christmas carol theology

Christmas carols are more than a welcome (or unwelcome) addition to the radio come December every year. It can be easy to take them at face value, but go a little deeper into the words and remember the verses that are cut out of many recordings, and you can find truths that go beyond the usual Christmas card platitudes.

(All links to the recordings are from the church I attend, Veritas Community Church)

Mild he lays his glory by.
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King.

That is Christmas. That is the Gospel. The words of that familiar Christmas carol echo Paul’s words in his letter to the Philippians about the attitude of the Christ

“Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:6-11)

The rightful king of creation makes his earthly debut as a baby born, most likely in a cave with only his mother and father in attendance. Those who came and visited the makeshift delivery room are shepherds, outcasts of society. The ruler of the time wanted to kill this threat to his reign, this blameless child he saw as a usurper of the throne. It is a very humble beginning of a savior, a very humble beginning for a child who becomes the focal point of all of history.

And so what is our response?

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.

And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!

(It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, from the verses you've most likely skipped over. And this arrangement is way better than anything else you've heard)

People are at war with each other. We are at war with ourselves. We are too busy, too skeptical, too proud, or perhaps simply too deaf to hear a great heavenly host singing a song of glory and praise about the one true God. The shepherds were simply minding their own business, tending their flock, perhaps trying just to stay warm and find some food so they can survive another day, to continue a boring existence, when the host of angels broke into the night and changed their lives. There are angels singing the glories of God today. Men and women can now join with them.

Christmas will come and go. The songs on the radio will disappear for 10 or 11 months. The lights will gradually come of the houses and trees, the decorations will go back into storage. The church pews will empty, breaks and vacations will end, and back to school and work people will go. The spirit of goodwill and cheer will slowly fade away.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel, shall come to thee oh Israel

Perhaps feelings of goodwill and cheer go away, but God does not. Emannuel, God with us, is more than Hebrew trivia. It is a reality.

In Isaiah 9, the famous prophecy of a savior, the prophet writes that on the people who walked in darkness, “a great light has shone”

The Gospel of John is the only one of the four Gospel accounts that does not tell the story of the birth of Christ, at least not in the traditional sense. But it does open with this:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
(John 1:1-5, 9-13)

That is Immanuel. He has come into the world as the light, and the darkness has not overcome it. Life will resume like normal on December 26th, but to walk in darkness is no longer necessary. A mighty God has laid his glory by, the angels and now the world can testify to this, and he is now with us.

This is why we sing. This is why we celebrate. Merry Christmas.

thoughts on the hobbitses (or part 2)

A few years ago, the mind of James Cameron took a recycled plotline and dressed it up with fancy computer graphics and out came Avatar, or as I like to call it: Blue Pocahontas in Space with No Musical Numbers. The Western-European clashing with an indignant people metaphor had been played out on the big screen several times before, but the stunning visual effects of some distant planet was enough to distract people from the fact that this plot had been explored before, and that the acting and storytelling simply wasn’t that great.

(This is a continuation of some previous thoughts)

In today’s cinema, the use of CGI lets movie makers create expansive, beautiful, detailed worlds. Despite what your feelings about the overuse of this technology, it is impossible to deny the beauty of the environments they create in contrast to a green screen. CGI allows for extended and more intricate battle and action sequences. Watching a fight unfold on screen is infinitely more exciting and infinitely less confusing than reading a play by play of the mechanics of a swordsman.

A movie maker only has a few short (or long, depending on how much you enjoy the film) hours to sweep the audience into the fictional world. Some do this by throwing the viewer into the world through action sequence after action sequence, to get the heart pumping, to hurry up and get into the thrill ride without paying attention to the rest of the surroundings. And when the viewer does get a chance to catch his breath, he will see beautifully rendered computer generated environments and then after a brief reprise, it is back to the action.

However, what makes a fictional world come to life is not look of the surroundings, but the people and creatures who populate them. Are they believable? Can they sustain an existence in that universe after the screen has gone black, or do they exist simply for the purposes of moving the plot forward?

There are several themes present in Tolkien’s works. This idea of pride and corrupting power, the necessity and strength of camaraderie and brotherhood, are both set against a much larger backdrop of a cosmic clash between good and evil. The goal film adaptations should bring these themes to the screen, where the characters who play their roles are believable and can be empathized with. These overarching themes are definitely present in the latest Hobbit film, but will the viewer care about them?

In all of Tolkien’s books, he is very deliberate. He takes the time to make sure every detail is known in his long and extended conversation with the reader. He has the page space to do so. And this adds to the feeling that Bilbo’s adventure is a long (unexpected) journey. There is a lot of walking to be done, and much to be experienced in this expansive Middle-earth that Bilbo is slowly discovering.

The Desolation of Smaug contrasted with the book, is more of a sprint, an elaborate chase scene. It is one that looks great on screen, that will keep one entertained, but at the end of the day, it could be argued that it is no more than a glorified action movie with its themes tucked away in the background, and when the quieter moments come the viewer is reminded that those themes are still there, but we must ask ourselves, do we care? Do we remember why we are here in the first place? Is the stubborn pride of the dwarves, the allure of power and the symbolism of the Arkenstone, do they justify the action that has taken place on screen? Does the tension between elf and dwarf feel organic or is it forced? When one crosses party lines to help the other side, is it groundbreaking or predictable? Are the citizens of Lake-town honest hardworking people who are have slaved under the rule of a drunken corrupt master or do they just populate the poverty stricken city as a collective damsel  in distress awaiting their heroes?

The underlying question is this: Is the world that the movie portrays a world where the audience can work, breathe, and live in, or is it just a pretty picture on the wall to be admired from a distance, and then after enough time has passed, they can move on to the next one?

Action movies are praised for the fight scenes, the car chases, the explosions, and the carnage. Plot holes abound in these types. But people don’t go into these movies expecting some sort of life lesson or revelation. Relationships are thrown in to add a douse of humanity, an obligatory love interest, some cheesy dialogue, and the audience bemoans these scenes and simply wants to get back to the action.

The preface to Tolkien’s Epic trilogy should establish familiar themes that will continue through the rest of the story and shed light on the lesser known corners of Middle-earth. The Hobbit movies certainly attempt to do so. Perhaps it is dealt an unfortunate task and an impossible follow up to the trilogy that truly transported audiences to Middle-earth a decade ago. Still, it is very possible. If a young sixth grader like myself many years ago could pick up The Hobbit and stumble through words that were too big and concepts that I did not fully understand, then surely, movie makers who are much smarter than I was once can recapture that same awe on the screen.

