Joseph - Reflections (2)

 

 

“Come, and I will send you to them.”

 

“I will go.”

 

“Go now and see about the welfare of your brothers.” (Genesis 37:12 - 13).

 

Genesis begins with one brother saying of another, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” It concludes with the story of a brother becoming the keeper of his brothers and their families.

 

Is this not the history of humanity? There are those who kill, and then there are those who save. There are those who reject the notion that they should guard and protect their brethren, and then there are those who say of them, “I will go and see about their welfare.”

 

Cain rejected God’s correction (Genesis 4:6 – 7). Joseph received the correction and discipline of God, “The word of the LORD tested him” (Psalm 105:19).

 

Joseph’s journey to become the savior of his brethren had its deep sorrows, its betrayal into the pit, into slavery, into despair. Did Joseph have any inkling of the purpose of his suffering as he was experiencing it? There was a glimmer of hope with Potiphar, then prison. There was another glimmer of hope with the cupbearer in prison, but then nothing. However, when the fulness of time came and Pharoah had his dreams, as famine approached the land, Joseph’s ascent began and all became clear.

 

“It was not you who sent me here, but God” (Genesis 45:8).

 

“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive” (Genesis 50:20).

 

Cain killed Abel, Joseph’s brothers were intent on killing him – indeed, Jospeh was dead to his father Jacob. We have all killed Jesus, have we not? Our sins have forged the nails, our natures of wickedness have been placed upon Him on the altar of the Cross, and Jesus has cried, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Yet, as Joseph was raised to newness of life, a life that became the salvation of his brothers, so our Lord Jesus was raised to a newness of life which became our own new life in Him (Ephesians 2:1 – 10; Romans Chapter 6; 2 Corinthians 5:14 – 21).

 

There is the way of Cain, and there is the way of Joseph; what we see in Genesis, we see today. Look around you, there are those who desire the best for others, and then those who say, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

 

We can always rationalize reasons not to help others, reasons not to love others. Yet John writes, “Whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how dos the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17).

 

James teaches us, “If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if is has no works, is dead, being by itself” (James 2:15 – 17).

 

Let us recall what God said to Cain, “Now you are cursed from the ground” (Genesis 4:11).  And when we recall this, let us also recall what Jesus says in Matthew 25:41 – 45:

 

“Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me…Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.”

 

When the world looks at the professing church, does it see Cain or Joseph?

 

 

Confrontation in Nazareth (5)

 

“When He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph (Luke 3:23)…the son of David (3:31)…the son of Abraham (3:34)…the son of Noah (3:36)…the son of Enoch (3:37)…the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God (3:38).”

 

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12 – 13).

 

We have two ancestries, two family trees. We are descended from two genealogical lines. One once was and is no more, yet in a sense still is. The other once was not, though in a sense has always been, and now is forever and ever.

 

The first ancestry is from the earth, earthy; the second is from heaven (1 Cor. 15:47 – 49). In the past we bore the image of our first genealogy, now we are bearing the image of our second and lasting genealogy (2 Cor. 3:17 – 18).

 

If we are confused and uncertain about our genealogy, we will be confused about our identity, if we are confused about our identity, we will be confused about our nature, if we are confused about our nature, we will be a confused and unstable people.

 

The Father’s approbation, His declaration, “This is My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased,” must reign over us, must live within us, must permeate our hearts and minds, and must be our confession in Christ Jesus.

 

People “supposed” that Jesus was the son of Joseph, but Joseph and Mary knew better, as do we. Jesus did not deny a relationship with Joseph, but it was not the relationship that most others thought it was – in once sense it was more, in another sense not quite the same. I will not write that it was “less” than people thought, because who can measure the love and affection and trust that was in this holy family? There was a depth and a mystery that surpasses the experience of common humanity, and yet it embraces common humanity and gives us hope.

 

We all once traced our ancestry back to Adam, but now those in Christ trace their beginning to the One who is the Beginning, who is the Last Adam and the Second Man. We do not forget that we were once in Adam, we are mindful that we have had an experience common with all of humanity, but we also confess that this is in the past and that in Christ Jesus we have been raised to newness of life (Ephesians 2:1 – 10).

