Engaging Scripture

What “the fear of God” means – Ecclesiastes 12:9-14, Part 3

After graduating college, I worked at our County’s youth detention center for three years as Michelle and I started our family and began the process of becoming missionaries in Jamaica. Then called Barnes Hall, and located in a building that has since been torn down, I was employed as a youth care worker. My role was a mixture of a parent, teacher, counselor, recreation leader, mentor, and guard, for children who were accused or convicted of crimes, and for whom the juvenile justice system deemed their family system insufficiently stable to make sure their kids would keep court appointments. Thus at any given time, we’d have between 15-30 kids staying in Barnes Hall, and we cared for the kids until such time as they received a “not guilty” verdict and could go home, or they were found “guilty” and transferred to a rehabilitation facility or program. The same thing continues to this day in our County’s Youth Intervention Center. In my days at Barnes Hall, I learned something about fear…and wisdom.

In the previous post in this five-part series on Ecclesiastes 12:9-14, we learned that we show we are wise by seeking wisdom, even when it might hurt. That begs the question: What is this wisdom? Now the Teacher (the author of Ecclesiastes) arrives at what he calls the conclusion of the matter. Here is how my Old Testament seminary professor David Dorsey translates the final two verses of the book:

“13 But after considering everything, the conclusion is this: Obey God and do what he wants you to do. This applies to every human being. 14 For God will judge everything that human beings have done, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.”

In verse 13, Dorsey decides not to use a word that all the major English translations use. Fear. In verse 13, Dorsey translated that word “obey God,” but it is the standard word in Hebrew for fear, meaning “when you are afraid of or scared.” It is used that way in many places in the Old Testament. But the same word is used figuratively for the concept of respect, awe, and reverence. It is sometimes translated “awesome.” God is truly awesome, meaning that he is worthy of our awe, of our respect, our reverence. In that sense, God is to be feared; he is fearsome.

As I think about this word, I get it that it can be confusing, and thus why Dorsey went a different direction. The concept that we should fear God just doesn’t sound right. When we read “fear God,” it is too easy to think that we should be afraid of or scared of God, which is antithetical to the idea of a loving God. In fact, one of our Christian communication mistakes over the centuries has been the overemphasis of the judgment of God, making him out to be an ogre in the sky who just can’t wait to lay a smack down on humans who step out of line with his will.

I remember years ago in a meeting with some people in our church family when one of the persons felt that I was not presenting God as I should be, and they raised their voice, slamming the table with the palm of their hand for emphasis, saying, “People need to know about sin!” Repeating it a few times, punctuated each time with the slap of their hand on the table: “People need to know about their sin! You need to preach about sin!” The tension in the room was crackling. Talk about being confronted. By the way, I did not sense that the person confronting me was speaking the truth in love. It felt instead that they were like the enemy wildly swinging a knife, trying to injure me, as I described in the previous post.

And yet, what should I say in response to them? I disagreed with their methodology, which seemed like a use of worldly intimidation, anger and manipulation. Theologically and biblically, though, I mostly agreed with the content of the person’s message. Sin is the massive problem in the world, and people need to know about it. There is a time, place and way to talk about sin, though it must be in line with the example of Jesus. He talked about sin, as did his apostles. So the person was right, but they were also wrong. They were wrong not just in their method of raising their voice and slamming their hand on the table. What I heard from that person was a throwback to hellfire and brimstone preaching days, when the method was to scare people to their core. Causing them to have similar feelings to those you might get when you’re watching a horror film, or when you’re alone in the dark, and you’re freaked out. As I think about it, the person seemed to be trying to scare me into scaring other people about sin.

It’s convoluted, isn’t it? To use the hellfire and brimstone method to scare people into trusting in God? Is that how Jesus related to people as he walked on this earth? With fire and brimstone? Or with life done so differently and love done so beautifully that people were attracted to him and curious about him. He loved so sacrificially and so boldly, that he was all the talk. So scaring people into loving God sounds pretty backwards if you ask me, and totally counter to what I see in the life, ministry and teaching of Jesus. It’s a Christian misuse of the “scared straight” mentality.

Back in my day as a youth care worker at Barnes Hall, the County’s juvenile probation office would gather groups of kids on the bubble and bring them for tours of Barnes Hall. Perhaps these kids had been convicted of a crime, but it was not a severe enough crime, or maybe it was a first offense, so things weren’t to the point of incarceration or sentencing to a rehab facility. But they were close. The point of the tour was to scare them straight. The probation office wanted them to think Barnes Hall as a terrible place they did not ever want to go. To accomplish that, at some point on the tour, we would lock each kid in one of the rooms (we didn’t call them cells, but they were basically prison cells) all by themselves for a couple minutes. On those tours, we, the youth care workers, would also speak loudly, harsh, and act tough, way tougher than we actually were in our normal interaction with residents. Why? We wanted to put the fear of God in those kids.

Wait a minute. I just said, “fear of God.” And I used the phrase “fear of God” in a way that is actually somewhat common in our society. The Scared Straight program wanted kids to be afraid, which is a normal understanding of the “fear of God.” At Barnes Hall, the juvenile probation office was hoping those kids would be so scared of being locked up in Barnes Hall that they would start a new pattern of making better choices in their lives. But I have to ask: does fear, does scaring people, make them choose goodness? Is that what The Teacher is talking about here in verse 13? Is that the ancient wisdom that the Teacher has boiled his whole book down to? Make people afraid of punishment? Focus on their sin and how much God is going to judge them and throw them in hell? Is that kind of horror going to drive them to believe in God? Is the Teaching saying that the best wisdom he has found in all his study of life is that humans need to be scared straight?

