A story is told about the waning days of the Soviet Union in which a Communist party official boasts of the great success of communism and its victory over human delusions such as religion.  After his talk, a Russian Orthodox bishop asks to speak three words and is given permission.

The bishop comes to the microphone and shouts, "Christ is risen!"  Thousands of people leap to their feet and shout, "Christ is risen, indeed!"  These are the familiar words of the liturgy of the Orthodox Church, and they had deep roots in the hearts and minds of people, which years of communism failed to eradicate.

These are also words of the Easter liturgy used in many churches today.  What does it mean to say, "Christ is risen, indeed!"?

One thing it means is that the world is different since then.  I was elated over Duke's winning Coach K's 800^th basketball victory.  I hope Duke wins the NCAA tournament, that Coach K reaches 1000 wins, and that Bo Pelini's Nebraska Corhusker football team goes undefeated this year.

But what do these have to do with a world in which a child dies from hunger every 6 seconds, where nations are at war, and where global forces of evil are at work striving for domination and dehumanization of God's Earth?  Nothing, really.  Not to mention that I believe athletic contests are won by human effort, not divine intervention.

Christ risen from the grave is something else.  It was not by human effort, as it can't be done.  It is God highlighting and underscoring the life and death of his Son, Jesus Christ, and putting the exclamation point behind, "Christ is risen, indeed!"

The world isn't the same for those who believe and live like it.  It means everything in human history is lived in the light of that truth.  While it does have something to do with a future hope of heaven, it is profoundly and fundamentally significant for how we live now.

Anglican Bishop N.T. 'Tom' Wright's new book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church challenges Christians to seriously rethink some of the notions we blithely hold about these things.

The bodily resurrection of Jesus is the basis for Christian hope in the resurrection of the body.  We're not just spirits that fly off to a nonmaterial existence where we abide forever.  Jesus has redeemed creation, itself.  This world matters to God.  This is important for a number of reasons, of which I want to mention a couple.

First, the view commonly held by many American Protestants that focuses on the 'end times' and a rapture and escape from this world and its destruction misses a deeper and more consistent biblical teaching that Jesus is returning to rule and reign on this earth.  The new earth is this one, redeemed.  (This is a  simplification with the  caveat that much more can be said on this subject.)

Thus, this world does matter. Scripturally informed Christian responses to critical issues such as the environment and global economic justice are necessary.  There is no other option.  Modern atheistic Darwinism has no foundation for the morals and ethics necessary to a just global society, and neither does a modern theological liberalism that has jettisoned the authority of Scripture to make room for the politics of experience.

Second, the Christian community matters as God's appointed witness testifying to the truth of what God has done and is doing in and through Jesus.  As the Apostle John wrote, "Greater is he [Christ] who is in us than he who is in the world."  What unites us is always great than what divides us.

The death of Jesus, crucified for our sins and risen, judges our internal strife as selfish and petty.  What hope for reconciliation in a fractured world does a church portray to the world when wracked by factions and resentments?  When such is our witness, we're no different than the world.  If this is our public testimony, why should we think that we offer something to the world it doesn't already have in abundance?

Is it possible that resisting, or refusing, the call of Jesus to become his new community that not only claims to offer an alternative to the world, but lives it, is resisting, or refusing, Jesus himself?

Jesus said his followers would be known for their love for one another.  His closing prayer with his closest friends and followers included a plea for their unity, and for ours.

We'll not be known as followers of Jesus, therefore, by the rightness of our opinions or our own perceived superiority of our judgments about God, one another, or ourselves.  As the song goes, "they will know we are Christians by our love."  That's where we must always return and begin.

There is no greater love than that which God has shown for us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  As Paul wrote to the Romans, "You see, at just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:6,8).

This love has the power to cast out all fear.  This love frees us to love and be loved.  This love is fiercer than death.  This love refuses to accept the status quo of either the Church or the World, and is committed to making both better by the power of the Holy Spirit, working in us, in love.  I am asking the Lord to fill me with more of this love.

Will you join me in coming to Easter this year celebrating not only God's victory over death, but also the expectation of his final victory over all the brokenness in our world?  Evil's days are numbered.  The days of those who live in love in the Lord are endless.

Christ is risen!  Christ is risen, indeed!!  Hallelujah!!!

What would it be like if our attitudes toward our faith extended to our personal or professional life? For many, the result would be no understanding of new technology or information. It might be failure to understand a rapidly changing world. Much of what is reported by the media as 'news' is simply tabloid information. It may be 'news', per se, but is of no real importance or significance. It is somewhat ironic that the Good News of the Gospel really isn't new, and it doesn't even change with time. But it is always news to those who haven't heard or don't understand it, and it's always GOOD NEWS.

We risk beginning a slide into ignorance or deception when we know just enough to think we know enough and quit learning about following Jesus. Our growth stops. We can become like the caterpillar that said to another caterpillar as they watched a butterfly in flight, "You'll never catch me going up in one of those."

Basic math won't produce manned flight, let alone air travel or going into Space. We're created to soar in spirit, and learn to do so in the tutelage of the Holy Spirit. We're to come to the adventure of faith child-like, not child-ish. When we view the Bible through uninformed childish eyes we may think it doesn't tell us enough about life. That primes us for deception.

The phenomenal success of books like 'The Secret' by Rhonda Byrne shows that many are gullible in the Christian community as well as the secular. This book in particular not only reveals nothing new, but is a rehash of New Age thought that panders to wretched human self-fulfillment and trivializes human suffering by identifying the latter as the result of negative thought. Some human suffering is indeed the result of negative thinking, but that offers no explanation for victims of genocide, mass rape in Darfur, the scale of HIV in Africa, famine, or child abuse. A little truth, stretched, quickly becomes a deception and then a lie.

