Party at My House! – God

Posted on August 14, 2025 by salooper57

Jesus once said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me.” The Bible is full of talk about the preparations God has made for his children. According to the Apostle Paul, God prepared in advance the good works he wants his people to do. Jesus spoke of “The kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” “God,” said the author of Hebrews, “is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” It is “The new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor mind conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” “On this mountain, the Lord almighty will prepare a feast…” According to the author of Hebrews, our coming salvation is now ready to be revealed; it has already been prepared.

It’s not just preparations in general the Bible talks about, but preparations for a party. Think of the 23rd Psalm: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Isaiah 25: “The Lord almighty will prepare a feast, a banquet of aged wines. The best of meats and the finest of wines” (Isa. 25:6). We see this in the last chapters of the Bible, when the wedding reception for the Lamb of God is held. God is not only a planner; he is a party planner. He is the party planner. He loves a good party.

Is that how you think of God – that he is full of joy and loves sharing his joy with others? Or is your God more like the old, white-bearded curmudgeon in the sky you see pictured in Renaissance paintings and newspaper comics? Jesus had inside information about what God is like, and he knew his Father to be the most joyous being in all the universe.

This comes out frequently in the stories Jesus told, the parables. There is one genre of parables that is not about how things are or should be, nor about how we should act, but about what God is like. So, for example, when we read the story about the landowner who gave people the same pay whether they worked one hour or twelve, we shouldn’t think this is a prescription for Chrisitan economics. Jesus is talking about what God is like.

And since Jesus’s stories are often about what God is like, it is particularly interesting that they frequently feature a party. There is the party held at midnight in the Parable of the Ten Virgins, and the party in the Parable of the Wedding Reception. There are parties in the Parables of the Lost Coin, the Lost Sheep, and the Lost Son. It’s worth noting, too, that Jesus told many of the party parables when he was on his way to Jerusalem, where he knew he was going to be killed. It was with joy set before him that he endured the cross.

If the stories of the lost sheep and lost coin represent what God is like, as they are clearly intended to do, it seems like God is always looking for a reason to throw a party. The parable of the lost Son features a big party. This is no dinner party for a few close friends but a blowout, a shindig, a full-scale, kill-the-fatted calf gala.

To get our minds wrapped around this, we need to know that Jews in Jesus’s day divided the timeline of human history into two parts: the present evil age (which began with the fall of Adam; and the age to come (in which God will put right everything this age has put wrong). First century Jews believed the age to come would be inaugurated by a cosmic bash, the party to end all parties—the party that will end death itself.

This was the celebration Isaiah had in mind when he wrote, “… the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever.” (Isaiah 25:6-8). Could there be a better reason for throwing a party?

This end of the age – better, this beginning of the new age – celebration was sometimes called “The Great Banquet” or “The Feast in the Kingdom of God.” Jesus had this feast in mind when he said, “I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom.” (Matthew 26:29). In the Revelation it is called “The Wedding Supper” – we’d say wedding reception – “of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9), with its laughter, dancing, and joy.

God the Father wants us to share that experience with him. His attitude is just like the attitude of his Son, who once said to him, “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world” (John 17:24). “I want them to be with me where I am.” That is what God is like.

That may be hard for us to grasp because we’re not like that. In our experience, there is only so much to go around. So, if you share it, you have less. But God knows how to throw a party. When he shares, the fun is not divided; it’s multiplied. The one throwing the Great Feast knows how to multiply fish and loaves and turn water into wine, so there will be plenty for everyone. And not just quantity but quality: “the best of meats and the finest of wines.” And, as in the story of the wine at the wedding feast at Cana, he is once again saving the best for last.

In Luke 14, Jesus is at a Sabbath dinner where most of the guests are stuffed shirts, and while he’s there, he heals a man with edema – a fluid build-up in the legs and possibly around his heart. The guests are shocked – it’s Sabbath! Robert Capon compares what Jesus did to being at a formal dinner party and pulling the tablecloth off the table, putting the guy with the bad back up on the table, and doing a chiropractic adjustment on him. The guests would have thought this was outrageous.

Jesus finishes healing the guy and sends him on his way. But if people were hoping to get back to a nice, normal Sabbath Day dinner, they were disappointed. Jesus goes on to offend the guests by calling attention to their status-seeking ways and then suggesting to the host that he might want to invite a different class of folk in the future. The ones from skid-row would be an improvement, the kind who wouldn’t know a truffle from a turnip. If he will do that, Jesus tells him, he will be richly repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

At that moment, one of the stuffed shirts speaks up and piously says, “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God” (Luke 14:15). Maybe he had his doubts about Jesus being numbered among those so blessed, but I’m guessing he expected to be there himself. But I don’t want to be unjust to this guy. Maybe this wasn’t false piety. Maybe this was a genuine attempt by a sensitive soul to ease the tension, which was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Whatever his motive, Jesus used his comment to introduce another of his party-themed parables. We can read it in Luke 14:16-24.

Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ “Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’ “The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes (Gk., hedges) and make them come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.'”

The scholar Kenneth Bailey says that a party for two to four guests would require butchering a chicken or two; it was duck for 5-8 guests, a kid for 10-15 guests, a sheep for 15 to 35 people, and a calf for more than that. The party Jesus describes was a two or three-calf party. This was the event of the season.

People invited to a party like this would receive two invitations: the first required an RSVP. The second was sent on the day itself to say, “Everything is ready. Come on over. The party is about to begin.”

The first invitation was sent out to all the right people and they all RSVP’d. But when the day came and the second invitation arrived, one after another said they wouldn’t be coming. One says he just got married, another that he’s just signed a major real estate deal, another is purchasing new farm equipment and has to take it for a test drive. These are big ticket excuses, but they are still excuses. The guy getting married knew when he was going to get married, so why did he RSVP in the first place? It doesn’t make sense. The land deal doesn’t hold water either: if the guy bought property sight unseen, what was the rush to see it now, when the money was already gone?

We are left to wonder why these people would back out of going to a banquet, given by an obviously important person. (Jesus describes him as the master of the house – think aristocrat – and gives him the title “Lord.”) Why refuse to go to a party that is certain to be the event of the season?

It could be these folks don’t play well with others; that they are introverts or misanthropes. Maybe they experience a lot of anxiety at parties and are afraid of looking foolish. Or maybe they just want a night to themselves. But after saying yes, they all back out, every last one of them? Something is going on here.

Jesus may have intended – and his hearers may have understood – another meaning. He may have intended the refusals to be seen as an intentional slight, a conspiracy not to attend by those invited. That kind of thing did happen in the ancient Middle East and still happens today. For example, when a ruler’s authority was being challenged, the invitees might decline his invitation as a way of distancing themselves from him or signifying to his opponent their willingness to change sides. Their refusal to attend the gala was a calculated rejection of the host.

That led the Lord Party-giver to do something entirely unexpected. Instead of saving face by cancelling the party, he went looking for other party guests. Look at verse 21, where the master tells his servant: “Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.”

But even after the servant brought these people to the party, there was still room. So, the Lord sends him out again, this time “to the roads and country lanes” – the hedges, under which the homeless sleep – and tells him to “make them come in, so that my house will be full.”

These are not the kind of people who got invited to swanky parties. I’m about as likely to get an invitation to a White House gala as these folks were to be invited to a party like this. Some of them were beggars, and none of them had anything to offer: no money, no influence, no political power; why, they couldn’t even vote.

Those original invitees wouldn’t come now, under any circumstances. They wouldn’t be caught dead at a party with those kinds of people. That would put them on the same footing with … losers!

Why does the master tell the servant to make people come in? Wouldn’t they jump at the chance to get the best meal they’d ever tasted? Probably not. People like the ones mentioned here never got invited to big soirees like this. And even if, by some crazy mix-up, one of them did, he’d know better than to accept. To attend a party like this put a person in a position of debt. He would be expected to reciprocate, which the people mentioned here could never do. The master says, “Make them come in,” because he knew they knew this was not their kind of party. It’s as if the master told his servant, “Tell them not to worry about repaying me. I know they can’t and I don’t even want them to. I just want them to be here. I want them to enjoy themselves.”

Let’s step back from the story a little so we can get some perspective and, perhaps, see where we fit in. First, remember that Jesus is telling us something about God in this story, and he is definitely not the cosmic killjoy that people (and the devil) make him out to be. If anyone ever loved a good party, it is the God and Father of Jesus Christ.

Neither is this God a snob. He doesn’t exclude people because of their race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. He doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, the brightest light in the sky or the dimmest bulb in the house. He doesn’t worry that his team might get stuck taking the last kid on the playground. He loves having that last kid on his team. He knows he’s going to win anyway, so why not pick her first?

Nor is he a God who is always keeping score. (This is a stumbling block for many people.) God has never said, “You own me one.” The idea is just plain silly. We don’t owe him one; we owe him everything, and he knows we can never repay him. We can be grateful or not. We can love him or not. We can be his man or woman or not. But we can’t repay him. Real estate in the new heaven and new earth is not for sale. It’s not just that no payment is necessary; no payment is allowed. If we don’t take charity, his charity, his bleeding charity, we will be left out in the dark.

This is Robert Capon again: “Grace doesn’t sell; you can hardly even give it away, because it works only for losers and no one wants to stand in their line.” Winners, he says, don’t even want “free forgiveness because that threatens to let the riffraff into the Supper of the Lamb.”[1]

But Capon was wrong. One person did want to stand in their line—in our line. That was Jesus, and he paid the entrance fee for everyone.

