How Low Can You Go?

I've been reading Mark in my quiet times lately, and appropriately enough for the week leading up to Easter, I've been in chapter 15. Mark tends to be short and to the point, and even in his account of this last week of Jesus' life, he's very economical with his words. What caught my attention this week was his decription of the two thieves on the crosses next to Jesus'. Just two verses (27, 31):

   And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.

   Even those who were crucified with him were reviling him.

That's it. No mention of what they said. Nothing about how one of them pleaded with Jesus and how He promised him entrance into His Kingdom that very day. Just: they flanked Him in crucifixion and mocked Him in the process. That promise Jesus gave the one is pretty important, but Mark skips right over it! (Mark is also the one who leaves the Gospel narrative hanging in suspense, so apparently he didn't have the same need of closure that I do.)

I'm intrigued by this minimalist treatment of the thieves. Mark could have written more, but didn't. So I assume he wants us to focus on what little he did write: two robbers, while being crucified, reviled Jesus. Two dying robbers mocking Jesus along with the rest.

In this paragraph, Mark is careful to note that the chief priests and the experts in the Law mocked Jesus. Those who passed by mocked Him. In the previous paragraph, the soldiers mocked Him. And these two robbers being crucified.

In other words, Jesus was mocked, not merely rejected, by the religious authorities, by the military authorities, and by the general population. And these two robbers being crucified. He was mocked by not only the establishment, but also by the lowest of the low!

You can't get much lower than a convicted felon presently suffering a languishing death penalty, publicly displayed for full humiliation. They were rejects, mere rubbish to be disposed of. Those who society rejected rejected Jesus. How low can you go?!?

Easter is about the resurrection of Jesus, who died for our sin in a way that required Him to be utterly rejected, even by the lowest of the low.

I'm stunned by how complete His rejection had to be, so that His resurrection would be that much more victorious. I suspect Mark left out part of the story to focus us on that very point.

Facepalm Sunday?

This coming Sunday is "Palm Sunday" - the day to commemorate Jesus' final entrance into Jerusalem less than a week before the crucifixion. This historical event is prominent enough to be mentioned in all four Gospels (Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-44; John 12:12-19). Jesus mounted a donkey and made His way into the city of Jerusalem, as the crowds laid down clothing and palm branches before His path and cried out "Hosanna!" (which roughly means, "save us now!"). Within the week, He was dead. Within days after that, He is risen. Indeed.

We who gather together as "Grace Fellowship" come from different backgrounds - Catholic, charismatic, agnostic, atheist, high church, low church, house church - and so we bring with us a variety of Palm Sunday traditions, ranging from nothing at all to very elaborate. For some of us, Palm Sunday is an important part of "Passion Week" - the week commemorating all the events of the last week of Jesus' life, starting with Palm Sunday, then the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, the trials, the crucifixion, and of course the resurrection (celebrated by "Easter"). For those who have a tradition of celebrating Lent, Palm Sunday is the last day of the 40-day Lenten season.

There is no evidence that the early church made any intentional celebration of Palm Sunday until the 3rd Century, or more likely not until the late 4th Century. It started as a celebration in the church in Jerusalem, with believers walking from site to site of the events of that last week, reading the Gospels aloud at each site (which would be a cool thing to do!!!). By the 5th Century, there's clear evidence of celebrating Palm Sunday as far away as Constantinople. There were significant changes and additions to the tradition each century after that through at least the 8th Century.

With the history of the Church, it is no surprise that the celebration of Palm Sunday has its primary roots in the pre-Catholic, Catholic, and Orthodox churches.

Some have noted that the crowds that day may have been celebrating a mistake. Here's a crowd of people who are lauding Jesus as the one who comes in the name of the Lord, the great king. Which, of course, He is. But it's also clear that the crowd didn't realize how right they were. They were expecting a king like David, with a political and military kingdom that would become autonomous from the Roman Empire. Even though they lauded Jesus as king, they didn't comprehend that He was entering Jerusalem as the King of all Kings whose kingdom is "not of this world" (John 18:36). They weren't very accurate at all! Or better, they were more accurate than they realized.

Are we celebrating a mistake? Should we call this "Facepalm Sunday"?

Furthermore, some note that just days later, the crowd was crying out, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" What a reversal! Should we celebrate that? However, there's nothing in the text that says that people in the first crowd were also in the second crowd, so this is mere speculation at best. We should just note the mere possibility, and then draw no real conclusions from this.

What value, then, is celebrating Palm Sunday? We have inherited some traditions from the historic Catholic church, but we're not Catholics. The early church didn't make a deal out of this for centuries. The crowd was not really celebrating what we celebrate when we remember the entrance of the true King into Jerusalem. Palm Sunday is usually something we make a bigger deal of for the kids than for the adults, as if we eventually "grow out of it." What, then, shall we make of Palm Sunday?

Whatever we want, actually. It's a great singular event to begin commemorating the most crucial week in human history. It's a very picturesque event to engage children (and adults) into the story. Regardless of what the early church didn't do, of what the Catholic church did do, or even of what the people who were there did incorrectly, we can grab this moment to remind our kids and one another that Jesus in fact is the King who took on human flesh, which He could then use to put on the back of a donkey, eat a final meal, receive lashes, expire from crucifixion, and then physically raise from the tomb.

