Pushing Back the Horizon

In November of 1996, my wife and I welcomed our first daughter into this world.  One of my favourite pictures is where my wife, Carlita and my new daughter, Katie, only days old are gazing at each other’s faces.  

I wonder what each of them was thinking as they stared into each other’s eyes, lost in wonder?

Each of us without exception comes into this world having no idea who we are.  We are first  given a sense of identity by those closest to us.  Usually our parents.  

Their faces become a mirror in which we see ourselves, from which we are informed of our value.  If you are so fortunate as to have loving parents, you will start out with a very healthy sense of self worth and identity.  

As time goes on, other people come into our lives. We look into their faces and see a reflection of our value based on their opinion of us.  Not all of these mirrors give us an accurate reflection.  Some are cracked, twisted, warped.  We see in those mirrors that there is something ugly in us.  

Defective.  

Damaged.  

Worthless.  

Over time our ego develops, which is our false identity.  We in turn, driven by our ego, behave as we believe we are.  If you believe you are defective, damaged and broken, you will act like it. Inevitably we end up reflecting a distorted image of others back to them when they look at us, infecting others with false identity. 

How many of us have forgotten who we are?  How many of us have been looking into mirrors of ego and believing the image?

In John 17:22, Jesus is conversing with His Father, and makes this startling statement of humanity:

“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one.”

The word, “glory” is an interesting word.  We often have a picture of God with this bright light shining out from Him on which we cannot bear to look. We think of this as His “glory”.  The word from which we get “glory” is the Greek word δόξα transliterated as “Doxa”. It can certainly be taken to mean “shiny resplendence” in certain contexts, but not here.  The primary meaning for this word is actually more like, an opinion or judgment of someone’s essence.  Of who they truly are.  

Their true self. 

I can only imagine that since the entity we call “God” is made up of three persons existing in perfect unity, sharing the same essence of selfless, outpouring, other-thinking or “agape” love,  that God the Father has an extremely high opinion of the Son—Jesus.  

Jesus has taken this same opinion of value and identity that He has received from the Father and has given it to us!

Not that we didn’t already possess it.  We just forgot who we are.  

From the get-go in the creation narrative of Genesis, God declares humanity to be “good”.  Just like Him.  After all, a good God cannot create anything that is not good.  Our inherent goodness as humans does not come by our own merit as secular humanists would claim, but comes from the ultimate divine goodness which created and sustains us. We can only come to believe that we are as such by looking at the right mirror.  

The divine mirror. 

Ever found a $100.00 bill in an outhouse?  It may be covered in filth, but it hasn’t lost any of its value which has been assigned to it.  Not many of us would be willing to reach in and rescue that bill, but if you do, it can be cleaned off and made presentable again.  It hasn’t lost a penny in value—even while filthy!  It still has the same value as the day it came off the press. 

Jesus did that very thing for us.  We have an assigned value of pricelessness, but found ourselves in the bottom of the outhouse of ego (false identity) and behaved according to who we thought we were.  God became human and entered the outhouse for a rescue mission.  He is the mirror we must look at to see the reflection of who we are. Many forms of religion have projected an ego onto God.  One such false religious teaching called “Calvinism” asserts that all people are born depraved and sinful. It teaches that God cannot accept us, cannot even look upon us until we clean up our act and ask Him to forgive us. According to this particular teaching, God has created most humans with no chance of being loved, accepted and valued by Him. Only the lucky “elect” will be let into heaven at the end of their lives.  Most of humanity was simply created to be tortured in a place called “Hell” for eternity. How disgusting!  This is not the God that Jesus revealed to us. This is a monster of our own making!  Any religion which tells you that God is capable of giving up on you at any time is a sad projection of our own fears which are born out of false identity. Such religious foolishness must be soundly rejected. 

God does not have an ego.  God does not need to punish us, nor is He interested in such activity.  He has taken away our false identity and restored our intrinsic value. You cannot enjoy this reality until you believe it any more than the $100.00 bill (if it were sentient) could enjoy its value if it thought of itself still covered with excrement. 

Let’s gaze into the eyes of the divine and discover who we truly are.  We are also invited to reflect God’s glory (opinion of humanity) to others around us. When others look to you, what kind of value do they see?  We were made to live in unity, with God and with each other.  There is no division except that which our egos create.  There is no us vs. them except for that which we impose.  

You are good. You are priceless. You are forgiven. You are holy. You are accepted.

Now be who you are. 

 

Crabs are interesting creatures.

They have soft bodies which are protected by an exoskeleton—a hard outer shell.  As a crab grows, it becomes uncomfortable inside of its shell as the shell does not grow.  In order to keep growing—in order to become mature, the crab has to go through the process of removing its shell in order to grow a new one which will better accommodate its new larger size.  That time between shells is always a dangerous one as its soft body is vulnerable.  It is now exposed to predators without its layer of protection.  Once its new shell is is place it is much safer once again, but will continue to grow and will once again outgrow its shell.  It is a healthy, necessary and ongoing process.

Recent observations have shown us that the universe is not only expanding, but picking up speed in its expansion.  The universe and everything within it is geared for forward momentum—for growth.  If you are not growing, you are dying.  This is true of crabs. This is also true of your intellect.

I’m always amazed and perplexed by people who are resistant to new thoughts and ideas. Quite often, the resisted thoughts and ideas aren’t really even new.  Just new to them.  As humans, we seem to have this tendency to find comfort in certitude. We believe something because we learned whatever that is from someone we consider to be trusted and reliable and well…that’s good enough for me.  If you tell me something different, I’m just not going to believe you.  In fact, I might even consider your strange ideas to be dangerous. 

