With

Here’s the scene.

Jesus has been busy getting his ministry off the ground and he’s got an excellent start. He is healing, teaching, preaching, and even squeezing in a meal that he can write off as counting for work! He’s called a few disciples thus far and he has a knack for attracting a crowd.

In Mark 3:13-19, Jesus is ready to take yet another step. From among those who are following him, seemingly showing interest and some commitment as disciples (that is, learners/students or apprentices), he appoints twelve as “apostles.”

Twelve. The symbolic connection is clear–twelve tribes of Israel, twelve apostles.

Apostles. “Sent ones.” That is to say, persons commissioned and sent by someone greater to represent them and/or do work on their behalf.

Jesus is ready to expand the ministry through some key leaders who will have a peculiar role as persons appointed to represent him and share in his ministry of preaching (declaring the word and gospel of God) and casting out demons (we could say, just as accurately, “standing against the forces of evil, injustice, and oppression”).

But what is the very first thing on the list?

“…to be with him”

Well, that makes a lot of sense. After all, how can they (we) preach or testify to Jesus without serious proximity to him? How can they (we) stand courageously against the demonic forces of evil and injustice without a serious connection to Jesus’power? Look at what they’re (we’re) being appointed to do! Of course, they’ll (we’ll) need to spend time with him.

Here’s a tension. We can’t do what Jesus appoints and sends us to do without being with him. But at the same time, being with Jesus is not simply an instrumental means to a pragmatic end.

Being with Jesus is it’s own reward. With is a relationship word. And it’s the first word used to describe the nature of our appointment by the King of all creation. Before he gives us anything to do, he appoints us to be with him.

With him for it’s own sake–that’s how relationship works.

How might we nurture and practice being with him? Of many spiritual disciplines or practices we could list, let me simply offer three.

• Scripture (thoughts on how to start here)
• Silence (in prayer)
• Community

I could say more, but I trust you can make the connections yourself.

“He appointed them to be with him…” Amazing.

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Scripture quoted is from the new Common English Bible. I have access to a limited number of copies to give away for free. If you are interested, please send me a message with your name and contact information.

Advent Voices, part 1

As we turn our focus from Thanksgiving to Christmas, many voices vie for our attention. Some of those voices come from outside. They want us to buy their product or service. They distract from the meaning of the season by playing into the materialism and consumerism of our society.

Other voices come from within. They actually tap into the significance of the season and struggle with it. Perhaps we hear a voice of sadness because the holidays remind us that someone we love is no longer with us. Perhaps it is a frustrated or despairing voice due to a strained relationship. Perhaps it is a depressed voice wondering why we don’t feel as joyful and upbeat as others appear (comparing our inside to others’outside can be a shaky enterprise though).

Isaiah 40 offers 2 different voices to the conversation. The first voice is found in 40:3-5 (CEB):

A voice is crying out:
“Clear the LORD’s way in the desert!
Make a level highway in the wilderness for our God!
Every valley will be raised up,
and every mountain and hill
will be flattened.
Uneven ground will become level,
and rough terrain a valley plain.
The LORD’s glory will appear,
and all humanity will see it together;
the LORD’s mouth
has commanded it.”

I remember a drive out to the Texas Panhandle several years ago. I grew up in East Texas with slightly hilly terrain. But a little west of Fort Worth the earth begins to flatten. When you see the Amarillo skyline on the horizon, you’ve still got a good distance to travel. The view is completely unobstructed.

When the gospel writers reflected on the ministry of John the Baptist, this text from Isaiah leapt into their minds. Surely John was enacting this scene from the prophet. He located his ministry in the wilderness geographically. But his work of calling the people to repentance was work in the wilderness of the soul.

Receiving the gift of life in Jesus Christ requires inner work that removes the barriers that obstruct the work of the gospel in our lives. That’s what John’s ministry represented. Repentance removes barriers in the heart that obstruct the grace of God.

Advent is a season of preparation for Christmas. It is a season for us to hear an ancient voice in the midst of other voices calling us to prepare to receive Christ by repenting of our sin, thereby allowing grace to work in us obstructed.

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This post is part of the Common English Bible (CEB) Blog Tour. The publisher has made copies available for me to giveaway. To participate, please link this post on your Twitter and/or Facebook. You can use the buttons below to share (for twitter, please add #CEBtour). If you don’t have twitter or facebook, please share this post via email and cc me.

I’ll make a decision on Monday and contact you via twitter/facebook/email. I’ll be able to give away one per week, so if I don’t pick you this time, please try again!

Jesus is the Game-Changer

The New Orleans Saints trailed the Indianapolis Colts at halftime of the Super Bowl in February 2010, the franchise’s first appearance in the big game.

A surprise play, one that no one expected, served as a huge pivot point for the momentum of the game. The Saints executed a successful onside kick to begin the second half. They recovered the ball and scored, then went on to win the game.

After the game was over, that play could be referenced as a huge shift in momentum and as a pivot point for the outcome of the game. But in the moment, even though onlookers could see the importance of that play, they would not have said the game was sealed for the Saints.

In Luke 1:46-55, Mary sings a song of praise that has inspired some of the best music of the Advent and Christmas seasons, both classical and contemporary. She is visiting her cousin Elizabeth, herself pregnant with John the Baptist. Elizabeth shares Mary’s excitement and blesses her for her faith: “Happy is she who believed that the Lord would fulfill the promises he made to her” (1:45).

Her response to Elizabeth’s kind words of blessing is praise:

“With all my heart I glorify the Lord!
In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior.
He has looked with favor on the low status of his servant.
Look! From now on, everyone will consider me highly favored
because the mighty one has done great things for me.
Holy is his name.
He shows mercy to everyone,
from one generation to the next,
who honors him as God.
He has shown strength with his arm.
He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations.
He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty-handed.
He has come to the aid of his servant Israel,
remembering his mercy,
just as he promised to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants forever.” (Luke 1:46b-55 CEB)

The word I notice most among all of these grand verses is the simple word has. Now, I do think that Mary is probably referring to past events here. After all, praising God for what he has done in the past is a way of proclaiming faith in him for our present and future. The same God who has been faithful in our past is the God we can trust this time too.

But perhaps there’s another dimension. Perhaps Mary is grasping that the coming of God’s Messiah means that the outcome of history is accomplished in him. “Victory in Jesus,” we sing concerning his cross and resurrection. Maybe there is a trust in God’s decisive work in sending the long-awaited Messiah that warrants speaking about history in the past tense.

That is our hope.

Jesus, we trust, is the pivot point of history. A little like the gutsy, unexpected onside kick by Saints coach Sean Payton to begin the second half of that Super Bowl game, Jesus is the game-changer whose birth (and everything else for that matter) represent something no one was predicting. Yes, they expected a Messiah, but not one like him.

Mary’s Song  declares what God accomplishes in the birth of Jesus. A decisive turn-of-events that signals that the outcome is now set. Jesus saves, God sets things right. The game is being played out, but we who have been graciously included on the team have the advantage of knowing that the Spirit’s labor through us is in the service of a victory already gained in a lowly birth in the City of David roughly two thousand years ago.

In light of that truth, we join Mary in praise: “With all my heart I glorify the Lord! In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior.” (1:46b-47)

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This post is part of the Common English Bible (CEB) Blog Tour. The publisher has made copies available for me to giveaway. To participate, please do the following:

1. Link this post on your Twitter and/or Facebook. You can use the buttons below to share (for twitter, please add #CEBtour). If you don’t have twitter or facebook, please share this post via email and cc me.
2. Post a comment on this post on the theme of what you find inspiring in Mary’s Song.

I’ll make a decision on Monday and contact you via twitter/facebook/email. I’ll be able to give away one per week, so if I don’t pick you this time, please try again!

Waiting in Hope

I hope, LORD. My whole being hopes, and I wait for God’s promise. (Psalm 130:5 CEB) 

We’ll blink and Christmas will be here. This is the time of year when the calendar seems to accelerate, holidays racing past us at the speed of light. The accelerated pace on the outside—on the calendar—has a way of creeping in so that we feel hurried on the inside.

The season of Advent is an invitation to “just say no” to allowing the busyness of the time of year to busy our souls. Like a hurricane that has a calm center around which torrential winds and rain swirls, Advent invites us to allow the busyness in our society to be held at arm’s length from our center, from our soul.

One way we say “no” to a busied soul is by practicing an attitude of waiting. We usually think of waiting as cultivating patience. That’s true—patience is only acquiring by waiting (even though we all wish we could get more patience without having to actually practice it!). But waiting also cultivates trust. Why? Just listen to how we assess when waiting makes sense and when it doesn’t. We ask ourselves, “Is is worth the wait?” In other words, do we really believe this person will come through or that circumstance will come about? That’s a trust question.

And in this sense, trust is another word for hope. Hope says that how we live in the present is based on who or what we trust holds the future. The psalmist says, “I hope, LORD. My whole being hopes, and I wait for God’s promise.”  The psalmist can wait because God’s promise is trustworthy—worth the wait.

