For Christians as for Christ, life spells conflict. For Christians as for Christ it should also spell victory. We are to be victorious like the victorious Christ. Did not John write to the 'young men' of the churches he supervised because they had 'overcome te evil one'? Did not Jesus deliberately draw a parallel between himself and us in this respect, promising to him who overcomes the right to share his throne, just as he had overcome and shared his Father's throne [1 Jn. 2:13; Rev. 3:21]?
Yet the parallel is only partial. It would be utterly impossible for us by ourselves to fight and defeat the devil: we lack both the skill and the strength to do so. It would also be unnecessary to make the attempt, because Christ has already done it. The victory of Christians, therefore, consists of entering into the victory of Christ and of enjoying its benefits. We can thank God that 'he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ' [1 Cor. 15:57]. We know that Jesus, having been raised from the dead, is now seated at the Father's right hand in the heavenly realms [Eph. 1:20-23]. But God has 'made us alive with Christ…, and raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms' [Eph. 2:4-6]. In other words, by God's gracious power we who have shared in Christ's resurrection share also in his throne. If God has placed all things under Christ's feet, they must be under ours too, if we are in him. To borrow Jesus' own metaphor, now that the strong man has been disarmed and bound, the time is ripe for us to raid his palace and plunder his goods [Mk. 3:37].
It is not quite so simple as that, however. For though the devil has been defeated, he has not yet conceded defeat. Although he has been overthrown, he has not yet been eliminated. In fact he continues to wield great power. This is the reason for the tension we feel in both our theology and our experience. On the one hand we are alive, seated and reigning with Christ, as we have just seen, with even the principalities and powers of evil placed by God under his (and therefore our) feet; on the other we are warned (also in Ephesians) that these same spiritual forces have set themselves in opposition to us, so that we have no hope of standing against them unless we are strong in the Lord's strength and clad in his armour [Eph. 6:10-17]. Or here is the same paradox in different language. On the one hand, we are assured that, having been born of God, Christ keeps us safe 'and the evil one does not touch us [1 Jn. 5:18]; on the other we are warned to watch out because the same evil one 'prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour' [1 Pet. 5:8].
Many Christians choose one or other of these positions, or oscillate unsteadily between them. Some are triumphalists, who see only the decisive victory of Jesus Christ and overlook the apostolic warnings against the powers of darkness. Others are defeatists, who see only the fearsome malice of the devil and overlook the victory over him which Christ has already won. The tension is part of the Christian dilemma between the 'already' and the 'not yet'. Already the kingdom of God has been inaugurated and is advancing; not yet has it been consummated. Already the new age (the age to come) has come, so that we have 'tasted…the powers of the coming age' [Heb. 6:5]; not yet has the old age completely passed away. Already we are God's sons and daughters, and no longer slaves [1 Jn. 2:8]; not yet have we entered 'the glorious freedom of the children of God' [Rom.8:21]. An overemphasis on the 'already' leads to triumphalism, the claim to perfection — either moral (sinlessness) or physical (complete health) — which belongs only to the consummated Kingdom, the 'not yet'. An overemphasis on the 'not yet' leads to defeatism, an acquiescence in continuing evil which is incompatible with the 'already' of Christ's victory.
Here is a welcome news-flash from the "all-of-life-sacred" file:
The Old Spaghetti Factory is reportedly returning to its old location in the Gaslamp (275 Fifth Ave), opening on February 23. So if, like me, you have been pining for Homeric spaghetti (with Mizithra cheese and browned butter) for the last four years, your redemption is at hand.
LET THERE BE REJOICING IN ALL ISRAEL!
It is so easy to eat and drink to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31) at The Old Spaghetti Factory — YUM! YUM!
This reopening will reverse what was one of the great culinary mysteries — and disasters — in San Diego history.
The only problem is that — once the word is out that they are back — it will probably take two months to get through the door.
We are called to imitate the Lord our God, who is a most generous and faithful Giver.
