The Call of God (Hebrews 11), Part 15

The Highs and Lows of Obedience.

The chronicler of Hebrews eleven is not yet done with Moses. “By faith,” he goes on to relate, “(Moses) kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel. By faith the people passed through the red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.”

If these verses are characterized by anything, it would be by skillful understatement. They summarize the culmination and turning point of 400 years of Hebrew slavery under the iron fist of the Egyptians. They chronicle God’s plan communicated to Moses and the Hebrew people through specific commands and the miraculous outcomes Moses’ obedience released. God’s call expressed through God’s commands becomes a game-changer for God’s people. What we are told in less than 50 words is not meant to tell us the whole breath-taking story, but to plant in us the seed of the idea that obedience to God’s call puts people on God’s path. A later writer would call it “a highway”, “the Way of Holiness”, and a way not for “wicked fools” but for “the redeemed…and the ransomed of the LORD” (Isaiah 35).

There is a pattern here, a rhythm of contrasting opposites that is not meant to strip the complexity of relationship with God into easy platitudes; rather, it is meant to paint us a picture showing us two things. It shows us that obedience to God brings people out of death into new life. And it shows us that God fills that new life with a complexity of experiences, like a spectrum of colours with a myriad of tints and shades of those colours.

In the first case, God Himself determines who will escape the culture and cycle of death enslaving all humans. His determination is not based on deific fancy, but on His perfect knowledge of each person’s choice to obey Him or not. For Moses and the Hebrews, the direction to obey the unprecedented command of bloody doorway-smearing was beyond the paradigms of either Hebrew or Egyptian culture. The Hebrews obeyed God and lived. The Egyptians hardened their hearts to the command and experienced heart-wrenching death. God is the God of life. Only as we submit to Him do we find we are released from death into eternal life.

Secondly, we see that obedience to God is a path of many tints and shades—of highs and lows—of apparent successes and of seeming failures, of soul-deep wounds and breathless joys. The Hebrews’ victorious escape from Egypt’s oppression was an unimagined high. They travelled and camped for several days, boldly rejoicing in their good fortune of escape, following God’s cloud-and-fire leading. Then suddenly they found themselves huddled enmasse at the shore of the Red Sea, hemmed in by Pharaoh’s pursuing army. Hebrew hearts plummeted in fear and disbelief as they watched a hopeful situation deteriorate and go south. Yet God was present and working through this dark hour. God sent a storm that churned and divided the sea, and commanded the Hebrews to cross the dry seabed throughout the dark and stormy night. They obeyed and the crossing of the Red Sea, followed by the flood-water repulsion of the Egyptian pursuers, became a faith-builder for the Hebrew people for generations to come. It, more than any other single event, would remind the people in later dark hours that God is faithful. He delights to create a spectrum of colour out of shades of darkness for those who follow Him.

God’s call into fullness of life for all people is always and without exception embedded within the paradigm of command-and-obedience. The Hebrew experience becomes a picture for all God-followers; like the Hebrews’ first Passover event, we must daily stand behind the protection of a doorway marked with blood-stains—those of Christ whose obedience paid the redemption price for our sins. Then we must step out and obey His overarching command to live lives of love and holiness in order to access God’s path for us. His path will take us safely through every obstacle and dark night, through every high and low of human experience.

Obedience is essential. Only as we trust Him and obey Him will we recognize that His call brings us blessing. So listen to God’s call and obey Him. Then include yourself in the song of Moses who sang, “O LORD…In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling…You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance—the place, O LORD, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, your hands established. The LORD will reign for ever and ever” (Exodus 13:15,17,18).

(Photo Credit: By Ben Njeri [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, from Wikimedia Commons)

The Call of God (Hebrews 11), Part 9

Faith and Reason.

