The Mystery of Trump, Barabbas, & Covid ...

Personal freedom entitles you to be wrong.  Personal freedom entitles you to make bad decisions and do stupid things.  That is your right.  It is guaranteed to you; not by the Constitution of the United States, but by the free will that God created our species with.  You could say then it is not something the law should attempt to interfere with.  But the catch is in the word there - “personal”.  When your freedoms intersect with mine, or when mine step on yours, laws are created to temper us both.  If you chose to let’s say smoke a pack of cigarettes every day, that should be your choice.  It is a stupid decision given all the medical evidence available to show you how cigarettes will kill you.  But free will guarantees you the right to make that stupid decision.  “Where” you smoke is another matter.  Pulling out your pack of smokes in the surgical ward of a hospital is a big no-no.  Whipping them out in church is probably another no-no.  The hospital tries to make people healthier, so in the interest of that, they collectively ask you not to make your bad decisions in that place.  As for church, anything that hurts the body is generally another no-no, because they too are trying to help people get better, a healthy body is a good first step.  So when “personal” is really not so “personal”, what we do as Christians, should be about the well being of others, even if we are less concerned about our own lives.

But what happens when our “personal” choices are more subtle than cigarettes?  Not everything in life is guaranteed to kill you, or harm you outright, some things are far more insidious than that.  Take a quick look at the Taliban on that score.  The Taliban seems bent on becoming like Hezbollah at the moment.  They want to appear more “centrist”, more rational, the better of a series of bad choices.  They would like nothing more than to be recognized on the world stage as a party who is legitimately in charge, and can be negotiated with.  They want to build, become stronger, and then what?  To seed control to them in Afghanistan is no great choice.  But if the American regime folds in a day without an American military to back it up, what other choice is there; Al-Qaeda, or Isis, or traditional warlords, mostly members of one of the other more organized groups?  If the Taliban claims they will do better; what if they do better.  We may not see the damage of these choices for years to come, but when we see that damage who knows what form it will come in.  What we do now, we may regret deeply later.  But it leads us back to the idea of what other choices are there, to stay forever and make Afghanistan a defacto US province forever?  An eternal war, and over what, desert?  None of the choices are good, and we just don’t know what will come of all this, it just sets off all the spidy-senses of alarm.

So for those US citizens that blame Biden for the disaster that is, next election they will look for an alternative.  Enter Trump?  He is decidedly an alternative to every Democratic nominee, and most republicans too.  His character and misdeeds, or treatment of women, should set off all the spidy-senses of every conservative Christian in the party but somehow they don’t.  His crimes are overlooked, rationalized, and set aside – i.e. forgiven (without that ask, I would add).  How does that mystery work?  It is a personal freedom who you vote for.  You are allowed to vote for who you want.  But what motivates folks to vote for Biden or for Trump.  Biden seems rational.  He may not be, but he seems that way.  Trump is a known quantity, a whole lot like Barabbas was.  The people back in the days of Jesus knew what they were getting in Barabbas, just like we know what we get in Trump.  I am sure Barabbas was not “all bad” either.  When Barabbas murdered Romans for example, most Jews thought he was doing the right thing.  Imagine the contrast with Jesus who murdered no one, and instead said we should love everyone (including enemies like the Romans).

Barabbas stood for something.  So does Trump.  Naked self interest maybe, under the disguise of patriotism maybe?  How was Barabbas any different back in his day.  And the contrast back then was one of ideas and ideals, just like it is today.  Barabbas stood for doing it yourself, for taking control, for taking charge – Trump echoes a number of those themes.  Barabbas stood for lifting the poor man up, by putting a knife in his hand, and asking him to join the merry gang of thieves.  Trump gives us examples of same exact behavior.  Take charge, take control, be loyal to yourself, expect help from no one.  But Jesus offers a completely different model.  Jesus teaches there is no control, only God has that.  Jesus teaches absolute dependence on God for everything, we earn nothing, but are given everything.  Jesus teaches us to love each other so much, we would live serving each other, and if came down to it, to offer even our lives for each other because we love that much.  Hold nothing back.  Give everything.  Keep nothing.  That contrast of ideas and ideals is stunning, and lives on even today in our world, in our personal choices.

And the people chose back then.  Luke recounts the case study for us in his gospel letter to his friend about what we believe and why.  In chapter 23 it picks up in verse 13 saying … “And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, [verse 14] Said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: [verse 15] No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. [verse 16] I will therefore chastise him, and release him. [verse 17] (For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast.)”  Pilate knows Jesus is innocent.  Herod knows it.  Neither of them wanted to kill Jesus.  So tradition allows for a single pardon during the annual feast and Pilate offers to beat Jesus (nearly to death), and then release Him back to the crowd.  The crowd knows what a beating looks like, and what it feels like, so they should have been satisfied with this.  But in the war of ideas and ideals, this is not enough.  Reason is not enough.  Logic is not enough.  Personal freedom demands its due.

Luke continues in verse 18 saying … “And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas: [verse 19] (Who for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder, was cast into prison.)”  Barabbas was a known quantity.  He was a murderer, as bad as bad gets.  But at least he killed “the right people” some of the time.  He was in prison for just cause, and the people were better with him in exile.  But the people wanted him back.  Not far off from what I see regarding Trump these days.  All sins of the past forgiven (without the repentance), and all crimes committed which may have impacted us rationalized until they are not crimes at all.  This was the attitude towards Barabbas.  The difference between Barabbas and Trump, is that Trump expects this warm welcome back, Barabbas would be immeasurably stunned by it.  For it makes no sense.  Why welcome back the thing that might actually kill you?  It is like putting the Taliban in charge and hoping they will do better this time.  It is like turning the medicine designed to save us from the pestilence of Covid into some sort of warped religious test, or political test, and refusing to live to make a statement about our personal freedoms.  But none of these choices are truly personal are they?  What we choose across all of these choices will impact more than just me, or you, they impact everyone.  And the people want their own ideas, not necessarily the ones for the common good.

Luke continues in verse 20 saying … “Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them. [verse 21] But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him.”  When it comes down to it, people would rather crucify Jesus, than listen to Him.  They don’t want to hear the message of Jesus, they want a perverted view of the message in the Old Testament (not seeing that the real message there was not actually different than the message of Jesus).  People want vengeance masquerading as justice.  People want self-control, not submission to God.  We would rather have Barabbas than Christ, Trump than an alternative, the risk of Covid (until we get it) than a simple shot or two.  None of those choices are actually in our best interest.  But our personal freedom guarantees us the right to make them, to pick the stupid, to do the stupid, to remain stubborn in our feelings and our choices – until God is dead, and our chance at redemption killed by the very freedoms we hold so dear.  We cling to personal freedoms until all they are is our epitaph, buried in the sins we too refused to repent of.  How sad.

