Tag: Jesus

Bible, psalms, sermon

Who Is Like the Lord?

Posted on by Jay Givens

Psalm 113 is the first psalm in the Great Hallel of Passover (Pss 113-118). One thing that we find in the text is that we should exalt the LORD at all times. Because of the liberation of God’s people through the Passover, verse 1 describes the radical change that has occurred for the Hebrews. While in Egypt, they moaned and cried out because of oppression. Now, however, they shout “Hallelu Ya” (Praise the Lord)! Before the Passover, they were the servants of Pharaoh, but afterwards servants of the LORD. Three times in the text, there is an emphasis that the “name of the LORD” (YHWH) should be praised. To the Hebrews, the name was symbolic of someone’s character, so the praise the name was to shine a light on the character of the LORD. He is YHWH, the “I Am Who I Am” who fulfills his promises. At the burning bush, Moses is told that God is the I Am, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who will free the people and deliver them into the land promised to those ancestors. Because of who he is, we are to praise him now (whatever our current circumstances) and praise him forevermore. From the dawn to dusk, his name is to be praised (vv. 2-3).

Another thing we find in the text is that the LORD is the Exalted One. He is over all the nations. There is no God like him. His glory is described as being not “in” the heavens but “above” them. Who is like him? He sits on high as King of the Universe (vv. 4-5). Yet this great and mighty God who dwells above the heavens humbles himself. We are told that he stoops down to look upon the heavens and the earth. What is it he searches for as he lowers himself (rather non-regally) to stoop and search the earth?

The text tells us that he does this because the LORD is the One who exalts. The surprising thing in verses 7-9 is that the object of his gaze are the poor and the childless. We are told he raises the poor from the dust and the needy from the dung hill (NIV, “ash heap”). He even puts the poor onto level ground with royalty. The psalm reminds us of the parable of Jesus about the rich man and Lazarus. The poor beggar Lazarus is exalted at the end of the story while the rich man is punished. In the ministry of Jesus, we find his care focused on the blind, the lame, the lepers, the tax collectors, the so-called “sinners” (as defined by the religious elites). He shows compassion to them but engages in debate and argument with the rich and powerful (both politically and religiously). The placement of the poor and the prince on level ground can also be seen in the selection by the Spirit of Jesus of two of the primary early Christian leaders–Paul, the well-educated Pharisaic rabbi, and Peter, the plain-spoken fisherman. Jesus places them on equal footing (or even places Peter a little above as he was selected for leadership much earlier than Paul).

The other object of God’s focus, as mentioned above, is the childless woman. She will be “settled” in her home “as” a happy mother. The text doesn’t promise she will be a mother, but God will bless her just as he blesses the woman with child. Still, the statement reminds us of the care the LORD has for the motherless wife–Sarah, Rachel, Samson’s mother, and Hannah most notably. In fact, some scholars have noted the similarities between words and phrases of this psalm and Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2. Both images (the poor being exalted and seated and the childless being settled and happy) are apt images for the Exodus. The slaves are liberated from poverty; the mothers who lost children find happiness.

This compassion for the lowly and exaltation of the humble is the story of Jesus. Paul tells us that Jesus, though he was in very nature God, did not grasp at equality with God but humbled himself to become a servant. (The God who stoops in Psalm 113 is the same humble God seen in Jesus.) Jesus lowers himself into the dirt and dung of human existence, even to the point of a violent and humiliating death on a Roman cross. But then God the Father exalted him! He gave him “the name” (mentioned three times in Psalm 113) that is “above” every name (as God is “above” the heavens) so that all tongues will confess “Jesus is LORD” (Hallelu Ya!), for the name above all names is the name YHWH, the LORD.

This is also the story of the Church. Paul tells us that God chose the foolish and the lowly in order to shame the wise and the powerful. His purpose in so doing was to make sure that no one could boast about themselves (that is, be arrogant). They could only praise him in humility. Praise the LORD!

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“Who Is Like the Lord?” Psalm 113
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psalms, sermon

Who Am I Before I Am?

