What are you planting in your garden?

●Lessons learned from an African American funeral

How does the Gospel (There is one God who exists in three persons; the second person of God became the man Jesus, died for sinners, rose again to reconcile us to God, sent out the Word of God and the Holy Spirit) – how does the Gospel work itself out in real life? Today I attended an African American funeral, and saw and heard the principles of living that way on display. Let me share what I witnessed.

In inner city Winston Salem, North Carolina, Bobby Ray Crosby died at age 61 on January 30, 2016. He left behind a wife, a son, four daughters, eighteen grandchildren, ten great grandchildren; as well as a mother, two sisters and three brothers. The memorial service was today, February 6, 2016.

• “Don’t worry about living . . . Look at the birds in the sky. They never sow nor reap nor store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them” (Matt 6:25-26).

A different three-some (electric guitarist, organ-keyboardist, and lead singer) led us in gospel music at two points in the service. Before playing, the first male guitarist (an older man) said, “Bobby and I were in the hospital together. He got up from his room, went over to my bed, and said, ‘God is still in control.’ This is a celebration time!” Then the guitarist vigorously strummed his first chord.

The lead singer of the second group said, “They call me the black Loretta Lynn. My husband died four years ago. We were married 42 years. I thought, ‘I don’t know how I could make it on my own.’” Then she broke forth in robust song from the Canton Spirituals, “Glad I’ve got Jesus in my heart.”

 

• “How do you know what will happen even tomorrow? What, after all, is your life? It is like a puff of smoke visible for a little while and then dissolving into thin air” (James 4:14).

After the first gospel song, Bobby’s one brother and a minister friend of mine, gave a prayer of meditation. In part, he said, “For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away [1 Pet 1:24]. Are we ready to make this journey?”

Later one of Bobby’s daughters stood up and said, “It was sad to watch my father die. But God gave me a poem”:

      God saw you getting tired and a cure was not to be.

      So He put His arms around you, and whispered, “Come to Me.”

      With tearful eyes we watched you, and saw you fade away.

      Although we loved your dearly, we could not make you stay.

      A golden heart stopped beating, hard working hands at rest.

      God broke our hearts to prove to us He only takes the best.

 

• “If I do not have love, I am only a noisy gong or a crashing cymbal. . . . If I do not have love, I am nothing. . . . If I do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor 13:1-3).

A younger man and neighbor stood up and said, “We moved to Clark Avenue right next door to Bobby. He welcomed us to his front porch and to his table. He was soft-spoken, but he always had something to say if you had the time to listen.”

Although Bobby served his country in the United States Navy, he was a peaceful man. The service ended with a sermon. The preacher hitch-hiked on this thought of peace and offered himself as the example. The preacher said, “When I participated in a Martin Luther King Day march, I brought my grandson along. The boy asked, ‘Why do you do this?’ And I said, ‘It’s because, if someone does you wrong, you don’t use violence to get back at him. You use peaceful non-violence to stand up for what’s right.”

• “Then the Lord God took dust from the ground and formed a man from it. . . . The Lord God put the man in the garden of Eden to care for it and work it. . . . [Later] the Lord God called to the man and said, “Where are you?” (Gen 2:7, 15; 3:9)

The preacher asked us to think more broadly. Bobby had responsibilities in life. (He worked for the United States Postal Service. He had a wife and children. He coached little league baseball and basketball.) In the Bible God created the first man and gave him the responsibility of caring for a garden and then gave him a wife and later on children. The preacher asked, “You, too, have responsibilities in life. What are you planting in your garden? Are you being a man not afraid to cry? Are you being a man who gets down on his knees and prays? Are you being a man that says no to drugs and drunkenness? Are you being a man who works at honest employment and not 'street hustle'? Are you being a man who communicates with and appreciates his wife? Are you being a man who shows his son how to live?”

Then he reminded us of the scene in Genesis chapter three. The first man and woman had disobeyed God and had become sinners. God made a sound in the garden to make them aware that he was there. The first human pair became afraid because of their sin. So they ran and hid. God, still desiring a relationship with them, called out, “Adam, where are you?” At just the right time in history, God made a way that sinful humans could have a true relationship with him. God the Father sent God the Son to become a human being, Jesus Christ. Jesus died for our sins and rose again to invite us to stop being God's enemies and to become God's people. Now the message goes forth, “Human being, where are you? Come. Be forgiven of sin. Receive spiritual power. Have a restored relationship with God through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit.”

My friend, what are you planting in your garden?

"Time and chance happen to everyone"

•What are you betting your life on?

In one of their classic slapstick shorts “Dutiful but Dumb” (1941), the Three Stooges wonderfully illustrate a human dilemma. The boys are Click, Clack, and Cluck – photographers working for a glossy journal, Whack; the Illustrated Magazine (“If it’s good picture, it’s out of Whack”).

Moe and Larry bungle getting a photo of a movie star and his bride-to-be in their hotel room. But, through a hole in the center of the table in their room, Curly hides under large dinner platter. He emerges when the movie star removes the lid and snaps a photograph of the frightened couple holding each other and kissing. Curly then rushes the negative to Moe in a dark room for developing. A dialogue ensues:

Moe:    ”How long has it been in the soup, rock head?”

Curly pulls up his sleeve and looks at the time.

Moe:    “Hey, what’s the idea of three watches?”

Curly:  “That’s how I tell time. This one runs ten minutes slow every two hours; this runs twenty minutes fast every four hours; the one in the middle is broken; it stopped at 2:00.”

Moe:    “How do you tell the time?”

Curly:  “I take the ten minutes on this one and subtract it from the twenty minutes on that one, then I divide by two in the middle.”

Disgusted, Moe asks, “What time is it now?”

Curly pulls out an oversized pocket watch and proudly announces, “Ten minutes to four.”

After Moe bongs Curly with the pocket watch, Larry emerges from behind the curtains. He looks in the “soup” and exclaims with great alarm, “I can’t find the negative!”

Moe:    “How about the positive?”

Curly:  “I’m positive about the negative, but I’m a little negative about the positive.”

