March 24, 2020 · 3:29 pm

To Be or To Do?

To Be or to Do? That is the question.
To-Do lists, calendars, daily planners, schedulers – ad infinitum. Sometimes it seems that these control our lives. We are not our own. More importantly, we are not God’s. We spend our lives doing. Have we forgotten that rather than “to do,” God calls us “to be?”

Maybe that’s not your experience, I’m going to pray today that it is not. But I must confess that it is my experience. Even in my retirement, I have allowed myself to be ruled by things causing me to forget how to simply be.

May I remind you – an especially myself – we as Christians, are first “be-ers” of the Word? Since my time as a boy in Vacation Bible School, I have made James 1:22 my life’s verse. Paraphrased and truncated as it was for me, it read, “Be ye doers of the word.” Somehow, I left off the remainder of the verse and took it out of context. In context it says:

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror, and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.  But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it-not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. James 1:22-25 NIV.

Even back to the beginning, God created the first people first to “be” before they were to “do.” Notice closely that while they were immediately given tasks “To Do,” they were first given “To Be.”

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So, God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Remember in Luke 10:38-41 Jesus visited the house of Martha in Bethany?

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10”38-41 NIV.

Which one did Jesus approve? Mary, of course, the one who merely sat at his feet listening.

Among Jesus’ last words to His disciples, one finds this passage in John 14.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” . . . “If you love me, keep my commands.” John 14:6,7,15 NIV.

Love is an act of doing, but first, may I submit that it is a state of being. “We love [Jesus] because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19. Paul reflects this notion in 1 Corinthians 13 when he says that if we do all sorts of wonderful things but don’t have love, we are just making a loud noise that attracts the attention of the world but not of God. Note that “have” is a passive verb.

Here is the summation. N.T. Wright says that God created people in Genesis to reflect Who God is back to Himself and to people. We can only reflect God out of who we are (Be.) This “Be-ing” is first received from God. If we do out of this who we are or who we “be,” only then can our actions reflect God to the world.

On the contrary, if we “be” out of what we reflect or do, then we reflect only ourselves and place ourselves firmly in the stream of the world rather than in the Will of God.

“To be” is what God first called us to do, and that “be-ing” is the thing He first approves. See the example of Mary, supra.

A cartoon saying from the 1960s has always stuck with me. “Tooter” was the brash and headstrong old turtle from the show “King Leonardo and His Short Subjects.” He always got himself into trouble by trying to be someone like else.

In every adventure, Mr. Wizard, the Wise old lizard had to rescue Tooter by saying, in a middle European accent, “Tootor, Tooter, alvays I tell you, ‘be chest vat yooss iss und not vat yooss iss not, causs dose vat tus iss ze happiest lot.”

Please know that I have prayed that each of you will “be” before you “do,” and I have prayed individually as God led me for each of you and your church or mission. May God bless you today as all days.

In Jesus’ Name, I pray, AMEN.

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March 24, 2020 · 2:56 pm

Labels

My pastor, Jay, has been using as a theme for this Lenten season the topic of “labels.” He lamented that sometimes we are quick to label people and to label ourselves. When we place labels on people, he said, we see them as the label and not as the person they are.

Perhaps, we could add to that assessment of the “labeling issue” the notion that when we label a person or label ourselves, we dehumanize such person. Regrettably, for us, dehumanization is exactly the opposite of the reason why Jesus came to be with us and remains with us.

He, being fully God,  came to be with us becoming fully human. What label should we put on that? The only label that comes to mind is “love.” ” For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son…” John 3:16. 

Recently, I was talking with a therapist friend of mine in Birmingham, Alabama. We were discussing labeling, and she pointed out that labeling is the exact opposite of compassion. When we label someone, it is much more difficult for us to have compassion upon that person. 

Conversely, when we have compassion for someone, even ourselves, it is much more difficult to place a label on such a person. (And this from a psychotherapist!) While everyone else in the world knew this, it came as a revelation to me, Captain Obvious – at your service. 

I tend to be an inwardly judgmental person even if I do not express the judgment to others. I’ve heard it said that if you remain silent, people may think you a fool, but if you open your mouth, you may remove all doubt. 

That being said, I am even much more judgmental of myself than of others. Referring back to my therapist friend’s comment, this means that my capacity for compassion is limited. As we might say in politically correct jargon, I find myself “compassionately challenged.” 

Over the years, I have blamed this on my mother and my grandmother, (true, hardcore South Alabama Southern Baptists from the old school. ) Thus, I reason, it’s not my fault. 

My therapist friend, as well as most of you, would submit that while they may (or may not) have been a “labeling influence,” to label vel non, is a choice I have made. To put it into theological terms, while they may or may not have sinned, I bear no responsibility either way. Contra wise, if I don the righteous robe of the judge, I also snap the steel-shanked shackles of the sin.

The “Good News” that there is a remedy for both the sin and the psychosis. This can be remedied by volitionally choosing to see people as people and by choosing to have compassion on them. In other words to paraphrase an old wristband, “What DID Jesus Do? You all know the answer better than I. You have demonstrated that in your ministry time and time again. 

When I have compassion upon someone, I will cease to be judgmental of that person. God make it so. 

So let it be written, so let it be done. 

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March 24, 2020 · 2:33 pm

Unicorns

The final chorus of the 1967 Shel Silvestein’s song, “The Unicorns,” informs:

You’ll see green alligators and long-necked geese,
Some humpty-backed camels and some chimpanzees,
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you’re born,
You’re never gonna see no unicorns.

