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Category: pastoral theology

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Published on 1 Comment on Happy Dying – Resisting A Counterfeit Headship

Recently I wrote about every husband's temptation towards resentment.  Wives also have every inclination (as well as motivation!) towards sinful attitudes regarding their husbands.  (Mistrust and disrespect are perhaps chief among them).

But in my post I counselled husbands to die to their private ambitions and seek a fruitful union with their wives that acknowledges the completely new unit they've become.  Now, as I read back over that language of "sacrifice" and "death", I have a fear.  My fear is that this talk of "death" will feed directly into the resentment I was highlighting.

I know this because for many years I considered myself to be a sacrificial head.  I took Ephesians 5:25 as perhaps my most basic calling as a husband - to lay down my life.  Trouble was - there's always a counterfeit way to view marital roles.  The death I embraced was not the joyful abandonment of my rights to find a deeper joy in my wife's flourishing.  Instead it was the proud martyrdom of the burden-bearing ox.  I'd trudge along singing "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen...", just loud enough for people to notice.  But while-ever I was a burden-bearing ox, there was a deep sense in which I needed my wife to be a burden.

This is counterfeit headship and it comes in a couple of different flavours.  Some, like me, emphasize the "dying" part and spin it to mean 'desire-crushing trudgery.'  Others emphasize the "saviour" role (Ephesians 5:23) and spin it to mean "knight in shining armour."  But if you're married to such a head, watch out.  The burden-bearer will (unintentionally) make you the burden.  And the knight in shining armour will (unintentionally) make you a "damsel in distress."  In either case we have a sick perversion of roles masquerading as biblical faithfulness.  If you want to consider it in trinitarian terms (which I do here), you end up with Arian distinctions not Athanasian ones.

The terrible tragedy is that these marriages can appear to fulfil an Ephesians 5 complementarity.  And those who trumpet complementarianism as though it's the key to gender relations can apparently justify their counterfeit roles as "Scriptural."  I know I did.

But the husband is not simply called to a death, but to a happy death.  As with Christ, this death is because of love and for the sake of the joy set before him.  It's the very opposite of resentment.  It's acknowledging the indicatives already present for the husband:

* Christ has put me to death in His cross and I no longer live (Galatians 2:20)

* The Father has made me one with my wife quite apart from my efforts (Matthew 19:6)

* My wife is a gift straight from the LORD and she's good for me (Genesis 2:18 ; Proverbs 18:22)

* There simply is no life without a good death (Matthew 10:39)

* God will make our sacrificial union fruitful (Genesis 1:28)

* Her beauty will be presented back to me, shining all the brighter for the love which nurtured it (Eph 5:27)

The husband's death is not the sacrifice of a noble sufferer or the heroics of a brave rescuer.  It's the grateful response of a guy who - in spite of how she may have hurt him - still counts himself "lucky" to have her.  And if he doesn't, his need is not to stuff his feelings and die anyway.  He needs to go back to the 6 indicatives above and prayerfully ask for help.

No marriage needs a resentful martyr for a husband.  Every marriage needs Jesus to make husbands joyful self-givers.  And He will... if only we'll drop our counterfeit roles and receive again from Him.

 

 

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Published on 3 Comments on “This woman you put here”

Just to be clear - these thoughts have arisen after talking marriage to half a dozen guys in the last fortnight.  I've never been prouder or more delighted with my wife.  I'm trying to put words to every man's struggle here.  And maybe this will also help wives to see what it is they instinctively (and perhaps quite rationally) fear about their husbands...

Ever since Adam, men have wickedly resented their wives.  That's not the whole story.  Not by a long shot.  On our wedding day we sing "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh".

But remember how Adam reacted when the honeymoon wore off?  He blamed God for the burden of “this woman you put here.”

Every son of Adam has been there – we’re all chips off this old block.  At first we wax lyrical, genuinely besotted by beauty.  But give it time and self-righteous resentment creeps in: “Doesn’t God realize how she holds me back. Think of what I could accomplish if I went solo.”

But what was God thinking?  Consider Genesis 2.  “It’s not good for the man to be alone.”  He makes a "helper suitable" for Adam. "Suitable" means “opposite to" Adam – i.e. a counterpart.  By design, wives are not like their husbands.  They don’t naturally pull in the same direction.  This has nothing to do with sin.  In a pre-fallen state, women are intentionally 'opposite numbers' to men.

