I know this isn't a Christmas meditation. Actually, I wrote it in my NIV Noteworthy Bible last spring, on Easter Sunday, and I ran across it this past Sunday, when our pastor was preaching from John 19. But this isn't an Easter meditation; it's about trusting God, now.
The death of Jesus was the final destruction of a dream, of many dreams: of Messianic deliverance from the brutal rule of Rome, of the presence and charisma of a mighty prophet. It was, as we can see now, two millenia hence, the birth of a new Dream, a dream that was inconceivable to those hopeless mourners in those first few bitter hours, those first two days.
Without the death of Jesus those old dreams, which had to die, couldn't be laid to rest. So he gave himself up to the brutality and treachery of his enemies. He was "obedient [to his Father's will] to the point of death." All hopes had to die -- hopes of rescue, of justice, of divine intervention -- in order for God's Plan to be set in motion.
Once Jesus was well and truly dead, once all those old dreams and hopes were abandoned, God's people were ready consider God's Better and Bigger Plan -- Jesus not just alive but resurrected to a new kind of bodily life. Jesus at work not just in first-century Palestine but God's Spirit at work throughout history all over the world. A people of God made up of not just of Jews but a people "from every tribe and every language" -- all of this inconceivable so long as the Rabbi Jesus was kept from the hands of his enemies, so long as he was treated justly and humanely.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Friday, October 7, 2011
What This Week Made Me Think About
In my nearly forty years of involvement with my alma mater -- four as a student and now 35 as a teacher -- I have never seen a week like this week.
This week marked a sad anniversary for two of our high school seniors. One lost her father in a car accident nine years ago; his birthday was this week. Another lost her sister who, as a senior in high school, was killed in another car accident; that was four years ago this week.
Two school families are dealing with brain cancer and surgery. And grief and anxiety and confusion.
Two students lost their fathers within the past two months, one of them this week.
A local pastor died of a massive stroke at age 69. Many of our students attend his church. His funeral is today.
And young man who graduated from our school last year will be buried tomorrow; he died of heart problems last week. His funeral -- the memorial service and burial of a boy who walked across our platform to receive his high school diploma just four months ago -- will take place tomorrow.
I feel so helpless to know what to say to these students in their grief. Cliches and platitudes come readily to mind, of course, but we all know how useless they are. So do I say nothing because I don't know what to say? Or is it worse to say nothing at all? After all, isn't that the one thing Job's comforters did right? They sat silently with their suffering friend for seven days before they opened their mouths and made a mess of things.
I realize that one thing this week has done is make us all think about death. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since we're all going to face death some day. If a doctor were to deliver a devastating diagnosis to me, if I were to learn that I have not decades to live but months, that would change things dramatically for me and my family. But in some ways it would change nothing.
A man with a terminal diagnosis isn't different from other men because he knows he will die. We all know we will die. It's not even certain that he will die sooner than his healthy friends. What's different about the man with the diagnosis is only that he has some idea when and how he will pass from this life into the next. The man with the diagnosis is forced to consider a reality the rest of us want to avoid.
In class the other day one of my student prayed that maybe we might come to understand why such a young man would have to die. I've walked with God long enough to know that it is more likely we'll have to live with not knowing why such things happen. I think we'll have to be satisfied with not knowing the plan, so long as we know the Planner.
Regardless of what we ever come to understand about all these things, one thing we can know is that this week in the Valley of the Shadow is not the worst-case scenario. The worst thing that could happen on earth has already happened. Two thousand years ago we killed God; He became a man and we killed Him, even though we knew he was innocent.
I remember watching The Passion of the Christ and wishing that Jesus could somehow be rescued from his tormentors. It happens all the time in movies: someone speaks up for the innocent man and persuades the blood-thirsty mob to relent, or someone rides into the last scene and executes a daring rescue and the victim is saved. But then I remembered that no, I don't want Jesus to be rescued. He had to die; it was His Father's plan, and Jesus agreed to go through with it, and His death was the only way I could have peace with God. I must conclude that it is a good thing that God allowed the worst thing that ever happened.
If the worst thing that has ever happened took place within God's sovereign plan, if God was involved in that cruel injustice and actually planned for it to happen, I can be sure that even the suffering of this week is ultimately an expression of God's wisdom and compassion. I cannot know the plan, but I know the Planner.
