Not Black, No White But a New Humanity

Not Black, Not White, But, Human

We Need a New Man

By Jim Howe

              The ongoing drama of politics with the pandemic, and now the death of George Floyd, has deepened the crisis America is facing. America needs prayer and we need a new humanity. I miss my friends Rev. Isaiah Jones and Rev. Henry Gaines. These outstanding men of God were great, not because they were black, but because they were men who knew how to talk to Jesus. Both were covenant brothers I shared life with at different times.  They talked to Jesus like he was in the room.  Of course, Christ IS with us as the Spirit of God lifts us to approach the throne of God.  Underlying all this is the deep reality that we need a whole new humanity.  The human dilemma in America needs a new creation.  The problems we face are so deep that nothing less than a rescue from God can save us now.

              A new Adam in Christ is precisely what the Jewish Apostle Paul preached to Jews and Gentiles in the 1^st century when another racial divide ripped the Roman world wide open.  Let the Word of God inspire hope as you read:

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. 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.” (1 Corinthians 15:20–28, ESV)

Paul had just explored the implications of Christian faith without the resurrection.  Now he turns our attention to the reality “the fact” of resurrection.  He saw Jesus alive and so did the other apostles. This reality gives us home because the new man is now seated in heaven.  And through faith in Him we are made new.  O, how we need this miraculous new birth.  Jesus Christ is the new humanity we desperately need. When we put our faith in Him, and not in our former way of living, life from the future of humanity floods our lives. Paul put it this way: “…we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:23, ESV)  The Holy Spirit that dwells in every real Christian is assurance of a better way.  There is more of Jesus to come as we live by faith and invite the Spirit into our lives. As the Church on our knees, there is a way forward, and it is as we go to our knees.  The Spirit works in us God’s way of bringing heaven close.  Instead of talking about peace, we taste it and display Jesus to one another.

              All around us are the signs of Adam. Death, hatred, violence, and disease.  They all are inherited from our common root in Adam. The only recourse for the power of man is to destroy and tear down. These forces are strong in America currently. It is loose in so many on both sides of the issues.  It is at work in me as a sinner.  It has to be confessed and overcome by the work of the cross. 

But more is coming in Christ as we grow.  Those who are “in Christ” through faith and baptism are being made into the new humanity.  Any sign of hope, mercy, life comes from Jesus Christ. Our solidarity with Jesus Christ is hope of a bright future. My prayer for us as a people is that we pass over into the spiritual reality of life in Christ so that we grow in grace.  Praying this morning when I woke up that I want to live in God. To actually live in the Father, by the Son, through the Spirit.  To experience life in Christ alive with me.

              Violence breeds violence and death bears more death.  Rioters and reactionary hatred breeds a boiling pot of more death. That is man’s way of fixing things. It is so sad.  Tit for tat. But there is more.  God has put the number one enemy to death, by the death of His Son, so that we can have hope and so that in us we display the first sign of what is to come. Jesus is alive as the first fruit.  Like the first blossom in spring with more to come.  Instead of living in the darkness overcome by despair, faith calls us to look to Christ who is alive.  There is more life to come.  The one who believes and lives by faith in Christ will be made alive with Him. This is just as true as all in Adam die; all who are in Christ live.

              There is nothing I need more than for God to be my “all in all.”  How about you?  When I go to the store and rub shoulders with others, do people just see me or do they see Christ living in me? As we await the day of reopening worship and being together, do we long for the manifest presence of Christ among us that is unique to gathered worship?  I can taste the longing.  But, this is just the first taste of the final wedding feast of the Lamb when we all will be together with God.  It is in prayer that I am closest to that coming reality. May I live in prayer more, so that I can taste this “more” that Christ gives. May you as a people experience Him in a deeper way today as this reality opens before you as you trust him and live.

              When the congregations I served in Waldport and Siskiyou County worshipped with Rev. Isaiah Jones and Rev. Henry Gaines, there was more going on than we saw.  New life from Christ was at work making the people of God to be the Church in which there is no Jew nor Gentile and no black or white. May we be such a foretaste in Redding and Weed that there is more to come.  It is Christ’s work to tear down evil forces and to do it in such a way that there is more life, not death. Extremist politics grab and force their way.  They tear down instead of buildup. Jesus Christ is alive, and he brings together all things in Him.  

