Roadbuilders (3rd Sunday in Advent)

Posted on December 18, 2022 by salooper57

For the third week of Advent, we look at John the Baptist, the great roadbuilder for God. But the great roadbuilder was imprisoned and beginning to question what he had once believed: that Jesus was the Messiah. How did he address his doubts? We see that in Matthew 11:2-11. We also see how Jesus wonderfully addressed his esteemed doubter. (The sermon lasts about 26 minutes. The text can be found below.)

Viewing time: 26 minutes (approx.)

When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”

John the Baptist gets a lot of press during the Advent season. He makes it into the gospel readings on both the second and thirds Sundays of Advent, Perhaps the church realized that we, like John, are waiting for Christ to claim his kingdom. And, as we wait, our situation may, like his, be fraught with trouble. We too may face discouragement and doubt.

John was a road-builder – or, rather, John was the roadbuilder. His work was to make ready the way of the Lord. We too are roadbuilders. The things we say and the way we conduct ourselves should smooth the rough places, level the highs and lows, and prepare the way. Like John, we are not so much preparing the way for people to come to Jesus as we are preparing the way for Jesus to come to people. It is Jesus who is (to borrow John’s own words) “the Coming One.”

It is easy to get this backwards – especially for pastors. We think that the truths we speak, or the hopes we inspire, or the insights we share are preparing the way for people to come to Jesus. But behind that way of thinking is a mental picture of a stationary Jesus. It’s the people who move or don’t move (or need us to move them) toward Jesus.

But that is not the right way to look at it for it assumes that God does nothing, and people must do everything. If it is up to people to come to God and they aren’t coming, then it is up to us to move them – by what means necessary, including strong-arm sales techniques and emotional manipulation. After all, if they don’t come to God, they will go to hell. We forget that God will come to them.

He comes first to rescue them: He woos them; he calls them; he rebukes them; he draws them; he reveals himself to them. He “stands at the door and knocks,” but gives them the choice of acknowledging him or ignoring him. He gives them the choice this time. The next time he comes, there will be no choice. As a roadbuilder, my obedience to Jesus Christ prepares the for God to come to people.

This is work I can do. I don’t need to be someone I’m not – an eloquent speaker or a high-powered salesperson. God will come to people, and I can be part of the roadbuilding crew that prepares the way for him.

This kind of roadbuilding goes beyond good deeds and persuasive words. Much of the work involves making changes in our own lives, for who we are is more important that what we say or do. Repentance is roadbuilding work. Sacrificing time or money can be roadbuilding work, as is the renewal of our minds. The presentation of our bodies as living sacrifices is roadbuilding work. Much of what happens in roadbuilding happens inside us.

You see, the road we’re building for God runs through us. God intends us to be the way by which he comes to people. This was true of Jesus. Remember what he said? “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). As the Father sent him, so Jesus sends us. The road Christ travels to our friends and family – and even our enemies – runs through our words and actions, our hopes, our love, our prayers.

But sin leaves potholes in that road. A flood of anger can close the road entirely. Self-absorption leads to detours. If we are going to build a road on which our Lord can come to the people we know, we cannot ignore such things. It is not enough for our words to tell people that Jesus is there; our lives must convey him to them.

John the Baptist was the roadbuilder par excellence. But even the road he built became obstructed. To understand how that happened, we need a little background.

John got on the wrong side of Herod Antipas, was arrested and thrown into prison in the fortress of Machaerus. I have been in prisons in Ohio, Michigan, and Virgina, but I have never been imprisoned. I find the sound of closing prison doors disturbing even though I know those doors will open again in an hour to let me out. I can only imagine what it would be like to hear those doors close knowing that they were not going to open again.

I read about a guy named Stuart McCallister who, in the 1980s, smuggled Bibles into Eastern Europe. He was caught and thrown into prison. He had no idea what his captors intended to do with him. He didn’t know if anyone was coming for him – or even knew where he was. He started off his incarceration expecting that God would rescue him quickly – after all, wasn’t he doing God’s work?

With no word and no change in his situation, it was only a short time before he began questioning God’s apparent lack of response. It didn’t stop there. His thoughts quickly evolved from, “Why isn’t God doing anything?” to “God isn’t going to do anything.” Then from there, he began to question whether God cared – or was he even there.

Of course, I wouldn’t doubt like that … or would I? The loneliness, the complete uncertainty, lack of sleep, lack of privacy, strange, unappetizing food, my routine shot to pieces – perhaps I would come undone even faster than he did.

