Jesus was and was not the Messiah? – Mark 11, Part 2

How does my experiment with the American flag relate to Palm Sunday? You can read about that experiment in the previous post.  

As we begin to answer that question, turn with me to Mark 11, and read the story of the first Palm Sunday.  We are studying Mark’s account of the story of Jesus’ Triumphal entry because, as I mentioned in the preview post, there is a detail in Mark’s telling of this story that is important.  Matthew and Luke don’t include this detail, but John and Mark do. 

Who was Mark? For starters, Mark was not a disciple of Jesus.  Mark came along years later, long after Jesus returned to heaven and the church had begun.  Mark was a missionary in the church, spending time with Paul and Peter.  Biblical historians believe that it was Peter who told Mark the stories of Jesus.  So you could say that Mark’s is actually “The Gospel according to Peter, as told by Mark.”  When we read Mark’s version of the Triumphal Entry, therefore, we are getting an eyewitness account. Peter was there that day. Let’s review the event itself.

Skim over the story, especially Mark 11, verses 7-10.  Here’s a summary: Nearing the end of his three-year ministry, Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem, the seat of government, riding on a donkey, while the crowds spread their cloaks on the ground creating a kind of red carpet entry for him, as they waved palm branches and shouted, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” 

Do you know what is going on here?  This was a coronation.  A coronation is the crowing of a new king.  The people identified Jesus as their new king. 

Of course not everyone agreed with them.  The religious leaders and political rulers did not see Jesus as king.  There was already a man that the Jews called “king,” a guy named Herod.  He wasn’t the king of the whole land, though, and he did not rule over Jerusalem.  Instead, Herod was more like regional governor of the northern part of Israel.  Rome was in control of the land, not Israel.  So this Jewish “king,” Herod, was subject to Rome. A Roman named Pontius Pilate was the leader in Jerusalem, and Herod and Pilate’s boss, hundreds of miles away in Rome, was the absolute true king of the empire, the emperor, Caesar. 

So when Jesus, a popular Jewish itinerant preacher who reportedly did miracles and had crowds numbering in the thousands rides into town on a donkey, to the joy of the crowds, the leadership in the city didn’t seem all that concerned.  Not that they were totally unconcerned, though.  Rome was always cautious about uprisings, and to keep the peace they could be ruthless in putting down rebellion.  Rome had the biggest guns, so it was pretty much impossible to challenge their authority.  If Jesus had whipped up this crowd of cheering followers into a riot to overthrow the government, there is no doubt what would have happened.  There would be a battle between the barely-armed crowd and the heavily-armed Roman military.  The Jewish crowd might kill some Roman soldiers, the uprising might last a few days, but Rome would win. 

That is not to say, though, that the Jews wouldn’t have tried.  The really might have tried, especially if Jesus told them to form a militia and start fighting on his behalf.  I say that because previously many others had tried.  In fact, there was a family of Jews in the roughly 400 year period between the Old and New Testament that defeated the Romans and took back control of Israel for approximately 100 years.  That family was called the Maccabees, and the Jews looked back on them with reverence.  There were almost certainly plenty of people in the crowd that day cheering Jesus, hoping that he would start a movement like the Maccabees.  Most, if not all, the Jews wanted to be free of Roman occupation.

Furthermore, by what they are saying about Jesus, the people seem to give us evidence that they might have believed Jesus was going to lead an uprising.  How do we know that?  Look at Mark 11, verses 9-10. 

Verse 9 is familiar, as we quote or sing it almost every Palm Sunday.  “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”  That is a quote from Psalm 118 verses 25-26.  Why did the Jews shout these verses?

Psalm 118 is often considered to be a messianic psalm, meaning that the ancient Jewish scholars interpreted this psalm as talking about the Messiah.  You and I hear that word “messiah,” and my guess is that most of us instantly, in our minds, connect “messiah” to Jesus.  Jesus, we Christians believe, was the promised Messiah, and that belief has been true in Christian thinking for nearly 2000 years. 

But for the Jews who wrote Psalm 118, and for the Jews who were shouting verses from Psalm 118 as Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem sitting on a donkey, they had made no previous connection between Jesus and this Messiah figure.  Actually, we could say that the crowds at that Palm Sunday were some of the first people to make the connection. 

While they were correct, they were also very wrong. In the next post we’ll learn how.

My American flag experiment – Mark 11, Part 1

I did a little experiment this past fall.  It was a sociological and theological experiment.  At first, I didn’t tell anyone about this experiment.  Not even my wife. I knew that if I told her, the experiment would be shut down fast.

