all roads lead to jesus: an easter meditation

No, it’s not what you’re thinking. My theological sensibilities are well aware the title is misleading, but hear me out.

I was once in a coffee shop talking to someone who had a convoluted idea of religion. At one point he illustrated the road to salvation as being many. He waved his arm and said everyone sitting in the coffee shop at that time had come from different directions, on different roads, and by different means. “But we all got here just the same. It’s the same when it comes to ‘heaven’ (finger quotes). As long as our goal is to get to heaven, God will make sure we get there. And as long as the person is sincere and does good, no matter what religion or god they believe in, we all make it across the finish line. That’s how I see it.”

No, this post is not touting that. Not by a long shot.

Number one, our goal isn’t heaven, it’s Jesus. And it takes Jesus to get to Jesus. All roads may get you to Rome but only one gets us to the Savior.

Pssst…there is no number two.

This piece has more to do with the many kinds of struggles each of us have in our stories and, regardless of how deep and dark and devilish they may be, we can equally find the mercy of Christ that draws us to himself.

When you open Book 5 of the Psalms you immediately encounter a hymn to the steadfast love of God. It imagines a vast throng of the redeemed “gathered in” from all the cardinal points on a compass (Psa 107:3) to “their desired haven” (v30). It’s the only time “haven” is found in the Hebrew text, denoting a harbor or a safe place. We might call it a refuge.

They all come in curious ways. Some get there crawling, still more on hands and knees, many on their last gasp, and others with the stink of filth all over them. And how did they come to God’s encampment of grace? The *rest* (pun intended) of the chapter outlines it for us:

▪️ “Some wandered in from desert wastes” (v4)

Demoniac. Maniac. Boogeyman. He’s all kinds of crazy and you want nothing to do with him. Let him howl out there in the hinterlands, but make sure your doors are locked at night. Stories about him made children want to crawl into bed with their parents. He’s so bad the devil named him himself (Mark 5:9).

“Legion.”

One demon made him cut himself, another made him foam. Others made him curse and howl and rage against the light. Legion. Thousands. Who knows how many? Some of the demons gave him power to break his shackles. Stand clear of this, this…well, you couldn’t call him a man, could you? More like animal.

Easter comes for these guys too. There he stood, Light and Love, right in front of Legion. Walked right up to him. Sat down on a rock across from him. To everyone else, the creature was scary bad but to Jesus, he was a dying soul in need of a living Savior.

The power of the Man! No, not Legion. Jesus. The first thing he did was address the head demon; made him talk, tell him his name, beg for mercy. Think on this: the scariest demon inside this man crumpled at the voice of Jesus. Once he and his defeated army of demons left the pitiful creature, Jesus turned his attention to the man with eyes, undoubtedly, filled with compassion.

Just like that, the man was free.

Hear the gospel: no one, but no one – absolutely no one – is beyond the merciful reach of Jesus.

▪️ “Some…had been sitting in darkness and deep gloom” (Psa 107:10)

Mary Magdalene, the first witness of the Christ’s resurrection, came to the Easter story out of the dark dystopia of demonic possession (Luke 8:2). Seven demons crippled her soul and out of that gloomy dungeon of despair she found redemption and holy worth.

He brought [her] out of darkness and the shadow of death,
and burst [her] bonds apart.
(v14)

There was a day Jesus came to visit her at her tomb of despair and just before the first light of dawn on Sunday morning, she came to visit him at his. Mary wasn’t expecting to see what happened next, but she was the very first one to see it. She, a woman of questionable pedigree, was the first person to speak to newly-raised Messiah.

The event that was prophesied as early as Eden had an audience of one lone woman. Easter can sound pretty strange to the uninformed, but to the rest of us it makes all the sense in the world.

