The Painted Door Church - Chicago

Ash Wednesday Service - The Final Gathering of The Painted Door Church

At the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, God began to openly reveal the true identity of his Son. He spoke to John the Baptist of who this man Jesus of Nazareth truly was. And John testified of his identity: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” What a strange unveiling! The long awaited Messiah, the Savior of God's people, announced as a lamb. Jesus was a lamb. This is a very different kind of savior. In this world, we are caught in our grasping for control, our quests for vinication, our struggles for power. And we look for salvation in strength. Who is fierce enough to come to our aid, to conquer? But God sends a lamb. Because God knows the salvation we long for is not the one we need. He did not come to teach us to roar like lions. He came to teach us to die like lambs. He came to make us into who we truly are.

We were made to be approved. When God first formed humanity from the dust, he pronounced us very good. And in that pronouncement, we have life. But our first parents, and all of us after them, have stepped away from God's free approval to go in search of something we might earn, something that might differentiate us from the rest of our dust-born clan, something that would elevate us to the place of the approving one. We have tried to be God and approve ourselves. And from this vapid quest flows all that is dark in our world: malice, deceit, pride. We scratch and claw for the power we need to make something of ourselves, to prove that we are more worthy than our neighbor. But then a man from Galilee came to the Jordan River and was baptized there. And the Spirit of God descended and came to rest on Him like a dove. And a voice from heaven spoke again with the approval that is our life: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Jesus came into the world to bring these words to our ears. Not to lord his divine approval over us, but to invite each of us to live in it with him.

Epiphany is the day in the historic Christian Church Calendar when we celebrate the manifestation of God as man on earth. Jesus is God-in-the-flesh and so was the first real “jar of clay” containing the inestimable treasure of Divine Life. Paul's cruciform lifestyle was patterned directly after his Master's, and while unattractive and unrecognizable to unspiritual eyes, the Cruciform Glory of the Indwelling Christ shines brilliantly through the many cracks in the apostle's “jar of clay.”  That same indwelling Christ will hold our cracked earthen vessels together, comfort us, and get us through, as we, like Paul, follow the Way of the Cross, through Death, into Resurrection and Eternal Life and Bliss with Jesus.

The Apostle Peter knew what it was to betray Jesus. He denied the Lord three times in an attempt to save himself from the agony of the cross. But after Jesus died and rose, Peter was filled an other-wordly courage. For he saw not only that Jesus is the Christ, but also that he is the sort of Christ who rules all things. He saw that he is Lord even over the grave. And what fear can remain in service to a Lord such as this? What resistance would keep us from following him? Only the blind folly of calling ourselves lords and seeking our own salvation as if we were Christ.

The Apostle Peter calls the readers of his second letter “beloved.”  This word, which occurs four times, is in New Testament Greek, agapetos. It denotes Divine Love, characteristic of the indwelling Christ and that is experienced in genuine Christian community.  It is out of this other-centered love that Peter warns his readers against the error of “lawless people”--error that can be overt or subtle. In order to avoid the faith disruption and instability that following error brings, Peter urges his flock, instead, to dwell and rest in the grace and knowledge of the one, true Antidote to error's poison--the Lord Jesus Christ. Knowing Jesus brings his followers a durable, otherworldly stability which shall have no end.

In waiting for Jesus to return, we are waiting for a new heavens and a new earth. But we are not only waiting. We are also receiving manifestations of that new creation right now. In fact, we are becoming manifestations of it. The Apostle Peter calls us to be diligent in becoming people without spot or blemish and at peace. In other words, be diligent to let the new creation manifest in us. The reason Jesus has not returned, the reason people are left in this place to live these lives, is for the very purpose of becoming new creation ready. God is patiently waiting for us to receive his new life, to grow up into all that he made us to be, to let all the false things fall away. He is waiting for us to be people who can run with him. And his patience is for our salvation.

In our present age, all people are infected with an insatiable desire to be right and feel wronged. And so we labor to prove that our way of life is right and that we are victims of those whose way is wrong. We believe that if we succeed in proving this to the world, to our communities, to ourselves, then we will be at peace. But our efforts are misdirected. Because proving our own righteousness is a fool's errand. We have no righteousness in us. Jesus told us, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Where will this satisfaction come from? What is the true longing of our hearts? It is for righteousness to reign. For the heavens and the earth and every force of the air and every creature of the dust to bow before it. We were not made to rest in the rightness of ourselves or to be consumed with solving our wrongness. We were made to rest in the righteousness of God. To bow before him. To live in his kingdom, under the reign of his Son, where righteousness dwells. This is the true and deepest longing of every human heart. It is our great hope. And it will be our eternal delight.

