Scripture Focus:

When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.

Romans 5:6-11 (NLT)

In his classic book In the Grip of Grace, Max Lucado tells a story that exemplifies grace.

Once a monk and his apprentice traveled from the abbey to a nearby village. The two parted at the city gates, agreeing to meet the morning after completing their tasks. According to plan, they met and began the long walk back to the abbey. The monk noticed that the younger man was unusually quiet. He asked him if anything was wrong. “What business is it of yours?” came the terse response.

Now the monk was sure his brother was troubled, but he said nothing. The distance between the two began to increase. The apprentice walked slowly, as if to separate himself from his teacher. When the abbey came in sight, the monk stopped at the gate and waited on the student. “Tell me, my son. What troubles your soul?”

The boy started to react again, but when he saw the warmth in his master’s eyes, his heart began to melt. “I have sinned greatly,” he sobbed. Last night I slept with a woman and abandoned my vows. I am not worthy to enter the abbey at your side.”

The teacher put his arm around the student and said, “We will enter the abbey together. And we will enter the cathedral together. And together we will confess your sin. No one but God will know which of the two of us fell.” [1]

There is a sense in which this story describes what Christ has done for us. “When we were utterly helpless… while we were still sinners… Christ died for us… While we were still his enemies, our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son.” In our Christian vocabulary, we call this grace. Story after story in Scripture paints the picture.

Hosea takes back his wife in love and forgiveness, reflecting who God is. Grace, all grace!

A son rebels against his father, leaving home to squander his inheritance in a foreign land. Yet his father waits patiently for his return; and when he finally arrives, throws a grand celebration of welcome. Grace, all grace!

Jesus refuses to allow a woman taken in the act of adultery to be stoned, because none of us is without sin and God forgives. “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more!” Grace, all grace!

A woman “crashes a party” where Jesus is the guest. The host would have thrown her out, but Jesus reminds him that the woman was expressing love because she knew forgiveness and pity. The host didn’t know that love and forgiveness yet. Grace, all grace!

Grace is undeserved, unearned, unmerited acceptance. The grace of God is God’s unconditional love for us. Though we may never love in God’s way, that is the standard.

As you pray and fast this week, I pray that you would experience the extravagant, unconditional love of God for you and that you would understand the remarkable and undeserved grace of God in a new way, even more aware of the reality that when we were utterly helpless, Christ died for us.

[1] Max Lucado, In the Grip of Grace, Dallas: Word Publishing, 1996, p91-92.

Scripture Focus:

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (NLT)

We sing it to a lilting tune, adaptable to most any musical instrument, but frequently accompanied by the guitar and sung around the campfires of youth camps. “They will know we are Christian by our love, by our love, yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”

The question is, Do they? Do the people around us know we’re Christians by our love? In many parts of the world there have been ongoing “culture wars” for quite some time. In these contexts and others, the Church seeks to make a convincing apologetic for Christian values in society, to stage a powerful beachhead against moral relativism and secular materialism.

Our militancy on behalf of values is dulled, at least a bit – or should be – when we consider the “culture war” Jesus had to deal with. The people who seemed to give him the most trouble – the people he seemed to admonish the most – were the ones who held the “right” values. These weren’t the folks who were excited about his message. The people who were most excited about the message of Jesus – the ones who flocked to him and followed him even with empty bellies – they didn’t seem to hold any of the “right” values. They were prostitutes and tax collectors, Samaritans and Zealots.

It was almost as though these “right believing” folks were no longer able to love. They didn’t want the sick to experience healing – especially on the Sabbath. They didn’t want sinners to receive forgiveness or share in the breaking of bread.

The truth we need to remember is that we can be right – and yet act wrongly. Being right and knowing it often produces loveless, calloused sermons. We can be so intent on preserving our rightness, our values, that we fail to love. When being right and being on the right side becomes our driving passion, it’s easy to forget the heart of the gospel. Jesus said that the heart of the law is to love God with your entire being and to love your neighbor as yourself. (Mt 22:37-40) And note the dramatic way Paul put it in our Scripture for this week. Without love, we are nothing and gain nothing.

