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The Joke's On Caesar

The Joke�s On Caesar by Blind Man at the Gate Caesar and God Caesar or God Caesar vs. God Both call for my allegiance Jesus said give each their due But who gets what�how do I divvy it up? Roman Christian or Christian Roman? American Christian or Christian American? Who gets to be the noun? And who gets relegated to adjective duty? Here�s something I�m coming to know� Christian is a great noun But a lousy adjective Now we�re on to something Here�s what I learned from history And the prophets Caesar tries to tell me Hey, it�s all the same Because God is Caesar�s God Trust me (Nationalization of the divine!) �God shed her grace on thee� �One nation under God� �In God we trust� So the question is solved Give your all to Caesar Ask not what Caesar can do for you� And don�t worry your pretty little head about competing allegiance Because Caesar is the authorized middle man Between God and the common man Civil Religion and Social Contract Like Rousseau said And it doesn�t even matter if there�s really no deity in the temple at all But the prophets cry foul! The earth is mine Your thoughts are not my thoughts Your ways are not my ways Your government is not my government Saith the Lord Render unto Caesar What? Taxes But not heart and soul and mind and strength Let Caesar police the streets and fix the pot holes But don�t ask for much more Let Caesar be a custodian of civility Anything more tends to idolatry Render unto God Total allegiance And what�s left for Caesar? Not much And that�s how it should be A denarii for Caesar To fix the pot hole and pay the constable To make life and little more livable But heart and soul Are pledged to Christ and the government of God Kyrios Christos Ianitor Caesar But does Caesar resent demotion to custodian? You betcha Caesar is proud And always has the nature of a beast So don�t feed him very much Because when he gets big, bad things happen Some were sawn asunder While the patriotic cheered And why did they cheer? Because Caesar is a seasoned politician Who knows how to campaign Which means to promise Which means to lie A chicken in every pot Charity begins at home It�s the economy, stupid Mission accomplished Our rightful place in the world The last best of hope of earth Manifest destiny We�re #1! Just do what we say and nobody gets hurt If only Jesus would campaign like that Take up your cross and follow me Turn the other cheek The way is hard Who�s gonna vote for that? What do you mean it�s not a democratic process? Promoted to the Oval Office of the Universe? By whom? By God! For life! Caesar�s not going to like that Nor the puppet master pulling Caesar�s strings That reminds me Did you ever notice they all say the same thing? Our great nation Our great cause Our great destiny Nebuchadnezzar did it best The freakin� megalomaniac Drove himself insane A sense of humor is the surest sign of sanity But Caesar never sees what�s so funny Because the joke�s on him Let�s hear a laugh for the man of the world Who thinks he can make things work Tried to build a New Jerusalem And ended up with New York Bruce Cockburn said that Ha! Count on a Canadian to laugh at the empire Laughter�s good for the soul And good for your sanity So keep on laughing And loving And longing And looking For the city whose builder and maker is God For the New Jerusalem And the Lamb who is her light

"Conversion"

This is one of my favorite poems. It seems to go with my Red Letter Living topic this week. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

"Conversion" Luci Shaw He was a born loser, accident-prone too; never won the lottery, married a girl who couldn�t cook, broke his leg the day before the wedding and forgot the ring. He was the kind who ended up behind a post in almost any auditorium. Planes he was booked to fly on were delayed by engine trouble with sickening regularity. His holidays at the beach were almost always ruined by rain. All his apples turned out wormy. His letters came back marked 'Moved, left no address.' And it was his car that was cited for speeding from among a flock of others going 60 in a 55 mile zone. So it was a real shocker when he found himself elected, chosen by Grace for Salvation, felt the exhilaration of an undeserved and wholly unexpected Joy and tasted, for the first time, the Glory of being on the winning side.