This is our intellectual shell. 

Our beliefs become our protective identity and we find great comfort in them.  The only problem is…we are designed to grow.  

Our shells do not grow with us.

If you are healthy and growing, it’s inevitable that you will start to find your shell to be tight and uncomfortable after awhile. 

I find that intellectually, scientists tend to be much more honest than most religious people.  Einstein, for most of his life, argued tooth and nail for Newtonian physics and against the emerging science of quantum physics.  Near the end of his life, Einstein admitted that even though the findings of quantum science were “spooky”, he grudgingly accepted them as possibility.  Einstein had to remove his shell as the Newtonian science he had always believed and taught became too restrictive.  He grew as a scientist.  

Most religious people that I know, which are in the Evangelical Christian camp of my upbringing are quite comfortable with what they have always believed.  They have lived in the same echo chamber of thought for most of their lives, having their same old thinking reinforced by the confirmation bias of their particular religious tribe (denomination).  The shells of their religious identity are quite comfortable and always have been.  For some of them, they have heard “new” ideas about God and have indeed grown and become uncomfortable in their shells. Unfortunately, they fear being vulnerable.  They fear being unprotected and naked in the uncomfortable position of having more questions than answers. After all, there are always the dangerous predators to fear.  And they generally end up being the members of our own religious tribe.  The empire of religion is always very interested in self preservation and is quite resistant to anything or anyone who might disrupt their business.  When one of its members resists the group-think, that person is seen as a threat to the system and subsequently removed from the tribe.

Its a scary place to be in.  Growing, but without a shell, without a tribe.  Predators who used to be your friends circling around you.

But, if you are not growing, you are dying.  For myself, I prefer to grow, to be truly alive—risks and all.  For that reason, I cannot embrace and participate in the intellectual complacency of my former tribe of “Evangelical” Christianity.  

If you are in the evangelical world, it may seem like a “new” or “scary” even a “heretical” idea to you that God is actually not an angry judge who punishes people forever for sinning and not believing in Him.  It might seem strange if I told you that Jesus is the perfect representation of who God is, what His nature is like—and that He contradicted what people thought God was like in the Old Testament.  Indeed, Jesus went about His earthly ministry, forgiving, healing and indiscriminately pouring out love to everyone who crossed His path.  There is no mention of smiting, genocide or really any other kinds of participation in violence of any kind.  In fact, the only people who He had stern words for were the representatives of the empires of politics and religion who indeed behaved like the common idea of who God was according to the Old Testament. The ones who sought to control and manipulate people through violence and threat of violence—keeping them from living as fully human. 

What if I told you that God’s concept of justice is all about restoring all people to perfect relationship with Himself as opposed to the human version of retributive punishment?   What if I told you that Jesus death on the cross for our sins had nothing to do with God punishing Jesus on our behalf, but rather God in Christ refusing to participate in our violence.  What if I told you that it was humans, our system of empire that punished Jesus and that Jesus showed us through this act that no matter what we did to Him, He still forgives us.  What if I told you that it is impossible for us to stop God from loving us, to make Him give up on us. 

Even in eternity. 

What if God is just like Jesus?  Imagine the implications of this!

These are not “new” thoughts.  Just perhaps new to you.  This is what the early church of the first 500 years had predominantly taught.  What changed?  A lawyer turned theologian by the name of Augustine of Hippo who had a background in Platonic philosophy and Gnosticism brought his pagan ideas of God into the western, Latin speaking stream of the church from which modern evangelicalism originates. And then…we have centuries of Christians who for the most part never questioned what they were taught. People comfortable in their shells of certitude. Not growing. Just dying. 

If you still believe that God is vengeful and violent and will punish people endlessly, perhaps you still believe in the anthropomorphic god of our creation who Jesus came to contradict.  Perhaps you need to grow. Yes, your shell will suddenly feel constrictive and you will need to shed it. It’s dangerous and yes, your tribe will not understand you.  They will likely even reject you, but you will find life.  You will become larger and healthier.  Don’t get comfortable for too long in whatever shell you find yourself.  Stay curious.  Keep growing.  

Be more crabby!

And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.  John 17:3

My favourite part of spring time is witnessing the awakening of life that has been dormant over a long cold winter. The wet smells of new foliage, the sounds of migratory birds returning to my back yard, the sight of bright green stretching to the horizon, the feel of warm sunshine on my melanin depleted skin.

This day was different though. Instead of the freshness of spring, there lingered, like an unwelcome guest, the pungent smell of sweat, fresh blood and fear. Angry, mocking voices shouting in discordant unity. Anguished shouts crying out in pain, sorrow and hopelessness. Ominous clouds building on the horizon, bringing the land into a surreal darkness that transcended the tangible.

The year was A.D. 33, and the Romans were doing what they did best…torturing and killing by crucifixion anyone who dared to defy Cesar. This was a regular occurrence in the Roman Empire with sometimes miles of roadway lined with the dead and dying crucified, just to remind would be rebels and zealots what their fate could be unless they submitted to the empire.

