I have not written for the past two weeks as I've either been too sick to think or too busy working when well to take time to write. I did not get the worst of the two chemicals this past Monday and so I was not as sick on Wednesday and Thursday as the previous 10 times but I was not as well as I had hoped. However, today, Friday, I am much stronger than during any previous "chemo" week. I thank the Lord for this mercy and look forward to taking the final treatment on August 6. After that I will be tested for cancer in February of 2013.
I've given very little thought to the fact that I have/had cancer during these treatments. Mostly I've been trying to survive the treatments. However, as I have been contemplating the fact that, at least for the next five years, I will be living with the reality that a tumor could appear at any time, my thoughts have turned to my mortality which led me to a favorite psalm, Psalm 90. As with so many psalms, the first half is not really good news. The psalm is written by Moses and it has the flavor of the wilderness journey waiting for all the people who were 20 years old and up at the rebellion at Kadesh Barnea to die.
The first line asserts two realities: First, all humans, in all generations live in God, that is, we would not exist if God did not exist. He is our dwelling place. In him alone is life to be found. Second, he is eternal; he has no beginning and he has no end. He always is. The mountains and the earth itself are but as babes compared to the eternal God. Then comes the bad news and lots of it. The eternal God is the one who turns humans back to dust when he declares to us: "Return, O children of man." That last phrase is literally, in the Hebrew, "sons of Adam." Clearly Moses is thinking of God's curse given to Adam as a result of his disobedience and which is now our curse as well. Genesis 3:19, "By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
God is in charge of death. He it is who determines each person's days on this earth. He decrees when we each return to the dust from which we were taken. It is by his word that each human dies and returns to the elements from which we were created. Thus our time on this earth is finite, limited, it has a definite end. However, as v. 4 declares, there is no limit to God's time. 15 lifetimes of men may pass and for God it was if yesterday had passed or the night was gone. There are no limits to this God whereas for us, we are very limited. God sweeps us away as a flood of water wipes all things from its path. We are no more permanent than dreams partially remembered and quickly forgotten. We are like grass that is fresh in the morning but after cut down by the sickle, dried up at night. There is such a great difference between us and the eternal God. Sons of dust, inconsequential and finite beings we are while he is eternal creator and Lord of all.
As if the news is not bad enough, Moses goes on. Our dying is the fruit of God's anger with our sin. As Paul says it so succinctly, "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). God's wrath against us which is exhibited in our dying is the cause of much dismay. All our plans and work and ambitions are crushed under this fruit of God's wrath: death. There is no escape from God's gaze. He sees all our sins. He has placed all our iniquities before his face. All of our days are lived under the threat of death, the just curse of God's perfect anger against sin. The span of our life is but trouble and sorrow, these days are soon gone and we fly away like sparks from a campfire that quickly burn out as they float into the night sky.
What shall we do in the face of these awful realities? First, Moses recognizes that most of us pay no attention to the awful reality that we inhabit. Few take serious the power of God's anger or fear God in proportion to his wrath. We live as if our lives will not end, as if tomorrow will be like today, as if wrath will never have to be face. So we should each one ask God to us wise hearts that "number our days", that is, that take serious the fact that God could justly, at any time say "Return to dust". We should live as if we are going to die and we are going to have to face this God who is full of anger due to our sins.
Ah, but also, not only must we take serious who we are dealing with and how brief is our life but we must remember that this eternal God is a gracious God to whom we can go for relief. So before God tells you to return you should tell him to return. Do you see that in v. 13? "Return, O Yahweh! How long? Have pity on your servants." " O promise making God of Israel return to us before we return to dust. Do not wait any longer. Take pity upon poor miserable sinners like us."
What is it that Moses most desperately desires? What would the Lord do if her were to take pity? "Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days." This is the greatest need of every human heart: to be satisfied with the great, unfailing love of God for sinners made known in the person and the work of Jesus Christ. The only way to find true, everlasting joy is to have God graciously, contrary to what we deserve satisfy our hearts with his unfailing love made known in Jesus. There is no love of God for the sinner apart from Christ because Christ alone has taken up the wrath and anger that all who trust in him deserve. Thus we need God to show us this wonderful love and then satisfy our hearts with this love alone. Nothing can satisfy because all else is temporary pleasure. But with Jesus is eternal pleasures at God's right hand.
Moses continues: Make us glad with this unfailing love for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble. We ask the God who sends the trouble to also, graciously, satisfy our hearts with his love for as long as he has troubled us so that the trouble becomes but a dim memory and forgotten in the pleasures of his love for us. Here is a psalm and a prayer for one like me who will be living with more sense, I hope, of the imminence of my death. Might God use this knowledge to give me a heart of wisdom which seeks all the more to be satisfied in the love of God for a miserable sinner like me.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
Responding to grace
How do you respond when you are given a gift you know that you do not deserve? This is an important question because every Christian has been given a gift we do not deserve and thus all of us must be asking, what is the appropriate response for this gift of salvation through Christ which we do not deserve? We have in a brief story in Luke 5 a helpful look at how to respond to grace, to receiving a gift you know you don't deserve.