It happened once before. I wish it would happen again. 

thoughts on the two hobbits (part 1)

There is a big difference between a movie being “based on real events” and being “inspired by real events.” If a movie is based on real events, it tries it’s best to stay faithful to the original story and plot, without changing characters and  being very limited in its use of creative license. A movie inspired by true events will take a story and add new plot details and characters around it to make it more box office friendly.

The same could be said about movie adaptations of books and comics. Fans of the original works are always quick to point out the inconsistencies between the print on the page and the images on the screen.

Peter Jackson’s latest Hobbit adventure is inspired by the book. Somehow through two movies, almost six hours of film has not been enough to accurately tell Tolkien’s shortest book of the saga. However, I’m not here to dwell on the differences between the book and film. The question I would like to address is this: would a more accurate and faithful depiction of the book make for a good movie? Was that even the goal, and is it feasible?

Books and movies both are mediums to express a story. However they accomplish this in different ways. Reading a book is a very subjective experience. As great as an author may be at describing scenery and setting, much of the visual interpretation is still up to the reader. A book like The Hobbit  is told through the use of a third person limited point of view (Thanks 8^th grade honors English!), meaning that the reader will experience the inner monologues of the main character, but from a safe distance. The use of this mechanism allows the reader to feel like he is walking alongside Bilbo in his adventure and can hear his thoughts, but has some advantages (or disadvantages) of not seeing things directly through his eyes. The reader is free to speculate and other matters that Bilbo is oblivious to. Despite book clubs or discussion groups, reading is a very personal experience. The author is writing for one person, and is having a conversation with the reader.

A movie on the other hand is more of an objective experience (although clearly there is room for subjective interpretation). The movie maker gives his audience non-negotiable visuals and they are at the mercy of his interpretation. Most movies are told from the third person omniscient point of view, being able to see the entire universe of the film, not limited to just the protagonists. The inner dialogue of characters is very hard to capture. 1^st person monologues are rare, and so directors rely on the skill of their cast, the chemistry of the actors, to portray the desired feelings. If a book is more of a conversation between the author and a reader, a movie is like a lecture between the director and a theater full of people.

When I first read The Hobbit I was in the sixth grade, around the same time that Peter Jackson released the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I did not know much about Tolkien and the world of Middle-earth. Yet I was enthralled by this adventure that Bilbo embarked on. Like Bilbo, I was oblivious to much of the world outside my 6^th grade social circle as he was very content to sit in his hole in the ground in the shire and smoke a pipe and drink some tea. The unassuming Hobbit however is thrown into a world much bigger than his own. The world that he only knew through the stuff of legends, he was about to experience.

I did not know how expansive the realm of Middle-earth was. I did not know the worlds, the histories, and the backstories that Tolkien has created in his mind where he set his epic adventure. But the conversation that was taking place between a young reader and a professor of Oxford College did not need to delve into that information. Every normal conversation we have with another human being does not involve learning everything about that person at the first meeting. The longer time is spent, the more conversations, the more that is revealed. Despite not knowing anything about Middle-earth, by the end of the book, enough is known for that story, that chapter of time in the saga to be complete.

With the latest Hobbit trilogy as a prequel to a story where audiences already know the ending, it is impossible to capture the same feeling of wonder, of being thrust into a new uncharted world. Even for those who have never read the books, they have seen the movies, and had conversations with their more nerdy friends about the dealings of Middle-earth. This latest lecture from Peter Jackson is not an introductory class. The audiences want to see how this “new” material relates back to the LOTR trilogy. And while some fanboys would rather him not give into these demands, one must remember, that this is still a business. The massive global audience must be satisfied in one sweeping take. That means transplanted characters (or created) will appear in Jackson’s interpretation. Would three hours of Bilbo’s thought process and inner wonderings be very exciting to watch unfold onscreen? When Gandalf leaves the party of dwarfs to attend to other matters, why wouldn’t the movie makers take that opportunity to show what that might have looked like? The book has zero female characters in it and in this day of political correctness and necessary love interests, a female lead is needed to satisfy a movie goer. The lecture must meet the desires of the entire classroom, not just the select few who sit in the front rows. Of course in doing so, no one will be completely satisfied, but satisfaction is not the goal as much as getting people in the seats to be entertained is.

I have much more to say on this subject, but this post is getting too long. Like Peter Jackson, it looks like I will have to stretch out this line of thought into multiple parts.

coffee smelling clothes

Spend any amount of time in a coffee house and you will reek of lattes and espresso shots for the rest of the day. So you go home and take a shower to replace the aroma of stale coffee with a fresh clean scent. But as you dry off, you remember that you don’t want to do more laundry than you already have. So you grab the clothes you were wearing, the ones that have been permeated with the smell of the coffee beans. You also have an image to uphold, the style that says that you don’t care about your appearance, but you don’t want to chance running into someone again that day after changing your clothes. Then you’d have to explain yourself and why you’ve undergone a middle of the day wardrobe change. So the old coffee smelling clothes go back on, not as repugnant as they once were as time has passed by. But you certainly don’t smell clean anymore, and no one save for the utility company will know that the hot water was running twice on that day.

 “As a dog returns to his vomit so a fool repeats his folly”

Proverbs 26:11

the thanksgiving gap

As far as holiday traditions go, Thanksgiving isn’t very creative. The tradition is we overeat and as comedian Jim Gaffigan put it, “We do that every day!”  

There is no myth or children’s story about a Turkey that comes down the chimney, prepares all the food, and then jumps in the oven and the next day as you welcome family into your house, the table has been magically prepared. There is no exchanging of gifts, no one sends Thanksgiving cards, there are no ugly Thanksgiving sweaters and, no annoying children who will knock on your door and ask for Thanksgiving candy.

Perhaps that’s the beauty of the holiday. It’s a supposed time where friends and family can enjoy one another’s company over a delicious meal.  It’s a time for introspection. Maybe you’ll go around the dinner table and say what you’re thankful for. You’ll express heart felt gratitude for what you have, what’s been given to you… and in a few hours, you’ll find yourself ungrateful for the company you have as you just want to watch a football game in silence, but then become irritated that the team that has your allegiance is calling running plays up the middle on 3^rd and long. The next day you’ll be at stores pumping money into the economy as you save hundreds on appliances that you essentially admitted that you didn’t need when you were at the dinner table. You’ll lament how commercialized the season has become… while holding bags from Kohls, Best Buy, and applying for a Macy’s credit card. If you don’t take advantage of all the sales, you’ll have nothing to be thankful for the next year.

