Good Friday Thoughts

I remember wondering as a kid, “Why do they call Good Friday, good?   It’s the day they killed Jesus!”

To my childish mind, that wasn’t a good day.   It seemed like the worst thing possible had happened the best Person possible.

So it should have been called, “Bad Friday”.

Easter was a day of lilies and happiness and candy galore and a tasty ham dinner.   Good Friday was a quiet, even depressing day.   What was a kid to do?

Teen years, however, brought a vast change in understanding.    As a young adult, I found I had gained the adult capacity to hate and deceive and commit evils–all the way from the high of excitement when first doing evil to the depths of despair while trapped in it.

Then I learned that I was powerless and not in control.    That I couldn’t fix me.    That I had a monster within that would devour and destroy me, unless it was checked and overthrown by some outside power.

What I learned, in other words, was I needed a Savior.

To the ignorant child, Christ’s cross is a nice, irrelevant story to their blissful innocence.

To the self-absorbed or those on the upside of the addiction cycle–who are feeling smug and superior–Christ is annoying interruption.   “Go away and leave me alone!  I don’t want to hear about it!”

To the self-made person who prides him or herself on living life better than most, Christ is an insult.   “I can do it myself!  I don’t need Him!”

But to the person on the bottom, to the broken and weary soul, to the imprisoned and desperate heart, Good Friday is the best thing that ever happened.

Nowhere else is human need so great, is human plight so desperate.    Nowhere else do we cry out so deeply for help.    Nowhere else do we admit the ugly truth of our utter powerlessness and complete enslavement to the evil within us.

We bring all this to Golgotha.    And we hear God say, “Yes!  I will supply what you need!  I will love you so much I will give my one and only Son as a sacrifice for your sins–and exhaust My holy wrath on Him, not you.”

We see Christ not as a helpless victim, but as a willing offering.    We see Him loving us there to the uttermost, to the very end of His life and to the very depths of Hell.

In other words, we’re not looked at the tragic and bad circumstances of the day.    We’re looking at the Person who laid down His life for us–when we deserved the opposite.    And this Person is supremely good!   His act is supremely good–unmatched and unrivaled in all history!

And we are looking at its world-wide impact–of countless hearts changed, of hardened sinners converted into caring saints, of grace yielding grace in every aspect of life, and we rightfully say, “This is the epitome of GOOD!”

Instead of indulging in excessive and misplaced mourning, a whispered and deeply felt “Thank You!” is a far better response.

Let it have the greatest and best impact on your attitude, your view of life, your treatment of others, and why and who you live for.   It is the best tribute of Christ’s cross-revealed love I know.  It is what the world needs to see in such dark times as these.

Palm Sunday Thoughts

Being an active boy in a rather rigid church culture didn’t stop me from enjoying Palm Sunday.

Palm trees were plentiful in California, and so each all the kids in Sunday School were given a Palm frond to wave, march around with, and use as swords in various jousts.    Few of us kids got the point of the day.

I suspect few of us adults get the point of the day now.

It is a hallmark of adulthood, of experiencing enough ups and downs of life, that we must face our unrealized expectations.    Letting go of what might have been is the first step towards facing what is and making the most of it–however lowly reality is.

The people of Israel expected a political-military Messiah who would usher in prosperous times by kicking out the Romans.

What they received was a Messiah who made it His chief priority to lift spiritual-religious oppression off of their shoulders.    He cast out the demons and spoke words of grace to the condemned many.

He came to save people, not the Pharisaic religious system.

In other words, He sorely disappointed the expectations of many.

Every time His popularity rose, He taught or did something contrary to the script they expected Him to follow.   So His popularity sank.

Then He raised Lazarus from the dead.   To bring a dead man back to life after four days in the grave, in a such a verifiable and public way, brought the Jerusalem crowds to their feet.

They lined the road, hailing Him as Messiah and King, when He descended from the Mount of Olives towards Jerusalem.     Finally, or so it seemed, His potential was being realized.   Their long-awaited dream of Messiah had come true, and they jumped on His bandwagon.

