Deep to Deep

Advent and Christmas, coming in these darkest days of the year, invite contemplation. They make me think--about seasons, about waiting, about where I fit in the grander scheme of things. I feel my vulnerability more acutely when winter storms gather outside and I have to work to stay warm and to guard myself  against harm from the elements. These are times of pause.

That may be why happening upon this image on one of these cold mornings caught me. Eve and Mary. The first in full knowledge of what she's lost. Her head hangs down in defeat. She can't meet anyone's eyes, let alone her companion's. The snake still coils about her feet in apparent victory. The flowers of Eden, now all she has left of the place, still cling to her clothes and ring her head. But she is cast out and knows it only too well.

And then there is Mary, pregnant and understanding completely. She reaches out to Eve in feminine fraternity while at the same time stepping firmly on the head of the snake. Eve may have been temporarily defeated, but she has not lost. Mary is here, bearing more than just hope. She has brought rescue.

And there they are, the female bookends framing the story of mankind. Eve and Mary. Creation and Salvation side by side. They are their own beginning and end, Alpha and Omega. Christ made them both and they have each done what they must. Eve has presented the problem and Mary carries the solution. 

Men will not understand this the same way a woman will. When a woman reaches out to place her hand on a sister's pregnant belly, they share an understanding of what was, what is, and what is coming. The life that belly holds moves and grows and promises a future. And as women, we treasure that promise in our hearts in a special and personal way, just like Mary.

And Eve, in her hopelessness, lets Mary draw her into a secret circle of hope and life. There they embrace, where Deep calls to Deep.

This is advent. 

During these dark days, Mary and Eve feel together the movement of the coming Christ, and know they have been saved. From the moment of His incarnation, while He still adds cell upon cell to His burgeoning humanity, while He still stirs under Mary's heart, while the process is even just beginning, Christ is already saying, "It is finished." 

Drawing above by Sr. Grace Remington, published in Give Us This Day, December 7, 2016

The God Who is not Superman

It's that moment when you're falling....the bottom's dropped out and your fingers try to grab onto anything close, but every ledge, every fire escape, rushes by too fast. The street below gets bigger and bigger. Any minute, you're going to hit bottom.

And then it happens....

You feel strong hands under your shoulders and behind your knees, the ground stops rushing up and you're swept instead into midair...safe at last.

Who else could it be? Superman.

Oh, I do like that moment....the feeling of rescue. The fear as it drains away and you wrap grateful arms around his neck. 

What is is about that guy, anyway? I'm pretty sure it's not the cape. It's not the muscles or that cute curl in the middle of his forehead. In fact, I'm pretty sure I know why the Man of Steel appeals so much, at least to me.


It's that in giving in to Superman, I'm admitting a secret vulnerability.
I mean really.
When was the last time any of us had to be rescued from anything? 
In general, we are capable, intelligent, and self-sufficient.  I don't fall off buildings. Bad guys don't chase me. No one needs to rescue me. Not really.

And a good thing too. Because Superman isn't real. I know that. *shrug*

But here's the rub. 
Sometimes I still feel like I need rescue. 

Everybody seems to be calling my name at once. The washer breaks on the same day as it snows 15 inches. Three of our children all get the flu at the same time and we don't have insurance. Somebody hits the only car we own. Somebody we love betrays. Somebody we love dies. 

I'm not falling off a bridge, but it sure feels like it. Superman may be fiction, but my feelings are real. I'm hanging alone at the end of my rope. I've done everything I know to do and I'm still going down for the third time. No man, super or not, is coming to help.
There's only one thing to do--and I cry out:

Rescue me, Oh Lord, 
Make haste to help me...
Free me from the snare they have set for me... 
Come quickly and answer me. 
Do not turn away from me or I will die...
Psalm 40, 31,143

And He does. God rescues.
Not like Superman. Not with cape and tights. But like God. 
The God Who is not Superman. 

And there's a big difference.

This is what God's rescue looks like:
When I prove my holiness among you, I will gather you from all foreign lands; and I will pour clean water upon you and cleanse you from your impurities, and I will give you a new spirit, says the Lord. --Ezekiel 36:23-26

He just doesn't fold us into His arms, carry us to safety, and then fly off to the next crisis.
God completes the job. He makes us holy.
He doesn't pat us on the head and let us straighten our skirt and go our way. He cleans us from the inside out.
He doesn't give us a pert little salute. He gives us a new spirit.