 

Our shared experience with humanity ought to give us compassion and a desire to share Christ with others, to share His love and mercy and grace and joy and salvation. Our shared experience with Christ ought to cause us to lay our lives down for our brothers and sisters, and for the people of the world (1 John 3:16; John 3:16; John 17:18; 20:21).

 

Just as people supposed that Joseph was Jesus’ father, people will suppose that our fathers are our fathers in the primary sense of the word “father.” However, in Christ our Father God has brought us into Himself, and whatever fatherhood we may have been the recipients of was a fatherhood held in trust on behalf of Father God. For some of us, this trust was a wonderful experience, for some of us it may have been mundane, for others of us the trust that the Father placed in our earthly fathers was profaned and violated.

 

Some of these latter relationships have been healed in Christ, for others…there is no reconciliation and the pain lingers…we can but trust God in these matters. If we have been unfaithful parents, there is forgiveness in Christ; if we have been unfaithful children, there is forgiveness in Christ. We can ask God to help us be blessings to others, even if such opportunities within our own earthly families have passed us by.

 

Our Father is bringing many sons and daughters to glory through His Firstborn Son, Jesus Christ (Hebrews 2:10 – 13; Romans 8:29 – 30). No matter what we may hear in the wilderness of temptation, and no matter what may be said in the synagogue of Nazareth, we must hold fast to our confession that God is our Father and Jesus Christ is our Elder Brother, and that the Holy Spirit has given us the very life of God, making us new creations in Christ.

 

When the Father says, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well – pleased,” He sees not only the Firstborn Son, but all His sons and daughters. He sees not only the Head of the Body, but the entire Body of His Son.

 

I wrote above that we have two ancestries, two family trees. We are descended from two genealogical lines. One once was and is no more, yet in a sense still is. The other once was not, though in a sense has always been, and now is forever and ever.

 

The first ancestry is that of Adam, through Jesus Christ and His Cross we have been removed from Adam and placed in Christ (Romans 5:12 – 6:11; Galatians 2:20). We no longer trace our genealogy back to Adam and the fall from God’s glory into sin and death. Yet, we do not deny our past experience and we use it to build bridges to others through sympathy and testimony – but we do not, we must simply not, find our identity in our past life of sin and death, we must not deny Christ Jesus and His glorious and perfect work of salvation.

 

Our genealogy in Christ Jesus is now our amazing ancestry, and in a sense it has always been, for our Father has known us before the world was formed (Eph. 1:4 – 5; 1 Peter 1:1 – 5; Rom. 8:29 – 30; Rev. 13:8; 17:8). This ancestry defines who we are in Christ, who we shall ever be in Christ, and who we have always actually been in Christ. In this sense, we can trace our genealogy to the Throne Room before the ages, for the seed of God is the Life within us (1 Peter 1:23; John 3:1 – 8; 1 John 3:9).

 

Yes, we indeed may have lived in the pig pen, but now we have “come to ourselves” and realized that we have always been the children of our Father, let us arise and go to His House and eat His Food, living at His holy Table (Luke 15:17).

 

Let us also bring others with us on our journey home, declaring His Name to our brothers and sisters (Hebrews 2:12).

 

Joseph – Reflections (1)

 

Vickie and I have been reading the story of Joseph in Genesis; what an amazing story, what highs and lows and twists and turns, what a picture of Jesus Christ!

 

It strikes me that Genesis begins with strife between brothers that results in murder (Cain and Abel), and that it concludes with strife between brothers that results in redemption and salvation.

 

I wonder how Adam reacted to Cain’s murder of Abel. Did he take any responsibility for it? After all, had Adam and Eve not disobeyed God and allowed sin and death to enter the human race, would there have been a murder?

 

Then I wonder how Jacob reacted when he realized the deceitful conspiracy of his ten sons in selling Jospeh into Egypt. On the one hand his joy must have been overwhelming, on the other hand what might he have felt when he considered the pain and suffering Joseph endured, not to mention his own pain and grief for many years.

 

Did Jacob see himself in the deceitfulness of his sons? After all, Jacob was a deceiver, scheming to steal his brother Esau’s blessing, taking advantage of Esau’s hunger to purchase the birthright. In wresting with the angel of God Jacob comes to the end of his natural strength, yet there is more debilitation to come in his loss of Joseph to a supposed death by a wild beast.

