Sign Language

 The other day I was biking through my neighborhood and noticed a number of signs people had in their front yards highlighting statements that proclaimed the essential things they believed in. Most signs had a clear political message. Nothing wrong with that – especially during these weeks leading up to a major national election. 

As I continued my bike ride, however, I kept thinking to myself if I were to post such a sign, what messages it would contain. I certainly agreed with many of the statements on the signs I had seen, but they also did not capture all the essential truths I had committed myself to as a Christ Follower and Steward of God. So, completing my ride and spending a few minutes in my office with Microsoft Word, this is what I came up with:

As I contemplated what people might think about seeing such a sign in my yard, I also considered adding a statement at the bottom that might say: So who in the world am I supposed to vote for???

All of this has made me reflect on the story in Matthew Chapter 22 when the Pharisees tried to get Jesus to proclaim his political allegiance and trap him into a no-win confrontation. “Teacher,” they said, “what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”  If he said “Yes,” then it would be an admission of support for the pagan state of Rome with its incredibly decadent emperor, Tiberius Caesar, as well as a slap in the face of Jewish temple leaders, the self-proclaimed guardians of the God-fearing Jewish faith. But if he said “No,” it might endear him to the priests and surrounding crowds but could very likely put him in mortal danger of reprisal by Roman authorities.

Maybe it’s because of this current season of election fervor in America, but never before have I seen the context of Matthew 22 in such a political light. It was as if Jesus was being pressured by two tremendously powerful and influential political parties. On one hand, the Roman state represented big government, big taxes, social services that were intended to provide equality for all ethic groups (sort of,) and an “open-minded” morality that did not condemn anyone’s sexual preferences. On the other hand, the formalized Jewish religion of the day, guided by the temple high priests, represented local government with freedom and liberty for the Jewish people (at least from Rome,) clear mandated moral principles supposedly based on the God-given Torah, and law and order imposed by temple guards built on long-standing Jewish traditions (like stoning someone caught in the act of adultery.) 

See any parallels to some political viewpoints we have today?

With this new contextual insight, it is all the more remarkable how Jesus answered this trick question. He said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” He sided with neither of the political party choices being presented to him but instead marked a “third way” alternative that set a completely different course based on spiritual insight that seemed to have escaped everyone else. In other words, Jesus did not succumb to a simple binary political choice. He drew his perspective instead from his identity as God’s Son and the ultimate “Citizen of Heaven” (Philippians 3:20) where knowledge and understanding flowed directly from God’s Truth, not man’s biased perspective of reality. In essence, he said to give respect to the governmental authorities that are currently in place regardless of their righteousness. Even Tiberius Cesar, as personally immoral as he might be, presided over a state that had to be credited for a significant measure of social structure and stability. But simultaneous, do not let that respect eclipse a man's obligation to acknowledge and revere his Creator or the divine laws and values He has given mankind. What an amazing synthesis of understanding leading to a clear "third way" of behavior totally beyond the capacity of either political party of the day to contemplate.

So back to my yard sign. Even though I have not actually created and staked such a sign in my front lawn—yet, it does challenge me to think carefully about the binary choices I am being offered this election season. More importantly, it makes me wonder how my “heavenly citizenship” is  guiding me to determine what set of essentials I should be embracing, regardless of whether or not they fit neatly within one or the other of today’s popular political platforms.  Moreover, in the spirit of Jesus’s remarkable reply to the taxation question, what “third way” alternatives does God want me to champion and promote today in the same way his followers championed and promoted his teachings creating the greatest and most powerful movement in human history—totally superseding both Rome and the Jewish temple culture?

I’m not exactly sure what the right answers are to all these questions. But just maybe, I should start with a yard sign.

By the way—what’s on your sign?

Stewarding the End of Christendom . . . Again

 (Note: This is a copy of a blog originally written for the Christian Leadership Alliance "Higher Thinking" blog site. It and other blogs I've written for that site can be found at https://christianleadershipalliance.org/blog/ -- JL)

Christendom, as my mission history textbook explains, was a part of history and a part of the world where nations pushed their political objectives simultaneously with the goal of Christian religious domination. Peaking during the 15^th to 17^th centuries when European colonial powers were advancing their cause around the world, the Christendom era developed a dubious reputation of “percolating a wicked brew of ‘gold, glory, and the gospel.’”[1]

Fortunately, history records the official end of that era occurred three hundred years ago, but I can’t help wondering if we have not seen the rise of a new type of contemporary Christendom with the politically charged partisanship that has marked the last few years in our country. It would be easy to blame the media for labeling evangelical Christians as a biased voting bloc, creating the false assumption that all evangelicals think and behave similarly. The reality is, however, that we Christians have far too often done little to demonstrate that our biblical values demand that we be identified independently from the politics of nationalistic patriotism.