I hope the answer is obvious. No, that’s not what the Teacher suggests. But there might be some who think, “But didn’t that work in the past? Wasn’t that how the great revival preachers like Billy Graham got so many people to accept Jesus as their savior? Scaring them with the consequences of sin? And furthermore, can’t we talk about sin in such a way that emphasizes the love of God who gave his son to die for us to forgive our sin?”

Yes, that hellfire and brimstone preaching did work in the past, in a way of speaking. In fact, it was how I first got saved. I was a little kid listening to the pastor of my church preach about hell, and it freaked me out. I have always had a bit of an overactive imagination and for a long time struggled with just about any movie or TV show that was scary or intense. If someone left the lights on in the downstairs family room in my house growing up, sometimes my parents asked me to go turn it off and then come back up for bed. I would walk to the edge of the top step, stare down into the room below lit by a single light and think, I hate this. What if there is a robber down there? I would take a few deep breaths, and launch with speed down the steps, hit the light switch off, bolt back up the steps, taking two or three at a time, trying to get back to the top as fast as possible, slamming the door behind me, as I breathed heavy breaths in and out. Whew…I survived!

So years earlier as a little child, when I heard my pastor’s sermon about hell and sin, I wanted no part of that. None. I don’t remember much about that night, other than the comforting words my mom shared with me later that evening in bed, that I didn’t have to be scared because Jesus died and rose again, and if I trust in him, I won’t go to hell. You bet I trusted in him right then and there.

To that you might say, “See, Joel, that kind of preaching worked.” We could argue, also, that scare tactic preaching has brought thousands to Christ through the years. But I would respond that hellfire and brimstone preaching requires major residual work to actually begin to learn about the real character of God, to come to terms with and begin to believe in the love that God has for ourselves others. To look to God and understand him as so much different than the portrayal that was given to me as an angry God to be afraid of, not a loving God to be in awe of.

But that kind of scare tactic preaching is not what the Teacher is talking about here in Ecclesiastes 12, when he writes “Fear God.” Furthermore, we need to see preaching as more than just content. Any time we share the message of Jesus it is not only an act of evangelism, it is also an act of discipleship, such that we are forming people as followers of God when we communicate with them. We are shaping their belief system. Our words are quite important.

Simply put, fear and horror is not what Jesus wants to use to shape people. It is not the way that Jesus demonstrated the life of God’s Kingdom. He wants people to be shaped like him, or as I wrote in a recent post, God wants us to walk in step with his Spirit who lives within us, so that the fruit of the Spirit flow out of our lives. Consider the Fruit of the Spirit as described by Paul in Galatians 5: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Gentleness, Kindness and Self-control. Those are the God-shaped qualities that the Holy Spirit wants to fill us with. Not judgement, horror, pain, punishment, anger, being scared or afraid.

So whatever the fear of the God is, it looks like the Fruit of the Spirit. Paul would further write that perfect love casts out fear. This is also why we speak the truth in love.

The result of a proper understanding of fear of God, then, is that we revere, we respect him so much that we want to be like him, which means obeying him. This, the Teacher tells us, is the whole duty of humanity. That one phrase was highly transformative for me, and I’ll explain how in the next post.

Wisdom that cuts us open – Ecclesiastes 12:9-14, Part 2

When I was 17, as part of my punishment for a horribly tragic car accident, in which I was at fault, I did 150 hours of community service in a local hospital’s emergency room. There I saw some nasty wounds. The most difficult was an elderly woman who got a nasty gash on her forehead in a traffic accident. She was only semi-conscious as the ER surgeon was working to suture the wound, so she repeatedly attempted to reach up and touch the wound. The surgeon asked me to physically hold her arms down while he cleaned and dressed the cut, finally stitching it up. As you can imagine I had a very close-up view to an vivid process, and I often had to look away. While it clearly badly hurt the woman, especially, what the surgeon was doing was meant to heal. Wisdom and truth can be like that.

Truth is not always going to be easy to receive, warm, welcome, and comforting. In fact, as the saying goes, the truth hurts. Not always. But sometimes the truth really does hurt. And that’s exactly what the Teacher says next in our continuing study of Ecclesiastes 12:9-14.

Here is how my seminary Old Testament prof David Dorsey translates verses 11-12:

“11 The teachings of the wise are like goads, and their collected sayings are like sharp protrusions embedded in the goads. These goads are wielded by the divine Shepherd. 12 Beware, my son, of anything other than what wise people teach. There is no end to what has been written; and there is no end to what can be studied and learned.”

Ouch. I am not a fan of these two verses. The message in the verses are themselves good examples of what they are trying to say. The saying, “the truth hurts” is a saying that might hurt some of us. Why? Because we don’t like to be hurt. How many of us welcome correction, saying, “Bring on the confrontation, tell me how I am wrong, because I love to be confronted and I want to learn how I have screwed up!”??? And yet we know that it is good for us. Just like the Teacher illustrates from the world of shepherding. A shepherd’s goad is the ancient equivalent of a taser. It is a tool that is designed to corral or direct. To move people in a certain direction, and by force. Not by enticement, but by pain.

I am not a fan of that. I can’t stand it when the truth hurts, and therefore I hate conveying anything which I think will hurt someone else. I would much rather encourage them and speak supportively. I hate it when I have to confront. So with these verses, the Teacher is confronting me about my distaste of confrontation. He is saying that wisdom confronts. There is a necessary and good aspect to wisdom, that if communicated rightly, it might hurt, but we should desire it. Because that is part of love.

The Teacher is not saying that we should desire to be hurt by wisdom that is meant to maim or kill or destroy. No. The wisdom he is referring to is a more like the scalpel of a well-trained surgeon, who is making an incision to heal. On the one hand, any incision is painful and will do damage to the body, causing it bleed. But on the other hand, notice how a surgeon’s incision is different from an enemy’s incision. The enemy lunges his knife wildly, repeatedly, caring only to damage past the point of no return. The surgeon’s scalpel is wielded slowly, carefully, with pinpoint precision, making a wound that can heal, and furthermore the purpose of the surgeon’s incision is to remove a tumor, or fix a broken bone. The enemy wounds leading to death, and the surgeon wounds enhancing life.

