Seeing Is Believing

For the last few days now, my 3 year old son has asked me, “Is today Christmas?” He has already got a bunch of presents from his little church-friends and others, but he has a vague recollection of last year’s loot – swimming in wrapping paper and all that. So, he’s quite anxious for the day.

There’s a day coming for those who know Christ. It’s actually called “the Day of the Lord” – His day, the day He comes. There are many things that are going to come to fruition that day: shedding this corruption we carry around like corpses chained to our ankles, seeing creation restored to its former unspoiled glory, and having this world run right by the One who made it. But more than this, I think the over-riding hope of all hopes for everyone who knows Jesus is simply to see him face to face. A group of us were singing the other night and as the words “when I stand in glory, I will see his face…” were being sung, I looked over at my wife who had stopped singing. She couldn’t, because the tears welling in her eyes told me there was a lump in her throat. She wanted to see Jesus.

Why? She has never seen him before. She has never heard his voice. Or has she? The thing is, there is a kind of knowing that beggars the imagination. No picture is ever good enough. No voice is ever close enough to resemble the one we’ve heard in our hearts. Yes, he has spoken to us before. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that when I see him, I will not recognize him simply by the scars he’s chosen to keep in his glorified body. I think I will know him, just as I am known by him in a way beyond my appearance.

I wonder about Thomas sometimes. He gets it rough too often. “Doubting Thomas” we call him. In John 11, when Jesus is going to resurrect Lazarus, John records Thomas saying, “Let us go and die with Him.” Does that sound like a doubter? Put yourself in Thomas’ shoes for a second – we have the benefit of hindsight. Yes, maybe he should have understood the prophecies about Christ’s sacrifice, but so few did (Simeon being one). But all the same, in his despair and simultaneous anxiousness to see Jesus, he blurts out the need to touch those wounds. Jesus doesn’t think that’s such a bad request, because he lets him do it.

When did Thomas know enough to say to him, “My Lord and my God!”? I think he knew before he felt the scars. I don’t think he needed that when Jesus was standing right in front of him. There is some rebuking that goes on in that scene, but it’s of the encouraging variety. Jesus does more than is required, not surprisingly. Thomas is singled out, but given an honour really. He went to his death for it as a martyr for his Lord.

I will know that it’s Christ when I see him. I can’t tell you how. The new life he put in me – His life – will resonate with Him. He has tuned me to sing true, like the sun draws a song from the birds. Just like Christmas has found a home in my son. Ok Josh, just like in the snow – wrapping paper angel time!

BJ

Dark & Light

I used to be scared of the dark. Who wasn’t, I guess. My kids have a nightlight in the hall outside their rooms. My wife and I used to close our boy’s door before he was two, and I remember listening outside his door one night while he was still awake. There he was, in the dark, and he was singing a little unintelligible song. All the more, he was in a crib – which is a cage for babies really. So, locked up, in a dark place, my son could still sing. But not now. He needs the door open and that little 15 watt bulb glowing in the hall. It brings me back to when I was afraid.

I don’t remember how old I was, but one day I didn’t want to be afraid of the dark anymore. In light of that, a plan was put into action. Simple, really: Find the darkest place I can, and stay there until I’m not scared anymore. The house I lived in at the time had a basement and then a kind of sub-basement as well. It was a half-floor lower on that side of the house. It also had what you call a “fruit cellar”. It was a long closet with shelves – a cold storage that ran the length of one of the walls down there. It had a regular door-size entrance at the one side and no opening on the other. It was pretty dark in there. So, I went down to the 1st basement, turned out the light at the top of the stairs, felt my way down to the 2nd basement, and into the cold storage I crept.

It was quiet. It was dark. It was scary. Visions of hands reaching out at me and zombie faces closing in rushed at me. But I sat there. I started to listen. I could hear the hum of electricity and footsteps in the distance above. The air in that kind of a space has a sound to it as well. My little movements reverberated against the cement – I shuffled a bit to get comfortable. It’s amazing, but I got less scared the longer I stayed. I’m not sure exactly how long it took, but I got up and felt my way back upstairs. It was nice to see again.

Many significant events in the life of Jesus occurred at night. Here are a few: his birth in the stable along with the angels singing to the shepherds and the journey of the wisemen, when he walked on the water, when he said “For God so loved the world…” to Nicodemus, when he prayed in the garden and on the mountain, and when he broke bread with his disciples. More than these, remember that the sun was darkened in the middle of the day while he was on the cross.

Christ came as the “light of the world” and often chose darkness to contrast that light. He did not leave that place untouched by his presence. He came walking on the water, in the dark of night, to his disciples who would think he was a ghost – a specter to be feared. But he spoke with that voice that could not be mistaken and said, “Don’t be afraid – It’s me.” Their fear was not displaced because of some rationalization on their part, but simply because of the presence of Jesus. He was that perfect love that “casts out all fear”.

The dark will never be the same now. Jesus has touched down here and did not shy away from the unlit world. On that cross the sun fled while the Lord Jesus took on the wrath of an offended God. What was the sun compared to the Son of God shining with a love that pierced the blackness of sin? Death died that day. Life slept in the dark of the tomb and rose gloriously on the third day. If he can make the grave bright, what can he not make shine? That’s IT – I’m turning off MY nightlight tonight!

