Zits and All

It's easy for us to believe, at times, that we're alone in the world, that no one really understands us.  Most teenagers go through this; their thinking begins to mature, they start having different ideas than their parents and the result is often the feeling of being the only one who thinks like they do.

Guess what:  God knows this too, and he has already solved it!  Remember when the Son "became human and made his home among us" (John 1:14)?  The Orthodox Study Bible puts it this way:  "Most of us ask ourselves at one time or another, 'Does anyone else in all the world understand me?'  The Incarnation -- the 'enfleshment' of the Son of God answers that question once and for all -- with a resounding Yes!" 

Jesus, the Son of God in human flesh, had to go through learning to walk and talk, learning to read and write, relating to other kids and to adults, and learning his true path in life.  He went through adolescence (did he have zits?) and learning a trade with his stepfather, Joseph; and suffered through the same "nobody understands me" that we do -- only on a more massive scale!  After all, nobody was really going to believe he was the Son of God (at least not in his own neighborhood; see Luke 4:20-30).

He did more than that.  He experienced rejection, bullying, and unfair accusations.  In fact, he took on every form of pain, in one way or another, that we experience.  He was tempted by every human temptation, yet he never gave in to sin. And his whole nation rejected him.  Even his disciples deserted him (Matt. 26:56).  In Isaiah 53, the prophet tells the story of the "Suffering Servant" who was to come:  "He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief...it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down...he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins.  He was beaten so we could be whole."  That was Jesus. 

Jesus understands.  When nobody else understands, Jesus understands.  Because he does, the Father understands.  And the Father has completely accepted us -- zits and all -- because of how his Son came to be with us, lived perfectly for us, and then gave himself a perfect sacrifice for all our anger, doubt, fear, lust, envy and every other sin we've ever committed.  Every one of our sins is wiped away because of the blood of Jesus, and we're given a whole new life because he was resurrected from death.  Jesus understands the struggles we go through every day to follow him, and he accepts us as his brothers and sisters -- zits and all. 

Have you surrendered your whole life to him?  If not, isn't it about time you did? 

The King Is Coming!

(Note:  For serial readers of this blog, we're taking a brief break from "Understanding God" in order to address themes found in what's commonly called the Easter season.  We'll resume the series in two weeks.)

It's no secret in any of the four Gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) that Jesus knew he was the Son of God and Son of Man.  And he knew he was going to be rejected and then killed by his own people -- like Joseph, one of the sons of Jacob, had been betrayed and sold into slavery by his brothers (Genesis 37 tells that story).  Jesus' focus on Jerusalem for that final conflict begins in chapter 9 (of 24 chapters) in Luke's Gospel, and Luke selected and recorded each of the events, parables and sayings from chapter 9 to chapter 22 to create that context.  (Try reading those chapters in that light, and see what you learn.)

Many different themes are inter-woven here.  One is the political climate of a Jewish nation conquered by a foreign power and hungry for freedom, so they look for a political savior to set them free.  Another is the climate of major groups (Pharisees and Saducees, primarily) teaching the populace how to obey the word of God but largely missing the point, and polluting their teaching by their hypocrisy.  A third is the poverty and discouragement of the general populace, oppressed by both the Roman overlords and the religious establishment, and hoping for the long-promised Messiah will come and provide food, healing and freedom for them. A fourth theme is how Jesus responds to each of these realities and how the people react to him in return. 

In Luke 19:28-48, the story of Jesus' "Triumphal Entry" as it's called, shows several of these themes.  The people showed they were expecting a king (verse 38, taken from Psalm 118:26).  But rather than entering as a conquering political king on a big war horse with trumpets and heralds, he rode in on a young donkey, humbly, accepting the praise of the people even though they were mistaken in why they acclaimed him.  Jesus tells the Pharisees not to be jealous (verses 39-40) and then weeps over the condition of Jerusalem, expressing his sorrow over their spiritual blindness and stubbornness (verses 41-44).  Finally, he faces the hypocrisy of the temple rulers who put barriers in front of the worshippers for their own benefit, and clears the place out, symbolically making way for his own perfect sacrifice to come in a few days. 

