Category: Jesus

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Eastertide Thoughts

It has been one week since those of us in the western church celebrated Easter. The Orthodox tradition will celebrate Easter on May 2 this year. Eastertide is the period between Easter Sunday and Pentecost, so the celebration continues in many churches for a full 50 days. Personally, I think that’s a good idea.

This year, I’ve been doing much more thinking about the importance of Easter to those of us who follow the One who was raised from the dead. I think a 50 day celebration of the event that changed history is something that should be practiced much more than it is now.

This has been a momentous year for many of us, with a lot of things happening that caused us to think about what is really important and about the brevity of our lives here on this earth. A little over a year ago, I had a heart attack. Within a couple of weeks, everything was locked down because of a deadly virus. We didn’t get to celebrate Easter in person last year. We didn’t get to do a whole lot of anything in person last year.

We saw the number of cases and deaths grow as the year went on, and very few of us didn’t at least know someone who caught the virus. Add to this what seemed to be the death of reason and understanding in the civil discourse in this country, and the year looked more bleak as it dragged on. We made it to the end of the year, but the future looked very uncertain.

In some ways the future is looking better. In other ways, there is still turmoil and uncertainty. Personally, my health is much better now, but there are things that have happened to keep the realities of life in a broken world in the forefront. From friends and neighbors who have cancer to friends whose parents have fallen ill, from families that are broken to our small town reeling from a senseless murder and suicide, there is much to make one wonder if there really are any answers.

There are many questions that we may never have answered fully. There are some that may not be answered at all. That is why Eastertide this year has become meaningful to me. I believe that Easter is the answer. We may not have all the details filled in for us, but Easter means that death has been brought down, had all its teeth kicked out, and ground into the dust in defeat.

Because King Jesus rose from the dead and inaugurated his kingdom, I know that my friends with cancer will unltimately be healed and will live in the new creation. I know that there will be peace on earth and the swords will be beaten into plowshares, and there will be no war. I know that there will be no hatred or murder, no struggle over possessions, or arguments over ideas. There will be no cancer, heart trouble, Alzheimer’s or Huntington’s Disease. Every tear will be wiped away and everything sad will become untrue.

Let us rejoice and feast! Break out the champagne! There is nothing worth celebrating more than the fact that death has lost its sting, and the grave has no victory. It is not the end yet, but it will be all right in the end. Hallelujah! Christ is risen!

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Blast From the Past: The Week Begins

This was first published in 2008.

The first thing they did was go into the city and find a donkey for him to ride on. This was the first indication that today was going to be different. On the way, one said to the other, “I wonder why the rabbi wants a donkey to ride on. Why not just walk like he usually does?” “I don’t know. This is another one of those things I don’t understand. I wonder what kind of problems we’ll run into.”

As they were untying the donkey, the owner came out and demanded to know what they thought they were doing. “The Lord needs it.” said the disciples. The owner replied, “I see. Go on and take it then.” “That was easier than I thought it would be”, the two said to each other as they went back to where the Master waited.

When they got there, they noticed that a larger than usual crowd had gathered. The disciples put their cloaks on the donkey to make a comfortable seat. As the group started toward the city, some in the crowd began to spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches off the trees and laid them down in front of the donkey. The crowd began to shout, “Hosanna, to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” The shouting continued and became louder as the crowd neared the city.

As the procession continued and grew, the disciples started to talk. “Do you hear what they’re saying?” “The people are really behind him.” This is it. The Kingdom is going to be restored.” Yeah, we’ll finally be out from under those pagan Romans.”

When the group reached the city, people were asking, “Who is this?” The answer came back, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth”. Some of the religious leaders, worried that Roman soldiers might be drawn to disperse such a large crowd and bothered by what the people were shouting, said to Jesus, “Tell these people to be quiet!” Jesus replied, “If they keep quiet, the stones around you will begin to shout. The disciples chuckled at the way the rabbi put them in their place.

The crowd continued to the Temple, where some in the group were sure the Master would begin the rebellion that would finally re-establish David’s kingdom in its rightful place. They watched in awe and wonder as Jesus went into the temple area and began turning over the money tables, letting the doves and sheep out of their cages, and just generally causing havoc. The disciples thought, “Now what’s he doing? I know the moneychangers and animal sellers were cheating people, but that probably isn’t the best way to handle things.”

As they left the city for the night, they all wondered, “What would the week bring?”

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What Kind of Kingdom?

