Provision in the Desert

Deuteronomy 8:1-10

In this life temptation will come. It is inevitable. It is the very nature of the world. But not every season in life and not every temptation is the same. There are unique temptations that come in the difficult and desert seasons in life. We struggle with things we are not able to overcome and over issues we feel are noble but don’t seem to bring anything but pain. We feel as if God has abandoned us or may even actively be against us. These are real seasons in life with God, and can be some of the most difficult, but God has some things to say about the temptations of the desert.

Though the language is stark, it is nonetheless true – God led his people in the wilderness and even tested his people through the trials they faced there. Moses says, “And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness , that he might humble you, testing you” (vs. 2). In the desert God’s people faced some very real and difficult things, beginning with hunger and thirst. Adding to the natural difficulties is the fact that God did the leading into the desert with a few things in mind for them including humility, obedience and testing.

The inclusion of humility here is powerfully instructive. They were the children of generations of slaves and had spent their entire lives wandering in a barren wilderness. Do they really need humility? Hasn’t life been difficult enough on them? It turns out, however, that God’s most-used descriptor for them is not “humble,” but some form of “stubborn” or “stiff-necked.” Neither the ignominy of slavery nor the difficulty of the desert made them humble. Humility is not a function of our physical or material position in life, but of the position of our heart with God. The most destitute can be proud; the wealthiest among us can be humble.

In addition to humility, they needed to learn where their source of all sustenance came from. Moses says that God did these things, “that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (vs. 3). They wandered in a desert where there was no bread, so God provided bread from heaven. They had no meat, so God sent quail. There were no water supplies easily at hand, so God cracked open a rock and water flowed. There were no major cities along the way where they could buy new clothes for the ones that were wearing out in the wilderness wanderings, so God kept their shoes and clothes from growing thread-bare. These needs were met, not by what we might recognize as normal or natural means, but by the voice of God commanding that their needs be met.

Possibly the deepest fear we face when we wander through a desert is that we simply will not be taken care of, that our needs won’t be met. We are accustomed to working to pay the bills and applying our own skills and talents to our lives so things go as smoothly as they can. But when we are met with the barrenness of a land with no food or water, our abilities run out quickly. And often this is the only place where we learn – really learn – that the voice of God is our only source of provision.

And then we know that the abundant provision of the Promised Land is the voice of God working to provide for his people. “For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land” (vs. 7).

To drive the point home, when he was hungry after forty days of fasting in the wilderness, Jesus Christ rebuked Satan’s temptation to turn stones into bread by quoting from Deuteronomy 8. Jesus refused the bread of temptation in favor of the food that can only come from the voice of God himself.

Hope

Romans 8:23-25

Hope is a powerful desire deep within every human being. All of us hope for the better, the good, the resolution of tension and difficulty. All of us anticipate and work for the betterment of our own conditions and those of the ones we love. Hope is such an important part of the human make-up that its loss is devastating and often fatal. When a human gives up hope, or has enough of their hopes dashed, all meaning and purpose to life can slip away.

In Romans chapter 8 Paul speaks of the Christian’s hope of the glory of God and the kind of hope we have in a broken world. If the glory of God is far greater than the suffering and pain in this world (vs. 18), then what does it mean to hold onto the hope of this glory in a decaying and difficult world?

First of all, it is undeniably true that we groan under the weight of this world. “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (vs. 23) And though we groan, we do not suffer meaninglessly; we have the foretaste of the glory of God living and breathing in us. We have the firstfruits now of the feast of God’s glory to come because the children of God have been given the Spirit of God. We know there will be complete forgiveness because the Spirit is at work forgiving now. We know there will be a complete transformation of the human soul because the Spirit is at work transforming now. We know there will be a complete healing of body and soul because the Spirit is at work healing body and soul now. We know the feast is coming because we are eating the appetizers.

And into this hope, Paul says, you were saved. (vs. 24) We were given a firm and true hope when we became children of God.

False hope is a dangerous and manipulative tool. Because every human being is built to hope, there are people and ideologies that will play on that hope and destroy lives, draining them of every effort and energy in order to get their way. These people and ideologies promise the world and simply do not have the power or intelligence to make good on their promise. In false hope, human lives are utterly ruined.

But the hope of God is founded on the truth and power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When you were saved you exchanged all the snake-oil of this world for the truth of the hope we have in Jesus Christ. His kingdom will come and his will will be done on earth just as it is in heaven, and followers of Jesus Christ partake in that kingdom here and now. Just as false hope ruins lives, the true hope of Jesus Christ restores them. It gives meaning and redemption even in suffering and pain. It provides the taste of the glory of God in a world that causes so much groaning.

