The Historical Jesus and the Jesus within History

I asked the question -- How much history is there in the Bible?   I did so in response to questions about the historical natures (or lack thereof) of the accounts of the healing ministry of Jesus.  The modern view of such things is rooted in David Hume's demands for empirical evidence.  Hume was a bit like Thomas, he wasn't going to believe until he saw evidence in his own life experience of something similar occurring.  Hume's skepticism isn't all bad -- after all there are lots of things that people claim to see or experience, that are foreign to my experience, and so I'm just a bit skeptical.  You see, I'm skeptical about UFO's and Big Foot.  I'm also a bit skeptical about a lot of what passes as faith healing.  There are, after all, a lot of legs being lengthened out there.  But, let's leave that off for a moment and return to the question of Jesus and history.

Ultimately, without video recordings we have to take somebody's word that events happened in the life of Jesus.  We have to take the word of the authors of the four gospels, for instance, works that were written anonymously some forty to sixty years after the fact (or not fact).  As we think about this question, maybe it would be worth while to change language for a moment.

We speak of the "historical Jesus," by which  we understand the Jesus who lived in history.  To use the criteria of the Jesus Seminar, it's the Jesus that we can agree existed in time and space, after the "post-Easter" interpretations get removed.  Different scholars, from Borg to Wright have their own sense of what this entails.  And all is good, unless we decide that there is one and only one absolute historical reconstruction.  As William Brosend writes in his book The Preaching of Jesus: "It is when one moves from, say, the "real" Jesus to the "only" Jesus, when reconstructions of Jesus within history are presented as historical and/or biblical absolutes, that a line has been crossed" (p. 3).

I appreciate Brosend's attempt at offering an alternate way of looking at the question of Jesus and history.

It is better, I have come to believe, to speak of our reconstructions as presenting Jesus "within history" rather than "the historical Jesus."  The former formulation admits to distinction between the biblical and the historical, without claims to whole and simple truths.  All believers have, to varying degrees, some idea or set of ideas about who Jesus was and is for them.  This is especially true for preachers.  To speak and write of Jesus "within history" is to make explicit that understanding, without making claims for Jesus "as he actually was," which is an unrecoverable reality from a historical perspective, and a not necessarily helpful one from a homiletical perspective.  (p. 3)

Brosend offers this statement as a way of focusing on the matter of Jesus' preaching, understanding that since we don't have recordings or full transcripts, we must rely on the way in which the authors of the gospels told the story.  Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright have different understandings of the way in which Jesus existed within history.  Neither can "prove" their version to be true, but both make there best attempt at understanding how Jesus existed within history.  You and I will have to make our own decisions.  Some among us will lean toward the mythical while others toward the historical.  We'll make our decisions on the basis of what we believe is possible.  We might call that the "Hume scale."   

Eucharistic Presence -- Bringing the Future into the Present

Many Protestants, including my own tradition, tend to understand the Lord's Supper or Eucharist in terms of remembrance.  We take quite literally, Jesus' statement, as Paul recounts it, at the institution of the Lord's supper:  "This is my body that is for you.  Do this in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:24).  We treat it as a meal of memorial, with reverence often turning into sober solemnity, as if the one we remember is long dead and buried.  This position emerged in response to overblown doctrines of "real presence" that dominated medieval Catholicism. 

But what if we understood Eucharistic presence differently?  In wrestling with N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope, I've made the discovery that Wright is very focused on the resurrection -- and an embodied physical resurrection at that.  Although I wouldn't follow Wright in all of his positions on the resurrection, I do think he's on to something.  And, if he is correct that we should see heaven and earth as overlapping, so that future overlaps with the present, then this might have some implications for how we experience the Lord's Supper/Eucharist.

Wright points out that if we stop with remembrance, simply emulating the gathering of the Disciples as they shared in a last with meal, then we miss out on much of the meaning of the supper.  He writes:

To make any headway in understanding the Eucharist, we must see it as the arrival of God's future in the present, not just the extension of God's past (or of Jesus's past) into our present.  We do not simply remember a long-since dead Jesus; we celebrate the presence of the living Lord.  And he lives, through the resurrection, precisely as the one who has gone on ahead into the new creation, the transformed new world, as the one who is himself its prototype.  The Jesus who gives himself to us as food and drink is himself the beginning of God's new world.  At communion we are like the children of Israel in the the wilderness, tasting fruit plucked from the promised land.  It is the future coming to meet us in the present.  (p. 274).

