A Sufferer’s Cry: Intimacy

In chapter nine of the book When God Weeps, Joni hits on the primal cry of a sufferer’s heart when she says that it’s intimacy (first with God, second with others). This chapter alone is worth the price of the book.

“Reasons reach the head, but relationships reach the soul. It’s the relationship of God reaching out to us through our trials that draws the bottom line of suffering” (126). 

“Suffering has no meaning in itself. Left to its own, it is a frustrating and bewildering burden. But given the context of relationship, suffering suddenly has meaning” (127). 

“Intimacy happens as two souls rub together. It’s what we long for more than anything else. To know and be known. Even in the best relationships, we are still left aching for someone to comprehend our world and enter our struggle—to embrace us with a passion that seizes and melts us into a union that will never be broken. God answers that ancient longing.” (128).

The Road We Walk

Have you ever pondered, if nearly everything joyful about life came to an end, what would this earth be like, and what would there be to keep you living? 

That’s one of the many questions posed by McCarthy in this Pulitzer Prize winning fiction account of a post-nuclear America, The Road. Father and son drift across the ash-covered, burnt landscape, determined to get to the coast, fighting daily to survive in a sort of Mad Max-esque life. 

With brilliant literary finesse, McCarthy is able to find the nerve of human hope/despair and strike it, page after page, in such a way that makes you question what it is you keep living for. If all that was left was a burnt-to-nothing world—no grocery stores, no established government, no cities, no culture—what would drive you? What would keep you scavenging for food, fighting to stay alive, running from bandits, each and every moment you were alive? 

What I think McCarthy does so well is force us to face a world where everything we find joy in is destroyed, which makes us question, at bottom, if our hope is only as good as the things we hope in, should we reconsider the objects in which we place such confidence for our happiness?  

I’m not really sure that McCarthy gives the answer in the book. You have to decide for yourself. To be honest, I think he tries to make it about the quality of relationship between the father and son, which is genuinely heart-warming but, in the end, that dies too. His attempt, however, at pointing us to meaning ends without a bang—I think the book is meant more to draw out questions rather than direct us to answers. If there is an answer, it’s something about one last shred of human goodness which is pretty murky in the book. 

But I think the book raises questions that are worth our time, questions about hope and life. The truth is, our posh lives are at any given moment only a hair’s breadth away from being destroyed and we lose everything, either in nuclear destruction or death. Jesus said  ”what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.” (Lk 21:6). 

Where is your hope? If it’s ultimately in something on this earth, then it’s going to die, to be destroyed, and what will you hope for in that day? 

I will make one suggestion: hope in God, for he is the everlasting God, a happiness that endures forever, a never-ending fountain of delights. Unlike anything on this earth, he never fades away. Yes, hope in the eternal God, who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. (Isa 40:30-31; Ps 16:11; 2 Cor 4:18). 

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Cor 4:18).

Devastated? Okay, seriously.

Like any good Broncos fan—and not that I am one—I was more than a bit frustrated when Denver failed to beat the less-than-stellar Buffalo Bills (with absolutely no thanks to their defense).

But would I, like Brandon Stokely in an interview posted on CBS 4 news, say that I was “devastated”? Not quite. 

The headline read: Stokely Says He’s Devastated By Dropped Ball. Now, I’m a competitive guy—I’ve given a guy a bloody nose playing church league football (albeit accidental)—but to say that you’re devastated is a bit much. 

“I’ll be devastated for a couple of days,” Stokely told reporters. And this with ongoing news of nationwide financial crises, plane crashes, abducted children, and shoes flying at the president.

As some have expressed concern that athletes compared the game to warfare in light of Iraq and Afghanistan, I think it’s important to point out that the way we talk about and think about sports is a little bit too extreme. Before long you have superstar athletes complaining that they can’t feed their family on only 20 million dollars a year, e.g. Latrell Sprewell.

And, I will tell you, it’s a bit humiliating to be a human when you watch a 40-something grown man in a sports restaurant  burst into a tantrum, throwing his hat to the floor after his beloved Falcons fumble the ball near the goal-line, only to find out later that his team actually recovered in the endzone for a touchdown.

Precious Providence

How precious is it to know that God sustains all things and orchestrates all things for his purposes, that everything that comes my way today is by his appointment, whether joy or tears?

According to the psalmist, the knowledge of such things is a matter of life and death. And it’s only in God’s word that we find them (Ps 119:89-92).

