Christmas 2013

Christmas 2013 A new beginning. A baby born into a world where he did not belong. How can a baby be doomed or destined to a world that could not tolerate or accept the core of who he was? For the core of the baby was perfect obedience to his father's will. This core of obedience was so foreign to the fallen world that it threatened the most powerful conventions of the times. The ultimate convention was for human beings to make laws, conventions and structures according to their own understandings of the knowledge of good and evil. On Christmas one baby came who would never be pulled into the deadly tides of human understanding. On Christmas so many of us get gifts we don't want. Somehow we think that there is something wrong with Christmas. Now we know how the Pharisees felt. Jesus was indeed first unwanted Christmas present. More than a thousand years of prophecy and the expectations of an oppressed people made the arrival of the Messiah as anticipated as winning the Super Bowl, the Presidential election and the newest and biggest war on the same week. The problem for the Pharisees, the other Jewish leaders and the nation as a whole was that the tiny and vulnerable baby was never meant to satisfy our earthly fantasies. The baby was and has always been the way back to a time and a place that predates our very first human fantasy. The Jesus baby was and is the way back to Eden, God's domain. Are we like the Pharisee who asked how a man could be reborn? Must we crawl back inside our mothers' wombs? Are we like the Pharisee, wondering how we could ever enter the garden of Eden while we are aware of the deadly curse inside us? "On the day you eat of it, you shall surely die." The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil runs through our veins, our hearts, our minds and our souls. Apart from the baby Jesus it is blasphemous to even contemplate entrance to God's domain. We are by our nature profane to God. As the Jesus baby grows and more perfectly expresses God's perfect will, he starts a spiritual civil war. That part of us knows we were always meant for the garden embraces him and his miracles as if we are starving people savoring the most delicious meal. The other part, the part that embraces our autonomy of choice and actions recoils at the the audacity of God's trespass into the human domain. We scream that God should go back to heaven, because he knows nothing of earth, nothing of the ways that we humans count good and evil. We stay in this civil war until the best of us, the religious scholars, the political leaders and the ruling class nail the baby to the cross. Then the curse is fulfilled. The curse that runs through our blood, the knowledge of good and evil, convicts and executes Jesus Christ the son of God. When we can't send Jesus back to heaven we send him to hell. For three days we go about our religious ceremonies grieving or exalting in the work of the curse. Then on the third day the baby rises from the grave bearing the wounds of the nails and the spear. The curse has killed, but God has overcome the curse. The curse that runs in our veins and poisons our hearts toward God is powerless against the risen and inoculated Christ. The blood of the lamb cuts through the obscenities of a society manically working to hide the redeeming work of God with feasts, gifts, ceremonies and tradition. For those who believe/have faith the light shines brightly and the lamb leads us to the green pastures despised by the curse. The Christian's gift, made possible through the blood of the lamb, is our ability to seek and accept God's perfect will in our life.

Burning Bush

Burning Bush

Burning bush is a commitment to living and proclaiming the salvation made possible by Jesus Christ through the lens and environment of the wilderness.

The wilderness is where people go to experience God unfiltered by human rulers, societies or institutions. In the wilderness people seek to meet God as Moses meet God, without the protection and insulation of society. We go to the wilderness by following Jesus Christ’s first teaching: “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe in the good news.”

1.      Many people wait for death or a more spiritual time in their lives to embrace intimacy with God. Jesus says that this is the time for intimacy with God. We take our first step toward the wilderness by accepting Christ’s invitation this minute, the next minute, the minute after that until accepting God’s invitation to intimacy becomes habitual.

2.      Many people think of the kingdom of God as a post death heaven or an impossible utopia. As the Lord’s Prayer teaches us, the kingdom of God is that place/domain where God’s will is done. When we embrace God’s will, praying to God for his will to be done in our lives instead of our will, we enter the kingdom that has become so near. At first our entrances to the kingdom maybe flickers or episodes. As submission becomes more habitual the kingdom becomes more real to us than this thing we call reality.

3.      We are human. We act, think and perceive reality through a faulty paradigm: the human understanding of the knowledge of good and evil. We are like pilots using inaccurate radars to pilot their airplanes. If we are to survive we must turn from our disastrous course and accept the guidance of God.

4.   The point of going into the wilderness is not austerity or so called purity in its self. We leave the walls, rules, lights and so called safety of human beings God’s garden/kingdom cannot long grow inside those confines. In the wilderness we believe the good news that Jesus Christ opens windows and doors into the garden where humans once enjoyed perfect harmony with God and animals. By habitually believing in this restoration we move from being estranged children of God to content heirs to God’s legacy of love.

