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Excerpt from "LUCKY", Chap. 7: "Luck-Bearers"

[The following is an excerpt from Chapter 7 of LUCKY: How the Kingdom Comes to Unlikely People.]    

Watch this TRAILER VIDEO first:

 

        Why do we care about injustice? What gives us the grounds to say to someone else that what they are doing is wrong and that it must stop? What makes people praise the teachings of Jesus, Buddha, and Gandhi but condemn the words of Hitler, Stalin, and Khomeini? The Christian has a way of responding to these questions. It is not by saying that everyone prefers justice because God wired him or her to do so, though that may be true. It is rooted in a story much wider than that simple statement. In this story we find a wellspring for mercy and justice far deeper than corporate guilt or public relations or cultural imperialism. This story tells us things about God and humanity and creation that we may have suspected but never fully realized.

        God created the heavens and the earth. He called it good. He made every living thing in both heaven and earth. And then He made Human.

        This much we know. But before you jump ahead to the bit about sin, ask yourself a question: Why did He make Human? Again you’ll have to momentarily silence the familiar chorus that “God made mankind to be in relationship with Him.” True. But Genesis doesn’t say that. What it does say is that God made mankind, first, to be in His image, and second, to reign. N. T. Wright explains it best:

[Creation] was designed as a project, created in order to go somewhere. The creator has a future in mind for it; and Human … is the means by which the creator is going to take his project forward.… The point of the project is that the garden be extended, colonizing the rest of creation; and Human is the creature put in charge of that plan.… God placed Human in the garden to reflect His image into the new world he was making—that is, to be the means, present and visible, whereby his own care of the garden and the animals would become a reality.

        The goal of the first Humans was that, in fellowship and communion with God, they would be God’s image-bearers and bring His wise order and loving rule to the world.

        Now we can get to the part we know. Adam and Eve sinned. They rebelled, and as a result of that rebellion, evil infected the cosmos. We have said all this and more in chapter 2. We have also discussed at length in the earlier chapters about Christ’s role: how He came and shared in our sufferings, took the worst blow Evil could give, and by rising again, defeated it, draining the poison from Evil’s sting and atoning for Humanity’s sin all in one triumphant stroke.

        It is worthwhile to take a small diversion from our Big Story to mention the reason we as Christians give more weight to Christ’s words than to Gandhi’s. Christians trust the teachings of Christ because we receive them as being from God, for Jesus is God incarnate. His teachings are good because they are rooted in His person, and His person is good for He is God. The Christian would say then, that inasmuch as the teachings of Gandhi or Buddha approximate the teachings of Christ, they are good. But they are not good on their own grounds or in themselves. And even if they are good and true and right in the ways they approximate what Christ said, they still do not carry the ability to transform, nor does the demand for the hearer to conform to their words come from God incarnate. It is the belief in the incarnation that frames our view of Christ’s teachings as truth. They are not from God because they are true; they are true because they are from God. None of the other good, moral teachers made this claim, leaving a spiritualist or an atheist without a firm basis for calling their teachings good, even though many of the pieces are.

        Back to the story. Jesus, the God-Man, perfectly fulfilled the call of the first Human: He is the “image of the invisible God” and the world’s true King. Now because of Him, the redeemed humanity—those who are in Him—recover the original vocation given to humans: to be priests and rulers. We share in the reign of Jesus, a reign that will result ultimately in the renewal of the whole world. Remember in chapter 5, when we talked about new creation, the day that Yahweh makes a new heaven and a new earth? It is the clear hope we have for the future as glimpsed by John’s Revelation. The end of the story is like the beginning: God’s redeemed “new humanity” will reign with Him over His new heaven and new earth, joined together at last.

        It is not simply about getting my soul saved. It is about getting humans back in right standing before God so that His work of new creation can begin in them and so that they then can bring His wise order and loving rule to the new world in the age to come. Any picture of salvation that is less than new creation in this sweeping sense is a bit anemic. To tell this Big Story as a set of spiritual laws is like explaining a Tchaikovsky symphony as a mathematical sequence of intervals: It may be true, but you’re losing the grandeur. To make the gospel only about personal salvation is like trying to replicate a Rembrandt on an Etch-A-Sketch: You may get the picture, but you’re missing the beauty.

        Unless you grasp this broad framework of God’s first creation and the first humans’ role in it along with God’s new creation and the redeemed humanity’s role in it, you won’t know how to make sense of working to right injustice. You’ll think it’s all sort of good works that a Christian ought to do because Jesus said something or other about it. Or, worse, you’ll dismiss it as a mere social agenda like the man at church who said, “Please! Let’s not talk about human trafficking and helping the poor. Let’s get on with getting souls saved.” When all we’ve focused on is Jesus “dying for our sins so we can go to heaven,” it is difficult to know why we ought to care about injustice. Aren’t we all going to fly away anyway? But if you have a clear picture of how the story began and a compelling vision of its conclusion, the middle—our time on earth now—makes more sense.

        If we believe that when “God redeems the whole creation, redeemed humans will play the key role, resuming the wise, healing sovereignty over the whole world for which God made them in the first place," then your view of the here and now begins to change.