Wisdom is like the surgeon, wounding us, to bring us life. This is right in line with the words of the apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:15, when he says, “Speak the truth in love.” That truth, like the shepherd’s goad, will often hurt, but it pushes us toward life. Imagine a shepherd watching his sheep getting closer and closer to a steep cliff, and, concerned that they will fall over the edge and die, he runs around to the edge of the cliff, pulls out his goad, and starts using it, even to the point of hitting some of the sheep with the pointy parts of the goad. That might sound mean or unkind, but what is worse…a temporary pain from the goad, or the finality of sheep falling over the cliff to their death?

We should seek wisdom, in other words, even wisdom that hurts. This requires us to take the posture of learners, teachable and humble. We must start at a place where our hearts and minds admit that we do not have life figured out, and we need confrontation, we need accountability, we need people in our lives who speak the truth in love to us. We show we are wise by seeking wisdom, even when it might hurt. That begs the question: What is this wisdom? Check back to the next post, as we’ll learn how the Teacher answers that question.

Healthy communication – Ecclesiastes 12:9-14, Part 1

I’ve had to read some dense philosophy and theology books over the years for courses I was taking. For a doctoral course this past spring, I read one so intricate, there were numerous times I wondered if it was a farce, a parody of a book. In fact, the author frequently made statements that, in an attempt to write original academic work, seemed obviously contradictory, such as a concept which he called “the closed openness,” or another which he called, “the nearness of distance.” He was dead serious. There were so many of these seeming contradictions that I decided to make a class discussion post admitting that I was suspicious. What I came to find out was that hardly anyone else in the class read that book. You see, we had the option of picking between reading that book or another one. Only after getting deep into that book did I learn from my classmates that most of them had picked the other book because the other book was way shorter and easier to read! Clearly I picked wrong.

I mention that difficult book, because we’ve come to the end of Ecclesiastes, and I wonder if we have understood the wisdom of the Teacher. As the Teacher, the author of Ecclesiastes, writes in Ecclesiastes 12:13, “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter.” He has covered a lot of ground through these 12 chapters. I know that sometimes the Teacher has come across a bit dark, with his favorite word, “Fleeting.” How many times have we heard him say that life is short, fleeting? But he’s had a good reason for reminding us that life is short. His ancient wisdom is just as powerful today as it was 3,000 years ago when he wrote: live joyfully now. Over and over we’ve learned the wisdom of Ecclesiastes, that we should seek to live lives of joy and meaning. But now we’ve arrived at his conclusion. What will he say? What is his conclusion of the matter? Whatever he has to say in this conclusion, it is almost as if he saying, “Listen up, everyone, I want you to remember what I’m about to say at the end. This is important!”

Look at Ecclesiastes 12, verses 9-10. The final section of the book starts there. In these two verses we learn the heart of the teacher, and the purpose for Ecclesiastes. Here it is in the translation of Ecclesiastes by my Old Testament seminary professor, David Dorsey:

“9 Not only was the Teacher wise; he also taught people what he knew. He pondered things, researched and wrote much on the subject of wisdom. 10 The Teacher sought to explain things accurately, and to write honestly and truthfully.”

Notice that the Teacher did not want to keep wisdom for himself. He wanted his wisdom to benefit others. So he went deep, researching, thinking, pondering, writing, and teaching.

The Teacher also did not want to be confusing, but to explain wisdom in such a way that people could understand it, apply it to their lives, and benefit from wisdom. We may think we have truth, but if we cannot communicate it so other people can understand it, then we have failed. Truth will always be truth, but we are responsible to communicate it in such a way that people can grasp it. Remember that section of Ecclesiastes where we talked about the need to be “receivable”? The Teacher recognizes this, and his writing in Ecclesiastes is a powerful example for us. The Teacher has made it possible for us to access his wisdom. Likewise, you and I are bearers of the truth that God loves all as we walk into 2021. We need to remember that we carry this message of truth. How are we doing in conveying the message of truth? Are we making God’s truth accessible for people to receive?

I’m not just talking about content, but also about the methods we use. Communication studies tell us that the content of a message, the actual words we use, conveys only a small percentage of the actual message communicated. Other factors play a much more important role, such as tone of voice and body language. If our fists are clenched and our posture is tense and we are yelling angrily, “I love you!!!”, the person we are talking will likely get the message, not that they are loved by us, but that we are feeling very negative about them. The non-verbal parts of our communication are far more powerful than the words. Thus our actions really do speak louder than words.

When we have such an important message of truth to convey, as we Christians do, then our tone of voice, our body language and the actions of our lives communicate that message far more loudly and far more clearly than our words. Consider a business owner who identifies as Christian, so that all the employees and patrons of the business know the owner is Christian. But the owner yells angrily at the employees, creating a chaotic atmosphere. Employee turnover is high. The owner is very difficult to work for and work with. What truth about Christ and Christianity is that owner conveying?

Or think about it from the other direction. My wife, Michelle, waitresses at a local coffee shop, and she says that the talk among the employees is that the Sunday after-church crowd is some of the most difficult to serve. They tend to be more particular, and they tend to tip less generously. Think about the truth that conveys to the non-Christian employees of that business?

That is not to say that the truth is always going to be easy to receive, warm, welcome, and comforting. In fact, as the saying goes, the truth hurts. Not always. But sometimes the truth really does hurt, which is exactly what the Teacher says next, as we will see in the next post!

