The Resurrection of Jesus (Luke): Prodigal Son, and the Resurrection throughout his Gospel

Let me just comment briefly on the resurrection within Luke’s Gospel outside the actual resurrection accounts of Luke--for dealing with all the intricacies of the harmony's and disharmony's of Luke and Acts are too extensive to delve into with a Blog like this...

Other than the Johannine corpus (The Gospel of John; 1, 2 and 3 John and Revelation), Luke is the most extensive when it comes to the resurrection. I do not only mean when it comes to the resurrection narrative itself, but that throughout his Gospel it is regularly in view.

The prodigal son story (Luke 15.11-32) is about, a return from exile. A people called back, by a father, to relationship from a foreign land. The message of which is that it is this thing that is happening in the ministry of Jesus (Jesus is calling Israel back from exile). But there are some (the Pharisees) that, like the older brother, do not like the way it looks and thus refuse to celebrate. Of course, this message of return from exile is not new— when it was spoken of in the OT the metaphor that was used was that of resurrection from the dead (Ezekiel 36-37; Hosea 6).

Jesus says: "for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.' And they began to celebrate.

Again Jesus say: 'But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.'"

Another picture of the same vein is found in Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16.19-31. I call it a parable, and not a description of the ‘after life’ not least because it actually draws attention away from the afterlife with its focus upon the injustice of the coexistence of rich and poor, also because it is in the form and context of other parables and because it is making precisely the same point as Luke’s other parables have (like the prodigal son): that resurrection is happening in and through Jesus’ ministry and the Pharisees cannot see it.
Jesus closes the story off with:
(16.30) father Abraham, if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!'

and again,

(16.31) 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'" (Maybe with a wink of his eye?)

Luke, like we will see in John, drops hints off this theology all the way through his Gospel and through his second volume, the book of Acts. In Luke he gives the impression that all the resurrection sightings happened in one day. But in Acts they are extended to over 40 days. Has he contradicted himself? It is important to realize that in the ancient world, unlike journalism today it was not imperative to tell every detail at ever telling of the story: it is almost like Luke tells it focusing on some details and then gives later details in Acts, not contradicting but purposely filling it all out.

Resurrection of Jesus (Matthew): Earthquakes, and the Names of Jesus

The following is one part of a larger series of reflections (two to go) on the resurrection of Jesus. It is, at times, highly technical which is due to the fact that it comes from a three-hour lecture that I gave for a class on the Historical Jesus at Tyndale University College in 2004. I am going to extend the discussion on Resurrection in the Gospels into four seperate blog entries (one for each Gospel)...

The account of the resurrection in Matthew brings together his main themes as well: themes of authority and commission.

We begin at Matthews story of the crucifixion, where, contrary to custom, Jesus is given a decent and reverent burial. The Romans did not bury a crucified body, they simply threw it on the ground. Executed criminals ended up in a public plot, buried without honor and were not allowed to be placed in their family tombs.

The reason Rome made the exception about Jesus? Maybe because of all the fuss about crucifying him in the first place and here was someone (Joseph of Arimathea) willing to just get rid of him so that people could move on?

But Joseph takes him, wraps him in a “clean linen cloth” and places him in the tomb.
Then we get something that isn’t in the other gospels: Matthew tells us that the guards are posted. Why? (27.62-66) The reason has something to do with what Jesus had said while he was living: (this is Matthews bringing to the readers mind the reason why Jesus’ raising should be seen as a vindication of his teaching) he said this would happen. But it is also because by the time Matthew was writing the rumor had been going around already (27.64) that the disciples had stolen the body.

Coming back to our comments on the ‘spiritual resurrection’ which J.D. Crossan and friends talk about, saying that the resurrection is Jesus’ ‘heavenly seating’ at the right hand of God, one might then be confused why these men are concerned with a body being stolen and why they send guards or a stone.

