The Best Christian Experience

We Americans are an interesting mix of ideals. On one hand we are fiercely independent. We like a wide array of choices and rebel against being pushed into a place where we must do what we are told. Yet, we also want our social safety nets in place.  We cherish those benefits that come to us in all kinds of subsidies from our child’s free public education, to college assistance, to healthcare subsidies, to Social Security.  We hold onto our rights of free association but want to know that we are included in a community that will surround us with support in times of need.  Do you agree?

In the Church of Jesus Christ, there is a principle that we cannot ignore. That Christian who desires the most productive service, the richest experience of the Spirit will leave behind childish dependence, grow through independence, and give himself to a life that is interdependent on others of faith. Galatians 6 is about those interdependent relationships within Christ's church. In The Message it reads this way: "Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life. Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience."

Each of us enjoys a unique relationship with God who gives us gifts to use in His service, but that relationship finds context and complement within His church. The model for that community is the body. Yes, in a sense  the Church can be like a family or even an army, but  1 Corinthians 12 explains best way to understand who she is.  "The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ." (1 Corinthians 12:12, NIV)  That passage goes on to remind us that no part of the Body of Christ can discard another without serious loss of function. Even the parts of the Body that operate unseen are critical to her wholeness! 

Abandon the romantic notions that accompany that image! The profound connections that we form within Christ’s Body are wonderful and enriching, but also demand surrender of our Self, laying down our pride, and accommodation of the needs of the whole over our individuality. The Word teaches us that “no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”?” (1 Corinthians 12:19-21)

Christian friend, pray to understand how God has made you, where He has placed you, and how develop your gifts and callings. As we do this, responsibly becoming the person HE desires, living contentedly in the place to which God has called us; fitting into the Body of Christ in humility, we find the best Christian experience! This is interdependence! 

Here is wisdom that will guide us into that communal life, to the wholeness of the Body that lets Jesus shine in His church.
"Always be humble and gentle.
Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.
Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.

For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.

There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father,

who is over all and in all and living through all." (Ephesians 4:2-6, NLT)

Lord, call us together, into your service. Make us strong, together. Amen.

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The Church's One Foundation

The church's one foundation

Is Jesus Christ her Lord

She is His new creation

By water and the word

From heav'n He came and sought her

To be His holy bride

With His own blood He bought her

And for her life He died

Elect from ev'ry nation

Yet one o'er all the earth

Her charter of salvation

One Lord one faith one birth

One holy name she blesses

Partakes one holy food

And to one hope she presses

With ev'ry grace endued

-Public Domain

OMG- Why have you forsaken me?

CoffeeBreak today are words written by Rev. Stephen Lewis, Pastor of Knowlton Presbyterian Church. He carries us to the foot of Jesus’ cross where we hear our Lord singing a lament of David. These words moved me deeply as I remembered the awful and awesome sacrifice that brought me peace with God.  Be sure to read the entire Psalm at the end of the thought.

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OMG- Why have you forsaken me?

Think that only spontaneous self-composed prayers are legitimate? Praying in the Spirit includes praying prayers the Spirit inspired.  In Mark 15:34 we hear Jesus singing Psalm 22 while being crucified. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – Mark 15:34  Listen to Jesus pray David’s prayer hundreds of years after David prayed it. Psalm 21 praises God for his power and protection. Psalm 23 sings the praises of the shepherd – “I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”   But, the singer of Psalm 22 stares evil in the face and wonders why: why is God not with me, why has God abandoned me behind enemy lines? The hyenas and wolves are closing in on the singer – soldiers with professional torture training, and tenured theologians skilled in the art of rationalizing torture, both stare up at Jesus as if they are merely looking at tissue.

Dehumanizing death techniques fail every time, for the humanity of the victim remains intact; only the humanity of the perpetrators (us) comes into question. Tacked up like an insect on a cork board, Jesus cannot be robbed of his humanity any more than he can be robbed of his deity.

Psalm 22 ends with a vision of all the ends of the earth turning to the LORD and worshiping him forever. But in the meantime the why question just hangs there, unanswered. Golgotha’s theological elevation is lower than that of Death Valley, CA. So here is Jesus, at the lowest possible place on the planet, finding his life in the written Word of God.  Here is his descent into hell, his drinking the cup of God’s wrath down to its dregs at the place of the skull.

