He Is Risen...and it matters!

Scene from The Passion of the Christ

Years ago I was watching a tv reenactment of Jesus on the cross. The crowd was, as in the biblical account, taunting, accusing, jeering, ignorantly cursing the dying savior. Unlike the biblical account, however, a change came over "Jesus'" face from quiet suffering to profound disgust. He pulled his bloodied hands and feet away from the cross, stepped down and pushed his way through the stone silent crowd!

I remember being quite shocked at the scene, but coming away with a much deeper appreciation of what He did not only by staying on the cross in the midst of the physical as well as mental & emotional pain, but by continuing to care, continuing to believe in His father that this really mattered when it apparently didn't matter to anyone else!

I do wonder, though, if there was a brief moment of frustration, doubt, and fear that may have gripped Him as no human being had ever been gripped, for, as MacDonald points out, "the more delicate the nature, the more alive to all that is lovely and true, lawful and right, the more it feels the antagonism of pain, the inroad of death upon life, the more dreadful the breach of the harmony of things whose sound is torture. He felt more than man could feel because He had a larger feeling."

"My God, My God why have you forsaken Me?" may have been that moment. When the vision of the Perfect Will slipped from his consciousness, tortured beyond feeling and blinded by the fog of uncertainty. The moment when the thought occurred, inspired by the Accuser, who, seizing the moment for one last chance to tempt the Son of God to turn from His Father, that maybe all this really didn't matter. It certainly didn't appear to matter to the people casting their hatred at him; did it really matter to his Father? And if it didn't matter to the Father, what in the world was he doing on this cursed cross?

I don't think he thought that the Father forgot him; I really don't think the Father turned away from him, because of his bearing our sin, for is it not more like God to draw closer to us in our weakest moments, even if we cannot see or feel Him? But, like Job, there comes a time when we who have committed ourselves to God for His purposes and try our best to do what He asks us, just wonder if any of it really matters. The moment when we lose sight of the Perfect Will. 

I had one of those moments the other day as I was looking through some old ministry files. Father, I really don't understand why you asked me to do these things, I really don't see any results, I really don't see that it mattered...

Perfect Will. We must come to believe that with every molecule in our being far beyond our limited understanding, beyond any feelings of abandonment, hurt, disappointment, pain. 

Perfect Obedience. We must give ourselves to live for him far beyond our limited abilities. Giving a cup of water to a child because Jesus wants us to...matters.

The cross matters...because we matter!

The Blessings.2

"Blessed are you, who put your whole trust in God. Yours is the kingdom of heaven." -- Jesus

Most bibles label this section of Jesus' teachings "The Beatitudes".  It was his first recorded public sermon to a large crowd.  Preaching the "good news" to the poor, his self-proclaimed mission, begs the question: what was in his words and message that was "good news?"  What in it would make the poor glad?  What did it have to do with a "kingdom?"  What relevance centuries later?

All good news from heaven is of Truth.

      Truth essential to our humanity.

      Involving duty.  Responsibility.  To God.  To Others.

...and the help from heaven to perform that duty.

"There can be no good news for us men, except of uplifting love, and no one can be lifted up who will not rise. If God himself sought to raise his little ones without their consenting effort, they would drop from his foiled endeavour.

       He will carry us in his arms till we are able to walk;

       He will carry us in his arms when we are weary with walking;

       He will not carry us if we will not walk."

The good news of Jesus was just the news of the thoughts and ways of the Father in the midst of his family. He told them that the way men thought for themselves and their children was not the way God thought for himself and his children; that the kingdom of heaven was founded, and must at length show itself founded on very different principles from those of the kingdoms and families of the world, meaning by "the world" that part of the Father's family which will not be ordered by him, will not even try to obey him.

For example:

-The world's man, its great, its successful, its honorable man, is he who may have and do what he pleases, whose strength lies in money and the praise of men.

-The greatest in the kingdom of heaven is the man who is humblest and serves his fellows the most.

It is not the proud,

it is not the greedy for distinction,

it is not those who gather and hoard,

not those who lay down the law to their neighbours,

not those that condescend,

nor those that shrug the shoulder and shoot out the lip,

that have any share in the kingdom of the Father.

