AfterWORD – Together We Must Know
by Reed on Jan.05, 2008, under Uncategorized
In following up from my message last weekend (Together We Must Know / download), I wanted to post a few more thoughts to encourage my own thinking as well as yours.
First, a recap. I see the ancient proclamation/confession “Jesus Christ is Lord” (2 Corinthians 4:5) as central to all that we’re doing at CRCC.
- We hold to the belief that there was a historical figure, Jesus, who walked the earth and preached and lived the good news of the Kingdom of God (see, for example, Matthew 4:23 in addition to the Luke passage I touched on in the message). As followers, we share his mission in this, seeking to be the healing hands and voices of our generation in our our church community, our city, and our world.
- But it doesn’t just end there, for we also believe that this Jesus rightly has the role of Christ (or Messiah: “Annointed One”) who died for our sins. As referenced in my message, one of the oldest confessional formulations in the New Testament comes from 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 and focuses upon two assertions of faith: that Christ died for our sins and that he was resurrected.
- But it doesn’t end there, either, for this Jesus, who walked the earth, and this Christ who died and rose again, is proclaimed as Lord – he lives today and always and we give our lives in trust to him and in action like him. We trust his sacrifice on our behalf as Christ, we trust his leadership in our lives as Lord, and in this trust we act, moving like Jesus in our journey as individuals and as a congregation.
This leads me to my second reflection. I am more convinced now than ever that we must uphold both Jesus and Christ as Lord. By this I mean we must be the gospel and preach the gospel of God’s dream for the world as a whole in the here and now. We must work to bind up the brokenhearted and set the captives free. We must work to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and educated the immigrant. But we must also, and simultaneously, be true to our call to preach the gospel of God’s dream for individuals, that they might find forgiveness and hope and eternal, abundant life in Christ. Of course we will get enamored and distracted from time to time by one or the other of these “gospel poles” but we must, as much as possible, always return to the center and do both with excellence. Furthermore, I must lead in this and equip the church to become this…quite frankly, this is one of the reasons for this blog.
Third, I realize that in talking of the essential, or core, confession of the Church – and our church – I could have gone with many options. I could have chosen the proclamation “Jesus is Son of Man” (one of Jesus’ favorites; e.g., Mark 10:45; Mark 13:26) or the “Jesus is Messiah/Christ” of the earliest Jewish followers (Acts 3:18-20) or even “Jesus is Son of God” which was Paul’s proclamation in Damascus after his conversion (Acts 9:20). However, I went with “Jesus Christ is Lord” because it seems to tie together all of these confessional claims and was embedded in a text that challenges me as a pastor (2 Corinthians 4:5).
I’ll finish up with a quote I found in my background research for this message. It is from theologian James Dunn (UDNT, pp. 56-57) and his study of the early confessional formulae of the Church. To him (and to me), it seems that the unifying strand of belief in the early church was
…the conviction that the historical figure, Jesus the Jew, is now an exalted being – that this Jesus is and continues to be the agent of God, supreme over all other claimants and titles, Lord and Son of God… First, it is Jesus who is confessed – not his ideas, faith or teaching in itself. It is not the faith of Jesus which here comes to expression, but faith in Jesus… Second, it is the present status of Jesus which is confessed – not what he was, but what he is. This is most obvious in the case of the kyrios (”Lord”) confession… Third…Jesus is the subject of the confession; it is the historical person who is so confessed.
In other words, each confession itself maintains the vital link between the historical person and the one who is the present author of life, justification, power. Jesus, the Jesus who was, is, now is and continues to be Christ, Son of God, Lord… [the] unifying element within earliest Christianity…is the unity between the earthly Jesus and the exalted one who is somehow involved in or part of our encounter with God in the here and now.
Okay, enough of me. Because I framed my message last weekend as a kitchen table talk (and would love for this entry to be seen as such as well), feel free to comment and push back on anything at any time!
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Columbia Ridge Community Church » These Things We Must Know
January 7th, 2008 on 4:28 pm[...] Things We Must Know [45:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download See Pastor Reed’s blog entry on this message. Subscribe to our message podcast. Find more messages by Reed [...]
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Reed Mueller » AfterWORD - What is Pleasing Praise?
January 23rd, 2008 on 4:28 pm[...] And remember, the cool thing about fruit is that it contains seeds that one day grow into something else. When the fruit of our lips is rotten – when we break down those around us, ourselves, or God – we plant a future crop of sadness. Yet, when the fruit of our lips is sweet – when we love others and acknowledge the Lord through words – we plant a future crop of joy. The seeds for tomorrow are planted from the fruit of our lips today. When that fruit builds others up, seeds are planted for better relationships tomorrow. And when that fruit acknowledges that he is Lord, an eternity of tomorrows are given to you as a gift (see Romans 10:9 and this note). [...]
