Did God Create Some Humans to be Damned? Part 1

Over the next several weeks I will be publishing here installments of a paper I wrote on behalf of my fellow elders in my church.  In it I attempted to provide some perspective on the thorny question of how sin can exist in a world created by a good God.  Notice I said perspective and not answer because many brilliant man and woman have preceded me, are alive today, and will arise in the future with far better minds than I possess, who nevertheless won't be able to definitively answer this question.  Alas, I would much rather take the high road and continue to have us consider what it means to be dwellers in God's kingdom, in Christ, but I cannot seem to evade these difficult theological questions; such is one of the challenges that goes with the territory.  The following paper will likely not satisfy anyone; the scholars among you will find it poorly attested, and the rest of you will find it too heady.  Please don't give up on it, though; because the exercise will be good for all our brains and hopefully cause us to wrestle with--perhaps for the first time--what we believe and why.  BONSAI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Presuppositions

In order to give an answer to the question, “If God knew some would reject Him and yet created them, anyway, doesn’t that mean he created them for damnation?” I must first list the seven presuppositions undergirding my thinking.

1) Because God is Good whatever He wills is Good; God’s will always flows out of His inherent Goodness.  One reason we can be certain we can trust God to be faithful to His promises is because His Goodness is His very nature.  It is as the Psalmist confidently trusts:

He restores my strength.

He leads me down the right paths

for the sake of his reputation. (Ps. 23:3)

The presupposition opposing this is held by the so-called High-Calvinists.  It states, “Whatever God wills is good because He willed it.”  This supposition, also called voluntarism, was perfected—if not invented— in the 13^th century by Duns Scotus, who firmly asserted that for God to be God, God must be absolutely free.  And voluntarism became the foundation of Reformed theology.  For example, in, Bondage of the Will, Luther states,

God is that Being, for whose will no cause or reason is to be assigned, as a rule or standard by which it acts, seeing that, nothing is superior or equal to it, but it is itself the rule of all things.  For if it acted by any rule or standard, or from any cause or reason, it would no longer be the will of God.[i]

One of the main problems I have with voluntarism is if it were true, it would leave us doubting God’s faithfulness to His promises.  If His will is only a pure expression of His free, unbridled power and not His goodness, then God could change His mind, if He so chose, in order to demonstrate His power.

2) God will not act in contradiction of His Goodness; God is God.

3) God is relational.  The whole Biblical narrative attests to this fact, but a particularly poignant demonstration of the relational nature of God is found in Matthew 23:37,

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would have none of it!” [NET]

We also know God is relational because of the eternal relationship of the three Persons of the Trinity.  And this relationship is bonded together by love; for God is love.

4) There is a right order that both defines and is defined by love; God is holy. The inscrutable Divine nature  is Goodness, which is love and holiness in perfect tension, where by tension is meant that if either side—love or holiness—is diminished, or eliminated, both sides are lost.  That Goodness can be defined by the tension of love and holiness is supported by Micah 6:8.  Probably the most explicit statement of the tension of love and holiness is found in Ephesians 1:4,

For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love. [NET]

But the love/holiness tension is ubiquitous throughout the Scriptures[ii], and usually stated in terms of mercy and justice (see below).

5) God’s love does not want to be contained.  But because of its nature, love can be contained by one rejecting it.

6) Therefore,  righteous relationships, by definition, are when love is freely chosen and shared through translation—not as a transaction—between the lovers in  the perfect tension of love and holiness.  Love is not a matter of deal making or coercion, but freely giving and freely receiving and receiving in order to freely give again.

7) God is sovereign over His sovereignty; although, this is really a restatement of Presupposition 2 (above).

God’s Purpose in Creation

Next, before we can properly address the thesis question of this paper, we must establish what we know about God’s purpose in creation.  God created the physical world—the cosmos—to be joined with the spiritual world—heaven-- to become God’s dominion—the kingdom of God.
 

“Heaven is My throne, and the earth My footstool.”

