ADVENT & ANTICIPATION

Luke 2:1-7

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

Revelation 22:14-21

“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what they have done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

“Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let those who hear say, “Come!” Let those who are thirsty come; and let all who wish take the free gift of the water of life.

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If any one of you adds anything to them, God will add to you the plagues described in this scroll. And if any one of you takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from you your share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.

He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.

[Note: This year, our pastors have been preaching through the Old Testament and are finishing up with the minor prophets this month. About two weeks ago, I broke the OT into sections and had different people from my community group give a summary of that section. My hope was that they would see that the OT isn't just various stories strung together, but one unified story from beginning to end, ending with anticipation of the Messiah. The Psalms and Proverbs will be covered in January-February, so they aren't included in this summary. The following is my attempt to do the same, which I thought was only fair to the people I put on the spot at CG ]

Genesis-Deuteronomy:

God created everything out of nothing, declared it awesome, and placed Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden in order to expand the Garden throughout the rest of creation, through working the ground, creating culture, populating the earth and living in community—all to the glory of God and in relationship to Him. They failed at their mission, fracturing their relationship with God, each other, and creation, initiating a movement of history that longs for a restoration back to it’s original state. As punishment, God exiled them from the garden, but out of his grace promised that one of their descendants would crush the head of the serpent and bring the creation back to it’s Edenic state. After a long period of rebellion of all people, God judged the world through a flood, and called Noah to the same calling of Adam as a new Adam—which he also eventually failed at. God then called a man named Abram to leave his land and go settle in another land. God promised Abram that he would bless him, give his future descendants the land he was now at, and that God would use Abram and his family to bless the world. In other words, it was through Abram that God would fulfill his promise to Adam and Eve. God renamed him Abraham, and reaffirmed his promises to Abraham’s Son Isaac, and his son Jacob. Jacob’s son, Joseph, was exiled out of the promised land into Egypt by his brothers. Israel would spend 400 years in Egypt in slavery, but then God called Moses to lead his people out of Egypt and back to the promised land. Because of their sin, however, they would roam the desert for 40 years, until the entire generation would die off. During this period, God would speak directly to Moses, and gave to him the Law and Commandments that Israel was to live by, as well as institute the sacrifices, priesthood, and the tabernacle.

Joshua-Kings/Chronicles

After the death of Moses and the other Israelites, Joshua leads the Israelites into the Promised Land, which is described in terms of it’s abundance and garden-likeness. The Promised Land is to be another step forward in God’s promises, a reminder that God will bring Eden back. In order to gain the land, however, they had to conquer the people who were in the land already. This wasn’t just random conquesting, but God’s command as a punishment for the unrepentant sin of those who lived in the land. After defeating most (but not all as God commanded) of the people in the land, the Israelites began to settle in what would become Israel, the Promised Land. It wasn’t long before the people started trusting in themselves and began another downward spiral of sin. As they continued to sin, God would send other nations in to conquer the Israelites as punishment. As this happend, the Israelites would cry out to God, and He would raise up Judges to lead Israel back to Himself. Israel would go through this same cycle many times, causing the people to yearn for a King like the other nations. God called the last judge, Samuel, to anoint the people’s choice for a king, Saul, assuring him that the people had not rejected Samuel’s leadership but God’s. This started the period called the united monarchy, where Israel was united under one King. Following the failure of Saul, God called a young shepherd boy named David to be King. David was considered a man after God’s own heart, and God promised him that the skull-crushing descendant promised to Adam & Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and so on would also come out of his family. The first part of David’s reign was marked with blessings and military victory, however, David would commit adultery and murder, which led to another downward spiral as the monarchy seemed to fracture after his sin. David would later anoint his son, Solomon, to be King after him. Solomon’s reign was marked with wisdom and peace. Solomon would also replace the tabernacle with the Temple. Solomon would rule well until he, like his father David, would fall to his love of women. When Solomon died, the Kingdom of Israel finally split into two—and could only continue to spiral out because of their continual idolatry and sin. As these two Kingdoms continued to sin, God would send prophets to them to call them back out of their sin and back into a relationship with Himself. When they would not listen, God promised to send them into Exile, just as he had said in the Law given to Moses. They didn’t listen, and so God sent the two Kingdoms into Exile through the nations of Assyria and Babylon.

