Easter

Christ is risen!

The Temple was destroyed, and in three days, Christ Jesus rebuilt it. Just as he foretold, Christ was crucified and on the third day he rose again. The tomb was found empty, the stone rolled away. I can only but wonder what it must have been like to have discovered that in person. I often imagine that, as told in Luke, when the women who visited the tomb told the disciples, Peter made a mad dash through the crowded streets of Jerusalem. The Passover celebration was still going on and people were going back about their lives after the Sabbath. I can see him bumping into people, jumping over obstacles, sprinting for the tomb. I see him coming to a sudden halt at the entrance, slowly walking in and realizing that the body is gone. I see him as confused, hopeful, but confused, not quite sure what to think. And I imagine the disciples, when Christ first appears to them after the resurrection, falling face down and worshiping him.

Though Christ wad dead, he now lives and reigns forever. Though the wages of sin is death, they have been paid in full by the blood of the Lamb. Having died, Christ rose and is now the Firstborn from among the dead, "From whose resurrection flows all the life, spiritual and eternal, of all his brethren," (John Wesley). It is through the Resurrection that we no longer must fear death, for Christ has victory over it, "supremacy in all things".


Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ; why swell'st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die.
- John Donne

Rock on.

Good Friday

Today we remember the Crucifixion of the Christ. While Palm Sunday and the Passover are marked with celebration, the atmosphere of Good Friday is much darker. Many churches tonight will hold Tenebrae services during which the sanctuary lights will slowly be extinguished. The paraments will be stripped or exchanged for simple black cloth.

It is today that we remember the death of our Passover Lamb. Exodus tells us that this Lamb was to be without blemish and that His bones were not to be broken. It is through the Lamb's blood that Death does not come to us. This Sacrifice is in celebration of God's deliverance and of salvation.

When he was hung on the Cross, Jesus quoted Psalm 22. As he began by saying, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", the events of the Psalm were carried out around him.
"My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth." - "I have thirst."
"A band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet."
"They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing."

The prophet Isaiah reminds us that, "You were sold for nothing, and without money you will be redeemed," (52:3). In the next chapter, we are told "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all," (53:5-7).

Though the sorrow of the Cross is in the death of the Christ, it also comes bringing the glory of salvation. The sorrow of the Cross is not long lived, for the tomb will be empty on Sunday morning. The salvation, however, is eternal.

Music and Holy Week

Last year, I went to a music-based Tenebrae service at Church of the Resurrection UMC in Kansas City. This year, after the Maundy Thursday service at Athens First UMC, I went to the UGA music school's performance of G. Mahler's Symphony No. 2 ("Resurrection"), a powerful piece of work from the turn of the Twentieth Century, which tells of a man thinking about life at a friend's funeral. The conclusion, the fifth movement, ends with the man witnessing the Resurrection and the glory and love of God.

During this performance, I thought about music. Though not very skilled at making it, I certainly do enjoy it and am often moved by it. From hymns to old slave spirituals, a well-written song can change your outlook on an entire day. Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, Howard Shore's music for the Lord of the Rings, and even modern bands such as UnderOath and mewithoutYou all have the ability to change everything in the span of one line.

The best scene in the movie The Shawshank Redemption is when Andy (Tim Robbins) plays an opera album over the prison's loud speakers. Red (Morgan Freeman) narrates that he still doesn't know what "that lady" was singing about and doesn't want to know. He likes to think that it is something so poetic that talking about it just won't express it.

It must be no coincidence, then, that some of the best religious pieces deal with the Crucifixion. Songs like "Where You There" serve when normal words do not do justice to the sorrow, pain, beauty, and love of the Cross.

Rock on.

The Last Supper and Maundy Thursday

Today we celebrate the Lord's Supper. While Jesus was celebrating the first day of Passover with his disciples in Jerusalem, he was also preparing to face his trial, torture, and execution.

The Lord's Supper brings many of the Jewish Passover traditions into Christianity. The most obvious are the unleavened bread, which Christ tells us is his body (very fitting seeing as he was born in Bethlehem, the "house of bread"), and the wine, which Christ tell us is his blood. These elements, he tells us, are poured out for us and for many for the forgiveness of sins. The texts concerning the Lord's Supper also tell us that Jesus and his disciples washed their hands, which while seemingly insignificant, is also part of the Passover tradition. In his Gospel, Mark deliberately mentions the sacrifice of the Passover lamb.