It is true that we “wait for it with patience,” (vs. 25) but we can wait in truth and security because we know the power and the glory of God. God has not orphaned us here in this world – He has sent his Spirit to be a Counselor, Teacher and Guide, and even the firstfruits of the glory of the kingdom of God.

Lose every hope you have in the people and structures of this world. Do not lose your hope in the truth and the power of the kingdom of God. For you were given this hope when you became a child of God.

There May Be Blood

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.

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.

Prayer, Praise and the Uniquely Christian Life

James 5:13

The Christian life is a unique life. Following Jesus changes everything for us – at least it should change everything. This doesn’t mean we leave our jobs and families and live in communes in the forest. It means that the lives we lead are forever and irrevocably changed. As James closes his epistle, he wants to make sure his readers are left with a set of important thoughts ringing in their ears. The life he described up to this point transforms the way we view pain and suffering, the way we value and treat others, and the way we use our tongues, to mention just a few things. Now it is time for the final set of exclamation points on the descriptions of this uniquely Christian life.

Is anyone among you suffering? We know James’ readers are suffering; we know our neighbors are; we know the reality of suffering in our own lives. The question is not hypothetical, and James’ answer should unsettle us a bit. It is exactly when things go out of our control that our natural impulse is to DO something and not just sit around and take it. We want to take events and people into our own hands and rework the situation so we and our loved ones can avoid the pain we are in. James, however, says the most important thing we can do in the most complicated and confusing seasons of life is pray. Prayer is not the Christian’s back-up plan; it is our constant source of strength.

We pray to the Creator of the Universe – to the one who spun the universe into existence and holds the expanse of time and space in the palm of his hand. I pray to the Only Wise God. We pray to the God who walked among us in human flesh. He was born, lived and died truly human, and he rose again conquering death and sin. I pray to the Incarnate God. And I pray by the prompting and power of the very Spirit of God within me. I pray by God’s Empowering Presence. This is the uniquely Christian prayer.

Is anyone among you cheerful? We sometimes find ourselves in this season of life – we are blessed, we are happy, we are at peace in our hearts and minds. James tells us the right reaction is to sing songs of praise. Praise is an open door to the presence of God. When God’s people assembled at the Temple in the Old Testament, they we lead in praise and worship to the God who lead them out of Egypt and gave them a homeland. And when the presence of the Lord fell, they praised some more. At the end of all things when we catch a glimpse of the throne room of God, we encounter angelic beings and the redeemed singing songs of praise to God for his majesty, power, justice, forgiveness and mercy. We will, for all of eternity, be caught up in a chorus of praise to our God.

But we can add to James the words of Paul. Right now we may not feel the power, steadfast love and grace of God. We may be walking a different path. To us, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:3, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.” Praise be to God for the comfort and compassion he gives in the midst of my suffering and pain. Praise be to this God in all seasons of life. Praise is not a seasonal activity; it is my constant response to this God who redeemed me.

If praise is not a part of my life, I don’t know who my God is.

Prayer and praise are consistent and universal activities in the Christian life. They are our constant companions in this uniquely Christian life.

Rejecting Christ

Mark 15:1-20

People reject Jesus for all kinds of different reasons. Some of them are deeply emotional and personal reasons, and some of them are thought through and deliberate. Things were no different when Jesus walked the streets of Judea, and in these courtroom scenes in Mark, we learn why the religious leaders and why the political leader of the day rejected Jesus.

The Sanhedrin were desperate to find something to use against Jesus that would send him to his death. They were so desperate they broke all their normal rules for trial and accusation, concocted false witnesses and searched for any testimony that would condemn Jesus. They finally landed on a misrepresentation of Jesus’ own words, “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another not made with hands” (14:58). The religious leaders looked for and found a religious reason to reject Jesus.

It might sound odd to put it this way, but people often reject Jesus for religious reasons. The threat Jesus posed to them was to their tightly-packaged and self-styled religion. It is true they were trying to be devout followers of God, but their legalism had become their idol and their means of controlling the people. Jesus openly, and sometimes violently, rejected the legalism of the Pharisees. He even did it before crowds of people, changing their loyalties from the scribes and Pharisees to himself. Jesus freed the people from the religious leaders’ monopoly of religious practice.