Pilate tries for the third and final time again to reason with this crowd as Luke picks back up in verse 22 saying … “And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go. [verse 23] And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. [verse 24] And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required. [verse 25] And he released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired; but he delivered Jesus to their will.”  Pilate sees what we all refuse to see.  Jesus is innocent.  His teachings would change the world for the better.  There is no evil in the teachings of Christ, even if they ask you to surrender your personal freedoms to find the salvation we should all be seeking.  This is what it means to give ourselves over to God.  It means we give away what we want, how we think, how we love.  And Jesus transforms us from the inside out, from the core of who we are.  We surrender our personal freedoms, our personal choices to Jesus because He knows better than we, what we really need, and what we should want, even if that is not something we want today.

But when we remain steadfast to our own ideas, they do on occasion win out – much to our shame, and regret.  In the war of ideas and ideals, Jesus was killed to stomp them out.  It did not work, but it does reveal how far our personal freedoms can take us, and frankly will take us, if we are unable to surrender them to the God we would otherwise try so hard to put to death within us.  The future victims of Barabbas were probably none too happy with having seen him be let go, or worse being a part of that.  The future dead from Covid who clung so hard to avoiding the vaccination will suffer from that decision and pay the ultimate price, save for those they leave behind.  We may come to regret leaving the Taliban in charge.  But if we ever put Trump in charge again, our regret will be swift, and well deserved.  But there will always be some of us who freely choose these outcomes.  In the immortal words of Pilate – “Why?”  There are alternatives, even if not easy, even if not perfect, there are alternatives.  Why pick the known outcome, when what is known is straight evil?  Why not pick the known outcome of Jesus instead?

We were created with personal freedoms, not to choose to use them to make ourselves feel better, but to choose to use them to make the lives of others better.  That is what loving others is all about.  But it cannot be love unless it is freely chosen.  Being forced to do the right thing does not make us love, it makes us robots.  And that is not what God wants.  But God also knows that since Adam and Eve chose badly, our propensity to choose evil is greater than our ability to choose rightly.  So to return to righteousness we must choose to surrender our natural propensities, our will, our freedoms back to God so that He can remake us to what He intended us to be – free from the chains of evil, and free to love as He loves. 

Being free to love others is to be truly free.  It does not come naturally anymore.  It comes only from our Savior who died to make sure we could experience it, if we chose to, through Him, and only through that mechanism.  On the other side of transformation, making bad choices that we used to want, will become even more of mystery to us than we can imagine.  When asked why, on the other side of transformation, we will have no good answer, because there is no good answer.  God forbid we find ourselves locked in our personal freedoms, and therefore locked in the sins we refuse to remit.  Time is short.  Why waste another second walking a road you don’t want to go down.  Make a gift of yourself to Jesus, and watch what Jesus does with the gift of your life in return.  That is a decision you will never regret.

 

What it Takes to Believe ...

It is so much easier to go along with the crowd, than to stand out alone.  When a group of your friends or co-workers all share the same opinions, it is easier to share them, than to oppose them.  Opposing, or just holding a different view, can get you ostracized or worse.  People can start referring to you as “that guy”, the one who just can’t get along, or is not a team-player.  You may find yourself out on your own, excluded from gatherings or meetings, because your contemporaries are not eager to entertain the different views you hold.  All of this is understandable if the different thing you cling to is based in some level of hate, or prejudice against others.  But it is weirdly less understandable when what you cling to is a firm love for others, even when they are your “enemies”.  You would think people would welcome a loving person into their midst, even if that loving stuff, was not normal or part of the standard group think.  They don’t.  When a group of folks don’t like something, or someone, they are not eager to entertain someone sympathetic to the thing they don’t like either.  The force of the group is supposed to dictate the thinking.  When it conflicts, the offender is just thrown out of the group, rather than change the course of the group thinking.

It gets even harder to understand when this phenomenon is examined within church walls.  Imagine being the only one in your church who holds to some particular view or interpretation of scripture that conflicts with all the other members (or the proscribed set of doctrines of your denomination).  You will be confronted with your differences, asked to set them aside.  Failing that you will be thrown out of the body of Christ because you do not conform.  Again, this is easier to understand when what you cling to winds up reflecting some level of hate or prejudice against others.  But even more weird when what you cling to is an intense love for others.  Harder still to imagine Christians casting out one of their own because they love too much.  But they do.  There are some doctrines that groups of Christians prefer to cling to rather than be swayed in any new point of faith that some rando comes up with on his/her own.  Doctrine often builds the walls of the church; and lovers like Jesus find themselves on the outside of them.

And this dates back a very long time.  Even when the history of it shows, that very often that “rando” guy was right, and the group think was in error.  In the time of Christ, the entire church leadership (short a very few number of folks) believed Jesus was NOT the Messiah.  And they were willing to cast folks out of the church, if they disagreed.  During the long dark ages, the Catholic church believed people were not qualified to read the Bible on their own, and fought hard to keep the scriptures written only in Latin, and distributed only to the clergy.  When Luther and other reformers began to translate scriptures into common understandable languages the church went nuts.  They cast them out, and did far worse, claiming many were heretics and burning them at the stake.  Imagine, being called a heretic and risk burning alive for the belief that people should be able to read the word of God for themselves.  Today that would be unthinkable, but not so long ago, it was the norm.

So perhaps you can imagine what it would have been like for a church leader, to not only disagree with the standard thinking in the time of Christ, but to place great faith in Jesus to heal what could not otherwise be healed.  That kind of display of faith was bound to get you in trouble, big trouble.  It would be like being the first person in your Christian church to stand up and announce we need to love our Muslim brothers, and do good to our Homosexual and Atheist friends.  Most Christians are fine with loving others at a distance, but to make loving others personal and tangible, would be about as popular as what Nicodemus or Jairus would go through in their day.  You would be lucky to be thrown out without further damage done to your person.  Today’s Christians demand change before love can be shown, instead of offering love freely first whether change ever comes around or not.  Sometimes it is not only hard to believe, or be the first to believe, but it may take everything the world values to do so.

This was a struggle Luke was familiar with.  As he pens his gospel letter to his friend Theophilus, Luke recounts two examples of what it took to believe so greatly no matter the cost, or be the first to believe something that no one else ever did (until that point).  Faith, in the love of Jesus, may not sound so unusual today – until you suggest we apply it to enemies we care so little for.  But in the time of Christ, to have faith in Jesus, was to buck the traditions and edicts of a church and bloodline that dated back nearly 2000 years.  For you to think you knew something that the church did not, was just crazy.  Who are you to think you know better than rabbis schooled since birth to know the very heart of the scriptures?  Who are you to cast aside the Torah and the Laws in favor of some upstart who seems to believe He wrote the Laws in the first place?  And to fast-forward to our day; who are you to believe sinners need your love in spite of their sin, even while they are yet sinning, even when they do not seem to ever want to give it up and believe like you do.  In today’s vernacular we call those folks a lost cause, and do not waste any time on them.  But Jesus does, and He still loves them.  And perhaps most discomforting of all, if you really thought about it, you might find Jesus numbers you in that group of sinners as well; yet refuses to give up loving you too.  It may not be popular to love today either, but so great is the need even now.

