Without Answers

     Four hundred years of waiting at the mailbox, and I find you at the kitchen table, snapping snap peas with mimi. No answers, no indication of your entry. You flash me a grin when she looks out the window at the feeder. You are pleased with yourself, for evading me so. I am pleased also, though I pretend not to be. I feign frustration, exasperation. You would come in the back door.
     You talk with mimi for hours. I lean on the sink, tired, and I listen. I am learning nothing about where you've been, what you've done. Why you're here, now. You answer none of my questions. Mimi answers all of yours. She knows who you are, which is important. You can't appreciate how rare that is these days.
     Her recognition is not wasted on you, as it would be on me. I know most of her stories by now. She cycles, repeats, reinvents. There may be more hidden deep; you are fishing as though you know the waters.
     You know I rode a horse, she says. To school, every day. Until I rode through the fields and tried to jump the ditch. The horse stopped just there, and inertia carried me across like a cloud.
     I know the story. She lands on her feet like a gymnast from the balance beam. I've heard this story so many times, I can almost see her standing there, marveling at the wonder of it all, like an explorer who has turned around on the horizon looking back at her wake, at the novelty of what she's known and traversed. The marvel of perspective, achieved by velocity and risk and dexterity.
     I've heard her stories before, and I am ashamed to be wearied by them.
     You also have heard her stories, but you ask her your questions still, and mimi laughs. You shape her stories with your questions, carve space that her sentences fill with jigsaw precision. How she delights to tell such perfect stories, as a stream delights to fill a gully shaped for it before time began. She's laughing, harder than she's laughed in months. Years. Since you left here.
     What are you doing here?
     I wrote some questions down, years ago. There was no prophet to answer them, no sage, no word from a far kingdom. I hid them on page fifty-seven of my journal. That's what page I was on, no significance. I add questions to it, every once in a while. Sometimes I wake up with an answer, and go back to sleep with a smile creeping over me. I have lost every trace of the answer come morning, except for that smile. It lingers all day, a smile as small as it is persistent, as though waiting to stumble across good news forgotten, as though searching for a gift hidden by a friend early in the day.
     Sometimes I wake up with a question, alarmingly brilliant. It is bright in my mind, searingly white-hot as the sun and piercing with clarity. I never forget these questions, even if I forget to write them down. I cannot go back to sleep. I cannot smile, think. I am paralyzed internally until nightfall. Sometimes until several nights fall. I am very tired these days.
     Mimi sends us to the rockers on the porch with a cup of ice cream apiece. It is good to sit with you, though I cannot taste the ice cream. You savor every spoonful. I sit on the edge of my chair without moving, eager to speak and afraid to begin speaking. You smile, as though everything is right in the world, and it is, and the moon is rising behind the magnolia so that its shadow withdraws from over us until the light sneaks over the uppermost limbs to find you. I am watching your smile.
     You begin to speak, and it is as though a million diamonds are scattered by your voice. It is shockingly extravagant, frivolous. I want to catch each word in a setting of gold, and also to watch them roll off of the grass at the same moment like ancient dew drops, and I start because I may have missed your words for their charm, but you are smiling again, waiting for me to return to you.
     You begin again, and I strain to hear each word. You tell me of wonders no man can have seen, and of kingdoms heretofore thought indescribable. Your words are normal words, but are made of light, and I see the things you tell me. And you tell me of men, and women, and of the thoughts of their hearts, and when you look at me I believe you see me clear as day, and see the world through me as though I am a window, or a mist. You only look at me once, and I look down at my hands quickly to make sure that I am still sitting there beside you.
     You ask me questions, and you wait for me to find answers, but never long enough for me to speak them out loud. I wouldn't dare anyway. I believe your silence is as precious as your words. I may understand it better than your words.
     I fight sleep as long as I can, cling to focus even as it dances from my eyes. This happens every time. I am falling asleep in my chair, and you are smiling, and talking still. Your voice is getting softer. I cannot tell if the approach of sleep is blanketing your words, or if you are coating your words with sleep to carry me away.
     And you will be gone in the morning. You are always gone in the morning, and you always leave me without answers. Memories will speak for you, yes, though never in words that match my questions. I will dream of kingdoms and horses tonight, and awake with a soft smile. You will be gone in the morning, and you will be pleased with yourself, and this pleasure will force its way though my sadness like a tree root through the sidewalk until I crack into a small smile beneath my tears. I will smile because you were here, and cry because you are gone, and both smile and cry because you have left so few answers, just as you intended. And I will smile because you will come back someday, when I least expect it.
     I will be waiting at the mailbox when you come, as you know. And I will be watching for you, though that never guarantees that I'll see you coming. I will watch more closely now lest you sneak past me again; though I doubt you will. I sense you subtlety wears thin. Nevertheless, you will come, with smile and questions and stories to tell. And when you do, I will be waiting for you. I will be waiting at the mailbox for you to come. And you will, one day, you will come again. With or without answers.

