glenn packiam's blog

Happy New Year: Reflections on Our Finiteness and God's Favor

As we begin a new year, here are some reflections from Psalm 90.

First, verse 12 culminates a stanza about the fleeting time of humans on earth-- 70, maybe 80 years....springing up like new grass in the morning, but fading away by evening. Verse 12 says:

"Teach us to number our days so we can have a wise heart."

Numbering our days prevents us from the lofty deception that we have no limits. A new year is not about imagining endless possibilities; it's first about confessing our finiteness. We are bounded. One more year has gone from us. We do not know how many remain. Numbering our days reminds us that we are finite.

But the Psalm goes on. Verse 17 culminates a stanza praying for God's mercy to be evident, for His "faithful love" to "fill us in the morning" so we "can rejoice and celebrate our whole life long." Verse 17 says:

"Let the kindness of the Lord our God be over us. Make the work of our hands last. Make the work of our hands last!"

Though we are finite, that is not all there is to the story. God works in the midst of our finiteness. God alone can make our feeble work in our finite years....last. Last beyond our years. Last beyond our own limitations.

As you begin a new year, may we confess our finiteness and pray for God's favor, so that in all things Christ will be glorified.

Amen.

Live In a Way That Makes No Sense

Stanley Hauerwas, the famed ethicist at Duke and one of America's greatest theologians, described "Christian ethics" this way:

Living in such a way that would make no sense if Jesus Christ had not risen from the dead.

For Hauerwas, believing in the resurrection of Christ is good, but not as good as really living lives that make sense only if Jesus Christ did in fact rise from the dead.

So, what does that mean? What would that look like? As we begin a new year, it's worth reflecting on what type of lives would make no sense if Jesus has not risen from the dead and ascended to His throne as the righful ruler of this world.

Here are a few ways...

• Forgive freely and quickly. The power of forgiveness has been released in the world because the crucifed Son of God did not stay dead. All the force of wickedness and evil was laid on him, and He exhasuted it in His death...then rose in victory over it.

• Speak words of life and blessing...even about those (and to those) who say hateful and hurtful things. Discern the prejudices we hide in the name of "protecting our children" or "defending our freedom." Tell the truth to yourself about the ugliness of our own hateful hearts. And let the Word of Christ that brought life to us bring life to others through you.

• Choose peace over power and violence. Christ is the strange Savior who chose to be killed rather than to kill, who told Peter to put away the sword, who defeated violence by refusing violence. He let Evil and Violence do their worst to Him, and then God rasied Him in vindication, establishing Him as the Ruler over all. The world is fueled by pride and is motivated by power, a power that it protects with violence. To acknowledge that Christ is the true Lord of the World is to embrace His way of humility, service, and peace.

• Treat each person with the dignity Chist died to restore to them. We are made in God's image. That image was marred by sin. But Christ came to restore it. By treating people with dignity and respect-- regardless of their race, religion, values, gender-- we are a sign that something is different in the world.

• Let creation-- the earth, the vegetation, the animals-- flourish and thrive because Christ has risen and is Lord. Don't celebrate the killing of animals for sport. Don't encourage the pillaging of the earth for the sake of better profits. Advocate thoughtful, faithful farming that leads creation to flourish and rejoice. 

• Bring Good News to the poor. They have a place at God's table. Show them this by giving them food and drink and shelter even now. There is a feast coming that Christ spoke of. Give them a foretaste of it now, in Jesus' name.

• Live with restraint: you don't need to have your best life now. Christ's resurrection means the best is yet to come: new heaven and new earth and resurrected bodies to enjoy it in. Learn to delay gratification, whether by preserving sex within the beatiful bounds of marriage, or by refusing to accumulate more just because you can.

• Love with no restraint: you have nothing to lose. The greatest impediment to love is fear, and the greatest thing to fear is death. But because Jesus is risen, even death is no longer the end.

These are just my reflections at the moment. I'm sure you can add more. So...go ahead:

What would it look like to live in such a way that would make no sense if Jesus Christ had not risen from the dead?