It is a fairly straightforward story. Jesus has been teaching and healing people near the Sea of Galilee. Enormous crowds have gathered and so he asks one of the fishermen, named Simon, who has been out fishing all night and is cleaning his nets before he goes home to sleep so he can go out fishing tonight--Jesus asks him if he could use his boat to push out from shore and teach the people. Simon obliges him, which means he has to row the boat out and keep it steady while Jesus teaches. This after having fished all night.
After Jesus finishes teaching the people, we are not told what he said, he says to Simon, "Row out a little deeper and let down your nets for a catch of fish." Simon, I'm sure in a somewhat exasperated voice, "We fished all night and caught nothing. But at your word we will let down the nets." So he and his brother Andrew and their dad row out to deeper water and let down the nets. The nets are immediately filled to overflowing with fish. There are so many fish that Simon has to yell to his partners, John and James, who are still on shore to bring the other boat out in order to hold all the fish. You can be sure these seasoned fishermen have never seen such a catch as both the boats began to sink under the weight of the catch.
It is just at this moment that Peter responds to grace, to unmerited favor, to receiving a gift he knew that he did not deserve. He falls at Jesus' feet and declares, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." He responds with profound humility. He knows he had a bad attitude. He didn't believe Jesus when he promised they would catch fish. He had heard his teaching and at least knew about his miracles; he knew this was a unique man of God whom he had treated with contempt. Thus he knows, he doesn't deserve the gift and he most certainly does not deserve to be in the presence of such a person. He knows he is a sinner who does not deserve to be treated kindly nor to have a relationship with such a person. That Jesus would have anything to do with him was the most preposterous thing of which Peter could think.
How different his attitude from so much of what passes for Christianity in the USA. We are told that God loving us is the most natural and normal thing in the world. The love of God for humans is the most expected thing in the universe. There is nothing surprising in God wanting to have a relationship with us humans in the modern church. This is not what Peter thinks. He realizes that it is an astonishing thing for God to love a sinner. He would agree with John Newton about God's grace--it is amazing and unexpected and can only be received by the humble, those who know they don't deserve it.
Notice what happens next in the story. Jesus recognizes in Peter the appropriate response of a sinner in the presence of a holy God. He tells him first, "Don't be afraid." Peter was actually responding to Jesus' gracious provision of fish the same way the Israelites responded to God showing up on Mt. Sinai. They said to Moses, if you will remember, that they did not want to hear God speak anymore because if they did, they would surely die. The stood far off and told Moses to talk to God for them. So Jesus, first of all assures Peter that he is not going to die, that God is going to deal with him according to his mercy and not according to Peter's sins. Then next he says to Peter, "From now on you will be catching men." Not only does Jesus assure Peter of his love but he appoints this sinful man to one of his chief spokespersons. From that day on Peter, Andrew, James and John left their old life behind and followed Jesus. They responded to grace with faith. They believed that belonging to Christ and being his follower was better than everything else in the universe and so they left their dad and their business and followed Christ because of his grace.
It is a fairly straightforward story. Jesus has been teaching and healing people near the Sea of Galilee. Enormous crowds have gathered and so he asks one of the fishermen, named Simon, who has been out fishing all night and is cleaning his nets before he goes home to sleep so he can go out fishing tonight--Jesus asks him if he could use his boat to push out from shore and teach the people. Simon obliges him, which means he has to row the boat out and keep it steady while Jesus teaches. This after having fished all night.
After Jesus finishes teaching the people, we are not told what he said, he says to Simon, "Row out a little deeper and let down your nets for a catch of fish." Simon, I'm sure in a somewhat exasperated voice, "We fished all night and caught nothing. But at your word we will let down the nets." So he and his brother Andrew and their dad row out to deeper water and let down the nets. The nets are immediately filled to overflowing with fish. There are so many fish that Simon has to yell to his partners, John and James, who are still on shore to bring the other boat out in order to hold all the fish. You can be sure these seasoned fishermen have never seen such a catch as both the boats began to sink under the weight of the catch.
It is just at this moment that Peter responds to grace, to unmerited favor, to receiving a gift he knew that he did not deserve. He falls at Jesus' feet and declares, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." He responds with profound humility. He knows he had a bad attitude. He didn't believe Jesus when he promised they would catch fish. He had heard his teaching and at least knew about his miracles; he knew this was a unique man of God whom he had treated with contempt. Thus he knows, he doesn't deserve the gift and he most certainly does not deserve to be in the presence of such a person. He knows he is a sinner who does not deserve to be treated kindly nor to have a relationship with such a person. That Jesus would have anything to do with him was the most preposterous thing of which Peter could think.
How different his attitude from so much of what passes for Christianity in the USA. We are told that God loving us is the most natural and normal thing in the world. The love of God for humans is the most expected thing in the universe. There is nothing surprising in God wanting to have a relationship with us humans in the modern church. This is not what Peter thinks. He realizes that it is an astonishing thing for God to love a sinner. He would agree with John Newton about God's grace--it is amazing and unexpected and can only be received by the humble, those who know they don't deserve it.
