The Choice No One Else Can Make

Mark 1:40-45

To my knowledge the Bible records only three stories of lepers being cleansed by the power of God. There is the story of Naaman, the Syrian. The story you just read from Mark is paralleled in Matthew and Luke and there is another recording in Luke of Jesus healing 10 lepers and only one coming back to thank and praise Jesus for his work of healing.

The single leper that is cured as recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke is an interesting one because it is the only instance where the leper was actually touched to be healed. Jesus may very well have healed other lepers by touching them, but any of those instances aren’t recorded. Naaman washes in the Jordan River, the 10 lepers are simply asked to show themselves to the priest and are cleansed while walking there. But this leper from today’s lesson comes right up to Jesus breaking all sorts of cultural faux-pa. Lepers were supposed to do as the 10 lepers did in Luke’s Gospel and stand at a distance, call out to anybody nearby as they passed through letting everybody within an earshot know that there were lepers coming through, Unclean! Unclean! Yet this guy, walks right up to the Lord and Savior of the Universe in confidence and perhaps arrogance, and seemingly with a bit of disrespect, saying to Jesus “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

And what does Jesus do? He says, “I am willing, be clean.” While reaching out and TOUCHING THIS GUY!

Jesus risks his health, his ministry, his life by touching this man. Yes he is the Son of God, yes he is curing the leprosy in his touch, but in touching this man, Jesus could have been condemned as unclean himself. He could have been outcast from society forced to shout Unclean whenever he walked anywhere. Imagine that, the only truly clean person in the entirety of the universe shouting unclean as He walked anywhere.

What Jesus does for us is even greater than that risk. He risks Himself on us to the ultimate degree by taking on our sin, even though He never once sinned Himself and He went to the cross to die, to be punished for sins and crimes He did not commit. Jesus allows the Father to pour out His just wrath upon Himself instead of on the entire universe. He says, I did those things, I committed those sins, when He did no such thing. It reminds me of a clip from the most recent Batman movie, The Dark Knight.

A bit of background for those who haven’t seen the movie…

Harvey Dent is Gotham’s district attorney. He is injured in a trap that the Joker had set. Dent’s injury earned him the villainous name of Two-Face because one side of his face is undamaged and the other is quite gruesome. After losing the only person he cares about, Dent turns from all that he has done to clean up the city and becomes a villain himself, killing people by flipping a coin, heads they live, tails they die. He brings his tyranny to commissioner Gordon and his family, blaming him for having a part in his current condition. Batman stops Dent. And that brings us to this clip, the aftermath.

2:20:25 – 2:24:25

Commissioner Gordon is distraught that Dent turned away from who he was. Everything that Dent had fought for would be undone when people realized he was just as corrupt as the criminals he put away. All of the criminals he had put in jail would go free and all of the progress they’d made would come to nothing. The city would be anarchy once again, the Joker, mastermind behind it all, would win.

Batman steps in and realizes what he must do. He must take the blame for Dent’s crimes, even though he had done nothing wrong, he had to make Dent appear like the one without blemish. He had to risk being made unclean to make the undeserving Harvey Dent perfectly clean.

For Batman, this realization comes to fruition after a previous conversation with his Butler Alfred who when the Joker demanded that Batman turn himself in, says that the point of Batman is that “he can be the outcast, he can make the choice that no one else can make, the right choice.”

Though Batman didn’t hear it, Alfred also remarks shortly after this, when Batman doesn’t turn himself in that “Even if everyone hates him for it, that’s the sacrifice he’s making, he’s not being a hero, he’s being something more.”

You see, a typical hero would have captured Dent and turned him in and exposed him for what he was, at least according to that limited definition of hero. A hero would be expected to take glory and fame, not take the role of the outcast and the villain even though he is no such thing.

In a similar way, the point of Christ was to take on the sin of the whole world. To take on sin’s punishment of death and to destroy sin and death by rising to life again. He makes the choice that truly no one else can make.

In this, Jesus is not a hero. He’s much more than a hero. A hero turns in the bad guys and helps out the good guys and accepts the praise for his heroic acts. Let’s face it. On earth, there are no actually good guys. As I’ll say once more, from Romans 3 “All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.” None of us deserve to be saved and protected by God. But we are still justified freely by God’s grace in Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.

Perhaps the biggest difference between Batman and Jesus is that Batman takes the punishment of being hunted, of being hated for the crimes, but he doesn’t truly take the ultimate punishment of life in prison or perhaps the death penalty. Jesus takes our punishment for sin, which is death, which he absolutely did not deserve. And he conquers that punishment in His resurrection from the dead.

Batman takes the part of the punishment for Dent, the hatred, the role of being the outcast because he can endure it.

Christ takes on death not because he can endure it, but rather because he can overcome it. He could be killed and death had no power over him because he didn’t do anything wrong, because he is one with the Father.