In fact, we actually tend to embrace this identification ourselves when we ring our hands with every new poll and statistic that signals the decline of religious influence in society, the rise of the Nones (those with no religious affiliation), and the acceleration of church closures. Couple all that with the impact of COVID-19 that leads many to question whether regular church attendance will ever recover from its online alternatives, and is it any wonder that many express a corporate depression about the future of Christianity in our country?

Malcolm Muggeridge

I would like to propose, however, that much of this bad news should be associated with the decline of contemporary Christendom, not with Christianity itself. The late Malcolm Muggeridge brilliantly made this delineation in 1972 during a series of lectures presented at the University of Waterloo in Ontario,
Canada.  “Previous civilizations have been overthrown from without by the incursion of barbarian hordes,” he claimed. “Christendom has dreamed up its own dissolution in the minds of its own intellectual elite . . . The whole social structure is now tumbling down, dethroning its God, undermining all its certainties.  Christendom is the institutional edifice on which Western civilization rests. It’s dying, but it’s not Christianity.”[2]

So, as God’s agents living today in the middle of whirlpools of political debate, racial tension, and pandemic trauma, how are we to steward this moment of Christendom’s new decline? Here are three suggestions:

       First, remember that we are God’s stewards, not stewards of Christendom. Our mandate is to cultivate what belongs to our Master—His Gospel, His Truth, His people, His image embedded in us, and even His creation. Let us not confuse those things with the promotion of a Christ-centered state, as wonderful as some think that might be.

      Second, if indeed we are seeing historical Christian institutions (churches, colleges, missions, etc.) falling in the flames of cultural upheaval, let us not lose heart, but instead focus on rebuilding communities that God has truly "refined by fire" that are prepared to show the world what faith, hope, and love really look like.

      Third, instead of always embracing whatever political platform has the most bullet points we can agree with, let us clearly define what a biblical platform of social values should be regardless of political bias and begin to articulate them with unity and power. Just maybe, we might begin influencing the traditional ideology on both sides of the political aisle.

Here is Muggeridge again with a great final exhortation:

We should rejoice when empires fall to pieces, when all is confusion and conflict. For it is precisely when every earthly hope has been explored and found wanting, when every possibility of help from earthly sources has been sought and is not forthcoming . . .  when in the shivering cold the last stick has been thrown on the fire and . . . every glimmer of light has finally flickered out, it’s then that Christ’s hand reaches out sure and firm. Then Christ’s words bring their inexpressible comfort, then His light shines brightest, abolishing the darkness forever.[3]

Christendom may rise and fall. To be a faithful steward of Christ’s light is our responsibility, regardless.

---

[1]S. Moreau, G. Corwin, G. B. McGee, Introducing World Missions: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey, Second Edition, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 110.

[2] Shayne Looper, Shayne Looper: The Prophet of the Fall of Christendom, https://www.timesreporter.com/article/20140130/NEWS/140139920/10704/OPINION

[3] https://worldandeverything.org/2020/10/les-sillars-the-end-of-christendom/

The Good Lament

Of all the days of Holy Week—between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday—Good Friday (today) is the darkest. So why is it called “Good?” According to etymologists, it comes from the obsolete sense of using that word to mean “pious” or “holy,” such as calling the Holy Bible, the “Good Book.”

But the actual events of that day, experienced by Christ and his followers were anything but good. The horrific sequence of Jesus’ betrayal, fake trial, mocking, torture, and crucifixion, so graphically portrayed in Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of Christ, help us today get a glimpse of just how opposite of “good” that day was.

The moment of that Friday, two thousand years ago that interests me, however, is when it was all over—when Jesus was still hanging on the cross, now just a dead human corpse and the farthest possible thing from the conquering king the crowds of Palm Sunday had imagined. Scripture doesn’t dwell very much on that moment. Matthew and Mark simply let us know that there were some women still watching from afar. John moves right on to assure readers all he had recorded up to that point was true. Only Luke gives us a hint about the emotion felt by some of the people at the crucifixion event: all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts (Lk 23:48.) My study Bible notes tell me that’s another way of saying they were experiencing anguish and grief.