To introduce the experiment, I have a question for you.  How many of you fly the American flag at your home, or on your vehicle or something like that?  For those of you who don’t fly the flag, how could you be so unpatriotic and unAmerican???  Just kidding.  We don’t fly the American flag at my house either.

But that brings me to another question.  How many of you fly the Christian flag?  I would be surprised if many did. Driving around my community, I see plenty of American flags, but not a single Christian flag.  And that reality gave me the idea for the experiment.

As walk back and forth from the church office to the church mailbox out along the road, I often look at the flags flying in our church yard.  We fly he American flag and the Christian flag. 

We’ve never been able to find flags that last long. Maybe a year.  Maybe two if we’re lucky.  Outdoor flags deteriorate fast because we fly them 24/7/365.  The US flag code allows for flags to fly 24/7 if they are lit in the dark.  Otherwise you have to take them down overnight.  We have ground light shining on our flag pole, which means the weather takes its toll on our flags 

Last fall, I noticed our Christian flag was fraying, so I lowered the flags, cut off the frays, and with the flag draped over my shoulders, an idea hit me. 

The US Flag code says that whenever the American flag is flying among other flags, the American flag should be highest.  It’s not a law, but a code of honor.  Its symbolic, right?  This symbolism has long gotten under my skin as a Christian. This is the theology part of the experiment. Outside our church, when we fly the American flag above the Christian flag, we could be interpreted as believing or proclaiming that America is above Jesus.  But we don’t believe that.  Not even close. 

So I switched the flags, looking around to see if any people in the cars passing by would notice.  Then I raised them with the Christian flag on top.  I felt nervous, and as I quickly walked back inside. 

Did anyone notice?  How many people are even aware of the flag code?  How many people would care?  I doubt many of you reading this were aware of the flag code. For the first few days, I remained a bit nervous. But there was no response. Two months went by without a peep, and I forgot about the experiment. 

Then one person from Faith Church mentioned to me they noticed the flags.  I don’t know if I had any visible reaction on my face, but I felt the nerves as I explained that I was doing an experiment.  They understood, and the experiment continued.

Two more weeks went by.  Then one day a woman left an anonymous voicemail at the church office.  Was she a community member, was it a tourist?  Who knows?  She did not identify herself.  But she said she saw the flags, and she wondered if someone made a mistake when hanging them.  The American flag should be on top.  Then she got really stern, saying that it was total disrespect to American veterans. 

At that point, I played the voicemail for my wife.  She thought the experiment was a very bad idea because people driving by would naturally assume that Faith Church was trying to make statement.  But Faith Church wasn’t making a statement.  Faith Church didn’t even know about it.  I was just doing an experiment.  She was right.  So I changed the flags back, a bit begrudgingly.  I tell you this story because our flags relate to Palm Sunday.  

Check back to the next post, as we’ll talk about that further.

What’s so special about Palm Sunday? – Mark 11, Preview

We observe Palm Sunday every year, but did you ever wonder why?

I get why we celebrate the birth of Jesus, and of course his death and resurrection. Those are, by far, the three most momentous events in his life. But why Palm Sunday? It’s not nearly as important as Christmas and Easter, right? Why do we celebrate a day that is less important?

There are a few other days on the Christian calendar that we might say are on a similar secondary level of importance, along with Palm Sunday. We give a slight nod, for example, to Jesus’ Ascension. Then for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we change the sanctuary colors to red. But we don’t make a day out of these second-tier holidays. We don’t normally sing special songs about them. I have rarely preached about the Ascension and Pentecost on those Sundays, except for when I was preaching through the Gospels or Acts, and often those scripture passages didn’t align with Ascension and Pentecost Sundays.

Some Christians are very committed to observing the events of the Christian calendar, some having a special day for nearly every Sunday of the year. I live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, perhaps most famous for our Amish community. The Amish make a big deal of Ascension. Liturgical churches that follow the lectionary have numerous other special Sundays.

But us evangelicals? Not as much. We have tended to focus on two seasons of the Christian calendar. The four weeks of Advent that culminate on Christmas Eve, and the seven weeks of Lent that culminate on Easter. Actually, the Baptist church I grew up in didn’t celebrate Advent or Lent. Just Christmas and Easter.