Love was both the motivation and the purpose of creating the kingdom of God.  His kingdom is a place of righteous relationships, where by righteous relationship I mean one set apart from all other types of relationships because it is grounded, empowered, and driven by love in perfect tension with holiness.  Thus, God created beings with whom He could dwell, and therefore they—God and created beings--could dwell together in righteous relationships:

Surely your goodness and faithfulness will pursue me all my days,

and I will live in the Lord’s house for the rest of my life (Ps. 23:6). [NET]

Putting it another way, God created beings capable of sharing His Divine nature (II Peter 1:3,4).  By necessity, then, God created these beings in His image (Genesis 1:27).  Such creatures could reflect God’s image back to God, which means God’s love flows between God and the creatures and back to God freely in the perfect tension of love and holiness.

Because of the righteous relationship between God and His image bearers, there can be, consequentially, righteous relationships between the image bearers.  This truth is behind the two commandments summing up the Law and Prophets (i.e., the entire Scriptural narrative) and Jesus’ careful ordering of them:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37, 38).’” [NET]

It is through these righteous relationships—God and His image bearers, and between His image bearers—human beings fulfill their task as God’s regents over the cosmos:

When I look up at the heavens, which your fingers made, and see the moon and the stars, which you set in place, Of what importance is the human race, that you should notice them?

Of what importance is mankind, that you should pay attention to them, and make them a little less than the heavenly beings? You grant mankind honor and majesty; you appoint them to rule over your creation; you have placed everything under their authority, including all the sheep and cattle, as well as the wild animals, the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea

and everything that moves through the currents of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your reputation throughout the earth (Psalm 8:3-9)! [NET]

And as the Psalmist so beautifully concludes, God’s kingdom—His Dominion of righteous relationships—is established in His Goodness: God’s reputation.

---

[i] Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will.  Kindle Books, Loc. No. 2501.

[ii] E.g., Gal. 5:13-26; Col. 3:12-14;I Pet. 1:22-25;I Thes. 4:1-12; Ps. 25:8

Dr. Z

When I was in fifth grade my parents went away for the weekend leaving me with the next door neighbors.  When they returned home my mother asked me how it had gone and what did I end up doing.  I told her I went to a movie.  "Oh?" she said, "Which one?" "Doctor Zhivago," I proudly answered.  My mother was livid.

I've read Pasternak's novel three times since those formative years, and seen the movie countless more times.  Tonight I screened Dr. Z for my daughter and my wife.  My daughter liked it, but didn't like the ending; my wife still loathes the film, and I suspect she always will. I don't blame her, really; one can only like a few of the characters in the tale, such as Tonya, her mother, and father, and perhaps a handful of others; all of whom have limited air time.  I typically don't like stories where I can't like a main character; so I should agree with my wife on this one.  But I don't, and I will explain why in a minute.

In college I took two history courses as part of my humanities requirement: Russian History, and Soviet history.  They were both taught by a professor who had defected from the Soviet Union with his parents and siblings after WWII.  His lectures were riveting; he made history, not just Russian history come alive with his anecdotes, perspectives, and analyses.  He also smoked these jet-black Russian cigars while he lectured; actually, he inhaled them as I and the rest of his students looked on aghast.

There are two things relevant to the present discussion I would like to relate from those Russian history lectures.  Firstly, he told us how maybe only 20% of the Soviet population actually believed what was published in the newspaper, Pravda.  This was quite ironic, of course, because Pravda means truth.  There was nothing the Russian people could do about it at that point, being under Brezhnev's thumb. My professor went on to say about 70% of Americans believed what they read in American newspapers.  And for 1977 this was a reasonable position for people to take because by and large American journalism was trustworthy then.

Secondly, when our professor had been called to Washington to assist our diplomats with visitors from the Soviet Union, some young professors from Colorado College stood in for him.  They spoke glibly about all the arguments they had had with our professor as they extolled the virtues of Bolshevism.  They as much as said our professor was quite naive in his repudiation of communism.  I thought at the time these guys, who had probably grown up in upper middle class homes and attended Harvard or some other Ivy League school, had a lot of nerve to challenge our professor who had actually lived under the Soviet system.  But even though the communist systems have proven themselves to be political and economic failures, after butchering millions upon millions of people in the bargain, I still know some who believe communism is a viable social option.  And if given the chance, they would embrace communism with open arms.