The holiday season is meant to be a time of rest and relaxation, but it has become a time of stress and bitterness for many. The crowds at the stores are overwhelming, the prospect of preparing meals for numerous relatives, and finding that elusive gift for that special someone all takes its toll on the psyche. How are people supposed to rest in the midst all of this? The preferred unspoken alternative for many people this week and in the weeks to come is to sit in silence, alone, with a glass of wine and a good book, movie, or some music and to become numb to the pressures of life. We are expected to be thankful for jobs that we despise and for families that are broken. It is no wonder that this season is associated with depression for so many. There exists a massive gap between what we want our lives to be and where they actually are. After all the stress of the season goes away, we are left with the monotony of life.

For the Christian, this talk of joy, of rejoicing, that one day all tears will be wiped away, it can all sound cliché and irrelevant to the current reality. We go to church, listen to sermons, are exposed to truth, are reoriented in this world on Sunday mornings, and come Monday, we are lost again. We struggle to make it through the day, thinking that one day, this will all be better, but until then, endurance is the key. But is that attitude, one of passive dutifulness healthy or Biblical?

 A.W Tozer writes in The Pursuit of God, “We go about our common tasks with a feeling of deep frustration, telling ourselves pensively that there’s a better day coming when we shall slough off this earthly shell and be bothered no more with the affairs of this world. This is the old sacred-secular antithesis. Most Christians are caught in its trap. They cannot get a satisfactory adjustment between the claims of two worlds. They try to walk the tight rope between two kingdoms and they find no peace in either. Their strength is reduced, their outlook confused and their joy taken from them… The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our perfect example and He knew no divided life… God accepted the offering of His total life, and made no distinction between act and act… Paul’s exhortation to ‘do all to the glory of God' is more than pious idealism… It opens before us the possibility of making every act of our lives contribute to the glory of God. Lest we should be too timid to include everything Paul mentions specifically eating and drinking… if these lowly animal acts can be so performed as to honor God, then it becomes difficult to conceive one that cannot.” (Italics mine)

Perhaps it is more than mere coincidence that Thanksgiving is based around a meal. The most basic of human acts that we share with all living creatures are meant to be used to honor and worship God. The Lord’s Supper is a meal that reminds us of what our Lord did for us on the cross and for that we are most thankful. If our eating and drinking on Thursday is to be done in thankfulness to God, what about the rest of our lives?

Most likely, a prayer will be said on Thursday before we indulge in the dinner. But which God will we be thanking? The God that sits on a cloud just watching us with a passive indifference, keeping a list of all that good or bad that we have done, hoping that we make the cut? Or the God who has always been involved with his creation, the one who came and lived among us, ate and drank with us, was tempted like us, who died the death that we deserved, and who rose from the grave like we never could so that we could know and rejoice in him forever?

“Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong in Christ Jesus”  (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

Being thankful in all circumstances requires a trust that you are exactly where God has ordained you to be. As hard as that may be to believe in light of an awful job or economic status, that is the truth and reality we must face. It’s a struggle I face day after day. But I rest on the promises on Christ that he is sufficient for me.

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future,nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39

Thank God for that.

an unfaithful exodus

Standup comedian Jim Gaffigan jokes about the relationship between Moses and the nation of Israel as they wander the desert. He says, “We all know Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and they wandered in the desert for 40 years. I don’t know about you but after a year I would have been like, ‘This Moses doesn’t know where Hell he’s going! I appreciate him getting us out of Egypt, but we’re in the desert folks. As in no agua!’… they wouldn’t say agua…”

I don’t think Jim Gaffigan realizes how accurate his joke really is.

“But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill is and our children and our livestock with thirst,’” Exodus 17:3

One consistent theme throughout the Old Testament is the inconsistency of the faith of the Israelites. It predated even the Exodus. Abraham fathered a child through a woman who was not his wife rather than wait on God’s provision to fulfill his promise through a child born of Sarah. The entire book of Judges is a cycle of the Israelites pursuing idol worship followed by calamity followed by repentance. A people of faith losses their faith quite quickly, and quite regularly.

Jesus says that if we have the faith of only a mustard seed we could transplant mountains, but we seem to have misplaced those small seeds.

The strength of our faith is not dependent on us, but rather on what our faith is in. For example, let’s say that for some reason, I’m hiking along some scenic cliffs and want to take a great picture to post on instagram close to the edge. In my desire to post the perfect #nofilter image, I lose my balance and fall off the edge, but I spot a branch of a tree growing on the side of the cliff. It doesn’t matter how strongly or how desperate I feel that if I reach out and grab that branch it will support my weight. It’s all dependent on how strong the branch is and how far deep its roots penetrate the side of the terrain.

When God brought his people out of Egypt, it wasn’t because of their faith. He had made a promise to Abraham that he would make him into a great nation. A great nation does not spend its existence in slavery, but God heard the groaning of his people and remembered his covenant with their fathers.

God ordains Moses to lead his people out of Egypt. Go read about it in Exodus, or if you have some free time, go watch that Charlton Heston movie or Prince of Egypt.

Eventually the Israelites end up at Mount Sinai. They had seen God bring about disastrous plagues on Egypt, they walked through a parted sea, they ate mysterious bread that appeared every morning, they drank water from a rock and they defeated an army because Moses stood on top of a hill and raised his staff above his head.

At Sinai, God makes his arrival known very audibly and visually.

“On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled” Exodus 19:16

Moses goes up and receives some important laws. Something about ten commands and a bunch of other stuff, and a promise of inheriting a land currently occupied by some terrible people. Again go read about it. And after this, Moses comes down and reads the law to the people. They confirm the covenant, and Moses goes back up the mountain to get more instructions. And God was still very present in all of this.

“Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights,” Exodus 24:15-18

Moses gets to listen and record instructions for the building the Tabernacle and some other rules about the Sabbath.

Meanwhile, the Israelites get restless. Their leader had been on the mountain for a really long time. And they weren’t sure if he was dead or alive. What follows is the story of the golden calf. They go to Aaron and ask him to make up new gods for them to follow. Aaron takes the gold from their jewelry and casts it into the image of a golden calf and declares that there will be a feast for the Lord the next day. They must have forgotten in those ten commands that they were to have no idols, no gods before God.

Moses goes down and sees this feast, this party they are having before this calf. He gets pretty angry and breaks the tablets that were inscribed by God, he crushes the calf to bits and puts it in the water and makes them drink it. And he instructs the Levites to run through the camp with blades strapped to their sides and run through the camp in a zig zag pattern killing the idol worshipers, 3000 in all. When are they going to make Prince of Egypt 2?

Why do the Israelites so quickly desert their God? The same God whose presence is a few meters above them, the one that did all those miraculous signs, the one that parted the red sea, did they really think he abandoned them?

In Exodus 32:1, they say to Aaron, “[M]ake us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
Did the Israelites attribute their victory to God or to Moses? Was their faith in the leader, or the authority to who their leader answered to? Had they forgotten the first statement in the beginning of the Ten Commandments, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery,” (Exodus 20:2). Was the manna not enough for them? Where was their trust?

The Israelites knew they needed to worship something. But their faith was misplaced. They made offerings and had a feast before this image, but Aaron says the feast “shall be a feast to the LORD,” invoking the name of God and associating it to a created golden calf.

When Moses comes down from the mountain, Joshua tells him that there is noise of war in the camp, but he is mistaken. It is a party in celebration of a created work of gold. Did the Israelites forget that they were aliens in an unsafe land, where they would encounter enemies hostile to them, that danger was all around them?

Perhaps the most humorous part of this whole encounter is Aarons explanation of how the calf came into existence. “So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire and out came this calf,” (Ex, 32:24). Yeah Moses, I threw this jewelry in the fire and out came this idol, and we thought it would be a good idea to worship it and to attribute their escape from Egypt to.
The golden calf doesn’t just magically appear out of the fire. It is the culmination of a pattern of distrust and unfaithfulness to God. It is the logical conclusion, the end result, a tangible object of worship that arises out of misplaced faith. Where did their faith truly lie? Perhaps it was in Egypt, where at least they could work and live and be buried in proper graves. They thought it would be better to live in bondage when they had already experienced freedom.

And while we can look back at these people and their mistakes, we repeat them every day. We return to old sin habits because it is easier to give in to temptation than it is to live as God’s chosen people. It is easier to attribute our success in life to our own hard work, to the people in our lives, to our leaders, to our churches, to our ministries, and only give God an obligatory shout out at our awards acceptance speeches and postgame interviews. It is so easy to forget that we are in the midst of a cosmic war, but we party as if our dangers are far off and not in our midst.

When we realize that we’ve been worshiping something other than God we think to ourselves, how did we get here? How did I arrive at this place? How have I hit rock bottom once more? As CS Lewis writes in the Screwtape Letters, “The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” Nevertheless there are always signs. And a gentle slope is still a slope. It’s only when you have orientation that you realize the road you are taking, but how easy it is to forget.

Our faith is not dependent on us on our efforts, but on the efforts of Christ. He is faithful when we are faithless Paul writes. (1 Tim 2:13). God extends mercy and offers forgiveness. The Israelites will eventually reach the promised land despite their repeated violations of the covenant. But our faith must be placed in the right place. Not in signs, not in inspirational stories, but in truth. In Jesus.

In John 6, Jesus tells the massive crowds that are following him that he is the bread of life, that his blood has eternal life, that those who take part in him will never die. The crowds wanted to see him perform miracles, to feed them to their fill from a few loaves of bread and a some small fish. Many desert him. They simply stay for the show. But Peter, in one of his stronger moments, believes and speaks on behalf of the twelve disciples. “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know what you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68)
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Peter’s faith is in the right place. It will not remain there. He will deny Christ in the face of a young girl. He will be humiliated, but his salvation is not dependent on himself. It never was.

The illustration I used earlier about falling off a cliff and grabbing hold of a branch is not entirely accurate. My safety is dependent on being able to hold onto the branch and pull myself to safety. God is not a safety branch. He is an arm reaching out to grab us and pull us to safety. We must only open our eyes and see that hand and reach out and grab it. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that I fell off a cliff when I want to take a picture from a dangerous view. My own actions led me to that dangerous place. But God is right there with me still in that moment. He always has been. But my eyes are often elsewhere.

Lord, help us keep our eyes fixed on you. You're eyes are never off of us.

wedding day

I’m a big fan of weddings. One of my goals in life is to officiate a wedding one day. So, if you need someone to do your wedding, give me a 24 hour notice, and I will find a website to get whatever it is you need to legally marry people.

However I don’t know much about marriage, so I doubt anyone will trust me to perform their wedding. Still, I do enjoy being part of a wedding. I like being part of a wedding party and getting my picture taken. I even like prepping for the big day. Groomsmen preparation is probably a lot different and less stressful than it is for the lady maids. The responsibilities can range from simply show up to the venue in your tux, or move some chairs and tables around and hang decorations from the ceiling. My height disadvantage doesn’t allow me to hang things from the ceiling, so my role is traditionally reduced to moving around heavy objects. And moving around heavy objects is one of my favorite things to do. But don’t try to have too much fun around the bride to be. She’s very stressed out and even though you were on great terms one week before, all of sudden, you’re the worst person in the world for making fun of the centerpieces that were stolen from Pintrest.

Weddings are beautiful because of how well they illustrate the Gospel. They call back to the beginning of humanity when God instituted marriage in Genesis as a perfect union between man, woman, and God in the Garden of Eden in a world without sin. They hint at the ultimate wedding of Christ and his church as depicted at the end of Revelation. And in between the fall and the ultimate redemption celebration, there is the story of how love is depicted as Christ willing to die for his bride, showing what the ultimate expression of love is.

There is a ton of theology and implications to unpack there, and what it means to live that out in marriage every day for the happy couple. However, I’m grossly unqualified to accurately speak on that subject so I'll just focus on what I do know.

My favorite part of the ceremony however is at the beginning when the doors open and the bride walks in. After the last bridesmaid has walked down the aisle and the flower girl has just thrown the last of the petals, those in attendance eagerly shift in their seats with anticipation and look towards the back of the room as they stare at the doors. The bride walks in shortly after and there are murmurs and gasps, reacting to the astonishing beauty. Her face is radiant. For all the trouble that went into hanging the flowers on the aisles or how they ran out of tool (I just learned what that is!), the colors of the dresses, who should and shouldn’t be invited, none of that matters. Her eyes aren’t looking to see who sat where, how the bridesmaids look. Her eyes are fixed on her awaiting husband.

