Tag: Peace

joy incarnate

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Luke 1:41

This verse gets me. An unborn child leaping with the news of Jesus. Dancing before his Messiah! And there was cause to dance. The King of kings entered the world in real time.

A millennium earlier King David stripped down to his pajamas and danced before the Ark and here John does the same thing in his birthday suit. Another dance would prove his undoing, yes, but let’s be real. When just a baby, long before that wretched affair with dancing Salome, John cut a rug for Jesus in his mama’s womb.

The reactions of the people of the first Christmas varied then as they do today. John is but one example.

Joseph feared.

Mary wondered.

Elizabeth blessed.

The innkeeper dismissed.

The city slept.

Anna waited.

Simeon prophesied.

Shepherds worshipped.

Herod raged.

John danced.

Recently I was struck by a re-reading of the Christmas story about a choir of angels suddenly erupting in song over the fields of Palestine. What grabbed my attention was the nature and ministry of angels. They never act contrary to the will of God, but always in concert with the Almighty.

They were singing. They were celebrating. They were excited. It occurred to me that the angels were exhibiting on earth the same atmosphere present in heaven. I believe it’s safe to say God was deep in his cups of joy over the whole affair.

We should, first, think that God leads a very interesting life, and that he is full of joy. Undoubtedly he is the most joyous being in the universe. The abundance of his love and generosity is inseparable from his infinite joy. All of the good and beautiful things from which we occasionally drink tiny droplets of soul-exhilarating joy, God continuously experiences in all their breath and depth and richness.

— Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy

When Jesus told of a single sinner being converted he said the reaction in heaven was a party. Here’s how our Savior phrased it: “I am saying to you, joy arises in the presence of the angels of God” (Wuest). Did you catch that? Read it again. “In the presence of the angels of God.” Jesus paints a vivid picture of the Father’s joy.

John Piper said, “It is good to have a happy King.” The leaders of today are anything but happy. They are conflicted, narcissistic, frightened, aloof, dishonest, boorish. But the God of the universe is a happy King. His cup runneth over with joy!

That same joy touched John. The very moment the tiny prophet-in-utero was made aware of the Messiah being inches away, heaven’s ecstasy crashed into his amniotic sac. He was struck as if by a bolt of lightning and jumped for joy. Such was the force of celebration that his own mother felt its aftershock.

“Christians ought to be celebrating constantly. We are to be preoccupied with parties, banquets, feasts, and merriment. We are to give ourselves over to veritable orgies of joy because we’ve been liberated from the fear of life and the fear of death. We are to attract people to the church quite literally by the fun there is in being a Christian.”

—Robert Hotchkins, theologian, University of Chicago

In the earliest part of the 20th century, a guest speaker was invited to address the graduates of a college in Massachusetts. Before the ceremony, the speaker, Henry van Dyke, spent some time celebrating God’s joy in creating the Berkshire mountains. He was inspired to jot down some lyrics to which perfectly fit with Beethoven’s famous tune, “Ode to Joy.”

I find the third verse most appropriate this morning:

Thou art giving and forgiving,
Ever blessing, ever blest,
Wellspring of the joy of living,
Ocean depth of happy rest!
Thou our Father, Christ our Brother,
All who live in love are Thine;
Teach us how to love each other,
Lift us to the joy divine.

This Christmas weekend, I just wanted to remind you that our Father is a Giver of Joy because he is full of joy. As you gather with family and friends, may you offer up laughter and share the happiness of heaven. And, by all means, if so disposed, dance for joy in your pajamas.

Selah, beloved, and the merriest of Christmases!

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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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a matter of pronouns

Photo ©️ Scott Mitchell

God is very particular about his grammar, especially where it concerns us. Consider the back-and-forth gospel pronouns of this glorious scripture,

He has made him to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:20)

Us and him. He and we. Kingdoms in conflict; a separation of powers.   

The following poem undoes the riddle as Bennett’s words tug on gospel strings, each verse building upon the next. Watch as the pronouns switch places until at last the Guiltless One wins the day and owns the damning burden of all humanity:

DELIVERANCE

Under the Law with its tenfold lash,

Learning – alas, how true! –

That the more I tried

The sooner I died,

While the Law, cried:

“You, you, you!”

🔹🔹🔹

Hopelessly still did the battle rage:

 “O wretched man!“ my cry,

And deliverance I sought

By some penance bought,

While my soul cried:

“I, I, I!”

🔹🔹🔹

Then came a day when my struggles ceased,

And trembling in every limb

At the foot of the tree

Where one died for me

I sobbed out:

“Him, Him, Him!

– R.P.D. Bennett

I came into this world mastering the singular personal pronoun, “I.” I’ve used it effortlessly and endlessly; it flows like honey over my lips and tastes as sweet. As you have probably seen, I still use it an awful lot – see? I still do. Wow, it’s hard to get away from that pronoun.

It’s mighty difficult not to make it about me. And you have the same conflict. Not judging. Just is.

When Jesus said, “it is finished” the transaction spoken about in the scripture at the top was completed. That matter is settled.

There is still an “I” that dangles like a hanging chad on a punch card, however, and I know I will not be made ready for glory until that matter is dealt with. I yearn for the day my “I” collapses fully under the weight of the possessive pronoun of HIS good reign.

I put my unadulterated amen to Elyse’s tweet yesterday:

I really hope this is the year that happens. I’m so tired of me some days I wonder how He can do it. Thank God he’s really good at what he does.

I’m asking the Father to baptize me in unassailable love, making me inoffensible and pure in heart. It’s a tall order, but:

it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13

Now, that’s just good grammar.

Selah