▪️ “Some were wrecked and ruined by a foolishly sinful life” (v17)

Jesus was being hosted at a dinner party (“party” being generous) when a woman stepped off the street and came into the dining area. Every man in the room sucked in air except Jesus. This unwashed woman was a known adulteress (Luke 7:39). Luke, who’s not disposed to hyperbole, used a label for her describing a whole other category of sinner. His particular word infers the woman has probably been condemned already by the synagogue and cast out, probably for adultery, or that she is perhaps a known prostitute.

Easter came early to her broken soul as Christ’s love resurrected her out of her corruption. The old hymn says,

“nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling.“

This woman had nothing in her hands but she clung to the feet of Jesus, weeping with joy and gratitude and kissing his feet nonstop. She unbundled her hair and used her locks to dry the Savior’s feet.

Jesus didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed at the display. He remained in place, affording her the worship of humanly outlandish proportion. But it could never be enough for her lavishly forgiven heart. Love Incarnate elevated her to sit with him in heavenly places while pious Simon and his judgy buddies were left to deal with their own hardened and condemned hearts.

▪️ “Some because of desperate conditions and terrifying calamities” (Psa 107:23-27)

We call him “Blind Bartimaeus” (Mark 10:46). “Son of Timothy.” That’s like calling me “Tom Mitchell‘s crippled son.” There he was, just outside Jericho, fifteen miles from Jerusalem. He is sitting there with his begging blanket, the cloak used to catch coins tossed in his direction. Suddenly he hears a great noise, a crowd of people cheering and laughing. He’s blind and pathetic so he doesn’t know quite what’s going on but he’s making out some words from the onlookers.

Above the din, his voice is miraculously transported to the ears of Jesus.

“SON OF DAVID, HAVE MERCY ON ME!”

Jesus stopped dead in his tracks. Like the woman on an earlier road hemorrhaging blood, when Jesus knew someone in the crowd had touched him. Well, yeah, Master, everybody’s touching you! You are in a crowd of people pressing in on you! No, Jesus says, not everyone. Someone.

Here too, on this day, among a cacophony of voices, Jesus heard the one. A shipwrecked soul. A drowning man.

“Bring him to me.”

This had never happened to him before. Someone became interested in “blind son of Timothy.”

“He is calling for you.”

Not “son of Timothy” but you. You matter to him. You stopped him dead in his tracks. You will be his last miracle before the cross.

At once the man “sprang” from his prized beggar’s plot, leaving his cloak with coins behind him. Suddenly, Jesus became more important to him than those alms in his blanket. Nevertheless he left it all behind … simply because Jesus called for him (Mark 10:49-50).

Not all roads lead to eternal life. But all roads, especially the hard ones, can lead you to Jesus. It’s through Jesus, who is the Resurrection and the Life, we come to the end of our roads and finally make it home.

Some through the fire
Some through the flood
Some through great trials
But all through the blood.
Some through great sorrow
But God gives a song
In the night season and all day long.”

– George A. Young, God Leads Us Along, 1903

I’m reflecting this Easter season on the many paths of pain that have led me to Jesus. Not just disability, but a host of others. I’ve faced ruin and I’ve been broken up into pieces against the shore more than a few times.

There’s a lot of ugly in my story and things I’d rather not tell you about. Things that took me right up to the rabbit hole and might’ve pushed me over and disappeared me forever – save for the grace of God. I’ve dragged through trackless wastes and crawled on desert floors.

Fire, flood, great trials, you name it. There’ve been times I’ve made my own bed and had to sleep in it and times when the cards were stacked against me. But each and every time I’ve heard the rumor that Jesus is calling for me.

Turns out it was more than a rumor. And because of it,

I give thanks to the Lord
for he is good
and his steadfast love lasts forever (Psa 107:1).

Amen.

(Selah.)

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called to smaller places

“O, Theophilus…” Acts 1:1

I was recently in a conversation with a close friend and regular reader (and commenter) here, about how our respective ministry lives have shrunk down and how to make peace with that.

I remember telling my friend “I must rededicate myself every day to the prospect of making an eternal impact on a single individual if that’s all I’m called to do for that day or for the rest of my life.”