What is important is that when the Sanhedrin were confronted with the truth, they clung instead to what they wanted to be true. This is a powerful force in the human heart. To be confronted with the truth of Jesus Christ means I need to change. It means I need to come to the realization I am no longer in control, and I am no longer my own lord and master. On the other hand, if I get to set the religious rules and realities, I am much more comfortable. Paul tells us that people will reject the truth because what is false suits their own pleasures (2 Timothy 4:3).

Pilate, on the other hand, was not a religious man. He was a political creature who worked his way up the ladder of power, and eventually took his own life when he has his position stripped from him. What is important for our discussion here, is that he was convinced of Jesus’ innocence. Three times in Mark 15 Pilate presses the crowd and Sanhedrin to make sure they want to condemn Jesus to death. The record of Pilate in the other Gospels makes it even clearer that he knew Jesus to be innocent—his wife even had a dream warning him not to have anything to do with Jesus’ conviction. So what caused him to send an innocent man to a tortuous death? Mark 15:15 provides the answer, “So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd…delivered him to be crucified.”

Pilate, face-to-face with the truth, picked the false path because it was politically and culturally expedient; it pleased and placated the crowd. He chose the path of least social resistance. This is another powerful force in the human heart. It is easier for us to pick our own ease and comfort and the accolades of others over the truth of Jesus Christ. But when we do, there is a high price to pay. When my own desires, ease and comfort are king, I will be willing to bend and compromise everywhere else. Pilate went so far as to send Jesus to his death. I will compromise on all my commitments, including friends, family, career, and even God.

But if I chose Christ, against what is easy religiously and culturally, I gain the whole world. When I lose my soul to him, I get it back. When I accept the truth of Jesus Christ, it sets me free.

Willing Slaves of Christ

Revelation 1:1

The book of Revelation tends lay in a fog. We may only read it when we get worried about world events, or at the end of our yearly reading program, and it is almost always a frustrating book to try and figure out. It contains odd and difficult to understand visions, dreams, beasts and creatures. Much of what John sees and writes down is in a form foreign to us, and we don’t always know how to go about tackling the interpretation of the book.

This is an odd, though common, irony. From the very start of the book, it is intended to be a revelation of Jesus Christ. Though that word “revelation” is the Greek word for apocalypse, it means to have something unfolded and explained to us. And who or what is the target of that unfolding? It is Jesus Christ. The book of Revelation, for all its uniqueness, reveals Jesus Christ to us in ways the rest of the NT only hints at.

One of the keys to the revelatory nature of this book lies in an important concept John uses twice in his opening thoughts. God reveals the contents of this book to his servants in general, and reveals it specifically to his servant John (1:1). By the time John writes this book down (probably as late as 95 A.D.), the title of “servant” of Christ is loaded with meaning.

This word is a powerful indicator of a believer’s relationship with Jesus Christ. It means to be a “bond slave,” or someone who has willingly become the slave of another. For example, after Peter and John suffer persecution at the hands of the religious leaders of the day, they return to their church and pray. Part of what they say is in Acts 4:29:

“And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.”

The early church took this title of “willing slave” upon themselves: they were not given it, they took it. And as Paul writes to the various churches, he commonly calls himself the servant, or bondservant, of Jesus Christ (Romans 1:1, Philippians 1:1). John also calls himself a servant of Jesus Christ. And as such he faithfully writes down all he sees and hears and compiles the book of Revelation.

It is no small thing to say John faithfully wrote down this book. He was the subject of persecution, the people he wrote to were as well, and the things contained in the book are not all roses and rainbows. John was a servant of Christ even when it meant his own (severe) discomfort, and when he probably didn’t like what he was seeing and getting from God.

As such, he stands as an example of what it means for me to be a willing slave of Jesus Christ. It means he is the most important thing to my life and my decisions. It means God is always right and good even when present circumstances are not easy or comfortable. It means I can and should fulfill my calling no matter what that means for my position and place in life. Taking the label of servant means I act as though God is Lord, not me.

And what results? Well, for one thing, God wants to reveal his Son Jesus Christ to his servants through the pages of Revelation. To encounter this Christ through the lens of the trials and difficulty of this world requires a right relationship with him: being a willing servant to a sovereign God.

Jesus is Always Good News

Mark 1:14-15

Very quickly we find ourselves at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Mark’s Gospel. Mark didn’t take long to lay his groundwork and get into the core of the Message itself, and because there are few long teachings in Mark, this moment is crucial.

