Yesterday I had a commentator going on about how the use of the text is in some way oppressive. Well, I think that is what they were saying, particularly when I bothered doing a textual revision of the verse properly — yes I can read greek. Enough to know that translation is a bloody difficult task, and the assumptions of this age can slide in without meaning to.
As I write this, we slept through a storm, and will have to go to late church, which is not seasonal. But the text today is a plumbline, a correction. It makes one uncomfottable, reduces your self esteem, as you consider how you used your body to slake your desires, be they greed, lust, envy or anger. We need to continually reform.
And if one does not preach Christ crucified, and there is but one way to salvation, and that is through Christ, with the RCL reading (it is John 3) then there is no need for you to be seasonal. There is no need to call yourself Christian. For you are missing the best oppurtinity to proclaim Christ, crucified.
3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
1Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” 3Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 5Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
11“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
16“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
17“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Christ did not die merely for the Jews, but for all men. There should be no division by race or country or ethnicity within the church. We may worship in multiple language services, and we may worship in different traditions, and there is some use in that — I have sat in the back of services in other countires and not understood a word of that vernacular — but we should be one.
I understand the historical reasons for ethnic churches: that the Polish or South African or Samoans want to keep their church traditions alive. But we should be one. For there is but one Gospel.
I need to say that doing this is incredibly difficult. When I was a little older than the age of my oldest son, we were living in the poorest suburb in Auckland — my Dad was building a house on a farm and had bought a cheap dwelling he intended to rent later — we attended the local Presbyterian Church. The Somoan and Rarotongan (Cook Island) elders wanted a blessing to set up their own churches. We said… no. They could have their services at 2PM, and we would include their traditions in the 10 AM service: we would encourage them to attend the evening service (which is a Palangi tradition) but no, we would be one. And that meant we had to deal with the politics of two competing choirs who timed each others singing… for years. But we did this. Because we are one.
Sometimes it is easier to sit in your comfortable little kirk. For those of us who are traditionalists, who love the older ways, and that which has been tested and found true, this is a besetting temptation.
For this scripture matters. It is living and active. It confronts us. It points out our faults. We are taught today that we can only be of the spirit if we have been born again — by the indwelling of the spirit, and that Baptism is a symbol in part of this. (Not all those who John the Baptizer dunked turned to Christ.)
Those of us who believe in Christ, who have the indwelling of his spirit and can look back at our baptism have to consider that the power of sin is broken and dead. We thus should not return to sin, or better said, turn each day from the sins that comfort us. The ones that we use to hide from the truth held within the word. The ones that we are not allowed to speak of in polite conversation — the parts we do not teach, or where we soften the language in a hope that the text will be nicer.
We forget that Christ confronted: as with Nicodemus, with us all. Confrontation and exposing one’s sin is not an error in the Gospel. It is integral, for without a sense of one’s personal guilt and sin there would be no need for salvation, no need for the cross.
So the Law of God is needed and good. Including the bits we don’t like, the bits we think are old and irrelevant. The shame and guilt we feel when the Spirit of God pricks our conscience as we read are good and proper. For then we will seek Christ, and his salvation, and the Spirit of God, to give us comfort and strength, for our duty in this world is not to be at ease.
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Palangi (Samoan, Tongan) == Pakeha (Maori). It means a white person.
If the founders of the Presbyterian Church had believed what you just claimed that you believe, I guess you would be Roman Catholic. But they didn’t believe it. The Spirit and the Scripture do not say that those ” born of the Spirit and water” should be one; They say they are one. It is a matter of being, not of doing. When you behave as if it is something you do, you deny the Spirit and the Scripture. There is one Body of Christ that consist of all peoples and languages, and who worship in their own manner, with their own songs and dance, their own rising ups and sitting downs. Who appointed the Presbyterians Judge over such matters?
OK. I will jump into this for one comment only. I AM presbyterian — and switch between a low church service and a fairly hard core reformed group that united a buncha ton of people who split from the Presbyterian Church on doctrinal issues (went there this week. See the next post).