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I'm Reed Mueller, pastor of Columbia Ridge Community Church. Feel free to read what pops out of my head and onto the web, then join in the discussion if you want.
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My Recent Weekend Messages- Devotion (Stigma, part 10)
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- Becoming: Attention (Stigma, part 5)
- Becoming: Abiding (Stigma, part 4)
- Marks on Me (Stigma, part 3)
- Marks of Disgrace (Stigma, part 2)
- Marks for Us (Stigma, part 1)
- Life on the Edge (Living Abundantly in Times of Scarcity, part 3)
January 6th, 2008 on 9:21 am
I very much like the recap and the ability to reflect again on your message around the confession of “Jesus is Lord.” I like the idea that this blog will give us all the ability to reflect and engage with a message beyond the times slotted for it during the weekend.
In addition to what you spoke about last weekend and added here, I wanted to add a few thoughts on what this confession means to me personally. They’re similar, I think, to thoughts that the original users of this confession would have had. While they come from the confession “Jesus is Lord” they focus on the implication “If Jesus IS Lord, then what or who IS NOT Lord?”
In the days of Paul and the early church this implication was pointed directly at the divine Caesar Augustus and his empire. In the Aeneid it says of him, “This, this is he, whom you so often heard promised to you, Augustus Caesar, son of a God, who shall again set up the Golden Age amid the fields where Saturn reigned.” This was the “party line” of the Roman Empire and it was repeated and inscribed everywhere.
To the early Christians the confession “Jesus is Lord” refuted all of this, and suggested that peace and grace (Paul’s favorite blessing in his letters) did not come from the military victories of an emperor, but from the quiet lonely victory of Lord’s son on a human cross. If Jesus is Lord through his selfless and salvific acts, then Augustus is not – cannot be — Lord.
In our own day when we say “Jesus is Lord” we’re making a similar proclamation against the “Lords” of this world:
If Jesus is Lord, wealth is not Lord.
If Jesus is Lord, fashion and being “in style” are not Lord.
If Jesus is Lord, the icons of our culture – music and celebrities and authors — are clearly not Lord.
If Jesus is Lord, conventional politics are not Lord
If Jesus is Lord, I am not Lord. (Nobody really thinks they are, but advertising tells us we should be and ought to be and deserve to be, through messages like “Have it your way” and “Just do it.”)
This view of the confession urges us to keep asking, “Why is my Lord above the Lords of this world? In which Lord do I believe and trust, and who will I choose to serve?”
January 6th, 2008 on 2:57 pm
Couldn’t agree with you more, Michael, both on your thoughts about the purpose/hope for the blog as well as the topic at hand. I appreciate your thoughts the confession and its relevance to our life today. To say “Jesus Christ is Lord” is to exclude so many other’s from that possibility, to hold him as the one to follow in life as the key to both praxis and the hope for peace, and finally to hold him as the one to trust for eternal life. That latter piece was the additional spin on the Greek concept while the former two were not. For the Greeks, mere continuance of the soul in some form was the hope, not life in all its fullness, which is a Hebrew idea and which is what Jesus Christ as proclaimed offers both here and forever.
Back on the concept of Jesus versus other “Lords”, I ran across this quote yesterday and as it finds some relevance to the topic at hand I’ll pass it along:
January 9th, 2008 on 4:39 pm
Praise the Lord!
Great word. Amen.
I am not eloquent. I do not write well.
But I know the Word and I know the Lord.
Jesus lived out humility. He lived out boldness, true masculinity, gentleness, confidence, compassion, joy; altogether, all the time.
He knew how to humble himself before the Word (logos) of God, even though He was THE (living)WORD. We must learn to humble ourselves before the WORD and the logos; trusting in them rather than our intellect or wisdom or strength of personality. That is the measure of a man; that is the measure of a disciple; that is the measure of a leader. To humble ourselves before our GOD. As Paul says, to look foolish as we proclaim the weakness of the cross; the very POWER of God.
That was in my humble opinion a very powerful sermon. It was the essence of the WORD, spoken with humility and boldness. Jesus was lifted up and honored, God was glorified. He will draw men and women unto Himself, and that is the point and purpose of preaching.
Amen.
January 10th, 2008 on 8:18 am
Rodomercy – thanks for your thoughts and your encouragement as they are both great influences in my life.
Your words about the foolishness of the cross hit me anew today. How foolish it must have been for the earliest of Christians to profess Jesus Christ as Lord. The ending of his story (in the minds of Paul’s non-Christian contemporaries) spoke very loudly against the possibility that he was Lord. And yet, he was and is and always will be.
God has a “peculiar mark of majesty” (I’ll give you 50 cents if you can identify where that quoted phrase comes from… Hint: It was something I just listened to.) Anyway, the cross is THE peculiar mark of both God’s majesty and his power.