Salvogesis

I am so thankful that we are allowed to have our worship times outside now (as long as we are blessed with appropriate weather).  There has been a lot of talk about obeying the authorities in recent times. It has after all been illegal for the Church to meet in the churches for church services since Christmas. It is only in the previous few weeks that we have even been allowed to meet outside in the elements again. There have been many discussions about churches gathering. I had an article published in the  Journal of Aggressive Christianity  entitled “What we did when Church was illegal  “ [i] . It has been a serious concern. At a time when rates of suicide and drug use and abuse are at all-time highs to remove these emotional and spiritual supports from the most vulnerable doesn’t seem to make any sense to many people.   According to Matthew, Jesus famously tells us to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”  (M t  22:21)  and  Paul in  Romans 13 and  Peter in  2  Peter 2 caution us to

 “Hosanna” “My God, My God Why Have You Forsaken Me”, “He is Risen”. Holy Week is filled with up and down crazy emotions.    On Palm Sunday we are ecstatic. It looks like the miserable times are coming to an end; it looks like the light at the end of the tunnel is shining bright and we are about to step out into the daylight. “Hosanna”, “Save us!”, we shout!   On Good Friday it looks like that light of hope is extinguished – and indeed even the sunlight is literally extinguished. There is an eclipse or something: darkness covers the earth (Luke 23:45).   On Easter Sunday that darkness is overcome in a way that it cannot understand and in a way we should have seen coming but didn’t, and it is a time of genuine celebration – even if there is still a great uncertainty (John 1:5).   When Palm Sunday rolled around in the first century the Judeans, Samaritans, Israelites, and more were living in occupied territories. The Romans and their military had control over Palestine, the Levant. The p