"Stand in the place where you live, now face north. Think about direction, wonder why you haven't before." -R.E.M.

Death

Life Without Soda

09/13/2005 12:50 PM Filed in: Personal

I felt completely and utterly silly: a grown man kneeling in the center of a veterinarian’s office in front of his dog and 3 people he’s never met before, crying so hard it hurts. The object of my heartrending distress lay before me, struggling to breathe her last and unable to even look me in the eyes as I kissed her on the head for the final time.

We both gasped for air; her lungs and immune system were shutting down because of a difficult battle with Parvo and I was retching because I couldn’t stand to see my little dog, my buddy, my companion go like this. Only six hours earlier I had reassuringly pat her on the head and let her know that she would be okay. I had assumed that she had a stomach virus and would pull out just fine; she was young and vibrant. She was beautiful.

I don’t think I ever could have imagined just how strongly I would react to Soda’s passing. In the hours that followed I cried harder than I have in many, many years. I didn’t understand that; wasn’t she just a dog?

I felt childish and selfish; thousands of people have recently lost loved ones or homes in a terrible disaster along the southern coast of the United States and here I was grieving over an animal I had only known for a year. I should have been comforted by the fact that I still have my wife. I should have been comforted by the fact that I still have my parents and my brother. I should have been comforted by the fact that I still have relatives and friends and a church body that I dearly love.

But I wasn’t.

It’s never selfish to grieve over something you love. My wife and I loved Soda. She was a joyous animal who loved us back. She played with all of her might and she was always there. Have a good day at work? Great!, she seemed to say when you came home. Let’s play! Have a bad day at work? Let’s play! When people doubt your motives, your heart, your theology, or your dedication it’s great to have a Soda to come home to. She just wanted to be with us, to play with us; and for no other reason than she loved us. That is something I feel that I can take from her short life, and it’s as simple as it is profound: she just loved us.

Soda was the first dog that my wife and I had together. In reflection I realize that one of the reasons I loved her so much was because I love my wife so much. Soda shed a lot. She liked to get dirty outside and she would even try to drink out of the toilet if you weren’t looking. She wasn’t a perfect dog, but she was our dog. She was the dog I thought that our children would play with and the dog that I believed would move with us to any place in the country the Lord leads us.

Now she’s gone.

Late last night I went into the kitchen and saw her food bowls sitting on the floor next to the counter. In my mind I had an image of her standing over the bowls, munching away with her ears pinned back and her eyes making contact with mine as she crunched vigorously. As the memories came flooding back, so did the tears. It’s going to be a hard week, but I’m so thankful for those memories.

I find that as you grow closer to Christ, you begin to see the world the way He does. Because of that the joys are more joyous…but the pains are more painful. The difficulty that I have had with her passing can only be surpassed by the happiness that she brought us over the last year. If it’s silly for me to greave the death of our cherished little dog, then I’m okay with being silly. I simply cannot stop or mask how badly my heart hurts.

Soda, thanks for loving us; we loved you, too. Goodbye, girl. You are dearly missed.

Tags: dog, Death

What Did Christ's Death Accomplish? Conclusion

05/14/2008 12:34 PM Filed in: Theology

Back in May of 2007 I started a series on what is called the Christus Victor view of the atonement. I got through 5 parts out of 6 (which, let's face it, is better than I normally do), but never finished the series up. Thankfully I didn't actually have much to write in regards to concluding remarks, so I've decided to go ahead and get this finished up today.

In my view, the incarnation simply cannot be divorced from the atonement in any way, whether in truth or in theory. The incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Christ must be taken together as the holistic way in which God defeated sin, death and the devil and freed us from the shackles we had willingly placed on ourselves. Christus Victor, as I have presented it here, is the only model of atonement that takes such a balanced and holistic approach to the relationship of the atonement and the incarnation. And, when taken seriously, it goes the farthest in detailing the Christ-like example that is best displayed when we, like him, choose to come against the demonic strongholds in this world with radical Kingdom of God love.

Far from a pure cerebral working-out of the work of Christ, Christus Victor invites us to join in the work that Jesus began on the cross. When we come against social injustice, evil, disease and poverty, we come against the very things that Christ battled. When we put our God-given love on display for the world to see, both receiving and reflecting the love that He has poured out on us, we are doing the very work of Jesus Christ.

In John 14 Jesus said, "Very truly I tell you, all who have faith in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son."

"Greater things." Greater things than Christ did, we will do. How is that possible? Because through His death and resurrection He has defeated the powers and the principalities. Through His death He has made it possible for "the love you have for me [to] be in them and that I myself may be in them" (John 17). Through His death He has gathered a people for Himself that numbers in the millions. He is leading them to push forward and to come under other people in love and in self-sacrifice.

"Greater things." It's not Jesus' hope for the church: it's His prophecy. And though we often mess up and we don't always look like we're supposed to, like radical Kingdom of God citizens, God is using us to change His world and show others the path to Jesus Christ.

We are joining the work He started over 2,000 years ago in order that He may use us to accomplish "Greater things."

Full bibliography for the entire Six-Part series may be downloaded here in PDF format.

Tags: Christus Victor, Jesus, Satan, Sin, Death