He has to and, better yet, He wants to.
Like Moses who had to take off his shoes before he could approach God in the burning bush, like the Israelites who had to believe God before they could enter the promised land, we have to be prepared. God's rescue isn't a one-step process.
He wants to reclaim all of us, inside and out, and that takes time.

That's real rescue. 
God plucks us out of danger by showing us our sin and guiding us to the firm ground of repentence.
God takes us to high ground by gifting us with faith and hope.
God puts out his hand, helping us stand every day in growing the fruit of His Spirit--kindness, meekness, self-control, and all the rest.

And, when He is done, He brings and keeps us near, made new in confidence in Him, leaning on His shoulder, depending on the only sure rescue there ever was and ever will be.
And there it is, the fear draining away as you wrap grateful arms around His neck...
Do not be afraid. I have ransomed you. I have called you by name. You are Mine.--Isaiah 43:1

Pictures courtesy of : www.top10films.co.uk
                                   www.comingsoon.net
                                   www.geek.com
                                   www.engadget.com
                                   scripture-for-today.blogspot.com

The God of No/The God of Yes

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One God. 
That's what we have. One God. Unchangeable. Forever.
But which one is He?
Is He the God of the Old Testament--the one who punished and destroyed and slaughtered?
Or is He the God of the New Testament who saves and forgives and loves?

The simple answer is that He's both, but that's the problem. It's not simple. It doesn't make sense. Unless we toss out the Old Testament in the face of the New, our God does not appear unchangeable. He seems almost schizophrenic.
Let God be God, some say. Trust Him today and you will understand Him later. After all, He is the God who said to Moses,
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and compassion on whom I will have compassion.--Romans 9: 15
And it's true. He has that right. He's God.
Why, then, am I still not satisfied?

Take sacrifices, for instance.
In the Old Testament, God set up an complex system of sacrifice--a calf for this, a pair of doves for that, incense, grain--an unending stream of them so that the courts of His tabernacle ran red with blood and stank with entrails every day. And then, after Jesus, they stopped. Just like that.
Old Testament/New Testament.
One God....or two?

Was the coming of Jesus as revolutionary as all that? Really?
Well, as it turns out, yes, it was.
 As it turns out, I need to see both sides of our God, the old and the new testament sides. Otherwise, I will not know Him at all.

The God of the Old Testament is the God of No.
 After men sinned, He had to be. We lost our connection with Him. We would no longer walk with Him in the cool of the day. We could no longer share His heaven. We would die. From that day on, His answer would be No.
Do you hear me, God?
No.
Can I satisfy you, God?
No.
Can I properly worship you, God?
No.
Can I draw near to you?
No.
Will you forgive me?
No.

All the sacrifices....they were never enough. The prayers...they could not pierce the veil.
Mankind needed the one thing they could not provide. They could follow all the rules, perform all the sacrifices, say every prayer, celebrate every feast day, but everything fell short.
In the Old Testament, men learned their hopelessness before a holy God. 
Nothing they could do was good enough. The answer was, and always would be, No.

Then Jesus came. And died. And rose. And established Himself as not only the perfect sacrifice, but as the perfect and eternal intercessor between sinful man and Holy God.
In that moment, God's No became Yes.
Do you year me, God?
Yes, through Christ.
Do you forgive me, God?
Yes, through Christ.
Will you take me into your eternal presence?
Yes, through Christ.

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all--Ephesians 4:4-6

One God.
One.
Old Testament and New. Not schizophrenic--just what God's perfection looks like with and without Christ. 

And that is why we have them both. Jesus may be our friend, but He will never be our buddy. He may be fully human, but He will never be like us. Never.
Christ Jesus is the only One who makes possible any rejoicing, who allows us hope in the face of our own corruption. Christ Jesus lived and died so that God would not have to destroy us, too. His own creation. The ones He loves.

Without the Old Testament, the New Testament has no real purpose. Jesus came to save us from the justifiable wrath of His Father. Without understanding of the coming wrath, His salvation has no meaning.

The temple sacrifices taught us that God meant business. And then He swept them away with the only sacrifice that could actually accomplish its purpose.
In Jesus, God's forever No became a forever Yes.

The Way of Sacrifice

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It's almost impossible to approach Easter without remembering that this is a season of sacrifice. And sacrifice is almost always harder than we think it will be. Our fasts leave us hungrier. Our good deeds leave us more tired. Our almsgiving digs deeper into our pockets than we expected. Sacrifice, we find, hurts.