Now comes the actual resurrection narrative. I am tempted to call Matthew’s resurrection account the “Apocalyptic Telling of the Resurrection”, because of the apocalyptic overtones that drive his plot: an earthquake which is apocalyptic imagery and which connects it powerfully to the crucifixion event where the “earth shook and the rocks were split” (27.51).

Matthew also has the angelic scene here which recalls all the other presence of angels throughout: twice at the birth (1.20; 24) the flight to Egypt (2.13) and the flight back from Egypt (2.19)— this all done, one could say to emphasize the in-breaking of the eschatological age by directs acts of Israel’s God. Again and again Matthew draws the mind toward God being with us; in action.

Matthew tells us (within the crucifixion account) that after Jesus was raised
The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many (27.52-53), echoing Ezekiel 37.12-13, where YHWH promises to an exiled Israel “I will open your graves and lead you out of your graves”. Remember that this metaphor by the first century was understood as a literal prediction of what would happen to the righteous at the end of the present age and the dawning of the age to come.

Quite obviously the resurrecting of these OT echoes themselves serves Matthews purpose: This is the real return from exile, the dawn of the new age. This resurrection event is the event which takes the eschatological (age to come) hopes of Israel and brings them abruptly into the present. Though this event is not to be confused with the great general resurrection of all the righteous it is a strange anticipation of it.

On a Mountain in Galilee…

What is so different about Matthew, among other things is his focus on what happened in Galilee (the place the disciples were told to go in Mark, but that we never saw). Now we do see what happened there: One of the great Matthean themes is here highlighted, in the story of the ‘Great Commission’. Like the commissioning scenes in Luke and John, this final scene concentrates on the instructions the risen Jesus gives to his disciples for their new worldwide mission. What is important about the focus of the “worldwide” mission, is that up until this point in Matthew Jesus has continually reminded the disciples that the gospel strategy, during Jesus’ lifetime, was to be being restricted to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel”:

"Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans; but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (10.5)

“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (15.25)

Now, he says, in direct contrast to those things: this is about “all the nations”— that shift in mission surely has something to do with the cross and the resurrection and the authority which those things give to Jesus and through Jesus to his disciples. It is important to be reminded at this point, that in Israel’s prophetic history when the restoration of Israel came, one of the defining points in that time would be that Israel would finally include Gentiles.

The fate of the Gentiles was bound up with that of Israel. What happened to the Gentiles is conditional upon, and conditioned by, what happens to Israel. Thus in Jesus Israel itself has undergone her long awaited restoration. So, the Gentile mission is precisely what is being announced on this mountain in Galilee.

Jesus is saying that the lifelong vocation of Israel is coming true at last: Israel would be the light of the world, so that the nations seeing it would come in and glorify God. In that mission the God of Israel was the authoritative figure, but interestingly that is now Jesus: the one in whom the God of Israel is truly revealed, the one whom “all authority” has been given.

In 1.21 the special baby is to be called Jesus; which means YHWH saves— because, says Matthew, he will save his people from their sins. (1.11-14); That is he will deliver them from their exile, which was the punishment for their sins. He will be the king who will go down into exile with and for his people and lead them out the other side. But this time it will be the ultimate exile, not of Babylon, Syria, Rome or any other political foe. This time it is the satanic exile of sin and death. The exile which began with Adam and Eve and extended to all of humanity.

The second name that is given is Emmanual; which means “God with us” (1.23). So, Matthew has drawn together two strands of Jewish eschatology: first, God will save his people from their sins. Second, God himself will come and dwell with his people. Both of which Matthew says have come to be in Jesus. The cross and resurrection forgave and now Jesus says, “I am with you always”— God with us— Emmanual.

The Resurrection of Jesus (The Gospels)-- The Gospel of Mark: Fear and Trembling

The following is part 3 of an intended 4 part series (now longer) which reflects on the resurrection of Jesus. It is, at times, highly technical which is due to the fact that it comes from a three-hour lecture that I gave for a class on the Historical Jesus at Tyndale University College in 2004. I am going to extend the discussion on Resurrection in the Gospels into four seperate blog entries (one for each Gospel)...

