students of jesus

The words are beautiful and inspiring, poetic and memorable. From the very first Bible I owned, I underlined them:

. . . We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. (2 Corin 4:7-12)

Perhaps you’ve read them, too, or drawn comfort from them.

Imagine my surprise years later when I realized these words were not meant for my personal comfort. Paul was talking about himself and his fellow-apostle, Timothy. Nor was he trying to inspire the Corinthians, he was trying to defend his ministry. The church he planted in Corinth—the result of 18 months of concentrated ministry—had turned away from him in favor of stronger, better-looking, smoother-talking, flashier “apostles.” Paul was yesterday’s news in the fast-moving urban center of Corinth, and he didn’t fit the mold of a great leader. Paul was short, balding, scarred, and perhaps nearly blind. Plus, he had left town—what did they owe him?

Now, writing in Second Corinthians, Paul defends his calling and actions as an Apostle, and he does so for the first six chapters of the letter. Try reading those six chapters with this in mind: Paul defends his “authority” by sharing the extent of his suffering. Paul had no website, no book deal, no video crew. His suffering was his business card. Listen:

“. . . as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. (2 Corin 6:4-10)

I count 16 qualifications for this man of God. Each one involves taking the low road, the sacrificial road, the humble road. How many do you see?

My personal lesson was seeing the words of Jesus worked out in Paul’s exemplary life. Jesus said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10: 42-45) Our brother Paul lived these words to the full. It’s a fullness to which I aspire.

Let’s not be too quick to appropriate Bible verses for our personal use. The passages of soaring beauty have been purchased at great cost, let’s not buy them second-hand and wear them cheap. The scriptures are filled with comfort and encouragement, and some of that encouragement is to embrace the hard way. I’ll continue to be inspired by the jars-of-clay, but for entirely different reasons. Will you walk the path with Paul?

Try growing a crop without seed. From the smallest spore to the most robust kernel of grain, growth starts with a seed. Gather together botanists and gardeners, geneticists and farmers; let them compare notes and share experience—it’s just theory without a seed. No seed, no growth.

Nor can you grow a watermelon from mushroom, nor wheat from a rosebush. The seed contains the path and potential. No seed, no path, no potential. 

What would our lives be apart from the possibilities of growth, or hope for the future? The seed itself is the hope. The greater the seed, the greater the possibilities. The greater the seed, the greater the hope. The greater the seed, the greater the future. And in these words we discover the great kindness of God toward us: the heavenly Father has planted a seed inside each of his children.

“You have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” (1 Peter 1:23)

This is more than metaphor. It’s the reality deep within you, and me. He planted the seed. What’s more, he himself is the seed, imperishable, filled with the DNA of Heaven. It lies in the soil of our heart even now.

No one can create a seed. He has done for us what we could not do for ourselves. He has broken off a piece of himself and placed it in us. What we call “the fruit of the Spirit” is the outcome of those who cultivate what God has already given. Who has love that God did not first plant in us? Who has joy that did not first come from the font of all joy? Who has peace apart from the peace of Christ dwelling in us? And on and on.

But everyone can cultivate a seed. Here is our hope, that to walk with him produces the fullness of the Spirit in us. This is not the desperate hope of one who has lost everything; it is the certain hope of one who has received all. We can live in the confident expectation that when we take his yoke and learn from him, we will receive a harvest of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This is not a list of commands but the promise of his goodness come to fruition in us. Instead of trying to attain these character traits we can look to discover them and, upon discovery, nurture them to full flower. The seed is in our hearts, and we are the gardeners. If these traits are dormant in us now, even still we have the confidence that he seed has not perished; it is waiting for us to water it.

The harvest of his seed is the fruit of his Spirit living in us. Gordon Fee, that great encourager and scholar of the Spirit’s work, said, “The goal of individual conversion is for us to bear the fruit of the Spirit, that is, to be transformed into God’s own likeness, the image of Christ.”

No one can create a seed, but everyone can cultivate a seed. The Creator has supplied the seed. We can plunge our hands into the soil, filled with the confidence born by the Spirit Itself.

George Herbert loved Jesus. He devoted his craft to poems of praise and gratitude. He did not reach his 40^th birthday before dying of consumption, but life was a more fragile undertaking in the 17^th century.

The country-born Welshman had the advantages of wealth and education. He could have pursued a political career and lived among the elites of London. Instead, be chose the life and work of a country pastor, where he was noted for unfailing care for his parishioners, bringing the sacraments to them when they were ill, and providing food and clothing for those in need.

He was respected among the metaphysical poets of his day, and in confining his poetry to songs of devotion left us the example of an artist wholly devoted to God while at the same time a creative leader in his society. Would that Christian artists today could lead as well as George Herbert did in his time.

LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
 Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
   From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
   If I lack'd anything.

