Living With Doubt in the Shadow of Easter

The revolutionary nature and impact of Jesus' Resurrection, as well as the event that it  anticipates i.e. the Second Coming, were the primary reasons that I became a Christian. The truth of Christianity rises or falls on these events, as does my faith. So, what if the Resurrection never happened? What if God (if He exists at all) is never going to step in and complete His victory over sin and death? What if He will never transform our bodies or the cosmos? Is it possible (or probable) that I'm just fooling myself, and basing my life on a lie or a figment of the imaginations of Jesus' grieving disciples? 

For the last few months, I've spent a lot of time thinking and worrying about these questions. This shouldn't come as a surprise to any of you who know me well. When it comes to deciding what I believe about the existence and nature of God, I've never really taken the easy way out. Over the years, I've rejected complacency and refused to simply accept wholesale what I've been told by others. My main goal has been to search for the truth about reality rather than for comfort. No matter how emotionally reassuring or attractive an idea might be, I don't want to believe in something that's not true. If I'm to be honest with myself, I would need to apply this criterium even to my Resurrection-centered Christian faith.

Perhaps “re-apply” would be a more appropriate word here. I first became convinced of the veracity of the main doctrines of Christianity, particularly the Resurrection, more than two years ago. I did so after spending countless hours researching and evaluating the claims of the New Testament writers. Eventually, I found the arguments for the historicity of the Resurrection offered by scholar NT Wright surprisingly compelling. I was further persuaded by the way in which he wove the event and the resulting formation of the Church into the context of first century Palestine and Judaism. As incredible as it sounded to me at first, Jesus coming back from the dead and appearing to his disciples really seemed to be the best explanation for the data that we possess. 

This grand event and the vision of god that it implies didn't just make intellectual sense to me. The risen Christ grasped my heart as much as my head. I quickly came to love him, and sensed that I was a part of the amazing story to which the Resurrection provided a climax. I had deeply profound experiences of God in my life and believed that I could sense His presence in other people. In addition to the historicity of the Resurrection, then, there was also an element of “experiential evidence” involved in my decision to become and remain a Christian. 

One of the main effects of the Resurrection, the promise that Jesus will come back to Earth and fully usher in God's New Creation, is where Christian theology gets both incredibly compelling and difficult to swallow. According to the Bible, upon Jesus' return our bodies will be rebuilt and restored to us much like his own i.e. immortal and indestructible. The apostle Paul also seems to teach that the planet itself will become imperishable at that point. This would mean that a central fact of the physical world, that all life ends with death, will no longer apply. Many of the natural laws of biology, chemistry, and physics will be annulled when the Holy Spirit implements God's incorruptible version of reality. The practical issues here are myriad:  How will the transformation of our bodies come about, especially in the case of cremated remains? Will our cells no longer grow and die and be replaced? What will we eat, if anything? Will there be animals and plants in this New Creation, and if so, will they be immortal as well? How will the planet go on to exist for all eternity? Will suns continue to emit energy forever? (I'm sure that my scientifically-inclined friends could come up with even more questions along the same lines.) 

If God is the Creator, then He is in control of the way the universe operates. Just because the laws of science seem set in stone to us doesn't mean this must always be the case. If He wanted to, He could implement these changes to reality in accordance with His will. He could resolve the tensions latent in the questions above in ways that are inconceivable to our puny brains. But for me, a conviction that there is a supreme being that can and will do this has to be premised on the historicity of Jesus' rising from the dead, the miracle that guarantees that Jesus will have a Second Coming at all. So, is the evidence for the Resurrection and the God of Christianity really strong enough to hold a conviction that He will intervene in the state of the universe in such a drastic manner? I would have given a solid affirmative answer to this question for much of my time as a Christian. However, for several months I've been re-evaluating the likelihood of the Resurrection and the consequent Second Coming compared to the chances that life in this world will simply go on as it always has (until it simply ends altogether). 

