students of jesus

I love my family. My marriage has been good—thirty years day-by-day with the love of my life; I’ve watched three children grow and run and laugh. Then I try to see myself capable of willingly sacrificing any one of them on behalf of others—and not just “others,” but on behalf of my enemies and those who hate me. I try to imagine what I would feel if my children would suffer at the hands of ignorant and wicked men. Then I try to imagine it was my idea, my request, my plan. With such imagination I realized Jesus did not suffer alone. The Father and the Spirit shared the pain.

Every loving parent has experienced this in some measure. Your child falls and scrapes her knee. Your child falls and breaks his arm. More chilling: your child falls ill and dies. You would willingly take their place. Perhaps you have offered God that very deal.

This year Easter season it dawned on me: God experienced the cross three-fold. We are familiar with Jesus’ suffering: the agonizing night in the garden where he offered up prayers through loud cries and tears; the betrayal of his closest friends; the shame and humiliation of arrest; the torture of beatings and lashes; and the slow death on a cross.

In each event the Father suffered, too. Put yourself in the Father’s place. Everything Jesus endured, the Father suffered in the way only a loving parent can suffer.

Nor did the Holy Spirit stand by as a stoic. The Spirit’s energizing love brings glory to the Son and the Father. In the suffering death of Jesus the Spirit’s life force was held in check while all creation rejected the Creator.

God, the Holy Trinity, suffered three-fold. Each suffering was unique. Each suffering was a kind of death. Each suffering paid the price to liberate a captive and hostile world.

Yet this reflection is not merely a downer: there’s a lesson in the revelation. Community bears suffering together. In perfect community our sufferings are shared. Perhaps these sufferings are not lessened, but we are not alone even as the Father, Son, and Spirit are never alone.

God, who is sweet community in himself, divides the suffering. He spread his suffering among himself: Father, Son, and Spirit. His empathy is great because he understands the grieving mother and the abandoned child. He has lived their lives.

His divine community offers at least one more lesson: community multiplies joy. Whatever is good and true and filled with life becomes common property. This is the math of heaven: suffering is divided; joy is multiplied.

Jesus offered not only cleansing and redemption. He extended his hand and said, “Enter into the Master’s joy.” All that heaven holds dear becomes ours, and all our sorrows are born by the great cloud of witnesses, chief among them the High King of Heaven.

50 Forgotten Days, my devotional for Easter through Pentecost, has been very well received! As of yesterday (Wednesday) it was #1 in all three of its categories at Amazon. Today is the last day I'll featrure content from the devotional -- it's Day Four -- and it's not too late for you to download the 99¢ version at Amazon.

The Resurrection of God ~ DAY FOUR

The Welcome Interruption

The phone. A knock at the door. Running errands that never seem to end. When something interrupts your life, how do you respond? Luke’s resurrection story is an account of what actually happened on the road to Emmaus, but it’s a parable as well. The good news was hidden inside an interruption. The two disciples discovered a burning heart comes only by walking with Jesus—or rather, by inviting him to walk with you. The miracle came after they chose to show hospitality, and when they finally recognized him they realized their true destination.

Ask Yourself: Have I considered the possibly that my next interruption might be God wanting to hang out with me?

Live Into it: Could you insert time into your daily everyday schedules to include the possibility of a welcome interruption?

It happened to me years ago—an experience so vivid not even the passing of decades can steal its power. I only saw it for a few seconds, but I was never the same. I sat in a prayer circle with some friends as we prayed for anything other than God’s presence among us, and there I saw an image of a burning bush. I can’t say it was the burning bush of Exodus 3, but it was a bush, and it was burning.

I looked into the translucent flames and saw what Moses might have seen: the bush was not consumed in the fire. Stalk, limbs and leaves, the bush looked more alive than if it was not burning. Yet I saw there was something consumed in the fire.

That “something” was everything that was not the bush.

I saw insects buzzing about the bush, incinerated. Somehow, in this picture, I saw the very mites who crawled on the underside of the leaves consumed even as the leaves themselves flourished in flame. I saw the creeping, parasitic vines (so strong as to choke the very life out of the bush) cremated in the fire of God.

And I heard the word “Holy.”

Even as a young man I knew some of the Biblical language of holiness and fire:

I knew that three Hebrew boys met God in a furnace at Babylon, where they were set free of their bonds and met the Son of God.

I had read the Psalm, “Our God comes and will not be silent; a fire devours before him, and around him a tempest rages.”

And I knew there was somewhere a kingdom that would never be shaken, underscored with the words, “Our God is a consuming fire.”

In that instant, on a summer day in the far away world of the 1970’s, my view of holiness was formed. In the decades since, I have carried the image of a holiness ignited and sustained by God, the kind of holiness that depends not at all upon me, except for the courage to embrace the fire.

I learned God reveals himself in a burning bush, and I still hear from the flame a constant invitation to come, barefoot, and step into the fire.