Keeping up with God – Ecclesiastes 11:1-12:8, Part 5

We recently had a snowstorm that blanketed our area with 8 inches of snow. Nothing massive, but given that we only got 5 inches total the entire previous winter, 8 inches felt like a lot. About 20 minutes away at my son and daughter-in-law’s house, the storm dropped 12 inches. As you traveled further north into Pennsylvania, the totals increased. Some of my friends from church have cabins in the mountains, and they saw 3 feet of snow. Now that is a huge storm!

Even in 8 inches, though, unless you’re wearing good boots, if you have to walk in the snow, you probably don’t want to trod a new path. Instead, you try to find footprints others have made, and you follow their path, so as not to get snow in your socks and on your clothing! You try to match their steps, by walking in their footprints. Sometimes, though, their steps are too short, making it feel awkward to half-step your way along. Or their steps are too long, and you have to try to jump from one to the next, invariably missing and landing in the snow, as it shoves its icy way into your socks.

As we conclude this week studying Ecclesiastes 11:1-12:8, in which the Teacher, the author of Ecclesiastes, writes that we should honor God, there are so many passages we could look to if we want further description about what it means to honor God. I’d like us to look one that I find quite helpful: Galatians 5:16-26, as it talks about following God’s steps, about keeping up with him. Take a moment to read through this passage multiple times.

“16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

“19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

“22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”

How about starting 2021 thinking deeply about this passage. I urge you to read it every day for a week. Notice the focus on the Spirit. As we honor God, we first remember that God lives in us. The Holy Spirit lives in us. That means the act of honoring God, as Paul describes it, involves us keeping in step with the Spirit. Match his steps. Learn his cadence, his march, and follow him. No, we’ll never be exactly what he is, but that’s that not the goal. The goal of honoring him is to strive for looking more and more like him.

So think about what it will look like for you to answer these questions: Who is this God we are to honor? What does he desire? What does his heart long for? Get to know him! Have your heart, your thoughts, your actions match his. Who can you talk to about this? What do you want to start connecting with about this?

Is there something in this passage that God is saying, “That action is a part of your life, and it doesn’t look like me?” Look at verses 16-21 and 26. Honoring God means striving to remove these negative actions from your life.

But that is not all. Honoring God is also about what we add to our lives, or what should be visible in our lives. Look at verses 22-25, a list that Paul calls the Fruit of the Spirit. Review the list slowly, one by one thinking about how much each of the Fruit of the Spirit is a part of your life. If you have to admit that one or more of the Fruits is missing or barely visible in your life, perhaps God is saying, “There’s a action that is not a part of your life, and to look more like me, I want you to work practice that.”

How can you practice that in 2021? Talk it over with a close friend, spouse, a group. Honoring God was never meant to be a solo effort. It probably won’t be easy; nothing good and worthwhile ever really is. Starting new habits and new ways of thinking are not going to be easy in any area of life, but the joy, the rewards, the hope, the abundant life that comes with making changes that are more and more in line with honoring God are worth the work. Furthermore, as you pursue more of the Fruit of the Spirit, you will be enhancing your relationship with our God! You will more and more in step with Holy Spirit, the gift he lovingly left for us when he ascended to heaven. What a beautiful gift. What a worthy thing to long for and to sacrifice for so you can grow closer to God as you become more like him.

Attention young people! – Ecclesiastes 11:1-12:8, Part 4

Young people! This is for you! (Older people can learn from it as well!)

In our study of the ancient wisdom of Ecclesiastes, we come to a poetic section in which the Teacher, the author of Ecclesiastes, gives us practical advice. Here is Ecclesiastes 12:1-8, as translated by my Old Testament seminary professor, David Dorsey. Notice how the Teacher begins by talking to young people.

12:1 Honor the One who created you while you are still young. Do this before the times of difficulty come, and the years arrive when you say, “I find no pleasure in them”—

2 before the sun and light, the moon and the stars grow dark, and the rainy season never ends;

3 when the keepers of the house tremble with age, and the strong men stoop; when the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows can no longer see;

4 when the doors that open into the street are closed, and the sound of grinding fades; when one awakens at the sound of birds but all their songs grow faint;

5 when one is afraid of heights, and of dangers along the road; when the almond tree blooms its white blossoms, and the locust droops, and the caperberry no longer stirs desire. Then the person goes to his eternal home and his mourners march about in the streets.

6 Honor the One who created you before the silver cord snaps, and the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, and the water pot is broken at the well,

7 and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

8 “Utterly transitory,” says the Teacher. “Everything is transitory.”

Again he is talking about the aging process. But in this poem he has a new piece of advice about how to respond to it. Honor the One who created you.

What will it mean to Honor God in 2021?

Once again, he specifically talks to the young. That doesn’t mean the older ones among us are off the hook. Instead I suspect the Teacher is advising what is prudent: If we start a practice, a habit, an attitude when we are young, it will be apt to carry through our lives. So learn to honor God when you are young.

This is not to say that it is only when you are young that one can establish this habit. Anyone at any age can and should learn to honor God. But the earlier the better, as it gives us more years thinking and living in a God-honoring way, which is the best way to live. This is why we believe it is important for parents to train children in how to honor God.

What does it mean to honor God?

As Christians, it means what Jesus taught us: it is the giving of ourselves to him. We love him, John wrote, because he first loved us. And when he loved us, he gave himself to us. He then calls us to give ourselves to him, following his lead. Therefore, Paul writes, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. That’s a tough one isn’t it? It kind of sounds like honoring God is going to cost us something. Offering our bodies as living sacrifices.

In the next post, we’ll look at another passage that I believe relates to what the Teacher discusses and thus is a great way to conclude this series on Ecclesiastes 11:1-12:8.