 

Genesis begins with unreconciled strife between brothers; it concludes with strife between brothers that is redeemed. Not only is the latter strife redeemed, but we also see that the strife was purposed by God for the redemption of the very ones who rejected and betrayed and sold Joseph into slavery.  As Jospeh says to his brothers:

 

“Do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life” (Genesis 45:5).

 

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive” (Genesis 50:20).

 

It is hard to see the whole picture of life, it is challenging to have a clear picture of even a segment, there is so much we just don’t know or understand. What must Jospeh’s perspective have been when he was thrown into a pit by his brothers? When he was sold to slave traders? When Potiphar consigned him to prison?

 

What about his father when he saw the coat he had given to Jospeh soaked in blood?

 

What about Joseph’s brothers after the betrayal and the lie to their father? Was life the same for them after this?

 

How do we react when we realize that our sins forged the nails that pierced the body of Jesus on the Cross?

Confrontation In Nazareth (4)

 

 

“You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased” (Luke 3:22).

 

The Father expresses His love for Jesus and His pleasure in Him at Jesus’ baptism, and the Father does the same with us, for as with the Head, so with the Body. Through our baptism into Jesus Christ we have died and our lives are “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:4).

 

Justification is not something that is given and withdrawn, given and withdrawn, given and withdrawn; rather it is a completed work of Christ in which we stand, a declaration of the Father, an entry in the annals of Heaven. Having been justified, we “have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1), are being “saved by His life” (Rom. 5:10), and have received God’s glorious reconciliation (Rom. 5:10 – 11).

 

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). The righteousness of Jesus Christ is both imputed to us and infused within us; it is both forensic and organic; we are justified and we are made new creations in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).

 

The Father’s declaration of, “This is My beloved Son,” was under attack throughout the earthly life of Jesus Christ, and the same can be true in our lives. In other words, the identity of Jesus Christ was attacked and questioned, and the same is true of us.

 

During the temptation in the wilderness, the enemy twice challenged Jesus with the words, “If You are the Son of God.”

 

In Nazareth the people said, “Who does He think He is?”

 

In the Gospels Jesus is accused of having a demon, His background is questioned, the fact He comes from Nazareth is held against Him, and on the Cross He again is challenged, “If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” (We see this attack on His identify particularly in the Gospel of John.)

 

Our movement toward sin and death, into what we term “the fall,” began when Adam and Eve doubted their identity in God, doubting the Word of God. The serpent tells them, “You will be like God,” when they were already formed in the image of God. The Word and work of God was not good enough for our first parents, they chose not to rest in God and to be satisfied in Him. God was satisfied with them, they were not satisfied with Him.

 

Ever since those earliest times the enemy has attacked our identity in God, our salvation in Jesus Christ. Hence, he is styled, “the accuser of our brethren” (Rev. 12:10).  Yet, in Christ, we are justified, we are called to live in open heavens in unbroken communion with God and with one another. “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).

 

A tragedy is that our justification and identity are often challenged within our congregations, and we hear the cry, “Who does he think he is? Who does she think she is?”

 

We teach justification, but do we truly accept one another as being justified, as being holy in Jesus Christ? When we look at one another, do we affirm that the Father has said of our brother and our sister, “This is My beloved son, this is My beloved daughter, in whom I am well-pleased”?

 

O dear friends, we are in Jesus Christ, hidden in Him, wedded to Him, buried with Him, raised in Him, seated in the heavens with Him.

 

Yes, yes, it can be easier to go with the flow in Nazareth and not speak up about our glorious life in Jesus Christ. It can be easier not to fight the strong current of condemnation and Law and accept that we will live in Egypt for the rest of our lives. We may want to give up and agree that the idea of an open heaven is unrealistic, and that the Father could not possibly say of us, “This is My beloved child, in whom I am well- pleased.”

 

Yet, our Father loves us too much for us to deny Him. We love Him because He first loved us. Let us continue in God’s love, love for God, love for one another in Christ, love for the people of the world. It is incumbent upon us to be faithful to our Father, to not deny Him, but to confess our glorious salvation and sonship in Jesus Christ - let us declare His Name to our brothers and sisters. (1 John 4:19; Hebrews 2:9 – 13; Romans 8:29 – 30).

 

O dear friend, when the Father sees you coming up from the waters of baptism in Jesus Christ, He proclaims, “This is My beloved child, in whom I am well-pleased!”

