Oldies

When did Sting, Lionel Richie, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton and Vince Gill become "oldies"?  It seems the last time I consciously pondered it, "oldies" stations on the radio featured The Platters, Roy Orbison and various girl-groups ending in "—ettes."  But now the only new songs I recognize are the re-made classics or the soundtracks from commercials during the playoffs. (Seriously, just an hour ago I heard Roberta Flack’s, “Killing Me Softly,” performed by some unknown-to-me teenager with a recording contract).  My father's collection of vinyls celebrated wanting to hold your hand and a bridge over troubled water.  Now my kids—not I—know who set fire to the rain and when to chant "ho – hey."  Where did the middle go?  It was here just a few minutes ago.  An age is passing.  

Getting older is puzzling. Who among us gets it right?  We, each of us, have never gotten older before.  Our one shot at it is our last shot at it.  I'm still getting over the realization that I'll never be signed to sing a duet with Josh Groban or harmonize with Zac Brown.  [Heck, gone are the days of just being able to cut my toenails without first sucking in my breath.]  This isn’t a tirade about wrinkles and gray hair—it is genuine question, “How does one age well?”

Ah, but therein is the golden center: Jesus alone knows how to grow old well.  He, in fact, skates figure-eights around our clumsy aging process.  We do it with ignorance, but Jesus ages with grace—“And He continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him” (Luke 2:40).  The expected push-back is this: Jesus barely reached His thirties, how could He know anything about growing old?  And so it comes—the part that blows my mind.   

Jesus didn’t know how to grow old gracefully because of His thirty trips around the sun; Jesus knows how to grow old gracefully because of He put the earth in motion around the sun in the first place.  Jesus is “Father of Eternities” (Isaiah 9:6), the Lord of Time.  He alone knows how to grow old because He alone became young.  He who always was became.  Jesus grew up and grew old on top of being eternal.  His growing older is one way He became existentially like us.  But the fact that He is perpetually “The Beginning” and simultaneously “The End” is yet another way that Jesus is essentially unlike us, above us, categorically before us and is, therefore, alone worthy of our worship.  O Come Let Us Adore Him, Christ the Lord.

Of Fleeces and Faith

It used to seem easier to dismiss Gideon as a prime example of a man God used in spite of his weak faith; not because of his weak faith.  I can still hear my voice in my brain’s audio archive preaching Gideon as an example to avoid instead of an example to follow—as one who had been given such rare, direct revelation but who, regrettably, still had to ask twice(!) in the middle of marching for divine reassurance.  Add twenty years and some level of maturity to the mix and I’m not so sure anymore that Gideon is someone I should so easily discount.  Actually, quite the contrary—Gideon instead of being an embarrassment should be emulated in the faith department.  I mean, if we were in a foxhole together, I think I’d have Gideon on my “short list” of brothers I’d ask to watch my back when taking enemy fire.

Is faith large enough to include knocking knees?  I believe it is, if we separate faith from confidence.  Gideon’s object of faith—God—never vacillated.  Gideon’s confidence—his subjective application of faith to his own situation—vacillated regularly.  Did he personally understand God’s promise properly even while marching toward the enemy with his famously small company of soldiers?  This is amazingly similar to my internal conversation with God throughout any given day.  “Did you really mean that you would ‘deliver Israel THROUGH ME’ (Judges 6:36,37)?”  I don’t think Gideon had any problems with God being able to deliver Israel or any question that God would indeed deliver Israel—but the sticking point each time includes Gideon’s participation in God’s providence.  “Me?”  And yes, I suppose there is still quite a lot in the text to suggest that Gideon was on shaky ground asking God for an additional sign of confirmation (compare Deuteronomy 6:16; Matthew 12:38; 1 Corinthians 1:22-23)—and rightly so.  But that aside, in these last twenty years I have had to enlarge my understanding of faith to include, instead of categorically exclude, a trembling obedience; a faith that is sometimes mixed with fear. 

Gideon’s fleeces serve as the focal point of his confidence; the fleeces which he put out as a direct appeal for reassurance.  “God if I am still in the correct understanding of Your will, then tonight please cause this fleece to be wet and yet not the ground around it … and vice versa the next night … please cause this fleece to be dry and yet not the ground around it.”  Did Gideon’s “test” indicate a lack of faith or a lack of confidence?  Can the two really be dissected from each other?  And is his experience normative for all experiences of faith/confidence there after?  These are serious questions.

