Safe

“Safe.”

It’s a good word, isn’t it?

Doesn’t it have a nice ring to it?  It’s very versatile, too.

“Safe” can be shouted or it can be whispered.

Well, it’s an easy word, actually.  It’s not outrageous.  It’s not edgy.  It’s just safe.  Safe gives us peace of mind and assurance that there is no danger.  Parents do everything they can to ensure the safety of their children.  The law enforcement does their best to ensure the safety and freedom of the citizens.  Doctors exist to protect their patients and keep them safe from diseases and sickness.  Airbags and seatbelts were created to provide safety in the event of a car accident.  We live in a world that craves safety.  We pay thousands of dollars every year for peace of mind.  Insurance companies figured this out years ago and now will insure the safety or replacement of just about anything for the right price.  Out of our entire society, Christians seem to be the safest.  Most don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t go to very many parties (if any), dress modestly, send their kids to private, Christian schools, and hang out mainly with other Christians.  But is this what Jesus wanted?

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.  Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues.  On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles.  But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.  Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.  All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.  When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.  A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.” – Matthew 10:16-24

What?  I thought Jesus loved us?  Why would he send us out to get ridiculed, beat on, and killed?  Some may say that Jesus was speaking only in the context of the current situation in Israel.  I wholeheartedly beg to differ.  He said “…when they arrest you…”  He didn’t say “if they arrest you,” or “there’s a possibility you could get arrested.”  He said “when they arrest you.”  Jesus wasn’t warning them about possible circumstances because of the present circumstances.  If Jesus’ primary concern was their physical safety He would’ve told them to get out of Israel and find a place that Rome had not yet found to build a Christian community, safe from the persecution and temptations of the rest of the world. I’ve read the Bible a few times and nowhere in any translation does it say that.  In fact, Paul wrote in Philippians 3:4-10 that not only had he already thrown away his high-ranking status in the Jewish community for Jesus’ sake, but he hoped one day to share the same persecution and death that Jesus had during his life!

It occurs to me that our lives as Christians often look something like a Brink’s Home Security commercial.  We like to live our lives under the protection and safety of Jesus but we would rather not ever have to really rely on Him.  Usually the only time we do is when something terrible and unexpected happens.  Then he is our emergency dispatcher asking if everything is alright and telling us that the Holy Spirit is on the way to comfort us.  Francis Chan did an excellent job explaining this in a sermon (link) he preached not that long ago.  Standing on a balance beam he likened our life to that of a gymnast.  However, instead going ahead with an acrobatic routine we more often than not simply lie down on the balance beam, hugging it with our arms and legs.  It’s safer that way.  He said, “Our greatest prayer is, ‘God I would love to die in my sleep and not even feel it, and just go up to Heaven.’”  At the end of a life like this, it is as if we slowly slide of the balance beam and then stand up on the ground and address the judges as though we had just performed a difficult routine.  Chan’s question to the audience was, essentially, what will God say to a performance like that?  Do you think He will applaud our knack for safety?  Or will he spit us out of His mouth for being lukewarm and useless like the waters in Laodicea (Revelation 3:16-19)?

When it comes down to it, it’s about trust, isn’t it?  It’s not that it’s our Biblical duty to be safe; it’s that we often don’t trust God enough to let Him lead us blindfolded down the road of life.  A few years back I drove up to Ohio with a friend.  On the way there we had to drive right through the mountains on an incredibly narrow road, which at times looks only wide enough for one car to fit through.  The turns in the road were not in the least gradual and, combined with the fog, you could often only see 40 or 50 feet ahead of you at a time, just praying that there wasn’t a car coming from the other direction.  If you’ve ever driven in a heavy fog like that, you know how frustrating and nerve-wracking it is.  In a similar analogy, Ben Gutierrez made the comment that in moments like that, when he asks God to lift the fog, God says, “If you can see the road, we stop talking.”  In Proverbs 30:7-9, Solomon prays one of the most profound and Godly prayers ever prayed.  He wrote, “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?”
Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.”  How contrary is that to our American ideology?

