Why We Should Go to Church

Whenever I would think of this question, my mind would immediately go to the command of Hebrews 10:25, "Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is."  I imagined this as a stern command of the apostle, with a disparaging glance to the some who have forsaken this necessary practice.

But why was it necessary?  Must we attend a church in order to know God?  If that were true, God would be someone only available to us on Sunday mornings, and not throughout the week--something which is not only unscriptural but also anathema to most evangelicals.  But if God is available to us outside of church, why do we need to go?  Why the need to "assemble ourselves together"?  Some might say that it is because this is how God wants to be worshiped, by all of us together singing hymns or whatnot, but that simply isn't true.  In John 4:21-23, Jesus rejects both the Jews' worship in the temple of Jerusalem and the Samaritan's worship of God in their own temple.  He doesn't substitute these assemblies with a new one but says, "The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him."  If we are to be the true worshipers God desires, our worship of him must be in spirit and truth and extend beyond the confines of our congregational assemblies.

So why is our assembly so important?  It turns out that the passage of Hebrews I (mis)quoted earlier has the answer:

And let us consider how to stir one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

That's why we need to meet together.  We need encouragement and we need to encourage others.  That's it...and that raises some questions for me about our churches.  Are we really fulfilling this command when we go to church, or are our assemblies vain to this end?  Churches, Biblically speaking, do not exist as the entity for a Christian to serve, but as an entity to serve the Christian, a place where he or she can go to encourage others and be encouraged himself in the pursuit of love, good works, and nearness to God.  Do our churches really accomplish that, or have they become self-serving entities whose first goal is to increase their own numbers rather than to enrich the spiritual lives of their congregants?  If the latter is the case with any church we attend, scripturally, we should start looking for another one, as that church no longer helps us obey the command of Hebrews 10:24-25.

A Wedding in Cana

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.  Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.  When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine."  And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come."  His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."  Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.  Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim.  And he said to them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast." So they took it.  When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now."  This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

-John 2:1-11, ESV

By all accounts, this is the very first miracle Jesus did after his incarnation.  We acknowledge it often enough, but do we really ever stop to think about it.  Jesus's first miracle, the one which is said to have convinced his disciples and "manifested his glory" is supernaturally providing an enormous amount of alcohol to a party who's keg had run dry.

Read that again.  If you're like me and used to a Christianity that hates all forms of alcohol, this comes as a shock.  Most churches would only tolerate one consuming, perhaps, a single glass of wine in the privacy of their own homes.  Jesus brings somewhere between 120 and 180 gallons of wine to this party.  That's an average of 757 bottles of the stuff!  How many people where in attendance anyway?  I imagine it was less than 700!  This is incredible and revealing: we cringe at a glass of wine and Jesus "manifests his glory" by bringing enough of the stuff to drown everyone at the party--and do note that they had already drunk through whatever their host had originally provided.

Some have argued that the wine Jesus produced was purely non-alcoholic, non-fermented grape juice.  They point out that the Greek word used for wine here can be used for alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.  Since they find such a quantity of alcohol morally offensive, they conclude that Jesus certainly could not have made alcoholic wine: he must have made the non-fermented kind.  But we should be careful of this kind of thinking.  Remember the Pharisees and their precious Sabbath.  Jesus delights in smashing people's ideas of what is religiously pious, right, and proper...ideas which they frequently hold in higher esteem than they do him.

Consider the words of the master of the feast.  He was expecting lower-quality wine than what Jesus had provided because this was the usual strategy: start the party off with good wine, and then after the guests had  "drunk freely" bring out the lower quality wine.  Would this strategy work at all if the wine in question was non-alcoholic grape juice?  Absolutely not.  If the first wine was non-alcoholic, the guests would immediately notice the introduction of a lower-quality beverage.  But if the wine was alcoholic...well, people who have "drunk freely" of fermented wine would have their senses dulled a little and substituting the cheep stuff at that point would be something the couple could safely get away with.

So we are stuck with the conundrum of Jesus' "glorious" miracle and our self-righteous rules.  We would probably not have provided the wedding feast with more alcohol, and certainly not in such a staggering amount.  But that was the point, wasn't it?  The couple had run out of the wine they'd had the first time, risking scandal, disgrace and--according to some commentators--litigation.  Jesus provides them with better wine in such a staggering amount that they won't run out of it for weeks!  But our rules would have hampered us from being so generous, were we in his shoes, just as the rules of the Pharisees prevented them from seeing the good in healing people on the Sabbath day.

There are other striking things about this story.  Did you know this is the beginning of Jesus' ministry?  That's right.  Jesus begins his ministry not in a stadium filled with crowds of hungry souls at a Billy Graham-like revival, not at the temple, not with the Sermon on the Mount...Jesus begins his ministry by accepting an invitation to someone else's wedding.  It seems so strange.  Compare it to the grand sweeping claims of the beginning of the book of John.  John proclaims Jesus to be the Word, God himself in the flesh, come down to live among us.  What do we expect?  What would we have done?  Myself, I think I would have descended from the clouds in glory over the temple, surrounded by angels and told everybody who I was from the start.  That would get a lot of worshipers right there!