Therefore to "cleave" together is to form a new unit in which both parties must die to self.  And so complete is this oneness that even the death cannot be considered separately. The husband initiates the dying, the wife receives (Ephesians 5:21-33, esp v25).

Remember how Genesis 2 finishes... it's the man who is explicitly said to leave father and mother and cleave to his wife.  Like Christ, husbands are the ones to decisively change their direction and circumstances, and in that change to sweep the bride up into a new way of being.

But in the flesh, the husband refuses to lose his life. Instead he keeps hold of his old ambitions and resents the wife.

I keep thinking of John Wesley in this regard.  On the morning after their wedding he saddled up to go on a preaching tour.  He wrote to her from the road saying “I cannot understand how a Methodist preacher can answer it to God to preach one sermon or travel one day less, in a married than in a single state.”  Unfortunately he lived up to that tragic opinion and had a tragic marriage.  He did not die for his bride in order for them both to find new life on the other side of sacrifice.  He clung to his single vision and demanded that his bride simply fall in line.

But if it's "successful ministry" we want, then there's another way. Because the one-ness of marriage is a fruitful and multiplying reality.  Husband and wife are meant to be so much more than the sum of their parts.  But it's not a simple addition.  It doesn't happen by adding her old gifts and desires to his.

Rather than resenting her, when the husband dies to his private ambitions, there will come a new way of being fruitful in Christian service.  It will take time and it will take self-sacrifice.  But as both seek the Lord for their fullness and as they give it away to each other, they grow in new and surprising ways.  Through this good death the Lord brings forth a life-giving home where spiritual and physical children can find rest.

Husbands, "this woman" was indeed given to you by the Lord. Not "put", "given". As a helper suitable for you. You can either keep your life, resent your wife and blame God, or you can lose your life, nurture your wife and watch Him bring a rich and unexpected fruitfulness.

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Published on 2 Comments on Christ: Our Substitute and Representative

Here's a reboot of an older post...

Mike Reeves talks about Adam and Christ in these great audios on sin and evil.  Once we frame creation and salvation as the story of two men we see things much clearer.

For one thing we're able to honour Christ not only as Substitute but also as Representative.  And we need both.

You see Christ drinks the cup so that - in one sense - we don't have to (Mark 10:38).  But in another sense we do drink the cup He drinks and are baptised with the baptism with which He is baptised (Mark 10:39).  He does die for us so that we do not face that same judging fire - this is His substitution.  But we also die in Him, hidden in our Head and taken through the flames - this is His representation.

We tend to be good at 'substitution' talk but not so good at 'representation' talk.

I can think of a very prominent preacher who I greatly admire. Ordinarily he's excellent at preaching Paul.  But I've noticed that every time Paul speaks of "us being crucified with Christ", this preacher translates it as "Christ pays off our sins for us so completely, it's as if we ourselves died on the cross."

Do you hear what's happened?  Paul uses representation language, the preacher translates it into substitution language. Paul says "We died in him", the preacher doesn't seem to have a category for that, so he simply re-iterates the substitution motif: "He died for us."

Those two things are not the same.  And our lack of a category for "representation" thinking is a great loss.

Consider this fairly common way of conceiving salvation and judgement...

salvation-judgement1

Here the key players are the saved and the damned.  Christ is not in the picture.  But of course once we've set things up like this, Christ becomes extremely necessary.  Yet He's necessary in that the cross becomes the accounting tool required to balance the justice books.  Without the cross the system doesn't work.  So in that sense Christ is central.  But in effect, He's a peripheral figure only required because other factors are calling the shots.

When things are viewed like this, Christ is very much thought of as 'substitute' but not really 'representative'.  And, when the details are pressed, even His substitution will start to look very unlike the biblical portrait.

We need a better formulation.  We'll think of 1 Peter 4 and then tie this back to Adam and Christ.

In 1 Peter 4:17 it says that judgement begins with the house of God.  It doesn't say 'Judgement avoids the house of God.'  It begins there.  It begins with Christ, the true Temple of God.  It continues with the church, the temple of God in another sense.  But then it flows out to the world - God's house in yet another sense.

salvation-judgement2

Here humanity is judged.  And this is where Adam and Christ will be so helpful for us.