Forsaken by the Father, the Son yet has the Spirit’s breathed-out words on his tongue. Singing lament to God while being crucified, Jesus sanctifies the question your mother grew weary of but which his Father has no problem receiving: the question of why. Without the question mark, without much emotion or rise in pitch: why.  Jesus knew why. All through his life his questions have been rhetorical. Omniscience will do that. But he asks the question anyway. We would hastily answer it for him: you’re abandoned so we can be accepted; you are taking hell for us; my sin from five minutes ago and the accumulated sin of millennia of sinners from every nation under heaven has just been downloaded on your shoulders.

Propitiation – that’s why. Jesus well knew about holy anger and substitutionary atonement. But he asks why. Good thing too, because when we ask why, his voice joins ours. Rejected, discarded, dropped, and betrayed, we cry OMG! The cry need not be the blasphemous abbreviation it usually is. It can be sincere lament: my God (the real God who created me and who ordains everything that happens), my God (the one I worship, serve, and trust), I’m asking You – why?

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PSALM 22

"For the director of music. To the tune of “The Doe of the Morning.” A psalm of David.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.

Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.
In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them.
They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people.
All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads:
“He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.”

Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you even at my mother’s breast.

From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.

Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
Roaring lions tearing their prey open their mouths wide against me.
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death.

Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me,

they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me.

They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.

But you, O Lord, be not far off; O my Strength, come quickly to help me.

Deliver my life from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs.

Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen.
I will declare your name to my brothers; in the congregation I will praise you.

You who fear the Lord, praise him!

All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!

Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!

For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one;

he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.

From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;

before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows.

The poor will eat and be satisfied; they who seek the Lord will praise him—

may your hearts live forever!

All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord,

and all the families of the nations will bow down before him,

for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations.

All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;

all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—

those who cannot keep themselves alive.

Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord.

They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn— for he has done it."

(Psalm 22, NIV)

I just don't see it!

What do you see? Young woman or Old woman?

Bev and I played a little game often when we walked outdoors or sat on our deck. She  would point at the clouds in the sky and ‘see’ some form or shape in them.  “Hon, can you see that?” I usually did not for whatever reason. But, with a little coaching, “Look at that side, there is the head, now move a bit to right. See the body? And, there is the tail.”  Sometimes my mind was able to ‘catch the vision’ and, when I did, we would laugh together about how differently our brains are wired. Truthfully, there were times when I saw what she saw but made her go into detail describing the shape just to hear her imagination come to life!

What we do or don’t ‘see’ in the clouds has next to no importance in life, but our vision is of paramount importance!  Jesus taught us this: “Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!" (Matthew 6:22-23, NLT)  His words are not about our actual eyes, though good eyesight is a critical thing and I realize that on those mornings when I have misplaced my eyeglasses.  Jesus is talking about perspective, the framework we develop that forms our perceptions about the world we live and the meaning of our lives.

In several recent discussions I have realized anew that sight is not exactly as we think it is.  Experience and our choice of our sources of information creates the lens through which we begin to see. I am convinced that most of our political divide results from the myopia (nearsightedness) that keeps people from seeing the ‘other side’ as anything but greedy, evil people bent on destroying America.  Those embittered by life ‘see’ all of life through a lens of cynical distrust.  Jeremiah mourned that his mission was to preach to people "with eyes that see but don’t really look, and ears that hear but don’t really listen." (Jeremiah 5:21, The Message)

Can you see clearly?  Are you seeing things as they are or through eyes that are clouded by fear, doubt, bitterness, unforgiveness,  greed, hatred, or faithlessness?  One of the great wonders of coming to Christ is the healing of our vision. He promises to restore our ability to see clearly, past the deceptions that make us crave fool’s gold, deeper than the lie that real joy can be found when we ‘eat, drink, and are merry.’  Jesus urges us to "So I advise you to buy … ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see." (Revelation 3:18, NLT)  Newton’s hymn praises the power of God’s grace, “I once was blind but now I see!”  In His mission statement He said that He would “restore sight to the blind.” (Luke 4:18) Jesus heals our spiritual vision, restoring a God-centered perspective on life, letting us ‘see’ a future that includes eternity. God gives us the ability to see, by faith, what does not yet exist.  That godly vision is the 'why' that informs the 'what.'

Pray for clear sight! Ask God to renew your vision.  Habakkuk was told to keep God’s revelation always in mind. May this word from the Word remind us to hold onto what He shows us – in His Word and by His Spirit – with eyes that see. " Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay." (Habakkuk 2:2-3, NIV)

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Father, give me spiritual eyes that see
the promise, the possible, not just the probable.
Renew Your dream in me, causing me to see the Promised Land.
When I start to love my food, my TV, my comfort -
more than I love You, Your callings -
forgive me and send me messengers that renew the vision.
Pour out the Spirit on me, like a refreshing rain that causes
new life to burst out.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.