A Downward Ascent

Lent can be a drag.

All the fasting, all the penitence, all the introspection. Denying self is never as much fun as gratifying self, nor is challenging as coddling. The Lenten season is one that pushes back against my flesh and asks me to consider the hard questions that I would far rather ignore.

So why even engage this lousy season? After all, aren't we to live in the victory of Christ and rejoice in His grace? Am I not already fully forgiven?

"Yes," I answer my pathetic, coddled self. "Already forgiven."

"But forgiven of what, again, exactly?"

We live in an age where "sin," if spoken of at all, is a vague, impersonal idea. It's something to be conquered, for sure, but something that has already been conquered like the Babylonian empire or maybe the Nazi regime. It was wrong and it was evil... and it was also long ago and far away. Rarely do we take the time--or the pain--to recognize that sin is not just a vague, impersonal concept, but it's an ever-present and quite personal aspect of me. Oh, of each one of us for sure, but that doesn't quite strike to the core like when I realize it's me.

The try-harder gospel message of the self-help era says that we need to work harder to be better. We need to change our perspective and embrace the happy-slappy joyful life that we've been given in Christ. This is despite the nagging sense that we're not really what we should be and the world hasn't made it their yet either. A toothy grin just doesn't seem to do in response to a cancer diagnosis, or another beheading, or the economic inequity that leads to starvation, disease, and various forms of injustice. When my friend's marriage is falling apart... or my own feels strained... more grinning just doesn't cut it.

Jesus didn't come that we would reform our old selves into better, happier versions. He didn't suffer and die so that I might implement an eight step process toward becoming a kinder person. His very real death must not simply point me toward a battle that is long ago and far away. Rather, it must point me to a daily battle; one that is ever present, and one that will stubbornly not go away. And if I'm honest, one that I would far rather ignore.

Yes, I joyfully announce that I have been given new life in Christ. There is a new life that has sprung up in me, through absolutely no choice or work of my own. This pure work of grace came before I ever had the chance to be sick of my old nature and long before I would ever be willing or able to ask. I can see (and I pray others do as well), the signs of the new nature. Like blooms which will ultimately push out of the snow covered beds I can see out my window, the signs of new life are within me.

But so is my old self. Although I would rather pretend it doesn't exist, it's there. And here's the thing: My sinful nature can not and will not be reformed. It's not getting any better. The new life in Christ is wonderful, but if I'm honest, it only acts as a contrast to the evil that's within me. The solution is not that I should reform my old nature--it cannot and will not reform. The only solution? My old self must die. Not just once, at a point in time, but again and again. I must kill it--no, not I, but Christ, for it is only His nature within me that has even the slightest desire for the old self to die.

Lent is about understanding of what I've been forgiven. It's about continuing the siege on my old, sinful heart that I pray will someday starve it out completely. While I recognize that the battle will continue in various forms until I'm face to face with Jesus Himself, I long to see real victory in the battle. Or, to state it more accurately, I long to long to see it.

That's the reality of Lent, this season that Edna Hong accurately termed the "downward ascent." By denying self, by admitting brokenness, Lent arouses in me the sense of sin that I all to often and all too easily cover up in my coddled and comfortable life.

As I was reminded this weekend, the Good News of the gospel is that in the midst of suffering and pain, we have a King. That King is not simply the King of the day--He is the King of the night as well. It is through the downward ascent of Lent, just as it is through the suffering and pain of our real and ever-present lives, that we engage the depth of the presence of our great King.

Begats

One of the most often neglected texts during the Advent season is Matthew 1:1-17, the seventeen verse genealogy of Jesus.  Filled with four syllable names (verse 12 alone contains "Johoiachin, Shealtiel, and Zerubbabel") and back stories that would make most of us blush, these verses are more than often skipped during Advent sermon series...

However, as we prepare our Christmas Eve musical (Andrew Peterson's "Behold the Lamb of God"), believe it or not there is a song that goes through the entire genealogy.  That got me started looking back through the list.  Then, in the Advent devotional I'm reading this year ("Watch for the Light," referenced in Advent Meditations) today's reading was based on Matthew's genealogy.  Reading through this dense list of names once a year is enough of a chore--twice is an incredible oddity!

The list is remarkable for a number of reasons.  Some of the most righteous and faith-filled men in history can be found on the list--men like Abraham, Boaz, and Josiah.  There are also some dudes in there that, at best, have a checkered past... men like David the murderer, Solomon and his hundreds of wives, and Jacob the schemer and deceiver.  And there are lots of folks that we know next to nothing about--in fact, the last third of the list is effectively full of the names of the "no-names" in the line of the great King David.

