Not too many months ago, I encountered a commenter on another blog who expressed doubt that Jesus’ promise of His Holy Spirit in John 14-17 was meant for anyone but His gathered disciples then and there in the upper room.

He believed the promise was not meant for us, in other words; that the Spirit of truth would counsel and comfort us; remind us of everything He has said; bring us peace; testify of Jesus in our time; or guide us into all truth.

Just them.

Just then.

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” ~ Acts 2:38-39

Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. ~ 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 … And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, ~ Ephesians 1:13 … And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ~ Ephesians 4:3

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. ~ 2 Corinthians 13:14 … For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. ~ 1 Corinthians 12:13

But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. ~ 2 Thessalonians 2:13 … he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, ~ Titus 3:5

And what about the whole of Romans 8? 1 Corinthians 12? Galatians 3, 4 and 5?

How could anyone read these verses, become familiar with them, know them backwards and forwards and maybe even in Greek, and still wonder whether Jesus was speaking to us about the gift of His very own, indwelling Holy Spirit?

Or believe that He would live within us only as a seal, performing no other work in us or through us to glorify God and draw ourselves and others closer to Him?

You would have to earn a doctorate in mental kinesthesiology to perform the feats of inductive gymnastics required to land that conclusion with both feet firmly planted in the pages of God’s Spirit-breathed word.

“Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights.
   How the mighty have fallen!

“Tell it not in Gath,
   proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon,
   lest the daughters of the Philistines be glad,
   lest the daughters of the uncircumcised rejoice.

“O mountains of Gilboa,
   may you have neither dew nor rain,
   nor fields that yield offerings of grain .
   For there the shield of the mighty was defiled,
   the shield of Saul—no longer rubbed with oil.

“From the blood of the slain,
   from the flesh of the mighty,
   the bow of Jonathan did not turn back,
   the sword of Saul did not return unsatisfied.

“Saul and Jonathan—
   in life they were loved and gracious,
   and in death they were not parted.
   They were swifter than eagles,
   they were stronger than lions.

“O daughters of Israel,
   weep for Saul,
   who clothed you in scarlet and finery,
   who adorned your garments with ornaments of gold.

“How the mighty have fallen in battle!
   Jonathan lies slain on your heights.

“I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother;
   you were very dear to me.
   Your love for me was wonderful,
   more wonderful than that of women.

“How the mighty have fallen!
   The weapons of war have perished!”

~ 2 Samuel 1:19-27

A quick peek in from the outside

I never watched the television series Lost until the series finale last night.

Okay, not quite true. I never watched a full episode until last night. I caught part of an early one on SyFy (I think back then it was Sci-Fi Network) and there was a polar bear on a tropical island threatening marooned survivors of an air disaster, and a voice-recorded distress beacon that had been going for fifteen years, and I couldn’t make any sense of it. So I turned off the television.

This morning, a quick scan of the CNN bulletin board on the finale pretty much confirms what I expected to see: people either loved or hated the finale, even if they loved the series … and it left most perplexed and unsatisfied, even the ones who thought they “got it.”

Hey, I’m no genius. I expected to see that reaction because I’ve seen it before. When a television show like the original The Prisoner or its 2009 re-visioning has a finale like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s “What You Leave Behind,” people are going to either love or hate it … because not all of the loose ends are neatly tied up at THE end.

Some folks love and embrace mystery. So they’ll love it.

Some folks can’t stand an unanswered question. So they’ll hate it.

Which brings me to a hypothesis about people and religion and Christianity in particular.

There are all kinds of people who follow Christ. People who are okay with the fact that they will never fully, in this life, understand God or have all of their questions about Him answered … and people who aren’t. We all tend to have a bias, one way or the other.

The first group of people don’t have to know everything; it’s enough to love Him and be loved by Him.

The second group of people can’t settle for that; everything has to fit together somehow into a completed puzzle that is rational and logical and makes sense.

I think the danger for the first group is the extreme that the puzzle pieces which actually do fit together – the aspects of God’s nature that are clearly revealed by the Spirit in scripture – don’t matter all that much. If they want to believe that a loving God will save everyone, or that hell is figurative while heaven is literal, or that only mental assent to Christ’s Sonship is all that is required to be called “faithful,” they’ll believe that. It’s all a mystery, anyway, and a merciful God loves us, and if we don’t have to be right about everything then why should we have to be right about anything and so what?

I believe the danger for the second group is the extreme that only certain puzzle pieces matter; the crucial missing ones – the aspects of God’s nature that are obscured by the Spirit in scripture – are all that matter. If they want to believe that a just God will save only the perfectly righteous, or that the solo works of people unaccompanied by the Spirit’s help contribute to salvation, or that mental assent to this doctrine and that are also required to be called “faithful,” they’ll believe that. It’s all right there in scripture, if we would just take the time and the brain cells to parse it all out, and a righteous God will judge us, and if we have to be right about anything then we have to be right about everything and so there!

