I Am Not Hamlet

From Jeremy S. Begbie: The three days of Easter do not tell us that the world's pain and agony are required for God to achieve his purposes (still less for God to be God), or that sin is a requisite part of the harmonious fabric of things, part of the world's chiaroscuro.  God does not bargain with evil but shatters its power, overthrowing the principalities and powers; evil is a wholly contingent intrusion, an irrational interruption of original goodness....  By the same token we ought to be wary of schemes of salvation that suggest the divine strategy is, so to speak, primarily to balance things out (as in strictly retributive views of atonement and eschatological justice).  The world is not so much balanced as reconciled , and reconciled with a God of infinite excess. Through the three days of Easter, evil, sin and death are defeated by a love that does not simply "match" what has been hurled at it from rebellious creatures, but infinitely exceeds anything and e...

Christ is risen from the dead!  Trampling down death by death!  And to those in the tombs He has given new life! P.S. The Easter Bunny is delicious!

I can compare partaking in my daughter's baptism today to only three other events in my life: my wedding, her birth, and my son's birth. There is a holy pride (if such a thing exists) bursting forth as she descends into Christ's death and rises up a new creation. The thing is a mystery--how it all works--and yet so tangible. The wet of water, the grasping of hands, the flame of lit candles. What a glorious day to be baptized! Easter 2009. He lives, not just in my heart, but by the power of the Holy Spirit is immanent in all of His creation. The sun was just a bit brighter and warmer today. The one disappointment? Entering the East side of the baptismal fount and exiting at the West. Ah, the joys of ahistorical Evangelicalism!

He is risen! Happy Easter to all the faithful of the Western Church. The 27th of April will come soon enough for our Eastern brothers and sisters. An interesting past week or so. Mikhail Gorbachev is (has been) a Christian, the Obama/Wright controversy, the pastor I grew up under died, and today I read of a prominent(non-practicing)Muslim convert to Catholicism and baptized by Benedict XVI. Religion still matters. Christ still matters. The message of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Resolution still resonates and changes lives. God is good and Jesus is Risen! What else needs to be said. You who suffer or mourn, you are not alone. You who burn with lust or murderous desires, there is one whose hand is not too weak to help. You who inflate yourselves with pride and intellect, there is still wonder in the world. Beauty, Goodness, and Truth have found a locus in the author of those concepts. He has put on human dress and he will not be stopped by our stupidity, ignorance, ...