Court dress

But the Son of God has come! April 10, 2023

1 John 5:19-20 The world around us is under the control of the evil one. And the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding so that we can know the true God. … He is eternal life.

My heart is so full of the blessing of yesterday–I want to share a few of many special moments with you. Dave and I love attending the sunrise service at 6:00 a.m. The service begins in total darkness as we review God’s work leading up to this day. We are each handed a candle, and the first half of the service is conducted by candlelight.

Before I go on, a bit of context:

On Thursday evening, at the end of the footwashing service, the altar had been stripped of every decoration as the light gradually lowers until the pastor ends with the reading by candlelight of Luke 22:39-53. Verse 53 ends with, “But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.” As he says “the power of darkness,” the pastor blows out his candle. At the same instant, all remaining light in the sanctuary is extinguished. We sit in silence in the darkness, and when we’re ready, leave in the same way.

On Friday, from noon until 3:00, in various ways, including art works from people in the congregation, we shared in Jesus’s suffering on the cross, suffering for each of us. We are invited to write our sins and burdens and walk forward to leave our folded papers in a basket at the foot of the rough wooden cross, bearing a crown of thorns, at the front of the church. At the end of the service, these are taken outside and burned, to symbolize Christ bearing them for us.

On Easter morning, as we enter the dark sanctuary, we have in our minds the stripped altar and the cross. But at a certain moment in the service, the lights and the choir explode, and we see the sanctuary full of flowers. Madly ringing bells we have brought from home for this moment, the congregation joins the choir in wholehearted praise.

This year, when the lights came on, we also saw an amazing mosaic at the front of the church. This also requires a bit of context, going back to Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22. We were invited to bring to that service a piece of pottery from home, which we placed in a big metal tub and smashed with hammers at the end of the service, to illustrate our brokenness.

An artist, with the help of anyone from the church who wished to participate, took those broken pieces and created beauty from them. People crowded around after the service to admire it and to identify pieces from their own broken cup or bowl or pitcher. Many of us were in tears at this visual, visceral symbol of God’s transformation and healing offered us through Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross. The photo I managed to capture:

The mosaic reminded me of the last chapter of Suffering and the Heart of God. Diane Langberg waxes poetic as she describes Jesus on the cross, and then restored to life, healing our brokenness. Here’s part of what she says:

The cross is a place of death and evil; decay and wrath. It is a pace of darkness, thirst, isolation, rejection, abandonment, and bondage. It is the absence of God and all that is good. It is hell itself.

And whom do we see there? The Lily of the Valley, the Rose of Sharon. We see the fairest of ten thousand, the beauty of God incarnate. We see purity, holiness, infinite love, compassion, and eternal glory. …

Death and evil seemed to have won. But God had so much more up his sleeve:

What happened that third day? Decay was transformed into glory. Death was swallowed up by life. Evil was transfigured into holiness, and the wrath of men into praise. Darkness was changed to light, and hell defeated by heaven. Thirst is transformed into living water and brokenness into the bread of life. Alienation led to restored relationship and bondage led to freedom.

If garbage can be transformed into beauty on such a scale as this, then surely it can happen in my small life and in the lives of others. … The cross, a thing of beauty? Yes, for it is at the cross that we behold all of the beauties of Christ in perfection. All of his love is drawn out there. All of his character expressed. The wounds of Jesus are far more fair than all the splendor of this world. …

Children of God in a world controlled by the Evil One. I fear the odds are against us. Our wits are too slow, our understanding finite and our strength too frail. But, glorious but, “the Son of God has come … to transform garbage into beauty, first in our lives and then in those we serve. … So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen (2 Corinthians 4:18). And what is it that is unseen? The Lord of Glory, the Lord of all Beauty, who wears the appearance of a slain Lamb as his court dress. …

May we count Him alone as worthy and all else as rubbish. May we desire one thing—to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek his beautiful face. And then may the beauty of our Lord be upon us. May he establish the work of our lives.