        When a Christian talks about helping the poor and extending mercy to the helpless, he is not engaging in a public-relations campaign, but he is reclaiming an Image; she is not imposing her cultural values on another region of the world, but she is recovering the call to carry blessing to all peoples. For the Christian, justice and mercy are not fashionable ideas that can fuel a clever campaign and give our church folks a sense of purpose and a nice feeling of fulfillment. Carrying hope to the hopeless, being a blessing to all peoples is our original design, a design now restored to us in Christ.

        Why do we care about injustice? Because God’s new creation has begun in us. The work that God will do to remake earth and heaven has begun now in the renovation of our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Every time that renewing work spills out into beginning to set things right in our world, we are anticipating the kingdom that is coming. We are letting God’s will through us be “done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).

        In sports, players are taught to anticipate an opponent’s move. A good defensive back in football will study game film to anticipate where the opposing quarterback will throw the ball. He studies for hours and hours so that, on game day, he can anticipate it and “jump the route.” In basketball, when two teammates work on their chemistry, the one knows where to be at a particular moment; he is anticipating the pass. To anticipate is to go in advance: It is to go where the football is going before the quarterback releases it; it is to move without the basketball toward the basket because you know that’s where the pass will be. Anticipating, for the Christian, is all about doing in advance what you know will be done. It is learning to “live in the present in the light of God’s inbreaking future.”

        Disciples of Jesus were called Christians in Acts as a way of saying that they were “little Christs.” But “Christ,” especially in first century Jewish circles, was a way of saying “Messiah.” Were Jesus’ followers, then, being called “mini-Messiahs”? We are called the “body of Christ” (1 Cor. 12:27). But the phrase is so familiar, it may have lost some of its zing. Would it be closer to Paul’s intent to say that we are “Messiah’s body,” the people through whom the Messiah, by His Spirit, is at work on the earth? And if all that, then we must ask this: If the Messiah will set the world right, free the oppressed, end war—and do all the other things that Isaiah saw—when He returns, how should we live in the meantime?

        Every time we give a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name, every time every time we help the poor, every time we release people from oppression, we are announcing and anticipating the kingdom of God. We are living as luck-bearers.

Read the FOREWORD by Eugene Peterson HERE.

Read ALL of CHAPTER 1 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 2 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 3 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 4 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 5 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 6 HERE.

Buy LUCKY HERE.

Excerpt from "LUCKY", Chap. 6: "Those Whom the World Rejects"

[The following is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of LUCKY: How the Kingdom Comes to Unlikely People.]   

         There’s a lot of talk these days about starting a revolution. Christians want to “revolutionize church” or start a “love revolution.” It’s exciting talk. It’s the stuff that sounds good ringing through the speakers of a massive arena, especially when spoken by a dude with skinny jeans and messy hair, with strains of an electric guitar vamping over pulsing drums. And maybe in a cool accent. It’s inspiring. Songs become anthems, sermons become sound bites, and phrases become rallying cries…

            In the frenzy of youthful optimism, the most overlooked, underasked question is, Against whom are we revolting? And furthermore, what does it look like to revolt against it? Then finally, what is the price of such a revolt?

            It may not look like Joel Salatin rejecting corporate greed and the violation of ecology by running a small local farm, but it may mean thinking more carefully about where the food we eat comes from and at what expense to the worker and the earth. I recently finished doing premarital counseling for a young couple who chose not to use a diamond in the girl’s engagement ring just to ensure that they wouldn’t inadvertently support conflict diamonds. I know a young banker who refuses to depersonalize his clients by rushing them through the system just so he can meet a quota.

            What do all these things have to do with faith in Christ?

            The great Swiss theologian Karl Barth once wrote: “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.” Many Christians get the sense of this in the way they rally to oppose abortion or same-sex marriage or teenage immorality. And certainly, all that is part of the uprising against the disorder of the world. But there is more.

            The “world” in the New Testament is used in two ways: It is either describing the universe—as in the cosmos, the totality of God’s originally good creation; or it means the systems and structures and societies of people who have organized themselves apart from God and, indeed, against Him. This second sense of the “world” is often typified in prophetic language as “Babylon.” Babylon, in Biblical parlance, is the epitome of a system, structure, and society that has raised itself up independently of and against God. Early in the Genesis story, the tower of Babel itself is a picture of man’s systematic, structural, and societal revolt. It is human rebellion beyond the individual level of Eden; it is a full-blown coup d’état against God and His rule. In the dramatic closing book of the Bible, John’s vision paints a stunning picture of contrasting unequal parts: the reigning Lamb versus the eventually defeated Beast; the spotless Bride in contrast to the vile Whore; and Jerusalem, God’s shining city, set against Babylon, the organized godlessness of the world. There is Jesus and His kingdom and His people. And there is the pathetic parody that is ultimately destroyed.

            To take Barth’s words seriously, we must understand that prayer is about recognizing Jesus as the true King of the world, and that belief in Jesus as King demands a certain way of living. If the people of God believe that the “earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof ” (Ps. 24:1 ESV), then we will care that the earth is being abused. If we believe that Jesus is the only Lord over all, then we will follow and obey Him here and now. If we believe that the Way of Jesus and His kingdom run in opposition to the values of the systems and structures of the world, then we must think more carefully about what systems and structures of evil and oppression we are complicit in.

