Not Big Enough

It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. (Isaiah 49.6)

Re-Inverting Intuition

Modern technology fosters a bizarre craze for tiny things. Ours is the first era in history that doesn’t equate size with power. From the day a visionary cave dweller invented the wheel until the 1980s, bigger automatically meant better. But now that we can cram our pockets, briefcases, and dashboards with all the comforts of home, “the littler, the cooler” reigns supreme. Our obsession with toy-sized gadgets has radically inverted human intuition about life. We downsize everything we can—from factories to families, from sentences to sentiments—seldom considering what we sacrifice. For one thing, the texture of today’s world can’t compare to that of my youth. When factories were filled with workers, craftsmanship brought distinction to products. Larger families turned homes into theaters and mealtimes into scenes. Before writing became texting and phrases acronyms, sentences flowed with eloquence and subtlety. And when emotions were feelings, not emoticons and meltdowns, they colored our conversations with rich hues and bright splashes.

Another thing gone missing in our love of miniaturization, I believe, is romance with thinking big. Personal technology has created a society of specialists. Our gizmos put the world in our hands. Yet very few of us use them to expand our vision. Most of us concentrate on doing what we’ve always done, just more of it quicker. Maybe that’s not a bad thing for the time-crunched VP rifling through emails on her iPhone. But if she transfers her do-a-lot-about-a-little intuition to how she perceives and explores her potential, there’s no “maybe” about it. It’s a bad thing—a terrible thing. Our worth and wonder emerge by thinking bigger. They shine brighter with broader reach. Our challenge isn’t narrowing focus to become experts in esoteric fields; it’s admitting our dreams and visions aren’t big enough for our gifts. That requires re-inverting intuition—returning to the pre-tech mindset that bigger is better, and less really means less.

Prophetic Principles

Coming off Advent, which casts Isaiah on the lines of an eminent narrator whose deep baritone scoots things along, we’re apt substitute “Jesus” for every pronoun in his prophecy. It’s a glorious idea, though not above suspicion. Given glaring discrepancies in Matthew and Luke’s accounts—each relying heavily on Isaiah—it’s not unreasonable that they retrofit their versions to echo his predictions. In fact, it’s highly likely, as Early Church theologians and authors as a whole look to Isaiah to verify Jesus’s Messianic stature. Thus, we tremble at the suggestion Isaiah isn’t written with Jesus specifically in mind, as if he literally envisions events he describes exactly as they play out. But this reduces the prophet to uncanny fortune-teller, which is neither his calling nor gift. Prophets serve as God’s envoys to humanity—to us. Their main duty is realigning our perceptions with God’s principles, using promises as incentives. The prophetic construct is pretty basic: A) God’s not pleased with you. B) This is how you correct it. C) If you do, God will bless you; if not, God will judge you severely. Therefore, while Isaiah’s prophecies are applicable to Jesus, they’re no less so to us because the underlying principles remain the same for Him and us.

Opening Isaiah with this awareness, it explodes with relevance for every believer. Fresh air reaches passages sealed under Messianic glass to become life-changing lessons. Even verses that appear directly tied to Jesus burst with personal meaning. Consider Isaiah 49.6: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” From a Messianic standpoint, its message is overt: Christ’s mission surpasses restoring Israel to include the entire world. Then, knowing this prophecy is sent to us as well—for are we not also God’s servants?—what is God telling us? Freed of its Christ-centric detail, the principle arrives at our door. God says, “Common expectations are too small for you. I’ve got something bigger in mind, something better.”

Hearing the Prophet

When Isaiah speaks these words, conventional wisdom and popular tradition in Israel holds the Messiah is an exclusive promise for them. “Not big enough!” God says. Although the prophecy couldn’t be plainer, Judaic culture at large can’t vanquish its longing for exclusivity and permanence as God’s chosen people. Since it’s always been that way, they reason, that’s how it must always be. “That’s too small,” God declares. It’s all too small—the dream, the understanding, the tradition, and the prejudice. Yet Israel’s slavish belief in exclusive rights to the Messiah doesn’t affect God’s plan or deter Christ’s fulfillment of it. When Jesus defines His purpose to Nicodemus, the learned Pharisee, in John 3.16, He says: “God so loved the world.” Then and there, He draws a line. Jews fixated on culturally acceptable beliefs think small. He thinks big. To confine His vision, gifts, and efforts to their narrow-minded expectations defeats His purpose. He’s heard the prophet. “It’s too small a thing for you.”

