A Devotional for the Thirty-Ninth Day of Lent

O Lord, what are human beings that you regard them,
 or mortals that you think of them? 
They are like a breath;
 their days are like a passing shadow. (Psalm 144:3-4)

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord”, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

In a course on ministry, my teaching partner and I ask our students to respond in writing to the question, “If God is thinking about you right now, what is on his mind?” You would think that a group of seminary students would be fairly positive in their answers, but the majority usually struggle with the idea that God is thinking anything positive about them, or even thinking about them at all. It’s a tough place for them to be, and it has changed the way we teach the course.

I wonder if the responses of my students mirror the way most people feel about God. Certainly the psalmist reflects on the temporal nature of human life. We are born, we live for a while, and sooner or later we die. People just seem to come and go on planet earth, like a bunch of shadows that ultimately lack any substance. Why would God be concerned about these mortal puffs of wind?

One of the crazy things about the Bible is that it keeps telling the story of the God who thinks constantly, cares deeply, and acts redemptively toward human beings. Yes, there is much said about God’s anger and wrath, but most of that is consequential; God’s wrath is usually expressed in people getting what results from their misbehavior. Even so, God keeps coming back at people, renewing covenants, forgiving sin, bringing hope and promise. This God of greatness keeps coming at us, living among us, drawing us toward him in love and healing. It’s a crazy story. But it’s crazy enough to bring us hope.

Jeremiah seems to describe God’s plan to have a people that no longer “know” him by regulation and requirement, but instead really know him deep within their lives. They will be a people who have experienced the pain of corporate sin, because their entire nation—a nation raised up by God to be his light in the world—turned from God and everyone suffered for it. They will become a people who know God through the transformation of forgiveness, and they will know him as they never have before.

What is God thinking of us—you and me—right now? What do you see in your mind? Is he angry and looking for something to smite you with? Is his back turned because he is disgusted with you? Is he simply preoccupied with things greater than our skinny little existences, and can’t be bothered with thinking about us in the first place? Or is he reaching out, as a loving Father to a broken, wayward child who is stumbling home, hoping for a crumb of bread, only to find a feast spread out, the music turned up, and joy enough for everyone?

God is thinking of you right now. What does he think?

A Devotional for the Thirty-Eighth Day of Lent

All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord;
 and all the families of the nations
shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. (Psalm 22:27-28)

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (Jeremiah 29:4-7)

When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well . . . (John 12:9-10)

I’ve heard it said that Christianity is a club that exists for the benefit of its non-members.

The movie Of Gods and Men tells the true story of a group of Trappist monks who live and minister in a Muslim community in Algeria. The monks gather daily for prayer and worship, but the rest of their time is spent caring for the people of the community with prayer, medicine, counsel, and friendship.

Too often the Christian faith is viewed (both by outsiders and insiders) as a religion that one must get into, with the objective of getting each member into heaven one he or she dies. The above movie suggests a way of living out the way of Jesus that is very different from the former view, and is probably much more in line with Scripture. It is also offers the challenging idea that Christians could intentionally be among non-Christians (Muslims, no less!) and love, serve, and care for them, looking for the presence of God among them.

That God would be generous to those who are not technically the people of God has scandalized religious people for thousands of years. Yet our Scriptures point to God’s generous desire for the entire world; his longing that all nations would turn to him and worship. While the Bible also speaks of judgment, God’s heart for the world cannot be overlooked.

Even when the people of Israel are hauled off into exile, God tells them to settle in and live, but also to pray for the welfare of the non-Jewish nation that has brought them into exile. The words offered by Jeremiah must have puzzled the ancient Jewish people. Why pray for those who had taken them captive?

We see God’s generosity clearly in Jesus. His critics found his care for the poor, sick, and marginalized to be an offense against respectable religion because he preferred people over regulations. Jesus even reached out to the dead, including raising his friend Lazarus from the grave. Even that upset the religious leaders, so much so that they planned to do away with Lazarus. I suppose it didn’t occur to them that if Jesus could do it once he could do it again.

Still today religious people sometimes bristle at the idea of God’s generosity toward the world. It can be offensive to hear that your own certainties about being “in” while others are “out” might be wrong. Yet our Scriptures point us to being a people through whom all the families of the earth will find blessing; that we would pray for our apparent enemies and seek their welfare.

I think those Trappist monks had it right. Yet, in the end, even they paid a high price for their faithfulness. You’ll have to see the movie to know what I mean.

A Devotional for the Thirty-Seventh Day of Lent

[Jesus] went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing earlier, and he remained there. Many came to him, and they were saying, “John performed no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.” And many believed in him there. (John 10:40-42)

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
 my eyes are not raised too high;
 I do not occupy myself with things 
too great and too marvelous for me. 
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
 like a weaned child with its mother;
 my soul is like the weaned child that is with me. (Psalm 131:1-2)

Many years ago we took part in a simple Easter sunrise service on the beach. Only twenty or thirty people showed up (it was, after all, very early and very cold), but the time was rich with worship and sharing. Our pastor offered a short message that was inviting and deep.

As we gathered, I noticed a young man jogging along the shore. I knew him—we were both in the Navy at the time, and I was aware that he lived near the beach. He saw me, stopped, and listened for a while. At the end, he asked me who the guy was doing the speaking. I explained that it was our pastor, and my friend went directly to him to talk. I found out, minutes later, that he prayed to trust his life to Jesus. Over the next year before we got out of the Navy, we had the joy of serving together in that church.

I know that we religious people are good at celebrating things like Christmas and Easter in a big way. Yet both events took place originally at the margins of the human community. King Herod was making a lot of noise while Jesus was quietly born in a stable. Just before Jesus’ resurrection, the drama was found in the city, where the religious leaders conspired to do away with him. John chapter 10 tells of Jesus withdrawing from the accusations of the leaders and heading back across the Jordan, where others came to believe in him. Bigness and excitement do not always translate into environments where God is doing his best work.

