Forgiveness: The Gift You Cannot Give to Yourself

In my blog post "Surprised Goats," posted in here yesterday, I said,

"The only antidote for that fear is hearing the gospel from the lips of another over and over and over, ad infinitum. I say we need to hear it from another because that truth is easier to believe when someone else says it to us than when we say it to ourselves. It just is. 

"That, right there, is the primary reason for the need of a group of at least two or three! We must have continual outside confirmation and reassurance that the gospel is true and that we are safe and loved by God, or we will soon succumb to fatal doubt and die...or worse, we will revert to the default and fatal belief in the need to earn God's approval by being good enough, which is spiritual death."

Today I would like to talk about another primary and related need we have for each other:

Forgiveness. 

Even atheist psychologists will tell you that the need to be rid of guilt is basic. Unless we are severely mentally ill, everyone feels badly about things they have thought, said or done. 

The non-Christian advice is to "forgive yourself." That sounds right. The problem, however, is that we are not built to do that. The closest we are able to come to accomplishing that feat is to keep burying the guilt. I say "keep", because the guilt typically repeatedly  rises from the "grave." 

As inconvenient as what I'm about to tell you sounds, it is the truth: We are created in such a way that forgiveness, in order to be truly accepted, must come from the outside.

As a Christian, I recognize first and foremost that the only means of true forgiveness is found in Christ. The reality is that every wrong in the world is, at its heart, first an offense against God, and for that reason he is the primary source of the forgiveness for all offenses. It was for that reason the entire forgiveness operation, otherwise known as the Gospel, was established. Christ came to make forgiveness a thing. Outside of him, there is no forgiveness, only repeatedly buried guilt. 

That is, as I said, first and foremost. Following right on it's heels, though, is the fact that one of the most precious and important things that we get to do for each other as Christians is to forgive one another; but I'm not saying what you probably think I'm saying!

Surely, we need to be as generous with our forgiveness, when we are wronged, as God has been with us! No question! But that is not what I'm talking about here. 

What I mean is that, in the same way we need to hear the Gospel spoken to us from the lips of another, we also need to hear the words of forgiveness and absolution from the lips of another, which is simply applying the Gospel to one another!

Forgiveness is not only easier to believe when someone else says it to us than when we say it to ourselves--It is the only way we have a chance to truly believe it! And even then it will need to be spoken repeatedly. 

I'm not talking about a priest in a confessional booth, although the recognition of this genuine need was initially at the heart of that concept. I'm talking about the privilege and responsibility we all have as believers to offer that forgiveness to each other, to speak over each other the life giving words that, no matter what we have thought, said or done, we are forgiven because of what Christ did to make that forgiveness a reality. 

That privilege is granted to every single believer. We have every right in the face of any need to say to each other something like this:

"By the command of and in the stead of my Lord, Jesus Christ, I declare to you that you are forgiven of all of your sins in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Be at peace. You are loved."

I know, personally, the relief that those words can give. My hope and prayer is that, if you needed to hear those words spoken to you today, you will take them as your own. I speak them to you! And I pray that you will begin to find the freedom to ask for them as you feel the need, as well as the freedom to offer them to others.

The Surprised Goats

32Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

33And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.

41¶“Then he will say to those on his left [the goats], ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

42For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,

43I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’

44Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’

45Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’

46And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Matthew 25:32-33, 41-46

I recently had a conversation with a dear friend who has a difficult time believing that her salvation is genuine. Regarding the passage above, this person said, "I always identify with the surprised goats at the end, who thought they were saved, but they weren't." Her fear was that this doubt itself was a deal breaker to God.

I wanted my friend to understand that stories of doubt about the genuineness of conversion are very common among believers and to know that God isn't put off by our doubt. He knows our frailty and loves us through it. 

In the Bible, right off the top of my head, I  think of Moses, who doubted that he could speak well enough to do what God asked him to do, even though God went overboard to reveal that it was actually GOD, right there in front of him, telling him that he could do it; but, instead of striking Moses dead for doubt and insubordination, God just let him take Aaron. 

There was Peter, who literally lied about knowing Jesus instead of trusting God when things got tough, but who was not only forgiven but commissioned by Jesus to go and "feed my sheep." 