The song says that God made unicorns at the time He created the other animals, and that they were His favorites owing to their beauty. However, when Noah’s flood came, the unicorns didn’t make it on the ark. And that’s why today there are no unicorns.
The poetic truth of that not withstanding, some of us spend the greater portion of our lives believing in unicorns, hoping against hope that the beautiful perfection they embody will come to the fore in our lifetimes. Fruitlessly we think that we will discover it or better still, bring it about.
Last week, as I was cleaning out a badly neglected room, I found hanging on the wall, a lovely framed artist’s rendering of a unicorn. I don’t know why I even had it or when it was acquired. For a then-undiscovered reason, I decided that it was time to give the unicorn away to my 7-year-old granddaughter as she is in a “unicorn period.”
I am usually loathe to throw things away, and the discard weighed on my mind. Upon reflection, I wondered if my giving away the unicorn was less for hygienic reasons and more for psychological ones. Was I just tired of looking at it, or had I finally quit believing in unicorns?
Here, the unicorn represents either something that is believed in but does not exist or alternatively, it represents something that once existed but is now no longer believed in.
Could it be that the Apostle Paul wrote about unicorns millennia before Shel Silvestein? Let me explain and re-frame the question beginning in the theological and ending in the practical.
In the famous chapter on love, I Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul wrote:
Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 1 Corinthians 13: 8-10 NASB.
The perfect has been variously interpreted by scholars much more learned than I. However, may I suggest that in a sense, the perfect could refer to the unicorn?” To explain this bizarre interpretation, may I submit the following?
Some of us erroneously believe that the perfect will come in our lifetime, a time when everything will be fixed, all the ills of the world will be healed, and all of the mean people will be changed into veritable angels. We will experience Heaven on earth – Nirvana.
Experience, hard won and scarred physically, emotionally, and spiritually dictates that this is not the case. This is a difficult pill to swollow because to come to the realization that this is not the case is to admit to ourselves that we are failures, that nothing we have done counts for anything in a lasting sense, and that the world will be as it is when we are gone – unchanged and unapologetic. That conclusion compels us to abandon our belief in unicorns.
Or…
To conclude that we won’t fix everything is to come to the “grown – up” realization they we are human. We are not God. We did not, in fact, create anything, we have no control over anything, we cannot fix anything.
The Apostle finishes 1 Corinthians 13 thusly:
When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; [but] when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:11-13 NASB.
In his earlier life, Paul believed in unicorns, but when he met the LORD that day on the road to Damascus, his eyes saw the world differently forcing his beliefs to make a radical shift. More importantly, Paul saw himself differently. He realized that he was a broken man living in a fallen world, knowing with the prophet Isaiah, that he was living “among a people of unclean lips…” This realization came only because his new “eyes [had] seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” Isaiah 6:5 NIV.
But God didn’t leave Paul (or Isaiah for that matter) mournfully singing the song from “Hee Haw,” “Gloom, despair and agony on me; Deep dark depression, excessive misery…”
Rather, God gave Paul, Isaiah, and us a vision of reality, the reality the since He, God, is in charge, we don’t have to try to be. It’s not our job to create, control, or fix anything. It’s our job only to look to Christ and to realize that “13… now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV. Jesus said,
Come [unto] me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30 NIV.
When we allow God to give us the realization that an earthly unicorn, ie. perfect peace achievable through the efforts of people, including us, is an illusion, He shows us that “when the perfect (Christ) comes” there will be “peace on earth [and] good will toward men.”
Obviously, that time is not yet come, BUT IT WILL COME in God’s time. All we have to do is to love Him. How do we do that? By loving our fellow people.
Again Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, [the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the strangers, and the prisoners,] you did it for me.” Matthew 25:40 NIV.
It is true that we do not live in the “Age of Aquarius” with “sympathy and trust abounding” when “peace will guide the planets.” No, we live in a better Age, the Age of Christ, the King. The “now and the not yet.”
Believing that we live in a better age is infinitely superior to the belief in unicorns because it is reality not fantasy. Christ’s reality renders that of man not only a lie, but an unworthy lie. Realizing the truth, we can sing with Horatio G. Spafford:
When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
This is my prayer for you today.
The final chorus of the 1967 Shel Silvestein’s song, “The Unicorns,” informs:
You’ll see green alligators and long-necked geese,
Some humpty-backed camels and some chimpanzees,
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you’re born,
You’re never gonna see no unicorns.
The song says that God made unicorns at the time He created the other animals, and that they were His favorites owing to their beauty. However, when Noah’s flood came, the unicorns didn’t make it on the ark. And that’s why today there are no unicorns.
The poetic truth of that not withstanding, some of us spend the greater portion of our lives believing in unicorns, hoping against hope that the beautiful perfection they embody will come to the fore in our lifetimes. Fruitlessly we think that we will discover it or better still, bring it about.
Last week, as I was cleaning out a badly neglected room, I found hanging on the wall, a lovely framed artist’s rendering of a unicorn. I don’t know why I even had it or when it was acquired. For a then-undiscovered reason, I decided that it was time to give the unicorn away to my 7-year-old granddaughter as she is in a “unicorn period.”
I am usually loathe to throw things away, and the discard weighed on my mind. Upon reflection, I wondered if my giving away the unicorn was less for hygienic reasons and more for psychological ones. Was I just tired of looking at it, or had I finally quit believing in unicorns?
Here, the unicorn represents either something that is believed in but does not exist or alternatively, it represents something that once existed but is now no longer believed in.
Could it be that the Apostle Paul wrote about unicorns millennia before Shel Silvestein? Let me explain and re-frame the question beginning in the theological and ending in the practical.
In the famous chapter on love, I Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul wrote:
Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 1 Corinthians 13: 8-10 NASB.
The perfect has been variously interpreted by scholars much more learned than I. However, may I suggest that in a sense, the perfect could refer to the unicorn?” To explain this bizarre interpretation, may I submit the following?
Some of us erroneously believe that the perfect will come in our lifetime, a time when everything will be fixed, all the ills of the world will be healed, and all of the mean people will be changed into veritable angels. We will experience Heaven on earth – Nirvana.
Experience, hard won and scarred physically, emotionally, and spiritually dictates that this is not the case. This is a difficult pill to swollow because to come to the realization that this is not the case is to admit to ourselves that we are failures, that nothing we have done counts for anything in a lasting sense, and that the world will be as it is when we are gone – unchanged and unapologetic. That conclusion compels us to abandon our belief in unicorns.
Or…
To conclude that we won’t fix everything is to come to the “grown – up” realization they we are human. We are not God. We did not, in fact, create anything, we have no control over anything, we cannot fix anything.
The Apostle finishes 1 Corinthians 13 thusly:
When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; [but] when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:11-13 NASB.
In his earlier life, Paul believed in unicorns, but when he met the LORD that day on the road to Damascus, his eyes saw the world differently forcing his beliefs to make a radical shift. More importantly, Paul saw himself differently. He realized that he was a broken man living in a fallen world, knowing with the prophet Isaiah, that he was living “among a people of unclean lips…” This realization came only because his new “eyes [had] seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” Isaiah 6:5 NIV.
But God didn’t leave Paul (or Isaiah for that matter) mournfully singing the song from “Hee Haw,” “Gloom, despair and agony on me; Deep dark depression, excessive misery…”
Rather, God gave Paul, Isaiah, and us a vision of reality, the reality the since He, God, is in charge, we don’t have to try to be. It’s not our job to create, control, or fix anything. It’s our job only to look to Christ and to realize that “13… now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV. Jesus said,
Come [unto] me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30 NIV.
When we allow God to give us the realization that an earthly unicorn, ie. perfect peace achievable through the efforts of people, including us, is an illusion, He shows us that “when the perfect (Christ) comes” there will be “peace on earth [and] good will toward men.”
Obviously, that time is not yet come, BUT IT WILL COME in God’s time. All we have to do is to love Him. How do we do that? By loving our fellow people.
Again Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, [the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the strangers, and the prisoners,] you did it for me.” Matthew 25:40 NIV.
It is true that we do not live in the “Age of Aquarius” with “sympathy and trust abounding” when “peace will guide the planets.” No, we live in a better Age, the Age of Christ, the King. The “now and the not yet.”
Believing that we live in a better age is infinitely superior to the belief in unicorns because it is reality not fantasy. Christ’s reality renders that of man not only a lie, but an unworthy lie. Realizing the truth, we can sing with Horatio G. Spafford:
When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
This is my prayer for you today.
The final chorus of the 1967 Shel Silvestein’s song, “The Unicorns,” informs:
You’ll see green alligators and long-necked geese,