In the US, we can move from zero to 60 in a flash, and then stop on a dime and do it all again. We can do things bigger and more exciting than almost anyone, but that doesn’t always translate into the best. When it comes to God’s work among people, much of it happens in quiet, undramatic places: Jesus is born at the margins of the city, and God becomes man; Jesus withdraws to pray, and his disciples become his answer to prayer; Jesus dies in a lonely place outside of Jerusalem, and God absorbs all the power of sin and death; God raises Jesus with only a few terrified Roman guards as witnesses, and sin and death are defanged while all things begin to be made new.

Quiet is a difficult thing for many of us. We have so much informational and entertainment-oriented input that our cultural ADHD is rampant. For us, it is work to find a quiet place. But it may actually be the place where God waits to offer his touch, his word, his healing. The psalmist may have been thinking of lofty things when he referred to “great and marvelous,” but those things for us might be the cacophony that surrounds us on a daily basis. They might only be great and marvelous in their dominance and volume.

I wonder if Jesus still goes to the lonely quiet places that are outside of our daily dramas. I wonder if he goes there to meet us, and then waits, and waits, and waits.

Lord, have mercy.

A Devotional for the Thirty-Sixth Day of Lent

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
 Lord, who could stand? 
But there is forgiveness with you,
 so that you may be revered. (Psalm 130:3-4)

Again I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says,
 ”I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation;
 with a foolish nation I will make you angry.” 
Then Isaiah is so bold as to say,
 “I have been found by those who did not seek me;
 I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.” 
But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” (Romans 10:19-21)

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. (John 10:14-16)

The story of the downfall of the ancient city of Sodom is a dismal one. It is often thought that that Sodom’s crime was a sexual one. But the prophet Ezekiel interprets things differently:

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. (Ezekiel 16:49)

The people of Sodom violated a fundamental code of the ancient near east: Hospitality. The strangers visiting Lot should have been treated kindly by the community. Instead, the men of Sodom sought to violate the visitors in the most degrading way they could imagine. Apparently the people of Sodom liked things the way they were, and having strangers in town shook their system of life. It also offered them a possible distraction from the boredom of excess. It’s a scandalous story.

The story of the people of God is also a scandalous one. First, the one (Abraham and his descendants, who will be become Israel) are chosen for the sake and blessing of the many (all the families of the earth). Then Israel repeatedly turns away from God in order to compete with the very nations they were called to bless. God himself becomes scandalous to Israel when he reaches out to people groups that are not Israel. Jesus repeats this scandal when he speaks of “other sheep” who will listen to his voice.

The Apostle Paul’s quoting of Isaiah shows that God’s heart is for more than just a select few. Isaiah speaks of God revealing himself to those who haven’t even asked for him. When you consider yourself to be part of God’s original chosen people, those are fighting words.

I sometimes wonder if the complacency that characterized Israel in those days could be found in the complex and fractured world of the church. We sometimes think that being a Christian is about describing who is in with God versus who is out, and end up viewing ourselves as a kind of select few. How are we so different from our spiritual forebears of Israel? How shocked we might be if the prophetic word came to us that God was reaching out to a people yet unknown to us. What if it ended up being people we considered to be enemies of our faith? We should certainly share Israel’s sense of scandal if that were to happen.

The psalmist points out a profound truth: If God were to list our iniquities—our sins, violations, and failures—no one would have a leg to stand on. But none us—not Jew, not Gentile, not rich or poor, not man or woman—are left standing alone. God himself stands with us, offering forgiveness where there has been sin, so that we might become the people he has always desired.

God’s scandalous ways will always violate our non-hospitable sensibilities. That’s how most of us came to faith in the first place.

A Devotional for the Thirty-Fifth Day of Lent

I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord,
 who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved;
 he who keeps you will not slumber. 
He who keeps Israel 
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper;
 the Lord is your shade at your right hand. 
The sun shall not strike you by day,
 nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil;
 he will keep your life. The Lord will keep 
your going out and your coming in 
from this time on and for evermore. (Psalm 121)

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him . . . (John 9:24-28)

I was blessed to grow up in a home where I felt protected. When I was at home, I always felt safe. When I was out and about—playing with my friends, going to and from school—unpleasant things sometimes happened to me that caused me to feel unprotected and threatened. But I knew that home was around the corner, and once I arrived there, my fear and pain would diminish and I would find safety again.

The Psalmist sings of God’s great protection, and it is a beautiful word of comfort and hope. The ancient people of Israel would reflect on this psalm, as many would do in years to come, even in the midst of pain and suffering. The opening line is telling: The song begins by looking for help. The longing for God’s protection comes when protection is needed the most.

After Jesus healed the man who was born blind, the man’s day must have been spent trying to adjust to his new sense of vision and to try to make sense of all things he was seeing. He would drive his family and friends crazy asking them who was who, and what certain things were. There would be laughter and joy as everyone celebrated God’s goodness. But soon thereafter, trouble comes. The religious leaders are not happy with what Jesus is doing, and the formerly blind man is brought in for questioning. When they don’t get the answers they want, they treat the man abusively and kick him out.

Trusting in God doesn’t mean that we escape the evil and suffering that is characteristic of our world. But our trust is in the God who does not let those things have the last word in our lives. Even when circumstances lead to death, we can still trust God for the life that is yet to come. When sin and death are rendered toothless, we are able to live in the midst of pain as we trust the One who has conquered it all.

A Devotional for the Thirty-Fourth Day of Lent

The Lord showed me two baskets of figs placed before the temple of the Lord. This was after King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon had taken into exile from Jerusalem King Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim of Judah, together with the officials of Judah, the artisans, and the smiths, and had brought them to Babylon. One basket had very good figs, like first-ripe figs, but the other basket had very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten. And the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs, the good figs very good, and the bad figs very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten.”
Then the word of the Lord came to me: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. I will set my eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up, and not tear them down; I will plant them, and not pluck them up. I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord; and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart. (Jeremiah 24:1-7)

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” (John 9:1-3)

Right after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, I met a man near New Orleans who had lost everything he owned—his home, his business—when the storm hit. His family was safe, but he remained in the area, attempting to assist family members whose homes had been destroyed. He told me that he and his wife had been talking about God and church lately, but had taken no new steps of faith in their lives. He suggested that this was how God decided to get his attention. My friends and I tried to help him see that God probably didn’t decide to wipe out the entire Gulf coast just to get the man to clean up his act.

