This past Sunday we looked at the New Jerusalem.
Justice Will Roll Down: Revelation 16
This past Sunday we talked about Revelation 16 and the seven bowls.
Good Friday: A Prayer of Intercession Against the Kingdom of Death
This is from the Rabbit Room.
Blast From the Past: Reflections on Lent
This was first posted in 2010. It has been edited to bring it more up to date.
Yesterday was the first day of Lent. Ash Wednesday is celebrated by Christians around the world with a service that includes the placing of ashes on the forehead of the worshippers. The ashes are to remind that we are made from dust, and to dust we will return. That is one part of the Lenten observance that I had not, until a few years ago, participated in. In the tradition in which I grew up, Lent (like most of the church calendar) was not even on our radar. We celebrated Christmas, Palm Sunday, and Easter. I had a vague notion that other days were observed in other traditions, but we were taught that those days were not important. So, I was a bit late to the keeping of the church calendar, and I am still learning.
As I go through the Lenten period, I am struck by the fact that our bodies are formed from the dust of the ground, and to that dust they will return. Because of the brokenness of Creation, we face the inevitable decay of our physical selves. Any middle-aged man who has tried to compete in sports at the same level he did when he was in his twenties can attest to that. At some point our bodies will wear out and no longer be useful to us. When they are then placed in the ground, they will return to the dust from which they came. As we look around us, we see decay in every part of our world. Ash Wednesday and Lent are good reminders that we are broken and in need of a savior. This past year has been a vivid picture that death is a part of our lives, and intrudes when it is least expected or welcome.
Thankfully, that is not the end of the story. During this time, we take a good hard look at our humanity and our brokenness, but we also look ahead to the time when our Savior will return and will restore Creation. We look forward to the resurrection and the Kingdom of God coming in all its fullness. When I think about Ash Wednesday, and the symbolism of the ashes on the forehead, I think of the song, “Beauty Will Rise.” In that song Steven Curtis Chapman sings,
“Out of these ashes… beauty will rise
and we will dance among the ruins
We will see Him with our own eyes
Out of these ashes…beauty will rise
For we know, joy is coming in the morning…
in the morning
…This is our hope.
This is the promise.
That it would take our breath away
to see the beauty that’s been made
out of the ashes…”
As we go through this season of Lent, contemplating our brokenness, the brokenness that we see around us, and our need of a redeemer, let us remember that we do have a Savior who has made us a new creation, and who will one day make all things new.
Maranatha!
On Autumn
Autumn, or Fall, is one my two most favorite seasons, the other being Spring. I enjoy the cooler temperatures and the smell of smoke that often hangs in the air. In some way, even the decay of the leaves and the bare branches are beautiful and speak of the renewal that is to come.
The thing I like best about Fall is the beauty of the leaves as they change from green to different shades of red, yellow, and orange. The other day, Jan and I took a trip up into the high country of North Carolina and visited Banner Elk and Blowing Rock. The drive up was beautiful, as we saw the hues change from green with a bit of other colors to almost completely the colors of fall. As we drove from Banner Elk to Blowing Rock in the late afternoon, I was struck by the beauty of the fading sunlight as it filtered through the yellow and orange leaves.
The image that came to my mind was that of the elven realm of Lothlorien and the golden leaves of the Mallorn trees. As i continued to drive, I could imagine that place as a place where only beauty dwelt and where no evil could enter. I could have continued on that drive for much longer than we did. At some point we had to get off the road and return to the world as we know it, much as the ringbearers had to leave the realm of the Elves and continue on their journey.
Autumn reminds me that, as I go through this life that is often filled with decay, I can know that the golden hued forest we passed through is a picture of the time when all of creation will be renewed, and when there will be a land where no evil will enter, and only good will reign. It will be a land of unspeakable beauty and love that the best tales of humans can only allude to. It will be the realm of the True King, where there is no night, no pain or sickness, and no death. All tears will be wiped away, and everything sad will become untrue.
I look forward to seeing that renewal come to pass.
Proverbs: Family
This week in our Proverbs series we talked about family.
Blast From the Past: Taken, Blessed, Broken, Given Part 3
This is part three of a four part series.
As we are able to claim our blessedness, we can then, “face our own and others’ brokenness with open eyes.” Henri Nouwen ends his chapter on blessedness with these words. The next chapter is on the third word that Nouwen found useful in identifying the movements of the Spirit in our lives. That word is broken.
“Broken” is a term that most of us in the church don’t like to hear or think about. We do love hearing about the “broken body of Christ,” because it speaks to us of what Jesus did for us on the cross. We love to hear about the power of sin being broken, even though we sometimes live as if we were still under its sway. What we don’t like to think about is the idea that we have been, are, and will be broken. But, it is true.
