purity

It’s the end of the year. Christmas has come and gone, and we’re well into Epiphany. I started this year reading about the creation and the fall, and read my way through the whole Bible. I walked with the prophets through Advent, and rejoiced with the shepherds, Simeon and Anna at the birth of the baby. 

It’s an amazing story, from start to finish. It’s wonderful, and reassuring. It has the best ending of any story possible, because of Christmas, Good Friday, Easter and Ascension Day. I serve a risen Savior, I serve an ascended Lord. 

And here’s why that’s so awesome: Look at John’s description of home, in Revelation 21:22-27. “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

When Adam and Eve committed that first act of rejection, God started on his epic work of salvation. He worked in this world until conditions were just right and the time was perfect, and then he sent Jesus. Jesus did the thing I couldn’t do, he made an appropriate payment to God for my sin. As a result, my name is in the Lamb’s book of life. My name is in the book!

For all my present impurity, I’m already eternally pure. What an amazing, humbling thought. What a great end to this story. What a great end to my story!

Happy New Year! But more than that, I hope you too have this wonderful new life.

everything required

I think I’ve written it before, but Joseph makes an incredible role model.

For starters, in earthly terms there’s not much for him at Christmas. He has a pregnant bride and a bunch of neighbors who can count to nine months. He ends up with a baby that isn’t his. In the middle of it all, he has to make a long trip to Bethlehem, one that would certainly have been a lot easier had his life gone according to plan – he’d have a healthy young traveling companion, for starters. And he doesn’t get to consummate his marriage until after there was a baby.

Mary gets to meet Gabriel, Mary is most-favored by God, Mary shares this wonderful pregnancy with her cousin Elizabeth. Joseph just seems to get the short end of the stick.

But Joseph is a trooper. Sure, his life took a hard right turn and went somewhere completely unexpected. But Joseph tries to do the honorable thing, and then follows the angel’s message and cares for Mary and Jesus.

Joseph’s theme verse could have been Luke 2:39-40 “When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.”

Joseph did everything required of him by God’s law, and by God himself. He did what was needed. He did his duty. And he received in return the great blessing of living with and working with Jesus for the couple of decades or so that it took Jesus to grow up. Joseph got to see Jesus become strong and be filled with wisdom, and have the grace of God on him. What was that like? It must have been wonderful.

We talk about duty as if it’s the same thing as chores, but there can be a lot of satisfaction and even good feeling in doing your duty. Soldiers take a lot of pride in it, and so do diligent husbands. Joseph reminds me that my life is God’s to plan, and to use. Fulfilling all his requirements is a privilege, not a burden.

always on

There’s a phrase that is used in business for people who never, ever lose their focus: Always on. When you say someone is always on, you mean that all of their energy and attention stays on their work, even when they go home at night.

That would be a good phrase to describe Anna. 

Luke 2:36-38 “There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.”

Anna never left, never quit, never did anything else. She fasted and prayed and worshiped and praised, full time. It’s no surprise that she was at the temple when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus; she was always there. 

Anna’s reaction is what you’d expect of someone who’s always on: she gave thanks, and then she witnessed. She spoke to everyone, or at least everyone who still cared about the Messiah.

That seems like an excellent example to follow: Give thanks, and then witness. For this gift of the baby Jesus, for the gift of the cross, for the gift of the risen Savior, for the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the gift of my salvation – all these gifts of Christmas, I should give thanks. And then I should bear witness. 

I don’t know if anyone will ever say that I’m always on – I like my family time and my friends too well. But at least I can take the time regularly to imitate Anna.

consolation

I was reading in Luke 2 this morning, the familiar passage about Simeon, and it struck me what a special relationship he had with the Holy Spirit. 

Luke 2:25-35 Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts.”

Simeon lived before Pentecost, and while there are many accounts of the Spirit coming on people temporarily, Simeon seemed to have a different level of interaction. The Spirit was on him, Luke says, and then on this day the Holy Spirit prompted him to go to the temple. 

Of course, it was all oriented on Jesus. Simeon knew what the coming of the Savior would mean – he saw the Messiah as the consolation of Israel. Consolation is something you need when you’ve been hurt, or disappointed. Consolation is that thing that makes you feel better. This gift of the Spirit enabled Simeon to keep his focus when most of Israel had lost theirs.

I’m reminded that as a post-Pentecost believer, I have the same blessing as Simeon. I have the Spirit always with me. If I listen, the Spirit nudges me toward what I should be doing. And it’s all to keep my focus where it belongs: on the someday return of Jesus, and what I should be doing in the meantime. 

Yet another gift I take for granted. And a reminder that Advent isn’t the only time I should watch and wait.

amazed

Yesterday as I listened to the pastor at our Christmas service it struck me what an emotional rollercoaster the shepherds rode at that first Christmas. Look at that part of the story again: 

Luke 2:18-21 “And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. . . .’

“So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.”

They went from terrified, to reassured, then curious, then joyful. In the end, they were eager to share this wonderful thing. You get the idea that they were probably exhausted by the time they got back to the sheep.

I’m not sure what part of that would have been the most amazing. Was it when they realized that rather than being in terrible danger, they were instead getting the awesome news their people had waited centuries for? Was it when they realized, upon seeing the baby king, that it was really true – the sign the angel gave was spot on? Was it when they, some of the least important people in Bethlehem, suddenly had this story that amazed everyone they told it to?

Throw in an angelic concert and it all adds up to something beyond their wildest dreams.. I imagine they remember and told stories about that night for the rest of their lives. 

I felt a little bit sad and kind of jealous – it’s been a long time since my faith was that exciting. But it could be. I have the same great good news, and I know a lot of people who need to hear it.

That would make a great resolution this year – to go looking for Jesus, to truly try to find him in that way that’s so exciting and life-changing. I’d like to be so overwhelmed that I can’t help talking about it to everyone I meet. This good news should never feel ordinary.

Immanuel

Matthew 1:18-25 “This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’).

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.”

The time is here. The long wait is over. For Mary, nine months of pregnancy and maybe social censure, and a trek back to Bethlehem. For the Jews, the torturous national faith journey that started in the Garden of Eden and took detours through Egypt and Babylon. For me, this period of introspection and expectation as I contemplate what Jesus’ coming will mean for me.

It all has happened, and will happen, in God’s good time. The Jews didn’t wait one minute longer than was good, and neither will I. All of the prophecies and promises are fulfilled, at just the right time.

There’s a lot of comfort in that fact, but today doesn’t feel comfortable – it’s exciting! It’s joyous! The dearest thing to my heart, the most wonderful thing I can image, has happened: God is with us! He was physically with Mary and Joseph, but he dwells in me as the Holy Spirit, and I can talk to God any time I want.

God is with us! I think about that but it doesn’t really sink in. It’s one of those things that is so great I almost can’t process it. The implications – I will never walk alone through any dark place again. I will never face any threat by myself. All my pains and tears are now shared. And I have the best counselor in the world for every choice I make from now on. 

All of life is different now, because of Christmas. Hallelujah! The wait is over.

choice

Christmas is almost here. We’ve been waiting for four weeks now, and we’re eager for the day to finally come. But are we really ready?

In secular terms, that question relates to having our gifts bought and baking done, and the house cleaned up. There’s always a rush at the end as we realize that we aren’t as prepared as we thought we were. I think that’s a helpful reminder of spiritual reality.

For four weeks we’ve been trying to slow down, to put ourselves in that mode of waiting and anticipating, so that we can experience once again that flood of gratitude and wonder on Christmas morning as we think about what really happened that day. As with our houses, we start to realize at the last minute that we’re not in the spiritual place we’d hoped to be going into Christmas. Our hectic lives got in the way.

All of that makes me ponder whether I’m really ready for Jesus to come again. My uncertainty coalesced this morning around these verses from John 3:31-36: “The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.”