“If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction” (Ps 119:92). In other words, if I didn’t know of God’s orchestrating, loving, good purposes in my agony, I would have died.

Reflecting on James 1:2-4 and the command to count all our trials as joy, Bruce Ware writes,

“What an incredible expectation and command. The only way that any person could find trials and affliction “all joy” is to know that they have been designed for great gain and ultimate joy. Clearly the joy does not reside in the experience of affliction taken by itself. James is not living in denial. He is not trivializing the agony of affliction or the pain often endured in trials. But he encourages all believers to look past the pain to the purpose, i.e., to see what God intends to accomplish through it” (God’s Greater Glory, 173).

Because God has ultimate control over all my sufferings and trials, I find life in the experience of death, joy in the presence of pain. If I didn’t know God’s providence, I would die.

Four Portraits, One Jesus

If you, like me, have read the four gospel accounts wondering why there are four of them and not a bit perplexed as to the point of each one, this is a must read. 

Or if you wonder, why the different genealogies to start Matthew and Luke, while Mark and John have no genealogies at all? And then there is the gospel of John, which seems so different. 

Strauss does an excellent job presenting each gospel as a literary unit with key themes and structures honed to display Jesus in a certain light that is both helpful and, dare I say, life-changing in the way you read the gospels.

The book is written very clearly and non-technically, using charts, diagrams, and breakout boxes, making this a wonderful selection for non-theologians like myself.

Finally, as a personal note, I am falling in love with the gospels for what feels like the first time because of this wonderful resource. It is helping me see the unity of each gospel in context of their literary and theological purpose(s), and as a result is, I hope, making me fall in love with Jesus in a deeper way. And knowing Jesus is life. 

“And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 Jn 5:11-12).

Buy it HERE.

A Letter from My Friend Luke

This holiday season, as materialism hits its annual apex, my friend Luke—dead for a long time now, though he speaks—is reminding me where true happiness lies. 

Happiness isn’t found in wealth or social status, in knowing all the right people and having all the right connections. And it’s not about the name you can make for yourself in this world. 

Instead, Luke tells the story of a poor woman from a small farming town who, socially, had no standing. And she, Luke writes, found true happiness. 

“Blessed [happy!] is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the LORD” (Lk 1:45). 

In a masterpiece of ironic storytelling, Luke is helping me to see that happiness is seeing what God has done for me through Jesus Christ (Lk 1:48-49), that it comes not to the proud but to the humble (Lk 1:51-52), and that God will satisfy the hungry, not the rich (Lk 1:53). 

What do you have to do to be happy this holiday season? See that the real treasure is Jesus, who came to fill our hungry souls with salvation—with life—and embrace Him with the understanding that we don’t deserve him, but God has given him mercifully to us. Happiness comes through believing God’s Word, and it cannot come apart from this Word. 

There is real potential that the happy people this year won’t be sitting in million-dollar homes, riding around in leather-pleated cars, and sipping $7 lattes in their Armani threads. 

There is real potential that the happiest people on the face of the planet will be those who, in earthly terms, have nothing. Why? Because salvation—our life and joy—comes to those who believe God, that he sent Jesus to save them and clothe them with heavenly wealth. It comes to those who, though they have little, hold God’s word in their hands as the most precious, life-giving gift in the universe and say, 

“This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life” (Ps 119:50).

A Dark Knight and the King of the Jews

After watching The Dark Knight yesterday, I have to say that it is one of the most interesting movies I have seen in a long time. The way the story unfolds especially the character of the Joker strikes a nerve in the human psyche about what it is like to see pure evil incarnate. Unlike other criminals, Heath Ledger’s character is motivated by the desire to destroy, which itself cannot be destroyed conventionally. 

As the wise sage Alfred told Bruce Wayne, ‘Some criminals have motivations; others just want to set the world on fire and watch it burn.’ And with unimaginable force, the film is able to cause an eruption of emotions and thoughts about what an extreme world like Gotham would actually be like. A criminal who wants to destroy not merely banks and civil order, but human goodness itself—this is truly the embodiment of pure evil. With this rare ability to rub raw the human nerve of good and evil, The Dark Knight is truly evocative in an unparalleled way. 

Batman, of course, ends up taking the fall and, in a bizarre way, ends up the hero/villain. As the Joker himself said, ‘Batman, you truly are incorruptible.’ Batman destroys evil’s power by his willingness to take the fall—a fall he didn’t deserve—and thus preserves hope in the city. He is willing to be the outcast in order to save the people of the city from evil. 

