crucifixion

The Glorious Impossible

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“He by whom all time was made became Man in time; that He, in His eternity more ancient than the world, became inferior in age to many of His servants in the world; that He who made man became Man; that He was formed in the Mother whom He Himself formed, carried in the hands which He made, nourished at the breasts which He filled; that, in the manger in mute infancy, He the Word without whom all human eloquence is mute wailed?” (St Augustine of Hippo).

Somewhere out there on the interwebs is a much longer version of this homily. It goes into greater detail about how the creator of man became a man and He who formed life was born and died so that we could be made alive.

This begins to touch on what God did for us. He showed us through His incarnation that truly nothing is impossible to the one who believes. Christmas is proof that no darkness is too dark for light to overcome.

Philippians 2 says it best:

“In other words, adopt the mind-set of Jesus the Anointed. Live with His attitude in your hearts. Remember:

Though He was in the form of God,
    He chose not to cling to equality with God;
But He poured Himself out to fill a vessel brand new;
    a servant in form
    and a man indeed.
The very likeness of humanity,
He humbled Himself,
    obedient to death—
    a merciless death on the cross!
So God raised Him up to the highest place
    and gave Him the name above all.
So when His name is called,
    every knee will bow,
    in heaven, on earth, and below.
And every tongue will confess
    ‘Jesus, the Anointed One, is Lord,’
    to the glory of God our Father!” (Philippians 2:5-11, The Voice).

Never Too Late

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“It makes me smile to think there’s a grinning thief walking the golden streets of heaven who knows more about grace than a thousand theologians. No one else would have given the thief on the cross a prayer. But in the end, that is all he had. And in the end, that’s all it took” (Max Lucado).

We speak a lot about salvation by grace through faith alone, but then turn around and talk like it was something to be earned or deserved. Have you ever heard anyone say something along the lines of, “Well, if anyone deserves to be in heaven, it’s . . .” followed by someone who has recently passed away.

But that’s just it. No one deserves to be in heaven. That’s why it’s called grace. We didn’t get what we deserve. I will never side with karma, because I know if I got what I deserved, it wouldn’t be heaven or anything close to it.

I remember Alistair Begg’s illustration about the thief on the cross. He pictures the angels in heaven questioning the man who had been crucified next to Jesus immediately after he arrives in heaven. They ask him all kinds of questions like “Do you know what justification by faith means?” and “Do you understand the doctrine of Scripture?” to which the man gives a blank stare.

Finally, an angel asks him, “On what basis are you here?”

The man says, “Because the man on the middle cross said I could come.”

That never fails to move me. If anyone is a case study for salvation by grace through faith alone and not by works, it’s this guy. He was a sinner right up until moments before he died. He never had time to get down off the cross and attend a Bible study or get baptized or take communion or join a church. We only have his one request to Jesus: “Remember me when you come into Your kingdom.”

That’s it. In that very moment, Jesus told him that he would be in the same Paradise as Jesus. In the moment the man died, he was instantly in the presence of Jesus and forever and fully justified, sanctified, and glorified.

That means it’s never too late for anyone reading these words to turn to Jesus for salvation. It’s never too late to recognize that you are like the rest of us and have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It’s never too late to admit that you’re a sinner, repent of those sins, believe with your heart that Jesus died for those sins and rose again, and confess Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

If you believe that and want to pray these words, you can be saved. Not because of saying words or praying to God but by grace through faith. Here’s the prayer:

“Thank you, God, for loving me, and for sending your Son to die for my sins. I sincerely repent of my sins, and receive Christ as my personal savior. Now, as your child, I turn my entire life over to you. Amen” (from At Home in Mitford, Jan Karon).

Be Generous

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“Everything in the world is about to be wrapped up, so take nothing for granted. Stay wide-awake in prayer. Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. Be quick to give a meal to the hungry, a bed to the homeless—cheerfully. Be generous with the different things God gave you, passing them around so all get in on it: if words, let it be God’s words; if help, let it be God’s hearty help. That way, God’s bright presence will be evident in everything through Jesus, and he’ll get all the credit as the One mighty in everything—encores to the end of time. Oh, yes!” (1 Peter 4:7-11)

That’s the key: generosity. Not everyone is in a position to be financially generous, but there are other ways. You can be generous with your time. You can be generous with your talents. Best of all, you can be generous in your commitment to pray for someone or something. And in my book, prayer is the most powerful weapon we have in the fight against the adversary known as satan and the systems of this world.

It boils down to loving others like Christ loved us. He loved us not in word only but in deed. His love took up a wooden cross and bore the nails and died for you and me. Our love should be just as tangible toward those in need, especially during this time of the year with Thanksgiving and Christmas approaching.