Biblical illiteracy combined with the American drift of secularization affects even the Church. Ben Witherington puts it well in a recent blog, when he writes: "The "me" culture of the West, bent on radical individualism has been endorsed, even co-opted and taken over and baptized by the church. Rather than countering the narcissism of the culture, we cater to it, with all sorts of 'needs' based preaching and teaching that is long on 'how to's' and very thin on Biblical substance. But frankly 'how to' doesn't help if you don't first know 'what for' or even 'why bother'." ('Ignorance is Bliss? Biblical Illiteracy in the West'; August 25, 2007) Amen, brother!

There IS a secret for the followers of Jesus. Paul writes in Philippians 4:12b-13, "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength." Oops! It's not a secret anymore. Now you, too, can know, "I can do all things through Christ." I have a suggestion for you: say that seven times out loud, shifting the word emphasis each time. It can change your life. That's not a secret, either.

It does, however, remain a mystery for those who think they need more than what Christ offers, or who don't care enough to pursue their spiritual growth.

Jesus spoke of a time like this in the 24th chapter of Matthew. He describes many being deceived and led astray by false teachers and false prophets, and says, "Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of many will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved" (v.12-13). 'Standing firm' is a military term having to do with holding your place in military formation. The strays are the most easily picked off by the enemy. Dying and not knowing it may seem the bliss of ignorance, but it still ends in death.

Matthew 24 is full of 'signs' of the end. Perhaps most poignant is in verses 36-40 where Jesus describes the time of the end as being like as the 'days of Noah'. "For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." What is so amazing here is that the primary sign of the end is the simple way that people obliviously go about their every day activities without an eye to God. We see plenty enough other signs that are more dramatic, but this one is perhaps the scariest.

George Barna recently sampled the Christian community on faith issues. Barna is to the American Christian world what George Gallup is to American culture, and his methodology is first-rate. This was part of Barna's conclusion: "Many of the same people who claim that their faith is very important to them and that they are absolutely committed to Christianity also say that they face no spiritual challenges in life. Many other adults are only vaguely aware of such challenges, and do not put much energy into addressing them. Americans focus on what they consider to be the most important matters; faith maturity is not one of them. The dominant spiritual change that we have seen - Americans becoming less engaged in matters of faith - helps to explain the surging secularization of our culture." ('Americans Not Concerned About Their Spiritual Condition'; August 6, 2007)

Is your love growing cold and/or your passion for the things of God fading? Why not today make a decision that you will participate regularly not only in regular worship but also in a small group for spiritual growth, starting now.

Nicky Gumbel tells the story about three demons debating about the best way to get a Christian to fall away from Christ. The first said, "I will tell him there is no God." The others responded by saying that all one has to do is look around at the world of nature and see overwhelming evidence in the existence of a wise and good Creator.

The second said, "I will tell him there is no sin." The others pointed out that all one has to do is turn on the television or pick up a newspaper to see that this isn't true. The world is full of human evil.

The third demon said, "I'll tell him there is no hurry." He won the prize.

SEEING JESUS

    Charlie Trimble, who invented one of the first hand-held GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) devices, told about traveling in Africa on the road coming north out of Nairobi, Kenya.  I've been there several times, and somewhere have a picture of me at that very spot in 1983.  There's quite the commercial operation there -- souvenir stands, food, and a big sign saying you've reached the equator.  Anyway, Charlie's friends were taking a picture of him with the new GPS when he looks down and discovers they're not at the equator! The GPS is showing that it's up the road.  So they find the chief of this little hamlet, and they explain about these satellites going around the earth, etc., and tell him that the real equator is a mile up the road. The chief says, "Oh, we knew that, but the parking up there is terrible.  This works better for us." 

     How often do we settle for something that we know is off only because 'it works better for us'?  'Better' is always a relative term.  We'll settle for what we know until we see something better.  This is about seeing something better.

     The fine actor Albert Finney does a great job of playing the cameo role of John Newton in the recent film 'Amazing Grace', an excellent film in my opinion.  Newton is perhaps best known in history for composing the hymn for which the film is named.

     Newton's journey to composing hymns was one of fits and starts.  His mother was a close friend of Isaac Watts, one of the great hymnodists of his own day.  She raised John to know the stories and sing the songs of Christian faith.  She died when he was six.  His father remarried, and young John was sent off to live with his stepmother's father in order to get an education.

     He turned out to be a fine scholar, excelling in Latin and mathematics, but not a good classmate.  He frequently got into fights and was verbally abusive.  An alternative was needed, and war with the French provided the opportunity.  Going to sea was an option and his father arranged a commission in the Royal Navy as a Midshipman.  John made a fine sailor but a poor shipmate.  He was drunk whenever possible, was abusive and profane, and he reserved his greatest scorn and violence for Christians.  He was known as a consistent blasphemer of God and a relentless persecutor of Christians on ship. 

     In time, he was too much for even the Navy and was transferred to the merchant marine.  On a voyage back to England from the West Indies he found a Christian book and began to read.  While underway, a monster storm arose that began to break the ship apart.  Men are washed overboard before Newton's eyes.  All provisions gone and the ship barely afloat, they make port in Ireland.  Within hours a fresh gale arises that would certainly have broached their ship and sunk it.

     Newton begins to realize that he has been thinking about God wrongly.  Instead of constantly questioning why his life is so troubled, he begins to question why he has been shown mercy.  He commits himself to Christ, a path that will eventually lead him into the ministry of the Anglican Church and a new calling as a popular preacher and hymn writer.  The first verse of his best-known composition is: 

                Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
                I was was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.

     John Newton had a revelation of the risen Jesus.  That is what I needed in my younger days. 

