Archives For life

Stop Focusing on Your Failures

samuel kee —  May 2, 2013 — Leave a comment

dysfunctionRemember that scene in the original Indiana Jones where the Nazis were finally opening the ark? What happened? Those who looked at the ark were melted instantly, but those who looked elsewhere were spared. Something like that happens on a daily basis in our lives. Some of us are being daily melted in spirit, crushed beneath the weight of our problems and struggles. This is because we’re following the strategy of the devil, who wants us to look directly at our shortcomings when they are opened up to us. Listen to how Thomas Brooks puts it:

“The first device that Satan uses to keep souls in a sad, doubting, and questioning condition—and so making their life a living hell—is by causing them to be constantly poring and musing upon their sin.”

Satan opens up our sin to us, pointing it out, reminding us of it, whispering about it to our conscience, in order to seize our eyes. Maybe you don’t want to believe in Satan and this is all a little too much for you. That’s fine, you don’t necessarily have to believe in Satan to be convinced of what I am saying. You can still recognize that we often get fixated on our failures. And the more we look, the more we melt.

It’s a devious trap, too. Because we need to recognize our shortcomings. That is essential to spiritual health; we need to be honest with ourselves and own up to our faults. However, we must not fixate on them. There comes a point when we need to say, “Enough is enough!” and look to something else.

We must learn not to focus on our sins, but on our Savior. Christians are those courageous people who have learned to look more to their Savior than to their sins. “Yeah, Satan, I know I’ve blown it again; I know that I deserve punishment and death. But what of it? I look at Jesus and I see that he’s been punished for my sins already. And his love is stronger than your hate.”

Christians are no better than anyone else. Neither are they just a bunch of chumps. They merely know where to look for a solution to the same problem that everyone shares. Christian or not, everyone is trying to find a way to escape their conscience and justify their existence. Some do it by trying to be better “next time.” Thus, their gaze goes straight to their problems. Others do it by trying to escape reality through some sort of pleasure or pursuit. “Maybe if I live it up, then I’ll forget about my faults.” Again, their focus is deadlocked on the problem rather than a solution.

And there are some things you can’t get rid of by focusing on them. In fact, the more you look, the more you’ll be consumed. Maybe what you need right now is to get your eyes off of the thing that’s killing you and to look at the One who can give you life. Look to your Savior, for as Scripture says, “whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart” (1 John 3:20).

© Samuel Kee, 2013

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Expectations

samuel kee —  April 28, 2013 — Leave a comment

where are youI’ll never forget when I chipped my teeth in college.  I was at wrestling practice and came down hard on my jaw.  I got up to my feet and felt these bits of bony teeth in my mouth.  Somewhat shocked, I ran over to my coach and said, “Coach, I chipped my teeth!”  Now, I was hoping he’d give me some sympathy, saying something like, “Why don’t you go down to the trainer and get a massage.”  Or, “You can take the rest of the practice off.”  Or even, “Go get a drink and inspect the damage,” would have been good enough for me.  But I’ll never forget what he said.  He squinted his eyes and asked, “How long have you been wrestling?”  Unprepared for his question, I stammered, “About ten years.”  He then said, “You mean to tell me you’ve been wrestling for ten years and you’ve never chipped your teeth?”  And then he walked away!  His point was clear: when you sign up for wrestling, you’re signing up to get your teeth chipped.  If you do a contact sport, then, guess what, you can expect to get contacted!  And this is the same message found in the Bible.  In Romans 8, God wants us to know that nothing will separate us from his love.  Verse 39 says, “I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”  Even though that is true, we’re told in verse 36 of the same chapter that we are also like sheep waiting to be slaughtered.  Both are true.  When you sign up to be a Christian, you’ll find you have absolute invincible love from God for all eternity; AND, you’ll end up getting your teeth chipped.  It’s just part of what it means to be a Christian.  Just because you’re going through trials does not mean that God loves you any less or that you did something to upset Him.  It may just mean that you’re really on the team.

© Samuel Kee, 2013

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Where Was God? // Episode 5 // His Resurrection

samuel kee —  February 10, 2013 — Leave a comment

where was God logo episode 5 his resurrectionThis is video 5 of 8 in our series, “Where Was God?”  This week, to answer this question, we’ll look to the resurrection of Jesus.  In the resurrection, we’ll find true hope.  We’ll also learn of a very helpful acronym for the word H.O.P.E.  Thanks for watching and be sure to tell a friend about Hope Stands.

