Necessary Evil

Spirituality Column #72
March 25, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Necessary Evil
By Bob Walters

The Bible tells me …
Creation is real, Heaven is real, and Hell is real.

I don’t thoroughly understand any of them, but I do know that Creation and Heaven are not threats or warnings; they both embody God’s goodness. I’m fairly certain that ignoring them will only lessen the joy of my experience with God here on earth, not create eternal ramifications for my salvation.

The specifics of Hell, on the other hand, demand our undivided attention at least once in a while because if we miss God’s message on Hell, we can and very likely will stumble into very deep doo doo for all eternity.

Frankly, I don’t spend a lot of my Christian faith-walk fearing Hell because I wasn’t frightened into the faith by threats of damnation. I was intellectually drawn to Christ by a preponderance of both evidence and emotion that acted on my heart, mind and soul, telling me that access to God, through Christ, with the Holy Spirit alive within me, was how I wanted to live my life.

Now, none of that means I’m not a sinner yet today; I am. So it’s necessary to take a moment every now and then to contemplate the awfulness of sin and what, exactly, Hell is. “Eternal damnation” is a hackneyed church phrase that does not paint a cogent – or ugly enough – picture.

Hell is where sin plays its home games. Hell is inescapable once you’re there. It’s not just fire; it’s a furnace with intensified and perpetual heat. It is complete aloneness, hopelessness and shame. It is awake, not unconscious. It is death, and you are aware of it. It is where God, over and over again in scripture, promises that he vanquishes souls who reject him.

A lot of churches ignore Hell. Shoot, a lot of churches ignore sin.

But if the Bible is your standard of what God promises, study up on what scripture says about Hell.

A Christian blogger I like named Brent Riggs has a succinct four-part teaching on what the Bible says about Hell at seriousfaith.com, search “040722.”

I don’t follow Christ because I fear Hell, but it’s a special kind of crazy to ignore Christ because you don’t fear Hell.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) fully appreciates how uncomfortable it is to contemplate Hell. Can you imagine what it’s like to be there?

The Week That Was

Spirituality Column #71
March 18, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

The Week That Was
By Bob Walters

Leading up to the first Easter ...

After he raised Lazarus from the dead in Bethany near Jerusalem, the chief priests plotted to kill Jesus who withdrew to a desert village (John 11:45-54).

A week later Jesus arrived back in Bethany and a dinner was given in his honor. The guests included Lazarus, whose sister Mary poured expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet – his anointing for burial. Judas said it was a waste of perfume. Jesus said, “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me” (John 12:1-7).

The next day Jesus arrived in Jerusalem on a donkey. Palm fronds were placed on his path and the day has since been called Palm Sunday. (John 12:12-15).

Monday Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the temple, and healed the blind and the lame there, further infuriating the chief priests. Each night Jesus went back to Bethany and the Mount of Olives (Matthew 21:12-17, Mark 11:12-19, Luke 19:45-48).

Tuesday Jesus withered a fig tree for not producing fruit (Matthew 21:18-21) and the chief priests questioned Jesus as to the source of his authority (Mark 11:27-33). Jesus taught immense lessons in the temple on both Tuesday and Wednesday (Matthew 21:28 to 25:46).

Matthew and Mark say Jesus’ anointing in Bethany was Tuesday night, two days before the feast of the Passover. It was likely Wednesday when Judas agreed to betray Jesus.

Thursday brought the Last Supper and the first communion of the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ. Now known as Maundy Thursday, “Maundy” comes from the root word meaning “mandate” or command.” We are commanded to love each other (John 13:34-35) and to remember Christ in communion (Matthew 26:17-30).

Thursday night Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives (Matthew 36-55, John 17), and Friday was arrested, beaten, found faultless by Pilate, ridiculed, beaten again, crucified, declared dead and buried.

Saturday ... was Christ in hell, in the tomb or already in heaven? Everyone has an opinion; nobody is exactly sure.

On Easter Sunday? The tomb of our death and sin was empty, and our hope of eternal life assured. Christ is Risen Indeed.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) prays, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  BTW, there is some possiblity that the Last Supper was actually Wednesday evening because Jewish days started at sundown, not sunrise.  Our Wednesday evening today would have been the start of Thursday in biblical Jerusalem.