In a world enamored with miniatures—one that continually rewards small thinking and petty behavior—we can anticipate resistance when embracing the prophet’s message. Traditional boundaries and beliefs aren’t big enough. Through Jesus, we learn what's always been won’t always be. As God’s Servant, intent on realizing His potential in scale with God’s plan, He bucks tradition and culture over and over. God’s got bigger things in mind and, though confronted with small minds at every turn, Jesus won't be convinced otherwise. He starts small, with a little kitchen magic to help a host who’s run out of wine, but He seizes each new opportunity for something greater. The message, miracles, and manifestations get bigger as He goes, constantly expanding His reach. Through Isaiah, God says to us, along with Jesus, “What religion and culture expect is too small for you. Broaden your vision. Expand your reach. What you've been told isn't big enough.” Our worth and wonder don’t fit the tiny-tech paradigm. Neither does God’s purpose or the gifts we’re given to fulfill it. We hear the prophet. With God, bigger is always better. More is always more. Anything less is not enough.

We don’t live and think in scale with conventional wisdom and popular tradition. They’re just not big enough for God’s purpose and the gifts we’re given to fulfill it.

Get Right, Church

I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations. (Isaiah 42.6)

Too Late

For days now I’ve been unable to escape an extraordinary slave spiritual built on a deceptively simple lyric: “Get right, Church, and let’s go home.” It’s captivated me for all sorts of reasons, some regarding its origin but mostly for its relevance to our role as the Church in today’s world. I’m mystified that a people sold into hardship could sing such a song. Get right, Church? If we stood in their place, we’d go off on whoever came up with that. Get right, when everywhere we turn we stare wrong in the face? There’s a church that needs to get right, but not ours, not us. This belongs in the whitewashed palace with the whitewashed people—the ones who barter us like oxen, get pious on Sunday and violent on Monday, and say they worship in “God’s House” but lock us out, leaving us to sing our faith while we melt in the merciless sun. And let’s go home? That’s new, too. Home, as in where? We’ve been gone so long we don’t have one. We know what you mean, but we’ve got enough Heaven songs. We don’t need another, certainly not one like this.

The song’s durability proves its positive reception as it spread across the South via hearts of captives shuttled between owners. As America’s first virtual faith community, slaves drew strength from their united pursuit of righteousness. Few knew their age. They measured lifetimes by seasons; the sun’s arc defined their days. Yet primitive timekeeping didn’t impede their urgency to get right—and be right—to get home. Here are the verses, also one-liners:

I’m going home on the morning train.

Evening train may be too late.

Righteousness coalesced their sights on blessings denied: freedom, dignity, identity, and safety. With no expectation of sweeping deliverance, going home was a solitary journey. They believed forsaking righteousness for one second could thwart their passage. If they weren’t ready for the morning train, their best hope resided in the evening train. Still, second chances weren’t assured. And too late would be too late.

Collectively and Subversively

Naturally, we bristle to think a momentary lapse could nullify a life of earnest obedience. Modern fears of failure and rejection distort our view of what slaves clearly saw in the spiritual. It had nothing to do with divine fairness and everything to do with solidarity of purpose. It wasn’t about God. In truth, it wasn’t even about dying. It was about living collectively and subversively—flouting the corrupt politics and culture forced upon them. Righteousness brought them together, held them there, and enabled them to construct an invisible cathedral that towered over their captors’ so-called sanctuaries. Under everyone’s noses, faith raised a home for their souls. Legally, they were owned. Spiritually, they were kept. To their owners, they were commodities—ledger entries assigned a dollar value. To their Keeper, they were a covenant—a precious promise come to life, a nation cradled in God’s hand, a light to pierce blindness and dark dungeons. Whether intentionally or coincidentally, “Get Right, Church” embraced all God vows to us in Isaiah 42.6-7: “I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” In seven little words, the spiritual presented the proposition and promise, asking, “What will we do?” Its verses answered, “We won’t waste a moment. The first chance we have, we’re getting on-board and going home.”

Where Is the Church?

As concern about current confusion and violence rapidly mounts, a cry goes out: “Where is the Church?” We’ve yet to provide a meaningful reply. “Everywhere” we say, even though the instant it passes our lips its inadequacy chastens us. A Body severed in pieces strewn in all directions has no presence or power. Why do we balk at God’s proposition? Why won’t we get right so we can be God’s promise? What are we waiting for? If we already know righteousness means living in right relationship with God, one another, and our neighbors and enemies—if we’ve heard God’s call—what’s our problem? We’re staring at the morning train. Our chance to board is fading while we squander moments scanning the timetable for a later train. Why? We differ with some of the passengers already on-board. (They don’t like us, either.) Too late will be too late. Second chances are not assured. If we don’t get right, we may not get home. The world pleads with us to pull ourselves together and do as God asks. It’s time the Church showed up.