The people of Israel might have been thinking along those lines when everything came crashing down for them. Even though there were people, such as their king and other leaders, who had led the nation astray, there were others who remained faithful to God. Even so, everyone suffered the consequences of the nation’s sin. Jeremiah points out the God was fully aware of this, and rather than let the faithful ones languish in exile, he promises them a future in which they will know him and carry the true identity as his people.

Jesus’ disciples wanted a reason for the blindness of the man they encountered. For them, the man’s condition had to be a result of someone’s sin. But Jesus counters that belief when he says that there is no connection, but rather that this was an opportunity for God’s works to be revealed.

But wasn’t there purpose in the man’s blindness? After all, Jesus does say that the man was born blind “so that.” However, all people are born so that God’s works might be revealed in them. This man’s blindness pushed him outside the respectability of the Jewish community. Most would assume that God had cursed him. Now this blindness would be broken so that God’s intentions for the world would be shown to all. Through the man God would show that sickness and disease would not have the last word in God’s kingdom; those who were perceived to be at the margins of faithfulness would be drawn to God’s center.

There is a puzzle to God’s faithfulness. While good people suffer as frequently as bad people, God enters into those painful realities to bring hope and promise to those who will turn to him. We often see suffering as the equivalent of a lightning bolt from heaven (cosmic antics attributed to Zeus rather than to the God of the Bible), when it is part of all earthly brokenness. But God still enters in, and his faithfulness trumps all grief.

A Devotional for the Thirty-Third Day of Lent

Thus says the Lord of hosts: Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they are deluding you. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to all who stubbornly follow their own stubborn hearts, they say, ‘No calamity shall come upon you.’ (Jeremiah 23:16-17)

But turning and looking at his disciples, [Jesus] rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. (Mark 8:33-34)

In the ancient world, it was common for a runner to be dispatched from the front lines of a battle to report the status of the troops to the military leaders. There was a Greek word used to describe the message when it was one of victory, and in English we usually translate that word as good news, or gospel (gospel is the Old English word for good news). It is the word used when Jesus says,

‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

If that runner, however, brought his message of victory to the side that was losing, his message would he received as bad news, and he would probably suffer for bringing it. What is good news for one may be bad news for another.

The prophets of Jeremiah’s day seemed to be in denial over the plight of Israel. They claimed to have dreams and visions of everything being alright when in fact they were about to be overrun by foreign invaders. As a result, the people had no motivation to turn back to the Lord. The delusion allowed them to return to business as usual. The prophets claimed to have good news, but they were wrong.

In the weeks following the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the US, people flocked to churches, looking for answers, hope, and comfort. Soon, however, most churches returned to their usual, familiar congregations as those visitors drifted away. It is very possible that these visitors wanted a return to what had been normal, and being part of a congregation wasn’t a part of their business as usual.

Most of us can relate to that. Good news for us is often having things the way we prefer them to be. Jesus recognized this with his own followers. When he spoke of his impending suffering and death, Peter got after him. To speak of such a thing could not possibly be good news. But Jesus challenged Peter rather harshly, and then told the crowd that had gathered that to follow him would be to take a path that was very different than “business as usual.”

In Jesus Christ, there is good news. The good news is that the kingdom of God has indeed broken into human history, and the twin powers of sin and death have been disarmed. But this good news does not translate into “life as I prefer it.” It is a new life under the rule of God, and that takes a very different form than can be considered normal in any nation or culture. That is one reason that following Jesus can be perilous: When the status quo is challenged, danger is a distinct possibility.

It is a good thing for us to reflect on the meaning of this good news of God’s kingdom, and to try to disengage it from our American, British, Bulgarian, or Chinese cultural preferences. The call of the people of God is to bring blessing to all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:1-3), but that includes the proclamation of good news. This is the good news that comes from the victory of God, and it may be very different from business as usual.

A Devotional for the Thirty-Second Day of Lent

Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
 so that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord: that he looked down from his holy height,
 from heaven the Lord looked at the earth, 
to hear the groans of the prisoners,
 to set free those who were doomed to die; 
so that the name of the Lord may be declared in Zion,
 and his praise in Jerusalem, 
when peoples gather together,
 and kingdoms, to worship the Lord. (Psalm 102:18-22)

Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, ‘Do you also wish to go away?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.’ He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him. (John 6:66-71)

My office is in a business complex that is shared by a vocational training school. Many of the students are training to work in the field of nursing. You can tell who they are, because at their break times they gather outside, wearing their green scrubs, and smoke cigarettes with their teachers. I marvel at this. With all the research that has emerged over the last few decades about the health hazards associated with cigarettes, you would think that young people preparing for careers in health care would have caught onto that reality. One would hope that the succeeding generations would grasp this better than their forebears, but apparently that isn’t the case.

The psalmist continues to lament Israel’s adversity, but also hopes that future generations will learn of God’s faithfulness and respond in a way that avoids the disasters of those who have gone before them. He dreams of descendants who have not yet come into the world, who will not bend the knee to idols or engage in acts of injustice and oppression, but instead will praise the Lord.

I wonder if Jesus thought about this Psalm during the events that were recorded in John 6. He has pressed the people who have been following him—people who have considered themselves to be his disciples—by speaking of the hard realities of truly being God’s people. Many of them, while enjoying his miraculous works, didn’t much care for the real life of following Jesus, and they took off. The only ones remaining were his original twelve disciples, including Judas. So, while Jesus still has followers, a band of men who represent all of Israel, there is still danger in the ranks.

Again, it is God’s faithfulness to his people and to the world that comes to the forefront. Judas, along with the others, were an answer to Jesus’ prayer when he his out in the wilderness for forty days. Jesus prays for those who would follow him, and he gets Judas. To be fair, he also gets Peter, who chickens out at the end, and Thomas, who is cynical about the resurrection. In their frailty and confusion, these twelve represent all of God’s people to Jesus. They are the psalmist’s future generation of hope. But God remains faithful to them, even in their failure.

This is good for us to remember. Each successive generation simultaneously responds to and reacts against God. The various factions of the church continue to reflect faithfulness and worship while simultaneously acting out in brokenness and sin. We can be a bi-polar people, just like those who have gone before us.

In John 17, Jesus prays, ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me’ (vv. 20-21).

Jesus prays this prayer, and he gets us.

