Astounded by the Resurrection - and Newsweek and MSN!

A few minutes ago I logged on to the Internet, and on the MSN homepage, all the featured articles were about Easter, the resurrection, and heaven! I read this one from Newsweek magazine, and despite being written by a self-professed "literal-minded skeptic," the author actually seems to get it right.

Leading into a summary of her book Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife, Lisa Miller begins thus:

It's Easter—that most pleasant of springtime holidays—when children stuff themselves with marshmallows and stain their fingers with pastel dyes. In reality, of course, Easter is about something darker and more fantastic. It's a celebration of the final act of the Passion, in which Jesus rose from his tomb in his body three days after his execution, to reside in heaven with God. The Gospels insist on the veracity of this supernatural event. The risen Lord "ate barbecued fish [Luke] and walked through doors [John]," is how a friend of mine, an Episcopalian priest, puts it. This rising—the Resurrection—remains at the center of the Christian faith, the narrative climax of every creed. Jesus died and rose again so that all his followers could, eventually, do the same. This story has strained the credulity of even the most devoted believer. For, truly, it's unbelievable.

She goes on to show how easily people find the idea of a physical, bodily resurrection absurd or incredible, preferring options such as metaphor or some sort of vague "spiritual newness." But these just don't cut it (aided by, of course, N.T. Wright). "Resurrection may be unbelievable, but belief in a traditional heaven requires it."

She seems to finish strong with a quote from Harvard Divinity School professor Jon Levenson, himself a Jew: "It's no use to ask, 'If I had a lab at MIT, how would I try to resurrect a body?' The belief in resurrection is more radical. It's a supernatural event. It's a special act of grace or of kindness on God's part."

Sadly, she ends by saying, "For my part, I don't buy it." But what a wonderful testimony that God the truth of God is not far from any of us, so that people "would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him" (Acts 17:27).

On the Covenant of Redemption

Thinking more and more about John 17 and being "given to Jesus," I went back to my bookshelf as I recalled words that had impacted me in the past. Here are a few morsels I found.

The covenant of redemption . . . is an eternal pact between the persons of the Trinity. The Father elects a people in the Son as their mediator to be brought to saving faith through the Spirit. . . . Our salvation, therefore, arises first of all out of the joint solidarity of the divine persons. The joy of giving and receiving experienced by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit spills over, as it were, into the Creator-creature relationship. In the covenant of redemption, the love of the Father and the Spirit for the Son is demonstrated in the gift of a people who will have him as their living head. At the same time, the Son's love for the Father and the Spirit is demonstrated in his pledge to redeem that family at the greatest personal cost. (Michael Horton, God of Promise, pp. 78-79).

Therefore Richard D. Phillips can encourage doubting, weary saints with the fact that

There is no debate raging within the Godhead concerning our place in salvation, no tension; there are no awkward silences or heated conversations. Rather there is a grand and cohesive conspiracy of love originating in the eternal and sovereign grace of the Father (Chosen in Christ, p. 33)

Theologians refer to this council as the covenant of redemption. God the Father laid a charge on the Son on behalf of his foreknown chosen people. The Son voluntarily accepted this charge, namely, that he would take up their cause and die for them upon the cross. In return, the Father promised him the salvation of all the elect, those chosen in eternity for eternal life as his people and bride. . . . This is good news for all who believe, for here is the foundation of your salvation--not something in you, who are so weak and changing, so mixed in your affections, so inconstant in your faith--it is the foundation of God's sovereign choice from eternity past. 'He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.' (Ibid., pp. 43-44)

Election and predestination are often misconstrued to be some sort of mechanical or abstract process. Consequently many are left wondering, "Am I among those whom God has chosen and given to Christ?" Michael Horton comforts such questions with the fact that all of redemption is mediated "in Christ" and that we are "chosen in Christ":

This is why we are not to search out God's secret decree of predestination or try to find evidence of it in ourselves, but, as [John] Calvin urged, to see Christ as the "mirror" of our election. God's predestination is hidden to us, but Christ is not. The unveiling of the mystery hidden in past ages, the person and work of Christ, becomes the only reliable testimony to our election. Those who trust in Christ belong to Christ, are elect in Christ. (God of Promise, p. 79)

In other words, if you believe yourself to be a sinner under God's wrath and in need of redemption, and Jesus as the Lamb slain for your sins and exalted to God's right hand, then you are one who is "chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world" (Ephesians 1:4). You possess the "eternal life" of knowing God and Jesus, a knowledge given by the Holy Spirit only to those given to Christ so that they may have life (John 17:2-3).

And what future lies in store for all who trust in Christ Jesus and belong to him?

