Independence Day and Our Calling in Christ

    I’m studying 1 Corinthians right now, and I read a passage that struck me as super relevant to our upcoming holiday.  In chapter 10, Paul is calling the predominantly Gentile church of Corinth to consider their ancestors (v.1) who experienced the exodus from slavery in Egypt.  In verse 16 he points out ways that the Passover meal, which commemorated that event, was repurposed by Jesus.  He talks about the 3^rd of 4 traditional Passover cups.  This 3^rd cup was called the “cup of thanksgiving” (or “blessing”).  It represented rescue from slavery in Egypt, God’s establishment of covenant with them, and sustenance provided by God, and it was traditionally drank with a prayer of thanksgiving for those things.  Jesus, however, asserted that it should henceforth represent the ultimate, final rescue from slavery to sin and the new covenant and provision through His shed blood on the cross. 

Then, Paul goes on to mention the bread, which Jews called “the bread of affliction” (Deuteronomy 16:3).  The bread, unleavened due to the haste of Israel’s flight from Egypt, was eaten with bitter herbs to represent the great suffering which accompanied their journey to freedom.  Jesus, as Paul alludes, identified personally with that suffering and asserted that the breaking of bread would henceforth represent His bodily suffering for our ultimate deliverance.

Paul uses the Greek word, “koinonia,” however, to describe what all this has to do with his audience (the Corinthian believers).  This word is translated often “participation” or in other places “communion.”  Paul says that believers participate together in the broken body and shed blood of Christ which was offered for mankind’s rescue from slavery.  We too are called into death for the good of the world. 

 

This makes even more sense when seen in context.  In the previous chapters Paul has been calling the Corinthians to give up their rights and freedoms for the sake of caring for those around them.  They were boasting in their freedom to eat and act however they wanted to in Christ due to their recently acquired knowledge of salvation in Christ, but Paul calls them to a different way.  In chapter 9 he gives an example from his own life of how he gave up the right to earn an income from His ministry, take a wife, and to benefit from the fruit of his work, all for the sake of winning as many as possible for Christ.

 

So in chapter 10, Paul emphasizes the call to a counter-cultural life through death way of living as demonstrated by Christ through his reference to the Lord’s Supper.   

 

As we approach Independence Day tomorrow, and enjoy celebrating the freedom we enjoy thanks to the heroic suffering of those who went before us, I think it is appropriate to recall also, as Jesus called His disciples to do on their Independence Day, the ultimate freedom from slavery to sin which Christ invites us to participate in sacrificially.  It is a freedom through participation in death for the good of others.  Yes, we enjoy freedom from slavery to sin and delight in the covenant promises we inherit through Christ, but we also go with Him to the cross, training our bodies for slavery to Christ, participating in His suffering with Him that we, like Him, might offer hope and healing to the world. 

I was Thinking about the Thief on the Cross...

Two Realities, Moments Apart—Both Experienced on a Cross

 

 

Reality One:

-       The criminal finds himself undergoing the worst shame imaginable, pinned naked to a Roman cross.

-       He knows that the agony and shame he feels are justly deserved. He has brought it on himself through his own rebellious actions (Luke 23:41). 

-       He has presumably lived a life of rebellion toward his Maker.  (When he asks the other criminal, “don’t you fear God?” he speaks of God as someone whose existence is indisputable in his mind, yet clearly he has not lived a life of obedience to Him).  He is likely reminded now, as he hangs on the cross, of some of those choices which brought him to this point.

-       His life (and death) seem to be a classic representation of Romans 1:18-32.  Although [he knew] God’s righteous decree that those who do [fill in the blank] deserve death, [he] continued to do those very things…”

-       As an object of God’s wrath (Romans 1:18), he not only suffers the physical agony of the natural consequences of his actions as well as the emotional agony of having his shamefulness exposed for all the world to see, but he also experiences the spiritual agony of his own life-long rejection of God and His good purposes.  