This execution was different somehow. Of the three being crucified on this particular afternoon, the man in the middle did not curse Rome, or himself, or anyone. He did not use what little breath He had as He hung there suffocating to blame others for His fate. Instead, rasping hoarsely, with blood dripping from cracked lips, He quotes the opening lines of Psalm 22. That’s all the words He can push out through shallow breaths. The crowd is familiar with this psalm of David. Indeed, they could quote the whole thing from memory. This psalm tells of how David felt at the moment of writing, like God had abandoned him…only to later realize that He never did. It speaks of exactly what Jesus is going through at the moment, and then ends in victory! God the Father never abandoned Jesus but was there all along as 2 Corinthians 5:19 later tells us. The whole of the Godhead is inseparable and thus suffered together in Jesus.

Right now did not feel like victory. It felt like punishment…and it was. You may hear from a well intentioned, albeit misinformed pastor this weekend that because of humanity’s sin, we had offended God the Father and He had to punish us. You may hear that because we could not endure the punishment, that Jesus stepped in between the Father and us and volunteered to take the punishment instead of us. You may hear that God punished Jesus on the cross.

But then, a strange thing happens. Something never before heard from a victim of a cross. At the precipice of death and defeat, Loves most powerful weapon was about to be unleashed upon the world. And He spoke it into being; “Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”

We know now that Jesus is God, made human and that He shares the same essence of self emptying love with the Father and the Spirit. We know that Jesus came to reveal what has always been in the Fathers heart, that Jesus is the perfect representation of who God is. What is this forgiveness anyway? What does it mean? To forgive simply means to let go of, to release, to take away guilt. It is the only thing that can possibly break the endless cycle of human violence and bring one-ness, or to use a biblical word—atonement.

What is the worst sin you can imagine? Most people would say murder, and I would have to agree. Murder seems even worse depending on who it is that is murdered. For example, we would see the murder of an innocent little two year old girl to be much more deplorable than the murder of some rapist who gets gunned down out of revenge for his crimes. How about the murder of God…the author of life itself? God didn’t punish Jesus. We did. We committed the worst sin possible.

Let’s now define sin, not as the legal model we are used to in our culture, but rather through the lens of how the Jewish people saw it. It means to “miss the mark”, specifically the goal of perfect relationship within the Godhead that we are created to enjoy. Sin is not a moral failure that requires punishment. Rather, it is a relational failure which leads to sickness and brokenness. To take the legal picture, saying that we owed a debt to the Father that we could not pay, and Jesus steps in and pays it for us is not a model of forgiveness. It is a picture of a complicated financial transaction in which God pays God so that we don’t have to pay because we have no money. It is essentially divine money laundering! True forgiveness is releasing the guilty party WITHOUT any payment received or expected. True forgiveness absorbs the blow without retaliation. True forgiveness has open arms welcoming reconciliation, and waits as long as it takes for you to respond. Forever, if need be.

Jesus absorbed the sin and death of humanity, taking it to the grave with Him and leaving it there. He didn’t come back empty handed either. No, He brought back with Him for us, the relationship that He shares with the Father.

In Mark 2:17, Jesus says, “And hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘it is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'”

At the cross and with the resurrection, Jesus showed us that God is not an angry judge, who has come to punish anyone. He showed us that He is the Great Physician who came into our brokenness and sickness who absorbed our disease, giving us healing and life in exchange. It is ours. All we must do is believe.

Remember this Easter weekend, Jesus did not come to change the Fathers mind about you, but rather came to change your mind about the Father. He came to show us who God really is. He came to show you how much He has always loved you and longed for relationship with you. His arms are open to you, waiting for you to fall into His embrace. This is life. Believe.

Happy Easter

Nikolas Cruz needs to face divine justice!

Recently, a friend of mine commented that, given a choice, he would rather experience God’s mercy than God’s justice. Seems like a no-brainer at first glance and I think that most people would agree with him. His comment reminded me of how there is a gaping chasm between how people understand justice and how God defines justice.

On Valentine’s Day, Nikolas Cruz went to his old school and in cold blood, shot to death 17 innocent people. If you were to create a poll on facebook proposing the question, “Should Nikolas Cruz receive, A: Divine Mercy, or B: Divine Justice?”, I guarantee that at least nine out of ten people would choose “Divine Justice.” If you were to ask me, I would say, “Yes”.

Here’s why:

Human justice revolves around retributive punishment. As humans, we have a strong drive for self preservation. From that, comes the proclivity towards being self centred. Instead of looking to what’s best for others around us, we take the very myopic approach of looking for what’s best for me…to the detriment of our society around us. We desire the catharsis of knowing that someone who has wronged us will experience the pain we have experienced. Like that somehow balances the scales. This is how we define justice. It has no purpose other than to bring us twisted satisfaction which feeds our collective narcissism and fuels the perpetuation of cyclical, societal violence.

We have projected this definition of justice upon God. This is called an anthropomorphism. As if God, who by all things exist and have being is concerned about self preservation. As if we who are the created are powerful enough to affect our Creators sense of honour and dignity. As a society, led by leaders of the western evangelical “Christian” religion have embraced this fallacy, we have forgotten what true justice is. The result of this has been catastrophic sociological regression. History tells us that every civilization which is built on the violence of retributive “justice” will inevitably collapse.

We have forgotten that Jesus, which scripture tells us is the perfect representation of God, came as the living contradiction to the anthropomorphic god of our creation. (That’s right, modern society isn’t the first group of people to push this false god) His very life not only reminded us of what Old Testament prophets told us about God’s justice, but is a practical demonstration of what divine justice looks like. Isaiah 55:8-9 talks about how “God’s ways are higher than our ways.” If you read the whole chapter, it talks about how God is merciful whereas humans are not.