Recently, I’ve found myself begging God to give me an idea of what my future will look like.  I have so many questions, so many worries, and so many concerns.  I tell myself that it’s not about trust, I just want to know what to expect; but even that rationalization has holes in it.  I want to control my life, because I don’t trust God.

The trust that God requires of those who want to follow him feels very similar to what I imagine free falling off the Empire State Building with only a trampoline at the bottom to catch you would feel like.  But I think that once we jump off and begin our descent we will find that we’re not meant to hit the trampoline, because God has created us to fly.

How safe is your life?

How much do you trust God?

“Jesus is not safe.  He is not manageable.  He’s a wild lion.  You cannot tame Him.  He is not safe, but He is good, and He is king.  You can trust Him.” – Derek Webb

Why Jesus Likes Valentine’s Day

A few weeks ago I lost my cell phone just as I was about to leave my house.  I retraced my steps, looking under every couch cushion, every chair, and every table I had sat on or walked by in the last hour.  Nothing.  I proceeded to carefully inspect all of the couches and chairs and tables I hadn’t sat on or walked by recently, just in case my cell phone had grown legs and walked away.  Still nothing.  An even careful search of my car found a book I started a few months ago but hadn’t finished because it’d gone missing, a used cup from Sonic, some loose change, and some guitar picks, but no cell phone.  With no other places to look I started searching in simply ridiculous places: the oven, the fridge, shower, and my neighbor’s car (well not really, but I wanted to).  I was starting to believe that my cell phone really was alive and capable of walking around.  Frustrated, I sat down and put my cell phone on the table in front of me… Wait!  What?!  It was in my hand the whole time.  This is a true story, ladies and gentleman.  The sad thing is that it’s happened more than once.  Just a couple of days ago I thought I had dropped my keys in the snow while brushing off my car in the morning.  After crawling around my car, frantically digging in the snow for 15 minutes I realized I was holding them in the hand I was digging with.

     I’m really not crazy, I promise.

     And I don’t think I’m the only one who has this happen to them.  We all have those days and moments where we’re so distracted by the problem that we don’t realize the solution is staring us right in the face, and in some cases is stepping on our toes and shouting our name.  We’re not slow, just distracted. 

     Ok, some of us are slow.

     Moving on… One of my favorite things to do is sit outside on a clear night and just try to take in the awesomeness of the stars.  If you’ve never done it, you’re missing out.  It’s breathtaking and relaxing all at the same time.

     I think we take the stars for granted.  They’re there every night, whether we can see them or not, but we’re content to drown them out with our lights and flashing signs.  Don’t get me wrong, I love cities and city life, but I think the stars and nature in general have so much to offer us.  Looking back at that sentence, it sounds weird, but I think it’s true nonetheless.  The stars are a lot like losing my cell phone and my keys on a much larger scale.  When God created the lights in the sky, He didn’t just place them randomly like throwing a handful of sand or dirt in the air.  He arranged them, each with a specific place and purpose.  Genesis 1:17 tells us that God “set” them in the sky.  The Hebrew word for “set” can also be translated as “to assign, appoint, or even to hang up.”   In other words, God deliberately put the stars in their own, individual places.  Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the works of his hands.”  So how do the sky and the stars “proclaim the works of his hands?”  Is it simply because he created them and thus is worthy of the glory associated with them?  Or is it something more?  According to the Jewish philosopher, Josephus writes that Adam’s son, Seth, named the stars and even Psalm 147:4 says that God calls them by their names.  In fact, it is highly contended that the constellations (the arrangement of the stars) each tell us a different part of the story of God’s salvation of the human race.  It is amazing that we can stare at these bright lights in the night sky time and time again and miss this story that God gave us to read.