Stuart was in prison for a matter of weeks. John was in prison a lot longer. And remember, the vast outdoors had been John’s home, but now he was restricted to a few square feet and bounded by walls and bars. Remember too that John ate a very unique and specific diet for years, but he was now given food that he couldn’t stomach. If you were in that situation, you would lose weight and then strength. As you sat in that cell day after day, and month after month, the person you thought yourself to be would gradually disappear. You would hardly recognize yourself.

John sat through interminable days and even longer nights. His active mind must have screamed in protest. He had announced that the judgment of the wicked was at hand—but nothing had happened. Why was God delaying? What was Jesus – whom he testified to be the Messiah – doing? Had he been mistaken?

John was not the first of God’s people to experience this kind of thing. The prophet Jeremiah accused God of deceiving him and cursed the day on which he was born. Job nearly lost his mind. David cried out to God, “How long, O Lord, how long? Will you forget me forever?” (Ps. 13:1). Elijah, who was John’s hero and model, fell into so deep a depression that he wanted to die. These were great people – heroes of the Bible. If they could feel this way, what about you and me?

So, John was in prison and having doubts about Jesus. A similar fate might await some of us before Jesus returns. Such a fate is already the lot of Jesus’s people is some parts of the world. How can they stand before their doubts and remain true to God? How can we?

The first step is to examine our assumptions. Doubt does not usually start with our beliefs being disproved but with our assumptions being upended. Stuart McCallister, who was held in a communist prison in the Eastern Bloc, later said: “I expected God to do certain things, and to do them in a sensible way and time. I expected that God would act fairly quickly and that I would sense his intervention. My reading of Scripture, my grasp of God’s promises, my trust in the reliability of God’s Word, the teaching I had received, and the message I had embraced, had led me to expect certain things, and in a particular way. When this did not occur in the way I expected, or in the timing that I thought it should, I was both confused and angry … I was unaware how many unexamined assumptions I was living by.”[1]

Unexamined assumptions. We all have them. And sometimes they are mistaken. Big Ed went to a revival meeting and was deeply moved by the preaching. After the service, when people were asked to come forward for prayer, Big Ed got in line. When it was his turn, the preacher asked, “Ed, what do you want me to pray for?”

Big Ed said, “I need prayer for my hearing.”

So, the preacher put one finger in Big Ed’s ear and the other hand on top of his head and prayed loudly and exuberantly for some minutes. Then he removed his hands and asked, “How’s your hearing now?”

Confused, Big Ed answered, “I don’t know preacher. The hearing’s not until next Wednesday.”

Everyone (but God) has unexamined assumptions. John did. He assumed that Jesus would rain down judgment on the heads of unbelievers. He expected him to “cut down every tree that does not bear fruit and throw it into the fire” (Luke 3:9) and to do it quickly. John wasn’t wrong, but his timetable was.

If you are having doubts, trace them back to their origin. I’ve known people who have been driven by doubt to throw their beliefs overboard. But their doubts didn’t come from their beliefs; they came from their assumptions. Assumptions can be wrong even when our beliefs are right.

Such was the case with John’s role model Elijah. Elijah was operating with a set of mistaken assumptions. He assumed that everything would be alright once his battle with Ahab and Jezebel was won. It was not. He assumed that he alone had remained faithful to God. He was wrong. He assumed that he would retire when his work was wrapped up. He did not.

When his assumptions began to fall like dominoes, his doubts – about himself, about other people, about God – came out into the open. God did not let Elijah down; his assumptions did. Those mistaken assumptions had to be exposed before Elijah could be restored, and that was a slow and painful process.

Perhaps we are operating with some mistaken assumptions. For example, we might assume that we will have justice in this life. We might assume that good health is normative, and that people who work hard and are fiscally responsible will have enough. But what will happen if we experience gross injustice or, after years of eating right and exercising, our health fails, or our retirement investments lose half their value in a matter of weeks?

We probably won’t doubt our assumptions even then; but there is a danger that we will doubt our God. We won’t doubt our assumptions because we don’t know that we have any; by their very nature, they remain invisible to us. How we need God’s help – and his people’s – to remain true!

If you are experiencing doubts, find out where they are coming from. It’s likely that they are sourced in your assumptions, which you have not examined, rather than in your beliefs, which you have. We all need to learn to doubt our doubts.

Even though John was doubting Jesus, doubting himself, wondering if he had been mistaken, he did one thing right. He went to Jesus with his doubts. I’ve seen other people, plagued by doubt, go everywhere but to Jesus. They go to the internet. They go to their friends. They go to a counselor. But they don’t go to God. He could help. He would help.

