• Three different thoughts this week. Remember, Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter beginning in nine days. Great and glorious things to consider.
• In the East, when angry Muslims want to kill Christians, they blow up churches. They know that real Christians are not at home thinking in their heads “ I’m a Christian,” when in fact that person has no vital connection to the institution Jesus came to build (see Mt 16:13-20; Mt 18:15-17; Eph 5:23-27; Eph 2:19-22; Rev 21:9-27). Real Christians are in churches keeping the solemn tradition of 4,000 years of God’s people: worship. The enemies of God — whether ancient Romans, totalitarian states, or contemporary Muslims — know that if you can stop Christians from worshiping, you will have stopped them completely (at least in that time and place). That’s why, every week, people in persecuted lands risk their lives and gather secretly: they know intuitively that worship is their defining act and defining moment. In the west, people abandon worship for almost any reason: the weather, a game, a late night with too many glasses of wine. (A friend jokes that when he lived in L.A. people stayed home when it rained; in the northwest they stay home when the sun comes out.) Worship is the bellwether: you are watching the decline of Christianity in the west and its rise in the east and global south. But you don’t know — God may use your faithfulness to change the course of events. He once used 12 unremarkable men to change the world.
• On Sunday I used Thomas Erskine’s summary of the faith: “Religion is Grace; ethics is gratitude.” You can find the same “responsive” pattern throughout Scripture. I have on my desk Heb 6:11-12, “Have the full assurance of hope until the end, so you may not become lazy.” Just as grace leads to a life of gratitude, so the hope of God pulls us out of lethargy. The most eloquent and simple expression of this is Ps 50:15: “I will deliver you, and you will glorify me.” Grace and gratitude. Some of you are probably thinking of the basic outline of the Heidelberg Catechism which is the same: guilt, grace, gratitude. Again, the chronology matters. If grace is not first, then your own will is the prime mover, your strength is in your own determination, and your salvation is your own doing. It’s a zombie movie: the dead have resurrected themselves.
• In this particular moment, if there is anything for which you are likely to be criticized or persecuted, it’s this comment by Peter regarding Jesus: “… there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). As the global village gets smaller, the pressure on you to abandon this truth — the exclusivity of Jesus Christ — will grow greater and greater. The message urged on us is this: in order for all of us to get along, you must abandon absolute truths that put you in conflict with others. Don’t listen. The ancient Christian way of living in a pluralist society is love, not compromise. We love our enemies, people with whom we disagree, perhaps radically. But we don’t give up the truth of Christ. It’s the only hope our enemies have. Be strong, be orthodox, be persecuted. In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer: Christ has overcome the world.