We live in a beautiful world, a world that draws us to wonder and adoration (Christ plays in creation). But the world is far from perfect; the world, in fact, is a very dangerous place that we have no control over (Christ plays in history). For all its misgivings and the pain we experience from it, this is still our world, our country (225). We aren’t tourists here, we are very much citizens who thrive on responding to “creation” and “history.” We find any way possible to get in on the action, because “we cannot stand being spectators to others who are playing the game.” This movement and desire is Christ Plays in Community.
Community is a sticky word. But it’s a vital word. It’s unavoidable. You cannot understand the creation and history of the world without it. Community helps give life to our understanding of everything. And as we will see, community isn’t a voluntary thing. That is, you don’t get to pick you who you are involved with. It’s a mixed bag of sinners and saints. This community is founded in the resurrection of Jesus and grounded in the texts of Deuteronomy and Luke/Acts.
“The resurrection of Jesus establishes the entire Christian life in the action of God by the Holy Spirit. The Christian life begins as a community that is gathered at the place of impossibility, the tomb (230).” This is the final piece of the puzzle of “Christ playing” – creation: Jesus’ birth, history: Jesus’ death, and community: Jesus’ resurrection. The resurrection isn’t something we will to happen; it’s not something we accomplish through formula. The resurrection is something that happens to us.
Deuteronomy. A reminder that the Christian life is not a self-project. We are the people of God and cannot live the Christian life by ourselves (245). In Deuteronomy, we are given the Ten Words (Commandments) as conditions necessary for a free, loving, and just community of God’s people to develop and flourish (252). These commands cannot be reduced to a merely morality code for individuals to live by. These are conditions for community living. In this world, there are no private actions – each one is connected with another and another and another. The ramifications of violating the commands can be immediate and immense through he entire community(259). What does that mean? Just think about the last time a family member wrapped themselves up in a terrible sin. Were you unharmed? Did you not feel the pain and the suffering as one who was a part of their community – their family?
What’s important to remember (and I mean very important!) is that the community of God is not formed like a social club of people with like-minded goals. It’s not the Thursday night bridge game; it’s not Saturday golf with your 3 closest friends; it’s not even your monthly Christian book club. The community of God (the community of the resurrection and, as we will soon see, the community of the baptized) is something that is formed outside of human power – the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead continues to raise us from the death of our sin and call us into life together. This is where the two volume work of Luke/Acts comes in. The Holy Spirit is all over this work. By the time of Jesus’ presentation at the temple, the Spirit has been mentioned 7 times – 5 directly related to persons. The Spirit opens the wombs of two very unlikely candidates and gives miraculous pregnancies. The births, however, are completely natural: nine-month pregnancies, normal infancies, weaned from the breast, gradually began eating solid food, etc (269). So what does this mean? The Spirit, in His miraculous resurrecting work, doesn’t skip the human aspect. “There is nothing in a Holy Spirit-conceived life that exempts that life from the common lot of humanity.”
This work of the Spirit only becomes more attractive as the narrative progresses. The Spirit raises Jesus from the dead. Then, after Jesus’ ascension, he sends the Spirit to us and gives the command for us to make disciples and baptize them into his communal name. This is mainly how we cultivate fear of the Lord in community – by giving a new identity in baptism that comes to maturity in love (301). We are a community of the baptized. Those who find their identity immersed in the death of Jesus and risen to new life in his resurrection. Baptism is entrance into the communal nature of God by means of being entered into his community. In baptism, we lose self. We are no longer individuals marked by our own pursuits. We are a group, marked by a cross and empty tomb. Peterson points out that baptism is basic to our formation of a new identity, because we are named “in the name…”
This is our identity; this is who we are. Me – Eugene, but not just Eugene – Eugene in the community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but also the community that includes Dorcas and Richard, Fletcher and Charles, Mildred and Yvonne, George and Beulah. If you want to know who I am and what makes me tick, don’t’ for heaven’s sake look up my IQ or give me a Myers-Briggs profile or set me down for a Rorscharch test. Study me in the company of Father, Son and Holy Spirit (307).
This baptism comes to maturity in love. Love that welcomes and preaches the two imperative of baptism: repent and follow. Those commands give us the language of baptism – prayer – because following Jesus isn’t done in a straight line. It gets inside us and becomes what develops in us after we step out of the center and begin responding to the center – Jesus. That would be what it’s all about, right? Jesus. Christ is playing in ten thousand places, even in a community of people who are broken and shattered by sin. And why does he play even there? Because he is the center, not their sin.
***This is the end of the posts o Christi Plays in Ten Thousand Places. Next week we’ll start Book II, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading.***
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