As I have been cooking on Gideon’s story for a while, I have to say that it is remarkable from where he asks for extra divine assurance.  He asks for reaffirmation in the middle of the act of believing; in the middle of the journey to get to the enemy lines.  He has already demonstrated an active, bold and unprecedented faith-step in even getting to this middle-point.  Yet, in the middle, he has a panicky moment where he calls upon the Lord for reassurance.  The Lord, of course, does not have to comply; but He does comply and gives the reassurance that Gideon requests … twice.

In my braver moments, I want to be like Gideon to leave without all the details; to launch without the guarantee.  I want those inevitable times when fear “catches up” with my obedience not to be spoiled by the presence of fear but to be propelled by the presence of fear into a deeper dependence upon the Lord.  Without demanding God’s answer my pleas, I like the fact that God is tenderhearted enough with me not to scold me for a vacillating confidence, but instead He condescends to my low level of fragility and gives the encouragement I need.  “Yes, you are on the path of obedience.  Keep going.”  I crave that kind of confidence.  Yet I know that faith can be and still is legitimate even in those pockets of time where the confidence that sparked the journey of faith has vanished.

One of my fleeces with Uganda was my kids’ response to the idea of living overseas again.  “Lord, if the kids are excited, or even just not repulsed, by the idea of cross-cultural missions again (having had a very hard experience with it last time), then I will know that this is from You.”  God did not have to respond to my “fleece” either way; but He did.  He condescended to my low level of understanding and weak confidence to encourage me that I was, in fact, “hearing” the voice of the Lord rightly and leading the family by faith in and toward obedience.  The children responded (direct quotes—some of which were spoken without our breathing a word to them about Uganda): “I’ve always wanted to go to Africa” … “I’d like to see Lake Victoria someday” … “How can the nations hear about Jesus unless we go and tell them” … “My friend may be going to sip tea in England but I get to go hear lions roar in the wild” … “When can we leave?”

Our youngest, who was our only “hold-out” being the least positive toward the possibility of moving to and serving in Uganda because of her tight friendships at school and church, wrote this note and slid it under our bedroom door one night—“I want to go to Africa.”  I attribute this sentence to God who will even communicate to a very unsure man who vacillates in his confidence frequently through the jumbo-sized pencil of a five-year-old.  In the end, whether it is toward battle or toward Uganda, these times of tested faith are more about God’s willingness to reassure His weakest people than the ability of His weakest people to somehow find a way on their own to continue in their faith when panic blocks the road.

Hairline Crack in the Ceiling

“Unless the LORD [sells] the house, they labor in vain who [fix every hairline crack in] it; unless the LORD guards the [real estate market], the [home-owner] keeps awake in vain.  It is vain for [Kevin] to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors; for He gives to His beloved [Kevin], even in [Kevin’s] sleep” (Psalm 127:1-2, personally applied to … Kevin).

By faith, I thank the Lord for this &*%$@# house.  It is teaching me so much.  Mostly, it is teaching me lessons about trust … or more specifically, distrust.  Once again, the Lord is using the base things of the world to teach the wonderful things of His kingdom. 

Every wall painted, inside and out.  Every floor replaced.  Every bathroom renovated.  Every window washed, even the tricky spaces between the storm panes.  Every dead tree cut down and removed.  Every screed of overflowed concrete from every project in the backyard hauled away.  And none of that work has the power to sell this *blessed* house.  None of it. 

Yet deep beneath my polished theology, I still believe that the difference between selling and not selling this house comes down to the minute details on my home improvement list either left undone or done with merely a mediocre quality.  That hairline crack in the living room ceiling at which I am presently staring; that crack I believe is the thing keeping us from selling this house and, ultimately, going to Africa as missionaries.  Absurd, I know.  I don’t want to believe it.  I don’t want to think that everything rides on my fixing a hairline crack.  I don’t want to believe that whether or not I re-mulch the flower beds around the patio is the difference-maker of my little corner of the universe.  But I am strangely compelled to caulk the crack and mulch the beds.  Why?

And so this modern-day parable unfolds before my eyes.  I would have thought that so much work would bring with it a satisfaction of a job well-done where I could sit back and enjoy the house in a better state (x10) than when we bought it, sipping my iced tea, and having to tell prospective buyers, “Sorry, we received our asking price the hour it went on the market.  Better luck next time.”  But no.  Not even close.  All this work and all it brings to me—in addition to exhaustion—is a better trained eye to see the spot where I touched blue wall paint on the white trim, the space along the built-in bookshelf that needs to be re-caulked, the veneer on the bi-fold closet door that needs to be re-glued.  But the pattern will hold, for sure, that if I do these next three jobs to push the house into sale-mode, then there will be three more jobs that emerge tomorrow.  All this work and I can see that I have been trusting in my work to advance my story.  Or in other words I have distrusted God.  I am not resting in the fact that God is the One who gives to His beloved ones even in their sleep (Psalm 127:2).

