Sunday, April 05, 2015

He Is Risen!

It is Easter Sunday. Our world is growing ever worse. In the Middle East, the most merciless of enemies kills our fellow Christians in unspeakable ways. Here in the United States, our merciless political enemies are driving Christians out of business in an anti-Christian pogrom unimaginable even twenty years ago. (I almost wrote "a legal pogrom" or "a non-violent pogrom," but the recent death threats that have closed a pizzeria whose owner gave the politically incorrect answer to an inquisitorial reporter make even those phrases inaccurate.)

Meanwhile, three hundred Republican pundits have joined to send an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to lie again about the Constitution and to spread this sort of slavery and oppression of conscience, and the approval of perversion, all across the country. Traitors and Judases, every one of them.

In case readers have wondered why I have not said more about these events, it is quite frankly because I do not know what to say. I am appalled and stunned by the speed with which evil is taking over our land and the world.

But is it not in this context that Easter needs to come? As a blogger, I have nothing to offer you today. Nothing but Eeyorish predictions about all the badness in the world. Nothing but head-shaking.

It is Jesus Christ who has everything to offer. It is true that what he offers us, in the first instance, is the opportunity to die for him. May we recognize the moment for sacrifice when it comes and not be like Peter who denied. But he also offers us eternal life. He says, "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

This world will come to an end. What will matter for each of us as it does is how we, as Christians, lived, and how we, as Christians, died. Of course we should continue fighting the culture wars. But we should remember at all times that our help is in the name of the Lord who has made heaven and earth and that it is he who gives the victory. We don't know what is going to happen. Good. That's probably just about where God wants us to be. Then we will acknowledge our utter dependence on him. Then we will acknowledge that he is the Lord of history and the Lord of the future, as much when we are losing the war as when we are winning, as much when we cannot predict tomorrow as when we can. And as much when we have a clever spin to put on today's bad news as when we bloggers on the right side, we mini-pundits, do not know what to say.

The resurrection says that God has the last word. So be of good cheer!

He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

7 comments:

John said...

Lydia,

I rejoiced at this post on the Resurrection, as I had used John 11 as one of my sermon texts this morning. My theme was Jesus as the "new Adam" and as a "life-giving spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45).

You should know that there are still/always 7,000 of us who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

Indeed, He is risen!

Lydia McGrew said...

John, thank you for your encouragement! Indeed, and more than 7,000. Let us always pray for and encourage each other.

William Luse said...

Meanwhile, three hundred Republican pundits have joined to send an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to lie again about the Constitution and to spread this sort of slavery and oppression of conscience, and the approval of perversion, all across the country.

To what is this referring? I've obviously missed something.

Lydia McGrew said...

This: http://time.com/3734626/gay-marriage-supreme-court-republicans/

And if you want to get really depressed by it, note that one of the signatories is Ben Domenech, friend of friends of yours, editor of the Federalist, and editor of Houston Baptist University's conservative journal _The City_. I have written for both publications. I'm inclined never to do so again, as long as he is editor.

William Luse said...

He's Paul's friend, and has been for years. I saw something at the Federalist, by him (Domenech) and others, that I'm hoping to post about on this general theme of betrayal and cowardice. Meanwhile I'm wondering why no blogger at W4 is raging against this.

The brief is from 2013. Have the primary conservative media outlets, both religious and secular, mentioned it? If they did, I must have been taking a very long nap.

Btw, this isn't like going back on a "no new taxes" pledge. This is treachery of an ultimate sort, against the law of God itself. Do none of these people care?

Lydia McGrew said...

As far as I know, this amicus brief just came out. It was a bombshell. The reference to 2013 had to do with proposition 8. This is a new one.

"In 2013, Mehlman marshaled a similar effort for the case that overturned California’s Proposition 8..."

Here's a story from Breitbart from March 6. I think it had just come out then.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/03/06/over-300-gop-members-ask-scotus-to-support-same-sex-marriage/

William Luse said...

Okay, I see now. Still not aware of having seen it at places like Am Spec, NR, First Things, etc. But I might have missed it.