This is why I like Doctor Zhivago so much.

The critics might be right in downgrading Dr. Z for its over-inflated romanticism, but they miss the point.  It is a fairly accurate and true depiction of a society in self-destruction.  It is a slice of history.  And all history needs to be seen--whether dramatized or not-- lest we forget and live through it again.

Dr. Z is a cautionary tale.  It warns us of at least two factors that play into destroying a society.  The first is the cold indifference of those who have resources towards those who do not.  When I watch the dragoons slaughter the poor peaceful demonstrators near the beginning of the story, I think how those wealthy who looked on from their lavish parties in their ivory palaces instead of interceding to bring justice, brought certain irreversible calamity to both themselves and those poor people--that is, those who had it in their power to make positive changes to Russia, for the benefit of all, didn't, and so left the door open for the opportunists.

The second warning from this great epic, then, is how easily wolves in sheep's clothing can infiltrate a flock of complacent sheep.  When Evgrav, Yuri Zhivago's Bolshevik brother, spoke how the Bolsheviks would win when the boots of the Russian soldiers finally wore out in WWI, he told the truth.  But the truth was not that they would usher in a system in which everyone would prosper and live as brothers, as the Bolshevik propaganda spewed in Pravda and elsewhere, rather a small group of opportunists would take advantage of a bad situation to wrest power and wealth for themselves at the expense of everyone else.  And they accomplished this by publishing a steady stream of lies through control of the press and the liberal use of mob tactics.  And the people let the thugs lead the people to the slaughter house--like the Morlocks did the Eloi in H.G. Wells' Time Machine--because the initial subtle incursions by the thugs didn't immediately and intimately affect most of the people, while the rest remained afraid or in desperate want.

Unlike the 1970s, the American press is no longer trustworthy.  There have been too many distortions of the facts by the press exposed in recent days to believe otherwise.  And it is when you see a cockroach, you need to start worrying about an infestation.  Yet the American public has been largely silent to these glaring breaches of trust.  Why?  I'll let you answer that question.

The press or certain political figures might challenge me at this juncture in the same way the Bolshevik commissar did Yuri when Yuri rebuked him for not admitting there was typhus and starvation in the city: "Why is it so important to you that I admit it?"  And I would answer along with Yuri, "Because it is so."

Jesus teaches us that it is truth that sets us free.  We haven't been getting much truth lately. But what is even more frightening is we don't seem to care.

We need to watch stories such as Dr. Z, even if we don't particularly like them or the characters in them, because they remind us of what has happened before and therefore awaken us to what might be happening now.  As has been said many times, if we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.

Perelandra

Recently, my daughter found herself in a difficult situation.  I felt sorry for her because I know how important it is to her not to hurt people's feelings, especially people closest to her.  But there she was, like in the old song, stuck in the middle again.  My daughter, even though a teenager, has already traveled extensively, so someone innocently asked her what her favorite place to visit is.  Immediately, before she could breathe, loved ones started lobbying for their favorite destinations.  They were pleasant enough in this, but the threat of disappointment should she not choose their first choice was certainly palpable.  We still don't know her opinion, and I suspect we might never know it.

Even though C.S. Lewis is no science fiction writer of the caliber of say, Isaac Asimov, it amazes me of how little air-time is given to Lewis' so-called space trilogy.  I personally feel it is a brilliant and quite unique contribution to the genre.  The third book, That Hideous Strength, is a terrifying tour de force; I have never read a book that so powerfully and chillingly portrays the battle of good versus evil as does this piece.  It starts out slowly, but gradually picks up speed off the heat of your blood.  As horrific That Hideous Strength is, the second book, Perelandra, is philosophical.