If we insist on paying our own way – on proving that we’re not one of the losers – we’re going to miss the party. That is terribly sad because God really wants us there.

Now, if you want to come to the Party – more than that: if you want to join the Party-Giver’s joyous family– stop trying to impress. Stop trying to repay. Don’t make excuses. Just accept the invitation. It was delivered by Jesus himself and purchased with his blood. The message the servant carried in the story is the one God’s Spirit brings to us today: “Come, for everything is now ready.”

Everything except, possibly, us. That is why God is waiting.  (He “is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” 2 Peter 3:9.) He’s prepared the party for us. Now, he is preparing us for the party, which is a far more difficult and challenging work. But he is up to the job.

[1] Robert Farrar Capon, Parables of Grace

Posted in Bible, Christianity, Encouragement, Faith, Sermons, Spiritual life, Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What I Don’t Understand About the Bible (It Could Fill Volumes)

Posted on August 9, 2025 by salooper57

The word “spirit” appears in the second verse of the Bible and then appears something like 765 more times. Clearly, the idea of “spirit” is important. Jesus said that “God is spirit.” People have spirits. The gift of the Spirit is one of the most important events in salvation history and in personal experience.

But do we even understand what “spirit” is? I’m not sure that I do.

In Hebrew and Greek, the words translated as “spirit” are polysemous, that is, they have multiple (but related) meanings. So in both languages, the words can be translated as “spirit,” “breath” or “wind.” On the sixth day of creation, God “breathed” or “spirited” into the man’s nostrils the “breath” or the “spirit” of life, “and the human became a living being.” (See also Jesus’s explanation regarding the new birth to Nicodemus in John 3:8, where the word pneuma is translated as “wind” twice and “Spirit” once.)

The polysemous nature of the words is only the beginning of our difficulties. In the Bible we learn that God’s Spirit and our spirits are not the only spirits occupying (can one use that word of spirits?) our planet. “All angels,” according to the author of Hebrews, are “ministering spirits.” But there are still other spirits, and at least some of these interact with humans—sometimes disastrously.  

King Saul was tormented by a “distressing spirit,” surprisingly sent from the LORD himself. A “lying spirit” deceives wicked King Ahab. (God sends this one too, and there are many other accounts of God sending an “evil” or a “harmful” spirit to people.) When Saul goes to the witch of Endor, he asks her to divine for him “by a spirit” and bring Samuel up from the dead.

The spirit world really gets crowded when Jesus arrives on the scene. There seem to be “unclean” or “evil” spirits everywhere. Some of them speak, some of them are mute, and all of them are bad company for decent people.

Occasionally, these spirits are identified as demons – another difficult word to understand. It is used 63 times in the New Testament (though, interestingly, not once in Acts, even though it occurs regularly in Luke) and always in a negative sense. But in the larger Greek and Roman culture of the Mediterranean in the first century, daemons were viewed more positively. People actually wanted to be influenced by daemons; they thought such influence inspired them and heightened their creative powers.

Dallas Willard describes “spirit” as “unbodily personal power.” However, the word “spirit” as it is used in the Bible does not always imply personhood. So, for example, God has given some people “a spirit of skill” (Ex. 28:3). Jerusalem will be given a “spirit of judgment” and “a spirit of burning” (Isa. 4:4). Egypt is under a “spirit of confusion” (Isa. 19:14). Perhaps such spirits can be personal in the sense that we understand personhood, but that is certainly not clear in the text. We read also of a “spirit of sleep,” of “justice,” and of “whoredom.”

When the disciples first see Jesus after the resurrection, they think they are seeing a “spirit” – a mistake he quickly corrects. What exactly did they think a spirit is? A “ghost,” as the NIV translates it in Luke 24:37?

Understanding the nature of spirit is difficult enough within the borders of Holy Scripture, but when we leave the Bible, we enter a befuddling world of spirits. In late medieval and early Renaissance periods, even theologians who considered themselves Christians believed that there are spirits abroad in the world (or in the air, like Shakespeare’s “airy sprite” in the Tempest) that were not exactly evil or good. They were neutrals, neither aligned with heaven nor with hell. They were among what C.S. Lewis described as the “mundana numina.”

Lewis made use of his remarkable scholarship to write That Hideous Strength. In the story, Merlin reappears in modern England and uses his familiarity with spirits (familiar spirits) to serve God and destroy the evil powers that seek to dominate England and the world. How does Lewis, an orthodox Christian, justify his character’s use of familiar spirits to achieve a good result? Rather ingeniously, I would say.

Lewis speaks through Professor Dimble, a scholar who in some ways resembles Lewis (and in other ways does not), to explain. Here is the quote at length from That Hideous Strength.

“Have you ever noticed,” said Dimble, “that the universe, and every little bit of the universe, is always hardening and narrowing and coming to a point?”


His wife waited as those wait who know by long experience the mental processes of the person who is talking to them.

“I mean this,” said Dimble, answering the question she had not asked. “If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family—anything you like—at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren’t quite so sharp; and that there’s going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing.”

Dimble explained to his wife that there were still spirits in 1940s England that were neutrals, but that soon even they would need to take a side because everything is coming to a point. Perhaps that point has been reached and now all spirits are either good or bad, holy or diabolical. Perhaps that point was reached in the incarnation, when the Point-of-it-all incisively entered our world. Or perhaps there never was such a thing as neutral spirits, which seems most likely to me. (Jesus does not seem to have met any.)

My point is not that neutral spirits might exist or have existed, still less that Lewis thought or didn’t think they did. My point is that my understanding of spirit is so limited. Yet I usually skim over the word without even pausing to think about it, though it is rich in history and full of mystery.

And the whole Bible is like this. The whole of life is like this. There is so much to know and we know so little of it. Thank God, we are not saved by knowing everything, but by God’s mercy (Titus 2:5) in sending Christ.

It is clear that intellectual modesty is required of us. There is far more that we don’t know than we do know. That’s okay. Jesus would tell us to be of good cheer. Though we don’t know all these things, we do know God.

Paul would emend that last line (as he did his own line in Galatians 4:8) by adding: “Or rather, are known by God.”

Ah, yes. And that is reason enough – and more than enough – to be of good cheer.

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Paths The Lead Nowhere

Posted on August 2, 2025 by salooper57

Paths That Lead Nowhere

I took a half-day of prayer today. I try (but frequently fail) to do this on the first Friday of every month. I nearly always start my half-day of prayer by praising God. I usually do this while walking a trail in some state or county park. As I walk, I go through the alphabet and find something I admire about God that begins with A, then B, C, and so on, all the way to Z.

Today, I went to Ferretti-Baugo Park in St. Joseph County, IN. The park covers 214 acres, with Baugo Creek winding through it on its way to the St. Joseph River. I’ve done my half-day of prayer at this park three or four times and have walked most of its trails.

I usually head south down the trail marked “Portage,” which leads to some pretty places along the creek. Today, however, I decided to follow the trail sign that read: To Palisades. (Maybe it’s because I’ve been back to Treasure Island in the last few weeks, and I remembered that Stevenson mentions the palisades around the pirates’ island stronghold.)

The trail was not as nice as the “Portage” trail. It ran along fences and houses, next to old cars and derelict fishing boats. Instead of hearing the river sing, as I do on the Portage Trail, I heard the repeated blasts of a freight train’s horn, less than a tenth of a mile away. But I thought it would be worth it to find the Palisades. I might even see (in my mind’s eye) young Jim Hawkins or brave Captain Smollett, holed up in the stronghold, fighting off Long John Silver’s cruel buccaneers.

But I didn’t find the Palisades. For one thing, the trail markers were nearly useless. “Does this marker point down that trail or the one that veers at a slight angle away from it? Sometimes, the trail marker would display the word “Palisades” with arrows pointing in opposite directions. It was nuts.

But I was determined. I tried one trail, then another—only to find it was all the same trail, running in a loop. Sometimes, I walked in a northerly direction. Sometimes, on a southerly course. I passed over the same trail so often that the squirrels were getting to know me, but I never saw the palisades. I began to think there is no palisades, for I noticed that most of the trail markers did not point to “Palisades” but to “Palisades Trail.” Perhaps the trail is not the way to the attraction; perhaps it is the attraction.

I, for one, did not find it particularly attractive. I walked within 75 feet of a row of houses, a dozen feet from old cars and boats, and an arm’s length from two angry dogs (Pit Bulls, I think) that barked insanely and threw themselves against the six-foot-tall fence that separated us. There was an opaque fabric that covered the dogs’ side of the fence, so I could not see them clearly, but if I am any judge of a dog’s bark, they were snarling, “I’m going to kill you” again and again.

I finally – it really was a long time – gave up on finding the Palisades. Anyway, I wasn’t there to sightsee but to pray, and I had done lots of that as I walked (with special earnestness when the dogs tried to knock down the fence). Among other things, I prayed for a friend and for the friend of a friend. Both seem to have got on a path on which they go endlessly but get nowhere. After today, I understand a little better what that is like.

Humanity walks on a ruined earth, the result of Adam’s rebellion and the long, devastating war that followed. The paths we take frequently lead nowhere. We lose ourselves and we cannot find our God.