That kingdom has no relation with or resemblance to the kingdoms of this world, deals with no one thing that distinguishes their rulers, except to repudiate it. The Son of God will favour no smallest ambition, even in the heart of His closest companions.The kingdom of God, the refuge of the oppressed, the home of the children, will not open its gates to the most miserable who would rise above his equal in misery, who looks down on any one more miserable than himself.

The kingdom of God is the home of perfect brotherhood.

These qualities mark the freemen of the kingdom:

• The poor,-not the men who are poor in friends, poor in influence, poor in acquirements, poor in money
• - but those who are poor in spirit, who feel themselves poor creatures;
• -who know nothing to be pleased with themselves for,
• -desire nothing to make them think well of themselves
• the beggars in spirit, 
• the humble men of heart,
• the unambitious (but not the unaspiring),
• the unselfish;
• those who never despise men,
• and never seek their praises;
• the lowly, who see nothing to admire in themselves,
• therefore cannot seek to be admired of others;
• the men who give themselves away
• men who are aware of their own essential poverty;
• who know that they need much to make their life worth living,
• to make their existence a good thing,
• to make them fit to live;

these humble ones are the poor whom the Lord calls blessed.

God is his life and his lord, that his father should be content with him must be all his care.

His brother's wellbeing is essential to his bliss and He would lift every brother to the embrace of the Father.

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

    for they are of the same spirit as God,

        and of nature the kingdom of heaven is theirs."

adapted from George MacDonald,  The Heirs of Heaven & Earth

The Blessings.3

"Blessed are you, who are acquainted with sorrow, for you will be appointed great comfort and courage."--Jesus

Laura Just talked to my daughter-in-law, Laura.  She is a remarkable young woman and we are a blessed family to have her!  Not only has she obtained her bachelor degree while raising her children she's taken on the added responsibility of caring for her sister's son, Carter.  She walks a tight rope between running the family affairs while Steve is deployed, maintaining good relations with her sister (hoping & helping her to grow into a serious & responsible parent for her other child), providing security, stability and identity for Carter, doing girl stuff with Vanessa and boys stuff with the boys while trying to maintain her own sanity!  Oh, and making sure Gus (the roomate dog) gets outside to pee...Oh, and did I mention she's a huge Detroit Lions and Piston's fan--a burden nearly unbearable in itself!

Today she received a blow.  Carter's biological father called.  He has never seen nor had not an atom of influence nor given a penny of support for Carter.  Now suddenly decides he wants custody of Carter.  Could it be that after five years, when the bill for child support finally found its way to his door he had a change of heart?  Were it a neighbor whose struggles with responsibility were well known, we might applaud his move to maturity and wish him well, little our lives will be directly impacted by his success or failure.  But a man for whom others have been burdened by his failings, have picked up the pieces of his brokenness, feel less enamored with his pronouncement of sudden enlightenment!  I'm not saying we shouldn't give everyone a chance to prove they are moving toward true manhood, but its a discussion for another time.

Jesus, the Man of Sorrows intimately acquainted with humanity's grief, always spoke to truth essential to making sense of the senseless and sorrowful.  Other translations use the word "mourn" in place of "sorrow" which makes us think of those attending a funeral expressing the pain of their loss & grief.  Sorrow is the heart's response to discomforts, disease, destruction, duplicity, unfairness, foul play, helplessness, the evils of life.

"Mourning is a canker-bitten blossom on the rose-tree of love. Is there any mourning worthy the name that has not love for its root? Men mourn because they love. Love is the life out of which are fashioned all the natural feelings, every emotion of man. Love modelled by faith, is hope; love shaped by wrong, is anger-true anger, though pure of sin; love invaded by loss, is grief.

The gladsome child runs farther afield; the wounded child turns to go home. The weeper sits down close to the gate; the Lord of Life draws nigh to him from within. God loves not sorrow, yet rejoices to see a man sorrowful, for in his sorrow man leaves his heavenward door on the latch, and God can enter to help him."-MacDonald, The Hope of the Gospel

The promise to them that sorrow is that their sorrow will end with comfort.  Comfort is the doorway into God's great heart where we find grace to help in time of need, wisdom for response, strength in the inner man to stand shoulders squared ready for whatever comes pulling us back from the brink of bitterness, the edge of despair, the chasm of chaos!

