Month: January 2023 (Page 3 of 4)

Pope Benedict died on December 31st at the age of 95.  For me, Benedict was an outstanding biblical theologian who integrated the head and the heart in his teaching.  Reportedly, His final words were, “Lord, I love you.” As a young Lutheran pastor wanting to integrate the rich spiritual tradition of the Catholic Church with my evangelical roots, Benedict gave me permission to embrace Catholic spirituality.  Peter Kreeft said this about the Pope: “What he showed me, both as Ratzinger and as Benedict, was simply a shining and encouraging example of what it means to be a teacher, a theologian and, above all, a saint.  He was a gentle giant.”

James Houston influenced me to pay attention to Cardinal Ratzinger back in the 1980’s when he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a position he held from 1981-2005.  I appreciated his defense of a biblical faith that was under assault from inside and outside the Church.  The Vatican published the late Pope’s spiritual testament shortly after his death. In it he urged believers to stand strong in the faith, even in face of philosophical and scientific opposition. “I saw and see how out of the tangle of assumptions the reasonableness of faith emerged and emerges again. Jesus Christ is truly the way, the truth and the life – and the Church, with all its insufficiencies, is truly His body.”

As a Cardinal, Ratzinger reflected on the church’s future in a 1969 broadcast in Germany. Many believe he was prophetic in his comments: “From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge – a Church that has lost much.  She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning… In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision.  As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members.” 

As my wife and I try to make sense of what is happening in our world, these words seem to fit what we anticipate happening in the future. God is purifying His church.  Those who are committed to Jesus and his kingdom will be forming into “small societies.” People of various traditions will find new life as they band together.

The Pope then made an observation that seems to relate to our present identity as believers: “…The Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world… The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right.” “The process,” warned the Pope, “will be all the more arduous, for sectarian, narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will have to be shed.”  

Men, may these words of Pope Benedict motivate and inspire you to keep the faith. Jesus warned us that “because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold” (Matt. 24:12).  Ratzinger’s teaching always had “a laser-sharp focus on Jesus Christ as the unsurpassable revelation of God’s love,” notes John Cavadini.  “Not only is he a brilliant theologian, but he is always pastoral in his approach, always trying to help people see what our religion means and why it is important.” In other words, men, always make Jesus your center – and the first and last word in all matters.

In light of the dominant cultural narrative and yet another contentious election year, we need to be reminded that the Lord Jesus is holding all things together.  “Christ is the one through whom God created everything in heaven and earth.  He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see – kings, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities. Everything has been created through him and for him.  He existed before everything else began, and he holds all creation together” (Col. 1:16-17).  Jesus will return and culminate all this by giving the kingdom back to His Father “who gave his Son authority over all things” and make him “utterly supreme over everything everywhere” (I Cor. 15:28).      

We need to remember often who really is in charge.  In Matt. 28, Jesus tells us, “I have been given complete authority in heaven and on earth.”  It is all too easy to think of ourselves as the potter rather than the clay.  In Jeremiah 18, the prophet is told to “go down to the shop where clay pots and jars are made.  I will speak to you while you are there” (v.2).  Jeremiah observed the potter rejecting a jar that did not turn out as the potter had hoped.  “So the potter squashed the jar into a lump of clay and started over” (v.4).  God reminded Judah (as He reminds us), “O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter had done to his clay?  As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand” (v.5). 

God then declared, “If I announce that I will build up and plant a certain nation or kingdom, making it strong and great, but then that nation turns to evil and refuses to obey me, I will not bless that nation as I said I would” (v.9-10).  Jeremiah was to go and warn all Judah and Jerusalem: “This is what the Lord says: I am planning disaster against you instead of good.  So turn from your evil ways, each of you, and do what is right” (v.11). 

Then we have this fateful reply from the people: “Don’t waste your breath.  We will continue to live as we want to, following our own evil desires” (v.12).  God was preparing disaster for his people. Only if there was repentance could that disaster be averted.  God knew their hearts; he knew their response would be, “Don’t waste your breath.”  This accurately describes much of our public mindset today.   

In Isaiah 29, the prophet accuses the people of hiding their plans from the Lord. “Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from them the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think, ‘Who sees us? Who will know?'” (v.15).  Isaiah confronts this mindset: “How stupid can you be?  He is the potter, and he is certainly greater than you. You are only the jars he makes!  Should the thing that was created say to the one who made it, ‘He didn’t make us?’  Does a jar ever say, ‘The potter who made me is stupid'”? (v.16).   How true this is of our nation’s present mentality.

May our response be like Isaiah’s when he later acknowledges God as our creator: “…Yet, Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter.  We are all formed by your hand” (Is. 64:8).  He then cries out to God in prayer: “Oh, don’t be so angry with us, Lord.  Please don’t remember our sins forever.  Look at us, we pray, and see that we are all your people” (Is. 64:9).