Tag: Christ

The Savior With 10,000 Faces

Featured ~ John Koessler ~ Leave a comment

A few years ago, it was popular for some Christians to wear wristbands with the initials WWJD on them. The letters stood for the question, “What would Jesus do?” The question is probably a good one. But it seems to assume that what Jesus would do is always evident to us. This isn’t always the case. In fact, the question the disciples asked more often than not was a very different one. Instead of wanting to know what Jesus would do, they asked, “Why did Jesus do that?” The disciples were often puzzled by Jesus. They were as confused by His actions as they were by His teaching.

Mark 4:35–41 describes how the disciples were caught in a sudden storm on the lake. Jesus was asleep in the stern of their boat. At first, they were too busy trying to survive to even think of Him. Like the terrified sailors of Psalm 107, as the waves “mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths; in their peril, their courage melted away. They reeled and staggered like drunkards; they were at their wits’ end” (Psalm 107:26–27). When they realized they could not manage on their own, they turned to Jesus in a panic to awaken Him from a deep sleep with this question: “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” (Mark 4:38). Jesus got up and stilled the wind and waves with a word. Then He turned to the disciples and asked them a question: “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:40). This is the kind of question that one does not answer. It is not a question so much as it is a statement. It is the sort your mother asks when she is irritated with you.

If we look at the circumstances through the disciples’ eyes, it’s hard not to be startled by Jesus’ reaction. Perhaps even disturbed. The answer is evident to us. Why were the disciples so afraid? Because the boat was sinking! They thought they were going to die. The storm was real, not a figment of their imagination. The disciples had seen storms like this before and knew the damage they could do. According to Mark, the boat was filling up with water, and Luke says they were “in great danger” (Luke 8:23). Jesus’ reaction to the situation seems harsh. It doesn’t fit our image of Him. We expect Him to offer something more comforting. “Don’t worry, fellows, I wasn’t really asleep,” we might expect Jesus to say. “I am always watching over you, even when it seems like I am not.” But, in a way, the disciples’ reaction after Jesus calmed the storm is even more surprising. After the wind died down and it was completely calm, “They were terrified and asked each other, ‘Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!'” (Mark 4:41). What was it about Jesus that so disturbed them?

We often ask the same question as we read through the Gospels. Who is this Jesus? Our sense of Him seems to change with the situation. There are times when He seems gentle and others when He is gruff. He refuses to act as judge or arbiter for the man whose brother has withheld his portion of the inheritance yet calls down woes on others (Luke 12:14; Matt. 11:21; 23:15). We believe He has come to reveal Himself in plain language using simple stories. Yet, He silences His followers, and those who hear Him seem to think that He is talking in riddles (Matt. 10:13–17). He appears to be a savior with a thousand faces. He often seems the same to us.

Every age seems to have its preferred image of Jesus. When I first began to follow Jesus in the early 1970s, many of us thought of Jesus as a long-haired, sandal-wearing non-conformist. Popular culture reinforced this image with rock/folk musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell that portrayed Jesus as one of us. We thought of Jesus as the proto hippie, but without all the drugs and sex (we kept the rock and roll and eventually folded it into our worship).

By the ’80s and ’90s, things had changed. Those of us in the Jesus movement got older. Like our secular counterparts, the hippies, we became the establishment instead of fighting against it. We married, had children, and went to work. We left the coffee house and joined the church. And as our lives changed, so did our view of Jesus. This was an era of big churches and million-dollar budgets. By then, we had begun to see Jesus as an entrepreneurial leader. People wrote books about marketing the church. At the same time, the political resistance of the 60s had given way to political engagement. We didn’t come to view Jesus as a modern politician, but we did become convinced that there were political implications for those who followed Him. Even though Jesus had said that His kingdom was not of this world, we were sure that Christianity should have a political bent. Jesus was, after all, a king. If nothing else, we believed that Jesus spoke truth to power.

These days, the focus is not on dynamic leaders of entrepreneurial churches but cultural sensitivity. We prefer a hyper–sensitive Jesus who is often offended but doesn’t offend. Read the comments on your favorite social media page and you quickly notice that the Jesus portrayed there always seems to be in favor of the causes that we champion and annoyed by the things that annoy us. He is more mirror than Master. Where the culture is concerned, we tend to think of Jesus as more of an archetype than a savior.