There are several lines of thought running around in my head that have led me to this point. For one, when it comes to any sort of “experiential evidence” for the existence of this god, I've had a growing, nagging feeling that the term itself is a contradiction. In other words, because of the subjective nature of “what we feel to be true,” it shouldn't even count when weighing evidence. Paul claims that the presence of the Holy Spirit transforming Christians' lives is a down payment and a guarantee of the final Resurrection, when God's Spirit will suffuse all things. For now, though, it's almost impossible for us to see its effects in any concrete way. Perhaps we can look at Christians (including ourselves) and have a sense that they are alive in Christ rather than dead in their sins. But how is this anything other than subjective observation? 

After all, people hold firm convictions and feel transformed by gods and figures of other belief systems. Telling a Muslim about your loving relationship with Jesus your Savior, for example, won't do much good in convincing him that his admiration for his beloved Prophet Muhammad is misplaced. Explaining that you can feel the Holy Spirit of the triune god in your life will do little to invalidate his own experiences with Allah. We have to at least allow for the possibility that some of our perceived interactions with a supreme being may have psychological and emotional causes rather than divine. Sometimes, my mind takes this idea to its limit, asserting that belief in the supernatural and transcendent stem from a subconscious desire to form patterns of meaning and significance where there simply are none. It asserts that the phenomenon of faith is mankind's futile attempt to reject what is everywhere apparent:  that all living things die, that nothing is eternal, that there is no grand scheme or purpose behind existence. 

Fears that I'm fooling myself by even trying to hold onto faith, and that the only honest thing I can do as a rational person is accept these facts and live out my remaining years without expectations of an afterlife, have settled their way into my heart in the aftermath of my mother's recent death (a topic that is too painful and fresh to write about more extensively at this time). However, my struggle with faith isn't a matter of me being angry at God for causing or allowing this to happen. I realize that people sometimes just get sick and die. But in my sadness, all I seem able to see most of the time is the inevitability that everything will end. It's been very difficult to hold onto hope, and to have that hope allied with whatever credible arguments there are for faith in the risen Christ. 

On one end of a scale measuring evidence for and against the Christian God, then, I seem to have a wealth of empirical and scientific data that give me no reason to think that the universe will work in any other way than it does now. And on the other, I have historical and philosophical arguments that I'm struggling to even lift onto the scale because of my current state of mental and emotional weakness. All of those future changes to the laws of nature depend entirely on whether a man rose from the dead 2,000 years ago as depicted in the Bible. That's a lot riding on one unrepeatable, untestable event in ancient history. 

I'm afraid that my faith will buckle under the weight of these considerations and eventually crumble. I'm afraid that one day I will be forced by rationality to see God's plan for creation only as a pleasant story, something fun to read about and fascinating to study, but ultimately a fairy tale for wishful dreamers. These fears stem from the very things that brought me to belief in the first place. The concepts of Resurrection, Second Coming, and God's New Creation have become a two-edged sword threatening to unravel the faith they once built up. To echo the comments of Paul when addressing the idea that Jesus did not rise from the dead, “...and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” (1 Corinth. 15:17-19) Are Christians, including myself, to be pitied? Should we accept that we have been engaging in an act of cognitive dissonance and begin the difficult process of shedding off our delusions and committing ourselves to eating, drinking, and being merry? I'm not prepared to say that we should. In spite of all my intellectual and emotional struggles in believing in the risen Christ, I think there is still some hope to be found in the shadow of Easter.

Living With Faith in the Shadow of Easter

It was like a tidal wave, smashing down on all Creation. Instead of bringing death and destruction, though, the Bible claims that Jesus' Resurrection transformed and gave new life to everything it touched. For now, the victory achieved by Jesus through his crucifixion and Resurrection can be difficult for us to perceive, but upon his return, the ushering in of God's New Creation that was inaugurated by those events will be complete. 

Much of what we know about the world will change as a result, specifically its transitory nature. We will have bodies restored to us, both similar and dissimilar to the ones we have now, with the key difference that they will be like Jesus', impervious to sickness, injury, and death. To complement our new corporeality there will be a renewed Earth, no longer under its own slavery to decay. Although not addressed by the New Testament writers explicitly, it can safely be assumed that the effects of the Second Coming will even extend beyond our planet to the universe as a whole. All of this will be for God's glory, and to allow us to finally be faithful and loving stewards over His work. 

