"He ascended into heaven..."

By Robert S. Munday+

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.  They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky?  This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven" (Acts 1:9-10).

Where is heaven?  Do you ever stop to think about it?  The Book of Acts tells us that Jesus ascended into heaven.  But where is heaven?

A friend of mine recently reminded me of a little chapel in Walsingham, England, that depicts the Ascension of Christ.  The ceiling of the chapel is painted like the sky with clouds, and sticking out of one of the clouds on the ceiling you can see a pair of feet!

However much we may believe in the Ascension of Christ, illustrations like this chapel ceiling seem quaint and make us laugh.  Skeptics, however, respond to such depictions by dismissing the reality of the Ascension altogether.  Liberal Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, in his article, “A Call for a New Reformation,” says, “The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.”

Similarly, the late Church of England Bishop, John A.T. Robinson said that because of astronomy and space travel we know that heaven and God aren’t “out there;” the place to look for God and heaven is “within.”  Robinson even cites Luke 17:21, “the kingdom of God is within you," in support of his view.  Well, of course, in context, the kingdom of God is at work in us and through us.  But the tendency of Robinson’s view is toward a pantheism which says that the only place God and heaven are to be found is within the creation and within us.

Cardinal John Henry Newman had a different view, which, to my mind, captures the truth quite well.  Commenting on the biblical passages where Jesus says the kingdom of God is “at hand,” Newman says that the kingdom runs alongside our world and is ever near it, and that someday, when we least expect it, our world will resolve itself into the kingdom of God.

Remember that Newman wrote this 100 years before scientists (and science fiction writers) started telling us about “parallel universes.”  Is the kingdom of God a parallel dimension to our own existence?  Perhaps it is.  That is why there may well be unseen angels hovering around us at this very moment.

Of course it entirely sensible that, for the disciples sake and for ours, Jesus is seen ascending into heaven.  For Jesus simply to have disappeared or faded away would have represented dissolution or annihilation.  Jesus ascends to show us he is going to a place—a place from which he will return—a place that is higher, better than where we are.

So where is heaven?  Is it “out there, somewhere?”  Is it above, below, within, or along side us?  The best answer we have concerning heaven is the promise of Jesus:

In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going there to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am (John 14:2-3).

Heaven is God the Father’s house—the place where Jesus is and where we will someday be with him.  And if heaven is the place where Jesus is, then—wherever it may be—it will be perfect.
 

The Power of One

By Robert S. Munday+

The Church today would be a different kind of place if it were not for a short, dark-skinned, red-bearded, half hermit who single-handedly fought an empire for the truth of the Gospel.  For much of the fourth century, A.D., it was Athanasius contra mundum—“Athanasius against the world”—and Athanasius won.  

One letter.  To some historians his was a battle not worth fighting.  His argument hung on the stroke of a pen, a single letter, one iota—the Greek letter “i.”  But embedded in that slender distinction was the essence of the Christian faith, and Athanasius would defend it with his life.  “We are contending,” he wrote, “for our all.”

Up to this point, the Church’s major threats had all come from outside—Roman emperors who sought to work their will on Christians who steadfastly maintained that Jesus is Lord and not Caesar, and Greek philosophers who presented questions that the Church, in time, developed the ability to answer.

Bishops, who led God’s people after the death of the apostles, and whose chief duty is to guard the deposit of faith entrusted to the Church, shed much ink—and much blood—defending the ideals and ideas of Christian faith against the heavy tide of a hostile and haughty world.

But by the early 300s, egos and ambitions had begun drawing battle lines within the Church.  Christians were fighting Christians over theological positions.  Most of the differences formed around explanations of the Trinity:  Did Christians worship one God, or three?  Was the Father greater than the Son and Spirit, or equal?

Then around 318 came an upstart church leader named Arius, asking the question to rattle all questions:  Was Jesus even God at all?  

One word.  The distinction boiled down to a single word, distinguished by the single Greek iota we have just mentioned.  Was the Son of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father, or was he merely of a similar substance (homoiousios) as the Father?   It was a controversy that not only occupied the minds of scholars but also the marketplace banter of everyday folk.  It demanded the attention of the Emperor Constantine, who summoned bishops from East and West to an unprecedented gathering in the city of Nicea, in A.D. 325.

