Mudshot Eyes

I’m reading The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren and enjoying it, even though I’ve not bought in to his every point. I’ve wanted to read one of McLaren’s books for a while now, and my brother-in-law Brad gave me this one as a gift, so I figured I would start with it since it is his latest.

My first impressions started with the title. Upon seeing it I was immediately unsettled. The cover of the book shouted, “Can I have your attention everybody! Brian McLaren is going to tell us the secret message of Jesus. You think you know what Jesus was saying, but Brian is now going to explain what he really meant. And we would still be in the dark if it weren’t for BRIAN!”

I know that takes it a little far, and every author tries to give us a fresh perspective when they write (that’s the point of reading a book, right?). However, his title and first chapter seem pretentious.

The idea behind the title is that the deepest message of Jesus is hidden, only to be discovered by those who “look hard, think deeply, and search long in order to find it.” I hope it is possible to still understand the deepest meanings of Jesus’ message if I don’t agree with McLaren’s every point!

Our relationship didn’t start off very well, but I’m giving the book a chance because I share something important with McLaren. I also have a frustration with the way the message of Jesus has been distorted by extremes in some corners of Christendom. Well-known spokespeople on the left and the right sides of the spectrum have said things supposedly from a Christian perspective that make me cringe. Like McLaren, I think it is important to be sure that more than one voice is heard in the discussion of what the message of Jesus looks like when it is lived out in the present day.

I’ll post more praises or peeves as I go along in the book.
(My next question: Does McLaren want us to believe that Jesus is a Democrat? We shall see…)

Christ the Lord is risen today! Alleluia!
Earth and heaven in chorus say, Alleluia!

Church-goers of all shapes and sizes came out of the woodwork today to go to church. Easter brings them in as if the church was giving away free money! Most of these churches spend their Easter morning celebrating the resurrection of Jesus with songs, sermons and prayers. However, in blog conversations around the Internet and in some theology classes, a question arises around holy week: Did Jesus rise bodily from the dead?

It is an important question to pursue. Does it matter whether or not Jesus’ spirit AND body was resurrected on the third day? What would be missing from our theology if we say that Jesus’ resurrection was only His spirit? If that were the case, then is God any less victorious over death? Doesn’t First Corinthians say that the body we have on earth is going to be replaced by a glorious new immortal body? Perhaps Jesus was given his spiritual body and left the mortal body behind!

Doubting Thomas is a friend to those who wonder about these things. He didn’t just question the resurrection of Jesus, he refused to believe that Jesus was raised physically or spiritually. His doubt was firm. “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe,” he said. It was the physical presence and touch of Jesus that Thomas wanted, not some trumped up fable about a semi-divine Messiah who was now floating around in the sky like a slain martyr.

When Jesus stood before Thomas after his resurrection, it was not a ghostly vision in a half-lit room. Thomas touched the hands and side of Jesus and fell down proclaiming him as his Lord and God. We can’t miss what happened here. Thomas touched Jesus!

If we make the resurrection more “believable” by removing the body of Jesus from the story but not the tomb, we remove an important part of Easter’s message: matter matters to God.

We are spirit, soul, and body, each enmeshed in the other and in need of transformation from God right now. Jesus wanted Thomas to touch him because he wanted Thomas (and us) to realize how real Jesus was for him in the physical world. Then Jesus’ next words bring hope to the rest of us, who have not been able to put our fingers in the mark of the nails:

“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

We have not seen those nail holes, but we believe that God is active in his desire to see his work happen in all of our aspects. One day our metamorphosis will be complete. We will be completely transformed – not replaced! God will take what we are now and will leave nothing behind as “this mortal body must put on immortality.”

Until then, we learn what it is like to follow a risen Savior, in the context of real life lived spiritually, soulishly, and bodily, just as we will when our transformation is complete.

Here is a poignant passage for holy week, from a book by Frederick Buechner, The Faces of Jesus:

Our age is full of people for whom the language of religious faith is a dead language and its symbols empty, for whom the figure of Jesus is vague and remote as a figure in a dream, powerless except for the power to stir the deepest intuitions and longings of the human heart. If ever there was a man worth dying with and dying for, this is he. If ever there should turn out unbelievably to be a God of love willing to search for men even in the depths of evil and pain, the face of Jesus is the face we would know him by.

Messiah Lord,

Why did you ride on a donkey to receive the praise of the crowd? Were you trying to tell them, to tell us, that your triumph was not a contest of strength, but a display of weakness?

While the armies of this earth display their strength by shedding blood, taking away the lives of their enemies, You – Yahweh Sabaoth, Lord of the Angel Armies – shed Your own blood and give Your life to Your enemies.

You’ve demonstrated your power to all the earth, and to me, yet I continue to treasure
revenge more than mercy,
anger more than shalom,
self-preservation more than sacrifice,
my strength more than Your weakness.

I’m afraid that I’m too much like Peter in his rashness, striking his enemies and then running from You. When I meet you in the garden with Judas and the mob, may my hands loosen their grip on my sword, that I might open them to receive your victory.

Amen.

Agape God,

I wonder if I’ll ever learn
Love’s way.

“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,”

And the Love,
Which was put on display
In Your life,
Your death.

I wonder at the way of
Love’s learning.

“Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me,”

To love,
All who You love so freely
With Your life,
Your death.

Amen.

*Agape is one of the Greek words used in the Bible for love. Click to learn about that.

*Why a “weakly” prayer? Click.

“[Jesus] spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.”

- John 9:6-7

This is my favorite New Testament story because Jesus made a mess of this guy before healing him. I wonder how the disciples reacted when Jesus picked up the mud he had just made from his own spit. This was outside the bounds of traditional medicine, even for first century standards!

Then to top it off, Jesus plopped the mud into the eyes of the blind man. I would have either been cracking up, or feeling really bad for what probably looked like a sick practical joke. But if Jesus was laughing, it was only for joy as he told the man to go to the Pool of Siloam to wash away his blindness. A lifetime of darkness was about to be washed away with the mess.

With a fresh reading of this story, I’m wondering what messes Jesus wants to make in my life. There are idols I’ve cared for and polished clean, habits I’ve depended on to get me through, and fears that I protect like my last dime of counterfeit money.

I need this mud from the Savior who has made a habit of messy ministry. From the muddy face of this blind man to the stench of Lazarus, four days dead, Christ is never hesitant to dirty his hands. His way of doing things is to disrupt so that he might put in order, to make a mess so that he might cleanse, and to die so that he might lead us into a Kingdom of life.

Maybe cleanliness isn’t next to godliness after all.