Perhaps because Easter is such an important event, the most important event, Christians through the centuries have created an entire week building up to it. Next week we will celebrate Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Tomorrow we kick off Holy Week with Palm Sunday. What is so important about Palm Sunday? We always sing songs about the events of that day, we wave palm branches, and often have a sermon about Jesus’ Triumphal Entry. Why, though? What’s the big deal with Palm Sunday? Is it just fun to give kids palms and watch them parade around the sanctuary?

Yes, it is. But that’s not why Palm Sunday is special. You can probably remember the basic details of the first Palm Sunday in your mind, having heard it so many times. Or you can review it in any of the four Gospel accounts. This coming Sunday we’re going to be following Mark’s account, which is nearly identical to the other versions, but Mark mentions something unique that, of the four, only John also alludes to.

Skim through the four stories of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry, and see if you can find the unique feature in Mark 11 and John 12. It is this feature that I believe is so important, and why we make a big deal about Palm Sunday. Then join us on the blog starting as we talk about it further!

Photo by Brady Leavell on Unsplash

Worship: Cry Out Together – Psalm 77, Part 5

This week I welcome guest blogger, Clint Watkins, as he shares with us how his personal experience of loss and pain led him to learn how to seize hope through lament. If you want to learn more about Clint, please visit his website.

As we conclude our study of Psalm 77, did you notice that we skipped a part of this Psalm? In our previous posts, we learned how Asaph teaches us that when we are struggling with loss and pain, we can seize hope through lament by weeping, wrestling, wondering and waiting. But there one more step we skipped, a step that’s crucial to our understanding of lament. We skipped the inscription before verse 1:

“For the director of music. For Jeduthun. Of Asaph. A psalm.”

This is not a journal entry, not a private prayer—this is a song. And this song was intended for use in corporate worship. Think about that. Not just the more hopeful part at the end. This entire Psalm, including the pain and questioning, was on the greatest hits of Israel’s worship.

The fact that this is a song is not unique to Psalm 77. This is the nature of the Psalms as a whole. They were not primarily written for devotional use. Though they can help our individual relationships with the Lord, their original function was for corporate worship. That’s why many refer to the Psalms as the “hymnbook” of God’s people. And using the Psalms in this way extends to the church. Paul tells Christians to sing the Psalms when they gather. In other words, the Psalms should be instrumental in shaping the way we pray and sing, together.

Now, at one level, this probably isn’t revolutionary to hear. We use Psalms all the time in our songs and worship. “Bless the Lord O My Soul” is a good example. Or there’s a song, “The Earth is Yours,” that takes one of its lines from verse 16. But what I’ve found is that we’re very selective about which parts of Psalms we use in worship. Can you guess what our tendency is? We only use the happy parts! Often the pain, wrestling, questions, struggle—they get left behind.

In other words, we’ll happily take portions from the second half of Psalm 77, but the questioning, the crying, the part about God not bringing comfort—we won’t include that in our lyrics.

Here’s why this is concerning. Lament is the largest category of Psalms. Lament accounts for well over a third of them. 68 out of 150 psalms are prayers out of pain. That means 1 out of every 3 songs in God’s hymnbook was a prayer in pain. 1 out of 3 songs are filled with lyrics of despair and doubt, wrestling and struggle.

So that shows us that lament is not something we do in order to worship. Lament is worship. God gave us these words as a template for how to sing to him together. Worship is meant to involve the whole breadth and depth of human emotion and experience—sorrow and celebration, heartache and happiness, grief and gratitude, confidence and confusion. God invites us to bring him both our praises and our pain when we gather. Both honor the Lord.

And lament’s prevalence in Biblical worship shows us that lament should be a regular rhythm in the body of Christ. If 1 out of 3 songs is a lament, if lament is the largest category in the Psalter, we should be concerned that it’s virtually disappeared from use. We need to recover this gift, to sing about sorrow together, in order to worship with the honesty that God permits, in order to wrestle for the hope that God provides.

There are many reasons why lamenting regularly together can be powerful, but let me just end by giving you two.

Lament unifies the rejoicing and weeping. On any given Sunday, people are walking into the sanctuary with burdens and struggles. You can use Psalm 77 as an example.

  • There are people here who are verses 1-9 people. Struggling, in pain, wrestling with God, working through difficult questions
  • There are people here who are verses 10-20 people. You’re reflecting on God’s character and goodness, lingering and wondering and waiting.
  • And, honestly, I think we’re all typically a mixture of the two.

