How do you live Christianly in the professions & skilled trades?

•How do you rise above the prevailing secularism?

In our modern Western world — where we have a rule of law but in which technology marches onward —, people are flexible and rootless. They can live anywhere and believe anything. In such a world how shall we live Christianly as artisans, artists, architects, designers, skilled tradesmen and professionals? Consider the Book of Exodus:

Then Moses said to the children of Israel, “See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And He has filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding and in knowledge and in all craftsmanship . . . . and Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. . . . as performers of every work and makers of designs. (Ex 35:30,31,34,35 NASB)

Now Bezalel and Oholiab, and every man wise of heart in whom the Lord has put wisdom and understanding to know how to perform all the work in the construction of the sanctuary, shall perform in accordance with all that the Lord has commanded. Then Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every man wise of heart in whose heart the Lord had put wisdom, everyone whose heart lifted him up to come to the work to perform it. (Ex 36:1-2 NASB literal readings)

You [Moses, the prophet] shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother [the high priest], for glory and for beauty. (Ex 28:2 NASB)

First, it is striking that, in the service of the Lord our God, there is no secular and sacred split. Moses the prophet and leader, Aaron the high priest, and Bezalel the designer and craftsman are all doing the work of the Lord (Ex 28:2; 35:30). Religious ritual has no value when divorced from honorable work, righteous living in community, caring about others (including the poor and oppressed, Isa 1:10-17; Mat. 23:23-24), and dealing with the mundane matters of daily living. [1]

Next, for every professional and tradesman involved in the work of the Tabernacle (an elaborate tent structure and grounds for worship), his “heart lifted him up” (Ex 36:2). Let’s explore that expression for a moment. As I demonstrated in a graduate thesis, the Hebrew word for “heart” (actually two: leb and lebab, which are stylistic variants) is the personality center with thoughts, feelings, desires, and conscience. [2]

The closest English expression is “mind and heart.” Giving yourself to the work of the Lord – whether minister or professional or tradesman or laborer or homemaker – involves an action of the whole inward person. Then the Hebrew says “lifted up.” That is, these people felt inclined toward and stirred up for the work. They had passion. And the source of their gifts was the Lord (Ex 36:2), implying that they ought to engage in their work not only with passion but with some kind of humility before the Giver and gratitude to the divine Provider.

Third, those involved in the making of the Tabernacle, its furniture and its priestly clothes had certain characteristics (Ex 35:31) [3]. (1) Wisdom at design and construction – that is, skill. In the Old Testament, “wisdom” is prudent, consistent, experienced, and competent action to master the problems of life. So wisdom for design and construction is, more than anything else, problem solving. (2) Understanding: insight into the nature, character, and subtleties of things and ideas. (3) Knowledge: acquaintance — by means of experience — with facts, principles, learning, and formal studies of things and ideas. (4) Craftsmanship: specialized ability to something well. As part of these traits, there is also (5) an aesthetic sense (Ex 28:2). These Tabernacle craftsmen are making things “for glory and for beauty.” That is, their passionate work will create objects which display dignity and which yield a sense of delight, transcendence and well-being.

Nils Finne, AIA, is a principal of the award-winning FINNE Architects in Seattle, Washington USA. He grew up in the USA and in his 20’s spent time in Scandinavia. He told an interviewer:

Sverre Fehn, the renowned Norwegian architect, was my friend. I believe he has had a profound influence on my work. I will never forget the afternoons I spent sitting with Sverre in the living room of his house on Havna Alle in Oslo. Sverre lived in a classic functionalist house designed by his teacher, Arne Korsmo. He had an uncanny ability to understand construction and materials and then imbue a certain poetical dimension to those elements.

The skill, knowledge, and craftsmanship of these high-level architects is accompanied by profound understanding and an aesthetic sense, just like the biblical Bezalel. Mr Finne adds about the renowned Mr Fehn:

He was also a very unassuming person and was amused when the Americans awarded him the Pritzker Prize (the Nobel Prize equivalent for architecture). “Oh, yes,” he said. They sent “top secret” faxes and then flew into Oslo on their private jet. “But then, there was so much snow in many places that they could only manage to visit a few of my buildings!” [4]

Mr Fehn had a humility as if his high level of skill was the gift of Another and that he was just using this gifted skill with passion and gratitude.

Fourth, there is one huge problem with these five traits of wisdom/skill, understanding, knowledge, craftsmanship, and aesthetic sense. They are neutral and can be used for good or evil.

In the 1954 play “The Rainmaker,” N. Richard Nash tells of a drought-ridden rural town in the American West during the Great Depression. A spinster Lizzie Curry keeps house for her father and two brothers on the family cattle ranch. As the farm languishes under a devastating drought and as Lizzie desperately worries about never having a husband, a charming trickster comes along and promises rain in exchange for $100. Feeling sorry for Lizzie, he also commits fornication with her to reassure her of her attractiveness as a woman. Outraged at the violation of his sister, her brother draws his pistol and is about to shoot the Rainmaker. But the father grabs the pistol from the brother with the rebuke, “Noah, you’re so full of what’s right you can’t see what’s good.”

The playwright thereby advocates this philosophy: “There are no moral boundaries of right and wrong. There are only more beneficial and less beneficial ways of doing things. If it feels right, do it.” But the Book of Exodus reminds us that we are under the commandments of God (Ex 36:2) and not under either the out-of-control fury of the brother or the “most anything goes” latitudinarianism of the father. There is objective right and wrong which form the basis of living.

Like a drum accompanying a string quartet, in this section of Exodus (35:1 – 39:43) there are two sevenfold repetitions of “as the Lord commanded Moses” (39:1,5,7,21,26,29,31; 40:19,21,23,25,27,29,32). We are not left in doubt. We are under the authority of God. In the new covenant, the Christian is “not outside the law of God but under the law of Christ” (1 Cor 9:21). Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. . . . If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words” (John 14:15, 23-24).

Finally, there’s another big problem with these five traits of the trades and professions — a problem created by the society in which we live: legalism. After four years of exile in the USA from Soviet Russia, Alexandr I Solzhenitsyn analyzed the West for the benefit of the graduates at Harvard University on 6/08/1978. Let’s listen to his solemn voice:

When the modern Western states were being formed, it was proclaimed as a principle that governments are meant to serve man and that man lives in order to be free and pursue happiness…. Now at last during past decades technical and social progress has permitted the realization of such aspirations: . . . it has become possible to raise young people according to these ideals, preparing them for and summoning them toward physical bloom, happiness, and leisure, the possession of material goods, money, and leisure, toward an almost unlimited freedom in the choice of pleasures…. Western society has chosen for itself the organization best suited to its purposes and one I might call legalistic…. Every conflict is solved according to the letter of the law and this is considered to be the ultimate solution. If one is risen from a legal point of view, nothing more is required, nobody may mention that one could still not be right, and urge self-restraint or a renunciation of these rights, call for sacrifice and selfless risk: this would simply sound absurd…. (An oil company is legally blameless when it buys up an invention of a new type of energy in order to prevent its use. A food product manufacturer is legally blameless when he poisons his produce to make it last longer: after all, people are free not to purchase it.) ....

The letter of the law is too cold and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes man's noblest impulses…. Today's Western society has revealed the inequality between the freedom for good deeds and the freedom for evil deeds…. It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations. On the other hand, destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society has turned out to have scarce defense against the abyss of human decadence, for example against the misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, such as motion pictures full of pornography, crime, and horror. This is all considered to be part of freedom and to be counterbalanced, in theory, by the young people's right not to look and not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil…. This tilt of freedom toward evil has come about gradually, but it evidently stems from a humanistic and benevolent concept according to which man — the master of the world — does not bear any evil within himself, and all the defects of life are caused by misguided social systems, which must therefore be corrected. Yet strangely enough, though the best social conditions have been achieved in the West, there still remains a great deal of crime; there even is considerably more of it than in the destitute and lawless Soviet society. [5]

Christians must rise above the legalistic system of individual rights to live out true freedom and the love of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and the love of neighbor. A man from Louisiana never fit in as a member of his family and left for urban living in the north. Returning to Christian faith and deciding to relocate (with his wife) near his family, his Louisiana pastor laid down to him the law of Christ: “You have no choice as a Christian: you’ve got to love your dad even if he doesn’t love you back in the way that you want him to. You cannot stand on justice: love matters more than justice, because the higher justice is love.” [6]

Endnotes

[1] My wisdom literature-related thoughts for this article were greatly benefited from Robert L Deffinbaugh, “Introduction to Proverbs,” 6/02/2004. https://bible.org/seriespage/1-introduction-proverbs

[2] For the meaning of “heart,” I rely on my 1973 thesis “The ‘Heart’ in the Old Testament.” As a sample, note Gen 6:5 thoughts of the heart, Gen 6:6 a feeling of grief in the heart, Gen 8:21 intention (a desire) of the heart, Gen 20:6 with integrity of heart = with a clear conscience.