The Scriptures do not portray Jesus as a symbol or even an archetype but as a living person. Yet there is some variation in the portrait they offer. We might think of the Gospels as a hall of portraits, with each episode intended to highlight some facet of the person and work of Jesus Christ. We are not interested in knowing Christ merely as a concept or an ideal. We want to know Him as a person. Furthermore, we want to know the true Jesus, not one whose image has been managed by anyone’s personal or theological agenda. Because of its unique character and through the action of the Holy Spirit, Scripture is all we really need to know Jesus Christ on a personal level. But it is not all we have. Like the first disciples, we can also know Him by experience. Perhaps the best way to try and explain how this works is through the words of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who observed:

“. . . Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men’s faces.”

Hopkins seems to be saying that every person can be an image of Christ to us. They serve as a kind of medium through which we see Christ. Their lives are the “stage” upon which He plays, and His beauty is displayed for us when someone reaches out to us when we feel unwelcome or unwanted. Or when they come to our defense when no one else will. A moment of undeserved but genuine forgiveness from someone becomes a tangible emblem of the grace we have received through Christ. In this way, we see Jesus as lovely in limbs and eyes that are not His. At other times it is our privilege to play the part of Christ. We persist in showing love to someone who has scorned us because of our faith. We do good to those who have done evil to us.

But if the first generation of disciples struggled to see the glory of Christ in the perfect yet very human Jesus with whom they traveled, ate, and lived, all subsequent generations of Christians have struggled to see Him in the very human and imperfect church. Indeed, like the disciples in the storm, it is hard not to ask Christ a question of our own: Is this the best we can expect? So many things the church does seem to obscure their reflection of Christ. We were hoping for a better environment more suited to experiencing Jesus. We were looking for better people. The answer is that this is not the best we can expect. There is better yet to come. Far better. But for now, this is good enough.

Eugene Peterson reminds us that it is no use looking for Christ in purer surroundings or among better people. “It is understandable that there are many who resent having to deal with the church, when they are only interested in Christ,” he admits. “The church is so full of ambiguity, so marred with cruelty and cowardice, so tarnished with hypocrisies and sophistries, that they are disgusted with it.”  Nor will be able to find the perfect environment in which to experience His presence. We do not have to wait for Jesus to show up. No matter how complex the situation or how imperfect the people are, Jesus is always the landscape of our Christian experience: “Christ is known (by faith) to be preexistent with the Father. He is believed to be glorious in the heavens,” Peterson explains. “But he is received in the everyday environs of the church in the company of persons who gather for worship and witness.”

Jesus is a person, not an icon. He has face, form, and beauty of limb that is all His own, but we do not yet know Him by these. The time will come when “we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). On that day, we will know Him by more than the reflection we have seen through the words and actions of others. On that day, we will see Him face to face. We will know Him fully even as we are fully known (1 Cor. 12:13). There is, indeed, a fulness that is yet to come. But we do not have to wait until then to know Him. Those who have yet to see Christ in the fullness of His person know Him even now. As 2 Corinthians 4:6 says, “ For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”

A Few Serious Thoughts About God & Laughter

~ John Koessler ~ 2 Comments

The first thing I noticed about my wife on the night we met was her smile. It unnerved me, like a dare. I have since seen it reappear in a thousand different facets. It never fails to charm me. She has a laugh to match, pure as the ringing of a church bell and solid as iron. I have spent the forty-one years we have been together trying to elicit that sound.

Babies develop the ability to laugh before they learn to talk. They can laugh as early as twelve weeks. They do not begin to speak rudimentary words until the end of twelve months. What does this say about laughter? Is our ability to laugh more primal than our capacity for speech? Speech is learned, but laughter is not. Laughter is an emotional response. Language is the work of the intellect. Between the two, it is tempting to think that laughter is a simpler act. Words have nuanced meanings. A laugh is just noise. Or is it?

We Laugh for Many Reasons

“We laugh for many reasons” J. C. Gregory observes in his book The Nature of Laughter. “There is laughter of triumph and laughter of scorn; there is also laughter of contempt, superiority, and self-congratulation. When lovers laugh as they meet they are not contemptuous, nor are they amused. The pure laughter of play, like the laughter of greeting, is as innocent of amusement as it is of contempt.”

Psychologists suggest that laughter is the reward system people use to negotiate social relationships. Babies use it to trick their parents into teaching them how to be human. Science, which likes to reduce all human behavior to the involuntary responses of electronic impulses sent from the brain or mindless outworking of evolutionary competition, claim to see comparable responses in monkeys, dogs, and even rats. But laughter’s ultimate analog is not found in the animal kingdom but in God, who was the first to speak and the first to laugh. If the human ability for language has its mirror in God, why not our capacity for humor?

