John 6:60-71
Has anyone ever promised you that following Jesus would be easy? Maybe Jesus would fulfill your wildest dreams and make everything in your life go smoothly if you simply asked him into your heart. Though I believe it is true that life with God is the only “life abundantly,” I am also convinced that it can be life’s greatest challenge. Jesus doesn’t promise us ease in life, but he does promise us life. After all, what do we expect becoming disciples of an innocent and executed man?
The early disciples of Christ learned this in dramatic fashion during an extended conversation about the bread of life. Jesus turns the conversation from the topic of eating the bread of life, Him, and receiving eternal life, to eating his flesh and drinking his blood; a shocking and even odd metaphor in any culture. And it isn’t an option.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life...” (vs. 53-54)
At this point, it is only natural to wonder who this guy is. The crowd wonders about his stance on cannibalism, and his disciples are muttering among themselves that this is a hard saying. And it is a hard saying! Into a world full of religious options, this man says he is the only path to salvation. Into a Jewish culture with a well established set of expectations regarding the Messiah, Jesus comes claiming all those rolls and rights, but doesn’t look at all like what they expected. And to cap it all off, apparently, there will be blood.
The Gospels are full of crowds who both follow and reject Jesus. It is not uncommon for a crowd to gather because of the miracles, hear Jesus teach, and then split into groups of devotees, hangers on, and outright enemies. At this point in John 6 something relatively unique happens. John doesn’t remark on the crowd’s rejection of Jesus. It looks more like this:
“When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’....After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.” (vs. 60, 66)
His disciples reject him. It looks like it will be too hard to follow him – to go through what it will mean to “eat” his flesh and blood, to associate so closely with Jesus that it will be like he is in them and they are in him. But there is one notable if not surprising exception.
“Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life’...” (vs 68)
This is a profound moment of clarity and priority for Peter and the rest who stayed. It is less important that Jesus might be hard to follow. It is less important that he will say and do things that may be hard to accept. It is less important that blood might be shed in following Him. It is more important that Jesus has the words of life.
The disciples who walked away from Christ that day chose what looked like the easier path, but lost life abundantly and life eternal. Peter’s life did not become immediately easy or perfect, but in choosing to follow Christ come what may, he found God’s life.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Knowing God
John 7:1-18
Jesus is a controversial figure. Divisive, even. And I speak of the Jesus of Scripture, of course. The “nice guy” Jesus of our culture is not only uncontroversial, he isn’t even interesting. He wants everyone to get alone, he is OK with other gods, and he loves you just the way you are. But when we come into contact with the Jesus of Scripture he immediately divides the room. And such is the case with the story of John 7. Jesus reenters Jerusalem for another feast of the Jews and even before the people know he is there, they are divided about who he is.
If we put ourselves in the places of the people in Jerusalem trying to figure out who Jesus is, we are presented with a real problem. There are those who say he is a great teacher, those who claim he is a rotten teacher. There are those who go so far as to say he is the Messiah, and those who want to kill him for blasphemy. One way or another, Jesus was not – and is not – a boring figure.
So how are we to decide who Jesus is? Are there better or worse ways to understand who he is? If we put it another way, if our spiritual formation depends on getting Jesus right, how do we get him right? In the course of the conversations in chapter 7, Jesus gives us at least two answers to this question. The first is all about our desires.
“If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.” (vs. 17)
If our wills are pointed in the right direction, Jesus promises us that we will come to a deeper and more accurate understanding of God and a more intimate relationship with him. If we can understand our will as something guided by our most powerful desires, if our desires are healthy our relationship with God will become healthier. And we have already seen this truth in action in John’s Gospel. In chapter 5, the Jewish leaders cared more for their Sabbath laws than the healing of a life-long paralytic, so they not only missed Jesus, they decided to kill him. The first story of John 7 involves Jesus’ brothers as mockers and tempters. As such, they completely missed who Jesus truly was. In contrast, after hearing a very difficult conversation about what it would mean to follow Jesus, Peter proclaimed that there was nowhere else for them to go. He would follow Jesus no matter what followed. That decision didn’t make Peter’s life perfect, but it did mean he found Jesus.
The second way is through our glory.
“The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.” (vs. 18)
As our example, the Son of God, the second member of the Trinity, God in flesh, lived for the glory of God and it resulted in the truth of God here on earth. I, a simple and broken human being, am tempted on a regular basis to replace God’s glory with my own. Through my daily life of taking care of people, tasks, and self I become habitually caught up in me and my life. But we learn through Christ that glory is a glimpse into who does and does not see God.