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What Do We Really Need?

samuel kee —  February 6, 2013 — Leave a comment

8554God’s love is great because it gives us what we’ve never had and what we so desperately need. “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”[1] This realization should provoke a feeling of doom in our hearts, for there is no worse reality than to be separated from God. Imagine a vase of flowers, the kind that you might get for someone you love. On the surface, the flowers are beautiful and vibrant; but in reality, they are dead, having been cut from the plant. Soon they will bow their heads in defeat, betraying their true condition. We are all like cut flowers, beautiful on the surface but dead within. We have all been separated from our life source, which is God, and it’s only matter of time before we bow our heads in defeat—unless we find a way to get reconnected to the Life Source.

The most loving thing that God could do for us would be to put away our sins and reconnect us to our Life Source. Nothing else matters so long as our souls have been severed from God. God loves us back to life: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.”[2] Then again, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”[3] Jesus died for us so that we could live again; he took care of our greatest problem.

Amazingly, Jesus’ work is so full and complete, that we change from being separated to being inseparable:

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.[4]

Now, nothing is able to separate us from God, not even our sins. The burning love of Jesus has welded us to the One we so desperately need.

[1] Isaiah 59:2.

[2] 1 John 4:9 (italics mine).

[3] Romans 5:8.

[4] Romans 8:37-39.

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Two out of Three People Are Treated Unfairly

samuel kee —  January 21, 2013 — 1 Comment

13188Studies show that God treats two out of three people unfairly.  It’s true and I can prove it.  Before I do, ask yourself if you think you’re being treated unfairly or not.  Then ask yourself if you’d like God to treat you more fairly.

The support for my claim comes from a study of Luke 23 in the Bible.  In verses 39-43, we read about three people, two of which are treated unfairly.  It’s not subtle, either, but a very blatant, unfair treatment. 

 

Person #1 Is Treated Unfairly

The first person who’s treated unfairly is Jesus, God’s own Son.  The second criminal recognizes this.  Jesus has done nothing wrong (Luke 23:41), yet he’s getting the same sentence of condemnation as those who were criminals (40).  The criminals deserved their punishment, but not Jesus.  Yet he was given the same punishment as the two common criminals.  That’s not fair.  In fact, Jesus’ punishment was infinitely worse than that of the criminals’.  Though a saint, Jesus was punished as a sinner.  Second Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God.”  God the Father made God the Son to be sin, even though God the Son had never sinned.  The Father punished his Son as if he were a sinner, so that we might be treated as righteous saints.

Or again, “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him [Jesus]” (Isaiah 53:10).  The Father’s will for Jesus’ life was for it to be crushed, even though he did nothing to deserve it.  Again, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.”

God treated Jesus unfairly by rewarding his perfect obedience with punishment.  Why did he do this?  “He was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.”  God punished Jesus so that we could go unpunished.  God punished Jesus so that we could be healed. 

Person #2 Is Treated Unfairly

The second person who was treated unfairly was the second criminal.  In Luke 23:39-43, we learn that there were two criminals who were crucified next to Jesus.  The first mocked Jesus; but the second expressed devotion to Jesus.  He said to Jesus, not even expecting a response, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (42).  The second criminal knew that he didn’t have the slightest chance of getting into Paradise when he died.  If Adam and Eve were kicked out of Paradise for just a single act of disobedience (see Genesis 3), then what chance did this criminal have, who had lived a lifetime of disobedience?  He did not have what it took to enter into Paradise; but, at least he could ask Jesus to remember him when he got there.

In his request, the second criminal reveals his heart’s openness to Jesus.  He recognized that Jesus was a perfect person, having never done anything wrong.  He also recognized that Jesus was a King, for only kings possess kingdoms.  This criminal’s heart was open to Jesus’ rule, if even for these last moments of his life.

Jesus, dying of asphyxiation, did not owe him a response, either.  He barely had enough breath for himself, let alone for some run-of-the-mill thief.  Can you imagine, were you the second criminal, suddenly hearing the raspy voice of Jesus, respond to you and say, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (43)?