Beautiful. The painting is Melancholy by Edvard Munch. And for your listening pleasure, how about Bob Seger doing Beautiful Loser. BZ

On The New Idol

The book of Revelation is primarily a prophetic critique of empire�a prophetic denunciation of the all-powerful state as a devouring, dehumanizing beast. In John the Revelator's day the Beast took the form of the Roman Empire. In subsequent history the Beast has flown other flags. The drama of the Apocalypse is found in the contest between the monstrous Beast which devours humanity with its military and economic might and the Lamb of God who redeems humanity with his blood. The hope we find in the final book of the Bible is in the prophetic picture of the ultimate triumph of Jesus and his kingdom over the satanic empires of Babylon. And thus the Bible is a book which gives us the happiest of all possible endings. But the Beast is subtle. Like the serpent which is its father. And though the shed skin of the Beast is easily recognized once it is relegated to the realm of history, the Beast can be difficult to spot in its contemporary incarnation. It takes a prophetic eye to spot the shape-shifting monster that is the Beast. Today I read one of these prophetic observations. Allow me to share it with you (in a somewhat edited form).

Somewhere there are still peoples, but not where we live my brothers: here there are states. State? What is that? Well! Now open you eyes to me, for now I shall speak to you about the death of peoples. State is the name of the coldest of all monsters. Coldly it tell lies too; and this lie crawls from its mouth: "I, the state, am the people." It's a lie! It was creators who created peoples and hung a faith and love over them: thus they served life. [I would prefer to say, It was our Creator...] It is destroyers who lay traps for the many and call them "state": they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them. [I would prefer to say, It is the Destroyer...] Where there is still a people, there the state is not understood but hated as the evil eye and as the sin against laws and customs. This sign I give to you: every people speaks its tongue of good and evil. But the state lies in all the tongues of good and evil; and whatever it says it lies�and whatever it has it has stolen. Everything about it is false; it bites with stolen teeth, this is bitter. Even its entrails are false. See how it entices people to it! How it swallows and chews and rechews them! "On earth there is nothing greater than I: It is I who am the ordering finger of God"�thus roars the monster. And not only the shortsighted fall upon their knees! Ah, even in your ears, you great souls, it whispers its dark lies! It would surround you with heroes and honorable ones, the new idol! It basks happily in the sunshine of good consciences�the cold monster! It will give you everything if you worship it, the new idol: thus it purchases the luster of your virtue. It would use you as bait for the all-too-many! Yes, a hellish fake has been devised with the trappings of divine honors! Yes, a dying for many has been devised, which glorifies itself as life: truly a great service to all the preachers of death! State, I call it, where all drink poison, the good and the bad: state, where all lose themselves, the good and the bad: state, where the slow suicide of all�is called "life." They steal the treasures of the sages for themselves: "education" they call their theft�and everything becomes sickness and trouble to them! They are always sick; they vomit their bile and call it newspaper. They devour one another and cannot even digest themselves. They gather riches and become poorer with them. They want power and first the lever of power, much money�the impotent paupers! They all want to get to the throne: it is their madness�as if happiness sat on the throne! Often mud sits on the throne�and often also the throne on mud. Madmen they all seem to me, clambering monkeys and overeager. To me their idol smells foul, the cold monster: to me they all smell foul, these idolaters. My brothers, do you want to suffocate in the fumes of their snouts and appetites? Rather break the windows and spring to freedom! Escape from the bad smell! Escape the idolatry! Escape from the bad smell! Escape from the steam of these human sacrifices! The earth is free even now for great souls. There are yet many empty seats for the lonesome and the twosome, wafted by the aroma of still seas. A free life is even now free for great souls. [I would prefer to say redeemed souls.] Truly, whoever possesses little is that much less possessed: praised be a little poverty! Only where the state ends, there begins the human being. Where the state ends�look there, my brothers! Do you not see it, the rainbow and the bridges of the Ubermensch?� Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Friedrich Nietzsche said that. I know, I know, Nietzsche. But although Nietzsche got a lot wrong, he got a lot right too. I think of him as a sort of mad prophet. His critique of what would become the pervasive philosophy of the 20th century (he died in 1900) was nothing short of prophetic. And for that matter his criticism of the smug, musty, bourgeois hypocrisy that passed for 19th century Prussian Christianity was pretty much right on target. I just wish he could have encountered a more vibrant and rigorous Christianity. Maybe things would have been different for Nietzsche. For all his contempt of Christianity (or the version of it he had seen), Nietzsche's little essay "On The New Idol" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra sounds like he had just finished reading the book of Revelation. Consider these themes: The lust for power that corrupts people and turns nations into monsters. The monstrous state that secures its power by lies and deceptions. The all-powerful state making divine claims in order to subjugate people. The all-powerful state as an idol demanding allegiance and worship. The all-powerful state built upon the bones and blood of the people. The all-powerful state drunk on power and drunk on blood. The idolatrous state fouling the people with its poison and stench. An exhortation to escape the corruption and foul stench of the monster (Babylon). All are common themes in Revelation. But here is where I depart from Nietzsche. The rainbow's end is not found with the Ubermench (Superman) but with the Lamb upon his throne. Salvation for humanity (and humanness) is not found in the triumph of the Ubermench, but in the resurrection of the Son of God. My faith does not lie in the will to power of the Ubermench, but in the saving grace of Jesus Christ. It is not the Ubermench who triumphs over the Beast and makes life livable, but the Lamb of God. Even so, come Lord Jesus. Thus spoke BZ on this snowy Monday. (The painting is Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich)