Wilderness

People think that the wilderness is a mountain, a dessert or another remote region. They think that they can get to the wilderness in jeeps, helicopters, dogsleds, camels and whatnot. I woke up in the wilderness this morning, not even remotely close to a remote region. The wilderness is the place where you realize that human customs, institutions and hierarchies are treacherous vipers that will poison the soul. I went to church on Sunday, a week after feeling deeply hurt and betrayed by the same church. There was still a part of me that wanted to take the pastor aside and explain just how deeply I’d been hurt or how it was worse because I’d made myself spiritually vulnerable at that church. I’d made the mistake of putting my whole heart into a ministry, when I should have known that the hatchet’s fall was inevitable.

About halfway through the service I realized that the pastor did not want to hear from me or understand my pain. I realized that pastors, by necessity develop defenses against people like me. If they heard and understood the pain their institutions inflicted they would be unable to get up in the pulpit each Sunday. That’s when what I wanted to say changed. I went from wanting to share my experience and explain my concern that something like this could be very damaging to the faith of a less mature Christian to wanting to say, “It’s OK you’re just a pastor and this is just a church. It was my mistake for ever believing you could be anything different.”

It’s Tuesday and I wake quite certain that human institutions abhor the burning bush I proclaim. My journey to the wilderness has been a thousand hammer blows to the soul. At first the fragments cut like kidney stones. I bled inside while I writhed in pain. I don’t regret the scars. They remind me that God will eventually send me back to be hammered and crushed again. The wilderness, however, is a place to be savored. I breathe the clean air without that whiff of sour smogginess. The good wind comes as it wills and goes likewise. I hold my fingers my heart and my soul out to the wind and feel its embrace.

The Time is fulfilled

Father let this be the time in which I embrace intimacy with you.

Father let all my time be devoted to you.

Father let the illusion of my time become the reality of your time.

The kingdom of God has come near.

Father, give me new eyes to see your kingdom.

Father, give me a new heart to love the ways of your kingdom.

Father, give me a new brain to understand the ways of your kingdom

Father, give me a new stomach to hunger for your will and your love to be done in my life, the life of my family and the life of my community.

Repent

Farther, turn me from my path to destruction.

Let the eyes, heart, mind and stomach that lead me toward destruction fall away in the face of your light.

Teach me to run earnestly toward you and your kingdom.

Believe in the good news

Father, help me to know with my heart, mind and soul that your son Jesus Christ gives me access to your embrace.

Help me to accept your invitation to walk with you in the original garden of harmony.

Help your kingdom to become more real to me than the reality of men.

Between Eden and Sodom

Between Eden and Sodom

Faith:

Faith is believing, wanting and trusting that Jesus Christ is more powerful and more real than any other structure of power

What are the rival structures of power, the powers and principalities?

The root of these rival power structures is the human desire to be self-sufficient. When humans want to “be like God, knowing good and evil,” they inevitably create distorted structures of power which prove to be incompatible with God’s perfect knowledge of good and evil. The book of Genesis presents two rival proto-types as exemplars of the contrast between perfect faith and perfect disobedience. The Garden of Eden is originated by God and his vision of its beauty and perfection. For Adam and Eve to till the ground and work the garden they had to have perfect faith in God’s vision of the Garden. The Garden was first envisioned by God then created with materials that originated with God. The humans who tended to the crops and animals in the Garden of Eden were in perfect communication with God and his vision. The result of this perfect synchronization between God and human beings was a garden that contained the fruit of eternal life.

Sodom, on the other hand was created and crafted out of the vision of human beings. It was built with bricks fashioned by human beings. The mores and practices of the people were based upon the vision and understanding of human beings. These visions and understandings probably were not that different from those who built the Tower of Babel. They wanted to make a name for themselves. Sodom, like all cities was to be a center of power, where human customs, human buildings, human tools and human laws held domain over nature, God’s creation. When God’s angels arrived at the city the entire male populace conspired to rape them, arguing to Lot that the laws and customs of their city gave them the right to do so. The result of this complete alienation between God’s understanding of good and the human understanding of good is the deadly firestorm that obliterates the city.

Gethsemane is a garden surrounded by a city of impressive buildings. One can argue that Jesus is hiding in the Gethsemane in the same or similar manner to the way in which Adam and Eve hid amidst the trees from God and the angels sheltered in Lot’s house from the population of Sodom. Extending this line of thinking one can argue that Jerusalem’s destruction in 70AD is the delayed firestorm, resulting from a population choosing to assault God. Yet, Gethsemane is not just Sodom it is also Eden, the place where God’s will is done. On entering Gethsemane, Jesus becomes “deeply distressed and troubled, saying, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”  He comes to the point where the impending reality is unavoidable. The people for which he has spent his life teaching, preaching and performing miracles are about to arrest him, condemn him, torture hi, kill him and send him to hell. In human terms his life is meaningless. The ministry he built is about to be shattered. The leaders of his people are going to condemn him as an evil magician who led many astray. His life and his sacrifice will end with no tangible benefit to anyone.

