Category: Easter

How a Virus Helps Us Understand Easter

4/1/2020

By Caleb Ratzlaff

Changes in daily life disrupt comfortable routines. Jolts to our normal pace have a way of revealing things and people we take for granted. With this insight can come inspiration for new ways of living. It’s common to fast during Lent for exactly this reason: by subtracting from our daily routine we gain a new perspective. Lent opens our eyes to the beauty and suffering often hidden in plain sight. As preparation for Easter, this new perspective enables us to better understand the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection.

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Saved by the Work of Christ’s Grandmothers: Part 3/3

5/11/2018

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Part 1: How Ruth Saves Us From the Affordable Housing Crisis - By Caleb Ratzlaff
Part 2: Mother Mary Revolutionary - By Rosilee Sherwood

By Caleb Ratzlaff

Matthew 27: 57-61

“57 As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. 58 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. 59 Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 60 and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. 61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.”

We recently finished a series at Westview on the women who appear in Matthew’s Genealogy of Christ: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary. Through this series, I gained a better understanding of something oft-repeated in my childhood: that , “Christ died for our sins”. Below I argue that the courageous actions of outcasts reveals the sin and injustice upheld by insiders — the privileged and comfortable majority. Christ’s death reveals that salvation is a product of oppressed people’s resistance against injustice; such resistance calls the mainstream community to a better way of life.

To understand how Matthew connects Christ’s salvific work to the resistance of the women in Christ’s life, we’ll start by reviewing some general observations about women in Matthew’s Gospel; before, second, sharing a few of the lessons we learned at Westview about Christ’s grandmothers; and then, third briefly visit the episode where Christ is anointed by an unnamed woman. Finally, I will conclude by thinking about how the women waiting outside Christ’s tomb reveal what it might mean to say, “we are saved by the work of the cross”.

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For The Joy Set Before Him

4/21/2016

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By Ruth Brown Martens

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
--Hebrews 2:1-3

“Oh, you’re real, you’re real! Oh, Aslan!” cried Lucy, and both girls flung themselves upon him and covered him with kisses.
“But what does it all mean?” asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.
“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward. And now—”
“Oh yes. Now?” said Lucy, jumping up and clapping her hands.
“Oh, children,” said the Lion, “I feel my strength coming back to me. Oh, children, catch me if you can!” He stood for a second, his eyes very bright, his limbs quivering, lashing himself with his tail. Then he made a leap high over their heads and landed on the other side of the Table. Laughing, though she didn’t know why, Lucy scrambled over it to reach him. Aslan leaped again. A mad chase began. Round and round the hilltop he led them, now hopelessly out of their reach, now letting them almost catch his tail, now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws and catching them again, and now stopping unexpectedly so that all three of them rolled over together in a happy laughing heap of fur and arms and legs. It was such a romp as no one has ever had except in Narnia; and whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind.
--The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe*

I never think of Christ’s joy when I think about Easter. I think about his suffering and pain and death. I think about his agonized prayer in the garden. I think about the betrayal, the blood, the beatings, the whipping and what an excruciating way to die crucifixion is. I think about Jesus gritting his teeth, setting his mind and forging on directly into the heart of darkness. I think about the work of the cross. I think about the fact that this work was required if salvation was to be accomplished.

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Apocalyptic Literature: A Primer to The Book of Revelation

4/11/2016

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By Caleb Ratzlaff

I remember growing up thinking that the Book of Revelation was impossible to understand. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I was able to acquire a “toehold” on the meaning of the text. This came through a better understanding of the history of apocalyptic writing and a few of its distinctive markers.

What does the word apocalyptic mean?

Often we think the word “apocalyptic” refers to the end times or the destruction of the world. This is partially correct. But a more accurate description defines apocalyptic as the transition between historical ages. As a description of a historical transition, apocalyptic literature describes the old age coming to an end as it experiences destruction and then the beginning of a new age.

Although there are many distinctive characteristics of Apocalyptic literature, I want to consider two: that it originates in oppressive situations and that it uses insider language.

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How a Virus Helps Us Understand Easter

Saved by the Work of Christ’s Grandmothers: Part 3/3

For The Joy Set Before Him

Apocalyptic Literature: A Primer to The Book of Revelation

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