But if our tone and posture and lyrics only speak for verses 10-20 people, it excludes the people who are weighed down. In fact, this was my experience, and I have heard this time and time again from others—they feel like there’s no song for their sorrow. An excess of triumphant choruses can leave sufferers feeling defeated. Paul tells the church to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep. He also says that, in the body, if one member is honored, everyone celebrates. And if one member suffers, everyone hurts. Praise allows us to rejoice with each other. Lament allows us to weep with each other.

My challenge to you is to incorporate lament in the way you worship together. This ought to be a regular experience—and the more you do it, the more normal it will become. Worship leaders can include songs that capture the heart of lament—it gives voice to the people who are hurting.

It may feel uncomfortable at first to sing lament together. But sorrow belongs in the sanctuary. Think about it: It shouldn’t feel weird to worship the way people do in the Bible. And you will find that singing about both sadness and joy will deepen your relationship with the Lord and each other.

Lament deepens our compassion. Lament offers us a powerful tool to minister to others.

Have you ever felt like you don’t know what to say when someone is struggling? So often we stumble through sentences to offer some sort of comfort. Or, out of fear of saying something hurtful, we keep our distance. But lament provides another way. Instead of trying to say something profound, and instead of being silent, use lament as a framework to listen to others.

If you have trust with someone who is struggling, help them do what Asaph did. Invite them to describe their despair. Give them to space to voice the doubts they’re struggling with. Don’t try to fix them, don’t try to answer their questions, don’t push them to the second half before they’re ready. Just listen. And then, use the framework for lament to pray for them and with them. Share in their despair and their doubts, and recall God’s rescue and linger in redemption with them as they wait.

Suffering and loss can be so unbelievably lonely. But there is something powerful when others make your pain their own. This is what lament allows us to do—we cry out to the Lord together, wrestling with the Lord in our pain, and making others’ pain our own. We cry out together as God moves us toward hope.

At our son’s memorial service, we made sure to spend time lamenting together. Psalm 44 is another lament, full of pain and unsettling questions. We included it in Eli’s service because it gave voice to our grief. But we didn’t just have someone read it at Eli’s service—we had the whole congregation read it together. I can’t tell you how powerful it was to hear other people cry out with us and for us. They shared our pain and our grief and cried out to the Lord with us.

This is the power of lament. We weep, we wrestle, we wonder, and we wait—and share each other’s pain as we cry out to the Lord in worship.

If you’re hurting today, if you are grieving, if you are wrestling with the Lord—know that he welcomes your cries and your sorrow. And if you’re not struggling, cry out for people who are.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Wait: Linger in Redemption – Psalm 77, Part 4

This week I welcome guest blogger, Clint Watkins, as he shares with us how his personal experience of loss and pain led him to learn how to seize hope through lament. If you want to learn more about Clint, please visit his website.

In Psalm 77, verses 1-15, Asaph has taught us that when we lament, we weep, wrestle and wonder. Now in verses 16-20, Asaph continues reflecting on God’s power, but gets a little more descriptive in his pondering. This is a dramatic retelling of when Israel passed through the Red Sea. Look at all the creation language in verses 16-19.

Asaph is not just highlighting God’s power, he’s highlighting God’s redemptive power. What’s the difference? These images—the waters, clouds, rain, thunder, lightning, the sea—these are all images of chaos. People during Asaph’s time had no real defense against the storms of nature. Though we may have better protection these days, natural disasters still show us how powerless we truly are. It’s like the tornadoes that have been ripping through our country over the past week. Nature’s chaos can only be overpowered by the God who created it.

But in Psalm 77, God is not just overpowering the chaos. He’s using the chaos for his redemptive purposes. It’s cosmic Judo. Judo is a form of martial arts where you use your enemies’ strength against them. God uses the chaos to rescue Israel.

This is God’s storyline all throughout Scripture:

Genesis: what you intended for evil, God intended for good.

Exodus: the very waters that could have killed Israel was their path to salvation.

The Cross: the instrument of death becomes the vehicle for resurrection.

God’s redemptive purposes turn evil and chaos upside down.

As Asaph reflects on God’s redemptive power, the energy of his prayer builds. The waters are writhing, the clouds are swirling, lightning is flashing—it’s as if Asaph is getting louder and louder as prays. But there’s a surprising end to his prayer. The final verse in Psalm 77, verse 20, has been called an anticlimax. Almost a disappointing end. Like a joke with a bad punchline. Really, Asaph? You’re just gonna stop? I like to picture Asaph reflecting on his bed. He’s struggling to fall asleep. It’s as if he passes out while reflecting on God’s redemption. His prayer just stops. But this is no accident. He lingers here purposefully. The Psalm ends with the Israelites in the wilderness. Asaph, too, is still in the wilderness. His situation hasn’t resolved. His questions haven’t been answered.