After the feast, Jesus and his disciples go to the Mount of Olives. Here, he prays for himself and his own safety, while still giving himself over to his Father's will. As he prays, Judas betrays Jesus, selling him to the Jewish officials for thirty pieces of silver. Jesus is arrested and questioned, he is disowned by his Rock, and the scene is set for Good Friday.

For more on Maundy Thursday, including the history of the name and Jesus' washing of his disciples' feet, see Mitch Lewis' blog.
For more on the Passover, see Exodus 12 and my post from Tuesday concerning the traditions of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

"Possible" Humanitarian Catastrophe in Darfur

Today, John Holmes, the UN's coordinator for humanitarian relief, warned that if aid agencies began pulling out, the UN "could face a rapid humanitarian catastrophe", blaming both rebels and the government in Sudan for harassment of aid workers.
See the story via AFP here.

While I applaud the UN's commitment to aid work in Darfur, isn't it a little wait to be warning of an impending "humanitarian catastrophe"? The genocide is entering its fourth year. Warnings are a little overdue.

An update on the International Criminal Court's investigation into the Sudanese genocide:The ICC's investigation yielded some fruit, naming several Sudanese officials to stand trial. The Sudanese government, however, has decided not to recognize the court's authority and states that it will conduct its own investigation. This act leaves the court virtually powerless.

On the subject of western reaction to the Sudanese genocide, I am noticing a disturbing trend in the US response to the crisis. It seems that the administration's official response is to condemn the civil war and resulting slaughter and call for aid and an end to the problem. But at the same time, it will not act on its calls. Recently, one State Department official denied that the situation, while horrible, still qualifies as genocide. It rings bells of the Clinton Administration's assertions of "acts of genocide" in Rwanda and the Balkans. This does not stop the increasing reports of targeting of civilian populations, reports of rising number of "displaced persons" (or the more powerful but less politically correct term, refugees), and the still-unanswered call from the AU for UN logistical help in quelling the violence. It is time that the administration and congress quit leaving wiggle room in their calls for action and actually act.

Is the political power they seek to guard worth the lives of the refugees they refuse to protect?

Rock on.

Passover

Today marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. For those who don't know, the Passover celebrates the Israelites' exodus from Egypt and salvation from the Tenth Plague. The story, in simplified terms, is that the Tenth Plague, death of the firstborn, was to come upon the Egyptians. To save the Israelite slaves, God commanded that they slaughter a lamb and place the blood over their doorways; this was to serve as a sign so that the plague might pass over the house.

The traditional Passover Seder consists of various symbolic foods, include matzo (unleavened bread), bitter herbs, a lamb's bone, and an egg. The feast also includes the drinking of wine and washing of hands.

It is also a tradition to place a seat for the prophet Elijah, who is said to come preparing the way of the Messiah.

For Christians, the Passover story foreshadows the coming of Christ and the events of Holy Week. According to the Gospels, Jesus was in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.

Next year in Jerusalem.
Rock on.

Palm Sunday

"Hosanna!
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!
Hosanna in the highest!"
-Mark 11:9, 10

With this joyous proclamation of salvation, the citizens of Jerusalem mark the entry of Jesus into the city. Quoting Psalm 118:26, they shout out that Jesus "comes in the name of the Lord". Psalm 118 is a psalm written in honor of God's saving grace. It reminds us that the Love of God endures forever (v. 1), the God answers our prayers and sets us free (v. 5), and that the rejected stone will become the capstone (v. 22 and brought up by Jesus after his entry into Jerusalem - Mt 21:42; Mk 12:10,11; Lk 19:17).

The return of the Davidic line of kings is also praised. As I've brought up a few times, one of the major views n the Messiah is that He would be a Davidic king ushering in a new age for the people of Israel (see: Jewish Views On the Messiah). Jesus reinforces this idea by riding in on a donkey. In verse 22:5, Matthew reminds us that the prophet Zechariah says, "Say to the Daughter of Zion, 'See, your King comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey,'" (Zec 9:9). When David named Solomon king over Israel, he had his officials place the boy on a donkey and marched through the streets proclaiming the anointing of the royal son (1Ki 1:32-40; keep in mind that Jesus was anointed at some point during Holy Week and Solomon shortly after his royal procession). The act of laying down palms and cloaks also comes from royal parades. When Jehu was anointed as king, "They hurried and took their cloaks and spread them under him on the bare steps," (2Ki 9:13).