Proverbs 14.34 nails it: “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people.” God calls us to righteousness to raise a new nation out of nations. We are fast approaching zero hour, when self-cannibalizing politics has devoured its last ounce of dignity, when social activism has abandoned the fight for justice to pummel its adversaries, when human ethics have devolved to basic instincts. God grants us a priceless opportunity to transcend politics, activism, and ethics as one nation in God—the Church truly triumphant and universal, the collective and subversive Body of Christ, God’s breathing, moving, and speaking presence on Earth. It’s ours to be the promise, the light, the invisible cathedral, the home of the soul, the creative instrument of renewal, to be kept by God—not merely owned by corrupt masters. This portion of Isaiah 42’s pledge ends with God saying, “See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.” (v9) What God wants to do through us is more thrilling than we can ever imagine. Seven little words: Get right, Church, and let’s go home. What will we do?

We’re staring at the morning train, wasting our chance to board because we differ with some of its passengers. Meanwhile, the world pleads with us to pull ourselves together and show up.

Postscript: The Spiritual

This vintage recording of “Get Right, Church” by The Angelic Gospel Singers beautifully captures the spiritual’s optimism and enthusiasm. If while reading the post you heard a slow, mournful slave song, you’re in for a treat!

A Fate Worse than Death

Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves. (Luke 17.1-3)

Howling for Help

In the US, 2011 opened with a week of sorrows that went from lamentable to tragic to horrifying. On Monday, the 112^th Congress convened, with Republicans assuming leadership in the House of Representatives. The new majority swiftly dashed any hope it would comport itself in a manner befitting gracious victors by pegging repeal of healthcare reform as its first order of business. The bile that poisoned the last Congress and 2010 elections will spill into this session, it seems. The second go-‘round is all the more nauseating since it’s basically a juvenile stunt. The lower house’s bloviating and bluster won’t help the repeal clear Senate approval and Presidential veto hurdles, and those who concocted the scheme—gussied up as a “symbolic gesture”—know it. What they don’t get, what they’ve never got, however, is shelving healthcare to show contempt for the opposition reveals utter contempt for poor children. Tramping over them to kick the governing party’s shins is a sad, sorry sight indeed.

Contempt for children—and the fate befalling a society that abides it—became the week’s theme. On Wednesday, Bill Zeller, a 27-year-old doctoral student at Princeton who dazzled the world with his Web programming genius, killed himself. He left a 4,000-word note explaining what drove him to choose death over life. If you’ve not yet read the letter, which has been widely published, you must. (Honoring his request that it be presented entirely intact, you can find it here.) It’s one of the most painful accounts I’ve ever read, as Zeller relives unrelenting torment in the clutches of childhood abuse. Paragraph after paragraph documents symptoms and behaviors howling for help—all of them ignored or answered with contempt. At one point, he describes feeling an evil within compelling him to kill. Fear that he might take another’s life is the main reason for ending his. And while we tried to reconcile Zeller’s humanity with the fiendish inhumanity he endured, we had no idea 2400 miles away another young man was losing his battle with similar compulsions.

With little about his past available at present, we can’t say whether childhood abuse factors into the mental storm that descended on Jared Lee Loughner, the 22-year-old would-be assassin of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Yet this child—also adept at the computer keys—strung the Web with howls for help. Ten days ago, his MySpace page read, “I’m searching. Today! With every concern, my shot is now ready for aim. The hunt, a mighty thought of mine.” If anyone heard him, if anyone spotted madness in his youtube ramblings, no one cared about quelling his troubles. Media coverage of the murders he committed, including that of a nine-year-old girl, categorized Loughner as an oddball whose cryptic cries didn’t merit notice. Statements from far and wide reviled his actions, and rightly so. But it was startling how many explicitly called for him to be held in public contempt. The hideousness of his crime has masked the horror of his existence. There will be no help for Jared Lee Loughner.

The Lingering Question

Cases like Zeller’s and Loughner’s—as well as untold others, where contempt for innocence breeds horrific tragedy—inevitably raise the lingering question: how do we prevent these things from happening? The wisdom we’re searching for will never be found, though, because we’ll never be that wise. Our limited capacity should lead us to seek divine wisdom, which hides in plain sight in Luke 17, where Jesus candidly addresses this. But since His answer isn’t the one we’re looking for, we resist it. He says there is no solution to eradicate the abuse of innocents. “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come,” He explains. (v1) Forces that pervert politicians’ compassion, warp predators’ minds, and blunt attentiveness to pleas for help cannot be destroyed. They feed on deadly desires for power and profit. They’re seductively shortsighted and irrational, making easy prey of anyone vexed by fears of impermanence and insignificance. We don’t want to believe this, despite knowing it’s true.

The lingering question asks the wrong question. Jesus puts another question to us instead: are you watching yourselves? Are you taking every precaution against contempt for those liable to stumble? Are you serving your interests with no concern for theirs? Are you unwittingly abetting forces that prey on the weak and defenseless? “Woe to anyone through whom they come,” Jesus warns. “It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves.” (v1-3) The answer isn’t prevention. It’s accountability. Jesus calls each of us to lives of vigilance that encompasses everything we can possibly do to strengthen the weak ones in our lives, to defend the powerless, and to help straighten the paths of those who’ve lost their way. Implicit in His warning that we not cause anyone to stumble is His mandate that we take them in our arms to steady their balance and secure their steps.