The scriptures speak of the return of Christ in harrowing terms. He is said to be coming like a thief, like one who will steal our most precious possessions without warning. Indeed, the promise of Christ's return is a promise that God will finally consume all those things that grab our affections and keep our hearts from him. He will rid the world of the chains that bind us, even if we love those chains. But we need not wait for Christ's return to begin this liberation. In fact, Christ is waiting to return to give us every chance to develop an appetite for liberation. He is waiting for people to embrace his liberation in a way that will make us embrace his second coming. We were made to live in the love of God. It is our attachment to self-protection that keeps us from receiving that love. But he is waiting, knocking, promising to return. And he bids us to let go, to be exposed, to surrender to his love.

The first century church was not so different from the church of our time. As it was then, so too now, the desire to hold onto sin is what compels people to scoff at the doctrines of God. First century scoffers denied that Jesus would come back to the earth, so that they could live according to whatever passions they desired. Similarly, in our day, we can easily neglect consideration of the second coming in order to hold onto our visions of the good life. We want to pursue our dreams, fill up our experiences, and make something of ourselves. But we forget Christ's return at our own peril. He is coming back. And he is coming to burn up everything false. He is coming to expose our lies, to rid the world of our ruinous ways. We can enter this fire now through the gift of repentance, receiving God's fiery rescue from folly. Or we can go on stacking lies like kindling for the fiery rescue to come. The only thing that will not burn is the life of Jesus. Thanks be to God that his life is ours to live.

When the body senses that some harmful element has entered it, an involuntary retching takes place. And the toxin is expelled. This physiological reality mirrors a spiritual one. When people learn of Christ and see something of his value, they begin to vomit out those toxic thoughts and behaviors that poisoned their souls. But the Apostle Peter warns that false teachers are those who return to their vomit and then lure others to join them there. False teachers are those who look back longingly at the ruin of life without Christ. And then turn back to revel in their vomit again. Peter warns Christians to be on guard for these kind of teachers. For they will entice with promises of freedom, when in truth all they offer is slavery. We must not presume that knowing about Christ, being in church, and reforming our behavior will keep us from danger. We must also be ever vigilant to consider whether we've left any vomit easily within reach.

The Apostle Peter writes the letter we know as 2 Peter to root Christians in their faith, to warn them against dangers that would lead them astray. False teachers loom large among those dangers. And so Peter seeks to expose their motivations and practices. He tells us they are waterless springs. That is, they teach in a way that appears to offer refreshment, but winds up leaving their hearers dry. They do not offer the living water that flows from the Spirit of Christ. They cannot offer it, because they have not received it. And they have not received it, because they have not received Him. The living water of Christ is for those who receive Jesus as he is and tremble before their king. False teachers do not tremble. With irreverence and cavalier arrogance, they entice thirsty souls to follow them into ruin. Adultery. Greed. Blasphemy. Yet God would steady our souls to ignore these empty wells. He would fill us with living water that we would have no thirst to quench.

The prophets of God who pointed to the coming of Christ were not speculating. They were inspired by the Spirit to see and speak the truth. By contrast, false prophets trade exclusively in speculation. They reject authority and so do not yield to the inspiration of Scripture, the Lordship of Christ,  nor the conviction of the Spirit. Their only authority is their own desires. The Apostle Peter warns the church that such false teachers will deceive many people. How? By appealing to unrestricted sensuality. Every human person has sensual desires that are good when pursued in submission to God's wisdom. Yet subjecting our sensuality to God's law is costly in the short term. We must give up some of our strongest passions. False teachers prey on this costliness. Reject authority, they tell us. Listen to the authority of your own mind, your own body, and you can have whatever you desire. These are the great deceptions of every age: to malign the authority God places in our lives and chase after our every whim. These deceptions are always a package deal. And their end is destruction.