Some humpty-backed camels and some chimpanzees,
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you’re born,
You’re never gonna see no unicorns.
The song says that God made unicorns at the time He created the other animals, and that they were His favorites owing to their beauty. However, when Noah’s flood came, the unicorns didn’t make it on the ark. And that’s why today there are no unicorns.
The poetic truth of that not withstanding, some of us spend the greater portion of our lives believing in unicorns, hoping against hope that the beautiful perfection they embody will come to the fore in our lifetimes. Fruitlessly we think that we will discover it or better still, bring it about.
Last week, as I was cleaning out a badly neglected room, I found hanging on the wall, a lovely framed artist’s rendering of a unicorn. I don’t know why I even had it or when it was acquired. For a then-undiscovered reason, I decided that it was time to give the unicorn away to my 7-year-old granddaughter as she is in a “unicorn period.”
I am usually loathe to throw things away, and the discard weighed on my mind. Upon reflection, I wondered if my giving away the unicorn was less for hygienic reasons and more for psychological ones. Was I just tired of looking at it, or had I finally quit believing in unicorns?
Here, the unicorn represents either something that is believed in but does not exist or alternatively, it represents something that once existed but is now no longer believed in.
Could it be that the Apostle Paul wrote about unicorns millennia before Shel Silvestein? Let me explain and re-frame the question beginning in the theological and ending in the practical.
In the famous chapter on love, I Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul wrote:
Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 1 Corinthians 13: 8-10 NASB.
The perfect has been variously interpreted by scholars much more learned than I. However, may I suggest that in a sense, the perfect could refer to the unicorn?” To explain this bizarre interpretation, may I submit the following?
Some of us erroneously believe that the perfect will come in our lifetime, a time when everything will be fixed, all the ills of the world will be healed, and all of the mean people will be changed into veritable angels. We will experience Heaven on earth – Nirvana.
Experience, hard won and scarred physically, emotionally, and spiritually dictates that this is not the case. This is a difficult pill to swollow because to come to the realization that this is not the case is to admit to ourselves that we are failures, that nothing we have done counts for anything in a lasting sense, and that the world will be as it is when we are gone – unchanged and unapologetic. That conclusion compels us to abandon our belief in unicorns.
Or…
To conclude that we won’t fix everything is to come to the “grown – up” realization they we are human. We are not God. We did not, in fact, create anything, we have no control over anything, we cannot fix anything.
The Apostle finishes 1 Corinthians 13 thusly:
When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; [but] when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:11-13 NASB.
In his earlier life, Paul believed in unicorns, but when he met the LORD that day on the road to Damascus, his eyes saw the world differently forcing his beliefs to make a radical shift. More importantly, Paul saw himself differently. He realized that he was a broken man living in a fallen world, knowing with the prophet Isaiah, that he was living “among a people of unclean lips…” This realization came only because his new “eyes [had] seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” Isaiah 6:5 NIV.
But God didn’t leave Paul (or Isaiah for that matter) mournfully singing the song from “Hee Haw,” “Gloom, despair and agony on me; Deep dark depression, excessive misery…”
Rather, God gave Paul, Isaiah, and us a vision of reality, the reality the since He, God, is in charge, we don’t have to try to be. It’s not our job to create, control, or fix anything. It’s our job only to look to Christ and to realize that “13… now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV. Jesus said,
Come [unto] me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30 NIV.
When we allow God to give us the realization that an earthly unicorn, ie. perfect peace achievable through the efforts of people, including us, is an illusion, He shows us that “when the perfect (Christ) comes” there will be “peace on earth [and] good will toward men.”
Obviously, that time is not yet come, BUT IT WILL COME in God’s time. All we have to do is to love Him. How do we do that? By loving our fellow people.
Again Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, [the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the strangers, and the prisoners,] you did it for me.” Matthew 25:40 NIV.
It is true that we do not live in the “Age of Aquarius” with “sympathy and trust abounding” when “peace will guide the planets.” No, we live in a better Age, the Age of Christ, the King. The “now and the not yet.”
Believing that we live in a better age is infinitely superior to the belief in unicorns because it is reality not fantasy. Christ’s reality renders that of man not only a lie, but an unworthy lie. Realizing the truth, we can sing with Horatio G. Spafford:
When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
This is my prayer for you today.
The final chorus of the 1967 Shel Silvestein’s song, “The Unicorns,” informs:
You’ll see green alligators and long-necked geese,
Some humpty-backed camels and some chimpanzees,
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you’re born,
You’re never gonna see no unicorns.
The song says that God made unicorns at the time He created the other animals, and that they were His favorites owing to their beauty. However, when Noah’s flood came, the unicorns didn’t make it on the ark. And that’s why today there are no unicorns.
The poetic truth of that not withstanding, some of us spend the greater portion of our lives believing in unicorns, hoping against hope that the beautiful perfection they embody will come to the fore in our lifetimes. Fruitlessly we think that we will discover it or better still, bring it about.
Last week, as I was cleaning out a badly neglected room, I found hanging on the wall, a lovely framed artist’s rendering of a unicorn. I don’t know why I even had it or when it was acquired. For a then-undiscovered reason, I decided that it was time to give the unicorn away to my 7-year-old granddaughter as she is in a “unicorn period.”
I am usually loathe to throw things away, and the discard weighed on my mind. Upon reflection, I wondered if my giving away the unicorn was less for hygienic reasons and more for psychological ones. Was I just tired of looking at it, or had I finally quit believing in unicorns?
Here, the unicorn represents either something that is believed in but does not exist or alternatively, it represents something that once existed but is now no longer believed in.
Could it be that the Apostle Paul wrote about unicorns millennia before Shel Silvestein? Let me explain and re-frame the question beginning in the theological and ending in the practical.
In the famous chapter on love, I Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul wrote:
Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 1 Corinthians 13: 8-10 NASB.
The perfect has been variously interpreted by scholars much more learned than I. However, may I suggest that in a sense, the perfect could refer to the unicorn?” To explain this bizarre interpretation, may I submit the following?
Some of us erroneously believe that the perfect will come in our lifetime, a time when everything will be fixed, all the ills of the world will be healed, and all of the mean people will be changed into veritable angels. We will experience Heaven on earth – Nirvana.
Experience, hard won and scarred physically, emotionally, and spiritually dictates that this is not the case. This is a difficult pill to swollow because to come to the realization that this is not the case is to admit to ourselves that we are failures, that nothing we have done counts for anything in a lasting sense, and that the world will be as it is when we are gone – unchanged and unapologetic. That conclusion compels us to abandon our belief in unicorns.
Or…
To conclude that we won’t fix everything is to come to the “grown – up” realization they we are human. We are not God. We did not, in fact, create anything, we have no control over anything, we cannot fix anything.
The Apostle finishes 1 Corinthians 13 thusly:
When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; [but] when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:11-13 NASB.
In his earlier life, Paul believed in unicorns, but when he met the LORD that day on the road to Damascus, his eyes saw the world differently forcing his beliefs to make a radical shift. More importantly, Paul saw himself differently. He realized that he was a broken man living in a fallen world, knowing with the prophet Isaiah, that he was living “among a people of unclean lips…” This realization came only because his new “eyes [had] seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” Isaiah 6:5 NIV.
But God didn’t leave Paul (or Isaiah for that matter) mournfully singing the song from “Hee Haw,” “Gloom, despair and agony on me; Deep dark depression, excessive misery…”
Rather, God gave Paul, Isaiah, and us a vision of reality, the reality the since He, God, is in charge, we don’t have to try to be. It’s not our job to create, control, or fix anything. It’s our job only to look to Christ and to realize that “13… now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV. Jesus said,
Come [unto] me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30 NIV.
When we allow God to give us the realization that an earthly unicorn, ie. perfect peace achievable through the efforts of people, including us, is an illusion, He shows us that “when the perfect (Christ) comes” there will be “peace on earth [and] good will toward men.”
Obviously, that time is not yet come, BUT IT WILL COME in God’s time. All we have to do is to love Him. How do we do that? By loving our fellow people.
Again Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, [the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the strangers, and the prisoners,] you did it for me.” Matthew 25:40 NIV.
It is true that we do not live in the “Age of Aquarius” with “sympathy and trust abounding” when “peace will guide the planets.” No, we live in a better Age, the Age of Christ, the King. The “now and the not yet.”
Believing that we live in a better age is infinitely superior to the belief in unicorns because it is reality not fantasy. Christ’s reality renders that of man not only a lie, but an unworthy lie. Realizing the truth, we can sing with Horatio G. Spafford:
When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
This is my prayer for you today.

