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Posts Tagged ‘God’

The Sabbath-Rest

Posted in Eastertide, Time Up to Pentecost, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Photo By Irm Brown

Is this the ultimate Sabbath-rest — is this heaven? Having gotten excited about Rob Bell’s Love Wins and the idea of heaven on earth and the manifestation of the Kingdom within now, I have to ask, what is this? Or is it a call to a 7-day week with a rest day?

Hebrews 4:9-10
There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.

Instead, I’m thinking it’s more inclusive. The 6-day work week and the 7th day rest has been a classic model throughout Jewish history. It was cultural as well as mandated by the law. Why, it’s even in the Ten Commandments: (Number Four) “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work . . .” [Exodus 20:8-10a]

But, when I look more closely at these rather convoluted passages from Hebrews Four, I must re-think this idea of work and no-work. The Sabbath is a no-work day, but really, who’s doing that? We still cook, we teach Sunday School, we check e-mail, we cut the grass, we go shopping. And these are the light days! We are the lucky ones who don’t have to show up and stand behind a register all day or take food orders or hold bedpans. Are we sinning to “work” on this day?

Or is their another rest? Is there a rest that comes merely from entering and operating in the world of the Christ? Wasn’t it proclaimed that the Messiah would complete all things? There would no longer be sacrifices for sins nor striving to be good to be accepted by God. Jesus said, at the last, “It is finished.”

Perhaps we need to worry less about doing the right thing on the 7th day and spend more time building the 8th day, the time of new beginnings. Followers of the Christ are actually living in that day and time: grace above all, without condemnation, ongoing forgiveness, love as a force, while transparency and authenticity reveal the life to those who don’t know.

“This is the Day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” [Psalm 118:24]

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Hope Needs Courage

Posted in Eastertide, Time Up to Pentecost, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 9, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Painting by N.S.G.

It takes a lot of courage, actually, to continue to hope in something or someone, both unseen and yet promised for a time in a future we cannot know. There must be persistence too, but often, it takes plain courage and a type of audacity to believe despite it all.

Hebrews 3:6
But Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast. [NIV 1984]

For some people, this tenacity has to have something more substantial to sustain it and so they latch on to a concrete idea still in the future to uphold their courage. Like a date. Apparently, there is a groundswell of believers who are putting their hope and their courage into May 21, 2011 as “judgment day” and the end of the world. These folks are the antithesis of Rob Bell’s stance in Love Wins. Where Bell’s hell is already manifesting here on earth and our battle is in the now for the power of the Kingdom to take hold; these folks are predicting the great rapture for the enlightened and a fiery hell for everyone else; the only winners in their minds are “people like them.”

Of course, this isn’t just in the Christian world; there’s still 2012 to face as well. With the “end” of the Mayan calendar, some people believe and predict, the end of the world as we know it is next year.

To what or in what do these eschatological folks hope? Mostly, it’s “hope nothin’ bad happens to me” and “just in case,” let’s look into some “fire” insurance . . . or assurance, and join this or that bandwagon.

Here’s the rub: hope implies a good end. And it takes courage to hold onto this kind of hope because our world is full of dark things, dark people, dark rulers and “principalities.” [For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:12]

“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. . . . ” Matthew 10:28a

Courage cannot be built on a 3D world; there are no guarantees here. Courage and hope can only be built on our faith in the truth of a Christ whose Holy Spirit defies logic and protects the Human Spirit from eternal death and separation from the Creator. Nothing more.

To become a believer in the Christ is a statement of hope. For the words of Christ promise that all will turn out for the best. Courage is the ability to face a different world that mocks hope, questions the supernatural, and defies paradox with proofs and logic. To stand. That’s the key. Whether it’s May 21st or 2012, whether it’s sickness or sorrow or disappointment that have been meted out in large doses, we are called to stand on the solid rock of faith.

And if I fall off that rock because my faith was too small or my fears too great? There is still grace.

“But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed.” [Acts 27:22]

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God the Builder

Posted in Eastertide, Time Up to Pentecost, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 8, 2011| 1 Comment »

Do we still honor the builder? I think not. I am as guilty as anyone else. Sometimes, I can’t remember the author of a book, much less an architect. I was terrible at “music memory” in grammar school and worse at signers of the declaration of independence.

