Celebrating the Mystery of Faith

Christianity is a religion of paradox because without faith, there is no true Christianity. Think about it: A paradox is defined as “a statement that seems contradictory, unbelievable, or absurd but that may be true in fact.”

Christians are a people of paradox because they believe to be true what appears in the natural to be unbelievable or absurd.

Bible scholar A.W. Pink wrote that “there are many paradoxes in the Christian life, which are quite unintelligible to the wise of this world. That man has to become a fool in order to be wise (1 Cor. 3:18), that he has to become a pauper in order to be made rich (Matt. 5:3), that he has to be made weak in order to become strong (2 Cor. 12:10), are enigmas that proud philosophers cannot elucidate.”

Several weeks ago, Christians celebrated the ultimate in paradox: God became fully human that by his death and resurrection they might live forever with him.

On Sunday, June 1, the church celebrates another paradox: The Ascension of the Lord.

Jesus told his disciples it would be better for them that he leave them. I can imagine them looking squint-eyed at Jesus and saying, “What?!”

Here’s another paradox: By leaving them, Jesus could be more available to them. Now, because of Pentecost, which Christians celebrate on June 8, Jesus would be with and in them. True transformation could take place because of Jesus’ absence.

It’s all about paradox and faith, isn't it?

If committed Christians appear a bit strange, even out of place in this world, could it be because they are living this paradoxical faith in earnest? They are joyful because they mourn, free because they are bound, peaceful because they have been broken.

But make no mistake about it, living this faith has its dangers.

An ancient letter describes the paradoxical lives of early Christians: “They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens…They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh…They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven…Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again.”

Anyone who lives this faith full on will tell you that though it’s an exhilarating life, it is also peppered with trials and tribulations. That’s because it’s a life lived on the boundary between this world and the next. Walking that line is an act of faith.

Ponder how the Danish theologian and philosopher Soren Kierkegaard summarized this mystery that is inherent in Christianity: “The paradox in Christian truth is invariably due to the fact that it is the truth that exists for God. The standard of measure and the end is superhuman; and there is only one relationship possible: faith.”

For Christians looking to Ascension Sunday and Pentecost, embracing the paradox requires walking by faith in a life that celebrates the mystery, even though it’s surrounded by many “dangers, toils, and snares.”

It’s no longer a question of if: Climate change is here

During summer breaks my last two years in college, I sold cemetery property door to door in Houston, Texas. One of my favorite sales pitches was the line, “It’s not a matter of if, but when and where and under what circumstances you will need cemetery property.”

I am not a salesperson trying to convince people that global warming (the very words make some people bristle) is “out there,” like death awaiting us someday in the future. In fact, it’s not a matter of “if” you will experience it in your lifetime. That’s because the “when” has arrived. And unless we respond in appropriate ways, the “circumstances” will only get worse for us and Mother Earth.

That’s essentially the message the latest National Climate Assessment made public earlier this month. Most climate reports, relying heavily on projections, try and cast predictions for the future. This 1,300 page document, the result of some 300 scientists over four years, focused on changes already underway.

From farmers in the Midwest planting earlier because of shorter winters to extreme drought and fires in the Southwest to torrential rains and flooding in the Southeast, the report assesses changes already affecting every region of the United States.

The state where I live, Kentucky, has fared better than other parts of the nation, like where I grew up, Oklahoma, which has experienced drought and water shortages in some areas. But every region has in some way been affected.

Less than a week after this jolt of realism, two new scientific studies, in the journals Science and Geophysical Research Letters, reported that the retreat of ice in major glaciers that are part of the West Antarctic ice sheet appear to be unstoppable with the result that sea levels will rise one more meter worldwide. What’s more, the shrinking of these glaciers could trigger the collapse of the rest of the West Antarctic ice sheet raising sea levels another three to five meters.  It all may take a couple of centuries, but the demise of West Antarctica’s sea sector appears inevitable.

“It’s not a matter of if…” I thought as I heard these alarming reports.

Our options are not pleasant: We can ignore the scientific evidence, but to so would involve buying into a conspiracy theory that thousands of scientists from around the world are in collusion to intentionally misrepresent what they know to be false.

We can agree that there is something called climate change but that it is not human-made, that God or Mother Nature will correct the problem, and therefore we should do nothing.

