Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Dirty Faith
I recently read through the book of Leviticus as part of my regular Bible reading. For those of you who aren't totally familiar with what this book discusses, let's just summarise it as a list of regulations and stipulations for holy and proper Jewish living. Often times, people complain about its content, wondering what level of worth this "book of the Law" has for contemporary Christianity—seeing as Christ's death and resurrection supersedes the Mosaic Law and imposes a new manner for creating community with God. Usually I read the book with the notion in the back of my head that its purpose is to remind me of the old ways, under which I don't have to submit—to reflect, instead, upon the freedom and grace that I have, having been saved by Jesus. But not this time... something else grabbed my attention.
If you ever get a chance, read through Leviticus chapter 15. Kind of weird, eh? This section spells out laws about cleanness and societal propriety with respect to bodily discharges. "What," you may ask, "grabbed your attention so much in this section of the Law?" Well, if you'd like to know, it was the portion on women & bleeding at the end—verses 25-30. Immediately after reading that passage, my mind turned to the New Testament woman who was healed by Jesus from her persistent problem... and then I got to wondering about the context of this story and to the way Jesus reacted in this situation.
You see, according to the Mosaic Law, this woman was unclean. She was restricted from coming within a certain distance of other individuals—so much so that, in her state, anything that she touched would also be considered unclean. Those who, in turn, touched anything unclean would themselves become unclean until the end of the day—when they had to ceremonially cleanse themselves with a water bath. Now bear this in mind as we progress: whomever and whatever this unclean woman touches will become "tainted" by her uncleanness and would be required to separate themselves from society until evening, when they had to wash themselves and their clothes before returning to a "clean" state.
Read that last sentence again. Now read the story of the bleeding woman in Mark 5:21-34. Notice what was going on? A large, tightly-packed crowd was swarming around Jesus. This unclean woman pushes her way in, through the throng to the centre where Jesus was... and she touches the fringe of His cloak. Do you notice what's just happened? This unclean woman has effectively made the entire crowd surrounding Jesus ceremonially unclean. They all are compelled, by Jewish Law, to cleanse their clothes and themselves with water, and they're required to isolate themselves from other people until evening. That includes Jesus. And even after the woman herself is healed from the affliction, she's to be considered unclean for another seven days. Now, let's not forget where Jesus was going when this all happened: He was implored to visit the house of Jairus, a synagogue official, in order to heal his dying daughter.
So, let's assess the situation. Jesus, a teacher and moderately well-known public figure, is on his way to a synagogue ruler's house. If anybody knew about the implications of uncleanness in everyday Jewish society, it was a synagogue ruler (of course, Jesus notwithstanding). All of the sudden, an unclean woman comes up & touches the man who was on his way to this ruler's house. Because of this seemingly small action, Jewish Law declares both the dying daughter's healer & the dying daughter's father as unclean. That means there's no way they should be getting anywhere near the sickly child.
One must wonder what was going through Jairus' mind as this happened. He must have been altogether mortified, furious and distraught. Mortified because he had just become unclean owing to no fault of his own & would therefore need to be cut off from his family for the rest of the day. Furious because the woman who made him unclean gave him no warning—like she was supposed to—all because she wanted to sneak up to Jesus and "snag" some of His healing power for herself. Distraught because now, not only would he be technically forbidden from touching his dying daughter, but so would her potential healer until nightfall, owing to the purity laws. Jairus' daughter was now, therefore, facing a condemnation of death because this inconsiderate, impure woman decided that her needs were more important than others'—that she would inconvenience and taint whoever got in the way of her getting what she wanted.
But is that how the story goes?
Interestingly, we see a very different picture unfold. No mention of Jairus' reaction is made in any of the Gospels, and Jesus—being a teacher of the Law Himself—doesn't even bring up the fact that he, she and the whole crowd around them were all now unclean. He doesn't condemn the woman at all. He, instead, praises her for her faith.
There's got to be a handful of lessons that we can draw from this story about this woman's actions, her faith & Jesus' response to it (note well that Jesus proceeds to Jairus' house right after this and touches the dying child in His "unclean" state). What does this story tell us about the importance of faith vs. "obedience," or about means justifying the ends? What does this tell us about ourselves and our own interactions with Jesus? What are the deeper implications of Jesus' response to the woman's actions—namely, when He tells her to "Go in peace"?
Usually, I would do my best to spell out my own opinion on the aforementioned passages of Scripture and formulate a reasonably convincing position as to why I believe what I believe in light of the scriptural implications... but this time, I want to do something different.
I want to hear what you have to say about this New Testament story. I want a discussion on these things.
Will you bite?
Monday, April 05, 2010
Hope beyond hope: why, as a Christian, I’m either an idiot or saved
Eternal life.
Re-incarnation.
Heaven / paradise.
