Jesus asked, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” 
“Yes, Lord, you know I love you. 
“Then tend my sheep.” John 21:16 

...you also were raised with him... Colossians 2:12

Jesus’ resurrection was not the only one to occur that first Easter. Certainly that’s the way it felt to Peter. He had denied his Lord three times even though he had given his solemn word that he would never do so---even if all else did, even if it meant his own death. When he realized what he had done he wept, but he could not take it back. Or could he?

In a way, the resurrected Christ gave him the opportunity. Jesus asked him three times, “Do you love me?” Peter answered three times (as he had denied him three times), “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” Then came the words that Peter could scarcely believe:  “Then tend my sheep.” Even though he had failed so miserably, Jesus still entrusted him with the care of his sheep. Peter also had been resurrected. I know how he felt.

The truth is Christ’s resurrection was not the only one to occur that first Easter. As Paul reminds us, we all “were raised with him.” Certainly, we all have failed the Lord numerous times. We have said and done things we wish we could take back. As we look back upon our past with regrets and tears, the risen Christ comes to us and asks us the question which matters most to him, “Do you love me?” We answer, “Yes, Lord, you know that 1 do.” “Then tend my sheep.” 

Jesus lets Peter and us know that we are forgiven. The guilt which had previously filled our hearts is replaced with an even deeper love of him. Our attention is redirected from our own regret to the needs of others in his fold. Our burden is lifted. We come forth from the tomb into Easter morning. Our spirits are light and joyful. We have been raised with him.

Peter had compared himself to others. At the Last Supper, he had declared, “Everyone else may lose faith, but I will not.” Jesus had renewed the comparison in his first questioning of Peter: “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these others?”

On an earlier occasion, Jesus had invited another Simon to make a comparison: A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, to whom he forgave more.” And he said to him, “you have judged rightly.”

Perhaps it was now true that Peter loved Jesus “more than these others,” but it was no longer a prideful comparison but one of grateful humility.

 
©1998 C. David Hess

There was an editorial in the Post Standard recently about the Great Midwestern Think-Off. 
The 972 residents of New York Mills, Minn. were asked to ponder the question: "Does life have meaning and, if so, what is it?"

Four finalists were chosen from the 650 people who submitted 750 word essays on the question. They were to have held a public debate on the topic this past Saturday. The audience was to select the winner.

Last year's question was on the nature of good and evil. The audience couldn't agree on a winner, so a tie was declared.

The editorial writer admitted the difficulty of the question and then told a story of a gathering of friends for dinner in a North Carolina restaurant. The 3 year old daughter of one couple had just recently discovered the magic of language and had become a real jabber jaws. In an attempt to quiet her, her mother turned to her and asked: "Lily, what is the meaning of life.?"

"Something to do," she replied.

The editorial writer commented, "Not bad." I agree.

If I were going to take my own stab at the question, my answer would have something to do with relationships. Life alone would not be life (I think in fact it would be hell). What gives meaning to life is that it is shared with others. I think a clue to this being the real meaning of life is the biblical statement: "God is love." At the heart of the nature of God, and thus of all of existence, is love which requires beings in relationship.

Paul wrote: "For to me life is Christ..." (Philippians 1:21). That which gave his life ultimate meaning was his relationship with Christ (not a bad definition of a Christian).

Life---something to do? Yes, but even more importantly, someone to love.


© C. David Hess

I'm A Skeptic  I really enjoyed attending our denomination's national convocation on evangelism in Washington, D.C. a couple of weeks ago. One of the pleasures of such a conference is the making of new friends. One new acquaintance asked me what I thought my major gifts were. After thinking hard about it, I responded that I thought I had a gift in reaching secular people and those with intellectual doubt about the truth of Christianity. I responded that this was the case because there was a great deal of skepticism in me. Faith has never been easy for me. Thus I can be empathetic with others for whom Christian faith is not easy. But what is faith?

Tony Campolo writes that when his son was a young boy he once defined faith as "believing what you know isn't true." I can see how easy it is for many to arrive at that definition of faith, but faith for me has never been that. I would rather define faith as believing in that which you think really is true though you cannot absolutely prove it.

As long as human knowledge is partial (and I believe that will always be the case, at least on this side of death) faith is necessary (for the atheist as well as the Christian).