It’s a few days before what we call Palm Sunday, the day Jesus came in to Jerusalem to the loud aclaim of the crowds of people. Jesus has told his disciples that the time for him to go to Jerusalem and die was drawing near. Judging by some of the things they said and did, they seem to have forgotten the part about dying. As the week goes on, Jesus continues to teach about the kingdom of God. He has raised Lazarus from the dead, further solidifying in the minds of many that he was the promised Messiah. Because of all this, the Jewish leaders are plotting to kill him.

I can imagine the excitement building in the disciples as they draw nearer to the city. It’s almost time for Passover, the annual celebration of Israel’s deliverance from bondage in Egypt. Some had been saying that when the Messiah came, he would lead a new Exodus and deliver Israel from theit bondage from the pagan Roman oppressors. This may have been at the forefront of the minds of some of the disciples. We know that some of them were zealots who would have gladly taken part in an armed revolt if Jesus gave the word.

Perhaps the feeling was similar to that of some of those who gathered at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Many of those folks seemd to equate the United States, and the rule of a particular person, with the kingdom of God. Some of the loudest voices in the rally that day were preachers, and many of the symbols carried by those in the crowd were Christian symbols. “Prophets” abounded, each one assuring their listeners that God had ordained what they said was going to happen and that these things were necessary for God to bless America.

I wonder if there were those in the crowd following Jesus who proclaimed to those around them that this Jesus was going to lead them in a great battle in which the hated Romans would be destroyed and that they would “make Israel great again.” There were those who were quite willing to kill Romans, Jewish ‘traitors,” or anyone else who stood in their way. Perhaps this Jesus was going to begin the revolution.

As we study the New Testament, and at least the first 300 years of church history, we quickly notice that those who thought the kingdom of God would come in by force were way off. The kingdom was established, but it was established by the King submitting himself to the powers that be, letting them kill him in the most shameful, horrific way known at the time, and then overcoming them by rising from the dead.

Over the centuries, many who call themselves followers of Jesus seem to have forgotten that he taught that his kingdom is not a kingdom of this world, that it does not come by human strength or force. This is true in the United States today. Many of those with the loudest voices on January 6 were part of a group that believes that Christians should be in charge, and that the government should enact laws and policies that favor Christians above all others. Some would even go so far as to enforce Old Covenant law. The problem with this kind of thinking is simple. It has nothing to do with the Gospel or any of the teachings of Jesus.

Jesus taught that we are to first love God with every fiber of our being. We can easily say that we love God, but do we really? The second greatest commandment, according to Jesus, is to love others as we love ourselves. The Apostle John tells us that if we don’t love another, who is made in God’s image, how can we say we love God? If you were to read through or listen to the speeches that have been made regarding the political state of this country, I seriously doubt you would find much, if anything, that shows love to God or love to others. Instead you would find much vitriol and anger toward others.

If we going to call ourselves Christians (“Christ ones”), wouldn’t it make sense to look at what he taught, and what his disciples continued to teach, and follow that? The thrust of much of what the apostles wrote was to tell their readers to live like who they were. They weren’t citizens of this world anymore, they were citizens of a heavenly kingdom. The old had gone. The new had come. We too, need to live like who we are. We are no longer citizens of this world and its kingdoms. We are citizens and heirs of the unshakeable kingdom of God.

May our lives reflect who we are and whose we are.

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Blast From the Past: The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear…

…and yet we live in fear. Parents fear that something is going to happen to their children. Children fear that something is going to happen to their family. Democrats and Republicans both fear that the other party is going to win the White House. Christians on the right fear losing the “culture war”. Christians on the left fear the right being an influence. Some fear being deprived of their freedoms, others fear the influence of “the world”. Ministers fear that their ministries will fail. We fear the future, and we fear the results of past actions. At some level, we all fear failure. We don’t want to not measure up, to not please God.

I’ve been reading Following Jesus by N.T. Wright and Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson, and one of the things they both emphasize is that fear is not to be a part of the Christian’s life. We are children of the God who raised Jesus from the dead. The fact that Jesus is raised from the dead changes everything. It means that God is in control, that no matter what happens, God is making all things right. His Kingdom is coming and His will is going to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

We are also children of a God who has loved us with an everlasting love, and has shown us an infinite amount of grace. Because of this love and grace, we can be sure of the promise that God will work everything out for the purpose of making us into the image of Jesus. The Apostle John tells us that this perfect love drives out fear. God’s grace is free and is inexhaustible. There is nothing we can do to earn God’s favor and there is nothing we can do to drive His favor away.