                “Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. ‘Abba, Father,’ he said, ‘everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Facing death, the death resulting from Adam and Eve’s contempt for God’s will and eating the forbidden fruit,  Jesus pleads for relief, but submits to God’s will, countering Adam and Eve’s contempt of God’s will. Gethsemane synchronizes Eden and Sodom in that it is the place where God’s will for Jesus to die on the cross coincides with the human will for Jesus to die on the cross. For the first time since the fall God’s will and the human will are united on the narrow issue of Jesus’s death. This unity creates the fruit of eternal life, at least in Jesus Christ. When death, which was created by Adam and Eve’s disobedience, tries to swallow Jesus Christ in hell it finds that it lacks the power to hold and destroy Jesus Christ. In fact, it finds that Jesus Christ’s presence in hell threatens to destroy the entire system and structure of death. Death is actually the articulation of complete contempt of God’s will and absolute separation from God and his will.

                The denizens of hell gain access to God and the fruit of eternal life through Jesus Christ and acceptance of God’s perfect will in Jesus Christ. That is why Jesus Christ is expelled from hell. To death, Jesus is a virus that infects and disables all systems. Where the arrest, trial, torture and execution of Jesus Christ is the narrative of Sodom, the risen Jesus Christ is the narrative of Eden. In both narratives, the unity between the human will and God’s will is maintained in Jesus Christ.

How do the living gain access to God and the fruit of eternal life?

“The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe in the good news.”

1.       “The time is fulfilled.” Original sin is an explosion that blasts human will and God’s on radically different trajectories. When Jesus says “the time is fulfilled, he is saying that the human will and God’s will are nearing a point of convergence, if not collision.

2.       “The Kingdom of God has come near.” When Jesus says this he, is talking about a place where God’s perfect will is done. The proximity of such a place to intrinsically imperfect human beings creates tension and expectation.

3.       “Repent!” Prior to Jesus Christ’s presence on earth, humans had only one way to respond to the call of God. That way involved using human devices like covenant, law, custom and institution to render the immense and uncontrollable power of God compatible with human society. When Jesus Christ, the fusion of God and human being, enters the human domain of the earth, human beings are presented with the opportunity of turning away from the human understanding of the good and toward the God’s vision and plan for their lives.

“Believe in the Good News!” For each moment that a human being lives, he or she must decide which reality is true and which reality is false. Humans tend to default toward the reality of Sodom, a place where human customs, human buildings, human tools and human laws held domain over nature, God’s creation. Yet many human beings feel a hunger for reality in which there is perfect synchronization between God and human beings. The good news, exemplified by Jesus Christ, is that such synchronization is possible. Believing in the good news means holding at the core of one’s being, heart, mind, and soul, the absolute conviction that God’s perfect will and a human’s perfect relationship with him is more real than anything made with human hands, endorsed by human society or enforced by human law.

Repentance

Repentance

By Adam Lohse

                Harrison Burnes stared at the E.R. doors. A lit cigarette burned between two fingers on a his left hand. Bringing the hand to his mouth he sucked the last cloud of poison from his nearly scorched fingers. Dropping the butt he smashed it with the toe of an ancient and defaced jungle boot. Breathing out into the cold wind, he let the smoke percolate into the equally faded green army jacket. With that he trudged across the parking lot and entered the familiar doors.

                Linda Staverson looked up from her computer to see the familiar and unwelcome face. The black face, gray whiskers, tangled hair and invertible stench had become a personal nightmare. Over the last six months he’d appeared in the ER on weekly basis, demanding admittance for treatment of HIV, herpes, pneumonia and whatever else he caught on the street. Hospital policy said they had to admit him and treat the most urgent issues which usually involved everything. They would get things as fixed as they could and then the man would leave against medical advice. Since she’d first seen his face, he’d racked up over a million dollars in bills that she knew he had no intention of ever paying. Worse than that was the way he messed around with the staff, disobeying orders, sneaking out the building to smoke, pulling out I.V.s  and shouting at anyone who even suggested that hospital wasn’t his own private residence to do with what he pleased.

                “Hey now darlin, you don’t have to get your witch face out yet. I ain even gonna make you fire up that ole computer and tell you that I don’t got no insurance.”