     Like Newton, I lost a parent at an early age after being raised to love Jesus and serve God.  My father, who was a pastor and my hero, died of cancer that was fast and nasty.  I never quit believing in God, strangely enough.  But I hated him.  To me, God was either to be pitied for not being able to do a better job of creating the world (a view expressed in sophisticated form in Rabbi Kushner's famous 'When Bad Things Happen to Good People') OR to be despised for being powerful, yet capricious and even mean.

     I remember my first magnifying glass, a cheap piece of plastic from a cereal box or something similar. I found out that I could set things on fire, and remember trying it on an ant that burst in to flames.  God was rather like that, to my young mind.  One never knows when he might turn the lens on you and give you a disease or a disaster.  That is how I saw God, much like John Newton. 

     In other words, I was well off the mark in understanding God, but it worked for me until I encountered the risen and living Lord and found out where the problem was.  It wasn't with him.  That revelation changed the direction of my life forever, and I am forever grateful.

    Lately I've been fascinated with the 9^th chapter of Acts, in the New Testament.  The 8^th chapter ends with an African court official meeting Jesus and seeing him for who he is.  Chapter 9 begins with Saul "breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples."  Saul is on the way to the city of Damascus with warrants to arrest followers of Jesus and imprison them.  He has already arranged the murder of Stephen, and perhaps others.  Saul hates Jesus and anyone having anything to do with Jesus.  He believes that Jesus was a fraud, and that his followers need to be exterminated.  He is the 'terminator' pursuing the early Christian movement, and he is a formidable foe. 

     On the way to Damascus, he meets Jesus beyond doubt.  He is blinded by the encounter, but receives his sight when prayed for by a disciple named Ananias.  Paul quite literally could say, "I was blind but now I see."  He begins to preach Jesus as the Son of God, to the amazement of all.  The fiercest foe of the Faith became its proclaimer, totally sold out for Jesus.  He had seen the Lord, and nothing would ever be the same and nothing could cause him to fear death.  Having given his life to Christ, it could not be taken from him and nothing anywhere could separate him from the love of God he'd come to know.

     Acts 9 continues with Peter, who brings healing to a lame man in the name of Jesus and then raises a woman from death by the same power.  What is amazing about this is Peter's journey to get there. 

     Peter was the first to get the revelation from God that Jesus was beyond a doubt the Messiah, the Son of God.  In response, Jesus informs Peter and the disciples of his mission to suffer and die in Jerusalem.  Peter says, "Never, Lord…." In my house, that would be, "No way!… I don't THINK so!… Uh UH!" Something like that.  And I would deserve what Peter got: "Get behind me Satan… you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."  Peter had been given some understanding, but it was incomplete.

     On the night of Jesus' death, at his last meal with his disciples, Jesus announces that he will be betrayed and abandoned.  Peter declares that he will die before he ever denies Jesus.  A short time later, they go to the garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus asks Peter and two others to watch and pray with him.  In the darkest hour of prayer Jesus ever faces, Peter falls asleep.  When awakened by the posse coming to arrest Jesus, Peter cuts of the ear of one of them.  (I sometimes wake up cranky from interrupted naps, too!) 

    A short time later, Jesus is on trial for his life.  Peter is outside and in earshot.  Someone accuses him of being a follower of Jesus.  Peter curses and denies knowing him.  This happens three times.  After the third time, according to Luke, Jesus looks straight at him.  Uh oh…  Peter breaks down in shame and guilt and fear and runs for his life.  Back when my two sons lived with me, there would be bad days when one or the other would look at me and say, "Sucks to be you."  I think it was that kind of day for Peter, to say the least.

    But Jesus understood.  In the Gospel of Mark, most likely the closest account to Peter's own, Jesus says on the morning of his resurrection to the women who come and find him risen from the grave, "Go tell the disciples AND PETER…. " (emphasis mine).  In John's account, Jesus appears after his resurrection to the disciples at the Sea of Galilee.  There Peter has the opportunity to declare his love for Jesus, and Jesus tells him, "Feed my sheep."  Peter saw the risen Jesus and nothing would ever be the same. 

     The fearful failure became a faithful communicator of the love of God in word and deed.  People heard him preach and accepted Jesus as their savior and lord.  He became an instrument of the healing power of Jesus, even to the point that his shadow seemed to carry the Lord's power.  Peter did the same works Jesus had done, and became one of the greatest men in human history, even dying on a cross rather than deny his faith.

     Seeing Jesus made the difference and still does.  Our eyes are blinded and our vision veiled until we turn toward him.  As Saul would later write about this veil, now as Paul, "only in Christ is it taken away….. whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.  Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 2: 14-18, NIV). 

     We are not transformed so that we can reflect his glory.  We are transformed AS we reflect his glory.  We reflect what we are turned toward.  I want to see Jesus in such a way that his reflection becomes a focused reflected beam of incredibly powerful love that changes the world on which it shines for good.

     The recent Oscar-nominated movie, Blood Diamond, is a powerful movie about good and evil set in the Sierra Leone civil war in 1999.  It isn't for the squeamish.  Leonardo DiCaprio earned a Best Actor nomination for his portrayal of Danny Archer, a mercenary soldier turned diamond hunter.

    Danny grew up in Rhodesia, where he experienced a civil war as a child.  In a quiet moment, he shares what he had witnessed.  "My mom was raped and shot.  Dad was decapitated and hung from a hook in the barn. Sometimes I wonder if God will ever forgive us for what we've done. Then I look around and I realize God left this place a long time ago."

    In the wake of events such as the massacre at Virginia Tech, people are tempted to believe the same thing.

    I recently heard a pastor tell a group of children that the massacre occurred because the Holy Spirit is slowly being withdrawn from the earth in preparation for the Rapture of the Church before the Antichrist is revealed.  God hasn't left a long time ago; he's just slowly leaving, a bit at a time.  Lord help us when we are taught stuff like that.  But this isn't a piece about eschatology.

