Tag Archives: religion

Hands

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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.

Scripted

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We cry out for a savior to pull us out of the script

I’ve been thinking about behavioral scripts a lot lately, probably because I just got the new album by Icon For Hire called Scripted.  Icon For Hire is a metal band from Decatur, IL, who is now on tour with Brian “Head” Welch.  I had the opportunity to meet Icon For Hire—Shawn, Ariel, Josh, and Adam—they are top-notch individuals and incredibly nice.  I’ll get back to Scripted in a minute.

Behavioral psychology (I was a psych major) teaches us that people use hundreds of scripts each day.  Scripts are routines that we memorize when we’re in familiar situations.  When seeing someone in the morning at work, we know exactly what to say and do.  We simply follow the “script.”  When checking out at the grocery store, we follow a script.  When talking with a friend, we follow a script.  When meeting someone new, we follow a script.  We not only follow verbal scripts, but also we apply scripts to people, in order to stereotype them, and easily brush our hands of them.  If we see a certain ethnicity, for example, we follow a script in our interactions with him or her.

By following scripts, we are mentally able to “check-out” and exert the least amount of physical, emotional, and intellectual energy.  In any given situation, a script tells us what kind of behavior to do or expect.  Thus, scripts put distance between people; we no longer engage another, but merely act out a memorized script.

Here are some lyrics from Icon for Hire’s song Scripted:

I know they’ll come with what I’m owed; My enemies belittle me reminding me the penalty of all my deeds despite my plea is death; Don’t let go cause; Don’t wanna be this; Don’t wanna be this; Death is mine I know.

In this song, it’s recognized that humans are bound by scripts.  We know that we’re sinners and we deserve death.  That’s where we’re headed and we cannot get out of the script no matter how hard we try.  So we cry out for a savior to pull us out of the script, “Don’t let go!”  When it comes to spirituality, we need a script-breaker.  We cannot operate on how things have always been, for that would spell tragedy for us.

We follow scripts when it comes to God, if you haven’t figured that out yet.  Even if we aren’t surrounded by enemies, as in the song, but friends, we follow scripts.  Even those in church could need a script-breaker.

I’m thinking of John 2:13-22, that part about the temple worship.  It was just another day in the life of the typical Jewish worshipper.  They were offering sacrifices in the temple.  They were bringing their tithes and their offerings.  They were exchanging their foreign currency for the native stuff.  It was just a typical scripted day in the life of these good religious people.

Then along comes the Script-Breaker, Jesus himself, who storms the temple with a whip and a war cry.  Jesus knows no script.  He rushes the temple and tosses over all of the tables.  He frees the animals and flails his whip like a madman, no doubt piercing skin along the way.  All the while he’s shouting out Bible verses.

The Script-Breaker knew that religious scripts needed to be crushed.  There were things that were getting in the way of our relationship with God, scripts that put a convenient distance between us and the Almighty.

What scripts do you follow with God?  Maybe you don’t believe in God, and that’s your script.  You follow the script of disbelief so you don’t have to deal with God.  Or maybe you have a religious script; you know what routine to follow to keep others happy, hoping that it will keep God happy, too.  Or you might have a prayer script; you say what you need to say to “get through it” and keep God at a distance.  Perhaps you have a cultural-script; you follow what the culture says about God rather than investigating him for yourself.  If the culture says that there are many ways to God or that God is whatever you want him/her/it to be, then that’s what you’ll believe, just so you won’t rock the boat.

Maybe your script has to do with money.  You do whatever is financially reasonable rather than whatever is divinely commanded.

The truth is that Jesus hates our religious scripts, for they put a wall up between us and God.  When a wall is up, we cannot experience his healing and life-saving presence.  We forget that we are loved by God himself, despite who we are.  We are left to face our enemies and death alone.

Icon for Hire is challenging our scripts; we don’t have to follow them and they don’t have to destroy us.  There is a way out—for he broke his way in.

© Samuel Kee, 2011

Tents and Distractions

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Now is your time.