                “Mr. Burnes, if you are not here for medical treatment I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” Linda watched as the man before her began to puff himself into what she’d come to call his huffing and puffing state. He stopped slouching coming to his full height of six-five, pulled his arms out and let his presence be felt throughout the waiting room. She was ready for his booming diatribe, the familiar process of calling security and eventually having to admit him when he calmed down.

                “Honey, we can go through all the  ruckus of you me getting loud, you calling security, me calming down and you admitting me to waste some more of your precious money or we can just skip the whole thing and you can go find Eddie for me.” Harris smiled as he finished, almost whispering. Linda was more shocked by Harris’ control than she’d ever been by his booming harangues. Her first instinct was to reach for the phone and call security. That was her default method of dealing with him. However, he always made her pay a price. As soon as or before security arrived he would turn calm and contrite as a lamb and she would look foolish for calling them. Still, she couldn’t let him start ordering her around.

“Why don’t you take a seat over there and if Eddie comes bye I’ll tell him you’re here.” For a moment it looked like the man was going to explode. His face tightened in rage and his teeth flashed in a grimace and then the look was gone and he wore the same calm and reasonable face he wore for security.

“Well that’s mighty considerate of you. I need to catch up on my reading and that should take about an hour. If I haven’t seen Eddie by the time my reading is done I can start working on my theatrics.” His parting smile left Linda with no doubt that he would enjoy causing chaos in the waiting room and go out of his way to embarrass her. She watched uneasily as he retreated to chair, pulled a Bible from his tattered bag and started mumbling as he attempted to read. For Linda there was little doubt that the man was headed to hell, but it bothered her that he was trying to read the Bible. To her, he was profaning the pages just by touching them. She did, however, worry about what she was going to do. It would be relatively easy to find Eddie and she had no doubt that Eddie would make the time to see her nightmare. It was just that was a little hesitant to give this homeless man so much power. If he could get his way on this, how many other things would he demand? If she waited until the hour was nearly over, he would know that he was afraid of his tantrums. After waiting long enough to at least preserve the plausibility of her not acceding to Haris’ demands she stepped away from her computer and entered into the E.R. After carefully avoiding some patients on gurneys, she rounded the corner and caught site of Eddie.

She caught Eddie coming out of a room fast, he was so wrapped up in what he had to do next, that he didn’t even notice her. His green scrubs sported splotches of blood and eyes looked like they were staring at something a million miles away.

“Eddie!” He walked a couple steps and the then turned back toward her.

“Linda?” He was definitely distracted. She wondered what was going on.

“Our favorite drug addict is out in the waiting room, asking to talk to you.” Eddie blinked and nodded. Sweat was pouring down his face.

“Ok, tell him I’ll be out in a little.” With that he proceeded down the hall. Linda hoped he would find a bathroom and pour some water on his face. She’d never seen him this distressed before. She gave him one more glance, picked up some forms from the monitoring station and returned to the waiting room. Haris was still sitting in his chair stuttering over the Bible. Normally, Linda would have sat back down at her station and waited for Harris to come to her for information, but Eddie had asked her to convey a message and she had no idea when Eddie would be able to come out. She really didn’t want Harris to go ballistic because he thought she hadn’t talked to Eddie. That left the burden on her to communicate Eddie’s message. With great discomfort and anxiety she stepped out from behind her desk and walked across the room to stand beside the chair of the tall man dressed in the flimsy armor of boots, fatigues and an army coat.

“I spoke to the Eddie. He was having a really rough time. I don’t know when he’ll be out.” For the first time in 6 months Haris looked up and smiled at her.

“Thank you, If you see him again, tell him I’ll wait.”  Linda went back to her desk expecting a long period of tension over when Eddie would be out. She’d just settled into her routine of registering patients when Eddie emerged and walked over to Haris.

“Hey man, you sick again? It don’t look so good to have someone come in here so much and never get better.” Eddie’s eyes and voice were warm. Haris looked up from the Bible with a quizzical look on his face.

“I don’t have any pneumonia and the other bugs are mostly under control, but I got a problem. You see this is the Bible that I borrowed last time I got admitted. I did what you said and started with The Gospel of Mark. It talks about how people we receiving a baptism of repentance and then it tells me that I need to repent and believe in the good news.”

“Yeah, so what’s the problem?” Harris looked up again at Eddie’s cheerful face, wondering how Eddie could be so dense.

“I don’t even know what repentance is, let alone how to repent.” Harris expected his awful admission to solicit laughter, horror or astonishment on Eddie’s part. He was surprised at how lightly Eddie took the news.

