Good Friday Reflections

I suck. There is a lot of garbage in my heart. I worship idols like money, ease, and food. I have a massive ego that is never satisfied, an appetite for praise and accomplishment that can never be satiated. I am proud and arrogant, thinking of myself far more highly than I ought, and desperately wanting others to think as highly of me, too. My sense of entitlement is out of control, and so I want personal greatness at the cost of mediocrity. I sin. I am sin.

People like me make this world a horrible place to live. I spread darkness and wickedness. I encourage the worship of idols. Because of me, and others like me, God is despised, forgotten, and rejected. Nobody pays attention to God, least of all me. I'm taken in by the distracting entertainments of the world--the false gods of fame, celebrity, and leisure. In this idol-infested world, which I helped create and which I perpetuate, there is no room for God.

And yet God made room for himself. The Son of God became just like us, and lived a life like ours, only much harder and far less comfortable than I could ever know. Except that he wasn't like me at all. He was perfect. He didn't spread the darkness. He didn't worship idols. He didn't cower when the moment called for courage. He didn't despise God or anyone else, for that matter. He didn't run from unclean people--he healed them. He didn't condemn sinners--he saved them. He didn't despise rich people--he loved them.

And for all this, we killed him. Yes, we. I killed him. You killed him. It was us, and the crap and wickedness and idolatry and sin we carry around in the deepest places of our hearts that sent him up there on that cross. He loved us; we murdered him.

But he said something as he hung there, something that echoes still through the streets and alleyways of our modern cities. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Even while we murdered him, Jesus prayed to the Father for us, begging that we would be forgiven of deicide, of executing God. And that prayer was answered with an astounding, earth-shattering, "Yes!" on Sunday.

Be forgiven, you murderers. Be forgiven, we killers. And let the mercy of Christ cleanse your hearts and uproot your idols.

Guilt + Shame

What do you think about guilt? How about shame? Generally things to be avoided, right? Sometimes guilt and shame are irrational emotional responses to situations, and we would do well to move on. Many folks live with an oppressive sense of guilt and shame because of horrible sins committed against them. But what about when those sins are our own? Are guilt and shame bad in that instance?

Jeremiah wrote this in response to the sin of Israel:

Let us lie down in our shame,
and let our disgrace cover us.
We have sinned against the Lord our God,
both we and our ancestors;
from our youth till this day
we have not obeyed the Lord our God.

Jeremiah is calling his fellow Hebrews to press into their guilt, not to run away from it. "Let your disgrace cover you like a blanket," he cries out in the streets, "and lay down in your bed of shame."

What about us? Do we need to press into our guilt? "But we have Jesus! And the cross!" True, but forgiveness is not a replacement for guilt; rather, forgiveness is found on the other side of it. We must press through our guilt--lie down and let our shame cover us like a blanket--in order to find the deep, healing forgiveness of the cross.

So often I just want to ignore my sin and step casually into forgiveness. This is like asking for the cross without the pain. A cross with no suffering is just two pieces of wood.

Forgiveness only comes to those who truly repent, and true repentance only comes by pressing into our guilt--by owning our sin. You can't give away something that you don't own. Only when you own your sin can you give it away to Jesus. Sure, pressing into your guilt may make you sad, but it is godly sorrow, after all, that leads to repentance.

Guilt and shame are not things to be avoided when they are a result of our sin. Instead, they are to be embraced, to be pressed into, in order to for healing to take place. There is no forgiveness without repentance, and there is no healing without forgiveness. When you're looking for light in the dark night, you can chase the sun by going west, and live forever in a half-light. Or you can go east, pressing through the darkness, and meet the sun as it rises.

Book Review: ReChurch

Greg was as involved in the life of the church as anybody. He faithfully attended services. He served behind the scenes. He was involved in a small group. He even brought his friends and helped lead some to Christ. And then he was gone. Angry. Disappointed. Deeply hurt. And now Greg is the most ardent atheist I know.

It seems that our local churches are responsible for more hurt than healing. Whether that’s true or not, there are an awful lot of Gregs out there. Hurt. Bitter. Even to the point of unbelief. I’m sure we can all think of a Greg or two in our own lives.

Stephen Mansfield’s book ReChurch attempts to address those who have been burned by churches. With humor and common sense, he offers a tough love approach for people who have been victimized by a vindictive pastor, a controlling elder board, or a judgmental congregation. Though it may not be best-suited for folks like my friend Greg, who have taken their pain and turned it into a reason to not believe, ReChurch is an excellent book for those who are in the process of dealing with their church hurt.

