Nativity Scenes are Proof that God's Love is Extravagant

It’s that time of year again! Where nativity scenes take over the airwaves—little ones adorning the mantle-piece; big, inflatable ones set out in the yard; even living ones complete with spitting llamas and blue-lipped Joseph because it’s too stinking cold outside to be holding this god-forsaken pose for three hours straight!

It’s everywhere, a tableau, an image frozen in time and remembered every month of December, reminding us of the historical moment that gave birth (pun intended) to its reconstruction. I love nativity scenes because they tell a story—a really extravagant story with vastly different characters holding vastly different roles. And yet all of the characters and their respective lives converge, like tributaries running to the sea, in this one, solitary scene. And it is a moment we’ve captured in writing and live in, over and over, each year, when we reenact it.

            

But thinking about this reenacted moment, I was confronted by an obvious question that I had never considered before. That being, do you realize how many unnecessary characters are in this scene? In fact, there are even characters not present who are crucial to the scene coming to be! I pose this obvious question because it got me thinking of how it is God likes to work in our world. I’ll give you a hint—it’s extravagantly, with a lot of unneeded excess. Why? Because that’s what Love does!

We see this characteristic shining in the story of Jesus’ birth. So in light (punned again!) of the Christmas season, I want to list all the characters related to the story, just so you can get a glimpse that God’s ways aren’t ours. Whereas we are all about the bottom-line, efficiency, limiting unneeded elements, God is about throwing the most extravagant, wildest, most-talked-about party the world has ever known—and you better believe everyone is invited!

1.      Mary, Joseph (and eventually Jesus)—These are the only must-haves in the story, and truly, if we’re being frank, Jesus is really the only must-must-have. God-made-flesh was to be born, which of itself is unthinkable enough. Mary and Joseph weren’t needed. God could’ve figured out another way to show up on the earth. Truly, if our God was a practical God, an economic, efficient, bottom-line type of God, Jesus would be the only character in the nativity scene. He’d just be standing there with a full beard and a Paul Rudd look of nonchalance on his face like, “What’s up guys. I’m here.”

But he wasn’t. Because our God is an extravagant God. A God who loves as his primary state of being. And love requires more than one person. So he elected to come through the messy, bloody, painful, but oh-so-joyful process of birth. Which means he needed a surrogate, and a righteous man who could put aside his pride and serve his betrothed with honor and humility. The whole means by which Jesus showed up on earth was entirely unnecessary! And it leaves us absolutely speechless at the goodness of God.

2.      Angels and Shepherds—I group these two together because they’re inseparable. God commissions the angels, thousands of them, to deliver the news bursting from the seams of heaven, like water about to explode from an over-filled balloon, that the Messiah had come! The King had been born and light had returned into the land that had dwelt in darkness for so, mournfully long. “Go! Tell them!” God exclaims. And so the angels go.

And who do they tell, but the people God has a soft spot in his heart for—shepherds. God loves the outcasts, the pariahs, those who society looks upon with a sneer and mocking repulsion. Those who the world says are unlovable, these are the precise ones God says, “Oh, how indescribably special you are to me!” Like shepherds. God could’ve sent angels to tell anyone, and the rational candidates would be the world leaders—Pharisees, King Herod, Caesar even—so as to make the succession of lordship from the old power-holders to the new One as seamless as possible. But no, God doesn’t care about power. He already knows it’s all his anyway. He wanted to tell shepherds. God wanted to tell those who had no hope that Hope had returned and that they, the last, were so favored and honored by God that they received the good news first.

And the angels delivered the message through song. Song is unnecessarily poetic. That’s our God.

3.      Wisemen and the Natural World—Just when you think God only favors the outcasts, he halts that judgmentalism in its tracks. Oh no, God’s extravagant love is for all people, regardless of how ordinary, how powerful, how wretched or sinful or hungry they may be. The wisemen were your intellectuals of the day, the philosophers, astronomers, physicists, economists, political advisors, all rolled into one. They were brilliant and they were sought out by kings and rulers alike. Yet also, they were trackers of the divine. And God, in his sheer extravagance, had been leaving clues in the natural world—like the alignment of planets and the over-illumination of stars, which just so happened to rest above Jesus’ home. When I said earlier God’s joy is bursting at the seams, I wasn’t playing. The stars in the sky were giving away the secret! And brilliant intellectuals were catching on. So they came too, to offer their gifts, recognizing the party that was about to be thrown.