 

Do not allow anyone to deceive you into denying your Divine parentage – even those in your hometown of Nazareth.

Confrontation in Nazareth (3)

 

 

Should we return to Nazareth, how might our baptism confront us?

 

The first possibility of confrontation has to do with living in an open heaven, of living in unbroken communion with God. Baptism ought to usher us into a life of intimacy with God, of seeing the things which are invisible as our Way of Life in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:18).

 

When we first believe, when we first come into a relationship with Jesus, we tend to read the Bible in a pristine fashion, to believe what we read, to see Jesus and hear Jesus throughout our days and weeks, and to trust Him. We often share what we are experiencing without forethought, that is, sharing Jesus is natural to us. This can be especially true if we do not have a religious background which has conditioned our expressions and responses, and which has imposed (intended or unintended) conformity on us.

 

 

When Jesus was praying at His baptism “heaven was opened” (Luke 3:21). Shortly thereafter Jesus says to Nathaniel, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51).

 

We are called into a life with open heavens; a life of intimacy with God and with one another.

 

A challenge is that the assembly in the synagogue in Nazareth is not living under open heavens, it is living under the iron dome of the Law and the traditions of men. Therefore, the synagogue will have nothing of this Jesus who reads from Isaiah the prophet and claims the Word of God to Isaiah as His own calling and inheritance. The synagogue will say, “Who does He think He is?” (Luke 4:22).

 

Here we encounter “bait and switch Christianity.” One of its forms is the promise of a true relationship with Jesus Christ, which then, after baptism (or its equivalent, such as “accepting Jesus”) is switched to a mode of religion that seeks to control expressions and responses in order to establish conformity of behavior and thought and expression. This form of Christianity seeks to put new wine into old wineskins.

 

These old wineskins may speak of grace, but they practice the Law. These wineskins insist that we cannot have daily intimacy with God, they insist that we must replay the “repentance” tapes over and over, week after week, living as if the veil in the Temple is still firmly in place, always trying to measure up for God – never accepting the New Covenant in which our consciences are cleansed from guilt and sin and in which the Word of God is written in our hearts and minds and in which we have been made complete in Jesus Christ (see Hebrews Chapter 10 for a look at the New Covenant!).

 

I don’t think there is any great conspiracy about all this, it is just the way we are, we gravitate toward the earth, toward law, toward “works,” toward erecting barriers – we often think they are safety barriers, but they are barriers to the expression of Divine Life within us…as individuals and as a People.

 

Paul writes, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).

 

The promises of God are for us all in Jesus Christ. “For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us” (2 Cor. 1:20).

 

We tend to read promises and callings of God as either past or future, we tend to see them as relating to people in the past, or to people in the future. We seldom see the promises and callings of God as being alive to us today. We see Jesus as not so much alive and present today, but as alive in the past and as alive in the future; this is why we tend to speak of Jesus in either the past or future tenses, but seldom in the present tense.

 

Martha, in John Chapter 11, is a good illustration of this. When Jesus arrived in Bethany after the death of her brother Lazarus, she said, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”

 

Jesus replies, “Your brother will rise again.”

 

Martha responds, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”

 

Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”

 

Even though Martha was having a conversation with Jesus, she was looking at Him in the past (if you had been here my brother would not have died), and in the future (I know he will rise in the last day). She could not “see” Jesus as the present Resurrection.

 

I seldom hear professing Christians speak of Jesus in the present tense, He is usually in the past or the future, seldom do we speak of Him as being alive today, as being in a relationship with us today. Seldom do we see that the calling of God to live as His sons and daughters in mission to the world is for us in Christ today, seldom do we see that as the Father gave the Firstborn Son to the world, so the Father gives the many-membered Son to the world.

 

Yet, as we learn to live beneath open heavens these things, this Way of living, becomes natural to us, it is our Way of Life.

 

This may make little or no sense to you right now, but perhaps as we continue to ponder Jesus’ return to Nazareth things will become clearer.

 

Jesus says to Nathaniel, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51). If this is true of Jesus, then this is true of His Body.

 

Is your baptism a present reality in your life in Christ, or is it something that happened “once upon a time” and no longer lives within you?

 

Is it time to stoke the embers of your baptism into a roaring flame?