It is anguish and grief that are exactly what interest me this particular Good Friday. As I write this, (on April 10, 2020) the United States is just about to reach a peak death rate statistic thanks to the devastating impact of the coronavirus. Personally, I don’t have the capacity to grasp the anguish of some 2000 families in my country who this very day will experience the loss of a loved one—let alone the other 3000 who will experience the same thing around the world. Then there is the grief associated with loss of jobs, diminished savings accounts, missed graduation experiences, or of depressing isolation. How are we to grapple with the immensity of such incredible global pandemic impact such as this?

One of the things that strikes me about the events of Holy Week, is that for some reason, God decided that the resurrection should not occur until the Sunday after Good Friday. How come? Why not the very next morning? What was the point of having to go through all of Saturday and Saturday night carrying all that anguish, grief, and hopelessness when the whole point was to “conquer death” anyway?

I think the answer to that question has something to do with the importance of lament. This is a word that I have never really understood before. Of course, I’ve been aware that many of the Psalms are expressions of lament and that the Old Testament has the entire book of Lamentations. But why does the biblical account feature this aspect of lament so much and what does it have to say to us today?

Example of Kintsugi art piece

This past week, I heard an online discussion on the Veritas Forum (http://www.veritas.org/) that helped me learn for the first time why lament might be so important—why lament might actually be GOOD. During the forum, the well-known artist, Mako Fujimura used the Japanese art form called Kintsugi to illustrate how people might need to process what we are currently experiencing with COVID19. Kintsugi is the art form of taking a broken piece of pottery and reassembling it using gold or silver lacquer in the cracks to cement the pieces back together. The result is actually something that can be more beautiful and valuable than the original unbroken piece. But the key, says Mako, is to differentiate between simply fixing something as opposed to crafting and transforming it with new beauty and purpose. In the Kintsugi tradition, in order to make something new that is truly a new work of art, you literally must hold on to the broken pieces for a significant amount of time to study them and get to know their shapes well before proceeding. Making the link with real life, Mako went on to suggest that is exactly what lament is—a period of time to embrace and fully grasp the brokenness that exists.

I have to admit this idea is very foreign to me. I’m a fixer. I like to repair things in the fastest and most efficient way possible. Just ask my wife about the countless times in our 43 years of marriage when she shared a hurt or an emotional wound and instead of identifying with her and trying to feel her pain, all I wanted to do was fix the situation as quickly as possible. That’s why the idea of taking time for lament is not natural for me. Nor do I think it is natural for our modern society in general. Most of what I hear in response to this pandemic (besides who to blame for it) is how to “fix” things as quickly as possible so as to get back to “normal” again.

However, just like at the first Good Friday, there may not ever again be a “normal” the same way we thought there should be. And maybe the “new normal” that will result is going to force a totally new way of thinking about ourselves and our world in order to carry on.

It’s easy for us with our historical hindsight to quickly pass over the anguish, grief, and lament that Jesus’ followers experienced during the hours that immediately followed the crucifixion. We love to shout out that phrase, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!” because we love to focus on the glorious image of Easter morning with the empty tomb and the victory over death it represents. After all, why wallow in despair and darkness when we know the joy and brightness of the “end of the story?”

But is it possible that experiencing a season of true lament is actually needed in order to more fully appreciate and embrace whatever “new normal” the future may hold? Just like the longer a Kintsugi artist holds the broken pieces of his pottery, the more beautiful he or she will be able to transform it into new work of art, so should we fully grasp the brokenness of this coronavirus moment in order to consider how we could emerge more sensitive, caring, and more fully human than ever before.

So, if there is anything that the story of Good Friday has to say to us on this particular April 10, 2020, it’s that lament can be GOOD after all!

Palm Sunday, Crowns, and the Coronavirus

Today, on this Palm Sunday, I have been asking myself this question: Why did Jesus plan and go through the triumphal entry experience commemorated by this day? Was it because he wanted people to have an opportunity in recognizing him for who he really was – the Messiah, the King, their Lord? Or was it because he wanted to do something that would finally tip the scales with the religious authorities and trigger the ultimate events of Holy Week? 