“That’s OK. Most people who call themselves Christians don’t know about repentance either. Come on, it’s easier to show you than to tell you.”

Linda watched as the two men walked across the lobby and disappeared into the treatment rooms. What was happening was so far outside the rules and guidelines that she didn’t even know who to call. If it had been anyone other than Eddie she might have made it her business to inform him of the rules he was breaking. Since it was Eddie and she loved Eddie, she just sat at her desk pretending that it wasn’t happening.   

Harris followed Eddie past the familiar rooms. He’d been in a lot of them. Turning a corner and going past a couple patients on gurneys, he followed Eddie into a room that clearly had not been cleaned up. There was blood on the bed and floor. All sorts of equipment was strewn across the room.

“This girl was 19. She got caught in the crossfire between two drug dealers. They put her in the bus, knowing she isn’t going to make it, bring her down here and try to have us do more CPR. You want to know what repentance is, you clean this up.” Harris looked around, stunned and unsure of what he would do.

“Start with these knives.” Eddie held rectangular bucket of surgical knives that clearly had blood and tissue on them.

“That’s right, put on some gloves and wash them in the sink. Get them as clean as you can possibly get them. Some other patient is going to need them.” On some level, Harris knew that the situation was absurd, but he stood at the sink cleaning the knives, watching the blood flow down the drain. The couple instances when he worried that he’d cut himself, but each time he looked he saw the his gloves were intact. Twenty minutes later he had the knives clean and drying on the paper towels next to the sink. Eddie had been busy, getting rid of the blood and disposing of all the other equipment and garbage.

“Are those knives clean? Are they ready to be used on another patient?” Harris just nodded. How was he supposed to know if they were clean enough?

“Good, now take off your clothes, get into this gown and lie down on the bed.” At this point Harris’ eyes began to get big and his heart started to beat faster.

“Why I got to do that for?” Harris didn’t want to take off his clothes. He didn’t want to get onto the table where someone had died so recently.

“Go on, get to it. If you can’t get this taken care now, you’re going to end up like that girl, an overdose, a beating, exposer, uncontrolled HIV, bad junk, an accident. You’re not running toward one grim reaper, you’re sprinting toward half a dozen and sooner or later you’re going to catch one. When that happens, I’m going to be the one stuck cleaning up after your waste of life, so get into the damm gown!” Harris felt fuzzy. Things hadn’t been the same, since he stepped into the room. All his defenses seemed to be crumbling and he was too tired to run. Slowly he began to shed his armor, boots, followed by coat, and then the multiple layers of stinking fatigues. When he was ready for the gown it seemed infinitely cleaner than anything else he’d worn.

In the bed, he looked up as Eddie seemed to be readying some IVs. “Ok Mr. Burnes, in a few minutes a doctor is going to come in and use the knives you cleaned to remove the thing that’s killing you.” Haris knew he should be alarmed, but his energy seemed to be slipping away. He closed his eyes and dozed. With his eyes still closed, he heard Eddie talking to the doctor.

“This is Mr. Burnes. He’s dying of heroine, but that’s only a symptom of a deeper cancer inside of him.”

“I don’t like the look of those knives. Are you sure they’re sterilized?”

“They’re as clean as he can get them.”

“We’ll have to use the laser.”

“Ok Doctor, I’ve got power in three.” The last thing Harris remembered was the blazing warm light and the feeling of the being cut-released inside of him.

The God Face 5

The God Face

Perhaps the reason we have so much difficulty staying in proximity to God’s face and his blinding holiness is that meeting, knowing and loving God is not our sole purpose in life. We are commissioned to carry his light, truth and love to a dark and foreign world. Plato’s allegory of the cave touches on the difficulty of trying to describe the light of the sun to someone who has spent his or her entire life in a deep dark cave. Faith is most when we cannot feel or see God’s face clearly but bear witness to the changes and healing he has wrought in us. Do we have faith that enough of his love and truth and light remains in us to be useful in God’s of healing and reconciling those who have not yet experienced his glory?

The God Face 4

The God Face

Sometimes we walk with God in the garden, surveying the work to be done, looking forward to the blossoming of God’s will, but know in our hearts, minds and souls that the forbidden fruit is irresistible. Do we dare to turn, look in the face and admit our weakness and evil intentions or do we make a transparent excuse and wander away from him? How long can we trust in a God who invites us to walk another minute, second or hour with him. When does that little switch get flicked when we cease to pray, stop walking with God and start walking on our own? What kind of trouble do we find in the aloneness we so craved? What part of God and his love do we take with us when we walk separately from God?

