Who's Calling?

Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, He is calling you.” (Mark 10.49)

Gatekeepers

My work frequently requires me to interface with business leaders who appear on the covers of Fortune and Forbes and similar publications. When I first meet them, they’re typically down-to-earth folks—gracious, non-threatening, and remarkably attentive to the task at hand, which, in my case, focuses on preparing them to address their employees. They understand the nature of our engagement and respect my contributions to the process. Actually getting to them is often the most problematic aspect of the job, however. In corporate culture, concentric circles of gatekeepers tightly guard access to high-level executives. Before I can reach them to find out what they really want to say, I have to maneuver through a small army of public relations, legal, sales and marketing, and administrative officers telling me what the boss can or can’t say, how he/she should or shouldn’t say it, and why it must or must not be said. While some of the information is useful, much of it isn't. More often than not, executives tell me, “Forget all that. I just want to talk to the people.”

Repeatedly in the gospels, we find a very similar situation, with the disciples assuming the roles of Jesus’s gatekeepers. For some reason, they believe it’s their duty to screen everyone who seeks Jesus’s attention to make sure they’re worthy of it. They don’t want anyone wasting Jesus’s time or making requests that might lead Him to say or do something He shouldn’t. Like corporate handlers, they do everything they possibly can to shield Jesus from compromising situations. And we should respect their sincerity in doing this. They mean well. Yet, time after time, Jesus overrules them, welcoming the least and the lowest—children, pagans, the sick, injured, and rejected—to approach Him with their needs. What the disciples don’t realize is these people are vital to Jesus. Interacting with them is how He shapes His message of unconditional love and divine grace. Despite the disciples’ precautions, time and again Jesus effectively tells them, “Forget all that. I just want to talk to the people.”

Not Jesus’s Way

In Sunday’s Gospel (Mark 10.46-52), we watch this scenario unfold with startling clarity. Jesus and the disciples are leaving Jericho, trailed by a large crowd, and they pass Bartimaeus, a blind beggar sitting on the roadside. When he hears Who it is, Bartimaeus starts yelling, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” The gatekeepers immediately spring into action, ordering the man to settle down. But their caution only stirs him to shout more loudly. Jesus stops and tells His self-appointed handlers, “Call him here.” Perhaps chastened—possibly even moved with compassion for the blind man—they say, “Take heart; get up, He is calling you.” Bartimaeus tosses his cloak aside, scrambles to his feet, and no doubt with some assistance from people he can’t see, makes his way to Jesus. The Lord asks, “What do you want Me to do for you?” Bartimaeus replies, “My teacher, let me see again.” (v51) With that, Jesus tells him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Bartimaeus’s vision is instantly restored and he joins Jesus’s followers.

The beauty of this episode rests in its particulars. Bartimaeus has two strikes against him: he’s blind and he’s a beggar. To all appearances, he has nothing to offer Jesus. Those who try to silence him assume he’ll never be able to follow Christ. How could he? He can’t see where he’s going. He’s penniless. There’s just no good reason to stop for a person with no sense of direction or any real assets to contribute to this burgeoning movement. He needs to quiet down and keep out of the way. But that’s not Jesus’s way. Jesus stops and calls Bartimaeus to Him. And what is the blind beggar’s response? He throws off his cloak. Everything he owns—his only protection from blazing sun and bitter night—falls away. He finds his way to Jesus and implores Him to open his eyes, addressing Him as, “my teacher.” There is the nugget of faith that makes Bartimaeus whole. He’s asking more of Jesus than healing. He wants to be taught to see the world through fresh eyes. The physical restoration of his eyesight opens his vision to new life that comes from following Christ. All of this is evident to Bartimaeus before he receives his sight. It’s evident to Jesus from the moment the blind beggar cries out to Him. It’s evident to us, as objective onlookers. Who doesn’t get it? The people who take it upon themselves to protect Jesus. This story is as much about their blindness and poverty as the sightless beggar’s.