Unnecessary Kindness

I was reading Genesis this afternoon and noticed something I hadn't noticed before.

By chapter 46, Joseph is the center of the narrative. He is the power amongst his brothers, the redemptive hero, the one through whom even Egypt is blessed. Israel, his father, still lives, and decides to travel down to see his son Joseph one last time before he dies.

On the way to Egypt, Israel is met by the Lord.

So Israel set out with all that was his, and when he reached Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.
And God spoke to Israel in a vision at night and said, "Jacob! Jacob!"
"Here I am," he replied.
"I am God, the God of your father," he said. "Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you back again. And Joseph's own hand will close your eyes." 46.1-4

Israel has already decided to go to Egypt- God doesn't need to tell him to. Israel is an old man, and has already been surpassed in the story- Israel no longer needs to be 'in the loop'. Israel does not need to be affirmed, or informed. And yet God speaks to him anyway, with comfort and vision. God smiles on Israel one last time, for no apparent reason.

Moreover, God calls Israel 'Jacob', the name of his youth. It is endearing, familial, as though God has known him since he was a child. And God concludes his vision with a picture of a peaceful end to Israel's days, surrounded by those he most loves.

I believe this is an example of God's love. There seems to be no value-add, no clear reason for his continued engagement with yesterday's patriarch. Yet even when he has accomplished all that is necessary to fulfill his great purposes in us, still he deigns to speak with us, to meet with us- and for no other reason than his unnecessary kindness.

The Weight of Justice

Reading this post on a blog I frequent, I stumbled into a consideration of justice.

If violence is the weight of justice, who can bear it?

When King David writes 'There is no one righteous- no not one,' he speaks of our righteousness before God. Our attempts fall woefully short. But we need not be condemned by the law of God, for the law written in our own hearts condemns us before He begins to speak. We contemplate rear-ending the Jetta that 'cuts us off' in the morning commute, but are indignant when we are given the finger for 'changing lanes too quickly' on our way home. We plot against the roommate who leaves his dishes in the sink, but drop our socks in the living room and forget about them.  For weeks.

Oh, we exult in the crushing of others' insolence, delight to see others 'put in their place'. Tell me friend, which place is that? And which place is yours?  How we delight both in their fall and in our comparative lift! How we love to see justice meted out, how it leaves us feeling superior! But were we to discover our hearts placed on the grand scale with which we weigh others, the weight of justice would be less delightful. It would be devastating. All our hearts would be crushed, tossed from their desks for their insolence and self-righteous hypocrisy.

We cannot pretend that insolence is innocence, for they are different things entirely. Neither, though, can we condemn it and walk free ourselves. If stones are to be thrown, we must stand with the insolent at the bottom of the hill awaiting the falling rock which we ourselves have demanded. Their place, and ours, are the same.

I believe that in the end the only Innocent One will cast the first stone, and the second. And I doubt that He will stop; there is enough insolence in my heart alone to warrant all the granite of the Appalachians. Unless we take shelter in a body already bruised, we will bear the bruising of justice ourselves. The weight of justice that we heap so quickly on others will be doubled and returned upon us- not because they deserve less, but because we deserve incomparably more. What iniquity we with fallen eyes can see in them pales before the Pharisaism of our hearts. We are shipwrights condemning each chip on any shoulder, ignoring the logs we carry from birth til death.

We must find a way to reconcile the demand for justice with our failure to live up to it. And we must find a compelling reason to show mercy when it is unwarranted, grace when it is undeserved. For there is no other kind of mercy, and no other kind of grace, and no other kind of hope for our world- certainly no other hope for ourselves.

Hebrews 12: Holiness Maintained

"For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel."  Hebrews 12.18-24

But even as we declare that we have come to a better mountain, we must be careful how we view the old.

This is what I mean. This passage opens with a depiction of the holy, dreadful Mount Sinai, in fire and darkness. This is the image of justice and wrath, righteousness and punishment, all according to the law given Moses there. This passage ends with a depiction of Mount Zion, the new Jerusalem. Here we find images of mercy, and peace, and reconciliation, and forgiveness, all according to the forgiveness of Christ.

Our temptation, then, is to believe these mountains to be mutually exclusive. The first has passed, that the second may come to be. Yet Jesus, speaking of the law, tells us that he came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.

You see, as verse 23 reminds us, God remains the judge. His holiness is maintained. The God of the old mountain is not a half-way revelation of the God we discover in the new. God's holiness, and therefore his judgment and wrath, is not a primitive view of God now superseded by Christ. It is an accurate view of God then and now. He remains utterly holy, pure, and opposed to sin, utterly demanding of perfection. God must be so holy, so opposed to sin, and injustice, and evil, for otherwise he would not be God, nor would he be loving. It is in his holy hatred of sin, injustice and evil that we see how loving our God is- without hating these things, God could only ever be less than loving. Perfection must be required,

God's holiness, and therefor his justice, is maintained. And yet He is also loving. The difference between these two mountains is not the nature of God's judgment, but how that judgment is applied. For in the old, man was left unsure of his end. What would come of his unrighteousness? Could any sacrifice truly ransom a man from his ways?