Lord, help us to be as generous to others as You have been to us. May our love show itself not merely in words but in actions that meet the needs of those around us. May we remember that whatever we do in serving the least of these brothers and sisters, we are really serving You. Amen.

Broken Things

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“God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever” (Vance Havner).

I think if you’re feeling broken beyond compare, you might just be at the point where God is about to do something incredible in you and through you. I don’t mean that you should beat yourself up and think you’re worthless. I think it’s about recognizing that each one of us has been profoundly affected by the original fall and are broken to one degree or another.

The beautiful part of the Gospel is that it’s for broken people. Not only that, God uses broken people to reach other broken people. What the world wants to throw away, God repurposes for His glory. What the world sees as worthless, God sees as priceless.

I love the verse in the Bible that talks about how God uses nobodies to shame those who think that they’re somebodies. 1 Corinthians 1:27 in the New Living Translation says “ Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.”

That’s me. At times, I have been foolish and powerless. We all have. Face it, we’re nothing apart from the sustaining grace of God. Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing (at least nothing of eternal significance and value). Even our next heartbeat is a gift from God.

I need to remember that every time I start to think that I am anything on my own apart from God and what He has done in me. Anytime I start thinking that I’m better than anyone else, I need to remember that it took as much of Jesus’ blood to save me as it did anyone else. Who knows what I could have been apart from the saving grace of God?

“You can have my heart, though it isn’t new
It’s been used and broken, and only comes in blue
It’s been down a long road, and it got dirty along the way
If I give it to you, will you make it clean and wash the shame away?

You can have my heart, if you don’t mind broken things
You can have my life; you don’t mind these tears
Well, I heard that you make old things new, so I give these pieces all to you
If you want it, you can have my heart

So beyond repair, nothing I could do
I tried to fix it myself, but it was only worse when I got through
Then you walk right into my darkness and you speak words so sweet
And you hold me like a child, ’til my frozen tears fall at your feet

You can have my heart, if you don’t mind broken things
You can have my life if you don’t mind these tears
Well, I heard that you make old things new
So I give these pieces up to you
If you want it, you can have my heart” (Julie Miller).

The Great Paradox

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“The great paradox of life is that those who lose their lives will gain them. This paradox becomes visible in very ordinary situations. If we cling to our friends, we may lose them, but when we are nonpossessive in our relationships, we will make many friends. When fame is what we seek and desire, it often vanishes as soon as we acquire it, but when we have no need to be known, we might be remembered long after our deaths. When we want to be in the center, we easily end up on the margins, but when we are free enough to be wherever we must be, we find ourselves often in the center.

Giving away our lives for others is the greatest of all human arts. This will gain us our lives” (Henri Nouwen).

“If you refuse to take up your cross and follow Me on the narrow road, then you are not worthy of Me. To find your life, you must lose your life—and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 10:38-39, The Voice).

That’s the paradox. You find your life by losing it. You gain love by giving it away. People notice you when you deflect the praise to the King of the universe instead of yourself. You’re blessed when you’re poor in spirit, meek, mourning, and pure in heart.

Instead of following the world’s path to success, Jesus went down the road of downward mobility. He gave up clinging to His rights of equality with God. He took on human form. He took the form of a servant. He was obedient to the point of death. His death was that of a common criminal’s crucifixion. Then God gave Him a name that is above every other name.

That’s our goal. To be unknown on earth but famous in heaven. Heavenly fame looks like faithfulness. Heavenly fame looks like denying yourself, taking up your cross daily, and following Jesus, no matter the cost.

That’s where you find your life. That’s where you find life.

My Lent Readings

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So I may have gone a tad overboard with my readings for Lent. I suppose technically, some of them are specifically for Lent and some are devotionals for the entire year. Here’s what I’m reading. Hopefully it will inspire you to add these books (or others like them) to your to-read list at some point:

  1. God’s Message for Each Day – Eugene Peterson. This one is a daily devotional book from the author of the Message, more of a paraphrase than a translation of the Bible but still worth using. This little devotional has short readings for each day and has been very helpful.
  2. 365 Pocket Prayers – Ronald A. Beets. I don’t know if Ronald wrote these or compiled them, but there are 365 prayers, each with a different theme. There’s also a handy index listing the prayers by category in case you want to find a prayer for guilt or shame or anxiety or such.
  3. A Barclay Prayer Book – William Barclay. This is a prayer book that follows the Christian Year and Holy Days in the Book of Common Prayer and also has prayers for all seasons. There were a couple of phrasings in there that gave me a bit of pause, but overall, I’ve liked it enough to recommend it.
  4. It Is Finished: A 40-Day Pilgrimmage Back to the Cross – Charles Martin. This one is blowing my mind with new insights about Jesus’ journey to the cross. It’s very reverent and biblical in its retelling of the scenes of Jesus’ last week before the crucifixion. Another book I highly recommend.
  5. The Book of Common Prayer (1928 edition) – This book helps get me in the proper frame of mind for both Christmas and Easter with all the Advent and Lent readings leading up to Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. Plus, there are so many beautiful collects and other readings for all the Holy Days and other important days in the Christian calendar. It makes me want to be liturgical.

