Today the world's Muslims are celebrating their biggest holiday of the year: "Eid al-Adha," which means "Festival of the Sacrifice."
On this day they commemorate the story of Abraham and his son which the Bible also records in Genesis 22. God tested Abraham by telling him to offer his son as a sacrifice, and Abraham obediently went to the place of sacrifice and prepared to make the offering. At that moment, God intervened and spared Abraham's son, giving him a ram to offer instead. (In the Bible, the son whose life was spared is identified as Isaac. The Qur'an does not say which son it was, but Islamic tradition names him as "Isma`il" or Ishmael.) To this day, devout Muslims slaughter a sheep or goat on Eid as a reminder of Abraham's obedience and God's mercy. They then share the meat with family, friends, and the poor, and celebrate the day as a joyful festival.
If this story belongs just as much to Christians as to Muslims, why don't we celebrate Eid al-Adha too? The answer is that, in a sense, we do. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all testify that Abraham obeyed God by bringing his son to sacrifice, but God spared the son's life and substituted a ram. Now, this true story was a symbol of something greater than itself; the Christian celebration of Good Friday and Easter commemorates the reality to which this symbol points. Messiah Jesus, the Son of God, was brought like Abraham's son to the hill of sacrifice. However, He was not spared there but killed, the "Lamb of God" offered for the sins of the whole world. And so He substituted for the life of everyone who becomes a "son of Abraham" by throwing themselves on God's mercy through Him. Abraham symbolically received his son back from the dead (Hebrews 11:17-19), but God brought His Son back from death in actual fact. The greatest festival of all is the Resurrection of the Son of God, that glorious watershed of human history which we celebrate on Easter Sunday.
Monday, December 8, 2008
The sacrifice holiday
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Remembering that we forget
"There is such a thing as the momentary power to remember that we forget.
"And the most ignorant of humanity know by the very look of the earth that they have forgotten heaven."
—G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Троицкое славасловие
Джеффри Мосс
Благословен Отец Святой,
жизнь моя и хваленье!
Благословен Иисус Господь,
крепость моя и спасенье!
Благословен Всесильный Дух,
животворец Воскресенья!
Слава Отцу, и Сына прославьте,
и Духу хвала, песнопенье!
Monday, November 3, 2008
All Saints and Reformation Day
The new online journal Basilica comments on the placement of Reformation Day and All Saints' Day next to each other on the calendar, and the implications of each for Reformed Christians.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
All Saints' Day
How appropriate for Protestants that All Saints' Day (Nov. 1) is the day immediately following Reformation Day (Oct. 31)! On Reformation Day we remember the courage of the German monk Martin Luther in speaking out for Truth against the abuses of the church hierarchy. However, the reforming voices of Luther and those like him occasioned a split in the Church that has not been healed to this day. It is good, then, to turn our hearts and minds to the whole Church of the Lord Jesus Christ and think today about all those throughout history whom He has made holy by grace. By His glorious Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection, Christ is renewing the world. One day "every knee will bow...and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
"What's Behind the Attacks on Christians in Mosul?"
Newsweek reports on attacks against Christians that have been going on in Mosul (Nineveh), northern Iraq. At least eight, and as many as 20 or more Christians have been killed, while thousands have fled the city. It's not clear who is behind the attacks.
See also "In memoriam: Father Ragheed Ganni (1972-2007)".
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Anti-Christian violence in Orissa: now at seven weeks
It has now been seven weeks since the outbreak of violence against Christians in Orissa, a state in east-central India. A Hindu priest, Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, was killed along with his four assistants on August 23, and although Maoist guerrillas claimed responsibility, Christians have been blamed for the deaths. Since then the area has seen more than 50 Christians killed, dozens of churches burned down, and thousands forced to flee their homes.
Today the archbishop of Orissa, Raphael Cheenath of the ancient Syro-Malabar Church, issued a call for the state government to put an end to the violence. He claimed that the local police have conspired to stand by passively while Christians are targeted by rioters.
At times the violence has seemed to be dying down, only to flare up freshly. New fighting on Thursday spurred by the Hindu celebration of Dussehra left ten people injured, two of them critically. Meanwhile, eight people have been arrested for the August 26 gang-rape of a nun belonging to Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity, but the authorities have been very slow about bringing the case to trial.
Sources include "Orissa archbishop wants CBI probe" (The Times of India), "Orissa death toll rises to 52" (Catholic Culture), and "Three more arrested for raping Orissa nun" (Hindustan Times).