Here’s some interesting trivia for you: In the Hebrew language of the Old Testament and the Koine Greek of the New Testament, the words, “righteous” and “Justice” are rendered from the same words, which means to set right, to put back into proper working order. Leviticus 19:35-36 for example says that “Just” scales are scales that are in proper order.

Here’s a small sampling of what divine justice looks like in scripture:

“ADMINISTER JUSTICE every morning BY RESCUE THE VICTIM of robbery from the hand of his oppressor”
Jeremiah 21:12

“Thus has the LORD of hosts said, ‘Dispense true justice and PRACTICE KINDNESS and COMPASSION each to his brother; and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.’”
Zechariah 7:9-10

“HE WILL NOT CRUSH THE WEAKEST reed OR PUT OUT A flickering CANDLE. By doing this he will cause justice to be victorious.”
Matthew 12:18

“The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to PREACH GOOD NEWS TO the POOR. He has sent Me to PROCLAIM DELIVERANCE TO the CAPTIVES and RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO the BLIND, to RELEASE THE the OPPRESSED,”
Luke 4:18

And my personal favourite, “the Lord is waiting to SHOW you MERCY, and is rising up to SHOW you COMPASSION, because the LORD is a just God”
Isaiah 30:18

Do you see any mention of retributive punishment mentioned here? It just simply isn’t there because that is NOT God’s idea of justice. God’s justice is ALWAYS restorative. Not always pleasant. God does work to correct us…and let’s face it. No one really enjoys the process of correction. He does indeed allow us to experience the brokenness that comes from our sin (relational failure). Our own sin is our punisher. God simply isn’t interested in punishing anyone and if you see God as a divine judge who is waiting eagerly to smite evildoers with no restorative intent, you simply do not know Him.

Do I hope that Nikolas Cruz will face divine justice.

YES!

I want to face divine justice too! For God’s justice flows from His mercy and leads to healing (salvation) and restoration of relationships. Like the rest of us, Nikolas Cruz has experienced brokenness and his resulting sins are rooted in being treated unjustly and then passing on injustice instead of mercy and forgiveness. His sins have simply had a larger and more dramatic effect than what our sins have had.

Our world needs change. It needs justice. Divine justice. Let’s embrace the forgiveness that we already have in Christ and stop injustice in its tracks by choosing to forgive, by choosing to not punish others with no restorative intent. Let’s go beyond that by actually reaching out to those who are victims of injustice and loving them, helping them, participating with God in bringing healing and true justice wherever we happen to be, to whomever our lives happen to touch.

This is what it means to be a Christ follower…a Christian. This is how it looks to be truly human.

My family and I just arrived back at our friends home where we are staying for a few days while on vacation. We were spending precious time visiting with relatives—beautiful people who we see far too little. Oh, you probably think that this is just another day in the privileged country of Canada where I live. Did I forget to mention that we are currently in the heart of a supposed shithole country? That’s right. As I write this, we are in the centre of Port Au Prince, and these friends of ours whose place we are staying at run a preschool for underprivileged Haitian children. They are amazing people who have also been going the extra mile in partnering with us, looking after my adopted daughters siblings who still live in Haiti. The relatives who we were just visiting are the birth parents, brothers, sister, grandmother, uncle and aunt, not to mention various cousins of my Haitian born daughters.

We fell in love with this country and its people fifteen years ago when we first came here to meet the first of two little girls we would adopt as our own. As we (my wife and I with our daughters, the birth parents, and sister) travelled via tap-tap (it’s Haiti’s public transportation—basically we rode in the back of a small pickup) to the home of the uncle and aunt while the boys were in school, I couldn’t help but to observe the vibrant life of the city that we travelled through. Every building is painted in bright colours and the sound of the traffic and street vendors are inescapable.

This trip marks our seventh time to Haiti. I have been from Jeremie in the south end of the island, all the way to Labadee in the north. Two things that stand out to me every time I come here, as I observe the people struggling to make a living any way they can against all odds: This is the home of a proud and strong people who exude dignity and determination. Also, this is a very picturesque country with majestic mountains, lush tree canopies and beautiful beaches.

There are six family’s who control Haiti’s entire economy. They are the extremely wealthy elite in this country who control most of the wealth and are also responsible for directing the political power—in their favour of course. In short, the people of Haiti are for the most part trapped under the thumb of the very rich, very powerful and very corrupt. Looking at the history of Haiti, you realize that the people here have always really been living under an extreme disadvantage. From the get-go, they were brought here as slaves from west Africa and sold to Europeans by fellow countrymen who wielded power over them. They have never had a fighting chance to escape the cycle of poverty which has entrapped them for generations.

In talking to Haitians in the streets of Port Au Prince, I have discovered that Donald Trump with his disparaging remarks is not a very popular person here. You see, if you are overweight and unhealthy, and are kept that way by being fed a poor diet and locked in a small room where you cannot exercise, it is completely unhelpful for someone to look through your window and call you a fat, lazy slob.

The population of Haiti (minus the rich, powerful and corrupt elite) want change. They don’t enjoy having to scrape by in a country that lacks potable water with 80% unemployment, poor healthcare, no social assistance, a poor education system, and scant evidence of governmental regulation. (There’s actually a much larger list of grievances than this. Consider this a small sampling). The people here want—and deserve change. And they are powerless to do anything about it as a repressed people.

It is not helpful to trample the dignity of a beautiful and strong people by calling their home a “shithole country”. They are well aware of what they lack compared to developed nations.