There is an air of tragedy hanging over the celebrations of Palm Sunday.     That’s why Jesus, in the midst of the celebratory procession, wept over the city and said, “If only you know what this very day was!   A day meant for your peace!”

He knew, as prophesy predicted, that these same crowds would soon reject Him and crucify Him.    So judgment would come, and the city would be left desolate.    Then, in the last of the last days, it would finally embrace Him once more.    And only then would His physical reign begin.

I do not know how soon those last days will begin.    But it seems, in the West at least, we are in the days of great apostasy and surging evil.  Our culture has become a soul-less, technological monster, devouring people from within and leaving them as empty shells.

As William Butler Yeats wrote, in his poem, The Second Coming:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.

In other words, evil must have its day before the 2nd Coming.   And to such times we seem to be doomed.

But Palm Sunday carries with it a promise.   A promise where Christ affirms that Jerusalem will indeed see Him in Person again, clothed in Ultimate Royalty, and will cry out, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.

Palm Sunday, in other words, isn’t just about facing one’s disappointed hopes of a kingdom rejected and delayed.   It affirms, for the faithful, that a day is coming when His kingdom will, in fact, be fulfilled in greatest majesty and perfect power over all the earth.

So break out those palm branches!

In Need of Restoration?

I was reflecting the other day about all that’s happen to my college friends.

For the most part, we’ve all discovered that life is far harder than we thought it would be.    Most of us have experienced deep trials–in our careers, in our marriages, in our churches, in our health, and therefore, in our faith.

Life pain has a corrosive effect on so many things.   It is far too easy to grow bitter, disillusioned, and mechanical–where we’re going through the motions but lacking in inner vitality and joy.

Life pain also tempts us into compromises and little indulgences.    We begin to compensate ourselves with secret pleasures and hidden rewards.   So a gap opens up between the zealous faith of our young adulthood, and how we are actually living now.

We begin to be hollowed out on the inside, eroded from within.    And, if we’re not careful, we become a shell of our former selves.

Part of us tries to hide this growing emptiness from ourselves.    Part of us is desperate to arrest the tide and to return.

Isn’t it interesting that this pattern is, in fact, what we see so often in the Old Testament.    A generation begins with such bright hopes and devotion to God, is blessed, and turns away from God by adding idols to their lives.    Or a good king takes a righteous stand, does great things, and gets proud and starts crossing lines that shouldn’t be crossed.

But the story doesn’t end there!

God sends prophets to turn His people and His good kings back to Himself.    Sometimes they don’t listen and reap the fatal consequences.   But sometimes they do listen and have a second Springtime of faith.

Much like a once-beautiful home that’s become rundown and shabby, so many of our souls are in need of restoration.

We have fallen from where we were, we have decayed and lost our cutting edge, and are limping along without joy or nearness to God.

Then we hear a Voice calling our name, saying, “Stop and turn around!  Look at Me!”

We find we have been pursued and found.     We have an opportunity for a second Springtime of faith.  We are invited to say with David, “He restores my soul.”

There are people who like their shabby dwellings and outdated soul furniture.    They are comfortable with what used to make them cringe, and have made peace with once-forsaken evils.

Berating them won’t change this.    Nor will shaming and shunning them.

No, what they need is for a true friend to pray, “…until they are restored to You, O Lord.”

And a true friend that can invite them to come back with them, “Take my hand–let’s go seek Him.”

Compromised faith brings shame, and shame breeds secrecy and isolation.    Such prayers and gentle invitations break through this barrier.

The Holy Spirit is ever seeking to do some serious restoration work on our dilapidated, run-down souls.   He rejoices when we admit our need for restoration.   He welcomes us home with open arms.

So why not?

The Pleasant Surprise of Francis

I am not a Catholic.   I am a happily content, Bible-believing Protestant.

And, unlike many secular commentators who think they have the right to tell the Catholic church who can lead it, I was more than happy to allow their Cardinals to do just that.