Moe:    “Oh, negative, eh?”

Curly:  “No, I’m positive the negative is in the developer.”

Moe:    “Your brains need developin’!”

• Time and Chance Happen

In the biblical book of Ecclesiastes the three watches that don’t work and the oversized pocket watch that does work are called “time” or, if we wanted to paraphrase it “uncertain times.” And being positive about the negative in our lives and a little negative about the positive is termed “chance” or, if we wanted to use a paraphrase “unpredictable events.”

In chapter 9, the Thinker observes that life just doesn’t always happen the way we had expected and offers us this poem:

¹¹I also saw something else here on earth:

The fastest runner does not always win the race,

      the strongest soldier does not always win the battle,

the wisest does not always have food,

      the smartest does not always become wealthy,

      and the talented one does not always receive praise.

Time and chance happen to everyone.

¹²No one knows what will happen next.

Like a fish caught in a net,

      or a bird caught in a trap,

people are trapped by evil

      when it suddenly falls on them

In “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)” from the 1980 album Double Fantasy, John Lennon sang to his small son:

Before you cross the street,

Take my hand.

Life is just what happens to you,

While you’re busy making other plans.

Earlier in the song Lennon told his son, “Before you go to sleep, say a little prayer.” Earlier in chapter 9 of Ecclesiastes, the Thinker recognized that the hand of God was at work in the affairs of humanity (verse 1). Both are viewing life not from the perspective of God who sees the end from the beginning, but from the vantage point of life as we live it. Using the words of the Thinker, how can we deal with time (that is, with the uncertain seasons of life) and chance (with unpredictable events that happen while we’re busy making other plans)?

• The Gospel’s Answer to Time and Chance

The Gospel answers this way. Even in the most trying circumstances such as not knowing where your next meal is coming from (Matthew 6:25-33), the Lord instructs us:

³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. ³⁴ Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

The core issue is not the mind and knowledge: what am I going to do? who can I enlist to help me? The primary human issue is love and worship. Whom do I most love? Whom do I most desire? Whom do I worship? To function humanly the supreme object of worship must be our maker and savior – the one perfect in beauty, goodness, justice, and righteousness, God.

God’s kingdom is God’s rule over humanity through his Messiah (“Christ” in Greek), the Lord Jesus. God’s righteousness is the morally upright way to do things in conformity to God’s holy nature. When our heart is focused on God the Creator and Provider, we will then trust in his provision and providence and cast off our anxieties of uncertain times and unpredictable events. We will make honorable plans and live one day at a time. The worries of the past will remain in the past. The worries of tomorrow will stay in tomorrow. We will pray “Give us today our daily bread” and live today with God’s provisions.

• Time and Chance in the Life of Moses

How does such living work out in practice? Consider Moses, a Hebrew (Exodus chapters 1-4). By providence a daughter of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, adopted him as a baby. He grew up with learning and privilege. Around age 40, when he saw an Egyptian unmercifully beating a Hebrew, he killed the oppressor and buried his body in the sand. The next day, realizing that his deed had become known to the Egyptians, he fled eastward to safety in the Midian desert. He was kind to some daughters of the priest of Midian who reported it to their father. The father had the man summoned and a friendship ensued. Moses ended up marrying one of the priest’s daughters, had two sons, and took up the occupation of shepherd. In the meantime, back in Egypt, Egyptian officials had made the Hebrews into slaves and had started to cruelly oppress them. Their desperate cries for rescue rose up to God.

One day when Moses was approximately age 80 (still having the vigor of middle age), he led his flock of sheep far out into the desert and came to Mount Sinai. He came across a bush that was engulfed in flames but didn’t burn up. “This is amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I’ve got to go and take a look.” As Moses stepped closer with his shepherd’s staff in hand, the Lord God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am!” Moses replied.  “Do not come any closer,” the Lord God warned. “Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Out of fear Moses covered his face. The Lord God continued to speak, “I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers. Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh. You must lead my people Israel out of Egypt to a new land flowing with milk and honey.” (Exodus 3:1-10)

Moses mounted a series of objections. His first three protests help us see how to deal with the uncertainties of life. Protest #1: “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt?” God’s answer: “I will be with you.” Despite his objections, Moses made God his supreme love and trust and God was there with him as he went back to Egypt and faced a hostile Pharaoh and all his officials – who had no intention of releasing the slave-nation of Hebrews.

Protest #2: Moses objected, “If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?” God’s answer: “I am who I am. . . . Tell them, I AM has sent me . . . Tell them, YAHWEH has sent me. . .” (Exodus 3:13-15). This is a key passage of Scripture and we will do well to pause here for a while. What does it mean that God is “I am who I am”? Pastor-scholar John Piper finds seven implications [1].

(1) God exists. “I am, I exist, I have being.” Whether we like or not, whether we acknowledge or not, God is there. (2) No reality exists behind God. “I am who I am” is saying that God’s personality and power are owing solely to himself and to no other. (3) God’s nature does not change. “I am who I am,” says the Lord, and, therefore, no forces outside of God can determine who he is. We humans have unforeseen circumstances and often have weak resolution in the face of changing circumstances, but not God.

(4) God is an inexhaustible source of energy. If he is the “I AM” supreme over all outside beings and forces, then he by implication is the creator of all matter, energy, space and time. As Isaiah 40:28 says, “Yahweh is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary.” (5) God says who he is and not us. Thus, God has the exclusive knowledge to communicate the knowledge of who he is. We humans are outside of God and humbly dependent on him. He is there and he is not silent. We have no right to invent ideas of God. He has the exclusive right to communicate them to us. (6) We must conform to God and not he to us. He is the I AM and not us. We must be guided by the Self-Existent One and not suppose that we the dependent ones have the right to impose our will upon him.