This is the soul's end--the blessing beyond which no better can be imagined or conceived: an infinite, eternal, mutual, holy energy of love and pleasure between God the Father and God the Son flowing out in the Person of God the Spirit, and filling the souls of the redeemed with immeasurable and everlasting joy. (John Piper, commenting on John 17:24, 26 in The Pleasures of God, pp. 311-312)

John 17: Given to the Beloved to Be Loved

In my previous post I mentioned this idea of an ancient plan within the Trinity, one that even antedates creation: the Father's plan to redeem sinners through the sacrifice of his Son, who would receive those sinners as a gift and indwell them through his Spirit, to bring them into the unending life and joy of God. Of all things that could have been on Jesus' mind in the hours before his arrest, trial, and crucifixion, it was this plan upon which Jesus dwelled and brought to his Father in prayer.

²⁰"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: ²³I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

²⁴"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

²⁵"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. ²⁶I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." (John 17:20-26)

Who are we? We are today those who believe in Jesus through the message of his apostles (v. 20). We are also those who are given by God as a gift to Jesus (v. 24). Those given to Jesus believe in Jesus.

To whom are we given? We are given to the Beloved. Jesus reveals in this prayer that he was loved with an everlasting love, one that existed before the world was (vv. 23, 24, 26). A loving Father gives gifts because he is good and because he longs to see his child's joy. Jesus the Son is completely full of his Father's own glory and excellence (John 1:14, 18; Colossians 1:15; 2:9; Hebrews 1:3). Because there is nothing more admirable or beautiful in the whole universe than God himself, God must enjoy and behold and love his Son with an unsurpassed love.

Who are we (again)? We are therefore given to Jesus as a gift coming from the overflow of God's own love for his Son. If we are given to the Son as a result of God's love, then we must know two things: First, the Father would not give his Son what is not valuable or prized. No loving Father would give junk to his children (see Matthew 7:11); he gives the best. So we are truly precious to God. This shocks me, because in my theological tradition (Reformed) it is the lowliness and sinfulness of humanity that are so often emphasized that we neglect the value we have in God's eyes.

Second, we can know that just as fully as the Father wants his Son's good and happiness, and as we belong to the Highest in Heaven, we know that God can only be for our good. He would not scorn his Son nor disparage his own gift to him. We can know that God is ever for us, because possessed by his Son we too are to become Christlike children.

For what purpose are we given? Given to the Son and belonging to him, Jesus reminds his Father that "you . . . have loved them even as you have loved me" (v. 23). In Christ we are loved by God to the same extent as Christ himself! We too, in Christ, have been loved before the creation of the world, before the beginning of time (v. 24). We are now also the object of God's joy and held fast near his heart. He will fight for us until the end of time, to purify us as a bride for his Son, and to bring us home to dwell with him and drink forever from his river of delights (v. 24; Psalm 36:8). We are given to the Beloved to be loved.

On what basis are we so dear, co-equal with Christ? "I [am] in them, and you [are] in me," Jesus says (v. 23; cf. v. 26). The Son is in perfect fellowship with his Father, and we share in communion with the Son by faith and through the work of the Spirit (John 14:16 ff.). How can we, so ugly and marred by sin, be loved? Because this perfect Son has taken upon himself the stain and deformity of our sin and has put it to death forever in God's sight. In Christ we too rise out of the grave and stand upon Mount Hermon in radiant white and hear "This is my son, whom I love" (Mark 1:11; 9:7).

What does Jesus do for those he loves? At the end of his prayer Jesus proclaims that "I have made you [Father] known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them" (John 17:26). Jesus, who is endowed with the fullness of God, makes God's name--all that God is--known to us. This he does by having purchased the Holy Spirit with his blood and sending him to illuminate God's Word to us. Jesus' greatest desire for those he loves is that we would know and see God's glory, a glory and wonder and beauty made known through Jesus (v. 24). As we know God better and better, we trust him more and more. This faith-life, this fear-of-the-Lord, is the very life of Jesus as God's perfect servant, the true Man. And so the more and more we know God through Christ, we find that the love God has for Christ is also in us (v. 26).

But beyond that, as Christ dwells in us and is formed within us, something else happens: we find that we love the Father more and more too. When Jesus prays "that I myself may be in them," he is praying that we would be filled with obedient, glad love for the Father. And because Jesus' prayers are always effectively heard by the Father (John 11:41-42), we can know this for sure: one day we will be free from all lesser affections and, beloved in Christ, we will see and love our tender Creator and Redeemer and find our heart's home in him.

John 17: Given through the Cross

John 17 is what many call Jesus' "high priestly prayer." In it he prays for himself (vv. 1-5), his present disciples (vv. 6-19), and all who would come to believe through the disciples (vv. 20-26). Throughout this prayer, Jesus refers to believers as those whom God has given to him (vv. 2, 6, 9, 24). It is said that these people belonged to God the Father (v. 9), which is implicit in the fact that he is the one who gives them to Jesus. These people are also given to Jesus "out of the world" (v. 6), that is, not all of the world's people are given to Jesus. We know this because of verse 2: "For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him." We already know that not all people will receive eternal life through Christ, for not all will repent and embrace him as Lord. This is the clear testimony of Scripture. But note also that Jesus, while possessing "authority over all people," only uses his position to give life to "all those you have given him." Being given to Jesus overlaps with receiving eternal life (cf. John 6:35-40; 10:26-29); they are one and the same.

Why are these people given to Jesus? Or how does he obtain them from God?

Acts 20:28 encourages overseers to "be shepherds of the church of God [some manuscripts have of the Lord], which he bought with his own blood." In Revelation we hear worshipers sing of Jesus the Lamb: "With your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation" (5:9; see also 14:4). And Paul instructs the Corinthians that they now belong to Jesus because they were "bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 6:20). So the answer is, Jesus bought the church with his blood shed at the cross. The goal of his death was to receive his bride.

Does this contradict all this talk of being "given" the church in John 6 and 17? No. Rather, having lived a perfectly obedient life for his Father and dying to cleanse the stain of guilt and shame upon the world, Jesus is not only vindicated and given life in his resurrection. He is also given the church as his reward. This is hinted at even in the Old Testament: "Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him [Jesus]; / he has put him to grief; / when his soul makes an offering for guilt / he shall see his offspring . . . . Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied" (Isaiah 53:10, 11 ESV).

This transaction between Jesus and his Father, that Jesus would come to save the elect and win them for himself so that they would glorify God forever, is sometimes called the "covenant of redemption." It is an eternal pact within the Godhead planned before the world existed (2 Timothy 1:9; 1 Peter 1:20; Revelation 13:8 NIV). But for what reasons are we given to Christ? What does that do for us? I'll turn to this in my next post.

Evolution Rap

Whether you love Evolution or hate it -- ya gotta love this rap by Tom McFadden at Stanford. It's a dead-on parody of "'93 Till Infinity" by the Souls of Mischief.



Now that I'm wrapping up my Genetics unit in school and I'll begin teaching Evolution next week, you might expect more posts to come.

Hymns for Haiti

For those of you in the RVA (and if that means nothing to you, then this isn't for you):

Next weekend Alex Mejias is putting on a "Hymns for Haiti" benefit concert at West End Presbyterian Church to raise funding for Compassion International in Haiti. Mejias is a talented young musician who, much in the vein of Indelible Grace and RUF, adapts classic evangelical hymns to modern arrangements so that their timeless truths can be heard and appreciated by modern worshipers.

Why am I posting this here? Because for the past five-plus years I have sponsored Janvier Delson, a boy in Melinette, Haiti. Delson is now 13 years old. In Melinette most people are unemployed, and the average employed person only earns about $50 per month. It has been cool to trade letters with this "pen pal" of mine in Haiti while knowing that my $28 per month is able to help provide his family with food, clothing, and medicine. While in Melinette and in Haiti public schools can be scarce, Compassion's Child Development Centers give children education they need to help them grow spiritually, academically, socially, and personally.

So if you're in the Richmond on March 20, please consider attending this concert.

A Face To Reframe

When I lived in Turkey, I remember being stunned the first time I saw someone there with Down syndrome. It struck me: it took almost two years in a city of 12+ million people to see someone with this condition. Either meiotic nondisjunction is a rare occurrence in Turkish women, or people kept them hidden away. After asking around, I sadly found that it was generally the latter case. Down syndrome and other congenital defects are often looked down on as a source of shame for the family.

Beth Bruno, an American expat whom I got to know while living over there, has put her photography skills to work by creating A Face To Reframe. It's a project in which Turkish children with disabilities were given cameras and allowed to define beauty. And as it turns out, no matter what you think someone looks like on the outside, they share the same sense of beauty, virtue, and creative artistry that even the best of us have. Check it out.

How close should you live to your church?

I've been wondering off-and-on this year: How important is it to live nearby to the church you worship in/with? (Here I am referring to the church as a building where the baptized gather for weekly worship.)

Of course in years past, when people lived among ethnic enclaves within either a more distinct rural or urban setting, and at best had one car--and forget expressways--this wasn't a real question. In my German- and Pole-stocked childhood hometown of Bay City, Michigan, there were three options: Catholic churches for the Poles, Catholic churches for the southern Germans, and Lutheran churches for the northern/western Germans. Churches were everywhere, and everyone near Germania St. was German, and over by Kocscuisko you were a Pole. Every Lutheran church belonged to the Missouri Synod and used the same liturgy, hymnal, and sermon texts. It just didn't matter.

