Why The Spirit?

Have you ever experienced a “before-and-after moment”? A moment when “the penny dropped”? When the “scales fell off”?  These idioms describe moments when something abstract becomes real; when something hypothetical becomes concrete.  

I dated Rebecca for five years and was engaged for a year and a half. On our wedding day, we became actually united in Holy Matrimony before God and the Church. But what I remember most was the way I felt when the two of us got in the car after the reception and finally drove away together. All the stress, all the noise, all the people faded away and as the peace and quiet enveloped us, I felt the blessing and reality of “us” wash over me.  It wasn’t aspirational anymore.  It was reality and I felt it. It is a very special memory.

And I recall when we had our first child, Talia.  9 months of pregnancy with deep reading of “What to Expect When You're Expecting,” more pillows in bed, Lamaze classes, trying out combinations of names.  The moment of birth, though, was unlike anything I could have ever anticipated. We were purposely unaware of her gender, so we didn’t know whether we would have a boy or girl. As I tell Talia every birthday, it was the best moment of my life. As she was born, the midwife had me stand next to her and deliver Talia. Frankly, I don’t really remember anyone else in the room but me, Talia, and Becca. She was my daughter, I was her father; it was the blessing and reality of “us.” It was reality and I felt it.  

And in both of these moments, the impact was not temporary; the reality of “us” continues to unfold as the journey of love, change, seeking, and finding continues.

In his book “Gentle and Lowly,” Dane Ortlund says: “The Spirit’s role is to turn our postcard apprehensions of Christ’s great heart of longing affection for us into an experience of sitting on the beach...enjoying the actual experience.” He goes on to say, “...he does it ten thousand times thereafter as we continue through sin, folly, or boredom to drift from the felt experience of his heart.”

This Sunday we celebrate Pentecost, the feast commemorating the descent and indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Body of Messiah. It is He who turns our postcard apprehensions of Christ’s great heart into a felt experience, a living reality with ten thousand reminders. Have you experienced the Holy Spirit in your life this way?

Yearning

We got an unexpected call from some old and cherished friends a couple of nights ago. It wasn’t good news. They were calling to enlist us in praying for an adult son—whom we’ve known since his birth—floundering in deep and turbulent waters by his own hand, putting himself, his young family, and his livelihood in peril.

The only apt way to describe their innermost selves in that moment wasn’t frustration or anger...it was yearning. Yearning for restoration, for healing, and for the good of their darling son.

Have you ever experienced something like that for a daughter or son? Many have, including Almighty God.

Yearning of his innermost self for his darling son is the language Jeremiah 31:20 uses to describe God’s heart for his own, floundering in deep and turbulent waters by their own hand. Not frustration. Not anger. Yearning. Yearning for restoration, yearning for healing, and yearning for his darling’s good.

A Fathers Heart

The New Testament isn't an alternative way to approach God, nor do we see a “different” or “nicer” God than in the Old as some imagine. Rather, the Old Testament flows right into the New. Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is the perfect complement, the perfect fulfillment of the Old Testament. Beginning this Sunday and for the next few weeks, we will turn our attention to the heart of the Father as seen through the lens of the Old Testament, particularly this week in Lamentations 3:19-33.

Lamentations 3:33—literally the middle verse of the book—is the climax, the pinnacle of the entire book (Hebrew poets loved to do this kind of thing). What does it tell us about the Father’s heart?

Deserving and desiring

This series is rooted in Matthew 11:29, the passage that speaks of Christ as being gentle and lowly in heart. This follows another descriptor of Jesus, pejoratively given, just a few verses before in Matthew 11:19, where he is called a “friend of tax collectors and sinners” (psst…that’s us).

What does it mean that Jesus Christ is a friend to you? That you are “his”? It speaks of fierce and unbreakable attachment…he’s steadfast towards you. It means he’s for you. It means he opens up his heart and lets you in on what he’s doing in the world. It means that he will never shut you out.

Given enough offenses, given enough backstabbing, given enough times we mistreat someone, every human friend will, understandably, finally build a wall. Every human friend has a limit. Jesus Christ is the one friend who has no limit to what he will put up with from you or from me. The only deal is we have to keep coming to him and falling into his embrace. That’s all.

He’s not only the King of all kings, he’s not only Lord of all lords; he’s our Savior, our intercessor, and our advocate—so he deserves our worship. But he also desires our friendship. And when we open ourselves to him, we discover the friend of all friends.

See you Sunday.

Hitting Refresh

Last fall, sitting at the MD HS Boy’s Soccer State Match, I overheard a father behind me describing with not a small amount of joy, the adventure of purchasing his soon-to-be-sixteen-year-old-daughter's birthday present—four primo tickets to see the young female music superstar whose concert ticket sales broke the internet a bunch of times and made a lot of people really, really grouchy. He was, in the end, able to purchase them online, but only after an entire day sitting at his computer “hitting refresh every five seconds”, several thousand dollars in tickets, and another several hundred dollars in fees. I hope the concert was good.

As I’ve reread chapters 8 & 9 in Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, I’ve thought a lot about the patience, tenacity, and eventual joy of that man sitting at his computer all day just hitting refresh on behalf of his daughter. Here’s why: we tend to focus almost entirely on Christ’s past work of justification—our atonement—which is glorious. We should never stop talking about and celebrating what he did in the past in his life, death, and resurrection. But he’s also doing something in the present, and the Bible actually tells us precisely what that is: ever interceding and advocating for you and me. In essence, constantly, tenaciously, joyfully hitting refresh on our justification in the court of heaven.

I’m enthused about exploring this with you Sunday.

Easter

Never cast out

In John 9—where this week’s Gospel reading comes from—Jesus heals a man born blind. Then, because of his association with Jesus, he's “cast out” of the Synagogue (the Jews having previously decided that this would be the punishment for anyone confessing Jesus as Messiah, we’re told). For Jews in the first century this was a crushing situation ultimately resulting in, if not recanted, complete excommunication (no community, no employment, no business dealings) and a loss of the Jewish exemption from Roman Emperor Worship. The result was destitution at best, and at worst, imprisonment and eventual execution.

This is, in part, what makes Jesus’ words in John 6:37 so resonant, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”

The words rendered “never” in this passage—literally “not not” in Greek—are magnificent. Whereas in English we’d read this as a double negative, the second “not” negating the first, in biblical Greek it’s an “emphatic negation”—the second “not” radically intensifying the first. This makes “not not” more akin to, “never ever ever ever ever… (ad infinitum)”. Radically emphatic, wouldn’t you say?

Solidarity

Christ is revealed to us in the New Testament in the threefold Office of Prophet, Priest, and King. Prophets were tasked with speaking God’s Word to the people; the King represented God to the people; and the Priest represented the people to God…exactly how these Offices functioned in ancient Israel.

The next part of our series, “Gentle and Lowly”, deals largely with the book of Hebrews—a book primarily about the priestly work of Christ. Christ himself being the Priest to end all Priests. The One who is representing us to God.

And Christ’s Priestly work is captured best by the word “solidarity.” It’s not a word we use a lot today, but it’s a magnificent word. It conveys his “withness”. Christ is with us. He is one with us. He experiences what we experience. His joy and happiness are bound to ours. And Hebrews seems especially anxious to let us know that Christ is in solidarity with us not just when we’re doing well, but in our anguish, in our pain, in our failures, and in our penitence.