All of this fanfare, though, often hides the grim ending of Holy Week. On Thursday, we will celebrate the Passover, Last Supper, and betrayal of Christ. We reenact the Passover and Lord's Supper ever time we partake in communion. We reenact the betrayal far more often, every time we reject the grace of God and sin against him. On Friday, we will remember the Lamb and his sacrifice in order that death may not come to us. Those who celebrate the coming of the King today will call for the death of a radical teacher on Friday. Even the palms with which we celebrate will be burned and on Ash Wednesday of next year, we will receive them as black crosses on our foreheads to remind us of our mortal nature and dependence on God for existence.

It is not until Sunday, Easter, in one week, when we will find the glory of the empty tomb and see the Son of Man and the Son of God as the Firstborn From Among the Dead. It took God one week to create the world and so in one week, we experience the glory of his final teachings, and death. He rests on the seventh day and on the beginning of the next week, we witness his resurrection. The Temple is about to be destroyed, but we do not fear because it will be rebuilt after three days.

Rock on.

Edit: Mitch Lewis, far more qualified to speak on the subject and much better at expressing his points, has this to say about Palm Sunday.

Blood Diamond and the New Breed of Action Movies

This weekend, Blood Diamond is showing at the campus theater. Having nothing better - well, more entertaining - to do, I checked it out. While it certainly contains the average action movie fare of the past however many years - explosions, romance, gun fights, and car chases - it also had something much more important. As many know, Leonardo DiCaprio, the pretty boy of Titanic (and to my sister, no, he is not the something more), in it. To my surprise, he was not the protagonist. He didn't even become a "good" guy until the last few scenes of the movie. There were really only three "good guys" in the entire movie: the protagonist, a local fisherman named Solomon (played by Djimon Hounsou) who's only goal is to survive and save his family; an American reporter (Jennifer Connelly) attempting to stop a bloody civil war by exposing the blood diamond trade financing it; and a local teacher working to save child soldiers from their captors, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)

Based loosely on the civil war in Sierra Leone between the government and RUF, Blood Diamond presents villains who, much like the latest Bond villain in Casino Royale, are trying to get rich, not take over the world. The movie also attempts and, in my mind, succeeds at exposing the horrors of the many African civil wars. Child soldiers (see: Invisible Children), the targeting of civilians, the refugee slums, the apathy of the outside world, and western concerns for resources over human lives, are all major themes of the movie.

I highly recommend it and hope that it signals a new era for action movies, movies that have points to make rather than dollars.

Rock on.

Eye of the Storm, Part II

I'm back from my second trip to clean up after Hurricane Katrina. CCF took a group of about fifty people for Spring Break. I'll be making a third trip over Easter weekend for Eggs in the Easy. The trip went very well. There were few injuries (one stepped-on nail, one spider bite, several sinus problems, and two ruptured eardrums, both of which were mine). I hope to have some pictures to post, but I took a film camera down, so I need to get the roles developed. Without any further ado, here's my journal from the week.
____________________
Tuesday: I think we are in a harder hit area this time. Sheds have been flipped off of their foundations, tress pulled up by the roots, and planes flung like children's toys. Yesterday, we spent several hours cleaning up yards untouched since the storm. In one yard, the grass had completely grown over and covered the sidewalk. It was essentially a carpet from one side of the sidewalk to the other. The grass was at least a foot high, with fiberglass, mold, and other random stuff in it. [Looking back, cutting it down was a great idea because it gets rid of the insect problem, but we didn't wear masks, which was the start of the sinus problems for a lot of people.]
While we are in a harder hit area, there is some good news: We have traveled through some of the same areas we were in last time and there is less debris. Today, we cleaned up after an Irish/Italian heritage pride parade and while this seems contrary to the reason for the trip, I view it as a sign that the festive culture of New Orleans is returning. Don't get me wrong, there is still at least five years worth of cleanup to be done and some houses still haven't been touched, but like the Christmas ligts last time, this serves as a glimmer of hope in a dark time.