But Jesus isn't interested in worshipers to subscribe to his religion, he's interested in people who will love him with all his heart.  So he comes in the most unassuming way, just as Isaiah 42:3 says he would, so gently that he wouldn't break a bruised reed or snuff a faintly-burning wick.  He starts out in John 1:29 by arriving at someone else's revival.  Though John the Baptist makes several startling proclamations of who Jesus is, Jesus doesn't respond.  He doesn't step up and take the spotlight.  He doesn't preach any sermons.  He goes off into the desert, endures temptations, comes back and is joined by a handful of John's disciples.  Then, he takes them to a wedding.  I don't know about you, but this doesn't sound like the advent of the world's most important religious figure to me--the advent of the only figure who could rightfully claim to be God.  It just sounds like an ordinary guy going about the business of living life, gaining and loving friends.  This is surprising, but also encouraging.  If this is how Jesus begins his ministry, by just living life, then it means that the first steps in our ministries may very well be the same.  Maybe we don't need to pack up right away and live in an African village with only six hundred Bibles for company in order to serve God--maybe serving Jesus is something we can do in our daily lives, here, now: at something as simple as a friend's wedding.

It gets better.  The party runs out of wine, a potential social disaster, and Jesus steps in and intervenes.  He "manifests his glory" by doing so.  But why?  Thousands of people were dying that day.  Millions were sick.  Many more were lost and in need of a savior.  Yet Jesus doesn't leave the wedding to care to all of these needs.  I believe he, through the Spirit, did care for them, but he doesn't neglect the party either, where the lucky couple is in danger of nothing worse than social embarrassment.  Jesus cares for even that and rescues them from it.

If Jesus manifests his glory by caring for something as "trivial" in the grand scheme of things as wine at a wedding, how will he care for us?  How does he care for us?  If the wedding at Cana is any guide, then he cares for us even in the details, even if we don't ask him to, and even if it upsets the religious conventions of the day.

Religion is a Lie

That was the catch-phrase around a youth group I used to go to.  It may seem strange at first, to the uninitiated, but the motto of that group was that they weren't there to do religion but to have a relationship with Christ.  Viewed that way, it makes sense.  Religion is something that Pharisees or Mormons or other people who don't know Jesus but follow a lot of rules to make it up to God do--but us, we know Jesus and have a relationship with Him!

Really?

I have had to ask myself that, starting a month or so back when the fire came down the mountain into Colorado Springs.  That fire was an act of God--just ask any insurance company.  The Bible backs them up, in fact, telling us that God is the cause not only of prosperity but also of ruin.  This isn't what I learned in church though.  In church, Jesus was all sappy smiles, cuddling children, and delivering theological discourses on the nature of the Trinity.  He wasn't the sort of person you'd think capable of creating roiling thunderclouds and veiling half the sky in rolling smoke while his fire ripped down the side of a mountain.  God simply didn't do that sort of thing.  He was too polite, and besides that he was only supposed to come out on Sunday mornings and during Bible studies.  If I've heard it once I've heard it a thousand times, a Christian is never supposed to be afraid of God...all those "fear God" verses only mean we're supposed to respect him because he's high and holy and all that, but never terrifying.  But seeing smoke cover up the sky and black clouds roll overhead filled with hail and lightning--that's terrifying, and if the Bible is true, that's also God.

Do I really know this God?  Do you?  If we don't, do we know the real God at all, because I assure you, those flames were real.  The thunderclouds that darken the sky every afternoon now around here are real.  If the God we know is only real when we show up for Bible study or quiet time or worship on Sunday, he's not really real at all and he's not much use to us either.

I picked up John Eldredge's latest book a few days ago.  It's called Beautiful Outlaw and it's all about Jesus, parts of Jesus we never saw before.  For instance, did you know that Jesus had a sense of humor?  Oh, I'm sure someone has said it to you before, "God must have a sense of humor because of thus and so," but did you really believe it.  I doubted it.  I mean, can you really picture the pale, gentle, mild Jesus of so many religious paintings pulling a prank on someone?  But how else can we explain what happened on the Emmaus road.  Here are two disciples, grief-stricken and confused, plodding along the dusty path and Jesus meets them.  Only He doesn't let them know it's Him.  He walks with them for hours, feigning ignorance of what's just happened in Jerusalem, going through passages of scripture, and then He pretends He's going to go on.  They beg Him to stay the night, He consents, and the moment they realize it's Him--Poof!  Gotcha!  He's outta there!  It's hilarious in retrospect.  The two of them totally got punked!  The problem is I never read it that way.  I was always too busy looking for some deeper meaning.  I've never heard of any reading that found any humor in the situation at all, come to think about it, nor one that commented on the cleverness of Jesus as he pulled the wool over these two guys' eyes only to reveal Himself at the last second.  But isn't that how the story reads?  How it really goes?  Why then, when we read it, do we approach it with our somber Sunday faces on.  Seriously, the God who invented squirrels and gave them an insane urge to chase each other up, down, and sideways around trees came to Earth in the flesh and we don't think He ever once pulled a practical joke?  I'm sorry to say it, but picturing God with a mischievous gleam in His eye is difficult, even more difficult than seeing Him as fierce.  It's just not something that ever seems to come up at church.

All of this makes me question how much of what I know of God and interact with Him is religion and how much is relationship.  Consider a typical prayer: "Dear Jesus, Thank you for this day that you've given us.  Thank you for bringing us together.  Please help us to [insert request here].  In Jesus' name, Amen."  I mean, really, what does any of that mean?  Do I talk to my friends like that?  My father?  The Bible directs us to call out to God using terms that Aramaic children used to address their daddy's.  Can you imagine one of them going up to their father and uttering some formulaic request phrased like some messed-up verbal letter?  Does that sound like relationship or religion to you?