Today?  Today?  That day was the worst day of the second criminal’s life—it also happened to be his last day!  On what had been the worst day of his life, he would experience the best day of his life?  By the end of that day, a common, dirty criminal would be walking hand-in-hand with Jesus into Paradise.  That’s not fair, either—that’s grace.

God did not treat the second fairly by forgiving his sins and allowing him passage into Paradise.

Person #3 Is Treated Fairly

Finally, by now you’re wondering who it is that God treated fairly.  God did not treat Jesus fairly by punishing him; nor did he treat the second criminal fairly by giving him Paradise.  There is a character, however, in these verses, whom God treats fairly.

God treated the first criminal fairly.  In those days, some criminals were punished by crucifixion, which was the “just reward” for certain crimes.  The first criminal was getting exactly what he deserved, and he knew it.  This criminal had lived a life of sin and was receiving his due punishment. 

Romans 6:23 puts it this way, “For the wages of sin is death.”  The “wage” that a sin earns is death.  At then end of a day of sin-work, our just wage is death (thankfully we don’t get paid bimonthly!).  Human sin, which corrupts the world, needs to be dealt with, in order to maintain order and goodness.  If it’s not dealt with, then the goodness of God’s creation is bankrupt.  Just like we’d never allow someone to steal large sums of money from our bank account without dealing with it, so could God never allow sinners to rob the created order of its perfection.  Our good God must maintain the goodness of his world.   

The first criminal not only gets what he deserves, but also he closes himself off to God’s solution.  He is in the presence of the solution for his sins, and he closes his heart to it.  There’s an organization that I work with who ships boxes of food to starving children all over the world.  They recognize that each day, 18,000 children die from starvation.  Out of these 18,000 kids, 40% of them are from India.  However, none of their shipments of food go to India.  Why?  Because the leaders of India (who are not starving), don’t want the charity.  They tell this organization that they don’t have a problem and that their food is not the kind that they want.  All the while thousands of children die each day in India from lack of food; yet the food is at their doorstep.

The first criminal is in the presence of a feast, yet he closes himself off to it.  He doesn’t want Jesus’ charity; he doesn’t think that there’s a problem.  Yet he’s about to die and be cut off from the source of Life for all eternity.  And if you close your heart off to God now, it will remain that way forever, long after your body passes away. 

You’re soul is hungry, admit it.  Will you close yourself off to Jesus and remain separated from God forever?  Or will you turn to him and trust, allowing his dying love for you to melt your heart.  “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in Paradise!”  Romans 6:23 ends like this, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

Eternal life is not a “fair” gift, but a free one.  Our lives can never “earn” this gift, but it must be given to us at the cost of Another.  Jesus Christ was unfairly punished in order to pay for our free gift, which is given unfairly to those who make him their King, not to those who close themselves off to him.

Are you sure you want God to treat you fairly?

© Samuel Kee, 2013          

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Your Life in 3 Words

samuel kee —  April 16, 2012 — Leave a comment

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We live in the pathway of this paradox.

I can summarize your life in just three words.  I know that sounds harsh at worst and overly simplistic at best.  The same goes for me.  My life can be wrapped up in just three words.  While we may buck at the thought of using just three words to capture something as complex as a human life, these three words will go a long way.  They can carry a ton of weight and will help you to make sense of much in your life.  Really.

What are the three words: problem, solution, and response.  That’s it. 

First, we have to understand our problem.  You have to realize what a mess you’re in, before you move on to anything else.  Different people have different manifestations of the mess.  Not everyone has the same mess, but everyone is in a mess.  Call it whatever you like to call it.  You could call it sin.  Or brokenness.  Our world is languishing beneath the weight of something heavy.  Life falls apart; we are surrounded by alienation and we are in alienation.  The things that we want to do, we can’t seem to figure out how to do.  The things we don’t want to do, we keep doing anyway.  We can’t control situations; the situations control us.  We’re on a downward spiral.  If left to ourselves, we’ll spend eternity apart from the God who made us and loved us.  And when we’ve been traveling a million, million ages into an eternity of suffering away from the merciful presence of God, we will have only just begun.  Facing eternity, we’re always at the beginning of our pain and never at the end.  That’s a huge problem.  Our sins were not committed against just anyone, but an eternal and Holy One. 

