Life, community, death, and everything in between

Fires wake us up in the all too early hours of the morning. They come in the form of actual flames, the dreaded phone call of one we loved is now lost, the nightmare that won't give way to rest, or simply the absolute complete silence where our thoughts echo of an eternity of separation from love. It is the fire we fear. It is being alone. It is being apart. Division.

Watching a loved one die brings tears to even the eyes of the most callused of hearts. Watching a loved one die when we do not have a faith of our own is pure torture. I suppose it is easier to think that everything ends when our lives come to an end. I suppose it is easier to think this instead of believing that anything or anyone apart from our own decisions has a say if we go to heaven or hell. I suppose...

I suppose that if this is one's worldview than death has to be even more scary than hell. I say this because with our days numbered, with every single one of us having to face death, than every day becomes extremely important. If everything ends when we die than our lives are all we will ever know. There is no supreme happiness or separation. There is no extreme journey into a universe where our spark will forever create a butterfly effect of emotion and causality. There is no...nothing. There is simply blackness. No...nothing.

I am begging though. I am begging for life. I am begging for peace. I am begging for forgiveness. I am begging for something.

I am begging for anything...for everything...I am begging that life does not simply end. I am begging that there is not nothing.

And I cannot imagine the pain one has to feel when one is lost at the most inopportune time. I cannot imagine how hot the tears must feel when they fire down ones cheeks. I cannot imagine what its like to believe that there is simply nothing. That our feelings will no longer feel. That our senses will no longer sense. That our spirit will not longer fly. I can only imagine...

And, yet, I wonder if there isn't a more harmful reality. I wonder that if you do believe in heaven and hell - in eternal bliss or eternal torture - that your fear for the loved one who dies isn't more so. This faith claims that there is something that happens at death, but this faith claims that one's choices really matter. And if our choices really, truly matter than our choices are EXTREMELY important. But what if our choices get it wrong?

That is to say, who is to say who - or what - decides whether we receive heaven or hell? Do our choices really decide an eternity of life and death? Are our choices really that EXTREMELY important. Or does something more sovereign, something more knowing, something else decide our fate.

You see, I do not believe that for one second that we are left to our own devices. I do not believe that there is nothing when we die. And I do not believe that one's choices decide eternal serenity or complete and total depravity. No, I believe that there is something else that decides who we are even before we are born. I do not believe that this something else is malevolent, evil, or deceiving in anyway. And I do not believe that this something else's is passive without any care for humanity. No, rather, I believe that this something else is one. This One calls us to be one. This One calls us to carry each other's burdens because it was the One who became one of us and carry our Burden. Carried our Sin. Because without the One there is no one. There is not one who is righteous. Because if we are left up to our own choices than there is not a one of us that can compare to the One.

And yet, this One calls us all to be one. This One tells us that when two or more are gathered, than this One is there. This One will cry with us. This One will laugh with us. Laugh, cry, fear, be bold, love...and never hate. This One calls us into community because on our own, when we are simply one, our love, fear, hate, boldness, laughter, and bawling will overwhelm us. Emotional beings never were rational. But the One, our One, is an emotional being that is completely rational because it is against the One's nature to be anything else.

And what if this One is the One that has, and is, and is to come. And what if this One has a name. And what if that name is Jesus Christ, son of God the creator and father who both sent the the counselor - the Paraclete - to be the One's presence in the Word become flesh's absence. And what if this Triune God is both truth and grace. Both just and loving. And what if this God first moves because we on our own are unable.

We, who are stuck in our own ways, sick with our own transgressions, and stricken with out guilt. But what if Christ freed us. What if Christ carried our transgressions. And what if Christ takes upon our guilt. And then once and for all, what if Christ died in our place so that death would no longer have any hold on us? Oh death, where is thy sting? Death's sting has stung but will never sting again.

But what about those who are left behind? If Christ died for the dead, than what is there for the living. There is the Holy Spirit who carries us when we do not even want to be carried. There is Jesus Christ who constantly is present in our midst calling us to a life of holiness that takes us from who we were to become something that is called child. A child that was first lost, but now is home. Children who had all gone astray, but now are called blessed. Justified. Forgiven. Loved. Redeemed.

And in the midst of hope, there is one another that live into the One. There is each other that we can physically lean on. It is each other that call us out of the darkness so that we can lean on others in the light. But this light shines into the darkness, reaching in to pull us out of our own guilt and shame. Hand in hand, we move forward. Tear by tear, we march. Fear by fear we claim boldly to the promise. And in community, the One creates community. In God's people being gathered, the truth of the Gospel is made known in and through love. Calling us to love again. Calling us to breath again for the first time.


