Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made.

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden…”

Genesis 2:8, 16

When I was in high school, I was one day driving my sister to dance class. I came to an intersection, looked both ways, pulled out and hit a guy on his bike. The guy was OK but the bike was wrecked. In a total panic I was asking questions like “What do you need? What can I do?” He asked for $100 for bike repairs which I did not have. A woman nearby overheard, and told me to come with her to an ATM where she took out $100 and gave it to me, which I in turn gave to the man I hit with the bike.

I didn’t lose anything that day but a headlight and some confidence in my driving, but I spent weeks trying to figure out how I was scammed. No one just gives large sums of money to strangers. It had to be a setup—even though, again, I didn’t lose anything.

Giving freely without conditions feels unnatural.

But actually not only is it natural, it’s the way we, humanity, are instructed to interact with our world. “You may freely eat…”

Freely giving, freely receiving is how we were designed to operate. Sin, which is unnatural, tells us that everything is earned and earned because we’re worth it. Christ in his life, death and resurrection reminds us of this and restores the original order. You are loved, not for what you offer, and despite your constant and gratuitous failure. He freely gave and asks you to freely receive.

May you go in Peace.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Hebrews 4:15

After being born among animals and filth because his parents were refused a reasonable place to stay, he lived for years as a refugee in Egypt, fleeing a state sponsored mass murder of which he was the primary target.

On his return he was hated and hunted by the pharisees and religious leaders until he was eventually betrayed by his own people, who demanded a murderer be released instead of the one who gave many of them sight, and healing, and hope.

He was eventually murdered while the state smiled on.

There are few ways in which Christ can’t directly and literally identify with your experience of pain, betrayals, and exclusion.

And yet, even when betrayed by one of the 12 in his inner circle with a kiss, after being denied 3 times by one of his best friends, he did not close his circle or his arms, but instead opened them wider allowing them to be nailed in that position so that all would know they are welcome in.

You are seen in your hurt and weakness. You have a companion on the dark road. You are loved through it all.

May you go in that peace.

The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:31

Wendell Berry has characterized modern political discourse as groups pressuring other groups to do the things they themselves are unwilling to do. Certainly the way we vote should reflect the love we are called to as Christians, but if it is not accompanied by person to person expressions of that same love, what good is it? Whoever wins the election may have the ability to influence behavior, but they cannot change hearts. They will not love your neighbor for you.

Jesus is Lord of all Creation, the country included, and yet he still bent down to wash his disciples’ feet.

The hands of Jesus aren’t just around the world, but also mending the wounds of the broken people in it. May you be a known as a Christ Follower who overflows with his love.

May you go in Peace

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

Matthew 5:13-16

What does it mean to be “salt and light?” For context, let’s remember that this passage comes right after the Beatitudes and Jesus is talking to a crowd of outcasts gathered on the fringes of society and has been telling them they’re blessed when they are meek and mourning and persecuted and poor in spirit.

So before you put on your “salt and light” game face and pretend to be something you’re not, remember that the Beatitudes still apply and the rules are still the flipped, upside-down, counter-intuitive rules of the Kingdom of God.

You will fail, you will fear, you will hurt, you will feel lost, you will be persecuted, and that’s when you’ll understand the flavor the salt brings, and the hope the light offers.

And then you will relay that light to the broken world.

The light has come into the world, and he loves you.

Go in Peace.

I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

Luke 15:18-20

Enter the story of the Younger Brother.

You’ve spit in your father’s face, left home and lived a failed life, and are now headed back.

You crest the hill, and your father’s house comes into view.

Do you believe he would run to you?

Or are you still practicing your speech?

Your speech to explain why your faith has been lukewarm lately, but it’s going to get better soon. To explain why you haven’t read your Bible or prayed in weeks, but you’ll start tonight. To explain why you haven’t yet dealt with the shameful stain of sin on your conscience, but you’ll confess tomorrow?

Whatever you think you need to say first, the good news is all your talk is useless, because he’s already running.

And as one writer put it, he’s so excited he forgot to put his shoes on.

Go in peace.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Matthew 5:9

When asking “what does it actually look like to be a peacemaker,” it’s critical to look to the one who was both called the “Prince of Peace” and was born the son of God.

He laid himself down, submitted himself to the will of his father, and counted himself as nothing in order to make Peace between us and God.

We ask, “but when we lay ourselves down for someone we’re at odds with, what if they take advantage of us, what if they continue in doing wrong to us?”

Well at worst, we get a glimpse of the unshaking grace of Christ who repeatedly meets us in our failure and rejection of him with forgiveness and love.

At best, they get a glimpse of the same.

Go in the peace made for you at great price because you are dearly loved.

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Romans 5:9-11

One of my favorite books is Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It’s a series of letters from a 70 year old pastor with a fatal heart condition writing to his 7 year old son whom he will not see grow up. At one point the old pastor writes this:

If your identity is a redeemed Child of God, even during this most divisive season, you don’t get to play by their rules, you don’t get to hate like they hate, you don’t get to despair like they despair. You are called to love, to give, to hope.