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January 20, 2020 · 1:47 pm

“And I Will Give You Rest”

As a part of my annual pledge to my church, I pledged to pray for the church its staff and ministries on Mondays. With God’s help, I begin the satisfaction of that pledge today.

I noticed in going through my contacts list that there are about a dozen ministers, missionaries, and church staff, so I created a group styled “Pastors.”
Those on the prayer list come from different denominations, ages, seniority of staff appointments, missions, locations, and seasons of life.
Please know that I am praying for you today.

“Holy Father, today in this writing I offer up to you publicly the men and women herein above described as I have named them in private prayer as between You and me.

” Give them open hearts to feel the power of Your Gospel in their lives open eyes to see the need around them and the way You meet those needs, open ears to hear the special call You have for them today and open hands to do the work you have called each to do.

“In Jesus’ Name we pray, AMEN. ”

Matthew’s gospel speaks of situations that you probably have encountered in your ministry: labor and tribulation. But Matthew also speaks of rest. “Come into me, all you who are weak and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28. KJV.

What does it mean, “I will give you rest? How can we define “rest?” To whom is this promise applicable? Does this promise mean the same thing to people in different circumstances and different seasons of life?

Of Matthew 11:28, Mathew A.T. Robertson, in” Word Pictures” records:

Come unto me (deute pro me). Verses 28 to 30 are not in Luke and are among the special treasures of Matthew’s Gospel. No sublimer words exist than this call of Jesus to the toiling and the burdened… [He tells us that the phrase is a] perfect passive participle, state of weariness) to come to him.
[Christ] towers above all men as he challenges us. “I will refresh you” (kago anapausw ma). Far more than mere rest, rejuvenation. The English slang expression “rest up” is close to the idea of the Greek compound ana-pauw. It is causative active voice.

My special prayer for you today, then is “rest,” rest from the weekend’s labor and rest to strengthen you for the week to come.

REST.

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January 9, 2020 · 12:22 pm

Behold, Wise Men from the East Came.

“Behold, Wise Men from the East Came,” John’s 2019 Christmas story is attached hereto. Did you ever wonder who were the “Wise Men from the East,” commonly referred to as the Magi? Were there exactly three? From where did they come? Why did they come? How did they travel to Jerusalem and these onward to Bethlehem? Where did they acquire their precious gifts?

In this year’s story,” Poppi,” the loquacious grandfather takes his two”flaxen-haired granddaughters for a long walk in a hayfield and discusses such matters.

Of all John’s Christmas stories, this may be the midst readable. It certainly has fewer footnotes, and it needs no glossary.

I challenge you to read this story to your young children. Maybe, they’ll learn something. Maybe, you will, too

Don’t forget to leave a comment. I get paid by my sponsors based on comments. (That’s not true. I don’t get paid and I don’t have sponsors … yet.)

See also the following if you are a member.

https://www.academia.edu/s/57c9233a32

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November 4, 2019 · 11:47 am

God Sent a Squirrel: James 5, The Final Cut

The Finish. We finished up our Bible study of the Letter from James. As I have previously posted, I had some questions about prayer. Last night, I engaged in a mental or spiritual (if you will) exercise.

  1. Do you believe in God, yes or no?
  2. If no, this is over and the rest is mere sophistry.
  3. If yes, did God create everything that was created?
  4. If yes, and God created everything, did he create man and subsidiarity, did he create me?
  5. If yes, if God created everything including me, is it reasonable to assume that God would maintain communications with the “everything” (including me) that He created?
  6. Ig no, then you are likely a Deist. Go back to the 17th Century.
  7. If yes, and God wants to communicate with us, how does God maintain communication with His creation?

Henry Blackaby writes in Experiencing God, that God communicates “by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstance, and the church, to reveal himself, his purposes, and his ways.

  1. If God desires to maintain communication through, inter alia, prayer what form does that take?
  2. Is the form all of the ways that I have discussed in previous posts?

My Conclusion. My logical conclusion is that if God is real since He wrote a book telling us to pray, prayer must be real. The only question, then is am I going to obey him and, if so, in what manner?

Our modern and typical view of prayer is that we should have a morning prayer time in which we pour out our hearts to God. Maybe, there are other ways to pray, perhaps at other times of the day, and perhaps, in different manners.

The letter from James is, if nothing else, an exhortation to living the Christian Life in an attitude of doing rather than thinking. If this be the case, perhaps doing the prayer is the same as bowing the knee and expressing the prayer. Perhaps this is in the same manner as Gary Chapman writes that there are different love languages. Some of us express love verbally while others express love through different sorts of activities. I wonder if the same applies to prayer?

