Evangelicalism, properly conceived, has been from the beginning cross and gospel centered. Even with the streams of pietism arising within certain circles, the historicity of the cross and resurrection have kept it grounded in the real world of God’s historical activity of redemption. More recently, evangelicals have paid more attention to the resurrection for the Christian life beyond just an apologetic Jesus’ crucifixion.
But let us consider this question: in all this does the doctrine of the ascension get minimized or neglected in our evangelical theologizing? Even more, while the cross should be central to the devotional life of the Christian, what role, if any, does the ascension of Christ in the devotional and worship life of the believer? Does the average believer understand the significance of the ascension for the Christian life? Far too often, one cannot help by wonder if the doctrine of the ascension is relegated to a sort of “and Jesus lived happily ever after” ending to the story of redemption.
I have a confession to make. My generation is the generation that made the Young, Restless, and Reformed (YRR) possible. We connected with movies like Fight Club and The Boondock Saints. We listened to "edgy" music as an act of defiance. Basically, young and restless long before reformed. Recently, a popular name said that the serious problem with the YRR was their minimization of the "Reformed" part of the slogan. He alluded to many being only 3 to 4 point Calvinists (gasp!). I'm going to respectfully disagree. The issue is not with the doctrine. I am convinced the real issue is, hopefully now was, an uncontrollable restlessness.
I won't hide behind my decisions growing up. I've been restless for a long time. That restlessness was inappropriately centered and focused on many worldly things. Bands likes Taking Back Sunday and Brand New made my restless soul happy but not in any Christian way. (I will confess I still enjoy the "real rebels" of the music world: Cash, Nelson & Dylan but I do so now from a different starting paradigm.) In the cinema world, movies like Fight Club told me there is an evil called privilege in the world. Resentment became a foundational element in restlessness. It taught me there are things worth rebelling against. It taught me this permeating evil of privilege can only be beaten by reckless abandon and backwards views of society. I loved it. In a nostalgic way I still do.
As a father of two young children I am painfully aware of the necessity for ritual. Some might prefer the word “schedule” but I think this downplays the necessary participation of all parties and the genuine benefit derived from participating in the “schedule.” Pertinent to the subject of Christ’s ascension are the rituals surrounding my departure to and arrival from work. There are hugs and kisses as I walk out the door. There are awkward shouts and dances of exaltation when I walk in the door. It really is quite cute coming from children. They’re young and oblivious for thirty-seconds to whatever had been going on in their day. Everything stops. Dad is the main event.
Unfortunately for some Christians, the ascension and return of Jesus Christ is unintentionally similar to this. The results are not quite as cute. Christ’s disciples were sad and confused as He went up to the clouds. The questions about His kingdom continued to persist. The answers remained vague enough for the disciples to persist in their misunderstanding until Pentecost.
I love attending conferences and I don’t care how many people know it. Conferences get a bad wrap for a variety of reasons. The most substantial critique examines how they may fester the celebrity culture in Evangelicalism. Although speakers play some role into what conferences I attend, it has more to do with everyone else who attends. I attend for the relational fellowship. Because of that I prioritize meeting with people over teaching sessions sometimes.
I had missed a few of the Together for the Gospel sessions this year knowing I could catch them later on MP3 or video. I found out later that they would only be available for free for a limited time and then there would be a charge. Honestly, I grumbled. Looking back I regret that. We’re spoiled. With sites like Mongerism.com and DesiringGod.org giving away more content than I could consume in an entire lifetime we expect all of our digital content to be free.
When God creates Adam, he says man and woman are made in His image. They are children of God and sub-creators. They are commanded to have dominion and multiply.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Gen 1:28
Adam’s first task is naming the animals and tending the Garden. Adam and Eve later start a family and begin filling the earth. This command from God is called the creation mandate.
As a Neo-Calvinist, this text is crucial in understanding our responsibility in our current fallen world to engage in culture making and also in viewing God's work in non-Christians as they create. This wasn’t a one time command. It didn’t stop when Adam and Eve sinned. It’s something that we should still be doing—with one caveat.
Grace for Sinners exists to make much of God through the power of the Holy Spirit by heralding the reign of King Jesus for the glory of the Father and the joy of all peoples.
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Story Nourishment
We all live in a story. A loving, Triune God created the entire universe. He gave it function, purpose. He built a temple on earth and formed humanity in his image to be his priests. These humans, Adam and Eve, disobeyed this loving God and so He cast them out of the original garden-temple. Ever since then we have been fighting against and rebelling against God.
We, however, are not without hope. While casting Adam and Even out of the garden-temple, God promised to send Someone to crush our enemy the serpent. Thus snake-crusher would rule the world with mercy, grace, justice, and righteousness—and most importantly love. The story we all live is his story. How he came as a human and how that’s changed everything after he came.
Not everyone values a good story. Sometimes Christians can be the worst of all afraid of being of the world. What we must remember is that everything we do is part of a liturgy we live in. If we are not intentionally discipling ourselves and others creating liturgies around the acts and words of God then we are being discipled by someone or something else. Everything you hear, see, taste, and touch is telling you a story. Reading good stories is crucial to combating these destructive stories. Christians must wisely choose stories that will help them mature as disciples.