In my opinion, the best symbolism in the clip you just watched is when Batman takes Harvey Dent’s face and turns it from the mangled, disgusting, corrupted side to the unblemished, beautiful, perfect side. This is what Christ does for us. We are all two-faces. We are all filled with sin and it corrupts our image, but in Christ, God turns that side of us away and gives us another side, the side that we were created to be, the Saint side, the face of Christ himself and because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, Our Heavenly Father does not look at the sinful side, He looks at the forgiven side given to us by Christ through the cross and empty tomb, Amen.

Regarding The Shack

Recently, I had the privilege of reading The Shack by William Paul Young. I'd heard whispers of things about the book and knew it would be, if nothing else, unconventional and it indeed was not only unconventional, but also extremely creative, thought provoking and perhaps most importantly Gospel-filled. It has been well noted by numerous critics, bloggers and authors themselves that the Christian publishing world has been severely lacking in the spreading of the Gospel. Many Christian publishers seem to be concerned with producing material that reflects the moral standards and values of a typical (very often conservative) Christian church. While I don't think there is anything wrong with emphasizing morals and values in a society where those things are ever decreasing, there is something wrong with not presenting the message of forgiveness and salvation to a world that always has and always will need to hear such a message of grace and mercy.
The Shack is a book after my own heart because it is something that was (or at least would have been) utterly rejected by all Christian publishers because of its controversial nature and also utterly rejected by all secular publishers because of the unavoidable message of salvation in the book. I too have a book of this nature in the editing stages. It is however, probably more controversial than The Shack for reasons I'd rather not divulge at this time.
If you have not read the book, the basic bare bones premise is that the main character spends a weekend with God and asks many of the difficult questions many people in the world ask internally but are afraid to ever voice publicly. I.e. Why doesn't God stop bad things from happening on Earth?
The answers the main character gets to his questions are the heart of the book. His conversations with the three persons of the Trinity help the believer to re-think their paradigm of who God is, what human beings are in relation to God, and even who God is in relationship to Him/Herself (yes part of the Trinity in the book presents itself as female).
For the unbeliever, I believe this book provides a relevance and beauty that might open doors wide enough for a person to perhaps give God another look.
It most certainly makes light of some of the views that are currently out there about God; that God is mean, vindictive, wrathful, egocentric, selfish etc. and attempts to explain (and does a very good job of explaining) where those views fall short of the truth.
There are many who have criticized this book for many reasons, some for its theological content. Some of the more prevalent criticisms I've heard are that the author fails to mention the sacraments, that the author presents a bit of universalism in some of the dialogue, that the author holds Scripture in low regard and various other more detailed complaints. Believe me, you don't have to go far to find complaints; they are all over. While I understand where many people can disagree with Young, I think they could be failing to recognize the entire point of the book. The book asks you to rethink how you've come to believe what you believe and it would seem that part of the vocal minority of people who have come to criticize this book have failed to take part in that rethinking. Indeed I don't know how long certain critics have struggled with this book and its assumptions, assertions and implications, but I get the feeling there are some who approached this book with such a vindictive attitude and closed mind that they refused to reconsider their own paradigms. Perhaps they all did. Perhaps they struggled with where they've learned what they've learned and thoughtfully said, this is wrong, but that type of careful thought is not explicitly present in some of the reviews I've read. Some have been thoughtful. One blogger I read on a regular basis said that it presented the Trinity in a way he'd never thought of before and in a way that helped him understand the profound need for relationships in this world.
I don't think anybody is saying that this book should be accepted as another book of the Bible (ok perhaps a few are); of course there are things wrong with the book. Purity of doctrine is not something we can truly expect ourselves as humans to produce. What we can expect is that we can make each other think. We can challenge each other with perspectives and ideas that we had never considered before and we can grow from considering those things, even if we reject them.
I wish I would see more consideration from the reviews that are out there condemning The Shack. I think it would be a helpful step in engaging in further dialogue.
My review would simply be that while there were parts that I didn't full agree with or fully understand, The Shack opened my eyes to many possibilities and complexities regarding God that I had not considered before. It helped me to think about what I believe, how I treat my neighbor and how great God is for intersecting world through the person of Jesus Christ, how loving Jesus was in His death and resurrection, and how glorious God is for continually blessing us despite our constantly falling short of His glory.
If you get an opportunity to read the book I would highly recommend it, not because it is absolutely perfect, but because it is thought provoking and all in all it lets the Gospel predominate.
If you already have read it, I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts about it, either via a blog comment or in person if we have the ability to do so.

Legacy Left Behind

1 Samuel 3:1-10

John 1:43-51

Feel free to reference the links above. The message has little to do with the Scripture passages, they simply exemplify God's calling.

All of us seek purpose, meaning, significance for our lives. We all would like to leave something behind after we’re gone. Something unavoidable that we hope everybody in the world will recognize we accomplished in our short time on this earth. For some the building of that legacy may occur through writing a book, for others achieving the status of Dr., for others many years of faithful service to a prestigious organization, for others discovering something grand that will help the people of the world, and for still others perhaps by having children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. Whatever it happens to be, all of us in some way would enjoy it if future generations would look at our accomplishments and be impressed.

