history

Jun

2023

Faith follows God, overcoming fear

A lesson from Abram & Sarai

Faith follows God, overcoming fear

by David Sellnow

Bible selection to read: Genesis 12:1-9

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We live in a mobile society. People change jobs and places of residence rather frequently. A statistic based on US census data shows the average American moves 11 or more times in their life. Another statistic shows the average American changes jobs about 12 times.

Moving is expensive and challenging, but nowadays there are ample resources to aid you. You can obtain guidebooks and checklists to pilot you through the process. You can rent trailers and trucks and equipment to move yourself. Or you can go with major van lines that will do the moving for you—even the packing and unpacking if you want to pay the fees for it. When you hit the road, you’ve got navigational tools—printed maps, mapping websites, GPS on your phone. You have major roads and interstates on which to travel. Rest stops, convenience stores, and restaurants ease your journey. When you arrive at your new location, local stores and home delivery services will help set you up in your new environment. Moving has challenges, but moving is quite doable in the modern world.

When a man named Abram had to move, not in 2023, but more like 2023 BC (or thereabouts), things weren’t quite so easy. U-Haul® back then meant strapping your belongings onto your camels—if you were affluent enough to have camels. Road maps weren’t written on paper, let alone on computer or GPS. You had to feel the wind and follow the stars. Roads themselves weren’t four-lane concrete with divided lines. If you were fortunate, maybe you could see signs that someone had traveled that way ahead of you. There were no hotels or motels with pools and hot tubs to relieve travelers’ weary bones. You considered yourself blessed if you found a pond of water.

When Abram moved so many years ago, it was a monumental task compared to what we think of as moving today. And yet, the 400+ miles on foot wasn’t the biggest challenge, nor was the lack of modern travel advantages. Most fearful for Abram was that he had no clear idea of where he would end up. He was heading into an open-ended future, with nothing but a promise from the LORD God to sustain him. The promise did not include specifics and came from a God different from those his family had known. Yet Abram and his wife, Sarai, followed the LORD, overcoming their fears, trusting his promise.

Think of what God asked Abram to do. Abram was 75 years old. He’d lived in community with his relatives all of his life. He and his wife Sarai had moved once before, but the family group had moved together. They went from Ur (near the Persian Gulf) to Haran (in what is today eastern Turkey), with Abram’s father Terah as patriarch of the family. Now the LORD God had said to Abram: “Go from your country, your people, and your father’s household to the land I will show you” (Genesis 12:1 NIV). That was a big ask! We are not even sure how religious a man Abram was at the time God first called him. We know that his father Terah worshiped gods other than the LORD God who revealed himself to Abram (cf. Joshua 24:2). Now the LORD was commanding Abram to leave his father and others behind, strike out on his own, and go to a land as yet unnamed. Then, when Abram did what God asked and went to the new land, the region of Canaan, he found others were already inhabiting it. Imagine if you were told to up and move to a new home, and when you arrived found somebody else in the house who had no intention of leaving. For Abram, following God’s plan required very great faith.

That was all right, because God gave Abram great faith. God’s promise allowed Abram to face the road ahead and overcome fear. God’s promise to Abram is so beautiful it rings out like poetry. “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:2-3).

Abram didn’t have hotel reservations when he left Haran. He had no lease papers for an apartment and certainly had not closed a deal on a house in the new destination. As a matter of fact, all through his life Abram would live in tents in Canaan. He had camels and herds, but the only piece of real estate he ever owned was a burial plot he later bought from the Hittites (Genesis 23). Yet in reality, Abram had something much more solid than any stone foundation under a house. He had the rock-solid promise of God. The culmination of that promise was that all peoples on earth would be blessed through Abram and his offspring, particularly through one descendant who would be the world’s Messiah. We now know that Messiah as Jesus Christ. The magnitude of God’s promise enabled Abram to follow God in faith, even if all the specifics weren’t laid out for him. Thus, when Abram arrived in the promised land and found other people already living there, he did not need to worry. The Lord assured him again: “To your offspring I will give this land” (Genesis 12:7). So, rather than fretting and worrying, Abram built altars to the LORD and worshiped him (Genesis 12:7,8).

