Thursday, December 22, 2005

If I only hear from the Bible what I already believe, then am I Jesus speaking to myself under cover of Scripture?

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

"He has surpassed me..."

Reading John 1:15
"John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying 'This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'"

It is no small thing to be able to look at another and honestly say 'he is a better man than I am.' We are naturally egocentric and believe in our own superiority. The person who comes to Jesus is forced to admit this or be doomed to projecting his own image onto Jesus. If I am not absolutely clear about the fact that Jesus 'has surpassed me' then I will use my relationship with Jesus to affirm and reinforce my own sin. Even my repentance will only be a reflection of my own desire to minimize and to let myself off the hook. I will be able to use Jesus to forgive myself and to condemn others. I will have baptized my self-righteousness.

If I can accept that Jesus is the better man, if, with John, I can say 'I am not worthy to untie the thongs of his sandals' (1:27), then I am positioned to hear the whole truth about myself and then real change is possible. This is the definition of Christian humility. The presence of this humility is tested for every time I am criticized. An immediate defensive reaction is a warning sign that something is amiss in my relationship with Jesus. Even if I think the criticism is not justified there should be something in me that says: 'they don't know the half of it, the don't know my secret sins, my thoughts, my neglected duties, they don't know my coldness, my lack of love, my wanderings, my betrayals of Jesus and his priorities...'. The presence of this humility is tested for every time I criticize someone else, every time I think that someone else's sin is worse than my own, someone else's rejection of Jesus is worse than my rejection of him, someone else's neglect is worse than my neglect, someone else's rebellion is worse than my rebellion.

The one thing that stands out about John the Baptist, more than anything else, is his humility with respect to Jesus:

"He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me." (v15, 30)
"I am not the Christ" (v20)
"I am not Elijah" (v21)
"I am not the Prophet" (v21)
"I am the voice of one calling in the desert" (v23)
"I am not worthy to untie the thongs of his sandals" (v27)
"He must increase but I must decrease" (3:30)

You will be a better man when you recognize that Jesus is the better man.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

"The word became flesh..."

Reading John 1:14
"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

If a picture is worth a thousand words what do you have when the perfect Word ("the Word was God," John 1:1) becomes the perfect picture ("the exact representation of his being," Heb. 1:3)? Where do we even begin with the interpretation when Word and Picture of the eternal God is perfectly fused with temporal humanity ("became flesh")? John uses images of life and light and glory to try to convey some of the impact of this unprecedented event. Jesus is the closest we can ever come to understanding the One whose "thoughts are not our thoughts" and whose "ways are not our ways" (Isaiah 55). Jesus is the closest we will ever come to seeing the one who lives in "unapproachable glory." Looking at Jesus and seeing God is like looking at the night sky and seeing the heavens. We can see enough to feel completely overwhelmed but realize that we are only seeing the outer fringes of his being. Jesus does not fully remove the mystery of God, does not make God familiar. On any consideration the incarnation of God presents us with something not fully understandable. The incarnation is problematic, like Moses' bush that burned with fire but was not consummed. How can the eternal be dressed up in temporal clothes without losing its essential character as eternal? How can "the glory of the One and only" be transformed into one human being among a population of billions of human beings and not lose his essential character as blindingly glorious?

All attempts at explanation are less than satisfying and have the effect of diminishing the wonder of the event. All that we can say is that he "made his dwelling among us" and "we have seen...". To go further than this would be like trying to explain the science behind the burning bush.

Can we live with wonder or are we doomed to reject what we can't understand, even though he has "lived among us" and "we have seen..."?

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Children of God

Reading John 1:12
"Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God..."

In the previous verse we read that "he came to his own but his own did not receive him." What is it to be rejected by your own? What feelings and emotions and hurts pressed in on the humanity of Jesus because those who owed him so much turned him away at the door? He is the Word, the voice of God calling out to us but we have refused to listen or we go on reading the paper while he talks away in the background of our life. He created everything that is, all the things that we live by and enjoy and take great pleasure in but we reject the greatest pleasure of all, the pleasure of knowing him - we take the gifts and reject the giver. He is the life, the spark that turns bare existence into joyful being. We taste the joy but refuse to share it with the one who holds the cup and offers it to us. He is the light but we prefer darkness or shades of gray, thinking that somehow darkness can add a little colour to our world. He is rejected on all counts even though we have nothing without him. The drive to declare our complete independence of God is at the heart of our rebellion against him. Like the prodigal we want our inheritance and we want it all to ourselves, somehow thinking that we will enjoy it more if we can flee our father's world, can get out of his shadow.

Beginning with his birth "he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering...we esteemed him not" (Isaiah 53:3). The problem of his rejection is reversed when we "receive him" and "believe in his name" but it is never fully put to rest in this world. What betrayal there is even in the heart of the Christian. How often we "grieve" him, reject him from our days routines, ask him to wait while we attend to other things, show him the door when we don't like what he says, rage against him when he will not yield to our will.