Under the Sea

The sea is never friendly when mentioned in Scripture—or, for that matter, any ancient text. It’s a mysterious, unforgiving entity that deceives the eye with a glistening surface that conceals riptides and squalls. Dangers inexplicably, suddenly arise at sea and it swallows everyone who falls into its depths, never to return. In many ways, the sea is to Jesus’s time what outer space is to ours. For all they know about it, they’re aware how little they actually understand it. So when Jesus tells the disciples causing an innocent to stumble is worse than being thrown into the sea with millstones tied to their necks, He describes a fate worse than inescapable death. Then, He takes a sharp turn to discuss forgiveness. “If someone sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them,” He says. (v3) All of it together—accountability for others, courage to confront those who wrong us, and grace to forgive them when they repent—overwhelms the disciples. But their response in verse 5 couldn’t be more perfect: “Increase our faith!”

Fulfilling our duties to protect innocents, rebuke wrongdoers, and forgive them when asked—regardless if they change their ways—is beyond our means. That’s why there’s no political argument or social uprising strong enough to defeat evil desires. Faith, the irrevocable belief that obedience to Christ’s commands has the power to change the world, is our only hope. It drives us to exceed what’s reasonable to achieve the impossible. We will never control the forces beyond our control. Yet by faith, we can keep those around us—and us—from buckling to evil. One shudders to imagine the millstones and suffocating shame worn by those who contemptuously tuned out Bill Zeller and Jared Lee Loughner’s howls for help. In a week marked by death, we’ve witnessed a fate worse than death. Yes, Lord, please increase our faith!

Contempt and indifference for those at risk of stumbling will end in agony that surpasses death by drowning.

Passing Fancies

Everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. (1 John 2.16-17)

Navigating the New Reality

We stopped going out on New Year’s Eve long ago, opting to spend the evening at home, just the two of us, enjoying a few sips of Champagne and the fireworks over Lake Michigan from the warmth of our living room. Typically our house fills up with friends on New Year’s Day, when we host a traditional seafood dinner that everyone pitches in to prepare. This year, we skipped that too, since I’m traveling for work today. So it’s been uncommonly quiet around here—a blessing at any time of year. Among the things we’ve managed to avoid are questions about New Year’s resolutions. When asked, I seldom know what to say and make something up on the spot. The custom strikes me as a hollow pretense with its suggestion that flipping the calendar to another year is a legitimate reason for turning over new leaves. If we’re aware of things we need to change before the year begins, why wait until January 1? Life is a living thing, a constant effort whose focus should center on progress and improvement. Daily diligence is required to reevaluate our habits, attitudes, and motives in order to maintain continual growth. Some days—hopefully most of them—are easy. And then there are also hard days, when we’re caught up short. We realize what we’ve been doing may have worked in our favor so far, but having reached this place in our lives, it no longer works. So we regroup and reset our sites on navigating the new reality before us.

Education is a good example of this. For most of us, our first two decades steadily build toward one objective: a college degree. We invest years preparing to qualify for acceptance into a good school. Once we’re in, we work hard to meet its demands to graduate in good standing. The fabled degree that seemed all-important all of our young lives decreases in value after the real business of living begins, however. At best, it proves instrumental in landing a first job. But after we’re employed, talent and professionalism determine what we accomplish. The status we expected from our degrees and the schools that granted them becomes secondary to what we do with the knowledge acquired in our studies. Gradually, we let that illusion go and replace it with another—namely, the workplace is a land of equal opportunity. When we discover that’s not always true, we replace it with a new illusion about office politicking to position ourselves for recognition and rewards we believe we deserve. Another illusion follows that one, and on it goes until we’re reconciled that much of what we’re told about life and expect from it is illusory and, therefore, undependable. That’s the point John makes so emphatically in his first epistle.

The Book of Love

First John is perhaps best described as the book of love. It’s a letter intended for circulation among first-century churches, reminding readers that love is the driving force of Christian faith. John looks at love from all angles: God’s love for us, our love for God, love’s power over fear, its importance as the litmus test for doctrine and discipleship, and so on. After opening the letter with a firm exhortation to resist sin and dark influences, John transitions into his main theme by telling us what not to love: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.” (1 John 2.15) It sounds fairly basic at first. But when we really think about it, we’re prone to wonder what he’s actually saying. Surely he’s not advocating full-on asceticism here—dispensing with all earthly possessions and relationships to make room for God. How would such a teaching be practical or even possible? Evidently sensing how easily we might jump to that conclusion, John explains what he means and his reasoning behind it.

“Everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever,” he writes in verses 16 and 17. He acknowledges we're naturally vulnerable to passing fancies—be they dreams, compulsions, or ambitions. Such longings aren’t sustainable, John says, because they’re based on self-gratifying emotions like lust and pride. Loving the world or anything in the world ends badly by having little or nothing at all to do with love. It’s about getting, not giving. It doesn’t satisfy our innate craving for love’s lasting presence and pleasures. As each of us no doubt has learned by sorry experience, pinning hopes for meaningful existence on physical, visual, or material cravings never works out. But love, though often tested, never fails, because God is love. If what we’re drawn to—relationships, status, or possessions—appeals only to our desire to have it, rather than our desire to express love through it, we can guarantee it will soon be replaced by another desire that launches another chase after a new illusion. That’s the way of the world.

Things Eternal

I grew up with two hymns that gain meaning for me by the year. The first says, “Build your hopes on things eternal. Hold to God’s unchanging hand.” The second insists, “Only what you do for Christ will last.” Both summarize John’s wisdom. A life spent on passing fancies is a life wasted. In its extreme, it becomes a life without and unable to give love. It’s a fickle existence absent of God’s sustaining presence and the pleasures we reap by pleasing God.

As we ponder John’s message, suppose we use the New Year’s resolution in a way that surpasses breaking habits or adjusting attitudes. Suppose we resolve to evaluate everything we do for its lasting value. Passing fancies can be fun and harmless, provided we’re aware of how little they provide. They’re too flimsy to build on. What we accomplish by acting upon them isn’t guaranteed to last. They’re not worth much time and energy. We build our hopes on things eternal. We love as Christ commands us, because love lasts. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

Basing our lives on passing fancies is like proverbial sandcastle building. What we do won’t last.

Sanctuaries

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” (Matthew 2.13)

One Vision from Two Versions

Attempting to weave a unified timeline from Matthew and Luke’s Nativity accounts invites madness. The Holy Family, Bethlehem, the Virgin Birth, and (of course) the event’s magnitude are their only common threads. Luke’s version highlights Christ’s humble beginnings: Mary and Joseph are modest people; the Child is quietly born in a stable; angels summon shepherds from the countryside to worship Christ the Savior. Roughly 40 days later, as required by Mosaic Law, Mary and Joseph present Jesus to the Temple priests in Jerusalem. There, a holy man named Simeon confirms the Babe is the Messiah, “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” (Luke 2.32) Luke’s is a tender, heartwarming story.

Matthew’s tone and timing couldn’t be more dissimilar. Since his story is all about Christ the King, he wraps it in august language and political intrigue befitting a monarch. Joseph takes center stage, as his family traces its roots to Abraham—i.e., he comes from royal blood. A star on the eastern horizon captivates eminent astronomers who traverse the Arabian Peninsula to greet the Christ Child. They stop in Jerusalem to pay homage to King Herod, telling him they’re in search of the recently born King of the Jews. Their news troubles Herod and his court. Worse yet, it places Joseph, Mary, and Jesus in mortal danger. After the Magi leave the house where they find the Holy Family—Matthew will have none of this lowly stable business—an angel instructs Joseph: “Get up! Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” (Matthew 2.13) It’s anyone’s guess how they flee to Egypt, remain there until Herod’s death, and still manage a high-profile appearance six weeks after Jesus is born—in Jerusalem, of all places—in the Temple Herod built, no less—where a prophet announces Jesus is the Child Herod’s scouring the land to locate and destroy. How do we get one vision from two versions?

Why Egypt?

Up to the birth, we sort of blur them together. The accounts basically run in parallel and if we fudge a few details to line up the Wise Men and shepherds for the star-lighted manger scene, well, it’s a small fee in exchange for such a priceless tableau. After the guests depart, however, no amount of buffing can fix the discrepancies between the two stories. If we insisted on reading every word in the Bible as factually true, we couldn’t be sure which to believe. But since Biblical truth transcends trivia like dates and times—and Scripture’s purpose surpasses those of almanacs and textbooks—we can divorce Matthew from Luke to consider what each wants to show us. Luke’s intention behind the Temple presentation is straightforward. He slips in Simeon’s prophecy to establish Christ as the Savior of all humankind, Gentiles and Jews. Matthew is less forthcoming with his reasons for placing Jesus in peril and sending Him in exile as an Infant.

Our first question is, “Why Egypt?” Mary and Joseph just as easily could go east—more easily, actually, as the distance from Bethlehem to Judea’s eastern border is less than a third of the 200-mile trek to Egypt. The angel’s directive somehow seems backwards. Egypt represents everything Christ will defeat: oppression, powerlessness, loss of identity, and death. Yet its remove and reputation are why there’s no better place to go. It’s the last place anyone expects to find Israel’s newborn King. Furthermore, since the Egyptians are religiously isolated from Messianic mindsets, Christ’s anonymity is guaranteed. In many ways, it would be like hiding the infant Dalai Lama in America’s Bible Belt. For all the locals know, Mary and Joseph are merely sojourners; the Child’s identity holds no import for them.