The God Face 3

The God Face

With our masks removed, our misshapen and rotting faces are exposed to God’s healing light. The healing feels good, but the light is just too bright. The Spirit starts a fire inside us and our undeveloped spiritual muscles tremble in the presence of God. Having the spirit upon us is like being underwater, except we feel on fire. Sooner or later we have to come out of it. What lasts and what remains from this first face to face? Do our faces shine like Moses’ for all to see the glory of God’s healing in us or do we begin to construct a new mask titled “The God Healed” to hide the remaining areas in need of healing. Do we try to construct a mask or a series of masks for God so that next time he won’t shine as brightly or fiercely?

The God Face 2

The God Face

In order to see God’s face more clearly and directly, we must first understand that the problem originates with our own faces. Our faces are disguised and distorted. We view the world through the eyeholes of grotesque masks. The manner in which we hide our faces impedes our ability to accurately perceive the world and the persons within it. These masks are permanently affixed to our faces and can only be removed by the hands of God. By surrendering ourselves and our pretensions to God we allow God to remove our masks. With the masks removed we have the privilege of glimpsing the world as it is and breathing fresh genuine air, not filtered through a filthy mask.

The God Face 1

The God Face

Very Few human beings enjoy interacting with God, face to face. We prefer hiding in the clefts of rocks, conducting long distance correspondence or using intermediaries. Is God speaking literally and truly when he says that no person can look upon the face of God and live?  Why?  What is it that makes the face of God so toxic to human beings?  Is that statement still true when Jesus Christ walks the earth and the curtain of the temple is torn in two from top to bottom?  Volumes can be written trying to answer these questions, but a more useful question is whether we, individually and communally, desire a more direct and less obscured relationship with God. If we are indeed people and communities that seek the face of God, we must begin not only to clear away the obstructing infrastructure that keeps God at arm’s length, but also our ingrained habit of constantly erecting barriers between ourselves and God.

Dying and Rising

Dying and Rising

            The men gathered at the table of the last supper understood Jesus Christ imperfectly. Peter saw him as a messianic warrior king who would expel the Roman oppressors. James and John saw Jesus as a man of political and religious influence to which they could attach themselves. The other disciples, the ones who failed to cast the demon out of the epileptic as Jesus was transfigured on the mountain top, probably saw him as someone who could perfect their remarkable experience in ministry. However the disciples understood Jesus, they still grumbled among themselves about who was the greatest. After three years of seeing incredible miracles and being taught at the feet of the Son of God, they still understood him as a person who could bring worldly change and gain. They may have been fish, hooked or netted by the Lord and hauled into the heavens, but they still understood the world and Jesus Christ according to the paradigm of their former lives. The only one of the twelve who understood Jesus clearly was Judas who learned from Jesus’ costly anointment of nard that the only thing that his master would ever produce of worldly power and influence was a body. From that point of understanding Judas went on to be an instrument in the hanging of Jesus’ lifeless body on the cross.

            It is to these disciples who misunderstand and betray Jesus Christ that he serves the bread of his body which is broken for them and the blood of the new covenant which is poured out for them. How many of us go the table of the Maundy Thursday services still misunderstanding and betraying the person who lays down hxis life so that we may live? We hear that Jesus Christ’s kingdom is of another world, but somehow we keep expecting the precious sacrifice of his body and blood to bless and accommodate our worldly ambitions. After the last supper Peter was still carrying his sword and all the ambitions it represented. John was still determined to stay by his Lord’s side, especially when his Lord came into his glory. Peter still seeks the glory of armed combat and perhaps even an honorable death when he cuts the ear off the high priest’s servant. John follows his Lord, perhaps hoping and trusting that his Lord’s unique love will somehow triumph at the Sanhedrin trial. Whatever hope and trust he had is dissipated by his desperate struggle and the need flee naked from the mob. During Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin, Peter three times denies that he follows or knows his Lord.

            What is Good Friday, except confirmation that the world and its powers and principalities will destroy every worldly ambition of the Christ follower. The more closely linked we are to Jesus Christ, the more complete the destruction. If we die on the cross with Christ then our sins, our worldly ambitions die with us. Since we are sinners and inherently connected to this world. The death of our sins causes our own deaths. We are too dependent on the world to live when it is dead. What were the disciples thinking when the High Priests, the holiest and most pious leaders in the land reveled in the crucifixion of the Son of God? For the first time, they had clear, unambiguous and undeniable evidence that their world, their domain, the place where all their ambitions and understandings resided was implacably hostile to God and his love. Compared to this realization that all the toil, blood, sweat and tears that a person pours out go to serve a system of hate the thought of nuclear winter seems downright cozy. Jesus Christ died and descended into hell. So, also, did his disciples. They descended into a world bereft of value, meaning or hope.

