Thoughts on Life

I’ve shared at different times about the insanity of how rushed we are in December each year in the lead-up to Christmas. It’s sadly ironic that the time of Advent - which covers most of December - is designed to be a time of reflection when we have turned it into the most stressful time of the year.

Having time to sit and reflect is good for our emotional and mental health, as well as our spiritual health. We are more rounded, whole people when we spend time doing these things. And we are invariably happier as well. The fact in Australia is though that, as a nation, we spent $8 billion on Christmas and $14 billion on post-Christmas sales.

The Boxing Day sales used to be about stores getting rid of excess stock; that’s why they were on sale. Now what the major stores do is actually get more stock in to sell, and they can afford to have them on sale because they know that demand will be at its peak. And in recent years post-Christmas online sales have been increasing as people try to find bargains online by shopping on Christmas Day. To use a cliche, nothing is sacred anymore. But cliches are cliches because they’re true. We even have to shop on Christmas Day now.

Back in the late ’80s, the Jubilee Centre released their ‘Keep Sunday Special’ campaign as a way to remind society about how good it is for us all to have a day of rest. A campaign like that is timeless and is more important now than it was then.

Through all this madness we hear the words of Jesus whispering, maybe yelling, down through the centuries, “Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions,” and “What will it profit you if you gain the whole world but lose your very self?.” This is exactly what we’re seeing. It’s worth mentioning again that Brene Brown, a social researcher in the US, says we are the most depressed, obese, medicated and addicted culture in history. It’s also worth repeating that American psychologist Martin Seligman has research showing that the rate of depression in the affluent world has risen tenfold since the Second World War. This is at exactly the same time as we have never been richer in terms of material and financial wealth.

“Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest” says Jesus again. As we move further into the second decade of the 21st century, the good news of Jesus is more relevant than ever. The world needs saving, and Christmas is a celebration of the great news that we have been given a Saviour.

Christmas was never meant to be stressful. It is instead the best news ever. God coming to earth on the great rescue mission, identifying with us in our brokenness, and all while we are still in our madness. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” May this truth refresh us as we get into the post-Christmas season.

I’ve had an emotional couple of weeks. It started when my wife and I attended a conference on a Christian response to climate change. The situation really is dire but our response is not to be one of despair and throwing our hands up in defeat. Our response is to be one of Christlikeness - of love, justice and mercy, especially for the millions who will be affected the most and who have done the least to contribute to it - the poor.

During some breaks in the conference I was speaking to a few people and found out that a dearly loved woman in our church community who has been suffering from brain cancer had a week to live (she passed on the next morning. RIP Kate - safe in the arms of Jesus). We had all thought she had about nine months. A few of us went to see her the day before she died, along with her 12-year-old son who she last saw as an eight month old baby. It was so touching seeing her son take his mother’s hand, but also so sad knowing that this will be his only memory of seeing his mother.

During another break in the conference we also found out that a couple we knew had split up, leaving kids traumatised and confused. That weekend was truly a sobering one.

Life is unspeakably sad, as psychologist Larry Crabb puts it. And, as a song that we used to sing in church says, life is sad, and it might not get easier. There are no guarantees in life, not in this life anyway. Whatever we try to do to control life, in the end we cannot. Instead we are beholden to the whims of outrageous fortune and there is simply nothing we can do about it. Millions of people in Japan know all about that as I write.

Throughout the uncertainties and failed hopes of life, the Christian message is what sustains me. That is no glib statement; it is the hope of my heart. In Christ is my ultimate hope. He has promised that there will be a day when suffering will be no more, when brain cancer will be wiped away, when love will reign supreme in relationships and when the climate will sustain a healthy planet. Until then, loving is sadness, and we toil on, trudging the rugged, uphill road of life.

But despite our trudging, it is forward that we go, and forward we go together. In community, never alone, and never without ultimate hope.

Life is hard, anyway you cut it. So sang John Mellencamp in a song to which every honest person in the world can relate. We are not spared simply because we are Christian. To the contrary, it is because we follow the crucified One, the suffering God, that our suffering is all the more acute. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. No one is spared, but at the same time, no one is beyond hope.

Personally, I don’t want to give my life to anything else. I love the way of Jesus. No, more than that, I love Jesus Himself. In a world of nonsense, he makes sense. In a world of bitterness and hatred he brings love, and in a world of disease he brings healing. O how I love Jesus, as the old hymn says it.

It is in the times of deepest sadness that love is found. It is at these times that we are shaken out of our slumber and reminded again of what really matters - love, relationship and grace. These are the things that endure. Ross Langmead sings a song which reminds us that we are not alone in suffering, that Jesus goes before us: “We are not alone; he knows our sorrows, he will turn our tears to joy.”