I have always been struck by the words of Harry Emerson Fosdick quoted by John Claypool when he was trying to continue with his life after he had learned that his 8 year old daughter, Laura Lue, had leukemia (she later died of it): "A man can put off making up his mind, but he can't put off making up his life."

He was pointing out the truth that we cannot refuse to live until all our questions are answered. Answers will come only by and through our living (and Christians believe at the end of our living). The Apostle Paul was right: "For we walk by faith, not by sight."

© C. David Hess

I really believe that the old saying, "labels are libels" is true, but that does not stop me or others from using them.

When I first moved here I described myself to Al Ford (for a newspaper article he was writing) as "a fundamentalist with a liberal veneer." One of our members told me recently that she thought I had it backwards. I am actually a liberal with a fundamentalist veneer.

I don't really mind wearing either label as long as I can define the terms. There are all kinds of both liberals and fundamentalists. The biblical scholar who approaches scripture with the unquestioned presupposition that the miraculous cannot and does not ever occur is just as much a fundamentalist as anybody else. I have known some pretty close minded "liberals" too (a supposed contradiction in terms).

Another label that I have been trying on myself lately is "raging moderate." I say "raging" to make it clear that I am a moderate out of conviction. Moderates generally are suspected of having no or very lightly held convictions or of being lukewarm. I'm a hot moderate.

I have become even more comfortable with this choice of personal label after reading the confession of M. Scott Peck in his book, Further Along the Road Less Traveled: "I never thought I would be a middle-of-the-road anything, and here I've found myself a middle-of-the-road Christian. And as bad as that might sound, it is good, I've decided. It is not fence-sitting. It is a path of tension."

Often (but not always--we moderates are fond of qualifications) those at the poles of a particular debate (e.g. pacifism vs. militarism, pro-choice vs. pro-life) wish to avoid tension (at least the inner variety). Thus they often try to make things simpler than they in fact are. We "raging moderates" embrace the path of tension, as uncomfortable as it is, because we recognize that many of the issues we face are too complex for simple formulation, even for the application of labels.


© C. David Hess

A number of years ago I attended a national convocation on evangelism in Washington, D.C. One of the pleasures of such a conference is the making of new friends. One new acquaintance asked me what I thought my major gifts were. After thinking hard about it, I responded that I thought I had a gift in reaching secular people and those with intellectual doubt about the truth of Christianity. I responded that this was the case because there was a great deal of skepticism in me. Faith has never been easy for me. Thus I can be empathetic with others for whom Christian faith is not easy. But what is faith?

Tony Campolo writes that when his son was a young boy he once defined faith as “believing what you know isn’t true.” I can see how easy it is for many to arrive at that definition of faith, but faith for me has never been that. I would rather define faith as believing in that which you think really is true though you cannot absolutely prove it.

As long as human knowledge is partial (and I believe that will always be the case, at least on this side of death) faith is necessary (for the atheist as well as the Christian).

I always have been struck by the words of Harry Emerson Fosdick quoted by John Claypool when he was trying to continue with his life after he had learned that his eight year old daughter, Laura Lue, had leukemia (she later died of it): “A man can put off making up his mind, but he can’t put off making up his life.”

He was pointing out the truth that we cannot refuse to live until all our questions are answered. Answers will come only by and through our living (and Christians believe at the end of our living). The Paul was right: “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”

©2013 C. David Hess

Several have asked me if I have seen the movie, The Life of Pi, and what I thought of it, if I had. It is a logical question to ask a pastor. The movie tells a story that it claims “will make you believe in God.”

On some levels I found the movie to be entertaining, but on the whole, I didn’t like it, primarily because I disagreed with its message.

The boy, Pi, is a very religious young man. He likes all religions. He was born a Hindu and practiced Islam. After becoming acquainted with the gospels, he offers up a prayer, “Thank you, Vishnu, for introducing me to Christ.”

His rational father, a zoo owner, gives Pi a word of caution, “If you believe in everything, you will end up not believing in anything at all.”

The father has to close his zoo and move the animals. This he does via ship. The ship is caught in a storm and sinks. Pi ends up on a lifeboat alone with a Bengal tiger. They journey together for 227 days. Of course, these are challenging circumstances. The biggest challenge for the boy is not to be eaten by the tiger.

This is a fascinating story. Of course, it is not the only interpretation of Pi’s journey. There is an alternative account which does not include a tiger. When Pi is asked which story is real, he answers, “Which do you prefer?” The questioner responds, “The one with the tiger.” Pi answers, “Then that’s the real one.”