Humor is not the first thing we think of when we think about God. His thundering holiness is more likely to come to mind. The handful of statements which make explicit reference to divine laughter reinforce this impression. When the nations conspire against the Lord’s anointed, the One enthroned in heaven laughs at them in contempt (Ps. 2:4). If we must limit ourselves to those instances where the Bible explicitly mentions God’s laughter, we must conclude that His capacity for humor is limited.

Man of Sorrows

The New Testament reinforces this impression. The human face that Jesus puts on God in the Gospels is, for the most part, not a smiling face. As Isaiah predicted, He shows Himself to be “a man of sorrows” (Isaiah 53:3). Jesus groaned at the grave of Lazarus. He denounced the Pharisees for their hypocrisy and the Scribes because they were spiritually dull. “He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell,” G. K. Chesterton notes. Yet where humor is concerned, Chesterton points out that “there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness.” Every Chinese restaurant has its laughing Buddha, but you would be hard-pressed to find a church with an image of a smiling Christ.

This absence is, to some extent, understandable. A religion that has the cross as its main symbol is bound to be grave in its tone. Yet if we look for more than explicit instances of divine laughter, we find a thread that points to that aspect of God’s nature that Chesterton rightly calls mirth. It begins in the Garden of Eden with God’s determination to create humanity in His own image (Gen. 1:26). To accomplish this, God forms Adam from “the dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7, 22). There is a kind of divine whimsy in act. In Scripture dust is a symbol of lowliness or humility. Dust will be the serpent’s “food” after the curse (Gen. 3:14). Other elements of the creation account might also be seen as humorous. Eve engages in theological debate with a snake. The primary actors in the fall each point fingers at one another when asked to account for their actions. If not for the severity of sin’s effects, humankind’s whole history might be deemed a tragic comedy of epic proportions.

The half-truths told by Abraham and Isaac about their true relationship with their spouses, Laban’s bamboozlement of Jacob regarding the marriage negotiation for Rachel, and Haman’s that there is no one other than him that the king would rather honor might all elicit a chuckle. These stories are not comedies but histories that include comedic elements, as all human stories do. This proximity of humor and tragedy in the Bible’s account of sin and redemption should not surprise us. The enduring popularity of slapstick comedy is visual proof that humor almost always has a tragic edge. Comedy is tragedy worked out in ridiculous circumstances. Because of this, God’s whimsical way of working out His plan is not the only reason we find occasion to laugh in the Scriptures.

The Absurdity of Sin

Sin, by its nature, is always tragic, but it is also an absurdity. Theologian Josef Peiper explains, “Sin is an act against reason, which thus means: a violation against one’s own conscience, against our ‘better’ knowledge, against the best knowledge of which we are capable.” Paul puts flesh on sin’s unreasoning nature when he describes his own experience with sin as that of going against not only what he knows but what he approves. Every sinner has his own twisted reason for justifying their actions, but sin is also against reason as God defines it. “I do not understand what I do,” the apostle laments in Romans 7:15, “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Sin is no joke, but it is ridiculous.

When we come to the New Testament, God’s good-natured humor meets sin’s absurdity head-on in the teaching of Jesus Christ. From the humorous scenarios described in many of His parables to the affectionately ironic nicknames assigned to several of His disciples, Jesus was not afraid to use humor to make His point. Without status or resources, a widow terrorizes a judge who does not care about God or man by simple persistence. Humor is so much a part of a healthy personality that Jesus’ perfect humanity would seem to demand it. From the humorous scenarios described in many of His parables to the affectionately ironic nicknames Jesus assigned to several of His disciples, Jesus was not afraid to use laughter to make His point. Without status or resources, a widow wears down by simple persistence a judge who does not care for either God or man (Luke 18:1-8). A legion of demons begs Jesus to be allowed to enter a herd of pigs because they do not want Him to cast them into the abyss and the pigs promptly stampede over a cliff (Mark 5:1-13).

The God Who Laughs

The God revealed in Scripture is not only a God who speaks but one who laughs. He is not the jolly god of pagan religion, but a being of infinite and inexpressible joy. Divine humor is a reflection of this joy. Although we have not yet experienced this joy in its full force, we have been granted a foretaste and are ourselves “filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” through the Holy Spirit (1 Pet. 1:9). Just as we need to be transformed through the grace of Christ to stand in God’s glorious presence, surely we will need to be similarly changed to grasp the humor that springs from His infinite joy.