Humiliation and Dignity

In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth. -Acts 8:33

Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed Dignity never been photographed I went into the red, went into the black Into the valley of dry bone dreams -Bob Dylan, Dignity

Life is a struggle. A struggle against humiliation. A struggle to gain dignity. And in the battle against humiliation in the hope of gaining dignity we may experience some triumphs. The dignity of courage. The dignity of wisdom. The dignity of noble gesture. The dignity of rising above base animal instinct and becoming fully human. But in the end its a war we all lose. Death sees to that. Death is the final and ultimate humiliation. In death we are laid low. In death we return to dust. In death we are humiliated. In death we return to the humus. Humiliation and humus are related. We strive for the stars, but we return to the soil. Humus. Humiliation. Some will say, "All the better for being done with this mortal shell." But I will have none of it. Neither will the Hebrew prophets. Neither will the Christian apostles. The human body is not a mere "mortal shell" and much less is it a "vile prison of the spirit." Let the Manichaens talk that way, I won't go along for the ride. The human body is integral to the human being. And the decay of the human body is a decay of humanity itself. The return of the human body to the humus is the ultimate humiliation of the human. It stinks. Literally. And this is why the gospel is the Christian belief in the resurrection of the body and not the Gnostic belief of an eternal disembodied soul. In the inaugural sermon of the Christian era the Apostle Peter said this:

"David spoke of the resurrection of Messiah, saying, He was not abandoned to Hades Nor did his flesh experience corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses." -Acts 2:31, 32

Jesus overcame the humiliation of death and decay, not by becoming an eternal, disembodied spirit existing in a non-spacial, non-temporal Platonic heaven, but by resurrection from the dead! The humiliation of death is conquered by the dignity of resurrection. In the Greek Orthodox icons of the resurrection, Jesus is never depicted as risen alone, but as bringing Adam and Eve out of the grave with him. Jesus conquered death, not as an individual, but as a representative of the human race. Jesus took death into himself that death itself might be destroyed and that the human race might be liberated from the humiliation of death and brought into the dignity of resurrection. The eternal life the New Testament speaks of is not the immortality of the soul dreamt of by Plato and it is not the "harps and clouds" angelic existence of popular imagination. When Jesus and the Apostles speak of eternal life they are speaking of a resurrected life -- a fully embodied, physical life that has achieved immortality through resurrection. This is the Christian hope. The hope of dignity that rises (literally!) above humiliation. And so we who believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ labor with the assurance that our labor is not in vain. We are assured that every good thing we do now will somehow carry over into the resurrection. The interruption of death and our interim period of "absent from the body, present with the Lord" will not prevent our good works from carrying over into the new creation. This makes me happy. I was never going to be a very good Platonist. And I was certainly never going to be a very happy Platonist. Plato may pine away for the realm of perfect forms, but I want to feel...I want to feel the sun on my face, the wind in my hair and the sand between my toes. I want to be a human, not an angel. I don't want to be "liberated" by death. It's not liberation, it's humiliation. But Jesus Christ has taken the humiliation out of death by his resurrection. The Apostle Paul says it like this:

"When this perishable body puts on imperishablity, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: Death is swallowed up in victory, Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" 1 Corinthians 15:53-57

And how is death defeated? Not by going to heaven -- that is simply death. Death is defeated by resurrection! That is the whole point of 1 Corinthians chapter 15. It's amazing (and tragic) that so many have missed this and settled for Plato's paltry substitute. A Christianity where resurrection is not the central hope and the primary focus of the good news is either a paganized Christianity or a Christianized paganism. Either way it's not the Christianity of the Apostle Paul. My faith is founded on bodily resurrection. (There is no other kind of resurrection.) My faith is guaranteed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. My hope is that I too will be raised to immortality. Call me crazy. But call me a Christian. For this is what Christians believe. The dignity of resurrection triumphing over the humiliation of death. Amen. BZ (The painting is The Lamentation of the Dead Christ by Mantegna.)

Let The Children Play For Peace

My friends Samuel Nachum and Ahmed El-Sherif will be joining me in dialogue this Sunday, January 24 at Word of Life Church for both services (9 & 11 AM). A Jewish artist, a Muslim scientist and a Christian pastor discussing peace and how we should understand one another in the 21st century world. I hope to see you there. BZ PS Phil Keaggy will be in concert at Word of Life this Friday night at 7:00. Here's Phil Keaggy doing a Bob Dylan song. Phil always does a Bobtune or two for me!

Blood On The Tracks

35 years ago today Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks was released. In this blogger's opinion it's the finest album ever recorded. Early one mornin' the sun was shinin', I was layin' in bed. It was a Saturday in 1975. I was 15. A Zeppelin freak and a brand new Christian. Bob Dylan was the guy who did Blowin' In The Wind, Lay Lady Lay and Knockin' On Heaven's Door. I woke to Tangled Up In Blue on KY-102. I was in that beta state between sleep and waking and her hair was still red. Every one of those words rang true. Revolution was in the air. I was mesmerized. Something was awakened in me. Something I had never known before. Love of language. Love of story. Love of song. From a different point of view. From a Dylan point of view. That love is still with me. Thank you, Mr. Dylan. BZ

Schooled in Denial

Last night I dreamed I had a conversation with Walter Brueggemann. Maybe it went something like this... That's Brueggemann on pain, artistry and the role of the church in a culture of denial. And a culture of denial is always part and parcel with imperial exceptionalism. It's part of the mantra of the "we're number one" mentality. So the empire arrogantly says...

I sit as a queen I am no widow I will never mourn (Revelation 18:7)

But of course the empire provides no exemption from sorrow. Yet it's in the pain of sorrow that hope is born. Not the the panicked, desperate bid for cheap certitude-- But authentic hope in God which has always been an anchor for the people of faith. Don't give up. You are loved. And you are going to make it. BZ

Everybody's wearing a disguise To hide what they've got left behind their eyes. But me, I can't cover what I am Wherever the children go I'll follow them.

