We Shall All Be Changed.....Richard Neuhaus

I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.  (Galatians 2:20)

From As I Lay Dying, by Richard John Neuhaus.....
   
             In the years before my sickness, I had written
about the passage in terms of "the transportation of the ego."

    That still seemed to me a good phrase.

         Christ had taken my life into His, and I had

taken His life into me.

         There was, as it were, an exchange of essential identities. But now it seemed to me much more than a good theological point. Now it was the absolute center of what was happening to me, and what was going to happen to me.

         It was the crux--the cross point. This is what Christians mean when they say that in Baptism we die and  rise again with Christ. This is what we mean when we say we have been crucified with Christ, that on the cross He offered up not only His life, but our lives as well.

         And thus it became luminously clear to me as I fitfully thought through these questions, lying there on the hospital bed: I had already died! My death is behind me!

         The question of what is to happen to me now is not a question about me, but a question about Christ.

         And that question has been answered. "Christ is raised from the dead never to die again, death has no more dominion over Him."
                       
         Therefore death has no more dominion over me. At some point "it" will happen. This body will be separated from this soul, and that is a great sadness. I was not expecting it so soon...but it didn't really matter that much.....

                                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


        I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the  perishable inherit the imperishable.

        Lo, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead shall be raised imperishable and we shall be changed.

        For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.

        Death is swallowed up in victory.

        Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

                                                            --1 Corinthians 15

It's All About Easter - George Herbert

I ran across this old, perhaps obscure, poem, written by George Herbert in the early 1600's.

I am so touched by its words.

George Herbert (1593-1633) was a Welsh-born poet, orator and priest.

His family were wealthy aristocrats, and he received the best education available, even attaining a position at Cambridge and being named a Member of Parliament.

He was drawn to theology and the gospel message, and devoted his later life to the Anglican clergy.

Read these beautiful words:

LOVE

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

If I lacked anything.

"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here."

Love said,  "You shall be he."

"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my Dear,

I cannot look on Thee."

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marred them; let my shame

Go where it doth deserve."

"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"

"My Dear, then I will serve."

"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."

So I did sit and eat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am so moved by these words. They picture what most of us feel each time we bow in prayer.

When we gaze upon Love (Christ), we see ourselves as unworthy, and realize that someone much grander, much more holy, should be in our place: A more worthy guest should receive Christ's invitation!

We shrink back for His hand, aware of our guilt and shame.

We are still invited in, even invited to eat.  Even more amazing, we are not the servant attending the table. 

He serves us. We sit and eat.

We are the guests.

That was His teaching that last night, the night He was betrayed, arrested and convicted. The night of the last supper with His disciples.  He served them the bread and wine that night.

Hear His words again:


The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them...But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.

For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who served...And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom....
                                                      -- Luke 22:25-30


And it wasn't just words. Look what He did:

Jesus knew the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love....so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
                                                     -- John 13:1-5

He was showing them the full extent of his love?

He said He was 'conferring on them a kingdom' -- were they confused?

In Jewish society washing the feet was too lowly a task even for Jewish servants - yet here this God-Man was washing their feet? Was this the kingdom they yearned for?


    

Preparing for Easter - Philip Yancey - Peter and Judas

From The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey


I know of no more poignant contrast between two human destinies than that of Peter and Judas.

Both assumed leadership within the group of Jesus' disciples. Both saw and heard wondrous things. Both went through the same dithery cycle of hope, fear, and disillusionment.

As the stakes increased, both denied their Master.

There, the similarity breaks off.

Judas, remorseful but apparently unrepentant, accepted the logical consequences of his deed, took his own life, and went down as the greatest traitor in history.

He died unwilling to receive what Jesus had come to offer him.

Peter, humiliated but still open to Jesus' message of grace and forgiveness, went on to lead a revival in Jerusalem and did not stop until he had reached Rome.

~~~~~~~~

One refused the gift Christ came to offer. The other

received gladly the gift.

Which choice have I made?

It's All About Easter - What was in His cup?

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed, that last night, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will" (Matthew 26:39).

Then He said to Peter, "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"  (John 18:11).

The "cup" was heavy on His mind that night.

But what was in the cup?

Our first thought, is "the coming cross."

But there is more.

In both the Old and new Testaments, the cup of God refers to God's judgment.

In the hand of the LORD is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices; he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs (Psalm 75:8).

...you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD, the cup of his wrath, you who have drained to its dregs...(Isaiah 51:17)

See also Jeremiah 25:15, Habakkuk 2:16 and others.

"If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath... (Revelation 14:9)

Through out Scripture, the cup is a picture of the judgment of God, poured out of His wrath on sinful nations and people.

We don't like to talk about the wrath of God. We don't like to think of the reality of the eternal consequences for people who reject Christ.

We like to ignore it and concentrate on other aspects of eternity.

Jerry Bridges, in The Gospel for Real Life, says this:

...how are we to understand the wrath of God? God's wrath arises from His intense, settled hatred of all sin and is the tangible expression of His inflexible, determination to punish it. We might say God's wrath is His justice in action, rendering to everyone his just due, which, because of our sin, is always judgment.

All sin, no matter how small it might seem, is a challenge, an assault, to the sovereign authority of God. It is rebellion against God's authority. 

It was the cup we should have drunk, but Jesus as our representative, drank the cup of God's wrath in our place. He drained it to the last drop.

And He did it for us.

When He cried out "It is finished!" (a Greek word for paid in full) it was not a cry of relief, but a cry of victory.

He had accomplished what He came to do, to save His people from the wrath of God.

He didn't just ask God to 'sweep it under the rug, to 'overlook it this time.' He consumed it Himself.

...we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of His great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved (Ephesians 2:3-5)

More from Jerry Bridges:

Herein is the glory of the cross. Justice and mercy are reconciled; wrath and love are both given full expression--and all of this so that we might experience the unsearchable riches of Christ!

Approaching Easter - The Historic Symbol of The Cross - Philip Yancey

It took time for the church to come to terms with the ignominy of the cross.

Church fathers forbade its depiction in art until the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine (280? - 337 AD) who had seen a vision of the cross and who also banned it as a method of execution.

Thus not until the fourth century did the cross become a symbol of the faith.

(As C. S. Lewis points out, the crucifixion did not become common in art until all who had seen a real one died off.)

Now, though, the symbol is everywhere: artists beat gold into the shape of a Roman execution device, baseball players cross themselves before batting, and candy confectioners even make chocolate crosses for the faithful to eat during Holy Week.

Strange as it it may seem, Christianity has become a religion of the cross -- the gallows, the electric chair, the gas chamber, in modern terms.

This, the power of the cross

Christ became sin for us

Took the blame, bore the wrath

We stand forgiven at the cross.

  -- Keith Getty