The Maker of Trees

 

Poems are made by fools like me

But only God can make a tree —Joyce Kilmer

He shall be like a tree,

Planted by rivers of water,

Bringing forth his fruit in his season.—Psalm 1:3

 

In these quiet years I'm watching a tree grow, a river birch I planted forty years ago in our back yard. It was a sapling then. 

 

I haven't done much for it in recent years, but it keeps on growing. It stands now in mature verdure, amidst ferns and flowers, rugged, serene, beautiful in every season of the year. 

 

So it is with those we’ve nurtured.

Occasionally, I hear from “saplings" I’ve not seen for awhile, and discover to my great delight that they’re still walking in truth. It’s a gentle reminder that I may plant and water, but only God can make a tree. 

 

German theologian Helmut Thielike wrote, “The man who doesn’t know how to let go, who is a stranger to quiet confident joy in him who carries out his plans without us (or in spite of us)... that man will become but a miserable creature in his old age. Can the reason why many aging people are melancholy and fearful be that for decades they have never been able to ‘let go and let God’" (The Waiting Father).

 

And so, though I can't care for my saplings these days I can sit still and watch them grow.  There is no greater joy (3 John 1:4).

 

David Roper

8.4.21

Things That Are Not Seen

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (Shakespeare, Hamlet). 

“Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.” And he said, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if you do not see me, it shall not be so’” (2 Kings 2:9,10).

 

Elisha, Elijah’s protégé, asked for a “double portion” of Elijah’s spirit—a disposition, attitude and outlook that would enable him to carry on the work of national reformation that Elijah had begun.

 

“You have asked a hard thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it (the double portion) shall be yours.”

 

Suddenly, a chariot of fire and horses of fire "swung low” and swept Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind. “Elisha cried out, ‘My father! My father! (I see) the chariots and horsemen of Israel!’” (2:12).

 

F. B. Meyer wrote, “No mere mortal eye could have beheld that fiery cortège. To senses dulled by materialism, the space occupied by the flaming seraphim would have seemed devoid of any special interest, and bare as the rest of the surrounding scenery.”

 

Elisha saw “things that are not seen”—a most important perspective for us—"for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).

 

For this reason, we long to tell our friends and neighbors the good news of Jesus and the eternal good that he brought to earth, for we have seen a realm of reality that secular men and women do not, indeed, cannot see. (To be sure, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in their philosophies.) They see the transient good of this world and arrange their theories accordingly. We fix our eyes on the eternal good of a world that is to be.

 

David Roper

8.2.21

Masking Up—Again?

 

Face masks are inconvenient  They fog up my glasses, hang up on my hearing aids and mess up my beard. Nevertheless, before I refuse to wear one, there are things I need to consider.

 

The first has to do with obedience to those God has placed over me. Paul wrote, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Romans 13:1). 

 

There are some folks, I know, that are concerned about the heavy hand of the state, but we must remember that Paul issued this command to Christians living under the despot Nero and the totalitarian rule of Rome. I may not agree with the authorities that mandate masks, but unless they compel me to act contrary to God’s will I must obey, lest I add to the spirit of lawlessness in the land. 

 

Secondly, though the science remains uncertain, the best rationale for masking these days seems to be source control. The CDC and others have said that asymptotic and presymptomatic cases account for over half of the transmissions of the virus and masks can be preemptive. In other words, we mask up for others. 

 

Again, Paul writes, “Let each of us please his neighbor for his good….” (Romans 15:2). This being true, love compels me to set aside my own rights and mask up again… “for even Christ did not please himself” (15:3). 

That settles the issue for me.

 

David Roper

6.27.21

Anywhere With Jesus

"Do not be afraid…the LORD will be with you.’”—2Chronicles 20:17

A number of years ago, when our son Brian was very small, I took him with me to pick up a babysitter. As I approached the house where our sitter lived I noticed that their dog, usually penned in the back yard, was lying on the front porch in front of the door. 

 

The dog looked benign, but to my alarm he sprang to his feet and attacked Brian, who leaped for my leg, shinnied up my back and somehow ended up wrapped around my head and shoulders. 

 

I, on the other hand, was left to fend off the dog that now turned his full attention to me. 

 

The dog and I danced for a while—I trying to get in a kick and he a bite—until, to my relief, the dog’s owner came around the house and called off the beast. All of us—boy, dog and I—escaped relatively unscathed.

 

Later, as we were walking to the car, Brian looked up at me and said, “Dad, I’ll go anywhere with you.” 

 

His confidence was misplaced, of course, for I lucked out on that occasion, but I’ve often thought of those words when I’m called upon to enter frightening circumstances or face furious assaults. “Father, I’ll go anywhere with you.” 

 

Anywhere, anywhere! Fear I cannot know;

Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go.

 

David Roper 

6.26.21

With Justice For All

Ancient Christian writers, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, drawing on Plato and other Greek classical philosophers, distinguished four Cardinal Virtues, two of which were prudence (phrónēsis) and justice (dikaiosýnē). Prudence, they said, is the knowledge of "the good.” Justice is the "doing of it.” 

Justice (dikaiosýnē) appears in the language of Jesus and his Apostles, but it's almost always translated in the New Testament as “righteousness.” Justice and righteousness are interchangeable terms in almost every context in the New Testament. 

 

This principle of easy transference is also true of the Old Testament. The Hebrew word for "justice” and "righteousness” is the same (ts’daqa.) You can substitute one word for the other in any context. It was the translator’s personal preference that made the call. 

 

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia makes this observation: "ts'daqa;  dikaiosyne: The original Hebrew and Greek words (for justice) are the same as those rendered ‘righteousness.' This is the common rendering, and in about half the cases where we have ‘just’ and ‘justice' in AV, (Authorized Version), the ARV Authorized (Revised Version) has changed to ‘righteous' and 'righteousness.' It must be constantly borne in mind that the two ideas are essentially the same."

 

When we think of justice, thus, we should think of personal righteousness—doing the right thing. 

 

The biblical concept of justice, thus, is much broader than the way we use the term these days and one that, at least for most of us, is more doable. It may encompass some aspects of social justice, and God in his sovereign will has called some—MLK, William Wilberforce and a host of others—to give their lives to that cause[1]. But in the main, justice in the Bible refers to the good that I do to the individual  standing in front of me. I must do the right thing for this brother or sister before I look abroad.

 

To put a new point on an old saw: Justice begins at home. 

 

David Roper

6.24.21

[1] It’s worth emphasizing that not all are called to engage in social justice as we define it today, Paul insists that there are “differences of gifts...differences of ministries…and differences of activities” (1 Corinthians 12:1-11). James puts his own imprimatur on “visiting widows and orphans,” and personal holiness (James 1:27).

Faces "R" Us

 

For the look on their faces bears witness against them; 

they proclaim their sin like Sodom; 

it cannot be hidden (Isaiah 3:9).

 

"By the age of fifty, everyone gets the face he deserves," George Orwell claimed, an idea reflected in Dante's notion that the faces of the dead are made of an airy, malleable substance that shapes itself according to the state of each person's soul.

 

We are given the faces our souls merit. Live long enough, and we become on the outside what we have been all along on the inside. It's not Dorian Gray's portrait, but our own faces that will bear the marks of virtue or vice, greed or charity, kindness or bitterness,and reflect the person we have become. 

 

Apropos of this thought, Paul writes, "We all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18). 

 

Spend time in Jesus' presence every day. Read and reflect on his words and ask him to make you a reflection of the virtue you see in him. In time you will begin to bear his likeness—within and without—an inexorable process that will continue until you see his face in full (1 John 3:2).

 

Magic? Mysticism? My own “main strength and awkwardness?” as my father used to say. No, ”this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit“ who is within you. 

 

David Roper

6.23.21

He is Not Far From Us

“And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps grope their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us (Acts 17:26,27). 

In my younger days I had a friend who had an uncanny ability to discover people who were looking for God. I asked him once how he knew. “I ask ‘em,” he replied.

 

With that profound insight in mind I determined to ask the next man, woman or child that I met, assuming that it was an appropriate time and place, if they were interested in talking about God. 

 

The very next day I was driving home from work and saw a disheveled, hirsute young man standing on the side of the road with his thumb in the air and God said, “There’s a man.” “Are you sure?” I thought. Nevertheless, with some trepidation, I stopped and offered him a lift.

 

We chatted along the way and I discovered, among other things, that he was a graduate student in philosophy at UC Berkeley and was on his way back to school after spring break. 

 

Having put off the question as long as I could, I finally turned to him and asked if he had an interest in talking about spiritual things. “Yes,” he said, as he turned toward me. “I’ve been looking for God all my life. Can you tell me how to know God?” 

 

This was, without doubt, an unusually dramatic encounter, a special occasion in which God put his imprimatur on my clumsy efforts to speak the gospel. But more than that, it was an enduring example of the truth that God is seeking those that are seeking him and has sent his messengers—you and me—to guide them (Acts 8:26-40). 

 

David Roper

6.21.21