Confrontation In Nazareth (2)

 

 

“Now when all the people were baptized, Jesus was also baptized, and while He was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, ‘You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased’” (Luke 3:21 - 22).

 

In Nazareth Jesus will read the words of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me…” (Luke 4:18).

 

The baptism of Jesus Christ was not only an expression of the Trinity, but it was an ongoing experience in the life of Jesus Christ. The heavens never ceased to be open for Jesus, other than that holy time when darkness covered the land and He cried, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” Yet, they were open even then, for then the holy justice and mercy of God met as they consumed the sacrificial Lamb on the Cross, the Lamb bearing our sins and becoming sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). The heavens were open even then to Jesus on Golgotha, for the Father was accepting His Son’s holy offering of Himself.

 

Have you considered the similarity of Jesus’ baptism and the Creation account in Genesis Chapter One?

 

In both passages we see water, in both passages God speaks, in both passages we see the Holy Spirit, in both passages a new creation comes up from the water, in both passages we see mankind being formed in the image of God, in both passages we see the Son. In Genesis we see the Son “in the Beginning,” as the “light,” and as the speaking Word (see John 1:1 – 5).

 

When I write that “in both passages we see mankind being formed in the image of God,” I mean that in the Incarnation, in Jesus Christ, a new humanity comes forth – Jesus is the “grain of wheat falling into the ground” (John 12:24), He is the Last Adam and the Second Man into whose image we are formed (1 Cor. 15:45 – 49; Eph. 4:24; 2 Cor. 5:17; Rom. 8:29).

 

In Genesis we see ourselves in Adam, in the Gospels we see ourselves in Jesus Christ (see also Romans 5:12 – 21).

 

Baptism is an ongoing experience for us in Jesus Christ, replete with mystery, filled with wonder. In Christ we find our identity rooted in baptism (Romans Chapter 6; Colossians 2:9 – 19; 1 Corinthians 12:13), we are buried with Christ, raised with Christ, and ascended with Christ.

 

The association of water and the Holy Spirit continues into and beyond the Day of Pentecost when Peter says, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

 

Baptism set the course for Jesus, does baptism set the course for us?

 

Baptism is more than something that occurs at a definite time and place (though it is indeed that), but rather something that continues as our Way of Life in Jesus Christ. In baptism we “consider ourselves dead to sin but alive to God” (Rom. 6:11), in baptism we become members of Christ’s Body (1 Cor. 12:12 – 13), in baptism we are raised from death to life and enter the covenant community through the circumcision of Christ (Colossians 2:11 – 13).

 

Through baptism we pass from belonging to ourselves to belonging to Jesus Christ, ownership to us passes from self and Satan to Jesus Christ who purchased us with His blood (1 Cor. 6:19 – 20; 1 Pt. 1:18 – 19; Rev. 5:9 – 10).

 

Soldiers enter the Army as they speak the oath of induction, from that point forward their lives are not the same. Brides and grooms say wedding vows, from that time forward their lives are not the same. In the case of brides and grooms, they move from being two people to being one person (a mystery indeed – they do not lose their identity, yet they gain a new one). In the instance of the soldier, he no longer belongs to himself, he now belongs to his country.

 

In baptism we become “bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh” (Eph. 5:22 – 33) and “members of one another” (Rom. 12:5 – 6).

 

The state of being of the soldier, the bride, and the bridegroom changes during the oath of induction and the wedding ceremony; how much more does our state of being change when we go down to death in the waters of baptism and rise in newness of life in Jesus Christ? No wonder we are instructed to think about ourselves differently than we did before, to “consider ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

 

A new creation does indeed rise from the waters of baptism (2 Cor. 5:17); the Holy Spirit hovers over those waters as He did in Genesis, and He descends upon those rising from those waters as He did with Jesus Christ. No wonder Paul evokes Genesis when he writes, “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). (In 4:6 Paul anticipates 5:17, and in 5:17 he looks back to 4:6).

 

Well, I suppose we’ve covered a lot of ground, and I hope we are reading these Bible passages and pondering them.  I imagine some of this is new, for we tend to compartmentalize baptism and not think about it very much – it tends to be something we did once upon a time, rather than something we are living today. When we do think about baptism, it is often in terms of what we’ve been taught about it, rather than how baptism is living in us and we are living in it.