Beautiful Outlaw is basically a book about how religion lies about and distorts who Jesus is, interfering with our relationship with Him.  Eldredge argues that religion isn't just a lie when its done by Pharisees or Mormons, or Catholics, or people from some denomination we don't like--it's also a lie when it's done by us, and here's a list of times and places from the book where we can identify it at work.

• When loving Jesus is considered optional
• When knowing about God replaces knowing God: "Members can explain to you theories of atonement, or seven steps to success, but can't name one intimate encounter they've had with Jesus."
• Power displays are confused for intimacy with Jesus: "Do people chase the next miracle, or do they chase Jesus?"
• Religious activity is confused with commitment to Christ: "To draw near to God requires a church function of some kind.  Church activities are considered more important than any other type of activity.  Those who do not engage regularly in religious gatherings are suspect."
• Christian service substitutes for friendship with Jesus

Let's stop right there.  My experience is this is those last two are big in the modern church, especially in its youth ministries.  In my college ministry I regularly had people beat themselves black and blue with guilt because they missed a meeting or had to leave early for homework.  It was thought that missing Bible study because you had a midterm in the morning meant you were putting schoolwork above God.  But really, if you're not doing the schoolwork for God what's the point of it?  Why are you doing it anyway?  And if you are doing it for God is it better to serve Him privately in your work or to go publicly to a meeting where everyone can praise your piousness for being there in spite of the test you have in the morning?  I think Jesus addressed this question when he said that it was better to pray in your closet where no one would know than to sound a trumpet and proclaim your supplications from the streetcorner.

There are other things too, related to this.  Who are the "spiritually mature" people in your youth group or ministry?  Wouldn't everyone say they're the one's who are most involved?  The leaders, the people who show up early to set up and stay late to tear down?  Now maybe those people legitimately are the people most committed to Christ, but let's be honest, don't we see it the other way around?  "That person leads a Bible study, attends three small groups, has two quiet times a day, disciples six women, and bakes snacks for everyone after the service--ergo she must be a committed Christian!"  Really?  Does it actually mean that, or is this perhaps just the portrait of a really busy woman who might actually be to busy for a relationship with God (I'll tell you one thing, she's certainly too busy for a relationship with a man)?  And what about the delinquents of our groups?  Are they people who legitimately don't know God, or do we lump into that category anybody who's only marginally committed to our particular group.  Maybe their waffling between two campus ministries.  My goodness they must be a heretic!  We can tell without even looking into their daily life and relationship with Christ, of course: we know because they're not totally committed to seeing our little corner of the religious kingdom grow and prosper--and that's all God really cares about, right?  That's religion.

• Holiness is substituted with rule-keeping
• A trivial morality prevails

Eldredge uses an enlightening example of the former.  Consider a stop sign in an empty parking lot at 2AM.  Do you run it or stop?  The purpose of the stop sign is to protect life and property.  That's the spirit of the law.  There's no one and nothing around.  All is protected.  The spirit of the law is in no danger here.  Are you compelled to keep the letter of it as well?  Jesus certainly didn't feel so when it came to the Sabbath day.  He was absolutely famous for breaking the letter of that law, while preserving its spirit.

Which brings us to the next point.  The Jews were more upset about Jesus violating the Sabbath then they were about there being demoniacs in their congregation.  What about us?  Which would upset us more: a girl who walks into church in cut-offs and tattoos dropping F-bombs (at things which, let's be honest, are best described by F-bombs), or a well-dressed woman who comes to church every Sunday with the best of manners and just can't stop telling other people about the things the woman she disciples has told her in confidence--with the result being that the woman she disciples suffers relational fallout with several of her closest friends and small group?  My guess is that we'd be most offended at the former.  That girl would be lucky to last an hour in most churches.  The woman--she'd be right at the heart of the church until she died or it did, and it wouldn't matter how many people's lives she'd crushed with her gossip.  Is that not trivial--to strain at appearances and swallow a strifemonger who turns brother against brother?  I know one church I attended was so trivial.  There to have feelings for another human being was a more serious offence than to betray a secret and sever close friends (Proverbs 17:9).  The former was called lust and treated with severity.  The latter was called love and was lauded.  Jesus would have been disgusted.  And what about drinking and smoking?  My mother is a teetotalist, bless her heart, but Jesus' first miracle was to supernaturally bring a keg of the best stuff in town to a wedding that had run dry.  But in our churches today, any mention of alcohol brings ire from the congregationalists.  Many will defend their anti-alcohol stance from the Bible.  Others will say that God hates booze because it's not taking care of our body's properly.  Usually, they will say this around a doughnut they are shoving into their frame that's already a hundred pounds heavier than it ought to be.  Seriously, when was the last time anybody in church ever talked about gluttony?  Apparently we're too busy indulging it (which the Bible does condemn), but thank God we don't smoke (which the Bible doesn't even mention).  Is this not a trivial morality based entirely on rule-keeping?  Is this not religion?