So take a deep breath. Each of us do not sit alone. Our choices are our own, but there is a God who wants us only to make one choice for the One who defeated death. And day by day, where there is death, there is life because Christ died so that even though we who are mortal will die, we will not be left to our own devices. Instead, the Angels will call us home. Home, where our sins are forgiven and forgotten. Home, where we commune together in the halls of glory. Home, where we are saved, not by our wills, but by the God of all creation's will. This God's will, through Jesus Christ, calls us unto eternity. And there is no condemnation in Christ. Only forgiveness. Only love. Only the eternal joy of dancing with every loved one from every generation in a place that is pure.

So today we claim that death is not the end. We claim that choices are a response to God's will that calls us into the light. In the light there is peace - shalom. There is love - agape. In Christ, there is only and always hope.

Love Wins

Its hard to summarize anything written by Rob Bell. So I will tread lightly on a book that has created so much buzz and confronts some of the hardest questions within a religion that has been talked about for over 2000 years.

First and for most, Rob Bell's style is unique and innovative. I enjoy the pace of his writing and find the read going very fast. I've been told that one of Bell's both best and worst features is that he is an artist possibly before he is a pastor. Where I disagree that he is an artist before he is a pastor, he certainly is both a pastor and an artist. The questions he is answering comes out of his pastoral heart. He wants people to know that love abides, love presides, and ultimately love wins. Yet, the artist in him is edgy, insightful, and both is and will be well received by his audiences throughout different age groups.

It is the edgy part of the book that, being a pastor, I have a love/hate relationship with. I love it because it is bold. Bell asks questions that need to be asks like "What Jesus are we talking about or following?" So many people either follow a malevolent God waiting to strike them at any time or a Jesus who has oppressed many ideologies throughout the years. Yes, good - I don't follow this Jesus either. But when he follows up the question with an extreme example of a woman being abused for years, I hate the artistic nature. I hate it because so many people will close the book. Sure, some people need that edge. Some people need to have their mind embraced in such a way. Yet, there are too many people who are Christian but have a poor image of God that do not realize it. They are the way they are and have never questioned their "rightness" in front of God" - and these questions will drive them away. These observations make the book almost impossible to use because of what the questions can suggest for both a comfortable Christian and an atheist wanting be an agnostic. Overall though, the boldness makes the book appealing and repelling all at the same time. It is the edge that is Rob Bell. So its part of the book, like it or not.

The theology of the book is strong and weak. It is strong because it shows the true God of the Bible in the sense that this God is always loving, holy, and God's just nature only comes out of these two attributes. Then at times it is weak because Rob Bell does not want to directly say that some people will go to hell. He suggests that our decisions can welcome heaven or hell, which I agree, but he refuses to deal with both the elect or the sinfulness of humanity. He is much more willing to confront individuals decisions suggesting that we all have some say in wether we chose heaven or chose hell. Which, I believe we very much do. But I also believe that without God working in us through the Holy Spirit to bring us to complete surrender at the cross of Jesus Christ we are paralyzed to do so for ourselves. Where Rob does attribute the initial action to God, I still think he places too much emphasis on human decision. We have to be enabled to even be aware that we are sinful. And it is only because of the Trinity that being enabled happens.

Where Bell gets it right, though, is that love wins. The entire Bible is a love story about God pursuing God's creation. It is about God sending a part of God's self to die upon a cross for our original and continual disobedience. This one time sacrifice is the blood that makes the sinner as white as snow. But it is also the blood that brings us into the light because we all have lived in darkness unable to see the light. The Holy Spirit illuminates. Love wins.

Bell also points out the idea of who is in and who is out. Not even John Calvin said who is in or out. He just suggested that those who are in need not question if they are saved or not. This came at a time where indulgences bought a person's salvation. Calvin simply suggested that if grace has set you free, then you are free indeed. You are most certainly a part of the elect and nothing can seperate you from the love of God. No principalities, no hell, and no person or priest can do so. You are part of God's family and part of the elect.
But the elect is language Bell does not want to confront. Bell has to have the elect in his theology, but he does not mention this at all. Who the elect are is completely up for grabs and I do not think using this terminology would make Bell go a different direction or be contrary to his overall theme. Because the elect are the people who benefit from love winning. Where God formed us in the womb, God also longs for his children to come home. Whether we have been living as sinners or as pharisees, God calls us to repent, believe, and live in the Spirit. Those who do are the elect. God further pursues. God has always pursued. And God's heart breaks over even the one who does not come home. But there will be people who have hard hearts. There will be people who refuse the gospel. And for those, there is a hell. As Bell points out, it could be now or it could be later. But there is a very real seperation from God, and to this even Bell says we can call hell. So there is a group who will know of the love and there is a group who either does not know or rejects the love. Either way, God pursues. Either way, love will win because God's plan for the world has always been redemption. To this, Bell says: "Love wins."