Life after death in any of its forms is a common theme throughout humankind’s global heritage. It seems to be a universal notion that these 80 or so-odd years are not the end of our existence; that there is something else afterward. Why? Well, maybe it’s true. Can we prove it? ...Can we disprove it? It’s pretty hard to devise a conclusive experiment which could test these divergent outcomes, and if it were even possible, our current understandings of life and of spirit are far too meagre even to begin seriously devising such processes.
How does one secure another life? Many religions believe that nothing needs to be done in order for one to pass from this existence to the next. In fact, the majority of belief systems that come to mind seem to stress that the purpose of activity in this life is directed not toward ensuring continuance, but toward improving the quality of our next phase in existence. The better a Buddhist you are in this life affords a stronger foundation to build upon in the next life, which progress one towards reaching nirvana. The better a Hindu in this life, the higher up the castes you will return as in the next one. The better a Mormon, the better chances you’ll get to be in Heaven instead of just living for eternity on the New Earth. Same with JW’s. Similar with Muslims and Jews. It’s all about merit. Then there’s Christianity. It also is about merit, but with a twist: Christianity teaches that a person can borrow someone else’s meritous deeds to replace one’s own for the purpose of determining one’s quality of existence in the next life. And herein lies the dilemma.
Every major religion in the world that I can think of tells me that my next life will depend largely on what I do in this one. How good I act or how righteous I live in this life is essential. Christianity teaches very much the same thing, except that the Bible tells us that no level of good deeds will ever be enough to counterbalance the amount of evil that we undertake in our lives, according to God’s standard (Rom 3:10,23). Even if we were to only ever to “good” things in every waking second of our lives, the level of “goodness” that we accomplish, the Bible tells us, is about as valuable as filthy rags in comparison to God’s requirements for humankind (Isaiah 64:6). If this is the case, where is the hope of salvation in Christianity? Every person should be (and is) doomed to hell, based on this unattainable goal God places against each and every person.
God, however, provides a loop-hole for us to squeeze out of this predicament. He allows anyone who chooses to substitute their own efforts toward attaining righteousness for the actions & deeds of Jesus Christ, who essentially (and literally) is God Himself (Rom 6:23, Phil 2:6-11). Since God sets the standard which determines who is good enough, it follows naturally that when God declares Himself as “good,” He must necessarily make the merit “grade” which would allows access to heaven. Simply put: A.) Jesus is God; B.) God is good; C.) Only people whom God declares to be good get to go to heaven; therefore D.) Jesus is good enough to go to heaven. Flawless logic.
So, because God offers humankind the option to substitute their own deeds for Jesus’, that pretty much means a free pass to heaven—provided that this option is chosen by the individual. There’s a condition, however, that God places on those who wish to swap their efforts of attaining righteousness for Jesus’ credentials. The condition and its implications are intense. You ready for it? Jesus tells us that we can only use His deeds in place of our own if we consciously decide to give up trying to earn our way to heaven by any other means (John 14:6): we must choose to risk our place in the next life based upon the promise that His deeds will actually take the place of our own. That’s right. We are given no guarantee that what Jesus says is actually even true, besides His claims of being Truth & of being God & from the reports of his coming back from the dead. But what if Christianity is wrong? What if it’s a big fictitious “feel good” story? Then all those people who chose to hang their eternal futures on this promise Jesus gave us have wasted their entire lives (1 Cor 15:16-19) & destroyed their chances for improving the next one. Choosing Jesus, if He is wrong, means damnation for His followers.
I’m a Christian. That means I’ve chosen to believe all of Jesus’ claims and promises. I recognise that this life isn’t the end and that there will be a continuance for me after I die. I have placed my eternal future entirely in the hope of a promise from a man whom I’ve never physically met, who lived 2000 years before I did and who was reported to have come back to life after three days in a grave... only to float away to heaven one afternoon & disappear from the world thereafter. Is there any concrete, objectively verifiable evidence that what Jesus said back then was true? Nope. The best we have are the written claims from eyewitness reports.
If I’m wrong and if Jesus was a fraud, then at best I’ve wasted all those opportunities for self-centred pleasure & self-gratification in this life and my existence ends on my death-bed. At worst, I’ve offended the real god who will punish & torment me for not serving him/it. Somewhere in between is the karmic reincarnation, where I’ll have to suffer through a harder life-cycle with more obstacles and greater challenges toward reaching nirvana. Essentially, I’m either shooting myself in the foot or shooting myself in the head. My hopes for a better future would be lost.
If I’m right, and Jesus in fact is the Son of the one true God, then I’m saved from eternal destruction and I will live in eternal glory with Him. It’s an all or nothing deal. Black or white. Right or wrong. A glorious eternity or a wasted existence....
No wonder Paul refers to belief in the Christian God as “hope against hope” (Rom 4:18).
I’ve made my decision; what’s your choice?
Re-incarnation.
