I read an article today that I believe is worth passing along.
It is about friendship and the way it has changed.
William Deresiewicz writes, “The idea of friendship in ancient times could not have been more different. Achilles and Patroclus, David and Jonathan, Virgil's Nisus and Euryalus: Far from being ordinary and universal, friendship, for the ancients, was rare, precious, and hard-won.”
At one point, Deresiewicz traces part of the problem to the rise of Christianity.I understand his argument, though I think he is a bit off.Rather than the rise of Christianity being the issue, I am more inclined to think that the problem is that many Christians have missed the biblical emphasis on good friendships.
Scripture sees friendship as a gift from God.David could even exclaim that he found all his delight in other people (Psalm 16:3).
While I think Deresiewicz is slightly off at times, I think his article was spot on in its purpose.Take the time to read it.Take some time to reflect on it.
It just might make you rethink some things in your life.I know that it had that effect on me.
The article is found here.If you start it, I think you will finish it.
"Mother, Zeus may have done all this for me,
But how can I rejoice? My friend is dead,
Patroclus, my dearest friend of all. I loved him...
During the earlier part of this week I had a stomach bug.In other words, I got sick and threw up a lot.
At about 10pm on Sunday I was feeling pretty queasy and I suspected that I may have caught the same bug that my visiting family had experienced a few days earlier.By midnight I was sitting next to the toilet making the observation that the stomach does not quickly digest carrots.
After the first visit to the bathroom, as I was lying in bed trying to figure out if it was easier to sleep curled up or on my back, I started thinking.And, oh man, I was doing some thinking.
I thought about how very violent the act of throwing up is.It’s terrible.It’s disgusting, uncomfortable, unsightly, and exhausting.And you can hardly control it.It will turn your skin white and can make you break out in a sweat.
So then I got to wondering about why we vomit.I figured that in the case of a stomach bug, the answer had to do with my body’s health.I think there was something bad in me that my body was trying to get out.That was, as best as I could tell, the medical explanation.However, I figured that, at best, this was a secondary reason.
The primary reason must be related to Christ.
If we are made in the image of God, and I think we are, then I think it is legitimate to see aspects of who we are as pointers to who God is.
Even before Jesus became a man, Scripture sometimes talked about God in ways that made Him sound kind of humanesque.I used to think of these instances in Scripture as anthropomorphisms.So, I thought that Scripture would reference the hand of the Lord doing this…, or His eyes searching…, or the face of the Lord… because we really do not have a better way of describing God.Because He is so incomprehensible we are left to comparing him to us and using the same terminology that we use for ourselves in our discussions about him.But I am now more inclined to think that such thinking is backwards.
I think the reason we have eyes is because it reveals something to us about the way that the Lord sees.
I think that the reason that we speak with a mouth is because it reflects the way that the Lord speaks.
The reason we have two hands is because two-handedness communicates something about the Lord.
The reason that we throw up is because the action reveals something about our God.
As I settled on the conclusion that it felt better to try to sleep curled up, I remembered that Jesus had once warned a church that He would vomit them out of His body.
So there I had it.The reason we vomit is because it teaches us something about how Jesus reacts to a group of apathetic people who profess His name but do not reflect it in their actions.
Effective and violent expulsion of that which is detrimental and harmful from the body.
I need to be more like Christ.
Note: I think the part of the evangelical community that comes up with cheesy Christian catchphrases has a real opportunity to gain something if more people realize the connection between vomit and Jesus.Think about it…
“Got a Problem?Throw it up to the Lord.”
“Would you rather be thrown up or taken up to the throne? – Revelation 3:16, 21”
“W.W.J.V.”
Yeah, I’m not going to waste time thinking about any others.
"Here I am and I’ll take my time. Here I am and I’ll wait in line always. Always." Coldplay in "Parachutes"
I think I have recognized another longing that points us towards Christ and His redemption. It is the longing to make the most of the time given with someone. It is the longing to not be separated from those that we care about.
Have you ever been in a situation where you realize you only have a little bit of time left with a person? I think we find ourselves in that situation often. A good friend of mine is going to the far side of the world for a few years. He is here in Littleton for just a couple more days.
I have noticed that there is a strong desire to make certain that I enjoy every moment that I have left with him before he leaves. I do not want any moment to be stressed, forced, or taxing. I want each moment to be meaningful, relaxed, but significant. I even find myself running the risk of ruining the time I do have to hang out with him by worrying about how to maximize it.
The impulse to make the most of every moment is fueled by a recognition that time is short. I can say “carpe diem” but I recognize the power of that phrase, meaning “seize the day,” if I know that I only have a few days left to live.
