Just heard a story of the 1989 celebration of the October Revolution in Moscow, USSR. Someone gets into the parade, which has marching soldiers, and shiny missiles (pointed at USA), carrying a banner. They unrolled the banner which said “72 years going nowhere.”
Followers of Jesus are heading to an eternity of bringing glory to God in heaven and are on a journey of doing that now. This is where we are going.
Where are you going?
“Live to be forgotten so that Christ may be remembered.”
– D. E. Hoste
(One of the Cambridge Seven who gave their lives to Christ in China from the late 19th century.)
In the Western Christian world, the celebration of Lent began yesterday (Wednesday – I’m posting from Korea and its already Thursday here). In the reading on culture I have been doing lately, I have been reminded how very small (as a proportion) Western style Christianity is compared to the global church.
A moment ago I saw a tweet (from CT) that warned against turning Lent into a self help program with God as your coach.
Whoa, this really bears thinking about. Indeed, in our desire to receive blessing from celebrating the church seasons… let’s be careful that they are not ritual or tradition (remember what Jesus said about the traditions of man) for their own sake… or a self help program. You can’t help yourself; if you could, why was there an incarnation, a crucifixion and a resurrection?
Exalt Jesus through Lent, don’t engage in some false humility from guilt.
Here’s my thoughts (what I took away at the end)…
The church is a broad and deep body of people that transcends time and space, it has no geographical or time boundaries. It is like the broad and deep Pacific ocean is a body of water… mostly there are no individual drops. I am not describing some kind of monism. I am thinking of our oneness in and with Christ and one another (John 17?).
To take this drop thing too far, I would say this… There are no individual drops in the ocean excepts for those created by the surface water being battered by storms. What does this tell us about being in the deep with God and one another? The deeper we are the safer we are?
Niebuhr writes: “Our decisions must be made in the present moment-but in the presence of historical beings (this book is all about those beings) whose history has been made sacred by the historical, remembered actions of the one who inhabits eternity.”
From all this I think: We learn to look back to help up see now and hope for the future. But as usual, don’t look back with regret, nor now in fear, but forward with hope in God. (This, I would propose, is a healthy existential position that is based of a hopeful eschatology.)
Ultimately…
For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.
( Romans 14:8, ESV)
Listening to the radio the other night I heard an interesting interview on Fresh Air, CLICK HERE to listen.
Described in this interview is the training necessary for British Royal Navy pilots who are taught how to survive a sea crash of their helicopter. They are taught to wait for the vehicle to submerge and quiet down before following the counter intuitive instructions that will save their life. They are to wait, then at a certain point, eject the window, and then unbuckle their safety harness. All this, when their instincts tell them to work as hard as they can as fast as they can to get out NOW! But, they are told to wait, to have faith in their instructor who has told them how to survive.
Isn’t is our instinct to flail around, work as hard, as fast as possible? Even when we are told to relax, to wait, to follow the instructor?
What are the ways you need to trust?
And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. (Isaiah 30:20-21, ESV)
kingdom travelin' 