Take comfort all ye that sorrow!

The Blessings.4

"Blessed are you, who with humility recognize your need of God. The whole earth will be yours."--Jesus

The Father offers two rewards for faith in Him: heaven & earth.  Those who aspire for these rewards live lives characterized by peace, contentment, freedom and obedience.

The world (that part of the Father's family who will not obey Him) offers two rewards for faith in its system: Power & Status.  Those who strive for them live lives characterized--more or less--by ambition, insecurity, greed, lust, compromise, infatuation, pretense, ruthlessness, bickering, envy, suspicion, faithlessness, deception, pride, self-will.  In a word, a love for the darkness that hides the truth of worthless works.

The poor recognize this single truth: the one thing everyone needs is God and more and more of God!  They are rewarded with possession of His Presence!

The meek recognize the truth of God in everything: they see the truth of God in the flower, the truth of God in the rain, the truth of God in the face of a child.  They are rewarded with a possession that posesses them: awe and wonder of the glory and grandeur of His creation!

Persevering Prayer

"Have you heard of J.O. Frasier? He left England many years ago to bring the message of Christ's love to the Lisus, an unreached tribal group who lived in the high mountain ranges of western China. The entry to the ranges was at their midpoint, a valley containing a small outpost village. Frasier remained there until he found a Lisu who tutored him in the dialect. After weeks of study, he discovered this Lisu was from the northern range and the dialect he was learning would best prepare him for working in that area.

Frasier realized he would probably be the only missionary to this tribe for years to come. He prayed, "Lord, which way should I go? North, or South?" His Master said, "Both. Pray for the Southern Lisus from sunup to noon and evangelize the Northern Lisus from noon to sundown."

This became the pattern of his life. For years and years, he used half of each day to intercede for Lisus in the south and used half of each day to evangelize the Lisus around him. The work grew slowly. A few hundred Christians were the harvest of a decade of ministry.

After many years, he left the field for the first time to rest and get supplies in the outpost village. Now very familiar with the tribal tongue, he heard a Lisu speaking with a different dialect in the marketplace. He had met his first Southern Lisu! Lovingly Frasier invited the man to come and stay with him in his rented quarters. As he heard the message of Jesus, the Lisu was quick to respond and accept Him as his Lord and Savior.

For several weeks, Frasier tutored the illiterate man, helping him to memorize passages of scripture. He told him story after story from the Bible, always praying that the Spirit would sharpen his ability to remember what he was hearing.

As the men parted, Frasier urged him to tell all the Southern Lisus about Jesus. He then returned to the site of his own ministry, praying as usual for half of each day for those to the south. Years passed...and then a delegation of Southern Lisus arrived at this village. They reported the news that thousands of Southern Lisus had followed Christ and were in desperate need of someone to come and teach them more!

As tears of joy welled up in his eyes, the missionary realized his time invested in prayer from sunup to noon had caused a harvest hundreds of times greater than all his labors from noon to sundown. It was though God was saying, "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, shall the Lisus be reached."

-from The Shepherds Guidebook, by Ralph W. Neighbour, Jr.,

J.O. Frasier

I googled J.O. Fraiser to get more information on this man. There are various accounts of his story, none quite as compact as this. For example, most accounts mention that Frasier was quite often in despair over the lack of progress in his work. Another important aspect of his story not related in this account is that his mother back in England formed a prayer group for him that Frasier credits for much of the eventual success among the Lisus!

This people group was the Chinese version of the Harijans in India's caste system--peasant poor, plagued by alcoholism & demon worship. But the Lisu conversion & commitment to Christ was so widespread and powerful that the Chinese communist government tried to eradicate them in the the 1930's & 40's. Today they continue to be one of the most potent evangelical forces in Chinese culture!


In an account related by friend Matthew ponder the power of perseverance:

"When they arrived at the foot of the mountain, a huge crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, "Lord, have mercy on my son, because he has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn't heal him."

Jesus replied, "You stubborn, faithless people! How long must I be with you until you believe? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy to me."

Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well.

Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, "Why couldn't we cast out that demon?"

