THE TRAVELER
The TRAVELER #3 – Winter 2010
It’s the stuff of which classic literature and Hollywood movies are made. A man of power and prestige, seemingly having everything, but something is missing. A mysterious stranger who can see through all the pomp and circumstance of a life lived on the surface and a heart longing for something that is beyond the grasp of a man who needs to be different but just doesn’t know how.
We see the life of the lonely power player laid out before us. We learn how he has come to this place. We secretly cheer for him and hope that he makes the decision that will change his life. And, in true Hollywood fashion…he does. He sees the error of his ways brought to light and his heart is made new…his life is made different…and he, himself, the Grinch, carves the roast beast.
After he has seen his mistakes, and understands that he has made some bad decisions, and knows he needs to be different, and can comprehend the life altering changes that need to be made…even after that epiphany…
How does the story change, if the guy chooses to remain the same?
Do we keep reading A Christmas Carol if Ebenezer Scrooge decides he likes being a money-hungry, hateful man who mostly worries about decreasing the surplus population? Do we keep rooting for Mr. Darcy if he embraces his pride and his prejudice over Elizabeth Bennett? Heck no…we walk away and say fine.
Finished reading a book called The Jesus You Can’t Ignore. Part of the book talks about Nicodemus and his late night visit to Jesus…and their conversation and the outcomes of all that. For a long time, I read Nicodemus as a man who didn’t get it. What it comes down to is Nicodemus was a guy who couldn’t sell it.
He absolutely understood what Jesus was telling him, yet he chose to play dumb. When Christ told him he needed to be born again, he answered with some wide-eyed, how-is-that-possible, response about how could an old man be born again. It wasn’t a question of Nicodemus not understanding what Jesus was telling him, it was a question of Nicodemus not wanting to do what Jesus was telling him. Huge difference.
You see Nicodemus had it all going for him…an important job, the appropriate amount of respect in his eyes, a hard worker who had been and would be rewarded by God, because he had jumped through the right spiritual hoops in the right way.
Jesus knocked Nicodemus for a loop, when He basically said…all the stuff you’ve done, all the power and prestige you’ve received is a whole bunch of garbage…and if you truly want to be different, if you truly want to BE the guy you seem to think you are…the only prescription is to start over. A whole new start with an entirely new way of thinking.
Um…not something that Nicodemus jumped at…you see…he didn’t want to start over. He liked where he was and what he had and the important place he had earned for himself in the current system. The thing that so infuriated the Sanhedrin was that their system was corrupt and there was a whole new system on the way in. A system in which they weren’t any more important than anyone else, and a system that didn’t focus so much on HOW you did what you did with regard to faith, but WHY you did what you did. A totally new way of thinking.
The great part is that although Nicodemus didn’t make an instantaneous change, he did change. We aren’t given a lot of information about the degree of the change, but he did listen, he did evaluate, he did open himself up to the fact that he could be wrong, and what we do see from him later is a man who had started to change.
In the same way, we have to hit people with The Truth. That part is our job. We have to change everything about how we think about the world, if we choose to follow Christ, and it speaking His Truth, we have to lay it out there for everyone…no compromise…no niceties to make it more comfortable for them…then we have to let the Holy Spirit do His job and change the heart. It may be an all at once change, it may be a slow change. Not our worry.
Jesus didn’t give up on Nicodemus, but he didn’t lie to him either to make him feel better. Our job…stick with people. Tell them the truth and be available to them, as they work through their salvation with fear and trembling. But, don’t give up!
Fall 2009 – Entry #2
I’ll admit it…I bought it. I was with some friends on a weekend trip to Yellow Springs, looking through all the cool shops and visiting all the local artisans…I saw it and I bought it. I offer no apologies. If you come to my house, you will find it there, and I do use it.
Yep…I bought some magnetic refrigerator poetry.