Cutting through the “personal responsibility” curtain, which is certainly not a problem with my particular version of flesh (if anything I am devilishly over-responsible instead of devilishly irresponsible), do I trust (1) that God is God, infinitely powerful and sovereign to govern the universe including the sale of a 2884 ft² split-level on Raines Rd., (2) that I am included among His beloved ones, (3) that He delights in generously giving gifts of grace, and (4) that He gives these grace-gifts even when I am asleep (e.g. unable to contribute)?  Whoa.  Frankly, I am not sure.  There is still a part of me that believes the (unbiblical) proverbs that God helps those who help themselves, and that I must believe as though it all depends upon God but behave as though it all depends upon me.  God is clearly the One who helps those who cannot help themselves, who cry out in their state of helplessness for deliverance.  And from this sneaky psalm, it is actually a vanity for me/us to work, work, work as though it all depended upon me/us.  Sigh.  I repent of my disbelief in God and my vain belief that I can advance my own story.

This *blessed* house is holy ground because it shows me the vanity of my idols and the love of my Savior. 

Now, does faith give me the nerve to leave that hairline crack in the ceiling?  Wow, that seems so much harder than just grabbing the caulk-gun.  But this is not about easier/harder in the moment; this is about belief/disbelief in the God is the One who gives to His beloved ones even in their sleep.

Man Looks at the Outward Appearance

The making of a king—what are the parameters, evaluation points, and guidelines that we use for developing and recognizing leadership?  Is leadership really about character, experience, policy-making, and poise under fire?  Or does leadership really just come down to money, beauty, and stature?

Journalist Kayla Webley posits a thought on the subject in her article coinciding with the 50^th anniversary of the first televised presidential debate.  “On the morning of September 26, 1960, John F. Kennedy was a relatively unknown senator from Massachusetts.  He was young and Catholic—neither of which helped his image—and facing off against an incumbent.  But by the end of the evening, he was a star.  […]  Nixon, pale and underweight from a recent hospitalization, appeared sickly and sweaty, while Kennedy appeared calm and confident.  As the story goes, those who listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon had won.  But those listeners were in the minority….  Those that watched the debate on TV thought that Kennedy was the clear winner.  Many say Kennedy won the election that night” (“How the Nixon-Kennedy Debate Changed the World,” Time, September 23, 2010).

“It’s one of those unusual points on the timeline of history where you can say things changed very dramatically—in this case, in a single night” says Alan Schroeder, media historian and associate professor at Northwestern University, Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High Risk TV.

I agree with what Webley wrote in her Time magazine article, except her title … on a subtle level.  I don’t think the Nixon-Kennedy debate changed the world, really.  The world has always operated on the premise that the choicest, most handsome, and tallest specimens are the natural leaders.  True, television gave us a wider audience—exponentially wider with the Internet—but the truth is that humanity has always tended to pick its leaders this way; with its eyes, not with its brain, and certainly not with its soul.

As we step into the arena of the inner world, however, we can see that this is not the way God operates.  God does not select as man selects.  God does not evaluate as man evaluates.  God does not see as man sees.

Whether we are making a king, selecting a president, deciding upon a spouse, hiring a CEO, or valuing a friend how much “stock” do we place in the outside at the expense of the inside of a person?  “Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).  God gives primacy to the heart—Hebrew: lavav, the heart, the mind, the inner person—every time!  Do we?

Do we know this subcutaneous region?  Are we cultivating life in this internal acre of soil?  Are we connecting at this level with the people we meet, work with, marry, parent, and minister?  Do we know the anatomy of this far more important sphere of our personhood?

We don’t get a glimpse very often at the inner gears of someone’s heart—not to mention our own heart.  But nestled inside the narratives of Saul and David we are given a rare view of the anatomy of the inner person, especially in the process of selecting, recognizing, and following a leader.  It is telling that the only qualifications for leadership given to Saul at his anointing were that he was “choice,” “handsome,” and “head and shoulders taller than the rest” (1 Samuel 9:2).  The Nixon-Kennedy Debate didn’t change the world.  The Nixon-Kennedy Debate demonstrated that there is nothing new under the sun.

