Dr JI Packer and Richard Baxter: God's Essential Workers

By Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird

We hear a lot about essential workers and essential services in these COVID-19 times.  At 7 pm each night, many of us have been cheering for them, as we bang on our pots and pans.  Dr. JI Packer, God’s essential worker, helps us rediscover Richard Baxter’s essential writings, not just for mortal life but more importantly for eternal life.  What might it be like to cheer for God’s essential workers, including our theologians, pastors, evangelists, and missionaries?  Both Baxter and Packer knew from personal experience that physical death is not the worst thing that can happen to us.  Both faced sickness and possible death early in life, but fixed their gaze on Jesus Christ in those difficult times.  Packer, who did his Oxford doctorate on Baxter, has helped us rediscover Baxter’s brilliant emphasis, derived from Rupertus Meledenius: “In Essentials, unity; in non-essentials, diversity; and in all things charity.” 
Many believe that J.I. Packer, born in 1926, will be remembered as the principal theologian of the 21st Century.  Packer and Baxter each had the same puritan passion for knowing truth, seeing it as our first duty. Both represent the best of Puritanism without being ‘puritanical’.  Baxter in the 17th century commented: “I never discover a Truth in my studies, but it is as sweet to my mind as a feast to my body…I spend my time, and strength and spirits in almost nothing but studying after Truth.”  Many people nowadays dismiss theology as non-essential ivory-tower speculation. We live in an anti-rationalist culture that worships one’s feelings and denies any objective truth.  Both men believed that the mind actually mattered, that reason and thinking were gifts from God that helped us discern truth.  Their love for truth gave them a respect for the arts, sciences, history, as well as theology.  In Baxter’s day, theology was seen as the Queen of the sciences.
For both men, knowing God with our head and heart was essential. It is not enough to just know about God academically.  Baxter held that “he is the best scholar who hath the readiest passage from the ear to the brain, but he is the best Christian who hath the readiest passage from the brain to the heart.”   Dr J.I. Packer also warned against “hardness of heart and cynicism of the head.”  Being heavenly-minded for Baxter and Packer is the key to making the most lasting impact on planet Earth.
Recognized by Time Magazine as one of the twenty-five most influential evangelicals, Dr Packer is best known for his most popular book Knowing God.  In reading Dr Packer’s doctoral thesis, I discovered that Packer’s Knowing God classic is an unpacking of the wisdom of Richard Baxter.
Jesus prayed in John 17:21 that we would be one as the Father and Son are one that the world may believe.  While Baxter and Packer were both ordained Anglican clergy, they had a deep love for the wider body of Christ.  That is part of the reason that Packer has served since 1979 at Regent College, a interdenominational college. Baxter called himself ‘a mere Christian’, expressing the truth that God’s people go beyond the bounds of any one denomination.  Both have shown us that unity in the Essentials of the Gospel is essential to reach the world for Christ, such as the creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments.  Are we willing to repent over our division and arguments over non-essentials?  We can all agree to the full deity and humanity of Jesus, his virgin birth, his death for our sins, his physically rising from the grave.  By contrast, the precise way that we baptize, celebrate communion, organize our church leadership, or sing worship songs are not essentials worth splitting over.  Both men knew that not every Christian congregation has to be exactly the same, as sameness crushes creativity and spiritual intimacy.
After the heart-rending English civil war of 1647, Baxter felt called to be a peacemaker.  All his writings sought to promote “in all things, charity (love).”   As Packer put it, Baxter “meddled much with Controversies...to end them.” It was Baxter’s respect for truth that kept him from ‘undignified wrangling’.  Even though he was often banned from preaching and forced out of town, Baxter stayed gracious and Christ-centered.  Both Packer and Baxter have been deeply charitable and humble in times of great controversy. While neither liked controversy, both had the courage to take a stand for gospel truth when waves of conflict occurred. Even when recently needing to say no to false teachers, Packer spoke the truth in love.  He never became vindictive and negative. At age 93, he is finishing well, staying focused on the goodness of the gospel essentials.
Our prayer is that in this COVID-19 pandemic, that we like these brave Christian men, Baxter and Packer, might rediscover what is essential, how to celebrate diversity, and the urgency of charitable love in all circumstances.

