Palm Branches of the Rebellion

Palm Sunday has become one of my favorite liturgical holidays.

Having grown up in a liturgical church we celebrated Palm Sunday each year complete with waving palm branches.  And I understood we waved the palms because the crowd had waved them during Jesus's triumphant entry into Jerusalem (Jn 12:12-15).  But I never wondered why the crowd waved palms in the first place.  And the answer is what makes things interesting.

According to Jewish tradition Jesus was not the first person to have palm branches waving as he marched into Jerusalem.  Over a hundred years prior the Jewish crowds had waved palm branches as a symbol of the Maccabean victory over the Greeks.

And so as Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the eve of Passover, the great festival of their ancestors freedom from slavery in Egypt, the question for the Jews and the Romans alike is what kind of king is Jesus?  The crowd waved palms as a symbol of victory over their oppressors.  They spread their cloaks in homage to their king.  This was rebellion against Rome.

Everyone thought Jesus came to be a political king.  The Jews saw his arrival in Jerusalem for Passover as the perfect time to begin his uprising.  Little did they know His plans were so much greater.

The people wanted a rebellion.  Jesus came to start a revolution.  They wanted to seize power, Jesus came to lay down his power for us (Phil 2:5-11).  The crowd underestimated the extent of Jesus's kingdom.  And often we do too.

I like to think somehow Jesus is only king over segments of my life, my moral behavior, or the "spiritual" portions, as if his truth and his kingdom do not affect all aspects of who I am.  The truth is we all have been seduced by the appeals of empire, and have accepted the values of this world as "normal".  But Jesus is not just an addendum to my nice comfortable life.  

In reality Jesus's plans are so much greater than mine.  His ways are more encompassing than we want to believe.  I have to surrender more than I expected.  I am still learning the extent of what truly following Jesus costs.  My hope is to one day leave the empire behind completely and to be free from the propaganda.

I love that hosanna means "save now".  Here we have the crowd cheering "save now, save now" without understanding Jesus has come to die for our sins so we may be saved.  Jesus in his goodness knows what we really need.  He understands our desperation better than we do.  And he is faithful to answer us even when we do not understand.

So let us wave our palm branches in protest of the empire which has seduced us into complacency.  Let us walk in the ways of the kingdom as exiles not a part of this world.  May we proclaim truth and fight injustice, starting with the injustice in our own lives.  Jesus please "save now" because I need you to save me.

Do I really love the Gospel?

Do I really love the Gospel?

Yes, I do.  I especially love certain parts of the Gospel, the things which benefit me.  Salvation, peace, hope, joy, I love all these aspects.  It's the parts about sacrifice and serving others I have a harder time with.

I find the Apostle Paul's love of the Gospel inspiring.  Woven throughout his letters we see Paul's diligence to the Gospel message.  He is consumed with an urgency to see the Gospel spread.

It is convicting to see how Paul will gladly give up his rights and ours for the sake of the Gospel.  There are social norms and social institutions which Paul restricts not out of inherent sinfulness, but because sharing the Gospel is better.  Slavery, eating meat sacrificed to idols, women being allowed to preach are among some First Century examples.  I have the freedom in Christ to eat meat sacrificed to idols unless doing so hinders someone from receiving the Gospel.

Why did Paul not abolish slavery in his day?  It is not because slavery is good, it's not.  But tackling this social issue would not advance the message.  Salvation is based upon the finished work of Jesus, and if I make altering your beliefs about a non-salvation issue a prerequisite to salvation I am getting in the way of the Gospel.  Paul's aim is not societal reform but eternal salvation.

So what does this mean for us now?  Does this mean social justice is bad?  No.  Both Jesus and Paul radically challenged social norms and institutions, but they did so not to the point of interfering with the Gospel spreading.

I should really love the Gospel more in its fullness, and yearn more to see the message shared.  It also means there are freedoms I have to give up for the Gospel.  The difficulty is not in finding opportunities.

Any thoughts or examples of situations where the freedoms we have in Christ which may be hindering the Gospel for others?  May we be more conscious of how our freedoms affect other's openness to the Gospel.

Heartbreak

Does it ever seem to you that our faith is somewhat lopsided?  Off-balanced?  In my relationship with God I have observed that God does most of the work.  And by most I mean all.

I cannot save myself.  I cannot even sanctify myself.  At the end of the day, all I can do is have the faintest of "yes" in my heart toward God.  And somehow in His magnitude that is enough.

On our own, of our own volition, we as humanity have only broken God's heart.  We had the option to choose God or choose Self, and we chose Self.  Left to my own devices I will gravitate to my own destruction.  The only hope I have is that even after rejecting God, breaking His heart, God still reached down and intervened in my life.

And God has not merely saved me from my sins, He continuously saves me from myself and my sins.  I don't know about you, but I repeatedly stumble.  To be blunt I find myself over and over saying "I love you Lord" with my words, will, and intentions, but with my actions too often I shout "Crucify."  I keep breaking His heart.

Maybe this is just me wrestling with a grace beyond what I can comprehend and certainly beyond what I deserve.  But God's love just doesn't make sense.  

The good news is that what seems like flawed logic to me is actually truth, and it is my logic, my paradigm centered on receiving rather than giving, that is flawed.  The economy of the Kingdom is not about what you can get, but what you can give.

And so I know that God loves me, not by my determination, but by His.  I don't have to win His heart, He  already has and forever will love me.  Not my words.  Not my actions.  Not my achievements.

Me
Just me

God is so relentless in His love for us.  I cannot get over this awesome truth.  I never will, and that is okay because God is more than worthy of all worship for all time.  May I learn to walk in obedience out of a deep love and a recognition of the heartache my sin still causes God.  May we remember that God is not the cruel judge waiting to smite us, but an intimate friend who's heart we have broken over and over, and still says that we are worth it.  And may all conviction we have spur us back into the loving arms of Jesus who is with us and waiting for us.

The Good News is that God Does Not Need Us!

On a particularly existential day we may wonder about why it is God made humanity.  I know I have found myself contemplating this.  And the answer I have often heard given is that God made us because He needed us or was lonely or something to that effect.  This sentiment is usually well intended, but the truth is that God does not need us.   However weird this may seem, it is some of the best news ever.

One of the many beautiful facets of Trinity is that it disproves this idea that God is isolated.  With Trinity God is His own best friend on levels that a finite being as myself will never comprehend.  If God gets lonely He hangs out with Himself.  God also is perfect which means He does not need anything.  We cannot contribute to God's independence.  So why is this good news?  It is kind of like eating.

Now I like food and I enjoy eating.  But I also frequently find myself eating merely out of metabolic necessity, and on those occasions there is no enjoyment in eating.  Here food merely serves a utilitarian purpose.

And this is an example of why it is so awesome that God does not need us.  If God needed us like I need food, then it means we serve some utilitarian purpose.  But because God does not need us, we can be confident that God is free then to want us.  We are not filling some void in a perfect and independent God, we exist as the overflow of His love.  In His goodness and perfection of love God created us.  That is why we exist.  And that is really cool.

Stellar Group Health

Churches, college ministries, small group communities, etc are like stars.  

Within a healthy (stable) star the dominant forces are the gravitational force (stars are really big) and the expansive force (stars are really big nuclear fusion reactions).  Normally a star's stability comes from a balancing of the gravitational pull inward and the expansive push outward.

Disturb this equilibrium and we get things like supernovae and black holes.  Without gravity a star's explosive nature would rip it apart.  Without the expansive force the star undergoes gravitational collapse, then supernovas, and creates a black hole.

Christian communities are like stars.  Discipleship is like gravity and outreach is the expansive force within a given community.  For a group to excel we need a balance of both.

With a "no discipleship all outreach" mentality a community will send people out, but will have nothing to draw them back in.  Eventually the group will come unglued and drift apart.  It is hard to stay committed to, let alone invite others into, a group that has nothing to offer you.  It's a used car salesman sort of situation; things seemed to interesting until you signed up.

A group without outreach will become too inward focused and the group will collapse in on itself.  As cliques form and the group breaks down many of the former members will leave like the supernova blast before the final celestial death.  A black hole is so named because even light cannot escape from its gravity.  It is invisible to anyone on the outside and dead to the world.  You cannot be the light of the world if no one else can see you.  

Instead of either scenario discipleship and outreach should reinforce and spur each other on.  As we mature our desire to reach out should only increase, and outreach should drive discipleship.  

In my experience our tendency is the inward discipleship of those already within the group.  This is fine, it simply means that more attention must actively be given to outreach and evangelism.  If our default is inward may we work all the more to push outward for others, ourselves, and the health of the group.

And so may we be the "light of the world" that "the people who have walked in darkness" may see a great light. Christ has come into the world, let us walk forward in that truth.