FEBRUARY 2 2019
LAST MINUTE, ANYONE?…….
I always have a book or two on the go. Last week I reread most of BETWEEN THE BEGINNING AND THE END, “A Radical Kingdom Vision”.
In this book J. H. Bavinck wrote extensively about Jesus’ last days, and I was struck how his disciples related to him. This group of 12, mostly fishermen, were chosen to accompany Jesus on his three year odyssey to bring the MESSAGE to the world at large.
Here’s what struck me.
One would expect that Jesus, Son of God, would have perfect powers of persuasion, and have no problem to instill in his disciples the true gospel, without any distortion or ambivalence.
Jesus repeatedly told them that his journey would not go smoothly, that the temple officials and theologians would openly oppose his teaching, and that he himself would suffer immensely.
But whenever Jesus brought up the subject, their reaction was one of vehement denial. When Jesus told them that he would be killed, they rejected this scenario out of hand and refused to believe him.
They closed their mind to this possibility so much that Luke, in exasperation wrote, “The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them and they did not know what he was talking about”, (Luke 18: 34).
These Twelve had their own ideas about what should happen to Jesus. Among themselves they had it perfectly figured out: he would become King of Israel and they would serve as his ministers: they even quarreled who would be Prime Minister. That suffering scenario that Jesus was talking about and even a possible death had no place in their minds. To the very last they expected Jesus to go secular, and use his magic powers to heal the wounded, revive the dead, make wine and bread, command the weather and with his arsenal of secret weapons would have no trouble to defeat even the best of Roman legions.
That’s what they discussed behind his back. That’s where their minds were fixed upon: no other options were ever considered.
So when the unexpected did come – it always does – they were not at all prepared. The night of terror did arrive.
That night started serenely with the entire group leisurely walking to the nearby Garden of Gethsemane. It was nothing unusual when Jesus left them to pray. After a long evening of eating and drinking – lots of wine of course – the disciples, his personal support team, did not notice that Jesus behaved differently and so they took a well-deserved snooze.
Hours before, in the Upper Room, Jesus had told them that one of the Twelve would betray him. That Jesus was under great tension, that Jesus, who usually when eating with them, was jovial and lighthearted, was now downcast and quiet, escaped their attention altogether.
These naïve men, solemnly vouching that no matter what, they would stand by him, had no idea how Jesus felt, did not sense his silence and somber mood. When he left them to pray, upon his return, he found his disciples fast asleep. When he sadly remarked that they did not offer him support, they just shrugged their shoulders, yawned and went back to sleep.
When Jesus was arrested, all except Peter abandoned him, and then, chicken he was, he stubbornly denied three times to ever have known him: swore by high and low that he never had set eyes on that traitor. That’s how he saw Jesus when he meekly submitted to arrest and humiliation.
And the sad thing was that Peter here spoke for all the disciples: they all were deeply disappointed in Jesus, and promptly left him to his fate.
BUT NOT THE WOMEN.
Jesus’ female followers were there right up front, following Jesus on his Via Dolorosa, his path of suffering.
They were there wailing and crying on his death march, already anticipating his final breath.
They were there within vocal reach when Jesus addressed them, having a last thought for his mother.
They were there when his body had died and were ready to give his the last honor.
They were there, first thing on the third day, and were the first to see him alive. Of course they were in love with him. Of course they loved him, and which woman would not? He treated them as equals, something unheard of then.
History repeats itself, sort of.
Frankly I see a striking parallel to today. The RAPTURE crowd believe in PRE-TRIBULATION, meaning that, yes, they admit that there are difficult times ahead, but, thanks to their own piety and good works, the Lord will call them home to heaven, leaving behind on that dreadful earth all the “unbelievers”.
If Trump is re-elected, expect Christian fascism to gain the upper hand, wrapping itself in a purifying piety, promising moral as well as physical renewal.
Beware.
We may poke fun at that notion, but basically mainstream Christianity resembles Rapture. It too believes in heaven; it too, in their daily behavior, does little or nothing to show the world that their day-to-day practises are different. It too lives exactly the same, drives exactly the same cars, flies exactly the same planes, lives exactly in the same mansions.
Where is the hope and goal of the New Creation?
Mainstream Christianity behaves exactly as the evidence denying disciples. In the churches hardly ever is mentioned the present creational suffering, so well pictured in Romans 8.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time. Not only that but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons (and daughters): the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he can already see? But if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it patiently.
Basically this passage says that creation is pregnant and God’s children, women and men, are eagerly waiting for the birth of the new creation.
So what about the church?
Exactly like the disciples who refused to see that Jesus was in agony, so today the church is blind to the suffering of creation.