• The system operates on the fear of man

While we're thinking about morality in our churches (or perhaps the lack of it, as the case may be) let's look at what's behind it.  Really, why do we do the things we do?  Why am I tempted to go back and delete some of that last paragraph?  I may have been harsh, too harsh.  I want to go back so I don't upset anyone.  Really?  Was Jesus concerned with upsetting people?  Gee, I better not heal this guy on the Sabbath, the Jew's got pretty upset the last time I did that and I don't want to offend anybody.  The very idea that they would be upset by it was infuriating to Him--it's one of the few times the Bible says He got angry.  Frankly God doesn't seem to give a darn who He upsets in the process of being Himself and doing good.  We do.  What's our problem?  We don't get this from a relationship with Him, we get it from a religion of fearing man.

One of the youth ministries I was a part of were experts at this.  They were clannish to a fault.  If someone stopped attending their group for any reason, they simply never saw or spoke with their old friends again.  If someone came in who didn't meet their expectations, he got a fairly effective cold shoulder.  If someone walked to the beat of a different drummer in their personal lives and relationships, peers would come down on them and hammer them with pressure until they mended their ways (even if their ways weren't out of line with scripture to begin with).  If someone was debating an important decision, they wouldn't take some time alone to pray about it, they'd go to their peers who would tell them what to do.  I can't name how many times someone from that group said they were going to this conference or that retreat because so-and-so told them to.  And what did God say about these plans?  I don't think most of them knew.  When God did show up and make His opinion known (you can't altogether keep Him out), He was overruled.  As one of the pastors told me, the will of God is most accurately determined by what your peers think.  Following His actual voice and trusting Him alone will only ruin your life.  Your best bet is to follow the system and do what your peers tell you.  Really?  Is that the voice of a man who has a close relationship with Christ and knows religion is a lie or a man who says "religion is a lie" with his mouth but with his life says religion is true and the relationship is a lie?  You be the judge!  A friend of mine was more distressed that his leader had expressed concern at his tardiness to an event than he was that God was upset at his ongoing addictions to pornography and lust (come to think of it, I never heard about the leader being upset about those things at all--just about being late to worship: can anybody say "trivial morality?").

Whom do we really fear here: God or man?  Whom do we follow: the Spirit or our peers?  Whom do we worship: God, or our religious institution?  I'm sad to say that--although a lot of people in that ministry did love Jesus--overall more love and devotion was lavished on the religious institution than on a relationship with our Savior.  In fact, some of them will be more upset that I attacked their little religious corner of the world than they will be that I shone a candle on aspects of a the personality of God very few Christians know about yet (earlier in this post).  They would rather I kept my mouth shut about the former and went on about the latter--because not knowing Jesus isn't a problem, not having religion is.  I know this will be their gut reaction because the last time I posted something about their group--wherein I simply quoted a statement from their religious leadership admitting that they had some problems to work out (which mysteriously had not been worked out yet or even addressed, 21 years later)--I received more than one response from someone who was more upset that I'd sullied the good name of their church than by the fact that their church (according to the written confession of one of their own leaders) was guilty as charged.  In fact no one presently attending that church or its affiliates seemed the least upset that their religious community had suffered the same admitted problems for a generation--they just wanted me to stop talking about it.  Seriously, people?  Which is worse: that I pointed it out, or that I was right?  Would you rather I'd allowed the hypocrisy to go on in secret for another 21 years and said nothing about what I knew and what I'd found?  Jesus never had any problem exposing hypocrites for what they were, but you're afraid I'll offend somebody!?  Whom do you really serve, then: God or man?  You'll fear whom you serve, and you'll serve whom you fear.

• False humility is honored
• There is safety in distance

We're good at this as Christians.  I know I certainly am.  If someone points out a mistake I've made, I'll say "sorry" a dozen times before they can get me to shut up.  If someone pays me a compliment I'm speechless.  I stammer lame excuses for why they shouldn't compliment me at all.  Really, how hard is it to say, "Thank you?"  We're very good at saying we're sooo unworthy--but we still manage too look down our noses at people less fortunate than ourselves.  And when it comes to God, what's our interaction with Him?  What do we call Him?  Are our prayers like that example I gave earlier: stiff formal things that have more in common with telegram messages meant to cross an ocean and greet a business partner than conversational dialogue with a trusted, intimate friend? Let's be honest with ourselves: what's the real end of our self-deprecation and reverential displays toward God?  If we really see ourselves as untouchably low and God as unreachably high then we're not living the gospel.  We were sinners, we were low, but God came in the flesh, as one of us "base worms" to touch the untouchables and make beautiful princes and princesses out of filth and mire.  Do we really want to tell Him His mission was a failure?  Do we really want to try to work counter to the incarnation and put God back up in the unreachable heavens--when He has expressed the intent to come dwell in our hearts?  Or is there something different at work?  I mean, personally, if I'm a worm, than I guess it's okay for me to act like one. And if God's up in the heavens, high and utterly out of touch with my minute-to-minute daily existence--well then he's far too busy being holy and unapproachable to interfere with me running my own life.  So are we really displaying humility and reverence, or do we just want God to go back where He came from so we can rule over our own lives?  If it's the latter, it's religion, because it certainly isn't a relationship with Jesus.

I imagine by now I've stepped on a few toes and upset a number of people.  I know I was among them.  The question I guess is what we're going to do about it.  When we see aspects of God's character that are clearly real but with which we have no experience, are we going to embrace them and explore them in our relationship with Him or write them off because they threaten our religious image of Him?  When we see religious nonsense and hypocrisy in our own lives and churches (Jesus said to beware the yeast of the Pharisees--do we really think that warning lost significance with the passing of that religious subgroup?) are we going to investigate it and scrub it from our hearts so we can have a freer clearer relationship with God, or are we going to whitewash it so that we don't have to leave our religious comfort zones?  When it comes right down to it, will we live out our statement that religion is a lie, or is it really our relationship that's a fraud?

