Andy Cornett | living in the new creation

endlessly captivated by the person and work of the resurrected Jesus

Easter Sunrise

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photo: Robin Gale Cornett, 31 March 2013

Yesterday was our Easter Sunday service on the brow at Signal Mountain. Here’s an excerpt from the end of my short message. It’s title was rise, and mostly consisted of a working-through of 1 Corinthians 15:3-6, 50-58 and our freedom from sin, death, evil/devil – and referencing the lyrics of “Because He Lives (sung at the service).

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There is a name for rising up to this kind of life: FREEDOM. The glorious freedom of the children of God who know the mystery of faith: that Christ Jesus died, that Christ is risen, that Christ will come again.

This life is worth everything because he lives.

Some days I am standing near this road, waiting at the bus stop with my daughters – and I see the sun come up. Some days on my way to church, early in the morning, I will drive over here, stand on this wall, and look to the east – and watch a new day dawn over this city and community.

And as the sun rises, I see everything else – this whole valley spread before us. And I am reminded of the great quote by CS Lewis who said “I believe in the risen Christ like I believe in the sun – not because I can look at him directly, but because by his light I see everything else.”

And then I get to work. And I remember vs. 58 – the verse Paul uses to end this section. We work as fathers or mothers, husbands or wives, students or teachers, business or home, friends and family. And we work hard serving Jesus in His new creation, but we don’t carry the load. As Paul says – we give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord because we know that our labor isn’t in vain. We’re not trying to receive God’s grace as if we can earn it – other way around! We’ve received the grace of the risen Jesus so that we can get to work! This life matters in every exquisite detail.

We are working in the light of day because the Son us up, because Jesus the Son has lived, died, risen, and is coming again, and by His light we see everything. That’s what it means to rise up. That’s what it means to be part of God’s uprising in our little corner of the world. People are dying to see a life that rises up in freedom because the Past is forgiven, the Present is lived with no fear, and the Future is secure. I don’t just want to buried with my feet facing the East – I want to live facing Jesus, rising up because of the new life he has planted in my heart by faith.

a prayer for Easter

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So I had the task of writing a prayer of adoration for our Easter services last week. Public prayer is difficult. Some think we need better public prayers and pray-ers, some think Christianity ought to just do away with it for awhile. Both those voices need to be heard. Truthfully, I second both for different reasons and at different times. But as one who happily lives in a church that treats public prayer (whether silently or out loud) as an important part of worship, I embrace it. Here is the prayer I wrote for our worship this last Sunday.

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O God our Father – thank you for the gift of what we just read and the truth you so clearly laid out in your word. For you are our Creator: you have made all things in heaven and earth. Everyone here owes the gift of our life and breath to you, Lord! But not only have you seen fit to make us and everything that is, but you outshine all of it in the glory of what you have done in and through your son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

Jesus, by your cross and your life laid down you set your people free. In your grace and mercy you saved us and obtained forgiveness for all your people. We praise you for your limitless patience with us and your mercy to us that is greater than all our sin. We adore you for your strength revealed in your suffering and sacrificial love on the cross. We bless your name this morning, Jesus, for reconciling us to the Father so that we may know you and enjoy you for all time. All praise and honor and glory to you!

Now, Father, make yourself known in a fresh way today as our savior and mighty deliverer! You know the hearts of everyone here this morning. You know all our desires, thoughts, and secrets. Would you come and cleanse us, make us new by your Spirit? Would you fire in us a bright and burning love for your son Jesus Christ? Would you give us the grace to let ever fiber of our lives praise and magnify your powerful name? Whether we wake or sleep, whether we work or rest, whether we live or die – only let you presence be with us and at all times shining through us.

Oh Jesus, that we here at this church would have the grace to reflect your great love to this community in our own sacrifice and service! We are counting on your resurrection to see us through. We are bold to ask these things for our brothers and sisters present today, for it is in your strong and loving name that we pray, Jesus, in the power of the Spirit – Amen!