As John’s doubts gnawed at him, he sent two of his disciples (according to Luke) to Jesus to put the question to him. This is verse 3: “Are you the one who is to come,” – literally, the Coming One, that is, the Messiah – or shall we look for another?” Matthew’s Greek here is revealing. There were two words at his disposal that could be translated “another.” One means, “Another of the same kind.” That was the word Jesus used when he told the disciples that the Father would send them “another comforter” – “another like me.”

But the word used in John’s question means, “another of a different kind.” John is asking, “Are you the one – or is God still going to send the other kind of Messiah, the one who conquers, who destroys our enemies and establishes righteousness?”

Going to Jesus was the right thing to do. Notice how Jesus responded. He did not say, “Of course, I am the one; you said so yourself.” He knew that would not clear up John’s doubts. Instead of telling John what to think, he simply provided him with the evidence he needed and let him think for himself. It is impossible to persuade someone out of their doubts, for the door of doubt is locked on the inside and it is the doubter who must unlock it. The best we can do is slip them the key.

Look at the evidence that Jesus presented (verse 5): “the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.” Jesus is reminding John of Isaiah 35, the passage that was read for us earlier. He is giving John a chance to bring his doubts into the light of the Scriptures. He is slipping him the key.

We can learn a lesson from this: Always go back to Scripture. We need to see God, Jesus, ourselves, and others through the lens of Scripture, not the lens of our assumptions. We are all myopic – some of us terribly so – and only the Scriptures can correct our vision. Jesus knew that John would see him clearly once he saw him through the lens of Scripture.

Put yourself in Jesus’s place for a moment. The first and most prestigious person to support you is now questioning your legitimacy. John is doubting Jesus. No one likes to be doubted; it is blow, a threat – and coming from someone of John’s stature, doubts could have an enormously negative impact on public opinion.

Over the years, various people, some I didn’t even know and some who were close to me, have doubted me. When I was younger, the very fact that someone had doubts about me hurt me, and the better they knew me the more it hurt. When someone expressed doubts about me – my rightness, my ability, my motives – I felt threatened, got defensive, and tried to prove myself. I saw the doubter as an antagonist and, of course, myself as the protagonist. If they suspected my motives, I suspected theirs. If they criticized my ideas, I poked holes in theirs.

As I say, that was when I was younger. I am not so confident of myself now and so I am not so threatened by people’s doubts and questions. I am not so confident in myself, but I am more confident in my savior. As my hope has grown, my doubts have shrunk. That is the way God intends it to work.

John doubted Jesus but Jesus – how beautiful is this? – never doubted John (11:11). He did not get defensive. He did not cast John as an antagonist, didn’t question his motives, or criticize his ideas. Instead of standing up to John, he stood up for John. Jesus does not get angry at doubters. He encourages them.

Let’s wrap this up. First, if you are a doubter or have one in your family or among your close friends, don’t panic. Entrust the doubter to God, even if the doubter is you. Don’t panic. That will increase the person’s doubts because they will see that you don’t trust God either.

Second, take the doubter to the Scriptures. God still meets people there. If you can’t take people to the Scriptures like Jesus did because you don’t know the Scriptures, that is the place to start. You need to know the Bible. Get into a D-group or a Bible Study group and start your own regular practice of Bible reading and prayer.

Third, remember it is not all up to you to move people to God – that puts way too much pressure on you! God will come to them and the road by which he comes can run through you! Just make sure that you are dealing with your own sins and doubts – keep the road open and free of obstacles.

[1] Quoted in Ravi Zacharias, Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend (Thomas Nelson, 2007), pp. 258-261

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Violent Night: When Evil Came for Christmas

Posted on December 17, 2022 by salooper57

The holiday movie “Violent Night”brought in nearly five million dollars on its opening night and doubled that during its opening weekend. The film cost about 20 million dollars to make, which is cut-rate by today’s standards (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” cost ten times that much) and has already grossed more than its production costs.

According to Peter Sobczynski, writing for RogerEbert.com, the story’s premise is that a tremendously wealthy family is set upon by a mercenary gang of thieves, intent on stealing millions. The family is rescued by a cursing, killer Santa Claus, who beats the bad guys to a pulp—and worse. This R-rated film is clearly not meant for families hoping to get into the spirit of the holiday.

