He Arose

I apologies for the long spell of silence on my end. I am forever getting caught up in the bustle of the world and pulled in a million directions. Recently I finished a couple of short devotional for my church's advent devotional. I'll share those one the whole thing has been published. For now I'll continue with the Apostle's creed...

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

      maker of heaven and earth,

      and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

      born of the Virgin Mary,

      suffered under Pontius Pilate,

      was crucified, died, and was buried: He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven,

      and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

From there He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

      the holy catholic* church,

      the communion of saints,

      the forgiveness of sins,

      the resurrection of the body,

      and the life everlasting.

Amen

What makes Christianity so different? So special? C. S. Lewis wrote: "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." So if true why is it of infinite importance? That on 'The third day He arose again from the dead.' 

So many people look at Christ and see a Good man. One who's speech of love and mercy give warmth and little else. Christ's life and death mean little by themselves. All live and all die. But to rise from teh dead is abnormal, if not impossible. And it is this impossiblity or miracle, that takes Christ from a man to God. Having suffered the death of our sin and true separation from God. Christ goes to hell and returns with the keys to the gate. 

Every Good Friday my parent's home church sings a hymn which always chills me to the bone. 'Were you there when they Crucified my Lord? Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there when they laid him in the Tomb?' The questions always cut across my realization that I take part in the death of Christ. That it is my sin that kept him on the cross, not the nails. 'Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.' But the hymn doesn't end with Christ being left in the tomb. There will be no worms in his flesh, no maggots. No the hymn ends with another question: 'Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?' 

This is what rests at the center of my belief and understanding of God. That he is not just another victim of this world's darkness, but rather a victor over death itself. 'Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.' 

A Little Creative Writing: I have stood...

I wrote this today and wanted to share it with all of you. It's not really related to one scripture or even the Apostles' creed, which I will return to next post. It was more of a thought or image that I had at work and I had to write it. 

I have stood at the pinnacle at the center of the city's heart. I have felt the beat of that air deprived expanse. The life blood of this city is lies and crumbling facades. The beautiful destruction of souls and the degradation of the flash, mix with the self surveilled multitude.  The grime, which can’t be washed off with water, clings to builds, people, and hearts. And people slow dig their graves in the bowels of lust and false hope. We build our pedestals on others. And make our own selves the pedestals on which we place those who we would worship. And we worship daily, becoming zombies in front of our laptops and flat screens.

I have stood at the pinnacle of what makes us great: all our flesh and mighty dreams. I have felt the coming wind of our desolation. I have seen from afar the brutal hurricane which will destroy this look out. We have decided to be the city in the valley, a shadowed, crumbling mess. We weren’t called to this perpetual falling. We weren’t designed to keep falling down. I have stood at the pinnacle and known the deepest pain and seen only the coming of deep night. I stand there no longer.

The pinnacle of men’s desirers is forever to be higher. To set ourselves beyond the grime of our dirt made flesh.  I have knocked down my pedestal and claimed the clay my brethren. I have met the grime and feed it. I have seen the red eyes of broken lives and the slobbering mouths of the hopeless. They are my brothers. I have sat with the short skirted women, whose faces are no longer pretty and knelt with the track marked rattled bodies of the unsatisfied. They are my sisters. In the shadow of the pinnacle, I have found the face of God. And that shadow making tower, has become an ant hill of foolish wrath.

No longer will I seek to compete with God’s great wonders: to build my own small tower among the many others. No longer will I seek a pedestal on which to demand worship. I will worship on my knees with my fellow clay and dust. I will sing a hallelujah along with my brothers and sisters. We will seek the face of our salvation in the grime of the forgotten. The bones of the dead themselves will dance with us, for death is no longer binding. I have stood at the pinnacle of all the horrible glories of human desire. I will stand there no longer.

Apostles' Creed: Man and God

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

      maker of heaven and earth,

      and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

      born of the Virgin Mary,

      suffered under Pontius Pilate,

      was crucified, died, and was buried: He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven,

      and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

From there He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

      the holy catholic* church,

      the communion of saints,

      the forgiveness of sins,

      the resurrection of the body,

      and the life everlasting.