Hebrews 3:2b-4
. . . just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.

Instead, I get absorbed by the end result, the “house,” the object.

This morning, a friend and I spent a couple of hours at Panera Church over latte and coffee discussing how differently she looks at humanity than she did five years ago. For so long, she said, it was still about “us and them”–the believers and the non-believers. “Thems” were a shadow of humanity: they were out and we were in. They were a house without rooms. They were a shell. But now, she finds herself within the teeming masses of people, all built by the hand of God, all sacred in a way that only God can create. She sees the builder behind the human.

There are people who are still building and using their creativity. There are inventors struggling to find a place for their inventions (they even have their own reality show now); creative artists abound, longing for ways to get their work out to the general public, to share their creations. For these people, they are giving out a part of themselves. Painters, writers, composers, craftsmen, architects, and many more creators, are trying to tell us: this is how I see the world, come with me.

God is a creator too. The earth is one aspect of God’s message to humanity. And more, living things are another, animals, fish, and people included.

Today is Mother’s Day in the U.S. and we celebrate the women who carried us within their bodies and nurtured us as best they were able. Together, a female and male parent came together to create another human, endowed with a personal spirit, unique to the world in which we live.

Let us give thanks to the Builder today, the Creator, the Mother/Father of us all. Let us look at everything and everyone and remember the source of that idea, that word, that color, that shape, that sound. Amen.

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Unashamed of Me

Posted in Eastertide, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I confess, when I screw up, I imagine Jesus rolling his eyes. And really, nothing could be further from the truth. His patience and grace far exceed my own, his expectations are endowed with the whole picture, I am loved.

Hebrews 2:11
Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. [NIV 2011]

God went to a lot of trouble to re-establish relationship with Human; that work, sending a Redeemer who was fully God and fully human, created a breach in the way things used to be. Nothing was the same.

The unique outcome was that Human was transformed and holiness was attainable, not by performance or desires or good deeds, but by faith, a conscious desire to believe in the Presence of God within through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus sees new Human (that marriage of spirits). We are one. He said so.

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Lower and then Higher

Posted in Eastertide, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Two Angels by Peter Shor

Part of the mystery of God’s plan for the Messiah was that he would enter human life fully, and although he would be restored to that greater place in the Kingdom, he would first live among us, that life lower than the angels, yet full of potential for kingdom living.

Hebrews 2:5, 7-8a
It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking.
“You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor and put everything under his feet.” [Psalm 8:5-6]

Jesus spent his short but intense ministry doing everything he could to explain, describe, and illustrate the mystery of living and loving in the kingdom of heaven on earth. Undoubtedly, if all else fails, once we let go of our mortal bodies, a fuller understanding of heaven will manifest. And yet, I have to agree with Rob Bell in his latest book, Love Wins, that we are missing the opportunity of our lifetimes: to experience heaven now, to be fully present and responsive to the Holy Spirit now, and thereby, “draw all men [and women] unto Him” [John 12:32]

Currently, I am still reading Sun Stand Still by Stephen Furtick and was caught off guard by another aspect of this idea (which he has reworked from A. W. Tozer’s The Knowledge of the Holy), that our view of God drives how we live out our faith. If our God view is that of a disciplinarian, then we will work hard to “perform” well for God. If God is a dictator, then we’ll limit our actions to what we believe God allows. If God is loving and kind, then we will live freely and in confidence that we can make mistakes. “What comes into your mind when you think about God?” [A. W. Tozer]

If it’s true that God provided a Redeemer, a Messiah, to help all human beings “start over” and establish direct and intimate relations with God, the supreme and sovereign One God, then why bother? What are we supposed to be doing with this renewed relationship? Is it just a personal escape from the fires of Hell or are we supposed to be living out our lives more like the Christ?

We are still “lower than the angels” but I do believe that we are called to be higher, blessed and reunited through our life with the Holy Spirit.

How many times did Jesus chastise his own disciples for their “lack of faith?” [Matthew 6:30, 8:26, 16:8, to name a few]

“Whoever finds his [lower] life will lose it [the higher life], and whoever loses his [lower] life on My account will find it [the higher life].” [Matthew 10:39, Amplified]

What might that look like today?

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What’s An Angel to Me?