You guys know how I love words. It’s amazing to me that people who have a God-given gift as wordsmiths can take words like window and sick and yonder and come up with…
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.
That Will Shakespeare knew how to stick some words together! Girls, you know if some boy said those words to you, you would be on the phone in like five seconds with your BFF and she would respond with, “Awww!” Guys take note here, if you want to score points with the ladies…and yes, there is a point system…brush up on your Shakespeare.
Words have the power to tear down or build up…to touch and move and motivate and…destroy. There are all times that each of us has been angry or frustrated or pushed too far and have said things we wish we could have back the minute they fly out of our mouths. The wonderful thing about words is that they also have the power to bring joy and bliss and love and…life.
Know who’s great with the words? Jesus Christ. He understands people. He has a way of reaching people. Don’t get me wrong…there no watering down television evangelist stuff that tells you that God wants you to have all the stuff you’ve ever wanted. Come on, we all know that, very often, if we had been given exactly what we wanted at a certain point in time, that decision would have made us briefly happy but would have been so much less than what God in Christ has for us. If I had been given everything I wanted at 11, I would be an archeologist right now…and not have the privilege of getting to hang out with you guys!
No, I’m talking about genuine words from The Christ that have the ability to cut through all the junk we have loaded into our lives and get to the heart of the matter.
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Matthew 7:7-8.
It’s not about getting what we want, it’s about giving up everything that we have…about choosing to walk into His house, giving up all our weird ideas that we control anything and let Him begin to work in our lives.
You see, if we don’t talk to Him…knock and asked to be allowed in…He will never push it. Not gonna’ bust down the door…not how He rolls.
Know that feeling when you’re waiting for someone you care about to come see you…whether it’s a grandparent or a boyfriend or girlfriend…know those moments of eager anticipation when you can’t wait for the doorbell to ring so you can be with the person you love? That’s how Jesus feels about us. He stands patiently and eagerly at the door waiting for each of us to let it go…the pain and the sadness and the brokenness…and have the courage to knock and asked to come into a whole new life.
As we head into a new program year, my challenge to you…read and study and listen to the words of Christ. He has much for you to hear. And if you’re ready for that whole new life…KNOCK!
May 2009 – Entry #
If you don’t already know it, I am a huge fan of Literature, but it wasn’t always that way. I know in high school that American Lit and British Lit classes seemed to be a form of torture…I remember thinking that they were actually going to kill me and in my obituary it would list cause of death as Ethan Frome or Moby Dick or Silas Marner. Some of that stuff just seemed to be so far removed from where I was. Never thought there were important lessons to be learned from people who lived so long ago…what the heck did they know about being me?
Then, as a junior in high school, I ran into John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, written in 1678. Kind of changed the way I thought about great literature…and the fact that there are things that are universal to all of humanity…love, and hate, and fear and joy and heartache and loss and struggle and a myriad of other things that we experience as humans…and you know what…those things don’t change. The way we experience them and the way we describe our experiences change. So, when I stumbled across The Pilgrim’s Progress, I finally realized that some things about what it means to be a human being stay the same, regardless of their time and place in history. I got lost in the fact that Christian…yep, his name in the book, was indeed a pilgrim, on a journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. And, along the way, he would have to, with faith and steely determination, and some mistakes as well, make his way through places like Vanity Fair, and Doubt Castle, and the Valley of Humiliation, and the Country of Conceit, and a Plain Called Ease.
Isn’t that true of all of us, if we make the choice to follow Jesus Christ? Don’t we, indeed, become the pilgrim, or THE TRAVELER? So, this is where I’m gonna’ write about what my travels teach me, as I strive on a daily basis to work my way toward The Celestial City…keeping my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith… Don’t know where my travels will take me, but why don’t you come along for the ride. And, if you have something to say or some helpful advice or a detour from your own life that you want to warn me to watch out for on the journey…you know where to find me. So, we’re off. Pack light…we’ve got a long way to go…but never alone…