All We Need to Hear

Bartimaeus’s tale challenges us to consider whom we’re listening to. Will we be left on the wayside because people who presume to know what’s best for Jesus see nothing useful in us? Will we accept their myopic view of us as blind beggars? Or will their attempts to silence us inspire us to cry out more loudly for Jesus’s attention? Christ needs no gatekeepers. And this story assures us we need no one’s approval to reach out to Jesus. If no one else says it, we must tell ourselves, “Take heart; get up, He is calling you.” Once that registers, we can rid ourselves of everything we cling to for safety and security, scramble to our feet, and find our way to Christ. When He asks what we want of Him, we say, “Teacher, open our eyes.” Our faith restores our sight and makes room for us among Christ’s followers.

We don’t need to be concerned about gatekeepers. Jesus says, “Forget all that. I just want to talk to them.” Christ is calling to us. We are vital to His message of unconditional love and grace. Are we listening?

Bartimaeus’s story tells us it’s not about Jesus’s self-appointed gatekeepers. It’s about answering Christ’s call, believing He’ll teach us to see the world through new eyes.

Be Opened

Then looking up to heaven, Jesus sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. (Mark 7.34-35)

Fragmented

One of the worst sicknesses I’ve ever endured occurred a few years ago, when I contracted a sinus infection that spread to my left inner ear. Pressure built up behind my eardrum, creating unbearable pain that left me in yowling in agony. I was stranded in a Dallas hotel, in the care of a local physician who called on me once a day for nearly a week and room service staff who brought me juice to wash down an arsenal of high-power antibiotics and painkillers. Before the doctor would release me to fly back to Chicago, he wanted to be certain the infection hadn’t spread to my right ear and hinted it might also affect brain tissue. Although my partner, Walt, called constantly, I was totally alone, in a strange place, facing the possibility of being hospitalized far from home. Inability to hear in my left ear compounded my sense of isolation. I lay there, in insufferable pain, helpless, contemplating terrible outcomes. Deafness. Brain damage. Very possibly waiting for Walt to get to me while strangers herded me through the ER and hospital admissions.

My condition’s most awful aspect, however, was how I sounded to myself when I spoke. The voice that came out of my mouth no longer matched the one in my head. It seemed to belong to someone else and, after a while I became unsure I could trust it. (This was partly due to the haze of medication, I’m sure.) But as my condition dragged on, I began to feel less and less in control of my situation. There was the Tim in dire pain and the Tim trying to put words around his pain, and they weren’t the same Tim. I was fragmented.

Astounded Beyond Measure

The deaf man in Sunday’s Gospel (Mark 7.24-37) is in a similar situation. Inability to hear has impeded his ability to speak clearly. The voice behind his clogged ears bears little resemblance to the one he utters. My brief experience with his type of affliction drives home how fragmented his daily existence must be. Obviously his neighbors feel for him. When Jesus passes through their region, they bring their deaf friend to Him, begging Him to touch the man. What happens next is most irregular. Rather than curing the deaf man on the spot, Jesus pulls him to the side, out of the crowd’s sight. As though diagnosing his illness, Jesus puts His fingers in the man’s ears, spits—an odd gesture Mark doesn’t explain—and touches the man’s tongue. He looks up to heaven, lets go a deep sigh (we’re not sure what to make of that, either), and, in the man’s native Aramaic, Jesus says, “Ephphatha,” or, “Be opened.” Immediately, the obstructions in the man’s ears dissolve, his tongue is released, and he’s able to speak plainly. All of the disjointed pieces inside his head come together. Suddenly being able to hear again is a miracle all its own. But being able to hear himself—having his speech reunited with his inner voice—is what makes him whole.

Even more than that, the deaf man’s restored speech brings healing to his entire community. Family, friends, and neighbors who couldn’t understand him now hear him clearly. They no longer have to compensate for his disability. They’re free from the guesswork and stress of parsing his inarticulate self-expression. Freeing the man’s ability to hear and speak is how Jesus makes the community whole. One whom they’d lost has been returned. And that miracle loosens their tongues. Jesus orders them not to tell anyone about the miracle, but they can’t keep quiet. Verses 36 and 37 read, “The more He ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done everything well; He even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.'” Astounded beyond measure—I so love that! It is exactly what happens when we approach Christ on others’ behalf. What Jesus does for them somehow spills over into us. We can’t possibly contain ourselves, because the wholeness Christ imparts to others inevitably makes us whole as well. We can’t help ourselves from proclaiming, “He has done everything well!”