I’m realizing again that when I first encountered Jesus I was face-to-face with a critical choice, the same one all the actors in the Christmas story faced. I have to choose either to accept Jesus as God himself, and therefore as my Lord, or to continue to exercise my own lordship over my life.

Is Jesus the one, the Messiah? Is he really God become man? Salvation hinges on these questions, because they address the effectiveness of the cross. 

Is Jesus the one, the Messiah? Was he really God become man? My salvation hinges on these questions, because only if Jesus is lord of my life do I have any hope at all. 

I pay a lot of lip service to the lordship of Jesus. I want to believe my life backs it up, but then I think of the times, recent times, when it didn’t. So the truth is, I’m glad Jesus didn’t come yesterday – I didn’t handle yesterday well. I’d rather he came on a day like that Tuesday a few weeks ago when I rocked the whole obedience thing.

So am I ready? Just as with hosting Christmas at my house, I think so but there’s this nagging feeling something isn’t right yet. I won’t really know until the day comes.

Watch and wait.

adopted

Yesterday I wrote about being freed from death row. What a gift, to be pardoned for a crime I was fully guilty of, to be set free to live life un-condemned.

Today, though, even better news! 

Galatians 4:4-7 “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave, but God's child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.”

The pardon from my death sentence would have been more than enough, but, if Paul is correct, Jesus rescued me from death row so that God could adopt me. It’s like Little Orphan Annie, except Shirley Temple was cute and loveable and I’m a nasty old sinner. 

But what a plot! The condemned prisoner set free by royal pardon, and then met at the door of the jail by his Savior. “Come with me,” the Savior says. “Where to?” I asked. “I’m taking you home. My dad completed the adoption paperwork, and you’re my brother now.” So off I go, with a room in the family mansion and a job in the family business. 

That job is keeping me away from home right now; I’m living for a while as an expatriate because there’s work here for me to do. But I’ll do it gladly because, when it’s done, I get to go home. I pray that God will be gracious enough not to leave me here one day longer than the work takes.

That’s what Jesus’ return will mean for me – it’s my ticket home. That’s the day when he will say, “Good work, brother. Dad’s pleased. He wants to see you, and your room’s ready. Let’s go.” All because of Christmas, when Jesus himself was an expatriate for a time in order to complete my rescue.

Whether that day comes with my death or at the end of this old earth, it can’t come too soon. Watch and wait!

included

Sometimes I lose sight of exactly how fundamental Christmas is. At the basis of everything, all my successes and failures, hopes and disappointments, adventures and disasters – all of the events and emotions that have made up my five-plus decades so far – is this one singular event. Without Christmas, there is no hope, and no point to any of it.

Paul explained it pretty well in Galatians 3:23-25. After describing how faith in Jesus changed the law, he wrote: “Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.”

Those are some dramatic words that describe a frightening truth – that without Jesus we’re so shackled by sin and Satan that we could just as well be in a jail cell. The Old Testament law addressed a grim truth, that there is no way for people to pay the blood debt we owe God. Under the Old Testament law, we’re all on death row.

But then, Christmas. Everything changed – everything! Under the Old Testament law I wouldn’t even have been allowed in church. The covenant was for descendants of Father Abraham, not Grandpa Steggerda.

But look at the next few verses, 26-29: “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

Before Christmas, I was on the outside looking in. I was the little kid with his nose pressed to the glass, watching the party inside. All the promises of God, all the grace of the covenant, wasn’t for people like me. And then, the God-man Jesus in a short life and horrible death changed my entire future. From that point on, it’s all mine – a wealth of gifts!

Where do I lose that part of Christmas? To really appreciate the birth of the child King requires a sense of the hopelessness of life without him. That consuming longing that gnawed like hunger for the Israelites eventually subsided, sated by more worldly things, until when the time came only a handful of Simeons and Annas still yearned for the Messiah. Why do I let that happen to me as I looked forward to Jesus’ return? How does Christmas become so benign and ordinary?

I want to recover that sense of desperate longing. Watch and wait.

infirmities

During Advent, I tend to read with an eye toward Jesus’ second coming. After all, his first is historical fact, amazingly, blessedly so. The thing that keeps Advent and Christmas from becoming ritualistic or, worse, spiritually anemic, is to walk that path of anticipation with my own forward-looking bias. In that way, the promises of Isaiah and Jeremiah and all the rest become representative of heaven.

Today, though, I’m reminded that Jesus fulfilled all those prophecies literally while he walked this earth. 

Matthew 8:14-17: “When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him. When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:

‘He took up our infirmities

and bore our diseases.’”

I don’t know why, but to me this is really striking. When Peter’s mother-in-law was sick, Peter wasn’t thinking about being saved from his sins. He was afraid for his mom. He was worried for his wife. The thought of an afterlife was comforting, I’m sure, but his immediate need was for healing. The same was true for all those demon-possessed people and their families. They had huge problems they needed to be saved from right away. 

And Jesus, with his huge heart, the son of the God who is love, saw it all and healed everyone. 

It makes me think two things. First, the Israelites were anticipating a prophesied Messiah who would make their earthly lives better. Why do I forget that Jesus will do exactly that for me? Why do I think of him as my after-death savior and try to hack through life on my own?

The second thing is a reminder that Jesus’ ministry was all about helping people. He filled his days with all the ordinary problems of average people; he sought them out and poured himself into their lives. Why, then, do I so often see discipleship in terms of my own sanctification, and not as a call to service?

I wonder at Jesus’ ability to challenge me from across the centuries; even after five decades of hearing this story it still challenges me. And I wonder in what ways Jesus will challenge me when he comes back.

Watch and wait.

highway

Roads and paths tend to capture my imagination. They catch my eye – when I see an interesting road or winding path I want to follow it, to see where it takes me, to find out what’s at the end. I imagine all kinds of interesting places and maybe even the opportunity for adventure.

This morning I read about a road that I really would like to take.  Isaiah 35:5-10 says, 

“Water will gush forth in the wilderness

and streams in the desert.

The burning sand will become a pool,

the thirsty ground bubbling springs.

In the haunts where jackals once lay,

grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

And a highway will be there;

it will be called the Way of Holiness;

it will be for those who walk on that Way.

The unclean will not journey on it;

wicked fools will not go about on it.

No lion will be there,

nor any ravenous beast;

they will not be found there.

But only the redeemed will walk there,

and those the Lord has rescued will return.

They will enter Zion with singing . . . .”

Imagine, a road for those who follow Jesus! This road will certainly take me on a spectacular journey. I can’t even begin to imagine what I’ll see and experience there. I’m hoping I can walk it – I find that I see so much more, and get a much better feel of the landscapes and neighborhoods, when I walk. It would be a pity to zoom down the Way of Holiness.

And I won’t be alone – this is the highway that Jesus followers will travel, and maybe even Jesus himself. Good companions make for good journeys.

This is a prophesy of the new earth, after the return of Jesus. It offers a glimpse of what the longest part of my existence, what we call the after-life, will be like. It makes me eager.

Watch and wait.

harvest

Luke  3:15-18 The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. John answered them all, ‘I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’  And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.”

As I focus this Advent on the anticipation of Jesus’ coming, I connect in a new way with those Jews who were so excited that the Messiah might actually have come. They were expectant, Luke says. They wondered if John was the one.

He wasn’t, and didn't pretend for a second. John acknowledged immediately that he wasn't even good enough to tie the Messiah’s shoes. John would baptize with water, but Jesus would bring the Holy Spirit for the saved and the fire for the damned. 

Luke calls this good news. Really? Repent or burn is good news? But if I consider that the ones with John were the ones longing for the Messiah, then it makes sense. The Messiah is coming! If you’ve been faithful to the covenant, you have nothing to worry about. If you haven’t but still believe, it isn’t too late – produce fruit in keeping with repentance. It’s only if you reject Jesus that there’s anything to fear. 