In Perelandra, the protagonist of the trilogy is transported to the planet Venus, where he finds a second garden of Eden untouched by rebellion.  He has the chance to speak with the Eve figure to help her hold to the right path.  The conflict arises when a second visitor invades the world, seeking to sow corruption.  The ensuing three-way conversation is a potent discourse on the daunting questions of existence, purpose, and meaning.  The reader easily gets dragged into the debate, and for this reason, of the three books, Perelandra takes the longest to read.

Now, what does all this have to do with my poor daughter's dilemma?  One issue raised in Perelandra is that of making comparisons.  Let's eves drop (no pun intended) into the conversation between the protagonist, Ransom (whom she calls Piebald) and the Lady, in progress...

"What you made me see," answered the Lady, "is as plain as the sky, but I never saw it before.  Yet it has happened every day.  One goes into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one's mind.  Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of.  One joy was expected and another is given.  But this I had never noticed before--that the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back, or setting aside.  The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment before you.  And if you wished--if it were possible to wish--you could keep it there.  You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got.  You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other....  And this, O' Piebald, is the glory and wonder you have made me see; that it is I, I myself, who turn from the good expected to the given good.  Out of my own heart I do it.  One can conceive a heart which did not: which clung to the good it had first thought of and turned the good which was given it into no good." [Perelandra, Collier Books: 1944, pp.68,69.]

When we live our lives making constant comparisons, we cheat ourselves.  And whether or not we may realize it, this embezzlement of one's self by one's self will eventually lead to a bitterness that, in turn, becomes a covetousness.  It is a disposition that drives us to steal: in the case of my daughter, the good and the joy of her own experiences.  And should this theft go unchallenged, it will lead in some cases to a wholesale robbery of the person's identity and purpose.  As I have said before, forced assimilation is a consummate evil.

Such is only the beginning of the woes engendered by covetousness.  Other transgressions such as murder, adultery, bigotry, elitism, hatred, and so on, all grow from the root of covetousness.  Saint Paul said the love of money is the root of all evil.  I would suggest the love of money stems from covetousness that arises from the fear basic to a discontented heart.  And where does this discontentment come from?: all too often, the intoxication of making comparisons.

Of course, most of us have fond memories of some happy place of our past; we might favorably compare it against everything else we've experienced.  There is nothing wrong with this.  But it is a thin ice to tread.  As the Lady of Perelandra suggested, it takes an act of will to not let those past glories rob us of the present ones.  It perhaps takes even greater self-control to celebrate the glories of others and avoid fettering others to one's own glories, and so take from them.

The simple and wondrous truth is our God and Creator offers us an infinite kingdom not a limited one. As breathtaking standing at the entrance to this great kingdom might me, God would not keep us there. Instead, He leads us forward on an eternal journey of discovery, where every new good is followed by another, and each good is the best good.  It is the real Perelandra, where one cannot find the verb, compare, in the dictionary; because to revel in the present is to live, but to compare against the past is to wither and die.

  

Let's Be Honest, Shall We?

A certain entertainer who will go unnamed because I have no interest in vilifying individuals, had this to say about Bush and his administration, and I quote: "What is the difference between that terrorist and and other terrorists?" and later, "What do you call Bush when the war he put us in to date has killed almost as many Americans as died on 9/11....By most definitions Bush can be considered a terrorist."  When this entertainer was asked if he expected to be criticized for his remarks, he had this to say, "Bring it on, dissent is central to any democracy."  But does he really believe that?  Here is what he said later concerning those American leaders opposed to Obama's policies (Americans, mind you, you know, co-citizens with this entertainer and all the rest of us citizens living in the United States of America, land of the free, A DEMOCRACY): "The only thing left to Barack Obama to do is to work like a third-world dictator and just put all those guys in jail.  You're violating the American desire."  So this entertainer doesn't really advocate the democratic process of open and free dissent, except when it is convenient to his agenda and the agenda of those he wishes to align.

