Getting back to the world of blogging. This is a test. I repeat this is a test.

The Mission

Close your eyes. No really close your eyes. Wait, not yet. When you close your eyes after you read this first paragraph, think about what heaven looks like. Ok, now close your eyes for 25 seconds.
Where was heaven? Who was there? What kind of surroundings did your picture of heaven conjure up?
I hope that you closed your eyes. J
I have been a follower of Christ since I can remember. I was taught, as I have written about earlier, a different type of faith, but nonetheless I was guided to follow Christ. However, it’s only in the past few years have I really questioned my faith in a real and devastating way. I use devastating, knowing full well the implications. These month I have called on my past experience and knowledge of faith and doubt to work through my issues with the resurrection of the Christ. It is my thought and belief, in fact, it is central to all faith. Maybe you already knew that, maybe you didn't. With this new found reality, I feel it has some huge impactions for the rest of my questions and brings with it some new responsibilities. One of the impactions of the resurrection is, if it brought the Kingdom of Heaven to earth, then we must, change our thinking about Heaven and Earth as two distinct "places." It’s so Greek to think that Heaven is in space and heaven is disconnected from earth. It's funny. NT Wright says, "Part of getting used to living in the post-Easter world, [the resurrection] it changes your life, your attitudes, your thinking, your behavior...Heaven and Earth are made for each other." The Kingdom of Heaven at certain places intersects earth. "Christians are meant to be such points."
This isn't a metaphor; it’s not just a good explanation of how to think about heaven.
Our mission is to bring Heaven to earth. Sure, there are places that we can't bring it; however, there is a place which you can—Your Life.

Sooner than Later

The common belief and view I was taught in my younger years says, that salvation is about my personal walk with Christ and my life is focused on getting to heaven, in the future, after my death. It’s not until recently, the last 5 years, I have been thinking and reading about a new kind of Salvation–a different perspective on what "being saved" means. Once I started rethinking my ideas, I soon found out that the new kind of perspective changed everything. It didn’t just change how I live my life but how I treated the guy behind the bar to the sucka who cut me off on 635. I was taught that I needed to be nice to people, follow the law, and be good. I had a list of things to do and a list of things not to do. It was basic. I did all these things in order to find my ultimate peace after death. The ultimate goal was Heaven, leaving earth, leaving my physical body to decay and being with God. In my view, the church as NT Wright says,"[with this view] the main work of the church is bound to be seen in terms of saving for that future."
This simply isn't what the New Testament says about salvation or the Kingdom of God.
"Salvation is about the entire person, not just the soul. Salvation isn’t simply about the future, but includes the present. Salvation is what God does through us, not merely what God does in and for us."
When Christ came to earth, he brought the Kingdom. Through the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, we see the point of the entire story of the Bible. NT Wright puts it like this, "They are designed not to take us away from this earth but rather to make us agents of the transformation of this earth...." Remember the Lord's Prayer, "Our Father who is in Heaven, Glory to your name, Your Kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven....” The Process has started! From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible speaks about God's purpose to reclaim the brokenness of the entire cosmos. His plan includes those who follow Christ. Just as in the covenant with Abraham, God blessed Israel so they could bring blessing to the whole world. With this end in mind, our future actually starts sooner than I had been taught. Let us build the Kingdom.

More Thoughts on N.T. Wright

"Redemption doesn't mean scrapping what's there and starting again but rather liberating what has come to be enslaved." N.T Wright
In Gnostic thought, the soul longs to be taken out of the evil wickedness of the present world. The Gnostic would say that the 'ontological' is what truly matters. The earth is evil and the heaven is a good and righteous place. Following with this idea, our redemption would come with our death and exit to heaven. On the flip side of this, there are some which would proclaim that progress would make this present world a good place, a type of social justice. Recently, I feel there as a big push to this social justice and progress will lead the way to a global redemption. Surely, the past 150 years in the United States has emphasized the individualistic hard working model of progress that would bring about a better world. What we need is education, some would say. However, evil is still present. There is no peace in the Middle East. N.T. Wright says the answer of redemption comes to us as Paul writes in Colossians 1, where creation holds onto redemption. "[Redemption] is the remaking of creation, having dealt with the evil that is defacing and distorting it. And it is accomplished by the same God...through whom it was made in the first place."
With this knowledge, you can see, it changes things. I grew up thinking that I was to live a life good enough, and accept Christ to be MY God, repent and do good until I die so I can make it to heaven. I realize that this is a basic child like description which surely has its roots in sunday school, but how many of us live our life like it? How many of us hold on to our past and think to ourselves that me must change before we can be accepted in to our grace of God? Or how many followers of Christ when asked about a future hope in heaven, revert back to this Gnostic idea of heaven and death?
As you can tell, at least from my viewpoint, I think this has dramatic ramifications. N.T. Wright, makes one of these ramifications as being a bodily resurrection, he says, "Redemption doesn't mean scrapping what's there and starting again from a clean slate but rather liberating what has come to be enslaved." And because of the analysis of evil not as materiality but as rebellion, the slavery of humans and of the world does not consist in embodiment, redemption from which would mean the death of the body and the consequent release of the soul or spirit. The slavery consists, rather, in sin, redemption from which must ultimately involve not just goodness of soul or spirit but a newly embodied life."
In addition to this new reality of life in the midst of death, it should go without saying, the death and resurrection of Christ has drastically affected the way we live our life. It has drastic effects on the way we view our sin, our failures, and our evilness as a people. When we focus on the cross it is the act where creation is brought back into harmony with the wise creator, redemption.