Newness Covers Our Lives

Then, beyond its pragmatic appeal, Egypt’s selection symbolizes something so thrilling we strain to absorb it. The angel tells Joseph to move Christ to Egypt to liberate Israel from its past. God does a new thing here, transforming the site of the Jews’ greatest sorrows into a sanctuary for their highest hopes. Unlike his Old Testament namesake—who enters Egypt as a slave and ushers Israel into bondage—Christ’s presence enables this Joseph to enter and leave Egypt as a free man. The Egyptian shadow is no more. The kingdom of terror and torment is now a safe place.

In retrospect, it’s a good thing that Joseph and Mary don't leave Bethlehem before the angel reroutes them to Egypt. One can hear their loved ones challenge them: “Are you crazy? Egypt is nowhere to raise God’s Child! How did you dream up such an idea? After all our people suffered there, that makes absolutely no sense!” Blinded by deeply imbedded phobias, they’d miss the point. Christ changes everything. Former oppressors become future protectors—often unawares. Hierarchies that divested us of power inadvertently wind up preserving it. Places that stole our identity as God’s people ultimately prove instrumental in restoring it. Villains who threatened our lives unwittingly help us thrive. The past we knew without Christ is no more. God is doing a new thing, and that newness covers our entire lives. It turns wherever we go—not just literally, but as we journey back and forth through our days—into a safe place. The Christ with us, in us, transforms our sites of sorrow into sanctuaries of hope.

Christ comes to liberate us from the past we knew by transforming it with newness that covers our entire lives.

Postscript: “Imagine Me”

I’ve posted this video before, yet its power keeps calling me back. Turn up the volume and as you watch its riveting depiction of a past without Christ and how Christ’s presence changes everything, see your sites of sorrow transform into sanctuaries of hope. Kirk Franklin’s extraordinary ballad, “Imagine Me.” (Lyrics here.)

Scandals

Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. (Matthew 1.19)

Ancient History

We’ve got so comfortable discussing sex, marriage, and pregnancy we forget as late as the 1960’s, they weren’t appropriate topics for casual conversation. Sex stayed off the table entirely, while marriage and pregnancy only got mentioned when they were happy news—meaning, in mutual context. Divorces were like deaths. Unfaithful spouses were shunned as if they were murderers. Living in misery for the sake of the children—many of whom were badly scarred by anger and violence that attended “sticking it out”—was viewed as the best thing to do. Unwed pregnancies shocked everyone. Most middle- and upper-class single women who conceived quietly surrendered their babies for adoption to spare their family’s disgrace. (That is, if they didn’t pay a discrete visit to a trusted gynecologist, a luxury seldom available to lower-class unwed mothers, who had little choice but to raise their children on their own.) Couples cohabiting without marriage licenses were dismissed as morally reckless. If they brought children into the world without marrying, they were vilified all the more.

If this reads like ancient history, that’s because it is. Though methods and morals of marital relations, along with childbearing, have waxed and waned across time, it’s only very recently that society as a whole has taken a more liberal view. (That’s why two of English’s most inflammatory castigations refer to children born out of wedlock.) Reading the Christmas accounts, cross-referencing Matthew’s telling from Joseph’s perspective with Luke’s version from Mary’s, we’re jolted by the intense pressure they’re under from the first. Honoring custom, their marriage contract has been formalized, the dowry negotiated, and their union announced. We now call this “engagement to marry,” though reasons for the delay have got lost. In Mary and Joseph’s time publishing banns (as the practice eventually was called) gives time for anyone to disclose information that might nullify the union after consummation. Grounds include: prior sexual activity, previous marriages not yet dissolved, hereditary illnesses, and legally prohibited degrees of kinship.

Deadly Serious

Ancient communities adopt such policies to protect their interests. If new facts void a marital contract after sexual union, the divorcée and children become social outcasts andburdens. To preempt future scandal from this, families do thorough background checks before entering into the contract. Publishing it seals the deal, with the couple named husband and wife before living and sleeping together. Sex is forbidden to bar status changes during the wait. Non-compliant couples face fornication charges. Straying partners risk adultery convictions. Under Mosaic Law, both are capital offenses. So when Mary finds out she’s pregnant without her consent—a little detail we don’t dare mention—and Joseph learns of it, they realize they’re fodder for deadly serious scandal. Mary’s benefitted from discussing the situation with God’s messenger; her response is tempered by resolute faith. Her husband isn’t as fortunate.