We live in a broken world. All anyone needs to do is look around them or watch the evening news. The creation is broken. It is being restored, but it is still broken. Take a look at the folks around us. They are broken people, and much of the heartache and misery in the world is caused by broken people breaking other people. No one escapes being broken. Nouwen puts it this way,
“Instinctively we know that the joy of life comes from the ways in which we live together and that the pain of life comes from the many ways we fail to do that well.”
I think Nouwen is correct when he states that, just as we claim our chosenness and blessedness, we must claim our brokenness. We must own up the fact that we have been hurt in the past, may be hurt in the present, and will be hurt in the future. That’s part of the job description. After owning up to our brokenness, we then can respond to it. We do that in two ways, by befriending it and by bringing it under the blessing.
Our first response to our brokenness is to befriend it. That seems counterintuitive to us. Our first, and sometimes only response is usually to run away, to avoid that which is causing us pain and convince ourselves that if we ignore it it will go away. The problem with that approach is that it doesn’t bring healing. I believe that our tendency to run from pain is a contributing factor to some of the mental health problems in society, and to many, if not most of our relationship problems. We are afraid of pain, of heartbreak, of suffering. If we do find the courage to embrace our pain we then find that we have started down the road of healing. Nouwen writes,
“The deep truth is that our human suffering need not be an obstacle to the joy and peace we so desire, but can become, instead, the means to it.”
Everything in our lives, good or bad, joyful or painful, can be part of the path we take to being fully human. This is a hard concept to grasp. We can easily see how the good in our lives brings us to glory, but it’s another thing entirely to see our suffering in the same light.
The second response to suffering is to put it under the blessing. Like the first century disciples who asked Jesus if the man’s blindness was a result of his sin or his parents’, we usually look at suffering as an indication that we’re bad people. There are many voices out there that tell us that if we just do things the right way, or if we are really God’s child, then we won’t have to suffer. I wonder what the apostle Paul, or the Christians being martyred for their faith today would say to that. Suffering does not necessarily mean that we are bad people. It does not mean that the negative voices in our lives are right. We must listen the voice that calls us beloved children, the voice of our Father. Our brokenness does not cause God to love us any less, it does not cause him to see us in a negative light.
As we live in our blessedness and take our brokenness there and put it in the proper perspective, we find that the burden becomes lighter and the way becomes clearer. We can then see the suffering as a means of purifying us. Ask a grape vine if pruning is something it enjoys. If the vine could feel and talk, it would tell you that pruning is painful. I mean, how would you like to have a limb hacked off? The vine would also tell you that the suffering of pruning is worth it because it produces the abundant harvest of grapes that allows us to share wine with our friends. Sometimes there are things in our lives that need to be pruned away. While it is a painful process, it is also an indication that our Abba loves us, and is forming us into the people he wants us to be.
As the bread in the Communion, we are taken in order to be blessed. We are blessed so that we can be broken. As the bread cannot be distributed unless it is broken, so with us. We are broken so that we might be given.
It’s Friday, And Yet, There is Hope
About fifteen months ago, I wrote this post. In the time since then, my friend was diagnosed with cancer and went to her rest with the Father last month, the mother of the other friend has recovered from the stroke, the stresses of the faith community continue, and Jan’s HD continues to progress. On top of that, in the fall, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and have been receiving radiation for the past six weeks, finishing yesterday.
On what we call Good Friday, the followers of Jesus in first century Palestine didn’t feel hopeful. The man they thought was going to bring deliverance from the Roman oppressors and set up his kingdom was being forced to carry his cross outside of the city of Jerusalem to the hill on which he would be crucified. The crowd that had chanted Hosanna earlier in the week, had largely forgotten him. Some had even turned on him and called for his death at the hands of the Romans, stating that Caesar was their king rather than the man from Nazareth.
Most of his disciples were in hiding, and the ones that followed him to the cross were the women who had been with him. Whether hiding or openly at the cross, the disciples must have felt hopeless. All of their dreams of the past three years seem to have been shattered by the whips that flogged their teacher and the nails that were pounded into his hands and feet. He was going to die, and it seemed as if the promised kingdom was a myth. All that was left for them was to go back to their old lives, pick up as many of the pieces as they could, and try to carry on.
Roughly two thousand years later, we know the rest of the story. Jesus came out of that tomb, and commisioned his followers to spread his teachings and his kingdom throughout the world. Their hope was not only renewed, but it was expanded to a hope beyond this earthly existence. The King promised that he would return and set everything right. That hope is what has carried the followers of King Jesus through the centuries, and what carries us today.
We have hope. Hope that creation will be restored and will have a glory even greater than in the beginning. Hope that we will one day be reunited with loved ones who have gone before. Hope that our frail bodies will be resurrected and made completely whole, without all the problems we deal with now, including having to eat gluten free (inside joke). Hope that we will no longer have to deal with the struggles with temptation and sin. We have hope that everything sad will come untrue.