Death is not the end

Sometimes the worst possible events happen. Sometimes the people we love die suddenly, unexpectantly. Sometimes the grief we feel is overwhelming. Sometimes, life is to difficult to bear.

There was a time where death was the end. There was a time where the fallen awaited the day when they could be redeemed. There was a time where the Devil had thought that he had won.

But then there was one time. One time there was a Jewish man. Carpenter by trade. Wonderer by choice. But he called out to a group of people to follow him. One time, he was sent to save the lost. One time, God saw it fit to send a part of God's self, wholly different, yet Triune in Spirit. One time, Jesus lived a sinless life, but died upon a sinner's cross.

One time, he rose again. Now, every time when we lose a loved one, Christ is risen. And if we are in Christ then we are a new creation. The old is gone. The new is here then, now, and forevermore. And now we are redeemed. In death, there is life.

Now death is no longer the end. Death is merely the beginning.

Now, this time, we begin again as we are raised with Christ. In Christ. Through Christ.

Not our faith, but the faith. Not our will, but thy will. Not our guilt and blame, but only the cross.

And the cross is empty.



-In Memory of Janet Chou, and every loved one who ever has gone to the hereafter all too soon. -

Praying Psalm 29

Psa. 29:1 Ascribe to the LORD, O heavenly beings,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
Psa. 29:2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory of his name;
worship the LORD in holy splendor.
 
The Lord alone is holy. The Lord alone is our God in any time.
Weakness.
Strength.
Night.
Day.
The Lord alone is worthy of praise. The Lord alone is worthy to be the only God. No other idol will do. No other god will take the Lord's place.
And yet, we replace the Lord all the time. We ascribe glory to LCDs. We worship technology. We think that actors and actresses are the only ones that sit in holy splendor.
But this place is only for the Lord your God. The Lord is the only one who is worthy of any glory we ascribe to anyone or thing. Worship this Lord, and you will live a life abundantly. Not with material possessions, but with the peace that can move mountains and calm storms.

Psa. 29:3 ¶ The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the LORD, over mighty waters.
Psa. 29:4 The voice of the LORD is powerful;
the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.

The voice of the Lord created ex nihlo. The Lord hovered over the world and thought it good to separate the waters from the waters. Through the thunder and the lightning, this God of glory creates life. What power is in this kind of voice. What majesty is in this kind of voice. So worship and rejoice, for the Lord your God is powerful and good.

A story

Let me tell you a story.

It is about a stubborn man. One that believed that the only way to get rid of a ideology was to persecute and kill the people who believed in that one ideology. He killed them not because of who they were, but because of what they believed. He did so extensively without any reservation as to when and where these believers would die. No, he was a murderer. And not just one or two, but thousands of murders where attached to his name. He believed that these people were a sick perversion of there ancestry and needed to be thinned out. For the preservation of the strong will ultimately destroy any sign of the weak. The preservation of a species is dependent on the fact that the strongest will kill the weak. They will scorch the weak.
Strength in power.
Strength in terror.
Strength in a certain one ideology.
And the rest of the world will burn.


Who is this man? Who is such a wretch that would kill and destroy and plunder and try to get rid of an ideology?
Hitler?
Stalin?
Bin Laden?

No, none of these, although they would fit. No, this man is the most sinful of sinners. The most deserving of hell than arguably anyone else who came before and will come there after.

No, this man is Paul.
The Paul who was once Saul.
The Saul who was a murderer.
The Saul who believed Christ had died on a tree and thus was in Hades.
The Saul who persecuted any follower of the Christ who now was in Hell.

And yet, the Saul, who Christ met on the road to Damascus and called out "Why do you persecute me?" The Saul who was blind in unbelief, yet could see through any veil in belief. The Saul who once was blind but now could see. The Saul who we know as Paul. Paul, who wrote epistles that would be canonized. The Paul who was a missionary to the Galatians when so many would not go. The Saul, who is now Paul, who's ideas now define the religion he once persecuted.

And this is the power of the Gospel. That where there is perceived power, there is weakness. Where there is perceived weakness there is now power. And where we are all sinful and not one of us is justified in God's site, Jesus Christ became the curse for us. But this Christ was not condemned to hell, but God glorified Jesus to His right hand in raising the Christ from the dead. This Christ calls out to you and me, the most sinful of sinners, the saints, and any outcast to one course of action.