Rev.  Dr. Ed and Janice Hird
Co-author, Blue Sky novel
-published in the June 2020 Light Magazine
-Readers are invited to read the first two Academia.edu articles of the JI Packer & Richard Baxter Trilogy:
1) Analyzing the Global Impact of Dr. J.I. Packer
2) An Evaluation of Richard & Margaret Baxter’s Lasting Contribution in 17th Century England

Review of Theology in Aisle Seven by Carolyn Arends (Nesdoly)

“Words are sacred, and when they are used truthfully or beautifully—best of all—incarnationally, they cause us to consider and even experience our Creator” writes Carolyn Arends in the Foreword to her book Theology in Aisle Seven: The Uncommon Grace of Everyday Spirituality. In this collection of essays previously published as columns in Christianity Today she attempts and, I would submit, succeeds at doing just that.

The book’s 25 chapters are divided into six sections. In section one (The Good God) Arends introduces us to the God of the big picture in chapters that discuss things like God’s omnipresence and His righteousness, which turns out to be His love in disguise. Section two (Life in God) has chapters that deal with faith and the church. Laughter and the arts are two topics she addresses in Part 3 (Common Things that Matter Greatly).  Part 4 (Uncommon Virtues) tackles subjects like trust, hospitality, humility, and silence. Part 5 (Into the World) has chapters on vocation and neighborliness. In the final section (Last Things) she discusses our mortality and God’s eventual victory.

Arends has a wonderful way with words. Of course she’s had lots of experience if you count her years of songwriting. However, songwriting doesn’t automatically translate into column writing according to her editor Mark Galli. In the book’s Introduction he says of her literary ability: “It’s the unusual songwriter who can become an effective magazine columnist …. Over the last few years, as I’ve read and edited column after column, I’ve discovered something Billboard Magazine puts succinctly: Carolyn is ‘one of the most affecting communicators in any genre.’”  Readers of the book will be treated to passages like:

“I suspect I have sometimes unconsciously used spiritual disciplines as smoke signals to get God’s attention” – Kindle Location 168

and

“The old cliché is true: Laughter is a medicine that reminds us that our sickness will one day be healed and we shall be whole and holy. Until then, laughter is the Elmer’s Glue that attaches us to the goodness that inhabits this world, and to the gladness that hints at the world to come” – KL 567

and

"Death unaddressed is the bogeyman in the basement; it keeps us looking over our shoulders and holds us back from entering joyously into the days we are given" - KL 1029. 

My favorite thing about Arends’ writing, however, is the way she brings her life and personal experiences into these essays, transforming what could be lofty platitudes into engaging, humorous, often self-deprecating, and always relatable epiphanies.

She tells of how losing her voice during a singing tour gave her a whole new concert experience and taught her that God could work through weakness. She draws parallels between parenting her children and being parented by God. She paints a picture of the usefulness of a power-washer, but also the damaging potential of its strength (“…he [a neighbour’s teen] felt an ant crawling on his calf. Instinctively, he turned the nozzle toward his leg, obliterating the insect—and unfortunately some layers of muscle and tissue” – KL 499) and likens it to God’s simultaneous power (shown in His zero-tolerance of sin in the Old Testament) and mercy (shown through Jesus in the New Testament).

The chapters are brief (800 words maximum), the stories captivating, but the ideas in this little book are huge. Summer would be a good time to download this weightless/weighty volume onto your e-reader for those rainy afternoons at the cottage. Then, with eyes opened, don’t be surprised when you too begin to recognize God in the ordinary things, like thunder storms, wasps at picnics, and misty lakeside mornings, that cross your path this summer. 

(Article first published as Book review: Theology in Aisle Seven by Carolyn Arends on Blogcritics.)

(Psst—of course you can get more of Carolyn's great writing here on the blog, on the post just below this one actually. Might we be getting a sneak-peek at her next book?)

This book is available only in e-book format.