I read recently of a missionary family living in the jungle who discovered a giant snake in their kitchen. They ran out of the house to get help. A machete-wielding neighbor strode into the kitchen and decapitated the snake in one stroke. He walked back outside in triumph, but he had one piece of bad news: the snake wouldn't know it was dead for some time.
The missionaries had to stand outside for hours as the headless snake thrashed about smashing furniture and windows in its death-throes. Standing there in the heat while their house was being destroyed, the missionaries had a sudden insight: that snake is like Satan. He's defeated and his end is certain, but he still is doing lots of damage.
The point of the snake-story? Two points, actually: 1) Watch out for that Enemy; he can still injure and destroy. But 2) don't worry about the eventual outcome. The outcome was determined long ago, when the worst thing that could happen did happen.
You can see my thoughts are jumbled. It's hard to string together any coherent string of thoughts. The grief and anxiety keep knocking my focus off-kilter.
I suppose the important thing is to keep steadily in view the few things that we know: that God is wise and good, that our view of things is limited and cloudy, that in the end God's wise and good purposes will prevail. Beyond that, we wait and we pray and we try to comfort one another as best we can.
This week marked a sad anniversary for two of our high school seniors. One lost her father in a car accident nine years ago; his birthday was this week. Another lost her sister who, as a senior in high school, was killed in another car accident; that was four years ago this week.
Two school families are dealing with brain cancer and surgery. And grief and anxiety and confusion.
Two students lost their fathers within the past two months, one of them this week.
A local pastor died of a massive stroke at age 69. Many of our students attend his church. His funeral is today.
And young man who graduated from our school last year will be buried tomorrow; he died of heart problems last week. His funeral -- the memorial service and burial of a boy who walked across our platform to receive his high school diploma just four months ago -- will take place tomorrow.
I feel so helpless to know what to say to these students in their grief. Cliches and platitudes come readily to mind, of course, but we all know how useless they are. So do I say nothing because I don't know what to say? Or is it worse to say nothing at all? After all, isn't that the one thing Job's comforters did right? They sat silently with their suffering friend for seven days before they opened their mouths and made a mess of things.
I realize that one thing this week has done is make us all think about death. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since we're all going to face death some day. If a doctor were to deliver a devastating diagnosis to me, if I were to learn that I have not decades to live but months, that would change things dramatically for me and my family. But in some ways it would change nothing.
A man with a terminal diagnosis isn't different from other men because he knows he will die. We all know we will die. It's not even certain that he will die sooner than his healthy friends. What's different about the man with the diagnosis is only that he has some idea when and how he will pass from this life into the next. The man with the diagnosis is forced to consider a reality the rest of us want to avoid.
In class the other day one of my student prayed that maybe we might come to understand why such a young man would have to die. I've walked with God long enough to know that it is more likely we'll have to live with not knowing why such things happen. I think we'll have to be satisfied with not knowing the plan, so long as we know the Planner.
Regardless of what we ever come to understand about all these things, one thing we can know is that this week in the Valley of the Shadow is not the worst-case scenario. The worst thing that could happen on earth has already happened. Two thousand years ago we killed God; He became a man and we killed Him, even though we knew he was innocent.
I remember watching The Passion of the Christ and wishing that Jesus could somehow be rescued from his tormentors. It happens all the time in movies: someone speaks up for the innocent man and persuades the blood-thirsty mob to relent, or someone rides into the last scene and executes a daring rescue and the victim is saved. But then I remembered that no, I don't want Jesus to be rescued. He had to die; it was His Father's plan, and Jesus agreed to go through with it, and His death was the only way I could have peace with God. I must conclude that it is a good thing that God allowed the worst thing that ever happened.
If the worst thing that has ever happened took place within God's sovereign plan, if God was involved in that cruel injustice and actually planned for it to happen, I can be sure that even the suffering of this week is ultimately an expression of God's wisdom and compassion. I cannot know the plan, but I know the Planner.
I read recently of a missionary family living in the jungle who discovered a giant snake in their kitchen. They ran out of the house to get help. A machete-wielding neighbor strode into the kitchen and decapitated the snake in one stroke. He walked back outside in triumph, but he had one piece of bad news: the snake wouldn't know it was dead for some time.