How the aging process can help us evaluate the past year – Ecclesiastes 11:1-12:8, Part 3

Years ago, one of the home-bound members of my church family, who has since passed away, described for the me the process of her ever-decreasing eyesight. She said that it was only during the bright sunlight of the day that she could see around her room. As the months and years went by, the darkness grew as her eyes worsened. She got to the point where she received audio books because she could no longer see words on a page.

The Teacher talks about this in Ecclesiastes 11, verses 7-10, with a caution, but one that is doused with joy. Here is my Old Testament seminary professor David Dorsey’s translation of Ecclesiastes 11:7-10:

“7 It is delightful to see the light; it is wonderful to enjoy the light of the sun. 8 If a person lives many years he should enjoy them all. But he should keep in mind the approaching time of darkness, for it will last a long time. Life is short and fleeting; 9 so be joyful, young man, while you are young. Let your heart rejoice during the time of your youth. Do everything you truly want to do, and whatever your eyes see to do—keeping in mind that God will evaluate everything you do. 10 Rid your heart of sorrow, and banish unhappiness from your body, for youth and the prime of life are fleeting.”

The Teacher has talked about the shortness of life, the aging process, many times throughout his book. It’s a fact of life that a new year, a birthday, or an anniversary drives home, year after year after year. I write this on the cusp of a new year, 2021. We might want to be rid of 2020 and all its mess, but the Teacher has a corrective for us. I hope we never have another year as bad as what we just went through, but we will have more hard times, and of course, we will keep keeping older. Looking back a past year, then, helps us remember that the question should not be, “How can I avoid another year like that? Or how can I stop growing older?” Instead, the Teacher tells us that we should consider, “How can I live joyfully right now, no matter what is going on, even when I find more gray hairs and more aches and pains?”

It seems to me that the Teacher has incredible advice: Start young! Have a joyful attitude when you are young. That means working hard against being jaded. Instead of letting a year like 2020 grow a negative attitude in your life, choose to find ways to rejoice. Do so when you are young because it will be more likely that you will develop a habit, an attitude, that will serve you well as you age. What’s more, be happy and rejoice when you are young, because when you are young, that’s when you have the most opportunity to fully enjoy life.

Serving Faith Church for the past 18 years, Michelle and I have had the opportunity to walk alongside so many people (mostly from Faith Church, but also some from the community) who have experienced adversity in their lives. Some handle these difficulties with pessimism, with self-pity, while some respond with teachability; some with calm and some with intensity and drama. The incredible blessing and joy we’ve had as we’ve been privileged to walk beside and learn from people who’ve endured incredible pain, and carried themselves with joy in the midst of it, is something that we will never forget.

I urge you to start a habit of joy that will carry you through. Joy in the one who loves and adores you. Joy in the hope of Jesus and His goodness and presence. I suspect that the people who are grumpy and difficult never heeded the Teacher’s wisdom. From what I’ve seen, some just choose to be negative or selfish or arrogant instead of making the choice of kindness, sacrifice and joy in the midst of pain.

How you do you cultivate that kind of joy? I recently heard a podcast which mentioned the difference between saying thank you and showing appreciation. One idea is to daily take a moment to write down 5 things you are thankful for. While I find that to be a helpful practice, along with being a thankful person in general, appreciation goes a bit further. To grow an attitude of appreciate, I encourage to practice a daily 3-5 minutes of quietness, just to be appreciative. What I’m suggesting is different from expressing a “Thank you.” When you are appreciative, you are entering into an extended period of joyful gratitude. To do this remember some way that God has kept his promises, or some recent situation where you experienced his blessing. Then just reflect on that joyfully. Remember the sights, the sounds, the smells of the experience, and dwell on God’s goodness. This practice can help you cultivate a heart of appreciation, of gratitude, of joy. This is how the verse “in everything give thanks” is not actually an impossible task that is being suggested to us, but a suggestion, from Jesus, for our good.

How do we evaluate the dumpster fire that was 2020? – Ecclesiastes 11:1-12:8, Part 2

How do we evaluate 2020? As I mentioned in the previous post, it could be very easy to just say it was so bad that there is nothing to learn. Instead, we should have the posture of learners, no matter the situation, and the next passage in Ecclesiastes is a wonderful guide to help us evaluate 2020. So let’s take a look at Ecclesiastes 11, starting in verse 1. Remember that this is an ancient book of wisdom, written by someone who calls himself The Teacher. It might have been the wise King Solomon of Israel. We don’t know for sure. What we do know is that Ecclesiastes is loaded with wisdom.

Here is my seminary Old Testament professor, David Dorsey’s translation of Ecclesiastes.

“11:1 Release your grain when the rainy season begins, because after many days you will get a good return from it. 2 Set aside seed-money for seven, even eight years, for you do not know what sort of disaster might befall the land. 3 When the clouds are full of water they will empty their rain upon the land; when the trees bend to the south or to the north, you know the wind is blowing them in that direction. 4 But whoever watches the wind too closely will never plant; and whoever watches the rain clouds too closely will never reap. 5 Just as you do not know how the life-breath enters the fetus in a mother’s womb, so you do not know what God will allow to happen; and he is responsible for everything that happens. 6 Therefore sow your seed in the morning, and in the evening do not let your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, the one or the other, or whether both will do equally well.”

Dorsey suggests that this section could be summarized like this: “Life is unpredictable; live wisely and do what is most likely to succeed.” Yeah. 2020 was unpredictable alright. Wow, that is the understatement to beat all understatements. Covid, and in particular the recommended or required response to Covid, was very unpredictable. My church leaders, for example, had to figure out, often with very little time to think or pray, how we were going to respond. I commend our leaders because we had numerous discussions in person, on Zoom, by email, and we didn’t always see eye-to-eye, and yet we came together. I’m thankful for how our church family responded to all the changes and surprises.

