14 March 2013 - selfless help

14 March 2013 - selfless help

What makes our testimony about Jesus tenable?  

Jesus said to the Jews: 
“If I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is not true.

We aren't at the center of it.  The main character in our story is no longer us.  This is observable by others but impossible on merely human strength.  

How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another
and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God?

If we try to turn Jesus into an self-improvement project we are not credible.  Self-improvement can trap us within ourselves and make us self-centered.  It can be the very opposite of love.  Of course improvement is necessary for us all.  If we try to do it on our own we will inevitable do it according to our own models and goals.  And our vision is too partial and imperfect to be without selfishness.  The only one who is perfectly capable of walking the way without selfishness is Jesu.  He is the only one who doesn't need improvement.  Yet he walks the way regardless, becoming obedient unto death, death on a cross.  Therefore "it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered" (cf Hebrews 2:10.).  He brings our human nature with him and perfects it precisely because we cannot do it on our own.  This empowers us to lead lives directed toward others and toward love.

Then he spoke of exterminating them,
but Moses, his chosen one,
Withstood him in the breach
to turn back his destructive wrath.

Will this kind of outward focus overwhelm us?  There are so many different ways we might help and so much that can go right or wrong with any of them.  Isn't this being pulled into a future which is not yet, rather than trusting God who says that the day's evil is sufficient for itself.  Don't the self-help advocates have it right when they tell us to live in the moment?  Sort of.  But the moment is not isolating.  It is not ultimately a place of selfishness.  And yet it can be just that for the self-help crowd.  It becomes for them a place of escape.  It becomes a place to run from the world and from others.  But the moment is fundamentally relational.  It is a place of meetings.  It is meant to be a place of love.  To truly be present in the moment is to be fully available to others and, even more importantly, to be fully available to God.

For us, then, the moment does not exclude love.  For example, to intercede for others is one of the most profoundly present acts we can undertake.  And this is why God honors such acts so highly.  When we are present to God and to the need of our brothers and sisters God lets his transformative and redemptive power flow into the world through us.

So the LORD relented in the punishment
he had threatened to inflict on his people.

Jesus lives this way perfectly.  He is the one who transforms us that we might live it.  It is precisely in being so transformed that we become credible witnesses.  The world can see that we aren't in this for ourselves.  Any means we have without his aid is insufficient.  But in him is the fullness of life eternal.

You search the Scriptures,
because you think you have eternal life through them;
even they testify on my behalf.
But you do not want to come to me to have life.

Let us come to him, for he never ceases to call us!

13 March 2013 - womb for improvement

13 March 2013 - womb for improvement

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.”
Can a mother forget her infant,
be without tenderness for the child of her womb?
Even should she forget,
I will never forget you.

The LORD's love for us transcends even the best example of selfless and altruistic love we have.  How can we do anything but rejoice?

Sing out, O heavens, and rejoice, O earth,
break forth into song, you mountains.

Yet we are reluctant to rejoice.  We break into song but not wholeheartedly.  Such love is almost unfathomable.  There is a broken part of us that can't deal with it.  On some level we usually have a sense of not deserving love so great.  And because of that we have a hard time believing it can exist at all.  We know we are imperfect.  We know we suffer.  Doesn't that mean there must at least be some conditions on any love God might have for us?  No!  The LORD is moved by compassion for our suffering.  This is not how he wants it to be.

For the LORD comforts his people
and shows mercy to his afflicted.

He empowers us to break free from the bondage in which we find ourselves. It is his word which gives us the power.

Saying to the prisoners: Come out!
To those in darkness: Show yourselves!

And empowered his word we step out into the light.  Note that the step is ours to take.  His words bring the power of eternal life into our lives even now.  Eternal life cannot be chained by sin.  Sickness cannot hold it back.  Let us move into the radiance of that light.

Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word
and believes in the one who sent me
has eternal life and will not come to condemnation,
but has passed from death to life.

If we have life now through his word then when he calls us at the end of time we will rise to eternal life.  Any vestiges of sin, sickness, and death will be broken by the power of that same  life-giving word, finally perfectly heard.  LORD, give us ears to hear!  

Let us take courage as we run the race.  The LORD will permit no obstacle to overwhelm us.

The LORD is faithful in all his words
and holy in all his works.
The LORD lifts up all who are falling
and raises up all who are bowed down.

His word is truth but it is not abstract.  What he ultimately tells us is who he is, how much he loves us, and what that should mean for us.  His word is more true than any mere scientific law.  It is the truth about the one who made those laws.  It is the truth that his love for us is without limit.  That truth alone can inspire us to stake everything on his promise.  It is only that truth which can bring us to see that his love for us is greater than that of a mother for her baby.

The LORD is near to all who call upon him,
to all who call upon him in truth.