The LORD pronounces His curse on Adam.  And all humanity is in him.  "Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." (Rom 5:12)  It is a universal judgement.  No exceptions.  The only path to salvation is the path through judgement.

But Adam is a type of the One to come (Rom 5:14).  He was only ever setting the scene for Christ to take centre stage.  And He does so, assuming the very humanity of Adam as substitute and representative.

salvation-judgement31

Here centre stage is not occupied by the two groups of people (the damned and the saved).  What's driving everything is the two humanities (Adam and Christ).  The former is expressly a type of the Latter.  And the Latter expressly assumes the fate of the former.  So that in all things Christ will have the preeminence! (Col 1:18)

These diagrams were originally used in a blog post on judgement and salvation in Isaiah and for a sermon on Isaiah 2:6-22 (listen here).

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Below I've listed 10 verses on union with Christ in His death.  Meditate on these verses - and reckon yourself dead to Adam, to the flesh, to sin, to wrath, to the law, the principalities and powers and to the world.  For the living, those powers exact a terrible penalty.  But you know what a corpse owes these things?  Absolutely jack squat.

#EnjoyYourDay:

All of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  (Romans 6:3-4)

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin... (Romans 6:11)

Our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with.  (Romans 6:6)

You died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to Another.  (Romans 7:4)

I was crucified with Christ and I no longer live.  (Galatians 2:20)

I belong to Christ and thus my flesh has been crucified.  (Galatians 5:24)

The world has been crucified to me and I to the world.  (Galatians 6:14)

 In Christ you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism.  (Colossians 2:11-12)

You died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world (Colossians 2:20)

You died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)

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Published on 2 Comments on Identity – Losing our lives to find them

Here's a seminar that Emma and I ran recently for a group of 20s and 30s.

Unfortunately the recorder ran out almost as soon as Emma began to speak!  Not to worry, soon we'll have a couple of different videos of Emma giving her testimony - I'll link as soon as we have them.

We began the seminar with perhaps the key verse on identity:

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 10:39

We then kicked things off with my favourite 4 minutes of stand-up ever!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiUsfEkVRDY]

Death to the Me-Monster in Christ births a redeemed identity.

I speak a lot about Christ's baptism, His identity and our sharing in it.  The stories of Jacob and Esau are very illuminating.  And Luther nails it with this quote:

The Christian lives far above themselves in Christ through faith
and far beneath themselves in their neighbour through love.

The one place we don't live is in ourselves.  No we find our lives by losing them in and for Jesus.

Text

Audio

Powerpoint

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Published on 1 Comment on Forgiveness in Colossians – Event and Status

 

How do you think of God's forgiveness?

The book of Colossians mentions forgiveness in three places.  Conveniently it's in chapter 1:13f; 2:13 and 3:13.

Let's work our way backwards.  In 3:13 Paul says:

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

We are to ungoingly forgive others in the present because the Lord has once and for all forgiven us in the past.  Forgiveness from the Lord Jesus is an event.  When did it happen?  Colossians 2:13 tells us:

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.  (Colossians 2:13-14)

Even as we were uncircumcised sinners we were forgiven.  When?  As Christ was crucified.  On Good Friday, all that stood against us was permanently taken away.  God has forgiven me.  It's not something that hangs in the balance.  It has already happened.  Christ dying was God forgiving.

Forgiveness is not an act behind the cross.  It's not as though the cross clears the way so that now God can forgive me.  The cross was God forgiving me.  It all happened right there at Calvary.  In Christ, me and my sin and my guilt and every accusation against me was put to death.  Decisively.  Irreversibly.

How am I meant to think of my forgiveness now?  That's where Colossians 1:13 comes in:

For [the Father] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13-14)

Forgiveness is the essence of our redemption.  Like the Exodus of old, it is the promised land to which we've been delivered.  Our new Moses has taken us out of the dark Egypt of sin into a new Kingdom.  But in this new Exodus, Christ is not just the new Moses.  He's also the destination.  The very essence of the Kingdom is Jesus.

Therefore the Christian has been transferred from sin and into the Father's dearly loved Son.  This Father has been proclaiming "Behold My Son!" for all eternity and now we have come in on Him.  We are not merely forgiven.  We have been brought into Jesus in Whom we have  forgiveness.  Not just an event, but an ongoing status.

