I found this on another blog the other day and reposted it at my own blog so I am giving myself the HT since it has been a few days. These words from Buechner’s pen are simply brilliant and beautiful.

“The face in the sky. The child born in the night among beasts. The sweet breath and steaming dung of beasts. And nothing is ever the same again.

“Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of humankind. If holiness and the awful power and majesty of God were present in his least auspicious of all events, this birth of a peasant’s child, then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can be present there too. And this means that we are never safe, that there is no place where we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart, because it is just where he seems most helpless that he is most strong, and just where we least expect him that he comes most fully.”

–Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark

Have a nice weekend everyone!

This is a clip from an excellent new film from Flannel (the guys who do NOOMA), featuring Francis Chan, discussing the fear of God, primarily around the concept that “the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.”

To be honest, I’m getting a bit extremely tired of Christians who are striving to be conformed to the image of Stuart Scott.

I read a blog post today. Granted, it’s a bit old. I scanned it when it was fairly new, but some personal issues in recent days brought it back to mind, and I was wondering, “Was it really that vomit-inducing or is my memory given to exaggeration?” (Answer: no exaggeration on this one.)

Now let me be clear. A lot of what was in this post — when it was sticking to facts — was very accurate and true. But the way in which it was presented — and garnished with a healthy dose of the author’s opinion — was enough to cause anyone with any intellectual honesty to throw up in their mouth at least a little.

The post discussed the reasons given for leaving the faith and/or never believing in the first place. These reasons were broken down into three categories, the first of which was claimed (by the post author) to be mostly populated by obviously fake stories. In case we missed that, it is re-iterated a bit later that the author doesn’t believe the person telling the story most of the time. This is followed by highly dismissive language that covers the writer in the event that one of the stories turns out to be true.

This is then followed by a deadly logical refutation of 10 possible reasons (how we got from 3 to 10 is anyone’s guess), complete with Scripture references backing up much of the refutation.

(The sensitive of ear should be warned that I am about to use language that — in a different context — would probably be deemed offensive. But I am using it in a Biblically accurate sense.)

So, if we boil the post down (along with some of the comments that followed), what the author has said is this: “Take that, you damned atheist. And if you don’t buy into the logic I’ve presented, then to hell with you.”

Literally.

But that’s not quite the message that I hear from Jesus. In Mark 9, we see the story of a possessed boy and his father seeking healing for him. Jesus told the father, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” The father admitted to an incomplete belief (”Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”). And you know what Jesus did? He healed the boy.

In John 20, the disciple Thomas stated unequivocally that he would not believe that Jesus was risen unless he had visual and tactile evidence. And so, the next time they were together, Jesus accommodated him. And He did not rebuke Thomas for his lack of faith.

I’ve yet to meet a hurting person for whom logic was the answer. Yes, it can certainly be a tool to help that person see the truth. But it’s certainly not the answer. Jesus is the answer.

I am genuinely happy for the author that he has not faced adversity that was significant enough to shake his faith to the core. And I genuinely hope that God doesn’t deem such adversity necessary in the future to build the author’s sanctification.

But, for the rest of us, there’s grace.

I thought this was sort of interesting.

It does sort of make one wonder exactly what role there is between the theology of Jesus and the politics of sovereign nations.

What do you think?

Tags: Jesus, love, Theology, war

“We are born not to prosper but to be redeemed.”

–PT Forsyth, The Justification of God 54

From the AP Newswire Report:

Like most North Koreans, Son Jong Nam knew next to nothing about Christianity when he fled to neighboring China in 1998.

Eleven years later, he died back in North Korea in prison, reportedly tortured to death for trying to spread the Gospel in his native land, armed with 20 bibles and 10 cassette tapes of hymns. He was 50.

[...]

Officially, North Korea guarantees freedom of religion for its 24 million people. In practice, authorities crack down on Christians, who are seen as a Western-influenced threat to the government. The distribution of bibles and secret prayer services can mean banishment to a labor camp or execution, defectors say.

For North Koreans, a personality cult surrounding the country’s founder Kim Il Sung and his son and current leader Kim Jong Il serves as a virtual state religion.

“Kim Jong Il is above the country’s law … and in North Korea what he instructs is like Jesus Christ’s words in the Bible,” says Son Jung-hun, a human rights activist who has become a devout Christian since his brother’s death.

Read the whole thing.

While his death occurred in December 2008, we are only now learning of it, and we mourn for our brother in Christ. As Jesus taught, Christians will be persecuted for their faith, with many paying for it with their lives. And since we are, regardless of geography, all part of the Temple Jesus’ rebuilt in three days, we should all mourn when stones within that Temple suffer. Those of us here in the West should also realize that the freedoms we enjoy are a blessing from God, and pray that all could worship Him, serve him and preach in His name in the open.

Shalom.

“To believe in Jesus in the Christian sense means not less than trusting him utterly as the One who has borne our sin in his own body on the tree, as the One whose life and death and resurrection, offered up in our place, has reconciled us to God.”

–DA Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, 29

 

Tags: cross, DA Carson, Jesus, Resurrection

Tags: cross, DA Carson, Gospel, Jesus, Resurrection

“I suspect that Jesus spoke many of his parables as a kind of sad and holy joke and that that may be part of why he seemed reluctant to explain them because if you have to explain a joke, you might as well save your breath.”

–Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale, 63*

*This is a book you really should acquire and read. Buechner is simply brilliant when it comes to helping us understand the role of preacher.

Tags: Frederick Buechner, Jesus, parables, quote, The Gospel

While it was nice to have a long vacation with my son, it is also nice to be back in the swing of things, as well.  In recognizing this balance, here’s a quick vacation slide show

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
– Mother Teresa