4.      Animals—This might seem like the ultimate waste of God’s creative energy. Why would it be necessary for dumb beasts to be present at the birth of Jesus? Well, simply, because Jesus created those dumb beasts. Harkening back to another story about God’s extravagance, he didn’t just choose to make humans in his world. No. God’s love and grace is much bigger, wider, deeper than you and I. He made more species of plants and animals than we could ever hope to discover. Think about that: there are species of animals on this earth that no one knows about except for their Creator who takes care of them. That’s our God. And that’s why animals were deemed worthy to witness the birth of their Maker. Because God’s love is too extravagant to be limited to humans alone; all the earth must know, must join into their Maker’s joy—stars and sheep and spitting llamas too.

5.      Emperor Augustus—If the animals were the ultimate example of God’s creative waste, then Augustus is the greatest example of God’s ironic humor. He’s not in the nativity scene, but it was his decree that made it all possible. As we learn from Matthew’s gospel, the Jews knew that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem. Jesus had to be born in that town, the same place David hailed from. But instead of simply telling Joseph and Mary to travel south from Nazareth to Bethlehem (a very long journey), God decided to use the Emperor of Rome, the most powerful man in the world at that time. We know this because it says in Luke 2:1, “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.” You can’t call for all the world to be registered unless you’re the ruler of all the world.

But that’s the joke. Augustus isn’t the ruler of all the world—even though he thinks he is. Jesus, the baby about to be born, and through the bidding of God the Father, is the ruler of all the world. And without telling Augustus, God had him nudge the process along—the process of making sure Jesus’ birth fulfilled all prophecies. If God was only a bottom-line type of God, he wouldn’t have used the Emperor of Rome to make Joseph and Mary travel to Bethlehem. Gabriel would’ve just mentioned it to Joseph in a dream when he spoke to him the first time. But God is too extravagant—and too much of an ironic jokester. To prove that he was the ruler of all the world, Jesus came as a baby (not a powerful warrior), and he incited the “supposed” ruler of all the world to do his bidding. Just to prove that all power and authority had always been, and would always be, his alone.

So there you have it. The characters of the nativity scene. Jesus being the only one necessary! And yet, our God’s ways is to work through as many people (or animals, or stars) as possible. Why is that?

Because our God is an over-joyed, reckless Lover. He goes above and beyond what is “needed” or “prudent” so as to do this. His name is Love. Love is only so if it is the mutual selflessness, desire and joy found between living beings. The reason the nativity scene is so big and wide and extravagant is simply because that’s who our Maker is.

So the next time you think, “Ah, God doesn’t need me,” take a look at a nativity scene. And as your eyes are tracing over the various characters in that dingy, putrid stable, keep in mind that you’re right! God doesn’t need you. But you can bet your last breath that he wants to include you. You can rest assured that you are absolutely invited to his party. Because our God is an extravagant one. And extravagance isn’t selfish. All are invited to the party. His entrance into the world proves this.

Sing On, Holy Spirit

In the genesis account of CS Lewis’ epic, The Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan the lion, the allegorical Triune God, softly enters into the quietness of the dark void so as to call the world of Narnia into existence.

And he does so…by singing.

I have always cherished this image of a God who finds pleasure strolling among the groves of the world’s gardens humming an old and sacred melody to himself. The song being so powerful that the effect of its intonation was to impart life.

As the story goes, in the fullness of time, this same God stepped onto the world’s stage in quite visible garb. This did not alter his whimsy; for he still loved to walk through gardens—olive groves to be precise—while humming his beloved melody. The issue was, now, people heard Jesus of Nazareth voicing the deeply secret tune. And it both mesmerized and frightened them. For they remembered it, in part, though they knew not how. And that terrified them! For he sang it as one who had authority, not like their teachers of the law.

