Mirrored Audacity

We look and sound the most silly when we least understand.

Consider some of the things you’ve said or done over your life that can still make you cringe and/or blush today.  At some point we’ve all stuck the proverbial foot in our mouths.  Our words clearly expressing the fact that we don’t know what we were talking about, and now everybody knows it.

These experiences can cause us to develop a filter through which every word must pass before it receives permission to be spoken.  We turn our attention inward in an attempt to retain our dignity in the eyes of others.  This can be a good thing.

But if we spend too much time self-evaluating we may miss the reality of the universe-cracking truths that are all around us.  Sometimes it takes being offended or alarmed at what someone else says to make us aware of those truths.  We gain a new understanding of the fine line between the two sides of audacity.

audacity:

1.  boldness or daring: daring or willingness to challenge assumptions or conventions or tackle something difficult or dangerous

2.  impudence: lack of respect in somebody's behavior toward another person

OMG!

In Matthew 8/9, there are actions and statements that could cause some eyebrows to raise or palms to sweat.  Statements or demands made to/about Jesus that, when observed through the lens of what we view as “proper”, seem inappropriate and bordering on hubris.

They are made by people both foreign and common to Jesus.  They are made by friends, strangers, and enemies of Jesus.  They are all made in the context of approaching Jesus.  And they all provide keys to understanding.

First, a leper approaches Jesus.  This probably set some people on edge as it unfolded and is the most alarming aspect of the scene.  The audacity of a leper to make contact with someone else is alarming, “wrong”, even scandalous.  There were rules in place to govern what and where a leper could do or go.  This action is clearly not in line with convention.  Then comes the statement, “…you can make me clean.”  As clearly confident as his footsteps forward.

Next, a soldier, a foreign soldier, comes to Jesus.  Not as unlikely an approach, but a “marvelous” scene of boldness when we get to the conversation.  The soldier simply states that his servant is paralyzed at his house.  Jesus says he will come.  But the soldier redirects the course of events.  He basically says, “No, not that way.”  He tells Jesus how to heal his servant.  And in telling Jesus what to do exhibits a right-minded boldness based on a right-minded understanding.

Subsequently, the disciples find themselves in a boat on the sea in the middle of a great storm.  And they find Jesus…asleep.  They approach him with apparent faithlessness due to a lack of understanding.  “We are perishing!”, they say.  Jesus remedies their perspective by displaying a marvel of his own.  He talks to the wind.  He commands the waves.  And they obey.  Their jaws drop in order to facilitate that proverbial foot we mentioned earlier.

There are others.  Demons, speaking through men, seemingly dictate to Jesus what to do with them.  Religious leaders miss the point of the healing of one and a calling of another, so Jesus spells it out.  Wrong-headed questions from wrong-headed understanding.

 Stepping Towards The Mirror

All these people approached Jesus with an understanding.  Their understanding guided what they boldly did or said to Jesus.  And Jesus’s responses show us which ones understood rightly.  He serves as a mirror to which all come and discover the truth.

Those who approached Jesus with a right understanding are affirmed in their boldness by him.  The leper was healed.  The soldier was elevated as the epitome of understanding.

Those who approached with a wrong understanding were shown the faultiness of their misguided boldness.  The disciples witnessed how the voice of Jesus was the same voice heard at the creation of the universe.  They understood him to be less than He is, and He corrected their too-little premises.

So I ask you, which of the two do you relate with?  Which appeared more reasonable to you before Jesus lifted the cover and revealed what/who was truly right?

Our actions and words show upon what understanding they are based.  And in an attempt to fit in we often act and speak in line with the majority because its easier to be accepted than to be audacious.  However, if we stand before the mirror long enough we’re going to discover that God is not acting in a conventional way.  And the more we understand what God has done, we will find ourselves moving and speaking in ways that will seem silly to many.

The (Seemingly) Impossible Truth

It’s easier to believe with the unbelieving because what they believe is less grand than the truth.  And here is the truth.

It is impossible to approach God more boldly than He has approached us.

The leper’s approach and the soldier’s approach are not as out of line as might be thought on initial perception.  But they are completely in line with the language God is speaking.  They understood who Jesus was and what God was doing in approaching them (a rejected outcast and a resented enemy), and they mirrored Him.

