Nietzsche...

We live as though God is dead, and we celebrate.  We do whatever we please and pretend that consequence does not exist...I mean, how could it if there is no God.  Nietzsche is credited with popularizing the notion that God is dead, but his conclusions were not celebratory.  With the Death of God, Nietzsche correctly predicted the bloodiest century ever as man strove to take the place of God, with no guiding morals or meaning.

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

—Nietzsche, The Gay Science

I should admit here that I haven't studied enough of Nietzsche to be sure that I'm giving his thoughts the correct context.  However, what I read seems to point at some truth.  This next quote points to the notion that the world is not as it should be.  And in the previous quote, he hints that man is not worthy of this Godly status.

A nihilist is a man who judges that the real world ought not to be, and that the world as it ought to be does not exist.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, KSA 12:9 [60],

Like all thoughts that lead us astray, there is truth in what he speaks.  These are the conclusions of a man who sees Darkness but lacks the ability to hope for the Light.  God is not dead, he is surely alive, risen in fact.  To say that God is dead is to say that Good and Evil do not exist.  Who can look at the world and say this?  And while we may rage against injustice and shake our fists (at God) at the unfairness of it all, we should at least allow the possibility that if we can sense Good and Evil, a defining morality, that there may in fact be a definer.  

Doctrine, The Word and Family.

At this point in my life, I have heard and read the story of Jesus' birth 100's or even 1000's of times.  I have always had a reaction to hearing or reading the word of God.  As a boy, though, most of the wonder and meaning in the Bible escaped me.  Combined with lots of religious talk and endless sermons I was left both bored and blurred.  However, the story of Jesus birth never lost it's ability to draw me in.   Later, in my rebel years, and as I wandered from the God who loved me, I still had a reaction to the Bible.  I would mock the word of God and profess a casual relationship with Jesus.  "Jesus and I have a deal."  I would say smartly and cynically.  I could attack passages in Genesis, Deuteronomy and Ephesians.  But I could not ever bring myself to attempt to undo the story or the words of Jesus.  Lost as I was, I wasn't ready to give up everything.

The Bible is a living thing.  It provokes reaction. Tonight at Christmas service, hearing that same story again, my heart swelled.  Before I believed, my heart would bristle at the word of God in an attempt to assert my own desires over God's desires for me.  Now when I hear the word of God my heart leaps at the sound of his voice.  Because I believe God loves me and has saved me, I am eager to hear his voice and read his words.  I never understood the Bible before, because I didn't understand who Jesus is.  After church tonight my siblings and I got into an awkward discussion on doctrine.  I struggled to find good words to explain why I believe what I believe.  I was attempting to explain a church doctrine without talking first about the glorious redeeming savior that is Jesus.  I failed because I started with a position and not Jesus.  Doctrine only has relevance and context if we understand who Jesus is.  I believe in Biblical truth because I believe Jesus was who he said he was.  I didn't make a choice to live a certain way because he was a good teacher.  No I have had the experience of a personal savior who rescued me and now that determines how I view everything.  Jesus is the very lens through which I view the world.  Doctrinally speaking, that leaves me having to trust in his word, even if I struggle with it.  If he were only a teacher, I could pick and choose what is comfortable.  But since he is my savior, I do not have that option...it's an all or nothing deal.  That also puts a burden on me to study harder, engage and love others more and to pray fervently for his will over my own.

My family is so weird about religion and church related stuff, and I think I may be viewed now as the weirdest one.  We clinch up around each other and stumble over simple expressions of faith.  Most of us are guarded when these topics come up.  We believe in Jesus, but it is in the realm of personal beliefs and practices that thinks get murky and awkward.  There is a lovely civility though and while we aren't all quite on the same page, we do want to understand each other.  I pray for a day when we can enter in to open discussions about the person of Jesus Christ and what real belief and surrender looks like in our lives.  I pray that God grants me humility and a gracious tongue as we gather together.  I pray for Community with my loved ones.  I don't want to be the weird brother, but that horse may be well out of the barn.  If that is the title, I hope it also means that I preached the good news of Jesus. Merry Christmas.

Clumsy.

It is better to speak clumsily
And be thought full of light
Than to convince and construct carefully
Striving to be full of right.

Source of Love.

We all believe in Love.  We participate in it without being able to define it.  On a functional level, we acknowledge Love is truth.  We need it, we seek it, we behave badly because of it.  It compels us, drives us and also brings out the best in us.  