    In truth, there is more evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our world than ever.  More and more people are coming to Christ around the world, healings and miracles are normative, and people are even raised from the dead.  A good friend of mine who is a Bishop in Nigeria was declared dead as a youth.  His parents prayed and dedicated him to the Lord's service, and he came back to life.  I have been in another church in Nigeria where people have been raised from the dead.  It may not be common, but it happens.  The growth of the Christian movement in China is supernatural.  It is the Western world and the USA where we don't witness the same intensity of revival.  But God is at work here, too.

    The only place God has left is the tomb in which Christ was buried and the hell where Jesus waited for Resurrection morning.  God is very much among us and at work.  The new age of the Kingdom of God has begun.  But the old continues for a while.

     I dug out the newsletter column that I wrote following the Columbine massacre, eight years ago this month.  It was interesting to see that much of what I wrote is the kind of thing being discussed by the media in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings.

     In the media feeding frenzy following the tragedy, the question repeatedly asked was, "Why?"  We do know a lot more about the shooter now than we did then, and we know he was an extremely broken and disturbed man, driven by demonic power.  But that really doesn't answer the question.  There doesn't seem to be a link between him and the victims of the second go-round, and he doesn't fit an existing profile for a mass murderer.

     So, we don't know the answer to that question.  But there is a larger question to be asked: "Why not?"  Why are we so surprised?

     For one thing, it's happened before. Charles Whitman killed numerous University of Texas students a half century ago. We've had mass killings such as the Manson murders.  Someone coined the expression, "going postal," to describe actions of violent rage and lethal intent.  Columbine was but one of many schools to experience murderous attacks on children, of which the pictures of the Amish schoolhouse slayings are relatively fresh in my memory.

    Mass murders have occurred in workplaces and there has even been a McDonalds where one day the extreme opposite of a Happy Meal was served up with a gun.

    Yet we act surprised when it happens again, as if our nation should be exempt.

     And that brings up another point: this kind of thing happens around our world every day.  Perhaps our witnessing the horror that occurred at Blacksburg, Virginia, can allow us to better understand life in Baghdad and a host of other Iraqi cities, not to mention Jerusalem, Gaza, or the West Bank.

     The violence in southern Sudan went on for two decades with a death toll in the millions.  It continues in Darfur, another part of Sudan.

     Numerous locations in Africa have seen armies of young boys conscripted to fight and perform acts of carnage (grimly but fairly portrayed in 'Blood Diamond').  Mass killings marked wars in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mozambique, Uganda, Somalia, Angola, Biafra, ad nauseam.

     It happened in Bosnia, it's happened in Latin America and Asia.  It's a global phenomenon, because humans inhabit the earth.

     Therefore no place is completely safe.  No one can guarantee the safety of our children.  What we CAN do is to try to make the world a better place and try to make our children into better people.  That requires you and me becoming better people in the process.  The shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech didn't occur in a corner.

     Americans in their early twenties grew up in a cultural context that has shaped their worldview.  They are products of a culture of selfishness.

     The generation of their parents is the most divorced in history.  Relationships are castaway commodities, often regardless of who suffers.

     Then there is abortion.  Tens of millions of Americans haven't survived the womb since 1973.  The value of a human life has been steadily eroded.  Thank God for the recent Supreme Court decision putting the brakes on this trend.  Life has become way too cheap in our country, and this is part of the problem.

     The American emphasis on individual rights has glorified individualism and personal freedom.  I thank God for our freedoms and rights.  However, this view of the world tends to reduce other persons to objects of relative value to be used for one's personal fulfillment.

     Witness the casual reduction of God-given sexuality, intended for the marriage bed, to 'hooking up'.  Sexual intimacy is not much different for many from going out for coffee.  Of course, it's only physical intimacy with no spiritual connection, and that is a problem.  People become objects for gratification, and this grossly dehumanizes their true value.

     I recently read a comment of congratulations on the MySpace page for a Louisville college student for a 'first Spring Break'.  I don't know what that means for this individual and don't want to read more into it than it deserves.  But the 'Spring Break' phenomenon in modern American jargon usually means a trip somewhere for the purpose of heavy drinking and casual sex ('hooking up').  One's first such trip becomes a rite of passage to adulthood.  How sad.

     Joe Francis has made tens of millions of dollars persuading college age women to take their clothes off in front of a camera for 'Girls Gone Wild' videos.  One need not be imaginative to assume that much of his filming is done on Spring Break, where personal judgment is easily clouded by alcohol and/or drugs and relaxed morals.  Francis was ordered to jail this week for contempt of court due to his refusal to heed the admonishments of the judge presiding over the case of the several women who have sued Francis for filming them nude when they were minors.

     As a supporter of free enterprise, I allow Joe Francis the right to start a business like this, even if I deplore his choice.  But what about the millions of Americans shelling out the money to buy these videos?  Porn, in general, is a multi-billion dollar industry in the USA that thrives on the objectification of humans, reducing their God-given value to a commodity to be used for personal gratification.  Children and young adults are the subjects for most of the porn.

     I could go on, but I think this is sufficient to show that we have a problem in our nation that is deep, with serious social ramifications.

     Among them is the truth that millions of young Americans have been raised without the solid foundation that grounds them in the truth that empowers and reinforces good ethical choices.  This is a problem with parents, not children.

     Well-intending parents may end up raising children who believe they are the center of the universe.  Few desires go unmet.  Most teens in our area have their own cars, their own cell phones, their own computers, etc.  These are useful, but not essential to success. Parents may bend over to attend every event and provide every advantage in order to raise children with good self-esteem who are prepared to be successful in the world.  We hope.

     I learned from a house I lived in that whatever is built on a faulty foundation eventually cracks.  We can cover up the cracks with new paint, but it will crack again.   Is it possible that what we are seeing around us are the cracks that result from a faulty foundation?

