Past Articles from 2004 until last year. Many important lessons can be found in each of these articles.
So I took the last of three consecutive road trips last week. I drove the van down to Searcy, Arkansas because Jessica was graduating, and I needed to move all her belongings back home to Virginia. I drove down with my mom, and my middle daughter, Julia. I drove back with the two of them, and with Jessica and her fiancé, Heath, in caravan. As far as road trips go, it was pretty bad. It could have been much worse (I’ve seen “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” and “The Out Of Towners”) – there were no collisions, flat tires, or trips to the hospital. But – the service was awful everywhere, the traffic was terrible, the food was bad, the rooms squalid, the gasoline expensive, the bathrooms filthy etc, etc….
For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give Him thanks…Romans 1.21
I’ll give you a for-instance. We pulled off I-81 at Morristown, Tennessee, Sunday, to eat lunch at Cracker Barrel. I knew it was Mother’s Day, but I thought since we had waited till well after 1pm to eat, the crowd would be down a bit. I was wrong. They were lined up to the end of the porch just to get in. So we went across the street to Hardee’s. The teen-aged girl behind the counter immediately seemed irritated we were there. My future son-in-law ordered a Chili-Dog (what did I care, he was in the other car), and asked the girl: “What comes on that?” She got really nasty and said “I don’t know. How should I Know?” This was startling to me. I’m used to such treatment, but this is not the way teen-aged girls react to my future son-in-law – they giggle, they swoon, they follow him around like little baby ducklings – they do not take that tone. “Well, I don’t want it then,” he replied. “You don’t want it! You don’t want it !!” she demanded. “No, If you don’t know what comes on your Chili Dog, I don’t know what comes on it,” he said politely, and ordered something else. When she brought our food out, 35 minutes later (not an exaggeration) she slammed the tray on the table, crossed her arms, did that head-thing girls in a pique do, and stared at us until we took our order off her tray. Well, anyway that was pretty much typical of our experience of southern hospitality all across the vast, east-west expanse of the Volunteer state.
Trollope once wrote that it was not the tragedies of life that defeat us, but life’s irritations. This has been my experience in the past, and was about to be again at 2:15 pm, last Sunday in Morristown, Tennessee. We were surrounded by older couples, similarly treated, who were feverishly scrawling on the suggestion cards available at the counter. I could have easily organized an insurrection (I did remind them all to mail their cards directly to headquarters – anything put in the suggestion box could be thrown away). But then I remembered.
My daughter just graduated from college (in 4 years). She had just, that weekend, gotten engaged to a Christian young man we admire. My wife and children are all healthy and well. We are members of the best family of believers we know. My three children have all been baptized. We have a home and jobs. What right do I have to be angry about anything?
Two Sundays ago I gave a lesson on the two great commands (Matthew 22.34-40, Mark 12.28-34, Luke 10.25-28). I believe that there are two great sins as well, or at least two basic sins that, if they don’t exceed all others, at least precede them.
In Romans 1, Paul is making the case that even though the Gentiles were not given a Law from God, as the Jews had been, they were still accountable for their sin, because creation teaches us some basic things – that God is, and that we should be thankful (Romans 1.18-21). We are, all of us, obligated to recognize God’s existence, and give Him thanks.
How easily we become guilty of that second great sin – forgetting to be thankful. And to what devastating ends….If any of us made a list of the last five bad things we have done, I am convinced that each would have been avoided by remembering to be thankful.
And so let us remember. God is good. Every good thing we have, we have from Him (James 1.17). We are undeserving of the least of the “good” things we have been given. These are the essential facts of human existence. To forget them is to forget how to act like Christians. To forget them is to forget how to act like humans.
Every year the bandits would descend at harvest time on the little country town and steal the harvest. The villagers were so frightened and browbeaten that they threshed their grain a little at a time in the caves. They needed men to deliver them. They needed men skilled at war, and unafraid. They got them – but only a few to go against so many. This sure sounds like the plot of Kurasawa’s The Seven Samurai (or The Magnificent Seven, or A Bug’s Life), but this story is much older than that. This happened in the late second millennium B.C. The Jews were living in caves, and threshing their grain in caves, cowering in fear of marauding Midianites. Their reluctant deliverer was Gideon, and his small band of soldiers. Their story is found in Judges 6-7.
For my money, the Italian masters could have learned a thing or two about that head. This was no catalogue Christ, insufferably ethereal. This was a wintry hardliner. Justice, yes there would be justice. But not mercy. That was writ large on each feature for when, by the week’s end, I reached his raised right hand, it had not been made perfect: it still was pierced….’This is my hand. This is what you did to me’….
From: A Month in the Country, by J.I. Carr
“Have you ever stood at the cross, with the Man hanging in pain,
Seen the look of love in his eyes…
Then I say you’ve seen Jesus my Lord.”
From: “Have You Seen Jesus My Lord,” trad. Hymn
The first quote above is from J.I. Carr’s book about a WWI veteran, recently back from France. He is spending the summer in the country village of Oxgodby, restoring the altar painting in the medieval church there. The face of Christ he uncovers behind layers of plaster and smoke is not the compassionate, sacrificing face of the Renaissance masters – but the hard-lined face of earlier times.
