Time Shouldn't Be Measured By Clocks...

What do you make of the following conversation?

Alice: “How long is forever?”

White Rabbit: “Sometimes, just one second.”
       by Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Time is a challenging concept for those who believe in eternity.  We spend our lives dividing an infinite expanse of time into measureable seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, seasons, years, and on and on, ad infinitum.  We know there is an eternity behind us and before us, so why do we focus on the itty-bitty increments that divide it?  Why am I so upset if I’m even one minute late for an appointment?  Should I be aggravated when I am the one waiting and the doctor still hasn’t seen me 30 minutes after my appointed time?

Is it possible we get the time pressure from Scripture itself?  James, the brother of Jesus, wrote this warning to us:

“For what is your life? It is…a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”  (James 4:14)

Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days carefully….”  Though we are told again and again in the Bible that our existence is an eternal one, we are assailed with the reminder that our earthly time is fleeting. 

The key to understanding time, in the Biblical sense, is to realize the New Testament uses TWO words that are translated “time”.  They are chrónos, which refers to “clock time” or time that is measured; and kairós, that speaks more to an “appointed time” or an opportune moment.  Chronos identifies time quantitatively, while Kairos sees time as qualitative.

What’s the difference?  We can personify both words for time by using the story of Mary and Martha from Luke 10:38-42.  Martha was the “busy” sister, fretting about all the things that needed to be done to prepare for a visit by Jesus and his disciples.  Martha operated her life based on chronos, or clock time.  Conversely, Martha’s sister, Mary, saw the opportunity to sit at Jesus’ feet and take in everything that moment in time could offer.  Mary saw time as kairos; a moment to be cherished.

Martha was consumed by the passing of time, while Mary was aware that each moment was to be valued BEFORE it passed.  For those of us whose lives will be spent in eternity, which makes the most sense?  We might as well get used to the idea that there is no chronos in heaven!  EVERY moment there will be a kairos moment. 

Why not practice now?  Can you imagine spending a week or a month with no watch or cell phone to tell you what time it is?  What if you had no calendar to tell you how old you are, and no schedule requiring you to stop doing something you enjoy so you can get to the next meeting or appointment?  It might upset the tidy organization of your days, but I would imagine you’d finally find “the time of your life”.

One day this week, I vow not to look at what the clock says and see what happens.  Want to join me?

Jacob

How Many "Pinocchios" Does Your Pastor Deserve?

Remember those lies we were told as kids?  Babies are delivered by storks (we know better now).  Santa Claus flies around the world in a sleigh delivering toys to good kids on Christmas Eve (everyone knows Santa uses a teleporter like on Star Trek to get the job done).  But perhaps the most hurtful to us now as adults was the lie that when Jesus was dying on the cross, God turned his back on Him.  You know the story.  Jesus was suffering and cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)  I was taught, and the lie continues to be told, that at that very moment, Jesus took on Himself the sins of the world so our Perfect God (who can’t look on sin) had to turn His face away.

How does that sit with you?  If you understand what the Bible teaches, we are ALL sinful and deserve to be rejected by God.  (Romans 3:23)  How would it make you feel if you really believed that every day when you mess up, or miss the mark, or even intentionally do something that you know displeases God, that He can’t stand to look at you?  Here’s the truth that I’ll explain in a moment – you are the object of God’s affection; you are the apple of His eye; you are precious to Him – you rotten, sinful, defective thing.  You are loved deeply by the Creator God of the universe because He made you to be His.  You are FORGIVEN by the Creator God of the universe because Jesus bore the penalty for your mess-ups and unkindness and selfishness and hypocrisy and…well, you get the idea.