Indeed, we must be transformed before we can even endure it. Without such a change, God’s humor must come crashing down upon us with the full force of His holiness and glory. Just as the light of dawn, “like solid blocks intolerable of solid edge and weight,” fell upon C. S. Lewis at the close of his imagined bus trip to heaven in The Great Divorce, the unmitigated humor of God would crush us. Without the transforming work of Jesus Christ, we could not bear it.

The book of Revelation tells us that when Jesus Christ comes again to take His stand on the Mount of Olives, He will be dressed in a robe dripped in blood. The armies of heaven will follow Him, and “out of His mouth will come a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations” that oppose Him (Rev. 19:15). Likewise, the apostle Paul writes that at that time, Jesus will overthrow His enemies with the breath of His mouth and the splendor of His coming (2 Thess. 2:8). I have always thought that the phrase “the breath of His mouth” was a reference to speech. In the end, Jesus will defeat Satan and the Anti-Christ with a word. But it could just as easily be a laugh.

Oh, Hell.

~ John Koessler ~ 2 Comments

In the early days of my walk with Jesus, I did not believe in Hell. Or at least, I did not want to acknowledge the reality of Hell. I had heard about Hell and even prayed a prayer to Jesus to be saved from Hell as a child. But by the time I began to live seriously for Christ in my early 20’s, I had pushed that aspect of the gospel to the margins of my thinking. I was more interested in knowing whether God existed. I was attracted to Jesus because of the message of God’s love. I came to Him for the relationship.

I knew about the cross, of course. I understood that it as the preeminent proof of Christ’s love. I knew that it was the remedy for my sin and I did believe in sin. How could I not? The evidence was right in front of me. Indeed, it was in me. Like the apostle Paul, I was unable to do the good that I wanted to do (Romans 7:19-21).  I suppose the experience of my own sinfulness combined with the stark reality of Christ’s death should have made ask whether the cross even made sense if the threat of Hell did not exist. But somehow, I was able to ignore the question.

Except, I kept coming across Hell in the Bible. Even more disturbing to me was the fact that Jesus spoke about Hell in the Scriptures in a way that suggested that it was more than a metaphor. “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more” Jesus says in Luke 12:4-5, “But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into Hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” Jesus, it turned out, had more to say about Hell than anyone else.

If I was serious about following Jesus, I couldn’t affirm those aspects of His teaching that I liked and ignore those that made me uncomfortable. I realized that the same was true of the rest of the Bible. If I was going to accept it as God’s truth, I had to accept it all. There was no room to cherry-pick, holding on to the truths I liked and setting aside those I didn’t.

In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis suggested that those who find themselves in Hell choose to be there. “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.” One of the most insidious effects of sin is that it compels us to flee from the lover of our souls. Without the grace of God bestowed upon us in Christ, we would do so forever.

The cross is a symbol, but it is more than a symbol. I was right to see it as evidence of God’s love. But it is also a blunt reminder of the penalty that sin requires. The cross is proof of our need to take sin more seriously than we do. Only a grave condition could warrant such an extreme remedy. The cross is a warning. Jesus’ cry from the cross foreshadows the agony of all who will experience separation from God for eternity because of their sin (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34).

It is almost impossible to speak about the reality of Hell without seeming glib. I think this reflects a kind of denial. If it is hard for us to fathom heavenly things, it is even more difficult for us to grasp the danger of Hell. For one thing, we do not want to think about it. It is all too easy to put any thought of it out of our mind. We do not really believe that we deserve it. Most of us harbor a secret hope that in the end, God will change the standard, the way our teachers sometimes did when everyone flunked the exam in school.

The reason so many of us do not believe in hell is that we do not believe in righteousness. Despite all our contemporary talk about “justice,” we have no real conception of justice, at least where God is concerned. We still believe in evil. But only as a hyperbole. Evil is an unrealistic extreme that we see in a handful of others. We do not think of evil in reference to ourselves. Ironically, was true for me, we are happy to claim the cross for our own benefit. But deep inside we can’t help wondering if all the blood and brutality of the thing was really necessary. We chalk it up to the meanness of human beings. Such thinking sentimentalizes the cross, reducing it to a mere symbol. The cross has become a meme for us. We certainly do not see what it has to do with Hell. Or with justice, for that matter.

