The Relief from Productivity

One of the most compelling and evergreen reasons to follow Jesus is that discipleship is playful. There’s a dance to the life of faith and it’s fun, or at least, its supposed to be. I know a pastor’s whose church’s motto is: We take Jesus seriously, but not ourselves. Even Karl Barth noted that one of the truest tests of faith isn’t whether or not we can laugh, but whether or not we can laugh at ourselves. I also love that. But faith is often seen as a very serious endeavor. And for good reason. We’re talking about salvation here. But, if the only thing we ever heart about, or think about, or talk about is the law, all the things we should and shouldn’t be doing, then we will always find ourselves sitting under the shadow of failure, judgement, and seriousness. And yet Luther, Paul, and Jesus remind us that God always speaks two words: Law and Gospel. Dave Zahl writes, “The law tells us what we ought to do; the Gospel tells us what God has done. The law shows us we need to be forgiven; the gospel announces we have been forgiven.” There’s nothing more serious than Jesus mounting the hard wood of the cross on our behalf, but the result of that seriousness is the silliness of salvation...