But he knows that this is not unfamiliar territory for God and his people. God has brought his people through the wilderness before, and Asaph wants us to feel the anticipation that the Lord might do it again.

This is what faith can look like in the wilderness. You’re struggling. You’re wrestling with God. You know he’s working redemptively—but you can’t see it. You’re still wondering what he’s doing. And on this side of eternity, you may never know why he’s allowing this to happen. So you simply wait. Wait for God to do something, to show up, to save.

This is how the Bible as a whole ends. Revelation paints this future hope of God erasing all tears and pain—but it ends in the wilderness. “Come, Lord Jesus!” We revel in redemption, we anticipate Christ’s return, but we wait.

There’s an enormous amount of pressure to “find the silver lining” in the storm. It can feel unfaithful if you haven’t found the spiritual purpose for your suffering. Now, it’s not wrong to find purpose in your pain—I know it can be really helpful for people to point to particular ways that their suffering led them to do something. But Scripture also makes room for stories that linger until Christ returns.

If your suffering hasn’t ended, or you don’t have specific reasons for your pain or haven’t found the silver lining, you can still be a person of profound faith and powerful hope. We linger in redemption as we wait for Christ’s return.

Be encouraged. Lament takes time. This isn’t a once and done process. It’s not something that happens in a single conversation with God. Asaph had to process this, wrestle with the Lord, then he composed this prayer and wrote it down, worked out the poetry, edited it, finished it. Don’t rush this process. It’s okay to have seasons of wrestling with the Lord. Your sorrow is not the end of the story, but you also don’t need to rush the plotline. And working through your sorrow honestly will move you to a place of rugged hope.

Photo by Guilherme Stecanella on Unsplash

Wonder: Remember His Rescue – Psalm 77, Part 3

This week I welcome guest blogger, Clint Watkins, as he shares with us how his personal experience of loss and pain led him to learn how to seize hope through lament. If you want to learn more about Clint, please visit his website.

As we continue studying Psalm 77, we have already learned how lament starts with weeping, in which we describe our despair to the Lord, and then it moves into wrestling, voicing our doubts to the Lord.

After voicing his doubts, the writer of Psalm 77, Asaph, does something about them. Look at verse 10. He makes a diligent search of the Lord’s goodness. Did you catch the language he recycles from earlier?

  • Verse 3: Remembering God caused him grief.
  • Verse 6: He remembered his song in the night.
  • Verse 11: He now remembers the deeds of the Lord.

He can’t find answers to his questions in his own situation—he’s struggling to see God’s goodness in the present, so he turns to the past. He meditates on who God is and what he has done. I appreciate verse 13, “What god is great like ours?” It’s similar to the cry of Peter when Jesus asks his disciples if they’re going to leave, “Where else will we go?” When you’re in the midst of suffering, and you’re struggling with the Lord and his plan, sometimes it comes down to this: you don’t know what God’s doing, you don’t like what he’s allowing, but you know there’s no hope outside of him.

And do you see what event Asaph lands on as he contemplates God’s character? Verse 15: “You redeemed the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.” He’s talking about the Exodus. God’s people were enslaved to a ruthless King and they cried out to God in their distress. God heard their cries and rescued them from slavery.

Asaph recalls an event that happened a couple thousand years earlier in order to cling to the Lord in his suffering.

Past rescue fuels future hope. This is the anthem he remembers: “God hears our cries and has the power to rescue.”

Asaph had the Exodus to look back to in order to remember God’s rescue. We have our own Exodus event—it’s Easter. The cross and the empty tomb are our receipt of God’s rescue. Christ’s death and resurrection proclaim the same reality that Asaph ponders here: “God hears our cries and has the power to rescue.” In our lament, we can look to the cross.

Nicholas Wolterstorff models for us what this can look like. His book, Lament for a Son, is a book of reflections and laments after his son died in a climbing accident. Listen to a part of one of his prayers, and how similar it sounds to Psalm 77, both in its honesty and its hope. He describes his despair, voices his doubt, then he remembers God’s rescue.

“How is faith to endure, O God, when you allow all this scraping and tearing on us….

If you have not abandoned us, explain yourself.

We strain to hear.

But instead of hearing an answer, we catch sight of God himself scraped and torn.