All that plus reading through the Bible in a year is a lot. So proceed with caution if you dare. Or you can recommend your own Advent and/or Lent readings that have encouraged and inspired you and maybe I’ll read them next year.

Interceding for Our Enemies

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“In prayer we go to our enemies, to stand at their side. We are with them, near them, for them before God. Jesus does not promise us that the enemy we love, we bless, to whom we do good, will not abuse and persecute us. They will do so. But even in doing so, they cannot harm and conquer us if we take this last step to them in intercessory prayer. Now we are taking up their neediness and poverty, their being guilty and lost, and interceding for them before God. We are doing for them in vicarious representative action what they cannot do for themselves. Every insult from our enemy will only bind us closer to God and to our enemy. Every persecution can only serve to bring the enemy closer to reconciliation with God, to make love more unconquerable.

How does love become unconquerable? By never asking what the enemy is doing to it, and only asking what Jesus has done. Loving one’s enemies leads disciples to the way of the cross and into communion with the crucified one” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

It’s gotten so bad in this current cultural climate that we can’t abide dissenting views. We’ve gone past the point where we used to be able to debate and listen rationally to opposing viewpoints. Now anyone who disagrees with me must not only be wrong and ignorant but evil. We have turned our social media into echo chambers where we only allow voices that say the same things we say and agree with.

But that’s not the way of Jesus at all. His way is interceding for enemies. Remember that Jesus forgave His own enemies while they were in the very act of murdering Him. He prayed for the very ones who drove the nails into His wrists and feet (and the ones who shouted the loudest for Him to be crucified).

In this election season, it’s easy to turn it into us versus them and to turn “them” off so that we can have peace. But again, that’s not the way of Jesus. We are to pray for our very enemies the way Jesus prayed (and still prays) for us. We are to love them the same way Jesus loved (and still loves) us.

Is it easy? No. Is it possible? Humanly speaking, no, but only through the resurrection power of Jesus in us. Only through daily dependence and renewal by Jesus. Only by the grace that saved us in the first place.

You could pray for your enemies like you would want someone to whom you were an enemy to pray for you. And believe me, everyone has enemies. No matter how nice or accommodating you might be, you still have enemies.

Above all, remember that we all were once God’s enemies. And what did He do? He sent Jesus who loved us first before we ever loved Him, loved us best by dying for us, and loved us everlastingly from the foundation of the world until forever.

It’s Friday But Sunday’s Comin’!

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I can’t remember a lot of what I’ve done in the last week or so, but I can still remember a sermon from Tony Campolo that I heard when I was a student at Union University way back in the early 90s. It was close to Easter that year, and I seem to remember we were getting ready to go on our spring break.

I remember the sermon was based on the text by an old black preacher named S. M. Lockridge with the refrain of “It’s Friday . . . but Sunday’s comin’!”

The gist is that Friday was when everything looked hopeless. Jesus was dead and buried. The Pharisees and other religious leaders were celebrating. The disciples were crushed and defeated. But Sunday and the empty tomb were just ahead, unbeknownst to those who were witnesses to the events on Friday.

Here’s the text from the original sermon that set my world on fire:

“It’s Friday. Jesus is arrested in the garden where He was praying. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. The disciples are hiding and Peter’s denying that he knows the Lord. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. Jesus is standing before the high priest of Israel, silent as a lamb before the slaughter. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. Jesus is beaten, mocked, and spit upon. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. Those Roman soldiers are flogging our Lord with a leather scourge that has bits of bones and glass and metal, tearing at his flesh. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. The Son of man stands firm as they press the crown of thorns down into his brow. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. See Him walking to Calvary, the blood dripping from His body. See the cross crashing down on His back as He stumbles beneath the load. It’s Friday; but Sunday’s a coming.

It’s Friday. See those Roman soldiers driving the nails into the feet and hands of my Lord. Hear my Jesus cry, “Father, forgive them.” It’s Friday; but Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. Jesus is hanging on the cross, bloody and dying. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. The sky grows dark, the earth begins to tremble, and He who knew no sin became sin for us. Holy God, who will not abide with sin, pours out His wrath on that perfect sacrificial lamb who cries out, “My God, My God. Why hast thou forsaken me?” What a horrible cry. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. And at the moment of Jesus’ death, the veil of the Temple that separates sinful man from Holy God was torn from the top to the bottom because Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. Jesus is hanging on the cross, heaven is weeping and hell is partying. But that’s because it’s Friday, and they don’t know it, but Sunday’s a coming.

