Destiny vs Destination

Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14.5-6)

Finding Oneself

I met a most fascinating woman many years ago—so long ago I don’t recall her name or the occasion that brought us together. But our conversation was unlike any I’ve ever had, because her story was unlike any I’d ever heard. She was near or past 70, and had just sailed around the world on a series of tramp steamers. The instant I heard this, my movie brain kicked in. I envisioned her voyage in black-and-white, with her wandering through one exotic port of call after another. Yet when I asked her what the experience was like, she said, “It was tedious.” I would imagine an adventure on that scale being anything but tedious, I said. “Oh, but it is,” she told me, “because of the scale of it. Most of the time is spent at sea on a working ship, with a crew that more or less puts up with you. I read a lot of books, spent most of my time alone, and stared at nothing but blue sea. And while I did see a lot of the world, the touring became secondary to the rest of it. I learned that traveling the world—flying here and there—is much different than sailing around it. You have no idea how big the planet is until you do that.”

Her appearance hinted that she was a woman of means. So I asked if the adventure ever got so tedious that she considered forgetting the whole thing and flying home. “The first two or three times we put into port I battled that,” she told me. “But I eventually realized I’d bit off something bigger than sailing from point to point. The trip stopped being about any particular destination. It became about me, and what I was learning about myself in the middle of nowhere. I began to understand time and space, thinking and not thinking in new ways. I learned how to wake up every day with no greater goal than letting the day be, and being in the day.” Though she didn’t articulate it as such, her comments rang with a sense of destiny, the process of finding oneself—in her case, of finding her place in the world by discovering how big the world really is.

Letting Each Day Be

In many ways, Lent calls us into a similar adventure. We set out across a vast wilderness that may increase our opportunity to experience new and unusual things. But, for the most part, it’s a solitary, increasingly tedious journey that hones our understanding of time and space, thinking and not thinking, listening for every new sound, and most of all, letting each day be while we learn to be in the day. The longer we traverse Lent’s monotonous expanse, we’re less concerned about its destination than coming to grips with our destiny. Being here, wherever we are now, subsumes our concerns about getting there, wherever that may be—whether it’s the cross and empty tomb, or finding a place in our Christian experience that we’ve never before reached.

The struggle between fixating over destination and finding one’s destiny is as old as the Christian faith. It’s the crux of Jesus’s exchange with Thomas in John 14. Jesus is prepping the disciples for His imminent death and departure, telling them that He’s going away to prepare a place for them. “I will come again and will take you to Myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going,” He says in verses 3 and 4. Thomas has no idea where Jesus is going and he panics to think he won’t reach the destination. “How can we know the way?” he asks. (v5) His question triggers one of Jesus’s most frequently quoted statements: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (v6)

Garbled

Regrettably, this is one of those perfect storms where context, translation, and emphasis have got so garbled it’s possible—perhaps even likely—to read the passage and come away with the exact opposite of what Jesus is saying. To sort this out, let’s start by acknowledging concessions we have to make. With the Gospels being written roughly 20-50 years after Christ’s ascension (in John’s case, 50), we accept that Jesus’s statements, much like my recounting the conversation above, are approximations based on memory, not precise quotes. One concedes they’re more apt to be condensations of lengthier talks in which Jesus explained His teachings in greater depth. Then we must also allow for additional fuzz to accumulate by way of translation. Often what began as rhetorical gets transmuted into something more literal, as with this passage.

Jesus starts by comparing God’s kingdom to a “house” with “many dwelling places” (v2)—i.e., a spiritual realm with room for all. But the King James Bible and other versions translate “dwelling places” as “mansions” or “rooms,” suggesting a literal location that sounds more like a final, celesital destination than an ever-present spiritual abode. The emphasis shifts from Jesus leading us into a new way of life—which is how the original texts read—to a foretelling of life after death and the Second Coming. In this context, Thomas’s question makes sense. Who knows how that’s supposed to work? Thus, Jesus’s response is taken as an explanation that contradicts what He’s actually saying. “I am the way, truth, and life; no one comes to the Father except through Me,” sounds a whole lot like, “Unless you’re a Christian, you’re not going to Heaven.”

Jesus expressly is not talking about Heaven and most definitely isn’t putting up guard-rails that deny access to God. He’s talking about a truthful way of life, describing the believer’s destiny in life, not a destination after death. He’s telling us we can access God by following His way, believing His truth, and receiving His life. And here’s the final twist: Jesus is speaking as God, because Jesus is God. To come to Jesus is to come to God. Not only in this passage, but throughout the Gospels—particularly in John—we hear Jesus dispute the idea of exclusion, based on His understanding as God.

One With God

In John 10, He proclaims, “I am the good shepherd. I know My own and My own know Me, just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice.” (v14-16; emphasis added) Jesus’s comments about radical inclusion split His audience. John says many of them say, “He has a demon and is out of His mind;” others, who hear the promise of all-inclusive love and acceptance, protest, “These are not the words of One Who has a demon!” (v20-21) Not long after this, Jesus reengages the religious set and takes up the inclusion topic again. Verses 26-30: “You do not believe, because you do not belong to My sheep. My sheep hear My voice. I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of My hand. What My Father has given Me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are One.” (Emphasis added)

Let’s read this closely. “Sheep that do not belong to this fold” are people outside the strictures of religious law and tradition. Yet they listen to Jesus. Jesus knows them. To them He gives (present tense) eternal life—life now and always—and promises, “they will never perish” (future tense). Destiny, not destination. “What My Father has given Me is greater than all else,” Jesus says. Anything we point to in an attempt to deny Jesus’s message of inclusion is irrelevant. Any doctrine that says anyone who believes will be rejected—whether by creed or creation—is dismantled. “No one will snatch them out of My hand,” Jesus declares. “Nor will the power to include them be snatched from the Father’s hand, because the Father and I are One.” (Those clinging to a masculine God should note Jesus’s word for “One” is gender neutral, confirming God’s inclusive will and nature.)