It's not the existence of Love that we disagree upon.  What we disagree about is the source.  Have you spent enough time considering where Love comes from, and who it serves?  Some might explain Love as a sequence of chemical reactions serving an evolutionary end. Some keep love at a distance, making it the random functions of the Universe at large.  We cannot deny it's existence even as we strain to understand. Whatever explanation we come up with, true definition remains elusive.

Once again, Christianity provides a personal,  fuller, more complete explanation for Love and it's source.  It is no less mysterious, but also no less true when we say "God is Love".  

1 John 4:

16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

Belief and Trust.

A friend recently posed the prompt:  What is the difference between believing and trusting (as it pertains to God)?  Good question.  The right question.  It made me think of a lot of different things.  The first thing I thought of is how important it is in our spiritual journeys to be asking the right questions.  As we mature in Christ, he brings about these questions.  A surrendered faith produces a strange freedom to find these searches into the uncomfortable.  I hope that is where my friend is...being made uncomfortable by his Savior.
But now the question at hand.  As I began to chew on the implications I visualized a door.  Before one believes, he or she is outside a door.  Before we believe, we are drawn to this door.  For some of us we are drawn time and time again, compelled to enter yet rejecting it.  We are afraid to walk through.  We are afraid to be disappointed.  What if we walk through and there is nothing there?  What if we give ourselves to Belief and are let down?  The beautiful thing about this journey into belief is that it is at least 50% God calling to us to him (probably 100%).  What I mean to say is that first believing is less like a choice and more like a revealing.  We wander into that door, forgetting it was there or feeling like it is our only option left.

Revelation 3
20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

Believing in Christ justifies us, makes us righteous by his power and sacrifice.  But once inside belief we begin this process of being sanctified.  This is where we learn what trust is.  It's possible to believe in God, but fail to trust him.  We can believe that Jesus is real, but fail to depend on him.   If you don't believe God loves you, then you cannot trust him with your relationships.  If you don't believe God is sovereign, then you fail to trust him with your choices. God's personal nature forces the issue though and he will not leave us as we are.  God has so much goodness waiting for us if we can continue on to fully trusting him with our very lives.  We seem content to just be joining the party, but our Father is calling us to his table.  We always stop short of the fullness of his Love.  The world we live in works against us, through its parade of broken relationships and culture of prosperity and independence.  People are untrustworthy, and often unworthy.  But we shall love them anyway, because Jesus loves us.  It is in these interactions with the people around us, our neighbors, that we learn how to display our trust for God.  We give ourselves to those around us and expect God to show up.  You will know you are close to the Father's Will when you  begin Loving others with no regard for what you will get in return, nor concern with your well being.  On the other side of Trust is a wonderful place where you don't consider yourself or what trust is at all.  No, instead you are completely responsive to his Will.  You are not only in the door, at the party, but you are now a grand host and delighted to be in the service of your Loving Father.
<Thanks to Celeste for helping me clarify these thoughts>

1 John 3

16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children,let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

Excruciating.

Excruciating- Intense physical pain and/or agony.

It is the pain that keeps many from believing.  We look at the world around us and see so much suffering and worse yet, we feel it in our own lives in a very real way and it seems reasonable to say, "God, if you are real, where are you?"

Take another look at the Cross.

In Jesus Christ we have God's answer.  There at the very crossing of heaven and earth, we have a very real expression of suffering.  We have God himself in the most visceral of ways expressing that he is here with us.

Is pain and suffering hard to endure, hard to explain and hard to take?  Yes, of course.  I don't understand why things are the way they are, but to eliminate God leaves me to suffer all alone.  And to remove God leaves me with no explanation of this Love that persists.  Only in Jesus do we have answers for both Love and Suffering.  Jesus understands our suffering, and put himself in it.  That is why his death matters.   If we can believe he is with us, then we can find hope that he will someday relieve our pain.  That is why the Resurrection matters.

Excruciating- Out of the Cross, a pain like the pain of crucifixion.
Immanuel - God with us.

John 10:
17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

Revelation 21: 3
 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Vessel 1.

Trying to hold on to Beauty is as difficult as trying to describe it. Like trying to capture and store up God's Love, you would be better served and more content if you did your best to just pass it on.

Improvement.

There are no shortage of resources dedicated to DIY, home improvement and self improvement on TV, webernets and printed materials.  Even items on the topic of relationships seem to be entirely self-focused.  It seems rather obvious as I reflect on it now, but our own obsessions with our own improvement needs are a means of ignoring the needs of others.  God has set aside time and resources for me to pour out on my neighbors and I have filled that time with projects and distractions.  (Even now this blog entry seems indulgent.)