When their two month meeting had ended, the resulting creed accurately declared Jesus Christ to be “very God of very God, begotten not made, of one substance (homoousios) with the Father.  Arius was declared a heretic, deposed and disgraced, and everyone assumed that the matter was closed.

Yet the matter continued to confuse and divide.  Constantine, who, like many leaders, valued unity of their institutions over the truth of the Gospel, ordered the new bishop of Alexandria to reinstate Arius as a member in good standing, a sharer in the Church’s communion.  

One man.   But the new bishop was a man named Athanasius, who promptly told the Emperor that he could forget it.  According to one story, Athanasius stopped the Emperor’s procession through the streets one day, grabbing the horses of the Emperor’s carriage by the reins—an act that could have gotten him instantly killed by the Emperor’s guards—in order to warn the great Constantine that these matters of the Christian faith were even greater than he was.

The consequences were that important, and this is why:

• If the Son is a created being, not of the same substance as God, then the Son is not God.
• If the Son is not God, then his birth in the person of Jesus is not the incarnation of God. 
• If God is not truly incarnate in the person of Jesus, then his atoning death is worthless.

“For he alone,” Athanasius wrote, “being Word of the Father and above all, was able to re-create all, and was worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father.  For this purpose the incorruptible word of God entered our world.  The Word is God from God; for ‘the Word was God’” (John 1:1).

 In other words, if Jesus is anything less than God—whether angel, or exalted teacher, or new age cosmic avatar, his death and resurrection cannot be the atoning sacrifice that breaks the curse of human sin.  We can say that Jesus is our Savior, but if the reality of Jesus as God incarnate does not undergird our faith, we are just engaging in wishful thinking.

Naturally, Athansius’ defiance did not win him any friends at the imperial palace.  Constantine’s opinion of the young bishop took such a turn for the worse that he banished him to the uttermost western part of the Empire, sending him from Egypt to Gaul (modern France) in the dead of winter.  It was the first of five exiles he would endure throughout his 45 years as bishop, as he resisted imperial pressure for the sake of the Gospel.

Several emperors came and went during Athanasius’ lifetime, and he would be allowed to return—always to the delight of the people of Alexandria.  But then imperial pressure would heat up again, Athanasius would take his place in the fire, and no one who flinched from the truth of the Gospel would be allowed a moment’s rest in his presence.

Athanasius recognized that the Incarnation is a mystery.  No one could fully understand it.  But there are those whose pride, arrogance, and self-interest would not allow them to believe.  And Athanasius would not keep silent while they robbed God of his power and the Gospel of its truth.  “We take divine Scripture and set it up as a light upon its candlestick, saying: 'very Son of the Father, natural and genuine, proper to His essence, very and only Word of God is He…'  But let them learn that ‘the Word became flesh;’ and let us, retaining the general scope of the faith, acknowledge that what they interpret wrongly has a right interpretation.”

Other bishops, fearing a church split on their hands, pressed the compromise of the homoiousios—that Christ was of similar, and not the same, substance as the Father.  The change in the Greek word was so small—just one letter—that one would hardly notice it, a change in pronunciation so small that those reciting the creed could ignore it.  But to Athanasius it was the difference between life and death.

“God Himself made the decision to take on flesh and to become man and to undergo the death of the Cross, that by faith in Him, all who believe may obtain salvation….  Only so is our salvation fully realized and guaranteed.”

He would die, in 373, before the fruit of his labor could be seen.  But, in 381, bishops at the Council of Constantinople would uphold the doctrine of the deity of Christ that Athanasius taught.  The Nicene Creed would survive as the accepted understanding of the Trinity and of the Person of Christ.  The Church would go on, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to proclaim a pure Gospel to this day—because of the power of one letter, one word, and one man to demonstrate that the truth matters.
  

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross"

By Robert S. Munday

Working on a sermon for last Sunday, I was once again struck by this precious truth regarding the work of Christ for our salvation from the Epistle lesson (1 Peter 2:24): 

He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

Over the years I have been surprised and saddened at the number of learned individuals and clergy whose educations had taught them to hold the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ for our sins in disdain.

It seems that the denials I have encountered are from individuals who find it hard to believe that God has a righteous indignation (wrath) toward our sins that needs to be assuaged; and that there is a justice in God that needs atonement in order to forgive our sins.