And since the Red Sea was one-way traffic, so now our forgiveness is an unloseable reality.  We do not fall in and out of forgiveness.  We have forgiveness because Jesus has us.  And He's not letting go.

Is this how you think of God's forgiveness?

In our preaching and liturgy I think it's easy to give a different impression.  I'm always thinking of forgiveness as "God wiping the slate clean" (and me filling it back up again!)  But the Apostle Paul puts the emphasis where it should be.  It was an event accomplished at the cross.  And it's a present status, enjoyed forever in Jesus.

Henry Lyte (reflecting on Psalm 103) gets it just right - it's a past tense doing that is also an ongoing declaration:

Ransomed, Healed, Restored, Forgiven

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxavNfM6jXw]

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Published on 9 Comments on Accountability

I'm always hearing about the benefits of "accountability."  Men in particular, apparently, are meant to get together... for accountability.  (I think it's "men in particular" because women already actually share life with each other.  Men have to be corralled under false pretences).

It's not so much that we're meant to meet for fellowship.  Not so much to speak the good news to each other, but to hold each other to Christian standards.  We're being called to mini-communities of law, where a combination of fear, pride and resolve dis-incentivise the appearance of sin.  Not "sin" itself.  I can easily survive an accountability group while nurturing a love for sin.  It's the "not appearing to commit sin" that counts.

Behind this drive towards "accountability", so often there'a a vision of the Christian life as sin-management.  It's not even that we're aiming for Sinlessness.  We're aiming for Sin Less-ness.  We're trying to keep the 'flagrant transgression count' down.  That way we won't have to appear before our brothers and sisters as "a sinner."    Phew.  That'd be awkward.  Having to confess I'm a sinner - Yikes!  No, that horrible feeling becomes the dis-incentive to transgress.  What's important is avoiding the need for, you know, confession, grace, forgiveness, the blood of Jesus.

And even as men herd together for accountability - the big issue we're meant to drill each other on is... the dreaded P word.  No, not Pride.  How intangible!  How can we measure progress in that?!  And no, not Prayer.  Goodness me - let's not over-spiritualize things here.  We're after indicators of performance.  No, no, every man's struggle is Porn.  Obviously.  (Of course with every man who's ever confessed struggles with porn to me, it hasn't taken long to establish that pride and prayerlessness are way bigger problems contributing to the mess.  And yet, those are problems it never occurred to them to confess.  It's "Porn" that's the issue, right?? That's by the by...)

What am I saying?  Stop meeting up for accountability?  Well look if you're a guy in an "accountability group" - well done.  Everything you love about this group is good and godly and biblical - you enjoy brotherhood, you enjoy sharing life, you enjoy another human being speaking forgiveness and grace into your life.  Hallelujah!  That's what fellowship is meant to be like.

But "accountability"?  Thing is - it doesn't even work.  But confessing your sins to each other... speaking words of forgiveness in Jesus' name... opening up to each other as a fellowship of the broken... having a cry... having a laugh... that's the Christian life.  And guess what?  It doesn't have to be gender specific!!  Cos, heck, you don't have to "fellowship" around "men's problems" or "women's problems."  You might just be able to, you know, be family together in Jesus.

And at the end of it all, you'll almost certainly sin less.  But that's not the point.  The Christian life is not sin management.  It's life together in Jesus.

 

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Published on 3 Comments on The Choice in Every Conversation: Covering or Curiosity?

Yesterday Emma spoke at a conference along with 3 other amazing Christians. They all told stories of God meeting them in hard places.

One of them has the most stunning testimony I've ever heard.  I can't relate the details for his own security, but it involved Christ calling him out of the Mosque of which he was Sheikh.  As hundreds listened, open-mouthed, I was part-thrilled, part-devastated.

You see I had spent the 10 minutes prior to the seminar chatting with this guy.  About the Olympics.  The Olympics!  In particular, an event I knew nothing of.  For ten precious minutes.

Later, as he gave his testimony, I had a thousand questions I wanted to ask him.  But I knew he'd be swamped after the seminar.  I'd had my chance.  And we'd spoken about sport.

How'd it happen?

Well it went something like this:

Me: Where are you from?

Him: I'm from the country of X.