Joseph’s first impulse urges him to take the most legally prudent route. But it’s an impossible dilemma forcing him to choose where his heart lies. Matthew 1.19 spells it out beautifully: “Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.” That is, he decides to obey his community and religion’s rules by discretely severing the marriage contract before Mary’s pregnancy becomes obvious. That frees her to disappear—possibly returning to Jerusalem to live with her cousin, Elizabeth, and raise her Child there. If all goes well, the couple will escape scandal and legal action they’d inevitably confront in Nazareth. It’s a smart plan. But it’s not a safe one, because it’s not God’s plan. To paraphrase a thrilling observation my pastor made in last Sunday, by design, God hands Joseph a scandalous situation and dispatches an angel instructing him to face the scandal with Mary and choose to protect someone beside himself. “Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife,” the angel says, “because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” (v20)

The Big Difference

That’s the big difference between Mary and Joseph. She has no choice. He does. Christ’s presence in his life hinges on courage to confront scandal and placing Mary’s welfare above his own. He says “no” to fear. He says “no” to pressure. He says “no” to the Law! Telling them “no” is how he tells God, “Yes.” And his willingness to confront scandal is essential here, because scandal will follow Jesus from manger to tomb. Based on this tiny glimpse of Joseph’s character, can we doubt Jesus is also his Son? God chooses Joseph as Christ’s earthly role model in full confidence he’ll make influential choices.

From what we see in Joseph and the Babe he raises to adulthood, by its very nature, a Christ-led life is scandalous. If that doesn’t shock us, perhaps we’re not aware how often fear, pressure, and accepted rules decide our actions. What seems smart isn’t always safe, because our wisdom typically lacks courage and puts self-interests first. That’s not what God wants. It’s not what Christ teaches. It’s not what Jesus exemplifies. So we’re subject to derision in communities where logic ridicules faith. So? So religionists bellow when we defy their rules and say yes to God. So? So determination to house Christ in our hearts, nurturing Christ’s presence in our thoughts and actions, raises suspicions and threats of rejection. So? The Babe conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit is the Christ conceived in us. This thing is bigger than we realize—too holy to hide, too daring for discretion, too wonderful to worry with human rules. If dreading scandal sends us packing, we haven’t fully embraced God’s purpose and power in our lives. Face scandals. Don’t be afraid. Choose right. Say “Yes!”

Saying no to fear, pressure, and manmade rules is how we tell God, “Yes!”

Postscript: “Trading My Sorrows”

Oh my, talk about scandal! I’m about to embed a John Tesh video into this post! But go with me on this. When you hear the refrain, I’m sure you’ll get it. Saying “yes” should swing wide huge windows of joy in our spirits. And indeed it does.

Scoundrels

This is an account of the origins of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham... There were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah. (Matthew 1.1,17)

Dynasty

Among all the things the Bible is, it’s the exhaustive record of one family. It covers 62 generations in all, 20 from Adam to Abraham and then, by Matthew’s count, 42 from Abraham to Jesus. Treating the Bible as a dynastic saga leaves us uneasy, though, as if we’re forcing it into a genre beneath its dignity. It feels sacrilegious to imagine Holy Scripture sandwiched between the Caesars, Borgias, Bourbons, and Kennedys. But Old Testament genealogists and Matthew would argue God’s early dealings with humanity are family matters. From Adam to Abraham, the focus is bloodline. Ethnicity doesn’t emerge until God promises Abraham he will father a great nation, Israel, which approaches nationhood as a family matter by taking its name from Abraham's grandson, Jacob, and self-identifies as his “children.” After Abraham, Bible history is consumed by marital and reproductive crises. It’s no stretch to say, when the dynasty teeters, wars, invasions, coups, captivities, famines, and plagues take a back seat. God’s sacred oath to bless Abraham’s offspring is Israel’s raison d’être. Family comes first since its DNA holds the deed to God’s promise.

We resist approaching the Bible as a family saga because dynasties are horribly messy. Heroes are few. Scoundrels run riot. Usually it’s hard to tell one from the other. Titans crumble to lust, greed, and blood-thirst. Conspiracies abound, paranoia thrives, children rebel, parents grieve, tables turn, and heads roll. “Maybe that’s the stuff of opera, tabloids, and TV miniseries," we say, "but surely not the Bible!” Alas—and I’m guessing you’re already way ahead of me—it’s truer than we prefer to believe. To verify this, we need look no further than Matthew’s genealogy, which opens his gospel to establish Jesus’s bona fides as Abraham’s descendant and a rightful heir to David’s throne. In the process, he reveals more about Jesus’s background than he probably wants us to see.