I make sure to observe the groom as well. Before she walks in, he might display an odd combination of several traits. A man who is normally stoic and always collected is suddenly fidgety as he waits at the altar. When the doors open, the jaw drops slightly and he takes a step back, enthralled by her beauty, and then a wide grin breaks out across his face. Perhaps both the bride and groom are wondering why they picked such a slow song to walk to, when they would much rather sprint to meet one another.

What is Christ’s reaction when he sees his church, holy and blameless? What is the Church’s reaction when she sees Jesus without a cloud of sin that obscure’s her vision?

Jesus yielded his rights as the rightful ruler sitting next to the Father in heaven to come to earth and die for a bride that did not know him, or even want him. And through his blood, an unfaithful bride is made clean, wearing a perfect white dress. Jesus rises from the grave so he can enjoy his rightful place in heaven and does not leave his bride a widower.

God’s love for us is not one of passive indifference; it is not a begrudging duty. It is active and it is full of joy. God looks upon us with joy. He is renewing us and cleansing us to be a perfect presentable bride. And right now, we dabble in sin, we stress out about the preparations, how we can make ourselves look perfect for God when no amount of damage control will suffice. And if you need any hint about how the Lord of the universe feels about you, look at the face of the groom at the next wedding you go to.

When that moment comes, when we see Jesus face to face, all else will melt away. We will not worry about anything else. There may be tears but they will be wiped away. It will be the perfect wedding day.

Oh look, here’s a song that pertains to what I just talked about. You should listen to it. It's pretty great.

dream on

Tonight, at least 700 college students at Ohio State will walk into the doors of Mershon Auditorium for Cru’s first Real Life meeting of the semester. 5 years ago, I walked into the doors of Independence Hall for my first Real Life meeting. The people in Real Life became a community that surrounded and supported me. They continually pointed me towards Christ, and those I count as brothers and sisters today, I met them through that ministry.

At a Real Life retreat freshmen year of winter quarter, I was given this bookmark. It contains what the mission statement of Cru at Ohio State.

It reads:

“As a Colony of Heaven that anticipates the arrival of our King we affirm that:

What is honored among us is faithfulness in worshipping God, building community and proclaiming the Gospel.

                What is cultivated is the kingdom mindset of faith, hope, and love.

What fuels our passion is our mission to transform OSU into a pipeline of Christ-centered laborers to reach every people group in the world

                What rallies our troops is Mershon”

A couple things stand out from this bookmark. One, there is some odd choices in capitalization and a typo in a couple statements. But a more significant aspect of this mission statement is the last point. I’ll get to that in a bit.

The first two affirmations are ones that should be true of any church or ministry that worships the God of the Bible. And while I will readily acknowledge that Cru is far from perfect, I can say confidently that Real Life continually strived to live up to this expectation. I found my closest friends through Cru. It wasn’t because I thought them exceptionally cool, but because they were authentic people. They were honest about their sin, and they openly confessed their short comings to each other. They wanted a real community devoid of fakeness and superficiality. They actively preached the gospel, explicitly with words, or through their lives. They took initiative in sharing their faith, and built relationships to open avenues where the Gospel could be proclaimed.

It was difficult to experience the third affirmation while I was still a student. After graduation however, I have seen it begin to come to fruition. My friends have been transplanted to various parts of the city, the state, and to other countries, all with common goal of reaching people for Christ. A few of them are missionaries in the traditional sense, but most have made their workplace their mission field. Any college of any size will inevitably send their alumni all over the world. Ohio State will send more than most. If those from Ohio State know the Lord, how much of an impact can they make for eternity?

The last affirmation warrants some explaining. Today it is outdated.

When I was a student Real Life met in Independence Hall, a 700 seat lecture hall. It is the largest classroom on campus. That first Thursday of my freshman year when I walked in, there were empty seats. I was a little early, but I doubted whether or not a Christian ministry could fill 700 seats in a secular college. I was wrong and in a few minutes when the lights dimmed, 700 voices were filling the classroom with praises to God.

I don’t remember when I was introduced to our campus director’s “Schott Dream,”  but its impact has been evident on the movement at Ohio State. For those unfamiliar, the “Schott Dream” refers to the Schottenstein Center, an 18,000 seat arena that is filled up for basketball games and various concerts. The dream is to one day see the Schottenstein Center become the meeting place for Real Life. It’s not because they are obsessed with numbers or because sheer size is a good indicator of the health of a community. Real Life wants to see the Schott filled because there is no other place to go on campus. The dream is to have the Gospel truly transform the campus. The Gospel message would become so contagious that everyone on Ohio State would know someone who truly follows Christ.  The campus would be filled with people who wanted to worship Jesus and there would be no room in any classroom or auditorium save for the Schott. To borrow some words from a large Georgian man, “the university wouldn’t dare to schedule a basketball game on a Thursday night again” because the Schott would be full of people worshiping the God of the universe.

It’s a very ambitious dream. 

When my bookmark was created, it hadn’t been thought of quite yet. See, Mershon Auditorium is the largest meeting space on campus save for the Schottenstein Center or the slightly smaller St. John Arena. The idea of seeing Mershon fill with college students worshipping Jesus on a Thursday night is ambitious in its own right. It seats 2,500 people, more than 3 times the size of Independence Hall. Our campus director must have thought that was too small a task for God to accomplish.

Tonight, the Mershon becomes the rallying point for Real Life. Will all 2500 seats be filled up? Probably not tonight. It may not be for several years. But it could be sooner. This is a significant milestone for Real Life. It is just further evidence that God has been moving on campus, to grow the size of the movement.

Tonight a freshman I do not know and will never speak to will encounter God in that room. He will encounter a community that lives to worship. It is my prayer that Real Life would continue to affirm the statements on that bookmark I received five years ago. It is my prayer that this nameless freshman would come to view God as center of his entire existence, that he would place his identity not in his major, his classes, his dot number, but in Christ. It is my prayer that Mershon would be a temporary rallying point, and that the “Schott Dream” would come to fruition. Perhaps the “Schott Dream” would change once more to the “Shoe Dream”? Ambitious, yes I know. And Ohio State would have to triple in size for that to be a possibility.