Listen to the end of Mark’s Gospel: “And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (16.8). Most likely the rest of Mark that you have in your Bible is a development of later manuscripts. So, what we have is a gospel that has no resurrection narrative, not even a sighting; we have only an empty tomb.

Now, many scholars see this ending as unfulfilling and thus they desire to construct an ending that was most likely lost at some point in Mark’s circulation; or even burned in the fires of Rome in AD 64. This account, many say, does not satisfy Mark’s readers who have been strung along through the whole Gospel being told about rejection, suffering, handing over and death (which the reader has gotten lots of) and now for the pay off…the fulfillment of the rest of this crucial prophecy (Mk. 8.31; 9.9) and Mark doesn’t deliver the goods!

Proponents of this idea say it is unlikely that Mark's Gospel would simply end with women "saying nothing to anyone, for they were afraid" They say, the lost account of Mark’s resurrection narrative would work to do the same thing that John 21 does: to reinstate the disciples (Peter ‘Do you love me…’ three times paralleling his three denials) after their failure and their shame during Jesus' trials when the deserted him.

The construction put forth by these scholars says that Mark’s story would have looked something like Matthew’s because up until this point in the narrative Matthew has followed Mark so closely. So why shouldn't the two continue to be the same?

But what if this point about the disciple’s failure is precisely where we need to look to conclude not that Mark’s ending is lost, but why in fact Mark’s ending is what it is: a perfect ending to a book like Mark.

What if this abrupt ending in Mark is not a mistake at all; or any type of “problem”. What if it is, what some have called, a “Literary Masterpiece.” Whereby 16.1-8 is a brilliant conclusion to the Gospel as a whole bringing Mark’s two major themes to culmination: 1) the hidden secret of Jesus as Messiah and Son of God and 2) discipleship, more specifically, the problem of ‘discipleship failure’.

Mark's “messianic secret” (the fact that no one properly understands Jesus as the Messiah throughout Mark's Gospel, except the demons and he tells them not to tell anyone--1.24-25) has been partially lifted by the Centurions cry at the foot of the cross: “Surely this man was the Son of God”(15.30), and now the angelic presence (‘young man’ in Mark; 'angel' in Matthew) discloses that secret completely. Though ‘Son of God’ language is not used in the story, the explanation that he is risen is to tie in with the earlier moments when Jesus described his crucifixion and raising from the dead together (8.31; 9.9). If Jesus has been raised, as he had said he would be than all of the other claims about his Messiahship have been vindicated as well. Jesus is now shown to be the Son of God (which God declared him to be at his baptism; 1.11)— whom he has claimed to be this whole time, but which the disciples had failed to see.

The second of Mark’s major themes is in view also: the discipleship failure theme. It is of course this failure that makes the ending seem wrong to begin with. “How can Mark leave us with the women in fear and ashamed”? We may ask. The reason? Because if one were reading Mark they would see the juxtaposition: that the disciple’s continuous failure always led to Jesus’ continued faithfulness:

-The disciples flee at the arrest of Jesus (14.50)
-Peter denies Jesus during the Passion narrative
-And yet the message of the angel at the empty tomb is addressed to whom? “The disciples and Peter” (16.7). The next logical step in the story in that Jesus would make good on his promise to meet them in Galilee (16.7)

Now, the women at the tomb “are afraid” (16.8) and Mark gives us an ironic ending that leaves the rest up to the audience. We have seen what people do when they are commanded to “tell no one” (the leper in ch.1) they go and tell everyone! Now the women “say nothing to anyone” though they have been commanded to tell. This may be a problem of discipleship failure, but it is not one that is simply left there if we understand the promise of 16.7 (that the disciples will see Jesus in Galilee) in light of 14.28 (Jesus' promise that the disciples’ misunderstanding and failure (their “falling away”--14.27) will be reversed by a Galilee experience.