And, unlike these same commentators, I have no desire to turn the Catholic church into a hip, progressive, trendy, doctrinally squishy, no-rules, do-you-own-thing, Liberal, secular social service agency.

Another toothless, spineless, and irrelevantly relevant mainline denomination, in other words.

The left’s vehement insistence that the Catholic church elect a pope who reflects their egalitarian views stuck me as odd.  It reminds of an alcoholic at a party, who is uncomfortable unless EVERYBODY drinks.

They apparently want every institution, especially every institution that disagrees with their agenda, to conform to their views…or else.

In other words, they want the Catholic church to stop being the Catholic church–especially on morals, and most especially on sexual morals.   They want to live in a world where EVERYBODY does what they do and EVERYBODY approves of it–with NO dissenting voices.

As much as I disagree with the Catholic theological system,with the Catholic extra-biblical traditions, and with the whole concept of priesthood, I’m glad they chose a man who, morally, affirms what the Bible affirms and who is unafraid to lift his voice in opposition to those who want to trash the truth for political ends.

And I’m even more glad they chose a man who the Evangelist to Latin America, Luis Palau, calls a friend.   I’m glad they chose a man who rides the bus, lives simply, and shuns grandiosity.    Whatever you might think of Francis I, he’s the real deal and a person who combines the best of personal piety with Christian thought and Christian action.

His first sermon was about the peril of leaving Christ out of compassion, of removing the gospel message so they become just another compassionate NGO (Non-governmental agency).    That got my attention.   It was right on the money.

And this spoken by a man whose life has been spent helping the poor.

I’m glad they didn’t choose a Vatican “insider”, tainted by the corruption of the Curia bureaucracy.    And I’m glad they didn’t choose a guy with a track record of protecting abusive priests.    But I am especially glad they didn’t choose theological, doctrinal liberal who would cast morality to the winds.

If people want to have married priests (pastors), and a far more participatory, far less hierarchical, far more bible-based approach to the Christian faith without all the relics, saints, popes, etc., then let me recommend they seek an emotionally healthy, evangelistic, truth-telling Protestant church in your local area.

We’ve gladly been the alternative to the catholic system for 550 years.

If your views are shaped by the secular thinking of our times, then, instead of trying to make the Catholic church secular or leftist or whatever so you can be more comfortable, leave the church and go be a secular person.

And if, afterwards, you find being a completely secular person is empty, and you wish to return because you are hungry for God, then seek Him through all the resources the Church can provide you.    He will let you find Him.   And He will be more than enough.

But don’t try to make the Catholic church into something it’s not and never will be.    That’s a fool’s errand.

Sober and Sensible

Sobriety isn’t just abstinence from intoxicating substances.    It’s a way of life.

Sober people face reality–however unpleasant and difficult.   They refrain from blaming and complaining, discharge their life responsibilities, and embrace reality.

Sober people seek to be honest at all times–with God, themselves, and others.   They are not trying to be right all the time.

They deal with their own issues–realizing that the things that bother them the most about others are unresolved matters in their own soul.  They get their own houses in order, and are slow to throw stones.

They are slow to speak, slow to anger, and quick to listen.    They reflect after they act, and think before they act–and reap a life harvest of wisdom and proven experience.

They are people with a center, a solid core of tested values.   They are comfortable in their own skin, with a personal character that remains the same whatever company they keep.

They remain calm, are hard to provoke, and seek never to react to the reactions of others.

Sober people know they are not God, and therefore don’t have to have control.   In fact, they know that control is mostly an illusion.   They are able to laugh at themselves and not take themselves too seriously.   Serious matters, however, are taken seriously.

They are grown-ups.

It used to be, in our country, that to be conservative was to be sober and sensible.    Throwing fits, raging, and being childish were not compatible with it.    That went for being immoral, loose, and destructive as well.

As people got jobs, got married, paid taxes, had kids and otherwise grew up, they grew more conservative in a sober, responsible, and sensible way.   They became solid citizens, pillars of their community, and were builders and joiners.

