Advent Readings

In my quest to find Christmas afresh this year, I ordered a book of Advent meditations called Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas. It's a collection of 22 essays and sermons by theologians such as John Piper, Tim Keller, Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon, and R.C. Sproul. It also includes a sermon excerpt of Skip Ryan's, who is the chaplain of Asian Access and a Dallas friend's pastor at Park Cities Pres! The book draws its title from Charles Wesley's hymn by the same name. Check out the lyrics of this lesser known hymn--they're incredible!

These readings have been a beautiful complement to the daily Advent Scriptures. I thought I would share a little snippet with you in order to endorse the book. Keller writes:

'In the first chapter of Luke, Elizabeth says, "Blessed is she who has believed what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished." Elizabeth is saying to Mary--and to us--"if you really believe what the angel told you about this baby, if you take it in, you'll be blessed.'

"But our English word 'blessed' is so limp and lightweight. In English we use blessed to mean something like 'inspired.' But in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, the word for blessed meant something much deeper than that. To be blessed brings you back to full shalom, full human functioning; if makes you everything God meant for you to be. To be blessed is to be strengthened and repaired in every one of your human capacities, to be utterly transformed.

"What Elizabeth is saying to Mary, and what Luke is saying to us is, 'Do you believe that this beautiful idea of the Incarnation will really happen? If you believe it, and if you will take it into the center of your life, you're blessed, transformed, and utterly changed.'"

I love that! To internalize the Incarnation is to be transformed into all that God intended us to be (i.e. to be regenerated by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit).

So even as this week feels a little frantic, I'm determined not to "bustle about but only in vain" (Psalm 39:6), but in all things to "believe that what the Lord has said will be accomplished" (Luke 1:45).

Grace and peace,
Chelsea

Food for the Hungry in Myanmar

Since I've often mentioned Food for the Hungry here, I thought I'd point you to a post Matt shared with me on John Piper's blog about FH's involvement in Myanmar. Desiring God ministries is helping to mobilize FH support in the area devastated by last year's cyclone, and you can be involved by contributing financially (and by praying!). Read the post.

As a side note, I thought it was interesting that Piper mentions the rat population in Asia as one of the contributing factors to hunger and poverty. I have just finished reading founder of Gospel for Asia K.P. Yohannan's book Revolution in World Missions. (I kept remarking to myself in the margins that "Brother K.P." and Piper would be bff...) Yohannan explains that the problem of hunger in Asia is, above all, a spiritual one. He writes:

"Most people know of the 'sacred cows' that roam free, eating tons of grain while nearby people starve. But a lesser-known and more sinister culprit is another animal protected by religious belief--the rat. According to those who believe in reincarnation, the rat must be protected as a likely recipient for a reincarnated soul on its way up the ladder of spiritual Nirvana. Although many Asians reject this and seek to poison rats, large-scale efforts of extermination have been thwarted by religious outcry. Rats eat or spoil 20 percent of India's food grain every year...Clearly, the agony we see in the faces of those starving children and beggars is actually caused by centuries of religious slavery."

(A tangent to my tangent: I remember having a similar thought about Japan when I wandered through a temple with my host family four years ago. Suddenly I realized that for a nation that claims it is not religious, Japan is actually steeped in idolatry. The presence of Shinto and Bhuddist temples and household shrines prove it. But in Japan, this bondage has brought a harvest of materialism and nationalism rather than poverty...)

I'll be writing more about Yohannan and Gospel for Asia in a coming post...but I thought I'd leave you with that lovely vision of Asian rats today. It has made me, for one, prayerful about how I can contribute to the spiritual and physical needs in Asia. And I'm so thankful for men like Piper and Yohannan who expose the needs to our materially and spiritually saturated American culture...and cause my heart to be a little heavy over my addiction to the saturation.

An RV and Unwasted Lives

I met the most amazing couple today at the office. While Mr. J. was seeing the doctor, his wife chatted with me about their life here in Franklin--and everywhere else. They retired from a small town in northern Indiana a few years ago. A desire for increased mobility prompted them to sell their house and buy a motor home in its stead. Now that they've lightened their load, they travel all over the U.S. volunteering for various ministries. This year they helped their Alma Mater refinish its cross country course, made several trips to Louisiana to help with hurricane relief, and traveled internationally to serve with a ministry called TCM in Vienna, Austria.