But the degree of pain that a sacrifice inflicts is not a good measure of its efficacy. Our sacrifice can hurt plenty, but still have little worth in the eyes of God. 

I desire mercy, not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6), God tells us. In other words, sacrifice for its own sake or sacrifice with any other object or person in mind than God Himself is, in the end, futile, a chasing after wind (Ecclesiastes 1:14).

Our sacrifice cannot have any other object than to please God. Period.

That's what Jesus did.
I come to do the will of my Father.--John 6:38
It is a near-misnomer to say that Jesus came to save us. 
He did save us, but that was not His main aim. His aim was to obey His Father. His Father wanted us saved, so Jesus saved us. But, had His father wanted Him to do something else, He would have done the other thing.
Jesus was more obedient than He was sympathetic. And we are to follow His example.
If we don't, our sacrifices become dependent on their results.

Think about it. We naturally want our sacrifices to bear fruit. We want our children to respond to us when we do something special for them. We want the money we donate to be well spent. We want the unbeliever we befriended to come to follow Christ. We want the person we took in to amend their life.
But often, they don't. And we feel drained, betrayed, taken advantage of.
That's the clue.
If, when we have done something for someone and they have not responded in the way we hope for, making us angry or disappointed or discouraged, we have done it for the wrong reason.
It's true.

Remember Jesus. We often say that Jesus would have died for the sake of saving just one soul. That's true. but it's also true that He would have died for the salvation of no souls at all.
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.--Romans 5:8
He died equally for those who repent and those who do not. He died for us all. And whether one or a thousand or a million souls or none come to Him as a result, He was successful in what He set out to do.He did His Father's will and it was enough.

When our Lord healed one sick person and not another, He was responding to what His Father asked of Him. When He raised some from the dead and not others, He did the same. When the rich young ruler asked how to be saved, He let the man walk away. He showed Himself to the Samaritan woman, but did not chase after her.
Christ did not consider the feelings of those He loved above those of His Father. He called Peter 'Satan' when Peter opposed Him. He rebuked the apostles for retaliation at Gethsemane. No one, not even those He loved, prevented His obedience. That way, He always stayed in a state of grace. That's how He never sinned.

People often get  between us and our God. They don't mean to. And we, I'm convinced, don't mean to put them there. After all, God made them, just like He made us. Loving them is a privilege and one of the wonderful parts of this life.

But we can't confuse loving people with loving God. They are not the same thing. 
Everybody's problem will not be ours to solve. We are not to bind up all wounds. We are to sacrifice ourselves to Him and only to Him. He owns us, no one else. We cannot elevate anyone's need above God's.

Sometimes, God does send us as Samaritans to bind up the wounds of someone on the Jericho road, but not always. Sometimes, that man is for someone else or for God Himself. That's why Jesus tells so emphatically to seek God. We have got to learn the difference, or we will add burdens to our lives we were never meant to have.

Any cross we pick up in this life has to be a cross God has given us. 
The cross anyone else gives us will be too heavy to carry.

'Believe' is a Verb

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It all sounds so simple.
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved...--Acts 16:31
All I have to do is to believe, to have faith in Christ and His saving work on the cross. I have to do nothing, bring nothing of myself to the party. I'm in.

Oh, but then, there's this:
Faith without works is dead.--James 2:26
Did I misunderstand? Maybe not.
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.--Philippians 2:12
No, I didn't misunderstand. I need faith. I need to believe, and I need to do something about it. I need to work my faith out.

Is there anything else? Well, it turns out there is.
...this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God--1 Peter 3:21
and this--
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved...--Mark 16:16

OK.
So, I am to believe, and work, and be baptized.
Anything else?
Yes.

I need to endure.
He who endures to the end will be saved.--Matthew 24:13
Whoever endures to the end will be saved--Matthew 10:22

Believe. Work. Be Baptized. Endure.
Well, which one is it?

Why does it have to be just one?
Why is the instruction to be baptized more important that the others? Or the requirement to believe? Can't they all go together? Don't they have to? And more importantly, why do we beat each other up about this? Is it really that important for us to be right so that we can make everyone else wrong?

You see, I think that the  Bible is very deep. It's full of rich meaning and we could spend a lifetime unpeeling its layers of revelation, but it's also very simple. God never stutters. The simple answer is not to figure out which of these requirements for salvation apply, but to take them at face value, all of them, the plain way that God says them.