Amen

Belief in God is all well and good, but what really distinguishes Christians from the rest of the religions is our belief in Christ. All other religions give various ways in which to come to God or find heaven. Normally it is through deeds, sacrifices, prayers, meditations. Christianity is the only religion in which the way to God is God himself. Namely Jesus, the son. If Jesus isn't in the picture then we have nothing. 

Christ's position as God son makes him high enough to actual save us. While Christ's position as a son of Mary, means that he understands the reason we need saving, because he had live like us. More then that he suffered the death that we were meant to die. Without Christ being fully human and fully God, there is no divine salvation, nor human understanding. 

I could get into the impossibility of a Virgin giving birth, of God taking up the flesh-clay of his creation, and the impossibility of one man being both God and man. But I don't have the words to convince someone of those things. I believe them because there is part of me that understands the impossibility and still believes. Because if Christ is not a man, there is no way that he could suffer and understand death. And likewise, if Christ is not God, how could he have any say or power over my life? Christianity needs a God who is willing to sacrifice his only son to save the willful flash-clay of his creation. Christ is like an author who writes him/herself into their book. The characters in the book only know the author by what the author writes of them-self. The Author is the only one in the book who has the power to write the story and understand fully the lives and choices of the characters. 

The power of Christ is in the duality in being God and Man. As a man he walked the earth. As a man he ate, lived, loved, befriended, helped, served, and lead others who shared that flesh-clay. But unlike us fallen creatures who have turned from our potter, Christ was a pure image of God. Christ's ability to perfectly love and know the heart of men (and women), meant that he spoke into our flesh-clay what would truly give us life. So often people see God as a judge, in the way we think of judges here on earth. A slap of a gravel and we are off to jail or worse. But God's judgement comes from his love for all that he creates. And Christ took that judgement so that we could be free from it. So when we look on Christ we see the one who having know the Father and seen the face of the Father, took the Father turning his face away, felt the complete separation from the Father, so that we would never have too. The beauty of Christ is his ability to bridge the gap between our fallen crumbling flesh-clay and the glorious restoration that is God. 

Apostles' Creed: God, Father, Creator

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

      maker of heaven and earth,

      and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

      born of the Virgin Mary,

      suffered under Pontius Pilate,

      was crucified, died, and was buried: He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven,

      and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

From there He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

      the holy catholic* church,

      the communion of saints,

      the forgiveness of sins,

      the resurrection of the body,

      and the life everlasting.

Amen

Faith and Belief are interesting words. We say that we have belief in a certain thing, and yet too often our actions belie a very different belief. Faith and belief are often dictated to be only about God or some other religion. The truth is that both are connected much closer to what is deep within us, what or who we trust. You can have faith and not believe in a God. Faith is simply a trusting in a person or thing. I have faith that the skyscraper that I work in will not fall. I wasn’t here when it was built, but I have faith that the architects and builders did a good job. I put my faith in the fact that it looks stable and it’s been standing for several years. This faith comes easily. It makes sense. Similarly belief is to trust in something, but something that is much harder to prove. I know very little about micro chemistry and a little more about physics. However I have no way of disproving the god partial or dark matter. Before these things where proven by science, the general public had to believe that science was telling them the truth: that the theories were true.

However, faith and belief are not built in a void. When I say that I believe God exists, I’m not saying that I’m sticking my head in the sand. Science has yet to prove that God doesn’t exist. And the fact that many prominent scientists today are Christian or follow some other religion, gives credence to the fact that Science might be closer to proving God then disproving him. (see this wiki article for a list of past and present Christian thinkers in science). Not that it matters whether we can prove God’s existence or not. We all believe in something: whether it is God or the fact that there is no God.

I would argue that belief is not the problem. The problem is what we believe. Many people believe in a god of some sort: whether he is a ‘nice’ entity who answers our prayers and gives off a warm fuzzy feeling, or an ‘evil’ being having fun playing with the little human below. When I say ‘I believe in God’, I am saying the kind of God that I believe in. God (with an uppercase), is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is the God that brought the Israelites out of Egypt.