It’s a reminder I need. Some days I live faithfully. Some days I do OK – my focus is generally right, but I can lapse in certain specific circumstances. Some days I clearly disappoint Jesus. 

Like the crowds, the tax collectors, and the soldiers who asked John, “What then should we do?,” I need to ask that same question every day. How do I prove by my life that I repent – not just am fearful of consequences, but truly hate my sin? What will qualify me as wheat rather than chaff?

These are important questions, maybe the most important as I prepare for that day when Jesus comes again.

Watch and wait.

vipers

For four centuries there hadn’t been a prophet in Israel. It was as if God had fallen silent, and the people of Israel wondered if they’d been abandoned. Then the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth showed up in the desert, eating bugs and wearing animal hair. He looked and acted like a prophet. But listen to what he said.

Luke 3:7-8 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”

I learned while preparing a sermon that John was being especially mean here. Vipers were considered some of the nastiest creatures around – it was believed that they ate their way out of their mothers. Being called vipers was insulting.

And just in case they missed the point, John asked them who warned them to flee – this could be a reference to the preferred method of getting vipers out of a field, which was to burn it. The vipers then would flee the field, seeking someplace safe from the flames.

This was a harsh call to repentance. He basically said, “You guys are so nasty you’d hurt your own mother if it helped you. The only just end for you is to be burned out.” 

John’s call was to produce fruit in keeping with repentance, so that the coming savior wouldn’t destroy them. As I wait during this Advent period, I find myself asking if I produce that kind of fruit. Does the outcome of my actions show repentance? Where is my fruit, what does it look like?

That’s my challenge to myself this Advent, to turn my nasty viperish self into someone who bears the fruit of repentance. It seems like if I can do that until Christmas, it might be the start of a new way of thinking.

That’s only a couple of weeks. Watch and wait.

delivered

I was intrigued when my Advent devotional took me to 1 Samuel 2 this morning. I can honestly say I’ve never connected the story of Hannah and Elkanah, a childless couple, with this period of waiting for Jesus.

But it’s interesting to think about this other young Israelite woman, Hannah, who, like Mary and Elizabeth in the Christmas story, had her own song of praise recorded in scripture. Hannah was desperate for a child – childless brides were objects of pity in that society, ones whom God’s blessing had passed by – and she poured out her desperation to God. God heard, and Hannah was a mother.

And this is her response, from1 Samuel 2:1-2: 

“Then Hannah prayed and said:

‘My heart rejoices in the Lord;

in the Lord my horn is lifted high.

My mouth boasts over my enemies,

for I delight in your deliverance.

There is no one holy like the Lord;

there is no one besides you;

there is no Rock like our God.’”

When Hannah needed deliverance, she turned to God and was saved. The result was Samuel, one of the greatest prophets in Israel’s history. 

 When Israel had almost forgotten its promised deliverer, God came to Mary in order to save. The result was Jesus, God with us, who was the ultimate high priest and the savior of us all. 

There’s a neat symmetry to these three mothers. Hannah’s blessing from God was the prophet who would anoint King David, the forefather of Jesus. Elizabeth’s blessing from God was the prophet John, known as John the Baptizer, who would announce Jesus’ coming to the world. And Mary’s blessing from God was his great blessing to all of us.

The details of God’s great rescue plan are as beautiful as they are intricate. What else is still to be revealed? Watch and wait.

patience

When will Jesus come? No one knows. He told us he’ll surprise us, coming like a thief in the night. It’s been thousands of years and we’re still waiting. Except a lot of people aren’t anymore. It’s been too long, and the post-Christian world has moved on. 

I think that’s what happened to the Jews before Jesus was born. After so many centuries, they didn’t really believe he’d show up in their lifetimes. 

I used to wonder why. God chose when Jesus would be born, and the time of his return. Why make us wait?

Peter tells  me why, in 2Peter 3:8-9: “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

God isn’t concerned about time, he cares about hearts. If by waiting a while longer one more soul will turn to him, isn’t that worth it?

My challenge is remaining focused on Jesus while I wait. He isn’t here, and I have a lot on my plate. It’s easy to think life is about my job, my hobbies, my families. When I do that, I increase the odds I’ll be looking the wrong way when, like a thief in the night, Jesus finally shows up. 

I don't want that. I need disciplines in my life that keep me watching and waiting.

water

The sad story that has unfolded in Aleppo, Syria over the past month just tears at my heart. Images of little children who were pulled from the rubble, or worse yet, little bodies in the streets, get at me in a way that few other things do. The grieving and fear and deprivation that has been part of everyday life in Aleppo is mind-boggling.

One very basic thing that just doesn’t seem like it should happen any more is going without water. In addition to shortages of everything else, including medical care, water is hard to come by for the people living there.

Those recent thoughts made Isaiah 41:17-20 especially impactful this morning:

“The poor and needy search for water,

but there is none;

their tongues are parched with thirst.

But I the Lord will answer them;

I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

I will make rivers flow on barren heights,

and springs within the valleys.

I will turn the desert into pools of water,

and the parched ground into springs.

I will put in the desert

the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.

I will set junipers in the wasteland,

the fir and the cypress together,

so that people may see and know,

may consider and understand,

that the hand of the Lord has done this,

that the Holy One of Israel has created it.”

Being without water is miserable and life-threatening. So is being without the Holy Spirit, which is what this passage in Isaiah is really about. Centuries later, Jesus would tell listeners in the temple that the Living Water he promised was the Holy Spirit. It would refresh their souls and give them life.

Before Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out, there had to be Christmas. Jesus came to save, and then to equip the saved God sent the Holy Spirit. Just as was prophesied.

I’m reminded this morning that I’m blessed with the Holy Spirit in me because of Christmas. It’s a gift that too often I take for granted. It’s a gift that’s meant to help me become more holy, to help me get ready for when Jesus comes.

It’s the gift of the Holy Spirit that helps me to watch and wait.

plowshares

General Douglas MacArther said something like, “No one more than a soldier prays for peace, for it is he who must pay the ultimate price of war.” I thought about that a lot in the 25 years that I was a soldier and have wondered often why the most hawkish people on the news and on social media are the ones who have never worn a uniform.

I think civilians in America have a very different view of war than in most of the world. For us wars are fought over there, giving us the freedom to engage in impassioned debate about rights and wrongs and what our national strategy should be. For most, war is fought at home, disrupting services, bringing shortages, disrupting the kids’ education, maybe destroying homes. 

The Israelites had experienced plenty of that kind of war. They had been subject to annual raids by the Midianites in Gideon’s time, were constantly at war with the Philistines for most of the lifetime of King David, and would be plundered by the Assyrians and the Babylonians.  For them, Isaiah 2:3-4 must have been a jaw-dropping, tear-bringing promise:

“Many peoples will come and say,

‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the temple of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us his ways,

so that we may walk in his paths.’

The law will go out from Zion,

the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He will judge between the nations

and will settle disputes for many peoples.

They will beat their swords into plowshares

and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will not take up sword against nation,

nor will they train for war anymore.”

It’s one of my favorite images in scripture: old soldiers, back home on the farm with their wives and children, and maybe grandchildren, using hooked spears to cut back their olive trees and grape vines. Swords, reformed to cut sod instead of flesh, used to prepare fields for planting. I picture sunshine and fellowship and honest sweat. And no fear.

Someday there will be no wars. There will be no armies. There will be no defense budgets, no departments dedicated to homeland security. God will be our guarantee of peace, and at that time no man or woman will ever again train to harm another.

That’s another reason we needed Christmas – because in our sin, sometimes we’d rather kill each other than co-exist. The peace of this passage can only come when sin has been conquered. This old soldier is eager to see that day. Watch and wait.

as the waters cover the sea

More and more lately, as I observe some particularly nasty act or see someone broken by a tragic event, I find myself thinking, “If only you knew God!” When I think that, I guess I’m recognizing that the only thing that keeps me from being mean-spirited, and the only thing that enables me to bear up in hard times, is what I know of God’s character and his promises. I wonder how people get by without God, and I wish they didn’t.