I can usually work through distractions pretty well.  You can put me in a cabin full of juiced-up junior high boys and I have no problem sleeping like a baby.  Naturally, I threaten them and often resort to violence, but at some point there’s peace!  When I worked at a nursing home, I used to give Bible studies to a group of about 15 advanced-stage Alzheimer’s residents, who would do just about everything under the sun during my lessons.  You name it and they probably did it: argue, fist fight, strip, vomit (on purpose), yell, spin in circles, etc.  But rarely did these behaviors ever throw me off track.

Nonetheless, there is a time in each person’s life when it’s necessary to get away from the raucus.  Part of being truly human is getting alone with your Maker.  Until you spend intentional time with God, you’ll never figure out your purpose or identity.

After the Israelites did an incredibly foolish thing in the wilderness, God was ready to wipe them out.  Right after the greatest display of power that they’d ever seen, the parting of the Red Sea, they decided to worship a false god.  They made a cow out of gold and called it their “new god.”  Not a good idea.

God was mad, and rightly so.  Moses was mad, but was trying to mediate between his people and their Maker.  It was a mess, to say the least.  There was grumbling in the camp and severe warnings from God.

Moses just needed to get away.

So he took a small tent and went outside of the camp where all the people stayed.  He called it his “tent of meeting.”  In Exodus 33:7, we learn that it was “outside of the camp” and “far” from everyone else.  Moses would go to this quiet place to hear from God.  It even says that Moses spoke “face to face” with God, as friends speak.

In these moments away from the demanding crowd, Moses would gain clarity on what was truly important in life.  He had to go outside of the camp in order to get away from all the distractions, so that he could hear God’s voice over the people’s voice.  Only then could he fulfill his God-given mission.

We each need a tent of meeting, a place to go to hear from God.  Most often, we hear only from the crowd.  Theirs is the loudest voice in our life.  And when you listen to the crowd, you get torn apart, for there are dozens of voices who clamor for your attention, affection, and allegiance.  The crowd will consume you if you don’t know who you are.  By getting away to be with God, you find out not only who he is, but also who you were created to be.

The most human thing you can do is spend time with God.  He is the one who crafted you and has set a purpose on your head.  The crowd doesn’t care about you, it will devour you.

If you’ve never taken a moment to seek God away from all the distractions, now is your time.  You need to find out who you are by discovering whose you are.  God has his fingerprints all over your life.  And if you already know God, but are flagging in your relationship with him, now is your time.  Do whatever it takes to re-discover your Friend.  His is the face that you long for, that you were meant for, that you’re lonely for.  Christ and his cross will not keep your sin from separating you from God.  Your sin is dealt with once and for all and nothing will separate you from the love of Christ.

© Ssmuel Kee, 2011

Spotlight

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Make him the most noticeable thing in the room.

After praying together before bed, one of my kids asked me, “What does ‘hallowed be your name’ mean?”  I took one of his stuffed animals and put it on the floor.  Then I turned off the light and asked for a flashlight.  Shinning the light on the stuffed sheep, I said, “Let’s pretend that the sheep is God.  ‘Hallowed be your name’ means to put a spot light on God.”

It’s to draw attention to God and to make him the most noticeable thing in the room.  “Sometimes” I told him, “we like to put the spotlight on other things and make other things the most noticeable in our lives.  We don’t make God our focus.”

The first part of the Lord’s Prayer teaches us to make God the most important thing in our lives: to put the spotlight on him.  When the spotlight is not on God, then we see other things more than we see God.  We end up giving our hearts away to artificial gods, which is stuff in our lives that crush our spirits rather than mend them.

Artificial gods ball us up and kick us to the corner; they don’t care for us.  In fact, they absorb our lives from us.  Instead of helping us, they hurt us.  False gods take every last drop of our lives, for they depend on our meager offerings to keep them going.  They are like leaches, who suck the life blood right from under our skin.