Our primary task as Christians is not to make a rational apologetic for Christian values, but to participate in and witness to the gospel, which has love as its core. We need an experiential apologetic far more than we need an intellectual one. Jesus didn’t say, “All persons will know you are my disciples if you present a convincing argument or promote my agenda.” He did say, “All will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.” As we discussed last week, we demonstrate “the mind of Christ” by loving and serving as he did.

This year we’ve been exploring the notion of allowing virtue to grow in our lives – seeking to be good. As you pray and fast this week, reflect on your life of virtue – your seeking to be good. When has it kept you from loving?

I’m praying for you – that your experiential witness will be strengthened as you relate to others in love. That as you move through this week God will provide more opportunities for you to act the Christian life than talk about it.

Scripture Focus:

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

Philippians 2:5-8 (NLT)

Last week I encouraged you to reflect on things you might need to change in your life to have the same attitude as Christ Jesus. One aspect of Christ’s attitude was that he didn’t think of equality with God as something to cling to. It wasn’t something to be exploited. It’s not always easy to identify with this action of Jesus because we don’t see ourselves as being God or approaching equality with God. And yet, we would do well to press the issue.

In our current age of religious nationalism, where political perspectives are given religious significance, we would do well to question whether we see our relationship to God as something to be exploited. Even in more personal situations, how do we “use” our relationship to God? Do we use it to enhance our image in the community? Do we pray only when we’re pushed against the wall or when we want something?

If someone who knew you intimately wrote a biography of you, what would they write about most? What are the activities that demand most of your attention? Who are the persons to whom you give most of your time? What really excites you and gives you joy and meaning?

When the author specifically described your Christian life, what would they write about?

• what you believed and how tenaciously you held to certain doctrines?
• your faithfulness in church attendance?
• the positions you held in the church organization?
• your prayer life?
• how effectively you witnessed to the faith?

How much would they write about your lifestyle as a servant? How would they describe how you served? What would they say about whether you saw your relationship to God as something to be exploited?

The core issue is love. Love as the fruit of the Spirit must be love after the style of Jesus. As we’ve seen, this love is that of one who “gave up his divine privileges…took the humble position of a slave… humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.” Not many of us want to be servants like that, do we? Think about the way we serve. We choose when, where, how, and whom we will serve. We stay in charge. When we serve in the style of Jesus, we give up the right to be in charge. We empty ourselves and become vulnerable. We humble ourselves and give up control. We become obedient and sacrificially offer what we have and who we are. When we cease seeing our relationship to God as something to be exploited, we lose our fear of being stepped on, or manipulated, or taken advantage of. Love becomes the power for action that gives us the attitude of Christ Jesus and thus we look like him in the pattern of our lives.

As you pray and fast, reflect on the idea of someone writing a biography of you. What might the author write about that would make you happy? What do you wish the author could say about you, but your life is “not quite there yet?” As you reflect, I will be praying that you would move ever closer to a life that is in harmony with the pattern of Jesus.

Scripture Focus:

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.

Galatians 5:22-26 (NLT)

When Paul named what have come to be called the theological virtues – faith, hope, and love – he said, “But the greatest of these is love.” When he named the “fruit of the Spirit,” he began with love. Who would question the centrality of love in the shape of the Christian life? But there are still questions:

• What is the nature of this love?
• How do we appropriate it?
• How does it express itself in our lives?

To begin to answer these questions, we look to Jesus.

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

Philippians 2:5-8 (NLT)

The birth of my oldest son was both filled with incredible joy and overwhelming fear. Though Nathan arrived nice and pink and healthy, within moments of being put in my arms he began to turn blue. The doctors and nurses recognized trouble and whisked him away from me before I could even finish my question about his appearance. They worked diligently. Thankfully, Nathan bounced back quickly and all was well. But in those moments when the doctors and nurses were working so diligently on Nathan, and in the hours after when they placed him in the nursery for observation, I was overwhelmed with a kind of love I had never experienced until that moment. I realized that my love for Nathan was so intense that I would have gladly given my life for this tiny creature who could do nothing for me in return.