If Christ’s life on earth was lived to the glory of God and he is known because of it, how much more will I see, experience, and reveal that life if I live for the glory of God.
Jesus is a controversial figure. Divisive, even. And I speak of the Jesus of Scripture, of course. The “nice guy” Jesus of our culture is not only uncontroversial, he isn’t even interesting. He wants everyone to get alone, he is OK with other gods, and he loves you just the way you are. But when we come into contact with the Jesus of Scripture he immediately divides the room. And such is the case with the story of John 7. Jesus reenters Jerusalem for another feast of the Jews and even before the people know he is there, they are divided about who he is.
If we put ourselves in the places of the people in Jerusalem trying to figure out who Jesus is, we are presented with a real problem. There are those who say he is a great teacher, those who claim he is a rotten teacher. There are those who go so far as to say he is the Messiah, and those who want to kill him for blasphemy. One way or another, Jesus was not – and is not – a boring figure.
So how are we to decide who Jesus is? Are there better or worse ways to understand who he is? If we put it another way, if our spiritual formation depends on getting Jesus right, how do we get him right? In the course of the conversations in chapter 7, Jesus gives us at least two answers to this question. The first is all about our desires.
“If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.” (vs. 17)
If our wills are pointed in the right direction, Jesus promises us that we will come to a deeper and more accurate understanding of God and a more intimate relationship with him. If we can understand our will as something guided by our most powerful desires, if our desires are healthy our relationship with God will become healthier. And we have already seen this truth in action in John’s Gospel. In chapter 5, the Jewish leaders cared more for their Sabbath laws than the healing of a life-long paralytic, so they not only missed Jesus, they decided to kill him. The first story of John 7 involves Jesus’ brothers as mockers and tempters. As such, they completely missed who Jesus truly was. In contrast, after hearing a very difficult conversation about what it would mean to follow Jesus, Peter proclaimed that there was nowhere else for them to go. He would follow Jesus no matter what followed. That decision didn’t make Peter’s life perfect, but it did mean he found Jesus.
The second way is through our glory.
“The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.” (vs. 18)
As our example, the Son of God, the second member of the Trinity, God in flesh, lived for the glory of God and it resulted in the truth of God here on earth. I, a simple and broken human being, am tempted on a regular basis to replace God’s glory with my own. Through my daily life of taking care of people, tasks, and self I become habitually caught up in me and my life. But we learn through Christ that glory is a glimpse into who does and does not see God.
If Christ’s life on earth was lived to the glory of God and he is known because of it, how much more will I see, experience, and reveal that life if I live for the glory of God.
Monday, March 29, 2010
An Impossibility, A Questions, And An Action
John 6:1
Jesus and his disciples are on the shore of the Sea of Galilee with a large crowd of people who have followed him almost all the way around the lake. On the side of a mountain there, Jesus teaches all day long. As the sun gets low in the sky, the large crowd has grown hungry and there isn’t a convenient way of feeding them quickly. The large crowd has turned into a large need, and in the face of it, Jesus turns to his disciples and asks, What are you going to do?
“Where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?”
Jesus poses the problem in purely human and natural terms: bread and money. Philip answers Jesus honestly and openly by noticing that none of them have the money it will take to feed the crowd. He essentially says that nearly a year’s salary is not enough, and we don’t have anything like that. Philip hasn’t given a bad answer – he simply recognizes what Jesus wants him to see, that the need is impossible to meet.
“He said this to test him for he himself knew what he would do.”
While Philip does the math, Andrew looks around to see how much food he can scrounge up. He comes up with a boy with 5 barely loaves and 2 fish and recognizes how insufficient they are to the task laid before them by Jesus. One sack lunch will not feed the crowd.
Both Philip and Andrew take note of how impossible the task is, but Jesus is testing them, he is pressing them to see things differently. I like the way the Message paraphrases that sentence, “He said this to stretch Philip’s faith.” In their hands with what they are able to provide, the massive need before them will never be met. But Jesus wants them to see things through a different lens – through what is possible through him.
What happens next is the twist in the story that makes all the difference. In fact, the lesson goes by so fast, we are apt to miss it. After having the crowd seated on the grassy hillside (remind you of Psalm 23?), Jesus does something that is the lesson. The action is the point of the story.