But it will not always be so. The day will come when our long search will be over, not because we have found God by our cleverness, but because he has found us by his love. Even this ruined earth will be rescued and restored. Its circular paths will be straightened, and all paths will lead to him.

In that day, we will learn that we were never alone, even on our circular paths that led nowhere. There was always Another with us. He did not walk beside us because he was afraid for us – never that – but because (wonder of wonders) he likes us, loves us, and enjoys being near us.

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He’s Still Our Father When We Mess Up

Posted on July 31, 2025 by salooper57

There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.

After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found’ (Luke 15:11-24).

Louie Zamperini was a bombardier in the Army Air Corps in the Second World War. After his plane was damaged by Japanese anti-aircraft fire, Louie was assigned to search and rescue and was set to find a lost aircraft and her crew. During the search, the plane he was in experienced mechanical difficulties and went down in the Pacific, 800 miles from Hawaii. Eight of the eleven crew members were killed in the crash.

Louie and the other two spent 47 days at sea, drinking collected rainwater and eating whatever fish or birds they could catch. They fought off sharks and were strafed by Japanese planes. One of the three died. When they finally reached land, they were immediately captured by the Japanese and transferred to a prison camp. Later they were sent to another camp, where they were brutally tortured.

The Army supposed that Zamperini had died with the rest of the crew and listed him as KIA. Louie’s parents received a letter of condolence signed by President Roosevelt. But this wasn’t the first time Mr. and Mrs. Zamperini had lost Louie.

Before he was lost at sea, Louie was lost at home. When he was a teen, he was constantly getting into fights and stealing and drinking. One day, after an argument with his parents over chores, he told them he was leaving. His parents pleaded with him to stay, but he refused. So, his tearful mother made him a sandwich to take with him and his dad gave him $2 which, in the Depression, may have been all the money he had.

Louie hopped a ride on a train but nearly died after he got locked inside a boxcar in sweltering heat. When he was discovered, he was run off at gunpoint. With nowhere to go, he sat around the rail yard, dirty, bruised, and wet. He’d had nothing to eat except a can of beans he’d stolen, and nothing to do except watch the trains go by. When a passenger train passed, he saw people in the dining car, sitting at tables with tablecloths and crystal stemware, eating and laughing. And that’s when he remembered the sandwich his teary-eyed mother had given him, and the money his dad had put in his hand. He stood up and he started walking toward home.[1]

That is a modern (and real-life) retelling of Jesus’s Parable of the Prodigal Son (or better, The Parable of the Lost Sons, since both sons in the story are lost; or better still, the Parable of the Loving Father). It is the crown of Jesus’s 37 parables and it beautifully portrays what the God and Father of Jesus is really like.

The people to whom Jesus told this masterpiece of a story lived in a society where everyone had a place. That place depended on lineage, employment, education, annual income, assets, languages spoken, and religious credentials. Based on those particulars, you were assigned a spot, maybe on the A-list, or maybe down on E-list, level four, position 293. And that was who you were. (Not unlike today.)

If you were assigned to D-list, you looked down on those in E-list but were looked down on by the people in C-List, who were looked down on by the B-listers, and so on. If your religious credentials weren’t in order, regardless of the list you were on, people looked down on you. And according to religious orthodoxy, so did God.

Then came Jesus. He not only didn’t look down on people at the lower end of the scale, he got rid of the scale – threw it out. In a society where even a child could distinguish between the reputable and the disreputable, Jesus’s disregard for those distinctions was scandalous. He welcomed people in, while other religious leaders kept them out—and thought they were doing the right thing. How is it that Jesus treated people so differently?

He treated people differently because he knew that his Father was not like the God the religious leaders talked about. The Pharisees were sure that God did not want those people. He regarded them as a kind of infection. But Jesus knew that God does want those people, that he loves them, and considers them to be a kind of treasure.

That’s why Jesus told the stories in Luke 15. He wanted to clear up people’s misconceptions. He wanted them to know what he knew about his Father: He loves people, even after they have messed up. He wants them, even when they don’t want him. And if they only come to him because they are cold and hungry and miserable, he’ll still take them in, and do it in a heartbeat. That is what the God and Father of Jesus is like.

Jesus tells three stories in Luke 15. The first is about a guy who has one of his hundred sheep wander off. He’s still got 99, but he can’t stand to lose one, so he goes after it, finds it, and then throws a party to celebrate.

The second story is about a woman who had ten silver coins but lost one of them. She’s still got nine, but she won’t rest until she has found that one, and when she finds it, she throws a party.

The third story, the jewel in the crown, is about a dad who has two sons. Notice how the stakes get higher with each story. One out of a hundred. One out of ten. One out of two. One of the sons leaves his father, goes out into the world, and gets terribly lost.

Lost is one of a key word in these stories: it occurs 8 times in its noun and verb forms. The religious leaders would have said, “People are lost,” and Jesus would have agreed. As far as God is concerned, we’re not A-list of C-list or E-list. We’re either lost because we are away from him, which is a grief, even to God, or we’re found, because we’ve come back to him, which is reason to throw the biggest party ever. Jesus would have agreed with the Pharisees that people are lost but, unlike the Pharisees, he knew that God loves people whether they’re lost or found. And finding them is one of his chief delights.

The rabbis had a saying: “God rejoices over the downfall of the godless.” When the Pharisees heard that, they nodded their heads in agreement, but Jesus emphatically shook his in disagreement. That is not what his Father is like.

Jesus adds a lot of color to this story—there’s more detail than in any other. The lost son pulls a Louie Zamperini on his dad. He knows his dad doesn’t want him to leave, but he says (in effect), “I hate my life with you and I can’t wait to get out of here.” He then sells his share of the farm out from under his dad and brother (which would be bad form in our culture but was unthinkable in theirs), takes the cash, and bolts.

Now, if you are a Pharisee listening to this story, you know exactly how this dad feels. He is madder than a hornet – than a nest of hornets. And you know exactly what this dad would do: hold a qetsatsah ceremony, have his son declared dead, and a death certificate issued. As far as this dad was concerned, his boy died and any relationship they’d had died with him.

Jesus, being the greatest storyteller ever, leaves the dad there in his grief and shame and follows the son. And here is where the details come in. The son blows through his money in no time. He’s out there partying and telling himself that this is the life. He knows it can’t go on forever, but he’ll worry about that when the time comes. Then one morning, he wakes up with a hangover and discovers the time had come. (Our modern translations say something like, “he squandered his wealth” in verse 13, but a strictly literal translation is, “he squandered his being.” He might have said, “It’s only money,” but it wasn’t; he was squandering himself.)

And then life got really bad, really fast. Circumstances were against him: a famine; high unemployment; his friends left him. Jesus says, “no one gave him anything.” So, he did the last thing any self-respecting Jew would do: he took a job with a Gentile pig farmer. And things got so bad that he wanted to eat the pig’s food.

Jesus has a reason for telling us these details—one we might miss. Herding pigs was shameful for a Jew. The Mishnah said, “None may rear swine anywhere,” and “Cursed is the man who rears swine.” Just hearing Jesus say that this Jewish boy wanted to eat pig chow was enough to make a Pharisee retch. It was disgusting. And that Pharisee would be thinking, “He got what he deserves. If he is going to act like a pig, he should live with the pigs.”

If I were a first century Jewish father, and my son Joel (I’ll pick on him because he is our only son with a Hebrew name; we gave the other two Irish names) went to work for a pig farmer, I would be shamed before the entire community. And shaming one’s father was, in that time and place, one of the worst things a person could do. People would look at me differently, talk behind my back, and whisper that I was being punished for some secret, shameful sin.

The turning point of the story comes in verse 17. The son comes to his senses (literally, “comes to himself” – to who he really is: the son of a wonderful and kind man) and decides in that moment to go back to his dad. He has an idea that his dad might just take him back (as a hired hand, of course). So, he composes a speech, trying to say just the right thing to blunt his dad’s anger. He understands that his dad won’t acknowledge him – probably won’t even look at him – but maybe he’ll instruct the foreman to put him to work as a farmhand. Once he’s got his speech memorized, he gets up (literally, arises; it’s the word routinely used of rising in the resurrection, for this boy is coming back from the dead) and starts off toward his father.

The last time we saw the father, he was being hammered by rejection and disrespect, and Jesus has not mentioned him since. But now as the son approaches, our thoughts return to the father. Every Pharisee knows how this story ends. The old man will turn his back on the kid and say: “You are no son of mine! My son died! We held his funeral. You – whoever you are – go back to the pigs and live among your own kind.”

The reason the Pharisees know the father will say this is because it’s what they would say. And they would say it because they’re sure it’s what God would say. God is holy. He is righteous. He despises sinners.

And it’s not just Jesus’s A- and B-list hearers like the Pharisees who expect this ending; the D- and E-listers – the tax collectors and prostitutes – do too. So, imagine everyone’s surprise when Jesus said (this is verse 20): “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”

And then, of course, he threw a party! (More about that next week.)

Jesus just pulled the theological rug out from under their Pharisaical feet. He tells them, “You’ve got it all wrong. God doesn’t write off people who are lost; he finds them. Not so he can punish them, but so he can throw his divine arms around them and kiss them and welcome them home.”

The son starts his speech, but the father doesn’t let him finish. No bargaining. No “I’ll do better this time.” He doesn’t make him sign a contract. He takes him in. Brings him home.

