The Cripplegate

"Be the Bridge”: a review

Fri, 14 Aug 2020 04:08:12 GMT

When it comes to race relations in the United States, there is no denying that there is work to be done. Conflict obviously exists between blacks and whites as our nation continues to attempt to extricate itself from the morass of slavery, lynching, and segregation. People can get college degrees studying racial dynamics, and there are no easy remedies to our complicated culture.

In fact, the concept of race is such a central part of our culture that I’ve argued before that Christians really do need to train their minds to think about it from a biblical lens—and for that reason Christians will approach the divides in our country differently than the world does. We have a different starting point, a different road map, and a different destination, so it shouldn’t surprise us that our approach to race is distinct.

It is with that background that I wanted to review an increasingly popular book and related Bible study, Be the Bridge, by Latasha Morrison. For this review, I read the book Be the Bridge, as well as “The Bridge to Racial Unity: Leader’s Guide,” “The Bridge to Racial Unity: Discussion Guide 2.0,” and “Whiteness 101” (later retitled “Be the Bridge 101: Foundational Principles Every White Bridge Builder Needs to Understand”). In addition I read most of the recommended reading from the discussion guide 2.0, which encompasses over 20 books, blog posts and journal articles including White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo, “The Case for Reparations,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson, Prayers for a Privileged People, by Walter Brueggemann, as well as several books and articles from James Cone and Bryan Loritts. What I’m trying to say is that as I went through the Be the Bridge material, I did my homework.

Any fair review of this material necessitates understanding the American culture from Morrison’s perspective, and so I want to start there, before I give my two main concerns with its approach.

Morrison sees the United States as broken along racial lines. There is not one American culture, but rather there are two—white America, where race is taken for granted and not a factor, and the culture inhabited by people of color, where race is one of the defining features of their existence. The white culture has wealth, power, and influence, and that is not by-and-large the culture of people of color in the United States.

This divide is not limited to the world, but is seen in the church. Much of Be the Bridge is written in the context of Morrison moving to Austin and joining a predominately white evangelical church. Even though she was involved, she felt she didn’t fit in. Her friends all had seen the same shows and movies (Friends, Gilmore Girls), and none of them had seen The Color Purple (p. 4). While that is a silly cultural example, it serves to highlight how despite their common attendance at church, Morrison and her white friends were from two different Americas. This made Morrison wonder, shouldn’t the church bridge that divide?

To help do so, she developed this material. Now at one level, if this book and Bible study was just that, it could possibly be very effective. If its goal was more modest and jovial, I could see how it would work. Go into your church, get a group of ten women with no more than five from the same race, and then have conversations about growing up in America. What shows, movies, and books were influential in your childhood? How do they affect you today? What was church like growing up for you? How has racism affected you? Do you see it in your church still? How should we respond to that? Those kind of questions might likely produce diverse friendships and build bridges between different ethnicities in a congregation.

However, Morrison attempts way more than friendship building. She crafts a “redemptive arc” and then overlays race relations on top of it (DG2.0, p. 14). This arc then creates a trajectory for Christians to seek forgiveness and reconciliation for America’s racism, and this process portrayed as essential for a church to truly build bridges between the races.

The redemptive arc she uses is essentially the following: We are brought to the gospel through awareness of our sin, which leads to lament over our sin, then to shame and guilt because of our sin. This shame and guilt then lead to confession, followed by forgiveness from God, which launches us into a life of repentance. Part of that repentance is reparations (making things right with those we have sinned against), and that leads to restoration, which then culminates in the great commission, which she dubs multiplication (I’d order those differently when it comes to soteriology, but that is the order they are in in this material).

Morrison then takes the concepts of race relations/racism and overlays them on top of that arc. If the goal in your church is to bridge the racial gap, you need to begin with awareness of our nation’s racist past. You might think you are already aware of the broad strokes of slavery and segregation, but the truth is much of it is not taught in schools, so there must be a deliberateness to this. For example, if we want to be truly aware of our country’s past we have to go learn about the Tulsa race massacre, which included the first use of military aircraft against civilians, and destroyed much of Tulsa (that’s just one example she uses, but a powerful one).

