Easter #8: The Risen Servant

The resurrection - Jesus Christ’s resurrection - changes everything!

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb,
taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled
away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body.
While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling
clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their
faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the
living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.

  Luke 24:1-6, New Revised Standard Version

  Now I should remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I
proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand,
through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message
that I proclaimed to you-unless you have come to believe in vain.
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received:
that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he
was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the
scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he
appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most
of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to
James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to someone untimely born,
he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called
an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of
God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been in vain. On the
contrary, I worked harder than any of them-though it was not I, but the
grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim
and so you have come to believe. Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from
the dead, how can some of you say there is  no resurrection of the dead?
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then  Christ has not been raised; and
if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and
your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God,
because we testified of God that he raised Christ-whom he did not raise if
it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then
Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile
and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have
perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people
most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised  from the dead, the first
fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being,
the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all
die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:1-22, New Revised Standard Version

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he stone has been rolled away and the tomb is empty. Jesus Christ was dead. People saw him beaten and tortured; killed; crucified. His body, his corpse, occupied the tomb and it was sealed by a stone. However, Jesus Christ is alive. He has been raised. “He is risen from the dead and he is Lord.”
 

Easter is the day we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, Easter is not merely a day or two; Easter Sunday or Easter Monday. Easter is a season that lasts fifty days, from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday.

Jesus Christ’s resurrection needs more than a day or two. Jesus Christ’s resurrection needs a season, fifty days. Fifty days to celebrate and highlight the power, the love, the grace we find, and the whole world can find, in Jesus Christ’s resurrection.

The first passage (above) from Luke tells the story of Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and others visiting Christ’s tomb to anoint his body and pay their respects. However, they found that the stone that sealed the tomb was rolled away and the tomb was empty (April Fools to the Pharisees, Romans, etc.?). Two men appear to the ladies and ask them: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? [Jesus] is not here, but has risen.” These ladies then deliver the first Easter message and are the first believers to preach the resurrection; and it changes everything!

The other passage from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is, in my opinion, some of the Apostle’s best writing. This passage, and chapter fifteen in its entirety, has theological depth, spiritual truth, and highlights the most important element of the Christian faith: Jesus Christ’s resurrection.

Paul ties the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ to the forgiveness of sins. We cannot have the latter, the forgiveness of sins, without the former, the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Just as an aside … When I was in CFOT we talked about how our sixth doctrine may be missing a word or two. The Apostle Paul may appreciate it stating: “We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has by His suffering and death and resurrection made an atonement for the whole world so that whosoever will may be saved.” I need to give credit to my brothers and sisters in Christ/in training who highlighted this for us. Something to think about. Something to add to the conversation.
 

We need the resurrection of Jesus Christ; the world needs the resurrection of Jesus Christ! Our faith is in vain, it’s pointless, without the resurrection. We’re still in our sins without it. We’re hopeless; we haven’t got a chance, without the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
 The tomb is empty; Jesus is risen. Do not look for the living among the dead.
 

 Jesus Christ is risen; our faith is not in vain, it is not pointless.
 Jesus Christ is risen; we are no longer in our sins.
 Jesus Christ is risen; we have hope and a chance.
 In Jesus Christ, Paul wrote, “…all will be made alive.”
 

The resurrection - Jesus Christ’s resurrection - changes everything!

Writer: Mark Braye and his wife Nancy are officers in Essex, Ontario, Canada. They have two children, pictured above, Hannah and Micah. The four of them love to play and watch Sesame Street.

Lent Musings (5 of 5)

Fasting

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s I write, it is the morning of Good Friday. This Lenten season has been incredibly eventful, with so many meaningful activities and situations that have been anything but coincidental. This past Holy Week has been rich with meaning for me as I’ve followed Jesus’ march towards the cross.

But yesterday, Maundy Thursday, was the most powerfully significant of them all for me. As a refresher, this day which is also known as Holy Thursday is the day when Jesus and His friends gather together to celebrate the Passover meal and Jesus reveals that He is about to die, demonstrates His servanthood by washing His follower’s feet, shares the bread and the wine as symbols of His body and blood, declares that he will be betrayed by one of His closest allies, asks His followers to stay up all night with Him and pray, and later gets arrested by the powers and authorities. His buddies can’t quite figure out why He’s so solemn that night as Passover is a time of celebration and partying. It’s a time for the people of Israel to remember their delivery from slavery and they partied hard in remembrance of this. So when Jesus was all heavy and serious with them, it really threw them off. He wanted them to stay awake with Him all night and watch and pray but they were so bloated from their feasting and tired from celebrating that they couldn’t keep their eyes opened and kept falling asleep on Him.

So today we Christians often find ourselves trying to re-create something like these events on Holy Thursday by meeting for Seder suppers, taking communion, washing each other’s feet, and praying all night.

This year I participated in those recreations amongst my family and my friends on the street. At Gateway we served a huge meal and even had to do two sittings due to the size of the crowds. At each sitting I did a very short devotional and a grace before we ate. I said to the crowd that today was Holy Thursday; the day when Jesus was betrayed by one of His closest friends who He was supposed to be able to trust. And that betrayal led to His arrest and His murder. I acknowledged that I suspected everyone in the room knew what it was like to be betrayed by someone whom they should have been able to trust. And that this betrayal has probably led to a lifetime of pain for many folks in the room. But I was able to remind them that Jesus didn’t just die and the story ends there, but that on Easter Sunday He rose again and conquered death and pain. And I said that we too, while we’re on our own journey through pain and towards our own death, have been given this gift of being able to overcome death and suffering and live eternally with God in perfect peace where there is no sickness, betrayal, addiction, or pain.