“Jesus then took the loaves…”
Jesus literally took matters into his own hands and the crowd was fed to overflowing. Everyone had everything they could eat and there was enough left over for each disciple to carry around a basketful of more bread than they began with. Jesus took everything the disciples and the crowd could give him, which was totally insufficient to the task, and fed to overflowing.
It is beautiful what Jesus can do with what humble and submitted people give him. We cannot meet a single need in our own power, but Jesus can satisfy them all.
The lesson Jesus teaches his disciples from the first question to the moment when they pick up the leftovers is that we can never meet people’s needs – their deepest and truest needs – with our own power. We are always insufficient to the task. But these gifts and these goods placed in the hands of the Son of God makes all the difference.
In the hands of Jesus, all can be fed.
Jesus and his disciples are on the shore of the Sea of Galilee with a large crowd of people who have followed him almost all the way around the lake. On the side of a mountain there, Jesus teaches all day long. As the sun gets low in the sky, the large crowd has grown hungry and there isn’t a convenient way of feeding them quickly. The large crowd has turned into a large need, and in the face of it, Jesus turns to his disciples and asks, What are you going to do?
“Where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?”
Jesus poses the problem in purely human and natural terms: bread and money. Philip answers Jesus honestly and openly by noticing that none of them have the money it will take to feed the crowd. He essentially says that nearly a year’s salary is not enough, and we don’t have anything like that. Philip hasn’t given a bad answer – he simply recognizes what Jesus wants him to see, that the need is impossible to meet.
“He said this to test him for he himself knew what he would do.”
While Philip does the math, Andrew looks around to see how much food he can scrounge up. He comes up with a boy with 5 barely loaves and 2 fish and recognizes how insufficient they are to the task laid before them by Jesus. One sack lunch will not feed the crowd.
Both Philip and Andrew take note of how impossible the task is, but Jesus is testing them, he is pressing them to see things differently. I like the way the Message paraphrases that sentence, “He said this to stretch Philip’s faith.” In their hands with what they are able to provide, the massive need before them will never be met. But Jesus wants them to see things through a different lens – through what is possible through him.
What happens next is the twist in the story that makes all the difference. In fact, the lesson goes by so fast, we are apt to miss it. After having the crowd seated on the grassy hillside (remind you of Psalm 23?), Jesus does something that is the lesson. The action is the point of the story.
“Jesus then took the loaves…”
Jesus literally took matters into his own hands and the crowd was fed to overflowing. Everyone had everything they could eat and there was enough left over for each disciple to carry around a basketful of more bread than they began with. Jesus took everything the disciples and the crowd could give him, which was totally insufficient to the task, and fed to overflowing.
It is beautiful what Jesus can do with what humble and submitted people give him. We cannot meet a single need in our own power, but Jesus can satisfy them all.
The lesson Jesus teaches his disciples from the first question to the moment when they pick up the leftovers is that we can never meet people’s needs – their deepest and truest needs – with our own power. We are always insufficient to the task. But these gifts and these goods placed in the hands of the Son of God makes all the difference.
In the hands of Jesus, all can be fed.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
God Loves the World
John 3:16-21
How would you finish the phrase, “Love is…”? We could, and we often do, put all kinds of things and people into that sentence. We use “love” to apply to a radical array and variety of items in our lives. I love a well made mocha. I also love my wife. I love hiking in the Colorado Rockies. I also love my friends. Because we use this word to apply to so many different things, we often lose sight of the power and meaning of love. Sometimes, when a word means almost anything, it comes to mean almost nothing.
So, what does it mean that “God so loved the world” that he gave his one and only Son? John uses a powerful word for love here, and we ought to look at it in at least three ways. This love is attention. When we have a deep love for someone or something, it consumes our attention. They are on our minds often if not all the time, and we are interested in their well-being and their condition. To love a thing is to give our attention to a thing.
This love is also attachment. When we love a thing, a person, or an idea, we will attach ourselves to them. We will rearrange our lives and prioritize our time so we can be with, or think about, or do for those people. My heart, my mind, and my life will attach themselves to the things I love.
This love is also sacrifice. We sacrifice for the things we love. And we sacrifice to the degree we love them. I will sacrifice money for a good meal. But there are people in my life for whom I would sacrifice my life.