The missionaries had to stand outside for hours as the headless snake thrashed about smashing furniture and windows in its death-throes. Standing there in the heat while their house was being destroyed, the missionaries had a sudden insight: that snake is like Satan. He's defeated and his end is certain, but he still is doing lots of damage.
The point of the snake-story? Two points, actually: 1) Watch out for that Enemy; he can still injure and destroy. But 2) don't worry about the eventual outcome. The outcome was determined long ago, when the worst thing that could happen did happen.
You can see my thoughts are jumbled. It's hard to string together any coherent string of thoughts. The grief and anxiety keep knocking my focus off-kilter.
I suppose the important thing is to keep steadily in view the few things that we know: that God is wise and good, that our view of things is limited and cloudy, that in the end God's wise and good purposes will prevail. Beyond that, we wait and we pray and we try to comfort one another as best we can.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Knowing Christ
This is my contribution to the dedication service for our new Worship Center at Patterson Park Church in Beavercreek, Ohio. I was one of three speakers. Each of us was given precisely seven minutes to explain one of the three verbs in our Mission Statement: Patterson Park Church exists to glorify God by knowing Christ, growing in Christ, and going in service to Him. I spoke on "Know," (and I feel certain I spoke for less than seven minutes).
An itinerant Palestinian rabbi once told this story: Once there was a man who bought and sold fine gemstones. Gems and jewels and precious stones were not just his job, they were his passion.
One day he stumbled upon a pearl of such surpassing beauty that it took his breath away. In all his decades handling precious stones, he had never seen the equal of this one pearl. He inquired discretely as to its value and discovered that this one gem was worth more than the rest of his entire inventory combined. In fact, it was worth the equivalent of his entire net worth. He realized that from that moment on, his life would never be the same. Either he would give up everything in exchange for this one thing of infinite value, or he would hold on to what he had and pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Even though the stakes were so high, he made his decision quickly, even gladly: he sold everything, liquidated his entire estate, to buy that one pearl of great price.
The Mission Statement for Patterson Park Church is encapsulated in three simple verbs: Know. Grow. Go. It is no accident that “Know” is the first. We believe that the Christian life must begin not with feelings but with knowledge.
If you were to ask one of us what kind of church Patterson Park is, we might stumble over the answer. Patterson Park is not part of a denomination. Because we value the Bible so much and feature the Scriptures in our teaching and preaching, many have rightly described us as a “Bible church.” But it is not knowledge of the Bible that is the starting point and center of our faith.
The “Know” in our Mission Statement is about knowing Christ. We believe that all of the spiritual life – having a relationship with God, growing in faith, preparing for the life to come – all of it must begin with knowing Jesus.
A quick Google search will tell you that there are many different explanations of Jesus, who he was and what he means to human history. So it would be good to explain exactly what we believe about that first century Palestinian rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth.
Like most others, we believe that Jesus was a great teacher and healer. Like most others, we believe that Jesus was a prophet, the greatest prophet ever to appear among men. But unlike many, we agree with the view informed by the Scriptures and by two thousand years of Christian thought and tradition: we believe that Jesus was God in human flesh.
We believe that in Jesus, God broke into human history to set things right. We believe that the life of Jesus was the turning point in human history. We believe that the death and resurrection of Jesus provide the only way for people to make peace with God.
So if that’s what we believe about Jesus, what does it mean to “know” Jesus? It means more than just intellectual assent. A man or woman can affirm all that we have said about Jesus and still not know him. Knowing Jesus involves a personal commitment to trust him and follow him exclusively.
And knowing Jesus in this way – trusting and following him exclusively – will change your life. People who know Jesus have been forgiven of their sins – all of their sins. Last week we had a choir from an inner-city ministry sing here on the platform. These were street people who had come to know and trust Jesus, and they sang with gusto about their sins being forgiven. I don’t know what their sins were, but I know my sins. And in the eyes of the Holy One of Israel, the One who sees the heart, I knew – I know myself to be a wretched sinner. I know that forgiveness of sins is as great a miracle for me as for the vilest offender. “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners,” says the Apostle Paul, “of whom I am chief.” In other words, I am the worst of the sinners, the bottom of the lot. Knowing Jesus means my sins are forgiven, and that is good news, very good news.