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
A tale of two holidays
Today Muslims in North America are celebrating “Eid ul-Fitr,” the “Holiday of the Breaking of the Fast” that comes at the end of the month of Ramadan. Because I teach English as a second language and have a lot of Muslim students, I’ve been very much aware of their daytime fasting that has been going on for the last four weeks. During Ramadan, Muslims are required to purify themselves through abstaining from all food and drink, as well as sex, cigarettes, etc., from dawn until dark every day. Then the coming of Eid means three days of feasting and celebration—the biggest holiday of the year for them. This cycle of fasting and feasting was put in place during the life of Muhammad and commemorates his receiving of the Qur’an.
Although Islamic traditions like these may seem strange to us as modern Western Christians, the fast of Ramadan and feast of Eid may have been influenced by Christian practices that go back even further. A forty-day partial fast for Lent, culminating in the celebration of Easter, was observed at least from the fourth century A.D. Writing in the second century, Irenaeus of Lyons describes some different Christian customs for fasting prior to Easter, and then comments, “Such variation in the observance did not originate in our own day, but very much earlier, in the time of our forefathers.” In other words, there were some differences in how Christians fasted before Easter, but the observance itself was already ancient.
It is very clear from the Bible and experience that the Lord has built recurring cycles into all of life. The Flood in Noah’s time brought a great disruption, but God’s promise afterward is, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). What is true in “nature” is also true in human life: we are awake during the day and sleep at night, we alternate work and other activities with meals and rest, and the arc of our life progresses from birth to youth and maturity, and then the declining years and finally physical death.
These cycles also show up in the life of the Church, as they should. In the Old Testament God gave His people a yearly pattern of holidays, with the great fast occurring at the Day of Atonement and the greatest feast coming at Passover as the Israelites celebrated their deliverance from Egypt. Weekly sabbaths were lesser holidays, but just as important in their own right. Every week the Israelites had a day to rest and worship the Lord as they remembered His completion of the work of creation. Since the time of Christ and the apostles, the Church has developed new holidays that commemorate similar things in the light of the Incarnation of the Son of God. Our weekly day of joy is no longer the seventh-day sabbath, but the first day of week, on which Jesus Christ conquered death and brought life and immortality to light (2 Timothy 1:10). And the Church has traditionally celebrated new annual holidays in place of the great days of the Old-Covenant Jews. The inter-Testamental festival of light, Hanukkah, was replaced by the new winter festival of Christmas to celebrate Messiah’s birth. And the high holy day of Passover has become Easter Sunday, the celebration of the Resurrection of the Lamb which is the greatest of all days of the year.
Although the Bible does not require Christians to observe any kind of fast before Easter or feast on that special Sunday, we have far greater reasons for doing so than the Muslims have for their Ramadan and their Eid. If Muslims fear offending God through their sins, we have far greater reason to fear if we rebel against the God who is not only far away but also very near to us in the Incarnate Christ and in His Spirit. If they grieve and purify themselves during the holy month of the revelation of the Qur’an, we ought to grieve far more because we know our sins required the death of the Son of God, the Perfect Man. And most of all, if they rejoice and feast and congratulate each other at the end of the fast of Ramadan, we ought to have a joy that knows no bounds as we come to our annual bright festival of Easter: the Lord reclaiming Life and re-making the world by His glorious resurrection! They believe they have received a book from God; we know that we have received God Himself. Jesus has come, and He is making all things new.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
I Believe in the Communion of Saints
“Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won…”
—Samuel J. Stone, “The Church’s One Foundation”
The confession known as the “Apostles’ Creed” is one of the most ancient statements of faith in Western Christendom. It originated in the first or second century A.D. and developed into its present form by about 700, and it is now held in common by Roman Catholics, Western-Rite Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians and the Continental Reformed, Methodists, many Baptists, and others.
Not only is the Apostles’ Creed itself a signpost to unity among different denominations of Christians, but it also contains a ringing testimony to the unity of Christ’s people. Like most ancient Christian confessions of faith, the Creed is divided into three main sections—one on the Father, one on the Son, and one on the Holy Spirit. The third section begins: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints.” Now, we know that the Spirit is the third Person of the Holy Trinity, the breath of God the Father and the gift of the Son. And given our heritage of covenantal theology, the Church is not foreign to our thinking. But what is this “communion of saints,” and what do we mean when we say that we believe in it?
The words that make up this phrase are not hard to grasp. “Communion” is the Greek koinōnia, “having or being in common,” a word that is often translated as “fellowship” or “sharing.” “Saints” are simply “holy ones,” that is, people who are set apart (the root meaning of “holy” or “saint”) as God’s own. Basically, the communion of saints is fellowship with the holy ones, sharing together with all God’s people. A simple concept—but when we understand the true meaning of fellowship and of holiness, the implications are profound, and the consequences stretch to eternity.
