Light Lenten Reflections

Week 7

Holy Week

It's Who You Know...

On November 23, 1963, a television show premiered in Great Britain about the adventures of a man from another world who traveled the universe in a faulty, stolen time-traveling machine. Despite an inauspicious start - its original broadcast time was delayed by news bulletins about the Kennedy assassination – the show became popular enough to start broadcasting internationally the following year. Originally written as a family-oriented children's show, it eventually drew a large following of adult sci fi fans. The show broadcast from 1963 through 1989, had a stand-alone movie in 1996, eventually got a reboot in 2005 and has continued with increasing popularity ever since. The show, Doctor Who, is shown in over 50 countries and, thanks to BBC America and PBS, can be seen on multiple stations in the U.S in any given week. A television show with the staying power of 50 plus years...an amazing feat. What's the attraction, and how is it even logistically possible?

For those not familiar with The Doctor, he's a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, a very social guy, choosing to travel through time and space with companions, usually people from the planet Earth. The Doctor loves humans, often acting to protect them and never asking anything in return. He and his companions spend a lot of time saving the Earth and its oblivious population from a wide assortment of alien enemies out to destroy it. This often puts him in perilous situations, some of which he doesn't survive. But, no problem – Time Lords have the ability to “regenerate”. The Doctor can die, but then comes alive again, in a new body - and as a new actor. Twelve* actors have played Doctor Who, which would explain in part the staying power of the series.

This week Christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the God-man who invaded our world, died on a cross only to show up alive and in a new body three days later. Why? Because He loved humans. And we were facing a mortal danger, an enemy more vicious than a dalek, scarier than a weeping angel and more insidious than the vashta nerada – Sin and its partner consequence, Death. It cost Him His earthly life to save us from that deadly duo, but He gave His life willingly and asked nothing in return. Nothing except to acknowledge and believe Who He is and what He has done...for us, His beloved human race. But many of us go on oblivious to the work Jesus has done on our behalf - calling us to turn from the sin that bogs us down, giving us freedom from the consequences of that sin, enabling a loving relationship with His heavenly Father and the promise of sharing in His resurrection life with a new body and an amazing eternity with Him. Talk about regeneration...

The Doctor's ability to regenerate, I think, only explains in part the longevity of the Doctor Who series. Perhaps part of the universal appeal of Doctor Who is that we, as fallen, oblivious human flesh, have within us a not-always-conscious inkling that we are desperately in need of Someone to save us, to rescue us from the deadly threat to our time line. Now, I know all analogies eventually break down, even a great one. And any analogy between the Doctor and Jesus Christ is only mediocre at best. Jesus is not a Time Lord. Sin is not a dalek. Eternity is not a wibbley-wobbley-timey-wimey thing. But we do have within us a deep longing for a Savior, and left on our own, we strive to come up with ways to save ourselves and fail abysmally. We struggle with doing things to get out of the timeless, universal mess we find ourselves in when we need only to believe and acknowledge and seek a relationship with the One who has already invaded our world and saved us. In the end, it is not what we do that counts, but Who we know...

Something to Ponder:

How much of your spiritual life depends on “doing” things, rescuing yourself? How much of your spiritual life depends on looking to Jesus as the Rescuer? Do you do good things because you want to earn God's approval and grace, or are you so overwhelmed by your helplessness and God's grace for you that you want to do good things for Him? What's the difference?

Something to Pray:

Grab a Bible or go to BibleGateway.com. Read Ephesians 2:4-10. Ask God to give you a greater understanding and appreciation for His mercy, His great love, His grace for you and His kindness toward you. Thank Him for the specific ways you have seen these things from Him in your life. Thank Him for having done the “heavy work” of saving you and ask Him to give you a greater understanding of what it means “by grace you have been saved through faith” and the gift it is. Lastly, commit your good works to God, asking Him to show you how to walk in them.

Atraxi: [after scanning The Doctor] You are not of this world.

The Doctor: No but I've put a lot work into it.

Atraxi: Is this world important?

The Doctor: Important? What's that mean, important? Six billion people live here, is that important?...

                     - From The Eleventh Hour (The Eleventh Doctor)

Clara Oswald: You're going to help me?

The Doctor: Well, why wouldn't I help you?

Clara Oswald: Because of what I just did, I just...

The Doctor: You betrayed me. You betrayed my trust. You betrayed our friendship. You betrayed everything... you let me down!