     I think another parallel story that even more often stares us in the face without us realizing it comes in the form of our romantic relationships.  Many of you may think that just about every Christian knows that Jesus loves the Church just like a husband loves a wife and that husbands should model Christ’s love toward their wives, and you’re probably right.  But I’m not sure that every Christian fully understands the symbolism and meaning behind human romance.  This past week I have been reminded over and over again of the many references and parallels to human love God made in the Bible.  From Solomon, to Hosea, to Jesus’ parables, the Word of God is overflowing with these parallels.  Generally these stories and parables are only told in the context of learning how to treat those we love without learning a whole lot about God.  For example, Ephesians 5:22-33 is an often quoted passage of Scripture in reference to the relationship between a husband his wife.  It reads:

 ²²Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. ²³For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

 ²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶to make her holy, cleansing  her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— ³⁰for we are members of his body. ³¹“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” ³²This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

     The normal interpretation is for men and women to model the love of Christ in their relationship with their spouse, and that is entirely true.  What I think that we sometimes forget is the inverse relationship of the wisdom in these verses.  I think that God created everything to mirror his glory and majesty and plan for creation.  Just like the stars tell the story of God’s salvation for mankind, it is my firm belief that He created romance between men and women not only because it wasn’t good for him to be alone (Genesis 2:18) but to again mirror his love and salvation for the human race.

     Song of Solomon tells us that God loves us with the intensity, passion, and tenderness that a groom and his bride express to each other before and on their wedding night.  Hosea declared the overwhelming love of God that manifests itself in unrelenting faithfulness to His people even in the face of deliberate unfaithfulness.  Finally, Jesus topped all of these analogies with his conversation with his disciples on the night of his betrayal.  During the Passover meal Jesus established what we now call “communion” by instructing his disciples to eat the bread of the Passover meal and drink the wine to symbolically remember his soon coming death on their behalf.  He then makes the strange statement that His Father’s house has many rooms and that he was going “to prepare a place” for them and would eventually come back for them and take them there.  For years I barely even noticed these words, simply assuming they referred to Heaven and Jesus taking us there at the end of the world.  That is essentially true, but if you put yourself in the disciples’ position you realize that they probably would’ve been more than a little confused if they were to hear those words with the same understanding that most of us read them with.  In reality, the context in which Jesus said these things puts a whole new spin on their meaning.  See, throughout the course of the Passover meal, Jesus had described, to an exact point, a Jewish engagement.  When a Jewish man wanted to become engaged to a Jewish woman He would speak to her and her father and mother to negotiate a “bride price.”  If an agreement was reached between the father and the prospective groom, they would then pour a glass of wine and each take a sip of the wine to signify their commitment to the engagement and marriage.  The bride did not have to drink the wine, but if she did, as soon as she did, she was considered legally married to the man.  Engagement was a covenant that could only be broken through a legal divorce.  Notice that I used the word “covenant” there.  Jesus used the same word when he instituted the rite of communion.

“And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:27-28).

     It was after this that Jesus made the statement about preparing a place for His disciples in his Father’s house.  So how does this tie into this new covenant or engagement that He just created?  After the engagement ceremony, the groom would leave and would not see his bride for an entire year.  During this time he would return home to his father’s house to being preparing things for his bride.  It was the custom at that time for Jewish families to live in one large house with several different “apartments” all attached to each other.  Thus when a man became engaged he would begin renovating his apartment to make room for the family he and his new wife would soon be starting.  At the end of a year, he would come back for his bride and the official wedding ceremony would take place, after which they would consummate their marriage in the wedding bed.

     So in talking to his disciples, Jesus described a Jewish engagement in its entirety.  In their drinking of the wine he was creating a new engagement and covenant with them, in his telling them that he was preparing a place for them he was foretelling his death and resurrection into Heaven, and in telling them he was coming back for them he was foretelling his eventual return at the end of the world (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17).  We model our relationships and love after Christ’s example, as we should, but in this conversation in John, Jesus uses romance to explain how he would save humanity.

