Death our Enemy?
Garrett Lambur

In class on Wednesday we did our analysis of the biblical passage in an attempt to determine some sort of meaning. I found it very interesting to hear everyone’s different interpretation of the meaning of the passage. But there was something that Brookelynn was focusing upon in the passage that caught my attention that was separate from our focused passage. It stated that Death was the last enemy of God the he would vanquish. Now, this provides an interesting idea within my head, it is hard to imagine God as having enemies. Being the holy other and something beyond human comprehension; He has the powers to create life and the world upon which we live according to the bible; He is the infinite being that our conception of time as human beings means nothing to. Yet he has enemies? Could he not with his power just un-create these enemies? Getting rid of death would present some difficulty on earth; the world would become immensely overpopulated. The devil could justifiably be the ultimate enemy but without the devil where would everyone not deserving of heaven end up. Thus the devil and his hell have a place within our world too.

Though each has a justification for its existence, focusing upon death and the devil, it still seems strange to label such beings as an enemy of God. Other than his infinite power and existence, there seems to be no reason for God to have an enemy especially within death. Without death, than human beings could never move on into the afterlife, aka heaven, and understand what is said to be the true majesty that is God. Death provides people with a release from this world and the ability to move onto the next one, provided they are supposed to end up in Heaven because if they aren’t then Death would become an enemy right? A human being destined for hell should have death as an enemy? I mean what could be worse than suffering for all eternity and being eaten by Satan, go ask Brutus, it can’t be a pleasant thing. But for the rest of Christians, who are going to heaven, how come death is an enemy of God?

Bread & Wine

From the time I was able to participate in “big church,” I have regularly taken communion once a month as part of the service. In my childhood church, I would wait patiently as the unusually thin wafers, which tasted like cardboard, were passed around, followed by the unusually small glasses of grape juice. My parents taught me to spend a few moments in reflection before eating the “bread” and the “wine” to confess my sins and remember the work of Christ on the cross. Then the preacher would generally repeat the verses about Christ and the last supper and as a congregation we would partake of the “meal.”

In the church I’ve attended since college, a communion table is set up at the front of the chapel and during the final worship songs, the congregation can walk to the front as they please and dip their less-thin wafer in the still-grape juice and take communion on their own.

Both churches I’ve attended have been Protestant and therefore do not believe in transubstantiation. I guess we believe that the bread and wine are symbols of Christ’s body, but certainly not that they become his actual flesh and blood. I’ve always agreed with the Protestant view, and although I enjoy the time of communion as a time to remember what was accomplished on the cross, I feel like my view of the Lord’s Supper has been limited, as though I’ve never really flushed out what Christ meant when he commanded us to eat bread and wine in remembrance of him. “This is my body…” he said.

I feel like recently, however, my eyes have been opened to a new possible way of interpreting communion, and it came through hearing a pagan belief. Beautiful. I love that reminder that God has been revealing truths of himself to peoples from all over the world since the beginning of time. Anyhow, back to the pagan story. In class last week, Dr. Redick spoke about Native Americans and their view of eating the animals around them. For them, eating is a sacred energy exchange. By eating the buffalo, for example, they ensure that the animal's life goes on.

When he said that last sentence, I was immediately struck with the comparisons one could make to communion. Eating as a sacred energy exchange? Ensuring that life goes on? What if that is how we view communion? By eating Christ’s body and blood, we are engaging in a sacred energy exchange with God. By consuming his body, we are ensuring that His life goes on! So each time I partake of communion, I am accepting a part of the holy God in me, and am ensuring that the life of Christ continues to shine upon the earth.

A few months ago, I came to a new understanding of what it could mean to live for Christ, and I think it fits perfectly with this new view of communion. I imagined that someone I knew voluntarily died in order to save me, and wondered what I would do in return. The only way to honor her, I reasoned, would be to LIVE my life for her in return, but what would that mean? I would have to live my life in a way that would please her, and give my time and money to causes she cared about, and would have spent her life helping, if she didn’t end it to save me. I then realized that implications of this thought in regards to Jesus. He DID voluntarily give himself up for us, and so the best way to “live for him” (a phrase Christians so easily throw around) would be to live in a way that pleases him (follow his commands of love) and spend our lives helping those he came to help. He gave up the chance to further spread his divine message of hope and salvation when he died, so we can honor him by taking up where he left.

When we partake of the bread and the wine, we have the potential to ensure his life goes on by allowing his spirit to enter us and cause us to live in such a way that would continue to share Christ’s message of love and peace to a hurting world. Wow. What power that brings to a ritual we often perform so thoughtlessly with wafers and grape juice.

eks

Intro to Early Christianity - Andrew

(Forgive the picture, I'm merely responding to Lauren's request to "Bring it!")

We've been through a pretty impressive amount of early church history, which makes me wish I had begun this blog a little sooner. I think for a start I'll just discuss a few of the things that I've learned of found interesting.

Our discussion of the early church was intriguing to me because it felt heretical. I am not a believer, and I do not have a church affiliation, but my childhood and youth came about within the church. Religion was an essential part of my life and I have been struggling to deal with the residue of it ever since. Back to the original point. Kip talked about Paul's trip to Athens and the way that he preached using the statue of the unknown God. It is amazing that the early church was able to make its message relevant to so many different communities, and it makes sense that they would have to employ tactics like this to grab peoples attention. And that is precisely what bothers me. If the church is what it claims to be then why does it need to sell itself long and elaborate marketing campaigns. Paul was just the beginning of this. Today we have mega-churches and a Roman Catholic church that tries to shut down any movie that is offensive, not to mention those seemingly harmless billboard messages "from God". Seriously, does anyone want to feel guilty for stealing vodka from their grandmother while driving down the interstate (completely hypothetical situation, of course)? As far as the heretical nature of this discussion, the way we investigated this passage makes Paul's speech into something of a deceit. Obviously in one way Christ is the "unknown god" because the Athenians had no knowledge of him, but he is certainly not one among many. Despite the Israelite's many attempts, theirs is a monotheistic religion.

I don't want to go on this for too long. I just find the idea of someone selling Christianity to be a disturbing notion, but I'm willing to concede that someone much more knowledgeable than myself could come up with elaborate arguments for why this is not the case. Christ said, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." ( John 13:34-35). To me the fact that Christianity is constantly trying to sell itself with catchy slogans, beautiful art, elaborate buildings, and tailored messages is just proof of its massive failure to uphold Christ's most central commandment.