Nevertheless, when we open our life to him, acknowledge who he is, recognize our complete dependence on him and give thanks to him for being the reason we have a life at all then we are welcomed as children. We become his in a way that it is not possible to be without receiving Jesus as God. When we join with Thomas in falling down before him and saying "my Lord and my God," then the incarnation moves from being a matter of history to a matter of personal experience. History is set right for me when I open the door and gladly welcome Jesus in.

Any room at the inn this Christmas or will Jesus have to wait until the busy holiday season is over to get the welcome he deserves?

Monday, December 12, 2005

Spiritual amnesia

Reading John 1:10-11
"He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own but his own did not receive him."

Many movies and television programs have dealt with the theme of amnesia and the chaos and confusion that results when a person forgets who he is and no longer recognizes his friends and family members. This is exactly what we are dealing with in these verses. We are looking at a failure to recognize who made us and what we are doing here. The result is a rejection of our most important family members: our loving heavenly Father, our brother Jesus, and our closest comforter, the Holy Spirit. There is a complete network of love and support but we turn our backs on it because of a lack of recognition. This is the condition of the world in its unbelief. This is often referred to as being "lost," a term that is very fitting for the spiritual amnesiac.

These verses show that a lack of recognition leads inevitably to a lack of reception. We give the best reception to those whom we know and love the most. If I am not giving Jesus a very warm reception in my daily life I need to trace the problem back up the line. How well do I really know him? The Gospels are the meeting place and if I'm not spending time in the Gospels I begin to be afflicted with bouts of temporary amnesia. This in turn leads me to a loss of connection with my Father, Brother, and Comforter. I begin to enter into an experience of lostness where the ground seems to go out from under my feet - insecurity, loneliness, anxiety, purposelessness, come to underlie all of the normal experiences of life. At first it is only a sense, something hard to put your finger on, but left to grow it becomes a thief and a robber of the joy of life. All this can be prevented by regularly going to the meeting place and staying connected with the greatest lover the world has ever known; Jesus the lover of my soul.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

"The light of the world..."

Reading John 1:4-9
"The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world." (v9)

My life is a juxtaposition of darkness and light, each element unexplainable in its own way. How can I account for the presence of either? The presence of goodness is as problematic as the presence of evil. What makes it even more confusing is the presence of both in one person's life. The world I know, the people I know, is a whirl of both strains that makes for warfare, conflict, and confrontation both between people and within the individual. At the end of history, my personal history or the history of the world, which will win out, the darkness or the light?

John answers the question like this: "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." This is the reading of the NIV but John made his statement in a deliberately ambiguous way (something John was fond of doing). His statement can mean both (and he probably intended both) that the darkness has not understood the light and that the darkness has not overcome the light. The light of Jesus is not a logic that can be comprehended by evil. In a world of tremendous evil there is no explaining the goodness of God. God's goodness presses in to the evil and gets into close proximity with it, it loves the unlovely, it sacrifices itself for the salvation of the enemy, it could call down lightning but refuses to, it could crush in an instant but waits patiently for repentance. The light can not be understood by the darkness, its presuppositions are totally foreign to evil.

John also says that the light cannot be overcome by the darkness. In Jesus it will be shown that goodness is more powerful than evil. Goodness is connected to life (another of John's favorite themes) but evil is connected to death and destruction. The light of Jesus will overcome the darkness in us. Our strategy in the war against evil is to have more of Jesus, more of the light of the world.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

"In him was life..."

Reading John 1:3-4
"Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men."

The fact of existence is rooted in the person of Jesus Christ. The whole physical universe has its explanation in him. Jesus was the executor of the Father's command: "Let there be...". All of the physical sciences sit on the foundation of the creation. The Psalmist says that "the heavens declare the glory of God...". We have not understood the creation if we only see it as a wonder. The message of the physical is not simply that nature is a marvel but that God is glorious. Nature is never fully understood until it is understood as a creative work.

John tells us that not only the fact of existence is rooted in the person of Jesus but so also is the meaning of existence. The meaning of life can be seen in an encounter with the living Christ. "In him was life and that life was the light of men." The answer to what we are here for, what life is all about, is fully discovered by reflection on the life of Christ. This is John's introduction to his Gospel. He is telling us that as we read about Jesus, about all that he said and did, that we will discover the meaning of life, of our life. The incarnate life of God translates something that is eternal and distant into something that is finite and near. We can grasp the meaning of life when we look at Jesus' life.

Later John records that Jesus said: "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10). It was God's intention that we would not only understand the fact and meaning of life but that we would participate in it to the full. When I read the Gospel I am intended to see in Jesus' life something about my life. I am intended to see what God has in mind for me. I have been invited to participate in the life of God as the ultimate fulfillment possible in this world. This is reflected in Jesus' prayer in John 17: "I pray...that 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. I have given them the glory that you gave me...".

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

"In the beginning was the Word..."

Reading John 1:1
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God."

God has many names. Everyone of his names communicates something essential about his character or about his relationship to his creation. I cannot imagine any era of history that could appreciate more the name we have presented here, "the Word," than the information age in which we live. We are only now beginning to discover how incredibly information rich every piece of biological matter on this planet is. The complexity of communication within a single cell is breath-taking. The Bible is clear that the "words" behind all of this communication is nothing less than the voice of God, speaking his unending "let there be...".