"You didn't have enough faith," Jesus told them. "I assure you, even if you had faith as small as a mustard seed you could say to this mountain, `Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible."

But this kind of demon won't leave unless you have prayed and fasted." Matthew 17:14-21


What is the connection between faith and prayer; between prayer and healing? Who was Jesus annoyed at: the father, the crowd, the disciples? Why was he dismayed, angry, indignant in this situation?

All that Jesus holds dear is His Father: His love, His Heart, His thoughts, His will, His business. Jesus' passion was to teach all of humanity how wonderful is His Father. Faith in his father was the result among people he constantly worked to achieve.

The attitude that most consistently offended him was unbelief, and in this case, insufficient faith.

If we are to be "about the Father's business" it is crucial to understand the connection between prayer and accomplishing his work. Most of us, especially in today's world, are easily distracted, impatient, unfocused, often indifferent to the difficulties folks around us are struggling with. Someone may ask us to pray for a certain situation and we gladly agree to "say a prayer" for them. Then, like our facebook wall page, quickly move on to the next distraction.

As followers of Jesus we may be the critical link between a friend's suffering and God's healing balm. If at the first sign of resistance, antagonism, or ineffectiveness we falter, fake or fall down we fail to communicate the truth of God: that He is perfectly devoted to each of us; perfectly capable of healing; perfectly commited to helping & saving everyone who comes to Him looking for relief from the difficulties, struggles, or insanity of this life!

Here are two of my favorite quotes on persevering prayer:

"I don't think that time has much to do with whether God hears you or not; but I do believe that time has something to do with whether or not your faith is built up as you pray and ask." -- Dawson Trotman, the founder of the Navigators.

"He [God] must have sons and daughters-- children of his soul, of his spirit, of his love--not merely in the sense that he loves them, or even that they love him, but in the sense that they love like him, love as he loves. For this he does not adopt them; he dies to give them himself, thereby to raise his own to his heart; he gives them a birth from above; they are born again out of himself and into himself--for he is the one and the all. His children are not his real, true sons and daughters until they think like him, feel with him, judge as he judges, are at home with him, and without fear before him because he and they mean the same thing, love the same things, seek the same ends. For this are we created; it is the one end of our being, and includes all other ends whatever." -- George MacDonald

The goal of fasting & prayer, then, is to demonstrate our desire to love like our Father by laying down our lives for others; spending ourselves to "make more lovely" and to lift them from the gulf into which they've fallen.

The Blessings.5

"Blessed are you, who are pure in heart. You will see God." 

-- Jesus

This article from the Detroit Free Press website caught my eye:

Child pornography prosecutors: 

Victims are getting younger, acts are more vile

"Federal prosecutors in Detroit say they have witnessed the disturbing trend with the kids getting younger -- toddlers and infants as young as 6 months old -- turning up in photos and videos....Child porn lovers live in your neighborhood.
They aren't just creepy loners.
Crouched on a bench in the federal courthouse in Detroit almost every week, seemingly normal people -- doctors, coaches, authors, engineers, teens -- are charged with possessing and making child porn, a $3-billion-a-year industry that the federal government has labeled the new silent child abuse.
Outed by their Internet activities, the accused stand before a judge, heads usually hung low, while their families sit in the back of the courtroom aghast at the accusations. And there typically is no criminal history to point to.
"There's this notion that it's the creepy neighbor who lives in the basement of his parent's house and downloads this stuff," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Mulcahy, chief of the general crimes unit for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit.
Far from it, he said."

Seeing isn't always believing. If we, struggling with our own evil, can't even perceive the wicked among us, how will we ever see God?

So stands--in stark contrast--the wonderful promise from Jesus. A certain class of people will see God, which, by the way, is the deepest desire in a man! To see God, according to MacDonald, is "to stand on the highest point of created being.""Not until we see God --no partial and passing embodiment of him, but the abiding presence-- do we stand

image from soulcraft.com

upon our own mountain-top, the height of the existence God has given us, and up to which he is leading us. That there we should stand, is the end of our creation. This truth is at the heart of everything, ... we must so know him, and it can never be until we are pure in heart."