Luke begins his recollection in the eighth chapter in verse 40 saying … “And it came to pass, that, when Jesus was returned, the people gladly received him: for they were all waiting for him. [verse 41] And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus' feet, and besought him that he would come into his house: [verse 42] For he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying. But as he went the people thronged him.”  The evangelism of the former demoniac who had a Legion of demons in him until he encountered Jesus had worked.  When Jesus returned to this region, He was no longer feared, but desired and accepted by the people.  So much so, that Jairus who was a ruler of the synagogue in this area had become a convert sight unseen.  When Jesus returns, Jairus remembers the testimony of the demoniac and how Jesus was able to heal him despite the power of evil.  And Jairus like any good father loves his daughter above all else.  Jairus loves her more than any censure he may endure for his faith in Jesus.  No matter what the church leadership may do to him for this, Jairus is determined to believe, and to seek help where help can only be found.

Luke knows the heart of Jesus so loves all of us, that he does not even take the time to recount the answer of Jesus to this plea directly.  We find it out in a few verses down.  But Jesus determines to go to the home of Jairus and heal his daughter (though Jesus knows there will be more to His answer, than even Jairus has asked for).  When we reach out to Jesus in need, our God answers in love.  Sometimes in ways we could have never imagined, but always with our eternal best interests in mind.  For Jairus to believe and express his faith, was certain to cost him.  But this story was more than just about being part of a group that believes.  It was also about being the first to believe something no-one else ever had.

Luke continues in verse 43 saying … “And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, [verse 44] Came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched.”  This was the first person to ever do this in His day.  This poor woman not only had faith in Jesus to heal her, she may not have felt worthy of distracting the attention of Jesus to take the time to deal with her.  So she reasoned she would but touch the hem of His garment and it would get done.  This was original thinking.  If she announced this idea in today’s church we would have laughed her out in scorn.  Back then it would have been no different.  Just because her idea was new, did not mean it was wrong.  This was her faith in action, and who are we to question it just because it was different.  There was no hate in her new idea.  There was rather a faith in the Love of Jesus to heal her, even if a poor idea of her own unworthiness.  And for all the nay-sayers, it worked.

Luke continues in verse 45 saying … “And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied, Peter and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? [verse 46] And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.”  This woman’s idea worked, but it was not perfect.  A part of it needed correction.  Her faith would heal her, but her idea that she was unworthy, or that Jesus should not take the time to love her, was in error.  So Jesus was going to address that.  He asks in a crowd full of people pressing Him from every side and angle – who touched me?  At this I am certain everyone immediately backs off and says “not me”, when it is certain it was them only seconds before.  Then Peter figures it out in his head that this question just does not make sense, a ton of people were pressing in on Jesus, what kind of a question was that.  So he asks Jesus what He meant.

Luke continues in verse 47 saying … “And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately. [verse 48] And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.”  The woman planned to be anonymous, but it did not work.  Jesus was calling her out in front of an entire crowd of people.  She was worthy of His love.  She was important to Jesus as we all are, each of us, all of us, enemies and heretics included.  She comes forward now trembling in fear at having been caught by God.  But Jesus was not interested in humiliating her, He was interested in loving her like the Father He is.  His words to her, were “Daughter”, be of good comfort, thy faith has made you whole, go in peace.  She was whole and healed.  But she needed to know she was loved as well.  The healing without the loving was not the lesson Jesus needed her to learn.  Health without love is never worth as much.  This was the part of her original thinking that needed correction.  But it still worked.  And from then on, the copy-catters would be repeating this wherever Jesus went.  All of the sick reaching out to simply touch the hem of His garment as He walked by.  And it still worked.

Being the first to believe is not a bad thing.  When your belief is centered in faith in Jesus, and faith in His love, it is a tremendous thing.  But Luke quickly returns to the story of Jairus for as Jesus was still addressing the poor woman a servant from the household of Jairus appeared.  Luke continues in verse 49 saying … “While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master. [verse 50] But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.”  Now this was the acid test of faith in Jesus.  To heal was one thing, but the dead were dead.  Dead was a permanent thing.  No prophet could fix that, at least not without a special connection to God.  But in spite of the circumstances Jesus asks us to fear not, only to believe, and we will be made whole.  Is this any different than how our salvation works?

We are effectively dead in our sins, bound to them, chained to them, unable to free ourselves from them.  And our sins choke the life out of us, at least any kind of life worth having.  Our sins do more than separate us from our God, they inflict real pain on us, and on those we claim to love, right here and right now.  We do not need to wait to be punished for our sins, for our sin are indeed already our punishment.  And it is in this completely helpless dead state, that Jesus promises to make us whole, if we only believe.  Imagine that, Jesus will free us from our sins, if we only believe.  He does not say we need to go take care of it ourselves first before He will love us.  He knows that is impossible.  He asks only for us to believe, to believe in His love.  For all my contemporaries who are reluctant to show the love of Christ to those still steeped in sin, I ask, how will sinners ever come to see Jesus, if not through the love you show them.  How will we ever effectively point them to Christ, if we are unwilling to love them first.

Notice too, Jesus does not offer any doctrinal condition, or state of beliefs before He intends to do what He intends.  Jairus, nor his daughter, nor his wife – needed to recite the Torah, or explain Isaiah, or determine if the book of Enoch was legit or not first.  The particulars of the Bible were not the pre-requisite.  But believing in Jesus was.  If we believe Jesus can save us, He will save us.  Not because we can explain the Bible backwards and forwards first, but because we only believe with the faith of a small child in Jesus first.  The rest of it.  The doctrines.  All that other stuff that comes from the study of the word is supposed to increase our faith, and our belief, and most importantly our love for others.  If it does not accomplish that, we are doing it wrong.  Jairus’ daughter was dead.  That was a fact.  So are you.  So am I.  If not today, then someday soon.  But life after death is also not only possible in Jesus, it is a fact in Jesus.

Luke continues in verse 51 saying … “And when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden. [verse 52] And all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth. [verse 53] And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead.”  Given the status and position of Jairus, there are professional mourners in the home, weeping over the daughter’s death.  Jesus takes only 3 disciples with Him, and the parents and enters the home, telling the mourners she is only sleeping.  Here is where it gets interesting.  Was Jesus lying?  Has He ever?  Now was she dead or not?  If Luke’s account is to be believed she was both dead and “sleeping”.  That is to say, she was sleeping the sleep of death.  In that state we know nothing.  Time passes with no concept of time.  We have no memory.  We are just gone, not transformed into some out-of-body ghost still roaming around with full consciousness.  But instead asleep.  She was also neither in heaven (yet) or in hell, just because she died.  She was only asleep.  And when Jesus returns her to life in this early resurrection, He neither pulls her out of the flames, or rips her out of eternal bliss, but simply wakes her up from her sleep.  The mourners are put out of the house, so things can progress.

