holy week

Every once in a while, I read a verse of Scripture and think, "I wonder when that got put in there..." because it catches me as something I've never noticed before. As we are nearing the remembrance of Easter, one of those verses caught my attention:

"When Jesus was on the earth, a man of flesh and blood,
He offered up prayers and pleas, groans and tears
to the One who could save Him from death.
He was heard because He approached God with reverence.
Although He was a Son, Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered
 And once He was perfected through that suffering
He became the way of eternal salvation for all those who hear and follow Him"
(Hebrews 5:7-9)

As they prepared to enter Jerusalem, Jesus knew what He was about to face. He even pulled His disciples aside to tell them plainly (because He had already told them a couple different times and the just didn't get it) that He was about to be mocked, tortured, executed, and raised from the dead. What was ahead of Him wasn't a surprise.

But He went anyway.

This wasn't the first time they had tried to kill Him. Not even talking about when King Herod ordered all the Israelite baby boys murdered, there are at least two times we're told about Jesus escaping death: the first started in the synagogue in Nazareth, and the second was at the temple in Jerusalem. In Nazareth, Jesus stood up and read from Isaiah:

"The Spirit of the Lord, the Eternal, is on me.
    The Lord has appointed me for a special purpose.
He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
    He has sent me to repair broken hearts,
And to declare to those who are held captive and bound in prison,
    “Be free from your imprisonment!”
He has sent me to announce the year of jubilee, the season of the Eternal’s favor:
    for our enemies it will be a day of God’s wrath;
For those who mourn it will be a time of comfort."
(Isaiah 61:1-2)

Jesus was in His hometown, and Luke tells us that at first the people were amazed by His words. But then, somebody remembered that this was the kid they had watched grow up--just the son of Joseph, right? But then Jesus stepped on their toes (He was really good at doing that) and compared Himself to the prophets Elijah and Elisha. Luke says His words infuriated those in the synagogue. They drove Him out to the edge of town, determined to throw Him off the cliff:

Mount Precipice at Nazareth

But we're told that Jesus walked through the crowd and left.

The second time was in Jerusalem. Jesus was in the temple, and people were again amazed at what He was saying. He had just been the reason a woman caught in adultery hadn't been stoned. But then He went and stepped on toes again, telling the people there that if they were truly sons of Abraham, they should start acting like it. He told them that instead they were sons of Satan, and they were acting like him. Instead of being driven to repentance, those in the temple were driven into a rage and picked up their stones again--but Jesus again slipped away.

Jesus walked away from death twice and undoubtedly could have again...but He went anyway.

On the way to Jerusalem, He spoke to Philip and Andrew:

My spirit is low and unsettled.
How can I ask the Father to save Me from this hour?
This hour is the purpose for which I have come into the world.
But what I can say is this: “Father, glorify Your name!”
(John 12:27-28)

He was "unsettled"--that maybe the biggest understatement of all time. Jesus knew He was about to face the death that coined the phrase excruciating, and He was "unsettled". As He prayed later, He was literally sweating blood, a condition that is called hematidrosis and happens under extreme stress or fear, when capillaries around the sweat glands burst. He spent His last night on earth praying for His disciples--praying for us--when He was under so much stress that His blood vessels were bursting. He prayed for the Father to do something else--something that would take away the suffering He was about to endure, the horrific death He would experience on the cross.

But He went anyway.

When they came to arrest Him in the garden, when He was betrayed with a kiss by one of the men He had been closest to here on this earth, His followers tried to fight. Peter cut off the ear of Malchus, and Jesus reached out, touched the man's severed ear, and healed it. He could have walked away again--after all, when they said who they were looking for and He spoke the words of the Ancient of Days--"I AM"--there was so much power simply in His voice that those who came to arrest Him fell to the ground (John 18:4-6).

But He went anyway.

The One who had

• turned water into wine
• brought a boy back from the brink of death
• given Simon Peter a catch of fish so big it threatened to sink the boat
• cast out demons many times
  
• cured Simon Peter's mother-in-law
• healed lepers
• healed a paralyzed servant from a distance
• raised a young man, young girl, and Lazarus (after days in the grave) from the dead
• spoke to the storm and calmed the wind and the waves
• healed a woman who touched the hem of his garment from bleeding for 12 years
• opened the eyes of the bling
• made the mute speak
• restored a man's withered hand
• fed 5,000 from 2 fish and 5 small loaves of bread
• healed the deaf
• spoke to a tree and caused it to wither
• "There are so many other things that Jesus said and did; and if these accounts were also written down, the books could not be contained in the entire cosmos." (John 21:25)

He stood before Pilate, who asked if He was a king, and still focused on telling others the message He had been sent to share:

"You say that I am king.
For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the cosmos:
to demonstrate the power of truth.
Everyone who seeks truth hears My voice."
(John 18:37)

 

"He is the exact image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of creation, the eternal.
It was by Him that everything was created:
the heavens, the earth, all things within and upon them,
all things seen and unseen, thrones and dominions,
spiritual powers and authorities.
Every detail was crafted through His design,
by His own hands, and for His purposes.
He has always been!
It is His hand that holds everything together."
(Colossians 1:15-17)

This is one of those passages I call one of my physics verses--His hand holds everything together, the only viable explanation for how the protons can possibly be held together in the nucleus, and the only way all the atoms in creation don't spin into oblivion. He could have spoken a word, and their whips and blows couldn't have landed, or His flesh could have withstood all of it.