“Violent Night” is not the first holiday entertainment to feature Christmas violence. The 1988 Bill Murray film, “Scrooged,”presented a bogus movie trailer for a sham movie titled, “The Night the Reindeer Died.” In the trailer, Santa’s north pole workshop comes under attack. Mr. and Mrs. Claus rally the elves and supply them with combat weapons to fight off the attackers—with the help of the actor Lee Majors. More recently, a blasphemous movie short was made with the same title.

A future historian might speak of how violence entered the Christmas season in 1979, the year the song, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” was introduced. In 2000, an animated Christmas television special of the same name aired. In 1988 came the facetious trailer, “The Night the Reindeer Died,” followed by the blasphemous movie short of the same name. And now we have “Violent Night,” whose producers are already planning a sequel.

Our future historian would present a compelling case that violence entered the holiday season in the latter part of the twentieth century, but he would be mistaken. Violence surrounding Christ’s birth dates back to the very first century – a violence that was more gruesome than anything the writers of Violent Night included.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Magi from the East came to pay tribute to “the one born King of the Jews.” When Herod, who claimed the title “King of the Jews” for himself, learned about this, he panicked. A legitimate king was a threat to himself and to his royal line – a threat he was determined to remove.

Herod the Great was a genius, a brilliant military strategist and a remarkable architect. But he was an evil genius. When Herod suspected (wrongly) that two of his sons were planning a coup, he had them strangled. His patron, the Emperor Augustus, once quipped in Greek, “It is safer to be Herod’s pig (hus) than his son (huios).

Herod also killed his wife, her mother, his brother-in-law (by drowning) and, during the week of his death, yet another son. Before he died, he had 70 of the leading members of Israeli society arrested and held so that they could be executed at the moment of his passing. He said that he knew people wouldn’t grieve for him and he wanted there to be tears. Fortunately, his orders were not carried out.

Of the all the atrocities Herod committed, the worst was the murder of every boy under the age of two living in or around Bethlehem. Herod thought that in this way he could eliminate the threat posed by the “one born King of the Jews.” He sent his soldiers into the community suddenly and without warning. When they left, Bethlehem wailed, and most did not even know why their sons and grandsons had been killed.

God did not send his Son into a peaceful world but into a violent one. He did not come to a society ball but to a bloodbath, as the “Massacre of the Innocents” demonstrates. Bethlehem was a beachhead, and Christmas was D-Day. No wonder an entire company of the heavenly army appeared in the skies over Bethlehem.

Evil Herod grasped what our schmaltzy Christmas cards miss: the birth of Jesus marked an invasion. Some, like Herod, regarded it as an attack; others welcomed it as a rescue mission, but no one then thought it schmaltzy. Neither should anyone now.

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Hope that Sustains

Posted on December 15, 2022 by salooper57
Hope that Sustains

Hope is more than a feeling, more than a wish. It is more than “the thing with feathers that perches in the soul” (Emily Dickinson). Hope is an objective reality outside the soul which protects the soul. It is an “anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Hebrews 6:19).

Be encouraged by this minute of Advent Hope. – Shayne

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A Minute of Hope for Advent: Then You’ll See Him

Posted on December 13, 2022 by salooper57
Then You’ll See Him

Our hope includes seeing our loved ones again when Christ returns. They will astound us with their glory. It includes being glorified ourselves in the Great Revealing (Colossians 3:3-4). But our greatest hope is in the glory of God (Romans 5:2), for “we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:1-3). This is the beatific vision. Its glory causes us to catch our breath at the humility of God in Christ, who took human form (“the body of our lowliness,” Philippians 3:21 – literal) “for us and for our salvation.”

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“Everyone’s Insane Now” – and Then

Posted on December 10, 2022 by salooper57

(Reading time: 4 minutes)

Peggy Noonan’s lede in her Wall Street Journal column from October 15, 2020 read: “Everyone’s insane now. I mean everyone in Washington.”

It is not uncommon for people, even columnists for respected newspapers, to speak of government officials in this way. They are usually referring to the people on the other side of the aisle, but Ms. Noonan advocates for inclusivity: “Everyone’s insane now.”

Note the word, “now.” The implication is that there was a time when not everyone was crazy. Was there less insanity when Ms. Noonan’s boss, Ronald Reagan, was in the Oval Office? Perhaps. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

Craziness in government is nothing new. Had Ms. Noonan been writing in the time of Christ, she might have used the same lede, with this clarification: “I mean everyone in Rome.” The Gospel of Luke lists the names of officeholders at the time Jesus burst onto the scene. This was a standard method for dating events, but it was also St. Luke’s way of reminding his readers that God is at work in the real world.