All I know for sure is that one day every tribe nation and tongue will bow down before Christ. When all of human existence does that, when all the elect from the beginning of time do that, there will need to be a bigger space. That place is heaven (obvi).

Real Life claims to be a colony of heaven. It only makes sense that they can dream big.

BLOOP BLOOP!

This next series of posts will focus on music. Music has been a big part of my life. Like all good Asian parents, my mom and dad enrolled me in piano lessons when I was 4. And I must have enjoyed it because I kept on taking lessons for 14 years. In middle school and high school, I picked up violin as part of the school orchestra. I think I got by on Asian reputation alone because I wasn’t very good at violin, but since I knew how to read music, that put me light years ahead of just about everyone else. A couple summers ago I learned to play guitar. And by “learn” I mean that I figured out the 4 or 5 chords that make up every pop and Christian songs, and bought a capo so now I can play just about any song released on the radio or played by your favorite CCM band in the last 20 years.

I don’t claim to be a music snob, but I do disdain people in Columbus who listen to 97.9 WNCI (the pop music station). I don’t like hipsters, but hipsters usually have a good taste in music, so I listen to 102.5, the only truly alternative music station in Columbus. (LOCALLY OWNED! INDEPENDENTLY OPERATED! NOT A KNOCK OFF! NOT CLEAR CHANNEL! CD 102.5!). Although sometimes, hipster music is just a little too hipster for my liking.

However since I am a Christian, I have an obligation to have the Christian music stations preset on my radio. That means you can find 104.9 The River (BLOOP BLOOP) on my radio. Unfortunately, 104.9 seems to be stuck in 2003 and has an unhealthy obsession with anything Christ Tomlin or Matthew West. The radio station prides themselves on being a “kid safe” station with “positive hits!”.

Which brings me to the subject of this post. Why does a Christian radio station feel the need to promote themselves as family friendly? I mean if you’re not a Christian, you might find the music offensive and you wouldn’t want your kids listening to this nonsense. They are obviously a Christian station, and glimpses of the Gospel or evident through their broadcasting. And they’re not the only Christian station to do this. I know of several other stations that promote themselves as being “Positive” and “uplifting”. Why they don’t drop the thinly veiled disguise and just say that they are a God centered, worshiping station is confusing to me. And ultimately I think it disguises other potential problems for their listeners.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably a Christian (if not, more power to you. Stick with me though). Do you have worship music on your iPod? Do you have a Pandora worship music station? Do you own Hillsong Live albums? Do you listen to worship music in the car? Do you listen to worship music when you work out?

I answer yes to most of those questions. But why? The River (BLOOP BLOOP) would have you believe that your choice in music is good for your life. It’s uplifting and makes you feel good about yourself. I admit that it’s more difficult to have road rage when I’m listening to a song singing of God’s love and grace (but it’s definitely still possible). But there is no difference in the quality of my workout when I listen to worship music as opposed to hard rock (99.7 THE BLITZ!!!!) or rap music (POWER 107.5 COLUMBUS’S HOTTEST HIP HOP AND R&B!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). And what does the moniker “Positive” hits imply? Does it assume that all other genres of music are “negative?” Admittedly the subject matter of other songs could be deemed degrading towards women, or celebratory of promiscuity and drugs, but most of the time, they’re not.

The primary goal of worship music is not to make you feel good about yourself. It’s meant for, well this may be obvious but it must be stated, worship. I’m not worshipping God when I’m lifting weights, and I’m for sure not bringing Him glory when I’m showing some unfriendly hand gestures towards that jerk who cut me off on the freeway. I don’t work out to have mini worship sessions in my head. I don’t try to get in mini worship sessions on drive to work. I simply enjoy the music because I like the melodies. I like the familiar steady beats, the repetitive chords. I don’t pay special attention to the words. They mostly say the same things anyway. It’s all about God’s love and mercy, which you know, are good, great things, and things that I agree with. They make me feel good. But I’m not approaching the throne of God singing these words back to him. These words aren’t meant for me, but I act as if they were there for my benefit.

I’m not saying that listening to worship music in the car is a bad thing, but if you listen to them simply because they are uplifting and positive, you could be missing the point. I hope these songs refocus your attention on God. I hope they frame your view on the day, that God is the center of everything. I hope that they prompt you to pray out of genuine worshipful heart. But I fear that I’m not alone in saying that these tunes simply become commonplace in your life. I turn the radio station when a song I don’t enjoy comes on. At that point I know that I’m listening for my personal enjoyment and not for God.  

Besides(and let’s be honest) from a purely musical standpoint, most of those songs just aren’t that good or creative. They’re repetitive and boring. If you’re listening for leisure, there’s plenty of other good music out there.

Worship music can make you feel good about yourself in one of two ways. Like I’ve said before, you can take away a purely emotional response away from the mostly superficial (but true) lyrics and familiar chords. Or it can make you feel good because your attention is drawn to a God who loves you, who sent his son to die for you, and who was raised from the dead so you can be with him for eternity. And this reality, that the God of the universe chooses you to be part of His plans, that He has not abandoned you in the midst of a broken world and that one day you will be with Him forever, fills you with an unspeakable joy.

BLOOP BLOOP

(Sorry to anyone not from Columbus who doesn't understand the bloop bloop reference)

Anatomy of the awkward worship clap

Anyone who has been to a modern evangelical worship service knows what I’m talking about. You got your worship band up front. The worship leader probably has a v-neck on. He’s young and hip, and all the girls in the congregation will sign up to tear down the stage just so they can be closer to him, and all the guys simultaneously have man crushes and hatred directed towards him. They scoff at his skinny jeans, but wish they could play guitar and sing like him. He’s just so darn talented. You’re not sure what hairstyle he’s going for (a combination of a faux hawk and messy get out of bed hair) but you like it. He’s got some tats too, but not too many. Maybe some Hebrew words, or Latin, but no cliché verses. They’re obscure and a good conversation starter.