The point is that every religion offers a different story as an interpretation of the meaning of the universe and of life. The movie, and the book upon which it is based, would offer that religion is just a matter of which story you prefer, not which one is true.

Of course, the billions of adherents of many religions would disagree, including me. The Apostle Paul would certainly never agree with this theory. The story of the resurrection of Christ was not something the Apostle Paul believed because he preferred it, but because he believed it was true. In fact it can be argued that Paul might have preferred that it might not be true. His believing it made his life much more difficult. He wrote, “If Christ was not raised, then our gospel is null and void, and so is your faith,; and we turn out to be lying witnesses for God,” and “we of all men are most to be pitied.” He goes on to say, “But the truth is, Christ was raised to life…”

Or as the hymn writer puts it: “I love to tell the story Of unseen things above, Of Jesus and His glory, Of Jesus and His love: I love to tell the story Because I know ‘tis true…”


©2013 C. David Hess

The 2012 Presidential election is over with. We can all experience a sigh of relief that the bombardment of political ads has ended. Of course, there are other moods. There is the happiness and relief on the part of those who favored the winning candidate. There is sadness and grief on the part of those who supported the losing candidate. Being a diverse congregation, we have a lot of both.  

In the midst of all of this, we need to hear a powerful reminder from a recent column written by Cal Thomas, an evangelical Christian who is a political conservative. In his  column, he reminds his fellow evangelical conservatives of “a power superior to the state.” His message is equally important to Christian liberals:  “The One you follow demonstrated a power superior to the state, the power to change lives. Employ that power… We the people can still change the country in ways politics and governments never have and never will.” 

In his book, Is Jesus a Republican or a Democrat?, Tony Campolo writes, “What you ought to have figured out from all that I am trying to say is that each political party has much for Christians to embrace. And each has much for Christians to criticize. The last thing we should do is to ally the church of Jesus Christ with either of them.”  

The focus of the Christmas story was not on who was in the king’s palace but who was in the stable. When the Babe of Bethlehem grew up, he continually had to struggle against those who wanted him to be a political Messiah who embraced worldly power. He chose an entirely different way to change the world. He chose an entirely different sort of power, the power of conquering love, the power of the manger and the cross, a power that sometimes even we Christians do not yet understand.


©2012 C. David Hess

Sometimes life is complicated. One of our biggest problems is that we forget that. In this day and age, there are those who would try to convince us that all issues can be reduced to a slogan that will fit on a bumper sticker. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This is something that has come through in our Adult Christian Education class’s study of the documentary, “God in America.” It has dealt with the some of the most controversial issues which have split America---slavery, war and peace, civil rights, religion in the public schools, abortion. I hope one of the things that we have gained from our study is a sense of humility and less of a tendency to demonize others that might hold differing opinions.

We also have had a current lesson in how complicated the issue of religious freedom can be. There was an absolute furor when the federal government proposed a regulation that would require religious institutions like Catholic hospitals and colleges (churches were exempted) to provide insurance which would provide free contraceptives, including the “morning after” pill, to their employees. The interesting thing was how unpredictable the response was. The division was not just along the usual Republican vs. Democrat and liberal vs. conservative lines. The issue was too complicated for that. Many Democrats and Republicans, conservative and liberals, Protestants and Catholics  found themselves opposed to the new regulation. Many of all of these groups found themselves supporting the new regulation. It involved the deepest questions about the health of women, the beginning of life, human autonomy, the role of the government, and religious freedom. Each of these alone is complicated. Taken together, we all found ourselves drawn into an ocean of moral complexity. We weren’t sure what to think.

The longer I live, the more convinced I am that we are not as divided as we think we are on life’s most complicated issues. Take abortion, for example. Some would have us believe that we are neatly divided between pro-life and pro-choice groups and we feel no commonality on the issue of abortion at all. This may be our perception if we only look at the surface, but I find that this is not the case at all if we dig deeply into individual thinking. I find that many “pro-choice” folk are deeply uncomfortable with abortion and want to make it as rare as possible. Many “pro-life” folk really don’t regard the life of a fetus and the life of a born person as being of equal value. This is true of even the most ardent.