As I’ve reflected on that experience over the years, I continually return to the Apostle Paul and his Damascus Road experience. He caught the vision, not of the love of an earthly parent, but the love of an Eternal Father, who became human in Jesus, hanging bare hearted on a cross out of love for you and me. It was this love, the crucified love of Christ on the cross, that Paul was talking about when he said, “in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)

The above passage from Philippians is one of the most beautiful descriptions of Christ in Scripture. It’s also a description of Christian obedience and discipleship. It’s the ultimate paradigm for love – a pattern for us to f0llow: “You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.” (Philippians 2:5).

Christ’s obedience to the point of death is offered to the Philippians (and to us) as a pattern for our own obedience. Just as Jesus obediently suffered, so the Philippians (and we) should stand firm in the gospel, even when it requires us to suffer (Philippians 1:27-30). Just as Jesus humbled himself and took upon himself the form of a slave, so the Philippians (and we) should become servants in love to others.

Whenever Paul talks about who Jesus was and what Jesus did, he always talks about the cross. The cross was the event in which God acted for the redemption of all humankind. It was also, for Paul, the paradigm for the obedience of all who are followers of Christ, a paradigm, for the life of faith. When he wrote in Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ,” Paul has taken the pattern of Christ’s self-giving on the cross and made it the imperative for the Christian community to serve one another in love.

Paul insisted over and over that the Christian lifestyle is a cross-style life. The cross is the definition of how we’re to love. Paul’s most descriptive word about Jesus is in the passage in Philippians that we’ve discussed today. As you pray and fast this month, keep in your mind the way this passage begins: “You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.”

The passage isn’t just a description of who Jesus is, it’s a call to each of us. How would you have to change to have the same attitude as Christ Jesus? I pray that you would have a deep experience of the depth of God’s love for you in Christ Jesus. And I pray that experience would empower you to live out that same love for others in the daily comings and goings of your life.

Scripture Focus:

Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.

Matthew 6:9-13 (NLT)

Christians the word over, in various words, pray the above prayer, adding, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever and ever.” We call it The Lord’s Prayer. In this prayer we make the petition, “May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” It’s obvious that this prayer is yet to be answered. Things are not as they should be; life is certainly not as God intended it to be.

Last week we reflected on the difference between secular optimism and Christian hope. The condition of the world offers no cause for optimism. For all of our progress, there is still brokenness – it’s just new brokenness in new places. And yet, the reality and power of God offers every reason for hope. Because the hard world gives no sign of hope, there is no excuse Christians have to sit back, fold their arms and do nothing except complain and judge.

If we believe and trust God enough to pray, “May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done,” then we must order our lives and relationships, establish our priorities, and use our resources as though the kingdom had come. Thus, we reflect (albeit only partially) in this earthly order that which already exists in the heavenly realm. We practice what someone has designated the “ethics of hope.”

We feed the hungry and let them know a better day is coming.

We stand in solidarity with the oppressed, ministering to them in every way possible and letting them know that deliverance will one day come.

We go to the lonely, the sick, the dying, and tell them in words and deeds, and by our presence, they are loved.

Our presence and ministry will be signs, however limited, of hope. We will be witnesses to the coming Reign of God that we do not bring, but is the will and work of God. As Christians, we don’t hunker down in retreat or wring our hands in despair, no matter what is going on in the world. We have only two legitimate positions – on our knees in prayer, saying “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner,” or on our feet, standing erect, saying, “Here am I, Lord, send me.” Despair paralyzes. Hope mobilizes. Christians have hope.

In his resurrection, Jesus Christ has conquered death and has given us a guarantee of life everlasting, and a kingdom that will know no end, a kingdom where all of creation – the entire universe – will be made new and nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Everything that touches our fear and anxiety – from growing older to not having enough food, from the specter of random crime and violence to short tempers that fly when our comfort zone is invaded – it all has its roots in our fear of death, the ultimate enemy.