Distrusting what they could not understand, the world ridded itself of this Jesus and his discomforting song. But in an upper room of Jerusalem, not long after his supposed crucifixion, tongues of fire danced upon the heads of a newly birthed family; the fire danced to a nameless melody. And in yet another act of astonishing grace, God bequeathed his precious song into the hands of humankind.

Unfortunately, ever since that day, the song has never been sung quite right. There will be moments of the formerly pure notes resounding in a corner of the earth, but the next bar will be misread. That because it is an exceptionally difficult song to learn, much less to sing. Only the pure in heart, only the holy, know precisely how to read the sheet-music of this melody. And unfortunately, there has only been one human qualified enough to do so. Thus, the Holy Spirit has spent the last two thousand years teaching his family how to sing God’s precious and sacred song.

The Wounds from the Song

I grew up, and am training to be a pastor, in a very Charismatic church. Charismatics are simply those who love to sing God’s song quite loudly and confidently. Most of us are well-meaning and striving to sing faithfully. But inevitably, we sing it the best we’re able; that is to say, full of missed notes and piecemealed stanzas. Yet regardless of how well it is voiced, the song is still always potent and frighteningly powerful. That is the ill-fated effect of anything so pure. It must be handled carefully. For when sung faithfully, the Kingdom of God descends and hearts are drenched in rest and grace.

But when sung undiscerningly, it wounds.

And, though I was greatly discipled by my Charismatic community, I bear upon my soul the wounds from undiscerning and brash renditions. And I suspect many of you are the same.

The natural reaction to being hurt is to protect the wound. That’s why when we injure our arm, we cradle it close so as to preemptively shield off future hurt. But when the wounds are spiritual, we build a cast in other ways. For me, I became very cynical toward the work of the Holy Spirit. As one example among many, I remember a Sunday service where in the middle of a song, a man approached the microphone and let loose a passionate message full of debatable theology, to which the congregation applauded and wept. Ashamedly, my first instinct was to roll my eyes and sigh in my heart, “Here we go again.”

My cynicism about the Holy Spirit was scar tissue. It was hardened places in my soul from where I had been wounded from having to watch everyone but Jesus attempt to live by the Spirit, when no one but Jesus knew how. I wasn’t really mad at my brother or sister at all. I was mad at God for handing over his song without teaching us how to sing it!

“I see only a reflection as in a mirror… I know only in part.” (1 Cor 13:12).

That was the issue! It was the “knowing in part” that made me so bitter toward God. Because it was the other part—the unknown part—which was the direct source of all my wounds, and yours. For where humans don’t know, we guess. And historically, we’ve been wrong. That’s what I couldn’t understand about God’s methods. Why would he only give partial revelation, especially about something as potent and potentially mishandled as the Holy Spirit? Today, right now, are there not a multiplicity of interpretations regarding how the Holy Spirit works? And since we’re all so feeble in our faith, we constantly wonder, does that denomination actually have it right? God, am I doing this wrong?

This is all God’s fault. He just gave us his song without teaching us how to sing it. Seeing in part, that was the source of my cynicism. It protected my wounded heart from further pain at the hands of another improperly wielded, “I feel the Holy Spirit saying to me…”

The Song Renewed

But as God’s stories usually go, one night this past summer, he melted my embittered walls. And like Job, I was left with my hand over my mouth, for I spoke of things I did not understand.

It was a night no different from any other. Three of my friends and I were sitting in the backyard talking and praying. Though Jesus had not responded to invitations in seasons prior, for some reason, this night, he did. The Spirit showed up. Right in the middle of our conversation, the breath of God filled our space. It was terrifying. But God, smiling, said, “Don’t be afraid.” Gently whispering to my soul, like a kiss, he prompted me to ask my friends to lay hands on me and to pray. “Pray for what?” I replied.

With a laugh full of love, the Holy Spirit answered: “Pray that the last bit of cynicism in your heart about me would be taken away.”