Me: [Smirking because I knew one tiny, stupid little fact about that country] Oh... didn't they just win Gold in such-and-such an event?

Indeed they did.  Well done Glen!  Ten points and control of round two.  With that little nugget of trivia we were off.  For ten long minutes, we were off not speaking about the most amazing story and the most amazing God.

As the conversation unfolded, things were not helped by my attempt to demonstrate knowledge of this sport.  I'd read something you see.  A while back.  And it was important that I share this tit-bit.  Knowingly.  For the sake of the conversation you understand.  It turned out that my tit-bit was false.  But he was gracious and put me straight.  It wasn't like that in country X you see.

But wait.  I wasn't finished blagging.  Because, to me, it sounded a little like the situation in country Y.  A country I was more familiar with.  Here was me demonstrating a connection you see.  For the sake of the conversation.  It turned out country Y was not really that similar.  But I'm sure, deep down, he was appreciative of my efforts to relate.  Not to mention my ability to be semi-ignorant across a broad range of global concerns.

Ten minutes!  Ten minutes of me saying things like "Oh, yes, I'd heard that such-and-such is a real problem... No? Ok, well I suppose that's because of the so-and-so factor.  Really?  Not that either eh?  Hm."

Ten minutes.

Ten minutes of me covering.  That's the biblical term for what we do when we feel naked. Ever since man sinned we've wanted a covering - something to hide our shame, our weakness, our ignorance.  As we relate to each other we conceal our bad bits, show off our clothing and remain, decidedly, at a distance.

Conversationally, we spend our lives building up a bank of "things to say" in certain situations.  X is mentioned.  We go to the filing cabinet and deliver our lines on cue.  Why?  We're covering.

What would it have been like if, instead of covering, I'd been curious?  Just curious about him?

Well I'd have dropped those fig-leaves of trivial "knowledge" that only side-tracked the conversation.  I'd have confessed ignorance of his country and his context and could have allowed him to tell me his story on his terms.

And, ironically, if I'd stopped pretending to trivial knowledge, we'd have gotten down to subjects far closer to my heart.  A real heart-to-heart can happen when we're into curiosity not covering.

In the Q&A section of the seminar, the last  two questions were asked of Emma and of Ruthie (who was bereaved aged 27 and whose wonderful blog you can read here.)  The question for both was "How can we help people who have gone through situations like yours?"

Both Emma and Ruthie essentially answered the same:  Don't be frightened by your own ignorance.  Don't shy away because you don't know "the right thing to say."  Ask the sufferer what's the right thing!  Ask the sufferer how you can help!  Because they don't need you to have the answer.  They need you.

In other words.  Stop covering.  Be curious.

 

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Published on 7 Comments on Death Because Resurrection
Click for source

Last week I spoke of Jesus as infuriating.  In Luke 8 His mother, His disciples, Legion, the haemorrhaging woman and Jairus come to Him with perfectly reasonable requests.  If such appeals were put to the public vote, we'd all recommend that Jesus grant them.  Yet He grants none of them - certainly not in the way that they are asked for.

And if you were any of these poor unfortunates, you would be - at the very least - bewildered.  Probably you'd be angry, despairing and very tempted to leave the whole Jesus-caper behind.

But then, what should be said to these followers who have had their dearest hopes dashed?  How can Christians be comforted when their deepest desires have been denied?

Some people's first instinct will be to put the blame on these followers.  Perhaps they didn't ask right.  They didn't have enough faith.  Or there's a moral or spiritual failure that's 'blocking the channels of God's grace' or something.

But that's not it.  The requests were fine in their own way.  And Jesus' refusal is not because they didn't ask right.

So if we're not going to blame the followers, what do we tell them?

- You might invoke the raw power of the Lord.  Now is the time to learn that God is God and you are not.  Will you submit to His divine right to rule?

- You might notch it up to the inscrutable wisdom of God.  Now is the time to learn that God's ways are not for Him to justify, they're just for you to accept.

- You might teach the Christian that, yes, God wants nice things for you but, on the other hand, He also wants your godliness.  So here is some suffering to balance out the good times. Submit to the regime and you'll grow in character.

There's actually some truth to these three inter-related approaches.  But that's what makes them so dangerous.  Power, wisdom and suffering are essential issues to grasp in the Christian life.  It's just that a theology of glory teaches one kind of power, wisdom and suffering, and a theology of the cross teaches a very different kind.