Bearing the above in mind, and especially considering the prayer methods I enumerated in my last post (inter alia q.v.,) may I submit that the method of prayer is not the important thing. The great 20th Century theologian-scholar Karl Barth was once asked by a woman at one of his lectures, “Professor Barth, did the snake really speak to Eve?” Barth replied coyly, “Madame, it’s not important whether the snake spoke. What’s important is that which the snake said.”

Likewise, It’s the act of prayer itself that is the important thing. It’s really not important to us how prayer works. It’s not even important what “works” means. What’s important is that we do pray. Every form of communication among people whether it is “pillow talk” between an intimate couple or semaphore wags between ships at sea, relies on an underlying relationship. I’ve often said and heard it said that “prayer is a communication” with God. Perhaps, I’d like to modify that a bit. “Prayer is the expression of a relationship with God.” May I submit that the deeper the prayer, the deeper the expression of the relationship; And the deeper the expression, the deeper the relationship.

Theologically speaking. To put it in theological terms, the 1648 Shorter Westminster Catechism gives as a guide the following:

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?

A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, [a] and to enjoy him forever. [b]

[a]. Ps. 86:9; Isa. 60:21; Rom. 11:36; 1 Cor. 6:20; 10:31; Rev. 4:11
[b]. Ps. 16:5-11; 144:15; Isa. 12:2; Luke 2:10; Phil. 4:4; Rev. 21:3-4

One cannot “enjoy” someone without having a relationship with that person. If one doesn’t have a relationship with another but derives some sort of “enjoyment” from that person, perhaps he is only “using” that person. I have already discussed in an earlier post how “using” a person robs him or her of their “personhood” and reduces that other person to an inanimate “thing.” God will neither be “used” nor “de-personified.” Eternally, He will maintain His personhood. Since God is most definitely a person, I suggest an a fortiori argument applies to Him.

The squirrel. I am now reduced from the divine argument to the ridiculous. God was revealing these thoughts to me (if you believe in that sort of thing) as I sat on my “prayer bench in my front yard. I was contemplating what I had said and wondering if I were merely spouting “religiobabble,” a term I used in the last post. I sat quietly on the bench just thinking. The yard was teeming with life: birds, trees rustling in the breeze, and squirrels chattering and chasing each other.

Presently, one of the squirrels stopped chasing and started walking up to me – very slowly. He looked me in the eye as he moved in. At first, I was somewhat afraid of this unusual behavior. Our squirrels are certainly accustomed to me and don’t typically pay much attention to me, though they keep a safe distance. But this squirrel was different. He was deliberately walking up to me. I wondered for a moment is he were rabid, but then I remembered my public health training that taught me that squirrels are rodents, and unlike mammals, they do not become infected with rabies -usually. Still, this was strange behavior.

The squirrel came to within about 5 feet of me and stopped. He looked straight up at me – eye to eye. I remember thinking these thoughts about whether prayer really existed and the whole of the argument I have made hereinabove, then it occurred to me. The squirrel was a messenger sent to tell me something. As I watched him intently for about five seconds, I sensed that the squirrel was simply saying to me, “Duh.” Then, having accomplished his divine effort, he scampered off.

Now I’m not saying that the squirrel talked like Balaam’s Donkey in Numbers 22:21-39. But I am declaring that God sent a message through the squirrel. He simply said, “Yes, it is as you say.” Of course, the squirrel put it more succinctly, “Duh!”

Thus, my prayer-loop is closed. I’ve come full circle. I’ve asked my questions and God has answered them. Will I question again? Probably. I believe God hopes so because asking and answering questions is part of the communication that defines a relationship. Above all other things. I want a relationship with God. I hope you do as well.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

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October 29, 2019 · 6:33 pm

Prayer, the First Cut: James 5

I wasn’t planning to post today, but as I became more involved in my personal journal, some questions began to arise about prayer.

In a couple of days, our Bible study on the Letter from James will get into prayer. I’m confused and hesitant about prayer. It seems clear from the Bible that we are urged to pray. In fact, James says near the end of Chapter 5 that “the prayer of a righteous man avails much.” That should be enough for me, but apparently, it is not. I’m am burdened by fatalism, “Que será, será.”

I have had some great prayer times, times when I am certain that God has heard me and He has responded. Why is it then, that I don’t desire prayer? Am I lazy? Is fatalism merely a cover for not caring enough about that for which I should pray to put in the time and mental effort to pray about it?

I’m in hopes that someone can straighten me out on this as it is most important. This is especially so if this “season” of my life is the one that I am supposed to be devoted to prayer and Bible study. I seem to be going around this subject in a circle. The default position is not to pray. I seem even to disdain prayer at times and think it “quaint” when other Christians talk about praying for people. I realize that this is a bad place to be.

I saw the video below that explains prayer to children. Is it that simple? It may be. See video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVHUx_EJnUs

Then I viewed a video where a pastor was saying the following about prayer.

  • Distinguish between sovereignty and determinism.
  • In the Bible, God responds to the prayers of His people.
  • Jesus commands us to pray
  • If we are to be like Jesus, Jesus prayed.
  • There are issues of the balance of sovereignty and free that are antinomies (my word.) We will never understand them.

C.S. Lewis said, “My free act [of prayer] contributes to the cosmic shape. That contribution is made in eternity or ‘before all world’; but my consciousness of contributing reaches me at a particular point in the time-series.” In other words, prayer does influence God in His eternity. Likewise, whether or not we pray influences Him.

So, it the purpose of prayer to “influence” God? If that is my purpose, am I trying to usurp the prerogative of God? Does that remove the emphasis from God and put it on me and my desires or perceived needs?

Herman Dooyeweerd, the early 20th Century Dutch philosopher, a neo-Calvinist in the manner of Kuyper, held that since God is eternal, He is “atemporal,” i.e. not within time since God created time. Man’s prayers, among other things, can be “supratemporal,” above prayer. I believe that Dooyeweerd is saying that prayer pierces the bubble of the time in which we are encased by God and can be considered “atemporally” by God. His response then comes back within the bubble of time at a mark of His choosing.

As I view it, this aligns with C.S. Lewis’ thought that prayers, when uttered or thought, escape from time and reach, or as the Bible says, “influence,” God.

E.M. Bounds held that God could not work His divine will until someone prayed for him to do so. Thus, after recovering from a severe head wound in the Civil War, he eventually retired to a life of prayer in which he would pray for hours on end.

Atheist, Christopher Hitchens argued that praying to a god which is omnipotent and all-knowing would be presumptuous. For example, he interprets Ambrose Bierce’s definition of prayer by stating that “the man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct god how to put them right.”

Speaking to the rationalist view of prayer, in this view, the ultimate goal of prayer is to help train a person to focus on divinity through philosophy and intellectual contemplation (meditation). This approach was taken by the Jewish scholar and philosopher Maimonides and the other medieval rationalists. It became popular in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic intellectual circles, but never became the most popular understanding of prayer among the laity in any of these faiths. In all three of these faiths today, a significant minority of people still hold to this approach.