Heaven / paradise.
Life after death in any of its forms is a common theme throughout humankind’s global heritage. It seems to be a universal notion that these 80 or so-odd years are not the end of our existence; that there is something else afterward. Why? Well, maybe it’s true. Can we prove it? ...Can we disprove it? It’s pretty hard to devise a conclusive experiment which could test these divergent outcomes, and if it were even possible, our current understandings of life and of spirit are far too meagre even to begin seriously devising such processes.
How does one secure another life? Many religions believe that nothing needs to be done in order for one to pass from this existence to the next. In fact, the majority of belief systems that come to mind seem to stress that the purpose of activity in this life is directed not toward ensuring continuance, but toward improving the quality of our next phase in existence. The better a Buddhist you are in this life affords a stronger foundation to build upon in the next life, which progress one towards reaching nirvana. The better a Hindu in this life, the higher up the castes you will return as in the next one. The better a Mormon, the better chances you’ll get to be in Heaven instead of just living for eternity on the New Earth. Same with JW’s. Similar with Muslims and Jews. It’s all about merit. Then there’s Christianity. It also is about merit, but with a twist: Christianity teaches that a person can borrow someone else’s meritous deeds to replace one’s own for the purpose of determining one’s quality of existence in the next life. And herein lies the dilemma.
Every major religion in the world that I can think of tells me that my next life will depend largely on what I do in this one. How good I act or how righteous I live in this life is essential. Christianity teaches very much the same thing, except that the Bible tells us that no level of good deeds will ever be enough to counterbalance the amount of evil that we undertake in our lives, according to God’s standard (Rom 3:10,23). Even if we were to only ever to “good” things in every waking second of our lives, the level of “goodness” that we accomplish, the Bible tells us, is about as valuable as filthy rags in comparison to God’s requirements for humankind (Isaiah 64:6). If this is the case, where is the hope of salvation in Christianity? Every person should be (and is) doomed to hell, based on this unattainable goal God places against each and every person.
God, however, provides a loop-hole for us to squeeze out of this predicament. He allows anyone who chooses to substitute their own efforts toward attaining righteousness for the actions & deeds of Jesus Christ, who essentially (and literally) is God Himself (Rom 6:23, Phil 2:6-11). Since God sets the standard which determines who is good enough, it follows naturally that when God declares Himself as “good,” He must necessarily make the merit “grade” which would allows access to heaven. Simply put: A.) Jesus is God; B.) God is good; C.) Only people whom God declares to be good get to go to heaven; therefore D.) Jesus is good enough to go to heaven. Flawless logic.
So, because God offers humankind the option to substitute their own deeds for Jesus’, that pretty much means a free pass to heaven—provided that this option is chosen by the individual. There’s a condition, however, that God places on those who wish to swap their efforts of attaining righteousness for Jesus’ credentials. The condition and its implications are intense. You ready for it? Jesus tells us that we can only use His deeds in place of our own if we consciously decide to give up trying to earn our way to heaven by any other means (John 14:6): we must choose to risk our place in the next life based upon the promise that His deeds will actually take the place of our own. That’s right. We are given no guarantee that what Jesus says is actually even true, besides His claims of being Truth & of being God & from the reports of his coming back from the dead. But what if Christianity is wrong? What if it’s a big fictitious “feel good” story? Then all those people who chose to hang their eternal futures on this promise Jesus gave us have wasted their entire lives (1 Cor 15:16-19) & destroyed their chances for improving the next one. Choosing Jesus, if He is wrong, means damnation for His followers.
I’m a Christian. That means I’ve chosen to believe all of Jesus’ claims and promises. I recognise that this life isn’t the end and that there will be a continuance for me after I die. I have placed my eternal future entirely in the hope of a promise from a man whom I’ve never physically met, who lived 2000 years before I did and who was reported to have come back to life after three days in a grave... only to float away to heaven one afternoon & disappear from the world thereafter. Is there any concrete, objectively verifiable evidence that what Jesus said back then was true? Nope. The best we have are the written claims from eyewitness reports.
If I’m wrong and if Jesus was a fraud, then at best I’ve wasted all those opportunities for self-centred pleasure & self-gratification in this life and my existence ends on my death-bed. At worst, I’ve offended the real god who will punish & torment me for not serving him/it. Somewhere in between is the karmic reincarnation, where I’ll have to suffer through a harder life-cycle with more obstacles and greater challenges toward reaching nirvana. Essentially, I’m either shooting myself in the foot or shooting myself in the head. My hopes for a better future would be lost.
If I’m right, and Jesus in fact is the Son of the one true God, then I’m saved from eternal destruction and I will live in eternal glory with Him. It’s an all or nothing deal. Black or white. Right or wrong. A glorious eternity or a wasted existence....
No wonder Paul refers to belief in the Christian God as “hope against hope” (Rom 4:18).
