The Strange Christological Excess of the Old Testament (Part III)

The point of the preceding posts (here and here, and this began the train of thought) is that it is only in the light of faith in Christ that the continuity between Jesus and what went before him can be glimpsed. And it is not a nice, neat, simple, linear progression from one to the other. Jesus was a surprise. Those who like the linear approach seem to think that this 'proves' that Jesus is the messiah. (and provides a handy ground for condemning those who have missed this obvious progression and fulfillment.) But it is the surprise of faith in Jesus that strikes me. And it is this surprise, the way in which Jesus does not fit the expectations of the day, that lends credibility to the claims of faith. Where did the strange claims come from? Were they just made up? (Because, without the claims themselves, it is difficult to see how Jesus is the fulfillment of the expectations of the Old Testament.) And if a non-believer were to assert that the claims about Jesus (e.g. his resurrection) are made up, where did they come from? There were plenty of other claims to fabricate that would have met the expectations of the day, been more believable, and therefore more attractive to a Jewish audience. The lack of fit between Jesus and the expectations of the Jews demands explanation.

In all of this there is an excess in the Old Testament that allows for the strange twist that leads from the Old Testament to Jesus, but the excess is only accessed via a Christological reading of the text. And the Christological content is provided by Jesus, crucified and risen.

The Strange Christological Excess of the Old Testament (Part II)

John the Baptist's own expectation of the messiah is another case in point of the strange fulfillment that Jesus brought to the expectations of his day. Advent 3 had the interrogation of the Baptist by the Jerusalem authorities as related in the Gospel of John, where he did not deny but confessed that he was not the light. But we know that before the Baptist died he questioned whether Jesus really was the messiah. (Matt 11:3-6) (Interestingly, Jesus didn't doubt the authenticity of John the Baptist as the one who was to prepare the way. [Matt 11:7-15]) John's preaching would suggest that he expected a messiah who was to bring damnation and judgement, with the possibility of salvation for a few. Jesus, on the other hand, seemed to be a prophet primarily of forgiveness and acceptance, with the possibility of damnation. In Lk 4:16-21, Jesus announces his manifesto in the words of the prophet Isaiah (61:1-2), but omits the last half verse, "and the day of vengeance of our God." Vengeance is not absent in the preaching of Jesus, but it is subordinated to the forgiving love of God. The Old Testament knows that God's ways with Israel cannot be encapsulated within the punishment/reward cycle of straight law, but Jesus takes this to an unexpected crescendo.

The Strange Christological Excess of the Old Testament (Part I)

It would seem that some Christians are tempted to think of Christianity fulfilling the hopes of Israel in a direct and linear way. That is, any objective reading of the Old Testament without the New Testament leads directly to Jesus as the messiah, Son of God, etc. Exactly what everyone should have been expecting. Almost as if any idiot should have been ready for him, if only they would put aside their ideological spectacles. There is a nice straight line, so the argument goes, from Israel to Jesus. I've never really been able to see it myself. I have always thought that Jesus and his 'career' was a bit of a shock. (And not just for the Old Testament!)

Who expected a crucified messiah? Righteous martyrs were crucified, but everyone knew that the messiah would 'win', not 'lose' against the Romans. And who expected the resurrection to begin with a single individual, and then be stuck in an in-between time? Remembering that resurrection belief was more than just life after death, but God's comprehensive defeat of the powers of darkness and death and vindication of the righteous, the resurrection beginning in one person, but then stopping, just didn't make sense. We could extend this list of surprises. For example, Paul says that the church is now the temple (of the Holy Spirit), and whatever the relationship between this temple of the Holy Spirit and the temple then still standing in Jerusalem, it would have been a surprising way to speak for a Jew. Hardly a linear progression from jewish expectation of the time to the followers of the crucified messiah as, in some way, the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Important, But Paraphrased

Here are two important theological insights. However, I can't remember who wrote them. And they are my paraphrases.

In accepting the cross Christ renounced the claim to govern history. This reminds of something Lesslie Newbigin wrote. He said that the cross is evidence of God's sensitivity toward human freedom.

And:
Death was unable to close the door on Jesus and relegate him to the past.

Preparing For Christmas (Kids' Talk)

[We have a Christmas Tree in the worship space.]
Have a look at this ... (the tree)
And why are we doing this? Preparation for Christmas.
How else do we prepare ...

