The Saturday between

They watched Him crucified by Rome on a terrible Friday afternoon.  They were lost.  A brave Jewish leader claimed the body, prepared it,and laid it to rest before the start of the Sabbath.  Night descended on the world -- both literally and figuratively -- in darkness and sorrow and pain.

Now what?

Saturday dawned, or maybe it just came around, with no one really noticing a sunrise.  Grief sat heavy upon the disciples.  It sat heavy upon God Himself, for the part of His nature that was the Father was grieving the death of the part of Himself that was the Son.  Even knowledge of His plan, and of His pending resurrection likely could not remove the pain of loss He felt in the separation from His Son. Before the joy of Resurrection there was the sorrow of Saturday, even for God.

I forget that I have to go through Saturdays.

The losses for me are by no means on the scale of His loss; mine are infinitesimally smaller.  Yet, for a small, simple, broken human, they are still losses.  The cry to God over the loss of career goals and hitting a ceiling before I wanted to.  The long dark hours of pain from the loss of a marriage, and later the loss of a relationship with my child.  This weekend, this Saturday, I was mourning the loss of a relationship I struggled to understand and to make work, one that brought great happiness and great hurt at the same time. 

I know that I face nothing that God hasn't faced.  We talk about the temptations that Jesus faced in the desert, but we don't examine the losses as much.  A Father separated from His children. The loss of His plans because of our sin.  The pain of a Saturday that must be endured before the fullness of time has come to roll away a stone.  And unlike Thomas, I don't get to see the Lord, to hold Him.  I have to draw strength from His words ("Blessed are those who believe without seeing me" John 20:29) and believe that the Sunday will follow....and the joy.

Lord, help me to believe.

 

http://www.sunday-school-center.com/easter-sunday-school-lessons.html

Both ends of a week: Palms to Cross

I was out walking on Saturday, for the first time since my plantar fasciitous flared up.  God, I miss the time outside walking, putting my body on auto pilot and turning my mind free to think, pray, meditate, connect with God.

I happen to be thinking about this week.  It is the pinnacle week of the Christian faith.  Yet it has always been a bit of a puzzle to me.  One day, Jesus enters Jerusalem on a carpet of palm fronds and shouts of adulation.  A few days later His life is given away for the freedom of a murderous revolutionary zealot.  What happened between Thursday morning and Friday morning?  What caused the crowds who still followed that week to turn on Him and cast Him to His fate?

from www.12printablecalendar.com

He failed them.  He didn't do what they wanted, what they expected, and in so doing....He failed them.  So they rejected Him.

The crowds were still following on Thursday.  After his arrest, there was still a crowd. I had missed this before, that there was a crowd still following him (although the disciples fled).  It was in this crowd that Peter was challenged  "After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, “Surely you are one of them; your accent gives you away." (Matt26:73) and he denied the Man and God he had followed and lived with for three years.  There was obviously a crowd that followed to Pilate "“What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him" (John 18:38) and it was a crowd that asked to make the choice of Barabbas or Christ. 

They watched Him in the court of the Sanhedrin and religious leaders, and in the court of the Roman prelate.  One represented the laws and rules that governed their daily lives and their faith in God, the other court representing the hated occupiers of the land.  When they asked the Incarnate One who He was, if He was the Son of God, He answered in a familiar term of "I AM".  And yet He did nothing.  He did not call down legions of angels, the hosts of Heaven.  He did not overturn the civil rule of Rome, or the religious law of the Pharisees.  He said very little, and did less.  Things would continue, it seemed.  

So they turned on Him because He did not meet their expectations, did not answer their prayers, did not do what they so wanted Him to do.   He let them down, and they turned on Him.

Yeah.  I've so been there.