The Pharisees would have thought that was crazy. They believed that accepting people who do wrong takes away any motivation they might have to change. They thought the only leverage they had over people was rejection. You use a hammer to drive nails and you use rejection to change people. It was the only tool in their bag.

But Jesus knew that people don’t get better because you reject them; they get worse. The religious leaders were waiting for people to clean themselves up and become worthy of salvation, but God doesn’t wait. He doesn’t withhold his love until people meet a certain standard. He pulls up his robes and runs to them.  

In first century Israel (and just about everywhere else), men wore robes. If for some reason they needed to run, they would pull the hem of their robe up and tie it above their knees. Older men didn’t tie up their robes like that; it was attire unbecoming a man of advanced years. But Jesus has this father (who is meant to show us what God is like) tie up his robes, not caring what anyone thinks, and run to his son. God won’t force us into a relationship with him – that would ruin everything he wants for us – but he will help us choose a relationship with him and will come running to us when we do.

The son in this story came to himself because he remembered what his father was like, just as Louie Zamperini remembered how his dad gave him money and told him that he was wanted. We’ll never come to ourselves until we come to our heavenly Father, and we’ll never come to him if we think he doesn’t want us.

But our heavenly Father does wants us; he wants you. Like the father in Jesus’s story, he doesn’t sit around waiting for you to come to him. He comes to you. He doesn’t demand, as the religious leaders of Jesus’s day did, that you get it all right before you come. He wants you – really wants you – to be with him and with his other children.

The younger son in this story almost missed out because he did not understand his father. He was sure that his father did not want him and would reject him. Some of us – all of us at one time or another – have had similar thoughts about God. Those thoughts are not true. He wants us. He really does.

There is much more to this story than we have time to go into this morning. I hope you will come to Go Deep on Wednesday night (we meet in the multi-purpose room on the other side of the lobby) to think together about the text and see how it applies to our lives. For now, I just want us to see what God is like. He is like a dad who takes back his son (or it could be his daughter); a dad who runs to take him back – who loves him, no matter what he has done.

Donald Miller had a friend – a kind, intelligent, gifted man – whose life was falling apart because of alcohol addiction. His marriage was full of strife, his relationship with his kids was in jeopardy, and Donald was afraid he might take his own life.

But his friend checked himself into a rehab and the next time Donald saw him, he had gone several weeks without a drink. The turning point – the moment he came to himself – happened at a recovery meeting. His dad had flown in for a visit and had attended the meeting with him. During the meeting, the man stood up in front of everyone – his dad included – and confessed all his issues and weaknesses.

When his son finally sat down, his father stood up. He looked at all the other addicts, then at his son, and he said: “I have never loved my son as much as I do at this moment. I love him. I want all of you to know I love him.” That helped Donald’s friend believe that God loved him, too. And if God loved him, his father loved him, and his wife loved him, he thought he just might make it.[2]

Your heavenly Father wants you – and all of us – to know that he loves you at this moment and every moment, no matter what mistakes you’ve made, what sins you’ve committed.

Blessing/Sending (Luke 15; Jeremiah 31)

Abandon the places to which you have wandered and return to the Father who loves you with an everlasting love. He rejoices to receive you.

[1] Adapted from Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken (Random House, 2010), pp. 11-15.

[2] Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What, (Thomas Nelson, 2004), p. 130-131

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Poles Apart: The Realities that Make Us Who We Are

Posted on July 29, 2025 by salooper57

This year, I am involved in a Discipleship Group (a D-Group) that reads five biblical texts a week, writes journals entries on each of them, and presents one of those entries to the other members each week. Each journal entry is based on the acrostic H.E.A.R. The H stands for Highlight (we highlight a key verse, writing it out by hand. The E stands for Explain (we explain the verse or the larger passage). A is for Apply (we look to see how the truths we have uncovered apply to our own lives). And the R is for Respond (we write out our response, which could be a prayer or a statement of what we intend to do. Today, I was reading Acts 8 and 9. My highlight verse follows and then the Explain, Apply, and Respond.

Acts 9:31 “Therefore” (this refers to the previous verse, where the lightning rod Saul was sent off by the church to Tarsus), the whole church in Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace, being built up and going around in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.” (My translation.)

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Once Saul was gone, the church had peace. What follows are two sets of contrasting realities, though “contrasting” is not the right word. They are more like two poles of experience around which the disciple’s life flows. The disciples are being built up (passive voice), which implies structure, steadfastness (as in immovable? see 1 Cor. 15:58), and strength. But they also “go around” (proceed, travel, move through life). Both are true of the spiritually healthy disciple: stop and go; rest and action; “let (-ting) nothing move” them yet always going.

The other set of contrasts come next. The believer experiences both “the fear of the Lord” and “the comfort of the Holy Spirit.” The fear of the Lord moves us (see 2 Cor. 5:11), while the comfort of the Spirit rests us. The fear of the Lord energizes us. The comfort of the Spirit contents us. The fear of the Lord causes a desire for more. The comfort of the Spirit makes us rejoice in what we already have.

People tend to gravitate to one pole or the other, perhaps based on personality, yet we all sense the need for both. We were created with both poles – in that sense, we are all “bi-polar” – and we are only fully ourselves when we have a “current” within us that constantly moves between both.

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I prefer the comfort of the Spirit. I seek safety and rest. But I recognize the desire for more, the longing for the energizing “fear of the Lord” that makes things happen. I must not be content with one or the other; I must choose both. I desire the divine rhythm that moves me in rest and rests me in movement. I desire the magnetic attraction that is generated from the flow of life between both poles. That energy makes the Lord Jesus visible in my life and brings him glory.

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Lord, give me both. I want to be built up and to go about, to rest in the comfort of the Holy Spirit and to move in the fear of the Lord. But I am rhythmically challenged, so I need you to teach me, help me, and be yourself in me.

Please make this a reality in our church as well.

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Fascinating Storytelling from Matthew 28

Posted on July 26, 2025 by salooper57

(Plus a fun skit for your enjoyment.)

In Matthew 28, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary leave early on Sunday morning to see (“watch,” “observe”) Jesus’s tomb. But they are not the only ones watching it; so are the Roman soldiers, lent by Pilate to the chief priests so they could “make the tomb as secure as” they knew how.

This is only one expression, and the least obvious, of the parallel lines of storytelling by Matthew in chapter 28. The twin storylines follow the women and the guards, and it seems to me that Matthew structured his narrative this way on purpose.

An angel appears to the guards and they “are afraid of him” – so afraid that they shake uncontrollably and become “like dead men.” The women are also afraid of the angel. (Matthew does not tell us this but Mark and Luke do. Matthew does mention that the angel tells the women, “Do not be afraid.”)

The women go off to the city following their encounter with the angel. So do “some of the guards.” In fact, Matthew explains that while the women are on their way, the guards, recovered from the shock and paralysis of meeting an otherworldly being, go off to the city themselves.

The women go to report (Gk., ἀπαγγεῖλαι) to the disciples all they had seen and heard. While they are doing that, the guards deliver their report (ἀπήγγειλαν) to the chief priests. Both the women and the guards have news to tell, and they tell it. The guards are then paid “a large sum of money” (where the word is the same one used of the blood money Judas received).

By framing his narrative with these parallel storylines, Matthew is able to subtly demonstrate the ways different people respond to the gospel. (That word comes from the same root as the word used of the news the woman and the guards reported.) The women hurry to tell the good news to those who had not yet heard and, as they go, they were met by Jesus himself.

“Some” of the guards also carried news into the city to those who had not heard, but they did not meet Jesus. While the disciples eventually realized that the women’s report was very good news – was “gospel” – the chief priests considered the news the guards shared to be very bad news. Though they knew it was true, they did not want anyone to believe it.

Those are the parallel storylines we see in Matthew 28. If readers have noticed other parallels I have missed, I’d love for you to share them with me!

I have wondered why Matthew mentions specifically that “some” of the guards, and not all, went into the city. I can think of other reasons to account for it, but I’d like to think that some of the guards had made up their minds not to have in more to do with guarding priestly lies. I once wrote an Easter morning skit that features two such members of the guard (Gk, κουστωδίας) and what might have become of them. I include it for your entertainment.

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If That’s True

[Two soldiers stand in front of the tomb at attention, about four feet apart, eyes forward. But they talk to each other, on the sly.]

Soldier One: Nice legs.

Photo by Angela Chacu00f3n on Pexels.com

Soldier Two: Shut up.

Soldier One: I hear there were some women here yesterday. Came to get a glimpse of you, I shouldn’t wonder.

Soldier Two: Shut up. [Ten seconds pass]

Soldier One: So, what are we doing here, anyway?

Soldier Two: Following orders.

Soldier One: Yeah, but . . .

Soldier Two: [Interrupting] Centurion’s coming.

[Ten seconds pass in silence]

Soldier One: I mean, what are we doing here, guarding a dead guy? It’s not like he’s part of the imperial family, or something. He’s a Jew, for cryin’ out loud.

Soldier Two: I heard the emperor ordered a twenty‑four-hour guard for his wife’s dead cat prior to its burial.

Soldier One: Yeah, the bigger they are, the crazier they are. But there was only one imperial cat; there’s got to be ten thousand of these Jewish teachers around.

Soldier Two: So?