I repeated the words to my friends. We stood in a backyard in the fading twilight praying for the purging of any bitterness or anger toward God’s confounding methods of working in the world. We prayed that my heart would stop judging others for attempting to walk in the Spirit the best they could; that it would stop accusing God of things I could not see.

We prayed that my heart would be sensitive to the Spirit’s voice and free to obey, like Jesus of Nazareth’s was.

Before I knew what I was doing, I opened my mouth and sang, for the first time, without any fear or cynical thoughts. Exhausted from years of bitterness toward God, I just sang, “Thy will be done, thy will be done. I give up, Jesus. I’m so tired of fighting you. If you want to use broken people, then use me. If all we can see is in part, then that’s enough. I trust you.”

And in the eternal moment of that night, the Holy Spirit harmonized with our voices. Upon our heads tongues of fire danced again. They danced to the very first melody they ever knew.

Life in the Spirit

“The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (Jn 3:8).

We don’t understand God’s ways. His Spirit moves like the wind, unpredictably and without explanation. But bitterness and cynicism keep our hearts hard. And a hardened heart is unable to feel the brush of the wind against its cheek, or hear a gentle whisper in a clamoring world. Any hardness of heart toward God’s work is a place where we have yet to surrender our fullest selves to the fact that we will only ever know in part. It is a place where we cannot yet accept that the Spirit will work, but not explain to us why. It is a place where we think we know better than God. Therefore, it is a place we are not yet free.

To truly sing Aslan’s song in the way it was begotten to be sung—notes that reconcile, bars that melt animosity, chords that inspire forgiveness and hope—is to sing it entirely free. Free of yourself. Free of fear. Free of control. To be completely free in your heart is to surrender control of what the Holy Spirit will do to those who hear you singing. Or the control of what the Holy Spirit will do to you when you sing.

For just because God’s song has been sung poorly before, does not mean it’s not the most exquisite melody—the life-giving melody—when sung faithfully.

And he wants to sing it faithfully, through you.

Sing on, Holy Spirit…sing on. 

Galatians 6:2

Salvation’s cost clings to my bones,

And pulses life into patches of dead flesh

That awakens with gasps like resuscitated hearts.

Oh yes, the misery of salvation;

Known by those elected by God to bear burdens,

Bear burdens not their own.

Sit and pray, we pray, o God give us rest.

With blood drops reddened from our creased brow

The load stretched tall and wide; our brow

Loaded with confusion and mourning the pain, o Lord,

How I shall bear burdens, burdens

Heavy and pressing of my brother, and let them break

My back--splintered pieces of Evil’s price paid in full!

Send it direct upon feeble shoulders.

Jesus, your gaping holes are our hope.

And from these marks of love and tears

Do I offer my back to my brother.

To you my Lord, place the weight, for

Grace is life.

For Jesus is me and you and

Upon my face, with tears like wet agonies,

I desire none but You and he and she.

Bend oh back, praise o heart, for I am

liberated from all coils of bondage,

And to your cross, do I long, for You alone,

The burdens of my brother

Shall I carry with eyes upturned

Toward red wood, red drops, and where tears

Of joy and sorrow are betrothed,

Where my Lord, my brother, the lashed,

Holds upon his back, our burdens, evermore.

Practice Resurrection

Practice resurrection.

That's the final line of Wendell Berry's prophetic poem, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.

In truth, the stanzas are dripping with the gentle liberating rhetoric of one who knows what it really means to live--who's tasted the sweet bile of power, the split-backed jeers of others when it's forfeited, and the now growing shalom that comes from a resurrection only God can bring.

Think Moses.

A man who grew up amongst the ridiculously rich architecture of the world's pre-eminent empire. No finer status could be rendered than what Egypt had to offer. Moses knew the satisfaction of a life not having to concern itself with others, especially the "bumpkin" Hebrews. And yet in a moment of revelation, Moses discovers that beneath the golden coat of his painted heart lay a more dormant, and living soul. It was a soul comprised of earth, straw, wood, grass and water, a more organic and elemental identity. It was a soul that experienced shalom in the "powerlessness" of knowing it was simply, and only ever, a creature. One who lives with the earth, rather than subdues it. It was the shalom of one who recognizes the joy found in equal-kinship with others, rather than self-imposed hierarchies wrought by a currency's valuation.