Let us begin at the beginning. Having communion or fellowship with the saints must always start with God Himself, the Holy One. What is said about Christ in Hebrews is a true description of the Triune God: He is “holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens” (Hebrews 7:26). God is glorious, supreme above His creation and absolutely free of all defilement of sin. He is His own being, eternally existing of Himself and not dependent on anyone else. All goodness and rightness are ultimately defined by Him without need for any other standard above or beside Him. He is who He is, an eternally burning flame of love and light that illuminates the whole universe and consumes anything that stands opposed to it. All this is what we mean when we confess that God is holy.
But the attribute of holiness is not limited to God alone. It is His both to have and to give, and He gives it to whom He chooses. He once set free the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt, in order for them to be “a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). He told them, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45). The apostle Peter quotes the same words to the New Testament people of God (1 Peter 1:16), agreeing with the words of Paul that Christians are “called as saints” (Romans 1:7). Being God’s people means being people who love what He loves, who hate what He hates, who seek what He seeks. In this life no Christian is yet completely holy, but every Christian is called to total holiness and is led by God to become what He intends. It is for this reason that we who live the Christian life (with all our remaining weaknesses and doubts) are described in Scripture as “holy.” That is, Christians all over the world—whether old or young, wise or immature, sophisticated or simple, black or white or yellow or brown—are every one of us “saints” in God’s eyes.
Now if Christians who still struggle with the trials of earthly life are saints and holy to the Lord, how much more is this true of those who have completed their work here and gone on into His presence! “He who has died has been freed [literally, ‘justified’] from sin,” writes Paul (Romans 6:7). Whoever dies in the Lord gets the best of all worlds—they are freed from their sins and yet still able to practice righteousness; they rest from their labors and yet the fruit of their good deeds follows them (Revelation 14:13); and best yet, they die to this world only to live with the Lord and await the fulfillment of life in the Resurrection (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:1-10).
For all of the reasons just given, Christians throughout history have given great honor to those who went before us. We know by faith that we are in Christ, but they already see His face and experience gloriously what we still know only dimly and long for. And yet we have the same Lord and the same salvation as they; we share with them the same hope of resurrected glory; and we are joined together with them in the life of God the Trinity. Therefore we know that we belong to them and they to us. Everything they have is already ours by faith and in hope. While their past example points the way for us to follow, we are motivated to righteousness in the present by knowing that they surround us as a “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1).
In fact, it was in just this way that the creedal phrase “communion of saints” was originally understood. The early Christians suffered severe persecutions that included the loss of many of their friends. It was especially important for them to know that those saints who had already finished the race were present with them constantly through their common Lord, Jesus. Christians who faced everything from ridicule to martyrdom for their faith could look to those who had already “fallen asleep” as examples, as forerunners, as fathers and mothers in the Way, as partakers together with them of the constant stream of life that flows from God.
In these more secular and earth-bound times, we need to pay attention to the real fellowship we have with Christians who have finished their earthly life. We are not to worship them, because after all they are still only our fellow servants, and worship is due to God alone (see Revelation 19:10). But we ought to honor and respect them, learn about their lives and seek to imitate them as they imitated Christ. We know that just as we are joined to them in the “communion of saints,” they also are joined to us. The future of the holy Church that they worked to build up during their time on earth is now in our hands. The full fruitfulness of their past labors depends on our faithfulness in the present to carry on their work—and we will pass it on to those who will come after us.
While our communion with all the saints binds us closely to past believers, it also has profound meaning for the present life of Christians. John’s Gospel records the Lord Jesus speaking again and again about the need for unity among His followers on earth. The unity of God’s flock was a key part of Jesus’ own mission: “Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd” (John 10:16). Love for one another would be the essential mark of Christ’s disciples (John 13:35). God has declared that He will not give His glory to another (Isaiah 48:11), but He gave it to His own Son who is the exact representation of Himself—and the Son gave glory to His disciples. Yet He did not lose any glory in giving it away, because the purpose of the gift was to join all of them together with one another and with the Father and the Son, in a perfect unity that would prove to the world that Jesus was sent by God (John 17:22-23).
This divine glory is what we share in here and now—not only with our brothers and sisters who have gone on to their eternal reward, but also with those who struggle together with us in this world. The Apostle Paul (whom we are told to imitate, as he imitated Christ) was one who knew the communion of the saints as a living reality. He wrestled daily and hourly in prayer for the Christian people who were so dear to him. His concern was not only for those he knew, but also for those who had never seen his face in the flesh (Colossians 2:1). His very life was tied up with the Thessalonian believers’ steadfastness in the Lord (1 Thessalonians 3:8). Whenever any Christian was weak, he felt it in himself; any stumble by a fellow believer, and he himself was burning up (2 Corinthians 11:29).