Soldier One: So . . .

Soldier Two: Quiet! [several seconds pass]

Soldier One: So, what are we doing out here — a koustodia? You don’t need a koustodia to keep a few members of some crazy sect from getting into a tomb. What are they really afraid of?

Soldier Two: Maybe they’re not afraid of people getting into the tomb.

Soldier One: Then what?

Soldier Two: Maybe they’re afraid of someone getting outta the tomb.

Soldier One: That’s crazy.

Soldier Two: Didn’t you hear what the centurion said? This teacher told people he would rise from the dead.

Soldier One: Like anyone’s gonna believe that!

Soldier Two: Seems like somebody did.

Soldier One: What‑da‑ya mean?

Soldier Two: I mean: We’re here aren’t we? A koustodia. Somebody is scared.

Soldier One: You don’t think it could really happen — I mean, after being dead a person could come back to life?

Soldier Two: Maybe. I don’t know. But if Caesar could figure out how to do it, he’d send us into one battle after another till we’d taken the whole bloody world. Nobody could stop us.

Soldier One: Yeah. But what I was thinking was that if you and I couldn’t die, I’d have to see those ugly legs, day after day, forever.

Soldier Two: Shut up.

—————————

(A long time has passed. The soldiers are now dressed in civilian clothing.)

Soldier 1: Legs?? What are you doin’ here? Come back to the scene of the crime, eh?

Soldier 2: [Surprised] Valerius, why aren’t you in uniform? What’s happened?

Soldier 1: [Shrugs] I served my 20. Got my citizenship. It was time to get out. But what about you? You’re not in uniform either.

Soldier 2: [Bitterly] I’m out too. The day I joined the Koustodia was the proudest day of my life. But when that old priest told us to lie, and the Commander backed him up—I felt ashamed of being a Koustodian. [Pauses.] I should’ve told the truth.

Soldier 1: They would’ve killed you. Besides, what is the truth? I still don’t know what happened.

Soldier 2: You know we didn’t fall asleep. You know we didn’t fail in our duty. You know a gang of fish-catchers and tax collectors didn’t steal the body.

Soldier 1: Yeah, I know all that. [Looks around.] But did anyone steal the body? I mean, it seems like no one went into that tomb, but … somebody came out.

Soldier 2: Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Because if that’s true …

Soldier 1: [Interrupting.] If that’s true, Legs, this Jew they set us to guard knows how to charm Cerberus and walk right out of Hades. But how? That’s the question. How’d ’e do it?

Soldier 2: I’ve been thinking that those fish-catchers and tax collectors might know—I heard the priest call them his disciples. Maybe he taught them how. I think I’d like to find one of them and ask him. Want to go with me?

Soldier 1: Sure. But, uh, just be careful those fish-catchers don’t catch us.

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God Is Father

Posted on July 24, 2025 by salooper57

(From the series, What Is God Like?)

Viewing Time: 25:30

(Watch the sermon by clicking the “Read on blog” link in this email. Prefer to read? The text is below.)

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

The other night, I woke up from a dream in which I was home, but my home wasn’t at 29851 County Road 12, Elkhart, IN. It wasn’t at 220 E. Lockwood Road, Coldwater, MI—where we lived before we came here. It was 910 Lake Avenue, Elyria, OH.

That was the house where I grew up. When I dream, if I’m home or headed home, it is almost always that home. I haven’t lived there since the 1970s and haven’t been in the house since 2002, when my mother died. I’ve lived here for over a year, and spent more than 35 years on Lockwood Road, but in the recesses of my mind, it’s the house on Lake Avenue that is home.

Most of our views – well, not so much our views as the mental lens through which we view everything else – is shaped by the time we are twelve years old. That lens gets scratched and cracked, but most people are still looking through it when they’re seventy years old. How we look at the world around us, the friends near us, the enemies against us, and the God above us is shaped by those early years. They have a lot to do with whether we see life as an opportunity or a trial; earth as a safe place or a war zone; God as a Father to be trusted or a bully to be avoided.

That last one is what we’re thinking about today. If you were not able to trust your dad when you were ten, trusting God now will be a challenge. A dad will make it easier or harder to trust the heavenly Father. Harder – and this is important – but not impossible, for God himself will help you.

If you are a dad, you are making it easier or harder for your kids to trust their heavenly Father. This is true even if your kids are grown, but if they are still at home, the importance of your role is almost impossible to overstate.

My own dad, like most peoples’ dads, made it both easier and harder. He made it easier because I learned from him that a Father takes care of his family. I could have walked through a dark alley on the wrong side of town without fear, as long as he was with me. That will make it easier for me to walk through the dark valley when I enter the shadow of death. During my time on Lake Avenue, my dad stopped two robberies, ended a murderous fight between strangers, and gave me every reason to believe – and no reason to doubt – that he could handle any threat that came our way. When the 1965 tornados tore through the area, a small town just thirteen miles south of us was all but wiped out. But I wasn’t afraid because my dad wasn’t afraid. I never doubted he could keep us safe.

Nothing from the outside world could threaten me while my dad was there, which makes it easier now for me to believe that God can shield me from danger. But with my dad, the danger didn’t come from the outside world; it came from within. He could be angry, demeaning, critical.

Most of us have things to unlearn regarding the Fatherhood of God, as well as things to learn – to learn deep, in our souls and bodies. The person to teach us is Jesus, and one of the things we will learn from him is that God is Father. Jesus was always saying, “Father.” He said, “my Father,” “our Father,” “your Father,” and even called God “Abba,” which is what a little child calls his daddy. The four Gospels have the word “Father” on the lips of Jesus more than a hundred and fifty times. Compare that with the entire Old Testament, which is ten times as long. No one in the Old Testament ever addressed God as Father and the references to God’s fatherhood, while they are there, are few. (Fourteen, if I remember correctly).

Do you remember the first words of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels? While you’re trying to think of that, I’ll give you the backstory. The Passover Festival had just ended and tens of thousands of people were returning home. When Jesus’s parents suddenly realized he wasn’t with them, or their friends, or their family, they panicked. They started searching for him and found him in the temple, talking with a group of religious scholars. His mother said (in effect), “Son! We were worried sick! How could you do this to us?” The 12-year-old Jesus answered, “Didn’t you know I’d be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). Jesus knew God as his own Father and he wants us to know him as our Father too.

In all extant Jewish literature, from the beginning of Judaism until ten centuries after Jesus, no one else addressed God as “Father.” Jesus did, and he taught his followers to address God that way. He wanted us to have a rich, loving child-to-father relationship with God.

In certain segments of the church over the last fifty years, people have urged us to stop calling God “Father” because they think it is sexist and misleading. They want us to use gender-neutral or gender-inclusive language when we speak of (or to) God. In some circles, the Lord’s Prayer begins like this: “Our Father/Mother…” They claim that the use of father-language for God evolved in a patriarchal society and takes part in its sexist prejudices.

And there is truth in that, but it is not the whole truth. If using father-language for God was merely the result of living in a patriarchal society, why in two thousand years did no Jew besides Jesus address God as Father? Jesus’s understanding of God was revolutionary. It completely undermined the paradigms and prejudices of culture.

Jesus revealed God to people as no one else ever has, but in no way more important than this: God is a Father. He is our Father. Jesus taught us – something no other Jewish teacher taught – to begin our prayers by calling God, “Father.” He knew God as Father and wanted us to know him in that way.

That may be difficult for you, especially if your relationship to your human father was strained (or even non-existent). You may need to unlearn a few things and learn some new ones. You may need to unlearn a few things in order to learn some new ones. So, let’s look at what Jesus taught us about our heavenly Father.

First, he gets you. Your heavenly Father understands you. Our biological parents often don’t really know us. They make the mistake of treating us as if we were younger replicas of themselves. “But you like to fish. I’ve been taking you fishing since you were in diapers!” “Of course, you’re going to play the piano.” “You can’t be serious about joining the Marine Corp! That’s the stupidest idea I ever heard.”

But our heavenly Father knows who we are. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our likes and our dislikes, and he knows when we think we are something we’re not. He “perceives,” as the Psalmist wrote, “my thoughts from afar.” He is “familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue,” he knows “it completely” (Ps. 139:2-4). Or, as Jesus put it just before he taught the disciples the prayer we’re looking at: “Your Father knows what you need before you ask” (Matthew 6:8). He knows what you need because he knows you.

The Father knows us. Jesus said he even knows the number of hairs on our heads (Matthew 10:30). He knows everything we’ve ever done, ever said, and ever thought. He knows everything we will do, and say, and think. When I say he gets us, he gets us!

The idea that he knows us – knows everything about us – might be a little unsettling. I thought that the less my dad knew about me, the better. Christopher Hitchens put it this way: “I think it would be rather awful if it was true [that the biblical God exists]. If there was a permanent, total, round-the-clock divine supervision and invigilation of everything you did, you would never have a waking or sleeping moment when you weren’t being watched and controlled and supervised by some celestial entity from the moment of your conception to the moment of your death … It would be like living in North Korea.”[1]

That would only be true if God were Our Dictator in heaven. But God not only knows us – knows everything, the good, the bad, and the shameful – he loves us. He is not our dictator in heaven but our Father.

In the upper room, a few hours before his arrest, Jesus assured his disciples that “the Father himself loves you” (John 16:27). It was almost unthinkable: The God who made the universe knew all about these ordinary guys. He not only knew about them; he loved them.