The Teacher reminds us that life always brings surprises that will require us to change. So we face life with an active approach, trusting that God is there behind it all, even when it seems that he is gone. I appreciate the Teacher’s reminder in verse 5 that God is there. There are many ways to view God’s activity in the world. The Teacher wants us to remember that God is active. As the creator, he is ultimately responsible, but that doesn’t let us off the hook. God created a world, a universe in which we have free will, and I am glad for that. It means we have free agency; we get to choose a great many things in our lives. But that means there will be times when we humans choose very, very poorly. How much of 2020’s trauma was due to poor human choice? A lot of it.

The point the Teacher is trying to make is that life will have some surprises from nature, and it will have some surprises from human nature, because there is freedom in the world. So remember that God is there, he has not left us alone, despite the hardships, even in 2020, and he will not leave us alone in the years to come. Therefore, knowing God is with us, we should seek to make wise choices, measured choices, responsible choices, diligent choices. We should avoid laziness or addiction or self-indulgence. While it might be tempting to fret or to collapse in self-pity, especially as we face the many surprises life confronts us with, we can remain stable in the face of the seeming instability, because God is always with us.

Not so fast 2021…why we needed 2020 – Ecclesiastes 11:1-12:8, Part 1

A new year is upon us! Are you excited? On one hand, the switch from December 31, 2020 to January 1, 2021 this coming Thursday night is the same as any old Thursday night. It is one day, then the next day. Sure, we get a long holiday weekend, which is nice, but New Year’s Day is just a day.

On the other hand, it seems to me that the first day of a new year is not just any old day. Every year, I find it incredibly helpful, if viewed with the right attitude of heart and mind, to have a marker, a pause to evaluate the past and prepare for the future. This kind of pause can also occur on your birthday or your anniversary. These kinds of markers can be very healthy, and New Year’s Day is another good opportunity for that kind of evaluation every year.

Except that this year has been anything but a typical year. Last week, when I was trying to explain the idea of idioms, I used an idiom that has been around a long time, but seems particularly appropriate for 2020. I said, “2020 is a dumpster fire,” and my guess is you know what I mean. The big four of 2020: political strife, the racial tension, the natural disasters, and of course Covid. The result is that for months now, people have been saying, “I can’t wait for this year to be over!” Maybe you’ve said that as well. If so, you’re in good company, because it has been a year like no other, and very, very difficult. But 2020 is almost over! New Year’s Day 2021, for many people, is going to be a day of rejoicing!

Anything has to be better than 2020, right? Sure, of course 2021 could turn out to be difficult too. Who knows? The pandemic is far from over, and the political and ideological division in our country is still sharp. Racial injustice has not been solved, and there will be natural disasters because there are always natural disasters.

But hold on…before we get too far down the road of negativity, there is cause for rejoicing, for believing that 2021 just might be better than 2020. Not to mention that there were reasons to rejoice this past year as well! Let’s be sure that we don’t forget to pause and remember the good things we learned, we experienced and were a part of this year. So how might 2021 be better than 2020? First of all, I think it will hard for any year to be worse than this past year. I think it will be hard to even come close. So odds are favorable that next year will be better!. Second, it seems that 2021 already has a lot going for it just as it is about to begin. How so? Well, we start the new year with vaccines to a pandemic, already making their way across the world. Also the political strife of an election year is over. Furthermore, Congress just showed us a bit of unity, passing a bi-partisan Covid relief bill. Also, there are no new natural disasters to deal with (yet), and though the circumstances have been painful and we do have a way to go, there is a renewed movement for racial justice and healing in our land. In other words, the trajectory of 2021 has promise.

The result is that we might simply want to wash our hands of 2020 and move on. Let that dumpster fire burn on in the view of history, because we’re not turning back! Let’s get the new year started as quickly as possible!

If you feel something like that, I do too. We’ve gone through something so difficult, so long, so painful, and we’re desperately craving peace, and joy, and stability. That’s human nature. But let’s remember the important difference between wanting circumstantial or worldly peace, joy and stability and wanting Kingdom minded peace, joy and stability. Peace, Joy and Stability in Christ and who he is often has very little to do with the circumstances around you here on earth.

So I am going to ask you to look back and stare at that dumpster fire as it burns. No, I don’t want to make things worse for you. I’m excited, too, about the promise and hope of 2021. I’m ready for school to be normal, I’m ready for businesses to be open. I’m ready to not have to drive to all the way to the store, only to have to turn around and drive back home because I forgot my mask. I will say that I just might miss masks sometimes because I might be one of the weird ones who thinks it’s kinda cool to wear masks because it’s a unique time in history that we’re a part of. But seriously, I’m ready for restrictions to be done, and most of all, I’m ready for the Olympics!

While I’m excited for 2021, I also want us to see the opportunities 2020 has given us to learn from. I don’t mean that in a callous way. 2020 was no joke. 320,000 dead in the USA, and counting. 1.71 million globally, as of this past Tuesday. Anxiety and stress levels like never before. If I could go back and do something to make it never happen, I would. We should be grieving for the many who lost loved ones. We should be grieving for economic impact and pain so many felt during this time. So I don’t bring up the idea of learning from 2020 as if 2020 was good. It was horrible. I bring it up because we should always have the posture of learners. And thankfully, the next passage in Ecclesiastes is a wonderful guide to help us evaluate 2020. So check back in to the next post as we take a look at Ecclesiastes 11 and how its ancient wisdom might help us evaluate the past year and have a healthy start to the new one.

What people need to know about Christmas – Honest Advent Bonus Post

For Christmas Eve, Faith Church included as part of our worship service, the excellent depiction of the Christmas Story as told by the TV show The Chosen. Before continuing with this post, I urge you to watch the episode below:

As I watched the first part of the video, the introduction felt very familiar. Remember the intro? The people were suffering. In first century Palestine, the brutal Roman Empire occupied their land and taxed them heavily. Poverty was rampant. They knew darkness and pain and suffering. Sounds like 2020 doesn’t it?