Kindle

Nook

****************

Website: www.violetnesdoly.com 

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A Both/And Path to Truth - Arends

My newest Christianity Today column was in the August issue and went online August 15th.  I'd love to hear about your interaction with it -- I worked to express something here I've been trying to articulate for a long while, but found it surprisingly difficult to get the ideas across. How'd I do? Does this spark anything for you?

A Both/And Path to Truth

Why the narrow way to faith is also expansive.

My friend John Blase is a writer who chooses his words with utmost care. So when I noticed he refers to his wife as his "girlfriend" in his blogs, I knew the quirk was intentional. It turns out the habit goes back to the time when John was asked whether the lovely lady next to him was his wife or his girlfriend. He gave the only answer that made sense: "Yes."

I've been thinking about John and his girlfriend/wife a lot lately, especially when I read my Bible. Is it faith or works? I demand of the text, and the answer seems to be: "Yes." Is God a God of revelation or of mystery? Is he as close as a whisper or beyond all things? Yes. Yes. Is the kingdom of heaven now or not yet? Should I be wise as a serpent or innocent as a dove? Should I fall headlong into grace or work out my salvation with fear and trembling? Yes. Yes. Yes.

A lifetime of evangelical thinking has primed me for either/or questions,breeding a deep distrust of both/and propositions. After all, one of the distinguishing features of Christianity is its insistence that there is one way to God. A wariness of pluralistic worldviews is completely warranted. But if I'm not careful, that insistence can mutate into creating artificial schisms that fly in the face of a God who desires to make us whole in radical ways.

When we fall for false dualities, we end up arguing over whether the gospel is concerned with ministering to the poor or proclaiming the Word. We believe our theology must emphasize either a free gift of grace or a call to holy living. In a myriad of areas, we polarize, dichotomize, and greatly minimize the life God has for us.

In his book Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith, Richard J. Foster argues for a larger, less-fragmented view of life in Christ by exploring six great traditions that have ebbed and flowed throughout Christian history. My husband and I once used these six "streams" as curriculum for adults at a family camp. It was fascinating to observe the ways that personality and denominational background influenced affinities and aversions to the various traditions.

Our introverts extolled the Contemplative Tradition, with its focus on prayer and meditation. The activists among us couldn't wait to cover the Social Justice Tradition. Our Pentecostals wondered why we were taking so long to get to the Charismatic Tradition's exploration of the Spirit-filled life, while the Baptists felt we should begin and end with the Evangelical Tradition and its insistence upon the centrality of Scripture. Most of us were intrigued by the Incarnational Tradition's assertion that all aspects of life should be lived sacramentally; almost none of us had a natural attraction to the Holiness Tradition, because an emphasis on virtuous living had been so frequently divorced from grace in our past experience.

Foster's careful analysis showed us how these traditions have informed, provoked, and corrected each other over time. Even in our little camp group, we saw how our various inclinations could help us balance each other; it took all of us to make up the body of Christ. And we could concede that, while we'd always be naturally stronger in some areas than others, there was no excuse for completely ignoring (let alone disparaging) whole planes of life in God's kingdom.

This insight is easier to write about than live. Efficient people and organizations are lauded for decisive and focused thinking; they find a singular mandate and stick to it. The paradox that so typified Jesus' teaching is expansive, complex, and nuanced. It requires mulling and wrestling; it forces huge shifts in paradigm and, eventually, practice. When we are asked to hold two seemingly opposite truths in tension, we experience confusion (which can be painful) before we get to any sort of cohesion. So, we often bail and settle for one pole or the other, congratulating ourselves for taking a stand, but losing at least half of what God has for us in the process.

Most of us would like our faith to reduce tension. But, according to Jesus (who told us to be anxious for nothing but always alert, to be last in order to be first, to be weak to be strong, and to lose our lives to find them), tension is required.

When my producer friend Roy Salmond noticed that his church included a desire for "vibrant faith" in its mission statement, his musical mind instantly linked vibrancy with vibration. A vibrant faith, he warned his fellow congregants, may necessitate oscillation and tension. In the absence of motion, there's no music.

