The Archetypal Christian

"The Archetypal Christian is not a person who looks like Jesus, but a person who looks like she needs Jesus." 

Or: looks like he needs Jesus, in my case: #grateful

Citation: The Mockingbird Journal. Mockingbird Ministries, 2013. Page 305.
For more information, see <www.mbird.com>

To a friend, in expectation

...against all the odds, at the least likely moment, (or the most likely, if seen a-rightly) when The Story seemed the darkest and writer's block appeared to have wrestled the Author to the tomb, the Epic crescendoed in spite of everything, and He called those who once were slaves, "My Friends".

...and The Story only continues to crescendo, (though it seems to be pianissimo) and we wait to see it unfold, we Friends of The Main Character.

...wine in hand, or singing in church (though probably not at the same time, mores the pity :), or watching the cursor blink, or wishing the kiddos would be quiet for just a second so I can think, or hearing the alarm signaling "Wake UP!" [snooze...snooze...snooze...snooze, "Oh, alright!], The Well-Planned Script unfolds RIGHT in front of us, and no more.

...then, sometime, The Supper, The Lamb, His Bride, love, Love, LOVE truly will astonish us, and we will be astonished, I think, by its obviousness.

...and in the meantime, the Unobvious, the Mystery, the "I wonder", the "I'm a little unclear here, but onward and upward and higher and further, by hook or crook or (and I am thankful here) The Cross, the Tomb, the Throne."  The to-be-glorified still waiting in this glorious mundane obscurity.

Peace of the Lord, in this meantime.

Wine vs. Grape Juice

I am currently reading (at a suitably slow and comfortable pace for such a delicious book) "A Mapmaker's Dream".  This is one of those books I refuse to rush, since it is littered with thought-provoking gems buried every few paragraphs.  I don't want it to end, so I am just leaving it lying around, and pick it up every once in a while, preferably with a glass of Pinot Noir in hand.

One sentence made me catch my breath, since it so artistically captures a thought that I have been mulling for several years:

"Our thoughtfulness is integral to the observation of a porpoise frolicking at our bow, since it alone determines the level of joy we might feel.  The sound of Saint Mark's bells pealing across the water at dusk is less the sound of clappers against brass, either; it is the echo of an invitation being extended to all of us to participate in something deeply imagined."

I would add to that thought, this: while the peal of St. Mark's bells is more than clappers against brass, it is no less.  The more deeply imagined a thing is, the more readily we delight in the instrument itself that calls us to remember and imagine again.  And also, if the instrument is well suited to the occasion, so much the better.  Here I am thinking of taking the Lord's Supper with pasteurized grape juice, instead of the more richly redolent symbolism of the wine that the Lord [suggested] (?)  If Saint Mark's bells echoing peals are a call to a place deeply imagined, then clappers against a well-crafted brass bell is much better suited to the occasion than a ball of tin foil hitting a plastic cup.

The Wine and the Bread remind me that I am acknowledging my dependence on the death of the God/man for my redemption.  If I am not careful, grape juice can derail me toward thinking about Mr. Welch's tee-totalling agenda instead of ever more deeply imagining the significance of His sacrifice for me.

"Taste and see" we are told.  "Put your finger into my side" the Lord commanded Thomas.  "Drink the wine, and eat this bread" we are told.  A God who created us knows that our embedded senses invite us to participate in something higher up and further in.  Let's not discount the importance of the proper clapper and the well-tuned brass.

In vino veritas? Perhaps.

Brass-Tacks Repentance with C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis posted this helpful comment in a letter to a fretful soul.  Clarifying.

"(1) Remember what St John said 'If our heart condemn us, God is stronger than our heart.' The feeling of being, or not being, forgiven & loved, is not what matters. One must come down to brass tacks. If there is a particular sin on your conscience, repent & confess it. If there isn't, tell the despondent devil not to be silly. You can't help hearing his voice (the odious inner radio) but you must treat it merely like a buzzing in your ear or any other irrational nuisance. 

(2) Remember the story in the Imitation, how the Christ on the crucifix suddenly spoke to the monk who was so anxious about his salvation and said 'If you knew that all was well, what wd. you, today, do, or stop doing?' When you have found the answer, do it or stop doing it. You see, one must always get back to the practical and definite. What the devil loves is that vague cloud of unspecified guilt feeling or unspecified virtue by which he lures us into despair or presumption. 'Details, please' is the answer.--"

Citation: The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Vol. 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy(Cambridge University Press, 2007), 962

C.S. Lewis on Why Myth?