Of course picking up all of these nuances is dependent on us being good readers of story in general which we tend not to be...

Resurrection from the Dead (2 of 4): Old Testament

The following is part 3 of an intended 4 part series (now longer) which reflects on the resurrection of Jesus. It is, at times, highly technical which is due to the fact that it comes from a three-hour lecture that I gave for a class on the Historical Jesus at Tyndale University College in 2004.

“Christianity was born into a world where one of its central tenets, the resurrection of the dead, was widely recognized as false— except, of course, by Judaism.” --N.T. Wright

We must see the early Christian belief in resurrection not as a strange foreign import coming out of nowhere, but as a re-expression (a mutation) of the ancient Israelite worldview, under new and different circumstances.

To begin with it must be emphasized that: in the OT, ‘the afterlife’, as we would call it, never played a central role. For them, what was important was this life. Like the God of the creation story, they looked at the world and saw that it was very good. In one sense, early in the OT, death is the finale of life— so that at death a person simply returns to the dust.

As time passed and the theology of dying and afterlife evolved within Israel’s history we see that death, though it is the absolute end of this ‘present existence’, after one dies existence continues— at death the person descends to Sheol, a term that became synonymous with death itself.

Sheol, like Hades of the Greeks, was the land of the dead, the final dumping-ground: ideas of oblivion, darkness, the grave, the pit are what Sheol was all about. G.B. Caird says “Its inhabitants were shades, wraiths, pale photocopies relegated to the subterranean filing cabinet.”

Later the Psalms began to interact with both ideas: Sheol on the one hand and not being abandon to death on the other. And from this point in Israel’s history the theology of resurrection began to flourish bit by bit. We can see its progression into the prophets...

The Prophets:

Ezekiel 37

Ezekiel 37 is probably the most famous resurrection passage in the OT. It is clearly metaphorical and speaks of Israel, once again, in her state of exile. Ezekiel is speaking within the Babylonian exile.

Of all the unclean things that a Jew might encounter in life, corpses and unburied bones would top off the list, and this is the state, Ezekiel says, to which Israel has been reduced. But God will deal with this in a great act of new creation. In Ezekiel 37 Ezekiel sees a valley filled with dry bones, and God says that he will “cause breath” to enter them “that they may come to life” (5), and he will restore their skin etc…

Then in the visions explanation, Israel says “Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off” (11). God says “I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves…and I will cause you to come into the land of Israel…and I will put my Spirit within you” (12). So what we have is a highly charged metaphor of the way in which unclean Israel would be cleansed, exiled Israel would be restored and scattered Israel re-gathered, by a powerful and covenant-renewing act of re-establishment.

Daniel 12.3-4

The most clear passage dealing with the topic is Daniel 12.2-3. This is the passage that is most concrete when it comes, not to metaphorical language (which you would expect from Daniel above all others), but in its presentation of a concrete, bodily resurrection. The discussion of ‘sleeping’ is obviously synonymous with death itself and ‘dust’ (in Biblical terms) is the destination of the dead.

So, the “wise” are presently “asleep”, and will “wake up” at some point in the future. That is when they will “shine like the stars”. The righteous will be vindicated and that vindication will not be a literal twinkling in the sky, but these people are here expressed as leaders and rulers in God’s new creation. The imagery here suggests an idea of royalty: it is kings who are spoken of as stars or celestial beings in the OT (see Num.24, 1 Sam. 29, Isaiah 9). These are God-given rulers who are to provide light to the world as the stars did so in Genesis 1 (for this idea see Rev.12.2; where the people of God are seen as stars on the crown the women is wearing).