            The fires of hell failed to destroy, enslave or enfeeble Jesus Christ. Why? The answer is not that these fires destroyed the flesh, but left the spirit intact. Such destruction would forever alter the nature of the Christ and sever the bridge between God and humanity. What defeated the powers and principalities of hell was the unity of God and human being in Jesus Christ. It is in this unity of God and human being that the all-important product of love is produced.

            When Jesus Christ died on the cross, he and his followers died to the ambitions of the world, the most tempting and intoxicating of these ambitions is to try to mold and shape the world into God’s image. How many Kings, priests, bishops, popes, nobles, revolutionaries, legislators and presidents have taken what they perceive to be the divine mantle of authority only to discover that the world they shape through power, influence, wealth and strength of arms is but a grotesque shadow of the intended kingdom of heaven? As much as we may not want to hear, Jesus Christ’s death on the cross makes clear that we cannot use our affinity or relationship with Jesus Christ to justify our thirst for more worldly power, influence or prestige. The Christian who dies on the cross with Christ goes through the pain racking experience of understanding that these worldly trappings are good for little else than anointing Jesus Christ’s body with costly nard. The kingdom that Judas or the Judas within us all would build is a grotesque defamation of all that is holy and good.          

            The resurrected Jesus Christ and the resurrected follower of Jesus Christ knows that life, the resurrected life, is in the unity of God and human beings working together to do God’s perfect will of love. This unity is only achieved through a complete surrender on the human beings part to the Holy Spirit, the love of God. We seek to imitate the mystery of Jesus Christ’s perfect surrender to the Father and the spirit that descended like a dove. The average Christian surrenders imperfectly and incompletely. During the Battle of Gettysburg, an unexpected bayonet charge from the Union troops defending Little Round Top produced a series of panicked surrenders on the confederate troops. One Union soldier described an instance in which a Confederate officer was handing his sword in surrender with one hand while attempting to fire a pistol with the other hand. All too often Christians are just the same, surrendering one area of our lives to God, but reserving or omitting other equally serious areas from the great surrender that allows God and human beings to live and work together.

            The resurrected Christian remembers the pain, shock, embarrassment and helplessness of dying to their sins. They remember the dark place of Good Friday night when hope was unseen and could only be vaguely believed in, between the wrenching sobs and eclipsing darkness of despair. The resurrected Christian surveys their former life as one surveys a city utterly cast down by fire, wind and earthquake. Amidst the ruins and the lonely desolation, he or she realizes that the city should never have been built. Whoever tells you that they have died to their sins but has not experienced the sting of death is either a liar, a fool or an initiate blissfully unaware of the pain and trauma to follow.

            Dying to our sins is a disorienting experience. The normal quadrants we use to navigate life are either destroyed, obscured or distorted. Amidst the whirlwind of pain there are some behaviors that we tend to default to. We can respond to the pain by focusing our anger an our most immediate antagonists. It is human nature to blame and feeling that someone else is responsible for our pain is often therapeutic. The biggest problem with this approach is that our immediate antagonists are only cogs in an immense system dedicated to the destruction of those who champion God’s sovereignty. The system causes far more pain, disgrace and discouragement than any its individual cogs could ever be responsible for. When we focus our anger on our immediate antagonists we risk entertaining an anger, even a hate, that is disproportionate to anything those individual cogs could ever actually do or even understand that they were a part of.

              I take a lot of strolls through the ruins. Sometimes I find myself lifting a brick to rebuild a wall. Then the wind blows and I remember that the foundation is broken and nothing built will ever stand. That part of me that rises understand that the buildings are dead, but it doesn’t tell me where to go or how to stop existing like a ghost. People still walk inside the buildings  which for them are luxurious towers. For me, the buildings are death, the death that I’ve already died. The risen Christian does not fear to die again. I walk the fields lonely, hurting depressed. The fields become an empty wilderness and then the city of light appears in my head. I embrace the warmth and promise of life, singing the sweet and irresistible song. I hold the ancient brick in my hands ready to lay foundation to this marvelous plan. Then I remember the fury and the ruins no city made with human hands can withstand that human fury or avoid becoming grotesquely misshapen. The brick drops from my hands and is soon buried in the splattering mud. The city, if it is to be, must be woven in my heart.

The 8th Step-

The 8th Step

The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

Why is the author careful to distinguish between the two separate domains of the countryside and the city?

Are these domains of countryside and city meant to mirror the domains of the heavens and the earth mentioned in Genesis 2:4 or are they more specialized, reflecting on Abram who stayed in the countryside and Lot who went into the cities?

