heaven's anthem

Of the things I treasure most about the Christmas season, few surpass its music. Perhaps the songs are special because they are heard only for a short time each year. Or maybe they hold sentimental connections to a simpler time when I was a child and all was well with the world. Yet, while these explanations own a measure of truth, the melodies pervade upon me more deeply than occasion or memory ever could.

 

The carols of Christmas speak of hope and truth that awaken something slumbering within the soul.

 

Among my favorites is It Came upon the Midnight Clear. Its haunting, ethereal melody stirs my heart, and its words are just as poignant:

 

Above its sad and lowly plains,

They bend on hovering wing.

And ever o’er its Babel sounds

The blessed angels sing.

 

A heavenly anthem is sung over our world, a prophetic tune of hope and redemption and restoration. It is relentless in its insistence that even the most sorrowful notes of our saddest dirges may yet compose a movement within the divine symphony. It whispers to us that dissonance punctuates the masterpiece. And all the while, heaven harmonizes its golden tones with those darker strains of our existence. Our bleakest valley cannot conceal it; our loudest Babel noises cannot drown it out. With this melody, eternity pierces the human condition.

 

See, God has come to save me. I will trust in him and not be afraid. The Lord God

is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation (Isaiah 12:2, NLT)

 

So we are invited to lay down the burden of being a fallen creature, the weight of our inadequacies and failings to be enough. We are welcomed to rest, to cease our strivings, that we may be renewed. If we will but listen, if we will but believe, our salvation is at hand:

 

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,

Whose forms are bending low,

Who toil along the climbing way

With painful steps and slow,

Look now! for glad and golden hours

Come swiftly on the wing.

O rest beside the weary road,

And hear the angels sing!

 

This season, may we listen intently to hear the angelic refrain. May its lovely sound stir our hearts and rouse our souls to look heavenward. May it remind us of the gift that is Christmas, wrapped in skin and swaddling cloth, and placed lovingly beneath the shadow of a tree.

why the church can't survive without youth

Why does the church need youth? Recent circumstances prompted me to consider this question in greater depth than day-to-day ministry normally requires. Churches everywhere expend thousands of dollars annually to build and sustain student ministries. But why? Is it truly worth the cost? Here are the top reasons why young people are indispensable to the church’s existence:

1. They are the future of the church. This is obvious nearly to the point of being trite. But it cannot go without being said because it is easily forgotten. Deuteronomy 4:9 tells us, “Be careful never to forget what you have seen the Lord do for you. Do not let these things escape your mind as long as you live! And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren” (NLT, emphasis mine). This directive to give a spiritual inheritance to succeeding generations through instruction is repeated at least 4 times in the Old Testament, and this repetition serves to underscore its importance. The point is that successive generations are spiritual heirs who must be trained to take up the mantle of leadership. And this applies not only to our biological descendants, but to adopted spiritual heirs as well. In the New Testament, Paul writes at length about adoption into the family of God, and calls himself a spiritual father to many.
2. They perpetuate the faith. Where there are generational gaps, there is discontinuity in the succession of faith. Scripture highlights the importance of teaching our inheritors while they are young, before the cynicism of secular (read “godless) thought has its say. As Proverbs has it, “Teach your children to choose the right path, and when they are older, they will remain upon it” (22:6, NLT). It certainly is not coincidental that Jesus taught on the importance of childlike faith. Indeed, the Old Testament, particularly the chronicles of the kings of Israel and Judah, provides sober accounts of the enormity of damage that can be done in a single generation’s time.
3. They are the here-and-now of the church. It is all-too easy to consign youth to a future tense as leaders-in-training whose voices are not yet developed. But this attitude ignores Biblical reality. Broadly speaking, all of us – veteran saint and sage included – are works in progress. If we waited until we were “ready” for leadership, the church would be perpetually leaderless. True, we are instructed to carefully select our leaders and avoid hastily thrusting untried individuals into such positions (1 Timothy 3:10, 5:22). Yet the fact remains that the perfect and fully-prepared leader is nothing more than a pleasant fiction. In particular, young people are a vital element of church dynamics; their as-of-yet unfettered zeal lends an energy and drive that pushes us toward the fulfillment of our lofty calling, and it complements the time-tempered experience of seasoned believers.
4. They are powerful examples of the faith. So much of secular culture focuses upon the young. So when they rise as champions of the cross, they send a compelling message, both to those outside the church and those within it. Paul understood this quite clearly, reminding his young protégé, Timothy: “Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you teach, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity” (1 Timothy 4:12, NLT). One needs only to consider the many heroes of faith who were “underage” when God used them: Samuel, David, Josiah, Esther, Mary. And we cannot forget Jesus in that list: “And a little child will lead them all” (Isaiah 11:6, NLT). Without question, the church would be a different place had these individuals waited until an “appropriate” age to do God’s work.