Think about it. We don’t have to live in fear. The resurrection of Jesus and the grace God has shown us mean that God is going to work in us and all of His children. We don’t have to worry when our spiritual growth is not where we think it should be, or when someone else’s growth is not where we think it should be. We can live freely, knowing that our Father loves us and takes everything in our lives and works in and through that. Even when we screw up, God’s grace is still ours and His Spirit is still working.

I want to live a life that is free of fear. I want to totally depend on God’s grace and His resurrection power. I want to sin boldly and trust God even more boldly, to paraphrase Martin Luther.

This was first posted in 2008.

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Blast From the Past: Thoughts on Lent

This post first appeared seven years ago. It has been updated a bit.

This year we didn’t participate in any Ash Wednesday activities. There was not a whole lot going on in our area as far as in-person gatherings. Going the digital route just didn’t seem to be the same. Jan and I are both going through a book titled Backyard Pilgrim. that has daily reading and reflection questions. It’s a good guide for the season.

Lent is a way of remembering the journey of Jesus to the cross to die for our sins. It was for our sin that he died. It is always good to keep that in mind. Lent is also a season of sacrifice, of giving something up. That sacrifice can be anything from food to television, from smoking to the internet (if you’ve given up the internet, it’ll be a while before you read this). The problem with giving things up is that it can become an exercise in self-righteousness and self-justification.

Lent is a time of remembering that we came from dust and will return to dust. In other words, we’re going to die. As someone who believes that Jesus has redeemed our bodies along with our souls, this remembering comes with the knowledge that we will be resurrected, with real bodies as well as souls.  This union of body and soul comes in when we give up something physical in order to focus on the spiritual. For instance, if we give up food, we can remember that Jesus is our source of life. Unfortunately, this too can become an exercise in legalism.

I believe Lent can best be observed as a time of repentance. Not as an exercise in self hatred but as an acceptance of the fact that, on our own, we can not love God or others as we ought. We can’t live this life on our own. In Luke 9, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, to the cross. On his way, he calls others to follow him. They make various excuses, and Jesus tells them that they have to give up everything in order to follow him. Jesus calls us to follow him. Follow him to the cross, the place of death. He calls us to come and die.

The good news is that when we die, we find that it is then that we truly live. We live in Christ and he
lives in us. When we give it all up, we realize true freedom. As Janis Joplin sang, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” When we give it all up we have nothing to lose because we have everything that we cannot lose. As we follow Jesus to the cross, we know that we have also been raised with him.

This Lent season, we remember. We give up, not because we need to “do,” but because Jesus has already “done.”

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Native Tongue

I was listening to this song the other day, and I got to thinking about the lyrics and how they ring true to much of what is going on today. As someone who came of age in the 1970s, I remember well the hippie movement and the somewhat naive belief that the young could change the world. Woodstock, the Summer of Love, the protests against the war in Vietnam, and the Jesus Movement were all attempts to make the world a better place. Even with all the baggage that came with these things, there was a certain innocence and hope that was clearly present. Like any movement, there were those elements that sought to tear down and destroy, but I believe that we had the right idea, even if some twisted it for their own selfish ends. Many of us believed that we could change the world through love, even if some didn’t understand what love really was.

Fast forward fifty years or so, and I ask the same question that is posed in the lyrics to the song: “My friend, where did we go wrong?” Many of the very folks who spoke about love and peace, who helped end a war and bring down a corrupt President, turned into the ones who have accepted and particpated in the combative dialogue and actions of the last few years. The idea of love has been left in the dust of power and influence. The loudest voices today are the ones that speak of shutting down, and even destroying the “other side.” The ideas of working together for the common good seem to have disappeared, and love has become something that is reserved only for those who agree with us in every area.

What saddens me the most is that those of us who call ourselves followers of the Prince of Peace don’t seem to be any more loving than those who don’t claim Christ. I have seen posts on social media and heard things from the lips of Christians that are hateful rather than loving, and spiteful rather than gracious. Many have traded a kingdom of love for a kingdom of this world that demands that we put others down. This should not be. If we truly belong to Jesus Christ, love is our native tongue. If we truly are born of the Spirit, love is our default. Will we always love perfectly? No. But we will strive to do what our King commands.