Moses discovered that his soul was more at home in the staining earth with equally-yoked brothers and sisters than in a palace where the power structures of the day dictated propriety's order.

So he killed a man in an attempt to bring about this new-found reality. And then he ran away in fear.

And he tended sheep for forty years.

Then God resurrected him.

Notice the trend. Moses lived in un-enlightened selfishness while divorced from the earth, from his people (a people of terrible ordinariness). Then through an act of revelation, he discovered a more fundamental nature to his soul than what Egypt's self-seeking allowed for. He acted brashly in an attempt to satisfy this craving by killing the oppressor, an attempt to satiate his soul by his own power. And then he ran away from fear when it did not work.

After forty years of banal living, of seemingly purposelessness by herding sheep and living out his days until death (so he thought), God showed up out of nowhere and resurrects him for a new purpose, a new reason to live.

So then, practice resurrection. From the lips of Wendell Berry, the formerly-venerated-professor turned dirty-fingernailed-farmer/prophet, abandon the futile pursuit of self.

It can't bring you what you seek.

Trust him, you'll find a joy unspeakably greater if you simply return to the land, to the powerlessness of a life found in the service of others, to the reality that you are nothing but a piece in an organic puzzle much deeper and wider and truer than you'd ever have the courage to fathom.

You are a creature, like the sequoia, like the doe, like the mosquito. You are a creature of tremendous value for your God has said you are valuable. But that value is unperceivable whilst your hands vigorously claw at anything that will prove this to you and aid your quest at acquiring power.

Allow God to put you to death--put to death your fear that you're not good enough.

Go tend sheep until you die (or until God decides to call you to something else).

Or as Berry puts it earlier in the poem,

"Every day do something 
that won't compute. Love the Lord. 
Love the world. Work for nothing. 
Take all that you have and be poor. 
Love someone who does not deserve it."

Trust him, trust Moses...It's only after you die that you'll understand what they mean.

Or rather, it's only after you're resurrected that you'll understand. But you can't resurrect yourself. That's what they discovered. God has to do it. All you can do is consent to be killed...and trust rebirth.

The Final Word

        An arid wind sweeps across the land uprooting sand and scorched rock. The sun is just beginning to crest into view; another day, as the multitudes before, set about through a creator’s choice. Whether his motives were of blessing or curse, happiness or anger, the world only guesses and listens. But there is something distinct in this morning. The same reddened sun, but it watches intently and strains to hear the city’s slightest movements. There is a historic moment transpiring in the spiritual world, a dominion we mortals are not yet privy to. There is a faint hum in the air, a bend in the roads of the city, and the spotlight of the sun flashes down markedly. A sound grows, upsetting the normalcy of the dawn. Moments later, voices are ringing out on all sides. It is a mob. Their fury is dangerous because their souls are blind. Their cries shatter, the tremors unearthed; fear grips the heart.

            “Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!”

          Their accusations grow stronger as the rage swells with each cringed syllable. As the purpose of their cause changes from reason to rage, their voices fuse into one undecipherable note. The immortal world watches in horror, joy, and sadness. Never had such a moment been imagined possible, the angels and demons think. What is happening?

The cries of the mob dance to the music of death and the decay of mercy. The mob is shouting and gesturing wildly. They seem to be huddled around an unseen mass in the center of the throng, surrounding it but not impeding its staggered movements. Like an amorphous liquid, the blob sways from side to side through the dusty streets as orange, unblinking light watches the parade and holds its breath.

A child of twelve, clothed all in white, follows the mob from the outskirts. He watches the scene unfold, but not a soul takes notice of him, and he speaks to no one.

            Time passes. 

A man is hoisted onto a cross and left to die. 

It is a moment that cannot be replayed or cast in any other light; 

for it happened in darkness and the story must be told in the same way.