But here’s where the providential part of the story begins. I then sat with one of my long time street friends, Khan, from Pakistan. I hadn’t seen him in a while and he wasn’t eating much so I asked him why. He proceeded to tell me that he had changed his eating habits because he had just had a heart attack and was in hospital for 3 days and was told that one of his arteries was constricted by 85% and he needed an angioplasty to overcome it.

Well on a personal note, if you’ve been following the news about MS these days, a disease that I have lived with for close to 13 years now, you will know that there is a theory that an angioplasty of particular veins that transport blood in and out of the brain may in fact alleviate the symptoms of MS and vastly improve the quality for life of a person with MS. As an update, during this Lenten season, I have secured a date to be tested as to if I am a candidate for this surgery, and I’ve been freaking out with anxiety as to if the surgery is risky or dangerous or painful. So here I was, sitting in our drop-in with a friend who had just had the surgery, and he was telling me that he was awake during the surgery and it was pain free and he watched TV during the procedure and was up and walking the very next day. When I told him of my own story and possible surgery and the anxiety that I was having over it, he reached out is hand and touched my arm and said, “don’t worry; it’ll be just fine” .This to me was very much God’s way of speaking to me and telling me that he was with me and not to worry. God is so good.

Then I went to another drop-in where my wife works and we did a more traditional Seder supper where we ate traditional Passover foods and did a foot washing ceremony. This was so very moving and again, I felt the presence of God. But we couldn’t stay for the whole program as it was getting late and my 7-yar old daughter was with us and she needed to go to bed.  So she and I left and my wife stayed behind. On the way home my daughter was lamenting not being able to do the foot washing so we decided to wash each other’s feet before she went to sleep.

So we filled a bowl full of warm water, added fragrant soap, and washed each other’s feet. She knelt and massaged my feet with her little hands and took great care in drying them. Then I did the same for her. The intimacy that comes from washing another person’s feet, and having your own feet washed, especially when that person is your own daughter, is indescribable. I was overcome with emotion and again, felt God’s presence near to us.

But later, once she was asleep, reality came crashing down around me. I had tried to stay up late to pray but I too was so full of food and groggy from the pace of the day that I went to sleep even earlier than usual; waking up today and remembering that I too am one of the people who would have let Jesus down that night and possibly even denied Him if I were in that position.

Fasting (Matt.6:16-18)

So what does this last ‘act of righteousness’ of Lent, fasting, have to do with anything? Well, it is yet another thing we can do through Lent to purify ourselves from the bits of junk that get caught up in our systems. Saying no to a food or a habit helps us stay focused on the things that are important. For me, the concept is that every time I go to reach for that particular food or participate in that habit, that I abstain from that and focus on speaking to God instead.

And again, while I was a miserable failure in most of the things that I tried to fast from, I managed to stay true to 2 things. One was my fast from facebook, which sounds pathetic I know, but is something I can spend a significant amount of time at. The other was a fast from shaving; also pathetic sounding I know.

The shaving concept came about out of a conversation amongst the guys who work at Gateway. We decided to fast from shaving for several reasons;

1.    We’d be in solidarity with each other during Lent

2.    we’d be in solidarity with our friends on the street who, while many do in fact shave, they do not have the accessible conveniences of life that the rest of us have

3.    It would be an act of non-conformity.

4.    We’d be always conscious of the beard that is hard to ignore on our faces which would hopefully remind us of the season and the purpose of it all.

5.    We’d be able to shed ourselves of the weight of the beard in a symbolic way on Easter Sunday.

6.    We’d look cool with beards (Though for me, cool has been left behind and I currently look like I live in the woods somewhere)

For the most part, the shaving experiment has actually been a successful one for all of those reasons; especially that of now here on Good Friday, desperately wanting to shave and longing for Easter as a result.

As a final word on Lent, not that this reminder is necessary at this time, this season is a very long and sluggish time. The journey towards Easter is a struggle to leave behind the things that don’t matter and to focus on the things that do.

So when Easter does come, and it’s just around the corner, let us not forget that it is not just a one day celebration. Jesus is alive and is with us and reigns as the King of Kings. Let us, as Christians, dance and party and celebrate for the next 50 days of Easter as we journey towards Pentecost Sunday in 7 weeks. Let us not forget Easter for a very long time. He is risen!!!

Until then, I cannot wait for Easter Sunday.

Dion

Writer: The Concise Oxford is written by Dion Oxford who, along with his wife, Erinn, and daughter, Cate, live in Toronto, Canada and are committed to journeying alongside people in the margins of society. He and Erinn have spent a combined 30 years working amongst folks who are living on the streets of Toronto. Dion is a recovering Salvationist who currently worships at an evangelical Anglican church but still works for The Salvation Army at the Gateway, a shelter for men experiencing homelessness. He and his wife see the solution to homelessness as the church taking seriously the two great commandments of loving God and loving our neighbour. He likes to read, write, fly kites, cycle long distances, watch TV, play in his band and hang out with his friends.

Easter #7 :The Atoning Servant

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody
does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defence-Jesus Christ,
the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for
ours but also for the sins of the whole world. We know that we have come to
know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, “I know him,” but
does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if
anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how
we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.
                            1 John 2:1-6, New International Version

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he apostle John wrote this letter, which we call the book of 1 John, to reassure believers in their faith and to counter false teachers and teachings. The letter is untitled and was sent to several congregations, probably between A.D. 85 and 90. This letter is short. However, John covers vital themes for communities of faith; themes such as sin, love, the family of God, truth and error, and assurance.

John says his purpose in writing the letter is for the readers and listeners to not sin. However, if they do sin, they have Jesus Christ, who speaks to God the Father on their behalf. Jesus, in a way, is like a lawyer, a defence attorney. He represents and defends us before God. (The flaw in this simile is the fact that it paints God as a harsh judge. God is not harsh. God judges; God is not judgemental.)