A Bolder Reformation

Alright, I'm just going to say it. I'm not going to take the time and effort to fully develop and defend it (it's just a Monday morning blog after all), but still I'm going to say it. The Reformation for all the good it did, did not go near far enough. Ecclesial and theological reform were long over due and the reformers, Luther et al., made their contributions, God bless 'em. But the reform which was most desperately needed never happened. And what might that be? The reform of the church's allegiance to Constantinianism. Which would be the abandonment of Constantinianism. For my purposes we will understand Constantinianism as the church as vassal of the state, subsidiary of the government, chaplain to the empire. In this department the Reformation changed nothing. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss: The State. Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant -- they were all the state churches of their respective nations/empires. That this was true of the Reformation is evidenced by the fact that the popular acceptance of the Reformation in the states of northern Europe was far more political than theological. Why be beholden to Rome with its defunct empire when new nation-states were emerging in Europe? OK, let's not get bogged down in history. Besides, if I continue in this vain I'll start making my provocative case that in Geneva, Calvin succeeded in creating the first modern police state -- and I can just imagine how well that would go over in some quarters. (A tip of my hat to Dmitri Poliakoff for first suggesting this to me.) What we need is a reformation that would allow the kingdom of God room to breathe. As long as the church is a chaplain to the empire, the kingdom of God is banished to the realm of private piety. So that Jesus' words, "The kingdom of God is among you," is misunderstood as, "the kingdom of God is within you." As such the kingdom of God is sequestered to the private inner world of the individual, rather than being expressed as Jesus intended: God's alternative society actually lived and practiced by his disciples. Of course this is radical stuff. The most radical of all. 200 proof Jesus. Jesus straight up. Jesus not as shoeshine boy for Caesar. This is a much bolder reformation. And people instinctively know it and get their hackles up. (I'm talking about good Christian people.) Yes, we want to be radical for Jesus...but not that radical! It makes people nervous because they intuitively recognize if the kingdom of God is unshackled from the state, it then becomes a rival to the state. They correctly recognize that if the kingdom of God is allowed to come into full form, it means that God has no particular allegiance to any of the kingdoms/nations of this world because he has his own! God has his own kingdom/nation. A kingdom/nation in which he has appointed a president/prime-minister/king/emperor for life: The Lord Jesus Christ. In an independently existent kingdom of God the seminal Christian confession of Jesus is Lord takes on the same political implications it had in pre-Constantine Christianity -- the Christianity that we often glowingly refer to as "Early Christianity." This is the Christianity we ostensibly want to recover. This is the Christianity which the Reformers wanted to return to, but, for whatever reason, lacked the vision to attempt, and thus settled for a theologically tweaked Constantinianism. Constantinianism minus indulges, purgatory, Mary worship, etc. But Constantinianism nonetheless. But in the early years of the third Christian millennium eyes are beginning to open and ears are beginning to hear. There are voices calling us to have the courage to finally jettison Constantinianism in favor of the kingdom of Jesus...with all of its radical implications. A bolder reformation. And I am so happy to hear those voices, and hopefully be one of those voices. So happy that at times I can't sleep at night. And when I do finally drift off, I wake up with this prayer in my heart and on my lips... Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. (Thy government come, Thy policy be done.) Lord, send a new reformation. A bolder reformation. A reformation that is neither state sponsored nor state endorsed. A reformation that is heaven sponsored and heaven endorsed. A reformation where you are no longer a propriety deity of the state-- But the Living God who brings about his purposes through the kingdom of Jesus. Lord, give us courage. Courage for a bolder reformation. Courage to endure misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and worse. The kind of courage Peter and Paul had when they "invaded" the Roman Empire-- Making the gospel announcement: "There is another king: Jesus!" Lord, give us apostolic vision and apostolic courage; That a new and bolder re-formation might occur in our day. In Jesus' name, Amen. BZ PS: 35 years ago today I became a Jesus follower. And I'm still on the journey. What if the church said something of this effect to the state?

Gentlemen, I don't need your organization, I've shined your shoes, I've moved your mountains and marked your cards But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards. -Bob Dylan, Changing Of The Guards

Ruminations from Delhi

Peri and I are laying around in our New Delhi hotel resting up after our travels and ministry in India. We're getting ready for the long haul back home at 1:00 AM tonight -- a journey across two continents and an ocean. We're looking forward to being back at Word of Life this weekend. We began our morning with a couple of room service cappuccinos and watching the latest episode of The Office online. Living the high life! Last night I started reading an Indian novel -- The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize). My favorite novels are those which don't merely tell a good story, but explore important ideas through the art of story. I suppose that's why Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are my favorites writers -- they don't just tell stories, they grapple with big ideas. As far as I'm concerned Fyodor Dostoevsky is really a theologian disguised as the greatest novelist ever. Well, anyway, I started Desai's novel and came across this sentence.

"Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss?"