“Stop!” Abraham heard God command in no uncertain terms. It was time to interrupt Abraham’s obedient display of faith. A ram ensnared in a nearby bush would be the substitution for Abraham’s son Isaac who had been awaiting his fate upon the hilltop altar. Listening to God had brought Abraham and Isaac here, and listening to God would take them home. This father and son were given a new vision of God. He is God the Great Provider.

This is the story, first recorded in Genesis, to which Hebrews 11:17-19 refers. It’s an unnerving and unsettling story in many ways. We’re left feeling less sure of the boundaries within which God contains Himself. God had emphatically labeled the pagan practice of child sacrifice a “detestable” thing, a practice “I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.” Yet God used Abraham and Isaac as actors in a display that would foreshadow the ransoming sacrifice of God’s One and Only Son, Jesus, two millennia later. How could Abraham have agreed to obey God’s direction, not knowing what the outcome of his obedience would be? The author of Hebrews explains “Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.”

Abraham reasoned.

Reason, the process of thinking in logical, orderly and rational ways, is a gift of God to us humans. It enables us to take what we know about God and this world and infer conclusions that then inform how we ought to behave. Abraham, listening to God’s directive to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice, needed to use a high level of reason to be obedient.

He first reasoned that having heard this command spoken directly from God, it must be a good command—God is good, therefore His every command will result in ultimate good for His followers. Abraham reasoned that he could entrust the outcome of his obedience to a good God.

Secondly, Abraham reasoned that God is all-powerful. A humanly speaking hope-destroying event such as death was as nothing to God. God would be able to bring Isaac back to life. Abraham could see compatibility between God’s promise to build his family through Isaac and God’s command to sacrifice Isaac.

But “Reason,” muses Dante in Paradiso, “even when supported by the senses, has short wings.” Abraham must have second-guessed himself with every step he and Isaac took climbing the hill toward the spot God had directed him. Reason moved his feet but his heart was aching. Wasn’t it more reasonable that he a centenarian should die, Abraham must have thought, rather than this young son of his—this son of the promise? Abraham needed something to support and gird up his commitment to reason. So Abraham added to reason the wingtips of trust.

Trust took Abraham the final steps of that distressing trek. Trust kept his ears open, listening for the slightest sound of God’s voice. Trust focused Abraham’s mind on the only One who is ultimately trustworthy, so that even the promise took second place to the Promiser. And trust enabled Abraham to hear God halt the test and joyfully exclaim, “because you have done this…I will surely bless you…and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

Each of us walk a similar trek. Subconsciously we reason out each action we take, each decision we make. But do these reasons include the goodness and greatness of God? Do we consciously remember what we know to be true of Him? Do we consider His great love for each of us and His unlimited power as we rationalize how we live?

To entrust ourselves to the One who is unmatched in trustworthiness is the pinnacle of reason. Faith and reason together lift us up over the valleys and crags we face in our lives and bring us to the blessing God promised us through Abraham and finally accomplished through His Son Jesus. Listen to God’s voice and find faith and reason come together.

 

Twenty-eight Days With Jesus, Day 11

Invitation.

Locked in prison awaiting execution was not what John the Baptist had expected. It’s not that he minded spartan fare—he had been living in the desert off locusts and wild honey for years. But when a vocation like John’s is disrupted and replaced with weeks in dank, dark confinement it can cause a body to doubt.

“Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” John directed his followers to inquire of Jesus.

Do you hear the confusion in John’s voice? From conception John had been set apart for a specific purpose: to fulfill an ancient prophecy to be “a voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him’.” John understood it as a calling to prepare the people for the coming of the long-awaited Messiah by urging them to humble their hearts in repentance. But one too many calls to repentance had landed him in prison, and a niggling thought was pestering him: was Jesus not the Messiah? How could Messiah’s messenger end up here?

Jesus’ reply is equally thoughtful and combines both a warning and an invitation.

“Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me,” He begins, and then finishes with “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus knew this was exactly what John the imprisoned needed to hear. John was feeling discouraged and maybe even on the verge of doubting. Things weren’t going well for him and in situations like his it is natural for feelings to begin to usurp conviction. Have you ever felt like John?

