There are more than thirty stories in the Gospels about Jesus having dinner with people. Some of the those dinners are with friends, some are with enemies. But they are always with “sinners” – it’s just that some of those “sinners” know they need God and others of those “sinners” don’t. The food always tastes better to those who are hungry for it!

13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Sometimes when we set aside our busyness and we are fully present at the table, we find our selves ripe for God’s transformation in our lives! And strange things happen when we begin to recognize Christ at Bigger Tables. We’re learning how to make space for vulnerable hospitality where the lines between host and guest are blurred, where conversation is rich, and where curiosity leads the way to loving relationships with strangers and friends.

Now on that same day, 2 followers of Jesus were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all the things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad.

Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” Jesus asked them, “What things?”

When Jesus was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized Jesus; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us.”

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is not just the story of what happened to one dead man’s body but is the story for all people who cannot be separated from the love of God even by death.

In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true:

As we enter holy week, we’re trying one more time to figure out what is the meaning of Jesus’ death on the cross? How does it affect us? What will we do and what will we become in light of the cross? “God’s most distressing disguise,” as Mother Theresa called it, is God on the cross: God suffering with us. The final words Jesus heard on the cross were from a condemned criminal: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” This week we walk in darkness, remembering Jesus as we ask Jesus to remember us.

During this Lenten series, we’ve been trying to better understand the power and significance of the cross. Today, we look at the absurd nature of the cross through the lenses of the Punk Rock movement, which set many people free by giving them the “permission” to play music despite their inability to reach certain musical standards. In much the same way, the absurd event of the cross, where God dies with us, allows us to embrace our imperfections and find our humanity in that freedom.

Ab.surd

Punk Rock = Radical Grace

The Ramones

1Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.

“Many Jews believed that the reason they had lost their independence and made subjects of the Roman Empire was that the people had not been sufficiently faithful… [and] Nationalistic and patriotic sentiment was aroused by the fear that these new heretics [that is, the Messianic Jews, or Christians] could once more bring the wrath of God upon Israel.”

This Lenten season we have been circling around the important question about how we can experience “at-one-ment” with God by asking “Why did Jesus die on the cross?” Many of us have been taught that Christ died in our place, that is, he accepted the wrath of God against all our sin as if it was his own. And then his Father, through the agency of the Romans and the Jews, killed Jesus as the sacrifice for our sins.

If this is the reason why Jesus died on the cross it means that God cannot forgive without violence – either condemning us to eternal hell or sending Jesus through hell to satisfy God’s need for justice.

The church throughout the ages has held another view of why Jesus died on the cross that is not grounded in an act of violence from the Father against his Son.The crucifixion of Christ is the ultimate demonstration of the Triune God’s love for us by compassionately identifying with us as humans – in the flesh of Jesus. God truly understands through personal experience, absolutely every hardship that humans endure. God “gets” us and we marvel at the extent to which God goes to let us know we are loved.

Photo from Mark’s smart phone

The Chi Ro

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

We can learn so much from a fresh look at humanity’s origin story in Genesis. As we continue to address the question, “Why did Jesus Christ Die on the Cross,” we are considering the difference between original sin and original blessing. Our experience of atonement (“At-One-Ment” with God) is influenced by how we see our beginning with God. In week 3 of this Lent Series, we critically re-examine our core identity as human beings, as children of God. Are we haunted by the plague of original sin? Or are we loved unconditionally by the One who made us in God’s image?

The FIRST DAY: In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while [the Spirit of] God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness [God] called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

The SECOND DAY: God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”… And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

The THIRD DAY: God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together [GOD] called Seas. And God saw that it was good. … The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

The FOURTH DAY: God said, “Let there be lights in the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

The FIFTH DAY: God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

The SIX

For many centuries, some parts of the Church have taught and teach that the sole purpose of the crucifixion of Christ was to make a payment for our sins to God, the father of Jesus, who could not forgive us unless our sins were “paid” for with violence.

Some parts of the Church said and say that Jesus died on the cross to “pay off” Satan with the violence of the cross in order to release us from his grip.

Another part of the Church believed and believes that Christ willingly died at the hands of “lawless men” and the powers of the religious elite to show us the lengths to which Love will go to free us from the cycles of violence that never have their start in the heart of God. We’ll explore more of what at-one-ment might mean when it is God’s love and not God’s need for violence that brings us peace.

He said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.

Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled.32 He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; 33 they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.”

He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ”8 Then they remembered his words.

32 They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. 33 “We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, 34 who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.”

35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”

Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and

For Lent we’re asking the question, “For what reason did Jesus die?” And what does the death of Christ have to do with our daily lives? We will dig back into history and unpack an alternative orthodoxy, a somewhat lost minority report that moves us from a transactional view of Christ’s death to a transformative experience of the cross of Christ. “At-one-ment” with God is like living in-tune with God, bringing peace to our homes, neighborhoods, schools and our world.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear because fear has to do with punishment.

[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in [Christ] all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through [Christ] and for [Christ]. [Christ], (God’s very self) is before all things, and in [Christ] all things hold together.

[Christ] is the head of the body, the church; [Christ] is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that [Christ] might come to have first place in everything. For in [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through [Christ] God was pleased to reconcile to [God’s self] all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of [the] cross.

One-ing is being knit together with God, being united into God.

By myself I am nothing at all, but I am IN the one-ing of Love and in this one-ing, the life of ALL people exists.

I pray that they all may be one.

We look at Christ and see the God who cannot be seen. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in Christ and finds its purpose in Christ. Christ was there before any of it came into existence and Christ holds it all together right up to this moment.

All the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of Christ’s death, Christ’s blood that poured down from the cross.

The Kingdom of God is upside down compared to the kingdoms of this world. Jesus taught and exemplified that the greatest among us shall be the least, that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. The power of God looks weak to the eyes of the world because it doesn’t come with an iron fist but with a basin of water to wash feet like a slave would.

The only biblical way for us to begin to heal the racism divide is for people with worldly power and privilege to set it aside and serve those who don’t have it, just as Jesus washed his disciple’s feet. A restored community in which everyone serves everyone else is the place of shalom where God’s righteousness and justice come together perfectly.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

22You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.