Good Friday at 4

What do I want my son to know about today? I want him to know that they hated Him first. I want him to know that my love can only aspire to be a shadow of His. I want him to know that the path of his savoir leads to a hill and a cross. I want him to hold life loosely and not to try to squeeze ultimate meaning from it. I want him to see that love is costly and worth it. I want him to see that the way the world keeps score is twisted. I want him to flip things upside down (or to see that they're upside down and right them). I want him to know that he doesn't have to look anywhere else to know he's loved.

it's Friday

Can there be a darker day? Can there be an uglier, more heinous, more unjust day? Can there be a day when the worst in me leaps out to claim victory more loudly than today?

Words fail. Blood runs. King dies. Evil celebrates.

Can there ever be a more profound price paid? Can a heart ever come close to knowing the love and pain?

Better Than the Real Thing

Saying God's love is better than a wife's love doesn't diminish marriage. It frees marriage from the need to provide something that it will never be able to provide. It frees a spouse from carrying the burden of sustaining life. It frees the marriage to laugh at failure, have joy bigger than the relationship and minister to a world from a place of security...not the insecurity of a strained and desperate situation.

Saying God's love is better than a child's love doesn't diminish parenthood. It frees a dad to always point his children to their Father. It frees a child from crazy expectations (when we dad's remember this Truth). It frees a dad to hold his kids loosely and keep in mind his role as a temporary care-taker.

Saying God's love is better than this life doesn't diminish this life. It allows this life to make sense. It keeps me sane when the world is insane. It allows us to love people despite their failure. It allows us to fail without losing hope. It allows us to die.

Do you see what I see?

1In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3And everyone went to his own town to register.

This was not a time of peace. This was a time of occupation. Rome tolerated Jewish customs in exchange for heavy taxation and relative indifference. This was the most powerful empire ever constructed. Israel needed a savior now more than ever. When would God send the promised champion to deliver?

4So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.

Joseph, a carpenter, a descendent of David. Can you hear the drums of history. They're very faint now. I can hear Micah:

"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."



5He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.

The whispers of scandal. Rumors flying. Every eye a judgment. Why would he stay with her? The baby isn't even his.

6While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

What innkeeper in his right mind would want to deal with the noise and mess of a pregnant woman in labor? Especially when he can sell all the rooms to more dignified clientele. So, God enters the world. A King in a feeding trough. The smell of hay and dung must have been prevalent.

Do you see what I see? Do you see freedom in the sleeping baby? Do you see salvation in the helpless? Do you see peace in the noise and mess? Do you see the upside down world? Do you see it in 2009?

Growth Through Shrinking

When we're babies, we are only aware of our own immediate needs. We scream when we're hungry, sleep when we're tired, and make a mess of diapers whenever biology necessitates.

Then we grow and become aware of others. At first, we continue to see others as ways of getting our own needs met. As we mature, we begin to acknowledge the needs of others, and some of us even try to help meet needs as we're able.

And that's where we stop. We get to somewhere between 10 and 25 years old and simply stop advancing.

Is that all there is? Not in the least! There is a beautiful next step, and it is to complete the trek we began at birth. We can forget ourselves entirely. We can go from complete self-focus to utter self-denial. It's possible to have the needs of others dominate our own.

How do I know? It's called love, and the cross bears witness.

Priorities - or - Why Amos 1:1 Rocks

"The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake."

Jeroboam II was king of Israel during a period of remarkable prosperity and peace. He expanded the territory of the nation. He was king for 41 years...longer than Saul and David...the longest reign of any king Israel ever had.

In total, he is mentioned in about 1/2 dozen verses in the older testament. Relatively little is known about him or his reign.

Amos, a shepherd of all things, a stranger from Judah proclaims a message from God and it is preserved for all time.

God's scoreboard doesn't look at all like ours. We think we know what's important because we live at a time and in a place that makes daily life seem important. The people living in Israel during the reign of of J II surely felt as if God was blessing their efforts and work and worship - just look at their prosperity. Then comes Amos to drop the bomb that their prosperity was not because of but a result of defiance of God.

Beware of using your own scoreboard to figure out the score.

The biggest shock ever.

What are you talking about? Empty? That's crazy! Who told you that? OK, I'll go and look. Weren't there guards? Wasn't there a huge boulder? What could have possibly happened?

Well, it's certainly open. Grave robbers? I wonder how much they paid the guards. They took bandages off? That's unusual. Wait. What's that? Is that the face cloth?

It's folded...neatly.

What does this mean? Could it possibly really all be true? Is this a crime scene? Is this the beginning of an age? Can it really be? Have I been blind all this time? It's all making sense.

What do I do now?

The longest day ever.

Could it all have been a dream? Is it morning already? Have I really wasted all this time? Where is everybody? Is it even possible to carry on?

Do I just go and fish now? Do I try to forget? Do I try to remember? What about the others? It was all so amazing. Is it over?

I'm paralyzed by fear. I'm scared of being wrong. I'm scared of what just happened. Could they come after me next? I don't belong anywhere right now. I don't know who to trust.

Does any of this matter anymore?

What do I do now?