This came home to me in a fresh way when I was reading Kevin Roose’s book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University. Kevin was a secular student at Brown University who decided to go underground and become a student at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. The experience was full of revelation for Kevin and for his readers. One of the things that struck me was how Liberty University dealt with student who had abortions. Obviously, there is no more anti-abortion institution than Liberty University and no stronger abortion opponent than Jerry Falwell. Their policy prescribed that any student who had an abortion would be fined $500, receive 300 demerits, and possibly be expelled. I wonder what Liberty’s policy would be if one of their students murdered her roommate. I doubt that a $500 fine and 300 demerits would be regarded as being sufficient. The point is, despite their language to the contrary, Liberty didn’t really regard abortion as being the same as murder.

Deep down, everybody seems to know that life is complicated and that bumper stickers are not enough. Let’s not ever forget it.


©2012 C. David Hess

I have spoken and written previously of my problems with “baby Jesus.” Oh, I’m not talking about the flesh and blood baby Jesus but the plastic baby Jesus that I put out on my front lawn as a part of my Christmas display. I have found that taking caring of “baby Jesus” is a lot of work. This mainly involves dealing with problems of wind and snow. Quite frequently I have had to dig baby Jesus out of the snow. On other occasions he gets blown out of the manger, and I have to retrieve him and put him back in. Fortunately, the extension cord to which he is attached has kept him from being blown too far. As I have pointed out, my plastic Jesus is not so different from real babies. They need a lot of work too. As a matter of fact, they are completely helpless. In their weakness and need, they demand our love. It is a direct shot to our hearts that God has chosen to approach us this way.

At the end of last Christmas season, I was confronted with a new problem. Baby Jesus had disappeared. One morning I went out and found Mary and Joseph lying on their sides, and baby Jesus was gone! He was nowhere to be found! Upon further investigation, I found deer tracks. I surmised that a deer had come to feed at my bird feeder and got tangled up in baby Jesus’ extension cord and dragged baby Jesus off into the woods.

As this Christmas season approached, I knew that baby Jesus needed to be replaced. I went off in search of baby Jesus and could find him no where. I went to Walmart, K-Mart, and all the other usual places. I could find plenty of front yard Santas, reindeer, stars, Snoopys, snowmen, etc., but no baby Jesus! I finally found baby Jesus at Home Depot! Whew! I ended up getting him and the rest of his family and some wise men (the blow up variety).

Has this not become a parable of our Christmas celebration? With all the commotion and hubbub of our celebration, has baby Jesus disappeared? If so, maybe we, like the wise men of old, should seek him out. Of course, the real point of Christmas is not that we spend a lot of time searching for God. If truth be told, much of the time we are evading Him. The point of Christmas is that God has come in search of us!

©2011 C. David Hess

“God loves us.

God offers us everlasting life by grace, freely, through no merit on our part.

Unless you do not respond the right way.

Then God will torture you forever.

In hell.”

Huh?

Those words are from the dust jacket of Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins, A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.

 To say the least, the book is provocative. Since it was published a few weeks ago, it has become a huge best seller (number 6 on Amazon as I write this). It has elicited responses from literally thousands of blogs and was featured in a Time magazine cover story. It has been both applauded and condemned by many pastors and theologians. One North Carolina pastor has been fired for saying that he agreed with it.

 In his book, he argues that we need to rethink the church’s teaching about Heaven, Hell, and Judgment. He raises the possibility that far more might end up in Heaven than Christians have traditionally thought. He argues that there is hope for those after death who have not explicitly confessed Christ before death.

 Bell is no traditional liberal theologian. He is a graduate of two strongly evangelical schools, Wheaton College and Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the founding pastor of the 7,000 member Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids Michigan. He has produced a series of videos called NOOMA (our adult education class watched one last year).

 I’ve read his book. It is thoroughly biblical (always a controversial thing). I agree with his assessment that “Love wins,” but there is more depth to that simple statement than one would imagine. He considers the question, “Does God get what God wants?” and invites readers to move to the question, “Do we get what we want?” He writes, “And the answer to that is a resounding, affirming, sure and positive yes. Yes, we get what we want. God is that loving.” Ah, there’s the rub!

 As a biblical preacher, I must preach within the tension between Jesus’ statements in the Parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:1-7) and the Parable of the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13). From the first: “He leaves the other ninety-nine sheep in the pasture and goes looking for the one that got lost until he finds it” From the latter: the foolish virgins wanted to gain entrance to the wedding party but could not, “the door was shut.”

 I highly recommend this book for your consideration.

P.S. Anyone who has read  The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis will know where Bell is coming from.

©2011 C. David Hess