Wait for It...

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The joy of anticipation. Panting, yearning for what is coming.
Planning a wedding. The months of pregnancy. Studying in anticipation of a career. Saving for a new car.
Who would want to miss the joy of them?

We would, apparently.

What happened to Advent, anyway?
Waiting for Christmas.
Just waiting for it.
I don't know about you, but I can't listen to Christmas carols yet.
Or put up my tree, or decorate my house, or wrap gifts.
Christmas can't come yet. It's not time.
I need to prepare. I need to think, and pray, and remember.

I need to join Mary, who waited nine months for Jesus.
I am the Lord's servant...--Luke 1:38
And Elizabeth, who waited for John.
..the baby leaped in her womb...Luke 1:40
And Zechariah, who waited with her.
He has raised up a horn of salvation for us...--Luke 1:69
And Simeon, who waited his whole life.
...you now dismiss your servant in peace, for mine eyes have seen the Savior...Luke 2:29-30
And the Jews, who waited thousands of years.
And He shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace--Isaiah 9:6
And the whole of mankind, who has waited since God's angel barred the gates of paradise with a flaming sword.
I rejoiced because they said to me, We will go up to the house of the Lord--Psalm 122:1

And I can't wait one month?
Really?
Christmas will come. God promised that it will.
But, if I am not careful, I might miss the glory of the wait.
That pause, that inhaled breath, that moment of absolute stillness before the victorious crescendo.
Without it, we diminish the gift.
Stop. Take a breath. Turn off the carols. Turn down the lights.
It has a sound.
Wait for it...

What Scars Have to Say

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Scars.
I still have them. 
Painful reminders of my hurts. Throbbing echoes of hurts I caused.
And they don't go away.
Ever.

Heal me, I plead.
And God hears.
The bleeding stops, the wound closes--
But the scar remains.
Evidence of the hurt. Proof of the guilt.
Why doesn't it all go away?
I ask God: Why doesn't healing come with forgetting?

And God says: This is who you are.
Every hit you've taken, every blow you've given. They are part of you now.
Remember, He says. Remember your nature. Remember your origin:
From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness--only wounds and welts and open sores.--Isaiah 1:6
My scars. Who I am. What I have done. What has been done to me.

Nobody gets to leave them behind his side of heaven. Nobody.
Even Christ wore His scars.
He stood in that room with His best friends, bright in His resurrected body. Alive again. Clean, victorious, and healed.
But those hands. That side.
Put your finger here. See my hands.--John 20:27
Still there. All the places of His own mortal wounding. Not smoothed over, not vanished beyond memory. Not comfortable.
But visible, both to Him and anyone who looked close enough.
His wounds, like ours, remained with Him.
Not for re-opening, but as witness. 

Christ's wounds bore witness to His perfection, His godhead.
My wounds bear witness to Christ in me.
My scars still stand ready to accuse, but they can also proclaim victory. 
Look at me, they say.
I have healed. I stand. I live.
I have known pain. I have inflicted it. See this ugliness? This is what it looks like.
Don't look away. You have them, too.

But this is the difference.
Because of Christ, I will not die from them. 

But Did He WANT To?

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Jesus saved us.
It's true, and most of us already know that.
But He was not just God--He was man, too, and I don't know about you, but I don't always want to do what I'm supposed to do.
It occurs to me today that maybe He didn't either.

I will not reject anyone who comes to me because I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me and this is the will of the one who sent me--that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it in the last day.--John 6:37-38

Is it possible that Jesus, as  man, was not always crazy about saving us?
That He did not always want to have mercy on the impenitent, on the ungrateful, on the clueless?
That unwillingness was one of the temptations to which He was subjected when He took on flesh?

Was Jesus sometimes tempted to let us have exactly what we deserve rather than to do as He was commanded? Did He sometimes have to grit His teeth to heal another ungrateful petitioner? To preach to yet another unhearing crowd?
And if He did, is it any wonder that I often feel the same?

I do not always want to love, want to forgive, want to extend my hand in kind patience. Today, I find solace in the possibility that Jesus, human like me, might sometimes have felt the same way. Jesus may have saved us, not because He always wanted to, but simply because His Father commanded Him to.

There is glory in this obedience, I think--to do what we do not want to do, what may not even make sense, simply because our Father in heaven has commanded it.
And, in the process, know that even Jesus did the same.

How to Hate the Sin

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We are supposed to hate the sin but love the sinner. 
We hear it all the time, but the whole idea produces more blank looks and shaking heads than almost any other. How in the world are we supposed to do that?
 Well, like any other biblical principal, maybe it's best to start with ourselves.