But the Apostles’ Creed doesn’t stop with ‘I believe in God’; rather it continues to speak to God’s character. ‘The Father Almighty’: God is not just the God of Israel, he is our Father. When Christ taught his disciples to pray, He opened the prayer with ‘Our Father’. God as a father reminds us that God is good and he cares for his children. Almighty means that he is enough above all others; he is to be first in our lives. But greater then father or might is the fact that God is ‘the creator of heaven and earth’. This act of creation, gives God authority. If God is the author of creation, of our lives, then he is capable of amazing and wonderful things. God’s power in creation reminds us of the image we bear. We are made in his image. We can call him father. He is the Almighty God, maker of heaven and earth, of the seen and unseen.

So when I say: ‘I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth’, I am saying that that belief is evident in my life. Terrifyingly I state this every week in church, out loud among my community. I often wonder if my faith, my belief in God and his character is evident in my life. If what I state every week, has indeed permeated the whole of me. Sometimes, I look back at my week and see time and time again when I didn’t really act out of belief, but rather out of fear. Times when I gave God less of a position in my life then my own creations and earthly hopes. I need the reminder that God is the Almighty one, my Father, my creator, and my God.

Apostles' Creed: Stating Belief

Every week before communion is served we stand and recite the Apostles' Creed. The church that I grew up in didn't do this. We would randomly say the Apostle's Creed and I had to learn it for my confirmation class, but we didn't do it weekly. It seems a little old fashioned, which is probably why I like it. There is something simple and beautiful about reciting ones beliefs. However I'm sure that those who grew up in traditions were the various creeds are not recited or even taught, speaking some set belief together must seem odd.

The Apostles' Creed (in latin Symbolum Apostolicum, meaning symbol of Apostles), is old. The first mention is in 390AD. A creed is simply a statement of faith or the core of shared belief. Although there are several other Creeds which were written later, the Apostles' Creed is probably one of the oldest and most used (You can check out wikipedia here for more information). 

Christianity is a complicated faith. Not only are there several different denominations which have sprung up through the ages, there are also sects and other shoot off from the main belief. So when my church stands up and recites this Creed it is meant to unify and strengthen our beliefs. At the core of our theology and belief, this is who we are. Over the next couple of posts I'm going to break down the apostles' creed and talk more about each section/line. But for now I want to leave you with it as a whole statement. When we speak of faith and belief, as Christian's this is what we talk of. Sure some of us argue over theology and the nitty gritty of faith. Both overall I think most would agree that this statement covers a lot, if not all, of the basics of Christianity. 

Apostles' Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

      maker of heaven and earth,

      and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

      born of the Virgin Mary,

      suffered under Pontius Pilate,

      was crucified, died, and was buried: He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven,

      and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

From there He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

      the holy catholic* church,

      the communion of saints,

      the forgiveness of sins,

      the resurrection of the body,

      and the life everlasting.

Amen

*(the true Christian church of all times and places)

The Day is Coming

Malachi 4 'Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evil doer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire.' Says the Lord Almighty. 'Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like caves released from the stall. Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things,' Says the Lord Almight. 'Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.'

The first part of this short chapter reminds me of C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. Lewis writes of a land which is held in constant twilight and a heaven which is waiting for the dawn. The people of the twilight world come to heaven like empty glass containers, ghosts, who have no way to impact the perfection of heaven. Ghosts who find pain in merely walking of the realness of what the world was meant to be. Those who choose the twilight world (and it is a choice) fear the coming sun (judgement). The people of heaven wait in waiting for the time when God will do what he has promised. Its a beautiful view of how the day of the Lord is both a furnace burning away the arrogant and evil doers, and a full sunrise under which the righteous will be healed and dance with joy. God promises destruction for evil and restoration for the good.

Too often I hear people say that they believe in heaven, but not hell. Heaven is after all the nicer of those two places. A place where peace and love reigns. The idea that there is an ultimate judgement, that there is a distinct line between right and wrong is too much to comprehend. However, when we remove hell, the reason for heaven is lost. If there is not a place where all evil is held and punished, there is no reason for a heaven at which that evil is forgotten and healed. If we refuse God his place in judgement, we have no right to his redemption and renewal.

Moreover, we assume that heaven and hell are places that are only have power after we die. Too often I have lived my life as if the things of this world, money and self, are the most important things. I live as earth is a separate world from those of hell and heaven. The truth is that heaven and hell are behind every turn. Too many people that I know, even Christians, believe that the things of this earth are the goals of life. Even good things, like feeding the homeless or giving money to the church, become things that make us better at life on earth. Check boxes to be checked and little more. But we are warned else where in the bible that the things of this world will not be taken with us. They will be destroyed.