Lord, have mercy.

A Devotional for the Thirty-First Day of Lent

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
 for his steadfast love endures for ever. 
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
 those he redeemed from trouble 
and gathered in from the lands,
 from the east and from the west,
 from the north and from the south. (Psalm 107:1-3)

Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt’, but ‘As the Lord lives who brought out and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he had driven them.’ (Jeremiah 23:7-8a)

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

The people of God always seem to be a people in exile. First, God rescues the ancient Hebrews from their bondage in Egypt. Then, many generations later, the entire nation of Israel turns from God, is overrun by foreign invaders, and hauled off into exile. As they did in Egypt, they began to cry out to the Lord, and he opened the way for them to come home again. The psalmist celebrates God’s goodness in saving his people from trouble.

Jeremiah acknowledges that Israel’s relationship to God is a rescuing one. Early on they claimed the identity of a people that had been rescued from slavery in Egypt; in the era after their exile, they would claim the identity of a people that had been liberated from lands other than their own. While this liberation would bring them home, they would still be under the dominance of foreign rulers. They would be in a kind of house arrest in Israel, but at least they would be home.

It’s difficult today for us to think of ourselves as being a people in exile, especially in the US. Because of a sense of freedom, it doesn’t usually occur to us to think about being dominated by outside powers. But in every land, whether the US, Venezuela, Lithuania, or England, the people of God are a people in exile. All nations are centered on self-interest and, while people might benefit materially at times by that, it is a very different interest than that of God’s.

There is another exile in which all people live: It is the exile into the inevitability of suffering and death. We go from day to day as if these things aren’t lurking outside our doors, but they are. People who suffer often find themselves in isolation—a kind of personal exile from the land of the living. Those who grieve the loss of a loved one feel as though they have been hauled off into the shadows of loneliness, a place where others need not go.

In the midst of this exile, the people of God gather to declare a different reality. The God who has always rescued his people is the God who is with us, and he is present in our exile. When we gather around those who suffer and those who mourn, sharing their pain, we participate in what God is doing in those who are hurting. When the people of God live out the reality of God’s rescue in communities of faith, care, and love, isolation is broken. While we may still live with the threat of suffering and death, we enact God’s love as we care for one another; in that enactment we not only trust in God’s presence with us, sharing our suffering and grief, but we also hope in a future when God will make all things new.

“See, the home of God is among mortals.
 He will dwell with them;
 they will be his peoples,
 and God himself will be with them; 
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
 Death will be no more;
 mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
 for the first things have passed away.’ (Revelation 21:3-4)

A Devotional for the Thirtieth Day of Lent

You know the insults I receive,
 and my shame and dishonor;
 my foes are all known to you. 
Insults have broken my heart,
 so that I am in despair.
 I looked for pity, but there was none;
 and for comforters, but I found none. 
They gave me poison for food,
 and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. (Psalm 69:19-21)

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.” (John 6:41-44)

Psalm 69 contains a reference that is usually characterized as prophetic in that it points to Jesus. While it was written long before Jesus’ time, it refers to one who is suffering and is given vinegar to drink, just as Jesus would one day be given vinegar (actually, cheap wine) as he suffered on the cross. There are a number of such prophetic references in the Old Testament, and Christians have long cherished them as prophecies that were fulfilled in Jesus.

Most if not all of these prophetic texts originally refer to Israel. They speak to an Israel that suffers, is mistreated, and so on. While there is great value in recognizing the prophetic quality of these texts, there is something else to consider: Within these prophetic links, we see God, in and through Jesus, fully identifying with the life of Israel and ultimately with the entire world.

The psalmist speaks of insults and shame. We see Jesus suffering those same things. When Jesus is dying on the cross he cries out the utterly lonely words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) These words are often interpreted as Jesus crying out in isolated despair, which may have been true. But he was also quoting from a familiar Psalm (22), as Israel cries out in exile. In his suffering and death, Jesus identifies with the people to whom he was sent and who have rejected him. In and through Jesus, God fully identifies with all of us.

I believe that this is important. God is sometimes viewed by people as being distant and crafty, orchestrating disasters, pain, suffering, and loss for some mysterious and unknown purpose. Yet, in Jesus, we see God entering fully into human life, suffering, and death. This is no distant God who does not relate to us, but one fully engaged with all that it means to be human.

Some friends of mine just suffered the tragic loss of a loved one. Will we see God as the one who has set this up or allowed it to happen in order to do something that is incomprehensible to us, and that could only be acheived by this dark event? Or will we see God entering fully into the pain of this loss, grieving with us on the one hand, but also receiving the one who has left us with joy and eternal love?

We think of God being King, of being “in control,” and so we wonder why things like this happen. Is God not strong enough or not willing enough to stop tragedy? I believe that God is indeed King, but he rules over a broken and desperate world, where sin, suffering, and death are still active. But in Jesus, who fully identifies with our wounded condition, those oppressors of human life have been confronted and disarmed, and they will no longer have the last word. The God who is with us, the God who shares our tragic existence, will one day silence and destroy those enemies.

In the meantime we are drawn to him, and in the last day, he will raise us up.

A Devotional for the Twenty-Ninth Day of Lent, the Fourth Sunday of Lent

I will sing of loyalty and of justice;
 to you, O Lord, I will sing. 
I will study the way that is blameless.
 When shall I attain it? (Psalm 101:1-2)

Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. (Jeremiah 18:6b)

Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. (John 6:37-38)

A man once explained to me, at length, the benefits of a workout routine. He spoke of muscle tone, cardiac health, and mental clarity. It all sounded glorious and disciplined. It was the life of one who had attained a heightened state of physicality. I marveled at what he appeared to have attained, and despaired at my own lack of devotion to health. After a while I asked the man how long he had been participating in such a rigorous program of exercise. He said, “Two days.” It appeared that he was describing his hopes and intentions more than he was describing his reality.

Psalm 101 describes a life that is fully devoted to God and that shuns all evil. The psalmist claims, “I will not set before my eyes anything that is base” (v. 3a), and “A haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not tolerate” (v. 5b). It all sounds so righteous and sinless, until you return to the opening line of the Psalm: “I will study the way that is blameless.
 When shall I attain it?” The Psalm is a reflection on hope and intention rather than on a reality that has escaped all sin.