            But I cannot tell you what that should look like in its particulars. That is part of you embracing the King and His kingdom. Every area—every area: how we treat others, where we buy our food and clothing, the way we vote, and the way we work—must be brought under God’s reign. And that may take on different hues on each individual canvas. We must not stand as anyone’s judge. But each must raise the questions and wrestle through to answers. And then wrestle through again and again until the Messiah returns.

            True, there is much that we cannot undo or fully set right. But, as I will attempt to explain in the epilogue, we should get on with doing what we can rather than throw up our hands in resignation. To be clear, our goal is not to create utopia here. And yet we are to anticipate the kingdom coming in fullness by living now the way it will be then. I will say much more about that in the next chapter.

        Enough clumsy foreshadowing. If we are not being rejected by the systems and structures of a world that has organized itself apart from and against God, perhaps it is because we have not yet rejected them. We pose no threat. Perhaps we have not yet embraced the kingdom of God; we have only gotten comfortable with a religion that has a shell of godliness but has denied its power.

Lucky are those who are rejected by the world, for they are a threat to it and their reward is from a kingdom not of this world.

 

Read the FOREWORD by Eugene Peterson HERE.

Read ALL of CHAPTER 1 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 2 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 3 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 4 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 5 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 7 HERE.

Buy LUCKY HERE.

Hell: The Difference Between Gehenna and Hades

The hub-bub on hell continues. For now, I have no interest in taking sides on this debate and adding another polemic, especially since I have not read the book. What I would like to do, once again, is to help us pay careful attention to words, particularly the Bible's words. Language in a debate is critical. Too many people are ready to condemn Bell as a heretic because his definition of "Hell" is not like theirs. His definition may indeed by misleading (Once again: I have not read the book). But as I mentioned in an earlier post, there is room within Evangelical Christianity (to say nothing for the wider Christian world of Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism!) for at least four different views on what eternal judgment will be. Each of these can be well-defended from Scripture. Many have been quick-- strangely so-- to defend hell as a place of eternal torture and as a necessary corollary to God's love, while ignoring other possibilities of eternal judgment (such as "annihilationism" or "conditional immortality"). To make things worse, in the midst of all the defenses of hell, it seems that a few respected teachers have been careless about the Bible's own words on the subject.

The two most common Greek words that our English Bibles translate as "hell" are "Hades" and "Gehenna". But the two are not synonymous. Part of the confusion has come from the King James Bible translating both words as hell. Newer, more diligent translations-- including the ESV, which is well-loved by the Reformed tradition-- don't translate "Hades," (they leave it as "Hades") and save the word "hell" for "Gehenna." Hades is the "netherworld", the domain of the dead. "Gehenna", on the other hand, was a trash heap outside Jerusalem that became a symbol, a euphemism of sorts, of the destruction of final judgment. I would venture to guess that almost any commentary or seminary-level dictionary would tell you the same thing. The ones I've checked do. Because I believe it will be more helpful to this discussion to use the terms "Hades" and "Gehenna"-- the Bible's own terms!-- instead of the one generic word "hell", here are some important things to note about each word.

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On HADES:

1. Hades is the domain of the wicked dead.
Prior to Christ's death and resurrection, it appears that there was a "section" of the domain of the dead-- Hebrew, "Sheol"-- where the "righteous" were. In Jesus' parable, that place is called "Abraham's side" (Luke 16:19-31). Meanwhile, the wicked are in Hades, which, by Jesus' account, is not a pleasant place. Post-Jesus' resurrection, the "dead in Christ" are in Heaven, yet they are still awaiting their bodily resurrection (1 Cor. 15:12-28). Meanwhile, the wicked dead are in Hades, awaiting final judgment (Rev. 20:13-15). Both current Heaven and Hades are temporary. The hope of those in Christ is bodily resurrection and life on "new heaven and new earth, " joined together as one (Rev. 21:1-4). Hades will be defeated and destroyed after the wicked are judged (Rev. 20:13-15).

2. The story of Lazarus and the rich man is about Hades not Gehenna.
Luke 16: 22-24 (NIV)
“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’"

It's a shame that a few trusted and respected teachers whom I love, have failed to differentiate between the word "hell" (in the KJV) in this passage and the other times Jesus says "hell." Here, Jesus uses "Hades"(the ESV, NIV2011, and others have corrected the translation). In the other places Jesus says "hell", the word is "Gehenna." I've already pointed out that Hades and Gehenna are not the same thing.

3. Jesus descended into Hades not Gehenna.
Acts 2:29-33 (NIV) 
“'Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. 30 But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. 31 Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead [the word here is "Hades" not "Gehenna"], nor did his body see decay. 32 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. 33 Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.'"

4. Hades will be emptied out in order for the wicked dead to be judged.
Rev. 20:13-15 (NIV)
"The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire."

It may be important to note that even the wicked dead in Hades are not automatically thrown into the Lake of Fire. It simply says that they are judged. It may mean that they are all thrown into the Lake of Fire, but it may mean that some don't. I think the point here may be that we are not the ones who will be doing the judging. The just and holy and loving God will.