Voluntary Deaf-Mutes

In the wake of the US political conventions, I’ve also been astounded beyond measure—though not in the good way witnessed in Mark. I’ve been thoroughly astonished, in some cases disgusted, by the prevalence of clogged ears and twisted tongues in our community. From the highest podiums of power to running commentaries flooding social networks, we are encompassed with people whose hearing and speech are severely hampered. Their ears are clogged with inflammatory rhetoric that impedes their ability to express themselves clearly and effectively. Hearing and reading what they say, I think, “Surely that’s not what they believe.” Surely their inner voices cry out for an end to poverty, violence, and injustice. Surely they hear a booming call for righteousness in the depths of their being—a resounding declaration that callous indifference for the least among us must cease. Surely something within them wants to convey concern for others beyond themselves. But the deafening roar of tyrants and charlatans has robbed their freedom to express their faith and humanity in understandable ways. And, all contrary evidence aside, I must believe this is true, lest my ears also become infected and clogged, lest my own speech also becomes harsh and nonsensical, lest I too become a burden to my community, a liability that makes those I live with less than whole.

At the same time, I’m convinced the political deafness and jabber polluting current discourse are merely magnified symptoms—an outbreak, if you will—of a more invidious contagion. We no longer care to listen to one another, let alone the voice of God that calls to us from deep within. We’re no longer concerned about what we say, let alone how we say it. We have become a culture of voluntary deaf-mutes, purposefully closing our ears to anything we don’t want to hear and disregarding the confusion and harm our words create.

We’re becoming increasingly fragmented as people, with the holy person inside us bearing little resemblance to the vain, self-serving one portrayed in our words. We need to find Jesus and beg Him to touch us. We need Him to diagnose our sickness, penetrating the garbage cluttering our ears with His pristine fingers, loosening our twisted tongues with His mighty hand. We need Him to speak to us in language we understand, commanding us to be opened. When our ability to hear and speak clearly is restored, we will be made whole. Our communities will be made whole. Peace, justice, and compassion will be restored. We will be astounded beyond measure and say, “He has done everything well!”

Lord Jesus, if ever we needed healing it’s now. We beg You, come to us, pull us aside, lay Your hand on us, and command us to be opened. Amen.

We have become a culture plagued by clogged ears and slurred speech. We need Christ's healing to be made whole.

Repost: Stripes

He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53.5; NKJV)

 The Back Story

When we look at Jesus on the cross, what do we see? The brow mockingly crowned with thorns. The beard that is every Jewish man’s glory savagely plucked and matted with blood. Dried saliva and parched lips evidence dire thirst. We see hands and feet affixed to this torturous altar by iron spikes. His arms and legs convulse with spasms caused by the strain of supporting all of His weight. His torso is swollen and bruised from sadistic pummeling with rods. His chest heaves beneath the suffocating pressure of mid-air suspension. Blood and viscera ooze from an open stab wound in His side meant to finish Him off. And, as the day wears on, the blistering sun scorches every inch of flesh on His body. It’s a heartbreaking, hideous sight.

Circling behind the cross to observe the back story, what we see is equally gruesome. Lashes from leather whips strung with shards of metal and bone have flayed Jesus’s back into a shredded curtain, exposing His muscles, sinew, shoulders, and ribs to the fetid air, heat, and scores of flies nesting the wounds with freshly laid eggs. If we’re able to stomach looking at such horror at length, we can count the stripes hashed across His back—39 in all, one short of 40 prescribed for whipping executions. We’re stunned to realize before the cross was thrust on His shoulders, before the hammer struck the first nail, before the spear pierced His side, Jesus was beaten within inches of His life. Then, remembering Isaiah’s prophecies, we realize He endured each aspect of His suffering for a specific purpose, including His stripes.