Thus we are already in hell, if we are not willing to claim our citizenship in heaven. If we give into the pull of the earth and its broken crumbling destruction, we will never see the renewal promised. The coming of the sun will be the worse thing that could possible be imagined. Because with the coming of the Lord's day, comes the destruction of all the things that we cling to the most. Nothing of this earth will be allowed to stay unchanged. We must allow ourselves to be refined. I can't think of anything more terrifying then knowing that the evil in me will be allowed to stay. That like Malachi writes in chapter 3 'for he will be like a refiner's fire...'

Yet, if we claim our citizenship of heaven. If we seek out the refiner of our souls. We are promised treasure beyond comprehension. We will be called daughters and sons. Will be heirs not just to the wonders of heaven, but to the glories of the restored earth. If we are willing to give up our hold on the things that keep us tied to the earth, it follows that we will see them restored. But we can not keep them in their fallen state. The day is coming, will we be burned with the arrogant or leap like the calves?

Return

Malachi 3:6-18 "I the Lord do not Change. So you, o descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," Says the Lord Almighty. But you ask, 'How are we to return?' Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, How do we rob you? In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse - the whole nation of you - because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the store house, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty. And see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit. Says the Lord Almighty, then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land, says the Lord Almighty. You have said harsh things against me. says the Lord. Yet you ask, what have we said against you? You have said, it is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape. Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name. They will be mine. Says the Lord Almighty. in the day when I make up my treasured possessions. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not."

'I the Lord do not change.' This is an amazing and beautiful promise. Unlike everything in this world, the Lord, the maker of this world, is unchanging. This seems a strange concept. We may not like change, but we are surrounded by it. Whether it is the slow mark of time which weakens and ages this world, or the onward march of technology, everything is changing constantly. We set our schedules, we get used to a certain order of events day in and day out. But our days never go exactly to plan. Change comes: in blaring sudden harsh reality or in a slow almost obscured slightness.

The unchanging Lord is what we can cling too. In fact it is given as the reason that the people of Jacob have not been destroyed. The promise of an unchangeable Lord, is a promise that his character is well known. It has been proven and over and over again. All of Malachi up to this point has reminded the people that the Lord is their God. He called Abraham. He called Moses and David. His promises will come true.

However the Lord like any good parent, can let his children continue to live on in sin and hatefulness. He begs them. Return to me and I will return to you. This idea of return is very beautiful. And yet so often, we don't realize that we have left. How are we to return? We ask. How do we come back to the unchanging, unchangable Lord?

We are given two real ways in which to return. The first is through giving of tithes and the second is to believe in the justice of the Lord. It might be strange that the Lord choice to single out money and our sense of justice. Yet these are two of the deepest ways that we refuse to give God the glory and proper place in our lives.

How often do we think of our pay check as all ours? After all we are the ones that worked for that money, we deserve it. How often to we question God's justice while we see injustice in the world? How often to we judge those around us harshly picking out the speck in their eyes, while we have a log jam in ours?

By pointing out how we use and think about our possessions, God is reminding us that all things come first from him. It is by his grace that we can work to make money. When we tithe, its not for the church or even for God, its so that we remember that all things Belong to God. By pointing out that we are to fear God and believe in his justice, God reminds us that he holds all things in his hands. He feeds the birds of the air. He see all the deeds of men, even those we can not see. He reads our hearts. He is the perfect judge, because he is the only one who can know all the facts in the case.

God is to be first in our lives. Ourselves and our things are first his, and for his use. Our sense of justice is based on his character and love. We return to God, by remembering to put God and ourselves in the proper place (God first, then us).

When we get the order right. When God is first. When we offer him the first of ourselves: we are promised an abundance that overflows our expectations. When we fear the Lord, when we seek his rightness, we are promised his compassion. We are promised rightness with him. When we seek to be right with God, to return to him. He opens himself to us. He offer himself to us. There is no greater gift.

Do We Want to Endure?