And so, the righteous will not so much be transformed into beings of light, as set in authority over the world. Daniel 12, adds to the sense then that the resurrection is not simply a resuscitation in which the dead will return to life the same as it was before. But it is the reality of being raised to a state of glory in the world, for which the best parallel is the status of stars, moon and sun within the created order.

As we know, the context of Daniel is a world of great persecution by Babylon and by extension, by Antiochus Epiphanes during the time of the Maccabees. Daniel 12 is a specific promise that Israel’s God will reverse the actions of the wicked pagans, and raise the martyrs and those teachers, who kept Israel on course, during a turbulent time, to a glorious life. At the same time, God will raise her persecutors to a new existence: instead of remaining in the obscurity of Sheol or “the dust” they will face perpetual scorn and “everlasting contempt” (3).

Conclusion

What all of these texts refer to then, is the common hope of Israel: that YHWH would restore her fortunes at last, liberate her from pagan oppression and resettle her, even if it took a great act of new creation to accomplish it.

What is crucial to understand at this point is that resurrection in the OT focuses itself not on the resurrection of an individual, but on the resurrection of the corporate people of Israel, and more precisely the returning of that people from exile: being restored to life after experiencing death.
What is imperative at this point is that: The OT does not focus itself or teach about the resurrection of only individuals. Resurrection is spoken of as relating to Israel, the nation, the people- together, and their hope in the future. Resurrection is an eschatological hope. It is an event that will end Israel’s exile once and for all (which is the direct result of sin) an event that will end ‘the present age’ and thus usher in ‘the age to come’. Resurrection is an eschatological )end-time) hope for the nation as a whole.

In these passages we see resurrection move from being a metaphor, a way of investing this promised restoration event with its full theological significance, to a concrete hope.
So, the nation of Israel has got word from their prophets that God will “take care” of their exile by raising them from the dead. And the OT leaves them in that hope: awaiting the great day, when God, like in the days of the Exodus came to them and did a great act of liberation—suspending the laws of gravity to part the sea. They believed that He would one day reverse the greatest natural law: the law of death and in that act, they as a people would again be set free. That is the great hope of resurrection.

Guest Blogger (N.T. Wright): Easter and Our World

In these troubled times, Easter's message of resurrection is a powerful one, says Tom Wright Saturday April 7, 2007 The Guardian

When Easter stops being a surprise, it stops being Easter. The trick Christians pull off year after year is to so immerse ourselves in Lent and Holy Week that we actually screen out what we know comes next. We reflect on, and mourn, the ruin of the world and the folly of humankind. We look in the mirror and see our own shame and sin. And then we contemplate Jesus's suffering and death at the heart of the whole thing: the place where the arrogance of empire, the frenzy of religion and the betrayal of friends all rush together and do their worst. Faced with all that, it's not hard to bracket out Easter. After all, that's what most of the world does anyway.

"Wait without hope," wrote TS Eliot, "for hope would be hope for the wrong thing." If you frame Easter in the terms of the perceived problem, you belittle it. Whether you think in terms of pie in the sky (at best a thoroughly subChristian concept) or a better society, all you get is a happy ending after a sad or sinful story.

And whatever Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were doing in writing the final sections of their books, they were not telling the story of Jesus's resurrection as a happy ending. They were telling it as a startling new beginning. Easter morning isn't a slow, gentle waking up after the difficult operation. It's the electric shock that brings someone back to life in a whole new way.
That's why the Easter stories tumble out in bits and pieces, with breathless chasings to and fro and garbled reports - and then, stories like nothing else before or since. As the great New Testament scholar EP Sanders put it, the writers were trying to describe an experience that does not fit a known category. They knew all about ghosts and visions, and they knew it wasn't anything like that.

Equally, they knew the risen Jesus wasn't just a resuscitated corpse, still less someone who had almost died but managed to stagger on after all. They had the puzzled air of people saying, "I know this sounds wacky, but this is truly how it was." They were stumblingly describing the birth of new creation, starting with Jesus but intended for the whole world.
It sometimes seems that the church can hardly cope with this any more than the world can. Perhaps that's why, after 40 days of Lent, many churches celebrate Easter for a few hours and then return to normality. But nothing can be "normal" after Easter. New creation has begun, and we are summoned to get on board. We should at least have an eight-day party, or even a 40-day one.