God’s entrance into our lives is not a polite whisper dripping with syrupy politeness.  There is no etiquette or form that God abides by in His approach.  He is blunt.  He is direct.  He is audacious.

And if He, as great as He truly is, will blaze so bold a path to me, as ungreat as I truly am, then should I not reciprocate with as bold a belief?  Should I not lay aside my proud misunderstandings and be wholly grasped by true understanding?  Yes.  Even if it makes me look silly to most.

Because an understanding of the truth should lead to exhibitions of audacity.  Wondered at by some leading to their encouragement.  Ruffling the feathers of others highlighting their hubris.  Illustrating for all the marvelous approach of God to man.

Awakened In The Day

When Dreams Break Through

A sudden cry broke the stillness of sleep last night.  It wasn’t the scream of pain or the shriek of fright.  It was more like the moaning of disappointment or the recollection of past hurt.  My daughter had a bad dream, and her body reacted to what was going through her mind.

Doubtless, she was recalling some major minor disappointment from the previous day.  A toy was taken or not given.  Her way was denied.  And the conflict escalated to confrontation and crying.  Now she is reliving the moment in her mind, and she cries.

And that begs the question in my mind this morning: if my daughter can be awakened in the night by the fighting she has done in the day, can I be awakened in the day to do those things about which I have dreamt all night?

At Home In A Foreign Place

There are those things in our lives (or rather in our minds) that, even the mere thought of them, thrill the deepest parts of us to the highest of heights.  They are like a foreign place you enter for the first time, and from the moment you walk through the door you feel completely at home.  Or rather, you feel like you are returning home.

When once these places have been found, we never want to leave.  And even when we must return to reality we find that our hearts never truly leave those place.  Nor do they leave us.  They stay with us.  Within us.  You could call them the ‘desires of your heart’ (Psalm 37).

Every breeze now seemingly blows from that place, and quickens our minds to recollection and beckons us to come.  At some point, hopefully, we will find the draw of that place too powerful to overcome, and we will go.  No matter how great the cost to us or how outwardly small the reward, we will be there.

We will be there because it is not about ‘things’ any longer.  Being there will supersede all else.  We will be there for the place itself.  The place is our prize.  The prize of rightness.

Stepping Stones To Home

Paul knew well the breezes from that distant place.  He endured terrific opposition and trial, yet could speak of overflowing joy and indescribable peace.  He may have been here, but his heart was in that other place.  Every moment and occurrence in life was a stepping stone.  Whether or not his steps were popular or judged right by others was insignificant.  Paul was headed to his heart’s home, and every moment along the way was redeemed by the rightness of his ultimate destination.

Near the end of his life, we read some words he wrote to his friend and spiritual son, Timothy.

“…the time of my departure has come.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  Henceforth, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

That ultimate place of rightness with the Lord encroached backwards into Paul’s daily existence.  He found every place he entered made right by the land to which he was headed.

And that’s my prayer for us today.  May we experience the rightness of home in all that we do here.  May the recurring dreams of our hearts become the realities of our doings today and everyday.  May the security of God’s righteousness embolden us to live deeply and richly as we walk towards His voice.

Reversal

God’s word is weighty.  It is substantive.  Consider that all the things you will see and touch today are the congealment of God’s spoken word.  When His word comes in contact with something (like a mountain, see Zechariah 4 or Matthew 21) it is the ‘something’ that is moved.  There is nothing in all of existence that is of greater substance than God’s word.

This can (and should) be applied to our lives today.  The highest ‘mountains’ of wrong, fear, hurt, confusion, or ______________ that seem to span the entire horizon of our days are no match for the smallest word of God.  It doesn’t seem or feel like that should be the case, but, in true reality, it is.  God’s word holds the power of reversal.

‘Those’ days and ‘These’ days

In Zechariah, we encounter Israel facing the mountains of utter decimation and defeat.  They are captive, plundered, and forced to dwell in the midst of a conquering kingdom.  They are a byword and the punch-line to the jokes spoken in every foreign language.  Laughter, unfortunately in this case, is a universal languages.  They understand that things aren’t like they used to be in the “good old days.”

