Category Archives: grief

One Verse at a Time

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When you get to the hard stuff, slow down. And nothing feels harder than being told to die.

Jesus says he is going to be rejected by all legitimate authority and then he is going to die. Then he says, follow me.

Mark 8:34 (NIV)
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

I can think of few things I dislike more than denying myself and carrying my cross. But I gotta follow Jesus! I can’t imagine life without him. He is love made real.

Why would love made real tell me to trudge to my own death?

I used to think the picture of this verse was Jesus with his big ol’ real cross and his followers with their smaller crosses. Then I realized that when he tells us to take up our cross it is the back end of the Cross he carried to his death. He carried my cross up that hill. When he tells me to pick it up he is just telling me to participate as a pedestrian observer in a drama he played out for real and keeps.

Imagine my cross without him.

Get thee…

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So Peter is a fisherman, a dude, Jesus’ sidekick and the recent winner of the name-that-king-of-kings contest.

Then this:

Mark 8:31-33 (NIV)
He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. [32] He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. [33] But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

Oh. Bummer.

Things often do not go according to our plans, but few things were going to look more disastrous than the impending crucifixion. Peter said, naw! Can’t be! And Jesus cuts to the truth fast–you gotta see God’s plan.

Nothing takes more faith than believing an obscure Israeli construction worker can save you by dying.

The things of God–mysterious, often dazzling hard to watch. But absolute game changers.

Absolute
Game
Changers.

Get thee…

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So Peter is a fisherman, a dude, Jesus’ sidekick and the recent winner of the name-that-king-of-kings contest.

Then this:

Mark 8:31-33 (NIV)
He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. [32] He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. [33] But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

Oh. Bummer.

Things often do not go according to our plans, but few things were going to look more disastrous than the impending crucifixion. Peter said, naw! Can’t be! And Jesus cuts to the truth fast–you gotta see God’s plan.

Nothing takes more faith than believing an obscure Israeli construction worker can save you by dying.

The things of God–mysterious, often dazzling hard to watch. But absolute game changers.

Absolute
Game
Changers.

If you believe in sin

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I have been stalling on the medial point of the gospel of Mark. It is a deep discourse on what it means to be fallen and need a savior. It is tough stuff.

But…

Some of us don’t believe in sin anymore. Unless we are the victims.

Non-monogamy is now a lifestyle choice. Pornography is an accepted part of our culture. The last definitive points of outrage in the human condition appear to be (not murder, not aggression against the innocent)..consumerism and intolerance.

Yep. I am not even sure about the consumerism. Our houses are our gods. Our couches: our monuments.

How do you begin to hear a man discourse on the desperate human condition if you doggedly refuse to admit your desperation?

At that point the only despair is in the Cross. The only tragedy his death. We become angry at the notion of a saving God.

Do you need a Redeemer?

If you answer no, enjoy. The house of this world is left to you. A billion shards of plastic in a dying sea. And that is all.

Faith.

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Last night I saw a meme for “love never fails” from first Corinthians.

Love wins
Love endures
Love triumphs
Love is stronger than death

Sounds pretty good, right?
Sounds crazy good.
Ok, sounds ridiculous.

Love triumphed in Nazi Germany? In Hiroshima? In Rwanda? Hardly seems to have…

We have to fess up. The Bible is just a bad Hallmark greeting card if love fails.. And there are times when it seems to be coming dead last in the race.

Times indeed. But that is the point. For love to win in the end, win in the world, love has to win in me.. I have to not only believe in love, I have to stake my fate to it. Hard to believe an abstraction can win like that–over the wreck of human history.

What can a single word do? Can it win anything? Can a word truly triumph?

Yes. If the word is Jesus.

On a clear day…

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Mark 8:27 (NIV)
Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”

Imagine you had magic binoculars. When you put them to your face you could see forever. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. Opera glasses.

Jesus did not need them. He can see the vast canvas of our history. Mark tells us “Caesarea Philippi” for a reason–the weight of history.

As Jesus walked over this place he could see the men and nations who would lay their claims to this place. He could tell you not just about the Greeks and their panic god, he could tell you about the Romans and the Muslims who would follow after.

We men want nothing more than glory. That is Caesarea Philippi.

He, on the other hand, volunteers for shame and humiliation, torture and obscurity for me.

Swimming

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We went east instead of west. We cancelled the trip we had planned for the one we had known could happen.

Well, I knew.

But even I had not anticipated the jackknifed truck across the bridge, the hours of waiting and praying as my father died hours away from me.

I had to let him go.

We stopped in Mobile, exhausted, not there yet. They were so kind, they gave us snacks. Snacks at midnight.

The next morning we knew he was gone. I swam laps in the hotel pool. Not just for grief but because you had a fit, one of your usual hold-my-family-hostage-in-a-public-space fits.

So I swam while you took a time out. Then I reminded you that staging a tantrum at an indoor swimming pool on the day of your adopted grandfather’s untimely demise was a weenie move.

After all that happened then and after I know…I might as well have been speaking Swahili.

Forgiveness. Tough gig.

Milk Names

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I once lived in a country rich in cultural rules and ancient traditions. One I remembered: give your children ugly nicknames so that the spirits will not snatch them away. Seemed logical.

As a Christian I adapted this idea somewhat–live in a broke-down house, even live a broke-down life, but treasure the eternal.

So I did. My house was a mess. My hair was a mess. My children were bright orbs of light. I thought I had it mapped out.

But I had not calculated the cost of broke-down minds in our broke-down life. Everything like shattered glass in their heads.

I am shocked by the damage. I survey the damage. No easy answers, only the beacon of truth–our lives themselves are the houses, mansions, temples, of the eternal God of love.

Who will give us our real
Names
Someday.