I-YOUniverse

BEING CHRIST’S DISCIPLE – 4

The Cross, session 2

Check out Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship, chapter 4.

God does not love because Jesus died for us; Jesus died for us because the Father loved us.[1]

Only as we by faith admit Christ into our own life does he become in us a personal and transforming presence. As we are brought to drink from the cup which he drank and to be baptized with his baptism, so we are freed from the tyranny of sin and freed for the creative life in the fellowship of God.[2]

“In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.” 1 John 4.10-12

The cross lays bare the heart of God as nothing else does.[3]

“But we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”  1 Corinthians 1.23-24

In modern sports, a player may be taken from the game and replaced by a ‘substitute.’ But Jesus never becomes our substitute in that sense. We are never taken out of the game. Rather, Jesus quickens in us the faith by which we admit him to ourselves and our struggle. He in us brings about the victory over death unto life as he brings about the death of the old and the birth of the new. Jesus alone can save, but he does not send us to the bench while he plays the game for us. In us he achieves what we could never achieve for ourselves.[4]

Salvation is accomplished in our human self as God in Christ Jesus gains the kind of entrance into us that transforms us from within. The cross must become a living reality within the heart; else it is only judgment and not redemption….

The cross is God’s gift and God’s demand. Christ died for us; and again, in Christ we are crucified that we may be delivered from the false [self-centered] way of Adam to the true way of Christ….

This is not to be seen as a human work by which we bring about our own salvation. It is first and last the work of Christ brought about in us…. The New Testament holds out no hope that anyone through their own power can follow Christ’s example. Rather, it calls us to our one part, that of faith. Faith is trust and faith is receiving. It is openness of heart and life to Christ that he may come in and save.[5]

I’m enjoying the light of longer days.

The Wind that Shakes the Barley, story chiefly of two brothers in 1920s Ireland, well written, compelling

Egypt

You can’t watch what’s happened in Egypt: in 18 days the people, mostly young people, with the backing of the military, have thrown off a military dictatorship, one of the most repressive in the world.

America ought to do some soul searching. We’ve gotten in bed with some really nasty characters in the world. So long as they opposed “communism”—which could be anybody they, or we, didn’t like—then we ignored their human rights record.

No one can view the crowds in Tahrir Square without remembering 1989′s Tienanmen Square in Beijing.

The American Revolution of 1776 marked the beginning of colonies throughout the world rising to throw off their European masters. In recent years the U.S. has forgotten that our forebears set the example which these modern revolutionaries emulate.

Economic and security interests seem to require us to ignore the future. But, if anything lies at the core of the American identity, it is freedom.

We will be poorer in the future. We will not for long be a superpower. But, if we hold high the flames of freedom, we will be true to the men and women in Tahrir and Tienanmen, true to our mothers and fathers, true to our better selves, and true to the God whom to know is to be free indeed.

White and Rowling

I discovered that J.K. Rowling tips her hat to T.H. White’s The Once and Future King. Albus Dumbledore has some ties to Merlin; Harry Potter, ties to Wart. Both authors have mastered the relation of comic and mythic moods in their writing.

I love TOAFK, and the musical Camelot. The musical’s notion that Arthur’s being tolerant equaled being civilized is tragically mistaken, however.

I’ve written a half a dozen paragraphs, and deleted all of them. This one I’ll leave as a post.

The dark of mid-year is an emotional dungeon for me. I can’t wait for the light of spring.

Some teen-agers burned a baby grand piano, then dumped it on a sandbar in Miami Beach. Ain’t that cute!

NO, it is not. It’s not teen-agers being teen-agers. I know plenty of normal, healthy teens who make good grades, go on mission trips, don’t drink.

There’s nothing cute about this nihilistic stunt.

It does point out how hollow is the American dream, when that dream is thought to be lots of money and freedom to do whatever you please, without consequences.

A lifelong pianist, I cannot imagine anyone burning a baby grand piano. The average price of one is between $15,000 and $30,000 or more, depending on the model. Not to mention the years of disciplined practice required to play one well.

I cannot imagine chaperoning a teen party where getting drunk and burning a grand piano occurred. I cannot imagine chaperoning a teen party where alcohol was served. Where were the adults?

Is that the American dream?

A government report was issued today on the catastrophic near meltdown of the financial system a couple years ago: greed and malfeasance on Wall Street, and failure of government regulators. These adults might have burned baby grand pianos as teens.

What’s wrong? It’s their grand piano, right?

No, because many thousands of talented children never get to play any piano, much less a baby grand.

Across the Middle East populations of people are marching for basic human rights, for food, shelter, opportunity. Many of the totalitarian regimes they march against (putting themselves at risk to be locked up without trial, tortured, etc.) are propped up by our government in return for their support.

Oh, I thought our Dream was liberty and justice for all, even people in Tunisia, Egypt, and Tiananmen Square.

Liberty isn’t doing whatever you please; millions have learned to their shame that doing as you please leads to slavery to your basest impulses. Liberty is becoming the best you have the potential to be, and living in the love and light of God as seen in the life of Jesus Christ uniquely, but in many others as well.