I’ve made my decision; what’s your choice?
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Jeremiah’s Cistern
The name for this poem comes from the story of Jeremiah being thrown into an empty cistern in Jerusalem during the Babylonian siege. You can read the story here in Jeremiah 38.
Jeremiah’s own response to “seasons” of life like this can be found in Lamentations 3:
Jeremiah’s Cistern
How long, O Lord? How long?
The mire and stagnant decay ooze slowly around me, drying, stiffening
Congealing into a cake’d mass of putrescent filth
My arms, once wielding weapons of valour,
Once vanquishing and defending;
Now lock’d beside me, lay dormant, lame
Cocooned in this muck-filled, thorny pit.
My feet, once swift and steady,
Agile and able to carry the heralded message of your return;
Now suck’d beneath me, tapped and trench’d
As fast as the eldest trees’ bulwark roots.
The fog, as it rises here, scrapes at my eyes
And washes my brain with a dullness of thought.
Yet still I remain most keenly aware:
The memories of light; of fight; of action and charge
Compel me to struggle and long to be wrenched
From this sinking, oozing, stifling mass
That surrounds me; suffocates me; immobilises and demoralises me.
How long, O Lord? How long?
Free me from this pit.
Lift me out & let me run.
Let me run & let me fight.
Let me live to proclaim the coming Kingdom.
Wash off this filth so I can reflect You.
Come. Rescue. Cleanse. Renew. Activate. Send.
Come.
For men are not cast off
by the Lord forever.
by the Lord forever.
Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,
so great is his unfailing love.
so great is his unfailing love.
For he does not willingly bring affliction
or grief to the children of men.
or grief to the children of men.
(Lam 3:31-33, NIV)
Thank God for hope. : )
Friday, January 29, 2010
Concerning Doubt
In my personal Bible reading, I recently worked through the Book of Luke (fitting, since I started reading it right before Christmas; and with the first few chapters being the primary source for the Christmas story...). It struck me as interesting to read through some of the passages contained in Luke four—the sections of Jesus’ temptation in particular and of Peter’s calling in chapter five. Right after Jesus is baptised by his cousin John, he wanders around in the Jordanian wilderness for 6 weeks, at the end of which Satan comes to tempt Him. Take a good look at exactly what Jesus’ temptations involve in this passage (Luke 4:1-13). If we look past the immediate things—the bread, the lordship and the frivolous demonstration of God’s power—there seems to be something else going on. In all three instances, Satan questions and challenges Jesus’ divine nature. He attacks Jesus’ authority & Jesus’ origin. Take a look: Satan says, “If you are the Son of God;” “If you worship before me;” and again, “If you are the Son of God” in this part of Luke’s Gospel when he’s trying his hardest to overpower Jesus.
Why did Satan phrase the temptations to Jesus in these ways? How come the Accuser of the Saints was spending all of his energies & efforts on the Son of the Most High God by questioning and attacking Christ’s divinity? From what I know about temptation and how Satan’s accusations work, it’s certain that Satan is the father of all lies (John 8:43-44) and that he seeks to find those whom he can devour (1 Peter 5:8). What, then, is the easiest way to overcome an enemy or to overpower a victim? Does the attacker go head-on to the most fortified position, the most heavily-defended point; or will he survey the victim, assaying which things pose a potential weakness & then exploit those weaknesses in order to break through defences? If Satan is smart (and I figure that he is), he definitely would want to maximise the potential for successful attacks by focussing on the weakest areas of defence.
I’m fairly certain that that’s how Satan works in my life, and I’m pretty sure it’s universal: he finds the areas of our lives where we’re the least certain, where we’re weakest & he exploits those weaknesses to trip us up, to make us fall, to tear us down & to destroy us. Often times, our weakest points tend to be related to the deep-set desires within. Greed is a twisted desire for comfort. Rage is a twisted desire for control. Lust is a twisted desire for the marriage relationship. Envy is a twisted desire for equality or fairness. Jealousy and pride are twisted desires for recognition. So what’s going on with Satan’s method of approach to Jesus in the wilderness, then? Why does he spend almost all of his efforts on questioning and undermining Jesus’ Sonship?