What I want to know is aren't we all getting tired of this hypocrisy?  May I remind us that Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and all the rest of the lesser notorious dictators all thought their systems were the right way and represented the "desire of the people".  And all of them put those people who disagreed with them "in jail"; only they weren't called jails; they were called concentration camps, re-education camps, internment camps, and labor camps--places where if the hapless "dissenter" couldn't be persuaded to change his or her opinion, he or she was tortured and slaughtered--all in the name of someone's idea of truth.  How many innocent people have been "sacrificed" for their leaders' policies in the last 100 years? 100 million?  "Oh, Bruce," people have told me, "you're exaggerating; it was more like maybe 10-50 million; besides we know better now; we are more civilized; we really know that system A would work and we now have the wisdom to make it work without all that bloodshed."  The entertainers remark unwittingly tells a different story--the true story: "I will get what I want, and I'll get it by any means necessary!"

Now before you get the wrong impression, I am NOT saying Obama or any leader in this great country is advocating the extremist policies implied by that entertainer's remarks.  My purpose is not to attack people, politics, or groups--regardless of which side of the aisle they might sit.  What I am attacking is the double standard.

If you really believe what I think that entertainer and most others do,"I will get what I want, and I'll get it by any means necessary!" then admit it openly!  Be honest! Stop with the shell-game, already.  But you won't do that.  And you know why? Because if you were to allow your ideology to debated in an open and totally free marketplace of ideas, where everyone must play by the same rules, where the press is required to truthfully represent each idea, and accurately report incidences (something woefully lacking at late in American journalism--another thing that should both anger and scare us in light of the great Twentieth century experiments I alluded to above), I strongly suspect your ideology would not stand up to the scrutiny.  And you know it, which is why you resort to intimidation and name-calling, all under the guise of free-speech, justice, and democracy; the very practices you accuse your opposition of, you practice.  You play out this double standard because it takes the eyes off your own duplicity.  Hypocrites!

I've seen this hypocrisy play out in homes all my life--I've been a party to it at times, to my shame.  It goes like this: "Don't you dare criticize me for X, or be angry if you had to wait for me, or challenge my eating habits, or criticize the company I keep, or the books I read, or the way I drive, or the way I eat, or the cloths I wear, and don't you dare say I live by a double standard when I want to use a weapon in an argument that I won't allow you to use!  Because if you do any of those things or things like them, you don't understand me, you are shaming me, you are not allowing me to express my feelings, you don't appreciate me, you don't love me, you are emotionally abusing me, you are controlling me, and on and on and on."  Okay, but if the person receiving this riot act attempts to hold the other person to those same standards the poor person will get, "you don't understand me, you are shaming me, you are not allowing me to express my feelings, you don't appreciate me, you don't love me, you are emotionally abusing me, you are controlling me, and on and on and on."  Hypocrites!  At least be honest and admit you want to be treated by a different and in all cases more tolerant standard than you will ever allow anyone else to operate, and be done.  But of course, you won't do this because everyone, even though they live the same way, will look askance at such honestly because they, as you, know deep down it is a lie--nay, it is evil.  Good Lord, you won't admit it because it might mean you won't get what you want; at least be honest about that.

We are all hypocrites, except unlike the entertainer quoted above, we don't get paid for it.  But we sure make everyone else pay for it with divorce, law suits, theft, betrayals, character assassinations, cheating, lying, torture, murder, war, bigotry, greed, abuses of all kinds, being marginalized, gossip, cliques, cronyism, terrorism, being ostracized, cruelty, hatred, and...did I leave anything out?

Do you really want peace on this planet, or is it you want to be comfortable by having it exactly your way?  If it's the latter, great!  I mean, I think it is a wrong viewpoint, but I ain't going to convince you of that because you aren't even honest enough to admit to yourself it is the standard by which you live.  How then can you possibly be open to any objective dialog?  Let's be honest, people.  There's a gigantic elephant in the middle of our global room with the words "selfish-ambition and conceit" painted on its side like the scarlet letter.  Let's either repent of it or lay our cards on the table and admit we live by it and we will continue to live by it.   Let's be honest, please! The smoke and mirrors are killing us all.