However, most remarkable to me are the women.  In a list like this, particularly at the time, there would be no need to list women.  Mothers were unimportant in the telling of the family history (having only carried the children, birthed them, and raised them--you know, no big deal), so the presence of women on the list is already odd.  But the ones that Matthew chooses to include... even more odd...

• Tamar.  She was the daughter-in-law who posed as a prostitute in order to get her dead husband's father Judah to get her pregnant.  Classy on all sides.
• Rahab.  She actually was a full-fledged prostitute. "Nuff said.
• Ruth.  A poor and helpless Moabite widow, who became a symbol for grace as she was mercifully invited into the family line by the much older Boaz.
• Bathsheba.  The wife of Uriah, one of King David's best friends, whom he had murdered after Bathsheba became pregnant with David's child and Uriah was too righteous, even after the king had gotten him drunk, to sleep with his own wife while his fellow warriors were in battle.  This is so wrong on so many levels that it's hard to even figure out how to comment on it...
• And Mary.  The righteous virgin that no one in her whole town except her future husband believed was either.  Despite that fact that she actually was both righteous and a virgin, her life was certainly shrouded in controversy.

So Matthew didn't just name a few women--he brought the skeletons out of the closet.  These folks put the "fun" in dysfunctional!  Why in the world would he pull out these women?  What about righteous Sarah or beautiful Rebekah?  Certainly Mary, who was Jesus' only human parent anyway, is a natural for the list, but the other four?  Wouldn't their husbands, who have enough issues of their own (reference Judah and David above), suffice?

Then I remembered the obvious reality: Matthew wrote this gospel several years after the ascension of Jesus.  While it's the beginning of the gospel to us as readers, he's looking back on the life of Jesus as he begins to recount the story.  Could it be that as Matthew lists these women, he also thinks of the woman caught in adultery, the Samaritan woman at the well at noon, and Mary Magdelene and all of her demons, and he sees some incredible similarities?  Could it be that Matthew is writing about Jesus while he thinks of Isaiah's prophecy: "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows"?  Jesus didn't come into a sterilized world and didn't live a sterilized life--perfect, for sure, but not sterile.  And so, Matthew finds no need to sterilize his family tree.  In fact, he goes out of his way to remind us just how messed up Jesus' ancestors were... so we will be readily reminded of how messed up those who Jesus ministered to were... so we will realize just how messed up we are.

It's hard for me to realize that all of these messed up people are listed, in part, so that I would feel right at home in Jesus' family.  He didn't come to avoid the suffering of this world--He came to engage it.  

Maybe Matthew 1 calls for yet another reading this Christmas after all...

Wrestling

There are times that I find myself wrestling with God.

I'm not really much given to melancholy or depression, but there are times I find myself... frustrated.  Not so much down or "blue", but more feeling as though life just hasn't happened the way that I thought it should have.  And, of course, life should always happen just as I think it should.  My preferences are, quite obviously, the highest good, which is why I operate best as my own lord.  Oh, wait...

Because I recognize the Lordship of Jesus, but I also long for things to go the way that I think they should, there are times I'm stuck in the wrestling.  I wrestle to see God's good in the midst of my frustration.  I wrestle to see the extremely cloudy "big picture" when I'm much more captured by the broken pieces I feel like I can see very clearly.  I wrestle with fears, identity, direction, longings... I wrestle with myself, I suppose, even as I wrestle with the God Who is leading me.

But here's the thing I've come upon this Advent season: it's only because God has come near that I wrestle.

It's not necessary for me to wrestle with a distant, transcendent deity who is removed from my everyday life--there's no purpose in it.  If Jesus doesn't understand and purpose my day to day and moment to moment, then I don't need to wrestle with Him in my day to day and moment to moment.  If God remains far off, I can safely do as I please.  In that instance, I might wrestle with disappointment with myself, frustration at a situation, anger at others, or apathy about the future, but I certainly wouldn't be wrestling with God.  I would look inward for a better version of myself--to find the strength that Nietzsche said was within me.  I would seek to orchestrate the details of my life; to control, to manipulate, to organize, but certainly never to surrender.  If God hadn't come near, I would often turn inward, but I would have no need to turn upward.