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel

At this point, the narrative pauses and we reach the Prophets. The Prophets came into the scene as God’s forth- and fore-tellers. At a time when many Israelites were questioning where God was in all their suffering and the looming exile, the prophets served a dual purpose: 1) To answer the questions of “why” in regards to the exile (“because of your sin”) and give a call to repent, and 2) to remind the people of God’s promises to send someone to crush the head of the serpent and bring the entire creation back to a Eden-like state. We can see these two purposes clearly in the book of Isaiah where the first half of the book primarily looks at Israel’s sin and the second half primarily looks to the coming savior. God would end the exile once and for all, and bring his people back into Eden through the work of the Messiah.

Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah

Lamentations gives us a picture of what the destruction and overthrow of Jerusalem was like for the Israelites. Daniel picks the narrative back up with the Israelites in Exile. Daniel is serving in the Babylonian court and trying to hold on to his faith in God. As he read the book of Jeremiah, he was reminded of God’s promise to end the exile and so he began to pray for God to fulfill his promises. Esther is another story of God’s faithfulness to his people in exile, as it articulates his protection of his people from extinction, even in their punishment—though he isn’t mentioned explicitly, he is keeping his promises to bring them back. Ezra and Nehemiah form one continuous story at the end of the Exile. Just as God had promised, the people were allowed to come back into the Promised Land, so they started streaming back into the land and rebuilding the Temple. But something was wrong—they were back in the Land, but the Messiah was no where to be seen, and things certainly weren’t like anything they imagined Eden would be like.

So what now?

So, there is where we are at in the Old Testament story so far. Awaiting the coming of the Messiah. Funny how that matches where we are in the present day—celebrating Advent, awaiting the coming Messiah. Like the Israelites, we wait, anticipating the Coming of the Messiah, but unlike the Israelites we know the next part of the story, because the Messiah has already come once before: God came as the man Jesus, the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises. He crushed the skull of the serpent, the Devil, on the cross by taking our sins upon himself, bearing the wrath of God in our place. He then brought the promise of Eden, still a future reality in the New Creation, into the present time through his resurrection. We await the coming Messiah, to come back, fix all that is wrong in the world, wipe away the tears of the faithful, heal all of creation, and reign forever and ever in grace and righteousness. Amen, Come Lord Jesus!

ADVENT & ANTICIPATION

Scripture: Genesis 12; Genesis 15; Galatians 3:16

Last week, during the First Sunday of Advent, we took a moment to consider the idea of anticipation in the life of Adam and Eve. They were the only humans to have experienced the reality of shalom and harmony with God, and experienced the brokenness of all things because of sin. This week, we will move farther ahead in the history of the Israelite people to consider the anticipation of Abraham.

We are introduced to Abraham in Genesis 11, where he is first known as Abram, son of Terah. At this point in the story, Abram is around 75 years of age when YHWH gives him the charge to leave his land and move elsewhere (Genesis 12:1). The reason for this unusual call was that YHWH was going to use Abram as the springboard back into Eden by giving him the skull-crushing offspring promised in Genesis 3:15. YHWH says:

“I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:2-3, NLT)

There is a whole lot going on in these short verses. The first thing we notice is a promise of a son. In order to be a “great nation,” Abram must have descendants. The importance of descendants can be traced all throughout the Old Testament as the Israelites await and anticipate the coming Redeemer promised in Genesis 3:15. This promise to Abram is given immediately after (in terms of the book of Genesis) the lengthy prologue of chapters 1-11, which are several cycles of grace, sin, and judgment. In terms of using literary devices, the author of Genesis is showing us that it is through Abram and his offspring that this cycle will eventually be broken. It is also evident that Abram sees this promise of a nation in terms of the promise of a son, especially in Genesis 15:2 where Abram says, “O Sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don’t even have a son?” (NLT.) YHWH’s response is to reaffirm the promises of chapter 12, and enter into a covenant with Abram (now renamed Abraham). This future nation would enter into the “Promised Land,” the land of Canaan, which would function as a type of Eden and would later be understood as a sign-post of the coming New Creation.