This death has a thousand faces. But because Jesus endured to the ultimate extent his undeserved death and because God raised Jesus from the dead, we can live in the power of the resurrection and eternity under God’s rule, we can lose our fear of death and trust God to save us now and forever. This is Christian hope.

As you pray and fast, reflect on the petition, “May your Kingdom come soon.” Think about the areas in your family and community where it is obvious that the kingdom has not come. What “ethics of hope” might you practice in relation to these? I pray you will be a sign of hope, through your words, through your deeds, and through your presence.

Scripture Focus:

It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to the Most High. It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening, accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, a harp, and the melody of a lyre. You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing for joy because of what you have done. O Lord, what great works you do! And how deep are your thoughts. Only a simpleton would not know, and only a fool would not understand this: Though the wicked sprout like weeds and evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever. But you, O Lord, will be exalted forever.

Psalm 92:1-8 (NLT)

One of the easiest mistakes to make when talking about hope is to confuse it with optimism. Optimism isn’t a bad thing; however, it is dramatically different than hope.

Optimists understand the world in basically positive terms. They have confidence about the future and believe things will work out well. This positivity can be helpful on a variety of levels. And yet, at its core, optimism assumes that our best efforts will produce proportionately good results. Optimists place their faith in human progress to fix all that is broken. Unfortunately, history shows us the fallacy of that thinking. Certainly, much progress has been made in the 20^th and now the 21^st centuries. And more progress is sure to come. However, none of this progress has come without a price – a price that often involves new brokenness in new places.

Hope on the other hand, is altogether different. Hope recognizes that progress and goodness are not inevitable. Hope recognizes that the unredeemed nature of creation doesn’t fully correspond to God, rather, it’s a world subject to sin, suffering, and death. And yet, hope trusts the resurrection promise of a reality that WILL correspond to God.

Optimism isn’t essential to understanding the kingdom of God. But hope is, because hope recognizes that when God’s kingdom comes in its fullness, all of creation will be restored, not just humanity. Hope understands that while God’s kingdom has been inaugurated in Jesus, it hasn’t yet come in all its fullness. The world is not yet fully redeemed. And yet, hope rooted in the resurrection enables our understanding of future victory to transform our present reality, even if that transformation isn’t readily visible.

As Christians, we are agents of hope, not optimism. We live with the confidence that God is alive and sovereign. We trust that, in ways we may not understand, God is at work, and one day will establish God’s kingdom in all its fullness and all things will be made new. In the meantime, because of that hope, we join the psalmist in proclaiming God’s love in the morning and God’s faithfulness at night.

As you pray and fast, I will be praying that you will discover ways in which you might be an agent of hope, living and relating to others with assured confidence that God’s promise to make all things new is even now coming to fruition.

Scripture Focus:

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.

Hebrews 10:23-24 (NLT)

This month we will focus on the theological virtue of hope. Faith and hope are intimately linked in the Christian way. The anthropologist, Loren Eisley, has written some perceptive and challenging commentaries on life form his observation of nature. He provides a dramatic picture that points us toward Christian hope. One day he leaned against a stump at the edge of a small glade and fell asleep:

When I awoke, dimly aware of some commotion and outcry in the clearing, the light was slanting down through the pines in such a way the glade was lit like some vast cathedral. I could see the dust motes of wood pollen in the long shaft of light, and there on the extended branch sat an enormous raven with a red and squirming nestling in his beak. The sound that awoke me was the outraged cries of the nestling’s parents, who flew helplessly in circles about the clearing. The sleek black monster was indifferent to then. He gulped, whetted his beak on the dead branch a moment and sat still. Up to that point the little tragedy had followed the usual pattern. But suddenly, out of all that area of woodland, a soft sound of complaint began to rise. Into the glade fluttered small birds of half a dozen varieties drawn by the anguished outcries of the tiny parents.

