Category: random thoughts

We sit in worship,
hollow men,
stuffed men.
Shape without form,
Gesture without motion,
our substance stolen silently
long ago.

Without meaning
knowing not
why we come or where we go or what we do
our rote repetition rambles on –
quiet and meaningless –
soothing fingers on temples
therapy to addicts of form and structure.

Why is our force paralyzed?
Where has our strength gone?

Burn empty straw!
Raise voices no longer dry!
Whisper together no longer!

Return to the old paths –
not empty paths of institutionalism,
but the rocky paths of Galilee,
in the footsteps of the Savior.

“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

There was a man who wanted to take up his cross. So he began his search for a cross that would be worthy to carry for his Savior.

He found one that was large and lifelike. It was made of wood – rough wood – unpolished and un-sanded. It was an exact replica of the one Jesus carried – right down to the last splinter. And he looked at it and stood before it in wonder.

But then he considered what it would require to carry that cross. He considered the pain, the splinters, the weight, the ridicule of his friends, and he decided he would find another, not so real cross to carry.

He found one that was smaller and more easily carry-able. It also was made of wood, but of a more polished sort. The cross was large enough to be noticed, but small enough that it could be taken more places unobtrusively. And it was beautiful, like a piece of art. Long he gazed at it and admired its beauty and form.

But then he considered what it would require to carry that cross. It was still large enough to be inconvenient at times, and while it was a thing of beauty, things of beauty often invited questions, and questions were definitely not what he was going for. So he decided he would find another, not so beautiful cross to carry.

He found one that was smaller still, and made out of silver. It also was beautiful, but of a more subtle sort. It was small enough that he could take it and wear it on a chain around his necklace – small enough to be taken anywhere at any time.

He considered what it would require to carry that cross. It was small and light and convenient – qualities that he definitely appreciated. It didn’t require too much of himself, and wasn’t too much of a burden. When he needed to have a token to show everyone that he was a follower of Christ, the small silver cross would suffice, but if there happened to be the occasion – as there all too often was – where his friends were making fun of the people who carried the big, wooden crosses, he could simply drop it inside his shirt and pretend that he didn’t carry a cross.

Realizing that this was the kind of cross that he needed – one that was functional, unobtrusive and altogether practical, he immediately set about to wear it each and every day.

His cross became his new companion, and he would wear it – almost every day – with him wherever he went. Some days he would just forget to put it on, but it wasn’t a terribly serious issue. After all, the cross didn’t interfere with his life, so a day or two missed wasn’t a big deal.

It was a great conversation starter. Some days the man would see another Christian carrying one of the big, real, heavy, splintery crosses. He would go and talk to them and admire their crosses. He would ask how they could possibly bear to carry such a thing around with them their whole lives. It would always puzzle him when they would smile at his silver cross and ask him the same question.

Finally the day came when the man died.

He came before
Jesus – the man of the Cross, the God of the Cross,
who said,

“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

“Here I am, Lord. Here is my cross. This one, right here, around the chain.”

And
Jesus – the man of the Cross, the God of the Cross,
looked at him and said,

“What Cross?”

An old AFC skit. Similar in the lines of sacrifice as the one before.

“I will not offer to my God that which costs me nothing.”

Can he still feel the nails?

Something that always surprises me about Christians is our fascination with nails.

We imagine the nail-scarred hands.
We craft necklaces out of three nails, fashioned in a cross to remind us.
We sing songs that dramatize and magnify the physical pain of the Cross.

And we ask
almost proudly
“Can he still feel the nails,
every time I fail?
Can he hear the crowd cry ‘Crucify’ again?”

Could it be –
Could it really be –
That we have missed the point of the resurrection so much we don’t understand
that we’ve missed the point?

“Christ died for sins

once
for all,

the righteous for the unrighteous,
to bring you to God.”

He died.

Once.
For all.

Can he still feel the nails?

I think Jesus tells us the answer to that:

NO!!!