Jesus Christ, John writes, is “the Righteous One;” righteous means right and correct; yet so much more. It means upright and moral. It means justifiable and genuine. Only someone so righteous could speak to God on our behalf. Only someone so righteous could defend us and our sins. Only someone so righteous could atone for us.

Jesus Christ, John writes, is “the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for our sins but also for the sins of the whole world.”
An online dictionary defines atonement as “satisfaction given for wrongdoing or injury; making amends.”

The Christian concept and definition of atonement is this and so much more. The Christian concept and definition of atonement is the fact that Jesus Christ makes us “at one” with God after we have separated ourselves from God by sin. The Christian concept and definition of atonement brings about perfect forgiveness of sins. Atonement erases sins and writes the word “forgiven” over our lives and spiritual journeys.

Forgiveness is not easy. In fact, forgiveness is hard; forgiveness can be extremely difficult. In our relationships with friends and family, in our relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ, in all our relationships in life, forgiveness is hard. We find it hard to forgive wrongs made against us. We find it hard to ask for forgiveness for wrongs we’ve committed. Imagine forgiving every sin of every man, woman, and child who has lived, is living, and will ever live on the face of the earth. This is what God has done through Jesus Christ the atoning sacrifice. Jesus Christ is the perfect sacrifice, the perfect atoning sacrifice to bring about perfect forgiveness of sins, perfect salvation, perfect cleansing, and perfect atonement.
             

Gordon Hinckley said: “Believe in Jesus Christ, our Saviour and our Redeemer, the Son of God, who came to earth and walked the dusty roads of Palestine to teach us the way of truth and light and salvation, and who, in one great and glorious act offered an atonement for each of us. He opened the way of salvation and exaltation for each of us, under which we may go forward in the Church and kingdom of God. Be not faithless, but believe in the great and wonderful and marvellous blessings of the Atonement.”
             

The Christian concept and definition of the atonement found in the life, ministry, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ is wonderful; it’s marvellous; it’s a Godly blessing.
             

Jesus Christ is the atoning servant. He suffered; was humbled; was sacrificed; and became the atoning servant the world so desperately needed, needs, and will need for years to come.
             

              Jesus Christ is the atoning servant I need.
              Jesus Christ is the atoning servant you need.
              Jesus Christ is the atoning servant we need.

Christ embraced the cross for the world and every man, woman, and child on it.

Writer: Mark Braye and his wife Nancy are officers in Essex, Ontario, Canada. They have two children, pictured above, Hannah and Micah. The four of them love to play and watch Sesame Street.

To Hell in a Handbasket (or Easter Basket)

Following Jesus this Easter by Geoff Ryan

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rucifixion precedes resurrection. That’s the way it works. In emotional, psychological and spiritual terms this is always true. You can’t get to Jesus unless you go through John the Baptist, you can’t get to Easter Sunday morning without living through Good Friday, you can’t resurrect until you’ve been crucified.

But there is one more step involved that we rarely talk about in church circles. As you had to go out into the desert to meet John, a crucial passage takes place been crucifixion and resurrection - there is a whole “day” that was lived between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

As Protestants, even more so as evangelicals, we can’t wait to get to Sunday morning:  all those hot cross buns and chocolate eggs, the world becomes soft and pastel coloured, we buy gifts for our kids as if it’s a mini-spring Christmas. If we wear a cross around our necks then it will be an empty cross, because we are a resurrection people.

As a kid growing up in this milieu I always considered Good Friday a drag. It was a somber, gloomy day, inevitably it rained and family dynamics took on a serious mean. The city seemed hushed and quiet.

Saturday brought some relief. It was a filler day, basically dead time. We still kept a low profile, but Mom and Dad cut us more slack than the day before. The expectations on us to be sad started to ease and with mounting glee in our hearts we gathered ourselves for Sunday morning.

I expect that had I grown up in a Catholic or Eastern Orthodox family, it would have been the other way around. I would have worn a cross with Jesus still on it and I would have been all about Good Friday (or “Passion Friday” as the Orthodox call it). Remember Mel Gibson’s film of a few years ago? Gibson is a Catholic and he made a very Catholic film, entitling it “The Passion”, and focusing exclusively on the crucifixion of Jesus because for them that is where all the real important stuff happened.

Proverbs tell us that the man of God avoids all extremes though and the kicker in this particular resurrection is not that a dead man came back to life as that had been done before - Lazarus, for example. What was special about this one is what he died with and what he rose without. In comparison with Lazarus’ episode was a simple party trick.

The physical exigencies of the crucifixion isn’t what finished Jesus off. When the soldiers came round to break his legs, as they usually did as an act of belated mercy to cut short the suffering of the executed, they were surprised to find that he was already dead. What actually killed him was this:  every sin ever committed, from the beginning of time to the end of the world, from The Fall to The Apocalypse - every lie and theft, every act of abuse and betrayal, every punch, every gunshot, every overdose, every single bad thing committed by every person who ever lived…all this was trammeled into a single concentrated mass and driven into his soul. No man - or God - could survive this. He who was without sin became sin for us; behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; etc.

What happened next? Where did he go with all this sin? Picture, if you can, Jesus with his arms outstretched, absolutely full and piled high with our sins. The Bible tells us that he took it to hell (the Orthodox acknowledge this better than the rest of us, look on any Russian crucifix and you will see a cross bar for Jesus feet to rest his feet on, pointing downward toward hell and, in the case of a really ornate crucifix, a pile of skulls and bones). He took it all to hell, because that is where this sort of stuff belongs, and he left it there. Then, and only then, he rose again, with his arms empty and without our sins. That’s what makes this particular resurrection so important for the human race.