[3] For the meaning of the word wisdom [hokmah] and, to a lesser extent, for the meanings of understanding [tebuneh], knowledge [deʻat], and craftsmanship [melakah], I benefited from the analysis of Georg Fohrer “Sophia. Old Testament” in Gerhard Friedrich (ed), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament; Geoffrey W Bromiley (trans) (Grand Rapids: W.E. Eerdmans, 1971), Vol 7, pp 476-496. On hokmah, I cite his conclusion.

[4] The Finn quotes are from https://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/20376965/list/10-things-architects-want-you-to-know-about-what-they-do

[5] Alexandr I Solzhenitsyn, “A World Split Apart – Commencement Address Delivered at Harvard University, June 8, 1978” http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/SolzhenitsynHarvard.php

[6] Joshua Rothman, “Rod Dreher’s Monastic Vision,” The New Yorker, May 1, 2017. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/01/rod-drehers-monastic-vision

Peace in 2016? Christians, please step forward.

• Put off the old bed clothes

Police, military and a justice system are legitimate functions of government. But, please – we all have a part, too, in making peace happen. So let me say a word to my fellow Christians, if you don’t mind, for 2016. Peace is when people are able to resolve their conflicts without violence and can live together in safety without fear (see Leviticus 26:3-6). I can illustrate it with my two dogs. They are rivals for food, for territory, and for their master’s attention. But they can actually take a nap right next to one another. There can be peace between them. They can live together without harm, fear or violence.

In Christianity, we see ourselves as rebel sinners against God and in need of peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit (Romans chapters 1-5). Having been justified (put right with God) by faith in Christ and having been united with him in his death, burial and resurrection, — we are now called to righteousness, love and truth in his power, not ours (Rom 6-12), and we are called to be at peace with others (Rom 13-16). But how? Romans 13:8 provides the key: “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Love empowers people to resolve conflicts without violence and to live together in community without harm or fear.

Last Lord’s Day, a wonderful minister of the Word in Mebane, NC preached as follows: 2016 is a new year. It’s high time to cast off worldly ways. “I deserve to be happy – regardless of God and others.” “I deserve pleasure – regardless of God and others.” “I deserve respect and recognition – regardless of God and others.” Shake off the sleep, dear Christian. Put off those old bed clothes of a culture of me-first. And put on the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s daylight now, so live that way. And be aware that the new day of Christ’s Second Coming is not all that far away (at least from a divine perspective). To quote his text of Scripture, Romans 13:11-14:

“Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”

The fruit of Christ by the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace . . . (Gal 5:22-23). Let’s live as Christians in 2016.

What does the cross mean?

•And why did this man have those injuries?

A man and his wife hosted a Japanese student in their home in Cambridge, England. One weekend the student toured the art galleries of Paris. Upon her return, in the course of a meal, she suddenly asked – drawing a cross on the table – “What does this mean? And why did the man have those injuries?”[1]

Great art can depict events and people in a way that excites our emotions, captures our imagination, and stirs our minds. But only words can tell us why. The Gospel of Mark, the shortest of the four gospels, written especially for the busy Romans of old, vividly portrays in staccato-like scenes the story of Jesus and his cross. But Mark brings in enough detail to tell us both the “what” and the “why” – what does the cross of Jesus mean? And why did this man have those injuries?

• The Who

The “why” begins with the “who.” Who is this man Jesus? Mark immediately takes us to the Jordan River, which runs south through the land of Israel. There in the Judean desert a man named John, dressed like the prophet Elijah (eight centuries earlier), proclaims in fiery tones, “Repent (change your ways) and be dipped in water as a sign of your turning from your sins.”  John announces that he has come to prepare the way before the coming of the Lord, the God of Israel. 

Then a strange thing happens. Another preacher named Jesus comes to be dipped in the water of the river. John at first refuses because this Jesus is that coming King, and John is merely his servant. But John finally allows Jesus to be dipped in the waters of the Jordan River. When Jesus comes out of the water, a sound thunders from the sky, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him!” And then a being comes down on Jesus gracefully like a dove. John knows that this is the Holy Spirit of God taking a visible shape. “I saw the Holy Spirit descend,” he says.

John knew that Jesus was a human being, a fellow Jew like himself. Now he (and we) know one other important fact: Jesus is the Son of God. There is one God, according to the “Hear, O Israel” (Deut 6:4) recited by Jews for centuries. But in the fullness of God there is the Father who spoke from on high at the Jordan, the Son standing in the river who has taken on human flesh, and the Holy Spirit who descended according to the prophecy of Isaiah (Isa 61:1).

People inside and outside the land of Israel now hear this Jesus teach and see him heal the sick and even raise the dead, Mark tells us. And the disciples of Jesus hear him and see him for many months up close and personal. For instance, at Jesus’ house in Capernaum (in Galilee, north of Judea), many came to the door for healing. One time four men brought a paralyzed man lying on a mat. When they saw they couldn’t get inside the house because of the crush of people, they came up with an idea.

The four men went up to the roof of this first century Palestinian home, removed part of the roof and lowered the man down in front of Jesus. Jesus told the man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Some Scripture scholars in the house quickly but quietly said, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” So Jesus proved his divine authority to forgive sins by saying to the man, “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” Immediately the paralyzed man stood, picked up his makeshift bed and walked out in front of everyone. The Son of God is God just as much as the Father is God.

After all these experiences, Jesus asked his close disciples a simple but perplexing question: “Who do people say I am?”  “A prophet…,” they blurt out. “And who do you say I am?” he probes. They answer, “You are the Christ (the Messiah, the promised prophet, priest, and king).”[2] Jesus explains, “You did not learn this from yourselves, but my Father taught you this fact.” They (and we) learn one more thing about who Jesus is: he is God's promised prophet (speaking the words of God), priest (offering the sacrifice for the sins of the people), and king (worldwide ruler) - the Messiah.

At the climax of Mark’s story, Jesus is brutally beaten with a whip (scourged) by Roman soldiers and then killed in a slow, excruciating way on a Roman cross [3]. When Jesus dies, a hardened Roman army officer pensively concludes, “Truly this (man) was God’s Son.” Mark ends where he begins: Jesus is a man (human enough to die) and is also the divine Son of the living God. 

• The Why

But why did this Jesus have to die such a horrible death? Again, Mark’s cameos pierce the mind like arrows. On the way to Jerusalem with his disciples, Jesus tells them, “[I,] the Son of Man, came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for the many.” The term “son of man” would remind the disciples of the Hebrew Scriptures. “Son of man” is a synonym for “man” (for instance, Psalm 8:4). “Son of Man” is also the term for the universal ruler at the end time foretold by the Book of Daniel (Dan 7:13-14). “Ransom” is a sacrifice whose death buys a person back from captivity (spiritually, from captivity as a slave of sin). In the Dead Sea Scrolls “the many” are the community of believers. So what Jesus was saying is this: “I can into the world as a lowly servant to offer my life as a sacrifice for the sins of the believing community.”

Then on the Roman cross, when Jesus dies, a most unusual event happens, Mark reports. The curtain in the temple of Jerusalem is torn in two. The curtain separated sinful people from the presence of the perfect, pure, and holy God. With the death of Jesus this separation is now gone. What must we do? We must accept the death of Jesus as the ransom for our sins. We must trust in God in all his fullness – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We must become a part of the believing community. And, as Jesus had earlier told his disciples in the Gospel of Mark, we must “deny ourselves” (give up all selfishness), “take up our cross daily” (putting to death our sinful thoughts, emotions, and deeds), “and follow Jesus” as our new Lord and Master.

