"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.

vaccinations

I work at a hospital, and there is hospital policy that all employees get vaccinated for the flu every year. That makes sense. I work in a building that is full of sick people. I should take every incentive to protect myself against influenza.

The deadline for getting vaccinated is the end of the year. If an employee doesn’t want to get the shot, he has to sign a waiver and complete a computer based learning module on vaccinations and the flu. Or he could just not do either, and then lose computer access and not be permitted to come into work, and subsequently lose his job.

What is the motivation for the vaccination? Is it to avoid taking an online quiz? Is it to avoid losing my job? Or is it to avoid getting the flu?

It seems obvious that avoiding the flu should be the clear cut answer. As an employee of the hospital, it’s free, so nothing is stopping me from walking into employee health services and getting the needle. 

Considering my work environment I should really take advantage of the vaccination. Still, the email reminders I get every week place a greater emphasis on potential disciplinary action I could receive if I don’t get the shot then on the whole avoiding being sick thing.

I have little interest in getting the vaccination. I have faith in my superior immune system. I drink lots of orange juice and wash my hands all the time. But the fact remains that day after day I walk into a building with the distinct possibility of touching an infected door knob or pass by a sneezing patient.

The idea of sin being a virus, a sickness, a disease, is nothing new in Christian circles. (I even wrote about it once before here) There is a world of sin all around us. We put high stock in our own ability to avoid sin and temptation. We think we will not make the same mistakes again, that we have learned from the past, that we have been to enough church services and Bible studies, and know all the verses to combat sin. Our confidence is in ourselves to beat temptation, and that rarely yields positive results.

We have Christ as our “vaccination” against sin. We are confident of our position before the Father if we are in Christ and know that sin has no power against us. Still, Christ is used simply as our reason to not “get fired” from heaven, all the while forgetting that Christ gives strength for today to actively fight sin.

“And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” Romans 8:11

We need Christ because he gives us life in dying, infected world. Just don’t forget that not only does it give us the benefit of living with God forever as some abstract idea in the future, but that it gives us hope and strength for life today in the very present. Sin isn’t just conquered in the future when Christ returns, but it is conquered today. 

real vs reality

Last weekend it was 80 degrees outside, and I found myself raking leaves in shorts and a t-shirt. If I wanted to, I could have taken my shirt off, but there were no ladies around to impress. The calendar told me it was October, and my experience with the previous 21 Octobers told me it should have been much cooler.

So I finished cleaning up the front yard, knowing that mom and dad would be proud of my hard work. However, when I got home from work that night, you couldn’t tell that I spent two hours piling up leaves and hauling them away. Part of this was my propensity for shoddy yard work, and part of it was that the rest of the leaves from the trees in the yard fell while I was away. Either way, the semi-clean lawn that I worked on all afternoon was gone.

What is real is not always reality. However, reality always catches up in the end.

What is real, is that in the fleeting days of October, it was a balmy 80 degrees. What is reality is that the earth’s axis is moving the northern hemisphere away from the sun and cold is inevitable (as was proved this week).

What is real is that I did an adequate job of raking the leaves. What is reality is that I will have to rake again, but it will be much easier the second time than if I waited for all the leaves to fall.

In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian church he writes, “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has passed; The new has come!”  2 Corinthians 5:17

What was real is that we were once dead in our sin, but we are now alive in Christ. What is reality right now is that we live in a world full of sin, and we continually return to our sinful habits.

“Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.” Proverbs 26:11

What is real is that despite several years of recognizing my sins dealing with lust and sexual purity, I still struggle. What is reality is that Christ has given me his righteousness and he God calls me his son, for “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” Romans 8:1

What is real is that I live with my parents and feel alone when I go through the week, not seeing the brothers and sisters in Christ that I locked arms with for years in college.

What is reality is that those same friends yesterday are still the same friends today, and “A friend loves at all times and a brother is bred for adversity” Proverbs 17:17. There are constant reminders in my life that the feelings of loneliness and isolation are lies, and that I have not been forgotten. My self-worth is not to be found in my friends, but in the fact that Christ sought after me while I was still a long way off.

