thinking.about:jesus

Schonmal gefragt, wie es möglich ist, dass Jesus am Freitag starb, am Sonntag auferstand, und dabei 3 Tage und 3 Nächte tot gewesen sein soll? Hier ist die Antwort: er starb nicht am Freitag…

Jesu Leiden, Tod und Auferstehung fielen in die Zeit des Passahfestes. Dieses bestand aus dem eigentlichen, eintägigen Passah und dem direkt darauffolgenden, 7-tägigen Fest der ungesäuerten Brote, wobei der erste dieser 7 Tage ebenfalls als ein „Sabbat“ galt (3. Mose 23,6-8). Dieser Sabbat fiel in diesem Jahr auf einen Donnerstag (der große Sabbattag aus Johannes 19,31).

Die Neues Leben Übersetzung gibt hier korrekt wieder: “Die führenden Männer des jüdischen Volkes wollten die Gekreuzigten nicht bis zum nächsten Tag, einem Sabbat - der wegen des Passahfestes noch dazu ein besonderer Sabbat war, am Kreuz hängen lassen.” (Weil der nächste Tag ein Sabbat war, denken die Meisten, dass es sich demnach bei Jesu Todestag um einen Freitag gehandelt haben muss.)

Was man wissen muss, ist dass das Passahfest oft einfach zum Fest der ungesäuerten Brote dazu gerechnet wurde (was von der inhaltlichen Bedeutung her auch Sinn macht). Man sieht das in Markus 14,12: “Am ersten Tag des Fests der ungesäuerten Brote, dem Tag, an dem die Passahlämmer geopfert wurden, fragten die Jünger Jesus: Wo sollen wir hingehen und das Passahmahl vorbereiten?”

Jüdische Feste beginnen am Abend des Vortages und enden am darauf folgenden Sonnenuntergang. Demnach feierte Jesus das Passah mit seinen Jüngern an einem Dienstag Abend, wurde in der Nacht auf Mittwoch überliefert, Mittwoch Mittags gekreuzigt, und Abends ins Grab gelegt, bevor der Sabbat (also der erste Tag des Festes der ungesäuerten Brote) begann. Dann war sein Leib drei Tage und drei Nächte im Grab, und er auferstand Samstag Abends. Als die Frauen Sonntags Morgens zum Grab kamen, war dieses bereits leer.

 Leider hat die Kirchentradition auch in diesem Fall den Eindruck hinterlassen, dass man nur bibelgläubiger Christ sein kann, wenn man nicht bis drei zählen kann/darf.

So, hier isser endlich - mein erster deutscher Eintrag. Ein Auszug aus meinen Predigtnotizen für den Jugendgottesdienst gleich.

Jesus teilte als Gottes Sohn die Herrlichkeit des Vaters. Als er auf die Erde kam, kam er, um die Herrlichkeit Gottes auszustrahlen. In Johannes 1,14 schreibt Johannes über Jesus: „Und das Wort wurde Fleisch und wohnte unter uns, und wir haben seine Herrlichkeit angeschaut, eine Herrlichkeit als eines Eingeborenen vom Vater, voller Gnade und Wahrheit.“ Johannes sagt hier, worin er ganz besonders die Herrlichkeit Gottes gesehen hat: darin, dass Jesus voller Gnade und Wahrheit war.

Es gab sicherlich besondere Momente, in denen Gottes Herrlichkeit auf übernatürliche Weise sichtbar wurde. Zum Beispiel auf dem Berg der Verklärung. Da wurde Jesus vor den Augen von Petrus, Johannes und Jakobus verwandelt. Sein Angesicht leuchtete wie die Sonne und seine Kleider wurden weiß wie das Licht.

Aber ich glaube, dass es Jesu Charakter, sein Leben und sein Dienst an den Menschen waren, die Gottes Herrlichkeit genauso zeigten. In 2. Korinther 4,6 schreibt Paulus: „Denn Gott, der gesagt hat: Aus Finsternis wird Licht leuchten! Er ist es, der in unseren Herzen aufgeleuchtet ist zum Lichtglanz der Erkenntnis der Herrlichkeit Gottes im Angesicht Jesu Christi.“ Wo findet man Gnade und Wahrheit? Wo sieht man Gottes Herrlichkeit? In Jesu Gesicht. In seinen Augen. In seinem Lächeln. In seinen Worten.