A theology of glory will teach that God's power and wisdom estrange Him from us in one direction and our suffering estranges us from God in the other.  Hard times actually reinforce the distance between you and God and "godliness" means  accommodating yourself to that distance.  It means not getting above your station, or pulling Him down.

But a theology of the cross teaches a very different power and wisdom.  Christ's power and wisdom are demonstrated as He descends into the darkness.  And suffering is precisely where we find our deepest communion with Jesus.  Hard times are times of presence.

That might sound ok in theory.  But does that mean, once I've embraced a theology of the cross, my problems will be easier to handle?  No.  In many ways it makes them far harder.  With a theology of the cross, it's as though we're sinking in quick-sand and we cry out to our rescuer to offer a steady hand.  In response He dives into the pit and sinks without a trace.  Now what??

Here's what.  He grabs our foot and pulls us under with Him.  His rescue does not evade, it enters the depths.  Only through suffering does the rescue come.  Somehow the way out is the way down.

But none of this happens at a distance.  Jesus does not zap us with trials from on high and wish us well.  He plunges down, drawing us to Himself.

Think of John 11.  We are told explicitly that He loves Lazarus and He loves Lazarus's family (v5).  AND He declines to heal him (v6).  He comes into the heart of the mourning and weeps at the tomb even though it's a funeral He could have prevented.  Jesus' power and love are there for all to see, yet it makes His refusal to heal all the more galling (this is exactly what the crowd murmur about, v37).  He loves and He refuses to heal.

What's He up to?  Well He tells Martha.  He is the Resurrection and the life (v25).  And this is God's glory (v4,40).  Because He's the Resurrection, therefore death is the path.

It's not just that in spite of His love, He let's Lazarus die.  It's because of His love, He let's it happen.  Suffering is not a disproof of His love, but a sign that He is utterly and completely for us.  He is relentlessly for resurrection.

But notice, He's not the Repairer, He's the Resurrection.  We constantly call on Him to patch up the old world, our old life, our old bodies.  But Jesus is not committed to that.  He's not the Repairer, He's the Resurrection.  He's not committed to clawing this old world back from the brink.  He's committed to taking it down into the death it deserves and rising anew on the other side.  It's a theology of glory that has Jesus at a distance, dispensing carrots and sticks to improve the "old man".  In a true theology of the cross, Jesus comes very near to put the old man to death and rise up into something new.

That's what He's doing in the world, and it's what He's doing in your life.  He's not partly concerned for patching up your life and partly concerned for giving you enough trials to form your character.  He's not balancing your good against 'holiness' or 'godliness' etc etc.  He's not inscrutably zapping you with trials that only omniscience could fathom.  In a sense, what He's doing is very simple.  He is single-mindedly bringing you through the death you're desperate to avoid and giving you the life which is really life.

You want a healing. He is the resurrection.  Which means you'll get a death you never bargained for.  But a life you never dreamed of.

A sermon on John 11: "Why is there so much suffering in the world?"

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Published on 4 Comments on “This is going to turn lives around”

Emma's book is coming out this week.  It's a phenomenal read.  Brilliantly written, brutally honest, incisive, touching and hopeful.  You'll be hooked from the first sentence.

Emma has struggled with anorexia both as a teenager and as an adult. This book tells her story, but more than this, testifies to the grace of Jesus who met her in the darkness and brought her out.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cacDKG-79n4]

This book is not just for sufferers and those who care for them - although it will be vitally helpful for them.  It's a testimony to Jesus.  It's a meditation on the gospel and how it addresses a deadly mental illness, so emblematic of our culture's struggles with food, body, performance and identity.  It's one of the most compelling and vivid accounts you'll ever read of the lies that can enslave a person and how the truth sets them free.

In your families, in your congregations and among your friends, there are people struggling deeply with food issues, body issues, OCD, burn-out, anxiety disorders and depression, to name just a few.  The body of Christ with the word of Christ has medicine.  I don't say "the solution" because "solution"-thinking is a hair's-breadth away from the philosophy behind much of these issues.  But we do have gospel balm that the world knows nothing of.  Yet Christians are often too scared to get close to these issues.