Luke continues in verse 54 saying … “And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise. [verse 55] And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and he commanded to give her meat. [verse 56] And her parents were astonished: but he charged them that they should tell no man what was done.”  The breath of life that belongs only to God, is returned to the body of the girl, and she is called back to life.  Jesus asks for her to eat meat, so that everyone knows she is not some sort of ghost, but a real person, a real girl.  Then He tells the parents not to publicize this to anyone.  Several probable reasons here; the enemies of Jesus might seek to kill the girl once again to prevent living proof of Jesus being the literal resurrection and the life.  In addition, having undisputed proof that Jesus can raise the dead would have cut short his ministry by a church leadership already bent on killing Him.  Jesus wanted as much time as He could get to love us, before we killed Him.  And finally once Jesus was raised from the dead, the story would serve as additional proof this resurrection was indeed possible.

Jairus was willing to believe no matter what the cost, and life was returned to his daughter as a result.  Are we willing to believe this intently today?  When our co-workers question the very existence of any God, or they claim any deity will do, are we willing to stand out and stand alone if need-be for a faith in the love of Jesus alone despite any surrounding group think?  If nothing else, Jesus wants so badly to return life to us today, in the here and now.  He wants to take the sin, pain, and death out of our lives and show us what life is really supposed to look like.  Are we willing to take Him up on it?  And while the interpretation of scripture has become so fragmented across so many denominations; the application of love for others is just as simple as it has always been.  To be first in the belief we need to love, might make you the first in your church to really believe that.  It might get you kicked out, or worse.  But that does not make you wrong, it just makes you a believer in His love.  There is wisdom in the body of Christ, but not so much wisdom it should choke out the love for others.  When it goes that far it is has gone too far.  What are you willing to believe?

 

When "No" is Actually "Not Yet" ...

I am reminded this week that not all answers to my prayers are the ones I asked for.  It seems recently I am told “No” in response to many of my requests.  So many in fact, it is disheartening.  My daughter asked me for prayers on Thursday for her father-in-law.  I prayed.  But on Friday, she let me know that while her husband was yet in travel to see his father, he passed away.  This hurts.  Bad enough, that he was not healed.  But worse, that this exact same scenario happened with her husband’s grandfather earlier this year.  Requests for prayer, followed by death while still in transit to see him.  My adopted son (son-in-law is a term too little for how much our family loves him) has lost both his grandfather and father in the same year, with no good-byes, after requests for prayer which were given.  And there is no way to fix this, is there?  What comfort and love my daughter now offers her husband will never be more important than it is today.  What comfort he can offer his own mother, and grandmother (who lost both a husband and a son as well), will also never be more important than it is today.  Sometimes people think that when prayers are offered by “righteous” men they will be heard.  I guess you can figure where that puts me on the righteous scale then.  But I believe that Jesus hears the broken as much as He hears those who think themselves whole.  Answers however, are not always what we want, at least seen through the prism of this world’s lens.

But sometimes, where I hear a resounding “no”.  That is not actually what God is saying.  My “no” is merely God’s “not yet”.  I have personal experience with this.  Once before a long time ago, I prayed for a job with a particular division of Lockheed Martin.  I did not get it.  Answer looked like “no” to me.  But then, I was referred to a different division of Lockheed where I did get not only a job, but with more pay, and faster career progression than anyone could have imagined.  At a time in retrospect, where the division I originally applied for was laying off employees to the tune of nearly 1/3 of its work force.  So while my friends were being downsized, I was being promoted, over and over again.  Who but God could have opened the one door, while closing the other.  More recently, I continue to pray for my dog Layla.  She has inoperable cancer, but she still lives.  I do not know for how much longer, but today is a gift, and her lack of pain today, a greater gift still.  I hold out hope for her cure, but given the losses in our family, it is hard to hope for a dog, when the people seem not to last.  But my feelings, do not change my history, or today’s gift, or my continued hope in God’s mercy in the here and now.

I can only imagine the pain of a mother who loses a son.  I have not ever been exposed to such pain.  Worse, if it is her only son.  But this scenario did not originate with my family this year.  Luke writes about another such woman, who lost her husband, making her a widow.  But then tragedy struck again and she lost her only son.  In those days in Israel this would likely leave her destitute as well.  The story picks up in chapter seven of his gospel letter to Theophilus regarding what we believe and why.  He starts in verse 11 saying … “And it came to pass the day after, that he went into a city called Nain; and many of his disciples went with him, and much people. [verse 12] Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her.”  This was a sad story.  And I am certain this woman did not lose her husband or her son without praying not to lose them.  Who knows if she was able to say goodbye or if death came and interrupted, like it usually does.

We go about our lives as if we were somehow guaranteed to have them.  But the truth is, our collective clocks tick on, at some point hitting that annoying buzzer that time is up.  At that moment, it does not matter if we were in a plane on the way to say goodbye.  We fell short.  It does not matter what was in our hearts for that person, the love we wanted to express.  They will no longer hear it.  At least not now.  The pain of this widow was shared by the town she lived in.  They stood by her in the funeral.  I hope the people in the Philippines where Sean’s wounded grandmother resides has the company of those she has gone to minister to, with her now in her time of need.  I hope they comfort his mother as well.  I hope his presence there softens the blow of so hard a loss.  But I understand why weeping is likely to be heard.  And I understand why it is hard to know an answer from God like “no”, when we know He is capable of miraculous other responses.  I would bet this woman of Luke’s day could equate.  But the story continues.

Luke continues in verse 13 saying … “And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not.”  And here is where I hear the voice of the Lord in the ears of my family.  What we have perceived as a “no” is only a “not yet”.  We asked for healing.  One is coming.  We asked for a lack of pain.  Pain is to be no more.  We asked not to die.  We are to never experience or fear the shadow of death ever again.  And so our Lord says to us all, weep not.  In 2019, we lost someone, but at His second coming we will get them back.  And we will lose them, nevermore.  I am sure Theophilus had some idea of this in his day, just as you and I understand it in ours.  But this story was not a theoretical one.  This was a literal one.  Our Lord is not without compassion.  And His solution is life.

Luke continues in verse 14 saying … “And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. [verse 15] And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother.”  This is prelude.  This is the example story of what His second coming will look like for millions of people.  Jesus did not yank this poor son out of the bliss of heaven to return him to a world of sin once again.  No.  Instead Jesus simply woke this son up from the sleep of death, the same way Jesus will one day wake us all up from the sleep of death, to be reunited with our families, and our Lord.  This was kindness to both people, mother and son.  This was a declaration to me and my family that this “no” was really only a “not yet”.  And here is the prototype for what that coming day will look like once again, only better still.