 

Then, everything changes. Miracle of miracles, it dawns on the criminal that the man crucified beside Him is the Son of God and that His crucifixion will in no way keep Him from “coming into His kingdom” (verse 42). HOPE enters the rebel’s consciousness, he blurts out His belief in Christ, and he asks the God-Man to remember Him.  Jesus, in one sentence, pronounces a whole new reality for the criminal.  “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

 

Reality Two:

-       Though the physical agony remains, his shame is gone.  The Son of God Himself has vouched for him before all those present, and all spiritual powers and dominions the world round.  It’s settled.

-       Now, instead of receiving each moment of pain as just punishment, every breath he takes, the criminal is renewed in his spirit and reassured of the glory that awaits him (2Cor 4:16-18; Luke 23:43).  

-       The circumstances which constituted God’s wrath only moments ago, are now transformed into God’s context for the criminal’s spiritual formation.  

-       The very cross which represented his damnation has become the vehicle which not only brought Him face to face with Love Himself, but which now facilitates his own spiritual offering of WORSHIP to God.  Indeed, as the criminal moment by moment accepts his suffering in submission to his King, God receives it as a holy sacrifice, beautiful in His sight. (Romans 12:1)

-       As the criminal surveys the scornful crowd, takes in the sounds of groaning and weeping, tastes his own blood, and breaths in the aroma of death, LOVE is birthed within his soul, and a world of possibility characterized by “all things new” takes his glass which was way more than half empty, and fills it to overflowing.    

 

I’m struck by the stark contrast between hope and hopelessness as represented in this criminal’s final hours.  He moved from a place of spiritual dying to one of spiritual renewal and life.  He whose very existence was branded a mistake, was clothed with the righteousness of Christ.  A life which seemed futile and purposeless was written into THE story of the ages.  

 

And it’s my story too.  I too have moved from dying to LIFE.  My suffering too has taken on immense significance, as God accepts my feeble, “Thy will be done,” and uses it to accomplish my great GOOD (Romans 5:3-4 & 8:28).  I too have been granted access into the life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  There is no more need for me to view life any other way.  I’ve been granted spiritual sight to see God in action, and extend hope of redemption into every corner of the world. 

 

I believe the criminal on the cross tasted eternal life as he continued to hang there awaiting the fulfillment of the promise.  Because salvation isn’t just for the future.

 

He has granted us new birth into a living hope... AND into an inheritance kept in heaven for us (1Peter 1:3-4).  He grants us both.

Though you have not seen Him you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1Peter 1:8-9)

We know that we HAVE passed from death to life… (1John 3:14)

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness REIGN IN LIFE through the one man, Jesus Christ!  (Romans 5:17)  

Every Moment of Agony Matters

If you ever think you might be feeling God’s compassion for you, rest assured that the only way in which your perceptions could possibly be askew in that regard, is by sensing His compassion too feebly.  Remember that a mother’s unconditional love for her infant child is but a vague representation of the love it was created to model for us.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12

 

I am convinced that when we find ourselves railing against an affliction that God has allowed, asking “why?” we may rest assured that our feelings fully justify that question.  For if our present perception of the affliction were reflective of the whole of reality, I believe He would never allow it (see Isaiah 55:8-13). 

But, though He cause grief, He will have compassion according to the abundance of His steadfast love; for He does not afflict from His heart or grieve the children of men. Lamentations 3:32-33

 

And He is deeply compassionate toward us while we wrestle in our limited perspective.  When Jesus wept with Mary, moments before He resurrected her brother from the grave, He demonstrated the fact that THAT moment of anguish mattered to Him. 

To our God, as One who dwells outside of time, and wills each moment into existence (Heb 1:3), yet Who also chooses to dwell within each moment beside us, every individual moment matters heavily—regardless of which moment will transpire next.  So Christ chose to weep with Mary in those few moments of grief and bewilderment.  His awareness of the rejoicing that was about to ensue at Lazarus’s resurrection did not keep Him from complete presence, understanding and sharing in the agony with those who mourned just moments before. 