But nowadays we have a smorgasbord of church options. What happens if the "best" church is farther away from a "good" or even "so-so" church? And how far is "too far"?

Certainly I think it can be difficult for a church's members to invest themselves in a church if they live far away. People are less likely to come to other meetings or take up opportunities to serve if they have to drive thirty minutes instead of five. And I think living far away also hinders one's ability to buy into a church's vision and outreach. A church's mission focus ought to be the neighborhood around it. But if your church is in the middle of the city, and you live fifteen miles out in the suburbs, how much harder might it be to invest your heart in city-dwellers whom you may walk past on Sundays but who aren't truly your neighbors?

Anyway, I'd appreciate any feedback and thoughts you have to offer.

Are we there yet?

I'm really not a navel-gazer. Honestly. But I am often acutely aware of how far the condition of my heart is from that of the New Man, Jesus, into whose likeness I am being re-created by the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:29; Colossians 3:10). I've written about how puzzling sanctification (growth in Christlikeness) can be for any earnest disciple. After reading this article by Mark Galli I am reminded again of this issue: Why is it taking so long for us Christians to love like our Teacher and Master? Why aren't we being--gasp--transformed?

For starters, we are being transformed. To say otherwise is to call the Holy Spirit a liar when he says that "we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18-19 ESV). There are two reasons, however, we don't see this transformation so clearly. First, the holier we become and the more we learn to rid ourselves of idols and instead trust in and love God, the nearer we draw to God and experience a truer vision of him. "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you" (James 4:7-8). The difficulty lies in the fact that as we are sanctified and draw nearer to God, we see greater depths of his majesty, wisdeom, holiness, and love. In this light, we see just how much further we have yet to go before we fully bear his image--and this can lead us back to despair and repentance. But seeing our own shortcomings is really evidence that we are maturing and that the Holy Spirit is working within us, perfecting our union with Christ.

Second, it's not really about our transformation! Or at least not totally, not yet. Gazing in the mirror tends to put the focus on us, rather than on the God who saves, on the Righteous One, Jesus Christ, whose own active righteousness alone is what counts before God for our security and acceptance. And while it would be remiss to say that salvation is not also for the purpose of conforming us to Christ's image--now in holy living and worship of God, and in the future in a redeemed body (Romans 8:28-30)--it can become easy for present transformation to obscure the other gospel realities of our "spiritual blessings in the the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 1:3-14)--forgiveness, reconcilation, adoption, sealing, etc.--all of which are definitive, free, and present possessions of the believer.

Iain Campbell on Law and Gospel

Iain Campbell writes thus on a blog post at Reformation21:

One of the marks of grace in both Old and New Testaments is a love for God's law. The church needs that; and we need wisdom to highlight this without going down the road of legalism. I love the versification of Ralph Erskine (1685-1752) who says in one of his 'gospel sonnets':

Thus gospel-grace and law-commands

Both bind and loose each other's hands;

They can't agree on any terms,

Yet hug each other in their arms.

We need to divide the truth rightly in order to show the validity of this insight. Without law we cannot define sin or righteousness, and without the imputation of these objective realities there can be no atonement. Without an objective atonement, in which the sanctions of the law are met, there can be no Gospel.

The Point of Grace

Mark Galli has posted another thought-provoking article in Christianity Today about how our desires for God to transform us and the world may be masking a real desire for our own alleviation of discomfort at our own sin or sin in the world. This, he argues, is not God-love but self-love which taints even our desire to repent of sin and seek God and his will. Often in Presbyterian liturgies I've heard prayers confessing that we ought to "repent of our repentance." This made sense to me only so far as I thought it was about repenting of any sort of pious effort to gain God's mercy, but Galli's article puts a slightly different, clarifying spin on this notion.*

This leaves me to think about two questions:
1) Why do I desire transformation in my life/his life/her life/the world? Is it because such would truly bring greater honor and pleasure to God my King? Or is it because it would make my life better? In view of my last post, I have to ask: Do I truly hate what is going on in my students' lives because it grieves God, or is it because it's causing them to fail my class and act out, making my job more difficult and not validating me as a competent teacher?

