Tag Archives: Jesus

The Darkest Days

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Jesus gave them plenty of warning–he said he was going to die. He warned of betrayal and grief. He told them things they did not want to hear.

Even so, the space between the last supper and the resurrection was almost unbearable.

Almost because he took the unbearable part.

Just short of unbearable.

That is the promise of Christian life–it might get pretty awful, but it will never be as awful as the atonement.

The grief of the disciples seems so dark. So painful. And their brokenness was pretty broken.

But

It is finished

And Sunday is one Son-rise away.

A Terrible Christian

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The essay appeared to be heartfelt–urging people to brook the barriers of their resistance to organized religion and find a church, any church…because churches do good things.

Do they?

I spent the better part of my (Christian) life believing this. I still do, generally, on principal.

There was one thing missing from the impassioned church essay. One Person, actually.

You should go to church to see Jesus.

You should do everything to see Jesus.

“Christian” means “little Christ.” What happens to us when we excise Christ from our identity? All that is left is the “little” in us.

It is not easy to follow Jesus. Recently I gave a dramatic depiction of Jesus to someone who would definitely identify as a believer. This person rejected my gift with forthright disgust.

Did not actually watch the DVD….

I thought, huh…not an unusual reaction really.

How many of us would dare stand at the foot of his disfiguring Cross? How many of us have the courage to identify with our naked, broken, bloodied Savior?

I am a terrible Christian, unwashed and unlovely. But no one said redemption would be pretty.

Just absolutely essential for life
Eternal life.

The Story of an “Unplanned” Pregnancy

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I was in a barn the other day, marveling at the smell. I have given birth to all my babies in temperature and germ-controlled hospitals.

I am not going to lie, I would not want to have a baby in a barn then put him in a feeding trough to sleep.

I love animals, but the whole thing seems so desperate and impoverished.

Surely the Lord of the universe could have given the kid a motel room?!

The birth of Jesus was deeply inconvenient, fraught with the appearance of impropriety, and a life-long exile from paradise for the Baby in the manger.

To many people his life would look like a mistake, but they would be wrong. The birth of this child in the barn was the most important in history.

An event I take quite personally. My life and hope returned, my spiritual debt paid. My life sentence taken by Another.

What would I do without you, Jesus?

No One Is that White

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I have clung to this verse rather feverishly through the last 4 years:

Isaiah 53:12 (NIV)
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Because I am a transgressor
And he was numbered with me

It really does not feel good being a transgressor. First there is the spiritual malaise of sin. Then there is the divide it creates between me and God. Next there is this fun fact: while all regular humans are sinners, we pretend we are not.

Jesus was no regular human.

He was poor, dark, and hated. His nickname was “bastard.”

He bore our shame.
He bore my shame.

Isaiah 53 is a chapter as hard as obsidian, so painful, so crucial. And it was written by a guy who walked around naked for 3 years just because God told him to do it.

I figure the naked walking was God’s writing seminar. Not fun or pretty, but soaring, redemptive, essential.

Do you know Jesus?

If you do, you know the only color that matters when describing him is blood red. Blood shed for me, one miserable transgressor.

And if you don’t? Walk that road, that narrow road he lights for us, to the Cross that sets us free.

Isaiah 1:18

A Damned Good Sermon

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This morning I listened to an excellent sermon.

The pastor had a great pastor voice–warm, sincere, sonorant.

The text was a biggie–Abraham and Isaac and the God who provides.

The sermon points were worth writing down, like a good recipe.

But.

But if my calculations are correct the sermon was delivered when the pastor was sliding down a hill of temptation, sin, and loss that he would not survive.

Good sermon. Worth playing at a funeral.

The truth of the sermon does not change if the speaker is not following the recipe.

But his willful hypocrisy will make the valley harder for his community, his family, his children.

By contrast Jesus preached a sermon and then exceeded the scope of that sermon by miles, years, eternity, and hell.

That is right: Jesus was damned for us.

We will be judged by the measure of our lives or his, our words or his.

I choose the God of life because he walks a path of sacrifice and love and then looks over his shoulder and says,

c’mon, follow me.

Follow Him, walk the hard road all the way to life…everlasting.

Who Will Save Us?

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I drove by the outlet mall on Black Friday; people were parked on the grassy margins, everywhere.

I go to the store; the area by the checkout is bunkered with coffee makers and candy canes.

I see pictures of Santa Claus everywhere. Movies about with saccharine messages about the “Christmas spirit.”

Like that is a real thing.

The truth is a poor teenager in a barn laboring to bring forth a child. If Santa did not give Jesus a decent hotel room to be born in, who are we to expect xboxes and flat screen tvs?

We are defined by gods and idols or…we are defined by that little child in the manger.

Somethings are either/or propositions:

Life or death

Angels or demons

Truth or fiction

A small tribe on the outpost of history waited for thousands of years for news of their King, the God who saves.

And it has taken us a cool 50 years to forget he is the reason for this celebration–the only Christmas gift that will matter forever.

When we are weak

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This was over a decade ago. A small storefront church, a young mother speaking.

She spoke about a children’s song–

Jesus loves me this I know/for the Bible tells me so/little ones to him belong/they are weak, but he is strong/

The song is so simple, so elemental, but it is only a portion of a longer hymn few of us know or sing.

We like the idea of Jesus being strong until he requires something of us.

We like the idea of Jesus being strong until he requires us to acknowledge our weakness.

We are weak. All of us. There is not a living creature on the planet who can stave off death, yet we cling to the illusion of our self-sufficiency.

The young mother that day was focused on the call of the Gospel–one man able to save us from death forever, and how to bind that good news to her children, all God’s children.

How many times have you heard a person cry out in grief and pain and then seen people answer–

stay strong/you are strong.

No. You are not. None of are. We are weak. That is the point–we are weak. He is strong.
So when sin and grief and pain hit you hard remember this: the song is true.

We are weak
He is strong
Only his strength can save us
From the swirling darkness of this
Dying world

My Joy

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John 2:9-10 (NIV)
and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside [10] and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

Pour the water first
Jesus is coming
Joy.

Reading Comprehension

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Sometimes things I write will stick in my mind. Today it was Jesus whipped men for less.

I wrote it and then I really thought about the implications.

Jesus whipped people. And not only was it not sin, it was holiness.

Why did he whip them? They were using the name and worship of God to lie and defraud people. The worst sins are often cloaked in the church. We lie, cheat, and steal in the house of God.

But He does not forget.

We cannot see Jesus as he really is unless we can see all of him –suffering and beaten on the Cross, angered and righteous in the temple.

Our God is a man, but no ordinary man. And just as most of us have not experienced enough of his love, his tenderness, his mercy, none of us has really experienced the full challenge of his holiness.

One day
One day it is coming.
The clean fire of love.

Bread for stones

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Jesus gives a powerful analogy for the love of God.

He said that human parents are evil but they still give their children good things. Fish instead of snakes. Bread not stones to eat. He then completes the thought–if we are so messed up but we still do right by our kids. How much more does God bless, love, and nurture?

Great, unless your parent doesn’t do those things.

What if your mother gives you a snake? What if your father gives you stones for bread? What then?

God is enough. He allows His precious children to be raised by wolves, but He sends a Lamb to save us.

Stones always remind me of Jesus. I think about the weight of small stones and imagine the size, weight, and impossibility of the stone in front of the tombs.

God gave his own most beloved son a stone. And that Son emerged alive. The Bread of Life.

Stones for bread.
Bread for stones.
Always Jesus.