God, through the prophet Jeremiah, seems to wonder about the hopes and intentions of the people of Israel as well. He describes the work of the potter, who forms a pot out of clay, then seeing its imperfections, tears it apart and reforms it again. God says that he will do that with any nation of people, including Israel. As they turn from him and engage in destructive and oppressive ways, he will tear them down. If they turn from those ways, then God will reform them in his own design. God is not willing to allow sin to reign, but he is also willing to reform those who turn to him into people after his own heart.

Jesus claimed to do only that which was the intention and desire of his Father. When Jesus said, “. . . anyone who comes to me I will never drive away,” he was revealing the heart of the Father. Any who come to him will not be driven away. God does not take injustice, oppression, and—in general—sin lightly, and will not allow them to have the last word. God’s last word is “. . . anyone who comes to me I will never drive away.”

As the Lenten season turns into Easter, we will reflect on the resurrection of Jesus. In his death, we will see that sin and death does indeed win the day when Jesus is killed. But that day is not the final day. When Jesus is raised from death, God shows that he has the last word about who wins the day. And all those who have lost hope, will come to him. They will never be driven away.

A Devotional for the Twenty-Eighth Day of Lent, the Fourth Sunday of Lent

The heavens proclaim his righteousness;
 and all the peoples behold his glory. 
All worshippers of images are put to shame,
 those who make their boast in worthless idols;
 all gods bow down before him. (Psalm 97:6-7)

Thus says the Lord: For the sake of your lives, take care that you do not bear a burden on the Sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. (Jeremiah 17:21)

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:21-25a)

When I entered boot camp many years ago, my world became undone. From one day to the next I was required to do things I had never done before, and to do them with regularity. I had to shave off my hair, wear special clothes, and learn a new language. All this would reform me from a 19-year-old aimless college student into a member of the US Navy, and I would carry this new identity for the next four years. A lot of times I wasn’t happy about the whole thing, but all I could do was resist something that wasn’t going to go away.

God rescued the ancient Hebrew people from their slavery in Egypt, and soon thereafter handed them laws and codes of behavior that would frame their new existence as a people. This was very different from their former life, where they spent their days in forced servitude. They emerged from their captivity with the mindsets of slaves, and Egyptian ones at that. When God required new things from them, it wasn’t sheer legalism, but rather the way they would be reformed as his people, with the one true God at their center rather than the sun god of the Egyptians.

Over time, the people would come to see this life-giving, reforming law of God to be something that was to be obeyed in order to curry God’s favor and to wear the badge of “righteousness.” Keeping the Sabbath became legalistic rather than a joyous time of rest and worship in the presence of God. If you kept the Sabbath, then you were providing evidence of your own righteousness. This was clearly not what God intended.

The Apostle Paul understood this, since he grew up and was nurtured in that same culture. He recognized that to try to do all the right things to please God ended up just showing us how messed up we really were, because we just couldn’t do enough things right to please anyone. His words in Romans 7 are almost humorous: I try to be good with my mind, but my body misbehaves. It’s like having a segmented personality. Everybody, in their hearts, knows how this works, and it causes no end of frustration. Paul winds up by declaring that there is a rescue from this mess, and God himself brings it about in and through Jesus Christ. God is not waiting around for us to make him happy; when we are at our messiest, he saves us from all forms of condemnation, especially the kind that we heap on ourselves.

If you’ve been in one of those places where you keep beating yourself up for wrongs that can’t be undone, for past offenses that cause you no end of regret, don’t waste your time bargaining with God about it; he just doesn’t need it, and neither do you. He already knows the messes we’ve created, and still he comes toward us, with arms of forgiveness opened wide, and with a love that transforms broken human hearts into hearts that beat with his rhythms of grace and love. That’s what believing in Jesus is really about: Believing that all he says and does reveals the true heart of God. It’s a belief that is crafted out of wonder and trust.

A Devotional for the Twenty-Sixth Day of Lent, the Fourth Sunday of Lent

O hope of Israel,
 its savior in time of trouble,
 why should you be like a stranger in the land,
 like a traveler turning aside for the night? 
Why should you be like someone confused,
 like a mighty warrior who cannot give help?
 Yet you, O Lord, are in the midst of us,
 and we are called by your name;
 do not forsake us!

You shall say to them this word:
 Let my eyes run down with tears night and day,
 and let them not cease,
 for the virgin daughter—my people—is struck down with a crushing blow,
 with a very grievous wound. 
If I go out into the field,
 look—those killed by the sword!
 And if I enter the city,
 look—those sick with famine!
 For both prophet and priest ply their trade throughout the land,
 and have no knowledge. (Jeremiah 14:8-9, 17-18)

May God be gracious to us and bless us
 and make his face to shine upon us,
 that your way may be known upon earth,
 your saving power among all nations. 
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
 let all the peoples praise you.
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
 for you judge the peoples with equity
 and guide the nations upon earth.
 Let the peoples praise you, O God;
 let all the peoples praise you. (Psalm 67:1-5)

I became a public school teacher right after college. My principal was a great guy, but he never really saw what I was up to in my classroom. My annual review consisted of him dropping in for 15 or 20 minutes during a lesson, and then telling me that I was doing fine. I appreciated that he trusted me to do my job, but I recognized that he wasn’t really present to my work, and he didn’t really know what was going on in my little world. Had I not known him better, I would have concluded that he didn’t really care.

Jeremiah offers a paradoxical lament: God seems to be unavailable to the self-inflicted troubles of Israel, yet he is present in the midst of his people. Jeremiah believed in God’s presence rather than in God’s detachment, but the devastating circumstances of Israel’s destruction and exile suggested that God had forgotten his people.

But Jeremiah hears a word from the Lord and passes it on: God is present to all the horror of Israel’s downfall. He weeps with grief at the death and disease that now characterizes what remains of Israel. While Israel’s destruction has come as a consequence of the nation’s own actions, God is still present, experiencing with the people—a people who have turned away from him!—all their pain and suffering.

