Month: March 2018

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An Introduction to Theories of the Atonement

Last week, in introducing the Passion reading from the Gospel according to Mark, I stated the truth that knowing the story of Jesus’s death and resurrection is more important than knowing a theory about Jesus’s death and resurrection. That’s still very true, nonetheless, if you want an introduction to theories of the atonement you could do a lot worse than a recent article in The Week titled “Four Competing Theories on the Theological Meaning of Easter.”

Link:
http://theweek.com/articles/759441/4-competing-theories-theological-meaning-easter

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Easter Breakfast Potluck

We’ll have our regular 8:15 and 10:30 Sunday morning services for Easter Day tomorrow, but we’ll also have an Easter Breakfast Potluck at 9:30. If you don’t cook or bake, please know that a box of cereal and a half-gallon of milk would be an acceptable contribution. (Especially if that box of cereal is a box of Lucky Charms.)

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Good Friday Service Tonight at 7:30

There will be a Good Friday service of the stations of the cross tonight (March 30, 2018) at 7:30 p.m. I’m not sure that any Good Friday service can be called “Child-Friendly,” but this one probably comes the closest. It’s very interactive and involves walking around the sanctuary to see and touch the stations of the cross. Hope to see you there.

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Deadline for Lilies

If you’re bringing your own lily in honor or memory of someone (as opposed to having ordered one from the florist via the church), the deadline to drop it off is Friday at noon. If you want the name of the person it’s in honor or memory of printed in the bulletin please let me (John Collins) know by Thursday at 5:00 p.m.

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Tithe.ly Video

This past Sunday, I announced that we’re beta testing an additional new system for electronic giving online or on your phone (we’re keeping all the current ways of giving right where they are). Here’s a 34-second introductory video. I really have found it easy to use. Please contact me if you’re interested in helping us beta test this new service.

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God’s Estimate of Our Worth

In Jesus’ life and death on behalf of all human beings, we behold God’s estimate of our worth. — Dallas A. Willard

Let me add, that it’s not just our worth in mass, but our worth as individuals.

Dallas A. Willard. Twitter post, March 25, 2018, 9:44 a.m., http://bit.ly/2uq5m0a.

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The Story is the Reality

This Sunday we’ll be reading the story of Jesus’s suffering and death (“The Passion”) in parts. We’ll be reading it in parts because it’s a very long reading, two full chapters: Mark 14:1-15:47. We take the time to read the story because in the words of N. T. Wright: 

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not simply telling us in descriptive language something that “really” belongs as a dogmatic formula. It is the other way around. The formula is a portable narrative, a folded-up story. The story is the reality—because it is the story of reality, historical reality, flesh-and-blood reality, Israel’s reality, life-and-death reality. — N. T. Wright

You don’t need to know a theory, explanation, metaphor, or model of the atonement, (although these can be helpful) you need to know the story. It is the story that tells us how Jesus defeated the powers of sin and death and launched the new creation of God’s kingdom. Come and hear it again with us this Palm/Passion Sunday, March 25, 2018.

 

N. T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion (San Francisco: Harper One, 2016), 223.

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No Communion Today

A reminder: Jenny and I are on vacation this week so there will be no Communion Service this evening (Wednesday, March 21, 2018).

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Please Feel Free to Remain Seated

I wanted to highlight the following announcement that will be appearing in tomorrow’s bulletin:

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO REMAIN SEATED: If, for any reason (health, comfort, personal preference, etc.), you need to or would prefer to remain seated during the hymns please do so. Don’t give into peer pressure. You be you!

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Don’t Worry About Anything

Speaking of the challenges both without and within that Paul faced, N. T. Wright writes:

“Don’t worry about anything,” he [Paul] had written to the Philippians not that long before. That, he knows, is easier said than done; it was always a goal to be striven for, not a permanent condition of smug spirituality.

I’ve often struggled with this verse because I’ve often struggled with worry. With this interpretive insight, the verse becomes an encouragement instead of a demand.

N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography (New York: Harper Collins, 2018), chap. 12, Kindle.