Of course you’ll fail to do that--we’ll fail to do that.

But the wonderful reality is that when we were enemies, the Lord took our sins upon himself that we might know the profound Love he has for us.

Now, you are the Beloved Children of God.

Go in Peace

Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.”

Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. “Remove the stone,” Jesus said.

Martha, the dead man’s sister, told him, “Lord, there is already a stench because he has been dead four days.”

John 11:24-27, 38-39

In the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus is far away and hears his good friend has died. He travels to visit the family. He talks with Martha and tells her, “I’m the resurrection and the life.” And then, “the dead will walk again,” and Martha says she gets it. He then tells her to “take me to the tomb.” Martha at this point seems to think Jesus just needs some closure, because even when Jesus then says, “Open the tomb”, Martha, who should be connecting the dots right now, instead opens her mouth and says “But he’s going to smell bad.”

Shut up, Martha! Don’t you get it? He’s about to raise the dead.

And isn’t this the church? Jesus standing with his pierced hands held out and calling to the hurting and broken world that he is going to make new, and there’s lus, elbowing him in the ribs and knowingly whispering “You should know, That one’s going to smell bad.”

Shut up, Church! He’s about to raise the dead.

And that’s the good news, the only thing you, or anyone else brings to their resurrection is their death.

Are you able to die?

Yes?

Come on in.

The Resurrection and the Life will take it from here.

Go in Peace.

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

John 20:24-25

I like to imagine the week after the resurrection in the room with the 11 disciples and the locked door. 10 of them excitedly discussing the empty tomb and the risen Christ. The 11th, Thomas—Doubting Thomas—listening to it all and saying “No, I can’t believe it, it’s not enough.” Then Christ appears and there’s a moment when Thomas considers the stories he’s heard, he listens to the other apostles saying “See, we told you!” and he does see now, with his own eyes, the thing he wants with all his heart to be true.

But his doubt still wins and he says “No, it’s still not enough. I need to feel his hands.”

Maybe this is you. You’ve heard the stories, maybe even seen some things that look like miracles, but you need to feel his hands.

Because He is risen, may you feel his wounds where your wounds and doubts are greatest, and may you feel hands of Jesus working love and grace into your life.

May you go in peace.

… this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him,

“‘I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
my flesh also will dwell in hope.

Acts 2:23-26

The special challenge of Christian Hope is that we have such cheap things to practice with. That is, things that are unproven and unknown—things in which we’re desperately looking for future potential.

“I hope she answers.” “I hope he understands.” “I hope I’m protected.” “I hope this works.”

And as often as not it doesn’t, and they don’t.

Whereas Christian Hope asks us to look backwards to a thing accomplished on a cross, 2000 years ago, on a garbage dump outside Jerusalem.

You aren’t looking at what could happen, but what already has. So now, today, and even tomorrow, when you say, “I hope He loves me,” you have full assurance he does.

Go in Peace.

I have provided all kinds of grain and all kinds of fruit for you to eat.

Genesis 1:29

One of the jokes I’ve always heard about Sunday School is that if you don’t know the answer to a question, just answer “Jesus,” “God,” or “The Bible,” and you’ll probably get it right. I think I’d like to add “God throws a feast” to that list.

God creates man and invites him to eat anything he wants.

The Israelites overthrow their enemies, and God commands a feast,

During times of Peace in Israel, God commands a Year of Jubilee every 7 years to keep the party going.

The prodigal returns, and the father throws a party.

In his last hours with his disciples, Jesus invites them to a feast.

In the first days after the resurrection, Jesus again invites them to eat with him on the shore of the Galilean Sea.

And at the end of time, as seen in the Book of Revelation, we are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Our God is the God of grace who gives and gives and gives, despite our behavior and far beyond our deserving, with exuberant generosity.

And best of all, it’s for His sake He celebrates, which means we’ll never be uninvited.

His love for you is profound and secure.

Go in Peace.

And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.”

Luke 7:13

In the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, Mary And Martha come to Jesus to tell him that their brother is very ill and will die and can Jesus please come before that happens.

Yet Jesus waits a couple days before going to where Lazarus by that time has died and is laid in a tomb.

When Mary comes to Jesus we read this:

“When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.”

Jesus knows that in a short time death will be defeated. He has even already declared that he is going to raise Lazarus from the dead but even still a few verses later we read the famously short :

“Jesus wept.”

As I read this story its not Lazarus’s death that causes Jesus to cry--that’s a temporary problem--but rather the pain he sees in the faces of those he loves.

When you find yourself in a season of mourning, don’t run from it, but rather follow Mary and Martha in running to Jesus, carrying your pain with you. He is the God who became man to feel your pain, and heal your pain, to redeem your pain.

Run to him. Take others with you.

Go in peace.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

John 13:34

When John first heard the commandment “as I have loved you” he may have thought it was a reachable goal. But I imagine him standing at the foot of the cross remembering “as I have loved you” and realizing that it was always an…

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Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated.