I sin.
So do you.
But do I hate my own sin? 
No.
And how do I know this?
Jesus tells me:
If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off.--Matthew 18:8

Did He really mean this? 
Well, He did, or He wouldn't have said it.
He probably meant it as a metaphor, of course, but the example serves to illustrate the force with which we are to approach sin. We are to hate it enough to cut off our own hand to get rid of it.

Jesus says to "take up your cross" (Luke 9:23) and "die every day" (1 Corinthians 15:31).
He leaves no room for excuses, no safe harbor while sin still reigns in us.
This is what He does say:
In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.--Hebrews 12:4
This is how much we are to hate sin.

Does this sound cruel?
It is not cruel to insist that we put to death strong, sinful desires.
It is not cruel to deny that it's OK for either ourselves or anyone else to give in to what is clearly forbidden.
We are to love both ourselves and others with self-denial.

Examine your own strong desires.
Do you indulge, rather than fight them because it's just so darn hard and you know that God, in the end, will forgive you?
I do.

The hand I must cut off is the hand of strong, habitual, sinful desire.
And it will hurt. A lot. A real lot. I will scream from it. I will not be able to envision what is on the other side, who I will be without it, how I will live, what I will do without the emotional crutch.
But, if I believe that heaven, and freedom, await, I must whack away, doing whatever it takes.
And then, pointing with my own bloody stump rather than a filthy, still-intact, accusing finger, I can learn to truly hate the sin and love the sinner because I have done so with myself.

Broken by Myself

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I know that Christ died for me, but I don't believe it. Not really.

If Christ had to do that--die--really die--to fix me, then there must be something drastically wrong with who I am.
And He died, all right. I believe that. But because of me? Really?

The Bible, after all, says that I am made in the image of God, right? How messed up, then, can I be?
Enough, apparently.

This is hard to understand. But until I do understand, really understand, this miserable necessity of Christ having to die because I am so broken, I can't understand anything else--not about God, not about me. So long as I hold onto even the smallest inkling that I might be OK just as I am, I cannot know God.

I don't like this idea. Not even a little.

I am good, and patient, and kind and all the rest. Most of the time. I am. I sometimes even look in the mirror and think, 'Hey, you're OK, girl.' But inevitably, just about then, I crash and burn. Anger, deception, and selfishness crowd out all the good stuff. Again.

And I see Him there--Jesus--hanging, bleeding, dying--saying nothing, saying everything.

Is He accusing me? No. But neither does he shrink from the truth like I do. He wears the truth.  He carries it, lays down on it, and dies on it.

I am not OK. Not alone. Not without Him. Not ever.

He bore the punishment that makes us whole.--Isaiah 53:5
You were bought with a price--1 Corinthians 6:20

Putting Pain in its Place

Sam and Anne

I like to listen to first-time moms when they talk about the pain of childbirth. Really. There is a kind of community in this, something we all share and, as for every intense life experience, we all learn something from it. Some women bear their pain patiently, some resentfully, but like me, most of us try to forget it as soon as possible and, in the wake of the joy that usually follows, we can.

Not my friend Sam, though.

Now, Sam loves her daughter as much as any other new mother. She bubbles with the joy of her. She hasn't however, sidelined the memory of pain in getting there. Instead, Sam continues to stare her pain in the face, to call it by its nasty name, and commands it to its appropriate place in her life. Sam refuses to let her pain pretend to be anything other than what it is--hard, unpleasant, and temporary. 

Sure, she remembers that her labor hurt a lot, but also, defiantly, that it did not hurt forever. The pain never mastered her because she knew it had a purpose and when its purpose was fulfilled, it would end. In doing this, she got to keep the memory of the pain and the lasting gift it left her. Today, she can look at her daughter and say, 'You cost me a great deal, but you were worth it.'

In doing this, I think, she has discovered pain's purpose. What, after all, does pain bring? If we apply it correctly, it brings more than discomfort. Pain, if we let it, can bring sure knowledge that we can endure it and understanding that some things bring a hard cost. It can also bring vision of and hope for a future of health and wholeness.

Christ knew this, too--hence, the cross. He endured pain because He had a job to do that overshadowed it. His pain took a back seat to His purpose. He knew that the effects of His purpose would long outlast His pain. It happens the same for us. When God allows us pain, we can, if we choose it, come to know both the cost and the value of its greater purpose. By this knowledge, both the pain and the gift of it, we can join with Christ.

For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.--Hebrews 12:2

Return to Me

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God made man.
He made us good--very good.
God made us to know Him, to share with Him, to walk with Him on a common ground.
But we don't.
After the catastrophe in Eden, a basic flaw keeps us apart.
He is perfect. We are not.