BJ

Juries & Worries

Two words. Jury summons. It was pinned up on my phone-message board for a couple of weeks. The day was getting closer. I didn’t want to be on a jury. Thoughts of serial murderers and corporate tax evasion assaulted me every time I passed that piece of paper on my wall. Will I have to decide the fate of some criminal? That word “criminal” hung in the air like an internet pop-up.

So, I got there Monday morning to find that it was a civil case, I wasn’t selected and it was about some car accident. Everything I had been dreading was deflated as the six jurors held their hands on the Bible and were “sworn in”. The registrar asked them whether they had any objections to swearing on the Bible, and I thought about Jesus saying, “let your yes be yes and your no be no”. I wondered if that was what he was talking about. Probably not. But it was strange to leave the courtroom so changed. Beforehand: I was sure that I’d be seated in the jury with a criminal in the witness stand just a paper-airplane’s throw away from me. Afterward: Just looking for the nearest phone to call my wife. Before – dread. After – no big deal.

In thinking about this drastic switch, I can imagine Future BJ talking to Past BJ. Past BJ says, “oh man… Jury duty… I’ll be sequestered for months, swarmed by the press and have a nervous breakdown after being selected as the chairman of the jury responsible to bring everybody to a unanimous decision!...” Future BJ will then slap Past BJ saying, “Pull yourself together man! It won’t be anything like that. Patience young aphid – your forgetting something.” What was I forgetting?

When Christ commissioned his disciples to go and prepare the way for him, he told them not to worry about what they would say when delivered to the courts, “For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak.” He said. (Matt. 10) The principle is the same with all believers – reborn, new creations in Christ, placed into the Body of Christ by the Spirit. The very places where worry can most easily seep in are those where the supernatural workings of the Lord are most clearly manifest. This is a constant theme here on “ThreeThirty”, but it cannot be overstated. It certainly isn’t said enough.

Because Jesus either meant what he said throughout, or he’s wrong altogether. He talked about a spring of living water flowing out of a heart – the very Spirit of God living in all those who receive Jesus by faith. If we are on our own, with a little help from God now and then, why did Jesus die and rise again? No, we are not alone. Because of the sacrifice of Christ, God has taken up residence in me. It’s humbling. He’s in me when I am at my most human. He’s in me when I sin. I use His hands when I drive. I use His mouth when I speak. I am not my own, I was bought with a price. Jesus was that price.

This post seems really convoluted today, but I hope you get this sense of belonging to something much bigger than yourself. I would not have been alone on that jury. Christ would have been there. He may have wanted me there. I’m thankful to him that I’m not, but still, I’d have to be just as thankful if I was. No worries. I think gratitude displaces worry pretty quick. Lord, don’t let me forget that I was once no better off than my imaginary criminal. Thank you Jesus.

BJ

Where There's Fire, There's Smoke

I know, I know… It’s supposed to be smoke then fire. I’m reversing the order of that old adage today. On my walk to work there was a car on fire. People were already responding to it, and nobody was in danger. I stood there for several minutes as the smoke billowed out of the front of the car. It worked fast. Soon you couldn’t see down the street at all. The smoke to fire ratio was really rather disproportionate. It wasn’t fair. Smoke beat fire.

Smoke was born out of fire and outdid it. Now, if it wasn’t for the fire, the smoke would not exist. Smoke owes everything to fire. As big as it gets, it should not forget the fire down below. But old Smokey sometimes does. You see, when the fire goes out, he still hangs around. He thinks he’s big stuff still. The Smokester disperses himself through the air trying to get bigger still. He just doesn’t realize that he is getting thinner and thinner as he dissipates. Soon you begin to see right through him. And then he’s gone.

Scripture says that there are some “having a form of godliness but denying its power”. Smoke is like that “form of godliness”. The old saying stated that wherever you find smoke, not too far from it must be fire. But that’s not true. You can have smoke without fire. Dry ice, automobile exhaust, chimney sweeps, etc. Borrowed smoke sometimes happens too. Like the smoke in the lungs of little kids in the back seat of a smokers car. I think those that are beginning to call that abuse, are right. But that’s another topic altogether. I realize that every metaphor has its shortcomings, but lets just say that when it comes to people, sometimes they are just like “clouds without rain” as Jude says.

In Nazareth one day, on a crowded street, a women reached out and touched the hem of Jesus’ clothes. He then asks his disciples who touched him. We read that he felt power leave him. The Twelve reply, “You see the multitude thronging you, and you say, who touched me?” It’s an amazing scene, really. Jesus doesn’t know exactly who touched him with the intent that we find in that woman, but he wants to know. He starts looking around for this person. She is afraid. Maybe she felt like she stole from the Lord – took something without asking. I tell my kids that’s stealing. Nonetheless, she confesses. It says “she told him the whole truth.”

The truth was, she had been sick for a long time, and had spent her fortune and energy trying to get well. It never worked. Now she is near this One that can heal with a touch and in desperation she reaches out for a flap of the garment in his wake. His power was so available that he healed someone without even knowing it. It just flowed from him naturally – well, supernaturally, but effortless on his part. This is the hallmark of spiritual life: it comes without fanfare, without bluster, without the machinery of man. It’s like fire without smoke. Like the burning bush that was not consumed.

Christ Jesus is the power of God. Don’t be too concerned about puffing yourself up. Be concerned instead, about not letting the fire of that “first love” go out. Don’t smoke. It’s bad for your spiritual lungs too.

BJ