But what do verses such as these say to us?

For Christ also suffered [died] once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit... (1 Peter 3:18).

It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification (Romans 4:24-25).

 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

What do the redemptive analogies of the Passover Lamb (Exodus 12) and the Scapegoat (Leviticus 16:9-10) teach us?  That, like the Passover Lamb and the Scape goat, Christ took the penalty for our sins that we might live.

Make no mistake, the substitutionary death of Christ for our sins is the heart of the Gospel message, and if it is not the heart of your theology and your personal beliefs, you are in big trouble.

Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God (Romans 7:4).

This is our only hope.  And if you are one of those who has been led to think differently about the meaning of Christ's death and your salvation, then I warmly encourage you to enter into a fresh contemplation of what Jesus did for you on the Cross.

Recommended books:

• John Stott, The Cross of Christ (also available for Kindle and as an audiobook).
• Peter Taylor Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross (a reprint of a 1908 classic, also available for Kindle).

 

Yes, in Montrose

By Robert S. Munday+

[This is a reprint of an article I wrote for my personal blog on April 27, 2014.]

It has been a remarkable week.  Following a glorious Holy Week and Easter at All Saints Anglican Church, I went across the line into Utah for a couple of days of sightseeing in Monument Valley and Arches National Park and returned home in time to get ready for another remarkable weekend.

On Friday evening, Chris and I were guests of the Gideons International for one of their conventions or, in Gideon parlance, an "encampment."  Most people know the Gideons for the Bibles they place in hotel rooms or the pocket New Testaments they give to students around the US.  But the Gideons are truly international, currently publishing the Bible in 94 languages (with more translations in progress) and distributing them in 197 countries.  Last year they gave away more than 84 million Bibles.  (That is more than two Bibles given away every second.)  Do you ever wonder if those Bibles placed in hotel rooms and given to students actually have an impact in leading people to Christ?  Yes they do; and the Gideons have plenty of testimonies of changed lives to prove it.

We were blessed to hear a banquet address by the International President of the Gideons, Dr. William Thomas, a physician and surgeon from Sheffield, UK.  In his address, Dr. Thomas mentioned his friendship with Archbishop Benjamin Kwashi of Jos, Nigeria, and the fact that Abp. Kwashi's conversion to Christianity came from an encounter with a Gideon Bible.  I was one of Ben Kwashi's examiners when he completed his DMin degree at Trinity School for Ministry.  Later, after I was Dean and President at Nashotah House, we conferred an honorary D.D. degree on Ben--a great man of God and a dynamic witness to the Gospel in an area of Nigeria where martyrdom is an almost daily possibility.  As the only Anglican clergyman in the banquet hall of 1000 people, I couldn't help but reflect on how amazing it was to be here in Western Colorado, listening to a speaker from the UK tell about his friend from Nigeria who I had known since my days on a seminary faculty in Pennsylvania.  But that is the sort of thing that seems to happen regularly since I moved to Montrose.

This spring I am taking the course Perspectives on the World Christian Movement.  Although I have a doctoral minor in Missiology and have taught Missions at the seminary level, I have never had the opportunity to take the Perspectives course.  Montrose, population 18,000, hosts the Perspectives course every 18 to 24 months.  No other town this size in the United States (that isn't a suburb in a larger metropolitan area) even manages to host the Perspectives course, much less to host it so frequently.

Several churches in the Montrose area (Colorado's "Western Slope" of the Rockies) got together and decided to underwrite the entire cost of a Bible translation for the Mepha'a tribe--an unreached people group in southern Mexico.  It is called the Western Slope Bible Translation Project, and is a groundbreaking approach to funding new translations by the Wycliffe Bible Translators.

I am blessed to serve a remarkable congregation.  Among the members are three other Anglican priests (one ACNA, one PEAR-USA, and one REC) and their wives.  Professors from Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia and Trinity, Ambridge, PA own houses here and are a part of our congregation during sabbaticals and vacations.  Another local professor who is a permanent resident of Montrose, who also teaches for TSM and San Francisco Theological Seminary, and his wife make our congregation their home and bless us with their gifts in teaching, spiritual direction, and music. 