But God has come near.  In Jesus, God became a baby.  Who grew into a child.  Who learned by trial and error, who was taught obedience, who was tempted in every way, who grew into a man.  A Man, who, at least at one moment in time, on a dark night in a garden, wrestled with God as well.  A Man who was obedient to death, even death on a cross.  A Man who was raised by God, first from the grave, and then to heavens.  A Man who intercedes for me moment by moment, and is involved in the intimate details of my life. Which, of course, is why I wrestle.

So, when I wrestle with God, I'm learning to be thankful that I can.  It's hard sometimes.

But I know He's good.

Only one worshiped...

So, I've been thinking a bunch about the fact that, in the person of Jesus, God came very close to us, and that He calls us to come close to those around us as well. (Check out "Getting Close" from a few days ago...)

One of the great tragedies of Christianity in 21st century North America is the idea of Christian subculture.  What I mean is this: Christianity has, in recent decades, sought to separate itself from culture through categorical divisions rather than through behavioral distinctives.  Simply said, the church is much more comfortable labeling a piece of art, music, literature, or other form of media with a "Christian" label than simply approaching creation in such a way that the end results are tangibly different because of the presence of Christ in us.  This has extended out to the realms of activities and societal functions as well, from "Christian" nights at the bowling alley to church league basketball and softball.  None of these things in and of themselves is inherently wrong: creating art that comes distinctly from a Christian perspective and then labeling it as such is not an inherently evil practice.  Churches playing against one another in a basketball league is not violating a command from Leviticus.  I'm not sure how a night of bowling achieves the status of being truly redemptive, but it's certainly not wrong for redeemed people to congregate together and roll a few frames.

The cumulative effect of all of these things, however, is quite damaging.  I would even venture to say unbiblical.  What has far too often happened is, due to various subcultural activities and creative expressions, paired with extremely busy church schedules and a wide variety of additional "Christian" activities, believers in Christ have found ourselves at a great distance from those to whom Jesus Himself has called us to reach.  It's not unusual in our day and age that every significant relationship the believer in Jesus has is with other believers in Jesus.  Therefore, the followers of the One who came close to us in order to offer a message of hope find themselves unable to speak that same message of hope to others because they are, relationally speaking, so incredibly far away.

Subculture insulates us from culture.  Jesus' prayer in John 17 was that His followers would be "in the world but not of the world."  Subculture puts us "not in the world OR of the world."

In seemingly every generation, then, there is a backlash against the subculture.  Instead of legalism and insulation, there is a reaction that moves some all the way into license and immersion.  Rather than being removed from the culture, this portion of the church is fully engaged in the culture.  Art, music, movies, activities--there seems to be no distinction between these followers of Jesus and the rest of the world, save their Sunday morning activities (at least now and then).  Jesus described His followers as the "light of the world," (Matthew 5) but these followers seem to be quite dim lights at best.  They are so fully immersed in culture that they are basically indistinguishable from those who have no interest in Jesus or even are diametrically opposed to Him.

If we were to categorize this headlong dive into culture according to Jesus' prayer, we might say that they are "in the world AND of the world."

So what does it look like to be "in the world, but not of the world?"  From a sociological perspective, the best descriptor is counterculture.  Webster's defines this as "a culture with values and mores that run counter to those of established society."  In other words, they are squarely immersed within the culture, but their values are dramatically different.  They are not setting up their own society with values that they can agree with; rather, they are living according to those values in the midst of a society that is often valuing exactly the opposite.

The book of Acts describes a church that was designed to be a counterculture.  In the midst of an almost overpowering Roman culture, the church quietly and consistently practiced values that ran completely counter to that culture.  They loved the poor, shared their resources, cared for the sick, and valued women, children, and slaves.  They didn't strive after power, but lived with humility.  And they consistently ascribed this incredible behavior to the example and empowerment of Jesus.  And 2000 years later, this same church is still moving forward.

So, back to the Advent story.  Jesus, through the incarnation, models coming close to people in the world around us.  Therefore, we can immediately eliminate subculture as a viable option--we mustn't remain removed.  However, both culture and counterculture are ways to be close, and in Luke's telling of the birth of Jesus, we can see both very clearly.  Luke 2:7 makes the simple observation: "She gave birth to her first child, a son.  She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a a manger, because there was no room for them in the village inn."  Now, I don't wish to pile onto the poor innkeeper, who is repeatedly villainized this time of year, but the fact remains: at a point in time in history, there was a man who, though very close to the nearly born Savior and His mother and father, did not engage them.  Rather, he sent this poor woman, likely having painful contractions as she progressed through labor, to the barn out back.  Or to a cave.  A stable.  Whatever.  It definitely was not the Hilton.

