Times or Seasons

Not for You to Know Times or Seasons.  In north-central Ohio, where we lived for five considerably (physically) cold years, there was a local saying: “Three more snows after the forsythia blooms.” Before we learned that discouraging proverb partway through our tenure there, it had been so encouraging to see the forsythia bloom. Its friendly yellow flower was not so encouraging after we learned it! Through what seemed like four consecutive months of cold, the forsythia emerged only to say: “Don’t put your big coat away for another month!”

So, twenty years later, we are still apprehensive to trust the forsythia. Even now, as it is smiling at me through the window, I wonder: is this a devilish smirk or an angelic grin? With temperatures in the 80s tomorrow, I think I will risk a little springtime hope. But I will not put my big coat away, just out of an abundance of caution.

Severely, even annually flawed, the forsythia is still a far better meteorologist than the human. We don’t know the times or seasons, nor should we attempt to map out God’s next move, because Jesus directly told us to resist the urge: "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:7). With the earthquakes in Turkey, the 24/7 worship service at Asbury University, the first anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked invasion into Ukraine, the anarchy in Haiti, the homicide rates in Chicago and New Orleans, the microplastics in the ocean, and the reminder to schedule that next screening with the doctor—we don’t know the future. Either we lack the capacity to know or we lack the wisdom to handle such knowledge, or both, but Jesus’ point is clear: we don’t need to know. The Father knows sufficiently well and we know the Father. Instead of giving us data points about the future (beyond all the data already given in the Scriptures), Jesus gives us purpose: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

Oh, right. That! Why do we so easily forget about that in our attempts to interpret forsythias and when it is time to pack away the big coat for another nine months? I don’t know, but the Lord knows! So, whether the Lord returns tomorrow or in ten thousand tomorrows, the task is clear: do what you have been remade to be, witness.

Subjected to Futility

Subjected to Futility.  God is uniquely, intriguingly called the Father of lights and accurately described as abundantly generous and impeccably pure. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). One of his good and perfect gifts—which suitably fits his good and perfect attributes—is also unique and intriguing, but is it generous? God gave the whole world the gift of futility. Thanks? “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope” (Rom 8:20). To call this divine act of subjection a gift is commentary more than explanation, but it is nevertheless on target. Our present futility is a gift in the long view. The creation, both its human and non-human parts, will be staggeringly and everlastingly better-off having been temporarily subjected to futility (which is the same word that translates the favorite word of the book of Ecclesiastes: vanity).

Subjection is the task of lowering or subordinating. It is a royal dominion word. We are subjects under our divine King’s sovereign rule; his decrees are binding upon and across his creation with no vote or consent necessary. His orders bring order. That is why it is ultra-important to know that God is good as well as perfect. His character guides his leadership. What did God do by royal decree? He subjected the entire creation to futility because he placed all things under the feet of his representative agents, namely Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:26-30; Psa. 8:6). Because they preferred futility over intimacy, God subjected the entire creation to follow their co-regents into futility and broken intimacy. That is why the ground refused to cooperate with Adam’s cultivation after the curse—producing thorns and thistles (Gen. 3:19)—because God allowed the ramifications of Adam’s sin to play out in Adam’s sphere of responsibility, which was the entire creation. God did not immediately swoop in and clean up Adam’s mess, he subjected all creation to a futility that matched Adam’s futile choice. Creation follows humanity in unbreakable lockstep for good or evil.

Here one can imagine a grin on the face of God; he knows something that we do not know. Because Adam sinned, and even before Adam sinned (Rev. 13:8), God was prepared to send his only begotten Son to succeed where Adam failed. Jesus is the Last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45), the Second Man (1 Cor. 15:47), whose victory extends far beyond the first Adam’s failure (1 Cor. 15:48-49). Because creation followed the first human into futility, a principle of responsibility that God upheld at the garden, then creation will follow the best human into eternity, a principle of substitution that God accomplished at the cross. That is why the creation waits (Rom. 8:19), hopes (Rom. 8:20), and groans (Rom. 8:22) for the day of restoration when the adoption of the children of God will be finalized physically in glory as it has been ratified spiritually in salvation (Rom. 8:21). In that sense, futility is a gift because it reminds us with every lament, every groan of a broken world, and every unfulfilled longing that the end will be better than the beginning! Only faith in Christ can see his invisible trajectory that is already binding upon everything and everyone in his dominion. Hallelujah!