Posted on by Jay Givens

In Psalm 8, the psalmist asks, “What is man?” But not, “what is man” as an abstract concept. Rather, he asks “what is man” in relationship to YHWH (LORD), the “I Am” before whom we each stand. In the text, we see first that the psalmist is awed by God’s name. YHWH our Lord he says at the beginning, how majestic or wonderful is your name in all of the earth! YHWH, the “I Am Who I Am,” is the covenant name of God for his people Israel. He doesn’t marvel that God is in all. No, it is God’s name that is in all the earth. Everywhere the psalmist looks, he sees the character of God, his name. It is like the character of Woody in the movie Toy Story. The most significant thing to him is that he bears the name of Andy, as does each of the toys in Andy’s room.

A second thing in the text is that the psalmist is silenced by God’s works. He sees the glory of God set above the heavens, the way I recently was out with my family on a dark, clear night and we stood in awe gazing up at a sky full of stars. Carl Sagan, though an atheist, felt the same silence as he encountered the vastness of God’s handiwork.

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

Carl Sagan, Cosmos, episode 7

Like Sagan, the psalmist asks, “What is humanity?” But the psalmist doesn’t ask about humanity as an abstract concept. He says, “What is humanity, that you should be mindful of us?” You who created the cosmos, who set the moon, sun, and stars in place. Why should you pay attention to us? How often, after all, do we look at and think about ants? He parallels the question with another, who is the “Son of Man” (ben adam) that God should care for him? The term we translate “care” is the term used of God coming and intervening in the lives of humanity–Sarah’s barrenness and the sorrow and suffering of the Hebrews in Egypt are but two examples.

Verse 2 tells us God silences the foe–he shabats (from which we get Sabbath) or causes to cease their fighting and wrath. It is the image of the Creator from Genesis 1, who ordered the dark chaotic waters into a beautiful heavens and earth in which he could shabat on the seventh day. But though the chaotic enemies are silenced, the psalmist says that praise rises from babes and infants, like “little us” looking up at the vast starry night. In Matthew 21, Jesus is healing in the temple and the children are rejoicing at his works and shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” When the priests and scribes indignantly oppose this scene, Jesus quotes to them psalm 8:2a. The children saw the “wonderful things” Jesus was doing (the same Greek word, thaumasia, that appears in the Septuagint for the “majestic” things of the name of YHWH in Psalm 2), they cried out in praise. After Jesus’ reply, the priests and scribes are silenced, just as in Psalm 8:2c, the enemies of YHWH are silenced.

Finally, the psalmist tells us that humans are honored with God’s image. In the ancient near east, mythology said humans were created to serve the minor gods. The king was a “Son of God” and the priests were the representatives of God, but everyone else was a servant. Not in Psalm 8, however. Probably reflecting on the theology of Genesis 1, he says humans are a little lower than the angels. They are not servants. Instead, they are “crowned with glory and honor” (v 5) and “made rulers” (v 6). For the psalmist, there was not just one king who was the Son of God. All were Sons. All were Daughters. All were kings and queens. And he doesn’t restrict this understanding to Israel alone. It is all of humanity that he describes. It is like C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, where the children become kings and queens of the land.

Where God silenced the chaotic forces of the cosmos, humans are called to conquer the wilderness of creation, to build a civilization. God has “put everything under their feet.” The imagination of the psalmist is speaking of the ideal understanding of humanity, not the current, fallen reality we see day by day. Now, we live with both the ideal and the reality. As C.S. Lewis put it,

“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.”

C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian

James May notes that the problem is that we have turned reality around, so that we are focused on ourselves instead of focused on God (as the psalmist is). We make it anthropocentric rather than theocentric.

Dominion has become domination; rule has become ruin; subordination in the divine purpose has become subjection to human sinfulness. The creatures suffer. . . . [We should] share the wonder and exuberance of the psalm at the majesty of God but know fear and trembling at the disparity between the vision of humanity and the reality of human culture.

