Posts Tagged ‘suffering’

really good seats

September 10, 2009

If you want the good seats, you have to get in line early. You have to spend the night. You have to pay extra to get really close.

Unless, of course, you are going to a messy show.

If it’s a messy show, where the person up front sprays water or smashes watermelons, you want to sit back far enough to be safe. There is a very fine line between “up close” and “in your face.”

For Mrs. Zebedee, the mother of James and John, the goal was to be as close as possible. She asked Jesus if her boys could have the best seats in the house, right next to Jesus. (It’s interesting to me that she was pretty sure that Jesus was going to have a kingdom.)

She missed the previous conversation. She missed the part about Jesus being killed when he got to Jerusalem. And her boys apparently hadn’t filled her in.

Look at this as a time of prayer. The mother kneels. She requests blessing for her children.

Jesus was pretty gentle with the three of them. He could have criticized the request, but he didn’t. Instead, he led them in a conversation that they probably didn’t understand. He asked if they could drink from the cup he was going to drink from. Probably imagining a royal goblet, they agreed. Probably talking about a cup of suffering, Jesus agreed with them and then said that the seating arrangements were up to the host of the party, not him.

They were going to end up in the messy seats, the ones right next to the blood, James within a couple years. John, late in his life, was going to get a preview of the royal cup and the throne.

Her request was answered. God’s way. Not hers.

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Because of me

February 4, 2009

Christ followers are dying right now. I’ll be more accurate. They are being killed right now.

Because of Jesus.

Because they decided, somewhere, somehow, to identify with Jesus, they are being killed and harassed and robbed and tortured and exiled.

Jesus was clear. Being identified with Him is dangerous.

He said:

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. [Matthew 5:11-12]

And then, a couple years later, he was insulted, he was lied about, he was persecuted, and he was killed. He described, ahead of time, what happened to him.

But then,

1. He speaks historically about what only he would know. He says to rejoice because there will be a great reward in heaven, because the prophets were persecuted and, he implies, they got a great reward in heaven. How would Jesus know that? He was there when they got the reward.

2. He speaks predictively about what only he would know. He says to rejoice because there will be a great reward in heaven which, Paul says, happens to Jesus. According to Philippians 2:5-11,  He (Jesus) willingly “became obedient to death.” God then lifted him up.

But there is a condition.

The persecution comes “because of me.”

Sometimes we decide what Jesus would like. We think that He would really like it if we told people to stay off the lawn he made, for example. We don’t ask him, we just decide. When people get mad, we think they’re mad at him.

They aren’t.

They are mad at us deciding for him and for them what he is saying.

Just let him speak.

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up and down

January 17, 2009

[Matthew 3:17-4:2]

The heavens parted.

We use that phrase jokingly when someone is about to make some dramatic pronouncement. In the situation that Matthew talks about, there was a dramatic pronouncement. Though not a joke, it feels pretty friendly.

The Father says of the Son, “I’m proud of him.”

And then, while there is still a warm feeling, the scene changes.

Jesus is led out into the desert.

Jesus doesn’t eat for forty days and nights.

Satan shows up and suggests that Jesus make some bread out of the rocks.

We look at the story and we cheer for Jesus. We talk about how well he resists the temptation to turn well-baked stones into no-need-to-bake loaves. We sing about how he quotes Deuteronomy to the devil.

But our optimism is because we are looking at the story long after the forty days are over. We’ve got to look at it from ground level.

Jesus gets the affirmation of his life. What he already knew to be true is stated to his cousin and whoever else was around. From a human perspective, this is as big an affirmation as you can have.

And then Jesus is directed to the desert.  There is no food. And the next day, no food. And the next day, no food and the next day and the next. And then, when he was in the desert as long as Moses had been on the mountain, as long as Noah watched it rain, satan shows up.

Big high, long period of dryness, big confrontation.

It sounds exactly like the lives of many people I know. Just when they think that God loves them, stuff blows up. And they wonder where the love is.

But God’s love isn’t measured by weeks.

Relationship never is.

And Jesus understands.

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I don’t know.

January 9, 2009

Drew is 27. He has been married for a couple years. He’s at the hospital. He’s elated. His wife just had a baby. Their first. He walks out. He drives away. A truck hits his car.

He’s dead.

His dad’s a pastor. He’s a great kid.  His wife’s a great kid. He’s a golf course manager. He’s in Florida because he did a great job for the same owner in Fort Wayne.

He’s dead.

I don’t know why.

Any answer about lives that will be touched, almost any answer at all, still leaves Drew dead and his child fatherless and his wife a widow and his dad and mom hollow.

I talked to a lady in my office the other day. She is having surgery next week. She is scared, a little. She has kids who aren’t old.  I talked to her about what Jesus had said about the Father’s love. As I talked to her, I acknowledged that what I was saying was easy for me to say, given that I’m not having surgery next week. I told her that I was just repeating what Jesus had said about his Father.

Why her?

I don’t know why.

But here’s what I know.

  • I know that God the Father knows exactly what it is like to lose a good child in the prime of life.
  • I know that standing next to a child’s grave I knew God’s presence.
  • I know that when John (the baptizing one) was facing death, he wanted to be sure that Jesus was Jesus.
  • I know that Jesus didn’t scold him, didn’t punish him, didn’t say “jinx”.
  • I know that a pediatric neurosurgeon said that having faith doesn’t keep you from asking questions but it helps you not have to push so hard for answers.

You know?

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