God made us to participate in his life with him. But we chose to go searching for life on our own. We found none. Nevertheless, God didn't leave us wandering in death. He sent his Son into that death to rescue us from it. Jesus lived a human life the way his Father always intended, in full communion with the divine. In so doing, Jesus brought the pleasure of his Father to the human race. The Father had always been pleased with the Son. Now, that pleasure fell on human shoulders. In his letter to all Christians, the Apostle Peter charges people of faith to make every effort to walk in the life Jesus gives us. Why? So that we would live in the pleasure of the Father. Peter saw firsthand how pleased the Father is with Jesus. And all God's prophets share the same testimony as revealed to them by the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the beloved one. To live anywhere outside of him is to spend your days forfeiting the most precious gift of all -- the pleasure of the Father.

To know Jesus is to experience his transforming power. He rescues us from our slavery to self-reliance and invites us into the mystery of life in God. In knowing him, we become fully alive, partakers of the divine nature. So then, what better endeavor to give our every effort to than walking out this new reality? The Apostle Peter invites us to make every effort to supplement our faith with virtue and knowledge and self-control and steadfastness and godliness and brotherly affection and love. He invites us to pursue the fullness of what Christ's power has purchased for us. Anyone who does not pursue these qualities forfeits what is ours in Christ. But those who do step into the very purpose of our being: to be filled with the very will of God. We were made to live in this way. And when we do, all of our despair and half-heartedness is swallowed up in the lavish satisfaction of pure love.

We are all born into corruption, full of disordered desire. But God made us for something far sweeter. He made us to desire what is pure and true and beautiful. He made us for life to the full. So how is it that we are to move from the effects of corruption, our own and that around us, into the riches of what God gives? The answer is not complex, but it is painful: God means to replace our nature with the nature of Christ. That is, he means to slaughter our sinful person, and raise the person of Christ within us. He means to kill everything false about us until we become partakers of the divine nature. This is the only way into life. And there are no half measures.

Peter rebuked Jesus for prophesying of the cross. He drew his sword and sought to keep Jesus from the cross by way of violence. Finally, he abandoned and denied Jesus when the cross became inevitable. At every turn, Peter resisted the march of Jesus to the cross. He didn't want Jesus to go, because he himself was unwilling to go. Peter wanted to follow his Lord to victory, not death.  But Jesus was undeterred, both in his mission to face the cross and in his love for Peter. After the resurrection, Peter had nothing to prove his devotion to Christ. He was empty-handed, stripped bare of any pretense that he was a loyal disciple. And there in that wretched place, Peter still heard the same invitation his Lord had always given: “Do you love me?” Though all the evidence of Peter's life shouted of his failure to love Christ, Jesus simply asked again. And again. And again. This is the question that the one who loves us will never stop asking. Because no matter our failures his love and invitation never fails.

To become a Christian is to become a body part of Jesus. All people who put their faith in Christ become hands and feet and ears and eyes of his spiritual body. That means that everything happening in our lives is also happening in the life of Christ. And in the lives of one another. We are all connected. So we suffer together and rejoice together. And we need each other. Hands have no purpose if they are disconnected from arms. They are lifeless and without strength. But when each part is connected to the whole, the body begins to function beautifully and full life is known. We were made to live this way, to be connected to each other, to share one Spirit and one body.

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? What does it profit a woman to have reputation and family and health and forfeit her very purpose of being? What does it profit anyone to gain anything if they do not gain Christ? Riches, relationships, success, vitality, they are all nothing compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. We were made to know this Christ. And to be known by him. Everything in this world is only here so that we would know Christ. Everything we are is designed for union with him, to be married to him, to love him, to be loved by him. He is every treasure you have ever chased. He is the only light you have ever needed. He is always worth losing everything for. Because he is more worthy than all  things combined. He is what you long for. He is life itself. And we belong to him.

At times some may diminish the life and passion (suffering) of Christ in light of emphasizing his death. Christ did, indeed, die on our behalf, and that allows us to proclaim with joy that he has redeemed and reconciled us. But what we often forget is that he reconciled and redeemed by suffering with us. His mutual suffering with broken humankind is the way in which he healed us. His compassion, his taking on a suffering that was not his own, gave us life and healing, and it  tells us something about what it means for us to live in compassion towards each other.

God has promised that he will meet every confession of sin with forgiveness and cleansing. But how do we know when we have truly confessed? Is a verbal acknowledgement of sin always a confession? Hardly. True confession proves itself only in obedience. Because true confession is change in allegiance, a turning from some false master to the true master of our souls. To confess truly is to step into the hands of Christ, to obtain his mercy, to be filled with his light, and to walk in his ways. A person who claims to have confessed and yet persists in disobedience has neither confessed not received mercy. The forgiveness of God always bears the fruit of obedience. Our obedience never earns forgiveness but always follows it.