No one dared to attack the raven. But they cried there in some instinctive common misery. The bereaved and the unbereaved. The glade filled with their soft rustling and their cries. They fluttered as though to point their wings at the murderer. There was a dim intangible ethic he had violated, that they knew. He was a bird of death. And he, the murderer, the black bird at the heart of life, sat on there glistening in the common light, formidable, unmoving, unperturbed, untouchable.

The sighing died. It was then I saw the judgment. It was the judgment of life against death. I will never see it again so forcefully presented. I will never hear it again in notes so tragically prolonged. For in the midst of protest, they forgot the violence. There, in that clearing, the crystal note of a song sparrow lifted hesitantly in the hush. And finally, after painful fluttering, another took the song, and then another, the song passing from one bird to another, doubtfully at first, as though some evil thing were being slowly forgotten. Till suddenly they took heart and sang from many throats joyously together as birds are known to sing. They sang because life is sweet and sunlight beautiful. They sang under the brooding shadow of the raven. In simple truth, they had forgotten the raven, for they were singers of life, and not of death.

Nature’s Witness to Christian Faith

This is nature’s witness to the truth of the Christian faith. Faith in Jesus Christ, his life, teaching, death, and resurrection, makes us “singers of life, not of death.” Remember, at the heart of faith is trust. We not only trust Christ, we trust God who gave the Son for our salvation, who raised him from the dead, and who has, even now, “raised us to newness of life.” The resurrection of Christ is the sign of hope that all God’s promises will be vindicated.

Scripture and Hope in Times of Suffering

Our Scripture passage for today points to that hope. This has special meaning in relation to our sorrow, disappointment, pain, and suffering. In the resurrected Christ, we know that the power of the “old age” is doomed and “new creation” is already appearing. As Christians, we’re called to make all our life, and especially our suffering, an act of self-giving love. That’s what it means to take up our cross and follow Jesus. The cross, defined Jesus’ life and, therefore, it defines ours. And yet, the cross always carries with it the promise of resurrection.

As Christians, we are in Christ, and we share in Christ’s risen life. The divine energy which first took Jesus out of the grave is available to us – not only to raise us from death at our journey’s end, but to empower us to grow up into “the full stature of Christ” now.

It’s a matter of faith, and faith is a matter of trust, and trust gives us hope. We are singers of life.

A Call to Reflection and Renewal

As you pray and fast, reflect on a time when hope was your sustaining source. I pray that your reflection would be a cause of renewal for you, providing you with deeper trust and greater hope.

Scripture Focus:

A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. A tree is identified by its fruit. Figs are never gathered from thornbushes, and grapes are not picked from bramble bushes. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.

Luke 6:43-45 (NLT)

When Paul talks about our faith in Jesus Christ, he argues forcefully that not only are we forgiven, we’re also transformed. The past is forgiven, and we’re no longer in bondage to guilt and shame. We’re no longer victims to the ongoing power of sin. The witness of Scripture is sin as a conquered foe. Sin may remain in our lives, but it does not reign.

Keeping this in the back of our minds, we need to consider two, limited and misleading, extreme understandings. One extreme ignores the salvation message of justification by grace through faith. We overlook the fact that we are helpless sinners in desperate need of grace. We refuse to acknowledge that we have no power to save ourselves. We deny the fact that when left to our own devices, we continue to repeat the cycle of estrangement from God leading to works of injustice, unrighteousness, and all sorts of evil. The call is to be good and do good – “to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” We would like to do just that. We want to respond, and we try to respond, but we find ourselves unable to walk in the light very long. Then, when we fall back into our ways of selfishness, prejudice, lust, unbridled anger, self-protection, pride, gluttony – wanting more and more and needing more and more to be satisfied – we become discouraged and guilt-stricken. “Woe is me … who can live this life of following Jesus?”

The other limited and misleading extreme is an emphasis on the way of salvation that says, “Now that you’ve been saved, you are in.” You don’t really need to worry about anything else.

