Welcome: Who’s Calling?

Years ago David and I were at a conference where one of the speakers was addressing the misconceptions people hold of God. I still remember the speaker saying that for some the thought is, “If I come to God and follow Him, He’ll say ‘Ah ha! Gotcha! Now spinach three times a day for the rest of your life.’” (Kale was not a biggie back then.)

None of us have a complete picture of the God who calls and welcomes us, for we only see “the edges of His ways.” We may hear and even embrace the fact that God calls us Beloved. But then things happen. 

“There were many years I thought Jesus was the mean coach who told me I had to sit on the bench....and like it!”

Our friend Kathy recently sent a note including the words above. I don’t know what “things” happened, but to me her image was powerful. I get it. 

I think we can feel benched when we lose something precious to us: health—that we or a loved one once relied on, or when we lose a family we had so desired. We might lose the dream we had for a child. This could come if that child dies, or has constant struggles or is walking in a far country. Maybe we lose a ministry opportunity or the results we wanted in a ministry. Perhaps we have a failure of faith or are betrayed, excluded or forgotten. Perhaps we feel stuck in a place we would rather not be. The thing that can cause us to feel “benched” can be anything we have but don’t want, or anything we want but don’t have. Fill in the blank in your life.

But then, on top of the sadness to think that God says “sit….and like it!” Ooooh. That thought can take the heart out of me. Not only am I a loser (because of my losses) but a failure because I don’t “like it.” And worse than that, I become suspicious of this God who calls me to come close when I think He has taken me out of the game I love because I’m not good enough.

I have a dear friend whose school-aged child died. A well-meaning person who was a Bible teacher came to be with my friend. Patting her on the shoulder, the visitor said to the weeping mother, “Don’t cry!” Agony upon agony. More hurt. “Like it!”

The good news from the note we received is that there was more. 

 “There were many years I thought Jesus was the mean coach who told me I had to sit on the bench....and like it! When I learned He was crying with me it changed everything.”

Jesus told us in this world we will have tribulation. It’s a world of great grief, as Aslan said to Digory in The Magician’s Nephew. Digory was feeling very sad because his dear mother was very ill. He asked Aslan to heal her. When he looked into Aslan’s eyes they were bright with tears.*

Jesus weeps with us when we weep. He does as He tells us to do to one another (Romans 12:15). He is not put off by our sorrow. Rather He is touched by the feelings of what hurts us (Hebrews 4). He’s been there too. He wept over the death of his friend Lazarus. He wept over those who would not come to Him and be sheltered and comforted “under His wings.” Jesus wept (John 11:35). And He weeps with us when we weep.

Knowing the tender heart of God towards us in our sufferings can change everything, as it did for our friend Kathy Woodhall.

When Moses asked God to show him His glory (Exodus 33) God said, “I will show you my goodness.” Part of that goodness is that He weeps with us as we walk the road before us. He knows that grief is great in our land. He sees. He cares. He stays with us. Jesus Himself groaned in Gethsemane and walked on to Calvary so that we, too, could share in “the joy set before Him.” This anticipated joy enabled Him to endure the pain of this life, including the final pain of the Cross so that He could bring us Home at last.

Since the welcome of Jesus includes His weeping with us, I want to take Him up on His offer and draw near, even when I am weeping. Especially when I am weeping. As I understand His tender heart I am strengthened as well as comforted on my journey. As I remember His goodness, His tenderness, His weeping with me, I am motivated to trust Him with my losses, with my life, and with my loved one. And to do the next thing He asks me to do.  

“There were many years I thought Jesus was the mean coach who told me I had to sit on the bench....and like it! When I learned He was crying with me it changed everything.”

Lord Jesus, we celebrate and rejoice in Your everlasting love for each of us. We know that our “mourning will be turned to dancing”— either here or certainly There. We count on the joy set before us and we count on Your weeping with us in our losses here and now. Thank You, for Your welcoming heart where we don’t have to pretend a loss doesn’t hurt. Thank You, for the Hope that only You can bring. Thank You for the cost You paid to love us well. Help us to love you back and to show our love for You by loving Your other children the way You love us. Amen

Carolyn Roper

7.22.19

*In The Magician’s Nephew, later in the story, Digory was tempted to not complete the task Aslan had given him. His temptation was to find his own way to heal his mother at the cost of not following Aslan’s instructions. But when Digory remembered Aslan’s tears, he trusted Aslan and did as He had asked. Of course, the outcome was much better than Digory could have expected. The book is a good read…again.