In the end, the cross and Hell are inevitably related to one another. Hell is the ultimate exercise of divine judgment. Hell is proof that our sin ultimately has reference to God. It is to Him that we must answer. “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge” David declared after his sin with Bathsheba (Psalm 51:4). Sin is more than selfish petulance. It is more than a moral offense against our neighbor. Whether we are willing to recognize it or not, sin is an offense against God, and He will call everyone to account.

This may be the most disturbing aspect of the cross for those who reject its message. It is a picture of what is owed. The cross is an emblem of God’s love. But it is also the ultimate reminder to any who refuse to accept Christ’s payment, that their debt will one day be called in.

The Personality of Jesus

~ John Koessler ~ 6 Comments

A former student of mine once complained about what he called “the language of unsustainable intimacy” that the church often uses when it speaks of our relationship with Christ. “I hear it most often from youth group leaders who tell students to ‘date’ Jesus for a year,” he said. At the time I had been reading through the gospels and had marveled over how little they seem to reveal about Jesus’ personality. They do not deny that Jesus had a personality. In fact, their emphasis on the reality of his humanity implies the opposite. Yet they tell us virtually nothing about the things we normally talk about when we describe what someone is like. We know nothing about the Savior’s physical appearance, and next to nothing about the sound of his voice. We know that he was a carpenter but what did he like to do in his spare time? How did he act when he was among friends?

We know that Jesus cried but do not know what made him laugh. We cannot see the gleam in his eye or the way his forehead might have wrinkled when he thought deeply about something. Indeed, I feel as though I have a much clearer notion of Simon Peter’s personality than I do of Christ’s. This does not mean that the Bible portrays a Christ who is devoid of personality. But it does, quite frankly, make it difficult for me to relate to him. At least, it makes it difficult for me to relate to him in the same way that so much of our worship music seems to suggest that I should. The overheated imagery of these songs often sounds like it was lifted from a romance novel.

In his essay on the emotional life of Christ, theologian B. B. Warfield describes the two dangerous tendencies that the church has exhibited in its attempt to understand the humanity of Christ. One is to lean so far into his divinity that the human is undermined. The other is to err in the opposite direction and so rob him of his divinity. “Between the two, the figure of Jesus is liable to take on a certain vagueness of outline, and come to lack definiteness in thought” Warfield warns. We must do justice to both dimensions of Christ’s nature without somehow allowing each to cancel out the other or ending up with a hybrid being who is neither truly God nor truly man.

I think we are on similar ground when it comes to Jesus’ personality. Some propose that Jesus had a perfectly balanced personality. They suggest that if Jesus had taken the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory, he would have scored equally in every area. It seems to me that this is just a way of saying that Jesus had no personality at all. What is more, if Jesus was truly God in the flesh as the Bible declares, such a possibility seems extremely unlikely. If personality is the result of a combination of factors that includes both genetic makeup and experience, then Jesus must have had his own distinctive personality. Otherwise, he would not be human. To say that Jesus’ personality was perfect does not mean that it was indistinct.

Yet there are moments in the Gospels when the clouds of silence part and the rays of his personality peek through. When the religious leaders set a watch on him to criticize him for healing on the Sabbath, Jesus gazes at them in anger “deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts” (Mark 3:5). When a young man asks him what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus looks at him with love (Mark 10:21). He speaks tenderly to a shy woman (Luke 8:48). These accounts open a window on what Warfield calls “the profound internal movement of his emotional nature.” The divine being revealed to us through the humanity of Christ is not only a God who thunders but a God of tears and sighs.

According to Warfield, these are the clues that fill in the gaps for us. In particular, they show that the personality of Jesus is marked by both compassion and justice. Jesus felt love and expressed anger. His love was directed toward those who suffered. His anger was aimed at religious hypocrisy and hardness of heart. Warfield notes that in the Gospel accounts Jesus comforts, rebukes, and threatens. Although the New Testament does not describe Jesus’ smile, Luke 10:21 says that he was “full of joy through the Holy Spirit” when the disciples told him of their victory of the demons.

However, in the conclusion to his book Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton observes that there is a missing note in the Bible’s portrayal of Jesus’ personality. There is joy, grief, and even anger. “He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell” Chesterton writes. “Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness.” But shyness about what? According to Chesterton, the one thing that was too great for God to display while he walked upon the earth was his mirth. Zen Buddhism has its laughing Buddha but the Gospels do not portray a laughing Christ.