We live in the world he made and gave to us. Our lives are sustained every moment of every day by his providential giving.
Acts 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
Ps. 104:21 The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. 22 When the sun rises, they steal away and lie down in their dens. 23 Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening.
24 O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. 25 Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. 26 There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.
27 These all look to you, to give them their food in due season.
Deut. 8:18 You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
But even more than that, there is the redemptive giving of our God in Jesus Christ.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Rom. 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Gal. 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
That's easy. Their latest projects both hit the shelves earlier this week — Dr. Laura's long-anticipated book on ministering to autism spectrum children and Bruce Sprinsteen's latest CD, "Working on a Dream."
I was able to track down the Boss during his rehearsals for Sunday's halftime show at
Superbowl XLIII. He said he was ecstatic to be able to share the spotlight this week
with Dr. Laura.
He also went out on a limb and asked if there might be a possibility that Dr Laura could do a cameo as part of the show on Sunday, but I told him that there were some sabbatarian concerns that would make that impossible.
“That’s too bad,” he said. “We could have doubled-up on ‘Glory Days’ or ‘Dancing in the Dark’ or one of the songs off the new album.” I expressed my regrets and thanked him for the generous offer.
He then asked if it would be OK to have his people contact Dr Laura about maybe joining him on a leg of his world tour
that officially kicks off in San Jose, CA on April 1.
“Maybe we could work up an arrangement of ‘Baby Mine’ for the show. Get the Big Man behind us on the sax. That would be sweet! Not a dry eye in the house,” said the Boss enthusiastically.
We’ll see…
With an “all-hands” workday coming up again on Saturday, I was thinking about one of the most delightful descriptions of a “work day” in all of literature — namely, the fence-painting episode in chapter two of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. You might remember the story. Tom (typically) is being punished by his Aunt Polly. Instead of his usual sunny Saturday entertainments, Tom will be a one-man “work detail” to whitewash “thirty yards of board fence nine feet high.” It will take him…forever!
Sighing, [Tom] dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged.
First, Tom tries to swap jobs with Jim who had been sent off to fetch water from the town pump — easily an hour-long chore that would be far more diverting. But Jim won’t do it. "Oh, I dasn't, Mars Tom. Ole missis she'd take an' tar de head off'n me. 'Deed she would."
Eventually, Tom offers to sweeten the deal by showing Jim his sore toe. It almost works, but Aunt Polly intervenes — Jim rushes off to the pump and Tom is back to work, “and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye.”
Not one to be easily mastered, Tom thinks perhaps he can trade some of his “worldly wealth” (bits of toys, marbles, and trash) to the other boys for their help with the whitewashing. But no…
At last Tom is gripped with “nothing less than a great, magnificent inspiration.”
He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in sight presently… He was eating an apple, and giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a deep-toned ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat.… He was boat and captain and engine-bells combined…
Ben observes, “You're up a stump, ain't you!" But Tom is absorbed in his painting, surveying his work “with the eye of an artist.” Tom shrewdly declines the offer of his friend to go swimming. It’s not everyday a boy gets a chance to whitewash a fence, Tom observes. “Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth — stepped back to note the effect — added a touch here and there — criticized the effect again — Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed.”
Presently Ben asks if he can whitewash a little. But Tom refuses. “You see, Aunt Polly's awful particular about this fence… I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it the way it's got to be done."
“Oh come, now — lemme just try. Only just a little — I'd let you, if you was me, Tom." Ben is hooked! He offers Tom the core of his apple for the opportunity, and Tom agrees.
Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his heart. And while [Ben] worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents.… By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with — and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had besides the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass doorknob, a dog-collar — but no dog — the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel, and a dilapidated old window sash.
In the end the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! “If [Tom] hadn't run out of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.”
Tom “had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.… Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”
You see how much fun — and how profitable! — it can be to work play together? Come out and join the fun on Saturday at 8:30 AM. Lot’s to do, lot’s to enjoy!