There is one more critical implication of the “I AM” nature of God:

. . .this infinite, absolute, self-determining God has drawn near to us in Jesus Christ. In John 8:56-58 Jesus is answering the criticism of the Jewish leaders. He says, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad.” The Jews then said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly! I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”

Could Jesus have taken any more exalted words upon his lips? When Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” he took up all the majestic truth of the name of God, wrapped it in the humility of servanthood, offered himself to atone for all our rebellion, and made a way for us to see the glory of God without fear. [2]

The “I AM” nature of God is shared by God the Father, Jesus who is God the Son, and by the Holy Spirit of God. Since the coming of Christ, we can only come to the Father through the Son. There is no other way. And coming to God, we come to the One who eternally is and cannot not exist. To the One who is self-existent, who will always be there. To the One who is completely dependable because his nature does not change. To the inexhaustible source of energy, who neither slumbers nor sleeps. To the One who makes himself known and to the One with whom we have to deal with. Finally, plagued by evil in ourselves, thank God – we come to God through Christ who died for our sins and rose triumphantly over sin and death.

How can we deal with uncertain seasons and unforeseen circumstances? By trusting in God - who has such almighty strength and absolute firmness of character that the ancient psalmist exclaims, "The Lord is my rock and my fortress" (Psalm 18:2).

There is one more objection that Moses makes. Protest #3: Moses said, “What if they won’t believe me or listen to me? What if they say, ‘The Lord never appeared to you’?” God's answer: Then the Lord asked him, “What is that in your hand?” “A shepherd’s staff,” Moses replied. “Throw it down on the ground,” the Lord told him. So Moses threw down the staff, and it turned into a snake! Moses jumped back. Then the Lord told him, “Reach out and grab its tail.” So Moses reached out and grabbed it, and it turned back into a shepherd’s staff in his hand. “Perform this sign,” the Lord told him. “Then they will believe that the Lord, the God of their ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—really has appeared to you.” (Exodus 4:1-5 NLT)

What is the significance of the shepherd’s staff for Moses? In a TED talk, Rick Warren proposed the answer [3]:

This staff represented three things about Moses’ life. First, it represented his identity. He was a shepherd. It’s the symbol of his own occupation: "I am a shepherd." It’s a symbol of his identity, his career, his job. Second, it’s a symbol of not only his identity; it’s a symbol of his income, because all of his assets are tied up in sheep. In those days nobody had bank accounts, or American Express cards, or hedge funds. Your assets are tied up in your flocks. So it’s a symbol of his identity, and it’s a symbol of his income. And the third thing: it’s a symbol of his influence. What do you do with a shepherd’s staff? Well, you know, you move sheep from point A to point B with it, by hook or by crook. You pull them or you poke them, one or the other. So, He’s saying, “You’re going to lay down your identity. What’s in your hand? You’ve got identity; you’ve got income; you’ve got influence. What’s in your hand?” And He’s saying, “If you lay it down, I’ll make it come alive. I’ll do some things you could never imagine possible.”

Finally, how do you deal with “time and chance”? You take what’s in your hand (including your identity, your income, and your influence) and you use it for the honor of God and the good of humanity.Anxiety recedes as God and others come into sight and significance.

[1] John Piper, “I Am Who I Am,” sermon on Exodus 3:13-15, September 16, 1984

by John Piper, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. http://www.desiringgod.org/sermons/i-am-who-i-am

[2] Ibid.

[3] Here I have benefitted from listening to the TED Talk by Rick Warren, “A life of purpose” filmed February 2006. https://www.ted.com/talks/rick_warren_on_a_life_of_purpose/transcript?language=en

Pics: Three items on public display at Lakeland Gallery, Willoughby, Ohio: Ian Argo, “Forgotten” (photography); Josh Herbert, “Pirate’s Alley” (photography); and Hap Howle, “Fairport Harbor Lighthouse” (painting).

Providential moments that catch you by surprise

• Wanting to make a difference.  

A biomedical researcher, Jennifer Doudna, and her colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley were engaged in rather basic science and were just trying to figure out how bacteria fight the flu. Then they made a discovery that caught them by surprise. They observed that bacteria have special enzymes that can cut open the DNA of an invading virus and make a change in the DNA at the site of the cut — essentially killing the virus.

As Doudna was studying a group of these enzymes, it finally dawned on her: the enzymes had what amounted to a short template inside that could attach to a specific string of letters in the viral DNA. What if she could change the template so that it could recognize any DNA sequence, not just the sequences in viruses? She said, “I thought, wow, if this could work in animal or plant cells, this could be a very, very useful and very powerful tool” for human use.

This genetic tool is called CRISPR/Cas9. With it, you not only can recognize a viral sequence, but you can add to it, change it, or take it out. The Human Genome Project gave biomedical researchers what amounts to the genetic book of life. But what do you do with that information? “You’ve got the book,” says Doudna. “And you can see there’s a word that’s incorrect on page 147, but how do I get there and erase that word and fix it?” [1]

This genetic tool holds the prospect of working inside cells and making changes in specific genes far faster and for far less money than ever before. Doudna admitted, “And honestly, more frequently and recently, as I’ve got a bit older, I guess, you know, and you start to – I don’t know if it’s middle-age crisis or what it is – but, you know, you start to think about, what’s been the real impact of our work, right? Are we solving any problems in society? Are we doing work that’s going to make people’s lives better?” [2]

The researchers were looking were looking at one thing (how bacteria fight the flu) and found another (a genetic tool useful for man). In a 1754 letter to a friend, Horace Walpole coined a term for such scientific discoveries: serendipity (a “fortunate happenstance” or “pleasant surprise”). He referenced a Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip and explained: the princes were “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.” Serendipity for Jennifer Doudna now also means the prospect of making a difference in the world.

• Providential serendipity in days of old

The fortunate occurrence and pleasant surprise has long been true in the kind providence of God with his people. Proverbs 16:9 NLT reminds us, “We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” And Ephesians 3:20-21 ESV holds forth of prospect of providential serendipity with this peon of praise:

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

In 2 Kings Chapter 7, four quarantined men (and, therefore, outcasts from society) enjoyed an occurrence of providential serendipity. And the four didn’t know it, but they had the opportunity to make a difference for society at just the right time.

