PUTTING A FACE ON JESUS

I am writing this blog right after Thanksgiving heading for Christmas, but my mind is on needy kids and summer camps.  This past August, I was blessed to be in Phoenix for a truly awesome, unforgettable reunion of Camp O Wood staff.  This Salvation Army camp functioned in the Catalina mountains of Arizona for about 50 years impacting thousands of children until it was sold in the nineties.  The reunion brought back a flood of precious memories of staff and campers for the 150 or so former staff who came from across the country for the event.

The Salvation Army’s camp ministry, over sixty camps across North America, is devoted to lovingly impacting the lives of children mostly from the inner cities of the nation. In this case, so many kids that came to Camp O Wood, boys and girls, were from homes where the father was absent and the mother was exhausted from trying to keep it all together.  Kids in these home environments missed out on the quality of family life that we may sometimes take for granted.  Discussions with an adult of life’s joys and challenges were rare.  Affirmation of kids' personal worth was equally rare.  Then . . .

Then they came to camp.  For so many, they came with ideas of God that were unfocussed and/or distorted. They could not imagine a God as a Father who was transcendent (mighty, Creator of the universe, all powerful, all knowing, present everywhere) and yet full of loving kindness, caring, and compassion.  They encountered a quality of life that was different than home.  Camp staff were more than friendly.  They were loving and kind, sometimes with tough love, but nevertheless they seemed to care.  That became clearer and more profound as the camp period progressed.  The faith of the staff was being lived out in campers daily lives as love.  Galatians 5:6 was a reality, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love.”  In that love, campers could begin to imagine a God who loves.  Jesus put a face on God the Father.  Camp staff put a face on Jesus.

My son is now 32 years old.  He's ministering in the context of a Salvation Army community center in Seattle.  When he was about thirteen, he came to me with a problem not knowing what to do.  He wore a WWJD bracelet.  I said to him, “Well what about the bracelet.  What would Jesus do.”  He said, “I struggle thinking about What would Jesus do.  But instead I think – what would Auntie Marilyn do?”  For my son at that age, Auntie Marilyn put a face on Jesus.  That’s what camp did for thousands of campers over all the years and especially for those kids who returned to camp summer after summer.  That’s what I love about the memories knowing that I played a small part in putting a face on Jesus who puts a face on a loving God our Father.

GIVING THANKS FOR BOTH / AND

Give thanks to him who made the heavens so skillfully. 

His faithful love endures forever.

Psalm 136:5

This one verse is loaded with poignancy!  It speaks of the transcendent One who made the vast expanse of the heavens, so vast it is beyond our comprehension.  He is the God who transcends our imagination far above our greatest capacities to fathom even the most superficial appreciation of his nature.  Yet we know from our own experience and the testimony to himself by which God reveals his nature in his Word:  "His faithful love endures forever."  The psalmist’s proclamation contrasts God’s transcendence with his immanence.  Though lofty above imagination, he is so personal, near, and intimate in his love for us.  It is a love that is pure, sacrificial, life-giving, and enduring in its faithfulness.  Is God only transcendent, sovereign and too distant for us to really know and to be known?  Or is God truly immanent, so immanent that he is really just an imagined reflection of our own understanding of our selves projected onto “god”?

The truth is conjunctive, both/and.  We find it in Scripture and summarized in the first two statements of the Apostle’s Creed:

1.     I believe in God, Almighty, creator of heaven and earth,

2.     And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord

The psalmist captures the both/and again in Psalm 8:1,3,4 – “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth . . . When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him?

We are reminded of the conjunctive (both/and) of Jesus, both one hundred percent human and one hundred percent divine, transcendent with the Father and immanent now through the Holy Spirit, so far above and exalted, so close and immeasurably more loving than we could ask or imagine.

The psalmist in the lead psalm above (136:5) who speaks of the conjunctive of God’s transcendence and immanence, his remoteness and intimacy, strikes the only chord of our hearts that is possible calling us to “GIVE THANKS!” 

O Lord, our thanksgiving spills over in to praise.  You are both/and . . .

 We give thanks to you.  In all your unimaginable power and might,

you faithfully  love us with an everlasting love!  Amen

THE TIE THAT TRULY BINDS

In Christianity across the world too often there appears to be irreconcilable differences, tensions, and hostilities between the many versions of the Christian faith.  Love of neighbor and unity in Christ are too often difficult to find.  However, when Christians are regularly tortured and martyred in the most oppressive, dangerous parts of the world (Pakistan, northern Nigeria, Somalia) those distinctive differences don't seem to matter to those doing the atrocities.  A Christian is a Christian and believed to be an infidel worthy of death.  In the worldwide Christian community of faith, where's the unity in Christ and the tie that truly binds?  What is the foundation of our faith irrespective of the differences that seemingly divide?