This is quite a turn of events for someone who has preached to audiences of mega-churches and statewide youth rallies and professional ball clubs and national conferences. It’s not a gig I would’ve signed up for 40 years ago, but here we are.

It isn’t that I don’t get opportunities here and there to mount the platform and proclaim the word. I’ve probably preached more in the last six months than I did in the previous 10 years. This, too, is a mercy of God. Just three days ago I sat in front of a packed house of highschoolers and laid myself bare with a message on brokenness. It was glorious. And (dare I say) fun. I say ‘fun’ because this is what I’m wired for and called to.

But this morning, my heart’s ‘check-engine’ light came on as I found myself settling in for a fresh rereading of Acts. No, it wasn’t an angry red flashing light but rather an amber light informing me I needed some routine maintenance; an oil change, if you will, to insure I’ll be fit for the next 3,000 miles.

So, yeah, the book of Acts….

….written by Dr. Luke, the eminent travel secretary and personal physician of Paul.

This one single man contributed to nearly HALF of the New Testament and that fact alone blows my mind.

Think of it: half your New Testament is the private correspondence between two people!

The good doctor never attained apostle-status as he was not an eyewitness of the Resurrected Lord, but he is always mentioned in the same breath as those who founded the Church, especially God’s choice apostle, Paul.

He may not have been at the tomb or touched the hands and side of Jesus, but he was in the front row of many of the most critical events and “greater things” of which Jesus told his followers they would participate.

Here’s what hit me, and why I want to share it with you today. I’m imagining that you might be reading this having memories of times when you were able to use your gifts more regularly and that they felt necessary, and appreciated, and beneficial to the Kingdom.

Today, or in this season, not so much. The luster is buffed out and you feel you may be a forgotten commodity and way past your prime. You can remember a time when your name came up in conversations and when stuff needed to get done, you were the go-to guy or gal. But now you’re rusting in a corner, feeling more of an afterthought or anachronism.

You are most definitely NOT.

I hope you hear this. If you can, understand you are in maintenance mode (from which you will be updated and glitch-free); in a holding pattern (from which you will most certainly land); in a winter of unseen, unfelt growth (out of which Spring will come again); God is not finished with you; he may just be redirecting you to where – and to whom – you will do HIM the most good.

Case in point….Luke.

What struck me about this amazing servant of Christ was a note I put next to the first verse. The verse reads:

Acts 1:1
In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach,

And this is what I wrote:

Luke wrote his two tomes for one man (“lover of God”), so it could be said that a greater portion of the NT was written to convince a single man of the nature and validity of the Gospel! Thus, Luke was one of the most ardent disciple-makers in the NT.

That’s what I call a ‘SINGLES’ ministry!

Most certainly, Luke routinely disconnected from his wider ministry alongside Paul to make sure there was a single man properly discipled from new birth to seasoned faith. There could have been literally scads of letters exchanged between the two over a long period of time. We just have these two preserved in canon.

Luke’s gospel was a primer for Theophilus to better understand the Christian faith, and his chronicles of Acts were a user’s manual Theo could carry about so as to discover for himself life in Christ through the operation of the Holy Spirit.

I hope you’re as encouraged as I am! Being a physician by trade, Luke was more familiar with one-on-one ministry anyway, but as a skilled researcher and writer, it was necessary for him to accompany Paul and other early ministry teams in their travels. He saw the really cool stuff. He wrote about it all.

Thank God for the preserved record, the intimate details of Christ’s suffering sweat-drops of blood and the first-hand testimony from those who experienced Pentecost! Just remember, he did it ALL for a single individual.

**Dr. Luke made a huge difference in the one, and we are all the better because of it.**

In the past decade I’ve come to accept that I can do perhaps even more good off the platform, investing in the few. These days, a living room or a cozy corner in a coffee shop is my nave and I’m seeing the kingdom play out just fine in the lives of a handful rather than a crowd.

