Vox Lucens

This weekend I had the chance to head up to Virginia for Easter, and catch the sunrise service at the Arlington Memorial Cemetery.

I left feeling proud to be an American, and uplifted by the music and what really was a powerful, personal salvation message. But mostly, I left with a powerful visual of the Resurrection that I have simply not been able to shake. It first hit me when singing Bill and Gloria Gaither’s great hymn, “Because He Lives.”

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, all fear is gone.
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living, just because He lives.

What an absolutely ironic thing to sing in the middle of a graveyard. Surrounded by uniform white headstones, singing about life just doesn’t seem to fit. And yet it does; that is the message of Easter. That white tombstone doesn’t signify the end. It is the beginning!

And as we walked back to the car after the service, that visual persisted. All around the tombstones, the signs of life were unmistakable. The trees, the flowers, the robins all showed life. What a picture of eternity that is–eternity thanks to the resurrection. We live in a world of death, physical and spiritual, a world of all the pain and tears sin can muster.

But that’s not the end. That’s the beginning. The beginning of glorious, unending, perfect eternal life. Because He lives…

Happy Easter.

***UPDATE***

Well, not really an “update,” I guess–It’s Monday morning, and He is still risen! But I’m still thinking about Easter and it’s meaning for us as Christians, and I shared some of those thoughts at Remember Ambassadors. Check it out, and let me know your thoughts: Easter’s Power.

Last month, The Weekly Reminder ran a series based on 1 John 4. It is an amazing passage of Scripture, especially in dealing with our relationships with other members of the Body of Christ.

1 John 4:1-6

1 John 4:7-11

1 John 4:12-16

1 John 4:17-21

While I was writing those, there was one phrase in the chapter that just never seemed to make sense. In the middle of John’s writing on love, and why we love God, there is a seemingly unrelated sentence: “No man hath seen God at any time.” Right after saying that, the apostle goes on talking about love, talking about how God’s love is perfected in us when He dwells in us:

Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

This morning, as I was meditating on the passage, this phrase jumped out at me again, only this time I realized why it is there. It is not random–in fact, it fits perfectly. You see, we ought to love one another, as we are told in verse 11. But why is that important? Because although no man has seen God, it is entirely possible to see God’s perfected love in the lives of His children.

What a responsibility that is. No one can physically see God, not the believer, not the unbeliever. But both can see God reflected in us. Does demonstrating our love to the Body of Christ matter? It absolutely does–it is how people see God.

[Cross-posted at Remember Ambassadors.]

Last time I posted I talked about your prayers…but tonight I am thinking about mine.

This has been a whirlwind week, with at least 13 hours of study each day, and sometimes much more. I’m in a strange place, working my butt off in pursuit of a goal that is very much not guaranteed. It is entirely possible that all this work could go for naught, and that really, really bugs me.

For a long time, I’ve had a very specific prayer when facing uncertainties like this, though. And as painful as it is to pray - because I really mean it - I find myself turning to it again this week. It’s a simple prayer, and it goes something like this: “Lord, if failing this test would bring You more glory, then let me fail. And if I pass, let that shed all the honor and glory on to You.”

There is a strange peace that comes with praying that painful prayer. Somehow, genuinely desiring God’s glory, and working hard for that purpose, is freeing. It helps that I truly believe that He can glorify Himself through my failure, should He so choose.

And while I hope more than I can say that His glory would be more served by my success, that is truly my prayer.

Over the holidays, there has been a lot of news of persecution. In Orissa, India, for instance, Hindus have used the Christmas season as a pretext for massive rioting, killing many and causing untold damages to churches. And that is but one story of many.

I follow so many of these stories that I sometimes get lost in the tragedy. And then something will come out that reminds me just how much I take for granted. That story, for me, was one that broke yesterday:

US Diplomat Killed in Sudan

The United Nations had recently warned its staff in Sudan that there was credible evidence that a terrorist cell was in the country and planning to attack foreigners.

That could have been me. I was there just a couple of weeks ago. I avoided riots just miles from where I was staying. I was called there, I know that, and knew that I was in God’s hands, but now this–I was taking my safety for granted.

Just this morning, I stumbled upon the work of a documentary photographer in Sudan. He appears to have traveled primarily to the south of Sudan, a different area than I have been to, but the people are the same, and the needs, and the reminder of just how much I take for granted. As I watched his video and fought the tears, I couldn’t help but pray and praise.

And so, at this annual season of reflection and planning, I am reminded of those two things. Praise, praise for the things both large and small that I take for granted, praise for the trials that only work to show me my need and bring me closer to Christ. And prayer–though I say it every week, I cannot say it enough. Prayer is power, power that I take for granted and thereby fail to take advantage of.

Prayer and praise. I want to build 2008 on those two things.

I tend to go about things backwards from time to time. For instance, you would think that if you have a big idea, you use eloquence to express that big idea. That would be the forward way of going about writing. Once in a while, though, in doing my writing, I’ll stumble on a big idea because I’m trying to be eloquent.

I did that the other day at work, writing my latest Weekly Reminder. In pondering what Christmas really means to believers worldwide, I said, “But the peace they know is eternal, a peace between God and man, the limitless void between sin and holiness bridged by a bloodstained cross.”

And I have been thinking about that ever since. It’s not that I haven’t thought about the incarnation before; it’s that I never tried to compare it to human suffering.

We cannot understand the incarnation because we have never known perfection. Even those of us living in the most free nation on earth have never come close–we live in a fallen world, surrounded by fallen people, always seeing evidence of the sin nature that enfolds us. The closest that I have come experiencing the incarnation is in traveling from the U.S. to the third world. It’s a poor example, but it is the essence of the matter. Going from freedom, comfort, and convenience to oppression and poverty is a tiny picture of going from Heaven to earth.

That Christ was willing to cross that incomprehensible gap is the essence of Christmas. But it doesn’t end there…

If Christmas were just about Christ bridging the earth/Heaven gap, it would ring hollow. It would be a miracle without a meaning. But this sacrifice is the source of salvation, in bridging the second gap, the gap between sin and holiness.

That is the void mankind faces. It is the void we cannot cross. It is the insurmountable gap that we must attempt to jump anyway, facing certain doom as we fall short of even seeing our target.

That gap, bridged by the bloodstained cross of a Christ who came from Heaven to earth, is why I celebrate this year.

Merry Christmas!

Which is to say, the power of words.

On Sunday I had the chance to share a trip update with my church family at CHBC, an opportunity which I greatly appreciated because I know they were praying for me while I was in Sudan. It was a privilege to let them know how their prayers were answered.

At the conclusion of the message, Pastor read from my last Weekly Reminder e-mail, which was the text that I first shared on this blog. The story was very meaningful and moving to me, and listening to my own story being read was a weird experience. It took me back to being there, sitting in that church, listening to the story of the Sudanese Church of Christ.

It was that transformation that started me thinking about the power of words. But it was only the beginning. It did not take long, or many people, to encourage me beyond belief simply by thanking me for sharing, and to answer my prayers by telling me that it had impacted their hearts.

But it was the words of a teenage girl that really made my day. She told me, with all the sincerity her teenage heart could muster reflected in her eyes, “I wish to tell you that I really appreciate you putting your life in danger for the widows over in Sudan. You made God happy by what you did.” And you know, in all the thinking I’ve done about all this, I had never thought of our work quite like that.

It was a reminder to me that sometimes the best gift that can be given–at Christmas time or any other–is the simplest. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to make someone’s day.