Mansfield’s approach is that of a coach rather than a counselor. He is primarily concerned with what you do now that you’ve been hurt. How do you move on from here? He gives practical advice for how to forgive those who have wounded you. He takes a common sense approach to learning the lessons of the experience and finding wholeness after. He’s tough. There is no coddling here. He doesn’t tell you it was all their fault and you’re blameless in the affair. He encourages you to look into your own heart and find your contribution to the mess.

For the victims of church dysfunction, these words may be hard to hear. When we’re licking our wounds we want to be reassured that we’re perfectly innocent. It wasn’t our fault. We were just walking along, whistling a hymn and enjoying God’s creation, when we were blindsided by a pastor’s betrayal, harsh criticism from the elders, or rejection from a key church member.

But Mansfield won’t let you go there. The first question he tells you to ask as you begin your healing process is: “Of the things your critics said, what do you now know to be true?” (67) Sure your critics were mean. But were they right? Even just a little? ReChurch is full of difficult moments like this because Mansfield is convinced that our self-justification is keeping us from redemption and restoration.

This book is not what I thought it was going to be. I expected a book about how to deal with difficult people who happen to be pastors, how to navigate church conflict, or even how to survive the realization that your church (and the people in it) aren’t perfect. Thankfully, ReChurch is about none of those things, because none of that would help you to heal and eventually re-engage in church. What Stephen Mansfield gives us in ReChurch is a long look in the mirror at our own contributions to our church-related pain and a strong exhortation to forgive those who hurt us. This, he says, is the path to redemption and restoration.

Questions: Have you ever left a church because you were hurt, or known someone who has? Where are you with that pain, now? Do you think you were justified in leaving, or do you regret it? How do you counsel others dealing with church-related pain?

Finding LOST

C. S. Lewis had a bus. Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof had a plane. The Great Divorce and LOST are essentially about the same thing: Learning to let go, to forgive, and to be forgiven. If Lewis were alive today, I'm sure he would have been the first to spot the story arc of LOST and the last to get bogged down by the details. The weird, scientific wonders of the Island were ultimately nothing but context. Only the characters mattered. It was always the characters.

Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Locke--all of them had to learn to let go before they could move on. They had to learn to forgive and to receive forgiveness before they could enter Heaven. (If you watched the finale, don't get caught up in the multi-religious stained glass windows. The risen Christ is by far the dominant religious imagery.) The "alternate dimension", or "sideways-flashes" were a sort of purgatory (much like the setting of Lewis' The Great Divorce), probably constructed by Hurley and Desmond to bring them together so that they could move on as a community. The reunion in the church was joyous because they had learned to let go, to forgive and to be forgiven. The sins and scars of the past were forgotten and healed in the church, all overseen by the risen Christ.

Unlike the Great Divorce, LOST is a happy ending. Through their travails on the Island, the characters learned that they needed to let go of the pain of their past. They needed to forgive those who had sinned against them. And they needed forgiveness for their own sins. The "sideways-flashes" were simply the consummation of what they experienced on the Island.

The funny thing about LOST is that it never needed an Island or a Smoke Monster or electro-magnetism or time travel to tell its story. It's a universal story. We live the story of LOST not on an Island full of unexplained phenomena but in the mundane reality of our work and home. And then God comes along and brings something impossible, something incomprehensible and unimaginable into our lives to teach us to let go of the past, to forgive, and to be forgiven.

LOST is a brilliant sermon, an epic exposition of Jesus' words in Matthew 6:14-15. "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." Forgiveness is the door to eternal life. The rest (the Numbers, Dharma, the Mythology) is just details.

Forgiveness

Let not conscience make you linger,

Nor of fitness fondly dream;

All the fitness He requireth

Is to feel your need of Him.

--Joseph Hart, "Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy"

God redeems. He buys me back when I sell myself to sin. He purchases me with the blood of His Son; and it seems He does this time and again, day after day. He forgives and forgives and forgives. 

Would that I could but get it right, then I would have no need of His forgiveness. Would that I continue to get it wrong, that I might receive His forgiveness every hour. I am a continual sinner and a reluctant saint.

How can I draw near to the One clothed in glorious light? Would His glory be sullied by my shame? Would my darkness snuff out His light? Oh thank You, Jesus, that I am small. I cannot change You. I cannot degrade You. My sin is a grain of sand before the mountain of Your righteousness.

I need You, Jesus.