Encountering Jesus III

Christmas Day was the beginning of the end. We don't like to think of it that way, but Jesus' coming was a catalyzing event that would ultimately divide the entire world into two opposing camps. 

What do we do about Jesus? The Gospel of John is all about the reactions of people as they encounter Him for the first time. John contains several discourses, during which Jesus explains Himself; the first was to Nicodemus. 

In John 3:14-21, Jesus says to Nicodemus, "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”

I find John 3:16 so much more interesting in context. And I find this passage very challenging in light of Christmas. A few days ago I wrote about light, and quoted Isaiah 9:2: "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light." Jesus tells Nicodemus, "Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of the light . . ."

What do you do about Jesus? It's more than just an intellectual question; it's a choice whether to live or die. Ever since the creation of the world, all of history has been about the mighty cosmic struggle for control of the souls of men. Jesus's birth was the point where victory became inevitable for those who love God. 

The evil that we live with is Satan's desperate attempt to stave off disaster. Our own encounter with Jesus will determine whether or not we go down with Him.

Jesus came once, and died. He will come again, and rule. So this question is one everyone on earth will answer, no matter how they try to avoid it now.

Encountering Jesus II

What do you do about Jesus? The shepherds went to worship him, and then returned to their work filled with gratitude.

Herod had a different reaction. Matthew 2:13 says, "When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. 'Get up,' he said, 'take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.'"

To Herod, Jesus was a threat. Herod wasn't going to let anyone else rule; the news of a newborn king made him furious. His solution was to kill the baby; when the magi failed to return to tell him which one, he killed them all.

There are a lot of people today who see Jesus as a threat. Some are outright sinners: pornographers and gamblers and addicts who can't acknowledge Jesus because they don't want to give up their sin. Some want control of their own lives, and can't let Jesus be Jesus because that would make him their Lord. Some want to live in ways that, while legal, are immoral; for them, Jesus and His followers are an external guilty conscience that won't let them have their fun.

They can't kill Jesus, so they attack Him in other ways. They try to banish Him from public life. They try to prove scientifically that He doesn't exist. They mock and marginalize His followers, as if He only has power if we do.

That all seems ridiculous, until I look at my own life. Are there times that I set Jesus aside? Are there times I leave Him behind? If so, why?

What do you do about Jesus? His birth, and death, demands an answer every day.

Encountering Jesus I

The Christmas story raises one question that everyone in the whole world needs to resolve: What do you do with Jesus?

The shepherds had to decide. They heard the choir, they went to see the child, and then what? Luke 2:17-20 tells us,  "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. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told."

The first thing they did was spread the word. They told people, a lot of people. And the story they told amazed everyone who heard it.

The second thing they did was go back to their lives. They returned to the flock and fields, and resumed their jobs guarding and nurturing the sheep.

But notice how they did it: Glorifying and praising God. The same lives, lived now in the sense that a momentous change had taken place. Sheep herding was a little different now, because they had been given a glimpse of God at work, by God himself. Of all the merchants and religious leaders and tradesmen who could have been the ones, it was the shepherds to whom God revealed the baby Jesus.

What do you do with Jesus? That's one good choice, and it's the one the magi took too, as did Simeon and Anna.

It wouldn't be a bad one for us either. Spread the word. And get back to work, doing all those things that people depend on you for, but with a spirit of gratitude. I guess in their own way the shepherds were wise men too.

No More Darkness

Luke 2:6-7 "While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger. . . ."

Hallelujah! Jesus is born.

This is the season of parties and presents and special services and family get-togethers, and those are great ways to celebrate. But to me, the very best way to mark the season is with lights. I'm partial to white ones, or candle light, but light is what it's all about.

My favorite Christmas verse is Isaiah 9:2 "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned."

Only Jesus knows the darkness of my heart, and the dark places my wayward feet have taken me. Only He sees the dark smears all over my soul. And the amazing thing is that He not only cared so much that He endured that miserable manger, but He also cares less than anyone else. He loves me anyway.

So on Christmas morning, I'll be in church singing "Joy to the World," but I'll be looking at the Advent candles and thinking, as I do every year, that a Light has dawned.