The response of the people was somewhat less than I would have expected., imaging myself in the same situation.  Luke continues in verse 16 saying … “And there came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his people. [verse 17] And this rumour of him went forth throughout all Judaea, and throughout all the region round about.”  To return death to life is something only God can do.  Hard for that widow to imagine Jesus as anything other than God Himself in the form of His Son.  As for the dead son returned to life, he must have been confused to see this was not the final resurrection, only a temporary one.  Again, the answer was not “no” it was simply “not yet”.  But do you imagine that returned son had any doubt in his mind what the end of time would look like once again, only better.  That son had been through it once.  He had tasted the sleep of death and had been awoken from it.

My daughter and my adopted son can take hope in this.  Every one of us who looked like we got a “no”, maybe even a series of “no’s” can take hope in this.  I await the day when His compassion delivers me to my mother and father, my children to me and my wife, and all of us to the lap of His Father – to know a love we have never been able to fathom.  My family here is blessed with those who have chosen to be a part of it by choice, and so it expands.  Our family there will know this same phenomenon.  And every “not yet” will melt away as Jesus says it is finally time now.  What begins then ends all disappointment.  And the love that looks out for us beyond the scope of this world, will make clear why God’s timeline was different than our own.  And once we see it, we will confess we would never have chosen otherwise than what God has done for each of us – even if it looked like “no” in the here and now.  In the meantime, I will push my sadness and grief deeper into His compassion.  Like a two-year-old who has no other place to go than to a Dad whose answer they do not fully understand.  Trusting in His compassion, and His eternal love.  I yearn for the day when “not yet” turns to “welcome home”.

 

An Atheist's Anthem ...

 “If I only saw a sign, I would believe.”  This is a familiar chorus I have heard from nearly every non-believer I have encountered.  Sadly, it is also a familiar refrain I have heard from many Christians.  We look for the impossible to validate a faith that does not make any sense.  We ask to see the impossible for ourselves, unwilling to take the words or testimony of others on this account.  It needs to be personal.  It needs to be tangible.  Or else, how could I believe?  And in this we destroy our journey-of-faith and wish for certainty in its place.  But be honest, how could you ever be certain, of the impossible?  Even if you witness a single incident of it, will one witness be enough to believe in all the others, and for the rest of your life?  So if you must witness more than one incident, how many will be enough?  All of them?  Would it really take time travel to finally make us believe that what is recorded in scripture was real?  If you are looking here, you are cheating yourself.  There is another venue, and something a lot more personal for each of us.

To begin, certainty is not the goal.  If I asked you to trust me, how would you go about it?  You might evaluate our interactions, our history together.  You might conclude that if my behavior was always in line with your expectations, that you could extend trust to me, and then see what happens.  But therein lies the catch.  No matter how I have behaved with you in the past, no matter how consistent our history may be, each time you extend trust to me, you take a risk.  If past is prologue, then you may believe the risk to be low.  But that “belief” is still a “belief” you hold about my trustworthiness, based on a myriad of factors, but none the less a “belief” that I will not let you down.  This is how trust works. 

You may trust your mom for example, because your mom has demonstrated that she loves you.  Even if she screws up, she still loves you, though her mistake proves her human.  You may even elect to extend trust to her again after a huge mistake, because there has been only one (or few you know about), and generally she does not make them.  But even with mom (mistakes or no), every time you extend trust, you hold a “belief” that it is worth it, to trust her.  Certainty is impossible.  Because you cannot absolutely predict what anyone else (including God) may do, or why they do it.  In the end, you have ideas about it, guesses about it, even educated guesses about it.  But behavior is a tricky thing to absolutely predict, and so people surprise us sometimes (for better or for worse).  To trust anyone, is to embrace “belief”, at the exclusion of absolute certainty.

But where God is concerned, it is more blame that goes around, than trust.  That has directly to do with our picture of “who or what” God is.  The media, our parents, our church, our friends, our professors, may have all played a role in forming an image in your mind about who God is.  Suffice it to say, it boils down to one of 2 main images.  Most folks think God is a version of Santa Clause.  We go to Him to ask for stuff.  We are happy when we get it.  Mad when we don’t.  But are generally quick to ruthlessly blame God for anything bad that happens, under the logic that Santa should have been watching and been able to prevent the bad stuff before it ever happened.  After all, He has done it for others, why not me?  Way too many Christians have this exact image of God, despite all the scriptures.  Most Atheists just don’t believe in any kind of Santa Clause, or any god, but if there were a God, He would be to blame for everything.

In the Santa Clause picture of God, no trust is required.  Neither is certainty.  If you get the stuff you asked for, hallelujah.  If not, it must not be in God’s time yet.  So Santa has a slot machine sort of response to what you ask for, the odds are low, but you never know.  How could faith ever grow in you, if this is the image of God you believe in, or have the most experience with?  And believe me, Satan is WAY too happy to keep this image of God in your mind.  Perhaps enough to grant you some of those wishes himself, in order for you to never shed this image of the God you pray to.  But our real God, needs us to trust Him.  That trust is a critical component of His ability to save us – from us.  Denying yourself to let some random God you don’t really know remake who you are, is just not likely.  Better to keep the Santa image, and just hope for the best.

So God’s problem is getting you to stop thinking of Him in terms of doling out rewards and punishments, and start thinking of Him for the Being He truly is.  The other image of God (a saving God).  God wants to save you, from you.  He loves you (being the primary and singular motive of His).  God sees sin as the punishment and the addictive disease.  And He has only one way to rid you of it.  But for that to work, you have to trust Him enough to let Him do it, in spite of how it looks.  Trust, in spite of common sense.  Trust, in spite of what everyone else tells you.  Trust, that He is able to do the impossible in you, where history demonstrates, you are clearly unable to do it.  So if that is His mission, and trust is what He needs from you.  Offering you certainty does nothing to accomplish it.  If you witness a 1,000 different acts of the impossible, all you will have learned is that it is possible for God to do the impossible.  You might have already imagined that.  But you will still have no reason to let Him reconstruct who you are.  A thousand elements of certainty do not build trust, they build resentment.  Back to the Santa Clause image – now that I have seen 1,000 impossible things – I intend to open complaints about why I did not benefit from any of them.  A thousand acts of love and impossibility for others, does me not one bit of good.  So now I am mad at Santa, because there was only coal in my stocking, while my neighbor got Barbie’s playhouse.