It’s easy for us in North America to sit back in our comfortable living rooms at the end of a day of working at a job that we take for granted and criticize those who don’t enjoy the success we have. it’s easy to assume it’s their fault and they are just too lazy to do anything about it, while we smugly pat ourselves on our collective back and go back to whatever vapid means of diversion that was entertaining us.

Put yourself in their shoes. Better yet, bring your shoes down here (with your feet in them) and get to know the people here. Spend time in their country, spend your money here, find a reputable organization that is here long term and making a difference and support them financially.

If you, in your comfortable position of being the elite worldwide economic minority, which we all are as North Americans, sit there and call the country of Haiti a “shithole country”, you are part of the problem. Whatever you do, don’t insult a downtrodden people. Don’t project a false identity of worthlessness onto them.

God Bless Haiti!

Here are some reputable long term organizations who I trust and support, and I would encourage you to also support in an effort to make life better for these beautiful people:

Home

http://mcmhaiti.org/
http://heartlineministries.org/
https://www.compassion.ca/

 

 

It was a heady view for miles in all directions. We were hundreds of feet up in the air. We had reached the top, something most of the poor schmucks at the bottom likely never would do. We were fairly proud of our status, though we would always feign humility. We were set apart from the rest of the common, unenlightened rabble. The large platform had a safety railing around it, except for one part. There was a gap in which there was a long, steep water slide that emptied into a large pool at the bottom. I cautiously edged over to get a closer look. Grasping the railing for dear life, I looked over. My heart started pounding. The slide was so steep, I couldn’t even see the whole thing from the platform.

A sharp voice barked behind me, making me jump.
“Get away from there you fool! Stay over here with us where it is safe. We have all worked hard to get here. There were many stairs to climb and now that we are here we need to enjoy our position. You don’t want to risk that dangerous slide back to being like all of those fools down there. We need to be where they can see us, what they could become with much discipline, hard work and perseverance…all given to us by God’s grace of course.”

I blinked incredulously, slowly breaking eye contact with that smug, self righteous face. I turned and looked over the railing to the people below. There was a vast crowd. Many were on the beach. Some looked miserable and lost. Others were laughing, talking, eating and drinking. They, for the most part looked to be enjoying themselves.

And then there were the ones in the pool. They seemed to be the most alive of anyone. Not just alive, but astonishingly alive. In fact, looking around the beach, you could tell just who had been in the pool—by their aliveness.

And then there was us. We were a stoic crowd, all by ourselves, separated from everyone else. We would sing and tell stories to each other about how we have made the right choice to be on this platform, far above everyone else. Encouraging each other to stick it out here no matter how hard it got. We would also shout encouragement to those we saw climbing the long staircase to the top where we were.

“Come on! Keep walking! Trust in the Lord! We are praying for you! Don’t give up, there’s great reward where you are going!”

Some would keep trudging upward and onward, some would turn back in discouragement. After all it was a tiring climb. If we were honest, we would have admitted that the climb had worn us out as well.

Once in a while, someone from our group would go down the slide. Oh, what a ruckus that would cause! We would tell each other, very piously, that the slider was weak, didn’t have enough faith to stick it out with us at the top. “Don’t be like that person”, we would whisper. We would show outward disgust and distain all while secretly wondering what the ride was like.

What was it like to have freedom like that?

I kept looking at the slide, at the pool, at the people in it, and I was drawn. The more I watched them, the more I realized that life up here on the high platform wasn’t what I thought it would be. It just seemed empty and lonely, like I was missing out on something important. It felt like being the only one to miss out on a friends birthday party because you have the flu, and you’re at home all by yourself while everyone else is having fun.

I slowly moved toward the slide, trying to look inconspicuous. Trying to avoid being seen by the pretentious eyes of those who would often take me aside and caution me against getting too close to that slide…with loving concern of course.

Finally, I could no longer think of anything else but the slide and the pool at the bottom. With my heart pounding in my chest, I stepped into the water at the top of the slide. I heard the gasps of horror from those behind me who happened to notice my new position. I lay down, crossed my arms over my chest, took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

I let the water take me.

Down.

The decent was at the same time terrifying and exhilarating. I’ve never felt that out of control in my life and I’ve never felt that much peace about being out of control either. There was only one way to go on this slide of grace. And that was into the pool of self emptying, unconditional love.

I hit the water fast and skipped on top of the surface like a flat stone briefly before sinking in. The water was wonderfully warm and smelled like fresh rainfall. I went under and could not surface. There was a tremendous weight making me sink that I could not shake off. I flailed about wildly, panicking, desperately holding my breath, before I realized that I was all right. Peace enveloped me. I stopped fighting and surrendered to the water. I took a breath.

My eyes went dark as my false self drowned in that water

My eyes opened and I saw differently. Before, my eyes were on my performance, trying to look good, trying to appear joyful when I was not. My eyes used to be focused on my flaws and the flaws of everyone else around me. Trying to look like I had all of the right answers. Trying to appear acceptable to the God who had never rejected me. Now, I began to see beauty around me. I began to see others before I saw my self. I was no longer concerned about trying to look alive, trying to appear joyful. I just was!  I realized that I was still at the bottom of the pool, but breathing! I was not just alive, but astonishingly so. The weight of my false self was gone and I could swim about freely.

Life is different now. The old crowd I used to hang around with on the platform looks down on me, some with pity, some with open distain, and yet some have a hungry look about them. I see them looking at me and then glancing at the slide. I just enjoy living life to the full. Once in awhile the ghost of false self haunts me, kind of like an amputee experiences ghost pains. When that happens, I just jump back in the pool and breath in the sweet waters of divine love.

“Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it”. Matt 16:24, 25

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would
have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” John 4:10-15

Groping about blindly in the darkness we had created, we forgot our own image. Fear emerged from the depths of the blackness and became a familiar and comfortable companion. We shaped our lives around it. It is dangerous in the dark, so fear drove us to create morals, rules, and arbitrary punishments to enforce these rules…all to keep us safe.

We had blocked out the light with the blackest of shadows created by self and could no longer remember who self truly was. We couldn’t even remember our maker. The one who is light. The One in who’s image we were created. Our darkened eyes reckoned light as an enemy. After all, when you exist in the darkness, light is painful, light exposes truth and contradicts lies we believe. Lies which have become part of our identity. Light threatens to rip those precious lies from our tenacious grip and we feel fear, not knowing what we will be left with after the lies are gone.

In the darkness, you cannot see clearly. There were so many obstacles to trip over, so many pits to fall into, so many jagged things to snag and cut us. Despite our rules and moral code which we created, we constantly fell, injuring ourselves. We were withering away from our hurt in the darkness. We couldn’t go on much longer.

The light shone through the darkness and saw us dying.

A kaleidoscope of compassion illuminated the shadows as the Word which created us became one of us.

To bring us a message of truth

To show us who we are

To restore our dignity

To show us who the light is

To show us that the light had never left us.

After all, can darkness have meaning without the presence of light?

The Word was called “Emmanuel”. God with us.

The Word had entered our darkness in smallness and weakness. Vulnerable and helpless. Dependant upon us who were dirty, blind, wounded and controlled by lies and fear. As the light shone in our midst, it hurt our eyes. All we could see at first was how dirty we were and how tattered were our clothes. Our grievous injuries were grotesque to behold. We felt ashamed. As He lived among us, His clothing too became tattered and he became covered in our filth and yet, in Him there was no hint of a shadow. The light simply shone brighter and brighter.

As the light shone for all to see. Many allowed their eyes to adjust to the light, enjoying the gift of sight for the first time. No longer stumbling and falling, they began to heal and were overjoyed as they experienced true life for the first time. They looked into the face of the Word and understood their true selves as they now knew their maker face to face. They too began to shine.

Just like the Word.

But it threatened the very system we had made. With perfect light to illuminate our way, there was no longer any need for our moral system, our rules and punishments. The keepers of the rules were powerful and respected and now this would be taken away from them. They sought to snuff the light out.

Taking the very one who is light, they took all of the filth in the world and heaped it upon Him, torturing and smothering Him to death. We were all culpable as none of us even tried to stop this heinous crime. For a brief moment the world was plunged into the darkest night it had ever known. They thought that their darkness could exist without the presence of light, that it could become a god unto itself that they could worship. A god that would serve them.

But darkness cannot exist without light.

Light however has no need of darkness.

The light consumed the darkness and exploded into the world with such intensity that all darkness vanished.

The Word who is the light gave us a clear message that no matter how hard we try to create shadow, the light will always be there surrounding us, giving us life.

The worst we can do, which many still do, is to shut our eyes to the reality of the light of life which surrounds us and penetrates our very being.

There are many of us now experiencing freedom and healing by walking in the light. There are still those however who choose to walk about with eyes closed, bumping into things, falling and getting hurt.

Are your eyes still closed? Will you open your eyes this Christmas and enjoy the gift of light and life that is already yours?

It isn’t easy selling something that’s broken. For the last few months I’ve been, with no success, trying to sell two items. One that is damaged; It is a stove which is missing the front glass from the door (otherwise works fine) Also for sale, is an item which is going to need some repair work; It is a truck which is showing low compression in one of the engine cylinders, but otherwise is in great mechanical shape. It even looks really good, but it is broken inside. It’s hard coming up with a good sales pitch to make people feel like these are items that they need. After all I don’t want them myself.

Growing up in the church, there was always this pressure from pastors and leaders to witness to my friends and neighbours. “How many people have you told about Jesus this week?”, was the guilt inducing question that I constantly dreaded. You see, even from a young age, I didn’t feel motivated to tell others of the “gospel” I was taught. You would think that if one had good news to share, it might just come out naturally, unless that good news maybe isn’t totally good news after all. I’ve always had a hard time feeling good about the typical evangelical “gospel” sales pitch. It goes something like this:

You are a sinner, separated from God and destined to be tortured in hell forever unless you ask God to forgive you and then clean up your act and become a morally pure person, which of course will show us all that your repentance was sincere. You see, you deserve to be punished for your sin by God, but God loves you and sent Jesus to be punished by God so that you don’t have to be…if you ask for forgiveness. Oh, and this is a limited time offer. Take it now before it’s too late!

It’s like trying to sell a defective product. There are so many problems with this sales pitch, I’m not sure where to even start. How about I’ll start with the obvious.

The Gospel, which means “good news” was never intended to be a sales pitch. The Gospel is not transactional. It is transformational. It’s not potential good news—something we can have if we buy into the sales pitch. It’s just good news plain and simple! Hearing good news tends to change people.

The first thing we need to understand, is that God is just like Jesus. God has always been just like Jesus and always will be. In John 14:9 Jesus tells Phillip that if he has seen Jesus, he has seen the Father. The writer of Hebrews in 1:3 tells us that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father. If God the Father was so offended by our sinful immorality and needed to punish somebody to “make things right”, shouldn’t Jesus also have been equally offended by our immorality and needed to punish someone for it…just like the Father…instead of Himself being punished in our place. I could go deeper, but I wish to simply write a blog post here…not a book. Already you can see John Calvins Penal Substitutionary Atonement theory collapsing like a cheap shanty in an earthquake of revelation.