Then, there was poor "Doubting Thomas," ever identified by his weakness, but who saw Christ and then became a stalwart apostle.  

There was also the poor father who desperately just wanted his son to stop being tormented, who famously said, "Lord, I believe! Help, my unbelief!" He speaks for all of us.

Apart from stories in scripture, I would suggest that most of those who "made a decision" for Christ at some point in their conscious lives will tell you their sad stories about their doubts regarding their sincerity, primarily fed by false teaching about the supporting evidence we are supposedly going to be able to see when we look at our ever transforming lives after that decision. The lack of that "evidence" leads us straight to doubt and fear. 

The thing is, we will never find the assurance we need when we look to ourselves! All we will ever have when we look inward is doubt, for one simple reason: People always mess up! 

Most of us have experienced enough disappointment and dysfunction in our lives to condition us not to trust, because, bottom line, people just aren't trustworthy! 

The proverbial rug gets pulled out on us. The people who are supposed to love us and take care of us frequently not only don't do the bare minimum properly, but they inflict serious damage. The things we all should have been able to count on, have all too often turned out to be just dangling carrots. It is almost inevitable that we will transfer our learned lack of trust to God! As a result, there is a part of every Christian that fears we will be a surprised goat!

The only antidote for that fear is hearing the gospel from the lips of another over and over and over, ad infinitum. I say we need to hear it from another because that truth is easier to believe when someone else says it to us than when we say it to ourselves. It just is. 

That, right there, is the primary reason for the need of a group of at least two or three! We must have continual outside confirmation and reassurance that the gospel is true and that we are safe and loved by God, or we will soon succumb to fatal doubt and die...or worse, we will revert to the default and fatal belief in the need to earn God's approval by being good enough, which is spiritual death. 

As brothers and sisters in Christ,  our greatest privilege is to remind each other daily that we are safe and loved not on the basis of our own merit, but solely on the basis of Christ's righteousness, credited to us, and our punishment, borne by Christ for us. 

The fear that this gospel is too good to be true will never, ever be grounds for him to take it away! Your fear that it will be just another rug pulled out from under you, won't either. 

Those surprised goats were the ones who thought they deserved salvation! They never doubted! They were certain that they were good enough...and that was their problem. 

Only those who know for certain that they don't deserve God's gift when they look at themselves are the ones who are accepted in the end. They, too, are surprised, but with joy, because they know there is only One who is worthy, and they aren't him!

My friends, you are safe and loved, on Christ's account. 

Let's keep reminding each other!

Tomayto, Tomahto or Hostile Takeover?

A very brief history on the origin of the substitution of the term "church" for "ekklesia" in scripture.

It is still shocking to me that the word "church" is not used anywhere in scripture! The Greek word in every instance is "ekklesia." The literal meaning of the word is "called out ones." Its common usage was as "assembly," "congregation" or "gathering."

The root word for our word "church" is Germanic. It is "Kirche." Some have traced that to the Greek word "Kuriakos", meaning "belonging to the Lord." That word is only used twice in the New Testament, once for the Lord's Supper and the other for the Lord's Day. Never once does it refer to the Lord's people. 

It seems to have originally come into use at the same time that buildings came into use as places of worship, rather than small home gatherings, primarily in the time of Constantine. The term referred specifically to the building as belonging to the Lord.

The term "church" in biblical translations as a replacement for the word "ekklesia" did not occur until much later. In the 1300's Wycliffe's translation from the Latin version used "church." However, Martin Luther, in his translation of the Bible, did not.

William Tyndale specifically refused to translate the word "ekklesia" as "church" in his English translation from the Hebrew and Greek.

The institutional "church" of his time actually forbade the translation of the Bible into English, for fear that it would undermine the authority the "church" wielded over the people. Part of the issue centered on  the use of the word "church." As a result of Tyndale's "treachery" he was hunted down and strangled with a noose and then his body was burned!

When King James authorized an English translation of the Bible it was governed by 15 rules of translation.  One of those rules stated specifically that, "the Word Church [was] not to be translated Congregation." The only reason for this was, again, to ensure that the authority of the institutional "church" was not undermined in any way. 

The history of the substitution of the word "church" for "ekklesia" is purely political in origin. The word matters because the concept of "church" is utterly foreign to, and in many ways the complete opposite of, the descriptions of how Christians were intended to be, as originally presented in Scripture both by Jesus and subsequent New Testament writers. 