The communion of saints means that no Christian is exempt from fellowship with any other Christian. The public actions of Christian leaders, from the Pope of Rome to charismatic televangelists and from Chinese house-church pastors to the Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria, reflect on all Christians everywhere. On the local level, a well-educated and wealthy church that glories in its own theological attainments but turns up its nose at the simpler brethren down the street is just as much a disgrace to the Gospel as a church that denies the foreknowledge of God or the deity of Christ—perhaps more so, because it adds hypocrisy to all its other sins.
If you truly love the Lord, and know that the church is His body, how can you be detached from the life of all the Lord’s people? Can you be satisfied with anything less than the intense agonies of Paul, in prayer for the churches and in labor with them until they are fully formed in Christ? Can you do anything other than remember the prisoners, as if you yourselves were chained with them (Hebrews 13:3)? Can you ignore the Holy Spirit’s voice telling you to “rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15)? In this age of information, how can you not seek to know about—and uphold with your prayers and resources—your fellow Christians in Africa, in Asia, in Australia and the Pacific islands, in Europe, in Latin America, in the Middle East?
We are in fact joined to all who are in Christ—past and present, near and far, old and young, of all tribes and languages and cultures. Let us devote ourselves wholeheartedly to the communion of saints, to know and honor our fathers in the faith, to love and serve the Christians of today, and so to glorify God in His Church as it expands throughout the world.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
The Gift of Suffering
“Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God. For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear is in me.”
—Philippians 1:27-29
The Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippian Christians is one of the most profound ironies not only in the Bible, but in the whole history of the human soul. Held fast in a Roman prison, uncertain if he would ever get out alive, Paul penned this letter saturated with peace and joy. He urged his friends not to be afraid of the very real enemies that they faced. Even though persecution and suffering had already come upon the Philippians and could be expected to get worse, they were to rejoice! Why? Because just as their faith in Christ had been granted to them as a gift from God, so also their suffering was a gift. Their choice to receive it from God’s hand, without fear, was a sign that all opposition to them would fail—but that they themselves would be saved.
Christians who lived (like these Philippians) in the first century after Christ could expect to receive severe and very visible persecution for their profession of faith. Many were actually put to death, following in their Lord’s footsteps as they went to execution. The deacon Stephen was stoned to death by enraged Jews in Jerusalem; James, John’s brother, was killed with the sword; and according to ancient Christian tradition, all of the Twelve Apostles except John were eventually martyred for their confessed faith in Christ. The early Church produced too many martyrs to count—men, women, and children who were faithful to the point of death (cf. Revelation 2:10). Alongside these believers who died for their faith, there were many more who were imprisoned, forced out of their homes and livelihoods, and subjected to other kinds of hardships.
Throughout history, there have been many places and times in which Christians have been forced to suffer just like our first-century forefathers. But there have also been times and places where Christians live in relative peace. We Christians of North America who live in the twenty-first century have a life of astonishing ease and comfort, in comparison with many of those who went before us. How should we respond when we read words like Paul’s exhortation to the Philippians quoted above? What should we do when we hear the even more striking words, “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12)? Here Paul is making it sound as though every godly Christian is a suffering Christian! And how are we to react to the Apostle Peter’s words in 1 Peter 4:1, “Since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin”? Here it sounds as if we are to positively choose suffering and seek it out—that suffering is the preferred way for us both to imitate Christ’s example and to be free from sin.
The words of Scripture are true, of course. However, even though suffering for Christ’s sake is a common experience to godly Christians of all times and places, the appearance of that suffering can be very different. We may consider the history of just one country, Egypt, as an illustration of the great range of persecutions that Christians have suffered over time. John Mark—the writer of the “Gospel according to Mark” and the first Christian bishop of Alexandria—suffered a martyr’s death when worshipers of the old Egyptian gods had him dragged behind horses through the streets of the city. Three centuries later, Mark’s successor Athanasius the Great suffered a lesser but still very real persecution, being exiled five times from Alexandria because he affirmed the deity of Christ against the Arian heretics. Samuel the Confessor, an Egyptian Christian who lived in the seventh century, was tortured for his faith both by agents of the Byzantine emperor and by sun-worshiping Berbers. In recent years, some Coptic Christians living in Islamic Egypt have suffered exile from their homes like Athanasius, physical abuse like Samuel, and in a few cases, even death like Mark. Yet for the most part they have experienced less obvious kinds of persecution: being denied a job because they are Christians, or being subjected to the spite and ridicule of others who think they are inferior. All of these kinds of suffering, from simple annoyance and harassment up to and including martyrdom, are joined together as a testimony to the perseverance and faith of the Church in Egypt throughout history.
