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 Creation Test

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OK--Here's another test. (If you missed the first one, click here)
This is the creation test, and again consists of only one simple question:
What was the first thing God created?

Are they running through your mind? The plants, the animals, the cosmos?
Maybe you are thinking this:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.--Genesis 1:1
How can anyone argue about that?

Well, not so fast.
Have you ever seen this?
The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old.--Proverbs 8:22

Oh really? And what was this that God made before he made the rest? Go back a few verses:
I, Wisdom, live together with good judgment--Proverbs 8:12

It's Wisdom. God made Wisdom before anything else.
Wisdom. God begat His own Consciousness and Word. He gave them His sound and utterance.*
His own Consciousness. God's awareness of everything.
How great a gift is this? Well, you answer that.
By Wisdom we hear God's voice.
By Wisdom we can know right and wrong.
By Wisdom we have the capacity to discover.
By Wisdom we recognize justice and freedom.

Without Wisdom, God could have made the whole world and we would be completely clueless about it. We would know no inspiration, no curiosity, no wonder. Without Wisdom, we would never come to realization about the greater meaning of anything.
Look at your pet. That is creation without Wisdom. Sweet, loveable, and clueless.

Wisdom had to come first because, through it, God made a way to know Him.
And how did we figure this out?
By using God's gift of Wisdom.
Thank you, Lord.

*Tertullian, (c. 200), Adversus Praxean, 6

Taking the Sin Test

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OK--Today we're taking a little test.
You should know this--
Who committed the first sin?
{Jeopardy theme: ta da da da ta da...}
OK--time's up.
Adam and Eve?
{Annoying buzzer} Nope. Wrong.

Here's the answer:
How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High. But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.--Isaiah 14:12-15
It was Lucifer, God's angel.
And what did Lucifer want? To make himself the Most High. He wanted to be God. Yikes.

That's awfully hard to imagine. I mean, he's an ANGEL, right? How bad can that be?
Evidently, not good enough. And, in a way, Lucifer got what he wanted--he got his very own kingdom to rule in hell and, temporarily at least, he also got to hold sway here on earth. He's became pretty powerful after all that. And all through sin.

Well, then, what about Adam and Eve? What's the deal there?
Well, think about it.  When Eve told the serpent that God had warned her and Adam from eating the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden because it would cause their death, good ol' Lucifer essentially said, "Hey! Look at me! I didn't listen to God and I didn't die!"
The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die! "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."…--Genesis 3:4-5
In essence, Lucifer gave Eve the same line that had been his own downfall. "Take a bite, girl. You can be God."

And we all know what happened next.

Why does this matter? Because it clarifies that we are still doing the same thing we've always done. Listening to that same whisper, succumbing to that same voice.
And it's still saying the same thing.

It's saying that what God is offering isn't good enough. 

And how does it start? The same way it always did.
It starts with discontent. 
"I don't want this, God, I want something else."
"Please change my circumstances, God."
"You must have made a mistake, God."

Now, God does not want robots. He doesn't want people who blindly accept what He's teaching us.
Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.--Acts 17:11
 And He doesn't expect us to roll merrily along when tragedy strikes or when misfortune comes our way:
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.--Matthew 5:4
 Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward them for what they have done.--Proverbs 19:7


But we must live with a fundamental understanding that God does what He does because He means well for us. 
He loves us. He intends good through our circumstances. No matter what happens or what our situation looks like.
We have to trust Him.
Lucifer didn't. Eve didn't. And you know what happened to them.
If we are to live the way He has mapped out for us--in communion on the road to holiness--we have to achieve a real, basic satisfaction with what we cannot change. When we approach life with discontent rather than gratitude, we end up right smack in Lucifer's lap.
And that low hiss begins to sound like a lullaby.

To Pour or not To Pour--It's Not in the Rules

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One of my favorite pictures in the Bible is the one of Mary Magdalene pouring perfume on Jesus' feet:
Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair.--John 12:3
When a disciple objected, saying that the money should instead have been given to the poor,  Jesus told him,
You will always have the poor, but you will not always have Me.--John 12:8

It's lovely--a wonderful exposition not only of the love Mary bore for Christ, but also for Christ's affection for her and her helpless effusion. The poor are important, He says, but not as important as individual, intimate relationships with our God.

But then I think of Christ's discussion with His disciples regarding compassionate care when He said to them about those sick, or in prison, or naked:
Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for Me.--Matthew 25:40

Well which is it?
Are we supposed to spend all of our extra energies lavishing the perfume of worship and praise on Christ Himself, or are we supposed to use that energy serving the poor? Is Christ best served outwardly, or is our direct worship more important than any service?

Hmmmm.
Well, when I think about this, I think that the answer must be yes and yes.
After all, He clearly states both of these. He doesn't exclude one from the other. And if we try to do so, we run smack into legalism.