Through our tears we see the tears of God.”

So when you suffer, after you have described your despair and voiced your doubt, remember his rescue. This is not to erase the sorrow, it’s not to ease the pain. It’s to cling to trust in the midst of trial. To grieve with hope. Through your tears, see the tears of God.

Photo by Tim Foster on Unsplash

Wrestle: Voice Your Doubt – Psalm 77, Part 2

This week I welcome guest blogger, Clint Watkins, as he shares with us how his personal experience of loss and pain led him to learn how to seize hope through lament. If you want to learn more about Clint, please visit his website.

In the previous post, we learned how lament starts with weeping, in which we describe our despair to the Lord.

Look at how Asaph’s prayer takes a turn. Notice the first word of verse 4: You. Remember Asaph’s sleeplessness in verse 2? He can’t sleep. And who’s responsible? God. Think about this image. “God, it’s as if you are holding my eyelids open. I’m so tired! I can’t even speak! Why aren’t you letting me get some rest?”

He continues describing his despair, which leads him into a refrain of very unsettling questions. Look at these 6 questions that Asaph rattles off. It would be tempting to rush past these. But let these questions impact you.

     Will the Lord reject forever? 
     Will he never show his favor again? 
     Has his unfailing love vanished forever? 
     Has his promise failed for all time? 
     Has God forgotten to be merciful? 
     Has he in anger withheld his compassion?”  (Psalm 77:7-9)

This really changes the tone of the conversation, doesn’t it? Asaph no longer sees the Lord as a counselor—they’re in conflict! Some assume that it’s inappropriate to question God. But think about this—the Psalms are the words God gave us to give back to him. These prayers have been inspired by the Holy Spirit, authorized by God. So asking questions like this cannot be inappropriate. They’re God-ordained!

This is shocking, because you will read a lot of bold questioning and complaining in the Psalms, a lot of prayers punctuated with question marks and full of confrontational statements. Let’s just read a few:

     Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? 
     Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? (Psalm 10:1)

     How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? 
     How long will you hide your face from me?  (Psalm 13:1)

     My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 
     Why are you so far from saving me, 
     so far from the words of my groaning?  (Psalm 22:1)

     I say to God my Rock, 
     “Why have you forgotten me? 
     Why must I go about mourning, 
     oppressed by the enemy?”  (Psalm 42:9)

     Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? 
     Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. (Psalm 44:23)

Suffering puts us in a place where our pain doesn’t seem to line up with God’s promises, “I know you’re good, but this doesn’t feel like it. I know you’re powerful, so why aren’t you helping me?” It’s not just okay to ask these questions—it’s good and healthy. God invites us to.

Now, why is that? We speak often of being in a relationship with the Lord. “It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship.” Well, a sign of any good relationship is not the absence of conflict, but dealing with conflict in healthy ways.

A strong relationship with the Lord will involve healthy conflict. Wrestling with God is in our DNA. Remember, that’s how Israel got its name—when Jacob physically wrestled with God. He renamed Jacob and called him Israel, which means “struggle with God.” The Lord saw this wrestling match as the way he wanted to identify his people—those who struggle with the Lord.

And the biblical language of healthy conflict with the Lord is lament. Lament is the courageous decision to deal with the conflict you have with God. It says, “I’m not going anywhere. But I’m not gonna sweep my questions under the rug.”

This is an astounding invitation. The God of the Universe, the one who knows all things, controls all things, sustains all things. The sovereign and holy King—invites you to bring him your questions and complaints. His grace has purchased us a relationship where we can bring him all of our concerns—even when they’re with God himself.

So bring your questions to the Lord. Wrestle with him. Voice your doubt.

Photo by Md Mahdi on Unsplash

Weep: Describe Your Despair – Psalm 77, Part 1

This week I welcome guest blogger, Clint Watkins, as he shares with us how his personal experience of loss and pain led him to learn how to seize hope through lament. If you want to learn more about Clint, please visit his website.

Three and a half years ago my wife and I lost our son, Eli, to stillbirth.

One of the difficulties we faced as we experienced loss and pain, especially in gathered worship, was that it felt like there was no song for our sorrow. But God’s word includes songs of sorrow called lament.

Mark Vroegop defines lament as. “A prayer in pain that leads to trust.”  The way I like to describe it is “wrestling honestly with the Lord.” Lament gives us language to seize hope by wrestling with God.

Turn to Psalm 77, and we will find it is a lament that teaches us how to lament.

