Jesus the Refugee

This morning at church our Gospel reading came from Matthew Ch. 2.13-23.  As we spent time in the passage, I got stuck on this...that Jesus, as an infant, became a political refugee.  Facing certain death due to an infant genocide, Jesus was scooped up by his mother and step-dad, and they fled...for their lives.  Instantly images of the refugees out of the Sudan or Uganda began to flood my mind, as did images of the Rwandan genocide; and after briefly determining between me, myself, and I that Hotel Rwanda was Don Cheadle's best performance...I was brought back to this; here, we had Jesus the refugee.  Sure, he was still Jesus the infant-King, Jesus our Emmanuel but, he was at the same time, Jesus the refugee.  One fleeing while children on all sides were slaughtered...going to live in Egypt as a political refugee.

I tried to imagine it...I tried to picture Joseph and Mary, clutching Jesus close as they gathered what little they had brought with them and throwing it on the back of their donkey and hightailing it out of Bethlehem.  Was Joseph certain of their safe passage, because you know, an angel had told him to leave?  Or did he doubt himself as they hurriedly packed and fled?  Was Mary still resting in the Magnificat she has sung?  Was she still 'pondering these things in her heart'?  Or did her sense of security evaporate as her betrothed awoke and said, we got's to go...


...and then i was left with this...

What an amazing God-with-us.  Not only would he become an infant child, but an infant child born into a politically unstable social environment whose birth would spark a genocide and force he and his family to become refugees in a strange land.  We fret over much.  The things that cause us to question, to doubt, that leave us wondering where God is, I am chastising myself now as I think the small things I've gone through in life.  Here was my Savior, choosing this life to give my life hope, meaning, and newness...

...thanks be to God.

Read More

So, I said I was going to post on this book by Stanley...so I'm finally going to type what I wrote in my journal about chapter 1.

Ch1: 'Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.'

Look, Stanley's a beast. I think I've read this chapter 6 times now and I'm still not fully sure I get it. and that might be the point.  So, here's what I'm thinking now:

- Our tendency to think of life as revolving around us has led to some amazingly awful things and gross mis-understandings.

- the instinct of self-preservation...physically and emotionally can be very powerful.

A few quotes from the book that stuck out to me:

- "...as soon as we begin to think this is all about us, about our need for forgiveness, bathos drapes the cross, hiding from us the reality that here we first and foremost see God." (pg. 28)

- "Ironically, by trying to understand what it means for us to need forgiveness, to often our attention becomes focused on something called the 'human condition' rather than the cross and the God who hangs there." (pg.28)

- "We are made members of a kingdom governed by a politics of forgiveness and redemption." (pg.31)

Some final thoughts and questions...feel free to answer...

- Have we made forgiveness so trite that we fail to realize the enormity of these words?

- To follow Jesus...to declare Him King, means my life isn't for me or even about me...but about continually declaring His kingdom and the invitation to be a part of it.

Read More

consuming fire

so i've been reading in Jeremiah, and as usual, you get stuck hearing about my random semi-connected thoughts to what i've read.  the part in ch 20:

'But if I say, "I will not remember Him or speak anymore in His name," 

Then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; 

and I am weary of holding it in, and i cannot endure it"

that passage always reminds me of a Corey Red and Precise song The Passion and the hook, 'its like fire shut up in my bones, ev'rytime i spit fire in the microphone, the devil is a liar and we make it known, Jesus Christ the Messiah forever on the throne".  (Gerson, I still pump da Matrix Joint and think about the blown-out speakers in our dorm for the rest of the year)

And i wonder....is it?

I mean, is it, is it like fire shut up in my bones?  sure there are days when i'm begggging someone to talk to me so i can tell them some new revelation and experience of Christ that i've been blessed with.  and there's other times that, well, there's other times that i'm just not.

i just finished reading this book, Becoming the Answer to our Prayers, and the authors talk about being sure your spiritual formation and your "social action" ( i dislike the term because of how it is often misinterpreted, i prefer living out your relationship with Christ), about having them not be separate or activities that can stand alone.  they reference this conversation between these two monks concerning intimacy with the Creator and one of the monks says, "if you want, you can become all fire".  i wonder, is this what Jeremiah spoke of?  this deep, consuming intimacy that is not based on just because God did this for me...but rather is so full of love and intimacy with Christ, that we become 'fire' we become the words, our knowledge of God is not based on things we know, but rather on the One we know?

is any of this making sense?  i hope so.  because the bottom line for me is, i don't want to know about God, i don't want to read books about God, i don't want to rely on what others have experienced about God, i want to know God.  and i want to know God in such a way that i become 'all fire' that I am consumed by the Consuming Fire, that i couldn't eat, sleep, breathe, play, work, rest without the deep knowledge of the presence of Christ.

ah, had to catch my breath there, went all 'preacher' on myself.  this week we look are looking at Matt 25.1-13...do you know God, does He know you?

Read More

who am i?

so we are getting to launch into a series on our identity as to our relation to the Creator. i'm excited...not just cause i've spent the last couple months listening to Eric Mason our at Epiphany Fellowship preaching on our identity, but because of how God is shaping my own identity. the more i become aware of who i am in Christ, the freer i become. i am free to relate to others, irregardless of their interpretations of me, i am freer to pursue idees, irregardless of whether or not they will become successful ideas. i am freer to be me. the best part is, i keep learning about me...

...sometimes its a hard learning process. i learn about good things, but it seems more often than not, i learn about those things i wish weren't a part of me. and while that can be painful, i'm thankful that i can become aware of them, and thus begin to deal with them.

i chatted with Tony Kriz this past week and he shared about this community of men he is a part of and how the more time he has spent in that group, the more he realizes he doesn't know about himself...and thus the more he learns about himself, make sense?

anyway, not sure how connected these thoughts are, but i'm going to spend the next few weeks trying to post here regularly as we embark on this journey through our identity...it won't be exhaustive, i'm not even close to that knowledgeable, but feel free to follow along.

Read More

Christ the telos

so, yeah, we are going to tackle pieces of Revelation today.  well...not really tackle, more wade through them with has much humility as possible.  i like what Adam Clarke says about Revelation...

I am satisfied that no certain mode of interpreting the prophecies of this book has yet been found out, and I will not add another monument o the littleness or folly of the human mind by endeavoring to strike out a new course. I repeat it, I do not understand the book...

so rather than trying to reflect on the whole of the book, we are examining just a couple passage to reflect on what they aim to teach us about Christ's identity.  i dusted off the old Greek New Testament, that one I bought but don't open enough, and examined what little I can remember of Greek, and with the little help of a commentary (ok, who am I kidding, a LOT of help).  In chs 21 and 22, Christ is refers to himself as the beginning and the telos.  we translate it the end...when it is often translated as 'goal'.  Christ, the goal...

 Christ is not just our Savior, our Creator, but Christ is our goal.  As I let that simmer for a while, I could here Pastor Eric Mason echoing my head from one of his sermons on Colossians 1.15-18...Christ should be the goal of our life, not just our Savior...Christ is our goal.  Never heard a preacher with so much power and conviction talk about how central Christ is to who we are...not as the first thing in life, but central to all things in life.  Just as a happy marriage with Mandy isn't my goal, but Mandy herself is the goal of marriage, to know her, to be one with her...Christ is the end goal of all of life, all we do and say all we participate in, everything we are a part of...it's Christ...

...what if Christ is our blessing...

my rambling for today

Read More