Fifty Days of Glory

Fifty Days of Glory Outline of Readings: April 23rd—Chapter 1 April 30th—Chapters 2 & 3 May 7th—Chapters 4 & 5 May 14th—Chapters 6 & 7 May 21st—Chapters 8 & 9

Fifty Days of Glory Chapter 4 Behind a Locked Door Luke 24:33-43; John 20:19-25

Fifty Days of Glory “At the end of the first century, with John the Apostle still alive, Ignatius of Antioch wrote to the Magnesian Christians that Christians are ‘no longer living for the [Saturday] Sabbath, but for the Lord’s Day on which life dawned for us through Him and His death’ (Magnesians 9:1)”

Fifty Days of Glory “Christ inaugurated the New Covenant and, with it, new observances. Sunday is, indeed, the Lord’s Day. On this day He rose from the dead. While it is the first day of the week, it is also the eighth day, the eschatological day, the day of the new covenant. Just as creation began on day one, God’s new creation begins on the second day one, which is Sunday.”

Fifty Days of Glory “We may not understand everything the Christian faith teaches, and we certainly know how far short we fall from godly discipleship, but if we are actively in the game—through prayer, Bible study, cor-porate worship, receiving Holy Communion, and active fellowship with other believers—we give God room to move in us, through us, and for us.”

Fifty Days of Glory Why were they still disbelieving and wondering?

Fifty Days of Glory Why were they still disbelieving and wondering? It was too good to be true!

Fifty Days of Glory Why were they still disbelieving and wondering? It was too good to be true! Just because I believe God works miracles doesn’t mean I believe He’s working now!

Fifty Days of Glory Why were they still disbelieving and wondering? It was too good to be true! Just because I believe God works miracles doesn’t mean I believe He’s working now! We can “sort of believe”

Fifty Days of Glory Why were they still disbelieving and wondering? It was too good to be true! Just because I believe God works miracles doesn’t mean I believe He’s working now! We can “sort of believe” Christians can be very double-minded

Fifty Days of Glory Why were they still disbelieving and wondering? It was too good to be true! Just because I believe God works miracles doesn’t mean I believe He’s working now! We can “sort of believe” Christians can be very double-minded It was still pre-Pentecost!

Fifty Days of Glory “There was a Jewish folk belief at the time that ghost could not eat, so to underscore the point that He was truly physical, He requested something to eat. Frederick Denison Maurice asserted, ‘Nothing clears our minds of the phantoms that are always floating between earth and heaven—not really approaching either—like this simple teaching.’”

Fifty Days of Glory Why did Christ’s Resurrected Body still bear the wounds of the Passion?

Fifty Days of Glory Why did Christ’s Resurrected Body still bear the wounds of the Passion? To prove He was who He was;

Fifty Days of Glory Why did Christ’s Resurrected Body still bear the wounds of the Passion? To prove He was who He was; The scars are not signs of imperfection;

Fifty Days of Glory “Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending” Those dear tokens of His passion Still His dazzling body bears, Cause of endless exultation To His ransomed worshippers: With what rapture, with what rapture, with what rapture, Gaze we on those glorious scars.

Fifty Days of Glory Why did Christ’s Resurrected Body still bear the wounds of the Passion? • To prove He was who He was; • The scars are not signs of imperfection; • To teach that God transforms, not annihilates the created, material order;

Fifty Days of Glory “Patrick Henry Reardon trumpets the truth that ‘the Paschal mystery is not about the death and resurrection of a god,’ although Jesus was and is a member of the Godhead. Rather, ‘it is as a human being that Jesus was raised from the dead.’ We, too, will rise, and with resurrection bodies.”

Fifty Days of Glory Why did Christ’s Resurrected Body still bear the wounds of the Passion? • To prove He was who He was; • The scars are not signs of imperfection; • To teach that God transforms, not annihilates the created, material order; • To teach that we must focus on all aspects of our Lord’s ministry;

Fifty Days of Glory “There are those who wish to wall in Lent, stuck in the ‘woe is me, I am unworthy, Jesus died for our sins’ without ever celebrating grace. And there are those who only want to celebrate—who donot want to acknowledge sin or confront pain. Jesus Christ challenges us to live in the tension between the two. Life is full of now and now yet. Advent and Christmas. Lent and Easter. Crucifixion and resurrection.”

Fifty Days of Glory Why did Christ’s Resurrected Body still bear the wounds of the Passion? • To prove He was who He was; • The scars are not signs of imperfection; • To teach that God transforms, not annihilates the created, material order; • To teach that we must focus on all aspects of our Lord’s ministry; • The marks are an outward sign of His atoning sacrifice.

Fifty Days of Glory “Christian miracles, by contrast, ‘are what might be expected to happen when [the world] is invaded not simply by a god, by the God of Nature: by a Power which is outside her jurisdiction not as a foreigner but as a sovereign.’”

