Food for the Journey

Basic Instinct

2012-01-24T12:21:00.000-08:00

C.S. Lewis follows up the first chapter of Mere Christianity by addressing potential objections. In particular, those who might say that the innate moral sensibility Lewis talks about in chapter one is in fact simply the “herd instinct.” In other words, what people identify as the moral impulse is just another instinct honed over generations to increase the chances of human survival. By way of a defense, Lewis cites instances in which a person has to choose between two conflicting instincts:

Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires—one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. You might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.

Lewis goes on to argue that at any given time a person may be under the influence of multiple conflicting instincts. That no one of these instincts is “good” or “bad” in itself. But that each is appropriate under certain circumstances. The mechanism, in turn, by which people choose one instinct over another cannot, itself, be another instinct.
It’s this mechanism that sets humans apart from other creatures as unique. Lewis observes that this mechanism often leads people to respond, when two instincts are in conflict, to the weaker instinct. As such this mechanism points to a set of governing principles for human behavior that is beyond simple survival.

In addition to maintaining the trajectory of his initial argument, Lewis establishes two other important points in this chapter. First, he affirms each human appetite and impulse. Whereas each has the potential to express itself at an inconvenient time or in an inappropriate way; none is, in itself, corrupt or “sinful” (to use religious terminology). Second, Lewis identifies the folly in allowing any one instinct to take absolute precedence. He puts it this way:

There are also occasions on which a mother's love for her own children or a man's love for his own country have to be suppressed or they will lead to unfairness towards other people's children or countries. Strictly speaking, there are no such things as good and bad impulses. Think once again of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the "right" notes and the "wrong" ones. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or any set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.

By the way, this point is of great practical consequence. The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There is not one of them which will not make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it is not. If you leave out justice you will find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials "for the sake of humanity," and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man.

Referring again to Romans 1, Paul identifies this tendency in those who overindulge their physical appetites. He asserts that the way God punishes people is by “giving them over” to become slaves to these appetites. When one single ambition, desire, or pleasure becomes a person’s driving force, it proves to be an unforgiving and unrelenting master. We are not creatures of instinct. We’ve been given the unique capacity to judge between, and even keep in check, our needs and appetites. An almost godlike capacity to choose. Where could that have come from?

Right and Wrong

2012-01-19T11:40:00.000-08:00

In the first chapter of Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis launches into a discourse on right and wrong. The first building block in his treatise on the Christian faith is the argument that an objective morality is interwoven throughout the fabric of the world. Lewis points out that the very people who argue that there is no objective morality are often the first to cry “foul” when someone treats them unfairly. Lewis goes on to assert that there are certain tenets of decent conduct that are almost universal – that are replicated across cultures and throughout history. He concludes,

These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.

It’s worth noting that as he sets the stage for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Book of Romans, the Apostle Paul makes almost the same argument. He says,

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
(Romans 1:18-21)

Do we have an innate sense of what’s right and what’s wrong? If so, what happens to it over the course of our lives? What factors either deaden or quicken this sense? And why, if we know the right, do we choose the wrong? These are questions Lewis probes in the next few chapters.

Good Christians

2012-01-19T11:20:00.000-08:00

In the preface to Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis talks about the way terms like “Christian” lose meaning over time. Lewis argues that "Christian" has become an adjective used to indicate a person’s moral quality. His observation rings true today – in our culture, “Christian” connotes goodness. To call someone a “Christian” is to say that he or she is a good, or moral, person. To suggest a person isn’t a Christian is perceived as a critique of his or her character. Accordingly, “Christian” is a designation that has been attached to different issues, parties, and candidates as a way of making political agendas palatable to certain segments of our culture.
Lewis points out that these usages strip the term “Christian” of its true meaning. He says,

People ask: "Who are you, to lay down who is, and who is not a Christian?" or "May not many a man who cannot believe these doctrines be far more truly a Christian, far closer to the spirit of Christ, than some who do?" Now this objection is in one sense very right, very charitable, very spiritual, very sensitive. It has every amiable quality except that of being useful.

In this introduction to his treatise on the basics of the Christian faith – or “mere Christianity” in his words – Lewis advocates for a return to the term’s original meaning. An understanding of “Christian” that has less to do with an internal set of beliefs or values, and more to do with a faith that translates into an embodied way of life. Lewis concludes,

We must therefore stick to the original, obvious meaning. The name Christians was first given at Antioch (Acts xi. 26) to "the disciples," to those who accepted the teaching of the apostles. There is no question of its being restricted to those who profited by that teaching as much as they should have. There is no question of its being extended to those who in some refined, spiritual, inward fashion were "far closer to the spirit of Christ" than the less satisfactory of the disciples. The point is not a theological, or moral one. It is only a question of using words so that we can all understand what is being said. When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than to say he is not a Christian.

The question of whether or not a person is a Christian is one that has to be answered, first and foremost, by the individual. Do you know who Jesus is? Do you know what he taught? Have you counted the costs of following him? And do you still want to follow? These are the questions that CS Lewis explores in ensuing chapters. And these are the questions we have to answer before we can legitimately claim the designation.

Settling for More

2012-01-03T08:43:00.000-08:00

Passage: Genesis 3

We sometimes forget that the Bible starts with Genesis 1. That is, with the account of a loving Creator bringing into existence a complete, beautiful, good world. We know that the story of the Creation is followed quickly by the story of the Fall. Human beings, endowed with the God-like capacity to chart their own course, choose their way rather than God’s. A rift is forged between humanity and God. Having chosen to go it alone, people begin to desperately grab and hoard whatever resources they can for survival and security. The strong dominate; the weak suffer. The good world degenerates.

We’re now so far removed from that original goodness that we can’t even imagine it. Our fantasies of peace and comfort and plenty are tragically limited by our experience. Everything we’ve seen and known has been within the context of a fallen world; has been perceived through corrupted faculties. The best we can imagine is simply the least of possible evils. The perfect world, as we envision it, is still fallen.

This means we spend our lives settling. Instead of striving for being good, we strive for feeling good. Instead of striving to bring goodness into the broken places of our world, we strive to create pockets of goodness into which we hide from the brokenness. We constantly stop short of embracing the work God wants to do in us and our world because we can’t imagine that it can get better. We are in the business of retreating. But God is in the business of restoring.
In The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis puts our predicament this way:

“Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Being a worshiper of God and a disciple of Christ means refusing to settle. It means leaving our safe retreats and bringing restoration to the most broken people and places. It means forsaking the consolation prizes that make us feel good in order to be good. In order to bring the original goodness for which God created us. To be restored, and become restorers. God’s story doesn’t start or end at Genesis 3. It begins with Creation; it ends with re-Creation:
…I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:3-5a)

Wisdom for a New Year

2012-01-02T08:31:00.000-08:00

Passage: Psalm 90

When you read through it start to finish, Psalm 90 seems like a real downer. The author (identified in the preface as Moses) goes on and on about the fleeting nature and apparent futility of human life. “Our days pass by with a whimper”; “We are like the grass, which springs up in the morning, but by evening dries up and blows away.” The musings of a guy in mid-life crisis.

But when you look more closely, you realize that there are rhetorical reasons for the author's ruminations. He’s highlighting our weakness and finitude in order to amplify his main focus: the limitlessness of God. This is a psalm of praise. And it is a declaration of hope. Why has God been our dwelling place throughout all generations? Because God is the only one whose abiding presence spans the generations. God’s provision, compassion, and care form an unchanging and unshakeable foundation. The final appeal of the Psalm – May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us – yes, establish the work of our hands! – rests on the assumption that the only way our efforts and our lives will have lasting significance is if we offer them to God. In God’s hands, the minute threads of our lives are woven into the eternal tapestry of his redemption plan.

Wisdom, as referred to in the Old Testament, is not intelligence or savvy. Best understood, it is the capacity to discern and follow God’s will. The wisdom literature of the Old Testament (comprised of Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes) is based on the assumption that the best way to live is God’s way. The assumption underlying Psalm 90 is that life is transient and meaningless unless it is lived in close relationship with the living, eternal God. True wisdom is seeking God’s will. The one who is truly wise offers one’s work and one’s very self to God. In God's hands everything that we have and everything we are acquires eternal significance and ultimate worth.

Amen

2011-12-29T09:13:00.000-08:00

Passage: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-24

The life of God’s people is defined by the experience of waiting. The patriarch of Israel, Abraham, waits most of his life for a son. His waiting is prompted by a promise God makes to Abraham at the beginning of their journey together:
I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. (Genesis 12:2-3)

Abraham and his wife, Sarah, eventually have a son. But they don’t get to see the rest of God’s promise fulfilled. This is also true of the Israelites whom God rescues from slavery in Egypt. Most of them spend 40 years trekking toward the Promised Land, only to die in the wilderness. The author of Hebrews points out that none of the notable characters of the Old Testament get to witness all the good things God says he has in store for them. He says,
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. (Hebrews 11:13)

In one of his letters to the church in Thessalonica, the Apostle Paul encourages his friends to keep the faith. They are simply one generation in countless who have shaped their lives in anticipation of “the Day of the Lord” – the moment when God brings his redemption plan to complete fulfillment. Paul says the same things Jesus says to his disciples: “Watch; wait; and don’t settle. Don’t give in to the darkness of fleeting pleasure and momentary gratification. Hold out for the better thing God has in store. It will be here before you know it.”

I’m reminded of one Christmas Eve when I was a kid. My family was staying at my grandmother’s condo. I restlessly sat through an interminable evening of holiday dinner, hot chocolate and fruitcake and conversation. I finally got tucked into bed and thought I’d never go to sleep. After all, we wouldn’t open our stockings and gifts until Christmas morning. Would it ever get here? Even as I thought it my eyelids got heavy. I blinked. When I opened my eyes, I heard my mom and dad and grandma’s soft voices in the kitchen. The clink of dishes. Were they cleaning up? Then I smelled my grandma’s Christmas morning coffee cake. That’s strange – why would she be making it tonight? I got up and wandered out to the living room. There were the stockings. The table set for breakfast. It was Christmas morning. It had arrived before I knew it.

Paul and Jesus’ other apostles have their eye on the prize. They live restlessly, unwilling to settle for temporary fixes. Yet they also live with peace, knowing that their reunion with the Savior will be worth the wait. Hold out for better, says Paul. In all circumstances give thanks, because God is with you. Never stop praying. Never lose hope.

The conclusion of the Catechism addresses the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer:
Q: What does that little word "Amen" express?
A: Amen means, “This is sure to be!” It is even more sure that God listens to my prayer, than that I really desire what I pray for.

The deepest desire of every human heart is Shalom – the restoration of all things. The Day of the Lord is the day that Christ returns and makes all things the way they were meant to be. Our longing for greater security; deeper intimacy; personal advancement; justice and peace – this is a longing for that which is broken in our world to be healed. God promises to bring ultimate healing. When we seal our prayer with the word Amen, we declare our conviction that if God said it, he’ll do it. Receive the blessing with which Paul concludes 1 Thessalonians:
May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it! Amen.

Your Enemy

2011-12-27T08:02:00.000-08:00

Passage: 1 Peter 5:1-11

One of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons is entitled, “Homer’s Enemy”. In this episode Homer gets a new coworker at the power plant – a young man named Frank Grimes. Frank gets his job because he’s been featured in a local news story detailing the great adversity he has overcome over the course of his life. Inspired by the story, Mr. Burns, the owner of the power plant, insists that they hire him immediately. When Frank arrives at the plant he’s appalled by Homer’s lackadaisical approach to his job (nuclear safety inspector). The more time he spends with Homer, the more Frank is incensed that someone so incompetent could get everything he wants out of life. Frank gets madder and madder; and in spite of Homer’s attempts to make friends with him, Frank at a certain point declares, “I’m not your friend. I’m your enemy!” (“What, me, the most beloved man in all of Springfield?”)

It’s easier to make enemies than it is to make friends. All someone has to do is laugh at the wrong point in a conversation. Respond a little too tersely to an email. Look at us wrong in the grocery line. Cut us off on the expressway. Instant enemy. Sometimes we discover that we, like Homer, have unwittingly become someone else’s enemy. Just by being ourselves. We’re quick to find people to blame; quick to find people to hate. And quick to find ourselves at the receiving end of the same.

The authors of the New Testament point out that when we do this we’re making a huge mistake. No person should be the focus of our hatred. And no person should be held responsible for our unhappiness. We only have one enemy. It’s not Al Qaida, or the axis of evil, or the Democrats. Or Republicans. It’s Satan and his forces. In Ephesians 6 the Apostle Paul says,
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God…

If we aren’t careful, we become pawns of the forces of evil. How? By targeting each other. By shunning and attacking other people – people who are equally enticed and enslaved by the forces pulling at us. God’s intent is to set all of us free from the power of sin and death. To free us from fear – which causes us to see enemies where none exist – and temptation – which causes us to take without regard for the damage done to others.

In its final Lord’s Day, the Catechism identifies the fact that on our own we can’t resist the weapons of our true enemy. The fear he breeds and the temptation he wields strike us where we are weakest. So we appeal to God. He fortifies us against temptation by promising to give us what we really need. And he braces us against fear by promising to preserve our life forever. Protected by God’s armor, we remain vigilant and prepared for the enemy’s attacks. And we remain open and vulnerable to each other, recognizing in everyone a potential ally, friend, and family member in Christ.

Dependents

2011-12-15T12:29:00.000-08:00

Passage: Hosea 2:8-23

Hosea is one of those books in which God comes across as a bit unreasonable. At the very beginning of the book, God commands his prophet, Hosea, to marry a "promiscuous woman." Why, pray tell? So that Hosea's marriage can be a living metaphor for God's relationship with his people. Hosea complies, marrying Gomer, a woman who proves to be perennially unfaithful. Hosea provides for Gomer; loves her; and takes her back every time. He even buys her back when she sells herself into slavery. "How does it feel," says God, "to be married to someone; to pour yourself out for them; to give them everything they need, only to have them reject you? Only to have them say, 'I don't need you.'" This, says God, is what my people do to me again and again.

Not so sure? To what extent do you think of yourself as independent? Self-sufficient? How often do you ask God to give you the basic necessities of life - or thank him for them? God says to us, "Whether you admit it or not, you've gotten everything from me. I've given you most of what you have without you even having asked for it first!" God says, "I've been nothing but faithful to you. And yet again and again you attribute my blessings to someone else!"

God's relationship with us is one of mercy. God in his mercy seeks us out. Buys us back. Gives us everything we need for body and soul. What does God ask in return? Gratitude. Generosity. The admission that we are what we are: dependents. Thank God that he's allowed us to depend on him, body and soul, in life and in death.

Programming

2011-12-01T06:55:00.000-08:00

Passage: Matthew 18:1-9

In Matthew 18 Jesus adds to his long list of cryptic teachings, “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” That’d be great advice if nothing ever had to get done in the Kingdom of Heaven. If all anyone had to do was run around and play and have fun, and no one had to eat a properly cooked meal, or run a business, or teach anyone anything. Right?

Those of us who are engaged in the work of the Kingdom know how important it is to be educated. Have business savvy. Know how to fix stuff. Get stuff done.

Here’s the problem. Those of us who know how to get stuff done learned our skills within a broken system. We learned in an environment that taught us to be self-sufficient and hard. We carry into the Kingdom the baggage of a world that has made us cynical and selfish. As we try to engage the work and life of the Kingdom our programming keeps getting in the way. We rank ourselves according to attractiveness, success, and goodness. We impose rules about whose opinion matters and whose gifts are valuable. And before you know it, what we think is the Kingdom of Heaven turns out to be just another broken-down kingdom of our own making.

Jesus says, “If you want to be part of my Kingdom, leave your programming at the door. You don’t have to build it or run it. It was working fine before you got here. Empty your hands and your pockets; drop your bags. Then come on in.” The Kingdom is huge, but the door leading in is really small. Only big enough to let in really little people. People unencumbered by big egos and big baggage. Entering the Kingdom of Heaven is a matter of going back to the beginning. Rediscovering innocence and simplicity. Being relieved of your guile and your savvy and your shame. Starting fresh. Reprogramming.

It's a Work in Progress

2011-11-30T08:48:00.000-08:00

Passage: Matthew 13:24-52

In this chapter Matthew throws out seven different metaphors that Jesus uses to talk about the Kingdom of Heaven. In short order, Jesus says the Kingdom is like:
• A good field suffused with weeds
• A mustard seed
• Yeast mixed into dough
• Treasure buried in a field
• A rare pearl
• A net full of fish
• A mixture of old treasures and new
Elsewhere Jesus says, “The Kingdom of heaven is near!” and, “The Day of the Lord has come!” Jesus’ words have produced great confusion about the arrival of God’s Kingdom. Is it coming? Or is it already here?

When we utter the Lord’s Prayer, we make the request, “Your Kingdom come…” This implies that the Kingdom hasn’t yet arrived. And yet Jesus’ parables suggest that the stuff of the Kingdom is already in effect. The seeds have been planted. The crop is poking its way through the ground. The yeast is working its way through the dough. The treasure is there to be found, if you just know where to look. The net is closing in around the fish.
When we look at the world, all we see is a vacant lot. A garden choked with bindweed. A table full of junk at a flea market. We can’t imagine that the fallow ground will bear fruit. That order will be restored to that neglected garden. That somewhere in that pile junk is something of immeasurable worth.

Yet this is the stuff Jesus invites us to look for. It’s already there. The Kingdom is germinating; look for the signs. The Kingdom is waiting; search for it. Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom flies in the face of logic or intuition, which tell us, “Things are getting worse; this city is beyond repair; this world is too messed up for anyone to fix it; it’s hopeless.”

It’s not hopeless. We are citizens of a Kingdom that is under construction. We are investing in a work in progress. Jesus commands us not to write it off. Not to write off a world in which God is at work. Not to write off a person in whose heart God has planted the seeds of redemption. Jesus tells us: The Kingdom is there. And there. And there! Look for it. Dig for it. Sacrifice for it. Wait for it.

The Request Behind Every Other Request

2011-11-23T07:39:00.000-08:00

Passage: Psalm 145

In its clause-by-clause breakdown of the Lord’s Prayer, the Heidelberg Catechism regards the phrase “Hallowed be your name” not as a statement but as a request. “What,” ask the authors of the Catechism, “does this first request mean?” When we utter the prayer, therefore, we’re not making an objective observation about who God is. We’re asking God to do something very specific in our lives and in our world. We’re asking that, above all else, God’s name would be hallowed. Revered. Recognized as holy. Glorified.

This has radical implications for whatever else we add to our prayers. If our goal, in prayer and in life, is God’s glory, then we pray and live accordingly. Our requests, for ourselves and our world, align themselves with this predominant value. Where our first inclination might be to ask, “Heal my illness,” we might instead find ourselves praying, “In sickness or health, be glorified in me.” Where we might be tempted to pray, “Let my kid’s team win this playoff,” instead we may ask, “May my child’s conduct point others to you and your greatness.” If we recognize rightly that the purpose of our lives is to reveal to heaven and earth the greatness of our Creator and Lord, our values change. Our desires change. Our wills realign according to the very will of God.

Psalm 145 is a declaration of the glory of God. In it the Psalmist states, “Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.” He goes on to describe all the great things God is and does. God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abundant in love. God is trustworthy in his promises, and faithful. God is near to those who call on him. God provides sustenance for life. God saves those who seek refuge in him. God gives his children the desires of their hearts.
The Psalmist adds this:
All your works praise you, LORD; your faithful people extol you. They tell of the glory of your kingdom and speak of your might, so that all people may know of your mighty acts and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

If we truly know God, we can’t help but be enthralled by God. In turn we’ll talk about God in ways that compel others to seek him out. And we’ll live our lives in such a way that those who encounter us will catch glimpses not of our glory, but the glory of our Creator. As God’s faithful people, this is our greatest ambition. Every other hope and desire falls into place beneath it. That in our every act and experience God would make himself known. In our prayers, every other request is simply a variation on this one: Hallowed be your name. In my work, hallowed be your name. In my marriage, hallowed be your name. In my health, hallowed be your name. In my rest, hallowed be your name. In every facet of my day; my performance; my life; make yourself known to me and the world around me. Hallowed be your name.

Father

2011-11-16T06:24:00.000-08:00

Passage: Lord's Day 46

The term “Father” has so many connotations. Fathers are providers and comforters. They are protectors and authorities. They are disciplinarians.
“Father” also comes with baggage. Human fathers that were abusive or absent leave cracks in the lenses of our souls through which it’s difficult to render a pure image of what a father should be.

With all this in mind, Jesus deliberately refers to God as “Father”, and invites his disciples to do the same. “When you appeal to God”, he says, “You’re appealing to my Father. But from now on you’re also appealing to yours.” Jesus ushers humanity into a new way of thinking about “father”, and a new way of relating to God.

In his invitation Jesus identifies God as being everything that an earthly father should be - and more. God is provider: he knows what you need and is willing and able to give it. God is comforter: he receives you in your brokenness and welcomes you with open arms. God is protector: he promises that not a hair can fall from your head without his permission. God is authority: he knows his design for Creation and his design for your life; he offers guidance that is trustworthy and true. God is disciplinarian: God interrupts us when we’re on a path that will end in long-term harm and withholds those gifts that threaten to supplant him in our hearts. God is always with us and always for us.

There’s an added dimension: God is our Father in Heaven. God inhabits the space beyond time and space. His perspective is comprehensive and eternal, and his reach is unbounded. There is no limit to the knowledge, wisdom, and resources at God’s disposal. When God promises to guide you in the way everlasting and provide everything you need for body and soul, God is able to follow through like no one else. Trust Jesus’ invitation. And trust the Father into whose family you’ve been irrevocably adopted. He will never let you down.

Why Bother?

2011-11-10T10:37:00.000-08:00

Passage: Matthew 6:5-15

There are instances in which my Reformed Theology and Reformed practice seem to be at odds. Prayer presents many such instances. I believe that God’s plans for me and my world have been set in place since the beginning of time. I do not believe I have the power to change God’s plans or change God’s mind. And yet I persistently ask God to do stuff on my behalf – stuff I have no idea fits into his plan or not.
I’ve had conversations in which people have said, “I’ve been praying for days that my team wins the series.” I wonder if anyone on the opponents’ side is praying the same prayer. You could wonder the same about nations on one side or other of a war. I’ve heard Christians say, “God hasn’t healed you because you haven’t prayed hard enough.” Make a little more noise, and God’ll hear you.
I’ve also spoken with people who have said, “I can’t bother God with this - it's too small. I can't ask God for this - it’s too selfish.”
Are the above perspectives wrong? If so, how? And how do we know?

In order to know whether to pray, and how, it helps to understand the purpose of prayer. We tend to think that prayer is a way of getting things done. We pray to help God focus his efforts. We pray to do our part of God’s work. We pray to get what we want. When we think of prayer as a way of getting results – either for someone else or for ourselves – we get it wrong. We don’t change God’s mind when we pray. And we don’t curry extra favor from God the more regularly and passionately and eloquently we pray. When Jesus teaches about prayer, he actually says, “Less is more!” In his instruction Jesus also betrays what prayer’s really about. It’s not about results; it’s about relationship. Jesus says, “Call God ‘Father’.” He’s not your boss. He’s not the government. He’s not Santa Claus. God is one who has immeasurable compassion and regard for you. God is already listening.

And God wants what’s best – for you and your world. God knows his plans for you. Yet God welcomes a conversation. So Jesus invites us: “Whatever’s on your heart, bring it to God.” Talk to God when you need something. Talk to God when you don’t need anything. Don’t worry about the right words in the right order. There’s no magic way to get God to do what you want him to do. You don’t have that kind of power. But if you seek from God most important thing anyone can have – that is, an intimate relationship with God – he’ll grant it every time. It’s within the context of this relationship that you start to want what God wants – for you and your world. Why bother? Because God welcomes our company, and tells us that our prayers, big and small, are no bother at all.

Perfect

2011-10-31T17:27:00.000-07:00

Passage: Psalm 19

The Catechism’s treatment of the Ten Commandments ends with a meditation on the relationship between Christians and God’s Law. The authors of the Catechism as the question that should be on all our lips:
No one in this life can obey the Ten Commandments perfectly: why then does God want them preached so pointedly?
Seriously. Why have we gone to such great lengths to study the Ten Commandments if we’re only going to fail at them anyway?
The Catechism gives two answers; I’d add a third. First, we turn and return to the Ten Commandments because they remind us of our deep need for Jesus Christ. We need to be reminded of God’s standard and our utter inability to meet it. So doing we acknowledge that we are the recipients of God’s love only by God’s great mercy. Second, we pursue God’s Law because we sincerely desire to live according to God’s will. We believe that God’s Spirit is continually restoring God’s image in us. As we become more and more the people God created us to be, we will be naturally inclined to live according to God’s good order.

Finally, we embrace God’s Law because we love God. The closer we are to God the more we delight in who God is and what God wants. This desire for the things of God is beautifully expressed by David, the “man after God’s own heart”, in Psalm 19. David says this about God’s Law:
The law of the LORD is perfect,
refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
The precepts of the LORD are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the LORD are radiant,
giving light to the eyes.
The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever.
The decrees of the LORD are firm,
and all of them are righteous.