But, as Los Angeles Times columnist Doyle McManus observes, “Noah’s flood wasn't man-made, but he still spent the money (or at least the timber) to build an ark.”

Or we can face the sobering truth:  Carbon emissions have resulted in catastrophic damage to our climate. Consider that 97 percent of climatologists who are active in research agree that humans have played a role in climate change.

I may feel small and helpless in all this. All my recycling, growing an organic garden, composting, conserving energy seem to be of no avail. Even if I rode a bike to work, what difference would it make?

And yet I refuse to lose hope that small efforts can make a difference. Though we may have to suffer consequences for how we have abused God’s creation, reversals can be made. We can help repair the Giving Tree we have so carelessly ravaged.

But it won’t happen if we ignore the scientific facts that won’t go away. We must do what we can where we can with all we can.

William Wilberforce, who fought in the late 18^th century for the abolition of slavery in Great Britain, faced seemingly insurmountable odds. The economics of slavery were so entrenched that only a handful of people thought anything could be done about it. Yet even though he was defeated time and time again, his efforts led to the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, which abolished slavery in most of the British Empire.

It was Wilberforce who said, “You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.” 

That’s where we are in regard to climate change. Whatever we choose to do, we can never tell our grandchildren we did not know.

“This dream was not for sale”

Even if you’re not a horse racing fan, you've got to love the story of how this year’s Kentucky Derby winner, California Chrome, fulfilled the dream of his owners, Steve Coburn and Perry Martin. It’s a story that inspires us to dream big and take the necessary steps to give dreams a chance of being realized.

After the Derby victory, Coburn couldn’t stop staring at the replay of the race. When a reporter asked him what he was thinking about, Coburn simply said, “Our dream child doing exactly what we thought he could do when he was a baby.”

Maybe by now you’ve read about the story that explains his comment. Several years ago Coburn was thinking about buying an air plane as a tax write-off. But that was a bit too expensive for his relative modest means. So Coburn’s wife decided they should buy a horse instead. For $8,000 they purchased a mare named Love the Chase and for $2,500 bred her with a stallion named Lucky Pulpit. From that union California Chrome was born.

Three weeks before Love the Chase gave birth to California Chrome, Coburn had a dream. He could see what the horse would look like and even how he would act.

Coburn believed his dream child was destined to win the Kentucky Derby. Before the race, he told reporters, “I know in my heart that this horse is just as good, if not better, than any horse out there today.”

One measure of how serious a person is in seeing a dream fulfilled is to find what it would take to give up on it.

Shortly after the March 8 San Felipe Stakes, Coburn and Martin were offered $6 million for 51 percent of California Chrome.  That’s more than just a chunk of change to most people, including Coburn and Martin. Indeed, they had sunk their life savings and retirement in getting California Chrome to the races.

But if they took the offer, they would have had to change the horse’s silks and replace the 77 year old trainer, Art Sherman (now the oldest trainer to win the Kentucky Derby).

And in their minds, California Chrome would no longer have been their “dream baby.”

When asked why they wouldn't sell, Coburn’s answer was simple: “Because this is our dream.” (Coburn elaborated to reporters that he told those making the offer, “Not only no, but hell no.”)

It was Olympic athlete Jesse Owens who said, “We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.”

Co-owners Coburn and Martin and trainer Sherman didn’t just dream, they believed it, they saw it, they planned it, and they worked it.

And they wouldn't allow their dream to wear a “for sale” sign.

Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul) tells the story of Monty, the son of an itinerant horse trainer. Monty dreamed of owning his own horse ranch. For his writing project during his senior year in high school, Monty wrote about his dream. His seven page paper described his 200 acre ranch in precise detail, complete with a diagram of the ranch and a floor plan for his 4,000 square foot ranch house.

The teacher scribbled an “F” on the paper. 

Monty went to the teacher and asked why the paper had received a failing mark. The grammar and syntax were fine, the teacher acknowledged. But he told Monty the dream itself was unrealistic. Then, he explained to Monty why the dream was impossible and offered to re-grade the paper if Monty would write another one with a more realistic dream. 

After thinking about it for a week, Monty turned the same paper back to the teacher and told him: “You can keep the F, and I’ll keep my dream.”

The true story ends years later with this same teacher taking his students on a field trip to a 200 acre ranch with a 4,000 square foot house owned by a now grown and successful Monty.

