WHOSE FINAL LAP?

 

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth (Isaiah 42: 1-4a).

In my high school days I ran a few 400 meter races. I remember our coach telling us that it was one of the weirdest track events because it combined elements of sprinting and of long distance into one race.

I find the school year can be somewhat like that: an 8 month long-distance sprint. And just like the 400 meters requires circling the track four times, today – Feb. 24 – we are beginning the fourth lap of the SEPT-APRIL school year, with half a semester to go.

Living life as if it is a 400 meter race does not work very well. When we live this way:

·   We always feel rushed.

·   We do not feel as if we can take unplanned “side-trips” but must only stay within the boundaries of the track.

·   We are so focused on the finish line, that the people that we are on the track with are not so much “flesh-and-blood human beings to get to know” as they are fellow-racers.

·   The scenery around the track can’t be given the time to be what it is: a combination of the beauty of God’s world and the brokenness of sin in the midst of which we find our calling.

Running life like a 400 meter race diminishes us, others, God and his world.

There’s another way to look at this final fourth of the academic year. Almost all of this quarter is filled with the season of Lent, the 40 days from Ash Wednesday (March 5) to the glorious climax on Easter Sunday (April 20). Lent navigates the final lap of Jesus’ ministry on the way to the cross and the open tomb.

In the verses above, Isaiah describes what this final lap looks like:

·   This race is driven by the Holy Spirit, not the finish line.

·   It does not call attention to itself; it quietly and gently follows the Spirit’s leading.

·   The racer is able to go slowly enough to notice the bruised reeds and smoldering wicks – the ones who are struggling and lost – and is able to STOP and care for them.

·   The racers are fully aware of how broken life is, but do not become discouraged or burned out; they persevere, pursuing justice and mercy in all they do.

Do you experience the tension between these two types of final laps inside your own heart? Every morning I need to pray, “Lord, grant me the grace and courage to run YOUR race and not mine. Guide my feet on the LENTEN path.”

The chaplains’ office will be providing our community with many encouragements to live out this prayer for the remainder of the school year. Stay tuned….

Attention

When hard pressed, I cried to the LORD.
He brought me into a spacious place. The LORD is with me: I will not be afraid.

Psalm 118:5,6b NIV

 

What does it take for the LORD to get our attention? I mean, really get our attention? Scripture, history and our own experience indicates that when thing go “well”, we are likely less attentive to Him ( Dt 8:14). I don’t quite know why that is. I wish it weren’t so. I am sure there are manifold exceptions, but they simply prove the rule. Our attention wanders and God uses “pressure” to turn us towards Him.

The psalmist recounts his trial. The NIV translates “hard pressed” what it elsewhere describes as “being in distress”. He didn’t have it all together. Life was closing in on him. He was under pressure. In his case, it was due to the efforts of people who were out to hurt him. That may be true in our case, but usually it is a combination of stressors that should indicate that maybe, just maybe, we should turn to Him. Not in formality but in a heartfelt way.

So, what did he do? He cried out. The tone of the psalm would indicate that he” poured it out”. When God has our attention, we likely have His. He knows the difference between whining ( grumbling) and a heartfelt call for help from a desperate place. What comes to mind is the sound of a steam kettle when it is boiling over. I know that sound, and can differentiate it from other sounds. Parents can differentiate between the cries of their children. If I can be so bold, it seems as though the LORD’s ear is attuned to certain ‘sounds’.

The problem with the contemporary version of our species is that we look for all sorts of other means to reduce the stress. We find ways to distract and medicate ourselves, and avoid using the pain and distress as a signal, an opportunity, to press into His grace and provision. Indeed, we will often do anything else BUT.

We are all at different places. But stress, in varying intensity, is something common to our community. So is the feeling of being “hard pressed”. We encounter it differently. We deal with it differently. But hear the psalmist. In crying out to the LORD, it does not seem as though his situation necessarily changed. But His ability to deal with it was transformed. He encountered God. “The LORD is with me.. I will not be _______ “.

See your pain or distress as a “wakeup”. Turn to Him. Be real. Pour it out. Press in. Allow Him to reveal Himself to you in the midst of your valley. He does it well.

Kings and Queens

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8)

You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth. (Rev. 5: 9-10)

True confessions: I read bedtime stories to Evelyn just before we go to sleep at night. Right now we’re working through one of C. S. Lewis’ Narnia books, the series in which British school children become kings and queens in the land of Narnia. It’s the perfect February read. When it seems like the whole world is screaming out words like “darkness,” “never-ending cold,” “weariness,” and climaxing with, “give it up, you can’t make a difference,” C. S. Lewis gently and playfully declares, “Syd, you are a king and Evelyn, you are a queen.”

And of course, he is simply re-phrasing a deep and rich biblical truth. God created us as kings and queens, and one of the major results of Christ’s redemptive work is that he equips us to reign with him over the entire earth.

I know that often this sounds very grandiose in a “spiritually-out-of-touch” kind of way, but actually feels like it means very little when we wake up on a February morning. Bear with me.

Pastor John Ortberg once took fifteen minutes to describe how Christians changed the world during the first centuries after Pentecost. He described how providing universal learning, creating hospitals, and caring for the poor became normal in societies that made room for gospel salt and light. He described how every pre-Christian culture divided people into those who were “more human,” “less human,” and “not really human,” and how the declaration that Jesus restores the Image of God in us explodes all attempts to categorize people to justify social injustice.

I’ll never forget the day when our youngest child (who now has a history degree, and always has loved history, and was born with some physical handicaps) cheerfully announced at the family dinner table (at the age of 8), “If I had been born in ancient Sparta, I would have been left out on the rocks to die.” He lived because he was born in a country in which kings and queens like you and me had spread their salt and light throughout the entire culture.

Jesus declares to us, “You are a king or queen. Follow me, and I’ll equip you and lead you as you rule in my name.” That’s worth getting out of bed for, even in February.