Over the next few weeks, Christendom, the holy, catholic (universal) church in all its glory, will celebrate God the Father’s great gift. Conceived by the Holy Spirit, it is the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. Glory to God!  Anticipating once again the unity of all believers in the great celebration we call Christmas, this is a good time to revisit the central teachings of the Christian faith, those teachings that are ascribed to by all Christian, at all times, everywhere.  To do so, we have a resource that clearly summarizes the essential truths of our universally  shared faith, The Apostles' Creed.

We need not wait to recite this historic statement as part of our collective worship.  We can recite it and meditate on it devotionally in our quiet, personal time with God we reserve each day. We may also engage it in our small group fellowship or family devotional time together.  Every word and phrase of this means of grace comes directly from Scripture.

Engaging the Apostle’s Creed at this time of year, personally and communally, makes sense.  In the celebration of Christmas, we participate in a world-wide common confession of faith with the great mosaic of brothers and sisters in Christ including Methodists, Baptists, Catholic, Pentecostals, Salvationists, Calvinists, nearly two billion of the faithful that make upon the universal Body of Christ.

The Apostles’ Creed is the common articulation of the tie that binds our hearts and souls together in a global love response of joy and glory to God.  It does more than unite us in our faith in our Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  It binds us to the multitude of saints gone before us over the millennia in a glorious witness of God’s grace and faithfulness.

Read and meditate on the Apostles’ Creed this Christmas season.  To access it just Google: The Apostles’ Creed.  Prepare to be blessed by God as you join the universal celebration of Christmas in affirming the truths we hold so dear to our common faith.  Thanks be to God!  Glory to His name.

HELPFUL & NECESSARY REDUNDANCIES

As a kid growing up, I remember mumbling the phrase, “That’s redundant.”  By that I meant  “You don’t have to keep repeating yourself.  I got it.  Now shut it.”  As you might imagine, I would only mumble such a response under my breath.  My frustration was usually in response to an older person (brother, parent, coach) micro-managing my behavior at the time.  For years I thought “redundant” was a negative word implying words and deeds that were unnecessarily repetitive.  This orientation likely peaked in my early adolescence when I naturally thought that I was smarter than my parents and when hubris was just to be accepted as a well deserved reality.  Looking back I can see how at age fourteen I thought my parents were rather dull and lacking in understanding about life.  By age twenty-one I was surprised how much wisdom they had accrued in a short period of time.

With greater maturity over the years, I came to appreciate how wise and smart my parents really were and how their redundancies were really helpful and necessary to my development.  One in particular was reading the Bible as a family at the dinner table every night finishing with prayer.  My father called this redundancy "returning thanks."  Whoa to us if we left the table early and skipped this redundant practice.

You may remember the old joke that goes like this: a visitor to New York City asks an old virtuoso musician for directions: “How do I get to Carnegie Hall.”  The old fellow replies, “Practice, practice, practice.”   I love that story, because it is so true broadly in life.  Not everything is like learning to ride a bike in that once you learn you don’t have to learn twice.  This is particularly true in human relationships and spiritual formation.   There redundancies are necessary and helpful if relationships are to grow into intimacy.

William Booth, co-founder in 1865 of The Salvation Army, was known to say from time to time, “The tendency of fire is to go out.”  What he meant was that our spiritual relationship with God will die out unless the fire of that relationship is redundantly stoked, fed fuel, and continually attended to.  In other words, there is a necessary and helpful redundancy to any relationship (friendship, marriage, business, and spiritual journey).  The fire of a relationship must receive attention and care whether it is to be blazing as in a steel mill or just giving warmth and light in the hearth of a home.

Spiritually speaking, to grow in grace and intimacy with God, it is helpful and necessary to daily practice what John Wesley called the means of grace: prayer, reading Scripture, meditation, fellowship with other believers, worship, reading wholesome literature, giving thanks and praise to God always as testimony to his grace and provision, and all the other ways we remain open to God’s presence and appreciate His identity.  To paraphrase the Carnegie Hall joke,  “How do I get to being “filled to the measure of the fullness of God?” (Christ-likeness, Holiness, intimacy with God)  Answer:  Helpful and necessary redundancy of the means of grace are required.  This is not because the means are ends in themselves.  They remain God’s means.  They are his ways in which God draws near and speaks to us revealing his love and guiding us in the journey with Him.