The first problem with asking for signs, is that it does not bring trust.  The second, is that it will only make you mad they were not for you, or selfish if they were (who does not want more miracles in their own lives).  And lastly they are usually requested as a condition of belief (instead of a result of it) doing nothing to foster trust, so there will never be enough of them, to really make a believer out of you.  You will either find a way to let your skepticism reduce the impossible, to a scientifically explainable trick (or perhaps a random set of circumstances that worked out just right despite the incredible odds, like say the hypothesis of evolution) - or you will find you have an insatiable appetite for more signs, at the cost of what you profess is a belief.  In any case, the mission God has to save you, from you, by remaking you fails because He grants your wishes for signs as a condition of belief.  A change in thinking, on the other hand, will pull back the veil that has blinded your eyes to the impossible.  What you witness after a change in how you perceive life, is going to be mind blowing.  Sounds crazy right now, but that’s the point.  It is crazy.  But it is also real.  And it will be a lot more personal to you than you could possibly imagine now.

Take as a case in point the story of two types of people in the gospel of Matthew the 27^th chapter.  Picking up in verse 38 it reads … “Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left.”  You could argue these men might have been believers in the Jewish faith (though obviously not perfect observers of the Law).  It is not known exactly what they believed at least from Matthew’s account.  However we know from other versions of the good news, that one repented before he died, the other did not.  Dieing in the company of known criminals tends to make one look like a criminal even if this is not true.  This death will do nothing to uplift the reputation of Christ.  But Jesus does not care about His reputation.  In His trial all manner of lies were told about Him, and His response was perfect silence.  No condemnation, no calling people out on their sins, only silence.  But Jesus was eager to speak to anyone who seeks salvation.  When the dying theif seeks Jesus, Jesus responds, no matter what kind of physical pain He was in.  When that same theif was hurling insults at Him, Jesus remained silent.

Matthew continues in verse 39 saying … “And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, [verse 40] And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.”  Dying in the company of thieves, and up on a Roman cross, was decidedly NOT the sign the Jewish people were looking for where it comes to proving Jesus was God.  These were believers.  These were those who studied scriptures.  And yet their ideas about what God was supposed to do – that is, to throw off Roman oppression and setup a Kingdom that would last forever – overpowered all the other texts and prophecies that predicted exactly this part of the mission of God to save us.  “Believers” who desired something else of God, and refused to accept what God was actually doing to truly answer their prayers.  When Santa does not behave how we want Him to, what good is Santa right?  And so in this case, the very fact Jesus was actually fulfilling prophecy, was the very fact that disqualified Him as being the Messiah in their minds.  Sound familiar?

How often do we ask God for a thing, and threaten Him that if He does not do it, we will believe no longer?  Save me.  Save my child.  Save my spouse.  From the disease and death that stalk them.  If the results are not what we expect – we become angry and decide there cannot be a God – or else why did He not answer my prayer.  But perhaps He did, just not in the way you expected.  Perhaps from Gods point of view, saving you, your child, your spouse, for eternity is most important to all of you.  Should earthly life end today, and infinite life begin tomorrow, reunited, with infinite love in all of your hearts – is this not the preferred outcome all of you would want, even if it comes at the price of shortening how long you live in this world today?  Let’s say instead of focusing on the eternal, that God allowed you the answer to your prayers, and saved that life in the here and now.  As time passes, you, or your child, or your spouse, begin to change (not for the better).  Perhaps over time, one of you decides there is no God at all, and if there is, He is not worth following.  Sin is more “fun”, instead of the disease it truly is.  If that is how you meet your end in this world, and the eternal world is sacrificed in the process.  Did God really do what was in your best interest all those years ago when He saved you only to meet this new end?  And God knows what you will choose long before it happens.  Santa might let this play out.  But God would rather it didn’t.  God would prefer to cherish you while your free will choice reciprocates that love, rather than let you exist long enough to discard it under the weight of sin’s embrace.

So because God does not do what we want or expect, does not make Him any less trustworthy.  Keep in mind Jesus was doing what ALL of us need for salvation.  Not trying to prove Himself to nay-sayers at the time and place of His death.  Matthew continues in verse 41 saying … “Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, [verse 42] He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.”  And there we have it, the Athiest’s Anthem coming right out of the mouths of the very top leadership of the church at that time.  What image of God do you suppose they had, the one of a saving God who would die in our place, and fulfill prophecy – or the one of Santa who doles out punishment and reward emphasis on punishment.  And had Jesus descended off that cross in front of their eyes, gliding right down in front of them fully healed, what do you suppose their response would have been?  They would have hated Him all the more, because now Roman oppression still abounded, and Jesus would be impossible to kill after all.  Think about it, they already had ALL the previous miracles Jesus did to consider in weighing whether or not He was the Messiah, and NONE of them changed their course of action or belief.  They chose to dismiss every previous sign and still pursue killing Him.

And should Jesus have chosen to assuage His own ego, by proving to these priests He truly did have this power, what kind of God does that truly make Him?  A God of ego?  Who would gladly sacrifice our eternal considerations for those of the moment?  How could we be saved then?  It is often our expectations of what God should do, that could never be met anyway.  Because we come from a place of ego and selfishness, where God comes from a totally opposite perspective.  Jesus believes it is better to die to save all of us, than to do anything shortsighted, and gain nothing.  Jesus never used any of His power to benefit Himself.  Instead He used it unceasingly on us, the objects of His love, restoring us, removing the pain of sin and death from us.  Our restoration tops the mind of a saving God.  Not just getting rid our physical diseases, but getting rid of the way more deadly sinful disease of bad motives driving bad choices we continue to embrace.  Curing us of our desire to sin, is way more important.  Saving us from an eternal perspective way more important than saving us in the moment.

The ridicule continues as Matthew writes picking up in verse 43 saying … “He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God. [verse 44] The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.”  Matthew hears the mockery of the thieves, but misses the repentance of the one.  Here we have an example of Jesus suffering the same fate as we do from time to time.  Jesus trusted in His Father.  And yet, He was dying, very painfully in this world.  The Father had NO interest in seeing His Son be tortured and die.  But the Father had a GREAT interest in seeing all of humanity be saved and reconciled unto Himself.  The death of His Son was that price.  In order that the need for Justice be satisfied.  So Jesus dies, in extreme pain we inflicted.  And the Father must sit there in silence and watch.  The eternal salvation outweighing the salvation of the moment.  This is how great our God desires to save us in the eternal realm, not just the here and now.  It is a different way of thinking.

So the repentant thief represents one kind of person, the mocking priests another.  For those mocking priests, no sign would ever be enough.  And frankly the next section of texts are going to have some doozies.  For the repentant thief however, for those of us who seek salvation from Jesus, what will happen in us is a change.  You will note that repentant theif was NOT saved from the cross.  He died in this world, but with certainty about his own place in the next one.  And change began to occur even in the worst dying circumstances any of us can imagine.  We too will become different than we are today.  Not because we work for it.  But because we begin to choose to trust Him, and allow Him to remake us however He sees fit.  Then change is surely on its way in us.  We read scripture differently.  We begin to see love as the primary motivation, instead of some wild afterthought.  We begin to reason differently.  And over time, the blinders of bad choices, the blinders of doubt, fall away – and what is revealed is a regular diatribe of the impossible happening all the time.  For example, the changing of hearts.  Not just of others, but of my own.  Learning how to love differently, and more deeply, than you had ever imagined.  No seminar could ever get this done.  But allowing Jesus full access sure does.  Without Jesus, things tend to degenerate.  But with Jesus, things tend to improve, especially in areas where it matters the most.