Malachi 2:17-3:5

'You have wearied the Lord with your words. "How have we wearied him?" you ask. By saying "All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them" Or "Where is the God of Justice?" 
"See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," Says the Lord Almighty.  
But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire or a Launderer's soup. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years. 
"So I will come near to you for judgement, I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the Lord Almighty.'

'But who can endure the day of his coming?' It's not surprising to me that the Jews of Jesus day didn't recognize him. He didn't come in guns blazing calling fire down from the sky. He didn't clean house. He didn't get rid of the pesky Romans. Instead he called fisher men and a tax collector to be his disciples. He called for a radical way to love. In fact the only time he really gets violently angry is when he over throws the tables of the money changers in the temple. The refining that Jesus brings is so different from what was expected.

The Lord promises that he is going to come and judge the people of the earth. That the wrong that has infiltrated the very essences of every filament in our being will not be left. When silver and gold are refined, all the lesser metals and junk are burned away. God makes a promise that he will bring judgement. But more then that, he will give us a way to bring offerings that are expectable to him.

No longer will our rightness with God be determined by our own ability to carry out his commandments and laws. Because there never really was a chance of us being about to do that in the first place. We have, down to our filament, our very molecules, been separated from God by our perfect ability to imperfectly worship him. Who can endure his coming? He promises to break us down, to in a way, completely remake us. We can not endure, at least not how we are now.

But do we want to endure? Of course we do. That's the major problem. God promises to unravel us to pull out our very selves. The monumental heap of dung that is our lives, is more important to us then the utter wonderment of God's love. Against God we are worthless, sin infested, specks of nothing. But we don't like that comparison, so we compare ourselves against those like us. After-all, I'm better then that guy who drinks every night and doesn't work. Sure I'm not perfect, but no one is.

The Lord isn't forcing his refining on us. He is offering it to us, because he wants to call us Children. He wants to be our father. He is promising to make us as we should be, as he intended us to be. No longer are we a bit of shiny dirt, we will be pure gold. No longer a monumental heap of dung, but a pure reflection of the one who made us. No longer will we be imperfect, we will be perfect in him. It might not be fun in the fire, but it could be worth it.

The Problem with Commitment

Malachi 2:10-16 Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another?
¹¹ Judah has been unfaithful. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves by marrying women who worship a foreign god. ¹² As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord remove him from the tents of Jacob—even though he brings an offering to theLord Almighty.
¹³ Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. ¹⁴ You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.
¹⁵ Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth.
¹⁶ “The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the Lord Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.

There is a saying that gets thrown around a lot at my church: Image Bearers. It really struck me when I first heard it. I had been taught as a child that we are all created in the image of God, but I had never heard Image Bearers before. In saying that we are image bearers, we are saying that we bear the image of God. The word bear, means to hold a burden, like a roof bears the burden of snow. In a way this is true of us as well. There are no other beings in the universe that can claim to be made in the image of God. Nor is there any being that can claim that God would stoop so low as to wear our skin, our clay. 

Our image is that of a creator, our burden is to bear that image in this world. So Malachi's question cuts deep at the beginning of this passage. 'Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another?' If we are in fact bearing the image of God, why do we continue to treat others as less then ourselves? When the Pharisees asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was he answered 'Love the Lord your God... and the second... Love your neighbor.' (Matt 22:36-40). It makes sense that we would love the God who made us and because of this love, love those created in his image.

The problem is that we don't like playing by the rules. We feel the need to dictate our own way, to set ourselves up to be greater then the God of creation. And this in truth is the reason there is a problem with commitment. If we refuse to worship and love the God who knit us together, who breathed life into our clay, how can we ever truly love and commit to the people around us? 

We are so easily drawn away from what deep love and commitment to God, simply because we put other things higher then God. This does not just effect our relationship with our Father in heaven. Malachi calls the people to remember the commitments that they have made with each other. To honor God not just with worship and love, but to also honor him by how we treat those around us. Judah's decision to break their wedding commitment mirrors the way they have broken with God. 

In fact the image of marriage comes up often through out the scriptures. In the end times the church is like a bride, coming to meet her bride groom (God). Our constant inevitable self created distance from God, mirrors the divorce and destruction of marriage in real life. The problem with Commitment isn't commitment, its what we are committed too.