But the true God doesn’t take our life, he gives us his life.  He does not take our blood, but gives us his blood.  He does not depend on our offerings, but he keeps us going with his.  When we shine the light on God, we’re better able to see where our help comes from.

God does not demand that we glorify him because he’s arrogant; rather, God demands that we glorify him so that everyone might know where to run for living water.  Just as a lighthouse wants to be noticed, in the same way does God want to be noticed: to prevent us from crashing our lives on the rocks.

“Our Father, in Heaven, hallowed be your name.”  To pray this is like asking for more air, more water, and more food—for we’re asking for more of God in our lives and less of the things that often take his place.  And nothing can take his place.

© Samuel Kee, 2011

Misconception

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God is not going to bash us, but bless us.

There’s a huge misconception out there about God.  I hear this misconception repeated over and over again from the people I talk to.  It’s said in so many ways; but the same misunderstanding is threaded throughout.  What is it?

I have to be better before God accepts me.

That’s the misconception.  It’s handed to us from our families, our culture, and even our religious institutions.  We firmly believe that God is against us until we get our act together.  Then we use this as an excuse for not pursuing God, which is completely understandable: why would you want to turn toward someone who is going to bash you?

God doesn’t want us to be better, but broken.  God doesn’t measure the amount of my righteousness, but the amount of my repentance.  The thing that matters most to God is not how good I am, but how sick and tired of myself I am.

And if you think about it, those two are radically different.

The great churchman and scholar John Calvin said that people will not turn toward God until they understand how beneficent God is toward them.  Until we realize that God is not going to bash us, but bless us, we’ll keep running the other way.

God is good toward you, full of mercy and grace, and ready to embrace you and love you, just how you are.  God knows that we cannot do anything about our sins; that’s why he did something about them.  He bore them on a cross and buried them in a cave.  There’s nothing that stands in the way of us now, the field is open and the Father is ready.  He is ready to receive the one who is broken.

And then he will make you better.  Sanctification flows from justification, but justification never flows from sanctification.

God put his Son Jesus through way too much for us to get this wrong.

© Samuel Kee, 2011

The Carriage and the Car: Jesus and the Law

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What is the purpose of the law?

Nothing was as important as one’s interpretation of the law, so believed the religious leaders of Jesus’ day.  They had their interpretation of the law, relying mainly on tradition.  Tradition explicated the law best, so they thought.

Then Jesus arrived with his own illumination of the law, one that flew in the face of their beloved tradition.  Jesus never wanted to do away with the law, but to clarify it and, even more so, to complete it (Matthew 5:17).  His is the best explication of the law, not theirs.  Their teaching led to slavery, bondage, and ruin; but his led to freedom and life.

It’s crucial to understand what Jesus meant when he said, “do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17).  As I said, Jesus came to clarify and to complete.

The word “fulfill” means something like: to bring to its goal, keeping its purpose in mind.  It’s most helpful to use the analogy of a carriage and a car.  A carriage is a “vehicle” used long ago, having four wheels and usually pulled by horses.  If I were to ask, “What is the fulfillment of a carriage?” you could not answer my question without keeping the purpose of the carriage in mind.  The purpose of the carriage is to transport people (or goods) from one place to another.

Thus the fulfillment of the carriage is the car, for the purpose of the carriage and the car is the same: to transport people (or goods) from one place to another.  Even though the car is radically different than the horse-drawn carriage, it is its proper fulfillment.  The car brings the carriage to its goal, keeping its purpose in mind.

Jesus did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.  Catching on?

The religious leaders’ explication of the law was not the car, but more of the carriage.  In fact, they just swapped out the horses and inserted humans.  By piling on extra laws via the accepted tradition, they forced people into the harness and expected human righteousness to pull the load of the law.  The human yoke became hard, not easy, and heavy, not light.

But humans, no matter how spiritually strong, cannot pull the load of the law.  This was not the proper fulfillment of the law.

