Tag Archives: Jesus Christ

Non-fiction, Religion

Joy Beyond Agony by Jane Roach

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Jane Roach has written a strong, deeply moving study of Christ Jesus and the cross that I hope becomes the talk of many congregations. Joy Beyond Agony: Embracing the Cross of Christ, new this year from P&R Publishing, takes twelve lessons to dig into the immeasurable wealth of Christ Jesus’ character and his work on the cross.

For readers who don’t skip the introduction, Roach encourages us to set goals for our Bible study in order to clarify our intentions and pray that the Lord will help us meet them. “Lurking behind our goals and best efforts are our past failures in keeping up with them,” she explains. Part of that failure may be simply leaving our goals undefined and consequently unfulfilled. “We find ourselves captive to empty pursuits that gobble up precious time,” she says. If we identify those pursuits or the time slots they fill, we will be better able to replace them, and then we’ll see the spiritual growth we’ve been hoping to see.

In the study itself, she leads readers through a full 360 review of the cross and its implications for us. In one lesson: “How can God’s gracious promises come true for guilty people? How can the Holy One of Israel bless sinful people?” In another lesson, she walks through Jesus’ seven “I am” statements, such as “I am the bread of life,” to reveal the character of one who hung on that cross.

With prayers, faith stories, insightful questions, and personal instruction, Roach has written a beautiful study on the joy that was set before our Lord.

In one story, a woman with cancer describes how her church communities poured out their love for her. “The more kindness I was shown, the more frustrated I became, and the more frustrated I grew with myself for being so ungrateful. When I finally put words to my frustration, I realized I was angry that I was utterly undeserving. . . . I must–there is no other way–I must abandon my pride and self-reliance and cling to his cross and his mercy.”

I hope Joy Beyond Agony will be able to drive home that one glorious idea to thousands of American Evangelical families this year and next, so that we will know the joy of Christ far more intimately than anything in this world.

Non-fiction, Reviews

Resting In-Between

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In The In-Between: Embracing the Tension Between Now and the Next Big Thing, by Jeff Goins, we have a light-weight book on living in the present. No exegesis of the origin of the word wait (Middle English from Anglo-French). No history of waiting or relevant thoughts recorded by ancient thinkers. Goins gives us his own thoughts teased out of stories from his life. His point: “What we were hoping for, what we dreamed would be a larger-than-life experience, ends up looking a lot like morning breath and spreadsheets.”
With stories about Christmas and Epiphany in Spain, on falling in love and becoming a parent, and on leading worship services for prisoners in Washington, he tells us that the in-between times are dull but good. “The good life comes like most good things,” he says, “unexpectedly—in moments that are fading away faster than we realize.”
Toward the end, Goins says he has always been reluctant to push religion on anyone, but that’s what this book needs. Despite the background of church and faith in almost every story, the book points to personal contentment rather than to Christ. A Buddhist could do this. What we need during the in-between times is not a reminder to bless those around us or that we can learn from the slow places in our lives. We need to remember the work and glory of Christ Jesus, whose spiritual wealth is far greater than anything we can achieve with our hard work.
I can understand this reluctance, if it comes from that contemporary desire to askew religion in favor of our relationship with our Lord Jesus, but when we hide from the truth because we can’t stomach religious terminology, we harm ourselves and our readers. The gospel of Christ trips people. They take offense at it, and so do we. We need to understand that such squeamishness comes from our sinful pride, our desire to manage our own lives without submission to the King of Kings. When we understand that we live under the authority of Christ, our Lord, then we can handle the in-between times with greater patience.
Disclosure: I received this book for free in exchange for my honest review.

Religion

Why it’s not called “Very Bad, No Good, Horrible Friday”

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Tissot, “The Sorrowful Mother”

It’s a darker than usual Good Friday for me. I just got word that my boss, the dean of our seminary, a gentle and godly man, passed away suddenly today. He just wrote me a recommendation for graduate school. It must have been one of the very last things he did in his office.

He sat across from me in my office about a week ago, and we discussed our ages. I said I was pretty old to start working for a Master’s. He said, “I’m a decade older than you, and I’m not planning to go anywhere.”