It happened when I lost my first job.  After five years of Bible study groups in college and fellowship with believers, I found myself alone in my first job.  No church, no study, no roommates.  And when I lost that first job to a downsize, I got angry at God.  We spoke almost not at all for years.  The continued thorn in my flesh, which He did not relieve, didn't help.  Through the marriage and the cold, impersonal, unfeeling church (the Bishop even said that to the Pastor after a visit), was of little help.  When I did return to Him, during the slow painful dissolution of the marriage and the loss of all sense of where my life was going, I still came with expectations.  And when the marriage ended, and 
an important volunteer ministry did too....I walked away again.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

Except I really didn't.  It was the start of my wrestling with God, my Jacob time.  Even now I'm struggling with God and my expectations.  I want my foul depressive mood to be gone, my sense of always being an outsider to be banished.  I want love in my life, for others and with someone.  I want His presence to be palpable to me.  I want....I expect....yeah.  Just like the crowd.  He doesn't deliver what I expect, what I desire, and I call for His life.

He gave it, though.  Just like He did to the first crowd.  He does accomplish His work.  He did overturn Rome, and the Jewish religious establishment.  He gave His life then, for them, for me.  

I get it.  And I don't.  But I keep going forward. 

And want more walks, to find more of Him as I walk.   

The other Job......her.

As I write the title of the blog, I realize how many different ways the title could be taken, which wasn't my original intention.  No, it's not related to your job at work, or to Steve at Apple.  It's the story of Job, as told in the Old Testament.  Actually, it's an observation on the person in the story that, in all my years of church attendance (which has had a general paucity of sermons on any aspect of Job), I have never heard mentioned in a sermon.

His wife.

In the opening of the story, she is the silent but still present participant.  She is his wife, ostensibly the mother of his children, the collaborator in his life.  Since Job is blameless before Jehovah God, it would be reasonable to assume that Job treats his wife well.  One could suppose some degree of intimacy between them, especially since she is likely endowed with great beauty and they have a large family.

So when the evil one is permitted by God to wipe out Job's children and his wealth, she alone of his family remains and is not physically destroyed.  She is not taken, but her children are, the blessedness of seven sons along with daughters.  Her status and standing as wife of the richest man around are gone.  Her world is ripped out and her means of being supported are gone.  Everything she has on this planet other than her husband is taken from her.  He mourns.  She mourns.   And then his health is shattered as well, leaving her with no community (ostracized) no support, no source of income, no ability to provide or be provided for.  And no one to talk to, for Job is sitting in a heap of ashes scrapping his sores.

Her response, in that setting, is unsurprising.  She lashes out at her husband in her one sentence eternal cry “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!” 

It says a lot, doesn't it.When in life have you reacted the same way to God?  I know I have.  When I was laid off from my first job, and had no support network, no ability to process the pain and shame I was suffering.  It happened again when the job I loved doing was moved to another state and they didn't want to take me.  An anger based response is, really, pretty natural. 

And then I wondered, was I reading her reaction right?  Was she angry at God and wanted to express it through a reaction from her suffering husband?  Was she angry at Job, thinking that this was all from some secret sin he had hidden from her? Or.....or was it a fatalism and despair that with everything gone, she wanted to just curse God as a means of ending her own life.

We don't know which of these she wanted to do.  We do know her faithful husband told her they were foolish words, words that apparently didn't match their life and faith.  Maybe, as a lesson to us, they are left there to show that the words won't leave us destroyed.  That are reactions and emotions are allowed, even if they are not desirable.

In many respects I wonder what happened to her relationship with God as things moved on. The fortune and family of Job was restored, including a blessing of seven sons.  Her children were the most beautiful in the land "Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters..." (Job 42:15).  

I wonder about what the lesson is for me.   As my marriage was ending I cried out to God for help. When I physically moved out, I wanted God's presence even through my animalistic wails.  I've still struggled with seeing His love in the depths of my darker moments over the years.  But ..... but I've learned that I can express myself to God, even if the expression is anger and hurt and pain.  

Because He has been there too.  And will meet me there.

Fred Phelps Usefulness

The patriarch of the Westboro Baptist Church has died.