One problem many of us have is getting started. I mean, what field could I really leave my mark in? Well, I can’t make it as a professional athlete and I’m not good enough at science things to cure any diseases, hmmph. Where to even begin? Many of us start on one path and end up on multiple others before we find one that we can excel at and feel comfortable in and good about.

As I looked at the readings posted above, I saw people being called away from their lives to a new life, dedicated to serving the Lord and following Jesus. Perhaps a similar change has happened in your life?

While I’m not old enough to worry about not leaving a legacy behind quite yet, I think it is similar to the teenage angst of thinking I am never going to amount to anything.

I am well versed enough in television to see both of these as major concerns to many people. Can’t you just hear a high-schooler almost yelling I’m never going to amount to anything? Perhaps you’ve heard it from your kids, or perhaps you’ve yelled it yourself. This is a recurring theme on my newest craze of a TV show Lost. Indeed I could probably find a moment where every single character truly wondered if they would ever amount to anything great.

Perhaps some of you are sitting there saying, well, I achieved something great, I’ve left a decent legacy, so then another question becomes what do I do after I’ve achieved that great thing, after I’ve left my legacy. Do I promote the great thing? Do I try to do something even greater? Do I sit back, relax and revel in my accomplishment?

Well, for an example of this, we’ll have to look to another TV show of a different genre than Lost, my all-time favorite show, Seinfeld. This episode is called: the Frogger. In it, George (the stocky balding man with a temper) rediscovers his one truly great accomplishment, a high score on the arcade game Frogger from his old high-school hang out spot. Upon realizing that this record has stood for better than 20 years, and knowing that the place where it sits will soon be shut down, George decides his legacy must live on. He decides to buy the Frogger machine and keep it for himself. He soon realizes (thanks to Jerry) that he won’t be able to simply take it home, once he unplugs the machine, the scores will all be lost and his legacy deleted. So George comes up with this crazy ingenious plan to move the Frogger machine without losing power. And that’s where we begin the clip.

Seinfeld Season 9 - The Frogger 18:45-20:32

Despite all of George’s plans things go wrong, the battery is dying. But he sees the road and the machine and realizes that his entire life has been leading to this one moment. He was born to do this. He had been called to do it. And he fails. His Frogger machine, his pride, and his legacy are all destroyed by that truck and George is left with nothing.

Have you ever felt that way about something you felt called to do? Like it had been destroyed? Perhaps its destruction was a good thing.

It reminds me how the disciples must have felt after Jesus death, before his resurrection. They go back to fishing, what they knew before. Their legacy with Christ, they’re great thing gone. Their leader crucified. They’re left with nothing. But Jesus, unlike George’s Frogger machine isn’t destroyed. Death could not hold our Savior. He rose to life again. And His legacy lives on unto eternity. Amen.

Performance Review

Mark 1:4-11

From the reading in the link above, we will be focusing particularly on these words. “And a voice came from heaven “You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

These words from God the Father to God the Son, Jesus Christ show the Father’s approval of and delight in His Son’s life.

Whether we admit it or not, we all seek the approval of somebody in our lives. Whether we’re seeking the approval of our parents, kids, professors, peers, siblings, spouses, friends, enemies, bosses, co-workers, employees, and yes we also tend to seek approval from God.

I think ultimately, all of us would rather have approval and compliments than disapproval and insults.

So what would people say about you? If you had to have a performance review of your life, what would they say? Joe has led a pretty ok life? Sally has been atrocious? Matt is perfect? Maybe you don’t know what to expect.

Have you ever had a performance review? I’ve had a couple, they can be nerve-wracking, but for those of you who’ve never had one, I have a clip to show you from the best place to find a performance review, The Office,

Performance Review – 1:45-4:51

Now obviously this wouldn’t probably happen in an actual performance review. I hope and pray that people as ridiculous as Michael Scott aren’t managing any companies, but we see in Pam that she doesn’t know what to expect. The reviews from Michael can be erratic, unfocused, unpredictable simply because that’s who Michael is. It has very little to do with who Pam is.

I think that if I were being reviewed by one of my friends, peers or whoever that if they were truly honest, my performance review would be the same way, random, up and down, not very steady. And that would be because of who I am, not because of who they are.

How would yours be?

Raising the stakes a bit. If a voice were to come out of heaven and speak to the whole world about you, what would it say?

On one hand, it would probably say something very similar for all people, perhaps it would begin with, to paraphrase Romans 3:23 “For You have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Indeed that’s what it should say for me.

That’s the reality of life, we are all sinners and don’t deserve praise from our friends, bosses or God, but that Romans passage doesn’t stop there. It keeps going.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, AND all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

Because of Jesus death and resurrection, we no longer need to fear the punishment for our sin. We no longer need to fear being unaccepted by God. God has accepted us because of what Jesus Christ did for us in dying and rising for the forgiveness of our sins.

So that voice that comes from heaven wouldn’t be a voice of disappointment. It would be a voice of approval. This is my beloved Son or Daughter, whom I love, who has been washed clean by the blood of the lamb.

And all this not because of who you are, but because of who God is. Not because of what you have done, but because of what God has done for you. Amen.