"Through Death and Beyond"

(Tell the next generation) that this is God,

our God forever and ever.

He will guide us forever. —Psalm 48:14

I caught a sequence on Sports Center the other day in which the sportscaster noted that an aging, ailing former-NFL player was "listed as day to day." But then he added an unexpectedly profound philosophical one-liner, "But then again, aren’t we all?"

Indeed. "Out, out, brief candle!”

But here, in this old poem there is a happy surprise: Literally, the text reads "This is God, our God forever and ever. He will lead us beyond dying," i.e., "through death and beyond.” [The Hebrew verb translated “lead” refers to a shepherd’s work. Indeed the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament, uses poimainei, “he will shepherd us" through the dying process.] 

The love, the joy, the warmth of fellowship that we enjoy each day with our Lord cannot be brought to an end by death. Once we've been joined to the eternal God—our God through Jesus Christ—how can we not be with him and he with us forever? Indeed, when our time comes, he will walk with us through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and beyond—into life everlasting. He will be “our God forever and ever.”

David Roper

7.23.19

A Sabbath Mood

Whatever is foreseen in joy 

Must be lived out from day to day, 

Vision held open in the dark 

By our ten thousand days of work. 

Harvest will fill the barn; for that 

The hand must ache, the face must sweat. 

And yet no leaf or grain is filled 

By work of ours; the field is tilled 

And left to grace. 

That we may reap, 

Great work is done while we’re asleep. 

When we work well, a Sabbath mood 

Rests on our day, and finds it good.

—Wendell Berry

Some years ago I took a liking to Wendell Berry, the old farmer-philosopher whose poetry I find both simple and profound. He often "speaks my mind," as Quakers say. I read his poem "This Day" today and it helped me climb out of a hole. 

To be old and crippled up is a pain—literally—and mornings are the hardest part of the day. Few things work and those that do work hurt and the day beyond looks impossibly hard. The ground is cursed; "The hand must ache, the face must sweat."

But Berry notes a oft-forgotten factor: the joy "foreseen" beyond each day's labor—the joy that comes from knowing that it's not by our efforts that leaf or grain come to fruition, but solely through God's grace. When "the field has been tilled and left to grace," we  will, in due time, reap the harvest of God's labor. "Great work is done while we’re asleep" ("He gives to those he loves while they sleep" 

—Psalm 127:2).

Thus when we "work well" (resting fully on God's grace), there is a "Sabbath mood that rests on our day, and finds it good." And so "though "hand must ache, the face must sweat," this day is a good day after all. 

David Roper

7.17.19

The Liar's Paradox

"One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, 'Cretans are always liars...' This statement is true" (Titus 1:12). 

If you've ever taken a course in logic you've encountered The Liar's Paradox. It appears in many forms, but the simplest way to frame it is to imagine a 3x5 card with a single sentence on each side. On one side you read, "The statement on the other side of this card is true." You flip the card over and read, "The statement on the other side of this card is false." You turn the card over and over until your brain shorts out. 

Paul could have had this paradox in mind (it was known in Aristotle’s time) when he quoted Epimenides, a 6^th or 7^th century B.C.  philosopher who wrote, in a work entitled Cretica that "Cretans always lie..." Since Epimenides was a Cretan and Cretans always lie can we believe Epimenides? Paul resolves the puzzle on this occasion with his terse assessment: "This statement is true." 

There’s a parallel truth found elsewhere in this letter. In the introduction Paul writes of the "hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies (lit: “the un-lying God”) promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior" (Titus 1:2,3). 

Here we have a rock-ribbed, iron-clad, unqualified, unmitigated, unrestricted, unequivocal, no ifs, ands, or buts promise of eternal life to those who have put their trust in Jesus (whom Paul preached). In the crucified, risen, glorified Christ we see the end for which we were made and the certainty that we shall attain it, based on the word of One who cannot lie. 

