A Closer Walk With Jesus

Learn the story about Joshua and crossing the River Jordan to the promised land. It applies to us today, many centuries later. Teaching us how to use faith to leave our personal wilderness and move to God's promised land for our lives.

Faith and Reducing Coronavirus induced Panic

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1

This Saturday, while having lunch at a local restaurant, the general manger came to our table to ask us how my wife and I were doing. We replied, very well; How are you? Our reply set off a lengthy explanation of his panic. He was afraid he might have to close the restaurant with his business off seventy five percent. In his eyes, I could see real fear. The kind of fear that unsettles our stomach, weakens our knees and causes us to labor on the easiest of tasks.

With our friends and family, we also have heard and seen fear. Supermarket shelves are being emptied. Hand sanitizer is being sold on the street for fifty dollars a bottle. True panic seems to abound.

A disquieting sense of being seems to be present in all that we see and hear. Panic caused by a lack of control of people’s lives and events.

Each announcement of school and store closings seems to raise the fear level higher. Watching television, you hear even more information that stiffens your body. The stock market is violently swinging in turmoil, causing people to wonder; how much will their savings go down? All around us fear seems to be growing faster than the Coronavirus itself, which is at the root of people’s fear.

But our fear, is just that, fear. People are forgetting that fear breeds fear. Fear is not tangible or something you can touch. But a vicious psychological marauder that seeks harm. Not physical harm, but emotional.

Panic causes bad decisions, when more than ever good ones are required. Panic causes unsteady steps, when the steps of life need to be sure.

A Reflection on the Risen Christ.

Jesus and the Cross

Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” 29 A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. 30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

John 19:28-30

For Christians, the most important historical event is the death of Jesus. So, we may ask the question, Did it really happen? Well, the answer is a very strong yes! Of all the events that are portrayed in the four Gospels; Jesus’s baptism and crucifixion, according to historians are the two most certain events that occurred.

There has been extensive research done by both Biblical and non-Biblical scholars around Jesus and His death. All have come to the conclusion that it happened. Famed Biblical scholar and historian John Dominic Crossan, states; The crucifixion of Jesus is as certain as any historical fact can be.

But is this the right way to approach this central event of Jesus’s life. It is a nice to know. And we certainly can start our own process of discovery of the Risen Christ knowing this is certain. But Jesus and his death is far more than a checking of the facts. Jesus’s death isn’t just a one dimensional historical exercise. For me, it’s more about knowing the purpose of the crucifixion and how it relates to the 21st century believer.

Likewise, we can turn to the meta-physical aspect of His death as something we may also try to understand. He did die to save us from sin. In this death, Jesus erased of all aspects of our failings. Jesus also created Himself as our mediator with God. Because Jesus died to absorb our sins, we are freed. Released to be able to speak to and receive the grace of God through Jesus.

And how exactly does this work? God is pure and untarnished and while most of our acts as humans are to do good. Not all are. Which means that if we go directly to God, meta-physically we tarnish God. Hence, the need for Jesus as our go between, and the value of the cross. This is why when we pray, we say, In Jesus’s name.

The Apostle Paul explains this in Romans 3:24, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Now that’s the meta-physical argument and explanation of the value of the crucifixion. But even knowing this doesn’t fully explain how we experience and know the value of the crucifixion.

Both knowing history and the meta-physical justification won’t get us there. If we stay just with this knowledge, we become passive Christians.

Now earlier I mentioned that most acts of humanity are good. There are very many who would and always do disagree with me. Some say, that humanity is totally depraved. Some will say, I have a very rose colored lens about the state of the human condition. But total depravity is not what I have seen or experienced. I have seen far more good than bad. I believe there is good in all people. But even the resolution of this argument is a dead ended path to the purpose of the cross. For even if there is one act of evil in a lifetime, it still requires the cross.

Which means that now philosophy can’t assure us of purpose of Jesus and the cross.

Knowing the history, meta-physics nor philosophy will fully get us to have faith in Jesus and the cross. It might get us close, but not over the line.

Do we always recognize God's involvement in our lives when we are successful?