Is it good to die on Good Friday? A complicated question, as is the whole matter of “Good” Friday.

As far as I can tell, there are two major ways of explaining evil in the world (outside of the popular view that “it’s all garbage, so let’s just have a good time until we die”) today. One is what might be called the Buddhist Way, which understands evil to be an illusion, because existence itself is an illusion, so there’s no point getting upset.

The other is what I’ll call the Christian Way (though there are probably non-Christians who hold it in some variety). That way calls for citing the Old Testament statement that “God is a Man of War,” and believing that evil is real, but that He is in the process of defeating it.

Both ways have their problems, and cannot be proved by logic or science. But I know which suits me better. Continue reading Why it’s not called “Very Bad, No Good, Horrible Friday” →

Non-fiction, Religion, Reviews

Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me, by Ian Morgan Cron

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Ian Morgan Cron grew up with a deep, unsatisfied hunger for the love of his father. He tells the story of his struggle to understand and forgive in the memoir, Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me, A Memoir… Of Sorts. His father was, when Ian was young, an executive with a motion picture company. The family lived in Europe and hobnobbed with movie stars and political figures.

Then his father’s career crashed on the rock of his alcoholism. The family moved home to Greenwich, Connecticut, to a life of marginal poverty (sure, it wasn’t Harlem, but the contrast of their own lives with those of their wealthy neighbors just made it harder for the kids). His mother made a new career in time that gave them some financial stability, but his father’s continuing blackouts and rages left wounds Ian couldn’t deal with.

In his religious life, Ian went from an innocent, youthful love of Jesus to bitterness and atheism, when Jesus failed to give him the one thing he asked for—a sober father. He experimented with drinking, was scared by his own reaction, and settled into drugs for a while before taking up drinking again.

It was only after many years that Ian learned his father’s great secret—he’d been a CIA agent. Many spies are alcoholics and narcissists, he learned. They’re suited to the life.

Only the realization that he was himself turning into his father drove Ian to seek counseling, and finally to reconcile with God.

Ian Cron writes with a light touch and the kind of mordant humor you’re familiar with if you’ve read authors who suffered child abuse (and believe me, you have). His account of his journey back to faith is in many places touching and moving. The personal revelation that reconciles him to Christ at one point is one that some Christians may have trouble with. I’m not sure about it myself, but I generally try not to judge another Christian’s deepest confidence.

Hints in the course of the story suggest to me that Cron’s final faith road brings him closer to Tony Campolo than to James Dobson, but those hints are lightly touched on and need not spoil the story for those of us who trust the Bible more than our hearts.

Recommended, especially for Christians who come from dysfunctional homes. Or those who want to understand them better.

Non-fiction, Religion, Reviews

Your Jesus Is Too Safe, by Jared Wilson

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Jared Wilson is, among other things, a pastor, a writer, and a participant at one of our favorite blogs, The Thinklings. Phil has already reviewed his recent book, Your Jesus is Too Safe, but I’d like to say a few things about it too.
I picked it up without great anticipation, assuming from the title that it would probably be lots of things I already knew, plus a guilt trip on a deeper Christian life which would only depress me. But I read it with great interest (almost the same as if it had been a novel), and benefited it from it. Continue reading Your Jesus Is Too Safe, by Jared Wilson →

Religion

Luther on Meditating on Christ's Suffering

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Martin Luther (1483-1546)

[Some] so sympathize with Christ as to weep and lament for him because he was so innocent, like the women who followed Christ from Jerusalem, whom he rebuked, in that they should better weep for themselves and for their children. Such are they who run far away in the midst of the Passion season, and are greatly benefitted by the departure of Christ from Bethany and by the pains and sorrows of the Virgin Mary, but they never get farther. Hence they postpone the Passion many hours, and God only knows whether it is devised more for sleeping than for watching. And among these fanatics are those who taught what great blessings come from the holy mass, and in their simple way they think it is enough if they attend mass. To this we are led through the sayings of certain teachers, that the mass opere operati, non opere operantis, is acceptable of itself, even without our merit and worthiness, just as if that were enough. Nevertheless the mass was not instituted for the sake of its own worthiness, but to prove us, especially for the purpose of meditating upon the sufferings of Christ. For where this is not done, we make a temporal, unfruitful work out of the mass, however good it may be in itself. For what help is it to you, that God is God, if he is not God to you? What benefit is it that eating and drinking are in themselves healthful and good, if they are not healthful for you, and there is fear that we never grow better by reason of our many masses, if we fail to seek the true fruit in them?