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On GEHENNA:

1. Gehenna, though an actual trash heap outside Jerusalem, is a picture of final judgment.
It is well-know that "Gehenna", Jesus' word of choice for final judgment, was a trash heap outside Jerusalem, where fires would burn and worms would destroy the refuse of the city. Timothy Keller rightly argues that even though Gehenna was an actual place-- a trash heap outside Jerusaelm-- Jesus' use of the word seems to be a picture of final judgment. From the number of times Jesus spoke of "Gehenna", it is clear He believed in a place of final judgment. 

2. Gehenna speaks of decay, decomposition, and destruction.
Again: saying that there will be a judgment that is eternal (read: final and irreversible) is not the same as saying that the judgment will be "eternal conscious torture." Keller himself draws the parallel between "Gehenna" and the idea of decay and decomposition, a kind of self-destruction that results from rejecting God. (Loads of others have made this same point. I reference Keller because he is a well-loved, well-respected pastor, of the Reformed tradition that has had so much trouble with Bell.)

3. Gehenna most resembles the Lake of Fire imagery in Revelation.
Jesus' language of Gehenna as the place "where the fire never goes out" (Mark 9:43) is consistent with John's language of the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20). Incidentally, John only makes clear that the Beast and the False Prophet will be "tormented day and night forever and ever" (Rev. 20:10). Of the others who are thrown in, nothing is said of their torment. 

4. Both Gehenna and the Lake of Fire are future not present.
Here again, Jesus' and John's language are with reference to the future. In other words, while the wicked dead are Hades and the "righteous" dead are in Heaven/Paradise, no one is yet in Hell. There is a judgment that is future, according to Revelation 20, John 5:24-30, and many other New Testament passages.

That does not mean that part of eternity does not begin now. As Christians, we believe our full and final hope is new bodies, new heaven, and new earth-- in short, new creation. Yet, Paul uses this Isaiah phrase to describe what has happened to all who are in Christ: we are a "new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17), even now. Something of God's Life has begun to break out in us. "Rivers of living water" is Jesus' phrase for the Holy Spirit He would give to His disciples (John 7:38-39). Could it also be true that for those who will receive eternal judgment, that their "hell" may, in a sense begin now? Perhaps. We have all likely used the phrase to describe a heinous scene as being "hell on earth." But this is not to negate a real and final hell: a judgment from God that will be the verdict forever.

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One Final Note:
That Christ will judge the living and the dead, we can believe with confidence. What exactly that judgment will be, we do not know for sure. That some will be in the Lake of Fire, we can see quite plainly from Scriptures like Revelation 20. But whether that Lake of Fire is a literal place or whether or not it will mean an "eternal conscious torment", there is room within orthodoxy for discussion. Once again, the language of Jesus in John 3:16 for those who do not believe in Him is that they will "perish;" John's language in Revelation 20:14 is that the Lake of Fire is "a second death." Nothing in that language backs us into a corner into having to believe that eternal judgment is "eternal conscious torture." 

p.s. it took everything in me to not title this post with some witty play on the word hell in a quasi-cursing form. I'll leave that to others on the blogosphere.

Excerpt from LUCKY, Chap. 5: "Those Whose Best Life Isn't Now"

[The following is an excerpt from Chapter 5 of LUCKY: How the Kingdom Comes to Unlikely People.]

Six bags.

        Six bags were all they had to fit their life in. They were leaving in the morning for Cambodia, and Jacob and Noelle had to make some  difficult decisions about what to take with them and what to leave behind. The most difficult decision, though, had been made over a year ago when they decided they were going to move to Cambodia. But the truth is the journey began years before even that.

        Noelle had been going on short-term mission trips since she was fourteen but had always been glad to return to America. But in 2005, in her mid-twenties, she took a trip to Nepal with theMILL, New Life Church’s college/twentysomething ministry, and everything began to change. I could live overseas, she thought to herself. Still she returned, took a job as pastoral counselor to the young women in theMILL, and wondered when the day would come.

        Jacob, in a similar way, had developed a heart for ministry overseas through several short-term trips but never envisioned himself living anywhere but America. I could support missionaries, he thought. I’ll have a big house and provide a haven for missionaries on furlough. As the IT manager for Compassion International, Jacob was content to facilitate someone else’s work overseas. But the more trips he took with theMILL, particularly in the summers of ’05 and ’06, the more he began to consider actually becoming a missionary.

        When Jacob and Noelle started an unlikely dating relationship, neither spoke initially of their desire to do ministry overseas. At times it might even have seemed that they had different visions of their future. Yet quietly the burden for long-term missions work—particularly in Asia—began to grow in each of them. In the spring of 2007, they had dinner with Eric and Ginny Hanson, the directors of an international ministry called In His Steps International and founders of In His Steps Cambodia (www.ihsionline.org), which I mentioned in chapter 3. Eric and Ginny had come to the States on furlough, and since Noelle was leading a team from theMILL to Cambodia that summer and would be working with their ministry, it was a chance to connect. They had no idea the seeds that would be planted in their hearts that night. They learned that Eric and Ginny had started In His Steps International in 2004 and launched In His Steps Cambodia as a local NGO that would train and empower locals to reach other locals with the gospel. Through daily English classes for hundreds of children, weekend youth and children’s programs, and a church plant, they are beginning to rescue and redeem Cambodia from the desolation of a wicked past dictator and the present horrors of human trafficking. One of the most beautiful things In His Steps Cambodia does is a ministry called Sak Saum, which I also mentioned earlier. Sak Saum is a ministry to vulnerable and exploited women, women who have escaped or been rescued from human trafficking. Through Sak Saum they receive counseling, education, training in job skills, health care, and ongoing discipleship. As Jacob and Noelle listened to Eric and Ginny that night in the spring of 2007, something was coming alive inside them.