The song starts out. It’s very upbeat. Maybe the drums kicked it off without accompanying music so the congregation can get a feel for the rhythm. The worship leader starts bobbing his head awkwardly on stage. Someone sitting towards the back starts to clap with the beat. The worship leader takes his cue. Before he starts strumming the same 4 chords over and over for the next five minutes, he starts clapping his hands, encouraging the congregation to do the same. The female vocalist chuckles with a nervous smile and reluctantly goes along and closes her eyes, either to focus more on the worship, or to avoid the hundreds of eyes who are staring at her awkwardly clap on stage. There’s nowhere to hide behind the microphone and she can’t actually clap since on hand is holding on to the mic. The music itself starts as the rest of the band joins in. The clapping has spread to the whole congregation. They’re enthusiastic, but there’s not much room to move in the rows of seats so they’ll sway from side to side like an awkward 13 year old at a middle school dance or bob their shoulders. There are some stoic men who have their arms crossed, but even they can’t resist nodding their heads up and down or at least tapping their feet. It must be the work of the Spirit. The Chris Tomlin/Matthew West/Hillsong/Michael W Smith/(insert other mainstream CCM artist here) song is a crowd favorite.

“Sing it out!” the worship leader says and he begins verse one. He’s no longer clapping (those four same chords aren’t going to strum themselves).  The clapping slowly dies down in the verse, but when that chorus hits, the clapping picks up full speed. But then you realize, your arms are getting tired, and your palms are a little sore. This song is longer than you remember. And the band added 4 musical interludes between each verse. The worship leader starts repeating the chorus, saying “sing that again!” Probably because he needs to buy more time so he can remember how the next verse starts. Either the lyric screen is broken, or PowerPoint has frozen up again. It’s verse 3 and the clapping has almost ceased except for the enthusiastic elderly woman sitting in the front. Then it’s time for the bridge. The clapping finds new life as the instruments drop out and the worship leader says, “just the voices now!”

The chorus repeats for what seems like the 40^th time. But that drummer is so energetic and the lead guitarist is strumming so hard. He’s jumping up and down too. They don’t seem to notice that the claps have died down once more. The song starts to close, and the rhythmic clapping turns into actual applause. Who are they applauding? The band, themselves for making it through the song? The whole service as a whole? The correct answer, as the worship leader knows, is for Jesus, so he tells them, “Yeah! Put your hands together for Jesus! Amen!” The drummer is doing some free styling until he makes eye contact with the guitarists and they end together on one resolving chord. The band members wipe some sweat from their brows. He gives some quick announcements about the upcoming week and says a quick prayer. Hopefully it’s quick because you’re feet are tired from standing and you really have to pee. And you can’t be fidgety when you go up to talk to that attractive girl you’ve been eyeing across the row. You weren’t going to say hi, but that song, somehow, gave you the confidence you needed. It must have been all that clapping.

welcome to the real world. now keep on running

One becomes a “real person” or enters the “real world” several times in life. I became a “real person” when I turned 16 and got my driver’s license. Then I became a “real person” when I turned 18 according to the US government. Then I became a “real person” and entered the “real world” a month later when I graduated high school. After that, I became a “real person” again when I started college 3 months later. I probably got “more real” when I turned 21 and celebrated with a Corona with lime, (ironically, not a Bud Light Lime). And then of course, I turned into a “real person” after I graduated college. But I didn’t see myself as a “real person” since I made my money by making coffee and sandwiches and trying to start my Asian Burrito Business. I got a “real job” a few months after graduating, and everyone around me told me I was really a “real person” then. It sure looks like it. You can tell your job is “real” because they make you listen to presentations on insurance and retirement plans.I have 40 hour work weeks now.

So if I’m in the “real world” now, why does it feel so boring?

I spend 8 hours a day in a lab with fewer windows then a prison. Gone are official ministry duties that came with being a prototypical “Cru” kid. Since my community group is a few hours after the Sunday church gathering, some might say that I literally have become a “Sunday Only Christian.” But I know better than to equate a Christian lifestyle with simply ministry or church stuff. So I’ll read (or try to) read my Bible every day before work. I’ll try to spend some time praying, listen to Christian music, read Christian blogs, and do more Christian things, only to find them tiresome and redundant after a few days and slip into a weird mix of idleness, apathy, anger, and numbness, all too eager to spend my time at the gym or in front of the television instead of with God.

...

I recently agreed to run a half marathon in October with my co-workers. Since I've always seen myself as a “real athlete” and lately have been baffled by others who aren't good at sports, yet somehow manage to run 13.1 miles. I figured that since in my athletic prime, I could easily knockout 4 miles after months of not running, adding 9 more to that wouldn't be so difficult. Then I remembered as I was running one day, that lifting weights and gaining bulk is counter-intuitive to the whole endurance thing, and I was out of breath less than a mile into my planned 3 mile route.

I never understood how distance running was considered a sport. To me, sports have scores that are straight forward and easy to understand. Put the ball in the basket to score some points, or in the goal, or cross the plane of the goal line. Competitive racing makes sense to me. Beat the other people to the finish line first and you win.

But after high school, or college intramurals, participation in competitive sports abruptly ends. Since I’m an athlete and have an urge to do physical things, I have to do something. So I lift weights. And I can see the results immediately in the mirror, and see the number of pounds and sets that I can do increase. But with this distance running thing, I just get tired. Even if I increase my distance, I feel just as tired running 2 miles or 4. There is no “high” I get from running. I always saw running as training for something else. That way, in the third period of a middle school wrestling match, I’d have more in the tank than my opponent (although I was terrible at wrestling and didn’t make it to the third period a whole lot), or as time wound down in the second half of a soccer game, I had enough energy to get past the defense, or in the third set tie breaker of the sectional tennis tournament to get to the quarter finals, I could come back and defeat the much older, stronger high school senior when I was a tiny sophomore (the highlight of my athletic career. Forgive me for exposing you to my high school glory days. I reached my athletic peak way too early).

With running, you are training to run more. And it’s boring. That’s why I’m having trouble building my endurance right now and even getting motivated to run.

...

Paul’s words about “finishing the race” (2 Timothy) are taken way out of context all the time, although it’s easy to see why it seems like a verse Tim Tebow would use on his eye black. Paul is about to die. He has been persecuted, shipwrecked, beaten, and tortured, all for the Gospel. Paul didn't earn extra heaven points for starting churches.

(Warning: cheesy Christian metaphor ahead)

Paul’s job (or ours for that matter) is not to score as many heaven points as possible. Jesus scored all the points we need (ahh there’s the cheese!). It’s not even to build up “spiritual muscle” (I wrote about that before, and it’s important, but not our primary focus). Our job is to endure, to set our eyes fixed on Christ.

This life is a marathon. It will hurt. It will be painful. There will be stretches of easy soft terrain through beautiful scenery, and stretches of uphill rocky climbs, but perhaps the most difficult stretch is through the flat, boring desert.