And then I think about what the angel (hmmm . . . could it possibly have been Gabriel?) showed the apostle John about our ultimate destination: "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." (Revelation 21:22-25).

Come, Lord Jesus. Come quickly. I see the light dawning, and I can't wait for full noon.

No room

There was no room in the inn, Luke 2 tells us.

Too many people in Bethlehem, and maybe only one inn. So there they are, 100 miles later, Mary as pregnant as you can get, sitting in the straw in a stall. We remember the innkeeper as a decent man, who did the best he could, and the best he could do was the barn.

And of course, we draw the obvious conclusion every year and talk about making room for Jesus in our hearts. Good point, but I'm wondering about other things.

A friend of mine (never actually met him, but we've spoken on the phone and talk online almost daily) had a serious car crash a few weeks ago. He'll recover, but he has big bills. He evidently has spoken of me enough that his friends and family decided to contact me. He's a great guy, leads a church, helps a lot of people. I want to help him. But I want to help my brother too, and we support a guy at a camp in Colorado and a Compassion child and the missionaries of our church.

All good things, all part of God's work. So how much room does Jesus get in my wallet?

And I have all kinds of electronic ways to manage my time. I use Google Calendar to keep family informed of my schedule, and my Outlook calendar syncs with my new Android phone. At regular intervals through the day my phone vibrates or my computer dings to let me know the next thing I have to be at. Yet some things are conspicously absent. No colored spaceholder for devotions. No reminders to pray. No prompting to praise or ponder or plead.

So how much room does Jesus get in my day planner?

Metaphorically speaking, right now when it comes to time and money, do I give Jesus the barn, or a hotel room? Or do I take Him home, give Him the master bedroom, let him use the kitchen, pick the TV channel, actually live with me like family?

The heart's the easy part. Giving Him due space in my life gets a lot harder. But it's an axiom of detective work that if you want to know what someone's into, get a look at their checkbook and their calender and you'll soon know their loyalties. Without me there to explain a lot of things, I don't think either of mine screams "JESUS IS LORD."

Pledged

I'm still thinking about that trek Joseph took with Mary, from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Yesterday, I wondered at how difficult it must have been. Today I'm again impressed that Joseph did it at all. Because I'm thinking about the word "pledged."

Luke 2:5 "He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child."

Does that mean they weren't yet married? I suppose a wedding vow is also a pledge, but our understanding of the term would be more like engaged. I don't know which is more accurate, and I'm told that Jewish weddings of the time were a lot more drawn out, with nuanced stages, so that we don't really have the right words for all of it. But in this passage, it makes me think maybe Joseph had an option: if he wasn't married yet, couldn't Mary be enrolled back at home? 

Those are idle wonderings until I get to the other thought that this word prompts: Joseph made a promise, and he carried it out. No matter the pregnancy that he had no part of, no matter the difficulty of dragging an incapacitated woman halfway across the country. Joseph promised Mary he'd be her husband, and circumstances won't change that. Maybe he needed a little help from the angel to see his course, but once he saw it, he didn't waver.

As I wait for Jesus, I'm struck by all the commitments I've made - to wife, to church, to God - that I have yet to carry out. There are a lot of reasons, some good and some bad, but the fact remains that there are some things I still need to follow through on. 

Wo knew that part of Advent would be to reflect and re-commit to things I said more than three decades ago at my profession of faith? Yet somehow, as I consider Joseph's active faithfulness to his pledge, I'm drawn to think of my pledge to the baby Joseph so carefully nurtured.

David

Luke 2:4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.

Caesar Augustus did his task - out of vanity or a desire to control or just simple curiosity, he ordered the census. The un-named angel did his job - he convinced Joseph to remain committed to Mary. The outcome of all of this is that Joseph puts Mary on a donkey and trudges from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

Ever wonder why God did it that way? We're not sure exactly where the roads ran, but the distance was likely close to 100 miles. With a pregnant woman, it probably took a week or so. A week on a donkey, within days of delivering? That must have been really hard for Mary, and it can't have been easy for Joseph either. Surely there was a manger and some shepherds in Nazareth, and as far as the magi had to come, another 100 miles wouldn't have been that big a deal. Why did God plan it this way?