But in the new mountain we discover that the spirit of the righteous [are] made perfect. Perfection is still required- but now we discover how it is achieved. It is given. And this is the essence of the new mountain. Not a lessening of God's holy wrath- not a lessening of God's demand for justice- but a full satisfaction of God's wrath in Christ, and the gift of perfection to us by the same. God's holiness is maintained, yet we are changed, by the word of Jesus Christ.

If a woman walks into a fantastic party wearing muddy sweatpants, the experience of that party will be entirely different than if she enters the party wearing a smart new dress. Has the party changed? No. But she has been changed; the same party which caused shame and embarrassment now fills her with joy and excitement.  The same power of that occasion, once crushing the woman beneath its weight, now exalts her. Or imagine a boy in the waves. Alone, the force of the waves pose a great threat to him. But with a board beneath him, that same threatening force is simultaneously a power unto exhilaration.

The Lord of the old covenant is no different than the Lord of the new. He has not changed- but we have changed before him. His all-consuming holiness neither shifts nor gives way; instead, we have been changed. In Christ the fire that once annihilated us now warms us unto new life. As we learned last week, the blood that once condemned us now cries out for our salvation. The holiness which excluded us from any proximity to God now envelops us in His wonder. His holiness is maintained, it is our condemnation that is transformed into communion by the working of an external force upon our lives and hearts. This is the gospel, the good news: not that God has changed Himself so as to welcome the unrighteous, but that He has changed the unrighteous so as to welcome them to Himself. He has not changed, but we have, and that is very good news.

Hebrews 12: A Better Word

"For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel."  Hebrews 12.18-24

The difference between Mount Sinai and Mount Zion was elaborated in the last post, but I was so intrigued by this section's final comparison I felt it warranted its own post: Jesus's blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Abel was the brother of Cain, the first children born to humankind in scripture. Cain and Abel are raised by their parents to worship the creator God, and they do so by offering sacrifices to him, Cain from the field and Abel from the flock. For reasons we are not told, the Lord 'regards' Abel's sacrifice of a firstborn lamb but not Cain's grain offering. Cain is infuriated, and though the Lord counsels him to beware his anger, Cain invites his brother into the field and kills him. Abel's blood mingles with the soil of the field, is swallowed in the furrows of Cain's plow.

God comes to Cain, 'Where is your brother Abel?' 'Am I my brother's keeper?' Cain replies. But God is not fooled. He responds.

"What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand." Genesis 4.10-11

Justice falls on Cain. For his sin he is cursed, rejected by the earth and by the rest of humankind. The blood of his brother cries for justice, for punishment. Abel's blood speaks the word of condemnation for murder, as the earth bears witness to creation's first fratricide. It would not be the last it sees.

For another brother is to be killed. Another man who brings a perfect and acceptable sacrifice is to be murdered by those whose offerings fall woefully short. This newly shed blood will again cry out from the ground.

But what will it cry? What word will it speak? It will speak a better word than that of Abel. For this murdered brother dies not demanding justice but to fulfill it. He does not die crying, 'Father, punish them!' but instead, 'Father, forgive them!' The blood of Jesus speaks a better word than the blood of Abel, for while Abel's blood cries for justice, Jesus cries 'It is finished! Justice has been paid, your condemnation born.' Mystery of grace, the murderer is made acceptable by the very death he causes.

It was the offering of a lamb that rendered Abel acceptable- it was this sacrifice that quickened Cain's pride and jealousy. Yet by the offering of Jesus, the Greater Lamb, both Abel and Cain are made acceptable. The blood of the messiah speaks a better word indeed.

Hebrews 12: But You Have Come

"For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel."  Hebrews 12.18-24

Reading through Hebrews, I struggled to understand this passage. The writer tells us that we have not come to 'what may be touched', and then lists a few examples: fire, darkness, gloom, a tempest, a trumpet blast, a voice. None of these seem tangible at all.

Then he goes on to describe their fruit: begging for silence, fear and trembling. Why? Because this holiness is wrapped in judgment. The mountain of God is so pure as to be un-touchable. It is tangible, but to touch it is death. The holiness of God is so great as to bar our approach- everything is condemned in the light of His holiness.

But the writer of Hebrews offers good news. He writes, "But you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant..."