Today, let's ask ourselves, in humility:  which of these people do we most resemble?  Are we political Christians who want to take over our country with a religious agenda and throw unbelievers from power?  Do we think we have all the spiritual answers, and look down our noses at those who disagree with us?  Do we think that Christianity is a way to get ahead financially, and that being a member of a church will solve our problems (or that the church is supposed to provide for us)? 

Or, do we more closely resemble Jesus?  He came to die so we can have life, and our response to him is that we should "live for him and not for (our)selves" (2 Cor. 5:14-15).  His humility and self-sacrifice show us the way to follow him by serving him and others.  Today, let's resolve to consciously follow Jesus by looking at the needs of others above our own, thinking of others more than ourselves, and instead of speaking only of our own wants, humbly asking him for his words of comfort and peace to others.  Which will you do today?

Understanding God, Part 4: Joseph

The book of Genesis is written, first of all, to the Israelite nation coming out of Egypt, explaining their origins. The stories of their ancestors, the genealogies and the soap-opera lives they all led, had lessons galore for Israel if they would listen.  But when we try to learn also, the problem is that we speak a different language and live in a different culture, so we don't always get it.  Let's look at the birth of Joseph today for an example of hidden lessons in the words and stories that point, in one way or another, to our Savior Jesus.

Joseph's mother, Rachel, is loved by her husband, Jacob, more than he loves his first wife -- who is also Rachel's older sister Leah.  Leah bears four sons in a row while Rachel can't have children.  (Lots more soap-opera drama occurs in the story, including both women trying to gain more children by having Jacob sleep with their female slaves.)  An immediate lesson here for the Israelites was not to be petty and jealous like their ancestors, although of course they were anyway.  God shows favor to Leah, who is rejected by her husband, by giving her sons including Judah (King David's ancestor, and thus Jesus' forefather) and Levi (the tribe of priests of Israel). 

Rachel and Leah keep trying to manipulate their husband in order to have more children, so that each can have the advantage over the other -- in that culture, a woman's ability to give children, especially sons, to her husband was the main source of her honor.  Finally, however, God gives Rachel a son, Joseph, by His favor and not because of her manipulation and jealousy.  Should this tell us something about trusting God to provide for us, instead of trying to make things happen by force?  Hmmm...

Look also at the words Rachel uses in Genesis 30:23-24, describing her son Joseph: "God has removed my disgrace...May the LORD add yet another son."  The Hebrew word for "removed" is 'asaph' and the word for "add" is 'yoseph' which is the same as the name "Yoseph".  So there are some literary puns going on that the English translation doesn't give us. 

One additional lesson is possible here.  Jesus, the Son of God in the flesh, was born by God's divine action to Mary, a descendent of King David.  His birth was by God's favor to Mary (Luke 1:30) as Joseph's was to Rachel.  Jesus came to take away all sin (2 Cor. 5:14-19), not just the shame of having no children but the shame we receive by turning away from God and trying to manipulate life into giving us what we want.  In Christ, God has "removed" all the bad and "added" to us all we need:  "By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence." (2 Peter 1:3, in the context of God's gifts to us through his Son Jesus).   And through Jesus, God has "added" many more children to Himself.

I've tried to make life come out my way, by my own hard work and by manipulating others.  Have you?  Today, let's decide to turn our backs on jealousy, self-will and controlling others; and rest instead in God's perfect provision for us, in his own time and way.  We'll be surprised by how well it turns out!

Understanding God, Part 3

The last two weeks I've written about trying to understand God through his Son, whom we know as Jesus the Messiah (Christ).  We looked at some scriptures including Heb. 1:1-3 and John 5:39-40 to show that the written word of God points us to the Living Word of God (John 1:14) who shows us exactly what the Father is like (John 14:9).  So this time, let's look at a passage from the Old Testament that points us to what God was going to do in Jesus Christ.