'Believe' is a verb, not just a mental exercise. Believing is not diminished by doing something about our belief.

Imagine a tightrope walker about to cross Niagra Falls. He asks the crowd, "Do you believe I can make it?" "We believe!" they answer and so he sets out. An hour later, he reaches the other side. Then he asks them, "Do you believe I can cross blindfolded?" "We believe!" they answer again. And again, he crosses successfully. The third time he asks the crowd, "Do you believe I can cross with a man on my back?" Again they answer, "We believe!" That's when he asks for a volunteer. The one not willing to go, of course, is the one who does not believe.
Belief and action go together. One is not better than the other. They all exist together. They have to. 

Grammar. Semantics. We spend way too much time, as Christians, differentiating between ourselves, pointing fingers, so sure that we are right and the folks across the street are wrong. Christ died for us all. The least we can do is to show Him that we were worth it.

Belief lives not only in our brain or our emotions. It has arms and legs. It moves and testifies. It not only changes us. It helps change the world.

Saying Yes--The Only Job We Have

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OK, it's Lent, and I'm thinking a lot about sin and salvation. Not everybody's favorite subject, but sin is kind of like an untended infection--ignore it and it could kill you.
So, I'm thinking today--what is sin exactly and how does it fit into God's plan?

Sin was part of God's plan, after all. It had to be. Nothing happens without God's will or permission, right? So the same goes for sin.
But that doesn't mean that sin is a good thing. Quite the contrary, of course. When it comes to sin, God allowed, with intent, something not good. Of course, He knows how to bend it to good, and that's what I want to talk about today.  I have to understand sin to understand its danger. And it is dangerous. Like the infection, it could kill me.

So why do I sin? Hmmm. I like it. I do. For instance:
I gossip because it gives me a feeling of superiority.
I eat or drink or spend too much because it satisfies me and I don't have to ask God for whatever I've given myself.
I am selfish because keeping my stuff enhances my feeling of strength and independence.
I lie because it appears to make circumstances easier. It smoothes the rough edges.
I do not honor a holy rest because what I have to do is just too important.

In every instance, I commit these sins because I am trying not to need God. I am doing the one thing He forbids me--choosing myself over Him.

And that is all I have to do. Choose Him. Say Yes, Lord. Period.

God's already done everything else. 
Jesus wasn't saying anything new when He declared "It is finished" from the cross. It was always finished.
I am God; there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning...My counsel shall stand and I will do all My pleasure...I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.--Isaiah 46:9-11
Surely as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand.--Isaiah 14:24

When God made us, sin came with the package. So did Christ and His redemption.
I know that sounds a little weird, but for us, all this happens in time. For Him, it was always there. And we can't change any of it. It's already done. Jesus already declared completion following the sixth day of Creation. We, and the world we live in, and every circumstance we encounter has always been finished.

There is only one thing I can do--admit it or not.

If I do admit it, I also admit God's sovereignty, His pefection, His love, and my own sin before Him. I acknowledge that He is God and I owe Him everything. In the process, I change little by little to become like Him. I worship Him for His perfection and His patience and His sharing even a little of Himself with me.. I dedicate myself to Him. I become holy.

Or I don't.

I can't have just a little holiness. I get it all or none.
Oh, I will still sin, but if I am admitting who God is, if I am saying 'Yes' to Him, I will get back on track. God planned for sin, remember. He allows us to be forgiven as long as we are loving Him the way He intended.

The one thing He does not tolerate, however, is for me to say 'No.'  
I can't say, 'No, thanks, God. I'll take whatever good you might toss my way, but I don't really need You. I can protect myself. I can make my own way.'
My 'No' is not only sin. My 'No' is the blasphemy of denial when it becomes my way of life. If I am to have a life with Christ, every sin (all of which tell God that He does not, after all, have authority over my life) has to be repented. If I do not repent of sin, it takes me only one place--down the wide road of death. Without repentance, we do not let God save us.

It's all one thing.
Either I say 'Yes and Amen--You are God. I sin. I owe You everything. I love You. I trust You. I serve You.' Or I give Him nothing. 'I don't need You. I'm sufficient to myself. You might as well not exist for all the difference You make.'

A heart for God can lapse into sin and be restored to Him--David proved that.
But a heart that doesn't need Him is all on its own in a very dark world.

What is the Gospel?