Uganda Mission 2012

So … how was Africa?  It is the inevitable and elusive question from friends and family in the States asked after any amount of time spent in any part of Africa.  But to give the easy and automatic answer—“it was okay”—somehow betrays the paradox this place holds.  Actually, the answer is quite a sophisticated one because Africa is surprisingly complicated; a simple existence, perhaps, but a layered, rugged, alluring, confusing and beautiful place.  

Uganda is a very “physical” place.  If one needs water, it has to be fetched and toted and conserved.  If one needs food, it has to be found, plucked, filleted, or butchered.  If one needs a building of any sort or size, it has to be planned, built, and maintained.  One may conclude, as I did at various points, that Uganda is inconvenient.  But when the day’s sweaty clothes are rinsed and dried on the line, there is a salty satisfaction of deliberately stepping away from the “convenient-at-all-costs” mentality that characterizes and fetters the West; a deliberate step toward the experience of the Majority World—physical, rugged, alluring, sometimes confusing, but beautiful and paradoxically simple/complicated.  A little inconvenience is a small cost for the rich life Uganda affords.

Three weeks spent “being the church to those who are building the church in Uganda” (our team’s purpose statement) took us down many roads—literally.  We tallied 142 hours in 20 days on every kind of road imaginable and unimaginable. But our primary destination was the New Hope Uganda retreat center called Musana Camps, which our friends and fellow church members—Nathan and Kendra Jackson—are actually, one square at a time, carving out of the African bush for the refreshment and spiritual renewal of the orphans and their care-givers at the other New Hope Uganda campuses scattered around Uganda. 

Musana is situated on the remote, north rim of Lake Victoria between Kampala and Jinja.  There Seth and I found our temporary home in a canvas tent with foam mattresses and a gorgeous view of the lake that stretched 180 miles across the equator at 4000-feet above sea-level.  We helped to roof a brand new health clinic built for the benefit of the local villages, inaugurated by a two-day community health event with an American physican.  While the doctor treated 250 children and adults with otherwise inaccessible health care, our Fellowship Bible Church team provided gospel-presentations and prayer for those who received this rare medical care.  We also helped around the camp by building wooden shelves, organizing storerooms, fighting flying bats and biting ants in an attic, hanging dry-wall, washing dishes, playing with children, and preaching/testifying at church of the Lord’s faithfulness.  But our main objective and principle ministry was to encourage the missionaries by reminding and demonstrating to them that “out of sight” is not “out of mind”; that they are loved and significant and remembered even when isolated and largely silenced by distance and lack of technology.

In between our bursts of work and encouragement at Musana we traveled seven hours north-east to another New Hope Uganda fixture called “Kobwin Children’s Centre” which was several more “clicks” removed from technology and accessibility and opportunity.  However, Kobwin provided—what I personally concluded as—the defining moment of the entire trip in Uganda. 

Everyone at Kobwin was directly or indirectly impacted by Joseph Kony’s infamous “Lord’s Resistance Army”—orphans, surrogate families who now care for orphans, teachers who instruct orphans, and a community just on the southern edge of territory that the LRA reached with their brutal gang-violence, incoherent ideology, and demonic terrorism.  The wake of such destruction devastated many lives, many families, and many communities there.  But we could detect none of that pain or oppression in the smiles of the Kobwin people as we worked together, worshipped together, and lived together for almost a week.  None of the acrimony that one might expect was present in their conversations.  What was undeniably present, instead, was singing.  Drums and voices, harmonies with an intermittent whistle, the collective thumping of jumping and dancing, the haunting Ateso language with the occasion ululation and English phrase dropped in: “God is good, God is good.”  It was almost dark when they started singing.  It was fully night when they finally finished.  As we lay in our tent eavesdropping on the impromptu worship service going on in the banda-hut just twenty feet away, I clearly formed a thought that froze me that hot evening.  “What do they have to sing about?”

They were not performing for the mzungu (foreign) visitors; not attempting to butter up the potential donors nearby.  They were just singing.  But by just singing, in that place under those circumstances with that history, they became my teachers and I their student.  God was already there.  We didn’t bring Him with us; we found Him there among the Ugandans.  True, I taught this same group of people the next morning at church, but they were already upperclassmen in the school of Christ in many ways.  “What do they have to sing about?”  They have Christ, and He is enough to stimulate genuine praise … singing deep into the night … when no one else is looking … even when tomorrow they will have to walk or ride a bike two miles for the water to make a simple breakfast. 