• Not so fast – I have my doubts

So did Ivan.[4] He was born in Iraq of a culturally Christian mother from Armenia and a liberal Arab Muslim father. When his dad had to flee Iraq during Saddam Hussein's rule, his dad sent Ivan (a teenager) to study on his own in Czechoslovakia. There Ivan lived for eight years and embraced materialistic philosophy, atheism and communion. He looked back at himself:

To me, religion was basically a waste of time. I had no respect for religion because I thought it was all made up of fantasies and myths: that people twisted things to suit their agendas and they created systems of belief to manipulate weak and disillusioned people.

One day he lost his temper with the woman he loved at the time, and she up and left him. He just couldn’t face the loss, and it showed him the weakness of his inner strength and of his materialistic philosophy of life. Suddenly he realized, “I am to be pitied like those people I pitied before.” So he started reading the Bible from its first book Genesis, later went to church, and still later joined a Bible study course that took participants through the Gospel of Mark. Sitting in the course on Mark, he had honest skepticism:

Me being from the Middle East, we always have a suspicious mind, we always think there’s something not true in what people say. So I tried to ask all the questions to find out if the leaders on my table would tell me the truth or if they would try to manipulate me or try to twist things or soften things up so I would think, “Actually it’s not so bad.” I discovered that no, they were just plainly explaining what the Bible was saying.

Through the Gospel of Mark, he started to realize who Jesus Christ really was, what he taught, and what he did – what I have called “the who” and “the why.” Ivan said of Jesus Christ:

I thought: “This is the person I always wanted to be like in my life. I never thought there was anyone who can be like this!” I was totally blown away by his integrity, and the things he did and the things he said. It was when I went on the day away, which is part of the course, that I just came to the conclusion that I could not keep denying the truth about Christ and who he is. And I just said: “That’s it—I don’t know what this is going to do to me, but I trust you and I’m ready to follow you whatever and wherever you take me.” And that was it.

What’s happening now with Ivan? In his words:

Life now has no meaning without Jesus Christ. It’s like a journey I am on with him—with the one person who we were created for. I can go walking all my life knowing that in the highs and the lows, in the sorrows and the joys, he is standing there with me, never leaving me or abandoning me. Not just that: this relationship doesn’t end with my death—actually it carries on forever. And that’s what I can look forward to—that’s what life is all about—not just now but also forever. I will enjoy that loving relationship with Jesus Christ forever.

[1] Christopher D. Hancock, “The Christological Problem,” in Donald Armstrong (ed.), Who Do You Say That I Am? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), p 10.

[2] “Christ” in Greek is the same word as “Messiah” in Hebrew and means “Anointed One,” a person designated for a public leadership function by having olive oil poured on his head.  In the Hebrew Scriptures prophets (ex: 1 Kings 19:16), priests (ex: Ex 28:41), and kings (ex: 1 Sam 10:1) were anointed with oil. “Anointed One” most typically refers to kings, both Israelite (Ps 2:2 with vs 6) and foreign (Isa 45:1).

[3] For historical background, see “Crucifixion in the Roman Period,” in David W. Chapman, Ancient Jewish and Christian Perceptions of Crucifixion (Tubingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), pp 69-96; and Martin Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross (trans. John Bowden), Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1977 (entire book = pages 1-90). In Chapter 1, Hengel says: “For example Josephus, who as Jewish adviser to Titus during the siege of Jerusalem was witness to quite enough object lessons of this kind, describes crucifixion tersely and precisely as ‘the most wretched of deaths’ (θανάτων τὸν ἲκτιστον). In this context he reports that a threat by the Roman besiegers to crucify a Jewish prisoner caused the garrison of Machaerus to surrender in exchange for safe conduct.”

[4] “Ivan’s Story,” Christianity Explored. http://www.christianityexplored.org/real-life-stories/ivan. Accessed 9/4/2015.

[Pics used are photos by the author.]

Easter - the greatest bridge in the world

• Where are you headed? Frankly, you will never think your way to God. But it's not for the reason you might suppose.

On 5/16/2011 David Brooks began his New York Times column: “The story of evolution, we have been told, is the story of the survival of the fittest. The strong eat the weak. The creatures that adapt to the environment pass on their selfish genes. Those that do not become extinct.” Is this, in fact, how we find reality in human life in days gone by and today? Is existence on earth just “Nature, red in tooth and claw” (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “In Memoriam A.H.H.” 1849)? Biblically, we know that this is, at best, a half truth for humanity.

Man, in the first place, is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27) and, therefore, has the attribute of kindness. In all our human interactions, we all carry this image and likeness. And, in the second place, the first humans, by choice, rebelled against their Creator, plunging the human race into selfishness, alienation, shame, and cruelty (Genesis 3). “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Yes, we are also too aware of the human attribute of cruelty, since it is so often reported in the media and protested by the Old Testament prophets. “Thus says the Lord God: Enough, O princes of Israel! Put away violence and oppression, and execute justice and righteousness. Cease your evictions of my people, declares the Lord God.” (Ezekiel 45:9)

Is there a comprehensive solution? “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Christ – God in the flesh – came into the world to redeem us from our sin and cruelty and to restore us increasingly in the image of God, which includes kindness. At a public religious feast in Jerusalem, Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. This person does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24).

Consider that word picture for a moment. On the one side of a divide there is sin, death, and divine judgment. On the other side there is eternal life. How do we sinners get across that chasm? “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). With firmly relying faith, trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Such a life of repentance from sin and genuine faith in Christ leads to changed life. The people transformed by Christ do tiny acts of kindness that are often only seen by the recipient and by God who sees in secret.

• On which bridge are you?

On display at an art gallery near my home is the pic above, “Bridge Well Traveled.” Thinking of the bridge as a metaphor, we could envision the bridge as the path of one human being’s cruelty against his fellow. It happens in subtleties every day as well as in mass acts of cruelty displaying man’s inhumanity to man. That is one bridge and it is well traveled. Let us be honest enough to admit that we, too, travel that bridge.

There is a second bridge. At Easter, we celebrate the enormous kindness of God through Christ by the Holy Spirit coming into the world to die for our sins as God’s Passover lamb (especially remembered on Good Friday) and to rise again on the third day as a triumph over his having suffered the penalty of sin for us and now as the life-giving Savior (especially remembered on Easter).

How do people react to the events of Good Friday and Easter? Frankly, you will never think your way to God. That is not how human beings are made. We may argue articulately with much reasoning, high sounding logic and great learning. But we are not primarily defined by what we think, know, or believe. It is deeper. At our core, we human beings are defined by what we love and worship. What is worship and love supremely for you? Is it self? Is it money? Is it sex? Is it family? Is it philosophy or self-help or morality or religion or education? Is it fame or fortune or adventure or a myriad of other allegiances? Is it an attempt to escape the hurts, pains, and sufferings of this world? I challenge you today, my friend. Who or what do you worship supremely? Who or what do you love supremely? Who except Jesus Christ has the words of eternal life? What can bridge the gap between human sinfulness and divine purity except the dying and rising of the Lord Jesus Christ?

There is, first, the well-travelled bridge of human cruelty. Then there is a second bridge. “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). That separation between humanity and God has been bridged by what Jesus Christ did for us. We could not do it ourselves. I invite you to believe in Christ and make your way across that bridge right now. If so, there will be a third bridge, the bridge of daily taking up your cross and following Christ in the way of kindness.

• On which bridge was Derwin Gray?

Growing up on the west side of San Antonio, Derwin Gray looked for a way out of an early life of poverty, violence, addiction, abuse, and chaos. And he found it [1]:

Football functioned as my savior. It gave me love: If I played well, I was loved by fans. It gave me an identity: I was Derwin, the football player. It gave me significance: I was somebody because I was a great player. And football gave me a mission. My mission was this: Derwin, you can go to college and make something of your life.

The grandmother who raised him was a Jehovah’s Witness and he played high school football under a Texas Hall of Fame coach. He went to college at the Mormon school, Brigham Young University, and was elected to their football’s All American Dream Team. There, in his freshman year, he met a javelin thrower on the track team and married her during his senior year on May 23, 1992. On April 25, 1993, he was drafted by the pro football’s Indianapolis Colts. His god – his supreme object of love and worship – had come through for him every step of the way.