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Our faith tells us that we are taught to preach the Gospel, but I have often wondered exactly what that Gospel is. Its direct translation from Greek put simply means the Good News. OK, but what good news?

From a personal standpoint, I know well the good news Christ brought to my own life--the renewal, the hope, the transformation, and the strength. But how did He do this? Well, through His suffering, death, resurrection, you say. That's right. He has done all this through His Holy Redemption.

But that's not quite it. I think there's more.

I know what Christ did--born of a virgin; lived and taught the New Covenant principles of love, humility, and sacrifice; performed miracles; died an undeserved and public death, then rose first from it and then from the earth itself. But the key to all this isn't His activity, it's Him.  

Everything Christ did only mattered because He did it. Other people performed miracles. Other people have died, then come alive again. Other people have died sacrificially for someone else. Other people live exemplary lives. But they do not carry the same weight.  Christ does not call us to preach what He did, but the One who did it--the Son of God, Son of Man, Creator-Redeemer, Jesus Christ. The Gospel, the Good News, is not what Christ did because, had anyone else done it, it would be no news at all.

Christ didn't enact the Gospel. He is the Gospel.

So, this is how I preach--deferring attention from the act to Him, lifting Him up. I know we all love to tell our stories of redemption, and we should. Believe me, I do too, but my story doesn't begin to come close to explaining the miracle and wonder of God. Nobody's does. My story, I think, is mostly for me--to remind me who God is--how intimate and mighty and, well, involved.  It helps me stay on the road toward Him.

So how do I preach? Well, if the Gospel is not what He did, then it's not what I do either. If the Gospel is who He is, then as I am called to follow Him and resemble Him, the Gospel is me. Myself. My very person. If you are saying, 'Whoa, there--we are not like God,' well then, I say that if we are not like God, if people can't see God in us, we are not equipped to preach. If people cannot see God in us, then we have no real knowledge of the Gospel at all. 

My very presence should say, 'Here He is, friend--Jesus Christ--Savior, Redeemer, Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God. He's in me and in you, too.' My life should make people long for God. I have to live the new life Christ has put in me, living primarily before the Lord, but all the while in the company of everyone He has put in my path. I can live so that when people see me, they see Christ. I can do this because God says I can.

Is this hard? Of course it is. At least until it becomes very, very easy. In the end, I don't have the responsibility for anyone else's salvation. I just have to look out for Christ as He shows the way. And that is very Good News, indeed.

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you but Jesus Christ and Him crucified--1Corinthians 2:2
To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, Christ in you, the hope of glory.--Colossians 1:27

Learning from an Atheist

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"I don't need an outside source to tell me to be a good person. Seriously? How difficult is it not to be a jerk?"

Everybody should have an atheist in their life. I mean it. We take way too much for granted. Most of us have absolutely no idea how atheists think. We need to know more than how to answer them. We need to understand and respect them.

I love the atheist in my family. She pokes me. She argues with me. She challenges me. She makes me think.
"How difficult is it not to be a jerk?" she asked the other day.
It's a good question. She knows right from wrong for the most part--probably as much as most Christians I know. She knows she was born with this knowledge, a knowledge she didn't summon up for herself. She doesn't much care why she knows--she just does--and tries to live by it. She sincerely wants to be a good person and seriously can't imagine why that shouldn't be enough.

I try to imagine sometimes how God sees her. I know He loves her--that goes without saying. But how does He look on her sincerely good intentions? Are they enough? That's a harder one. Paul, in writing to the Romans, considered the same thing:

It is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature what the law requires, they are a law unto themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.--Romans 2: 13-16

Atheists have no faith in Christ, but they often have an active conscience--the law is written on their hearts. They, then, can be doers of the law without knowing from Whom the law comes. They are a "law unto themselves", but that law often conforms to God's. If God justifies the doers of the law, will my atheist then also be justified?

She might. God is, after all, in charge of His own heaven. He measures each one of us by something humans can neither see nor know--our hearts.
However, Jesus also said that:
No one comes to the Father except by me.--John 14:6
and:
By faith you are saved.--Ephesians 2:8
My atheist has neither Jesus nor faith. In fact, she has summarily rejected them both but, in her defense, I know far too many professing Christians who think less than an atheist about right and wrong. We might do well to consider them more often.  

Right and wrong are not always instinctively easy to come by. I used to think, for instance, that some certain lies ("No you don't look fat in that dress" or "I don't have to report that income--they paid me cash") were OK to tell. I don't anymore. My notions of right and wrong have shifted with changing age and circumstances.