I can say that I believe we ought to enjoy relationships and the opportunity for fellowship and community, but do I really interact with others like it is a something special? Separation in a relationship is a sad thing. The reason for such separation can relate to geography, busyness of a schedule, changes in affection, or death. If such a separation seems imminent, there can almost be a sense of desperation to find opportunities to enjoy life together before the separation occurs. That is why staff stay up late at the end of summer camp. It is why people will take off from work to see a terminally ill friend or family member. It is why people throw going away parties.
The shortness of time is frustrating. It seems there is never enough time when we want it.
I wish we had more time.
But here is the thing: we will. We were made for eternity.
The dislike I have for separation is because I am made for community and companionship. The dislike I have for a time that is too short is because I am made for a time that does not end.
For now, we live in a fallen world. It is a world in which you never have enough time when you want it. It is a time when we say goodbyes. It is a time where glory is only glimpsed.
But there is a coming age when goodbyes and separation will be no more. Glory will be revealed.
The effects of man’s rebellion will finally be undone. The whole created order will be redeemed and made new. The undoing has already begun, and it continues to be undone by the Gospel.
Christ is redeeming the world and He is doing it through the proclamation of His Kingdom. We must go and we must share the story of His good news.
Redemption changes everything. My friend is going away soon. The time I have to hang out with him is slipping away. But, I have a hope. It is a hope found in Christ (I cannot find any hope outside of Him). And that hope is in the promise that we shall join Him with His saints in a New Creation. It is a New Creation in which time is unending and every moment is meaningful, relaxing, and significant.
“As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.” Psalm 16:4
“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” Ephesians 5:15-16
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly”
“It sounds ridiculous.”That is what a Christian brother told me once when I sought to remind him of God’s promises about glory.He had come from the funeral of a girl he had loved.I tried to remind him that, while the loss was terrible, resurrection and glory in Christ is the great Christian hope.He said, “Yeah, but it sounds ridiculous.”In that moment he did not disbelieve the truth, rather he stated what I had often thought but had been afraid to state myself.
Is there anyone that can hear the words of Scripture and not at some point think that such hopes and promises are so far removed from our experience that they must be an absurdity?
I have never seen a resurrected body.I have never seen a man turn water into wine.I have never seen a few loaves and fishes feed a multitude.I have never seen a man walk on water or pass through walls or fly through the air.I have never seen anyone take Jesus up on His promise that if we “say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ … it will move” (Matthew 17:20).Shoot, later in Matthew, Jesus even said that we could throw a mountain into the sea.I have not seen that done either.
I believe it, but it sounds ridiculous.
Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.”Christ has not only made it possible to have life, but He has made it possible for us to have abundant life.
When we rebelled against God, we rebelled against the one from which all life, truth, beauty, and goodness flow.We rebelled against the one who actually is supreme life, truth, beauty and goodness.
For Christ to redeem us and offer us life once again is undeserved love and grace as it is.But He has gone beyond that.He has made it possible for us to have life abundantly.
It is easy for me to think of abundance as excess and waste.For whatever reason, the word “abundance” tends to carry a negative connotation for me.So I must make myself realize that there is nothing negative about what the Lord is promising in John 10:10.
I must realize that you cannot have God-given life in excess.You cannot have God-given life to a point that you waste it.So, the meaning of “abundance” carries something different, and something positive, here.
Christ brings us life by removing sin and death, but He then goes beyond that.Life without sin sounds splendid and I can hardly comprehend what that would be like.To say that we can also have an abundance of life is to push beyond what my mind can conceive.
In redemption, in grace, in offering the abundant life, God is not simply trying to get me back to the paradise that we call Eden.He is taking me to an even greater paradise called the New Jerusalem.
He is not seeking to restore me into the image of Adam, but rather into the image of the second Adam, who is actually the One in whose image the first Adam was made.
He is not trying to get me back to a place where the river flows from the garden, but rather to a place where the river flows from the throne of God (Gen. 2:10; Rev. 22:1).
He is not trying to get me back to a place where, next to the tree of life, there stands a tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:9).Rather, He is taking me to the place where, with the tree of life, there is a tree with leaves for the healing of the nations (Rev. 22:2).
He is not trying to get me back to a magical land where there is gold and bdellium and onyx (Gen. 2:12).Rather, He is taking us to a magical city of “pure gold, clear as glass” that is “adorned with every kind of jewel” (Rev. 21:18-19).
We could keep going, but the point is made.Christ brings life and He brings abundant life.
And here is the part that is really difficult to get my mind around: it starts now.Christ is present now and His Kingdom is going forward now.