In one sense my walk with God has been the process of welcoming this God who is consuming fire because he burns not me, but everything that is not really me. I have recognized my on-going fear is that I will be consumed, because I so easily believe the lie tells me that the parasites and I are one.

It is no easier today than then, because the voice of self warns me to stay away from the burning. But I have learned—and am learning still—to gaze into the flame to see what is consumed and what is set free.

There are sixty-six books in the Bible and that’s too many for me.

We are tempted to think it is only one book--when in fact we carry in one hand an entire library. iPhone apps distill the collected wisdom of centuries into a tap-and-touch guided tour. Sixty-six books, forty-plus authors, three continents and at least 1,500 years: how many gigabytes do you need for that?

The reason this collection is too big is not because of some flaw in how the Bible has been safeguarded and delivered to us today. The problem is me. I cannot take in the bedazzling array of God’s creativity in the written word. Let me flash my orthodox credentials for a moment: of course, the Spirit of God inspires all sixty-six books. I trust the inspired judgment of the church fathers in setting the canon with these very books and not some others.

I am aware of through-the-Bible-in-a-year reading plans, but I find myself hanging out again and again in the same neighborhoods of the scripture. How about you? Again and again I return to the epic life stories in Genesis, but wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with those wild-west Judges just a few books over. The Psalms moves my heart but I feel scolded by the Proverbs. I could read the gospels every day but when I read Paul I find myself asking, “Who made you the boss of me?” And don’t get me started on Revelation--I read it late one night and didn’t sleep for a week.

There was a time when I would feel guilty about playing favorites in the Bible. But perhaps my heart is predisposed to receive certain input more easily that others.

Let me be clear: it’s all the word of God. We should do our best to receive it all. We should not gainsay the books that do not yield their fruit as easily. We should desire to drink from every fountain he provides; yet we should not feel guilty if our hearts come again and again to a familiar spring.

Quite the opposite: we should ask the Spirit to reveal what this tells us about ourselves. Here are some questions to help us hear his voice in the Bible:

• What books of the Bible speak to me most clearly?
• What does this say about me--how am I postured to receive his instruction?
• Has the Bible changed for me over the years? Those words that spoke to me in my youth—are they the same ones that speak to me now?
• Are there treasures undiscovered in the books I read again and again?
• Are there treasures undiscovered in the books I rarely read?

These questions (and others like them) will lead us into discovery of his written word--and ourselves.

In my college days I delivered pizza to the hungry people of Arlington Heights, Illinois. It was a high calling: affluent over-fed suburbanites needed greasy junk food in 30 minutes or less, and I was just the guy to get it to them. Near the back door of the pizza shop was a huge map of the town. Whenever the delivery order displayed an unfamiliar address I went straight to the map. It was authoritative. It was clear. And I can’t remember a single time when the map was wrong. Today I imagine Google Maps, with its robo-voice, directing pizza-drivers to their destination. But the job is still the same: get there.

Perhaps my pizza experience shaped my faith, because for many years I was all about the destinations. For a while I thought Christianity was mainly about going to heaven—a destination. Later, I thought it was all about putting Christians into political office—also a destination. As a typical North American I became very comfortable with a results-oriented view of the faith. What’s the goal? How do we get there? Let’s get moving.

It turns out I was only half right. The destination is important: you’ve got to pick the right one; but the journey will shape you in ways you never imagined. Here’s a flaw in results-only thinking: the destination is a decision, and decisions are comfortable things because after I’ve made up my mind, there’s no reason to think any more.

Just one example: when Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan he was answering the question, “Who is my neighbor?” The sub-text of his story includes two religiously minded people who were focused more on the destination than the journey. What if God had instructed those two passers-by to go to Jericho because God knew what they would find along the way?

We use the phrase “following Jesus,” but many of us would like it better if he just texted us the address and we used Google Maps to find our own way. Too often, we use the Bible like a Google Maps: our heads down, looking at the screen, ignoring the living guide, Who says, “Look up! Do you see what’s happening on the side of the road?”

There’s nothing wrong with destinations or maps. Both are important. We must choose wisely and consult the right tools. But the map is not the territory, nor is the destination always the point of the journey. We like maps and destinations because they are comfortable and clear.

It’s easy to reduce our walk with Jesus to a destination, and it’s easier still to trust a map instead of a Living Guide. Yet, Jesus said he would not leave us alone. He promised a Comforter—or if you will, a “Spirit guide.” Day-by-day we are tempted to treat the Bible as a map even though the Lord said the Spirit will lead us into all truth (see John 16, especially verse 13). Look closely: we should hear the truth, because a Person speaks it. I trust the Bible, and receive it as a precious gift from God. But I trust the Holy Spirit even more, because he wrote the book; He is alive to the nuance of every step in every journey.

A map will get you where you need to go. A guide will show you things you’ve never seen before.