     Don't look to me as a model for parenting perfect kids.  I'm one of the crowd who would love to be able to do some things differently, including preserving them from the pain of a divorce.  I can't do it over, but there are some things I have learned about life.

     One is that the failure to provide children with the kind of foundation that equips them for making good moral choices is epidemic.  We wink at cheating in school and recreational use of alcohol by minors.  We overlook the sexual precociousness of teens. We reinforce their self-centeredness in many ways.  Even many 'Christian' parents are not concerned about the lack of a true Christian worldview in their children, and send them off to college without one.

     Why, then, are we surprised when massacres such as the one at Virginia Tech happen?  We should be horrified, and we should be shocked, and we should weep for the loss of lives and for the scars on their families as well as those who survived.  But should we be surprised?

     I believe we need better gun control laws, though not necessarily more of them.  The Bush administration and Congress have failed in that respect.  I also think we need better safety systems in schools; we have the technology. I think we need much better preparation of our children for these events, because there will be more unless there is systemic change.

     And I think that until we come to a deep repentance over our collusion with a culture that has devalued life by disregarding God's revealed truth, that we will continue to reap what we have sown where one person's life is just an object for someone else's selfish ends.

     Aren't there good reasons for bringing children to church and raising them with a world-view built on the Word of God?  We can't change the past, but we can shape the future.  God has great plans for our children.  There are many young Christians in their early twenties who are passionate for Jesus and his kingdom who are making a difference in our world already.  We need to pray for them and stand with them in encouragement as they take up the cause of Christ.

    The devil has evil plans for them.  We're the ones who help shape the outcome, by our prayers and our actions.  Let's change tomorrow's headlines starting today.

Shall we cancel Easter?

I remember an apocryphal story about a famous modern theologian being called by the Vatican.  He was told that the bones of Jesus had been discovered, and the Pope was wondering what to do.  He slapped his head and said, "Oh, no; Jesus really DID live!"

Modernized biblical scholars of a century ago struggled with the question of whether there was an actual historical Jesus, or if he was an artifact of the faith of the early Church.  Few of any serious academic stature now believe that the Jesus of Scripture didn't really live.  The modern and post-modern questions turn on whether we can trust the documents describing his life and teaching as reliable, along with the accounts of his having been raised from death.

Dan Brown's infamous 'The DaVinci Code' has stirred this pot, as has an interest in writings not included in the Bible which make claims to Jesus having married, fathered a child, and dying of old age.  Suffice it to say, as I have written elsewhere, that serious scholarly support for these notions is extremely thin and rather easily dismissed by those willing to use reason to consider the claims, not to mention Scripture itself.

Just about the time things have begun to settle, we get big news that is at least more interesting than the final destination of the body of Anna Nicole Smith.

No less than James Cameron of "Titanic" fame has produced a documentary with the title, "The Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery, the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History" to be aired March 4 on the Discovery Channel.

Wow, and golly!  What shall we say of this amazing discovery on Discovery?  One thing I am tempted to mention is that Cameron made the announcement right after Al Gore received an Academy Award and a rock star's welcome for a documentary film.  Does Cameron sniff another Oscar?  It would be cynical to suspect that, so I'll resist the temptation.

I want to make some comments on this announcement, but first I must add the caveat that there are bloggers galore more qualified to address this subject who are busy doing so.  My comments will be more general and less technical, but timely.  This story is all over the news, and Larry King devoted a segment to it, skewed as it was by his choice of those who argued for orthodoxy.

Let's take a quick look at the arguments of Cameron's group.

1)  The statistical probability that this tomb could be for anyone but Jesus of Nazareth and his family is slim to none.  Hmm.... if Cameron, James Tabor, et al., are correct, the odds of this NOT being the tomb of Jesus are very small.  But this analysis is based on some critical assumptions.

One is that Jesus would be buried as 'Jesus, son of Joseph.'  It was widely believed that he was an illegitimate child, born of Mary but with a different father.  Jesus never used this title for himself, even though he did claim Joseph as his 'dad'.  It is simply improbable that even IF this were the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth that this would be on his ossuary, given the high profile of his public ministry.

The statistics adduced also assume that Jesus was married and had a son.  (All Dan Brown fans, please stand up and shout, "Amen!")  More on this below, but there is no evidence for this.  One thing IS sure: the names found in the tombs were common names.

2)  It is argued that the DNA evidence supports the claim that this is the tomb of Jesus and his family.  Let's start with that of Jesus and Mary.  The DNA sampled is different, so this must mean they were married, right?  If you don't have a problem with that, let me give you an example.  I have a stepdaughter.  If someone were to examine the DNA of my family and found that Jenna's DNA shows she is unrelated to me, would the conclusion be that we must be married?  This would be a completely unsupported inference.

The DNA of others in the tomb does show they were related.  Okay; so what?  An immediate problem is that thre is no available DNA to serve as a control sample from anyone actually proven to be related to the family of the biblical Jesus.  It seems an empty claim for the sake of publicity.

3)  I want to point out some of the more obvious historical problems, in no particular order.  One is that if Jesus were to be buried with his ancestral title, 'son of Joseph', why was he buried at Jerusalem?  The ancestral home of Joseph was Bethlehem, and his adult years where he raised his family were at Nazareth.  The move to Jerusalem would be strange in that culture.

As to the ossuaries (bone containers) in which the bones were found, one says, 'Jude, son of Jesus'.  I don't doubt that someone named Jesus once said, "Hey, Jude!" to his kid.  But 'Jesus' was a very common name in that cultural/historical context, and there is not one shred of actual historical evidence that the Jesus of the Bible had any children.