That line made me think. And as the author implies, I agree, the answer is no. We really do seem to feel loss more intensely than fulfillment. Does our subconscious awareness of this drive our insatiable appetite for achievement and acquisition? Are we engaging in a desperate bid to stave off the inevitable pain of loss? Perhaps. And if this were the final statement on the matter, life would indeed be, as Solomon's cynical poem suggests, an exercise in futility.

"There is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all...madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead." -Ecclesiastes 9:3

Solomon then goes on to identify the source of the madness which characterizes so much of our living.

"For the living know that they will die." -Ecclesiastes 9:5

The madness of living lies in the certain knowledge of death -- the ultimate loss and the bitter fruit of wanting to know too much (see Genesis 2:17). Ignorance is bliss. Or more truly stated, bliss is ignorance. Yes, fulfillment can never be felt as deeply as loss. My friend Gary Glunt made this observation.

"There are interesting sociological, psychological and even biological factors (related to some very primitive areas of the brain) that individually and in concert predispose us to feel loss at a greater level than we do gain."

Something in the human sociological, psychological and biological makeup prevents us from ever feeling fulfillment as deeply as loss. The deck is stacked against us. So we either don't think about it and party on ("madness and folly" Solomon calls it) or we screw up our courage and face it. I think some of the best art comes from the daring attempt to look the inevitability of loss, and ultimately death, square in the face. When we are younger we tend to be cavalier about loss, but as we grow older we perhaps grow wiser (if less cheerful). So a twenty-five year old Bob Dylan sang,

When you ain't got nothing You got nothing to lose

But a fifty-six year old Dylan changed his tune,

When you think that you've lost everything You find out you can always lose a little more

Cheery stuff, huh? Yet as I write this I'm not depressed. I'm really not. But it's not because I've managed to become ignorant enough to find some cheap bliss or employed enough madness and folly to enable me to temporarily forget the inevitable. No, it's something else. RESURRECTION! Can fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Yes, but only in resurrection. As far as I'm concerned it's either Nietzsche or the resurrected Christ. If Christ is not risen from the dead, Nietzsche simply told the truth better and more bravely than anyone else. Of course the truth sans resurrection is the path to madness. If death has the last word, life is at best a cruel joke we can enjoy until we find out the joke is on us. If God's creation is ever to recover the designation of "good", death must be defeated. And this is precisely what I believe God accomplished in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is far more than a happy ending to an interesting story. It is even more than the vindication of the good guy. It is the one thing that is necessary for life to be invested with meaning. And because I believe in the resurrection of the Son of God as the firstfruits of the resurrection of the dead and the restoration of all things, I can be legitimately hopeful. I can honestly believe that in the end loss will not be felt more deeply than fulfillment. Amen! And here is a moment of irony. The best thing I have ever read on resurrection is N.T. Wright's Surprised By Hope.* I read most of Surprised By Hope in 2008 right where I am at this moment: Poolside at the Orchid Hotel in New Delhi, India. (We've moved poolside since I started this blog. Yes, it's a leisurely day.) And dear blog reader, with everything that is in me I would implore you to do yourself a huge favor and read that book! (*Actually Surprised By Hope is the second best thing I've read on resurrection. The best is Wright's eight hundred page masterpiece, The Resurrection of the Son of God. But I don't have much hope that many laymen are going to attempt to tackle this book.) So two books. The same hotel. The Inheritance of Loss and Surprised By Hope. That pretty much sums up the choice set before the human race. Can fulfillment be felt more deeply than loss? Yes. Be surprised by hope! BZ