A Present Calling

This teaching of inclusive unity between God and Jesus, between God, Jesus, and us, climaxes in Gethsemane, where Jesus prays, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one. As You, Father, are in Me and I am in You, may they also be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. The glory that You have given Me I have given them, so that they may be one as We are One. I in them and You in Me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that those also, whom You have given Me, may be with Me where I am, to see My glory, which You have given Me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17.20-24; emphasis added)

Jesus prays that we access a state of being that witnesses His divinity and God’s love to the world. It’s a present calling to access our destiny in Christ, to be united with God as One. Jesus prays that we who believe the Good News passed down by the Apostles will be with Him where He is, to experience His glory revealed in that moment, when Death hovers and the promise of Life will not tremble—to know that God loves us from the dawn of time and will not relinquish that love for all of eternity.

Heaven sure sounds grand; eons and eons in God’s unfiltered presence, where death and hatred and suffering no longer exist. But—oh my—how much grander is the promise that we can access our destiny in God now, that we accept Christ’s way, truth, and life and know that we belong to God! To come to Christ is to enter Christ, to be received as one with God and to live in the world as sheep of a defiantly loving Shepherd. Wherever Lent takes us, I pray we discover our breathtaking destiny in this life as we go through its process.

Lent’s desert expedition opens us to the realization that coming to Christ is about accepting our destiny in present life, rather than focusing solely on a far-off, future destination.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/03/06/destiny-vs-destination/.

Postscript: Questions 10 & 11

How does accepting our destiny in this life—rather than focusing our energies on reaching a far-off, future destination—reshape our concept of faith?

What does accepting our destiny in Christ require of us in the here and now?

Focus Forward

Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1.14-15)

Between Here and There

I happened on a “Dr. Phil” show the other day that filled me with sorrow and angst. A woman who’d been repeatedly abused by her lover brought him to the good doctor, looking for help in her desire to change him. The man—who was shackled with a lifelong history of violence against schoolmates, strangers, his parents, and a previous wife—admitted he was helpless to control his rage. Still, the woman, like many battered spouses, couldn’t accept that she was powerless to heal his sickness. Dr. Phil all but begged her to let him go, stressing that she was in over her head and predicting if she stayed with him, the violence would worsen until one of them was dead. “You can’t keep living like this,” the doctor said. By program’s end, she seemed to wake up. Yet I wasn’t as convinced as I wanted to be. Her decision to move on lacked the conviction she voiced in her confidence she could mend her lover and undo their past. It saddened me think the dream of changing him held her with such force she’d never turn her back on it or him.

The woman’s distorted sense of reality—and real consequences—reminded me of a popular gospel tune from my youth. It was all about Heaven. Yet whether or not its composer realized it, the song belied a mournful existence that drove him to place his entire hope in a bright dream. “I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop,” the song said, “in that bright land where we’ll never grow old. Some day yonder we’ll never more wander, but walk on streets paved of purest gold.” The sorrowful and frustrating side of the song was—to me, at least—how it ignored the long road and hard climb the writer would undertake to reach his home beyond the hill. Between here and there, he will grow old, he will wander, and his road will be tedious and sometimes rough. That’s how life goes and that’s why life is what we make of it. What went missing from his picture were the joys of aging, discovery, and overcoming hardship. He’d adopted a victim mentality that crippled him. It’s sad that the dream of everlasting bliss had so captivated him he couldn’t turn his back on dismal influences shaping his concept of present life.

A New Narrative

In essence, Dr. Phil urged his guest to repent—to turn her sights from undoing the past and focus forward to a healthier, more hopeful, immediate future. It’s arguable that the song’s composer should have done the same. Most of all, however, I would entreat all of us to pause in these early days of Lent, during which the call to repent rings loudest, to ponder what repentance truly is. Too often repentance gets mixed up with penitence—i.e., profound regret for our shortcomings and failures. And that’s not what it is. To repent means turning around, looking in a new direction, going a different way. When we repent we drop the curtain on our old dramas and enter a new narrative that propels us toward a healthier, more hopeful, immediate future. It’s not about dragging past guilt and doubts into our current, renewed life. Nor is it about wandering through life on a wing and a prayer that we’ll find a better one in the Great Beyond. Repentance focuses us forward into the Great Big Messy and Marvelous Now, where what calls us ahead changes us so we can change what’s ahead.

Mark, the first Gospel written—hence, the one presumably closest in time to the actual events—reports that Jesus exits His wilderness experience declaring a new message that casts repentance in a brilliant new light. “The time is fulfilled,” He says, “and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” Jesus preaches a Here and Now Gospel, not one about There and Then, the gospel of a healthier, more hopeful, immediate future, not one of mansions tucked behind hills, eternal youth, and strolling golden boulevards.

Believing in the Good News

As Rob Bell writes in Love Wins, “[In] Jesus’s first-century, Jewish world, they didn’t talk about a future life somewhere else, because they anticipated a coming day when the world would be restored, renewed, and redeemed and there would be peace on earth.” When Jesus calls us to repentance, He urges us to get away from deadly ideas, far-sighted fantasies, and misguided belief that we should endure abuse and violence—not just physical harm, but also spiritual, emotional, and psychological trauma that seeks our destruction and undermines peace. Jesus says the time is now. The kingdom of God is within reach.