There will come a day when the entire world will know God, and in fact know all about God. It says so in Isaiah 11:9: “ . . . the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.” Just like the flood engulfed all living things in the time of Noah, we will all drown in the knowledge of God when that time comes.

That may sound scary to the ones trying to deny God or run from him or discredit him. This verse describes a time when all of us will have to come to terms with how well or poorly we honored and served God. 

But really, this flood of God-knowing is one of the most wonderful promises in all of scripture. Look at the three verses before this one:

“The wolf will live with the lamb,

the leopard will lie down with the goat,

the calf and the lion and the yearling together;

and a little child will lead them.

The cow will feed with the bear,

their young will lie down together,

and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

The infant will play near the cobra’s den,

the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.

They will neither harm nor destroy

on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.”

That’s what knowing God does – it makes us loving and kind instead of nasty and mean. Whoever wrote the story of the Grinch got closer to the truth than he knew; all of us by nature have hearts three sizes too small, hearts that prompt bad feelings towards others. But when we get to know God, we become bighearted. It feels so good to serve others.

That change is the outcome of Christmas, when Jesus came to fix our broken relationship with God and to show us the Father. Just as sin turned us into Grinches, Jesus transforms us into God’s kind of people.

Oh, how this world needs that. Oh, how I need it. Watch and wait.

hard service

Life can be hard. That may be why so many people feel ambivalent about Christmas. There seems to be a disconnect between the life we know and the saccharine-sweet images and scenes that we see in Christmas cards and television ads. 

Few of us enjoy a Norman Rockwell or Currier and Ives Christmas. In our lives, people have cancer and debt and are unemployed. Relationships are sometimes bad. Many of us struggle to find peace on earth and goodwill towards others. Our politicians and political parties, as well as their advocates on social media, are still mean-spirited towards each other. Heartbreaking news continues to come from Syria and Afghanistan and Iraq. Bizarre acts of violence keep popping up all across America. People are still sleeping in cars and on sewer grates in every major city. Instead of the beautiful fluffy snowfalls in all the snow-globe wonderlands, our lives instead are full, metaphorically speaking, of miserable blizzards where snow driven sideways on a 30-mile-per-hour wind sucks the breath from our mouths and makes getting around impossible. 

I’m reminded today that the secular Christmas we see celebrated on Facebook and our TV screens is not the Christmas of the Bible. All those people want us to think that if we’re nice to each other in December, and buy a new car, the world will somehow become better. But a Biblical Christmas acknowledges what our lives are really like.

Take these famous first few verses of Isaiah 40:

“Comfort, comfort my people,

says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and proclaim to her

that her hard service has been completed,

that her sin has been paid for,

that she has received from the Lord’s hand

double for all her sins.”

Hard service – is there a better way to describe what it’s like trying to live for Jesus in this world? Life is hard because the world opposes me, and then I make it harder with my own sin. There’s joy in life, to be sure, but there’s a lot of pain too. And even when there’s joy and peace in my life, there’s pain for people I love. 

But the prophesy of Christmas is a word of comfort. That’s coming to an end, Isaiah says. You’ve lived with the burdens and consequences of sin in your life and in the world, but God is going to take care of all that. You’re going to be fine.

Christmas isn’t a season to celebrate human goodness. It’s the time when we mark the divine antidote to human evil. Despite the ugliness of real life, God brings comfort. It’s coming.

Is there a message we need more right now than this? It can’t happen soon enough. Watch and wait.

cloud and fire

When God led his people out of Egypt, an earthly salvation that was part of his plan to deliver spiritual salvation as well, he manifested himself in an unusual way: He went ahead of the Israelites as a cloud of smoke by day and a fire by night. 

When Isaiah prophesied for the Lord, he was given these words, found in Isaiah 4:5-6 “Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over everything the glory will be a canopy. It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain.”

As an English major I love the symmetry, but as a Christian I’m amazed at the possible meanings. In Zion, which is a code word for the new Jerusalem or heaven, God will create the same manifestations that he used on earth. 

It’s as if God is saying, “Once I led you myself, step by step, so that you would’t lose your way. You couldn’t, because I was there. I told you whether to march, and led you when you did. But then we stopped and you thought you knew where I was, in the temple, so you stopped following. You went your own way, and got horribly lost.

“But now I’ve brought you back, and I will be so obviously with you that there is no way for you to get lost again.”

That may be a little fanciful, but I think it communicates perfectly what the great story of redemption is all about. It reminds me, in this waiting period before Christmas that is meant to recall the long wait for the Messiah, that I too need this savior. I need him badly. 

Someday he will come, and I will go, and together we will be in this place of the smoke cloud and the blazing fire. Watch and wait.

no doubt

Sometimes I have a problem with doubt. Mostly what I doubt is myself – what if I don’t understand this correctly? If I’m wrong, things are going to be different than I’m planning on. What if I put my faith in the wrong thing? What if I’m really trusting in my own idea or opinion?

That kind of doubt, of course, leads next to doubt about what will happen. Will the weather really be safe to drive through? Can that person really do what I’m counting on her to do? Will I be able to do what I promised?

I don’t let myself think like this very much – I believe you do the best you can with planning and preparation, and then just go with whatever happens. But there are moments when I recognize that I’m depending on things that are out of my control. 

My devotional readings this morning made me think about that, because of all the things I sometimes doubt, I have never doubted the return of Jesus. Not even for a second. Not once have I wondered, “What happens if he doesn’t come back? What if he changes his mind?”

I have no doubts because scripture is full of the promises of God. I read one again this morning, in Isaiah 54:10 “’Though the mountains be shaken

and the hills be removed,

yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken

nor my covenant of peace be removed,’

says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”

I don’t doubt because God promised. God is all-powerful, so he can do whatever he wants. God is love, so he wants to do good things. God called me into a relationship with him, so he wants to do good things for me. God’s promises are more certain than the sunrise.

I imagine a lot of Jews before the birth of Jesus wondered if the Messiah would ever come. It would be easier, I think, to have doubts before then. God’s plan up to that point involved harsh judgment at the hands of invading nations, and exile in Babylon. It permitted the occupation of Israel by the hated Romans. It included virtual silence from God – no prophets in Israel – for the last 400 years. Some doubt would be natural.

But I live after the first Christmas and after the first Easter, and after Jesus’ ascension. I know that God made good on that promise, and I know that my Redeemer lives. There is not space for even a flicker of doubt, not in what Jesus plans to do or whether he can do it. Doubt in myself, yes – am I really worthy of this salvation? Doubt that Jesus will come? Absolutely not. Watch and wait.

rainbow

One of the great joys of my life at this point is watching Dawn read Bible stories to the grandkids. Somehow that simple thing shows me the covenant more than any other experience I’ve had. This woman who committed herself to God and then later to me is more than just the biological matriarch of our little clan. She’s also the spiritual mother who shows in her every-day faithfulness to God and us what can be done by those who live in God’s will.

I’m also able to see with my five decades of perspective that all of those Bible stories are the same story, and the Bible is really one story. So it seems entirely appropriate this morning to read about Noah as part of Advent devotions. In fact, I now wonder why I’ve never seen a rainbow Christmas ornament.

Look at this from Genesis 9:12-13: “And God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.’”

That echoes for me God’s promise in the Garden and through all of time to send a savior. The destruction that I deserve for my sin is the same as the godless people of Noah’s day, the ones destroyed by the flood. On that occasion, all creation paid the price. Later on, God himself, the God-man Jesus, would pay my price. 

God promised Noah that from this point there would always be life, always be hope. He marked that promise with a rainbow. 

It’s kind of sad that these days the rainbow means something so different in our society; it has been coopted by a movement that denies and defies God’s created order for sex. Yet even in that there seems to me a message of hope. My own sin is no less offensive to God, yet his sign of the rainbow is for me. 