James May, Psalms

The first thing we should bring under our feet is ourselves. Too often, we try to overthrow others. The writer of Hebrews helps us see how Psalm 8 was intended–Christocentric. In Hebrews 2:5-9, he notes that the world to come was not given to subjugation of angels but to humans. The writer notes that we do not yet see everything under the feet of humans, but we do see Christ, who was made a little lower than the angels for a while now crowned with glory and honor (cf. Ps 8:5) because he suffered death. If humanity as God intended it is to be as Christ is, then Philippians 2:5-11 tells us we should humble ourselves as Christ did and trust that, in his time, God will exalt us as he did our savior and king.

YHWH, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

Jesus, our King, how exalted is your name in all the heavens.

Who am I before I Am?

I am in Christ, and I am called to bear the name of YHWH and his Christ.

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Psalm 8 “Who Am I Before I Am?”

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Bible, Jesus, sermon

What Moon Are You?

Posted on by Jay Givens

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt 5:14-16). In John’s Gospel, Jesus proclaims himself to be the Light of the World (John 8:12; 9:5).

What’s going on? How are both Jesus and his followers the light of the world? Jesus is the true light; his followers are called to reflect his light. Jesus is the sun; Christians are the moon. The moon doesn’t generate its own light. It only reflects the light that is generated by the sun. So if you call yourself a Christian, the question becomes–what kind of moon are you?

Full Moon

Jesus said the light should be placed on a lamp stand so that it can give light to everyone in the house. Everything we have is from the true light. The blessings and gifts we receive from him should flow out in service to others. We should strive, therefore, to be a full moon in order to bring light to as many people in a dark world as we possibly can.

Jesus warned that you shouldn’t put the light under a bowl. We can do this in one of two ways.

New Moon

First, we can separate from the world, like the Essenes in Jesus day. If we do, we might be “holy” but we will never be the change agent Jesus intended. Notice how the Essenes aren’t mentioned even once in the New Testament! Turning away from the world is like being a new moon. You may fully reflect the sun, but it is meaningless in your church walls or prayer closets. New moons do not shine their light toward a world that needs it.

Lunar Eclipse

Second, we can hide the light is to strive to be just like the world. We conform completely to our culture for a number of reasons. We might be engaged in the sins around us. We might think conformity is the best way to share the light. Or we may not even realize how much our culture’s values have replaced those of the Kingdom. When the moon moves into the earth’s shadow, it results in a lunar eclipse. The moon no longer reflects the sun because it’s allowed the world to separate it from the source of its light.

Jesus tells his followers to live such good lives that it leads others to glory our Father in heaven.

We are to live lives of virtue. We are to have beautiful deeds that draw people to the Father and the true source of light, his Son. If we never share the true source of our deeds, however, we can become a solar eclipse. We can allow our lives to come between the sun and the world so that they see something beautiful . . . but also something deadly. Staring at a solar eclipse can cause blindness. Not bearing witness to Jesus as the source of your good deeds can create spiritual blindness.

The Mar Thoma are Indian Christians who say their church originated with the Apostle Thomas. I have always liked their motto on their logo. It emphasizes the purpose for our calling to bless others because we have been blessed. The Gospel is not just about personal salvation. It has social and cosmic dynamics. The reason we are “lighted” is so that we can “lighten” others. This should be the purpose statement of all Christians. We need to be a full moon to a dark world until that world turns to the full day of the Son of God.

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Be a Full Moon to a Dark World (Matt 5:14-16)

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Advent, Jesus, sermon

From Egypt with Love

Posted on by Jay Givens

Hosea 11:1-11. An advent sermon that never made it onto the blog last Christmas. When Herod heard the Magi were seeking the newborn Messiah, his response was to kill the infant boys in the region of Bethlehem–just as Pharaoh killed the Hebrew boys in Israel’s past. Matthew tells us Jesus survived this slaughter because Joseph took the family to Egypt–just as Moses survived the slaughter of his day when “Egypt” took him in (through Pharaoh’s daughter). As the family returned, Matthew quoted Hosea 11:1 as a fulfilled prophecy of this event–even though it wasn’t a messianic text for Hosea. Rather, Hosea sought to remind the Israelites of their past. They were the firstborn son of God that Moses led out of slavery. Hosea then points out to them that their rebellion would soon result in a return to Egypt–to captivity at the hands of the Assyrians. Yet Hosea also held out hope for the future, that the people would return to the land.