When you love someone, you long to know their heart. God shows us his heart for the world and its inhabitants in the rules he gives his people. The more you love God, the more his rules make sense, and the more perfectly you want to live them.

Spin Doctors

2011-10-25T07:10:00.000-07:00

Passage: Psalm 15; Lord’s Day 43

Psalm 15 captures what it means to be righteous. The psalm is attributed to David, who stands out in the Old Testament as “a man after God’s own heart.” Of course if you’re familiar with David’s story, you know he doesn’t always live up to the standard of righteousness outlined in his psalm. There are accounts of David using deception and dishonesty to get what he wants; accounts of David abusing his power and taking advantage of those more vulnerable than himself. It may be hard to take Psalm 15 seriously, knowing the ways its author failed to live up to his own standard.

The truth is, none of God’s people is able to live up to God’s standard of righteousness. In Romans 3:23 the Apostle Paul says, “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” All of us who seek to live as followers of Jesus are to some extent hypocrites. Faced with this knowledge, we have two choices. We can acknowledge the gaps between the way we live and the way we know we should; or we can do our best to hide them. We can spin the truth to make ourselves seem, to ourselves and the world, more righteous than we are.

It’s remarkable that the predominant ethic of the righteous person described in Psalm 15 is honest speech. The righteous “speak the truth from their hearts; they cast no slurs; they refuse to slander.” What sets the righteous apart is integrity – that is, consistency between inner character and outward conduct. The actions and words of the righteous person do not serve the purpose of masking insecurity or compensating for inadequacy. They are expressions of the deep-rooted peace, generosity, and compassion that arise from a heart that is in tune with the heart of God. A person who has adopted the practice of honesty is far better positioned to become righteous than someone who hides his sins from himself and the world. And a person who is righteous – that is, connected to God and committed to God’s will – has no need for spin. That person has nothing to hide – from herself; from the world; from God.

It's Not Really Stealing...

2011-10-19T07:13:00.000-07:00

Passage: Lord’s Day 42

In 2005 Melody and I bought our first home. It was a beautiful four-bedroom ranch with a walkout basement and a big back yard that faced a ravine. And we got a great deal on it. We got a great deal because the retired couple we were buying it from had already purchased a condo and could no longer afford double home payments. They’d lived in the house more than twenty years; had raised their kids, and a number of foster kids there. Poured sweat and tears and dollars into improving it. It was a great house. They took a big hit when they sold it to us. And I could see the evidence of that in their faces when we signed the paperwork. Stress; fatigue; maybe even a hint of resentment, that our realtors had negotiated a deal that cost them so much. I didn’t care – or didn’t let myself care. I was too excited about the house I’d just acquired.

In 2011 we sold the house. We’d moved out of the house in December, 2008. It was a bad season for selling a house. And it was a bad year for selling a house in Michigan. Actually, it was the first of three bad years for selling a house in Michigan. This spring, after two years of double payments, two different renters, two basement floods and an Amityville-style bee invasion, a buyer came along. The buyer’s realtor negotiated a great deal for his clients. Melody and I just wanted to be done with the house. We signed off on a deal that cost us. And I remembered the couple we bought the house from. I remembered not thinking much about their mixed feelings signing their property over to us. The way they’d signed their money into our pockets because they had to sell. It felt different being on the other side of the deal.

Lord’s Day 42 of the Heidelberg Catechism explains God’s prohibition against stealing. Most church people are innocent of out-and-out theft, and so assume the eighth commandment doesn’t apply to us. Lord’s Day 42 doesn’t let us off the hook. The authors of the Catechism identify not only the act of taking that which doesn’t belong to us, but any act driven by the desire to capitalize on someone else’s loss. Fraudulent merchandising; excessive interest; greed. They conclude with this question and answer:
Q. What does God require of you in this commandment?
A. That I do whatever I can for my neighbor's good, that I treat others as I would like them to treat me, and that I work faithfully so that I may share with those in need.

The instinct that leads us to prioritize our financial needs over someone else’s is mistrust. Mistrust in God’s persistent promise to provide. The Bible contains far more references to greed and the idolatry of money than any other sin. And here’s why: we’re all guilty of it. When it comes to money and property few of us can honestly say we want for our neighbors that which we want for ourselves. When you resent your neighbor's brand-new car or your sister’s brand-new house or your friend’s brand-new job. When you can’t believe the steal of a deal you got on that piece of property the seller “just had to unload.” When you refuse to give to someone in need because “times are tight.” Each of these is an instance in which we choose self over neighbor. Each is an example of greed. And each expresses a fundamental mistrust in God’s generosity. We insist that God take care of us; we love it when God is generous to us. And we mistakenly think God should be more generous to us than the guy next to us. Not only does God challenge each of us to recognize that we are neither more important or entitled than anyone else. God also insists that his children adopt the family ethic. If you've benefited from God's generosity, pass it on. If you withhold it, who are you to expect more?

Let's Talk About Sex

2011-10-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

Passage: Leviticus 18

In Leviticus 18, God presents his people with boundaries. Leviticus 18 is a list of prohibited kinds of sexual relationship. The list makes sense – it’s a set of prohibitions that are generally agreed upon even within our culture. But there’s a subtext to the list, presented in the very first prohibition, that introduces an ethic that we’re quick to overlook: You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices.

We don’t have too much difficulty eschewing the unusual or obscene acts detailed in Leviticus 18. What is difficult for God’s people today is adhering to a set of sexual ethics that is distinct from those of the culture in which we’re immersed.

A number of forms of sexual expression that are considered normal throughout our culture were identified as aberrant and forbidden for the people of God in the Old Testament. Homosexuality is one, and it gets an undue amount of press within evangelical circles. The church is tragically silent on sexual sins that are a much bigger problem for a far greater percentage of Christians. One is sexual intimacy before or outside of marriage. Another is the use of fantasy as a substitute for intimacy within marriage. For men this often takes the form of pornography, or sexually explicit imagery in magazines, TV shows, and movies. For women it can take the form of literature, media, or online relationships that may not seem overtly sexual, but offer an imagined intimacy that falls outside of the work and obligation of a real relationship.

At the heart of God’s prohibitions about sex is an exhortation to reserve sex for the purpose it was intended to serve: to deepen the intimate connection between a man and woman who have committed their lives to each other.
This sounds prudish – old-fashioned and confining. In some ways it is. Sex has the potential to be very pleasurable. And the pleasure of sex is a secondary benefit to its primary purpose. When treated primarily as means of pleasure, sex becomes something it wasn’t meant to be. And it does damage. It divides married couples. It produces relationships in which one or both parties are used or degraded. It diminishes people’s capacities to form and maintain lasting commitments. And it compounds the sinful tendency to see the world through the lens of one’s own desires and needs, whatever the cost to someone else.

God gave people the gift of making certain essential physical acts pleasurable. Each pleasurable act serves a greater purpose than pleasure itself. Sex is no exception. The primary purpose of sex is not just “for procreation only.” It’s intimacy. In the right context, sex both expresses and intensifies the connection between two people. But the right context is a committed, lifelong relationship in which both partners give, sacrifice, and do the hard work of making a life together. Within God’s design, there’s no such thing as “no strings attached” sex. It comes at a cost. Sex is costly whether you enjoy it within or outside of the context of marriage. God demands that we enjoy sex in such a way that we embrace the full cost: that is, responsibility to, and for, the person we’ve partnered with for life.

What we rarely talk about when we talk about sex and the Christian life is that sex itself is a temporary substitute. God in his grace gives us the possibility of intimacy here and now that is like a preview of the intimacy we’ll know in eternity. But our intimate union in eternity will not be with the husband or wife we’ve enjoyed on earth. It will be with Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. It will also be with all those people who have entered glory through him. Our union in glory will not be sexual. But it will be a kind of soul connection that is only approximated by the closest marriages on earth. Marriage is one of the predominant metaphors the Bible gives for our relationship with God. Like marriage, God’s love for us is self-giving, self-sacrificial, and deeply intimate. God knows us through and through. God knows our flaws and weaknesses, the areas of our deepest hurt and shame and fear. And God embraces us with open arms. It costs God to love us this way. God sticks with us through the long haul, and continually opens his heart to us in spite of the ways we disappoint him. In the best marriages you can catch a glimpse of this kind of love. But the union of marital intimacy is only a shadow of the intimacy we’ll know in eternity.

Finally, it’s the promise of this perfect intimacy that gives us the patience and strength to live with any unrequited need we have now. For those who aren’t married and can’t imagine how to live without sex, God promises a future intimacy that’s far more complete. For those who are frustrated or unfulfilled within their marriages, God promises an ultimate fulfillment that will make up for any disappointment. It is on the basis of his promises that God demands that his people not give in to the instincts and pleasures and practices indulged by their neighbors. If you trust God’s promises, then you can wait; you can abstain; you can persevere. If you don’t trust God’s promises, then you’re on your own. Live however you want. But don’t keep coming back to God demanding the benefits of a relationship for which you’ve been unwilling to face the cost.

Closing the Door to Mercy

2011-10-12T08:16:00.000-07:00

Passage: Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 40

In the Battlestar Galactica episode “Collaborators,” the crew of the Galactica have reconvened after escaping the evil Cylons. During the Cylon occupation, a number of the humans sided with the Cylons as members of a secret police force. These collaborators served the cause of their enemies, believing this to be a better alternative than living with increasing poverty and the constant threat of death. Paradoxically, now that the humans have shaken off the bonds of their oppressors, the collaborators face precisely the fate they thought they’d escaped. A small group of the surviving humans has taken it upon themselves to track down their betrayers. One by one they bring them in to be executed. As the number of executions rises, members of the group begin to have second thoughts. Their appetite for revenge has been satisfied, and they’re tired of killing. Their leader faces them and says, “Don’t forget what we’re doing here. This isn’t about revenge. It’s about justice!”

Discussions about the Sixth Commandment (“You shall not murder/kill another human being”) inevitably lead to questions of justice. What about people who have committed murder? What about someone who’s about to kill me? What about someone who is a danger to society and shows no remorse? What about political enemies? Justice needs to be served! These challenges become more personal when we look at the ways the sixth commandment has been parsed out by other commentators. The Heidelberg Catechism argues
“By forbidding murder God teaches us that he hates the root of murder: envy, hatred, anger, vindictiveness. In God's sight all such are murder.”
This in turn is based on Jesus’ own teaching:
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” (Matthew 5:21-22)
As with each of his commands, God’s concern in the sixth is not only human action, but human attitude. What is your posture toward your neighbor – that is, any fellow human being? Is it hatred, or mercy? Do you want for them that which you want for yourself? "But wait a minute," you say. "What about justice? That person who hurt me deserves to hurt. That person whose stupidity ruined my plans deserves to suffer. That person who has threatened my way of life deserves punishment."

The question to ask is this: what treatment have you received at the hands of God? Justice or mercy? Jesus demands of us that which he has given to us. Whether you’re tempted to kill with your hands, or your words, or simply your thoughts, Jesus says, “Justice and vengeance are mine. Your job is to love.” This is one of the ways in which the life of a disciple is immensely costly – it may, in fact, cost you your life. Most of the situations in which we’d respond with lethal force are ones in which we’d be, in some way, protecting our own lives. Jesus actually invites his disciple to do what he did – that is, give up one's own life rather than take someone else’s. You may be called to give up your life all at once. Or you may be required to do it little by little - one word of forgiveness; one gracious thought; one merciful act at a time.

Honor Who?

2011-09-28T06:31:00.001-07:00

Passage: Deuteronomy 21:18-21

Of all the Commandments, the fifth is the one people seem to take the most immediate exception to. It seems ironic, given that the fifth commandment deals with subject matter that is, for the most part, fairly mundane. “Honor your father and mother so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.” Honor your father and mother. Wait a minute, we’re tempted to say. What if your father or mother abused you? What if they rejected you? What if they were just plain unreasonable and out of touch and not that nice to you? I’ve heard sermons that presented all kinds of qualifiers and provisos. Exceptions to the rule. It’s easy to find excuses not to follow the fifth commandment. But, says God, we do so at great cost to ourselves.

In order to follow this commandment, we need to understand it. The first thing to note is its placement. It stands as the bridge between the two sections of the Law – the first, which expands on the command to love God above all else; and the second, which is summarized in the command to love others as you love yourself. Love God; love other people. Right in between is the command to honor your parents. This isn’t a coincidence.

When it comes to loving other people, parents are the ones we have no control over. We don’t choose the parents who give us birth. Accepting the parents we’ve been given is an essential aspect of accepting God’s sovereign choice in our lives. To say, “I refuse to accept my parents’ authority” is to say to God, “I refuse to accept what you’ve chosen for me.” When we refuse to love and honor our parents, we are essentially telling God that we’re only willing to love and honor the people we have chosen; the ones we like. God doesn’t give us this option. Loving and honoring parents is practice for loving and honoring all the people God will bring into our lives by his sovereign choice.

On a more practical basis, God gives us parents to train us in the practice of submission. Whether we appreciate it or not, our parents are people who have gone before us. They provide rules and boundaries based on experience and the wisdom of years. In many respects they know better. And we’re commanded by God to take their word for it. As we become adults we no longer answer directly to our parents. We have our own wisdom and experience on which to draw. But we are still commanded to defer to one whose wisdom and authority far exceeds ours. There never comes a point at which we move out from under God’s authority. And if, early in our lives, we’ve adopted the habit of bucking the authority of our parents, there’s no way we’ll be capable of submitting to the authority of God, or the other human authorities God places over us. This, says God, has deadly consequences. It is for this reason that, as he’s giving the Law to the Israelites, God implements such harsh consequences for children who disrespect their parents. He says, “Kids who disrespect their moms and dads grow up to be kids who disrespect me!”

Hard questions ensue, however. “What about parents who abuse their kids? Who abuse their God-give authority or neglect the children God’s entrusted to them? Aren’t some people excused from the fifth commandment?” The short answer is “no”, and here’s why: Honoring one’s parents doesn’t always mean obeying them. If a parent debases him or herself by perpetrating abuse, sometimes the most honoring thing is to stop the abuse. To get away from the abuser; to set in motion a sequence of events that will, once and for all interrupt the behavior; and to hold the abuser to account. In fact, the most loving thing you can do for a person is aid them in the process of becoming more Christlike. This includes confronting un-Christlike behavior.

Another way of honoring one’s parents is becoming the best bearer of their image that you can be. Even absent or abusive parents have left their kids a genetic heritage. The stuff in each of us that’s good, admirable, and worthy of celebration is stuff we got from our moms and dads. Growing up embittered toward one’s parents, or resentful of what they did or didn’t do turns into blame which, in turn, becomes self-disabling thought and action. It’s all too easy to blame your parents for your problems. Doing so, however, guarantees that you won’t change things you need to change to become a healthier, better person. At the very least, honor your parents by taking responsibility for your own life, and letting the best qualities they gave you shine through. This, in turn, becomes the best way to honor the God that gave the command in the first place. And, true to God’s Word, if you honor your parents – regardless of what kind of parents you had – things will go well for you. It’s God’s promise.

Knowing When to Take a Break

2011-09-21T06:44:00.000-07:00

Passage: Exodus 16:11-30

Of all the Ten Commandments, the one that’s probably the hardest for us to apply is the fourth: Honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. This is one of the commandments that had a clearer application during the pre-Christ era of God’s people. As a theocracy (that is, an entire society guided by the Word of God), the Israelites followed God’s command to “rest on the seventh day” as a group. They all refrained from commercial and vocational activity, rested, and worshiped in community. There weren’t questions about which day was “officially” the Sabbath. Everyone knew.

We have difficulty exercising Sabbath rest because we’re embedded in a culture that never rests. Many of us have vocations that require us to work, in some capacity, 7 days a week. Some of us work shifts, and don’t have the same consistent day off. Commercial activity plows forward every day, so none of us is forced to refrain from buying food, fuel, or other necessities on any given day. The boundaries around “work” and “rest” are fuzzy at best, so the question of how to refrain from work is a difficult one to answer.
If we intend to apply the fourth commandment, we have to start by exploring the “principle behind the precept.” Why did God institute a weekly day of rest and worship? And how did God teach his people about Sabbath rest?

The story of God feeding the Israelites in the wilderness provides some insight. God has delivered his people from the Egyptian army. But they have fled into the barren territory that lies between Egypt and Palestine. And they quickly realize that there’s little by way of food – not nearly enough to feed them all. In no time the Israelites are accusing God of delivering them from the frying pan only to deposit them in the fire. God’s response is to send two food sources: flocks of quail; and “manna” (which means, literally, “what is it?”). The latter is a starchy substance that appears on the ground and can be made into a kind of bread. And God gives specific instructions about how to gather the manna. He says, “Gather as much as you need for one day. What you’ll find is that no matter how much you’ve gathered, you’ll have enough for your family.” Some people attempt to gather twice as much as they think they’ll need, and save some for the next day. Surprisingly, the next morning it has gone bad. Apparently manna’s only good for a day. However, God goes on to say this: “On the sixth day, gather enough manna for two days. Save some for the seventh, because the seventh day is the Sabbath.” Sure enough, the next day there is no manna. The passage notes that those who tried earlier to hoard manna and had it go bad decide not to save manna on the sixth day. They end up being without on the Sabbath.

At first glance there seems something arbitrary or capricious about God’s action. Why wouldn’t the Israelites gather and save as much of the food source as they could? They were in the desert, after all. Who knew when their next meal would come from? And, having had the experience of having the stored manna go bad, why would they attempt to preserve it again? If manna spoils overnight one day, why wouldn’t it spoil overnight the next? These people are just using their common sense.

The lesson is this: when God gives you a command, you follow it. God teaches his people again and again to trust him. God promises to provide for his people. When they follow his commands, God provides without fail. It’s when they doubt God and go it alone that they miss out. In respect to the Sabbath, people invariably default to common sense. “It can’t really hurt to skip my day off this week.”; “I can’t afford not to work today.”; “All my competitors do business seven days a week; I have to keep up.” We can’t know all of God’s reasons for incorporating a weekly day off for rest and worship. There may be plenty of instances in which applying this rule doesn’t make sense to us. But the ultimate principle at work is trust. Do you trust God to provide for your needs no matter what? Do you trust that God loves you and has good reasons for every one of his commands? Do you trust that God will maintain control of your world even if you step away from the wheel for a day? And do you trust that God will come through, even when your common sense tells you there's no way? Honoring the Sabbath, as illustrated in the story of the manna, is about trusting God to provide on his own terms.

I Swear

2011-09-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

Passage: Matthew 5:33-37

Lord’s Day 37 speaks to an issue we don’t think about often: the swearing of oaths. In our culture there are both formal (i.e., courtrooms) and informal (e.g., barroom tales and fish stories) settings in which we swear by something greater than ourselves. We do so to underscore the truth of our words. The Catechism points out that there are occasions in which it is acceptable to do so. However, for Christians the default should be to avoid swearing by anything.

According to the Catechism, it’s okay to swear by God’s name or by God’s Word “when the government demands it or necessity requires it.” In other words, if you are called to testify in court, you can put your hand on the Bible and swear to the truth of your testimony with a clear conscience. You haven’t violated God’s Law. There may be other circumstances under which you might say, “With God as my witness, what I’m saying is true.” Biblical precedent can be found in such places as Joshua 9:15 and Romans 1:9. Deuteronomy 6:13 says, “Take your oaths in the name of the LORD”. The underlying message is this: “If you have to take an oath, only do it in God’s name.”

However, Jesus himself prohibits taking any oath at all. In Matthew 5 he says, “Simply let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no.’” There are two important reasons for this. The first is is that if you are one of his followers, you should always speak the truth. Your integrity and your track record should be all the evidence you need to convince anyone that you're telling the truth. No Christian should need to swear by anything because by nature we should all be truth-tellers. If the people you deal with are inclined to doubt you, you should ask yourself why.

The second reason Jesus prohibits taking an oath that invoking God’s name is such a serious act that the violation thereof becomes a violation not against the person you’re talking to but against God himself. An oath in God’s name is utterly binding, and can get you into a great deal of trouble. This is illustrated in two Old Testament examples: Joshua’s covenant with the Gibeonites in Joshua 9:1-21; and Jephthah’s oath in Judges 11. In both instances, people swear oaths before God that end up binding them to courses of action they later regret deeply (read both if you want to find out what happens). The preponderance of Scriptural evidence, including Jesus’ own words, lead to this conclusion: avoid swearing any kind of oath. If you are compelled to make an oath, do it only in God’s name. And if you do, be sure not to break it.

Honoring the Name

2011-09-08T11:36:00.000-07:00

Passage: Leviticus 24:10-23

When my wife and I got married we committed to loving, honoring, and cherishing one another. One of the concrete expressions of this commitment we adopted was the practice of speaking about each other in a way that reflected our care and respect for each other. Honoring each other with our words. Over the course of our marriage this has taken multiple forms: speaking positively about each other to other people; refusing to air grievances we may have with each other with anyone else before we’ve first addressed them as a couple; refraining from sharing belittling stories or facts about each other publicly for the sake of making other people laugh. We have seen the ways these practices have strengthened our loyalty to each other and deepened our sense of connection. In refusing to misuse each others' names, we have experienced a degree of unity that would have been eroded had we been less careful to do so.

In the third commandment God demands that his people not misuse his name. God does so because he has done his people the tremendous honor of giving them a proper name by which to address him. “YHWH”, best pronounced “Yahweh” (not “Jehovah”, which is a misinterpretation of the Hebrew that should never be used), is the closest anyone in the ancient world gets to a first name for God. God’s gift of this personal term is tantamount to God offering his people a personal relationship. God does not belong to the anonymous, distant ranks of the false deities of Israel’s neighbors. He is real; he is present; he invites intimate communion.

God tells his people that if they misuse his name – by speaking casually about him as though behind his back; by invoking his name as a way of co-opting his power and authority; or by saying things about him that aren’t true – they will suffer deadly consequences. God underscores this by commanding the execution of a young man who curses God’s name.

Over time people have become casual about the language they use to address God. We no longer use the proper name God gave the Israelites. We simply say, “God”. This in turn has become a term that is used in a variety of settings that have very little to do with the God who reveals himself in the Bible. We’re so accustomed to the over- and misuse of this term that we barely react. After all, we’ve never seen lightning strike after someone says, “Oh my god!” Maybe it isn’t a big deal.

The reality is that misusing God’s name (whatever name you use to address the God of the Bible) is as deadly as it ever was. It’s just deadly in more gradual, less sensational way than we read about in the Old Testament. What we’re reminded of again and again is that salvation is given to us in the form of an intimate relationship with God. That this is a relationship that demands our commitment. And that our love and respect for God is something that must be protected and nurtured. To appeal to God with a word in one sentence and to turn and curse using the same word in the next says a great deal about how seriously you take God. To speak of God in a way that diminishes his majesty, glory and grace is to disregard how important God is not only to you, but to the world you live in. Over time, misusing God’s name will do to your relationship with him what telling jokes about your wife or husband will do to your marriage: chip away at it until there’s nothing left. The difference is that life without God is death.

Picture This

2011-08-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

Passage: Lord’s Day 35

“Do you take the Bible as the literal word of God?” If you’ve ever been asked that question, you probably felt as though the right answer was “Yes”, and that if you didn’t say “Yes,” you were going to be in trouble. Great battles are fought within the church every day about whether or not we should take the Bible literally. The truth is, there isn’t a right answer to the question because it’s the wrong question. To say, “I take every word of the Bible literally” is to demonstrate utter ignorance about what the Bible really is. Within our tradition we believe the Bible is the Word of God. We believe that it is the clearest and most reliable source of God’s self-revelation. And as such, we understand that God uses human language to describe realities that are essentially indescribable.

The God of the Bible is a God of paradoxes. One of these paradoxes is that God wants us to understand him, yet tells us we can’t understand him. In fact, God discourages people from trying to make too much sense of him. Consider God’s prohibitions against attempting to make images of the divine. The second of the Ten Commandments reads,
You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God…
To be fair, this is a prohibition against making an image of anything you intend to worship. But there are two reasons why this rule applies specifically to making pictures of God. First, God is the one being in heaven and earth who not only deserves to be worshiped but must be worshiped. Any attempt to render an image of God is by definition an attempt to create an object of worship. Second, no human creation, no matter how majestic, can begin to compare to God himself. Therefore any attempt to picture God can do nothing but diminish and degrade the real thing.

How then are we supposed to relate to God? The Bible is full of language that describes God’s attributes and God’s actions. But the best any Biblical author can give us is analogies and metaphors. “God is like this…”; “God does this…”; “God has told us that he desires this…” Each phrase and each account gives us a snapshot of one small part of who God is and how God works. When we piece them together, we end up with a constellation of words, attributes, and actions that gives us a glimpse; a shadow; an afterimage of the one true God.

Does God have wings (Psalm 17)? Does God carry a rod and staff (Psalm 23)? Does God sit on a throne (Psalm 40)? Perhaps, but not in the literal way we think of any of these objects. It’s just that, given the limitations of our language and our imaginations, these are the best we can do. The closest any of us can get to a picture of God is the full witness of those who, throughout history, have caught glimpses of God in action. This is what we find recorded in the Bible. If you want to know God, start there. Read the whole thing. Accept that what we get is a vastly reduced and vastly incomplete picture of the majesty and glory of God. But be satisfied with what God has chosen to reveal about himself. For now we don’t need more; and for the future God promises an eternity in which to get to know him better.