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell at his feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”  When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in His spirit and greatly troubled. And He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.”  Jesus wept.  John 11:32-35

We may rest assured that He chooses to be present with us and share in our agony with us as we grieve as well—despite the great rejoicing which He knows awaits us shortly.  In fact, I believe He feels our agony more keenly than we do.

Life in a fallen world teaches us from infancy to construct walls of defense that will shield us from the pain life brings our way.  We distance ourselves relationally to keep from melting when we receive uncaring looks.  We discover how to distract ourselves from pain and seek to convince ourselves of our own imperviousness to insult.  Yet our Saviors faces our griefs head-on without those barriers.  He absorbs them in their entirety, with His heart of complete openness and innocence—and every single moment matters to Him.

Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. Isaiah 53:4

Sharing Our Journey With the Lord in 2022 (Thus Far)

I found myself alone on my closet floor sobbing and crying out to God.  It felt like promises were at risk of not being true.  My faith being tried like few times before.  Passages my mind had absorbed through a lifetime of studying the scriptures flashed before my mind:

 

“I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.  He is ever lending generously, and his children become a blessing.”  Psalm 37:25-26 

 

“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?...   But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”  Matthew 6:30 &33

 

“for those who honor Me I will honor,” 2 Samuel 2:30

 

“The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears toward their cry.” Psalm 34:15

 

“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you.  For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him.” Isaiah 30:18

 

 

In the morning, I felt led to look back at my notes from my times with the Lord over the past six months, a practice I have regularly found the Lord uses to speak truth fitting to my particular moment of need.  These things stood out:

 

From a February entry:

“Individuals who are disciples and friends of Jesus who have learned to work shoulder to shoulder with their Lord stand in this world as a point of contact between heaven and earth…. The disciple stands as an envoy or a receiver by which the kingdom of God is conveyed into every quarter of human affairs.”  (Hearing God by Dallas Willard p. 191)

 

From my devotional time recently:

“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  2 Corinthians 12:9-10  

 

and the notion that Paul spelled out a lot of his weaknesses and hardships to the Christian world of His day and ours.  He did not shy away from casting Himself not only on God but on the body of Christ for His spiritual and physical sustenance. 

 

This is so counter to our US culture which values independence, autonomy, self-sufficiency, and avoidance of struggle, but perhaps it’s part of God’s plan for the body of Christ?

 

From my prayer time with dear friends last week:

“The best thing that we have to offer is our relationship with God”

 

From January:

God IS communication—constant expression.  Communication is always spiritual with spiritual ramifications.

 

From a text message I received from a dear sister last week:

“Context matters…. We cannot isolate a text…. Tracing the flow of thought between chapters and paragraphs is important for understanding individual verses”

 

 

 

If God IS communication—constant expression—then context matters not only in the Bible, but in my life as well.  As I ponder God’s narrative for my life at this point and time, I think I must consider not only my own wants, needs, and experience, but my impact on my context and their impact on me.  I am part of a collective body—a spiritual organism meant to feel and grow and move as one.  My narrative is not mine alone.  This too is completely counter-cultural in America today.

 

 

I keep thinking about the testimonies of God’s providence that I have read about from Hudson Taylor and George Müller.  And I wonder if one of the reasons God allows His children to come so close to tasting lack of provision is for the sake of provoking the world to watch and observe and marvel with us at His provision.  Like a call to attention—perhaps for those in the current context or perhaps for a future audience (people like me reading Christian biographies).

 

 

So many saints have been urged forward in their walk with the Lord through the testimonies of these men who unabashedly opened their lives of weakness, poverty, and terrestrial foolishness to the watching world.