From awareness, we then lament that kind of sin, and this then leads to us experiencing shame and guilt for what has happened in our culture. This gives way to confessing our sin as it relates to racism. Black members can confess the sin of anger toward whites for their privilege and for being part of the majority culture (as well as confessing the sin of colorism—prejudice towards lighter skinned blacks), and white Christians can confess their racism.

From there we move to repentance and reparations. Repentance in this context is a determination to do better and to hold others to account, and reparations are everything from tax dollars to African Americans (much like what was given to Japanese Americans after the internment camps) to a commitment to shop at minority owned stores, donate to minority run charities, or seek to promote persons of color within our own businesses (LG, p. 20; BtB, pp. 157-162).

The arc ends with a call for reproduction—for the readers to start more Be the Bridge studies, and multiply this kind of restoration.

As I mentioned earlier, had the goal of this book been to give some format for people to create friendships across racial lines, I could see how this might conceivably be used in an effective way. But by saddling the study with religious and ideological language the material ends up defeating its purpose. To understand what I mean by that, go back to church in Austin with Morrison, and understand that she is forging friendships with people who don’t share her life experiences or cultural references. There are at least two different ways to respond to that.

One is to recognize a diversity of cultural experiences in our country, and embrace them as just that—cultural experiences. To consider it a joy to learn your friend’s culture, and for them to learn years. That is what friends do. Meanwhile, your fellowship is not grounded in those cultural references, but in your love for Christ, which manifests itself in your sanctification. Your friends help you grow in godliness, and you help them, and as you do that you learn more about each other’s lives, and your friendship begins to be deeper than both the color of your skin and the cultural divide present in our world. A shared Christology unites, and your friendships sharpen each other. These kind of friendships take effort, but they are worth it, and they bring joy to life.

I know this sounds naive, and believe me I understand the counter point—that this kind of learning is always one directional as it is the person of color who is always expected to learn the white culture, and never the reverse. Be that as it may, that is one approach.

Another approach is taken by Be the Bridge. In this material, those cultural differences are defining, and they create a division that remains in the church, even among brothers and sisters in the Lord. That division is racial, it is cultural, and remains after conversion to Christ. For there to be any hope of “racial reconciliation to happen in the American church” there are “costs that the majority culture will need to pay” and sacrifices that the communities of color will have to make (DG2.0, p. 28).

While I’m sure Morrison doesn’t mean it this way—and I hope she would agree with my review to this point, but here is where I’m sure she would object—this is where her approach comes across as a second gospel. There is the concept of original sin, lamenting that sin, confessing it, receiving forgiveness for it, making amends for it, and this reconciliation is complete with its own great commission at the end.

I argue that this approach is ultimately not helpful in the church. There are at least two serious flaws with it, which I’ll list below.

The lie of race.

Be the Bridge buys into the evolutionary lie that race defines our existence. This is a major inconsistency in Morrison’s approach, because out the gate, she grants that race is a biological fiction:

“Despite the Bible’s recognition of differing ethnic groups, there is no indication of race. Race, as we know it, is a political and social construct created by man for the purpose of asserting power and maintaining a hierarchy. When we believe the lies embedded with racial hierarchies, reconciliation becomes impossible.”
Be the Bridge, 23-24

That quote made me hopeful. I believe the best way forward for the church is to embrace the truth that we are all from Adam and Eve, that race is a construct designed to be hierarchical, and that using it necessarily leads to sin. Some of the sins it leads to are murder, theft, hatred, and slander. I argue as I thought Morrison was going to as well, that those who use race as a foundational pillar of their worldview are going to end up sinning against others.

Many years ago Thabiti Anyabwile argued that those who continue to see race as a central part of their world view should “commit themselves to the closest mental health institution.” Anyabwile’s argument is pertinent here. He noted that the concept of race is so contradictory to itself (as well as to reality) that to build a world view on it would lead to insanity. But that is exactly what happens in Be the Bridge. Once it is granted that race is a biological fiction designed to harm, it is hard to move on from that to building a Bible study that literally divides its members up by race.