You and I are the children of Abraham. (The LORD extended Abram’s name to Abraham, meaning “the father of many.”) Scripture calls us children of the promise given to Abraham (Galatians 4:28). All believers in the LORD, the Savior, are united by faith in the God of such great promises (cf. Galatians 3:7). We have seen what Abraham never got a chance to see—every one of the promises made to him was fulfilled. His descendants did inherit the land. His family became a prominent nation. His ancestry provided the human line for Jesus the Savior—the one through whom all peoples on earth have been blessed. Abram’s worship, his following God in faith, was not in vain. Neither is our faith in vain.

When the LORD calls us to follow him, what he asks of us is formidable. We are to love the LORD our God, with all our heart, and all our soul, and all our mind, and all our strength (Mark 12:30). We are to follow him completely, in any direction he may ask us to go. Sometimes that can be overwhelming. For instance, when a moving truck shows up in front of your residence because you need to change your occupation, change location, start over again with a new direction in life. Or the path you walk may be one you must walk haltingly, hobbling along, because a disease or accident has wracked your body or crippled your legs. Or the road God asks you to go may be lonely because it is a spiritually committed direction Instead of the easier worldly choices of those around you. Following in faith, walking after God, may mean you’re passed over for promotions or career improvements because you’re not as cutthroat in business as others, and they get ahead more than you. The journey through this world may find you laying your wife or husband or child or parent in a grave.

The story of our lives is full of upheavals and challenges, bends in the road, temptations and pressures. We are left wondering what comes next. Often we are afraid—very afraid. That’s normal for us. Our dear Lord knows we struggle with fear as we go through life and strive to follow him. Think of how many times Jesus reassured his disciples, saying, “Fear not!” and reminding them of his promises. And that was when they had him physically present with them. How much more we will be prone to fear when we face storms and changing winds in our lives, without seeing Jesus right there in the boat with us!

Actually, he is always in the boat with us—something we can’t see with our physical eyes, but do see with eyes of faith. Our Lord does not ask anything of us for which he does not also empower us. Allow me to remind you of some of Scripture’s promises, which enable us to keep going through life’s many moves and misdirections.

God says, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go. … I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Genesis 28:15).
“After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10).
“God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing, he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
“Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9).
“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying: this is the way, walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21 NIV). “I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand” (Isaiah 41:10). “Even to your old age and gray hairs. I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you. I will sustain you and I will rescue you” (Isaiah 46:4).

Those are promises that God gives to you as his people. And those are just some of his promises. Walking through life, following God, would be a pathway filled with fear—except for God’s promises. His promises embolden us. By the promises of God, we walk in faith, overcoming fear, for the LORD is with us. He is protecting and saving us every step we take, anywhere we go. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is still our God; the Lord Almighty is our refuge (cf. Psalm 46). As he did for Abram, the LORD our Savior will lead us also—onward through our lives on this earth, and, ultimately, into the promised land of “many mansions” that he has in store for us beyond (cf. John 14:2 KJV).

Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Jul

2020

Mortal Monuments

by David Sellnow

“All flesh is grass” (Isaiah 40:6 KJV).

Statues are falling across the land. They are being removed, destroyed, defaced.

In Richmond, Virginia, the bronze image of Christopher Columbus was torn down, set on fire, then shoved into a nearby lake.

In Minneapolis, outside Target Field, the Minnesota Twins removed a statue of former team owner Calvin Griffith, acknowledging racism he had exhibited.

Image credit: Wikipedia Commons

In New York City, the American Museum of Natural History has requested that the city remove the Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt, which depicts the former US president riding high while leading an African American and Native American man on each side of his horse.

In Portland, Oregon, outside Jefferson High School, protesters spray painted “SLAVE OWNER” across the base of the Thomas Jefferson memorial and toppled the statue itself onto the ground.

The killing of George Floyd by police officers on Memorial Day has pushed our nation to reevaluate its past and what we memorialize. Monuments to Confederate generals who fought to perpetuate slavery have been targeted especially. Other figures have been questioned and their history reassessed too, such as the examples mentioned above.