A Household Gospel
Over the last few weeks spanking has been a hot topic due in large part to Adrian Peterson, NFL MVP and 8 time pro bowl running back for the Minnesota Vikings, being indicted for child abuse after “whooping” (Peterson’s words) his four year old son with a switch (see the photos here).
What surprised me most was the almost knee-jerk reaction I saw from many Christians. “Why is the government persecuting parents who choose to spank?” Or “My momma whooped me too. Half my family would be in jail for using the switch.” When commenting on one thread, I asked if the person had seen the photos and they sheepishly said no, but that they were sure many of us would just have to agree to disagree.
What Adrian Peterson did was wrong. Period.
I grew up in Christian tradition terrified of the world and culture. We dare not touch, taste, or see lest we become defiled as well. “We are not of the world,” I heard often. We should never ignore the sin and darkness in the world, but we certainly shouldn’t live in fear. Our King reigns eternal in light.
Often I see this fear in my own parenting and in parents I mingle with in different settings. I had an irrational fear of my child going to school because “What if she learns bad stuff from other children?”
An ex Pastor friend of mine wrote me wondering what to do when the grumps effect shepherding. His self-evaluation of his previous ministry was that his effectiveness was hampered by his own mood swings. He does not believe he should reenter the ministry until he deals with the grumps.
What is the Pastor/Elder to do when he wakes up on the wrong side of the bed? What is the Pastor/Elder to do when he finds himself irrationally annoyed by Church members? What is the Pastor/Elder to do when he is cynical and does not want to be around people?
Evangelicalism, properly conceived, has been from the beginning cross and gospel centered. Even with the streams of pietism arising within certain circles, the historicity of the cross and resurrection have kept it grounded in the real world of God’s historical activity of redemption. More recently, evangelicals have paid more attention to the resurrection for the Christian life beyond just an apologetic Jesus’ crucifixion.
But let us consider this question: in all this does the doctrine of the ascension get minimized or neglected in our evangelical theologizing? Even more, while the cross should be central to the devotional life of the Christian, what role, if any, does the ascension of Christ in the devotional and worship life of the believer? Does the average believer understand the significance of the ascension for the Christian life? Far too often, one cannot help by wonder if the doctrine of the ascension is relegated to a sort of “and Jesus lived happily ever after” ending to the story of redemption.
As a father of two young children I am painfully aware of the necessity for ritual. Some might prefer the word “schedule” but I think this downplays the necessary participation of all parties and the genuine benefit derived from participating in the “schedule.” Pertinent to the subject of Christ’s ascension are the rituals surrounding my departure to and arrival from work. There are hugs and kisses as I walk out the door. There are awkward shouts and dances of exaltation when I walk in the door. It really is quite cute coming from children. They’re young and oblivious for thirty-seconds to whatever had been going on in their day. Everything stops. Dad is the main event.
Unfortunately for some Christians, the ascension and return of Jesus Christ is unintentionally similar to this. The results are not quite as cute. Christ’s disciples were sad and confused as He went up to the clouds. The questions about His kingdom continued to persist. The answers remained vague enough for the disciples to persist in their misunderstanding until Pentecost.
When God creates Adam, he says man and woman are made in His image. They are children of God and sub-creators. They are commanded to have dominion and multiply.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Gen 1:28
Adam’s first task is naming the animals and tending the Garden. Adam and Eve later start a family and begin filling the earth. This command from God is called the creation mandate.
As a Neo-Calvinist, this text is crucial in understanding our responsibility in our current fallen world to engage in culture making and also in viewing God's work in non-Christians as they create. This wasn’t a one time command. It didn’t stop when Adam and Eve sinned. It’s something that we should still be doing—with one caveat.
I
Jesus wasn’t always in the flesh.
John 1:14 reminds us that "the Word became flesh." Becoming flesh means Jesus existed before His incarnation. In our quest to prove the veracity of God becoming man so that as a man, he could do what only God could do, we sometimes caper right past the beauty and mystery of one aspect of the incarnation’s import. Before it, Jesus didn’t have skin.
When John claims that “in the beginning was the Word . . . and the Word was God,” he is implying that Jesus had been around long before his earthly arrival. Before the God-man was a God-baby, he existed eternally in perfect community with the triune God outside of time and space.
To say that the heart of the gospel is Christ crucified would not be wrong (1 Cor. 1:23; Gal, 6:14). To say that the heart of the gospel is the resurrection of Christ would not be wrong either, for by it our justification comes (Rom. 4:25; cf. 1 Tim. 3:16). To say that the heart of the gospel is the ascension of Christ would not be wrong, but you may receive a funny stare from a confused onlooker. The reason, of course, is that the ascension of Christ is an often overlooked element of the universally huge, wonderfully true, gospel of the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Perhaps you’ve glossed over this verse before: “And when [Jesus] had said these things, as [the disciples] were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9). To give another perspective on this event, Mark shares that, “The Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to [the disciples], was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God” (Mk. 16:19).
