Transformers

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. -- Titus 3:4-7

Normally I ignore a lot of stuff I see on the Fakebook, but recently someone I know posted a picture of a church sign that said, “God prefers kind atheists over hateful Christians.” 

I have no doubt that many atheists are better people than I can ever be.  God certainly doesn’t love me more than those good atheists.  He also doesn’t love me less.  Does He prefer that I be kind rather than cruel?  He does.  That’s why we are about to celebrate the Incarnation, the time in history when God became Man and walked among us all the way to Calvary.  He came to deliver me from my cruelty and my hatred, my lust and my greed – to deliver me from death. 

Do Christians sin?  We certainly do, and when we do, we often call into question the value of our faith.  We cause the world to wonder what difference there is between Christians and non-Christians.  Christ came not to improve our lives but to give us life.  Even the kindest, most generous, most forgiving atheist is still dead in his or her trespasses and sins.  Is that fair?  Yes, it is. 

You see, we have all “sinned and come short” of the glory of God.  We have all missed the mark in life, and the reason for that is that we are all here in a fallen state.  Our sins and errors are not the cause of our fallen state but the result.  So, too, when Christ comes into the heart of a person, the good works that begin to flow out of that individual are not a cause of salvation but the result of it.    

Jesus came to show us who we are and to offer to us – all of us – His righteousness.  The people for whom the gentle and loving Lord Jesus reserved the most ire were the self-righteous, those who thought that they were doing pretty well on their own.  They didn’t lie, steal, cheat, kill, or mistreat in a physical way.  They just looked down on others, demeaned and derided the “publicans and sinners” around them.  They were quick to find fault and to judge.  Now, as it happened, those were “religious” people – mostly Pharisees – to whom Jesus spoke.  He words, though, are applicable to anyone with the same attitude of pride and self-justification.   

The world into which the Son of God was born was a religious world.  We live in a secular world, though one clearly enabled and enlightened by Christianity.  Our modern-day Pharisees are politicians, academics, celebrities, journalists, etc,, who think themselves more “advanced” than the rest of us and feel the need to help us out of our superstitions.  I understand that, and it doesn’t really bother me. 

What bothers me is the person who put up that sign.  It was, as I said, a church sign, no doubt put up by a church member, someone on the staff, perhaps at the pastor’s request.  The idea, I suppose, was to shame the church members into being nicer people.  That is wrong.  It is a perversion of the gospel, a form of the “social gospel” bullshit that crippled 19^th and 20^th century Christianity.  Jesus Christ did not die on a Roman cross for nice people.  He did not rise triumphant over death, hell, and the grave to make us nice. 

He came, He died, He rose again to make us sons and daughters of the Most High God, to deliver us from the delusions of the world, the illusions of temptation and the old, sinful nature, to bear away the penalty and power of our sins, release us from bondage and make us the righteousness of God in Him.  He came not to conform or reform but to transform. 

Caterpillars are not interested in being nice, kind caterpillars.  They are born to be butterflies and to soar.   

Roots of Anger

In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. – Genesis 4:3-5

Sometimes we see this as jealousy and sibling rivalry, especially as Abel is the younger brother.  The favored younger brother becomes a type that carries throughout Scripture:  Ishmael/Isaac, Esau/Jacob, Manasseh/Ephraim, Joseph was a younger brother, David was a younger brother, Solomon was not the first-born, and so on.  One could even say that Judaism and Christianity have a similar relationship, and that the Lord’s story of the Prodigal is, in part, about that interaction. 

Though Cain ultimately takes his anger out on his younger brother, it is caused by his own reaction to correction by God.  In rejecting the offering, the Lord does not reject Cain but wants him to understand the necessity of identification with what he offered.  The fruit of the ground which was given by Cain reflected no acknowledgement of his own sinful nature and the need for atonement.  By contrast, Abel’s sacrifice of blood indicates that he was aware of his unworthiness before God and sought to establish communion with the Almighty through confession and repentance. 

Jesus gives us a very similar story in Luke 18:9-14. 

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt:  Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.  But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner!  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

This, then, is most likely the sin of Cain that he exalted himself, considering himself above any reproach and consumed by self-righteousness.  It ends, of course, in murder with the spilled blood of “righteous Abel” crying out to God for justice.  Like Abel, the life of Jesus ended because of jealousy and self-righteousness.  The blood of One infinitely more righteous than Abel was shed by the hand of His brothers – that is, all of us.  Cain stands in for all of humanity as we find that our all our good works are inadequate and unacceptable, and that it is only the sacrifice of Jesus that can bring reconciliation. 