May I Be Such a Man!

This morning, there was the story of two men in the Aurora theater shooting who literally laid down their lives to save their girlfriends, shielding them from the bullets with their own bodies.  Watch the video here.  You won't regret it.

The Bible says this of how a man is to treat his wife, down to his final breath:

"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her..." (Ephesians 5:25)

Now Christ perfectly loves His bride, the Church, at all times, but it is interesting that Paul chose this moment as the example of Christ's love--the moment when Christ died for his Bride.  That is the moment those two young men dramatized for us with their final breaths.

In a society where our marriages are predominantly crumbling temporary matters and many of our men are checking out and walking away from their lives, those two men shine like beacons.  They weren't even married, but they lived out the vows so many men take at marriage and break at their convenience--the only way those two men were going to leave their lover's side was in a box.  And that's exactly what they did.

If you're married, or have been, or plan to be, would you have done the same for your lover?  Would you press her down to the safety of the floor and whisper, "Shh, stay down.  It's okay.  Shh, just stay down," even as rounds ripped into your back and your lifeblood began to pool beneath you?  If not, let me say this: you are not a man.  You are a dishonor, though you may yet change that and be a man like these.  In those fatal seconds, they earned more glory than Alexander the Great in all his battles, more honor than King Solomon held in his court, and demonstrated an integrity more valuable than the net worth of Bill Gates.  In eternity, we may scarce remember the names of the world's great kings, conquerors, and wealthy men, but we will remember the names of these men.

My grandfathers were such men.  On my mother's side, there's Kenneth Houston.  He met his bride as a pen pal during World War II as he served in the merchant marines.  He came home and courted her briefly, then married her and stayed married to her through thick and thin until she died suddenly in her 80's.  One year later, cancer took him as well, setting on him suddenly as if--with her life now over--it was simply time for him to die as well.  Yet to his last breath, he demonstrated love.  When his children gathered to figure out who would take care of him for his final days, he chose his son Ray, whom earlier had been estranged to him.  If there was any bitterness or healing yet to be done between them, he was determined to do it.  In the end, he lost his voice and was bedridden and mute.  Yet the last thing anyone remembers him doing is taking the hands of two of his children in his own and joining them together--as if to order them to carry on, to love and care for each other in his immanent absence.  Then he fell asleep and never woke up again in this world. Now there was a man!  May the halls of Heaven beware his coming!

On my father's side was my paternal grandmother's final husband, Bill Alder.  She had been married to many different men in her life, some good and some bad.  Bill seemed to last longer than the others.  Then, one morning, my grandmother came into the kitchen and found him dead, toppled onto the floor from a heart attack with his coffee growing cold on the table.  What we didn't find out until then was that my grandmother had early-onset Alzheimer's and had it pretty bad.  When her husband died, it fell on us, her children and grandchildren to care for her--and from personal experience that was a full-time and frustrating job.  She couldn't remember to do the most basic things, like getting dressed in the morning, and her mind wore a weary track of questions she couldn't remember the answers to--and couldn't recall asking just five minutes ago.  The official literature on Alzheimer's discourages loved ones from trying to care for those who suffer from the disease alone or without help as the stress can literally kill you.  Bill knew all about her Alzheimer's, but he never talked about it.  He never asked for help.  He knew his wife felt very strongly about nursing homes and so he never even let it be suggested that she be taken to one.  He took care of her alone, himself, and covered for her slip-ups on the phone as best he could until the stress of it all caught him at that kitchen table, rising early for his wife, and killed him.  There was a man!  You may argue him a fool for trying to do it all himself, but a noble fool he was.

All of these men are dead now.  As their bodies await the resurrection, their memories among the living will fade.  Who will show the generations to come what a man is, so that there may be great men in our world in times to come?  Do we dare take up the banner of these who have fallen?  If we do not dare, will our lives be of any worth, as men?

As for me--as the LORD God, by Whom I live, and breathe, and have my being, lives--I will take up their banner.  I will live as Christ my Lord, King, and Lover has lived, and--as He makes me able by His grace--I will die as He died, as they died.  I am not strong, but He will give me strength.  I am not brave, but He will give me courage.  I small and inconsistent in my love, but He will broaden and establish my heart by His Spirit.  By Him, I will be such a man!  I will live and die as such a man!  This is my quest, and for it may every hour and every breath of my life, to my very last, be spent.

So be it.

Measures of Pride

I got pretty upset this week with a group of posters who decided to try to use one person's question about Bible translation preferences to attack modern translations as the work of the devil.  Allegedly, all of these modern versions were invented solely to attack the central doctrines of Christianity (which they nevertheless contained) and only the KJV was a real Bible.  Let me say, first off, that I have nothing against the KJV at all.  It is, in fact, my primary Bible translation.  However, it is not the only true Bible translation out there and any argument to that effect is garbage.  Some of them are very, very obviously false--such as alledging (as one man did) that the KJV is obviously the only pure version of the Bible because older versions were corrupted somehow and the KJV uses newer manuscripts as its source.  Of course, how these newer manuscripts wound up being uncorrupted (since they were copies of the older ones) and why even newer versions wouldn't be superior was something the author did not care to divulge.