     It seems that God created this romance and marriage with a very specific purpose in mind.  It could not have just been because man was lonely.  If all that God intended was to give man not to be lonely then there would be no need for the ceremony of engagement or marriage.  Romance wouldn’t be the same.  But God created the idea of marriage with precise intention.  I think that God created marriage with the same purpose that He created the stars: to tell the story of His salvation.  Human romance is not a perfect mirror of God’s salvation because humanity is not perfect, but it is still a clear reflection nonetheless.

     For a while I thought that the analogy of God being the groom and the church being his bride was awesome.  I thought the ideas of Him pursuing us as His future bride, or that we should keep ourselves pure like a virgin Him, or of Him preparing a place for us, or of the wedding feast that we will have when we’re reunited were all awesome.  But I would get uncomfortable thinking any deeper than that, because the connotation of consummating a marriage was just too weird for me to relate to God.  But not that long ago, I went to a big church service where the preacher changed my opinion entirely on the subject.  See in the Jewish culture of Jesus’ day, after the bride and groom consummated their marriage, the groom would prove to the rest of the wedding party that his bride had been a virgin by showing them the bloody sheets of their marriage bed.  Many people today do not consider being a virgin before you’re married to be of the most importance.  Sleeping with someone you’re not married to may be looked down upon by Christian or conservative circles, but it is not given much more than a frown or a slow head shake.  However, in Jesus’ time adultery was an offense punishable by death, so these bloody sheets were incredibly important, especially to the bride.  The blood was evidence that she had kept herself pure, that she had consecrated herself only to her groom.  It is very easy to read this information and consider it just a history lesson on outdated social customs.  Please look deeper than that.  In Leviticus 20:7 God says, “Consecrate yourselves and be holy.”  As the bride of Christ, God commands us to stay pure for Him.  He is awaiting a bride that has not cheated on Him or gone looking for fulfillment anywhere else.  He is looking for a bride who has done nothing but think about Him and prepare herself for when He returns to take her home with Him.  Sadly, this does not describe His church.  Just like the punishment for sex outside of marriage was death, Romans 6:23 tells us that the punishment for sin or being unfaithful to what God has commanded us is also death.  Without Divine intervention we would get to the marriage bed of God and our unfaithfulness would be evidenced by the lack of blood on the sheets and we would be put to death.

     But God had a better idea.

     Instead, God saw our unfaithfulness and, becoming a human, lived a perfect and pure life and then died to pour out His blood for us.  When we are finally reunited with Jesus and consummate our marriage, He will pour out His blood on the bed sheets and say, “Look my bride is a pure virgin.”  Jesus’ blood on the sheets covers our unfaithfulness and adultery.

     It is amazing how much imagery God has placed in His creation to point us back to Him.  It is breathtaking how much detail and planning God put into this world and humanity.  I have spent hours upon hours trying to comprehend just this small piece of God’s creation and I am still at a loss for adequate words to describe it.  The word count on this post is now over 2,500 and I haven’t come close to doing it justice.  It is my hope that every time we think of romance, every time we go to a wedding, every time a friend gets engaged, we are reminded of how amazing a price Jesus paid to cover our transgressions, our adultery.  That we not only mirror our love and romance after Christ’s love, but that every time we see our spouse, our girlfriend or boyfriend, and every time we celebrate the idea of romantic love we see the reflection of God’s salvation and love for us in it.