The mob is gone; silence now shouts into the ear. Darkness is upon the earth, concentrating its focus toward the figure of a solitary man, bloodied and maimed, hanging on his cross. He is breathing heavily and languishing. He keeps trying to lift himself up on the splintered wood but keeps slipping back down, his hands and feet ripping wider with each failed attempt. 

The child in white is watching from afar, motionless and serene, as if he has seen this before, or at least knew it was coming. The man’s insides seem seconds from bursting through his skin, all muscles fatigued and spent. Blood does not drip, but flows from his body, a communal wound, and fatal. The languishing continues through the silence of the nightish day.

The mob of mortals are now asleep to the spectacular and historic moment and only the spirits watch and marvel. A prolonged period of grueling elapses, and an invisible line is crossed which only the man seems to know. Then, quietly and with eyes unsearchable and dimmed, he looks upward, the last drops of blood falling, and whispers,

           

“It is finished.”

            He lowers his head with grace, as if an angel caught it and gently guided it down, and his breathing stops.

In this day of eternal moments, all the world’s history flows into this one, astonishing point.

It is a point of nothingness, the point of the now, where eyes flee back and forth watching and listening with fear and in expectation.

What is about to happen? What just happened?

A bang! Hearts jump and spirits cower. And a singular, inexpressible sound of wailing is heard, a lament of unspeakable anguish, a piercing cry heard never before. And an eternal sorrow fills any body possessing a soul, mortal and immortal alike.

            

“Ohhh! My Son! O, my son! My son! Oh…oh, my son…my son.”

           The voice fades into sobs and then silence once more.

Nothing is felt but the indifferent breeze, the arid wind still careening, the world still listening. And there again is the boy in white holding a piece of thin fabric. He looks at it with a strange glow of optimism on his face, sparkles in his eyes. He tears the fabric in half and drops both pieces to the ground, letting them blow away forever and forever. He bears an almost secret happiness in his face. He has an unnatural absence of lines. He gazes out toward the city, a compassion for the corrupted innocence of the earth, and all that was good, and a reverence for that perpendicular wooden structure, a pool of blood running from its base, growing deeper and fresher as it branches outward flowing down the hill. He speaks.

            “That was the only day where I do not remember there being any laughter. The entire kingdom mourned. We wept as He wept. We wept because He wept. It grieved us; like a finger jabbing a freshly opened wound, the wound of His heart, to see our good Father in such pain. His son, our King, was dead. And with his death, life began…again. The Father had always known this was to be the cost. But knowing does not prepare you for experiencing. And He experienced His son’s death. He shared His son’s cup, to the last exacting drop. He was holding His Son’s hand to the final second, even when our King felt like he had been forsaken.

"One of the first questions people ask when they get here is, ‘Why did they do it? If he knew this was going to be the cost, why did they even create the world?’ We laugh at that question; not malicious laughter, but the way a mother would chuckle as her baby attempts to walk and falls on its pudgy bottom. And every time we hear this innocent question, we answer the same way: because they wanted you.

"They wanted a family to love. The Father wanted children, and the Son wanted brothers and sisters. And while all was still nothingness, they deemed the future price of this day, which only they would be able to afford…well worth it. They wished for the meals and the conversation, the fellowship and the laughter more than they wished to avoid this indescribable pain. And so they created. They deemed you worth it. They say you have always been worth it and always will be.

"And a few days later, we started to laugh again with a joy you will understand one day, now…and we have not stopped since.”

This is the Gospel. 

This is the Great Story. 

We are loved. 

This is the chapter which proves it. 

It is the chapter no one could have ever guessed, 

no one, 

but One.

Now go and do the same. 

Forever and ever, 

Love has won.

But what is this?

On the blessed third morn,

As the sun rises in spellbound majesty

And laughs—for what else can it do!

…He is alive!

His King is alive…

And turning its head, the sun watches

As chains fall from humanity’s waist and wrists and neck

They shield their eyes—what is this?

They are shielding their eyes!

They can see my light!

They can see me, cries the sun!

They can feel my warmth!

This must mean…it has to mean…

God and man are friends again!

He has returned…

Lift your eyes my brothers!

Look at me my sisters,

Drink me in full for the first time in a very long time,

He is alive!