A good place to start with helpful and necessary redundancy is between an appreciation of Thanksgiving and the glory of Christmas.  Try thirty days of verbally articulating thanks and praise (affirmation) to those to whom you are close.   Watch how it spills over into your spiritual life.  You will discover its salutary impact on all your relationships.  You will also discover how God will use your thanks and praise to draw you even closer to Him throughout this special holiday season.  Thanks and praise be to God for the possibilities of helpful and necessary redundancies!

SALVATION FROM, TO, AND FOR

Why do so many Christians mistake the start of the race with the finish line?  It’s what I call bus stop religion and it’s not enough.  What I mean is that too many Christians’ orientation to the Christian life is “Get Saved. Go to Heaven.”  Salvation is a kind of fire insurance.  Take out the policy and hope for the best.  In other words, buy the ticket to heaven and just wait for the glory bus.  Not sadly, but happily there’s so much more.  Our salvation is much bigger.  It’s a much more glorious reality.

To start with, salvation only from sin is magnificent, but it is not enough.  It’s like being satisfied with only a third of a loaf.  God’s plan is a full salvation.  We are saved not only from, but also saved to, and saved for.  It’s straight forward and easy to grasp.  We are from somewhere, going to somewhere, and for a purpose.  Where we’ve gone from is a life of sin, estrangement, and alienation from God.  We’ve gone on to redemption by God, and reconciliation with God.  It’s then possible to go on to restoration to God’s likeness, purity of heart, holiness.  At least that’s the gospel plan of a full salvation.  Sin separates us from God and there is nothing we can do about it.  It is in our nature. Our Father God does not desire to leave us to our own devices in the mess which our sin occasions.  He saves us FROM our sin.  His redemptive act through the death and resurrection of Jesus His Son paid the penalty for our sin and established a new relationship for us with Him.  Accept it.  Believe it.  Receive it as a free gift of grace.  It can't be earned. By God’s grace through our faith in him, we are redeemed through the blood sacrifice of Christ on the cross and our relationship with God is reconciled. It is a new beginning making it possible for us to continue to grow in the grace.   By God’s grace through our faith we are being saved (restored) TO his likeness in holiness and righteousness.  He saves us not only for our own good, but FOR a purpose.  The purpose is found in the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:36-40) and Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20).  So a full salvation is from, to and for.

Sadly, so many Christians are only oriented to a partial salvation.  Some embrace only the first part, saved from sin.  Their idea of the gospel is limited to “get saved, go to heaven.”  They accept Christ as savior and it’s “one and done.”  What God intends as a commencement they understand to be the finish line.  It’s like buying all the right clothes and equipment to climb a mountain, getting completely outfitted, getting to where the path starts and then sitting down on a bench never to begin the journey.  Or it is like buying a ticket for a bus trip from coast to coast and never getting on the bus.  They are saved from, but miss out on the fullness of God’s salvation.

Still others begin to climb the mountain or get on the bus to enjoy the journey personally with hope of a positive life experience.  Along the way they grow, mature, learn a great deal, have great fellowship with others and with God.  The whole journey is wholesome, exciting, and beneficial.  It means encountering challenges, being tempted to get off the path or be diverted along the way, but their obedient faith and perseverance makes it possible for them to experience mountain tops of holiness, greater intimacy with God, and real joy in the life.  They are saved to greater things God intends for them, but live a life which might be understood as a kind of holy narcissism.  This is because they think their salvation (restoration to holiness and its fruit) is for their sole benefit. 

Dean Hinson in an article published this month in Word & Deed (Nov. , 2014)

makes it clear that our restoration and experience of God’s fullness (holiness), our full salvation, is for a purpose.  He puts it this way.  “What is important is ‘faith expressing itself in love.’ (Galatians 5:6) When the Holy Spirit controls our lives (and desires) and these fruits are being produced, we will feed the hungry, give the thirsty a drink, invite the stranger into our home, clothe the naked, visit the sick and those in prison.  Jesus will say to us, “I tell you the truth when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me.’ ”  

(Matthew 25:40). 

Salvation is from sin (disobedience, iniquity, trespasses, transgression, etc.), to Christ-likeness (holiness), and beyond for the purpose of obedient faith expressed in love to God and others in service.  Thanks be to God.  God's full salvation is by His grace.  It is always more than enough.