Jesus made the same assertion, using the strongest negation that the Greek language can supply: “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never, ever, under any set of circumstances whatever die" (John 11:26). 

So, though we, like Titus, live in a culture of lies we have a promise from One who cannot lie: In Christ we will never die, a calming conviction as we pile up the years. There is a hymn which says, “For he to die is ready / Who living, clings to Thee.” 

And so I write tonight as I "lay me down to sleep.”

If I should die before I wake,

I know the Lord my soul will take.

David Roper

7.11.19

Doubling Down

"I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me... Guard through the Holy Spirit the good deposit entrusted to you... What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men and women, who will be able to teach others also" (2 Timothy 1:12, 14; 2:2).

Would you rather be given a million dollars today, or a penny today and double the number of pennies each day thereafter for a month?

1^st day: 1 penny

2^nd day: 2 pennies

3^rd day: 4 pennies

4^th day: 8 pennies

 - - -    - - - - - -

I’ve never hit the long ball when it comes to math, but it's fairly easy even for me to to come up with the answer: To double something 30 times, you can either multiply 2*2*2... thirty times, or you can write it as 2^30 (two raised to the thirtieth power) and plug it into your calculator. Or you can ask Siri as I did. The result is a really big number: $1,073,741,824!

It's a no-brainer: take the pennies.

In like manner, would you rather be an evangelist with an audience of thousands today, or entrust the gospel to one person today who entrusts it to another tomorrow, who entrusts it to another the next day, who entrusts it to another…  Assuming an unbroken sequence, you would, in one month, evangelize (proclaim the gospel) to the population of the entire Western Hemisphere, give or take a few!

I’m assuming, of course, that the chain will be unbroken and everyone will do his or her part every day to pass the good news on and that’s a gratuitous assumption. And surely some math maven will find other flaws in my argument. But I’m just sayin’: one winsome Christian man or woman, filled with the love of Jesus, faithfully and prayerfully giving his or her faith away… Well, you just can’t imagine what the consequences would be.  

David Roper

7.8.19

Flee These Things

"Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils... But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness" (1 Timothy 6:9,10).

One evening, several years ago Carolyn and I were making our way down a mountain trail to a local river, accompanied by a couple of friends. The trail was narrow and wound around a slope with a steep drop on one side and an unclimbable bank on the other side. 

Just as we came around a sharp bend in the trail I looked up to see one of the biggest bears I've ever seen shambling up the trail. He was moseying along, swinging his massive head from side to side and quietly huffing to himself. Believe me, he did not look like Winnie the Pooh!

Fortunately, we were downwind and he didn't detect our presence immediately, but I realized there was simply no place for either of us to go and he would soon be on top of us. 

The friend who was walking behind me spotted the bear and began to rummage around in her pocket for her phone. "Oh, I must get a picture," she said with great excitement.

"Uh, no" I mumbled, being less sanguine about our odds. "We must get out of here." So we backed up until we were out of sight, turned on our heels and fled—cheating death one more time, as the old saying goes.

What would you do if you came round a corner and found yourself facing a dangerous animal? Well, you would flee, of course. (Although, as you know, that's not good advice if you encounter a cougar or a grizzly.) And that's the way we should feel about the passion to get rich. It's not something to dither over for money-love is inherently dangerous. 

There's nothing  wrong with money, of course; it's just a medium of exchange. But those who desire to get rich "fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction"—a fact so obviously true it scarcely needs defending. Consider the tragic, unfulfilled lives of the rich and famous: Money-mad people "can't get no satisfaction," for wealth is only a goad to get more. 

On the other hand, Paul writes, we should pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience and gentleness and other traits of the god-like life. These attributes don’t occur by accident; they grow in us because we pursue them relentlessly, asking God every day and all through the day to form and shape them within us. This is the means by which we bring the life of the coming age into the present (vs. 12), as I've written before, and secure for ourselves the deep satisfaction that we seek.

David Roper

7.6.19

The Little Birds of God

A leper approached Jesus one day to everyone's surprise. The man had no business being in the crowd since lepers were banished from polite society. Dr. Luke described the man as "full of leprosy," a medical term for an aggravated, advanced case of the disease. He was all lesions and stumps, discolored and disfigured, shocking in his ugliness, a gross caricature of what a man was intended to be.