This substitution of ideals has been so complete that it is now almost impossible to think in terms of separating institutional "church" from Christianity. The idea and ideals of "church" have effectively coopted every biblical term and infected them, after the fact, with an institutional meaning (e.g. pastor, elders, even the bride of Christ...more on that later).

I feel the need here to reiterate that this hijacking, as I have termed it, was not unforeseen by God! It was not his ideal, as nothing in this world has ever been, aside from Christ, but it is what was always going to happen. As such, "church", as political as it is and as despicable as its use of power has been throughout its existence, has still been used by God to minister truth, forgiveness, grace, mercy and peace to his people within it. This is no different than how God can take any circumstance and use it for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. There absolutely are still "churches" today that are oases of grace, although they seem to be more and more rare. I have friends who are faithfully pastoring some of those "churches."  

The only point of even talking about this, then, is for permission to DeChurch, as needed. So many of us have remained in "church" or felt guilty for not being in one simply for lack of that permission. 

The word "ekklesia" means "called out." I propose the possibility that, with God's recognition that "church" was always what would happen, the word "ekklesia" may have foreshadowed the eventual "calling out" of some, and perhaps one day all, believers from that institution.

The Decapitated Body

Very few "churches" preach the Good News. Since religion today is almost completely professionalized, "church" should be the one place you can go to hear the Gospel, but the "professionals" that even understand it enough to preach it are few and far between. 

The most prevalent form of preaching in "churches" today is what some have called Moral Therapeutic Deism. It is basically a form of self-help therapy that is supposed to teach you how to live a good, moral life, which for religious purposes is referred to as a "Godly" life. 

Sadly, this form of teaching has virtually nothing to do with Christianity. In fact, it bears a much closer resemblance to what Jesus repeatedly condemned in the empty, self-righteous, behavior-based religion of the Scribes and Pharisees of his day.

To those who taught that form of religion, Jesus had much to say!  His most scathing opinions of them are found in Matthew 23:13-35. It will make your toes curl!:

"13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.’ 17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? 18 And you say, ‘Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.’ 19 How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; 21 and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; 22 and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.

23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!

25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.

27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. 28 So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, 30 and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. 33 You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? 34 Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, 35 so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar."

Stunning, right?

Even if you don't quite get all of the "inside" historical references, you can pick up on the main idea. Their focus was on appearances. All that mattered was looking like good people on the outside, to those around them. The fact that they were putrid on the inside wasn't a troubling issue to them. 

Jesus didn't spare their feelings in telling them exactly how he felt about that! And, keep in mind, Jesus is God, so there's no doubt as to God's opinion on those trying to appear like model citizens, when they're really "full of the bones of the dead and other filth," which, as I said, is basically what most "churches" are teaching these days. 

So, if Moral Therapeutic Deism is not the  true Gospel, or Good News, what is?

Because the basis of all Morality is the Law, otherwise commonly known as The Ten Commandments, I will explain what the Gospel is by starting with the very misunderstood role of the Law and then proceed to the Gospel in light of the Law's actual purpose. 

Contrary to popular belief, the Law was not given for humanity to obey! 

The role of the Law is to wound and to kill. What do I mean by that?

Basically, the primary function of the Law is to show us our sin. It is like a mirror. The mirror may show us the mud that is on our faces, but that is all it can do. The mirror can only identify the problem. It has no ability to fix the problem. It cannot actually remove the mud. 

In real life, the Law is intended by God to hurt our pride--our trust in our own sufficiency. It is meant to show us the depth of our need as well as to show us our own absolute inability to "fix" ourselves. 

The purpose of the Law is not to show us what to do, it is to show us what we are not doing, and cannot do. It is intended to bring us to our knees until we cry out, "Woe is me!!! I cannot do it!!" 

That is the wounding God does through the law. But he never leaves us there! The very moment the Law has brought us to despair, the Gospel is ALWAYS to be immediately applied. 

The job of the Gospel is to point out that, indeed, we are correct, we cannot do it!!! And for that very reason Christ had to come and do it FOR us!! He did it all specifically BECAUSE we are incapable of ever doing it ourselves. 