Jesus responds to John by encouraging him to face the facts—Jesus is the great Realist who knows the havoc our fears and delusions can wreak in our lives. In effect, Jesus is saying, ‘You are not in prison in spite of being my messenger—you are there because of me.’ Jesus’ work on earth paralleled a work in the unseen realm where righting a human wrong requires divine arbitration. The Apostle Paul would later describe this as “a struggle not against flesh and blood, but against…the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms’ (Eph. 6:12).

Following Jesus is not about taking the easy way out; it’s about taking the true way to real life, which, He warns, won’t always appear attractive on the surface. It means choosing to ally ourselves with Jesus in a world where dark earthly authorities and evil spiritual forces will focus their power against anyone in Jesus’ service. Those who do not crumble under the assault, says Jesus, are blessed—are doing the right and reasonable thing in terms of eternity.

But He doesn’t stop there. It’s not just a warning that He gives; it’s also an invitation.

Jesus invites us to take His yoke upon us. He’s referring to the practice of harnessing beasts of burden together to allow them to pull a load more easily than one alone could have done. He’s saying that yes, those who ally themselves with Him will be—for a time—in the line of fire from earthly and spiritual forces opposed to Him, but He will make the burden bearable and even restful for our souls. It’s an oxymoron we find hard to conceive of until we actually choose to obey it. But it is a promise made by the One who would go on to bear the weight and burden of the guilt of all our trespasses against God—who rose from the grave that evil men and dark demons had hoped would swallow Him up and now stands at the Father’s side awaiting the right time to bring final justice to every created being.

“Come to me,” Jesus invites. Join my team; pull with me as I till the land and plant the seeds that will grow into an amazing harvest. Then join me feasting on the abundance that my hard labour will have produced.

So when (not if, but when) we feel tempted to fall away from our alignment with Jesus because we seem to be paying a higher price than we imagined and the turmoil we face is anything but restful, we are invited to quiet our soul and just come to Jesus. Even, come back, if we’ve strayed far. We’re not too far to turn our hearts back toward Him, find our rest in Him and learn from Him. Imagine a King and Master who calls Himself “gentle and humble in heart”—can you come to a God like that and trust Him to ultimately do right by you?

John the imprisoned Baptist did turn away from his doubts and rest in Jesus, as have untold other followers of Jesus through two millennia so far. Let’s heed the warning and accept the invitation to be part of the team of those who choose to be yoked with Jesus through thick and thin. Be assured we will find what our soul longs for. Rest.

(Photo Credit: Abdalian, Leon H.,[[File:Pair of oxen at the Clinton Fair.jpg|thumb|Pair of oxen at the Clinton Fair]]

ONE-TRACK MIND

So Jesus has orchestrated a death-defying trip across a squally sea, teaching his followers something important about faith. Remember? In four little words (“Where is your faith?”), He teaches them that circumstances do not determine faith – relationship with the ever-present Jesus does. Faith is the certainty that Jesus is with us and for us regardless of evidence that seems to indicate the opposite.

It’s idyllic weather for sailing now — flat calm waters and a steady breeze. His followers like that – we do too, don’t we? It’s a relief when the sun is glistening off sparkling waters and the wind is in our sails. We love those times when we can bask in the sun and dry off our trouble-sodden robes.

But it soon becomes obvious that Jesus has His eyes set on the far shore. He has something or someone in mind and He will not be sidetracked by the appearance of this holiday atmosphere. His followers have yet another lesson to learn today about faith and God’s compassion to bring people to wholeness.

The rocky shore draws nearer and one of the disciples hops out of the small wooden vessel in knee-deep water to draw it ashore. Jesus has barely stepped onto dry land when a commotion erupts from the cliff-side crevices above. A wild man, naked and bleeding, hurtles himself hell-bent toward them, shrieking, vestiges of broken chains trailing from his ankles and wrists. The storm of his frenzy sends a chill through the disciples’ backs and they begin to scramble back toward the boat. But Jesus is standing calmly, waiting, even inviting this strange caller.