Second, we have to understand his solution.  God’s solution might come in a thousand different ways to us each day.  Because we are finite, we have no concept of how much an infinite being intercedes for us and cares for us.  But we do know the solution that he has chosen to reveal to us.  And it’s the solution to our biggest problem.  There’s a story about the great Hebrew trial in the book of Exodus.  They were enslaved in Egypt and God was planning a rescue mission.  God was going to strike down the firstborn in Egypt of every family that did not have lamb’s blood painted on their door frame.  Those who painted blood on their door frame we spared.  Even more, they were able to walk out of their slavery in Egypt, by going beneath the banner of blood on their doors.  They went from slavery to freedom beneath the blood of the lamb.  Thousands of years later, their Messiah was called “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).  Only his blood was not painted on a wooden doorway, but on a wooden cross.  And those who take shelter beneath the banner of blood on the cross, are free to leave their huge problem of sin.  They can walk out of their sin-prison, into freedom.  “Let my people go, so that they can worship me” goes the Exodus refrain (7:16).  True freedom is freedom from sin.  The whole point of freedom is to be with God in worship.  When we’ve been with God for a million, million ages, we’ll only be at the beginning of our joy and never at the end.

Third, we have to understand our response.  The plot line of the Scriptures is this: how are sinful beings going to get into a relationship with a holy God?  That’s what the whole bible is about.  The Bible wrestles with the paradox of transcendence, on the one hand, and intimacy, on the other.  Scripture demands both.  It wants both a Holy God and intimate communion with sketchy mortals.  We’re to make sure that we realize there is no god like our God.  We’re to feel the power of him having no rivals.  We’re to shudder at his holiness.  At the same time, we’re to long for being with him.  God loves us and he wants to be with his people.  We love God and long to be with our Maker.  Life doesn’t make sense without a Maker.  The whole of the Bible is about the paradoxical move from holiness to intimacy.  Yet, it makes this daring move anyway.  It goes where no other religion has dared to go.  It attempts to put our transcendent and holy God, under the same roof with crooked and craven sinners.  And it does.  Whether we’re ready for it or not, it does.  We live in the pathway of this paradox.  While being caught up in the eye of this storm, our response is to be that of worship.  “We do not know what else to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:12).  Our response is worship.  Gratitude.  Thanksgiving.  Exuberance.  Joy.  The birthplace of joy is the crossroads of holiness and intimacy, that fearful intersection of God and humanity.

Our problem, God’s solution, and our response.  These are the three colors that are used to paint our lives.  You need to locate yourself within these three.  Are you in denial that you have a problem?  Are you able to see God’s solution?  Are you withholding a response?  Your life won’t make sense outside of these three words.

© Samuel Kee, 2012 

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Hands

samuel kee —  January 31, 2012 — 1 Comment

In the grip of Christ, we have no need.

My dad drew up my hand and placed it next to my grandfather’s, who was in the casket.  He then placed his next to mine, so that all three were in a row, saying, “You see, Sammy, where you get your hands?”  My young eyes noticed the similarities between my grandpa’s hands, my dad’s, and my own.  Each had the same wrinkly skin and stubby strength, passed on from generation to generation.  In that moment, as a little boy, I learned more than just genetics; I learned that everyone you love, will leave you, no matter how strong his hands.

Our safety in life is not found in all the trivial and temporary things that can be stripped away in a second.  Our comfort in life is not found in plans, pleasures, power, or people, for all will vanish.  If we place ourselves into their greasy hands, we will slip right out.  These things will always let you down.  People will always let you down, your possessions will always let you down, pleasures will always let you down.  None of these have hands that are fit to hold the human soul.

So what should you give yourself to and where is your solace found?  Recently, some have said that religion is not the answer.  They are quick to point out that Religion will let us down, too—that religion hurts, drops, kills.  It is graspless.

When your friends fail, when your money disappears, when your reputation is tattered, where is your comfort to be found?  Even more, when your life itself refuses to breathe again, what is your comfort in death?  What will hold you then?

It seems that we need hands that have been both to heaven and earth.  We need hands that hold the power of the cosmos and that hold the palm of the child.  We need hands that have thrust the stars into their orbits and that have thrust the heart into the human.  We need hands that have both the power to heal and the tenderness to hold.

The hands of Jesus Christ are the hands for us.  Not only did they spin the world into motion, but also they touched the oozing sores of a leper and dried the tears of a prostitute.  They wakened the universe with power and they writhed in pain from mortal nails.  His hands were both divine and dead, miraculous and mortal.