So what about Jesus being forsaken by God?  When you hear, “I pledge allegiance…” or “For God so loved the world…”, don’t you immediately know what follows?  When Jesus spoke the words, “…why have you forsaken me?” on the cross, He wasn’t complaining, He was PROCLAIMING!  You see, the words were written by King David about 1,000 years before Jesus repeated them.  You can find the whole story in Psalm 22 in the Bible.  David was struggling with feeling rejected by God, but by the end of the Psalm, David acknowledged “He (God) has not despised me…nor has He hidden His face from me, but when I cried to Him, He heard.”  (Psalm 22:24)  David got it right.  No matter how we feel, God always knows what’s going on.  You are never abandoned.  Never alone.

So why did Jesus say those words?  Well, no doubt He was feeling pretty bad – He had been abandoned by most of his disciples and had suffered unspeakable pain for the sins of every person who would ever be born – including you and me.  But when the self-righteous religious leaders of the day who were standing around watching Jesus suffer and gloating that they had finally silenced Him, when they heard those words, they were shaken to their toes.  They recognized the words because they had them memorized, “My God, my God…”, and they understood what came after.  “Those who see me ridicule me…They pierced My hands and My feet…They divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots…”  Those things didn’t happen to David who wrote them, but the Holy Spirit led David to write of things that were still to come.  From one king to the One King.

So why does all that matter to us?  Psalm 22:27-31 goes on to say:

All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You.  For the kingdom is the Lord’s, and He rules over the nations… A posterity (His heirs) shall serve Him.  It will be recounted of the Lord to the next generation. They will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born, that He has done this.

That’s us.  Heirs of Christ serving and declaring His righteousness to the next generation.  Keep your chin up and realize it’s OK to get frustrated with your circumstance and complain that you feel abandoned.  Just don’t ever believe that God would turn His back on you.  Or Jesus.  And that’s no lie.

Jacob

Would You Rather DO or BE? That is the question....

As Shakespeare famously wrote, “To be, or not to be, that is the question.”  In our 21st century life of busyness, our question is more likely, “To do, or not to do?”  In our culture, WHAT you DO carries more weight in most circles than WHO you ARE.  I know there are exceptions to that rule, but isn’t part of the American dream to be able to find success and value through our efforts?

It is precisely that struggle – that striving – to DO more that challenges us in our walk of faith.  Those who consider themselves followers of Jesus lay claim to that relationship based on trust (faith) that Jesus has already done everything necessary for us to BE who He wants us to be.  Christ has saved us based on our faith in Him alone, not based on what we DO - our works.  (For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.  Ephesians 2:8-9)  But we become His so we can live a life full of good works.  (For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.  Ephesians 2:10)  

So is BEING good enough for a follower of Jesus, or must we be concerned with DOING as well?  James, the brother of Jesus, muddied the water even more for us by reminding us that our faith in Christ without our “doing” is just dead faith - not worth anything.  (James 2:14-26)  So then, shouldn’t we be focusing on DOING more than BEING? 

Just when I think I’ve excused my “Type A” focus on DOING as God-honoring, I’m reminded of the story of Mary and her sister, Martha.  Jesus came to visit their home and Martha, apparently the eldest, was VERY busy working to make the visit wonderful for Jesus.  Mary, the younger sister, just sat and listened to Jesus share about the things of God.  How many of us, especially those of us who are first-born, would have complained to Jesus just as Martha did?  (Luke 10:38-42)  

Did Christ excoriate Mary and urge her to get busy helping her sister?  Did He pat Martha on the back saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”?  Nope.  Jesus told Martha that Mary had it right.  The best thing that Martha could have been doing right then was just what Mary was doing.  Nothing.  Just learning how to listen to the voice of Jesus.  Finding comfort and direction and encouragement in that voice.  Was Martha’s desire to DO wrong?  No, work needs to be done.  But it needs to be done with perspective.  Martha’s efforts were WAY over the top, considering the circumstance (that’s clear from the Bible text).  