If, like Cain, we refuse to see the corruption in our hearts, it will cause only bitterness and further defilement.  What if Cain had, instead of bringing his own offering, participated in the sacrifice of Abel?  The Passover lamb was only one for a household.  Perhaps Adam served as the priest of the family.  Was there any need for Cain to try and appease God with the fruits of his own labor?  He could have joined in the communion with his brother and been accepted. 

The sacrifice of the Son to the Father is sufficient for all mankind, for all of us Cains out here.  We have only to set aside our own works and our own righteousness and receive the grace and forgiveness that Christ offers to us. 

Legend of the Fallen

And he said to all, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. -- Luke 9:23

Jesus bore our burden of sin upon the cross.  The good news of His death, burial, and resurrection is the revelation of His love for us, our salvation, justification, reconciliation, and peace with the Father.  He offers to take the burdens that weigh us down and wear us out, and in exchange, He offers us a sack of slack to carry, a yoke that is easy and light.  How does this square with the daily cross Jesus says each of us must take up?

I have been talking around this, I think, all week.  I’ll probably talk around it today, too.  The Cross frees us from the captivity and delusions of the world, the flesh, and the devil, but I’ve still got this natural human life to live out.  We do not suddenly get translated to heaven when we rise from the waters of baptism.  It would be a lot easier to be a Christian if that were the case. 

Instead, we spend the rest of our lives dealing with, resisting, renouncing, and, ultimately, overcoming the sin nature.  As I may have noted in the post about 1 John 3, Matthew Henry argues that Jesus did not carry away “ our moral infirmities, our proneness to sin”.   I don’t know about anybody else, but I know for certain that my own “proneness to sin”, if it has been taken away, still calls home a lot. 

My problem in this world is me.  That’s the daily cross.  It’s my tendency to blame other people, my feelings of selfishness and self-righteousness, my inclination to believe that I am better, somehow, than the people who get in my way.  It’s easy for me to think that life should please me and go my way, that others exist for my benefit, that things should be fair and that, at the same time, I ought to be able to do pretty much as I please.  So, constantly, daily, I get up and I pick that cross up, and I do a hundred things that go against the grain.  I give in.  I give others the benefit of the doubt.  I help somebody else.  I sacrifice, and, if I’m not careful, at the end of the day, I get to thinking I’m a really good guy.  As Rick and Father Stephen point out, self-improvement is a loser’s game.  The reason I carry this cross isn’t to make me better but to put my old, fallen self on fully display for what it is. 

I watched I Am Legend, which might not have been the best choice under the current conditions, but I got through it.  I watched the alternate version which makes more sense.  One thing that really hit me is when Neville is offered the chance to leave and join other survivors, he resists, insisting that New York City is his site.  “I can still fix this,” he shouts. 

That’s one of my favorite phrases.  I can fix this – except, I can’t.  I can’t fix my self.  But I can take up my cross and bear it.

Thirst

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.  -- Matthew 5:6

Whether we are conscious of it or not, whether we realize it or not, the one thing that the human soul seeks is righteousness.  If we pursue it consciously and intentionally, we are blessed:  But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). 

On the other hand, not being conscious of our essential need for righteousness leads us, often, to seek other sources of satisfaction to our detriment.  I get thirsty sometimes and don’t realize it.  Being dehydrated makes me extremely anxious and irritable to the point that I will go berserk.  I’ll start raving and cussing and throwing things over nothing.  After years of experiencing this, I have learned that if I start feeling overwhelmed and irrationally disturbed, I need water.  It’s the strangest thing to one moment be agitated and crazy, chug a quart or two of water, and instantly be calm.  You’d think water was a tranquilizing drug.  Water is an essential, basic need that my body craves.  When my distracted mind ignores the need for whatever reason, the body starts sending signals that I may easily misinterpret. 

Righteousness is like water to the soul.  As the body is seventy percent water, so righteousness is the essence of the soul.  So what is righteousness?  The Hebrew tzedak/tsaddiyq  or its Greek equivalent dikaios/dikaioo appears hundreds of times in the Bible.  At root, the word means to be just or equitable, clean and innocent of any wrongdoing.  We sometimes say that it means right-standing with God, that we do that and only that which is pleasing to Him.   The righteous one is morally correct, justifiable, and upright.  If you are righteous, you can look God in the eye. 