John 6:11

We live in a world of transactions. I give you money and get a product. I do you a favor and receive one in return. I get a gift and give you thanks.

But I’m really struck that Jesus gave thanks.

Jesus, who we recognize as fully god, gave thanks to God.

If gratitude is just another transaction, another box to check like a thank-you note after a birthday party, it seems really unnecessary for Jesus to practice it. So what His giving thanks points to in my mind is that gratitude isn’t a transaction but a part of who we are meant to be.

Because we, who live in new life and therefore post-resurrection, are given occasional glimpses that all of life is grace and a gift. That we who are the undeserving redeemed have been brought from the cold outside and given a place of honor at the table. That wherever we go and whoever we think we are becoming, we have been made the beloved sons and daughters of the Loving and Most High God.

God doesn’t need your gratitude, but you can not come to a true understanding of yourself without coming to an understanding of how desperately loved you are.

And that looks a lot like gratitude.

Go in Peace.

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For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:20

The Old Testament is a story of failure. Repeated Failure. A thousand odd pages of God telling people “Trust me and live”, and people responding with a “No thanks.”

And apart from a jump in time, my story and your story would fit in perfectly well.

Which is why these passages from Jeremiah read with such hope.

God says:

“The days are coming when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and the people of Judah.”

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel.”

“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.”

“I will be their God.”

“I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

And so when Christ speaks, “Unless your righteousness exceed that of the pharisees….”
you need to understand that it will. But your only contribution to it will be that you are an object of such profound, counter-intuitive, antithetical love that God himself came to earth, to pour out his blood in forming a new covenant that secures you as his own and sets you in right relationship with him.

You are loved.

Go in peace.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Ephesians 1:3

I think if we, the church, want to live into the resurrected life we have been called to, the first step is the most obvious, the most overlooked, and the hardest step in the process to swallow.

It is that to be resurrected, you must first be dead.

And once you can recognize that, then you can ask, “Who do dead people serve? Who do dead people love? Who do dead people judge? Who do dead people condemn?” And when you answer those questions, you can get a pretty clear picture of your rights outside of Christ Jesus.

But what about in Christ Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life?

In Christ Jesus, you get to trade your death for a life in which there is now no condemnation.

And in Christ Jesus, we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

May you go in Peace.

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!

Psalm 139:23-24

“Search me, God, and know my heart.”

So what if he does?

And isn’t that question answered when God took on flesh, and he searched us by becoming us?

He lived with us, he questioned us, he danced and sang and cried with us, he suffered with us, and then suffered and died because of us.

And after all his searching, when he has lived 33 years and died staring straight at the most hateful parts of us, what we hear is the unshaken love of God and God of love continue to call to us:

“Follow me.”

Because He knows you, He wants you, He understands all of you.

And through it all, he loves you.

Everything comes from him;
Everything happens through him;
Everything ends up in him.
Always glory! Always praise!
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Romans 11:36 (The Message)

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Romans 12:1

Several years ago, I chaperoned a mission trip to South Africa with a group of high schoolers.

I remember on one 115 degree day, the mission we were working with was putting on a ministry program for kids. Standing in the middle of a shade-less dirt field, one of the students volunteered to put on a faded, poorly ventilated Magilla Gorilla costume in order to dance through the streets of the neighboring village and encourage children to come to the gathering.

I think about her heat exhausted face afterwards and how on that day, that student was serving as the mouth of Jesus, who was saying, “let the little children come to me.”

And I expect that’s what life as a living sacrifice looks like.

But all of us will have opportunities like that and, as often as not, will choose to refuse the suit.

Which is why it’s such a source of hope and grace that Christ did not shy away from putting on flesh that was not his, and not only living alongside us in our weakness, but dying for us and our weakness, that we too would hear his invitation and join in worship:

Everything comes from him,
Everything happens through him
Everything ends up in him
Always glory, Always praise
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Go in peace

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Matthew 6:16-18

I know for me, in prayer, fasting, sacrificing, and other spiritual disciplines—assuming I do them—my posture is one of pleasing. Of showing God I’m really serious. And I’m so spiritual. And haven’t I been doing well lately?

And completely missing the point.

Your sin is paid for, and because God sees the work of Christ in and over you, God couldn’t be more pleased with you.

So instead of pleasing, I think the goal of fasting and prayer is seeing.

Seeing the God who provides, who saves, who lives, who loves, who reconciles, who heals, and who meets you in every need.

As the old Hymn says:

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not harm thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

You are loved. Go in Peace

While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler’s house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.

Mark 5:35-38

When you’re afraid, when you’re alone, when you’re angry, when you’re hurting, when you’re overwhelmed with the reality that there’s not a part of you that isn’t broken, when you’re at the end of your rope, may you let go and fall into the hands of Jesus.

May you be constantly surprised by the grace of God expressed in his unrelenting, transforming, and healing love for you.

Go in Peace