Here’s a possible explanation as to why Satan challenged Jesus in this manner: maybe Satan wanted to make Jesus uncertain. Maybe he was trying to put doubts into the Christ’s identity. Now I know that it’s nothing that we can confirm (or deny, I suppose) this side of heaven, but it would be an interesting thing to ask Jesus when I get to see Him face to face. “How much did the ‘fully human’ part of you, Jesus, come into conflict with the fact that you are the Son of God? Did you have to believe in your divinity the same way that we do? Did you ever struggle with that dual nature—being fully God & fully human? Did you ever have doubts?” We know that there were some miraculous attestations to Christ’s Sonship at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry: there was the voice from heaven after His baptism (Luke 3:21-22) and the prophetic declaration by John the Baptist that Jesus indeed was the divine redeemer (John 1:29-34)—both of which happened immediately before Jesus roamed around in the wilderness... but you’d still have to believe that what John said was true, and you’d have to believe that the voice from heaven which you heard was actually a real voice (for sometimes, when “voice from heaven” proclaims things, only certain people understand it [Acts 22:6-9]). It’s pretty clear from the Scriptures that John was convinced that Jesus was God’s Son, and we know that Jesus was certain as a child... but how many of us were thoroughly convinced of something as a child only to start doubting it later on in our adult lives? How many of us have heard promises about the future, and in the delay of their fulfilment, start to doubt if they would ever come to pass? If your mother told you as a 3 year-old that an angel came to her before you were born & said that you were the Son of God who would be the Saviour of the people, you probably would believe her... but when you turned thirty & all you’ve done with your life for the past 27 years has been to work with wood in a provincial town, it’s plausible that—as a human—you might question whether the statement made by your mom all those years ago might have been little more than “just talk.”
We believe that Jesus was fully human while He walked around on earth with us a couple of millennia ago. I wonder if Satan was trying to capitalise on the fact that humans are prone to weakness of faith in light of delay. I wonder if Satan was trying to trip Jesus up—trying to make Him doubt that He was the Son of God. I wonder if Satan’s challenges in the desert made any impact on the human part of Jesus. My Old Testament instructor back in Bible school almost a decade ago commented on this passage in the desert as being a perfect example of how & when humans give into temptation. His acronym to describe the scenario was HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired. The theory he proposed was that people will more often than not give into temptation when one or more of these conditions are present in the situation. In the desert, Jesus had been wandering around for forty days by himself. No doubt he was lonely & tried... and what do we see that Satan tempts Christ with first? The devil enticed Jesus to make food by challenging the authenticity of Christ’s divinity: “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3). The style of this temptation is two-fold: if Jesus gave in, Satan would have caught Jesus in the trap of subservience, for if Jesus did what Satan told Him to do, Satan could cite that instance as being in higher authority than Jesus. If Jesus resisted the temptation, Satan could cite Jesus’ resistance to being a cover-up for not really being the Son of God. The more that Jesus resisted the devil, the more “ammo” Satan potentially had in trying to make Jesus doubt His own divinity.
The chapter in the book of Luke following Jesus’ temptation recounts for us the story of when Peter, James and John were called to be Jesus’ disciples. Luke relays the story, telling us that Peter had just spent a futile night trying to catch fish. Jesus comes along and tells Peter to go out one more time and drop his nets. Now Peter is a professional fisherman. He’s been fishing probably for his entire working life—maybe even longer. Jesus is the son of a carpenter. What does he know about fishing? Why in the world would the fish be out in broad daylight, when birds & other predators were at their most active? If they had no luck catching fish under the shroud of darkness when the fishing was its most fruitful, what made this wood-cutter’s son think that fish could be caught now? I wouldn’t be surprised if such thoughts were racing through Peter’s head when Jesus asked him to go out this last time. Even the tone of Peter’s reply in this Gospel betrays the fact that he had his doubts about the attempt: “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets” (Luke 5:5). Despite his doubts, Peter obeyed as he went out & cast his nets in the lake one more time.
Sandwiched between the stories of Jesus’ temptation & Peter’s miraculous catch, Luke tells the story of Jesus speaking to the citizens of his hometown. It, again, is a story of doubt and uncertainty. The people, after hearing Jesus claim ownership of some Messianic prophecies in the book of Isaiah, start murmuring amongst themselves, discussing with scepticism the credulity of whether this local carpenter’s son actually was the Christ. Motivated by their doubt, they challenged Jesus to prove to them that He really was the Saviour, and Jesus, in response, rebukes them for their lack of faith. Furious that this self-assuming wood-worker had enough nerve to think He knew more about the Bible than the leaders of the local synagogue, they decided to go throw Him off a cliff. They were convinced because of Jesus’ remarks and attitude that He was disrespecting and blaspheming God. No miracles were performed in Nazareth that day for the people, except—of course—that Jesus walked away from the murderous plot.
The people of Nazareth doubted Jesus’ claims and acted on these doubts so as to not believe a word He said. The result? Nothing: their doubts were neither dispelled nor confirmed. Instead, everything stayed the same as it always was. Peter, however, despite his doubts concerning Jesus’ skills at fishing nevertheless followed and obeyed. The result? A catch of fish so large that it began to sink two fishing vessels. Jesus, despite the fact that Satan tried to make the Lord doubt His own calling, obeyed the Father—even to the point of death by public execution. The result? Resurrection and eternal life for all of Mankind.