Clara Oswald: Then why are you helping me?

The Doctor: Why? Do you think that I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?

                                                                   - From Dark Water (The Twelfth Doctor)

...He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever... He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe... And... he's wonderful.

           - Tim Latimer, describing the Doctor, from The Family of Blood (The Tenth Doctor)

He who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the Lord is his name                                                 - Amos 5:8

I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.                                                         - Daniel 7: 13-14

*(Yes, I know...some of you die-hard fans out there would argue thirteen...)

Light Lenten Reflections

Week 6

Live Like a Narnian

When I got up this morning, the sun had already risen. I didn't actually see it, but the lightening of the clouds indicated it had most likely happened, like it did the day before, and I have faith it will tomorrow. I went out to the car later in the morning and drove to the store. I believed the car would start, run, get me where I wanted to go despite my lack of in-depth automotive knowledge. I also believed the drivers in the cars I passed on the road had a survival instinct at least as strong as my own, would stay on their side of the road and get where they wanted to go without doing anything stupid to prevent me from getting where I wanted to go. I have faith in my fellow man...within reason...

Faith...Part of the Merriam-Webster definition calls it a firm belief in something for which there is no proof and also as a complete belief and trust in and loyalty to God. In the book of Hebrews, the Bible says faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. The sun's rise tomorrow and a safe arrival at the store are not guaranteed. However, I have enough trust, assurance and conviction to believe both are highly likely, but I'm not sure if either are indicators of true, rubber-meets-the-road, faith. I believe all sorts of things because, frankly, I am surrounded by good reasons to believe them. My personal inclination is to lean toward the believable. My collection of facts about what I believe may be incomplete, but I usually have accrued enough of them to make my beliefs reasonable, and the missing pieces may even give my belief system an element of faith about it.

But faith, true faith, is when all is missing pieces, or, sometimes, no pieces at all. Of course, there is always the chance that the thing I put my faith in may be foolish, may not even be real, but the faith I'm talking about here is the faith that I have in what I can't see, but what I hope, on most days, to be true. And I go on, living my life of faith, on most days, until I come to that day, or that week, or that year of doubt. The thing or the Person I have put my faith in has not behaved like I have believed it or He would, and my faith is shaken.

My experience of faith is that it is continuous but not always constant in its weight. Some days it just seems stronger than on other days. In circumstances where there isn't much heft to my faith, I fear it is in danger of floating away. To look at the hope of eternity in light of the world around me is enough to suck the mass out of my faith on some days.

I first read C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia as an adult. If you have not read this series of books written for children, I highly recommend it. (Notice I wrote “books written for children” and not “children's books”. They are profound reading for adults...) My favorite book in the series is The Silver Chair. In part of the story, two children, a captured prince and a marsh-wiggle are trying to make their escape from a witch's underground kingdom. They have been trapped there for a long time, and their memories of the Overland, the place above ground where the noble talking lion Aslan rules, have started to fade. Their crisis of faith has been helped along by the witch's sweet magic powder and her insistence that all they remember of the real world is just, in fact, a dream or a children's story. Puddleglum, the marsh-wiggle, by nature a creature of gloomy disposition, is the last to succumb to the witch's faith-destroying tactics. But he rouses himself out of her spell to declare what I consider to be one of the noblest defenses of faith in literature:

 

“...All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I don't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that' s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say.”

Many days, my faith is strong, heavy even, but on those light-weight days that do come, C. S. Lewis, via Puddleglum, speaks weight into my faith. When I see no way, the marsh-wiggle encourages me to make a deliberate commitment to a Person. I choose to be on Aslan's side and live like a Narnian.

Something to Ponder:

How “heavy” is your faith in general? In believing and trusting in other people, in believing and trusting in what you may know about God? How dependent is your faith on the “facts” that make your beliefs seem reasonable? Think about what would happen if you couldn't “see” those facts any longer. How would this affect your faith? How do the words “blind faith” make you feel?

Something to Pray:

Grab a Bible or go to BibleGateway.com. Read Hebrews 11:1-3. Now pray it. In light of what you pondered above, ask God to give you the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, especially in your relationship with Him. Ask Him to give “weight” to your faith. Read Hebrews 11:8-12 as it tells about God's promises to Abraham and his response of faith. Ask God to give you faith like Abraham's, to follow God even when you are not sure where He is leading you, to believe in His goodness and provision even when it seems impossible.