In  a review The Lord of The Rings in On Stories and Other Essays on Literature C.S. Lewis writes this about myth's place in our reading and thinking:

" 'But why,' (some ask), 'why, if you have a serious comment to make on the real life of men, must you do it by talking about a phantasmagoric never-never land of your own?' Because, I take it, one of the main things the author wants to say is that the real life of men is of that mythical and heroic quality. One can see the principle at work in his characterization. Much that in a realistic work would be done by 'character delineation' is here done simply by making the character an elf, a dwarf, or a hobbit. The imagined beings have their insides on the outside; they are visible souls. And man as a whole, Man pitted against the universe, have we seen him at all till we see that he is like a hero in a fairy tale?"

"The Value of myth is that it takes all the things you know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by the veil of familiarity."

"We do not retreat from reality, we rediscover it. As long as the story lingers in our mind, the real things are more themselves... By dipping them in myth we see them more clearly."

In  Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton explains that he believes in fairy tales.  By the end of that book, I realized that I did too.  If we go through this life without the very real sense that the world around us has the characteristics of a myth, then we are missing the point, perhaps.  The fact that we are "used to it" doesn't make it any less astonishing.  As Lewis says in a letter to a Mrs. Johnson, "The good things even of this world are far too good ever to be reached by imagination.  Even the common orange, you know: no one could have imagined it before he tasted it. How much less heaven." And the same is true of all of our existence.

This is why I read myth and fantasy.  To remind me of the truth.

Citation: Quotes from Lewis' review of Tolkien found here <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis> Accessed 1/26/2013

How mercy changes things

Gracie and I recently read When Sinners Say 'I Do', which, in case the title is not clear, is about marriage in light of the Gospel.  A helpful read, which added a few pieces to the Gospel-life puzzle for me.  All that I have been reading on the Gospel of Jesus Christ has started to develop a picture of life inside the Kingdom of God, and how people might act there, and more importantly - why.  It is has been a very intriguing vision.

"Mercy doesn't change the need to speak truth.  It transforms our motivation from a desire to win battles to a desire to represent Christ.  It takes me out of the center and puts Christ in the center.  This requires mercy.

Mercy takes people who are capable of open warfare over toothpaste tubes and toilet seats, and enlarges their vision to include a Savior. Mercy confronts a sinner wrapped in self-pity and protected by pride and shows him the way out of the darkness into the light.  Mercy inspires us to move beyond "the power and government of self-love" back to the nobler and benevolent principles of our new nature."

Citation: Harvey, Dave. When Sinners Say 'I Do'. Shepherd Press. Waphallopen, PA. 2007. Pg.  82.

Aggressive response to the Gospel

Matt Chandler:


Grace-driven effort is violent. It is aggressive. The person who understands the gospel understands that, as a new creation, his spiritual nature is in opposition to sin now, and he seeks not just to weaken sin in his life but to outright destroy it. Out of love for Jesus, he wants sin starved to death, and he will hunt and pursue the death of every sin in his heart until he has achieved success.


This is a very different pursuit than simply wanting to be good. It is the result of having transferred one’s affections to Jesus. When God’s love takes hold of us, it powerfully pushes out our own love for other gods and frees our love to flow back to him in true worship. And when we love God, we obey him. The moralist doesn’t operate that way. While true obedience is a result of love, moralistic legalism assumes it works the other way around, that love results from obedience.


The Explicit Gospel, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 217–218.


Citation: <http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/when-grace-goes-violent> Accessed 5/12/12

Tim Keller on the Gospel's particularity

"The gospel of Jesus is not religion or irreligion, morality or immorality, moralism or relativism, conservatism or liberalism.  Nor is it something halfway along a spectrum between two poles-it is something else altogether. 

The gospel is distinct from the other two approaches: In its view, everyone is wrong, everyone is loved, and everyone is called to recognize this and change."

I appreciate the layered thinking.  I am typically so black and white, that anytime someone gives an alternative to a common  false dilemma , it is helpful.

Reflecting the love of Another

C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, articulates a truth that has been slow to dawn on me.

