his way home from work at a tire company, he overheard a street preacher say: ‘If you don’t know how to be saved… just call on God.’ Upon returning home, he climbed into the attic and heeded the preacherâ€™s advice.”

He later became a Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor and teacher and still later in his life he edited the denomination’s magazine, Alliance Life. He had seven children, never owned a car, and signed away most of the royalties from his books to charity.

Saturday Review of Books March 30, 2013

Mar29

â€œMost books, like their authors, are born to die; of only a few books can it be said that death has no dominion over them; they live, and their influence lives forever.â€ ~J. Swartz

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Hereâ€™s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesnâ€™t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where youâ€™ve written your book review. Donâ€™t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after youâ€™ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book youâ€™re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews theyâ€™re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

1. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (books reviewed in March)
2. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (The Brave Little Toaster)
3. SuziQOregon @ Whimpulsive
4. SuziQOregon @ Whimpulsive (Little House on the Prairie)
5. Reading to Know (The Cats of Tanglewood Forest)
6. Becky (Phoebe Deane)
7. Reading to Know (Emily of Deep Valley)
8. Becky (Orleans)
9. Becky (Rogue’s Princess)
10. Becky (Rogue’s Princess)
11. Becky (Grave Mercy)
12. Becky (Dark Triumph)
13. Becky (Clementine and The Spring Trip)
14. Becky (Understood Betsy)
15. Susan @ Reading World (Beautiful Ruins)
16. Barbara H. (Betsy-Tacy and Betsy-Tacy and Tib)

17. Susan @ Reading World (Shadow on the Crown)
18. Thoughts of Joy (The Fault in Our Stars)
19. Glynn (Standing in Another Man’s Grave)
20. Glynn (Life After Art)
21. Seth@Collateral Bloggage (Ender’s Shadow)
22. Seth@Collateral Bloggage (Out of This World)
23. Beth@Weavings (Coot Club)
24. Helene (Trees, Shrubs and Cacti or How to use your Bible)
25. Hope (A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy)
26. Hope (March Book Report)
27. Lazygal (Maid of Secrets)
28. Lazygal (& Sons)
29. Lazygal (Absent)
30. Lazygal (The Girls of Atomic City)
31. Lazygal (The Ashford Affair)
32. Mental multivitamin (Reading life review)

33. Annie Kate (A New Home for Lily)
34. Annie Kate (This was John Calvin)
35. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Blood Ransom)
36. Beckie @ ByTheBook (So Shines The Night)
37. Lisa Spence (When People are Big and God is Small)
38. S. Krishna (The Fate of Mercy Alban)
39. S. Krishna (The Bellwether Revivals)
40. S. Krishna (The List)
41. S. Krishna (The Taste of Salt)
42. S. Krishna (Dark Tide)
43. S. Krishna (The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook)
44. a barmy bookworm (The Trial)
45. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Woman’s Guide to Reading The Bible in A Year)
46. Benjie @ Book ’em Benj-O (Theodore Boone #3: The Accused)
47. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (Every Man Dies Alone)
48. The Girl @ Diary of an Eccentric (Lockdown)

Atoning Sacrifice

Mar29

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: ‘Ye were bought at a price’, and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship.

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. I John 2:2.

I certainly can’t say anything more profound or meaningful than Dietrich Bonhoeffer has already said or put the gospel into words more succinct and pointed than than those John wrote in his first letter in Scripture. And I can’t sing like Chris Tomlin or Matt Redman.

But I can say with millions of saints who have gone before me that Jesus is my atoning sacrifice. I am called to follow Him, and it has cost me everything. Mostly it has cost me my pride and my self-satisfaction. I am bought with a price and I no longer belong to myself. Praise God! He takes my pitiful and sinful self, and He makes me into His adopted daughter. My sinful self is nailed to the cross with Jesus, and I am a new creature in Him.

No other religion or philosophy or god can claim the regenerative power that Jesus claims in the cross and the resurrection because no other religion or philosophy or god has paid the price that Jesus paid. What can your religion do for you except tell you to be good, sacrifice for your own sins, try harder, be better? What can your philosophy do besides exhort you to enjoy life while you can or stoically face suffering because you have no choice? What can your god do for you except provide an illusory and impermanent pleasure or distraction from the very real evil and suffering in this world?

Instead of all these things, Jesus tells me to follow Him and trust Him. I don’t have to try harder to be good or enjoy life or search for pleasure or even ignore suffering. I can rest in His atoning sacrifice and know that “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

The Resurrection and the Life

Mar29

I first read Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities when I was in ninth grade. Three of us—Christina, Teresa, and I— wrote a chapter-by-chapter summary of the entire book, making our own little study guide to the novel as a school project. We did this before the age of personal computers and before any of us knew how to type. I can’t remember exactly what the finished product looked like, but it was a lot of work.

The themes of death, burial, imprisonment, rescue and resurrection are woven throughout Dickens’ tale set during the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. Doctor Manette is rescued from a living death inside the Bastille. Jerry Cruncher is a “resurrection man” who digs up dead bodies to sell them. Charles Darnay is rescued and recalled to life twice during the novel, once when he is on trial in England and again when he is headed for guillotine in France.

But the most vivid representation of death and resurrection comes at the end of the novel when the reprobate Sydney Carton gives up his life to save Charles and Lucy Darnay and to ensure their future together. Carton is walking down the street when he remembers these words from Scripture read at his father’s funeral long ago:

“I am the resurrection, and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.”

Now, that the streets were quiet, and the night wore on, the words were in the echoes of his feet, and were in the air. Perfectly calm and steady, he sometimes repeated them to himself as he walked; but, he heard them always.