Both of these understandings are wrong. We’re unable to save ourselves, but the life of faith doesn’t stop with the acceptance of salvation in Jesus Christ – it begins there. As we follow Jesus, we’re to develop a lifestyle so dynamic and different that others take notice and say, “That’s the kind of life I want to live – how can I get it?” As we discussed at the beginning of this month, there is a vital connection between the tree and its fruit – faith and works. Jesus spoke clearly about it in our passage for this week. A tree is identified by its fruit.

The prophet Isaiah painted a challenging picture in Isaiah 5:1-10. He tells of a vineyard which produced bad fruit. The owner spared no effort to make it produce the very best grapes. He removed the stones from the soil, turned the soil with a hoe, planted the best vines available, even built a tower to protect the vineyard from thieves. He was so hopeful that he hewed a trough out of the rocky soil for the juice to flow through. And he waited!

He was horrified. No full ripe grapes came from the well-cultivated vines … only wild grapes, perhaps small, sour, spoiled – utterly unacceptable to the owner. What had happened? The owner moans and disclaims responsibility – “What more was I to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?” (Isaiah 5:4) The fault had to be in the vines.

Isaiah applies the parable to Israel, identifying the vines as the twelve tribes. From these vines God had expected justice and righteousness. But what was produced, especially in Judah, was oppression and bloodshed, cries for help from those who were oppressed (vs 7).

The lesson for us is clear. Good fruit grows out of faith and faithfulness. Our good works, the expression of righteousness and justice through us, is the result of God’s activity in us. “Bad fruit” is the result of our rejection of God, our arrogant understanding that we can make it on our own.

Keep the connection clear. We are saved for good works, though not by good works. As we respond to God’s grace in faith, we are transformed by God’s patient love to become more and more like Jesus, to understand more and more how God wants us to live, and to be more and more able to live in that way. As we live more and more the way in which God desires us to live, good works flow through us, our lives begin bearing fruit and people begin to notice that there really is something different about us.

As you pray and fast, reflect on the truth that we are saved for good works, not by good works. What kind of fruit is your faith bearing?

Scripture Focus:

I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. All of them ate the same spiritual food, and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ.

1 Corinthians 10:1-4

I grew up in the 1960’s. These were tumultuous years, and yet musicians rose to great heights of insight. In their protest songs, they spoke the prophetic word. In many of their ballads, they diagnosed the human predicament, and sometimes offered a way of healing and reconciliation. In some haunting lines, Paul Simon did a masterful piece of diagnosis – a diagnosis that is still on target.

Simon spoke as a representative of all humankind in a song entitled “I am a Rock.” In the verses of the song he talks about being behind a wall in a fortress “deep and mighty” that no one could penetrate; about having no need of friendship because friendship causes pain; about not wanting to awaken the love sleeping in his memory because if he had never loved he would have never cried; about the slumber of feelings that have died and he doesn’t want to bring them to life; about being shielded in his armor, touching no one and no one touching him. In the song’s chorus Simon named himself as a rock that felt no pain and an island that never cried.

Though an apt diagnosis, Paul Simon offered no prescription. But the Apostle Paul does. Either you will be a rock, or Jesus Christ will be your Rock.

In our Scripture passage for today, Paul calls the Corinthian Christians attention to Moses and the people of Israel coming out of captivity. He says they all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual water. “They drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that Rock was Christ.”

What an image! And the Rock was Christ.

This is the message of the New Testament. It’s the heart of the Christian faith. God’s grace for our salivation and our “walk in newness of life” is given in and through his Son, Jesus – his life, teachings, death, and resurrection. Paul’s depiction of this grace builds to a climax in Romans 5: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly … God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6, 8)

We are made right with God by grace. This grace is operative in our lives through faith. Through faith, we receive God’s gracious offer and accept Christ and his death for the forgiveness of our sin. Through faith, we’re pardoned and brought back into right relationship with God.

Go back to our image of the rock.

If you’re a rock, you won’t hurt, you won’t cry, you won’t feel pain because you won’t love. You won’t laugh either; you won’t know joy and you won’t live very much. But if Jesus is your rock, you’ll stand on it; and others will join you. Sometimes you’ll laugh, sometimes you’ll cry, sometimes you’ll rejoice, sometimes you’ll be really sad – but always you’ll work to live in the grace and love of God.