 

Young people are prone to being rambunctious, rash, ill-mannered, and self-centered. But we need them, just as they need us. We all wore their shoes once, and we are where we are because caring elders took the time to lovingly, graciously, and patiently instruct us through our own unloveliness, gracelessness, and impatience. None of us arrived at our present spiritual state independently. We, then, owe it to our forebears – and to our own successors – to do likewise.

love without a price tag

Reflecting upon the cross, I at times wonder: Is my love conditional? Do I put a price tag on my love? Do I withhold or restrict it based upon the actions and character of others, effectively establishing the price which must be paid in order to receive it?

 

In moments of candor, we concede that none of us is immune to this tendency. Yet we recognize that humanity is at its best when our love most closely approximates the unconditional. Whispers of such unqualified love echo down through the human saga to stir our hearts: The Benedictine nuns who cared for 17th century plague victims, knowing full well it would require their lives; the gallant men who refused to board the Titanic’s lifeboats, giving their places instead to women and children; the countless military personnel who fell in killing fields far from home to secure the freedoms of people they would never meet. Such valorous acts move us because we know, somewhere deep in our souls, that this is what we are meant to be. Herein lies the power of redemption, inspiring us to rise up and become better people.

 

It is to this pinnacle that Jesus calls us, as he called the Twelve so long ago: “Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12-13, NIV). While the heroism of those who have literally obeyed this summons cannot and should not be diminished, in a real sense it requires even greater resolve to observe this command day after day. To quietly and unassumingly seek the welfare of ally and foe, to give freely and sacrificially, to overlook the faults and slights of others – this is what Jesus intended when he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23, NLT).

 

Love is the only currency valuable enough to redeem our world. All others have, in our long history, been employed and have failed – hatred and bloodletting, enlightenment and philosophy, commerce and prosperity, tolerance and socialist dogmas. At best, these mask the underlying antagonisms and rifts. But love changes things. It was love which drove Jesus to the cross, love which coursed from his veins, love which endured the full fury of God’s wrath toward sin, love which reconciled us with the God who is himself love personified.

 

Shoulder your cross daily. Jesus speaks to us still, urging us gently but insistently to become agents of redemption in these desperate days. Will we love as he has loved us? Let us lay down all demands for payment, giving away freely that which was first given freely to us.

orthodoxy, heresy, legacy

Down through the ages, men and women of steadfast conviction have defended Christianity against violent overthrow from without and subtle amendment from within. This noble charge commenced with the Apostles – those privileged few who walked alongside Jesus and whose names we know so well: John, Peter, James. The mantle was then assumed by others who, though not in the company of Jesus, were nonetheless revolutionized by his voice. Saul became Paul, the eminent missionary and church planter. Luke the physician became the meticulous chronicler of the Gospel and its spread. From here, the trail becomes hazy for most of us and we lose the scent in the dusty annals of history. But the hard work of preserving Jesus’ message was not done. Stalwart guardians like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, and Augustine stood firm in their defense of orthodoxy (“right belief”).

 

This unbroken line of succession has spanned the twenty or so centuries which have passed since Jesus entrusted his ministry to the Twelve. And it has, in some manner or another, been given to us. What will we do with it? Will we preserve it, as previous generations did against devious doctrines and pagan heresies? Some might argue that such heretical teachings are extinct. But have you never heard someone say that Jesus was a good man, a prophet, perhaps one of the best men who ever lived – but not God? This is nothing less than the substance of the ancient heresies of Adoptionism and Arianism, whose roots reach back to the 3rd century. Or have you never heard someone suggest that heaven awaits all who endeavor to live their lives as basically good people? This same strand of self-dependence informed the credos of the Gnostics, Donatists, and Novatianists, whose aberrations have plagued the Church since its inception.

 

As Solomon once said, “History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new” (Ecclesiastes 1:9, NLT).

 

Friends, we have a very cunning enemy who uses the most insidious of means to trip us up: “The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made” (Genesis 3:1, MSG). This is precisely why Jesus tells us to be “as shrewd as snakes” (Matthew 10:16, NIV). You see, Satan may be clever, but he is predictable; his M.O. has been the same since Eden: To twist the truth, ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly. We see this manifested in his encounter with Jesus in the wilderness (Luke 4:9-11). And so, Paul reminds us that “we are not unaware of his schemes” (2 Corinthians 2:11, NIV). This is why it is so vital for us to immerse ourselves in the truth that has been preserved for us.

 

Will we, in the tradition of our forebears, defend the faith against violent overthrow from without and subtle amendment from within? Will our legacy to the next generation of believers be a pure and undiluted Gospel, held in trust until their day? May we echo to posterity the words of the Apostle Paul:

 

I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me – that Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, as the Scriptures said (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, NLT)

questions for a domesticated church

On occasion, I wonder: Have we, the Church, domesticated Christianity? That is, have we taken the seed sown by Jesus and cross-pollinated it with the notions of our postmodern, post-Enlightenment world? Do we cultivate and modify the Gospel to suit our tastes and lifestyles rather than altering ourselves to its standards? These are questions we must consider.