We often talk about God as though he is “up there” while we are “down here.” While the Bible clearly shows God to be above and beyond all creaturely existence, he is also shown to be fully present to the world. Sometimes we look at natural disasters, disease, or war as something God inflicts from afar in order to punish wicked people. It rarely seems to occur to us that God is suffering along with those who suffer, much like Jeremiah’s description of God crying over the pain of his wayward people.

The prayer of the psalmist extends the sense of God’s presence and care to the entire world. He looks forward to a time when all nations will respond to God with joy. The people of God will be instrumental in making God’s glory known to the world, but that is a work that comes from the heart of God for the nations.

In our day-to-day grief and longing, God is fully present. Our own limited sight causes us to think he might have forgotten us, but the witness of Scripture gives us hope for his presence and for him to rescue us. Even in our brokenness and pain, God engages, waiting for us to turn and trust him anew.

A Devotional for the Twenty-Fifth Day of Lent

Who considers the power of your anger?
 Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due to you. 
So teach us to count our days 
that we may gain a wise heart. (Psalm 90:11-12)

For as the loincloth clings to one’s loins, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the Lord, in order that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory. But they would not listen. (Jeremiah 13:11)

“Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.” The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon; but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is one who seeks it and he is the judge. Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.” (John 8:47-51)

When I was a kid I had a joke card that read, “I’m not hard of hearing, I’m just ignoring you.” I showed it to my aunt, and she insisted that I show it to my uncle. I did show it to him, but for some reason he didn’t think it was very funny. I have come to understand how he felt.

It’s one thing to miss something that has been said or to be unable to hear. It’s another thing to hear and then ignore. It appears that the people of God have a long history of hearing and then ignoring.

The psalmist is offering more than just words of wisdom. He speaks of the people of Israel living out their days in exile, suffering the consequences of their deafness toward God. The psalmist is a realist; he knows they will live one way or the other. They may as well immerse themselves in this new life in order to become wise. Perhaps it will also be a time to learn to listen.

Jeremiah also speaks of God’s lament over Israel’s unwillingness to listen to him. He offers a strange metaphor: His intention was that Israel would be like a loincloth—an undergarment that would cling closely to the skin and the intimate parts of the body. God’s desire was for his people to cling closely to him, to praise and honor him, and to express his glory to the world. Again, their hands were pressed over their ears.

Jesus, many years later, accuses his critics (again, the people of Israel) of not hearing God. Jesus revealed God’s heart for Israel and the world, bringing healing, life, rescue, and assurance of God’s love. The response of the dominant leadership of Israel was to suggest that Jesus was not really a Jew but, instead, a Samaritan (Jewish people did not think highly of Samaritans), and also that he was inhabited by demonic forces. Jesus reminds him that his way lines up with God’s eternal intentions. In that way is life. But the people seem to keep choosing death.

I’m not sure we’ve gotten a whole lot better at listening. Every time someone comes up with a way of looking at the Bible or thinking about God that challenges some dominant dogma, people start throwing around accusations of heresy, blasphemy, charlatanism, and so on. Usually these claims are made absent of any form of listening. Not every new idea is good, but the refusal to listen can be a symptom of a much deeper problem: Deafness to anything but our own self-created certainties.
We have to be very careful about this. I suspect that the people who refused to listen to the likes of Jeremiah and Jesus didn’t think they were shutting their ears to God, but they were. Having open ears doesn’t mean that all things are valid, but it does allow us to remain open to the possibility that we’ve gotten something wrong along the way. After all, we religious folks have a long history of getting things wrong.

Sacrifice and offering you do not desire,
 but you have given me an open ear. (Psalm 40:6)

A Devotional for the Twenty-Fourth Day of Lent

O Lord, God of my salvation,
 when, at night, I cry out in your presence, 
let my prayer come before you;
 incline your ear to my cry.

For my soul is full of troubles,
 and my life draws near to Sheol. 
I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;
 I am like those who have no help, like those forsaken among the dead,
 like the slain that lie in the grave,
 like those whom you remember no more,
 for they are cut off from your hand. 
(Psalm 88:1-5)

But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:8-11)

Stories about post-death existences intrigue me. Vampires, zombies, and ghosts violate the finality of death, but in a way that makes them very unpleasant. They are separated from everything that lives, but they still get to hang around and bother everyone. There is a subtext to these horror stories: Even if death can be cheated, you probably won’t like it much.

The psalmist speaks of death in a desperate way. He feels as though he is already in the company of the dead because it seems like God has forsaken him. For the ancient Hebrews, death was a shadowy post-life experience if it was anything at all. To be consigned to the grave was to be truly gone and forgotten, even by God.

Some might say that for death to simply be the end of life—a shutting off of human consciousness—would be a relief from the stresses of human life. Others see horror in eternal nothingness—such a thing is unfathomable to us. To sleep and never wake is something that perplexes and frightens us.

The older I get the more concerned I am about the whole death thing. I’ve been a follower of Jesus for a pretty long time, but I still find myself fretting from time to time about what happens after death. I appreciate all the metaphors in the Bible about the heavenly city and all that, but I still wonder what it might be like to die and enter a realm that I have never before experienced. Worse yet, what if I’ve been on the wrong track all along, and death is just death, or even an eternal banishment to a mall in New Jersey? You never know.

The apostle Paul, however, speaks of a greater hope than my dark little mind can create. He recognizes the power that sin and death have over human beings. He also understood the magnitude of God, in Jesus Christ, experiencing human death—in essence, allowing the powers that destroy human existence to have their way with him. Paul says, that in the death of Jesus, all human death is represented. He dies on our behalf in that he represents us all in that terminal place.

It is the resurrection of Jesus that gives a sucker punch to death. In the post-death Jesus there is no ghoulie or ghostie, but a new life that destroys death’s power to have the final word for human beings. Paul says that the resurrection of Jesus also represents something for all of us: Hope that we will also be made new, and that death will not speak finally for us.

But there is something more in Paul’s words. Resurrection is more than an anticipated hope; it is a living reality. He says that, if we have died with Christ—that is, if we have trusted our lives to what God has done in Jesus and no longer allow sin to dominate us—then we now fully identify with him in his resurrection. And that means that our lives are now grounded in hope rather than in despair.

Hope changes the way we live today.