The account of Genesis 12 is also linked to Eden through the idea of blessing. The word “bless” appears 3 times in Genesis 1-2 (The creation/eden account), three times throughout chapters 3-11, (cycles of grace, sin, judgment), and 4 times in just Genesis 12:1-3! This is YHWH telling Abram that the blessings originally intended for the whole world under the cultivation of Adam and Eve would now come about through Abram and his descendant(s). It wouldn’t just include the future nation, however, as YHWH intends for all who receive blessing to project it outwards and that the world would be blessed through them.

What incredible promises for 75-year old Abram. The promise of an heir at such an old age, and one from whom the the Promised One would come. After the failure of the nations at the tower of Babel, YHWH has responded yet again with grace-filled hope. Eventually, for Abra(ha)m, the anticipation for offspring would fall to unbelief and rise back to faith. As with our yearning for the Messiah’s coming, the promises YHWH gave were not fulfilled on Abraham’s desired timeline. Abraham’s heir would not be born for another 25 years, when Abraham was 100 years old. His response to the news of a new son when he was 99 years old can be found in Genesis 17 and Sarah’s in chapter 18. Sarah laughs in disbelief, “but we are so old, how can we have a child?”

God fulfilled his promise to Abram first through the nation of Israel, but would ultimately fulfill them through Jesus (Galatians 3:16). When Jesus came, he gave us another promise—that he will return again to usher in the New Creation and bring back Eden. We offer the same laughter of disbelief. It has been two-thousand years since Jesus first came to the earth, in the flesh, and as a baby. Surely, if he was going to return, he would have done so already? Can we trust in God’s promises? We have the same answer that Abraham received, “Just wait a little more, Abraham. Just a little more.”

Why Advent?

Depending on your background, you probably have one of three responses to Advent:

1. Like me, you are very, very excited; or
2. You are skeptical about the idea, maybe even dislike the practice; or
3. You couldn’t care less about it.

Of course, celebrating the season of Advent is not in the Bible. I can’t give you chapter and verse explicitly stating you must celebrate it. Therefore, it necessarily falls within the realm of Christian liberty. You are absolutely free to celebrate or not celebrate. I want to give you three reasons (in no particularly order) why I celebrate the season of Advent. Also, I’d love to hear your reasons for celebrating Advent so feel free to add your comments below!

Reasons I celebrate Advent:

It joins our voices to countless others throughout history and all over the world. One of the big temptations that I have to fight off often is thinking that our generation has somehow arrived—as if we as a people and a culture were somehow smarter or just plain better than those who came before us. Maybe it’s the incredible rise of technology I’ve seen in my lifetime, or the widespread availability of attaining knowledge, that makes me think this. Either way, Advent allows me to refocus those thoughts, and realize that this world in general and the Kingdom of God in particular is far bigger than just myself. When I celebrate Advent, I am joining my voice with the voices of all those who came before me and all those around the world presently in voicing our praise to the only one who could save us. It reminds me that we are where we are today because of the shoulders of the giants we stood on. It reminds me that expressions of anticipation sound beautiful in the languages and cultures around the world down through the ages. In fact, the entire liturgical calendar is a good reminder of this. It is selfish and unchristian to believe we have somehow “made it” and succeeded where everyone else has failed. Instead, we must recognize that we are one more stage that exists in the unfolding of God’s story, and that our place in that story is no more, but also certainly not less, glorious than those who came before or those who will follow after.

It tears down my idol of materialism. Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t buy presents, and I’m not going to tell you how much you should or shouldn’t spend. But if this season captures our imaginations and turns them towards Jesus, to see his birth (Phil 2:5-11, to be born as one of us is equal to humiliation, and to be like a slave) and death on our behalf, then it will transform how we think about these issues as well. Do our actions during this season reflect the gospel message? If not, what message are we sending to unbelieving friends and family if all we do is crave more stuff, or are stressed out the entire holiday? What about the amount of debt some of us dig ourselves into? The Advent season helps us remember the real reason for celebration and helps us think through how the Gospel message can transform our lives and the lives of those around us—even in something we wouldn’t normally think about, like spending. I am a consumer. As much as I hate it, I like stuff. I’m never satisfied where I am with what I have. Advent reminds me just how upside-down I have my priorities. We are blessed, ultimately, to be a blessing, not for our own gain. Jesus had a lot to say about issues of money and treasure, and their reflection of our hearts.