We must never deny the importance of those Christian heroes who are called to give up their lives, or at least suffer physical torture, for the sake of the Gospel. And yet the experience of suffering that most of us face as Christians in the West is closer to that of our modern Egyptian brothers than to what the ancient ones experienced. Very few of us are called to lay down our lives or go into exile for the Gospel; many more are called to lose respect or social status, or perhaps a job opportunity with its accompanying income, if we resist compromising our faith.
For any Christian reading this paper, the questions to be asked are simple. Do you ever experience some kind of suffering—ridicule, exclusion from social circles, verbal abuse, loss of opportunity, or other hard circumstances—because of your faithfulness in living as a follower of Christ? If so, how ought you to respond to it? If not, why not? The Bible does not teach that persecution and suffering will be constant for Christians, nor does it tell us some arbitrary level to which a person must be persecuted before he can be regarded as truly godly. But if you never experience suffering of any kind for your faith, is your obedience to God really as consistent as it ought to be? Are you compromising with worldliness in your actions, speech, or even thoughts (which shape the rest of a person) and so avoiding persecution because you’re really not so different from the non-believers around you? Or are you hiding the fact that you’re a Christian, trying to “fly under the radar” rather than face the responsibility of living as a servant of God in the middle of an ungodly workplace, extended family, or social network?
While the questions to be asked are simple and hard-hitting, the choices to be made are not always clear-cut. I once went into a job interview carrying a book with a cross symbol prominently displayed on the cover; it was a copy of St. Augustine’s Confessions that I had brought to read while waiting for the interview to start. The interviewer noticed the book and felt called upon to give me a warning: I would be free to read these kinds of books and practice my faith however I wanted on my own time, but I ought not to bring these things directly into my work or be pushy about them with customers. Christians who face situations like this one need to respond, like Daniel, with wisdom and tact (Daniel 2:14). Employers, relatives, and others who set limitations on our visible practice of our faith may simply be trying to preserve external harmony between us and them. Employers are concerned that we not become deadbeat employees who abuse work hours to advance our own “spiritual” purposes. Likewise, family members who do not share our faith in Christ may prefer to stay away from arguments over religion. We need to find ways to honor their sincere concerns, make a good-faith effort to avoid unprofitable talk and actions in the name of Christ, and still maintain a Christian testimony that is both peaceable and courageous. In other words, if we do eventually find ourselves suffering for what we do and say, that suffering had better be for the right reasons.
The Apostle Peter warns that not all of the suffering of Christians is worthy of praise. Christians may suffer for all the things that people of the world suffer for (murder, theft, unethical actions, meddling in other people’s business) and be worse off after their suffering, not better (1 Peter 4:15). On the other hand, if you are truly suffering for the sake of righteousness, several other factors must be in place. First, you have sanctified the Lord God in your heart, that is, acknowledged Him as holy and devoted yourself to Him. Second, you are ready to answer those who ask you about the source of your hope. (It’s true that Paul predicted persecution for the godly, but this is the other side of the same coin. If you never experience suffering, you have reason to ask whether you are truly living for God as you ought. But you should be asking that same question if you find that you are not filled with an inner hope, one that makes even pagans take notice.) Last but not least—in fact, Peter places this point first—if you are really suffering for righteousness, you are blessed for what you suffer. (1 Peter 3:14-15) If your suffering is for doing wrong, there is no blessing from God in it; but if it is truly for the sake of righteousness, you will know that God is with you and will vindicate you—even if you do not see this triumphant result for a long time.
Now at last we return to the second of the puzzling exhortations about suffering that we considered earlier. This one also comes from Peter: “Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin” (1 Peter 4:1). We have seen that suffering comes in many different forms, but in one way or another should be expected by every godly Christian. Well, then, a choice to be godly is a choice to suffer; and a choice to suffer for godliness is a choice for what should be every Christian’s greatest desire: to follow in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus. If you set your mind to be godly, you are also placing yourself on the path of suffering. But rejoice! When in this way you choose to suffer for the sake of Christ, you are also putting the greatest distance possible between yourself and sin. Once you are so devoted to righteousness that you suffer for it, what place does the negation of righteousness have any more in your life? And once your mind is set on godliness and your body is imprinted with righteous suffering, you can know for certain that God is at work in you to conform you into the image of His Son.