He lived the life of perfect obedience and credited us with his record. He then took our messes, our failures and shame, that were only deserving of punishment, upon himself and he paid the penalty in our place. 

It has been called "The Great Exchange." 

The Law wounds us to show us our abject need of a savior and the Gospel heals us by giving us the joyous knowledge that we already have one, in Christ. 

The Law kills us by showing us that we are already dead in our trespasses and sins. The Gospel raises us to our new life "In Christ", where everything has already been satisfied, and there is no more condemnation. 

This is the Good News that has been all but lost in the "church." I dare say that some of you may never have heard the Gospel in your entire "church" life! 

It is utterly counterintuitive to anything else we have ever experienced. It seems ridiculous! Scandalous, even. That is the very reason the Bible refers to the scandal of the cross! 

The inability to accept the scandal of the cross is at the very heart of why people, like those who have zealously taught a false idea of the gospel, keep teaching those things. The Gospel is so counterintuitive to the way the world works that it seems wrong to them. Scandalously wrong. But it is the Truth. 

What I'm telling you is true. It is all there, in scripture, and it has virtually been buried by false teachers of a Christless message. The "church" has effectively all but decapitated the Head from the Body.

The Parable of The Indistinguishable Children

24¶He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field,

25but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.

26So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.

27And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’

28He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’

29But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.

30Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, "Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.""

36¶Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.”

37He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.

38The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one,

39and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.

40Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.

41The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers,

42and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

43Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

I've known this story since I was a little girl, and there was one discordant thing about it that always puzzled me. It seemed to me that Jesus got the explanation wrong! I know, that's absurd, but let me explain why I thought that, and why now I finally see he was, obviously, correct.

I always saw this as a parable that was specifically about "the church." If I had a time machine I would go back to see whether or not it was actually taught to me that way. Regardless, that's what I have always pictured when I read it. 

In my head the story was about Satan planting fake believers in the "church" (or what I thought was "the field" in the story) and God saying they should not be rooted out of the "church" until the "end," because of the possibility of accidentally uprooting some of the actual believers. 

As a result, every time I read Jesus' own interpretation of his parable, I found it jarring to see that he said the field was the world. After that jolt, however, I would just shrug and keep thinking of it as a parable about "church," without ever stopping to ponder. 

Until now. 

Let's look carefully at Jesus' interpretation.  Jesus says that he, himself, plants the true believers, his own children, those belonging to his kingdom, in the world. Then, the Devil comes after and plants his children  among them. As they grow (time passes) the Devil's children are, outwardly, virtually indistinguishable in the world from the children of Jesus.  

Jesus resists the idea of trying to remove the Devil's children before "the harvest" (or the "end of the age"), because of the potential of harming some of the true children in the process. 

The plan that Jesus has is to wait until "the end of the age", or the end of time on this old planet, and then to finally send his angels to gather up the Devil's children to be thrown into the "fiery furnace." A grim end indeed!

This is a story of Christ's kingdom specifically within the setting of the world at large. Although his people are everywhere, the world is not able to distinguish between the true and the false children. The startling thing is that this does not trouble Jesus! At least not in the sense that seems most logical, and is represented in the story by the servants who are outraged at the deception and want to immediately root it out. 

Counterintuitively, Jesus' concern was for those true children who might be harmed by the premature removal of the devil's children! What does that even mean? 

I believe it means that, along the way, some of those in the world who are on their way to belonging to the true children of Jesus are initially deceived by the devil's children. They identify themselves with them. If Jesus allowed the imposters to be uprooted too soon, there would be people caught up in that number who did not truly belong with them, and he won't allow that to happen. When the time known only to God finally arrives, all of his true children will know the truth and will be where they belong. 

This actually gives me hope and comfort. My natural fear is that the very existence of people who call themselves Christians, but who are really children of the Devil, will cause people to be confused and lost. 

The reality is that God is the one who calls and draws his own.  Salvation is not a matter left to us to discover on the strength of our own intellect. It is revealed. It is gifted. On our own, not one of us would ever figure it out. (See Romans 3:9-18, John 6:37, 39-40, 44-45, 65.)

Why do I find that fact and this parable, that is not about the "church", per se, encouraging? 

