The Saying Is Trustworthy

The Saying Is Trustworthy.  The ads, mailers, radio spots, yard signs, and stump speeches during this next-to-last week before Election Day fill my head (and my trash can) with rubbish. I confess that I am slowly becoming a political agnostic, to coin a silly phrase, one who concludes that nothing can be fully known and therefore purely believed in the political arena since there has been so little access to primary source data that has not been pre-digested by the machinery of propagandists in every ideological corridor.

But contrary to man’s mudslinging and muckraking, God has spoken definitively and truly. The clear note of God’s truth rings out amid the noise of opinion, dividing the soul from spirit, bone from marrow, and thoughts from intentions (Heb. 4:12). As if we were asking God directly and urgently, “Please, just give us one firm something to believe that doesn’t change with the season or twist in the wind,” God gives us five firm somethings for good measure.

“The saying is trustworthy,” as a phrase, appears five times in the Bible—each in the writings of Paul. (1) “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15). (2) “The saying is trustworthy: if anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task” (1 Tim. 3:1). (3) “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe” (1 Tim. 4:9-10). (4) “The saying is trustworthy, for: if we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself” (2 Tim. 2:11-13). (5) “The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people” (Titus 3:8). “We have something more sure … his word” (2 Pet. 1:20)!

The Buoyancy of Blessing

The Buoyancy of Blessing.  It’s the little things that stack up under our arms and lift us up. Like Aaron and Hur lifted Moses’ arms against fatigue during the battle, we need help from outside sources when the day is long, and the task is unfinished. We need buoyancy. And buoyancy we certainly have from the Lord, which happily includes each time the Lord has worked through others to bring us blessing. Sometimes that buoyancy comes in big ways, like healing and forgiveness, but the little things like love and kindness seem to tip the balance against gravity and bring us back to the surface. A forgotten song that was meaningful a decade ago plays on the radio. A campfire that catches from just one match. A long-hand letter arrives in the mail. A warm mug of strong, black tea resting beside an oversized chair where a good book from the library waits. A refund check from overpayment surprises the bank account. These blessings raise our noses above the waterline when our arms get tired from treading water in the deep.

"Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword" (Exo. 17:11-13).

The buoyancy of blessing opens our awareness to other buoyant blessings that have never been properly thanked, or properly connected to the Giver. A furnace kicks on as it should when the first frost kisses the rooftop. A pair of broken-in, leather work gloves yields to new work in the yard. Finding the cold side of the pillow at night and the warm side of the quilt in the morning, homemade soup with crusty bread, Orion standing watch in the night sky, the replanted hydrangea taking root in its new spot, the geese heading south in V-formation—for these things, I thank you, O Lord. With the buoyancy of these blessings, and thousands more besides, you have enabled us once again to raise up the anthem, “The Lord is my Banner”; to place “a hand upon the throne of the Lord” (Exo. 17:15, 16).

Good Grief

Good Grief.  The famous line from Charlie Brown in the Peanuts comic was as ironic as it was iconic: Good Grief! I think of Charlie Brown lying flat on his back after his friend, Lucy, yanked the football from his kick again and again. Good Grief! I picture Charlie Brown’s head hung low as his kite was once again eaten by the tree. Good Grief! I recall many times when Charlie Brown’s dog, Snoopy, acted more human than canine, earning the catchphrase, Good Grief! But there never was a half-hour Special on broadcast television entitled, “How Is Grief Ever Good, Charlie Brown?” The families in northern Thailand who this week bury their children slain by a corrupt cop need to know where grief fits into goodness. The protesters in Iran who this week are disappearing for cutting their hair and removing their veils need to know where grief fits into goodness. Even those who still innocently read the Peanuts comics need to know where grief fits into goodness. We all need to understand the goodness that grief can give.

While grief is never comfortable, it is nevertheless good; or it can be good when it does its job, and when its temporary visit comes to a natural conclusion. God’s goodness is wide enough to include our grief, which is bluntly counterintuitive to the human experience. We assume that grief and mourning prove the absence of blessing in our lives. But Jesus, like he does with so many subjects, inverts our presumptions. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matt. 5:4). Wait, what did he say? We evaluate Jesus as upside-down when it is we who are upside-down. He is the only right-side-up person who has ever lived. Because he rakes against our perceptions of normalcy and success and happiness, we interpret him as backward, awkward, and untoward. But Jesus categorically includes grief within his definition of goodness. “Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief … we esteemed him not” (Isa. 53:3). We concluded that he was nothing, a non-factor, dismissible, and forgettable.