Not only did Matthew quote Hosea 11:1 about Jesus’ return from Egypt, but he also quoted Jeremiah 31:15 (Rachel weeping for her children) to describe the slaughter of the innocents. (Again, not a messianic passage.) In Matthew’s view, however, these are not mere proof-texts sought in vain from the scriptures to prove Jesus was the messiah. Rather, they are a call for us to return to those texts and see them in terms of the hope each had. Hosea hoped for the eventual restoration of (the now “lost” ten tribes of) Israel. Jeremiah believed the everlasting love of God for the Hebrews (v. 3) would discipline the unruly calf (v. 18) who was yet his dear son (v. 20). Jeremiah also hoped for a time when a new covenant would be written on the hearts of God’s people (vv. 31-34).

Jesus entered our Egypt–coming into our Egyptian slavery, our wilderness exile–to call us out of Egypt and to bring us home to our Father. This emphasis on Jesus as the New Moses (innocents slaughtered; being called out of Egypt) ties into the genealogy Matthew presents at the start of his gospel. Matthew breaks the great history into 3 units of time separated by 4 persons/events: Abraham, David, Exile (the only non-person), and Messiah. Hinting at Moses almost immediately after this genealogy is a nod that he knows he left out a key individual from his list. The Exile, however, stands in some ways as a cypher for Moses. The people had never completely left exile. They still needed a liberator to free them from bondage. Thus, in reverse order, the Messiah was the beloved Son who would liberate his people and establish a new covenant (from the Exile to the Christ–Jesus, the True Moses). The beloved Son would build the temple of God and establish an everlasting Kingdom of God (David to the Exile–Jesus, the True Solomon). And finally, the beloved Son would be the one through whom God would bless all nations (Abraham to David–Jesus, the True Isaac). So the liberation isn’t just for the Jews. It isn’t even only for the lost tribes. The hope of liberation is for men and women of every tribe and language. “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God.” (1 John 3:1)

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“From Egypt with Love” Hosea 11:1-11

From Egypt with Love Sermon link
From Egypt with Love
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Bible, Jesus, sermon

The Touch of Life

Posted on by Jay Givens

Mark 1:40-42.  Masks, gloves, social distancing. These are necessary precautions today with COVID-19, but at the same time, Christians cannot let these precautions interfere with our calling to be the body of Christ ministering in the world. We are to be the touch of life to our world the way Jesus himself was. The sermon looks at the story of a leper and some other stories about “touch” in the gospels.  Jesus was ready to touch the lives of others, even if it meant he might be misunderstood or become unclean, so that he could be a blessing and change lives.  We cannot ostracize groups or stigmatize individuals because of fear of COVID-19.  No.  We are called to be the hands of Jesus, touching others and giving life.

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Jesus, sermon

First Fruits of the New Creation

Posted on by Jay Givens

In 1 Corinthians 15:20-27, Paul sees the resurrection of Christ as God’s promise and sign guaranteeing the resurrection at the end of the age. Jesus is the firstfruits of the coming harvest. The new creation began with an empty tomb. Even with the threat of COVID and social distancing, Jesus is Lord and God is putting all enemies–even the coronavirus–under his feet.

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Jesus, sermon

Blessed Is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord

Posted on by Jay Givens

As Jesus entered Jesusalem the Sunday before Passover, the people are said to shout part of Psalm 118, “Blessed is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord!”  While the people understood this to mean Jesus was coming as a conquering king, the psalm as a whole is more focused on the role of faith as trust in God through suffering, which Jesus lived out in that week leading up to his death.  The psalm also helps us think through our own response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Bible, sermon

Heal Our Land

Posted on by Jay Givens

In 2 Chronicles 7:12-22, God tells Solomon that he has placed his name in the temple Solomon built and will hear prayers from there.  He promises to heal the land in times of plague, famine, or pestilence if the people will humble themselves, pray, and turn from their wicked ways to seek God.  He also warns that he will destroy the temple to rubble if they do not.