So what’s the point about all these stories? It seems to be that everybody will, at one time or another, be confronted by doubts concerning the things they believe. The question & the concern isn’t so much that we doubt—it’s more about what we do in response to those doubts. Do we trust & obey despite our doubts; or do we conform our actions to the “reasonable outcome” of what our doubts predict? Do we, like Peter, act on our faith in what God tells us even though our doubts tell us otherwise and as a result, witness the miraculous; or do we act like the people of Nazareth & respond to our doubts only to witness the results that our doubts would expect? I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather witness the miraculous than the mundane.
We all will have doubts. It’s unavoidable. Our response to these doubts, however, is the important part. Everyone chooses what they want believe, whether it’s true or manufactured—and it’s nearly impossible this side of heaven to confirm whether our beliefs are based on truth or not. Even scientifically proven beliefs are subject to uncertainty. Our beliefs undoubtedly will be challenged and will be subjected to doubts. We must, nevertheless, choose which position will guide our actions: our faith in what we believe or our faith in our doubts. A wise man once told me a proverb a long time ago that has helped me retain a good perspective on this struggle in life, and it goes like this: “It is alright to doubt your beliefs; just don’t believe your doubts.” A choice to place faith in our beliefs or in our doubts must be made. Which, then, will you choose?
Why did Satan phrase the temptations to Jesus in these ways? How come the Accuser of the Saints was spending all of his energies & efforts on the Son of the Most High God by questioning and attacking Christ’s divinity? From what I know about temptation and how Satan’s accusations work, it’s certain that Satan is the father of all lies (John 8:43-44) and that he seeks to find those whom he can devour (1 Peter 5:8). What, then, is the easiest way to overcome an enemy or to overpower a victim? Does the attacker go head-on to the most fortified position, the most heavily-defended point; or will he survey the victim, assaying which things pose a potential weakness & then exploit those weaknesses in order to break through defences? If Satan is smart (and I figure that he is), he definitely would want to maximise the potential for successful attacks by focussing on the weakest areas of defence.
I’m fairly certain that that’s how Satan works in my life, and I’m pretty sure it’s universal: he finds the areas of our lives where we’re the least certain, where we’re weakest & he exploits those weaknesses to trip us up, to make us fall, to tear us down & to destroy us. Often times, our weakest points tend to be related to the deep-set desires within. Greed is a twisted desire for comfort. Rage is a twisted desire for control. Lust is a twisted desire for the marriage relationship. Envy is a twisted desire for equality or fairness. Jealousy and pride are twisted desires for recognition. So what’s going on with Satan’s method of approach to Jesus in the wilderness, then? Why does he spend almost all of his efforts on questioning and undermining Jesus’ Sonship?
Here’s a possible explanation as to why Satan challenged Jesus in this manner: maybe Satan wanted to make Jesus uncertain. Maybe he was trying to put doubts into the Christ’s identity. Now I know that it’s nothing that we can confirm (or deny, I suppose) this side of heaven, but it would be an interesting thing to ask Jesus when I get to see Him face to face. “How much did the ‘fully human’ part of you, Jesus, come into conflict with the fact that you are the Son of God? Did you have to believe in your divinity the same way that we do? Did you ever struggle with that dual nature—being fully God & fully human? Did you ever have doubts?” We know that there were some miraculous attestations to Christ’s Sonship at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry: there was the voice from heaven after His baptism (Luke 3:21-22) and the prophetic declaration by John the Baptist that Jesus indeed was the divine redeemer (John 1:29-34)—both of which happened immediately before Jesus roamed around in the wilderness... but you’d still have to believe that what John said was true, and you’d have to believe that the voice from heaven which you heard was actually a real voice (for sometimes, when “voice from heaven” proclaims things, only certain people understand it [Acts 22:6-9]). It’s pretty clear from the Scriptures that John was convinced that Jesus was God’s Son, and we know that Jesus was certain as a child... but how many of us were thoroughly convinced of something as a child only to start doubting it later on in our adult lives? How many of us have heard promises about the future, and in the delay of their fulfilment, start to doubt if they would ever come to pass? If your mother told you as a 3 year-old that an angel came to her before you were born & said that you were the Son of God who would be the Saviour of the people, you probably would believe her... but when you turned thirty & all you’ve done with your life for the past 27 years has been to work with wood in a provincial town, it’s plausible that—as a human—you might question whether the statement made by your mom all those years ago might have been little more than “just talk.”