Does this mean that Christ was joyful but humorless? This cannot be true. Although the Bible does not say that Jesus laughed, there is an underlying wit reflected in his teaching. Many of his analogies use the ridiculous to make their point. Camels go through the eye of the needle. The religious leaders strain the gnat and swallow the camel. The most unlikely people find forgiveness and the least qualified are appointed to lead.

Divine mirth as Chesterton describes it seems to have more in common with glory than it does with what we usually think of as humor. It is hidden from us not because it does not exist but because we do not yet have the strength to behold it. Yet it should not surprise us if creation itself bears witness to the fact that God has the capacity to laugh. “Anybody who has ever wondered whether God has a sense of humor only needs to look at the platypus for an answer” someone has said. Or you might just look at what he has done with your own life.

 

Easter and My Fear of Death

~ John Koessler ~ Leave a comment

 

thedeadchrist2I am afraid of death. I know that I am not supposed to be. Hebrews 2:15 tells me that one of the reasons Jesus shared my humanity was so that He could “free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Heb. 2:15). I believe that this is true and I am still afraid. I know some Christians who are afraid of dying. But they fear the crossing, not the destination. It is death itself that I fear.

Perhaps that is why, as far as Christian holidays go, Easter has always seemed to me to have a more somber tone than Christmas. Christmas is about life. It celebrates the birth of the Savior. Easter is about life too. It celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. But in order to get to resurrection, you must first face death.

Jesus’ experience of death was different from ours. Most of us do not seek death. Death finds us and when it finds us it always comes as a surprise. To me this is one of the proofs that death is an intrusion. Romans 5:12 says that sin entered the human race through sin. Death was Adam’s gift to the human race, the fruit of his disobedience.

But in Romans 5:15 the apostle Paul also writes that the gift of God that comes to us through Christ is not like Adam’s trespass: “For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!” Death did not come to Jesus. Jesus ran to meet it. Jesus pursued death and defeated it like a champion.

Still, that doesn’t mean that Jesus treated death lightly. There was certainty when Jesus spoke of His own death but no flippancy. Matthew 26:37-38 says that on the night of His betrayal Jesus entered the Garden of Gethsemane with His disciples and “began to be sorrowful and troubled.” He said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” The savior’s distress is a comfort to me.

It is a comfort because it means that Jesus understands my fear. The fact that Jesus did not take death lightly means that He will not dismiss my fear of death. Because He knows what it is like to be sorrowful and troubled at the prospect of death, Jesus will treat my fear with compassion by providing grace to help in the hour of my need.

But more than that it is a comfort because Jesus faced death and defeated it on my behalf. My fear of death is personal and individual. It is my death that I fear and when I die it will be my own fear that I feel. But Jesus’ death was different. There was a corporate dimension to Jesus’ death. Jesus faced death but not for Himself. Jesus experienced death but not for His own sake. Christ died for us. Christ died for us so that whether we live or whether we die, we may experience life with Him.

And this ultimately is what makes Easter different from Christmas. This is why the early Church celebrated Easter instead of Christmas. Christmas is about life. It is about the birth of Christ. But the life of Christ would have no real value, if it were not for Christ’s death. At the same time, the message of Easter is not merely that Christ died. It is that Christ died and rose again. Both facts are fundamental to understanding the significance of who Jesus was and what He did. Both facts are foundational to my hope.

Does this mean that the fear of death automatically dissolves when I place my faith in Jesus? While this may be true for some, it has not yet proven to be true for me. I still have moments when I am gripped by the fear of death. Does this mean that my faith has failed me? Not really. I believe that God’s grip on my soul is greater than the fear that often takes hold of me.

What is more, we should not be surprised if some of us feel ambivalent about death. The Bible itself is ambivalent when it speaks of the believer’s death. On the one hand, the apostle Paul describes death as “the last enemy to be destroyed” (1 Cor. 15:26). Yet when writing about the prospect of life and the possibility of his own death in Philippians 1:21-24, Paul also said that he was torn between the two explaining: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

I confess that while I do not always share Paul’s enthusiasm at the prospect of death, I do share his hope. I know that in the hour of my death this same Christ, who boldly strode out to meet and face death like a champion, will rise up to welcome me as a friend. In that moment all my fears will be forgotten forever.