        That summer, while Jacob led a team of Air Force cadets to Thailand and Noelle led a team to Cambodia, their burden for Asia began to grow. While Noelle was in Cambodia, sitting in a devotional time with Cambodian girls, listening to them pray in Khmer, it became clear that she would live there some day. One piece of the picture was coming into focus. The other pieces were soon to follow. It also became clear that their futures belonged together. And so, on January 6, 2008, Jacob and Noelle laid all their hopes and fears at the feet of Christ and covenanted their lives to each other in marriage. A year later they took a brief scouting trip to Cambodia to confirm their decision. It was settled. Jacob and Noelle announced their plan to move to Cambodia. By the opening weeks of March 2010, it was time to decide what to put in the six bags they were taking with them.

        When they got to Cambodia, they met a woman named Theavy. Theavy’s story is heavy. Trafficked twice as a young girl, she somehow managed to escape both times, though not without deep damage to her fragile heart. “Fear, a low self-worth, and a deep hunger to be loved and safe” is how Noelle described the condition of Theavy’s heart. Theavy eventually got married and looked forward to the day that she would have her own child, a child to nurture and love the way she had longed to be loved. It took nine years for that day to come. And when it miraculously did, she named her son Sokun, which means “a gift from God.” Rather than marking the end of her troubles, the birth of their son somehow triggered something destructive in Theavy’s husband. Shortly after Sokun’s birth, Theavy discovered that her husband was in debt-bondage to prostitutes. He then abandoned them and went off to pursue a different life.

        But because of Eric and Ginny Hanson, Theavy was not alone. Just as they had helped Theavy through earlier struggles, they were there for her in her abandonment. Ginny walked with Theavy in her grief, providing love and counsel and comfort. Hope began to flicker in the darkness. When Jacob and Noelle met Theavy, she had just become the new national director of Sak Saum and of In His Steps Cambodia. She is now giving her life to help other girls find the same hope and healing that she did more than five years ago.

        It’s easy to see Theavy’s story replaying in the young girls that are now in Sak Saum. They are fragile and damaged and afraid. But comfort has come. Hope has already begun. As Jacob and Noelle sit and pray and counsel and walk with the girls in Sak Saum and the orphans and children in the Foundation Center and SafeHouse in Saang, they can’t help but think of the redemption that Jesus is bringing to them, a rescue that they are carrying to them. What Ginny did for Theavy, they are doing for these little ones. Jacob and Noelle are bringing comfort to those who mourn, making the mourners lucky for the comfort that is now theirs.

        But Jacob and Noelle are carrying a comfort they themselves have received. You see, a little over ten years ago, Noelle’s mother died of cancer. Two years before leaving for Cambodia, Jacob’s stepmom was tragically killed in a horse-riding accident. They have both tasted bitter grief. And while there are no answers or easy solutions, they have found a comfort that is deep and eternal, one that rests on the fact that Jesus has risen from the grave. Death itself will be swallowed up in victory. Death is not the last word. The final stanza of the song is one of new life, new heaven, new earth. And it has already begun. There is a minor key motif in this ending movement, but it breaks into a triumphant strain in the final bars. The comfort that Jacob and Noelle have tasted and the comfort that they carry is the hope—rooted in Christ’s resurrection—that what’s coming, what has already begun to come, is better than what is and even what was.

Lucky are those whose best life is not now, for what is coming is better than what is.

Read the FOREWORD by Eugene Peterson HERE.

Read ALL of CHAPTER 1 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 2 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 3 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 4 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 6 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 7 HERE.

Buy LUCKY HERE.

 

Excerpt from "LUCKY", Chap. 4: "Those Who Are Empty on This World"

[The following is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of LUCKY: How the Kingdom Comes to Unlikely People.]

To hunger for God is more than a longing for an experience. We often use words like hunger and thirst in our modern expressions of worship. What we often mean by that, though, is that we are longing for an emotional jolt, an experiential, music-driven euphoria on a mass scale. Even though God does frequently make His presence felt, to hunger for God is much deeper than a craving for an experience. It is to meditate on Him, on His life and His words. It is to take Him into us so that we become what we eat.

        But hungering for God and His righteousness also means that we long—as He longs—to see things set right. When we embrace a hunger that comes from resisting what the world offers and feast instead on Jesus, we become more aware of those who are hungry now—in their bellies and in their souls. We begin to notice those who are dissatisfied with what they’ve been consuming even though they may not know why. And we notice those who literally need something to eat.

        When Jesus heard the news of his cousin’s gruesome beheading, He wanted to be alone. But the crowd that followed Him that day was hungry. Jesus had retreated by boat, attempting to find a solitary place. The crowd somehow anticipated where He was going and ran around the Sea of Galilee so quickly they beat Him there. They were hungry, hungry for something only Jesus could give them. Hungry enough to take the journey on foot. When His boat arrived at the shore and the crowd was there to greet Him with their longing eyes, Jesus didn’t get back in and sail away. Their hunger stirred His compassion. Moved by their need, Jesus healed those who were sick among them.