If we are committed to ourselves and our owe thoughts, dreams, ambitions, and fears, we will never feel happiness nor complete. Money, sex, power, technologies, family, children, marriage, alcohol, and whatever else we find important, will never complete us. We can not be completed by created things. However, if we commit to God, something very different takes place. No longer are the things of this earth weighing us down. No longer are our hopes and dreams tied to this created plain. Rather we are lifted to a hope which we have no right too. Jesus commits to God so great a act of worship and honor, that we are given a pure commitment. We are that Bride dressed in white.

Thus our commitment to God brings our love of Him to those around us. No longer can we live in fear or hate. This person, my neighbor, perhaps even my enemy, bears the image of God. All of us created for His Glory. Why would we be unfaithful to each other?

The Reverent Leader

Malachi 2: 1-9 “And now, you priests, this warning is for you. ² If you do not listen, and if you do not resolve to honor my name,” says the Lord Almighty, “I will send a curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not resolved to honor me.

³ “Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. ⁴ And you will know that I have sent you this warning so that my covenant with Levi may continue,” says the Lord Almighty. ⁵ “My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. ⁶ True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin.

⁷ “For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth.⁸ But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi,” says the Lord Almighty.⁹ “So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law.”

This passage cuts across time and history in a chilling way. The priests of Malachi’s day might have strayed and lead the people astray, but it didn’t stop with them. In current history the news stories of Catholic priest molesting children, Pastors stealing offering money, and leading their followers to hate have become standards. Collectively we shake our heads and feel outrage at their acts. They are meant to lead us to be better versions of ourselves.

The Lord says that he ‘will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices.’ I can’t imagine a worse humiliation. They have disrespected the Lord, so he will disrespect them. There are a ton of places where God speaks out against false Prophets and bad leaders.

I can understand God's stance. We expect our leaders to be better then ourselves. We expect the hero's we worship to be almost more then human. And yet we enjoy watching others fall, because it makes us feel better about ourselves. Why else would reality TV be so popular? Yet God's displeasure isn't simply because the priest have gone astray, they have lead his people astray. The priest have broken a covenant that God made with Levi. God is calling the leaders of his people to be higher and to not stumble. 

I can’t imagine something more terrifying for someone who is going into ministry. There is a fear of miss representing God. Of leading people astray. Yet their are clues in this passage about what God expects from those who lead. First they are to have reverence for God. Second they are speak 'true instruction'. And finally they are to preserve knowledge. 

Reverence is defined in the dictionary as a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration. And the outward manifestation of this feeling. Levi had a deep reverence for God. And it was because of this reverence that he was blessed by God. If we do not first have a deep understanding of the God we serve and have a deep reverence for him, we can not be effective leaders. If you truely revere God then the thoughts of others mean little. It matters more what God expects. So if God is truly first, then the expectations of others will come second to God's expectations. The Levi's had lost sight of who God was and lost their reverence for God.

From this reverence comes the ability to speak 'true instruction'. True in this sense to be true in reference to God. Truth is a very black and white word. Things are either true or not. God calls his leaders to to speak truth. But its not just truth, this truth is to be instructive to teach. A leader is to teach the respect and awe that they have for God to those around them. They are to lead people in reverence of the Most High. 

Out of this reverence and truth comes a call to preserve knowledge, to remember history. God is calling the leaders to keep the great deeds of His love alive. They are to be taught and past down. They are not to become less real. To preserve something is to keep it forever. The dictionary defines preserve as a way of keeping something alive. To protect from harm or injury. We are to keep faith alive and thriving. To feed it and protect it. To make sure that all know the truth and the word of the Lord. Wit

This is a heavy calling. One that the Levi's in Malachi's day had failed. They were not the first. They are not the last. I just pray that as I lead others that I can remember to first have reverence for God, to speak his truth and finial preserve knowledge of his great love. 

Great is the Lord

I was going to move onward to Chapter two, but I was struck by something interesting. Now I’m not a biblical scholar. I don’t read/speak any other language but English. However, I have learned that when something is repeated it is probably important. There are four places in the first chapter of Malachi, where the greatness of the Lord is promised to be known outside of Israel. 1:5 “You will see it with your own eyes and say, ‘Great is the Lord—even beyond the borders of Israel”, twice in 1:11 “My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,” and finally 1:14 “I am a great king,” says the Lord Almighty, “and my name is to be feared among the nations.”