Silence

I had an interesting experience tonight.  It wasn’t anything outrageous or unbelievable… just interesting.  As I pulled in to my parking spot after seeing a movie with a friend, I just let the song I was listening to play out before I turned the car off.  The song has really nothing to do with what I’m talking about but I guess it just quieted me down a little bit.  After it was over I turned off my car and just sank back in my seat, not really feeling like going outside.  I wouldn’t normally think that my car doors and windows do a good job of blocking sound but I guess they’re just good enough to silence the army of crickets waiting for me outside because it was perfectly quiet inside.  When I say perfectly quiet, I mean ridiculously, obnoxiously quiet.  Have you ever tried to relax all of the muscles in your arm or leg just to see what it feels like to not move it at all and then all of the sudden get nervous that you really can’t move it so you stand up really quick or flex you arm just to make sure it still works (Don’t lie you know you’ve done it too)?  It was something like that.  I sat so still and so quiet that I felt like I could literally hear the silence.  It was creepy, actually.  So I jingled my keys a little but and pushed some change around in the ash tray just to make sure my ears were functioning properly.  For those concerned, they work just fine, thanks for asking.  But there was something about that silence that was just eerie.  And for some weird, probably unrelated reason it put me in the mood to write.  But I have no idea what to write about.  I could try to write something funny but I really don’t have any funny stories or jokes at the moment.  I could try to write something deep and profound that will make you scratch your head and want to comment on it.  That’d make me feel really good about myself and maybe give me a little confidence boost or something.  But who cares?  Will I really write something that someone else hasn’t?

Many times we feel the need to say something… anything, for fear of silence.  I notice it a lot when I’m working with other people.  If there is a 5 or 10 minute pause without any talking or noise somebody will inevitably clear their throat or make some inane comment about they wish it was the weekend already.  Silence is not an option for us.  We try to avoid it as much as possible.  It is simply too uncomfortable.

As a worship leader, I hate silence.  I do my best to organize a worship service where there is absolutely no dead air.  “We have to keep people occupied, or they’ll get uncomfortable and won’t come back,” I tell myself.  I’m still not sure why though.  This past Sunday the background music accidentally cut out with a minute still left on our pre-service countdown.  Our band was already in place, and one of the guys asked if we were going to start now.  I shrugged and said that the music would come back on in a second.  I mean, Heaven forbid we start the service a minute early!  But the music didn’t come back on.  As I watched the second countdown from 50 to 49, 49 to 48, 48 to 47, each second seemed at least a minute long by itself.  It became unbearably awkward as I could feel people staring at us, wondering when we would break the silence.  I thought we could stick it out.  I was wrong.  With 30 seconds to go I couldn’t stand it any longer.  I gave the signal, our drummer counted us in, and everyone became comfortable once again.

Thirty seconds?!  I couldn’t stand 30 seconds of silence?  How pathetic.   But such is life; we can’t stop, we can’t stand still, and we wonder why we’re so tired at the end of the week.  We are constantly moving, constantly listening to something, watching something, or doing something.  Rarely do we stop or even slow down.  Last week I only worked a half day at work so I could relax a little bit that night.  But when I got home and sat down I realized that I had nothing to do, and I spent the next 5 hour aimlessly looking around the house and then eventually around town for something to occupy my attention, even only for a moment.  We live such busy lives it’s often hard for us to simply take a day off. 

It’s not comfortable, and we’re not used to it.

But that it is exactly what God tells us that we must do.  Psalm 46:10 reads, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”  This is an often quoted verse, but I think it has become so common that we fail to understand its meaning.  God speaks to us through the psalmist saying in essence, “Stop and be amazed by me!  I am awesome and all-powerful and the entire earth will worship me one day.”  There are two different kinds of things that amaze people.  The first of these we will call “firecracker amazement.”  This kind of amazement is the immediate reaction to a spectacular and incredibly obvious, in-your-face, kind of event.  The second type of amazement is called “delayed amazement” (sorry, I couldn’t think of any really clever names for this one).  This amazement is the awe that we get from looking at God’s creation, watching the sunset, staring into the eyes of someone you love, or laying outside at night and trying to count the stars.  It is often subtle and can be lost in an instant if we’re not careful.  What do both of these kinds of amazement have in common?  They both cause us to stop and just wonder.  They take our breath away and bring our busy lives to a screeching halt.  This is what God is talking about.

He is saying, “Stop. Take a breath.  Think about me and let me blow your mind.”

We are too busy for God.

Our friends are too important, Facebook is too important, our job is too important, our church is too important.

“Be still, and know that I am God;  I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

 

Stop.