On one level, words fail to describe the absolute loathing and contempt I have for him and the organization of loathsome, repugnant, repulsive, malformed, misanthropic, knuckle dragging cohorts.  That they are, and should be, an anathema to genuine human beings.  Their masquerade as Baptists and as Christians is unconscionable.  They represent the absolute worst of human kind.  My reaction to his death is to wonder, deliciously, whether his having to face an angry vengeful God would be worse, or to face a kind and loving God who is the antithesis of his own beliefs.

And yet.....

In a discussion at work with a friend the other day, he made an astute observation.  He and I understand that Westboro has no real relationship, no connection, to the Christian faith or the God of the Bible.  What they vomited in terms of attitude and actions represents a position abhorrent to the beliefs of mainstream (and even offshoot) Christian theology and practice.  That this group's misappropriating of both the name of Christ and the Church that worships the True God could lead others to think that Christians could believe and act that way, is blasphemous.  What Westboro believed has nothing to do with Christ and Christians and Christianity.

Maybe just like jihidists have nothing to do with Islam.

My friends point was a good one.  How much of the non-western world views the West (culture and faith) as being synonymous with Christianity?  How many see people of Westboro's ilk as being what Christians are? Do we view Islam the same way?  Do we hear only the shrill anti-western rhetoric of the most vocal of the extremists and assume it represents the views of a billion people spread across the globe from North Africa to Indonesia?  Have we done anything to find the faithful, the mainstream, the rational followers of Islam and hear their words or see their world?  There was an exhibit a couple of years ago at the Smithsonian that displayed the contributions of Muslim culture to the world and to the West.  It was fascinating to see what that faith and civilization brought forth, even as today we see it only as destructive and hateful.  Maybe like others see Westboro.

Perhaps this could be an opportunity to open lines of communication, open eyes and minds across a spectrum of religious belief.  Even as a follower of Christ, I need to see others as being created in the image of God (Gen 1:27), made only a little lower than God Himself (Ps 8:3-8), something that I struggle with many times in my self-centeredness.  Maybe this would be a time that Churches and Mosques and Synagogues and other houses of worship could reach out to each other, in understanding to close some of the distances in the world.

Wouldn't that be an amazing thing to see?

All?

For a long time I have struggled with the concept of "all".  It is an absolute that, I suspect, terrifies me, and it shows up in in some major ways. We are told that the first and great commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul (Matt 22:37).  I realize that I have yet to get to any one of those three, much less all of them. 

I suspect the question that I have relates to understanding if this is a commandment, a required way of living, or an illustration of the type of way we are to live.  In the extreme, to love the Lord with all of me requires me to not think or care about anyone else.  Even with the caveat that Jesus follows this with, "And the second is like it..." (Matt 22:38) that still leaves no time or no ability or no space to do or think or be anything but absolutely and totally devoted to God all the time in all circumstances.  We should all then becomes monks, devoting our lives to worship and praise of the King of Kings.  Yet, that then leads to questions about how much thought and energy am I allowed to expend in the world working, eating, playing, loving? I don't believe this is a literal call to monastery, even if there are a few are called that way. 

Another aspect is the fiscal.  I have wondered about this quite a bit, at the number of Christ followers who live in big houses, drive fine cars, take great vacations.  Should we instead be giving all of that away to the poor?  If the moderate position says we can have some material possessions, then how much house is acceptable?  500 sq ft?  1000 sq ft? 3500?  If I fail to give everything away to the poor, does that diminish me in some form to Christ and His kingdom?

The absolute nature of "all" echoes as well in Luke 14:26 where Christ says "“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple."  That would, I think, lead to very small families, very few disciples, and a very short lived religion.

I think the reason these examples bother me is two fold.  First, they represent, to me, verses that are so clearly illustrative and not declarative.  I've struggled with some of Francis Chan in "Crazy Love" and "Multiply" (in two different Bible study groups) because he talks about reading the Bible literally.....and I just can't see that.  Yes, some should clearly be taken literally, but which parts should be is not perfectly clear or straightforward.  My hope is that my objection is not just because I am sinful and want to avoid God, but because I am tired of people misusing His Word to further shame or direct or marginalize people by those techniques.  I WANT to love the Lord far more than I do, but don't know how to do it.  These statements as declarative don't bring me closer, they drive me further away.  To pull from "one Way Love" by Tullian Tchividjian, legalism doesn't inspire people to do better, it causes them to give up.  And I don't want to give up.