The history of each individual human life is complicated. Thomas Jefferson owned more than 600 slaves over the course of his lifetime. Jefferson also fathered children by one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, who was his wife Martha’s half-sister. (Martha Jefferson’s father also had fathered children by a family slave.) However, in the draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson included strong condemnation of the slave trade that the British government had made a part of colonial life. He blamed the king for waging “cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery or to incur miserable death in their transportation” from Africa to the Americas. That portion of Jefferson’s Declaration didn’t make it into the final version of the nation’s founding document. Too many other leaders, too invested in the slave economy, forced such statements to be deleted.

Any human beings whom we hold up as heroes are inevitably flawed because, well, they’re human. Some have engaged in actions that were hailed as bold in their time but are seen as oppressive in retrospect. Statues fall. No mortal man or woman in reality could be as monumental as the monuments we construct to them. Our tendency to elevate human individuals to hero status and idolize them is a pattern fraught with problems.

God’s Word wisely advises us (Psalm 146:3-4):
Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.

The same Psalm (146:5-9) then tells us where to focus our trust:
Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God.
He is the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything in them—
he remains faithful forever.
He upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free,
the Lord gives sight to the blind,
the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,
the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the foreigner
and sustains the fatherless and the widow.

God alone is worthy of our worship and praise. He is the one who can guide our paths forward, heal our society, inspire individuals to love one another regardless of race or other differences.

As for people from our past and people in our present, we do well to be honest about who they were and who they are — and to be honest about ourselves too, acknowledging our own failures and imperfections. The Bible is honest in that way about people whom we admire as persons “commended for their faith” (Hebrews 11:39). In Scripture, we hear not only that Noah believed God and built an ark for facing the Flood, but also of an occasion when he got so drunk he passed out. We hear not only of the times Abraham acted in great faith, but also times he was afraid and lied to protect himself. We hear not only of David’s great victories as leader of the people, but also of adultery and murder he committed.

Isaiah’s prophetic words still ring out about our human condition. No persons are pure, and no monuments to human achievement can ever be permanent.

All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever (Isaiah 40:6-8).

Jun

2020

The Bible is not a prop, and religion is not a drug

by David Sellnow

In the early 1800s, revolution was in the air. The French Revolution had introduced ideas of liberty and equality to the masses, and the masses were restless. Napoleon enforced law and order by a willingness to shoot shrapnel out of cannons into crowds of protesters (in 1795, as he rose to power). He believed he was destined to take the Revolution to its proper conclusion. But his portrayals of himself as a man of the people were more about ensconcing himself in power as leader than about the people’s hopes and dreams. Napoleon knew the people revered religion, so he sought to reinstate the Catholic Church’s position within France (which had been damaged during the Revolution). Napoleon’s Concordat (agreement), however, made the church endorse his government and, essentially, serve his government. In 1804, Napoleon arranged a grandiose ceremony in Notre Dame Cathedral. He compelled the pope to be present and hand him a crown, which Napoleon then placed on his own head to designate himself as “Emperor of the French.” To Napoleon, the backdrop of a church was not due to any deep personal faith. The cathedral was a place to present himself to the people as the man God wanted to lead them. He had said, “In Egypt I was a Muhammedan; here I will be a Catholic, for the good of the people.” Religion was an expedient tool for him to gain public support.

Other princes and kings fought against Napoleon and his new world order. They wanted to preserve the ways of the past and their own hold on power. But their approach to the church was not unlike his, endorsing religion as a stabilizing force while conducting themselves in ways that contradicted faith-based convictions.