Here is something else Jesus knew about his Father: his children can always go to him … even after they’ve messed up. The story Jesus told in Luke 15 – we’ll go into it next week – is a great example. The Father, Jesus taught, is like a dad whose son walked away from his relationship with him. Then, when the son got himself into trouble, he came back to his dad because he didn’t know what else to do. The father didn’t lecture him or say, “I told you so.” He was overjoyed to have him back! He hugged him and threw him a party. Even when we’ve messed up, our heavenly Father loves us.

God always has time for us. I’ve had days when the interruptions have been non-stop. Just as I’d finish one call, another would come in, and I found myself wishing that Alexander Graham Bell had pursued a career in baseball instead of engineering. Yet if one of my sons calls, I am eager to pick up. God is like that. He loves it when his kids call. He doesn’t let their calls go to voicemail.

Jesus tells us something else about our Father: he is someone we can respect. There is nothing more disheartening – or damaging – than for a child to learn that his dad is not respectable. To discover that one’s dad is not truthful or is lazy or is unfaithful or is a coward will deeply wound a child’s heart. But Jesus revealed to us a heavenly Father who merits our deepest respect.

He tells his disciples, and that includes all of us who have come to Jesus to learn from him, to pray, “Father, hallowed be your name” (Luke 11:2). The heavenly Father Jesus knew is not one of those divorced dads, trying to buy their kids’ affection. He is not a disconnected dad, off doing his own thing. He is a father who loves his children and wants – insists on – what is best for them. He will never let his children disrespect him or each other in order to have a little peace and quiet. He will not turn a blind eye to their wrongdoing. Because he really loves them, he will discipline them: as the Proverb has it: “The Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son” (Proverbs 3:12). He is a father we can be proud of.

He is also a strong father. Absolutely fearless. There is nothing he cannot handle. Jesus’s way of putting it was: “What is impossible with men is possible with God” (Luke 18:27). During his own dark night, Jesus began his prayer, “Father, everything is possible for you” (Mark 14:36). That was his starting point. He knew his Father could do anything – he is that strong. On another occasion he said, “My Father is … greater than all.” He sounded like a boy on the playground, bragging that his dad is stronger than anybody else’s dad – or everybody else’s dads … combined.

God is a Father whose ability we need never doubt. If we don’t know that our Father can do whatever is needed, we will worry ourselves sick or wander off into error. Jesus once said to the Sadducees: “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). We fall into error for the same reason.

But knowing that God can help us is not the same as knowing that God will help us. And the plain fact is, he may not help us in the way we desire – not when a better way is available. On the eve of his crucifixion, Jesus asked for his Father’s help to escape the cross; but such help was not forthcoming. The Father did help him endure the cross, despise its shame, and attain the joy set before him, but he did not help him escape the cross. Let that sink in for a moment. The Father said “No” to the eternal Son.

When he says no to us, we must be able to do what the eternal Son did: entrust ourselves to the Father, knowing that he is good and his way will work out for the best. It was because Jesus knew his Father that he could say, “Not my will but your will be done” (Luke 22:42).

Do you know why Jesus could trust his Father even when his Father did not do what Jesus wanted? Because he knew him. After all that happened to him, how could Jesus, hanging on a cross, commit his spirit to his Father? Because he knew him. He knew from experience that his Father always heard him (John 11:41-42). He put himself – the incarnation is Jesus putting himself – in a place of reliance on his Father. That’s what we try our best to avoid, but it is the only way we’ll ever learn to do what Jesus did. You can’t do what Jesus did unless you know the Father Jesus knew.

Do you know God as your loving, strong, and good Father? Before John W. Fountain was a journalist and university professor, he was a kid growing up on the west side of Chicago. When he was four the police led his dad away in handcuffs in the middle of the night, and he disappeared from John’s life.

But after John lost his biological dad, he found his heavenly Father. He says God warmed him on those days when he could see his breath inside their freezing apartment; when the gas was disconnected in the dead of winter, and there was no food, or hot water … or hope.

God was the Father who spared him when other boys in the neighborhood were being swallowed up by violence and death. God was the Father who claimed him when he felt like “no-man’s son.”

Fountain says, “I believe in God, God the Father, embodied in his Son Jesus Christ. The God who allowed me to feel his presence … whenever I found myself in the tempest of life’s storms, telling me (even when I was told I was “nothing”) that I was something, that I was his, and that even amid the desertion of the man who gave me his name and DNA and little else, I might find in Him sustenance.

“I believe in God, the God who I have come to know as father, as Abba—Daddy.”

He said, “It wasn’t until many years later, standing over my father’s grave for a conversation long overdue, that my tears flowed. I told him about the man I had become. I told him about how much I wished he had been in my life. And I realized fully that in his absence, I had found another. Or that he—God the Father, God my Father—had found me.”[2]

Do you know God as your Father – the good Father who will never leave you nor forsake you? The way to know God as your Father is to trust Jesus as your Lord. He said, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Not because God doesn’t want everyone, but because Jesus is the only one capable of bringing us to him; the only one who can help us experience his Father as our Father.

If you have not already done so, I urge you to become a student of Jesus. He can teach you to relate to the God of the universe personally as your Father. He can do more than teach you; he can help you. But becoming Jesus’s student is not automatic. You must decide.

[1] Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great, © 2007 by Christopher Hitchens

[2] Excerpted from “The God Who Embraced Me,” All Things Considered, http://www.npr.org (posted 11-28-2005)

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How Did Sin Lead to Jesus’s Death?

Posted on July 19, 2025 by salooper57

St. Paul says that “Christ died for our sins.” St. Peter, referring to Isaiah 53:4, says that “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross.” While there are numerous theories about why Christ died and what his death accomplished, it is clear that human sin was somehow responsible. In the Gospel accounts, it is clear that human sin was also directly responsible for Christ’s death.

What happened to Jesus on the cross reveals how sin (both in the immediate situation and across time) led to the death of the Messiah. A cursory reading of the Gospels does more than provide prooftexts for a substitutionary theory of atonement; it shows how sin in real time led to the crucifixion.

There are many examples. Perhaps the following will suffice to make my point. Both Mark and Matthew tell us that the sin of envy brought Jesus to the cross: “For [Pilate] knew it was out of envy that [the Sanhedrin] had handed Jesus over to him.” Envy. One of the so-called “seven deadly sins,” which merits mention in many biblical listings of sin. The chief priests and Pharisees were green with it. They felt it on a visceral level, and it moved them to get rid of Jesus.

Greed also played a part in getting Jesus to the cross. Judas sold his friend and master for what amounted to four months wages for a working man. It’s doubtful that greed alone led Judas to betray his Lord, but greed was present in him (see John 12:6), and the greedy chief priests knew how to manipulate it.

Lying, especially lying under oath, is seen as a serious sin in the Bible (e.g., Exodus 19:16-19; 20:16; 1 Tim. 1:9-10), yet the chief priests looked for witnesses who were willing to lie under oath in order to destroy Jesus. After Jesus’s resurrection, the same religious leaders paid Roman soldiers (yet another sin, bribery) to lie about what had happened.

Malice, which is the desire for harm to come to another person, was present when Jesus was crucified. The Jewish leaders held a preliminary trial for Jesus, found him guilty, and then abused him. They spit in his face, slapped him, struck him with their fists, and mocked him. These men wanted to hurt Jesus. There was something in them that wanted to see him suffer. That is malice.

It wasn’t just the Jewish leaders. The Roman soldiers also wanted to hurt Jesus. They too struck him, tortured him, and mocked him. They laughed as they stripped him naked, humiliating him. They took pleasure from striking him and taunting him.

Some of the malice displayed by the Roman soldiers and their governor grew in the soil of racial and ethnic prejudice. It is clear that the Roman governor despised Jewish people. He had treated them abominably, misappropriating their money and then killing them in the streets when they protested. He resisted the Jewish leaders, not at first because he wanted to protect Jesus, but simply because they were Jews. When Jesus was first brought before him, Pilate asked, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Literally, it is “You are the king of the Jews?” (John 18:33-35; Matthew 27:11). By placing the word “You” at the very beginning of the sentence, the evangelists give it emphasis. The Roman Prefect was mocking: “You? You are the king of the Jews? (Just the kind of king Jews would have!)”

Later, when the Jewish leaders coerced Pilate into crucifying Jesus (read the story—it’s fascinating), Pilate used the titulus (the sign stating the reason for Jesus’s execution) to take a swipe at the Jewish leadership. It read (in three different languages), “The King of the Jews.” When the Jewish leaders objected – they didn’t want people thinking that Jesus was their king nor that the despised Romans could possibly execute their king – Pilate dismissed them with a word: “What I’ve written, I’ve written.”

The racial hatred worked both ways. The Jews detested Pilate (not that he hadn’t given them reason) and treated him disrespectfully. They refused to call him by his title. They did not say, “Prefect, thank you for seeing us.” They did not call him, as was expected, “Most excellent Pilate.” Without any niceties, they spat out their complaint: “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar…” Of course, Jesus had not forbidden people from paying the tribute tax; this was yet another lie. When Pilate asked for a summation of their evidence against Jesus, they responded rudely, “If he were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you” (John 18:30).