Because in this parable, there is no institution, no organization whose reputation and purity must be protected! There are simply children of the kingdom planted throughout the world who belong to Christ, and most importantly, they are basically passive. They do nothing but simply grow until the harvest!!

The only ones acting in this parable are Jesus, the Devil and, at the end, the angels.  In the end, the children of Jesus emerge unscathed, while the imposters meet their fate. The story reveals that things were always well in hand, even when they appeared to be out of control. 

In verse 43 of Matthew 13 we see that the children of Jesus are called "the righteous", not because of what they have done,  but because of what Jesus did for them, earning by his blood the right to confer that status upon them! Jesus says that his children, "will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father."

He then concludes with the admonition, "He who has ears, let him hear." As uncertain as these times may seem, we can hear and rest in the truth that, despite appearances, Jesus has all things under control.

Maybe We Don't All Have to Get Along

My heart was heavy for a number of different reasons as I drove to the funeral of a dear friend.  I had put on Handel’s Messiah as I often do when I need comfort.  For me, nothing else quite encapsulates the power and hope of the gospel story, from beginning to glorious end, as that masterpiece does. 

A part of my sadness that day was the confusion I felt about the terrible division within Christianity over strong opposing convictions in the political arena. How could people I love, people who solidly agree with me on the central tenet of the gospel--that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone—position themselves at the opposite end of the political spectrum from where I was? I felt near despair as I pondered this rift, which also felt like a kind of death. 

As the miles passed and the music played, my thoughts turned to Jesus and his disciples. Jesus carefully selected those who would be his closest followers. They came from all walks of life and all points of view, but the most striking contrast, to me, was between Matthew and Simon.

Matthew himself seemed to highlight that difference in his list of apostles:

“The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother;  Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.” Matthew 10:2-4

Aside from Judas, who was described starkly as the one “who betrayed him", all the other disciples were described simply by a family relationship, like brother or son; but, Matthew chose to identify himself as a tax collector and Simon as a Zealot. 

As far as politics go, you could not get much farther apart than a tax collector and a zealot. 

Tax collectors, under Roman occupation, were typically Jews who were colluding with the Roman oppressors. They were hated and viewed as traitors by their own people because they grew rich by forcing their fellow Jews to pay more than the already exorbitant taxes owed to Rome and then they kept the excess for themselves. 

If most Jews hated the tax collectors, the zealots utterly despised them. The zealots were a Jewish political movement who sought to incite the people of Judea to rebel against the Romans and expel them from their land by force. Tax collectors were collaborators with the enemy, so they were especially heinous in the eyes of the zealots. 

So, why would Jesus choose one of each?

The stock religious answer would probably be, to show that no matter who you were before Jesus found you, his love has the power to transform you.

I have another take.  Maybe the whole point is that, while we may see things completely differently, every one of us badly needs Jesus, and he wants us all. 

It’s not as if the minute Jesus picked out his group they all immediately joined hands, sang Kumbaya and began to live happily ever after. 

The primary picture we get of the disciples is of them asking Jesus dumb questions, missing the point of almost everything he said and fighting with each other over who was going to be the greatest in the earthly kingdom he had no intention of establishing. 

It appears that all of their time spent with him barely did anything to change them for the better. At his death, they still all ran away and hid. 

After his resurrection, they spent forty days with Jesus where he presumably explained some things to them, yet, when they all stood on the Mount of Olives together, the very last question they asked him was:

 “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” Acts 1:6. 

They still didn’t have a clue!

“He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”  And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” Acts 1:7-9

After his ascension, they stayed in Jerusalem, as he had instructed them, and the Holy Spirit did, indeed, come upon them. We might think that, from then on, the ‘happily ever after' stage had finally arrived. 

We’d be wrong.

Peter had to be confronted because he was discriminating against the new gentile Christians whenever the Jerusalem representatives were in town. 

Paul and Barnabas split up because Paul didn’t like Barnabas's nephew,  Mark. 

People became groupies, saying ‘I’m for Paul’, or ‘I’m for Apollos’.

There was a Circumcision faction.

Some ate meat offered to idols. Others would rather die first.

The point I’m making is, there was never that Shining Moment when every Christian was in total, happy agreement.

And maybe that’s okay.

I know what you’re probably thinking, because it’s what I was thinking as I was driving pensively down the road. “But what about love? What about how people are supposed to know that we’re Jesus' disciples by the way we love one another?”