God has dealt with sin. He has gutted its power to separate humanity from him. Therefore, all people can be reconciled to God and experience the peace of communion with him. That true peace is very different than the false peace that comes from pretending we never needed reconciliation. Yet only those who have experienced reconciliation know the difference. Christian, you are a witness to a kind of peace the world does not know but desperately needs. So do not trade in false peace. Do not seek to appease those who reject the commands of God or undermine the authority of his word. On the contrary, offer reconciliation. Be ministers of grace. Not lies.

Becoming a whole person is not an individual project. Nor is it a team project. It is a relational project. We become whole in relationship, because perfect relationship is wholeness. And what is perfect relationship? It is knowing God and one another even as we are fully known. Often in Christian community, we share the best of ourselves. We let others see our light. This allows for some relationship. But we are then confused as to why our sense of loneliness and isolation remains. The reason is unwillingness to share the worst of ourselves, to let others see our darkness. So we go on half-known, half healed. It is good for the light in us to be affirmed. But it is even more important for the darkness in us to be crucified. And it has been crucified. Now if only we would begin the funeral proceedings.

Relationships define us. We only exist to the extent that we are known. Thanks be to God that he knows us fully. Our life and being, therefore, is secure in his knowledge of us. Yet for us to taste all of that life and being, for us to step into its fullness, we must know God. And he invites us to know him through worship. Worship is the means by which a human person moves toward fullness. In worship, we receive revelation of who God is, we glimpse his glory, we see true life and love. In worship, we envision what we were made for and where we are going. Worship takes our eyes off our present condition and sets our gaze on a new way of being. Worship is imagining that the heavens have come to earth. And the more we imagine it, the more we realize that indeed they have. We can taste full life and being now -- if only we would stop worshiping ourselves.

So many young people throughout our great city are given little opportunity to discover Chicago's greatness. Overlooked, ignored, abandoned, many have no one who will show them care; no one who will listen when life becomes overwhelming; no one who will encourage, embrace, love. But God has not forgotten these precious children. He has sent his church to show them his love. The only question is whether his church will obey him.

God made all things by speaking them into existence. Yet when he set out to make persons, ones stamped in his own image, his voice only began the story. God formed humanity from the dust and then began to mold us into the fullness of life. He introduced drama and choice and conflict. And when we wandered into death, he introduced curse and pain and promise. In all these things, God invited his image bearers to step toward fullness, to realize the true capacity that he had planted in humanity. And finally, one man did.

We often think of ourselves as individuals, separate entities with individuated definition who then interact with one another in meaningful ways. Yet both the book of nature and the book of Scripture indicate otherwise. The more our scientists study the functions of the natural order, the more they discover how all things are contingent, how everything is interwoven, interdependent, interrelated. Scripture, likewise, testifies that in Christ all things hold together. The whole of the universe is a complex web of relationships. Nothing exists on its own. And why would we expect any different, given that the God of this universe is himself a web of relationships? He is Trinity, three in one. His world echoes this reality, nowhere more than among those who bear his image. Our very being, our personhood, is bound up in relationships. We are relationships. Therefore, when we reject or misuse relationship with God or others, our personhood is malformed, even lost. But in embracing relationship with God and others, we discover the path to fullness of personhood, even sharing in the divine life.

To be a person of Christian faith is to set your identity at the right hand of God. Everything Christians are is hidden in Christ, who is seated in the heavens. Therefore, we cannot go searching for ourselves according to the wisdom of this age. We cannot define ourselves according to the standards and measures of this broken world. We must enter a different world and see in an entirely different way. The scriptures testify of that different world and way. They are records of how people of faith have lived in the kingdom of God, receiving wisdom and counsel from God, being defined and directed by God. The scriptures are a window into the truer world that faith opens to us. When we look into the stories and songs and prophecies contained there, we are peering into the world God invites us to live in. We are learning the shape and texture of the divine kingdom. We are witnessing the reign of Christ. Apart from such study, our imaginations run dry and vision of the kingdom grows dim. But in returning to the word, faith is reignited. And we imagine the truth again.

When life presents us with great moments of decision, we often then look for some guidance beyond our shores, some transcendent wisdom, even the voice of God. Trouble is, hearing God's voice is unlike hearing any other counsel. His voice speaks only to ears of faith. When we have practiced so long and so hard to hear only with natural ears, to run every bit of counsel through the sieve of natural reason, our ability to hear in faith grows faint. The sound of God's voice and the absurdity of God's wisdom cannot simply be accepted on a whim. We must practice to hear. We must learn his register. Like sheep who develop fine attunement to the voice of their shepherd through much time in his presence, we too must attune ourselves. As we listen day by day, as we follow him in all things, we prepare to hear his counsel in our greatest moments of decision.

All of creation is a celebration. The trees wave their arms. The rivers rush to gather. The foxes run. The bees dance. The birds sing. It is as it should be, a festival in honor of the Creator, borne of his beauty. A spectacle of color and sound and divine flourish. Yet, there is a greater celebration still, one where light shines even brighter. It is the celebration of lost and found. For as much as the Maker of all things delights in the splendor of his worlds, he delights far more when the sorrow of broken things comes untrue. At his heart, God is more than a creator. He is a redeemer. And our stories of redemption are his glory.

Finances fail. Relationships sour. Our bodies sag. This life is a whirlwind of trials and glories, and the noise of it all is unceasing. And so we withdraw. We find places to take shelter and hide. We pour ourselves a drink and unlock the screen and checkout for a moment or two. And that is not evil. But the breaks we take from life's swirl are just that -- breaks. When break time is over and we return to the story, nothing has changed, least of all our perspective. Jesus lived in this whirlwind, too. And, like us, he took breaks. The scriptures record that he often withdrew to quiet places away from the noise. Yet his times away effected change, not of circumstance but of perspective. When Jesus withdrew, it was not to escape his life but to practice being more present in it. In his solitude, Jesus sought the heart of his Father. How do you see all of this? How do you see me? Jesus learned to look at his story with his Father's eyes. He learned faith, that is, the imagination to see what only God can see. That we have nothing to fear. That a gracious king ever reigns. And that even death cannot destroy us.

It is so easy and so natural for us to believe that control is the source of the greatest joy. If I have power to direct my own life, if I can order my days, if my resources expand to provide limitless choices, then I can have what I want and experience joy. Jesus said and lived the opposite. He told the religious leaders of his day that he did nothing of his accord, but entirely submitted himself to the will and mission of his Father. Even when that will and mission led him into pain, even when he longed for another way, he yielded. And his call to us is to follow him in this way of life, to obey what God has revealed, to submit to divine pruning. Why? “That your joy may be full.” Learning obedience to God is the pathway into deep intimacy with him and each other. It is the pathway into the full and joy-filled  life we were made for.

A local church is a communal expression of a dynamic body. So then  just as a single person's body is never static, a church likewise is always changing. Whether that change is toward greater maturity or greater folly hinges on how much the members of the church body are receiving the gifts of God. Christ ascended into the heavenly realm in order that he might be present in all things by his Spirit. He ascended in order that his gifts might be received by his all flesh. This is why the church is filled with all kinds of teachers and evangelists and prophets. Not so that a select few can take hold of the gifts of Christ, but so that those who have can equip all to take hold of these gifts. The church cannot mature into the fullness of Christ until all its members learn to receive and minister his gifts. We were all made to support each other. And every person has a vital and meaningful role to play.

God is the only source of life, and an abundant, overflowing source at that. So when we spend our days unaware of him, we forget just how much life we have. We begin to count the hours and preserve our energy and guard our possessions. We mistake these gifts of life for its source. And we then conclude that life is in short supply. The hours will run out. The energy will fade. The possessions will age and need replacement. We fall into the trap of racing death, feverishly collecting and hoarding as many memories and satisfactions as we can before the sun sets and life escapes us. But the Christ invites us back to reality. Jesus came into the world and spent himself with abandon, because he knew life was not in short supply. He didn't race death, but rather allowed it to overtake him in full confidence that it would pass by and give way to life again. And when he ascended, Jesus poured out all that is in him that he might fill all things with that same unyielding stream of life. By faith, we are filled. By faith, we have endless gifts to share.

Throughout the scriptures the practice of fasting is commended to God's people. Why? What is the purpose of abstaining from food or drink or some other good thing? Often, we think of fasting as a discipline for the mature, some mysterious conjuring of divine presence for those who are deeply spiritual. But, in truth, fasting is not a tool for increasing divine presence, but rather one for revealing His presence with us all the while. It is not reserved for those who want more of God, but instead offered to anyone who would discover that  all of God is all of ours. He has poured out his Spirit on all flesh. He has lavished us with himself. Fasting is the removal of lesser comforts so that we might discover the ever-present eternal Comforter.