A Devotional for the Twenty-Third Day of Lent

As a deer longs for flowing streams,
 so my soul longs for you, O God. 
My soul thirsts for God,
 for the living God.
 When shall I come and behold 
the face of God? 
My tears have been my food 
day and night,
 while people say to me continually,
 “Where is your God?”

These things I remember,
 as I pour out my soul:
 how I went with the throng,
 and led them in procession to the house of God,
 with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
 a multitude keeping festival. 
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
 and why are you disquieted within me?
 Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
 my help and my God. (Psalm 42:1-6a)

So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me. And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.” As he was saying these things, many believed in him. (John 8:28-30)

The depth of our desires depends on accessibility. My desire for food may be real, but I am not overwhelmed by it when I stand before my full refrigerator. My desire for friendship doesn’t break my heart when I am surrounded by friends. But take away access and the desires peak.

Right after Emily and I were engaged, I was sent across the country for training in the US Navy. When we were together every day in our hometown, I wanted to be with her, but my desire was met because we had access to one another. While I was on the other side of the country, my desire to be with her was overwhelming because I knew it would not be possible to be together again for several months.

The psalmist speaks of a deep longing to be with God—a thirst for God. This is more than the cry of the pious heart; it is the cry of one who has lost everything. This psalm is a lament about the nation of Israel being crushed by foreign invaders and sent into exile. All that was familiar about their shared life of worship (as corrupt as it had become) was inaccessible to them. The people who had turned from God now demanded to know where God could be found in this disaster. The psalmist speaks of hope, but it is a hope experienced in bondage. He would long for God as a deer longs for flowing streams, especially when those streams have dried to dust.

Ten days after hurricane Katrina demolished the Gulf coast, I traveled with some friends to Louisiana to help people who had been dislocated by the storm. I met several people who confessed that they had been disinterested in God until all they had was lost to them. It was an important part of our time there to reach out to these hurting people.

It’s a bit like for all of us, isn’t it? When things are going well, God seems easily accessible and our longing for him can be minimal. Jesus, however, speaks of the Father differently. He refers to God as the one who is with him, who has not left him alone. Jesus seemed deeply connected to his heavenly Father at all times, and not just when things got rough.

Maybe it would be a good thing to stop every so often and reflect on the things that numb us to God’s presence. Mostly they aren’t bad things; they are the things of everyday life that produce a sense of self-sufficiency. If our paychecks stopped, how quickly would we be on the streets? How easily could sickness, accidents, or disasters leave us alone and desperate? This isn’t an exercise in despair, but rather a reflection on reality. All that we have is tentative and fleeting. When we stop to remember that, desire for God might reappear.

When our desire for God has dried up, hope is still accessible. When we remember who we really are, God becomes real to us, and our desire may now spring to life and be satisfied.

A Devotional for the Twenty-Second Day of Lent

O that my head were a spring of water,
 and my eyes a fountain of tears,
 so that I might weep day and night 
for the slain of my poor people! 
O that I had in the desert 
a traveler’s lodging-place,
 that I might leave my people 
and go away from them!
 For they are all adulterers,
 a band of traitors. (Jeremiah 9:1-2)

“But my people did not listen to my voice;
 Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,
 to follow their own counsels. O that my people would listen to me,
 that Israel would walk in my ways!” (Psalm 81:11-13)

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

Getting what you want is not always a good deal. In one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes, a criminal is killed and wakes up in the afterlife. His mysterious host tells him that he now can have everything that he has ever wanted. The man, assuming that this must be heaven, indulges himself in his every desire, getting any woman he wants, always winning at cards and pool, never without a pocket full of cash. After a while, the routine and boredom makes him crazy, so he demands from his host that he be sent to “the other place.” His host smiles wickedly and responds, “But Mr. Valentine, this is the other place.”

After generations of chasing after idols and investing themselves in international politics and conflicts, God finally gave the people of Israel what they wanted: A life without him. God speaks through the prophet Jeremiah in a voice that is filled with grief over the loss of the people. The psalmist, likewise, expresses sadness over the demands of the people to have their own way.

There is a renewed interest, at least among many American Christians, in the topic of hell. While much of the American imagination about hell is more informed by movies and images from Dante’s Inferno than it is by the Bible, it is still a topic worth exploring. In the end, hell appears to be a life without any trace of God, and it can be experienced while people are still alive. How it might work on the other side of death is where the discussion gets really heated. The idea of having some sort of existence without God—not just ignoring God, but having his presence completely extracted—is disturbing enough on its own; that we might exist in such a state because of our own demands is even worse. Hell just might be the ultimate in getting exactly what we want, if what we want is everything on our terms.

Following in the way of Jesus doesn’t always line up with what we want. Yet, Jesus claims that following him removes us from wandering around in darkness and places us in the light of life. I imagine that a life without God is the worst kind of darkness imaginable. It wouldn’t be just the absence of light, but also the absence of goodness, kindness, decency, compassion, and love. Think about being surrounded by like-minded people who lack all of those things because of God’s absence. That would truly be hell.

The very presence of Jesus among his own people is the in-flesh demonstration of God’s unfailing, persistent love. The numerous texts of lament in the Bible do not result in God finally giving up on his people. Jesus comes, in the fullness of the Father, and calls his people to reconciliation and faithfulness. They still respond violently, demanding what they want, which is a life without Jesus. But God still doesn’t give up, and in the resurrection he brings the light of life to bear on the world.
If we demand and receive a life without God, it won’t be out of God’s neglect.

The Truth about the "Age of Accountability"

In the midst of the brouhaha about Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins, a number of questions have resurfaced, such as the concept of the Age of Accountability: The age at which God holds people accountable for their response to him. So, infants and small children are usually exempt from the ravages of hell since they are considered too young to be accountable for their faith. But what is that age?

Historically, those who subscribe to this concept suggest somewhere around age 13.

Age 13. Really? REALLY?!?!? I've been 13. I know people who are 13. Age 13 is when human beings lose their minds. Age 13 is when mind and body crash into each other, screaming with contradictory voices and violating every normal standard of human behavior. I wouldn't trust me as a 13-year-old to mail a letter, let alone be accountable for my eternal destiny. People who are 13 don't even have fully-formed brains.

People become mature adults later than in years past. I know of people in their 30's who still live with their parents or are trying to accomplish things that prior generations did 10 years earlier. Maybe the real age of accountability is somewhere around 37.

