John Fischer The Catch

It’s Monday and Christ is still risen. This may seem obvious on one hand, but it’s really not. We made a big deal about this yesterday, but the real deal may be what happens today.

On Easter we celebrate an event that happened in space and time and the significance of that event on who Jesus is and what his life, death and resurrection accomplished for us all in terms of the forgiveness of our sins, our salvation and ultimate eternal life. But what difference does Christ’s resurrection make on my life now? How will it affect my life today… Monday, April 9, 2012? Am I the same miserable person I would be without Christ’s resurrection? Do I only get the benefit of this when I die?

Well, yes and no. I only get the benefit of His resurrection when I die, but my death can occur any moment now. My death doesn’t only happen at the end of this life when I die and go to heaven. My death happens any time I die to myself. That would mean any time I
give up my rights to what I want
serve someone other than myself
get stretched beyond my own human resources
share in the sufferings of Christ (all of the above).

I, for one, know far too little of this because I am always insisting on my own way. You don’t get resurrection power and your own way at the same time. You have to die… suffer… give up… give in… go beyond… These are all different ways of saying it. As a spiritual mentor of mine used to say, “Resurrection power works best in graveyards.”

Or, to put it in context of our Wednesday night teleconference Bible study, it just so happens that we are in a section of scripture that puts some meat and bones on this concept: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels [i.e. an expression of our human frailty], so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; [and just to make sure this point gets across to others…] we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the [resurrected] life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the [resurrected] life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you” (2 Corinthians 4:7-12).

In other words, you’ve seen the bumper sticker, “S—t happens.” Well that’s still true for believers, it just means that when s—t happens, the resurrected power of Christ happens too, and it’s up to us to decide which one we want to experience.

So let me get personal now. I have things I have to accomplish this week that I have no desire or motivation to accomplish. If I succeed, it will be because I died to myself, and Jesus rose from the dead. It will be strictly because I tapped into the power of resurrection Monday.

That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10, 11)

What a difference a day makes.

Friday
All is lost.
Where are all his followers now?
Such fair-weather friends.
Nothing but the cynical and the broken-hearted left.
What was it that soldier said,
“How can he save anyone if he can’t even save himself”?
I can’t bear to look at him.
It’s a blessing that he’s already dead; he suffered so much.
Just look at him; I can’t help it now.
Such a devastating thing when the life goes out of a body.
I feel so helpless.
Can’t put it back.
Look at his mother: she’s so stoic.
Does she know something we don’t?
All that hope… all that promise…
Such a waste.

Saturday
Why get up?
What will we do now?
It’s just another Sabbath hoping for another Messiah.
Back to what’s defined us…
That fatalistic hope…
I should have known it would end like this.
It’s over.
I knew it was too good to be true.
What a cruel joke – to give three years of your life
To wake up with it all gone.
That does it…
Tomorrow, I’m going fishing.

Sunday
What is this?
The women are simply buzzing with excitement.
I want to say they’re delusional
But look at their eyes.
These are the eyes of someone who’s seen something unbelievable…
Something undeniably real.
I know what it is to talk yourself into something
And this isn’t that.
They say he’s gone; the body’s gone.
Angels at the tomb…
Guards asleep…
Stone rolled away…
“Why are you seeking the living among the dead?”
And Mary’s even seen him
Thought he was the gardener until he spoke her name.
Holy Maccabee; it’s true.
He’s alive!

What does this mean?
It means nothing is the same.
This changes everything!
It’s not over; it’s just begun!

Please give me a drink. – John 4:7

We worship a God who became a vulnerable human being. Superman took kryptonite. Samson lost his hair. Jack Frost relinquished his wintry powers to become the town tailor. Jesus got thirsty and died. It’s a story that is played out not only in history, but in fantasy, legend and mythology—someone with supernatural powers gives up those powers to become human, and it is always done for one reason: love. At least that was God’s reason. “But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” (Romans 5:8)

Love always makes you vulnerable. There’s no way you can love without being exposed in some way or giving something up. Love and need go together. God’s love compelled Him to do what He did because that very love created in Him a need for us. By creating us He also created in Himself a place for us, and that need was reflected many times through the life of Christ.

Jesus Christ didn’t die for us because it made for good theology; He died for us because He loved us, lost us to sin, and gave Himself up to buy us back. By doing this He had to become vulnerable to the very system He created, that we might see how true love behaves. There is a death in love, and that death is the death of self. Jesus died to love us; we die as well in order to love and serve others. And part of that is in being vulnerable.

Sometimes the best thing we can do for someone is ask for help. Jesus asked a woman for a drink and three years later, he was asking for the same thing from a soldier as He hung on the cross—symbolic of the vulnerability He placed Himself into for the whole human race. Being vulnerable to those you love is a big part of what love is.

