Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Death On A Friday Afternoon -- Chapter One

Items for discussion:

1. "I invite you to be open to the thought that this time that you are now calling the present is Holy Week, for all time was there, is there, at the cross." How do you interpret that difficult, but important, statment?

2. "Stay a while in the eclipse of the light (the horrors of the terrible day that we call 'Good' Friday), stay a while with the conquered One. There is time enough for Easter." "In this killing that some call senseless we are brought to our senses." "..... we will not know what to do with Easter's light if we shun the friendship of the darkness that is wisdom's way to light." Read together, what is the significance of those statements (all on p. 2)?

3. "....lightly, eagerly did (the prodigal son) leave the love that gave him life. He rushed to the light (which proved to be darkness)." Later he "came to his senses" and asked, "What am I doing, what have I done with my life?" (p. 3). What brought him to his senses? What does his experience teach us? How does "Good Friday bring us to our senses."?

4. What does the word "Recapitulation" mean as used on pp. 4 & 5?

5. Put into your own words the following statement from p. 5: ".....the only life to be trusted is the life on the far side of death."

6. In what way is the "real world" as we use the phrase to be equated to the distant country of the prodigal son?

7. "So then, this is our circmustance. Something has gone dreadfully wrong with the world" (p. 11). Do you agree? What is it that's gone wrong?

8. By what reckoning have we arrived at a point where "enlightened" people can declare "sin's injury a benefit, our weakness a strength, and the fall ....... a fall up rather than down."? (p. 13).

9. "Father, forgive them" (the first words from the cross). Forgiveness costs. There are four simple (and yet profound) truths that must be understood before we can possibly understand the concept of atonement. What are they? (PP. 21-22).

10. What point is Neuhaus making in pointing out the similar meanings of the words "complicity" and "complexity"? (p. 19).

11. State the theodicy question. How has it been used to declard that "God is guilty!"?

12. "To those who are accustomed to living in a world turned upside down, setting it right cannot help but appear to be turning it upside down" (p. 32). How does staying with Good Friday (with its horror) illuminate our understanding of that statement?

7 comments:

Laurie said...

Ok...here it goes! I'm stealing this question from my good friend Patrick Lemmons who stole the question from Craig, but in response to question #12 I think it is appropriate. Living in a world turned upside down, what do each of you believe you would be like in a perfect world...one without the fall of Adam and Eve? And, shouldn't this be the way we try to be...the way God meant for us to be, assuming, of course, that God did not predestine the world to be what it is today. In a right side up world, would we even "need" God? Perhaps, we would just "hang out" with God, eat with Him, talk to Him, walk in the garden with Him, play basketball with Him, etc. Does God need us to need Him? Is this why we live in an upside down world? Okay, so more than just one question. Sorry! In a right side up world, I would be running in fields filled with sunflowers, eating fresh strawberries off the vine, and hugging everyone without abandon. How about ya'll?

Anonymous said...

Notes on a Monday Afternoon
Impact Book Club Discussion-Nov. 5, 2007

What happened that Friday afternoon is important, don’t pass it up trying to celebrate Easter
We want Easter, not the cross
Chapter 1 is making us live at the cross. Not a place we are used to. We have watched the cross from a distance, but Neuhaus pushes us back there.
Did He live a difficult life so we don’t have to? (after much discussion)---No!
A good or pleasant experience can never reach its full potential unless it follows a time or experience of pain or dread. When good only follows good, our experience and learning are limited.
Forget Sunday, stay at the cross.
The life of Christ was not always a struggle. There were times He would have enjoyed the company of His apostles, nature, creation, etc.
Christians all over the world do not live lives of comfort or ease.
Life is tough.
The time at the cross for Christ is a parallel to the prodigal son.
Christ did not leave God as the prodigal son did, but He did suffer a period of separation from the Father.
We also are forced to come to our senses during Holy Week and our time spent on the Friday afternoon.
In Chapter 1, Neuhaus outlines four ways to eliminate being separate from God:
First: recognize something is wrong, Second: accept responsibility, Third: do something about it (it won’t correct itself), Fourth: know that we cannot fix it
We live in a world and culture that is upside down. Good is scorned, silliness and evil are uplifted, truth is not recognized.
Truth is only found on the far side of Friday afternoon.

Charlie Middlebrook said...

Mollie says: I continue to be fascinated by Neuhaus' statement (pg 11)that in reaching for that fruit in the Garden Adam not only chooses to know good and evil but chooses to "be like God" by determining what is good and what is evil. It is a terrible burden to know evil because in knowing, we experience. But maybe the greater sin is in changing the truth about good and evil. We like that first Adam now generations later join in that sin by calling good evil and evil good. We have confused the line between good and evil. Things that were once unacceptable are now fully accepted.

Helga-Yvette said...

Recapitulation as used in the book by Neuhaus on pg.5 - "It means, quite simply and solemnly, that this is your life, this is my life and we have not come to our senses until we sense ourselves in the life, and death, of Christ."

Growing up when I was living at home with my parents and one brother, it was - it IS tradition to celebrate and acknowledge Holy Week. I remember Good Friday being a solemn day at our home, a day of reflection and prayer as we would reflect on the crucifixion of Christ. Admitedly as a young child, I could not wait for Easter Sunday so things wouldn't be so gloomy anymore around the house. Now as an adult, I think about Good Friday and the Resurrection more profoundly. I think about Romans 6:3-5. It reads:

Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were indeed buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life. For if we have grown into union with Him though a death like His, we shall also be united with Him in the resurrection.

And that's what 'recapitulation' means to me.

Helga-Yvette said...

On an earlier post of mine regarding Recapitulation. Romans 6:3-5. Correction on the last sentence of verse 5, the word is THROUGH [not though] as that is my typo. So it's "through a death like His.."

My apologies.

Anonymous said...

HELP. Last Tuesday night, Nov 6 I posted the notes from our discussion on Nov 5. Can some of the administrators find them.

I have a copy if you can't find them.

Sam Middlebrook said...

I am being challenged right now with his simple breakdown of the word "atonement". At-One-Ment. I've never heard it put that simply, and thus have never heard it put so powerfully.

To say that Christ came to endure the Cross and scorn its shame so that he might glorify the Father is a very palatable idea. To say that He did that to also give me "at-one-ment" is very sobering.

As a worship leader and songwriter, it forces me to challenge my own spiritual, emotional, mental (and sometimes even physical) posture when singing about the Cross and celebrating the wondrous mystery found at its feet.

This morning, as my church family sang a song by Chris Tomlin, I was struck anew by the first two verses of his song, "Uncreated One".

----

"Holy uncreated One
Your beauty fills the skies
But the glory of Your majesty
Is the mercy in Your eyes

Worthy uncreated One
From heav'n to earth come down
You laid aside Your royalty
To wear the sinner's crown"

It then goes on the only result that I can come to after reading the first chapter... The chorus of Tomlin's song says..

"Oh great God, be gloried
Our lives laid down, Your magnified
Oh great God, be lifted high
There is none like You".

Truly there is none like our God, full of love - choosing to be bound by love.