In ‘those’ days, men and women dwelt comfortably in a secure city.  The streets resounded with the laughter and shouts of boys and girls playing.  Long life was the norm.  You needed a good staff because your life was going to outlast your body (see Zechariah 8).

But ‘those’ days are long gone.  Only a few remain who remember what it was like to be among friends rather than foreigners.  Yes, ‘those’ days are gone because God spoke them away.  The people of ‘those’ days neglected to remember that all the good they knew and saw was the product of God’s word of blessing.  They fashioned in their minds that this good life was the life of their own making, and they turned their entire being away from God and His word.

So, in order that His people would be ever mindful of the power and character of His word, God spoke again: exile, plunder, and loss as the everyday experience.  Reversal for the sake of revelation.

This is happening again.

Into the mire of captivity and woe, a voice is heard.  Few are the ears that will recognize it, though it addresses all exiles.

“Return to me, and I will return to you…”

“My city shall be rebuilt…”

“Up!  It’s time to go home…!”

“Your captor becomes your plunder…”

“I will be your God, and you will be my people…”

Scandalous Sentiments

God then begins to return His people to Jerusalem.  He raises leaders in Nehemiah, Ezra, Zerubbabel, and Joshua.  The exiles are home.  But more than that their hearts are home.

God accomplishes more than the rebuilding of a city.  The city is simply a location for Him to put the people that he is restoring.  And, as great as this historical reality is, this whole movement is a sign, a reverse echo, of what is to come.

The reversal of the exiles’ situation is a foreshadowing of the reversal that Jesus affects in our hearts today.  It is a foretelling of the gospel.  But have you considered the full implication that the story holds?  There are elements to this reversal that can border on scandalous if I’m not careful.  I type with trepidation as I ponder them.

Although Israel physically dwelt in Babylon their true “captor” was not an earthly force.  They were living under the weight not of a foreign king, but of God’s Word.  They were where they were because God spoke.

Although sin is our experiential ruler, we bear the burden of the condemnation God decreed through His Word.  We are “captive” to God’s righteous judgment.  We are where we are because God spoke it to be this way.

God stands as our captor.  We lie defeated under the victory of His Word.

But God didn’t stop speaking.  His Word eventually became flesh, and actually dwelt among us (Zechariah 2; John 1).

When God spoke the reversal of captor becoming plunder for His people, He fulfilled those words for us Himself in Christ.  God, in Jesus, stepped into the place of captivity, and set us in the place of victory.  Here is where caution is warranted, as the gospel advances to new and seemingly scandalous (to me at least) depths.

Now, we did nothing to defeat or overcome God and His Word.  It wasn’t our blood shed in the struggle with our sin (Hebrews 12).  Don’t exalt yourself into that role.  That is blatantly scandalous and heretical.  But there is a  sense of God becoming my “plunder” that strikes a new chord in me.  Not that I capture Him, but that He ordains Himself to become my treasure by becoming the object of His own wrath and plunders Himself.  Then, gives that treasure to me.

Does this help to drive home the immensity and power of God’s love for us?  Or the extent of our salvation?  This gift of the only truly free Person in all existence taking on the role, the position of captive.  And this, for me.  In my place.

Reality And Illustration

Examine this scene:  Two prisoners.  Barnabas, who is guilty, and Jesus, who is not.  Barnabas stands in the place, as do we, of notorious guilt.  Jesus, alone, stands in the place of singular innocence.  And yet it is Barnabas, and we, who walks away a free man, and Jesus who is delivered over as a prisoner to be scourged and crucified.  (The only confused one is Pilate, the judge, who walks away guilty, yet declaring himself innocent by his own decree.)

Barnabas was a prisoner of the law, of God.  Guilty.  The plunder of justice and of God.

Jesus was the freeman of the law, of God.  Innocent.  The possessor of the riches of justice and of God.

There is no other explanation for this reversal of outcomes except that God’s Word has come into contact with the mountain of reality and the mountain has been moved.

Gracious illustrations are nice, but the reality of grace is scandalous.