I find this idea of tasting the future promise in the present intriguing.  As one who embraces the idea of presence at the table, this is quite helpful.  When we gather at the table, sharing in bread and cup, we do so in the hope of the new creation.  The question then is this:  how does this happen in our celebrations.  Can we create the experience, or do we simply allow God to make this presence known to us?  Indeed, how do we know when we have tasted the fruit of the promised land of the new creation?  And finally, what should this lead to in our lives? 

Give God the Glory -- Sermon

Psalm 96

Music has the power to stir our souls and enliven our hearts and minds. Whenever Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus is played or sung, nearly everyone stands. They may even join in singing the chorus. It happened just the other day, when Pat concluded his recital with this very piece.

Why do we do this? Is it just habit or expectation? Or is it because this piece of music is so inspiring that we cannot take it in sitting down? What is important to point out is that the Hallelujah Chorus, like Psalm 96, calls forth from us, a declaration that God is sovereign, not just over our personal lives, but as the Psalmist declares, over “all the earth.” And so we sing:

“Hallelujah For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth, hallelujah”

And then, we proclaim:

The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord,

And of His Christ, and of His Christ;

And He shall reign for ever and ever . . .

“Hallelujah For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth, hallelujah”

In this song of praise, we hear echoes of the biblical declarations of God’s reign, declarations like the one found in another ancient hymn, one that Paul included in his letter to the Philippians. This hymn declares that the one who emptied himself of glory has been raised up by God,

So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-11).

 I don’t know what instrumentation Paul imagined for his hymn, but I expect it carried a sense similar to that of the Hallelujah Chorus and the 96th Psalm. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if our songs are accompanied by mighty organs, simple guitars, or even no accompaniment at all. What matters is what comes forth from the heart as a declaration of allegiance, thanksgiving, and praise.

The 96th Psalm calls for us to sing to God a new song. The Psalmist invites us to join with the whole of creation in singing the praises of God, who is our creator. It is by classification an enthronement psalm, which acknowledges the reign of God, and in this case also declares the good news that God is at work bringing salvation, healing, wholeness, and hope to a world that is fragmented and broken. It evokes from us visions of God’s splendor, which is reflected in the beauty of God’s creation. And then, it closes by offering us promises of stability and justice.

1. Affirming God’s Glory and Greatness

And so, at the invitation of the Psalmist, we come before the throne of God, singing a new song that declares before all the creation God’s glory and greatness. In doing this we affirm that God transcends our boundaries and our lives. God is present with us and among us and even within us through the Spirit, but we are not God. Karl Barth speaks of God as being “wholly Other.” That may or may not be sufficient definition of God’s being, but it is a reminder that when approach God, we stand upon holy ground.

When Moses went to the mountain to receive instructions for God’s people, God reminded him that he stood on sacred ground and that he should take off his shoes. Here in this Psalm, we’re directed to:

Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,

Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;

bring an offering, and come into his courts. (Vs. 7-8).

Come into God’s presence, bringing with you both words of praise that affirm God’s greatness, and bring signs of your devotion, offerings that affirm your allegiance to the one who sitteth on the throne of heaven.

2. Enjoying God’s Beauty and Splendor

Even as the Psalmist invites us to kneel before the Lord our Maker, the writer declares that “honor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary,” and then invites us to worship God “in holy splendor.” This is an invitation to enjoy the beauty and splendor that is reflected in God’s creation.

Consider the wondrous beauty of God’s creation, whether it’s the dunes along Lake Michigan, the deep blue waters of Crater Lake, or the majesty that is Mount Shasta. Each of us can name a place that is so beautiful that we can’t do anything except stand or kneel in awe. There are other expressions of God’s splendor that come from within us, as we are invited to co-create with God things of beauty and grace. This invitation is written into our very being, for as Genesis reminds us, we have been created in the image of God. And so, it is our calling to bring forth beauty and splendor in the world. It might be music, such as we see displayed by the choir or the organ. It might be a piece of art or a poem.

N.T. Wright speaks of humankind being the reflection of God’s “wise, creative, loving presence and power.” God is enlisting us, in our very creation, “to act as his stewards in the project of creation.” Therefore, Wright states that:

Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in this world – all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make. That is the logic of the mission of God. (Surprised by Hope, Harper One, 2008, pp. 207-208).

We speak of ourselves as being a missional church. Therefore, as we create beauty we express God’s mission by helping create a better world, a world in which God’s name is honored and praised because there is joy and there is hope.

3. Experiencing Stability and Judgment

As we reach the closing stanzas of this great Psalm, a Psalm that directs us to proclaim the good news of God’s salvation, we hear words about judgment and stability. As we’ve been learning in the Wednesday studies, salvation isn’t about being whisked away from this world by God. Instead, God’s work of salvation is about making the world whole, and as we experience this wholeness – not perfectly of course – we have the opportunity to participate in God’s work of healing that which is broken. It is, to quote Paul, our participation as ambassadors of reconciliation, even as God, in Christ, is reconciling us to God’s self, so that we might experience the new creation (2 Cor. 5:16-21). Salvation has a partner, and that partner is judgment. Now, in our study, we’ve also been learning that God’s judgment and justice aren’t about punishment and condemnation. Although, God separates that which is good and honorable from that which is evil and dishonorable, God is not doing this in order to punish or condemn. God’s judgment is designed to make things right so that there might be peace and good will on earth as in heaven. The Psalmist declares that God will come to judge the earth in righteousness and truth. If we trust that God is not just fair, but gracious and merciful and loving, then we need not fear God’s justice. Instead, we can find in this message a word of hope, for God is not abandoning us or this world, but God instead is seeking to make things new.

Even as God promises to come and judge with righteousness and truth, we also hear a promise of stability. The Psalmist declares that the “World is firmly established and shall never be moved.” Now, that doesn’t mean that the earth won’t experience quakes or other cataclysms. I suppose it’s even possible that California could break off and fall into the sea, making Las Vegas a beach town. Rather than hearing this in a geological sense, perhaps we should hear it in the context of living in a mobile culture. It is an invitation to put our roots down into God’s presence and entrusting our lives to the care of God. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove writes of “the wisdom of stability,” and speaks of stability as being “a commitment to trust God not in an ideal world, but in the battered and bruised world we know. If real life with God can happen anywhere at all, then it can happen here among the people whose troubles are already evident to us.” (The Wisdom of Stability, Paraclete, 2010, p. 24).

With this promise of stability as our anchor in this world, may we join together with the seas and the fields and the forests, and sing for joy before the Lord, declaring that God is glorious and great. Yes, let us sing: “To God be the glory, great things he hath done!”

Preached by:

Dr. Robert D. Cornwall

Pastor, Central Woodward Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Troy, Michigan

Trinity Sunday

May 30, 2010

Resurrection and the Nature of Salvation

We have been thinking about the resurrection of late -- both that of Jesus and more generally.  Resurrection fits in with other related issues, including judgment and salvation.  I'll leave off the discussion of judgment for the moment, except to say that in one form or another judgment does take place.  But more to the point of salvation.  

In today's study groups, we'll be looking at N.T. Wright's consideration of the "Hope of Salvation."  In that context we must ask what salvation entails?  Does it mean, being pulled off the earth to live in some "heavenly estate," most likely disembodied - a sort of Caspar the Friendly Ghost?  For our discussion, I'd like to throw out a statement from Wright's book Surprised By Hope.

As long as we see salvation in terms of going to heaven when we die, the main work of the church is bound to be seen in terms of saving souls for that future.  But when we see salvation, as the New Testament sees it, in terms of God's promised new heavens and new earth and of our promised resurrection to share in that new and gloriously embodied reality -- what I have called life after life after death -- then the main work of the church here and now demands to be rethought in consequence.  (Surprised by Hope, p. 197)

So, the question is -- how does our view of salvation impact our view of life before death?

Wright notes that the New Testament understanding of salvation starts with life here and now.  We enjoy it partially, but it is there for us to experience and live out.  As Wright ruminates about salvation, I'm reminded of the Disciples of Christ identity statement:  "A Movement of Wholeness in a Fragmented World."  What we do and say, the invitation we give, is a means to bring wholeness/healing/salvation to a world that is broken and fragmented.  We do not bring this in its fullness, but we work toward it.  

Wright offers:  

For the first Christians, the ultimate salvation was all about God's new world, and the point of what Jesus and the apostles were doing when they were healing people or being rescued from shipwreck or whatever was that this was a proper anticipation of that ultimate salvation, that healing transformation of space, time, and matter.  The future rescue that God had planned and promised was starting to come true in the present.  We are saved not as souls but as wholes.  (pp. 198-199).   

 Wholeness for a fragmented world -- salvation!

Why the Resurrection?

I have been pushing on the question of resurrection, including its physicality, in a number of recent posts, including a guest post last week by Bruce Epperly.  I realize that this is a question that troubles many in the church and outside the church.  Many progressive or liberal Christians find the resurrection a distraction, or as a commenter put on a previous post, akin to arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  But, is it simply an outdated and distracting doctrine that we are better off leaving behind?  Is Easter, for that matter, a quaint holiday, better served by highlighting Easter Egg hunts and chocolate bunnies?  Is it simply just the sign that spring is at hand?  Or, is it, as it always has been through Christian history, the center piece of the Christian faith?  As theologian Jurgen Moltmann puts it: 

The Christian faith stands or falls with Christ's resurrection, because it was by raising him from the dead that God made Jesus the Christ and revealed himself as the "Father of Jesus Christ."  At this point belief in God and the acknowledgment of Christ coincide; and ever since, for Christian faith the two have been inseparable. (Moltmann, Jesus Christ for Today's World, p. 71). 

As I ask these questions, I want to throw into the discussion another lengthy quotation from N.T. Wright's Surprised By Hope.   Wright is likely more conservative than some of my conversation partners, and as has been stated in comments, he may seem to some stuck in the first century.  Be that as it may, I think that the Resurrection merits careful consideration, because I do believe it has important implications about the way we live in the here and now.    So consider this:

The point of the resurrection, as Paul has been arguing throughout [1 Corinthians], is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die.  God will raise it to new life.  What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it.  And if this applies to ethics, as in 1 Corinthians 6, it certainly also applies to the various vocations to which Gods' people are called.  What you do  in the present  -- by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself -- will last into God's future.  These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether (as the hymn so mistakenly puts it, "Until that day when all the blest to endless rest are called away").  They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom.  (Surprised by Hope, p. 193). 

If we think of God's judgment as a sorting out, a refining fire, then what will be the lasting legacy of our lives here in this world?  Is that not the question that resurrection raises?   Resurrection isn't about escaping this life for a better life, it's about engaging in the work of God here in anticipation of an embodied life after life after death.  Can progressive Christians, who willingly bring science into the conversation, embrace the idea of an embodied resurrection?  Again, I invite your thoughts. 

The New Physicality of Resurrection

Last week Bruce Epperly offered an alternate progressive understanding of Resurrection, one that allowed for it to be more than a parable or metaphor, but allows for a sense of physicality.  This post got considerable discussion going, for we struggle with what all of this means.  Part of our issue is that we must, whether we like it or not, recognize that science plays a role in the conversation.  Progressive/liberal Christians tend to have a problem with discussions of reality that rely on supernaturalism.  The assumption is that God does not contravene the laws of nature.  There are a lot of reasons for that position, which I'll not go into here.  But, it does raise questions about the physicality of Jesus' resurrection and that of any post-death experience.

Last night, if you watched it, the conclusion to the Lost series reflected upon life after death and while envisioning a rather inclusive/interfaith understanding, offered a sense of physicality -- even resurrection.  On that end, I'll leave it to expert Lost watchers like James McGrath to break down the meaning of the finale.  But, what it does suggest is that many people hope for an embodied future post death. 

With that introduction, I wanted to add in a paragraph from N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope, that deals with Paul's understanding of post-death physicality.  As a prelude to this quote, Wright makes it clear that he has in mind a sense of this new physicality of resurrection being part of "life after life after death."  That is, what is spoken of in John 14 as the "many mansions" or Jesus in Luke speaking of paradise, infers an intermediate state prior to the new physicality that Jesus will embody in his own resurrection, and which we will share in at the time of the General Resurrection.

What Paul is asking us to imagine  is that there will be a new mode of physicality, which stands in relation to our present body does to a ghost.  It will be as much more real, more firmed up, more bodily, than our present body as our present body is more substantial, more touchable, than a disembodied spirit.  We sometimes speak of someone who's been very ill as being a shadow of their former self.  If Paul is right, a Christian in the present life is a mere shadow of his or her future self, the self that person will be when the body that God has waiting in his heavenly storeroom is brought out, already made to measure, and put on over the present one -- or over the self that will still exist after bodily death.  (p. 154). 

In this statement, which is a reflection upon Paul's discussion of the new creation in 2 Corinthians 5, he speaks of our current bodies being mere shadows of the future body, the spiritual body.  The spiritual body is not ghostlike, but even more tangible than the current one.  I would invite your response to this statement as we wrestle with what it means to embrace the idea of resurrection in the contemporary world.  What is it, after all, that the hope of the resurrection, which Paul makes so central, have to say to our lives in the hear and now? 

The Interlocking Worlds of Heaven and Earth

We pray, in the Lord's Prayer, the words:  "Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done on earth as in heaven."  What do we mean by these words?  How is heaven influencing earth?  

I mentioned yesterday, in preparation for observing Ascension, that N.T. Wright speaks of Heaven being the "Control Room of earth."  That is, how might we imagine the heavenly realm influencing the earthly realm?    Wright, in his book Surprised by Hope, wants to challenge two unhelpful ideas that pervade much Christian thinking -- on one hand a belief in evolutionary optimism (everything gets better over time) and what he calls "souls in transit."  In this second pole, the belief is that things are bad here, but we're just visiting, souls on our way to freedom from the shackles of this physical realm.  This is a Gnostic view, that has Platonic roots, that has become quite prominent in our time. 

The doctrine of the Ascension is one that we often pass over, jumping from Easter to Pentecost, from Resurrection to Church.  Ascension, Wright believes is an important concept, because it reminds us that although Christ is present, Christ is also absent.  He points to the danger of simply equating the church with Christ, making them one.  I myself am perhaps guilty of this, leaving the impression that this is all there really is about Christ -- us.  Now, Paul does speak of the church as the Body of Christ, and we need to hear that, but I think it is a good warning to not too closely equate the two.

Wright speaks of the mystery of the Ascension dealing with the interrelationship of heaven and earth.  He writes:

The mystery of the ascension is of course just that, a mystery.  It demands that we think what is, to many today, almost unthinkable:  that when the Bible speaks of heaven and earth it isnot talking about two localities related to each other within the same space-time continnum or a nonphysical world contrasted with a physical one but about two different kinds of what we call space, two different kinds of what we call matter, and also quite possibly (though this does not necessarily follow from the other two) two different kinds of what we call time.  (Surprised by Hope, p. 115).

What he is proposing is intersecting, interlocking worlds, that are made to relate with each other.  He points to Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia as an example of this, but suggests we find a more adult way of thinking about the connection.  So, in what ways does Heaven influence Earth?  In what way is God's will to be done on earth as in heaven?

Jesus, Ascension and the Connection of Heaven and Earth

This Sunday we will observe the Day of Ascension (the Day of Ascension -- 40 days after Easter-- is actually observed on Thursday this year).  What is Ascension and how does it function in our theologies?  We have enough trouble with Easter and Pentecost, what do we make of this event that suggests that Jesus disappeared into the clouds?

As I contemplate this question for sermon and such, I'm also participating/leading a study of N.T. Wright's Surprised By Hope.  In this book, he suggests that heaven and earth are actually close by  each other, essentially overlapping each other, with heaven serving as the "control room of earth."  So, where does Ascension fit into the picture?  Well to answer that question we have to come to an understanding of the relationship of heaven and earth.  

Wright offers a suggestion that resonates with my mind, as I've long thought that we should think in terms of different dimensions of reality rather than trying to fit heaven and earth into the same space/time continuum.  To understand Ascension, Wright suggests, we must take a "relational view."   So consider this statement:

Basically heaven and earth in biblical cosmology are not two different locations within the same continuum of space or matter.  They are two different dimensions of God's good creation.  And the point about heaven is twofold.   First, heaven relates to earth tangentially so that the one who is in heaven can be present simultaneously anywhere and everywhere on earth:  the ascension therefore means that Jeus is available, accessible, without people having to travel to a particular spot on earth to find him.  Second, heaven is, as it were, the control room for earth; it is the CEO's office, the place from which instructions are given.  "All authority is given to me," said Jesus at the end of Matthew's gospel, "in heaven and on earth."  (Surprised by Hope, p. 111).

I find this intriguing and suggestive.  It takes us beyond the hold of literalism or simple modernist skepticism, to consider another realm of understanding.  It also invites us to consider the way in which God is present and active in our own context through Jesus.