Wednesday: Today showed me what this trip was about. We spent the afternoon handing out fliers in an impoverished section of the city for a grocery giveaway. Within sight of the Superdome, there is block after block of housing, in poor condition before Katrina, now worse, noting more than four walls and a roof housing entire families. We would pass houses we thought were uninhabitable only to have occupants emerge and ask us what we were handing out. Homeless men came up to us, living in what I consider the slums, to tell us how bad things still were in the lower 9th Ward, only a few miles away.
Despite the poor conditions, people were still smiling. Residents were happy to see us and talk to us. The owner of a local grocery store was so happy to receive the news we brought that the offered to hand out fliers to her customers and let us put up some posters on her building.
I'll admit that I was scared at first. This area is worse than the worst parts of Atlanta, the city of my nightmares. But I was shocked at how friendly the people were and, after an hour, was quite comfortable.
During the morning, we saw some of the mansions of New Orleans, only to be shown the projects in the afternoon. It shocking to think that as uninhabitable as the houses we saw are, that these houses would be considered blessings for the citizens of the slums of third-world countries.
Tonight, the freshmen and the interns got together and had our weekly Bible study. While it was quite untraditional, we sat around in the compound's warehouse and discussed how God was moving us this week. I'm so blessed to have such a group of friends.

Thursday: Today will be a good day. During our morning devotional time, I read Psalm 69. It is incredible how much of it realtes to the storm and the cleanup. We leave in a few minutes to gut hoses and I am so excited about how great things will go that I am literally trembling.
[Post-Work] Today was only a half day, but we still finished nearly an entire house. While we were going to divide up and do two houses at once, the second house was off of it's foundation and from the center of the living room to the external wall, a distance of three feet, the floor dropped a foot and a half. The leaders decided that the structure, sitting on cinder blocks, was not safe to work in.
After the three hours of work, we headed downtown to the French Quarter. The buildings (untouched by flooding), food, and music were amazing. But the stores were like a Mardi Gras version of Gatlinburg. They sold nothing but voodoo dolls, raunchy shirts, and beads. And then Bourbon Street. Bars, strip clubs, and even shops offering "favors" with graphic pictures as advertisements. Most of the advertising methods I thought to be illegal. It was almost as if the city's economic council was made up of frat boys, and I mean that in the worst possible sense. I don't understand how a city known for its great culture can host America's festival in praise of drunkeness and fornication. New Orleans is among the most beautiful cities in the South, but wallows in filth. This being said, the love of Christ is present in the great work being done by the Church in the area and I can only hope that the city will restore itself to its former beauty and go beyond it.

Saturday: We spent Friday working on three different houses and the group I was with got to pray with the owner of our site. It's amazing that after one week of hard labor and poor leadership on the part of CrossRoads missions [for any leaders thinking of a missions trip to the area, I would encourage you to not go through CrossRoads as the leaders are some of the most condescending and uptight people you will ever meet], the group stayed up-beat and energetic.
Today, we are on our trip home and most people have zonked out. This trip has brought us (being about half of all of CCF) together more than anything else could ever do.
____________________

I sit here in my dorm at my computer, enjoying the air conditioning and even the dorm building itself. I hope that I do not fall back into my old complacency. It is so easy to complain about dorm life, but I have spent hours walking around the ghetto and cleaning out mold. I have not been forced to flee the wrath of nature and still have all of my belongings.

Please, pray for the people of New Orleans, the people trying to clean up, and those who were on the trip that we may never forget what we saw and how the Holy Spirit changed us.

Rock on.

Post Script: To read about the first trip, made the weekend before Thanksgiving 2006, see Eye of the Storm.

Photo Courtesy of Jackie Bangma.

On the Road to New Orleans

Spring Break is upon us and so I shall be departing for New Orleans tomorrow morning at 8:30 (but because of the stupid time change, it will feel like 7:30, which to a college student is like 5:30).

This is my second trip down there with CCF. Last time, we were gutting houses and this time, we have no clue where in the city we're going, what we'll be doing, or even what type of building we'll be staying in. Please pray for safe trave and work and that the group will grow closer together.

I will not be posting for a little over a week and hope to have some great reflections for you when I get back.

Shalom,
Drew