The next thing we must understand is that sin is not a moral failure to be punished. We are created in love, for the purpose of relationship, to be loved by a God who’s essence is a love that is other thinking, self emptying and unconditional (Agape). Sin is “missing the mark” (the literal meaning of “sin”), therefore a relational failure in which we live apart from our design. This brings us sickness and brokenness, which cannot be remedied by punishment. It can only be cured by the divine doctor. God does not punish us for our sin. Sin brings its own punishment. If you eat nothing but potato chips and drink nothing but sugary soft drinks and lie around on the couch watching T.V. all of the time instead of eating healthy food and exercising, you will become sick. Is it God punishing you? No! It’s the result of your own poor lifestyle choices that punish you.

In stark contrast to the typical “Evangelical” gospel, the true and beautiful gospel starts out with us being created in love, in perfect relationship with our maker. We each choose to decide what good and evil (morality) are apart from God. We choose independence. This is against our design parameters and makes us sick. With our sin consciousnesses, we begin to think that we are separated from God. We begin to see God as one who is not only disappointed with us, but downright angry with us. We ourselves embrace a false identity and become violent and selfish as we believe the lie that we are now worthless. After all, we cannot attain moral perfection on our own. We fail in our attempt to become acceptable to God. We feel shame. In our twisted thinking, we believe that we are so powerful that we can cause God to change His mind about us. God sees us withering away in our sickness and becomes one of us, proving that our thoughts of separation were always just a lie, and He restores the dignity of the human project. He lives among us, loving, forgiving and healing. Jesus shows us who God really is. The God we had forgotten. He shows us that God never stopped loving us.

When I am sick and feeling miserable, I tend to push people away. I am irritable and become angry easily, this is when I’m most likely to lash out at those that I love. I just want to be by myself in my misery and pain. The presence of healthy people only reminds me of what I am not. The sickness of sin does that to us and more. We not only pushed away God Himself, we viciously mocked, tortured and killed Him. God didn’t punish Jesus. We did. Our sin did. As He hung there on the Roman torture device, dying, He did the only thing that God can do as God is love. He loved us. He forgave us. He showed us that no matter what we did to Him, we are not so powerful as to change His mind about us. We have always been loved, accepted, included, forgiven. He took our fatal virus, our sin into Himself and took it to the grave with Him…and left it there. He came back from death, bringing us new life. 1Peter 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” This is something that was done to us and for us without our knowledge or consent. It’s a done deal.

What’s the difference between a believer and an unbeliever then? Belief. The gospel, therefore cannot be a sales pitch as there is nothing to sell. There’s nothing to buy. There’s nothing you can do to affect your forgiveness. You already possess it. There is only belief. You cannot possibly enjoy something that you have unless you believe you have it.

The Gospel then, is a proclamation of what has happened. All you need to do is to believe. It is something you awaken to. When you believe, the natural result is to surrender and become dependant on the God who has always loved and accepted you. Living as you were designed to live. This becomes easier as you understand who God really is. He is not an angry judge who is looking for someone to punish. He is the loving doctor, the rescuer who can’t stop thinking of you. This is the process of salvation. The root word for “salvation” is of course “save”, which literally means “healing” in the original language of the New Testament. When you believe who God really is and what He is like, when you believe that you are forgiven, loved and accepted, healing can begin. You cannot possibly begin to heal with the false message of the “Evangelical” gospel. There’s too much poison in it that will make you sick from the distorted image of God that it promotes.

Let’s stop with the sales pitch already. The harmful endeavour of trying to sell a broken product to a world that really needs the healing and life that can only come when people understand who God really is. Let’s proclaim the good news that we already have everything that we need. The good news of God revealed to us in the person of Jesus who has already forgiven us, who has always accepted us, who has always loved us and will never stop!

“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” John 17:3

 

 

Today is November 11. “Lest We Forget” is the phrase we will hear many times. We have set apart this day to not forget something important. There are some things we have not forgotten. The horror of war, the bravery and selfless sacrifice of young men and women on the battlefield. There are other things though, that we have forgotten, and so our history of violence continues to repeat itself.

Lest we forget that all human beings, no matter what colour, creed or country are created in Gods image. Therefore we all have inherent dignity and worth and are all connected to each other.

Lest we forget that because we are created in the image of God, that means we are created to live in relationship with God and with each other. We are created to live in unity. We are created to live in the flow of Gods self-emptying love poured into us to overflowing. That love overflowing from us is to be poured out into the lives of others around us. Violence and greed are the dams which stop that flow. This goes against our design and brings collective brokenness.

Lest we forget that though a violent solution may provide temporary peace, it will not last, for violence always perpetuates more violence in the end. There is no such thing as “just war.”

Lest we forget that any civilization which glorifies and participates in violence, which practices selfishness and greed, who has an “Us vs. Them” mentality will always live in spiritual and societal brokenness.

Lest we forget that nowhere in the gospels nor in any extra biblical historical records do we see Jesus, the perfect reflection of God, the archetypal human, reacting violently to any human being—not for his own defence or for the defence of anyone else. Instead, we see God Himself forgiving, healing, feeding the hungry, refusing to react violently, preferring to forgive as violence is inflicted upon Him. The more I consider this, the more difficult it is to for me as a Christ follower to justify or condone any acts of violence upon another human being for any reason.

