Lenten Tunes

I'm taking a day off (sigh...I really love these) to recuperate after a weekend away with 30-some girls at the Revolve Tour in Hartford. It was a blast! And even more fun was the epic sleepover we all had in between sessions at a sweet family's home. I love my job!

Today I've been reading and spring cleaning and...call me a nerd, if you wish...listening to Easter tunes! That's right, I have a whole playlist of songs for Easter. We're well past the halfway point in Lent, so I figured now would be a good time to share a few of my favorites!

Since my trusty source for sharing music is no more (RIP, Lala!), you'll have to look these up on iTunes for yourself. Do it! It will get you in the Lenten spirit. (Sorry if that sounds trite. It really will get you thinking about the Cross and the Resurrection and what they mean for us.)

Many are hymns (no apologies here) redone by some of my favorites (Indelible Grace, Red Mountain, Ascend the Hill, etc.). Others are just great, timeless ballads and worship refrains. The list intentionally starts and ends with songs by Andrew Peterson--gosh, I love him. I think his music just hits at the season. (More on the meaning and significance of hosanna as we approach Palm Sunday in a little more than a week!)

Hosanna--Andrew Peterson
Lead Me to the Cross--Hillsong United
How Deep the Father's Love for Us--Philips Craig & Dean
Hallelujah! What a Savior--Ascend the Hill
Nothing but the Blood--Charlie Hall
The Stand--Hillsong United
My Jesus, I Love Thee--Red Mountain Church
God Who Saves--Caedmon's Call
Cling to the Crucified--Indelible Grace (Jeremy Casella)
Behold the Lamb (Communion Song)--Keith and Kristyn Getty
Unto You--Shane Barnard and Shane Everett
Jesus the Lord My Savior Is--Indelible Grace (Sandra McCracken)
Before the Throne of God Above--Dave Hunt
We Love You Jesus--Shane Barnard and Shane Everett
Stronger--Hillsong United
Behold the Lamb of God--Andrew Peterson

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die."
John 11:25-26

Lenten Encouragement

My heart is so full tonight as I catch up on news from Japan. In one of the most unreached nations in the world, the Church is being mobilized.

I received an e-mail from Food for the Hungry (the organization through which I sponsor a little girl in Rwanda) detailing some hopeful stories about the Church in action. From the e-mail: "One of the pastors told of working at the feeding center and how one person exclaimed to him...'Thank you for being Christ to us!' It is just one example of how Christ's body is making an impact here in Japan."

If you haven't read my friend Sue Takamoto's blog, you really should. She is one of my most treasured heroines and writes so poignantly about her family's ministry in Japan, especially during this current crisis. Yesterday she posted a video about one American business man's (a friend of the Takamotos') impressions of the way God is working through hardship.



And another video of Eric Takamoto, who is in Sendai helping with the relief efforts through a Christian organization called CRASH:



As I was doing my Lent readings tonight, a piece by R. Kent Hughes resonated in relation to these things. He writes,

Christ was in control when life was falling in, when things looked the worst...Gethsemane was not a tragedy, and neither are our Gethsemanes. This does not do away with the wounds of affliction in this life, but it is encouraging to see that behind human tragedy stands the benevolent and wise purpose of the Lord of human history. Life may be dark at times, tragedy may come, and at times the whole world may seem to be falling apart. The wheel may appear ready to crush us. But this is not the end. "And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28), even in Gethsemane.

The Jesus who drank the cup of wrath for us and the Father who sent Him to do it are infinitely Wise, Sovereign, and Good--even when the whole world seems to be falling apart. Praying expectantly for God to continue moving in the hearts of those who do not know Him in Japan.

On Lent and Healing

I've been feeling broken lately.

Let me explain: Several years ago, I had some traumatic horseback riding experiences that changed the sport for me. Six years out of the saddle have only aggravated the fear. So when I brought Aiden Magee here in September, I knew I had my work cut out for me. I believe that fear is decidedly NOT of God, so it seemed like a worthwhile spiritual pursuit as well as a practical one. Only, it's been much harder than I imagined.

