Hearing the Music

Truth will set you Free!

As we march through these various “I Am” encounters with Jesus in the book of John, we are brought face to face with the character of the One who came to save a desperate people. These passages are of tremendous comfort for God’s people as we are invited to throw ourselves on One who is strong, compassionate, full of life, and good. However, these self revelations are also challenging because they confirm that God is so different than we are. He is the Creator, we are the creature. He is the Source, we are derivative. And what we see in many of these interactions is that human hearts are not easy with the fact that we are not God. The human heart constantly wants to elevate itself to throne status.

In John 8:31-59, our passage for Sunday, Jesus reminds his listeners that “before Abraham was, I am” (vs 58). In saying this Jesus preempts any claims that his listeners have to truth or identity apart from Him. The claim of Jesus to be the source of absolute truth is one that we have seen before and we will certainly see again (John 20:31;14:6). It also happens to be absolutely central to our engagement with the world today. As we will see Sunday, the Jews wanted to redefine their reality in terms they decided, even to the point of absurdly claiming that they had never been enslaved to anyone (John 8:33). (Hint: they were under Roman occupation at that very moment!) Jesus however wasn’t allowing them to choose their own truth. Jesus plainly called them to believe the words that he spoke. It is only in his words that they would find truth, and it is only in finding truth that they would be truly free! (John 8:31,32).

Almost daily our struggle to submit to God’s truth grabs the headlines. From refugees to the unborn, from gender to marriage, to a whole host of other issues, we seek answers to these questions from the perspective of “us". What are my rights? How does this affect our country? How do I feel about my body? Through it all we hear Jesus saying, "Believe me. Abide in my Word. It is only as you abide in my Word that you will know the truth. It is only as you abide in my Word that you will be truly free.” What a comfort these words are as the Source invites us to such intimacy! But let’s be real, this invitation to true life comes with a difficult call to die to self. But our God is patient with us and, as we will see Sunday, never demands of us something that he does not embrace himself.

_{Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash}

A Blazing Truth

Some of you may have seen the recent post from a Twitter account run by Atheists. In this particular post they were trying to make light of the claims of Christianity, but the effect is quite the opposite. Here is their Tweet:

CHRISTIANITY: Belief that one God created a universe 13.79 billion yrs old, 93 billion light yrs in diameter (1 light yr = approx. 6 trillion miles), consisting of over 200 billion galaxies, each containing ave. of 200 billion stars, only to have a personal relationship with you.

Putting aside the specifics of the science, this claim is absolutely spot on, and precisely the reason why the Gospel is so amazing! This immense universe, created by an all-powerful God, who far from being an absentee landlord, enters his own creation in order to initiate a relationship with his creatures…truly humbling, awesome.

This is exactly what we have been encountering throughout the book of Luke. Here we see this God with power over every molecule of the universe, entering in and engaging with his creatures with an overflowing fountain of grace. This week we will encounter yet another incidence of this in Luke 8:40-56 as we come alongside of Jesus' interactions with an ostracized woman and a temple leader. In both interactions he demonstrates that his power is precisely positioned to draw people in. As we enter this Lenten season through both our study of the Word and the weekly communion at the table of our Lord, may we too be drawn into this relationship for which he died.

_{Photo by Mark de Jong on Unsplash}

Living with the Truth

Watching the State of the Union address this week was another reminder of the political divide in our country. Whether you identified with the hopeful, tangible stories of progress that President Trump tried to emphasize or the shredding of the “pack of lies” that Speaker Pelosi attempted to give voice to; the divide is obvious. But what does the divide say about our country, or perhaps more uncomfortably yet, what does it say about you and me? 

Robert Samuelson, a columnist for Newsweek and Washington Post recently said the following about life on the campaign trail. “The chasm between stump rhetoric and governing realities will haunt whoever wins. It also defines a dilemma of democracy. People want their leaders to tell the truth, but they often don’t want to hear the truth.Genuine leaders escape this trap by persuading public opinion to acknowledge distasteful problems. But these leaders are rare. Most pursue immediate popularity over truth even if this deepens long-term public mistrust.”

There is a lot here to parse out; particularly about leadership. But what captured my attention is the idea that while we want our leaders to tell the truth, we often don’t want to hear the truth. Living in the light is not all that comfortable. The reality is, as great as we may want America to be, it is always going to be flawed, it is never going to be the utopia, Christian or otherwise, that we have burdened it to be. The reality is, that as much as we may bleed for social justice causes, humans at their best will never be the complete solution for these causes. These truths are hard to hear. So we stay in our echo chambers, celebrating the things we value and decrying what the opposition stands for.

But hearing the truth is the heart of the Gospel. As Jack Miller famously puts it, “Cheer up you are a lot worse off than you think. But cheer up again, because you are more loved and accepted in Christ than you ever dared hope.” The gospel invites us to radical truth-telling about ourselves, our world, and most importantly our God. The gospel invites us to this truth telling because the gospel can handle the truth. Yes, we are more broken that we can believe. I see this each week in confession as I think through the harsh words that I said to my wife or my kids, and realize that the harsh words are magnified because they actually comes from a selfish heart. The truth was worse than I thought. But dealing in the truth allows me to have an even greater vision of how great God’s love for me actually is. He didn’t just deal with my wayward actions, he dealt definitively with my blackened heart! This is truly great news! I love the words of the Psalmist “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!" Psalm 139:23–24. Living in the light, this is truly a heart set free. 

_{Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash}