Take up your cross. . .

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” These are the word spoken by Christ to his disciples that are sandwiched in between Peter’s confession of Christ and the transfiguration if Christ in the gospel of Luke.  They are such powerful and gruesome words, imagine being one of the disciples who were with Christ on that day he uttered these words. First Peter announces that Jesus is “the Christ of God,” then Jesus tells them that this Christ guy that Peter speaks of is going to suffer, and that in turn his followers are going to suffer, and then it is revealed that He truly is the Christ through the transfiguration. It's quite an eventful time in the life of the disciples. But in finding the Christ, they are told that they are going to suffer.

Now think of what the image of the cross was in the minds of these disciples. To Christ’s Followers today, the cross is an image of love. To Christ’s Followers in 30 C.E. the cross was a gruesome image of death and humiliation. The disciples would have never been caught dead wearing a cross around their necks or hanging them in their houses. As someone once said, “To a disciple, seeing someone wear a cross around their neck would be like us seeing someone wearing an electric chair around their neck.” Maybe the image that Mel Gibson gave us in “The Passion of the Christ” can help us understand what the image of the cross would have been to the disciples.

Now fast forward to today, but the today that happened approximately 1,975 years ago (give or take a few years). The disciples had to stand by and watch their beloved leader being beaten, whipped, flogged, mocked, humiliated, and ultimately killed in one of, if not the most brutal of fashions ever available. I have a feeling that the words Jesus uttered back on the day that Peter confessed Jesus as Lord may have entered the minds of the disciples during all of the chaos. I also have a feeling that they might have thought something like this; “umm, this is what we are called to do on a daily basis!” Maybe they wanted to take the same approach that Lone Star and Barf took when they saw what they were about to get into in Space Balls.

Fortunately for many of us, the cross that we carry allows us to skip the physical atrocities that Jesus unjustly had to suffer from the religious and political powers.  Most of us get to carry a cross more similar to the one the apostle John carried, (according to Christian tradition, John was the only disciple not killed for his faith), one that will not result in physical punishment. Instead he was ostracized and sent to exile on an island. Like John, sometimes we are going to be ostracized for our faith. Sometimes it will come from secular sources, sometimes from other religious sources, sometimes it will come from even inside our own religious tradition. I remember getting angry with a group of Christ Followers who took out a page ad in my local newspaper urging for peaceful responses after 9/11. At the time I thought they were idiots, I am sure others thought the same, maybe they used other words. But the point is this, these men and women were ostracized for their faith. However, in retrospect, all that these people were trying to do was to follow the teachings of Christ to their fullness, thru loving even their most disliked neighbors (as the Good Samaritan did), and by turning the other cheek to their oppressors. For this group of Christ followers:  love was their cross, peace was their cross, and Christ was their cross.

 In short, the crosses that Christ Followers carry on a daily basis are the teachings and actions of Christ. We carry teachings and actions which are counter to the culture that we live in; teachings and actions which are seen by the culture as being foolish. Many times, by carrying and holding onto these teachings, others are going to ostracize us. They are going to call us names; they are going to claim that we are bad Americans, even bad Christians! And despite the old limerick, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me,” names do hurt. Names are painful. Names have a powerful effect on a person; they can make them angry, they can make them sad, they can make them hurt. But there is Good News!  A Good News that is unknown to those who continue to persecute the disciples of Christ. That good news is this; resurrection is just around the corner! 

Part three of: "In the Beginning. . ."

            So I have discussed two of the most popular creation accounts in scripture in my last two posts on this series (Part One and Part Two). Now I want to discuss two lesser known accounts, one in Psalm 74 and the other in Job 38. These two accounts are similar in the fact that they are both part of a greater narrative. They are also alike in the fact that they both ascribe glory to God within their respective narratives. Despite their similarities we are presented these two accounts for differing reasons; Psalm 74 is presented in order to reminds us that salvation comes from God, whereas Job 38 is delivered to is in the hopes that we are reminded that God is God, and we are not.

First let’s look at Psalm 74. Here we are given a creation account that recalls how God created order in the midst of chaos rather than God creating ex nihilo (out of nothing). This whole creation/ordering of the earth begins with God subduing both sea creatures and Leviathan (some rather large sea creature). Now, last I knew, when God the creatures that dwell in the sea, that He described them as being good. So how could these evil creatures have been created by God? If they were created by God, why would God have to subdue both of these creatures if they were described as being good?

Now some could make two claims. The first these events occurred between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, which is called the Gap Theory. Now, it’s a plausible theory, but I have yet to be convinced of its truth. Mainly because I don’t believe that the bible was dictated word for word by God, which means I do not have to struggle and find ways to reconcile the different creation accounts. Another possibility could be that it occurred sometime after the fall. Once again, possible, but it seems odd to include an account that occurred after the fall with events that are concerned with the creation/ordering of the earth.

What I find more plausible is that our psalmist really wasn’t taking care to be literal, after all we are talking about poetry. So instead of trying to put the event in the context of creation, we need to put it into a different context, which is the context of the psalmist, which in turn is utter chaos. In short the psalmist is reminding his readers that God has re-ordered chaos once before, and He can do so again.

Now, let’s fast forward Isaiah for a second. Here we are told God has control over the nations, even without the nations realizing that He has control over them. To the Israelites, God literally controlled all of creation, both the elements of the earth and the people of the earth. So if the psalmist views God as being in control of both of the nations as well as the elements of creation (which I think he does) our defeated friend is saying this, “God, we are in a time of chaos, please do not leave us in this situation. I know how great you are through the fact that you once ordered chaos at the beginning of time. Please God, don’t forget us and order chaos once again.” In short, the psalmist is saying, God you were once were gracious enough to be great for us before, please be great for us again by delivering us from our enemies.

Moving onto Job, we have a situation where God rather plants land and sets it into the waters. But as we know, in Genesis, land is created by separating water. So which is it? Or better yet, does it matter?

When we put the passage in context, it does not matter. The context in the book of Job is that Job feels as if God has abandoned him despite being upright. But rather than asking God to vindicate him, Job ultimately asks, "why me?" Now, the whole book of Job consists of Job turning back to the fact that he is sinless, while his friends tell him that he must have sinned against God and beg of him to repent of his sins. But finally after thirty plus chapters of this, our hero finally gets a response from God, which is essentially this, “Job I am greater than you, and although you may not understand everything I do, the fact is this: I have done things you could never do, I have been places that you have never been and I know things you could never know.” In short, our creation account here is once again not about how God created, but rather that God is great, partly due to the fact that only God created.

Both of these creation accounts are about the fact that God is great. In one account a psalmist acknowledges God’s greatness by recalling the fact that God has controlled chaos in the past and then asks for God to do it again. In Job we are reminded (by God Himself), that there are just some things we can never understand (perhaps one of the things we could never fully understand is how God created), and also that we need to remember to trust God because God knows what He is doing.

In the next installment, I will discuss why it is not important to reconcile the creation accounts and what we can miss out on if we do.

Part two of: "In the Beginning . . .

            So as I promised, we will look at some different creation accounts that are found in the scriptures. The two accounts found in Genesis, followed by the ones found in Job and the Psalms.  Of these four, we will spend our time today with the two found in the book of Genesis.

The first, and arguably the most known account of creation, can be found in Genesis 1-2:3 (I will for simplicity sake just call Genesis 1). I already discussed the context in which this story was added into the book of Genesis. I also stated that what is important for us to notice was who created the earth, not how the earth was created. But today I just want to sum up the order in which God created:

Day one: light,

Day two: the expanse between the water and sky, along with 

dry land,

Day three: vegetation,  

Day four: the heavenly bodies (sun, moon, and stars),

Day five: birds and sea creatures,

Day six: creatures that dwell on the ground, followed up with 

humans.

Day seven: rest.

One need not look towards science to question the order of creation, one need only to turn the page and just read the next few verses.  It is here were we can find a second creation account, Genesis 2:4-25 (which I will from here on out label Genesis 2). Here, we have a creation story which takes an unspecified amount of time, which means that it could have taken 7 days, or it may have not. But what is important is that the order in which the creation occurred is quite different from the story found in Genesis 1. Here, man was created first before all other living things upon the land. Now compare that with Genesis 1, there we are told that man was created after animals, and after plants. But now we are being told that man was created before plants and animals? How can this be so?

I believe that we have to look at the focus of the two stories. Genesis 1 as I have stated over and over, and which I cannot repeat enough these days, was concerned with who made the earth. Genesis 2 however is more concerned with how humanity ended up in the conditions that they found themselves, both in relation to themselves as well as in their relation with God. We are given a glimpse that this is the importance of this story in verse 4 with the statement “These are the generations. . .”  which informs us that the story is now going to focus on humanity. This is then followed up with an account of how man is related to nature, how he relates with woman, how humanity then relates with God after the fall of humanity, and finally how humanity then relates with themselves in the account of the nations; which were created interestingly enough because of one man’s sin against another, (something we may have to discuss later). But back to the focus here, the Genesis 2 creation account is really the main focus of the larger story of Genesis 2-11. In short, Genesis 2 is the opening to a larger piece of literature which revolves around humanity, and as a result we get a very human centered account of creation; where man is created by God before any other living thing was created on the earth.

Now I could easily conclude my section on “In the Beginning . . .” right here, but we still have more creation stories to account for. Therefore, I refuse to end here, and as a result I’m not giving away the destination of this series quite yet. But I do promise to answer the questions of “So what, who cares?” at some point. So we will stop here for now, and I am hoping that you will ponder and comment on these questions: “What does it do to my faith to know that there are two separate and contradictory accounts of the creation in scripture? Does it even matter? If it does affect it, why is it affected? If it is not affected, why is it not affected?” Of course, all other comments are welcomed as well.

Part one of: "In the Beginning . . .

                . . . God created."  This was the point of the story found in first Genesis, the fact that God created.  That’s right; today some Christians wish to pass over the contextual importance of the first sentence of Genesis 1. Instead they like to focus on the aspects of how God created. However, what is important is that YAWEH created. How do I come to this conclusion?  I look to the historical context of the passage. Some traditionalists like to hold on to the teaching that Moses himself wrote Genesis, but biblical scholarship has shown that the date of Genesis, as we know it, to be around the 6^th or 5^th century BCE. This date also corresponds to the date of the Jewish exile in Babylon, which leads us to the reason as to why who is more important than the question of how in the creation account.

Now, Scholars also like to point out that the Jewish story of creation also has similarities with the Babylonian creation myth, Enuma Elish. The main similarities lie in the fact that the earth was created in a similar order (light, firmament, land, heavenly bodies, man, and rest). Coincidence, possibly, but just think about it from the point of view of a 6^th/5^th century BCE exile. If you’re a displaced people, in the land of your enemies, you are going to hear their story over, and over, and over. At some point you’re going to be afraid that the next generation of your own people will come to forget your stories and take up the stories of your conquerors. So what do you do? You say no, no, our God created, not their gods.  Thus making the key point of your collected story not about the way that the earth was created, but about who created. Which as we know from scripture was YAWEH.

              

            For now, we will stop here, and digest on the main point of Genesis 1. In the next part of the “In the Beginning” series, I will focus on some of the different creation myths that are found in scripture. Feel free to comment on my post, all opinions are welcome.