I too desire a vibrant faith. So I am trying to remember that the Way is narrow, but the life we're called to is wide and deep. Still, I can't help asking: Is following Jesus an act of simple trust, or an adventure of unimaginable complexity?

Yes.

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

 

www.carolynarends.com

Satan's a Goner - Arends

My most recent CT column has gone online -- I'd love to know how it hits you.

Satan's a Goner

A lesson from a headless snake.

Carolyn Arends

As a kid, I loved Mission Sundays, when missionaries on furlough brought special reports in place of a sermon. Sometimes they wore exotic, foreign clothing; they almost always showed a tray of slides documenting their adventures. If they were from a dangerous enough land, the youth in our congregation would emerge from our Sunday stupor and listen intently.

There is one visit I've never forgotten. The missionaries were a married couple stationed in what appeared to be a particularly steamy jungle. I'm sure they gave a full report on churches planted or commitments made or translations begun. I don't remember much of that. What has always stayed with me is the story they shared about a snake.

One day, they told us, an enormous snake—much longer than a man—slithered its way right through their front door and into the kitchen of their simple home. Terrified, they ran outside and searched frantically for a local who might know what to do. A machete-wielding neighbor came to the rescue, calmly marching into their house and decapitating the snake with one clean chop.

The neighbor reemerged triumphant and assured the missionaries that the reptile had been defeated. But there was a catch, he warned: It was going to take a while for the snake to realize it was dead.

A snake's neurology and blood flow are such that it can take considerable time for it to stop moving even after decapitation. For the next several hours, the missionaries were forced to wait outside while the snake thrashed about, smashing furniture and flailing against walls and windows, wreaking havoc until its body finally understood that it no longer had a head.

Sweating in the heat, they had felt frustrated and a little sickened but also grateful that the snake's rampage wouldn't last forever. And at some point in their waiting, they told us, they had a mutual epiphany.

I leaned in with the rest of the congregation, queasy and fascinated. "Do you see it?" asked the husband. "Satan is a lot like that big old snake. He's already been defeated. He just doesn't know it yet. In the meantime, he's going to do some damage. But never forget that he's a goner."

The story captured our imaginations then because it was graphic and gory—a stark contrast to the normally genteel sermonizing we were used to receiving. But the story haunts me because I have come to believe it is an accurate picture of the universe. We are in the thrashing time, a season characterized by our pervasive capacity to do violence to each other and ourselves. The temptation is to despair. We have to remember, though, that it won't last forever. Jesus has already crushed the serpent's head.

Recently I heard a message from theologian Gary Deddo that got me thinking about that snake. Deddo challenges the tendency many of us have to be dualists—imagining God and Satan as equal foes deadlocked in mortal combat. To be certain, Deddo acknowledges, there is an immeasurable amount of evil in our world. But compared with God's love and power, all the evil in the universe doesn't cover the head of a pin. Love wins. Satan doesn't stand a chance.

Thus, though we wrestle with the brokenness that plagues the world, and ourselves, we do so not with grim resignation but with hopeful defiance. We face both our addictions and afflictions not with a faint, white-knuckled hope that someday we will be healed, but rather with an assurance that we are living slowly but surely into the healing already obtained on the Cross. There is still a waiting. In some cases the healing may not come in fullness until we are face-to-face with our Victor—but come it will. Guaranteed.

I've been trying to figure out what all of this means with respect to the way we deal with evil and injustice in our world. In linear, human time, perhaps the safest thing to do is batten down the hatches and wait somewhere secure till the thrashing is over. But one of the mysteries of living in God's time rather than our own is that, although the end of the story has already been determined, somehow he is still using us to write it. Because Jesus lives in us through his Spirit, we are called not just to anticipate the overcoming but also to be part of bringing it to fruition.

And so we are called to fight poverty, oppression, greed, and malice—in the world and in our own spirits. We are invited to live in light of the reality that greater by far is the living God who is within us than the dead snake thrashing about in this world.