If poverty is primarily measured along relational lines instead of material goods (and it is), then who is really the impoverished one here?  I have more money in my pockets than they, but I have less song in my soul—far more aware of my insect bites and sunburn than Christ’s dear presence.  I spend an embarrassingly high percentage of daily energy on “getting a clue” and nursing a reputation as one who “has a clue.”  Africa strips all that away.  There is no clue.  There is only Christ, active in love and grace, redeeming and reclaiming that which was corrupted by sin. 

Simon, Julius, Charles, and the fifty other people whose names I never learned remind me from afar that Christ is enough.  Christ is more than enough … in every place, under every circumstance, with any history.  So, let the singing continue deep into the night … and let the glory of Christ among the nations swell.

Anxious Thoughts

There are disquieting, if not downright dangerous, prayers that spiritual giants have prayed. 

Jacob prayed, “Please tell me Your name” (Genesis 32:29).  The answer shook his identity.

Moses prayed, “I pray, show me Your glory” (Exodus 33:18).  The answer shook the mountains.

Hannah prayed, “Give Your maidservant a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life” (1 Samuel 1:11).  The answer shook up the entire ministry.

Elisha prayed, “O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see” (2 Kings 6:17).  The answer shook loose the division between the spiritual and visible realms.

Hezekiah prayed, “Now, O LORD our God, I pray, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O LORD, are God” (2 Kings 19:19).  The answer shook to oblivion the day’s world power preparing to besiege Jerusalem.

Paul prayed, “Who are You, Lord? …. What shall I do, Lord?” (Acts 22:8,10).  The answers shook open the Roman Empire to the gospel of the grace.

Jesus prayed, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done; on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10) ... “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39) … “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).  The answers shook apart and mended together again heaven and earth, time and space, life and death.

Recently, I was prompted to pray a disquieting / dangerous prayer originally prayed by David—“Search me, O God, and know my heart.  Try me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way” (Psalm 139:23-24).  The answer has mercifully shaken me. 

I have already known that I have “anxious thoughts.”  Before even I knew the gospel, I knew this.  But since praying this prayer my anxieties have been exposed; pulled into the light … yet not without a fight.  My anxiety is as natural to me as breathing and so my flesh wants to protect it, justify it, and feed it.  So much so that it seems somehow “off” not to have something weighing on my mind.  What shook me, though, is why I return back to anxiety instead of run to the cross; for with every idol there is some kickback … some counterfeit promise … some reason we keep going back. 

Anxiety, it occurred to me as I prayed, has surprisingly two “draws” upon my flesh: my attempt to lessen my guilt and my attempt to gain some credit.  Some people’s flesh pattern (a biblical term for our way of living, coping, surviving that is yet quite apart from Christ) is to blame others and assume no or little responsibility for sin while others’ pattern is to blame self and assume a lot or all responsibility for sin.  I blame myself more times than not.  Since I blame myself, I am nearly always carrying a weight of guilt—real or imagined.  “It is my fault.  Even if it is not my fault; it might be my fault from some angle I hadn’t even considered … and I am, therefore, answerable to God.” 

So along with guilt, there is fear; fear that I am displeasing to God.  Enter anxiety!  Without even realizing it, and sometimes even proudly, I run to anxiety to deal with my fear and guilt in an attempt to minimize my guilt before God.  If I can just stay a few steps ahead of the game, a few strides ahead of the curve, a few moves ahead of the opponent, then I can minimize guilt.  What’s more is that I find myself rationalizing this pattern—“Well, at least I care … No one else in the universe cares about this particular issue except me … If I am not on my “game” then something seriously wrong might happen—something for which I might be responsible and answerable to God.”  Anxiety, then, is part of the strategy.  I can appeal to my attempts to be well prepared.  I can appeal to my solitary crusade to care about something important.  I can say, “Well, at least I tried” and hopefully get some of the credit for being a responsible, moral person.  Yuck!  Twisted!  Evil!  Anti-christian!  Shaken!

The Savior forgives sin and satisfies guilt—not my staying a few steps ahead of the game.  The Savior swallows up sin, even the sins about which I am not aware—not my over-zealous sense of responsibility.  The Savior loves and His loves casts out fear—not my anxiety.  The Savior did the work of salvation and sanctification—not His work plus my self-righteous “help.”  The Savior answers to God on my behalf since I have deferred my destiny into His capable advocacy—not my clever appeals that attempt to make me look better than I really am and make God’s holy demands less than they really are.