This is more than a logical contradiction, but it gets to the heart of other problems in the material. For example, Morrison and the recommended reading from White Fragility both argue that white people need to confess, repent, and make reparations for historical acts of racism committed by other white people. But on what basis? There is an appeal to Daniel 9 and Ezra 9, and I respond to that appeal at length here.

But setting that example aside, it is evident that the argument hinges on a construct of society that is divided by white and color. But if that divide is cultural, certainly not every white person experiences the culture the same way. Some white people are born into poverty. Or to use the example Morrison used earlier, many white people haven’t seen Friends.

Morrison tries to preempt this objection by writing:

“If what [a white person] is about to say starts with ‘not all…’ then don’t say it. Conversations about race and racism are about systems, institutions, and ideologies more than individuals…it is not helpful or necessary to force the conversation to fit our culture.”
Whiteness 101, p. 22

But this brings us back to the logical contradiction at the root of this material. If race isn’t biological, then how can one person still be asked to confess sins on behalf of a group, if he is not really a member of that group? If it is not biological, and a person “doesn’t fit the culture,” then what are we left with?

Morrison defines “whiteness” by what she calls “the 4 W’s: White Identity, White Privilege, White Fragility, and White Supremacy,” and encourages white people to work hard at shedding these. “The process of coming to a healthy white identity can take years,” she writes (Whiteness 101, pp 7-8). But how so? If it is not biological, and if a person was raised in a different culture, on what basis are they to act as representatives of historic racist whiteness? Is shedding whiteness cultural or is it a biblical mandate?

Let me put it another way: Morrison writes that “the concept of race has never existed outside the concept of white supremacy” (Whiteness 101, p. 18). If that is true, how can she build an entire curriculum around the concept of race? How can her subtitle be “pursuing God’s heart for racial reconciliation”? How can she write “God created as good racial and ethnic diversity”? If race only exists in the context of white supremacy, how can we also say that God made racial diversity good? It just doesn’t hold up.

I had other concerns with this curriculum as well, but this review is already too long, so I’ll give one briefly, and then move to my final appeal.

Be the Bridge has both Marxist and Critical Race Theory (CRT) overtones, in that it works from the perspective that society can only be explained by being divided up into the haves and the have nots, or the oppressor and the oppressed. This is not really compatible with a Christian world view. To be clear, Morrison never advocates for any form of Marxism, but I wonder if she is aware of how much her writing is influenced by that worldview. By bifurcating society along those lines, then defining that divide racially, the curriculum is operating inside of a CRT framework. While this worldview is becoming more common, I don’t believe it is healthy for churches to adopt or promote it. More could be said on this, but I want to close with a final warning to any churches that might use this resource:

Potential to hurt the weak

Throughout the discussion guide and leader’s guide, there are a series of questions for the leaders to ask. In order to understand what I mean by “hurt the weak,” you have to visualize that way these groups are designed.

First, they should be ten women (and while it is never stated that this only for women, that is the feel that it gives), and no more than five should be from one race. As they sit in the circle going through what I imagine to be fairly emotional lament and confession, including sharing shame and guilt, they then end with these discussion questions.

Some of the questions are geared to obviously be provocative. Like, “do you understand how a white parent adopting a child of color can be problematic? How can we avoid the ‘white savior complex’?” (LG, p. 15-16). In that context, imagine being a mother who has saved and prayed and labored for years to adopt a child, to now find yourself in a group framed around questioning your motives for having your son. It’s hard to imagine that being edifying.

Or, “Do you know the history of private, Christian schools in America and their beginnings as segregation academies? How should that history influence our current decisions about school choice?” (LG, p. 11). Setting aside for the moment that question’s accuracy, how would parents whose children are in Christian schools respond in that kind of environment?

There are suggestions for people who are in a church “without much racial diversity” (Leader’s Guide, p. 3). They include “visit or join a more diverse church” and “consider moving to a more diverse area.” This seems like a pretty intense weight to lay on someone—the idea that a person has a moral responsibility to consider changing churches (or even cities!) as an act of reparation is extreme, and is likely to inflict guilt on people who, if we are being honest here, are not morally responsible for the racial diversity of their neighborhood. It’s not the kind of weight that spiritual leaders should lay on people.