It seems God enjoys meeting us in our food. Time and time again God has offered spiritual food to His people. The Lord's Supper belongs to a shared family energy that unite all believers, not just all believers now, but all believers on both sides of the Cross, Old Testament and New Testament. Continually flowing from the Cross onto the Church, the sacraments are bursting with energy for our conformity to Christ. All the other sacraments and spiritual disciplines build up to the Lord's Supper. It is the pinnacle of the spiritual life this side of heaven. It completes the ritual of faith and repentance. So take Christ however He comes to you. Desire Him more than you fear the consequences of your actions. In rebuke, He is your Savior. In gentleness, He is your Savior. In life, in death, He is your Savior.

In Christ's history, He saved us. In our history, He heals us. We have been received by God, so we now begin receiving from God, from the inside out. From the center of our souls, Christ makes His first move for healing through the gift of faith. Faith is a gift and faith is a healing. Faith is the beginning of a lifetime, an eternity, of healing from Christ, freely given to us. Healing for free, but not healing for whatever idea of freedom we might have in our heads. Healing in this life, and the next, means conformity to Christ. Conformity to both the glory of Christ and the suffering of Christ. In faith, we step into the glory, but our next step is into suffering. That suffering is a lifetime of repentance. With faith comes repentance, with repentance comes confession, confession that happens in community. We are not just given experience in relationship with Jesus, we are also given Christ's very own experience. So that repentance feels the way Christ felt under the burden of our sin. We join Him in the suffering of repentance and confession together, because we are alive together with His resurrection life.

Over our church's nine-year history, we have witnessed God baptize many individual people. We have watched with joy as these lovely souls were dunked under the water and so buried with Christ, only then to be lifted up in the glory of resurrection. This is what God does. He saves people from the death upon death of ourselves into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. And baptism is his sign and seal of that salvation. But what of whole congregations? Can God baptize an entire church? And if so, what might that look like? In the story of the Exodus, God led the Israelite people out of slavery in Egypt and into safety from the Egyptian army by passing them through the Red Sea. The Apostle Paul writes that in this miraculous rescue Israel was “baptized into Moses.” Yet, Paul says, God was not pleased with the people of Israel, because they walked straight from their baptism into idolatry. Our church has undergone a community-wide baptism of sorts over the past several years. We've gone underwater. We've known the swirling darkness of chaos and sorrow. And now we are here, Easter Sunday, having emerged from those waters. New life is before us. Will we walk into it? Or will we choose idolatry? Israel was baptized into Moses, a prophet of God's law. We have been baptized into Jesus, a gracious Lord. Let's follow him.

**Please Note: the recording begins a few moments into the sermon.The prophet Isaiah proclaims that by the wounds of Christ, God's people are healed. Does he mean that because Jesus was wounded, we won't be? Does he mean that the suffering of Christ somehow spares us from any suffering? Certainly not. The Apostles read and interpreted Isaiah for us. Peter quotes this very promise amid his letter on suffering. He tells Christians that they have been called to follow in the footsteps of Christ's suffering. That Christians should expect to suffer more than others, not less. So in what sense, then, do the wounds of Jesus heal us? Peter writes: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” Jesus forged the way out of sin's grip by facing all of sin's sorrow and pain. And he now says to us, “Follow me.” He invites us to walk out of sin' grip by facing all of sin's sorrow and pain with him. In Christ, every wound is a source of healing.

When Jesus began his ministry, he went about healing people of their bodily afflictions and emotional burdens. Yet as his ministry neared its end, as he set his face toward Jerusalem, he began to offer a very different sort of healing: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.” With these words, Jesus made it clear to his followers that in all of his preceding miracles he was providing healing for the cross. He healed people so that they might follow him to Calvary. And now, in the second act of his ministry, he meant to heal people through Calvary. First, he healed for the cross. Now, he would heal by the cross. First, he made people whole. Now, he invited them to be wholly poured out. The crowds on Palm Sunday celebrated Christ's first act of healing, but they balked as the second act became clear. Who will we follow? The crowd or the Christ?