The holes in his hands are a portal through which heaven and earth touch.  And that is where he holds us.  That is our solace and comfort.  That is where we will never be shaken, the spot from which we will never be let go.  In the grip of Christ, we have no need.  In the grip of Christ, we can let go of our troubles, our idols, and our self-definitions.

What is truly, deeply, our only comfort?  Even the most non-religious person can see that our comfort is not in what we can hold onto, for our grasp is so weak and the natural course of this life rips everything out of our grip.  My solace and comfort come not from what I can hold onto, but from Whom is holding onto me.

So reads the Heidelberg Catechism, “What is your only comfort in life and in death?”  The answer: “That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.”

You belong to Jesus Christ and he will never let go of you.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.  And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.[1]

© Samuel Kee, 2012

[1] Colossians 1:15-17, ESV.

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Lesson from Sodom

samuel kee —  January 11, 2012 — Leave a comment

What if just one righteous person were found?

Let me share with you three paragraphs that could give you great hope.  Consider an event that happened to the man that stands at the fount of three major world religions: Abraham.  In Genesis 18, Abraham risks his life by approaching God on behalf a wicked city.  Though God was going to destroy Sodom, Abraham stood before the Lord and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?  Suppose there are fifty righteous who are in it?  Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it?” (23-24).  God told Abraham that for the sake of fifty, he would not destroy it.  But Abraham is not satisfied.  He proceeds to ask on behalf of 45 righteous people, then forty, thirty, twenty, and ten people.  Each time, God says that he will not destroy Sodom if that number of righteous people can be found in it.  But Abraham is doing more than just bargaining with God, he is probing into the inner workings of the Divine, discovering an immutable principle that could change your life.

Though Abraham stops asking at ten righteous people, the reader carries on the conversation in her own mind.  The reader asks herself, “What if just one righteous person were found, then would God destroy the city?”  That is the dramatic question that stands and lingers on the edge of our hearts.  What if just one righteous person existed, then would God destroy us?  Then we go to our history books, in a mad search for just one righteous person.  Have any ever existed?  Here’s how Scripture answers this question: “None is righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:11).  As God looks at humankind, he is unable to find a single, righteous person.  This means only one thing: he has no reason not to destroy us.

Abraham learned that God is only looking for one righteous person.  You and I know that “none is righteous.”  All fall desperately short of complete goodness.  We ache at the thought that we’re so close to being saved—needing just one righteous person—but infinitely far from achieving this goal.  Nevertheless, if you read just a little further in Romans 3, you will discover a verse that will melt your heart with joy.  “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (21-22).  While humankind groped in the darkness, trembling beneath the wrath of God, God himself sent our solution into the world.  God sent the “one righteous” person that we need; his name is Jesus.  We have our righteous person and we must cling to him like a drowning man to a raft.  He is our raft and our salvation, both our present help and our eternal solution.  In Jesus Christ, you have everything that God is looking for.

© Samuel Kee, 2011

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Our Tree

samuel kee —  January 8, 2012 — 2 Comments

The tree is the portal through which we find God.

The summer after my second grade year, I fell from a tree.  No one knows how far up I was, it’s estimated that I was thirty to forty feet above the ground.  At least that’s what they tell me.  I can’t remember any of it.

Evidently, an ambulance came and picked me up, taking me to Children’s Hospital in Akron, Ohio; again, I’m sorry I “missed” that.  It would have been cool to see an ambulance drive through our yard.  Then I was unconscious at the hospital for a week or two, I’m not sure how long exactly.  Again, I can’t remember any of it.  I’ve seen some pictures of me in the hospital, but that’s about it.  The fall knocked the memory of this event clear out of my head.

I’m usually a very careful climber, so I’m not sure what went wrong that summer afternoon (or was it morning?).  My brother and I were playing in the woods together, as we usually did.  My guess is that a branch broke, in my zeal to get to the top.

While I don’t have a memory of “the tree,” my guess is that you do.  You remember the tree, though not the one in Northeastern, Ohio.  The tree that we all remember was in the Garden of Eden.  It’s the tree we’re aching for and, therefore, searching for.  It’s the Tree of Life, which God banned our first parents, Adam and Eve, from discovering.