I don't know. Maybe it was to spare Nazareth from Herod for some reason. Maybe it was God's graciousness to one particular shepherd or innkeeper whose life was changed. We know it was to fulfill prophecy, but God could have prophesied anything. 

It just reminds me that, although God doesn't make our lives harder for no reason at all, He won't hesitate to make us do something hard. If a tough assignment serves Him best, or serves someone else who needs it, or helps us grow, then that's what we'll get. 

Following Jesus will be rewarding, and we'll be blessed and will prosper as God defines the term, but we should never expect it to be easy. 

Used

As much as I agree that good Christian leaders for our country would be nice, I sometimes get uneasy about the way we pursue that goal. Actually, I wonder to what extent God thinks it's important. 

In Jesus day, the Roman Caesar was possibly the most powerful man on earth. He didn't honor the Jewish God, but that didn't make any difference to God. Caesar did what God wanted anyway: Luke 2:1 "In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to his own town to register."

We see it over and over again in scripture: the Assyrians, the Edomites, the Babylonians, all used by God for His ends.

Caesar only matters in the Christmas story for the effect he has on Mary and Joseph. Caesar sent them to Bethlehem, and Caesar's decree filled the inns. Thus, the baby would be born exactly as God had planned.

I think as we wait for Jesus to come, God would probably tell us to tend to hearts, not nations. You can't legislate faith; even if every executive and lawmaker in government was a Christian, that wouldn't make us a Christian nation. Jesus rules hearts, not political organizations.

When people come to know Jesus, they voluntarily do all the things we want to legislate now. If enough of us know Jesus, the law becomes irrelevant.

And it doesn't really matter who's leading; no president or Congressman can thwart the will of God. Sometimes God will give us Godly leaders to bless us. Sometimes He'll give us unbelieving leaders for His own purposes. Either way, we live obediently, and those men and women will do God's will. They can't do anything else.

Some day, every knee will bow to the One who once lay in a manger. It won't matter a bit what they believed the moment before; in the end we'll all Tebow.

Waiting

Simeon seems to me to set one of those examples that are just impossible to follow. 

Luke 2:25 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 upon him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.

The great task of Simeon's life was to wait. He probably did a lot of other things in his life, but waiting is the only thing he did that God wanted us to know about. His job was to show us how.

So the first thing I notice is that Simeon was righteous and devout. That makes me think of all the people I know who want to sow their wild oats, or who plan to settle down some day. Their reasoning seems to be that there's enough time for righteous living later on; after all, as long as you make your peace with God on your deathbed you'll be OK, right? 

But Simeon's example suggests that part of waiting is living faithfully to the thing you're waiting for. It's the same idea as waiting for marriage, instead of saying you'll be good once you're married. Simeon waited his whole life, which he lived as though he was in the presence of the Messiah the whole time.

The second thing I notice is what Simeon was actually waiting for: The consolation of Israel. Unlike those who wanted the Messiah to come and restore political power to the religious elite by booting out the Romans, Simeon wanted relief for the anguish of the people. Simeon isn't looking for power and a palace. Simeon is waiting for the One who would heal the relationship between God's chosen people and God.

Finally, notice that Simeon waits in complete confidence. He knows he'll see the Messiah; God said so.

That's my model as I wait for Jesus: Live faithfully to Him even before he gets here. Want Him to come for the same reasons He wants to come. And wait without doubt. That's not the passive waiting we're used to; no playing Angry Birds just to kill time. There's a lot of work in waiting.

Obedient

I say it all the time at the plant: "It's not what you can do, it's what you do." An experienced paint maker who doesn't make much paint doesn't do me much good. I have come to really value employees who show up every day on time and do what they're asked to do. Obedience has a lot of value.

That's why, despite the little bit that we actually know of Joseph, I like him. He seems like a good guy who's really trying to live right. And he's obedient: "When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus." Matthew 1:24-25.

Think about it: Joseph went to bed with a plan. He woke up and did the opposite. He didn't waffle (that we know of), didn't try to cut corners. In fact, he not only married Mary as he was told, but he abstained from the physical benefits for quite a while. Joseph put his own plans and desires under God's. He not only did what he was told, he did the best he could.