God knows this, of course, so He set out to fix the situation.
Come home, He says. 

Return to me, declares the Lord Almighty, and I will return to you.--Zechariah 1:3

Did you hear that?
Come to me. Return to me.
He wants to have us back, to remake us into the very good human beings He made originally.
But He will not change Himself to do it.
He will not become like us.
We have to become like Him.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the LORD, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the LORD, the Spirit.--2Corinthians 3:18

Our way back to God is laid, and it is through the cross.
Jesus opened the door, but we have to walk through it, and keep on walking.

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.--John 8:12

The light of life...what God is, and what He wants us to be again.
The seed is within each of us still. God knows it, and wants us to know, too.
He spoke His own identity over us in creation:
Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness--Genesis 1:26

What He spoke in an instant, we will spend our lifetime answering.

Stop Inviting People to Church

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Here's the church....
Here's the steeple...
Open the doors....

And what should we see?
Not friendly people.
Not good deeds.
Not uplifting music.
Not helpful programs.
Not hot coffee and a smile.

None of these.
Then what?
We should see what the Baal worshipers saw then Elijah stood before them on Mount Carmel--not a good speaker or a nice man. In fact, not a man at all--

When the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, "The Lord--He is God! The Lord--He is God!"--1Kings18: 39

They saw God.
No one and nothing less will do.
The church is no more than the sum of what we bring to it.
If we don't look like God, then the church does not either. 
And if we do look like God, than the church will look like us.
Don't bring people to church.
Live so that they recognize God in you.

The Glory of the Father

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Jesus did not come to save your soul.
Just saying.

Neither your pastor nor your Sunday school teacher lied to you--they just left off something without meaning to. Something important.

Jesus came to glorify His Father by obedience.
And, in the process, He saved your soul.
...the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father commanded.--John 14:31
...through the obedience of one Man the many will be made righteous.--Romans 5:19

God the Father told Jesus to die as a ransom for mankind.
But, if He had told Jesus to do something else, like just perform miracles, or to administrate another ten plagues, Jesus would have done that instead.

You and I are, friend, are not the reason for Jesus' human life.
You and I are the objects, not the subjects.
Jesus acted not for us, but for His Father's glory.

Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you...I have brought You glory by completing the work you gave me to do.--John 17:1,4
I will do whatever you ask for in my Name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.--John 14:13
Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.--John 13:31

Doesn't He love us?
Well, of course. He said so.
But it is a secondary love, a love that follows rather than leads, a love properly subservient to His Godhead.
It is a love for which I am so grateful, because I don't have to prove worthy of it.
I am flawed, and we both know it. But because Christ loves His Father first, His success does not depend on me, and I am free to love Him all the more.

Christ will never choose us over holiness or righteousness or the perfect glory He shares with His Father.
But He does want us to join Him there.
Arise, Shine! For your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.--Isaiah 60:1

The light is Christ, and only by Him can we understand glory.

Holding Onto Dirt

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OK. Everybody has idols.
Things we hold onto no matter what.
Money. Kids. Job. Expectations. Dreams.
But dirt?

Yes, we do.
And I was reminded about this from an old song:
In our joys and in our sorrows, days of toil and days of ease,
Still He calls in cares and pleasures: 
Christians, love me more than these.--Cecil Alexander, Jesus Loves Us

We hold onto the things that bring us happiness and ease, but we also hang onto people and circumstances that hurt--offenses, old pains, bad relationships, a habit of sickness, the attitude of a victim, and more.
They bring us no pleasure, but we won't let go.
We don't know who we would  be without them and don't want to find out.
Idols...all of them. Nothing but dirt.

And they become stumbling blocks to our faith. Jesus told us this:
Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of the wealth, and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.--Mark 4:18-19

We don't hoard only life's pleasures, but its sorrows and troubles.
It doesn't matter what we hold onto.
If it isn't Christ, it is all dirt.

Litter Box Lesson

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My husband has twelve cats.
And, amazingly, it works out pretty well.
He restricts their movements so they don't take over the house, he feeds them, he cleans up after them.
He even makes sure the house smells OK.

Until he gets pneumonia.
Then I have to do it.
And I don't like it.
Not one little bit.
Every day, I grab up the litter bucket, sift through every one of the five litter boxes, and walk the disgusting, heavy mess outside.
It makes me crabby.

These are his cats, not mine. They don't even like me much.
They are dirty, and arrogant, and tempermental.
Of all the nerve....

And then I remember what I asked God for....
I've been asking Him to teach me humility.