The problem with both extremes is that God is like us – and yet He isn’t. He isn’t simply just and righteous; He isn’t simply loving and merciful. He is complicatedly, perfectly both. He doesn’t have a bias one way or the other.

So He leaves us perplexed, with some answers (but not all) and some instructions (but not a million-volume rule book) and some hints / glimpses (but not a street map of eternity).

He leaves us transfixed, staring upward at the foot of His cross, and He gives us a choice.

We can either follow our own hearts and heads; walk away, and die and be lost … or follow Him to the tomb and the resurrection and a life worth saving.

“Sacrifice a bull each day as a sin offering to make atonement. Purify the altar by making atonement for it, and anoint it to consecrate it.” ~ Exodus 29:36

“Sacrifice the other lamb at twilight with the same grain offering and its drink offering as in the morning—a pleasing aroma, an offering made to the LORD by fire.” ~ Exodus 29:41

“… I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” ~ Romans 12:1

I’m not fond of stringing together unrelated passages (especially when lifted out of context) to prove a point which may or may not exist.

But I have to wonder if there is a connection between the daily sacrifices God required of His people under the Old Covenant and the daily sacrifices He gives us the opportunity to make under the New Covenant.

The sacrifices of the old pact were bloody, messy, and made by fire; morning and evening.

The sacrifice which sealed the new pact was bloody, messy, and put the Son of God under fire from Satan; He perished in the evening and revived in the morning.

We are to be like Him.

We are to sacrifice ourselves, morning and evening, perishing to self in order to display revival, resurrection of our lives from bloody, messy purposelessness and self-centeredness here and now.

In the context of the passage from the New Covenant, Paul is instructing that this kind of worship transforms us; enables us to “test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” ~ Romans 12:2.

Daily sacrifices.

They never really went out of style.

I can only think of two times that Jesus said that; only once in those words. In neither instance was He preaching, and He did a lot of preaching.

One time was after he had healed the physically-disabled man by the pool of Bethesda (John 5). It’s peculiar because he tells the man – some time after the healing, finding him in the temple grounds – to “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” Yet this is the same Jesus who, five chapters later in John 9, will tell his closest friends that the blind man He is about to heal is not blind because of his own sin or his parents’. It makes me wonder if the misconception behind their question to Him was widespread … if people of that time and place believed that infirmities were always a punishment from God. And it makes me wonder if Jesus might actually be (*GASP*) kidding with the fellow in chapter 5, who joyously goes around telling everyone who healed him – even if it lands him in trouble with the officials in Jerusalem.

Because if that assumption about sin and physical punishment from God is rampant, everyone who has passed him by or cast a glance at him may well have thought, “He’s a sinner. He might be unclean. I don’t want to touch him and help him into the pool and be unclean myself. Poor devil. Better him than me.”

So perhaps Jesus is making a bit of a jest off of the assumption – showing the man that He sees people differently; that God sees people differently. “See, you are well again!” (*wink*) “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you!”

It isn’t that the man has sinned, causing his paralysis. It’s that everyone sins, and that something far worse may happen to them than some physical infirmity like paralysis or blindness … something like a life apart from God.

The other time I can think of Jesus telling someone to “leave your life of sin” is that somewhat-disputed passage between those two, in John 8: the woman taken in adultery. This woman, too, was dragged into the temple grounds before Jesus, and after embarrassing her exiting accusers with His no-exceptions teaching about sin, He tells her that He doesn’t condemn her, either.

I don’t think He’s kidding about her need to leave her life of sin; she, after all, was caught in the act. But it’s not like He’s leaving her with nothing but a “no-no” for direction. His very next teaching is “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Some people need to be told to stop sinning, and told seriously.

But everyone? Every week? People in church, people who always go to church, people who frequently go to church, people who even occasionally go to church? People who believe?

Do they need to be told week after week, sermon after sermon, to “stop sinning” … without any other direction for their life?

People need to hear about Jesus. People who have heard about Jesus need to hear more. We all need to know about the Example and Pattern, the Lord and Master, the Prince of Heaven, the Son of God, the Way, the Truth and the Life. We need to know that there’s more to faith in Him than just not sinning; that there’s hope and forgiveness through grace and sacrifice and resurrection. We need to know that there’s more to life than just trying hard, which always leads to failure; that there’s a Holy Spirit given to those who believe to comfort and strengthen them and seal them for salvation, making a down payment in their lives right now for the promise of better, wider, fuller, more joyous eternal life in the kingdom to come.

Yes, Jesus preaches “Repent” just like John the Baptist and a whole slew of prior prophets preached.

But He hardly ever does so without adding “… for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

A sermon that just says “stop sinning” is not a gospel sermon; it is half-a-gospel sermon at best. And while half-a-sermon is better than none, half-a-sermon is still not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

So, help me, God.

Help me through Your Spirit – through any means You wisely see fit – help to me remember to tell the Story, tell all the Story, tell of penitence and turning and starting over before Your justice and Your righteousness … and also of renewal and inspiration and resurrection through Your mercy and Your love.

And through Jesus’ name ….

Amen.