Our suffering is not meaningless. Martin Luther King talked about redemptive suffering, suffering that grows and heals us. The road to life feels like the road to death at times. But it is redemptive. Our pain does not go unheard. It does not simply disappear into an indifferent universe, lost forever with no one knowing and no one caring. Who of us can deny that suffering is real? The promise given to the ancient Israelites when they were suffering under the yoke of slavery in Egypt is the same promise given to us: “I have heard your cries and will do something about it”.

What God has done about it is absorb our pain on a brutal Roman cross, and rise from death, never to be defeated again. This was truly victory in defeat, as Sammy Horner so beautifully puts it:

That the nails that pierced his hands
And the thorns that pierced his brow
And the spear that pierced his side
And the nails that pierced his feet
Showed us there can be victory in defeat

We do not go forward in this life alone. Jesus does indeed go before us. Our suffering does not go unheard. It has a purpose and will one day be turned into joy unspeakable. Until then we toil and trudge, but with the hope of a future where this old order of things - death, decay and disease - will have passed away forever. Amen, come Lord Jesus.

‘Fill your lives with love and bravery and you will lead a life uncommon’ - ‘Life Uncommon’ – Jewel

The life Jesus lived was a life uncommon. In fact it was so uncommon that no-one has been able to lead a life like it before or since. It is a life which gives us the ultimate guide on how to live in a Godly manner. And now we have the Spirit to give us power - the power to do what is right. That is why Jesus said that when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth (John 16: 13). When we live this life, a life lived in total devotion and commitment to Jesus, we too live a life uncommon.

Romans 12: 2 says to not be conformed to the pattern of the world but to be transformed by the renewing of your minds. It is a life lived against the grain, a life of swimming against the tide of popular opinion and cultural norms.

Martin Luther King talked about this when he spoke of living the life of a transformed nonconformist in his magnificent Strength to Love. Most of us don’t live this life, preferring instead to live a life of maximum comfort. As we think of people like King, Gandhi and JFK - the latter having told his countrymen 50 years ago this week to ask not what their country could do for them but what they could do for their country - we remember that such people inspire us, but how many of us would actually go as far as to take that life seriously and actually live it?

When Jesus talked about coming to give us abundant life (John 10: 10), He was not referring to simply enjoying the life we live here and now (although life certainly is to be enjoyed). He was talking about living a life of following Him, which starts by denying ourselves and taking up our cross. The life uncommon that we then lead, the counter-cultural life, the life of swimming against the tide, is the only life worth living.

I love people like Richard Rohr who are so warm and Christlike, and who just say it as it is. I am tired of the way Christians have gone along with the sanitised “sweet baby Jesus, no crying he makes” version of Christmas that we have been fed. The reality is far from that. Let Richard Rohr explain it better than I ever could:

“Jesus identified his own message with what he called the coming of the ‘reign of God’ or the ‘kingdom of God’, whereas we have often settled for the sweet coming of a baby who asked little of us in terms of surrender, encounter, mutuality or any studying of the Scriptures or the actual teaching of Jesus.

“This is what you are invited to this Advent. But be forewarned: the Word of God confronts, converts, and consoles us - in that order. The suffering, injustice and devastation on this planet are too great now to settle for any infantile gospel or any infantile Jesus. Actually, that has always been true.”

A recent daily reading from Richard Rohr is another classic. It looks at the question of why Jesus commands us to love and tells us to look beyond ourselves for our own good. Here is some more of what Rohr says:

“We must learn to move beyond ourselves, to set limits on our own needs and somehow to meet other peoples’ needs. We actually need to do this for our own good! That’s why Jesus commanded us to love—to get us started. So love is not a feeling, but a decision, yet a decision that increases our inner freedom each time we do it. You will know this only after you act on love.

“Jesus didn’t say when you get healed, love; when you grow up, love; when you get it together and have dealt with all your wounds, then love. No, the commandment for all of us is quite simply, “Love!” Once we know it is not a feeling, but a grace empowered decision, we can all do it. And each time it is a growth in freedom—and flow.”

As I read this I thought of the issue of how many many Christians, including Christian counselors, bring across the unBiblical message that you cannot love others until you love yourself. I wrote about this in an article a couple of years ago. The point that Rohr makes and which I didn’t make in my article, is that love is a grace-empowered decision. We are only able to love because of God working in us. We love because He first loved us (I John 4: 19).

Those Christians who say you can’t love others until you love yourself take grace out of the equation, take God out of the equation by assuming that love has to be done in our power and that we need to get ourselves together before we are able to love others. I believe this is such a serious issue in the Christian church as to be a heresy. As I read elsewhere recently, the Gospel of Jesus is about self-denial, not self-fulfillment. The Way of Jesus is only by denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following him.