Anger Management

The topic of anger came up recently....I lost my temper.  And what usually happens happened: the strange mixture of yelling and silence, the pacing back and forth, the attending to tasks one wouldn't otherwise think of doing, the seemingly clever repartee, the flashing of probing looks, and the tense waiting for all of it to work its magic to persuade the other person to capitulate.  It was all a bunch of nonsense I should have outgrown years ago, because as always with such outbursts of anger, the person I was really angry with and who really needed to capitulate was myself.

There is valid righteous anger, where one is angry out of a genuine concern for the welfare of the recipient and the healthy restoration of all relationships involved.  It was with righteous anger Jesus overturned the money-changers' tables in the court of the Gentiles in the Temple in Jerusalem.  Jesus was genuinely concerned for God and His relationship with us.  The very things meant to turn us back to God for needed mercy the church officials exploited to line their pockets--officials such as Annas who would quite soon delight in the crucifixion of Jesus.  And all of this was going on before the eyes of Gentiles--perhaps some who had come seeking the one true God--many who likely turned away in disgust at this spectacle of hypocrisy.  Jesus was angry, and He had every right to be so.  But He didn't use anger as a weapon for self-promotion, nor did it devolve into one.  Jesus' love for God, the observers and even those guilty parties was too deep for that.

Genuine righteous anger never becomes all consuming because its motive is love.  Unfortunately, even righteous anger can turn ugly in inexperienced hands, which pretty much encompasses all of us.  The fact of the matter is the most diabolical weapon wielded by those pursuing self-interest is "being right".

The anger Jesus expressed that day just before Passover two thousand years ago was righteous and rare--not the kind of anger most often consuming us, and certainly not the anger I allowed myself recently.  Jesus speaks to this far more common unrighteous anger in His so-called Sermon on the Mount.  Here's what He had to say, "You heard that it was said in ancient times, 'You will not murder.' Whoever murders will be liable to judgment.  I say to you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever says to his brother, 'brainless!', will be liable to the Sanhedrin [a judiciary body in Israel]; whoever says, 'Fool!' will be liable into hell."

Much could be said about this powerful teaching, but for the present I would have us observe one thing. If left unchecked, unrighteous anger will always escalate to some form of murder, be it literal killing--as in the case of Cain murdering his brother Abel--character assassination, or some variant of cruel subjugation of the recipient.  And for this reason the escalation leading to this end is a step-wise dehumanization of the recipient.  This is why Jesus teaches that the judgment becomes progressively more severe as one continues to vent one's anger with increasing venom; it is why one can with cold indifference, turn away from one's spouse after one's finished, or leave him or her devastated, or in thankfully rare situations, easily pull the trigger of a gun.  Because we have--perhaps without realizing it--dehumanized the other person to the degree he or she becomes in our mind nothing more than an object to be vanquished.

When we approach arguments by seeking to manipulate the issues, the presentation of the issues, or in any way intimidate the other person, we are in effect dehumanizing him or her.  This is why such arguments end badly and will raise themselves up again at some later time with a renewed and well-fed vengeance.

In order to avoid these unpleasant fates, we would do well to execute a little bit of anger management.  Unfortunately, in the heat of anger it is often too difficult to be objective because that's the way unrighteous anger possesses us.  We should try anyway, and if we can't, we should later, after we've cooled down, seek to understand what made us angry in the first place.  I'm telling you, 99.99% of the time it's because we were really angry at ourselves for some reason such as we decided for some self-serving motive not to do something we should have.  And instead of owning up to it we attempt to cover up our guilt by becoming angry with the disappointed person, and it quickly goes downhill from there.

When we discover the origin of our anger--regardless of what it might be--we need to reconcile with the other person so that the specter of dehumanization flees, and relationships are restored.  This is why the very next thing Jesus says is, "If, then, you present your gift upon the altar, and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and first go, be reconciled with your brother, and then upon returning, present your gift."

Necrology

As I have said in earlier blogs, I enjoy reading through the archives of Chemical Engineering News, which is the news magazine of the American Chemical Society.  It is like going back in time and listening in on real time conversations between people discussing current events and their take on what it all means.  Much could be written about those exchanges; suffice it for the present to say that not much has changed for Americans in the last 60 plus years; the names have changed, governments have changed around them, but the rancor, politics, and ills haven't.

