“...if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain

and your faith has been in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:14)

Dear Saints,

In my reading this winter, I came across an unforgettable quote (at least for me), from an address given almost 70 years ago before an international conference, by a missionary named Hendrik Kraemer. He said, “The Church is always in a state of crisis; and its greatest shortcoming is that it is only occasionally aware of it.”

For a brief while, as a new Christian, I looked for a church where everything was settled. A church where I could go to escape from all controversy and crises, and be sure crises and controversy would never follow me there. At that time the hot button issues were the ordination of women, and Prayer Book revision. I wasn’t all that sure where I stood on the issues. I knew it pained me to see Christian people I loved, on both sides, in passionate disagreement with each other, even to the point of breaking fellowship from each other.

“The Word became flesh and lived among us.” (John 1:14) Once in human history, in a particular time, place, and culture, Jesus entered our world. Jesus meets us where we are; but where we are is not the whole story of where the Lord wants us to be. It is the starting point of our pilgrimage with him.

“Our mission is to be modeled on his. …It means entering other people’s worlds.” There is no such thing as the Gospel of Jesus Christ without a cultural “packaging, ” a bridge leading into the life that people actually live. But the Gospel won’t be limited or defined by that packaging.

The Gospel honors, without favoritism, the great variety of human cultures, and communicates through them. It transcends cultures, and unites people of all cultures, drawing them into a distinct culture worthy of a new “…chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.” (1 Peter 4:9) Living in relationship with our original human culture, negotiating with culture and cultural change– while maturing as citizens of the kingdom of heaven and being conformed to Christ’s glory (Philippians 3:20-21)– means that, in our lives on earth, we will always be “in crisis.”

Crisis is what we can expect when we enter into relationship not just with Jesus, but with the other redeemed sinners whom Jesus has called and chosen. Crisis is what we can expect when we enlarge the Church’s boundaries to include people who haven’t been socialized into our culture. Crisis is what we can expect when we aspire to a fuller surrender to the Lord.

The Church’s calendar (kalendar), and the annual return of Lent and Easter, force us to acknowledge the tension of living between cultures (the “crisis”).

Jesus never commanded Christians to celebrate his Resurrection on the Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox (see page 880 of the Book of Common Prayer). It wasn’t Jesus’ idea to name the day “Eostre,” after the Mother Goddess of the ancient pagan religion of the Saxons. Jesus didn’t make a rule that for 7 weeks before Easter, we should go without chocolates or booze, or else feel guilty about enjoying them.

Jesus didn’t inaugurate these customs. Early on, his Jewish followers understood his death and Resurrection to be the ultimate fulfillment of their Passover. “The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection...” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 264), making its celebration the high point of the year. Baptisms at Easter announced the promise of new life through faith in the Risen Lord, and

…it became the custom of the Church to prepare for [Good Friday and Easter] by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 264)

Our Christian calendar, our seasons of Lent and Easter– like our strange vocabulary, and our worship aerobics (sit, stand, kneel)– are not meant to complicate our lives, or lay more burdens on our backs, or turn us into a cult. They remind us that as citizens of a holy nation, we mark the passage of time differently. They remind us that, even though God is never absent from us, we need preparation in order to cross over from where we are, to a position where he can break, melt, mold, shape, and use us.

We need a season to clear the decks, to silence the shrill voices of our culture– to give our old, familiar traditions a chance to speak to us afresh. We need our imaginations healed and remade, so that we can see the Lord’s movement and direction in the midst of crisis. We need evangelization in those compartments of our lives that we still keep walled off from the Lord’s rightful authority. We need to reclaim the new identity given us at our Baptism, and in the purposes for which the Lord created the Church and called us into it. We need to awaken to the reality that, for the Christian and for the Church, crisis inherently comes with the territory.

Faithfully,

Chuck Bradshaw +