Everything is grace. You can run. You can hide. You can fight. Sin it up day and night. Christ will have the last word. Whatever you throw at Him, He can take it. His mercy knows no end. Your pain cannot surpass His healing power. Christian, Christ has always been with you. In death. In life. Nothing can stop Christ from saving you. Everything is grace.

In this broken world, to lose ones we love is a guarantee. Sooner or later, we will all know the deep pain of loss. Yet there is something else to know amid loss, something surprising and even sweet. Loss is where love lives. That's why the scars in the hands and feet of our Lord Jesus are eternal. He was crucified before the foundation of the world, the scriptures tell us. He has always borne those scars, and he always will. Because hidden within them is not only the great loss of Christ's death but also the great love of God. God's love lives in the scars of Christ. And in our every loss, he invites us into those scars. He invites us into his love.

When Jesus calls people to follow him, he calls them to begin walking out of whatever broken family story they have been living in to that point. Every one of us receives some story-formed brokenness from our birth family's dynamics. For some, it is the experience of being neglected or abused. For others, it may be the weight of expectation or the withholding of affection. For James and John, it was a lust for power. The sons of Zebedee were born to a man who ran things, a man who had strived to climb above his peers. And their mother had similar plans for the boys. “Tell me they will sit at your right hand and your left,” she demanded of Jesus. But Jesus was calling James and John into a very different kind of story. He meant to heal them of their family's lust for power. And his means of healing would be a cross. “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?” he asked them. In calling us to walk out of our broken family stories, Jesus first heals us for the cross. And then heals us by it.

If you have called on the name of the Lord, you have been rescued.  If you have called on the name of the Lord, you have been forgiven. If you have called on the name of the Lord, you are loved!  These are statements that cannot be be received simply through teaching; they must be believed. They must be received in faith. The fight of faith is a fight to surrender our lives to the God of all comfort. We have not been forsaken. He has made His home among us!

A conversation with Renewal church discussing how believers can faithfully engage with the issue.

Lent is a time for giving up some luxury that we find has obscured our vision of God. A luxury, by definition, is something that we don't need. Sugar, social media, and television would all qualify. But there are some luxuries that masquerade as needs so well that we may never even notice them. Despair is one such luxury. The Christian mystic Thomas Merton calls is a “rotten luxury.” Indeed all luxuries that obscure our vision of God are rotten. Yet despair is particularly so. Because in our despair, we bask in the false glory that our view of things is ultimate. Despair depends on us believing that we can see the whole picture, that our calculation that there is no way out is absolutely dependable. This is the hubris of pride, the stroking of ego. And the only way out is through the courage of humility that comes by faith. I may not see a way through, but there is an author to this story who is far more creative than I could ever imagine.

Pastor Confessor shares and leads us into the beginning of the Lenten Season. 

Refugees are left homeless. Religious minorities are persecuted. Women are assaulted. Men are lost. Children are abandoned. Marriages wither. Families implode. Too many are lonely, afraid, unseen, unloved. But this story is not yet over. Stories are lovely arcs of meaning when read from above. That's why we obsess over them, why we read novels and binge television. Yet that loveliness is much harder to see from inside the story. And we are all inside this present story. We're somewhere in the middle, still too far from the end to see the whole. That's what makes our pain so painful. What is the purpose? Where is it all heading? Through his servant James, God tells us, “Be patient; endure.” And he gives us good reason: Harvest only comes at the end of the season.

Anger is the first reaction to injustice for all who care, especially God. God cares for his creation more than anyone. And so he is more angry at injustice than anyone. In the opening passages of chapter 5, James takes on the persona of an Old Testament prophet, embodying the hot fury of God against oppression. To witness this anger of God is unnerving. But it also should comfort us. God sees the injustice of this world. And he cares more than we do. Yet, God has very different plans for his anger than we do for our own. So he invites us to care about injustice as much as he does, yes. And he invites us to express anger over it, yes. Then, the invitation turns: “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.”

What do you know? Very little. And all the knowledge we call our own, is not our own, but it's hard to let it go. To know is to control, right? To know is to stay in control of our wants and needs. Keep telling yourself that. Fear is a powerful drug. Fantasy is a powerful drug. Narcissism is a powerful drug. Who can let go of lovers like these? No one can. Yet no matter how faithful you are, these lovers will betray and abandon you. Take heart, there is a knowing that is real and forever. Knowing the love and friendship of Jesus Christ. Know nothing but Christ. Everything else will leave you in eternal darkness. Christ will bring you into eternal light.