In both cases, God's people approach Him on a mountain- but there the likeness ends. The first is Mount Sinai, the place what Moses receives the law, where God is hidden in fire and smoke and thunderings. But the second is Mount Zion, the mountain of Jerusalem, where God has made a home with His people. One is the harsh mountain which man must ascend to appease God, a mountain which condemns with every climbing step and which leaves the worshipper begging for the silence of God. But the other is the green mountain of Jerusalem on which God's presence rests in joy and celebration, the mountain of feasting to which God invites His people. Where we once came intending to prove ourselves, now we come 'made perfect'. The old covenant has passed away- the new has begun.

Yet even Mount Zion is but a shadow. All these things are dull images, hollow representations, empty symbols. This tangible mountain is but a sign unto the heavenly mountain of God. Jerusalem is a poor copy of the city of God in heaven. While Jerusalem will fall, the true Jerusalem never will. And this is the mountain to which we have come- not the mountain of proving ourselves by fulfilling the law, not even the mountain of God's mediated presence here. We have come to His true presence, to His Son Jesus, and this is a mountain, a city, that will never be changed.

In fact, the spiritual reality in which we now participate is more real than the physical reality we once participated in. The new covenant, the new promise of God is more wondrous, more amazing, more glorious than anything we have known before. This was all a representation, a shadow of the form that cast it. We have entered greater security, greater truth than the law. We have come to a greater mountain.

A Poem for Reason

Oh sing the revolution song!
Oh count the stars to right what's wrong
and everyone will sing along-
yes, all will come to know.

Napoleon, he told us so,
then captured all the world below
to bind and loose as need did show-
let reason rule the dumb!

Oh sing the revolution come
and gone, before the hearts of some
could rest in reason's chiseled home,
forever in the mind.

Yet, hearts eternity must find,
for such is space and such is time,
bound and in themselves enshrined-
to question rule above.

The sound of war! The sound of love!
The beating of the wing-ed dove!
The same, the drums once whispered of,
come perilously near.

Reason, reason- listen! Hear
the song for which you have no ears.
Hear justice, beauty, joy! and fear-
for Love has come for you.

Would color prove His love for you?
Would beauty, shed in red and blue?
With blood and water, weapons drew
the signs of sacred suns.

And when eternity did run
down waist and wood, the race was won.
Of Rachel's tears, were wasted none
for they did wash her clean.

Oh tell me now, what could this mean-
that light and love remain between
the measurements of all you've seen,
and to them you belong?

Oh sing the revolution song!
Rejoice, for justice proves you wrong;
repent, for beauty comes along,
and joy, that you may know.

Christ the Remedy

How can the sinner, born in darkness,

enter into perfect light?

When the Rad'iance bore our shadow

how the Son erased our night!

How can the sinner, ever lawless,

ever receive righteousness?

When the Judge was declared guilty-

how He justified the wretch!

How can the sinner, self-enslaving,

come to live in liberty?

When the Firstborn paid our ransom-

how His chains did set us free!

How can the sinner, satan's offspring,

be known as a child of God?

When God the Son worked our adoption-

how He called us daughters, sons!

How can the sinner, dead of spirit,

enter life eternally?

When Eternal Life died for us-

how death's winter turned to spring!

Jesus Christ, the Remedy,

my every ailment healed;

there is no brokenness too great

for all the love You have revealed.

Reading the Old Testament with the Magic Eye

Do you remember those Magic Eye posters that were popular in the 90's? They appeared as meaningless patterns, swirls and mis-matched colors broken into un-understandable gibberish. You could stare all day at a corner of the poster, labeling each pixel by color and position, and never have any idea what they were about. Yet if you stood back, and allowed your focus to shift- suddenly an image would take form. What appeared meaningly and random now revealed intention, design.

I think we often read the Old Testament in isolated parts, and expect each part to stand alone- most obvious in our reading of the conquest of Canaan. We expect to see God fully visible in every second, to have our reason, our understanding fully appeased in every episode of His workings. Yet we read of a God who sometimes relents of destruction, but who other times requires it. We read of a God who forgives some sins quickly, and yet brings just punishment down on others. If we read the Old Testament as isolated parts, we are tempted to see a capricious God, a whimsical God, an unmeasured and dangerous God.

And indeed He is dangerous, as C.S. Lewis well portrays. And He does act differently in different times, this is true. Yet His plans have purpose, purpose only visible when we step back and allow our vision to widen and to shift.

To step back, we must read scripture in context. We must understand what happens throughout the bible- not that God is fully revealed in each moment, but progressively through different and building revelations of Himself over time. These specific narratives only make sense as part of a greater story, He is not capricious, or whimsical, or unmeasured. His work is intentional, each moment a determined step towards an intentional determined end- that of calling His people back to Himself.

Yet to step back is not enough. To see the story of God clearly, to understand His plan, there must be a shift in our focus. We must shift from being ones who seek to figure God out, to those who submit to Him. We must change from fearful caution against being fooled, to loving trust for a God who's plan is larger, grander, and more wonderful than any we could understant. This is a shift of focus only possible in Christ, for there we find the grander end, the plan that makes all the steps worthwhile. There we find a God who is trustworthy, whether we understand or not. From this position, then, we begin to truly understand the scope of God's redemptive story, and the role that each particular part plays in the whole.