What is real is that some Sundays in church and even when I read the Bible, I feel like I am reading the same passages and hearing tired clichés.

What is reality is that God’s truth is timeless, and truth doesn’t change, but it does transform people. Yes it sounds the same because God is still the same. And God’s unchangeable and perfect character is something that should be praised. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever” Hebrews 13:8

My favorite book of the Bible is 2 Corinthians. Paul is writing to the church in light of “Superapostles” who have come to undermine Paul’s teaching, to tell them that Jesus is not enough. They preach something more than he had written them previously, “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2)

 My post college life is telling me that the past four years were just an experience to be had. That I had just gone through a “Christian” phase. I need to just focus on my job and earning money so I can support myself and a family one day. That should be a reward in itself. You can keep going to church, after all, it’s good to persevere the traditions. But don’t go too crazy with it. Don’t waste your time sitting in silence, “praying” when you could be doing something else more productive. Indulge in your sexual desires. It’s natural and it would be barbaric to suppress them. The Jesus you can tell people about is the one who only told people to treat others as yourself. Ignore the part that said to love God with all your heart soul and mind. (Matthew 22:34-40).

What is real is that the entirety of my faith is being attacked everyday.

What is reality is this:

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-17

I live in a world where sin is prevalent and stumbling blocks are numerous.

I’m heading for a world where there are no tears, and no obstacles to God.

That world is already here. I can choose to live in that truth, or not.

are you not entertained?

Do people want to be inspired and find real truth, a motivation for living a life that is much bigger than themselves, or do they simply want to be entertained? This old Calvin and Hobbes comic strip summarizes perfectly what I want to get across:

“… if we can’t find inspiration, we’ll accept entertainment.”

-Hobbes, the Tiger from Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Waterson

I don’t understand a lot of popular culture and the fascination with celebrities. I don’t want to keep up with any Kardashians, (did you know that they obtained their original fame because the father (who isn’t even alive anymore) defended OJ Simpson?), and I pass by the tabloid magazines in the grocery store with disgust. I don’t want to dance with any stars, because first of all, I don’t think those people are “stars.” Elaine’s boss from Seinfeld was one of the original “stars!” Come on! Yet these shows and people attract a lot of attention and garner huge twitter followings. The Bible tells us to avoid idol worship, yet we have shows that don’t simply encourage people to worship idols, but to become an American Idol.

Some of these celebrities use their status fame and fortune to draw attention to worthy causes I’ll admit. They become spokespeople for humanitarian causes, disease research, all admirable actions. But I have a hunch that most people aren’t drawn to their personality because their donating money to charity. At the end of the day, charitable donations are nothing more than a small section on the Wikipedia page of a famous person.

It’s much easier for everyday people to entertain than it is to inspire as well. Friends can spend hours joking with each other, exchanging sarcastic bites, or discussing the intricacies of college football. Comic relief is my go to mechanism when things begin to strike a little too close to home. I’d rather have people laugh at my jokes than actually know my heart. I confess that numerous times as I sit down to write a post, or tweet, or write a facebook status, the goal in mind is to see how many page views, retweets, favorites, or likes I can get.

Ultimately, we know that people, no matter how famous, no matter how smart, no matter how clever, will fail us. Our earthly heroes can’t entertain us forever, and they certainly don’t inspire us for very long. This shouldn’t be news to you. So the obvious choice for inspiration is Jesus, right?

Except that we approach Jesus the same way we approach anyone else, looking either for inspiration and entertainment. And far too often, we prefer entertainment over inspiration.

