This week it was my turn to teach.
Good Friday: A Prayer of Intercession Against the Kingdom of Death
This is from the Rabbit Room.
Palm Sunday: The Coming of the King
On Palm Sunday, Christians commemorate Jesus’ entry into the city of Jerusalem. It was just before the Passover celebration and the city was full of pilgrims who had traveled many miles to participate. The city was also full of Roman soldiers who were brought in to keep the peace. Tensions ran high, as many of the Jews were hoping that this year would be the year that the Messiah would come and lift the boot of Rome off their necks.
As Jesus rode into the city on a donkey, the crowd hailed him as the King who was prophesied. They thought he would call all Israel to himself and send the Romans back to where they came from, restoring the glory that Israel had back in the days of David. After all, it was prophesied that a descendant of David would come and take the throne.
The people were correct. Jesus was the King that they had been waiting for. What they didn’t understand was the kind of King he was. They were looking for a King who would drive out the oppressors, who would rule a kingdom where everyone kept Torah, who would make Israel great again. Their focus was on an earthly king and an earthly kingdom. Pilate misunderstood too. He put a notice at the top of the cross proclaiming that this man being crucified was “Jesus, the King of the Jews,” in effect telling all who saw that Rome was powerful enough to do this to any would be king who challenged their authority.
I fear that many Christians in the West suffer from the same misunderstanding of Jesus. Yes, he is King. Yes, he is going to return and set everything right. But, his kingdom is still not a kingdom of this world, and it does not come by earthly means. We can not bring in the kingdom at the ballot box or in the halls of government. No government or nation can lay claim to being a “Christian” government or nation. No matter how good a nation may be, it is still a kingdom of this world. Babylon still exists in different forms around the world, and those who follow the True King are not to put their hopes in, or give their allegiance to Babylon. Our allegiance is only to Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Followers of Jesus realize that when he returns, it will be on his timetable. We can not work to arrange things in order to speed his return. None of that is in our hands. It’s a good thing, because we would royally screw it up.
Involvement in government is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as it does not take the place of doing justice, loving mercy, walking humbly with God, loving God with all our being, and loving others as ourselves. These days, that may be the most subversive, revolutionary thing we can do. It may get us in trouble in some circles, but we are called to follow our King wherever he leads, just as the early Christians did.
How many of us are willing to do that?
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!
Blast From the Past: Mary’s Song
This was first posted in 2008. I think the questions are still worth asking.
The other day, I was thinking about the song of Mary in Luke 1. It was actually a pretty subversive thing to say in that day. I was wondering what Mary’s song would sound like in the 21st Century.
Who would be the rulers in today’s world? Who would be the proud? Who are the rich? Who are the humble and the hungry?
What in our consumer driven culture could the song speak to? What would Mary have to say to the Church?
What does it mean today that the King has come and is coming again? What would happen if those of us who say we follow this King lived as if we really did?
Just some questions rolling around in my head.
Any thoughts?
A New Bend in the Road
A little over twenty seven years ago, we moved from Cincinnati to Rock Hill, South Carolina. At that time we said that we were never moving again. Famous last words! We have just moved into a new house. The house and yard had become more than we could handle and we decided we needed a smaller place. Added to that were some repair issues that had become expensive due to a plumbing mishap. Did I mention that I hate plumbing?
After a few months of sort of looking, but sort of not, we got serious and put our house on the market. Knowing that we were looking for a smaller place meant that we had to let a lot of things go. We began to look at all the stuff that had accumulated over the years. I had inherited the “maybe I can use this someday” gene from my father, so there was quite a bit. The challenge was to pare the things from a 1500 square foot, three bedroom. two bath home with a dining room, garage, back patio, shed and a half acre yard down to where they would fit into an 850 square foot, two bedroom, one bath house with less than a quarter acre lot.
I made numerous trips to charitable organizations and to our county’s waste/recycling center. Facebook Messenger became our friend. It was hard to let go of many of the things, especially furniture. Fortunately, we made some money from selling much of the furniture and a great deal of it went to people who would get good use of it. One couple bought a dresser and were going to donate it to a local women’s shelter, and we sold a rocker and footstool to a couple that was expecting their first child. That was a blessing to us. Our son and daughter-in-law, and daughter and son-in-law have been an amazing help with the purging and the planning.
We moved into the house the week after Thanksgiving. I have again made numerous trips to recycling and charitable places. As it turned out, we used a lot of cardboard boxes and also had to do more downsizing. It’s been a busy week and a half, and there is still furniture to put together and positioned, art to hang, and stuff to put away. I’m going to hold off on the yard until the spring.
It was hard to leave a place where we made so many good memories. Fortunately we can carry those memories with us and we will make new ones. We are closer to our church community, and to many other places and activities we have been a part of. The move has been stressful at times, and there were even a few times when I wondered if it was worth it. At those times, I could sense the Father saying, “I got this.” Jan and I are looking forward to getting to know our neighbors and learning to love them well, and to what lies ahead of us on this part of the journey.
We’re not moving again. I guess I shouldn’t be saying that should I?
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.
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!
Palm Sunday and Expectations
Tomorrow, we celebrate the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, surrounded by people hailing him as the Messiah. Evidently this procession was not the only one making it’s way into the city that day. The Roman governor, Pilate, was also entering Jerusalem with his forces. This was something that happened before every Jewish holiday. After all, the Romans had to remind the Jews who really was in charge.
So, you have an imperial Roman procession on one side of the city and a subversive, Messianic parade on the other side. The people shouting, “Hosanna!” as Jesus made his way along the road thought they understood what was going on. As they saw it, this man who had performed so many miracles was the promised king who would drive out the hated Gentile oppressors and restore the glory of Israel. Unfortunately, as the week unfolded, some of these same people, now disillusioned, would join in the calls for his crucifixion by those same oppressors.
Those folks were partially right. Jesus was the promised Messiah. He had come to set up a kingdom and free them from their oppression. What they didn’t realize was the nature of the kingdom. Even the disciples didn’t completely understand what this kingdom was all about. It was a kingdom that is not of this world, a kingdom that came in, not by way of overthrowing the present empire, but by the king dying at the hands of that empire. The Jews were expecting God to do things the way they expected. They didn’t understand that God rarely works that way.
I thought of how many times I pray for things and think that God is going to answer those prayers in a certain way, either because I jump through a certain number of hoops to “earn” God’s blessing, or because I can’t think of any other way God could act. I trust in God for the things I think he will (or should) do. Like the Jews, I sometimes follow Jesus for what I can get out of it. The funny thing is, God often seems to not do the things that I expect, yet things turn out in such a way that I know the Father is taking care of me. Things have not been all sweetness and light, and sometimes I question God about what he is doing. But I can look back on days gone by and see that God was there, and that he was working.
I am learning that God is not predictable. He is not someone who can be counted on to always do things a certain way. God relates to people in all kinds of ways, and we cannot tie him down to a particular plan of action. None of us can figure God out, yet he calls us into relationship with him. In that relationship we learn to trust God simply for who he is rather than for what we think he can do for us.
Be encouraged. Your Father loves you more than you know. He has given you his life and his glory. Trust the Father, even when the parade of Palm Sunday turns into the darkness of Friday.