In comparison, I'm not all that impressed with myself. I tend to obey on my own terms. Blackaby says that whenever I see God at work, that's His invitation for me to join it, yet I still decide what I want to do and what I'll pass up. I decide the terms of my involvement; do I have to go to every choir practice, or every council meeting? In the end, my service can be pretty self-serving.

I also am selective as to how I use my gifts. There are all kinds of things I can do: sing, pray, preach, teach, rake, paint . . . But it's not what you can do, it's what you do.

No Fear

I've commented on this before, but I'm always struck at how frequently God tells his people not to be afraid. We're not nearly as tough as we want people to think we are, I guess.

And it's interesting to think about the kinds of things we're afraid of. 

In Matthew 1:20-21, I read this: "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.'"

Joseph evidently was having more than second thoughts about Mary. There was something in the situation that made him afraid, and it was probably the obvious. He likely feared the impact on his reputation. After all, people would talk; either they would think he, Joseph, had jumped the gun, so to speak, or that he had been cheated on. 

For a Jew of the day, that was a bigger deal than just getting laughed at, or scorned. It might harm his business; if there was a more devout competitor, the people of Nazareth might shun him. It also might disqualify him from participating in religious discussions at the temple, or political discussions at the city gate.

What Joseph probably feared was loss of his position in the community. He feared not being able to be Joseph any more.

That's a pretty substantial fear, but God's angel (hmmm . . . Gabriel?) says don't be afraid. Take your bride. Notice he doesn't say, "Don't worry, no one will laugh. I'll protect your reputation." He simply says, "There are amazing blessings in store for you in return for doing this hard thing." Possibly God did also guard Joseph's standing in Nazareth, but scripture doesn't tell us that so it's not the point. The point is, God asked obedience, and in return promised blessing.

That's one of the hardest things for me to do: To trust that any blessing other than the one I already have my sights set on will be good for me. Yet my vision is so limited; God's blessing for me has to be the best possible blessing. If only I didn't fear the loss of control. If only I didn't fear the sacrifice of earthly things.

"Do not be afraid . . ."

A Righteous Man

Matthew 1:18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

It's interesting to me that God made sure Jesus' earthly father was a righteous man. After all, Jesus was God; a bad parent wasn't going to mess Him up. And you could argue that living in a dysfunctional home would make it easier for some to identify with Him.

But God gave Jesus a righteous father, as he did with so many of us. And righteousness produces fruit.

In the context of Matthew 1, the fruit is courtesy, respectfulness. Even though he has reason to think Mary had been a false partner, Joseph wants to treat her well. He doesn't want to harm her; he simply is acknowledging, regretfully, that she will not be a good mate for a righteous man. Remember, even though the word divorce is used, they may not have been wed yet in the sense we think of it.

Jospeh's behavior is striking in contrast with our world. We live in a get-even society. If someone hurts us,  we want to cause a little pain ourselves. I've never observed the break-up of a relationship where that was not true; both parties try to hurt the other. But even in our day to day lives, we so often let someone else's behavior toward us justify things that we know are not Christlike.

Do we really believe that the presence of sin in this world justifies our own sin? Aren't we called to live differently, to be pure even in the face of everything a sinful world throws at us? That would be righteous behavior. 

What should we do?

Despite John the Baptist's flame-throwing rhetoric, the crowds respond. They dread the idea that the long-awaited Messiah might find them lacking. So they ask the question that we all should ask when confronting the reality that our lives might not please Jesus: "What should we do?" 

I think John's answer is fascinating.

Luke 3:10 “What should we do then?” the crowd asked. 11 John answered, “The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.” 12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” 13 “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. 14 Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely –be content with your pay.”

Missing are some interesting things we might expect John to say. "Go be a missionary in A. . . frica. Start a ministry. Spend your days in devotional meditation." These are the lives that we think of as pleasing God, the years spent on the mission field, or the days spent helping the needy, or the sequestered holiness of the abbey.

But John doesn't tell the people to change what they're currently doing, he just says they need to change how they do it. Instead of piling up stuff, share what you have. Instead of looking for advantage in business, want only what's fair. Instead of using your power to get more, be satisfied with the blessings God gives you.