Believing in that irrevocably alters our understanding of repentance, and with it, how we regard Lent’s mission. We are walking into an immediate future—a soon-to-be present—that we shape in obedience to Christ’s teaching and example. We turn our backs on the dismal past to focus forward, believing in the Good News Jesus delivered and made available to all through boundless love splayed on a hateful cross. Lent’s repentance is guilt and grief-free. It’s a pilgrim’s progress that opens our eyes to greater health and truer hope every step of the way. That’s Good News we can believe in.

Lent’s call to repentance asks us to turn around and walk into a healthier, more hopeful, immediate future.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/02/23/focus-forward/

Postscript: Question 2

What makes us so reluctant to turn around? I’ve put a few of my ideas in the comments and look forward to hearing yours.

The Church's First Protocol

Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 18.18)

Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is fulfilling the law. (Romans 13.10)

Benevolent Aliens

On October 19, 1945, almost two months to the day after World War Two ended, George Orwell published an essay, “You and the Atomic Bomb,” serving notice the Allies had won and brokered a “peace that is no peace.” He warned that ideological rivalry between emergent empire builders, the US and USSR—each equipped with potential to annihilate the planet—would grip the world in anxiety. His prescience greatly influenced post-War science fiction, much of which channeled global paranoia into scenarios of technically superior alien attacks—space invaders armed with death rays and whatnot. A few sci-fi writers, however, understood the gravity of Orwell’s predictions. They harnessed the genre’s fantastic elements to imagine a new breed of extraterrestrials—benevolent aliens that journeyed to Earth and offered the young planet wisdom they acquired eons ago. The first notably benevolent alien appeared fully intact in the low budget, 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still.

If you’ve not seen the film or it’s been a while, it’s worth a look. With East-West tensions abated, the Christ parallels can’t be missed. Assuming human form, the alien takes the name “Carpenter.” By choice, he lives in a boarding house occupied by a widow, her son, and several social misfits. He conceals his identity and his presence generates widespread unease about his mission. He won’t speak to political insiders, insisting his message is for all people. He demonstrates command of the elements by shutting down the global power grid. When a suspicious acquaintance betrays him, he’s gunned down before being heard. A mysteriously powerful space companion revives him. His resurrection brings attention he uses to address all nations at once. What he says echoes Jesus’s words in Matthew 18.15-20 (today’s Gospel), and resounds with Paul’s counsel in today’s New Testament reading, Romans 13.8-14.

I am leaving soon, and you will forgive me if I speak bluntly. The universe grows smaller every day, and the threat of aggression by any group, anywhere, can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all, or no one is secure… I came here to give you these facts… Your choice is simple: either live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.

Cosmic Implications

Earlier in the film, Carpenter explains the urgency of his mission. Newly armed with nuclear power, the Earth’s capability to destroy itself also threatens universal balance. If it abuses its powers to conquer other planets, it will foil a cosmic plan for harmony and peace. Learn to get along, Carpenter says, or forget belonging to the Big Picture. This is precisely what Jesus says in today’s passage, first spoken when everything He came to accomplish is due to transpire. The Earth will stand still at His execution. He’ll entrust His mission and message to His followers—Whom He collectively calls “the Church”—after His resurrection and departure. The same power that raises Him from the dead will remain with the disciples after he leaves, endowing them with capabilities unlike any the world has seen.

What the Church does with the Holy Spirit, however, rests on its shoulders. It can employ the Spirit's power to advance God’s kingdom on Earth. Or it can splinter into ideological rivalries that weaponize the Spirit and Scripture to build doctrinal empires. If the disciples go that route, Jesus foresees total anarchy. His mission will be in vain, His message reduced to ideals everyone admires, but no one lives by. Before responsibility for the Church gets dropped in the disciples’ laps, Jesus wants them to understand every decision and action they undertake is loaded with cosmic implications. They’re part of a divine plan that transcends human comprehension. But using these terms to set expectations the disciples will work together for His sake would sound like science fiction to them. So Jesus issues the Church’s first protocol in language they’ll readily absorb, speaking directly to conflicts and competing interests they’ve not dealt with until now.

The Peter Problem

The days prior to this conversation have been very strange. Everyone but Jesus has the jitters. He keeps talking about leaving them, after which Peter is supposed to take over. He as much as says their future depends on him when He promises to give Peter “the keys of the kingdom of heaven”—i.e., absolute authority—to lead the Church. (Matthew 16.18) The idea of Peter stepping into Christ’s shoes is as terrifying as it is baffling. He’s the most mercurial person in the group. He makes a big deal out of everything. No sooner does he witness Jesus’s transfiguration than he goes off on a tangent about building memorials—a thing he’s neither trained nor equipped to do. He’s useless in crisis. When taxes come due, rather than organize a fishing trip to earn some cash, He takes Jesus’s joke about finding money in a fish’s mouth seriously. (It turns out Jesus isn't kidding; the first fish Peter pulls from the water pays the bill.) He’s the only one crazy enough to believe he’ll actually walk on water because Jesus says so. (Oh, by the way, Peter is the only human known to walk on water.) Then there’s his hair-trigger temper. Why, a few days ago, he got so unnerved by all the death talk he went off on Jesus! And he’s supposed to be their leader?