So Jesus comes zooming up in his 425 hp Corvette and declares, “This is the fulfillment of the law!”  Jesus replaces the horses and humans with an engine.  He does not destroy the law, or the carriage, but he fulfills it.  The car is the proper fulfillment of the carriage.

Jesus’ illumination of the law makes us want to stand up and cheer; for he releases humans from the harness of the law.  Even better, he gives them cars, which are auto-mobiles.  These are carriages that drive themselves, because they are powered by an engine.  And the best news of all is that Jesus is the engine; his righteousness is the power that pulls the law.  That’s all the horsepower we’ll ever need.

Humans cannot pull the law by the power of their own righteousness: no matter how hard I try and no matter how well I behave, I will fall short.  The law only keeps me enslaved like and animal in a harness.  When Jesus fulfills the law, he gives us a car that is powered by the gospel, which is the righteousness of Christ given to us.

Jesus is the power that pulls the law for us.  Jesus did not come to destroy the law, but to bring it to its goal, all the while maintaining its purpose.  Again, what is the purpose of the carriage and car?  To transport us from one place to another.  What is the purpose of the law?  To transport us from one place to another: god-forsakenness to God-with-us.  Namely, the purpose of the law and the purpose of Jesus is the same, to get sinners back into a relationship with a holy God.

The religious leaders thought that humans could make that journey, but Jesus knew better: only he could.  That is why he came to fulfill the law with his own power, extended on our behalf, that we might be restored to our Heavenly Father.

No human can pull the weight of the law on his or her own.  It is utterly foolish for us to place that expectation on anyone.  Yet Christians are notorious for “putting the cart before the horse” so to speak.  We condemn non-Christians first, for their behavior, as if somehow they should have the ability that no one else has ever had: to pull the law.  We judge them for their cursing, sexuality, beliefs, and raw behavior.  We criticize their morals and get angry at their actions.

But if we truly believe what Jesus said in Matthew 5:17, we should realize that nobody can pull the law apart from Jesus.  Nobody can do what the law says without an Engine.  This means that rather than judging or getting angry, we need to introduce them to the Car, first.  We need to tell them about Jesus and how he fulfills the desires of our hearts and satisfies the demands of the law.  Once they come to know Jesus, he will come into their lives with his Corvette and begin to pull the law for them, just like he does with us.

Jesus is the engine that pulls us from slavery to freedom, from being lonely to having a Lord.  Jesus brings us back to God by pulling the law with his own righteousness.  Our job is to get into the car and let him drive us where we could never have gone on our own.

© Samuel Kee, 2011

Christmas Embrace

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The purpose of his arms was to embrace you.

The climax erupts at the beginning, as the apostle John writes, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).  Right away, we can breathe a sigh of relief: hope is here.  What is this light?  Again, turning to John, we read, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1).  The light is the Word and the Word is God.  This means that God shined in the darkness, going back to verse 5.

When did God shine into the darkness?  John tells us a little later in verse 14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  When God became flesh in the person of Jesus, that is when he shined in the darkness. 

Christmas is the celebration of this darkness-shattering moment—the moment when Jesus shined in the darkness by entering into our plight.  When Christmas happens, we have two choices, as I see it.

First, we can be like Nicodemus in John 3.  Nicodemus came to Jesus at night.  Ultimately, even though Nicodemus was a very religious person, he remained in the dark, at night.  Nicodemus did not understand Jesus and refused to let the light of Jesus penetrate his heart.  Nicodemus remained unchanged as he quietly fled from the approaching light.

Second, we can be like the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4.  The Samaritan woman came to Jesus at noon, rather than at night.  She was the exact opposite of Nicodemus on multiple levels: she was female, had a horrible reputation of sin, and was irreligious.  Yet as she interlocks with Jesus in conversation, she does not flee from him.  At one point, Jesus shines into her life most personally, revealing sinful stains of sexual immorality.  But the woman resists the temptation to flee.  She stands there, in broad daylight, allowing Jesus to illuminate her life.  Then, instead of shrinking back into the night like Nicodemus, she runs ahead and tells others about Jesus.  She illuminates the One who had illuminated her.  Soon, many other Samaritans come to the light in order to see Jesus for themselves.