Prince Klemens von Metternich of Austria, dominant in Europe from 1815 to 1848, championed the church as an institution of society, saying that “religion cannot decline in a nation without causing that nation’s strength also to decline.” In his Memoirs, Metternich wrote that rulers must protect their authority against radical forces that would overthrow “everything which society respects as the basis of its existence: religion, public morality, laws, customs, rights and duties.” He urged all rulers to follow his example and “maintain religious principles in all their purity, and not allow the faith to be attacked.” Yet this selfsame Metternich was a “great womanizer” who went from woman to woman over a series of three wives, multiple mistresses and additional lesser trysts and affairs. One biographer said of him, “‘His favorite recreation was the seduction of high-born women.” Metternich would attend mass, but that seemed a matter of propriety and formality. According to a historian’s description, Metternich’s capital of Vienna was “a city lukewarm to religion. Attending mass was, to be sure, still the custom. But the priest who could say the quickest mass (about twelve minutes by some reports) would attract the largest crowds.” Metternich, government defender of the institution of religion, was not himself a particularly spiritual person. As Czech historian Miroslav Šedivý puts it, “Metternich’s own Catholicism had no real significance in his Weltanschauung (worldview).” Religion was primarily for policing the behavior of commonplace people.

This was the societal context in which Karl Marx made a remark about religion for which he has become famous: “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” That’s a clipped version of a larger thought. The broader statement, as published in an article by Marx in 1844, was: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

Marx may have been wrong about many things. But he wasn’t altogether wrong in his assessment of how religion was being used by persons in power as a tool to tamp down criticism and subdue protests by the people underneath them. The answer is not, as Marx proposed, to abolish religion. Rather, we pray for men and women of genuine conviction who live by faith. We pray for that in ourselves. We admire it when we see it in societal leaders.

Standing beside a church and holding up a Bible does not make someone a person of faith or a friend of the faith. The Bible is not a prop and the church is not a showpiece–though plenty of political figures in past history have sought to use it that way. May we not look at the Bible that way in our own lives. James, the brother of Jesus, urged us, “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like” (James 1:22-24).

James also had something to say about religion’s role in society and our lives: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27). Honest, heartfelt religion is not a drug we use to numb ourselves against injustices in this world (as Marx suggested it was). Rather, it gives us the grace and resolve to do good for one another in our world. Believing in Jesus Christ and his resurrection not only prepares us for the next life but also invigorates our living in the present. Faith means having “the eyes of your heart enlightened” to know “the immeasurable greatness of God’s power” which is in at work in us as believers — the same power that God “put to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” (Ephesians 1:18-21).

The Bible is not merely something to hold up for show. “Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

Religion is not a means to cover over society’s problems or inequities. Rather, earnest faith will motivate us to do all we can for one another as fellow children of God. “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).

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Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

May

2020

Pray for good government

Give wisdom to those who govern

by David Sellnow

An account has come down to us from the ancient world. The pharaoh ruling over Egypt had a pair of dreams that frightened him. In one dream, seven healthy, well-fed cows appeared. Immediately afterward, seven scrawny, starving cows came up out of the Nile River and devoured the healthy cows. The second dream was similar. Seven healthy ears of grain were consumed by dry, withered heads of grain.

The pharaoh sought someone to give meaning to his dreams. He found Joseph, who had a prophetic gift. Joseph said, “What God is about to do he has declared to Pharaoh” (Genesis 41:25). Seven years of abundant harvests were coming. Then seven years of desperate famine would follow. Joseph advised the pharaoh to collect and store twenty percent of the kingdom’s harvests over the next seven years to prepare for anticipated years of food shortages. The pharaoh followed Joseph’s advice and put Joseph in charge of the kingdom’s emergency preparedness program.

We may wish a prophet had predicted our current crisis in the modern world. Had we known a deadly pandemic would be unleashed, we could have done more to prepare. Then again, there were voices that gave advance warning. They weren’t divinely inspired, but they were quite prescient in their projections. After the Ebola scare of 2014, Bill Gates gave a TED Talk in 2015 titled, “The Next Outbreak? We’re Not Ready.” In 2016, the National Security Council developed an extensive Playbook for Early Response to High Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents. In September 2019, the US Naval War College ran a pandemic wargame that foreshadowed much of what we are experiencing now with COVID-19. There is a human tendency, however, to avoid dealing with things we hope won’t happen. When the novel coronavirus began its global spread in recent months, governments around the world were challenged beyond their readiness. And people who normally didn’t want governments to play too large a role in their lives found themselves wanting and needing government agencies to do more.