Jesus said that we must become like little children if we are to enter the Kingdom of God. I went on a church camp a few weekends ago and I was given this lesson a number of times by the little children who were there. Their sense of play and trust and sheer joy at what we ‘grown-ups’ call the simple things, was something to behold. As we were leaving, one little 4-year-old girl looked around at us and said in all seriousness, “Drive safely”. It was beautiful.

Sometimes we just need to hear the simple things. Amidst all our talk about how faith relates to culture and how Jesus is relevant to a postmodern society, sometimes we just need to hear the words, “God loves you”. The great Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, when once asked what the greatest observation he had made over his career was, simply quoted the words of the old children’s hymn, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so”. Sometimes that’s all we need to hear. And sometimes all we need is someone to be there and listen and empathise when the going gets tough for us, and then suddenly life becomes a little bit easier to deal with again. I thank God for the friends in my life, the ones who care, the ones who will call just to ask how I’m going.

In a dog-eat-dog world where we’re constantly given the message that what goes around comes around – the message of karma – Jesus offers a different way. He offers the way of grace, where we get what we don’t deserve and we don’t get what we do deserve. Among Jesus’ first words to the woman caught in adultery were “neither do I condemn you” (John 8:11); and when Peter was struck by the compassion and grace of Jesus after their amazing catch of fish, all he could think of was how this man could be so gracious to him who saw himself as such a sinner (Luke 5:1-11). But Jesus said “No, now you are going to catch people”.

We don’t need to get all our problems sorted out before we follow Jesus. He calls us to come on the journey just where we are. At what is commonly called the Great Commission, it says that some of them worshiped him but others doubted (Matthew 28:17). But He didn’t say to those who doubted, “Sorry, go and get your life sorted out and then you will be qualified to go to all nations and make disciples”. No, He sent them all out anyway.

The good news of the Gospel is that you are loved. The Gospel is all about Jesus. He is the sunshine in the darkness. The more we walk with Jesus on the journey and receive His love for us, the more we find ourselves able to deal with the vagaries that life throws at us. We become more resilient and able to deal with life on life’s terms, rather than quietly demand that life treat us on our terms.

God teaches us to get up again when we fall. We are not condemned to stay down in the mud wallowing in our own self-pity. This is what repentance is all about. God’s call to repent is not a fear-based ‘change or else!’ demand that is placed upon us. It is a quiet wooing, much as a lover woos the beloved. It is a beckoning to come to where the grass is greener, to “come and see”, as the Lord told two disciples (John 1:39). Australian Christian teacher Fuzz Kitto, says that this is a ‘repenting to’ rather than a ‘repenting from’. It is seeing something better in Jesus than what we have been doing with our lives.

Jesus came for the lost, sick, world-weary people like you and me. ‘Just as I am’ – as the old hymn puts it – is the way we are to come to him. Just as I am, in all my doubt, all my shame, all my pain, and all my sense of unworthiness. We are not shoved out of the way; we are instead embraced, and though like Peter before us, we will probably at first be unable to cope with such love, yet He bids us come and follow and find the life that you have always been searching for.

The ever-valuable ABC website had some interesting stories recently on happiness and how we can achieve what seems so elusive, despite us having seemingly everything in our power in the 21st century to grasp it.

The first ‘finding’ was that, surprise, surprise, looking to others more than ourselves makes us happy. These are the findings of the Happiness Institute. Yes, we even have a think-tank devoted to this deepest of human yearnings. Dr Tim Sharp, founder of the Happiness Institute, says that thinking about the happiness of others is the key to finding it ourselves.

The next article is another encouraging one, because it comes from none other than the head of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. He recently advised university students not to pursue careers solely to become wealthy. He also “urged students to make time for their family and friends and to contribute to the wider community”.

I love the fact that we have institutions like the ABC that promote these sorts of findings and statements from those with some sort of authority. Because you wouldn’t think what Tim Sharp and Ben Bernanke were saying was true at all if you looked at the rest of the media. Jesus made the Good Samaritan the hero of that great story and tells us to go and do likewise. As well as this, he warns against the trappings of wealth. Tim Sharp and Ben Bernanke are in good company.

One of the pastors at my church mentioned last week that people had been asking her if she is going away for Easter. She said she felt like replying “No! And that’s the whole point”. When she said that I felt a little pang of conviction, for I have asked the same question alot recently. Easter is just another holiday for most Australians, including many Christians. I wonder if they sell cards at this time of year in the US which say ‘Happy Holidays’ like they do at Christmas time.

The point my pastor was trying to make was that Easter is ideally spent with other believers in community, for that is what Jesus did on His last night on Earth. He spent it with His friends over a meal. But we see this time of year as a chance to get away and have a break. And in so doing we lose what Easter is really about: God coming to earth as a human, relating with us, teaching us, and above all, saving us. Reconciling the world to Himself, and in so doing, reconciling people to each other, God is His own community - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Lord, help me to remember the reason for this season. You coming to die and then being raised to life, to give us the life that is truly life.