A few people have told me that I talk about glory a lot.One person told me that “the New Creation” is my buzz word.Maybe I do talk about it a lot.Perhaps I did catch those 190 middle-school campers off-guard when I told them to savor their dessert because it was a foretaste of glory.Maybe it is odd for me to pray that the nervous person sitting next to me will recognize that the rush of the zip line that they are about to experience is just a small part of the goodness that is to be had by life in Christ.
Maybe I talk about it a lot, but I am certain that I do not talk about it nearly enough.
None of us do.And I know why.
Because it sounds ridiculous.But maybe, and I don’t really even mean maybe, the phrase “too good to be true” is only meaningful in a fallen world.
“That powerless body shall be raised in power.That was a fine idea of Martin Luther, which he borrowed from Anselm, that the saints shall be so strong when they are risen from the dead, that if they chose they could shake the world; they could pull up islands by their roots, or hurl mountains into the air… I think if we do not go the length of the poets, we have every reason to believe that the power of the risen body will be utterly inconceivable.These, however, are but guesses at the truth; this great mystery is yet beyond us.I believe that when I shall enter upon my new body, I shall be able to fly from one spot to another, like a thought, as swiftly as I will; I shall be here and there, swift as the rays of light.From strength to strength, my spirit shall be able to leap onward to obey the behests of God; upborne with wings of ether, it shall flash its way across the shoreless sea, and see the glory of God in all his works, and yet ever behold his face.For the eye shall then be strong enough to pierce through leagues of distance, and the memory shall never fail.The heart shall be able to love to a fiery degree, and the head to comprehend right thoroughly”
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
Jesus came with a specific purpose and He spoke often about His mission. He said, “I came that they may have life.”
Christ came and He did not come just to hang out with us. He did not come just to learn what it is like to be a human. He did not come just to show us how to be well-behaved individuals. He did not come just so he could look at us in our struggles and say, “Yeah, I feel you man.”
He came to make something a possibility that was not previously available. His coming made life an option for a people who were made to live life. Apart from the coming of Christ human existence had been, and is currently, marked by the effects of death and decay. But, in the coming of Christ, life came to man.
Note that Christ said “that they may.” The life that Christ has brought is made available to all. It is available to all, but not experienced by all. Not everyone has chosen to take and experience the life that Christ has offered. Many have not even heard of the offer.
So, the question becomes, what am I doing to make sure that people know that Christ has come that they may have life? Do my daily actions reflect a conviction that Christ has come in order that people may experience life?
“Life is for living, we all know.” Coldplay
“For in the theatres, dens of iniquity though they be, if a man is fond of a particular actor, and enjoys his art as a great or even as the very greatest good, he is fond of all who join with him in admiration of his favorite, not for their own sakes, but for the sake of him whom they admire in common; and the more fervent he is in his admiration, the more he works in every way he can to secure new admirers for him, and the more anxious he becomes to show him to others; and if he find any one comparatively indifferent, he does all he can to excite his interest by urging his favorite’s merits: if, however, he meet with any one who opposes him, he is exceedingly displeased by such a man’s contempt of his favorite, and strives in every way he can to remove it. Now, if this be so, what does it become us to do who live in the fellowship of the love of God, the enjoyment of whom is true happiness of life, to whom all who love Him owe both their own existence and the love they bear Him.” - Augustine in On Christian Doctrine
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
There are a great many stories and legends about noble kings and commanders.Stories of men who displayed courage, heroism, and sacrifice as they laid down their lives alongside their troops.Prince Jonathan felt the cool merciless Philistine blade.King Leonidas is dead.Prince Hector’s body was dragged behind the chariot of Achilles.
There are also a number of stories of dying gods.Marduk has killed Tiamat.Osiris has died.The tears of creation could not resurrect Balder.
Jesus beats them all.The heroism, courage, tragedy, and awe found in those stories point to the God who would come and die in order to redeem.As G.K. Chesterton summed it up in The Everlasting Man, “No mysterious monarch, hidden in his starry pavilion at the base of the cosmic campaign, is in the least like that celestial chivalry of the Captain who carries his five wounds in the front of battle.”
Jesus said, “I came.”Whoa.Let that hit you.
If the significance of those two words is not hitting you, then take it apart.Let it divide asunder your joints and marrow word by word.
“I”- that is Jesus.The Christ.The Savior of the world.That “I” represents the greatest of men.That “I” represents the second person of the triune Godhead.
He is fully God (Colossians 2:9).
He is one with, yet distinct from, the other persons of the Godhead (Psalm 2:7; John 10:30; 14:7; 17:11, 22).