Maybe rainbow Christmas ornaments are bad idea, but maybe they aren’t. God’s promise of covenant to Noah is no different than his covenant with Abraham and curse on the serpent and all his promises to his people through all of time: No matter how bad your sin, there will be a way out. The rescuer is coming. Watch and wait.

on our side

I watched an interview with a famous actor recently who is an atheist. His basis for rejecting the possibility of a God is that to him the world looks like no one cares. He sees pain and evil as proof that there couldn’t possibly be a God who is love. My reaction is to imagine a world where God actually didn’t care, and to think how much different things would be. My life experience is full of times when God’s love was evident.

I thought of that man again this morning as I read my devotions, because Psalm 124 raises that same question. The first four verses of that Psalm go like this: “If the Lord had not been on our side— let Israel say— if the Lord had not been on our side when people attacked us, they would have swallowed us alive when their anger flared against us; the flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us, the raging waters would have swept us away.”

It seems an odd Psalm to associate with Advent, but I think the main question is quite relevant: What if God hadn’t been on our side? What if he decided to wash his hands of us? What if he opted out of the struggle we have with Satan and unbelievers and left the world to do to us whatever it wishes? Or worse yet, if he abandoned me to my sin?

The reference to raging waters of course immediately brings to mind Noah, and how God’s people were miraculously saved during the flood. That story reveals God to us as a God who saves, a God who would never leave us or forsake us. Our God goes to extreme lengths to restore us to him. 

If the Lord had not been on our side, he certainly would never have sacrificed his son. But God is on our side, so he called his people and led them, and fought for them against the corruption of sin and the attacks of sinners. And he promised a Savior, and urged the people to watch and wait. One day the rescue would be complete. 

So I watch, and I wait. As it should, it all gets jumbled in my head. Christmas is coming, the Savior has come, Jesus will come again. I and so many others take this annual walk in the sandals of God’s people who lived before the first Christmas because nothing else grounds us in our true hope like this story that begins with a manger and some shepherds and a virgin birth. 

What if God hadn’t been on our side? The flood would wash over me, every day, and then finally when I die. Hope would have left the same day Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden. But Hallelujah, the promised Savior comes.

watching

I wonder if I would do any better than the Pharisees and Saducees when it comes to being ready for Jesus to come. They pretty much blew it; they weren’t looking for Jesus, despite the prophesies, and when told by the Magi that he had been born, they didn’t bother to look for him themselves. 

Other than Jesus’ statement that he will return, I don’t have the helpful indicators of prophesy to help me. In fact, Jesus says I should expect to be taken by surprise:  “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” Matt 24:36-42.

In defense of the Jewish religious leaders, the prophets had been silent for four centuries. It would have been easy to grow complacent, to move from wondering if he would ever come to that place where you just really don’t think it will happen any more. With a few minor exceptions, it seems most of the Jews felt that way.

On the other hand, even with scripture to remind me and faithful pastors to call me to be attentive, it would be easy for me to start thinking the same way. After all, Jesus last spoke on the subject a couple of centuries ago. What would make me think that his thief-in-the-night return is coming in my lifetime?

So if Jesus does come soon, will I do any better than the Pharisees and Saducees did at that first Advent? I want to; it would be worth taking some time to think about what might have to change to make that true.

beginning

Once Thanksgiving is past, we move to Advent. We start looking toward Christmas, and that often involves looking back into the Old Testament. I was reminded this morning that the entire Bible is the story of Jesus, so in a way it’s all about Christmas.

So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock

and all wild animals!

You will crawl on your belly

and you will eat dust

all the days of your life.

And I will put enmity

between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and hers;

he will crush your head,

and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:14-15

This is where it  really starts. The moment God realized Adam and Eve had made that original bad choice, he started to make it right. They chose evil and corruption; they listened to that first lie from the Father of Lies, and as a result their relationship with God was fractured and their souls were in jeopardy. And all descendants of Adam and Eve, including me, from that moment were born with a bent toward sin.

But God was determined from the very start to redeem his people. The first prophesy of the Messiah came from God himself, in the Garden of Eden, at that moment when original sin was revealed. Everything else in scripture was the detail of how God’s plan was worked out.

All of history from that moment was about the enmity between the offspring of Eve and of the serpent. All the wars, all the poems and paintings, all the yearning and searching and exploring, all of the scientific inquiry relates to this cataclysmic struggle, this realization that we’ve been banished, this longing to find our way home. And opposed to that is Satan and everyone he can pervert to his cause of destroying God’s goodness wherever they find it.

But the offspring of the woman would one day crush the serpent’s head. And that hero, our Messiah, would be born at Christmas. One day I’ll live eternally the glory of that historical fact; until then, I look forward longingly toward Jesus’ second coming just as the Jews did for the first.

God with us

This morning I finished my annual read-through of the Bible. I try to wrap up by Thanksgiving because reading Revelation during the Christmas season seems a little odd. But this morning, I decided that the end of Revelation is an awesome transition into Advent.

Take this excerpt from Revelation 21:1-4, for example: “Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death” or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’”

God with us – Immanuel – is the name of my church. It’s one of the names by which Jesus is prophesied in the Old Testament. And here, in this vision of heaven, is the key fact that what makes it heaven is that God dwells with his people. 

This is the basic promise of Christmas – that after centuries of separation from God, begun with the original sin in the Garden of Eden – we will once again be re-united with God. That chasm created by our waywardness, bridgeable only by our blood, has been spanned, or better yet, filled in by the cross. God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden, and he will be with us again in the new heaven and new earth. 

In the words of the children’s bible we read to our grandkids, this is the start of God’s great rescue plan. We enter the Advent season, pointing us toward Christmas. God with us, the promise, became reality – that’s what we commemorate. We live that reality in part now, with free access to an ever-present God and the constant companionship of the Holy Spirit – that’s the outcome of Christmas. And all of it is a foreshadowing of what awaits us in the new Jerusalem. 

No more death or crying or pain. God dwelling among us. The amazing ending to the greatest story ever told – our story.

thankful

It’s Thanksgiving – happy Thanksgiving, everyone! By now I’m sure your kids have brought home their pilgrim crafts, and the turkey is on its way to the oven, if not there already. 

This year, I’m having a little trouble with the holiday. I’m discouraged that for so many, it’s a day of food and football. A lot of people won’t make it to church today, and devotions won’t be a prominent part of many meals. In fact, an informal poll I took at work showed that the most common thing people are thankful for is a long weekend. What happened to being thankful for a job?

I’m so well off that sometimes I forget to be thankful. But today, tinged with a feeling of sadness for the secular way most of the country observes the holiday, I feel profoundly grateful.

I’m spending my first Thanksgiving in a brand new house, something I never thought I’d own. Together, my high-school sweetheart and I are making it a home, the fifth in our 34 years of marriage. 

She and I will go to church in a while - she plans worship and plays piano, and I’m going to help lead. I know it will be a wonderful service. My best friends will be there, as well as my mom and dad and my daughter and her family.

Then I’m going to spend today with family, people I love one and all, and even though we probably voted for at least three different candidates we won’t care enough to talk about it. The fellowship is going to be as great as the food. 

These are blessings I’ll enjoy today, but they’re part of my life always, along with good health, a great job, and peaceful community, and material wealth. But the greatest blessing of all is the one I read about this morning, in Revelation 20:11-12 “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life.”

So I just want to take a moment and say, “Thank you, Jesus, for writing the book of life and putting my name in it. That would have been more than enough, but thank you too for all these amazing things in this awesome life I have.” Amen.

lady

Once, years ago at a business seminar, I heard a speaker talk about how he achieved exemplary service at the hotel chain he worked with. He explained that all of the staff, from the managers to the maids, were rigorously trained in one key concept: “We’re ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” That was a powerful idea for people not used to being seen in those terms. It implied a level of behavior that came to define the entire chain of hotels.