No one knows, of course, if the Kentucky Derby will be the last victory for California Chrome or if it’s his first win toward winning the Triple Crown.

But one thing is for sure: He has already made believers out of doubters because his owners were willing to risk it all and tell potential buyers: “You can keep the money; we’ll keep our dream.”

The victory of staying with it

The year was 1965. We---my mother, dad, and older brother, Mark--- had just finished supper.

That’s when Eric called to speak to Mark.

Just a few hours before, I had been playing football on the sandlot team Mark had formed after I had hounded him to do so. The sandlot team was my only hope of playing, since I was still too young for Washington Elementary School’s football team.  Eric was even younger than I was. Mark was the perfect coach for our team. After all, he played football for the mighty Bulldogs of Altus High. He coached us up, and even scheduled a game with another team that one of his football buddies had formed.

Then Eric called.

I perked up and tried to hear what he was saying.

Eric had a slight speech impediment and couldn’t pronounce his “r’s.” Besides that, his voice sounded nervous, like he was afraid to say whatever it was he was going to say. He could barely get a word out, as if he were chewing on each letter, stretching Mark’s one syllable name into three.

 “Ma-a-k,” Eric stammered.

“Yes, Eric,” Mark said.

“Ma-a-k,” Eric repeated.

“Yes, Eric,” Mark said again.

“Ma-a-k,” Eric said a third time.

“Yes, Eric, what is it you are trying to say?”

And then all at once, so quickly I almost missed it, in a rapid fire response Eric spit out the words, finally stating the reason for his call: “I wanna quit.”

That was it, not good news, for we would have to find another kid for Eric’s position, and our game was just a few days away. We wondered, should we give it up and disband the team? Quitting seemed easier than finding a replacement for Eric.

Quitting is almost always easier than enduring.

I heard a story about a prominent pastor who abruptly resigned. He wasn’t leaving for another church: He was leaving the ministry altogether.

His congregation was shocked. It was a good church; he was well liked; his salary was sufficient.  

When they asked him why, he simply said, “The relentless return of Sunday.”

For you it may be the relentless return of Monday. Or the deafening sound of silence at the dinner table, where you meet each evening with that person you no longer seem to know or care for. Or maybe it’s the daily screech of the rusty medicine cabinet door, reminding you that your illness is not going away, that your life is grinding down.

True, sometimes walking away is the best thing to do; it can even be more courageous than staying.

Some relationships need to die; it’s best to leave some jobs; and we outgrow some hobbies.

There is a time to quit.

But not often. Or easily.

Quitting can become a way of life, if we let it.

When Seinfeld’s George Costanza (Jason Alexander) managed to get fired from his volunteer job at the retirement home, he encouraged Jerry and Elaine to quit and join him:  "Yeah, I'm a great quitter: It's one of the few things I do well. ... I come from a long line of quitters. My father was a quitter, my grandfather was a quitter. ... I was raised to give up."

The world most of us live in doesn’t permit us to do only what we want and give up the rest.

Jay Kesler, President Emeritus of Taylor University, wrote that his experience in life suggests that maybe 15 percent of our time is spent doing the things we love, and about 15 percent of the time we do the things we hate but are required to do.

 “The remaining majority of the time,” he observed, “is spent just doggedly getting your work done, going through the routine, fulfilling obligations, and keeping promises.”

Not every Sunday is Easter Sunday: Crowds come and go, but the call to obedience remains.

And with it comes joy, when we refuse to give up.

Maybe quitting our team was the right thing for young Eric to do. Football may not have been his sport.

But it was meant for us to persevere and play the cross-town rival on a crisp Saturday in late September. Eddie Carder did suffer a dislocated thumb; I took a shot on the chin; Jimmy Coker scraped a knee; and thanks to a girl, Kelly Copeland, who much to our surprise could play with the best of the guys, we found a fine replacement for Eric.

And yes, we won the game.

But the lesson I learned in the process was much larger than winning a sandlot football game.

The option of quitting may look like sweet relief.

But staying with it is a victory regardless of the scoreboard

What happens after the resurrection?

I heard about a town in Southwest Oklahoma that had a community-wide Easter pageant. It so happened that the character chosen to play Jesus had obviously been miscast; he was more suited for the part of a Roman soldier.