Another human tendency–during good times–is to want government off our backs and out of our pocketbooks. We don’t like high taxes or a proliferation of regulations. It’s easy to see government as an obstacle that gets in the way of personal liberties and the pursuit of profits. But when a crisis comes along, then we expect government to be there, protecting citizens, preserving stability, providing basic necessities. Even politicians who typically have fought tooth and nail over the purpose of government came to quick agreement when pressed by a pandemic. An enormous rescue measure passed by a vote of 96 to 0 in the Senate, and subsequent aid packages passed with similar wholehearted support. The fourth such bill was passed in the Senate by unanimous consent and a vote of 388 to 5 in the House of Representatives. When the situation is dire, the need for intervention by government becomes immediately apparent.

In my days teaching history and religion, I used to assign the following take-home question to ministry students: In explaining the Lord’s Prayer petition, “Give us this day our daily bread,” Martin Luther said one of the things we pray is that God would give us “good government.” Using examples from history, compose an essay that attempts to answer the question: “What constitutes good government?”

Respondents to that question tended to focus on key common factors such as:
– Providing equal justice for all persons, without favoritism;
– Showing concern for the people and acting in the interests of all the people;
– Leadership and guidance during times of stress and crisis;
– Keeping citizens safe (criminal justice, national defense, public health);
– Building and maintaining infrastructure (roads, utilities, etc).

Their answers echoed things said by ancient prophets. Amos decried those in positions of power who abused the people under them. He said, “Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the courts” (Amos 5:15). Moses stated these basic principles for government officials: “You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality. You shall not take a bribe …. You shall follow that which is altogether just” (Deuteronomy 16:19,20). Governing authorities are servants of God, set in their position for the good of the human community (cf. Romans 13:4). We are grateful when government serves its purpose well. We pray “for kings and all who are in high places” (1 Timothy 2:2), so that we can live peaceful lives on this earth.

When Solomon became king in Israel after the death of his father David, he prayed for his own capability to govern. He asked God, “Give your servant an understanding heart to judge your people, that I may discern between good and evil” (1 Kings 3:9). The Lord approved of Solomon’s prayer. “God said to him, ‘Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked for yourself long life, nor have you asked for riches for yourself, nor have you asked for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice … I have done according to your word. Behold, I have given you a wise and understanding heart” (1 Kings 3:11-12).

Let us pray today for wisdom as we face a difficult test of people’s mental, physical, financial, and social well-being. Pray for local leaders in towns and cities and counties. Pray for those serving at the state level, supervising laws and programs and human services. Pray for national officials who provide oversight for countries–our own as well as other nations. Pray for the work of global institutions in guiding collaboration to develop strategies and solutions. And pray for yourself and your neighbors, that we all may learn to love our neighbors as ourselves and do our best for one another. As we are being reminded often during this international health emergency: We are all in this together.

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Prayer: On Memorial Day, we remember those who have died in active military service. Lord, fill us with gratitude for such dedication by members of the armed forces that serve and protect our nation. At the present time, make us mindful and thankful also for essential workers in healthcare, food production and grocery work, mass transit and other roles, hundreds of whom have lost their lives to the coronavirus pandemic. Help our communities, country, and world to find wisdom and strength to navigate the present challenges. May governments do the work you have established for them to do, good Lord, in the interests of all people. Amen.

[Bible quotations taken from World English Bible.]

Dec

2019

God’s glory shines with grace

Originally published on the Electric Gospel on December 7, 2019.

God’s glory shines with grace

by David Sellnow

We know that “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). The thought of seeing the light of God can frighten us. Maybe you remember the fictionalized depiction of God’s glory melting the faces of those who opened up the Ark of the Covenant in the film, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Certainly, those who stand opposed to God have reason to fear his dazzling power. But the recurring theme throughout the Bible shows that when God lets his glory shine for people to see, it is most often for the purpose of showing his saving love. God’s glory shines with grace.Holiday lights have begun to shine in neighborhoods and towns. Christmas lights are meant to remind us that Christ is the light of the world, reminiscent also of the star that shined to welcome the birth of Christ into the world. 16^th century church leader, Martin Luther, is often credited with beginning the Christian tradition of a lighted Christmas tree. As reported by History.com, “Walking toward his home one winter evening, composing a sermon, he was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst evergreens. To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles.”