'A guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here:'
   Love said, 'You shall be he.'
'I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
   I cannot look on Thee.'
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
   'Who made the eyes but I?'

'Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame
   Go where it doth deserve.'
'And know you not,' says Love, 'Who bore the blame?'
   'My dear, then I will serve.'
'You must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat.'
   So I did sit and eat.

Once there was an abusive husband. He was a rage-aholic, given to fits of rage and, horribly, those moments sometimes overflowed into violence. Like the time he slammed his wife up against the kitchen cabinets. Or the time he slapped her across the face and then, in horror and shame, he ran off to find a quiet place to tremble and cry.

The wife—a Christian—forgave her husband each time he came home. He said (quite accurately), “I don’t know what comes over me.” The wife loved her husband deeply and saw the many good sides of this flawed man, but she lived in fear that the next rage-riot might bring a harm that would not heal. She stayed with her husband because each time he was sincere each time he begged for forgiveness. She knew her duty as Christian was to extend grace.

The only thing she knew of God’s grace was forgiveness. She had been told all her life that she herself was powerless over sin, and God’s grace came to forgive and restore her relationship with God. She was enough of a Christian to understand that if God had forgiven her, she should extend the same grace to others, especially her husband.

She knew something of God’s grace, but only enough to put her in danger.

It’s God’s grace that forgives and restores. Sweet forgiveness. Sweet—and filled with torment unless there is something more.

If we look at the wife in this story we want to scream, “Get out! It’s not safe!” Any sane Christian understands the woman has no duty to remain at home and risk injury or death because of some notion of grace, expressed as constant forgiveness.

If we look at the husband in this story we see a man trapped in thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that will mean his ruin and the harm of everyone he loves. A sympathetic view of the husband understands he, too, is a tormented soul in desperate need of help—help beyond merely wiping clean his sinful slate. The most gracious thing his wife could do would be to move out and demand that he get the help he needs to overcome his deep anger and pain.

And what of Jesus, the third member of the marriage? We could no more imagine Jesus leaving this husband in his condition than we could imagine Jesus telling a homeless man, “Go your way, be warm and filled” without giving him food and clothing.

Beyond the characters in this simple story lay a larger question: what about us? Would a grace-filled God leave us in the condition he finds us? Would he spend his days reminding us of our shortcomings, demanding again and again prayers of repentance and sorrow? Would the loving Creator wave his hand and say, “you are forgiven, now—go and sin no more” with lifting even one finger to empower us over our sin?

Sometimes an extreme example is necessary to grab our hearts and free our minds. Does God’s grace mean only forgiveness, or is there something more to his antidote for sin? Would God leave us alone in our rage, our addictions, or our isolation? A cold and comfortless God he would be if it were so.

The problem is not with the Father, nor his grace: it is our understanding of grace--his on-going work in our lives. Jesus will not leave us to ourselves any more than he would leave a beggar in the street. Anyone who suggests so misrepresents the true grace of God.

Who could need more than the grace of God? It’s not that we need something more than God’s grace, it’s that we need all of his grace, even the parts we would prefer to ignore. Take a moment and give it some thought: how might God’s grace be available in greater measure than we have known before? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

There was a woman who was healed of a continual flow of blood for twelve years, and everything we know about her came to us because Jesus stopped to hear her story.

Here it is in full, but I’m only interested in eight words.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” (Mark 5:24-34)

Here are the eight words: “trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.” If Jesus had not stopped and discovered this woman, she would have gone home healed—and we would be none the wiser. But he stopped. He looked for her, and kept on looking, and he drew the woman to our attention. And we heard her story.

The gospel narrative gives us the details of her life up front, but in fact it happened the other way around. No one knew her story until he asked. The woman made a bold reach for Jesus. The healing happened. Then he stopped and listened, and we learned. Have you ever wondered why Jesus—on his way to help a dying girl—stopped in his tracks and demanded to know her story?

He healed more than her body. This woman lived at the margins of society until Jesus drew her away from shame and isolation. He pulled her to the center of the crowd, and in so doing made us listen as well. It would have been easier for us if we heard about the healing in passing (“That’s nice: some lady got healed.”). We needed the back story because we are so often unaware of the suffering: 12 years of chronic bleeding, bouncing from doctor to doctor, spending all her money, and living with the shame. We didn’t know—nor would we have cared unless Jesus made us listen. We needed healing as well, an empathy transplant.

In his final gesture Jesus turned the attention away from himself to the woman. The healing virtue flowed from Jesus, but he reframed the healing from his power to her faith. “Daughter, your faith has healed you.” Really? Most of us only saw a desperate woman. He called her Daughter, which connected her again with God’s great family. He sent her away in peace, freed from suffering—a suffering none of us would have seen if he had not stopped. And we all went away healed in one way or another.