Then he was confronted by linebacker Steve Grant. After practices and games, Grant would take a shower, dry off, wrap a towel around his waist, pick up his Bible, and ask those in the locker room, “Do you know Jesus?” Derwin Gray asked the veterans on the team about him. They said, “Don’t pay attention to him. That’s the Naked Preacher.” So Derwin would turn his back and ignore him.

One time at Derwin’s locker, the linebacker asked, “Rookie D. Gray, do you know Jesus?” Derwin answered, “I’m a good person.” He explained to Steve that he was one of the only men in his family who had not been to jail, who did not have a substance abuse problem, who had graduated from high school and college, and who did not have a child outside of marriage.

The Naked Preacher opened up his Bible and shared two verses: “And Jesus said to him, ’Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone’” (Mark 10:18) and “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). He explained that according to the Bible, only God is good; he is the standard of goodness and righteousness. Everyone else has sinned and falls short. This disturbed Derwin. The linebacker continued, “You can’t do anything to reach a perfect God. But Jesus has done everything for the perfect God to come down and reach you.”

Derwin sat in silence and needed time to think. Over the next five years, he watched Steve Grant live out the gospel. When teammates needed advice, they were at the Naked Preacher’s locker. Steve was involved in the greater Indianapolis community. Steve displayed Jesus in the way he loved his wife and children. Steve preached through his words and actions. In Derwin’s words:

As the Naked Preacher preached, God’s love crushed me. I had achieved the American dream, only to realize it could not empower me to love my wife or forgive my father. My fame and money could not erase my sin, shame, guilt, fear, and insecurity.

Then, between 1995 and 1997, I started getting injured on the field. When a professional athlete’s body starts to fail, he knows his career is coming to an end. I was letting my god—football—down. I was unable to serve it. My body was how I made my living. As it began to give out, I was stripped of everything I thought gave me meaning. I was left with nothing, even though I seemingly had everything.

On August 2, 1997, after lunch at training camp for my fifth season with the Indianapolis Colts, I walked to my dorm room at Anderson University in central Indiana. As I walked, I sensed an emptiness and brokenness like I had never experienced. When I got to my room, I immediately picked up the phone and called my wife. “I want to be more committed to you,” I said. “And I want to be committed to Jesus.”

At that moment I realized that God loved me. Not because I could run fast or jump high or because I was good, or even for what I could give him. I realized that as Jesus hung on the cross, I was forever loved and accepted by God. I realized my sin had been erased by Jesus’ blood. It was as if I could see for the first time. That day I got infected with a “virus” called grace [God’s kindness through Jesus Christ]. The symptoms are now full-blown.

[Pic: Andrew Debus, “Bridge Well Traveled” on public display at Lakeland Gallery, Kirtland, Ohio, April 6-20, 2015.]

[1] Derwin Gray, “Pro Football Was My God,” Christianity Today, March 2014, Vol. 58, No. 2, p 80. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/march/pro-football-was-my-god-derwin-gray.html?start=2

How to deal with unavoidable pain or suffering

• A playwright, St. Peter, and a missionary doctor all grapple with the question.

I had a convergence of three events on Saturday night and Sunday. Seeing a musical play Saturday night at a local civic theater, hearing a sermon Sunday morning, and reading a biographical sketch Sunday afternoon all led me to the same question: how do you deal with unavoidable pain or suffering? [1] At the end I found something absolutely profound.

• “I don’t look normal and I can never change that.”

“Violet” is a 1997 musical play based on a short story, “The Ugliest Pilgrim.” The bouncy music of Southern folk, R&B and gospel plus the storyline of “Violet” tell a tale of the scars we bear – inside and out. In an accident involving an ax on a farm outside Spruce Pine, North Carolina, a girl of 13 becomes horribly disfigured in her face. She experiences unkind words and a certain amount of isolation. Over time Violet’s facial wound heals, but she becomes obsessed with how others view her disfigurement. Seeking to erase her scar, Violet, now 25, takes a bus from her home in the mountains of North Carolina to Tulsa, Oklahoma with stops in Kingsport, Nashville, Memphis and Fort Smith.

It’s September 4, 1964 and she seeks to be healed in Tulsa by a TV preacher. She believes her damaged face could be miraculously replaced with Ingrid Bergman’s cheekbones and Rita Hayworth’s skin. On the bus, she meets and spends time with soldier boys, one black and one white, on their way back to Fort Smith. She discovers that she can see beyond the skin color of the one and the physical beauty of the other to see their true character. The first is an admirable man but the second is shallow, not someone she’d want to marry. The young black soldier goes on to tell her, “My mother said, ‘You pick your road and walk it, one day at a time.’”

In Tulsa she meets the preacher at rehearsal and he turns out to be a charlatan. In private he tells her, “Once I had it [my TV show] all scripted, the Almighty started missing his cues.” A little later, daydreaming about her dad, she imagines that he asks for her forgiveness of any involvement in the accident. She grants him forgiveness and immediately feels like a miracle has happened. But she doesn’t dare look in the mirror. On the bus trip back to North Carolina, she stops to see the soldiers. They accept her as she is – healed of all disfigurement, she thinks. She then opens her purse, grabs her mirror, looks, and . . . is aghast. She still has her horrible scar. She rejects the advances of the soldier with the shallow character, but embraces the love and acceptance of the other one. With new hope, she gains the confidence to accept her scar and continue the journey of life in hope.

How do you deal with unavoidable suffering? Violet’s answer is to have a forgiving spirit, to adopt an attitude that values character above physical beauty, and to embrace the love and acceptance of genuinely loving people. All of this is sound wisdom. But is there more?

• “I want to live for God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and some people don’t like that.”

In the morning I went to church. The pastor has been preaching through 1 Peter whose theme is “suffering well.” The text this morning was chapter 4:12-19:

¹² Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. ¹³ But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. ¹⁴ If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. ¹⁵ But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. ¹⁶ Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. ¹⁷ For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? ¹⁸ And

“If the righteous is scarcely saved,

what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” [Proverbs 11:31]

¹⁹ Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.

Learning from my pastor and having engaged in further study, I will now offer some of my own thoughts as we let St. Peter the Apostle teach us all. There are two basic thrusts of the passage. In the first place, Peter says in verses 12-15: don’t be surprised at suffering but, instead, rejoice to the extent that you share Christ’s sufferings. Why should we be surprised? First, it is sinful human nature to dislike and to regard with suspicion anyone who is different. The Christian brings the standards of Jesus Christ to the world as he lives his life. He or she is different and even goodness can be an offense to a world in which goodness is regarded as a handicap. Second, when a man or woman has to suffer as a Christian, he or she is walking the way their Lord walked and sharing the Cross their Lord carried. This is a dominant theme in the New Testament. If we suffer with him, we will be glorified with him (Romans 8:17). It is Paul's desire to enter into the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ (Philippians 3:10). If we suffer with him, we shall reign with him (2 Timothy 2:12). If we remember that, any suffering for the sake of Christ becomes a privilege and not a penalty. [2]

Peter knew it well. St. Mark’s Gospel is a literary arrangement of the preaching of Peter. Mark 8:31-38 recounts Peter’s failing:

³¹ And he [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³² And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³ But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

³⁴ And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ³⁵ For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. ³⁶ For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? ³⁷ For what can a man give in return for his soul? ³⁸ For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

In the second basic thrust of the passage, Peter says in verses 16-19: don’t be ashamed of suffering as a Christian but, instead, honor God for the privilege and entrust yourself to him. Shame is the feeling that there is something basically wrong with you. “I’m such a failure.” If we have sinned, we have Jesus Christ – who has died as the just for the unjust (1 Peter 3:18). We are sinners and we have come to the Savior to be forgiven, cleansed and granted the Holy Spirit to live righteously. But if we feel shame because we are a Christian, it is flat out wrong. It is not a shame, it is a privilege. We are to honor God for being a Christian even if it means suffering. And not only are we to honor God (“glorify God,” 5:16), we are to entrust ourselves to God, the Creator (5:16).