The Peter problem creates many other problems. James and John—a.k.a. the Sons of Thunder—campaign for Jesus to reverse His decision and put them in charge. (They even drag their mother into it, pushing her to broach the topic with Jesus.) Judas is acting weird lately. He’s unhappy with where things are going. He signed on to overthrow Roman oppression, not to save the world. Mounting dissension and increasingly bolder lunges for power prove all the more unsettling because either Jesus fails to see or He simply doesn’t care about what’s happening. Of course, Jesus sees and cares. Just when tensions among the disciples reach their breaking point, He explains how and why they must work out their differences and stick to His plan.

The Earth-Heaven Connection

If someone wrongs you, talk it out, Jesus says. Don’t risk losing them over issues you can resolve. If they won’t listen, invite one or two witnesses to confirm you tried your best. If that doesn’t work, take the matter before the whole group. If the offender still refuses to acknowledge his/her error, put her/him out of mind. With that, the disciples discern responsibility for the Church’s stability and unity belongs to them. And Jesus explicitly says so in Matthew 18.18-20: “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in My name, I am there among them.”

The Earth-Heaven connection is where the keys to the kingdom reside. And the protocol for accessing them is so simple it’s a wonder we don’t follow it religiously. Only when we agree are we aligned with Christ’s plan and purpose. Only when we bind forces that contradict Jesus’s mission and message, only when we loose the Spirit’s power to unite and liberate us, is Christ’s presence known and felt among us. The importance of doctrinal disputes and sectarian quirks is wildly exaggerated. It’s not about being right or wrong, but doing what’s right to avoid going wrong. Our power isn't evidenced by controlling others. It’s proven by conquering our desire to seize control. We don’t need a lot of rules and restrictions to secure the Earth-Heaven connection. We need a mind-boggling revelation that penetrates what we think to reach the depths of our understanding.

In a stunning take on why rules aren’t enough to resolve conflicts, Paul writes, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments… are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” (Romans 13.8-10) And there it is again: the only way to end our detrimental us-versus-them divisions in the Church is by making them our first concern.

In The Day the Earth Stood Still, Carpenter warned people of Earth that leveraging nuclear power to deepen political rifts not only endangered their survival. Unchecked, it would put the universe at risk. What Jesus and Paul say in today’s texts is no different. The Holy Spirit is given to unite us in purpose and principle. Jesus issued the Church’s first protocol, explaining how and why we must resolve our differences, lest we sever our connection to His divine plan. Paul discredits all notions of legally enforced unity. Love for one another is what binds evil’s power over us and liberates our hearts. We’ve been given a choice and Heaven waits for our answer. The decision rests with us.

Lord, we have heard You loud and clear. We pray Your Spirit will empower us to accept Your Word. May it penetrate what we think to reach the depths of our understanding. Instill in us an insatiable yearning to resolve our conflicts wisely, compassionately, showing true love for one another. Amen.

The Holy Spirit endows us with the power to resolve our conflicts and advance God’s kingdom. Jesus even tells us how to do it. Whether we follow His protocol is up to us.

The Prayers of God's People

The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand. (Revelation 8.4)

Our Prayers Are Timeless

When I’m privileged to worship in “high churches” (Roman, Eastern, along with some Anglican and Lutheran congregations), their use of incense always moves me. Beyond its aesthetic beauty, watching the incense rise and disperse fills me with reassurance. More than anything, the lingering speaks to me—the sense that what has been offered up remains perceptibly present in fragrance lacing the air, even though the smoke can no longer be seen. Incense, in many ways, is the most fitting metaphor for prayer, as both represent transformation from natural limitation to eternal possibilities. Like incense, our prayers begin as concretely shaped requests. When we ignite them with faith, it’s unnecessary that they be visibly or audibly evident to be perceived. After we pray, all we have to know is now that our prayers have been delivered, God knows our needs.

Incense in worship brings to mind the vision John of Patmos describes in Revelation. He’s transported into a supernal throne room, where the redeemed gather to pay homage to their Creator. After everyone is assembled, they wait in silence for “about half an hour.” (Revelation 8.1) Trumpets are given to seven angels, who will herald judgment against the unrighteous. Before the fireworks commence, however, John writes: “Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand.” (v3-4) The ethereal imagery may cause us to miss what John’s trying to show us. Our prayers are timeless. They carry no expiration date. They can’t be forgot. They won’t be ignored. The prayers of all God’s people—from every era, location, and walk of life—rise up before God, where they linger.

Our Breath Is Eternal

Our prayers are timeless because they rise on our breath, and our breath is eternal. Genesis 2.7 tells us, “God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Two distinctions separate humanity, male and female, from the rest of nature: we are handcrafted to reflect God’s image on Earth and God’s presence in us is manifested in our breath. Every other life form is spoken into existence and brought to life by God’s command. But He breathes His life into us, and we become living beings. Every breath we take expresses God’s divinity. Since human speech is articulated by divine breath, our words and prayers become living things that cannot die. That’s why extreme caution is required in everything we say; once we speak, our words can never be taken back. That’s also why we pray with confidence, knowing our prayers remain forever alive because they’re spoken with the breath of life.

