“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.
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Saturday, April 18, 2015
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:
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:
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.
---
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.
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:
- I think of myself, and am dissatisfied. How should I be?
- Then I think of her in relationship to my righteousness. How can I be what I should be with her?
- Then I attempt to do what I should.
- Then I think of myself once more. Have I accomplished it?
- 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:
- He thinks of Himself in perfect love, and rejoices.
- Then He thinks of us in relationship to His joy. How can I rejoice in their brokenness? How can I make them whole?
- Then He lays down His life to make us whole.
- Then He thinks of us once more. Are they made beautiful?
- 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.
---
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.
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