 

“Yeah, that whole Jesus dying on the cross for my sins 2000 years ago was cool, but what has he done for me lately?” That sounds like a ridiculous statement to many, and I doubt many of you would ever say that, but I know that describes the attitude of my heart sometimes, and I’m sure it does of yours as well. Why else are we drawn to the cool looking worship leader and his v-neck t-shirts and the “hipster Christianity” scene? Why do we read all the new hip Christian pastors and authors and their new books that seem to come out once a month? Why is it so easy to read all the Christian literature out there, but neglect the boring, timeless, dull Bible, the active and living word of God? (How can so many words that seem to contradict each other describe the same book in that previous sentence? And what’s the deal with all these rhetorical questions? Doesn’t Phil know any other literary devices?)

Why is it so easy to look past the Gospel?

Christianity isn’t that hard to understand. God loves us. People rejected God’s love and choose sin. God still loves us so he sent Jesus to die for our sins. We can accept Jesus or reject him. There it is. Put bluntly, that’s Christianity. In those books that we read, a lot of it boils back down to these points. For some reason that’s not good enough for us. We either try to add more, and write a Gospel according to yourself, or get bored and tired of the whole Christian scene all together, and look to be entertained or inspired elsewhere.

And there’s the problem. You don’t come to Christ looking to be entertained. You come to Christ looking for life. You don’t come so you can carry around a Bible verse as a mere pick me up in your back pocket every day. You come to Christ so you can carry around the word of God for the sheer joy of just knowing God’s character, so you can know the realities of a redeemed kingdom in the midst of a fallen word.

If you're looking for entertainment, you the world has all your needs. If you are looking for life, only Christ has your needs. 

the final score

I really enjoy the approaching autumn season for a number of reasons. A few of them in no particular order is the return of Oktoberfest-style brews, a chance for my superior fashion sense to shine in cooler weather (the key to fall fashion is layers), apple cider, and of course the return of football.

It’s been well documented the August is the worst month for sports fans in the calendar year. August baseball leaves much to be desired before the playoff push, and as a nation, we just pine for the pigskin to return to the forefront of the scene.

Now some of you may be saying “Hey Phil, the Olympics happened during August!” And you’re right, they did happen. But I’m going to argue that the Olympics aren’t actually about sport, but more about nationalistic pride and human interest stories.

Let’s look at women’s soccer for example. The team was pretty popular in London, everyone seemed to be following the team and its (lucky) road to a gold medal. And while the national team commands a lot of respect, sadly, no one actually cares about the sport or state of women’s soccer. There’s a reason there isn’t a profitable women’s soccer league in the US. People won’t pay to see the product. They don’t care about the players. They care more about the country, more about the prestige, the pride of winning for their country as opposed to the sport itself. Women’s soccer, and the rest of the Olympic sports, will become, and already has become, an afterthought in the public’s mind.

Now contrast that with the atmosphere in Columbus, Ohio. Officially, college football season starts in September, but anyone in Columbus will tell you that the season never ends. Ohio State is always on the front page of the sports section, regardless of whether it’s November or April. In Indiana, where there is an emphasis on fundamentals, chest passes, and jump shots, Hoosier nation is always in basketball mode. In Boston, every move the Red Sox make in the off-season is scrutinized.

Even in these hotbeds of sports, it’s possible to find the fan that doesn’t really care about the sport. In a stadium of 100,000 plus, it’s not that hard to find. Some are in the stadium to stand and cheer, have a few drinks, and if the team wins, fantastic, they’ll have a fun party afterwards, say their share of Michigan jokes, and head home. But some of these fans can’t tell the difference in a defense between a cover 2 zone or man coverage. They complain when their quarterback gets sacked without looking to see if the offensive line did their job, or whether the receivers got open. All they care about, in the end, is school pride and the final score.

Are you a “final score Christian” or one who immerses himself/herself in the scripture, wanting to know everything you possibly can about the God you say you believe in? Would you read those articles about the team in April when the team isn’t actually playing the game, or simply read the headline and the lead, shrug your shoulders, and then move on with the rest of your life? Do you stand and cheer on Sundays, leave church or a weekly meeting feeling entertained, or challenged? Do you know the tune to the fight song and hymns but have no recollection of the words?

