E-note: Getting to Know Jesus

Dear brothers and sisters,

This week I met with a man who is trying to understand Jesus. And let's face it, Jesus is no quick study. My new friend knows this so he has been letting Jesus do most of the talking and ask most of the questions. He knows it is easy to get Jesus wrong, to take Him the way we want Him to be and not the way He really is (see John 6:25-29). In the last two months this friend has read through the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Mark. He is letting Jesus introduce Himself. He is letting Jesus set the terms of their own friendship. This is the way things must be. You see there is no man within our experience that we can simply compare Jesus to. There is no well-established, well-rehearsed set of affections that we can simply transfer to Jesus like we would to a new friend at the office. A friendship with the Lord Jesus is just that, a friendship with the Jesus who is Lord. He is the radiance of God's glory, the firstborn over all creation, the image of the invisible God. We are his friends but we are not His equals. To know Him is to follow Him to follow Him is to believe Him to believe Him is to believe in Him to believe in Him is to be loved by Him. This last little bit, "to be loved by Him," is actually the first big step. It is the key that unlocks our hearts to give away the rest of our lives to the Redeemer and His purposes. It is knowing that "I" am "loved by Him" not just that "you are" that allows "me" to see Him for who he really is. And where do I come to know, how do I come to know, that Jesus loves me, the me that I am today, the me that is full of sin and strife and death and distraction?

In my reading this week I was reminded in a poignant way of that place where the seeker sees the Lord who loves. I came across an old story told by Cornelius Plantinga Jr. in his book, "Beyond Doubt: Faith Building Devotions on Questions Christians Ask" (Eerdmans, 2002). "Somewhere back in the early eighteen hundreds a young boy in Scotland went with crowds from all the nearby villages to see a hanging. Two laboring men had quarreled with a third man and had then followed him across a pasture and slipped a knife between his ribs. After some time the two killers were caught, tried, and condemned to be hanged.

"On a lovely May morning the troops paraded to the very place where the murder had been committed. There the gallows stood - black crossbeam and two empty nooses. The criminals were led up the steps, and the grisly preparations were made. Then the infantrymen presented arms, the cavalrymen drew their swords, and the drummers lifted their sticks to start the rogues' tattoo. For just that instant, complete silence reigned across the field and through the crowd. And then, in that hush, a startled lark suddenly soared up from the foot of the gallows. Straight up it shot, as larks do, and the cascading joy of its singing seemed to come from nowhere but heaven. The young Scottish boy later said he could never forget that picture - the pure burst of loveliness in the May sky and, down below, two men kicking and twisting at the end of a rope.

"We have seen that same mixture of glory and death before. The disciples who see in Jesus Christ the image of God also see him humiliated and beaten by thugs. They see the face of God's glory puffy and running with other men's spit. They see God's Son groaning over his bloody work. At last they see him dead."

But then on the third day, "Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you!' After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord" (John 20:19-20) What love is this? What peace? A love and peace prepared for us through his body and blood on a cross. Peace of Christ, John

E-note: The Too Reverent View of "Well-Educated"

Dear brothers and sisters,

Last week I suggested there are two tempting views of education that camp outside the hearts of Christian parents (I say "tempting views" because ultimately these two views fail to honor Jesus Christ as Lord of all creation). Both of these views work with a key phrase: "well-educated". The first view holds the phrase "well-educated" with too much suspicion by saying, "As long as my child loves Jesus it doesn't matter how well-educated they are." The second view holds the phrase "well-educated" with too much reverence by saying, "As long as my child gets well-educated so they fit and function in this world it doesn't matter how serious about faith they are." I sufficiently picked on the "as-long-as-my-child-loves-Jesus" view last week. Now I'd like to pick on the "as-long-as-my-child-functions-in-this-world" view.

The problem with this view isn't simply that it relegates a child's faith to the backseat of the educational bus. The deeper problem with this view is that it construes faith as practically useless in the real world. This view tends to see faith as a private affair, like a pair of glasses that are put on Sunday morning but then put aside the rest of the week. Now why would someone see the Christian faith as such a little thing? Because they still see the "real world" as a world that does not belong to God. Seeing the Christian faith as a Sunday-only affair is another way of saying that we must approach the "real world" on terms completely outside of our faith in Christ. But this is not Christian. The "real world" is God's world. The piece of "real world" you step into every day is either a piece in rebellion before God or a piece being redeemed by God. So we must be cautioned if our heart desires children who fit and function in the "real world". We may just get our heart's desire and have well-educated children who succeed in a long rebellion against God.

The Christian desires of a Christian parent will first and foremost be that their child fits and functions well with God. The scriptures call this wisdom. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." As we saw last week, this doesn't mean religious wisdom only. It is God's wisdom for life in the "real world," a wisdom that discerns within oneself and outside oneself the rebellious ways of doing all of life and the redemptive ways of doing all of life. Let me give an example. When my children grow up I want them to be able to see through the story that broke last week about a woman giving birth to eight babies. The woman, who is unmarried, already has six children. The doctors offered "to reduce the number of fetuses" she was carrying. That's a slick way of offering "abortions". The woman declined the doctors' offer, saying she had strong moral convictions. Now her moral convictions on abortion certainly show a redemptive wisdom and reverence for God. But what about her moral convictions on In Vitro Fertilization and/or fertility drugs? What does redemptive wisdom and reverence for God look like then? Getting straight A's in high school, even in a Christian high school, will not answer that question. What will is learning to think Christianly about all things. Because Jesus is Lord over all creation He alone is worthy of our children's hearts and minds. May God grant us the grace to hold one another up and cheer one another on as we offer Him the godly offspring He seeks (Malachi 2:15). Yours in Christ, John

PS. Two weeks ago the elders sent a letter home to TBC members laying out a plan to move to weekly communion this Easter. This Sunday we begin a sermon series on the Lord's Supper in preparation for this change. Below you will find the Article of the Week as something of a primer on the subject.