Don't get me wrong--I looove Aiden and have so much fun with him. But there's this alarming degree of anxiety that rises up in me when things aren't going 100% perfectly with him...and especially when I even try to imagine riding him out on the trails. It's alarming because I'm not used to feeling this way--I'm mostly an I-can-tackle-anything kind of girl. I wouldn't generally consider myself an anxious person. So this fear, this lack of peace in my life, is pretty foreign. It has made me think of the Jewish idea of shalom. The Hebrew word we often translate "peace," also equates "wholeness" in Jewish culture. So a lack of peace signifies something that is broken.

My riding PTSD of sorts started with riding incidents during a season of spiritual darkness in my life, so no doubt there is a connection there. But more importantly, I think my inability to conquer this obstacle has challenged my idea of myself as someone who's competent. I want to feel confident, together, and in control--but riding taps into a place where I feel insecure.

In our can-do Western mindset, we try to devise a means to fix ourselves. We don't want to be vulnerable, needy, broken. This is the downfall of all religion--even our American brand of easy-believism Christianity.

But the reality of walking with Christ is that we must acknowledge our need. Like the Buddhists and the Muslims, we'd like to think that we can get to Him on our own. Really, His grace is the means for even our pursuit of Him. I am learning this afresh as I face my own brokenness. The nerdy head knowledge of my Reformed education is making its home more and more in my heart as I grasp my humanity.

Yesterday's One-Year Bible passage from the New Testament was Luke 7:36-50, where the "sinful" woman hears that Jesus is in town and rushes to the home where he is eating. Overcome by his presence, she begins to weep. Then kneeling before him, she washes his feet with her tears and lavishes them with perfume from an alabaster jar. I haven't been able to get her out of my head.

Jesus' response to her vulnerability is profound: "Your faith has saved you; go in peace" (Luke 8:50). "Go with my shalom, dear one. Your faith in me has made whole the broken things in you. No more fear."

What does all of this have to do with Lent, you ask? Well, a lot, I think. If it weren't for our broken humanity, what need would we have for a Sovereign who put on flesh to conquer the things that have bound ours? By his wounds, his brokenness, we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).

In this season of fasting and prayers, I'm increasingly thankful for the practical living that makes it all real in my heart.

The Lord is near. Do not be anxious for anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known before God. And the peace (shalom!) of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:5-7

Lenten Beginnings

It's Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.

Once again my Baptist upbringing puts me at a disadvantage when it comes to the rhythms of this liturgical season. But I am learning. I've never been to an Ash Wednesday service, nor do I feel that it's especially important. I do, however, want to temper my heart these next 40 days to think about the Cross and what it means for every nook and cranny of my life.

Of course Lauren Winner's words are helpful as I think about becoming a person who lets the traditions of the church rub up against my here-in-this-moment life more than my Baptist forefathers might approve. From Girl Meets God: "During Lent, I don't have that always-cure, and I find myself, not surprisingly, praying more."

I have thought long and hard about what my "always-cure" might be so that I could give it up for the next six weeks. But I can't think for the life of my what would be most profitable to give up. I heard someone say once, maybe when I was in high school, that it's best to add a practice to your life during Lent rather than to fast. To just give up say, chocolate, doesn't do much good for your spiritual state if you chow down on it first thing Easter morning and never look back (and besides, who can do without mini Cadbury eggs this time of year anyway?) The point of Lent, I think, is to feast on the Cross in such a way that I might be just a little more Christ-like when it's over.

I've decided that I want to do something equivalent to my Advent tradition of meeting with the Lord over Scripture and other readings morning and night. Since I'm working through the one-year Bible reading plan, I'll move that to mornings and do my Lenten readings at night. If it sounds like I'm trying to be super spiritual, I'm not. It's just that my always-cure is many things that aren't God, and I want more of Him, more of His Word. I want Him to be my default.

Here's a link to the reading plan I'll be using, which is adapted from the Book of Common Prayer. The book I'll go through is Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross, compiled by Nancy Guthrie. I'll share liturgies and prayers as I come across them.

Here's one from the traditional Ash Wednesday service:

Accomplish in us, O God, the work of your salvation
That we may show forth your glory in the world.
By the cross and passion of your Son, our Lord,
Bring us with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection.