Thoughts on "Surprised by Hope"

Started reading the newest release from one of my favorite aurthors today, N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.

"Crucifixion meant that the Kingdom had Hadn't come...Crucifixion meant of a would be Messiah meant that he wasn't the Messiah."

Put yourself in the shoes of John, Peter, and James. You left your entire world behind. Everything is in this coming Kingdom lead by the Messiah, God's chosen one. Your leader, speaks of this coming Kingdom daily. Heals daily. As you travel with this man, your faith builds. You are ready to bring this earthly Kingdom to rule for all the peoples of the world. (Remember, the people wanted to be free from the oppression of the Roman empire and be given "their" land back.)

On this particular monring you are with Jesus and he is taken away and soon there after, he is Dead. Can you Imagine? All your hope is destroyed. Everything you thought was right, is now clearly wrong. Crucifixion means you lost. Your fear and disbelief builds and soons begins to eat away at your faith. You are now one of the crazy men who followed the man who claimed he was God. Crucifixion meant of a would be Messiah meant that he wasn't the Messiah.

Live in this place for a while. Put yourself here. Pray for weakness.

Light and Dark

The light shines. The sun rises and the sun sets. Life is full of light and shadow, to borrow from my boy Crowder. There are times of life. Times of death. Joy and happiness. Darkness and grief. Can we only have one side of the coin? Wouldn't you agree, both are needed? When the shadow's and darkness comes, we have a place to look to, a place to remember. I have been thinking lately about the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is here, not a distant event that we are looking toward. However, all to often my philosophy of life doesn’t resemble this radical truth. Life isn't about getting by and being good in order to get into Heaven or pay for the deeds of your life in Hell. When we think about our life in these terms, it has devastating effects. Your life matters. My life matters. Our lives matters today. The Christmas season is right around the corner. I hope we remember that the Christmas season is less about family and gifts and time away from school but signals a much bigger meaning. The this meaning is all to often overlooked, even here in the Bible belt. Christmas is when the Kingdom of God showed up, the word became flesh. All the claims of the Old Testament were fulfilled in this coming king, the chosen one. This changes things, right? Let that sink into your soul. Christ came as a baby, walked among us, used women prostitutes, the Samarian’s, the poor, the outcast, the homeless, the worst citizen’s and challenged the church leaders and the people that had it together. Christmas signals this new world order. A new way to look at things. Get the picture of your childhood church out of your head, we weren't taught this in Sunday school (at least I wasn't). If Christmas signals this change, Easter has new and dynamic meaning and ramifications as well. Easter calls us to remember Christmas night. The Christ came, and then died. But death couldn’t hold the kingdom down. It is this that gives us hope. This hope points us to this new world order. We are called to repent and remember. But please realize that our repentance doesn't precede our right action or faith. Your faith isn't yours, it was given to you. God loves us, not when we are at our best, but at our worst. Give up trying to change yourself. In giving up, finding yourself in the shadows will lead you to the light. Realize that all people have good and bad, in all of us. There isn’t good and bad people, we are both. Two sides to the same coin. God help us to live in this kingdom. God help us keep from living for our death. God help us realize our faith isn't our own. God help us realize we are not in this alone. God help us.

Have you ever been accused of something you simply did not do? One of my first memories is when my family went out on our weekly trip to the grocery store. At our neighborhood grocery store there was a giant stand with thousands of different kinds of candy. Along with the candy, there was a scale and tiny white bags, you would pick the candy, weight it and bag to pay for it at the front of the store. Every time I would walk by this display, I would stick my hand in the huge pile of candy (the candy was individually wrap!) and think to myself, "wow, this is so much candy!" There is just something about having enough candy to cover your whole body...
On this particular day, we walk by the display and I did my usual routine. However, this time I left my hand in the pile a little longer, long enough for my mom to start down the next aisle. Just when my mom left my line of sight, I quickly ran after her to catch up. To an onlookers, I am sure I could have slipped a piece of candy down my sleeve and that is what I was accused of by an "old lady". She stopped me and said, "You stop right there! Open your hand, I know you have candy in it!" I looked up at her, with my over sized, deep blue eyes with dismay and opened my empty hand. I was young, but even then it hurt my spirit, in a way that hadn't ever happened.

I think the point here is not about taking stuff that isn't yours, but rather how we confront those people in our lives that have done wrong. I have done it myself. Confronted boldly and argumentative, I know there response even before there mouth opens. In some way its my way of saying, You are wrong, and I am right. I have seen good friendships deeply hurt beyond repair.

The truth, we all have done wrong. We have all taken. Are we not all guilty? There is a need for confrontation, we need to be asked the tough questions. However, "You stop right there!" Might not be a good place to start.