That is what we see at God’s coming at Christmas. The glory of God came to us, but came in the humble form of Jesus in the manger. The Son of God came to us from the Father “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Jesus “is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3). And that glory and being of God was coming to earth to be God with us as our Savior, to take away our fears.

To emphasize this truth—that God’s glory shines for us with grace—I’d like to lead you through a survey of different times when God manifested his glory to people, and how that glory was invariably a display of love and hope.

The first reading in which we find God revealing his glory and grace in such a way is Genesis 15. The LORD met with Abram and promised him, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am you shield, your very great reward” (Genesis 15:1). As a way of evidencing his commitment to the promises he’d made to Abram, God then involved himself in a covenant ceremony, at the center of which was God’s own glory, seen as “a smoking fire pot with a blazing torch” (Genesis 15:17). God shined with glory to show Abraham that his promises of blessing were all true.

God’s next manifestation of his shining glory came when the security and future of Abraham’s descendants were in jeopardy. They were facing enslavement and infanticide in Egypt. And then God came to Moses, appearing to him “in flames of fire from within a bush” (Exodus 3:2), and said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt …. So I have come down to rescue them” (Exodus 3:7,8). In setting them free from Egypt, God showed this same glory to all the people of Israel. “By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light” (Exodus 13:21). When Egypt’s armies carne after them in pursuit, “the angel of God” and “the pillar of cloud … moved from in front and stood behind them,” separating and protecting them from the enemy (Exodus 14:19,20). As Israel got further out on its way, in the desert and wondering how they’d eat to survive, “there was the glory of the LORD” again, “appearing in the cloud” (Exodus 16:10). “That evening quail covered the camp, and in the morning” manna was given for bread (Exodus 16:13-15).

The “glory of the LORD” next appeared a number of different times at Mount Sinai, where the law was given. But there wasn’t just law–even here, God’s glory was evidence of his grace. For what God was doing there at Sinai was choosing and consecrating them as his own people, his “treasured possession” (Exodus 19:5) among all the earth. He reminded them of how he had carried them on eagles’ wings and brought them to himself (Exodus 19:4). He showed them grace and glory before and after they sinned against him with the golden calf (cf. Exodus 24 and 32-34). Finally, when they set up their tabernacle tent to worship him, God “filled the tabernacle” with his glory as a sign of gracious presence with them (Exodus 40:34).

In every instance, God shined his glory to point the people of Israel to his wonderful love, to show them how he was working out his plan of salvation for them.

The same is true of other appearances of the glory of the LORD. With “a chariot of fire and horses of fire” God took Elijah “up to heaven in a whirlwind” –graciously giving him eternal life without even tasting death (2 Kings 2:11). Isaiah and Ezekiel saw the glory of the LORD when God called them by grace to serve as prophets (Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1). God even gave visual evidence of this grace to Isaiah by taking a token of the glory of God, a “live coal” from the altar of heaven, touched to Isaiah’s lips by an angel with the message: “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for” (Isaiah 6:7). That is glory … and that is grace—forgiveness

Above and beyond all the dazzling appearances of God in glory throughout the Old Testament, the greatest shining of his glory is in the coming of Jesus. That Jesus is the brightest shining of all God’s glory was made clear on the night he was born into our world. The glory of God lit up the skies. “There were shepherds living out in the fields nearby …. An angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them” (Luke 2:8,9). They were terrified, but the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy” (Luke 2:10). Good news–of God’s grace!

Later on, Peter, James and John would see “the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6), when “he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white” (Mark 9:2,3), “as bright as a flash of lightning” (Luke 9:29). “His face shone like the sun” (Matthew 17:2). Jesus wanted them to see his glory, to bolster their faith before they saw his suffering and death.Wise Men in the east saw that glory of God shining too. “We saw his star and have come to worship him,” they said (Matthew 2:2). They saw the One whom Scripture calls “beautiful and glorious” (Isaiah 4:2), having been led to him by a glowing of his glory in the heavens.