Posted in Eastertide, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I don’t know. There are days I think I should be making an effort to engage angels; they are, after all, part of the other “realm,” the timeless place, the God environment. And I wonder, do they have a hierarchy in such a place? Can a timeless, spiritual entity be spatial?

Hebrews 1:4; 6b
So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs. . . . “Let all God’s angels worship him.”

The angels and the saints worship God. And when the Messiah completed the task laid out reuniting human with God, Christ was recognized as worthy of worship, and sat, as they say, at the right hand of God. (Surely this is figurative . . . or is it?)

Based on scriptures, angels act in a great many roles throughout the telling of the Messiah story and his people (in both Testaments). Angels are created beings who worship, yes, but they also carry verbal messages to humans (and nations), they intervene and do battle against evil, and they serve God in a variety of ways from carrying out judgments to manifesting answers to prayer. Are they still doing these tasks?

But my real question is whether there is, anywhere in scripture (or perhaps in experience), an indication that I can have a relationship with an angel?

There is even (academic and not so academic) disagreement as to whether or not there exist Guardian Angels, that is angels which are “assigned” to protect or guard individual souls, particularly children. I know there are personal stories of people sensing or seeing such an angel in times of trouble or sorrow. There are also a few mystics who described interactions with their personal angels and wrote about it.

Can I be like George in It’s a Wonderful Life and chat up my angel? Ask questions, argue, complain, thank? I don’t think so.

But, before anyone gets indignant with me; I’m not saying angels don’t exist. On the contrary, I actually believe they are still among us, still doing the work of God in a variety of ways, still protecting, and still singing love songs to God. But I don’t believe they have relationships with humans. They are too different, too outside our human realm of understanding and perception. It would be like trying to have a relationship with the wind, even though we can see its effects and even predict its behavior, we cannot “know” it.

It is for this very reason that God manifested Jesus in human form, so that we could “get it,” or at least observe and hopefully follow. It’s specifically because Jesus offers a relationship that our experience with God is transformed. He is not the wind but a baby in a manger, a boy in the temple, a teacher on a hill, and a martyr on a cross. And after all this 3-D work, Christ passes along to us the Holy Spirit who dwells within, to guide us some more, to teach us some more and to ultimately heal us.

The realm of God is undoubtedly more diverse and expansive than anything here on earth. And yet, just as humans were made in God’s image, I wonder, is Earth (natural Earth) created after an image as well? And who knows, maybe angels are the creative spark. Something to think about.

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Foolish Controversies

Posted in Feast Days and Holy Days, Lent, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 24, 2011| 1 Comment »

Batik by Hanna Cheriyan Varghese, Malaysia

Sometimes it’s not worth engaging in discussions that will go nowhere, particularly if people are getting upset and defensive. No one gains. If anything, more is said than should have been said and the controversy escalates. I have seen this happen a hundred times. I’m done.

Titus 3:9
But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.

We had a controversy in our local community that was extremely divisive. Conversations were misrepresented; newspapers reported incomplete information and often, with only one side of the story or pure hearsay; while social networks were used to accuse and inflame an already unstable situation. And to what end? The people in the center of it all felt no better, just wrenched apart emotionally. The only thing that lessened the impact was the wisdom of a few who said: don’t engage, don’t add, don’t comment. And eventually, this proved the best choice; the furor abated and people moved on with their lives.

When Jesus stood before the different “authorities” on those fateful days before his crucifixion, he, too was silent. What would have been the point? No one would have believed him more that day than any other day. There was nothing more to be said. His great controversy had to be endured and he knew the meaning from the beginning. He may not have known how the whole thing would play out, the passing from one dignitary to another (think about it: he saw three “leaders” in the course of 24 hours who could have changed the world), but he knew the outcome would be the same: torture and death to the body.

But Jesus also knew about the third day. He knew about the results. He trusted God, despite the pain, the desolation, the anger, and the very air of evil that encircled him. Words were nothing.

And so, Jesus, as foretold throughout the histories and prophecies, rose from the dead. That event put all controversies into perspective.

When all is said and done, most stories have an opportunity for resurrection and transformation. With God, there is always hope. There is no irredeemable act. Even in the face of evil, we must hold fast to our belief that “love wins” — God wins!

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