We believe that Jesus was fully human while He walked around on earth with us a couple of millennia ago. I wonder if Satan was trying to capitalise on the fact that humans are prone to weakness of faith in light of delay. I wonder if Satan was trying to trip Jesus up—trying to make Him doubt that He was the Son of God. I wonder if Satan’s challenges in the desert made any impact on the human part of Jesus. My Old Testament instructor back in Bible school almost a decade ago commented on this passage in the desert as being a perfect example of how & when humans give into temptation. His acronym to describe the scenario was HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired. The theory he proposed was that people will more often than not give into temptation when one or more of these conditions are present in the situation. In the desert, Jesus had been wandering around for forty days by himself. No doubt he was lonely & tried... and what do we see that Satan tempts Christ with first? The devil enticed Jesus to make food by challenging the authenticity of Christ’s divinity: “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3). The style of this temptation is two-fold: if Jesus gave in, Satan would have caught Jesus in the trap of subservience, for if Jesus did what Satan told Him to do, Satan could cite that instance as being in higher authority than Jesus. If Jesus resisted the temptation, Satan could cite Jesus’ resistance to being a cover-up for not really being the Son of God. The more that Jesus resisted the devil, the more “ammo” Satan potentially had in trying to make Jesus doubt His own divinity.
The chapter in the book of Luke following Jesus’ temptation recounts for us the story of when Peter, James and John were called to be Jesus’ disciples. Luke relays the story, telling us that Peter had just spent a futile night trying to catch fish. Jesus comes along and tells Peter to go out one more time and drop his nets. Now Peter is a professional fisherman. He’s been fishing probably for his entire working life—maybe even longer. Jesus is the son of a carpenter. What does he know about fishing? Why in the world would the fish be out in broad daylight, when birds & other predators were at their most active? If they had no luck catching fish under the shroud of darkness when the fishing was its most fruitful, what made this wood-cutter’s son think that fish could be caught now? I wouldn’t be surprised if such thoughts were racing through Peter’s head when Jesus asked him to go out this last time. Even the tone of Peter’s reply in this Gospel betrays the fact that he had his doubts about the attempt: “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets” (Luke 5:5). Despite his doubts, Peter obeyed as he went out & cast his nets in the lake one more time.
Sandwiched between the stories of Jesus’ temptation & Peter’s miraculous catch, Luke tells the story of Jesus speaking to the citizens of his hometown. It, again, is a story of doubt and uncertainty. The people, after hearing Jesus claim ownership of some Messianic prophecies in the book of Isaiah, start murmuring amongst themselves, discussing with scepticism the credulity of whether this local carpenter’s son actually was the Christ. Motivated by their doubt, they challenged Jesus to prove to them that He really was the Saviour, and Jesus, in response, rebukes them for their lack of faith. Furious that this self-assuming wood-worker had enough nerve to think He knew more about the Bible than the leaders of the local synagogue, they decided to go throw Him off a cliff. They were convinced because of Jesus’ remarks and attitude that He was disrespecting and blaspheming God. No miracles were performed in Nazareth that day for the people, except—of course—that Jesus walked away from the murderous plot.
The people of Nazareth doubted Jesus’ claims and acted on these doubts so as to not believe a word He said. The result? Nothing: their doubts were neither dispelled nor confirmed. Instead, everything stayed the same as it always was. Peter, however, despite his doubts concerning Jesus’ skills at fishing nevertheless followed and obeyed. The result? A catch of fish so large that it began to sink two fishing vessels. Jesus, despite the fact that Satan tried to make the Lord doubt His own calling, obeyed the Father—even to the point of death by public execution. The result? Resurrection and eternal life for all of Mankind.
So what’s the point about all these stories? It seems to be that everybody will, at one time or another, be confronted by doubts concerning the things they believe. The question & the concern isn’t so much that we doubt—it’s more about what we do in response to those doubts. Do we trust & obey despite our doubts; or do we conform our actions to the “reasonable outcome” of what our doubts predict? Do we, like Peter, act on our faith in what God tells us even though our doubts tell us otherwise and as a result, witness the miraculous; or do we act like the people of Nazareth & respond to our doubts only to witness the results that our doubts would expect? I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather witness the miraculous than the mundane.
We all will have doubts. It’s unavoidable. Our response to these doubts, however, is the important part. Everyone chooses what they want believe, whether it’s true or manufactured—and it’s nearly impossible this side of heaven to confirm whether our beliefs are based on truth or not. Even scientifically proven beliefs are subject to uncertainty. Our beliefs undoubtedly will be challenged and will be subjected to doubts. We must, nevertheless, choose which position will guide our actions: our faith in what we believe or our faith in our doubts. A wise man once told me a proverb a long time ago that has helped me retain a good perspective on this struggle in life, and it goes like this: “It is alright to doubt your beliefs; just don’t believe your doubts.” A choice to place faith in our beliefs or in our doubts must be made. Which, then, will you choose?
