SnowCover

We got a pretty crazy amount of snow over the last 24 hours! So we are sitting here without power —  safe, warm and enjoying how ridiculously beautiful it is outside.

Snow has some mystical, and often deceptive, power. It magically smooths everything out and gives the world a gloriously clean facade. It dampens the noise of the world while slowing everything down to a crawl. But…underneath the surface…

After I graduated college I worked at a youth camp (Sonlight) in Pagosa Springs, Colorado for a ski season. We’d have to get up early to get the kids fed and lunches packed, but then I’d usually be able to ski Wolf Creek for a few hours. On one beautiful powder day I was skiing the back country, away from the slopes, just going downhill between trees. As I went down a dip in terrain I painfully realized that there was a fallen tree under the surface of the snow. My skis and feet when under the tree while the rest of me went over it, bringing me to an immediate stop. What looked incredibly beautiful ended up cracking my leg (but not so bad that I couldn’t take some advil and keep skiing).

This is often how we view what God has done to our sins. He “covered” them for sure, but they still lurk underneath. We often don’t feel clean, just covered. But this is our old religious self rearing it’s accusing head, telling us that we are dirty, worthless and really testing God’s patience. Yet instead of latching onto the cleansing hope of Jesus, we just keep trying to cover our heart’s fallen trees with religious, behavior-management snow so that nobody (often including ourselves) can see the danger underneath. Jesus confronted this with the religious elite:

Matthew 23:27-28
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

He was telling them, and telling us, that our hearts are dead and rotting, in need of re-creation, not just cleaning. We need new hearts, not repaired old hearts. King David, the great great (etc) grandad of Jesus, had some heart road-kill deep down and realized that he needed an outside surgeon…leading him to Psalm 51, his poem of repentance:

Psalm 51:7
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

This is why Jesus had to come. He had to have a heart like ours so that he could equally swap with us, giving us his pure heart along with all it’s benefits while taking ours, along with all it’s penalties. So our hearts are not snow-covered, they are snow-colored. They are pure because we’ve been given His.

So enjoy the snow, and let it remind you of your true identity in Jesus.

Free At Last

5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

This has got to be one of the most debated, misunderstood and abused verses in Scripture. This even begin to understand this verse, we have to unpack what we mean by “freedom.” What does freedom mean to you?

  • A day to yourself on the couch?
  • You and your best friend going on a hike?
  • Something a bit more “naughty”?

Our initial reaction almost certainly and understandably involves something that makes me feel good. It involves removing whatever we feel is binding us down. These can be things that we love and are really good (like relationships) or just the regular things of like (like responsibilities). But when we define freedom from this perspective, we are thinking way way too small. What is it that is truly chaining you down and enslaving you? Isn’t it the fear and insecurity of life? This is the freedom that the Gospel is inviting us into: to accept and actually enjoy the absolute and full approval of God thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus, who exchanged his freedom for our imprisonment, and enacted by the Spirit who breathes a new creation into our being.

This is freedom: that all fear of divine-rejection has been eaten up on the cross, fully and finally securing divine-approval on our behalf. Because of this there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1) regardless of our behavior. But because of this secured freedom, we are empowered by the Spirit to live a life of free-gratitude as we perpetually get brought deeper into personally owning the incomprehensible affection of our Father. An affection that is not fickle, being based upon how well we live up to our new identity. When I fail to live a life of love, Jesus’ love doesn’t falter. When I actually love others from a humble heart, Jesus’ love doesn’t rise. This is because all who are in Christ already have 100% of his love. He isn’t holding any back! We’ve got it all. For good. Forever. I don’t have to live in fear of disappointing him and having him begrudgingly accept me. And I don’t have to live in fleeting arrogance when I think I’ve “done better” than others (and I better keep it up, or else). Because it is through Love that we are brought home, and for love that we are empowered to live.

So what does that mean for my life? It means freedom. It means that, as I bask in the warmth of his smiling face, my heart if melted and I smile back. To him and to others.

Saint Augustine put is like this: “Love God, and do as you please.”

Yes, this scary and messy. Yes, it boils up a lot of questions of what I should do and not do. Yes, it forces us to enter an honest, conversational relationship with Jesus instead of leaning on the safer list of rules. And yes, this is the freedom that Jesus has secured on our behalf so that we can do what Malachi 4:2 promised: But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.

Advent 2 – Peacelessness


Peace, man.

The world would be such a better place, if only ____.
If that person would just _____, then things would be ok.
If ____ gets elected, the world would be a better place.
We all desperately search for and attempt to bring about “peace,” as defined by us individually. Some of your answers to the above little pop quiz might in fact make life and the world a better place, but that’s not the point. The reality is that there are endless opinions on those answers, and many of them are the opposite of yours (to which you say “well, if that person would just see things my way, then the world would be a better place”.) And the reason is that we all want peace, harmony and love. We are designed for that from the very beginning and spend our whole lives trying to make it back to Eden. But we do it by trying to rebuild Eden here, in this broken world among broken people. It is absolutely true that we are called to be agents of love and peace in this world, fighting for the oppressed and against darkness. But we do this not in an attempt to make heaven here and now but as an act of love spilling over from the just righteousness of our God who cares for His creation. And though we are called to be agents of peace, every worldly step forward will be temporary (though we are still called to do it).
And this is why Jesus came as the Immanuel, God With Us. He came to bring actual, perfect, eternal peace to all of creation firstly by bringing peace between us and God. Sin is our treasonous attempt to overthrow our King as we declare ourselves Lord of All. So Jesus came as a Child King from Nazareth so that, in his death, all the just-judgement that stems from our Peacelessness has been paid. How ironic that the sign that hung above Jesus’ head on the cross (“INRI”) said “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”…which mimics Luke’s account of Jesus birth:
Luke 1:26-27
26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.
Jesus came full circle, from Heaven to Nazareth as the Ultimate King in the line of David to bring his people back home into perfect Eden-Shalom, into peace and rest, which motivates us and even empowers us to Live-Eden now.
Clearly this doesn’t mean that life in the here and now is easy and “feels” peaceful. Life can be really hard, but the Great War is OVER. Jesus has made a peace-treaty on our behalf. In this world we will have trouble, but Jesus has overcome the world (John 16:33)!
Dig Deeper: The Bible Project is an excellent resource for young and seasoned people to engage and learn about Scripture and it’s application to real life. This link will take you to 4 Advent videos that unpack the Hebrew and/or Greek words for Peace, Hope, Joy and Love…the 4 Sundays of Advent.