But knowing Jesus changes your life in another way. Knowing Jesus means obeying him. In fact, obedience is one of the ways we can be sure that we really do know Jesus: “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning,” says the Apostle John in his first letter. He goes on to say, “No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.” If I really do know Jesus, if I really do trust and follow him, I will try to obey him. Knowing Jesus really does change your life.
You can see why we think knowing Jesus is so important, why knowing Christ is the starting-point and center of our faith. You can see also why knowing Jesus is priceless. Saul of Tarsus was a brilliant scholar, a rising star in first century rabbinic Judaism. When Saul of Tarsus encountered Jesus of Nazareth, Saul threw away his career and all his prospects without hesitation. And he never regretted that decision. In a sense, he was that merchant who gladly gave up everything in exchange for that one thing of supreme value.
Saul was later renamed Paul, the Apostle Paul, and he described his life-changing decision this way in one of his letters: “Whatever gain I had, I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish.” For Paul there was only one item in his asset column: knowing Jesus. Everything else he gladly moved to the loss column without regret.
Patterson Park Church is known for its great music program. We have a reputation for our exciting and vibrant programs for children and teens. We have dozens of small groups where our people encourage and support one another in their walk of faith. But music isn’t the center of our ministry, families aren’t the center, nor teens nor small groups. The starting point and center of our faith is in knowing Jesus. Everything else, as important as it may be, follows this vital first step. It all begins with knowing Christ, trusting him and following him exclusively and faithfully.
An itinerant Palestinian rabbi once told this story: Once there was a man who bought and sold fine gemstones. Gems and jewels and precious stones were not just his job, they were his passion.
One day he stumbled upon a pearl of such surpassing beauty that it took his breath away. In all his decades handling precious stones, he had never seen the equal of this one pearl. He inquired discretely as to its value and discovered that this one gem was worth more than the rest of his entire inventory combined. In fact, it was worth the equivalent of his entire net worth. He realized that from that moment on, his life would never be the same. Either he would give up everything in exchange for this one thing of infinite value, or he would hold on to what he had and pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Even though the stakes were so high, he made his decision quickly, even gladly: he sold everything, liquidated his entire estate, to buy that one pearl of great price.
The Mission Statement for Patterson Park Church is encapsulated in three simple verbs: Know. Grow. Go. It is no accident that “Know” is the first. We believe that the Christian life must begin not with feelings but with knowledge.
If you were to ask one of us what kind of church Patterson Park is, we might stumble over the answer. Patterson Park is not part of a denomination. Because we value the Bible so much and feature the Scriptures in our teaching and preaching, many have rightly described us as a “Bible church.” But it is not knowledge of the Bible that is the starting point and center of our faith.
The “Know” in our Mission Statement is about knowing Christ. We believe that all of the spiritual life – having a relationship with God, growing in faith, preparing for the life to come – all of it must begin with knowing Jesus.
A quick Google search will tell you that there are many different explanations of Jesus, who he was and what he means to human history. So it would be good to explain exactly what we believe about that first century Palestinian rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth.
Like most others, we believe that Jesus was a great teacher and healer. Like most others, we believe that Jesus was a prophet, the greatest prophet ever to appear among men. But unlike many, we agree with the view informed by the Scriptures and by two thousand years of Christian thought and tradition: we believe that Jesus was God in human flesh.
We believe that in Jesus, God broke into human history to set things right. We believe that the life of Jesus was the turning point in human history. We believe that the death and resurrection of Jesus provide the only way for people to make peace with God.
So if that’s what we believe about Jesus, what does it mean to “know” Jesus? It means more than just intellectual assent. A man or woman can affirm all that we have said about Jesus and still not know him. Knowing Jesus involves a personal commitment to trust him and follow him exclusively.
And knowing Jesus in this way – trusting and following him exclusively – will change your life. People who know Jesus have been forgiven of their sins – all of their sins. Last week we had a choir from an inner-city ministry sing here on the platform. These were street people who had come to know and trust Jesus, and they sang with gusto about their sins being forgiven. I don’t know what their sins were, but I know my sins. And in the eyes of the Holy One of Israel, the One who sees the heart, I knew – I know myself to be a wretched sinner. I know that forgiveness of sins is as great a miracle for me as for the vilest offender. “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners,” says the Apostle Paul, “of whom I am chief.” In other words, I am the worst of the sinners, the bottom of the lot. Knowing Jesus means my sins are forgiven, and that is good news, very good news.