Repentance. Where we were once going in the wrong direction, we turn from the dark to the light. The Holy Spirit empowers us to call Jesus Lord and in doing so we claim the one true Son to be our Messiah. So we believe, not because we are able, but because Christ' faithfulness enables us to do so.

I do not know who is going to hell. I do not know who is going to Heaven. But I know that the power of the Gospel re-shapes and re-defines life and death. For Christ overcame death. And if Christ intercedes on our behalf, who/what shall we fear?

The Hand of Providence

The weekend we go to Overland Park is here. We will be in Overland Park tonight, Thursday the 19th, and meet with Knox Presbyterian tomorrow. It has been a while since I have posted, but I feel the hand of providence at work. It may or may not be that Knox is the place we go next, but let mention a few of the seemingly random (or providential?) occurrences.

1. Over the course of the last month Kadra has been trying to set up interviews for the 20th. The first amazing blessing is that Knox offered to pay for the Thursday night at the hotel, even though they had not planned on us getting there until Friday. Second, the liason for Knox's Associate Pastor nominating commitee, Bruce, has a wife that is a nursing professor in the area. When we started trying to set up interviews, Bruce offered up Candy as someone to help and recruit Kadra. When it came down to finding interviews this past week, Kadra suddenly had two interviews at Candy's top pick, Kansas University Hospital. She has a third interview at another, but that was not one of Candy's top picks. Regardless, this has been a huge blessing as well as an encouraging sign for our time in Kansas City.

2. Knox has asked me to put together a class and worship service while visiting. The biggest reason we had to wait until this weekend to visit was to set up a neutral pulpit. Southridge Presbyterian's pastor, Donna, just happened to be out of town this given weekend. Further, she was ready and willing to have me lead the worship service. On top of this, she has been more than helpful to make the service flow smoothly even in her absence. Where this is pretty amazing by itself, I had the opportunity to take a preaching class on Romans and an exegesis class on Galatians this past semester. For the former, I put together my sermon series about halfway through the semester, not having any idea what I would do my final paper on in Galatians. It just so landed that my second sermon for Romans was on 8, where Paul tells us that we are no longer slaves to the law, but children of God. My final paper in Galatians ended being on the start of chapter 3, which re-defines our identity in Christ that is no longer of the law. Please tell me this is not just coincidence, but God's hand guiding us at every turn.

3. We left this morning to come to Davenport, where Kadra is taking a class to help in her ongoing credits. I dropped her off and was off to find a starbucks to sit and write. It took me a couple of tries to find one that actually existed in my maps on the gps, but that is not simply technological deficiencies, but God's hand of providence. I got here, ordered, and came around to set my stuff down and wait for my drink. I noticed a man writing down notes and saw a Bible opened up to Zechariah. I simply asked if that was the lectionary text. This small question lead to an amazing conversation with a brother in Christ. His name is Scott Schaefer, and he has a heart for prayer warrior. When I told him what our itinerary involved, he said I will praying for you. I looked him in the eye and he said "No really, I will be praying for you." When we finished talking, he gave me his card and said to email him to let me know how things go this weekend and that he can continue to pray for me. As I write, I cant help but think: Wow.

4. Finally, but certainly not least. Last year I took a class on Isaiah. One of the passages I studied has God asking if he puts plans into place only to not fulfill those very plans. For some reason, again providential, this idea has been stuck in my head. God keeps on saying "Do I build up only to not fulfill what I have promised?" I started talking to this church way back in January. Its now 4 months later and God keeps placing people, places, and situations in our path that point to Kansas City.

I do not want to get too far ahead of myself. But I was convicted by another friend. He said that he didnt like the call language that this process uses. I could relate, we agreed that at the end of the day we are looking for a job just like any other profession. He pointed out that if you truly felt called to a place, you would show up and proclaim it then live into your calling where God is already at work. Am I called to Knox Presbyterian? Well, this weekend is to find out for sure. But, I have a certain confidence in God's hand of providence in all of this. I realize that if Knox is where God wants Kadra and I, then there is nothing we can do to neglect such a call. Sure, we could run, but why? Sure, Knox may discern differently, but what God is that to give multiple contradicting answers? Regardless, succeed or fail, I will do so with God's help. To receive a call or not is out of my hands. So I walk boldly while walking humbly with the God of all creation. ...Lord, remind me of this when my faith fails....

May

So we wont be going to Kansas City until May. I would like to think that this is for the best...but I am having a hard time trusting...