I invite you to enjoy our choir’s Easter anthem, called “Glad of Heart,” written in 1568, here (start at 1:39:50) Of course, you can watch any of the rest of the live stream you wish–or either of the other two services. The worship during communion begins at 1:59:23. Here is the text:

Now glad of heart be everyone! The fight is fought, the battle won, the Christ is set upon his throne, alleluia, alleluia!
Who on the wood was crucified, who rose again, as at this tide, in glory to his Father’s side, alleluia, allelluia!
Who baffled death and harrowed hell and led the souls that loved him well, all in the light of lights to dwell: alleluia, alleluia!
To him we lift our heart and voice and in his paradise rejoice with harp and pipe and happy noise. Sing alleluia, alleluia!
Then rise all Christian folk with me and carol forth the One in Three that was, and is, and is to be, alleluia, alleluia!

Though this has become a long post, I want to share one more thing, related to verse 4 of this anthem. Several weeks ago I started practicing with my grandchildren a simple piece of music (“Allelu, allelu, allelu, alleluia, Praise ye the Lord) to share with their parents at our Easter brunch, accompanied by a variety of simple instruments. The adults at the table each had an instrument as well, to join in the song after the children “taught” it to them. “Happy noise” indeed! It was such fun that we sang and “played” other songs as well, ending, at Talita’s request, with “Twinkle, twinkle, little star.” Since the morning sermon had referenced Jesus as the Morning Star, each of us to reflect his glory, this seemed oddly appropriate!

Places we would rather not go

But Christ is the treasure in the darkness

Isaiah 61:1-2 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.

Why must we walk with Jesus his path to the cross? Why can’t we skip directly to Easter?

Dr. Diane Langberg thinks deeply about what it means to share the anointing Jesus claimed as his own (Luke 4:20). Here is a selection from “The Fellowship of His Sufferings,” Chapter 5 of her book Suffering and the Heart of God (emphasis mine):

These verses [Isaiah 61:1-3] bring us comfort, but if we are to follow Jesus we must walk into poverty, brokenness, prisons, darkness, mourning, and despair. These are not places we desire to go. … He has called us to live and serve him in this dark place of death, this world, moving among those who are dead in their trespasses and sins, calling them to light and life.

It is not the kind of invitation most of us like to receive. He is the Man of Sorrows and familiar with suffering. He was despised and rejected. He took up our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was crushed for our sins, oppressed, judged, and cut off from the land of the living. And you and I, as the servants of God, are called to complete in our lives what is lacking in regard to Christ’s suffering, for the sake of his body.

The call to share in the fellowship of his sufferings is preceded by the call to worship, the call to truly know him as he is. … Unless we begin from the pace of worship, we will not have power to descend to the places of suffering. … God is on his throne and is our eternal refuge. Worship must come first or we will exalt ourselves and think that the drab drudgery of the rubble is not meant for us. …

God must permeate your being if you are to bring life to dead places. … We must first allow the Spirit of God to bring his power to bear in the dark and dead places of our own lives. We must begin on our knees. He has borne our selfishness, our complacency, our love of success, and our pride. There is no part of any tragedy that he has now known and carried.

God will use the suffering of others to drive you to himself for more of him. Such darkness would overwhelm and lead to despair were there not a treasure there. The treasure in the darkness is the Crucified Christ. To enter into the fellowship of his sufferings is to find him.

But Jesus faithfully forgives us, by Dick Grady, President of Global Church Planting Network

1 John 1:9 But if we confess our sins to Jesus, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.

One of our GCPN partners recently shared this story:

Solomon and his team are training new believers in a region where Christians were martyred just three years ago. Apparently, one of the training participants (we will call him Mark) had a brother among those martyrs. Mark had become a follower of Jesus like his brother, so he fled to a neighboring country, fearing for his safety.

In fact, Mark had traveled back to his home region just to attend Solomon’s training, but he didn’t know two of the men who killed his brother were also attending the training.

The intense time began when he entered the room and the two men acknowledged him, Solomon said. Tears broke out from the two men as Mark fumed with anger and urgency of wanting revenge. The training was put on hold to sort out this hot issue. Mark, a man Solomon knew as peaceful, honest, and strong in faith, confessed he was filled with anger and strong will to make these men suffer just like his brother.

Solomon said it took all night to calm the group. The killers begged for forgiveness from Mark. One of the murderers made this confession:

I understand what I did was wrong. I have no excuse. I have nothing to pay equal to the loss, pain, and sufferings you have passed through. But after your brother’s death, God touched my soul as he did with you and your late brother. I believe in Jesus Christ now; I am a new man!