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

www.carolynarends.com
www.feedthelake.com

Lemmings for False Liberty? - Arends

Here is my newest CHRISTIANITY TODAY column, on how we might best foster moral development in ourselves, our children and each other.  In it I am exploring not how we earn God's love, acceptance or salvation (that is a gift entirely given by Grace), but rather how we accept His invitation to live this life well.  I'd love to know how it hits you!

Relationship That Leads to Life

Why God's law is good news.

From the August Issue of Christianity Today

Posted online on August 11, 2010

My husband and I are trying to get our kids to consistently do their chores. We've tried threats and rewards but worry that our extrinsic motivators are holding our kids back from learning to obey simply because it's the right thing to do. "Gee," we long to hear them say, "my folks love me and know what's best for me, so I better pick up that broom and chip in."

Our struggle with our kids got us thinking about God's struggle with us. Surely he wants us to do the right things for the right reasons. As his people, do we behave "Christianly" because of extrinsic or intrinsic factors? As his church, what are our ideas about moral development?

I once spoke at a family camp of believers and nonbelievers who had been meeting for years. One morning, a seminary graduate shared his story with the group. David had weathered a crisis of faith when his father—a sternly religious man and prominent church leader—had been exposed in chronic sexual sin. David said that healing had come slowly and that, looking back, he realized the Christianity of his upbringing had overemphasized "morality" in place of "relationship."

It sounded to me like David's dad might have benefited from a little more emphasis on morality. And I worried that David's take was not what the group needed to hear; two affairs had fractured their community in recent years. To me, it seemed they were suffering from too much relationship and too little morality.

I remember my reaction now with chagrin. I've since seen individuals and church communities with a robust focus on morality fall countless times. I get David's point: An emphasis on holy living without a genuine, life-changing relationship with a holy God can lead to rigid legalism on the one hand or secret sin on the other—and often it leads to both.

I also know Christians who emphasize relationship—and God's un-earnable, inexhaustible love—yet who have catastrophic moral falls. Such failings do not disqualify us for God's forgiveness, but they often have shattering consequences.

So what works? When it comes to shaping character and behavior, is it better to focus on God's law or his grace?

Psalm 119 is a love song to God's law, which seems odd. My friend Steve Bell says he never understood such passion for a moral code until he thought about children playing near the edge of a cliff. Without a fence, the children are always in danger, never able to relax. But if a barrier is installed, they can play freely and without fear. God's law is God's grace. It's a safety fence that brings incredible freedom.

Of course, it's only a matter of time until a kid starts to wonder what's on the other side of the fence. If she doesn't know or trust the fence builder, she might suspect that the barrier is holding her back from bigger fun. So she hops the fence, a lemming for false liberty. Humanity has an extensive track record on this front.

Fortunately, there's more to the story. God's law is not only a safety fence; it's also a mirror that shows us we can't live up to his standards without his help. Jesus comes not to abolish the law but to finally fulfill it. Yet many of us keep hopping the fence. Why? Partly because we still don't really know and trust the fence builder.

God doesn't expect morality in the absence of relationship. The first line of the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20) is not, "You shall have no other gods before me," but, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery." God defines the relationship first, then describes a life lived in its context.

Psychologists warn that extrinsic motivators for morality erode intrinsic ones. When our preachers thunder warnings about living right to avoid God's wrath or earn his favor, we run the risk of drowning out that still, small voice that beckons us to live out the holiness given us solely by our Father's grace.

Conversely, when the message is that our behavior doesn't matter, that God's grace is unmerited and therefore morality is not a major issue, we seem not to know our Father at all.

In the end, it isn't morality versus relationship. It's morality because of relationship. "Grow up," Jesus says in his most famous sermon. "You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you" (Matt. 5:48, The Message).

If we know our Father loves us, and we love him, we'll trust whatever he asks of us. We won't need the threats and rewards that can skew real faith toward pharisaism. We'll just pick up our brooms and chip in.

Copyright © 2010 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

http://carolynarends.com/site/tour 

 

Allow for Space in the Music - Arends

My most recent Christianity Today column is about the way we respond to the suffering of others and ourselves.  It's one of those topics I wish I could have had about 3000 words to write about, but here's what I managed in 800.  I'd love it if you let me know how it hits you.