God showed his glory also to a man named Stephen, a martyr about to be viciously killed for his faith. Stephen “looked up into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55). Men might kill him, but God wanted Stephen in his dying hour to know that he could not be robbed of God’s glory, for God’s grace had shown it to him.

So also at the end of the Bible, to the last apostle, God showed his glory again. Christ revealed himself, and John wrote, “His eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said, ‘Do not be afraid …. I am the Living One” (Revelations 1:14-18). At a troubled time at the end of the apostolic age, when Christians were persecuted for their faith, God gave this revelation of glory to show he was still with his church, Christ is still ruling all things, and God’s grace is still as amazing as ever.

God’s grace. God’s glory. It’s not like the face-melting, body-burning laser lightshow of a Hollywood movie. Instead, it is like the warm glow of heaven for us, like a candle left burning in the window of our eternal home, until we can come home to be there. The glory of God, as Scripture says, is when “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). That is God’s glory shown to us, to each of our hearts. That is how he shows himself–through “the glory of the One and Only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). God’s glory shines with grace—grace that saves us, in Christ.

Dec

2019

An unchanging mission

Originally published on the Electric Gospel on December 17, 2016.

An unchanging mission

by John Wenzel

Much has happened in the last two millennia. Empires have risen from ash and then returned back to dust. Kings and lords have reigned, only to be burned in the fires of revolution. A new world was discovered and made into a land of the free. Wars have been instigated, fought, and ended, only for new ones to begin. Great feats of engineering have been constructed and marvels of science discovered. Humanity has taken its first steps off our planet. Indeed, much has happened. But one thing has remained constant through these great ages of war and discovery. Under the providence of the all-powerful God, the Christian church has remained ready to continue her great endeavor: to tell the world about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Since Jesus ascended to claim his rightful throne in heaven, this has remained the mission which he assigned to the church. Indeed, this arduous task has been our chief purpose in this world. There is no greater deed, in difficulty or satisfaction, than bringing unbelievers into the kingdom of heaven. It is difficult, because the entire world is aligned against your goal, yet it is easy, for we are only the messengers and the Holy Spirit is the true inspirer of faith. Likewise, there is nothing more satisfying than sharing the joy of Jesus with someone just saved from hell.

The apostle Paul understood this great task, as he traveled upon the dusty roads of Asia Minor, traveling village to village, preaching to unbelievers and encouraging congregations in their efforts. He valiantly preached and confessed the message of Jesus, under threats of violence and persecution, because he knew this was all that mattered – for to live or die in Christ is a victory.

Although the mission of the church has remained the same over all these years, her face has changed much. At the beginning, the small congregations of Asia Minor were atypical of their society. They were a small and extremely active community that practiced what it preached, helping the poor and the widows in this life but also preaching the message that would save you in the next. They recognized that their church must be a part of the community. If not, others would just see them as a cult. And so the churches’ secondary mission has been established. This mission is to adapt to best reach out to the community without betraying the word of God.

And so the church has changed much in physical form. From small vibrant congregations to secret enclaves, from majestic, splendid basilicas to rustic hardy wood buildings in the outposts of the frontier, the church has seen it all. Yet her duty remains true. Whether she is under persecution of state or atheism, or whether endorsed by the state itself, nothing has changed at all. Paul’s urgings for congregations to be bold in proclaiming the message of Jesus echoes only louder as the Last Day draws ever closer. Although the church has physically changed much, her spiritual mission stays constant.

With this on our hearts, we can only be encouraged to perform the mission of the church with more vigor than ever before. We do what martyrs have died to do and proclaim what people of all ages have proclaimed. The endless cycle of war shall continue. Civilizations will rise and once again fall back into oblivion. Generations shall live and die. But in a world of change, the mission of church under the omniscient God will never change.

A lesson from Abram & Sarai

Faith follows God, overcoming fear

“All flesh is grass” (Isaiah 40:6 KJV).

Give wisdom to those who govern

God’s glory shines with grace

An unchanging mission

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