Jesus warns us in Matthew 7

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’"

Team Jesus doesn't need more fans. It needs  more who are willing to pick up their cross, to regard what they once held dear lost, as literally trash, for the sake of Christ.

Team Jesus doesn't need more fans. It needs more followers.

résumés and reference lists

The whole concept of a résumé is very interesting. First of all, trying to find out how to type the e with an accent over it is very difficult. People work very hard to make an impressive résumé. They format it with different tricks in word processing programs to make sure that all the columns and bullet points are uniform, and that there is no wasted space on the page. You know, to look professional, as if looking professional can somehow overshadows the lack of content and experience in the actual document. Some people, in an effort to fill their résumé with relevant experience jam pack their lives with internships and temporary jobs, or while they are still in school, with loads of extracurricular activities. They’ll spend time at a job they hate or work of an organization they don’t believe in, just so they can fill their résumé with noteworthy accomplishments.

Equally important is the reference list. The list of people you know will talk you up as the perfect worker for the company. You put people who like you and want to see you succeed. You’ve built up relationships with these people at various encounters in life, and you trust them to make you look good.

Résumés are important when applying for jobs. But employers are smart people. They know all the formatting tricks people use, see through the flowery descriptive language and adjectives,  and they get suspicious when they see you can only keep a job for 1 year, or if you’ve stretched yourself thin with all the extra things you do. When you submit a résumé online, a lot of times, the formatting goes out the window after you copy and paste the text into a box that only allows so many characters, or email it to a recruiter, and their word processer is different than yours so that when its printed out, it no longer fits neatly and perfectly on one sheet of paper. What’s more important than the piece of paper is the interview, where another human being can analyze and see the person who is hiding behind the piece of paper.

All Christians have a Christian résumé, for good or bad. Its there whether we like it or not. How we fill it and format it is up to us. We highlight different aspects of our lives in it. How long we’ve been leading a Bible study, how much we give on Sundays, how often we volunteer our time at charitable organizations and so forth. On paper, we can appear to have the perfect résumé. Now these things are important, but how did they get on the page? 

Did they appear because they flowed naturally from our lives? Did we see the beauty of what Christ did on the cross, and in response to that, our lives appeared radically changed due to a holy calling? Or did we see Christ on the cross and decide that wasn’t good enough, and that we must somehow add to it, and that we must earn God’s approval?

Do we perform so that we might earn God’s approval, or because we know that we already have God’s approval?

The following comes from Hebrews 10: 1-4

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, 4 because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Good works can become the modern day blood of bulls and goats in our Gentile culture. God knows our true hearts, our true intentions.

I’ve been to handful of job interviews in my day, and I am by no means an expert. I have noticed though, that during an interview, the employer will quickly glance at my résumé, and then put it back in the folder, and then proceed to grill me with questions. That document I worked so hard on for several hours to make it look just right is lost within an HR file and will be placed back among several hundred others just like it.

God looks straight at our hearts, or more accurately, right through our hearts. 

“And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” Hebrews 4:13.

So are you working to fill your résumé with a bunch of accomplishments, trying to spice it up with a fancy header? Or do you come before God leaving your résumé at home. You have one, and it’s full of great noteworthy things, but you know it won’t impress. Instead you come simply with a reference list that only lists Christ? (Cheesy, yes I know) 

But seriously, if you are standing before God, or actually, let’s change the audience. Hopefully if you’re reading this you would know how to respond to God. If you are talking to a friend who asks you what it means to be a Christian, what would you point to? Your church attendance, your upright code of morals? Or will you acknowledge your sin and admit that you are helpless apart from Jesus?  Will you tout your super Christian piece of paper, or use the reference list?

art critic

I’ve had the opportunity to tour two art museums with supposedly great reputations in the last year, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Cleveland Museum of Art. At the Art Institute, my buddy Crawdaddy and I walked into the “Modern Art” exhibit and were less than thrilled with what we saw. I was unaware that monotone squares that looked like an empty chalkboard constituted art.  I kid you not, one slab of gray canvas hung on the wall was called “Untitled” that was valued at several hundred thousand dollars. We were very confused and were out of the exhibit within 5 minutes very angry.