Another ossuary has the name 'Matthew' on it, which is found in no list of the brothers of Jesus.  The name 'Mary' is on another ossuary.  It is a name we know, but perhaps the most common of all ancient Jewish female names.  Several of the other ossuaries have names with no known connection to Jesus of Nazareth.

Bones were not put into an ossuary until at least a year after death, as it usually took that long for the skin to sufficiently dessicate to disassemble the skeleton.  One can readily imagine why one would wait that long.  Jesus was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea after dying on the cross.  Both ancient Jewish and Roman sources document that the tomb was empty on the third day.

Did Peter and the other apostles remove the body and hide it elsewhere?  This is improbable for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that all of them but John were killed for their claim that Jesus was risen from the grave.  John was the only one to die in old age, and as a political prisoner of Rome, exiled far from home to the island of Patmos.  All he had to do was admit the fraud, and he could go home.  He didn't, insisting otherwise to the end of his days.

Christianity did indeed spread rapidly and the institutional Church became very powerful.  But the original apostles who claimed to have witnessed and touched the risen Jesus had nothing to gain by it, other than imprisonment, torture, and a martyr's death.  It is irrational to believe they were perpetrating a hoax for the purpose of starting a new world religion when not a single one of them ever broke under torture or threat and changed his story.

4)  The Israeli archaeologists working on this excavation have dismissed the idea of this being the tomb of the biblical Jesus as fantasy "without any proof, whatsover." (Dr. Amos Kloner of Bar Ilan University).

5)  The early Christian historian Eusebius writes of the tomb of 'James the Just', known brother of Jesus, as a pilgrimage destination located near the Temple Mount.  It would have been bizarre to bury him there if the grave of his more famous brother was located elsewhere.  Talpiot, the site of the tomb of the upcoming documentary, isn't even actually in Jerusalem, but located in a field a ways from the city.

Many will dance to the sly music of Jesus and the Family Tomb, and many will use this to justify their unbelief and lack of faith in a way similar to those who believe Dan Brown was telling the truth in The DaVinci Code.  (I at least hope this documentary is better than the film version of Brown's book.  I felt sorry for Tom Hanks and Ian McKellen, superb actors, having to keep straight faces in delivering some of their lines.)

But for those willing to keep their wits about them and think through the issues and consider what is at stake, I suspect they will find that Cameron's real business is entertainment and making money, and see this project as consistent with his record.  Scholars of actual repute are hardly lining up to support the claims of this story even when they may not actually be believers in orthodox apostolic Christianity.

Enjoy the show, but don't get suckered.  Most won't, unless they believe that Walt Disney's Dumbo proves elephants can fly and talk.

My apologies for the length and any tedium.  I believe it was Blaise Pascal who once added a postcript to a letter saying, "I would have written a shorter letter but didn't have enough time."

    This is a hot topic this time of year, and has become even more so as the culture wars have heated up over whether it is okay to even say "Merry Christmas" in a retail store, lest someone be offended.

     Mary Kay and I have little magnetic Christmas trees waiting to be slapped back on our cars that say, "The Reason for the Season."  Probably 'preachin' to the choir.'

     Another bumper sticker sermon title is, "Whose Birthday is It, Anyway?"  That is a provocative question, but just what does it mean?  The surface answer is obvious, but what difference does it make?

     It is a doctrinal matter for some.  Just who IS Jesus?  Why is he important?  We give away booklets at the church this time of year with the title, 'Why Christmas?'  This is a seasonal version of another little book we give away named 'Why Jesus?'  These  little books answer those questions well.

     Orthodox Christianity believes Jesus is the Son of God come in human form to live and die as the savior of the world, resurrected from the dead and alive as Lord of Lords and King of Kings, forever, hallelujah! (Wouldn't that make a great song? )  Christmas is the celebration of His birth.

     For others, observing the birth of Christ is simply a reminder of our priorities to be nice people who are generous, mostly to other nice people we know well.

     Let me suggest some ways we can put Christ back into Christmas.

     PUTTING CHRIST INTO OUR GIVING: Much of what we give as 'Christmas presents' does not meet a need.  We may remember when we received socks or underwear or shoes, etc., for Christmas.  We received functional presents.  For many Americans, if not most, we no longer need a holiday for the purpose of clothing our families with necessities.  We give to meet desires, not needs.

     Much of our giving may be out of obligation to those who have given to us, or those for whom we feel obligation such as family, close friends, coworkers, etc.

     And in much of our giving, there is little joy, if any.  The richest people in the world – which includes everyone reading this – spend a lot of money on each other.

      Perhaps one way we could put Christ into our giving is by doing what he says.  In Luke 6, Jesus says there is no eternal value in doing good for those who can do it back.  Much of our holiday entertaining and giving is for the benefit of those who don't need it, and have the means to reciprocate at some level.

     What if we gave like Jesus would give?  This is a radical idea, and advocating its practice will anger people.  That isn't surprising.  People like you and me killed him the first time he came around because his teaching was offensively radical.

     PUTTING CHRIST INTO OUR LOVING: What if we were to love as Jesus loves this Christmas?  That would include doing good to our enemies, blessing those who curse us, forgiving offenses and even debts.

     What if we loved unconditionally and served sacrificially in our own families? What if we began with treating our spouses and children and those with whom we share homes with the same kind of respect and courtesy we show strangers?  (This, of course, does not include how we treat others as stressed out Christmas shoppers.)  This kind of commitment to care and respect and service is radical, but it sounds a lot like Jesus, doesn't it?  This is a good way to put Christ back into Christmas.

     PUTTING CHRIST INTO OUR SERVING: Jesus said that he came to serve, not to be served.  If we are followers of Jesus, serving others is not optional.  That means serving those who can't repay us.  This is a great time of year to volunteer time to do things such as help serve a meal at a homeless shelter, or go visiting people who are shut-in or at care centers.  Find a need and meet it.  Do something radical for Jesus.