We know darkness and pain and suffering, too, don’t we? It has been a dark year. If any other year included only one of the major crises we’ve faced for the last 12 months, that year would have gone down in history. We (as a nation) have not had one, but four. On top of that are personal struggles, tragedies and hard things you have all probably faced this past year. Thinking of those four national struggles, what made them more painful is that they all occurred at the same time, all lasting for months, and all four continue to this day. What four difficulties am I referring to?

First, as 2019 became 2020, bitter politics were already well underway. But in the early weeks of 2020 it exploded with acrimony during the impeachment hearings. That tone would only get worse through the primaries and election, and it has not stopped during the post-election transition lawsuits and mayhem. Second, there was a string of awful acts of atrocity against persons of color, kicking off a renewed movement to right the wrongs of racial injustice, which is our nation’s original sin. Yes, we’ve made progress, but we have a long way to go. Third, many across the country have suffered natural disasters. Fourth, it was around the time of the impeachment that we started hearing about Covid. The “19” in Covid 19 means that it actually started in 2019, but it didn’t reach our shores till 2020. The spring shutdown were some dark days. We got a brief respite in the summer, but now Covid is worse than ever. We praise God vaccines are finally being administered, but the darkness will be with us for a while, won’t it?

For you and I this is a Christmas Eve like no other. Just 12 short months ago, we hadn’t heard of Coronavirus. Tonight we mourn the loss of 320,000 dead and counting. I wonder if we’ve become callous to the numbers of Covid deaths because we’ve seen it on the news and watched them steadily climb day after day for months?

320,000 dead! Countless more survived, but many of them lost time at work and now have hospital bills due to being sick with Covid. Many others have never caught the virus but have had their businesses and lives impacted, not to mention the anxiety and stress we’ve felt.

What would you have said if someone told you that 12 months ago? Imagine on the blog, for Christmas Eve 2019, I wrote, “This time next year, at Christmas Eve worship, one of two worship services of the year when the room is usually packed, you will be sitting in a half-empty sanctuary, and you’ll all be wearing face-masks. There will be a bunch of people worshiping online, connecting from their homes via Zoom, because we’re quarantining from a disease that has taken 320,000 people in our country.” You’d be thinking, “No way. That’s ridiculous. … and what is Zoom???”

It’s been a dark year.

What do we do about the darkness?

Go back to the original Christmas story, and we do what the shepherds did!

Did you hear that phrase repeated in the story, right at the end as the shepherd leaves Joseph, Mary and Jesus? “People must know.” The shepherd has some good news, and people must know! In the middle of darkness, people must know. That was true then, and it is still true now!

What must people know?

People must know that God is with us. People must know that God came in the flesh to become one of us. That’s what the baby in the Christmas story was, in true historical fact. Yes, Jesus would grow up to be a great teacher, even a miracle worker. But those were signposts pointing to another reality, pointing to the truth. His teaching and his miracles are astounding in their own right, and we would do well to learn from them, as Jesus himself, through his teaching in particular, was showing us what kind of Kingdom is best, his kingdom.

But ultimately his life and ministry pointed to another reality, the truth that Jesus is both human and God. That he is God with us.

As the video closes, the shepherds are running around Bethlehem spreading the good news, when suddenly the mean, religious leader calls out. The leader asks a very important question to the shepherd, “Have you found a spotless lamb for sacrifice?” As the shepherd quietly looks back at the religious leader, a smile slowly forms on the shepherd’s lips. It’s a mysterious ending. Maybe it leaves you wondering.

Of course we know that the shepherd did not find a spotless lamb the religious leader had in mind. So why does the shepherd smile? Because he found a different spotless lamb. A very different one indeed.

It was a sacrificial lamb that people must know about.

I don’t know how much the shepherds understood about the significance of the birth of this baby. But they had just witnessed an astounding event, starting with the visit from the angels. This was the moment in the video when the light broke through the darkness of the shepherds’ camp. Here’s the story, as told in the Bible, the book of Luke, chapter 2, verses 8-20:

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

“13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

“15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

“16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.”

We learn from this story that Christmas is a participatory event. Just like the shepherds, we tell the good news about what we have seen. People must know that God is alive and well. People must know that he was born, lived, gave his life to die as that sacrificial lamb, and then rose again from the dead to give us all the hope of new life.

I love how we see new life depicted in the shepherd, Simon, in the story. He has it rough. Shepherds, in general in that society, were outcasts, considered very dirty and crude. Of course Simon is a fictional character who not only has his leg healed, but also has new hope in the birth of the savior, we read in the story that the actual shepherds, the real historical shepherds, the ones who visited Joseph, Mary and Jesus in Bethlehem, were filled with rejoicing, with new hope, because the of birth of the savior. Maybe you feel dirty, outcast, marginalized or just plain old depressed and frustrated by 2020. There is hope! Please comment below, as I’d be glad to talk with you about this.

People must know!

People living in our dark world must know that there is a bright shining light of hope. As the ancient prophets foretold, “The people living in darkness have seen a great light.” That’s not only the people living in Jesus’ day, that’s also you and me. We have seen the light. We have the hope the world is longing for. We don’t have a solution that will eliminate all hard things for the rest of our lives. Even Jesus went on to have numerous difficulties in his life, as did those who chose to be his disciples. But he promised hope, he promised an abundant life, he promised to be faithful to us through it all, to never leave us or forsake us. There is a great light, a great hope, and great joy, that is found in Jesus. People must know! Who can you tell this good news to? How are you a living, breathing message of hope, joy and love?