Notice what happens next in the story. Jesus recognizes in Peter the appropriate response of a sinner in the presence of a holy God. He tells him first, "Don't be afraid." Peter was actually responding to Jesus' gracious provision of fish the same way the Israelites responded to God showing up on Mt. Sinai. They said to Moses, if you will remember, that they did not want to hear God speak anymore because if they did, they would surely die. The stood far off and told Moses to talk to God for them. So Jesus, first of all assures Peter that he is not going to die, that God is going to deal with him according to his mercy and not according to Peter's sins. Then next he says to Peter, "From now on you will be catching men." Not only does Jesus assure Peter of his love but he appoints this sinful man to one of his chief spokespersons. From that day on Peter, Andrew, James and John left their old life behind and followed Jesus. They responded to grace with faith. They believed that belonging to Christ and being his follower was better than everything else in the universe and so they left their dad and their business and followed Christ because of his grace.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Enduring to the end
I did not "bounce back" very well from the last chemo treatment on June 25. I did not do well the last two weeks. I think it was a combination of things: the cumulative physical effect of 9 chemo treatments, emotional depletion due to the physical weakness and sickness and thus the radical alteration in my lifestyle and I got a cold last Sunday night. Anyway, I feel pretty good today. Monday will be the final time I have to take the worse of the two chemo drugs. Presumably these next two weeks will be the last two in which I will be really sick. I'm hoping that only getting the one drug the final two treatment cycles will enable me to feel better and be able to do more.
I am in the final lap of the race called chemo-therapy, at least for now. My attention is turned to the letter to the Hebrews and its frequent admonitions to the Hebrew Christians to endure to the end, to run the whole race that God has given to them without quitting. The entire letter is one long encouragement for Christians who are weary of following Christ due to suffering and sin to not give up, to persevere to the end. It gives reason after reason for why enduring all the trouble while remaining faithful to Jesus is better than giving up faith in Christ.
Here is one of those exhortations to endure which I think of as I contemplate enduring to the end of chemo-therapy. In Hebrews 10:35-36 we are told, "Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised." The greatest motivation for enduring to the end is that at the end God has promised a great reward. The reason to not throw away my confidence in Christ but to endure to the end of life trusting him and living as he commands is because God has promised the greatest of all possible rewards for those who endure.
What is that reward? The author describes it in a variety of ways in his letter. Perhaps my favorite description is in chapter 12:22-24, "...you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel." There is a party going on in the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. The party is being attended by innumerable angels, the spirits of the righteous, God the judge of all and Jesus who shed his blood so I could join that party. It is entry into the heavenly festivities which is the reward promised by God to all who hold fast their confidence in Christ to the end of their lives.
By identifying the final reward with Mt. Zion and Jerusalem the author is connecting to a myriad of rich descriptions of that joyful city from the OT. Using rich language of earthly prosperity to help us understand the glory of the new world God is creating for us Isaiah describes our reward in this way (Isaiah 65:17-25): "'For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD, and their descendants with them. Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,' says the LORD."
Meditating upon that glorious future that belongs to all who trust in Christ is what will enable us to endure through the hardships of this life without abandoning Christ. The word of God, especially the OT descriptions of God's plan for Jerusalem is the fuel for feeding our faith and hope in that future.
I am in the final lap of the race called chemo-therapy, at least for now. My attention is turned to the letter to the Hebrews and its frequent admonitions to the Hebrew Christians to endure to the end, to run the whole race that God has given to them without quitting. The entire letter is one long encouragement for Christians who are weary of following Christ due to suffering and sin to not give up, to persevere to the end. It gives reason after reason for why enduring all the trouble while remaining faithful to Jesus is better than giving up faith in Christ.
Here is one of those exhortations to endure which I think of as I contemplate enduring to the end of chemo-therapy. In Hebrews 10:35-36 we are told, "Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised." The greatest motivation for enduring to the end is that at the end God has promised a great reward. The reason to not throw away my confidence in Christ but to endure to the end of life trusting him and living as he commands is because God has promised the greatest of all possible rewards for those who endure.
What is that reward? The author describes it in a variety of ways in his letter. Perhaps my favorite description is in chapter 12:22-24, "...you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel." There is a party going on in the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. The party is being attended by innumerable angels, the spirits of the righteous, God the judge of all and Jesus who shed his blood so I could join that party. It is entry into the heavenly festivities which is the reward promised by God to all who hold fast their confidence in Christ to the end of their lives.
By identifying the final reward with Mt. Zion and Jerusalem the author is connecting to a myriad of rich descriptions of that joyful city from the OT. Using rich language of earthly prosperity to help us understand the glory of the new world God is creating for us Isaiah describes our reward in this way (Isaiah 65:17-25): "'For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD, and their descendants with them. Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,' says the LORD."
Meditating upon that glorious future that belongs to all who trust in Christ is what will enable us to endure through the hardships of this life without abandoning Christ. The word of God, especially the OT descriptions of God's plan for Jerusalem is the fuel for feeding our faith and hope in that future.
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