Once we understand this, our faith comes alive. We realize prayer functions exclusively in the realm of the divine, where natural limitations serve no purpose and what appears impossible can be done. We see this exemplified in a rather odd incident reported in Matthew 21. It’s the last week of Jesus’s natural life. He’s under tremendous pressure and divides His time between suburban Bethany, where He stays with friends, and Jerusalem, where His enemies wait to destroy Him. The morning after His triumphal entry, Jesus returns to Jerusalem before breakfast. He spots a fig tree and finding no fruit on it, He curses the tree: “May you never bear fruit again!” (v19) The disciples are flummoxed when the tree shrivels up. “How did that happen?” they ask. Jesus tells them, “If you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” (v21-22)

The passage ends there, without the disciples asking the obvious follow-up question: “If we believe what? We can curse barren trees when we’re hungry? We can topple mountains that impede our progress?” But if we listen carefully to Christ’s statement, we realize He’s stressing belief in the power of our words and the breath that enables them. He speaks to the tree. He tells us, “You can say to this mountain.” And He sums it up: “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Faith that ignites prayer is belief in the eternal breath that lifts our prayers. It’s not essential to visualize disappointments withering or obstacles vanishing in front of us. How such things can—and will—happen exceeds imagination. Faith is simply trusting in the power of our prayers to reach God despite all natural evidence opposing what we ask of Him. Because we speak our prayers with His breath, our requests will be heard and answered. That’s what we must believe. Anything beyond that—how He’ll answer, when the answer will come, what it will mean, and so on—is no more than conjecture on our part, and therefore unreliable. Faith in prayer precludes prediction.

Someone Somewhere

By breathing His life into us, God literally inspired us. Our breath is His Spirit. When we believe our requests rise on eternal breath, we pray in the Spirit. This opens a life-changing view not only of prayers we say on our own behalf, but also those we say for others—and those said for us. And it’s essential we uphold one another in prayer, presenting each other’s needs to God. In Ephesians 6.18, Paul says, “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”

I need your prayers always. You need mine always. There will be times when my faith in prayer weakens—when I run out of breath, as it were. There will be times when you do the same. But in our times of struggle we find strength in knowing someone somewhere is praying for us. Someone is breathing eternal life into our requests. Someone is offering up timeless prayers for us that rise before God like incense. Someone is mustering the faith to see that God knows our needs. Paul nailed it. With this in mind, let us be alert and always keep on praying in the Spirit for all the Lord’s people.

We pray for one another, believing the eternal breath that lifts our requests to God transforms them into timeless prayers that linger before Him.

Way Over Yonder—A Personal Reflection

If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. (1 Corinthians 15.19)

Bishop Walter Hawkins

May 18, 1949 – July 11, 2010

Shelter

Last weekend started one way and ended another. Both events jettisoned me back to my teens. On Friday night, Walt and I attended Carole King and James Taylor’s “Troubadour Reunion” concert. On Sunday evening, I opened my Facebook page to see a link posted by my good friend, Calvin Bernard Rhone. It took me to a Washington Post article: Walter Hawkins dead: award-winning gospel singer was 61. Since the early 70's, if anyone asked, “Who are your greatest musical influences?” without a second’s thought, I’d reply, “Carole King and Walter Hawkins.” As a burgeoning church musician, both drew me with their keyboard and songwriting genius. I spent hours listening to their breakthrough albums, Carole’s Tapestry (1971) and Walter’s Love Alive (1975, recorded with the choir of the church he founded, Love Center), followed by countless hours at the piano, trying to replicate their sound.

With music playing such a forceful role in my life and my faith, their influence exceeded its impact on my tastes and musicianship, however. Their lyrics shared many similarities that moved me profoundly. Admittedly, Carole’s songs were secular and often directed to friends and lovers, while Walter’s spoke of or to God. Yet it’s irrefutable both came from comparable places in their hearts. For example, Carole sang:

Way over yonder is a place that I know

Where I can find shelter from the hunger and cold

And the sweet-tasting good life is so easily found

Way over yonder, that's where I'm bound

Walter’s choir sang:

If you want to know where I'm going

Where I'm going soon

If anybody asks you where I'm going

Where I'm going soon

I'm going up yonder to be with my Lord

Carole sang:

Winter, spring, summer, or fall

All you have to do is call

And I'll be there

You've got a friend

And, on Love Alive II (1978), Walter’s choir sang:

He will never forsake you

Even though He knows everything

There is to know about you

He's that kind of Friend

These were potent messages of hope for a teenager struggling to reconcile his faith and sexual orientation. Knitted together, Carole’s compassion and Walter’s confidence became the shelter in my storms—the place where I could steal away to hear angels sing hope and acceptance. It was where I heard Walter’s music say:

God has not promised me sunshine

That's not the way it's going to be

But a little rain mixed with God's sunshine

A little pain helps me appreciate the good times

Be grateful, and it will be all right

While Carole told me:

You've got to get up every morning

And show the world all the love in your heart

Then people will treat you better

You're gonna find, yes you will

That you're beautiful as you feel

The Far Shore

So I wept with joy on Friday, as Carole performed her life-giving songs, and again Sunday, on learning Walter was gone—up yonder, way over yonder. Yet in my tears, sorrow would not come. What I felt was no less than insurmountable joy. In song after song, sermon after sermon, he insisted he was bound way over yonder. I couldn’t have been happier for him. And in my happiness, I realized the depth of his impact on me. All along, he’d been my living example of 1 Corinthians 15.19: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.” I understood why I felt no alarm when I heard he was battling pancreatic cancer. I knew hope for him surpassed healing and longevity. He’d lived his life looking to the far shore.