Giving it up

2011-08-25T08:17:00.000-07:00

Heidelberg Catechism Q & A 94
Q. What does the Lord require in the first commandment?
A. That I, not wanting to endanger my very salvation, avoid and shun all idolatry, magic, superstitious rites, and prayer to saints or to other creatures. That I sincerely acknowledge the only true God, trust him alone, look to him for every good thing humbly and patiently, love him, fear him, and honor him with all my heart. In short, that I give up anything rather than go against his will in any way.

People laugh when I tell them I’m an emotional eater. This is probably because I’m skinny. It may also be because the concept of the emotional eater is a little funny. If you’re not familiar with the expression, an “emotional eater” is someone who eats primarily to meet an emotional need rather than a physical need. I love food. I devote more mental energy than I should thinking about food. I have high expectations of the ways food will fulfill me as a human being. I’m disappointed when food doesn’t meet my expectations. At times I eat when I’m not even hungry. It’s all because I need food to do something more for me than what food was designed to do.

Everyone has something like this. An experience or relationship or object we expect to do for us something it wasn’t designed to do. Provide security; affirmation; identity; comfort. These are the things that become hang-ups; obsessions; addictions; unhealthy attachments. The provisional things from which we hope to derive something ultimate.

The Bible identifies these things as idols. As post-enlightenment, smart people, we think of idols as primitive religious objects. We therefore don’t think ourselves in any danger of committing that cardinal sin – idolatry. We have to think again. Idolatry is, in fact, allowing any person, place or thing to inhabit the space in our hearts only God should inhabit.

The Catechism challenges us to give up anything that pulls us out of line with God’s will. Immediately we ask, “How do I know what about my life contravenes God’s will?” Maybe a more appropriate question is, “What would I be unwilling to give up, should God ask it of me?” The reality is that most of the things we’d refuse to give up are things we won’t carry into eternity, anyway. What’s the thing in your life about which, should God say, “That or me?” you’d say, “No way!” What good thing has become your ultimate thing? That’s your idol. God offers to give you – in a purer, more abundant, and more lasting form – whatever you think your substitute is giving you. Paradoxically, if you seek the ultimate from God, you’ll experience greater satisfaction, less anxiety and far less disappointment in the temporal gifts he’s given you. Try it.

Repentance and Rest

2011-08-15T07:43:00.000-07:00

Passage: Isaiah 30:15-22

Frank Abagnale Jr. began his life of crime as a teenager. His first con was using the credit card his dad gave him to buy items from local gas stations, then selling them back to gas station attendants for cash. Shortly thereafter he started writing checks on his bank’s overdraft, then opening accounts under false identities to continue writing bad checks. By the time he was 19, Abagnale had mastered the art of forging checks and developing new identities. He had successfully masqueraded as an airline pilot, an attending physician at a hospital, a teacher’s assistant at a university, and an attorney. Then he got caught. He was first imprisoned in Perpignan's House of Arrest in France, where he spent 6 months in a cell without light, toilet facilities, a bed or even clothing.

Abagnale’s exploits, and the consequences thereof, are depicted in the film Catch Me If You Can. Much of what you see in the film is a highly intelligent young man enjoying a fantastic adventure. But as Abagnale’s crimes become more serious, a degree of desperation becomes apparent. He has to tell more and more elaborate lies; he has to spend more and more time on the move. By the time he ends up imprisoned in France, he is worn out and broken down from running.

One of God’s repeated invitations to his people throughout their history is the invitation to stop running. To turn around. Like Frank Abagnale Jr., the children of Israel have abandoned the safe boundaries God established in favor of a life that initially seems more rewarding and much more exciting. What they don’t see is the danger in running away from God. The inevitable consequences of their actions. It’s not until they are imprisoned – literally – that they see the wisdom in living God’s way. In Isaiah 30 God forewarns his people. He says, “In repentance (literally, "turning" or "returning" in Hebrew) and rest is your salvation; in quietness and trust is your strength.” God says again and again, “Return to me. It doesn’t matter how far you’ve run. Just come back.”
God continues to say this to his children. It doesn’t matter how far you’ve run. Just come back. Repent; return; stop running and find rest.

Who's the Fool?

2011-08-11T08:13:00.000-07:00

Passage: Psalm 14

The "fool" is a recurring character in a number of Shakespeare’s plays. In both his comedic and tragic works, the fool introduces an element of chaos, humor, and irony, and serves to provide insightful commentary into the lives of the characters and the plot of the play. As such, Shakespeare’s fools are never as they seem. They are often perceived by other characters as simple, unsophisticated, and menial. Only the audience sees the fool’s wisdom and transcendence of the entanglements of the other characters. The fools are never as they seem.

The same is true of the “fool” in Psalm 14. Here the psalmist talks about the kind of person who, by all appearances, is a great success. One who has acquired power and used it to his or her advantage; one who has amassed wealth; one who has outplayed his or her opponents in the game of life. According to the human authors of the Bible, folly and wisdom aren’t measured in intellectual achievement, political prowess, or economic excellence. Rather they are determined by one’s posture toward God. The fool, according to Psalm 14, is the one who denies, in faith and in life, that there is a God. Disbelief in God precipitates a host of self- and other-destructive behaviors. The psalmist identifies greed, violence, and the abuse of the poor, but also makes the blanket statement, “They are corrupt – their deeds are vile.” Nothing that emanates from an unbelieving heart has lasting, or saving, value.

What’s the alternative? Believing in God, and shaping one’s life accordingly. Faith in the one true God necessitates humility. It requires the attitude, “God is God, and I am not.” God demands the throne – over our world, and over our lives. True wisdom is accepting one’s limitations, weaknesses, and sins, and acknowledging one’s dependence on God. Wisdom is expressed in a life of devotion to God and accountability to God’s Law. This seems upside-down to us. It seems foolish. But who’s the real fool? According to the psalmist, it’s the one who ignores all of God’s overtures and insists on going it alone. No matter how smart, strong, or savvy you are, you can’t do for yourself what God promises to do for you. Don’t be a fool.

Gratitude

2011-08-08T12:39:00.000-07:00

Passage: Lord’s Day 32; Romans 6:15-19

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 is currently in theaters. If you’ve seen Part 1, you know that it ends with the tragic death of a character named Dobby. Dobby is a house elf – a species of magical creature born and bred to serve as slaves. Dobby is introduced in the second installment of the Harry Potter corpus (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). At first he appears to be a nuisance, impeding Harry’s progress and getting him into trouble. Later it turns out that Dobby has in fact been repeatedly preventing Harry from falling into the hands of his enemies. Eventually, Harry sets Dobby free from a very abusive master. For this, Dobby commits his life to serving Harry. Ultimately, as we see in the last installment of the series, Dobby goes so far as to lay down his life for his friend. Whereas he had once slaved out of obligation and duty, Dobby becomes a slave to love. His service, and sacrifice, are expressions of his immense gratitude.

The Christian life is primarily a life of gratitude. Jesus Christ offers to save people from slavery – slavery to sin and death. Jesus’ invitation is to live a life of freedom. If you’ve been faced with slavery or certain death, the guarantee of freedom is life-altering. Every moment is a gift. You never forget the one who has afforded you this gift. And you never forget what you owe them.

The assumption of the Catechism is that the life of obedience to which we are called is not a life of obligation. We pursue the rigors and sacrifices of the Christian life not because we’re indebted, but because we’re grateful. Every moment is a gift – one which we savor with joy. Whether we’re celebrating or serving, gratitude colors everything we do. If we keep in mind that every act of self-discipline or service is enacted on behalf of our Savior, we will find surprising joy in everything we do. We “do good” not to earn our salvation, but because we have been saved.

The Keys of the Kingdom

2011-08-04T06:33:00.000-07:00

Passage: Matthew 16:13-20

There’s a scene in the film Labyrinth in which the protagonist, a teenager named Sarah, has to pass through a heavy, locked gate to proceed on her mission. Her way is barred by a particularly cantankerous guard who insists, “No one may enter without my permission!” He makes a lot of noise, and holds his ground in spite of Sarah’s protestations. Finally, Sarah simply says, “Well, can I have your permission to enter?” He stops. Thinks for a minute. And says, “Well, I don’t see why not.” He opens the gate and lets her through.

In Matthew 16 Jesus suggests that the Kingdom of Heaven is locked. And he tells his disciples that they are the ones who hold the keys. Historically the church has taken Jesus’ words very seriously. We, the reasoning goes, are the gatekeepers of Heaven. We have the power to keep people out, or let them in.
The Catechism argues that we exercise this power in two ways: preaching the Gospel (“opening”) and exercising church discipline (“closing”). This is a tremendous amount of responsibility. And we run the risk of responding to the commission in one of two wrong ways: taking it too seriously; and not taking it seriously enough.

It’s easy for us to minimize the efficacy of our own presentations of the gospel. Especially if we’re not professional preachers or evangelists, we worry that we won’t articulate the good news in a convincing or compelling way. We conclude that we’re better off leaving the job to the experts; we end up neglecting the task entirely. The fact is God can use whatever we offer to change people’s hearts. We don’t even have to start with words. If we are shaped by the joy of belonging to God through Jesus Christ, our own lives will provide an excellent foray into conversations this life-changing relationship.
Alternatively, we can take our job too seriously. Thinking of ourselves as gatekeepers, we may assume our primary responsibility is to keep people out. If so, we’ll focus undo attention on whether those we meet are fitting candidates. Jesus challenges his disciples again and again not to judge others on the basis of what they see. If anything, Jesus encourages his disciples to see in anyone the potential for redemption, and to leave it to God to render a final judgment. God, after all, is the only one who can see into people’s hearts.

As the keepers of the keys, therefore, our job is to look for every opportunity to open the gates. In fact, that which the Catechism identifies as the act of “closing” the gates of Heaven – i.e., church discipline – applies to people who are already “in.” As such, condemning the sins of those outside the church is a waste of time. Our response to “sinners” should be invitation – “Come this way to enter life.” If we’re to be vigilant about sin, we should start with our own. What are the things in my own life that aren’t befitting a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven? What are the sins we’re fostering as a community that are at odds with the charter of God’s Kingdom?
When people come to us wanting to enter, maybe our response should be, “I don’t see why not.” After all, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We were permitted entry, unworthy candidates that we were. Shouldn’t our first priority be to invite others to enter the same open door?

Mystery and Idolatry

2011-07-27T06:38:00.000-07:00

Passage: Lord’s Day 30

Q&A 80 is a section of the Heidelberg Catechism that is intentionally antagonistic. Other Reformed Confessions, such as the Canons of Dort, are written with an explicitly polemical agenda – that is, their authors clearly state their intent to refute heresies or alternate theologies. For the most part the Catechism avoids this kind of language. But here in Q&A 80 the gloves come off. The authors of the Catechism contrast a Reformed understanding of the Lord’s Supper with the Roman Catholic Mass. And they conclude that the latter is a “condemnable idolatry.” Why do they take such a hard line?

To be fair, the position of the Catechism is no longer reflective of the official position of our church. Our denominational translation of the Catechism (available at the above link) brackets the aforementioned passage and adds the following footnote:
In response to a mandate from Synod 1998, the Christian Reformed Church’s Interchurch Relations Committee conducted a study of Q. and A. 80 and the Roman Catholic Mass. Based on this study, Synod 2004 declared that “Q. and A. 80 can no longer be held in its current form as part of our confession.” Synod 2006 directed that Q. and A. 80 remain in the CRC’s text of the Heidelberg Catechism but that the last three paragraphs be placed in brackets to indicate that they do not accurately reflect the official teaching and practice of today’s Roman Catholic Church and are no longer confessionally binding on members of the CRC.
In other words, a majority of members of our church no longer hold to the position that the Roman Catholic Mass is a “condemnable idolatry.” That being said, the passage is still there. Why?

The first is that within the practice of the Roman Catholic Church of the 1500’s there was perceived to be widespread misunderstanding of the purpose and meaning of communion. There were many lay members of the church who had been led to believe that their salvation was in jeopardy if they didn’t partake of the Mass on a daily, or at least weekly, basis. This led to the belief that it was the Mass itself that saved people.

The second is that the doctrine of Transubstantiation – that is, the conviction that the bread and wine of communion become the physical body and blood of Jesus when blessed by a priest – can lead to the treatment of the elements as sacred objects. The bread and wine themselves can be treated with a level of reverence or worship that belong only to God. Hence the conclusion that the Mass was idolatrous.

Our denomination no longer holds to such a sweeping condemnation. However, Q&A 80 contain a caution to members of any Christian tradition. The reality is that anyone who takes communion runs the risk of treating it as a substitute for a relationship with the risen Lord Jesus. If we think of the elements of communion as the thing that makes us right with God, then we eliminate our need for Jesus himself. Communion becomes an act of reconciliation that we initiate and we control. And it risks becoming a sort of spiritual self-medication – so long as we’re taking the elements, we’re saved. The elements are seen as the source of salvation. Regardless of the official position or theology of your church, if you approach communion with this attitude (conscious or unconscious), you’re treating it as a “condemnable idolatry.” A substitute for a living God and his gift of grace.

The Catechism reminds us that our sins have been forgiven, once and for all, by the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It is through our union with Christ that we are made right with God. Communion doesn’t forge our union with Christ; it celebrates the union that Christ has already granted. Communion doesn’t save people; Jesus does. We don’t appeal to God on the basis of any other intermediary – religious rituals, good behavior, or holy people. Our appeal is solely on the basis of Jesus' intervention: his death on the cross; his resurrection; and his physical presence in heaven before the throne of God the Father.

Union

2011-07-19T07:03:00.000-07:00

Passage: 1 Corinthians 10:1-22

A number of sci-fi programs and novels explore alien civilizations that are extraordinarily collectivist. Two that come immediately to mind are the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation and the Formics from Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game series. Within these fictional cultures the idea of the individual is foreign. Every representative of the alien race thinks and acts with the goals and interests of the entire race in mind. It is as though individuals exist as expressions of a single entity.

The thing that defines these beings as alien – utterly other than human – is that unity of will and purpose. In the stories, human beings recoil at the thought of a culture in which the individual is lost. When one of these alien societies threatens humanity, the ensuing struggle is seen as a “fight for freedom.” A fight to preserve the individual in the face of forces that will subsume it.

At its heart, the Christian faith is an invitation to the individual to submit one’s identity and will. To find one’s identity as a member of the Body of Christ; and to submit one’s will to the will of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 10 Paul points to episodes in the history of God’s people during which they chose their own way. Turned their backs on God’s overtures and instructions; abandoned the community of believers and their way of life, and charted their own course. Chose the appetites and desires of the individual over the way of the people and the will of God. The Old Testament includes instance after instance in which this course of action leads to disaster. The message repeated over and over is that true humanity is found in reconciliation with the Creator. That people live best when they allow God’s will to restrain and guide them.

The Lord’s Supper is emblematic of our commitment to God and God’s people. It’s not primarily something we take to guarantee ourselves a better life. It’s not a product we consume to enrich ourselves as individuals. It’s an act of submission – to our Lord and to his Body, the church. Submitting to Christ means committing to a way of life. A life of self-giving and self-sacrifice. A life of choosing the interests of others over self-interest. When we partake of the body and the blood we take in the life of Christ and are taken in to his Body. We become one with him and his people.

The paradox is that we don’t lose ourselves in the process. If anything it is in our union with Christ that we truly find ourselves. Our purpose and our worth as human beings become clearer. We become more aware of who we were created to be. This is what we were created for: union with the Creator; union with each other. We find this in our communion at the Lord’s table.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow...

2011-07-12T11:54:00.000-07:00

Passage: Lord’s Day 28; Matthew 26:17-30

When I was a kid my parents went on a two-week trip without my sisters and me. The three of us stayed at the houses of different friends. My younger sister was about two at the time, and when my parents returned to pick us up I remember her responding not with tears of joy but with what seemed near indifference. She was busy playing, and was more interested in finishing her game than she was getting in the car.

Very young children have the capacity to adapt emotionally to changes in care environments. Their attachments are formed on the basis of regular contact – they bond with whomever is consistently close by. And it’s remarkable how quickly this bonding process can take effect.
In truth, adults do the same thing in varying degrees. We are shaped most profoundly by those relationships and experiences that are part of our everyday existence. We are much more attached to and influenced by the people we see regularly than we are to those we see occasionally.

Because of this, when we must by necessity be separated from loved ones, we take intentional steps to maintain a meaningful level of intimacy with them. We establish means of communicating regularly. We send letters and pictures. We leave objects that serve as constant reminders – items of clothing; personal belongings; things that connect us to the missing loved ones. These objects keep us close. They instill in us the feelings evoked by the person, and remind us of our commitment to them.

Before an extended departure from them, Jesus gives his closest loved ones a means of staying close to him. Practices and objects that instill the feelings his presence evokes, and remind them of their commitment to him. If his friends didn’t already have a relationship with him, the practices and objects would be void of meaning. But because of their rich and intense fellowship, and because of their commitment, each thanksgiving meal is an encounter. It is as though, every time they eat the bread and drink the cup, he is there with them. He is in them; they in him. They neither forget him, nor who they are with him. Though they are apart, each celebration of the sacrament draws Jesus' friends closer and closer to him.

Foolishness?

2011-06-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

Passage: 1 Corinthians 2:6-16

In Book IV of his Institutes, John Calvin talks about the word “mystery.” Calvin points out that “mystery” appears repeatedly in Paul’s letters as the Greek term musterion. This word is, in turn, rendered sacramentum in the Latin New Testament. It is from this Latin term that we derive our word, “sacraments.”

In 1 Corinthians Paul talks about “a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.” Paul goes on to talk about Christ crucified; about the wisdom of God. He describes these as “spiritual realities explained with Spirit-taught words.” Paul concludes that these things that make complete sense when interpreted by the Spirit are foolishness to those who are without the Spirit. Mysteries. Sacramentum.

When Calvin talks about the sacraments, he uses this kind of language. The sacraments convince us of and confirm that which would otherwise be mysterious; foolish. But Calvin goes on to argue that the sacraments are meaningless – foolish – unless accompanied by the Word of God. He says,
“a sacrament consists of the word and the external sign. By the word we ought to understand not one which, muttered without meaning and without faith, by its sound merely, as by a magical incantation, has the effect of consecrating the element, but one which, preached, makes us understand what the visible sign means.”
When informed by the Word and Spirit of God, the sacraments have the power to confirm our faith. They have the power to convince us that what God says is true; that God has accomplished exactly what he claims to have accomplished. The power to propel us into a life of sacrifice and service for the Savior.

Anyone without the Spirit only sees little cubes of bread. Ridiculously small cups of juice. Drops of water. Foolishness. By his Spirit God has unlocked the musterion; the divine wisdom of the means of his grace. Christ crucified; the washing of water; the taking of a holy meal. All of which signify and seal our oneness with the one who gave up his body that we might live; who poured out his blood that we might be clean. Foolishness? Mystery. Sacramentum.

Sacramental

2011-06-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

Passage: Lord’s Day 25; 1 Peter 1:1-12

Water in a bowl. Little cubes of white bread on a plate. Tiny plastic thimbles of grape juice set in the perfect-sized holes of their custom tray. Otherwise mundane objects whose presentation gives them a special significance. Earthly things that, interacted with in the right way, resonate with heaven. Sacraments.

What are the sacraments? John Calvin pontificates that they are,
“…external sign[s], by which the Lord seals on our consciences his promises of good-will toward us, in order to sustain the weakness of our faith, and we in turn testify our piety towards him, both before himself, and before angels as well as men. We may also define more briefly by calling [them] a testimony of the divine favour toward us, confirmed by an external sign, with a corresponding attestation of our faith towards Him.”
Or, more succinctly, “a visible sign of a sacred thing, or a visible form of an invisible grace.” [Institutes, Book IV, 14.1]

The Heidelberg Catechism calls each sacrament a “sign and a seal” of God’s grace. God extends the overture of his grace. By his grace God invites us into right relationship with him. We in turn perform actions that symbolize that God’s grace has taken effect in our lives. We also, by our actions, align ourselves with God’s will – we demonstrate to the world that we are good with God and good with what God is doing.

When we baptize new believers and the babies of believing parents, we together acknowledge that it is God who has drawn the person into covenant relationship. And we commit ourselves to the work God will continue to do. When we take the bread and drink the cup we testify that Jesus gave up his body and blood to atone for our sin and raise us to new life. And we declare that from this point forward we will live the new life he has given. The sacraments are our statement of belief in what God has done for us and our submission to what God will do in us.

As such, our two sacraments are the worship expression of a life that is, in every part, sacramental. Every moment of our life in Christ – every thought, word, and act – has eternal, spiritual significance. In every moment we may declare before people and before God and even the angels of heaven either that we are good with what God is doing or that we are not. In his first letter the Apostle Peter invites his church to live the sacramental life. He says,
In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Throughout each day we are given circumstances. In response we will testify to the nature of our faith. Do I believe that through Jesus I am reconciled to a gracious and merciful God? Do I believe that God is using every circumstance of my life to draw me closer? Are my thoughts, words and actions “visible signs of sacred things”? These are the questions of the sacramental life.

Who are You Calling Good?

2011-06-06T08:32:00.000-07:00

Passage: Lord’s Day 23

Few Reformed Doctrines are as offensive as the Doctrine of Total Depravity. This doctrine is touched on briefly in Q&A 60 of the Heidelberg Catechism, which states:
“…my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God's commandments and of never having kept any of them, and…I am still inclined toward all evil…”
Grievously sinned against all God’s commandments? Inclined toward all evil? We read this. And we react. Who are you calling evil?

Ironically, during his ministry on earth, Jesus asks the opposite: Who are you calling… good?
The question occurs during a conversation with a rich young man. The man is devoutly religious. He has grown up learning the Scriptures and following God’s Law. He comes to Jesus and poses the ultimate question: “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus knows the answer. But he doesn’t give it. Instead, he asks another question. A seemingly unrelated question:
Good? Who are you calling good?
Actually, what Jesus says is, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God!”

This question contains the two components of the wisdom of Jesus' response. The first has to do with Jesus’ identity. As is often the case, Jesus is having fun with his audience. Jesus doesn’t say what he says about goodness because he isn’t good, but because he is! What he asserts is true. That "no one is good but God" doesn’t preclude the possibility that Jesus is good; it implies that Jesus is God.

This leads to Jesus' second point: that the young man (along with the rest of us) doesn’t really know what we’re talking about when we use the term "good". The young man is operating under the assumption that his standing before God can be improved by his actions. That he will be rendered “good” once he’s achieved a level of performance or moral purity. Hey, I’m a good person, he thinks. Jesus says, “Who are you calling good?” Because when Jesus says “good”, he means, “good enough to be good with God.” And no person is that good. The reality is that if you use the rules as a measuring stick, you’ll fail every time. Goodness is all or nothing. One infraction renders you a lawbreaker. A rebel. Not Good. No human being is good enough at following God’s rules to be called good.

But the Law wasn’t given to make us good with God. God would have done us an infinite injustice to suggest that we had to work our way into his heart. God gives the Law to teach people how to live right – how to live the way he created us to live. God also gives the Law to point out how we should live once we’re in right relationship with him. But we can’t use the Law to get right with God. Only God can do that.

The amazing thing is that God does. We’re not good. But God is. Through Jesus God imprints us with his goodness. If you and I are in Christ, then it’s not our goodness God sees. It’s his. Who are you calling good? There’s only one, and he’s our shot at being good with God.

Pure Joy?

2011-06-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

Passage: James 1:2-16

A few years ago I helped lead a study of the Book of James. When we covered this introductory passage, one of the participants said, “Is James saying we should ask God for hardship?” At first glance it almost seems as though he is. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,” he says, “whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Pure joy. In my experience the circumstances God uses to teach me patience, wisdom, and trust are not joyous circumstances. The loss of a job. Repeated sleepless nights with a crying infant or sick child. The sustained pain of illness or injury. The uncertainty brought on by conflict in a close relationship. I would never ask for any of these.

And yet looking back I wouldn’t ask God to take them away, either. Why? Because through the discipline of perseverance God has broken me down and re-formed me again and again. Those experiences that have made me more and more the person I want to be – that is, more and more like my Lord and Savior – are painful. I wouldn’t have chosen them; I wouldn’t trade them away. This is the paradox of the life of faith.

The key to all of it is what James identifies in verse 6: trust. James says, “You must believe and not doubt.” The only thing that can turn pain into joy is trust. Trust that God is committed to completing the good work he began in you. Trust that God is at work bringing you closer to him, and bringing out in you the image you were created to bear. If you don’t trust that God’s hand is at work redeeming your struggles, then all you feel is the pain. It is trust that enables us to count it all pure joy.

Forgetting What is Behind and Straining Toward What is Ahead

2011-05-31T11:04:00.000-07:00

Passage: Philippians 3:12-21

In a recent conversation it occurred to me that we reach a turning point at which we do more looking back than looking forward. We spend much of our lives looking forward to milestones, new adventures, and uncharted territory. But then we have moments in which we realize we've experienced all the stuff we were looking forward to. Youth and energy and vitality fade. Activities that were a source of fulfillment and joy become difficult. We begin to look back with more frequency; more regret; and more longing. If we aren’t intentional we buy in to the widely held misconception that our best years have passed.