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Full disclosure: I based this prayer in part on our scripture readings and song selections for Easter, and I also borrowed from the BOCP Collect for Purity, a traditional “Savior of the World” prayer, and “God Enjoyed” (found in the Valley of Vision).

 

 

on truth and kings

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And we who now stand at the foot of the cross have to face the most searching questions because we, too, find it desperately uncomfortable to look at the face of God’s Image, the man, the king, and see there the perfect likeness of the maker and redeemer of ht world. We are so stuck in the system so Caesar – his swords, his coins, his gambling soldiers – that we too have a hard time recognizing truth of any kind, let alone speaking up for it We are so anxious to protect the philosophies upon which our modern works is built that we will do anything to declare that we have no king but Caesar, that when push comes to shove religion is just a private thing which musn’t affect the public sphere, even when Jesus is reminding Caesar’s representative that he only has power because god has given it to him. And perhaps that is one of the reasons why the church is in such pain at the moment, caught between ‘what is truth?’ on the one hand and ‘no king but Caesar’ on the other.

But the good news – and this is after Good Friday – is that this story, for all its searing challenge, remains the story of the scriptures and the power of God, and therefore of the glory and love of God … and if it is true that that love must transform our whole lives, our public life, our grasp of truth on the one hand, our dealings with Caesar on the other, this can only be if we are first grasped and transformed by that same love at the very deepest level of our personalities.

Tom Wright, from “Good Friday,” in The Scriptures, the Cross, and the Power of God: Reflections for Holy Week. 64-66.

on the cross of Holy Week

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These are some of my favorite words on the cross of Holy Week. From Tom Wright on Matthew 23:34-46, “the Law and the Lord:”

Not a jot or tittle, said Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, will pass from Torah until all is accomplished; and as he articulates the greatest commandment in Torah, so he is on the way to its ultimate accomplishment. The vertical commandment, that we should love God with all our heart, is joined together with the horizontal commandment, that we should love our neighbours as ourselves; and Jesus combines the vertical and the horizontal into the greatest symbol of triumphant love the world has ever seen, a symbol at once clear and obvious and yet fathomless in its profundity, all the more so for its having been up to that point a symbol of the triumph of Caesar, his coins and his empire. The cross stretches up to God in loving obedience, and out to the world in loving service, and all because it is not only David’s son but David’s Lord who hangs there, so that the real stretching out is downwards, from God to us.

from “Palm Sunday Matins,” in The Scriptures, the Cross, and the Power of God: Reflections for Holy Week.

on Holy Week

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Much of Holy Week consists, or ought to consist, in our going back in mind and heart to those first and unique events. In our day particularly we need to be reminded that what happened then was not just one example of a general pattern, but the central and unrepeatable events which form the hinge upon which the great door of cosmic history has swung open at last. That is perhaps the hardest thing for our generation to believe, and we have to rub our noses in it over and over again. But when we do that – when we grasp the unique and decisive and one-off nature of those events, from Palm Sunday to Good Friday and on to Easter itself – we discover again, and it’s bound to be almost as deeply disturbing, that there are similar lessons always to be learn in the church and in our own hearts and lives. When Jesus comes to his church, and to this people, today, he comes with the same message, and with the same warning. He comes seeking fruit, the fruit which belongs to his father. And those of us who decide to make the journey from Palm Sunday to Good Friday can never therefore do so in anything other than fear and trembling. We are, says St Paul, the temples of the living God. God forbid that when the Lord whom we seek comes once again to his temple he should find it necessary once more to come with stories of judgment. May we so hear the word, so live within the story that we find ourselves in six days’ time at the food of the cross, and in eight days at the empty tomb, and find ourselves saying, “this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

– Tom Wright, “Palm Sunday Matins,” in The Scriptures, the Cross, and the Power of God: Reflections for Holy Week. This book (meditations and addresses from Matthew 21-23, 28 and John 13, 19, 20) has been my holy week companion for several years now. I expect to do the daily readings again this week and post a choice quote or two here or on facebook.

grace and peace – Andy