Traditions are most valuable for passing on to each successive generation the meanings of our faith, not just the traditions themselves. You've got a great, built-in excuse to share with others how your King voluntarily rode right into His own death on our behalf. It's one of the best ways we keep alive the purpose of our history. It helps connect us to two centuries of the followers of Jesus.

I encourage to make more of this than just a "church thing." We want to teach all our kids about this week, but the most effective way for them to keep our stories front and center is through you. Make a week of it.

God of Comfort

A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor.

-- English proverb

I came across this proverb earlier this week, and loved its potent simplicity. We instantly know it to be true, and it's far more elegant than a simple statement of fact, "Sailors become skilled through rough seas."

Everything in this statement is premised on the goal - a skillful sailor. That's what we want most out of sailor! If we're in the boat, we can excuse just about everything else if the sailor is skillful. Given the choice between a really polite unskilled sailor and a salty, brash, skilled sailor, we'd take the skilled one every time, especially in rough seas. Unless, of course, we're not in the boat. Then we just want him to be nice.

If this proverb is generally true, then why do we pray for God to give us "smooth seas" more than for Him to make us into "skillful sailors"?

Like the proverb, everything about prayer is premised on the goal. According to our prayers, it seems our goal is all too often that we would have smooth sailing. "Lord, just make the interview go smoothly. Just help the move be without any troubles. Just let my conversation with the principal to go OK. Just lower those waves a bit ... no ... a lot."

But that's not Jesus' goal for us. His goal for you is that you increasingly resemble Him in every way possible, much like a skillful sailor, experienced in navigating life as a follower, even when the swells are high. If that's the goal, then everything about prayer should be premised on that, praying for God to make us more Christlike rather than asking Him to take away the rough seas that produce skillful sailors.

A Christlike follower is what Jesus wants most out of a follower. If we're "in the boat," committed to the life of following Christ, then it's what we should want most, too - for ourselves and others. Unless, of course, we're not in the boat, unconcerned about the purpose of the sea. Then smooth seas are about the only thing left to pray for.

Guide your prayers toward the goal Jesus has ... as you pray for yourself, for your family and those closest to you, for your fellow believer, and for those who do not know Jesus. Pray for God to develop skillful sailors, and also pray for the rough seas necessary to make them so. When the seas are already rough, pray first for the rough seas to hone the skills of the sailor, and then for the waves to subside. We don't need to pray for hardship and heartache. We certainly don't need to develop a martyr mentality. However, we can certainly set our prayers on what Jesus wants most.

God is the "God of Comfort." That does not mean He's the God of comfortableness, but that He comforts those who are afflicted and overwhelmed. If you are feeling overwhelmed right now, the waves are crashing over the rails, I'm not lowering the boom and expecting you to buck up and just grow. "To the task, you scurvy dog ... Arrrrrrr!!!!" There are times when we just need comfort from the God of Comfort.

On the other hand, I do want to keep a weather eye to the horizon of discipleship and check ourselves that we're not praying for God to take away the rough seas He intends for the purpose of making skillful sailors.

What are you looking for?

There was a time of little choice. Not long ago, the news you got was whatever the local paper decided to print and what the local TV and radio stations decided to broadcast. You didn't get to pick, and the only filter you had was your choice whether or not to read a given article. If you were lucky, your source of news was relatively objective.

Then cable TV happened. Then the Internet happened. And then we had plenty of choices. Not only could we choose sources that leaned more in our preferred direction on any topic or interest, we could effectively filter out anything we didn't want, whether it was a topic we didn't care about or an opposing view on a topic we did care about.

Then social media happened, and we could easily repost any article that affirmed the view we already had, or post the worst of the view we didn't like, with the comment, "See? See how wrong they are and how right I am?" Politics, religion, conference rivals, race, terrorism, vaccinations, and ... sadly ... dress colors.

It is not my concern here to encourage you to be fairminded and read a variety of views to be well-rounded, informed, and empathetic. Of course you should, but barking up that tree distracts from another tree I want to yelp up.

Posting only the best of your side and the worst of the other side, then crying out, "See?!?", is dishonest. It's unnecessarily polarizing in an environment already about to snap. It makes you feel better about what you already believe, and shuts off any maturation of your view. It reveals some level of insecurity about your own view, like snuggling up in bed with your blankie and teddy bear during a rainstorm rather than running outside and playing in the pooling waters with the neighbor kids.

We end up reading the news, looking for ways to say, "Gotcha!", rather than to learn about the world around us.

Most of all, it presents an inaccurate view of the Kingdom of God. It tells others that the king you serve is not a listener. It paints a picture of a fragile kingdom, threatened by complex views. Apparently, this kingdom is not into dialog, interaction, discovery, and mutual respect. It makes rigidity the king, rather than a King who is so secure that he fears no opinion or a King who delights in others more than in their opinons. It diverts eyes away from this King.

Disagree. In fact, be really good at disagreeing. Be really, really good while you disagree.