I recall the story of Jesus praying alone when Peter & Co. interrupted, informing him he was needed elsewhere. They wanted their Messiah to finish up (?!?) and giddyup and go. Bigger fish to fry, they told him. Jesus brushed that notion away and said something that goes against the grain of our American ‘event-driven-crowd-gathering-go-big-or-go-home’ ministry ideal.

Jesus told them he needed to go to the smaller places too. (Mark 1:37-38)

Theophilus was Luke’s “smaller place.”

Lydia was Paul’s “smaller place” (Acts 16:13-14) and from that encounter the Church at Philippi was birthed – one of the apostle’s most enthusiastic supporters.

The Ethiopian eunuch was Philip’s “smaller place” when he was uprooted from a big-tent revival in Samaria (Acts 8:26) and whiplashed into the desert.

A single person.

Big ministry.

Great reward.

Where is your smaller place? It may be that you are resisting going there because you feel (sorry not sorry) too gifted, too called to bigger things. You’re missing something quite beautiful right under your nose.

That lone eunuch evangelized an entire African kingdom.

Sometimes…big things come in small packages.

Edward Kimball paid a visit to a young man in his Sunday school class at his workplace and shared the love of Jesus with him. Young Dwight Moody got saved and became one of the eminent gospel evangelists of history. Through a line of converts spilling from Moody’s ministry came J. Wilbur Chapman, Billy Sunday, Mordecai Ham, and Billy Graham. And it all goes back to a man with a burden for a single young man. Moody was Kimball’s “smaller place.”

Don’t let the earlier point mist away from view: we have the Gospel of Acts and the Chronicle of the Acts of the Early Church because Luke followed his Lord’s example and went to the “smaller places” too. Remember that the next time you hear a sermon from his gospel or read a devotional from his other letter.

It started when Luke got a burden for one person and decided to write him a couple letters. You don’t need a microphone or a following or a reputation. You just need a big, small heart, a single purpose, and maybe a pen.

Remind me to tell you about “Puavo Fivre”….

can i have your attention, please?

Luke 18 is all about being heard.

First, in Jesus’s signature story-form, we find a widow hanging on to her last thread of hope; unfortunately, her hope is found in a Gentile judge (not a picture of God, btw) who has little time for her. Nevertheless, through persistence, she at last gets a hearing and a judgment…in her favor.

We transition to a true-to-life episode that contrasts two worshipers at the Temple. One is in his customary pew, spouting off all the religious jargon of a prig (C.S. Lewis’s word), while the other won’t dare set a foot inside the narthex lest he be struck by lightning. One expects he will be heard (he is not), and the other only dreams of being heard (he is), at which we find he gets, not a day in court, but a seat at the table.

Next we see playful Jesus bouncing babies on his knee. The disciples lose their bleep and try to whisk the little hooligans off to their mothers. In no uncertain terms, the Lamb of God lets his men know they had best leave well enough alone. In fact, if they resist the bleatings and shovings of little lambs to be under the watchful eye of the Shepherd, they’d find themselves outside the pen.

Widows need justice.

Tax collectors need mercy.

Children need time.

All need Jesus.

And all just want the ear of the King.

As the chapter rolls out, nearing its end, a blind beggar is straining to be heard over the loud din of a gathered mob as the God-Man Jesus passes by. Blind “son of Timothy” (he’s so much an afterthought the poor fellow does not even warrant a name) is not seen and he is not heard – at first. Everyone around him tells the pathetic man to shush as the Holy Man cannot be bothered by someone who is so obviously a wretched sinner. He’s having none of it. The scripture tells us all the bluster just made him “call out even louder.” The man wanted to be heard.

I love the next two words that come next:

“Jesus stopped.” (Luke 18:40)

Let your ears rest on those words and dispel every other noise around you right now.

He stopped.

Earlier, God, as the father in the prodigal story, is seen running. Here, he stops in his tracks.