So, here’s the thing. For the most part, the disciples quickly stopped hanging out together, and went off to find the ones with whom they were meant to be. 

Maybe Matthew spent his time with a lot of former or even current tax collectors. Or maybe he talked to people who struggled with a need to feel powerful or wrestled with greed. Or maybe he talked to the poor who had been robbed by others like himself. 

Regardless of who his group was, his mission wasn’t so much to tell them how he had been changed and how they could change too, as it was to communicate that he understood the helplessness and the self-loathing they felt and to reveal to them the secret that would give them hope. His task was to use whatever common ground they shared to give them the only true answer, which is Christ.

Maybe Simon talked mainly to his fellow zealots, or, talked to those who lived in fear of the oppressors. Maybe he talked to those who thought the answer to their safety lay in their weapons. Or maybe he traveled far and wide, standing with the oppressed against the oppressor. 

His mission wasn’t really to tell people to stop caring about and fighting for justice and freedom, his task was to relate to them and share Christ, the one who came to truly set the captives free, perhaps even as they stood together, shoulder to shoulder.

Maybe the disciples didn’t actually have to like each other and see eye to eye on everything. Their differences might have been grating and irritating to each other, but, perhaps, that was inevitable, intentional and even beneficial. 

Maybe the plan was just for them to go out and find their “people” and love them, so that all of the different people out in the world would have the joy of  discovering that Christ was even for them, and that they weren’t so alone after all. 

Perhaps, if we believed that differences were okay and that belief in Christ was the only thing not up for debate, then we could let go of being “right” on the rest and just live and let live. 

“What if that’s the kind of love for one another that let’s the world know we belong to Christ," I thought, “the one that blesses each other’s differences, even the big ones, as we agree to send each other off to find the people to whom we are most drawn?”

And the choruses swelled with hope. Hallelujah. 

Worthy is the Lamb.  

Amen.

The Angels Did Not Lie

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”                            –Luke 2:14

“And in despair I bowed my head
There is no peace on earth I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men"

 – I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day based on a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I was listening to Christmas music the other day as I was making Dutch Apple Pie for Christmas, when the song, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day came on.  The words in the verse above struck me with even more force than they usually do.  I stopped my peeling and chopping for a minute to think about the seemingly insurmountable amount of division and ill will in the world right now.  The song continued to its crescendo of hope, but I was left pondering the seemingly failed promise of “Peace on Earth.”  Did the Angels lie, I wondered.  Where was this illusive promised peace?  Had it ever existed in human history?

The next day I happened to see a post where someone quoted Luke 2:14.  I stared at it and thought that it was misquoted.  I was raised with the King James translation of that verse which ends with, “And on earth peace, good will toward men.”  This English Standard Version rendering of the words jarred me.  

This peace, of which the Angels sang, was promised specifically to “those with whom [God] is pleased!”  If I didn’t know the gospel, I would have thought, ‘Well, that explains everything!  There may be a couple of people out there with whom God is pleased, but they are the only ones who have peace.  The rest of us are out of luck!’ 

I do know the gospel, however, and suddenly my spirits lifted.  The “peace” Christ came to bring is not the same “World Peace” for which every beauty pageant queen has wished.  It is the peace between God and man.  The very “Shalom” of God. 

It is the lost peace spoken of in Isaiah 48:18,                                                                                                “Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments!

    Then your peace would have been like a river
    and your righteousness like the waves of the sea….”

It is the promise of restored peace as found in Isaiah 66:12

"For thus says the Lord:

‘Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river,
    and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream;
and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip,
    and bounced upon her knees.’”  

It is the peace, the reconciliation, that could only come through the one human with whom God has ever been well-pleased, his Son.  That baby, about whom the angels sang, was the only one who ever “paid attention” to the commandments of God and whose righteousness was like the waves of the sea.  His obedience alone allowed the river of peace to become an overflowing stream to the nations.  

The Angels’ song may not have promised the universal peace on this earth for which we long, but that unfulfilled longing points to its ultimate fulfillment for all who take refuge in Jesus, the promised Messiah.  First, in him, we receive, right now, our peace with God and from that peace we have the assurance that we will one day enjoy an eternity of peace in the earth made new.