He could have stepped into earthly power, toppling all the governments of the world with a single thought. He could have claimed the authority given to Him by the Father and made the earth His footstool then and there. He could have avoided the pain of death.

But He went anyway.

What makes us think for a second that He was held to the cross by those nails? This One who had power over all creation, who could heal, who could control the elements--could He truly be held by those chunks of metal? He could have stepped down from that cross at any moment. He could have walked away from all of it. He could have looked at the hatred in the eyes of those mocking Him, cheering for His death, and decided they weren't worth it... that I wasn't worth it.

But He went anyway.

The One who stepped out of the throne room of heaven, who left His place at the right hand of the Father, chose obedience. He chose to let Himself be beaten and mocked by those He had come to redeem. He chose to let them drive nails--made from the metal that had been created at the beginning through Him--through His hands and feet. He chose to let the weak flesh of humanity take precedence over the omnipotence of His divinity. He chose to submit to the will of the Father instead of His own:

 

"Though He was in the form of God,
    He chose not to cling to equality with God;
But He poured Himself out to fill a vessel brand new;
    a servant in form
    and a man indeed.
The very likeness of humanity,
He humbled Himself,
    obedient to death—
    a merciless death on the cross!"

(Philippians 2:6-8)

Jesus prayed that He wouldn't have to suffer death on the cross. He pleaded with the Father, but He chose obedience. He chose us. He wasn't ignored by the Father in His suffering, and even His words on the cross were meant to remind up of that--"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"

It's hard to see at first, when you look at those agonized words of the Son crying out to the Father, but even in His agony Jesus was choosing us. He was choosing to give us words that would ultimately drive us to the feet of the Father, because they would drive us to Psalm 22:

"¹ My God, my God, why have You turned Your back on me?

    Your ears are deaf to my groans.
² O my God, I cry all day and You are silent;
    my tears in the night bring no relief.

³ Still, You are holy;
    You make Your home on the praises of Israel.
⁴ Our mothers and fathers trusted in You;
    they trusted, and You rescued them.
⁵ They cried out to You for help and were spared;
    they trusted in You and were vindicated.

⁶ But I am a worm and not a human being,
    a disgrace and an object of scorn.
⁷ Everyone who sees me laughs at me;
    they whisper to one another I’m a loser; they sneer and mock me, saying,
⁸ “He relies on the Eternal; let the Eternal rescue him
    and keep him safe because He is happy with him.”

⁹ But You are the One who granted me life;
    You endowed me with trust as I nursed at my mother’s breast.
¹⁰ I was dedicated to You at birth;
    You’ve been my God from my mother’s womb.
¹¹ Stay close to me—
    trouble is at my door;
    no one else can help me.

¹² I’m surrounded by many tormenters;
    like strong bulls of Bashan,^[b] they circle around me with their taunts.
¹³ They open their mouths wide at me
    like ravenous, roaring lions.

¹⁴ My life is poured out like water,
    and all my bones have slipped out of joint.
My heart melts like wax inside me.
¹⁵ My strength is gone, dried up like shards of pottery;
    my dry tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
    You lay me in the dust of death.

¹⁶ A throng of evil ones has surrounded me
    like a pack of wild dogs;
They^[c] pierced my hands and ripped a hole in my feet.
¹⁷ I count all my bones;
    people gawk and stare at me.
¹⁸ They make a game out of dividing my clothes among themselves;
    they cast lots for the clothes on my back.

¹⁹ But You, O Eternal, stay close;
    O You, my help, hurry to my side.
²⁰ Save my life from violence,
    my sweet life from the teeth of the wild dog.
²¹ Rescue me from the mouth of the lion.
    From the horns of the wild oxen, You responded to my plea.

²² I will speak Your Name to my brothers and sisters
    when I praise You in the midst of the community.
²³ You who revere the Eternal, praise Him—
    descendants of Jacob, worship Him;
    be struck with wonder before Him, all you children of Israel.
²⁴ He’s not put off
    by the suffering of the suffering one;
He doesn’t pretend He hasn’t seen him;
    when he pleaded for help, He listened.