        By the time evening came, He must have been tired and hungry. At least the disciples were. They came to Jesus and suggested He dismiss the people. Look, we’re in the middle of nowhere. They were crazy enough to follow You here. But enough’s enough. They got what they wanted. Send them off. Let them head to the villages and buy their own food.

        Jesus saw their spiritual longing and had compassion; the disciples saw their physical hunger and wanted to dismiss them. This was the perfect moment to teach His disciples something about the kingdom of God. You give them something to eat, He told them.

        What? How? We only have five loaves of bread and two fish!

        Give it to Me, Jesus said. He calmly seated them on the grass. Looking to heaven, Jesus blessed the food, broke it, and gave it to them. And they ate. And ate. And ate. And still, there were twelve baskets of leftovers.

        Few things appear in all four gospels. The death and resurrection are in all accounts, for they are the pinnacle of what Christ came to do. His birth, on the other hand, is not in all accounts. Mark’s gospel races us to the cross; John chooses the poetic “big picture” language to begin his story. The feeding of the five thousand, though, is in every gospel. There is something about this act that is significant. It is a Messiah act. As Moses fed the people who followed him in the desert with manna from heaven, Jesus fed the crowd that followed Him into a remote area. But Jesus goes further than Moses. He doesn’t just bring bread from heaven; He himself is the Bread from heaven, a Bread that satisfies all hunger. Jesus said as much shortly after feeding the five thousand, which underscores the message of the miracle. This was no party trick; this was an announcement that He, the Messiah, had finally come to Israel. And feeding the crowd that day was merely a foreshadowing of the feast He would one day bring to all people. Earthly bread was pointing to Heavenly Manna. Temporary filling was a way of awakening hope for the final feast.

        I think the same is true when we bring bread to the hungry. When we feed those who are empty on the world—literally and spiritually— we are helping them anticipate the fullness of who Christ is and what Christ is bringing. When we serve food to the homeless, when we invite a friend over for dinner, when we sit with our own family at dinner, it is never just a meal. It is a Messiah act, a way of pointing to the redemption and rescue that has already begun. Meals are, in a sense, sacred. This is why Jesus says to His disciples—then and now—“You give them something to eat.” Every time we feed the hungry, help an addict, encourage one another to refrain from filling up on the world, lead someone to feast on Christ and His word, we are reminding them of the luck that is now theirs, of the Feast of Messiah that is coming. We are echoing His announcement of blessing on those who are hungry now; we are telling them that they will be filled, truly filled, in the age to come.

        Lucky are those who are empty on this world, for they will be filled with Jesus and feast with Him in the age to come.

Read the FOREWORD by Eugene Peterson HERE.

Read ALL of CHAPTER 1 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 2 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 3 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 5 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 6 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 7 HERE.

Buy LUCKY HERE.

 

Excerpt from "LUCKY", Chap. 3: "The God-Dependent"

[The following is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of Lucky: How the Kingdom Comes to Unlikely People.]

        There was a man who was looking for the kingdom. Sort of. He was blind. Nevertheless, with everything inside him, he was longing and looking for the rule of God to come. As a blind man in the first century, he was cast out onto the streets, perhaps because his family thought it was his sin that made God curse him with blindness. Either way, the blind in the first century were completely nonself- reliant. Society had done little to make basic survival possible for the handicapped. Pagans viewed them as weak, inferior to the healthy. Many Jews didn’t improve the situation. The blind, the cripple, the lame were also the poor, the others-dependent. They could do little for themselves. They were reduced to begging.

        Such was the case for Bartimaeus. He was a beggar, completely dependent on others for his survival. Every day he sat by the side of the road hoping he would get enough … food, drink, money, clothes … to make it through another day. Then one day, a crowd was going by. He heard whispers of the name: Jesus. The Jesus from Nazareth? he thought. The rabbi everyone has been talking about?

        Feet kept shuffling by him. Dirt was dancing around his skin. This was his moment. Bartimaeus cried out, “Son of David! Have mercy on me!”

        Son of David. That was Messiah-talk. It referenced the ancient prophecy from Isaiah. Did Bartimaeus really think Jesus was Messiah?

        His cry was met by the sound of angry voices. Male voices. Deep, gravelly barks. Be quiet! Enough out of you! Don’t trouble us! He had heard those voices his whole life. Voices that pushed him aside, told him where to sit, to stand, voices that kept him on the margins. Raising his voice was the only way he could feel alive. Sending out sound waves of his own and letting them bounce off trees and bodies and sand and water was how he groped through a world of sounds. So he raised his voice again. Louder this time. “Son of David! Have mercy on me!”

        The shuffling feet stopped. A voice in the distance spoke. A male voice. But kinder, clear, and on purpose. Call him, the voice said. Then the gruff, male voices that earlier shoved him to the fringes spoke. Still deep and scolding. But the words were new: Cheer up. Get on your feet. He’s calling you.

        Fumbling, pushing himself against the ground with one hand, reaching out with another, Bartimaeus stumbled to his feet. With trembling fingers, his hands stretched out like a vine growing to the edges of the crowd; his knees, folding under the weight of his body, clumsily carried him toward the soft, tender voice.