We have five teams of musicians, including a wind ensemble, who provide our worship music on weekends.  A higher percentage of our congregation is involved in music ministry than any other congregation I know.  Through a program known as Community Options, our musicians provide a program of music therapy for developmentally challenged adults in Montrose.  They perform together in a group known as Joyful Sounds.  One of the things that impressed me most when I interviewed here (in addition to the generally high level of volunteerism) was this group of musicians, several of them with advanced degrees, devoting their time to helping developmentally challenged adults make music--and having fun doing it!  That kind of humility and selflessness speaks volumes.

This morning my colleague, who is a postulant for the vocational diaconate, preached at our 8am and 10am services.  She has taken her course in Introduction to the Old Testament and is now enrolled in the New Testament course in the Diocese of Quincy's St. Benedict School for Ministry, which I have had a part in founding.  Having spent more than 30 years in seminary education, I can attest that most of the three-year MDiv graduates I have known couldn't have preached a sermon that handled the Scriptures as clearly and as well.  I am blessed and gratified to have her as a colleague in ministry.

Montrose probably has more non-profit organizations per capita than any other city in North America.  Members of All Saints Anglican Church have been involved in founding Haven House, Christ's Kitchen and other ministries.  Habitat for Humanity's Montrose operation dwarfs that of many larger cities.  The congregation's latest initiative is a community garden on acreage behind our church, designed to be an outreach to lower-income individuals in our community. 

This afternoon, Chris and I attended the closing service of Kairos Prison Ministry weekend at the Delta Correctional Center.  Men from All Saints and other Montrose churches selflessly devote their time to providing Christian discipleship among the prison population.  One of the first events to which Chris and I were invited after arriving in Montrose was a concert at the Montrose Pavilion by alumni of the Kairos program--men whose lives had been transformed returning to say thanks and give testimonies about the ministry that had introduced them to the Savior who had changed their lives.

Tomorrow, a local Christian businessman and philanthropist has invited me to have lunch with missiologist and author Don Richardson, author of such books as Peace Child, and Eternity in Their Hearts.  Richardson, who is in demand as a speaker all over the world, is spending this week preaching in churches and teaching in Montrose.  Yes, in Montrose.

Next Saturday, Christians from all over Montrose will take part in ShareFest.  This annual initiative mobilizes churches in local communities in an effort to show the love of Jesus Christ in in tangible ways, undertaking jobs of maintenance and repairs in schools and parks, and performing other tasks for folks unable to do for themselves.  Once the smallest community in the United States to begin a ShareFest, Montrose now attracts one of the largest number of volunteers proportionate to its population.  And so it goes.

People have asked why, after 30 years in theological education and involvement in the larger church, I came to Montrose.  To be honest, I can't say I have always known the answer to that question.  But God did.  

"And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31a). 

 

“As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

The Second Sunday of Easter – John 20:19-31

We read in John 20:21, “As the Father has sent Me; even so I am sending you.”  And, earlier, in John 17:18, we read Jesus’ words to the Father: “As You sent Me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

John Chapter 1 tells us, “He came to His own and His own received Him not.”  As Jesus sends us out, and as we seek to minister for Him, we sometimes encounter the same rejection.

They plotted against Jesus.  So it sometimes happens to us.  He had no permanent home.  Sometimes we are called to experience that too.  They trumped up false charges against Jesus.  So it sometimes is with us.  They whipped and mocked Him.  Some of us may face that degree of opposition and persecution.  Jesus died after three years’ ministry.  None of us knows how long we may have.

But there is a worse danger than any of these.  In the mid-16th century, Francis Xavier (1506-1552), a Jesuit missionary, wrote to Father Perez of Malacca (today part of Indonesia) about the perils of his mission to China.  He said,

The danger of all dangers would be to lose trust and confidence in the mercy and love of God…  To distrust Him would be a far more terrible thing than any physical evil which all the enemies of God put together could inflict on us, for without God’s permission neither the devils nor their human ministers can hinder us in the slightest degree.

The greatest danger anyone who is on a mission from God can face is to distrust the mercy and love of God.  If we can avoid that danger—if we can keep our trust in God’s love and mercy, then all other dangers lose their sting.  God causes every arrow of the enemy to become a scepter in our hand.

John W. Alexander, who was for 20 years president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, said, “Each instant of present labor is to be graciously repaid with a million ages of glory.”  That is the same assurance we find in Scripture—a promise to all who follow and serve Christ.