It helps unite the Biblical story. Jesus taught, and his disciples modeled in their writings, that all of the Old Testament pointed to him and his work on the cross. At the center of history (theologically, not temporally) we find a baby laying in a manger, born to an unwed mom who was promised to marry a blue-collar craftsman. This is an unusual spotlight, but here we find the hope and anticipation of God’s chosen people: The Messiah who was to come and fix all things. Like the Old Testament believers, we find ourselves inserted in their position during Advent—now we, as God’s people, yearn for the coming Messiah, to set all things right and to usher in shalom and renewal. Their cry for justice and mercy, relief and exodus from exile, becomes our cry. What we want, as they wanted, is nothing short of Eden: an unbroken relationship with the divine in paradise. We all want the restoration of how things should be. That is the promise of Genesis 3:15 and Revelation 21. Until the Messiah comes, however, we have a holy dissatisfaction (to paraphrase Paul Tripp). Thankful for the grace shown to us, we yearn for complete redemption (cf. Romans 8:18-27, 2 Corinthians 5:1-10). Jesus is returning, not as an (apparently) bastard child, but as a reigning King, on the back of his war-horse to destroy Satan, sin, and death and give shalom to us and all of creation! This is the anticipation of Advent!

For more information, you can check out the series on Advent found on theresurgence.com.
I also recommend reading my friend Alicia’s article on Why Advent? Part 1—Historicity.

ADVENT & ANTICIPATION

Scripture: Genesis 3:15; Galatians 4:4-5.

“I will cause hostility between you and the woman—between your offspring and her offspring; he shall crush your head, and you shall crush his heel.”

“When the intended time had fully passed, God sent his Son—born of a woman, subject to the law—in order to redeem those who are under the law and so that we might receive the benefits of being adopted as his children.”

Today marks the first Sunday of the Advent season, the time of the year where we reflect on the meaning of the incarnation and the birth of Jesus Christ. It is much more than simply the birthday of a religious figure, however—Advent sums up the entire Biblical narrative in the birth of the long-awaited Messiah and looks forward to the day when the Messiah returns to bring history to its intended goal and end. Advent then spans from creation (even, perhaps, we can say before creation. See Ephesians 1)to the culmination of history, and is centered around the the idea of anticipation of the coming Messiah.

And no one knows that anticipation better than Adam and Eve. Of all the people who have ever lived, they alone knew the full cost of the Fall, having experienced life in YHWH’s shalom. They alone knew what it meant to have an unfractured relationship with YHWH himself and all of creation. And while we continue to feel the effects of the Fall in our everyday lives, all we have known is the fractured reality of sin. Adam and Eve, on the other hand, knew what it was like prior to the fall, and had to live the rest of their lives with an experiential knowledge of what they lost in their sin. So imagine the anticipation they felt when they overheard YHWH tell the serpent that he would be destroyed by one of Eve’s sons, bringing back the world they once knew and rescuing all from the curse they had brought.

Imagine the hope, the joy, as Eve gave birth to Cain. Would he be the one? Or maybe it would be Abel? Time would ultimately show, of course, that it would be neither who fulfilled God’s promise. Can you imagine the sorrow, not only over the death of one son and the exile of another, but at the realization that God’s promise would go unfulfilled? Image the crushed hope, the wandering faith, and the doubt. Then imagine it all over again with the birth of Seth. Would they ever get back to Eden?

The Fall led to the Great Exile—not captivity in Egypt, or even Babylon, but to sin and death and Exile from the Garden. The birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is our great Exodus, bringin us back, not just to Eden but to a Greater Eden—the New Creation.

Imagine, Adam and Eve’s anticipation for the skull-crushing seed to come.

We now live in the tension of incarnation and consummation. By that I mean that the skull-crusher has come, and yet we are not back in Eden. In the powerlessness of the cross, Jesus overcome the power of Satan, sin, and death, crushing the skull of the serpent, and brought the New Creation into the present. However, it is just a taste of the New Creation, the fullness of which we will experience when the Messiah returns to put all things right. We see Satan prowling around now, but one day we will see the reality of his destruction. Like Adam and Eve, we anticipate the coming of the Messiah. We long to return to Eden, to a restoration of all things that is far more glorious than we can imagine.

Nativity image found here.

The last few weeks have been pretty crazy/busy—I wrote a paper on Isaiah 52:13-53:12, then worked on a sermon from Job which I gave this past Sunday, and now I’m working on another paper.

