Jesus Christ Archives - Page 2 of 3

music to our ears

What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned about God?

Jesus told a story that is clearly about God the Father. In the story there are two villains, a younger brother and an elder. While the older brother stews in his self righteousness the younger son repents of his many reproaches and heads back with tail tucked. In the story we are surprised to find the Father running to meet him.

Imagine: God, with robe gathered, feet flying, running!

There’s another place in the sacred text where I’m caught off guard by God. We know about his communication skills but how many knew God could sing?

In Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, we find Aslan singing the world of Narnia into being:

In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing…Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once…One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out – single stars, constellations, and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world…All the time the Voice went on singing…The Voice rose and rose, till all the air was shaking with it. And just as it swelled to the mightiest and most glorious sound it had yet produced, the sun arose.
—C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (New York: Collier), pp. 98-99.

I am in a season right now where my most challenging obstacle is not disability. I confess it’s gotten the better of me on those especially trying days, but God faithfully meets me in his Word and whispers, “I’m for you, child; stay the course. Trust that I’m up to something good here.” Those words quiet me.

God doesn’t just speak, however. Sometimes he sings. Elihu told Job of a God who “gives songs in the night.” I know of such a God. I’ve heard his night songs echoing softly in my mind when I thought I was out of my mind, lost and forgotten.

The Almighty has been singing a long time. Twenty-five centuries ago Zephaniah, great-great grandson of Hezekiah, said, while God “quiets” us by his love (‘ahava’, e.g., Song of Songs 2:4), he also anthems over us and silences the roar inside our hearts.

The LORD your God is among you;
He is mighty to save.
He will rejoice over you with gladness;
He will quiet you with His love;
He will rejoice over you with singing.

Zephaniah 3:17

The Hebrew text reads, “he exults over you with loud singing.” Great peals of thunder ring out from the bellows of God’s voice when soothing words won’t do. The NLT fashions it, “He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”

How very cool is that? When we are cowed by the dissonance of our skewed culture, our Heavenly Father starts singing, and when he sings all the noise fades into the background.

The people God sings over are so beleaguered they want to quit. They’re flat-out exhausted from battling the insufferable. All they can hear are the “slurs and taunts of Moab”; the “pure speech” of Zion’s completely drowned out. God’s whispers do them little good; they need him to SHOUT his love in their ears.

That’s the beauty of Zephaniah 3:17. The word we get isn’t “lullaby”; of course there’s a time when a lullaby is appropriate. I love when the Holy Spirit quietly sings over me, calming me with his sweet reveries.

But sometimes we need reveille! Life can get so messed up we need a victory song. We need God to ROAR with assurance that all this is under Aslan’s massive paw. That’s the idea in this text. Sometimes he quiets us with love, sometimes he rejuvenates us with a victory chorus.

God is so happy in the love he bears to his people that he breaks the eternal silence, and sun and moon and stars with astonishment hear God chanting a hymn of joy.
—Charles Spurgeon

The older I get, the quieter I get. And the quieter I am, the better I’m positioned to hear the still, small Voice, so familiar, so intimate. But there are times I need an anthem, not a sonnet. God’s playlist always seems to give me just what I need in any given moment.

How about you? Are you greatly bothered by the noise in your life? Can you hear your Father in heaven sing over you? Or is the tumult drowning out the truth you need to hear? I pray the Lord of the Dance surprises you with his playlist in coming days. May God grace you with his joyous reveille and surround you with songs of deliverance.

Selah, indeed.

bornagainniversary

Today I’m 48 years old.

In the Lord.

It all started on a Sunday in our family room, kneeling in front of the couch. Dad was on his knees beside me. A half-eaten Sunday dinner was cooling on the dining room table…

january 20, 1974

The family, just home from morning worship, was sitting down for a meal of roast and potatoes, and I was all tied up in knots.

About an hour and a half earlier I had a kung fu grip on the back of the pew in front of me and my knuckles were stretched white. I was sitting with my mother a third of the way back on the outside left, facing the platform. Forrest Hills Baptist Church was more packed than normal.

We had a guest speaker that morning, Monroe Parker. I don’t remember too much about the sermon, only that he used scary illustrations about people who died without Jesus. On hospital beds, in car wrecks, every sort of life-shortened tragedy.

It was revival week with the evangelist, so the altar was mostly filled with weepy folk. As the choir started through another verse of Softly and Tenderly, I leaned out into the aisle, still gripping the pew. I chanced a quick look at my mom, who nodded and smiled knowingly, and that was all the motivation I needed to join a trickle of souls to the front.

Ann Plant was an altar worker known well by our family. She met me, saw how miserable I was, and hastily led me to an open spot on the platform steps.