This vision of the future, comprised of life in a New Heavens and New Earth rather than a non-material eternity, can and should radically change our perception of God, as well as what it means to be His followers. I believe in a god who affirmed the goodness of His Creation rather than gave up on it; a god whose purpose in sending Jesus wasn't to secure our souls spots in Heaven to play harps on clouds, but to rescue and reclaim the physical world (including us) from eventual destruction; and who, instead of sending us into the world solely to do door-to-door evangelizing and save people from a Hell of eternal torment, desires that we declare Jesus' Kingship of Earth as much as of Heaven. He wants us to be agents of His New Creation, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, to attempt to bring bits of His glorious future into the present with the use of the gifts and resources He has given us. 

That god sent the tidal wave of the Resurrection to come crashing down over me two years ago. And it was the grandness of His aims and actions that He displayed on the first Easter morning that brought me to Him. Or, perhaps just as accurate a statement, it was several articles and sermons by Anglican scholar NT Wright that opened my eyes to these incredibly rich aspects of Christian theology. I quickly came to see them, not as heady theories or doctrines detached from everyday life, but as truths revealing a Lord that I could fully have faith in, devote my life to, and love. I felt myself being grasped and pulled in by the story the Bible was telling me; I believed deep down that I was living inside that story and that I could contribute to it in my own tiny way. 

For probably the first time, I was at peace not only with God, but with my perception of Him. Since Easter of 2012, my Resurrection-centered faith has deepened my relationship with the Lord, given me new motivations to go out into the world to do His work, and fostered a growing fascination for the Bible as an object of study. For me, everything hinges on Easter. 

Considering this fact, the question of whether the Resurrection actually happened naturally arises in my mind fairly frequently. It's a concern that is usually quickly assuaged by reminding myself of the theological and historical arguments that led me to be convinced of it in the first place, as well as by prayer and the emotional intuition that tells me it's true. But for the last several months, I've been afraid that the very teachings that brought me to belief, i.e. those regarding the enormity of what God has done and will do in and through Jesus, may ultimately lead me to a state of doubt. The form that these doubts have taken, as well as what I plan on doing about them, will be the topics of my next few posts. 

Against Heaven and Against God: Romans 8 and the Persistence of Love

“I'm my own worst enemy.” We've all heard people use this expression. Perhaps we've even said it ourselves. (I know I have, at least.) We all act against our own best interests sometimes, doing things that we know will be harmful to our mental or physical well-being or that of others. How often do we seek happiness and contentment in things that we know from experience will never really satisfy us? How many of our interpersonal relationships have we attempted to sabotage out of fear and insecurity, sometimes subconsciously? Even the “best” of us occasionally take advantage of the people who love us dearly. We turn away from God, or become angry with Him when our lives don't go the way we planned. On top of all this, we often feel the need to punish ourselves for the mistakes we've made. We put up a barrier against self-forgiveness and mercy, a wall so strong and high that it feels like God couldn't even break through it. 

In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul expresses his frustration at his moral failings very simply:  “For the good that I want to do, I do not do; but the evil I do not want to do, that I practice.” (7:19) This is not to say that we are incapable of doing anything good in the course of our lives. Nonetheless, I can sympathize with Paul here. Our flaws and weaknesses can sometimes make us feel like we are beyond the reach of God. It seems like a desperate, unsolvable situation. 

The Angel Michael and a demon

But what is impossible with man is possible with God. In the very next chapter of Romans, Paul outlines the glory we have with Christ as children of God and the awesome power of the Spirit that dwells within us. “If God is for us,” he asks, “who can be against us?” (8:31) His answer:  no one, since Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, intercedes for us with God the Father. And what about God's love? Surely, he can't love us all the time. How can he love us when we've made so many stupid mistakes, when we know we've failed Him and hurt other people? Paul's response is what makes the Gospel so incredibly beautiful. Nothing at all in His creation, Paul concludes, “can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (8:39) Not tribulation, distress, poverty, war. Not death, angels, things in the present, things to come. And not our mistakes, our regrets, our cruelty and resentment. As many times as we fall to a point where we think we'll never be able to be reconciled to God, He will be running to embrace us with His mercy. 