²⁵ You stir my praise in the great assembly;
    I will fulfill my vows before those who humble their hearts before Him.
²⁶ Those who are suffering will eat and be nourished;
    those who seek Him will praise the Eternal.
    May your hearts beat strong forever!
²⁷ Those from the farthest reaches of the earth will remember
    and turn back to look for the Eternal;
All the families of the nations
    will worship You.
²⁸ The Eternal owns the world;
    He exercises His gentle rule over all the nations.

²⁹ All the wealthy of the world will eat and worship;
    all those who fall in the dust will bow before Him,
    even the life that is headed to the grave.
³⁰ Our children will serve Him;
    future generations will hear the story of how the Lord rescued us.
³¹ They will tell the generations to come
    of the righteousness of the Lord,
    of what He has done."

 

He could have chosen Himself, but He chose obedience--and He chose us.

 

parenting teens

 My mom once asked her own mom what she thought was the hardest part about raising kids. I'm not sure when their conversation took place, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was after one of the many... spirited disagreements... we had when I was growing up. Part of Memaw's answer was, "If you can love them through junior high, you can love them through anything."

Honestly, junior high was one of the reasons I left teaching. The politics were the main reason, sure, but I'm not going to lie to you and say I loved teaching hormonal young teenagers. I've often said that it didn't seem like my students could really connect with my odd sense of humor and bluntness until they hit about sophomore year. That's the year they would start saying I wasn't too bad, then by junior or senior year they actually seemed to like me a little. 7th through 9th grade, though? Yeah, there wasn't a whole lot of love lost between us. I remember telling my mom once that I was having a hard time dealing with the teenage girls in my classes, and she said, "Of course--you didn't like teenage girls when you were a teenage girl."

Right now, we basically have 5 teenagers at home: 12, 14, 15, 17, & 17. Let me tell you, that's a whole lot of hormones and a whole lot of drama! 3 boys, 2 girls. I would have thought that the boys would be easier to deal with through the teenage years because everybody always talks about how emotional girls are... but my goodness, teenage boys are definitely no picnic!

We've had lots of talks in our house that sound about like this:

"It's simple biology. As a teenager, your mind and body are flooded with so many hormones that your brain simply doesn't work. I'm not saying anything about you personally--all teenagers are dumb. That's the purpose of parents. My job isn't to be your friend. My job is to save you from all the dumb decisions your hormone-flooded brain would make on its own."

Sure, there are lighthearted moments when they roll their eyes but still smile, and all is right with the world. But there are also moments when my teenagers think I'm the worst mom who has ever walked the planet: too strict, a know-it-all, dumb as a brick, unfair, pushy, smothering, overprotective... I'm sure there have been plenty of words thrown around in anger.

Just like I'm sure I threw plenty of them at my mom.

Just the other day after a particularly ugly blowout with one of our kids, my husband and I were talking. We were trying to figure out if we had handled things the right way, if we had managed to get through to our kid in any sort of meaningful way. The only thing that came to mind that made me feel like maybe I wasn't completely failing at this "mom" thing was a verse:

"Train up a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not depart from it."
(Proverbs 22:6)

I'm a questioner and an over-thinker. I can't remember a time in my life when I ever felt certain I was doing things the right way. I question my abilities at work, as a writer, as a wife, and--most of all--as a mother. I can't help but wonder how much I'm messing things up, and I marvel at why in the world God would trust me with bringing up 5 of His children. I mess up regularly. I get things wrong. I say the wrong thing. I do the wrong thing.

But sometimes, I get it right. Sometimes I know the right words to say. Sometimes I know how much to push and how much to back off. Sometimes I get through to my kids in ways other people can't.

All the time, though, I know that God is working in their lives. I look at them and get glimpses of the potential they have, hints of the strong, amazing men and women they will hopefully become one day. I pray that, like Christ, they will grow "in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." (Luke 2:52). I continually pray that they will be able to overcome my mess-ups and shortcomings to become men and women who chase after God. I pray that they will be mighty warriors in a world that is full of spiritual darkness and spiritual battles.

I will never be a perfect mom. I will mess-up. I'll say the wrong thing at the wrong time. I'll lose my temper. I'll misunderstand. I'll take things the wrong way.

But through it all, I pray my kids will always know that I would give my last breath to protect them. I hope they can see that, despite my failings, I'm doing my best to follow God while I'm leading them.

...but man, the teen years are hard!

Christian Nationalists

 For a long time, I was of the persuasion--as were so many others who consider themselves politically conservative--that the differences between the political right and the political left were ultimately minor. After all, we all want what's best for the country and best for each other, right? Sure, there were differences in how we wanted to go about reaching the end goal: those on the left were for higher taxes and welfare programs while those on the right were for lowering taxes and teaching people to support themselves, but the end goal of both was for the individual to become successful. Both sides wanted to see a furtherance of the beliefs of our founding fathers:
We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

In recent years, though, I've come to realize that the right and the left don't have the same end goal in mind.