The [Greek] word he [Peter] uses for “to entrust” is paratithesthai, which is the technical word for depositing money with a trusted friend. In the ancient days there were no banks and few really safe places in which to deposit money. So, before a man went on a journey, he often left his money in the safe-keeping of a friend. Such a trust was regarded as one of the most sacred things in life. The friend was absolutely bound by all honour and all religion to return the money intact. [3]

We are to entrust our lives as Christians to God. As all-powerful Creator and Sustainer, he can be absolutely trusted with keeping us safe in this life for eternal life with him.

• “That I may know him”

Born in 1925, Helen Roseveare [4] was raised in a comfortable English family and loved the quiet atmosphere and rich ritual of the Church of England. But, leaving these services, she felt a great sense of emptiness and futility, a deep void. She asked herself, Where is God? How can I find Him? How can I meet my own need and the crushing, overwhelming problems of the world? Drawn toward medicine, she enrolled in Cambridge University and came to participate in the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union. At a student retreat she opened her heart to God and experienced forgiveness in a personal way. On the final night of the retreat, veteran Bible teacher Dr. Graham Scroggie wrote Philippians 3:10 in her new Bible, where St. Paul says:

That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death

And then Dr. Scroggie said to her:

Tonight you’ve entered into the first part of the verse, “That I may know Him.” This is only the beginning, and there’s a long journey ahead. My prayer for you is that you will go on through the verse to know “the power of His resurrection” and also, God willing, one day perhaps, “the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death.” [5]

Sensing God’s call to missions, after graduating from Cambridge as a medical doctor, at age 28 she applied to the World Evangelization Crusade (WEC) for service in Africa. She served with WEC from 1953 to 1973. She was first assigned to the northeastern part of Congo (later called Zaire), where she was the only doctor for two and a half million people. She experienced the stresses of pioneer medical work, but her medical, administrative and training skills allowed her to do much good.

On June 30, 1960 Congo achieved its independence from Belgium. But during 1960 to 1965 civil wars broke out. Most Europeans fled, but Dr. Helen Roseveare elected to stay. Church History Timeline picks up the story: [6]

Helen was well aware of her danger. Many mission women had been raped by the marauding rebel armies. She stayed on, believing that “If Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him.” That was her mission’s motto. . . .

On this day, Saturday, August 15, 1964, a truck-load of soldiers took over the hospital compound at Nobobongo. They occupied it for five months. “They were brutal and coarse, rough and domineering. Their language was threatening and obscene. All of us were cowed. We did exactly what they demanded, mostly without argument.” Tension was terrific.

“We heard that the local chief had been caught, bound and beaten; then he was taken to the people’s tribunal at Wamba, found guilty, flayed alive and eaten. No wonder we did not sleep well. No wonder we were not hungry.”

Then Helen and others were taken away. “...We were put off at a house in the jungle--nineteen defenseless women and children surrounded by some seventy-five men, soldiers and others, all filled with hatred and evil intentions toward us... And in my heart was an amazing peace, a realization that I was being highly privileged to be identified with [Christ] in a new way, in the way of Calvary.”

She was severely beaten and was raped. Finally, the national army with the help of mercenaries defeated the rebels. Helen was rescued and flown back to England. After furlough, she returned to Congo in 1965 and resumed her medical missionary work.

In her address to Urbana 76, she spoke of the five months of being repeatedly beaten. [7] How do you deal with unavoidable suffering? St. Peter in Scripture gave us his answer. Later he lived out his answer as he suffered the martyrdom of crucifixion at the hands of the Roman Emperor. Dr. Helen Roseveare also lived out the answer and has profoundly repeated it for our benefit:

I wasn’t praying. I was beyond praying. Someone back home was praying earnestly for me. If I’d prayed any prayer it would have been, “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” And suddenly, there was God. I didn’t see a vision, I didn’t hear a voice, I just knew with every ounce of my being that God was actually, vitally there. God in all his majesty and power. He stretched out his arms to me. He surrounded me with his love and he seemed to whisper to me, “Twenty years ago, you asked me for the privilege of being a missionary. This is it. Don’t you want it?”

Fantastic, the privilege of being identified with our Savior. As I was driven down the short corridor of my home, it was as though he clearly said to me, “These are not your sufferings. They’re not beating you. These are my sufferings. All I ask of you is the loan of your body.” And an enormous relief swept through me.

One word became unbelievably clear, and that word was privilege. He didn’t take away pain or cruelty or humiliation. No! It was all there, but now it was altogether different. It was with him, for him, in him. He was actually offering me the inestimable privilege of sharing in some little way the edge of the fellowship of his suffering.

In the weeks of imprisonment that followed and in the subsequent years of continued service, looking back, one has tried to ‘count the cost,’ but I find it all swallowed up in privilege. The cost suddenly seems very small and transient in the greatness and permanence of the privilege.

Can you—will you—believe it and enter into it?

Footnotes

[1] “Violet” with music by Jeanine Tesori and lyrics by Brian Crawley was performed at the Lakeland Civic Theatre, Kirkland, Ohio, under the direction of Dr. Martin Friedman on 2/14/2015. Scott Kennedy delivered the sermon on 1 Peter 4:12-19 at Parkside Church Lake County, Kirtland, Ohio, on 2/15/2015.

[2] William Barclay, Commentary on 1 Peter (originally Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press, revised edition 1975), now online. http://www.studylight.org/commentaries/dsb/view.cgi?bk=59&ch=4

[3] Ibid.

[4] This section is mostly based on a short but fully researched biography posted on the Intervarsity / Urbana website: “Helen Roseveare,” February 18, 2007. https://urbana.org/blog/helen-roseveare

[5] Cited in the biography: Helen Roseveare, “The Cost of Declaring His Glory”, address at Urbana 1976, page 33. https://s3.amazonaws.com/urbana.org/general_session_audio/urbana-76-helen.roseveare-cost.of.declaring.his.glory.mp3

[6] Dan Graves, “Congo Rebels Reached Helen Roseveare,” Church History Timeline.

http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1901-2000/congo-rebels-reached-helen-roseveare-11630820.html

[7] Helen Roseveare, “The Cost of Declaring His Glory,” op. cit.

Pics: (1) Young Violet with Father and (2) one segment of the bus trip – both in “Violet,” Lakeland Civic Theatre, Kirtland, Ohio 2/14/2015 photos taken by me. (3) Simone Prince, “Hard Working Man,” part of the “Juried Junior & Senior High School” exhibit, January 1 to February 22, 2015 in the Gallery at Lakeland Community College.

Comes now a smiling New-Born Year

• The seasons of our lives

In western North Carolina along I-40 between Hickory and Asheville – in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains – there is a town of 16,800 people established in 1784. It’s called Morganton. On December 26 there my family made a rest stop and there I picked up the local newspaper. A music columnist – a pensive, wistful middle-aged man and local DJ – wrote:

• Life at a practical level

[Next week on New Years Eve, together we’ll raise a toast to another year gone by and sing Auld Lang Syne.] Perhaps there’s a lot to look forward to in a new year, but it’s the kind of song that reminds you that while we are letting go of the struggles, we are also letting go of the joys, too. Turning the pages of our lives is the mixed blessing that we are getting older and that time continues to roll on by. I can never tell if I’m sad or if I’m celebrating. . . .

We all join in together singing so strong, but we know that the passage of time makes us vulnerable to life and to ourselves. In a few days, we’ll sing it again and toast ourselves right on through the transition into a new year. We’ll toast the days gone by when we sing, and we’ll admit that we can’t let go unless we hold onto each other:

And there’s a hand my trusty friend!

And give me a hand o’ thine!

And we’ll take a right good-will draught,

for auld lang syne. [1]

Like the Old Testament writer, Ecclesiastes (the practical philosopher), this music columnist has a melancholy streak and desires to see life as it is, “life under the sun,” life at a practical level [2]. Among the observations of Ecclesiastes is a poem set to music by Pete Seeger in the late 1950’s. When issued by the American band, The Byrds, this song (now titled Turn! Turn! Turn!) reached #1 on the Hot 100 chart on December 4, 1965. Ecclesiastes noted:

      For everything there is a season,

      and a time for every matter under heaven:

      . . . a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

      . . . a time to break down, and a time to build up;

      a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

      a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

      . . . a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

      (Ecc 3:1,2b,4,5b ESV)

 

• Life at an all new level

Yes, life has its seasons. Yes, life exhibits melancholy – the struggles and the joys. And, yes again, life is about each other and “a little help from our friends.” But the music columnist is forgetting something really important, and fortunately it was pointed out by a second man in another column in the same newspaper on the same date. Six and a half years ago, in a public ceremony, the second man was described this way: “He’s been an icon in our community for decades. He did so much for civil rights in this county [Burke County, NC].” [3] As you can tell by his participation in the civil rights movement, this second man has also experienced the seasons of life, the struggles and the joys, life in community, and “a little help from our friends.” And, interestingly, this second man has written for this small town newspaper for 62 years! From the vantage point of a long life, this is (in part) what he said:

We live in a common bundle. We do carry with us the capacity to help or to hurt. . . . Let me call your attention to the life of Jesus. He lived and suffered as we now do, and died while he was still a young man. His friends betrayed him. The officials lied about him. He suffered just as we suffer, but he bravely faced his death, and in the process, he won the victory for you and me. . . .