This is a love that makes no human sense. We can hardly forgive ourselves for the things we've done. Why would God, the ultimate source of Good, reach out to us? What did we do to deserve someone like Him in our lives? Nothing, really, and that's part of the point. He loves us in spite of our faults and sins, sending us His Son so that we can live with Him forever. God wants us to follow the example of Jesus' compassionate and self-sacrificial life, to be conformed to the image of His Son rather than give in to our desires and weaknesses. But when we inevitably stumble and fall, we should know somewhere deep inside us that God's forgiveness is always there for us. Our Father's back is never turned away from us in shame. He's waiting for us to shed our regret and self-directed anger, poised to throw his arms around us and welcome us back into the love that we were made for. The walls that we construct to keep out His mercy don't stand a chance against Him. 

"Home:" A Story of Forgiveness

Suddenly, in the middle of attending a concert, my mind was barraged with dozens of memories. The dark auditorium, the many people standing around me, even some of the loud rock music, faded away as I went somewhere, and somewhen, else. I was experiencing it all over again:  the nervousness while telling her how I felt about her, our first kiss, her extremely frequent laughter (It was a unique laugh, an acquired taste for me but a sound that I came to love.), trips to Princeton for awesome chicken parm sandwiches on Nassau Street, and countless other great moments that we shared in the short six months we were together.

But I had to brace myself for what I knew would come next. The positive memories became darker, eclipsed by the mistakes I made in the last few months of our relationship. I felt again the guilt, the emotional numbness, the overwhelming regret as I discovered that there are some things that can't be undone. I remembered the times she cried, and the look of helplessness in her eyes because of the pain and confusion I had caused. For several years after I graduated from the College of New Jersey, I replayed these scenes over and over, partly to punish myself and partly in a futile attempt to figure out how things had gone so wrong. Eventually, I realized how little good that was doing and made my best effort to forget them. But now, the memories had come flooding back, and they were every bit as vivid as they were seven years ago.

It was the closest I've come to time travel. Instead of a DeLorean, though, it was the smell of her perfume that brought me back that night. Psychologists and brain researchers have long known that the sense of smell can trigger memories more strongly than any other sense. The physiological reason for this is that the olfactory nerve is located next to two areas of the brain associated with the making and retaining of memories:  the hippocampus and the amygdala, which is also part of the brain that registers how we experience emotion. Because it was so dark (and I thought it'd be weird to start randomly sniffing people), it was hard to tell where the smell was coming from. What I do know is that it remained for the duration of one song that the band The Dear Hunter was performing.

The smell of Steph's perfume forced me to relive both the good and the bad of our relationship. Set alongside the hopeful lyrics and music of the performance of "Home," though, the memories soon created a sensation other than the usual remorse and regret. I believe they became an instrument for carrying a simple message:  You are forgiven. Before that night, I had known this on a superficial level. It had taken years, but I had come to terms with how Steph and I ended and had decided to get on with my life. I knew that God was loving and figured that He had forgiven me. As convinced as I was of these ideas, they were realities in my head only. Part of me had continued to withhold true forgiveness from myself, hoping that in this way I could continue to be punished, if only a little. Part of me was afraid to let all of that regret go, as if to do so would mean hurting Steph all over again by forgetting about her. But I didn't have to forget, only to forgive. God had done this years before in His own heart, and had looked on sadly while I stubbornly refused to forgive what I had done, and rejected the offer of peace and comfort that He so badly wanted me to accept. That night at the concert, I was finally able to put it all behind me, and to know that it was okay to do so. 

When the song "Home" ended, the smell disappeared as suddenly as it had come. What remained was hope, and the conviction that life doesn't consist of a series of injuries we inflict on or receive from other people. At the root of life is love. No matter the size of our guilt or pain, life is bigger. Life offers forgiveness and the assurance that all is not lost. The only thing we have to do is accept the gift, and try to keep it at the center of our minds and our hearts.

