Forgetting the past, leaping to the future

I have a love affair with the Christian Gospel. I have many reasons. However, I have a favorite reason. Christ’s Gospel propels me into the future. As a regular part of being a Baptist, I memorized a lot of Bible. It is a practice that has served me well. Paul had an amazing ability to leave his readers with gems that are worth remembering. In his letter to the Philippian Christians he wrote “Forgetting those things that are behind….I press on toward the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus….Let those who are mature be like minded.”

Paul began his Philippian letter by affirming grace and mercy to believers. In the Christian Gospel, grace and mercy relieves the believer of the burden of the past and pushes us to a new life that is ever unfolding. This was Paul’s own experience of Christ. His past role was taken from him and he was propelled into a new life with a resurrected Christ. The past was past.

One of the first theological struggles that confronted me in my early life as a believer was evolution. Credible education taught me that we are a part of an evolving world and universe. All proposals of a static existence with a beginning and an end fell short of the known facts. Evolution touches everything. Not just biology, but all the sciences point to an ever moving process. I came to recognize that process was also a fundamental part of the social sciences. Finally theology and even God are in process. Today’s process theologians have an important message for us all. Process is an essential part of our understanding of everything. Theology that Is not on the move cannot be relevant to life that is constantly moving.

When examined, process was at work in the development of the Israelite faith. Early Israelite theology was imbedded in sacrifice of animals to appease their God. Their God was a warrior God. Their sacrificial system evolved during their wanderings under the leadership of Moses, as keeping the law conditioned the sacrificial system.

Their tribal years in Palestine continued the process of evolution. Israelite theology continued to evolve. It became more formalized and defined under David, Solomon and those who built the Jerusalem temple. Under the leadership of priests, the faith of Israel evolved until the Temple was destroyed. Then came the captivity era and newer theological understandings emerged.

Paul knew the history of the Israelites. I can hear Paul calling Christ’s followers to “forget those things that are passed and press on to the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” And Jesus whispers “If you are looking for greatness, be a servant of all.”

This is a story of theology moving. The Israelite Faith had moved from primitive animal sacrifice to a calling to God’s service in the world. It took a few hundred years, but the evolution of their beliefs was relentless. Then Jesus appeared. Jesus disrupted the temple activities and forecast the demise of the temple itself. For Jesus the past was past and the new day had arrived.

The old idea of sacrifice for sins and the appeasement of God does not die easily. The New Testament is full of attempts to make Jesus the ultimate sacrifice for sin. This is an old idea that needs to die. The death of Jesus is not needed to move his followers to a new day. It is the empty tomb that leads to the future for Christians.

Christians would be well-served by new images. Significantly, Christ was raised from the dead, not on the Sabbath, but on the first day of the week. He was criticized for his abuse of the Sabbath. Early Christians chose to celebrate his resurrection, not his death. It was a giant leap into the future. Sundays ought to be a day of new images of the kingdom of God on earth for which Jesus prayed. Altars ought to disappear from our places of worship. They remind us of a required sacrifice to appease an angry God. Altars need to be left behind once for all time. Blood sacrifice on an altar needs to left to the study of historians. Our hymn books are a mixed bag of clinging to archaic theology and a call to a new day. Our music should be dominated by a call to a new, ever emerging expression of the kingdom of God on earth. Our hymnals need a major reworking.

Christians need to put aside the idea that punishment, war and penalties make a positive contribution to the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. Augustine’s description of a just war needs to be put aside permanently. The fruits of the Spirit of God’s kingdom are love, joy, peace, patience and kindness. Christians need permission from no one to practice these virtues. They are the gifts of devout Christians to the world of the future.

To put the past behind us is a bit frightening, but the possibilities of the ever-emerging future are exiting and deeply satisfying.

The End

Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.