When we sing those words and our eyes wander to his hands, I see the Jesus – the Jesus who knows the nails, who knows the meaning – the Jesus says, “I left the nails behind. I conquered everything they stood for. Why do you still bring them up?”

This Jesus died 2,000 years ago for your sins and mine. The ones we have committed in the past. The ones we will commit in the future. He bore them to the cross.

The pain he bore,
the shame he took.

And because of that we have life.

Jesus left our sin at the cross so that we could live together with him

forever.

Can he still feel the nails?
or is it only you?

Of the many songs that have serious theological issues, this one perhaps bothers me the most. Christ died once, we are told – once for all, erasing the punishment of sin. With what anguish and loss Jesus went to the Cross, and he carried my sin with Him there – My sin, O the Bliss of this glorious thought: My sin not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more…

The fact is that Christ has already paid the price for our sin. He paid the price 2000 years ago on a cross and pays it no longer. He paid once both for the sins you have committed and the sins you will commit. What particularly bothers me about this song, I think, is its blatant use of guilt as a motivator. Instead of promoting our love of Christ and our desire to be like Him as the motivation for a Christlike lifestyle, it instead seeks to make us feel guilty about the pain we have caused Christ and hopes to mitigate that by suggesting that we continue to cause pain with each failure.

It is precisely because of the death of Christ that we no longer have to sing songs like this. It is because of the totality of Christ’s victory over sin that we are able to conquer the guilt and shame of our failures and become new creations in Him. Praise be to God that the nails no longer have power over Him, or over us!

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

“And who is my neighbor?”

Is it only your brother?
your friend?
your spouse?

Is it the acquaintance?
the passer-by?
the person behind the counter?

Is it the policeman?
the tax collector?
the guy who hit your car?

Is your neighbor the influential guy?
the rich man?
the powerful man?

Is it the homeless?
the outcast?
the poor?

Is your neighbor pretty?
smart?
popular?

Are they unattractive?
annoying?
forgotten?

“Which of these three
do you think
was a neighbor
to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

And who is my neighbor?

“Go, and do likewise.”

We often find it easy to love those who love us. We find it easier to love those who it benefits us to love in some way. The real test of love is not whether we love those from who we gain something, but whether we love those who can offer us nothing in return.

Christ’s love knows no bounds. We have nothing to offer him, and he loves us anyway. He loves people regardless of their social status, their income level, their intellect, their ability, their family situation, their past, their appearance, their clothing… there is nothing about anyone that causes Christ to love them any less.

May we love with the love of Christ. May our love reach out across social barriers and cross racial lines to bring healing to a world in desperation. May we seek to love selflessly, giving of ourselves to those who can give nothing in return. And may we find courage to love boldly those who need it most, even when it’s easier not to.

“Teacher,”
he asked,

“what must I do
to inherit eternal life?”

I’ve known people who ask this question. They ask because they want to know – to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are fine, that their passport is stamped and their ticket is punched. What do I have to do, in order to guarantee that my reservation is secure?

Jesus’ answer is remarkably simple:

Love God with everything.
Love men like you would love yourself.

So simple.
So complicated.

And we say we love God.
And we say we love men.

And still we ask.
And still we ask.

There is a paradox in our Christian walk that renders our journey both simple and complex simulteneously.

The commands of Jesus can be boiled down into four words: Love God. Love others. Though amazingly simple concepts, they become exceedingly complicated when we try to put them into practice.

While a rather simple set of “rules” and “guidelines” govern how relationships and love work, any of us who interact with people know that there’s no formula that accurately describes a relationship with a person – you can read a 10 step book to making a friend, but it isn’t going to describe every situation you might encounter, nor will it have the “answers” to how to make every person like you.

As we encounter God, it is not with a rulebook or with a score card, but in relationship – a relationship where our call is to honor the heart of the Living God.

“A man with leprosy came to him
and begged him
on his knees,

‘If you are willing,
you can
make me clean.’”