I thought of that this morning as I read from 2 John. John starts his second letter this way, in chapter  1 verses 1-3 “To the lady chosen by God and to her children, whom I love in the truth—and not I only, but also all who know the truth— because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love.”

I love it that John addresses the church as “the lady.” If that’s who we are, we should act like it.

Ladies are well-mannered and gracious, even with – especially with – those who can do nothing for them. Ladies are modest. They are a model of appropriate deportment, in dress, appearance, and conduct, in all situations. 

One of the defining characteristics of a lady is that she welcomes everyone, is kind to everyone, and therefore is admired by everyone.

Today I’m thinking of the great ladies I’ve known, and seeing in them a model for the church. I think that captures what is meant by doing things appropriately, and with good order. If we’re a lady, let’s act like it.

wholesome thinking

Is it possible for a truism to get more true over time? It seems like the longer I live, the more powerful the concept becomes that what I put in my mind, and what I choose to think and think about, has a profound influence on how my day goes.

This certainly isn’t a new idea. Peter wrote about it thousands of years ago, in II Peter 3:1-2: “Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.”

What we put in our heads is so important that Peter wrote two letters with the purpose of making sure we were looking at the right things. He wanted to direct the early church, and all Christians, to dwell on the writings of the holy prophets and the words of Jesus they brought to us.

In a typical day I absorb a lot of information, and I’m sure some or maybe even much of it is suspect. We’re learning that what we see on TV is brought to us with some bias. We’re learning that what passes for news on social media is at best likely to be one-sided, and could very well be completely made up. And even the true things I expose myself to often are not likely to focus me on the things of God. I know more about the deviant behavior of evil men and the amoral actions of celebrities than I do about the lives of our missionaries, for example.

So how do I correct that? How do I make sure that the words of Peter, Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are dominating my thoughts? How do I keep what they teach us about Jesus foremost?

It’s an important question because these are the things that will shape my desires, my attitudes and my actions. If I get wound up in the secular prognostications about social or political issues, if I get sidetracked by what they’re calling identity politics, if I wander too far down the pop culture bunny trail, I’m going to lose my focus, and lose my way.

Obviously I need to immerse myself in scripture, but I can’t spend the whole day there. Eventually I have to put down the Bible and go to work. Life demands my attention. So how do I continue to think wholesome things in an unwholesome world?

It’s another thing I’m going to have to work out. 

submit

 “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor.” 1 Peter 2 13-17

It’s worthwhile to note that at the time Peter wrote this to the Christian churches, pretty much  all of them were under Roman rule. They lived under the boot of an occupying power that they longed to be free of. They had plenty of reasons to think their emperor, as well as Caesar, were illegitimate rulers. They had all kinds of reasons to resist.

Yet Peter tells them to submit to every human authority. Actually, he lays out four different relationship guidelines: respect everyone, love believers, fear God, and honor the emperor. So this admonishment is not just a matter of respecting the office but feeling free to trash-talk the person. We’re called to honor them. 

I think this is going to be hard for a while. There are some leaders in my denomination whose motives I question. I wonder sometimes if some of my managers at work are mailing it in.  There is a newly-elected state representative that didn’t impress me much during the campaign. And, of course, there’s national politics. 

So how do I do this? How do I honor people I think are amoral, or power-hungry, or out of touch, or bought and paid for? 

I think the how is closely linked to the why: that by doing good I should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. We can do that by living as free people, meaning that we recognize that now that we’re free of sin’s bondage, no leader can enslave us again. 

God’s people should be above reproach. We shouldn’t give either side cause to point fingers, and we do that by following that simple set of four guidelines: respect everyone, love believers, fear God, and honor our leaders. 

I can see what’s expected of me. I’m going to need a lot of help to do it. Another thing to pray about.

mercy and peace

Sometimes real life comes closer to satire than any comedian. I read yesterday of a high school “Love Trumps Hate” demonstration that ended when several demonstrators beat a Trump-supporting classmate so badly he had to go to the hospital. No doubt the victim tried in some way to provoke the crowd, and high school logic didn’t see the compromise to their message in this disproportionate response. That story seems to me to capture our reactions to this election season – all the nonsensical beating at the air and each other, the desire for the affirmation of our own kind and the discomfiture of all others. And the ready acceptance that people deserve pain and suffering for disagreeing with us. It flows both ways.

It occurred to me this morning as I read through James that that book would make an excellent handbook on relationships, especially relationships between groups. It seems like the vaccine against identity politics.

Take this little gem, from James 1:12-13: “Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

Two things here. First, we should extend to those we disagree with the same respect and consideration, the same mercy, that we want to receive, because we’ll be paid back in kind. Second, mercy can defuse and deflate a judgmental attitude; in the end, mercy wins people over while judgment just widens the gap. 

Here’s another, from James 2:17-18: “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.”

Those who seek peace, who try to bring peace, are the righteous ones, and they will be rewarded. That suggests that those on either side who take a “no compromise, no fraternizing with the enemy” approach aren’t righteous and should expect much of a spiritual reward. We need to avoid rhetoric like “there’s no such thing as a good Trump voter” or “time for all those liberals to make good on their threat to leave.”

I think these two passages, along with all the things James says about good works and telling the truth and praying, would make an excellent lens for us to view this transition through. When we consider calls to limit rights to demonstrate, or defund colleges who provide safe spaces and counseling, or register people based on religion, or disband the Electoral College, we should ask if they represent mercy or judgment. We should look for the proposals that are designed to bring peace rather than punishment. Paybacks are playground logic.

A lot of Trump folks are pointing at a different sort of transition in 2008, but I remember whining and angst and “not my president” back then too. Conservatives felt excluded because liberals gloated. Both sides need to remember what that felt like. And we all need to remember that being right isn’t as important as being merciful or peaceful.

hospitality

A while back I picked up a hitch-hiker. I ended up wishing I hadn’t – he was drunk, he badly needed a shower, and his filthy backpack made a mess of the back seat. But I rode with him for four hours, from just north of Cedar Rapids to the junction of Highway 20 and Highway 4. And I listened.

He was homeless, on his way to the West Coast where he though it would be easier to winter over on the streets. He’d been in Coralville where an old friend had offered him a room and got him a job, but he messed that up by sleeping with the friend’s wife, so he was back on his own again. He had a daughter – wife left him years ago – but she had given up on him too. I had no idea how to engage this guy, so I just listened.

But then he talked about his hope – he knew Jesus, and knew that there was hope in Jesus. He’d been trying to make Jesus happy in Coralville but it had been so long since he’d had an intimate relationship he couldn’t handle the temptation. He was so devastated and discouraged by what he’d done to his old friend that he crawled into a bottle and wasn’t sure he’d ever crawl out again. But he wanted to, and he wanted to become a person who could please Jesus.

I offered to help him find an agency that could help him, at least with a hot meal and a bed for the night, but he didn’t want that. So at the truck stop I bought him a meal and we ate together, and I prayed for him in the parking lot.  The car reeked of cheap beer and body odor the rest of the way home. 

But I felt cautiously good about it. I felt like I’d encouraged him. I felt that Jesus would certainly know about this man who want to please him, and Jesus wouldn’t leave that man by himself. I want to believe he somewhere found a safe place to be. 

This morning, on my way through Hebrews, I got to chapter 13 verse 2: “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”

I doubt this man was an angel, but he was a brother and a fellow image-bearer. Maybe there was an angle somewhere in the vicinity; maybe for a minute I did the work of an angel. I know for sure that I haven’t been able to get this man out of my mind; he has forced me to think a lot about homeless people and how much glee Satan must have when his whispered lies succeed in running lives into the ditch. 

Hospitality takes many forms, but I think its most precious manifestation is when it is offered to strangers, especially strangers in need, strangers with nothing to offer. If the pessimistic are right, we’re going to see more and more of them. Even if they’re wrong, there are more than enough needy strangers right now. 