One of the complaints about The Shack that offended not a few people was that the author portrayed God the Father as a large black woman! This debate illustrates the problem we have in "seeing God". Consider MacDonald's response (written, of course, nearly 100 years before The Shack):

"If he [God] pleased to take a shape, and that shape were presented to us, and we saw that shape, we should not therefore be seeing God. Even if we knew it was a shape of God-call it even God himself our eyes rested upon; if we had been told the fact and believed the report; yet, if we did not see the God-ness, were not capable of recognizing him, so as without the report to know the vision him, we should not be seeing God, we should only be seeing the tabernacle in which for the moment he dwelt. In other words, not seeing what in the form made it a form fit for him to take, we should not be seeing a presence which could only be God."

Even those who saw the Lord Jesus, "the exact imprint of God's nature", did not see God. They only saw Jesus--and then but the outside of Him. The eyes that could see God were not born in them yet; the thought-eyes, the truth-eyes, the love-eyes that alone can see Him.

None but the pure in heart see God.

Only the growing-pure hope to see Him.

"If you care to see God, be pure. If you will not be pure, you will grow more and more impure; and instead of seeing God, will at length find yourself face to face with a vast emptiness, yet filled full of one inhabitant, that devouring monster, your own false self. If for this neither do you care, I tell you there is a Power that will not have it so; a Love that will make you care by the consequences of not caring.

You who seek purity, and would have your fellow-men also seek it, spend not your labor on the stony ground of intellect, endeavoring to explain what purity is; give imagination the one pure man; call up conscience to witness against personal deeds; urge upon yourself and others the grand resolve to be pure.

With the first endeavor of a soul toward her, Purity will begin to draw nigh, calling for admittance; and never will a man have to pause in the divine toil, asking what next is required of him;

the demands of the indwelling Purity 

will ever be in front of his slow-laboring obedience."

(Adapted from MacDonald's Hope of the Gospel, God's Family, emphasis added)

The Blessings.6

"Blessed are you, who hunger and thirst after righteousness. You will be satisfied and filled."--Jesus

Take time to consider, meditate, ponder, contemplate, & wonder at these thoughts on righteousness:

• The Lord will not demand of us more righteousness than he does.  For Him to say 'Be ye therefore perfect as your father in heaven is perfect;' and not help us by word of love, deed of power, and promise of good, would be to show him far less of a brother and a saviour. 
• It is the part of the enemy of righteousness to increase the difficulties in the way of becoming righteous, and to diminish those in the way of seeming righteous. 
• Jesus desires no righteousness for the pride of being righteous, any more than for advantage to be gained by it; therefore, while requiring such purity as the man, beforehand, is unable to imagine, he gives him all the encouragement he can. 
• He will not enhance his victory by difficulties-of them there are enough-but by completeness. 
• He will not demand the loftiest motives in the yet far from loftiest soul: to those the soul must grow. 
• He will hearten the child with promises, and fulfill them to the contentment of the man.
• Men cannot be righteous without love; to love a righteous man is the best, the only way to learn righteousness: the Lord gives us himself to love, and promises his closest friendship to them that overcome.  (MacDonald, The Hope of the Gospel)

 A few years ago a denominational official came to analyze the condition of our church and make recommendations, presumably, to help us make progress and grow the work.  He recommended we close the church.  I was disappointed at the assessment on a variety of levels.  During a pre-interview between him & I, I had taken him by my house to illustrate my perspective on the work we'd labored at for several years and the parallels between my house and the church.  We'd bought our house at an auction where many locals gathered but only two bidders made an attempt to commit the resources to repair this terribly neglected property.  We won (I think).  There was much to tear down before we could even begin to build up.  My point to the denominational official was: it may not look like much now, but you should have seen where we started!

Jesus didn't come to swap out conditions of right standing before God like trading baseball cards.  Rather He came to help fan the flames from the tiniest ember in the deepest longing of our souls for true righteousness. To provide whatever resources we need to grow more true, right, good, in a word: filled up with love for Him!  To tear down old works and worthless deeds; to work alongside the consequences of those olds works and worthless deeds to build something remarkable, a house worth living in!   Its not the "works of Christ" we are told to trust, but the Working Christ who ever always is devoted to filling us up with the deepest longing of our souls!

 We may not look like much yet, but you should have seen where He started!