Impossible to Prepare for This

Impossible to Prepare for This.  Turkish President Erdogan, as he toured the affected regions this morning following Monday’s earthquakes, said: “It is not possible to be prepared for a disaster this big.” The devastation has killed 11,000 people, and the death toll will invariably rise as the search and clean-up continues. The rubble and, grimly, also the white, vinyl body bags lining the scant, remaining open spaces of the cities in southern Turkey and northern Syria are visible in satellite footage. As rescue workers, hampered by rain, snow, and cold, look for survivors, the larger story (as reported by the BBC) involves local criticism of the president’s slow speed at responding to the disaster.

Death is a stern yet effective teacher, whether the learner is actively religious or passively secular, passively religious or actively secular, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or Atheist. When death grabs every international headline, no one can look away from the carnage. What lesson does death teach? We are all, every one of us, mortal.

Denying our mortality is the epitome of foolishness, as Solomon forcefully argued throughout his sermon which we call Ecclesiastes. “No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death” (Eccles. 8:8). “For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them” (Eccles. 9:12). After Monday, the Turkish and Syrian people need no further help envisioning what it looks like when calamity “suddenly falls upon them.” We, the collective world looking in from the outside, can either (wisely) join in on their lesson about our inescapable mortality by reconciling to God now or (unwisely) wait for our own turn at the chalkboard without reconciliation with God. The wise person will learn from the lessons that others have had to learn the hard way. This week in Turkey and Syria, the people have had nothing but learning the hard way. May the Lord truly visit them in their time of great need!

We can only adequately prepare for our impending death by reconciling to God through faith in Jesus Christ, who uniquely and successfully mediated one way for sinners to find peace with God by his death and resurrection. Turkey and Syria’s tragedy adds fuel and faces to our ministry—the church has been given the task of unified proclamation and fellowship in the gospel of grace, "that the world may believe that you sent me” (John 17:21).

Your Gentleness Made Me Great

Your Gentleness Made Me Great.  King David had been named king but hadn’t become king until this occasion: his coronation (Psalm 18). Not merely because Jerusalem, which David established as the seat of his new government, was several thousand feet up in elevation, his coronation was an uphill battle in every sense of the word for him to assume the throne of the unified nation of Israel. He had to conquer Jerusalem. He had to conquer Saul’s tribe and allies. But mostly David had to conquer himself before he was ready to become king, a battle he would famously, and in some ways repeatedly, fight. He theoretically ought to have been the first one to know about being one’s own worst enemy.

For the lion’s share of a decade, he ran from King Saul. Although David was clearly revealed by the prophet and openly revered by the people as the Lord’s chosen king, he wouldn’t dispose of the Lord’s outgoing king by his own doing. He could have but would not. In contrast to the two times when Saul attempted to pin David to the wall of the palace with his spear (1 Sam. 18:11; 19:10), twice David had Saul in his grasp and twice he let Saul go, saying: “I would not put out my hand against the Lord's anointed” (1 Sam. 26:23, see also 1 Sam. 24:10). Yet both times, David’s men did not understand David’s great humility, misinterpreting it as David’s great folly for forfeiting a potentially God-provided windfall. But David approached humility, or gentleness, from the other direction. Gentleness was (and is) the mark of greatness instead of the absence of greatness or a hurdle to accomplishing it.

We often repeat the same mistake of David’s men and David’s predecessor when we step on the neck of gentleness in our greedy grasp for greatness. I can still hear one accuser scoff at me while figuratively stepping on my neck, “You are too ethical to succeed” (direct quote). But he, like we all, got it horribly backward. (Yet, it is a relief to know that God will sort the goats from the sheep.) Gentleness/humility is success, not the price of doing business.

Strikingly but not surprisingly, David spoke more of God at his own coronation than himself. “Your gentleness made me great” (Psa. 18:35). Wouldn’t we like to say to our enemies, when we finally are vindicated, some version of: how do you like me now? Paradoxically, God’s gentleness/humility was what made David rise, not God’s greatness that made David humble (i.e., forced compliance). Voluntary gentleness/humility is the essence of greatness in God’s kingdom. “Many who are first will be last, and the last first” (Matt. 19:30).

After Saul fell, after all of Saul’s allies dispersed, and after all of Saul’s sons (except for one grandson, Mephibosheth [2 Sam. 4:4]) were removed from Israel, David might have concluded that his need for gentleness/humility had also expired. But that was simply not true! He needed even more humility sitting on the throne than slinking through the caves.