One thing I enjoy doing while perusing these time capsules is to read the column that in the fifties and before was entitled, necrology.  This is just a fancy word for obituary.  I read the obituaries because I'm interested in seeing if there has been a significant shift in mortality age in the last sixty plus years--there has.  I'm also fascinated by the tributes written for the luminaries of science who had finally succumbed--names such as Fleming, Einstein, and Alder (who?).  But the main reason I read them is to honor those who have gone before me.

The vast majority of the names appearing in those memorials are names long since forgotten--forgotten because "out of sight, out of mind" and because those who remembered them are also long gone.  Some names I find in necrology, even though they left behind long lists of accomplishments, have been "buried with her name"--to quote the old Beatles' lyric. This makes me sad, so I resurrect them--if only for a brief moment--to celebrate their lives.  And after I'm done, I, with the majority of humanity, promptly forget their names.

The Bible speaks frequently about the transience of humankind: man is like a flower that grows up, blooms, withers and dries, to be blown away by the wind, and become no more; or, humankind is nothing more than a vapor; or, people are but ghosts who appear for a time, and are gone.  Yet at the same time, the Bible teaches the eternal value and worth God reckons humankind.  In Psalm 8 we read,

"Of what importance is the human race, that you should notice them?

Of what importance is mankind,that you should pay attention to them,

and make them a little less than the heavenly beings?

You grant mankind honor and majesty;

you appoint them to rule over your creation;

you have placed everything under their authority...."

Is this a contradiction?  If not, then why does the Bible assert such diametrically opposing ideas?  The Psalmist considers this later in Psalm 39 as he is being pressured to account for God's seemingly misplaced justice--that is, the interviewer who is basking in the wealth of this world, challenges the Psalmist's God for not so blessing the Psalmist who is obviously devoted to God.  Here is the Psalmist's reply,

"I was stone silent; I held back the urge to speak. My frustration grew; my anxiety intensified. As I thought about it, I became impatient. Finally I spoke these words: “O Lord, help me understand my mortality and the brevity of life! Let me realize how quickly my life will pass! Look, you make my days short-lived, and my life span is nothing from your perspective. Surely all people, even those who seem secure, are nothing but vapor. Surely people go through life as mere ghosts. Surely they accumulate worthless wealth without knowing who will eventually haul it away.”

Before we say anything about his answer to our question, it is notable how carefully the Psalmist avoids blaspheming God; the Psalmist waits through his temptation to give a careless response borne out of anger or intellectualism, and then finally speaks without speaking for God, who must speak for Himself because only God understands God.  We would all do well to heed the Psalmist's wisdom in this, especially in an age that wants quick answers--not even Google has access to enough information to allow us to speak for God.  Instead, the Psalmist answers our question by addressing the problem:  humankind has misplaced its trust.

The Bible calls us to consider our transience precisely because we have such great worth to our Creator.  When we stop and consider our insignificance, only then do we have a chance to turn back to God in humility, and seek Him as the only one who can provide us with the purpose, meaning, and abundant life--yes, eternal life--which, as the loving and personal God He is, He is ready to do.  When we ignore or pass-off our mortality, we so easily put our trust in all the things ultimately the least secure.  So the Psalmist says,

"But now, O Lord, upon what am I relying? You are my only hope! Deliver me from all my sins of rebellion!"

God wants us to enjoy creation with him forever, which is an abundant eternal life beyond words to describe.  But to get us to that place with Him, He must move us to loath our rebellion gushing from our hearts of selfish-ambition and conceit.  We must understand the joy and fulfilled existence God has created us for with Him is perfect and complete in itself, so there are no alternatives that will ever satisfy us.  Because God loves us so much, He is relentless in His effort to drive us back to Him, even if the prods He employs are painful and humiliating.