The sermon talks about our call to prayer, the model of prayer in our Lord Jesus, and some ways in which we can participate in prayer for nation and our world, including praying through the Psalms.

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Bible, Movie review

Young Messiah (Movie Reflections)

Posted on by Jay Givens

I love movies, the larger than life stories it can create (e.g., the Star Wars mythos), the liberties it can take at times with alternative realities (e.g., superhero movies) or creating new twists for old stories (e.g., flipping the climatic scene from Wrath of Khan in the Star Trek reboot Into Darkness).  There certainly are new twists in the new movie, Young Messiah, and it certainly attempts to be larger than life in the telling of the story that is Life itself.  I went to see the movie primarily because I thought I might have some students watch it and ask questions about it.  (Or worse, just accept the story within the movie without question.)  As a warning, the remainder of this blog will contain spoilers.

My biggest concern isn’t with the movie itself.  Yes, the pacing of the movie is poor and the acting isn’t much better.  I’ve never enjoyed an other-earthly Jesus.  As much as there are some images of him laughing and playing, overall he seems detached.  (Ignatiy Vishnevetsky’s review effectively and humorously deals with the pacing/acting issues.)  If you are looking for a better paced/better acted movie, see the almost concurrently released Risen.  On the other hand, the visuals of the Young Messiah were very good.  The costumes were well designed and the scenery was much more authentic than the constant desert landscape offered in Risen.  (Who could farm in the Galilee if it truly was as desolate as one sees in that movie?  Its filmmakers seem to envision the Judean wilderness as definitive for all Israel!)

Now, please note that any attempt to imagine the silent years of Jesus will require imagination and creativity.  I think that is fine and enjoyed the premise of viewing the gospel from a different perspective, but it needs to be done within a biblical and historical framework.  I don’t even have a problem per se with how it seems modified versions of stories from the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas (IGT) are used in the movie.  After all, I see no reason for Anne Rice to create a new story whole cloth when  she could weave a new story around elements of preexisting legends.

In fact, I entered the theater expecting so much worse than what I found.  Knowing the stories from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, I feared Jesus would be portrayed as the impish wildchild found therein–a boy unchecked in his emotions with powers far beyond his control.  For example, the movie picks up the idea of Jesus being bullied, raising dead children back to life, and making dead birds live.  In IGT, Jesus curses a bully who shouldered him roughly in the street and the bully falls dead.  The parents react in fear and tell Joseph to move away or at least teach his son not to kill children.  Joseph reprimands Jesus, who then causes his accusers to go blind!  (This is hardly turning the other “shoulder” or going the extra mile, is it?)  Joseph then tries to find a teacher for Jesus, but Jesus confounds these teachers with obscure statements about the nature of letters before cursing one, striking another dead, and laughing at a third (though he seems pleased with this one’s realization he has been bested by Jesus).  At some point in the stories, Jesus will undo the curses he has brought upon the people, but he seems to be power-mad in these stories, using miracles to invoke fear and/or worship.  (There also seems to be some anti-Semitic undertone running through parts of them.)  Jesus does raise some to life in IGT: a boy who cut his foot with an axe and bled to death, a playmate who fell from a roof (though Jesus mainly raises this boy as a character witness that Jesus hadn’t pushed the boy off to start with!), an infant in his mother’s arms, and an old man who then worshiped Jesus.

In the movie, by contrast, Jesus is much closer to the adult Jesus we find in the four gospels.  It is the Demon shadowing Jesus who causes Jesus’ bully to trip on an apple, crack his head on a stone, and die.  Yes, the crowds react in fear and demand Jesus’ family leave, but Jesus doesn’t strike them blind.  Instead, he sneaks past them, into the dead boy’s room, and raises the bully back to life.  So the movie blends these resurrection stories with the bully story, presenting Jesus as a concerned and compassionate little boy, not a wildchild acting in anger and demanding worship.  Similarly, the dead bird on the beach seems to be a revisioning of the IGT story of Jesus playing in the mud making clay pigeons on the Sabbath.  In that story, he brings the dead birds to life to “show off” in response to the criticism of a rabbi who asks Joseph why his son works on the Sabbath.  In the movie, it is again the compassion of Jesus that drives his restoration of life to the dead bird.