It's the same for everybody. That's why a country has laws. None of us decides for ourselves what is legal. We don't individually decide our own speed limits and, as a result, we can all share the same roads without constantly crashing into each other. It's the same for life, isn't it? We don't decide right and wrong for ourselves so that we don't destroy one another. I may think it's OK to arm myself to the teeth and use my guns to defend myself and you don't. I may believe it's OK to spank my kids and you don't. I may think I have a right to share in someone else's wealth and you don't. We both sincerely believe we are right.

I don't know about my atheist, but when it comes to deciding right from wrong, I need a place to look it up, something I didn't write--the constitution for the laws of the land and the Bible for everything else. And I take comfort that, as long as I still live, God is working in both of us--me and my atheist. And, as long as she is willing to listen to me, really listen, I am happy to try to return the favor.

In the meantime, recognizing that I don't have all the answers, I cry on both of our behalfs, "Lord, have mercy."

Uphill Both Ways

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This week, I was thinking about what it was like to walk to school in the wintertime--wind cutting sharp edges into my cheeks, fingers and toes numb, layers of jackets and snow pants humid from effort, the scratchy red scarf across my mouth--I walked. Not ten miles uphill both ways, but a mile and a half. Every day. Rain, snow, or shine. We had no school bus. Mom didn't drive.

And it occurred to me that I will never be able to explain to my children or grandchildren what that felt like. Never. No words could describe it. Only the experience would explain, and then I would no longer need an explanation. They will never know this. They get in the car not with gratitude, but with entitlement.

They don't mean to--they just never knew anything else. They don't understand. Privilege has hardened their hearts.

Then [Jesus] climbed into the boat with them and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.--Mark 6: 51-52

The apostles knew the same hardening. They watched Jesus day after day, miracle by miracle. Amazing events became their daily bread. And their hearts were hardened by them. They took them for granted. Right after He'd multiplied the loaves and fishes, fed more than 5000 people from nearly nothing, they went fishing and encountered not only a storm strong enough to threaten their safety, but see Jesus walking across the water toward them in the midst of it and they are terrified--they don't know who He is.

The miracle on the hillside did not translate for them into a miracle on water. Jesus relieving a relatively minor problem, giving a bunch of people lunch, did not teach them that He could rescue them from a major one. Why? Because their hearts were hardened. 

He could not explain His power. He had to show them.
So He brought the storm.
He used it to show them: This is what it feels like to be terrified. And this is what I can do for you when terror comes.

We are the same. God's faithfulness in hardship cannot be explained. It has to be experienced.
I will never leave you, God tells us. I will never forsake you.
But privilege has hardened our hearts. It doesn't sink in until after the storm has calmed and Jesus is standing in the boat saying, "See--I told you." Then we know.

It helps to have heard the promise--it helps us to recognize the rescue when it comes, but the promise alone will not convince us. We have been hardened by God's lifelong faithfulness and mercy. We expect it. Only when He seems to have failed do we understand the extent of His rescue.
Then we hear His gentle voice, "Remember this feeling. Believe me."

The Prince of Peace, but First, the Sword

The Star of Bethlehem shines over the stable. 
Joy to the World. The Prince of Peace is born.
Hmm...Are you sure?
What did the angel first say to the shepherds before he said anything else?
Be not afraid.
The Savior has come, and He will bring peace but first, He will make you afraid.
Christ was born as a child, but when His time came to speak, His words did not all console:

I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.--Matthew 10:34

Christ's peace is Himself--both the peace and the sword.
We will have peace, but first we will have turmoil, resentment, death, and repentance.
Easy peace is delusion. Ease and comfort is the world's peace, not Christ's.

Christ's peace does not come naturally.
To get at Christ's peace, I have to tear down the delusion of my fallen humanity, and it will hurt.
I have to know the sword before I can sit in the Son.
It's like those nesting dolls...

I must be dismantled all the way down to the center, all the way down to the source of the star that shone so brilliantly they could see it in the daytime. I have to find, in my own center, the brilliance of Christ.
That's where the star of Bethlehem originates. In the heat of a star far hotter than the sun.
In the flame of God.
The flame that purifies.

What Angels Say

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The dark of night in Bethlehem.
He's born.
Mary and Joseph hold their newborn baby in those first hours, counting fingers and toes, watching those first hungry searchings, listening to those first snuffling coos. The first private moments of their parenthood. But not for long.