But knowing Jesus changes your life in another way. Knowing Jesus means obeying him. In fact, obedience is one of the ways we can be sure that we really do know Jesus: “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning,” says the Apostle John in his first letter. He goes on to say, “No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.” If I really do know Jesus, if I really do trust and follow him, I will try to obey him. Knowing Jesus really does change your life.
You can see why we think knowing Jesus is so important, why knowing Christ is the starting-point and center of our faith. You can see also why knowing Jesus is priceless. Saul of Tarsus was a brilliant scholar, a rising star in first century rabbinic Judaism. When Saul of Tarsus encountered Jesus of Nazareth, Saul threw away his career and all his prospects without hesitation. And he never regretted that decision. In a sense, he was that merchant who gladly gave up everything in exchange for that one thing of supreme value.
Saul was later renamed Paul, the Apostle Paul, and he described his life-changing decision this way in one of his letters: “Whatever gain I had, I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish.” For Paul there was only one item in his asset column: knowing Jesus. Everything else he gladly moved to the loss column without regret.
Patterson Park Church is known for its great music program. We have a reputation for our exciting and vibrant programs for children and teens. We have dozens of small groups where our people encourage and support one another in their walk of faith. But music isn’t the center of our ministry, families aren’t the center, nor teens nor small groups. The starting point and center of our faith is in knowing Jesus. Everything else, as important as it may be, follows this vital first step. It all begins with knowing Christ, trusting him and following him exclusively and faithfully.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Pigeon Feathers and the Sermon on the Mount
It was a happy coincidence, really, my reading the story by John Updike and memorizing the Sermon on the Mount along with my students in the same year. This was the only year since the early 1980s that I've taught English, so I haven't really thought much about short stories and literary motifs since then.
But as I taught English last year, I heard of the Updike story and read about a farm boy named David who has become afraid of death. His father tells him to get rid of the pigeons infesting the barn, so David shoots them. As he buries the half-dozen dead birds, he is fascinated by the exquisite coloring of their feathers, the slate blues, the lilacs, the white bird with the salmon at its throat. He is astonished that "these birds bred in the millions and were exterminated as pests" should be so beautifully colored.
And then he has his epiphany, and the fear of death fell away from him. David suddenly knew "that the God who had lavished such craft upon these worthless birds would not destroy His whole Creation by refusing to let David live forever."
Surely Updike was thinking of the words of Jesus: "Look at the birds... look at the flowers of the field. If your Father feeds them and clothes the grass which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more take care of you?"
How amazing it is that to assure us in our anxieties ("What shall we eat? What shall we put on?") Jesus points not to God's astonishing generosity nor to his all-encompassing wisdom but to his artistry. This God, who pours such exquisite beauty into the appearance of wild flowers and the color of pigeon feathers, this God can be trusted with my life, my worries. He is not careless, He is boundlessly attentive to the smallest detail of his creation. He can be trusted.
But as I taught English last year, I heard of the Updike story and read about a farm boy named David who has become afraid of death. His father tells him to get rid of the pigeons infesting the barn, so David shoots them. As he buries the half-dozen dead birds, he is fascinated by the exquisite coloring of their feathers, the slate blues, the lilacs, the white bird with the salmon at its throat. He is astonished that "these birds bred in the millions and were exterminated as pests" should be so beautifully colored.
And then he has his epiphany, and the fear of death fell away from him. David suddenly knew "that the God who had lavished such craft upon these worthless birds would not destroy His whole Creation by refusing to let David live forever."
Surely Updike was thinking of the words of Jesus: "Look at the birds... look at the flowers of the field. If your Father feeds them and clothes the grass which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more take care of you?"
How amazing it is that to assure us in our anxieties ("What shall we eat? What shall we put on?") Jesus points not to God's astonishing generosity nor to his all-encompassing wisdom but to his artistry. This God, who pours such exquisite beauty into the appearance of wild flowers and the color of pigeon feathers, this God can be trusted with my life, my worries. He is not careless, He is boundlessly attentive to the smallest detail of his creation. He can be trusted.
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