Religion and Spirituality

I was listening to NPR while driving the other day, and heard an interview in which spirituality was being compared to religion. Spirituality was defined as the sum of a personal search for purpose, joy, meaning. Religion was defined as a truth system in which meaning was already defined.

The guest was explaining how spirituality felt so much more vibrant than religion to him. Spirituality, he said, is the realm of questions, while religion is the realm of pat answers. 'What's the joy, the mystery, the wonder,' the interviewee asked, 'in knowing everything? I'd much rather the adventure of unknowing, of mystery, of questions. Give me spirituality over religion any day.'

I found this an endearing point, for I too long for mystery. I desire the adventure of the unknown, the joy of exploration and wonder of discovery.

But I question a fundamental premise of the interviewee's statement. His opinion hinges on one unfounded point: that questions are dynamic, while answers are static. He assumes that an answer is by definition a conclusion, that an arrival is by definition the end of the journey. But any adventurer, scientist, child will tell you- discovery is never the end. It is the beginning of a greater world than previously known. This is like telling my younger cousin that the greatest of joys is looking out of the window- going outside would ruin it all. In truth, questions inspire us for they are intended to lead us to discovery. And discovery is never the end- it is a beginning.

Let us consider again my cousin's window. From it we might wonder at the outside world, but from it we will never adventure into it. Is climbing out of the window into the fields, then, into the forest, the river- is this the death of wonder? Of mystery? Of Joy? No- these things sprout with questions, but bloom with discovery.

To say it another way: according to the interviewee, spirituality is wondering what can be seen from atop that distant mountain, while religion tells you: some rocks, some trees, and a stream that curves like this. Rats, religion- you just took all the fun out of it.

But what if spirituality wonders at the mountain, while religion climbs this mountain, only to marvel at the range of mountains now visible from its peak? What if spirituality wonders at but one feature of geography, while religion (with a single answer) now wonders at the vastness of the world seen from its peak, the vastness of a world with lines that fade into eternity?

You see, to remain in personal spirituality is actually to limit oneself. It is to limit one's wonder. Truly, it is the answer-refusing questions of personal spirituality that remain static, not the wonder-producing answers of religion.

Imagine that you meet someone. You are immediately intrigued by them. You wonder about their life, their loves, their interests. And so you resolve never to talk to them again, because to do so would jeopardize the joy of your personal mystery.

How silly that would be! How sadly narcissistic. No, the joy of falling in love is not found in drifting aimlessly in one's personal queries. It is the exploration of something new, something mysterious, something eternal in the other. And the wonder of falling in love is that you never reach bottom. Feelings may change, desires may change, but even those who have been married for decades will tell you, the mystery remains. Being with a person, knowing things about that person, does not dampen your appreciation of their mystery- it deepens it.

It is too low a view of spirituality to assume that its questions are one-dimensional and cannot be answered or built upon. Likewise, it is too low a view of religion to see its answers as static conclusions. Religion, defined as a truth system, is not an end but the beginning. It is the open window, the first mountain peak lifting our eyes unto a world so rich with glory that we could never have imagined it. It is the falling in love with an Eternal Other, a Living Answer, a Known Mystery, forever to be explored and enjoyed and wondered about.

The Fear and the Confidence

“I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows." Luke 12.4-7*

He calls them His friends, the 12 and the others who followed.

He tells them to fear not the sufferings of this life, nor those of death.

But, He says, fear Him who can separate them from true life in God eternally- that is, to fear Himself.

Immediately He launches into a vivid depiction of the presence and care of God for the details of life.

And then He says 'Fear not', for you are worth more than the birds.

This paragraph offers an incredible tension. Fear, and do not fear. Fear, for God's holiness and power. Do not fear, for His love. Fear, the danger of eternal separation from God. Do not fear, for He calls you friend. Do not fear the loss of things in this life- even the loss of life itself, because it is of no consequence in the grand scheme of things. But nevertheless, the Lord cares for your life. For the little things.

They seem contradictory- perhaps in one sense they are. Yet in another they draw us to worship, to bow lower and lower while delighting in God more and more. How beautiful, a truly holy God who loves His people. How beautiful, a fearful God who calls us friend. A God of justice and a God of mercy. A God of fair and appropriate wrath, and a God of boundless, unmerited grace. Worship comes not in our circumscription of God, nor in our comprehension of Him, but in our meeting with God as He reveals Himself to us- a cube revealing itself to a square, a line to a point. This obliteration of our capacity, and our wondering at glory- this is the essence of worship.

Fear God, and do not be afraid. We exist in a beautiful tension, do we not?