        The voice spoke again. What do you want me to do? Why did Jesus ask that? Wasn’t it obvious? Well, not exactly. A blind beggar could have asked for temporary help. He could have asked for bread, for water, for a new garment to replace his ragged, dirtcrusted one. But anyone could have given him that. There was something only God—or a man of God—could give Bartimaeus: his sight.

        And so that was what he asked for. Teacher, I want to see. Bartimaeus’ request revealed who he thought Jesus was. He couldn’t have known yet that Jesus was the fully divine Son of God. But he knew enough to know that something about Jesus was God-like, that Jesus was somehow in touch with God in a way that he wasn’t. And so he asked something of Jesus that only God could do. He asked for a miracle.

        Jesus simply replied, “Your faith has healed you.” It was like saying, “Bartimaeus, because you have begun to believe in who I am, because you recognize the lack of self-sufficiency, because you have asked for something that cuts to the root of your need, because you know the depth of your dependence on God, you will enjoy a taste of the rule of God now.”

        Healing is a foretaste of what the world will look like when God’s rule culminates. We want the foretaste. We long to enjoy God’s rule. But are we willing to confess our poverty, the bankruptcy in our hearts? Are we willing to admit that we are the blind, the poor, the beggar?

        The words of Jesus to the church in Laodicea can be heard as they echo to us: “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Rev. 3:17).

Lucky are the God-dependent, for they will enjoy and participate in God’s rule.

 

Read the FOREWORD by Eugene Peterson HERE.

Read ALL of CHAPTER 1 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 2 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 4 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 5 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 6 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 7 HERE.

Buy LUCKY HERE.

 

Excerpt from LUCKY, Chap. 2: "Luck's Beginner"

[The following is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of Lucky: How the Kingdom Comes to Unlikely People.]

        Before the beginning, God. God, the Three in One, who sees the end from the beginning. God, who decided before the foundations of the world that Christ the Son would be the Lamb of God, slain for the sin of the world.

        God was not caught off guard by Adam’s sin. He knew His first image-bearers would taint His image in them by their own rebellion. He knew the people He chose to be His luck-bearers would instead become self-absorbed and syncretistic. He knew they would become a curse, a byword among the nations instead of a blessing to all peoples. He knew their eventual exile out of the Promised Land, like Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden, would only underscore the plight of all creation: a luckless world waiting for redemption, a redemption that could only come from beyond itself.

        And so He came.

        Christ entered into the luckless, joyless, lifeless world. He was born to the unlikeliest of people: a Jewish carpenter and his ordinary wife. Yet even His arrival in her womb elevated her. Because of Him, she, the scandal of her town, the subject of scornful whispers and smirking eyes, was called by an angel “highly favored … among women” (Luke 1:28 NKJV). She was blessed. Though they did not know it yet, the luckless had become lucky.

        At His birth, shepherds—rootless wandering rogues—were visited by a choral constellation of angels announcing good news. Like Abraham, the nomadic shepherd that God had visited thousands of years earlier; like Moses, the shepherd in Midian tending his fatherin- law’s flock, who saw a bush on fire yet not consumed; like David, the king God crowned while he was hidden in the valley tending his father’s sheep—shepherds are once again the lucky ones, the ones God visits. Something about them must remind Him of Himself. Dirty and stained, His image in them still shimmers in the light of His glorious eyes.

        Jesus, from His conception and birth, began bringing blessing to the world. This was the fulfillment of what God had promised Abraham. God had promised to bring blessing to the world through Abraham’s family; now the promise was coming to pass specifically through Jesus the Messiah. Jesus is Abraham’s seed, the Chosen One, the One who would perfectly fulfill the call to reveal God to the world and to rescue and restore all created things. He is the perfect Image-Bearer, for He is the “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15).

        Not only is Jesus the perfect Image-Bearer, He is also the ultimate Luck-Bearer. Through His life, death, and resurrection, humanity will be redeemed, and creation will be restored. Humanity had been wasting away since the first man, by his disobedience, brought death into the world. But now, through this “one man’s obedience,” life—unexpected, undeserved, abundant, overflowing Life, the Life of the age to come!—would come to all (Rom. 5:12–20 ESV).

        Walking the shores of Galilee, the God who called Adam out of hiding began calling people out of their small, self-destructing lives. “Stop this attempt at autonomy. Stop trying to be better, do better, on your own. Stop casting your nets and toiling all night and hoping for different results. It is futile. You cannot live without Me. You were not made to. Come. Follow Me.”

        As He healed the sick and drove out demons, He was signaling the arrival of His kingdom. It was an invasion. But not an invasion of a foreign army; rather it was the arrival of creation’s rightful King. His rule was undoing the infection of evil. With every miracle, He was announcing that the jig was up, the time had come. History was now turning on a hinge.

        Isaiah’s vision of Messiah hundreds of years earlier was of one who, by His own wounds, would heal the fractures (Isa. 53): in Israel, the nation torn apart by idolatry and sin; in the world, which had fallen into a constant state of war; in humanity, which found itself irreparably distant from God. Messiah would lead to swords being beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks; war would be retired forever. Beasts and humans would live in harmony (Isa. 2:4; 11:6–8). The prophets tell of a Messiah who would take this world, sick and broken and fractured and fallen, and make it whole, set it right.