You need not troubled by the storms. . . For Jesus paid the price for the sins of the world. He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, and by his stripes, we are healed. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through the Son. Jesus washes away all our sins. [4]

God has come and met us in the seasons of life, in our melancholy, in our struggles and in our joys, in our attempts at life in community and in our seeking a little help from our friends. He has come through the humanity of Jesus. God the Father now calls us to a life truly worth living through his Son, Jesus Christ the Lord: forgiveness of sins and failings, help in our struggles, lasting joy in our happinesses, and eternal friendship with God our Creator who has now become God our Savior.

• The life of Abraham Lincoln and his seasons of faith

How does an eternal relationship with our Creator and Savior work out in the seasons of our lives?

A Sunday evening address by F.W. Boreham wonderfully captures how the search for eternal relationship with Christ finally ended in fulfillment in the life of Abraham Lincoln [5]. Boreham sees three stages in the development of Lincoln’s faith and describes each with a biblical metaphor. First, Lincoln climbed Mount Sinai with Moses. It began at a revival-style camp meeting that had gone on for several days with increasing fervor. At the final meeting the kneeling multitude sprang to its feet and broke into a chorus of shouts. A young man and a young woman separately leaped up and started singing the same song. A week later they were married and eventually became the parents of Abraham Lincoln. His father had the sad task of burying his mother when Lincoln was only nine. And father and son carried the coffin from their desolated cabin to its lonely resting place in those woods. But during those nine years his mother had a lasting impact on him. Says Boreham:

He never forgot that mother of his. ‘All that I am,’ he used to say, ‘my angel-mother made me!’ And the memory that lingered longest was the thought of her as she sat in the old log-cabin teaching him the Ten Commandments. Many a time afterwards, when he was asked how he had found the courage to decline some tempting bribe, or to resist some particularly insidious suggestion, he said that, in the critical hour, he heard his mother’s voice repeating once more the old, old words: I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no other gods before Me [Exodus 20:1]. He treasured all through life her last words:

I am going away from you, Abraham, and shall not return [she said]. I know that you will be a good boy, and that you will be kind to your father. I want you to live as I have taught you, to love your Heavenly Father and keep His commandments.

      ‘Keep His commandments!’ It was thus that, in infancy, Abraham Lincoln climbed Mount Sinai. . . . As a result somebody said of him that he was the most honest lawyer west of China. . . . This phase of his spiritual pilgrimage was augmented; it was obliterated. Christ comes into the soul not to destroy, but to fulfil, the law. Lincoln’s earliest impressions imparted to his character a severity that contributed materially to its grandeur. [6]

Second, Lincoln climbed Mount Carmel with Elijah. On Mount Carmel, Elijah learned that his loneliness in the midst of unscrupulous foes mattered little as long as the God who Answers by Fire was with him (1 King 18). Lincoln learned the same lesson when, in 1860, he left his home in Springfield, Illinois as President Elect to travel by train to Washington, DC and assume the presidency. At that time, Lincoln received an American flag from one of his admirers. On its silk folds, beautifully worked in, he read these words:

      Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life. As I was with Moses, so shall I be with thee. [from Joshua chapter 1.]

Lincoln traveled that train with two great missions in mind. The immediate mission was to preserve the Union; the remote mission was to abolish slavery. For both causes he was prepared to die. He learned of plots to assassinate him before he ever reached Washington. Says Boreham:

      But he never wavered; the words on the flag were constantly in his mind. At every wayside station [along the train route] crowds gathered to greet him. And [spiritual biographer] Dr. Hill points out that, in addressing each of these groups, he declared emphatically that he was going forth in the name of the Living God. . . .

      In accepting the Presidency, Lincoln was very sure of God. It meant two things to him. It meant that he would be protected, sustained, directed, and prospered in his lofty enterprise . . . But it meant more. He was intensely, almost painfully, conscious of his own disqualifications and disabilities. He was a back-woodsman on his way to the White House! But he believed that —according to the promise on the flag—God was with him. Like Moses, he would be clay in the hands of the divine Potter; and, by those Unseen Hands, he would be moulded and shaped and fashioned. [7]

Last, Lincoln climbed Mount Calvary with the Apostle John and, along the climb, Lincoln passed through Gethsemane, the Garden of Anguish. Boreham notes:

Mr. H. C. Whitney says that, during the war, Lincoln’s companions would leave him by the fireside at night and find him still there—elbows on knees and face in hands—when they came down in the morning. ‘Father,’ he would moan again and again, ‘Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!’ [Matthew 26:39] . . . . The greatest grief of his life was the death of his son. As the boy lay dying, Lincoln’s reason seemed in peril. Miss Ida Tarbell has told the sad story with great delicacy and judgement. When the dread blow fell, the nurse and the father stood with bowed heads beside the dead boy, and then the nurse, out of her own deep experience of human sorrow and of divine comfort, pointed the weeping President to her Savior.

      The work that this private sorrow began the public sorrow completed. Lincoln had long yearned for a fuller, sweeter, more satisfying faith. ‘I have been reading the Beatitudes,’ he tells a friend, ‘and can at least claim the blessing that is pronounced upon those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.’ He was to hunger no longer. A few days before his death he told of the way in which the peace of heaven stole into his heart. ‘When I left Springfield,’ he said, not without a thought of the flag and its inscription, ‘when I left Springfield, I asked the people to pray for me; I was not a Christian. When I buried my son—the severest trial of my life—I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg, and saw the graves of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ.’ From that moment, Dr. Hill says, the habitual attitude of his mind was expressed in the words: ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner!’ [Luke 18:13] With tears in his eyes he told his friends that he had at last found the faith that he had longer for. He realized, he said, that his heart was changed, and that he loved the Saviour. The President was at the Cross! [8]

President Lincoln lived to see peace, Union and emancipation become triumphant. In the words of Frank W. Boreham:

His last hours were spent amidst services of thanksgiving and festivals of rejoicing. One of these celebrations was being held in Ford’s Theatre at Washington. The President was there, and attracted as much attention as the actors. But his mind was not on the play. Indeed, it was nearly over when he arrived. He leaned forward, talking, under his breath, to Mrs. Lincoln. Now that the war was over, he said, he would like to take her for a tour of the East. They would visit Palestine—would see Gethsemane and Calvary—would walk together the streets of Jeru——!

      But before the word was finished, a pistol-shot—the ‘maddest pistol-shot in the history of the ages!'—rang through the theatre. And he who had climbed Mount Sinai with Moses, Mount Carmel with Elijah, and Mount Calvary with John, had turned his pilgrim feet towards the holiest heights of all. [9]

Footnotes
[Title]
Comes now a smiling New-Born Year

To fill to-day with goodly cheer—

        An infant hale and lusty.

Upon our door-sill he is left

By Daddy Time, of clothes bereft

        Despite the season gusty.

If he be Churl or doughty Knight,

A Son of Darkness or of Light

        No man can tell, God bless him!

But be he base or glorious

Time puts it wholly up to us

        To dress him!

—John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922), “The New-Born Year,” The Cheery Way: A Bit of Verse for Every Day (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1920), p January First.

[1] Jonathan Henley, “The vulnerability in another ‘Auld Lang Syne,’” The News Herald (Morganton, NC), December 26, 2014, pp D1-D2

[2] Minos Divine, Ecclesiastes or the Confessions of an Adventurous Soul (London: Macmillan and Co., 1916), p 27: “The melancholy man is always in danger of missing any good which redeems the ills of life. . . . This book [of Ecclesiastes] is a story of triumph over temperament. . . . There is an unmistakable note of joy in all the ‘still sad music’ of this book.”