An enemy regional power, Syria (also called Aram), had placed a land blockade around Samaria, the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel. The Israelites had two choices: starve to death or surrender to a cruel enemy. At that time the average wage of a working man was about a silver shekel a month. Things got so bad in the city of Samaria that a donkey’s head (hardly nutritious) sold for 80 silver shekels and for 5 silver shekels you could buy a quart of dove’s dung (either pigeon’s manure or, based on Akkadian evidence, perhaps a nickname for carob pods). (2 Kings 6:25) [3]

It got worse. The king of Israel was walking along on the city’s protective wall when a woman cried out, “Help (literally “save me”), my lord, O king!” He replied, “If God won’t help (save) you, how can I? Can I allocate grain for you from the empty threshing floor or wine for you from the empty winepress? But, let me ask, what’s your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.” In revolting horror, the king ripped his clothes. Everybody around him could see that, underneath, he was wearing sackcloth (2 Ki 6:26-30). This was a crucial moment for the king: as he tore his clothes, would he engage in contrition and repentance from sin – emblematic of the sackcloth? Or would be the ripping be a form of bitterness and rage?

Sackcloth was coarse, rough, thick cloth made from black goats’ hair and used for sacks as well as worn by people in mourning (Genesis 37:34; 2 Samuel 3:31; Psalm 30:11; 35:13). Even the king felt deep anguish over these desperate conditions and secretly wore the uncomfortable cloth next to his skin. Upon hearing this story of cannibalism (I believe), a thought something like this must have flashed into the king’s mind, “A mother has committed almost an unspeakable crime. And now she wants justice – justice by enforcing this contract to commit further cannibalism. It’s all God’s fault. I know his law threatened punishments like famine if we Israelites engaged in prolonged sin [Lev 26:27-29; Deut 28:52-57]. But with the proper prayers, his prophet Elisha could have gotten us out of these intolerable, wretched conditions.” In any case, the king then ejaculated a curse, “May God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today” (2 Ki 6:31).

The king dispatched an assassin to the house of Elisha, and it so happened that the elders of Israel were sitting inside with him. Elisha receives a vision and warns them, “An executioner is coming. Don’t let him in. The king has to be right behind him.” The assassin does indeed come. In the biblical text, who says what and where is not precisely told. Apparently, the king himself blurted out, “All this misery is from the Lord! Why should I wait any longer for help from the Lord?” (2 Ki 6:32-33).

Elisha replied, “Listen to this message from the Lord! By this time tomorrow in the markets of Samaria, both six quarts of choice flour and twelve quarts of barley grain will cost only one silver shekel.” The officer assisting the king retorted, “That couldn’t happen even if the Lord opened the windows of heaven!” But Elisha the prophet replied, “You will see it happen with your own eyes, but you won’t be able to eat any of it!” (2 Ki 7:1-2).

The king and his entourage break off the murderous attack and return to their quarters. Silently, night starts to fall silently over the city. Four Israelite men with a horrible and contagious skin disease (generically called leprosy) were outside the city gate, living apart from the general population. They were so hungry that sleep was difficult. They finally asked themselves, “We’re at the point of starvation. What can we do? Shall we try to go into the city? There’s no food in there and they just might kill us. Shall we stay where we are? We’ll die for sure. Shall we go over to the camp of the Syrians? Maybe they’ll kill us or just maybe they’ll give us some food. Let’s go over there. That’s our one and only chance.” So at twilight they start walking (2 Ki 7:3-5 NLT).

This little section (2 Ki 7:3-11) has a stair-step structure [4]. We climb up, see what’s really happening, and then climb down:

      Lepers outside the gate, v 3a

            Decision, vv 3b-4

                  Action, v 5

                        Explanation, vv 6-7

                  Action, v 8

            Decision, v 9

      Lepers back to the gate, vv 10-11

The “explanation” allows us to see and hear what the king and his minions are blind to:

For the Lord had caused the Syrian army to hear the clatter of speeding chariots and the galloping of horses and the sounds of a great army approaching. “The king of Israel has hired the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us!” they cried to one another. So they panicked and ran into the night, abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys, and everything else, as they fled for their lives.

Both the king and the prophet acknowledge the infinite, absolute, personal unseen Presence. But the king takes note only of harsh reality and asks, “Where is God?” He doubts or ignores God’s Word. On the other hand, the prophet as the man of faith remembers what God was for his people yesterday. And the prophet also affirms that God is not only the God of the past and of the dead, but God is also the God of the present and of the living. The Lord cannot be manipulated, but he has the freedom to act both in ways that uphold the order of the universe and in ways that surprise his people with blessings. The prophet both proclaims and believes God’s Word.

After pausing at the top of the literary stairs to take in a glimpse of who God really is, we start back down. The lepers arrive at the Syrian army’s camp and no one is there. They go in tent after tent and eat and drink. The hungry and thirsty are satisfied. At the same time they carry off the spoils of war abandoned by the soldiers – silver, gold, and clothing – and hide it as newfound wealth for themselves. Then a fear of God comes over them and they say to each other, “This is not right. This is a day of good news, and we aren’t sharing it with anyone! If we wait until morning, some calamity will certainly fall upon us. Come on, let’s go back and tell the people at the palace.” (2 Ki 7:8-9)

The lepers tell the gate keepers, the gate keepers tell the palace officials, and the king is awakened in the middle of the night for an emergency meeting with his military officers. Fearing the worst, the king urges inaction, “I know what has happened. The Syrians know we are starving, so they have left their camp and have hidden in the fields. They are expecting us to leave the city, and then they will take us alive and capture the city.” Fortunately, one officer either has faith in the word of the prophet or at least is less risk-adverse. He says, "We had better send out scouts to check into this. Let them take five of the remaining horses. If something happens to them, it will be no worse than if they stay here and die with the rest of us.” (2 Ki 7:12-13)

The scouts find solid evidence that the Syrian soldiers have fled in a mad rush somewhere beyond the Jordan River. The scouts return and tell the king, and word spreads. The four men who had long been quarantined with a dreaded skin disease got a welcome surprise after twilight and were privileged to tell some good news which was badly needed. As a result, they were privileged to make a difference in the world. What happened next? The Word of the Lord came true. “Then the people of Samaria rushed out and plundered the Syrian camp. So it was true that six quarts of choice flour were sold that day for one piece of silver, and twelve quarts of barley grain were sold for one piece of silver, just as the Lord had promised. The king appointed his officer to control the traffic at the gate, but he was knocked down and trampled to death as the people rushed out.” (2 Ki 7:14-17).