Sure what happened on Friday is most important and so is what happened on Sunday morning. Without either of these events bookending our annual commemoration, Easter would not be, well….Easter. But let’s not forget what happened on Saturday and maybe this year, especially what happened on Saturday.

Going to hell with Jesus! What an Easter that would be.

Writer: Major Geoff Ryan is co-founder of theRubicon and was publisher for three years. He is co-ordinator of the 614 Network and organizes the bi-annual Urban Forum. His interests include writing, politics, coffee and his children. Geoff and his wife Sandra minister in Regent Park, a social housing project in downtown Toronto, Canada.   

Lent Musings (4 of 5)

 Prayer

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ecently I was asked by a friend of mine if I would come to a local park, notorious for it’s street activity, to speak and pray at a vigil that she was organizing. The vigil was both to remember women who had recently been murdered in Toronto’s sex trade as well as to stand in solidarity with each other in a peaceful protest as to the evils of this trade.

The friend who asked me to do this was a survivor of ‘the life’ herself. She had worked the trade for more than a decade until finally one night whilst in the midst of a bad trip on her favourite drug of choice, crack cocaine, she had a life changing and miraculous encounter with the Living God. She hasn’t looked back since and has committed her life to God and to journeying alongside people involved the trade. She is truly one of my heroes and a reminder to me whenever I see her that God does in fact still work and move in miraculous and life altering ways today.

I was warned before going that there would be conflicting agendas at play at this vigil. There would be people of different religious faiths present and all kinds of ’spirituality wars’ taking place. I was also told that there might be a group of advocates there whose whole premise is that the sex trade is a viable and perfectly acceptable vocational option for women to be in; as long as it is their choice as a woman to make. Despite my reservations, I accepted the invitation out of respect for my friend who had asked me to come and do this.

So when I got there, in the pouring rain I might add, I found myself one of very few men in the midst of some very strong and committed women; some of whom looked very tough and even perhaps angry. I was pretty much freaking out.

The vigil started with an aboriginal drummer and a First Nations smudging ceremony for anyone wanting to participate in that cleansing ritual. Then it was my turn to speak and pray! What on earth was I going to say that could possibly address this crowd and not do further damage to their image of Christians, of men, and of God?

Back to Lent

The 3^rd of the 4 ‘Acts of righteousness’ of Lent is prayer. (Matthew 6:5-15) Prayer is one of those many theological conversations that can get tricky really fast. “If God knows everything already, why do we need to pray? If God has a plan and it is already in motion, what difference will my prayers make? Why should I even bother?” These questions are all too familiar and are definitely important to flesh out. And I won’t even attempt to try and answer these in any thorough way. But I will say that after a lifetime of trying to figure out what it means to live as a Christian, that prayer is absolutely vital in the Christian walk. It does change things (both internally and in the world around us), and is a non-negotiable for anyone who identifies themselves as a Christian.

In the world we live in, we are exposed to constant distractions, noise, and choices. Everywhere we look, some advertiser is vying for our attention. I’ve been told that the average city dweller is exposed to at least 5000 ads per day. So all day long, from the time we wake to the time we go back to sleep, we are being bombarded by people telling us what to wear, drive, eat, think, buy, and do. How can we possibly hear the voice of God amidst all the noise?

As I’ve said in my first of these Lent musings, this season is a time of defragmentation. It is a time to refocus on the things that are important and to leave behind those bits and bites that have gotten stuck in the cogs our system and have jammed up our ability to process the world and our place in it. Often these little fragments of pollution make it impossible for us to even know that we are children of God and beloved by Him. So during Lent it is crucial to cut ourselves off from the noise for periods of solitude and prayer. These quiet times help us to hear the voice of God and avoid the distractions. They are times to shut out the lies being sold to us all day long and to focus on what is real and true. They are times to wake up from our sleep and oblivion to the fake world that has been created by corporations and other principalities and powers all around us and to see through the fumes to the truth. I have the awesome privilege of going to L’Arche Daybreak, the place where Henri Nouwen spent his last days, and taking retreats there whenever I can. I get to sleep in his house, hang out in his library, and reflect in silence on God, life, and the world around me. It is a gift that I could never properly express my gratitude for and one that I got to access for 2 days just last week. And I left feeling refreshed, focused and rejuvenated yet again.

That retreat reminded me that I believe in prayer. I believe in communal prayer with other believers and I believe in prayers of solitude. I believe it can be done while walking down the street of sitting on the subway or riding my bike. I believe it can be creative and spontaneous. I believe it can be powerful when read in a liturgy. And again, I believe it changes things because the God we pray to is the Creator and Preserver of all things. God is the Great Physician and can heal our world, our sicknesses (both physical and emotional), and our complacency.

I’ve said it better than I could write it here in this video that I did in preparation for a conference last year. So check it out if you have a few minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl4aIOv4Pzs

Back to the Vigil

As the drum ceremony was still underway, I silently prayed to God. Now I don’t speak this way very often, but as I prayed I felt a calmness come over me and felt as though I were being given the words to say and to pray. And while I struggled to get on track with Lent in the early weeks of the season this year, as I’ve admitted in my first post, I believe this was a turning point for me this Lenten season.

I said something like this;

“I’ve been working alongside folks who live on or close to the streets of Toronto for the past 20 years now. Back in the early days of my work, I was with a group that tried to reach out to folks who were working in the sex trade. 2 or 3 nights per week we’d go out in the middle of the night and hand out hot chocolate to women, boys and transvestites who were working the streets, in hopes of befriending them and letting them know that they are loved. We’d also hang out in all night coffee shops where women were known to take breaks in between tricks, again in hopes of somehow getting a message to them that they are loved and the beloved children of God.