The Rock, Christ Jesus, will become the keystone for everything God wants to create in you and through you. And in some final time, we will rejoice in the love of the One who gave us life, the One who loved us so much that he hung on a cross for us.

The essence of faith is trust. The Christian faith is more than believing. It’s believing enough to trust. To have faith in Christ is to be willing to trust our lives to him. As you pray and fast, my prayer for you is that you will not only believe, but trust that Christ loved you so much that he gave himself up for you. And trusting Christ in that way will empower you to make him your Rock.

Scripture Focus:

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified! The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so much for nothing? – if it really was for nothing. Well then, does God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law or by your believing what you heard?

Galatians 3:1-5 (NRSV)

During the first part of the year, we’ve looked at the cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. The word cardinal comes from the Latin cardinalis, meaning hinge. Early philosophers contended that all other virtues hinge on these four. For the Christian, there is another perspective. To these four were added the theological virtues: faith, hope, and love. These have been seen as the classic virtues and the seven tools of the moral life. This month we’ll take a general look at faith with the conviction that faith is the tap root of any tree that is going to produce fruit of the Spirit.

Paying attention to virtues, seeking to discipline ourselves in a good life, may appear to be an effort at salvation by works, which is foreign to Protestant Christianity. Paul addressed the issue in our passage for today. “You foolish Galatians!”

Why was Paul so upset with the Galatians? Fire was in his pen as he begins this third chapter of his letter to them. He had preached the gospel to them … the gospel he had experienced with saving power on the Damascus Road, and that had been clarified and refined in those years he spent in the desert as he sought to discern the fullness of what Christ had done for him and what he was being called to preach.

It had become clear, and now he was a slave to it: Jesus Christ, crucified for our sins, offering us forgiveness and salvation by the sheer gift of grace, God’s gift. “Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.” (Romans 3:23-25) The Galatians had received that message, had experienced the joyous freedom that comes through the love and forgiveness which Christ had offered so extravagantly on the cross. But something had happened. After Paul left Galatia to continue his mission of sharing the good news to the world, Judaizers came in to sow seeds of confusion. Judaizers were early Christians who demanded that non-Jewish believers adopt Jewish customs as a criterion for salvation.

The Judaizers contended that pleasing God was a matter of doing what God said, and that meant primarily keeping the law and observing the rituals. If we do that, we will be holy and God will bless us, they said. This was the issue Paul was concerned with thr0ughout his ministry. He deals with it in almost all of his letters – the connection between faith and works.

If you don’t read Paul’s letters as a whole, you may find yourself asking, “Why did Paul preach so much against works? Didn’t he want people to do good and be good?” Of course he did! But for Paul, you can’t begin with works. That’s like putting the cart before the horse – it’s not the right order. The limitation of the law is that no one can ever fully keep it, so keeping the law and doing good works can never save us. That is why we begin with faith – faith in God who is righteous and whose righteousness is given to us through faith. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

People who are content to offer God their own good works, works which flow out of their own will and power, will never be able to fully please God. God is holy. Do we think we, in our own power can meet the standards of God’s holiness? God is pure love. Do we think that our attitudes and actions can measure up to that standard of unfettered love? Paul insists that we can never be good enough, ever holy enough, never loving enough to deserve God’s grace. But the good news is we don’t have to! God’s grace isn’t earned or deserved; it is given. We receive it by faith.

Paul doesn’t discount the meaning or necessity of good works. The Ephesians passage I quoted above continues with Paul’s balancing word, “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” (Ephesians 2:10)

There is a vital connection between faith and works. Paul wants to make sure we don’t get the cart before the horse. We are saved by grace through faith, and we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works.”

As you pray and fast this month, reflect on our earlier discussions of wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. Have you sought to practice these virtues in an effort towards good works – to “keep the law?” I pray that as you reflect on the order of faith and good works, your understanding of salvation would be deepened through the recognition that God’s grace isn’t earned or deserved, it is a remarkable and tremendous gift.