Stephen Curtis Chapman, Beauty will Rise https://youtu.be/rJynET3b3PM

God, help us all to pray continually. Live in us Lord Jesus. Holy Spirit fall upon us leave the mark of the of new life. When the Church first began the gathering of Jew and Gentile demonstrated to the Roman Empire that there is a third race. We are already that new people. But Father move in us to be more alive in Christ than we are alive in the politics of man. For the sake of Your glory, glorify Your Son in us.  Father, we pray that out of these ashes all around that you will bring beauty. In Christ’s name, Amen. 

Freeze Tag in Reverse

Freeze Tag in Reverse

By Jim Howe

            We move now to the next section in Paul’s amazing chapter on resurrection life as a sign of the new creation and its spread as the good contagion:

“and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” (1 Corinthians 15:5–10, ESV)

            Did you ever play freeze tag?  One person is “it” and runs around trying to tag everyone.  When someone is tagged that person freezes in place. The only catch is that those who have not been tagged yet can touch those who have been frozen so that they are freed.  Imagine doing it in reverse with everyone frozen and one person tagging them to set them free.  The Holy Spirit did this as the gospel message was announced and people were brought to life.  This is the way the gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection raged across the ancient world.  The gospel about Jesus Christ was, pardon the association, a good virus that buoyed along on the announcement of life, hope and meaning to a world living in darkness and despair.

            It began with Peter. “Tag, you are freely forgiven,” and it spread.  First, to the twelve minus Judas, then to five hundred, to James, to Paul as the last appearance of Christ, and it spread to Corinth through witness of the apostolic movement of the Church.  Paul’s whole framework for resurrection is that with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ a whole new world, indeed the future, has broken into our existence. The end of the world, “the last days,” began with the horrible event of Christ’s crucifixion.  The beginning of “the last days” began with the  tribulation that continues still today, starting with the death of Jesus Christ, continued through the martyrs down the ages, and today on a global scale of Christian persecution as never before imagined. Paul has been arguing in 1 Corinthians for a picture of the new life we are brought into by the proclamation of the gospel.  The Church is made up of people of the future new creation. This view of the “last days” is extremely important in our time of major cultural change and increased suffering of the Church around the globe. We are brought to life by hearing and believing the gospel.   Our new life is the beginning of the new creation and an entering into the new world that is to come.     

            Christ’s appearing to Peter (Cephas) started it all and the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost upon the whole Church, unleashing life.  The confidence Paul encourages is better than a facemask or even living with a glass or plastic bubble on our head like space men on Mars. Oh, I get it there is the government and scientific expertise.  There are as many opinions about the virus, how to handle it, how to be safe, whether to wear a mask or not and the importance of work as there are people it seems. But for the Christian, the reality that we have what Paul calls the first fruits (v. 23) of the new world is the only protection that ultimately matters.  Believers in Christ’s death and resurrection are already alive in a way not even death can frustrate.

            Our vision of reality is shaped by a perspective that the end of the world began at the cross and that the history of the Church is life in the last days.  This is a brief explanation so hang in there and read the quoted passages as you follow the biblical line of thinking. Our view of history has its roots in the Old Testament view that looked forward to the coming of the Messiah. It spoke of a tribulation (Ezk. 38:14-17) that included persecution of the people of God (Dan. 11:27-28, 12:10).  It spoke of a future time after the tribulation when the people of God will seek the Lord (Hos. 3:4-5) and be delivered (Ezek. 38:14-16, Dan. 10:14, 11:40-45).  G. K. Beale a Bible scholar who outlines this material (1- 2 Thessalonians, p. 19ff) points out that after the tribulation deliverance will occur and God will establish His kingdom (Mic. 4:1-3).  The New Testament uses the phrase “latter days” or “end times” to refer to Christ’s kingdom that began with His death, resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit.

            This understanding of God’s perspective of salvation time is important because of the global pandemic and discussion of the end and a new reality.  Many of us feel the nearness of the Lord’s return and find our thoughts turning to the “last days”.  I came to Christ in a big part because of the apocalyptic fears of the atomic bomb and the popularity of Hal Lindsey’s “The Late Great Planet Earth.”  This perspective sees the “last days” differently than the Biblical authors.  They see it in terms of the end as the final period of history, the generation living right before Christ’s return. But there is strong evidence that the Bible clearly teaches that the good news Paul declares as centered in Christ’s death and resurrection was the inauguration of the end.  We have been in the “end times” since the days of Christ’s death. What evidence is there?