In Philippians 3 Paul says, essentially, “Don’t waste your time.” Paul isn’t talking about reminiscing, per se. He’s warning against concluding what Bryan Adams does in “The Summer of ‘69”: Those were the best days of my life. Paul says, “They weren’t!” It doesn’t matter how good your life was in the past. It doesn’t matter how bad your life feels now. If you are a believer in Christ, then you live with the promise that the best of what God has to offer is yet to come.

This is why Paul is able to write his letter to the Philippians – arguably the most positive book of the New Testament – from death row. He is free from despair in spite of his present; he is free of nostalgia and self-pity as he reflects on his past. Why? His citizenship is in heaven. And he knows that he will one day go the way of Christ. He will pass through death into an amazing new life. A life free of the suffering and sadness and struggle of this one. Paul speaks for all of us: Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

This could be a consolation prize. Or it could be the ultimate prize. It could be our motivation for weathering life’s inevitable disappointments and losses with grace and with hope. This isn’t all there is. This isn’t your one shot at happiness, success, fulfillment or true love. There is something so much better ahead. Wait for it. Hope in it. Strain for it.

Living Stones

2011-05-25T13:22:00.000-07:00

Passage: 1 Peter 2:4-10

Based on what we know of Peter’s story, this section of his first letter can be considered autobiographical. Peter is the disciple who, in spite of his flaws and failures, Jesus chose as the foundation of the church. When Peter calls the members of the church “living stones – rejected by people but chose by God and precious to him”, he’s speaking from experience. Peter isn’t the kind of guy anyone would single out as a natural leader. He’s exceptional only for his tendency to put his foot in his mouth. His actions leading up to Christ’s death mark him as anything but reliable. He knows this and yet finds himself in the remarkable position of being chosen by the Son of God to represent him to the world. To lead the world-transforming movement of Christ's followers. “Like me,” says Peter, “you’ve been chosen by God. You are precious to him. And even now he is making you into his dwelling place. A nation of priests called to be his meeting place with the world.”

God doesn’t choose us because we’re good. God chooses us because he’s good. He’s in the business of using reclaimed and flawed materials in his construction projects. You and me. This is the church. A perfect, “spiritual house” made of imperfect building blocks. It’s a work in progress. And even as God works on the whole, he’s working on each stone - stones like you and me - smoothing edges; shoring up cracks; setting us in such a way that we won’t slide out of place. Each of us is precious to God and integral to Christ’s church. Don’t underestimate the value of every living stone.

On this Rock

2011-05-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

Passage: Matthew 16:13-20; John 21:15-19

As usual, Peter has no idea what he’s getting himself into. He is a simple man from a small town in a backwater of the Roman Empire. He’s never been the kind of guy to think things through. He tends to jump first, ask questions later. His brain is often playing catchup with his mouth. Peter’s impulsivity has always gotten him into trouble. But he’s not always wrong.
Peter signed on with Jesus without really thinking about it. It just felt like the right thing to do. Peter’s had this feeling about Jesus right from the start. There’s something about Jesus that makes Peter immediately willing to give everything up to follow him. And the more time he spends with Jesus, the more he’s convinced.

One day Jesus is walking with the disciples, and he asks one of his questions. A seemingly innocent question that opens the door to an infinite conversation. “Who,” he asks, “do people say I am?” The other disciples offer up the theories they’ve heard murmured through the crowds and in the coffee shops of the towns they’ve passed through. Elijah; Moses; Jeremiah; John the Baptist. Prophet. With a twinkle in his eye Jesus says, “That’s what everyone else is saying. What about you?” Peter can’t contain himself. “You’re the Christ! Messiah! Son of the living God!” He doesn’t know why, but he’s never been more certain anything else his whole life. Jesus turns to him. “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. You didn’t figure this out on your own, did you? It’s actually been revealed to you by my Father – by God himself. I think I’ll start calling you Peter – the Rock! On this rock I will build my church!” The other disciples laugh. Peter himself doesn’t know what to make of this.

Jesus smiles, but he’s not joking. As he says it, his eyes glisten and there’s a hint of sadness in his voice. Jesus knows the structural flaws in this foundation he’s chosen. He knows the ways this rock will shift and buckle before the building even begins. Jesus also knows what it will cost his friend to become the foundation of his church.Everything.

And what was Jesus thinking? Didn’t he know that when you build on a lopsided and shaky foundation you get a lopsided and shaky building? Why Peter? And what does it say about the church Jesus built that Peter was the first stone?
The church is infused with the character of the Rock. We aren’t always much to look at. We’re rough around the edges. We speak and act without always thinking everything through, and it gets us into trouble. But the Spirit has spoken to depths of our hearts and testifies again and again: He is the Christ, the Son of God. Follow him because no matter the cost, it's worth it!

We follow, never knowing where he will lead. We follow because we know that it’s true and that he is the hope of the world. Like Peter we are set in place side by side with a Rock that will not move and that cannot be shaken. The church is such a beautiful thing. Imperfect building materials somehow set perfectly in place by a master builder. Designed to stand for eternity and withstand the very powers of death and hell. Let yourself be shaped and molded and set in place by its builder and Lord.

...That the LORD's People Were All Prophets

2011-05-18T07:56:00.000-07:00

Passage: Numbers 11:16-29

Is the Holy Spirit a New Testament phenomenon? Christians often assume that the biblical underpinnings of our doctrine of the Trinity – that is, our conviction that the God of the Bible is one God in three persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) – are found exclusively in the New Testament. There’s no Jesus in the Old Testament, is there? Certainly there’s no distinction amongst the persons of God revealed in the Old Testament. Is there?

As a matter of fact there are references to all three persons of the Trinity throughout the Old Testament. The God of the Bible is a God who is eternally one in three. The difference is that when Jesus the Son enters the world he paints a more complete picture of the God of whom people had only caught glimpses before. Jesus is the complete picture of God the Son; and Jesus teaches explicitly about God the Spirit. The Spirit, in turn, becomes an experienced reality for Jesus’ disciples at Pentecost and following. Veiled references to the three persons of the Trinity become clear when viewed through the lens of God's revelation through Jesus Christ.

There are Old Testament passages, like Numbers 11, that describe the reality of the Spirit in nearly Pentecostal terms. In this passage, God commands Moses to set aside a special group of people who will help bear the burden of leading the Israelites. When these “seventy elders” are selected, “the power of [God’s] Spirit rests on them” and they “prophesy”. They experience something very similar to that which the apostles experience at Pentecost. There are two significant differences. First, the Spirit doesn’t remain with them in a lasting capacity; Second, the Spirit is given only to this select group within God’s people. When Joshua, Moses’ right-hand man expresses concern about the selective nature of the Spirit’s manifestation, Moses says this remarkable thing:
“Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!”

It’s as though Moses foresees that which God has in mind all along: the day on which God’s Spirit is given to all his people. The day on which they all become prophets; priests; kings. In fact that day has come. The Spirit that descends and indwells in moderation pre-Christ is poured out in abundance at Pentecost. All who believe in God the Son are inhabited by God the Spirit. By the Spirit we are given, as Peter puts it, “the words of life.” Moses’ wish came true: the Lord’s people are all prophets. What a responsibility…and what a gift.

You Who Are Blessed By My Father

2011-05-11T07:29:00.000-07:00

Passage: Matthew 25:31-46

Jesus’ treatment of Judgment Day in Matthew 25 follows closely on the heels of his explanation of the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew 22. As discussed here, Jesus uses the Parable of the Wedding Banquet to teach that the Kingdom of Heaven has a distinct ethic. Part of accepting God’s invitation to join the celebration that is his Kingdom is embracing the clothing, or ethic, of that Kingdom. In Matthew 25 Jesus fleshes out that ethic.

To our surprise, it’s not primarily an ethic of religious observance or moral purity. It’s the ethic of generosity. The ethic of a lifelong commitment to communing with people in need and sharing that which you’ve been given in abundance. Jesus identifies six kinds of people: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the inadequately clothed, the sick, and the imprisoned. These types represent those who, due to their need or class, have been pushed to the margins of his culture. In this teaching Jesus confronts Old Testament-style injustice – that is, the dehumanization of some people due to the uneven distribution of the necessities of life. In a manner consistent with God’s commands to the nation of Israel, Jesus addresses far more than economic inequity. He more broadly invites his listeners to participate in shalom – life the way it was meant to be. God didn’t create a world in which some people have enough to eat and others don’t. In which some people have safe, comfortable homes and others don’t. In which some are isolated by cells or broken bodies. In which some spend their days and nights alone and unknown. Jesus addresses a world that has fallen out of order. And he invites people to begin to impose God’s good order on their disordered world– a relationship; a household; a neighborhood; a city at a time. Jesus invites us to start right now.

In fact, Jesus tells us that if we want to be part of what he’s about, we have to start living shalom. This is an inextricable part of his Gospel – for us and for the world. Jesus saves us from an eternity without God. But that eternity starts now. Jesus says, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” And then he adds, “No one comes to me except through them.” Open your eyes and ears. Look for people who need the food, shelter, security, friendship and love you have in overabundance. Share it. Invite them into the abundant life you enjoy. When you do you will meet the Savior. And you, and they, will learn what it is to be blessed by the Father.

Am I Invited or Not?

2011-05-10T13:41:00.000-07:00

Passage: Matthew 22:1-14

A photo from one of my older sister’s childhood birthdays includes a kid who wasn’t invited. When one of my sister’s friends was being dropped off, the girl’s older sister was so upset that a party was going on without her that she threw a tantrum. I assume my parents, wanting to spare the other parents any extra grief, said it was okay to leave both daughters. I don’t remember many of the details; just the tantrum and the uninvited guest, smiling brightly in all the pictures. In Matthew 22 Jesus compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a party. And according to the story, the host of this party has the opposite problem my sister did. His guests don’t show up. The wedding day rolls around. The reception begins. And the tables are empty. The host is creative, however. He sends his servants out and they haul in anyone and everyone they find. They pack the reception hall, and it’s a party.

Jesus’ parable is compelling. It’s nice to think of Heaven as a party rather than an ethereal choir rehearsal (no offense to those of us who like choir rehearsals). It’s refreshing to think of God filling Heaven in creative and persistent ways. And it’s gratifying to know that there might be a place at God’s eternal party for ordinary people like you and me.

However, the Heavenly DJ’s needle comes to a screeching halt at the conclusion of the parable. The party’s in full swing when the host (a.k.a. God the Father – bear in mind, this is the host who just went to great lengths to pull people in from the bus stops and alleys to join his party) encounters a guest who is inappropriately dressed. He collars this guest and says, “How’d you get in looking like that?” The guest stammers something incoherent, to which the host responds, “Tie him up and throw him out.” A shocking about-face for someone who seemed so eager to get people to show up in the first place. If the whole story is about how people end up in Heaven, how do we interpret this last twist that Matthew includes?

It seems as though Jesus is saying that even after the final, “Judgment Day” cut there are still those who are going to get weeded out. This isn’t inconceivable, though it’s inconsistent with Jesus’ other teachings about the ultimate separation of the righteous and the wicked (see Matthew 25:31-46). Another way to read it is thus: When Jesus talks about the Kingdom of Heaven, he’s referring to a reality that is present as well as future. He addresses an audience that has entrenched ways of thinking about who belongs in the company of God and who doesn’t. Jesus debunks the idea that religious piety and moral purity are prerequisites for God’s invitation. God even now sends his servants to the “highways and byways” inviting people in.

That being said, responding to God’s invitation means accepting a new set of clothes. Removing the trappings of your life before, and putting on party clothes. This is a metaphor that wouldn’t have been lost on Jesus’ first century audience, who were familiar with the custom of wedding hosts providing garments for those coming in to the banquet. Offered the new clothes, it would only be fitting to put them on. It would be an offense to one’s host to refuse. Jesus points out that not everyone responds to God’s invitation in the first place. Then he adds that there are many who, though compelled by the buffet table, don’t care for the party clothes. Many who want God’s love and mercy don’t want their lives to be reshaped in response to them. The way people respond to God’s Kingdom ethics now is indicative of the way they will posture themselves toward God for eternity. Life in the Kingdom follows an ethic. Our relationship with God, like any other intimate relationship, is shaped by rules. If you want to join the party, you put on the clothes.

Flesh and Bones

2011-05-05T07:19:00.000-07:00

Passage: Luke 24:36-53

The film Ghost tells the story of a man who is stuck on earth as a disembodied spirit. He has been murdered, and because his life ended prematurely he is unable to “move on.” He lingers over his home and his wife until he finds closure.

This impression of the afterlife has been repeated so often in human art and literature that it is imbedded in our minds and we take it for granted as true. Even Bible-believing Christians think that when we die we become disembodied spirits; some even think we come back as ghosts. In fact, none of this is supported by the truth of Scripture.

We are provided a preview of the afterlife in Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascension. Luke’s descriptions of both are helpful. In Luke 24 the resurrected Jesus appears to his disciples. They, like many today might be, are initially terrified because they think Jesus is a ghost. Jesus says, “I don’t believe in ghosts, and neither should you. Here, touch me! Here, give me that filet-o-fish!” He takes a bite. He is, it turns out, not a ghost. Jesus then proceeds to pass from earth to heaven not as a disembodied spirit, but in his very flesh. Earlier Jesus told his disciples that he is going ahead to prepare a place for them (John 14:1-4). The Apostles, most notably Paul, go on to recognize that Jesus is the “firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). In other words, where Christ went first, all those who are in Christ will follow. Our future is not to linger over the earth as ghosts, nor is it to float around in a cloudy heaven as disembodied spirits. We will enter glory as robustly embodied human beings. And, raised to life in a “new heaven and a new earth,” we can expect to enjoy in eternity the kind of existence we were meant to live here. A life of unimpeded communion with each other and with God; a life of exploring and learning, creating and stewarding; an abundant life to which the richness of this life can’t begin to compare. Jesus’ Ascension is the guarantee of that glorious passage awaiting each of us.

The God of All Comfort

2011-05-05T06:54:00.000-07:00

Passage: 2 Corinthians 1:3-11; Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 1

This week a lot of press has been devoted to Osama Bin Laden’s death. American Christians have engaged in debate about the significance of this event and, in particular, the appropriateness of celebrating it. Many have joined friends and neighbors as they dance in the streets. Many have thanked God that “justice has been done”; “that we’re finally safe.” Many others have cautioned against celebrating any human death, even that of a political enemy. Who’s right?

Perhaps we should start by dealing with another question – the question at the very heart of the Christian faith. It’s articulated at the very beginning of the Heidelberg Catechism: What is your only comfort in life and in death?
Your reaction to the threat of Osama Bin Laden, and the removal thereof, says something about your response to this question. If you find your comfort in military might, you lose sleep knowing there’s an Osama running in free in the world. If you find your comfort in political stability, you lose sleep knowing there are human organizations bent on destabilizing your government. If you find your comfort in wealth and prosperity, you lose sleep thinking knowing another attack could level an already faltering economy. If these are the places you find comfort, you demand and celebrate the elimination of any human being that represents a threat.

But what if your comfort is found in someone else? Someone from whose love and abiding presence you can never be separated? The Apostle Paul begins his second letter to the Corinthians with this statement:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many. (2 Corinthians 1:3-11, NIV)

We belong, body and soul, in life and in death to our faithful Savior Jesus Christ. Because of him we live with the assurance that God is always with us and for us. God is our protector and provider. We also acknowledge that even now we’re living not for the fleeting stuff of this broken world, but the enduring promise of life in eternity with God. The stuff we fight and kill to protect is stuff we will eventually lose anyway. The stuff that matters most can never be taken from us. Not by any terrorist attack, natural disaster, or financial meltdown. We can, right now, stop living in fear. We need not fear the next Bin Laden; the next earthquake; the next recession. Why? Because we belong to the God of all comfort.

The Ascension

2011-05-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

Passage: John 14:15-31; John 16:5-16

In The Good News We Almost Forgot, Kevin deYoung points out that the Ascension is one of those doctrines we ignore most of the time. Even though we have an annual service devoted to the Ascension, it’s rarely enough to drive home the meaning and significance thereof. We just don’t give it much thought.
There are good reasons why both the Gospel writer Luke, the authors of the earliest Christian creeds, and the writers of the Catechism highlight the Ascension along with every other aspect of Jesus’ life and ministry. It is as essential to our understanding of God’s redemptive work in Christ as anything else Jesus says and does on our behalf.

Here’s Luke’s account of the Ascension from Acts:
He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:7-11)
From these few sentences we derive a wealth of information. We learn:
-That Jesus is bodily in heaven;
-That in exchange for Jesus’ bodily presence his disciples will receive his Spirit;
-That Jesus will one day return from heaven.
It is significant that Jesus himself predicts this event in two passages from John’s Gospel. In John 14 Jesus tells the disciples that he is leaving, but that he will not “leave them as orphans” – that he will send them the “Counselor” (Greek parakletos), the Holy Spirit. In John 16 Jesus says that unless he leaves, the Holy Spirit won’t come to the disciples. This is a trade they’ll have to live with. Jesus also says that he is “going to the Father” and that “in a little while” the disciples won’t see him, but then “after a little while” they will. This is what the heavenly messengers in Acts are talking about. Jesus has returned to heaven, just as he said he would; that being said, he will one day come back from heaven, too.

What this all means is that while Jesus, our God in the flesh, is in heaven, God the Spirit is with us all the time. We have the gift of his constant presence here and now. We have the gift of a human advocate in the throne room of heaven. And we have the promise of a reunion with our Savior, who will one day welcome us into the very presence of God. Jesus’ ministry of reconciliation is a ministry of going with us and going before us. Jesus takes on flesh and enters our world to be with us. Jesus passes through death for us. Jesus rises to new life and enters heaven ahead of us, paving the way for us to follow. The Ascension is one more inevitable, essential step in the process by which Jesus reconciles us to God.

Resurrection, Part 3

2011-04-29T07:23:00.000-07:00

Passage: 1 Corinthians 15:35-58

Paul’s concluding section on the resurrection deals with the resurrection body itself. Our understanding of resurrection has been (unfortunately) informed by centuries’ worth of folklore about reanimated and revivified bodies. When we think of the resurrection of the body we picture the bodies we’ve buried in the ground emerging as we last saw them – the old body simply awakened and given new life. This leads to all kinds of questions about what to do with the bodies of our deceased loved ones and what kinds of instructions to leave regarding our remains. What about people whose bodies have been horribly disfigured or even obliterated in death? What about those who have gone through elaborate embalming procedures? What about those who have been cremated? If you’re going to come back with the body you had when you left, what’s the best way to ensure the most attractive, or at least intact, afterlife?

To those of us who lose sleep over these questions (maybe you hadn’t until today), Paul says, “Don’t be silly!” Our reference point is Jesus. Although we’re not provided much by way of a metaphysical explanation of his resurrection, we’re given a few clues that Paul, in turn, fleshes out. What we know about the resurrected Jesus is that he has a new body. The Gospels report that those of Jesus’ friends who saw him didn’t immediately recognize him. This suggests that although Jesus is Jesus, his resurrection body isn’t exactly like the one he died in. Paul extrapolates to say that Jesus died in a body that was flawed, made of the stuff of earth, and perishable; he was raised in a body that is perfect, made of the stuff of heaven, and imperishable.

Paul uses the metaphor of seeds and planting to explain. He says, “You put a seed in the ground. The essence of the seed emerges later. But it’s new – unrecognizable as the seed that was planted. In fact, in the process of planting, germination, and growth to new life the seed as we know it is completely consumed. Yet the essence of the seed comes to life as the new plant. So it is with us, death, and resurrection. Old body goes into the ground. The essence of who you are comes to expression in something new, even as the old is utterly consumed.”

The promise of the resurrection takes the fear out of life and the sting out of death. In Christ the life we live now is the life we will live for eternity. Death is not the end of your best life but your passage into it. Be encouraged. As Paul says, “Stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

Resurrection, Part 2

2011-04-28T06:06:00.000-07:00

Passage: 1 Corinthians 15:12-34

Paul continues his discourse on the resurrection by placing the resurrection at the center of true faith. It’s as though Paul addresses ahead of time an argument that has been raised ever since: “Did the Resurrection really happen? And does it really matter whether it did?” Throughout the history of the church there have been “Christians” who claim that it’s enough to believe in Jesus’ resurrection as a “spiritual” resurrection (Jesus rose in spirit but not in body) or a “symbolic” resurrection (Jesus lives on in his teaching and the faith of his followers). These arguments are based on the presupposition that bodily resurrection is impossible.

Paul argues that bodily resurrection is at the heart of the Christian faith. He says, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” The Christian faith is effective not as a framework for moral behavior or as a means to your best life here and now. The Christian faith is a life-transforming belief in resurrection – the first resurrection of Jesus as a guarantee of the resurrection of all those who believe in him. Paul claims that our only lasting hope is the promise that there is life beyond the grave. Without the resurrection there is only this life – a life fraught with the pain of the body, the despair of the soul, and the fear of death. The promise of the resurrection gives us patience for the pain, hope in place of despair, and courage in the face of death. It sets us free to live fully now, and guarantees a fuller life in eternity than any we could achieve here. Paul concludes this section with an exhortation to live for eternity rather than settle for the impermanent pleasures of the now. The promise of the resurrection gives us what we need to hold out for that better life that is still to come.

Resurrection, Part 1

2011-04-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

Passage: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

In 1 Corinthians 15 the Apostle Paul teaches intensively on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is significant that Paul begins not with a treatise on the reality of the resurrection (how it happened and why you should believe) but with a personal testimony of the resurrection’s transformative power. Paul says, “I am a changed man because I met the risen Lord Jesus.” He says, “Jesus died for our sins; he was buried; he was raised after three days (according to the Scriptures!); he then appeared to the Twelve disciples, then to a larger group of his other followers. Finally he appeared to me.” Paul adds that he is “as one abnormally born” and “the least of the apostles”, having received the revelation of Jesus Christ later than everyone else. Rather than feel disenfranchised by this, however, Paul is overjoyed. Why? Because even though he didn’t meet Jesus during the Savior’s life on earth, he still got to meet the Savior. Better late than never. And it could have been never. Paul had been an enemy of Jesus and a persecutor of the church. He didn’t deserve to be counted among Jesus’ friends. But Jesus came back for Paul, revealed himself as risen Lord, and saved his life. Paul testifies to the power of the resurrection at work in his own life – “I once was lost, but now am found; was blind but now I see!”

Paul includes his listeners – then and now – among those “abnormally born.” We didn’t meet Jesus face-to-face. But we have received the Good News of the resurrection. We have been included as recipients of all the benefits thereof. Our sins died with Jesus. With Jesus we are raised to new life. By the grace of God we have a share in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Hell

2011-04-21T09:32:00.000-07:00

Passage: Q&A 44

Q. Why does the creed add, "He descended to hell"?
A. To assure me in times of personal crisis and temptation that Christ my Lord, by suffering unspeakable anguish, pain, and terror of soul, especially on the cross but also earlier, has delivered me from the anguish and torment of hell.

This is one of the most difficult passages of the Heidelberg Catechism. It raises a bunch of questions/dilemmas that both confound our logic and challenge our assumptions about Hell itself. Many have responded by simply calling for the removal of this clause from the Apostle’s Creed and Catechism; or perhaps changing the language to say “the grave” rather than “Hell”. There are good reasons for keeping it the way it is.

Problems arise when we think of Hell as a geographical location rather than a state of being. Hell is referred to repeatedly in the New Testament. However, the writers of the New Testament (and Jesus himself) use terms and descriptors that are either familiar to the culture of the day or closest approximations of an indescribable reality. Centuries of literal interpretation and creative license have given us literary and artistic depictions of Hell that are impositions on what the Bible actually says about it.

An illustration is Jesus’ parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). Here Jesus tells a story that touches on the destination of those who have ignored God’s Word (or Law and Prophets). In it, the condemned rich man experiences torment; burning; and an unbridgeable chasm between him and Heaven. Jesus’ imagery evokes an actual place. But it could also describe a state of being – the state of being irrevocably removed from the presence of God.

Human beings were created to live in intimate fellowship with God the Creator. Although the fall into sin resulted in a barrier that limits our sense of connectedness with God, all living people live in a world whose every square inch is governed and inhabited by God. In short, while alive all people experience some benefit of God’s presence and God’s grace – even in the midst of suffering and hardship. This means that while alive any person can appeal to God’s grace and know the connection with God for which we were created.

The worst thing any person can experience is the severance of this connection. A person removed from God (the ruler of Creation and the source of life) would experience unparalleled alienation and the disintegration of body and soul - the existential equivalent of being consumed by fire. This is Hell. Can a person experience “Hell on earth”? No, because on this side of the grave every person is, cognizant of it or not, in the presence of God.

There’s one exception: Jesus. When Jesus cried out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he was experiencing the one thing you and I should never have to: Hell. Utter separation from God the Father. He descended not to a place, but a state – the state of being abandoned by God. If you have embraced Jesus as Savior, then Hell does not exist for you. You will never know what it’s like to be forsaken by God. He is now, and will always be, with you. Jesus went to Hell so you and I would never have to.