And on that horrible day 2,000 years ago, Jesus the Christ, the Lord of glory, the only begotten Son of God, the only perfect man, died on the cross of Calvary. Satan thought that he had won the victory. Surely he had destroyed the Son of God. Finally he had disproved the prophecy God had uttered in the Garden and the one who was to crush his head had been destroyed. But that was Friday.

Now it’s Sunday. And just about dawn on that first day of the week, there was a great earthquake. But that wasn’t the only thing that was shaking, because now it’s Sunday.

And the angel of the Lord is coming down out of heaven and rolling the stone away from the door of the tomb.

Yes, it’s Sunday, and the angel of the Lord is sitting on that stone. And the guards posted at the tomb to keep the body from disappearing were shaking in their boots, because it’s Sunday. And the lamb that was silent before the slaughter is now the resurrected lion from the tribe of Judah, for He is not here, the angel says. He is risen indeed.

It’s Sunday, and the crucified and resurrected Christ has defeated death, hell, sin, and the grave. It’s Sunday. And now everything has changed. It’s the age of grace, God’s grace poured out on all who would look to that crucified lamb of Calvary. Grace freely given to all who would believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross of Calvary was buried and rose again. All because it’s Sunday.

It’s Friiidaaaay!

But Sunday’s coming!” (S. M. Lockridge, With Thanks to Dr. Michael G. Davis for the text version).

Maundy Thursday & Beyond

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“The symbols under which Heaven is presented to us are (a) a dinner party, (b) a wedding, (c) a city, and (d) a concert. It would be grotesque to suppose that the guests or citizens or members of the choir didn’t know one another. And how can love of one another be commanded in this life if it is to be cut short at death?

Think of yourself just as a seed patiently waiting in the earth: waiting to come up a flower in the Gardener’s good time, up into the real world, the real waking. I suppose that our whole present life, looked back on from there, will seem only a drowsy half- waking. We are here in the land of dreams. But cock-crow is coming” (C. S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume III).

Maundy Thursday is a good reminder of being in the not yet. On that day, all the hard and painful things still lay ahead. Jesus was getting closer to the cross. It was only a matter of waiting.

Sometimes, that waiting can seem like forever. In a sense, we’d almost prefer knowing the worst rather than not knowing at all. And for us, those old fleshly fears can creep up on us during the wait, adding to the anxiety.

But all this present suffering is temporary, just as the suffering of Jesus between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Jesus was able to endure all that because of the joy that was set before Him that came on the other side of Golgotha. So we also know that just beyond our pain is a greater joy. Just on the other side of suffering is eternal peace.

We wait just as Jesus waited, knowing that beyond the cross and death was an empty tomb and the resurrection. We wait with hope — not a wishful thinking kind of hope, but a rock-solid certainty kind. The victory has already been won.

Silent Wednesday

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I learned something new today. Apparently, today is significant in holy week. This is Silent Wednesday, preceding Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. From what I understand, there’s no recorded activity from this day in any of the gospels.

In my own life, I’ve learned that silence can be good. I need a break periodically from the noise. I need to create margins to hear God’s voice, and rarely will God talk over the other voices that demand my attention throughout the day.

But what if the silence is from God? What if I don’t hear anything when I listen for His voice? What then?

Do I trust in God? Do I lean into everything I’ve learned about God’s nature and character and activity up to this point? Do I choose to believe what I know about God instead of what I think or what I feel?

I see that throughout the gospels, Jesus told the disciples exactly what was about to happen. He explicitly told them all of what He was about to undergo and how it would be the end of His life. But He also said that He would rise again in three days.

But the disciples understood none of it. They didn’t get it.

Maybe the silence of God is for my benefit. Maybe I’m not ready to receive the next revelation or to know the next part of God’s plan. Maybe God is waiting on me to obey what I already know before He reveals more.

We get the benefit of history, so we know what’s coming next. Tomorrow is the day Jesus was betrayed by one of His own and handed over to the Jewish leaders. Friday is when they and the Romans put Him up on the cross with the intent to kill Him slowly. But also we know that no one took Jesus’ life from Him, but He willingly gave it up for us that we might live.

So today we remember. We reflect. We rest in the promise not only of the cross but also of the empty tomb. We can trust in a silent God. On a cellar wall in Cologne, Germany, Jews who were hiding from the Nazis wrote these words: ““I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when feeling it not. I believe in God even when he is silent.”