Another question: “What is the purpose behind people of color starting their own business or building organizations that may exclude white people?” (p. 21).

I’m all for intense conversations about important issues, but it would be wise for pastors to think through the dynamic of these kind of questions. Will they ultimately build bridges in your congregation, or tear them down?

I know people who have gone through Be the Bridge studies and found them helpful. But my fear is that the net result from this kind of study is harmful. Ultimately it ends up reinforcing the world view that race defines us, and that through the window of race we see the both the world and each other. I agree with Morrison when she says that the concept of race is designed to harm, and that it is born from sin. So that leaves me disagreeing with her when she argues that this arc—the arc of redemption imposed upon racial reconciliation—is the right approach for churches.

I agree that racism in all forms is sinful, and quickly grant that the United States is so broken in terms of race that it is natural to want to have something to do to fix it. But I remain an evangelist in the pure sense. I’m not an evangelist for “racial reconciliation,” but an evangelist for Jesus. And I believe that as people come to faith, they will grow in churches, and that they will have friendships in the faith that transcend their ethnic differences, while appreciating the beauty in each other’s cultures. That will take hard work, and involve difficult conversations, sinning against each other, and asking for forgiveness. But ultimately it is worth it, and will produce a reconciliation more profound than it would be if it was built upon the charade of “race.”

Are Daniel and Ezra models of corporate repentance for historic sins?

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 04:41:32 GMT

Over the last few weeks I’ve been preparing a review of Latasha Morrison’s Be the Bridge book and Bible study materials. In so doing, I’ve been reading her recommended resources, and have been struck by how central the following claim is to this genre of “racial reconciliation” material: “members of a group have the responsibility to confess and seek reconciliation on behalf of that group for sins that those members themselves may not have even personally committed.”

I went back and forth on whether I should post this portion of my critique separate from my full review of Be the Bridge, or leave it inside the longer review (which I will run tomorrow). I decided to run it separately because while it is only a small component of Be the Bridge, this theme reoccurs in other resources. In other words, I’ve encountered a repeated argument that white people have a responsibility to confess the sin of racism that other white people have committed in the past, to repent for those sins, and then to seek reparations on behalf of those wronged by the sin.

So today I want to address that specific argument. Then, in my review of Be the Bridge, I can refer back to this post here.

There are numerous problems with the line of reasoning behind corporate responsibility for other people’s sins. It distorts sin—on what grounds are the sins of ancestors imputed to their descendants? It distorts repentance—can one person repent of someone else’s sin? It also distorts forgiveness—can you truly forgive someone who has sinned against you if that person doesn’t repent, but rather one of his representatives does?

The Bible passages that these resources often turn to in order to bolster the argument for representative confession of other’s sins are Daniel 9:8 and Ezra 9:6. Specifically in the Be the Bridge study guides, these verses do a lot of heavy lifting. But can they support the weight they end up bearing? When you study those verses you realize that they simply cannot be used fairly to argue that white people should repent for the evils of racism in our country’s past.

To be clear—there is racism in the world now, and between slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, etc., the sin of racism has had a constant appearance in American history. Racism is a sin, and every believer should lament not sin in general, and their own culture’s sins in particular. I also believe that cultures have besetting sins. People are prone to the sins of their ancestors, because that is how they are raised. But they become guilty of those sins when they commit them, and not by virtue of simply being a member of a particular ethnic group.

But my main objection comes when people argue that based on Daniel 9:8 and Ezra 9:6 that white Americans have a responsibility to repent of historic sins committed by other white Americans.

Let’s look at those two verses one at a time.

Daniel 9:8

In Daniel 9, the exile is nearing its completion. Jeremiah had prophesied that Judah’s exile would last 70 years and then the nation of Babylon would be punished for their own sins (Jeremiah 25:11-12). By Daniel 9, that had happened. Babylon had already fallen, and the Persians were now reigning over the land. Daniel knew the prophecy of exile was not completed in Jeremiah 25, but continued in Jeremiah 29. There God declares that he had a plan to prosper Israel and to give them hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:10-12).