And if Easter is all about the surprise of new creation, there is every reason to suppose that it will ripple out into the world in ways we would never imagine. Gangsters and drug-dealers get radically converted and set on fire with God's love, while pale churchmen drone their disbelief and warn against extremism.

Extremism? What can be more extreme than God raising Jesus from the dead after the world has done its worst to him? Supposing the power of that event were to be released into the world, into local communities, into ordinary lives, here and now? What might that look like?

We don't know, of course. That's the point. But I do know this. As our politicians go round the tracks this way and that, fudging and dodging and hedging their bets, and as our culture lurches through the sneers and the whims of postmodernity, it looks as though we all know we need new creation but nobody knows where to find it. Easter offers an answer so striking that most mock at it and even the churches often don't know what to do with it. Forget the eggs and the bunnies. Read the story again, say your prayers, and watch for surprises.

Interlude: Thesis Proposal Verdict is In...

Well the verdict on my thesis proposal is in. The committee said that they accepted the proposal unanimously! This is good news. Now time to move forward.

Blessings

Resurrection from the Dead: Jesus and his People (Part 1 of 4)

The following is part 3 of an intended 4 part series (now longer) which reflects on the resurrection of Jesus. It is, at times, highly technical which is due to the fact that it comes from a three-hour lecture that I gave for a class on the Historical Jesus at Tyndale University College in 2004.

This past weekend we celebrated the most important part of Christianity—the cross and resurrection of Jesus. The cross is a historical reality that no historian/religion denies: Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman cross in AD33—not too controversial. But what his disciples and Christianity claims after that is controversial through and through. They claim that he did not stay dead; that three days later he rose. Where did this belief come from? Why did Christianity take the shape that it did? And what does it tell us about the future of the world? I want to explore these questions in a four part series this week: (1) the ancient world’s view of death, (2) The Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) view of death and resurrection, (3) the Gospel's view of Jesus’ resurrection, (4) Paul’s view and what he says it has to do with God’s people in the future. Journey with me over the next four blogs and feel free to engage the discussion.

Ancient Greek Thought on Death and Resurrection: It doesn’t happen and it should not be desired!
Many argue that the idea of resurrection was just a normal belief at the time of Jesus and that the Gospel writers just re-focused it on Jesus. This is an involved issue and deserves more time than I can give it here; but let me offer some thought on the issue. It is essential to recognize this as a false claim; for there was no pagan ideology, in the ancient world that believed in resurrection from the dead as a viable option. A movement with resurrection from the dead at its centre would not have got very far. (Not without something else being its seedbed which we will talk about in part two). The ancient Greeks did not allow resurrection from the dead. As far as the ancient Greek world had a Bible, its Old Testament was Homer and its New Testament was Plato. So what did they have to say about such a prospect?

Homer’s characters (Achilles in The Illiad; Apollo in Eumenides) despised the idea and said resurrection was impossible. The gods even punished people for trying to raise people from the dead.

Plato popularized the dualistic philosophy of body and spirit: the physical body is weak and corruptible, but the spirit is good and noble. Thus one should not be scared of death, but embrace it, because it promises perfection, precisely because it is the spirit world. For Plato, the soul was the non-material aspect of a human being, and is the aspect that really matters. Bodily life is full of delusion and danger; the soul is immortal and will continue to exist after the body is gone. So, the soul will flourish in a new way because it has been released from the prison of the body. Thus, though one may want to see someone raised from the dead, this in fact would be a mistake, because one should not want to come back to the physical world after they are sitting comfortable in the true world of spirit.