God so loved the world that he gave all these things to us. He has lavished his attention upon us in the form of his Son. Christ came to reveal the will and heart of the Father in his life among us. God also attached himself to this world through the incarnation. Jesus took on real flesh and bone and lived a human life as God with us. And then God sacrificed for us out of his love. Jesus suffered real betrayal, humiliation and pain. Jesus really did die a torturous death upon a cross, forsaken by his closest friends. It cost God to love us.
And in this love we see the will of God. We become shockingly aware of what God wants when we pay attention to his love. We, his creation, were separated from him and lost in our brokenness and sin. He saw the chasm and initiated reconciliation through giving us his Son. Paul says that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5:6-8). The disciple Peter says that God’s will is that none should perish, but that all would come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
But just as we learn of God by his love, we also learn from our loves. The problem is not with God’s love, but with ours. Jesus is clear that though the light came into the darkness, people did not receive him because they loved darkness rather than the light (John 3:19). The shocking thing is, our love of darkness is just as deep as God’s love for us. God loves (agape) the world, but humans love (agape) darkness.
So then, where is my mind naturally drawn? To whom and what am I naturally willing to attach myself? What do I naturally sacrifice for? Just as God’s love drives him into our lives to reconcile us to himself, our loves, when they remain in darkness, blind us to the gift of God.
But that is not the end of the story, because, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to us that we might believe and not perish, but have everlasting life. God loves the world.
How would you finish the phrase, “Love is…”? We could, and we often do, put all kinds of things and people into that sentence. We use “love” to apply to a radical array and variety of items in our lives. I love a well made mocha. I also love my wife. I love hiking in the Colorado Rockies. I also love my friends. Because we use this word to apply to so many different things, we often lose sight of the power and meaning of love. Sometimes, when a word means almost anything, it comes to mean almost nothing.
So, what does it mean that “God so loved the world” that he gave his one and only Son? John uses a powerful word for love here, and we ought to look at it in at least three ways. This love is attention. When we have a deep love for someone or something, it consumes our attention. They are on our minds often if not all the time, and we are interested in their well-being and their condition. To love a thing is to give our attention to a thing.
This love is also attachment. When we love a thing, a person, or an idea, we will attach ourselves to them. We will rearrange our lives and prioritize our time so we can be with, or think about, or do for those people. My heart, my mind, and my life will attach themselves to the things I love.
This love is also sacrifice. We sacrifice for the things we love. And we sacrifice to the degree we love them. I will sacrifice money for a good meal. But there are people in my life for whom I would sacrifice my life.
God so loved the world that he gave all these things to us. He has lavished his attention upon us in the form of his Son. Christ came to reveal the will and heart of the Father in his life among us. God also attached himself to this world through the incarnation. Jesus took on real flesh and bone and lived a human life as God with us. And then God sacrificed for us out of his love. Jesus suffered real betrayal, humiliation and pain. Jesus really did die a torturous death upon a cross, forsaken by his closest friends. It cost God to love us.
And in this love we see the will of God. We become shockingly aware of what God wants when we pay attention to his love. We, his creation, were separated from him and lost in our brokenness and sin. He saw the chasm and initiated reconciliation through giving us his Son. Paul says that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5:6-8). The disciple Peter says that God’s will is that none should perish, but that all would come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
But just as we learn of God by his love, we also learn from our loves. The problem is not with God’s love, but with ours. Jesus is clear that though the light came into the darkness, people did not receive him because they loved darkness rather than the light (John 3:19). The shocking thing is, our love of darkness is just as deep as God’s love for us. God loves (agape) the world, but humans love (agape) darkness.
So then, where is my mind naturally drawn? To whom and what am I naturally willing to attach myself? What do I naturally sacrifice for? Just as God’s love drives him into our lives to reconcile us to himself, our loves, when they remain in darkness, blind us to the gift of God.
But that is not the end of the story, because, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to us that we might believe and not perish, but have everlasting life. God loves the world.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Why Does God Care?
John 2:1-12
Have you ever wondered what God cares about? What is it that catches his attention? What in this universe moves God? After all, he is the Creator, the Author of all time and history, and he knows the position of every atom and molecule in the universe. He sees the beginning from the end and all of human history is simply a glance for God. There are a lot of grand and magnificent things for God to take care of and large sweeps in human affairs for God to pay attention to. Have you ever wondered if God really does take notice – and care – about the microscopic scope of your life?
Jesus’ first miracle in John’s Gospel is a telling glimpse into these questions. And not only does it begin to tell us what kinds of things God cares about, but more importantly, it shows us why he cares about them.