Anxiety is a control technique that I revert to when I disbelieve the gospel is sufficient, when I disbelieve the Savior is good, when I disbelieve that God is all-powerful.  I seek my own "Plan B" to minimize guilt and to lay some claim on the credit for navigating life just a little bit better than others.

Wow.  I wasn’t planning on any of that.  I was just praying, “Search me, O God, and know my heart.  Try me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way” (Psalm 139:23-24).  It turned out to be a downright dangerous prayer to pray.  “God, be merciful to me, the sinner” (Luke 18:13).

Balancing Act

Balancing Act - Ten years ago and just yesterday I had the same sort of conversation with two of my children regarding balance and riding a two-wheeler while my mind was fully engaged with the upcoming sermon text.  (It is funny [and eerie] how normal conversations mix with Bible passages in my brain each week.  Object lessons are everywhere when Scripture is cooking in the back of the brain.)

Imagine the scene: We took off the training wheels, went to the blacktop at the school, strapped on the helmet, the knee and elbow pads, and looked at 200 feet of asphalt that spread out before us.

“I can’t do this. I am going to fall.”

“You can do this. You’ve learned everything you need to know. Yes, you still might fall, but I will be right here with you,” I reassured.

“How do I stay up?”

“You stay up by moving forward.” I coached.

“How do I move forward?”

“You move forward by staying up. Keep your balance and keep pedaling.” I answered.

“What if I start to fall?”

“Just relax and keep pedaling straight ahead. Don’t look at your feet, or your tires, or even me; just look straight ahead at where you want to go,” I explained.  "Where your eyes look is where you will go."

I could see the problem: both of my children, spaced almost ten years apart, have to move forward in order to stay upright, and in order to stay upright they have to move forward.  Have you ever noticed that bicycles are unusual in that sense?  By themselves and stationary, bikes are clumsy—unable to even stand up without help.  But with a confident rider and with steady motion, bikes are sleek, remarkably stable, and precise.  It is amazing, even with the whirr of motion and beads of sweat, bicycling is ironically restful and refreshing.  But not for novices on two-wheelers without the training wheels … not yet at least.  Even though he got the hang of it on a two-wheeler that afternoon ten years ago, and even though she will soon get the hang of it in a matter of days, the conversation is the same.  "Where your eyes look is where you will go."

Our balance on the bicycle applies to our balance on the journey of the heart.  How do we keep our balance?  By moving forward.  How do we move forward?  By keeping our balance.  What if we start to fall?  From a position of rest in Christ, we actively pedal while trusting His power to pedal through us.  We must not focus on the blur of activity all around us; instead we must focus on our goal—which again is Christ.  He is our starting block and our finish line, our path and our strength while on the path.  He is our source, our means, and our goal.

Lazarus Applications

(1) I earnestly desire for us to realize how, in our natural state, we are in the same predicament as Lazarus.  We are dead.  There is nothing Lazarus could do to please God there in the tomb.  There is nothing Lazarus could have given to the poor.  There is nothing that Lazarus could have offered to advance the Kingdom of God.  We are Lazarus … just before the Savior speaks him to life.  There is nothing we can do or say to God.  In the part of us that really counts, where we relate to God, we were lost, sick, dead, and separated.  But Jesus came to us—to our tomb—and spoke us into life; born again.  If we have not been born again—still in our tomb—Jesus is on His way to where we lie.  He speaks and the elect come to life.  Perhaps this day—Resurrection Day—is the day you hear the Savior’s voice and stir to life, and turn to your neighbor’s to help you shed your grave clothes.  You cannot do it on your own.  Only Jesus can do it for you; and He is willing.  Will you hear His voice today and emerge from your tomb?

(2) I earnestly desire that we realize that there are many kinds of death and Jesus is Lord of all of them.  The dissolved or dissolving marriage.  The dead or dying dream.  The crippling thought (and then behavior pattern) that leads to greater and greater degrees of bondage.  The deteriorating physical body.  The dead-end career.  The disappointment that is sometimes culled but never absent from your days.  The thorns and thistles creeping ever closer and closer to the center of the garden.  The loss of joy in life and perhaps even the will to live.  The darkness that grips your heart and whispers shame and condemnation.  The fear of death, loss, or rejection.  Whatever shape of death that fills each of your shadows and occupies every idle moment—Jesus is Lord of the dead. 