All of these saying are attached to what else is going on in the chapter, mainly God calling his people back to himself and proper worship. Moreover, they are attached to what is to come after Malachi. That God would be known in all nations is a promise that is promised over and over again throughout the Old Testament. It is a promise of the great work that God will undertake and bring to fruition in Jesus. Malachi is followed by years of silence from God. This is the last word, the last place where God makes the promise that he has already put in place.

There is a progression in the repetition of this chapter. We start with Israel seeing with their own eyes that the Lord is great, even beyond their own boarders. Then there is the promise that the Lord’s name would be great among the nations. Which is followed by a Proclamation: ‘I am a great King, my name is to be feared among the nations.’ This progression tells us a lot of what is going to come in the future. God came first to his people. But God’s plan for salvation is a plan in which the whole world will be redeemed. ‘From where the sun rises to where it sets’.

First God will start with Israel. They are a fallen, wandering people. They are constantly leaving their Lord for lesser gods. Again and again God reminds them of the great works he has done for them and through them. Again and again He reminds them of his great love. God’s promised salvation will come through his people, despite their inability to be prefect as his people. Jesus comes first to the Children of God. He is born from the line of David. He was raised according to the laws set down by Moses. But the promised Messiah is not just for Israel, but rather ‘even beyond the borders of Israel.”

Second God will receive praise from around the world. ‘from where the sun rises to where it sets. Twice it is said that the name of God will be great among the nations. It is not enough that Israel see that God is great among the nations. He wants the nations themselves to know his name. The name of God is a sacred thing. Its actual pronunciation is really no more than a guess, because to even write the full name of God was forbidden. Yet this is the Great I AM, the Lord, the King of Kings. He is the only True God. Creator and sustainer. To know the name of God is to know God.  God isn’t just promising that the nations of the world will see his greatness. He is promising that they will know him, intimately. That they will call him by name. They will praise him.

Finally God claims his dominion over the world. ‘I am a great King; my name is to be feared among the nations.’ God is not just going to let his greatness by seen. God is not content with letting the nations of the world know who he is. No he promises he will bring his kingdom to earth. He claims the title that is already his. He promises that he will and is the King of the world. Jesus, when he taught his disciples how to pray said ‘Thy Kingdom Come’. That God would bring his very Kingdom to earth is exciting and terrifying. No longer is there a separation between man and God. No longer is the need for sacrifices and the law. God promises a kingdom, His kingdom, to not just his chosen people, but to the world.

Great is the Lord.

Love and Sacrifice

Malachi 1:6-14

“A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says theLord Almighty. “It is you priests who show contempt for my name. “But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’ “By offering defiled food on my altar. “But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’ “By saying that the Lord’s table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals,is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the Lord Almighty. “Now plead with God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?”—says the Lord Almighty. “Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord Almighty, “and I will accept no offering from your hands. My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord Almighty. “But you profane it by saying, ‘The Lord’s table is defiled,’ and, ‘Its food is contemptible.’ And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously,” says the Lord Almighty. “When you bring injured, lame or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?” says the Lord.  “Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the Lord Almighty, “and my name is to be feared among the nations.

Malachi moves straight from talking of God's great love for his people in the beginning of the chapter, to how the people and priest in particular are not showing love back. God demands that he be show the honor that he deserves. The main way that the people can show this too him is through sacrifices. Only the priest are offering blemished, unclean, sacrifices. 

It would be easy at this point to say: "We don't do sacrifices any more" and move on to the next bit. But it is important to think about what God finds unpleasing and what is important to God in the way we honor him.

God expects our best. For the Jewish people the only way that they could find forgiveness was by offering up a sacrifice. For us this sacrifice is no longer needed because Jesus has offered himself up for our sins. The sacrifice that the Jewish people offered was never going to cover all their sin. In fact they were constantly offering up sacrifices, year after year. Jesus' sacrifice was perfect. In fact we have nothing to offer that can compare. Still Malachi holds a strong warning, put God first.