Jesus, his disciples and his mother are invited to a wedding in Cana in Galilee. They travel a few miles from the tiny and humble hamlet of Nazareth to the tiny and humble town of Cana. Like the small villages around it, Cana is obscure, simple, and even poor. From the very start there are very few people here to even behold the glory that is the miracle Jesus is about to perform. Then, when the wine runs out, Jesus and his mother have a conversation about what needs to happen. Though he gently rebuffs her for placing expectation upon him, Mary responds with the right kind of surrender and faith by telling the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do.
Then, in this small town at an anonymous wedding celebration, Jesus is left alone with a couple of servants and a handful of young disciples. And it is there, in the back hallway of the house that Jesus performs the first of his miracles.
Though Jesus is teaching his disciples something deep and meaningful about him and his mission on earth, there is no getting around the simple fact that there is also a wedding that needs saving. Jesus saves the groom and his family embarrassment and even shame by quietly turning 180 gallons of water into wine.
I struggle from time to time over the care and attention of God. Of all the things and people in this universe, can it really be true that God not only sees me (is simply aware of my presence the way I am aware of harmless spiders in my basement) but that he cares (more deeply than I care for my own family)? Then I read a passage like this one and am reassured that God reaches even into the simple and humble recesses of life and is ready to perform the miraculous. Not even a sparrow falls to the ground apart from my Father’s attention, and in his eyes, I am worth more that many sparrows.
But John also tells us why Jesus works wonders in the humble estate of my life. After a miracle performed in an out of the way town among only a handful of unimportant people, John says, “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.”
Why is Christ at work in even my life? Every ounce of his activity in my life is designed to reveal the divine splendor and the eternal power and might of my God. He does not work in and through me so that the world might see me – it is so the world around me may see the glory of my Savior and that they might place their trust and confidence in him.
Every moment of my life is pregnant with the glory of God.
Have you ever wondered what God cares about? What is it that catches his attention? What in this universe moves God? After all, he is the Creator, the Author of all time and history, and he knows the position of every atom and molecule in the universe. He sees the beginning from the end and all of human history is simply a glance for God. There are a lot of grand and magnificent things for God to take care of and large sweeps in human affairs for God to pay attention to. Have you ever wondered if God really does take notice – and care – about the microscopic scope of your life?
Jesus’ first miracle in John’s Gospel is a telling glimpse into these questions. And not only does it begin to tell us what kinds of things God cares about, but more importantly, it shows us why he cares about them.
Jesus, his disciples and his mother are invited to a wedding in Cana in Galilee. They travel a few miles from the tiny and humble hamlet of Nazareth to the tiny and humble town of Cana. Like the small villages around it, Cana is obscure, simple, and even poor. From the very start there are very few people here to even behold the glory that is the miracle Jesus is about to perform. Then, when the wine runs out, Jesus and his mother have a conversation about what needs to happen. Though he gently rebuffs her for placing expectation upon him, Mary responds with the right kind of surrender and faith by telling the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do.
Then, in this small town at an anonymous wedding celebration, Jesus is left alone with a couple of servants and a handful of young disciples. And it is there, in the back hallway of the house that Jesus performs the first of his miracles.
Though Jesus is teaching his disciples something deep and meaningful about him and his mission on earth, there is no getting around the simple fact that there is also a wedding that needs saving. Jesus saves the groom and his family embarrassment and even shame by quietly turning 180 gallons of water into wine.
I struggle from time to time over the care and attention of God. Of all the things and people in this universe, can it really be true that God not only sees me (is simply aware of my presence the way I am aware of harmless spiders in my basement) but that he cares (more deeply than I care for my own family)? Then I read a passage like this one and am reassured that God reaches even into the simple and humble recesses of life and is ready to perform the miraculous. Not even a sparrow falls to the ground apart from my Father’s attention, and in his eyes, I am worth more that many sparrows.
But John also tells us why Jesus works wonders in the humble estate of my life. After a miracle performed in an out of the way town among only a handful of unimportant people, John says, “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.”
Why is Christ at work in even my life? Every ounce of his activity in my life is designed to reveal the divine splendor and the eternal power and might of my God. He does not work in and through me so that the world might see me – it is so the world around me may see the glory of my Savior and that they might place their trust and confidence in him.
Every moment of my life is pregnant with the glory of God.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
The Birth of Jesus Christ
Luke 2:1-21
God’s extravagance and humility are shocking. The King of Kings, the Son of God and Son of Man incarnate, the Savior of all humanity, was born into human flesh in an anonymous stable in a small town to the fanfare of the smell of sheep and donkeys. The most important birth in human history happened when and where almost no one was watching.
