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The very last words of the book of 1 John hang in the air like an unresolved chord: Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. Written in the swirling darkness of doubt, danger, fear, and grief, it’s as if this warning—to steer clear of false gods—sums up all the invitations in the little book leading up to that moment; invitations to belief, courage, love, and healing.

Christ followers, if ever we needed to hear those invitations or heed that warning, it is now.

Before going further, let’s acknowledge that worship and sacrifice are closely connected. For most of human history, the worship of something almost always involved a kind of sacrifice to it. The Old Testament reveals this with clarity: rightful worship of God included a regular rhythm of sacrificial offerings (see Leviticus 1-7). King David once famously said, “I will not give the LORD that which costs me nothing” (see a more accurate quote in 1 Chronicles 21:24). The worship of false gods was abhorred, not least because of the human sacrifices involved.

No, not every sacrifice is an act of worship, but every act of worship is an act of submission.

So now, let’s fast forward a few thousand years to the other night when, on national TV, an elected state official (from a different state than my own) gave concise, explicit voice to what has been more subtly broached in recent days from Washington, DC (I’m not including his name or his office intentionally–those things aren’t the point here). Speaking of the need to get the American economy moving again in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic, this politician positioned himself as a proxy for senior citizens and asked himself,

“Are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren? And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.”

Based on context, it seems clear the “America” being spoken of here is the American economy which is in serious trouble. I don’t deny the premise that an obliterated economy can result in social upheaval and something altogether terrible–another awful, painful, costly part of what this pandemic may mean. But in a sense the question being asked was, “Are you willing to risk your life for the sake of the American economy?” His answer was yes. And the tacit expectation is that senior citizens should all feel the same way, that other Americans should feel the same way on behalf of the senior citizens and vulnerable people in their lives.

The politics and dystopian nature of that line of thinking aside, I have been most burdened by the Christians who have echoed and even championed this sentiment (the politician in question is himself a Christian author). (Some other time we’ll examine where and why the North American church has acted confusingly schizophrenic regarding what it means to be a people holding space for life.)

What the politician expressed (and what others have endorsed) can readily be seen as a call to sacrifice our elders and the infirm to the idol god of Mammon–in order to appease the gods of the Economy and the American Dream, some people just may need to die.

Christ followers, we must stand and proclaim otherwise.

The president has expressed the well-intended goal of getting the economy moving again by Easter, and having “packed churches all over the country” for Resurrection Sunday. One friend of mine celebrated this, expressing how good it would be for the church to have Easter back and for the country to be open again.

On the one hand, I agree: getting people back to work, quelling fears of global depression on the heels of global pandemic, and being able to worship in physical space with my friends and family on the highest holy day would be wonderful.

On the other hand, I am reminded of this:

First, Easter never belonged to the church; it belongs to Jesus.

Second, the way of Jesus is the way of life–the way which is meant to lead people into the space of thriving and flourishing.

Christ followers, we must remind our leaders that life–every life–is sacred. We must remind our leaders that there is an account they will give for how they have used their power. We must live as people with eternity in mind, people who know that a packed church or a buzzing economy purchased with the lives of the sick, the weak, and the aged will result in hearing the chilling question first asked of Cain, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s (and sister’s) blood cries out from the ground.”

Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

Sunday.

April 12, 2009 — Leave a comment

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them,

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?

He is not here; he has risen!

Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” Then they remembered his words.
(Luke 24:1-8, TNIV)

In Easter Easter

Good Friday, Indeed.

April 10, 2009 — Leave a comment

From Theodore the Studite:

How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return.

This was the tree on which Christ, like a king on a chariot, destroyed the devil, the lord of death, and freed the human race from his tyranny. This was the tree upon which the Lord, like a brave warrior wounded in his hands, feet and side, healed the wounds of sin that the evil serpent had inflicted on our nature. A tree once caused our death, but now a tree brings life. Once deceived by a tree, we have now repelled the cunning serpent by a tree. What an astonishing transformation! That death should become life, that decay should become immortality, that shame should become glory! Well might the holy Apostle exclaim: Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world! The supreme wisdom that flowered on the cross has shown the folly of worldly wisdom’s pride. The knowledge of all good, which is the fruit of the cross, has cut away the shoots of wickedness.

In Easter, Encouragement Easter, Encouragement

Dead.

April 8, 2009 — 1 Comment

I thought I had killed it. Totally ruined. Destroyed.

I had well completed a myriad of tasks during the many, many childhood summers spent in southeastern Arizona with my grandparents and the twenty acres of desert land they cared for. We had dug ditches, run irrigation, kept the field grasses short (so snakes would be kept at bay), cared for animals of varying types, tore old buildings down, painted the ones still standing, and trimmed a lot of mesquite trees.

Have you ever trimmed a mesquite tree? For those of you who haven’t, a brief word of explanation: Mesquite trees aren’t really ‘trees’ at all, they’re bushes. In order to make them look like trees, they need constant attention. They are thorny… really thorny—huge, long, deep-penetrating thorns (see inset)—and gnarly. After years of practice, though, I felt I had become a master mesquite tree trimmer.

On this particular day, the one tree I had to get done was the lone mesquite in the small back yard my grandparents had fenced off from the rest of their land. Every “unnecessary” limb, twig, shoot, and leaf was calculatingly severed. I was in a tree-trimming trance. Up close, I could see every part that “needed” cutting; an extra little bit here, a corrective measure there. When I finally stepped back, I was in shock—where there used to be a full-looking arboreal treasure now stood a stark, naked shuck of sticks protruding out of the ground. I really thought I had killed the tree. Worse yet: there was no hiding the carnage—the kitchen window looked right out onto that place where once had stood a thing of rugged beauty.

My Gram surprised me with her grace and understanding. She told me not to worry—that by so radically cutting back a mesquite, it was given opportunity to re-form and come back more beautiful than before.

Yeah.

Right.

Each day for the rest of that summer, I would look at the tree as I passed by… and I couldn’t see any evidence of life or hope for the poor thing.

Well, Grandmas are usually right and this time wasn’t an exception. The potential of the mesquite isn’t in what you can see—the tallest they get is around 30 feet high. Their strength is in their roots, which dig deep: some say around 175 feet for an older tree. Over the next few years, this particular tree rebounded. Not as quickly as it took me to ‘destroy’ her, but she came back fuller, greener, more vibrant than all but one other mesquite in the place.

The other beautiful tree?

One my uncle had “killed” years before I was conceived.

This has me thinking about some of the hardship we experience in life. Aspects of who we are or what we do—our churches, our families, our relationships—that simply seem dead. What we can see looks nothing like what we think should exist; parts of us have been cut back and to have hope is a ridiculous notion. Sometimes we’re to blame for what has happened, just like me with that thorny tree. But often we can see the hand of a loving God calling forth life; and where hope was seemingly exterminated, something vibrant comes.

The re-birth takes time… it’s not as fast as the destruction, but rebuilding and replanting never takes place as quickly as uprooting and tearing down. Look beyond what is missing and see if there, where you least expect it, God is at work doing a new thing.

What is ‘dead’ in your life right now? What have you endured, maybe even as the result of your own hand at work, that seems too painful and needless to be of any good? Are you firmly rooted in the soil of God’s love and faith in his Son? If so, especially in this Resurrection season, we must be looking for the signs of life—after all, ours is the King who offers abundant life and conquers death. He is the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not (Romans 4:17, TNIV).

In Easter, Encouragement, General Easter, Encouragement

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