In the experiential approach to prayer, ,  an approach with which I have spent some personal time, the purpose of prayer is to enable the person praying to gain a direct experience with God. This is prevalent in some forms of monasticism (as well as Zen.) Such prayer may be apophatic or cataphatic, that is, respectively, without the filter of the senses and with the filter of the senses. To further distinguish, apophatic prayer does not involve cognition while cataphatic prayer does involve cognition.

John Wesley, in addition to stressing individual “moral exertion,” thought that the religious experiences in the Methodist movement, paralleling the emphasis placed on idealism and experientiality of the Romantic Movement, were foundational to religious commitment as a way of life.

In the New Testament, prayer is presented as a positive command (Colossians 4:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:17). The People of God are challenged to include Christian prayer in their everyday life, even in the busy struggles of marriage (1 Corinthians 7:5) as it brings people closer to God. Jesus encouraged his disciples to pray in secret in their private rooms, using the Lord’s Prayer, as a humble response to the prayer of the Pharisees, whose practices in prayer were regarded as impious by the New Testament writers (Matthew 6:6). Jesus healed through prayer and expected his followers to do so also (Mark 16:17–18; Matthew 10:8).

Throughout the New Testament, prayer is shown to be God’s appointed method by which we obtain what He has to bestow (Matthew 7:7–11; Matthew 9:24–29; Luke 11:13. Further, the Book of James says that the lack of blessings in life results from a failure to pray (James 4:2).

Is it as simple as taking the Bible at its plain-text meaning, or am I trying to confuse the subject with “religiobabble?”

I’d appreciate your, thoughts since you spent your time reading this.

 

 

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October 28, 2019 · 6:45 pm

From Capitalism to California: James 5:1-6

From Capitalism to California.

I was reading an April article from The Washington Post Concerning the fear by some tech billionaires that the system they created by which they have become so wealthy may no longer be sustainable. If this happens, their fortunes will be lost. The article may be found at the following site.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/capitalism-in-crisis-us-billionaires-worry-about-the-survival-of-the-system-that-made-them-rich/2019/04/20/3e06ef90-5ed8-11e9-bfad-36a7eb36cb60_story.html

The first five verses of James Chapter 5 remind us that the problem cited hereinabove has existed ever since man began to keep written records.

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you. (James 5:1-6 NIV.)

In James’ day, as it was so many centuries earlier in the days of the Prophet Amos, the rich were getting richer by defrauding their poor laborers. The failure by these rich landowners to pay the daily wage was a continuing problem throughout the history of Israel. It was, in fact, one of the causes of their downfall to the Babylonians.

Further, this type of greed, no doubt, has contributed to the stereotype of the Jew as unscrupulously wealthy and callous towards his workers in his business dealings.

Like all stereotypes, this picture is exactly that, a stereotype. However, it does point out abuse in the system in the day of Amos on forward into the day of James. Obviously, this practice was not limited to Jews. To think so is to unfairly pass on a stereotype.

The modern stereotype is of the wealthy person of any (or no) religion who Is so caught up in protecting his wealth that he is completely, purposefully and unknowing ignorant of the hardship of his workers.

In a scathing op-ed piece written for the guardian, George Montbiot writes:

Capitalism’s failures arise from two of its defining elements. The first is perpetual growth. Economic growth is the aggregate effect of the quest to accumulate capital and extract profit. Capitalism collapses without growth, yet perpetual growth on a finite planet leads inexorably to environmental calamity…

The second defining element is the bizarre assumption that a person is entitled to as great a share of the world’s natural wealth as their money can buy. This seizure of common goods causes three further dislocations. First, the scramble for exclusive control of non-reproducible assets, which implies either violence or legislative truncations of other people’s rights. Second, the immiseration of other people by an economy based on looting across both space and time. Third, the translation of economic power into political power, as control over essential resources leads to control over the social relations that surround them.

Unfortunately, Mr. Montbiot admits that he does not have a solution to the problem. Perhaps, Mr. Montbiot Has not recently read his Bible, because the answer Is clear in that text. The same Bible which gives us the plaintiff cry of the Prophet Amos and of James the Just, condemning the unfair practices of the Entrepreneurs and capitalists of their days gives us a better way, the Way of Jesus.

Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; Love your neighbor as yourself.” While to the erudite writers of worldwide-circulation periodicals, these words might seem trite, time-worn, and a bit quaint, I would argue that these words live on to this very day and shall live on as Buzz Lightyear says, “to infinity and beyond.”

Jesus lives in the Christian’s heart. May I suggest that He also lives in the Christian’s brain, feet, and hands. An example of this life is found in the church in Petaluma County, California pastored by a friend of mine, Alan Cross, Petaluma Valley Baptist Church.

As you are no doubt aware, both northern and southern California are being consumed by wildfires at an unprecedented rate. In the northern California fires, the evacuation area has currently come to within 30 miles of Petaluma, California, the town which houses the church to which I refer.

While it would be a very good thing for the church members to pray for the evacuees, it is also a good thing to do as they have done, putting feet to their prayers. They have opened their church as a shelter for evacuees. They are currently at capacity. Every night, members of the church reside on the floors of the church’s facilities supervising evacuees. Every day, members of the church cook and bring in meals to feed the evacuees.

Pastor Alan posted on Facebook that a reporter from Sacramento came to view the church. The reporter asked Pastor Alan if they were doing these good things out of “survivor’s guilt.” Pastor Alan, himself a survivor Hurricane Katrina, and no doubt a bit taken aback, told the reporter that they were merely acting as Christians should act. They are putting into hands and feet Jesus’ words to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you; To love your neighbor as yourself.”

I’m not an economist. Neither am I a Socialist or a Communist, and neither do I have a better solution to the rape of the poor by the unscrupulous rich in a system of capitalism run amok, but I suggest that James the Just, who condemned the same thing in his time in James 5, and Amos in his time would agree with my assertion that if Christians acted like Christians and followed the words of Jesus (the Christ for Whom they are named,) the other things would take care of themselves.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

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October 25, 2019 · 12:05 pm

Grieve, Mourn, and Weep: James 4:7,9

Today the Spirit calls to our attention a seemingly strange exhortation to James’ Jewish-Christian brethren. In 4:7-9 he says (in summary,) submit yourself to God; come into God’s presence; wash your hands; and then grieve, mourn, and weep.

“Grieve, mourn, and weep,” really? This is a strange exhortation for people who should be the happiest on earth. We have been given the indescribable gifts of the very presence of God and eternal life, so why should we feel sad, let alone grieve, mourn, and weep?

May I submit that the answer lies not in the words, but in the REASONS for the words. The words are as follows.

James 4:7, 9 NIV. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you… Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Now, the reasons.

James presents us with a conundrum. We must be clean of heart and hands before we can approach God. But, how can we become so cleansed? James does not give us the answer and requires us to study other portions of the Bible for that answer.