Be good, John says. Be loving. Help. Serve. Be kind. 

That kind of living pleases God. If we do that, all the time acknowledging God's providence, putting our faith in Jesus' sacrifice, and listening carefully to the Holy Spirit, our lives will please Jesus. 

Vipers

It seems like we've entertained a fairly constant stream of guests lately, with more to come. Standard procedure: clean sheets, clean floors, clean bathroom, grocery shopping, cooking and baking.

Sometimes standard procedure has to be modified. For example, when Dawn's folks come for dinner, in addition to cleaning and cooking, we remove evidence of those parts of my character that embarrass my wife. That comes down to hiding my computer gaming (there, now that I've outed myself . . . .)

When John announced the coming of Jesus, he didn't say, "Get ready! Go home and clean your house." Listen to this from Luke 3:7-9: 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. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."

You have to understand a couple of things about Israelites of that day and vipers. First, it was commonly thought that vipers were born by eating their way out of their mother's belly; vipers were mean. Second, when a field would become infested with vipers, common practice in the off season was to burn the field and kill or drive out the vipers.

So John's message to prepare the people for Jesus was something like this: "You guys are so ornery and low-down you don't care about your own mothers, and you're going to pay for it! Who warned you to get out before the field burns?"

Not exactly a winning message, but it was a spiritual version of my wife's prohibition against playing a Medal of Honor where her folks can see it. John knew that Jesus was coming not to visit homes, but to win hearts. It was the lives of the people that needed attention, not their houses.

The Messiah was coming to make everything right, and restore the people to God. That called for the ultimate clean-up: Repentance.

Camel hair

 My sister Judy made an interesting comment a week or so ago. She's an artist, among many other accomplishments, and she said she always looks for the arts in scripture. Music and art and literature are easy to find, but she was always disappointed that she couldn't find drama.

Then, she said, it dawned on her that the prophets were God's use of drama. She's right. The prophets often acted in attention-grabbing (OK, maybe bizarre) ways that dramatized sin and God's reaction to it, in order to make people think.

I thought of that again today as I read in Mark about John the Baptist. "And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: 'After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.'" (Mark 1:4-8).

When Mark writes "camel hair," I don't think he means an expensive blazer. It would have been a rough, woven, scratchy garment, and it probably didn't look real great. John may not have been the only guy to wear camel hair, but it seems a safe bet that most of the wealthy religious establishment didn't.

And when John ate locusts and wild honey, that connotes to me a couple of things. First, it was a basic natural diet of proteins and sugars, but simple foods - kind of like Daniel and his friends ate. It makes me think of a pure, wholesome way of eating. Second, a lot of people probably turned their noses up at locusts, even though nutritionists assure us they're great sustenance.

So when I observe John's behavior and wonder about it, here's what I come up with: John acted distinctively different than the culture around him, a counterpoint to the Israelites who had compromised the faith of their religion in favor of forms that let them feel pious while still indulging themselves.

He's there to proclaim the coming Messiah, and he's getting all ready to call them to repentance and obedience. Anyone looking at him would see backing for that message. His life screamed, "All you need are the basics of life; after that you shouldn't concern yourself with the things of this world." It's a great prequel to the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus will say, "Look at the birds and flowers. They want for nothing; can't you trust me to care for you in the same way?" (Greg Standard Paraphrase Version).

That's what art is - it's holding up some aspect of life, or our behavior, in a way that makes us look at it anew. John the Baptist's desert performance was dramatic art.

Sent

John 1:6-9 "There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world."

John's life purpose was pretty clear. He didn't need any self-help books, or to go somewhere to find himself. No plan, no organizer or time management system focus on roles and goals. John's parents knew from the get-go why he was here, and so did he.

I think it's hard for us to imagine what it must have been like to be John. We were raised with the idea that we could do anything we wanted. We chose our educations, and our careers, and our spouses. In fact, it can be hard to know God's will for our lives because most of the time His call is to a close relationship with Him rather than a specific place or job.

We don't know what it's like for there to be a single reason for us to be here, a single thing for us to do. We get lost in the choices.

John's job was to witness, to make sure people didn't miss the fact that the Messiah was coming. He came to testify, that "through him all men might believe." In that way, he was second fiddle, kind of an advance man sent to draw attention not to himself, but to Jesus.