It is a new day, a brand new day.

And I shall never set, never again,

Why do you look for the living among the dead?

He is not there!

Lift your eyes oh children,

Light has returned

And will never be taken away

When I hinder Jesus' Work

          One of my favorite stories in the Gospel is where Jesus is talking to a crowd about where his path was about to lead him, the cross. Peter does not understand and tries to rebuke him quietly. But Jesus sees his disciples, turns to Peter and says, “Get behind me Satan! For you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men!”

Once again, we, and especially Peter, are left scratching our heads in confusion. 

What is he doing now? I do not understand why he said that. All Peter did was serve as a faithful adviser to a leader who just put his foot in his mouth. Jesus said something rash: that he had to be killed. Peter was left to do damage control. And Jesus treats him like this?  

What is even more interesting, just recently Jesus had told Peter that he would be the rock of the future Church. And then he addresses his rock by the name Satan…What?

But Jesus knew something no one else did. He knew that unless an uncreated seed fell to the ground, no pure and eternal flower could ever bloom. Spring would never come and winter would remain, bitter and dark and hopeless.

Jesus had just explained to his disciples and the crowd the entire reason he had come, to die. Within his un-germinated soul lay freedom for all mankind. Peter, a courageous and foolhardy man, swimming in the zeal of his master’s growing popularity, took him aside and criticized him for his controversial words.

            As Peter reasoned, quite naturally I would argue, why would the Messiah, the one who had finally arrived to deliver the Jews, speak of his unavoidable and necessary death? To Peter’s mind, this was no way to garner support for their cause. How would Israel be restored to their rightful glory; how would their revolution gain steam if their Messiah, their King, was foretelling his impending death?  

Oh Peter, my logical and stupid brother, I am fully in agreement with you. If Jesus continued to espouse such publicly, unwise words, our cause would be compromised. Jesus would destroy his own rebellion; the one Peter thought they had been building; the one where once erected, he would be the rock of the new Church. Peter, your words, your reasoning were insightful and true…and therefore, you were utterly wrong.

My friend, you were mistaken, as I was, as we all were…and all because you reasoned with such human, common sense.

            The Father, who asked his Son to come to earth so that we might be a family again, cared not in the slightest if his uncreated Son was gaining or forfeiting the public’s support. He knew his Son would fall into disgrace with the world, because he was not part of the world. The Father and the Son were of the Light, and the world was lost in darkness, even Peter. God knew that Jesus was to die. It had to be this way. For only by death and resurrection could the humble seed within Christ’ soul actually germinate into the new and powerful Kingdom his Father was growing. It was the Kingdom of people like Paul, the Kingdom of Children and of Light which drives out all darkness, darkness that thought it had won.

            Only within the humiliating death of his Son, could God once more pour out his love upon the stubborn and parched lips of his sons and daughters; the same ones who would hate him until that brand new dawn, the same ones who rebuked their master for a politically injudicious statement. For until the Son died and rose, we would not be able to see, as he saw. We could not understand truth, as he was Truth. We could not reason, as he did.

        And so Jesus responded to the man upon whose back he would erect his church with brandished passion. For Peter’s back was not yet prepared for the Church to rest upon it. It had not been split by the whips of rejection and suffered the wounds of misunderstood death. He still perceived the world through clouded lenses of Sin. He still reasoned in ignorance.

But once he died to his old self, once he followed his Lord into the Light with his burdening, incisive cross ripping into the flesh of his back, then he would receive Life and clear reason. But he had not died yet. Christ was not living in him yet.

            ‘Therefore, get behind me Satan! For you have in mind the things of men, not the things of God!’

I picture Jesus looking at Peter and though his words are soaked in hot zeal and anger, his wrath (as it was with my scars) is not directed toward Peter…but toward Evil, toward Death.

            “Peter, my dear, dear brother, get behind me; for Satan is still your Father, and you cannot yet understand my path. One day, my Father and I will dwell in you, and open your eyes, and you will see as we see. You will see and you will remember this moment, this rebuke, which is full of my Father’s grace for you…but right now, my beloved brother, get behind me, do not speak to me, for your thoughts are evil, and I must die, so that you may live.”

