Not a Tame God

If you haven't gone to see Prince Caspian yet, be forewarned. I don't talk too much about plot lines, well at least not predictable ones. I'll post other thoughts in more blog form and less public speaking form within the next few days.

Delivered May 22, 2008

If you haven't seen Prince Caspian, I’d recommend it. I won’t say it is as good as The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, but it is just a very different movie. More medieval warfare than a story of growing up and being brave.

The Christian nature of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is inescapable. It is very clear how the death and resurrection of Aslan reflects the death and resurrection of Jesus.
In Prince Caspian, the dialogue on faith is much more subtle, allowing people like me to dig deeply into it.

I looked through youtube and couldn’t find the clip I wanted to show, when it is available, I'll put a link in here.
So for now I’ll simply quote/paraphrase the scene I wish to use as an illustration.

At one point in the movie, there is a bit of a power struggle between Prince Caspian and the High King Peter Pevensie. Caspian wants to stay at the stone table fortress and ward off the attacking armies from there. Peter wants to go to the enemies’ castle and bombard them with a surprise attack. Both options seem rather gloomy and defeat seems inevitable. Lucy, the youngest queen of Narnia gets everyone’s attention and says, and I’m paraphrasing "why does everyone assume there are only two options, die here, or die at the castle?" and there’s some argument here and there and Lucy calls Peter out, smacking him in the face with his pride, "or did you forget who really defeated the White Witch?" Peter still filled with pride responds, "I think we’ve waited for Aslan long enough." And he goes forth to attack the castle and lose many soldiers.

Isn’t that how it is in our lives so frequently. We just plain think we know better than anyone else. We are too stubborn to hear the words of truth ringing through our ears, from any other source We continue to think, no, I’m right and nobody will convince me otherwise.

Peter thinks Aslan has abandoned them, that he is gone, that he doesn’t care about them anymore, perhaps even that Aslan doesn’t exist anymore. And what’s worse, he thinks he doesn’t need Aslan anymore. He thinks he can do it alone.
I know I’ve felt that way about God. If God really cared about me, he’d show up right now and help so I could see what he was doing, so I could know he hasn’t abandoned me, but I can do it alone. I don’t need him.
I’m sure in some way we all have done that.
We see it illustrated throughout scripture. Notably Jonah. God says go to Nineveh and Jonah says, no, I think I’ll run in the opposite direction.

Also the attitude of being forsaken is many Psalms.

From Psalm 10 – "Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?"

From Psalm 13 – "How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?"

From Psalm 22, some words from Jesus’ own lips on the cross – "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

But now, we understand, that since God forsook Jesus on the cross and poured out his wrath on his only Son, that we no longer need to fear being forsaken. Paul says in Romans "The wages of sin is death." Death, being forsaken by God so that your life is no longer intact. yet he continues… "But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Yes we have earned death with our sinning. We deserve it. But grace abounds because of Christ who died in our place, so that our death is not an eternal death, but rather a death that knows that since Christ was raised from the dead, we too shall be raised with him.

Eventually, Peter realizes his error and sends Lucy to find Aslan because he knows he can’t win by himself. Aslan shows up and does help, but in his own time, and in his own way. As the saying goes, "He’s not a tame lion." Just as our God is not a "tame God." We can’t put God into a box or wrap him around our finger and say do this for me now God. God can’t be put in a box, nor should we ever try to do so.

It seems that when God is placed in a box, he bursts out of it, much like he burst out of the tomb after it had been closed. If death could not hold him, how can we expect to?

And we should be glad that we cannot, because as the prophet Isaiah writes, '"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.' declares the Lord." And what great news, because his ways are superior to our ways. Amen.

Squeaky Clean

Have you ever just felt dirty and disgusting? I know growing up on a farm there were plenty of times when I felt dirty and disgusting. Probably the worst was baling straw in the July heat. It was generally my responsibility to stack the bales in the loft of the barn where temperatures soared to above 120 degrees at points. Dust never settled and we’d bale between 2000 and 2500 bales in two or three days. After each day, not only was I exhausted and 15 pounds lighter, but I felt like everything, from my hair to my feet was just dirty, not only that, my lungs, inside of my mouth, inside of my nose and ears were filled with dust and dirt. I would take a shower, but I still felt dirty for days afterward. I itched from all of the tiny cuts I sustained on my arms, I couldn’t breathe quite right from all of the dust I inhaled, and no matter how often I cleaned my ears or blew my nose, there was still more junk waiting to come out.

Now perhaps you’ve been fortunate enough to avoid the dirtiness that comes with baling straw in July’s 90 degree heat, but there is a dirtiness of another kind, that I’m certain you have not avoided and cannot avoid. It is the filthiness of your own self. It is the disgusting feeling of guilt you receive after you have sinned. It is the unavoidable stain of who you are as a human being.

You can read the words of the Lord to his people of Judah, from the prophet Isaiah, after they had rebelled against their Lord.

Reference: Isaiah 1:10-18

How often do we become like the people of Judah, rebelling against our Lord with sins of every kind. Becoming dirtier and dirtier. Isaiah even writes that the people of Judah’s hands are full of blood. It is difficult to become much dirtier than that.

The Lord pleads with the people for them to wash themselves, and to stop doing evil.
For our illustration today. I’m going to ask you to read a section from C.S. Lewis’s “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” This story is part of the Chronicles of Narnia.
For a little bit of context. The main character speaking in this section is named Eustace. He is the cousin of Edmond, Lucy, Susan and Peter, who you hopefully remember from previous stories. Eustace is a nasty little boy who has done nothing but be a whining brat ever since he arrived in Narnia. Due to his brattiness and greediness, he has since been turned into a dragon and there is a bracelet wrapped around his arm or front leg that is causing him considerable pain. In the section, Eustace is recounting how he was turned back into a boy.

Voyage of Dawn Treader Reading (exactly what portion will be available shortly)

So not only was Eustace dirty with his wretched personality as a boy, he was so wretched it turned him into a dragon, filled with scales and smoke filled nostrils and all sorts of other things that are gross by our standards.
At this point, Eustace had realized that he was being quite nasty and wants nothing more than to not feel so dirty from being nasty to everybody. He also is quite concerned with relieving the pain in his arm that has become so excruciating.
But notice what happens. Eustace tries to do what Aslan, the great lion says, but he can’t, he can’t cleanse himself at all. He rips his dirty disgusting skin off, but it grows right back, as hard and terrible as ever.
It is at this point, that Eustace perhaps should have brought his Bible to Narnia, so he could pray Psalm 130.

Reference: Psalm 130

Eustace had fallen, just as all humanity into the depths of sin and he cannot get out on his own. Aslan, the great Lion let’s Eustace know what happens. Aslan rips off the scales of Eustace to the very depth of his being and throws him into the water and Eustace comes out a completely different creature. More refreshed, thankful, and pleasant than he has ever been because Aslan did for Eustace, what Eustace could not do himself and that is be fully cleansed.

In our lives we also cannot be fully cleansed by ourselves. We cannot just decide one day to be washed in such a way that we will never again be dirty. We are drawn to the filthiness of sin and cannot escape it alone, but Christ acts on our behalf and dies for our sin, and we are only made truly clean by his blood.

Thanks to Christ’s saving act of death and resurrection we are cleansed. We have been given the gift of baptism to drown our wretched human natures within and put in their place Christ himself, sinless and perfect. We are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Our sinful clothes are thrown away and we live with Christ.
So even when we feel the dirtiness of sin, we can remember that we have been washed clean by the blood of Christ himself.
It is impossible to become any cleaner than that. Amen.

Delivered November 9, 2007