Skipping over, for now, the first-ever indication of a savior in Genesis 3:15 (second half), and the desperation of the human race without God in the next few chapters, let's go to the call of Abram / Abraham in Genesis 12:1-4.  Here, God says Abram must leave his native land, go to another place, and that God will make him into a great nation, plus make him famous and a blessing to many; God will bless those who bless Abram and curse those who treat him with contempt.  This passage is pivotal for a lot of reasons:  it starts the story of the "father of the faithful" as an example of a life of growing faithfulness to the call of God; it tells about the roots of the nation of Israel; it foretells the birth of the Messiah as Abram's descendent ("All the families on earth will be blessed through you"); and it tells how we are to respond when God shows us his will ("So Abram departed as the Lord had told him"). 

But there's one more level of meaning we can find here:  look again at the command and the promises from God to Abram:  leave your home, go to a strange place; and you will be famous, be blessed and become a blessing to all nations.  That's a picture of what the Father asks the Son to do, and that the Son is willing to do, for our sake.  Paul writes in Phil. 2:5-11: "You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.  Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.  Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."  The calling of Abram is a rough picture, in a way, of what the Son of God would do later, going to a 'strange land' -- the physical earth -- and through his life, death and resurrection for us, become famous and a blessing to all nations. 

The Old Testament is full of word pictures that make sense in their original context, up to a point.  (Some of those stories don't seem to make any sense at all on their own, but that's a story for another day.)  The entire history of Israel sets up for us the larger story of the Messiah to come.  But only in Christ are these stories, histories and concepts given their full weight of meaning; revealing "the story behind the story" as it were; and only as we see them fulfilled in Christ can we understand how they apply to us today.  

Reading the New Testament scriptures and letting them highlight the Old Testament is kind of like seeing the Old Testament in 3-D:  everything jumps out at you in a much different way.  Next time we'll look at someone else's story and see what we can learn. 

Understanding God, Part 2

Last time I wrote about trying to understand God.  You might want to review that post to get the background on this one.  Basically, we talked about trying to comprehend a God we can't see, and some of the ditches people fall into in trying to explain him.  Reading Hebrews 1:1-3, we discussed how Jesus, the living Son of God in human form, is the greatest revelation of God.

Now, some of my friends have questions and concerns about that.  Isn't the Bible the real word of God, and the full explanation of who God is?  (See for instance 1 Peter 1:23-25.) Yes and no.  Yes, in that we have the written word and can read it any time (and should read it often!).  But within that written word is revealed the Living Word, Jesus -- as in John 1:1 "In the beginning the Word already existed.  The Word was with God, and the Word was God."  And verse 14, "So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son."  Which is more important -- the text or the person?  My money is on the Son of God!

Jesus then gives some important clues about himself, in relation to the written word.  Let's look at John 5:39-40 which says "You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life."  And in Luke 24:25-27, after his resurrection, Jesus is walking with two disciples and says " 'You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?' Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself."  And then in verse 44, he says to the whole group, “When I was with you before, I told you that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled.”  

To properly understand the Hebrew scriptures, often called the Old Testament, we have to look back at them through the lens of Jesus himself -- how he fulfilled those writings and brought them to life.  "Moses and all the prophets" wrote about Jesus, in one way or another.  A full analysis would take many more pages than I can write today, but in the next few weeks I'll try to unpack a few of them here.  To preview that series, let's just say that the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the history of Israel as a nation; the Law of Moses; the sacrifices and festivals in Israel's worship liturgy; and the writings of the prophets, all lead to Christ.  Some have said that the entire nation of Israel existed to prepare a people and the perfect way to understand how the Son of God could enter the world to rescue us and bring us to the Father.  Biblical Israel's national history and religious practice gives us a rich picture of multiple dimensions and facets -- like a huge, perfectly-cut diamond -- sparkling and shedding light on what God wants us to know about himself. 

And the full picture is more breathtaking and wonderful than anything else we could imagine!