They were called squares.  And they didn’t mind.  They were called boring, and they smiled contentedly at the lack of drama.

So my words aren’t to the those who want to change everything, throw out everything, do as they please, and live as a perpetual juvenile.

My words are to those of my own house, to my fellow conservatives.

If all people see is our ranting and raving, our hostility and our belligerency, then, even if we have the right arguments, we have betrayed conservatism in the long run.

We have contributed to the coarsening of society and become a servant of “king me” and its wounded pride–however loyal to God we might think we are.

If all people see is public  finger-pointing and reactions against, then the picture we are painting for them is, at best, incomplete and, at worse, positively counter-productive to our cause.

If conservatism does not equate with a qualitatively different kind of character, an attractive maturity that is part of the building crew, not the wrecking crew, then what good is it?

There is a pettiness and smallness in our ranks, a loss of gravitas and credibility, that is just killing us right now.   And few of us see it.

Instead of lowering ourselves, let’s raise the bar and up our game…. and restore the connection between conservatism and being sober and sensible.

Father Loss

I found myself tearing up the other day over an episode where a fatherless young man, upon turning 18,  received an unexpected  letter from his long-deceased father.

The father in the story spoke affirming words–cherishing his son and encouraging him to develop a man’s good character.   It was poignant.

So I found myself exploring the place deep within, the place that resonated so much with the scene.   And, in that holy of holies within my soul, I realized I was grappling with father loss.

My father has been diagnosed with dementia, and I face the prospect of watching the man I know disappear, little by little, as the disease progresses.  He has other health issues which have the potential to take him quickly.

So, however I measure it, I’m losing my father.    I have a father loss issue that’s not going to go away anytime soon.

Some of us lost our fathers early in life–most often by their choice to abandon the family or to be absorbed in their own pursuits.

Some fathers died from health issues early in life, or were overseas and died while fighting our countries battles.   Some succumbed to depression and took their own lives.

Some of us, like me, are watching them age, grow old, and die–slowly or quickly.

We all have or will have father loss issues, in other words.

There’s something about fatherhood that leaves a large imprint in us.    And I cannot say why.   It just is.   There’s an old Gypsy proverb that says, “You have to dig deep to bury your father.”

Some of us try to bury our fathers prematurely–the drunk, abusive, or absent ones–before they die.    We try to bury our memories and live as if they are already gone.    It seldom works.

All that unfinished father business comes roaring back–whether or not we want it to, usually at the worst moments.

Others hope to never bury our fathers–the kind, present, and faithful ones–even though they know their father will die.    The thought of their dad’s strength diminishing as their bodies weaken, the thought of their absence, is unthinkable.    So we don’t think about it.

So what is one to do about father loss?

For me, I find comfort in Jesus’ teaching about His “Abba Father”.     There is a Father in heaven, supremely good and supremely present, who made us and who cherishes us beyond imagining–even if we spurn Him.   He is also supremely worthy of respect, ultimately authoritative, and the center of all gravity.

And He is wonderfully knowable, and reveals Himself to us in life’s darkest moments–especially through father loss.

It’s ironic–the one wound most painful for us to bear, the last place we’d ever want to go, is the place of father loss.

Yet it is precisely that very place where we find our burning bush and come to understand our need for a Father who will never die or fail us–who is both greater than our comprehension and who finds us even when we run away.

So many choose to rage against God in response to father loss–not realizing they are crying for a father underneath their cry against their father.   Their quest to revenge themselves against their horrible father deteriorates into a quest to punish/discredit/reject the Heavenly Father.

Projection and displacement are just other ways of not really dealing with our father loss.

Our human fathers are so terribly limited and inadequate.   They, too, are fallen creatures who also bear father scars.    Our demand that they fill our gaping father hole can never be satisfied.   So we rage and blame.

Or we find peace in Abba Father.

As one tormented and then transformed soul put it, “I realized God put this grand canyon in my soul…so He could fill it.”

Exactly!