Daniel now finds himself standing outside of Babylon, in Persia, 70 years after he was taken into exile. Israel’s kings are gone. Judah’s line is in hiding. But it was now time for God’s people to return to the land.

Why were they gone 70 years? Because they had been punished for their numerous transgressions of the Mosaic law, and specifically their 490 years of neglecting the field’s Sabbath years (Leviticus 25:3-4). This is not a guess, but it is declared plainly in 2 Chronicles 36:21 where the author says the exile will last 70 years “to fulfill the word of Yahweh by the mouth Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths all the days that it would lay desolate, in order to fulfill its seventy years of rest.”

So now, 70 years later, Daniel is preparing to die in exile. But in his prayer of thanksgiving he confesses Israel’s sins against God, which are numerous. Daniel is declaring that God is just, Moses’ Law is just, Jeremiah’s sentence is just, and ending captivity at 70 years is, if anything, a mercy.

Daniel is, of course, identifying with his people. He is their prophetic representative—the voice of God, agreeing with God, and confessing the sins of his ancestors which led them into exile.

But is Daniel saying that the guilt of the Israelites 70 years earlier is really his guilt to confess? Well, yes and no. Daniel is certainly declaring the justice of God. When you read his whole prayer, specifically Daniel 9:3-15, it is clear that Daniel knows the fulfillment of Judah’s historic sins are at his feet. He knows it was his ancestors who caused this. Consider his list: “our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and all the people of the land,” they are all responsible for this. His list continues when he says that shame is due “to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you.”

The leaders of Israel and Judah come from a long line of sinners, and they deserved exile. Now, after all that, note what Daniels says: “To us, O Yahweh, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.”

Is Daniel saying that he is responsible for his ancestor’s sin? No. He is saying instead that as his feet stand on the edge of time—one foot in the grave, one foot in Babylon—the shame of Israel is at his feet. He is Judah’s statesman, and yet they have no land, no farms, no kings, and no capital. They are in open shame. That’s not to say God is unjust! Rather Daniel is confessing that while the sins of his ancestors have come to him, he will not allow Israel to walk in those ways any longer.

Morrison (the author of Be the Bridge) writes that Daniel, “as a member of the group, was assuming responsibility to confess and seek reconciliation on behalf of that group” (69 of BtB). The truth is Daniel wasn’t praying“as a member of the group.” He was praying as a new Moses, standing at the edge of the Promised Land, but unable to enter. Nor was Daniel pursuing reconciliation. Rather, reconciliation had come. The clock had run out, and Israel was on the move.

Daniel’s prayer models how a leader ought to pray. But it goes too far to imply that Daniel’s prayer is a model of one person seeking reconciliation for another generation’s sins, or that there is some kind of racial continuity in sin. He doesn’t dodge his responsibility to pray for his people, but he doesn’t inherit the guilt from them either.

Ezra 9:6

Ezra, if you recall, was the leader of the newly reconstituted Judah. They were back in the land. They had rebuilt the temple, and were restoring the Passover celebration. They were determined not to be faithless like their ancestors 70 years earlier.

But then Ezra gets word that the Israelites had been intermarrying with the nations around them. Some of the very same people groups who were supposed to have been driven out centuries earlier were still there, and now Israel was repeating her sad history. This was Ahab’s sin. This was Solomon’s sin. And now it seemed, history would repeat itself.

Ezra was gobsmacked when he found out. He tore his robe, he pulled out some of his hair and even his beard, and then collapsed outside the temple. It was like a gut punch, and he just sat in silence, slumped against the temple walls.

After hours of this awkward scene, a crowd had gathered. It was then that Ezra prayed, and his prayer was very similar to Daniel’s. He recounted Israel’s iniquity, recalled the exile, and then lamented the sins of Israel. He uses the first person plural throughout his prayer—“We have forsaken your commandments” and “our guilt”—while reminding his listeners that God prohibited marrying women from the surrounding nations.