Winners never lose and losers never win, Charlie Brown. Until we succeed in kicking that metaphorical football, we are doomed to wallow in grief with Charlie Brown. From the playground all the way up to Wall Street and the Oval Office, we find that message often repeated: blessing equals advancement. But Jesus, who knew no sin, who never failed, who lived a perfect life, died an unjust death, and rose again into victorious life, stepped into our grief, and adopted our failure as his own burden. With his step into our grief, because he is Goodness incarnate, he made our grief a space to show and therefore know God’s goodness. Consider what did not happen—our grief did not contaminate his goodness. Rather, his goodness healed our grief.

Atonement

Atonement.  The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, the highest holy day in the Jewish calendar, is today. Linked with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, Yom Kippur concludes a 10-day festival with a mandatory fast where the observers confess and repent of sin and make amends for the new year. The word atonement basically means covering, as in appeasement.

Historically, the Day of Atonement involved many prayers and a multi-faceted sacrifice (Lev. 16) which the high priest brought into the Holy of Holies, the innermost sanctum of the tabernacle/temple. Only he, and only on this day each year, would the high priest make atonement, first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people. After covering his own sin by sacrificing a bull, the high priest was allowed to present a covering for the sins of the people by sacrificing a pair of goats. One goat would be chased away from the people into the wilderness, traditionally over a cliff, depicting the removal of sin (expiation). The other goat would be killed, depicting the payment of sin (propitiation). Its blood would be carried into the Holy of Holies and splattered upon the golden lid of the Ark of the Covenant inside of which were the Ten Commandments. Thus, a visceral yet temporary covering existed between the Law’s broken requirements and the thrice-holy God. The blood thinly negotiated a bonus year of delayed judgment (forbearance) bought with the substitute’s sacrifice. This was no guarantee of pardon but merely a stay of execution.

In 70 a.d., when the (second) temple was razed to the ground by the Roman General Titus, later known as Caesar Vespasian, the celebration and interpretation of Yom Kippur changed drastically. Without a temple, Yom Kippur came to occupy a purely symbolic role in Judaism. Contrition (Lev. 16:29; Num. 29:7) became the acceptable bloodless sacrifice for Yom Kippur instead of the blood of bulls and goats (Heb. 9:13; 10:4) despite the instruction that “without blood there can be no remission of sins” (Heb. 9:22, referencing Lev. 17:11).

But the main takeaway of today’s contemplation of Yom Kippur is not its history, or even its interpretation, but its impermanence. Modern adherents of Yom Kippur explain: “At the end of Yom Kippur, one hopes that they have been forgiven by God” (https://harfordjewishcenter.org/yom-kippur/). However, the forgiveness of sins is far too weighty a matter to exist within a maybe or hang upon a wish. Speaking from the sacrificial system’s impermanence and upon Yom Kippur’s temporary nature, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews leaves no doubt whatsoever upon the identity and the efficacy of Jesus, who is both the perfect sacrifice and the prefect Great High Priest who sheds his own blood for the sins of the whole world. The concept of maybe has been banished at the cross. The prospect of wishing has been displaced by faith in Christ. “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh … let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:19-22).

Storm

Storm.  This afternoon at 3:05 p.m. Hurricane Ian, categorized as a Category 4 due to its sustained 150mph winds, made landfall at Cayo Costa, Florida—a barrier island near Fort Myers. A massive weather system, Ian is 500 miles across. For comparison, the state of North Carolina, from tip to tide, is 503 miles across. For contrast, driving 500 miles at 65mph, takes 7.7 hours—yet Ian is crawling at a devastating slow pace (8 mph) in a north-northeasterly direction. The slower the storm, the more rain, wind, storm surge, and havoc it produces. Ian is living up to its hype as a havoc-wreaker. Tonight, and tomorrow night at this slow speed, will be a night that Ian will certainly dominate the headlines, the Coast Guard, the 9-1-1 dispatch call centers, the fire departments, police departments, and hospitals in every city along Ian’s warpath, not to mention nursing homes, prisons, and most vulnerable sectors.

This storm is new, but storms are not new. Only a few historic storms remain newsworthy a month, a year, a decade later. May Ian be historically forgettable in that regard: forgettably low in its human casualty rate, forgettably low in its property loss, forgettably low in its forced evacuations and catastrophic losses of housing. But some storms are famous, even infamous: Moses’ storm, Elijah’s storm, Jonah’s storm, Ezekiel’s storm, Paul’s storm.

The storm that Jesus slept through in the stern of a single-hulled fishing boat was unforgettable. While he slept, his disciples, many of whom were professional fishermen who had lived their whole life on the Sea of Galilee, genuinely thought that they were goners. They were annoyed, feeling even betrayed, that Jesus was not bailing water, or rowing, or praying, or being somewhat helpful like the rest of them. “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38). “And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still! And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm” (Mark 4:39).