[3] Julie N. Chang, “Gospel fest named to honor the Rev. McIntosh,” The News Herald, posted Monday, October 6, 2008. http://www.morganton.com/community/gospel-fest-named-to-honor-the-rev-mcintosh/article_373d18f4-0a5b-5569-841a-315397b1b716.html?TNNoMobile

[4] W.F. McIntosh, Jr. “Who can you trust in today’s society?” The News Herald (Morganton, NC) December 26, 2014, pp B1-B2.

[5] F.W. Boreham, “Abraham Lincoln’s Text,” Chapter 2 in A Temple of Topaz (New York: The Abingdon Press, 1928), p 22-32. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009977820

[6] Ibid., pp 26-27.

[7] Ibid., pp 28-29.

[8] Ibid., pp 30-31.

[9] Ibid., pp 31-32.

The pics were taken by the author at Biltmore Estate, Asheville, NC on 12/27/2014: Cedric's Tavern in Antler Village; Christmas bow and wreath near Cedric's Tavern; walkway with lights, Antler Village.

"Nobody has time for anybody anymore"

• The duality of human nature: otherness and selfishness

Mobility of peoples and cultures is a fact of our modern world and yet in this freedom of movement there is a problem. “People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down’ – that is, to pull in like a turtle,” an eminent political scientist has found. Robert D. Putnam, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, conducted a massive new study based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across the United States of America.

He found that those in more diverse communities tend to “distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.” [1]

As my nephew, studying at a university in Norway, recently observed (but in a different context), “Nobody has time for anybody anymore.” [2] Is that the way modern life is? U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Max Voelz and his wife, Staff Sgt. Kim Voelz both served in Iraq in explosive ordinance disposal, the Army’s elite bomb squad. Husband Max said of his wife:

“We deployed in 2003. We were in the same unit. And she ripped bombs apart by hand in Iraq just like I did. But she died on an incident that I sent her on. . . . And when I receive a condolence letter from a high-ranking government official that says Mrs. Voelz, we’re sorry for the loss of your husband, it just makes it seem like nobody knows we exist.” [3]

Then Max turned to another bomb tech, Sgt. Mary Dague, for support. She had lost both her arms in Iraq. During his low points they talked a lot over the internet. StoryCorps had them meet face-to-face for the first time and to talk about what happened:

DAGUE: Why did you first contact me?

VOELZ: I was in a pretty dark spot at the time. And another bomb tech thought that talking to you would help. And it did.

DAGUE: I remember it took a while to get you to talk.

VOELZ: Yeah, then I wouldn’t shut up.

DAGUE: I’m OK with that. I really just wanted to reach through the computer and hug you. Like it’s OK – well, it’s not OK, but it’ll get better.

VOELZ: Yeah.

DAGUE: You do seem a lot happier.

VOELZ: I’m glad. (Laughter) I am. I mean, I’m always going to have the can’t sleep and the nightmares. But basically, you have a gift of helping people who are depressed. [4]

• The dual nature of humanness

According to the Bible, humanness has a two fold nature: God created us to be other-centered, and yet we inherit a selfish nature from our first human parents, who rebelled against God. Genesis 1:26-27 teaches:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . .”

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

“God” (Elohim) is a plural noun and yet “said” is a singular verb. Here God said, “Let us … in our . . . after our . . .” In the fullness of God there is singularity and yet there is also fullness of relationship. When Jesus Christ came to earth, this seed of truth became understood. There is one God and in his fullness there are three persons – God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit of God.

In addition, the original man and woman (who were husband and wife) rebelled against the Lord God (Genesis chapter 3) and, as a result, gave birth to children in their selfish image who lived selfish lives (Genesis chapter 4). But God in mercy began a rescue mission that culminated in sending his Son to be the Savior of the world.

• A new society

In 1 Thessalonians chapter one, certain people out of the 200,000 inhabitants of ancient Thessalonica have turned from idols (false gods and philosophies) to the true and living God. Although consisting of various minorities, they were mostly Greeks. The people who have “turned” now have an other-centered relationship with our God and Father, our Lord Jesus Christ (who died for our sins and rose again) and with the Holy Spirit (whose power and joy accompany the Word of God being proclaimed). The action of God has created a body of people who are united to Christ and endowed with the Holy Spirit. In 1 Thessalonians 5:12-22 these people are enjoined to be have regard for their leaders (5:12-13), act responsibly to others (5:14-15), have reverence towards God (5:16-18) and receive the prophetic word of God (5:19-22).

If we have joined this company of people and become part of the body of Christ, how do we live other-centered lives? How can we lay aside self-centered living and care about others? 1 Thessalonians 5:13b-15 gives us guidelines:

^13bBe at peace among yourselves. ¹⁴And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. ¹⁵See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.

“Among yourselves” (5:13b). This is not a utopian society ruled by elites, governed by stability and austerity, and enforced by totalitarian rule. This is a spiritual reality of people whose lives have been changed by the action of the triune God. They have been joined to a mystical body and are bound by voluntary selflessness. St. Paul the apostle wrote 1 Thessalonians from Corinth about AD 50. Later he explained this truth more fully in 1 Corinthians, written from the neighborhood of Ephesus in early AD 55:

¹²For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

¹⁴For the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁶And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? ¹⁸But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. ¹⁹If all were a single member, where would the body be? ²⁰As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

²¹The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” ²²On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, ²⁴which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, ²⁵that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. ²⁶If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. (1 Cor 12:12-26 ESV)

Thus, biblical peace in the new society is not simply harmony among disparate peoples (nationalities and cultures) and the absence of hostility (1 Cor 12:13). But it incorporates the ideas of living out one’s vocation as a member of the body, human flourishing, wholeness, contentment and delight as we live in fellowship with our Creator and Savior and with each other. [5]

“Be” (5:13b, “be at peace” is one word in the original Greek). As those living in community, Christ the Lord through his apostle commands us (through a series of imperatives) to adopt an other-centered outlook. This is a duty and must be a conscious decision. “You have turned from false gods and philosophies to the true God and the true doctrine and philosophy of life. You have been united by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ. Now live that way.” The appropriate responses include: “This I will do.” “This is my prayer.” “This is my aim, objective, and goal.” “This I will do today and each day by the Lord’s strength.” To sweep in the thought of verses 14-15, the Scripture is saying: Don’t slip into a shell of indifference, isolation, and idleness. Don’t allow yourself to become passive and complacent. Pray for strength. Be courageous. Take action. Look around. Let your light shine. Live out the truth of community. Let there be brotherly love. Reach out. Love your neighbor as yourself.

• Other-centered living

There are seven areas of focus.

(1) “Be at peace among yourselves” (5:13b). The Gospel is the gospel of peace – peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 5:1). It makes no sense for the Gospel of peace to be laced with the toxins of strife and ill-will, for the Gospel of reconciliation to be diluted with the vitriol of enmity and hostility, and for the Gospel of love to be poisoned with the venom of hate and bitterness. There can be strong disagreements among brothers and sisters in the Lord. But there are amiable ways to disagree and go on. Paul and Barnabas proclaimed the Gospel together throughout Syria, Cyprus and Asia Minor and then reported back to the Church of Antioch, which had sent them. They disagreed sharply on whether to take John Mark (who had abandoned the work on the first journey) with them on the return visit. So Barnabas took John Mark and Paul took Silas, and they took separate routes at different times. Yes, the teams worked separately, but both stayed friends and both were a blessing to the newly founded churches (Acts 15:36-41).

(2) “Admonish the idle” (5:14). “Admonish” (Greek noutheteo) can convey various ideas: warn, counsel, reprimand, verbally confront. It is tempered by the earlier command of “be at peace” and therefore may stated as “peacefully, lovingly confront” someone. It emphatically does not mean, “get in the face of someone and start screaming.” The term “idle people” originally described a soldier who had left (quit) the ranks or who had been guilty of unruly conduct (had quit acting by the rules required of soldiers). In the papyri found in Egypt contemporary with the New Testament, the word had the meaning of “idlers” (people who had quit working, that is, were being lazy). Thus, the phrase means “warn the quitters” and could apply to a variety of circumstances.