What He Means for the World, and What He Means to Me: A Good Friday Revelation

“How do I get saved? How can I make it to Heaven when I die? What can God do for me?” When I was a teenager, I thought that answering these questions was what Christianity was all about. It was a fine position for me to take during most of my high school years. By the end of my first semester in college, though, this egocentric perspective on Christian spirituality became one of the main reasons I became disillusioned with the religion as a whole. I had encountered far too often the negative behaviors and personality traits that this view can engender in Christians if not tempered by humility and empathy for others. Perhaps more importantly, I was convinced that Christians were obliged to believe that a call to individual salvation was the main message of the Bible, and that God's “good news” was that we didn't have to go to Hell anymore if we didn't want to. I thought that this interpretation of the Bible and of God's purposes (as simplified as it is here) was the only viable one. 

The god of individual salvation described above seemed incredibly small to me; the sending of Jesus to ease god's wrath against his own creatures, nonsensical and morally reprehensible. I was only able to come to Christ when that superficial image of god was shattered and replaced by that of a loving Creator who refused to surrender us and the rest of His creation to the forces of sin and death. It was then that I realized that my shallow perception of Christianity was a result, not of the theology itself, but of my own presuppositions and misunderstandings of the nature of God and the atonement. 

From the beginning of my belief in Christianity two years ago, then, I treasured my new life in Jesus. However, it was important for me to place my salvation within the overall grand plan of God to rescue and restore all things through the life, death, resurrection, and second coming of His Son. In my first year as a Christian, this emphasis on Jesus' cosmic significance worked wonders in helping me to develop a sense of awe towards God and to deepen my understanding of how He might want me to work for His Kingdom. But in the process, an aspect of my faith that should have grown alongside my appreciation for God's Lordship fell a bit by the wayside. I became so wrapped up in what Jesus meant for the world, that I came close to forgetting about what he meant to me. 

It took the singing of a hymn at last year's Good Friday service to jog my memory. With my theology as centered around the Resurrection as it is, Good Friday takes backseat only to Easter morning in importance for my faith. It was my first Good Friday as a mature Christian. I was anticipating shedding a tear or two during that service out of gratitude for Jesus' sacrifice. When I turned the hymnal to the right page, though, I had no idea of the impact that “Beautiful Savior” would have on me. It's an old hymn, dating back to the 17th century by an unknown author. Its lyrics are stuffy here and there, its use of language higher than I would normally prefer. (Like most people, too many “thee”s and “thou”s tire me out.) 

By the second verse, I was choking back tears, and singing the rest of the hymn became an uphill battle. The last verse remained unsung, at least by me. And that was okay. I was already perfectly familiar with the content about Jesus' sovereignty and glory and honor. This was an important message for the service, but it wasn't the one God needed me to hear then. To some degree, I had lost sight of the amazing things that God had done for me since my conversion, of how much He had changed my life for the better. At that moment, I was profoundly grateful for the spiritual path that He had guided me on that led to His Son, and for the humbling prospect of living out the rest of my days as his disciple. I felt an enormous surge of love toward this Jesus, a man purer and more beautiful to me than anything in creation. I felt deeply cared for, safe, and enveloped in love. Having God in my life, I realized, was the best thing that's ever happened to me. 

It remains the time that I've felt the presence of God in my heart the strongest. I'm convinced, though, that it didn't happen just so that I could have a pleasant spiritual experience. I had been incredibly cautious not to domesticate God or center our relationship on what I could get out of Him. But God wanted to remind me that His love for me as an individual was every bit as all-encompassing as it was for the world. His plans to rescue and restore His creation were no less important to Him than saving and being in relationship with me. By maintaining a balance between His cosmic and personal Lordship, God was telling me, I could benefit from both in abundance during my faith walk with Him. God is the Lord, the Savior, the Father of all, the joy and peace of the world. But never again will I neglect Him as my Lord, my Savior, my Father, and my joy and peace. My life. My God.  

