The Judged Judge
It was not what you would call the highlight of my musical career.
My mouth was dry. My leg shook uncontrollably. My cold hands trembled even as they clutched the trumpet. The three judges–professors in music departments at local colleges, I assume–sat in their folding chairs behind a table across the room. One slumped back in her chair and chewed a pencil. Another rested his elbows on the table and peered over the top of his reading glasses. The third glanced at his watch and sipped his coffee. They were waiting for me to begin.
“Start with an E flat scale”, they’d said. So, I took as deep of a breath as I could manage, and lifted the instrument to my lips. I began to play. Or–to put it more accurately–I attempted to play. But try as I might, my lips refused to vibrate. My fingers could not find the right valves. The notes would not come out right. Some sort of sound came out the bell of my trumpet. But it wasn’t an E flat scale. I mumbled a quick apology to the judges, shook my head, and tried again. Still nothing like an E flat scale. I began a third time, this time charging through the missed notes. When I finished the scale, I knew my audition was over.
I had prepared for that audition for months (years, actually). I could do an E flat (and a B flat, and an A flat) in in my sleep. But for some reason, when the judges were watching, everything fell apart.
Judgment. I don’t know any (self aware individual) who is excited by the prospect. Most people feel a pang of anxiety when they hear the word because most of us can remember I time when we were judged–and came up short.
Not smart enough.
Not fast enough.
Not rich enough.
Not good enough.
Rarely is judgment a good experience for us. All too often, judgment means rejection. And so I was not surprised at the old saints reaction when I mentioned to her that I would be preaching on the phrase, I believe…he will come to judge the living in the dead. She winced–as though she’d just grabbed hold of a live wire. The unspoken question was written across her face. How do I know that I can withstand judgment? When I have to “give an account for every careless word spoken” (Matt.12:36), when every concealed thought and act is brought out into the open (Luke 8:17) and everything is laid bare (2 Peter 3:10), how can I possibly believe that I will endure God’s scrutiny? How can I have any hope? For her, the proclamation that Jesus will come to judge does not sound like good news. It sounds like terrifying news. It probably does to many of us.
And yet, when the writers of the Heidelberg Catechism pondered this phrase (Q&A 52), they insisted that we should anticipate Christ’s coming to judge (as the old translation put it) “with uplifted heads.” We should be standing on tiptoe, straining our eyes toward the horizon, confidently awaiting his arrival. Why? Because the judge we await is “the very one who has already stood trial in my place before God.” Or as Karl Barth once put it, “Our Judge has been judged.”
Theologian Daniel Migliore observes that one of the crucial questions we must answer when pondering the meaning of the prhase he will come to judge the living and the dead is who our judge will be (the other is what the purpose of his judgment will be–but more on that Sunday morning). Too often, write Migliore, we act as if there are two different Christs: the first Christ who came to Bethlehem to show us his love and grace and then a later Christ who will come to judge and show us his wrath and vengeance. But this is simply not the case. As the angel reminds the disciples in Acts 1:10, Jesus who ascended to heaven is the same Jesus who will return. In other words, when Christ returns to judge, he will not have changed identity or purpose. He will be the same Jesus we came to know two thousand years ago–the Jesus who came in the flesh to die in our place and save us from our sins, the Jesus who endured the just judgment of God for our sin. He will be our judge.
In a famous passage at the end of Romans 8, Paul throws out what appears to be a rhetorical question to his readers. Who is he that condemns? He asks. Christ Jesus who died? More than that, who was raised to life and is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us? Paul seems to be saying it all with a bit of a smirk and a pa-shaw. Would the Jesus who died for you really condemn you? Would he suddenly change his mind and decide that he wants nothing to do for you? I don’t think so! We may hear the voice of condemnation from our parents, our teachers, our coaches, our spouses, our friends, or from ourselves. But Paul insists that we will never hear it from Jesus. Our judge was condemned for us, he says. So for us, there is now no condemnation!
I recently read of an incident in which a reporter asked the wife of Albert Einstein if she understood her husband’s famous formula, E =MC2. Mrs. Einstein replied that she did not. Then, after a pause, she added these words: But I know my husband. And that is enough. That answer, I believe, is a good start for us as we think about Jesus’ coming to judge. There are, of course, many questions that remain. We may not know where the lines will fall. We may not know the fate of every person we know and love. But we know our (judged) Judge. And that should be enough.
Feeling Fine
“Well,” said the woman , “I don’t know what happened. I felt fine.”