The crucifixion is a microcosm of sorts, displaying how human sin, from envy to ethnic and racial hatred, results (both immediately, at the time of the crucifixion, and over the millennia of human rebellion) in rejection of, and hatred toward, God. Jesus died for sins, so that they might be forgiven. He also died because people who did not want to be forgiven sinned against him.

The extraordinary thing is that he knew that the sins of others would lead him to this cruel death (Mark 10:45), and he accepted the fact. He accepted it because he genuinely loved envious, greedy, untruthful, malicious, and bigoted people and wanted to rescue them from their sins. Those people included high priests, Roman prefects, soldiers, and Pharisees—and us.

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The God Who Is Light

Posted on July 16, 2025 by salooper57
The God Who Is Light (Series: What Is God Like?). Viewing time: 29:20.

A.W. Tozer famously said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” C. S. Lewis famously countered: “I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important.”

Lewis was right, but let’s not miss Tozer’s point. What comes into our minds when we think of God has a profound impact on our lives, our happiness, and our hope. But what comes into many people’s minds when they think of God actually hinders them from trusting him. What comes into your mind when you think of God could be making it harder for you to experience the goodness of the life in Christ.

Let me share two competing visions of God, one from the world’s most famous contemporary atheist and the other from Jesus himself, as summarized by one of his earliest disciples. Here is what the atheist Richard Dawkins thinks when he thinks of God.

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully (Richard Dawkins).

Dawkins wins the prize both for most adjectives and for most contempt in a single sentence. And he wrote it about God!

Now, here is Jesus’s view, summarized by the early disciple and apostle John: This is the message we (the apostles) have heard from him (Jesus) and declare to you: (Here it is, a much shorter sentence than Dawkins’s without a single adjective): God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

What we think of when we think of God matters. I know someone who was actively engaged in ministry and hoping to become a pastor, who began having doubts about God. I don’t know when the doubts were first planted, but I do know something about the soil in which they grew. To borrow John’s words, my friend was not walking in the light. He wasn’t being honest with himself or others. I suspect he was only reading the Bible when he was preparing to teach and only praying when he was in front of other people. He was (John’s words again) walking in darkness—and doubts grow in darkness. When he watched a YouTube video by an atheist, he was quickly drawn in.

But even before my friend began listening to Richard Dawkins and his imitators, he already had ideas about God. And some of those ideas were wrong, as are some of ours, and they hindered him from trusting God, as do ours. We may one day find ourselves in a place where our peace and maybe even our sanity depends on us being able to trust God, and those wrong ideas will keep us from doing it.

That is why we will spend the next couple of months thinking about what God is like. And we will do it through a very particular lens. We will learn about God from Jesus himself. He knows what God is like, and he came to make him known. The Apostle John wrote: “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only” (he’s talking about Jesus), “who is at the Father’s side, has made him known” (John 1:18). Jesus is the lens through which God is seen most clearly.

Bible teachers believe that John was in his late teens when he began following Jesus. For three years, he and eleven other men were with Jesus day and night. They ate meals together, worked together, and traveled together. After Jesus’s ascension, John lived for something like sixty more years. He had decades to think about what Jesus taught about the kingdom, the Law, God’s power and authority, divine punishment and love.

Imagine you were John. You were with Jesus 24 hours a day for three years. You ate with him, worked with him, traveled with him. You heard him speak publicly on hundreds of occasions and had countless private conversations with him. Went to synagogue with him. Went fishing with him. Went through life-threatening situations with him. How would you summarize Jesus’s message? Would you talk about the Kingdom of God? How about righteousness, prayer, judgment, resurrection? How could you possibly sum up all that you learned from Jesus? Tough assignment, isn’t it? Now, let’s make it even tougher: you have to do it in ten words.

That is what John did. He took all the things he ever heard Jesus say about God and, after spending decades thinking about them and talking to God about them, he summarized them in ten words (in Greek). He said: “This is the message we heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

Maybe that’s not how you would summarize Jesus’s teaching. Andrew, Peter, Matthew—they might have done it differently too; but that is how John did it. According to John, Jesus’s message to humanity was: “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.”

Since our first parents, humans have faced the temptation to doubt that God is light. Remember the temptation in the Garden: The serpent says to Eve, “Did God really say…?” and a shadow of doubt was introduced. “God said that? Really? Hmm. That doesn’t sound right.”

Have you ever noticed the serpent didn’t say, “Eat the fruit”? It said, “God knows that if you eat this fruit, you will be like him” – and the implication is that God doesn’t want you to be like him. He doesn’t share; doesn’t want what’s best for you. The temptation was never simply, “Disobey God.” It was, “Doubt God.” The idea the serpent introduced into Eve’s mind – and implanted in humanity – is that there is darkness in God.

I’ve found the thing that frequently turns people away from God – sometimes to atheism but usually to some form of selfism – is the idea that God is not all good. He is not all light; there is a dark side to him. God is selfish. Proud. He doesn’t love everyone – not really: not immigrants or Communists; not LGBTQ+ people; not Republicans and certainly not Democrats. He is not all light.

And what about the nations Israel drove out of Canaan, the people they fought and killed in wars? God ordered that, didn’t he? There is darkness in him.

What about all the people who’ve never heard of Jesus? Doesn’t God send them to hell to endure eternal torment? There must be darkness in him.

What about the dozens of kids and counselors at a Christian camp who were killed in a flood? If God wanted to, he could have made things happen differently. If he did not want to, how can he be good? How can he be light? There must be some darkness in him.

Do you think those questions are new – that they weren’t being asked in the first century? Of course they were. John’s friends – his fellow apostles – were beaten and wrongly imprisoned. Every one of them died a violent death. John himself was falsely accused and exiled alone to the mountainous wasteland of Patmos.

And don’t forget that John saw his best friend, teacher, and leader die an unspeakably gruesome death at the hands of evil men – a death that God allowed. He saw the same kinds of evil in his world that we see in ours and worse, yet he could say that the message Jesus brought was that “God is light; in him is no darkness at all.” None; not a shadow. He is light all the way through. That’s how John summarized Jesus’s teaching about God.

If that really was Jesus’s message, if God is light and in him is no darkness at all, then what seems to be darkness in him – things we think the Bible teaches – are either untrue or we are not yet developed enough to see them for what they really are.

And that is certainly possible. There may be light in God that we are incapable of seeing. In the physical world, we only see light along wavelengths of 400 to 700 nanometers. Anything shorter, like ultraviolet light, or longer, like infra-red light, is invisible to us. Some animals see light that we can’t. And what might angels see? A dazzling spectrum of beauty that we’ve never imagined.

So, if some thought about God seems to suggest he is dark, it is either not true or you simply are not developed enough to see the light in it. For Jesus knew that “God is light; in him is no darkness at all.”

Since the Garden, satan has been whispering that there is darkness in God, and humans have believed it. If you believe the idea that there is darkness in God, your path to joyful, purposeful living will be blocked. You may detour around a false idea of God for a while, but you will keep running into roadblocks. A false belief about God will keep you from experiencing spiritual transformation and joy.

When Jesus was on earth, many people believed and taught things about God that admitted darkness into his very nature. But the message of Jesus, the One who knows God and makes him known, is that there is no darkness at all in God.

Here are some examples of what people thought about God when Jesus was on earth. Many (both Jews and Gentiles) considered God stingy. He’s not going to do anything without being coaxed. He doesn’t care if you’re in need. He doesn’t want to help. That is not light; that is darkness.

Some people thought they could bribe this stingy God. They could bring offerings or give money to the priest to leverage God into doing what they wanted. It was a religious version of Archimedes’ law: “Give me an offering big enough, and an altar on which to set it, and I’ll move God.”

Any God that can be leveraged – or needs to be leveraged – is not the God Jesus made known. He is nothing like that! Jesus taught us and showed us that his God and Father is generous. He is a giver – “How much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11). Jesus not only told us this; he demonstrated it by giving his life.

Yet to this day, many people – including so-called “Bible-believing Christians” – think of God this way. They make vows to him. They promise him things. They give to the church or to charity in the hopes of working a deal. But the God and Father of our Lord Jesus is not stingy. He gives, as brother James learned from Jesus, “generously to all without nitpicking” (my paraphrase of James 1:5). He is not stingy. He is light all the way through.

Here’s another distortion. When Jesus was on earth, many Jewish people believed that God was cliquish. If you met certain religious and social standards, God would take you in; otherwise, you would always be an outsider. People who were already in (or thought they were) appreciated a God who keeps the riff-raff out. The us-against-them God has been one of history’s more popular deities, but he is not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You see this kind of thing in the Gospels. The Pharisees, the religious scholars, and the wealthy thought of themselves as being on the inside and thought of the irreligious, the poor, and the uneducated as being on the outside—which is where they wanted them. They were busy remaking God in their own image rather than being conformed to his.

When Jesus came, he opened the door to people on the outside and invited them in, which really upset the religious leaders. Jesus liked the wrong people and had the nerve to suggest that God did too. His opponents thought Jesus’s approach was reckless and his message about God dangerous. He accepted sinners and implied that God accepted them too. But if sinners believe that God loves them, why would they ever change?