"Beautiful Savior"

Beautiful Savior,

King of Creation,

Son of God and Son of Man!

Truly I'd love Thee,

Truly I'd serve Thee,

Light of my soul, my Joy, my Crown.

Fair are the meadows,

Fair are the woodlands,

Robed in flowers of blooming spring;

Jesus is fairer,
Jesus is purer;

He makes our sorrowing spirit sing.

Fair is the sunshine,

Fair is the moonlight,

Bright the sparkling stars on high;

Jesus shines brighter,
Jesus shines purer,

Than all the angels in the sky.

Beautiful Savior,

Lord of the nations,

Son of God and Son of Man!

Glory and honor,

Praise, adoration,

Now and forevermore be Thine!

On Leadership and Some Challenges of the Church

Note:  I wrote the following post as part of a requirement for a seminary scholarship. The essay prompt was:  "In 750 words or less, please describe what the word “leader” means to you. How does this definition shape your ability to collaborate with others and engage the gospel? How will your leadership skills and experiences be of distinct use in addressing the most significant challenges and opportunities for the ELCA in the next 10 years?" This is a version that was a bit more than 750 words, and I feel like I barely scratched the surface of the issues. But since I was  satisfied with the way it turned out, I saw no reason not to publish it here. 

The concept of good leadership is one that was very nebulous in my mind until recently. Like love, it was something that I could point to when I saw it and be aware of when it was absent from a situation. But it took seeing an advertisement on the side of a public bus a few weeks ago to begin to articulate and organize many of the ideas I had about it. The slogan for a new campaign by a local New Jersey college, the ad read:  “Our greatest strength is helping you find yours.” Of course, the slogan isn't a perfect fit for a definition of leadership. But it was a great help to have that simple, eight-word sentence in the forefront of my mind as I tried to articulate a conception of good leadership characterized not by egotism, aggression, or a sense of superiority, but by a commitment to serve others. 

At its foundation, that commitment is about bringing out the very best in the people we serve:  their gifts, their love, and their hope. It's about encouraging people to know that they're an integral part of the group, building their confidence, helping them to see the gifts and strengths that God has blessed them with and areas where they can contribute. Leaders and members of a congregation are not alone in their efforts and in the work that they do. Ideally, if they are led by the Holy Spirit, it is God working through them, using their abilities and passions to do His will. 

For this to truly be the case, they must strengthen their faith and grow in their relationships with God and with others. Spiritual leaders can and should attempt to play a role in these journeys of faith. Through administering the sacraments, through pastoral counseling, and through joyful and effective preaching of the Word, parishioners can be reminded of the hope that they have within them, of God's restorative and healing love, and of the certainty that the work they do out of love for God and for neighbor is not in vain. They can then bring these truths out into a world in sore need of them. 

It's no secret that Lutheranism, as well as organized Christianity in the US as a whole, are facing great obstacles in helping to bring about God's will for the world. Unlike the tribulations of the early Church, however, which faced persecution, violence, and exclusion and seemed to come out the stronger in spite of them, we face much more elusive enemies:  disillusionment and apathy. Many Americans have seen the human weaknesses and flaws of individual Christians or of communities and have concluded that they want nothing to do with organized religion. “What has religion given mankind other than war, intolerance, and division?” they often ask. Even if they don't have a strong negative opinion of the Church, many people that I've engaged in conversation with, when faced with what they admit may be reasonable arguments for the existence of God or the resurrection of Christ, have replied that they simply don't care one way or another what the truth is. Either it has no bearing on their lives whether a supreme being exists, or they believe that we can't possibly know what God is like and what kind of relationship he wants to have with us. If he wants anything, who's to say he doesn't want us to be Muslim, or Buddhist? 

And in many ways, I don't blame people for holding these positions. In my life, I've held every single one of them. I've experienced crises of faith, have asked the difficult questions about God and reality, have been overly skeptical, have had bouts of apathy and agnosticism. And I've come out on the other side of all these things secure in my faith and in my love for the Lord. My own spiritual journey, as well as countless positive interactions I've had with those who were wary of the Church or doubtful of God, have helped me to see the proliferation of the “Nones” and the increasing secularization of America not as the beginning of the end of Christianity, but as a challenge and opportunity to help God's light shine into the world until His Son's return. 