So I’m watching for more opportunities. I’ll even accept the body odor and stained seat – it’s a fair trade for a chance to be Jesus’ hands and feet to a wandering soul.

love and good deeds

As much as I want to care for the people who are obviously hurting after the election, I have to confess I’m getting to a point of overload. As a white man, I don’t experience this the same way they do, even though I’m didn’t get my preferred outcome to the election either. I get that. I also get that racism and sexism and a lot of ugly things exist. But after a week of blogs and Twitter posts about surviving the election and providing safe spaces, it’s starting to feel like so much wheel-spinning. 

As a guy who left home a few weeks before his 18th birthday to go to Basic Training (no safe spaces there!) and never went back, I may not be the best one to nurture less-resilient 18-year-olds through this, much as I’d like to. I’m willing to wear a safety pin if that’s what people need, but it doesn’t seem like much. I want something concrete, something I can do. 

Reading from Hebrews this morning, I read this familiar passage again, in chapter 10 verses 19-25: “Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

For whatever reason, this is helpful to me, especially the part about encouraging each other – no, spurring one another on – toward love and good deeds. That, after all, is both eminently practical and by far the best thing we can do for those who feel marginalized. 

So, after reading several dozen blogs and articles outlining plans to resist the new administration, and to cope with Thanksgiving dinner with family who voted wrong, and to do good self-care to work through the devastation and uncertainty, I’ve finally found a plan that resonates with me: love and good deeds. 

So that's my plan, for the Make America Great Again crowd and the NeverTrump group, for Republicans and Democrats, for men and women and children, for all races and nationalities and abilities and identities. Love and good deeds. And, hopefully, I can also spur a few others toward the same thing.

appropriate

I guess I’ve always thought that doctrine was about belief. I don’t think I ever really considered the question, but it just seemed right. Now, reading in Titus, I realize that it also has to do with behavior. I’m wondering which is more significant.

Titus 2:1-6 says, “You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled.”

Paul urges the teaching of what is appropriate to sound doctrine, and then gives a list not of things to think but of ways to live, of behaviors. Temperance, self-control, business, kindness . . . These sorts of things, Paul says, are appropriate to our doctrine.

This means that there are also behaviors that aren’t appropriate. I know that, but this is a new reason for me: some things are inappropriate because they don’t match my doctrine. 

I think of doctrine as what I believe to be true about God and what he expects of me. Theology is knowledge of God; doctrine goes beyond that and describes what that means for life. I think of the doctrine of election, for example, which describes how Christians are drawn into a relationship with God. Or the doctrine of the Trinity, which reconciles for us the persons that God reveals in himself. 

So what’s the link between those beliefs and my behaviors? I guess there has to be consistency through all of it. A person who believes the right things will live the right things. A person who doesn’t live the right things calls anything he believes into question. 

It’s kind of weird to think that my angry words can compromise the catechism, but I guess it’s so. It reminds me that there is a lot at stake in the words I let escape my mouth, and the things I let myself do. 

loyal

I write often about the obscure heroes sprinkled throughout scripture. This morning, I noticed another one.

Paul, writing to Timothy in one of the last letters that we know of, had this toward the end (2 Timothy 1:16-18): “May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me. May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! You know very well in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus.”

For all I know, Onesiphorus was one of those great Christians who served everyone all the time. Every church has them; my wife is one. Or maybe, he was one of those people who doesn’t seem to ever do much. 

Whichever, to Paul this man was, literally, a Godsend. Even if the only thing he ever did was to help Paul, that was enough to ensure his legacy would endure through the ages. And he did a great job: already a dependable support in Ephesus, Onesiphorus, once he knew Paul was in need, traveled to Rome and searched persistently until he finally located Paul. There he resumed his service to Paul, enabling further one of the greatest ministries the church has ever known.

I’m impressed by a couple of things Onesiphorus didn’t do. He didn’t decide that Rome was too far away, even though by any rational measure it probably was. The travel would take time and be expensive, both factors that would reduce Onesiphorus’ personal wealth and security. But he went anyway.

He also didn’t walk away from Paul because of his reduced status. Paul was a prisoner, and likely never knew physical freedom again. He was a victim, pretty much helpless and fair game for a lot of abuses. There was no advantage whatsoever, and the risk of being judged guilty by association, yet Onesiphorus still helped.

It’s a great reminder to me that, in a time when so many are in need and so many feel marginalized, personal hardship is no excuse for not helping. Neither is concern over what others might think. This singular focus on serving one man, even if he didn’t do anything else, was enough for Paul to enshrine his name in scripture. That’s how much God values our kindnesses to each other.

family

Wearied, as everyone is, by endless post-election rhetoric, little of it loving or even friendly, I was struck this morning by some outstanding relational guidance from Paul to Timothy. In 1 Timothy 5:1-2 he says, “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.”

What a great concept – let’s just treat everyone we meet like family! Talk to them the same way you would your father, mother, sister or brother!

I know, a lot of us can be pretty snarky with our family, but we don’t really mean it. And as much as we might criticize them, no one else better. We defend them against all outsiders.

So what if there were no outsiders? What if we defended everyone? What if we reasoned respectfully with mature men? What if we cherished and heeded women just like we do our moms? What if young men and women were given the help and protection we give our brothers and sisters?

I can tell you what wouldn’t happen – we wouldn’t flip people off anymore, or flame them on social media. We wouldn’t think it was OK to leer at pretty women, or make those innuendo-laced comments to waitresses or barmaids. We’d head off self-destructive behavior as soon as we noticed it. Abuses of all kinds would pretty much come to an end. 

And we wouldn’t stand by while other people are treated badly because of their gender, skin-color, abilities, or even beliefs. Especially beliefs. Christians know that beliefs are important, and that getting them right is literally a matter of life and death. But we’re the ones who also know that what Jesus modeled for us is to lovingly persuade people who aren’t thinking right. 

When I was a boy divorce was unusual, and we tended to judge those who divorced quite harshly. Then all of us had it happen within our families, and we saw the reasons it happened and the anguish it caused. All of a sudden we couldn’t just turn our backs on them, and our graciousness toward a group of people was greatly increased.

We need, Paul says, to treat everyone that way. In the church, sure, but outside the church too. In the church this guidance deals with how we resolve our differences and do mission together. Outside the church, it’s great advice on how to love people who think differently. Instead of writing them off, or condemning them with harsh language, we should work with them  like we would a wayward brother or sister.

Even if they were dumb enough to vote red, or blue, or third-party, or not at all.

fruition

I’m reminded today that often-times our dreams are the wrong ones. 

In 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 Paul wrote, “With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I’m going to assume that Paul knew what he was doing, and that his prayer was in line with God’s will. If so, then it begs a couple of questions.

First, since God isn’t bringing about my every desire, does that mean the unfulfilled ones aren’t truly for goodness? Second, are my deeds that seem fruitless then prompted by something other than faith?

I’m sure it’s more complicated than that, but as I and millions of others are wondering what the next four years looks like, these seem like legitimate questions. I thought what I wanted out of this election was the good of our country. I thought the things I did to engage the process and other voters were prompted by my faith. And yet it feels like rather than fruition, we are, as Jesus once said, being sifted like wheat.

One thing I know: God’s will is that his name be glorified. That’s also Paul’s purpose in this prayer. So maybe God is still in the process of bringing to fruition my good desires and faithful deeds. Probably there are things to come in this presidential term that will be blessings. 

If my worse fears are realized, and government chooses not to include all of God’s image-bearers, the church still can, and I can. That may be God’s purpose in this.

quiet lives

I wonder how many Americans aspire to a quiet life. I’d guess not many, and probably most of those skew toward the senior end of the age demographic. We tend more to think The Most Interesting Man in the World is a better role model than Mr. Rogers. We don’t want to fade into the woodwork, we want to be noticed. We want a voice, we want to be treated with respect. We want to be in the middle of things. We want others to look up to us.

