According to the Apostle Paul, Jesus our King (the “Messiah” of Israel) has risen from the dead and is, even now, praying for us as we walk in his Spirit on the road of new creation (Romans 8:34). And as he prays, again according to Paul, he is also working through his Spirit to extend his reign over every enemy that opposes the godly order of creation, including the final enemy, death (1 Corinthians 15:25-26). His goal in all of this is to restore the order of Creation throughout the world, corrupted and misshapen as it is since the fall of Adam (Romans 1:18-32), and in particular to restore the order of our Maker’s own creative, strong, and loving image in us human beings (Romans 8:18-29). This is all in fulfillment of the Creator’s promise to Abraham, described in the book of Genesis, that Abraham’s descendent (his seed) would be the means by which the Maker would restore the fallen world (Genesis 12:1-3). According to Paul again, this promise to Abraham, and this restoration of the fallen world, is what King Jesus came into the world to accomplish through his victory over sin, death, and the fallen powers in his cross, his resurrection, and the sending of his Spirit (Romans 4:13-5:21; 8:1-17). That is, in his own body—his faithful life and death, and then through his victorious resurrection and the sending of His Spirit—he is even now at work in those who put their lives into his hands by faith. He is transforming and restoring us and the whole created order with us (Romans 5:12-21; 6:6-14; 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 15:20-22).
This story of Jesus’s victory over sin and death and his reign as the risen Lord through his Spirit is, Deb and I believe, what Paul means by the word “gospel” as in Romans 1:16. If we want to know what Easter is really about, what Christmas is about, and what God’s purpose for the world is all about, this is the story. There are, of course, various opinions and theories[2] in the history of Christian thought which attempt to interpret some part or facet of these bedrock Scriptural events; but the good news embodied in the events themselves is the main path of Scripture. Jesus was faithfully obedient even unto death on the cross (Philippians 2:6-8). He died to sin once and only once, so death no longer has any authority over him (Romans 6:10-11). Therefore, God has raised him from the dead and made him Lord and King over all (Philippians 2:9-11). So now, by his Spirit, he is guiding, strengthening, and leading us toward the great day of our own resurrection, judgement, and the new heaven and earth, of which we now have the first fruits (Romans 8:18-39). With this scriptural account of Jesus’s victory over sin, death, and the devil in his own body, and his continuing work as our risen Lord by the presence and power of his Spirit to restore the fallen world, we find ourselves, if we put our faith in him, on the main path of Scripture moving toward the fulfillment of the promise of new creation (Romans 8:18-39).[3]
With this journey of faith in Christ on the road of new creation in mind, and mindful also of the suffering and spiritual warfare of the current time in our culture, Deb and I offer the attached song as a kind of theme “music for the road,” expressing at least part of the emotional range of the daily path and battle as we know it. The title of the tune is “Craigieburn” which ties Craig’s own name to its Scottish origins, and means “rocky stream.”[4] We hear this music as an “echo from the far country,” a kind of longing for and foretaste of the beauties of the world fully restored. And yet it also has something in it of the groaning that Paul acknowledges for those who are on this new creation path with our Lord (Romans 8:18-26). And isn’t this why the Apostle exhorted the believers at Philippi to put their minds on certain kinds of things: “Whatsoever things are true, noble, just, pure, beautiful, admirable, virtuous, and worthy of praise, think on these things” (Philippians 4:8-9). We are called to be cheerful in a still fallen, dangerous, and disordered world. Jesus also spoke of this when he encouraged his first disciples, “In this world you will have much suffering, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). And, for a more recent witness, we can recall C. S. Lewis’s thoughts about the Christian doctrine of suffering and how our Lord encourages us to live a life of cheerful insecurity:
The Christian doctrine of suffering explains, I believe, a very curious fact about the world we live in. The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this [present] world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe [swim] or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on our journey with some very pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.[5]
And so, Deb and I offer this music as an inn along the way, echoing with strains of the good, the true, and the beautiful from the far country of the restored and reordered world. And as we continue on our journey, we are convinced—despite all of the troubles that we are surely facing—that nothing can separate us from the promise of this homecoming. The Lord is risen. He is risen indeed.
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[1] “Ordinary Time” refers to those stretches in the calendar of the Christian year when the great festivals of Advent-Christmas and Lent-Easter are not in action; when the days and weeks are simply numbered with the numbering system known as the “ordinals,” such as the first Sunday in Pentecost, or the second Sunday in Kingdomtide. Thus, the word ordinary doesn’t really imply that nothing special or “extraordinary” ever happens during these periods; yet it does, in a different sense, remind us that there are times in our daily Christian lives when we have simply to practice with patience the regular disciplines of our faith. And one of those disciplines is surely to remember well the basic story of the gospel and the Scripture which brings order to all of our lives.
[2] For example, the various “theories of atonement” such as the moral influence theory, the penalty substitution theory, and so forth; but none of these hold together the full range and depth of our Lord’s new creation purpose which animates and integrates the narrative of Paul’s faith and world view.
[3] For additional help in tracking this Scriptural story of salvation, see for example: Athanasius, On the Incarnation; John Wesley, “The Scripture Way of Salvation;” Craig Gallaway, The Presence of Christ with the Worshipping Community; and N. T. Wright, How God Became King.
[4] We first heard this lovely melody and the basic arrangement that we are using, on a CD by the guitarist William Coulter titled “The Crooked Road.” The title of the original tune is “Craigieburn Wood,” which comes from a poem by Robert Burns (1759-1796). The compound word “Craigieburn” in the Scottish dialect refers to a rocky or stony stream (a “craggy burn”). The connection with Craig’s own name has given him a chance to reflect on the parallels between his journey, with its many ups and downs and twists and turns, and that of the Apostle Peter (Petros, “rock”) as well as the description of our shared and sometimes-rocky Christian journey to new creation given in Romans 8. All of these journeys evoke the attitude of patient faith and hope that is the way of new creation, of life in the Spirit, as we journey toward the great day of fulfillment and banqueting, when “the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9; Habakkuk 2:14; Revelation 21:1-4).
[5] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (Macmillan, 1966) p. 115.
Faith and the Arts 