What an attitude!

To come before Christ in humility,
knowing his position,
knowing that the decision was Christ’s,
knowing the Savior’s power to cleanse.

He demanded nothing,
But received everything.

And when I come before God in my pride,
thinking I am good,
thinking that I have control,
thinking that I am holy because of me.

I demand much,
And receive nothing.

So often we come to Christ expecting to be healed. Christ commands us to come knowing in faith that he can heal us, but sometimes we take this a few steps too far and feel that we are entitled to his healing, rather than receiving it as an act of grace – unmerited favor.

The fact is that each of us comes to Christ empty and broken. Some of us have tried to glue parts of the pieces of our lives together, but none of us come as whole people. We come helpless, missing the very thing Christ offers – Himself.

Faith is interesting. So often it stands in contrast with knowledge. Faith demands that we look at all we see and then take a step beyond pure knowledge – a step into the unknown of doubt.

That is not to say that faith is without experience. We have faith that the world will continue in the future much as it has in the past. We have faith that gravity will continue to hold us down, that the sun will come up tomorrow, and that the laws that govern the universe will hold relatively constant, at least within our ability to measure them. We cannot know any of these things for certain – the future is truly the undiscovered country, and objective knowledge about it cannot be obtained. Yet this does not stop us from believing that a future exists, and furthermore believing it will have certain properties – namely properties that resemble our present. While we cannot objectively prove these things to be true, we believe them with a fierce passion, and we have yet to be disappointed. Our experience suggests certain things about how the world works, and causes us to believe them and trust them, even though we have no real emperical basis for doing so.

In the same way, our experience leads us to believe that certain things are true about the human condition: that service is greater than selfishness, that sacrifice is greater than greed, that love is greater than hate. Logically these things make little sense. They seem to go against everything our society teaches us. But in the hearts of those who have seen charity and experienced love, faith suggests to us that there is something more to life than the endless race to get ahead – that our lives are not measured by how much we get, but by how much we give away.

Even still, true faith cannot exist without doubt. Doubt is not the cancer of faith, it is the tester of faith. It is that moment where we examine ourselves and make the choice of whether or not to believe. Were there no doubt, faith would not be a real choice. If faith were certain, it would cease to be faith, its beauty robbed. The veracity of our faith is continually proven in our struggle with the realization that the seemingly illogical sometimes turns out to make more sense than what we have been taught.

Even though we look to the unknown future through the lens of our personal experience, it is sometimes difficult to believe what we experience – love, joy, hope – is something that will last.

But in faith, we continue to believe.

“A poor widow came and put in
two very small copper coins,
worth only a fraction of a penny.”

She had a choice, you know.

If she’d only had one coin,
she could either have given

or not.

But she had two.

She had the choice
to give and still keep some
for herself.

“They all gave out of their wealth;
but she,
out of her poverty,

put in everything—

all she had to live on.”

She gave it all.
No questions.
No complaints.

Oh my God!

How much you demand,
How little I give.
How little I give.

So often I am tempted to “give” out of my riches and call it giving. Very seldom do I make a serious sacrifice for Christ.

We all are so blessed, so wealthy. We can’t begin to imagine how much we’ve been given, and it humbles me that I give so little. David writes and says “I will not present as an offering to my God that which cost me nothing.” Powerful words. We give out of our abundance that which costs us nothing, and Christ’s message of sacrifice is so often drowned out by our cultural ears.

It seems fitting now to bring back three questions Kelly asked during a talk last semester:

1. if i had to eat this week on the same amount of money i put in the offering plate on sunday morning, how many meals would i get?

2. if i was trying to develop a relationship with a significant other, and i gave to that person the same amount of quality time i’ve given to God in the past week, how long would that relationship last?

3. if Jesus looked into my heart and demanded something from me in order to have eternal life, would i walk away sad?

May we be people who honor God through our stewardship of His gifts.