Redemption

I had a very interesting conversation this week where I was challenged to argue for the uniqueness of Jesus among, as he was described, other "enlightened beings". The wonderful gentleman with whom I had this delightful conversation believed, as many do nowadays, that all roads can lead to God. Whether you follow Buddha or Muhammad or Jesus, they all teach the same thing, he claimed. I tried to explain that while much of the moral code you would get from following any of these teachers is similar, the message Jesus teaches is unique. It has been said that all religions teach some form of karma. They teach that in the end, good and evil will be weighed and we will be rewarded for good and punished for evil. Even Christianity teaches this as the ultimate reality when it becomes institutionalized as a religion. What Jesus offers, however, is vastly different. The Bible fully affirms the truth of justice and that it is an attribute of God. God is holy and His standard for His creation is perfect holiness. Falling short of that standard is what the Bible calls "sin" and it is infinitely bad, no matter how seemingly small, because it is a transgression against an infinitely perfect God. As such, any and all sin is punishable by death. That is the standard of justice affirmed in the Bible. It is, in a sense, a system of credits and debits like all other religions but with a significant difference. Any debt is beyond repayment apart from the penalty of death.

That's where Jesus comes in. That justice is the bad news. The good news is that God, while upholding his justice, did not demand the payment for sin immediately but was patient with us. In His time He made the payment for us and offers us that redemption. Some, like my friend, object to the idea that Jesus is the only way to God, especially when so many others offer a way to God. That is where an important distinction has to be made between us finding a way to God and, uniquely in Jesus' case, God coming to us. The issue is clouded by the two millennia of history between when He came and the present time. Much has gone on, in His name, that does not represent the gospel He offers. If the standard, however, is what is written in the Bible and not what the religion of Christianity has done, the gospel becomes clearer.

What I came to realize during my conversation and afterward is that Jesus' uniqueness is found in the message of grace. He did what we could not do so that we could have a relationship with Him that we were otherwise incapable of having. To many that offer is unappealing. God is not someone they are particularly interested in having a relationship with. I suspect that is because they don't know who He really is. To others, the exclusivity inherent in the uniqueness of Jesus is just something they cannot accept. For those people, the problem is that so many people are born into cultures that have their own way of getting to God and, for that reason, will not accept Jesus. I think they are in good company. Jesus seemed to have a problem with that too. That's why He told His followers to go tell everyone about Him. He didn't come to found a religion that would teach people one of many ways to God. He is God come to us, all of us. He came to redeem. He came to take what is evil, painful and wrong about this world and make something good out of it.

Movie Review #7: Iron Man 2

I'll be honest, I'm not sure what to say about Iron Man 2. The directing was good. The acting was good. The story was good. I guess it was just good. Compared to its predecessor, it is inferior. Compared to the average action movie, it is superior. I suppose I would have preferred, as usual, a little of the time spent on extended action sequences channeled instead into character development. Scarlett Johansson's character, in particular could have used a bit more developing and not just because she was, how shall we say, easy on the eyes. In addition I would say that there was a great deal about the film that was predictable yet, somehow, not unpleasant or disappointing.

In his second outing on film, Tony Stark is facing new challenges. He is juggling new health challenges, antagonistic senatorial committees and a rival arms manufacturer played a little too perfectly by Sam Rockwell. Everything seems to be going Tony's way until a rogue Russian physicist decides to enact vengeance on him on a racetrack of all places. The path to sorting all these problems out takes Tony through Nick Fury's S.H.E.I.L.D. agency as well as his own family history.

This is usually the part where I expound on some insight for life that I gleaned from what the filmmaker was trying to say. I'm not sure if there was much in Iron Man 2 to take away that fits the bill. I suppose I'll have to settle for the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed watching it and look forward to putting the DVD on my shelf next to the first one.

Oh, and wait in the theater until after the credits.

Surrender

It occurred to me today to ask myself this question. What is there in this life that God does not want us to surrender to Him? For those of us familiar with what the Bible says, this is a no-brainer. Or is it? I mean, yeah, according to Luke 14:26 even our closest family, even our own lives are supposed to be subordinated to God if we want to be disciples of Jesus but how many of us have even begun to grasp what that means, much less put it into effect? There are many of us, especially in America, where we love our rights, who have boundaries in our lives beyond which we do not want God to go. Yes, God instituted marriage and loves families but does that mean that I ought to cling to my family such that I do not trust God with them? I have heard far too many stories of Christians walking away from God because they lost a child or their spouse left them.

The word used in Luke to describe what our attitude toward our family ought to be is "hate". Taken at face value, this sounds like God wants us to hate the people closest to us and that certainly doesn't seem right. Of course, the idea is that compared to my love for Him it ought to be as if I hate my family. In reality I will love them better than I could otherwise because, as His disciple, I will be learning what true sacrificial love actually is and I'll be called to put it into practice with my family. I'll also have His limitless resources to draw from instead of just my very finite resources.

As difficult as it is to imagine the kind of scenario Jesus calls us to, where we love him so much its as if we hate the people we love most, I personally think the last clause in His statement is even more difficult to swallow. According to Jesus, I ought to love Him so much it is as if I hate even myself. Elsewhere He says that anyone who wants to save his life must lose it for His sake. The Bible even says that I am not my own but am bought with a price. If I am a follower of Jesus, the Bible says, I died with Christ and my life is now His. My life is not my own. Before God, I do not have rights, even to my own life and identity. I know how this idea can grate on us, especially in the Western world. We love being self-made, self-defined and self-sufficient. That is the goal we strive for and the beginning of our worldview. The Bible, on the other hand, paints a much different picture. According to the worldview presented there, I am God-made, God-defined and His grace is sufficient. This can be a bitter pill to swallow. So, most of us don't.

There is a posture that God has been teaching me over the last couple years. It is a picture of how He wants me to relate to Him and this life. Hold out your hands, face up. Imagine all the things, people, dreams, ambitions and circumstances in your life resting in your hands. Now close your hands around them. That is how we live our lives, grasping onto all the things God has blessed us with. Now, open your hands again. Those things are still there, you still hold them but in a posture of surrender. God is free to take what He wishes and, just as importantly, to add anything that is lacking. This posture requires trust. Trust in action is Faith. When we claim to have faith but grasp, we are fooling ourselves. God is trustworthy. Let's open our hands to Him. If what the Bible says is true, we will be overwhelmed by how good He is.