 People are messy, with far more potential for disaster than any home improvement project.  A lingering plumbing issue with 18 trips back and forth to Home Depot is joyful in comparison to really investing in the lives of the people around you.  More than that, at it's worst my broken shower will be resolved one way or the other.  The broken people around me and even my own broken heart may not be completely resolved in this lifetime.

So why then shall we engage dear Christians?  "Jesus", seems like an oversimplified answer.  But as always, he is the right answer.  We can respond to the desire to do good that God has built within us.  We can do it in the name of societal improvement.  We can do it to gain favor with others.  However if we don't understand where this Love for others comes from, we will quickly run out of steam.  Our good intentions will become corrupted by bitterness and resentment.  After we have done everything right, followed every instruction and finally turn on the water, we will be showered with defeat.  Its not about the works, its about our hope and who we find hope.  We must invest in each other because we are working towards something, because we are responding to being loved ourselves.  Heaven is imprinted on our hearts.  We must not wait for it to be revealed, we must expose it to give the world a glimpse of our Saviors love for this world.  As broken of a project as this world seems, it is worth the effort and worthy of our Love because Jesus has made it so.

Matthew 25

The Sheep and the Goats

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Forgiveness 1.0.

Forgiveness is the means by which we become a new creation.  Christ makes us new by his forgiveness.  Accepting this forgiveness, accepting Jesus Christ himself allows us to shed our former self.  When we see Jesus for who and what he really is, we are made new.  When we accept Jesus, this happens once and for all, however we are not done.  Rather, once in his grasp, it is clear that he is not done with us.  We have much to shed, and if we look to him and what he has done for us we may continually grow into our real self, the version of us that God has always intended us to be.  We may forgive others only when we know that we have been forgiven, otherwise it is only pretense.

When we forgive others we are releasing them from the barriers that are preventing them from shedding a dying version of themselves.  It is by the Christ is in us that we are helping them become new.  Each time we can forgive in his name, we too shed a decaying version of ourselves, and step into a new version that is closer to Jesus himself.  A person that stands before you in need of forgiveness is not the person that hurt you.  However, this person must wear the sins of their former self like a rotting carcass, aching to be released.  If you can release them, you acknowledge the new version and choose to interact with this new version and choose to let the old version fade.  If you say you forgive, yet keep interacting with the former, still angry, still hurt, it's like keeping a dead body around.  It will only rot, smell and prevent anyone from moving on.  In the same way, a person that keeps going back to a former version of themselves invites death and cannot be released.

Within the beautiful tension of Christianity we have the concept of Forgiveness.  It is the primary means by which heal and are healed.  The paradox that hinders us is this:  those that need forgiveness may not be able to become worthy of  forgiveness until after they have been forgiven.  I will never be worthy of Christ's forgiveness, however I cannot come close to healing and useful until I have accepted this forgiveness.  We Love because he first Loved us.

2 Corinthians 5  

14For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:^a The old has gone, the new is here!18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin^b for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Do better now, my child...

I find this poem devastating...

He came to my desk with a quivering lip, 
the lesson was done. 
“Have you a new sheet for me, dear teacher? 
I’ve spoiled this one.”
 I took his sheet, all soiled and blotted, 
And gave him a new one all unspotted.
 And into his tired heart I cried, 
“Do better now, my child.”

I went to the throne with a trembling heart,
 the day was done.
 “Have you a new day for me, dear Master?
 I’ve spoiled this one.”
 He took my day, all soiled and blotted, 
and gave me a new one all unspotted. 
And into my tired heart he cried, 
“Do better now, my child.”

Attributed to Katherine Wheeler

Moonshine.

The moon has no choice but to reflect the sun. Even though the light that shines from it is not its own, it is a better version of itself because of that light. Christ is the light that keeps us from being a cold, lifeless and lonely stone.

Claim.

There is no getting around the contradiction. It may be THE reason that the world has a problem with Christians. We lay claim to a perfection that is not our own. At times we handle it poorly: we judge, we condemn, we fail to Love. Frequently, we make the suggestion that we have earned this perfection. But nothing is more repulsive than when someone is vehemently laying claim to something they did not do.

We may lay a legitimate claim to Christ’s perfection for only one reason: God wants it that way. In fact that is the only way it can happen. It is the only way he can be with us and us with him. We are that bad and he is that good. We are that loved and he is that loving. That is what should change our lives. That is what should make Christians the most beautifully humble and loving creatures in creation. When we get it right, or when humans in general get it right, it is breathtaking.

We claim perfection, not in spite of, but because of our imperfection. It is the very nature of Salvation that we are rescued from something that we would otherwise have no escape.