… St. Bernard was so terror-stricken by Christ’s sufferings that he said: I imagined I was secure and I knew nothing of the eternal judgment passed upon me in heaven, until I saw the eternal Son of God took mercy upon me, stepped forward and offered himself on my behalf in the same judgment.

Non-fiction, Reviews

Your Jesus Is Too Safe, by Jared C. Wilson

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Your Jesus Is Too Safe, by Jared C. Wilson

The title of Jared’s first book, Your Jesus Is Too Safe: Outgrowing a Drive-Thru, Feel-Good Savior, brings to mind J.B. Phillips’ classic book, Your God Is Too Small: Miracle Grow for Your Puny Religious Imagination (OK, I made up that subtitle, and Phillips would not have thought it funny). What I remember most of Phillips’ book is the first part, the destructive part, in which he tears down inadequate views of the Almighty. I expected to find Jared’s book similarly organized, but it isn’t. He doesn’t spend much time describing poor views of Jesus, like Hippie Jesus or the inhuman Flannel-graph Jesus. He touches on them in the context of healthy views on Jesus’ role as a shepherd, a judge, a prophet, a king, and many others.

Something Jared says while discussing one role puts a finger on his approach to the whole book. “In contemplating Jesus as Shepherd, I’m most tempted to make a short list of things shepherds do—the shepherd’s responsibilities chart—and cram Jesus into and see how he fits. Some books actually take this tack. I believe this is a backward way to go about things—sort of getting the cart before the horse . . . or sheep, I guess.” Jesus—the real, historic, biblical Jesus—is the focus on the book. If a reader finds it unfamiliar or oddly lacking in application, then I suggest they question whether they may be influenced by preaching and reading that presents the Christian life as a pattern of moral behaviors, who Jesus is not being nearly as important as what he supposedly wants us to do. Your Jesus Is Too Safe is a Christian Living book, but not a book with 40 ways to have a victorious Christian life. Just to iron out any possible subtly here, the latter book is the safe one; this book isn’t safe.

It isn’t too dangerous either. Even though Jared jokes about making readers angry when talking about Jesus’ humanity, (he says people in some circles get riled at the suggestion that Jesus may have relieved his bowels at some point during his life) he does not draw excessive lines in the sand and call out the heretics lurking in every church. He is very charitable, while presenting sound, biblical portraits of Jesus. I appreciate how he reasons deeply from the Scripture and does not fill each chapter with personal stories or extra-biblical illustrations. It’s a darn good book, in other words.

One outstanding point of interest for readers of Brandywine Books is the section on Jesus’ human intelligence. Jared quotes from Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy to say Jesus isn’t generally considered smart because “the world has succeeded in opposing intelligence to goodness.” Saintly people who are also brilliant are considered anomalies in the world, if their brilliance is recognized (I suppose Chesterton’s Father Brown was one). Some Christians take this idea so far as to discourage heavy study, even in theology, but noting that Jesus was God in human form, Jared states “anytime a Christian denies the importance of reading, learning, and studying . . . one is, practically speaking, denying the incarnation.” So loving the Lord our God with all our minds may mean reading Plato or Shakespeare because doing so would enrich our imaginations.

Continue reading Your Jesus Is Too Safe, by Jared C. Wilson →
Authors, Non-fiction, Religion

The Friday Fight: Good Friday

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(Isaiah 53) Who has believed what he has heard from us?

And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

For he grew up before him like a young plant,

and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

and no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

and as for his generation, who considered

that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people?

And they made his grave with the wicked

and with a rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;

he has put him to grief;

when his soul makes an offering for guilt,

he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;

the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;

by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

make many to be accounted righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,

because he poured out his soul to death

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and makes intercession for the transgressors.