“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee…” (vs. 14)

The word Mark uses for “arrested” here is not technically the word for arrest, but clearly carries that connotation. In fact, Mark and the rest of the New Testament uses this phrasing several times to refer to believers being “handed over” to authorities to be persecuted and put into prison. In Mark 13:9-12, Jesus forewarns his disciples that they will be handed over because of him. In Acts 8:3, the phrase describes the actions of the great early persecutor, and in Acts 12:4 the apostle James is martyred and Peter is handed over to be put into prison. In addition, Jesus uses this concept of himself and his journey to the cross. In Mark 9:31 he says he will be handed over to the rulers to be crucified, and in Mark 15:15, when his final betrayal is described, Mark says Jesus was “handed over.”

John the Baptist does not just prepare the way for Jesus, he foreshadows Jesus’ life and what will become of the disciples as well. In this way, John is the first to show us what it means to be a disciple. Mark’s readers are Christians who are suffering acute persecution, and many have seen their friend and relatives “handed over” to the Roman authorities to be persecuted and killed for their faith. We often wonder why God’s children suffer, and Mark’s readers are surely asking the same difficult and heart-wrenching questions.

Into this very specific moment of injustice, Christ came preaching the good news of the Gospel:

“Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (vs. 14-15)

The word “gospel” here literally translates as “good news.” John has been taken to prison, Mark’s readers suffer under acute persecution, and we often feel bits and pieces of their pain and anguish. And yet, at precisely that moment, Mark tells us Jesus is good news.

Jesus Christ transcends my circumstances. Jesus is good news when life is rich and full of joy, and Jesus is good news when peace is a million miles away. My relationship with Jesus is primary to my circumstances. It is not my current situation that gives meaning to my relationship with Jesus; it is the relationship that gives meaning and hope to my circumstances. The richness and depth in my relationship with Christ does not flow from my state of affairs; it is something that provides grounding and stability in all conditions.
Jesus told me to “seek first the kingdom of God,” and then everything will “be added” to me. Paul told me that the peace Jesus provides “passes all understanding.” And Paul showed me what it meant to say, “I have learned in whatever circumstance to be content.”

May Christ enter your life speaking the good news of God.

Mark: Jesus - Servant, Savior, Sovereign

Mark

The verse that is almost universally acknowledged to be a kind of thematic capsule of Mark’s Gospel is 10:45:

“For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

If you read through the first nine chapters and came across this verse, you would not be surprised. Mark is a Gospel of action—the action of the Son of God among God’s people. Mark does not portray Christ through several long teachings, but through his action. There are parables in Mark, but they are all short. By the time the reader is settled into the first chapter, Mark is already into the life and deeds of Jesus. The word “immediately” shows up more than 40 times in this short Gospel. And though it is significantly shorter than every other Gospel, Mark records more miracles.

It is true - Mark wants us to know that God himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, came to serve.

Jesus Christ also came to give his life so that we might live. As The Message puts it, Jesus came, “to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage.” A full half of the Gospel is dedicated to Jesus’ journey to the cross. In the middle of chapter 8, Jesus begins to make his way to Jerusalem in the last physical journey he will take with his disciples. Mark devotes a great deal of time and space revealing to us how Christ walked to the cross, and what it means to follow him there.

When we picture Roman persecution of Christians, the images we conjure up are typically dominated by mass arrests and innocent families in the Coliseum preparing to meet the wild beasts. Those images represent a small fraction of the actual persecutions of the early church, but Mark writes to the Christians who do represent that persecution. Nero burned Rome to the ground, and in an effort to curry favor with the angry masses, turned their hatred on a common enemy, the despised and misunderstood Christians. During this persecution the Christians who were not driven into the catacombs were arrested in droves and tortured to turn in their fellow believers. As the Roman historian Tacitus put it, “their deaths were made farcical.” They were dressed in animal skins and torn to pieces by wild beasts; they were crucified; they were turned into torches to light Nero’s garden by night.

Jesus not only came to serve, he came to be the Suffering Servant. Jesus willingly walked into Jerusalem toward the cross so that in this life and the next we might live.

There is one more element that is crucial to the purpose of Mark’s Gospel. Jesus is not only the Suffering Servant, he is sovereign. Jesus is never out of control of events and their consequences. The Son of Man has power over sickness, disease and death, and the cross does not take him by surprise.

The cross is not a moment of failure for Jesus, but the defining event of his sovereignty. Even that level of hatred and suffering does not diminish the power of a savior who came to serve and give his life so that I might live.