Apparently, Martha found it easier to work harder than everyone else and found that it usually brought her the greatest satisfaction and praise from others.  Does that sound like anyone you know?  Don’t we often equate our production with our value, even in the Church?  Apparently, Jesus doesn’t.  When what we DO becomes more important than who we ARE as believers, WE are the ones who lose.  That's because we’ve wrongly determined that the work of our hands is more vital to the Kingdom of God than the condition of our hearts.  Believe me, it’s not.  It is the condition of our hearts that drives the success of our efforts for Jesus, not the other way around.  That was Martha’s mistake, and is often my own.

Jacob

Is Anything Worse Than a Man-Bun?

Let me state this as clearly as I can: “I hate man-buns.”  If you aren’t sure what a man-bun is, you are either wonderfully blessed or you haven’t been paying much attention at the mall.  Man-buns are those stupid little ponytails that some men apparently think are attractive.  Are my true feelings showing through?  Men’s hair styles had pretty much remained unchanged from George Washington until the Beatles showed up and the man-bun is NOT a good step in the evolution of hair style, in my opinion. 

What about hair styles back in Bible times?  Did Jesus had long hair?  Probably not, in spite of what you’ve seen portrayed.  He probably didn’t have blue eyes either, but that’s another story.  But there WERE those in the pages of Scripture who definitely DID have long hair.  Three are specifically mentioned in the Bible – Samson the Strongman, Samuel the Prophet, and John the Baptist.  Who were these long-haired standouts?  They were known in their day as Nazarites (not to be confused with Nazarenes like Jesus, who lived in Nazareth). 

Just who were these Nazarites and why did they have long hair?  To become a Nazarite, a person had to pledge to be holy to God – consecrated and separated from normal people.  As a sign of that pledge, the Nazarite was committed to three things (you can see Numbers 6:1-21 for details):

·      Never cut their hair

·      Never be around a dead body, even close family 

·      Never drink wine or consume anything made from grapes

Now does that seem an odd list of things to show one’s commitment and dedication to God?  Why did God choose THOSE things out of all the ways He could have identified Nazarites?  I have some ideas:

By not cutting his hair, a man would definitely stand out.  In fact, long hair on a man was considered inappropriate in Bible times: “Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him?”  (1 Corinthians 11:14)  Long hair on the Nazarite would say to the world, “I don’t care what you think about me, because being acceptable to God is more important than being loved by the world.”  Jesus taught His disciples that to be rejected by the world shows us we belong to God: “…because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”  (John 15:19)

Why would a Nazarite avoid wine?  That one’s easier.  Wine is a symbol of the pleasures of this world.  By turning his back on any product of the grape vine, the Nazarite proclaimed his desire to love God more than the world.  It’s not that someone who loves God can’t enjoy any of the world’s pleasures.  We know that Jesus drank wine of some sort – but He wasn’t a Nazarite.  Why commit to putting aside the pleasures of the world to show our commitment to God?  To remind ourselves of what Jesus taught us about His kingdom: “My kingdom is not of this world.”  (John 18:36)

But does it seem a bit extreme that if your father died after you were committed as a Nazarite that you couldn’t attend the funeral?  The issue is that being around a dead body made one “ceremonially unclean” – unable to approach God in worship.  “He who touches the dead body of anyone shall be unclean…Whoever touches the body of anyone who has died, and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the Lord… ‘This is the law when a man dies in a tent: All who come into the tent and all who are in the tent shall be unclean…”. Numbers 19:11-14. The idea of uncleanness was to show that a worshipper must be free from sin to approach God, and the ultimate reminder of sin is physical death.  So a Nazarite was committed to not letting anything come between him and God – even those he loved.

Do we have Nazarites today?  No, but each of the commitments made by the Nazarite – not the outward signs but the REASON for the outward signs – are things each follower of Christ should be committed to today.  Living separated to God, not caring what the world thinks, not identifying with the world but the Kingdom, and not wanting anything to keep us from God – those are the vows of the Nazarite.  They sound a whole lot like how Jesus taught us we should live.  It all makes me wonder how I’d look with a ponytail?

Jacob