The Myth That Became Reality

~ John Koessler ~ Leave a comment

nativity

Once upon a time there was a young girl who lived in a small village. She was poor but virtuous. One day, shortly before her marriage was to take place, she was startled by an unexpected visitor. “Do not be afraid,” the visitor said. “I have good news for you. You are going to have a child. He will be a great king.”

Sound familiar? This could be the beginning of any number of stories. But it is the beginning of one particular story. None of the Gospels opens by saying, “Once upon a time….” Yet when we read them, we get the feeling that they might have. The mysteries and wonders they describe are the sort one reads about in fairy tales. A peasant girl gives birth to a miraculous child. A star appears in the heavens and announces his birth. Magi travel from a distant land to pay homage to him. The hero descends to the realm of the dead and returns.

This is the stuff of myth and fantasy, except the Bible does not call it by either of those names. The Bible does not even call it a story. Not really. According to the Scriptures it is truth. It is “good news.” The Gospels do not spin tales, they bear witness. Yet the Gospels’ embodied and historical nature does not negate the mythical quality of the real events they describe.

In an essay entitled “Myth Became Fact,” C. S. Lewis described myth as “the isthmus which connects the peninsular world of thought with the vast continent we really belong to.” Myth in this sense not a fanciful story although, as Lewis observed in An Experiment in Criticism, myth always deals with the fantastic. It is an account which connects our experience with a realm of truth that would otherwise be out of our reach.

But the historical events the Gospel’s describe go beyond myth. “The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact” Lewis explains. “The Old Myth of the dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history.” In the fantastic but true account of Christ’s birth we meet the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. Although He is “not far from each one of us,” without the Gospel record of these events He would be forever beyond our reach. No wonder the ancient church sang:

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth
Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six winged seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

Thanks be to God.

The Announcement to the Shepherds

~ John Koessler ~ 2 Comments

shepherds

We were taken

by surprise

when the light broke.

Blinded and afraid

we cowered

and the poor

sheep fled

into the hollow.

“Do not be afraid”

the angel said.

But we could

not help it

and we could not

follow the flock

that had forsaken us.

So we just stood by

in white light

and trembled hearing

the angel trumpet

his good tidings.

And then we too

like scattering sheep

fled among the hills

of Bethlehem.

Until we came to

the place where

the Child lay.

Grace & Personality

~ John Koessler ~ 3 Comments

Not long ago I had dinner with an old college friend named Dave. I reconnected with him last year through the magic of social media, but until the other night it had been 25 years since the two of us had talked face to face. Dave was just as I remembered him. Older, of course, but the same essential person: a serious follower of Jesus Christ who is devoted to his family, his church and his friends. He has been in the same church and has been teaching the same Sunday school class for over 25 years.

Dave is a people person. He is someone who is energized by the crowd. He loves being part of a small group. In other words, he is pretty much everything I am not. I am energized by the crowd, but only when there is a pulpit between us. I hate small groups, for the most part. I am, as Dave told me at dinner the other evening, the same curmudgeon that I was in college.

This came as something of a shock to me. Because to tell you the truth, when I was a young man I did not see myself as a curmudgeon. In fact, I thought I was a people person: an outgoing, vivacious, life of the party sort of guy. Looking back on it, I can see that what is true of Dave is also true of me. As far as my personality goes, things have not really changed much. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Jesus hasn’t made any difference in my life. He has. My values and behavior have changed radically since I began my walk with Jesus in the early 1970’s. But being a Christian does not seem to have changed my personality, at least not fundamentally.

The late Martyn Lloyd-Jones once observed, “There is no profounder change in the universe than the change which is described as regeneration; but regeneration–the work of God in the soul by which He implants a principle of divine and spiritual life within us–does not change a man’s temperament.” In other words, what the gospel does promise to do for us is something more radical. Instead of changing our temperament, it promises to set apart what I am and have for God. The shy person does not suddenly become outgoing but learns to glorify God with his or her shyness. The surly person does not lose the capacity for surliness but will be able to subject this natural tendency to the purpose and power of God through the Holy Spirit (often with great struggle).

What I saw in my friend Dave the other night is what I see in my own life. Jesus Christ set us on a trajectory of grace and we are still following its arc. We are further along than we when we last met face to face. The intervening years have altered our appearance. But the aim is still true.

My latest book Folly, Grace & Power is now available from Zondervan. You can order a copy at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com or Christianbook.com. Click here to learn more about it.