Thinking about the whole mess, I could figure only two basic reasons why anyone would defend the KJV-only position.  First, they had been duped by it, convinced by the great many venomous attacks on every modern version that the KJV was the only Bible they could trust.  That's sad, because the attacks are baseless and can just as easily be made on the KJV itself.  I was once one of these.  Second, of course, was that they needed to feel superior in their choice of version.  They needed some measure to tell them that they were a real Christian, and others weren't.  The KJV provides a convenient distinction, even more so because after 400 years what was the easiest English translation to read has now become impenitribly dense to the average reader.  They could take pride in being able to even understand it through all the shalt's, thee's, and thou's, and congratulate themselves on being true Christians (some KJV-only proponents have said just that, citing 1 Corinthians 2:14 to argue that anyone who can't penetrate the 400-year-old vocabulary and syntax must not have the Holy Spirit).

"Being able to read outdated English does not make you a Christian," I muttered to myself.

Unexpectedly, this became the start of a list.  By the end of the list, I was humbled by the number of things I had thought, at one point or another--or still thought, at times--were the measure of a Christian and were, in fact, nothing but measures for pride.

The following things do not make you a Christian, or make you a better Christian than anyone else.  If you think they do, I would be happy to hear why, but I don't think you're right.  If you think about all the Christians there are out there today, here and in nations where the name "Christian" is a death-sentence, and all the Christians there have been throughout history, I think you will see that none of these things distinguish Christians from non-Christians, nor the great Christians from their fellows.

• Being able to read the King James Version and understand it
• Being able to read the original Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic
• Being able to speak eloquently of the original Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic
• Knowing that there is an original Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic
• Owning an ESV Study Bible
• Leading a Bible study
• Being a member of a Bible study
• Being a member of a campus ministry
• Being a member of a church
• Attending church services every time the door is open
• Attending church services Sunday morning and evening
• Attending church services weekly
• Attending church services at all
• Evangelizing cold turkey
• Voting Republican
• Voting
• Having the right to vote
• Believing in Creationism
• Being informed on the Creationism vs Evolution debate
• Being a Calvinist
• Adhering to any particular school of theological thought
• Adhering to any particular set of convictions or personal preferences
• Agreeing with you
• Being religious
• Taking half-days to be alone with God in prayer
• Scheduling time to be alone with God in prayer
• Praying and receiving any particular answer
• Praying the way you do
• Reading the Bible through in a year
• Reading the Bible on a regular schedule
• Memorizing an entire book of the Bible
• Memorizing an entire passage of the Bible
• Memorizing a verse of the Bible
• Having a Bible
• Being able to read
• Giving money to missions
• Giving money to the church
• Giving money to the poor
• Having money to give
• Having any particular spiritual gift
• Having any particular personality
• Having any particular level of social skills
• Having any particular hairstyle/clothing style
• Having any particular musical preference
• Not using cuss words
• Not having piercings or tattoos
• Looking and sounding like you or someone you'd like
• Having all the sin in their life conquered
• Recognizing all the sin in their life
• Being at least as "good" as you

Having made this list, I must confess that, at one point or another in my life, I have used, or at least been very tempted to use, each of the above as a measure of pride.  I have used them to measure others, to say to myself, "Well, if this person is a Christian, they aren't a very good one because of thus-and-so."  I have become puffed up with pride and denigrated others wrongfully in my heart for this.  If I have used any of the above against you or those you know, then I beg your forgiveness.  I was wrong.  It was the sin of pride.

Further, I have used this list and taken it to Christians I admire.  I have said in my heart, "Ah, this person is a great Christian because they do thus-and-so!"  I have idolized such people in my heart.  I have said in my pride and foolishness that I would be like them, that I would do as they did and by so doing become a great Christian.  I was wrong.  If you have been idolized by me in any of the above ways, I ask your forgiveness.  You may or may not see it, but I was wrong.  You aren't perfect, and I was a fool to think you were and make you my idol to follow instead of God.

These things make you a Christian, and a great Christian you are if you have these:

• To love God
• To trust Him
• To obey His "voice" in your life, however that voice may come to you

If you have these, then you know God and that is life eternal.  If you have these, nothing can add to them, or take away from them.

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. -Micah 6:8

Body and Soul

There are some posts on this blog that make empirical arguments, some that set forth evidence and lay things out rationally, which can be proved and known.  There are some that can only convey inexplicable experience.  This is one of those.

Yesterday, in the morning, I wanted the day to be something special between God and me.  I realized there was nothing really that I could do to bring this about, so I prayed that God would, that He would do things that day that would break down all my walls and "leave my soul naked and vulnerable" before Him.  I knew that it was at times of such great vulnerability that I felt closest to God, though there is always a thrill of terror about the vulnerability and openness of such a position.

And so it went.  God demonstrated His love to me, whispered of it to me, in little ways, and those broke down my defenses.  By the time I went on lunch break at 2 o'clock, I already felt vulnerable.  I wanted nothing more than to curl up on my bed and bask in the nearness of my God.

But the day wasn't over yet.  When it was, the business of the day had caught up with me, exhausting me and, in part, raising my walls again.  Then, I remembered the prayer I had prayed that morning and prayed it again.