John the Baptist said that the way we can get ready for the coming of Jesus is to say sorry and believe in Jesus (to repent and believe):

• things we have done wrong
• but this is so we know that we need God in our lives

The Durability of God's Word

"Yahweh has planned comfort for the exiles, and none can prevent it." (Walter Brueggemann)

Isaiah proper (chapters 1-39) ends on a note of destruction and despair. Israel's unfaithfulness will not go unpunished. (Isa 39:5-8) Judah will lose its king, city, temple and people; "... nothing shall be left, says the Lord." (39:6) Babylon snuffed out the kingdom of Judah in 586 BC, and took the people into exile as the Assyrians had done previously to the kingdom of Israel (2Kings 17:-6). And just as all seems lost for good, there comes a prophecy from God. 'Second Isaiah' speaks a word of comfort and grace to the people; God will come to them, their exile will end, and they will return home to the promised land. This "comfort" is more than consolation; rather it is God's solidarity and presence with the suffering of the people. Their exile is to end, and they will return home across the desert to the promised land.(Isa 40:1-5; see also Isa 35:8-10) The performative word of God (Isa 40:5,8) has cataclysmic implications for the empire of Babylon. It must fall to let the people go (Isa 40:10-11; Jeremiah 51:34-37; see also Exodus 5:1), and it did in 536 BC, conquered by the ruler of the Medes and Persians, God's (pagan!) servant of judgement, King Cyrus. (See Isa 45:1-7) God's forgiveness of the sins of the people leads from exile to homecoming for Israel; for Babylon it means the defeat of their power and the destruction of their empire. (Isa 40:10) The fall of pagan empire and the return home is not dependent on the strength of mere mortals but rests on God's resolve and decree. (Isa 40:6-8) God will do this. (Isa 40:9-11)

There is an excess in the prophecy of Isaiah 40 that finds its fulfilment in John the Baptist's preaching and ministry. (Mk 1:1-8; Lk 3) God is now acting in Jesus decisively for all those who find themselves in exile and in need of homecoming. This includes the physical exiles and prisoners (see Matt 25:31-46; Lk 4:18-19), the excluded from society, those in need of healing, and all those who know their need and seek their true home.(Matt 11:28-30) The God of grace encountered by Israel now through Israel reaches out to the whole of humankind in Jesus Christ. And like the word that brought the people from exile to homecoming, this word will also accomplish God's will.

"And the Word became flesh ..." (Jn 1:14)

[Advent 2(B), Isaiah 40:1-11; Mk 1:1-8]

God Looked Down on the Crucified Jesus

In reference to this picture of the crucifixion (see right, based on the drawing from St John of the Cross presumably), I said to my Year 7s, "Who do you think was looking down on the crucified Christ?" They got it pretty quick. "God?"they wondered. "But that's not right!" one of them said. Indeed. (Ordinary/pagan) Divinity dies at the foot of the cross. And the gospel can take root. The God of the crucified risen Jesus, not the plenipotentate of ordinary religion.

Golgotha

Finally, one arrives at the place

Of the skull because there is nowhere

Else to go. And there before the face

Of bone one pauses in despair.

The culmination of all evil

Is displayed before one’s eyes:

Man’s heart conspired with the devil

And cared little for disguise.

Yet if, the sight of the cross,

a light is struck on the rough of the brain

and the mind conceives all bar this is vain,

There comes a voice that reassures: Thus

is the seed of tenderness sown

in the cleft of the heart of stone.

________ANDREW LANSDOWN_____________

Advent Wreath (Kids' Talk)

[Advent 1]

Focusing on one of the symbolic elements of the Advent Wreath, this week the candles. Start off noticing the elements of the wreath: circular, greenery, 4/5 candles.

Light a candle: what could it mean?
How many weeks until Christmas? We light an extra one each week
Why? As we get closer to Christmas.
Why? Jesus as the light of the world. Or, lighting our way to the Christ child is an alternative explanation.

Suspicious Minds

It is a feature of our world to be suspicious. Some might say overly suspicious. In particular, we are suspicious of motives and what lies behind the facade of human behaviour and intention. And in this schema of suspicion it is power and coercion - ultimately violence - that is assumed to be behind all human activity. (Nietzsche casts a long shadow here.) From a traditional Christian point of view, this is not as far off the mark as it may at first seem. The universality of sin means that all human behaviour and intention is mired in a cul-de-sac of failure. We too are suspicious of all discourses (although this does not mean human goodness is absent, but just that it is never pristine). But Christian theology also claims a uniqueness for Christ: he is not impeded by original sin. Here we meet one of the points of conflict between traditional belief and a more post-modern version of Christianity. I don't think the doctrine of the Incarnation is about power and coercion, but many lump it with all the other ideologies of the world. I think Christ was truly for us, just as God is for us, and only for us. Christ has opened up for us a new and living way within history that leads beyond it (but never deserting it), and overcomes all violence. And this is spelt out (amongst other doctrines) in the Incarnation.

[See David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite, pp. 1-2. The picture above is of Nietzsche. It is easier to see here.]

Surrender

Dear God,
We loosen our grip.
We open our hand.
We are accepting.
In our empty hand
We feel the shape
Of simple eternity.
It nestles there.
We hold it gently.
We are accepting.
Amen.

Salvation In Time, Not an Escape From It

The pagan corollary to a "spiritual salvation" is salvation as an escape from history, indeed, from the rest of creation. If Christianity means anything its meaning must be present in history. This is why the Bible is so material and historical. God's goodness comes to us in history, from creation, through covenant and finally in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It is material, historical, and a legitimate Christian theology will never disavow this. This means that the salvation won in Christ is not an escape from history, but takes creation and its history into God. Herein lies the transformation of resurrection, and this for everything that is.