No Condemnation

2011-04-18T07:37:00.000-07:00

Passage: Romans 8:1-17 (ESV)

In the Book of Romans, the Apostle Paul spends a great deal of time highlighting the “before and after” picture of our life in Jesus Christ. Throughout the book he uses the metaphors of slavery and freedom. “Before we met Jesus,” says Paul, “we were all slaves. Jesus set us free.” But free from what, exactly?

In Romans 8 Paul spells it out. We are, by nature, slaves to the flesh. The Greek word Paul uses is sarx. The NIV (which our church uses in worship) translates sarx “sinful nature”. Although this interpretation draws out one facet of Paul’s argument, it is misleading. Sarx is best understood within this context translated, simply, “flesh”. Paul uses the term to refer to our created, flesh-and-blood human nature. Paul argues that the sarx leads us into sin. But he does not contend that the flesh is intrinsically sinful or evil.

Our flesh, as it turns out, is not bad. It’s part of our God-given, good nature. There are long-standing Christian traditions that have treated any urge, need, or pleasure of the body as sinful. Members of those traditions believe that to be truly spiritual you have to avoid anything enjoyable – even deny yourself the enjoyment of anything physical. God gave us the gift of bodies that enjoy; furthermore he gave us the capacity to feel pleasure when our life-sustaining needs are satisfied.

That being said, our flesh clearly gets us into trouble. In Romans 8 Paul draws an all-important distinction between flesh and Spirit. Paul addresses the church, a community of people who have declared their allegiance to Jesus Christ. So doing, they have become hosts of Christ’s Spirit – the Holy Spirit lives in their hearts. “If this is you,” says Paul, “you’re no longer driven by your flesh. Your flesh no longer dictates your actions. You’re driven by the Spirit. You are set free to make decisions not based on your every urge and instinct, but based on the impulses of the Spirit of God.” This is an essential part of the Good News.

Why? Anyone who has lived with an addiction or struggled to kick an unhealthy habit can answer this question. If we don’t have a competing driving force, our flesh quickly masters us. We become slaves to our physical appetites. And whereas indulging our senses is fun for awhile, it doesn’t take long to run its course. There comes a point at which bingeing stops being pleasurable. But if your flesh has taken over, you can’t stop. The pursuit of pleasure becomes a drab treadmill from which you “can’t get no satisfaction” and you can’t get no freedom. Over time it starts to kill you – physically and spiritually. Slavery to your flesh is a form of God’s condemnation of sin. Paul mentions in Romans 1 that God has judged people by "giving them over to their flesh." This is slavery. The end result of a lifetime of slavery is ultimate condemnation – God simply abandons those who have given themselves to the flesh.

But there’s hope. Paul says, “Jesus Christ took on our flesh. He died on our behalf. When he rose to new life, he set us free from sin.” In fact Paul says Christ condemned sin in the flesh. When Jesus rose from the grave, he had new flesh. "If you’re in Christ," says Paul, "you have new flesh, too." Flesh that no longer gives itself to every urge, but is aligned with the will of God. Guided by the Spirit, our needs, urges and desires find their proper place and come to proper expression. Far from being condemned, our flesh is redeemed. Made what God intended it to be. Within the context of right relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, our flesh takes its rightful place. It steps out of the driver’s seat and allows itself to be controlled and guided by the Spirit of God.

Gethsemane

2011-04-13T10:11:00.000-07:00

Passage: Matthew 26:31-44

One great source of Jesus’ earthly suffering is the tension between his two natures. Jesus is human, clothed in flesh that constantly whispers to him of comfort and self-preservation. Jesus is divine, embodying a will that is inextricable from that of God the Father. It’s the will of the Father that birthed the Son into human flesh and human space. And it’s the will of the Father that draws Jesus inexorably to the cross.

At Gethsemane Jesus’ flesh cries out for some alternative. He knows that God’s eternal redemption plan leads here. His heart beats with love for a race whose only hope is this course. Yet his flesh anticipates the whip; the thorns; the nails. And everything in him screams “No!” Everything, that is, but the thing that brought him here. Here to the garden. Here to the cross; to the grave; to the terrible separation that seals once and for all the promise of salvation. The very will of the Father, who so loved the world that he gave his only Son.

Suffered

2011-04-11T11:14:00.000-07:00

Passage: Lord's Day 15

For the past two months I’ve suffered with tennis elbow (no, I don’t play tennis, I just have the elbow). It’s surprisingly painful, and affects almost every movement of my arm – from opening doors to brushing teeth to pouring milk. It’s no fun having persistent physical pain. Not that I can complain. To this point I’ve lived a relatively pain-free life. I’ve enjoyed the ability to engage in a lot of physical activity. I’ve been spared any serious illness. I’ve had it pretty good.
But I’m getting older (why didn’t anyone tell me this was going to happen?). My body doesn’t bounce back the way it did when I was 21. Repetitive activities like shoveling snow and lifting small children take their toll. My body hurts.

In Lord’s Day 15 the Heidelberg Catechism deals with Jesus’ suffering. Lord’s Day 15 argues that Jesus suffered not only on the cross (which we take as a given) but throughout his life on earth. This may seem like hyperbole. Did Jesus really suffer “during his whole life”? Well, let’s think about it. Life begins with the pain of being thrust into light and noise and cold after enjoying the safe haven of the womb. This is followed by the pain of being handled by much bigger people who aren’t always as gentle as they could be. The pain of emerging teeth; skinned knees and bitten lips. Growing pains. Physical and emotional bruises from playmates and peers. Being born into human flesh and growing up in human space, God subjected himself to pain. Jesus suffered in ways that, prior to the incarnation, God had known only vicariously. Jesus’ suffering began at birth and reached its climax on the cross. Jesus suffered with us by partaking of our full humanity before he suffered for us as the sacrifice for our sin.

Today I Have Become Your Father

2011-04-07T06:53:00.000-07:00

Passage: Acts 13:16-33

In Acts 13 the Apostle Paul addresses a synagogue in Antioch. His audience is a mixed crowd of Jews and Gentiles, all of whom believe in the God of Israel. Paul’s intent is to convince them that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God’s covenant promises to Israel – to point out the ways their scriptures come to perfect expression in Jesus. In this relatively short speech Paul highlights God’s faithfulness to his people; their struggles to remain faithful to God; and God’s persistent, remedial action in response to his people’s need for reconciliation. Paul traces the history of God’s intervention: first through miraculous acts; then through God-fearing kings; next through prophets, and finally through Jesus. Paul contrasts the temporal efficacy of God’s prior interventions with the ultimate efficacy of Jesus’ intervention when he cites John the Baptist. John, whom Jesus called “the greatest of the prophets” – God’s greatest human representative to date – said of Jesus, “I’m unworthy to untie his sandals.” John, a person of incomparable godliness, says he’s not even close to being in Jesus’ league. Jesus is a person like no other. He is, as Paul concludes, the Son of God. Not a son by association; not a son in the way that all people are “God’s children.” Jesus is the Son by virtue of divine parentage. Jesus is a breed apart – not the offspring of two human parents, but the offspring of a human mom and a divine dad. This, says Paul, is what makes Jesus exactly what humanity needs. A sacrifice sufficient for our sins; a Savior selected and sent by God; a champion powerful enough to defeat death. No mere human could do all this. Yet only a human could be what Jesus is for us: perfect priest; legitimate representative; surrogate sacrifice. As do the other Apostles, Paul recognizes Jesus' divine-human parenthood as an inextricable and integral part of God’s plan of redemption.

Conceived

2011-04-05T06:15:00.000-07:00

Passage: Lord's Day 14

One of my favorite movies is The Princess Bride, featuring the astounding cast of Peter Falk, (a very young) Fred Savage, (then unknown) Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Billy Crystal, and the late, great Andre the Giant. The film is a story within a story. A young boy is home sick, and his grandpa comes to entertain him for the day. He shows up with a book (“What’s that, Grandpa?” “When I was a boy, television was called ‘books’!”). Grandpa begins reading the story. But no sooner has he launched in than his precocious audience of one interjects. The narrative of the story, brought to life on screen, is regularly interrupted by the skeptical boy’s questions. At a certain point the Grandpa says, “Well, time for a break. You’re obviously more interested in answers than listening to the story.”

There are numerous points at which skeptics interrupt the Gospel story. They cut off the narrator saying, “That couldn’t have happened; Jesus couldn’t have said that; those events couldn’t possibly have happened in that sequence.” The interruptions start with the first chapter of three of the Gospels (Matthew, Luke and John), each of which make the claim that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit of God, and born of a virgin woman. Critics of the Christian faith, and believers of a more rationalist bent, argue that this is a part of the story that’s simply unbelievable. The accounts of the divine conception and virgin birth must use metaphorical or symbolic language. The Gospel writers perhaps incorporated a mythic flourish to stress Jesus’ unique nature and divine calling. Anybody with half a brain knows that babies – even very special babies – aren’t born that way.

When you filter the facts of the Gospel through a skeptic's lens, you miss the story. It’s exceedingly difficult to draw the line regarding what’s plausible and what isn’t. Western post-Enlightenment readers balk at the apparent breaches of the laws of science that the Gospel writers report. Any student of Jewish religion and history might disbelieve the claims Jesus (a widely accepted rabbi in his day) is said to have made about himself and the Law of God. Those familiar with the gender politics of the 1st century middle east would consider the reports of Jesus’ dealings with women preposterous, or at least exaggerated. You could analyze the Gospels to death (people do, and will continue to do so until the Second Coming). If you accommodated the objections of every critical camp you’d have nothing left. It all, at best, strains credibility.

Instead, you could take the story as a whole. You could accept that the Gospel writers are reporting what they heard and saw and pieced together from other eyewitness accounts. You could allow, for the moment, that the whole story is miraculous. You could remember that this is, indeed, the point. The Gospel is the story of the Creator and Ruler of the Universe taking on human flesh. Choosing birth and infancy; choosing the same “growing up” process; choosing the same aches, pains and vulnerabilities we experience as the means by which he reestablished intimacy with us. It’s the story of him standing in and taking the punishment we deserve: utter alienation from God; physical and spiritual death. Him rising from the grave, and returning to heaven to be our human mediator there. The divine conception of Jesus is just one of the events in his story of our perfect redemption. At every turn we have to decide: Will I let the details turn me off, or will I allow the story to transform my life? The first detail of Jesus’ story is a detail so essential that the Gospel writers unapologetically present it with all the rest. If you’re going to live with any part of the story, you have to live with this part too.

Suffering for the Right Reasons

2011-03-30T06:30:00.000-07:00

Passage: 1 Peter 4:14-19

When we encounter hardship or suffering, we tend to seek some explanation. As it turns out the explanations we come up with intuitively are often misguided. We conclude that we’re suffering at the hands of unjust people or an unjust cosmos; we conclude that we’re suffering at the hands of angry God. Either way we decide that we’re being treated unfairly and that if God loved us he’d make it stop.

In his first letter to the church, Peter tells us that suffering is inevitable. And he goes on to caution Christians not to suffer for the wrong reasons. The wrong reason, says Peter, is suffering the consequences of contravening God’s Law. If you’re living your life in ignorance, or willful disobedience, of God’s Law, you’ll suffer. Not because God is singling you out and punishing you. But because God created the world to work a certain way, and your resistance to it is creating disorder around you. You violate God’s Law, and things will fall apart. You’ll suffer. Peter says, “Make sure this isn’t why you’re having a hard time.”

That being said, Peter doesn’t claim that if you’re doing everything right you’re not going to suffer. On the contrary, he agrees with his fellow apostles that if you’re living the Christian life, suffering is part of the package. Why? Because you’re aligning yourself with Christ, who suffered profoundly. Ours is a world flawed by sin and embroiled in rebellion against God. Those who by their words and actions live as God’s allies will face inevitable resistance. A world that is comfortable in its opposition to God will want to silence and shun any of God’s human representatives.
Peter tells his church to take stock. To assess how they’re suffering and why. And to make sure they’re suffering not because of their resistance to God but because of their kinship with Christ.

Your Family Tree

2011-03-28T08:03:00.000-07:00

Passage: Matthew 1:1-17

Most of the Bible readers I know roll their eyes when they get to another genealogy. After all, the Old and New Testaments are full of lists of different kinds. What’s another list of names? It’s tempting to skip over passages like Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus in order to get to the interesting stuff.

But what if there was interesting stuff in the genealogy? It’s not for no reason that Matthew begins his account of the Son of God the way he does. And as a matter of fact Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus doesn’t just contain some interesting tidbits. In its 17 short verses Matthew summarizes God’s work in the Old Testament and sets the stage for the Gospel.
In the first of his two-volume commentary on Matthew, Frederick Dale Bruner draws the following insights from the genealogy of Jesus:

First, it consists of three sets of fourteen generations. The first captures the upward, hopeful trajectory of Israel's history from the time of Abraham to the reign of King David; the second details the downward spiral of God’s people from the reign of Solomon to the Babylonian exile; the third traces their hopeful climb from exile to the arrival of the Messiah.
Second, it includes three sets of surprises: the inclusion of four women in the first 14 generations; four name alterations in the second 14; and the addition of a fifth woman and fifth alteration in the third 14.

The four women in the first section are:

Tamar (who bore a forebear of Jesus through an illegitimate union with her father-in-law. Who needs reality TV?);
Rahab (former prostitute and pagan adopted into the nation of Israel after God destroyed her city);
Ruth (descendant of Lot, Moabitess, outsider);
Bathsheba (who isn’t even named directly because of the tawdry details of her part of the story).

The significance? Grace. God redeems rejects; sinners, and even events that seem only to be tragic mistakes. God takes them and grafts them into the crowning achievement of his grace.

The four alterations of the second section are:

changing the name of the king, Asa, to that of the psalmist Asaph;
omitting the kings Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah (who should be included, historically speaking, after Joram);
changing the name of the king, Amon, to that of the prophet, Amos;
omitting Jehoiakim just before Jeconiah.

Bruner argues that these subtle changes and omissions are intentional on Matthew’s part (some commentators say they were errors; the NIV even “corrects” the spellings of Asa and Amon!). Matthew removes the names of kings from the list to signify God’s judgment on those kings (with the additional benefit of shaving his list down to a nice, round, 14 names). Their rebellion and corruption were so great the Gospel writer strikes them from the lineage of the Savior. God’s judgment culminates in the exile, which rounds out this section of 14 generations.

The final section includes an additional woman (Mary, mother of Jesus) and an additional omission (the name of a human father for Jesus). Here Matthew highlights again God’s grace in the selection of Mary to give birth to the Savior, while subtly establishing that Jesus was conceived not by a human couple but by the Spirit of God.

As adoptees into the family of God through Jesus Christ, we accept Matthew’s genealogy as our family tree. Like the four unexpected additions in the first section, we are flawed outsiders who nonetheless are given an important place. In the four omissions of the second section we are cautioned to live lives that reflect our privileged status as God’s adopted children. In the third section we are introduced to the means of adoption, our one and only Savior.
And you thought it was just a list of names…

The Servant of the LORD

2011-03-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

Passage: Isaiah 42:1-9

The “Servant of the LORD” is a mysterious figure in the Book of Isaiah. Commentators disagree on the identity of this servant. Some claim that he is an unnamed king of Israel. Some claim that he is one of the prophets – perhaps even Isaiah himself. Others argue that the “Servant of the LORD” is a euphemism for God’s entire chosen people. Most commentators agree that when Isaiah’s words regarding the “Servant of the LORD” are taken as a whole, they describe no single figure found in Hebrew history or literature. Isaiah’s words suggest, perhaps, one who is yet to come.

And Isaiah’s words carry immense promise. The promise is that God will send someone who will bring justice to every corner of the earth. The promise is that this one who has been specially commissioned and sent by God will bring healing; wisdom; freedom; and peace. That he will usher in a new era in which God’s good order will be re-established. That being said, the Servant of the LORD won’t use force – not the violence, coercion and oppression on which human governments rely far too often. He will change the world without raising his voice; without breaking those who are already bruised; without snuffing out those in whom the spark of life barely smolders. He comes to heal the broken; lift the downtrodden; fan into flame those who have all but given up. Wouldn’t it be great if this Servant of the LORD was already here?

This Changes Everything

2011-03-21T09:12:00.000-07:00

Passage: Luke 3:1-22

Our state’s new governor has come under some criticism lately. He ran for office on a platform of commonsense spending cuts and fiscal responsibility. And he was elected based on the promise that he’d turn our financially floundering state around. Everyone who voted for him wanted things to change – for the better, of course. Well, in order to change things, you have to change things. No matter the reasons for the change, and no matter how well-intentioned the specific changes, someone’s going to be unhappy. The new governor has proposed some big changes. And a lot of people are unhappy.

John the Baptist arrives on the scene in Luke 3. It’s Roman-occupied Palestine in the first century. John’s people – the remnant of God’s chosen people, the Israelites – are hoping for change. They’ve lived under oppressive imperial rule for a long time. They’ve been confined by heavy taxes and externally-imposed borders, and they’re ready to shake off the shackles. They’ve pinned their hopes on the Messiah, a quasi-mythical character alluded to in their Scriptures and kept alive in their legends. They expect the Messiah to sweep in and change everything – for the better, of course.

John shows up and says, “The Messiah is finally here.” But, he continues, you’re going to have to change. And the changes that John demands aren’t popular changes. “The Messiah’s reign is going to cost you,” he says. “You’re going to have to give your surplus money and belongings to the poor. You’re going to have to give up the parts of your income you’ve collected dishonestly. You’re going to have to use whatever power or privilege you have to help someone less powerful or privileged.” In other words, this change is going to cost you.

Claiming Jesus as king is costly. It means allowing him a say in every part of your life. It means laying aside many of the good things you have access to here and now. It means taking part in his project of changing the world for the better – even though changing the world means changing yourself along the way. In Luke 3 we’re told there are people who aren't happy with the changes John proposes – in particular Herod, the reigning king of the Jews. What he’s faced with – what we’re all faced with – is the reality that Jesus can’t take the throne until we vacate it. Is that something we’re ready to do?

When you pass through the waters...

2011-03-15T07:13:00.000-07:00

Passage: Isaiah 43:1-13

I just heard a news report about a 70-year-old woman whose home was swept out to sea by last week’s tsunami. Miraculously, the woman survived the ordeal and was rescued today. One can only speculate as to her frame of mind today. Is she bitter that her house and all her possessions were obliterated in one fell swoop? Or is she just glad to be alive?

In the poignant words of Isaiah 43, God tells his people that he will never abandon them to the disasters of this broken world. He identifies himself as their “Savior”, and tells them again and again not to fear. God will always rescue his people.
That being said, God does not promise that disaster won’t strike. He says,
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.
Not, "if you pass through the waters"; not "the fire and water will never come." When. When you face fire, water, hail and thunder; tsunami, recession, cancer, death. When the inevitable disaster comes, fear not. The LORD your God, the Holy One, your Savior, has redeemed you, and you are his. He will never leave your side.

Discipline

2011-03-15T06:59:00.000-07:00

Passage: Hebrews 12:4-12

I recently finished reading Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy. The books are set in a dystopian world run by a totalitarian government. The government maintains order over its territories by holding an annual contest called (you guessed it) “the hunger games.” In each territory a lottery is held; two of the territory’s children are selected to compete in the games. And one more thing: the games are a fight to the death.

The books’ main character is a 16-year-old girl who volunteers to compete in the games in her younger sister’s place. She is prepared for the games by the one citizen of her territory who has survived a previous Hunger Games. He is a harsh taskmaster; his young protégé hates him for most of their coaching relationship. But once she’s in the games, she realizes something. Her mentor has never cared whether or not she likes him. What he has cared about is getting her through the games. He has been focused single-mindedly on one thing: saving her life. His harsh methods have served this singular purpose. After the fact, she appreciates her mentor and every expression of his “tough love.”

The author of Hebrews describes a God whose primary concern is this: saving our lives. In the pursuit of this end, God shapes us and strengthens us. God removes excess baggage. God puts us through disciplines that hurt us now, but serve an eternally good purpose. The promise of our faith is not that we will enjoy all of God’s work in our lives while he’s doing it, but rather that there will come a time when we look back and thank him for saving us.

You Intended it for Evil...

2011-03-10T13:47:00.000-08:00

Passage: Genesis 50:15-21

In its treatment of the Doctrine of Providence, the Belgic Confession says this:
We believe that this good God, after he created all things, did not abandon them to chance or fortune but leads and governs them according to his holy will, in such a way that nothing happens in this world without his orderly arrangement.
Yet God is not the author of, nor can he be charged with, the sin that occurs. For his power and goodness are so great and incomprehensible that he arranges and does his work very well and justly even when the devils and wicked men act unjustly. [From Art. 13]

When we are the victims of injustice – when we suffer the effects of human evil – we are quick to conclude that God is simply out of the picture. The only agents at work in the situation are the human evildoers. The problem with this conclusion is that it assumes that there are situations that are beyond God’s control. Circumstances in which God leaves us to face the forces of evil alone. We would have to further deduce that God could again leave us alone at any time.

Isn’t it more comforting to trust that God is at work co-opting the ill-intentioned acts of evildoers (or even the well-intentioned errors of flawed people) to serve his good purposes? Joseph catches a glimpse of God’s hand at work when he looks back on his life. He’s given the gift of seeing the good things God did with the devastating betrayal, humiliating enslavement, and false accusation he endured at the hands of other people. What Joseph never sees is the greater contribution these events make to God’s unfolding redemption of all humanity. Joseph’s story makes this abundantly clear: God is relentless in the execution of his good plans, and no evil deed can stop him. To the contrary, God incorporates the acts of even his greatest adversaries into the greatest triumphs of his grace. Joseph's story is part of the bigger story of God's chosen people. This, in turn, is part of the bigger story of God's promise of a Savior. And this bigger story culminates at the cross.

They Perish, But You Remain

2011-03-09T10:23:00.000-08:00

Passage: Hebrews 1:1-12

The Doctrine of Providence, as presented in Lord’s Day 10, offends our sensibilities. The conviction that our God is in control of, indeed sends, even our lives’ most difficult experiences, confronts us like a slap in the face. The implication is that God willingly hurts us; willingly takes away people and property that we love. This is a hard doctrine to stomach.
When we respond to this doctrine with indignation, however, we fail to account for two things: first, the reality that pain and loss are inescapable in this sad world; second, that God’s goal for each of us is eternal life.

The canvass on which our lives are painted is a broken world in which everything we know and love will be taken from us. It will all, as the author of Hebrews states so poetically, perish. We lose all things but one: God himself.
We proceed through life acquiring stuff: accomplishments; credentials; property; relationships. This stuff, in itself, is good. But none of it is permanent. When any of it is taken away, we rail against an unfair cosmos as though somehow one of our rights has been violated. With our vision obscured by the (albeit good) stuff we’ve been given, we fail to focus on the one thing that matters most; the one thing that can never be taken away.

We belong to a merciful God who refuses to let us be completely blinded by the things of this world. With care and compassion God takes things away – sometimes one at a time; sometimes all at once. When he does it hurts – sometimes so badly we don’t know how we’ll recover. But none of these losses hurts us so much as the loss of one of us hurts God. God will stop at nothing to draw us closer and closer to him. It is when we embrace this that we become willing to relinquish into his hands any of the things that obscure him from view. Everything we call ours will one day perish. Only God remains.

Fit to Be Praised

2011-03-01T17:43:00.000-08:00

Passage: Psalm 33

Lord’s Day 9 deals with the “Doctrine of God’s Providence”. The essence of Providence is this: God’s in control of everything; therefore nothing we experience – “good” or “bad” – happens by accident. It all comes to us by God’s hand. If we claim the Bible as God’s authoritative self-revelation (in other words, if we believe what the Bible says about God), then we have to live with this tension: God doesn’t always give us what we want – even though presumably God is perfectly capable of doing so.

So why do we stick with this God? Two reasons: First, for better or worse, he’s God. He’s the creator and ruler of all. The ultimate being in the universe. As the Psalmist says, “Sing joyfully to the LORD, you righteous. It is fitting for the upright to praise him!” If God is who God claims to be, there’s only one fitting response: praise.
Second, he’s on our side. We don’t have the faculties to comprehend the scope of God’s work and God’s purposes. And we don’t need to – we don’t need to know what God’s doing and why. We only need to know this: that God is a Father whose purpose for each of us is good.

The Psalmist concludes, “…the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine…”
If it feels as though you are in the middle of a famine – a time in which your thirst is unquenched and your hopes unfulfilled – take heart. God will not abandon you to it. God’s eyes are upon you, even now. Find your hope in his unfailing love.

My God and Father

2011-02-28T12:31:00.000-08:00

Passages: Lord’s Day 9; Genesis 2

In Lord’s Day 9 the Catechism makes three audacious claims: First, that one God created the universe; Second, that this God continues to govern the universe and every constituent part; Third, that this God knows and loves us, and identifies himself as our Father. On the basis of this foundation, the Catechism goes on to claim that our lives themselves are mapped out and ordered by God. Accordingly, every event and experience is part of God’s plan for our lives.