The night wore out, and, as he stood upon the bridge listening to the water as it splashed the river-walls of the Island of Paris, where the picturesque confusion of houses and cathedral shone bright in the light of the moon, the day came coldly, looking like a dead face out of the sky. Then, the night, with the moon and the stars, turned pale and died, and for a little while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over to Death’s dominion.

But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, that burden of the night, straight and warm to his heart in its long bright rays. And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes, a bridge of light appeared to span the air between him and the sun, while the river sparkled under it.

The strong tide, so swift, so deep, and certain, was like a congenial friend, in the morning stillness He walked by the stream, far from the houses, and in the light and warmth of the sun fell asleep on the bank. When he awoke and was afoot again, he lingered there yet a little longer, watching an eddy that turned and turned purposeless, until the stream absorbed it, and carried it on to the sea.- “Like me!”

A trading-boat, with a sail of the softened colour of a dead leaf, then glided into his view, floated by him, and died away. As its silent track in the water disappeared, the prayer that had broken up out of his heart for a merciful consideration of all his poor blindnesses and errors, ended in the words, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

On Good Friday, when we are in the midst of death and sin and darkness, it does sometimes seem a if “Creation were delivered over to Death’s dominion.” A blogging friend sent out a tweet earlier today saying that he had “difficulty ‘pretending’ on Good Friday that Jesus is dead.” Of course, Jesus isn’t dead, but as far as imagining the feeling of despair and “being delivered over to death”, I have no trouble whatsoever. Sometimes things in this world are very dark, and the hope of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and our eventual resurrection with Him is all that keeps from utter despair.

Thank God for Resurrection Sunday!

Prince of Peace

Mar29

Don Richardson and his wife Carol were missionaries to the Sawi people of Irian Jaya. In 1962 they went to live among the Sawi, a cannabalistic and pagan people, and to translate the Bible into the Sawi language.

However, there was a big problem. The Sawi idealized violence so much that when they heard the story of Jesus’ betrayal by Judas and subsequent death, they admired Judas as the hero of the story, the man who was so clever that he could befriend Jesus and gain his trust and then betray him to his death.

Mr. Richardson was at a loss as to how to communicate to the Sawi people their need for a Savior and reshaping of their violent culture. Then, as Don and Carol were about to leave the Sawi in despair over their inability to communicate the truth of Christ’s sacrifice,something happened. The Sawi decided to make peace:

“Among the Sawi,every demonstration of friendship was suspect except one. If a man would actually give his own son to his enemies, that man could be trusted! That, and that alone, was a proof of goodwill no shadow of cynicism could discredit!

And everyone who laid his hand on the given son was bound not to work violence against those who gave him, nor to employ the waness bind for their destruction.”

After witnessing for himself the peace child ceremony in which the Sawi gave their own sons to each other as a peace bond, Mr. Richardson was able to give the Sawi good news:

“Because Myao Kodon (God) wants men to find peace with Him and with each other, He decided to choose a once-for-all tarop child good enough, and strong enough to establish peace, not just for a while, but forever! The problem was, whom should he choose? For among all human children, there was no son good enough or strong enough to be an eternal tarop.”

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

God made peace, eternal peace, between us and Him, between human beings, between the Sawi and the other tribes that they viewed as strangers and prey. And in our so sophisticated culture in which we view each other as rivals and strangers and either victors or victims, we need the peace of Jesus Christ just as much as the Sawi need it.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. Ephesians 2:13-14

Peace Child: An Unforgettable Story of Primitive Jungle Treachery in the 20th Century by Don Richardson is a wonderful demonstration of the efficacy of the gospel of Jesus Christ in all cultures and for all people.

Carmen Christi

Mar29

I thought I’d post a few times today and tomorrow about the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and what it means to me and to some of the authors and fictional and actual characters that I have on my bookshelves. I’m going to take turns blogging and house-cleaning and see how that goes.

“Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:6-11

Christian songwriter and artist Michael Card writes in his book (co-written with his wife, Susan), The Homeschool Journey: Windows into the Heart of a Learning Family:

“In Philippians 2:6-11 we find a wonderful passage of Scripture that was a hymn used in the worship services of the early church. Known as the “Carmen Christi” or “hymn to Christ” it is a song that first-century spies overheard the Christians singing at a time when the church was meeting in secret. It was a hymn which undoubtedly afforded them a measure of comfort in their trials because it offered a vision of Christ was and what he had accomplished.

In this hymn, Jesus’ incarnation is highlighted by its three central characteristics: servanthood, humility, and radical obedience. It is from this simple, ancient song that Susan and I derive our vision of who Jesus is and what he means to us. It is the vision that shapes our individual lives, our marriage, our family life, and even the way we choose to educate our children.”

Are we serving one another with humility and in obedience to Jesus Christ who gave himself for us? Are we waiting patiently on the Lord of all things in heaven and on earth, making ourselves like Him in our actions here on earth so that we can be with Him in heaven?

Now that’s an Easter goal that seems to embody what Christ would have us do in response to His sacrifice.

Themes Meme

Mar28

Last year on 12/12/12, I wrote about some of the “themes” or Big Ideas that keep popping up here on the blog and in my life, themes such as books, community, prayer, and the foundational “theme of my song”, Jesus.

Now a couple of other blogger friends have picked up on my post and written their own list of life themes:

Barbara at Stray Thoughts writes about homemaking and ministry and of course, books.

Carrie at Reading to Know adds a song for each of her themes.

I don’t know if one can call it a meme if only three people so far have participated; however, I did enjoy getting to know Carrie and Barbara a little better through the medium of blogging about life themes. If you write about your life motifs or some variation thereof, please leave a comment. I’d like to link to your list and get to know you a little better, too.