So consider the transience of your life in the present, and seek to invest the time you have in God's kingdom instead of attempting to build your own.  Join with the Psalmist who cries out to God:

"Hear my prayer, O Lord! Listen to my cry for help! Do not ignore my sobbing! For I am dependent on you, like one residing outside his native land; I am at your mercy, just as all my ancestors were. Turn your angry gaze away from me, so I can be happy before I pass away."

Good News and Bad News

I have good news and bad news.  Which would you like to hear first?

We have an original painting in our media room painted by our dear friend, Jane, picturing three guys waiting for something.  It is a fascinating piece, and Jane won't tell us what she was thinking when she painted it; so we are left to ponder a universe of possible meanings.  Anyway, when I see it I see three classic human responses to some future but imminent and also uncertain event.  One guy stares fixedly ahead with anxious eyes.  You see in his face a desire to look away, if for no other reason than to mitigate his stress level, but he can't bring himself to do it because somehow he believes he will better manage the coming disaster if he can prepare himself for it by watching it unfold.  Even though it is quite apparent to the observer his terror of anticipation is wreaking far more damage on the fearful man than any conceivable future event ever could, including death.  The second man reads a book as he waits.  Perhaps it's a book on seven things you need to know when....  But I doubt it.  This chap at least affects a sense of peace.  The third guy looks ahead as did the first person, but this one is smoking a cigarette.  As with the first, you sense he is anticipating something unpleasant about to happen; but unlike the first soul, this guy is shouting in his silence, "Bring it on!  Come on, give me your best shot!"  He waits with the alertness of a pugilist so he can be sure to hold the advantage over whatever menace is coming.  And if he can't, you believe he will fix it so he goes out with as many as possible.

Mind you, there is nothing in this picture to suggest any pending doom.  Everything appears quite innocuous.  One is pretty sure the only thing pending is the daily commute.  Indeed, this banality is corroborated by the shadow of a man standing in front of the scene but outside the view of the painting, cast over the pit where the three men are waiting.  From the shadow we know the unseen man is wearing an overcoat and a hat, and reading a newspaper.

Four men in this riveting scene are waiting for something.  It might be the 5:45 to the burbs, or it might be news--either good or bad, or as in the present case, both.  Which of the four persons are you?  Having met them through my mind's eye, which of them do you think would want the good news first, and which the bad?  And would their reasons be the same?  If they aren't--and I strongly suspect they aren't--will they be the same tomorrow, or the next day?  In many ways, human nature is like that mysterious anticipated thing in the painting: unpredictable in its continuity.

Well, I apologize to those who like to wait for desert because I'm going to give the good news first.  The good news is another person has chosen to serve and love Jesus; the person has entered into his salvation and there is great rejoicing both from me and from heaven.  What a beautiful thing it is to watch someone find true life.  God is good.

The the bad news is another witness to this glorious event has answered it with, "Hooray, another person's on our side!"  When I learned of this response to such good news, I became crestfallen.  Here's why.

Our world since the fall of humankind has been competitive.  It has partitioned itself up into a zillion us- and-thems.  I saw myself in this person's glee and wept inside.  It dawned on me I still do not see what Jesus accomplished for all of us on the cross with inestimable cost as being a great gift from a personal/infinite God longing to dwell together with His creation in order to love them forever in unending life; instead I see it as an argument to be won, a person to be added to the country club roster, or an advantage over an increasingly virulent opposition.  My concern is still more about my reputation, the club's reputation, the flock's survival, or my own glory.  Yet the world is populated by a humanity that wants deep down to just be loved and to love.  They don't realize this longing drives them to do all the abhorrent things they do--because all things done outside of God's kingdom are abhorrent because they are fundamentally the seeking of truth in a certain lie.  And I look for ways to win these souls over, not realizing such a motive only drives them further away--drives them away from the only hope any of us have for being sated by the living water flowing freely from our creator through His son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ--the very love we are desperate for.

So I make this public confession, and I ask forgiveness from whomever might be reading this.  Then I would ask them to look beyond my flawed motives and the faults of all those confessing the name of Christ to see God waiting with open and loving arms to hold them in His love and life forever.