The innkeeper was close, but his values didn't allow him to truly worship this One who was coming.

The next verse in Luke, however, introduces another set of folks who were also pretty close.  Luke 2:8 records: "That night some shepherds were in the fields outside the village, guarding their flocks of sheep."  You know the story--angels appeared, songs were sung, and incredible proclamations were made to these simple men.  How did they respond?  Luke 2:15-17: "The shepherds said to each other, 'Come on, let's go to Bethlehem!  Let's see this wonderful thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.'  They ran to the village and found Mary and Joseph.  And there was the baby lying in the manger.  Then the shepherds told everyone what had happened..."  They left the flocks., and with them, more than likely their jobs.  They risked reputation.  They risked being called foolish.  They declared the Truth in a town that more than likely didn't care enough to truly respond; at least there's no record of anyone doing anything other than being astonished.  Yet, the shepherds worshiped anyway.  The culture was flowing one direction.  They were flowing another.

Both the innkeeper AND the shepherds came close to the incarnate God.  But only one worshiped.

What about you and I?  Have we been willing to come close?  And has our proximity led us to worship?

Waiting for Love

Advent is a time of waiting.  The "Christmas season" is full of activity: lists to be completed, events to be attended, chores to be accomplished.  Christmas is hustle and bustle, perpetual motion slowed only by the arrival of the day itself, and even then only for a moment.  It's loud and busy and outward.  Advent, however, is different.  It's patient.  It's expectant.  It's inward.

Advent and Christmas don't need to be seen as an "either/or" proposition.  Advent can happen right in the middle of the craziness of Christmas, because as outward as Christmas is, Advent is really an inward attitude of the heart.  It's an expectant waiting and hope that God will come among His people.  It's having eyes that are wide open and ready to see Him.  Advent is not helped by our full to-do lists, but neither is it negated by them.  We can't check "expectant waiting" off our chore list; but it requires intentionality all the same.  Advent is not an event to be observed and completed, although calendars will be opened and church services attended whether our hearts are engaged or not.  In fact, the heart of Advent is one that doesn't expire at the end of a season, but rather, it's a attitude that remains year-round, simply to be refocused during this season of waiting each year.

In Luke's gospel, a cast of characters is listed: Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, Simeon, Anna... All of them were waiting.  They are representative of a remnant of Israel that was still waiting in faith that someday God would move.  It's important to note that not all of the nation waited.  Many had given up hope--at least real hope--and were simply going through the motions of worship in the temple.  But a few, represented by these characters in the opening chapters of Luke's gospel, faithfully waited on God to move among His people.  These hearts became the stage on which the drama of God's redemptive plan would unfold.  In the "fullness of time," Paul says... The drama began first in the hearts and then in the lives of those who waited.

Often lost at the end of one of Paul's most beloved chapters, 1 Corinthians 13, is this statement: "There are three things that will endure--faith, hope and love--and the greatest of these is love." (1 Cor. 13:13, NLT)  Faith: the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen, even though we can't yet see them. (Hebrews 11:1)  Hope: a yearning, expectation, and desire for something to happen.  Both of these are the raw materials of Advent.  They are virtually bursting out of the early chapters of Luke's gospel, and they are what you and I are called to in the attitude of Advent.  Waiting for the promise to be fulfilled.

How did they wait?  Henri Nouwen makes the observation that Mary went to Elizabeth and they waited together.  Advent is not an attitude that we develop only in solitude, but one that we share with others and encourage through community.  We together remember the promises of God, the reality that's far greater than what we see with our eyes.  We encourage one another to have faith.  To remain in hope.  We remind one another that God is coming and that we are to wait on Him with eager expectation.

And the greatest of these is love.

Why?  Because we wait with expectation for a day when faith will no longer be necessary--all that we long for will be seen with our eyes and experienced with all of our senses.  We wait for the moment when there's nothing left to hope for because all of our hopes are fulfilled in His Kingdom reign.  What, then, will be left?  Simply love.  Love that was embodied in the baby in Bethlehem.  The eternal God, come among His people.  Justice and righteousness kissing at the manger.  The promise of Jesus is that He will come again, and all that is wrong will completely be made right.  The Kingdom that is now in part will be in full.  Every tear will be wiped away.  There will be no need for sun or moon, for He will be our Light.

All that will remain is love.  And so, we wait.