12 March 2013 - pool your resources

12 March 2013 - pool your resources

“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up;
while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”

Are we trying to reach the pool of the LORD's blessings on our own strength?  Where do we see the LORD's blessings?  Are they in the distance, working like clockwork for others, but never quite for us?

There is a stream whose runlets gladden the city of God,
the holy dwelling of the Most High.

We know that this stream is somewhere.  We can hear it trickle.  We can see people full of vitality who drink from it.  Why can't we find it?

Wherever the river flows,
every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live,
and there shall be abundant fish,
for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh.

The man who has been ill for 38 years is thirsty for this water.  We ourselves are so very thirsty for this water.  And yet, Jesus asks: “Do you want to be well?”  A question so simple as to be piercing.  Are we even ready for this kind of love?  Do we secretly think we don't deserve it?  If we can have it at all it must be some convoluted process full of hard work, because we certainly don't deserve it now and must earn it.  But it is our thinking which is convoluted here.

As it turns out, it is nothing as abstract or arbitrary as we guessed.  It is nothing vague or esoteric.  The water of life is found in the person of Jesus.  That is why the ill man never ends up going into the pool and yet is healed.

Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.

The words that flow from Jesus' mouth are filled with life, the same life that flows from his wounded side on the cross.  The nearer we draw to Jesus the more we will hear the roar of the waters of life.

but there was now a river through which I could not wade;
for the water had risen so high it had become a river
that could not be crossed except by swimming.

These are the waters of baptism.  Even if baptism was long ago the graces of the sacrament remain and can completely submerge us with their blessings.  The words of Jesus pour these waters over us anew anytime we listen.  Only these waters can promise to the trees that "their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail."

It comes down to attentiveness to his presence, his proximity, and his power.  We know we are drinking from other streams of impure and poison water when we are pulled away from this presence and chained to the past or paralyzed  by worries about the future.  Let us return to the souce.

God is our refuge and our strength,
an ever-present help in distress.

He is near to us.  He is mighty to save.  Let us remain near to him and submerge ourselves in his life-giving word.

Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me (cf. Psalm 42:7)

And that reminds me, if you need a miracle in your own life check this out:

http://www.ctkupperroom.org/?page_id=262

11 March 2013 - son dance

11 March 2013 - son dance

At nightfall, weeping enters in,
but with the dawn, rejoicing.

Are we spending a lot of time weeping?  Let us lift up our eyes, for the saving help of the LORD is very close.  This brief momentary affliction (cf. 2 Cor 4:17) is already beginning to move and shift hinting that it will give way soon.  Indeed, the pains we feel now are not mere pains.  They are the labor pains of the new creation which is being born (cf. Rom 8:22) as suffering is transformed into selfless love.

Lo, I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
The things of the past shall not be remembered
or come to mind.

We have troubles that seem insurmountable.  Even if we ever can overcome them won't they just be scars on which we shudder to think?  

When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea,
he went to him and asked him to come down
and heal his son, who was near death.

This royal offical in today's gospel is undeterred.  He knows that he is not to be content with the situation he has been dealt and he knows that Jesus has the power to fix it.  Jesus senses what is perhaps an ulterior motive in the man's question and so he says:

“Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”

Precisely at a time like this when he is forced to depend on God more than ever before his own faith is tested.  His selfless plee for the healing of his son can instead become a mere sign to reassure himself.  If he does not cling to faith here he will not be seeking the miracle with a pure heart.  He will be seeking it to resolve his own existential dilema before the vastness of his uncertainty.  See how close is the line between the selfish and the selfless.  The words of Jesus above help the royal official to focus on the true motivation for his question.

The royal official said to him,
“Sir, come down before my child dies.”

If there is any admixture of selfishness in his motivation he transcends it and pursues his desire with laserlike focus  And Jesus answers him immediately.

“The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon.”
The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him,
“Your son will live,”

And the faith which Jesus doesn't grant with a selfishly requested sign is somehow instilled by the official's selfless dependence on him.

and he and his whole household came to believe.  

What might have been a scar is now a blessing to the whole family of the royal official and, in turn, to us as well.

The LORD is much too good to simply remove burdens.  He transforms them.

You changed my mourning into dancing;
O LORD, my God, forever will I give you thanks.

Let us long for the vision which the LORD gives us.

No longer shall the sound of weeping be heard there,
or the sound of crying;

The LORD's work in us is preparing the way for this glorious destiny even now during Lent.  We are building the houses in which we live in the heavenly Jerusalem.  We are planting the food on which we will rely.

They shall live in the houses they build,
and eat the fruit of the vineyards they plant.

But to build a house in this Jerusalem only works if we cooperate with the LORD who is building the city itself and creating us, the residents to be.

For I create Jerusalem to be a joy
and its people to be a delight;

With the Psalmist let us sing forever: "I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me."