Joseph and Mary were at home in Nazareth during the final weeks of the pregnancy until the decree came from Rome that sent them on the sixty mile trek to Bethlehem where they were too late to find good lodging. They went from a warm four walls with family to a room intended for animals. And as Luke tells the story, it is almost as if the birth simply comes:
“And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her first born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” (vs. 6-7)
Everything about the birth of Jesus Christ leads us to the emptying, or the humility, of God. Paul tells us that Jesus, though God, did not count equality with God something to hold on to, but he willingly emptied himself and took the form of a slave (Philippians 2:5-7). The author of Hebrews tells us that because God’s children all share in corruptible flesh, the Son of God took on that same flesh to destroy the one who frightens us with death, the devil (Hebrews 2:14-15).
The birth of Jesus Christ happens in a way completely disconnected from and completely unmoved by the whims and trappings of human power. We seek our stability and power in what the kingdoms of this world tell us is power, but Jesus shows us a better, a deeper and more stable way. Though the most powerful man on the planet, the emperor of Rome, sent Joseph and Mary packing, God had – and still has – his way.
But the extravagance of God? On a nearby hillside there were a handful of common, ordinary laborers doing their job in the middle of the night. And it is to these shepherds that God decides to give maybe the clearest and certainly the most magnificent revelation of the significance of that night. While they watched their flocks by night, an angel materialized and lit up the hillside.
“And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them.” (vs. 9)
It didn’t end there. After another minute or two, God sends an entire choir of the heavenly host to sing the glories of God and the reasons for the birth of their Messiah. Now that is the right way to announce the birth of a King!
But who was the audience? Bethlehem is just a couple of miles from Jerusalem. If God simply moved the angelic choir over a couple of hills, all the population of Jerusalem would have heard the news. Instead, God opens the sky and pours forth his extravagant glory upon a handful of simple shepherds.
We might be tempted to think that was a waste of angelic effort. God didn’t think so. God spoke and the shepherds responded by going to see Joseph, Mary and the baby, and by telling everyone the saw about the glory of God. God didn’t need kings and princes – He needed willing and humble shepherds. There is no effort wasted declaring the glories of our God.
God’s extravagance and humility are shocking. The King of Kings, the Son of God and Son of Man incarnate, the Savior of all humanity, was born into human flesh in an anonymous stable in a small town to the fanfare of the smell of sheep and donkeys. The most important birth in human history happened when and where almost no one was watching.
Joseph and Mary were at home in Nazareth during the final weeks of the pregnancy until the decree came from Rome that sent them on the sixty mile trek to Bethlehem where they were too late to find good lodging. They went from a warm four walls with family to a room intended for animals. And as Luke tells the story, it is almost as if the birth simply comes:
“And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her first born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” (vs. 6-7)
Everything about the birth of Jesus Christ leads us to the emptying, or the humility, of God. Paul tells us that Jesus, though God, did not count equality with God something to hold on to, but he willingly emptied himself and took the form of a slave (Philippians 2:5-7). The author of Hebrews tells us that because God’s children all share in corruptible flesh, the Son of God took on that same flesh to destroy the one who frightens us with death, the devil (Hebrews 2:14-15).
The birth of Jesus Christ happens in a way completely disconnected from and completely unmoved by the whims and trappings of human power. We seek our stability and power in what the kingdoms of this world tell us is power, but Jesus shows us a better, a deeper and more stable way. Though the most powerful man on the planet, the emperor of Rome, sent Joseph and Mary packing, God had – and still has – his way.
But the extravagance of God? On a nearby hillside there were a handful of common, ordinary laborers doing their job in the middle of the night. And it is to these shepherds that God decides to give maybe the clearest and certainly the most magnificent revelation of the significance of that night. While they watched their flocks by night, an angel materialized and lit up the hillside.
“And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them.” (vs. 9)
It didn’t end there. After another minute or two, God sends an entire choir of the heavenly host to sing the glories of God and the reasons for the birth of their Messiah. Now that is the right way to announce the birth of a King!
But who was the audience? Bethlehem is just a couple of miles from Jerusalem. If God simply moved the angelic choir over a couple of hills, all the population of Jerusalem would have heard the news. Instead, God opens the sky and pours forth his extravagant glory upon a handful of simple shepherds.