Darin wie er Sünder anschaut: „Als er aber die Volksmengen sah, wurde er innerlich bewegt über sie, weil sie erschöpft und verschmachtet waren wie Schafe, die keinen Hirten haben.“ (Matthäus 9,36) „Und als er ausstieg, sah er eine große Volksmenge, und er wurde innerlich bewegt über sie und heilte ihre Kranken.“ (14,14)

In der Bibel steht nirgendwo, dass Jesus lächelte oder lachte. Aber:

Die Bibel sagt, dass Jesus Gott ist. Und Gott tut beides. Im Segen Aarons, mit dem sie das Volk segnen sollten, heißt es: „Der HERR segne dich und behüte dich! Der HERR lasse sein Angesicht über dir leuchten und sei dir gnädig! Der HERR erhebe sein Angesicht auf dich und gebe dir Frieden!“ (4. Mose 6,24-26) Das ‘leuchtende Angesicht’ ist nichts anderes, als ein strahlendes Gesicht – ein freudiges Lächeln. Wenn Jesus Gott perfekt wiedergespiegelt hat, dann hat er gelächelt und gestrahlt.

Außerdem sagt die Bibel, dass Jesus vollkommen Mensch ist. Ein Mensch, der nicht lächelt oder lacht ist kein Mensch. Er ist ein Unmensch. Oder ein Roboter…

Jesus weint. Jesus lächelt. Jesus spricht. Jesus lebt. Jesus ist Gott. In diesem Sinne: Frohe Ostern! (Das Wort ‘Ostern’ kommt übrigens nicht von irgendeiner heidnischen Göttin ‘Ostera’, sondern von ‘eos’/'eostere’, was ‘Sonnenaufgang’ bedeutet. Deswegen heißt der Osten auch Osten, weil da die Sonne aufgeht. Die Christen erinnern sich an die Frauen, die bei Sonnenaufgang zum leeren Grab kamen.) Er ist auferstanden….

…ihr könnt natürlich auch gerne auf Deutsch comments schreiben! Die ersten deutschen Beiträge kommen bestimmt! Einen gesegneten Karfreitag! (Karfreitag kommt übrigens von althochdeutsch “kara”, Klage, Trauer, Kummer)

This day is good. It is a day in which we remember that which was necessary to save sinners, and to change them into free, happy, God-lovers. The atonement of Jesus. His sufferings, his death on the cross. Reason enough to bless you with a couple of quotes:

“Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree.” 1 Peter 2:24

The Cross of Jesus is the revelation of God’s judgment on sin. Never tolerate the idea of martyrdom about the Cross of Jesus Christ. The Cross was a superb triumph in which the foundations of hell were shaken. There is nothing more certain in Time or Eternity than what Jesus Christ did on the Cross: He switched the whole of the human race back into a right relationship with God. He made Redemption the basis of human life, that is, He made a way for every son of man to get into communion with God.

The Cross did not happen to Jesus: He came on purpose for it. He is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” The whole meaning of the Incarnation is the Cross. Beware of separating God manifest in the flesh from the Son becoming sin. The Incarnation was for the purpose of Redemption. God became incarnate for the purpose of putting away sin; not for the purpose of Self-realization. The Cross is the centre of Time and of Eternity, the answer to the enigmas of both.

The Cross is not the cross of a man but the Cross of God, and the Cross of God can never be realized in human experience. The Cross is the exhibition of the nature of God, the gateway whereby any individual of the human race can enter into union with God. When we get to the Cross, we do not go through it; we abide in the life to which the Cross is the gateway.