It was already assumed I was saved (I was a really good kid) so she led me in a “rededication of life” prayer. She smiled and hugged me and I went back to my row where mom waited. I forced a smile because I still felt heavy inside. Where was that lightness of step and brightness of spirit I expected?

On the drive home from church, I remember sitting in the backseat between my two sisters. I was very quiet. Positioned with my feet on the hump, I leaned forward and stole glances of my sad self in the rearview mirror. I could see dad‘s eyes occasionally sliding over to meet mine.

Finally, he furrowed his brow and asked if I was okay. I didn’t look okay. It was all so very discomfiting.

For a thirteen year old kid, a trip to a church altar and a vulnerable prayer with an adult should at least earn you some level of peace. Not me. I didn’t feel fixed.

praying with dad

Sunday dinner was not in the least bit enjoyable for a boy who liked to eat. I pushed vegetables around the plate with my fork, worrying over stuff like being killed in a car wreck and lost for eternity. Pretty out-there stuff for a thirteen year old.

Midway through the meal dad and I exchanged looks. He saw the misery on my face. I felt lost and told him so. He looked at mom and she said lunch could wait. Rising from his place at the head of the table, dad set down his napkin and pushed away.

“Let’s go into the family room, buddy” he said kindly. “I think I know what you need.”

I followed dad to our sofa and took my place beside him on my knees. There, father and son side by side, settled the matter of my soul once and for all. I started to cry. It felt for all the weight of the world that what we were doing was right. I exhaled all my pent-up breath and answered my dad, phrase by phrase, in the sinner’s prayer.

Two minutes later, we were done. Dad hugged me and told me I was saved and that I shouldn’t doubt it ever again. And honestly, by the good grace of God, I never have.

There’ve been some touch-and-go moments in my life, but, forty-eight years later (and counting!), the testimony holds because Jesus holds me.

This is my story, and this is my song:

a salvation hymn

I love GOD because he listened to me,
listened as I begged for mercy.
He listened so intently
as I laid out my case before him. Death stared me in the face,
hell was hard on my heels.
Up against it, I didn’t know which way to turn;
then I called out to GOD for help:
“Please, GOD!” I cried out.
“Save my life!”
GOD is gracious—it is he who makes things right,
our most compassionate God.
GOD takes the side of the helpless;
when I was at the end of my rope, he saved me.
Psalm 116:1-6, The Message

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embrace the x

“X-mas” was close to a cuss word in the church circles in which I grew up. Borderline sacrilege. People who wished you a “Merry Xmas” weren’t truly Christian; that’s just the way it was.

We saw the ‘X’ as a scheme to rid Christ from the very holiday that celebrated His birth! While there’s still a part of me that thinks it’s true for some, I have recently come to an understanding that there’s something more honorable in play.

The early Church loved the ‘X’ (chi) in ιχθυς (ichthus) or Christ (Χριστός) as it was their shorthand for the Savior.

What in the world is ‘ichthus’?

You’re not going to find it in your Greek New Testament. Ichthus was a ‘code’ word invented by the first-century church to silently confess who they were to one another – at the risk of their lives.

The Greek letters in ichthus make an acrostic:

I (Iesous)

Chi, or X (Christos)

Theta (Theou)

Upsilon (Uios)

Sigma (Sotor)

The letters together spell ‘ichthus’ (ιχθύς) and the five Greek words they represent make this striking declaration:

“Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior”

Sometimes, when the situation demanded, they shortened it with an ‘X’ or a two-stroke fish outline.

I’m not a ‘fish symbol on the car’ kind of guy but I can certainly truck with the idea behind them. Those emblems, whether on a business sign or the bumper of an automobile, are designed to tell passersby We worship Jesus Christ, (who is) the Son of God, (our) Savior.

So what about the ‘X’?

The chi (or ‘X’) is just what you might expect. It has connotations of the cross and was surreptitiously drawn as a sign passed between believers.

Back in those days Christianity was seen as a rogue religion, outlawed by the Roman imperial government. If you were a follower of Christ, there was always the danger of being outed, so Christians (Xians), people of ιχθυς, would use a quick sign (a two-stroke outline of a fish or an ‘X’) to assure another they were safe in their company.

Embrace the ‘Χ’ this Xmas. You can be assured you’re tracing a long history of committed, devoted worshippers of the Christ!

Still uncomfortable?

I understand. I still wince a little when I see it spelled that way. Think of it in another way:

X marks a treasure, and Jesus is certainly the inexhaustible supply of God, our Portion and Prize for eternity
X marks where you are on a map – that’s what Emmanuel is all about. Imagine yourself ‘here’ and then place an ‘X’ over that spot. He is with you!

Hopefully this Christmas post helps you see what the enemy wants to scandalize, God sanctifies. When I see ‘Xmas’ from here on, I’ll breathe a little easier knowing it really is about Christ…whether the world knows it or not.

Merry Xmas, beloved!