New Life Reading

In today’s reading Henri Nouwen displays Jesus’ embodiment of the Lord’s Supper through a person experience. Nouwen tells of attending a Holy Thursday service at a L’arche Community in Paris. The community director led the meeting, laid out his vision for the group to be a serving community, expressed his love for Jesus, and dispersed the elements of the Eucharist. Following a meal the leader once again got up and washed the the feet of each person. Nouwen interprets the record of Jesus washing his disciple’s feet along with the elements in John 13 to show how Jesus gave all in love and service to others. Jesus gives Himself totally to people, all of them. Says Nouwen, “The word became flesh so as to wash my tired feet. He touches me precisely where I touch the soil, where earth connects with my body that reaches out to heaven. He kneels and takes my feet in his hands and washes them.” Nouwen is not necessarily calling for an ordinance but calling for the church to emulate Jesus by giving all of ourselves to one another. This is what Nouwen saw at L’Arche in Paris, “everybody was willing to make a step in the directions to which Jesus pointed.” That’s what I want for me, that’s what I want for you, that’s what I want for us. Make a step in the direction Jesus pointed. Service, that’s the point.

Romans 10:1-4 declares Paul’s desire for salvation to come to his brethren, the Jewish people who are without Christ. As we walk in the steps of Christ we shared Christ with a wondering world.

Clarence Jordan, translator of the Cotton Patch Gospel and founder of the Koinonia Farm, writes in today’s reading of God making Himself expendable. Jesus came into the world that the world might be saved. This salvation happened because Jesus was willing to take the world’s sins upon Himself and die for them. Jesus was willing and we as human beings were willing to let Him die for our sins. Jordan then challenges the church, as the body of Christ, to take on the same mission as Christ:

The reason that the world is so terribly neurotic today is that it no longer has a sin-bearer. The Church doesn’t want to bear the sins of the world. We don’t want to be anybody’s dumping ground. We don’t want to have them throwing their dirty dishwater on us. And the world has no scapegoat; it has no sin-bearer.

The church as a “dumping ground” is not a popular moniker at all. But in Jordan’s sense maybe it should be one. Christ demonstrated his love for us in while we are all sinners He died for us (Romans 5:8). The church then as the Body of Christ, the on earth representation of the character and person of Christ, should offer the same thing that we might give our lives to take on the sinful lives of others. The Church is not the savior, that is Christ, the Church must present Christ in all His fullness. The Church calls in sinners to dump their sins on Christ and that Christ is found among His body, the Church. Luke 9:23-25 is Christ calling on His disciples to deny themselves of their selfish ambitions and to follow the path of the cross. This path will always deal with sins, ours and others. The denial is dealing with our sins, the cross is following God’s will and that cross offers forgiveness for all our sins and the sins of others. We follow Christ and share Christ, the Lord of love and forgiveness.

New Life Reading

In today’s reading Jurgen Moltmann calls for life as a protest of death. Moltmann says that in the resurrection Christ provides “the great alternative” to death. As the resurrection is against death it becomes alive in the freedom of life. The power of the resurrection is unleashed through the Spirit and continues its work until “every rule and every authority and every power” is at last abolished (1 Cor. 15:24 as quoted by Moltmann). The call of the Christian, for Moltmann, is then to have “the courage for revolt, the protest against deadly powers, and the self-giving of men and women for the victory of life.” This courage is a result of the hope of the resurrection that overcomes death in all its manifestations in this world. Moltmann’s excerpt closes with the call for freedom that further comes from death’s defeat, “For with Easter begins the laughter of the redeemed, the dance of the liberated and the creative play of fantasy.”

Moltmann’s robust theology has all kinds of implications. But at its heart, the recognition of resurrection as death’s alternative having real, right-now implications is strengthening and encouraging. This life was played out by the earliest Christians in Acts 2:42-47 who find life in Christ and life with one another as they met and worshiped Him together. It is nothing short of miraculous that we can be separated by circumstance but still held together by the Spirit that overcomes death and breathes life in and among us. Let us live and continue to live in community through creativity and the conviction that we are held together by the ongoing power of the resurrection. Know that you are not defeated by death, desperation or anything but your alive in the Spirit. Let us live.

New Life Reading

Today’s reading comes from “The Power of Forgiveness” by Johann Christoph Arnold. Arnold details the ripple effect of showing the forgiveness exemplified and embodied in Jesus Christ. He gives a helpful definition of forgiveness with this, “ Forgiving is not ignoring wrongdoing, but overcoming the evil inside us and in our world with love.” This does not just appear, it is a development of growing in Christ through the variety of experiences that come our way through the lenses of Scripture and the example of Christ. Arnold cites the well-known quote of Martin Luther King Jr. talking about power of love for real transformation. Romans 5:1-5 speaks of the transformation that takes place within us, and the character development that comes. How would your world change if you chose love over bitterness today? “Father forgive them,” said Christ may by that same power we say it too.

New Life Reading

Today’s essay was written by Amy Carmichael in the mid-20th century. Camrichael is best known for her missionary work among orphan children in Southern India. The essay is entitled “Calvary Love” and reads very similar to the Thirteenth chapter of One Corinthians. Carmichael writes introspectively and provides some thoughtful examples of what is lacking in our lives to show the love of Christ exemplified in the cross. I cannot help but be stuck on one section as I reflect on the essay. In it Carmichael asserts,

If I am content to heal a hurt slightly, saying “Peace, peace,” where there is no peace; if I forget the Poignant word “Let love be without dissimulation” and blunt the edge of truth, speaking not right things but smooth things, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

I do think there might possibly be more nuance to what Carmichael is asserting but I do know the temptation to smooth talk versus lovingly telling the truth. How do speak truth in a way that is respectful, caring, and ultimately loving. We live a world of “zingers” and “gotcha” moments. But love that is Christ centered cannot rejoice in “zinging” or “getting” someone else when it comes to sharing the truth.

An earmark of Christian community is hospitality. When we open our home and ourselves to others we do so in love and truth. 1 Peter 4:8-9 speaks of the importance of real love, not looking over sins but covering the sins of others with the love we have received in respect to our own sin. Let us live Calvary love.