Lest we forget that that there are much more creative solutions to conflict than the default solution of violence that humans have settled for throughout history. Let’s find another way.

Thomas Merton writes in his book, New Seeds of Contemplation”:
“Strong hate, the hate that takes joy in hating, is strong, because it does not believe itself to be unworthy and alone. It feels the support of a justifying god, of an idol of war, an avenging and destroying spirit. From such blood-drinking gods the human race was once liberated, with great toil and terrible sorrow, by the death of a God Who delivered Himself to the Cross and suffered the pathological cruelty of His own creatures out of pity for them. In conquering death, He opened their eyes to the reality of a Love which asks no questions about worthiness, a Love which overcomes hatred and destroys death.

“But men have now come to reject this divine revelation of pardon, and they are consequently returning to the old war gods, the gods that insatiably drink blood and eat the flesh of men. It is easier to serve the hate-gods, because they thrive on the worship of collective fanaticism. To serve the hate-gods, one has only to be blinded by collective passion. To serve the God of Love, one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love – in spite of all unworthiness, whether in oneself or in one’s neighbour”

 

The chilly late October air blows through your jacket as you walk down the dark sidewalk with your children. You shiver involuntarily. Could it be more than just the temperature doing this? As you look around you, while reenacting this pagan ritual of “trick or treat”, there are decorations of dead, decomposing things—evil things covering yards, hanging in windows. People walking around wearing costumes of that which we fear most. Skeletons, witches, zombies. All that represents death. What kind of a crazy celebration is this anyway?

Until recently, I have really, really hated Halloween. I found it to be grotesque and appalling with the images of death everywhere. Essentially, Halloween is a celebration of death. Why in heck to we want to celebrate something we all fear? Death, after all is the very black hole which sucks in joy, hope, peace and loved ones. Death is about loss and the hurt which comes from it. Do we celebrate death simply in an attempt to acknowledge our fears and bravely stand against them, or perhaps, maybe, could it be that there is some redeeming quality to death that is worth celebrating?

When I was 18 years old, I dated a girl for a while and I was quite serious about her. I fully intended on marrying her. I was convinced that she was “the one” and could not imagine life without her. Seven months after we started dating, it ended. It was a death. The realization of a fear I had. The fear of losing her. The death of a relationship, and I was heartbroken. I did not celebrate this, after all what good could possibly come of this? I mourned deeply. Almost two years later I met the woman who would become my wife of almost 23 years so far. I realized later on that this former girlfriend and I, for many reasons, would not have been a good match in the long run. There had to be a death. There was something so much better out there which I could not experience without that death. Though it was unpleasant at the time, the death of that relationship was ultimately something to be celebrated.

How many times have you experienced a death which led to something better? Maybe a job, a relationship, a lifestyle. We tend to get attached to what we have, even if it is not the best thing for us. After all—it’s comfortable, it’s familiar. The only way we can let go is through death.

Adam and Eve in the garden, before sin did not experience death. There was no need for it as everything was as it should be. One concept of what sin is that I particularly like is from Dr. Steve McVey. He says that sin is something which is less than what Gods best is for us. Adam and Eve after the fall existed in a system of their own making. A system which was less than what God’s best was for them and in their minds they were separated from God. God did not want them to live like that forever as He had something so much better in store for them. And so death came into the world. Yes, it seems like a curse, but when you live in a system of “less than God’s best for you”, no matter how attached to it we become, in order to enjoy God’s best for us there has to be a death.

There also has to be a death of false self (ego). Because of this system of sin which we all live in, we see ourselves wrongly and because of this, we behave wrongly. This is what keeps the system of sin alive. At best, we identify ourselves by what we do, or where we live, or perhaps our status in society. At worst, we see ourselves as depraved sinners, failures, unable to do anything good or right.

Both of these views are unhealthy as they are ego driven perceptions. Neither reflect our true self. When God created mankind He called us good. That hasn’t changed. A $100 bill is still worth $100 if it is crisp and new or if it is crumpled up lying in a mud puddle. Its value does not change! The reality is, that we are loved and accepted by God no matter how we act. We are not so powerful that we can change how God feels about us. Our false ego needs to die before we can embrace the reality of who we really are. Its a humbling experience as we like to think we can do things that make us great which we can be proud of. We like to think that we are capable of earning God’s love somehow.

I love what Robert Farrah Capon writes in “Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace”:
“Lord, please restore to us the comfort of merit and demerit. Show us that there is at least something we can do. Tell us that at the end of the day there will at least be one redeeming card of our very own. Lord, if it is not too much to ask, send us to bed with a few shreds of self-respect upon which we can congratulate ourselves. But whatever you do, do not preach grace. Give us something to do, anything; but spare us the indignity of this indiscriminate acceptance.”

Somehow sin also had a tangibly destructive effect on physical reality. As I get older I become more and more aware of this as the list of aches and pains in my body gets longer and longer. This is certainly less than God’s best for us. There has to be a physical death in order for us to enjoy something better which God has for us. I do not know what the metaphysical realm will be like, but I know that it will be a reality of healing and wholeness. I do believe that the physical realm will one day be restored and joined to the metaphysical and this gives me hope. It gives me reason to celebrate death. For death is simply the corridor we have been given to shed that which is not best for us so that we can enjoy what truly is Gods best!

One day, there will not be any more death, for in that day death will have outlived its usefulness. On that day all will be restored to perfect relationship with God, and where there is nothing better to have, there is no more need for death. That is a celebration I look forward to!

John 12:24-25 NASBS
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.