“Come out!” Jesus commands, as the man careens toward Him. A light of recognition seems to ignite in the lunatic’s eyes and he sends himself prostrate at Jesus’ feet in silent entreaty. Jesus has identified the man’s deepest conflict and hears the silent prayer whispering from this madman’s soul. The man has been beset by a legion of demons holding him captive to their mad commands. Jesus knows all this at a glance; He knew it on the far shore when He purposed to make this day’s sailing trip. Jesus is here to release the man from his captivity because the man is finally at a point where he is willing to be helped. He is ready to be released from his hellish existence. So Jesus commands the demons come out of their now-unwilling host, and they must obey Him.

Can we relate? We may not be demon-possessed like the Gadarene madman, but haven’t we found ourselves ensnared in lifestyles that have held us mercilessly captive? Small temptations have turned into crazy compulsions that leave us lonely, disillusioned, and, if we will admit it, living a hellish existence. The identity we have sought through promises we’ve believed from this world has turned into a lie. What we thought would be gain has been nothing but loss. The chains that hold us captive have been tightening around our souls, constricting the life out of us.

This is our moment; Jesus has come and is here. He’s made the trip specifically because He hears that silent cry deep inside each of us. He’s waiting for us to fling ourselves at His feet acknowledging that He alone can save us from our self-destructive lives. We must choose to accept His methods if we want to be released, though. It will mean obedience to Him, humility where we have been proud, and submission to His will rather than our own. Is it worth it?

The Gadarene man thought so. Released from the prison of his inner demons we’re told he was found, “sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind.” When it was time for Jesus to leave, the man wanted to go with Him. But Jesus had a better plan. The man was to go home and tell his family and friends what God had done for him. He was to live out his newfound faith where others could see that the transformation was more than skin-deep. He must have been true to that calling, because the next time Jesus visits the area He finds four thousand people clamouring to meet Him. Many of those will become followers too.

Jesus has a one-track mind when it comes to transforming lives. We will not leave the same people we are when we come to Him. He wants to remove the lies, the chaos, the chains, and the wounds. We must be willing for that change to occur. We won’t get our own way anymore, but we will be given a path to follow that will be better than anything we could have devised ourselves. That is what Jesus’ love for us is all about. It’s about transforming us so we can have one-track minds too. All it takes is a silent prayer.

REVELATION: Part 8

Wake Up! (Rev. 3: 1-6)

The historic school near my house is only a shell of its former glory. Demographics have changed and there aren’t enough young families in the area to fill its aged halls. So it sits amid its un-mown lawns, a magnet for graffiti artists and dog-walkers. Until recently. Huge vehicles have begun arriving, filling the old school’s parking lot, unloading strange-looking equipment. Peaks and skylights have been attached to the roofline and children’s artwork has arisen on the windows of one classroom. A movie is being filmed here.

Like that school, Jesus’ revelation to Sardis, the fifth-mentioned church in His letter-dictating spiel, speaks of empty facades. He sounds concerned.

“I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God.”

The Christians in this ancient city, Sardis, are a shell of their former glory. Little remains of the fire of enthusiasm that used to mark their lives. Any acts of love that still flicker are but a vestige of what they once were. Jesus is warning them that their recent activity is nothing more than a movie set. Inside, they are hollow, empty and decaying.

We can be the same, can’t we? The rhythms of life sometimes leave us in troughs of spiritual emptiness. Failing to rely on God’s Spirit to inspire every breath, we find ourselves occasionally floundering, gasping for fresh air, or worse, satisfied with the stale ether of empty living. Riding on the crests of previous spiritual highs will not do. As Jesus describes it, we are more dead than alive.