We might be tempted to think that was a waste of angelic effort. God didn’t think so. God spoke and the shepherds responded by going to see Joseph, Mary and the baby, and by telling everyone the saw about the glory of God. God didn’t need kings and princes – He needed willing and humble shepherds. There is no effort wasted declaring the glories of our God.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Behold Your God of Might: Isaiah 40
Isaiah 40:10-11
In this chapter, the prophet responds to the really bad news he presented to the king in chapter 39 – the people of God will suffer at the hands of their enemies. In that context of distress, the beauty and grace of chapter 40 is arresting. We don’t expect the greatness of God to be extolled, but it is. And it is an incredible entrance into the character of God and our understanding of him in difficult times. In our passage, Isaiah extols the might of God:
“Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him;…” (40:9-10)
Growing up in Pentecostal circles meant I was privy to services and small groups where we prayed for miraculous things to happen, and from time to time, they did. I have prayed for people who were healed, we heard the stories of miraculous events, and every time it was both natural and right to praise God as a God of might and power. When we see God show up in these miraculous ways, it is easy for us to repeat after Isaiah, “Behold, the Lord God comes with might.”
But that is not the context of Isaiah 40. Instead, God’s people are experiencing a time of waiting in which they will suffer at the hands of their enemies and it will likely be a very long time before they see the kind of might and power that will free them of their political burdens.
Though it is easy and right to praise God as mighty and powerful when we experience amazing things, it is necessary to praise God as mighty and powerful when we don’t. God’s might and power never fade or change through the seasons of our life and our guard against distress and fear is to proclaim him as such in all circumstances. To complete the picture drawn by Isaiah, it is important to see what kind of God of might we are to behold.
“He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.” (vs. 11)
More often than in the great miracles, we experience a God of might as he tends to his people day by day. It is in the normal humdrum of the average life that the God who created the universe leads his people in might. Isaiah’s image is of God carrying a rod in one hand and clutching a lamb close to his chest in the other.
Behold your God of might.
God is greater than “the ordinary.” He is more present than our sense of his absence. His light shines through the fog of our routine. Our Shepherd clutches us close while we pay absolutely no attention to him.
We can begin to cultivate a sense of this kind of God by simply repeating with the prophet that our God is a God of might who shepherds us through every moment of existence. We find what Thomas Kelly called a “subterranean sanctuary of the soul” where his presence is always strong and where his light is always shining.
In this chapter, the prophet responds to the really bad news he presented to the king in chapter 39 – the people of God will suffer at the hands of their enemies. In that context of distress, the beauty and grace of chapter 40 is arresting. We don’t expect the greatness of God to be extolled, but it is. And it is an incredible entrance into the character of God and our understanding of him in difficult times. In our passage, Isaiah extols the might of God:
“Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him;…” (40:9-10)
Growing up in Pentecostal circles meant I was privy to services and small groups where we prayed for miraculous things to happen, and from time to time, they did. I have prayed for people who were healed, we heard the stories of miraculous events, and every time it was both natural and right to praise God as a God of might and power. When we see God show up in these miraculous ways, it is easy for us to repeat after Isaiah, “Behold, the Lord God comes with might.”
But that is not the context of Isaiah 40. Instead, God’s people are experiencing a time of waiting in which they will suffer at the hands of their enemies and it will likely be a very long time before they see the kind of might and power that will free them of their political burdens.
Though it is easy and right to praise God as mighty and powerful when we experience amazing things, it is necessary to praise God as mighty and powerful when we don’t. God’s might and power never fade or change through the seasons of our life and our guard against distress and fear is to proclaim him as such in all circumstances. To complete the picture drawn by Isaiah, it is important to see what kind of God of might we are to behold.
“He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.” (vs. 11)
More often than in the great miracles, we experience a God of might as he tends to his people day by day. It is in the normal humdrum of the average life that the God who created the universe leads his people in might. Isaiah’s image is of God carrying a rod in one hand and clutching a lamb close to his chest in the other.
Behold your God of might.
God is greater than “the ordinary.” He is more present than our sense of his absence. His light shines through the fog of our routine. Our Shepherd clutches us close while we pay absolutely no attention to him.
We can begin to cultivate a sense of this kind of God by simply repeating with the prophet that our God is a God of might who shepherds us through every moment of existence. We find what Thomas Kelly called a “subterranean sanctuary of the soul” where his presence is always strong and where his light is always shining.
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