 

 

Transparency is something I’ve pondered at great length through different seasons of my walk with the Lord.  I used to think that greater transparency would involve prideful boasting in my own victories.  In recent years, however, I’ve come to see that there is often greater pride at play in withholding of my journey with the Lord than in revealing it.  I am what I am thanks to the merciful work of the Lord in my life.  If I keep some of my journey to myself, it must only be out of love for those who might stumble because of my words.

 

 

And so… in response to what seems to be the Lord’s clear leading, I am pulling back the curtain on our wilderness wanderings of late.  May it edify, inform, encourage, unify, and spur on the body of Christ.

 

 

 

A Dream is Born

When Derek and I moved to Peru in 2015 we were delighted to begin a lifetime of missionary service with our King for the growth of His kingdom around the world.  We didn’t know how things would go and we knew there would be difficulties along the way, but God had affirmed our calling over and over again.  We continue to be immensely grateful for the six years that He gave us to build up the body of Christ in Peru.  But when He made it clear to us a little over a year ago that our time in Peru was ending it came as a disorienting surprise.  We never expected this kind of shift in direction.

 

 

Letting Go of the Dream

That realization did not come easily.  I BEGGED God to change circumstances, change people, change me, anything for the sake of continuing the work that I had seen Him doing through us and our teammates in Cusco for years.  I walked the streets of Cusco with hands held out to the Lord, weeping as I worshiped, rebuked the enemy, interceded for the church in Cusco, and implored God to intervene and bring about my dream for the city.  And yet, His gentle, authoritative answer was not one of acquiescence, but rather reassurance that He was with me and would continue to be with me whatever comes.  This was when I started to let the dream die.

 

 

For a couple months we prayed and sought the Lord, and received advise from wise counselors, and waited.  We sought to be considerate and caring in the way we shared the news of our transition with others, and especially to be intentional in our relationships in Cusco, as our days were now limited.  And the Lord blessed.  We felt more and more affirmed and hopeful and encouraged about the church in Cusco and their ability to carry on without us.  All the while I wondered if any day God might present us with a job offer somewhere else, a clear direction for our future enabling us to rest secure in His provision for 2022.  This didn’t happen, however.

 

 

Seeking a New Dream

We found ourselves thinking about the passions and longings that God had placed on our hearts for the US church in the past couple of years.  As we wondered about what God was calling us to next, we sought to “listen to our lives,” as Frederick Buechner prescribes, for clues as to the narrative God was unfolding.

 

 

Our time in Peru had grown our own love for the Lord and passion for His kingdom, and born in us a longing to share that passion with others.  We had truly delighted in our opportunities to share these things with various US churches virtually during 2020, and we sensed a growing love and burden for the US church in our own hearts.  Additionally, working with missionaries around the world to develop onboarding training for MTW missionaries had made us increasingly burdened by the need for discipleship and spiritual formation in the US church.  So many missionary teams expressed a discouragement about missionaries arriving on their fields without robust spiritual habits to sustain them and never having been truly discipled themselves.

 

 

A quote by Dallas Willard, which I only recently came across, describes well the burden growing in our hearts for spiritual formation in the US church,

 

The primary mission field for the great commission today is made up of the churches in Europe and North America.  That is where the great disparity is most visible, and from where it threatens to spread to the rest of the world…  The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heart-breaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as ‘Christian’ will become disciples—students, apprentices, practitioners—of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from Him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.

 

 

In addition to this increasing burden for spiritual formation in the US church, Derek sensed a growing longing for more training in Biblical knowledge and ministry.  His love for church ministry had only deepened during our time in Peru while His sense of preparedness to lead and preach and teach had diminished.  He had been enjoying long-distance seminary courses for some time, but he dreamed of attending classes in-person with other students and professors who could spur Him on in his growth.