And I think of Jesus...
taking up the basin of water, tying the towel around Himself, and washing the disciples' feet...
their dirty, smelly feet.

And I remember what He said then--

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You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.--John 13:7

OK, I get it.
Feet are little different from litter boxes, and I can't do this with your willing attitude, Jesus.
At least not yet. But thanks for trusting me with the opportunity.
Thank you, Jesus-- for the feet, for the cats, and for the lesson.

What Not to Wear

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Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!
Carry your own weight!
Don't be such a wimp!

Funny--God doesn't say that:
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.--Matthew 11:29
My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.--Exodus 33:14
Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God, and I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.--Isaiah 41:10

Strength before God looks different from strength before men.

There are three kinds of weights in the life--.
1.   The burden of our repented sin, which Christ has removed forever.
      This is not our burden, not any more. Not since Calvary.

2.   The burden Christ gives us, which He means to share.
      We only have to pick up one end of whatever He brings. He will take the other.
3.  And the burden of unrepented sin.
      If we choose to carry this one, we do it by ourselves. (But, for the good news, see #1)

Everybody has burdens. Life brings them. God allows them, and sometimes, He assigns them.
And, if they come from Him, none of them are mistakes. None of them are too much.
It doesn't matter how they feel.
If we let our God speak to our hearts, if we admit our sins and let Him remove their guilt, only the path of life remains. And God has already guaranteed the end, however rocky the path.
Put down what you can and let Christ, your yokefellow, carry what is His.
Then heave up your end, take one step at a time, and leave the rest behind. 
Christ walks beside you--your untiring companion of infinite strength and mercy.

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The Now of Eternity--Wordless Wednesday

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He is risen.
We have risen with Him.

We already know eternity.
Eternity is now.

This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.--John 17:3

I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord: be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.--Psalm 27: 13-14

Dead or Alive?

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He's dead, you know.
Jesus. 
He died on Friday. On the cross.
And we are supposed to follow Him.
I am crucified with Christ and I no longer live.--Galatians 2:20

We are supposed to die, too.
But, at the same time, we are supposed to live:
The life I live in the body I live in faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave His life for me.--Galatians 2:20

I am not dead. I breathe. I eat.
I am not a spirit, or an angel.
I am not like Christ.
I have to live. I have to. Don't I?
But the Bible tells me to die.   Crucified.   Like Christ.

Because there's more.
Jesus didn't stay dead.
Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday, and I'm supposed to do the same.
If we died with Him, we will also live with Him.--2Timothy 2:11
Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.--Isaiah 60:1

If the death I die is Christ's death, the life to which I rise is Christ's life. 
I can die because Jesus did.
I can live because He does.
Allelulia.

Crucifixion Song

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The moment of greatest defeat.
The moment of greatest victory.
Good Friday.
We hear Christ, in His agony, crying out, but the words....the words....
To the Jews within hearing, they were so familiar...

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?--Psalm 22:1 and Matthew 28:46

They knew those words. They had memorized them from David's Psalm 22.
And they knew what came next.
They watched and heard prophecy being fulfilled before their eyes and ears.

I am a worm and no man, scorned by men and despised by the people.
All who see me mock me...He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue Him.
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.
A band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and feet.
I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me.
They divide my garments among them, and cast lots for my clothing.--Psalm 22:6-8,14,16-18

The Jews at the foot of the cross witnessed their Old Testament psalm enacted in their presence.
It was the Song of the Crucifixion.
But it would not finish in defeat. 
All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of nations will bow down to Him.
Posterity will serve Him; future generations will be told about the Lord
They will proclaim His righteousness to a people yet unborn--Psalm 22:27,30-31

And they knew the song's triumphant ending, too.
By uttering the first line, Christ also declared its final chorus:
--for He has done it.--Psalm 22:31

Indeed, He has.

The Temptation of Power: View from the Top

"Because I said so..."
Yes, I've said it, too.
Where does it come from? Frustration, impatience, busyness...but underneath all of those, it's a power play.  "Listen to me because you have to. I'm in charge."

Don't think you're tempted by power? Well, everybody is in charge of something. You are ahead of somebody in the pecking order somewhere. And, in that place, you will want to exercise your authority just because you can.
You can, but you shouldn't. Not that way.

God did institute authority, but not in the way we most often think He did:
The devil took Him to the holy city and had Him stand on the highest point of the temple: "If you are the Son of God", he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written 'He will command His angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him, "It is also written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"--Matthew 4:5-7

God exampled authority in Jesus Christ by keeping His power under strict control. 
He could have smoked anyone anywhere with a word, a glance, a thought. But He didn't. Ever.
Instead, He served.
He was less concerned with who was in charge and more with His own position before His Father in heaven.
That is God's management style, and He expects it to be ours, too.

