Memorial Day in War and Peace

Spirituality Column #238
May 31, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Memorial Day in War and Peace
By Bob Walters

’Some thoughts for Memorial Day, when America remembers her war heroes who died that we might be free, fought that we might know peace, and served us that we might serve others.

-Memorial Day easily captures the context of Christian faith, as we offer to God prayers of thanks and remembrance for the sacrifice of others.

-Jesus Christ, it is supremely worth noting, died for our freedom. He invented the concept, really. It is something that never occurred to or in humanity until Christ died on the Cross, defeating death and erasing our sin: we were free. It was a gift we didn’t request, solved a problem we didn’t know we had and, with faith, provided a victory impossible to imagine: eternal loving relationship with the Creator God in heaven. That's what God wants for us.

-The Bible exhorts, “God is love.” Christ’s example teaches that love requires freedom. That must be God’s toughest task – loving us enough to provide our freedom, with which we choose whether to love God or not. God knows love resides only in the presence of freedom and the absence of coercion, for coercion robs freedom, drains the soul, stifles hope and strangles faith. Love dies. That’s not what God wants for us.

-The Bible does not mandate systems or festivals commemorating Christ, because Jesus appeared once for all, took on our sins once for all, was cleansed once for all, died once for all, and we were entrusted with His faith once for all. It’s why Jesus says of taking the bread and cup, His body and blood, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

- “Once for all” means the eternal God appeared in mortal time as Jesus Christ and entirely changed the game for humanity’s relationship with God. God no longer mandated a place or a time or a behavior – like a temple or a festival or a commandment – to access divine relationship. Christ, by His work once for all, is to be alive in our hearts always and everywhere … in faith.

-The greatest war is our war with Satan … we fight it every moment of our lives.

-The greatest memorial is our communion with Christ.

-The greatest peace is in Christ.

-The greatest victory abides not with the swift or strong, but belongs reliably to the humble and faithful.

-Victory is not a remembrance of yesterday, but a hope for tomorrow.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is named after his mother’s brother Bob, a naval aviator who died in WWII.

Shrugging Off Selfishness

Spirituality Column #237
May 24, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Shrugging Off Selfishness
By Bob Walters

Hang with me for a minute … this is a book / movie review, sort of.

I’m old enough to remember the economic malaise of the late 1970s and no, the Disco era was not an adequate off-setting cultural pick-me-up.

I was just out of college making $10,000 a year as a sportswriter. Gas was a dollar a gallon, unemployment was high, American automobile quality was low, inflation hovered near 9 percent, home mortgage rates chased 20 percent, gold prices were astonishingly north of $800 an ounce, President Jimmy Carter was cheerless, and the nightly news – still with Walter Cronkite – offered “the Misery Index” (unemployment rate plus inflation rate) instead of hope.

With institutions failing us, we maturing baby boomers constructed a self-absorbed culture that appropriately became known as “The Me Decade.” Certainly in my mind, the world revolved around Me; I was unmarried, unchurched, unbelieving and unconcerned with salvation, damnation, justification, sanctification or glorification. I didn’t own a Bible, and even my old Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (a gift from my dad when I was confirmed in 1965) was out of sight somewhere in a dusty box.

Please understand, I was “a perfectly good person,” I just didn’t need all that Jesus jazz. I had friends and an interesting job … what else was there? I knew the church “story,” but it wasn’t worth getting out of bed for on Sunday; there wasn’t anything at church about “Me.”

In the late 1970s I read a book that unveiled for Me many comforting mysteries of the Me life: “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, first published the year I was born, 1954.

Rand (1905-1982) was an atheist, ardent anti-communist, “objectivist” (her word) and, if her TV interviews are an indication of the woman, a very, very bitter human being. Our highest moral duty, Rand taught, is to care for ourselves. Service to others is a self-immolating charade. God is an empty promise wrapped in ultimate disappointment. Jesus Christ, Rand wrote, presents an unsolvable contradiction; subordinating one’s ego and soul to the needs of others is impossible.

I bring this up because Atlas Shrugged, recently released as a widely-panned movie, often carries near-scriptural authority for unchurched political conservatives.

Play some defense. Understand. The May 2011 issue of “First Things” magazine offers a brilliant Christian review of both the book and the movie (free access at www.firstthings.com).

Don’t ever shrug off Jesus.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) wrote about Rand and atheism April 8, 2008, column #74 at this blogspot archive site.

The Upside of Great Despair

Spirituality Column #236
May 17, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Upside of Great Despair
By Bob Walters

It’s a darn shame but a fact of life that often we have to bottom out before we can be lifted up by Christ.

Non-believers find the logic of that truth impossible to understand. That’s partly right – it is impossible – because at its core Christ’s truth is about faith, not logic.

We generally, rationally, think we have the best shot at saving ourselves from whatever malady might befall our human existence. “My brain and my logic are all I need,” we reason. “If I’m strong enough, I can fix this.” “I believe in me.”

Religion, many people think, is a cop out. I have had real conversations with smart people – some of them dear friends – whose view of someone “finding Jesus” was accompanied by a long, low whistle and a dipping motion of the hand.

“People turn to Jesus when it’s as bad as it can get …”; then comes the long low whistle and hand dip, implying, “They’re a mess. It’s so bad, they found Jesus!” The perceived awfulness isn’t so much a concern for the despair, suffering or hardship a person faces – that would take Godly compassion – the awfulness is turning to Jesus.