So, the mainstream of ancient thought was this: the body is a prison-house. A necessary one for the moment, but nobody, once out of it, would want it back again. At no point in the spectrum of options (and there were certainly more than we have looked at) did any one ever think that someone dead could actually ever be alive again, in the same way they once were. Resurrection was not an option. Those who followed Homer knew that they would never get a body again; those who followed Plato did not want one. The ancient world was thus divided into those who said that resurrection couldn’t happen, though they might have wanted it to and those who said they didn’t want it to happen, knowing that it couldn’t anyway.

This begs the question: what worldview existed at the time of Jesus that could have contained and informed the idea of resurrection from the dead then if not Hellenistic (Greek) ideas? There was only one that could possibly make sense of it…

Sienna's Dedication

"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

--Philippians 1.6

Today was Sienna's dedication. Many people have asked me this week about what a dedication is. The dedicating of a child, like we did today, is a public declaration that we are committing to raising our child up in the ways of the Lord. It is also a declaration of the covenant community that we exist within; to dedicate themselves to the raising up of Sienna in the ways of Christ. It does not mean that Sienna is a Christ-follower (that takes deliberate faith). It expresses, in one way, what Paul meant envisioned when he spoke of the people of God as a body, a temple, a family--all communal images; it is a dedication of both parents and congregation to the raising up of this child.

Which leads me to something I have been reflecting on this past week.

Sometimes in the church a youth, or young adult will go off the rails; start hanging out with the wrong crowd, and all the things that come with that,and people often blame the parents, or say "Where was the youth pastor?" but this, it seems to me, is the wrong direction. We are all accountable for what happens to those in a family. If a kid goes off the rails, yes the parents are asked to do their part, but the cousins, grandparents, siblings--they all do what they can. And so it is in covenant communities, such as churches, synagogues or mosques--we all partake in the lives of those around us. We do whatever we can to help, support, encourage, guide one another--there is not one person in the congregation that I should not feel utterly responsible for, and vice versa.

This is especially important when you live, like Erin and I do, away from blood relatives. We live on the other side of Canada from our family, and Sienna does not get to spend time with her Nanny, Poppa (my parents), Nana and Poppa (Erin's parents), or uncles, aunts or cousins, very often so having a community of people of all ages to be involved in and who we have committed ourselves to is part of how God takes care of us. (And it is a universal picture--if we moved from BC to Australia we would have a family there as well: China, the Sudan, it wouldn't matter--God's family permeates every culture, even when a culture believes it hs irradicated it--you can be sure there is a community of people meeting in a basement somewhere, praying, reading Scripture and sharing in a common meal. Worshiping God through Christ. )

It is much the same with weddings. "We are gathered here today"--why? to get free food? No. To dress up? Party? No (though those things are nice)--it is a symbolic expression of support and community. It says "We are here for you--to see you succeed; to make sure you do not go off the rails as a couple. We are gathered here today not only to see you committ yourselves to eachother; but, and maybe just as importantly; to committ ourselves to you. To guide, instruct, encourage you, along this difficult thing called life, and even more difficult (and splendid) this thing called life together.

Sienna and Erin were beautiful today, and people said I looked alright as well. But it was something else about today that struck me. I remember a moment when we were at the front, Sienna looked around at the audience and she started to panic a little; and then she looked straight up at me (as I held her) and she just got this look on her face: ok, everything is alright. I thought I was the only one who saw that and summed it up as over-thinking fatherhood. But afterward this woman came up to me and said "Did you see the way she looked up at you that time in the service and calmed down...that was a precious moment." Weird that she saw that too. But I guess that is what community is there for, right? To observe those moments, and recognize them for what they are: precious indeed.

Sienna, may the verse given to you today reflect the reality as you grow into a woman of God: "Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1.6). I know that God has begun a good work in you; and trust that He will indeed carry it through not only to initial faith but that that faith might blossom into a life of holiness, set-apart for the loving of God and neighbour.

Bless you.