Too often we palm "problem people" off to medical and psychiatric professionals, expecting them to fix it.  Medical and psychiatric help can often be crucial, but A) it's by no means certain you'll find such help - many of these services are incredibly over-stretched, and B) your friendship, prayers and words of grace are absolutely critical alongside professional help.

Emma and I have seen too many people struggling alone with deep problems because their churches have no idea how to help.  Christians feel out of their depth and too easily abdicate pastoral responsibilities to the world.

I hope Emma's book makes people see, "Yes we are out of our depth here.  But that's precisely where Jesus works - out of our depth."  I pray it will equip God's people to see that we have a gospel big enough to handle the biggest issues.  And that churches will start to be the places where these problems aren't hidden or exacerbated, but addressed and healed.

Read commendations here.

Pre-order the book here.

10

Published on 10 Comments on Jesus is Utterly, Horrendously, Maddeningly Infuriating

What are you praying for right now?

How are you asking Jesus to act in your life?

And how do you feel He's responding to your requests?

If you want a sobering reality check (and, let's face it, who doesn't?) - read Luke 8:19-56.  Here we see five encounters with Jesus in which people know  what Jesus needs to do.  And they tell Him.  Each one of their requests are perfectly reasonable.  They are exactly the things you would ask if you were in their shoes.  And granting them is exactly what you'd recommend if Jesus had bothered to consult you.

And yet... in each and every case Jesus refuses legitimate, heart-felt and often heart-breaking requests.

Scene one (v19-21).  Jesus' mother wants to speak with Him.  A good Jewish mother, worried for her over-worked, under-fed son.  She wants a word.  In a traditional culture where family is everything, Mary expects her son to honour her in this way.  Is there anything wrong with that?  There's nothing wrong with that.  But Jesus denies His own mother.

In our time and place we're not shocked.  But in Jesus' day, they were shocked.  Three of the Gospel writers thought this was worth recording.  Jesus is profoundly upsetting His nearest and dearest.  But He's only just getting warmed up...

Scene two (v22-25).  The disciples are sailing with the Son of God.  He directs them towards a hurricane then takes a power-nap.  "Master, Master, we're going to drown!" they complain.  Understandable, you'd think.  Jesus rebukes the weather, then He rebukes His followers: "Why don't you trust me!?"

Sheesh!  They're doing their best Jesus!  They just wanted a safe passage across the lake.  Too much to ask??

Well just look at what happens on the other side...

Scene three (v26-39).  Jesus liberates a man oppressed by an army of demons.  Much better!  We all like a good exorcism (well, apart from the locals who are infuriated by His methods, but who cares about them...)  Jesus is back on track - doing the stuff He ought to be doing.  Yet consider the ending to the story.  This new-born baby Christian, in possession of himself for the first time in decades, finally puts words to his greatest desire.  What does he want?  He wants to be with Jesus (v38).  Anything wrong with that?  It's the most beautiful ambition anyone can express.  This man "begs" Jesus: "Please, I just want to be with you."  And Jesus says, "No, go and be a missionary to your own people.'  He gives the command, the disciples push the boat from shore and the man watches His Lord and Saviour sail off into the distance.  What on earth is Jesus like??

It only gets more shocking...

Scene four (v40-48).  A woman with a chronic and defiling illness seeks a miracle from Jesus.  She'd read that there was healing in the wings of the Messiah (Malachi 4:2), so she goes to touch the wings (i.e. the ends) of His coat.  She knows He's the Christ, she trusts Him for healing.  She just wants her life back.  She doesn't want to make a fuss.  For 12 years she's been told that she's unclean and unwelcome.  She's learnt to scurry around the fringes.  The last thing she wants is a face-to-face with the Holy One of Israel.  She just wants a zap-and-run.  Very understandable.  But Jesus is having none of it.  He makes the biggest scene imaginable.  Hundreds of eyes are now turned on her and she has to tell her story very publicly.  It's mortifying!  This is not how she'd planned things.  But it is how Jesus wants it.  He frustrates all our natural desires.

Yet this is nothing compared to the frustration inflicted on Jairus, the synagogue ruler...