They have company.

source: jesuschrististhetruth.com

Angels kept them company.
Angels. God's messengers. Whenever they show up, pay attention. God has something to say.

Mary and Joseph's ancient world was a mess just like ours. Herod ran rampant, already issuing orders for the murder of children to eradicate any possibility of a challenge to his authority. Men labored achingly all their lives. Women served them with no governmental or societal equality. Only half of children lived to adulthood. Poverty reigned. Few could read. Kings held whole continents under thrall. Many died young from diseases we easily arrest today. Ignorance and prejudice and greed bred war.

But the angels brought a message from God:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy King cometh unto thee...--Zechariah 9:9

Imagine them, in a barn--no, less than a barn--a cave, sharing space with animals. It was not a gentle setting. They had hay, and a manger, but no heat source, no convenient water, no facilities whatever. Just each other, the rudeness of animals, and faith in what they'd been promised.

It'd been a long time since the angel's first proclamation to Mary that she would bear a Son and that son would be Emmanuel, God with us.

She'd had nine months to think about this, to bear up under public derision, to witness Joseph's doubt, to watch Elizabeth bear her own miracle, to herself grow big and heavy and weary. To know, but to sometimes wonder.

We do it, too. We do not hear God's promise daily. It comes emphatically sometimes, when we cannot mistake it, but often it only whispers, a sigh we too often miss. But on some blessed mornings, in some dark stables, on some beds of pain and tears, it comes with announcement.

This is the promise, said the angel. This is your salvation. This is not only your son. He is Christ the Lord.

Where are You?

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I'm wondering--
Who prayed the first prayer?

Simply defined, prayer is conversation with God.
But something else may be implied here, I'm thinking.
After all, Adam and Eve kept company with God in Eden, and that company was, presumably, easy and companionable.
The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day.--Genesis 3:8

It sounds an awful lot like Adam and Eve often walked with Him, that they conversed with God, who showed them the world He'd created for them. Maybe they discussed heaven. Maybe they talked about what each fruit tasted like. Maybe they tossed around names for the animals.
But those conversations weren't prayer, were they?
I'm thinking not.

Prayer implies separation, a conversation held with effort across a chasm. 
Prayer started after God's question,
Where are you?--Genesis 3:9

They always knew how to find one another before that. Adam, Eve, and God, walked easily together before, but this time,
...they hid from the Lord among the trees in the garden.--Genesis 3:8

And God said to them what He is still saying to us--"Where are you?"
We are still hiding, still in the process of finding and being found.
That's where prayer begins, I'm thinking.

That's why it's so hard to pray, so slippery.
God is out there somewhere, and we hear Him sometimes, hear His sweet invitation in the cool of the day, but can't quite get there.
Maybe we're still afraid.
Maybe we're unsure.
Maybe we're still so mortified by our sins.

It doesn't matter.
Prayer is our connection to God for now, but not forever.
Some day, we will see Him face to face, clean and easy again.

Those will not be times for prayers, for not-quite-connected communication.
Those times will bring the same sweet fellowship Adam and Eve once knew--up close and personal.
That is God's biggest promise--Himself.
Your eyes will see the King in His beauty...--Isaiah 33:17

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

Living in Debt

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Bills. I don't like them. You probably don't either. And I have too many.
House. Car. Heat. Lights. Food. Clothes. School. And on and on.
I owe so much, and those are just the practical debts--the ones I can pay with money.
I have others, too.

I also have debts I can't pay. These are the hardest ones to live with.
I owe my parents, who gave without expectation for my nurture and training.
I owe soldiers, who gave their lives for my freedom.
I owe teachers, who gave more than anyone asked for my education.
I owe my family, who suffered my sins and returned forgiveness.

I can never pay them back, any of them.
Worse yet, I take them for granted.
I've lived so long in the luxury of what they gave that I no longer notice it's even there.

'Thank you' is not enough. Ever.
But what else is there?

And then there's God.
What does God want for all He gives?
For life. A world to live it in. Salvation and the promise of heaven.
How can I pay Him back?

I can't.
Not God. Not my parents, my family, not anyone who sacrificed for me.
I will owe them forever.

So if I can't pay them back, what, then, do I do?
What do those I to whom I owe so much want from me if it is not recompense?
I know what God wants because He says so:
And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.--Micah 6:8

That's what God wants. Just action. Merciful love. A humble walk toward Him.
In one word, God wants appreciation.
And I imagine they all do.
They don't want repayment. They want love.

