We often hear about what are commonly called "random acts of kindness", small things people do, spontaneously, for another person, just to show Kindness. These are terrific, of course, and often very heart-warming; YouTube is full of videos showing these kinds of Kind actions...
Kindness is, probably, most often thought of in "pro-active" terms: We determine to BE kind, to INITIATE Kindness, through actions or words; but there is another kind of Kindness, too, that may be just as important: RESPONSIVE Kindness.
How We Respond
The Scriptures tell us that Kindness is a fundamental component of godly LOVE, and that we're to not only demonstrate Kindness but to also respond to others with Kindness:
Romans 12:14
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
Luke 6:27-28
But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
Matthew 5:39-42
But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
Of course, it's not always about responding in Kindness to BAD things; perhaps we might focus more on responding with Kindness to the needs, wants, wishes, thoughts, feelings and desires of those around us, as a way of showing (and living) true, from-the-heart, biblical LOVE...
Here are some examples of RESPONSIVE Kindness, to spark our imagination:
1. A homeless person asks for help...
Respond with money, or food, or at least a kind word
2. An elderly person boards your train...
Respond by offering your seat
3. A child clamors to tell her story to you...
Respond with your undivided, loving Attention
4. A friend breaks down as he shares his hurt...
Respond with gestures of Empathy and Compassion
5. Your spouse expresses Frustration or Disappointment...
Respond with Patience and Listening skills... work together toward Resolution
6. Someone prepares a nice meal for you...
Respond with sincere expressions of Gratitude and Appreciation
7. Your child is trying hard to do better...
Respond by giving him/her words of Encouragement, perhaps
even a Reward of some sort
Of course, one's Heart and Mind probably have to be ready, at all times, to respond with Kindness when the opportunities come; but of course that's just the kind of Metamorphosis (Romans 12:2) that Sanctification is all about, right?
Monday, May 11, 2015
Friday, April 03, 2015
The Blood of Easter
Easter has been a big part of my life ever since I was a little boy, coming from a Christian family and regularly attending church for most of 5 decades. Ironically, I don't think I was ever truly a Believer until I converted from Atheism to Christianity when I was 29, but that's another story...
One question that has always perplexed me has to do with a fundamental component of orthodox Christian theology:
Why was a BLOOD sacrifice necessary to assuage God's wrath? Seems kind of barbaric, crude, and gruesome, doesn't it? Think about it: This was God (who is, in every way, FAR far superior to Mankind, as for example, Man is to ants) saying to humans, "I'm mad at you. So take that lamb over there and slit its throat... Let its warm blood spurt all over the place, especially all over that rugged stone altar I instructed you to build... I want to see blood everywhere... Then fling the animal's slaughtered carcass on top of the altar and burn the entire mess. Then I'll be satisfied."
There's no escaping the outright Gore that is integral to the Christian Gospel (you've seen "Passion of the Christ", right?), but I would expect that the far less modern, agrarian and desert cultures of the Old Testament (and right up to the 18th century, for much of the West) were much more comfortable with those types of scenarios than we might be...
Indeed, some Christian thinkers see the direct reflection of a deeply organic aspect of Christianity in the very flesh and blood of humans and animals, along with the earth and plants and flowers and trees, and the oceans and streams... So it should come as no surprise, really, that the heart of the Gospel has, well, BLOOD in it.
Another clue comes right out of Leviticus 17, where God twice tells Moses, "The Life of the Creature is in its Blood." In order to get the Life out of the lamb, its blood had to be poured out. So it is the giving up of a Life, by bleeding to death, that God wanted. But why? Why does DEATH, in this context, "satisfy" God, or provide atonement for us??
And then today it hit me: Because we can't do it ourselves.
Here, then, is a better version of the thought experiment, above:
"Look, I made you out of dirt and I put my LIFE into you and made you a Soul. But you've taken your Being and abused and desecrated it, making it a thing ugly and defiled. You've essentially ruined it. Give it back to me. It's mine."
But giving our (literal) lives back to God would, of course, mean Death. Extinction. The formal Obliteration of the original point of Creation at all: God reflecting Love back to Himself via the Free Will choices of sentient Human Beings.
So God's unfolding Plan was that a sacrificial Life -- lambs and goats, in Moses' time, and the Lamb, once and for all, for the world, forever, in Jesus -- would satisfy God's demand. He would accept that as a substitute. That Life, coming out of that Blood, would atone for us. It would be a Life given up as a substitute for our own.
That's what Good Friday is about.
But there's more: Down into DEATH, to satisfy God's just demands. And then UP into LIFE again, so that a NEW KIND of Life could be worked out inside us. Life out of death, and yes, covered with Blood, but utterly saturated with Love.
That's what Easter is about.
One question that has always perplexed me has to do with a fundamental component of orthodox Christian theology:
Why was a BLOOD sacrifice necessary to assuage God's wrath? Seems kind of barbaric, crude, and gruesome, doesn't it? Think about it: This was God (who is, in every way, FAR far superior to Mankind, as for example, Man is to ants) saying to humans, "I'm mad at you. So take that lamb over there and slit its throat... Let its warm blood spurt all over the place, especially all over that rugged stone altar I instructed you to build... I want to see blood everywhere... Then fling the animal's slaughtered carcass on top of the altar and burn the entire mess. Then I'll be satisfied."
There's no escaping the outright Gore that is integral to the Christian Gospel (you've seen "Passion of the Christ", right?), but I would expect that the far less modern, agrarian and desert cultures of the Old Testament (and right up to the 18th century, for much of the West) were much more comfortable with those types of scenarios than we might be...
Indeed, some Christian thinkers see the direct reflection of a deeply organic aspect of Christianity in the very flesh and blood of humans and animals, along with the earth and plants and flowers and trees, and the oceans and streams... So it should come as no surprise, really, that the heart of the Gospel has, well, BLOOD in it.
Another clue comes right out of Leviticus 17, where God twice tells Moses, "The Life of the Creature is in its Blood." In order to get the Life out of the lamb, its blood had to be poured out. So it is the giving up of a Life, by bleeding to death, that God wanted. But why? Why does DEATH, in this context, "satisfy" God, or provide atonement for us??
And then today it hit me: Because we can't do it ourselves.
Here, then, is a better version of the thought experiment, above:
"Look, I made you out of dirt and I put my LIFE into you and made you a Soul. But you've taken your Being and abused and desecrated it, making it a thing ugly and defiled. You've essentially ruined it. Give it back to me. It's mine."
But giving our (literal) lives back to God would, of course, mean Death. Extinction. The formal Obliteration of the original point of Creation at all: God reflecting Love back to Himself via the Free Will choices of sentient Human Beings.
So God's unfolding Plan was that a sacrificial Life -- lambs and goats, in Moses' time, and the Lamb, once and for all, for the world, forever, in Jesus -- would satisfy God's demand. He would accept that as a substitute. That Life, coming out of that Blood, would atone for us. It would be a Life given up as a substitute for our own.
That's what Good Friday is about.
But there's more: Down into DEATH, to satisfy God's just demands. And then UP into LIFE again, so that a NEW KIND of Life could be worked out inside us. Life out of death, and yes, covered with Blood, but utterly saturated with Love.
That's what Easter is about.
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