Why are the words “sins” and “baptism” repeated from verse 4 here?

What is the nature of the sins that the people confess?

What is the domain of the Jordan River and how does that relate to the domains of the heavens and the earth and the countryside and the cities?

Level 1:   People of all geographic and social locations are going out to John seeking the baptism of repentance that leads to the forgiveness of their sins.

Level 2: Both the spiritual descendants of Abraham, those who live in the countryside and the spiritual descendants of Lot, those who live in the cities, are going out to John, seeking the forgiveness of their sins. Confession is a crucial element in this baptism of repentance.

Level 3: The author is using a series of contrasts: the heavens and the earth, the people of the countryside and the people of Jerusalem to set up the next verse in which John outlines the baptism of water and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The contrast between the people of the countryside and the people of Jerusalem makes clear that all have sins they need to confess and receive forgiveness from. The religions institutions of the countryside and the city or equally inadequate.

The 7th Step

John appeared in the wilderness proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

What does it mean that John appeared? Does he appear, like a ghost or a vision or a supernatural messenger or is his appearance more common place?

Why the repetition of the word wilderness?

What and how is a baptism of repentance?

How can such a baptism effect the forgiveness of sins if Jesus Christ has not yet died on the cross?

Level One: John, a prophet, instructs the people to wash themselves in a manner similar to the way that Moses had the Israelites wash themselves before God came down from the mountain to see them.

Level Two: John is the ghost or spirit of Elijah, miraculously appearing in the wilderness to help the people become ceremonially clean in preparation for the arrival of their Lord.

Level Three: Elijah’s return introduces a replacement for the ancient system of sacrifice, atonement and ceremonial cleanliness. This new system starts with repentance and results in the forgiveness of sins. Preparing for the Lord means turning away from the ways of the world and being reconciled to God’s will.

What do we take away from this: Our default lives, those aspects of our lives that are in harmony with society, convenience, comfort, peace and ease are reeking examples of filth before our Lord and God. When we repent and start turning away from the reality, mores and wisdom of human beings and towards a place where our inherent impulse to disregard Gods’ wisdom and will can be forgiven. The forgiveness allows us to celebrate the good news of Jesus Christ, the person since Adam and Eve to experience the unification of God and human being.

Apology For the Delay

Sorry you have not seen any posts in the last month. My computer bought the farm and my wife and I have been sharing a cough that requires antibiotics. Hopefull the next post: will be up before Saturday.

5th Step

The 5^th 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.

The fourth step

The 4^th 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.

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.

3rd Steps

3^rd Steps

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, "See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way (Mark 1:2).

The story of The Revolution of Jesus Christ is as old as the dawn of time, but it puts down roots in the lives and prophecies of the prophets and the patriarchs.

I will lead the blind by a road they do not know, by paths they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I will do, and I will not forsake them (Isaiah 42:16).

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is indeed an unknown and unprecedented path to salvation. God coming to earth, sharing the form and vulnerabilities of a human being, is hard to comprehend and impossible to place in the box of human control. If we are to follow the path we need illumination, light to guide our way.

The Holy Spirit provides the light we need to walk the path of Jesus Christ. There are many dramatic stories of going from darkness into light. Our whole understanding of reality changes when we experience the light. What we often fail to appreciate is that living in the world acts as a slow but consistent dimmer switch. Two realities, Two masters compete for our hearts minds and souls. Our human impulse to try to accommodate them both. While we aspire to live in the heavens, we do after all live in the world. By walking the path of Jesus Christ we learn to live in but not of the world. However, our course can only be maintained through the steady illumination of the Holy Spirit. To walk the path where we are certain to be persecuted, struck down, and abandoned we must seek the Holy Spirit’s constant illumination of our minds, spirits, hearts and souls. When God’s love becomes more real to us than the rocks people throw, the falls we take and the isolation of being a Christ follower, we cease to have two masters. Jesus Christ is our only master.

Second Steps

Second Steps

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mark 1:1)

Who is “Jesus Christ, the Son of God?” Is he a human that God vested with the mantle of “Messiah” and charged with saving his people? Is he the divine and immortal son of an all powerful God?” Is he a human subject to the same temptations we all are? Is he a God impervious to sin’s temptations? Is he a man who fishes, eats and socializes? Is he a God who makes his points with miracles?

The bridge between that which is comprehendible and that which is incomprehendible is tenuous. Does the human element of Jesus Christ make it easier to comprehend the God element? Does being the Son of God give meaning to Jesus Christ the man?

All Man and All God

What is the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God?

 The God news is that Man and God-God and Man are joined.