 

 

A Provisional Direction

A friend encouraged us to think about taking a role with MTW in the US for a season while Derek attended seminary.  We talked with MTW’s mobilization department about our desire to invest in the US church, raise prayer for missions, and strengthen the bridge between the global mission field and the body of Christ in the US, and a job description was drawn up.  We weren’t sure exactly how that job would look, whether it would be a good fit long-term, or whether our supporters would choose to continue partnering with us in this new calling, but for the moment it seemed like a clear leading of the Lord.

 

 

As much as our hearts clamored for clarity regarding our future, we sought to be present and laser-focused on our present.  If we were going to exit well, our friends and ministry partners needed us to love them tenderly through our transition.  Shifting out thoughts toward making plans for our next steps could easily absorb much of our time and attention compromising our potential impact during our final days and months with the people of Cusco.  So, we laid our future in God’s hands. 

 

 

Dear friends of ours shared their prayer that our transition would be characterized by backing our way out of the field with our eyes fully on the people of Cusco, and trusting the Lord to catch us on the other end when we finally arrived in the US.  This became our plan, though we wrestled weekly with the desire for clarity and assurance regarding our future.  Would our supporters continue to partner with us in the US?  Would we be able to manage seminary, homeschooling, mobilization ministry, the high cost of living in the United States, and the rapid pace of life there?  Would the Lord provide vehicles?  A home? Income? Community for us and our children? 

 

 

A Long Transition

In many ways our move back to the US felt like an even bigger step of faith than our move to Peru had been six years earlier.  And settling our family in the US has certainly proved to be much rockier for us than settling in Peru was.  

 

 

Our family went from living our entire lives within about a 2-mile radius in Cusco and hardly ever entered a vehicle to traveling constantly around the US (Christmas travel, then travel for mission conferences, then work travel, not to mention the commute time that one has to calculate into their schedule on a daily basis just for basic grocery shopping and whatnot).  Because of our conviction to focus all of our attention in Cusco while we were there, when we arrived in the US we had to immediately turn our attention to basic necessities here—phones, vehicles, doctor appointments, housing, schooling for the kids (even homeschoolers have requirements in the US), Christmas presents and activities (we arrived in December), …the to-do list felt endless and daunting. 

 

 

We felt like the Lord was calling us to put down some roots in Birmingham, and so we immediately began looking for a home to purchase.  The early months of 2022 for us were characterized largely by house showings, putting together church presentations, writing seminary papers, and homeschooling during the weekdays, and then speaking at various missions conferences and receiving house rejection notices on the weekends.  Almost every week we made a house offer and prayed that maybe this house would be the one that would allow our family to finally settle and find some normalcy.  We had hoped to be settled somewhere by the time our mobilization job began in April.  But that was not Gods’ plan. 

 

 

The Lord’s Kindness

He did provide for us, however.  I think I tucked my children into bed in 10+ different beds in the first few months of our transition, but they always had a bed.  Now that we finally have a home Skye still doesn’t quite understand and continues to express great surprise every time we go anywhere in the car and then return to the SAME HOUSE.  “This house again??” she says, “I like this house.”

 

 

As stressful and unsettling as our initial months in the US were, the Lord was kind to send us regular reminders of His tenderness toward us.

-       In February we found out that our shipping container from Peru would be significantly more expensive than the quote we had been given in Peru.  Within 24 hours of discovering this news, however, we received an unexpected sizeable tax return which was almost the exact amount that we now needed for the container fees.

-       He held off our shipping container from Peru for months beyond when we expected it to arrive so that it did not arrive until the week that we were able to move into a missionary house with plenty of space to house it.  Had it arrived just a week earlier, we would have had no place to house our things.

-       Right when I was hitting a low-place the Lord provided a completely paid-for couples getaway for Derek and I to the beach.

-       When we returned from the beach the children started asking when they could go to the beach.  We told them that we really couldn’t afford a family beach trip, but within the week a work trip to Panama City Beach popped up and so the kids and I were able to go to the beach for a couple days while Derek did mobilization work in town.