It didn’t take long for me to be overwhelmed with emotions ranging from heartbreak to rage over what I experienced. The heartbreak came from getting to know some of the working girls and learning that they really didn’t have any hope of getting out of the trade, and had resigned themselves to their ‘fate’ in life. The rage came from watching men drive around in their mini-vans with their baby seats installed in the back, and picking up boys or women or transvestites in order to get their sex fix, and then heading back home to their wives and kids in the suburbs. I was also enraged with the pimps who were so horrible to ‘their girls’, and the culture we lived in which glorified the so-called profession of ‘pimp’ on TV, movies and in music. I felt helpless doing the work and I knew I needed to get out before my emotions took over and destroyed me. So I left that work behind.

Lately I ride my bike to work every morning. I currently run a shelter for men who are homeless. As I ride to work at 7am each morning, I ride through Toronto’s ‘low track’. (An area where very poor, addicted, and desperate women work the trade in hopes of snagging a john on their way to work in the morning. They often work for their next ‘hit’ of drugs.) As I ride through, I want to stop and talk. But I don’t because I don’t know how that will look to people driving by and I don’t know how the girls will respond to me if I stop. Will they think I’m another john? Will they think I’m a cop? Will they get mad at me for interrupting their business? So I keep on riding by without saying a word, just like all the other traffic. And as I ride through, I feel helpless and heartbroken.

But in the midst of my helplessness, I do not feel hopeless. I have hope that there is a way out of the life. I have hope that there is something better. And my hope rests in God, the creator and preserver of all things. The God I worship is bigger than the sex trade. He is bigger than crack cocaine. She is bigger than guns and gangs. She is bigger than pimps, bikers, and johns. He is bigger than drug dealers and organized crime. And she is able to overcome anything. My God gives me hope.

So before we go any further, let us pray to God.

Father God, I pray that you will be with us tonight and that you will make your presence known to us.

Mother God, I believe that you are here and that you know us by name. I believe that you love each of us, no matter what we have done or where we have been.

Creator God, I believe that you are a just God and that someday, while we don’t really know why you continue to let life be difficult for so many people, you will make everything right for all of creation.

So God, I cry out to you in faith and hope that you can and will make everything right, and that in the meantime you will watch over each of us and over our friends who are working the streets on this night.

I pray all of this in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ,

Amen.

 Easter is just around the corner. 

Writer: The Concise Oxford is written by Dion Oxford who, along with his wife, Erinn, and daughter, Cate, live in Toronto, Canada and are committed to journeying alongside people in the margins of society. He and Erinn have spent a combined 30 years working amongst folks who are living on the streets of Toronto. Dion is a recovering Salvationist who currently worships at an evangelical Anglican church but still works for The Salvation Army at the Gateway, a shelter for men experiencing homelessness. He and his wife see the solution to homelessness as the church taking seriously the two great commandments of loving God and loving our neighbour. He likes to read, write, fly kites, cycle long distances, watch TV, play in his band and hang out with his friends.

Easter #5 : What do you reckon?

A rather Australian take on Easter by Barry Gittins

¹³When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

 ¹⁴They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

 ¹⁵“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”  (NIV)

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ne day Jesus was walking down the road with his mates when the subject of ‘who is this bloke?’ came up. Well, says Jesus, what do you fellas reckon?

Think about the question for a moment, and the fact that Jesus felt led to ask it in the first place. Say that you are Jesus, and you’ve been leading a group of fellas and women around the place. They’ve walked off the job to hang out with you and do what you ask. They’ve seen some weird stuff; some beautiful and amazing, some scary and gross.

Why use them as a focus group? Why ask them how your rep was going?

Jesus was criss-crossing Galilee; his fame was spreading. While people may disagree about who he was and what he was up to, mostly they would acknowledge that he was savvy and talked a good game. Jesus knew his mission was getting people talking. He was teaching, healing, doing stuff that nobody had seen before in their lifetime.

Jesus knew he was news. But what did this pack of apostles know about it? Did they understand what was going on?

It was probably quiet for a bit. They were a competitive mob sometimes, and no-one wants to look like a dill, or say the wrong thing. Word on the street, they told him tentatively, was that he was a ‘blast from the past’ prophet, like Elijah, Jeremiah or John the Baptist (one of Jesus’ cousins, we’re told) brought back from the dead. The same question may have been duly repeated to the same audience. Maybe it just hangs in the air, unanswered.

What do you blokes reckon?

Simon Peter pipes up, as bold as brass. You’re it, mate; the chosen one. The son of the living God. Pete jumps at a chance to dream. To connect with the divine.

If we are going to try to live as Christians, as ‘little Christs’, then we will do well to take a leap as well.

If we don’t ask the question - what do I reckon? - then we’re not taking faith in Jesus seriously. And if we don’t try to answer the question? Well then, we are not taking ourselves or the Bible seriously.

Jesus’ answer to Pete is interesting. Jesus says Pete knew what to say because God revealed it to him; that power and authority would be based on the truth that he, Jesus, was the son of God and that ‘the gates of hell will not prevail’.

Jesus was claiming divinity.

When we quote Jesus in a non-Aussie way, Jesus was asking his followers, ‘Who do you say I am?’ The ‘I am’ is a big giveaway there right there, for many pundits, as it’s the name God gave Moses back in the burning bush chat: I am.

Christology - the study of Christ - tends to come from above or below; people emphasise Christ’s divinity or humanity. The Salvation Army, like many Christian churches, puts it a different way. We see Jesus as a bloke who was also God: ‘truly and properly God and truly and properly man’ according to the Army’s doctrines.

This Easter, what does that mean to you? What does that mean, in terms of how you live your life?

Some Questions:

What do you think of when you think of God?
What does God look like? What does he do? Say? Want?
How do we know who Jesus is?
When do we work it out, if ever?
How can we answer that question?