It’s not just us dependent on righteousness.  As we were talking about yesterday, man was created as the lord of the rest of creation.  One of the reasons some Christians reject the idea of a universe 13 or 14 billion years old and carnivores of various kinds roaming the earth for millions of years before man appears is that they say there was no sin in the world until Adam’s fall, and without sin, there would be no death.  You can address this by pointing out that members of the angelic order whose existence precedes, we assume, the creation of the material universe, had already rebelled and fallen.  A second way to understand it, though, is to see how God does not impute sin apart from understanding.  As He allowed life on Earth to develop, only when His hierarchical agent, man, entered the picture would God’s law have begun to apply, e.g.,  … Apart from the law, sin lies dead (Romans 7:8b).  Adam’s job was to bring order, equity, justice, and mercy – i.e., righteousness, to life on Earth.  That’s still our job when we are ready for it: 

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now (Romans 8:19-22).

We are to seek God’s righteousness, not only because this is the very thing our souls crave, but because it is the very thing all of creation craves, and it has to come through us.  Adam’s fall brought death to man even as it shattered, for a time, the hope of the entire natural world.  Through Christ Jesus, we are delivered from the bondage of death and the rest of creation once again may hope to be delivered from its bondage to corruption. 

It’s a beautiful thing when you think about it.

Meanwhile, man makes the mistake of pursuing his own righteousness. We are so desperate to be in right-standing that we set up our own standards of righteousness, rejecting God’s.   I’m not going to put the link in, but I’m sure you can do a search (use ixquick not google) for vegan cat food [ok, here it is].  There are people who believe that their cats want to be cruelty-free.  In a way, looking at our verses above from Romans 8, there’s some truth to that view.  But if you try to impose it from outside, there’s a good chance your cats will be plotting at night to kill and eat you.  Name your kitty Cassius for he has that lean and hungry look.  If you want to save the world, you had better get your own bad self saved first.

I think if we could dig down under all the troubles and suffering and ugliness in our world, we would find this craving for integrity, justice, and righteousness driving us to do crazy things and destroy ourselves.  The first defense mechanism was a fig leaf.  It didn’t work.  God had to clothe the naked, exposed souls of our First Parents in the skins of slain beasts, shedding blood to shield us from our pain. 

Today our defenses are more sophisticated but no more effective.  We try and try and try again to establish our own righteousness.  Self-righteousness and self-justification fail to satisfy the thirsty soul, and we can’t seem to understand why.  

I used to run every night when I lived in Texas.  In the summer, even after sunset in the Dallas suburbs, you sweat, a lot.  One Sunday afternoon, I was playing softball with my church youth group and belted a line drive deep into the outfield.  As I sprinted around second base, my right calf locked up tight.  I was still limping a couple of days later at work.  As I hobbled along, an athletic co-worker asked me what was wrong.  I told him.  He asked me if my urine was dark.  I laughed and said I hadn’t been paying attention.  He told me I needed to drink water.  He had a Dr. Pepper in his hand, “This stuff or all the coffee you drink won’t fix it.” 

We cannot fix creation until we are fixed, and we cannot be fixed without the righteousness of God.  In the end, whether we sew together vegan fig leaves or the bloody skins of beasts, whether our standards are ephemerally post-modern or staunchly traditional, they will not quench the thirst of the soul.  Only the righteousness of Christ meets the absolute standard.  Only Jesus can look the Father straight in the face.  Only when we put on Christ are we perfectly justified and our innocence restored.   

Judge Not

Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. -- Psalms 143:2

Self-righteousness is a dangerous game, as is grading on the curve.  I'm not nearly as bad as some of my neighbors, so I must be all right.  God, though, holds up an absolute standard of right, of goodness, and purity that I cannot meet.  I am weakened in my will by passion and desire.  I hear that which is false and grasp at it, longing for it to be true even as I know it is not.

It is obvious this week, perhaps more than usual, that we live in world that just prefers the comfortable lies to the gleaming, relentless truth.  It is not enough for us to tolerate blatant sin in our midst.  The sinner is not happy unless we acknowledge, accept and even celebrate his deviance.  I suppose there is a certain reassurance that, even as the judgment of God looms, there are still people who are on our side.

It seems to me that it is not the religious people who are engaging in judgment and self-righteousness.  I'm not judging the abortionist, the homosexual, the liar or the adulterer.  I am simply pointing out that "no one living is righteous" before God.  I'm not saying I'm better than another person.  I'm saying that God is better than either of us and that, apart from Christ, we are both under judgment.  The difference is that I know it and admit it while others continue to live in denial.

The people who today are gloating over what five people in black robes said or even what fifty percent of Americans believe will soon find out that truth doesn't get voted down or ruled unconstitutional.  They are the more vehement, the more exuberant in embracing their error because, in their hearts, they know they are wrong.  They will project their shame onto us and blame us for the horror they feel at their own sin. 

Don't be surprised if it gets ugly.