What I Learned from Dave and Paul

~ John Koessler ~ 1 Comment

For some time now I have been puzzling over God’s tendency to expect more of me than I expect of myself. Every time I read the Scriptures I get the sense that my standard of expectation and his are not the same. He tells me to love God with all my heart, soul and strength and to love my neighbor as myself. He tells me to be patient and show mercy. I like the “me” I find in these commands. The person reflected in these divine expectations is compelling. It is the kind of person I would like to know–the sort of person I would want as my friend. But it is not me. Not as far as I can tell.

 If I were speaking of anyone other than God, I would be tempted to say that such expectations are marked by a certain naïveté. You know what I mean. This is the kind of insipid good nature found in the person who mixes unfounded optimism and denial in equal measure. It is the sort of person who “expects the worst” but “hopes for the best” in others. They are not truly optimistic. They are either blind or foolish. This cannot be the case where God is concerned. The Bible which calls me to such a high standard is also marked by a stark realism. God knows my frame. He knows that “nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (Rom. 7:18). He knows that I have repeatedly disappointed him on every count.

 This morning it dawned on me that this same mixture of honest assessment and gracious expectation is reflected in two of my good friends and colleagues. Dave DeWit and Paul Santhouse both work in the publishing division of the organization where I teach. Their personalities are very different but they both have the same capacity to look “through” my shortcomings and see me in a different light. They are patient and gracious in their friendship but they are also truthful. Although they know what I am really like, they have high expectations of me. Higher expectations than I have of myself. When I see myself through their eyes, I do not see the person that I think am but the kind of person I want to be. They make me want to be a Christian like them.

 This is the kind of remarkable vision that God’s word provides. It is one which compels me to “see through” myself. With its “unrealistic” call to obedience, God’s word offers me a vision of the person I was meant to be. With its unflinching truth, God’s word shows me what I am now. This is the love of Christ which “does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Cor. 13:6-7). But it is a love which does more than show me the gap between what God expects and how far I have fallen short. It is a love which has closed the gap with the bridge of the cross. It is a love that empowers me by grace and promises to carry me across. This is not the kind of love that makes me want to be a Christian. It is the love that has made me one.

Like Most of the Pastors I Know

~ John Koessler ~ 4 Comments

I spent this past weekend in Montana with a bunch of pastors. I only got to see the mountains from a distance (except for the one we were on) but I saw the pastors close-up. I found them to be like most of the pastors I know. They are true shepherds with a deep affection for their flock. They are skilled in what they do but do not consider themselves to be remarkable. They are humble. They do not boast about their accomplishments. They are often a little disappointed with themselves–convinced that they could be doing better. They come hoping that I will be able to provide some insight that will help them to be more effective (which is why I am certain they must leave disappointed). They are perennial students of their craft.

 I am sure that there are bad pastors. Every so often I hear a horror story about one from some alienated church member. But none of the pastors I know falls into that category. Not the ones that I know personally. All the pastors I know are like these men: regular, reliable and yes–sometimes unremarkable (at least as far as their gifts are concerned). Faithful is the best word I can think of to describe them. Unfortunately, it is not a word that most pastors would be excited to hear used of them. Not in our day.

 God places great stock in faithfulness. We do not. We would prefer that pastors be described by other words. Dynamic. Transformational. Missional. Especially if the pastor being described is us. To the modern ear “faithful” sounds just a little too dull. It is like being labeled Most Congenial in your senior year when you would rather be crowned Homecoming King. It is like learning that you have been described to your blind date as someone who has “a nice personality.” Faithful is code for boring.

 Unless, of course, Jesus is the one who is doing the describing. Place the same word on the lips of Christ and there is no higher compliment. According to Jesus, “faithful” is exactly the right the word to characterize what the master wants from his servants (Matt. 25:23). It is the word that Scripture uses to describe Jesus’ own priestly ministry (Heb. 2:17; 3:6). Faithful is a word that contains the promise of great reward and is itself the reward.

 I can’t think of a better word to use to describe the pastors I spent time with this past weekend. I am deeply grateful that I know so many to whom the word applies.

 One of the questions I asked the pastors during my visit was this: “What kind of books would be of most help to you in your ministry?” If you are a pastor, I would like to know how you would answer this question. If you know a pastor, why not ask him for me and let me know what he says?

John’s latest book is coming in September. You can find out more about it at follygraceandpower.com.

Read John’s article on “the trajectory of worship” in the March issue of Christianity Today.