This is the face the historical Jesus actually wore, according to Robert Wright, in an article from the most recent issue of The Atlantic (“One World Under God,” April 2009, pp. 38-53). In it he posits that Mark is the earliest gospel (that is generally accepted nowadays, although some still argue for Matthean priority), and that in Mark’s gospel, Jesus most definitely does not present the loving face he does in the later three. “In Mark there is no Sermon on the Mount, and thus no Beatitudes, and there is no Good Samaritan….the more familiar Jesus, the one who stresses tolerance and ethnic charity, shows up in Matthew and Luke, which seem to have been written a decade or two after Mark” (p.38).
I would like to take issue with this assessment. In the first place I want to confess that where the text of scripture is concerned I am an unapologetic fundamentalist. I believe the Bible we have is the Bible God wants us to have. Every word of it (in the original manuscript) is exactly what He wants to communicate. If I want to use the Bible authoritatively (and I don’t have to, God has given us all free will), then I can not undermine that authority by picking and choosing which parts of it I like, or which suits my schema the best. And so, unless I have overwhelming manuscript evidence, I have no right to say this book should be jettisoned, that verse should be crossed out, and one Jesus is different from another. If I make myself the arbiter of divine scripture – I make myself God. One may take the Bible as authoritative scripture, as compelling literature, or ignore it altogether – but none of us has the right to cherry-pick out the parts we don’t like.
Now to the specific charge that in Mark, Jesus’ face is much sterner than in the other Gospels.
Mark’s gospel is unique in its brevity, vividness, speed (Mark’s favorite word is “immediately”) and focus on action instead of dialogue. It is almost certainly a written record of oral history – and so there are no lengthy sermons in it. But there is plenty of red ink. Jesus does only use the word “love” once in Mark: when he tells us (significantly) that the greatest command is to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:29-31). “Compassion” is used in connection with Jesus 5 times (Mark 1:41, Mark 5:19, Mark 6:34, Mark 8:2, Mark 9:22). In Mark’s gospel Jesus insists that we must care for each other, even on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1ff), that we are responsible for feeding the hungry (Mark 6:37), that the kingdom will be populated by those who become like little children (10.14), That taking advantage of the weak will be punished (Mark 12:29-31), and that one widow’s mite was more valuable than the riches of the wealthy (Mark 12:38-44).
In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ most forceful words about selflessness are recorded:
"Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."
No. There is one Jesus, and he has one face. From Gospel, to Gospel – each with its own readership, and communication strategy – He is the same, and his message is consistent.
It is the face described in the old devotional song from way back in my youth group days – hanging in pain with love in his eyes.
That’s the face of Jesus – the only one there is.
It was about this time of year, springtime. The weather was, no doubt, fine. It was evening, and the Apostles were climbing the Mount of Olives with Jesus, on their way to lodgings in Bethany. Before they crested the hill, they looked back at the sun setting behind the temple – the warm, apricot-glow, embracing the beautiful structure like the loving arms of God – and asked Jesus about the Apocalypse. It is not that they had the apocalypse on their minds particularly – really not at all. And why would they? They were a bunch of Galilean fishermen in the Great City. Jesus had entered that city in Triumph, and had occupied the Temple as its uncontested moral force. They were his men. It was a heady time. They were talking about the beauty of it all. Then Jesus said: “That building you’re looking at…the days will come when not one stone will be left on another that will not be torn down” (Matthew 24:2, Luke 21:6). Jesus was the one who brought the Apocalypse up. If there’s one thing we seem to agree upon in our culture, it is that there will be an apocalypse. Writers, film-makers (both theatrical and documentary), biologists, cosmologists, seismologists, virologists, ecologists, futurists, back-to-naturists, vegans, etc…etc… all agree that we are due for an epoch-changing, day of reckoning. Maybe it will be world war (conventional), world war (nuclear), class war, financial melt-down, global warming, a meteor, a comet, a pandemic, the rise of intelligent computers, starvation caused by loss of potable water, starvation due to pollution, starvation due to the extinction of bees, alien invasion, permanent alteration of the human genome, earthquake, a new ice age, rising ocean levels etc…etc… There is nearly universal agreement that human excess and hubris will be at least partially responsible for the apocalypse – so that, however severe, it is somewhat deserved.
Apocalypse is a New Testament word, and apocalyptic a genre that originates in the Bible. The word apocalypse gives its name to the genre largely because it is used by John to describe what he is about to share in the last book of the Bible (Revelation 1:1). All the way back to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah et al. the Old Testament prophets used apocalyptic to describe a variety of events as diverse as a locust plague (Nahum), Babylonian Captivity (Jeremiah), The Coming of the Messiah (Zechariah), and the end of time (Isaiah). The Greek word “apocalypse” means “to uncover, reveal” which is appropriate to the genre because, in the Bible, apocalyptic describes a cataclysmic event that ends one era, begins another, and in so doing reveals God’s plan, and God’s will.