This will only be possible with hard work, outreach, and constant evaluations of how we can best serve and love our neighbors. Christian leaders must therefore struggle against aloofness and isolation from non-Christians. They must be empathetic and willing to understand that people have difficult questions, and to realize that those who are unsure about God or organized religion are not evil or necessarily rebellious. As leaders, we can't shut ourselves off from doubts and concerns, whether they be from parishioners or people in the wider community. Nor can we resort to giving answers that only serve to appease our own assumptions or world views. We must love in deed and in truth and be active not only amongst our congregations, but in the wider community and in domestic and international missions. Acknowledging differences between denominations and strains within Christianity, we must nonetheless avoid schism and suspicion. In summary, we must turn what many people (including myself at one time) see as the Church's weakness, ie that it is made up of imperfect human beings, into its strength. 

Ultimately, the future of the Church is in the hands of God. But as Christians we stand in the shadow of Jesus' Great Commission. He placed the responsibility to go out into the world and make disciples of the nations not only on religious leaders, but on all of us. The task of helping to build God's Kingdom, of spreading His Gospel and His love, needs as many hands as it can get. As a potential future leader of Christ's Church, my hope is that I will be able to bring some of those hands together, for the glory of God.  

Lent and Three Journeys Through the Wilderness

Every year as a kid, there would be a few days in March when many of my classmates would start a new conversation:  what they were giving up for Lent. As an informally-traditional Methodist, it was a conversation that I couldn’t really participate in. About a week into Lent, though, very few people seemed to be talking about it anymore. Usually, it was because their attempts to give up watching TV or eating chocolate had proven unsuccessful. I don’t doubt the good intentions of my classmates; breaking engrained habits can be hard. They were human, after all, and being children of God doesn’t exempt us from struggling to do the right thing. The 40-year journey of the ancient Israelites is a case in point.

A desert in Egypt (which incidentally served as the locale
for my first sandboarding experience)

In spite of having seen the love and power of God through their crossing of the Red Sea, in the bestowing of manna and quails and water, they could have won the Olympic gold medal for grumbling against the Lord. They were guided in their journey by the presence of God Himself, in the pillar of smoke by day and of fire by night. But in their spiritual lives, they were utterly lost. They refused to accept the spiritual gifts God had to offer, instead choosing to rebel against Him and His servant Moses. They tempted the Lord and served other gods. None of that generation except Joshua and Caleb entered the promised land. In spite of being a people hand-picked by God for Himself, they had fallen on their faces. They were human, after all.

More than a thousand years later, another man wandered the Wilderness, but in Judea instead of Egypt. Like the Israelities, he had recently been declared as the Son of God. As the Israelites had learned, this vocation came with great responsibility, responsibility to listen to and obey the Lord. But where the Israelites had failed, the Jewish Messiah would pass with flying colors. Satan tried his best to tempt Jesus at the end of his 40-day fast, urging him to use his divinity to create bread out of thin air, have angels save him from death, and gain control over all the nations of the earth. Jesus’ response to each temptation showed his unflagging obedience to God and made the contrast between his Wilderness journey and that of the Israelites that much clearer. Because of Jesus’ victory over Satan in the Wilderness, he was able to go on to conduct his ministry, die for our sins, and be resurrected. Because of his obedience to the Father, we were able to become God’s adopted Children.

As Christians, our relationship with God carries with it its own responsibilities. We’re all in the midst of our own Wilderness journeys, having fled from the powers of sin and death and become God’s children through baptism. For now, we’re liable to make mistakes and sin, to hurt those we love and get things wrong again and again. During this journey, though, we’re led not by a pillar of smoke and fire, but by a man and the Spirit that his Father sent to comfort and guide us. For now, we have to trust with all our hearts that Jesus and the Holy Spirit will be able to get us to our own Promised Land, where God will truly be our god, and we will truly be His people.