Simple Question

Spirituality Column #70
March 11, 2008
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper

Simple Question
By Bob Walters

Let’s ask the great theological question:

Are we humans basically good, or basically bad?

I’m going to go with “basically good,” because we are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27, 2:7) who the Bible convinces me is a loving and good God, and who – the Bible insists (John 3:16) – desires a perfect and eternal relationship with each one of us.

There’s just that pesky “sinful nature” and unavoidable “death” (“the wages of sin is death,” Romans 6:23) that we can’t seem to shake off.

So, if we are basically good, why do we need Christ? Because we have free will and we sin and we have doubts and we create all kinds of physical and spiritual mayhem all over the world. And because Christ very simply – whether we prefer to believe we are good or bad – is the access path to God.

That’s why He was sent here.

It bothers me to think that Christ would go through the ordeal of the cross if we were basically bad. We must be worth something to God.

And if we are to hope in anything, isn’t “good” hope’s foundation? I rarely hope for anything bad to happen, even to people I don’t like. “Bad” and “hope” just don’t go together.

Plenty of people are convinced that they themselves are the good and that God must be the bad because awful things happen – in the Bible and in the present world around us – and how can a good God let awful things happen?

That, my friends, is a very human – and very flawed – way to see life.

Do we carry Adam’s sin in us? Yes, it certainly seems so. And it is a fact beyond discussion that the curse of Adam’s sin is death; not only of us humans, but for all of creation (Genesis 3, Romans 8:22). The phrase isn’t “fallen humans,” it’s “fallen world.”

There is no sin in the first two books of the Bible (Genesis 1 and 2) nor in the last two (Revelation 21 and 22). The story starts good, and ends good.

As for this time in the middle, it sure is a comfort knowing Christ.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) thinks the point of life is to learn to love God, and each other, no matter what happens.

Is Everybody Wrong?

Spirituality Column #69
March 4, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Is Everybody Wrong?
By Bob Walters

Nobody's right if everybody's wrong …
(Stephen Stills, “For What It’s Worth,” Buffalo Springfield, 1967)

There is a philosophical sucker’s trap into which Christians occasionally stumble. It goes something like this:

“If you think Jesus is the one, true and only way to salvation, then you are saying everybody else is wrong. That’s selfish to think that way, and Jesus wasn’t selfish.”

Therefore … what? Jesus is wrong? Truth doesn’t exist?

Let’s look at that.

We Christians strive diligently and joyfully to mature in our personal and individually unique relationships with Christ. We are to witness to it (Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 1:8), yet it is clear in the Bible that not everybody will “get it.”

Humans tend to forget that we are the variable in the equation of God’s grace and truth. God doesn’t change, but we do. In comparison with God’s perfect simplicity, ours is a fairly complicated existence. We deal with a fallen world, accidents, surprises, etc. God doesn’t have to deal with the unknown.

Out of necessity we are very busy with ourselves, trying to make sense of both the human and the divine. But the gift of grace we receive as part and parcel of our faith in Christ is supposed to, it must, unlock our love for others. It can’t be selfish. When I know the truth, that truth doesn’t change because someone disagrees with it, ridicules it, attacks it, or is annoyed by it.

To review, briefly, the truth is God, God is the truth, and God doesn’t change. Ergo, the truth doesn’t change.

A reminder: We change.

We are too often in these modern times trying to make sure everyone is comfortable with their own private truth. So here is a radical, non-PC idea: what if, in fact, the Christian truth is right?

I have a pretty persuasive argument: a real relationship with Christ, a Bible, a church, 2,000 years of Christian theological development, 6,000 years of Biblical history, a deep, abiding, daily, palpable faith in God’s truth and love as revealed in Jesus through the Holy Spirit … and plenty of people around me every day who think I am wrong.

I can’t always adequately explain to others why they need Jesus, but give me the time and I’ll do my best to explain – with love and grace – why I can’t live without Him.

It’s the right thing to do.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is stunned when he realizes 1967 was 41 years ago … and he remembers this song so well.