My biggest concern about the movie is actually how many leading Christian voices have embraced the movie as “orthodox” or “biblical” despite important differences that exist between the movie’s view of first century Judaism and Jesus and what we know from history and from the four gospels.  (Again, the imaginative approach is fine with me, if done within an historical context with biblical themes.)  I think the portrayal of Jesus himself as a compassionate child growing and enjoying life nicely fit Luke’s statement about Jesus’ growth as a child.  I also agree with the movie’s view that Jesus wasn’t aware of his unique status as Son of God.  My problem is with the movie’s portrayal of all the people around Jesus knowing this “secret”–Mary and Joseph, Salome and Cleopas, as well as James and Miriam.  I would even be ok with that if their view wasn’t that Jesus was a divine being, “more than human” as I recall Cleopas saying to Joseph at one point.

You see, the first century conception of the Messiah was not that he would be divine at all.  The Jews expected God to raise up a human descendant of David to re-establish Israel and deliver the Jews from their enemies.  The idea of Messiah as conquering king is properly mentioned in the movie, but their belief that Jesus was divine simply because of the virginal conception doesn’t fit with the gospel stories.  In Mark, for instance, Mary and Jesus’ brothers thinks Jesus is out of his mind and goes to take charge of him .  When Peter makes his great confession, “You are the Messiah, the Son of God,” we can see that Peter does not mean by this that Jesus was a divine being.  For immediately after this confession, Jesus begin to teach his disciples for the first time that he will suffer and die.  At this new teaching, however, Peter rebukes Jesus!  If Peter believed Jesus was divine, he certainly would not think Jesus could err.  Instead, Peter believed Jesus would be a great conquering human king.  Jesus’ response is to rebuke Peter (get behind me, Satan!) for thinking of Messiah as humans conceived him (the conquering king) and not as God (the suffering servant).  This idea that the King of the Jews was the Son of God goes back to the time of David.  God promised David a dynasty, where his son would reign.  “I will be his Father and he will be my son,” God says, but then he continues, “when he does wrong . . .”  How could it be a divine son if he does wrong and must be disciplined by God?  From what we can tell, every king of Israel was proclaimed Son of God at his coronation through the use of  Psalm 2, especially verse 7.  Even after the resurrection, the disciples still conceive of Jesus as the one to bring in a restored kingdom.  It is only after the Spirit descends on them at Pentecost that they begin to understand that Jesus was more than a human being.  He was indeed God made flesh.

In addition, the four gospels do not indicate Jesus had miraculous powers as a child.  The movie has him doing miracles, yet wouldn’t this have called attention to him if he had?  (The movie itself indicates that it did.)  The only thing unusual about Jesus in the gospels is that he talked to the teachers in the temple at age twelve and impressed them with his questions and answers.  Yet even this isn’t the “shocking” knowledge Jesus displays in the movie at age seven or eight, when Joseph goes to a rabbi and asks him to take Jesus on as a disciple.  Instead, the Bible indicates Jesus grew as any other child and “discovered” his divine calling as Messiah at the baptism, around the age of thirty.  Mark says the heavens were torn open (the same word used for the temple veil at Jesus’ death).  In the movie, Mary tells Jesus he heals because he is divine.  But Elijah and Elisha perform miracles such as Jesus and the Bible never says those men were divine.  The response of people at the time of Jesus to his miracles was not, “Look!  A divine being!”  Instead, their response was that he was a prophet (like Elijah).  As opposed to the movie, the gospels emphasize the role of faith the people had as being the key to healing, not anything intrinsic to Jesus himself.  For example, Jesus wasn’t able to heal when people didn’t believe (in him?).