I will always be in debt.
Now, if I can only love...

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.

The Altar in Our Heart

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Altars.
What are they made of?
Satiny polished marble. Smooth glowing wood.
Or random piled-up sticks. Or rocks.
We put candles on them, and pictures, and carved images to remind us of God.

But altars have less importance as objects than as places of activity.
Altars are places of sacrifice and worship.
They accommodate joy and pain, celebration and death.
God's people kill in their shadow, then raise the slaughtered lamb in offering.

Ancient priests did it.
Roman soldiers did it.
And every time we raise the knife to our own selfishness, we do it, too.
Mount Moriah. The Jerusalem temple. Calvary.
Altars, all.
And the altar at which we worship today does not reside in our church's sanctuary. We have built it, every one of us, in our own hearts.This is where we know the joy and pain of real sacrifice and, when the sacrifice is complete, the peace.

Make an altar of earth for Me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats and cattle. Wherever I cause My Name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you.--Exodus 20:24

In Company with Songbirds

The came in silently, some with shuffling steps, some with walkers. They found the right pages with practiced hands, and looked to casual eyes like a hundred elderly ladies ready for a meeting.
Then they began to sing.
And I realized that I was in the company not of retired nuns at St. Francis House in Dubuque, Iowa, but with songbirds.

"We come to share our story...." they sang.

Their stories not so much as retired nuns, but as redeemed children of Christ.
The story that brings them so much joy, regardless of number of their years or the condition of their flesh:

"We come to break the bread..."

The bread of life, the cup of salvation,
the soaring redemption they all share regardless of their background or origin.

"We come to know our rising from the dead."

They may have trouble sitting, or standing, or walking,
But they know that amidst it all, they rise with Christ.

They taught me this.
Thank you, little birds.

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.

The Rules of Forgiveness

I'm trying to understand the rules of forgiveness.
If the Bible doesn't contradict itself, and it doesn't, then how does this work?
God tells me to
Forgive as the Lord forgave you.--Colossians 3:13

OK. So, how does He forgive?
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins--Colossians 2:13
So, He forgave me before I repented.

But then He says,
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.-1John 1:9
In other words, I must repent to be forgiven. 

So which is it?

Well, it's both.

When Christ went to Calvary, He proclaimed forgiveness and freedom for all men, although most of them did not know Him, had not even acknowledged His godhead, much less repented.
He did it all, all He could do.
But men still have free will, the free will He gave them.
Jesus did all of his part.  Men were forgiven, but their relationship with Him was not yet repaired.
It takes repentance to do that. 
When we acknowledge and repent of sin, we restore our communion with God.

And that is how we must forgive.
We do what we can while the offender is still clueless, still dead in sin.  We forgive him as Christ forgave us.  Without recompense, without expectation.
Then, sooner or later, he may acknowledge and apologize, repenting for his sin.
That is when, as in Christ, are we restored.

Jew for a Day

I am trying to imagine myself a Jew today.
Or a Buddhist, or a Mohammedan, or a Muslim.
I know that God exists.  
He made me. His power drives the world.
Somewhere, from up high and far away, He influences my life.

I try to serve Him. I try to obey Him. I reach out to love Him, to draw near to Him, but He is too terrible, too far.
He speaks to men sometimes, but they don't benefit much from the conversation.  They are too flawed themselves.
Such men have stood so near God as to hear His voice in thunder and whisper, to feel the heat of His fire, to witness His blinding brightness, but even then, they fail.
They smash His personally engraved tablets in a fit of anger.
They fear their king so deeply that they tell him their wife is their sister.
They sleep with their captain's wife, then kill him to cover it up.
No, these men, though they have spoken with God, do not help much at all.

And, because I am a Jew, there is no Jesus.
God shows no gentleness, little mercy, no offered fellowship, no shared humanity.
I long for God, but know that He will not share His heaven with the likes of me.
I can never know my God.

Then I remember Simeon:
Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for the face of all people; a light to  lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of your people Israel.--Luke 2:29-32

He saw Jesus on the day of His presentation in the Temple.
One look.  That's all it took to change an impossible contradiction into hope and a future.
One look.
Not a God far away, but God in my own skin.
Simeon, a faithful Jew, but as sad and impatient as the rest, had waited for the promise.
And it came.
It came to him in the same way that it comes to everyone--in one moment.

I look up and He is there.
My Savior lives.