The killers offered Mark their own lives. After some time, Mark decided to leave the training. It was impossible to convince him to stay, one of the trainers said. He left around 3 a.m. Then at 6 a.m. he showed up again. Mark testified how God spoke to him to learn the power of the cross. Mark said Holy Jesus spoke to him and forgave him.

Solomon continued, He said he had no choice but to forgive these men and learn how to treat them as brothers.

Solomon told me that Mark sat with the men who had killed his brother and joined in the training. They all shared testimonies about difficulties they had encountered since choosing to follow Jesus.

We prepared a lot for the training, Solomon said. But we are now facilitating something we had not planned. We are allowing the Spirit to lead.

But God said “Go”

Acts 9:1-5, 10-17 Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord’s followers … As he approached Damascus on this mission, a light from heaven suddenly shone down around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?” “Who are you, lord?” Saul asked. And the voice replied, I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting … The Lord spoke to Ananias in a vision … “Go over to Straight Street … ask for a man named Saul. He is praying to me right now. “But Lord,” exclaimed Ananias, “I’ve heard many people talk about the terrible things this man has done to the believers! … But the Lord said, “Go, for Saul is my chosen instrument … So Ananias went and found Saul. He laid his hands on him and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus … has sent me so that you might regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

I bet if I were to ask Saul (later called Paul) to tell me his God story, he would first tell me this one—in fact, Scripture records him doing so many times, to various audiences. So, what’s your God story?We delight God when we tell what he does for us. Your stories, like mine, might not be as dramatic as Saul’s, but that doesn’t matter. All stories are good ones when t tohey honor God.

So here’s my story: I grew up in a missionary family, but it wasn’t until I was six that I understood Jesus had died for me and prayed the prayer, inviting Jesus into my life. My sister Marsha told me to write the date in the front of my Bible, so I would always remember this important event.

That’s it! Not dramatic at all. But of course, that was only the beginning. Remember when I mentioned that I started talking to God all the time? That began on February 26, 1961. Young as I was, from then on, I knew God was with me. I believe the Holy Spirit communicated that to me. I believe he preserved my life the first time I seriously considered ending it at age eight and several times after. Life wasn’t easy for me or for my siblings. Our mother was mentally ill, and our father didn’t know how to deal with that and protect us kids. I despaired many times, wounded as all of us were. But God, the Source of life, defended us—not from the wounding, but from ultimate despair. I am so grateful for his care for all eight of us.

The Lord says “Go!” to each of us in different ways. Right now, he’s saying to me, “Go love your precious grandkids.” So I’m off!

*At Brandywine Falls, Cuyahoga Valley National Park last weekend*

But God shares our sorrow

Acts 7:59-8:2 As the Jewish leaders stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!” And with that he died. Saul was one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the killing of Stephen. A great wave of persecution began that day … Some devout men came and buried Stephen with great mourning. But Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into prison.

Romans 8:17, 26 If we are to share Christ’s glory, we must also share his suffering … But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.

Covid is battering our friends across South America. Daily, it seems, we hear of another heart-rending situation involving people we know and love. So while we delight in the re-opening of our lives here in the U.S., thanks to life-saving vaccines, we’re reminded constantly that this pandemic is not over. Nor will be in the foreseeable future.

A pandemic is one thing. Suffering people deliberately inflict on each other, as Saul did to the early church, is even more painful, especially if God’s holy name is used to justify wounding and destruction. Sadly, this is nothing new. I’m grappling with bitter historical realities in my research for Treasure Hunt 1904.

But God had a plan for Saul, and we’ll get to that in the next chapter of Acts. The time came when Saul, known later as Paul, wrote, “In my insolence, I persecuted God’s people. But God had mercy on me. Oh, how generous and gracious our Lord was!” (1 Timothy 1:13). God offers mercy and hope of transformation to anyone willing to hear his voice of compassion. Even the perpetrators. Inexplicably, he loves our broken world.

Paul continues telling Timothy that despite human arrogance, “He alone is God” (verse 17). God’s not rattled by my sense that the world (and even the church) has gone crazy. He’s still on his throne–remember Stephen’s vision? He has a plan.

So I offer to you, Lord, my sorrow and grief, my anger at what I see as manipulative and unjust, my worry about what’s happening in the U.S. and the world, my frustration with my own limited vision and frail faith.

And now maybe I can go back to sleep.