In today’s passage, James presents us with another conundrum. How are we to appreciate and utilize God’s great temporal gifts to us as balanced against pride in the possession of these gifts and against the lack of temporal gifts by so many others, i.e., our relative wealth versus others’ poverty?

James begins with a Greek word for “grieve” that literally means “to bear affliction, hard times.” One can’t know or experience hard times when one lives in the lap of luxury. On the question of how do we balance enjoying God’s temporal gifts with not being controlled by them, Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.” Matthew 6:21.

To begin with, in this verse, James cautions us not to take pride in the gifts God has given us but rather to be sorrowful that others do not possess those gifts. James begins with a strange metaphor. He tells us rather than rejoice we should grieve. We should grieve over the fact that others do not possess the gifts that we do. Further, James tells us that we should remember our own sin. Remembering our sin should bring us to tears. Perhaps, if it does not, we are not truly sorrowful for our sins. To lose the ability to recognize and to be sorrowful for our sin is to take a step in the wrong direction toward greater sin and a step away from God and His will for our lives.

The word James uses for “mourn” comes from the Greek pentheos, the root word for penance and repentance, i.e. to be filled with remorse over and over again – to “keep on” being filled with remorse.

In his commentary on James, William Barclay writes:

In his demand for godly sorrow, James is going back to the fact that Jesus had said: ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted’ (Matthew 5:4; cf. Luke 6:20–6). We must not read into this passage something James does not mean. He is not denying the joy of the Christian life. He is not demanding that people should live a life filled with gloom in a shadowed world… [rather] He is pleading for a sober life in place of frivolity, and in doing so… he is describing not the end but the beginning of the Christian life.

Perhaps Professor Barclay’s “live a life filled with gloom in a shadowed world… is a reference to Plato’s “World of Shadows,” the prevalent Greek idea of death at the time of James’ writing. The mourning that James’ Jewish readers would know was found in their funerary customs. In Jesus’ time, Jewish funerary customs were fairly rigid. They included the tearing of the front of the mourners’ clothes and a type of weeping known as “wailing,” a half cry-half moan. The Jewish mourning period of seven days for the average person traditionally was accompanied by professional mourners who would play instruments such as flutes and chant funeral dirges. Rabbinical rules allowed for even the poorest person to have at least two flute-players provided, along with one mourning woman.

An example of such in found in Mark 5:38 where Jesus came to the home of the synagogue ruler whose daughter had just died. Mark writes that Jesus found much more than the minimum number of mourners: there was “a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly” (Mark 5:38 NIV.) That would have indicated a person of some elevated stature in the community or the family member of the high-ranking person.

All this funeral “folderol” could be summarized by saying that mourning for the dead was a big deal. It is to this “big deal” that James refers. He advises that when confronted with our sin, we should, inwardly, make a “big deal” of it because sin is a “big deal.”

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, gives us a visual picture of this type of mourning.

In 1739, James Whitefield, another founding father of Methodism, who had been preaching in the Welsh village of Kingswood called on John Wesley to help. Whitefield called upon Wesley to come out of his, Wesley’s, comfortable church pulpit and to use his preaching skills with the common miners and others in the open areas of the village as they gathered. This was a giant leap for Wesley, as until this time, he had preached primarily in church pulpits and in small, controlled gatherings. He had not preached to the masses. In fact, many of his Anglican denomination, believing that “church” was for the well-to-do, condemned preaching to the masses as a waste of time. They contended that the pastor’s efforts should be concentrated on caring for his immediate flock.

Nevertheless, Wesley, no doubt led by the spirit, heeded the call of Whitefield and proceeded on to Kingswood where he was confronted by a scene that made an indelible impression on him. He saw the people of the town, miners and their families, as they were coming in from work gathered to hear what he had to say.

He preached a sermon on the topic of the Sermon on the Mount. Wesley states later that he was taken aback at the tears of sorrow for sin etched in the coal dust on the faces of the miners in recognition of and sorrow for their sin. That is what James insists that his readers should feel.

Harkening back to verse 7 where James tells us to “draw near to God,” we come to the conclusion that when we do so, inexorably we come to the conclusion that when we draw near to God, the first thing we notice is the contrast between God’s holiness and our own sin. There is a famous word picture drawn from Isaiah 6 where the Prophet has a vision of the very throne room of God. In a masterful presentation of language, the prophet describes God and the beings around him. His reaction is perhaps a universal one. He stands not agape at the glorious sight, rather, the prophet falls on his face and utters the only thing he can think to say,

Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty. (Isaiah 6:5 NIV.)

Recognition of our sin is the first step to Salvation. The old, unnamed preacher once said, “Before you can get a man saved, you first have to get him lost.” Obviously, what the old preacher meant was that a man had to first come to an understanding of the depth of his sinful, lost condition and to his desperate need of a savior before he could turn to the Savior and accept the salvation freely offered to him.

James means that we, as individuals, must grieve for our own sin. If we are not able to grieve our own sin, perhaps we have become to be too comfortable with our sin. That is a dangerous state in which to find oneself. It begins a slippery slope to greater sin.

Note the progression that the Psalmist points out in Psalm 1:1.

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers . . . (Psalm 1:1 NIV.)

The one about whom the psalmist writes first walks in step with the wicked, the sinners. Then, he stops, stands, and looks at what the wicked are doing. Finally, he sits down with the wicked and finds himself doing the same thing the wicked are doing. Sorrowful, mourning, and weeping for our own sin eventually leads us to personal salvation. When we realize that there is a log in our eye, we must first pluck it out, then we can see with spiritual eyes. See Matthew 7:5. But that’s only half of James’ story.

As Whitefield and Wesley recognized, we are not the centers in the world. We have a duty, according to James, to see the sin of other people in the world and rather than condemning, we should grieve, mourn, and weep for their sinful condition. But there is still more.

In the Gospel of John in chapter 11, the Apostle gives us the story of Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from the tomb. As you will remember the story, Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus that their brother and Jesus’ dear friend, Lazarus, was sick unto death. Jesus waits for 2 days before he leaves to attend to Lazarus. The journey to Bethany, near Jerusalem, would take two days as Jesus and his disciples were in the Galilee. By the time Jesus and the disciples arrived, Lazarus had been dead for four days.

There was a common belief among the Jews that the spirit of the dead person circled around the deceased for 3 days to see if he would revive and then flew away. Thus, after the third day, the person was absolutely and positively dead.

Jesus and the disciples arrived on the scene the day after Lazarus died. Jesus met the family members, four days into their seven-day period of mourning. He consoled them and asked them to take him to the tomb. At the site, Jesus gazed at the stone covered the cave. In verse 35, the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept.” This was not a show, not a façade. These were tears of true sorrow. Lazarus was His friend as were the sisters, Mary and Martha. Jesus mourned as did the family members.

