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"Useful Pot" Theology
One of the perks of parenthood for me was discovering for
the first time (I had a deprived childhood) the joys of Winnie the Pooh
and The House at Pooh Corner. From the moment I read the tale of Pooh
and Piglet’s pursuit of the Woozle I was hooked. And now, after almost
twenty years, I find another dimension to the Pooh stories. According
to John Tyerman Williams in Pooh and the Philosophers, the
entire history of Western philosophy is to be found in Pooh, and the
"Bear of Very Little Brain" has the answers to life, the universe and
everything!
Now,
without wanting to blow my own trumpet, I saw years ago that there were
also deep, spiritual lessons to be learned from, for example, the story
of Eeyore’s birthday. For culturally-challenged Herald readers who are
unfamiliar with the story, Pooh and Piglet decide to cheer up their
friend Eeyore the donkey by each giving him a birthday present. Pooh’s
choice is a jar of honey which, by the time it reaches Eeyore, is
empty, and Piglet chooses a balloon that bursts on the way.
Nevertheless, Eeyore is delighted with his gifts because the empty
honey jar becomes a "Useful Pot" into which he can place and remove
Piglet’s burst balloon. In like manner, for some Christians the
doctrine of the return of Christ is a Useful Pot into which burst
prophetic balloons can be placed. Permit me to elaborate.
A common Jewish objection to the messiahship of Jesus is
that Jesus failed to inaugurate the universal reign of peace foretold
in the Hebrew prophets. After 2,000 years of Christianity, the argument
goes, the nations have not transformed their military arsenals into
agricultural implements nor do wolves lie with lambs, therefore Jesus
could not have been the Messiah. The stock Christian answer has tended
to be that Christ will inaugurate the messianic universal reign of
peace when he returns. And there is, of course, a biblical basis for
such a hope. But unless we are careful we can make the second advent
appear to be a Christian "Useful Pot" in which we place prophetic
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The problem originated when Jewish
thinkers began to teach that the reign of peace will be established
instantaneously when Messiah appears. It is interesting to note that
the prophet Isaiah, who speaks of Messiah’s peace more than any other
Old Testament author, does not share this relatively recent view. The
prophet first uses the word in chapter 9 when he prophesies the birth
of the Prince of Peace whose government and peace will endlessly
increase. This statement alone demonstrates that Messiah’s peace does
not simply drop from the sky, magically transforming the attitudes of
the nations toward each other; there is increase, development and
growth. Where Messiah governs there is peace.
Isaiah also reveals the reason for the absence of peace,
"There is no peace," says the LORD, "for the wicked" (48:22; 57:21).
Human wickedness must be removed before peace can prevail. The prophet
further reveals that peace is the fruit, or work, of righteousness
(32:17). Implicit in much Jewish thinking is the idea that when we have
peace we can concentrate on being righteous. The Lord Jesus Christ
himself addressed that misunderstanding when he taught us to seek first
the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything else – peace
included – will be added to us.
In Isaiah 53:11 righteousness results from knowing God’s
"righteous servant", the Messiah, who took on himself the chastisement
that brings peace (53:5). The fifty-third chapter of his prophecy
introduces a dimension to peace that is alien to much Jewish thinking:
the need for peace with God which comes through the sufferings and
resurrection of the righteous servant of God, a theme that Paul takes
up in Romans 5:1 when he states that we are declared righteous through
faith in Messiah Jesus.
So do we need to wait until the second coming of Christ
before there is peace in the world? Yes and no. Shalom in its fullest
manifestation will not be achieved until the second advent of Christ
but for the last two millennia Messiah’s government has been increasing
throughout the world and, with it, his peace. In Acts 13, the church at
Antioch consisted of, among others, a Cypriot, a negro, a man from
North Africa (possibly an Arab), someone who had been brought up in the
royal household, and a sometime Pharisee of the Pharisees. In a world
that suffered as much from ethnic and cultural conflict as today, the
church in Antioch stood as a testimony to the power of Messiah Jesus to
break down middle walls of partition. Today, as Israel struggles to
keep alive a desperately flagging peace process, Jews and Arabs are
learning to live in harmony under the rule of King Messiah.
Therefore, we can proclaim Shalom to Jewish people. Not a
vague "pie-in-the-sky" peace but a substantial here-and-now healing of
the effects of the Fall through Jesus the Prince of Peace.
This article first appeared in the Winter 1998 issue
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