Faith is not intelligent understanding, faith is deliberate commitment to

a Person where I see no way. - Oswald Chambers, March 28, My Utmost for His Highest

A version of this was previously posted on the blog at www.trinitylink.com.

Light Lenten Reflections

Week 5

Mmmmm.....Tempting....

My brother attributes my great fishing prowess - including my annoying tendency to outfish him – to my ability to think like a fish. My brother is a highly knowledgeable fisherman, so I assume he is correct. A few years ago, on a trip to Wal-Mart for some random grocery item, I inexplicably found myself in the fishing lure aisle. (This happens surprisingly often.) There among the bags of Gulp and Zoom soft baits, a generic package of rubber worms caught my eye. Earthworm-mauve in color at the head, fading to a creamy rose in its tapered tail, this worm stimulated that part of my brain that thinks like a fish. Somehow I knew if I were a largemouth bass, I definitely would go for this worm. I promptly grabbed a pack of them, got my random grocery item (I think...) and went home to try out the worm in the backyard pond.

Over the next fishing year the worm proved to be very successful. I caught a lot of bass with it, some crappie and even a bluegill who should have known better than to go for something that big.. But when I started thinking about the actual size of the fish I was catching, I honestly had to admit that I didn't catch any really big bass with what was now my favorite rubber worm. Most of the bass I was getting were what I would call “teenage” or “college-age” bass, that is, not small, but not yet having reached their full weight or length maturity. Oh, I did see some big ones out there, but they either ignored the worm, or looked at it with disdain as if to say “Yeah, seen that before. Not interested. Going after one of those never ends well...” It got me thinking about the role experience and maturity has in the ability to resist temptation.

Temptation, a desire to do something, especially something wrong or unwise, is part of our human nature. There is nothing really wrong with temptation itself. It's a desire, but not yet an action. We can resist the temptation to do something that is ultimately bad for us, and after a little strain to our self restraint muscles, life goes on as usual, or we can give into the temptation and find out how bad the resulting consequences will be. Like those luscious rubber worms, temptations are things that appear to be real but are in fact just faint imitations of what we really need or long for. When we are tempted to eat an entire bag of sour cream cheddar potato chips it's because we are hungry for real food. When we are tempted to lie or misrepresent ourselves it's because we want to be accepted or seen in a particular light. When we drink too much or indulge in drugs it's because we want to feel good or distract ourselves from some inner pain, if only for the present moment. When we are tempted to enter into unhealthy relationships it's because we are wired to be in good relationships, but we don't have the patience to wait for the good one to come along. As we age and mature, I think we become more aware of the temptations out there we are most likely to succumb to, their personal consequences for us, and, if we are wise, learn to resist them. Unlike the teenage and college-age bass, we develop the disdain of the lunkers - “Yeah, seen that before. Not interested. Going after one of those never ends well...”

Toward the end of my successful fishing season, I did catch one big largemouth with that worm. It was the biggest bass, biggest any fish, I had ever caught in my life. It was an exciting catch for me. It did not end well for the fish. I was a little surprised a big bass had given into the lure of that worm, but I think it was a good reminder that our age, maturity, and experience isn't always enough to resist temptation. The ultimate way of escape from temptation doesn't come from deep down, within us, but from Above. Sometimes our resolve fails us, and without a heaven-sent escape, we human lunkers find ourselves behaving like teenage and college-age bass when it comes to temptation. We give in. And it never ends well... 

 

Something to Ponder:

What are your “rubber worms”, the areas that hold the most temptation for you? Food, money, image, relationships, sex, alcohol, drugs, other things? What are the areas you don't think are a struggle for you, that you feel a bit smug in your resistance to?

Something to Pray:

Grab a Bible or go to BibleGateway.com. Read 1 Corinthians 10:11-13. Reread verse 12. Give to God the areas you feel a bit smug in your resistance to temptation. Acknowledge that your strength is often not enough. Ask Him to protect you with His strength to keep you strong and wise. Reread verse 13 a couple of times. Ask God to “provide the way of escape” for you in the areas you do struggle with temptation.