However, Ezra was not praying “as a member” of his group. Like Daniel, Ezra was praying as their leader. This was happening on his watch, and he would not tolerate it. It broke him to see what his people were doing.

Was Ezra guilty of their sins? Of course not. If anything we have sympathy for him, because in Ezra 8 he was distracted trying to find Levites to lead temple worship. This was not his fault, but unless his people repented, it would be his exile.

Do you see how different this is from asking white people to confess the sins of slavery, lynching, and Jim Crow?

Both Ezra and Daniel prayed the way they did because they were leaders, and they were confessing that God’s judgment was just. Ezra did not confess historic sins, but contemporary ones. He did not pursue reconciliation between parties, but rather asked God not to send them back into exile. A final contrast is worth noting: in Ezra 9, the people had sinned against God, not against others. Thus the confession was to God, not to others (although Ezra certainly used it to preach!).

Now, compare this with how Morrison describes it:

“In the book of Ezra we read about how the people of Israel had become unfaithful to God. They’d taken up the forbidden practices of their neighbors.”

Do you notice what is missing? Their sin was their “taking up the practices” of their neighbors, but rather was their intermarrying with those nations! This is evidenced by the fact their repentance/reparations involved divorcing their pagan wives. It is a very strange passage to lean on for an example for confessing racial sins of our own age.

Morrison is correct when she writes that Daniel and Ezra both “really owned” the sins of Israel (69). This is because they were the leaders, and God was bringing their period of judgement to a close. But she is wrong when she says that they were associated with Israel’s sin merely because they were “members of a group.” While an argument could be made that all members of a group have the responsibility to confess the sins which mark that group, even sins in which group members are personally innocent, Daniel and Ezra cannot be used for that.

All this begs the question about what constitutes “a member of a group” to begin with. In Israel, that is easy. There is covenantal continuity. But in the United States? Every American should lament racism in our nation’s history. But why does a generic white person bear responsibility for the sins of the previous generation? On what grounds are they members of the same group? Is there a biological connection? That would imply some kind of biological continuity in sin, which would be unbiblical.

That’s why these kind of racial reconciliation resources lean in on critical theory. They see society as bifurcated between black and white, oppressed and oppressor. If a person is white, they are part of the majority culture, and it was the same majority culture that instituted slavery, lynching and Jim Crow. Thus, the argument goes, every white person has a legitimate connection to those injustices by virtue of being part of the same culture that committed them.

Sociologically that kind of world-view simply doesn’t hold up. The argument that America contains two cultures, the haves and have-nots, is interesting I suppose, but is an argument about wealth more than race or ethnicity. At any rate, it is less than compelling to argue from that world-view to the notion that for there to be racial reconciliation in the church, whites have to confess the sins of their “group.”

And appealing to Daniel and Ezra does little to strengthen the argument.

I know that this whole post might sound nit-picky, and I suppose it could be. But this world view–the corporate guilt of white people from historic sins, the need for repentance and reparations, is a major part of the “racial-reconciliation movement. There is more to say about that movement, but I’ll save that for the next post.

Sleeping Beauty: When Waiting Hurts, Pt 2

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 08:01:00 GMT

I once read an excerpt from a court examination of a witness. It went like this

Lawyer: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse? Witness: no.

Lawyer: Did you check blood pressure? Witness: no.

Lawyer: Did you check for breathing? Witness: no.

Lawyer: So doctor, is it possible that the patient was alive before the autopsy? Witness: no.

Lawyer: Why so sure, since you did none of the required tests?

Witness: because when I began the autopsy his brain was already in a jar on my desk.

Lawyer: I see. But could the patient not still have been alive?

Witness: I suppose he could’ve been alive, practicing law somewhere.

I recently read a chapter of a diagnostic book enumerating tests that must be done before pronouncing a person dead. In the 1800s, this was done by techniques that came under the heading of “if you weren’t already dead you would wish you were!” Examples include: razor blades used to slice the soles of the feet; hot wax poured in the ears, urine poured into the mouth, and needles thrust under the fingernails. Thankfully, today we can simply use a stethoscope.