Paul disagrees, which makes me suspect that God does too. Paul wrote this to the church in Thessalonica, in 1 Thessalonians 4:10-12 “. . . .  make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”

I have had a lot of ambitions in life, and there are a few left, but they tended to be either accomplishments or experiential. I have had ambitions to military rank, to command, to climbing the corporate ladder. I have had ambitions to travel, to see all the national parks, for example. But I can’t claim to have ever had a quiet life as an ambition.

Mind your own business, Paul says, but he didn’t live in the time of Facebook and Twitter. On social media, everyone else’s business is my business. In fact, memes were invented to make it easy for me to make my disdain for others known. And haven’t we all made other people’s votes our business?

Work with your hands, Paul says, but he didn’t live in the information age. We’re a first-world country. We’ve moved beyond agriculture and manufacturing as the core of our economy, and even beyond being a service economy – we’re an information economy now, where most of our economic advantage comes from our ability to amass and leverage data. Work with my hands? The essence of the American dream is to get past that.

What I hear Paul saying to me is not to be so full of myself. I shouldn’t aspire to have power or influence over people, or to out rank them. I should be happy with honest labor and a focus on my own affairs; what other people are up to is out of my lane.

There are two good reasons for that, Paul says. If I truly live in such an unusual way, people will look at me with admiration and respect, which reflects glory back to God. And also, such focus and willingness to work will ensure that I don’t have to depend on others to support me.

So, a quiet life is a God-honoring life. It’s the opposite of our “look-at-me” culture, our “don’t dis me” demand for that others treat us like we're special. But it’s perfectly in keeping with the revolutionary example of Jesus’ life. 

pleasing God

I don’t really think of myself as a control freak. I’m not OCD, or even CDO (which, as the joke goes, is OCD in alphabetical order like it should be.) I have, however, been accused of both things, and I think it’s because I am a fan of clarity and order. I like to understand why, but most of all I just want to know what to do.

That can make reading Paul hard sometimes, but at other times he shows a real gift for communicating practically about life, packing a lot into a few concise verses. I ran across a passage like that this morning, in Col 1:9-12: 

"We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light."

These verses are so straightforward: Paul continually prays for a specific thing (knowledge of God’s will) for the Colossians, with a very specific goal (that they may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him). And then, here’s the really good part. Paul gives four concrete ways that my life will please God. He lists bearing fruit, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened, and giving joyful thanks.

That’s what I want! Tell me what obedience looks like. Tell me what I need to do. Sure, there’s a lot to talk about relating to how to do these things, but at least I have something to compare my life to.

Are there good works or behavior changes that qualify as bearing fruit? Do I know more about God as he has revealed himself in scripture? Am I being strengthened daily by living in his strength? How joyful or thankful am I?

This all seems concrete enough to live by. It’s sort of a checklist, but not really – I think of these four as different facets on the same gem of living right. Or maybe different dimensions (think height, width, depth, weight) of the same object. There’s a lot of figuring out still to do, but there’s enough here that I can know if I’m on the right track or not.

I kind of summarize a few actions points: Do (bearing fruit), read (growing in knowledge), pray (being strengthened and giving thanks) and sing (more joyful thanks.) Life and faith are both a lot more complicated than that, but sometimes I need things to be simple enough to remember.

forgetting

I have the worst kind of memory: I can remember in excruciating detail embarrassing or disappointing things I did years ago, decades even. For example, I put in 25 years in the Iowa Guard and had a reputation as a good officer; I achieved things as a part-time solder that most full-timers don’t. And yet, my strongest memories are of those times I messed up, and I wonder if my soldiers thought I was really a light-weight.

That’s why I struggle with Paul’s example, explained by him in Philippians 3:13-14: “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

How did Paul do it? How did he let go of a lifetime of being a Pharisee, and especially of the baby churches and new Christians he destroyed. What was his secret? Knowing Paul, it had something to do with his ability to make himself completely secondary to the work of Jesus.

As I said, I struggle with that, to the point that it can distract me from the second part of Paul’s actions: straining toward what is ahead. I get distracted from the future, sometimes by the past, and often by the present. I don’t even look at retirement as often as I should, much less what comes after this life.

I should. The prize, as Paul describes it, for which God has called me heavenward is the best thing imaginable; in fact, it’s so good I can’t really imagine it. But I know it’s better than anything in my past, or anything I’m doing today. So why can’t I keep my mind there?

Paul probably had his bad days too. He probably writes this because it’s true more times than not. I should think about the fact that in his human struggles he was still able to write this, because that suggests that, with all those faults and flaws that I still struggle to forget, I can live up to his example.

While I work on forgetting, I need to also work on remembering. I need to let go of my past mistakes, but I need to remember that they’ve already been accounted for by Jesus. My worst sins are forgiven. As someone once said, it takes a special kind of arrogance to refuse to forgive yourself the things that Jesus has.

no Gentiles

One of the most dramatic things about the cross is how it changed the signs in the temple. During Jesus’ time, the temple was posted with “No Gentiles” signs. In fact, these signs warned that any Gentile who tried to enter the temple would be put to death. Paul was arrested one time in Jerusalem because people thought he had taken a Gentile into the temple.

Gentile, of course, is the word Jews use to refer to non-Jews. I would be a Gentile, and so would most of you. So that part of the law was really bad news for us.

But Jesus came, he died, he rose. Eventually he sent Peter to Cornelius as the first welcome of the Gentiles into the new Christian faith. And he sent Paul as a missionary to the Gentiles.

And then we get to this, explained so well in Galatians 3:26-29: “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

The “No Gentiles” signs were changed into “there is neither Gentile or Jew.” Literally, “No Gentiles” now means there aren’t any. What a great sign for the temple – there are no longer any people who are excluded! There’s no longer a reason for Jews to have a word for non Jews. In God’s eyes we’re all the same. And slaves and freemen are equal, and so are men and women. We all are brothers and sisters in Christ, with a new descriptor: Christian.

It's good for me to be reminded that there was a time when my kind were not welcome in God’s house. It should help me be more sympathetic to those I might want to exclude. And it should motivate me to make sure that all people everywhere get the invitation.

giving

Money is one of those touchy topics, but I think Christians need to feel free to challenge each other about appropriate uses for wealth. I say that because Paul really held the early churches accountable for giving.

This morning, in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, I ready a lengthy passage Paul wrote on just this topic.  He starts out with this challenge (8:7): “But since you excel in everything —in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you —see that you also excel in this grace of giving.” 

Two things struck me right away. First, Paul seems to value giving just as highly as he does faith, speech, knowledge, earnestness and love. Second, he calls giving grace, which not only notes that it will likely go where it’s not deserved, but echoes the great gift of our salvation, the ultimate gift of grace.

Then, a little later on, he addresses one of the main points of resistance to giving, then and now. In 8:13, he writes, “Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality.” I admit, I cringe at this a little, because it smacks of things we hang negative labels on, like socialism. But it’s possible that Jesus might think more highly of socialism than I do. I’m pretty sure I think too highly of things like personal wealth and advantage.

Paul ends with this promise, which I love, in 9:11: “You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.” Isn’t that great? As an outcome of generous giving, we’ll be enriched in every way, but with a specific purpose: so that we can be generous every time there’s a chance. And there’s a good reason for wanting to do this. The result will be that all those people we give to will give thanks to God.

It’s a reminder that God blesses me not just for my good, but so that I can bless others. It makes me feel like a grumpy old curmudgeon when I critically judge people who need some of my blessing, especially when the government doesn’t give me a choice about who I give to. 

So here’s another goal to add to my list of things that will make me more Christ-like: I want to excel in the grace of giving. If I’m getting Paul right, that means that I’ll look at my wealth as something given to me to use as much for others as myself. And I’ll give it where there’s need without considering whether there’s merit. After all, isn’t that how Jesus gives to me?