He goes on to picture his followers in white robes, a depiction used throughout scripture to illustrate righteousness; through the redeeming work of His death and resurrection, Jesus washes His followers’ souls clean and pure to their depths – no façade here. Yet, some, He says, have soiled their clothes. They no longer walk with Him. They have not overcome the temptation of the world to disown the lover of their souls. They no longer acknowledge His name and authority over their lives. This is a serious problem. If the robe fits, we need to heed Jesus’ warning here. His call to ‘Wake up!’ is powerful enough to refit the soul with life and breath and fire if we have ears to hear and a heart to respond. Living life on this earth is living in enemy territory. The devil will use any method deemed useful to induce spiritual lethargy; sometimes it takes very little to wheedle us into sluggish apathy – surely a childhood decision or yesterday’s devotion will do for today, we tell ourselves. We’ve secured our salvation so now we can live as we please, we reason.

Listen to the intensity of Jesus’ words to us: “Wake up!” “Remember…obey…repent!” When was the last time we remembered a command of Jesus, like “love your neighbour” and it changed our behavior? When was the last time we made a different choice than we would have preferred because we wanted to obey Him? When was the last time we fell to our knees and repented of something we realized was sin? Neither you nor I are perfect, so it’s a given that there are things in our lives every now and then (more now than then for some of us…) that need repenting from.

Let us, who love Jesus, the glorious and Almighty One, rise from our beds of slumber. Let us live with the lively, faith-filled purpose of those whose names are written in the Book of Life. Then our deeds will match our inner conviction; our reputation for housing the invincible Spirit of God will be authentic. The inner life will be simply bursting to express itself in our outer life. Listen to Jesus and wake up to a new day, today.

A NEW CREATION, Part 7

New Commandment

Elmer hated everyone, especially Christians. To terrorize and instill fear was his chief aim in life. Until 2006 Elmer was a guerilla commander in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC); killing, displacing people, and wreaking havoc on lives was an everyday occurrence.

What were you doing in those years leading up to 2006? Might hatred ever have expressed itself in your life? Through gossip? Through harsh words or violence to those closest to you? Through envy when others enjoyed possessions you could never afford?

In a pivotal moment of Elmer’s life, hiding in a cave from government soldiers, God revealed Himself to him.  Trying four times to commit suicide as a solution to his problems, he was stopped from expressing his self-hatred by overt messages of God’s deep love for him. When Elmer finally surrendered his life totally to Jesus, a deep transformation occurred. He began to love.  His family recognized it. His colleagues recognized it. His enemies recognized it. He was under a new mandate: to love others.

Elmer’s life-change is neither an incidental nor coincidental occurrence in the movement known as ‘Christianity’. It is the very core of what Jesus came to earth to do two thousand years ago. Listen.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34,35). The new commandment replaces a ream of old ones. Tradition had layered an oppressive accumulation of do’s and don’ts upon the people of Jesus’ culture, which failed to conceal their core condition: they were characterized by anything but love.

Can you relate? Do you sometimes surprise yourself when something comes out of your mouth that sounds downright nasty? Where did that come from, you wonder? Or maybe in a moment of tension you erupt into violent action. Did that come from me, you ask? I ask myself that at times. I think if we are honest we will admit we need that new commandment. Whether we ever followed the old Judeo-Christian ethic or not, we know we are not essentially lovely people. Our consciences have tried to tell us that over the years, and, not knowing how to solve the dilemma, we have ignored and silenced the worrisome admission. Besides, we have never killed anyone. We’re not like Elmer.

But aren’t we? Jesus confronted religious leaders of His day who insulated themselves with a similar self-righteous attitude. He said pride is hatred. Lack of forgiveness is hatred. Thinking harsh thoughts of others is hatred. It’s a disease that goes deeper than we ever imagined and we all have succumbed to it, try as we might to hide it.

But Jesus brings it into the open. He did it for Elmer and He does it for us. Listen to Him. “Love one another”. It’s an impossible command except for one critical point. He is willing to inhabit us, bringing His expansive love along as a resource for our transformation. His love enables us to love.