This raises all kinds of questions. Why would God bring me this bout of the flu? Or cancer? Why would God allow me to lose this job? Or spouse? Or child? What good can God bring out of this loss or failure or hurt or humiliation?
We don’t always know. We can’t possibly see the bigger picture God sees. As God’s children, we can seldom do more than simply trust. But when we do so, we are given eyes through which to see more and more of the good that God has for us.

Grafted In

2011-02-16T07:04:00.000-08:00

Passage: Romans 11:11-24

Lord’s Day 7 deals with the perennial dilemma of why God saves some people but not all people. This reality is offensive to those who have positioned themselves outside the Christian faith; and it is deeply troubling to those within the faith who have unbelieving loved ones. Why can’t we just say, unreservedly, that God saves everyone?
The immediate answer is that our Scriptures simply don’t allow it. Both Testaments are full of references to the inevitable judgment that awaits some people. The question this brings us to, of course, is who – who is saved, and why? Who is condemned, and why?

I just finished reading a post-apocalyptic novel in which one of the sub-plots is the rescue of a young woman from two ruthless ex-convicts. The young woman’s community track them down, secure her freedom, and subdue the two evil men. But then they have the dilemma of what to do with these two – their sworn enemies. The rescuers elect not to exact revenge on them but instead to adopt them into their community. However, it is immediately obvious this isn’t going to work. The men are too committed to being their enemies – to abusing their trust, taking their resources, and violating their peace. They will never come around. The community has only one option: send the two enemies away, even though their chances of survival are slim.

Throughout the history of God’s dealings with humanity there have always been people who positioned themselves as God’s enemies. When God adopted the Israelites as his chosen people, and established for them his own order and peace, there were other nations who wanted nothing more than to destroy that peace. They could never co-exist with God’s people. When God expanded the boundaries of his Kingdom to include people of every tribe and nation (“Gentiles” like you and me), there continued to be those who hated what they saw of God in the life of God’s people. This continues to be the case. There are those who, when they encounter God’s people and God’s word, want nothing to do with them. There are even those who want to actively undermine God’s work and destroy it. If a person persists in positioning him or herself as God’s enemy, there comes a point at which it’s obvious this will never change.

The invitation has always been to become a friend of God and be grafted into God’s family. There’s always room for more, and God continually makes room, even for strangers and former enemies. The caution is that if you maintain your position as an enemy of God, you’ll be condemned to live – and die – without him.

I Thought it Would Be More Complicated...

2011-02-09T12:04:00.000-08:00

Passage: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

The first six Lord’s Days of the Heidelberg Catechism take pains to detail just how messed up our relationship with God has become. Humanity, we’re told, is immersed in sin. Unable to do anything but rebel against God and God’s good order for creation. Naturally inclined to hate God and fellow human beings. Deserving of the ultimate penalty: banishment from God’s presence. The cruel paradox in it all, according to the Catechism, is that we can’t possibly withstand the ultimate penalty. What’s the solution to our dilemma, if there is one?

Well, when we finally get to the solution in Lord’s Day 6, it’s tempting to say, “Really? That’s it? I thought it would be a bit more complicated.” God’s solution to our dilemma is Jesus Christ. All we need to get out from under the weight of our deserved punishment is Jesus. All we need to get right with God is Jesus. How is that a solution?

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul puts it this way: “The message of the cross is foolishness to the perishing. But to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” As a species we idolize self-sufficiency. We’re suspicious of anything we can’t do for ourselves. We assume that a gift comes with strings attached. We will either be indebted, obligated, or ashamed by the charity of someone else. We generally accept it when someone offers to pay off a debt, but we tend to look for a way to repay it or wait for the other shoe to drop. The debt that Jesus pays for us doesn’t fit any familiar category. It’s a debt whose magnitude we can’t fathom. The cost to repay it far beyond any human capacity to reimburse. All we have to do is say “Thank you.” Which is something we rarely do. Why?

Because if you’re a skeptic, you don’t buy the whole indebtedness to God thing in the first place. It’s foolishness. And if you’re a believer, you can’t believe that Jesus has fully covered your debt. It’s too simple. We want there to be a piece of the work left over for us to do. There’s not.
That being said, it’s not easy to accept the gift of Jesus Christ. The reason for this is that saying yes to Jesus is saying yes to reconciliation with God. It’s one step toward a relationship that will take over your life. As one songwriter put it, “It didn’t come cheap, but I got it for free.” Reconnecting us with God cost Jesus everything. The relationship we get for his efforts is one that demands everything.

Guilty by Association

2011-02-07T13:47:00.000-08:00

Passage: Romans 5:12-21

So there we were, bailing him out of the drunk tank…
It started as a normal Labor Day weekend. I was a high school senior. I tagged along on the annual trip to drop my older sister off at college. I stayed with my cousin, who attended the same college. And of course we stayed up late on Saturday night engaging in the usual on-campus back-to-school rituals. At about 1 in the morning we were hanging out in the hallway of my cousin’s dorm when a few of his friends burst in. “We have to bail Pete out,” one of them said, breathlessly. “Cops busted the party he was at. He’s in jail.” My cousin and his friends quickly went around the floor collecting money for bail. We piled into a Volkswagen Golf and drove downtown to the municipal court building housing the local overnight accommodations for underage drinkers and other disturbers of the peace. My cousin approached the overnight clerk, explaining that he was there to pick up a friend who’d gotten busted at a party. The clerk looked at him. “Don’t you mean two friends?” “Uh, sure,” said my cousin. The aforementioned Pete was walked through the bullet-proof glass door that had separated him from freedom. He was followed by another clean-cut, college-aged guy none of us had ever seen. The clerk said, “He came in the same cruiser. He was at the same party. I assume he’s with you.” My cousin said, “Of course. Let’s go.” (Interestingly, we didn’t have to pay any money. The “bail money” was repurposed later that weekend as “pizza money.”)

Well we couldn’t wait to find out who this other guy was. Turns out he was a freshman from Canada. He’d gone to the party with his newfound buddy, Pete, and some other guys he’d met on campus. When the police showed up and collared Pete, his new friend had sauntered up, beer in hand, and asked, “What seems to the be the problem, officers?” He had forgotten that the legal drinking age in Michigan was two years older than it was on his home turf. He was I.D.’d, and hauled off with the other delinquents. He was, in fact, in no position to intervene on his fellow lawbreakers’ behalf because he was as guilty as they were.

In its treatment of the theme of human deliverance, the Heidelberg Catechism brings to light a unique dilemma. Leading up to Lord’s Day 6 we’ve been told repeatedly that God demands an accounting for every human sin. We’re also told that none of us can withstand the punishment our sins deserve. Lord’s Day 5 states that we need a substitute – someone to stand in and take our punishment. But this stand-in can’t be just anyone. Why? Because every person is to some degree guilty. None of us is in a position to intervene on a fellow sinner’s behalf because we’re all equally deserving of God’s punishment. I could try to take the full weight of God’s punishment, but it would only be what I myself deserved. I couldn’t take yours, too. So how does God deal with this dilemma? With a person who isn’t guilty. Where would God find such a person? And what such person would stand in and take this undeserved punishment for someone else? Only one who loved humanity perfectly and wholeheartedly. Who is innocent of sin; who loves perfectly and wholeheartedly but God himself?

The Reluctant Disciplinarian

2011-02-03T07:11:00.000-08:00

Passage: Ezekiel 18

When God introduces the Law to his people early in their life together, God tells them,
I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
It’s a pretty harsh pronouncement. So much so that it lodges itself inextricably in the consciousness of God’s people. Even though they forget most everything else God says, they remember this one isolated statement: “…punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation…” Over time God’s people even develop their own little proverbial riff on it: “The fathers eat sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” They’ve gotten the message: children will be punished for the sins of their parents and grandparents and even great-grandparents.

In Ezekiel 18 God addresses the proverb. Ezekiel records,
“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son—both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die.”
Initially this sounds bad. But for a people who are convinced that the sins of their grandparents have disqualified them from salvation, it’s very good news. It’s now clear that every person is separated from God only by his or her own sins. Here, says God, is your motivation to live a new life.

To drive the point home, God says this:
“…if a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die. None of the offenses he has committed will be remembered against him. Because of the righteous things he has done, he will live. Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” declares the Sovereign LORD. “Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?”
God, it turns out, wants nothing more than for his children to repent - literally, to return.

I recently watched an episode of Modern Family in which Phil and Claire, parents of three school-aged kids, struggle to become better disciplinarians. It’s Christmas Eve; Phil, Claire and the kids are talking with the grandparents over the computer. And Claire notices a cigarette burn on the sofa. Immediately they confront their kids. And Phil, in an effort to establish parental credibility, declares, “That’s it! If whoever’s responsible doesn’t come forward, we’re cancelling Christmas!” No one confesses. Phil and Claire take down the tree. But then they spend the rest of the episode trying to figure out how they can, as a family, reinstate Christmas. They don’t delight in punishing their kids (contrary to what their kids allege). They discipline them reluctantly, as a means toward a greater end.
God doesn’t delight in punishment. God delights in his children, and wants nothing more than for them to be reconciled to him and to each other.

My Gospel Declares...

2011-02-01T07:28:00.000-08:00

Passage: Romans 2:1-16

One of my favorite Simpsons moments takes place in an annual Halloween episode. The Simpsons family is vacationing in Morocco, where they explore a local bazaar. Homer is irresistibly drawn to a severed monkey’s paw which, according to the shopkeeper, will grant four wishes. However, there’s a downside. Here it is, in the shopkeeper’s own words:

Shopkeeper: Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse!
Homer: Ooh, that's bad.
Shopkeeper: But it comes with a free frogurt!
Homer: That's good.
Shopkeeper: The frogurt is also cursed.
Homer: That's bad.
Shopkeeper: But you get your choice of toppings.
Homer: That's good!
Shopkeeper: The toppings contain potassium benzoate.
[Homer looks puzzled]
Shopkeeper: ...That's bad.

By the time you get to Lord’s Day 5 of the Catechism, you can’t tell anymore what’s good news and bad news. The authors have take such pains to establish the human need for salvation that you can’t help wondering if you’re ever going to hear the gospel. As it turns out, the Catechism isn’t reinventing the wheel here. The Gospel writers and Apostles of the Bible do much the same thing. The New Testament book that summarizes the Gospel most comprehensively is Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Paul begins his Gospel presentation precisely the way the authors of the Catechism begin theirs: with an outline of God’s expectations and our failure to measure up. Bad news. In this case, argue the tenets of our faith, you can’t have the good news without the bad. Paul says, “According to my Gospel, God will hold all people accountable for their sins.” This is an essential component of the good news – human accountability. It becomes bad news if accountability is all you’ve got. If in fact there will come a day when your laundry list of lies, infidelities and knives in the back will be aired and you’ll have to pay the price. How does it become good news? If, when the list has been read and the sentence meted out someone else has already paid. This, says Paul, is my Gospel. It’s ours, too.

Objects of Wrath

2011-01-25T09:56:00.000-08:00

Passage: Ephesians 2:1-10

The movie Pretty Woman is a Cinderella story of sorts - one in which a call girl is first hired, then wooed, by a rich executive. At a pivotal point in the developing romance, the executive’s spurned best friend finds out about the new girlfriend’s history. He makes a pass at her, then tries to force himself upon her. When she fights him off he says, “How dare you? You’re nothing but a…” He uses what she was to denigrate what she is.

In Ephesians 2 the Apostle Paul makes reference to his beloved church’s past. This reference could be taken as a slight – using what they were to denigrate what they are. In fact, Paul’s purpose is just the opposite – using the shame of what they were to underscore the beauty and power of what they are.

“Before we met Jesus,” he says, “we were dead in our transgressions.” He continues, “We were all by nature objects of wrath.” This doesn’t sound like a very high estimation of the human condition. But it’s not a statement about the inherent value of every person. It’s a statement about the state of every person’s relationship with God. Every person, according to our Scriptures and our statements of faith, is born into the condition of being hopelessly separated from God. None of us has the capacity to make ourselves right with God. However, God has taken the initiative and offered right relationship to us. Through Jesus Christ we have both the privileged status of being children of God, and the newfound capacity to live differently. Paul urges his sisters and brothers to do this very thing – to abandon the compulsions and captivity of their pre-Christ life, and adopt a whole new way of living.

This is what we’re invited to do. Where we once instinctively did only that which hurt us, hurt others, and hurt God, we now have the capacity to choose otherwise. To choose to relate to God, to each other, and to God’s Creation the way we were always meant to.

Your New Self

2011-01-19T12:01:00.000-08:00

Passage: Colossians 3:1-11

Lord’s Day 3 outlines our basic problem: we’re not who we were created to be. We’ve debased ourselves by our rebellion against God. We’ve starved ourselves of light and life as we’ve pulled away from God’s presence. We are corrupt to the point of being nearly unrecognizable versions of the beautiful image-bearers God designed.

But Lord’s Day 3 asserts that there is hope. We can be remade - “born again” - by God’s Spirit. In Colossians 3 Paul talks about life as a person remade by God. Turn away, says Paul, from habits that hurt you and the people around you. Seek your sustenance not in the spiritual junk food that has malnourished you to the point of death. Instead find your life in the source of all life. Leave behind your old self and try on something new.

Blog Update

2011-01-19T11:34:00.000-08:00

Please note that “Food for the Journey” now features resources to accompany our year-long study of the Heidelberg Catechism. If you visit the site you’ll see that the One Year Bible gadget has been replaced with links to the week’s Catechism reading and daily Bible readings to accompany it. Check it out!

We Were Meant to Be...

2011-01-18T13:39:00.000-08:00

Passage: Psalm 8

Last week I saw an ad for a new TV series about Spartacus. This isn’t the first media spectacle inspired by the life of the legendary gladiator. I doubt it will be the best. Of course it’s hard to compete with Kirk Douglas’ depiction of the slave who refuses to relinquish his humanity.
The reason this story is so compelling is not the bloody canvass on which it’s painted. It’s not about the ring and the fight to the death. It’s about the quest for freedom. If you know the story you know that Spartacus doesn’t escape Roman oppression. But there’s no doubt he shakes off that which his oppressors try to force upon him. Spartacus doesn’t die a gladiator; doesn’t die a killing machine. In his quest for freedom Spartacus wins his humanity. And he shows his fellows slaves what it is to be human.

Psalm 8 is a declaration of what it is to be human. Psalm 8 begins and ends with praise for God the Creator and Ruler of all things. But the Psalmist’s wonder at God’s handiwork turns to wonder at the privileged place God gave human beings in his created order. How is it, wonders the writer, that the God of the universe invited me to be his second-in-command? How is it that God gave me the capacity to love like he loves; to tend and care like he tends and cares; to be to Creation what God is to me?

We live in a world that persistently invites us to relinquish our humanity. We’re constantly tempted to overindulge our appetites and desires. We’re regularly enticed to meet our needs at the expense of someone else. We’re convinced that we have to compete with our fellow image-bearers for significance; for satisfaction; for survival. When we follow these impulses we chip away at the truly glorious thing we were created to be. A little lower than the heavenly beings. Crowned with glory and honor. It’s time for us to reclaim that crown.

It Was Good

2011-01-17T10:31:00.000-08:00

Passage: Genesis 1

So much time and energy has been spent debating the “truth” of Genesis 1 that in many respects we’ve lost sight of its truth. Fights about whether the days of Creation are literal 24 hour days; fights about the order in which plant and animal classes were created; fights about when and who and how the first humans came to be miss the point of our Creation story. Genesis 1 was written to establish these truths: our universe came into existence not by chance or through a random sequence of events, but as the handiwork of one all-powerful God; our world was brought together out of chaos as an ordered whole; our race was made in the image of God. And when it was made, it was good. Everything worked the way it was designed to work. Everything existed in harmony – humans and animals; plants and fungi and viruses and bacteria. Land and sea and sky and every element. It was good. We were good.

In order to understand our story we have to start here. Our Creation story reminds us that the way it is now isn’t the way it always was. War. Disease. Hunger. Abuse. Natural disaster. These are symptoms of the brokenness that was introduced after God created Heaven and Earth and called it good. We need to be reminded of the good that was so that we don’t settle for the bad that is. And we need to be told anew that this isn’t the way it’s always going to be. Our story began with the good that God created. And it ends with the new thing that God is doing. When we are frustrated and hurt and worn down we need to remember: it wasn’t meant to be this way. It won’t always be this way. It was good, and it will be good again.

Misery

2011-01-13T13:21:00.000-08:00

Passage: Romans 7:7-25

In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul addresses the terrible dilemma imposed by the Law of God. The Law, he says, provides a window into the very will of God. The Law makes clear what God expects of his people. Instead of this bringing relief and assurance, however, it only brings despair. Why? Because Paul simply can’t meet the demands of God’s Law sin. Because of this, says Paul, the only thing the Law does is reveal my misery – my sheer and utter separation from God. “What a wretched person I am,” laments the Apostle. “What I long to do I do not; the thing I don’t want to do I find myself doing. What can possibly save me?”

In setting the stage for the Gospel, the Heidelberg Catechism introduces an unavoidable proviso. According to its second question and answer, no person can qualify for the grace of God through Jesus Christ without first acknowledging his or her “misery” – his or her innate separation from God. How do we find out about this unenviable condition? According to Lord's Day 2, we are made aware of our misery by none other than the Law of God. This is the standard according to which we were meant to live. This is the measuring stick determining whether we are worthy to be called God’s friends. And this is the metric that reveals us, again and again, to be sorely lacking. If we care about it all – this business of being right with God – then we at some point cast our lot with Paul. We too ask the question: “Who will deliver me from this ‘body of death’; who can save me from my misery?” We just don’t have what it takes.

Just when it seems Paul has presented us with an insoluble problem, he sheds a glimmer of hope. “Thanks be to God,” he says, “through Jesus Christ our Lord!” What does he mean? Simply this: God has made another way. A loophole. A way to be made right with God even when you can’t live up to God’s standards. You can’t understand what good news this is until you’ve come to terms with the bad news – the bad news of your own misery.

Wholeheartedly Willing and Ready

2011-01-10T12:55:00.000-08:00

"When I am near to die, my last thought will be for him…I am so grateful. I was lucky to live a full life. Without him, nothing of it would have happened." This is what Peter Heisig says about the man who saved his life.

During the Second World War, Peter Heisig was the first lieutenant of the German submarine U-877. On Dec. 27, 1944, U-877 was attacked by the Canadian warship HCMS St. Thomas. Fatally disabled, the U-boat bobbed to the surface. Its crew, all of whom survived the initial assault, prepared for the enemy vessel’s kill shot. It never came. As her crew loaded the guns, the St. Thomas' first lieutenant, Stanislas Dery, uttered the words, “Ne tirez pas!” – Don’t shoot. Instead of destroying the U-Boat and everyone on board, the St. Thomas approached, rescuing them instead.

Thus began a lifelong friendship between Dery and Heisig. In the years following the war they regularly crossed the Atlantic to visit each other. Every year for the rest of his life Heisig contacted Dery to thank him.

The first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism ends with this statement:
Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready to live for him.
What does it look like to be wholeheartedly willing and ready to live for someone? If I’m honest I admit that I’m seldom wholehearted about anything. My attention and affections are almost always divided. At work my attention is pulled from all but the most absorbing tasks by something as frivolous as Facebook or a movie review. At home the most valuable moments with my wife and children are diluted with thoughts of escape to a hobby or, of all things, work. When I get a moment to myself do I dive into the book I’ve been saving or the workout I’ve put off for two days? No. I read email. Sometimes it feels as though I’d always rather be doing something else. What would life look like if I was wholeheartedly committed? What would motivate me to live wholeheartedly?

This: to be faced with my imminent death, and then to be brought back from the brink. This would motivate me to live every remaining day wholeheartedly. And it would make me willing and ready to live wholeheartedly for the one who’d brought me back. This, claims the Catechism, is what Jesus does for every one of us. Snatches us from the brink of misery and death. Gives us the chance at new life. What do we do with this new life? We live for him. Not resignedly or dutifully. Wholeheartedly.

Now What?

2011-01-04T08:12:00.000-08:00

After having spent a year studying the Bible cover to cover, I hope to spend 2011 exploring “What we believe, and why.” Churches regularly, and rightly, jump to questions about what Christians and congregations should do. We repeatedly ask the question, “How should I act in this situation? How should I respond to this problem? What’s the right thing to do? What’s the wrong thing to do?” Not only do we apply these metrics to our own behavior, we level them against the world around us. If we’re honest we have to admit that we’re more willing to ask what other people should be doing and not doing than we are to ask it of ourselves. When you address life on such a piecemeal basis, you’re bound to get overwhelmed. You’re bound to get it wrong much of the time. And you’re certain to miss the point of the Christian faith. At its heart the Christian life is not a system of rules or a program for behavior modification. It’s a relationship.

When we focus on rules and rituals, we reduce what is at heart an eternal relationship with an infinite God. The focus of the Christian life is connecting with a God who is on one hand real and personal and on the other beyond the reach of our intellect and imagination. Because God is real our relationship with God is dynamic and responsive. God speaks and acts persistently, and we respond in new ways to each unique overture. Because God is infinite, our relationship with God is never complete. There isn’t a point at which we’ve “mastered” the Christian faith because it’s not a program. The deeper we plunge the more we discover. The moment we feel we’ve learned it all is the moment the relationship begins to stagnate.

The Heidelberg Catechism presents a framework for understanding who God is and who we are in relation to God. For 450 years the Catechism has served as a road map for biblical faith, summarizing what the Old and New Testaments teach about God, God’s people, and the practice of relating to God. The Catechism assumes that there is one true God who reveals himself to us in the Bible. The Catechism assumes that the epitome of God’s self-revelation is Jesus Christ, in whom God came to the earth as a human being. Finally, the Catechism assumes that the way to a relationship with the one true God is through a relationship with Jesus.

This year I hope you’ll join me as I explore the question, “What does it mean to be a Christian?” The answer to this question begins not with behavior but with belief. Your beliefs about yourself, your world, and your place therein will more profoundly impact your behavior than anything anyone tells you to do. Behavioral transformation is a byproduct of the belief transformation – the life transformation – into which Jesus Christ invites us.

The End or the Beginning?

2011-01-03T08:10:00.000-08:00

First, an explanation and an apology. The following is my wrap-up to our church's year-long exploration of the Bible. It follows a two-week hiatus during which I was engaged in year-end festivities and services at church. And it's not an original post. It's actually the manuscript for my final sermon of 2010. So, apologies: first for letting the year end without regular posts; second, for the length of this one! Thanks to everyone who put in the effort to read through the entire Bible this year. And please stay tuned for what we have in store for 2011.
-Ben

Revelation 21:1-5a
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new

One of this winter’s blockbuster movies is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – part one. The last adaptation of the last book in the outrageously popular Harry Potter series. Of course everyone is so sad to see the series come to an end that they’ve stretched the last book out into two movies. I’m sure I remember someone saying something once about killing a golden goose… Okay, I myself got caught up in all the hype over the Harry Potter books. And I will never forget reading the last installment. It was the summer of 2007. Melody and I were on vacation with my family. We’d read almost the entire book, and then found out my sister and brother-in-law were listening to it on CD. So, one sweltering afternoon when Isabelle was taking her nap we just sat in the living room and listened to that final chapter.

We listened with mixed emotions. Plot threads got tied up; characters died; good triumphed over evil. We were sad that it was all over, but satisfied that it was over at the same time. We could finally put Harry Potter down and get on with our lives.
There’s something about finishing the last chapter of a book or a series of books. Sometimes you throw the book down and say, “Great, I never have to read that again!” Sometimes you wish you could go back to the beginning and read it for the first time all over again.

Then there’s the Bible. This week a number of us will finish reading the Bible in its entirety. I know a few of us will heave a sigh of relief. I know a few of us will dive right back in and read it again. But of course the Bible isn’t like any other book. It doesn’t tell any other story. It tells God’s story. And it tells our story. So when we get to the end and say, “This is how it ends?”, we’re personally invested.

Revelation is how the Bible ends. But if you’ve ever read or are currently reading Revelation, you can’t help asking, “Is this how it’s really going to end for us? We can’t help asking because John’s account is so bizarre. Really. It’s full of stuff that’s pretty far removed from our reality. There are scrolls; angels; plagues; horsemen; a beast and a dragon; falling stars. And since Revelation was written readers have tried to figure out what it all means.

Without taking a lot of time – really, Revelation deserves a whole sermon series – here’s what I consider the most helpful way of understanding Revelation. As far as we know, Revelation was written by the Apostle John – one of Jesus’ disciples, author of the Gospel of John as well as the three letters of John. Revelation was most likely written at the very end of the first century. At this time the Christian church has become fairly well-established throughout the Roman world. And the church is under pressure. Some of the excitement of Christianity has worn off. Every day life for Christians is hard. Many who’d been led to believe that Jesus would come back soon are disillusioned – it’s starting to sink in that he may not be back as quickly as first thought.
And the current emperor – most likely Domitian – has instituted emperor worship as the state religion. This means that citizens will have to attend worship services; make gestures of devotion to statues and monuments; pay tribute at the shrine of the emperor before any kind of business transaction. It means anyone who gives their highest loyalty to someone other than the emperor will suffer the consequences.