• Providential serendipity today

What about today? Is there still divine serendipity at work?

In the summer of 1997 a six-person team from the U.S planned a short-term mission to work with a veteran missionary couple (Rick and Melissa) in Russia. [5] The team planned to fly 5000 miles to Moscow, spend the night, then fly south another 1000 miles to the city of Elista, where they were to teach Bible classes at a day camp for local children. A few days before they left the States, the city officials forbad their teaching at the camp. So Rick – the local missionary – came up with the idea of them doing street preaching in Moscow. As the team arrived at the airport in Moscow, Moscow authorities informed Rick that the Americans would only be allowed to spend 24 hours in Moscow.

Trying to come up with an alternative, Rick contacted Vera (a young Christian woman) who lived in a village 50 miles north of Elista. Her village was predominately Buddhist, and these Buddhist villagers were openly hostile to Christians — so hostile that they had tried to murder Vera on two separate occasions. However, when Vera contacted the local school principal, he agreed to allow the team to teach English as a Second Language as long as there was no talk about Jesus while the group was at the school.

One of the women on the team, Diane, reported:

After more than 30 hours traveling, we finally arrived in Elista and learned about Plan C. After a short and restless night’s sleep, we piled into a rusted van for the 50 mile trek along a muddy, rut-filled road to a village that fit the cliché “in the middle of nowhere” to a tee. It’s hard to describe how disoriented and discouraged the team felt during that ride north as we were being jostled from side to side while breathing exhaust fumes coming up through a hole in the van’s floor. Other than myself, no one on the team had any experience teaching English (let alone English as a Second Language), plus we didn’t have any materials written in English with us other than our Bibles, which we were forbidden to us. In our minds, the mission trip was shaping up as a huge disaster.

But God is not the God of the past and of the dead only. He is also the God of the present and of the living. Diane and the team leader along with Rick the missionary went to visit that young Christian woman in the village, Vera. When Rick mentioned that Vera had attended Bible school in Moscow for a couple of years, Diane (quoted above) remembered that her pastor from the States had taught there. Diane asked Vera whether she had known her pastor and said his name. Vera immediately yelled out in excitement the pastor’s name, “Jim, Jim, Jim.” It turned out that Pastor Jim had given to his students a picture of his own congregation back in the States. In the center of that photograph were none other than Diane and her husband.

When Christians and Buddhists in the village heard the story of the photograph, they had to admit that it was by more than chance that the six-person team was there. Providential serendipity was at work. The team taught English in the classroom, played soccer with the village kids in the afternoon, and worshipped outdoors with the Christians at night. The Gospel was not shared in the classes, just like the six-person team had agreed to. But an openness to the Gospel was created in the villagers. Old hostilities had been overcome and a new environment of trust had been built. Two weeks later, missionary Rick took another team to that same village who were able to openly share the Gospel. As a result, nearly every villager placed his or her faith in Christ. The first team originally thought that their mission would be a failure. They came back to America understanding providential serendipity and having the privilege of making a difference in the world.

[1] Joe Palca, “In Hopes of Fixing Faulty Genes, One Scientist Starts With the Basics,” NPR Morning Edition, October 13, 2014. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/10/13/354934248/in-hopes-of-fixing-faulty-genes-one-scientist-starts-with-the-basics

[2] Ibid., transcript.

[3] Dale Ralph Davis, 2 Kings (Christian Focus Publications, Ltd.: Fearn, Ross-shire, 2005), p 118.

[4] Ibid. p 123.

[5] Diane Singer, “God’s Serendipity,” Christian Worldview Journal, January 7, 2013.

http://www.colsoncenter.org/the-center/columns/changepoint/19046-gods-serendipity

Art work: (head) Sharon Wagner, “Hang your hat; don’t turn your back” and (animals) Michael W. High, “Fascination” part of the exhibit “CLAY . . . Not the Usual Suspects,” the Gallery, Lakeland Community College, Kirtland, Ohio, September 25 to November 7, 2014.

Memory and history, and the first step of the Gospel

•Memory and History.

One nephew of mine asked about the relationship of memory and history. Because this has been an important topic in biblical studies since the turn of the century, I’d like to do a post on the subject.

1. Memory is recalling experiences from the past. These may be either your personal experiences or else the experiences you’ve heard or read from other people, including formal education. The recalling may be random or organized and may involve merely recalling or both recalling and retelling.

2. History is a subset of memory. History is the selective retelling and/or recording of memories (recalling of experiences from the past) that have significance. These are told by a speaker or writer who has a particular point of view which will somehow shape and color the retelling. The experiences may or may not have happened as the history teller says. The retelling involves oral history in pre-literate societies and includes documents in literate societies. When history tellers believe that there is such a thing as truth, they typically strive to be “objective” and evidence-based. However, point of view and selection of which evidence to tell remain.

3. Historians of all stripes now accept this as a truism: “All history – meaning all the historians write, all historiography – is an inextricable combination of fact and interpretation, the empirically observable and the intuited or constructed meaning.” — Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans, 2006) PDF version p 12.

4. History can be told through various forms, including poetry. For instance, as a child in Midwestern United States, I learned this school age rhyme:

In fourteen hundred ninety-two

Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

He had three ships and left from Spain;

He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.

He sailed by night; he sailed by day;

He used the stars to find his way.

5. Families, ethnic groups, societies, and nations typically have histories that serve as a self-identity for the group. In the U.S. we have “the American story.” Religions and cultures provide an overarching framework by which individuals may view reality. In postmodern theory this framework is called a metanarrative (a grand history or grand story). Postmodernism proposes a grand narrative of the end of all grand narratives in favor of small, local narratives. It thereby has its own metanarrative and, as a philosophy, is self-refuting.