Seven Stanzas at Easter

Make no mistake: If He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that - pierced - died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.


John Updike

You Meet Jesus When You Meet ...?

This is the kids' talk I used for Matt 25:31-46.

I had 7 slides: a bishop, a baby, prisoner, church congregation, refugee camp, big, happy family, Mother Teresa.

The gist of the sermon: scrolled through the slides asking if you met these people, would you be meeting Jesus? i.e. Jesus present in them. The kids got it easily, the answer to all of them, yes.

Then we went through each one, and they had to decide which one especially was Jesus present in. The kids here went for baby/family. I reiterated the point that Jesus is with all of them, but that Jesus thought he was especially present to the prisoner, the refugee, etc.

Resurrection of the Body

One of the first sermons I delivered at Holy Innocents touched on the resurrection of the body. A theme I have continued in preaching and teaching since because of the dominance of a spiritualized (and essentially pagan) understanding of eternal life. Whatever the bodily resurrection of Jesus means for us (and I don't mean this in an agnostic way - there is much we can say about the resurrection of Jesus and its implications) it doesn't mean that souls zoom off to heaven permanently. The immediate response to this traditional claim is often one of two:

• But I don't want to live for ever in this old broken body! or
• So where is my deceased loved one now?

My initial response to each is:

• The resurrection of the body is not the continuation of this life but its transformation. It is not just a continuation of this life after the interruption of death is overturned by God in eternal life.
• The death of a loved one is a time of grief and hope. This is a good place to do some theological work, but this work must be done in the light of revelation if it is to be a Christian grappling with the intensity of life (and death). The bodily resurrection of Jesus is part of this original revelation.

If we dispense with the resurrection of the body, the doctrine of the Incarnation and sacramental theology become superfluous, bordering on nonsensical. There is a thread of continuity and coherence strung from creation, Incarnation, resurrection of the body and sacraments.

The Theo(il)logical Gospel

The gospel of Jesus stands out against all the 'logics' of the world. In this sense, the gospel is illogical. For example, a king born amongst the dung; a local king (Herod) willing to kill the children of a whole area to snuff out a nobody; the Christ who is a refugee; a Christ who calls sinners to be his disciples; the crucified Christ; and the unity of cross and resurrection, a gospel that never leaves behind the cross of Jesus in favour of his resurrection; a messiah known most easily in history in the form of the hungry and imprisoned. The gospel just doesn't fit our usual perceptions. And this alerts us to the perennial danger for disciples and churches, the temptation to domesticate the gospel (by making it more 'logical' and 'reasonable') because of the discomfort the mismatch provides. The temptation is to either change/ignore bits of the gospel or fib about our humanity (in all its glory and depravity). So how do we prevent this, as much as possible anyway? A couple of points:

• Be suspicious of glib or simplistic answers. Seek the simplicity on the other side of complexity, which means we will have to spend time working the issue, content to keep working it until it yields.
  
• Be suspicious of glib theology. The kind of thing that slices off aspects of the gospel that don't 'fit'. Examples abound, but the usual targets of this trimming are the bits about peace and justice (in favour of an evangelism exclusively), and the traditional parts that make Jesus Lord, messiah, Son of God, etc (in favour of the social activist Jesus who is only a role model of social justice or teacher of wisdom).
  
• Be honest about our humanity, and our common experience of humanity as we currently experience it. Let's not hide the brokenness, but not wallow in it. This is important, because our actual humanity was made for the full gospel. Lose one and the other won't make sense.
  

[For Christ the King, Matt 25:31-46, and Holy Innocents Patronal Festival. It happens to fit into our parish calendar well at the moment, but theologically contrasts the two styles of kingship: violence and peace.]

Ministered To By Angels

My Year 7 RE class saw the contrast between the desolation of the cross, and the artist's depiciton of God's presence during the dying.

The Beginning of the Doctrine of the Trinity

I asked my Year 7 RE class if they knew any of the words Jesus spoke on the cross. A few answers, and then I mentioned, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And one student asked, "But wasn't Jesus God?" Ah, indeed he was. And this 12 year old made the first step along the path that leads to the doctrine of the Trinity.

The Shock of the Incarnation

My Year 7 RE class were shocked by this. Silent. I said that when God became human this is the result. A God who joins the millions of the tortured. And when Jesus is resurrected this is God's 'No' to the violence, and a 'Yes' of life to all the tortured.

Contemplating the Descent to Hell

Jesus Came To Save (Kids' Talk)

[I'm using some model dinosaurs my brother and I made when we were kids.]

The point of the sermon is to make the connection between how I have looked after the models all these years because I made them, and how God intends to keep everything that God has made as well. Not lose any of it. That's the point of Jesus.

Points to emphasise: I made the models, a lot of time and effort, painted them etc., and I have carefully kept them in this box all these years. As I have moved from house to house, carefully they have been moved as well.

Parallel: God made everything, carefully, loves everything, and does not intend to lose any of it. In fact, God wants to bring it all home, back to God. That is why God sent Jesus.