Understanding God, Part 1

If you want to know someone deeply, it takes time and effort.  The Lovely Joanne and I have known each other more than ten years and we're just getting started.  We hate being apart, as it's harder to share everything even by email and phone calls.  We need to be face to face! 

What about when we are trying to get to know God, whom we can't see?  Some people look at the world around us, with its troubles and pain and evil, and conclude that if there is a God, he's remote and doesn't care about us or powerless to stop tragedy.  Some read verses like 1 John 3:1 and think he's like a kindly old man who loves everyone so much he just kind of drools over us.  Others read verses like Psalm 2:4-5 and think he's a mean, angry judge who waits for us to step out of line and then zaps us with a lightning bolt (or cancer, a car wreck, or an earthquake).  How can we know? 

Well, the Bible is progressive - we only get a glimpse of God in Genesis, and have to go all the way through the Bible to get more of a picture.  The New Testament tells us much more detail, more directly, than the Hebrew scriptures.  But still, there seem to be differing ideas in individual verses, so how do you unify the whole thing?  Is there a single thread?  Yes, there is!

Let's begin with a summary passage, Hebrews 1:1-3 which says "Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe. The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven."  This tells us that the greatest revelation of God is not by the prophets and others who wrote to the Hebrew people, but from the very Son of God -- Jesus.  So then, to understand God, we have to look at Jesus. 

There's even more revealed in this passage.  The Greek says that the Son is "of the same essence" which means he is identical to the Father, not in any way inferior or separate, so that the Son is God just like the Father is God.  This is said so we understand we can completely trust whatever Jesus tells or shows us about who God is. 

So, since the Son (Jesus) shows us who God is, we should look to Jesus, to what he said, how he responded to people, and how his followers explained him to us -- which then helps us understand what was written in the Hebrew scriptures about God.  Another way to say that is, the Bible, the written word of God, is written to show us the Living Word of God -- the Son, Jesus; and by looking at Jesus, we learn who God is. 

What does that mean about how important Jesus is in the Bible?  We'll look at that next time.

The Other Side of the Boat

It had been a long night and the seven men in the small boat were exhausted.  It was time to row back to shore and clean their empty nets.  They were already discouraged from the events of the last week.  They had all followed this new rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, for three years and then the whole thing had been a bust -- the Romans had crucified Jesus and the brave among them had watched him die.  The last three years were a waste, so it seemed, so they were back to fishing for their livelihood, and now it looked like that wasn't going to work either. Bummer!

A voice came to them from on shore, a hundred yards away.  "So you got skunked, huh?  Try throwing your nets off the other side of the boat."  They looked at each other as if to ask, "What difference would that make? It's only a few feet!" but then they gave it one more try (fishermen do that a lot). Suddenly the net was full and it was all they could do to stay afloat with the load hanging over the side.  Eyes wide, they all realized this was no accident.  "It's the Lord [Jesus]!" said John. 

Once again Jesus showed his power -- now, after his resurrection -- to these guys who were so slow to believe.  He had called them to follow him, and he wasn't giving up on them just because they were discouraged.  He told them to try again, a little differently, and suddenly they succeeded.  Fellow disciples, it's the same today.  We can work until we're exhausted, get discouraged and think nothing is ever going to give results.  Then the Master calls out, telling us to try again, to try something just a little different than our 'proven methods.'  Our first challenge is always hearing him when we're 'busy working'.  Then there's the challenge of being discouraged -- thinking that, surely, trying again isn't worth the effort.  But the Master calls us to follow, not argue.

The question is, for each of us, what is 'the other side of the boat?'  Perhaps it's a different approach to a relationship; taking the painful steps to learn budgeting and money management; forgiving someone (again!); walking the few steps and daring to open up to a co-worker or neighbor about your faith in Jesus; or something else equally difficult, that Jesus is asking us to do. 

The disciples received a boatload of fish.  What is Jesus wanting to bless you and me with, if we will follow?