Allow for Space in the Music

Acknowledging the mystery of pain.

From the April issue from Christianity Today

Eighteen months ago, my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer, and my father's rare neurological disease took a hairpin turn for the worse. Their busy lives dissolved into months of treatments, complications, and worst-case scenarios.

Caring for them has been my first real experience with prolonged suffering. I had no clue about the malaise that can spawn from the union of chronic pain and diminished hope. My parents have been heroic. But they have also groped for the meaning of their pain and its remedy, and have found neither.

Through it all I have tried to offer comfort, and I've watched others do the same. Sometimes our words have been balms. Sometimes they have been hand grenades.

I recently asked friends online what words and actions had been the least helpful in trying times, and I got a passionate and prolific response. I recognized many of the platitudes listed as things that had come out of my mouth.

Many responses fell into a category I call "Invalidation of the Present Pain." With a bombastic mix of well-meaning fervor and unconscious impatience, we attempt to rush our wounded friend to closure. Classics include "It will all work out in the end," "Time heals all wounds," and glib recitations of Romans 8:28.

Many of those responses are wonderfully true. But so is Jesus' observation that it's those who mourn who are comforted (Matt. 5:4). He knew better than anyone the Happy Ending that awaits us, yet he was deeply respectful of the pain of our present condition. John 11:35 tells us that when Jesus' friend died, he wept; the Greek word refers to a passionate outpouring of grief. So perhaps it is more Christlike to feel pain rather than to try to expedite it.

Other replies revealed what I call "Formula Thinking," an assumption that a uniform explanation can be applied to all suffering. We believe affliction is either discipline from God or an attack from Satan, and that the right degree of repentance—or faith—will turn things around.

The idea that God blesses the good and punishes the bad, and that circumstances line up accordingly, is antithetical to the stories of New Testament believers. (It was also the error of Job's well-meaning friends.) It provides the illusion that we can control outcomes. When people are in pain, we reflexively look for something to blame, so we can avoid that variable and keep out of harm's way. Tragically, our judgments are often salt in our friends' wounds.

Still other responses fell into what I call the "Forced Meaning" reactions. "God has a reason for everything," we claim, and then we try to ram horrible tragedies into redemptive molds—suggesting that cancer, rape, and earthquakes are wake-up calls, strange expressions of grace in God's epic story. But does the Haitian mother holding her child's mangled body really have a chance of finding comfort in this platitude? Is it true?

Scripture reveals a sovereign God actively working in human events, but it also speaks clearly of free will and its consequences. I cannot begin to fathom the tension between the two. But I do believe that most of our suffering is the result of brokenness, and that God is more interested in reconciling all things to himself than in blowing them apart. Yes, God brings good out of tragedy (it's one of his specialties), but that doesn't mean he necessarily engineered the horrors.

After the 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami, theologian David Bentley Hart responded eloquently to the Forced Meaning bias, saying that Christians shouldn't "console ourselves with vacuous cant about the mysterious course taken by God's goodness in this world, or … assure others that some ultimate meaning or purpose resides in so much misery. Ours is, after all, a religion of salvation; our faith is in a God who has come to rescue his creation from the absurdity of sin and the emptiness of death, and so we are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred."

So what can we say in times of trouble? I asked my friends what responses had helped them the most, and their replies reminded me of a piece of advice attributed to Miles Davis: "Think of a note and don't play it." As a musician, I understand—allow for space in the music, don't always rush in, and listen. As a friend and a daughter, I'm starting to get it, too. Sometimes the most helpful thing we can do is think of a truth and embody it rather than say it. When we long to tell a hurting friend that she's not alone, we can simply sit with her as a tangible reminder that she isn't. When we want to reassure a struggling family that God cares for them, a well-timed casserole can demonstrate that very fact. Only when we acknowledge the present pain—and the mysteries that likely shroud its cause—do we earn the right to affirm God's goodness in the midst of it.

And only when we mourn—for ourselves, for each other, and for a world groaning for redemption—can we be comforted … and be a comfort.