John writes Revelation from a cell – he’s been imprisoned for his faith. He’s writing a letter that he hopes will get out to the churches. As the last living Apostle it’s John’s sacred duty to encourage Christians everywhere to keep the faith.
John writes a letter that reminds his church that they’re caught in a cosmic struggle between good and evil. John has to remind them that there is only one God. That there is only one ruler of all and it’s not the emperor. But how do you do that when the Empire is reading your mail? You write in code. You use symbols and metaphors – “a beast; a dragon; a lamb that looked like it had been slain.” For much of Revelation John is using code to explain to his church what’s happening in the world around them. The two main messages are this: Jesus Christ is Lord; and this time of trial will come to an end.

Of course the side of Revelation that captures our attention is the fact that the time leading up the end is an ordeal. John may have been describing bad stuff that was happening to him and his church. But we know full well that not everything John describes has happened yet. Jesus hasn’t come back. And if this time of great trouble – “The tribulation” as it’s popularly known – if this has to precede Jesus’ return, then we have questions. Times are tough enough now. Will they get worse? We don’t know. What we do know is that this will all end. It has to eventually. Even absolute unbelievers know that the world as we know it will end.
What none of us can imagine is what comes after that.

And we have mixed feelings about that.
There are certain things we don’t mind seeing the end of. On a personal level, we like it when final exams are over. We look forward to the end of a bad cold or the remission of a deadly disease. Sometimes the end of the day can’t come soon enough. On a broader scale we like the idea of the end of hunger; war; pollution; reality TV; partisan politics. There are experiences and events and phenomena that we want to end.
But then there are all kinds of good things that we wish would never end. Christmas. Vacations. One great day with your kids and your husband, or wife. Birthdays. Wedding days. Youth, vitality, friends and family and home runs and great concerts.
We have mixed feelings about endings because for every bad thing that ends there’s five good things that end, too. As our lives progress we often feel increasing urgency about the passage of time and the end of the best things in life.

I started watching the show Mad Men this fall. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a TV program set in a Madison Avenue advertising firm in the early ‘60’s. A number of the show’s main characters are driven, hard-living ad executives. One of these is Roger Sterling, an aging partner in the firm who has spent his professional career living it up. Partway through the first season, Roger has his first heart attack. The show’s main character, Don Draper, visits him in the hospital. Roger, usually very debonair, looks terrible. He thinks he’s going to die. He says to Draper, “You ever think about it?” Draper says, “What?”
“You know – your soul.”
Draper says, “Not really.” Roger says, “I wish I believed something. Jesus” - (funny the times people use profanity) - “God. I just wish I was going somewhere.” He captures this longing for the end not to be the end.
Deep down there’s a part of all of us that longs for this. For the end not to be the end. We don’t want to lose all the stuff we love about life in the process of saying good-bye to this world. As much as we long for Jesus to come back and put an end to the brokenness and injustice and suffering of our world, we don’t want to lose all the things we love about it, either.

Like it or not, the God of the Bible is a God who is always doing something new. Always pushing his people to take the next step in their journey. When God’s people get too comfortable, God spurs them on. When God’s people get tired, God always promises something new.
Revelation seems to be the end of the story. But this is just one chapter – one chapter in a much longer story.

The difficult circumstances that John describes – the so-called “Tribulation” – these aren’t anything worse than members of his church are experiencing even as they read the letter. And they aren’t any worse than what millions of people experience in our world every day. John is describing life in a broken world. He’s describing life during the most difficult chapter in the story of God and his people. John states without a doubt that this chapter will end.
But this isn’t the last chapter in the story. Not by far. In fact, it’s just the beginning. The next chapter will be infinitely better than the one John is writing. And infinitely better than the one we’re living right now.

Look at how Revelation ends. John says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…” The Bible begins: “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth.” In other words, the Bible starts and ends with Creation. It ends with a whole new beginning!

Our ideas about the afterlife have unfortunately been heavily influenced by cartoons and Philadelphia Cream Cheese commercials. We have visions of spending eternity sitting on clouds playing harps, maybe singing the occasional rendition of “Amazing Grace.” Kind of like being in a church choir forever. For some of us, that sounds like heaven. But not all of us.
This isn’t the picture the Bible gives us. Here we see God bringing his creative work full circle. Ending the brokenness that spoiled his good Creation. Beginning a new Creation that is everything the first one was meant to be. The picture is of us living forever and being able to do everything we were created to do: tending the earth and its creatures; making music and art; playing games; talking and learning and teaching; communing with each other and with God without the restraint of fear, insecurity, shame or prejudice. Spending forever doing and being all the best things humans were made to do and be.

The truth is we can’t imagine how good it’s going to be. Our only frame of reference is our life now. Our life is so limited by pain and loss and the sheer irrevocable passage of time. Every experience is fleeting. Every good thing comes to an end. We can’t imagine never again saying, “I’d give anything to go back to that time.” We can’t imagine never again saying, “I miss you; I miss that; I miss those days.” We can’t imagine what all will be part of life in the New Creation. But we can know for certain what won’t be part of it. Mourning; crying; pain; death. These, says John, are part of the old order of things that will pass away forever.

In Revelation 21 John uses the image of a wedding day. He describes Christ and his church being united once and for all like a bride and groom. The thing about a wedding day is that it’s just the beginning. You’re in trouble if you’ve given all your thought to the wedding day and none at all to every day thereafter. Sometimes it’s easy to do that – to get so preoccupied with the dress and the flowers and the cake and the food and the first dance that you forget that the day will come to an end and you’ll spend the rest of your life with that person. In the general scheme of things the wedding itself is of little consequence. What matters is everything that follows.
Everything between now and when Jesus comes back is the engagement. His return is the wedding day. It’s not the end. It’s the beginning. We are living for everything that follows. And everything that follows will never end. This is God’s promise.

My favorite books growing up were the Narnia series by CS Lewis. If you’ve read them you know that they’re seven novels about the adventures of a number of children who pass from our world into the parallel world of Narnia. Each of the books chronicles a different facet of an epic struggle between good and evil in that world. At the end of the final book, The Last Battle, all the main characters from all the previous books are pulled through time and space and reunited. They watch as the Narnia they know is destroyed. But then they’re taken to a new Narnia. The new one has many of the features of the old; but it’s somehow bigger, and more beautiful. Everything they loved yet so much more. And the book ends with this statement:
“All their life in this world and their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

This is how you want your favorite story to end. To know that the characters you love just keep going. That the adventure never ends. But isn’t this also the way you wish your story would end? To know that the end was just the beginning?
The Bible’s our story. The story of our life with God. And this is how it ends. With a whole new beginning. The beginning of a new, amazing chapter that will go on forever.

I've Got Just the Prophet...

2010-12-15T09:08:00.000-08:00

Passage: Micah 2:6-11

A few years ago I read a novel in which the main characters all employed a “family singer.” The singer’s job was to soothe people when they were stressed out or depressed. He would say pleasant things to them about their glowing positive attributes or the rosy state of the world. And they would calm down and feel good again. Of course it was all lies. But the singer made people feel so good about their lives that they kept him employed.

God repeatedly speaks to the kingdoms of Israel and Judah through prophets. Prophets are a generally accepted class of people whose job it is to deliver the all-important word of God. The problem is that the prophets consistently tell people stuff they don’t want to hear. God’s people circumnavigate this problem by hiring their own prophets – spin doctors who, for a fee, will remix God’s word so that it sounds nice.

Needless to say, God, and his legitimate prophets, have little patience for this practice. In Micah 2 the prophet confronts his people. He says, “You want I should stop prophesying? What good will that do you?” In the same way that a patient who disregards the doctor’s bad news is unlikely to last long, the people of Israel and Judah stop their ears to God’s word only to their great detriment.

It may benefit us to take stock of the “prophetic voices” informing us. Do you stick to commentators, preachers and pundits who say what you want to hear? Do you change the channel when someone confronts a habit that’s a little too close to your heart? Do you turn up the volume when the voice on the other end of the line gives you permission to do what you were hoping to do anyway?

Micah and God’s other prophets say, “Fine. Have it your way. Have your rent-a-prophet. It’s not going to help you when God comes calling.” What do we want? To feel good about ourselves, or to get right with God? We do well to choose our prophets carefully.

Never Look a Gift Fish in the Mouth

2010-12-14T11:49:00.000-08:00

Passage: Jonah 1

Ever wondered what Jonah thought when the fish swallowed him? Whenever I swim in a large body of water, I try not to imagine some great marine creature making its way up from the depths. Try not to think about its great jaws encompassing me; its maw engulfing me and taking me down with it. I’m not always successful.

Did Jonah, in the moment, think, “Phew, I thought I was going to drown!”? I’m guessing not. The narrator puts it like this: Now the LORD provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah…Who knew? Jaws – a gift from God.

The Book of Jonah is a great illustration of God’s providence. In Jonah’s story we see God’s hand at work in every detail, bending all things inexorably toward his will. Start to finish God has a plan for Jonah, and will stop at nothing to bring it to completion.
Does God have a plan for you? Do you think anything can derail it? Hang in there. God’s taking you on a journey, and every big fish is just another part of his transit system.

Father

2010-12-09T18:05:00.000-08:00

Passage: Hosea 11:1-4

By and large the prophetic books of the Old Testament are pretty harsh. Without exception they indict God’s people of infidelity and predict the dire consequences thereof. Hosea provides his own variation on this riff, using his personal life as a metaphor for the relationship between God and his wayward people. In Hosea God talks about Israel as a cheating spouse; in Hosea we get this juxtaposition between God’s anger and God’s heartbreak. God reacts to his people’s betrayal with, as Jars of Clay put it, “a rage of a jealous kind.” He loves them, and vows to win them back.

In Hosea 11 the prophet introduces a new metaphor that sheds a more tender light on the love of God. Here God talks about nursing his people to health, reaching for them, and lifting them to his cheek. God says, “I raised you from infancy. But it was so long ago that you’ve forgotten the look of my face and the sound of my voice. Don’t you realize? It was me! I protected you. I fed you. I held you close and rocked you to sleep. It was me.”

God has been with you from the beginning. The psalmist says, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” He is the one who breathed life into you; imprinted you with his DNA. He’s the one watching over you and guiding you. Stop wondering. Stop pretending he’s not there. Hear his voice and be caught in his embrace.

Love or...

2010-12-06T12:29:00.000-08:00

Passage: 1 John 3:11-24

At a certain point in the novel The Kite Runner, the narrator, Amir, recounts a speech his father used to give about theft. “Every offense you commit against another man,” he says, “is some kind of theft. If you take from a man, you’ve stolen his property. If you cuckold a man, you have stolen his wife. If you murder a man, you have stolen his life.”

In his first letter, the Apostle John talks a lot about love. John mirrors the rhetoric of Amir’s father when he speaks of acts not committed in love. But he takes his argument to a different extreme. John says, “Any time you commit an offense against another, you murder him.” In John’s mind there are only two ways to respond to God and neighbor: love or hate. There’s nothing in between. And, says John, if your actions are guided by anything but love, they’re tantamount to murder.

Here’s how it works. If you steal from someone, you’ve taken a bit of their livelihood. On a fractional level, you’ve taken their life. If you slander someone, you’ve chipped a piece off their reputation. You’ve killed them, just a little. If on any level you are motivated to knock someone down a peg or hurt them in any way, you are responding, if at a reduced amplitude, to the desire to kill them.

Choose your actions and words carefully, says John. Anyone who wants anything to do with Jesus must choose love. If your conduct toward anyone else is motivated by something other than love, you have no place with Jesus, the perfect expression of the love of God.

Appalled

2010-12-01T09:04:00.000-08:00

Passage: Daniel 8

The Book of Daniel is a bit of an anomaly. Though Daniel is classified as one of the prophetic books of the Old Testament, his prophecy is unique. Rather than speak directly to the people of Israel and their immediate circumstances, Daniel’s prophecy is focused on world events in the near, distant, and ultimate future. It is therefore more appropriately labeled an “apocalyptic” book, that is, predictive of the end of the world.

Typically people who consider themselves “doomsday prophets” pursue their task with relish. There’s a certain gleam in their eye when they tell you that you and your world are going to burn. There’s a certain self-righteousness in the way they inform you your actions will lead to your undoing. There’s a certain smugness in the way they strap on that sandwich board, or slap those religious bumper stickers on their Econolines. They just seem a bit too happy that the end is near.

Not Daniel. God peels back the curtain, and he catches a glimpse of what’s coming. Then God says, “This is for your eyes only. Seal it up in your heart.” Daniel sees the well-deserved upheaval and cataclysm in store for the unbelieving world. And it makes him sick. The world as he knows it is going to end, and there’s nothing Daniel can do. We don’t know why. Is Daniel sick at heart for the innocent people who are going to get caught in the crossfire? Is he terrified of what will happen to him and his loved ones as the world around them gets theirs? Is he simply awestruck at the magnitude of God’s judgment? Maybe all of the above.

And maybe this should be our reaction when cataclysm hits. Not, “See, the sinners are finally getting theirs” but, “Lord have mercy.” Maybe instead of hoping for judgment to fall we should be appalled that it’s coming at all. Maybe we’re too sickened by other people’s sins and not sickened enough by their suffering. Compassion, “being moved in one’s guts,” is what led Christ to the cross. Thank God he had compassion for us. Our response? Compassion. Being sickened by the plight of those enslaved by sin. Wanting more than anything to see our friends, neighbors, and enemies transformed not by disaster but by the scandalous love of God.

What's the Deal with Daniel?

2010-11-30T13:48:00.000-08:00

Passage: Daniel 6

Daniel is best known for a few punchy Sunday school stories – the most memorable of which is “Daniel in the Lions' Den”. Most of our familiarity with Daniel ends with this and the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. We seldom venture into the book itself, preferring to stick with the bedtime stories and smattering of moral lessons that get tacked onto them.

The Book of Daniel is somewhat more gritty, and infinitely more theologically rich than the Sunday School lessons suggest. As a young man Daniel is taken captive following a 605 BC siege of Jerusalem by Babylon. In exchange for sparing the city, the Babylonians are given the most lavish furnishings from the Temple of the LORD, as well as Jerusalem’s most promising young nobles. These are taken and “re-educated” (resistance is futile) to serve as attendants to the king of Babylon. In Daniel 1 we’re told they are supervised by Ashpenaz, “chief of his court officials” (NIV); other translations identify Ashpenaz as “chief eunuch”. The implication, restated with certainty by such commentators as Josephus, is that Daniel and his friends become eunuchs, too. The Hebrew captives are pressed into service, but distinguish themselves quickly. They are healthier and have a higher aptitude for learning than their Babylonian counterparts. They are also unwilling to fully “get with the program”, in particular refusing to give up their devotion to the God of the Israelites. This garners at turns condemnation (as in the cases of the fiery furnace and the lions' den) and admiration (as when Daniel interprets the kings’ dreams and when the angel preserves Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego). By their presence in Babylon and their unwavering commitment to the LORD, Daniel and his friends bear witness to the undeniable reality and authority of the one true God.

The overarching theme of the Book of Daniel is that the LORD is God. In Daniel the Babylonian and Medo-Persian kings encounter the God of Daniel and his people. And God proves himself to be the ultimate power in their world. Nebuchadnezzar sees God’s authority in the interpretation of his dreams, in God’s preservation of the men in fiery furnace, and in God’s usurpation of the king’s own mental faculties. Belshazzar’s life is cut short when he defiles the objects taken from the LORD’s temple. Darius witnesses God’s power in his protection of Daniel and the elevation of Daniel to second-in-command of the kingdom. In each instance the king bows the knee to the greater authority.

In Daniel 7 the historical vignettes of Daniel’s life give way to Daniel’s own prophetic visions. Here, too, we encounter more explicitly the promises that are implicit in God’s dealings with and through Daniel. Daniel catches a glimpse of how history will unfold. At the end of the story, God will be revealed as ruler of all. Every king and kingdom will give way to God’s ultimate authority. And in the end God’s people – those who stood firm in the face of temptation and oppression – will be raised to eternal life in his kingdom. The call – to honor God with your life and to stand firm in the faith – resonates throughout history.

What Are You Waiting For?

2010-11-22T06:20:00.000-08:00

Ezekiel 43:1-12

Three entire chapters of Ezekiel (40-42) are devoted to a detailed description of a vision of the new temple. Recall that in Ezekiel 10 the prophet has a vision of God’s glory leaving the temple in Jerusalem. This symbolizes the removal of God’s provision and protection, felt acutely by God’s people during the Babylonian invasion.

Through Ezekiel God assures his people that this isn’t the end of the story. After a greatly protracted chronicle of Israel’s sins and the requisite punishment, Ezekiel details his God-given vision of a new temple. I confess that as a reader I glaze over when I get to Ezekiel 40. The ensuing three chapters are tedious at best. And you can’t help wondering about the point. Why all the detail about the dimensions, contents, and decorations of the new temple?

The response to this question has layers that can’t be explored fully here. However, there are two simple answers that provide some impetus for taking some time over Ezekiel 40-42. The first is that Ezekiel’s vision captures the completeness and perfection of the new temple. This will be a temple to top all temples. The second is that this extended description is intended to build anticipation. The whole time Ezekiel recounts his vision we the readers should be thinking, “Why? Why all this detailed preparation?” The answer, of course, is that this will be God’s dwelling place. Everything has to be just right for this event – the event for which God’s people have been waiting: the return of God’s glory to the temple. “God with us.”

This week marks the beginning of Advent. Once again we commence a season that symbolizes our communal waiting. Sometimes the waiting feels interminable. Let’s spend the time getting our houses in order. Preparing ourselves for this event all creation has been waiting for: the consummation of God with us.

Watchmen

2010-11-17T13:57:00.000-08:00

Passage: Ezekiel 33:1-11

On a plane trip about ten years ago I watched a movie about a career cop who goes looking to find a bone marrow donor for his young son. It turns out the closest match is a sociopathic killer the father helped put behind bars years earlier. When the cop goes to make his appeal, the convict responds, “Just give me moment to savor the irony. Here I am stuck on death row, and all I have to do to kill again is sit here? And a cop’s kid, no less.”

In Ezekiel 33 God confronts his prophet with a dilemma. God says, “I’ve given you the task of warning my people about the judgment that’s coming. If they don’t change their wicked ways, they’re finished. But if you fail to give them fair warning, I’m going to hold you accountable for their deaths.” God goes on to say, “You may be tempted to let my people get what they deserve. You may even want to sit back and enjoy the show. But as my watchman, you have the responsibility to deliver my warning." God says, “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?”

It’s easy to think of God only as judge. Too often God is characterized as angry – an angry God preoccupied with punishing evildoers. When God’s children think this is God's priority, we make it ours, too. We lobby lawmakers to legislate against “immorality.” We picket funerals. We make public statements about how God is punishing us all for the sins of a few. We want to create as much distance as possible between ourselves and the sinners so we don’t get caught in the crossfire. God tells Ezekiel it doesn’t work that way. He says, “Don’t think you can stand back and escape the fire. Take your place alongside the sinners, and pray for grace.” We stand watch – not as onlookers safe in our own self-righteousness, but as those entrusted to sound the alarm. We delight not in the thought of the sinners finally getting theirs, but in the promise that God’s grace is great enough to save even the worst of us.

A Dreadful Thing

2010-11-16T08:14:00.000-08:00

Passage: Hebrews 12:14-29

One of the most beloved rituals of my childhood was our annual St. Nicholas party. St. Nicholas, the historical figure who has been reinterpreted in our culture as Santa Claus, was a 3rd century Greek bishop who became a patron saint of, among other things, children and students. An annual festival was adopted around St. Nicholas’ birthday (Dec. 6) in a number of European countries, including the Netherlands. The tradition was carried on in countless Dutch Canadian families, like the one I grew up in. Our St. Nicholas party, or “Sinterklaas”, went like this:
A group of the families of my parents’ closest friends would gather at one of our homes. After a lavish meal – that none of the children could enjoy because we were so excited about what was coming next – we’d gather in the living room. We’d sing traditional Sinterklaas songs. We’d speculate about what St. Nick was going to bring us. We’d go half crazy with anticipation. And just when we thought we couldn’t stand it any longer, the living room door would open a crack, and a handful of candy would be thrown into the room. The door would close as the kids would climb over each other to get the candy. The door would open again, another handful of candy launched into the room. Finally the door would burst open, and St. Nick would stride into the room, dressed in his full saintly regalia, white mane of hair and beard flowing around his obscured face.

Now those of us who had been through this routine were beside ourselves with excitement because St. Nick always brought with him a bag full of presents, and there was always one with your name on it. But every year there was at least one little kid for whom this was his or her first Sinterklaas. When St. Nick burst through the door, the youngest kids would invariably react one way: abject terror. They would scream, cry, and scramble to get behind a parent or piece of furniture. I’m sure more than one pair of pants had to be changed over the many years we celebrated Sinterklaas.

It seems funny now to think of such a joyous occasion being punctuated with consuming fear. In Hebrews 12 the author describes a similar joyous occasion – a day of celebration unrivaled by anything the human race has ever seen. And yet, says the author, that day will be a day of unparalleled terror for many. Why?

The day the author of Hebrews describes is the day of Christ’s return. The day on which every human being who has ever lived is brought face-to-face with the God of the universe. For those who lived their lives in communion with God, this reunion will be a moment they’ve anticipated with great excitement. There will be, however, many for whom God is a stranger. Their response will be one of consuming fear. As the author of Hebrews says, “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” The author offers this as both an invitation and a warning. He says, “The day is coming. It can be a day of incomparable joy. Or it can be a day of ultimate terror. Your call.” Get to know God, so that the day of our reunion comes as a pleasant surprise rather than a terrible shock. Now’s your chance.

Wiping the Slate Clean

2010-11-10T10:40:00.000-08:00

Passage: Ezekiel 18

In this passage Ezekiel echoes a sentiment expressed by the prophet Jeremiah. In chapter 31 Jeremiah says,
In those days people will no longer say, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ Instead, everyone will die for their own sin; whoever eats sour grapes—their own teeth will be set on edge.
Ezekiel repeats the same proverb, and expands on the promise given by Jeremiah. Here Ezekiel belabors the point that God will judge every person according to his or her sin. And at first this part of the message seems harsh. The idea of God keeping track of your sins and holding you accountable for them is something that people in our culture find distasteful about religion. In fact, what Ezekiel talks about in chapter 18 is what we find at the heart of the Gospel. There are two aspects of this discourse that are genuinely good news.

The first is God’s statement to a people who have been convinced, over the centuries, that they are being punished for the sins of their forebears. As the children of Israel and Judah are reminded of the infidelity generations of their ancestors committed against God, they conclude, “There’s no way we can compensate for them.” In the same way that those who believe in Karma are convinced it takes several lifetimes to make up for sins committed in this one, God’s people are convinced they, their children, and their grandchildren will suffer for the failures of their predecessors. God says, “Not so. I’ve wiped the slate clean. From this point forward I will hold you accountable only for your own sin.”

The second is that God will in fact hold people accountable for their sin. This means, for example, a person who has been victimized as a child or during a time of vulnerability can know that her or his abuser won’t get away with what they did. The abuser will, at some point, be held accountable by the one who sees all. Imagine for a moment you suffered abuse at the hands of a parent. You grow up having been convinced it was somehow your fault. The abuse is a source of shame that you carry into adulthood. Shame over what happens predisposes you to think of yourself as vulnerable to and deserving of abuse. You also carry an injustice that at some level you feel the need to rectify. You can’t get back at your abusive parent, either because they’re too powerful, or because they’re gone. You either live with the sense that you are stuck a victim because justice was never done, or you channel your hurt and sense of victimhood into acts of aggression against someone weaker than you. It all stems from the idea that you’re stuck with the consequences of someone else’s sin; stuck with the need to make justice happen.

In this passage in Ezekiel God offers freedom from having to live out the sins of your parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. He offers a clean slate – the chance to be defined by your own choices. God also assures us that justice is ultimately in his hands. We don’t have to live our lives obsessed with making sure someone gets punished for our hurt. That’s God’s job. Ours is to live in response to God’s love, not in reaction to our own hurt. God wipes the slate clean and makes us new people.

Dear Shame

2010-11-09T08:33:00.000-08:00

Passage: Ezekiel 16:53-63

Ezekiel 16 is probably the most difficult chapter in what is decidedly a difficult book. What’s difficult about this chapter is the visceral language the prophet uses to describe the unfaithfulness of God’s people. Ezekiel uses two metaphors to describe Israel and Judah. The first is that of an infant abandoned at birth. Ezekiel describes in detail the state of this infant before God finds her, cleans her, and nurtures her. The second metaphor is that of a beloved bride who becomes adulterous – indiscriminately giving herself to anyone who comes knocking. Through the prophet God is describing the tendency of people, and nations, to seek comfort, solace and fulfillment in cheap substitutes: money; physical pleasure; social/political influence; military might. God is saying, “These are the lovers you’re inviting in my place.” What God offers, again and again, is the true comfort, security, and intimacy for which every person hungers. God identifies each of our tendency to look past him to lovers that are a little flashier; a little more exciting; offer more immediate gratification. Eventually God allows his people to suffer the consequences of that tendency.

