Closer Than You Think

Spirituality Column #126
April 7, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Closer Than You Think
By Bob Walters

I beg to differ with anyone who thinks the Wondrous Cross of Christ sits on a hill far away.

The Cross is situated right here, right now, in the center of our beating hearts.

That’s a good thing, and a miserable thing.

It’s miserable because up there on the Cross – scourged, bleeding and gasping for breath – is the totality of our human wrath and the ugliness of our sins. It’s the most disturbing picture imaginable of what our sin and unfaithfulness would look like to God, if in fact He were able to look upon them.

Jesus – God become flesh (John 1:14) – could see sin and came among us to provide a resolution for the biggest catastrophe to befall humanity. Some think that catastrophe is sin, but the biggest catastrophe is death; it forever separates us from God.

No way do I believe that the horror of the Cross is a picture of God’s wrath; it is a picture both of our sin – man scourged Jesus – and what God is willing to endure to cure death. Not just that one time on a Cross on a distant patch of dirt, but every moment of every day for all eternity for every person who turns in faith to Jesus Christ.

The goodness of keeping the Cross always in our hearts is that it shows us the pure, unconditional, eternal love of God.

Is Jesus being punished for our sins? No, there is nothing in the Bible to suggest punishment. Besides, who can punish God? Jesus is defeating death, removing our sins, establishing a new covenant between man and God, birthing a new creation, and – with his resurrection – fulfilling the promise of eternal life for all who believe.

Christ is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Old Testament lambs didn’t do that; Christ is a new kind of Lamb.

We still sin. I’m a sinner. News flash: we’re all sinners. Sin’s the biggest problem we have in this life, and its ugliness is right up there on the Cross.

But with faith in Christ death is defeated, our hearts are changed, sin’s grip on this life is lessened … and with faith in Christ, eternity comes without sin.

That’s why we should hold that old rugged Cross close every second. It’s a lousy picture of ourselves, but proof God loves us anyway.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) archives these weekly columns at www.believerbob.blogspot.com.

Smile When You Say That

Spirituality Column #103
October 28, 2008
Current in Carmel (IN), Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Smile When You Say That
By Bob Walters

It’s hard not to notice the anger hanging thick in the air this political season.

Between the two – anger and the political season – I think the more important and dangerous issue for Christians is anger.

Anger is a spirit and Biblical issue for all seasons.

Broadly, there are two kinds of anger … righteous anger and selfish anger. Both are based on fear, but on two distinctly different kinds of fear.

One fear is the reverent, righteous fear of losing something we love … like our communion with Christ. Our “Fear of God” should be understood in this way, as an expression of our commitment to love Him.

We also must understand that God’s Old Testament anger is about His love for us; His wanting to protect us from the dumb, destructive things we do with the freedom that He gives us.

And by the way, are we all agreed as Christians that we are supposed to use that freedom to find Him, love Him, and worship Him? Not to find, love and worship ourselves?

The other fear is the self-centered, “or else” kind of fear that makes us afraid something bad will happen. It causes the foolish anger Proverbs warns against – the fear of punishment and condemnation; the fear that destroys love.

Selfish anger is an outgrowth of Satan’s evil grip on our world and, too often, on our individual lives.

Believe me when I say I’m not preaching here from some elevated pulpit. Controlling my worldly fear and anger is perhaps the most difficult part of my Christian walk, because I know I have a fearful, angry, worldly beast within me. Satan knows it too.

The upside of being able to simply say, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” and mean it in a way that only the Holy Spirit can teach us how to mean it, keeps that miserable beast of worldly fear and anger in chains.

Then the real upside of a Christian’s experience … peace, joy, hope, faith. love (see Galations 5:22-23) – even in a political season – is truly ours.

So … smile when you’re in church. Smile when you pray. Smile because the sincerity and depth of your love for God is a gift of grace you could not earn.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), still thinking of this political season, reminds all to smile when we can obey Proverbs 15:1 and let our “gentle answer turneth away wrath.”

Love and Wrath

Spirituality Column #64
January 29, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Love and Wrath
By Bob Walters

The wrath of God and the love of Jesus are a theological odd couple.

In the Father-Son-Holy Spirit Trinity, where the three persons of the one God meet as love and community, how can one be good, one be angry, and one – the Holy Spirit – be neutral?

Does that make sense?

The Trinity is our divine example of a perfect relationship, yet too often we tell our Christian story as a saga of punishment and payback rather than a celebration of trust and forgiveness.

If the Trinity is truly three persons of the one God, the Passion of Christ must also be the Passion of God and of the Holy Spirit.

My friend George Bebawi, the religious scholar (and Carmel resident) I often mention, made the excellent point in a recent lecture that he was “tired of meeting Christians who are afraid of meeting God.”

His point was that if you are afraid of God, you cannot mature as a Christian. Our Christian maturity is a function of our relationship with God. If our relationship with God is based on fear … it is the relationship of a slave, not of salvation; it cannot grow.

When we struggle as Christians to adequately explain or exemplify the love of God, it is too often easy and seemingly expedient (and human) to insert fear into the argument and say … “If you aren’t saved, God is going to get you. Look what God did to Christ, and He was innocent! What is God going to do to you?”

A crazy and unbiblical syllogism.

The Cross as an expression of God’s love is a difficult concept: it looks so much like a punishment. But in the New Testament the Cross is never described as either a function of God’s wrath or as punishment. It was how God reconciled our sin so His love for us could include our relationship with Him.

Is God’s wrath coming? I’m afraid so. All hell is literally going to cut loose on the last day, although I can’t imagine what that means or looks like.

The New Testament teaches that the love of the Cross – the love of the Trinity – can save us from that fear, and that fate.

Love God not to avoid punishment, but to build a relationship.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) should probably tell you more about Bebawi. Maybe next week.