The people the Evangelist mentions were not mythical. It would be like me bringing up Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and Mitch McConnell in reference to something that was going on in our church and community. The men on Luke’s list were real people, exercising influence (for good or bad) in the real world.

God is not working in some ethereal spiritual world while life goes on in the “real” world. The “real” world is itself spiritual, shot through with divine activity. That is as true now as it was when Tiberius was the Roman emperor.

Tiberius was the poster child for insanity in government, though his heir Caligula made him look almost normal. As he grew older, the Emperor became paranoid and cruel. Seneca says that he was positively rude and insulting. Toward the end of his reign, he was executing people for saying things he didn’t like. He started spending less time in the capitol, and more time on the Isle of Capri, which was a hotbed of sexual deviancy. When he died, protestors in the streets wanted his body dumped in the Tiber River, which was how the corpses of criminals were disposed.

Luke also mentions Pontius Pilate. He was the Roman governor of Judea who ordered Jesus’s execution. The Jews hated him, and asked Tiberius to recall him. Pilate used treasury money as if it were his personal account, and when people protested, he sent his troops into the streets in plain clothes with orders to infiltrate the protestors and kill as many as possible. It was a massacre. Tiberius reprimanded Pilate but stopped short of removing him from office.

Herod Antipas also made Luke’s list. He was the regional administrator who had founded the gleaming city of Tiberius on the shores of Lake Galilee. It was he who ordered the beheading of John the Baptist and later attempted to have his own nephew imprisoned. He was sly, power-hungry, and unfaithful to multiple spouses.

If we had lived in Palestine in the year 28 AD, which would have been the 15th year of Tiberius’s reign, we probably would have been saying, “Everyone’s insane now.” Nevertheless, God was at work, accomplishing his purpose. The insanity of Rome – or, for that matter, Washington – cannot stop him.

As we approach Christmas, we must keep this in mind. The God who was at work in the world then is at work in the world now. The God who sent his only begotten Son will send him again.

“The meaning of Christmas,” a New York Times op-ed piece once claimed, “is that love will triumph and that we will be able to put together a world of unity and peace.” Those are nice words, but that is not what Christmas means. Christmas is not about something we might do but about something God has already done: he has entered the insanity of our world through the person of Jesus so that he might redeem it, restore it, and make it beautiful.

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A Minute of Hope for Advent: The End of Evil

Posted on December 9, 2022 by salooper57
The End of Evil
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Fear and Greed: Luke 12 (Following Christ Today)

Posted on December 7, 2022 by salooper57
44:35

Jesus wanted his disciple to be free from the control of fear. Because greed is fueled by fear, he took the opportunity to address it as well (and, in so doing, shared one of his most famous stories). Get out your Bible, open it to Luke 12, and let’s learn from Jesus how to live free of fear and greed.

A class member shared the following Frederick Faber poem regarding the fear of the Lord, which is so good I want to pass it along.

The Fear of the Lord (F. W. Faber)

My fear of Thee, O Lord, exults Like life within my veins, A fear which tightly claims to be One of love’s sacred pains.

There is no joy the soul can meet Upon life’s various road Like the sweet fear that sits and shrinks Under the eye of God.

Oh, Thou art greatly to be feared, Thou art so prompt to bless! The dread to miss such love as Thine Makes fear but love’s excess.

But fear is love, and love is fear, And in and out they move; But fear is an intenser joy Than mere unfrightened love.

They love Thee little, if at all, Who do not fear Thee much; If love is Thine attraction, Lord! Fear is Thy very touch.

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A Minute of Hope: No More War (Advent)

Posted on December 5, 2022 by salooper57
Viewing time: 1 Minute

Each week in Advent, I will post these minute-of-hope video or audio clips. During Advent, our hope is renewed and invigorated – and do we ever need that!

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Have You Got the Time?

Posted on December 4, 2022 by salooper57
Approximately 30 minutes. (Text below.)

(Romans 13:8-14) Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.  (NIV)

If you received inside information that the world (as we know it) will end in exactly one year from today, what would you do? Would you stockpile weapons? Would you stockpile food, or move to the wilderness and take up fishing, hunting, and raising vegetables? According to the Apostle Paul, this period of earth’s history is nearing its close, so what should we do? Our text offers an unexpected answer to that question.

In verse 11, St. Paul rings the alarm for Roman Christians: it is time to wake up. “The hour has come” – not the hour for a cataclysmic meteor strike or an alien invasion, but for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to planet earth.