Yet the world is becoming desperate. Each day new revelations about unusual weather patterns – too hot here, too cold there – and species die-offs are becoming routine.
Christians should hope for the New Creation, and that is a realistic. The world hopes too. But its hope is vanity, a waste of time, is wishful thinking which assumes a positive future without supporting evidence.
Dr. Guy McPherson points out in a recent post, “Hope and fear are the twin sides of the same coin, and the coin assumes others will fix whatever is broken. Sadly, there is no ‘fix’ for the predicament known as abrupt, irreversible Climate Change.”
There are all-too-clear signs of COLLAPSE. Trees are dying all over the globe, suddenly and mysteriously, trees that survived happily for 2,000 years.
Insects any one?
The Guardian recently issued this warning: “Insect collapse: ‘We are destroying our life support systems’”. Researchers in Puerto Rico’s forest preserves recorded a 98% decline in insect mass over 35 years. Does a 98% decline have a natural explanation? Or is something bigger going on?
Remember: everything is connected to everything else: trees one day, insects the next, then butterflies, birds….. and then us?…..
There’s only ONE HOPE: PARADISE!
When Jesus hung on the cross, he promised his fellow victim PARADISE.
That PARADISE is nothing else but the restored universe, the cosmos, re arranged under the one head, united again in a meaningful relationship under the rule of the Son of Man.
Those who are part of the re born universe: they are in that universal Kingdom—they live! Their lives have regained their purpose and re-attained their goal; they know themselves to be a tiny part of the totality of things, a single note in the overwhelming new world symphony. This murderer on the cross had an inkling of this, understood how through Jesus’ death cosmic unity would become reality and how Jesus would become king through the cross and through death.
Jesus’ answer to the murderer is utterly remarkable. Not for one min¬ute does Jesus dispute the truth about the kingdom. Yet he does not refer back to the word kingdom but replaces it with the word paradise. “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).
The word PARADISE evokes a world of memories and in one stroke brings us back to the Urzeit of humanity. We again hear the burbling of the water of life, we again see the tree of life, stately rising high, loaded with God’s promises.
PARADISE is the unspoiled world, where the total har¬mo¬ny of all creatures entwines everything into intimate cohesion. PARADISE is the Kingdom as seen by God on the morning of creation when he saw all that he had made and behold it was very good.
PARADISE!
To be sure, it was barred by cherubim whose flaming swords guarded the Eastern gate; but in reality paradise never went away. In the temple the Holy of Holies was a permanent reality in the midst of Israel, cordoned off with tightly woven curtains and guarded by the true watchmen of God’s holiness. That paradise is the world now open for Jesus, his kingdom. After all, he is Adam, the human being to whom God had deeded paradise.
No, that paradise is not the realm of the dead, even though it is situated behind the dark gate of death. Neither is it the heaven where God dwells. It is the whole creation renewed. It is the cosmos in which heaven and earth are joined together in one accord and where everything is again ordered and subjected to the Will of Him who rules over all.
”Today you will be there!” That means that today all these long centuries disappear.
Today the num¬bering of the years ceases. Today you are, in one movement, there where the cradle of humanity stood. And there you will be, together with me.
But now paradise is different; it is different because it is a paradise with Jesus. Something is left, however, that is a reminder of those long centuries of history, the nightmare of wars and sickness and death, and that is Jesus the Redeemer.
You will not be there all by yourself, but you will stand there with me, the Redeemer, and I will be your guide in that paradise, in a world of pure light.
The church must proclaim the END.
BONHOEFFER in his introduction to CREATION AND FALL, at the very start writes, “The CHURCH OF CHRIST witnesses to the end of all things. It lives from the end, it thinks from the end, it acts from the end, it proclaims its message from the end.”
As he and J. H. Bavinck make exceedingly clear the END is PARADISE, the New Creation, the world we live in cleaned and totally overhauled so that we, having learned our lesson, having seen what SIN is capable of doing, have a second chance, made possible by Christ’s death on the cross.
I had a good friend, who was an alcoholic. He followed us to live in Tweed. He told me that he would do “a murderer on the cross” conversion, turning to Christ at the last minute. Alas, in a drunken stupor he veered into the path of a lumber truck and died instantly.
Christianity also suffers from an addiction more lethal than alcohol: fossil fuel, which will also end in sudden, unexpected death, too late to change its message. Conversion usually is a slow process. A last minute change of heart is God’s gift, based on a lifetime of struggle.
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day on which your Lord will come. But understand this: If the homeowner had known in which watch of the night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. For this reason, you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour you do not expect.” (Matthew 24: 42-44)