This man, a roughneck, a seasoned oil field worker, was known for an occasional barroom brawl.  With his burly physical presence and no-nonsense personality, he could have easily moonlighted as a bouncer, had he wanted the job.

After weeks of rehearsal, the day of the Pageant finally arrived. It was a moving scene when Jesus was carrying the cross to Calvary. A host of characters shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

At that point, one little man who was only filling in as a second, got caught up in the emotion. Forgetting himself, he truly played the part, shouting “Crucify him!” with energetic gusto. This small man, who could have posed as the skinny guy in the “before” pictures for the old Charles Atlas commercials, was so into the moment that he shouted insult upon insult at Jesus.

And then he did the unthinkable:  He spit in the face of Jesus.

What did the big, brawny, tough guy do? He stopped, wiped the spit  from his face, glared at the puny man, took one step toward him, and whispered through clenched teeth, “I’ll be back to take care of you after the resurrection!”

It’s been my observation that too many Christians recast Jesus’ post-resurrection image into a character that crushes, dominates, and subdues his enemies by force.

And too often it seems his followers play the part of the character they have created in their own image, using the Bible as a holy club to intimidate the world’s résistance, pursing opponents with a full court gospel press.

These Christians make the mistake of confusing what they say about Jesus with what he actually said.

What he did say after the resurrections was “Peace be with you.” Those are some of the first words he spoke to his frightened little band of followers.  “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you,” (John 20:19; 21), he told them.

The same Jesus who said, “Love your enemies,” is the same Jesus who appeared to the disciples after the resurrection. He didn't come back as a Greco-Roman style, conquering Caesar, intent on retaliating against those who had opposed or failed him and his cause. You don’t find the resurrected Jesus hounding Pilate, putting him in a headlock, and taunting, “You asked ‘What is truth?’ Well, how does it feel now, you little punk?”

Going in peace is rooted in something deeper than international politics, although it most certainly involves that. It has everything to do with how Christians treat those unlike them, those who do not hold the Christians’ particular perspective on the truth and consequently live a different lifestyle, those who dare oppose that for which Christians stand and hold sacred.

The gospel of peace affects the way Christians treat the vulnerable, the unfortunate, the outcast, the resident aliens, and yes, the earth and its creatures. It is shown in how they use or abuse the power they have been temporarily given. It is reflected in their actions more than their words, in whether they exult in the power of love or the love of power.

I read about an international student who came to the United States to study at a Christian school. She was a bright and brilliant young student but not a believer in Christ.

“How can we ever convince her to become a follower?” some Christian students asked.

Eventually the student did make a commitment to become a Christian. Someone asked her what argument convinced her to make that decision. “It wasn't any argument,” she said. “It was another student.”

Then she spoke of a student, one not particularly popular or well known, who had accepted the international student for who she was.  “No, she did not use any arguments,” she emphasized. “She just built a bridge of love from her heart to mine, and Christ walked over it.”

That would be the Christ of peace who walked over the bridge of love into the young lady’s heart.

And that would be the same One who sends Christians on their way.

Into the world.

With peace. 

He's Alive!

Years ago when our son, Dave, Jr., was about 7 or 8 years old, he awoke early one Easter morning before anyone but I was awake, and he immediately began singing the chorus of the Don Francisco song, “He’s Alive.”

“He's alive yes He's alive/Yes He's alive and I'm forgiven,” Dave sang as he hopped out of bed.

At first, before I could understand what he was singing, I thought something was wrong with him: Maybe he was having a bad dream or was sick and crying for help.

But no, nothing was wrong; in fact, everything was right, for the little guy was excited that Easter had arrived: He was ready to celebrate, exulting in the fact that Jesus is alive and because of that, our sins are forgiven.

Sometime later that day, as I was at church, I thought how sad it is that so often as we grow older, we think we have outgrown the excitement Easter should bring. It’s an old story, after all. We've heard it over and over; we know what happens.

And yet, as we contemplate the living Christ, the One who is alive from the dead, as we try to unpack the implications of that, our hearts will hopefully come alive with the God who is always the Lord of the eternal Now, and well as the everlasting Tomorrow.

As Bible scholar, N.T. Wright said, “Easter was when Hope in person surprised the whole world by coming forward from the future into the present.” 

The depth of that truth is certainly something worth shouting about, if not vocally, at least in your heart.