That sign, that impossibility, is very personal, very tangible, and you will live with its benefit every day of your life.  Does it cure your cancer?  No.  It could.  But it does not have to.  It fixes something more important.  The quality of your days expands exponentially, whether you are beset by physical pain and disease, or whether you are healed from them.  Keep in mind, disease does not exist in heaven.  So whether here or there, you are destined to see disease, pain and death no more.  And what happens to the desire to see a sign now?  You lose the selfishness part of that.  Instead of asking for goodies for yourself, you have no thought of yourself.  But you are swamped with thoughts of others.  You want to BE a sign for someone else, help them, meet their need if you can, no matter how you are feeling at the time.  And where you are powerless to meet their need, you do ask God for the impossible.  Not as a condition of belief, but because you are SURE He can, and will do what is right for that person’s eternal interest.  Where it comes to the removal of sin, 100% guarantee He wants that.  Where it comes to all the other worldly stuff, His gifts must fall in line with our salvation.  Knowing He longs to give them, and knowing He must hold them back, if they would add to our downfall.

Life, instead of existence, is a very tangible, and personal thing.  No one else can define it for you.  No one else can deny the impossible you are witness to in your heart and life.  For you know what is true for you.  You see what God does in your life.  What you suffer from in the eyes of others matters not.  Whether you are burdened with wealth, sickness, persecution – those do not represent the favor or curse of God.  They represent the danger of evil in this world, and are used by Satan to try to get people to believe in a Santa Clause image of God doling out rewards and punishments.  But for the one who truly believes, and chooses to truly trust, the curtain is pulled back – and the impossible is revealed every day no matter what our circumstances or positions may be.  Certainty has never been the goal.  Trust in spite of not knowing has always been it.  That kind of trust prevents the next Satan in the world to come.  And creates a new creature of you in the world we live in today.

 

The Price of Devotion ...

The one thing all of us hold on to with everything we have is our life.  We do not look forward to death and try to postpone that eventuality as long as possible.  It is human nature.  It is the nature of life itself.  Life was meant to be lived.  It was meant to be eternal.  But the embrace of sin introduced pain, and eventually death.  Things God did not intend for us; knowledge we were never supposed to know.  Pain and death were supposed to be mysterious concepts we might discuss in perfection, having no idea what they meant, but trying to guess at them.  Instead, humanity has a first-hand knowledge of both pain and death.  And mortality itself drives us to postpone our eventualities as long as possible.  The irony in all of this, is that when pain or death overtake us, we have the nerve to call these tragedies “the will of God” (that would be the definition of fake news).  It is as if we stole those words of blaming God from the mouth of Satan himself.  It is not God to blame for any of this.  We shoulder that blame.  Nor is it His will that any should suffer or die, it is sin that introduces those eventualities; the diseases that come, the wars that are fought, the acts of violence and accident that take lives and limbs.  None of it, the will of God.  All of it, God must stomach like the rest of us, for sin cannot be driven away through edict, or free-will would be swept away with it.

But when we discuss life and death, we should examine the word “life” as much as we discuss death.  Is it “life” when pain still exists?  Or is that really just existence?  Think of the life of someone who has been abused so horrifically they have lost their mental faculties, and now repeat things without reason, act in ways that are self-destructive, and find themselves lost, homeless, and unable to understand what you are saying to them or trying to do for them.  Add the self poisoning of drugs and chemical destruction to the mix.  Can we still call living in this kind of depraved condition, a real life, or is this just some form of existence?  God does not will this.  God has something else in mind, so great, this poor and afflicted person could not comprehend it even for a moment.  We can hardly imagine it.  How could a mind so degraded begin to understand it?  We would look with extreme pity on such a soul.  We would ask ourselves how we could help, and come away only sharing simple human kindness, and praying for intervention against the sin and Satan of this world.

The poor and depraved, and mentally degraded person I describe, is not some random homeless on the street; it is you, and it is me.  We are homeless as this world the way it is, is NOT our home.  We wander through a wasteland cursed by our own sin.  We have no idea what our real home is going to look like, and why the greatest mansion on earth today is a poo-poo hill, next to what the smallest shack in heaven will look like.  But we don’t know that world, so we begin to value the poo we have, while angels hold their noses and wonder how this is possible.  And we have been abused by the nature of our sinful choices.  We develop habits, repeating things over and over that do not make any sense, and work to our own self harm.  Yet we seem powerless to stop this self-destructive behavior.  We go around muttering things like “we have to look out for number one”, and other slogans of self-empowerment, when the pursuit of happiness only leads us further into misery.  We are diseased.  We are afflicted with genetic degradation that makes us incapable of understanding what perfection and eternity really look like.  It is the core of who we are, our characters, that are so engrained in these diseases, that there is only one cure for them – to die – and to be reborn, or re-created by Jesus Christ.

But as our mortality drives us to postpone physical death; our engrained characters are none too happy to die either.  We may understand that what Jesus will re-create in us might be great; but we are comfortable with who we are now, and unsure, or unwilling to let that go.  So what is the true price of devotion to Christ?  Is it willingness to let who we are go, and to be reborn?  Perhaps this is what it means to die to self.  Peter thought he was ready for it.  He wasn’t.  Matthew tells the story of their shame in chapter 26 of his gospel picking up in verse 31 saying … “Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.”  Yikes.  Each and every one of the disciples, the followers of Christ, the devoted ones – were to be “offended” by Jesus Christ that night.  Shocked by His actions (or rather inaction) in the face of death.  Unable to understand that death must come, in order for rebirth to occur.  Or perhaps like us, unwilling to let our understanding go, in favor of accepting an understanding only He can give us.

But Jesus was not done with His prophesying.  Jesus continues in verse 32 saying … “But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.”  Death was coming.  There was no way to avoid it.  Because of sin, death became an eventuality, even for Jesus – especially for Jesus – in order that life might come for us.  A return to the meaning of life as God intended it.  Not just existence, but life.  A removal of the fog of our diseased thinking, and an instillation of the clarity of His thinking in its place.  Prior to transformation this is very hard to understand.  But our God does give each of us a glimpse through the fog, enough that we are free enough, to make this choice without the burden of our sin weighing down the outcome.  We are given the freedom of mind to choose His love, or to reject it.  But make no mistake, without the intervention of our God to bring us up to parity to choose; sin would rob us of our free-will and make deranged slaves of us all.  It is the outcome many choose in spite of a moment’s clarity to choose Jesus.  The price of our devotion to Christ may lead to our death.  But the price of rejecting His love only buries us in an existence of pain, while doing nothing to avoid the death that will one day take us all.

And as for the death of “who” we are.  This is a death we should long for.  It is the trading of deranged existence for the restoration of what a real life means.  Your diseased mind cannot comprehend it while it remains diseased.  You need the power of His transformation of who you are, to free your thinking, so that you can begin to see the difference between existence and life, between fake happiness, and deep personal joy, that none can take away.  It is as Jesus foretold, He would die, but would NOT stay in the grave.  He would “go before” them into Galilee, only a first of many encounters we would all have with a risen Lord.  It is important to understand Jesus as our creator, because as our creator, He is able to recreate a real life in us.  Once we allow Him to make that change, the path to real understanding begins.  It may not be instantaneous, but it is certain.  It begins with letting go.  Letting go of the “life” we think we have built.  And accepting that His offer gives us “life” we could not have even imagined before.  It is trading the fake wealth of this world, for the poo it really was, and finding the real treasure of this world, in the hearts of others.

But Peter saw none of this.  He had yet to be transformed.  He had yet to allow it.  So he answered in verse 33 saying … “Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.”  Peter said in effect, even if all these other bums are offended, I won’t be, cause I am special.  Here is where pride took over reason.  Pride a symptom of original sin and capable of making us blind to what is truly important.  Only moments before in the last supper Jesus told them one of them was going to betray Him, and ALL of them, including Peter, was forced to ask, “is it me”.  Now having seemed to escape that prophecy we run head long into opposing the words of Christ, for nothing more than our ego.  While at the same time, essentially saying, I am greater than these other guys, even if “they” fall, I WILL NOT.  And how many times have you gotten up from your sin, begging the Lord for forgiveness you do not deserve, and then make the empty promise that “YOU” will not sin anymore.  A promise history will demonstrate YOU have broken, every single time.

It is not His forgiveness that is broken, it is your ability to keep any promise you make.  Stop it.  Quit making the presumption of arrogance that you are able to choose to sin no more.  Instead, in humility accept that only Jesus can take the desire of sin from you in the first place.  It is the victory of Jesus in you, that can remove your sin, NOT what you do or don’t do.  It is what Jesus does.  You need only to get out of the way, and let yourself slip away, let Him decide “who” you are to be.  Let your sinful desires die in the hands of Christ, and let your new desires be reborn or re-created.  Peter has decided here, in error, that Peter will decide what Peter will do in the future.  And Peter will not be offended no matter what the Savior of the world has just said.  Imagine the arrogance of such a statement, in defiance of what Jesus has said.  Instead of this proclamation of false victory Peter was sure to experience.  He might of said, “Lord forgive me”, and take this thing from me.  But alas, reason is blinded by the disease of pride.

Jesus responds in verse 34 saying … “Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.”  Peter thought his devotion to Christ was beyond question.  It was not.  While Peter clung to the ideas of “who” he was, he allowed sin a foothold in him, that led to this unfortunate series of events.  The real price of absolute devotion to Christ, is to put our lives in His hands, no matter what happens to our lives.  But by far, NOT just our physical lives – rather more importantly, the lives we think we have built – the core of who we are – our characters.  Letting our character die in the hands of Christ, letting all sin go, not just some of it, or part of it, but all of it – even if that means I will not recognize who I am anymore.  That is rather the point.  The point is to not recognize who you are anymore, because the new version of you that Jesus creates will be so enormously better.  And the current you cannot understand that, until it is willing to let go, to die, and to be reborn for real.

But Trump and Peter have more in common than we might have first thought.  Matthew continues with Peter’s response in verse 35 saying … “Peter said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples.”  Peter doubled down.  If Trump could only read these passages, how much better might his presidency be.  But alas Peter doubled down, because his pride was now in question, and pride blinds us to reason.  Instead of being humbled by this further pronouncement of Jesus, Peter decides to argue with it again, and this time to raise the stakes.  Peter is now pledging his physical life, long before he has allowed Jesus to remake him fully.  How can you promise to sacrifice your physical life, if you have been unwilling to sacrifice even the life of your character which does not require you to physically die to do it?  You make promises against human nature, despite being aligned with human nature.  Only the transformed heart understands the true nature of “life” and could ever be comfortable with sacrificing it here, to preserve it in the world to come.  The death of “what” we are, is not what our Lord asks, He asks for the death of “who” we are.

And as I imagine what must happen in Trump’s cabinet when he makes a decision, the others follow suit, also proclaiming that they support this very same idea.  The other disciples also pledge upon pain of death, that they too, will not be offended.  None of them broken as yet, but all of them heading towards that end.  For their own pride’s have arisen in them to blind them to humility, and to walk a different road.  What might it have been like if instead of this outrageous mumbling against the Word of the Lord, they might have dropped to the feet of Jesus and begged forgiveness for this thing, begging to have it taken from them as ONLY Jesus could do.  To be wiling to have no pride, to be willing to embrace humility in front of those you love, and those you don’t.  That is the mark of a transformed heart, and the evidence of what true devotion might look like.  But Matthew condemns himself in his own writings, that he too, was unwilling to submit, but rather when it counted the most, stood against our Lord and His counsel.

So many of us modern Christians claim devotion to Christ.  But that devotion is built upon our own ideas of what devotion means.  We are like our disciple forefather before their transformations.  We are devoted when it is convenient.  When we sacrifice for the cause, we see it as sacrifice, not as opportunity to serve.  When asked if we would give our lives for Christ, we say with pride “yes”.  But the life we mean is our physical life, as the life of our character has yet to be put upon His altar.  We have not allowed Jesus to change who we are yet; and despite this, we pledge to give Him what we are.  Some of us have mild experiences with Jesus, perhaps the removal of one sin, or impact in one problem area.  Yet despite the example of how it works, we keep plugging along fighting our sins ourselves, declaring our promises not to do it again.  And finding ourselves on our knees after we fail just one more time.  And then again.  And again.  Until our sins are beyond counting.

It is our promises that need to die.  It is our certainty we should let go.  Instead, we should turn to Jesus and in humility, ask Him to take this thing from us.  And watch what He does, when you get out of the way.  Jesus did not come, so that your personal knowledge of sin, pain, and death, would remain eventualities for you.  He came to change your paradigm.  He came to disrupt who you are.  He came to take from you, the disease that keeps you mired in pathetic existence; and instead offer you life, and life more abundantly.  The price of devotion is no “price” at all, when transformation is what you experience.  You may not see it clearly yet, but you can, you will, you need only go to Jesus in humility and ask, Lord forgive me, take this thing from me, and then sit back, let go, and watch what happens.  Become witness in your own testimony to what Jesus does for you.  Afterwards you will understand, what for now, your mind may not comprehend.  But it can begin here, begin now, and you can finally see what life looks like.