Jesus’ words of committal while hanging on the cross can give us the words of faith in all the in-between “death” places between the cradle and the grave—“‘Father into Your hands I commit My Spirit’ and having said this He breathed His last” (Luke 23:46).  “Father into Your hands, I commit ________.”  “Father into Your hands I commit my marriage, my pain, my dashed hopes, my future, my past, my present, my loneliness, my disappointment, my shame, my guilt, my embarrassment, my failure, my fear, my inability, my pride, my goodness, my wickedness, my sin, my sins, my death, my life, my kids, my parents, my mind, my body, my love.”  And having said this, we breathed our last—like Lazarus—and fall upon the mercy/grace of God.

(3) I earnest desire that we accept that not everyone in the cemetery was called out of his tomb that day in Bethany.  But this is not because Jesus was unable.  It is because Jesus only does what the Father wills.  Therefore, it is a point of maturing faith that says, like Jesus, I only want what the Father wills.  It does not mean we don’t ask, knock, and seek, but if the answer comes back as a “no” I want our trust in the Father’s will to be large enough to accept it as a veiled goodness that will produce more glory for God and more holiness for us.  I want us to have humility regarding the larger perspective to defer back to God’s goodness and wisdom.  Mature belief will not be idle or unprepared, but at the same time it will resist the temptation to scrutinize the Father’s will in unbelief. 

Instead of saying, “If You had been here, my brother would not have died”—which has sincere but limited faith—we will instead say, “You are here, and my brother died.  I don’t understand that, but I trust that You know better than I.  I cannot understand Your ways, but I rest in Your goodness.  Enable me to glorify Your great name even in this period of mourning and confusion; even without the answers to my curiosities … even without my brother.”

(4) I earnest desire to communicate that the gospel is not an embalming technique where we delay decay.  The gospel is not a sin management procedure where we contain and organize our less-desirable tendencies.  The gospel is not a reputation enhancement pep-talk where we improve ourselves and improve how others view us.  No!  Ten-thousand times no!  The gospel says—you are even worse than you thought, but Jesus is better even than you dreamed. 

You are even worse than you thought in that—like Lazarus—you are already past the point of no return, already decaying, already stinking.  You are unable to do anything in the realm of life, unable to reverse death or escape the curse, and certainly unable to please God.  You are dead spiritually.  Physically and emotionally we are still able to move and speak and decide things—so it is not like we can’t do things, but none of those things we try actually help our true situation.  So it is worse than Lazarus, really—at least he couldn’t make his situation worse!  We can and do make our situation worse when we try to live on our own terms and please God and others in our own “zombie-strength.”  But trying our own schemes we only increase our guilt by adding self-righteousness to our wickedness. 

We are even worse than we thought, but Jesus is better even than we ever dreamed.  He is not merely a good man, not merely a clever teacher, not merely a wise sage, not merely a miracle worker, not merely a historical figure.  He is not a “crutch” to psychologically weak people like Freud taught, not “the opiate of the masses” like Marx taught, not “dead” like Nietzsche taught, and not silent, nor irrelevant, nor antiquated like our culture teaches today.  He is not at all a band-aid® on our “ouchies,” not at all a “fire insurance policy,” not at all a social club where we make business deals in the parking lot.  Jesus is the Life who swallows up death by dying.  Jesus is the Resurrection who empties occupied tombs with a spoken word.  Jesus is the Bread who satisfies our deepest hunger.  Jesus is the Light who chases away the darkness.  But Jesus is more than metaphors—He is concrete as well.  He solves our sin problem by dying in our place.  He solves our death problem by raising us to life again and marching at the head of the parade of all who believe and follow Him.  He solves our prejudice problem by breaking down the dividing walls that the world taught us to build and protect.  He solves our significance problem by sending us out in His name on mission.  He solves our selfishness problem by setting us free from the power of sin.

But Jesus is more than the sum of all the descriptions we can compose about Him.  He is Lord of lords.  He is King of kings.  He is the one and only Mediator between God and man.  He is the only Way, the only Truth, the only Life.  He is the All in all.  He is risen.  He is here.   And He is saying to us just as He said to Martha, “Who[ever] believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26).

"Passive Righteousness" -- Martin Luther

Commentary on Epistle to the Galatians, Preface—Martin Luther, 1535

It is necessary to teach continually this doctrine of the righteousness of faith, lest Satan bring the church once again into the doctrine of works and people’s traditions. Because of enormous pressures that face us from every side—from Satan, our sinful nature, and numerous other temptations—this doctrine can never be taught and impressed on us enough. On the one hand, if this doctrine be lost, then everything is lost—truth, life, and salvation. On the other hand, where this doctrine is loved, then all good things flourish—genuine love for God, the glory of God, and the knowledge of all things necessary for Christian living.