Perhaps these are both correct. But, might there be an even deeper significance to this day that God wanted to use in order to contrast two very different perspectives that resulted from Palm Sunday versus Easter Sunday?

Consider the following:

• ·         The people welcoming Jesus on Palm Sunday were doing so because they saw him as the Messiah—a savior and a solution to their political bondage and frustrations.  They were ready to offer him a crown of a ruler in the way they understood the concept of kingdom. It was to be a kingdom where they (as common people, Jewish citizens, etc.) had everything to gain and nothing to lose. In a sense, they wanted to offer Jesus a crown while keeping the crowns of their own private, personal kingdoms. No wonder they were excited: It would have been all gain with no pain!
• ·         In contrast, God unfolds his Eternal plan of salvation through circumstances very different from those expectations. His Son is betrayed, maligned, rejected, and ultimately crucified. The sign nailed on the cross "King of the Jews" is put there not in honor, but in derision. Instead of the type of crown the people were ready to give Jesus on Palm Sunday, he now wears a crown of thorns--a symbol of the price paid for experiencing the horrific rejection of both mankind and also, for a time, of God the Father.
• ·         On Easter Sunday, however, exactly one week later, Jesus rises from dead as the true King, not only of the Jews, but King of Kings. In stark contrast to the hope and expectations people had a week before, now to acknowledge his Kingship, as well as his being Messiah and Savior, there is a cost involved. Another way to say it is in order to crown Jesus with the crown he deserves as King of Kings, one must first experience the costly acknowledgement of personal sin, repent of that sin, and humbly accept the forgiveness, redemption, and restitution he offers. In other words, one does indeed have much to gain, but only first by experiencing the pain of losing his or her own personal crown.
• ·         Therefore, a Palm Sunday "Messiah" seems to represent a two-kingdom solution to what was a temporary, local dilemma, whereas Easter Sunday’s "King of Kings" represents a one-kingdom solution to mankind's ultimate dilemma of sin and eternal salvation.

Relating this to the Coronavirus

 

Wikipedia offers this following definition: The name coronavirus is derived from the Latin corona, meaning "crown" or "halo.” This is due to the crown-type appearance of the virus when viewed under an electron microscope.   

It is interesting that in the midst of this current pandemic, the coronavirus has indeed taken on the symbolic crown of a "king" that has totally dominated the world and ruthlessly exerted its power of life and death over all mankind. As we witness how most people view these events, it seems evident that most would simply like this situation to go away quickly so that all can go back to normal again. It’s easy to see how people don't like how the coronavirus has exerted a one-kingdom domination forcing them to give up their own personal "crowns" and kingdoms of comfort and self-reliance in order to be subservient to laws of isolation, containment, and survival.

The displeasure of being de-throwned from their personal kingdoms is further illustrated by the popular  tendency to 1) try to find who to blame (Chinese, Trump, federal government incompetence, etc.) and 2) wanting to get back to "normal" as quickly as possible. All of this is evidence of desperately wanting to maintain a two-kingdom world.  In other words, God or the coronavirus can do whatever they like, as long as it doesn't overly impact my own personal kingdom.

In 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 God says to his people: When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, IF my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Is it possible God has sent this world-wide plague in the context of 2 Chronicles 7? Is it possible He wants to get the attention of people who are so caught up in their two-kingdom worlds that they can't possibly conceive of the fact that God created the universe to run as a one-kingdom system? Like C.S. Lewis says in his book, The Problem of Pain, is it possible God is using the pain of this coronavirus pandemic as his “megaphone to a deaf world?”

I have to admit that during most Palm Sundays, I have focused primarily on the joyful image of Jesus riding on a donkey, prophetically portrayed as our future King and highlighted by children marching into church waving palm branches and singing “hosanna” songs.  I have not ever thought about it as a possible object lesson God might have planned to contrast my preferred gain-with-no-pain, two-kingdom world with his gain-through-personal-repentance, one-kingdom world of Easter Sunday.

And since this particular Palm Sunday occurs smack in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, what additional lesson does God want me to learn from the way He could be using the coronavirus as a personal call back to a 2 Chronicles 7 response of humility, prayer, and confession?  

I guess I definitely have no excuse about having enough time to think about answers to these questions!