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness — they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means — the only complete realist.” - C. S. Lewis

Sherman's Lagoon                   Jim Toomey                 1994

Light Lenten Reflections

Week 4

The Low Down on the High Places

I've recently been reading a series of books detailing the long and bloody history of some ancient kingdoms. The kings and their assorted family members run the gamut from somewhat good and somewhat noble to downright evil and conniving. There is intrigue, bloodshed, and a roller coaster of character development. The somewhat good people are flawed. The evil ones may appear to have their moments of goodness. Some characters are given pages of presence, others only a line or two. No, I've not been reading A Song of Fire and Ice, (those Game of Thrones books). I've been reading four biblical Old Testament books – First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles, histories having, perhaps at first glance, some similarities to the Game of Thrones world. Minus the dragons, though...

The two biblical kingdoms of Judah and Israel had their share of rotten kings whose atrocities and idolatries are condemned across the pages of the four above-mentioned books. Similarly, the good kings get shout-outs in the same books for their attempts to do things God's way. But in reading about king after king, I noticed a disturbing pattern even among the histories of the “good” kings. It seemed that not every, but most, “good” kings got dragged down by “the high places”. The pattern I was seeing read something like this:

“(Put 'good' king's name here) walked in all the ways of (previous 'good' king, often his father). He did not turn aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of the Lord. (But; Nevertheless) the high places were not taken away.”

This scenario occurs again and again, in the histories of Solomon, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoash, Amaziah, Azariah, Jotham... “But the high places were not taken away...”

So, what's the deal with the “high places”? Most of these good kings tore down the idolatrous shrines, places where the people worshiped pagan gods, but why not the high places? Why were they different and why were they such a problem? Initially, before Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem, there was no central place for the people to worship God, so they thought it a good idea to worship Him somewhere. And high places, often geographically and symbolically closer to heaven, seemed to make sense as do-it-yourself worship venues. And sincere worship probably did occur at times in these high places, so they were tolerated. But after the temple was built, these high places remained, now more often than not, tainted with idol worship.

Why leave standing a place which has out-lived its original purpose, is a snare to people's spiritual lives, and is a magnet for heathen idolatry? One has only to look as far as human nature for some likely answers. We humans easily tolerate that which is overly familiar to us even if it has negative consequences. Familiar things have a tendency to become invisible to us. I have ceased to see those boxes of old photographs I put in the corner of the bedroom with the intention of sorting a year ago. They have now become invisible to me, that is, until I trip over them trying to navigate the room with the lights off. We humans are also good at tolerating compromise. Something once sort of good can't be all bad now that it's sort of bad, so we let it stay in our lives. Like those cheap but oh so stylish shoes that felt tolerably comfortable when I first bought them, but don't any longer, and yet here they are, still on my feet, still looking oh so stylish. Lastly, we humans tend to allow things to stay in our lives simply because we don't want to make the effort to remove them. Getting rid of long-standing stuff takes both physical and emotional energy. My basement contains items I no longer need or want, but have I cleaned it out? No, that would take time and energy and emotional effort I don't feel like expending at the moment, though I expect I will regret my present lack of action if I ever decide to sell the house.

“High places” in our lives have potentially much more serious consequences than unsorted photos, worn out shoes and cluttered basements. We may see ourselves walking with God like “good” kings, but like those kings, we allow areas of our lives to sidetrack and distract us and those around us from God's best for us. These distractions may be behaviors as innocuous as an occasional racy TV show or as devastating as a porn habit. They may be internal mindsets ranging from silently but habitually judging others to harboring long-standing bitterness or unforgiveness toward someone. These all pull us down and away from the whole-hearted following of the path God has called us to. And there is nothing “high” about that...

Something to Ponder:

Are there spiritual “high places” in your life, things that have become invisible to you, places of tolerable compromise, areas you don't want to expend the energy to deal with that have the potential to pull you off track in your walk with God? How would your life, your relationship with God be different if you were to “tear down” one of those high places?

Something to Pray:

Ask God to make you more aware of the negative spiritual consequences of your easily ignored “high places”. Grab a Bible or go to BibleGateway.com. Read 2 Kings 18:1-8. Hezekiah is one of the kings who did tear down the high places. Ask God to be the Foreman on your demolition team for any high place in your life He wants you to deal with. Ask Him to show you how and give you the strength to tear it down. Ask Him also for the attributes of Hezekiah – to do right in the eyes of the Lord, to trust in the Lord, to hold fast to Him, to not depart from following Him.

The world is not fair, and often fools, cowards, liars and the selfish hide in high places.

- Bryant H. McGill