Be Sure

The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.  -- Psalm 121:8

As humans here on earth, we are constantly coming to the end of things and beginning new things.  A phase of life finishes, another starts.  We are creatures of transition and fluctuation.  Many of us may find that we have regrets about the past, struggles in the present, and fears for the future.  We should have foreseen and planned for the current situation years ago.  Now we are trying to overcome obstacles in the path we are on while wondering if more drastic changes await us next week or next year. 

There is one constant, one dependable, unfailing anchor to which we may cling.  The Lord is with us whether we are going out of the place where we have been safe and comfortable or entering a new place of uncertainties and unknowns.  The good news is that we do not need to worry so much about security and stability in a world that is insecure and unstable by definition for, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

The book of Hebrews which talks so much about Jesus as our great High Priest reflects what the psalmist says.  The earthly priests of Aaron’s line stood in the sanctuary, offering, every day, always more sacrifices to atone for the sins of God’s people.  Yet, it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (Hebrews 10:4).  The sacrifice of Christ did take away sin and had to be done only once for all (connected into eternity and done eternally by the one act):   But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:12).  We are thus kept by God from the moment of Christ’s death on the Cross and forevermore. 

As we go about our ordinary and mundane lives here on earth, the hand of God is upon us for protection and blessing whether our transitions are easy and gradual or sudden, disruptive and terrifying.  

 In times like these, we need a Savior.  But, be very sure, your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock.

Straight

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever — Hebrews 13:8

Hebrews talks about the end of the daily, repeated sacrifices and emphasizes the once-for-all or eternal nature of Christ's sacrifice. The former Covenant demanded that the priest stand and minister continually in the Holy Place. There was no end to it, no rest. Christ finished and sat down. He got it done — paradoxically enough, because what He did was eternal. His sacrifice was of a different kind, the blood applied to an altar outside time and space.

When Jesus began His ministry, a leper came to Him and said, "If You are willing, You can make me clean." Jesus replied, "I will". The leper was wise enough not to question the power of God or the ability of God. He knew that the One could change his circumstance, could intervene in his life, could restore and heal. The only question is, Will He? And the question is important. If one is a leper — read "sinner" — it is reasonable to ask God if He will cleanse me specifically. I may not be worthy of forgiveness and restoration. I may not be acceptable to God for some reason. The wise leper does not presume upon God, nor does he accuse God of being capricious. I have to ask God if, in my particular case given all my personal contrariness, I am in line for cleansing.

The good news is that God is no respecter of persons. Christ's work covers each and every one of us regardless of our sins or our history. As He loves each of us individually, He deals with each of us individually. Sometimes He may tell us to do something different, to head in a new direction: "Go, show yourself to the priest." He may spit on us or put mud in our eyes. He may call out our name, take us by the hand, or simply touch us and say, "I will." All of us are different. All of us are subject to change. Jesus is always the same. The differences are not in Him but in us.

We are the ones operating in time and space, influenced by circumstances, traversing various landscapes, sometimes on the mountain, sometimes in valley. We are walking by day, stumbling by night. We change with the seasons.

When the Israelites were preparing to enter the Promised Land, the Lord laid out the the lines of their inheritance by tribe and clan. With that Moses also laid down a strict rule: You shall not move your neighbor's landmark, which the men of old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. We all need permanent markers, absolutes that we can go by, stakes that we can trust.

The original front door of my childhood home was placed where the sun would shine directly into it at exactly noon in mid-summer. They built on other rooms and porches, but everything aligned from the shadows that marked the first door. Twenty-five years later when we added a room on the front, the carpenter remarked how unusual it was to find an old house "where everything was square".

If we attempt to build our lives on the shifting sands and twisting shades of current opinions, popular culture, and the philosophies and ideas of men, we will find that things get warped in a hurry. Some thought that because it was new, it was good. Unfortunately for them, nothing is new under the golden sun; the old brass lies just get polished and re-sold. Some said, "Man is the measure of all things", forgetting that it all depends on the Man. Some say, "Everything is relative" and simply make the next cut from the last without hanging onto the pattern, magnifying each error as they go along. Others argue that the system is now too complex, too advanced, and too sophisticated for the simplicity of Christ.

No, we need the Unchanging, the Absolute, the Eternal. The more complicated our world becomes, the more we differ from the ancients, the more our technology advances, the more we need Jesus to be the same. The bigger the house gets, the more we must rely on a perfect Cornerstone.

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. (Matthew 7:24-25)

The city is laid out in a square; its length and width are the same. He measured the city with the rod at 12,000 stadia. Its length, width, and height are equal. (Revelation 21:16)

Happy Return

You ascended to the heights, taking away captives; You received gifts among people, even from the rebellious, so that the LORD God might live there. – Psalm 68:18

Here is how Paul quotes that verse in Ephesians 4:8, “When He ascended on high, He took prisoners into captivity; He gave gifts to people”.

I did not read Gagdad Bob’s incredibly powerful post on Holy Saturday until this morning, but it coincides with the fact that I started reading Charles Williams’ Descent Into Hell last night.

I think I miss the evident for the obvious. Which is the forest – evident or obvious? How many trees does it take to make a forest? If a tree is a fact, is the forest an interpretation or an extrapolation? While talking to my wife yesterday, it occurred to me that a phrase in the Epistle to the Ephesians was of far greater significance than I could understand. He says, “Till we come … to a perfect man, to the measure of stature of the fullness of Christ” – that is to say until we reach maturity as measured by comparison to Christ. The Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ must come of age. He calls us to take His yoke upon us, but we cannot be unequally yoked.

Most of my relatives are not tall people. We range from short to average. Dad was about 5’7” and his nephew Clifford was about the same, maybe 5’6”. They had a neighbor named Tom who was well over six feet tall but slightly blunt on top. The three of them were cutting some logs together. When they carried the logs out on their shoulders, Dad took one end, Clifford took the other, and they suggested Tom get in the middle. Tom thought those logs were a little heavy. If you’ve ever seen a “Ma and Pa Kettle” movie with Marjorie Main, you might recall Pa’s rather mismatched team hitched to his wagon. In that case, it’s the little horse that has to work much harder to do what the big horse does.

The gospel is the “death, burial, and resurrection” of Christ. As we just celebrated, He liberated and despoiled hell – or as one local preacher puts it: Jesus razed hell. After descending to liberate and deliver, the Lord ascended to pour out the Holy Spirit with His myriad of gifts upon us. These gifts are not baubles for our adornment or playthings for our amusement; they are the means of our growth in wisdom, maturity and beauty.

The Lord has “ascended”. In this case, the obvious is that Jesus is no longer in this world, in the stream of time. He is, as it were, hidden from the Bride. He has given us the Comforter, the “earnest of our inheritance”, but He has left us in time while He waits in eternity – already perfect and unchanging, “the same yesterday, today, and forever”.

And then there is the evident. For what is He waiting?

For us, the Bride, to grow up.