Fellow Christians, I want us to sing in our native tongue, to sing it like when we were young, back before the pendulum had swung to the shadows. Fellow Christians, I want us to learn to use our lungs for love and not the shadows.

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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.

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Blast From the Past: Out of the Cave, Into…

This too was written eight years ago. Shortly afterward, God led us to a community of faith where we have been ever since.

Some of you have read my recent post about finding myself in a cave. I’m now out of the cave, although still not far from the entrance. I now find myself in the middle of a thicket, sort of like a stand of rhododendron or mountain laurel, so thick that you cannot see out of it. It is still somewhat dark, and the direction I should take is unclear. I see many paths out, but don’t know yet which one to take.

There is the path that would take me back into the church world I left a few years ago. Next to it is the path that would take me to the land of the mega-church. Here I could find a place to hide and lick my wounds. One path seems to go in circles, and looks as if it would leave me no better off. Yet another way out continues in the search for community. That is the path that interests me the most, and the way that I have learned most about in the last couple of days.

You see, I have learned something about community, and about myself. I think I’m beginning to learn why I spent time in the dark cave. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am a pretty laid back individual, but that when I am passionate about something, I tend to go all out. As I learned more and more about the God’s desire for his children to live as brothers and sisters because of Christ, I became more and more passionate with living in community. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.” As I look back on the past year, and my desire to have and fight for community, I realize I inadvertently pushed it too hard and may have been part of the cause of its destruction. I know that my heart was good, but I think I may have wanted community so badly that I didn’t see the problems that it was causing. Even though I tried to sacrificially love those around me, I think that I didn’t leave room for God to work, thinking that as long as we spent enough time together, growth and maturity would automatically happen.

I now realize that community is something that has to happen naturally, as God’s people learn to love one another. It is something that cannot be forced, and the Holy Spirit must be the one to form it rather than humans whose motives can be tainted by our own needs. I also realize that a particular form of community may not last as long as I think, and that I need to be willing to let it go when it is time. For those of you reading this who have been on the receiving end of my misguided efforts, I am sorry. I put the ideal of community ahead of my brothers and sisters. I was wrong.

As to what is next in this journey along the back roads, only God knows. I know that Jan and I still desire to share our lives with some fellow Christ-followers. I also know that it may not take any form that we expect. It may be in a regular gathering. It may take place in just getting together with one or two who share our desire. What I also know is that I want it to be something that happens as Christ’s Spirit moves, not when I think it should happen.

I’m learning to trust my Father. As I leave the thicket, I want to be hear my Shepherd’s voice and follow him wherever he leads, whenever he leads, and to whatever he leads. I would appreciate your prayers.

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Encouragement From a Lamppost

Last night was a night of fitful sleep and unsatisfying dreams. When I awoke this morning, I was feeling the weight of a number of things that are happening in this little conrner of the world. The events of the past few months and the strain that has put on relationahips of people that I know, the friend who is waiting for a possible diagnosis of cancer, and the friend whose mother just had a stroke, along with the stresses of helping lead a faith community to follow Jesus more closely. These are on top of dealing with Jan’s HD and all that goes with it, and trying to keep myself healthy.

When I went to the kitchen to make coffee, I looked out the window into our backyard. What I saw was similar to the picture above, minus the snow and fir trees. It was about 6:45, and the sky was just beginning to lighten. What I saw was unusual because the lamp had never stayed lit all through the night before this, and the previous day had been cloudy. I had bought that particular lamppost because it reminded me of the lamppost in the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.

When I saw the lamp still lit, the first thing that I thought (I believe it was God speaking to my heart) was, “There is still hope.” In the Narnia tales, the lamppost marked the border between Narnia and the wardrobe in the spare room. In some way it signified hope, because it was there that the story of Aslan coming and reclaiming Narnia began. As you read through the rest of the books, there is always an undercurrent of hope, no matter how dire the circumstances.

I have no idea what is going to happen in each of those situations I mentioned. I know I am praying for healing and restoration, but I also know that the final outcome is beyond my reach. But there is still hope. There is still the hope that no matter what happens, my loving Father has us all in his hands, and he always does what is good and right. There is still hope that the King of Kings will return and make everything right, healing every hurt and wiping every tear. There is still hope that Romans 8:18-39 is true.

You may be going through something similar, or worse. Things may well seem hopless to you. I would encourage you to look to the One who alone can give hope. Look to the King who has conquered death and who is bringing a new creation. Look to him because, to be honest with you, without him it is hopeless.