Oh no! Not Jesus! You’re a goner!

Our pride and egos are horrid things, and the power of Jesus Christ is opposite everything the world thinks it knows about power. In the world, power is the imposition of will. It’s living one more day. In Christ, power is love and freedom, and eternal life at the throne of God.

“Our egos are prisons that keep us from the love and freedom of Christ,” notes my teacher George. What a great statement. Our egos want power because we think with power, we can forestall death; maybe just for today or tomorrow – and we admit we’re all going to die someday – but power is about my strength.

We cannot tap into God’s inexhaustible supply of strength when we try to compete against it with our own. Christ is like an experienced lifeguard, George analogizes. He knows when to approach a drowning person. After letting us fight and tire awhile in the deep, swirling water of our sin and pride, when we realize we can swim no more, Christ comes and gets us.

The power of God is to forgive and to love, and His ultimate strength is His compassion. That’s the gift He gave us all in Jesus Christ.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) found Christ when things were going fairly well; God somehow overwrote his sizable ego.

If You Meet Jesus ... Then What?

Spirituality Column #235
May 10, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

If You Meet Jesus … Then What?
By Bob Walters

Whether we know it or not, we all meet Jesus in an infinite number of personal and spiritual ways throughout our lives.

Working mysteriously through us and through others all around us in ways we cannot fathom or often even recognize, we encounter Jesus. We might forget that He’s there, not believe that He is near or deny that He even exists. But as the Son of God, the Word of God, the Light of the World, and the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Jesus is close all the time.

And as if the Gospel isn’t “good news” enough, even more good news is that Jesus keeps coming back to us despite our persistent, disbelieving rebuffs.

Here is a Guy trying to give us the nicest vehicle imaginable yet most people treat Jesus like an annoying car salesman, underestimating the glorious ride He has in store. It’s an uncomplicated choice: turn the key, or turn our back.

But suppose we actually came physically face to face with Jesus. He’s standing in front of me / us. We’re awake, alive, breathing, thinking and, with everything we know and have heard about the Son of God – believing in Him or not – we know Who He is. What do we do?

When Jesus approached Peter on the fishing boat, or Matthew in the tax booth, or Thomas after the resurrection, they had neither a New Testament nor nearly two thousand years of scholarship, reflection and tradition to help them understand Christ’s mission. It was all new. Now most of us, believers or not, know the story.

So, Jesus is standing in front of me, today. What do I do?

It’s an intriguing question that I love to ponder. Would I have the presence of mind to just shut up and listen? Would I shout with joy? Be awestruck and confused? Give Him a hug? Put my face on the ground in shame?

Would I be doubtful like Thomas, or blinded like Paul? Would I utter, “Yes, Lord?” Or, knowing what the Bible says about the next time we see Jesus, simply say, “Uh oh.”

We may not be sure how we’d respond, but in examining our reverent, joyful, fearful, dumbfounded or selfish reactions, we discover a great deal about our relationship with Christ and the state of our faith.

That’s important; because we’re in front of Jesus all the time.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) points out that no matter how many times we tell Jesus “No” in this life, He continually tries to help us find a way to say “Yes.”

Only Sinners Need Grace of Christ

Spirituality Column #234
May 3, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Only Sinners Need Grace of Christ
By Bob Walters

There is no better way to explain the presence of Jesus Christ on this Earth than to say God has a special love for sinners.

And while the fallen world strives to condemn sinners, Jesus Christ came to save us from the fallenness of sin, not to condemn us for it. Jesus obeyed unto death, sharing His perfection so that we might not be condemned for our imperfections.

Don’t get me wrong … we can still be condemned, but it is us, we, ourselves, who do the condemning with our worldly disobedience. God loves us, wants us saved from our sins, sent his Son Jesus to seal the deal, and yet gives us the freedom to screw it up if we so choose.

John 3:16-18 and 14:6 pretty much make the entire case. God loved the world … Jesus came to save not to condemn … whoever does not believe is condemned already … no one goes to the Father except through Christ.

That’s it in a nutshell, paraphrasing Jesus’ own words. Where it gets sloppy, our stumbling block, is in discerning what “obedience” means in God’s divine context of love rather than in the fallen world’s context of power. Christ’s message isn’t “Obey Me or else!” It is “Follow me” (Matthew 4:19, plus 20 more times). It’s “repent and be baptized” (Peter in Acts 2:38).

Too often Christian doctrine – the kind even preached inside some churches – is mistakenly cast as an opportunity to condemn sinners, when the truth is just the opposite. Christ is our only chance for forgiveness, and it’s a forgiveness residing in God’s love, not our restitution.

And while condemnation avoidance should never be faith’s main point, what’s even worse is the false doctrine of “no condemnation.” From front to back, the Bible plainly reveals that there is indeed condemnation, Hell and a great opportunity to fail God. Only a false prophet would say otherwise, and the worst things about false prophets are their sweet sounding lies that hasten eternal condemnation.

“Be warned,” the Bible continually says.

Romans 8:1 provides a succinct, reassuring reminder about the truth: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus …”

Read those words carefully, “in Christ Jesus.”

The name of God’s special love for sinners is “grace,” and it is ours for the asking through Christ, freely and in faith. Only sinners need apply.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) quotes his Christian friend May, “Praise God that I am a sinner; it is my only qualification for receiving the grace of Christ.”