"The Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ life inside him.  He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because he loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it."

 The ramifications of this truth has started to cultivate some old, hard ground in my life, and I am starting to see some green sprouts of life popping to the surface.  Delightful to be absorbing some warm rays of His love toward me.  Which is QUITE a different experience than trying to broadcast my own "goodness" toward Him to try and get His attention.

J. I. Packer on the place of the Gospel in our culture

Packer:

Our business is to present the Christian faith clothed in modern terms, not to propagate modern thought clothed in Christian terms.

Our business is to interpret and criticize modern thought by the gospel, not vice versa.

Confusion here is fatal.

--J. I. Packer, "Fundamentalism" and the Word of God (Eerdmans, 1958), 136

Citation: <http://dogmadoxa.blogspot.com/2011/12/our-fundamental-loyalty.html>, Accessed December 21, 2011.

A deep breath of cool clear water (or something like that)

For several years now I have been attempting to understand how the culture I am immersed in (as an American, and with Western History in my particular past) has influenced me.  How has it shaped my understanding of reality and the truth about the world I live in?  It has been an exhausting investigation as I realize that I have been radically and fundamentally influenced by the last 400 years of culture currents.  In several senses, I have never had an original thought in my life, but have been fed every thought I have ever had by others, and I have been curious about who those others are, and what it was they were attempting when they passed on their thinking to subsequent generations.  In some ways, this whole endeavor has been unhealthy, causing a large dose of epistemological claustrophobia.  In other ways it has been a spreading of my horizons as I understand who I am better.

For example, try reading Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America.  This book will alter your view of what it means to be an individual, and forces you to realize that you are only "individual" and "authentic" in roughly exactly the same way as everyone else in this American Democracy is "individual" and "authentic".  That book made me laugh out loud, it was so startlingly accurate about me and my neighbors.  And it was written by a Frenchman in the early 1800s!

So, for a couple of years now I have been trying to figure out how to respond to this strange, constricting realization I have come to: how deeply the philosophies around me (in particular, the branches and fruit and fruit pies coming from the philosophies of the "Enlightenment" (really, the Endarkenment) and Romanticism have been all I have ever partaken of, in some senses.  In fact, in a difficult and sometimes amusing way, I only ever assess the Enlightenment on its own terms...from an Enlightenment perspective.  Arrgh!  How to escape from this philosophical tail-chasing.

Along comes a couple of quotes in the last few weeks that have helped me take a really deep breath for the first time in a while.  One from Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas

To procrastinate and prevaricate simply because you are afraid of erring...seems to me almost to run counter to love.  To delay or fail to make decisions may be more sinful than to make wrong decisions out of faith and love.

In the middle of trying to carefully weave my way through decision-making, attempting to take into account all of the philosophies that are informing my thinking has been pretty crippling.  Here, Bonhoeffer reminds me that LOVE is the goal, and (I add) since I know I am probably not going to get it perfect, even if I reflect on a topic for decades...why not put love at the forefront, pray, think and then take action...then assess, and take more action...then assess again, etc.  I am trying to make that my new Mode of Operation.

THEN, along comes a few more thoughts, this time from Tim Keller's book, Gospel and Life.

A worldview is...the story of the world that operates at the root of a person's life.

And

We cannot help but participate in the worldview of our particular culture and generation.  But the gospel changes the way we look at everything.  We are to look at everything...and decide (a) what to keep as good, (b) what to reject as just too distorted, and (c) what to revise, rename, and reshape with the gospel. 

Very helpful thoughts for me.  I have realized for a while now that I can't "get out" of my own worldview, and that participating at some level in the worldview around me is impossible to escape.

Ken Myers suggests that we must make a decision.  Do we interact with that worldview in a mode of acceptance and adoption, or do we interact with it at some points in a mode of resistance and rejection.

Tim Keller's thoughts added to Ken Myer's help me to have a framework for thinking about these things.  And Bonhoeffer's helps to relieve the incapacitating pressure to think that I have to get it all logically and philosophically perfect before making decisions, and the Gospel itself, most importantly by far, has helped me to understand that it was for such an errant philosopher and sinner as myself that Jesus came to die, and restore me to right relationship with Himself.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

Christian Smith was the Stuart Chapin Distinguished Professor  and associate chair in the Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill when he conducted a study on the religious and spiritual lives of American Teenagers together with Melinda Lundquist Denton.