 

Some of us can be more concerned about what others believe about baptism, than about its reality in our own lives. Most of our traditions have something valuable to contribute to our understanding and we ought to be careful when we think we know what others believe and why they believe it.

 

My present concern is that we live out our baptism in Jesus Christ, the present is more important to me in Christ than how we got where we are, we must trust Christ for the past.

 

Baptism is an ocean with endless depths and horizons and currents, it simply can’t be measured, it can’t be neatly defined; thankfully it can be experienced in Jesus Christ and its central navigation points entered on our charts.

 

If we return to Nazareth, as Jesus did, we will confront our baptism, our baptism will be there to meet us.

 

How might that be?

 

Confrontation In Nazareth (1)

 

I’ve been pondering Luke 4:14 – 30 for a few weeks. It comes and it goes in my mind; I visit it throughout the week, thinking about it, wondering about it. I see Jesus in the passage, I see myself, and I see us. It seems to me that this is an ongoing confrontation for us, confronting Scripture, confronting the status quo, confronting our own sense of calling in our Father. It almost seems that being thrown off the cliff…or at least coming close to the cliff…is a rite of passage, perhaps a way of life.

 

Do you see yourself in this passage? What role are you playing?

 

I have often played roles that surprised me, roles that I did not think I wanted to play, roles that later disgusted me. This is to say that I need to be careful lest I fall back into those roles; better to follow Jesus, better to emulate His role, His calling, His love…even should it lead to the edge of the cliff.

 

This is a challenge of sonship in our Father, we are called to live in and through and “as” the Firstborn Son, Jesus Christ. We follow Jesus in His baptism (Luke 3:21 – 22), we follow Him in His temptation (4:1 – 13), and we follow Him in His return to Nazareth (4:14 – 30). We also follow Him in His genealogy back to Adam in that we share humanity with Him and with those around us (3:23 – 38).

 

There is also a sense in which John the Baptist precedes us as he precedes Jesus. John cries, “After me is coming one mightier than I,” as he prepares the way of the Messiah.

 

How can this be? How can John the Baptist precede us as he preceded Jesus Christ?

 

To precede Christ is to precede the Body of Christ, it is to proclaim both the Head and the Body, for how can one have a head without a body or a body without a head?

 

When we read the promise of the New Covenant in the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms, when we read of a New People in the Messiah, of a New and Living Temple, are we not reading the proclamation of John the Baptist, since he embodies what we term the Old Testament? When John the Baptist speaks, the Old Testament speaks; when the Old Testament speaks, John the Baptist speaks.

 

Perhaps if we will “see” the unfolding Word of God as it points to Christ and His Body throughout the Old and New Testaments, we will have faith and confidence to fulfill our calling, that we will be People with the Living Word, the life-giving Word in Christ, a Stone cut without hands filling all the earth.

 

As I hope we will see, one of the challenges in Luke 4:14 - 30 is that the passage that Jesus reads in Luke 4:18 – 19 (from Isaiah 61:1 - 2) becomes our own passage in Him, our calling in Him, our proclamation in Him…after all, the Incarnation continues within us. That is, we are to also stand and read Isaiah 61:1 – 2, and not only are we to read it, in Jesus Christ we are to live it as His Body.

 

How are we, how am I and how are you, identified with Jesus in His baptism, His genealogy, His temptation, and His return to Nazareth?

 

What do you think?

 

What do you see? What can you see?

 

How are you challenged?

 

Seeing Stars from Deepest Wells? (2)

 

 

Recently I was reading Revelation Chapter One aloud to Vickie from Peterson’s, The Message. We came to verse 16 and “His mouth a sharp-biting sward, his face a perigee sun.”

 

“What does perigee mean,” I asked? Since neither one of us knew I looked it up.

 

The online Merriam – Webster dictionary informed us that perigee means “the point in the orbit of an object (such as a satellite) orbiting the earth that is nearest to the center of the earth.” This means that while we can speak of perigee moons, we cannot speak of perigee suns since the sun does not orbit the earth. Peterson chose an incorrect word (a check of the online version of The Message shows that this has been corrected).

 

Whether we are writing of seeing stars from the deepest wells, or of perigee suns, we ought to be checking ourselves.