When asked what the most important commandment was, Jesus said "To love the Lord your God with all your heart, all of your soul and, all of your mind" (Matt 22:37). Jesus still calls us to put God first in our lives. To offer him the best of who we are. The easiest way to do this is to offer the best of us, is to offer the first of what we do and what we make. When you get paid do you instantly put aside an amount that goes to God's work? When you are given a promotion at work, is your first thought a thanksgiving to God? 

I constantly struggle with putting God first in my life. Tithes too often become an after thought. I worry first about my bills, then giving back. I wake in the morning and think about work or food or going for a run. I make food and I'm far more interested in eating it, then giving thanks. But when I stop, and think first of God, I'm constantly surprised in how God's love over flows in my life. 

It is this thanksgiving that is most important. Ann Voskamp, in her book, One Thousand Gifts, says "All gratitude is ultimately gratitude for Christ, all remembering a remembrance of Him. For in Him all things were create, are sustained, have their being. Thus Christ is all there is to give thanks for..." God, Christ's only wish for us is to be His children. He wants to love and care for us, and to have us love Him in return. 

For the Jewish people they way to show love and honor was through their sacrifice on the alter. When they brought a defective or bad sacrifices, they were basically telling God that they didn't care enough about him to bring him the best of themselves. They were saying that they were not thankful for His gifts. They were saying they didn't care about his love. Like any parent, God wants to be loved in return for the love he has shown. 

And its not that God doesn't understand that we can't perfectly love him. After all we are fallen people, incapable of prefect love. Yet this is the reason for Christ's coming. It is the reason for his death and resurrection. God loved us so much, that even His own son was not safe. So in Christ we find a man who is able to perfectly love God, in ways that we cannot. In Christ we find a human who can honor God far better, and higher then we could ever wish. And Because of Christ, our love will be made perfect and our honor higher then anything we could offer by ourselves. 

God demands Honor and Love because of all the beings in all the universe in all time, he is the only one worthy of that Honor and Love. The reason God wanted the Jewish people to perform the correct sacrifice is because he want's to forgive their sin. He wants to be able to bless them. He wants it to be said that 'The Lord is great among the nations'. 

So how can we show him this love? It really simple and a relentless struggle. We must constantly search after how to love the Lord with our hearts, souls, and minds. We must seek after Him who loved us first. And we do this not because we must, but because we have been so loved. Basically we should offer the first and the best of ourselves to the One who gave all of himself. 

I Have Loved You

Malachi 1:1-5 

A prophecy: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi. “I have loved you,” says the Lord. “But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’ “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wastelandand left his inheritance to the desert jackals.” Edom may say, “Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins.” But this is what the Lord Almighty says: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the Lord. You will see it with your own eyes and say, ‘Great is the Lord—even beyond the borders of Israel!’

'I have loved you' Says the Lord.

Its curious to me that Malachi chooses the difference between Jacob and Esau as proof of God's love. Two brothers, twins, and God chooses the younger of the two. Is this because Jacob is willing to wrestle with God himself? Because Jacob is tricky and stubborn? Because Jacob works for years just for the women that he loves? Or is it because Esau gave away his birthright for a bowl of soup? God knows the heart of those who he calls. In Malachi God reminds his people of his love for them, by reminding them that he chose them. He chose one brother over another. He even promises to destroy Edom (Esau's descendants).

Often in prophecy, the past deeds of God and the people he called, are used as evidence of His character and love. Here God reminds his people that he chose them, He reminds them of the man, who's name is their given identity. Jacob, who is re-name Israel because he's willingness to wrestle with God himself. His name is still used to speak of God's chosen people. God is reminding the people, not just of his love for them. He is reminding them of their identity. God promised Abraham descendants more numerous then the stars, but it is Israel who gives his name to the people themselves.

Malachi is the last of the prophets. After this prophecy there is silence. The silence is only ended by the coming of the Messiah. Here at the beginning of this 'final' prophecy, Malachi calls God's people to remember his love. God's choice in Jacob, in the fallen wandering people who carry his name, is a show of his great love. In fact in the first chapter of Malachi there are four references to the Greatness of God's name among all the nations. 'I have loved you' the Lord reminds his people. He is promising to show them a even greater love. He is promising to show his greatness.