You have to remember Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, on mission to do what he came to do. Earlier in this same gospel we learn Jesus “set himself to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51) and Isaiah adds color to this with his face being countenanced like “flint” – so hard and firm and resolute was his bent to go forward to Calvary.

He stopped his march,

his mission,

time,

everything.

In that sacred second all held their breath as Jesus turned his piercing gaze from the road ahead to the tragic figure on the fringe of the crowd. Those lyrical eyes looked past the religious, the zealous, the able-bodied, the excited, the would-be followers, all of the rabble, and found him.

The throng had no choice but to part like the Red Sea as the poor man was brought to the Healer. The exchange took all of forty-five seconds, maybe a minute.

After all, what’s a minute delay when there’s a chance to change a person’s life?

Pilate would wait for him.

Judas would have time enough to plan his dirty deed.

The High Priest could use the extra minute to consider his ways.

Barabbas would be cool with it, considering how his fate would turn.

But the Son of Timothy? This was his only shot, and he was going to be heard.

Something else I love about the story is that it sheds light on the earlier scripture about the widow and her repeated appeals to the “unrighteous judge.” If you wait a tick, you’ll find that Scripture interprets Scripture.

That passage you’re struggling to make light of, keep reading; the hidden will come to light. I have often puzzled over that story until one day I realized God is NOT the judge of that parable. Unfortunately, the caustic judge – to many – is exactly who God is to them: obstinate, uncaring, elusive, aloof, mean-spirited, vindictive. This is not the point of the parable, proven by this moment of mercy for the blind beggar on the road outside Jericho.

He called out more intensely on that roadside. He would be heard. He would not take NO for an answer. *That* is the point of the earlier parable. But rather than nagging, you just up the ante.

The key to being heard, to getting the attention of God, is not verbosity but intensity.

God is not listening for a casual, half-hearted, ritual, repetitive, obligatory prayer, but he will stop in his tracks for a cry from a wounded soul.

In 2009 I prayed again and again like a persistent widow for God to do something for me I couldn’t do for myself. Each and every prayer was important to God, and I know he heard, but was waiting to hear the shrill edge of my desperation. That came weeks later as I was “quiet-timing with God” in my van. I simply but straightforwardly said:

If you don’t, God, it won’t. I don’t want to live another day with this. Oh God, I don’t have the strength to ask for it again. I’m tired. I’m desperate. Please…

Do you ever get the inexplicable sense when something shifts in the atmosphere? That happened to me as soon as my prayer trailed off. I didn’t even want to add an amen. I just left it at the Healer’s feet and crawl into his lap. I called out one more time, and I was heard.

God stopped for me.

I can’t say that I’ve ever heard God audibly, but it came pretty close in the front cab of my van.

I’ve heard you, Scott. I will answer your prayer – you won’t like the way the way I do it, but you will give praise to me in the end. I am with you. Trust me, Scott…

It may not have been these words exactly, but you get the gist. I needn’t tell you that my cry was supernaturally, specifically, and spectacularly answered within a few very dark and grueling months. There were moments I felt abandoned and more than a few when I felt fearful of the outcome, but God won the day and my testimony stands as a ‘miktam’ (Psalm 16): archived in holy writ, penned in 24-carat gold. It is my story and I’m sticking to it.

What are you wanting God to stop and do for you? Sometimes the hardest part of ‘faithing’ is in the last half-hour, when it seems like God isn’t going to come through.

F. B. Meyer offers this counsel:

The lock of prayer sometimes turns hard, and calls for strength of purpose. The kingdom of heaven has to be taken by force. Let us pray so that our prayers may reverberate with repeated blows on the gates of God’s presence chamber.

“Repeated blows.”

Maybe, just maybe, the next blow that falls will stop God in his tracks and break the door down. Keep hammering away with your prayers, beloved. You’ll get his attention. I promise. I’ve got scripture and a testimony that proves it’s so.