            The first time the phrase “last days” occurs in the New Testament is Acts 2:17.  When the Church breaks out in tongues speaking, the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy that in the last days all the people of God will receive the Spirit.  In 1 Cor. 10:11 Paul writes that the Old Testament is written for the Church because the Church age is a time when the end had come “when the time had fully come.”  In 1 Jn. 2:18 John writes of the appearance of “antichrists” already present in his *time. Paul in 1 Timothy wrote of the false teaching of his day as an expression of the “latter days” ( 1 Tim. 4:1-2).  Paul was living the end times. 

            This perspective of the end, suffering, antichrists and the new creation was already loose in the Church.  This is important for us because those who hear the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection are transformed out of the kingdom of darkness into the marvelous light.  The new creation has begun in us.  I recently saw a picture on Facebook of people walking around in a city with full space masks on. Is this the reality we are about to enter?  Some seem to think so.  The Church of the “last days kingdom” is not just as a bunch of people who meet for worship on Sunday: it is far more radical than that.  Faith is the work of God calling us into an alternative reality defined by resurrection life.  We are a people who are being transformed by rebirth.  We are not in the new world yet, but the

new creation is at work in us preparing us for the return of Christ and the inbreaking of the new world.    

            In Corinth, the Church of Paul’s day had no ‘church buildings”.  We have been cut off from our buildings by people who are hoping to save humanity from this pandemic.  But we are a people already rescued.  Our day of death is assigned by God, not science.  The Preacher to the Hebrews put it this way, “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” (Hebrews 9:27–28, ESV)

            The Church has its roots in the background of the Old Testament where we are part of the gathered congregation in continuity with believing Israel.  We have exchanged citizenship in the kingdom of man, which is under God’s judgment, for the kingdom of God’s Son.  Christ’s lordship is realized in this ongoing spread of the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection. Who spoke God’s word to you in the power of the coming world so that “old old story” of how Christ came suffered, was buried and rose so you now live by faith in the Son of God?   We suffer, we are persecuted, we get sick, but our lives are now defined by the life of Jesus.  The life of the world to come defines our reality more than the trends, threats and fears of the world that is soon to be judged.  Jesus is the Messiah who is seated upon His throne where He rules.  He is King of a kingdom that is coming but is already among us now in God’s love, joy, peace, and hope.  The coming kingdom of God is our protection and security. 

Father, root us deep in resurrection reality.  We praise you that through belief in your Son Jesus Christ we have life now, and though we die we shall live.  We praise you that one day Jesus will descend with a shout and the dead in Christ will rise first, and then we who are alive will be caught up into the final form of the new creation to be always with the Lord, to be with you Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  This is the drum beat that shapes our reality. It is life, not fear. The life from the coming kingdom gives us Hope and assurance. We are not like those who are without hope and think that death is simply the end. Father, make us the people shaped by the new world that is coming.  Holy Spirit, breathe over us life from the coming kingdom as we rejoice that our King is coming back.  In His precious name, Amen.

I am looking forward to the final and ultimate gathering of the people of God.  I am looking forward to the completion of the new heaven and new earth when sin and death is ended.  Reflect on that as you listen: https://youtu.be/LGAdaGbmfFs

I am praying all of you rise up with hope.  I, too, struggle in the hours of the night with the darkness of these times.  But look up saints of God your Savior reigns!

Blessings, Jim

Christ the Redeemer
Meditation On Eph. 1

Jesus Christ is the fullness of God as our prophet, priest and king. He is the prophet who not only speaks the Word of God about ultimate reality, he is the Word made flesh that reveals God to us.  He is the priest as he is both priest and sacrifice who paid the penalty of our sin to appease the wrath of the Father so that we might bask in the forgiveness and love of God as beloved in Him.  He is the king who rules through the cross upon which he died defeating sin and death rising to shed life to all who share his anointing through the Spirit knowing the Father of glory and ascending to rule so that we are secure in his hands.