Imagine this scenario: A man, recently killed when driving his parents' 2009 Toyota Prius, stands before God, trembling at God's verdict that is about to be declared. God is clearly angry.

"AND WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?" Screams God.

"Nothing, sir. Except that it wasn't my fault," stutters the man.

"What—your LIFE wasn't your fault? Give me a break."

"I just couldn't get it together. Plus the economy . . ."

"ENOUGH!" The heavens shake at God's voice. "Give me your driver's license."

The man hands over his wallet and God angrily pulls out the license, reading it carefully.

"Hmmm," God hums. "Born in 1977. That makes you 34, right?"

"Right."

"Okay," says God. "You clearly can't be held accountable for much of anything. Good thing you haven't yet turned 37, or I would have held you responsible for that night in Las Vegas."

"But I was really drunk . . ."

"Don't push your luck, son. Come on in."

A Devotional for the Twenty-First Day of Lent

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
 incline your ears to the words of my mouth. 
I will open my mouth in a parable;
 I will utter dark sayings from of old, 
things that we have heard and known,
 that our ancestors have told us. 
We will not hide them from their children;
 we will tell to the coming generation 
the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,
 and the wonders that he has done. (Psalm 78:1-4)

For the people of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the Lord; they have set their abominations in the house that is called by my name, defiling it. And they go on building the high place of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire—which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. (Jeremiah 7:30-31)

Therefore [Abraham’s] faith ‘was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ Now the words, ‘it was reckoned to him’, were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification. (Romans 4:22-25)

Nations like to tell stories of the past, especially when the stories are celebrative. The accounts of bondages broken, enemies overcome, and triumph over adversity fill national imaginations and are passed on to each new generation. Some of the stories are true and others are legend. The parts that are more likely to be avoided are the ways the nations have oppressed others, damaged their own citizens, looted treasuries, and any number of violations.

The psalmist opens up by preparing the hearers for a history lesson that must be passed on to succeeding generations. All must be taught, he claims, and so he begins an account that he describes as “dark sayings of old.” The national imagination of Israel included past sins and violations against God and others. The consciousness of the people would be branded with the recognition that Israel, a nation like no other, a people formed and nurtured by God to be his light in the world, had turned from God and suffered dire consequences.

The prophet Jeremiah offers graphic detail of Judah’s (the southern half of what was originally Israel) offences: The sacrifice of children in the fires of Topheth, a site of pagan worship in the valley of Hinnom (referred to by Jesus as Gehenna, which is usually translated in English as hell). Jeremiah goes on to say that the fate of wayward Israel will be in that same place, where their bodies will be stacked like cord wood, serving as food for scavenger birds.

The stories of the people of God are not sanitized in the Bible. Their own family history is both redemptive and dark, and it is, we are told, not to be forgotten. As a people before God, they are to always remember who they are and from where they have come. It is, in many ways, a dark story.

We, as followers of Jesus, now share that family history. We are given, however, a new act to this play of call, formation, sin, disaster, and exile. The apostle Paul says that we share the faith of Abraham as we trust in what God has done in Jesus. This Jesus, who represents all of Israel and the whole of the world, allows himself to be destroyed by all the forces of evil, suffering the consequences of this dark history on behalf of all. But this is not just a story of vicarious suffering and death; it is a story of God’s dismantling of the power of sin and death to close the book. In the resurrection, the story begins anew, and the people of God, while remembering our dark history, now trust in the author of the story to write the ending that he has always intended.

Devotional for the Twentieth Day of Lent

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” (Jeremiah 7:3-4)

Do not remember against us the iniquities of our ancestors;
 let your compassion come speedily to meet us,
 for we are brought very low. Help us, O God of our salvation,
 for the glory of your name;
 deliver us, and forgive our sins,
 for your name’s sake. (Psalm 79:8-9)

Yet many in the crowd believed in him and were saying, “When the Messiah comes, will he do more signs than this man has done?” The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering such things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent temple police to arrest him. (John 7:31-32)

Institutions seem to take on lives of their own. People become committed followers of professional sports teams (often over multiple generations), even though the players routinely change, and most aren’t from the team’s hometown anyway. It is the institution of the team that captures the fans’ loyalty. A business might dominate the spotlight of an industry for decades, and people point to the long-term work that it has done. Yet, the personnel of that company and its structures have routinely changed over the years. Institutions appear to become bigger and more alive than the people who inhabit them. They can also create a loyalty that is focused on a concept rather than reality.

The ancient people of Israel allowed the institution of their temple to provide evidence of their faithfulness to God. Even though the prophet Jeremiah spoke to them of their duplicity, they would point to the institution of the temple and claim that they were acting justly when, in fact, they were oppressing the poor and worshipping idols. Jeremiah pointed to a disaster yet to come, one that would come as a result of Israel’s defiance.

The psalmist speaks in the midst of the people after that disaster had arrived. Israel chose to play politics by the ways of the rest of the world, and they lost at that game. Jerusalem was destroyed, and the people hauled off into exile. In their new existence, Israel cried out for a rescue and for forgiveness.

When Jesus came along, claiming to be the one sent by God to bring rescue and forgiveness, he was not received well by the ruling religious elite. Jesus didn’t speak of defeating foreign invaders or making Israel a dominant world power, but instead spoke of truly being God’s people, ones who lived out the implications of forgiveness and love in the midst of their own exile. His words challenged their control and their sense of being right. After all, they had evidence: The institution of Judaism was still alive, and their temple and holy city, Jerusalem, were in tact (even though they were now under the boot heel of Rome). Their best solution to the problem of Jesus was to try to arrest him.

When it comes to God, it is easy for us to get institutional. We find comfort in our affiliation with a particular church or denomination, or we lock ourselves into neat certainties with unquestionable doctrinal positions, and then point to those things as evidence of our piety. Being part of a community of faith is important, as is being able to affirm common beliefs. But believing in our institutions, even if they are religious ones, doesn’t equate with being a people whose lives are transformed and whose engagement with the world is redemptive. Even right belief alone doesn’t accomplish that (“You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder” – James 2:19).

Institutions are fine, as long as we see them for what they are. God desires our hearts.