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Summary
“Good news: Christ is risen!” — That’s what we say on Easter. “Christ is risen!” But that’s one guy out of one hundred billion or so… since Adam.
The preacher says: “No! Christ is risen, and you will rise too… If you believe. But is that “news”? Is it “news” to me if the news depends on me?
“Good news: Christ is Risen!” So, is it small? Is it news? And is it good?
Dan Barker was an evangelical pastor who now professes to be and atheist. At “Skepticon 4” in 2011, he proposed an interesting scenario: “Suppose you were walking by my house…and I were to go up on the porch and say, ‘Hey… I’ve got some good news! You don’t have to go down in my basement… You’ve been ignoring me and it’s made me so… horribly mad. So, I built a torture chamber down in my basement… But you don’t have to go down there! I sent my son down there. And it was gruesome… But that satisfied my anger… All you have to do [is] come up here… and tell my son that you love him and hug him, and then you can move in with us… And you can tell me how great I am… won’t that be great?’ So, would you keep walking?” Ouch . . . And good question.
1 Corinthians 15:1-2, Paul writes, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel [euangelion: “Good News!”] I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you…”
What does Paul mean by “if”? Does he mean that Jesus didn’t die for you 2000 years ago if you don’t believe today by the end of the sermon?
I once took my children on a giant inflated banana ride behind a motorboat in the Sea of Cortez. When we all fell off (as planned), my daughter Becky (terrified of sharks) began to freak out. I swam to her and said, “Good News! I was a lifeguard in high school. Do you confess that you need to be saved? And do you trust that I can save you?” She just yelled at me and didn’t answer the questions. So, I let her drown in the sea. That was her choice. We’ll miss her, but all the other kids said, “Dad, you really validated my free choice and my own sense of personal agency by letting Becky drown in the sea. You’re a good Dad.”
Actually, that last part didn’t happen. This did happen: Becky tried to climb me, stand on top of me, and I began to drown. So, I consciously chose to express anger; I pushed her away and began yelling, “Stop. Stop it. Just stop it, Becky!”
When I was a lifeguard, I learned that frightened drowning people will often seize control and endanger you both. So, to save them, you have to “NOT save them” but just watch them drown until they’ve exhausted themselves. And then, you can save them and swim for them. While they’re drowning, they’re not actually being saved, they’re being prepared to be saved. But then, once saved, they tend to trust their savior, and everyone can enjoy the giant banana ride on the sea of Cortez.
Even if you were a Lifeguard with Superpowers, like God, nobody that you saved could “receive” salvation, know salvation, or know you, the Savior, if they thought that they had saved themselves.
Maybe your faith doesn’t create the Good News, but your faith enables you to enjoy the Good News — kind of like enjoying a ride on a giant banana on the Sea of Cortez. Maybe salvation isn’t a reward for believing, but believing is literally salvation. Paul taught that all sin was “not believing,” that “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” We are “being saved” from “not believing.”
1 Corinthians 15:3-6,17, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time. [He appeared to ‘the twelve’! Taken literally, this means that Jesus appeared to Judas in Gehenna. I doubt they stayed there.] And if Christ has not been raised your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”
You are not forgiven because Jesus died (Paul just said so: verse 17). You are not forgiven because Jesus was a “penal substitute” or because God was working out his anger issues or satisfying some distorted notion of “justice.” You are forgiven because Jesus ROSE from a tomb, and that tomb is you — He is the righteousness of God in you: Faith, Hope, and Love rising in you.
1 Corinthians 15:22-28, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. [That’s Big News!] …For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. [The wrath of God is not “death,” but the destruction of death, which is Life. And Jesus is the Life. He is God’s wrath upon the basement in which we have all trapped ourselves.] … When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.” Big News!
God is Beauty, Reason, the Way, Truth, Life, and Love. So, what’s missing in the picture of God that Dan Barker is painting? God. God is missing. So, this is Good News: The God that Dan Barker doesn’t believe in, doesn’t exist. And Dan Barker doesn’t believe in that God because something in Dan Barker does believe in: Beauty, Reason: “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” Love, and the Good. “God alone is Good,” said Jesus.