---

*Over the weekend I quoted to my friend the passage that says 'you are worth many sparrows', which my friend had been trying to remember independently of our conversation. In the Bible reading plan that City Church is doing, it came up on Tuesday, which I read Tuesday night in bed. Encouraged by the repeated scripture reference and deciding to use it for staff devotion in the morning, I turned off the light only to receive a text from my dad to the family in which he quoted the same verse as a reminder that we can pray expectantly. Reading it's paragraph in staff devotions this morning, a colleague mentioned the juxtaposition of 'fear' and 'fear not'. It is to dive deeper in this immediately present text that I wrote.

Husbands, Love Your Wives

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Ephesians 5.25-27

I have often considered this passage as a call to right serving. 'Serve your wife to the end of your life, because I have served you to the end of mine. It is right, fitting, to serve your wife as I have served you. Serve her as a response to my service. Serve her as a living witness to my service."

Unconsciously, I replace 'love' with 'serve'. I turn love into legality, desire into duty- what must I do? Let me reach the end of myself, and then I will have done what is required. If I lay down my life in the service of my wife, I will have accomplished my purpose in marriage. Then I will have a good marriage. I de-personalize love, break it into component parts, that I may achieve it.

Crucially, though, the moment that I make love into a law to be achieved, I cease to love my wife. In fact, I am loving myself apart from her. My highest interest in fulfilling the law of love is no longer her good or her beauty but my position, my righteousness. My wife becomes a piece of the environment with which I engage and with which I must engage well in order to justify myself before her, before myself, and ultimately before God as well. She is a means by which I prove myself beautiful. It is my righteousness, my justification that is most important to me- not my wife.

My process:

1. I think of myself, and am dissatisfied. How should I be?
2. Then I think of her in relationship to my righteousness. How can I be what I should be with her?
3. Then I attempt to do what I should.
4. Then I think of myself once more. Have I accomplished it?
5. And then I delight (or, more often despair) in my accomplishment (or lack thereof).

But this is not how Christ loves the church. He is not concerned with His righteousness nor His position. His relationship with His wife has nothing to do with Him proving Himself or maintaining favor with God or anyone else. He loves his wife simply because has does. It is a self-justifying love, a prime love. He covenants with His bride, lays down His life for her, not to prove a point nor to do His duty but because He truly treasures His wife more than His own life. Notice the purpose behind His sacrifice. It is to 'sanctify her, [cleanse] her... so that he might present the church to himself in splendor.'

He cleanses her, that He might have her clean. He makes her beautiful, that He might rejoice in her beauty. In a sense, His love, too, is self-interested- Jesus desires to partake in the joy of her redemption, to enjoy her company in perfection. He dies, and is buried, that He might delight in her life. It is indeed a self-interested love, yet more beautiful than any 'self-less' love I have ever known. This is a love that takes its greatest joy in the glory of the other, its greatest pleasure in the object of its affection being most fully what it was intended to be. This is the love of the Trinity, Father for Son, Son for Father, Father for Spirit and Spirit for Son. Only the love of God for God could be so utterly self-delighting and so utterly other-glorifying. This is true love, the form of love rather than its symbol. This is the nature of God, and gloriously the nature of His relationship with us. Into this love we have been called.

His process:

1. He thinks of Himself in perfect love, and rejoices.
2. Then He thinks of us in relationship to His joy. How can I rejoice in their brokenness? How can I make them whole?
3. Then He lays down His life to make us whole.
4. Then He thinks of us once more. Are they made beautiful?
5. He delights in our beauty.

Mine is a love ever preoccupied with myself. So is His. The difference is that my 'love' is rooted in my insecurity, while His Love is rooted in His nature. His is the ringing of a bell, mine a distorted echo. His is a love so perfect as to be beyond our knowledge, yet it awakens our hearts like the scent of summer flowers beginning to bloom once more. It triggers a memory of beauty lost, and is itself the beginning of hope that we might be made beautiful once more by a Husband truly in love with His bride. My 'love' will not let go of myself that I might fully hold the other, for I fear the loss of control- I fear what we might become, how I might be hurt, destroyed. And so I never seek the welfare of anyone but myself. I never delight in anything but my security, which is fleeting. His love need not be afraid, for destruction He has already borne. He has died for His bride, and yet lives. Therefore He can reach out with both hands to her, considering her welfare honestly, truly delighting in her beauty.

Teach me, Lord, to believe that you are preoccupied with my beauty. Teach me to be so preoccupied with the beauty of others. To consider myself worthy of your love, by virtue of your love alone, and yet from that security to see others' beauty as worthy of greater rejoicing than my own life. Teach me to know your love, and to love as You love.

May I live as John Newton Wrote:
Our pleasure and our duty,
Though opposite before;
Since we have seen his beauty,
Are joined to part no more:
It is our highest pleasure,
No less than duty’s call;
To love him [and her] beyond measure,
And serve him [and her] with our all.

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Note: No, you didn't miss something. I have not married in the past month. I am learning about marriage nonetheless, and singleness, and most of all of His love.