The church is one in Christ. It is not one by any denomination. In our fallen nature we have divided into Roman, Orthodox, Protestant, Coptic and Pentecostal.
But there is a functional unity of those who are serious about their faith in these times. Particularly in the tradosphere — Hearthie is what she calls “Bapticostal”, I think SSM is Anglican but have never asked her, while Zippy and Mundabor are Catholic. Yet we talk.
Not about what communion means or the virgin… but about how we should now live.
Historically, the Reformed (and Evangelical, or Lutheran) started as a reforming movement within Catholicism — against indulgences, for a more pietistic and non exploitative Kirk (for the Indulgences paid the fees Bernini and Michelangelo requested to build St. Peters). We would say that we are the true Catholic faith. But… we know that it is not just those in our mucky holy huddle (and the idea of a perfect church is the other side of the Catholic error — one over emphasizes apostolic authority, the other considers there can be a perfect community of believers in this time).
What matters is how faithful, we as a church, are as witnesses. For the church preserves society. Ours is rotting. And we all will be held to account for this.
Interesting opportunity to hear Chuck Missler in person today … said some similar things, about how we lose our focus on the gospel in our focus on side matters. There will be ranting in the near future….
Rants will be commented back on. See above.
If you meet him… can you ask — why New Zealand? We do have a lot of PC pressure here — and I thought Idaho would be missionary and bible study friendly.
Not that I’m asking him to go back to the USA, of course.
rant [rant] Show IPA
verb (used without object)
1.
to speak or declaim extravagantly or violently; talk in a wild or vehement way; rave:http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rant
To you , what I stated was a rant? WOW!
I think he wanted to move his valuables (aka his ministry) offshore. To hear him talk about the US is to weep. His heart is so broken. (Not that I disagree). He was in Coeur d’Alene, which is in Idaho, which is where I’d move if I had a chance to move. It rains there and the gangbang contingent is much lower. But the Lord chooses my life, and I’m good with that. Please do rantback, I’m going to eat my post-church ice cream and then type. I saw Missler earlier this afternoon. Didn’t ask questions, took a lot of notes, drove home and … then my pastor said something that (at least in my very disorganized head) dovetailed. Hey, I got to shake his hand, that was pretty awesome.
-geek- I don’t think I’m going to irritate you, I’m going to AGREE with you. Loudly.
@Bobbeye, that’s enough.
You do not want to see me in full rant mode. I start quoting Ann Barnhardt, who makes Ann Coulter look like a moderate. Then I start using the tactics of the BoFH.
Wrath is attractive at any time… and has to be resisted.
@Hearthrose
What you say makes me sad. NZ is fallen… but we have never pretended that we are a city on a shining hill.
Admittedly, we don’t have the IRS audit practices here — if you are too non PC or political you lose your charity status and keep on going. (Which is what happened to Exodus locally). But the USA was great. It makes me sad.
However, we all have to remember that there is a remnant, in every nation and in every time.
Some of the specifics are heartrending. I *know* you know that the Bill of Rights is dead… most of America does not. I found out today that it’s illegal to give a servicemember a Bible. You can give them a Koran… but not a Bible. (I have heard about the goingson in the Corps from our local military minister who is a purple heart vet… my grandpa is spinning in his grave, as is FIL). -sad- C’est la vie. “For such a time as this” – life isn’t about playing it safe, is it?
On Chuck… we do not know the hour nor the day. But the times are bad. There is a reason, apart from the fact there is a university that keeps me in the style to which I am accustomed, for living in a fairly cold rock in the middle of the South Pacific.
Well. The cold rock sounds good. Also isn’t it green there?
I don’t know why we’re here. God could easily move us elsewhere anytime it suited Him, but I gave up whining at Him about it about five years ago. -shrugs- He’s been faithful and generous and gracious so far, I’m not worried though logically I ought to be.