As far as we know, he was the first Christian – the first one to believe in Jesus, even before His resurrection. He didn’t live very long as a Christian. He didn’t have time to straighten out his life. He never had a ministry. He didn’t read his Bible or even go to church. He didn’t have time for a recovery program. We can only speculate what his life might have been like, had he lived, but his death was pretty awesome. He died right next to Jesus and followed Him right into heaven. “Today you will be with me in paradise,” Jesus said to him. What a way to go!

This was what you might call a “last breath” conversion. And just what did he say? Did he “pray the sinner’s prayer?” Did he “receive Jesus into his heart as his personal Lord and savior?” Did he “rededicate his life to Christ?” Did he agree to the four spiritual laws?

He simply said, “Remember me…” and that was good enough.

Think of that guy. There’s no way he could have known the profound significance of this particular death — that he was hanging next to the only begotten Son of God in the vortex of human history — that he was sharing something all the prophets pointed to, and all the apostles built upon.

All he knew was that Jesus was some sort of king, he had a kingdom that wasn’t of this world, he was dying as an innocent man, and he had just forgiven the ones who put him on the cross. From that he concluded that this man wasn’t like the rest of us. This man was different. He must really be a king. And so he said, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

The first Christian was a scoundrel. He died a criminal. We don’t know what he did, but it was bad enough to draw the death penalty.

Actually, he’s not much different than the rest of us. Oh, we have a chance to make something of ourselves. We have a chance to reform ourselves – to “turn into something” like our fathers would say. But in the end, it’s not our life that will save us; it’s His death.

We all die a criminal death. That’s, in fact, why we die. We wouldn’t die if we weren’t criminals – all of us.

In essence, it’s all we need to pray: “Remember me,” because you know what… He will. Christ will remember us, too.

Teleconference Bible Study is Tonight!
When: 7 pm PDT; 10 pm EDT
Where: 218/237-3840 Access code 124393

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.  (Isaiah 49:16)

Not in the sky, because the sky is too high
Not in the clouds, because the clouds can’t hold you
Not on a stone, for a stone is too cold
Not on silver or gold, lest anyone think you could be sold
Not in a book, because a book could be lost

But on the palms of my hands
On the flesh
Where you can’t be lost, sold or forgotten
On the flesh
Where I see you all the time
On the flesh
Where the pain was measured out in love
On the flesh
In the warm, permanent skin of my Son

There you are…
Eternally
Indelibly
Part of me

Engraved
Cut into
At great cost
Scarred forever
As my tattoo

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up. (John 3:14)

Do you ever wonder why Jesus had to die such an awful death?

I wonder about this from time to time. I wonder about the whole sacrifice thing in the Old Testament and what slaughtering innocent animals had to do with people’s sin (except that it might have made them think twice if they had to watch an animal cut up every time they got caught in someone else’s business). It all pointed to Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice — and I know that — but then we still haven’t answered why there had to be a sacrifice in the first place.

Theologians tell us it’s all about God’s justice. Adam sinned — the rest of us followed suit — and since the punishment for sin is death, well, that kind of does in the whole human race, unless someone dies in our place — someone who hasn’t fallen like we did, who would appease the justice of God because he was perfect.

That intellectually makes sense, but I still don’t really get it. And after all this, I think I can truly say: At some point it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that you understand it; it only matters that you believe it.

Jesus once likened his death on a cross to a snake on a pole in the desert — the bronze snake that God directed Moses to make in order to save the lives of those bitten by a deadly strain of venomous vipers. “Make a snake,” God told Moses, “and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live” (Numbers 21:8).

I’ve often wondered about this too. What a silly thing, this snake on a pole. Those people wouldn’t have had a clue what this was all about, but do you think that mattered? If you were bitten and dying, and all you needed to do to live was look at a bronze statue, would you care? Would you spend a lot of time trying to figure it out? You’d just look, wouldn’t you?

I’m not condoning being stupid. I’m the first one I know to champion questions and try and get to the bottom of things, but at some point, when the chips are down, and it comes to your own life and death, and someone offers you life, you take it.

As we start Easter week and focus, as Christians have done for centuries, on Christ’s death and resurrection, let’s realize there is part of this we understand and part of this we don’t. It’s okay to wonder why, but you don’t have to let that make you stop believing.

It almost seems too easy: just believe in Jesus and your sins are forgiven. Well… it is easy. God has made it so a child can understand. You don’t have to understand it all anyway – just enough of it to believe. Bitten by sin? Look upon Jesus and live.

In his answer to my challenge to finish yesterday’s Catch about how if there is one lost soul, I am lost, Tim sent us a song performed by Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ray Charles and others with the lyric: “None of us are free, if one of us is chained, none of us are free.” Thank you, Tim, because that’s it. That’s the point.