Advent Communion

Tonight is a little sad because it is my last night in my apartment before I head to Illinois for Christmas. I know, I know...it seems odd to bemoan going home to my parents' house for a week. And actually, I'm really excited about the time in Bloomington. It's just that I love Advent here on Greenwood Avenue so much! And once I head home, it'll be over for another year.

I've been thinking about Advent and how we cannot divorce it from Easter, mostly because we had been preparing for a Communion service for the last Sunday of Advent. As usual, Lauren Winner's words (from Girl Meets God) are gold:

“The waiting is meant to be a little anxious. I picture Jane Austen heroines. They are never quite sure if their intended will come. We Christians can be sure; we can rest easy in the promises of Scripture. But we are meant to feel a touch of that anxious, handkerchief-waving expectation all the same.

“The calendar tells us that all this culminates on December 25, but really the whole season slouches toward Easter…Even His birthplace takes us to the Last Supper: Jesus, the Bread of Life, is born in Bethlehem, bet lechem, “house of bread,” and at the Last Supper, He will break bread for us, and then on the Cross He will break His body. Nothing in Scripture, even the names of birthplace towns, is coincidence.”

Oh gosh, I just love that so much! Bethlehem, "house of bread." Rabbinical reading like that reminds us that God is the inventor of narrative and literary style.

Even His birthplace takes us to the Last Supper. And so it seems fitting that we would take Communion at Christmastime, which is what we did at the 6:30 service this past Sunday. At the Lord's Table, we remember that Jesus was flesh and blood for us and that He shall come again. We remember that we are family, united by that blood, which pulsed through His tiny body in the manger and poured out of Him on the Cross. We remember that Christmas is not about presents and feasting and jollity, but about a King who came to die in order that His Kingdom might be ushered in.

As I've thought on these things, the Christmas hymns that mention the Cross have become so precious to me. Not many of them do, when you really stop to listen. But I've been loving "What Child is This" the past couple of days (particularly Sarah Story's rendition--you can get it for free from Noisetrade.com), as well as one that's new to me from Red Mountain Church--it's called "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent." It's particularly poignant in thinking about the Lord's Supper.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

This Christmas, may you rejoice in the One who came and died a real, fleshly death for you.

The Beauty and Offense of Eastertide

I've been studying Christology in my systematic theology class these past few weeks--what sweet timing in light of Easter! And what a sweet study it has been, of both the beauty and the offense of the Cross.

As a teenager, I once heard a speaker insinuate that we make too much of the Cross and too little of the resurrection. It is true that the Gospel would not be complete without the resurrection--if Christ did not rise on the third day, then as Nitzche said, "God is dead." Resurrection Sunday is crucial. But there is nothing offensive about the resurrection. It is the Cross of Christ alone that provided the means for our final atonement, and it is the Cross that compels us, by its horrific offense, to lay down our sin and put on the new self. As singer/songwriter Derek Webb has said, "the Gospel is both beautiful and offensive. It must be both." Without the Cross, there is no offense, and therefore, a very limited beauty.

In The Cross of Christ, British thinker and evangelist John Stott explains the development of the cross as a Christian symbol. The Jews, of course, prohibited symbols because of the mandate from the Ten Words to refrain from making images of God (Exodus 20:4-5). As the Early Church developed its doctrines and creeds, the cross emerged as the defining symbol for followers of Christ. Stott writes that the cross was the most unlikely symbol for early Christians because the image was so very offensive to the Greco-Roman world. Crucifixion, a cruel punishment devised by Rome, is perhaps the most gruesome method of execution ever employed, as its victims suffered for hours before finally suffocating to death. And to a Jew, the cross was doubly offensive. The word "cross" in Hebrew is synonomus with the word for "tree," etz. Jews would have easily called to mind Deuteronomy 21:23 "anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse." To a Jewish mindset, it was blasphemous to claim that God would become man, and even more so to say that the Messiah could actually die under God's curse!

As if the gruesome cruelty of crucifixion and the Jewish confusion were not enough, we read Peter's words to the men of Israel: "you handed [Jesus] over to be killed...You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life" (Acts 3:12-15), and we find that we are equally guilty of betraying Christ. Our dark, twisted, deceitful hearts have killed Him. And so, this post offends its author.