2) When I seek God, confess my sins, and ask for his Holy Spirit to fill me, upon what do I place my hope for salvation and change? The right mindset is that when the day is done, no matter what I may feel, desire, or do, if God isn't gracious to me and the Incarnation and the Cross and the Resurrection aren't true, I'm dead. God alone must save. And he does!
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*By the way, in case you're confused after reading this or Galli's article, please do not misread me. I do not believe that our confession of sin and our seeking of God is for nought, nor that human will and action profits nothing before God. The biblical testimony is that God's saving mercy is upon those who turn and cling to him as their sole hope and surety. Galli's point is that we can't find any comfort in our own repentance or sickness of ourselves; our comfort is alone in the God who saves and in his Cross.

In the Power of the Evil One

This year at my high school has been a real eye-opener. Teaching in general has shown me that my home life and family situation as a child was far better than most average kids' in America. But even more so, my new school is giving me an education. Sadly, I hate what I'm learning, and the past few days have nearly brought me to tears.

1) Richmond may not be Chicago's South Side, but it can be a violent place. We have fights at least weekly, if not several days per week. Last week a female student of mine clawed up another girl. There was blood on the sidewalk, along with tufts of weave. It was nasty. Then on Tuesday after lunch, outside my classroom a girl slapped a guy, who responded by straight up punching her in the face/head. She collapsed to the pavement. Kids are constantly talking about solving problems through violence. "Shut up or I'll punch you in the face" is actually pretty common. I also recently overheard, "She ain't no friend to you; she ain't shit to you. You should go beat the shit outta her and put her in her place." A few of my students even stayed late after school devising a plan for what to do if one of them got shot or hurt while walking home.

2) A student in my seventh period biology class, A.G., moved down from New Jersey, where her brother was shot and killed a few years back. Her teenage sister was also stabbed to death by another girl in 2008. I found out last night that A.G. was listed on the Virginia Missing Persons Registry, having gone missing back in March.

3) Today P.A., a student in my fourth period biology class, came in with no backpack and had his head down on the desk all day. (He usually is eager to share the latest baseball news with me.) I asked him if anything was wrong, and he wrote these words on a sheet of paper:

Death
Cuts
Accident
Mom

What he did next startled me: He pulled back his sleeve to reveal about ten parallel razor cuts on his right forearm. I told him that whatever tough stuff he was going through, he didn't have to go through it alone, and this surely wasn't the solution. I assured him that I am a safe person to talk with and that I really care for him.

4) I have had a few students this year who were temporarily homeless and moving every few days or weeks. I also have had three students in foster care who switched foster parents during this year, which really messed them up. A few others entered my class late, having spent the earlier part of the year in juvenile detention.

As if all this weren't enough, tons of my students are failing. It's literally--and psychologists and social workers will corroborate this--that students are trying to fail. If they have positive expectations and actually try to reach them, yet do not succeed, they feel like a failure. So why not just not try? That way, failure won't reflect poorly on their ability. Failure will just be a result of not trying. Other students act out in class in order to try to provoke me to anger or to get kicked out of class so that they can say, "I failed because Mr. Hall got mad at me and kicked me out of class," thereby placing the locus of blame outside of themselves (or so they reckon).

If they're not failing, then many are stuck in a morass of hopelessness. They have few goals in life or dreams of what they could be and do after high school, and at this point many are too far behind to reach those goals. All they can do is hope to experience a little pleasure and approval today and get through the day. If they can, then that's a success. With their perspectives so out of whack, degradation and banality reign: new shoes, Lil' Wayne, sex, gold-covered teeth ("fronts"), sex, Gucci Man, cell phones, sex.

The Apostle John wrote that "the whole world lies in the power of the evil one" (1 John 5:19). Sadly I see every day that this is true. It nearly crushes me some days to see the hopelessness of these kids' lives--kids who are otherwise bright and longing for love and meaning and approval. They and their world have fallen so far from the glory of God and from wholeness and shalom, the abundant life which God desires for them. When Jesus came to Lazarus's tomb at Bethany and saw the devastating, life-erasing effects of sin and death, he was "deeply moved [or indignant] in his spirit and greatly troubled" (John 11:33). Some days I feel his same indignation in my soul over how messed up these great kids are, yet I wonder: What can I, as one person, do about this so late in the game?

Will you do the one thing that can make a difference and join me in praying in Jesus' name for my students and all the millions of others like them?

So That the Blind Will See

Why did Jesus come? It's a question often asked at this Christmastide. (The celebration of Epiphany on January 6 is the twelfth and final day of Christmas on the traditional church calendar.) Among the myriad statements in the Gospels, particularly in John's, one answer directly from Jesus is this: "For judgment I have come into the world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind" (John 9:39).