Use Me

Hello there! Remember me? I used to blog here. Well, I still do but more rarely these days. Here's what I've learned: I can write blogs or I can write a book, but I can't do both. I've got a deadline for a book tentatively entitled Seventy Times Seven: The Call to Radical Forgiveness. So that's taking up most of my writing time. But... I thought I'd ramble out a few thoughts tonight. Not so much theological thoughts, which is what I tend to do here, but pastoral thoughts. I'd like to try to explain your pain...or some of it anyway. And again, not so much from theological analysis, but from pastoral observation. Here is what I've observed... People who experience an adult conversion to Christ often do so during a time of personal pain�it is their pain which compels them to look for a Savior. And having found the one who says, "Come unto me all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest", they do find rest, they do find respite, they do find relief from their pain in Christ. But... That's not the end of the story. As you well know. To become a follower of Jesus is not a magic talisman to ward off all potential sources of suffering. (I'm sorry if you've been told it is.) Yes, in Christ there is freedom and deliverance from the destructive works of sin and Satan, but that being so, it is not a guarantee of floating away to heaven on "flowery beds of ease." To put it plainly: Faithful followers of Jesus Christ regularly suffer pain�pain that comes from the hardship of being human in a broken world. But why is this? Why does God allow his children to suffer the same pain as the rest of humanity? He could prevent it, could he not? Yes, he could, but it would not serve his purpose. God allows his people to be found in the place of pain, because that is where they are most needed. If we are to be those who carry the healing of Christ into a broken world, we cannot expect to live a life that is exempt from all pain and suffering. If you are going to be used by God, God is going to use you in the place of pain. And if you are used in the place of pain you will not always be above the fray�sometimes you will be a wounded healer. We are familiar with what Peter said about the wounds of Christ�"By his wounds we are healed." But I would like to suggest that there is a sense in which to be used by God is to carry some of the wounds of Christ in your own life. And lest you think I am out of bounds, I'll remind you of what the Apostle Paul said about his own participation in redemptive suffering: "I rejoice in my suffering...I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions." (Colossians 1:24) Yes, sometimes the wounds of Christ which bring healing to others are, at least in part, borne in your own life. In rejecting the doctrine of divine impassibility (that idea that God cannot suffer), Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "Only the suffering God can help." And this is what we find at the cross�the suffering God who can help. And in a similar way only Christians who know what it is to suffer can truly help other sufferers. If you take to the battlefield of life to give the aid of Christ to the stricken, you will not be immune to the potential of sharing in their suffering. In fact, it seems that one of the ways in which God aids the sufferer is to send them people who will join them in their suffering. It is in the place of shared suffering that the comfort of Christ is found. This is part of what Jesus meant when he said, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." And this is certainly what is meant when Paul enjoins us to "weep with those who weep." If you are a maturing Christian, part of the explanation to the reason for your pain is that God is using you where he needs you�in the places of pain. Or let me put it another way. Have you ever prayed this prayer? Lord, use me. Of course you have. And why? Because the Holy Spirit put a desire in your heart to move beyond a self-centered existence and to be used by God. So you prayed, "Lord, use me." And then you complain, "Lord, I feel so used!" Yep, that's the way it works. You pray to be used...and then you get used. Instead of complaining about being used, redefine it and call it what Paul called it: "The fellowship of his sufferings." In fact, Paul desired to be used by the Lord so much that he called his previous life of prestige and respectably just so much rubbish (actually he uses a much stronger word...I'll let you guess), and now the great desire of his life was this:

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death." -Philippians 3:10

So Paul prayed to be used...and he was. Read the second half of 2 Corinthians 11 to find out what it was like for Paul to be used by God. At the beginning of this blog I said I wanted to try to explain some of your pain. So here it is: It's your prayer, "Lord, use me." Well, I'll just stop praying that prayer then. Oh, really? Is that what you want? Do you want to be set on the shelf and not allowed to participate in what God is doing? I don't believe you. Or at least I hope you don't mean that. A couple of years ago I met Jesus in a dream. It was both wonderful and terrifying. As I knelt before him in tears he asked me, "What do you want?" Somehow I knew that what I requested would be granted. My request was this: "I want to be a part of what you are doing." That really is what I want more than anything�to be used by Jesus. I know it is volunteering for a mission where to be wounded is almost a certainty. So be it. It's the life worth living. And when you know that your suffering is not purposeless, but is fellowship with Jesus in his sufferings, there is a mysterious joy in it. Yes, I mean that. Amen. And maybe this helps explain some your pain. I hope so. Peace. BZ PS I'll have more to say along these lines this Friday night. I think I can help you. I really do. The painting is Burdens by one of my favorite artists: Solomon Raj�a Lutheran theologian in India.