Aside from the miracle—which is jarring on every level—think of the humanity wrapped up in that interesting, accessible, and understandable question! Do you not care? Perhaps the Lord is being asked that exact question right now in Ian’s wake. It is a legit question, I suppose, but it was the wrong question to ask at this juncture. The Lord already settled the issue of do you not care. After all, Jesus was soaking wet, too, miles from shore, in the same storm with his disciples. God’s care for the disciples had been settled by his arrival, by his presence. The better (dual) question is: “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” What about this storm made your belief in me turn to panic? The storm isn’t about caring but believing. The storm revealed that the disciples did not have enough belief about the most fearsome force in that storm, which was Jesus himself. They would never forget this storm!

The scariest part of the storm was not the wind or the rain, it was Jesus who, while sleeping, summoned the storm and who, upon waking, silenced the storm with a word. God, the Lord of weather, was in their boat. They didn’t believe, even accusing Jesus of nonchalance. But a mercifully new storm whipped up when the rainstorm had calmed down. “And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" (Mark 4:41). This second storm was far worse, and far better.

Balance

Balance.  “Balance,” wrote J. I. Packer (Knowing God), “is a horrible, self-conscious word.” In his view, a (so-called) well-rounded Christian, who insulates himself from risk and remains aloof, is tragically disconnected from Jesus’ radical ideas of denial, holiness, and sacrificial service. In that sense, Packer is not wrong. But balance is not only that. In the physical world, balance is a strong force, albeit secondary to and dependent upon the power of God.

Today, or some may cite tomorrow depending on which part of the sun is measured, is the Autumnal Equinox where the earth hovers in a brief and relative state of balance on its own tilted, twirling axis. By tomorrow (or by Friday), the thin balance of Equinox will have rolled toward winter’s darkness (in the Northern Hemisphere). Yet, year after year, this blue marble on which we live doesn’t roll off into outer darkness after the Equinox. It returns to balance in the springtime of every year. And so, God balances even the apparent imbalance of our planet’s constant motion. “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psa. 19:1).

The disequilibrium we fear might happen to us in our smaller spheres of existence, our loss of control at a much lower elevation than the sun and the earth, is rather ridiculous. Do we really think that we have enough power to jar loose Earth’s orbit or, even more preposterously, to eject ourselves from the grip of God’s grace? I might not think so rationally, but I sometimes live as though cosmic balance is in jeopardy. But it is not! “Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun. You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter” (Psa. 74:16-17). “Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars!” (Psa. 148:3).

Balance is not ours to establish, to worry about, to assist, or to ruin. Balance—if we even want to call it that—is the Lord’s. He keeps it. He keeps all. He keeps us. “The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night” (Psa. 121:5-6). We can rest assured: “He has done all things well” (Mark 7:37).

The Unfairness of God

The Unfairness of God.  The Golden Rule forms the historically set high-water mark for interpersonal relationships, an ethos that is rare in the world even with God’s help and utterly impossible without God’s help. “As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them” (Luke 6:31; see also Matt. 7:12). What The Golden Rule idealizes, Christ incarnates. Think about this profound principle a beat longer than it takes to recite it from rote memory. It is completely inverted from all our social norms, wildly countercultural, and baldly unfair.

If I wish to be respected, then I respect others. If I wish privacy and freedom, then I afford privacy and freedom to others. If I wish to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, then I impart health, wealth, and wisdom to others. Wait a second! The calculus of this relational equation feels grossly imbalanced and naïve. How can giving away to others that which I most desire effectually spin back to myself some form of a boomerang benefit, freely returning to me that which I freely give away? The math doesn’t add up. The Golden Rule is hard to understand, extraordinary to experience, and risky if most people on the planet are like me. And they are.

Normally, when I find a penny, I pick it up. Why? Because within this analogy, I want all day long to have good luck. Abnormally (i.e., never), do I supply a penny for someone else to find. Because, what if the wrong sort of someone else finds my money? I certainly don’t want an unsavory person all day long to have good luck, not if I can help it. I’ll buy a meal for a panhandler, but I won’t give him cash for the same reason: I don’t want to help him to buy cheap booze, even if he might consider a bottle of hooch an all-day-long example of good luck. After all, fair is fair. He squandered his chance. Why should I subsidize his foolishness?

Yet, if the verse housing The Golden Rule were followed to its paragraph break, then we would see that the unsavory person is exactly the audience that Jesus intended for The Golden Rule. “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them … But love your enemies and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil” (Luke 6:32, 35). The marvel of The Golden Rule is not found in the boomerang benefit returned to the giver but in the transformative miracle of generosity while expecting nothing in return. This is what is elsewhere in the Bible called grace. In every way any accountant might balance the columns at the bottom of that transaction, grace does not add up. It is costly. It is unfair. God himself pays the cost for unsavory persons who squandered their chance, who might even misuse his kindness to buy a pint of liquid luck. Extravagantly he credits, even to his enemies, his own life. If God is unfair to anyone, he is only unfair to himself so that he might be generous to unsavory people, like me.