My Book of the Year

Have you ever read a book you couldn’t put down but you had to put down because your soul could barely contain the beauty of the truth it proclaimed? A book filled with such profundity and majesty that to read it felt like trying to digest a sunset or embrace the Grand Canyon?

I just read such a book. And I think I’ll read it again about 1000 times. I tried to read as fast as I could so as to take in the entire narrative of mystery and intrigue. As much as I wanted to consume all of its pages with no breaks I had to take breaks. Not because of its great length – it’s actually very short, only 103 pages. But, because I had to stop and catch my breath and I had to pause and worship.

Yes, worship. Apart from the Scripture I haven’t felt this overwhelmed by a book in a long time. I had to resist the temptation to underline every sentence and still it seems every page has the florescent yellow of my highlighter.

I found myself so in awe of what was being reported. The author says repeatedly that he wished he had come to this truth earlier in life. I wish I had read this book 100 years ago.

I’ll write more about it later. I picked it up because my author-mentor-friend (who I’ve never met or talked to), Eugene Peterson, said it was the best book on this subject that he’d ever read. I knew I needed more insight as I prepared for the talk I’ll give Tuesday night and Wednesday morning at Women’s Bible Study. I’m glad I read it, but I feel paralyzed to include it in my talk – how do I express something so intimate and infinite? How do I communicate the magnitude of this mystery? Somehow, I’ll have to summarize it and share it and pray for the Holy Spirit to empower it.

Please read this book: Experiencing the Trinity, by Darrell W. Johnson.

Cynicism

I just got an email from an old friend. He’s been living among the poor in Mexico for the past year and now he’s heading to a large unnamed city to work at a large unnamed church.

He’s going from homes made of cinder block with the re-bar protruding from their makeshift roofs to one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in these United States. He’s leaving muddy roads to mansion-filled cul-de-sacs. He’s about to get a hefty paycheck after barely getting paid.

The church he’s joining has an $8 million building budget. He knows $8 million can feed a lot of hungry kids in the barrio he has called home. So, he wrote, “the Holy Spirit will have to keep my head above water and away from super-dangerous cynicism.” And then he asked my thoughts.

Funny that he would ask a natural-born cynic about cynicism. I’m sure he could find a better sage. But, perhaps the question was more for me than for him. I’m not at a place with an $8 million building budget but it doesn’t take much for me to be disillusioned. So here’s what I wrote to my friend…and to myself:

“Cynicism. Yes, a good thing to avoid. The only thing that helps me is the reminder that ultimately cynicism is deeply rooted in pride and it seems to be birthed from my insatiable desire to be found wiser, better, stronger and more noble. Only God is ultimately wise and strong and noble and he looks at an $8 million building budget and says, ‘If they aren’t against us – they are for us. And…I love them.’

“I am on a continual journey to define myself by what I am for rather than what I am against. I know that in the battle against derision I have to focus upon what I want to do more than what I want to avoid. There are things to be against – cynicism is one of them. But, give yourself to love, grace and generosity, and you just might find the cynical you fading away.”

The Gospel versus Religion

As always, Tim Keller says it best. Here are two great articles. Thanks Tim!

How Can I Know God?

Religion v. the Gospel

Disturbing God

Matthew 2:13-23

This is a passage I am tempted to jump over. It’s the place where Herod orders all the male children under the age of two to be slaughtered in some crazed attempt to eliminate Jesus. And God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – lets it happen.

The only clue the author gives for all this fleeing and slewing and hemorrhaging is the fulfillment of past prophetic projections.

Joseph packs up the family and makes like the proverbial bat out of hell to get to Egypt. This is so “that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled…” And I think: well, that’s good for Joseph, Mary and Jesus, but what about the babies?

Because, Herod realizes he’s been duped by the guys called wise and like any good tyrant he calls for a mass genocide of infants. And then we have a nuanced phrasing. And then we read that the prophet Jeremiah had foreseen this event and cried out:

“A voice was heard in Ramah,
Weeping and great mourning,
“Rachel weeping for her children;
And she refused to be comforted,
“Because they were no more.”

No kidding. She refused to be comforted? Her children were no more. A crazed King calls for vicious murder of every baby boy in a city – I think I might refuse to be comforted too.

And I’m not even sure right now what to do with my God who allows this. Who is this God who providentially protects his own but seems to bypass the rest of his creation?

Is the answer in the foreshadowing? Jesus protected pointing to Jesus unprotected. Jesus missing murder to ultimately being murdered?

Is the clue found in three little words that appear together throughout this book? It. Is. Written.

It is written. As if to say, “these events are not willy-nilly.” The cost is great. The tragedy insufferable. The reality incomprehensible. But, not by any means is this simply a fluke or a random happenstance.

It is written. It is a part of a true and eternal story written infinity years before but only revealed page by page, chapter by chapter.
It is written. It is written that evil will not catch him on that day but it will on another day, but not because evil prevails, but because Good has a plan.

And so, Jesus says that he will have to go,”just as it is written.” And he does go. He goes to the garden to plead that the plan be altered – that the wrath of God might not be poured out on him. And here we see his humanity – we don’t fault him for asking. And then we see that he is God – only God can take the wrath and have it matter.

Hebrews makes it clearer: “according to God’s law all things are cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness… Jesus has appeared at the end of the age to remove sin by his own death as a sacrifice.”

And the death is death. A brutal death. Death by crucifixion. Death by beating, stripping, whipping, lashing, dehydrating, dehumanizing. God who saved his Son now sacrifices his Son. Not for his sake but for my sake.

[Thoughts?]