His Voice Prevailed

“A third time he said to them, “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.” But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed.” -Luke 23:22-23

He was innocent. Luke leaves no room for discussion. This is the third time that Pilate has acquitted Jesus before the populace, but they will have none of if. They will trade Jesus for a murderer and an insurrectionist, Jesus the innocent for Barabbas the guilty.

Why does Luke place such great emphasis on Jesus’s innocence? Well, the answer is simple. Because there is about to be another exchange. A trade is about to take place in which the Beloved Son of God will trade His life for the lives of the crowd that will soon kill Him.

The crowd demanded that the murderer to be freed and that the Innocent One be murdered. Their voices prevailed. Jesus will be killed, violently, barbarically. Barabbas will go free.

The crowd willed for the exchange, demanded it; but they were not the only ones.

For did not God the Father will the same? This exchange was His plan, from the beginning. Such was His love, to lay down His innocent Son for the freedom of a murderous, rebellious, evil humanity- a humanity of which you and I are a part. This is the great exchange- His innocence for our guilt.

Remarkably, in that moment, the hateful crowd’s will paralleled that of the Holy God of Love. For a moment, humanity’s will aligned with the will of God. The crowd cried out, “Crucify him!”, and at the same moment the Father cried out, “Crucify Him!” His voice prevailed with theirs. Both demanded that the murderer go free- one for spite, and one for love.

And so the murderer does.

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From the St. Andrew's City Church Blog, Reflections on our Daily Bible Reading.

Your Provision

Lord,
Reading Luke 5 this morning. You tell your friends to push out into deep water, and to let down their nets.

They have let their nets down before. They have toiled all night. The deep has been closed to them, and their efforts fruitless.

You say, go back. Return to what has never born fruit. Set yourself once more into vulnerability, and wait. See what I will do.

Lord Jesus, I have weighed these nets. I have measured them, and repaired their tears from every misadventure and every declination. If I have recovered at all, it has only been very recently. Lord, how should I feel? How should I trust? All has ended in vanity, all in futility. I am tired, and weighed down with fears and doubts.

The sea is very large, Lord.  I cannot comprehend it. And it grows deeper; I cannot fathom it.

Tell me Jesus. Have you felt these tears? Have you felt this despair? Tell me Jesus. Do you know the depths of shame and horror and fear? The disgust and self-loathing and hopelessness and dread of wrongs so wrong done by us and wrongs so wrong done to us. Jesus! Do you know the rage and the vanity and the hopelessness and the tears? Tell me Jesus. Tell me.

I want to throw up. I want to vomit, to release the sickness in my gut but there is insufficient bile to drive it from my stomach and there is no bile of the soul. There no pressure than can expel what can only be known as brokenness, as not-joy. It has settled into the deep, like a net weighed down.

Row out into the deep. Gentle, now.

There are too many layers to count, too many to peel back, to measure or understand. I have no control, whether I stay or go. I am in the deep regardless. And I can sit in the bottom of the boat wrapped in nets and floats and weights, safe from sharp pain and safe from the striving which cannot answer the pain that remains, adrift on the open sea without water, food or beauty. Or I can let my nets down once more. They will be filled with tears again and perhaps for nothing. They will be filled again with the bitter salt-water that holds both life and death and every possibility and every eventuality, and every fear, and every secret hope.

I will let them down because you ask me to, Jesus. Because your scars are greater than mine, surround and envelope mine. My scars remain, but seem part of yours now, somehow. Moving the nets feels like pulling out long stitches, half-healing threads woven into my heart that can only now be extricated by a slow, gentle pulling and lowering of that thread into the sea.

Trusting you this morning feels less like rising and filling, and feels more like emptying and lowering. I am pressed out, thinner than before- perhaps now you can see the altar through me.

The Repentance of a Wee Little Man

The story of Zacchaeus is a story that many of us will find familiar. Jesus, on His way to Jerusalem passes through Jericho, and stops beneath the very tree in which Zacchaeus sits.

Zacchaeus was a wealthy tax collector, a collaborator with the Roman oppressors and therefore a benefactor of the oppression of the Jews, the sons and daughters of Abraham. He was loathed by the populace. Many in Israel would have hoped and prayed for his murder, and believed it a holy and necessary deed in the restoration of the kingdom of God.

Zacchaeus was also short and curious, and so he climbed a tree to better see Jesus as He passed. Perhaps there smoldered some desperation in his wee little heart, for climbing a tree was surely not a dignified act. But, he had no dignity to lose in the eyes of the crowd. Perhaps he was unconcerned. It is hard to know his motivations here.