I’ve decided to come as close as I can to one of my original Blogger templates at my blog’s new home, here at WordPress.

Maybe it will stimulate the kind of originality and spontaneity that used to be found on my blog!

Maybe it will engender a cosmic audience of interstellar blog fans from beyond the known reaches of so-called intelligent existence!

Maybe it will just give me something to do when I’m bored – and you, too!

We’ll just have to dig the planks out of our eyes and see.

“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” ~ John the Baptizer, Matthew 3:11 … “I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” ~ Mark 1:8 … “John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” ~ Luke 3:16

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” ~ Jesus, Matthew 28:19

“Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.” ~ Jesus, Mark 13:11 … “for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.” ~ Luke 12:12 … “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” ~ Jesus, John 14:26

“If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” ~ Jesus, Luke 11:13

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” ~ Acts 2:38

“After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” ~ Luke, Acts 4:31

“We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” ~ Acts 5:32

“Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord.” ~ Luke, Acts 9:31

“And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” ~ Luke, Acts 13:52

“God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.” ~ Peter, Acts 15:8

“I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.” ~ Paul, Acts 20:23

“And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” ~ Paul, Romans 5:5

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” ~ Paul, Romans 15:13

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;” ~ Paul, 1 Corinthians 6:19

‘Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.’ ~ Paul, 1 Corinthians 12:3

“And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,” ~ Paul, Ephesians 1:13

“You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.” ~ Paul, 1 Thessalonians 1:6

“Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” ~ Paul, 2 Timothy 1:14

“… he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,” ~ Titus 3:5

“God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.” ~ Hebrews 2:4

“For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” ~ 2 Peter 1:21

How God’s Holy Spirit relates to us is important.

Just curious.

If you never heard of it, this is where it’s found these days:

http://www.austingrad.edu/christianaffirmation/affirmation.html

(Its original domain name was evidently allowed to expire.)

A Christian Affirmation is coming up on its fifth anniversary. It was originally published as a paid advertisement in the May, 2005 Christian Chronicle, which thereafter instituted a policy to review the content of advertising before accepting it … even full-page advertising.

It was seen by many as an attempt to draw a line in the sand, a line of fellowship among Churches of Christ, by those who saw the introduction of worship services featuring instrumentally-accompanied vocal music in worship in some sister congregations as a threat to the distinctiveness of Churches of Christ, a product of the Restoration Movement.

Soon after its publication in this journal, the Affirmation was also posted at an appropriately-named Web site. There, it was possible to send in comments and, eventually, to add one’s name to the list of signatures on the document. This feature was abused in a very un-Christian way by immature detractors – and since identities of signers could not be easily verified, the feature was removed – but the dialogue had begun.

One thing nearly everyone could agree upon: the issue of a cappella-only / instrumentally-accompanied music in worship had been promoted by the Affirmation to the same level of importance as immersive baptism and the Lord’s Supper on the first day of the week.

Discussion continued in church bulletins and blogs and discussion boards on the ‘net. The discussion was often heated; sometimes cordial, sometimes acidic; but in the end, its effect was like that visited upon the hapless Ralph Mellish in the Monty Python sketch: suddenly, nothing happened.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

I’m sure it depends on whom you ask. The body of Christ was not further subdivided and vivisected as a result, and I see that as a good thing. People talked about what really was essential in the life and worship of believers, and I see that as a good thing.

However, no councils were proposed to prayerfully discuss the matter and ask for the direction of the Holy Spirit together. No lectureships nor publications volunteered to air scholarly or even self-published works representing all points of view. No consensus was reached. No unity was restored.

In short, suddenly nothing happened.

And I see that as a bad thing.

The unresolved issue of a cappella-only / instrumentally-accompanied worship remains – not the unspoken elephant – but the great, gaping seismic fault line between two camps of God’s people under the banner of the same tribe and the aegis of congregational autonomy and the comfort of pretending that everything has gone back to the way it was and should be.

And – just as is happening in politics, social association, and virtually every other aspect of life in the American nation – the chasm keeps growing wider as it becomes more and more effortless to associate only with those who share one’s fondest preferences.

We have become segregated – not so much racially as philosophically – in spite of the fact that we proudly proclaim that we wear the designer label “Christian” (without the “Dior”), referring to a Christ who associated with the meek, poor and lowly as well as the wealthy, privileged and powerful.

It is almost beyond question that Jesus worshiped with the likely-a cappella cantor’s songs of the small synagogues in Nazareth and Capernaum … as well as with the instrumentally-embellished psalms of temple worship in Jerusalem.

He is a both/and Savior.

We are an either/or church.

There is nothing about that worth affirming.

Acts 3:1 –

“One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon.”

What might happen if Christians everywhere took a few moments in the 3:00 hour to pray every day?

Acts 4:31, maybe?

“After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”

In this instance, it seems, one thing just led to another ….

If I set my iPhone’s calendar alarm or my watch to remind me, and commit to doing this … would you join me?

Wherever you are?

Whatever time zone you’re in?

Whether you’re ready for what might happen or not?