The centre of salvation is the Cross of Jesus, and the reason it is so easy to obtain salvation is because it cost God so much. The Cross is the point where God and sinful man merge with a crash and the way to life is opened - but the crash is on the heart of God.” (Oswald Chambers; My Utmost for His Highest)

„What was the death of Christ? „A martyrdom,“ cries modern thought. „A mischance in an unenlightened age,“ replies the reviewer. „An outcome of all such efforts to battle with evil,“ says the broad-church teacher. „A SACRIFICE!“ thunders this Book. A voluntary sacrifice! A voluntary sacrifice, by which sin has been borne and put away. Here we rest, content to abide, in a world of mystery, at the foot of one mystery more, which, despite all its mystery, answers the cry of a convicted conscience, and sheds the peace of heaven through our hearts.“ (F. B. Meyer; The Way Into the Holiest; Commentary on Hebrews)

Have a good friday! (This expression comes from Martin Luther, by the way: Guter Freitag)

The emerging conversation has polarized alot of Christians. Some of that polarisation is good. Some is bad. My idea is, to take Paul’s approach: Test all things, and keep the good stuff. Maybe you’ve heard this line: “Some people say, the emergent church has some good points - but so does a porcupine!” Well, to be honest, I don’t think that this is the best way to deal with it. What we should do in my opinion is this:

- Differentiate. Between people and their reputation. Between the different ‘lanes’ within the emergent movement. (For this, I recommend Mark Driscolls teaching from the “Religion saves”-series on the emergent church. Go to marshillchurch.org, you’ll find it there somehow.

- See that most movements are reactionary. The emergent group reacts to something. What are the bad sides, downsides, weak points of modern day evangelicalism?

- List those things that caused the emerging church to emerge.

- Think about where we need to grow, change, and learn.
If we do that, we will be benefited from this movement. Or we just continue to bash everything we feel threatened by.

Here are some of the topics: dealing with the big issues in the world (war, pollution, corruption, etc.); social responsibility; the humanity of Jesus; different ways to do church; dealing with questions, doubts, etc.; facing the challenges of our culture; Christianity as a ‘way’; any other suggestions?

I will start do deal with these issues one by one. And I believe it will be helpful and cause us to grow. Let’s face it: even though not ‘everything has to change’ (Brian McLaren) - some things do! And our attitudes might be among these things…

Just a short quote from Francis Schäffer that goes along with some stuff I wrote about before: “If we forget the absolute uniqueness of Christ’s death we are in heresy. As soon as we set aside or minimise, as soon as we cut down in any way, as the liberals of all kinds do in their theology, on the uniqueness and substitutionary character of Christ’s death, our teaching is no longer Christian. On the other hand, let us remember the other side of this matter. If we forget the relationship to us as Christians of this order, then we have a sterile orthodoxy, and we have no true Christian life. Christian life will wither and die, spirituality in any true biblical sense will come to an end.” (from “True Spirituality”)

Doctrine is important, but we have to ask and seek in order to bring it as deep as possible into our daily lives.

Last night we studied Exodus 33-34 in our Youth Group. It is a fascinating study, especially on the background of Israel’s naked dance around an Egyptian god. Moses is seen foreshadowing Christ’s mediating work in a beautiful way. Because Moses had found favor in the eyes of the Lord, God would ‘change His mind’ and dwell in the midst of the congregation, instead of the tent of meetings outside of the camp. Israel gets a completely fresh start as a result of Moses’ intercession. The ten commandments are given again, the covenant being renewed, the former plans of the tabernacle taken up again.

What an encouragement! For we are all idolaters. We all have turned back to Egypt in our hearts at times, we all have - secretly - carried some gods of Egypt with us on our journey with Jesus… Through the mediating work of Jesus - Christ as the High Priest - we all can have fresh starts. I think it is important to understand what Jon Courson points out: It is not Jesus’ words, with which he intercedes for us, but his wounds. When it says in Hebrews 7:25, “Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.”, it is not to be understood in a technical sense. I think that at this point we often make the mistake that we base a certain doctrine on one verse alone, which is never a good idea. When Christ intercedes for you and me, he doesn’t need to lose any words. “…he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. (…) But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.”  (9:24; 26) The Holy of Holies was not a place of prayer, it was a place of atonement. Jesus is not before the throne of grace pleading our case with words. It is his blood: “…Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” (12:24) To say that on top of the fact that he will always be as a lamb that has been slain, he would still have to add words of prayer and intercession takes away from the atonement. It is to say that his blood isn’t enough, he has to add words. So this thinking is not biblical and it is not logical, because we know that his blood is enough.

Well, anyways…actually I wanted to share something else. In verse 18 Moses asks: “Now show me your glory.” Up to this point, God had been speaking to Moses through an angel. Even though that is not in the text here, the Rabbis always understood it this way and it is stated three times in the New Testament (Acts 7:38; Galatians 3:19; Hebrews 2:2). Moses wasn’t satisfied to be lead into the promised land by an angel, he wanted God in their midst. He wasn’t satisfied to only hear from God through an angel. He wanted to see God.