This is exactly what James writes about. He wants us to mourn our sins. But there is more. Our mourning should lead to action.

In John 11, Jesus does something remarkable. Out of His grief, mourning, and tears, he is spurred to action. The King James Version captures Jesus’ words and actions with great poetry. “And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.” (John 11:34 KJV.) I have heard it said, perhaps with a little hyperbole, that had Jesus not prefaced “come forth” with the name, “Lazarus,” all the tombs within the sound of Jesus’ voice would have opened and the dead would have “come forth.” I would add “like a zombie apocalypse.”

Be that as it may, Lazarus hopped out of the Grave still wrapped in the grave clothes. The Movie, “Jesus of Nazareth,” captures this drama of this even in the following clip. See the following. https://youtu.be/L0IbOJ0Acmg .

Lazarus was the living proof of the power of Jesus’ words. That is exactly the picture of where our mourning and grief should leave us. James urges us to grieve, mourn, whale, and weep for the sin of other people. But then, like Jesus, we should do something about their sin.

Obviously, we cannot save them from their sins. But we know Someone who can, that someone is Jesus. It then becomes incumbent upon us to lead them to Jesus, the One who can save them from their sins.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

 

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October 23, 2019 · 9:49 pm

Cleansing the Priest; Cleansing the Sinner

James the Just, half-brother of Jesus and earliest Christian church leader in Jerusalem (after the Apostle also named James, brother of John, was beheaded by Herod Agrippa and Peter and some other early Church leaders fled Jerusalem,) wrote the New Testament Letter from the James to the Jewish diaspora scattered throughout the Mediterranean Basin.

Today the Spirit calls to our attention to but one verse found the Letter from James verse 4:8. “Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. “

Christians have the greatest privilege of all, individual access to God. In Old Testament times, the right of approach to God was solely the province of the priests. (Exodus 19:22.) In that time, the presence of God was thought to be contained in the Ark of the Covenant that was housed in the Inner Sanctum, the Sanctum Santorum, the Holy of Holies. If you have seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, you have seen a representation of the Ark.

At God’s order, the ancient Hebrews housed the Holy of Holies in a tent called the Tent of Meeting or the Tabernacle. There, the Ark was separated from the remainder of the tent and later, in the temple, by a veil, a thick curtain woven in a pattern of cherubim, flying angelic beings.

Even the priest was not permitted to enter the presence of God there in just any ordinary manner. He was to come near to God only in the prescribed manner and only for the purpose of making atonement (setting relationships with God aright) for “sin-stained people.” (Ezekiel 44:13). The “sinner” who needed atonement in that time was any member of Israel, the chosen people of God; each and all of them collectively and individually. This atonement had to be performed annually.

The Spirit guides us now to New Testament times as there are differences in the OT and NT passages cited supra.

The first difference is that in James’ letter, the Greek word for “sinner” has a darker, more personal meaning. James does not address the average man or woman – we could say, “The Average Sinner-in – the-Street” – but the “hamartēlos,” the hardened sinner, the one whose sin is obvious. This word refers to the sin that lawyers would call “open and notorious.” Likewise, the word refers to the person living a sinful lifestyle.

There is a second, and happier, difference. In James’ time, as in ours, we need no priest. Through the work of Jesus Christ, any believer can come boldly before the throne, the very presence, of God, where such a person will unfailingly find mercy and grace to help in times of need (Hebrews 4:16).  We are the priests, and Christ is our High Priest. (I Peter 2;9, Revelation 1:6.) The writer of Hebrews tells us that though there was a time, now “dead,” when only the high priest might enter the Holy of Holies to make atonement for our sin, we have a new and a living way, a better hope by which we draw near to God. (Hebrews 7:19). But there is a problem.

Then as now, only a person who is perfect and clean can stand before a Holy God. For any time and in any generation, the Psalmist proclaims, “Who may ascend the mountain of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart.” (Psalm 24:3-4 NIV.) “Ay, there’s the rub.” William Shakespeare: Hamlet: Act 3 Scene 1 Page 3, (Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy.) How does one become “clean?”

In OT times, the priest first had to meet a high standard of racial, lineal, and moral purity. He had to be a Jewish man who was a descendant of Aaron of the tribe of Levi. Leviticus sets out in exquisite (some would say, “excruciating”) detail these requirements. Having met all these requirements, the priest then had to undergo ritual cleansing. The specifications for ritual cleansings were set out at length in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy in much too much detail for this writing. Suffice it to say. The priest had to clean himself from head to toe, inside and out, upside and down, backward forwards, and – you get the picture.

Then, his clothes had to be the right kind and cleansed the proper way. This extreme ceremonial cleansing was undertaken each and every time that priest approached the Holy of Holies to make atonement. The practice began sometimes around the 10th Century BC and continued until the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in AD 70 by the Romans.

Back to James’ (and our) time. William Barclay writes in his commentary on James,.

Biblical thought demands a fourfold cleansing. It demands a cleansing of the lips (Isaiah 6:5–6). It demands a cleansing of the hands (Psalm 24:4). It demands a cleansing of the heart (Psalm 73:13). It demands a cleansing of the mind (James 4:8).

Even having done with all the volumes of OT rules and regulations about cleansings, we are still left with Hamlet’s dilemma, how can we possibly be clean enough to stand before a Holy God?

There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that we cannot. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 3:10.

As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Romans 3:10 NIV.)

Here’s the good news. Paul continues in vv. 23-26.

[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

The answer to how a human being can become clean enough, pure enough, sanctified enough, holy enough to stand before a Holy God is one word: “Jesus.” The writer of Hebrews continues Paul’s answer.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16 NIV.)

Clearly, “Jesus” is the answer to the conundrum, but, how does one appropriate this priestly blessing – the grace bestowed by God in the Person of Jesus? Acts 16:24-40 details the account of a sinner-man who asked just such a question. That passage also gives him – and us – the answer. After Paul and Silas had been thrown in jail in the City of Philippi, God sent an earthquake to rattle the chains loose and the doors open. The chief jailer, the man in charge who would be held mortally responsible for the “jail-break,” was amazed to find that all the prisoners were still in their cells. He recognized the power of Jesus and Jesus’ Holy Spirit, and the jailer burst forth the succinct and all-important question of all the ages.

And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God. (Acts 16:29-34 NIV.)

Now you know the answer to the question of the ages, how to cleans a sinner, even the “hamartēlos,” how to cleanse me, and how to be cleansed yourself from the vice-grip of sin. “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”

One more question for you comes from the words of the old Hymn published by Elisha A. Hoffman in 1878, “Are You Washed in the Blood?”

Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?                                                              Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?                                                                          Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour?                                                                      Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?

Are you washed in the blood,                                                                                                    In the soul-cleansing blood of the lamb?                                                                                  Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?                                                      Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?

OK, it’s that’s more than one question – but you get the gist. I’ll summarize. “What’s your answer?

So let it be written, so let it be done.

 

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