Copyright © 2010 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Divine Distortion - Arends

Here is my latest Christianity Today column, featuring Adam, Eve, my duo partner Spencer, an ebay fraudster who bilked me of my money, and some ideas about God's character and grace.  I'd love to hear how it hits you!

Our Divine Distortion

We can't see God clearly without Jesus. O come, Emmanuel.

From the December Issue of Christianity Today

posted online 12/18/2009

When I found a brand new lap-top for half price on eBay, I told my friend and musical colleague Spencer about my bargain of a find. He was worried: "Usually when something's too good to be true …"

"I know," I replied impatiently, "but the seller has a 100 percent approval rating."

"Be careful," warned Spencer.

"Of course," I assured him, annoyed. I wasn't born yesterday.

I sent the seller $1,300 and discovered in very short, sickening order that I had fallen prey to a classic scam. A fraudster had hacked someone's eBay identity in order to relieve easy marks like me of our money.

I felt an absolute fool—and didn't want to tell Spencer. The next time I saw his number on my caller ID, I didn't answer. I could just imagine his "I told you so."

Soon, I was avoiding Spencer completely. And I started to resent him. Why did he have to be so judgmental? Why couldn't he be on my side? Why was I ever friends with that jerk?

Eventually, we had to fly together to perform at a concert. "Whatever happened with that computer thing?" he asked an hour into the flight. Cornered, I finally confessed my foolishness, dreading the inevitable response. But as soon as I told Spencer about my mistake, a strange thing happened. The enemy I had turned him into evaporated. Spencer turned into Spencer again, my teasing but deeply empathetic buddy.

As embarrassed as I was by my eBay error, I felt even dumber about the way I had allowed my shame to distort my perception of a best friend. If my hand had not been forced, I would have remained estranged from him indefinitely.

I've always considered myself perceptive, but the longer I live, the more I discover my susceptibility to misinterpretation. This is true of the way I view my friends, truer of the way I see my enemies, and perhaps truest of the way I perceive God.

I was raised to understand that sin's gravest consequence is the way it forces God to perceive me: God is holy, I'm not, and there's no way he can even look at me until I have the covering of Christ's blood. In my teens, I clipped a poem out of a youth magazine in which the poet asks—and answers—a pressing question: "How can a righteous God look at me, a sinner, and see a precious child? Simple: The Son gets in his eyes."

But what about how I look at God? I've often been oblivious to one of the most insidious byproducts of the Fall: Sin affects my perception of God. Or, to turn a phrase from that poem, the sin gets in my eyes.

Before Adam and Eve had fallen for the first lie, they basked in God's company. But after a few bites of forbidden fruit, they no longer looked forward to seeing their Maker. When he came calling, they hid.

Had God changed? No. Adam and Eve's brokenness altered their perception of God, not his character. Ever since, we humans have been letting our shame poison our understanding of God. He becomes an ogre, or a bookkeeper, or maybe just a disinterested, detached monarch.

Many of us unconsciously relate to God our Father as a Godfather—there's a lot he can do for us when he likes us, but don't get on his bad side. So we avoid him. And the longer we refuse to take his calls, the worse the distortion becomes.

But here is some good news: Jesus is the antidote to our misperceptions. When we speak of the Incarnation, we acknowledge that Jesus is "God con carne"—God with meat on. Our questions about God's character—Is he really about mercy, justice, and a love that just won't quit?—are answered in the person of Jesus.

In one sense, Adam and Eve were right to fear facing God. The consequences of their choices were painful. But even God's seemingly harshest judgment—banishment from the Garden and the Tree of Life—was rooted in love. If the first humans had accessed eternal life in Eden, they would have remained in their brokenness forever. God chose another way—a death and resurrection way that would cost him much—because he was and is and always will be with us and for us.

Christmas clarifies this resoundingly. That's why every time the angels announced Christ's birth they said, "Do not be afraid." Yes, we should fear sin's consequences. But we need not fear the perfect love of a God willing to come and shiver in our skin to save us.

We do not have the power to change God's character. Our Father is our Father. Always has been, always will be. But we will never see him for who he really is until the Son gets in our eyes.

Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Carolyn Arends
www.carolynarends.com 

Come, Lord Jesus - Carolyn Arends

This is from my newest Christianity Today column, which was recently posted on their website.

Come, Lord Jesus
Oh wait, He's already here.
From the October issue of Christianity Today

I was a guest musician at a church in Winnipeg, engaged in the familiar liturgies of a pre-service prayer huddle. One person prayed for the congregation's safety in inclement weather, another for the technical aspects of the service, and a third kindly remembered my family back home.

When my turn came, I must have used a phrase like, "God, we invite you here among us." I clearly recall the minister's prayer, which followed mine: "We know we do not have to request your presence, because there is nowhere you are not. So we celebrate the fact you are already here with us now."

My head stayed bowed, but my face burned. This guy is correcting my theology with his prayer!

The service went as planned. But throughout the evening, I was mentally defending my choice of words. Of course I know God is everywhere—I've read Psalm 139! I was requesting an extra measure of his presence, an outpouring of his Spirit. Or, if you want to be more precise (and clearly you do), I was praying that God would help us to be open to him. Aren't we just arguing semantics?

I never articulated any of these thoughts to the minister. But the dialogue I've had with him in my head ever since has gradually refined my thinking—a case of iron sharpening particularly dull iron. I now believe that pastor's gentle correction was necessary.

If the psalmist is right—that there truly is nowhere we can go to flee God's presence—why do we act like his attendance is intermittent? And why do we assume it's dependent on us?

"Halfway through the retreat, God showed up," we say. As if he wasn't there before we were, drawing us to that time and place.

"Lord, we welcome you to come," we pray. As if he needs us to usher him into the world he created. As if we do not "live and move and have our being" in him alone (Acts 17:28).

In the Gospels, Jesus makes a simple proclamation with seismic implications: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near" (Matt. 4:17). For those of us who grew up in the hot, scary shadows of brimstone pulpits, the command to repent causes an involuntary shudder. But the Greek word is metanoeite,* which is more invitation than threat. It means "change your mind" or "reconsider."

Reconsider what? According to Jesus, everything you thought you knew about reality. Why? Because the kingdom of heaven is near.

Most of us think of heaven as somewhere out there, the place where God watches from a distance and we will one day join him. But for the biblical writers, heaven is close. In fact, the "first heavens" is a term used to describe the earth's atmosphere. So when Jesus describes the invisible (but very real) realm that God inhabits, he lets us know it's not only out there, but also as near as the atmosphere surrounding our bodies and the air we breathe.

That Winnipeg minister was calling me to repent—to reconsider what I thought I knew about reality and the way God pervades it. I don't have to invoke God's presence. I only have to attend to it.

This change of heart and mind alters the way I approach discipleship. I suspect I have sometimes unconsciously used spiritual disciplines as smoke signals to get God's attention. Now I am learning that they are simply ways of letting him capture mine.

A similar change has occurred in my orientation toward evangelism. I don't have to give a nonbeliever something I have that she doesn't. I need only invite her to open herself up to what God is already doing all around her.

The other day I was trying to describe this shift in my understanding to my friend Roy Salmond. He ran to pull out an article he'd read in Time magazine more than a decade ago. It's an eloquent piece called "The Game of Catch," by Roger Rosenblatt, about baseball, parenthood, and the wordless communication between a father and son tossing the ball around. While the article is in no way religious, one thought in particular has permanently changed Roy's view of life with God.

"They do not call it a game of throw," Roy quoted, grinning. "They call it catch."

Oddly enough, I understood exactly what he meant. Spiritually speaking, I've been preoccupied with throwing the ball; this turns out to be a case in which it would be better to receive than to give.

God is the initiator. We love because he first loved us. We're here because he thought of us and welcomed us into his world. Yes, he stands at the doors to our hearts and knocks, but we need only let him in. We don't have to summon him from another country or galaxy. The kingdom of God is already near.

Repent. It's time to play catch.

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* Thanks to the kind folks who pointed out that the correct tense of the Greek for repent there should have been "metanoeo". I repent of getting my Greek grammar wrong!