Wednesday, October 15, 2014

The onerous burden of goodness. . .

Goodness is not exactly popular.  Good guys (and girls) still finish last.  Good guys (and girls) are great friends but not necessarily marital prospects.  Good guys (and girls) are hopeless out of touch with reality, with their own bodies, and with their own desires.

The truth is that we Christians have for a very long time tacitly agreed with those who disagree with goodness.  We have suggested that the naysayers are correct.  Being good is too hard.  It is an onerous burden and an impossible demand to place on people to try and be good.  For example, sexual desire is too powerful to be controlled so we must make it safe to indulge.  Who would want to???  Christians are simply unhappy people who believe that sacrifice is glory and that the key to God's kingdom is sacrificing first of all your own happiness.

A while ago Victoria Osteen got in trouble (rightly so) for suggesting, at least in part, that our happiness is the primary motivator for the good things we do.  “I just want to encourage every one of us to realize when we obey God, we’re not doing it for God–I mean, that’s one way to look at it–we’re doing it for ourselves, because God takes pleasure when we are happy. . . . That’s the thing that gives Him the greatest joy. . . .”  Of course, she spoke poorly and perhaps did not even realize how poorly she spoke.  But we Christians of the orthodox persuasion were quick to jump on her case (as we should have) and yet there is a way in which she is kind of correct (albeit a backhanded sort of way).

Holiness, goodness, purity, truth, and obedience are not terrible impositions upon us that steal away our happiness and require us to give up that happiness in exchange for the kingdom of God.  Yes, she got it wrong.  We obey (read that not simple outward obedience or behavior but the trust of the heart first and foremost) not just nor even primarily to make us happy so that God can be happy we are happy.  We love God because He first loved us, we seek righteousness because we have been declared righteous in Christ and put on His righteousness in baptism, and we learn the true pleasure of Him, His kingdom, and His good and gracious will (think third use of the law here and the commandments).

But why we do we Christians act as if this is some impossible, terrible, onerous, and unpleasant duty -- this thing call the obedience of faith and the life that reflects this?  As another blogger put it:  The moral life is not a burden; it is a precious gift. One of the dangers in trying to understand the Christian moral life is seeing it as simply a list of dos and don’ts. In addition, many Christians tend the think of the moral life in terms of something they must accomplish out of their own flesh and through their own will. This turns the great moral vision of God into a kind of heavy burden rather than a freeing transformation that God works through His grace.

Or to put it in the words of another bloggerPaul experienced constant hardships: poorly clad, poorly sheltered, poorly fed, beaten by rods by Roman rulers and whipped in the synagogues 40 lashes minus one, shipwrecked, imprisoned, stoned (not drugs), inflicted with a “thorn in the flesh” to keep him from exalting himself (2 Cor 11-12). Yet Paul talks about the joy of believers in the midst of affliction and great poverty (1 Cor 8:2), about delighting in various material/physical deprivations or rejoicing in the midst of sufferings (2 Cor 12:10; Col 1:24). 

Surely Osteen's words cannot be separated from the prosperity Gospel and the message devoid of sin and the cross that has come to characterize the smiling duo a little too slick for credibility.  I am not defending her.  But I am defending the notion that for the faithful, joy is part of our life in the kingdom and that this joy transforms the onerous and impossible burden of goodness into something which those who live in Christ by baptism and faith both desire and seek -- under the power of the Holy Spirit.  We need to make sure we do not forget this part of the preaching lest our people hear only the burdens and trials of the faith and too little of the joy of life in the Kingdom, a life rooted in grace and bearing the good fruit of Him who has called us from darkness into His marvelous light!!

No, the appeal to those outside the Church is not how to be happy and make God happy too...  But to those of faith who have met the Lord in the waters of baptism and arisen from them as the new people God alone makes us to be, the appeal to joy is not off the mark at all. Al Mohler is rightMere happiness cannot bear the weight of the Gospel... but the weight of the Gospel is not an enemy of happiness, rightly understood.


Or perhaps a hymn can sing this better than I can write it:    (LSB 533)

Jesus has come and brings pleasure eternal,
Alpha, Omega, Beginning and End;
Godhead, humanity, union supernal,
O great Redeemer, You come as our friend!
Heaven and earth, now proclaim this great wonder:
Jesus has come and brings pleasure eternal!

Jesus has come! Now see bonds rent asunder!
Fetters of death now dissolve, disappear.
See Him burst through with a voice as of thunder!
He sets us free from our guilt and our fear,
Lifts us from shame to the place of His honor.
Jesus has come! Hear the roll of God’s thunder!

Jesus has come as the mighty Redeemer.
See now the threatening strong one disarmed!
Jesus breaks down all the walls of death’s fortress,
Brings forth the pris’ners triumphant, unharmed.
Satan, you wicked one, own now your master!
Jesus has come! He, the mighty Redeemer!

Jesus has come as the King of all glory!
Heaven and earth, O declare His great pow’r,
Capturing hearts with the heavenly story;
Welcome Him now in this fast-fleeting hour!
Ponder His love! Take the crown He has for you!
Jesus has come! He, the King of all glory! - See more at: http://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com/2013/01/medicating-our-path-to-peace.html#sthash.UbWO24pk.dpuf

Jesus has come and brings pleasure eternal,
Alpha, Omega, Beginning and End;
Godhead, humanity, union supernal,
O great Redeemer, You come as our friend!
Heaven and earth, now proclaim this great wonder:
Jesus has come and brings pleasure eternal!

Jesus has come! Now see bonds rent asunder!
Fetters of death now dissolve, disappear.
See Him burst through with a voice as of thunder!
He sets us free from our guilt and our fear,
Lifts us from shame to the place of His honor.
Jesus has come! Hear the roll of God’s thunder!

Jesus has come as the mighty Redeemer.
See now the threatening strong one disarmed!
Jesus breaks down all the walls of death’s fortress,
Brings forth the pris’ners triumphant, unharmed.
Satan, you wicked one, own now your master!
Jesus has come! He, the mighty Redeemer!

Jesus has come as the King of all glory!
Heaven and earth, O declare His great pow’r,
Capturing hearts with the heavenly story;
Welcome Him now in this fast-fleeting hour!
Ponder His love! Take the crown He has for you!
Jesus has come! He, the King of all glory!


Jesus has come and brings pleasure eternal,
Alpha, Omega, Beginning and End;
Godhead, humanity, union supernal,
O great Redeemer, You come as our friend!
Heaven and earth, now proclaim this great wonder:
Jesus has come and brings pleasure eternal!

Jesus has come! Now see bonds rent asunder!
Fetters of death now dissolve, disappear.
See Him burst through with a voice as of thunder!
He sets us free from our guilt and our fear,
Lifts us from shame to the place of His honor.
Jesus has come! Hear the roll of God’s thunder!

Jesus has come as the mighty Redeemer.
See now the threatening strong one disarmed!
Jesus breaks down all the walls of death’s fortress,
Brings forth the pris’ners triumphant, unharmed.
Satan, you wicked one, own now your master!
Jesus has come! He, the mighty Redeemer!

Jesus has come as the King of all glory!
Heaven and earth, O declare His great pow’r,
Capturing hearts with the heavenly story;
Welcome Him now in this fast-fleeting hour!
Ponder His love! Take the crown He has for you!
Jesus has come! He, the King of all glory! - See more at: http://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com/2013/01/medicating-our-path-to-peace.html#sthash.UbWO24pk.dpuf

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