Sunday, January 10, 2010
On Relationships, God and Relationships with God… Jack Deere instalment 4
An excerpt from Jack Deer in his book, Surprised by the Voice of God :
“
Availability
If you study the life of Jesus, who heard the voice of the Father better than anyone else, one of the first things that will impress you is his “unreserved availability for God.” I had been a Christian for only about a year when I first noticed this characteristic of Jesus’ life. I was reading the first chapter of Mark, where Jesus stayed up late into the night healing the sick and the demon possessed (vv. 32-34). After staying up half the night ministering to people, Mark tells us that “very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (v. 35). If anyone ever had an excuse for sleeping in, Jesus certainly had one that morning. But instead he followed his daily habit of seeking solitude with God (see also Luke 4:42; 5:16).
Early in my Christian life I used to use this passage to say that Jesus always found time for God. I don’t see it that way at all now. When I look for the life of Jesus, I never really see him “finding time for God.” Rather, I see a Son whose time belongs completely to the Father. Jesus was never in a hurry. He never needed more time. This is because he looked on his time as his Father’s time. Also, he was completely available for his Father’s desires. He only did what he saw his Father doing (John 5:19). And he was always in the right place at the right time in order to fulfill the desires of his heavenly father.
I am continually amazed at the spontaneity and informality of the ministry of the Lord. Whether he was speaking to an unexpected crowd of over five thousand, as in the Sermon on the Mount, or to just one lost woman at the well in Samaria, he was always prepared and did just the right thing. He was never frantic, like the modern pastor who continually frets about how busy he is and then has to stay up late Saturday night putting together a “message” for Sunday morning. It is comical to imagine Jesus staying up the night before the Sermon on the Mount wondering what he was going to say to all those people. Yes, it is comical to imagine Jesus ever struggling for a sermon. His life is the sermon, and he ministered out of the daily overflow of his communion with his heavenly Father. He was able to do this because he was completely available to God.
Please don’t think I am speaking about having a regular “quiet time.” I am speaking about much more than this. I have known people who never missed their 5:30 A.M. quiet time of Bible study, and yet were meaner than junkyard dogs. It is possible to have a quiet time every morning and never be available to God. Unlike people who “find time” for God, who get their quiet time out of the way in the morning so they can go on with their real lives and forget God the rest of the day, people who are truly available to God see God as owning their day. He is free to reorder it at any time he chooses. They are not content simply to have a quiet time and get their “God stuff” out of the way early in the morning. Their satisfaction comes from experiencing his presence throughout the day and knowing they are pleasing to him.
Years ago I was in the process of developing a close friendship with a person who eventually became one of my closest friends. I was going through a difficult time and needed his help. As I was saying good-bye after lunch one day, I asked him how late I could call him that night. He said I could call him as late as I wanted to. I told him I didn’t want to wake him up, so I needed to know what time he planned to go to sleep. Then he said to me, “It doesn’t make any difference what time I go to sleep tonight. For you, I am a twenty-four-hour friend, seven days a week. Call me whenever you want. I’ll be there.” You see, availability is one of the primary characteristics of friendship. Friends are available to their friends.
Differing levels of friendship call for varying degrees of availability. There are a number of people to whom we will not give our phone number, but we will smile and speak to them if we meet them in a public setting. There are others who have only our office phone number. Then there are people who have our private home number. Of the people who have our private home number, only a few of them would feel free to use it any time of the day or night. These are our closest friends, the ones who can come in our back door without an appointment and be genuinely welcomed by us. Our closest friends are the ones who can interrupt our plans without causing any irritation. The deeper the friendship, the greater the availability.
This is what God really wants with us: a friendship (John 15:15). Many of us try to satisfy God by meeting religious duties and obligations, but in our closest friendships, we go far beyond the sense of duty. We are available to our closest friends because we love them and want to be with them. In true friendship, availability is not a burden or an obligation. Instead, it is a joy and a privilege.
In a real friendship, availability is reciprocal. The people who have unrestricted access to me also give me unrestricted access to them. It works the same way with our heavenly Father. He is most available to those who are most available to him. To many Christians this idea won’t sound fair. It may even sound like a “works” version of Christianity. They like to picture God as being equally available to all Christians at all times. It is almost as if the conceive of God as a cosmic bellboy who exists to meet their needs and can be dismissed when they have no conscious need of him. But this is both a misunderstanding of grace and of the nature of personal relationships. God doesn’t throw pearls before swine. The ones who find him are those who seek him with all their heart (Deut. 4:29).
If we want a deep friendship with God, it is important to cultivate a state of mind where we view all of our time as God’s time, a state of mind where we are totally available to him. … Availability to God is the first priority in ministry and the first requirement for hearing his voice.
There are both passive and active aspects to availability. There are times when we are simply to wait in the Lord (Jer. 42:1-7; Isa. 40:31 NASB). On the other hand, people who are available to God actively seek him (Matt. 6:33). How long should one seek the Lord? Thirty minutes every morning, an hour after lunch, two hours in the evening? Remember what I said earlier. We are to seek him until he comes (Hos. 1:12). … If we make ourselves available to God, he will make himself available to us (James 4:8).
(pp. 309-314)
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