Closing on a related but somewhat random thought . . . did anyone else notice the Harry Potteresque ending to the movie?  (Even though Chris Columbus was producer for both films, I don’t mean to imply this was intentional.)  You have the climatic confrontation between the Boy (from Bethlehem) Who Lived and his “enemy” named Severus, a man who apparently serves a master fascinated/tormented with serpents yet in the end Severus is revealed to be an ally who protects the boy.  Unlike the presentation in the movie, however, the people weren’t spreading rumors about the “Boy Who Lived” nor were authorities trying to hunt him down.  Jesus, the young boy who would one day be revealed as Messiah, grew up in obscurity as any other human, for he was like we are yet without sin.

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Christian living

Reflections on courage: Observations from Benedict’s resignation

Posted on by Jay Givens

Courageous.  I have read and heard this term numerous times on television and in print during the past week to describe the decision of Benedict XVI to resign as pope of the Roman Catholic Church at the end of February.  Perhaps they are viewing the decision from the perspective of the world’s definition of power.  If you think power is something to be grasped rather than to become the servant of all, then perhaps the term “courageous” is justified.  The Bishop of Rome is one of the most influential people in the world and some cannot comprehend how Benedict could give up that kind of power.

Benedict said in the past that he would abdicate the See of Peter if his physical and/or mental capabilities no longer enabled him to perform the duties of that position.  Faithful to his word, he has elected to step down as his health appears to be waning.  “Courageous” to relinquish such power and responsibility?  Benedict is said to be the “Vicar of Christ.”  So if Jesus defined messiahship (i.e., Christhood) in terms of a suffering servant when the world around him insisted it should be a conquering king, then courageous is the wrong adjective.  Faithful, honorable . . . certainly.  Even visionary, as Benedict actions set a precedent (or renews one?) to place the good of the Church above personal gain.

But courageous?  John Paul II, Benedict’s immediate predecessor, comes immediately to mind as more deserving of such a moniker.  Many who use the term “courage” of Benedict clearly have John Paul in mind.  They think John Paul was selfish or lacked vision when he continued in his papal duties even as his health declined in his final years.  But John Paul emphasized the sanctity and dignity of human life throughout his reign.  All human life, he emphasized, is created in the image of God and has equal worth to God as well as to those who bear the name of Jesus.  This worth extends to the unborn babe within the womb, to the mentally ill or disabled, and even to the physically disabled and the dying.  John Paul rejected abortion and euthanasia.  More importantly, he lived what he preached, demonstrating to the end the dignity of life.  Breaking with tradition, he lived out his final days in public so that we all might hear his message.  That is courageous!  Living what you preach.  Allowing us to see the frailty of life and the dignity by which he lived his final days, rather than receding into the shadows of private life as if the elderly have no worth.  I have noted this previously: http://www.baptiststandard.com/resources/archives/45-2005-archives/3563-2nd-opinion-by-jm-givens-jr-lessons-from-the-dying.

Many have observed the last pope to resign was Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415, almost six hundred years ago.  The prior century had been a turbulent time for the church.  Most of the fourteenth century found the Bishops of Rome residing in the south of France, until an angry mob surrounded a cardinal conclave and insisted an Italian pope be elected who would reside in Rome.  The cardinals complied, but almost immediately afterward declared a second man pope, claiming the first was illegitimately selected under duress.  For the next forty years, two men claimed the title pope.  A council in 1409, intending to resolve the issue, declared the two men deposed and elected yet a third man pope.  As neither “deposed” man recognized the council or its actions, this only exacerbated the issue.  Finally, a second council declared the popes who had reigned from Rome to be the legitimate popes.  All others were “anti-popes,” so Gregory XII was the legitimate leader of the Church.  At this recognition, Gregory chose to step down in order to put the entire embarrassing period to rest by allowing the cardinals to select a new pope, one unstained by the struggles of prior decades.

A church leader putting the unity of the Church–his denomination–ahead of his own vision for its future.  A man willing to give up personal power in order to empower others.  Here is an act of courage!  After decades of schism and political maneuvering, would that Baptists had ears to hear and eyes to see.

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