It’s all about identification and connection with the rest of humanity. As long as there is one lost soul then I am not found, because I am that lost soul; that lost soul is me. It’s a means of identifying with others that has me more than just sharing in their situation, it has me being them. It’s further than most of us want to go.

Jesus did this. Jesus so identified with the poor that He told us if we care for them (“the least of these”) we are caring for Him. If in serving the poor we are serving Jesus, then Jesus is poor. Jesus is destitute. Jesus is needy.

Some of you took my challenge yesterday and tried to launch into what remains to be a theological debate on how I could be lost and still found, and I understand, because that’s what I was doing in my head when I was writing about this and not getting any farther with it. I couldn’t get anywhere because I was stuck in my own head. I got stuck because I was thinking about me and on what theological basis I could get away with saying I was still lost.  I even went so far as to be concerned about those who would question my theology and how I could head them off at the pass. I was, sad to say, more concerned about my own reputation than about finding why the Holy Spirit had drawn me to this statement in the first place. See what I was doing? I was stuck so far into myself that I was missing what God was trying to teach me with this.

The point is not me – it doesn’t start or end with me – the point is all of humanity and most importantly the lost – anyone who doesn’t get it yet: that Christ died for them. As long as there is one person like that on the earth, I am not found. I am lost.

I am not Noah. God did not tell me that He was going to cut me off from the rest of His creation and start over. But I, and most Christians I know, live like we are. We have detached ourselves from lost humanity and are floating around in a boat no one told us to build. Actually, we’re not even floating; we’re dry docked, because the rains never came. Those are the latter rains the scriptures talk about, and until they come, this is the day of salvation. This is the day to gather everyone in.

I am so ashamed of my smugness. I am so willing to be saved and not give a hoot about those who are not. But here is the point: that feeling of shame is off the point too. It’s still about me! The church, all my life, has only made me feel guilty about this. It has never taught me that I am the lost like Jesus is the poor. It never connected me to lost humanity. It only exploited my guilt and kept me trapped inside myself.

Get out of the stupid boat and connect… because none of us are found if one of us is lost.

Eugene Debs

One of our regular readers turned me on to a statement by Eugene Debs (1855-1926). Debs was an American labor union leader at a time when workers were third class citizens and treated like slaves by their employers. He spoke for them, though his desire was to free them to equal rights rather than to become their leader. A commanding orator, he once said to an audience of workers, “I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition.”

His passion for the needs and abuses of the working class grew out of his ability to identify with them. Well acquainted with the inside of a prison for civil disobedience, he once told a judge, “Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” And in the spirit of Saint Paul who wrote that he became all things to all men that he might by all means save some (1 Corinthians 9:22), I would add that as long as there is one soul who is lost in the world, I am lost too.

You know, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out what to write next… how to expand on this… why it speaks to me… but I’m thinking now I will leave that to you. You write the next part. Let me know what it means to you that you, too, are lost, if indeed it means something…

Today you’re going to listen to me and watch me instead of read me. In doing research for a school report on someone at least 50 years older (that would be me; I was 52 when Chandler was born), Chandler happened upon a  YouTube video taken from an interview I gave as part of a “First Love” project that explored the beginnings of Jesus music in the 1970s.

Click on “listen to me and watch me” above to view the clip. It will take you about as long as it takes to red a normal Catch. This may be about music, but the same can be said of any art or discipline, as in: The world doesn’t need a Christian marketplace, it needs Christians in the marketplace.

Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them… When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” (John 21:20-22)

There is a popular argument for not believing that Jesus is the only way to heaven. How could Jesus be the only way to heaven when not everyone on the planet has even heard about Jesus? Would a just and loving God condemn people to hell for the crime of growing up where they never heard about Jesus?

There is more than one approach to this question, but one of the most important is that introduced by the example of Jesus and Peter in the dialogue above. Peter is wondering how John was going to die, and Jesus says, “What is that to you? You must follow me.”

What about the guy in another culture who never hears about Jesus? The answer is the same: “What is that to you? You must follow me.”

One has to already know a good deal about Jesus to even be asking this question, and to use it as an excuse not to believe is not even good logic. That’s saying you are not going to be accountable to what you know about Jesus, or could find out if you tried, because there is a guy somewhere in the world who in your estimation can’t find out.

When Jesus said: “You follow me,” He was saying: “You follow what you know of me — what has been revealed to you. You are not responsible for what has or has not been revealed to someone else; that is between my Father and that person.”

This also applies to our experience in life. When you want to compare your life to someone else’s — someone else has had it easier than you — guess what Jesus says. “What is that to you? You must follow me.”

Besides, I am of the impression from walking with Jesus that hell is more likely to be peopled with the self-righteous who had tons of chances to respond to God’s grace than with unlucky sinners who just happened to miss the “Jesus Saves” sign.

Don’t measure your lot in life by anyone else’s. You only have your own.