At the end of Mark’s gospel, when the King of the Jews, Jesus Christ, is left forsaken by God and hanging on a tree, the author tells us, “There was a darkness over the whole land” (Mk 15:33). Jesus cries out as the Father utterly abandons him there, and the curtain of the temple tears in half—symbolically opening the way for God’s people to enter his presence. 

The story of Batman isn’t a new one. Jesus Christ is the original “dark knight,” who destroys the dark of night in his own death, being cast off by God in order that God’s people would be able to draw near. He is mocked, torn apart at the hands of wicked and corrupt rulers, and sentenced to an unjust death. The Joker, Satan, had his laugh, but when all the cards fall, sin is destroyed in death, and all God’s people walk into the kingdom, right past enemy forces. The light has dawned in Christ, and the night of Satan’s rule is over. 

“The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned” (Mt 4:16), and His name is Jesus. 

A reflective poem

Justified I Stand 

Once again my heart confound, 

Didst Christ wear that blood-soaked crown, 

And upon his righteous life laid down, 

Was it I that was there found

To wear his righteous gown? 

Surely it is not I, 

By the law a wretch condemned to die! 

Yet with faith the gift of which I cry, 

“Not by works shall I try

to appease the God of earth and sky.” 

Within thy word is revealed

Once again that balm that healed, 

Upon my heart the layers peeled

Till once again my heart hath feeled, 

The justifying grace before concealed. 

Yes, guilty I before the Judge did stand, 

But God’s wrath for me on Christ did land, 

And from his Father the nail that pierced his hand

Has brought redemption through this Son of Man; 

Here now by faith in him, justified I stand. 

Luther really did recant

Reading Martin Luther’s biography, Here I Stand, by Roland Bainton, has opened my eyes this week to see that the great reformer did indeed recant… just not in the way you’d suppose. This is classic Luther which, for me, makes for a long few minutes laughing in my chair. 

“I was wrong, I admit it, when I said that indulgences were the “pious defrauding of the faithful.” I recant and say, “Indulgences are the most impious frauds and imposters of the most rascally pontiffs, by which they deceive the souls and destroy the goods of the faithful” (p. 127-28). 

And once again: 

“I was wrong. I retract the statement that certain articles of John Hus are evangelical. I say now, “Not some but all the articles of John Hus were condemned by Antichrist and his apostles in the synagogue of Satan.” And to your face, most holy Vicar of God, I say freely that all the condemned articles of John Hus are evangelical and Christian, and yours are downright impious and diabolical” (p. 128).

By the way, this type of apology, or recantation, if you will, with your wife never works.

Hope: the best of things

After a day of soul searching, I found myself alone tonight, watching The Shawshank Redemption. And I found myself, though for different reasons, identifying more with Red, a petrified dinosaur of the prison, who tells Andy amidst his dreaming, “Andy, hope is a dangerous thing. You gotta stop doing this to yourself.” 

Despite the strong words, Andy goes on hoping. He even gives Red something to hope for himself. The last 30 minutes of the movie capture Red’s progression well: after rejecting the possibility of hope, he strolls down the beach himself, uttering these, the final words of the film, “I hope I see my friend. I hope…” 

Andy’s words, likewise, paint an interesting picture: “Red, hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things.” I think there’s a lot to learn from the message of the film (though not from the profanities strewn throughout the movie). 

HOPE IS A GOOD THING. MAYBE THE BEST OF THINGS. 

As a Christian, the hope is so much greater than freedom, a hotel in Mexico, watching justice unfold, or seeing an old friend. Despite the suffering we must face in this life, Jesus the Christ tells us there is a coming day, for those who are born into his kingdom, when we will know the joy of being in the presence of the most breathtaking, divine, beautiful, loving being that can ever be (Jn. 14:2). We are going home to see our Father. 

The last few days I have groaned inwardly, looking at my life and feeling the emptiness of having many good things and yet not having what really fills my heart and soul with life and joy. It’s the feeling that there’s got to be more. And there is. 

Only the hope God offers isn’t like the kind Andy offers. Andy’s is the “I hope I see you again, but I’m not sure at all that I will. I hope I see my friend, and get out of prison, but I can’t be certain.” The hope God offers in Jesus Christ is absolute certainty that we will be with him in paradise. When God speaks, things come into existence and go out. And when he promises to see us again, it happens.

“So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (Jn. 14:22). Hope in Jesus Christ is the best of things.