They were trying to discover what the bigger picture of the religious and spiritual lives of U.S. teenagers looked like when we stand back and try to put it all together.

What they discovered was sobering.  Among most American teens, from a variety of denominations within Christianity and also across faith boundaries to other faiths, there was a consistent belief system, which was not even Christian!  It was this:

“A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life and earth.

God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions

The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when he is needed to resolve a problem.

Good people go to heaven when they die.”

This religion is so out of sync with the truth of the Gospel in so many ways it is staggering, but Smith emphasizes that this is the tacit, de facto religion of the majority of American teens regardless of religious affiliation.  Somehow I think that Thomas Jefferson would be quite pleased with the results.

The sobering thing is that as my wife and I inspected our own core of beliefs and practices, we discovered this same trend running strongly though our own assumptions and it has forced us to reassess what God was saying to us through the Canon, and realign our understanding with the truth found in His Word.

So I am thanking God for Christian Smith for helping me recognize myself as a closet deist, and turn to the one true Trinity for truth and help.

Citation: Smith, Christian. “On “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” as U.S. Teenagers’ Actual, Tacit, De Facto Religious Faith”, a version of “Summary Interpretation: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism,” from Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers by Christian Smith and Melinda Lunquist Denton, copyright 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc. 

Common Criminal

This is an excerpt from an essay by Fleming Rutledge that puts me in my place:

“Sally…told some of her friends about an experience she’d had in a department store.  In order to appreciate this, you have to picture the department store and you have to picture Sally.  The store in question is fashionable and elegant.  Sally herself is fashionable and elegant, the epitome of aristocratic dignity.  She bought an expensive blouse at the store and took it with her in a shopping bag.  Unfortunately, the saleswoman had forgotten to remove the white plastic device that was attached to the blouse.  When Sally tried to go through the door, the alarms went off and the security forces pounced upon her. “Oh, my dear, how horrible for you!” cried her friends, listening to the story, “It must have been so distressing! Did you call your husband? Did you have your identification? Did you call your lawyer? Did you ask to see the president of the store?

“Oh,” said Sally, “that wasn’t a problem.  I didn’t have any trouble establishing who I was. That wasn’t the bad part. The really bad part was the feeling of being treated like a common criminal!”

Those were her exact words. Like a common criminal.  This is the woman who won’t go to the church in her neighborhood because it has a figure of Jesus on the cross and she doesn’t want to look at it.

Sally was able to tell the department store who she was; and yet the truth is that she does not know who she is. I tried to explain to Sally that the feeling of shame she had felt was a clue to the meaning of the death of Jesus, who was arrested like a common criminal, exhibited to the public like a common criminal, executed like a common criminal.  I was unable to put this across. She does not believe herself to be guilty of anything.  Wronged, yes; misunderstood, yes; undervalued, yes; imperfect, perhaps; but not guilty, certainly not sinful.  Because she believes herself to be one of the “good” people, because she could never, never commit a small sin like shoplifting, she cannot see the connection between Jesus’ death as a common criminal and herself.

Sally could not hear the message of Good Friday…but perhaps you can hear it today, on their behalf as well as your own.  When you reflect upon Jesus Christ hanging on the cross in shame, you understand the depth and weight of human sin.  How do we measure the size of a fire?  By the number of firefighters and fire engines sent to fight against it.  How do we measure the seriousness of a medical condition? By the amount of risk the doctors take in prescribing dangerous antibiotics or surgical procedures.  How do we measure the gravity of sin and the incomparable vastness of God’s love for us? By looking at the magnitude of what God has done for us in Jesus, who became like a common criminal for our sake and in our place.

When you really come to know the unconditional love and forgiveness of Jesus, then you will also come to know the depth of your own participation in sin. And at the very same moment (this is the glory of Good Friday) you will come to know the true reality, the true joy and gladness, of the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Rutledge, Fleming.  “The Common Criminal” in Bread and Wine – Readings for Lent and Easter.  Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY. 2003. Page 79-81

He's got me thinking...