The beauty of passive righteousness. There are many types of righteousness in this world. However, the greatest type of righteousness is the righteousness of faith or passive righteousness, which God through Christ gives to us, without our doing a thing. This wonderful righteousness is not political, ceremonial, or cultural righteousness. Neither does it have anything to do with our obedience to God’s law. It has nothing to do with that we do or how hard we work. It is simply given to us as a gift, and we do nothing for it. Thus, it is called, “passive righteousness” because we do not have to labor for it. It is called the righteousness of faith because it is not righteousness that we work for, but righteousness we receive by faith.

This passive righteousness is a mystery that someone who does not know Jesus cannot understand. In fact, Christians do not completely understand it and rarely take advantage of it in their daily lives. So we have to constantly teach it over and over again to others and repeat it to ourselves, because if we do not understand and have it in our hearts, we will be defeated by our enemy and become ineffective and discouraged.

Passive righteousness is the great comfort of the conscience and peace for the soul. For example, when we clearly see the law of God, we quickly see our sin. The evil in our lives comes to mind, it tears us apart, and we groan, “I cannot believe that I did that again. Lord, I promise I will not do that again.” For when we are in trouble or our conscience bothers us, the devil likes to make us afraid by using the law, and he tries to lay on us the guilt of sin, our wicked past, the wrath and judgment of God, and eternal death to drive us to desperation, make us slaves to him and pluck us from Christ. Furthermore, he wants to set against us the parts of the gospel where Christ requires good deeds from us and with plain words threaten damnation to us if we do not do them.

This troubled conscience has no cure for desperation unless it takes hold of passive righteousness. So, when I see a person who is bruised and oppressed by the law, terrified of sin, and thirsting for relief, it is time to take the law and active righteousness out of his sight and show him the gospel of passive righteousness which offers the promise of Christ, that he came for the suffering and sinners. Then this person is raised up and has renewed hope, now that she is no longer under law but under the gospel of grace.

Therefore, when there is fear or our conscience is bothered, it is a sign that our “passive” righteousness is out of sight and Christ is hidden. But when we truly see Christ, we have full and perfect joy and peace in the Lord, and we certainly think: “Although I am a sinner by the law, I do not despair. I do not die because Christ lives, who is both my righteousness and my everlasting life. Although I am a sinner in this life of mine as a child of Adam, I have another life, another righteousness above this life, which is in Christ.”

How do we obtain this righteousness? So do we do nothing? Do we not do any work to obtain this righteousness? I answer nothing at all. It is like this: the earth does not produce rain, nor it is able by its own power or work to get it. The earth simply receives it as a gift of God from above. It is the same with “passive” righteousness. It is given to us by God without our deserving it or working for it. So look at what the earth is able to do to get the rain each season so that it can be fruitful, and we will see how much we are able to in our own strength and works to do to get heavenly and eternal righteousness. We see we will never be able to attain it unless God himself, by the great gift of his Son, gives us Jesus’ perfect record, and gives us Jesus’ perfect righteousness. Thereby, as we have borne the image of the earthly Adam, we shall bear the image of heavenly Adam. We shall be new people in a new world, where there is no law, no sin, no remorse, or sting of conscience, no death, but perfect joy, righteousness, grace, peace, salvation, and glory.

The obedience that flows from passive righteousness. Paul diligently sets out in this letter to teach us, to comfort us, and to keep us constantly aware of this great Christian righteousness. For if the truth of our being justified by Christ alone is lose, then all Christian truths are lost. There is no middle ground between “passive” and “works” righteousness. The person who wanders away from “passive” righteousness has no other choice but live by “works” righteousness. If he does not depend on the work of Christ, he must depend on his own work. So we must teach and continually repeat the truth of this “passive” or “Christian” righteousness so that Christians continue to hold to it and never confuse it with “works” righteousness. On this truth, the church is built and has its being.

Now, when I have this righteousness reigning in my heart, I descend from heaven like rain making the earth fruitful, that is to say, I enter into new kingdom and I do “good works” whenever and however I get the opportunity. In conclusion, whoever is convicted that Christ is his only righteousness, does not only do his work cheerfully, gladly and well, but also, if necessary, submits to all kinds of burdens and sufferings in this life with love because he knows this is God’s will, and that God is pleased by his obedience.