Nothing makes that more evident in recent times than someone who is supposed to be an unbiased journalist making this claim: The conservative right is full of extremists who "believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don't come from any earthly authority. They don't come from Congress, they don't come from the Supreme Court, they come from God." (Heidi Przybyla, Politico reporter)

Extremists? It makes you an extremist to believe the very thing laid out in the Declaration of Independence? The journalist went on to point out how Christians seem to believe Christian things... how unbelievable is that? Well, given the state of the world today I suppose it is a pretty unbelievable thing to many people. However, the truth hasn't changed. The things God laid out in Scripture as being right and just and true haven't changed because the times have changed. His plan for men and women and marriage and families and morality is still just the same. It doesn't make someone an extremist to believe the things that Christians have believed for 2,000 years... and that the Abrahamic faiths believed for thousands of years before that.

The idea that Christians should keep their faith out of politics is idiotic. It is never possible for any of us to make decisions apart from our personal system of belief, and no one except Christians are being told to do so in the United States today. And actually, that's not even always the case. When it comes to social justice, people don't have a problem evoking the name of Christ to support whatever point of view is best supported by the current "right side of history."

The thing is, there is only one right side. I'm not talking about specific political parties or specific politicians. We shouldn't care about being on the "right side of history" because that changes based on who is in power at the time. The only truly right side you can be on is if you are standing behind God. That means standing firm on His ideals, even when they go against the popular or the mainstream.

~It means believing men and women were created as distinct groups for a reason and that we each have a specific role to fill. That role doesn't change just because I think I know better. It means that I am called to submit to my husband even though my own stubborn pride tells me not to. It means that my role as a wife and a mother has to come before my career. It means that we should protect our daughters from having to compete physically with our sons because there are natural, inherent differences between the sexes.

~It means believing that God's plan for marriage has always been one man and one woman united for life. People get hung up on the twisted versions of relationships that are portrayed in the Bible, claiming that makes them "biblical" and therefore acceptable before God. They somehow ignore that the Bible tells about murder, deceit, adultery, and a whole host of other things that people don't try to claim are "biblical" just because they appear in the Bible. The Scriptures are full of broken, imperfect people who messed up. That's what makes it so powerful for the broken, imperfect people (like me) who can see themselves in the stories they read. God's plan isn't to keep people from "living their best life," or whatever else people argue. Instead, His plan is because He knows what gives us the best chance at living a meaningful, purpose-filled life. He knows that nothing compares to the experience of being a parent. He knows that men and women balance each other in ways we can barely even realize, even when we see that played out in marriage. He knows the pain and heartbreak that comes from trying to live outside of His plan.

~It means believing that every human was created by God, knit together by Him in their mother's womb, with a specific God-given purpose for being here on the planet. It means that we are all the same, despite surface differences in appearances, and should treat one another with dignity and respect. We should stop playing "identity politics" and instead focus on teaching our young men and young women how to develop character. We should, "Teach a child how to follow the right way; even when he is old, he will stay on course." (Proverbs 22:6)

~It means believing that Jesus meant it when He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6) And since we believe that He was telling the truth, it means wanting everyone else to find their path in Him. It means wanting to tell the whole world that we've found the only way out of the mess and that we want nothing more than to see them walking the same path. Yes, it means wanting the whole world to come to a saving faith in "Yeshua Hamashiach" (Jesus the Messiah) because that was His final instruction to us:  "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you." (Matthew 28:19 & 20a)

This fall, the citizens of the United States of America face an election with unprecedented consequences. Political parties and politicians can't save us. No matter who is (or who isn't) elected this November, that is not where we find our hope.

"When trouble surrounded me, I cried out to the Eternal;
    He answered me and brought me to a wide, open space.
The Eternal is with me,
    so I will not be afraid of anything.
    If God is on my side, how can anyone hurt me?
The Eternal is on my side, a champion for my cause;
    so when I look at those who hate me, victory will be in sight.
It is better to put your faith in the Eternal for your security
    than to trust in people.
It is better to put your faith in Him for your security
    than to trust in princes."
(Psalm 118:5-9)

We are in a time where the battle is between good and evil, a spiritual battle that has spilled over into the natural world. We have to decide which side we are going to stand on--the "right side of history" or God's side.

And no matter what happens in November (and in the months that follow), we have to keep standing. We have to commit to speaking the truth in love so that we can reach a broken world desperate for hope. We have to stand in the public square and use the wisdom and knowledge that comes from God to argue logic with those who use only illogical arguments. We have to point to science as the study of God's creation, something that reveals Him throughout, just like Scriptures tell us. We have to follow Jesus's command to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:43-48). We have to commit ourselves to following Christ, no matter what that may mean for us.