The Salvos believe that ‘he that believes has the witness in himself’ (I John 5:10); that we know God in our heart of hearts - what does that mean in terms of how you try to communicate that truth?

Writer: Barry Gittins is a Melbourne-based writer, lifelong Salvationist, husband (to Trudy) and father(to Emily and Benjamin) who seeks God in everyday encounters. A frustrated poet and playwright, he has worked for the Salvos’ Australia Southern Territory in various roles since 1991: as a journalist (for Warcry, The Young Soldier/Kidzone, The Musician),technical writer and CD-ROM author in corps program (mission development), senior review editor (Warcry) and editor (On Fire). He currently works as a social program and policy consultant (writer/researcher) for the social program department.

Easter #4 : PETER

by Maxwell Ryan

The pale translucent dawn wiped the darkness from craggy hills and spilled over into the valleys. It was going to be a hot day, despite the present chill in the air.

A man was running, stumbling in the half-light as if chased by demons - or the shadow of defeat that he could not face. The gnarled roots of olive trees burrowed and interlaced the earth as if possessing a life of their own. The man didn’t see them, and before he knew what was happening the coarse rope of a flopping sandal caught and threw him, full-length and face down, on the stony ground.

He was winded and lay there as if dead. His legs, grabbing this respite in the mad rush from the city, throbbed and ached with growing intensity. Forcing his eyes closed, the man tried to bring order out of the chaos of his darting thoughts.

There were the voices - the low, profane voices of Roman soldiers as they sat around the fire or stamped cursing, in the unwelcome chill of the night air. Then there was the girl: black-haired and lithe, she moved easily among the soldiers with her wine skin. The man watched her.

Her dark eyes flashed and danced as she eluded the clumsy paw of an over-eager soldier, and her high laughter sounded above the general confusion and noise. “Sir, I’m only a poor girl and I have a widowed mother and sick brother at home, would you like to buy…”. The liquid Aramaic of the sales pitch stopped as she bent her head and peered closely.

Harsh and discordant, she shouted wildly, “Here’s one of them, here’s one of them. I saw him with the Man from Galilee!” The sudden silence of the courtyard lived briefly.

“She’s a liar, she doesn’t  know what she’s talking about.” The man’s voice was high-pitched and dry with fear, and trembled slightly. “That no-good, misbegotten daughter of Belial can’t see with the eyes that Jehovah put into her worthless head. I never saw the Prisoner before.”

Curses, now stumbling through disuse upon his tongue, flowed in a dirty stream from the man as the girl clutched her wine skin and backed off.

The outburst had not died on the air when the man heard the slap-slap of marching sandals against the flagstones of the courtyard. A platoon of soldiers moved to his immediate left and he turned quickly to watch. For an instant the solid line of soldiers parted and he could see, not six feet away, the face - but especially the eyes - of the One who meant the most to him. This Person looked at him - through him - beyond him.

The man dropped his eyes and momentarily hid his face in his hands. Then he turned and ran blindly. The hills, the familiar hills, called as he left behind the flickering lights of the city and ran eastward into the paling dawn.

The throbbing in his legs subsided as still he lay on the ground.  Over and over again, with insistent regularity, the thought pounded through his brain: “But I didn’t mean what I said. . . I didn’t mean it . . . I didn’t mean it.’ Those eyes still looked through him and, as they did so, they pierced his heart.

But now the crisis was past, and the fear had gone, to be replaced by hard resolve.  He stirred and then sat, up, wiping his face and pushing back his hair.  Calmly he said to himself, “I must go back, immediately.  He might need me.”

The man arose, bent down to pick up the broken sandal and then walked slowly down the hill toward the city. There was no running now - Peter knew that - and he was warmed by the thought, deep inside, where it really mattered.

There were things to be done, and things to be suffered - perhaps. He’d need all his strength for this troubled present and uncertain future. The pall of defeat receded swiftly as now he strode with purpose. Those beautiful, impact-ridden three years with Jesus were not lost at all. For Peter had made a promise by the rocky shores of Galilee those many months ago.

His word, and his life, had been given; who was he to take them back?

Writer: Lieut.-Colonel Maxwell Ryan is a former Editor in Chief in Canada and the UK. In retirement has been a copy editor of theRubicon and the author of two series on theRubicon - Resurrected Writers and Thinkaloud

Comm 2 Comm #1:No Boundaries! | Blame Jesus!

Joe Noland plays the “Blame Game”

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 ommissioner Jim Knaggs interviewed me on isalvos.net the other day, with the video recording now available for viewing 24/7. One of the frustrations of a live interview is the limited amount of time for each answer, and that feeling afterward of, “I wish I’d said this or that,” or “clarified a point more thoroughly.” The beauty of the Internet is, that after viewing the video, you can return here for a more complete rendering, and for an answer to those questions that weren’t asked due to time constraints. Again, in order to keep these posts concise (and readable for busy schedules), I’ll spread them out, writing a separate one on each question.

The first question asked for my observations on new and exciting initiatives occurring in the Army today, with an emphasis on creativity, imagination and innovation. For those of you too busy to view the video, let me regurgitate here without all the “Uhs” (gonna have to work on that), and add the “this or that’s.”

I felt led to preface my answer by stating that innovative/creative thinkers/doers are free spirits and need space and freedom from boundaries in order to function effectively. A controlling environment inhibits creativity and innovation. Fear paralyzes. Permission empowers. Creativity doesn’t fare well in fearful, controlling cultures, so one must become a risk-taker in order to create - a rare commodity in most institutional circles today (Wow! Why couldn’t I have said it this way on air?).

Thus, unfortunately, we are not as innovative as we once were, but there are some pockets of it to be found around the world if one examines closely. This isalvos webcast, one part of a more comprehensive cyberspace evangelism revolution being initiated in the Australian Southern Territory, is one of them. The whole concept of a virtual, cyberspace corps as part of isalvos is about as innovative and exciting as it gets. And they haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. Imagine the potential (Wish I’d said it this way originally).