Does that lift your spirits and excite your hope? It should. It is good news, both for us and for the planet. It heralds the fulfillment of our salvation and the overthrow of evil. It marks the beginning of what Jesus called the palingenesis – the second genesis – and both prophet and apostle refer to it as the new creation. This is not only good news; it is great news.

When Christ returns, the powers that produce evil in this world will be routed and destroyed. The change will be immediate. Listen to what the prophet Isaiah wrote: “He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4).

Think of it. No more war. No three-quarters of a trillion dollar annual defense budgets. No more twenty-year-old’s dying on the other side of the world for a cause they don’t understand. That day is coming.

Not only will there be no more war; there will be no violence. “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6-9).

This is the future. No violence. No evil, No war. There will be a new heaven and a new earth, and “the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more” (Isaiah 65:19). God himself “will wipe every tear from [our] eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things [will have] passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

Fear, our constant, insufferable companion in life, will be gone. Sin, the burden of it, its clamoring demands, the confusion it brings, and the clinging guilt that accompanies it, will be forgotten like an unpleasant dream. For we shall wake up. The nightmare will be over, the day of the feast for which we have waited will arrive.

As wonderful as all this is – the absence of death and mourning and crying and pain – the best part will not be what is missing but what is present. The new age will not start as a blank slate: “The kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it” (Revelation 21:24). Both prophet and apostle say that the new heaven and earth will be the home of righteousness. Everything will finally be right – including us: We will be strong, glad, capable, joyful brothers and sisters of the great King Jesus!

Our loved ones who have died in Christ will arrive with him on the day he returns: “We … will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

On that day, we will not only see our best-loved friends and family in Christ who have died, we will see them as we have never seen them before. I once sat with a mother who had just lost her daughter in a car accident. She kept saying, “If only I could see her again.” But when we see our loved ones, we will not feel that we are seeing them again but that we are seeing them for the first time. We will recognize them, I have no doubt, but we will think: “What has happened?” That person we loved but always thought a little silly – or dull, or embarrassing, or weak – will appear to us like a god, as if Apollo or Aphrodite had stepped into view. We will not be able to take our eyes off them. But this is no Apollo or Aphrodite; this is our beloved, a human as humans were always intended by the great God to be. The only thing greater than our amazement will be our joy!

But there is more. On that day, we will not just see our loved ones glorified, we also will be glorified. This is the promise of God! “…the Lord Jesus Christ,who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:20-21). St. John said, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

When he is revealed, we will be revealed in a sort of debutante ball for the entire universe. St. Paul writes, “When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:4). No one will be more surprised at your revealing than you. The biblical descriptions are: “glorious,” “joyful,” “imperishable,” “honorable,” “powerful,” “pure” and “undefiled.” The only One who will not be surprised at the change in you will be God. He has been planning this all along.

You will think that you have seen it all when you see your friends and family, and especially when you see yourself. You will be stunned and overwhelmed. “After this,” you will think, “nothing will ever surprise me again.” And then you will see him – him who made the worlds – and in that moment, you will know why you were made, why everything and everyone was made, and you will know that the making was good, was “very good.” You were made for this. You were made for him. And you will know, in the words Lady Julian said the Lord spoke to her: “that all shall be well; that all manner of things shall be well; that all manner of things shall be very well indeed.”

And do you know what makes all this possible? God our Savior sent his only begotten Son; Christ our Lord was made flesh and dwelt among us; God the Spirit, the deposit guaranteeing our inheritance, entered our inmost being. God is our hope; he is our all in all.

The things about which I have been speaking for the last several minutes will happen, and the day on which they will happen is, as St. Paul said, “nearer than when we first believed” (Romans 13:11). History is not, and has never been, pointless. All things in heaven and on earth have been moving toward a predetermined end. Neither the powers of hell nor the accidents of life can prevent it.

So, how ought we to live in the light of this future—that was Paul’s concern. He started off this section of Romans by telling us how to live in the light of the past – of God’s mercies expressed in the sacrifice of his Son – and now he tells us how to live in the light of the future –God’s mercies of expressed in our great salvation.

How should we live in the light of all this? What should we do? Should we go to church five times a week and pray for five hours a day? Should we tell everyone we see about Jesus, about God, and about judgment? Should we find everyone against whom we have ever done any wrong and ask for their forgiveness?

While I wouldn’t speak against any of these things, they are not what Paul tells people to do. Look again at verse 11: “And do this, understanding the present time.” And do what? The surprising answer lies in the preceding paragraph and can be summed up in two words: Love others.