Passion’s Elements

Isaiah 53.5 breaks down the Passion’s elements like this: He was wounded for our transgressions. When we transgress, we expose wrongful motives and desires by actively pursuing habits and pleasures that cause piercing pain and leave scars. “The soul who sins is the one who will die,” Ezekiel 18.4 says. Sin is lethal. It leeches the life out of us, just as Jesus bled to death through His open wounds.

He was bruised for our iniquities. Harmful attitudes and emotions buried beneath the surface discolor our appearance when we’re buffeted by hostility. Resisting these impulses doesn’t mitigate the internal injuries they bring. Clotted hatred and resentment interrupt the flow of God’s love and forgiveness. They mar His reflection. This is why passive iniquity and active transgression equally displease God, why seeing Jesus covered in bruises causes Him to look away, and why the psalmist writes, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” (Psalm 66.18)

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him. The burden of humanity’s sin falls on Christ’s shoulder to restore our relationship with God. His punishment ends the war between our will and God’s purpose. It frees us from what we think to trust His mercy and grace. Romans 5.1 says this: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We’re Healed

And by His stripes we are healed. The lashes driving Jesus to death’s precipice represent the most extreme physical, mental, and emotional pain a human can survive. In a few hours, Jesus suffers more affliction and abuse than the vast majority of us experience in a lifetime. The blinding agony—the undeserved brutality—of the first stripe isn’t absorbed before the next lash tears into Him. Wave after wave thrashes Him, emptying Him of strength, crushing Him with confusion. Yet He endures, because dying beneath the whip will defeat the promise of healing. And here’s something very telling about Jesus’s stripes. After His resurrection, Jesus authenticates His identity by brandishing the nail-prints in His hands and hole in His side. Yet not once in any account does He point to the whip-scars across His back. Were they there? Scripture doesn’t say. But it’s not illogical to believe they were gone—that Christ Himself was the first to experience the healing they deliver.

Because the stripes were real, healing is real. Because Jesus suffered and recovered, we can also recover. Throughout Christ’s ministry, He performed healing miracles at the touch of His hand. Still, not every sick person who sought healing was fortunate enough to feel His touch. His stripes now make healing available to all. Unlike miracles, healing is a process, a gradual restoration of health and resurgence of strength. And, as in Jesus’s case, it often reverses suffering by way of the tomb, plunging us into darkness to rise again in new life and health, whether physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. Yet throughout our tomb experience, we believe life’s power works in us. We believe the prophet. By His stripes, we’re healed.

Healing is available through the whipping Christ survived for our recovery. 

(Troy David: The Whipping of Christ)

What is True

Those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God. (John 3.21)

Darkness

Before I got to college, I had to sneak off to the movies. Our church’s by-laws strictly prohibited film-going. (Which gives you an idea how clubby its faith approach was. What kind of church has by-laws?) This, of course, made movies the greatest thing since sliced bread, and I saw everything the studios released. I often had to lie, “borrow” loose change from my mom’s purse, and cajole friends and neighbors to (unknowingly) help me dishonor my parents’ wishes. But the lure of a fairly benign off-limits activity blinded me to the fact that I was breaking God’s laws to defy an idiotic human rule.

While spending the summer with our grandmother, my brother and I convinced her to drop us off at the local cinema, where Young Frankenstein was playing. She made us promise not to tell anyone. “I don’t see anything wrong with it,” she said. “But the church teaches against it and people will pitch a fit if they find out I took you.” On the way home, she didn’t say much as we told her how funny the film was. When we walked into the house we realized why. Her twin sister, Pearl, had dropped by to see us and, on learning where we were, took it on herself to set us straight. “You boys ought to be ashamed—and you, too,” she said to our grandmother. “If Jesus had come while you were in the theater, you’d be bound for Hell.” Really?