 

We visited a church not long ago which sang a song with the words, “Then You came along and put me back together.” Where does this come from? We are not put “back together” by Jesus, we are made new creations in Him, our old “man” dies with Him, and we are raised in newness of life. We now have a new identity in the Trinity – we are not a Humpty Dumpty miracle. Our modus operandi seems to be, “If it feels good write it and sing it.” We no longer care about the truth of our lyrics, any more than we care about the truth of our books.

 

I still recall the reaction of a leader in the church association I was with when The Shack was published, all he cared about was that it touched people. When I circulated a paper to pastors demonstrating the error of the book and its attack on the Atonement, he wondered what my “problem” was. Apparently touching people is all that matters, it does not matter whether we touch them with truth or error, with light or with darkness.

 

Of course, error is often subtle and looks good, even looks great, and so people are attracted to it – as Paul writes, Satan transforms himself into an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

  

I recall my reaction to Stephen Ambrose’s Nothing Like It In the Word, an account of the building of the transcontinental railroad – it was that it contained implausible error after error, common sense errors. How could people read the book and not see that the railroad could have never been completed at the daily rate (often in inches when blasting through rock as I recall) that Ambrose was using. The public loved the book, at least until wiser eyes critiqued it. As one online writer observes, “The book was rife with factual errors, misquotes, contradictions, demonstrably misleading and/or inaccurate statements, and unsupported conclusions.”

 

But why allow facts to ruin a good story?

 

My reaction to a biography about Bonhoeffer was similar, the difference being that my reaction was on two levels, one was literary and the other historical and theological. On a literary level the writing was, at times, juvenile. On an historical and theological level, it was often inaccurate, error filled, and failed to comprehend, even in a rudimentary fashion, Bonhoeffer’s thinking. When two historians, one from Grove City College and the other from Wheaton, took issue with the author’s inaccuracies, he accused them of nitpicking. Many people loved the book, once again, why allow facts (and in this case poor writing) to ruin what we think is a good story?

 

The same is true of our fascination with Biblical prophecy, which is seldom Biblical, but sure is entertaining. I have a friend who has been a member of his Presbyterian denomination for decades and yet who goes along with popular teachers on prophecy – teaching which his denomination and tradition do not support. When I send him examples of what his denomination teaches (from the denomination’s website), when I suggest that he talk to his pastor, he will have none of it – it is better to go with the crowd and the popular franchise prophecy industry and money generating teachers and preachers than to take the time to thoughtfully consider what his denomination teaches, what his pastor believes, and to actually read the Bible.

 

If it feels good, believe it. If it sounds good, it must be true.

 

Well, I really just wanted to write about seeing stars from deepest wells, which I consider a somewhat innocent offender in this lineup of inaccuracies, for I think Arthur Bennett simply used something he’d assumed for decades was true – a warning to us all. Other offenders are more serious because they can hurt people.

 

The problem isn’t really with the authors and speakers; it is with the readers and listeners. If we knew how to read and how to listen, if we didn’t allow ourselves to be led by rings in our noses, we would ask, “Is this true?” Then we might say, “Enough of this nonsense!”

 

If we don’t know the Scriptures, what can we expect? If Jesus isn’t our North Star, if He isn’t the heartbeat of our lives, if we aren’t loving Him with all that we have and all that we are…then we will surely be led astray…and it will be on us, not on the traducers who feed us poison. Yes, they will have their Day before the Throne, but so will we.

 

Despite of Bennett’s mistake in his prayer, The Valley of Vision is a wonderful compilation of prayers, with Christ at its center. As for Peterson and Revelation 1:16, he really should have known better, another warning to us all.

 

Stephen Ambrose is a sad example of someone who once performed exemplary work becoming an example of the slovenly.

 

The above song lyrics, The Shack, the Bonhoeffer biography, the prophecy teaching industry which has seduced so many and picked their pockets; they are all another matter. They are not a matter of seeing the stars from the deepest wells, but rather of descending into the darkness of the wells and taking others with them.

 

Seeing Stars from Deepest Wells?

 

C. S. Lewis mused that one benefit of praying written prayers is that they’ve been vetted. In other words, when we pray from the Book of Common Prayer (and other resources) we don’t have to critique what we are praying to determine their validity, their conformity to Scripture, but we can freely use them as a vehicle of communion with God.