On that evening in spring, two thousand years ago, the disciples assumed that the destruction of the temple must mean the destruction of the world (Matthew 24:3). Jesus made clear, however, that the destruction of the Temple, and the end of time are two separate apocalyptic events (Matthew 24:36, Mark 13:24, Luke 21:28), one of which can be recognized ahead of time (Luke 21:20-24), and one which cannot (Matthew 24:36). That first apocalyptic event, the destruction of Jerusalem, will happen in their lifetime (Luke 21:32). So it is important that they know about them both, that they are prepared for both, and that they know the difference.
What I want us to consider in this brief space is the survival guide Jesus gives for surviving an apocalypse. After listing the main ingredients of a real apocalypse (nation rising against nation, earthquakes, plague, famine…) in Luke 21:10-12, he gives them these instructions (Luke 21:13-15):
It will lead to an opportunity for your testimony. So make up your minds ahead of time not to prepare to defend yourselves; for I will give you utterance and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute.
We should view an apocalypse as an opportunity. This is the case because our goal is the success of the Gospel. Thus, we don’t assume a bunker mentality, form militias, or hire crack legal teams to defend and protect our belongings, or our persons. The preparation we have is the irresistible message of God, as delivered to us by Jesus.These guys learned this lesson well. Peter before the Sanhedrin, Paul before Agrippa, and later, both of them before Nero were not concerned with their personal safety – only the message. The message survives, as do those attached to it.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. (Luke 21:33)The world is passing away, and also its lusts, but the one who does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:17).
This is how we survive THE (or any) apocalypse.
I was leafing through the latest American Heritage magazine the other day and noticed an advertisement by the department of tourism in my home state, West Virginia, announcing a series of events celebrating the 150th anniversary of John Brown’s raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry. Their logo, which features a photograph of John Brown looking more like a 19th century German composer than a wild-eyed terrorist, asked me to visit johnbrownraid.org for more information. So I did. I wanted to see how John Brown was presented. When I last visited the sight, more than 25 years ago, John Brown was presented, by the kind and knowledgeable people of the Park Service, as a looser-turned wild eyed terrorist. I had heard from some folks who have visited more recently that his resume and reputation have since been given a make-over. The sight admits that he was, and is “a polarizing figure,” and seeks to “present the facts” and let visitors “decide for themselves.” However, the series of events are called a “Celebration,” and the whole tone of the sight, and its assessment of the man is celebratory.
I wonder how hard they had to look to find a photograph of Brown that didn’t make him look like Charles Manson’s less stable, wing-nut uncle. The two most famous images of him are John Steuart Curry’s 1939 painting presenting him as an Old Testament Prophet gone terribly wrong, and the 1846 Augustus Washington daguerreotype. Some used to believe that a photograph captured part of your soul. Maybe those folks saw this picture, because that sitting in 1846 gives us a clear and chilling image of a man who lost 18 of his 20 children to violent or premature death, or to insane asylums – a man who took bankruptcy 5 times in four states – a man who murdered children.
In 1856 John Brown and three of his sons were conducting raids in Kansas against the pro-slavery terrorist group, the Border Ruffians. On May 23, they surprised the leader of the Border Ruffians, James Doyle, at his home in Pottawatomie, Kansas. They hauled the extended family out into the night. Holding James Doyle at gunpoint, Brown ordered his men to cut off the arms of all the males, and split their heads open with broadswords. The youngest was six years old. When Doyle had this witnessed the slaughter of his family, John Brown put a bullet in his head. Now class, make up your own minds about this “polarizing” figure.
Because John Brown had a put together quite a body of terrorist activity in the cause of abolition, other, more peace-loving abolitionists celebrated him. Emerson, Beecher, Melville, Whitman – even Victor Hugo celebrated him as a Christ-figure. Others disagreed. Lincoln, Fredrick Douglass, and William Lloyd Garrison, rejected him outright as a thug and a lunatic.
John Brown thought he was doing God’s work, because slavery, as practiced in the United States, was sinful. You may agree with his assessment of slavery, but hopefully, with 20/20 hindsight, we can all agree that he was not doing God’s, or the Nation’s work. I mention this because any time we start to feel righteous indignation, or even something as petty as right-ness indignation, we start to have a high tolerance level for the bully who agrees with us. Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor always has a ready, real-life counterpart: John Brown, Colonel Smutz, Bull Connor.
Being right about something is not enough. We have to be right in the right way or we are not right at all. Whatever the lines were in Rome concerning the eating of meat, Paul knows what principle is right. He says it clearly in Romans 14:14: Nothing is unclean of itself. He says he absolutely knows this, is convinced of it in Jesus Christ. Therefore, if folks don’t agree he’ll have to knock a few heads around – right? Wrong.
He says: Let us pursue the things that make for peace and the building up of one another (Romans 19), do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food (Romans.20). We may think that eating meat is a minor issue (it wasn’t to them), but Peter, in speaking of our defense of the Gospel itself says that our answers must be given “with gentleness and reverence” (1 Peter 3:15).
Rightness is not license. A bully is a bully whether I agree with him or not. Jesus was never a bully. Nor should we ever be. And we should never celebrate, condone, or enable a bully. Ever.
