GOD'S GRANDEUR
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
--Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89)
THE PROMISES OF GOD
Why the King Came Hebrews 1:3
Does any realm on earth know how to display the pomp and ceremony of royalty like the British? Pageantry and performance ooze from every pore of that island nation. The traditions of rule by monarch, maintained for centuries, still are practiced, though primarily for ceremonial purposes. There are royal jewels, royal castles, royal protocols, and royal traffic jams caused by the movements of the monarch. But no one minds, especially the rest of the world. Countries without a royal family to watch and envy seem to live vicariously through England's.
Often, what a monarch does gets lost amid the fanfare of who the monarch is. There is a danger in viewing the royal leader and his or her entourage as entertainment for the people rather than as expediters of policy. And this can be true in the spiritual realm as well. Take the coming to earth of God's living Word, Jesus Christ. He came for a purpose, to be sure. But his coming from earth to heaven, and his dramatic resurrection and ascension from earth back to heaven, sometimes overshadow the simplicity and purity of what he came to do.
Take Hebrews 1:3 for example. Is this not a description of royalty? Jesus radiates God's glory and represents him exactly. He sustains God's kingdom by his powerful and authoritative word. And that was just the preparation for his coming. When he returned to heaven he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty. An entrance and exit fit for a king! But as we sometimes do while watching the British royalty, let us not forget the purpose of his coming. The living Word of God came to provide "purification for sins." Bookends of eternity support the tiny three-year window in which Christ came to earth to make his subjects pure-pure now and pure forever.
If I miss His death for me, I miss the purpose of His appearance. Coming as He did as a humble servant-king, many royalty watchers have failed to see His true glory. May the purity which He provides reflect His glory through us to those who have yet to see Him.
God's Promise to You: "My son came to earth to purify you from the stain of sin."
RELATIONAL SPIRITUALITY-PART 5Loving Others Compassionately
From the Vertical to the Horizontal
We have seen that the purpose for which we were created is an intimate relationship with the infinite and personal God who loves us. He is the initiator of this relationship, and we love Him because He first loved us. Loving God completely is the key to loving self correctly (seeing ourselves as God sees us), and this in turn is the key to loving others compassionately. As we grow in our understanding of God's unconditional love and acceptance of us in Christ, we are increasingly liberated from the selfish quest of using people to meet our needs.
Expressing God's Love on the Horizontal
This developing vertical relationship of loving the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will find its manifestations on the horizontal, since there is no act that begins with the love of God that does not end with the love of neighbor. The great and foremost commandment ("You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind"; Matthew 22:37) is the foundation for the second great commandment ("You shall love your neighbor as yourself"; Matthew 22:39). After washing the feet of His disciples, Jesus elevated the standard by which we are called to love others in His new commandment: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another" (John 13:34). "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you" (John 15:12; cf. 1 John 3:23). The sphere of this new commandment is universal: it extends first to our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, and beyond this to our "neighbors" in this world who do not know Jesus. "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another" (1 John 4:7-11).
Our faith in the work Christ accomplished for us in the past and our hope of the future completion of this work when we see Him are demonstrated in the present through the choices and works of love. The more we love God, the more we will express His transcendent love in other-centered deeds of kindness and goodness. "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another" (1 John 4:7-11).
The section on corporate spirituality later in this book discusses the vital necessity of community in our spiritual formation. While we come to faith in Christ as individuals, we do not grow in isolation, but through the interdependence of the body of Christ. Our modern worldview is highly individualistic, autonomous, and self-serving, but as we will see, the biblical worldview is covenental, interdependent, communal, relational, and self-transcending.
The Quest for Greatness in the Sight of Men
Near the end of our Lord's earthly ministry, His disciples were arguing about who would occupy the best positions in His kingdom. They refused to listen to His increasingly frequent words about His coming crucifixion, and focused instead on the part they wanted to hear. When James and John approached Jesus and said, "Grant that we may sit, one on Your right and one on Your left, in Your glory" (Mark 10:37), the other disciples became indignant because they had their eyes on the same places. Jesus told them that the one who wishes to be great among them will be their servant, and whoever wishes to be first among them will be slave of all. "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:43-45).
Weeks later when Jesus celebrated the Passover with His disciples on the night before His own sacrifice, the same dispute surfaced again. Christ's rebuttal to their quest for recognition was that true greatness is found in those who are willing to serve. "For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves" (Luke 22:27).
The Essence of True Greatness
John 13 portrays a visual parable that communicated this precise issue to the disciples with poignancy and clarity. It is evident that there was no servant to wash the feet of the Lord and His men before they reclined at the table. This must have been an embarrassing situation: foot washing was a customary part of hospitality in the ancient Near East, but it was obvious that if the disciples were fighting for their place in the sun, none of them would volunteer to be the servant of all. Their embarrassment became acute when Jesus Himself rose from supper, laid aside His garments, tied a towel around Himself, and began to wash the disciples' feet and wipe them with the towel. His lesson was evident: if their Teacher and Lord became their servant, they should also serve one another (vv. 13-15).
The key to Christ's willingness to serve others in place of being served by them is found in the crucial truth that Jesus knew that "the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God" (v. 3). He knew His dignity and power ("the Father had given all things into His hands"), He knew His significance and identity ("and that He had come forth from God"), and He knew His security and destiny ("and was going back to God").
It is important to note that Jesus derived His identity from His relationship with His Father and not from the opinions of His family and peers. Consider these passages:
- Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? (John 1:46).
- Why is He eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners? (Mark 2:16).
- "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?" And they took offense at Him (Mark 6:3).
- The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, "Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!" (Matthew 11:19).
- "If You do these things, show Yourself to the world." For not even His brothers were believing in Him (John 7:4-5).
- They said to Him, "We were not born of fornication" (John 8:41).
- The Jews answered and said to Him, "Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?" (John 8:48).
- When He left there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile and to question Him closely on many subjects, plotting against Him to catch Him in something He might say (Luke 11:53-54).
Jesus was criticized, rejected, slandered, misunderstood, plotted against, betrayed, denied, and abused by His family and friends, His disciples, the Jewish religious leaders, and the Romans. As His ministry progressed, our Lord faced increasing levels of hostility and opposition. In spite of all this, He knew who and whose He was, and His relationship with the Father gave Him the power and security to love and serve others. It would have been impossible for Jesus to have done this if He had allowed Himself to be defined and bound by the opinions of the people around Him.
The Inside Gatefold
THE PATIENCE OF LOVE
No one treated Lincoln with more contempt than did Edwin Stanton, who denounced Lincoln's policies and called him a "low cunning clown." Stanton had nicknamed him "the original gorilla" and said that explorer Paul Du Chaillu was a fool to wander about in Africa trying to capture a gorilla, when he could have found one so easily in Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln said nothing in reply. In fact, he made Stanton his war minister because Stanton was the best man for the job. He treated him with every courtesy. The years wore on.
The night came when an assassin's bullet struck down Lincoln in a theatre. In a room off to the side were Lincoln's body was taken, stood Stanton that night. As he looked down on the silent, rugged face of the President, Stanton said through his tears, "There lies the greatest ruler of men the world has ever seen." The patience of love had conquered in the end.