The eighty-something year old woman was laying in a hospital bed. Machines beeped, nurses scurried, tubes dripped all around her. She was there because she’d taken a fall on the sidewalk outside of her home. Her legs had simply given out under her. And she was baffled. After all, she felt fine.
Later that day, the shroud of mystery surrounding the fall was removed. The doctor came in and rattled off a long list of ailments afflicting the old widow. I can no longer remember them all, but somewhere on the list was a virus in her bloodstream, pnuemonia, dibitating diabetes, and a pair of kidneys that could hardly function without the help of machines. She was hardly fine. No matter how she felt.
Human beings, it would appear, have an incredible ability to adapt. We can get used to almost anything. Our bodies can be filled with cripplying diseas and yet we can insist that we are fine. The standards we set for ourselves can be remarkably low.
At the center of the Christian message is the good news that Jesus saves. But sometimes, it’s hard to believe that we are people who are in need of saving. Me? Really? But I feel fine. I don’t cheat on my wife or look at dirty pictures on the internet. I never tell lies (or at least, not big ones). I give money to the church. I’m a nice guy (most of the time). Humble too. Why would somebody like me need a savior?
And then I remember my old friend in the hospital. And I think: Maybe my standards are a little low, too. Maybe there is a terrible sickness in my soul–a sicknesess that I’ve grown so accustomed to living with that I no longer notice it is there. Maybe I’m grading myself on a curve–and the curve is being set by a bunch of people who are also anything but fine.
In an oft quoted line from Isaiah 64:6, the prophet laments the human condition. All of our righteous acts are like filthy rags, he says. Its a rather grim assessment. But it seems to me that within this statement their is a hope that human beings have the potential to be more than we ever imagined. If even our best works are like a pile of old shop rags, what might we be like if we were being the people that God made us to be? In his famous sermon, The Weight of Glory, CS Lewis said that if we were to see each other as God made us to be–living up to the glory of God rather than falling short of it–we would be strongly tempted to worship one another. We would be so much more than “just fine”!
But of course, right now, we are not. We are people in need of a savior. And in Jesus Christ, that is exactly what we get.
Little Faith, Big God
The girl was too young. Everybody who heard about it agreed. They shook their heads, tsk tsked, and in the murmered conversations that take place in funeral parlors said, nearly without fail: I can’t believe it. It’s so sad. She was so young.
She was closer to twenty than to thirty. She’d only been at her job as a jr. high English teacher for a year or two. She sang on the praise team in her church. She’d met a boy who she thought would be “the one.” Life looked so good. She was just getting started.
But cancer changed all that. The diagnosis came mid-September. By December she was gone. Just in time for Christmas. She’d been so young.
Most everybody who came through the line in the funeral home kept a stunned silence. I’m sorry, they said to her sniffling parents, I just don’t know what to say. Then they offered a quick embrace, dropped their tear-blurred eyes to the floor, and shuffled on past the flowers, past the pictures, past the casket that held the body of the girl that was too young. Who could explain such a tragedy?
The young man–the one who sat next to her in church, the one who occasionally slipped his hand over hers during the long prayer, the one who had wanted to bring her home for Christmas dinner, the one whom she had thought was the one–he thought, if only for an instant, that perhaps he could explain it. Maybe it was grief. Or maybe he really believed it. But as he stood by the casket he said, I’m sorry…I’m so sorry. I should’ve had more faith. He looked up at her parents. If only we had believed more. God could have–would have–healed her. ‘The prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.’ Faith the size of a mustard seed…His voice trailed off and his sobs took over.
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There is a wonderful scene at the end of C.S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian in which Lucy, finds the great Lion (and Christ-figure) Aslan after a long search. The scene unfolds this way:
Aslan, Aslan. Dear Aslan,” sobbed Lucy. “At last.”
The great beast rolled over on his side so that Lucy fell, half sitting and half lying between his front paws. He bent forward and just touched her nose with his tongue. His warm breath came all around her. She gazed up into his large wise face.”
“Welcome, child.” He said.
“Aslan,” said Lucy, “You’re bigger.”
“This is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
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Sometimes, we treat God like a balloon animal who must be inflated by the mighty wind of our faith. Little faith, little God. Big faith, big God. God’s strength and power are somehow restricted (or enhanced) by the sincerity, urgency, and depth of our faith. If God does not act as we had hoped, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
There is something that sounds almost right about that. After all, there is a strand of teaching in Scripture that suggests that our faith has an important role in mobilizing God. I’m not entirely sure of what that means. But I am fairly certain it does not mean that our faith changes how big and powerful God is. The God of Scripture will still be God–a big, sovereign, Almighty God–no matter how feeble or fumbling my faith is. He does not need me–or my faith–to do his work. It is not for his benefit that my faith needs to grow. It is for my own.