Weep: Describe Your Despair (verses 1-3)

Notice how Asaph shares his pain in this prayer.

  • Crying out, distress, groaning, spirit grows faint
  • Sleeplessness
  • God is not bringing him comfort.

Have you ever felt this way? In distress, discomfort, despair? Do you feel this way today? God’s Word acknowledges your sorrow.

Asaph’s lament is so honest. Our prayers are typically polite, calm, measured. But his prayer is full of tears, volume, and pain—even thinking about God agitates his soul! Yet he turns to the Lord to explain his distress. He cries out to God and talks about his suffering. He describes his despair.

You see this all throughout the Psalms—sufferers take the time to explain their situation and their sorrow to the Lord. This is surprising—God is all-knowing. So why would we need to describe our experience for him? Doesn’t he already know? It’s common to pray something like, “God, you know what we’re going through, so please help.” Yet, even though God knows what they’re going through, people in the Bible describe the details of their suffering with God.

This is really surprising, that God would both invite and command us to explain our situation and feelings to him. It feels inefficient, uncomfortable, unnecessary. Yet the Lord offers his listening ear and welcomes us to describe our despair.

I had a very powerful experience with this type of invitation to describe despair. After we lost our son Eli, I knew that seeing a counselor would be helpful to process my grief. But the first counselor I saw was a pretty negative experience. He did more talking than listening, leaving me further agitated in my grief. But I knew I couldn’t let that dictate my whole view on therapy (especially because my wife was a therapist!), so I moved on to a different counselor.

As I anticipated my first session with this new counselor, I was nervous. Was this going to be another waste of time? Was he going to listen? But I’ll never forget how he started our session. Four words. “Tell me about Eli.” It was such a simple yet powerful invitation. He wanted to hear my story, hear about my son, hear about my pain.

This is what the Lord invites us all to do. He brings us in, sits down across from us, and says, “Tell me about your pain.”

It is good and necessary for us to acknowledge the difficulties we feel and the heartbreak we see. The Bible doesn’t force us to slap gospel-colored band-aids on our open wounds. God wants us to engage and express our hurts.

So instead of avoiding the difficult emotions you have, or trying to tune them out, or get over them quickly—slow down and engage the struggles you feel. Bring them to the Lord. Describe your despair.

Photo by Kat J on Unsplash

How do we deal with loss and pain – Psalm 77, Preview

Last week I traveled with my brother and sister to a family funeral in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  There we joined my parents and some aunts, uncles and cousins to support my aunt and her family, as her husband, my uncle, had rather suddenly passed away the week before.  He was only 69.  While he had been in ill health for a while, we figured he’d pull through, especially being so young.  But he didn’t pull through.  He is the first family member in my parents’ generation to pass away. 

Even though I wasn’t especially close to that uncle, the funeral was still difficult. Some pastors have told me they like funerals and dislike weddings.  I find that odd.  I can struggle with the sadness of funerals.  I watched as my cousins expressed grief over the loss of their father.  In fact, my cousin called me a couple days before the wedding, asking, if he was too emotional to read his eulogy, could I read it for him?  I said I could, so he emailed me the eulogy ahead of time.  When we arrived at the funeral home and greeted him, though, he said he felt he was okay to read it.  Still, at the beginning of the funeral service, I loaded it on my phone, ready for the nod.  During the reading, he was certainly emotional as he shared memories of his dad, but he made it through. I’m glad he was able to.  But his sister was not able to.  She had my sister read for her.  Then my mom read for my aunt, her younger sister.  It was too hard for them, and understandably so.

When I do funeral planning with families, I suggest that family members write out their memorial reflections and enlist back-up readers for this very reason.  I also suggest that they don’t have open mics during funerals, or if they really want a space for people to share their memories, do it during the meal.  Why? Because loss is so difficult, so emotional.  People think they want to share, but they usually haven’t prepared.  As a result, they get to the mic, and emotion takes over.  I’ve heard plenty of open mic comments at funerals that have no business at a funeral. 

Last year, a man from our church passed away, and his was maybe the largest funeral crowd I’ve been involved with.  So large the family wisely held it in the sanctuary of a local megachurch.  Why so large a crowd?  Because when this man passed he was only in his early 40s, he also died suddenly, and he was very well liked.  One of his family members went back and forth in the days leading up to the wedding unsure whether they were going to talk at his funeral.  Literally during the funeral, they decided to go for it, having nothing written down.  As they walked up to the mic in front of all those people, they were overcome with emotion, started weeping, and the only thing that came out of their mouth was an expletive.  I have a feeling that was the first time a curse word was uttered publicly in that sanctuary. 

