Pursueing Perseverance - James 1

² Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,^[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

James 1:2-4

As I was considering the approaching end of term and the students who are finishing exams, I could not help but think of the element of discipline built into  our educational process. In many ways, our degrees are as much a testament to our perseverance as they are to our mental prowess. While no one would deny that the content of our learning is important, it also needs to be stated that so too is the process of learning. When I think back to my undergrad years, and having to run the gauntlet of exams, tests, labs and papers, I realized that it had somehow changed my character. I had absorbed something that transcended what  I actually learned. My degree in Range and Wildlife management actually prepared me for seminary in ways I could not have predicted.

Persistence… Steadfastness… Forbearance… Perseverance... Endurance… Tenacity

This is a word grouping familiar to the generations that preceded mine. For my generation ( Boomers) and those following, increasingly less so…

We collectively are the generation of the microwave, the channel changer and the disposable razor.

Microwave?  Do you know they have now perfected the microwave pizza so that you only have to wait 7 minutes rather than a mind numbing 22 minutes. However, what you get in convenience and instantaneity you lose in quality. Nothing replaces the process of cooking with heat.  

The channel changer? Indeed, we have a collective case of low grade ADD. With the click of a mouse or the push of a button, we can ‘move on’, and not have to endure what we don’t want to. 

The Disposable razor?. We expect  short shelf lives. We factor in a built in obsolescence. This is true for relationships, or circumstances. You don’t like something (one) – well, you know what to do….

The word used for perserverance in the above text is a compound word in the original language.  Simply, it combines  ‘hupo’, which means ‘under’, with ‘mene’ -which means ‘remain’. While I am very aware that a word is not simply the sum of its parts (etc), this still has a message for us. Quite simply, it refers to “remaining under”. It means staying the course until the course has done its work.  And it has work to do that is deeper than we know.  While James is referring to ‘diverse trials’, the principle holds true across the board.

If there are still students around to read this, let me encourage you to “let perseverance finish its work”. Be encouraged that you are growing in ways you may not be aware of.

And let me express the sentiments of the entire school in wishing you a rewarding and refreshing summer.  

1 Corinthians 15 - Reflecting on Resurrection

1 Corinthians 15

²⁰ But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹ For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. ²² For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive…………..

⁴² So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; ⁴³ it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; ⁴⁴ it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

It is not difficult at this time of year to think of Resurrection. It is not only the Easter narrative, but the entire created order is bursting with new life.  A month ago, I introduced chapel by welcoming the congregants to the first day of spring. It was not without irony, because we were in the middle of a deep freeze and there were no signs whatsoever that spring was in fact here. But, Spring it was.

I think about that. We just endured an ice storm. Winter has not released its grip gently. But, it is fading away and the new day has come.

It is not unlike that with the future of the cosmos. The Day is here, but it is yet to come. We announce the reality of Resurrection and a New Heavens and a New Earth when everything around us denies or  contradicts our pronouncement. We do so because we have seen the FirstFruits of the Resurrection in the resurrection of Jesus. He is the Crocus of spring.

My wife and I just came back from a respite retreat for grieving parents. It was a room full of grief and Glory. Never did the hope of the resurrection seem more alive. Never more relevant. Never more true.

Have a glorious spring.

Robb

Losing God – only to truly find Him…

In last week’s devotional we looked at the post-resurrection account in Luke 23. In the account, which is known to most believers as “The Road to Emmaus” , the risen Jesus comes alongside his deeply disappointed and disillusioned followers and leads them from despair to exultant hope. His disciples had clung to a view of God which the Cross was certain to shatter, and when it did, Jesus Himself was there to reveal Himself to them. 

To finish this theme, I would like to offer extracts from ( Redeemer’s own?) Abraham Kuyper, who wrote of this process in his devotional To Be Near Unto God:

At first what our heart feels is that we cannot square this with our God as we imagined Him, as we had dreamed Him to be. The God we had, we lose, and then it costs so much bitter conflict of soul, before refined and purified in our knowledge of God, we grasp another, and now the only true God in the place thereof . . .

We fancy ourselves the main object at stake; it is our happiness, our honor, our future and God added in. According to our idea we are the center of things, and God is there to make us happy. The Father is for the sake of the child. And God’s confessed Almightiness is solely and alone to serve our interest. This is an idea of God which is false through and through, which turns the order around and, taken in its real sense, makes self God, and God our servant . . .

Cast down by your sorrow and grief, you become suddenly aware that this great God does not measure nor direct the course of things according to your desire; that in His plan there are other motives that operate entirely outside of your preferences. Then you must submit, you must bend.. . . .

This is the discovery of God’s reality, of His Majesty which utterly overwhelms you, of an Almightiness which absorbs within itself you and everything you call yours. And for the first time you feel what it is to confront the living God. And then begins the new endeavor of the soul, to learn to understand this real God.

Amen

Post Resurrection: The Road to Emmaus Luke 23

²⁰"About Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; ²¹but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place.

They were disappointed. They were dis-illusioned.

 

Illusions die hard. Theirs were resistant to the best preaching and teaching the world has ever known, from the best Teacher the world has ever seen.  Jesus was nothing if not clear and persistent that he would not fulfill some Davidic nationalistic fantasy ( Lk 18:31-34).  Yet this meme was deeply imbedded in their psyche. “We thought that he would be the one who would restore Israel…”

The Cross shatters and crushes illusions. It is exquisitely designed to do that. False hopes and dreams, however reasonable, however benign are put to death.  

C.S. Lewis describes how God can lovingly put to death even the most reasonable and benign expectations that we can put between us and His greater plan. 

“that God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all of this must fall from them in the end , and that if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched."

In defense of such expectations, surely, that is not too much to ask. We are not asking for the sun, moon and stars, after all.  We are merely asking for modest prosperity and the happiness of our children. Yet, it is not always to be.  

At some point in our life, most of us will be disappointed.   Let me be more direct. You will experience deep disappointment.  If you haven’t  already, prepare for it.  You will more than likely encounter dis-illusionment.  Events occur, quickly or gradually, that force you to dramatically re-calibrate your theology and your life philosophy.  

The fallout from disillusionment is all too often despair, anger, cynicism or even unbelief. We confuse the God we have created in our mind with the God who is. Further, we confuse our expectations ( which we have projected onto the God we have created with our minds)  with those of the living God.  Consider Jesus’ response to his followers’ despair.

²⁵He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! ²⁶Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" ²⁷
 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.  Luke 23

Vintage Jesus….was that a backhand to the back of the head? He firmly,  emphatically and lovingly calls them to embrace realism.  What are the components of realism?  Well, here are a few.  

This can be a hard, harsh world. Life is hard. Bad things happen to good people.  There is a huge gulf between what is and what should be…  Death is real and death is ugly.  

In the face of that, realism also asserts that God is good, He is in control and He has a bigger plan. His plan is unfolding. 

Realism tells me that because of the resurrection, I can assert that death is not final. Death, evil and sin, while all too real and powerful, do not win. While they may block out the sun, they are not ultimate.

Because of the resurrection

I can affirm that good conquers evil,

love conquers hate

and truth conquers lies.

Because of the resurrection

I know that death cannot conquer life

and that the darkness will not prevail over the light.

Maybe you are on the road to Emmaus with Jesus. Maybe you are lost in your struggle and being swallowed up in your thoughts and growing despair.  Or perhaps the doubts are circling like wolves at twilight. The Cross part of the equation is all too real to you right now. 

Know this. He is walking with you.  It’s not just about being comforted. Expect Him to challenge you to your core. Allow Him to teach you. He will reveal Himself to you in ways you would never expect. 

Shalom.  He is truly risen!

Easter Monday

At the end of his remarkable pastoral letter to the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul passes on that which is of “first importance”. He begins by underlining the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It happened. It actually happened. And as a result, things would never again be the same.

³ For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance^[a]

: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

⁴ that he was buried,

that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas,^[b] and then to the Twelve.

Having reiterated the FACT of the resurrection, he then explains its SIGNIFICANCE. He does so by speculating on what it means if it were not true

¹³ If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. ¹⁵ … ¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. ¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. ¹⁹ If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

The resurrection of Jesus has everything to do with everything.. Paul puts it emphatically and squarely on the table. If this is not true, then just forget about it.

I vividly remember the Easter of 2010. As I stood over the rectangular scar of dirt that was now the resting place of my recently departed son, David, I murmured to my Father, through my tears.. “This better be true…..”.  I was not looking for consolation. I wanted the truth. 

No longer was eternity a backdrop to the unfolding story of my life. It was no longer an idea to be contemplated and discussed at leisure.  It was as if my camera lens had shifted and the “Background” came into focus and became the central point of the picture. Resurrection and eternity…. it matters. It really matters.

The entire 15^th chapter is an astounding  affirmation of this truth. And the highpoint for me is in verse 20 when the apostle answers speculative doubt full on…. and in doing so summarizes the entire chapter in one ringing sentence.

²⁰ But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead,

the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Amen!