Just an ordinary looking guy with an odd refugee backstory who comes along, works with wood, talks some smack, heals the crowd, dies for all, inexplicably
Rises again.
The end-the beginning
for all of us.
Elevator Pitch Savior
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Tag Archives: redemption
Monsters of righteousness
Imagine them as you will but never
Assume your scepticism will make them
Mythological again
In the smoke of our discarded daughters
/commerce of indifference
Shoots craps in crowded rooms
Sweat-palmed cash for common shame
Summon these
Monsters of righteousness
From this fire we
have made of love.
The lottery ticket paradox
I have a bag of parables and pet theories I used to bore my youth group with…regularly.
One of them was the lottery ticket theory, which goes something like this:
If a rude person verbally assaulted you in a parking lot and insisted that they were handing you a winning lottery ticket you might be put off by the assailant, but you would be a fool not to take the ticket and check the numbers.
Jesus is that ticket.
We Christians are absolute morons–rude, pushy, myopic, prejudiced, morally flaccid.
You name it, we flub it.
But Jesus did not. He flubbed nothing. He gives us back our lousy, flea-bitten lives, whole and restored.
Why bother restating an old story from my former life?
Because I believe.
Because I still believe.
Numbered with the transgressors
Not quite four years ago.
It was a watershed moment. I looked around the courtroom at the other bewildered parents, frankly wishing that my (adopted) son was just a weed dealer or boat thief.
He had done so much worse, and to people who were too young, innocent, and precious to deserve such terrible affliction.
I whined to God–why?! Why me? Why us? Why this?
Too much to bear…
That was my line of thinking until steady eyed Jesus reminded me of the thing He had done for me–
…numbered with the transgressors
I was numbered with the transgressors.
The message was clear–if He, blameless God, could be counted with the evildoers, I could stand this terrible heartbreak and shame.
After all, He was numbered for me, an actual transgressor.
We often forget what misery we have bought but not yet fully paid for in our rebellion against Love.
Love, heartbroken for His children. All His children.
How to be a failure
First of all, let me restate for the record:
I am an egregious sinner and a (to quote my adopted daughter)–“failed parent.”
So yeah. Don’t be me:)
Second, a story…
When I first became a parent it was to a 12 year old boy who had been through hell.
He flipped out fast, threw rocks at our neighbors’ cars, and his caseworker told us our only option was to call the police.
Our next two charges we kept, despite the fact that they screamed at the top of their lungs 2-3 hours a day.
We lived in a cute little neighborhood. Imagine our neighbors’ chagrin when the howling started and their tremendous relief when we finally moved.
Imagine being young, reasonably cute and surrounded by a maelstrom of LOUD everywhere you went.
I still can’t believe we did it.
But we did.
Because we believed
In Jesus
Still believe, actually.
Before I wrote this I asked my oldest biological child how how life would have been different for this child and the family if I had followed advice we have encountered over and over about hiding our adopted son’s predations.
The answer was a chilling thing–
If I had, if we had, hidden the crimes against our children and supported their predator, we would have unleashed darkness on our children.
In other words–we had to tell the truth, be the failures in the eyes of family, church, and community to succeed in the one thing that matters–showing our children they are precious.
In fact I would say this to all of them the same–you are precious.
And if you are a threat to yourselves or others I will be the first person to call the police.
Because, my dear, we all deserve the law–it’s gravity and protection.
Beneath a grim and unavoidable Cross.
The character of the king
Pastor Chuck Jacob preached a sermon recently on a particularly amazing portion of Isaiah 52 and 53. Much of Isaiah sees the future to the face of Jesus. And thanks to Handel, much of what Isaiah saw is put to soaring music as well as words of hope.
But. There is one small catch. Maybe two. First, Isaiah is thought to have been martyred for his prophecy, and second….
Jesus gives us hope by becoming our disfigurement. That is what Pastor Jacob describes–God made flesh and then made Calamity for us.
I often think about The Princess Bride Not only does Westley endure the unendurable in the quest for love, he then gives one of the most apt descriptions of disfigurement ever–
Wrong! Your ears you will keep and I will tell you why…so that…”Dear God, what is that thing?” will echo in your perfect ears. That is what “to the pain” means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.
Tough stuff for a romantic fable, but an efficient echo of redemptive agony–Jesus became disfigured and unrecognizable as the real embodiment of the sin, filth, violence, and casual cruelty of Man. We, if we dare to look, see him as a monster as he dies for us. We fail to recognize the monstrous signature of our own clawing sins.
He goes to hell disfigured. But what would be a dreadful, eternal quietus for us is the force of redemptive power–him for us, God poured out for me.
Part 1 of 2
The Marriage Vow
Matthew 22:12-13 KJV
[12] And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. [13] Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 6: 21 NIV
[21] For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
This is you.
I know people would prefer I not write or talk about what happened to my family. I know because they tell me to shut up. I know because they tell other people I am a liar or crazy or at fault. The lines of thinking are terrible and wretched. But the abuse itself….
Is haunting.
I write about what it feels like to have adopted a predator because predators are common. Yesterday I saw an arresting picture of a “shark circle”–hundreds of fish in schools carefully leaving a distance of a few yards between themselves and the shark.
You gotta know a shark to avoid a shark. What if the sharks could assume the shape of an ordinary fish? What would happen to the schools?
I write to stay off of drugs. If I articulate the enduring pain and hauntedness of what happened to my babies I am debreeding a deep and terrible wound. I don’t know if it will ever truly heal.
My adopted son made himself out to be safe. But he wasn’t. My children were victimized. That does not go away.
But I think somehow that if I cry out, mourn, and wail for the things we have lost in trust, hope, and community perhaps my children will not have to.
Or at least they will not grieve alone.
The second day
I remember people exclaiming that I had lost weight. When I told them why I had lost weight they would look stricken. It was a striking story.
But the truth was worse than I ever could explain.
I could get past the discomfort of being punched, kicked, and bitten by my adopted daughter. I could mitigate her curses..and her violent imaginary friend.
I could push through the shock and discomfort others felt when I told them our children had been abused by her brother, my adopted son.
I could live beneath the heavy weight of the years my children spent in the company of a child abuser.
But I could never adequately describe the devastation created by our own family and others we had known for years.
Family was the worst. They made excuses. Coddled the perps, lashed out at young, very young victims.
Some were dismissive. Some skeptical. Some cruel.
Even after years and deliberate distance, their reactions still shock me.
I can still describe the diet.
It is simple:
Eat sorrow where once there was bread
Eat loss where there used to be community
Eat anger in the place where the family should stand
In a circle around their littlest victim
Dogs for children.
Dogs. For. Children. Indeed.
Mark 1: the rough road
Mark 1:12-13 (NIV)
At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, [13] and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
Up too late. So what do I do? Resort to Bible study. It is legal, free, and happens to be at the heart of my search.
I don’t like to fast. I don’t like to talk about fasting (because I am not good at it). But here it is–Jesus, God, gets baptized by his cousin and pointed out as God and then spends 40 days fasting in the wilderness.
No fun.
For a long time…
No fun.
Why?
Jesus was baptized for the mirror opposite of my baptism. I was baptized to acknowledge my rightful deadliness, my death sentence, and the helplessness of my condition.
Jesus was baptized to be me through the stuff I can’t do or handle or be.
Sinless God becomes broken me.
It is like we change lives, coats, passports. His lets me into heaven and mine lets Him into hell.
Reason enough to fast. Reason enough to stay awake late at night, scanning the horizon for the face of my savior. My God. The Ransomer.
Carrying Light 