Second, I have found that my connection with God improves when the decision of how much and when and how are made by me through the prompting of His Spirit.  I know that people telling me to give hasn't made me want to give, it was the demonstration of generosity by others that did.  It was not a command to read the Bible that caused me to, but the realization that I wanted to know Him better, or to track through a verse that causes me to question or to see things differently. 

I don't think I will get to "all" on this side of life.  What I want on this side is to be moving in that direction, freely, because I hear Him calling me.  Lord, please let me hear You better, to be stirred by Your Spirit, to move closer to You as I continue to live life here.  Amen.

Everyday bushes

I was taking a walk this fall, enjoying one of the great days we had this past season.  I love the fall, with the feel of the air and the colors of the trees.  The street I was on happened to be lined with maples, so that as last in the season as it was, they were ablaze in reds, oranges, golds, and shades of each of those that I had no names for.  I was thinking of them allegorically, wondering what poem I could create about them and the blaze of colors that I saw, when it hit me.

Burning bush.

My burning bushes were trees.  Or maybe more accurately the trees were my burning bushes.

The point of the burning bush was not to just prove God's power, although it did that.  The point was to get Moses's attention and have him meet and connect with the Great I AM (Exodus 3:3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up").  Maybe the bush wasn't really on fire, maybe it just looked that way.  Maybe it was just colorful, maybe it was full of colorful birds, or fruit, or it was the play of water across it.  The point was to get Moses over to it so the Almighty God could speak to him.  

So perhaps these trees were to remind me of God.  To get me to consider His creation and His goodness in giving beauty.  To explore, as Paul says in the letter to the Romans, the signs and wonders in the world that display God's existence (Romans 1:20).  It worked that day, for my thoughts turned to the Lord for the rest of the walk.

How many every day burning bushes do I see, and fail to see, that could turn me to see God?  Lord, may I be aware of those things in the world around me that remind me of You; may I be reminded of You in all the things in the world around me, that I may learn to be closer to You.

Questioning heart

Over the course of years, I have found that different versions of the Bible have the ability, through their choice of words or the structure of those words, to impact me in new or challenging ways.  It is the variation in how a thought or phrase is worded that can impact me at different times in my life.

The section in Mark 2 is one that hit me one morning recently at church.  It is even possible that I didn't initially hear it correctly, but heard it with a God-directed ear. 

"Why do you question these things in your heart?"

It's a bring-me-up-short question.  I don't want to be a Pharisee.  They could see and hear first had the Word of God made flesh, and yet were unwilling to see Him as He was, and to see Him for who He was.  They were so wrapped up in their legalistic, hypocritical, self-important world of self-justification that this missed God's Word dwelling among them.  And I wonder if I do any better?  Am I missing Him because of my own self-regulating nature, a fear of letting go and trusting Him?  Am I questioning because I am seeking or because I am trying to escape Him (as though you could flee from a God who finds you wherever you are ....Psalm 139:7-12)?

On the other hand, I hear acceptance of honest questioning.  Nicodemus questioned, and it was fine (John 3).  Nathaniel questioned  (John 1:45-49) but believed and accepted the Living Truth.  Thomas doubted and Jesus reached out to him (John 20).  So I 'hear' that questions and questioning are acceptable.  Or at least they are until they become so stubborn that they cause the mind to choke off the heart (Matt 13:22) and blind the eyes, as happened to the Pharisees.

I even question sometimes why it is that I want to believe.  Do I really want Jesus to be my Christ and Lord and light of my life?  Or do I want to believe and hope that He will provide a human helpmate to me?  Do I love HIM, or do I just not want the heartache of not being special to anyone anymore?

Regardless, my prayers these days are just Jesus take my will and my life, to be the love of my life, and let me desire to draw ever closer to you.
Amen.