He heard me, and answered in a way I did not expect.  My eyes closed and I stopped tossing and turning.  I stopped moving at all.  Yet I was not asleep.  I was fully awake and aware.  I tried to move but I could not.  It was like the paralysis that comes before sleep, but sleep was far away.  I wondered what this could be.  Then He spoke to me.  He told me that my inability to move was His doing and that He would not harm me. He asked me to quit struggling.  I did, though not right away.  I asked what was going on and He told me He was answering my prayer, that this was me, a naked soul separated (partially--I could still control my eye movements) from my body.  He spoke wonderful things to me (of which I have no particular memory) and I was in ecstatic union with Him.

Then something really unexpected happened.  My awareness shifted and while I was still aware of my soul in ecstasy, it was a dim awareness, like my awareness of my body had been soon after the separation began.  What I was most aware of was my body, lying there, waiting: unable to move on my own and waiting for the commands that would enable me to do so.  I was waiting for other things too.  I was tired from a hard day's work, waiting to go to sleep.  I was dirty from sweat and dust and waiting to be clean.  But I was also waiting for a much deeper bigger thing.  I was aware of a deep, painful, treacherous stain of sin in me, and I was waiting to see, if at last, I could be made free of this.  As I waited, I heard Him say to me, "Don't worry.  I haven't forgotten you.  You will be made clean, whole, and perfect.  You are also deeply loved."

Then my awareness was returned whole, body and soul, welded together and united by love, deep in love with my Creator!  I have never felt such joy and love for Him before, and yet it was but a foretaste, a lesson, a moment I want to keep with me all my days.  I am loved body and soul.  I do not expect that any of those supposed wise men who deny that there is any such distinction will credit my experience, but who asked for their opinions?  I am loved body and soul.  I am not loved any more in or for one than the other.  I am loved not for the good deeds I do in the body--for my soul is loved also.  I am loved not only for what existential heights I may be able to reach, for my body is loved also.  My God will provide all my needs.  He will not merely take me to Heaven and leave me naked and destitute to fend for myself on earth--for He loves my body also.  He will not either remember to feed and clothe me and yet forget to satisfy the deep longings of my inner being--for my soul is loved also.  I am perfectly loved.

Backstory

So, I've been reading the manga "Rosario+Vampire."  If you've heard of it, it's probably not what you think.  The anime of the series is, if my friends and online articles are any reliable source, terrible--ditching the entire plot in favor of fanservice.  The manga is quite different.  The manga starts out as a simple "harem" comedy, where a perfectly ordinary boy accidentally enrolls in a high school where monsters learn to live in human guise.  Like any comedy of the genre, the boy (Tsukune) discovers his one true love, a fetching kind-hearted young vampiress named Moka--who in turn discovers a taste for Tsukune's blood.  Despite this rather disturbing taste, and the even more disturbing nature of the monster academy, Tsukune decides to stick it out so he and Moka can be together.  Immediately thereafter (and this is where the term "harem" comes in), girls start throwing themselves at Tsukune one after another, trying in vain to wrest his affections from Moka.  When they're not trying to beat each other up or hug-tackle Tsukune, the girls help Tsukune and Moka defeat the monster-of-the-week.  Hilarity ensues. Aside from the fact that Tsukune is in constant peril and is the only one who can remove Moka's rosario (transforming her from soft-hearted damsel-in-distress into a haughty vampiress whose round-house kick is capable of one-shotting nearly any opponent they meet), the manga is, at first, light-hearted and its contents fluffy--or so it seems.  Soon, Moka's trick of rescuing Tsukune from the brink of death with an infusion of vampire blood turns out to have some unexpected consequences, in the form of him being transformed into a ghoul--a soulless killing machine with all the power of the vapire(ss) who created him (and, apparently, none of the vulnerabilities).  He gets better (about the soulless part), but the latest issues delve into the backstory and show that much more is at play than was initially thought.  Moka (sans-rosario) isn't just a very powerful vampire, she's pretty much the most powerful vampire.  Her mom was part of a legendary three-monster team that took down an eldritch abomination of ultimate power bent on destroying the world.  Her mom can regenerate in minutes from being cut in half and her own round-house kicks pack more raw power than a bunker-buster.  And guess what?  Little Moka is heir to mom's incredible powers (not sure about the regeneration, but she's definitely got the power: as a 10-year old she blew a hole 6-foot square through a castle wall with one punch--and she wasn't even aiming at it!).  Better yet, that power isn't from genetics, but from blood.  Moka is the only one of her sisters (two of which have sadly gone dark-side) to have this power because she received an infusion of her mother's blood shortly after birth to help her survive.  And since Tsukune's ghoulish powers come from Moka's blood...yup, there's a pretty good chance that he's the ultimate incarnation of vampiric power there is.  The only hitch is that it turns out Moka's mom beat down the eldritch abomination by syncing her power to its, so that it was forced to slumber as long as she kept her powers in check.  And since mom's power is Moka's power--yeah, opening the throttle on that awakens the eldritch abomination...and there's a good chance Tsukune's power does that too.  So all that time they thought they were just harmlessly curb-stomping the monster-of-the-week it turns out they were actually poking the eldritch-abomination-of-ultimate-horror with a stick.  Things look pretty dark, but there's a ray of hope.  Moka's mom foresaw this link as a problem and made the rosario to seal Moka's power away (sacrificing herself in the process, sadly)--but she did so deliberately in such a way that only her one true love could remove it.  More, she designed it so that her one true love (when she met him) would remove it, because then it would be "time."  Time for what?  No idea, but the next volume is due out this month!