My guess, though, is that it probably doesn’t surprise you to read these stories of great emotion during times of great loss and pain.  What is the greatest loss you have suffered in your life?  Perhaps you’ve lost a job, or a prized possession or a house.  Maybe you’ve gone through a difficult health situation, or a bad relationship that just lingers and lingers.  For most of us, it is the loss of a loved one. What does faith look like in the midst of loss and pain?

This week on the blog, I welcome Clint Watkins who will be preaching about responding to loss and pain through the practice of lament.  Clint and his wife Jillian are long-time friends of Faith Church, as they serve with Disciplemakers on the campus of Thaddeus Stevens, just down the road.  Clint has preached, led discipleship, and he even taught a video class for us this past fall. What you will learn this coming week is that Clint and Jillian have experienced loss in a very personal way.  Our congregation has prayed for them over the years, first when they lost their son Eli, and then again when they experienced miscarriage.  These deeply painful experiences have given the Watkins’ ample opportunity to meditate on what it means to be faithful followers of Jesus in the aftermath of loss and pain.

Join us on the blog tomorrow as Clint talks about it further. In the meantime, visit his site here.

You can be set free to love – Galatians 1:1-5:15, Part 5

Do you find it hard to love some people? Maybe there are people you really struggle with? Keep reading because there is hope!

Because Jesus died and rose again, we can be free!  Look at chapter 4:1-7.  Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, Paul says, we can receive the full rights as sons and daughters of God!  Better yet, when we become God’s sons and daughters, God sends his Spirit into our hearts.  That is a powerful thought.  For true followers of Jesus, the Spirit of Jesus lives in us.  Paul has repeatedly mentioned the Spirit, because it is so important to him.  God’s Spirit living in us is everything.  (If you have been following along since the preview post, can you start to see how Paul’s flow of thought will lead to his teaching about the Fruit of the Spirit?)

The importance of the people having the Spirit of God in their lives is why Paul is so concerned for the Galatians.  Look at how he describes his concern for them in chapter 4 verses 8-9. Paul cannot believe that those who have tasted freedom in Jesus, with the Spirit of God living in their lives, would want to go back to the slavery of the law. Paul is basically saying, “People, you have been set free from the Law so that you can access the power of the Spirit of God alive and at work in you! Why would you go back to slavery to the Law?”

Paul goes on in verses 10-20 to plead with them to turn to Jesus. The rest of chapter four and chapter five verses 1-12 includes arguments from Paul strengthening his case, imploring them to choose freedom in Jesus rather than slavery to the Law.  Take a look at chapter 5, verse 6, which is very important for where Paul’s flow of thought is headed. 

There Paul says that circumcision or uncircumcision is not what is important in the eyes of Jesus.  The choice of circumcision is an outward act.  Instead what counts is the inward condition of our hearts, which Paul says is “faith expressing itself through love.”  Faith, in order to be truly faith, must demonstrate itself in love. 

Look at how Paul describes this in verses 13-15.  He says that we are free in Christ.  But that doesn’t mean we go wild.  Our sinful nature is calling us to indulge in temptation.  Paul says that freedom in Christ doesn’t mean that we do whatever we want.  Instead, he returns to love.  Serve one another in love. 

Then he brings up a teaching from the Law that Jesus once said was the second greatest command after love God: Love your neighbor as yourself.   We know that our faith in Christ is genuine when God’s love flows from our hearts. 

To sum it up, flowing from God’s grace and love, Jesus was born, lived, died and rose again, so that we could be forgiven for sin, and have a new relationship with God when we place our faith in him.  That relationship with God is not based on us keeping the Law, but on God’s Spirit living in us.  With God’s Spirit at work in us, we are set free from the Law, free to live by the Spirit, which Paul says is “faith expressing itself through love.” 

We are free to serve one another in love.  That is the amazing gift of God.  That is how God wants to change our lives, our families, our community and our world, by his Spirit in us, empowering us to serve one another in love. 

Look at your life.  Are you serving one another in love?  Consider your family relationships first.  Think about the relationships you have with your parents, your siblings, your extended family.  Are you serving them in love? 

Consider your friends, co-workers, teammates, and neighbors.  Are you serving them in love? 

Consider your church family?  Are you serving in love? 

Photo by Simon Maage on Unsplash