Walter Hawkins taught me—and hundreds of thousands he graced with his music—to live in hope. Through him we grasped there’s no such thing as hopelessness when we place total faith in Christ’s word: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14.1-3) Walter compelled us always to remember we’re going up yonder. Setting our sights on the far shore keeps life’s trials in perspective. Here’s how Carole framed it:

I know when I get there the first thing I'll see

Is the sun shining golden, shining right down on me

And trouble's gonna lose me, worry leave me behind

And I'll stand up proudly, in true peace of mind

When the Battle’s Over

While playing Walter’s records as a kid, I never imagined I'd personally know him. I lived in Chicago. He was in Oakland. He was world-famous. I was nobody. I moved to Los Angeles after college and a series of coincidences landed me in the heart of L.A.’s gospel community. A good friend was recording his choir’s first major album, which Walter offered to produce. We’d briefly met a few times in passing, mostly when I visited his church in Oakland. When he came to L.A. to record my friend’s album, I somehow ended up driving him around town. He talked excitedly about his upcoming project, Love Alive III, and when we happened to pass my church, West Angeles, he asked to stop so he could say hello to my pastor.

After he and Bishop Blake visited, Walter said, “Let’s go to the sanctuary. I want to play some of the new album for you.” I can’t describe the emotions rushing over me as I sat beside him, watching his hands glide over the keys, listening to songs the general public had yet to hear. I wanted to explain what this moment meant to me, yet I knew I wouldn’t do it justice. So I sat in silent awe. We’d been there a while when Walter said, “One more, then we need to go. You’re really going to like this one.” He sailed into a classic Walter Hawkins toe-tapper, “When the Battle is Over.” Here’s the second verse:

With tears streaming down, when there's no one around

And you feel like all hope is gone

Don't despair, God is right there

When the battle's over, when the battle's over

We're going home.

Walter’s passing compels me to encourage all of us to live in the bright hope of God’s promises. We will cry sometimes. At times, family and friends we look to won’t be there. We’ll feel like hope is lost. But we must never forget the hope we possess will ultimately triumph. We must always keep the far shore in sight. Way over yonder—that’s where we’re bound.

When the battle’s over, we’re going home.

"One of these mornings, it won’t be long, you’re gonna look for me and I’ll be gone on home!” Bishop Walter Hawkins sings, “When the Battle is Over.” (Choir conducted by his brother, Edwin Hawkins.)

Entering the Priesthood

Since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. (Hebrews 4.14)

The Missing Icon

“Icon” came into usage to set Christian paintings apart from portraiture of Greco-Roman gods and Old Testament heroes. While the term now covers everything from movie stars to computer widgets, its initially provided “snap shots” of Christ, first and foremost, but also Mary, the disciples, and later saints. Googling “Christ” and “icon” turns up innumerable versions of one image: Jesus holding an open text in one hand while gesturing with the other. This is Christ the Teacher. After it, a smattering of other icons follows: The Miracle Worker, The Crucified Christ, The Risen Christ, The Ascendant Christ, Christ the King, etc. Still, the Teacher dominates the field, since, in life, Jesus was a rabbi.

Yet casting Jesus as such troubled Early Church theologians. Judaism was stocked with great rabbis—Hillel, for example, whose writings in the generation before Jesus were revered as nearly sacred. There were also dozens of prophets and miracle workers in the lore. All of these figures, like Jesus, rose on the strength of their callings. To categorize Christ among them would reinforce His ordinariness, planting questions about His divinity and doubts about the meaning of His death and resurrection. There was, however, one vocation unlike any other: the priesthood. Priestly titles were inherited and confined to one tribe of Israel, the Levites. Priests were bred, not called.

Only one known exception to this rule predates Jesus, a man named Melchizedek, who—not coincidentally—also predates the Levites. He briefly surfaces in Genesis as a priest who serves Abraham, the great-grandfather of Levi. After that, other than an oblique mention in Psalm 110, no reference to Melchizedek is made until the Hebrews writer uses him to redefine Jesus as our high priest by calling. Not fitting the Levite mold, Jesus broke it, Hebrews says, enabling Him to be more than our Teacher. He’s our Confessor and Intercessor, the Advocate pleading our case before God. This is a seismic shift in the affairs of God and humanity, an irreversible improvement on an unparalleled scale. And Hebrews insists we grasp it. Do we? Judging by the iconography, it’s doubtful. Christ the Teacher is everywhere; Christ the Priest is nowhere. It’s the missing icon.

A Big Deal

Throughout Christendom, today is Ascension Sunday, commemorating Christ’s return to Heaven. The mysteries baked into this event—the physics of it, if nothing else—incline us to observe it without quite rejoicing in it. We’re apt to think of it as no big deal, the last stop before next Sunday’s really big blow-out: Pentecost. But if I read Hebrews correctly, the writer would take us to task for not recognizing the Ascension is a big deal—an event every bit as essential and joyful as Easter and Pentecost. It’s the day we celebrate Jesus’s priesthood. And knowing we now have a Priest in Christ is worth celebrating. Hebrews 4.14 puts it like this: “Since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.” With the Ascension, Jesus effectively becomes the Agent that fixes our faith. The Cross provides atonement for sins. The Resurrection delivers us from death. Without a Priest to facilitate our repentance, though, they’re just historical events. Had Jesus not ascended, we’d be as lost as we were before He died and rose again.

This is what Hebrews is all about—knowing by faith we have a High Priest. The writer follows up the allusion to the Ascension with one of the most thrilling passages in the epistles: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (v15-16) The whole point in a living Savior is knowing He’s there when we need Him. Jesus ascends out of physical reach to remain forever in human reach. He knows and understands our frailties, and no matter where or when we need Him, we approach Him confidently, certain we’ll receive mercy and find grace. This makes the Ascension a big deal indeed, one to be celebrated on par with the highest holy days.

What’s Happening to Him?