That’s it? Love others? That a little overly spiritual, don’t you think? I listened to a podcast recently that was titled, “Why Christians Keep Losing: Overly Spiritual.” I get it. If the end is coming, we need to do something, like protest, or start a podcast, or go off the grid and become self-reliant—something!

But loving others – God and people – is not something; it is the only thing. As Paul says elsewhere, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Galatians 5:6). Love: it’s not just a warm feeling. It is sacrifice. It is truthfulness. It is thinking. It is action. There is nothing more demanding – or less practiced – than love. Love is not overly spiritual; it is the most practical thing in the world. Paul says, “And do this” – “love one another” – because the time is short, and this is the most important thing we can do.

Back in verse 8, Paul wrote that the person who loves his fellowman (literally, “the other, the one who is not like us, who has a different religion, speaks a different language, has different colored skin – the person who roots for Ohio State), the person who loves the other has fulfilled the law. He repeats the claim in verse 10: “love is the fulfillment of the law.”

There was an idea among Paul’s Jewish contemporaries that when God’s people finally fulfilled the law, the day of salvation would come. Paul, it seems, agreed. But he knew the way to fulfill the law was not by painstaking piety, but by genuine love. I may keep the law by not committing adultery or murder, but I will only fulfill the law by loving. Love is what God has been after from the very beginning.

It is urgent that we love because (verse 12) “The night is nearly over.” It has been a long night. The powers of darkness have held sway. But that is about to change. Morning is at hand. “Glory, honor, and immortality” await. It’s time to wake up. Do you know how to tell those who are awake from the vast majority of people who merely sleepwalk through life? They are the ones who love.

That’s all? Just love? That’s all. But if you think that is easy, you’ve never tried it. Love is not something you can pull off by personality or willpower. You cannot produce love – that is outside our human abilities – so you need to put yourself in a place where you can be supplied with it. Love has a supply chain, and you need to be in it. That doesn’t just happen.

How can we position ourselves in the supply chain of love so that we are ready to receive and extend it? Paul helps us understand this by a series of three contrasts in verses 12-14.

The first is between putting off the “deeds of darkness” and putting on “the armor of light” (verse 12). We take off the “deeds of darkness” those secret behaviors and thoughts that are a source of shame, and that we know will look ugly in the light of the day that is dawning. Instead, we put on “the armor of light,” the protection that genuine transparency affords, which fits the life of love very well. (As an aside: every Christian should have a secret life with God. No Christian should have a secret life from God – as if that were even possible.)

The second contrast is between behaving decently, which fits the life of love, and partying, getting drunk, and sleeping around (which is a pretty accurate translation of verse 13), which does not fit at all. It may seem odd to us that church people needed to be told this, but they did. They were new to following Jesus, and old habits die hard. Living in the party scene, Paul knew, removes a person from the supply chain of love.

The final contrast (verse 14) is between clothing oneself with Jesus and thinking about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature, which Paul thinks of as opposites.

What does it mean here (and in Galatians) to “clothe yourselves with” – or as many translations have it, “put on” – the Lord Jesus Christ”? It means to intentionally put on – as intentionally as one puts on a suit of clothes – Christ Jesus’s way of thinking, feeling, acting, and relating. These are the clothes of the new life, which God graciously provides us, but which must we put on. This is discipleship to Jesus.

Christianity has always been a “put-on” job. Many critics have said so, but they have missed the point. Human life is a put-on job; it’s only a question of what you are putting on. For many years, a debate raged among the intelligentsia regarding human development. Is it fueled by nature or by nurture? Do we become who we become because of genetics or because of training? After centuries of debate, most authorities have called it a draw. But they’ve missed the essential point: humans become. They develop; and they do so by “putting on” something – a way of thinking, perhaps, or of valuing, acting, feeling – that they hadn’t had before. All of life is a put-on job; that’s how people develop. Because of what God has done by giving us his Son and his Spirit, there is a way to put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

To put on Christ is to arrange your life around him in such a way that you come to see reality as he sees it, to value what he values, and disdain what he disdains. This can only happen in people who believe in him – who are confident that he is the way, the truth, and the life. This does not happen because a person has learned a few theologically correct ideas about Jesus – as important as that is. It happens because they have faith in him. They trust him. They entrust themselves to him.

The phrase in verse 14 that the NIV translates, “Do not think” is more like, “Do not premeditate…” Once you begin meditating – for that is what it is – about doing something sinful, your foot is already in the trap. When that trap closes, as it surely will, you will be completely out of position to love.