Warts

Matthew lists an illustrious pantheon of patriarchs and kings: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Boaz, David, Solomon, et al. His first challenge is contriving a way to connect Jesus to this lineage, as He isn’t Joseph’s biological heir. The writer fixes this by including five women—Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and, finally, Mary—who give birth to legendary sons. The importance of adding these women to the roster can’t be overstated for its implications to first-century readers and its affront to patriarchal mentality imbedded in Christian traditions to this day. Every one of them is a potential victim of chauvinistic legalism. Yet, while Matthew traces bloodline through the fathers, calling out five mothers allows him to stitch a thread of redemption into Jesus’s story. Like her four predecessors, Mary bears mention because she is God’s vessel of intervention to correct the dynasty’s waywardness and fulfill God’s promise. What Matthew can’t fix are warts on the dynasty’s most prominent men. In some ways, they’re extraordinarily heroic. In others, they’re hopeless scoundrels.

Abraham lets his wife become Pharaoh’s plaything in exchange for favors; then he disowns Hagar and Ishmael to appease Sarah’s envy. After Isaac gets tricked into marrying an ugly sister, he negotiates a new deal to wed the pretty one. Jacob steals his brother’s inheritance and swindles his father-in-law. After Tamar is left childless by two of Judah’s sons, he sends her from his house—a violation of Jewish custom—to spare his youngest boy from marrying her; he later mistakes her for a prostitute and impregnates her. Boaz, as next-of-kin to Ruth’s late husband, is legally bound to marry her. But he settles for letting her work his fields with other women until she sleeps with him. Then he claims her. Where do we start with David? He doesn’t avenge his daughter when her stepbrother rapes her, creating enmity between him and another son, who dies in a freak accident. He has a neighbor killed to marry the man’s widow. He murders anyone who gets in his way, Jew and non-Jew alike. Solomon collects 700 queens, plus 300 concubines, and unwisely turns from God to please his pagan wives. These are just the headliners. If we vetted Matthew’s genealogy line-by-line, few of its entries could boast of lifelong moral and spiritual integrity.

Living Truthfully

Matthew’s reasons for opening with Jesus’s genealogy are legitimate and noble. He’s undertaken the task of reworking Mark’s earlier account of Jesus’s ministry into a full-fledged biography. (Luke will do the same.) Since Mark begins with Jesus’s baptism, His birth is the first omission to be rectified. Matthew gives great consideration to framing his book for readers he hopes to reach. He intends to prove to Jewish converts that Jesus is the Messiah foretold by the prophets. Yet, even in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus distances Himself from the Messianic dynasty. When people call Him “son of David,” He never acknowledges it. In His last week of human life, He severs all ties to His lineage by asking the Pharisees, “Whose son is the Messiah?” They answer, “David’s son.” Jesus challenges them with Psalm 110, where David refers to the Messiah as “Lord.” He asks, “If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” (Matthew 22.45) The contradictions bursting through Matthew’s genealogy, combined with Jesus’s apparent disregard for His dynastic background, teach us a powerful lesson.

Family background doesn’t define us. Regardless how good or bad our “stock” may be, in the end, we alone are responsible for our identity and character. The best of families are riddled with scoundrels and hypocrites—some of them more twisted than any you’d find in “lesser” families. We shouldn’t accept shame or humiliation for our family’s flaws, nor should we submit to pressures to pretend to be something we’re not. Family façades are seldom accurate or truthful; admiration they generate is illusory. That’s the fallacy in keeping up appearances and worrying what neighbors think. In the end, Matthew’s genealogy does us a much greater service than confirming Jesus’s Messianic credentials. It proves authenticity of self is vital. Following Christ obliterates all stereotypes and false expectations—including those within and about our families. “I am the way and the truth and the life,” Jesus says in John 14.6. Christ comes to show us we can live truthfully as ourselves. Living truthfully is why we come to Christ.

(Next post: Scandals)

All family trees—including Jesus’s—hang heavy with scoundrels and hypocrites. Our origins may shape us, but they don’t define us.

Postscript: A Matter of Choice

Authenticity of self is a matter of choice—following Christ’s example. I recently found this inspiring medley of “I Choose Jesus” (written by an old family friend, Mosie Lister) and “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus,” performed by Fortunato Yabut III and the Centerville Presbyterian Church Chorale (Fremont, California). May this Christmas renew our confidence that following Christ, not family origin or anything else, is what defines us!

I CHOOSE JESUS

Some say life is just a series of decisions

We make choices, we live and learn

Now I'm standing at a crossroad

And I must choose which way to turn

Down the one road is all the world can offer

All its power, its wealth and fame

Down the other just a Man

With nail scars in His hands

But there is mercy in His eyes

And there is power in His name

I choose Jesus, Jesus

Without a solitary doubt

I choose Jesus

Not for miracles, but for loving me

Not just for Bethlehem, but for Calvary

Not for a day, but for eternity

I choose Jesus

I have decided to follow Jesus

No turning back

No turning back