When the light shines into our lives, we can either be like Nicodemus or the Samaritan woman: either we can flee or believe.  We can either let the light drive us away or heal us.  I cannot help but note how gentle Jesus is with the woman; his light is like a surgeon’s scalpel, which cuts away the issues that drag us down. 

As God’s love pours out into the world, we will be tempted to flee from its flood.  But Christmas is no time to be hiding.  Christmas is the moment unlike any other, for we get to be passive and receive the light.  If God expected you to find him, unaided and alone, then he would not have turned himself into a walking, talking human.  Since God is the kind of God who searches and finds and loves, he was born with everything he needs to accomplish this mission. 

The purpose of his eyes was to look for you; the purpose of his arms was to embrace you; the purpose of his mouth was to speak to you; the purpose of his ears was to hear your cries; the purpose of his heart was to love you.  Jesus was the gift of God, translated into human flesh that we might know and understand the very passion of the God who made us.   

© 2010 by Samuel Kee

Not out of Range

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God's love blows wherever it pleases.

In mathematical terms, the range of a set of numbers is the difference between the highest number and the lowest number.  The number set 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 would have a range of 8, for instance.

When a religious leader named Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, Nicodemus was operating by addition.  “Rabbi [that’s what he called Jesus], we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him” (John 3:2).  In other words: good sign + good sign = from God.  In the world of religious addition, the more good works you have, the closer to God you get.  As good works add up, so does your righteousness, and, therefore, acceptance. 

But Jesus doesn’t like Nicodemus’ religious addition, so he gives him a lesson in statistics, more specifically, probability.  “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (3:3).  Ha, did I say probability?  How about improbability!  Jesus is messing with Nicodemus’ notion of religious addition, giving him a problem that can never be solved. 

Nicodemus scratches his head and shakes his calculator, “How can a man be born when he is old?”  This doesn’t add up.

That’s when Jesus points Nicodemus to range.  “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’  The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (3:7-8).  (For those of you taking notes, the Greek word for Spirit and wind are identical: pneuma.) 

Most people, educated religious leaders included, believe in addition when it comes to their relationship with God.  They assume that if you add up the right parts, then God’s love will come.  Nicodemus believed that only Israel was the object of God’s love.  After all, they had all the right parts.  Law + covenant + temple + land + king = saving love.  That’s what it all should add up to.

But Jesus, in light of the impossible problem of being born again, points to the wind in order to clarify.  The wind cannot be contained to just one place.  It blows wherever it pleases. 

Jesus’ words are revolutionary, saying that God’s love, like the wind, goes wherever it pleases.  Just as the wind cannot be contained, neither can God’s love.  God’s love blows out, not just to one people group, whose actions add up the right way, but to whomever it pleases. 

In fact, as Jesus goes on to say to Nicodemus, “God so loved the world” (3:16).  The wind does not stop at just one people group, but the wind goes out into the entire world.  The religious leaders can no longer contain God’s love, to those who fit their mathematical profile. 

What is the range of God’s love?  God’s love blows from the least to the greatest, wherever it pleases.  Just because someone feels like the least likely person to receive God’s love, does not mean that he or she is out of range.  The wind blows wherever it pleases and is not restrained by our religious addition.

God’s love for the world ranges from the least to the greatest.  How does it stretch so far?  Jesus gives the answer in verses 14-15, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”  God’s love stretches out to the world by means of the cross, the place on which Jesus was lifted up like Moses’ serpent.  On the cross, Jesus killed our addition by becoming the range between the least and the greatest, bringing God’s love not to those who deserve it, but to those who believe.  And there’s a big difference between deserving and believing.  (You might want to meditate on that last sentence for a while.)

So long as you can find yourself somewhere on the number set of the least to the greatest, you have what it takes to believe; you are within the range of God’s love.

© 2010 by Samuel Kee