At the Cleveland museum of art, I thought it would be more entertaining to pose like naked statues on the floor, much to the chagrin of the curator who gave me the quite the look as I laid down in my “Jeff Goldblum Jurassic Park” pose in front of some ancient civilization statue and for the rest of the night, she seemed to stalk me from exhibit to exhibit.

Anyway, the only art that I can appreciate are paintings that actually look like something. Paintings that look like scenery are a big favorite of mine. Or portraits of historical figures are always fun too, because I know that the picture of George Washington looks like George Washington. Don’t splatter some paint on a canvas and tell me that the spots explain some post-modern relative truth (nothing about that last sentence made sense. See what I did there?) Still, I can’t just gaze into any painting for hours on end and be moved to tears, simply because I don’t know enough about art. I know other artists who can probably do that, but not this guy.

However, merely having knowledge doesn't necessarily mean that one is more capable of appreciating art. You can understand the background and time period of an artist, see the symbolism, understand shadows and color schemes, and a whole bunch of other artistic sounding terms (I don’t know if what I just typed actually means anything. But it sounds cool so just run with it). You can be so caught up in the technical aspects of art, that can you fail to be amazed by the art. Art ceases being art, it just becomes a skill, a trade that can be mastered.

In The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brenen Manning writes, “A Philistine will stand before a Claude Monet painting and pick his nose; a person filled with wonder will stand there fighting back tears”

I often get caught up in the technical aspects of Christianity. This causes me to stop standing in awe of who God is, and instead, I become a critic. This attitude manifests itself in several ways. I judge the quality of a church service by my own standards, whether or not it agrees to my standards of what a church service should look like. I can become a Christian snob if you will, thinking that the teaching is too elementary for my liking, and won’t benefit my personal walk. Somehow, my four years of participation in ministry and the latest hip Christian book I read has somehow qualified me to make judgments on church and the walks of other Christians, as I elevate myself above everyone else around me. (I mean I have my own blog! Not everyone can get their own blog right?)

I make Christianity into a religion that is built and suited to serve only me and my pious expectations. I twist scripture into a formula that goes like this: I do good things to earn God’s blessing and approval. Even though I know full well that my thinking is far from Biblical, and instead that I can’t do anything to earn God’s blessing, that I can’t do enough to impress God and it is only because God chooses to move, independent of what I do, that I can experience his love. But this is how I see God sometimes, not as the almighty king of the universe, but as a lowly servant meant to make my life comfortable. This is how I become an appraiser of God rather than simply, a praiser of God (I’m so clever).

Keeping with this whole “art” theme I got going on here, read Psalm 104, which shows how God is truly the perfect artist as it describes God’s creation. Here, he clearly is not here to act as my personal fairy godmother, but rather this shows God’s true dominion over the universe.

I must constantly be reminded that I am in position to remove myself from God’s landscape and sit in the peanut gallery. Instead, I must recognize that I am a small part of God’s plan, a part of God’s plan not by my own doing, but by His. I must see God for who he really is, great and powerful and perfect, and myself as I really am, as small and sinful.

The true beauty of God’s plan and art is that he uses sinful people to carry out his perfect and holy plan. Think about that for a second. And I mean really think about that. It might be a truth you hear every week in church, but the paradox of Christianity is that a perfect God uses imperfect people. That kind of logic transcends human logic because 

“…my thoughts are not your thoughts and neither are our ways my ways, declares the Lord. Far as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thought than your thoughts,” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

If God’s thoughts are on an entirely different plain than our own, are we really fit to sit back and criticize God, or even just sit back and pick our noses, not seeing the contrast between ourselves and God? Or should we instead be in constant amazement, wanting to know more about this God we serve, and why he thought it best to send Christ to save us from ourselves?