Scene five (v49-56).  Can you imagine how Jairus felt as Jesus stops to talk with this woman?  Jairus's 12 year old daughter lies dying and he has left her to seek Jesus' help.  People were ejected from synagogues for lining up with Jesus and now Jairus has risked it all on a Rabbi who stops to chat with riff-raff.  Here was a woman who'd be banned from Jairus's own synagogue.  And her healing could wait, surely!  She'd suffered for 12 years, she could suffer another 12 hours, couldn't she?  Can you picture him, desperately trying to hurry Jesus, tugging at his arm, pleading with his disciples to do something.  Has the whole world gone crazy - what on earth are Christ's priorities and why won't they match up with mine?

If I was Jairus, I'd be beside myself.  But the worst is yet to come.   While Jairus is trying to hurry Jesus, the most horrific words that could ever be spoken to a father are uttered, "Your daughter is dead."  And if it's possible for anything to make matters worse - Jesus manages to make matters worse, because there is the Author of life, standing by, chatting to an unclean woman, while Jairus's world falls apart.  Jairus had banked everything on Jesus, and Jesus had deliberately allowed a hell-on-earth to befall Jairus.

AND THEN ...  AND THEN... Jesus says "Don't be afraid, trust me."

Are you kidding me?  Trust you now?  Now is the time to sue you for malpractice!  Trust you now? 

This is why Jesus is utterly, horrendously, maddeningly infuriating.

But think of this...

- He resists His mother so that He might act like a true Son and bring many into the family (v21)

- He sails His friends through a storm and into a profound appreciation for Him (v25)

- He returns Legion to his family as a whole man, and a man with a mission (v39, cf. Mark 7:31ff)

- He restores the unclean woman to community, giving her a deep assurance and blessing (v48)

- He brings this family through death to new life, with feasting to boot (v55)

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Through darkness to the light.  Through suffering to glory.  Through death to resurrection - that's the way of Jesus.

We are enslaved to this death-bound realm.  All we can think to do is cling on to life and status and blessings and we fire up all sorts of prayers with frenzied fervour.  "THIS, THIS, THIS Jesus, you don't understand how vital THIS is."  Jesus understands far more than we know.  Which is why He stands against our natural desires.  He grabs us violently by the hand and dives down with us into a death we never would have chosen.

And maybe right now you're asking: What on earth are you doing Jesus!?

Well, He's doing what He always does... bringing life from the dead.

You think He's gone too far?  You think He can't redeem this situation?  He raises the dead.  He raises the whole world.  There's nothing He can't redeem.  If you're His, there's nothing He won't redeem.

But because He raises the dead His priorities will look different to yours.  Insanely, infuriatingly different.

This is not a sign of His indifference towards you.  It's not even a sign of some abstract inscrutability.  It's just the plain, obvious truth that those who can raise dead people prioritize differently to those who are bound to death.  A death-bound to-do list is a pitiful thing.  But it's all we've got.  So it's what we bring to the Lord in prayer.  Essentially we say

"Lord, Bless my to-do list!  Fulfil my desires - shaped, as they are, by a paralyzing fear of losses and crosses and an utter commitment to this passing age."

And Jesus says "No."  Thank God He says "No!"

He LOVES His mother.  He LOVES His disciples.  He LOVES Legion.  He LOVES the woman.  He LOVES Jairus.  And He LOVES you.  Therefore He won't allow our death-bound desires to hold sway.

I don't know what redemption will look like in your situation.  But reflect on this...

Mary wanted a word with her son, Jesus gave her a family.

The disciples wanted plain sailing, Jesus gave them amazement and awe at Him.

Legion wanted escape with Jesus, He gave him back to his family with a mission.

The woman wanted a zap-and-run, Jesus gave her a face-to-face.

Jairus wanted a healing, he got resurrection feasting.

One day - maybe in glory - but one day you'll be able to make a statement like that: "I desperately wanted X, but through a kind of death, Jesus brought me Y."  I don't know what those details will be, and probably you won't either.

But in the meantime you can trust a Lord who, through His life and death, has

Handled exclusion far worse than Mary's

Gone through storms far rougher than the disciples'

Felt disappointment far darker than Legion's

Endured shame far deeper than the woman's

Suffered loss far crueller than Jairus's

And He's with you now in a suffering that He understands from the inside.  He's done it all for you... that you might have life to the full.

It's just that true life comes from the dead.

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A sermon on Jairus and the Woman (one of the sermons closest to my heart).

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