•History and the Gospel.

Because of my interest in biblical studies, I would to add several particulars.

6. In an address to the International Congress of Old Testament Studies meeting in Edinburgh in 1974, M. H. Goshen-Gottstein of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem did a survey of academic Bible study from 1500 to 1974 [1]. This is one of his conclusions (and I paraphrase): Since World War II, in order for Jews (liberal and conservative), Christians (liberal and conservative), unbelievers and atheists to have harmony in the academic study of the Bible and in their scholarly meetings, the various disciplines related to Bible study deal only with secondary issues rather than the main issue, which is: what is the message of the Bible?

For Jews, Goshen-Gottstein cites an old midrash which said, “Since the Holy One, praised be He, foresaw that the nations are going to translate the Torah and read it in Greek, and they will say ‘We are Israel’ . . . He said unto them: ‘You maintain that you are my children? . . . Only those who guard my ‘mysteries’ are my children.’ What is that? The Mishnah.” [2]

In the New Testament Jesus Christ said, “The (Hebrew) Scriptures . . . testify about me” (John 5:39). Goshen-Gottstein wrote:

It should be borne in mind that no system of biblical theology can exist in vacuo. Exegesis cannot be divorced from theology—and vice versa. . . . Franz Delitzsch [spelled out the very truth, which] Luther had expressed centuries earlier: if the exegete ceases even for one moment to disregard the presence of Christ in the Old Testament as an exegete, he ceases being a Christian. [3]

Unbelieving humanists say with the pre-Socratic philosopher, Protagoras, “Humanity is the measure of all things.” That is, no truth exists except what individuals or groups deem to be the truth. Atheists adhere to materialism and deny any possibility of miracles or revelation from God. “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.” [4]

[1] M. H. Goshen-Gottstein, “Christianity, Judaism, and Modern Bible Study,” Supplement to Vetus Testamentum 28 (1975), pp 69-88.

[2] Ibid., p 75.

[3] Ibid., p 81.

[4] Carl Sagan, “Cosmos: A Personal Journey” (TV series), 1980, Episode 1.

7. In “Story as History – History as Story; The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History” (2000) Samuel Byrskog shows that Greco-Roman historians – such as Thucydides, Polybius, Josephus, and Tacitus – believed that true history could be written only while events were still within living memory, and they valued as their sources the oral reports of direct experiences of the events by participants. And it was better yet that the historian was one of those participants. [Bauckham, PDP version p 15]

8. In the New Testament, the four gospels and Acts have the genre of ancient biography and history. In 2006 Richard Bauckham, New Testament professor at St. Andrews University in Scotland (now emeritus), came out with a book, “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony” (referenced above.) I now quote from an unpublished lecture of Bauckham’s available on his website as “Denver.pdf.” The lecture was given after the publication of the book. Bauckham says:

The first point I want to make is that the Gospels are not based on what detached observers of the events said, but on what participants in the events remembered and recounted. One modern response to that could be to say that it’s very subjective, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be much better to hear the evidence of uninvolved observers?

Well, ancient historians certainly did not think so. What they valued was the testimony of eyewitness participants in the events, people who could speak of the events, as it were, from the inside. Moreover, this is what oral historians today are after: they want to know what it was like for people involved in the events. The detached observer often doesn’t remember much anyways, while there’s a lot that we simply could not know about historical events except from insiders.

Such insiders are, of course, people who were affected by the events. In the case of the events narrated in the Gospels, for those who told the stories. In the book [Jesus and the Eyewitnesses] I use as a kind of parallel the modern example of testimony by survivors of the Holocaust. [Without the testimony of survivors, we wouldn’t know what it really was like.]

9. Skeptics use ridicule as the tool of choice to defeat people who dare to defend biblical history as true history. For example, Philip Davies, Emeritus Professor, University of Sheffield, England, denies the historicity of Abraham and the patriarchs, Moses and the Exodus, Israel’s wandering in the wilderness and conquest of Canaan. He is doubtful about the existence of David and Solomon. In the article, “Biblical History and Cultural Memory” (April 2009) http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/memory.shtml he writes:

For it is still the common popular view that the Bible relates real events, and this belief is the result of complacency, laziness, and poor education about the Bible among those for whom biblical scholarship is alien (this includes a few of my university colleagues). Nevertheless, among biblical scholars, we should recognize that the major differences in evaluation of biblical narratives between “conservatives” and “radical” (or whatever the terms) can nearly always be identified with the role and importance of the biblical story as part of contemporary Jewish or Christian cultural memory.

That is to say, only skeptics know what the real events of history are. All the rest of us are either complacent, lazy, and poorly educated or else we are scholars driven by religious ideology. In contrast, educated skeptics are, in the field of history, as pure as the driven snow and their thinking is free from ideology.

The first step of the Gospel is humility and that first step is one step that no skeptic will take. Jesus said (Luke 18:10-14):

Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

The skeptic walks the earth and proclaims, “I am so very thankful that I’m engaged, diligent, and well educated, and that I’m not like those Christian scholars over there on and off campus: humble and praying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.'"

When we suffer the loss of someone close - part 2

• How do I get on with life?

On June 14, 2007, at age 87, after 63 years of marriage to evangelist Billy Graham,– Ruth Bell Graham died. As someone not close to the family or to Rev. Graham’s organization, it was just plain uplifting for me to read of the homespun humor, refreshing realism, and resolute dedication of Mrs. Graham. She had an amazing commitment to her Savior, her children, her grandchildren, her friends and relatives, the disadvantaged, her husband’s ministry, and the worldwide church of the living God.

Billy and Ruth graduated from college in Illinois together in June 1943 and were married on Friday, August 13, 1943, in North Carolina. An obituary continues the story:

Returning from their honeymoon, Ruth fell sick, but instead of calling to cancel his preaching engagement in Ohio to stay by her bedside, Billy checked Ruth into a hospital and kept the speaking appointment, sending her a telegram and a box of candy.