But when Jesus stops beneath his tree and invites Himself over for dinner, Zacchaeus's response is plainly told. He hurries with great joy to receive Him. And so Jesus enters into Zacchaeus' opulence, into his sin-gained wealth and comfort. Jesus enters into his home, and is fed and perhaps even housed from the man's sinful purse. There is little wonder that the crowds murmur against Jesus. He is benefiting from their oppression. He is the guest of a man who had never welcomed anyone into his home before, and had made a living taking money out of theirs.  Is Jesus, the wise teacher, simply unaware of the nature of him with whom He dines? Is Jesus unconcerned with the oppression of Abraham's children? Is Jesus giving tacit approval to all that Zacchaeus had done?

No, not at all. For look at what the presence of Christ in the midst of the trappings of sin accomplishes. As Jesus initiates relationship, and so is welcomed into a home conceived and built in sin, the home is transformed. The wee little man is made smaller, humbled by the presence of so righteous a Man at his table. But so is the little man made great, for God has deigned to dine with him. In the presence of Christ he finds himself both utterly worthless by nature, and immeasurably worthy by the nature of the One who has condescended to be his Guest. This humbling and concurrent lifting of Zacchaeus so transforms his heart that Zacchaeus renounces every wrong he has ever committed, and moves to right them, as best he can. He will repay with heavy interest, and give to those in need.

And so Jesus declares, "Today, salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham."

Jesus is deeply concerned with the oppression of His people, of all of His people, perpetrator and victim alike. And yet look how He breaks this oppression: not by force, but by love. Not by demands, but by the transformation of the very nature of man. There is a preexistent, greater and deeper oppression than that of the Romans and their traitorous allies- the oppression of sin, the oppression of selfish desire and of pride, of treason against almighty God. And remarkably, as almighty God enters his home, as Jesus addresses this fundamental, primary oppression in Zacchaeus, all secondary oppressions fall away.

Salvation has come to this house indeed. It came as a Jewish rabbi entered its front door, and it came as a wee little tax collector responded in joyful, exuberant repentance.

How sweet is the word that tells us that God will meet us even in our oppressions and greed and pride and treason, but will not leave us so bound! His love will enter in, and His love will set us free, unto a joyful and exuberant repentance.

Affection Witheld

There is a powerful equation in our post-modern culture, and it goes something like this: If it fulfills you, it is good. This equation is rooted in Aristotelian logic, that we can know the world as it stands. What we perceive, experience, desire- this is reality, or as close to it as we come. Truth is derived from our experience, and thus our desire, as a pure response to our experience, is our most truthful impulse. To reject your desire is to reject truth, and so it must not be rejected.

Plato felt differently. He felt that all reality was defined by greater, external Truth. A Form, a Figure, something which casts its shadow into our cave of experience. All that we perceive, we perceive only as representations and forms. True reality is outside of our experience, and while our experience may approach it, ultimately it must exist independently. It can only enter into our lives from the outside. Truth can only be known if it reveals itself to us.

And here I find myself, between Aristotelian and Platonic logic, as I consider one to whom I am attracted. This person is beautiful, indeed. We share common interests, common joys. We hold a common faith, and a common teleology. Our friends find us a good fit, as do we find ourselves.

And yet, as I pray and reflect, I feel, for one reason or another, that I must not act on my affections. It would not be right. It would not be right to ask my friend to dinner. Because my desire, though strong, is met with a greater truth: that of obedience to a Revelation.

I think this is what happens as Jesus asks James and John if they can share in His baptism. They have come with their desire, asking that He might fulfill them with positions of authority and power. And in response, He invites them to partake in His laying down of one life, and the taking up of another. Can you be baptized with the same baptism with which I will be baptized? Can you die and be resurrected? Can you set aside all things and become new?

You see, this is the Christian walk. As Bonhoeffer memorably wrote, when Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. No parcel remains. No judgement, no history, no desire. Often we think of God buying us back from those things which bother us, buying us back from those things which we dislike in ourselves. We rejoice in a God that would remove those things which we already wish removed. But what of a God that desires all of us? What of a God that will not rent His people, but Who has purchased them outright? Who removes more than simply what bores or disturbs us within ourselves? What of a God who has laid His life down, and descended into hell, that we might be made utterly and entirely new? As we die with Him, He lays claim on every aspect of our being: do we really believe our desires remain unaffected?

Even in the depths of loneliness, in the midst of dissatisfaction, in the heart of despair- He has bought us. In Him we have died, and in Him alone do we have life. We are no longer that which we were: we are new creatures, cut of a new, glorious cloth. All things, including our every desire, are now submitted to Him. And whether He brings companionship or loneliness, satisfaction or dissatisfaction, delight or despair, He remains the Lord, the Revelation, the Truth, worthy of my death and delighting in my resurrection.

Peter was Wrong: A Short Meditation on Mark 14, on the City Church blog

Most of my writing, thinking, and praying has bent towards City Church over the past year. You can see my latest writing here. And following the 'Sermons' link under the worship tab, you might even be able to find a sermon or two of mine...

Thanks for reading (or listening), friends. I welcome your thoughts.