Christ is risen! This is where you say, “He is risen indeed!” This Eastertide, rejoice that, because Christ is risen we too shall be raised. We will be like him because we will see him as he is.
Hallelujah!
Ash Wednesday
Today is Ash Wednesday. In many church traditions, the day is marked by putting ashes in the sign of the cross on one’s forehead. The Church of England is even making it possible to digitally put ashes on the forehead. Today marks the beginning of Lent, a season of remembering and lamenting our brokenness and the brokenness of this world in which we live. This time leads us to the time we remember what Jesus went through on the cross, because of our sin. During Lent, many fast by giving up food, drink, television, social media, or any other pleasurable thing. Others add items of service or charity to their schedule.
Lent is a time to lament, something we here in the West don’t do a very good job of. I know I can easily look at the negative, but I don’t do a very good job of living in the moment and allowing myself space to lament. I prefer to try to quickly look for the positive, to look at the glass as half full. That doesn’t always work. The past twelve months have seemed like an extended season of Lent, and we all have had to give up things as the time has dragged on. There has been a lot of lamenting over what has been lost. Many of those losses don’t lend themselves easily to a positive spin.
Lament and sorrow is not a bad thing. Scripture is full of lament. There is even a book in the Bible titled Lamentations. The Psalms are full of people mourning over this or that. Job lamented his condition and God did not call him out for it. Holding in grief can cause mental and physical problems, and can stunt our emotional and spiritual growth. It’s okay to sorrow and grieve. It’s okay to give voice to that grief.
Give yourself permission to grieve and lament. This past year has been hard. We have all lost, some more than others. Some of those things that have been lost will never be reclaimed. We will never get back those days, weeks, and months. Because we do live in a broken world, there will be more losses ahead.
As followers of Jesus, we have something that can help us in our lamenting. We can be assured that nothing is completely hopeless because our Savior experienced what seemed like the most hopeless of situations and came out the other side, having defeated the one who wields the sword of hopelessness. Jesus conquered death and we need not fear it. We need not fear anything life has to throw at us because we have a loving Father who has it all in his hands. He has promised to turn our mourning into dancing. We can grieve, but we grieve with hope. Hope that one day all tears will be wiped away, and everything sad will become untrue.
In the book Tales of the Kingdom, the signal cry of the Rangers says, “How goes the world?” “The world goes not well! But the Kingdom comes!” Grieve, but grieve well. Lament with the knowledge that it all will be well.
Ending the Duopoly
Another election year is upon us, and we are faced once again with the lesser of two evils. Or so we are told. But is that really true? Are the only choices we have the ones the two major parties decide we will have?
I believe that we have been sold a bill of goods by the two parties that get all the attention. Both the Democrat Party and the Republican Party want us to believe that they are the only ones capable of governing. I don’t believe that either party really wants to “destroy” the other, but that they have a great deal invested in keeping the status quo, also known as the duopoly. The Freakonomics Podcast episode on September 17, 2020 gives insight into what the problem is and why the “powers that be” don’t want it solved.
If you look at the number of people who decided not to vote in 2016 because of the poor choices, along with the number of those who held their noses and voted for “the lesser of two evils,” you might find that there would be enough voters available to at least give a viable third party candidate enough votes to shake up the system. The major parties are getting farther and farther from any kind of consensus or middle ground, and American politics are becoming increasingly polarized. There are parties this year who could appeal to enough people in that mass called the middle to at least start to make a difference. These parties are not given a chance by those who have a vested interest in maintining the two party system.
The Libertarian Party would appeal to those who want less government, less regulation, and more civil liberty. There are points in their platform that would not appeal to some, but given the chance, they might be able to make some waves. Another party, which I have decided to support, is the American Solidarity Party. For those of you who are strongly pro-life, this party’s platform is pro-life from before birth all the way to death. They believe that all life is sacred, from the baby in the womb to the homeless person, to the immigrant seeking a better life. There are many other parts of their philosophy that appeal to me and would appeal to others if they were known. I believe that they are the party that I can support and vote my conscience.
Those of you that know me may be shocked that I’m actually coming out in favor of a certain party. I usually hold those cards pretty close. You may also disagree with me. Regardless, I firmly believe that the way the system is set up to keep certain folks in power is dangerous to our nation. At some point the split between the two sides could open into a yawning chasm that just might swallow us up. Some of you may say that there’s nothing that can be done this year, so we might as well continue the status quo. To you, I would ask when would be the right time to begin trying to bring about needed change if not now? The Solidarity Party is not on the ballot in South Carolina, so I can’t vote for their Presidential candidate unless I write it in or leave that blank. I could vote for one of the other alternative candidates. I don’t know exactly what I will do, but I firmly believe that it is time to end the duopoly in American politics.