I’m reminded of a story I read years ago in Leadership Journal by Vernon Grounds. It was a vignette from the life of the British preacher, W.E. Sangster.

Sangster was known for his effectiveness in the pulpit. In the mid-1950s, while lecturing in Texas, Sangster noticed that he had difficulty swallowing and walking. He was subsequently diagnosed with a type of progressive muscular atrophy. Gradually, the physicians told him, his muscles would waste away, and he would no longer be able to swallow.

Sangster threw himself into his work. He wrote; he spoke; he did all he could to proclaim the Good News of the gospel. When people pitied him, he would say, “I’m only in the kindergarten of suffering.”

Finally, he was completely immobilized and could barely speak. Shakily holding a pen in his hand he wrote a letter on Easter Sunday to his daughter, Margaret Phippin. In that letter, Sangster said, “It is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice with which to shout, ‘He is risen!’---but it would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout.”

Sangster would live only a few more weeks. But in reality, he had become truly alive.

Whether you shout, “He’s alive,” or “He is risen,” I hope you at least have it in your heart to shout. And even if no one hears the cry of your heart as you praise the Lord, God will.

And he will be rejoicing with you.

How long till Easter?

He was sitting on the front pew, crumpled over in a heap, like one of those college basketball players writhing on the court because his team has just lost a game in the Final Four.

Only this young man had not just lost a game. He had lost his mother. She had been killed in a car accident that morning as she drove to church---the church I pastor.

I knew her well: a good, godly woman.

I had just concluded the service with prayer when a parishioner whispered, “I think you might be needed over there.” That’s when I saw him, the son of the lady who had just died. I didn’t know of her death until he spewed the words in between gasps, “My…mother…just…died.”

He had come into the worship service as I was completing my sermon about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.

“I heard a little of what you said,” he told me as I tried to console him.

How do you listen to even a teensy bit of a sermon when your mother has suddenly died?

You do when your insides feel like they are about to cave in and you can’t catch your breath, when you are desperate to hear something, anything that might offer a glimmer of hope (even if you have no clue what that hope is), when you are grasping for a word that might begin to answer The Question---you know The Question, the one bubbling up deep within you, passing uncontrollably from your lungs to your throat, erupting in a voice that has no voice, a voice you don’t recognize as your own because it’s silent and can only be felt, not heard---The Question you fear has no answer but you know you must ask anyway, for you somehow know that if you don’t ask there is no possibility of receiving even a morsel of bread, a tangible word that will wrap itself around your soul like a warm blanket on a cold, lonely night, giving you a reason to carry on in the absence, the emptiness, the darkness, even if that word is nothing more than a glint, an inkling, a spark--- a mere flickering menorah lighting your way out of the shadows to the Eternal Present that seems in that moment to be the Eternal Absent.

And so you ask.

Why?

And in asking you shake and bow your head for you know the answer is the mystery of the universe and the whirlwind therein.

Encapsulated in the Why? is the How? (You must face it, after all.) How do you go on in this in- between time, the four days Lazarus lay in the tomb, the time before Jesus, tardy by choice, showed up---and is late, too late---at least from our view of the matter?

We are stuck in these four days, for we too wait for Jesus to arrive. Wringing our hands, pacing back and forth, peering into the horizon, we ask, Where is he? Why doesn’t he show? If only he had been there to direct the car away from that tree, the crunch of the metal would have been averted and life preserved.

With my arm around the young man, I pull him in and feel his body weep uncontrollably, convulsing under the weight of his loss.

After he arrived four days too late to save Lazarus from death, the Scripture says Jesus was “deeply moved.” One Bible scholar notes that those two English words describing Jesus are one word in Greek and used to describe a horse snorting.  Jesus felt it; he entered into our pain, taking it upon himself.  

We live between the now of incompleteness and the then of redemption.

Holy Week is about waiting, anticipating.  And it’s not easy.

“How long till Easter?” we cry.

But we are not alone. The German theologian Jürgen Moltmann in one sentence summarized this four day period where we, like Martha and Mary, wait on Jesus. It’s the time between the crucifixion on Friday and the resurrection on Sunday; it’s the span of our lives, of human history. “"God weeps with us so that we may someday laugh with him," Moltmann said.

We may weep now, but make no doubt about it, Easter is not far away.

Even now the Dawn is breaking, the Son is rising, the Day is approaching.

It’s almost time to laugh.