So you see, what was at the beginning just a comedy of errors is now revealed to be a stroke of destiny, bringing Moka and Tsukune (and company) together on a stage of epic proportions where the fate of the world is at stake...a lot can change when you know the backstory!

I'm betting the same is true in my life.  Things seem haphazard and kind of meaningless more often than not around here.  Sometimes I feel like I'm in a comedy of errors, but the jokes aren't all that funny and this is definitely not a "harem comedy!"  So let me take a step back and lay out the background of my story.  Let me see where it all fits in, if I'm able...

In the beginning, and before it, God existed alone, eternally complete, a unified being within Himself: Father, Spirit, Son.  Omnipotent and omniscient, He planned the creation of the world and all things and plotted their course, then brought it to pass for His own pleasure.  He made all things good.  He made the heavens and the earth and all things and beings that within them dwell.  He made angels as His ministers, among them Lucifer, a bright cherub, the covering of His throne.  He made humans also.  He made them to be His image, to have dominion on the earth over all creatures and reflect His glory and nature through their own.  He made them a little lower than the angels.  He made them male and female, equals, companions, compatriots, lovers, husband and wife.  He crafted the first marriage Himself when he brought the two of them--formed with His own hands for each other--together in the garden, where they were both naked and not ashamed.

He made them good and glorious, but He made them free.  They were able to choose whether to remain as they were or to corrupt themselves by turning their back on Him and taking their destinies into their own hands.  Lucifer took this path.  He became a murderer from the beginning and forsook the truth.  He became known as Satan, the Accuser, the Father of Lies.  He fell from Heaven like lightning, cast out after a great battle among the angels.  He deceived Eve and Adam in the garden, convincing them that God was holding back something that would be good for them, the fruit of the forbidden tree.  They took their destinies in their own hands.  They rebelled.  They ate the fruit and they Fell.  The penalty was death, and more horrible than they could imagine.  Not only would their bodies grow old and return to dust, but their souls would be subject to the full wrath and power of God for all eternity in Hell--the place prepared as the final prison of Satan and his angels, their unending punishment under darkness and in fire.  Even as they lived, their lives were cursed by the God against Whom they'd rebelled.  The woman gave birth in sorrow and great pain.  The man labored in vain all his days.  Even together, they had no solace, for the woman longed to control the man and the man dominated her like a tyrant.  All seemed lost as their curse spilled out over all creation and their ungodly children multiplied.  Their eldest son became a murderer and was cursed to walk in exile all his days.  The earth was so filled with violence that God confessed that He regretted making mankind and resolved to wipe them out by destroying the world in torrents of water.

But God had foreseen all this from the beginning and determined already what He would do.  From the beginning, He had made some of His creatures, like ungodly Cain, to be hateful "vessels of dishonor."  These He hardened and these He consumed in order to show the greatness of His power and justice.  Yet He had also made certain "vessels of mercy"--indistinguishable from the others to all but Him, for He had chosen them.  These, He choose to save and restore, to show the greatness of His love and mercy, and His power.  For these, He sent His Son in the fullness of time, born of a woman, born under the law and under the curse. He assumed the guise of humanity with all its complaints, but He was God and He lived without sin.  Then, as He had foretold in scripture and in person, He died an agonizing painful death.  He drank down the cup of the Father's wrath to the dregs and thus offered the mercy and love of God to all that He had chosen, to all who were given to Him, to all who came.

So He did destroy mankind and the world with a flood that day, but He also saved alive 8 chosen men and women in an ark He had prepared for them.  In time, He chose a man out of Mesopotamia to be the father of His special people.  The man was childless, but he believed, and in time God gave Him a son.  From that son proceeded a nation of millions.  They were enslaved, but God allowed this and raised up their captors only to cast them down again with plagues and miraculous destruction, to show His glory.  He led His people out, but they rebelled against Him in the wilderness.  He cursed and killed the rebels, but kept alive their children, who lived to see the promises made to their forefather fulfilled.  Yet the people continually rebelled. Their hearts were never fully His, and so He sent invaders to punish them.  In the end, He destroyed them, but saved a remnant.  It was from this remnant He brought forth His Son.

When His Son died, those who put their faith in Him saw the windows of Heaven opened and the Spirit descended on them, giving them miraculous power, and--most importantly--changing them from the inside out, at the level of the heart.  Finally, God's plan from eternity was revealed.  He was not merely seeking a remnant.  He was not seeking His own special ethnic group or kingdom.  He was seeking a Bride.  These believers, and those He had chosen throughout time, were that Bride.  They were individuals united as one, diverse in gifts, unified in heart and purpose.  Saved from death and Hell by the blood of the Son, they became His Bride, destined to enjoy His favor, His love, His power, every pleasure He could provide, and unity with Him, beginning in this life and made perfect as they cast off their mortal coils.

I am a member of this Church.  I am one of many, but I am loved as if I were the only one.  The power and wisdom of God watches over me, to guide me, to protect me, to perfect me in love.  There will be trials.  Trials grow character.  There will be opposition, but Satan is no match for the power with which I am united--the power of the God Who created and damned him.  That power, that love, that God will never leave me and I will be with Him forever.

This is my backstory.  I may not see how, but around me the hand of this destiny is at work.  Everyday situations are trials and opportunities, blessings and gifts of love, or banes from an enemy who hates me but cannot defeat me.  All of this is one step closer to my ultimate end, which is to be the Bride, at the side of my God, united with the Beloved forever.

Not so haphazard and meaningless anymore...