 

Do we perceive our world through the lens of Jesus’ teaching, or do we turn the tables – proof-texting the Bible with the skepticism of scientific-method minds? Is Scripture a document which we edit and rewrite (read, “retranslate”) to fit more seamlessly and inconspicuously within the confines of our cultural context? Or is its truth so absolute and binding that, jarring and incongruous as it may be with the surrounding philosophies, it speaks to all people across all eras without need for revision?

 

In our desire for comfort and security, have we made Christianity safe? Have we tamed the Lion of Judah? I’m reminded of an interchange from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Lucy Pevensie questions Mr. Beaver about Aslan, the lion whose character represents Christ. “Is he – quite safe?” she asks. Mr. Beaver’s reply is as profound as it is powerful: “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.” Jesus will not be made into something he is not. He is no docile pet, harmless like a declawed housecat. Nor has he promised us a journey free of peril.

 

I cannot help but suspect that this tamed rendering of the Gospel is, in large part, responsible for much of the apathy within and toward churches today. Sadly, the version embraced by so many more closely resembles the contents of a textbook than the power of God. Its tendency is to skirt any serious discussion of the supernatural, denying the reality of daily campaigns waged by angels and their fallen nemeses. In this same edition, prophecy, tongues, and healing are dismissed as relics of a primitive and superstitious world, now mere anachronisms to our rationalized understanding of God. Those few “spiritual” gifts which have escaped redaction are the more innocuous and explicable ones such as teaching, administration, and encouraging – skills which can readily be attributed to human aptitude.

 

This all, I believe, comes back to the workings of our sin-stained human nature. It ceaselessly tries to take center stage and make us the central character. So, consciously or unconsciously, we fight a bent to view God as a reflection of us – someone we can understand, confine to a list of principles and predictable behaviors. How easily we forget that we are his reflection and, as such, are primarily spiritual. In short, we do ourselves and posterity a disservice by making faith more about intellect, emotion, or habit than the spiritual essence that it is.

 

We live in a tug-of-war world, strained between competing realities. But we must not permit our senses to trick us; the spiritual is predominant. And we need a faith that is broad and encompassing enough to navigate this life while pointing us onward toward the next.

the coming of spring

Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.

Psalm 126:5-6, TNIV

 

Sadness sings a dismal note:

“Mourn with me for what God wrote –

living words lie pallid, strewn,

a tree of life now hacked and hewn,

a tapestry ripped at its seams –

sing requiems for heaven’s dreams.”

But Hope awakens melody

of long-forgotten memory:

“Son of man, o child of woe,

He did not write it to be so.

Can the fallen live again?

(Eternity asks this question.)

Within you is Eden’s crypt,

buried there since Adam slipped.

You carry in you precious seed,

life that’s waiting to be freed.

Will dormant seed burst from its tomb

and new life issue from this womb?

You are animated earth,

a garden ready to give birth.”

 

May we ever remember that our God crafted life from dust; that in his hands, impossibilities become realities; that through him, even death is but a stepping stone to eternity’s expectancy. Let us never lose heart, never abandon hope, and never give up, for redemption’s story is still being penned within us.

see-through prayers

Sometimes, early in the morning when the sun’s rays are just beginning to stream through the stained glass, I come to the altar. I know I can pray anywhere, that God’s sense of hearing is not confined to a sanctuary. But here, I find something reverent in the stillness and the solitude.

 

Out of habit and respect, I take off my shoes. I remember Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush and that of his apprentice, Joshua, standing face-to-face with the commander of heaven’s army. “Take off your sandals,” they were told. “[F]or you are standing on holy ground,” and, “the place where you are standing is holy (Exodus 3:5, Joshua 5:15; NLT). Shoeless, I stand before God; I’m not walking away from him.

 

Next, I drop my satchel. It houses my laptop, flash drive, planner, and notes. It represents my work – not only what I do for a living but, more broadly, my labors for the Kingdom. Yet, here with God, all of those are secondary. He is my provider, so I need not think of how the bills will be paid. (If I have my wallet, I drop that, too). And in his eyes, my exertions are not nearly as important as my heart.

 

Reaching into my left pocket, my cell phone is next to go – and with it, all of the text messages and phone calls that will be sent and received today. At this moment, I am speaking with the Creator of the universe; any other conversation can, for a few moments, be put on hold.

 

My keys are in the other pocket, and I take them out, too. Those keys open many doors, both within the church and outside of it. One might rightly say they represent my authority. But for now, the only door I need to walk through is the one leading into God’s presence, and I require no other power than that which he offers: “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it” (Hebrews 4:16, NLT).

 

Finally, I remove my sunglasses. They are both functional and fashionable, protecting my eyes from the sun’s radiation and offering me that “cool youth pastor” look. But in the light of God’s radiance, the sun pales in comparison; no polarized lens can shade my eyes from his brilliance. And bowing before him, my trendiness is but a pretense; he sees past trends and into the depths of my soul.

 

For a few all-too-brief moments, before facing the grind of daily life and ministry, all is well with my world. Alone with God, divested of earthly status symbols, I am where I was always meant to be. This is home. And someday, I will shed these veneers for good. But for now, I steal a few moments to be alone with God in the morning.