One of my favorite parts of 2020, and yes there have been some good parts, is a phenomenon called Some Good News, a YouTube show created by actor John Krasinski, most famous for being on the TV show The Office. During quarantine he collected stories of wonderful ways people were treating each other with kindness, and he made about eight episodes, because he wanted to share good news.

We have good news, and arguably the ultimate good news, Christians. We have the good news of Jesus. Let the good news sink into your heart, let it affect your thoughts and your actions. May we end this year knowing the truth that God adores us. He sacrificially gave us his son in the most vulnerable and humble of ways. He desires to be known by each one of us. He is the hope of the world.

People must know!

How to practice our faith like Jesus – Honest Advent Week 4, Part 5

What should we do to use our bodies to express our faith? In the previous post, I mentioned church attendance. But an embodied faith must go well beyond church worship service attendance. So look to Jesus. Jesus had a human body, and he showed us how to live. Jesus invites to do what he did.

Turn to Luke 4:1. In Luke 4, we’re right at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He has just been baptized by John the Baptist, and in so doing John has essentially launched Jesus’ ministry. John has been the forerunner, paving the way for Jesus. Now Jesus will take over.

What is Jesus’ first act of ministry among the huge crowds of people that came to be baptized by John? Read Luke 4:1-2.

Kinda crazy, right? Jesus leaves the crowd behind and goes off into the desert. He has a wonderful crowd to minister to, and he ditches them. He goes to be alone. There he fasted, eating no food. Remember that Jesus had a body! What he is doing, or rather what he is not doing, is very much affecting his body. The silence, the solitude, the lack of nourishment. For 40 days!?!? That’s definitely in the realm of the miraculous. The human body can’t live without food and water that long, so we read in Matthew and Mark’s accounts of this time in the desert, that angels ministered to Jesus. Think about what was going on in Jesus’ body during those 40 days. The hunger pangs. The weakness. The emotion. The loneliness.

But it gets worse! We then read that the devil tempted him. To what degree or how the devil tempted him during the entirety of those 40 days, we don’t know. Matthew’s version of the story sounds like the devil’s temptation was the whole purpose of the 40 days in the desert! Imagine what Jesus was going through, in his body and in his spirit, during those 40 days.

I’ve had some hard physical experiences, and maybe you have too. What has been your most difficult one? I’ve endured a week of three-a-day soccer practices, and I’ve trained for and run marathons. Each of my marathons were about four hours, and they were excruciating experiences, especially the last hour, which was about 5-6 miles of nothing but pain every step. As grueling as that was, I have no idea what the fasting, the isolation, and the temptation must have felt like for Jesus.

Wouldn’t it seem that he was just barely hanging on by a thread? I get it…he was God, he was filled with the Holy Spirit, and angels ministered to him, so there is obviously something supernatural going on here. But still, as we read, he was hungry. My guess is that means very hungry.

One of my favorite writers on the topic of how humans have a spiritual side and a physical side, and how that matters to Christians, is Dallas Willard. Willard says, surprisingly, that Jesus, at his temptation, was almost certainly not at a place of spiritual weakness. He was at a place of spiritual strength. Think about it. Jesus had just spent 40 days using his body to connect with God. Imagine how you might feel if you spent 40 days with God! Just you and God.

When we go on a retreat or a mission trip, we often feel so close to God, and that is because we are using our bodies to be close to God, or to serve God, and the result is no surprise. We feel close to him! Now extrapolate that to 40 straight days of doing nothing but being alone with God, depending on God, striving for God. So what we see in this story is that Jesus was showing us how to use our bodies to grow our spirit.

Then look at what he does next. Read Luke 4:3-13.

What do you notice? Jesus’ meditates on Scripture. When the devil tempts him, Jesus just responds in Scripture. He literally speaks only the words of Scripture. Think about that. It means that Jesus has used his body and mind to know Scripture, and not just to memorize it, but to dwell on it. This is part of what the Biblical writers call meditation. It is not eastern meditation which is often about emptying the mind. Biblical meditation is about filling the mind, with Scripture.

This kind of meditation on Scripture, as Jesus demonstrates for us, is an important practice. It is using our body to dwell on the truth of Scripture. Sometimes all you need is one word of Scripture to center your mind on God. I have done this many times when the stress of life is intense. I will pray, “Peace” thinking about God’s peace that he wants to bring. It’s a simple prayer. One word! But it is based in Scripture, which means that it is focused on God’s heart. God wants our bodies and spirits to experience peace.

So to experience God in the depths of body and soul, let’s do what Jesus did, practicing silence, solitude, and meditation on Scripture. Because we are embodied souls. How will you practice these in 2021?

Just like Jesus, we might have to open up space in our busy lives to make time for an embodied faith. He didn’t have time. He was training 12 men to take over for him. He was trying to keep up with friends and other followers. He was leading an itinerant preaching ministry to thousands. Jesus’ ministry, if he wanted it to, had the possibility of being 24/7. There was always more people to heal, more people to talk with. But he made sure to include regular pauses in his life, for rest, for time alone his Father. Jesus practiced an embodied faith.

We, too, can make time for God in our lives, even if we are busy. It might mean stopping a less important thing in order to make space for what is vital. So what gift does Jesus want? This week we have learned a principle just as we did in each of the previous weeks on Honest Advent: Jesus wants us to give him gifts that he first gave us. He came to earth and embodied humanity for us. He humbly became the creation that he created. Now he leaves the Holy Spirit to make a home within us. To embody us. He wants us to acknowledge that, to know the truth of that, to care for our physical bodies like the temple of the Spirit they are, to care for and pay attention to the fact that we are spiritual beings, that we are the embodiment of the living God as we walk around here on this earth. That we are pro-life in all senses of the word. Loving people. Learning to love God more and more, not just with more head knowledge, but to know and love our good and gracious and good God.