In a recent blog post, the pastor at the church we are currently "investigating" says this:

"There is NOTHING, nada, not one-single-thing, not one-single-action, no intention, no inclination or smallest glimmer of our most minute desire that recommends us to God.  I’ll even up the ante one further: I actually believe that the very BEST things we’ve ever done – the most pious, most religious, most holy, most selfless act of obedience, with the purest motives we could possibly muster on the best days, if rightly accounted for, would be in the debit column of our lives, NOT the credit column." 

Citation: Jean Larroux III, from KNOTS, his blog on the Southwood website

Pancakes all around!!!

Pop quiz.  What familiar foreign phrase in our vocabulary is, when translated, "Fat Tuesday"?

The observance of the Lenten season, in many Christian traditions,  is a time of preparing the heart for the yearly focus on remembering the Passion of Christ.

What does that mean for my family?  This is a period of time that we do a Lenten version of the Jesse Tree.  Each night we read an age-appropriate reading with the children, read some scripture and hang a little picture on the tree, as we recall again why Christ had to come and die.  It is an opportunity (and I try and build as many opportunities into our day, week and year as I can) to teach my family the truths of the faith.  We choose to fast from some particular things in order to spur us to recall regularly our need for His Wonderful Grace.  My wife and I read a different book each year of thoughts on Lent by different authors.  This year, we are reading Bread and Wine-Readings for Lent and Easter, which is a compilation of the writings of several authors, including C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Madeleine L'Engle and many others.  And we will participate with a local Anglican congregation in some of their Liturgical services, which are, for us, wonderful celebrations of the awe-inspiring Gospel of Jesus that we thoroughly look forward to.

Do we "have" to do these things?
No.

Do they make us a little better in God's sight? Far from it.  Kind of the reverse.  They clear our vision a little bit, and help us to see Him in His majesty and mercy.  And we are grateful.

Fat Tuesday is the English translation for "Mardi Gras".  Today is "Fat Tuesday", "Shrove Tuesday", or, as we prefer, "Pancake Day"

Pancake Day?  Yep.  That's how it is referred to in many countries.  The idea behind the tradition is that in many Christian traditions, Lent was a time of fasting.  Depending on time in history and location, the fast was more, or less rigid, and so, because people knew they weren't going to be eating eggs, fat, milk, etc. for 40 days, and since those items would go bad, they would use them up.  And what better way to use up those particular ingredients than whipping up a big batch of pancakes?

How wonderful is that?

So, if you really want to be justified before God, then you had better eat pancakes today. ***

***Sorry, that was a little justification humor.  No man was ever justified by eating pancakes.  I promise.  Even if the pancakes were super-yummy filled ebelskivers!  And even if the Ebelskivers were eaten as dessert after homemade pizza!  Hmmm...I'm looking forward to supper tonight!

Have a Happy Pancake Day!

Blueberry Ebelskivers!

A glimpse of the goodness of God

I am so grateful for every glimpse of the Gospel that I receive.  Here is one glimmering thought that sheds light for us. 

"...the God who saves us and the God who judges us is one God.  We are not, even, condemned by his severity and redeemed by his compassion; what judges us is what redeems us, the love of God.  What is it that will break our hearts on judgement day?  Is it not the vision, suddenly unrolled, of how he has loved the friends we have neglected, of how he has loved us, and we have not loved him in return; how when we came before his alter, he gave us himself, and we gave him half-penitence's, or resolutions too weak to commit our wills?  But while love thus judges us by being what it is, the same love redeems us by effecting what it does.  Love shares flesh and blood with us in this present world, that the eyes which look us through at last may find in us a better substance than our vanity..."

-From Love Came Down - Anglican Readings for Advent and Christmas

That thought reminds me of one of my favorite poems.  Scott Cairns, whose poem I found here, wrote this

Possible Answers to Prayer

"Your petitions—though they continue to bear   

just the one signature—have been duly recorded.   

Your anxieties—despite their constant,

relatively narrow scope and inadvertent   

entertainment value—nonetheless serve   

to bring your person vividly to mind.

Your repentance—all but obscured beneath   

a burgeoning, yellow fog of frankly more   

conspicuous resentment—is sufficient.

Your intermittent concern for the sick,   

the suffering, the needy poor is sometimes   

recognizable to me, if not to them.

Your angers, your zeal, your lipsmackingly   

righteous indignation toward the many   

whose habits and sympathies offend you—         

these must burn away before you’ll apprehend   

how near I am, with what fervor I adore

precisely these, the several who rouse your passions."