The Tree of Life is in the collective memory of humankind.  It’s “home.”  It’s the place of longing, the place of dreams, the place we’re searching for, beneath and behind everything we do.  Love.  Life.  Joy.  Meaning.  Significance.  Relationship.  Eternity.  Beauty.

Unlike my tree, none of us can shake the memory of our Tree.  Though we’ve fallen from it, we desperately want to find it.  But is it still there?  In other words, can any human have the deepest desires of the heart met?

It’s curious to note that the cross of Jesus was also known as “the tree” (Galatians 3:13, 1 Peter 2:24, Acts 5:30).  Jesus died on the tree.  Jesus was broken by the curse on the tree.  The tree meant death for Jesus—but life for us.  At the same moment, it was both a place of cursing and blessing, of death and life.  The tree of the cross is the new Tree of Life, the portal through which we return to the Garden of Eden, the very Paradise of God—home.

Through the cross, we find God.  We find life.  Our longings and dreams meet their object at last.

© Samuel Kee, 2011

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Cut Flowers

samuel kee —  January 2, 2012 — Leave a comment

Life carries a little of the beauty of the Source, enough to keep us coming back.

The red flowers on our table were a welcoming bright spot against the brown wall.  They were for our neighbor, who needs some encouragement as the New Year begins.  My wife put the cut flowers in a vase until we could deliver them.  They were so beautiful, red petals surrounding a yellow center.

But I could not get over the irony of the cut flowers.  On the one hand, they were so beautiful and exemplary of life, but on the other hand, they were dead.  Yes, they would look pretty for a few days, but soon it would become obvious that they had been cut off from the life source.  The vibrant petals would fall off and the whole thing would shrivel.  It was only a matter of time.

We are surrounded by cut flowers, existing in a world of lifeless life.  Around me I see traces of life and energy, but really they are hollow.  I see beautiful forms and shapes, but they have no substance to them, no everlasting center.  The natural world around me, so ravishing and fierce, is just a shadow.  It will not last.  The accomplishments that drive me and give me a sense of worth are totally empty.  People in my life, whom I love and who love me, also will not last.  Whether people, pleasures, power, accomplishments, or beauty, everything has been cut off from its life source, and it’s now only a matter of time before every last petal falls off.

Nothing lasts.  Try giving your heart away to something of this world, and it will be broken.  Why?  Because everything dies.  Nothing here can stand the weight of a human heart, with all of its profound longings and needs.

Life carries a little of the beauty and energy of the Source, just enough to keep us coming back for more, but never enough to quench our thirst.  The Germans have a word for this intense longing, sehnsucht.  Sehnsucht is an intense form of missing something.  But what?

I love how the frustrated book of Ecclesiastes puts it, “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities!  All is vanity” (1:2).  The writer goes on, “What does mankind gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” (1:3).  The answer, of course, is nothing.  No matter how hard we strive, we’ll never find anything that lasts or that satisfies.  Everything is vanity or meaningless or empty.

Empty.  That is a good word to summarize the irony of the cut flower.  And it is a good word to bring to another chapter of the Bible, Isaiah 6.  Here we witness the powerful cries of the fiery beings as they encircle the throne of God.  “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!”  To repeat a description twice in Hebrew meant that it was not just comparative, but superlative.  To repeat a description three times was to put it totally out of reach.  We’re to understand that God is not just superlative to us, by completely beyond us.  He is holy, holy, holy.

We’re meant to carry our cry “Vanity, vanity, vanity!” to the throne of God in order to hear the answer, “Holy, holy, holy!” for that is the cure for our search, the life-source itself.  To be holy is to have weight and substance.  “Holy” indicates the stuff that will last, everlastingly.  When we arrive at the throne of God, we arrive at the unbroken source of life, our true home, where everyone longs to return.

Until then, we strive with the leftovers here on earth.  We lay in beds of cut flowers, waiting for that day when nothing dies.

Yet the only way to make it to that day, is to make it to God himself.  And to do that, you have to have a Mediator, someone on whose merits you might travel.  Our Man for the job is Jesus Christ, who was driven out from the presence of God, that we might be driven in.  He stripped himself of his merits and left them to us, that we might have something to bring before our King.

He became a cut flower, that we might be grafted in.

© Samuel Kee, 2012

 

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