But God doesn’t give up on us. At the end of Ezekiel 16 God says, “I will never forget the covenant I made to take you in, provide for you and love you. I will return to this covenant not because you deserve it, but because my love is limitless.
“When I return to you," says God, "you will finally feel the shame you should have felt when you were running around on me. You’ll finally recognize what you became. Perhaps one day you’ll see yourself through the lens of my perfect love for you. When you do, you’ll grieve the shameless way you discarded me.”

We treat shame as a bad word. And yes, there are times when shame comes from the wrong place or is inappropriately assigned. In these cases shame becomes an oppressive barrier to health. Like any other innate instinct, however, shame has a place. Sometimes it tells us we aren’t living into the people we want to be. Sometimes it tells us we aren’t living according to a valuable set of rules or standards. Sometimes it tells us we have fallen short in a commitment or obligation to a loved one. People who know no shame are capable of doing great damage to themselves and their relationships. Sometimes the restoration of shame is the first step toward the restoration of self-love; of dignity; and of loving relationship. When God promises to restore his people’s shame, God promises to restore them to a beloved and cherished status they’ll wish they’d never lost.

Ezekiel Who?

2010-11-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

Passage: Ezekiel 1

The Book of Ezekiel opens with vivid and elaborate imagery that proves to be the prophet’s signature throughout the book. Ezekiel prefaces his prophecy with the account of how he received it. Rob Bell says, “The message of this chapter is simple: ‘Kids, this is why you never do drugs.’” Ezekiel 1 reads like a bad acid trip.

And it’s easy to get distracted by the details of Ezekiel’s heavenly vision. For centuries scholars have picked apart each image and each character from the vision, claiming each to be a metaphor or symbol for something else. Whereas some of these analyses have more merit than others, they all run the risk of distracting from the main focus of the passage.

The key point to take from Ezekiel 1 is this: Ezekiel has caught a glimpse of the throne room of Heaven. He has encountered the living God. And here is what Ezekiel has seen: that God is overwhelming in majesty and power; that God is attended and worshiped by the most amazing and majestic creatures in Heaven and Earth; that therefore God is Lord of all Creation. In other words, says Ezekiel, I saw God, and God is everything he says he is. Ezekiel’s prophecy is given credibility because his vision is beyond even what he can describe. It’s truly a glimpse into the realm of God and the angels. Ezekiel bears witness that God is real, and God is who he says he is. Furthermore, God is the one who has commissioned Ezekiel to speak. Anything Ezekiel says henceforth is God’s word, given by God’s authority.

Here’s why this is important. Ezekiel has been commissioned to bring God’s word to the Israelites living in exile. They believe either that God has been a myth all along, or that God has abandoned them. Ezekiel comes to them and says, “God’s real. How do I know? I have seen him.” Ezekiel comes to them and says, “God hasn’t forgotten you. How do I know? Because he gave me this message specifically for you.” Finally, most importantly, Ezekiel says, “God is with you. How do I know? Because here I am.” Here’s the connection. Way back in Deuteronomy, God gave this promise. It was early on in the life of the Israelites, so they may not have been paying attention. But now all of a sudden it’s more important than ever. Here’s what God said, through Moses, way back then:
The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. For this is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.” The LORD said to me: “What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him.” (Deuteronomy 18:15-18)
God promised always to provide his people a human representative – someone to act as a go-between; someone to speak to his people on his behalf. Here, even though they’ve been ripped from their homeland and placed among pagans, God’s people have God’s voice speaking in their ears. Who is Ezekiel? God’s prophet. God’s mouthpiece. The physical reminder of God’s constant presence.

Lamentations

2010-11-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

Passage: Lamentations 1

The Book of Lamentations has historically been attributed to the prophet Jeremiah. Whereas the most recent scholarly consensus is that the book was composed by a group of authors, the assumption is that it was written at a time concurrent with Jeremiah’s ministry. That is, shortly after the fall of Jerusalem and the exile.

Whether these are Jeremiah’s words or those of a group of his contemporaries, the book itself communicates devastating sentiments that are the only fitting response to devastating circumstances. These are the words of the witnesses – the survivors. These are the words of those who escaped only after having taken in the sights and sounds of foreign invaders ruthlessly slaughtering their neighbors and friends. Who escaped only to witness from a distance the flames rising from their homes. Who stood back and saw the Temple – the last symbol of God’s presence with his people – pulled down stone by stone. We cannot begin to imagine the trauma of the survivors. What we’ve been given are these echoes of their cries of agony and despair. This chorus of the horror, the pain and regret of a people whose God has left them to fend for themselves.

Lamentations consists of five sections. Each is itself a work of art: the first four sections are acrostic poems, their successive verses beginning with one of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The third, or center, section, consists of sixty-six verses, with three verses devoted to each of the twenty-two letters. The fifth section mirrors the structure of the other four, consisting of twenty-two verses, but lacking the acrostic format. The themes of the five sections are, in order: the misery of the forsaken city; the sin that brought judgment to God’s people; hope for the people of God; the connection between sin and the destruction of the city; a prayer that God will respond to the people’s repentance with mercy. A distinctive of Hebrew poetry, exemplified by Lamentations, is that the structure of a poem serves to amplify its theme or message.

At the apex of the book – its center section – is hope. God’s people have seen first hand that God is true to his word. He has always promised that if they abandoned him, they would experience life without him. However, God has also promised, again and again, that if his people change their ways, he’ll take them back every time. So, in the aftermath of their destruction they confess their sins, and throw a desperate prayer into the heavens. They hope against hope that God will hear their prayers, and redeem them like he promised.

Whose Side Are You On?

2010-10-30T17:04:00.000-07:00

Passage: Jeremiah 49

The bulk of Jeremiah’s prophecy focuses on the ways God intends to judge his people. The instrument of God’s judgment, it turns out, will be the Babylonian Empire. The assumption Jeremiah’s audience members, and we the readers, are tempted to make is that God is effectively switching sides. God’s been on the side of Israel and Judah all this time. Now he’s done with them, and Babylon is his new favorite. What other conclusion is there to draw here? The success that should have been Israel’s has been handed to Babylon, even as the Israelites have been handed over as slaves to the new superpower. God’s on their side now.
Not so fast. In Jeremiah 49 God lashes out not against Israel and Judah but against…Babylon? God says,
So Babylonia will be plundered; all who plunder her will have their fill…Because you rejoice and are glad, you who pillage my inheritance…
God goes on to say that Israel will be forgiven and Judah restored, while Babylon is punished for treating God’s chosen people so deplorably.
What?

Here’s what’s going on. God committed to his people that if they rejected him, they would face the consequences. Those consequences take the form of the Babylonian invasion. But even though they have become instrumental in God’s plan, the Babylonians are not innocent. The mechanisms they use to mete out God’s judgment are, themselves, cruel and corrupt. No doer of violence; no merciless oppressor will go unpunished, either. The Babylonians will also be held accountable for the abominations they’ve committed.

The paradox of God’s action in the world is that his hand is always at work in the lives of his people – even in the bad things that happen to us. However, God is not the source of the bad things. The Belgic Confession puts it like this:
We believe that this good God, after he created all things, did not abandon them to chance or fortune but leads and governs them according to his holy will, in such a way that nothing happens in this world without his orderly arrangement. Yet God is not the author of, nor can he be charged with, the sin that occurs. For his power and goodness are so great and incomprehensible that he arranges and does his work very well and justly even when the devils and wicked men act unjustly. (Belgic Confession, Art. 13a)

The thought of a good God willing painful – even tragic – circumstances on the people he loves is unsettling. Those who call ourselves God’s people, however, believe that God uses all circumstances to shape our lives and guide us toward our ultimate destination: salvation and eternal life. This still raises the question about those people at whose hands God’s children suffer. The answer is simple: all people will be held accountable for their sins before God – even those sins God has co-opted for his purposes. When someone else has hurt you, the question is not, “How could God let this happen?” but, “How will God use this for good in my life?” The fact that God can use someone else’s hurtful act for a good purpose does not condone that act. Our comfort in the face of such an experience is knowing that God still calls to account those whose evil acts have hurt us.

A Seared Conscience

2010-10-28T06:27:00.000-07:00

Passage: 1 Timothy 4:1-16

This is a passage I’ve always read one way, but recently saw through different eyes. In his first letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul refers to people who have “seared their consciences as with a hot iron.” To this point I’ve assumed Paul’s referring to people whose repeated immorality has deadened their consciences and sense of shame, such that they no longer feel it when they’re sinning. Generally I’ve pictured the kinds of sensational and salacious sins that we church people whisper about in our congregations and rail against in our culture. However, a closer examination reveals that Paul’s talking about a different set of preoccupations. The people to whom Paul refers are people whose misguided religious practices have seared their consciences, deadening their senses to the true Word and Spirit of God. Paul warns Timothy and his church to watch out for people whose religion has been informed by superstition, folklore, legalism, and extrabiblical teaching. Paul invites his church to live out the freedom of the Gospel – freedom to fully enjoy the gifts and experiences God has given. Freedom to approach God through the blood of Jesus rather than through the rigors of an elaborate system of rules and prohibitions. A seared conscience, according to Paul, is not a conscience that doesn’t know right from wrong. It’s a conscience that is dead to the Spirit of God. The way to ward off the influence of such people is simple: hear the Gospel; embrace the Savior; know the Scriptures. Let your conscience be revived by the Spirit.

A Covenant with the Day and the Night

2010-10-27T10:58:00.000-07:00

Passage: Jeremiah 33:14-28

In Jeremiah 33 God makes an unbelievable promise to Jeremiah. God says, “A day will come when a descendant of David will rule this land with justice and righteousness. And in that day the Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will be secure.” Jeremiah isn’t buying it. He says, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my neighbors are saying, ‘God’s rejected both his kingdoms – Israel and Judah.’ We’ve become a laughingstock to the world because it’s obvious, God, that you’ve rejected your people.”

God’s response is remarkable. He says to Jeremiah, “If you can break my covenant with the day and the night, then I’ll break the covenants I made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I’ll break the covenant I made to David.” In other words, God says, “I’m not just paying lip service to something I said in the past. I have made commitments that no force in heaven or on earth can undo.” The commitments? To Abraham, Isaac and Jacob God said, “I’ll make your descendants more numerous than the stars of the sky. And I will one day bless the nations of the world through you.” To David God said, “A descendant of David will always reign.” These promises sound like hyperbole. Like, at the very least, gross exaggeration. In his conversation with Jeremiah God says, “I wasn’t just making that stuff up. I gave my word – a word that I can undo no more easily than you can reroute the courses of the planets and stars.”

Does God keep his promises? Through the descendants of Abraham God brings the Savior of the world. And through David’s lineage God brings not just the king of the Jews, but the Lord of all Creation. No force in Heaven or on Earth can undo that which God covenants to do.

A Fresh Start

2010-10-26T08:22:00.000-07:00

Passage: Jeremiah 31:27-34

Jeremiah speaks to a people who have painted themselves into a corner. They are in a relationship whose conditions they’ve violated too many times to be able to undo the damage. God has told his people that if they live by his rules, everything will go well for them. The converse is true, as well: that if they abandon God and his rules, he’ll abandon them to the arbitrary whim of a merciless world. God has also told his people that their relationship with him is collective. They live out the rigors of God’s Law in community, instructing and encouraging each other to keep the faith. God corrects and punishes his people as a community when they fail to hold individual members accountable. God tells parents that their children and even grandchildren will suffer the consequences of their unfaithfulness.

Jeremiah intervenes at a time when God’s people are on the brink of experiencing everything God warned them about. As a nation they are about to find out how hard life without God can be. Jeremiah’s prophecies focus repeatedly on the coming judgment. But interspersed are promises that better times are ahead. In Jeremiah 31 God talks about a new relationship with new terms. God says, “A day will come in which children won’t suffer for their parents’ sins. They’ll be held accountable only for themselves.” God says, “A day will come when I don’t need to send prophets and preachers and teachers because my word will dwell in each of your hearts. I will forgive your wickedness and remember your sins no more. I will be your God and you will be my people.”

To Jeremiah and his people, this sounds impossible. It sounds too good to be true. They’ve gotten used to the idea that God’s forgiveness is unattainable. That even if they repent and change their ways, the heap of their parents’ and grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ sin is insurmountable. In this prophecy God gives them a glimpse of a new way. A clean slate. The fresh start that you and I know in the person of Jesus Christ. The thing Jeremiah and the children of Israel long for so desperately – the thing we can’t live without – is a thing none of us can secure for ourselves. God offers it freely to those who long once and for all to be called his people. A fresh start.

No One Expects the Fire

2010-10-23T17:28:00.000-07:00

Passage: Jeremiah 21:1-10

On September 29 Gene Cranick watched firefighters stand by and let his house burn to the ground. Cranick, and his fellow residents of Obion County, Tennessee, are required to pay a $75.00 annual fee if they want fire protection from the city of South Fulton. Year after year Cranick has refused to pay. When his home caught fire, he called 911. Firefighters showed up, but only to prevent his fire from spreading to his neighbor’s property – his neighbor who faithfully paid the annual fee. As his house burned, Cranick offered to pay the firefighters anything to get them to extinguish the blaze. “Sorry,” they said, “just following orders.” On one hand their behavior sounds cruel. On the other, Cranick knew the rules ahead of time. He gambled. And lost.

King Zedekiah knew the rules ahead of time. He’d heard it from Jeremiah. His father and grandfather had heard it from Isaiah. “Repent,” the prophets said. “Return to God and his rules, and God will intervene when trouble befalls you. Return to God and he will provide for you and your people. Reject God, and he will stand by and let you suffer the consequences.” Like his predecessors, Zedekiah has chosen to disregard the rules.

Lo and behold, Jeremiah gets a panicked call from Zedekiah. “Uh, we have a problem. The Babylonians are here, and they say they’re going to destroy the city. We could use a little help. Do you think you could put in a good word with God for me?”
“Sorry,” says Jeremiah. “You know the rules.” It seems cruel. But Zedekiah had his chance. God’s people had their chance. They took their chances. And they lost.
How about you? How bad will it have to get before you appeal to God? Don’t take your chances.

The Quiet Life

2010-10-19T11:27:00.000-07:00

Passage: 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

Over the course of our life together, my wife and I have known quite a number of people who have felt “called” either to the pastorate or the mission field. When they begin to make the transition into professional ministry, many of these people have expressed excitement about now being able to really serve God. The underlying assumption being that there are certain jobs that have greater Kingdom significance than others. For more than a few of the individuals or couples we’ve known, professional ministry hasn’t worked out. They’ve burned out, or dropped out of the training process for personal or financial reasons. For these acquaintances there’s been the suggestion that somehow they’ve failed. That settling into another career and an “ordinary” kind of life means settling for a second-rate calling.

In 1 Thessalonians 4 the Apostle Paul affirms the “ordinary” life as a legitimate - even preferable - Christian calling. He urges members of his church to see their jobs, families, and other commitments as a mission field. He tells them that an important part of ministering effectively is living effectively. Paul says, “Live a life that wins the respect of outsiders.” Live your life in such a way that the people around you take notice. So doing you will invite the question: “What’s your secret? How is it that you live out your commitments and pursue you work with such dedication? How is it that your relationships seem to work out right? That you continue to give your all to your job, year after year?” Let your quiet life be an invitation for others to encounter the Gospel at work.

Delayed Obedience is...

2010-10-18T07:15:00.000-07:00

Passage: Jeremiah 17:19-27

As a parent to young children, I regularly have to play the disciplinarian. Several times a day I tell my kids what they have to do. When they balk or refuse, I tell them the consequences that will ensue should they continue to disobey. When that happens, I’m faced with the choice: do I give them another chance, or do I follow through? I’m generally inclined to give them another chance. But when I do, they begin to expect it from me. The next time I ask them to do something, they’re even less likely to do it. On the other hand, when I do follow through, they’re surprised and outraged. “How could you?” they seem to say (with fewer words and more tears). Once in awhile, when the opportunity for obedience has passed, and the consequence is being meted out, one of my children will say, “Wait, I want to obey!” And I say, “I’m sorry, but you missed your chance. The point was for you to obey right away.” Which, of course, is sad for them and me. It hurts to see them desperately trying to go back and do what they were supposed to do in the first place when they realize, too late, that there are consequences. The point wasn’t for them to accomplish the specific task (hanging up a coat; putting on their shoes; eating their dinner). It was for them to obey.

This is a dynamic that plays out continually in the relationship between God and his people. In Jeremiah 17 God gives his people an order. He says, “Keep the Sabbath Day holy. Don’t pursue any labor or commerce on the seventh day. Set it aside for me. I told your parents and grandparents to do this, but they wouldn’t listen. If you obey this command, you won’t suffer the consequences they did.” Now keeping the Sabbath seems like an arbitrary command. Why this one? Why doesn’t God say, “Make sure you don’t murder”? Or steal? Or cheat on your wife? Why the Sabbath? It makes it seem as though the Sabbath command is more important than the others.

We know, based on the rest of the story, that Gods’ people don’t obey this command. Jeremiah watches his people disregard God’s word and suffer the consequences.
But generations later we see God’s people going back to this one command, after the fact, and say, “Maybe if we obey it now God will reverse the terrible judgment we’ve experienced.” Centuries after they’ve been exiled and returned to their homeland, the children of Israel are a poor nation living under foreign occupation. And they are obsessively trying to keep this one commandment: “Don’t work on the Sabbath.” So much so that when God himself shows up in the flesh, and begins to travel and teach and heal on the Sabbath, they condemn him. “Don’t you know?” they say. “It’s because of this very thing that God sent our ancestors off to Babylon. It’s because we didn’t keep the Sabbath that we’ve suffered so much. Don’t mess it up for us!” To which Jesus, God in the flesh, responds, “You’re still missing the point.”

There was nothing more important about the Sabbath command than any of the other nine. Through Jeremiah God was simply giving his people one command. One simple command in the hopes that they would obey. This was a test of their obedience, which in turn was a test of the relationship God wanted so badly to have with them. It didn’t matter, at the end of the day, what God told them to do. God just wanted them to obey. They didn’t. All these generations later, they look back on that chance they’d had, and try desperately to recapture it. But it’s too late.

The Basic Principles of this World

2010-10-11T08:09:00.000-07:00

Passage: Colossians 2:8-23

An older member of a church I served once told me about how much her late husband had looked down on members of her family of origin. In particular, she described how her husband, a college professor, would bait her brother with questions about their theology. Her brother, a farmer with a grade school education, would attempt to answer the questions based on what he remembered from sermons and Bible stories. Then her husband would rip his answers to shreds. She recalled, with tears in her eyes, the way her husband used theological savvy as a weapon to humiliate her brother in order to bolster his own sense of superiority.

More recently one of my best friends confided to me concern about his youngest sister’s latest vocational pursuit. His sister, a college dropout, had moved to the West Coast and enrolled in the “Power Plant”, a charismatic Christian academy that specializes in healing prayer, prophecy, and what she called “words of knowledge.” When she came home for Thanksgiving break, his sister said she’d received a “word of knowledge” that God was going to heal their mom’s cancer. Based on this, she insisted that her mother refuse the surgery and chemotherapy she was scheduled to undergo. When my friend and his family dismissed his sister’s urgings, she said, “You obviously don’t have the faith I do. God talks to me.”

It’s human nature to latch on to skills, abilities or social status markers that make us special. We all at some level want to be superior to someone or better at something. This is what the Apostle Paul talks about when he warns his church against “depending on the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” When it comes to religion, people’s human instincts lead them down two possible paths. The first is believing that one can acquire a level of secret or superior knowledge of the divine that puts them ahead. They’ll use special jargon to talk about God and the life of faith. They’ll make veiled references to certain skills or practices that you’d obviously only know about if you were part of the elite circle of “true believers.” This superior knowledge, they believe, gets them closer to God. Proponents of this approach to the faith invariably look down on those who know less than they do.

The second is believing that there is a set of rules that, if followed, will get you closer to God. Proponents of this approach shape their lives around certain disciplines, are harshly critical of anyone who doesn’t follow the rules as strictly or exhaustively as they do, and again think of themselves as belonging to an elite society.

Paul confronts and debunks both philosophies in Colossians 2. He says, “The only basis for a successful appeal to God is the blood of Jesus Christ.” He tells the members of his church that if they have embraced Jesus as Savior and Lord, no one can claim to be closer to God than they are. Paul says, “Don’t let someone else tell you your faith is worth less because you don’t know as much as them. Don’t let someone else debase your relationship with God because they follow more rules.”

In saying this, Paul also cautions members of his church against adopting an elitist view of their own faith. Your relationship with Jesus Christ doesn’t make you better than anyone else. It just makes you right with God. And your aim, should you mature in the faith or grow in knowledge of the things of God, must always be to share what you’ve learned. We’re all on the same playing field. Saved by grace. Servants of God. Growing in faith and knowledge. Together.

You Need a New Doctor

2010-10-08T12:25:00.000-07:00

Passage: Jeremiah 5:30-31; 6:13-15

30 "A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land:
31 The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end?
13 "From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit.
14 They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace.
15 Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when I punish them," says the LORD.

Early in his ministry Jeremiah experiences that which is common to all the prophets of God: resistance. No one wants to hear what Jeremiah has to say.
Which is too bad. In Jeremiah God is offering his people one last chance. He’s telling them that they have a serious problem that, if left unchecked, will kill them all. The problem is that Jeremiah isn’t the only prophet in Judah. It turns out that though the people of God have abandoned God, they haven’t stopped being religious. They still meet at the temple. They still pray. They still worship. And they still consult priests and prophets. It’s just that they attend a temple that is no longer inhabited by the one true God. They maintain rites and rituals that have been emptied of any connection to the living God. And they enlist prophets who are deaf to the voice of God. Their priests and prophets tell them only what they want to hear.

Jeremiah’s grating tone and condemning message stand in bitter relief to the religious candy floss his people have been consuming. Jeremiah’s people have lost their appetite for God; for God’s Word. So they spit it out as soon as they’re exposed to it. To their deadly detriment. The medicine of God’s Word is the only antidote to the infection that’s eating them from the inside. They don’t even realize they’re dying. Jeremiah laments the fact that the very people entrusted the task of administering life-giving triage to his dying people have given nothing but sweet anesthetic to numb the pain of their spiritual gangrene.

The cure is bitter and hard to take. But it is infinitely sweeter than the slow septic death Jeremiah sees his people dying.
God’s people are constantly faced with this choice: take the bitter remedy of repentance and reconciliation with God. Or listen to the voices that tell you you’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggone it, people like you. Listen to the voices that tell you that you can have God and keep living your life the way you always have. Keep going to the doctor that says, “No, that’s not cancer. It’s just a blemish that keeps growing. Let me prescribe you some cover-up.” The antidote seems painful until you face the alternative. If your doctor keeps telling you what you want to hear, you might want to look for a new one.

Deceived?

2010-10-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

Passage: Jeremiah 4

I used to enjoy taking in the occasional episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. I loved watching Vincent d’Onofrio’s character, Det. Gorem, use his unorthodox methods to get close to the suspects he was investigating. In one memorable episode, Gorem tracks down a man living a double life. At the climax of the film, Gorem corners the suspect (played by Lost’s Michael Emerson – a.k.a. Benjamin Linus), who is holding his children hostage in a hotel room. Gorem uses the rapport he’s developed with the suspect to give him the impression the two are friends. The suspect, obviously overwhelmed by the magnitude of the situation he’s created, allows Gorem to come close. It seems as though the detective is about to enfold the suspect in an embrace; but at the last second he instead snatches the man’s weapon and pins him to the ground. It’s the detective’s unexpected change in demeanor, and switch from confidante to captor that heightens the drama of the scene.

In Jeremiah 4 the prophet confronts God regarding a similar change in demeanor. He says to God,
"Ah, Sovereign LORD, how completely you have deceived this people and Jerusalem by saying, 'You will have peace,' when the sword is at our throats."
You see, few verses earlier God has said to Jeremiah,
“If you will return, O Israel, return to me," declares the LORD. "If you put your detestable idols out of my sight and no longer go astray, and if in a truthful, just and righteous way you swear, 'As surely as the LORD lives,' then the nations will be blessed by him and in him they will glory."
Jeremiah isn’t buying it. Sure, he believes that God would relent if his people changed their ways. But Jeremiah knows his people too well. He knows they’re not going to change. So he says, “God, why taunt me with this possibility? Why pretend that you’re here as our friend? I know how this is going to end. Not with peace.”

Jeremiah may well know how this chapter in the story of Israel and Judah will end. He will see his homeland invaded and his family and friends carted off as slaves. But this is only one chapter in a very long story.

God isn’t lying when he promises peace. God’s not lying when he promises redemption. And God isn’t playing games when he claims to be the friend of his people. God has promised from the start to save the world through the nation of Israel. And if you stick with the story you see that God does indeed make good his promise.

God keeps his promises. And God acts in the best interests of his people. Every chapter of their story is a chapter in the unfolding story of God’s plan of redemption for the world. If you are a child of God, then hang in there. God isn’t playing games with you. Your life is in his hands, and his every act serves the cause of your salvation. Don’t be deceived by your circumstances. Trust in him.