-       Right at the last possible moment when our missionary house availability came to a close, the Lord provided a house for us to call our own.  A week later and we would have signed for a rental assuming that was God’s plan for the time being.  Clearly He had set apart this house in McCalla for us!

-       Aside from Livingroom sofas and a dining table we had no furniture whatsoever for our new house, but the Lord has provided abundantly for our needs from the most unexpected places.  People have given us beds, night stands, desks, dressers, mirrors, wall art, chairs, a printer, a grill, a lawn mower…. And when we moved into the house we discovered that the previous owners had left us a small treasure trove of tools and gardening supplies.  In addition various people and churches have repeatedly surprised us with financial gifts to help us settle in our house. 

 

 

Where We Find Ourselves Now

Truly, the Lord’s kindness to our family has been overwhelming.  He’s provided for our needs every step of the way.  And yet, since our return to the US our financial support has steadily dropped, and last month we saw a significant decrease in giving toward our support account.  When we accepted this position with MTW, we recognized that if the Lord wanted us to do it, He would have to provide for us, and if the support didn’t come in, that would be a clear sign that He had other plans for us.  It seems that we have reached that place.  We don’t know if we will have sufficient income next month, and we aren’t sure if we should pursue a different means of income.

 

 

Additionally, all of our constant travel the past 6 months has been unsettling for our family and made it difficult to gain a healthy rhythm of life.  We have felt scattered and disconnected, and we long to be able to set our focus in one place and go deep with a narrower community of people.  We haven’t lost our passion for global missions and the desire to raise up strong senders and goers, but we’re weary.

 

 

Next month we had planned to do a week of missionary debriefing at Mission Training International in Colorado, a program that helps missionary families process their time on the field, and tend to their personal well-being after transition back home.  We felt confident that this would be a needed step for our family, and so plane tickets were purchased and the initial deposit was made months ago.  However, we now find ourselves unable to pay the balance due to attend the program.

 

 

Our Plea

So, we are doing what saints throughout time have done when they found themselves between a rock and a hard place.  We’re crying out to God for provision and direction, and we’re offering our journey before the body of Christ, inviting you to walk with us and seek the Lord with us..  We declare with the desperate man in Mark 9:24, “I believe!  Help my unbelief!”    We believe He will make a way for our family and be faithful to His promises to never leave or forsake us, and we pray for faith to humbly trust our Father in this season.  Would you pray with us?

 

Psalm 22 and The Matrix

I’ve been thinking about the connection between suffering and redemption...  Christ’s own refining through suffering.  And the way in which His suffering honors ours.  

 

 

I used to think Psalm 22 was most significantly a foreshadowing of Christ’s suffering on the cross.  But this week when I read it during our family devotions, I was enabled to view it from a different angle.   

 

 

I think Psalm 22, the death Psalm, expresses the anguish of death which all of us experience at different points of our lives on earth.  

 

 

 The curse has brought us death:

 

-       In our connection to our Creator.  We long for assurance of our intrinsic value and place in the universe—to know that Someone wants us here and cares about the futility and anguish we endure in our heart of hearts.  Yet sin constantly threatens to isolate and condemn us.

o   David’s plight: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from saving me?  So far from my cries of anguish?  My God, I cry out by day, but You do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.” (Ps 22:1-2)

o   Christ’s experience: “From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land.  About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ (which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’).” (Mt. 27:45-46)

o   David’s reassurance: “Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; You are the one Israel praises. In You our ancestors put their trust; they trusted and You delivered them. To You they cried out and were saved; in You they trusted and were not put to shame…  for dominion belongs to the LORD and He rules over the nations.  All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before Him—those who cannot keep themselves alive.” (Ps. 22:3-5 & 28-29)

 

-       In our connection to our fellow humans.  We long to belong, to be accepted and understood, to be considered and valued by those with whom we share the highs and lows of humanity.  Yet the longer we live, the more alone and victimized we feel as mistrust and defensiveness increasingly define our interactions with those around us.