Here is Eternity

The seventeenth chapter of John is one of my favorites in the Bible.
There, we hear Jesus not only proclaiming His identity and intentions, but also showing his heart for men. In it, He prays for men.  All of us. Believers and unbelievers. Disciples and newbies.
In it, he speaks out loud His love for us in plain words, not by saying 'I love you', but by telling us what He most deeply wishes for us.
I like that.  A lot.

But He also shows us something we have a very hard time grasping.
He shows us the nature of eternity.

Father, the time has come.--John 17:1
Jesus understands that progress of time and that certain times are designated for certain things.
His declaration separates the things designated for certain times from those designated for all times, that is, to be eternal.

Glorify your Son that your Son may glorify You. For you granted Him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those You have given Him.--John 17:1-2
Jesus is talking about Himself, of course, and states plainly His job from the beginning of time. He does this so that we, who live in time, can recognize His eternal mission. Like any good boss, He clearly articulates Himself, telling us what must be accomplished and when.

Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.--John 17:3
This is the job--both Jesus' and ours.

And eternal does not mean later, afterlife, or heaven. 
Eternal means always--now, before, and yet to come. 
And this life, then, this life of knowing, is eternal.  It is to be done always.
It is a knowing that must precede the doing. Understanding eternity and our God who inhabits it is the source of strength, the beginning of right motivation, and the intentional goal of every holy thought and action.

This is life, and life eternal. Today. Right now.

Is It Time Yet?

I always got a kick out of our first glimpse of the adult Jesus at a party with his mother. When she asks Him to do something, He tells her He doesn't think it's a good idea.  Sounds like conversations I've had with my own thirty-something son:
"Not now, Mom."
"Really? Now?"
Sounds a bit like what Jesus said to his own mother:
Dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.--John 2:4
At least He called her 'dear woman.'
But, aside from the common familiar comedy of it, the situation reminds me of something important.
Even in the kingdom of God, there are times for things.

Jesus knew this at the above wedding, when He told His mom that it was not yet time for Him to be acclaimed for public miracles.
He knew this later, when His friends went to Jerusalem for the festival, but He did not:
Therefore Jesus told them, “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do.--John 7:6
He also knew when His time had finally come:
Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified."--John 12:23

And He also knew when the time had not only come, but was over:
 “It is finished.”--John 19:30

It is the same for us.
There are times for things.
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to reap, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance...--Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

It's true.
Once a life situation begins, it will probably end.
Once we pick something up, we will probably have to put it down.
Once we take someone into our life, we will probably have to let them go.

Not worship, love, or my battle with sin, of course. Those will continue all my life.
But the others? They will all, at some time, end.
And it's OK.
Their time has either not yet come, or is over.
Really.

Born by Will

Of all children physically born into this world, of all ages and times, only Jesus Christ chose to do it.
I did not choose to be born.  Neither did you.
I did not choose my time, my place, or my parents.
But He did.

And, by doing so, by inhabiting a physical body, by living and dying, He made it possible for us to do the same.
Now, we can be born by our own choice and the Father's will, just like He was.

To those who received Him, to those who believed in His Name, He gave the right to become children of God--children born not out of natural descent, nor of human decision, or a husband's will, but born of God.--John 1:12-13

By believing we choose, and we are made new.
As Christ was born by His own consent to fulfill His Father's purpose, so can we be.
And when we are, Christmas shines through us all.

Do Not Forget

God does not forgive, much less forget.
At least not in the way we most often think about it.
Just saying.

He never makes our sins just go 'poof!' and disappear. 
He does, however, move them.
I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist.--Isaiah 44:22
...as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.--Psalm 103:12
But He does not make sin disappear until somebody dies.

When we know we are guilty, He does not forgive.
When we repent, He does not forgive.
Only after somebody dies does God forgive and, for us, God wants that person to be Jesus.

When we repent and believe, our sins are moved to Jesus' back, and He died for them, all of them. 
If we don't repent and believe, we are stuck with our own sins, forever, all the way into eternity, where we must do the dying for them.

Imagine that, every time we lie, a soldier drives another nail through Jesus' hand into the cross.
Every time we cheat or betray or love the world,--another nail, and another and another.
Don't kid yourself.
If you expect forgiveness, this must happen. It must. Either that, or you hang on to your sins right into hell.
The only way out is to stop sinning, which we should probably give serious consideration.
But forgetting may not be such a good idea.