Lepers were hopeless back then. There was no cure for their condition. If they contracted the disease they were given a death sentence. They wore sackcloth and ashes, the emblems of perpetual mourning, and lived out their tortured, lonely lives in isolation--"cut off from land of the living."

Of all diseases, leprosy is the only one singled out by the Law and Prophets and linked with sin. It's not that leprosy was itself sinful or that sin necessarily led to leprosy. Rather the disease was thought of as a symbol of sin, sin come to the surface. If you could see sin, it was thought, it would look like leprosy.

Furthermore, the end of leprosy is like the end of sin: there is no earthly cure. Sinners like lepers are the walking dead: "myself, my sepulcher, a moving grave," John Milton said.

Leprosy was dirty business that required "cleansing." No other cure would do. But that's what Jesus was about--healing the sick, raising the dead and cleansing lepers.

This leper lingered on the outskirts of the crowd waiting for an opportunity to approach the Lord—not too close lest he offend and be rejected again. And then he made his request: "If you will," he said, "you can make me clean." It's the first instance of a plain request for healing, touching and profound in its simplicity.

Jesus was "moved with compassion." Sick and troubled people normally elicit sympathy from others, but not lepers. They're repulsive in every way—"disease-ridden men with moldy breath,/unwashed men with the ways of death…" 

Nevertheless, Jesus reached out to this desperate man, drew him in and hugged him. "Hugged" is precisely the right word. "Touched" is much too tame.

Did our Lord need to hug this man. You bet your life he did. It meant everything in the world to the leper. It was what "daughter" was to the unclean woman with the hemorrhage, what "neither do I condemn you" was to woman caught in adultery. No one else could or would have hugged this shockingly ugly, disease-ridden man. Only Jesus.

Then Jesus spoke the word "Be clean" and "immediately the leprosy left him." No hokus pocus, no mumbo jumbo, just "Be clean" and the leper was clothed in the flesh of a child, an entirely new beginning.

Jesus then sent the man off to the temple to show himself to the priest and "make the prescribed offering" for his cleansing. And here's where the story gets even better.

If the man obeyed (and I assume he did) the priest would most likely have drawn a blank and paged through his Law book to locate the proper procedure. In all of Israel's history no one had ever invoked this portion of the Law. When he found the place where the ritual was written he would have read these instructions, there in the book for 1400 years awaiting this very time.

These are the regulations for the diseased person at the time of his ceremonial cleansing, when he is brought to the priest: The priest is to go outside the camp and examine him. If the person has been healed of his infectious skin disease, the priest shall order that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop be brought for the one to be cleansed. Then the priest shall order that one of the birds be killed over fresh water in a clay pot. He is then to take the live bird and dip it, together with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, into the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water. Seven times he shall sprinkle the one to be cleansed of the infectious disease and pronounce him clean. Then he is to release the live bird in the open fields (Leviticus 14:1-7).

The instructions were clear: the priest was to go outside the camp to the leper, examine him and declare him clean. Then he was to take two live birds in hand: one to be sacrificed, its blood poured out into an earthen bowl; the other to be bound into a bundle with a piece of cedar and a sprig of sage wrapped together with scarlet string. He was then to dip the living bird in the blood in the vessel, sprinkle the blood seven times on the one cleansed from leprosy, untie the little bird and set it free.

The first bird represents our Savior, washed and pure, then slain in the earthen vessel of his humanity, his blood poured out to take away our sin. He's the only one who could do it. "He himself," Peter insists, "bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed" (1 Peter 2:24).

The second bird represents you and me, immobilized and frustrated by our guilt, our hearts beating for freedom like the wings of that frantic little bird, straining against the strings that bound it.

The little bird was powerless to free itself until it was dipped in the blood of the substitute and then set free, free from the entanglements of past failure and guilt, free to fly away home to God.

You may remember Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, a book about a little seagull that could, an earnest little bird that broke every restraint all by himself and grunted his way up to God.

Bach's bird looked good on paper. People bought the book in more ways than one. But self-effort never works no matter how hard we try. Not in real life. No one can take flight from their own sin and guilt and get free. There are too many strings attached.

God's little birds show us the way. It's the only way to fly.

David Roper

7.1.19