Now he had seen alot of God’s glory, in the sense of the miraculous demonstrations of supernatural power and majesty. So what was he asking for? I believe he just wanted to go deeper. He wanted to know God in a deeper way. Which is remarkable, especially on the background of everything he already had experienced in the past. Many of us would be satisfied to see God work or manifest himself in supernatural ways. Moses didn’t want to see what God could do or even would do - he wanted to see God.

“Only do not let us make Moses talk like a metaphysician or a theological professor. Rather we should hear in his cry the voice of a soul thrilled through and through with the astounding consciousness of God’s favour, blessed with love-gifts in answered prayers, and yearning for more of that light which it feels to be life.” (Alexander Maclaren)

God told Moses that this was not possible in the fullest measure, because that would simply put Moses to death. But in his love he was willing to show Moses as much as was possible. Now check out what God shows Moses as an answer to his request to see God’s glory, his beauty: “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mery on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. (…) And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.”

Now without wanting to ellaborate much further, the observation is clear. Moses wants to see God’s glory, and God shows him as much as possible of that glory of His. He does it by a self-revelation, not to the eyes but to the ears of Moses. He doesn’t show Moses what he can do, but he tells him who he is in his relation to human beings. And I just think that this is God’s glory, that is his beauty. We are saved to the praise of the GLORY of his grace. To me, that is the most glorious thing I could ever imagine…

“Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tabets of human hearts. Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent ministers of a new covenant - not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Cor. 3,1-6)

Yesterday I had another conversation with another friend of mine (all these conversations…you might think I am emergent…). He studied koine Greek at a Theology School and we talked about how to use or not to use Greek word and/or grammar studies for a regular Biblestudy. In his “Lectures to my students” Spurgeon wrote, that in his opinion, preachers only quote the Greek to impress their hearers. So my friend and I talked about the tendency to do that and asked ourselves in how far it really does benefit the hearers.

One thing that is often overlooked among evangelical fundamentalist lay preachers is the fact, that koine Greek is a dead language. That means that we depend on findings of other writings to give us insights on when which words or tenses were used. The more writings we have to compare, the more we will understand the language of the Bible. Now that means that we understand the language of the Bible today better than 50 years ago. Which is a real problem when my Greek lexicon is that old… It also means that we will understand the language of the Bible better 50 years from now then we do at this present time. So we should be careful not to build our theology on word studies in the Greek.

Which language does God speak? Does he speak Hebrew, Aramaic or koine Greek? No. God is Spirit. His language is not a human language, but a spiritual language. Everything human is earthly. Everything earthly is temporal, imperfect. Just as God cannot and does not live in a building build by human hands and is not served by human hands, he cannot be fully contained in human language. Not even the Bible languages. But also generally speaking are the thoughts, ideas and realities behind the words bigger and better than the words themselves. Words are only shells. Even Bible words.

George MacDonald writes in the Chapter “Truth is of the Spirit, not the letter”: “God has not cared that we should anywhere have assurance of his very words - not merely because of the tendency in his children to word worsip, false logic, and corruption of the truth, but also because he would not have his people oppressed by words. For words, being human, therefore but partially capable, could not absolutely contain or express what the Lord meant. No matter how precise the words used, to be understood the Lord must depend on the spirit of his disciple. Seeing it could not give life, the letter should not be throned with the power to kill. It should be only the handmaid to open the door of the truth to the mind that was of the truth.”

William Law writes: “…every kind of virtue and goodness may be brought into us by two different ways. They may be taught us outwardly by men, by rules and precepts; and they may be inwardly born in us, as the genuine birth of our own renewed spirit. In the former way, as we learn them only from men, by rules and documents of instruction, they at best only change our outward behavior, and leave our heart in its natural state, only putting our passions under a forced restraint, which will occasionally break forth in spite of the dead letter of precept and doctrine.” He goes on to say, that this is still the first stage in spiritual growth, just as the law (the letter) was a schoolmaster to the gospel. And that after all Scripture cannot do more than point us to the living Word. Words in themselves are dead. Even written words. Even New Testament words - apart from the life-giving and life-changing Spirit.