I wonder if we should feel so different from John. Is it a stretch to say we're sent here for a single reason? After all, we exist for the glory of God; that's the sole purpose for our lives. It involves things like praise and obedience and, yes, following in John's footsteps by pointing to Jesus. But there really is only one reason for our presence here on earth.

Makes me wonder why it seems so hard to figure out sometimes. And why so many other things bog me down. Maybe if Gabriel had showed up to announce my purpose to my Dad (and struck him dumb, because Dad would have had something to say back) I'd feel like I was sent, too. But the fact is, I only have to open scripture for the announcement to be made.

Word

Young folks, when agreeing with something, sometimes simply respond, "Word." It's a cool (or whatever they're using to mean cool these days) way of saying "That's the truth."

I thought of that while reading about Jesus in John 1 (vv1-5 and 14): "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. . . . The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

A stretch from Gen Y slang to scripture? Not at all. I think it's another amazing example of the way scripture remains relevant through time. Why should my kids be different than the Hellenistic Greeks?

You see, in Jesus' day Greek philosophy was all about trying to make sense of the world through knowledge. They pursued Logos, which we're taught in school was Logic. However, the actual translation of Logos into English is . . . Word.

In some mysterious way Jesus is the Word through which God spoke the world into existence. Just as God is Love, Jesus is the Word. And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us.

So when Paul went to the Greeks to tell them the good news, he could say, "You know this Word you've been trying to understand for generations? Let me tell you about him . . . He died on a cross to save you." In addition to connecting us to creation, referring to Jesus as the living Word made the gospel relevant to the Greeks. And it gives us the chance to say to young people today, "You're right to say Word when you mean truth - let me tell you about the Word who lived among us, and who said, 'I am the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free.'"

If the Bible were just another book this would all be a stretch, but it isn't. It's supernatural; it isn't a book at all, it's God revealing himself to each of us in our own place and circumstance. The Word is there in all those words; why should we be surprised that they live and breath?

Troubled

There are a lot of words that pop into my mind to describe Mary, but "skeptic" isn't usually one of them.

This morning, reading in Luke 1, I came to verses 28 and 29: "The angel went to her and said, 'Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.' Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be." I wonder why she was so skeptical.

On the face of it, that's an awesome greeting. What's wrong with being highly favored, or the Lord being with you? I've always assumed she was troubled because it was an angel - they must be scary, because everyone who saw one was frightened. But that's not what scripture tells us; Luke says she was troubled at his words.

I could understand it after she heard the actual message. "Mary, you're all excited about getting married and setting up your own home and all that, but God has a different plan. How does out-of-wedlock, unplanned pregnancy sound to you?" That's the time to be troubled, but when she hears that part Mary just says, "I am the Lord's servant."

What was there about Gabriel's initial words of greeting that were so troubling? 

Maybe it sounded like mockery. Mary saw herself as a simple village girl, someone relatively low on the prestige scale in her society. She wasn't rich, she wasn't male, she wasn't mature, she wasn't from Jerusalem. In no earthly way was she highly favored.

Maybe there was some kind of connotation with the phrase "The Lord is with you." After all, those words were said to many in Israel's history as they were sent off on adventures (defined as something that, when you're having it, you wish you were home.) Think Gideon and Daniel, for example. Maybe Mary thought, "If he's saying that, he wants me to do something hard."

I'm sure the experts have all kinds of explanations for this verse, but these posts are my unstudied reactions to scripture, and without their help I just don't know why Mary was troubled. But it's a useful question to me because it reminds me of my own reaction to many of God's invitations.

When someone talks to me about an opportunity to partner in ministry, I want to put one hand over my wallet. "Use your gifts," can easily sound like "I can't get anyone else to do this." Ask me to read in church, and I wonder if I'll end up having to sing and dance. To be fair, with Janie that last one is warranted, but the rest are just examples of my own skepticism.

Skepticism is the opposite of trust. Mary responded well to the hard part of the message because she knew who it came from, and she trusted God. She may have been troubled at first because she didn't trust a stranger. I get skeptical when I think I need to watch out for myself; that should never be the case with God.