Steve Court  (ArmyBarmy.com, JAC, et al) is an Army pioneer in this area, along with Geoff Ryan and the Rubicon.org, both Canadians by the way (Blame Canada!). This was risky business and I know they took some heat along the way. There are no divisional and territorial boundaries in cyberspace and to venture out there, without controls, makes manager-leader types uneasy and edgy. One prime example is “WARdrobe: Army Apparel,” created by Fulton Hawk on Facebook (Join the group). Imagine, contemporary Army wear promoted worldwide without permission from the Trade Council, or whatever they call it today? No boundaries. No fear! This is exciting, groundbreaking, innovative stuff.  It drives anal-retentive (a Freudian phrase) types crazy.

By the way, Bruce Redman, Queensland, Australia, has taken over the reigns of theRubicon.org and Steve Court is now based in Melbourne, Australia with ArmyBarmy.com (Blame Australia!). Hey, this is where the action is (Blame Knaggs!). And they’re opening new, innovative Army corps right and left, with “People Count!” keeping the focus on those getting saved and enrolled as a result (Blame the Holy Spirit!).

Reminds me a little bit of early day Christianity. Jesus was a risk-taker, breaking boundaries, doing innovative stuff. The establishment wasn’t happy with him. Crucifixion! Resurrection! Omnipresence! (Cyberspace)

“I am the resurrection and the life!” - No boundary known unto man.”

“Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” - “No boundary known unto man.”

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses…to the ends of the earth” - “No boundary known unto man.”

“…and about 3000 were added to their number that day” - “No boundary known unto man.”

Freedom! No Boundaries! No limits! Isn’t that what we’re celebrating during this Easter season?

Blame Jesus!

Writer: Commissioner Joe Noland’s ministry can be summed up in three words: chaos, creativity and controversy - three elements implicit in any successful innovative endeavor. Cecil B. DeMille, renowned producer of Biblical epics, once wrote, “Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.” Joe’s mantra reads, “Creativity is my drug of choice.”  Access Joe Noland’s complete bio, among other things, by clicking into his website.

Lent Musings (3 of 5)

“My religion is absurd!”, he said to the middle aged priest as they sat together in the arena watching the hockey game. The two, as fate or maybe even providence would have it, had just met because their tickets were beside each other. They struck up a conversation in the first period, drank a couple of beverages and shared some cheers together, and then the inevitable question came during the third period; ‘What do you do for a living?”

Sheepishly and expecting a reaction, my friend, the husband and father of three that drinks beer, occasionally cusses, and loves hockey admitted that he was an Anglican priest.

Well the reaction he got was swift and exponentially more intense than he ever imagined. “You’re a priest. NO *&$%#* WAY! You guys aren’t supposed to be cool.” When the initial shock had worn off, the man admitted, “I don’t know one single person in the whole world who goes to church regularly. I believe in God and everything but I can’t stand what I remember about church…

Your religion seems pretty cool but my religion is absurd!!!”

Back to Lent

Continuing on from my last piece about the four ‘acts of righteousness’ of Lent, the 2^nd of these four is taken from Matthew 6:2-4 and is known today as ‘giving to the needy’ or ‘giving alms’. Sadly, this is a significantly unfortunate translation of the original text. ‘Acts of mercy’, from what I’ve been told and have read of original biblical language scholars, is a far more accurate translation of what Jesus was saying at the time. “What’s the difference?” you might ask. Well here’s how I see it broken down into practical terms.

Giving to the needy

While giving to the needy is of course important to do, and while there are many needy people in the world who really require those of us who have extra to give some of that away to them in order for them to even survive, this should not and must not be the end of our concern for those who are poor and needy. It should, in fact, be just the beginning.

‘Giving to the needy’, if it ends there, simply becomes a charitable act that doesn’t involve relationship and often comes out of guilt and pity as opposed to love and joy. If Lent becomes a quaint fasting from chocolate or coffee for 40 days and a collection of a few bucks saved on those items to give away to a self-denial fund or to send off to Haiti for disaster relief,  then we’ve entirely missed the essence of what Jesus was on about when He referred to ‘acts of mercy’. If we only give away some extra cash to ‘those poor folks who I don’t really know but I feel really bad for’, but don’t take the time to invest of ourselves into the lives of others, we are missing the point altogether. If we only ‘give to the needy’, we participate in the perpetuation of neediness as we don’t take the time to get to know the people in need and walk with them through and possibly even out of that neediness.

Acts of Mercy

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Lent is a season of getting back to basics. It is a time to practice spiritual disciplines that help us stand against the tide of darkness that continues to bombard us from within and without. It is a time to focus on the life of Christ and implement habits and practices that help us to become more like Him and less like everything else around us.

Well, in this area, Christ modelled not only a willingness, but a desire at the core of His being to be amongst ‘the needy’. He didn’t do this with any strings of church growth or evangelism attached. He did this out of His love and compassion for others. He did this because it brought Him joy. He did it because he was repulsed by society’s willingness to leave people behind based on their socio-economic or cultural status. He did this because it was an extension of who he was and what He stood for.

How did He go about this? He did it on both relational and systemic fronts. He befriended people that the religious elites of the day considered unworthy. He ate meals in homes that were frowned upon by the upper class. He hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors. He partied at weddings. He was unwilling to accept gifts and offerings that would make Him rich and powerful. He lived simply and daily demonstrated faith that His Father would provide His day-to-day sustenance. He healed the sick and made the blind to see. He touched people who were unclean. He dwelt among the people and refused to live apart from them. He turned over the money tables in the temple and destroyed idols that humans had made to replace the living God. He spoke truth to power at any cost and paid dearly for it. He refused to bend His knee to Caesar. He overcame very real temptations from Satan himself.