     PUTTING CHRIST INTO OUR LIVING: Jesus said that not all who say to him, "Lord, lord…" will enter the kingdom of heaven, but rather those who do God's will.

     If we're honest, it is likely that much of what we do to observe Christmas has very little to do with Christ.  Jesus came as Emmanuel, God with us who came to show us what God is really like and to call us to follow him as radical followers of a radical Lord with a radical message.

     How we respond to that has eternal significance, AND it matters here and now.

     What would it be like if we really began to put Christ back into Christmas?  I think it begins with putting Jesus first as the Lord he came to be and as the Lord he is.   If we put him first in our lives, he will begin to reorder everything else.

     Radical?  More than we know!  But genuinely putting Christ back into Christmas by putting Jesus first in our own lives will not only give him the birthday present he wants, but the best Christmas present we could ever hope for.

     It will not only meet our deepest need, but satisfy our highest desires.

     I invite you to join me in putting Christ back into Christmas this year.  The ways I have offered of doing so are just as applicable to me in my walk with Jesus as they are to others.  I hope you will hold me accountable for giving, loving, serving, and living for Jesus in new and deeper ways this year and the year to come.  We are in this journey together.

     And I hope you will also join me in believing that as we do this, that the result will be many others who come to Jesus and become his followers because they saw in us something worth giving themselves to.

I love futbol, or soccer as we call it here, and I look forward with delight to each World Cup -- the world's greatest sporting event.

The great thing about the World Cup is that politics, economics, religion, etc., are not as important as playing the game on the pitch.  Motivation such as hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonus money, as promised to the USA team if they won, must be matched by dribbling, passing, defending, and scoring ... better than the other team.  Luck, if you believe in it, may help; but a team must be more than lucky to win over ninety minutes plus stoppage time.

The USA side just lost to Ghana 2-1, and is out of the Cup.  Ghana goes through to the round of 16 in its first ever World Cup.  While I would have enjoyed seeing my nation's team win, I love seeing the Ghana team moving on.

The players from poor nations like Ghana will not see the kinds of bonuses the richer nations will bestow on their players if they win.  Nations like Ghana and the other African nations represented in the Cup are marked by political turmoil, rampant corruption, and economic squalor for most citizens.  Having your national team qualify for the World Cup sets all of that aside for a short time and unites people for a season.  It is a psychological respite from the grinding oppression of poverty, and thus Ghana's win is to be celebrated.

At this time tomorrow, I will be in Honduras, perhaps the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.  Poverty is endemic.  But in every village the soccer balls come out at the end of the work day.  The local pitch in the small rural village of Subirana, where I am heading, requires clearing the cattle and cleaning up their residue in order for an intercity match to be played.  Practice games are on a pitch that is part grass and part cement used when coffee beans are harvested and laid out to dry in the Central American sun.  The Subirana side wears old uniforms and makes do with little of the equipment communities like the one in which I live takes for granted.  But when kickoff time comes, the world shrinks to a section of turf where everything else is forgotten for a while.  Hunger, poverty, and the effects of disease will be waiting when the final whistle blows.  In the meantime, it's a few minutes of experiencing a better world where injustice is reduced to bad calls by the referee.

More power to the underdogs and the people whose lives are temporarily enriched by futbol.  Resident Aliens believe there IS a better world, and that such things as the World Cup can encourage us to think about what DOES give true and lasting hope for a better life that lasts longer than 90 minutes, plus stoppage.

Acouple of years ago I was involved in the long process of restoring a church building and it was a challenge.  We had to meet in temporary quarters for 18 months, and set up and tear down each week

One of the aspects of that season of reconstruction was its prophetic picture of a church.  In the bible we read, "you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:5).

The human mind is a wonderful creation and is capable of great ideas and small. Ideas are behind every cultural shift, whether in the form that leads to an invention or a cure, or that which can influence politics or economics. A single idea can have global impact in our day.

Little wonder that living as a Resident Alien calls for the renewing of our minds. The power of a sanctified imagination is beyond measure, when thoughts from the Alien Kingdom begin to work in our minds.

The original Alien is not only the Creator, but the source of creativity that stirs our imaginations to new thoughts and ideas about creation, ourselves, and each other.

My imagination has been stirred of late by the weavings of authors whose works have made the leap to the big screen. I want to briefly discuss Dan Brown, J.K. Rowling, and C.S. Lewis.

Unless a lawsuit holds up release, The DaVinci Code will soon hit theaters every where. Dan Brown's book has been hyped like few others, a hype I might add of which his prose is unworthy. The result, however, is millions of books sold and the effect at the box office will be similar.

Many will go to see if this blockbuster does contain the seeds of destruction of the Roman Catholic Church, if not undo 2000 years of Christianity, as this juggernaut of secrets revealed comes in print and video.

The book opens with a 'Fact' page where the last sentence says, "All descriptions of artwork, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate." Wow! Better fasten your seatbelts, folks!!

Having closely read the book along with numerous analyses of it, I can tell you this: that statement is as notable for what it doesn't say as what it does say.

Much of the drama of the novel is based upon historical claims made in the story. Stop the presses! Go back and read that quote from the 'Fact' page and see whether Brown says that the history in the book is accurate. He does not. The truth is that what is presented in his book as history contains not only much inaccurate history, but astonishingly bogus historical claims, as well.

This isn't the time and place to go into the details, but let me assure you that The DaVinci Code is chock full of historical statements rightly found in a work of fiction.

This book poses no serious threat to orthodox Christianity, other than to the naive, or suckers looking for an excuse not to believe the truth.

Others have asked whether the Harry Potter stories are a threat to Christian belief. After all, these books are about wizards, witches, and a world of magic existing right under the noses of 'muggles' (ordinary non-magical people).