        In His death and resurrection, Jesus did just that. At the cross Jesus carried upon Himself every sin, every rebellion of the entire race of image-bearers. And in doing so, He redeemed not only them but the whole cosmos they had knocked out of kilter. By taking the full weight of sin—by “becoming sin,” becoming the curse—and then rising up from the grave, He defeated sin and reversed the curse of death. He set creation on a new trajectory, one that creation itself longs for (Rom. 8:19–25), one bound for renewal: a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21:1–5). As in the beginning, so in the end: God.

        Because Jesus is the long-awaited fulfillment of the old promise, God, the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” is called, first by Paul and Peter, “God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Jesus, the Son of God, creation’s rightful King and the world’s true Lord, had broken the stain of the rebellion, ended the luckless night that had fallen upon Earth, and with His resurrection, awakened a new dawn, giving us hope for the fullness of Day that will come when He returns and all things will be made new and the cosmos set right.

        This is why Jesus came. And He knew it.

        So when Jesus climbed up the hill and opened His mouth to speak, He was making an announcement, the announcement His life itself proclaimed: “Good news! God has come … even to such as these! Luck has come to a luckless world. The kingdom of God has come to unlikely people.”

Read the FOREWORD by Eugene Peterson HERE.

Read ALL of CHAPTER 1 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 3 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 4 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 5 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 6 HERE.

Read an excerpt from CHAPTER 7 HERE.

Buy LUCKY HERE.

 

Sacred Rhythms: Preparing for Lent, 2011

Rhythms. We need rhythms. Rhythms anchor us, center us, keep us in touch with what has happened, what is happening, and what is yet to happen. A rhythm may move slowly at points, and more frenetically at others, but the cadence gives order to it. Breathing is a rhythm. Life happens in rhythm.

But whose rhythms are we living in step with? Often, my rhythm is set by the events of my day. On a larger scale, the cadence of my yearly calendar is structured by my activity. There are long stretches of work and writing and travel, then a few stretches of vacations and breaks, then more flurry of activity for our kids and the things they are involved in. These are all good things. But do I want my life to follow the rhythm of my activity?

Sacred rhythms keep us in line with the Spirit's work. They provide us with the space to listen, to look, to learn. While my calendar is shaped by my activity, the historic Church calendar is ordered by Christ's life and the Spirit's activity. The year is shaped by His birth, His revealing, His suffering, His death, His resurrection, His gift of the Spirit. I am learning to embrace the sacred rhythm of the Church Calendar to root my life, to ground my work, to keep me in a Groove much larger than my own self-centered world.

The Church, of course, is not the first to recognize the value of sacred rhythms. They were following in the footsteps (rhythms!) of their Jewish forefathers, who had feast days and festivals and fasts that were given to them by God while they were still in the wilderness. Think of it: a wandering people with no home yet, no real routines or sense of place...and God gave them a rhythm to live in, a rhythm that would help them worship, and repent, and remember. 

But a rhythm doesn't just help us pay attention to God, it also reminds us that we are not alone. When we participate in a celebration of Christmas or Easter or in the humbling repentance of Lent, we are joining with all who have gone before us. We are walking a well-worn path. We are discarding the arrogance of independence, the pride of "doing it my way", and humbly joining a chorus of saints. 

Whatever you choose to give up for Lent...

May it be a time to lower ourselves together before the foot of the cross. May we remember Christ and His suffering and offer our humble thanks. May we be attentive to the Spirit and His work in us as He prunes and convicts and refines. May God give us the grace to respond quickly and humbly to His mercy.

As we keep company with Christ in this Lenten season, may we hear again His words:

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." (Matt. 11:28, Message)

[For a brief sketch of the history and purpose of Lent, you can read the blog I wrote last year called, "Why I'm Observing Lent this Year."]

Find "Lucky" at Sam's Club

I got word recently that "Lucky: How the Kingdom Comes to Unlikely People" is available in Sam's Club. So, for all you Sam's Club members, here's a list of about 400 cities where it will be available (Click to download the spreadsheet) :

Download LuckyinSamsClub

Hope it helps!

NewLifeSundaySchool: "Eschatology", Week 4 Notes & Audio

This is the 4th and final piece of the NewLifeSundaySchool series I taught on "Eschatology: What Will God Do in the End?" Here are the links for the handouts and audio from the earlier weeks:

Week 1: "What's the End Goal?"
Week 2: "What Happens When Christians Die?"
Week 3: "What is the Resurrection of All Things?"

Week #4 Description: How should we live in the light of God's in-breaking future? This podcast begins with a sketch of what it means to say that the Kingdom of God has come "here and now and not yet." We then turn our attention to three verbs that help us to live within that Kingdom: we prepare, we announce, and we anticipate. Within this framework, we understand how self-giving love is the language of the future that God is bringing, and how miracles and justice-work are all ways of pointing to the Kingdom that has begun and will culminate at Christ's return.

Download the HANDOUT Here:

Download EschatologyWk4WhatNow?HANDOUT

Download the AUDIO Here:

Week 4_ Inaugurated Eschatology_ What Does All This Means Here and Now_