I’m only 23 and don’t pretend to be a sage full of wisdom (ok actually I do), but in my limited experience, most of life is boring. If you enter the work place right out of college, have fun with those 40 hour weeks, doing the same things, over and over again. Yes you can look forward to better times, to better scenery and such, but the next stage of life is not your ultimate pleasure.  If you come to the next bend of the road in life and think, “ah yes, now I’ll be a real person after I get a job/degree/wife” you're only guarantee is disappointment. I've got 2 out of 3, and I still want more. And as much as I’d like to think that getting #3 on that list will satisfy me completely, I know better.

CS Lewis writes in The Four Loves , “We find thus by experience that there is no good applying to Heaven for earthly comfort. Heaven can give heavenly comfort; no other kind. And earth cannot give earthly comfort either. There is no earthly comfort in the long run.”   

The daily devotions, the Hillsong music, the poorly written Christian blogs, they all become cliché when we zoom in on us, when we have lost sight of heaven, when we look for our rewards here on earth and when they are not given, we are disillusioned. That lovely valley and stretch of life is all too short, and the uphill struggle doesn't always give way to a life lesson or reward.

...

I won’t understand this whole marathon thing in full until I finish and complete it. I won’t understand this whole life thing either until it is completed. But that’s meant to be a comfort. I’m told (by Facebook statuses and tweets by unathletic people) about the satisfaction that comes with finishing a long run. God tells me that unspeakable joy is said to be had with him forever in eternity. Jesus died for my sins, scored all the points needed to have victory over evil. I’ll keep on running, I’ll get distracted along the way probably, may even turn back for a bit, maybe stop by the side of the road to rest, maybe get off the road. I don’t know what my fickle heart will decide. But I believe a faithful God will give me endurance to finish and to one day see Him, and understand the full satisfaction of a race run well.

The words, “Well done good and faithful servant” are waiting for you, if you want them. “Real life” begins when that’s what you start living for.

Hey that’s the name of Cru at Ohio State! It all makes sense now!

"Jesus wept"

Every day, I go walk into my place of work, a hospital full of dying people. But I don’t know them. I enter in through the front doors, quickly make my way up a few flights of stairs (because elevators are for wimps), put my lunch in the break room fridge and then make my way to the lab. It’s isolated there. The hum of machines and vents dominate the sound space. A timer will go off, an alarm will sound, the rattling of the keyboard, a cordial beep every time a bar code is scanned. I’m no doctor. I’m no nurse. I have no need of ever talking to a dying patient. I’ll spend my time in this lab for 8 hours and then walk out those doors after the sun sets and drive back home.

Patient names and identities are reduced to a series of numbers and letters, necessary only for identification of lab specimens. The initial amusement of funny sounding names and alternate spellings of common monikers wears off quite quickly.

Several times a day, the loudspeaker pierces through the monotony of the work, an announcement of an incoming trauma case, cardiac arrest somewhere within the confines of the massive medical complex, perhaps a stroke. The alarm goes off, the announcement is made, and my co-workers and I continue our work, perhaps more annoyed then anything by the siren. Our jobs aren’t directly affected by these codes. It makes no difference to us, yet it is entirely possible that death will shortly follow these sirens.

Specimens will occasionally come from the morgue or perhaps from an organ donor. But this reminder of death does little to provoke any fear or sadness in me. Again, it is a mild inconvenience to me as I must use a slightly different procedure for these items.

Only once have I realized that the shadow of death is real in the hospital. One winter grey afternoon, I entered the hospital doors. No doubt I was either griping about the long walk from the parking lot, the wind and the cold. I was greeted in the lobby by a weeping family. They were distraught, as hugs were exchanged and tears flooded their faces. Tissues were out, and heads were buried. I quickly moved past them and into the stairwell, but it was clear that something terrible had happened to a loved one. Someone was lost forever, ripped from their lives a moment too soon. It was a staunch reminder of the dark shadow that hovers over the place where I earn my paycheck. For all the business of the Medcenter, the construction of a massive state of the art building, the bureaucracy, and the television commercials with uplifting stories of survivors, the fact remains that several people enter that building, never to come out again. Their story will not be told in the next PR campaign.

The reality of death is all around us. And in the face of death, we ask, where is God? Where is the God who allows these injustices to occur, who allows these families to be cut down? Is he there? Does he care? Is he “good” as the greeting cards with the Bible verses say he is?

God is there. And I think I know his response to death. It’s found in John 11:35, the shortest verse in the Bible. “Jesus wept,” As Jesus is shown the tomb of his friend Lazarus, his first action is not to call him out of the tomb. Surely he knows that he will raise him from the dead. He has the power to do so, but first, he mourns him. He sees the death of his friend and knows that this is not the way things should be.

Before he is betrayed and handed over to be crucified, we find Jesus praying. He tells his disciples, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” (Matthew 11:35). He knows what cup he must drink. He knows of the glory that will follow when he will rise in 3 days. He knows he is going to be with the Father once more. But right now, the offensive face and stench of death is right in front of him.

God sees death. He sees that it is not right. He is not a God who stands idly by while his creation suffers and moans for him, whether they know it or not. He sends his Son, to live among his creation, to walk among his people while they mock him and despise him all the way to Calvary. These people are not innocent; they are part of the problem. They willingly choose sin and death over worship and life. He dies for these people, who don’t deserve this pardon, but God “demonstrates his own love for us in this; while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

I have never seen Romans 5:8 on a sympathy card from Hallmark. But this is the reminder we all need when faced with the reality of death. God did not simply sit idly, isolated from the death. He did not see redeeming his people as an inconvenience to his perfect plan, rather it was the plan the whole time. Death is defeated. Jesus does not hang on the cross forever, and he will not be found in his tomb. But that will not cheapen the ordeal that Jesus experienced.

I leave for work in a few minutes as I finish this writing. I will be annoyed by the traffic on the way to work, the lack of parking, and the business of the day. Perhaps I have exaggerated the presence of death in my job.( Don’t forget there’s a lot of “fun” things I get to play with like dermatology skin swabs, STD swabs, and things in people’s poop!) But the shadow of death looms over the entire world. Physical death is the most tangible example we have, but spiritually people are dead everywhere I look. Relationships are dead. Dreams are dead. Hope is dead. But there is a God who wants to give us life and who is there to comfort us in this world, this side of eternity. That’s what we remember this weekend on Good Friday.

That’s what we should remember every day.