This paper will be looking at the role of creation in worship, primarily creation’s temple role in the Garden of Eden, and how each temple/tabernacle afterward picks up on the original goal of creation. Yesterday I finished Greg Beales book on The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God, and today I started reading Dempster’s Old Testament theology, “Dominion and Dynasty” and came across this brilliant quote:

“While it is true that the Bible ‘was never received as sacred scripture because of its literary merit’ (Carroll 1993: 89), ignorance of its literary features impedes understanding. This is part of the problem with fundamentalism, whether on the theological right or the theological left; the text is simply used and not studied.” Dempster, pg 24.

Right on the money.

Yesterday, I responded to Tim Challies’ review of Leland Ryken’s book defending the “essentially literal” translation methods, and the idea of a “word-for-word” translation. While no one made these comments, I want to make it clear that this isn’t simply a theoretical discussion for me, but that there are pastoral concerns as well:

Brothers and sisters, trust your translations!

Challies says, reflecting (I assume) the shared thoughts of Ryken, that “in the end I hope, I trust, you will have greater confidence in the Bible you read.”

However, when they say it, they mean “those of you who are using (so-called) word-for-word translations should have confidence.”

Here’s my concern: people are throwing out the work of experts for the opinions of hobbyists (at best). What about those who simply cannot read their (Ryken et al.) preferred translations? Let’s face it, the NASB’s grammar is anything but English—with fractured sentences that can actually obscure the point of a passage for anyone not familiar with the original languages—and the ESV is academic at best and archaic at worst. If Seminary professors struggle over their wording sometimes, what chance do those who have reading difficulties have?

So what should we do? If you ask some people, their response seems to be throw out that easy-to-read translation and go with something unnecessarily hard. Sure, the KJV and the ESV might be excellent literary translations, but not everyone is a literary enthusiast. The vast majority of people couldn’t care less about how much meter and rhyme they have.

They want the word of God, and they want it in language they can understand.

Now, at this point, someone will bring up 2 Peter 3:15—even Peter thought Scripture was hard to understand!

True. Not the same point. The argument is not that Paul’s Greek was so literary that it made it hard to understand, but that his concepts were difficult to understand. If the concepts are hard—and they are!—then why should we make it harder for people to wrestle with them?

Translation teams are made up of people who have trained in the technicalities of translation and linguistics. They are also primarily comprised of confessing Christians who hold Scripture very highly.¹ For example, would critics who claim that NLT translators are changing the word of God want to bring that charge up face to face with Tom Schriener? Alan Ross? Paul House? Eugene Merrill? Raymond Ortlund, Jr.? Craig Blomberg? Robert Stein? D.A. Carson? Doug Moo? Moises Silva? That was just a sampling of the conservative scholars who worked on the NLT who all affirm the doctrine of inerrancy. They are hardly the liberals that Ryken and others have charged with tampering with the Word of God.

Are they perfect? Of course not. No translation is. That’s why we should employ several types from across the spectrum of translation method.
Brothers and Sisters, we can trust these experts with not wanting to tamper with the word of God. We may disagree with some of their decisions, but we cannot demonize them, spreading false information to win a theological battle.

Christianity has a weird affinity for not wanting to trust the experts. We trust them in everything else—from the engineers who put our cars together to the pharmacists who mix our medicines. Why such a priori doubt about the qualifications of the experts behind our translations?

Brothers and sisters, trust your translations!

I just spent time writing two blog posts, and ended up deleting both of them. I really don’t want this to become “Bryan’s Book Reviews,” as it seems to be at the moment, but it seems like I have the worst case of writer’s block that I’ve had in awhile. I haven’t even had the desire to write for the last week or so until today. Now, I really want to write but can’t get anything out.

The first post was going to be a look at Derek Webb’s song, “The Spirit vs. The Kick Drum.” I wanted to take a look at Derek’s use of the trinity in structuring the song (“Spirit… Son… Father”) and how he prophetically critiques our (particularly American) way of constructing the Trinity into an idol of our own making, reflecting our sinfully consumerist mindset. It’s not the Spirit we yearn for, but “the kick-drum,” e.g. the sense of emotive experience that music can drive us too. We take that as a sign of God’s presence over the reality of the Spirit’s indwelling us. We also want “a jury of peers” instead of the Son, because a sinner being judged by other sinners makes us comfortable, while being a sinner judged by a Holy, Just, Perfect God does not. At all. So, instead, we make Jesus to be like one of our good friends “who will understand,” or who “would never judge me for being who I am.” Finally, we come to the Father, “want[ing] a vending machine.” A brilliant critique of our hearts, where we think that if we come to God with the right formula, push the right buttons corresponding to what we want, and out comes our desire. A divine C-5 if you will.

