Month: March 2012

Lenten Reflection–No Fear

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Rembrandt's Christ at Emmaus

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear
1 John 4:18

The community of faith and community of life in the first love was marked by the risen Christ–the Christ who had said, “I am with you always.” Everything depends on seeing the mystery of the risen Christ as unconditional love. In Christ, God’s love is put into practice.
Eberhard Arnold

Of course there was plenty to fear. There had been a brutal arrest in a garden, facilitated by one of His own. The rest ran or actively denied involvement. There was a hasty hearing, and a trial of sorts, and then beatings and condemnation by acclamation. There was the impossible task of lugging a heavy cross up hill, then being attached by nails, hung, dehydrated, denigrated, left to die.

Plenty, plenty to fear. Those who loved Him were terrified.

When they returned after the Sabbath to care for His body, still concerned for their own safety, they heard again very familiar words: “Do not be afraid.” He was conceived and born under those words, and after His death, those were among the first words they heard the risen Christ say, and He repeated them as often as they needed to hear them, which was often.

Do not be afraid.

Perfect love casts out fear. As we are so flawed, so incapable of perfect-anything, we fear, and fear desperately. But because He is capable of perfect unconditional love, He demonstrates that love tangibly and palpably: breaking bread, breaking Himself, pouring wine, pouring out Himself. He creates an everlasting community of love by promising to be with us always. So we put it into practice with each other, and especially with those who are strangers and enemies.

Why fear any longer? He is walking alongside us illuminating our minds and filling our hearts, He is at the table feeding us, He is holding us as we pass into His arms.

Perfect
mysterious
unending
unprecedented
unconditional
love has no fear
forever.

Lenten Reflection–Love Enfolds the World

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stanzas from the English hymn by Timothy Rees, all photos by Josh Scholten

God is love, let heaven adore him
God is love let earth rejoice
Let creation sing before him
And exalt him with one voice

God who laid the earth’s foundation
God who spread the heavens above
God who breathes through all creation
God is love, eternal love

God is love and love enfolds us
All the world in one embrace
With unfailing grasp God holds us
Every child of every race

And when human hearts are breaking
Under sorrow’s iron rod
Then we find that self same aching
Deep within the heart of God

God is love and though with blindness
Sin afflicts all human life
God’s eternal loving kindness
Guides us through our earthly strife

Sin and death and hell shall never
O’er us final triumph gain
God is love so love forever
O’er the universe shall reign

Lenten Reflection–The Flooded Path

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photo by Josh Scholten

God of our life,
there are days when the burdens we carry
chafe our shoulders and weigh us down;
when the road seems dreary and endless,
the skies grey and threatening;
when our lives have no music in them,
and our hearts are lonely,
and our souls have lost their courage.

Flood the path with light,
run our eyes to where the skies are full of promise;
tune our hearts to brave music;
give us the sense of comradeship with heroes and saints of every age;
and so quicken our spirits
that we may be able to encourage the souls of all
who journey with us on the road of life,
to Your honour and glory.
Augustine

Those final few days may have been like this:
the sky oppressive with storm clouds,
the shouldered burden too painful,
the soul weighed down, discouraged, disheartened.
Each step brought Him closer
to a desperate loneliness borne of betrayal and rejection.

But the end of that dark walk was just the beginning
of a journey into new covenant.

Instead of rain, those clouds bore light, flooding the pathway so we can come together to lift the load.
Instead of loneliness, there arises community.
Instead of stillness, there is declaration of glory.
Instead of discouragement, He embodies hope for all hearts.
The promise fulfilled, spills over our path.
We are drenched.

photo by Josh Scholten

Lenten Reflection–Into the Lives of Others

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photo by Josh Scholten

The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.
Thomas Merton
We want to avoid suffering, death, sin, ashes. But we live in a world crushed and broken and torn, a world God Himself visited to redeem. We receive his poured-out life, and being allowed the high privilege of suffering with Him, may then pour ourselves out for others.
Elisabeth Elliot

Much of my professional work as a physician involves helping people avoid suffering. Either I strive to prevent illness, or address symptoms early, or once someone is very sick or injured, try to mitigate the discomfort and misery. Sometimes I am able to help. Too often they are futile efforts. At that point all I can give is myself, caring for my patient as best I can. There is no medication, no physical manipulation or surgery, no magic touch that makes the difference that love can.

In a flawed and broken world, there will be suffering that cannot be prevented. We can run, but we can’t hide. It is avoidance that hurts us most. For some, it is the temporary anesthesia of alcohol or other recreational substances, a burrowing into numbness that prevents feeling anything at all. For others, it is the neverending quest for fulfillment in pleasure, which is transient and hollow, or accumulating material goods, which eventually bore, become obsolete and pile up in landfills.

He poured Himself into us as He suffered. In turn, thus filled, we have ourselves to give.

Nothing else lasts. Nothing else matters.