Talking with them reminded me of John Piper's commentary on the American dream of retirement. In Don't Waste Your Life (one of my all-time favorite Piper books) he writes: "I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider this story from the February 1998 Reader's Digest: A couple 'took early retirement from their jobs in the northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Guda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells...' Picture them before Christ on the great day of judgment. 'Look, Lord. See my shells.' That is a tragedy."

What a stark contrast between the tragic picture Piper paints and the beautiful one lived out by Mr. and Mrs. J! In a few months they will be heading back to Vienna for a three month stint with Taking Christ to the Millions Institute International (TCM), a seminary that trains Eastern Europeans for ministry in their home countries. Pastors and missionaries of all ages come for two weeks at a time to take intensive ministry and theology courses. Because the students come from closed countries where boldly proclaiming the gospel means real hardship, TCM wants Haus Edelweiss, the chalet that houses the school (see picture above), to be a place of rest and retreat. The 500 volunteers who come throughout each school year clean their rooms and cook their meals so that the students can focus on their classes. You can learn more about the program (and find out how you can help!) here.

I loved listening to Mrs. J. talk about her experience serving with TCM last year and how thrilled she and her husband are to be going back. She told me about one man in his 20s. When she was cleaning his room on the day he left, she noticed that he had left behind all of his study materials--notebooks, pens, class handouts. When Mrs. J. rushed to the bus to give him his things, he shook his head and explained that he was not allowed to bring any of them back into his country. He had done his best to memorize the material presented in each lecture over the two week period.

When Mrs. J. finished the story, I was in tears right there at the office. This nameless man from Eastern Europe, a devoted disciple and seminary student, had absolutely shamed me. How often do I take for granted the privelage that it is to be able to read God's word so openly? How lightly do I take my own seminary classes, often skimming the reading or listening half-heartedly to lectures? I am laid low by the plight of these Eastern Europeans who labor for the Gospel in their countries. And I've fallen in love with the mission of TCM. (It helps of course, that the ministry is located in a city I dearly love! Anyone want to organzie a volunteer trip?!)

Most of all, I'm challenged by the example of this dear retired couple who have refused to be slowed down by their age or conquered by the lures of retirement. They live as vagabons, leveraging their possessions, time, and resources for the good of the Kingdom. They make themselves available to go wherever God might send them.

"Whatever you do, find the God-honoring, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of your life and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it. And you will make a difference that lasts. You will not waste your life."
--John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life

An Admirable Conjunction of Diverse Excellencies

Oh, that I had written the brilliant title for this post! But those are the words of the 18th century puritan pastor Jonathan Edwards.

I was reading this morning out of John Piper's newest devotional-style book, Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ, a Christmas present from my parents, via my dad. The third entry is titled "The Lion and the Lamb," and in it, Piper discusses Jesus' diversity first as the lamb-like Lion as incarnate Christ--the Lion of Judah playing the part of the sacrificial lamb in order to absolve us our sins--and then as the lion-like Lamb standing in authority at the throne of God for eternity (Revelation 5:5-6).

Piper further discusses the diverse excellencies of Christ:

"We admire Christ for his transcendence, but even more because the transcendence of his greatness is mixed with submission to God. We marvel at him because his uncompromising justice is tempered with mercy. His majesty is sweetened by meekness. In his equality with God he has a deep reverence for God. Though he is worthy of all good, he was patient to suffer evil. His sovereign dominion over the world was clothed with a spirit of obedience and submission. He baffled the proud scribes with his wisdom, but was simple enough to be loved by children. He could still the storm with a word, but would not strike the Samaritans with lightning or take himself down from the cross."

Piper goes on to write that we love the diverse manhood of Jesus because we ourselves are full of dichotomy. But I think we can take that thesis a step further to say that imitating Christ (Ephesians 5:1), we are called to embody dichotomy in our spiritual lives, to be "an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies" through the power of the Spirit that resides within us. We must live out of both grace and truth, both justice and mercy, in the world even as we are citizens of another world. We are called to live boldly as coheirs with Christ (Romans 8:17) and humbly as those desperately in need of grace (Romans 12:3).

May the power of the Lion and the love of the Lamb make our faith in Christ unshakable. So deliver us from small dreams and timid ventures and halting plans. Embolden us. Strengthen us. Make us love with fierce and humble love.
--John Piper