God as "Word" has opened the lines of communication between himself and those whome he has uniquely created in his own image. It is his intention to speak. It is his intention that we would hear and understand. The reason that a finite human being can cognitively interpret speech from an infinite God is a matter of God's intention, expressed in his design. God's communication to us is rich, vivid, "broad-band," if you will.

"In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son..." Hebrews 1:1-2

We are both a receiver and a broadcaster of information. How well we receive from God has a big impact on how well we broadcast. God is an intentional and persistant communicator. Is there anything that is interfering with my reception?

Monday, December 05, 2005

"Come to me ... "

Continuing to Read Matthew 11:28-30
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest."

Truth is hard to come by. There are lots of good ideas out there but truth is another matter altogether. Even for those who believe in absolute (revealed) truth, as I do, truth is highly personal. What I mean by this is that truth is not a neutral entity for me, it is not something I can indifferently look up in a book and sign my affirmation to. Truth is entangled with the whole of my life. It has deep implications for everything that is important to me. I have foundational reasons both to hate and to love truth. Truth can be tampered with, adjusted, redirected, twisted, crippled. I can even use one truth to destroy another. But what does this have to do with Jesus invitation to "come to me"? It has everything to do with it! If I am going to explore truth as it relates to my weariness, my burdens, and my need for rest I will have the best success if I do it with someone I trust. The more I trust Jesus the more I will allow him to speak whatever I need to hear. The more I trust Jesus the more I will be willing to let down my guard, give up my defensiveness, admit my hidden motivations and even my resistance to "being told." This is why Jesus says "take my yoke upon you and learn from me...". The only way we can face the really important truths is by getting into relationship with Jesus. Any attempt to get to the truth in some abstract, impersonal, way is doomed to failure. Jesus invites us to have an encounter with truth in the safety of his presence..."and you WILL find rest for your soul...".

Sunday, December 04, 2005

"...never follow a stranger..."

Continuing to read Matthew 11:28-30
"Come to me..."

Our world is full of voices, both literal and metaphorical, that are saying "come to me." Sometimes it's a cacophony of whispers, sometimes it's a shouting match, sometimes one or another voice rises above the others with great insistance. What do I do with all the voices?

In the midst of the voices Jesus says "come to me." Hearing one voice in a crowd is a matter of familiarity. We can enter a room full of people and immediately pick out the voice of the one we know and love. Jesus said that "his sheep follow him because they know his voice" (John 10:4). If we don't want to be thrown off or misled by the confusion of voices the onus is on us to become accustomed to Jesus' voice, to the way he speaks, the kind of themes he addresses, the values he has, the way he puts out a warning, the way he expresses his love. If I don't know him very well then any voice might sound like his voice, particularly if I want it too.

After Jesus says that "his sheep know his voice" he goes on to say "they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize the stranger's voice" (John 10:5). Parents are always shocked to find that their children would go off with a stranger. It takes time for children to learn that not every kind voice or every kind offer is genuine, is reflective of that parental love that they have become used to. In the same way it takes time (in some cases a long time and a lot of hard lessons) for the Christian to be able to discern the difference between Jesus and the spiritual stranger.

When times of great anxiety and need, or offers of great opportunity, come to us it is easy to confuse the voices and find ourselves going down a road that can only lead to grief. The remedy for this is to invest in the relationship. Get to know Jesus very well. Be intentional about your daily time with God.

"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me..." (John 10:14). We are not safe just because Jesus knows us, because Jesus is willing to let us go a long way from home if that is what we really want.

Get to know Jesus and "never follow a stranger...".

Friday, December 02, 2005

"Come to me ... and learn from me..."

Continuing to read Matthew 11:28-30
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me..."

This meditation prepared with the help of:
1. One very large cup of dark roast Columbian coffee.
2. The Brandenburg Concertos

The things we need to learn to convert weariness and burden into rest can only be learned by coming to Jesus. They cannot be learned at at safe distance. They cannot be reduced to lessons and principles that can be taught in a lecture and detached from the person of Jesus. How much of my spiritual/church life is actually a coming to Jesus? This is why prayer is so central to the spiritual life. That is, prayer as a coming to Jesus and not as a tool to control my life and the lives of others (not to mention God), or as a Christian rain dance (the right ceremony or sacramental act), or Christian magic (looking for just the right words), but as a conversation with the lover of my soul, as a "being with" the person who has already acted (was crucified) to secure my rest, both in this world and the next. This is an acceptance that what I need to ensure rest from my burden has already been accomplished. I just keep coming to the one who has secured this for me so that I can enter into an already accomplished peace.

This coming to Jesus involves certain risks, to name a few:
1. Trusting myself to another - can Jesus be trusted with my life?
2. Facing the most painful aspects of my weariness and burderns.
3. Surrender to someone greater than myself.
4. Moving outside the strict definitions of rationality and trusting in revelation.
-reference faith, "things not seen", the invisible (per Hebrews 11)
5. Engaging with an "absolute" authority.