(3) “Encourage the fainthearted” (5:14). “Encourage” (Greek paramutheomai) conveys the ideas of “console, comfort; encourage, cheer up.” “Fainthearted” (Greek oligopsukos, literally “little souled") refers to being “fainthearted, timid, apprehensive, discouraged.” A gloomy disposition or jarring circumstances may cause someone to feel timid, apprehensive, or down in the dumps. It is our job to encourage the discouraged.

Worldly wisdom paints a different picture from 1Thessalonians. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), the British philosopher who in 1950 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote:

Man is the product of causes which had no pre-vision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms. There is no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling which can preserve an individual life beyond the grave. . . . Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built. [6]

To the contrary, spurred by the Letter of 1 Thessalonians, we carry on the work of faith, the labor of love and the steadfastness of hope in union with our Lord Jesus Christ. Endowed with the Word of God and the Spirit of God, we have turned from false gods and false philosophies, we have – at the same time – turned to the living God, and we wait for his Son from heaven (1 Thess 1:3,9-10). On our pilgrim way we encourage the timid, give confidence to the apprehensive, and cheer up the discouraged (1 Thess 5:14).

(4) “Help the weak” (5:14). “Help” (Greek antexomai) means “cling to, hold firmly to, be loyal to, help.” “Weak” can refer to various kinds of weakness: emotionally weak, infirm in body, or not having a fully informed Christian conscience (Rom 14:1 – 15:13). William Barclay, a New Testament scholar of an earlier era, explains the image of clinging to the weak:

Instead of letting the weak brother drift away and finally vanish altogether, the Christian community should make a deliberate attempt to grapple him to the Church in such a way that he cannot escape. It should forge bonds of fellowship and persuasion to hold on to the man who is likely to stray away. [7]

In addition to the primacy of faith, clinging to the weak could involve various kinds of spiritual, emotional and physical support.

(5) “Be patient with them all” (5:14).  Literally, the Greek reads “be patient with all.” It means to be patient with the three previous categories of persons but also with everyone in the body of Christ. “Be patient” (Greek macrothumeo) was wonderfully translated by William Tyndale as “be long suffering.” It is a characteristic of God (Isa 57:15 Septuagint; Rom 2:4; 9:22; 1 Pet 3:20; 2 Pet 3:9). If God has exercised such great patience and longsuffering with us, how much more ought we to have patience and longsuffering to others. It is our calling.

Former pro football star and coach Tony Dungy told the following story about his father’s Christian character:

My dad was usually a quiet, thoughtful man. A scientist at heart and by training, Wilbur Dungy loved to be outside, enjoying the scenery. Fishing allowed him time to contemplate, to listen, and to marvel at God’s creation. My dad used fishing to teach his children to appreciate the everyday wonders of the world God created—the sandy shoreline, the dark, pine forests, the shimmering water, and the abundant wildlife. The lessons were always memorable, whether we caught a lot of fish or not.

Although we fished countless times together throughout our lives, one particular day stands out in my mind. It was a summer day in 1965. Summers in Michigan are beautiful, with comfortable temperatures and clear, blue skies. I was nine years old, and my brother was five. My dad had taken us fishing at one of the many small lakes around Jackson. On that day, my dad was teaching my brother and me how to cast. We were both working on it, mostly in silence, until my dad’s voice finally broke a period of stillness.

“Hey, Linden, don’t move for a minute, please.” I looked back and watched my dad move his hand toward his face. Calm and deliberate, he continued to speak.

“Now, Linden, always make sure that you know not only where your pole is when you’re starting to cast”—at this point, I realized my dad was working my brother’s hook out of his own ear— “but also make certain that you know where everyone else is around you.”

I learned something about proper casting that day, but I also learned something about patience. Years later, when I got hooked myself, in my hand, I realized how much it hurts. Remembering my dad’s patience that day when Linden’s hook was caught in his ear, I finally understood the importance of staying calm and communicating clearly. [8]

(6) “See that no one repays anyone evil for evil” (5:15). Revenge can be taken in grotesque, horrible ways as well small, subtle ways. An often repeated anecdote from the Korean War illustrates the subtle form:

During the 1950’s Korean Conflict, six American GI’s were assigned to a housing unit. Fighting had calmed down, so they found themselves living in close quarters with extra time on their hands.

Predictably, they soon started playing practical jokes on each other…sneaking up on each other, rubber snake tricks, etc.

Quickly tiring of these games, they started pulling these little pranks on their houseboy Wan. They liked this good natured Korean boy - happy to have the job - and figured they’d include him in their practical jokes.

They would tie his boots together while he was sleeping and make loud clanging noises with their mess kits. Wan would jump up, thinking the enemy was attacking, and fall right on his face. Ha Ha!

They’d hang a bucket of water above his door and place a tripcord in the threshold. Then, they would call Wan into the room, and watch him get drenched.

One day the soldiers were sitting around drinking, and someone commented that Wan seemed a little down. They quickly realized that the cause of Wan’s depression was the practical jokes they had been playing. They had only meant to make him feel included, but obviously he only felt humiliated. The soldiers apologized and promised never to do it again.

Wan’s quick reply was “OK, GI…then I’ll stop spitting in your soup.” [9]

It is not wrong to use the protection of law and the court system. St. Paul the apostle did so (Acts 23:12-35; 25:1-12). But the Lord Jesus strictly forbids personal revenge: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matt 5:38-39).

(7) “Always seek to do good to one another and to everyone” (5:15). Literally, “always pursue the good with-a-view-to one-another and with-a-view-to all.” “Pursue” means to actively seek after, strive for, follow, run after. “Good” is that which is upright, just, kind, generous, useful, beneficial, sound. It is not only our calling to live at peace with one another but also to strive after and seek out the good of all people. The truth of the Gospel (the tremendous goodness and kindness and mercy of God to us sinners through Christ) translates into a life of voluntary selflessness that seeks to show goodness and kindness and mercy to others. A proverb of India says, “You don’t cut off a person’s nose and then give him a rose to smell.” Professing the Gospel and displaying evil words, emotions, and conduct is a contradiction in terms.

Getting good at anything takes long hours of disciplined practice. Through the Gospel, the goodness of God – of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – has been made ours. Our turning away from false gods and philosophies has caused us to turn to the living God and follow the way of Christ the Lord. Each day provides a new opportunity to come out of our shells of indifference, isolation, and idleness and to actively practice the Gospel as members of the New Society, the Body of Christ. Practice peace. Kindly confront quitters. Encourage the fainthearted. Help the weak. Be patient with everyone. Never retaliate. Seek the good of all.

[1] Michael Jonas, “The Downside of Diversity,” The Boston Globe, August 5, 2007.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/?page=full

[2] David Lund, Facebook post 11/9/2014. His context is different than this essay. He was discussing the fruits of a high amount of state control in a society.

[3] “Bomb Techs Work Through ‘Dark Spots’ To Brighter Lives,” NPR Morning Edition, November 07, 2014. From the transcript. http://www.npr.org/2014/11/07/362010372/bomb-techs-work-through-dark-spots-to-brighter-lives

[4] Ibid.

[5] See further I’Ching Thomas, “Jesus: The Path to Human Flourishing,” Just Thinking, June 20, 2014. http://www.rzim.org/just-thinking/jesus-the-path-to-human-flourishing/

[6] Bertrand Russell cited in Bruce Narramore and Bill Counts, Freedom from Guilt (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1974), p 42.

[7] William Barclay, 1 Thessalonians (Daily Study Bible), Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press, 1975.

http://www.studylight.org/commentaries/dsb/view.cgi?bk=51&ch=5

[8] Wess Stafford, Just a Minute (Chicago: Moody Press, 2012), pp. 73-74.

[9] John Patrick Dolan, “Spitting in Your Soup,” Negotiate like the Pros (blog), n.d. http://negotiatelikethepros.com/spitting-in-your-soup/

Art work: (head with hands) Diana J. Bjel, “Angel and the Pig”; and (face looking at curled object) William Brouillard, “Steam Punk Portrait Tile #5” - both part of the exhibit “CLAY . . . Not the Usual Suspects,” the Gallery, Lakeland Community College, Kirtland, Ohio, September 25 to November 7, 2014.