Christians, at some point in life, will stop and wonder whether or not they believe enough or have faith strong enough. What brings this on?
Life just hurts. Have you been in a place when you could swear there was a steady beeping sound just before a load of grief or stress was dumped on your head? During these times, we are prone to wonder where we had fallen short of God's expectations, searching high and low for to uncover the area of life that still is not sufficiently yielded.
I wake this morning to the sound of rain pounding on our back porch. I lay still and listen. I guess it’s fitting that the weather would be inclement today. It’s probably snowing at home. And I’m sure it’s icing in more places. Inconvenient to the holiday travelers.
This week I think about inconvenience.
Not the stuck in traffic or the grocery store is out of your cereal kind of inconvenience. The dramatic kind, the sort that interrupts your day or your life with news you never expected or always dreaded. The “Mary, virgin, you’re going to have a baby” sort of inconvenience.
I’m sure that all of us have experienced using a microscope, whether it was middle school, high school, or college. You lean down onto the eye piece and look through the ocular lense. Without zooming in, you see a blurry picture of perhaps the entire specimen. Once you zoom in, things become more clear, and also your astonishment at God’s creation increases.
I’ve found it helpful to view the account of Christ’s first advent, as found in the Gospel accounts, as if I were looking through a telescope. Broadly, there certainly are beautiful things to see. However, if we narrow our focus, we can see particular aspects of the work of Christ, just as we would be able to see cellular structures under a microscope.
My brother abides in the north. It takes an hour and a half to two hours to reach his dwelling: all dependent on construction and the amount of Pearl Jam I listen to. Three particular things I love among a menagerie more: Iowa, driving, and my brother. The drive through these sacred hills and hollows has always struck me as agreeable. 235 horses hitched to three open windows and a bed tagging along as caboose is the only way to fly. Curious, I know, but I am just a boy from Black Hawk County, and if one goes back far enough in my lineage it’s all dust and evictions from paradise, anyway.
The Word became flesh.
Let it sink in. Let these words pierce you. These are serious words, heavy words. They bear in themselves the weight of the ocean crashing down upon our very souls. And yet, because of the very Word Himself we are able to bear them. We are able to revel in them and when this baffling Truth meets indwelling Spirit we find breath drawn in sharply and tears burning our eyes.
The Word became flesh.
John shares a story of mistaken identity. Mary and other women arrive at Jesus’ tomb on the morning of his resurrection. The synoptics recall the women conversing among themselves to the effect of “Who’s going to roll the stone away?” But when they get there, the stone is already rolled back and as one might expect they are afraid and confused. Now the synoptics and John’s gospel report that the women went into the tomb and an angel reports Jesus’ resurrection. John then fills out the story with some other details.
There are no rules for these things. You hear the story over and over through the years and it seems so. . . obvious--that it had to happen exactly this way. But you know, there are no rules for these things.
Jesus rises from the dead and miraculously appears to the eleven (absent Thomas) in Luke 24. It’s a familiar account. But with that familiarity, we slip through the story, sliding by details, passing through nuance, the blurring speed of the bullet train blending savory detail away. For a few minutes, please slow down, pull over and take a long, deep breath of fresh mountain gospel air with me.
God merely spoke, and everything came into existence. There was nothing difficult for the Author of creation. He used no tools, no electricity, no blueprints. He used only His perfect and boundless imagination to create the sun and planets, every plant and animal, colors, sounds, light and darkness. There was a time in eternity past when there was nothing, and when the Creator simply spoke, there have been all sorts of somethings ever since. There are eight million species of animals, one hundred types of roses, and there is no end to the number of colors that exist, although people can only view about one thousand of them. Romans 1 tells us through creation, God’s eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen. From the tiniest dust mite to the largest star in the known universe, creation testifies to the immeasurable power of El Shaddai--God Almighty.
I just finished reading Captivated by Thabiti Anyabwile (a little book that packs a punch). Since reading it, I’ve been meditating for weeks on this:
Egypt lays in darkness for three days, Jerusalem for three hours. After the darkness, Egypt’s firstborn sons were killed; in Jerusalem the only begotten Son of God was slain. In Egypt, a lamb’s blood covered the doorposts of homes. In Jerusalem, the Lamb of God’s blood covered the sins of the world. (27)
Over the last few weeks spanking has been a hot topic due in large part to Adrian Peterson, NFL MVP and 8 time pro bowl running back for the Minnesota Vikings, being indicted for child abuse after “whooping” (Peterson’s words) his four year old son with a switch (see the photos here).
What surprised me most was the almost knee-jerk reaction I saw from many Christians. “Why is the government persecuting parents who choose to spank?” Or “My momma whooped me too. Half my family would be in jail for using the switch.” When commenting on one thread, I asked if the person had seen the photos and they sheepishly said no, but that they were sure many of us would just have to agree to disagree.
What Adrian Peterson did was wrong. Period.