I’m not sure God wants us to be happy. I think he wants us to love, and be loved. But we are like children, thinking our toys will make us happy and the whole world is our nursery. Something must drive us out of that nursery and into the lives of others, and that something is suffering.
C. S. Lewis

Lenten Reflection–Letting Go

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Forgiveness is letting go of a bell rope. If you have ever seen a country church with a bell in the steeple, you will remember that to get the bell ringing you have to tug awhile. Once it has begun to ring, you merely maintain the momentum. As long as you keep pulling, the bell keeps ringing. Forgiveness is letting go of the rope. It is just that simple. But when you do so, the bell keeps ringing. Momentum is still at work. However, if you keep your hands off the rope, the bell will begin to slow and eventually stop.
Corrie Ten Boom

In just two weeks our Chapel family will begin observing Holy Week. Before the Sunrise Resurrection Sunday worship on our farm hilltop followed by a service inside the church and Easter brunch together, we gather for a soup and bread communion supper on Maundy Thursday and a Tenebrae (Shadows) Service on the evening of Good Friday. At the end of the somber Tenebrae service, our steeple church bell tolls, the bell rope pulled repeatedly as we sit within darkness in the sanctuary. This knelling of Christ’s death resonates in our own bodies. It is unmistakeable, hearing the pealing of our guilt and shame reverberating out for all to hear.

When the bell rope is released, the bell continues to ring a few times but then quiets itself. We sit in ensuing silence, aware the debt we could never pay on our own had been paid in full for us. We have been forgiven, the tolling of the bell now ceased, and the toll of our sin reconciled.

God has let go of our debt, freeing us from the shadows where sin had trapped us. We are able to then stand and walk out, redeemed by a flesh and blood God suffering in our place.

In the morning of the third day, we hear Him say our names from the empty tomb. Forgiven, all guilt and shame let go, we rise from our shadows to answer His resonating call.

Chapel Bell Tower

Lenten Reflection–The Mystery of the Deep

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photo by Josh Scholten

Here is the mystery, the secret, one might almost say the cunning, of the deep love of God: that it is bound to draw upon itself the hatred and pain and shame and anger and bitterness and rejection of the world, but to draw all those things on to itself is precisely the means chosen from all eternity by the generous, loving God, by which to rid his world of the evils which have resulted from human abuse of God-given freedom.
N.T.Wright

Inundated by the overwhelmingly bad news of the world, blasted 24/7 from cable TV, highlighted in rapidly changing headlines online, and tweeted real time from every nook and cranny, we must cling to the mystery of His magnetism for our weaknesses and flaws. He willingly pulls our evil onto Himself, out of us. Hatred and pain and shame and anger and bitterness disappear into the vortex of His love and beauty, the dusty corners of our hearts vacuumed spotless.

We are let in on a secret: He is not sullied by absorbing the dirty messes of our lives. Instead, once we are safely within His depths, He washes us forever clean.

photo by Josh Scholten

Lenten Reflection–Longing for Peace

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photo by Josh Scholten

You called, You cried, You shattered my deafness, You sparkled, You blazed, You drove away my blindness, You shed Your fragrance, and I drew in my breath, and I pant for You. I tasted and now I hunger and thirst. You touched me, and now I burn with longing for your peace.
Augustine in “Confessions”

Augustine’s prayer startles,
describing our burning desperation for God and His effort to restore us.
He calls out to us, engaging all our senses.
We hear His cries, see His sparkling glory, smell His fragrance, taste and feel Him.
And long for more.

Our weaknesses shattered, blazed, and driven away.
Our breathlessness eased, our exhaustion rested, our aching emptiness quenched.
Starving, dehydrated, panting, yearning for rescue.
He brings us peace,
Everlasting.

Lenten Reflection–No Wonder

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Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.
Augustine

photo by Josh Scholten

photo by Josh Scholten

photo by Josh Scholten

photo by Josh Scholten

The natural wonders are called that for a reason–we are awed and diminished by them. They rightfully deserve our reverence and respect.

So why does the image of God Himself not call us to wonder? Each cell, each organ, each movement, each thought, each breath a miracle of creation far beyond the wonders of the mountains, the heavens and the seas. Yet every day we throw these away as inconvenient, ill-timed, and unvalued.

We were created to look like Him. And He came among us to be with us, walk with us, weep with us, love us, and save our rebellious ungrateful hides.

No wonder we’re such a mess, in need of salvage. No wonder at all.

Lenten Reflection–Be Hatched

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photo by Josh Scholten

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
C.S.Lewis

There is certain comfort in incubating in the nest, snuggled warm under a fluffy breast, satisfied with the status quo. I tend toward perpetual nesting myself, preferring home to travel, too easily contented with the familiar rather than stretching into uncharted territory.

But eventually the unhatched egg gets the boot, even by its parents. When there are no signs of life, no twitches and wiggles and movement inside, it is doomed to rot. And we all know nothing is worse than a rotten egg. Nothing.

So we must chip away and crack open our comfy shell, leaving the fragments behind. Feeble, weak and totally dependent on the grace of others to feed and protect us, we are freed of the confinement of the sterility of the commonplace and loosed upon an unsuspecting world.

Eventually we will fly, the wind under our wings.

photo by Josh Scholten

Lenten Reflection–Filling Softly

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photo by Josh Scholten

When all nature is at rest, not a leaf moving, then at evening the dew comes down — no eye to see the pearly drops descending, no ear to hear them falling on the verdant grass — so does the Spirit come to you who believe. When the heart is at rest in Jesus — unseen, unheard by the world — the Spirit comes, and softly fills the believing soul, quickening all, renewing all within. Robert Murray McCheyne

Amidst the hubbub and chaos of modern life, there comes a time when I must quiet myself, voided of selfish desires, hushing harried pointless ambitions. I seek rest and renewal within a freshening of purpose.

When I am thus silent and still, receptive, emptied of self, I am ready.

It is then I am touched, filled oh so softly. Without fireworks or thunderclap, or dramatic collapse. As the Spirit descends like silent dew onto my longing heart, I wake restored, a new life quickened within me.

It is that simple. So gentle.

photo by Josh Scholten