Andrew Murray comments on this: “In answer to the scruple that this appears to derogate from Scripture, we are reminded of the difference between Christ, the living Word, and the letter of Scripture. We are told that this is the very way to exalt Scripture when we own it to be the faithful and only direction to Him who is the true light of men. Just as the highest honor a disciple of John the Baptist could confer on his teacher was to leave him and go to Christ, so the Scriptures, the more we study and rejoice in them, will only have their full effect upon us as they daily point us to Christ.”

I wonder how much I have fallen into the same trap as the scribes, who wouldn’t accept the living Word when it came to them, because it didn’t fit their interpretations of the written word. Jesus is bigger than the Bible. That might sound shocking or even heretical. But in reality, everyone who doesn’t agree with that statement is an idolatrer - because he doesn’t only worship the Jesus of the Bible but Jesus and the Bible. And that’s wrong.

I guess that it comes down to the question of the way in which God inspired the Bible. Verbal or dynamic? I’ve gotta think more about that later. Now it’s too late…

Last wednesday I had a conversation with a friend of mine about heaven and hell and who goes where and why. We both share the same view, but I have certain questions that haven’t been answered yet. After over one hour of talking on this matter we came to this conclusion/application:

It is possible and common to keep the reality of a certain doctrine at a safe distance. We think we ‘understand’ them, intellectually, and we are afraid to ask more questions or to think longer about all the implications. We stop at: this is what the Bible says, believe it, accept it. But we don’t really let it hit us, because we are afraid that we will end up with more questions or doubts and by chance wreck our faith.

What we need is a stronger faith in the person of Jesus Christ, which allows us to be hit by certain realities (brought to us in the form of doctrines), without these kind of fears and worries. We are not more convincing to the unbeliever if we keep certain doctrines in ‘intellectual quarantine’. I believe the opposite is true: they will know that we do think, which is why we do struggle, but that our trust in Jesus is so strong that we can handle to follow him and actually live with certain questions.

So let the reality of heaven and hell, the reality of saving grace and the reality of Christ’s indwelling hit you today! Let it overrun you, overwhelm you, churn you. Deal with it as a holistic being - spirit, mind and emotions. Come and marvel.

“We must be jealous for God against ourselves and look keenly to the cunning and deceitful self - ever cunning and deceitful until it is informed of God - until it is thouroughly and utterly denied. The self will attempt to have its way with us until God is to it also All-in-all - until we have left it quite empty of our will and our regard, and God has come into it, and made it - not a shrine, but a gateway for himself.”

That last part of the sentence just strikes me. Because the temple under the Old Covenant was not a shrine, but the means to fulfill God’s desire “to live among his people”. So we as Holy Spirit temples are not shrines, but gateways through which God can live and move among the people around us. But here comes the part that really reveals the depth of human depravity and selfishness. The roots go deep:

“Until then, the self’s very denials, its very turnings from things dear to it for the sake of Christ, will tend to foster self-regard, and generate in it a yet deeper self-worship. While self is not denied, only thwarted, we may, through satisfaction with conquered difficulty and supposed victory, minister yet more to its self-gratulation.

The self, when it finds it cannot have honor because of its gifts, because of the love lavished upon it, because of its conquests, and the “golden opinions bought from all sorts of people,” will please itself with the thoughts of its abnegations, of its unselfishness, of its devotion to God, of its forsakings for his sake.

It may not call itself a saint, but it will soon feel itself one, a superior Christian, looking down upon the foolish world and its ways, walking on “high above” the crowded byways of “average” Christians - all the time dreaming of utter folly, worshiping itself with all the more concentration that it thinks it has yielded the praises of the world and dismissed the regard of others; even they are no longer necessary to its assurance of its own worth and merits!

In a thousand ways self will delude itself, in a thousand ways befool its own slavish being. Christ sought not his own, sought not anything but the will of his Father. We have to grow diamond-clear, true as the white light of the morning.

Hopeless task! - were it not that he offers to come himself and dwell in us.” (George Macdonald)

When we see how deep into our souls, our hearts, our beings, this selfishness goes, we realize how desperate our lost and wicked condition is, and how we really need a savior, not just a teacher.