1 Corinthians 15:45 “Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’ [psyche: soul]; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”
Do you remember how it happened? He hung on a tree in a garden, cried “It is finished,” and delivered up His Spirit. We take Christ’s life on the tree, and everything dies; Christ gives His life on the tree, so we receive His life from the tree, and everything lives. If love is taken, we call it “rape,” and we don’t know love. If love is given and received, we call it “life” and sometimes “a baby.” If life is taken, we call it “murder.” But if life is given, we call it “Grace.” And it fills our sin with Faith.
God didn’t take Christ’s life on the tree. He gave Christ’s life (His own life) on the tree. We took Christ’s life on the tree. People ask, “Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?” Answer: He didn’t have to; he wanted to. God doesn’t have to do anything; He wants to do everything. He doesn’t have to create anything; He wants to create everything. God is the Giver of all that is. And Jesus is how He does it; He is the Word through whom all things are created.
The Cross is a giving tree that we thought was a taking tree.
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein was one of my children’s favorite books. A tree loves a boy, and a boy “loves” a tree, but he uses the tree to make himself happy, until all that’s left of the tree is a stump. As an old, tired man, the boy returns and sits on the stump. And the tree is happy and the boy is Happy. The End.
1 Corinthians 15:53-57, “For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your victory? O death where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“This is the victory that overcomes our world,” writes John. “Our faith.” God gives it.
For Christmas one year, my daughter Becky, gave me one of her favorite books, The Giver by Lois Lowry. I also saw the movie. In the story, Jonas is a boy who lives in a futuristic dystopian society. At first, it seems pleasant, but gradually we realize something is missing: No one dances. There is no music. They reproduce, but no one makes love. And perhaps, Love is making no one… And one other curious thing: Everything is in black and white.
It turns out that the elders had outlawed the memory of love, for love is hard to control, and with love comes pain. The Elders believed that when people have a choice, they always choose wrong… And that’s true: People do. But Faith, Hope, and Love are not our choice; Love is God’s choice, born in us and then rising from within us.
In fear, the Elders had built a high-tech wall around the city to protect the city from the memory of Love. It gave them the ability to eliminate the sick, the old, and unwanted without feeling any pain. However, the Elders had appointed a “receiver of memories,” whose task was to remember Love in order to gain Wisdom, and so advise the council who would then take Wisdom — the Spirit of Love — and turn Her into laws. The Elders knew about Love, but in fear, they turned Love into Law —that’s The knowledge of Good and evil written in stone or a book . . . it’s dead.
We all lust for law, for it feels safe. With enough laws, we think that we can judge everything, build walls, and so protect ourselves from pain. That is, protect ourselves from The Story of Love: also called “The Gospel.”
In fear, we protect ourselves by judging everything as simply in or out, good or evil. We see everything in black and white, and so create hell on earth. But when we fear only God, who is love, He casts out fear, and we can begin to see in color; we can see the Revelation of Love in creation all around us. “For you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings” (Malachi 4:2).
A sunrise, with all its shadow and color, is the story of the revelation of Light. And your life, with all of its challenges and struggles, is the story of the revelation of Love… told in order that you would fall in love with Love, freely surrender to Love, and even give birth to Love — You are the Revelation of Love in human flesh.
In The Giver, the old receiver and Jonas decide to give what they’ve received to everyone: the experience of Love. They sacrifice everything, break down the wall, and the old world is flooded with color and life. And the story ends at a Christmas tree.
At His tree, God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, turn Takers into Givers, who give birth just as Mary gave birth to Love in human flesh — The Son of Man and all things with Him.
1 Corinthians 15:58, “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
“Good News: He is Risen.” Is it Good? YES: We cannot imagine anything better. Is it news? YES: You can’t change the news, but this news will change you. Is it small? NO: It’s the story of all creation… in and through you. Happy Easter!