The second post I tried to write was on my identity crisis of late. I’ve been getting more and more frustrated with two overlapping groups that I am firmly a part of: evangelicalism and the “young, restless, reformed” crowd. My frustrations come from the fact that over the last few months I’ve realized that I don’t quite fit the molds of either of the two. I’m worried by some of the stuff I read coming out of the cross-section of both, which sound more and more like a form of neo-fundamentalism (complete with our own translation onlyism). Only this time, the rhetoric is coming from people would would decry the fundamentalism of the 40s and 50s.

As I stated, I’m a text-book evangelical, and certainly reformed theologically, but I just don’t feel comfortable within those conversations anymore. Not primarily because of theology, but because of how it plays out practically.

So there are the two blog posts I couldn’t get out separately.

One of the good things that has come out of the last few months—working through issues of “identity,” fighting off gout, and trying to sever the root of my own idolatry—is that I am ever more aware for my need of the Gospel. The gout and issues of identity and defintion has shattered my independence, and my idol factory of the heart reminds me that my righteousness is not my own. In the end, it is the gospel which works in all these areas. It points me to the reality of the new creation where all things are made right and there will be no gout. It reminds me of just how great a sinner I am, and how great a savior Jesus is. And lastly, it reminds me that the only identity which truly matters is our Galatians 2:20 identity:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Last night, I led a small group on (essentially) the last 6 chapters of Job. Inevitably, the discussion took a hard turn toward discussing evil and suffering.

Job is quite a paradoxical book. It is a simple book, with a simple narrative. It certainly is easy to read, and one can follow the story-line without much trouble. At the same time, there is hardly a book that is harder to comprehend than Job. The opening scene, where it is God who brings Job to Satan’s attention, knowing what would happens, is particularly hard for us to grasp, as is God’s answer to Job in chapters 38 through 41. If the narrative is simple, the details are extremely difficult.

So what do we do with the book of Job? I can’t offer answers that will satisfy everyone, but I do want to offer a few things for consideration when reading Job.
Read the rest of this entry

The past two weeks have been a frustrating battle with gout. Previous to this attack, I haven’t had a bad attack in almost two years. I have it in both ankles, and it has made walking and standing extremely painful— excruciating at first, but now I can walk, run, and jump with only a dull ache. At least I can function normally now.

A 25 year old shouldn’t be able to write that paragraph. Unfortunately, that’s the reality I’ve been dealing with these past two weeks. I’ve had gout for about 6 years now, and as I said, this is the worst its been in almost two-years. So how do I move from that to the title of this post? No, I’m not super-spiritual, and I don’t thank God for my gout when I pray. Truth be told, I have some pretty frank discussions with God about it. Well… I run my mouth off like Job, and He continues His patience with me. But, I have had time these last two weeks to reflect on gout, and I do believe, deep down, that it is a blessing. In a recent e-mail to my community group (which I’m extremely blessed to be able to lead), I gave a list of three reasons that I’m blessed with gout:

1. I’m an incredibly prideful person. Not being able to walk forces me to rely on others for simple things, and shatters any sense of pride I have.
2. It causes me focus on the promises of God. One day there will be a new creation—a new heavens and new earth—where we celebrate abundant life in the presence of Jesus himself. There will be no more sin, pain, death, tears, disabilities, etc for eternity. Gout sends me to Revelation 21.
3. It drives me to the cross. Gout is merely a symptom of a bigger issue: our sinfulness. It is for this very sinfulness that Jesus died on the cross. Each flare-up reminds me of the reality of sin and its effects on us and our world.

I wouldn’t be upset if God decided to heal me, but as long as I continue to have gout, I pray that my thinking about it would be redeemed and that I could keep this mental list in front of me.

(Astute readers will notice the irony of one of the categories I placed this post under.)