 

The qualification is that, other than those in Scripture, there is a possibility that some prayers, or elements of some prayers, may be misinformed and off course, so I don’t know that we can ever dispense with a measure of vetting, as cumbersome as that might be. Some prayers may simply not “fit” us in a season of life, others may have ill-informed thinking – which may or not be material...aren’t we all in a process of growth? I consider the centrality of Jesus Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit to be the musical key that we want to hear in all prayer – when God is the center other elements tend to fall into place.

 

Due to the authoritative nature of written prayer, it seems to me that vetting is important, after all, we’re using it as a model for our communion with God, informing our minds and hearts, our souls and spirits. Yet, I think this critique requires charity, lest our hearts become judgmental when we think some elements of a prayer problematic; once again, aren’t we all in the process of growing in Christ? Isn’t the centrality of Christ paramount? Is not communion with God our desire? As we commune with God, God is well able to mature our understanding.

 

This also means that when we write prayers to be shared with others, we ought to write them in the light of Scripture and general truth, this includes verifying statements of fact. This practice should not differ from other writing or from public speaking (including sermons), for the sake of our audience and the glory of God we should verify what we write and speak.

 

There are enemies to this process. One enemy is time, and another is familiarity.  The enemy of time convinces us that we don’t have time to look up a word or verify a fact – so we accept as true what we think is true, without verifying it. The enemy of familiarity is more subtle, it assures us that what we’ve been told for decades is true, we accept as fact something that is false.

 

As I have grown older with increasing experience, I am more likely to quality a statement with, “I have not read primary material on the subject.” I want the listener or reader to know that I am only sharing what I’ve been told, without doing my own spadework. In my reading of authors who I highly respect, I have seen occasional instances in which they haven’t done their own research and therefore make statements that have no foundation, they are repeating what they heard from others. These are occasional instances, otherwise I’d not be reading the authors.

 

As a pastor I’m sure I frustrated many a parishioner with the question, “But is what so-and-so popular preacher says actually true?” I learned that we generally don’t care whether a statement is true, or whether a teaching aligns with the Gospel, or whether Jesus Christ is the center…I’ve seen this in congregational life, I’ve seen it in interdenominational small groups, I encounter it in conversations. 

 

We don’t want to be bothered with seeing life in the light of Jesus Christ and His Word…. after all, it would mean that we’d have to read and know Scripture, and that our hearts would have to be wedded to Jesus and to Jesus alone. It might even mean that we’d realize that some of our practices and other “distinctives” are not as grounded in the Bible as we’ve been led to think. I’m reminded of a point that Eugene Peterson made, we think that if we are told what’s in the Bible then we don’t need to read the Bible.

 

What does all this have to do with “stars from deepest wells”?

 

As some of you know, I appreciate The Valley of Vision, A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions, edited by Arthur Bennett, Banner of Truth Trust. There are some beautiful prayers in this volume, and there are gems to be found even in those that I think are problematic.

 

Bennet begins the volume with a prayer of his own, appropriately titled, The Valley of Vision. The penultimate stanza reads:

 

“Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells, and the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine.”

 

I’ve heard this about seeing stars from wells for decades and never thought much about it until I read what Bennett wrote. Then I wondered, “Is this true?”

 

If you didn’t know the answer to my question before you read this, you know it now. Arthur Bennett neglected to verify his statement, he relied on what he had been told, no doubt for decades…well, we probably all do it…but we should know better, and I imagine Aruthur Bennett knew better (where were his editors?).

 

This isn’t to say that there may not be “truth” in the illustration, which is why Bennett used it, but wanting an illustration to be true when it isn’t true introduces a crack in the foundation, it is an invitation to a slippery slope (not that Bennett was doing this, not at all, he simply failed to verify).

 

Unlike Bennett, I’ve seen many a popular contemporary “Christian” teacher, pastor, and author create “truth” out of nothing and sell it to others (including pastors) who will be offended should you ask, “But is this true?”

 

I recall some years ago a popular author and teacher created a story of Adam that portrayed him as being “wild.” This author launched a major religious franchise within the professing church, with many pastors falling for it and inducing their people to fall for it.

 

A parishioner of mine “fell” for it, and after I read the book and then asked him to compare its storyline with the Bible’s, it didn’t make any difference to him, he’d go with the false storyline, he liked it better. He preferred the heart of the book to the heart of Jesus. This attitude is often the case within the professing church.

 

To be continued…