But some physicians testify that there is something palpable about death. They can feel it. They sense it before they check the respiration or pulse, without examining the pupils, or testing non-responsiveness to stimuli.

When one is pronounced dead, there’s a certain official finality in that moment. And after that moment, it is only very, very occasionally that the dead person gets up. Today we see one of those rare cases where a bevy of diagnosticians get proven wrong.

Last week we saw 2 WAYS TO WAIT FOR JESUS SO YOU CAN GIVE GOD GLORY WHEN HELP IS DELAYED

But sometimes the delay is not followed by a healing, or a recovery, but by death…

2 RESPONSES CHRISTIANS NEED TO HAVE FOR OUR COMFORT IN THE FACE OF DEATH

1. IMITATE JESUS’ PERSPECTIVE ON DEATH

Luke 8:49 While he was still speaking, someone from the ruler’s house came and said, “Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Teacher any more.”

In the middle of the celebration of the healing of the sneaky lady, bad news breaks onto this scene like a storm cloud overshadowing a party. The healing caused a deadly delay. Sometimes waiting patiently for God is not followed by healing, but by death.

But Jesus administers the balm of hope. Luke 8:50But Jesus on hearing this answered him, “Do not fear; only believe, and she will be well.”

Luke 8: 51-52And when he came to the house, he allowed no one to enter with him, except Peter and John and James, and the father and mother of the child. And all were weeping and mourning for her,…

These people were not part of the throng of Jesus-groupies. We see their unbelief in the reaction to his comforting words…

Luke 8:52-53… “Do not weep, for she is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead.

Why does Jesus say she is sleeping? Some suggest Jesus knew she hadn’t really died and was in a coma. But Luke tells us the reason they laughed was they knew she was dead, not thought she was dead.

The New Testament writers repeatedly refer to the death of believers as sleeping because Jesus modeled that perspective and taught it to them. This correct perspective of death is one of the most important lessons you can learn in your Christian life.

We think that the difference between sleep and death is that one is temporary while the other is permanent. But to Jesus, they are both temporary.

Death isn’t the end of the line, it’s just a station on the way home.

This perspective will affect the way you live and die and grieve for those who die in Christ.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

A believer’s death is merely setting foot on heavenly soil—the end of an arduous journey.

For believers your suffering and death brings temporary grief and leads to eternal joy. No matter how painful your life has been emotionally or physically, no matter how painful your death is, the moment you die, you will be convinced of this one thing: it was worth it.

2 Corinthians 4:17 for this momentary light affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,

Your perspective on death needs to be the same as your Savior’s. Pain in this life leads to death. But it’s just a matter of days, years, or decades. And even death is not something to fear because our Savior has power over disease and death.

The other reaction Christians have in death…

2. TRUST IN JESUS’ POWER OVER DEATH

Luke 8:53-56And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But taking her by the hand he called, saying, “Child, arise.”And her spirit returned, and she got up at once. And he directed that something should be given her to eat. And her parents were amazed, but he charged them to tell no one what had happened.

Christians need to trust Jesus’ power to overcome death.

Here Jesus gently raises this girl from the dead as if rousing her from an afternoon nap.

Her spirit had not died, it left and returned. You see, you are not a body with a soul in it. You are a soul with a body around it. Your body gets old, wrinkly, achy, and sick. Your body has an expiry date. It’s disposable. Your spirit is eternal.

Jesus did not raise a lot of people from the dead. But he raised enough to accomplish this part of his mission, to show what he was capable of, so people would trust in him as their Savior. This dramatic display of his power shows that if Jesus can raise someone from the dead, he can raise me from the dead, and he can raise you.

And he promises to do just that…

John 6:39And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

1 Corinthians 15: 54-55 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

It is only through Jesus that we have hope of eternal life. You have no control over your resurrection, but Jesus has full control, so entrust yourself to him. He has proven his capability by raising a girl from the dead and then he proved it again by raising himself from the dead! What more proof do you need? Trust in Jesus for the salvation of your soul and the resurrection of your body.