As little Lucy grow up (in her faith), the gift she receives is that she continues to discover that there is (and has always been) more to Aslan than she had previously thought. More strength, more power, more wisdom. As she grows bigger, she discovers that he has always been bigger. Her perceiving that reality with new clarity does not make the reality more or less true. But it does open up a new way for her to live. To love him more. To trust him more. And finally, to collapse with confidence into the mighty arms of the one who is bigger than she had ever dared to imagine.
As we continue to profess that we believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, may our faith continue to grow. And in the process, may we discover that he has always been bigger.
Augustine on Creation
Preparing for Sunday’s sermon on Genesis 1, I stumbled upon this little gem from Augustine of Hippo (written @ 1500 years ago).
Often a non-Christian knows something of the earth, the heavens, the motions and the orbits of the stars, and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is say is based on Scripture. We should do all we can to avoid such embarrassment, which people see as ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn. (From The Literal Meaning of Genesis)
Sin 101
I’ve given myself the assignment of preaching on the 10 Commandments this fall. I’ve covered #1 (or at least preached a sermon on it) already–but just ran across another good bit from NT Wrigth that I wish I could have included somehow. It’s good fodder for thinking about the 1st Command, but also our approach to the rest of them:
When we begin with creation, and with God as creator, we can see clearly that the frequently repeated warnings about sin and death, referred to as axiomatic by Paul, are not arbitrary, as though God were simply a tyrant inventing odd laws and losing his temper with those who flouted them, but structural: humans were made to function in particular ways, with worship of the creator as the central feature, and those who turn away from that worship—that is, the whole human race, with a single exception—are thereby opting to seek life where it is not to be found, which is another way of saying that they are courting their own decay and death. That is to say, with the entire Jewish tradition, that the basic sin is idolatry, the worship of that which is not in fact the living creator God.(NT Wright, Paul, pg. 35)
Cold Water, Hot Coffee
We talked a lot last Sunday about Christ’s call to embrace a broken world; the command to go into the world with his other-worldly kindness, love, grace, and service. But talking about it is one thing. Knowing how to do it is another. Someone shared this poem with me that I think gives a good suggestion. It’s called “Cold Water, Hot Coffee” and is written by Ann Weems.
Sometimes that cup of cold water,
turns out to be a cup of hot cofeee,
and what we’re asked to do is
to pour it…and to listen.
Sometimes we Christians
in our enthusaism
think we were asked
to save the world,
when what we were asked to do
is to go into it
and tell God’s story
to people in need of
some good news.
Aanxious activists forget
that just listening is an act
of compassion.
Driven disciples forget
that just listening is an act
of faithfulness.
Guilty givers forget
that just listening is an act
of stewardship.
Since we church people
have a tendancy to be
driven and anxious and guilt-ridden,
perhaps we shoul
read the directs again
and pour a cup of hot coffee
and listen
in his name.
For me, there’s sweet relief in knowing that I don’t have to “fix” everything. Listening can be enough.
Great Taste During Lent
No joke: I saw this sign in Taco Bell a few weeks ago. There are too many levels of irony to comment on here, but suffice it to say that I’m not so sure that the folks who came up with the concept really “get” Lent. Even so, they helped me “get” it a little better.
I’ve still got John 4 (the Samaritan Woman at the Well) on the brain. I’m still thinking about why Jesus goes about unraveling this woman’s past. The obvious answer (which is usually the best answer when it comes to Scripture interpretation) is that he wanted to help her see how she’d been looking for love in all the wrong places. Jesus wanted to open her eyes to the way that she’d been trying to quench her deepest thirsts and hungers (for intimacy, meaning, security) in all the wrong places. He wanted to show her how she’d been filling up on cheap substitutes that could never leave her satisfied. He wanted to show her just how thirsty (and hungry) she was for Him, and what he could offer her.
It seems to me that Jesus wanted to show her that she was trying to fill up on Taco Bell when what she really wanted was Him.
That, of course, is one of the great questions we ask ourselves during Lent. Who (or what) do we look to to satisfy our hungers and quench our thirsts? Have we been duped into filling up on cheap substitutes and lost our appetites for the real deal?