At first glance this seems super harsh. And it is. Jesus said that he has come "for judgment" so that the spiritual elitists who think that by their own wisdom they have a corner on God will never really come to a full, savory knowledge of God. In this passage Jesus is directly rebuking the Pharisees who are far more children of Satan than of God (John 8:41-47). This is, after all, why they are "blind" to who Jesus really is in the first place; their god and father has blinded them (see 2 Corinthians 4:4).*

But the judgment of which Jesus speaks is in fact a miracle of compassion on a sinful world blinded by Satan. As his death was at hand, Jesus spoke again of the judgment he would bring. "Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself" (John 12:31-32). His royal judgment is in fact on Satan and his deceptive powers to which mankind has succumbed for eons. But no more! Jesus longs so fully for his people, sinful and wandering as they are, to see "the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" and "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:4, 6). The very revelation of God which Jesus brings through his judgment is that of his mercy, compassion, and reconciling love. But the goal is not a flourish of emotion or a "divine romance." It is Jesus' passion to open our eyes to God's glory and magnitude and worth, so that we might find our greatest delight and wonder in who God is and gladly entrust our lives to him as our Good Shepherd. And if this is so, will he not gladly do so both for us and for others, for whom we pray and with whom we share the gospel? Lord, help my unbelief!

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*I think it's highly ironic to read this in conjunction with John 9:1-2. "As he [Jesus] went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'" The Pharisees too were blind from birth to the truth of God which they, as God's covenant people, had abundantly received ("those who see . . . "). This blindness comes from being one in nature with their own God-hating father, the devil (8:44). Both they and their parent had sinned, that they were born blind!

Questions for the New Year

Tim Challies posted a link to Donald Whitney's "Ten Questions for the New Year." I know that without frequently slowing down and stepping back from my own day-to-day life, it's easy for me to just go through each day without much thought. But keeping in mind the future (see the previous post) and the goal of our lives, "to glorify God, and enjoy him forever" (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q & A 1), I think it's good and necessary to evaluate our lives and not "run aimlessly," but purposefully (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).

Below are Whitney's ten questions, with my own preliminary responses. (Twenty more can be found at the link above.)

1. What's one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
I want to grow in being hospitable and openly generous with my time, space, and money. I think the more we ween ourselves from our own needs and concerns and trust God to be open to others, really reveals to us his great provision and builds in us his heart for others.

2. What's the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
I would continue teaching at HHS and to rely upon God's unfailing love to sustain me in the "famine" that teaching there can often be or feel like (Psalm 33:19).

3. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
Make consistent prayer time a priority with Olivia. We started off really strongly in that but have faded as life's busyness built up.

4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?
Praising God through music, poetry, and writing -- I do not sing hymns or praise songs much outside of corporate worship, and I feel like doing this would bring much more joy, rest, and contentment to my life.

5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?
Ha! This is probably blogging and stuff on the Internet. We'll no longer have cable, so that probably won't be a big distraction.

6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?
Along with Olivia, I want to establish stronger relationships with people at our church and simply get into people's lives and sharpen one another with God's Word (Proverbs 27:17) to find practical, tangible ways we can walk out of sin and into the God-glorifying freedom and hope of the gospel. We want especially to do this through having a generous, open home.

7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
My brother Jordan and some of my co-workers.

8. What's the most important way you will, by God's grace, try to make this year different from last year?

9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
Set aside a small amount of time each day, both with my wife and alone, in order to develop the consistency I once had; and keep a list of others' needs to keep from focusing on myself alone.

10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?

Back from the Future

As 2009 came to an end and the new year came, I found myself also reading about the end of "this present evil age" and the beginning of the fullness of "the age to come"--that is, I read through Revelation.* One thing that strikes me about this book is that in it God reveals history's (read: His story's) end even while we're yet living in the midst of it. It's often said that we're on a "spiritual journey" or that "life is a story to be discovered," or "take up the pen and write your own story." Even the great German poet Rainer Maria Rilke urges us to "live the questions now" so that perhaps "someday far in the future, you will gradually . . . live your way into the answer" (Letters to a Young Poet, 4). But God, however, has already given us the destination and the resolution. Revelation calls us to live with the future certain and clear: The Lamb who was slain is really the victorious King of kings and Lord of lords. He triumphs over all that is evil and selfish and impure, and he alone holds the keys to a blessed, joyful future of peace and gladness in the presence of God. We know that Good (God and his church) wins and Evil (Satan, the world, and fallen human desires opposed to God) loses. The question becomes, as frequently begged in Revelation, Whose side will you be on? Will you be one who, with Christ, overcomes?