When these religious leaders looked at God, they saw darkness, but the God and Father of Jesus is light; in him is no darkness at all. Both Jesus’s teaching and his life reveal a God who is light, a God who loves the world. Jesus taught that all heaven erupts in joyous celebration every time a person leaves his or her sin and comes to God (Luke 15:10). He not only taught this, he lived it. He ate with people (which, in that culture, was a sign of acceptance) who were considered outsiders by the religious community. He demonstrated that his Father God wants everyone on the inside. Anyone can come in; they just have to leave the darkness to do so.

Here’s another distortion Jesus encountered. Many of his contemporaries believed that God is a kind of cosmic accountant, a religious bean-counter, where the beans are good deeds, especially religious deeds. They knew that God watches over people, but they thought it was so he could track their religious performance. It never occurred to them that he watches over people because he loves them. They thought that God made people to follow the rules that he loves, not that he made the rules so that the people he loves could thrive.

John himself almost certainly grew up believing some of these things – dark things – about God. From Jesus, John learned that God is light all the way through. He is light when he heals and light when he does not. He is light when he judges and light when he rescues. He is light when he hates sin. He is light when he loves sinners. What John came to understand is that the true God is just like Jesus—and that is great news.

That truth was so liberating, so joyous and good, John never got over it. Sixty years later, he still marveled at it. Sixty years later, the best way he could find to summarize the message of Jesus was to say that “God is light.”

How should knowing that God is light impact us? First, when something is said about God that seems dark, we should be careful about accepting it, even if it comes from someone we admire. It’s possible that it is light but that there is so much darkness in us that we can’t see it. If we can’t see it, the safest thing we can do is say, “I don’t see it, but I know the God and Father of our Lord Jesus is light.”

But for us to know the God who is light – this is the very point John was making – we must come into the light ourselves. We cannot live in darkness and know the God who is light. This is verse 6: “If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.” To the degree there is darkness in us, we will not know God. To the degree we do not know him, we will not trust him; to the degree we do not trust him, we will not live the joyful, loving, beautiful lives we could.

“God is light and in him is no darkness at all.” In the aftermath of the Texas floods – in the aftermath of your life – that may be hard for you to believe. Will you ask God to reveal himself to you over the course of this series? Ask him to shine light on any false ideas that you hold (and don’t even know you hold) and replace them with truth. Knowing God, according to Jesus, is eternal life. Knowing him is the key that unlocks the door to joy and leads to glory. So, in the words of Hosea, “Let us press on to know him” (Hosea 6:3).

I close with a story. The psychologist Larry Crabb had a friend who grew up in an angry family – lots of yelling, insults, and threats. Mealtimes were the worst, either silent or sarcastic. Just down the street was an old house with a big porch where a happy family lived. When Crabb’s friend was about ten, he would ask to be excused from the dinner table as soon as he could without being yelled at, walk to the old house and, if he arrived during dinnertime, crawl under the porch and just sit there, listening to the sounds of laughter.

Larry asked him to imagine what it would have been like if the dad in that house somehow knew he was hiding under the porch and sent his son to invite him in. He told him to envision what it would mean to accept the invitation, to sit at the table, to accidentally spill his glass of water, and hear the father roar with delight, “Get him more water! And a dry shirt! I want him to enjoy the meal!”[1]

I share that story for two reasons: 1) to introduce what we’ll be looking at next week (a very important message): God our Father; and, 2) to get you to reflect on how you think about God. What you think of when you think of God is fundamentally important to your experience of life. It will either propel you toward or hold you back from the strong, joyful, purposeful life God has for you.

[1] Larry Crabb, Connecting (Word, 1997)

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How Do You Identify?

Posted on July 12, 2025 by salooper57

If someone asked you how you identify, what would they be expecting you to say? I suspect that, in this era of history, they would be expecting something about your sex at birth or about your gender identity.

But why limit our answer to matters of sex and gender? Why not, “I identify as a white male, born in the 1950s, with unusually large feet, an active (sometimes overactive) mind, a wife of 46 years, three sons, three daughters-in-law, and six grandchildren.” Why not identify as a guitar-playing, book-reading, music-loving man who enjoys treks in the outdoors, fishing in the Canadian wilderness, golfing (when on those rare occasions I hit a ball somewhere near the fairway), who owns Jesus as teacher, savior, and Lord?

Identity is more than fingerprints, facial identification, ethnicity, sex, and gender. Identity is who I think I am and who I don’t yet realize that I am. Identity is how I have come to understand myself in the light of my joys, desires, sorrows, and suffering.

I read once that our sense of identity is largely in place by the time we are tweens, even before ideas of sex and gender have fully settled in on us. And once we have an identity, we will fight like tigers to keep it—even if it is leading us to make terrible decisions that are ruining our (or other people’s) lives.

I just sat through a workshop titled “Identity Evangelism.” The presenter made sure that we knew that challenging a person’s identity – he was talking about sexual orientation and chosen gender – is counterproductive when it comes to evangelism. Instead of lecturing people, he said, we need to listen to them, love them, and introduce them to Jesus.

I thought the presenter made his point well. He wasn’t suggesting that we compromise biblical standards, but that we follow Jesus’s example. But I wished he could have gone further (time did not allow it) to talk about the larger frame of identity into which issues of sexual orientation and gender fit. For identity is much more than sex and gender (though you’d never know it from watching TikTok videos or listening to podcasts).

The forging of identity begins early, perhaps even in the womb. We begin getting a sense of ourselves early on. By the time we are preschoolers, we are identity-making machines, and the process continues throughout life.

One of my early memories has to do with walking to school. I started kindergarten before I turned five. I can remember standing in our kitchen, crying. I didn’t want to walk with my brother to school, which was two blocks away, because I was sure I would be late. To this day, I hate coming late to an appointment.

When I was young and my dad was still drinking, I learned how to be invisible. I can remember my mother hushing my brother and me and saying (as if she were afraid), “Be quiet or you will wake your dad!” I learned to think about my surroundings, to see where trouble might lie, and to take steps to avoid it.

Because life was dangerous, I learned to be hypervigilant, which led me to see myself as an excellent driver. I see the car that’s just entering the on-ramp a quarter mile ahead of me. I gauge its speed and know it will enter my lane about the time I pass by. I also note that there is a car in the left lane a quarter-mile behind me and that he is closing the gap between us. I realize that he and I will reach the on-ramp simultaneously.

I also see myself as an introvert who enjoys being with a few close friends but is wearied by large crowds. I see myself – but am I right? – as someone who will take responsibility when it is necessary and even when it is costly. I think of myself as an outsider, a person who hates fads, thinks clearly, and acts judiciously.

I see myself as much more than a white heterosexual male. Of course, I may be wrong about some of the ways I see myself: Am I really a clear thinker? Am I a guy who acts judiciously? Perhaps my thinking is not as clear as I imagine. Perhaps my actions are sometimes injudicious. Whether or not my identity fits, seeing myself in these ways it shapes my actions and my emotions, for good and for bad.

If you want to convince me to convert to Catholicism and begin your pitch by stomping on my identity – “You are not a clear thinker. All you Protestants are muddle-headed” – you will not get far with me. My identity – even if I have completely misunderstood it – is just too important to my sense of self, of worth, and of safety for me to tolerate your attacks on it.

And yet, when Jesus warned (repeatedly) that the person who loves his life or soul (Greek: ψυχή) will lose it, while the person who loses his life for his sake will find it, it sounds like he is talking about losing our identity. Is this what Jesus had in mind? Would he rob us of our identity?

He will not rob us of our identity, but he will relieve us of a mistaken identity, one forged in the fires of a deeply disordered world, so that he might bestow on us our true identity, and the new name that goes along with it (Rev. 2:17). This is the richest of gifts: the gift of ourselves—our true selves.

And yet it is a painful gift, for we are deeply invested in our current identity. We have fought for it. (Most of our fights, I suspect, are about protecting identity.) We do not know who we are without the identity that was forced on us by nature in its bondage (Romans 8:21), by parents (in their bondage) by the taunts and praises that have come to us, and by our own choices.

Imagine that a baby has been kidnapped and raised under a false name. It is, however, the only name she has ever known. (There are many examples of this kind of thing—just google it.) When she tries to enlist in the service, she learns that she is not who she thought she was. An investigator uncovers her real name and reunites her to the parents who have loved her and sought for her throughout her life.

But now, she has a problem. To accept the change is to reject the false parents she thought she knew, to reject her way of life, to reject her identity. She will need to learn who she really is. She will need to accept an identity that does not seem to fit her at all. If she does this, she will lose herself – the only self she has ever known.

There are real life examples (Kamiyah Mobley is one, but there are many) of people who cannot accept their true identity and cling to the old, false one. This is our battle too. Will we give up our identity? If we do, will we be nobody, a ghost, a Sartrean nothingness? Can we accept our new identity as Beloved, as Brother or Sister, as Child? Will we learn to see ourselves, our neighbors, and our world through the lens of our identity as Jesus’s person, God’s beloved?

Poised between two identities, we are faced with the decision to repent, which is so much more than turning from our sins. It is a turning from our identity, a losing of ourselves (our soul, our ψυχή) in order to become someone new, someone different, someone formed “after the image of their creator” (Col. 3:10). Someone we were always meant – and have always longed – to be.

This is why repentance cannot be a one-and-done thing. Our old identity is layered like an onion, like Eustace the dragon in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It keeps us trapped in a false self. We must relentlessly choose our new identity in Christ. This is a daily choice—and a lifelong battle. This is what the Bible calls sanctification.

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