First, I have to say that J.K. Rowling is an excellent writer, and far better at her craft than Brown. Apparently the book-buying public agrees; she was declared a billionaire a couple of weeks ago, so successful are her sales.

More to the point: do her books threaten Christian beliefs, and are they likely to seduce unwary readers away from the truth? So far, I have read her books up to two-thirds of the way through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and the latest Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince is waiting.

I haven't come to a final decision, but this is what I think: The majority of people do believe in a supernatural that exists in or around what we perceive via our senses. Even in the Western World where we pride ourselves on science and reason, interest in the occult is greater than ever. Do the Harry Potter books fuel that fire?

Perhaps, but I suspect only for those who reject orthodox religious teaching and, like some of Brown's fans, are looking for an excuse to believe something else.

Rowling clearly writes fantasy and in no way suggests her books contain some secret knowledge that organized religion has supposedly been hiding from us.

More importantly, her stories are about imperfect people trying to learn to use their own abilities and special gifts for the good in a world where not everybody is in touch with the unseen forces that surround them. This inevitably puts Harry Potter and his friends in conflict with the persons and forces working for evil. The stakes are life and death, and the dangers are real. Courage and sacrifice are required.

If you know much about the Alien Kingom text known as The New Testament, you will immediately recognize familiar themes. I doubt Rowling is a Resident Alien, but I do find the message of her books resonates with Alien beliefs about reality and the challenges we face.

Harry Potter must use his 'spiritual gifts' (magic) and in faith and courage engage the evils he faces. The world of magic is the realm in which good and evil, life and death are being contested and all the world is effected. He never overcomes them alone. There is always some form of supernatural assistance from beyond himself.

God is never mentioned in these books; but, neither is God mentioned in the Christian stories by C.S. Lewis The Narnia Chronicles.

Lewis believed that mythical stories of enchanted lands inhabited by enchanted creatures visited by humans were capable of powerfully engaging the imagination and inspiring readers to engage their own world with courage and faith.

Magic is a big part of these stories, especially in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In Narnia, magic not only holds the world captive to the evil witch Jadis, but also is her undoing.

Jadis and her minions kill Aslan the lion, King of Narnia, on an altar where he willingly offers himself. They rejoice in believing they have triumphed. Yet Aslan rises again. He says to the astonished children who greet him. "though the witch knew the deep magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know."

Lewis calls this the "deeper magic from before the dawn of time." The New Testament refers to the Risen Christ as "the lamb slain before the foundation of the world." There is indeed a mystery to the Real World that lies just outside of our senses, and perhaps children and those who allow their imaginations to be engaged by tales of magic and courage are far more in tune with what God is doing than those who have been 'adult-erated'.

The challenge is to help people make that connection in such a way that their lives can be directed to work for the Good. There are battles to fight and enemies to face, and it requires courage, faith, and the willingness to sacrifice. Many resident aliens understand that, but are reluctant to do it.

Easter is soon upon us. Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling may have nothing more to celebrate than all the chocolate bunnies their fortunes can buy. Resident Aliens have a Lord and King, crucified and risen from the dead! This story is true.

One such crowd in northern Nigeria, where I have friends, burned several churches including one with the priest forcibly kept inside. They made sure they didn't appear anti Catholic by killing a bunch of Protestants, too. Killing Christians and burning churches has become a protest of choice in many nations by radical Muslims wanting us to know how offensive lampooning their prophet is, peace be upon him.

Yet I can't help but laugh at the news report of tens of thousands of Muslims gathered in Turkey to protest 'negative Western perceptions of Islam.' Maybe they were marching to the old tune popularized by Eric Burden and the Animals, "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." No, wait.... that song is banned there. Rock music might incite the passions and stir people to behaviors forbidden by the Koran.

Resident Aliens are not anti Muslim. But we do have a problem with religious fanaticism and insanity.

Some blame religion, period. There are plenty of intelligent people who think that reason, not religion, is the hope of humankind. That crowd, by the way, gave us the Russian, Chinese, and Cambodian revolutions -- to name just three -- which combined to leave well over 100 million people dead in the name of social progress. Check out the former USSR countries and see how they are doing. Or, better yet, take a look at the economy and current social conditions of North Korea, that glorious little religion-free paradise of reason.

Religions are not all the same. They are not all roads to the top of the same mountain. They can't be. Reason, itself, reveals the absurdity of such a belief. The major religions contradict each other at key points. Reasonable thought includes the principle of non-contradiction. Two opposite and contradictory ideas cannot be true, in spite of the efforts of politicians to convince you otherwise in election years. In the realm of religion, it simply means that all religions cannot be equally true.

Yet there are benefits of religious development that might be worth celebrating. In the world of 'lex talionis' in which the strong survive -- a reasonable principle, eh? -- there was no limit on reprisals in response to an act of aggression by another. The law 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth...' was not originally established as a quid pro quo ideal, but rather as a limit. Judaism introduced proportionality. If someone punches you in the face, you don't get to kill him, reasonable a response the latter may seem.

Proportionality became even more important in the early centuries of Christianity when Augustine employed the principle in his ideas on 'just war'. He argued that war is a necessary evil at times, but there are ways to keep it from becoming a worse evil. Proportion in response to aggression is essential. Resident Aliens believe this critically important idea was not blindly stumbled on to by reason. It came from another world.

Jesus introduced an even more unreasonable idea when he suggested that loving one's enemies is an even more desirable ethic. Multikudos for such a radically Alien idea. Maybe some day people on this world will try it. Christianity has a checkered history of practice, but at least Christians didn't go on a murderous rampage burning mosques, synagogues, and temples when a play was produced featuring a gay Jesus, or a crucifix was photographed in a bottle of urine and marketed as 'art', etc.

This Resident Alien observes that religion, per se, isn't the problem.