The Bible is chock full of eschatology, the teaching about the "last things." Knowing the end from our place in the middle of the story ought to be an amazing thing. We're able to live backwards from the future and choose our side right now. We learn that if we choose by acts of our will an unrepentant way of life that is self-seeking, impure, lustful, and insubordinate to God, then nothing but unmitigated suffering is stored up for us. But we also learn that if by submission to Jesus we "wash our robes in the blood of the Lamb" (7:14; 22:14) and long for holiness, purity, and righteousness--living out what the Holy Spirit works within us as we are united to Christ by faith--then we will find everlasting refreshment, peace, and joy in God.


Of course, the story ends with a wedding feast, the great celebration in which Christ the Bridegroom is joined to his Bride, the church (19:7-8; 21:2). If our future as baptized Christians is in union and fellowship with Christ as in a marriage, then what is today but our time of engagement and devoted preparation? St. Paul picked up on this when he warned the Corinthian church that "I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:2-3).


During the months of my engagement to Olivia before our wedding, we knew with utmost concern that we had to remain pure. We knew that any sort of stumbling during the engagement would be devastating and costly enough to us, and grievous to God. But it was really the hope of having the most possible freedom and enjoyment on our wedding day and of preparing for a lifetime of marriage that drove us to watchfulness, patience, and self-control. And it was so worth it! If that was for a "mere" human marriage that serves mainly to purify one another for the Day of Christ, then how much more should we concern ourselves with the Wedding Day to come! If I found so much happiness and rejoicing in the love of our mutual dedication to one another for our own earthly marriage, how much more wonderful and amazing will be our delight in Christ if we devote ourselves wholly to him?



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*I am not saying that Revelation is strictly future-oriented and that all within it or within the Kingdom of God awaits the future. Certainly the gospel message is that in Jesus Christ the kingdom (reign) of God (basileia theou) has already come to this world and is beginning to beat back the darkness of sin and the evil one. I also believe that Revelation is probably best understood as several different images about the span of history from the New Testament era through time to the final Judgment, the Day of the Lord.

Will the Real "Father Christmas" Please Stand Up?

On this Christmas Eve (er, Christ-tide Eve; I'll have none of this "mass" popery ruining my holiday! :-)), I thought you might wish to read about the real "Father Christmases" of the past. Neither the real Saint Nicholas of Asia Minor, nor the recent Santa Claus, Father Christmas was a figure who urged people to be thankful to God for all his gifts and blessings--predominantly that of his favor in Christ--and to give to others in charity, goodwill, and neighborly love. And I thought Christmas was all about getting huge gifts!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Merry Christmas!

My stupendous wife Olivia noticed two days ago that Tuesday's sunset time was 4:56 P.M., one minute later than on Monday. Sure enough, we had hit the winter solstice. This is something I think is so cool about Christmas: Regardless of when Jesus was actually born, I think it's fitting that his coming is celebrated in conjunction with the winter solstice. After all, Jesus is the Light of the world (John 8:12). Even before his birth, prophecies told of him as a sunrise or "dayspring" (KJV) bringing the dawn of God's redemption and light from heaven down to mankind.

By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
(Luke 1:78-79, NRSV)

As the news of Jesus spreads, the darkness is being beaten back; it never could understand or overcome this mysterious little babe born in Bethlehem's shadows (John 1:5; 1 John 2:8). As the days grow longer toward the full summer sun, so one day too will Jesus be the radiance and glory of the world (Revelation 21:22-24).

This Christmas, I hope that even a little flickering candle of God's love, which has come alongside us in Jesus, will grow to give you hope, joy, and peace. Amen.

When the Son Gets in Our Eyes

Carolyn Arends has written a clever but truthful article for Christianity Today about how we can't really see God aright until we see Jesus. It's worth the few minutes it takes to read.

"No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known." (John 1:18)

Advent Resolutions

Chapters 24 and 25 of the Gospel of Matthew teach us about the second advent of our Lord Jesus Christ and how to prepare for it. As such, throughout the ages these chapters have found themselves as frequent texts for Advent homilies. One parable Jesus employed was that of ten virgins who waited through the night for the bridegroom to come and to leave for the wedding feast (25:1-13). Five were adequately prepared for his coming, with plenty of oil for their lamps. The others, however, were not so wise, and did not bring enough oil. Consequently, when the wedding party arrived, they had to leave to buy more oil and were left to wait behind in the dark. The end result was that the foolish women were shut out from the feast. Jesus' concluding admonition is that we must, like the wise young women, "keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour [of my arrival]."

As I've been studying the Gospel of John, I'm reminded that Christmas isn't exactly always good news. For many, the arrival of the Word-made-flesh revealed their hearts as hateful toward God and his light (see, e.g., John 3:17-21). In fact, Jesus told the whole city of Jerusalem that their doom had been sealed precisely because God had visited them, but they had not recognized him nor received him (Luke 19:44). Elsewhere in the Psalms (2, 72, 110) and Prophets (Isaiah 9) we are reminded that when the Messiah comes, he will destroy all that is opposed to him and life under God's holy reign.