o   David’s plight: “But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people.  All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads.  ‘He trusts in the LORD,’ they say, ‘let the LORD deliver him, since he delights in Him.” (Ps. 22:6-8)

o   Christ’s experience: “Two rebels were crucified with Him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at Him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!”  In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him.  “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.  He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”  In the same way the rebels who were crucified with Him also heaped insults on Him.” (Mt. 27:38-44)

o   David’s reassurance: “I will declare Your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise You…. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before Him…  Posterity will serve Him; future generations will be told about the Lord.  They will proclaim His righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!”  (Ps. 22:22, 27, &30-31)

 

-       In our confidence for the future.  We long for a reason to hope, for the possibility of redemption and restoration, for the ability to pursue dreams and anticipate second chances.  Yet we find brokenness all around us.

o   David’s plight: “Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.”  (Ps. 22:11)

o   Christ’s experience: “Then He said to them, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.  Stay here and keep watch with me.’  Going a little farther, He fell with His face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.  Yet not as I will, but as You will.” (Mt. 26:36-38)

o   David’s reassurance: “I will declare your name your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you… The poor will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the LORD will praise Him—may your hearts live forever! All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before Him, for dominion belongs to the LORD and He rules over the nations.  All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before Him—those who cannot keep themselves alive.  Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord.  They will proclaim His righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!” (Ps. 22:22 & 26-31)

 

-       In our physical bodies

o   David’s plight: “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.  My heart has turned to wax; It has melted within me.  My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; You lay me in the dust of death” (Ps. 22:14-15)

o   Christ’s experience: “After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’  A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.  When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished,’ and He bowed His head and gave up His spirit… “one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.” (Jn 19:28-30 &34)

o   David’s reassurance: “But You LORD, do not be far from me.  You are my strength; come quickly to help me.  Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs.  Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen… The poor will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the LORD will praise him—may your hearts live forever!” (Ps. 22:19-21 & 26)

 

-       In our individual sense of dignity and volition.  We long for a clean slate, for the freedom to choose our own way, to shape our own participation in society.  Yet so often we find ourselves stuck in roles and circumstances that we never wanted and being regarded in ways that shame and undermine our very identity. 

o   David’s plight: “Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet.  All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me.  They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.” (Ps. 22:16-18)

o   Christ’s experience: “Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him.  They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.  After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.” (Mt. 27:27-31)

o   David’s reassurance: “For He has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; He has not hidden His face from him but has listened to his cry for help.  From You comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear You I will fulfill my vows.” (Ps. 22:24-25)

 

 

When Christ took on and embodied Psalm 22, He wasn’t just fulfilling prophecy.  He was honoring the human experience.  He dignified the suffering and hopelessness we all experience.  He said that our suffering is not without meaning or consequence.  He demonstrated the centrality of pain and loneliness to the human experience and proved that rather than being our shame, suffering has the potential to be the most honored and purposeful statement our lives ever make—the crowning glory of our participation in the divine nature as “the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.  To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life.”

 

 

 

I watched The Matrix: Resurrections last night and a couple lines stood out to me as uniquely expressive of the human experience:

 

That’s it, isn’t it? If we don’t know what’s real… we can’t resist. They took your story, something that meant so much to people like me, and turned it into something trivial. That’s what the Matrix does. It weaponizes every idea. Every dream. Everything that’s important to us. Where better to bury truth than inside something as ordinary as a video game?

 

And

 

Quietly yearning for what you don’t have, while dreading losing what you do. For 99.9% of your race, that is the definition of reality. Desire and fear, baby

 

 

I think that is the reality our enemy seeks to impress upon every human.  God has placed within us longings that are such a glaring testament to our identity and purpose, and yet we find ourselves settling for trivial pacification.  We miss our high calling in the universe for the plight of eking out a bearable existence and buy in to the lie that all suffering is meaningless chaos.  

 

 

But Christ.