Father, forgive me when I hinder your work, because I cannot comprehend what it is you are doing. To you alone, forever and alone, be all the broken praise of my heart. There truly is no God like you. You stand mighty and alone because you are the only God who ever once kneeled to wash our feet. For you loved us more than we can ever hope to love you. My scarred lips offer you everything I have, everything you have given me, for you to use how you reason, not how I reason. I trust you Father. Get me behind your cross and shine your light. That all men may see your death, your empty tomb, your wetted rag as it reeks of our filth, and your gaping hands which absorbed it, and embrace you, the One who stands for eternity with arms open as the sun rises on that new and glorious dawn.

Jesus' illogical Summons

God’s love is stronger than Death.

          But we protest, because that makes no sense to us. Jesus is not logical. At least, his logic is not our logic. We do not understand the way he calculates, the methodology he uses to arrive at decisions. His values and economics unsettle us mightily. And since we do not understand his math, we distrust his motives. And since we distrust him, we kill him. It is how we survive in the world. Uniformity is the key.

Everything in this world falls short. 

It always falls short of reaching our innermost soul where our deepest scar remains. It is the place no arm can stretch to and so it always persists, red and irritating and final. But in the radical words of Jesus and his pretentious actions, souls claim to be healed; they claim rest.

I am healed there.

I stand among that smiling mass of astonished and weeping people.

We are free. I cannot believe it…we are healed.

Our minds resist him at all costs for he is obtrusive, and he asks far too much. Yet our souls crave him for he sings to them, and involuntarily, our soul sings back. We do not tell our souls to sing back, but they do. We do not want to believe him, for his words scare us. But we cannot ignore what we feel when he speaks. We cannot ignore that rush we get only when he touches us. That rush where we feel alive is found and sustained nowhere else. That is why everything else falls short.

And we know this is true.

We know Jesus is the world’s only Truth for this same Truth created the world.

And this means we know what we must do next. We must do as he did. He said he came to destroy Death that we might live. He said he came to imbibe all Sin into his very nature that our earth and our souls and our bodies and our relationships might be clean and whole and perfect forevermore. Our souls know this is true even if we do not want to believe it. It is the secret of our God, the secret of the Great Story.

Therefore, we know, sorrowfully, what has to happen next. We know where healing comes from.

We must go to Golgotha.

We must carry our cross, with him, and walk up the hill, with him. We must die, with him. It scares our minds and insults our society, but it is the only way to unity.

We know that too.

           We are never left thinking that Jesus is starting some revolution. He is below and above and outside and between every single uprising the world has ever known. He simply is living out his chapter in the Great Story. It is the road the Father gave him to walk and it is his alone to walk. It is a path unlike any other path in the world.

That is why you have Christians on both sides of every issue because the road of Christ, the road to Golgotha, the Great Story, is outside and within and around and through every other road. The road of Jesus swallows up every other road from dawn to dusk.

The world is on one side, Christ and the cross on the other. It is unlike anything else and it beckons for all to join. At the very least, it does not allow for ignorance. Abstaining from a choice is to make a choice. The cross confronts us at every turn.

Who do you say he is?

Is he alive or just a statue?

Jesus has his role in God’s plan; we have ours. But as he lived out his part, as he walked his singular path up to Golgotha, no one had any idea what he was doing; not his disciples, not the Pharisees, not the Romans. No one ever knows what he is doing.

No one knows the fullness of this Great Story…but he, the Father and the Spirit.

Maybe that is why he gets up early to pray?

They are writing forth their Great Story until it is finished and complete and nothing can deter them.

He will repair the relationship and then he will invite all his children to come home, if they want, if you want.

‘You can come home. I’m making a way for you.’ That is the message of Jesus Christ. ‘Our Father loves you, even still, this very day! He has never stopped thinking of you or asking about you or longing for you to come home. I, your brother, love you. We’ve prepared a feast for you, in our family’s honor. Please come to it…please. We just want you to come home.’

Our brother is amazing.