One imagines the Hebrews author would be outraged that many of us limit our view of the Ascension to how it affects the disciples (and, by extension, us). “Look at Jesus,” we hear him/her say. “Don’t you see what’s happening to Him?” Now that we’ve opened our minds to the Ascension’s meaning, we watch Christ leave the planet in utter amazement. Transformation occurs before our very eyes. Unlike the Incarnation and Resurrection, which happen off-stage, we actually observe Christ’s ministerial transition from Rabbi to Priest. We see Him literally entering the priesthood. And while we assess what’s happening to Him, we also gauge what’s happening to us. We’re shaking off the last vestiges of condemnation, fear, and hopelessness. What never was, and never will be, possible for us is now reality through our High Priest.

In The Revelation, John of Patmos is lifted into Heaven and meets the Ascended Christ. The transformation is stunning. He describes Christ’s hair as white wool, His eyes a blazing fire, and His feet molten bronze. Jesus doesn’t even sound the same: “His voice was like the sound of rushing waters.” (Revelation 1.15) Christ dictates seven letters regarding strengths or weaknesses that affect His service on our behalf. In one, He says, “I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” (3.8) If Christmas celebrates God’s gift of love, Easter His gift of life, and Pentecost His gift of power, the Ascension celebrates His gift of freedom. With Christ as our High Priest, forbidding rules of engagement are revoked, eternally replaced by unfettered access. Perhaps there’s no icon of Christ the Priest because no artist can capture what John describes. But on this holiest of days, we rejoice because our Priest opens the door to us—all of us—a door no manmade power can close. Maybe that’s the most fitting Ascension icon of all, an open door.

In the Ascension we observe Christ’s transition from Rabbi to Priest. As our Teacher He opens our minds, as our Priest He opens the door to God’s grace.

Fresh Regard

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. (2 Corinthians 5.16)

Knowing What We Believe; Believing What We Know

In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul plunges into the deep end and never looks back. Staying with him demands stamina, because he keeps diving below the surface and coming up with another gem. In many ways, this chapter serves as a companion piece to John 3, where Jesus and Nicodemus discuss Christianity’s most profound mystery: spiritual transformation. Jesus describes it as rebirth: “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” (John 3.3) Paul calls it re-creation: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5.17) Point of view differentiates the two passages, however. Jesus defines transformation from His perspective as the Agent of change. Paul explains it from our side as beneficiaries of change. Both lines of thought intersect at faith, the point where our hopeless mortality is transformed into eternal hope. In John 3.16, Jesus says, “whoever believes shall have eternal life.” In 2 Corinthians 5.7, Paul writes, “We live by faith.”

Faith begins by knowing what we believe. Most Christians start with John 3.16. Longing to restore our relationship with Him, God loved us so much He took on mortal flesh to defeat death and sin through the power of resurrection. When we believe that, Jesus says, we too are transformed from death to new life. Of course, Paul reaches the same conclusion. But he gets there from the opposite direction. He opens chapter 5 with the importance of believing what we know. And what do we know without any doubt? We die. Being aware our bodies are temporary dwellings, Paul says we intrinsically know “we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.” (v1) Why is he so sure of this? Verse 5 says, “It is God who has made us… and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” In the mean time, Paul says, “we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.” (v2) In other words, God’s longing for reconciliation with us described in John 3.16 is matched by our longing to be reconciled with Him. Knowing He created us to live forever in harmony with Him is why we believe we will.

Eternal Life Begins Now

Tim McGraw scored a hit a few years back with “Live Like You’re Dyin’,” a ballad about a man whose fatal disease inspired him to enjoy every moment he had left. The Freeman-Nicholson comedy, The Bucket List, covered similar territory. Paul would say “Pshaw!” to both. He says eternal life begins now. Instead of living like we’re dying, we live now like God intended us to live always. “So we make it our goal to please him,” Paul writes in verse 9, “whether we are at home in the body or away from it.” We’re no longer limited by what we can see—to our human faculties. Reconciliation through faith in Christ broadens the meaning of life. Indeed, it redefines life’s meaning.

Many assume John 3.16 says if we believe in Christ, then we shall have eternal life. This skews the sentence’s tense, which is not conditional but future-simple. “Shall” denotes spontaneous action following a prior action—when, not if. Eternal life is ours the moment we believe. No New Testament writer is more convinced of this than Paul. In 1 Corinthians 15.54-55 he writes: “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Yet neither Jesus nor Paul discusses eternal life solely in future terms of escaping inevitable death. Both explain it as present transformation. “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again,” Jesus says. “The old is gone; the new has come!” Paul says. New life and eternal life coexist in the now. This changes how we view everything—including one another.

New Outlook

New life in Christ gives us a new outlook on life. We view others and ourselves with fresh regard. Here’s how Paul puts it: “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.” (v16) From the moment Jesus entered the world until the second prior to His resurrection, He was as human as His contemporaries—or, for that matter, you and I. He was no less vulnerable to death and disease, temptation and stress than anyone else. And that’s how the world saw Him. But after Easter, it was impossible to view Him from “a worldly perspective” any longer. Now brace yourself: Paul says this changes how we regard everyone. There are no exceptions.

Your faith doesn’t make you special. Neither does mine. Everyone who believes has eternal life. Regarding people from a worldly point of view invites us to assess their behaviors. We’re looking at them through dead eyes. Our new outlook focuses on their potential to believe, seeing them not as they are, but as they can be. Our worst enemy can have eternal life if he/she believes. Our most scathing judge can have eternal life. The murder, the abuser, the rapist, the adulterer, the murderer, the hypocrite, the liar—you name it—can have eternal life. As new creations, transformed by God’s grace and power to live forever, we of all people should be convinced if Christ made eternal life possible for one, it’s possible for all.