These, therefore, are the acts of mercy we need to challenge ourselves with this Lenten season. Lent leaves us with choices to make. Jesus asks us at Lent; ‘Do you want me? Do you actually believe me or are you just saying that? Do you have faith in me or are you just pretending? If so, then take up your cross and follow me. My yolk is easy and my burden is light.”

My theological and practical conviction is this; if we were about ‘acts of mercy’ a whole lot more than we were about ‘giving to the needy’ (or in our Army context might the term ’social services’, of which I am a part, be an equivalent?), people outside the church might actually stop and take notice of us. If, while the world was crumbling all around us and people could look to the way we live as though we were actually standing on the only solid ground to be found anywhere, than we might have far less conversations like the one I outlined at the beginning of this piece.

(I’m attaching the link to a video I made a few months back that perhaps does a far better job at articulating what I’m getting at than anything I could write.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3WfuMZci0Y )

But until then, perhaps the guy at the hockey game is right and our religion, like his, truly is absurd.

Still longing for Easter,

Dion

Writer: The Concise Oxford is written by Dion Oxford who, along with his wife, Erinn, and daughter, Cate, live in Toronto, Canada and are committed to journeying alongside people in the margins of society. He and Erinn have spent a combined 30 years working amongst folks who are living on the streets of Toronto. Dion is a recovering Salvationist who currently worships at an evangelical Anglican church but still works for The Salvation Army at the Gateway, a shelter for men experiencing homelessness. He and his wife see the solution to homelessness as the church taking seriously the two great commandments of loving God and loving our neighbour. He likes to read, write, fly kites, cycle long distances, watch TV, play in his band and hang out with his friends.

Easter #2 :Why Easter “Sunday”?

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unday-the Lord’s Day? We are told in the Scriptures that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. In that case, we would have to call it “The People’s Day.” Besides, Sunday isn’t really the Sabbath, as Jesus would have recognized it.

I have always wondered why we have collective worship on Sunday, and when I ask those I think will know, I always get the same indoctrination: “It’s the day that Jesus rose from the grave.”

Based on study and research, I have reason to challenge that answer.

A familiarity with the Jewish calendar will enlighten us to the fact that Jesus rose on what we would refer to as Saturday night. Therefore, the reason we worship on Sunday has very little to do with Jesus being raised on Sunday. Secondly, the reason we worship on Sunday is due to an ancient spat between the surviving Pharisaic Jews and the surviving Nazarenes after the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D.
When the Temple was destroyed, the Pharisees escaped to Yavneh and the Jewish followers of Jesus ran to the mountains of Pella as they were told to do in Matthew 24:16. Since that time the Jews and the Church have created obstacles to keep one another from being unified.

“The Church forbade believers from keeping the Jewish feasts and began to meet on Sundays, while, in reaction to the Christians kneeling for prayer, the Jews adopted the standing position while praying the Amidah” (Dr. Ron Moseley, Yeshua: A Guide to the Real Jesus and the Original Church).

How will the Jewish calendar inform us that Jesus rose on Saturday night? The answer comes from research done by David Bivin and the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research. To the Jews, the day always begins with night. That is because of Genesis 1:5, which reads, “And there was evening , and there was morning-the first day.” First century Jews, using Nehemiah 4:21 as their guide, defined Nightfall as the moment when the stars were visible, which was around 7:00 p.m. during the season of the Passover.

In Matthew 28:1 we read, “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.” in Greek the Scripture reads, “Opse de sabbaton te epiphoskouse eis mian sabbaton…” (Late [of] sabbath, in the lightening to one of Sabbath). This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in Greek, but in Hebrew it makes perfect sense.

“Late of Sabbath” is a Greek form of the Hebrew phrase, “be-motsa’e shabat” (at the exiting of Sabbath), which means the hours that follow immediately after the Sabbath. “In the lightening to one of sabbath” comes from the Hebrew idiom, “‘or le-’ehad ba-shabat” (light to [day] one of the week). Used in this way, “light” is a synonym for “night,” referring to the night before the next day. In Hebrew, “light” can be used as an antonym for its literal meaning to speak of the dark hours that exist before a new day.

An example of this usage is found in ancient Jewish writings that give instructions for carrying out the search for leaven as directed in Exodus 12:15. The ancient writing says, “Light to the fourteenth [of Nisan] one must carry out a search for leaven by the light of a lamp.” The use of the lamp gives us a clue that the search was done in the dark hours.

“With this understanding, the Galilean women returned to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body shortly after dark on Saturday evening. It was then that they found the tomb already empty. Jesus, therefore, may have remained entombed only slightly more than twenty-four hours, being raised from the dead on Saturday evening rather than on Sunday morning. By the method of reckoning time in Jesus society, such a short period, scarcely more than a day-a part of Friday, all of Saturday, and a part of Sunday-would have fulfilled his prophecy that he would be raised from the dead on the third day after his death” (David Bivin, Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research).

Based on this historical information, it seems that the reason we worship on Sunday has more to do with a 2000 year-old grudge than a God-honoring recognition of the Messiah’s defeat over death and the grave.

In His dust,
Johnny 

Writer: Capt. Jonathan Gainey was born in Jacksonville, FL in June, 1969. He has been married to Staci, the daughter of retired Salvation Army officers, for twenty years and they have four children ages 18, 16, 12, and 4. Jonathan was commissioned as an officer in June of 2002, and is currently serving in his third appointment in New Bern, NC, USA. He is working on a Masters of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is the creator and manager of the Flocks Diner website, where his passion for learning and teaching is expressed and shared through writing and a weekly podcast.