Why is it that we are always trying to boil down what Christ gave us into a bunch of rules?
Do this and don't do that. And some of them are so petty.
Christ is risen, so He can't be on a crucifix anymore.
Dunk, don't sprinkle.
He's Jehovah, not God or Christ, or Lord.
Worship on Saturday, not Sunday.
No instruments in church.
Don't drink, don't gamble, don't dance.

Why don't we get it? It's just not that simple. Christ and life in Him can't be reduced to rules. Like here. It's not just about what we give to whom and when. Ask Cain and Abel. Then both gave to God an offering from the best of their labors--Cain the crops he'd grown and Abel the animals he'd raised--but God did not accept Cain's offering.
The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his gift, but on Cain and his offering, He did not look with favor. --Genesis 4:4-5

Why not? What was wrong with it?
Well, I think that Cain and Abel's situation is the same as Mary's. Everybody brings what they have when they have it, but the thing offered does not necessarily make for an acceptable sacrifice. God needs more:
The Lord loves a cheerful giver.--2Corinthians 9:7
Give generously and do so without a grudging heart.--Deuteronomy 15:10

This is what made the offerings of Abel, and Mary, and whoever clothes or feeds the needy or does anything else for God: Abandon.
That's it. Christ watched Mary pour that nard on His feet and it wasn't the perfume, it was the love with which she brought it that  filled Him with joy. And it works the same for us. If we are going to give, give passionately. And He means it:
Because you are lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth.--Revelation 3:16

We have to abandon ourselves to the opportunities God brings, whether He brings a bottle of perfume our way or if He brings a stranger with an outstretched hand. Then our offering to Him becomes an outpouring of love, not the fulfillment of a requirement.

I remember when the book of Mother Teresa's personal letters, Come Be My Light, was published in 2007. It shocked a lot of people to learn that this sweet, holy, devoted lady was spiritually desolate most of her life. Always faithfully appearing before the Lord in prayer every day, and devoting all of her practical life to ministry to the poor, she nevertheless suffered from frequent spiritual desolation. "There is no God in me," she wrote. And sometimes, you and I get there, too.

Mother Teresa gives me hope that all I have to do is show up, whether with nard or with a hot dish or an overcoat. When Christ presents Himself, I can love Him while He is near. When He is not, I can love His people. As long as the love is passionate and without reservation, He will accept my gift.

For His Eyes Only

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I've come to accept that there are some things about God that I just won't get in this life. I won't get to understand the Trinity. I won't comprehend the real nature of love. I won't even get to know whether God really cares whether we dunk or sprinkle. But it never occurred to me until recently just how much Christ invested in His relationship with His Father, a relationship from which we are pretty much excluded. 

Oh He tells us about it, all right.
I and the Father are One.--John 10:30
...just as you are in me, Father, and I in you...John 17:21
In fact, He uses it as an example of the closeness He wants to share with us. But He also makes it clear that we're not there yet. What He has with His Father is something very special, very different, and we are, by its very nature, left out of some stuff.  After all, they are both GOD, and we're not.

Nowhere did this seem so obvious as when I realized during this Easter season (head slap) that Jesus rose from the dead in the presence of God His Father alone. Nobody else was around--not His best friends, not the women who loved and served Him, not the Pharisees, not Pilate and his government officials, not even a passing shepherd or centurion. Nobody.

What gives with that, I wondered? Where was everybody? I mean, this was the single most important thing Jesus did. Lots of people die, but HE ROSE! Only Him!

And then I started to get it.

Jesus became a man, and the most of what we can grasp about Him is connected with Him as man, not with Him as God. We understand love as human beings, the same way we understand obedience, charity, worship, prayer, and everything else. We don't know the first thing about being God. Jesus shared the God-part of Himself with His Father alone. It had to be that way. 

Why do you think He was always going off alone to pray? When He was alone with His Father, He could be Himself--fully God and fully man.  Only once did He share that with anyone human:
Jesus took with Him Peter, James and John...and let them up to a high mountain by themselves.  There He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.--Matthew 17:1-2

THAT's who Jesus really was. And it freaked them out. They right away wanted to start a building project, right there on the top of the mountain. They didn't get that Jesus. And if they, who knew the man Jesus better than anyone, failed so miserably to assimilate that little display, think what they would have done if Jesus had arranged they be there when He walked out of His grave, looking for all this sad world like His true self.
"C'mon, guys. Meet at the gravesite just after midnight. I've got a surprise for you..."
Not hardly.
After Friday, they'd already had as much as they could take. They were long gone.

No, this moment, like some of the most important moments in our own lives, was too intimate to share. After all, we do the same thing in our own lives. The consummation of marriage, often the birth of a child, and often, too, our first real glimpse of God--they all occur away from prying eyes. We treasure them for this. No one knows, and they don't need to. We might share the fruit of those moments, or some of the less private parts, but when hushed privacy cloaks a special moment, it becomes a sacred touchstone and in that context, Jesus reserving the holy moment of rising for His Father alone makes perfect sense.

