Monday Morning Mentations

I grew up with Bible stories, flannel graph presentations of the life of Jesus, attended a Christian school where Bible was a required subject, followed Bible reading plans for years … and never before had I noticed this:

Matthew 27:45-56

The Death of Jesus

45From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. 46About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi,^[a] lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”^[b]

47When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”

48Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. 49The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”

50And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

51At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. 52The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus’ resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

54When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son^[c] of God!”

55Many women were there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs. 56Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.

Wait! What?!?! The tombs broke open? Many dead holy people were brought to life and WALKED OUT OF THE TOMBS and back INTO THE HOLY CITY?! I think I really distracted the Sunday School lesson yesterday because I became fixated on this and our gentle facilitator had a wonderful point about living a resurrected life (Sorry, Bill!). But see, here’s the thing … IF the Bible is the inspired Word of God, then nothing is there without reason. This little bit of information could have been left out especially given that it’s not mentioned in any of the other gospels and Matthew really doesn’t tell us anything more than that.

So maybe it’s not good to speculate, but I am just mesmerized with the significance of this. Who were these holy people? How long had they been dead? What type of reaction was going on in the holy city when these people reappeared? Were they recognized? Were they thought to be crazy people claiming to be resurrected from the dead? What were they wearing … their death shrouds? Jesus and many holy people were resurrected? Did this diminish the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus? What was going on with the holy people while they were dead? Were they in heaven, in the presence of God, just slumbering? If they were in the presence of God, could it be they that were able to testify to the claims that Jesus was/is the son of God and his power to conquer death?

Other things on my mind this morning . . .

Somewhat disappointed in the tone of this post by Tony Jones, Death to Homeschooling. Granted he wrote it three years ago but he recently re-posted it as a vacation post. It caused a bit of a stir then but now that Tony Jones’ online presence has increased, it is causing quite a big stir now. I had the honor of sitting with Tony Jones about sixteen months ago during emerging cohort meeting in Charlotte, NC. I found him gracious, open, non-condescending. I am just so surprised at how he comes across in this post.

A couple of excerpts:

But it seems to me that if we are truly committed to living a missional life, then we must enroll our kids in the public school. That is, we are committed to living lives fully invested in what I might call the “Jesus Ethic” or the “Kingdom of God Ethic,” and also fully invested in the society — in fact, you might say that we live according to the Kingdom of God for the sake of society.

So it seems to me that to withdraw our children from public education is to not play our (God-given) role as missional members of our society — like we can’t just choose to withhold our taxes. We give our children all those vaccinations when they’re young not necessarily to protect them from polio (since the chances of any one of my children getting it is exceedingly small) but because we live in a society, and part of the contract within the society is that we will never again let polio gain a foothold.

(I can guess what he would say about the fact that most of my children have not been vaccinated)

It is one thing if the “we” he refers to in his post is he and his wife. But it certainly sounds like he is admonishing all Christians. I personally find his argument uneducated in the reasons people to choose to homeschool as well as in the history of education in this country and gives no consideration to how homeschooling benefits those children who don’t fit into the conveyor belt system of education. Interestingly, Tony never answered any of the criticisms or questions in the comments from the first time he made the post; I wonder if he will respond this time?

Here’s a couple of posts in response to Tony’s post:

Death to (Christian) Homeschooling

Tony Jones wants to kill your home schooling

Which makes the point that I first thought when I read Tony’s post:

I’ll be posting a couple of responses to this argument over the next few days. For now, I only want to say that Jones is right in stressing the importance of community, but that his analysis is shallow. Let me also point out the contradiction in his position. For someone who stresses the importance of humility and the validity of multiple approaches to life and truth, to say that public schooling is the ONLY God-pleasing choice strikes me as a little muddled to say the least.

TJwtkyhs part two

TJwtkyhs part three

Well, that’s a lot of stuff for Monday Morning … to leave things on a light note, here a few jokes courtesy of Brother Maynard.

• Why did the banana go to the doctor? Because it wasn’t peeling well.
• Why was the baby ant confused? Because its uncles were ants.
• What can you put in a wooden box to make it lighter? Holes.
• If a fire hydrant has H2O on the inside, what does it have on the outside? K9P.
• What can make an octopus laugh? Ten tickles.

~~ Grace and Peace ~~

Related Tags: homeschooling, Tony Jones, Brother Maynard, Matthew 27

~ by Cynthia on April 21, 2008.