Jesus may, like the bridegroom of his parable, be "a long time in coming," but we need to be prepared for him. So in this vein I wish to repost something I had read and posted about a few years back--our need for "advent resolutions," if you will, rather than New Year's resolutions. (This was written by Michael Jacob, a Roman Catholic theologian.)

. . . what Christians do (or should be doing!) during Advent and leading up to Christmas is a foreshadowing of what they will do during the days of their lives that lead up to the Second Coming; what non-Christians refuse to do during Advent, and put off until after Christmas, is precisely a foreshadowing of what they will experience at the Second Coming.

We Christians are to prepare for the Coming of Christ before He actually comes -- and that Coming is symbolized and recalled at Christmas. Non-Christians miss this season of preparation, and then scramble for six days after the 25th to make their resolutions. By then, however, it's too late -- Christmas has come and gone. Our Lord has already made His visitation to the earth, and he has found them unprepared. This is precisely what will take place at the Second Coming, when those who have put off for their entire lives the necessary preparations will suddenly be scrambling to put their affairs in order. Unfortunately, by then it will have been too late, and there will be no time for repentance. The Second Coming will be less forgiving than the Incarnation. There will be no four-week warning period before the Second Coming, like we get during Advent. There will be no six-day period of grace after the Second Coming during which to make resolutions and self-examination, like the secular world does from Dec. 26 until Jan. 1.

What might such "Advent resolutions" look like? Here are a few Scriptures to mull over.

1) Find ways to actively serve others in love, especially fellow Christians. (Matthew 24:13; 25:31-46; 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13; Hebrews 10:24; 1 Peter 1:13, 22).

2) Pray that Christ would be your All, your sole joy and hope, rather than any vacation, year-end bonus, or Christmas gift. (1 Timothy 6:6-10, 17-19; Hebrews 9:28; 1 Peter 1:3-21)

3) Ask God to reveal unrighteousness in your life and show you ways to repent and to walk in obedience to his will. (Titus 2:11-14; 2 Peter 3:11-13; 1 John 2:28-29)

4) Give generously of your time, money, and abilities, living out your hope that investing in an eternal future is more important than your Roth IRA. (After all, the kingdom of God will never need a federal bailout.) (Matthew 25:14-30; 1 Timothy 6:17-19)

Veni veni Emanuel!

Christmas is supposed to be a time of peace, tranquility, and joy. And judging by the number of ads on the TV, radio, and newspaper, Christmas--ahem, the Holidays--are already here. But Advent is a time of having to wait in darkness for peace and light to come. In Advent, as the days get shorter and the night lengthens toward the solstice, we are still waiting for our consolation (Luke 2:25) and looking forward to our redemption (2:38). "O come, O come, Emmanuel" is our song; "Joy to the world! The Lord is come!" yet awaits the future. Of course, in our place in history the Christ has come, bringing God's nascent kingdom with him. But the fullness of his peace- and righteousness-dealing awaits a day yet to arrive.

This week I have acutely felt this tension. My wife has been quite ill and had lost her voice; the housing search has proven largely unfruitful and still up in the air; the reality of tough, long, lackluster days at school wears on me; and if we don't move in the next week we may be unable to go back up north to our respective family homes for Christmas. It's not that life feels totally out of control, but there are enough nagging challenges, disappointments, and loose ends to feel rattled and insecure. I feel like I'm growing older and more aware of others' lives. Weird.

Come, Thou long-expected Jesus,
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee. (C. Wesley)

On Saturday night as Olivia and I sat in our darkened living room with no lights on, save for a lone candle and the Christmas tree, I pondered all these things. In the midst of the weight, I strangely felt little worry or panic. I wondered instead--even felt sure of--all the ways we would see God's gracious deliverance, goodness, and faithfulness through it all, his bereket. The refrain of God's Word is "Do not fear, only believe" (Mark 5:36). As my pastor reminded us this weekend, life is never out of control; it's simply out of our control. I know that in the end God always comes through--in his own time and on his own agenda and terms, revealing himself to us along the way, so that we might thank and praise him (Psalm 30:11-12). "Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning" (30:5).

So right now, Lord Jesus, we long for you to come and bring your Throne and the Regeneration. It's hard to know we may have to wait how many years?--fifty? sixty? seventy? Yet even now may this hope of your sovereign power and love be our strength and give us peace as we wait for you.

The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;
the LORD is enthroned as King forever.
The LORD gives strength to his people;
the LORD blesses his people with peace.
(Psalm 29:10-11)

Veni veni Emanuel!