Knowing Christ offers eternal life to all people changes how we regard everyone. There are no exceptions.

(Tomorrow: Our Right to Representation)

Personal Reflection: A Better Country

They were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

                        Hebrews 11.16 

Preface

This comes from a heart overflowing with praise to a God Who never ceases to prove His wisdom, love, and concern for us. What should have been a regular post has become a momentous opportunity to rejoice and be glad. God’s goodness and love have filled Walt and me with joy. After spending better than two hours taking inventory of how many blessings were stored up, fell into place, and braced us for what's just happened, we stood in awe of all we’ve got to thank God for. But before I share a little of what we’re marveling about and how it affected today’s post, suppose I bring you up to speed.

Walt lost his job yesterday.

Keywords

When I finish a post, I sit still for a bit, trying to “listen” for keywords, verses, or themes leading me to the next day’s topic. In no way am I intimating subjects come via epiphany. Mostly, I rummage around in my head for something I pray will inspire you—a thought or two that hasn’t gone stale or popped up recently. Night before last, “Heaven” kept crossing my mind, I kept pushing it aside, and it refused to go away. 

Writing about Heaven makes me nervous, since many Christians view it as our reason instead of our reward. I’m convinced following Jesus in this life is what our purpose must be. Doing it to ensure eternal bliss and/or escape torture strikes me as self-serving, contrary to His example and teachings. So I’m wary about even slightly suggesting faith’s driving goal is getting us to Heaven or saving us from Hell. If we obey Christ, our hope for Heaven is secure. When the urge to write about Heaven wouldn’t be ignored, however, I clicked on BibleGateway.com to do a keyword search. My eyes fell on Hebrews 11.16, nestled in the epistle’s famous roll call of faith heroes. Here’s the full passage:

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had the opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11.13-16)

From a Distance

When Walt called with the news he no longer was a TV news writer, I understood. I’d been led to Hebrews because less than 24 hours later, we’d be challenged to see and welcome God’s promises from a distance, to know a better country lay ahead. It’s far too early and completely impossible to speculate what it is or where it will be, but we know with all certainty it’s prepared and waiting to be found. As 1 Corinthians 2.9 explains, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”

This Word is true for each and every one of us. Setbacks will force us to view and embrace God’s promises from afar. As with Abraham and Moses, we may not see all God’s promised us reach fruition in this life. Nonetheless, in His time per His plan, He’ll honor His word. If we feel like aliens and strangers here, it’s because we long for a better country, a home of our own. And by faith we’ll find it, if not now, most assuredly in the life to come. Did not Jesus teach us to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven?” Yielding to God’s will is our greatest desire and only hope. If we discipline our hearts and minds to that end, no matter what we’re told or who believes otherwise, God is honored to be called our God and prepares a place for us.

Perfectly Timed

The possibility Walt’s position might close has been on our radar for some time. His station started slashing jobs months before the economic meltdown led its nightly newscasts. The cuts got wider and deeper with each round until they sliced into the newsroom’s marrow. Things got to the point Walt was doing the work of three people. It was tough, discouraging, and exhausting. We prayed for the best, prepared for the worst, and believed however it went, we’d be better for it. While Walt’s misery got real old real fast, fresh promises were on the rise, set in motion two years ago when he decided to explore a new interest. It seemed like a lark at the time. We now know it was much more.

He signed up for an improv comedy class, thinking it might be fun. It was. So he took another, then another, and finished the series of classes open to the public. (The famous theater offering the classes forbids students to publicize any affiliation with it prior to their "graduation show." But as we live in Chicago, you probably know what it is.) Again, on a lark, he auditioned for admission to the school's conservatory—the professional training ground for countless comedy legends. It took two tries, but he got in and has been working diligently on his new endeavor ever since. (He’s terrifically funny on-stage, by the way.)

Now, for those still with me, here are a few things that stoked our joy and amazement at how perfectly timed God’s plan for each of us is. What began as a casual pastime two years ago formally ended with Walt's very last session of instruction on Monday. All of the layoffs occurred on Tuesday except his, as it was his day off. When we got wind of them that evening, the size and nature of the cuts told us what to expect. Yet Walt's joy over an achievement two years in the making blunted all anger and anxiety. He went to work ready to respond with gratitude to his bosses and colleagues for their contributions to his career. They hardly anticipated that from one who should be outraged at getting tossed after 12 years of service. Nor were they poised for his treating this like the gift it is, giving him time for other classes, workshops, and performances he couldn’t attend because he worked evenings. (They’re underwriting it, too; his severance package combined with unused vacation will carry him through Christmas Day.) Closing their door opens dozens of new doors for him. He’s looking for a better country.

One Step of Faith

Is it foolish to believe a few coincidences weakly tied to a darkly clouded day harbinger far brighter ones? Some may think so. But 1 Corinthians 1.27 tells us foolishness and weakness are God’s preferred tools: “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” We see this repeatedly in His Word. It’s foolish to imagine an elderly, barren couple can give birth to a nation. Yet Abraham and Sarah did. It’s weak-minded to think a wanted killer can defy a king to free thousands of slaves. Yet Moses did. It’s crazy to suggest an untried leader can conquer a city by organizing a march. Yet Joshua did. They and so many others saw and welcomed God’s promises from a distance. Looking weak and sounding foolish didn’t frighten them. They longed for a better country, a home of their own prepared by God. He’s got a better country prepared for us all. We get there by following Jesus one step of faith at a time.

 

Especially for Walt, but also for all of us longing for a better country: Kirk Franklin’s “Looking for You.”

(Tomorrow: All Things at All Times)

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