Elmer’s family found that out. So did the Christians He used to persecute. Even his compatriot FARC guerilla soldiers found that out and are continuing to do so daily. Elmer is a different man now.

How does this relate to us? First, we’re not very different than Elmer. We’ve had episodes of hate, just in different ways (or we have had fewer opportunities to express it fully like him). Would you agree? Second, we too can be transformed, as he is, to whatever degree we choose to surrender to Jesus. Did you know that, I mean, really know that? Jesus is love, and He wants to love others through us as He is doing today through Elmer. This new commandment is a win-win situation if we will only choose to obey it. Let’s give Jesus the chance to prove He can do it in us. What is there to lose other than something that was consuming us anyway?

(The story of Elmer can be found in the Feb. 2014 issue of The Voice of the Martyrs magazine)

ON GETTING THOROUGHLY WET

Part 1

           “Eustace rushed toward the picture. Edmund, who knew something about magic, sprang after him, warning him to look out and not to be a fool. Lucy grabbed at him from the other side and was dragged forward. And by this time either they had grown much smaller or the picture had grown bigger. Eustace jumped to try to pull it off the wall and found himself standing on the frame; in front of him was not glass but real sea, and wind and waves rushing up to the frame as they might to a rock. He lost his head and clutched at the other two who had jumped up beside him. There was a second of struggling and shouting, and just as they thought they had got their balance a great blue roller surged up round them, swept them off their feet, and drew them down into the sea.”[1]

          Do you long to be swept into a world where every sense is enlivened? Where the flatness of your life’s picture explodes into a breathtaking reality? Where Someone, the source of all life and living, draws you into the surging sea of authentic life? C.S. Lewis’ scene from his Chronicles of Narnia reveals something that stirs within us a longing. What is it about this picture-painting description, like the famous wardrobe, that whets our appetite for real life? He describes the magic of being drawn into something so alive and magnificent and active that everything else becomes passive and dry in comparison. He’s not only talking about Narnia. He is chronicling a world, a domain, a realm that Jesus calls, ‘the way, the truth and the life’.

“To see the Father would be enough for us,” moans the passive Philip as he tries and fails to understand Jesus’ teaching. The Master has been talking about going away, about returning to the Father, and Philip just cannot follow his train of thought. Jesus’ eyes pierce the thick fog of his disciple’s thoughts. How should he explain the unexplainable to these followers of his?

“Don’t you know me, Philip…? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father,”[2] responds Jesus. He goes on to describe how his being, his speaking, and his living coalesce with the Father’s. “I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you”, he continues. The disciples struggle to understand.

Jesus is revealing a mystery that is the picture frame of a scene more alive than Lewis’ characters have been astonished to experience. He explains that our frail human attempts at living lack the breadth and height and depth of the life God designed for us. We know that; deep inside us we know that more than we know anything else. There is nothing about our paltry attempts at living life that parallels the God-life. What we think we’ve heard is that the breathtaking Life of God, more alive, more active and more thrilling than we can imagine beckons us. It’s true. Like a splash of cold water on a sweltering day Jesus describes the unimaginable. He paints a picture of the meshing of his life and his Father’s life as inseparable, as one, and then he invites us to join the vibrant melee. And as we step up to the edge of that picture and reach out hesitatingly to touch its gilt frame, he promises that we will be swept into the very life of God.

How do we get in on this crazy, impossible invitation? How do we become new to a life unlike any life we’ve ever known? Jesus has already anticipated those questions and he puts it in language the simplest can understand. Believe me. Love me. Obey me. There’s the catch, you say. How can I believe Jesus? How can I love someone I’ve never met? What will he ask of me that I must obey? Initiations into mysterious exclusive associations leave me feeling wet and chilled… (continued in Part 2)

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[1] Lewis, C.S. Voyage of the Dawntreader

[2] Segments from John 14