Let’s wrap this up. Salvation with its glory, honor, and immortality is already on its way! Jesus Christ, who came once, is coming again—this time to bring salvation. When he does, the great thing is for him to find you loving others. Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink (or protest or podcast), do it as a way to love—or don’t do it. The way to be ready when Christ returns is to love. The way to change the world before he gets here is to love. There is no substitute. Love is God’s plan.

Have you taken your place in the supply chain of love? To do so, you need to be rightly positioned toward God – “repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ,” was how Paul put it – and rightly positioned toward people. That can’t happen when you are hiding sins or living a self-centered life.

So many people who are looking for love will never find it. But if they would stop looking for love and start looking to love, love would find them.

The point is that when Jesus – who is the point of it all – comes, we want to be awake – that is, we want to be loving.  It’s time to wake up. The day is near, there is work – challenging work of love – to do, and we need to take our places in God’s supply chain of love.  

Posted in Bible, Christmas, Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Do You Suffer from Spiritual Apnea?

Posted on December 3, 2022 by salooper57

For the past five years or so, I have been on a quest to sleep better. I have been sleeping poorly since my thirties, and it has only gotten worse as the years have passed. My three sons all followed suit. When they got into their thirties, they also began to sleep poorly.

The internet is full of advice for us poor sleepers. Exercise, but not too late in the day. Avoid caffeine. Don’t eat within three hours of bedtime. Practice mindfulness. Use breathing techniques like “box breathing.” Increase intake of certain vitamins and minerals. Turn off the TV or computer at least an hour before bedtime. The suggestions go on and on.

I saw my doctor recently for an annual wellness checkup. I reminded him of my quest, and he raised the issue of sleep apnea. That is not what I wanted to hear. Everyone I know who has been diagnosed with sleep apnea has ended up with a CPAP machine. I can’t imagine sleeping with a mask over my face and air being forced into my lungs.

The American Sleep Apnea Association estimates that 22 million people in the U.S. suffer from some form of sleep apnea. That is not good news. Sleep apnea is a potentially serious disorder. Its long-term effects include high blood pressure, stroke, and heart attack. It is now considered a risk factor for dementia.

The most common form of sleep apnea is obstructive sleep apnea. This occurs when the muscles in the back of the throat relax and the soft tissue they support – the tongue, soft palate, and uvula – close, momentarily sealing the airway. This can happen repeatedly during the night, waking the sleeper enough to reopen his or her airway.

The most widely used device for treating obstructive sleep apnea is a CPAP machine. It pumps a continuous stream of oxygenated air through a plastic tube and face mask into the sleeper’s nose and mouth. The increased pressure of the forced air keeps the soft tissue from closing and allows airways to remain open.

Every adult I’ve known or heard about who was diagnosed with sleep apnea has been supplied with a CPAP machine. Many have benefitted greatly, but some hated it. They experienced claustrophobia and felt as if the pressure of the forced air would suffocate them. They were told that they would get used to it in time, but they did not, and gave up. They reasoned that apnea interfered less with their sleep than that suffocating mask.

There is an interesting parallel to this in the spiritual life. The biblical words most commonly translated as “spirit” in both Hebrew and Greek are also translated, when context demands, as “air” or “breath.”  Just as the long-term health of the body requires the regular reception of air, and lack of air causes long-term negative effects, so the long-term health of the soul requires the regular reception of spirit.

Writing to first century disciples in what is now Western Turkey, the Apostle Paul instructed Christians to “be filled with the Spirit.” He had in mind the Spirit that is from God and is God. The regular reception of this Spirit is required for the kind of spiritual stamina that manifests itself, as Paul goes on to say, in healthy relationships with God, each other, and with one’s family.

The unusual choice of a present passive imperative verb for “be filled” makes clear the need of Christians to be continuously filled with God’s Spirit. If this regular, normative reception of the Spirit is interrupted, spiritual disability may ensue and relationships with God and others will be negatively affected.

It is possible that some of us suffer a kind of spiritual apnea. Our reception of the life-giving Spirit is repeatedly interrupted, which impacts our lives and relationships negatively. We may benefit from a spiritual version of the CPAP machine – the daily practice of spiritual disciplines like prayer, Bible reading, meditation, and worship – through which God’s Spirit can refresh our souls.

The practice is but a means, as the CPAP machine is a means. More important is what it facilitates: a regular reception of the Spirit that, as St. Paul wrote, “gives life.” 

Posted in Prayer, Spiritual life, Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments