A Fresh Perspective

Maybe you have heard it said by preachers and other Christians, “Jesus came to die.” That is not true, sisters and brothers. He did not come to die, according to the Gospel of Luke. He did indeed die. He was put to death by the powers that be and the early followers of Jesus did, indeed, find redemptive significance and power in his death. So much so that the saying, “Jesus died on account of our sins” was often cited in early Christian litanies. But that is not why Jesus came. Jesus’ purpose was not to die. His purpose was to live and to call others to live as he lived. Luke sets forth Jesus’ agenda (his purpose and mission) at the beginning of his story about Jesus. It did not include death. The setting is Jesus’ hometown in Nazareth. Jesus reads from the prophet Isaiah and then identifies himself as the servant of God sent to fulfill that agenda. Most of you know this well, because I so often reference it. Jesus understood his calling to be one of bringing good news to the po...

Our Gospel reading is part of the parable of the good shepherd where the actions of the good shepherd are contrasted with those of the hired hand. The contrast is based on how each one responds to dangers that threaten the lives of the sheep. The good shepherd is willing to lay down his life in protecting and caring for the well-being of the sheep. The hired hand is ready to flee to save his own life if the threat becomes too real. The hired hand is not fully committed to the good of the sheep. The hired hand, unlike the good shepherd feels no sense of belonging or connection to the sheep. So he is out to preserve his own life rather than the lives of the sheep. Now, one question that we have to ponder that makes a big difference in how we read and apply this parable relates to the identity of the sheep. Who are the sheep? I said last week that persons can read the same scriptures, but then interpret them and apply in completely different ways. Many Christians read this in an exc...

The wisdom of the domination system, the wisdom of the world can come to us disguised as the wisdom of God, and we can go a long ways and a long time thinking it’s the wisdom of God. For a good number of years my dominant image of God was that of a Judge who presided in a heavenly courtroom and demanded payment from his human creation for breaking his law. The God I imagined was bound to the law and intolerant toward sin. God demanded punishment. And not just any punishment. Punishment by death. So God sent Jesus, God’s unique Son, to die, so that God’s justice would be satisfied, and that God would be free to release the rest of humankind from the penalty and punishment they deserve for having transgressed God’s law and offended God’s justice. But then, at some point on my journey when I gave myself permission to question and even doubt, I began to wonder why God’s unique Son would have to die such a cruel death by execution in order to satisfy some broken law, particularly ...

Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). These words of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel are equivalent to Jesus’s words in John’s Gospel, “It is finished.” The Gospels of Mark and Matthew include only one saying of Jesus from the cross: His cry of abandonment, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The other six sayings of Jesus are found in Luke and John. In Mark and Matthew the emphasis is on Jesus as a participant in our suffering. Jesus shares our pain and loss. Jesus knows what it is like to feel forsaken, even by God. Jesus, for the most part, is a passive victim. In Luke and John, Jesus is still a victim, but he is not passive. There is no sense of Jesus feeling forsaken in Luke or John. In Luke’s portrait, Jesus dies as a courageous and faithful martyr. We need both portraits. We need to know that God suffers with us, that God identifies with our experiences of forsakenness and feelings of abandonment. But we also n...

A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit (John 19:29). According to a consensus of scholarship, Mark’s Gospel was written first just before, during, or shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E. One to two decades later the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were written. Finally, one to two decades after Matthew and Luke came the Gospel of John. All the Gospels are first and foremost spiritual and theological proclamations of the meaning of the story of Jesus, not historical reports. But John’s symbolism, Jesus monologues, and metaphorical storytelling takes it to a new level. In John the cross of Jesus is the culmination of a cosmic drama. At the cross, the worlds of ungrace and grace collide; the powers of death and life meet with explosive force. As Jesus anticipates...

“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus makes three statements from the cross. The first we considered  in the last blog : “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” The second word above is also a word of lavish grace uttered to a criminal hanging on the cross next to Jesus. Only Luke has this promise of Jesus to the criminal. In Mark and Matthew both criminals ridicule Jesus. It’s possible that Luke’s version was part of the oral tradition passed down to him, though I think it is more likely that Luke intentionally altered Mark’s account to give us a snapshot of the gospel as he understood it. According to Luke this criminal exonerates Jesus: “We are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Three times in Luke’s passion narrative Jesus is exonerated. First by Pilate, then by this criminal hanging with Jesus, and finally by the centurion at the end of the crucifixion scene ...

The year was 2003 and the place was Wrigley Field in Chicago.  It was the sixth game in a 4 out of 7 series with the Florida Marlins for the National League Championship. The Cubs were leading 3 – 0, just five outs away from going to the World Series. Then it happened. With one out, Marlin second baseman Luis Castillo fouled one into the first row of seats off of the third base line. Several spectators reached for the ball as left fielder Moises Alou made a play on it. Just as Alou was about to make the catch, the ball deflected off the hands of a Cubs fan. That fan’s name was Steve Bartman. Alou visibly displayed his displeasure. After that failed attempt to make an out, the inning broke open in favor of the Marlins. They scored eight runs, defeating the Cubs 8 – 3. Because there were no replay boards in Wrigley Field, no one in the crowd knew of Bartman until friends and family members who were watching the game on TV started calling them on their cell phones. Bartma...

There are some people who actively pursue transcendent experiences; it’s almost like they’re addicted to spiritually induced highs the way others are addicted to physically induced highs. They pursue one peak experience after another. But peak experiences cannot be programmed or predicted. You can’t say, “Well, I am going to climb the mountain or withdraw to a monastery and have my own epiphany experience.” You can’t order it up off a menu.  There is no pressing necessity for epiphanies. If we stumble upon a burning bush, fine, but it is, in my judgment, a waste of time to go looking for burning bushes. I can't find a whole lot of evidence that would suggest that such experiences actually change us. There is no evidence in the Gospel story that the three disciples who experienced the Transfiguration were changed by that single experience. In fact, shortly afterward these three along with the other disciples get caught up in an argument over who will be the greatest in the ...