He was not made, rather, by Him all things were made (John 1:3).
“came” – He left the glories of heaven to come to a world containing the people who had rejected His offer of life, peace, harmony, and dominion over the created order.He came with a purpose.He came to bring redemption to His creation.
As St. Athanasius noted in his De Incarnatione, “It was our sorry case that caused the Word to come down, our transgressions that called out His love for us, so that He made haste to help us and to appear among us.”
Jesus came.
“And the Word became flesh.” (John 1:14)
“We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and
also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth.” (John 1:45)
“Though he was in the form of God, [he] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” (Philippians 2:6-7)
“Who will take pity on me and give me drink from this stream which with its intoxication brings sobriety?” – Paulinus of Nola in Poem 27
Last night I recorded a Dave Matthews Band show that came on tv.I am watching it now.There is so much talent and artistic ability on display before me.The sights, sounds, and energy are delighting my senses.As I listen the music refuses to be simply analyzed.It insists on piercing through my mind to my soul. It is as though I cannot keep myself from marveling as I take it in anymore than I can will my heart to stop beating.
It would seem that the thousands of jumping and screaming and arm-waving people who were at the show would agree with me.
Carter Beauford has not stopped smiling.
There are some musicians who possess such an amazing talent and ability to create things of beauty.A couple really strike home with me.Dave Matthews Band is there.Coldplay hits me again and again.Go get in a car and sit under the stars, look up, and listen to the last three minutes of Coldplay’s “Death and all His Friends.”It might change your life.Or try the Parachutes album next time you take a drive through the country on a cool fall day.Music can capture you.
As the program plays, the lyrics of the songs I hear are not intended to be Christ-exalting (though they do offer amazing commentary on man’s longings and desires).However, while the music is not directed upwards towards Christ, it clearly flows downward from Him.Skill, creativity, and beauty all flow from Christ.The reason I just had a rush of adrenaline when “Ants Marching” began is because God has created within me a desire for beauty and a recognition of that which is good.As the man with the dreads jabs the bow across the fiddle strings and jumps up and down I want to jump with him.It is energizing to experience such an awesome gift.Even those who do not recognize it to be a gift from God recognize it as something that stirs up a sense of wonder.
When I watch I really do experience some awe.It is awesome.
Beauty testifies to its own goodness.That goodness and that beauty point us to the One who is everything that is true.
“O God, the good and the beautiful, in whom and through whom all those things are good and beautiful which are good and beautiful.”
Hanging up in the main meeting room of Camp Willow Run is a summer theme banner. The banner is black with flat gold text. On the left side it says “Live the Life.” On the right side is a paint-brushed cross. In the middle is the theme verse from Jesus found in John 10:10. “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
Choosing the summer theme is one of my responsibilities and the process was not as easy as I had hoped. I wanted the theme to be significant in meaning, short in its expression, and without tawdriness. I knew that I wanted the theme to point to Christ and His Gospel.
As a follower of Christ, I believe that true life, meaning, and significance is found in Jesus. As a believer in the Word, I see that things in the world are not the way that they are supposed to be, but that Christ has brought, is bringing, and will bring redemption. I also believe that everything that is good, and everything that is true, and everything that is beautiful finds its source in the One that is the Good, and the True, and the Beautiful.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” - James 1:17
“I am the way, the truth, and the life.” – John 14:6
“In him we live and move and have our being.” – Acts 17:28
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
If it is understood that rejection of Christ is rejection of goodness, truth, and beauty. And if it is understood that rejection of Christ is rejection of life. And if it is understood that Christ offers to redeem the person that repents of that rejection, then the phrase “Live the Life” is a call to find redemption. It is a call to find, know, and live in Jesus. It is a call to live the life that is offered in Christ.
“Live the Life” is about grace, mercy, and forgiveness. It is about joy and happiness. It is about pleasure and daily delight. It is about Christ.
St. Augustine’s conversion was preceded by years of struggle and searching. The world’s philosophies could not bring him to faith. One day, while in a garden, he picked up the word of God, read it, and placed his faith in Christ. He went on to become, arguably, the most influential theologian since the apostles. It was the power of the Word that brought him to faith. What took him to the Word? He wrote in Book Eight of the Confessions, “And suddenly I heard a voice from some nearby house, a boy’s voice or a girl’s voice, I do not know: but it was a sort of sing-song, repeated again and again, ‘Take and read, take and read’” (F. J. Sheed's translation).
If this blog becomes anything to anyone I hope that it is like the words heard in the garden that day. Though they come across as the sing-song ramblings of a child, may they point to the Word, and thus, point you to Christ. Take and read, take and read.