10 March 2013 - light to see

10 March 2013 - light to see 

"Not as man sees does God see,"

Being able to see is a gift from the LORD.  Without it our vision is skewed by our own priorities.  We become more and more blind.  On our own we are in darkness.  Without light we stumble.  Without light our works become fruitless, even works of darkness, though we don't admit it.  

Fortunately, Jesus tells us he is the light of the world.  That means if he is near us we will be able to see.   And he wants to be near us:

Even though I walk in the dark valley

I fear no evil; for you are at my side

With your rod and your staff

that give me courage.

Our darkness won't keep him away.   He meets us where we are.  Even if we are dead in sin he comes to us.

“Awake, O sleeper,

and arise from the dead,

and Christ will give you light.”

And what does he want us to ultimately see?  He wants us to see clearly who he is.

“I do believe, Lord,” and he worshiped him.

9 March 2013 - superficial sacrifices

9 March 2013 - superficial sacrifices 

Be bountiful, O LORD, to Zion in your kindness
by rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem;
Then shall you be pleased with due sacrifices,
burnt offerings and holocausts.

We sometimes feel like our walls have been pulled down.  We feel as though there is no barrier between us and the pains of life.  We don't feel as though we even have the traction to come to the LORD.  There is just too much, and we cannot escape.  Why would the LORD even allow such a thing?

Your piety is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that early passes away.
For this reason I smote them through the prophets,
I slew them by the words of my mouth;

The walls of our piety turn out to be insubstantial.  It is good to have this exposed even though it hurts.  We don't want to remain like the Pharisee.  We might not phrase it just this way, but our hearts are in the same place.

O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — 
greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week,
and I pay tithes on my whole income.’

We believe, essentially, that we are doing our work and ought to be paid with comfort and prosperity.  And for every judgment of another we further acquit ourselves if any need for conversion and further show our own sense of entitlement.  With this attitude we will not go home justified.

Externals with our hearts in the wrong place are almost worse than nothing if they start to insulate us from God's saving help and begin building self-sufficiency within us.

The tax collector doubtlessly suffers quite an ordeal as the LORD brings him to this place of humility where he can only say ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’  He has moved beyond the externals of sacrifice and can pray with the Psalmist:

My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

In his heart is the cry of Hosea:

“Come, let us return to the LORD,
it is he who has rent, but he will heal us;
he has struck us, but he will bind our wounds.
He will revive us after two days;
on the third day he will raise us up,
to live in his presence.

And because of his contrition and faith he does go home justified.  

Let us know, let us strive to know the LORD;
as certain as the dawn is his coming,
and his judgment shines forth like the light of day!
He will come to us like the rain,
like spring rain that waters the earth.”

If we strive to know that LORD we will trust that he rends only to heal.  We know that he wants to bring us through to a place that is better than where we began.  He will teach us to look to the third day even as we bear the cross.

8 March 2013 - dews and dont's

8 March 2013 - dews and dont's

We shall say no more, ‘Our god,’
to the work of our hands;

We do this too, but not explicitly.  We look to worldly things for a satisfaction that can only come from God.  These are often good things whether hobbies, relationships, health or whatever else.  Still, they can't provide the changeless peace and the complete joy for which we long on their own.  We think that if we just tweak one more variable we will finally be able to escape suffering.  There is nothing particularly wrong with carved stone until we start to worship it and thereby treat it as something of more worth than it truly is.

How do we escape?  It is such an easy mistake to make when God seems distant.  We are quick to bring out the golden cafe in such times.  Surely fulfillment must be somewhere.  Simply disposing of the gold won't help.  We'll find another material out of which to make an idol. Instead, we must learn and come to see that the LORD is the source of all we have.  

I will be like the dew for Israel:
he shall blossom like the lily;

He is the source of our life and vitality.  All the things we worship instead of him come originally from him, the author of life.

“I am like a verdant cypress tree”– 
Because of me you bear fruit!

On our own apparent goods and pleasures will just wear us down.  If we insist that we can grow as a cypress tree without the dew that comes from the LORD we will wither.

Return, O Israel, to the LORD, your God;
you have collapsed through your guilt.

But even so, even though we look to idols and God is distant, there is no distance too great for him to call out to us and rescue us.

An unfamiliar speech I hear:
“I relieved his shoulder of the burden;
his hands were freed from the basket.
In distress you called, and I rescued you.”

Jesus tells us that to put God first is indeed the most important commandment.

Hear, O Israel!
The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.

Our eyes are pulled down to earthly things.  Our hearts are distant from God.  Let us just open our ears to his word so that he can begin to show us the true state of our hearts and the true idolatry that exists there.  On our own we move from idol to idol, ever tweaking details which can't set us free.  Let us hear his words so that he may transform us.  

I will heal their defection, says the LORD,
I will love them freely;

Let us hear his words so that he may give us the blessings which he longs to pour out upon us.

“If only my people would hear me,
and Israel walk in my ways,
I would feed them with the best of wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would fill them.”