Recently, a friend of mine posted this quote on her blog:
I love her insight for it’s honesty. But I also love it because it helped me see that sometimes, the things that we need to give up–those artificial substitutes–often aren’t bad in and of themselves. What’s keeping us from drinking deeply from the well of Living Water might not be something obvious: pornography, or gossip, or promiscuous relationships–those favorite sins of preachers. It may be something that is good in it’s proper place–when our loves are properly ordered (as Augustine said)–but that has slipped out of place. It may be that we’re filling up on books, family, work, hobbies. It may be that these good things that have become dangerous because we’re too full of them to be full of Him. If you’ll let me push the analogy–it may be that we’re taking what’s okay on occasion (Taco Bell?) and filling up on it all the time.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way. Jesus says he’s got something better than Grilled Stuffed Burritos for us. He says that we “he has food we may know nothing about (vs. 32) and that “…those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The next time you’re tempted to pull through the drive-thru at Taco Bell, think about that! He is the one who satisfies!
“ Do not be surprised, therefore, when you have yielded your service, given your affection, and poured out your heart to that pleasure of yours, your idol, your own lust and mischief–do not be surprised, then, if you have no appetite for Christ, or for that heavenly food.”
–Robert Bruce
Wisdom: A Sneak Peek of Daniel 4
Working on Daniel 4 this week, I was reminded of the opening line of John Calvin’s Institutes.
“Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.”
Hopefully, we’ll take a few steps in the direction of that “true and sound wisdom” this (and every!) Sunday morning.
Obedience
On Sunday morning, I quoted Sietze Buning’s (Stanley Weirsma’s) poem Obedience. However, I left out what I think may be the best part (the last few paragraphs). So for your pleasure (and pondering), here it is in full:
Were my parents right or wrong
not to mow the ripe oats that Sunday morning
with the rainstorm threatening?
I reminded them that the Sabbath was made for man
and of the ox fallen into the pit.
Without an oats crop, I argued,
the cattle would need to survive on town-bought oats
and then it wouldn’t pay to keep them.
Isn’t selling cattle at a loss like an ox in a pit?
My parents did not argue.
We went to church.
We sang the usual psalms louder than usual–
we, and the others whose harvests were at stake:
“Jerusalem, where blessing waits,
Our feet are standing in thy gates.”
“God be merciful to me;
On thy grace I rest my plea.”
Dominie’s spur-of-the-moment concession:
“He rides on the clouds, the wings of the storm;
The lightning and wind his missions perform.”
Dominie made no concessions on sermon length:
“Five Good Reasons for Infant Baptism,”
Though we heard little of it,
for more floods came and more winds blew and beat
upon that House than we had figured on, even,
more lighting and thunder
and hail the size of pullet eggs.
Falling branches snapped the electric wires.
We sang the closing psalm without the organ and in the dark:
“Ye seed from Abraham descended,
God’s covenant love is never ended.”
Afterward we rode by our oats field,
flattened.
“We still will mow it,” Dad said.
“Ten bushels to the acre, maybe, what would have been fifty
if I had mowed right after milking
and if the whole family had shocked.
We could have had it weatherproof before the storm.”
Later at dinner Dad said,
“God was testing us. I’m glad we went.”
“Those psalms never gave me such a lift as this morning,”
Mother said, “I wouldn’t have missed it.”
And even I thought but did not say,
How guilty we would feel now if we had saved the harvest.
The one time Dad asked me why I live in a Black neighborhood,
I reminded him of that Sunday morning.
Immediately he understood.”
Sometime around the turn of the century
my sons may well bring me an article in The Banner
written by a sociologist who argues,
“The integrated neighborhoods of thirty years ago,
in spite of good intentions,
impaired Black self-image and delayed Black independence.”
Then I shall tell my sons about that Sunday morning.
And I shall ask my sons to forgive me
(who knows exactly what for?)
as they must ask their sons to forgive them
(who knows exactly what for?)
as I have long ago forgiven my father
(who knows exactly what for?)
Fathers often fail to pass on to sons
their harvest customs
for harvesting grain or real estate or anything.
No matter, so long as fathers pass on to sons
another more important pattern
defined as absolutely as muddlers like us can manage:
obedience.
Seitze Buning, in Purpaleanie and other Permutations
The Middleburg Press, Orange City, IA. 1978.
Praying for Your Pastor
Flipping through Ephesians on Sunday night, I found a pastoral prayer request that ties in well with my last post. Paul says: Pray for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel…Pray that I may declare it as fearlessly as I should. (Ephesians 6:19-20)
A good one for Paul…and a good one for me!