We get to share the result, though, and to that end, Jesus' arms are wide open, filled with the fruit of His dying and rising. We don't need to see it. We get to know it. And He did not withhold any part of that experience. He lets us touch the holes in His hands and feet. He lets us eat with Him. He walks with us on our own Emmaus road.

Lord of heaven and earth, Jesus Christ lives, and we are beckoned to join Him.
I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.--Psalm 27:13

His Back is Enough

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Moses wanted to see God.
He did. Or thought he did.
He'd been up on the mountain with God's presence and with Him in his tent in the Israelite camp.
The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.--Exodus 33:11

It didn't really happen that way, though. Not literally. I know this because God also said to him:
I cannot show you my face, because no one may see Me and live.--Exodus 33:20

We're not talking about the skin and bone face--the one our eyes and nose inhabit. We're talking about a metaphorical face, an entity that exhibits our emotions and helps us communicate. And we have more than one face like that. There's an old saying that a man has three faces: one he shows to the world, one he shows to those closest to him, and one no one but himself ever sees at all. So God must have faces, too. Like the one He shows without showing it--the one Moses saw on the mountain, the one that friends see. But it's not God's literal face. No man gets to see that and live.

So when Moses wanted more of God, he declared,
Now show me your glory.--Exodus 33:18
And he got it. God said,
You will see my back, but my face must not be seen.--Exodus 33:23
His back. God turned His back on Moses.

Now, as I think about that, I wonder whether that isn't the part of God I see most often, too? His back. God going away. God after He's finished doing whatever it is that He wants to do in my life. God stepping back, saying, "See--I made this."
See! I am doing a new thing!--Isaiah 43:18

It isn't easy to see what God is doing while He's doing it, you know. While God is doing something, I'm usually looking for Him somewhere else. When I'm looking for Him to heal my friend, He's increasing her faith instead. When I'm looking for Him to open the way for a new job, He's arranging a raise for my husband so I can volunteer instead. When I'm looking for Him to save my son's marriage, He's planning for a daughter-in-law who loves Him. I never see it coming. Never. 

And why does this surprise me?
Eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him.--1Corinthians 2:9

What God has planned is better than what I have planned. Period.
So, if all I get to see is His back, well, that's OK. After all, how bad can it be? So what if I don't see it until it's all over? So what if He leaves me scratching my head, saying, "So THAT'S what You were doing."

So what if all we get to see is God's back? His fingerprints, His trailing, glorious echo. I'm good with that. His back is enough.

God Has Free Will, Too

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God gave me free will--a very good thing--at least I think so.
Why? Why is free will a good thing? What does it let me do?
Well, free will allows me to choose without being forced. In essence, free will allows me to do exactly as I want to do. I like that.

Here's what free will sounds like:
"I want vanilla, not chocolate."
"I want to marry Bob, not Tom."
"I want to go to Tahiti, not Atlanta."
"I want to sleep late, not go to church."

See?
The goal of free will, from my point of view, is to figure out, then act on, what I really want. From God's point of view, however, free will is a bit different. God wants me to want what He wants.
I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is who bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.--John 15:5
Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.--Ephesians 5:17
I am in my Father and you are in Me and I am in you.--John 14:20 

Until I do, however--until I want what God wants, He will not stop me from making my own choices and, in the meantime, I make some pretty crummy ones. And, while I'm making these crummy choices, God is what?  He's patient. He's long-suffering. Remember what its' like when our own kids insist on doing what we know will lead to a crash-and-burn? Like that. It happens to everybody.

In the process, though, I've spent a lot of time saying No to God. 
While I'm saying No, however, I forget that  He can say No to me, too. I don't like that very much.
When I say No to God, I expect Him to be OK with that. He gave me free will, right? Well, God has free will, too. That's why it's a relationship. God will love me, but He will do it the way He wants, not the way I want.*

He did it to Paul, right?
Three times I pleaded to take [the thorn in my flesh] away from me. But He replied, "My grace is sufficient for you."-2Corinthians 12:8-9
Translation: I am not going to love you that way. I am going to love you with myself instead, with my very own presence. You will keep your thorn, but you will come to know me intimately.*

Not a bad deal when you think of it. God told Paul No to something small, but Yes to something much bigger. It's like asking for a scooter and getting a Lamborghini instead.

God said No to Jesus in the garden, too. Jesus wished for the cup to pass from Him, that horrible cup of pain, but God said No. Instead, He perfected all mankind through that suffering and made it the source of salvation for everyone.

He does the same thing for us. If Mother does not get well, if we don't get the job, if the godly husband I want is still not showing up, God is saying No, but it's OK. God always has a Yes to go with it. Don't see God's Yes in your life? Look around for Him. His hand is out, full of blessing. If not satisfaction, then comfort. If not health, then holiness. We so rarely ask for the eternal gifts, and these are His best ones.

*Henry Cloud and Jim Townsend, Boundaries, 1992, Zondervan