But as Webb and others have noted, therein lies the beauty!

It's precisely because we are offended so deeply that Christ's atoning sacrifice is so precious. The Messiah who wept over the city of Jerusalem at the wickedness of the people, the Christ who bled and died on the cross to satisfy the wrath of God, that very same Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father today...and He waits for us to be made co-heirs with Him for all eternity. I love the refrain from the old 19th century hymn:

Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the Just was satisfied
To look on Him and Pardon me.

Behold him there, the risen Lamb
My perfect, spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I Am,
The King of Glory and of Grace!

As Stott writes, "As we face the cross, then, we can say to ourselves both 'I did it, my sins sent him there.'" (That's the offense.) Stott continues: "and 'he did it, his love took him there.'" (That's the beauty.) May we rejoice in the devastating offense and the sweet beauty of the Cross this Easter.

You are worthy to take the scroll and to open the seals because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation...
Revelation 5:9

Grace to Give: Choosing Forgiveness When It Feels Like Personal Death

Is there anything so difficult as forgiveness?!

I can think of few things that pierce our hearts as painfully or wound our pride as deeply as the thought of forgiving a wrong. It can feel so very...unjust to let someone off the hook, especially when they haven't even acknowledged how much they've hurt us.

And yet...again and again the Scriptures command us to do it. Throughout the Tanak, God establishes Himself as the God of forgiveness (Leviticus 4, Psalm 103, Jeremiah 31:31-34,). And then, in the New Testament, Jesus revolutionizes the idea of forgiveness by telling His disciples that they too will have to forgive (Matthew 6:12). He adds insult to injury by telling us that if we refuse to forgive, the Father won't forgive our sins (Matthew 6:14-15 and 18:35). I don't think this is so much a cruel ultimatum as it is an indictment of the condition of our hearts. If our hearts are soft toward God and receptive of His grace, that grace will abound as we forgive others. As my pastor exclaimed in a bellowing voice in Sunday school a few weeks ago, "GRACE. ALWAYS. BEARS. FRUIT!"

And who is more justified in asking us to forgive than our Lord Jesus? As I've sought God this year in the process of forgiving a dear friend who has greatly wronged me, He's been faithful to bring to mind the picture of Jesus on the Cross. As I gaze on His suffering--the cancellation of my debts at His expense--the wrongs committed against me pale in comparison. How petty and foolish to cling to unforgiveness in light of the lavish grace that's been given to me! Surely I have grace to give. The bounty I've received provides an excess to spare (John 1:16, 1 Timothy 1:14).

Two things have become clear to me as I've lingered over this image of Jesus:
1.) Forgiveness always comes at significant personal cost. Perhaps the statement in Hebrews that "without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness" (v. 9:22) is not only literal, but figurative. Forgiveness will always be costly to us. Just as Christ died on the Cross to show us grace, we too, will have to die--to ourselves--in order to show grace to those around us. (See Romans 12:9-21.)

2.) Forgiveness identifies us with Christ. After Christ's death and resurrection, the early believers understood that they, too, would suffer to be made like Christ. (Acts 9:15-17, Romans 8:17, 2 Corinthians 1:5, Philippians 3:10-11, 2 Thessalonians 1:5). And what brought about the suffering of our Savior? His readiness to forgive our sin! So there is no better way for us to be identified with Him than when we forgive, and especially when we forgive those who do not know the depth of their wrongdoing against us. As we learn to cry out with Christ, "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34), we are transformed into His image, a spectacle bearing witness to the gospel of grace.

In light of this, is there anything so lovely as forgiveness?!

My heart grows light every time I read Psalm 103:1-12:
¹ Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

² Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits-

³ who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,

⁴ who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,

⁵ who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

⁶ The LORD works righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed.

⁷ He made known his ways to Moses,
his deeds to the people of Israel:

⁸ The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.

⁹ He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;

¹⁰ he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.

¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;

¹² as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Praise the LORD, O my soul! What glorious grace that we are forgiven! And as He redeems our lives from the pit of sin, we are given the grace to forgive others. How I long for my heart to overflow with forgiveness that someone might see the gospel etched upon my life.

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
--2 Corinthians 9:8