I challenged her: “Where does the Bible say, ‘Thou shalt not go to the movies’?” Without a second’s pause, she fired off John 3.19 from the King James Bible: “Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.” So sitting in the dark theater was the problem, not defying our parents’ teaching or being exposed to unhealthy material on the screen. Grandmother jumped in. “Pearl, that doesn’t even make sense.” Wanting so much to have the last word, I added, “Mom and Dad took us to Mammoth Cave last year. It was really dark. Was that a sin?” Aunt Pearl shot back, “The truth is the truth and you can’t change it. I’d fear God if I were you!” To put a final nail in my spiritual coffin, she whipped out 2 Thessalonians 2.11-12: “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Ergo, I was delusional to think it was okay to enjoy a silly comedy in the dark—and, worse than that, none other than God fed my delusion!

Living Truthfully Now

As absurd as this exchange was, I remain grateful for it to this day. Even at 14, I knew that God was too big to succumb to such small-mindedness. I knew the real truth of God and gravitated toward it, not allowing petty dogma and ignorance to sway my confidence in that God. I kept going to movies—in fact, I grew increasingly bolder about breaking the rules—because Aunt Pearl’s reproach, despite her sincere and loving intentions, convinced me I had nothing to fear. She taught me how easily being afraid of God causes us to cobble together a lot of loose scriptures to rationalize irrational fears. Looking at her anti-movie “evidence” in context (John 3.14-21; Sunday’s Gospel), it’s indubitable that Jesus teaches us not to be afraid of God. In fact, Aunt Pearl’s “be afraid, be very afraid” citation turns up no less than three verses after Jesus’s immortal promise of God’s boundless, perfect love: “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (v16)

This is the Good News of the Gospel: believe God’s promise of love and life. And regardless how many times we’ve heard or quoted John 3.16, it’s beholden on us to comprehend what Jesus is saying, as His message is just as radical and earthshaking today as when He first spoke it to Nicodemus, the curious Pharisee who wanted to know what Jesus is all about. For starters, Jesus isn’t talking about Heaven or Hell. In fact, life after death doesn’t enter His conversation. He’s talking about living truthfully now and how trusting God’s promise of love brings about new life.

In the Looking

Rather soon, Jesus realizes Nicodemus is stuck on the erroneous idea that God’s love and acceptance must be earned before they can be trusted. It’s a misbegotten, Old Testament idea that has perpetually set Israel at odds with God—and Jesus wants Nicodemus to know that He’s come to uproot this rickety notion once and for all. So He takes Nicodemus back to Numbers 21.4-9 (Sunday’s Old Testament text, recently explored in the post, Snakebit), where God pledges to heal anyone stricken with snakebite if they simply look at a bronze serpent suspended on a pole. They don’t have to prove anything. God doesn’t even ask them to apologize for the grumbling that brought on the venomous scourge. They just have to look up from wherever they are and they’ll be cured. In the looking they’ll express their faith in God’s promise of healing and new life. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life,” Jesus explains in verses 14-15, going on in verse 16 to redefine the terms of God’s promise so that it includes everyone in the world. “God didn’t send the Son into the world to condemn it,” He stresses in verse 17, “but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” Jesus tells Nicodemus (and us) that God’s lavish love and new life aren’t rewards for righteous behavior. They’re promises we access by simple trust and belief.

So why doesn’t everybody in the world claim these promises as offered? Jesus answers this question with shocking candor. Many recoil from faith’s full light because they’ve grown to love the dark life, He says. They’re like cave dwellers; their adaptation to fearful darkness blinds them to God’s bright promises. It hurts their spiritual eyes to envision a world where God raises a life-giving, life-changing Christ Who welcomes and heals all who look to God in faith. They’ve developed finely tuned skills—many passed down over generations—that keep their radar on high alert. Anything that feels dangerous to them must be wrong for everyone else. As a result of feeling their way through darkness, they create evil that seeks to prevent those they love or fear from living in the light. In faith terms, they fabricate elaborate screens to block God’s light and condemn those who believe God’s promises. “But those who do what is true come to the light,” Jesus says in verse 21, “so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Living as God Lives

God promises us eternal life—a new life that we live in God, as God lives, a life that cannot be comprehended because it has neither a beginning nor end. It is a life as limitless and enduring as God’s love, whose vastness reaches out to everyone who ever lived. What is true is that God loves us eternally. God loves us now. God has always loved us, and will never stop loving us. God’s love is perfect, which 1 John 4.16-19 stresses: “We have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as God is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because God first loved us.” (Emphasis added.)