So began her adjustment to her husband’s intense calling to preach, which meant extended times of separation. Yet “I’d rather have Bill part-time,” she often said, “than anybody else full-time.” …

When Billy warmly recalled his meeting with the president of Mexico—”He even embraced me”—Ruth quickly added, “Oh, Bill, don’t be flattered. He did that to Castro, too.”

Yet she never tried to place herself in the spotlight: “That’s not my wad of gum.” …

Perhaps the best assessment of her contributions, however, came from the late T. W. Wilson, a boyhood friend of Billy’s who became a trusted member of his evangelistic team.

“There would have been no Billy Graham as we know him today had it not been for Ruth,” he said. “They have been a great team.” [1]

But I wondered: How would the loss of Ruth be for Mr. Graham himself? What would he himself do to get on with life? In a couple of chapters in his book, Nearing Home (written in 2011 at age 92), he told us. [2]

In part two of this online journal, we ask: when gnawing aloneness and aching grief have become our companions because of the death of someone close, what practical counsel may we follow? Billy’s example is a beacon that illumines the pathway ahead. I’m expressing the basic points in my own words, but I’m using his superb illustrations.

• Why did my dear one have to be the one to die first? Billy told how the epitaph to his wife’s grave had been selected (p 95):

            Long before she became bedridden, she was driving along a highway through a construction site. Carefully following the detours and mile-by-mile cautionary signs, she came to the last one that said, “End of Construction. Thank you for your patience.” She arrived home, chuckling and telling the family about the posting. “When I die,” she said, “I want that engraved on my stone.”

      … we appreciated the truth she conveyed through those few words. Every human being is under construction from conception to death. Each life is made up of mistakes and learning, waiting and growing, practicing patience and being persistent. At the end of construction—death—we have completed the process.

If God hasn’t taken us, he has a reason. There is a purpose for us no matter how basic. There is a ministry for us no matter how small. Find that purpose and fulfill it. Discover that ministry and do it. God’s the superintendent. We are the workers. “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:1b-2).

• How deeply I still miss my dear one. Ruth died in 2007 and in 2011 Billy penned these lines (p 99):

      As I write this it has been four years since Ruth went home to be with the Lord. I feel her loss more keenly now. Not a day passes that I don’t imagine her walking through my study door or us sitting together on our porch as we did so often, holding hands as the sun set over the mountaintops.

Moping and morbidity are wrong-headed. But a love that rightly cherishes someone dear is good and proper.

• Look ahead. There’s a bright day coming. Along with his sense of loss, Rev. Graham notes (p 100):

Mingled with my grief is a new sense of expectancy—the certain knowledge that someday soon the Lord will come for me also, and before long Ruth and I will be reunited in Heaven. More than ever, I look forward to that day!

In her long separations from her husband, Ruth Bell Graham composed a poem, “Closing Doors,” that also speaks to the separation that death brings:

We live a time secure;

Beloved and loving, sure.

It cannot last for long, then

the goodbyes come again - again.

Like a small death... the closing of a door.

One looks ahead, not back - never back... only before

And Joy will come again... warm and secure.

If only for the now, laughing we endure.

• Resolve, though by fits and starts, to take the way forward. The word “grief” is related to the French word “grève,” meaning a heavy burden. The separation brought by death can make life very difficult and burdensome, and there are no easy answers or simple solutions. But there is a way forward. Billy Graham has done it, and we can walk that same path of faith, hope, and love. Billy told us what he does: I accept my feelings, I look toward the future, I help others, I keep in touch with friends, and I turn to God (pp 101-108).

• Remember to keep first things first. C.S. Lewis explained the futility of not doing so:

The woman who makes a dog the centre of her life loses, in the end, not only her human usefulness and dignity but even the proper pleasure of dog-keeping. The man who makes alcohol his chief good loses not only his job but his palate and all power of enjoying the earlier (and only pleasurable) levels of intoxication.

It is a glorious thing to feel for a moment or two that the whole meaning of the universe is summed up in one woman [or one man]—glorious so long as other duties and pleasures keep tearing you away from her [or him]…. [But, by and by, you will discover this principle:]

every preference of a small good to a great, or partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice is made…. You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first. [3]

And what is of first importance? The crucial thing, Billy Graham said in Nearing Home, is spelled out in the last will and testament of renowned banker, J.P. Morgan, who died in 1913 and whose will was published in the New York Times (p 68). In part, Morgan had written to his children (Times 5/20/1913):

I commit my soul into the hands of my Saviour, in full confidence that ― having redeemed it and washed it in His most precious blood ― He will present it faultless before the throne of my Heavenly Father.

[1] Marshall Shelley, “Ruth Graham Dies at 87,” Christianity Today (web-only), June 14, 2007

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/juneweb-only/124-43.0.html?paging=off

[2] Billy Graham, Nearing Home. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011.

[3] C.S. Lewis, “First and Second Things,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Eerdmans, 1994), p. 280. Cited by http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2010/07/28/the-first-things-first-principle/

When we suffer the loss of someone close - part 1

• Jesus wept

At a veterans event a year ago in Leadville, Colorado, special tribute was paid to a Leadville native killed at age 19 in Fallujah, Iraq. Before the event NPR Saturday Edition very respectfully interviewed his father by phone at the father’s kitchen table. At one point the host asked whether his son had mentioned why he had joined the Marines. The father replied, “Felt he could make a difference. You know, he was killed December 16, 2006. I don’t know. Everybody says it should get easier, but it don’t.” [1]

When through death we have lost someone very dear to us, what word does the Gospel speak to us in our struggles and what practical counsel may be offered?

In part one we ask: when gnawing aloneness and aching grief have become our companions because of the death of someone close, what message does the Gospel bring? In John chapter 11, a grieving woman says to Jesus, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” The surrounding passage gives the Gospel’s four-fold message to people like her who are beset with sorrow due to the death of someone near and dear.

• Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is deeply troubled by death (John 11:33).