Fifty Days of Glory “The Hebrew word Shalom is a much fuller and richer word than the Latin word for ‘peace,’ pax. Pax simply means ‘the absence of war,’ while shalom means ‘God’s present to bless, to bring harmony with Him, with others, and with oneself.’ In the Old Testament the context is ‘the blessing of God, especially the salvation to be brought by the Messiah.’ His ‘Shalom!’ on Easter evening matches His ‘It is finished’ on Good Friday.”

Fifty Days of Glory “The Coptic monk Matthew the Poor comments that seeing the risen Christ with the marks of the nails and spear ‘was quite enough to give them faith in the resurrection, but it was not enough, even with their faith, to give them the Spirit and the power of the resurrection.’ For that ‘we must be given a spiritual gift.’”

Fifty Days of Glory Discussion Questions: • How have you responded when someone you trusted introduced a practice or told a story that was totally foreign, or possibly repugnant, to your education and experience?

Fifty Days of Glory Discussion Questions: • Can you think of some New Testament events that are both literally true and metaphorically profound? (A few Old Testament examples are the Passover and the crossing of the Red Sea.)

Fifty Days of Glory Discussion Questions: • What do “Fear not” and “Shalom” mean to you?

Fifty Days of Glory Discussion Questions: • Is there a difference between the faith of John 3:16 and the faith of 1Corinthians 12:9, and how is such faith acquired?

Fifty Days of Glory Chapter 5 The Apostles’ Commission Restated Luke 24:33-43; John 20:19-25

Fifty Days of Glory “Everett F. Harrison writes, ‘This is a crucial point in redemption history, the beginning of the new creation.’ As we saw in the last chapter, this event bookends the original creation when, in Genesis 2:7, we are told, ‘the Lord God… breathed into his [Adam’s] nostrils the breath of life.’ In Genesis God breathed upon Adam to culminate the original creation. In the Gospels the final Adam breathes upon His closest Disciples to make them the beginnings of His new creation.”

Fifty Days of Glory “In addition, the nation of Israel is likened in Ezekiel 37 to a Valley of Dry Bones. Under the re-creation of God, the bones received flesh once again, but they were not animated until God breathed life into them. Now, on Easter evening, Jesus breathed upon His disciples…to make them a new creation, fit for life in the new covenant. Once again we note that at Pentecost this new creation would receive full empowerment for service.”

Fifty Days of Glory “Special care must be taken to maintain the biblical balance both by Christian individuals as we share the Christian faith with others and by the church in her proclamations of the Gospel more widely.”

Fifty Days of Glory “Some individuals and churches emphasize repentance to the point where God seems harsh and where forgiveness appears to be infrequently granted. To emphasize that people are lost sinners in not the Gospel’s ‘good news,’ because such a message is neither good nor news.”

Fifty Days of Glory “Others, by contrast, skip repentance altogether, proclaiming God to be loving when in fact they’re really making Him permissive and enabling. Rowan Williams…comments, ‘Salvation does not bypass the history and memory of guilt, rather it builds upon it and from it.’ Pope Paul VI said that reconciliation ‘never offends against true justice or denies the rights of the poor.’”

Fifty Days of Glory “The first is taking sin seriously. This involves acknowledging sin (and sin is what Scripture says sin is), confessing sin, repenting of sin (desiring to turn away from it and not repeat it), asking people to hold us account-able in those areas in which we are prone to sin, making amends and restitution to those against whom we have sinned, and taking intentional, regular steps that lead to holiness.”

Fifty Days of Glory “The second is in taking God’s forgiveness seriously. This involves acknowledging that what Jesus did on the Cross to pay the penalty price for our sins truly made our being forgiven possible, and believing that God has truly restored us to fellowship with Him when we repent.”

Fifty Days of Glory “Each of the post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus teaches us something about what the Church would be like after Jesus’ Ascension and what the Church should be like today. What do Luke 24:36-43 and John 20:19-25 teach us? Three things, I believe.”

Fifty Days of Glory “First is the importance of Christian community. The ten, with others, were together despite their fears. Cleopas and his companion instinctively knew to head of this core group when they met the risen Christ.”

Fifty Days of Glory “Second is the Church as a redemptive community is its role of binding and loosing, of forgiving sin (and sometimes not forgiving sin when there is no genuine repentance).”

Fifty Days of Glory “Third, that Christianity is both supernatural and physical. Jesus can quickly relocate from one pace to another and can pass through locked doors. Soon after these events the Holy Spirit would fall on believers at the day of Pentecost, and the Church would manifest signs and wonders, that is, super-natural workings of the Spirit. And yet, Jesus still had a body, He could speak and He could eat.”

Fifty Days of Glory Discussion Questions: • When we say that the church is the body of Christ and that we are members, does that mean that we are the incarnation in the world today?

Fifty Days of Glory Discussion Questions: • What are our roles in preaching, teaching, healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, and absolution?

Fifty Days of Glory Discussion Questions: • St. Irenaeus wrote that “the glory of God is man fully alive.” What are the implications of this?

Fifty Days of Glory Next week: Chapter 6—“Doubting Thomas” & Chapter 7—“My Lord and My God!”

Fifty Days of Glory