The unconditional, unconventionally fearless love and life Jesus promises in John 3.16 is ours for the taking—and the living. When we forsake dark doctrines and ideologies to live truthfully as believers in God’s eternal love, we come to the light so it may be clearly seen that our deeds have been done in God. Basically, this is just a fancy way of saying, “Let God love you for who you are, where you are right now.” As dangerously radical as some may think that is, it’s why Jesus came.

Confidence in God’s promises of love and life opens the door to live truthfully in the light.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/03/17/what-is-true/.

Delayed Reaction

“Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Stand up and take your mat and walk'? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"—He said to the paralytic—"I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home." (Mark 2.9-11)

Through the Roof

Mark’s Gospel tells a great story about a paralyzed man whose friends are so bent on helping him they destroy a house to do it. Many of us first heard this tale during childhood, when climbing on roofs and tearing stuff up sounds really exciting. When we return to the scene as adults, however, we’re not so sure.

Here’s what happens. Jesus returns to Capernaum from a ministry trip and when word leaks that He’s there, people rush the house and spill into the yard. Friends of a paralytic bring the man to Jesus, but they can’t reach the Lord because of the crowd. They get the bright idea to tear open the roof and lower the sick man into the house so Jesus can cure him. Maybe it would be okay if the house belonged to one of the friends. But we assume it doesn’t, since Mark doesn’t comment on who owns the place. So they’re taking a huge risk—and probably breaking the law—when they tear apart a neighbor’s roof. In fact, the whole thing is risky. Ancient Palestinian roofs are flimsy affairs, comprised of reed mats thrown over crossbeams, with a thin layer of mortar applied to protect against rain. That’s why the friends can take the roof apart quickly. But they also risk falling through, hurting themselves and/or Jesus in the process. What’s more, raising their friend to roof-level will require looking to others for help, which most of us would be hesitant to provide, given the liabilities we’d assume by pitching in. But, apparently, people do come to their assistance, because the disabled man makes it from ground level to the roof, and from the roof to Jesus.

Once Jesus Lifts the Stigma

Let’s go into the house for a minute. Jesus is talking and stops when He hears a lot of commotion outside. It sounds like it’s coming from the roof. Big chunks of ceiling start to fall. Everyone scrambles for cover. No doubt a disciple or close friend tries to pull Jesus out of danger. But Jesus sits tight and watches as the paralytic is lowered into the room. He looks up to see the friends who have taken great risks to make this happen and Mark 2.5 says, “When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

A bit of comedy ensues—one reminiscent to Monty Python’s send-up of the Sermon on the Mount in Life of Brian. Everyone settles down and someone asks, “What did He say?” Another replies, “’Your sins are forgiven.’” A nearby group of legalists hisses, “Who does He think He is? Only God can forgive sins!” Jesus senses their alarm and replies, “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Stand up and take your mat and walk'? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"—He said to the paralytic—"I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home." (v9-11) The man steps into the yard to show everyone he’s been cured. Onlookers praise God and say, “We’ve never seen anything like this!” (v12)

Mark ends the story there, as if to say, “The rest you know.” So let’s play with that for a moment. What happens next? In all likelihood the man’s friends gather around. There’s a lot of joyful laughter, pats on the back, possibly even a happy jig from the healed man. Realizing they’ve just disassembled someone’s roof and interrupted Christ’s conversation, they may scoot off to celebrate out of earshot, saying, “We’ll come back and clean up later.” And as they walk off, the healed man stops, taking a moment to absorb everything that’s happened. “Wait a second!” he says. “I’m forgiven! Do you know what that means?”