Advent is a time of waiting in hope. It is a time when we acknowledge that Christ is worth the wait. Advent invites us—yes, challenges us—to navigate a busy calendar but choose a posture of the soul that waits in the hope of Christ.

Living God’s Story

“For I know the plans I have you,” declares the Lord, “…plans to give you a hope and a future.” (Jer 29:11)

Imagine this scene. A diverse group of persons arrive at the community theater one evening to begin working on the play they will perform a few months from now. The annual production is a tradition in this small town and they are both excited and nervous about getting started. The director distributes the scripts.

The group begins flipping through the script and one person after another makes an odd discovery. There is an entire section missing from the book. Shortly after the climax of the plot, the next act is missing. A page or two, which seems to be the final few scenes, is stapled on at the back. Perplexed, the actors cast sideways glances at one another. Finally, one speaks up and asks the director, “Where is the missing act? How are we supposed to perform that part of the story?”

A playful smile crosses the director’s face as he responds, “That’s the part you’ll improvise.”

“Improvise!?!”

Heart rates pick up a bit as the actors start wondering what they’ve gotten themselves into.

Sound familiar? It should. This “improvisation” we call Christian living is based on (1) knowing the story thus far (in the bible) and (2) knowing and trusting the Author—God, for the ending.

“Hope” is about who or what we believe has the last word on how the story ends. The actors will improvise differently depending on how they think the story ends. We will live differently based on who or what we believe holds our story’s end—global financial markets, our children’s accomplishments, our achievements at work, our political party’s success, our moral excellence, and a host of other things.

Only with our Hope in Christ alone can we live faithfully in relation to everyone and everything else in our lives. That true hope is what our church exists to inspire in people. We begin inspiring that hope in others when it lives in us.

So be grounded in the Story of God in Scripture and trust Christ with your Hope for the future. The Author has handed out the script. And He gives His Spirit to guide us as we live day-to-day faithfully and boldly.

seven stanzas at easter

Seven Stanzas at Easter

By John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

what rome and god were both saying in the cross

All four Gospels include in their accounts the notice placed above Jesus on the cross. But the Gospel of John includes an extra piece of detail in 19:19-20:

Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek.

We have thought of the cross as located “on a hill far away,” like the old hymn about “the old rugged cross.” But the cross wasn’t very far away at all. The condemned were crucified just outside the city, nearby in order to serve as an example. Anyone journeying to or near the city of Jerusalem would get the message.

And in Jesus’case in particular, the notice is written in Aramaic (or Hebrew), Latin, and Greek. What is the significance of these three languages? Aramaic was the local languages of the Jews living in the area. Latin was the language of the Roman Empire. And Greek was nearer to the universal language of the day. So, whether you were a local Jew, a Roman citizen, or a traveler on economic business, you should get the message. Today it would be something like posting a sign written in English, Chinese, and a local language.

So Jesus is crucified near the city where plenty of people would pass by and witness the sight. And the sign over him, “Jesus of Nazareth: The King of the Jews” is written to be read by persons from every conceivable background.

Rome is saying to any passerby: “This is what happens when people dare to transgress the power and sovereignty of Rome.”

And I think God is saying basically the same thing: “This is what happens when people dare to transgress the power and sovereignty of Almighty God.”

But the difference is critical, of course. For Rome, it is a message of destruction.

For God, it is a message of forgiveness.

looking for spring

When will spring be here? That’s been a question in my home for the past month or so. I live with people who love to play in the dirt and garden and see the signs of ne w life that emerge. There is a unique joy in seeing the first buds on the trees and bushes. There’s a thrill in seeing what we know is on its way actually begin to show up.

We’ve been answering that question in relation to the date on the calendar, March 21. But this is a spiritual question for us too, of course.

“When will spring be here?” can also be a way of wondering…

• When will my work be noticed by people who matter?
• When will my children begin making decisions I’m prouder of?
• When will my parents meaningfully trust me?
• When will my grief become bearable?
• When will my faults stop dragging me down?

Thankfully, our God enjoys playing in the dirt too. He saw dirt and imagined something more. And he said, “Let us create humanity in our image” (Genesis 1:26-31). But we left the playfulness of creativity with the dirt outside. We traded that healthy enjoyment of God’s creation for idolatries that get dirt on the soul. And God again imagined something more. Jesus became like one made of dirt in order to clean us from the dirt on the soul (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The hope of Easter, the hope of resurrection, is something like buds on branches, the hope of spring. In Jesus’ resurrection, we see evidence that heaven has gained a foothold in our world and that signs of new life are beginning to show up in people’s lives and in situations that seemed hopeless.