In Bethany, two miles from Jerusalem, in the province of Judea, lived a man, Lazarus, and his two sisters, Mary and Martha. Jesus had such a close relationship with them that it was as if they were his very close biological brother and sisters. Lazarus became deathly sick and the sisters summoned Jesus. Two days later Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s go to Judea.” “No, Rabbi [teacher],” they protested, “you don’t want to do that. The authorities will arrest you and then stone you to death.” Jesus replied in effect, “It’s part of my mission to do this. You’ll see.” When they come near Bethany, Martha goes out to meet them. The group goes on to the two sisters’ house where Mary her sister and other people are grieving. When Mary went outside to meet Jesus, other people followed her, and all came weeping. Seeing the scene, Jesus was “was deeply moved [could also be translated “was deeply angry”] in his spirit and greatly troubled” (John 11:33).

Why was Jesus deeply moved (or angry) and greatly troubled? He had publically taught on the trip he had just made to Jerusalem (John 10:7-10), “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” The mission of Jesus was to bring life to people. That is why he came. The death of people was profoundly troubling and contrary to his mission. When we face our own death or face the death of someone else, he feels our anguish and misgivings.

• Jesus Christ, the Son of God, wept (John 11:35).

Having become deeply moved and greatly troubled, Jesus asked the group outside Mary and Martha’s house, “Where did you bury him?” They replied, “Come and see.” Whereupon the Gospel text tersely states, “Jesus wept.” Again, we might ask, why? The immediate context explains (John 11:5), ”Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” In the context of the entire book, it’s important to remember that (1) the Father and Son are one in nature: Jesus had said, “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58) and “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30). And yet (2) they are distinct persons: “In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me” (John 8:17-18). As a result, the love of God (who is one) includes that of both the Father and the Son:

      “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16)

      (Jesus to the disciples:) “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you (John 15:9).

Our sadness – whether we are dealing with the death of someone close to us or facing any other circumstance -- touches Jesus deeply. His compassion moved him to tears.

• Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).

We need to back up in bit in the story to the point before which Jesus met Mary and the people with her. As Jesus was approaching Bethany, Lazarus had lain dead in the tomb for four days. And Martha, the other sister, had come out to meet him. This is the conversation that took place (John 11:23-27, quote):

Jesus said to her [Martha], “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

Martha then sent a message for Mary to come to meet Jesus and other people followed her. Then everybody went to the tomb of Lazarus. The tomb was a cave and Jesus said, “Roll away the stone.” Martha objected, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” But, at Jesus’ insistence, they took away the stone to the opening of the tomb. After looking heavenward and praying, Jesus yelled, “Lazarus, come out.” Wrapped tightly in his grave clothes, he dead man walked out alive.

This miracle was meant to be a sign: Jesus the Christ (the Messiah), the Son of God, is the resurrection and the life. He not only gives spiritual life now to those who are spiritually dead because of sin, but he shows he has the power to resurrect to eternal life on the last day all those who believe in him. Although we are powerless over sin and death, he has the power to come to the rescue.

• Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died as the one for the many (John 11:50).

As was true for many of the people groups throughout the Mediterranean Sea at the time, the Jewish nation had no independence but was ruled by overlords appointed by Rome, along with Roman soldiers strategically stationed to enforce that rule. The little freedom the Jewish national authorities did have could be threatened by civil unrest. These authorities were aware of Jesus’ miracles. He had just publicly and unmistakably healed a blind man (John 9). Now he had publicly and unmistakably raised a man from the dead (John 11). He was positioned to garner followers who might cause unrest. So the authorities met in council and said (John 11:47-48), “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” In the give and take of the discussion, Caiaphas, the high priest that year declared (11:49-50), “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” The apostle John saw this as a unwitting prophetic utterance. Earlier in the Good Shepherd discourse, Jesus had said (11:14-18) using pastoral images from the everyday lives of his hearers:

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold [the Jewish nation]. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”

The upshot: Jesus will voluntarily die, the good shepherd (the one) for the sheep (the many). The sheep are not just from among the Jews but from all nations. After he voluntarily lays down his life, he will take it back again. The Gospel began with the eternal Word of God, who was with God and was God, becoming a human being, Jesus (John 1:1,14). John the Baptist saw him and declared to everyone standing there, “Look, there is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world…. I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and he remained on him” (John 1:29,32). Now Jesus will fulfill his mission: die on the cross as a sacrificial lamb, rise again in glory, and ascend to the Father as the risen Lord (John chapters 18-20).

In our loss of a loved one, at first all we may see is death. This was how it was with the disciples of Jesus at the cross. They had envisioned the Christ (the Messiah) as a conquering military hero come to free the Jewish nation from their Roman overlords. They had hoped things would work out differently, but it didn’t happen.

All the disciples saw was crucifixion, but what they did not see in Jesus' crucifixion is that God was submitting himself to and participating in a world where so much fails to work out the way we want or plan or expect. He doesn't stand aloof, accepting the results. God is not a spectator in heaven, untouched by suffering, pain and death. God enters our world of crucifixion and makes it a world of resurrection. [2]

As the risen Lord, he asks you and me the same question which he asked Martha, “Do you believe this?” If we do, we like Martha will answer, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” And we will receive the comfort of the Gospel. (1) Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is troubled by death, including the death of those near and dear to us. (2) As the Eternal Word come as a human being, he feels the grief which we ourselves feel. (3) As the Christ (the Messiah), the Son of God, he himself is the resurrection and the life. (4) He died on the cross as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and who has been anointed with the Spirit. He rose again and was glorified in heavenly session with the Father. He now invites us to believe the Gospel and to trust in him for spiritual life and peace and joy in the present age and for eternal life and peace and joy in the age to come. At the last day there will be a resurrection and believers of all ages will be united forever in the presence of the living God – Father, Son, and Spirit.

[1] “Colorado Event Honors Iraq War Hero,” NPR Saturday Edition, August 31, 2013. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=217511142

[2] Scott Carney, “Death, Resurrection, and Carlton Fisk's World Series Home Run,” Christianity Today (web), August 5, 2014. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/august-web-only/death-resurrection-and-carlton-fisks-world-series-homerun.html