Tuesday, March 8, 2011

5th Step

The 5th Step

the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'"(Mark 1:3).

Who does the voice belong to?

What is the significance of the wilderness forum?

How does one prepare the way of the Lord?

How does one make his paths straight?

Level 1: the voice is the voice of the messenger, the representative of the Lord.
The wilderness is the domain of a dessert God. One prepares the way of the Lord by teaching the people to genuflect, to show the proper respect to the arriving sovereign. The people make the Lord’s paths straight by rolling out the red carpet and greeting him with pomp.

Level 2: The voice is not simply the voice of a messenger, but actually embodies all the utterances of the prophets and patriarchs. The voice is the continuation and conclusion of over a thousand years of prophetic tradition. The voice is that of Elijah who has come again. The wilderness is not simply the place where God meets and makes covenants with people and nations. The wilderness is the middle ground between God’s domain of the heavens or Eden and the human domain of the cities, where everything is made, fashioned and controlled by human beings. One prepares the way of the Lord by initiating the process of dying to the world. The Lord needs others who will following in his path and imitate the way in which he breathed his last (Mark 15: 39). Making the Lord’s paths straight means discerning and highlighting the contrast between the human reality of senses and law and the Godly reality of spirit and grace.

Level 3: The voice is the voice of God, heard in the wilderness where human customs, laws and traditions cannot interfere with its pure transmission. John prepares the way of the Lord, by receiving the Lord’s message, proclaiming that message and dying for that message. John makes the Lord’s paths straight by eventually provoking the question of: “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin”(Mark 11:30)? The answer which the Pharisees are unable to proclaim is both. The good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God is that God and human beings, the heavens and the earth are reunited.

The fifth step is complex. First we must clear space in our lives to make a wilderness where the everyday human concerns and business of life cannot intrude and garble the transmission of God’s pure voice. Secondly, we must listen to God’s voice and obey its command to prepare the Lord’s way by dying to the world. We prepare the Lord’s paths by allowing the Lord to seamlessly integrate with us.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

The fourth step

The 4th Step

"See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way”(Mark 1:2).

Who are the messengers?

Where are the John the Baptizers?

How do we perceive them?

What is the way?

Why does the way need to be prepared?

Level 1: An important dignitary, ruler, king or God is coming and a messenger must go ahead of him so people will be prepared to receive him properly.

Level 2: An important person is about to enter a foreign environment and needs someone to go ahead and obtain the necessary provisions and knowledge of the terrain.

Level 3: The Lord of the universe is about to send his son into an environment like Sodom where Godliness cannot be tolerated. Just as Lot was already established in Sodom before God’s messengers showed up at the gate, a righteous man must be established in the world before Jesus Christ can arrive at its gate. Unlike Sodom where Lot and the messengers are saved and Sodom is destroyed, here, the messenger and the son of God will die, while the earth is saved. The way is the way to death.

The fourth step is to recognize that we are preparing and being prepared to die, at the hands of the world.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Week 3 Review

Week Three Results

There were times during this last week when I definitely felt discouraged. I felt like my connection to God and dedication the opening myself to serve him was growing dimmer by the hour. These discouraging periods are probably common who seek a closer relationship with Jesus Christ. They remind us that we are human and that no matter how dedicated we are or how persistently we seek God’s perfection, our inclusion in his holiness is an act of grace. Professor Paul Chilcote provides the metaphor of us chasing after the train to heaven, but never quite being able to catch up with it. According to Chilcote the moment we fall down in genuine exhaustion is the moment of grace when God picks us up and places us on the train to heaven.

There were also electrifying times of goodness and peace, times when I felt like I was at the core of what God wanted me to be doing on earth. Examples include being able to read Bible Stories with my son, having good prayer and conversation with my wife, playing with my children at the park and being in deep fellowship with my small group.

Good Habits:

Intercessory Prayer: I’ve become more disciplined, having a list that I start with each morning, rather than just praying as certain people come to mind.

Times of prayer that open me to serving God: As I mentioned last week, I’m having trouble in engaging in deliberately set aside periods of time every hour. I do think that deliberately opening myself to God and asking him how I can serve him is becoming more engrained in the way I’m living my life. I am particularly aware of this phenomena when my wife and children are asking my for something. It seems like my habitual instinct to say no or limit what I will give is gradually melting away. I am also mindful of it during my intercessory prayers, asking God to open paths for me to love and serve him through loving and serving others.

Uncharted Prayer: This is the kind of pray in which I am not speaking, or just repeating one word, like “Father” over and over again. This is a type of prayer that I don’t plan. It just comes upon me, often when I’m praying for someone else or in worship. Here I receive images and insights, in the presence of the Lord.

Bible Study: Finding time for devotional reading outside the Gospel of Mark, which I wrestle with in all my writing has been challenging for me in these last few years. Last week I took the suggestion of my small group leader and spent some time with Proverbs 3. That time was fruitful.

Fasting: There have been two times in this last week that I have felt a call to fast. Both of these calls have occurred when I got up early in the morning and immediately started to pray and write. The first time I lost my way and started eating as much out of habit as out of disobedience. Today, I am hoping to fast till my family’s evening meal. When I was a young man I spent a summer volunteering at a missionary training camp in North Eastern Alabama. I got in the habit of fasting from sundown on Saturday till the evening meal on Sunday night. During that summer, I learned that fasting creates a void for God to fill. It was perhaps from this perspective that Jesus Christ said, “my food is to do the work of him who sent me and to complete his work”(John 4:34). Perhaps God will give me the grace to complete this day’s fast. (Fast Completed Feb 28)

Exercise: Last week was the first time that I exercised five times during the same week in a very long time. It felt very good.

Cleaning: I was not as consistent in my habit of cleaning this last week as I would like to be. It was actually a prayer of opening that spurred me to complete my goals.