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...

Here is the summary of the talk I gave on Sunday, November 2, at my faith community. This week we are looking at the name of God, YHWH Sabaoth. You will remember that the word, YHWH, often pronounced Jehovah, means the Existing One and suggests the idea of "to become" or "to become known." YHWH is translated LORD in most Bibles. The most common compound name used with YHWH is Sabaoth, occurring 261 times in the Hebrew Bible. Sabaoth means hosts or armies and can refer to angel hosts, armies of heaven, and every living thing. Therefore, YHWH Sabaoth can be said to be the military name of God. It means the all-powerful ruler of the universe, the One who commands armies of heaven and will eventually defeat all enemies. All power and authority belong to YHWH Sabaoth. We find the Sabaoth name (also used together with Elohim) frequently in the writings of the prophets, especially Isaiah (84 times), Jeremiah (80 times), the short book of Haggai (14 times), Malachi (25 ...

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...

This is another journal entry for my Christian Spirituality course. I saw two movies in two days this last week. On Thursday night in our Christian Spirituality class, we viewed part of the "Jesus" film - that time in his life dealing mostly with his public ministry. On Friday night I went with some friends to see the movie, "Taken," with Liam Neeson. It is the story of a father whose daughter is kidnapped, and it chronicles his relentless journey to rescue her. Both of the movies have their share of bad acting, lack of continuity, and special effects that fall short of being truly "special," but none of this really matters in the end; what matters is the story. What I find most attractive about Jesus is that he came - he didn't stay away. He walked on dirt roads and got hungry and tired and truly seemed to understand the need and fear and desperation of those around him, because he responded with compassion and action instead of judgment or indifferen...

I climbed a fence yesterday, trespassing onto an old lady's yard (she wasn't home, we checked) in order to retrieve the bottle of Perrier I had knocked off a friend's balcony. All went well until I caught the sleeve of my favourite black t-shirt on a pole climbing back into the alley. Riiiiipppppp ! Oh well. Perhaps it would have been easier to just go out and buy another bottle? Oh, to have the wisdom to know when to spend my energy on rescue efforts and when to move on to something new. We are in the midst of negotiating a private sale on our house in which we will not make any money, but be able to walk away immediately. Part of me is saying, "Hey, I thought God wanted us to stay here and restore this house." The other part is saying, "The important thing right now is to move downtown in order to build community and invest in others." I don't know exactly what God is doing here, but I am willing to let go of my perfect scenario in which we sell th...

I called Dean at work this morning and asked him how things were going. He said he was shell-shocked (translation = things are overwhelming and out of control and there is more work than any one person can possibly manage). I really have no power to change his work situation, other than bring it before God every day and ask Him to rescue Dean, which I do. But perhaps I could do something right then. I said, "Hey, I need to provide you with a happy moment, some comic relief to make the day seem brighter," and then when I tried to come up with something, I blanked. Arghhhh , I couldn't think of one silly thing to say to make him laugh. Oh well. Nice thought, I guess. This afternoon I was out running errands, the first one being at the bank. I pulled into the parking lot, briefly sat in the car and glanced over the mail I had picked up on my way there, checking to see if anyone had sent me a cheque for $1,111,000 but alas, not today, so I jumped out and locked the door (yes...