outWORD by Matte Downey

Why is Easter important? It is arguably the high point of the Christian calendar, celebrating Jesus' victory over death and sin. It is also a time of fulfillment in which darkness gives way to light, death gives way to life, the kingdom of earth gives way to the kingdom of God, and the final sacrifice for sin is offered. But what exactly happened when Jesus died and was resurrected? The Christian church has many ways of explaining or illustrating the saving work of Christ. The Orthodox Icon of the Resurrection pictured above (there are several versions) is one of the most celebrated icons in the church. Icons, in addition to being invitations to prayer, are meant to be instructive. Here we see the risen Christ descending to Hades, grabbing Adam and Eve by the wrists, and raising them from their tombs. The position of Christ's hands denotes that the two being raised have no active part in the process; the work is all Christ's. The doors (gates), chains, and keys underne...

Image from petapixel.com. Photo by Mary Chind Last week in an introductory theology class for which I serve as a Teaching Asssitant, the discussion centred around the concept of salvation. For many of us who have heard the word over and over again, it can begin to lose its meaningfulness. As I sat in class and listened, I realised again just how rich and amazing this idea of salvation is. So I decided to talk about the what and how of salvation in our faith community this week. Here is a summary of that talk. Salvation, according to common usage, is basically "rescue from harm." The theological term for the study of salvation is Soteriology ( soter being the Greek word for savior). The biblical names Yeshua, Joshua, and Jesus all mean to rescue, to deliver, to save. If we look at some of the names of God in the Hebrew Bible, we find El-Yeshuati (God of salvation), El-Yeshuatenu (God of our salvation), YHWH Hosheah (Lord saves), and YHWH Yasha (Lord my Savior). Thes...

The location: automatic carwash at the gas bar The actors: Matte, 2 black gloves, gas bar attendant The setting: dirty CRV, cold winter day, line-up of 5 cars for the carwash Act One: Friday Scene 1: Matte gets in the line to wash the CRV because it is filthy from winter sludge. It will be a 20 minute wait, so she takes off her gloves, pulls out her iphone, and amuses herself. Her turn finally comes, the door to the carwash opens, and she slowly drives forward. She is careful to keep one eye on the ramp the left tire must hit and the other on the lit-up direction board in front of her that will tell her when to stop. She keeps driving...past the washing mechanism and halfway to the exit and still the direction board says GO. What? Something is wrong! She drives forward and back and forward and back and tries to make the direction board say STOP, but everything has shut down. Argh! What to do! Scene 2: Matte sets her iphone down, gets out of the car, runs out the open garage door at t...

We are away for the weekend, visiting friends in Ontario. I have two papers due early next week, which explains my absence from blogworld as I have been trying to get them done before we took this wee vacation, and I am happy to say that the rough drafts are both done and packed in my backpack, waiting for me to edit them. We had a great home group dinner on Wednesday night, lots of food, good discussion, mulled wine, and of course, some silly dance moves. I got there early to help prepare the food and a few of us started talking about one's purpose in life. One of my friends had been asked the question at work by a colleague, "What is your purpose in life?" and now she wanted to know what other people would have said. Good question. It is easy to give a broad, vague answer and we came up with most of the usual ones: to worship God, to love others, to know God, to be everything I am meant to be, to make this world a better place, etc., but that's pretty easy to say a...