A Kindom of Love

Until the last few years my conception of love was tainted with a bit of romanticism and selfishness. I unknowingly looked at love as something that made me feel good, brought me pleasure, met my deepest longings, and somehow would raise me above all of the hardships and trials in this world. Although these may be by-products of love, it is also true that becoming a true loving human being will cause suffering, pain, sorrow, and bring trials and hardship into our lives.

I was contemplating this idea the other evening, and asking God, if love is so wonderful, why does it suffer so much in this world. Why is true love opposed and crushed if it is the highest way, and the most fruitful way of being? Why have I found it so difficult to be a God-like lover? Why is love so needed by all of us, but so hard for us to give? I think the New Testament offers some unpleasant answers to these questions, and like most things I am just beginning to understand some of it.

When Jesus stands before Pilate he declares that his Kingdom is not of this world, and that if it was, his army would be fighting (John 18:36). In my opinion, he was not saying his Kingdom was at another location, but that his Kingdom was not based or advanced by military force. Remember, Jesus is about to be crucified (willingly) for the sins of the world, so he must be contrasting God’s way of conquering as opposed to Rome’s. Rome rules by putting their enemies on crosses, and God conquered by putting himself on a cross.

Love suffers in this world because it is by nature opposed to the ways and means of this world; it does seek to conquer, but by self sacrifice, truth, mercy, and for the good of everyone. Love takes an enormous pouncing in this world, but by truth, patients and longsuffering, overcomes and heals. Love is the conquering underdog in this world. Love comes to it’s own but its own hardly recognizes his presence because it is so foreign to the darkness we are accustomed to. We hate it because his light reveals our contemptible condition, but the darkness allows us our subjective fantasies born in selfish, contrived ideas of what is divine.

Loves is like a meteor that reaches the atmosphere, and the resistance to its entry sets the rock ablaze with a violent flame. God’s Son comes into the world and the result of our resistance to him was scourging and a cross, and though his light was put out for 3 days he was raised into his former glory and was, is, and will always be the light of the world. Rome no longer rule with crosses filled with enemies, but God rules with the sacrificial cross of his Son. This is the light we must follow. God gives us your spirit and courage to be as your Son in this world of resistance. TOTT

Not so Heavenly

Is there a heaven? Is there life after death, and what will the life be like?  It seems that all civilizations have put in their two cents in this question, and I do not know enough to even begin to breakdown every view, but I would like to take on a piece of what some Christians and Muslims have said and believe about heaven and the afterlife.  

Since the 9/11 terror attacks we have all heard about the radical Muslim claims of 70 virgins waiting in heaven for those who kill themselves along with others for the cause of Islam (whatever that may be).  I doubt many westerners are buying the validity of this world view because it involves cruelty (mass and self murder) and the sexual enslavement of women to these murderers in the afterlife.  Notice that this worldview does not involve love, mercy, forgiveness, reconciliation of enemies, or to say the least, respect for women created in the image and likeness of God.  It is an indulgent solipsism and a gross, hedonistic pursuit of warped religion. Logically this could never be heaven, but it could be hell.

On the Barbara Walter’s special Heaven -- Where Is It? How Do We Get There?, Barbara interviewed an evangelical Pastor about his view on the afterlife.  The pastor’s response was less violent than the Islamic terrorist, but still self centered and hedonistic.  The pastor began to inform Walter’s that we would be able to eat as much as we wanted and never get fat.  I could not believe my ears. I did not know that gluttony would be ok in heaven. To be fair, this was not his only description, but it was enough for me to wish he had not been chosen to represent Christians on the afterlife.

The problem with each of these perspectives is that they represent everything that is wrong with the world.  They are self-centered and have nothing to do with holiness or reconciliation with God and each other.  Heaven is not about sex and good food, but the absence of sin and death, and eternal, joyful union with God and his people.

God's Cross of Glory (part1)

I was thinking today how religion apart from the Christian faith robs God of his glory. The all encompassing love of God is obscured when his sacrificial love on the cross is diminished or ignored.  It is by the cross that we understand the very heart and character of God.  The Son comes to a broken and dying world, and is broken and killed to restore and reconcile the fallen creation he loves.  By the love of God we see how to love.  He is truly the light of the world and anything that takes away from the blazing significance of his partaking in the suffering of his creation, robs God and attempts to rob us of his presence and compassion. God has joined us in our suffering to free us through it (we partake in suffering with God) in Christ.  In the end we are healed and not destroyed.

God is not sitting on a throne light years away demanding we suffer in faith against injustice, persecution, and all kinds of evil.  His word is not an abstract manual of does and don’ts, punishments and rewards, but word made flesh and suffering on a cross.  I am beginning to understand what it means to see the living God, and when I meditate on the cross and his divine offering, the light is so bright I cannot believe it took so long to see.
(I will have to continue in  future post).