Of course, they know. In their world, disability is linked to sinfulness. Living in a climate that dreads God’s wrath, it’s automatically assumed anyone felled by disease has angered God. So Jesus not only cures the man’s condition. He frees the man from shame. More than that, He refutes the notion that physical anomalies signify God’s displeasure. If that were the case, Jesus would tell the man what He tells others who subscribe to harmful thoughts and behaviors: “Go and sin no more.” But Jesus doesn’t say that. In two quick steps, He frees the man—from stigma and then disease. And since He addresses the sin question before the curing the illness, He leaves no doubt that erasing condemnation is His first priority. Healing comes once Jesus lifts the stigma.

Everything We Need

I imagine a lot of you, like me, have heard this story plenty of times, preached and taught in many ways. It’s a spectacular example of faith in action, a noble instance of high-risk compassion, and a telling portrayal of how easily we succumb to religious dogma and common myths that impede faith. But for those of us wending our way down Lent’s road there may be something more here that we can reach for.

Whether we come to Jesus on our own—as so many in the Gospels do—or, like the paralytic man, loved ones are instrumental in bringing us to Him, what we experience on arrival is multilayered and complex. What draws us to Him may actually be secondary to a deeper need. It’s unlikely the man or his friends ever consider that, without forgiveness, the healing is incomplete. Yet Jesus recognizes that and He takes care of first things first. In our little post-healing scenario—a midrash based on the story of the cured leper who returns to thank Jesus—the man’s acknowledgement of what’s happened is typical of delayed responses we often have. Repeatedly, awareness that Christ makes us whole sneaks up on us. We have to stop and exclaim, “I’m forgiven! Do you know what that means?” It means the stigmas that paralyze and make us sick have been removed. Misguided opinions of why we are as we are have been dispelled. Not only obvious limitations that cripple us—but also the unspoken ones that bore deep into our psyches—no longer confine us. We are free.

As we travel Lent’s desert, I pray we walk humbly, yet confidently, with songs of praise interrupting our prayers of repentance. May we see our journey to the cross as a return to the source of all that is good in us—the place where our forgiveness, healing, and most of all our freedom from shame and stigma are revealed in a Savior Who understands and provides us with everything we need.

However we come to Christ—whether on our knees or on a stretcher lowered through a torn-up roof—we leave the experience in astonishment that Jesus sees to our every need.

Postscript: Question 8

Can you share an example of delayed reaction in your own faith, when you realized there was more to what you received from Christ than you initially thought?

Snakebit

The people grew impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no food and water, and we detest this miserable food.” (Numbers 21.4-5)

The Wee Hours

In John 3, a prominent Pharisee named Nicodemus pays Jesus a late-night visit. It’s painfully obvious why he chooses this time of day to seek out the Rabbi Who’s making waves. Jesus has just outraged the religious establishment by driving profiteers from Jerusalem’s temple. When challenged to explain His actions, His cryptic reply heightens suspicion that He’s big trouble. Still, something about Jesus resonates with Nicodemus. He goes to Him after hours, when neither man is likely to be spotted, looking for answers to questions that trouble him.

While artists traditionally place their meeting in a moonlit courtyard, I like to picture it in a modern setting—an all-night diner, perhaps, where two people who’ve heard about each other finally get to hunker down in a back booth and talk into the wee hours over bottomless coffee cups. Nicodemus jumps right in, assuring Jesus, “We know You’re a teacher come from God, because You couldn’t do what You do if God hadn’t sent You.” His statement of faith enables Jesus to reveal what’s really going on. Since Nicodemus is a noted theologian, Jesus dives into the deep end, using rebirth as a metaphor for spiritual insight, informing the man that he’ll need new eyes to see Jesus is doing the work of God’s kingdom. Nicodemus doesn’t get it. “How can anyone be reborn?” he asks. Jesus explains He’s talking about spiritual rebirth—awakening to a truth that transcends natural law. Nicodemus still doesn’t get it. Somewhat frustrated, Jesus asks, “Aren’t you a teacher? How can this be so hard to understand?” And then, in verse 12, He says, “If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?”