From the time of His temptation in the wilderness to his agonizing decision in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus escaped the danger of distrust.  Therefore, God has highly exalted Him!

All of us who know the Lord are on a mission for Him.  This is now our life and our calling.  “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

Whether our calling is to a foreign mission field or someplace much closer to home, spiritual assaults and opposition mean that our mission is still dangerous—and that the greatest danger is distrusting God’s love and mercy.  If we succumb to this distrust, all is lost.  But if we are victorious here, we know the true joy of life in Him; and nothing can harm us for all eternity.

 

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

by Robert S. Munday+

No matter how hard I try to think of an alternative, I can’t escape the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest event in the history of the world—except, perhaps, for one other event, the one that happened three days earlier—namely, his death. 

So what I would like to do is ponder two events with you from Matthew 28:  (1) that Jesus was crucified; and (2) that Jesus has risen from the dead and is alive and will be with us to the end of the age and for all eternity.  There would have been no need for the resurrection if Jesus had not died; and there would be no saving significance to His death if He did not rise.  Both are utterly crucial. 

I.  Jesus Has Been Crucified – The time is early Sunday morning.  Mary Magdalene and the other women have come to the tomb of Jesus.  They see an angel whose appearance is like lightning (Matthew 28:3).  Then, according to Matthew 28:5-6, “The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified.’”  This is the first important fact in this text: “Jesus has been crucified.” 

Jesus said to His disciples several times that this was His destiny.  For instance, in Matthew 17:22-23: “Jesus said to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men; and they will kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day.’”  In Acts 4:27-28, the disciples prayed these words to God: “Truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your plan predestined to take place.”  The death of Jesus was not an accident or merely the result of a great injustice.  It was the plan of God.

This is the teaching that runs throughout the New Testament:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son . . .” (John 3:16).  “[God did] not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all” (Romans 8:32).  Jesus was crucified by design, not by accident. 

II.  He Is Risen – But the Cross of Christ can’t be precious to us if Jesus is still dead.  So the resurrection of Jesus is just as crucial as his crucifixion.  And so we see the second important claim of this Gospel passage: “The angel said to Mary and the others, ‘He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said.  Come; see the place where He was lying.’” 

The resurrection of Jesus demonstrates His triumph over death and His authority over all things.  From there He works out His saving purposes in the world—with authority over all nations and industry and business and science and education and entertainment and weather and stars and light and energy and life and death.  He is Lord over all; and His purposes and His promises cannot fail.  And, as we are in Him and living for Him, He is with us—in all His majesty and power and authority—to the end of the age.

Why do we veil the Cross during Lent?

The Rev. Timothy Fountain, writing on the website Stand Firm explains:

Thoughts on veiled crosses

Some of you veiled your church’s crosses at the start of Lent.  Others waited until Holy Week.  Or maybe it’s not a custom where you are.

I muse on the practice from time to time.  There’s a certain contradiction or at least irony in the tradition.  We are proclaiming the cross, after all, and with intensity in Lent and Holy Week as we look at the burden of our sins and the Lord’s gift of his body and blood for the forgiveness of same.  Good Friday comes with a rubric, "If desired, a wooden cross may now be brought into the church and placed in the sight of the people," and some anthems, including

We glory in your cross, O Lord,
and praise and glorify your holy resurrection;
for by virtue of your cross
joy has come to the whole world.

So why veil what we’re so busy exalting?

My working answer is that veiling the cross does exalt it, via a negative path.  Hiding it reveals a tremendous absence, “What if the cross of Christ never existed?  What if that reference point didn’t exist for our understanding of life?  What if that sign never intruded into history and culture?”

I worked questions like those into a Lenten sermon decades ago.  I still remember a woman who came up after and said, “I felt all the air go out of the church when I thought about those questions you asked.  They were terrifying.”

So there’s power in veiling crosses for Lent.  It intensifies big questions, “What if we are left in our sins and our own self-justifying efforts to ‘balance them out?’  What if there’s no decisive God-given remedy for the human dilemma?” 

And in aggravating that tension, the veiled cross sets up the strong medicine of Good Friday and the glorious recovery announced at Easter,

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.  Romans 6:6-11 ESV