Here to Die

One imagines Nicodemus staring at his coffee, feeling smaller by the minute. In verse 13, Jesus tactfully apologizes for talking over his head: “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man,” He confides. (Translated: “Of course you can’t understand what I’m talking about. We come from different worlds.”) So Jesus reaches into Hebrew Scripture to explain Himself in terms Nicodemus can grasp. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” He says, “so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.” (v14-15)

Nicodemus perks up. It’s all coming together. This Rabbi Who talks in riddles is exactly Who many say He is: Israel’s Savior. He provoked Jerusalem’s temple officials on purpose to fulfill His mission. No doubt, Nicodemus has heard rumblings that Jesus must be got out of the way. Indeed, concern for Jesus’s safety may be what prompted his visit. Now he realizes that Jesus knows what’s going on and why He’s unfazed by the brewing conspiracy to get rid of Him. In effect, Jesus tells Nicodemus, “I’m here to die.”

New Life and Healing

Jesus's allusion to the Old Testament’s infamous snake episode is both tasty and timely. It’s the kind of horror tale that glues teenaged boys to their seats, and it’s probable that Jesus and Nicodemus associate it with their youth. As told in Numbers 21, the story finds the Israelites grumbling once again about roaming the desert. You’d think they’d have adjusted to wilderness life by now, as they’ve been at it for 40 years. What’s more, with God’s help, they’ve just pulled off an amazing coup, destroying a Canaanite tribe that attacked them and took some of their people hostage. Spirits should be very high. But verses 4 and 5 read, “The people grew impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no food and water, and we detest this miserable food.’” Their impertinence turns into self-fulfilling prophecy. Venomous snakes infest their camp and many die. That wakes them up. They run to Moses and beg him to beseech God’s mercy. God instructs Moses to craft a facsimile of a snake and hoist it on a pole. “Everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live,” God declares. (v9)

The timeliness of Jesus’s mentioning the story to Nicodemus reveals how finely attuned both men are to scriptural nuance. The story transpires when Israel is on the cusp of major transition. Aaron, their chief priest, died just prior to the victory over their enemies. They’re due for a changing of the guard, as Moses transfers leadership to a new generation that will usher Israel into the Land of Promise. Yet here they are, as impatient, ungrateful, and shortsighted as ever. It’s been four decades since they walked away from Egypt. But they won’t let it go. If anything, they’ve romanticized it to the point of absurdity—to the point that it still enslaves them. Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? It’s a dangerous question to put to God and the prophet. Asking it almost kills them off and very well might have, but for one critical factor. God promised Israel a land of its own and God’s promises hold true, whether or not we accept them. Thus, to honor the promise, God raises an improbable symbol of new life and healing in the desert, instructing Israel to look and live.

Toward the Lifting

The subtleties of Jesus’s metaphor aren’t lost on Nicodemus this time. He sees the religious climate of his day is also polluted with impertinence, impatience, ingratitude, and shortsightedness. He senses the world is on the cusp of major transition. Jesus has come to usher in a New Order, to lead us into a new Land of Promise. His gruesome execution will become God’s improbable symbol of new life and healing, an unconditional offering of love to all who look and live.

And so it is that Lent’s desert—where 40 short days can feel like 40 long years—finds us headed toward the lifting of God’s Son on a crude cross. There He will hang as God’s promise of healing and new life. And make no mistake: we are snakebit with venom that flows out of our impatience, ingratitude, and myopia. We cling to Egyptian reveries and wax nostalgic about enslavement. Sentimentality for old regimes blinds us to new opportunities. Major victories evaporate from memory. Yet in the midst of our discontent and impertinence God raises a Savior Who invites us to look and live. May we honor that invitation and find new healing and life at Calvary’s cross.

Look and live.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/02/25/snakebit/.

Postscript: Question 4

In John 3.3, Jesus tells Nicodemus unless we’re born anew, we can’t see the kingdom of God. And in Numbers, God raises a symbol of pain and death to open Israel’s eyes to new healing and life.

When we look at the cross, what do we see? How does it reveal God’s kingdom to us? I can’t help but think we all see the same thing. Yet given our personal histories and perspectives, we view the cross in marvelously unique ways. I’ve shared some of what I see in the comments. What do you see?