The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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After Lent

April 21, 2011 / / 0 Comments

God’s Church has always observed a period of fasting and prayer in preparation for the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection at Easter. Christian writings from the early third century refer to the mandatory, though not uniform, participation in these spiritual disciplines and place the origins of the practice back to “our forefathers.” Eusebius and others refer to Lent in their fourth century writings. The church councils of that age point to Lent as being established by the Apostles.

The practice of Lent itself cannot be found in the Bible, although Holy Scripture does command and assume regular times of fasting and prayer. So, I can honestly affirm Lent as a noble and faithful and Christian thing to do. Absolutely. No doubt. Some of you reading this blog annually observe Lent. You give up a bad habit, put away a certain vice, abstain from a particular pleasure in order to bring your mind and body into a fuller communion with our Lord.

Praise God! That’s fantastic!

But if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter is the time to take things up.

If Calvary means putting to death things in your life that need killing off so you can flourish as a Christian and as a God-created human being in his image, then Easter should mean planting and watering and training up new things in your life so you can grow in your sacred relationships with God and man. Yes, you have to weed the garden from time to time. We all do. Sometimes that ground cover or those stumps need some serious digging to be eliminated. That’s Lent. But you don’t want to just turn your garden into a neat little bed of blank dirt. Easter is the time to sow new seeds and plant a few bulbs. Resurrection Day is the time to start something new, something that will blossom and fill your world with color and perfume and righteous fruit.

As we celebrate Easter together this Sunday, why don’t you take up something new? Tackle a new task. Enter into a new venture. Start something, commit to something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving. You may only be able to do it for 40-days, just like you may only be able to give up Dr Pepper and Little Debbies for the six weeks of Lent. But if you really make a start on it, it might give you a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new potentials you never dreamed of.

It might help you wake up in a whole new way. And that’s what Easter is all about.

Peace,

Allan

Warrior Dash Pictures

April 19, 2011 / / 0 Comments

That’s not a clever title, I know. But that’s really all this post is: a bunch of pictures from our Saturday running of the Warrior Dash up in Roanoke. We had a blast. We enjoyed  a great sense of accomplishment. Other than scraped knees and sore legs, nobody got hurt. And we’ve got lots and lots of hilarious stories. I highly recommend Warrior Dash.

(A few months ago, things got weird with my blog. Some of the format changed and a lot of the ways I write and edit and insert pictures and articles changed. I haven’t been happy with it. I’m not at all comfortable with it. But I have no idea how to change any of it. This post looks horrible. And I don’t know how to fix it. I didn’t use to have any of these problems. Please bear with me. After today, I’m determined to get this fixed.)

   

This is the Legacy group that ran together in the 10:00 am wave Saturday morning. There were others of us that ran at 1:30 that afternoon and 6:00 that evening. But this was our little band of warriors. Ready for the challenge!

    

            

After wading through waist-deep water, climbing cargo net walls, leaping cars and trucks, scaling stacks of hay bales, and jumping over fire, we made it to the final obstacle: a giant pit of slimy mud. We had to get low in order to clear the barbed wire that ran over the mud. Naturally, this is where the crowds of spectators were gathered and where most of the best pictures were taken.

        

   

    

The most deflating, demoralizing part of the day was crossing the finish line, getting my medal of spectacular achievement, and seeing Hudson up on the banks, already showered and clean and dry and not a hair out of place. What a punk! Next year, Hudson. I’m keeping up with you next year.

    

I think the Warrior Dash is primarily targeted to a college-aged demographic that drinks more than just Diet Dr Pepper. But we had an absolute blast together. Carl Ball took some great pictures and some video and put together a funny little film we watched together at a BBQ place Saturday night. In just a five-hour time span the stories had been embellished and the details of the day exaggerated so that they were barely recognizable. Carrie-Anne’s going to run it with us next year. Carley’s chomping at the bit to turn 14 so she can enter. And I think our Legacy numbers may double or triple. Thanks to Greg Hardman for turning us on to Warrior Dash. Greg, if you find one in the fall, we’re in!

Peace,

Allan

Following Jesus to the Cross

April 15, 2011 / / 0 Comments

We don’t ever come to the cross of Christ to worship his death or to remember the grisly details of that day. We come to the cross — we’re actually drawn to the cross — to see what it looks like for me to die. What is the meaning of my daily dying to myself and dying for Christ? And dying with Christ? What does it look like? How do I do it? And what does it really mean?

People say Jesus died so I don’t have to. No, that’s not right. Jesus died to show us how to.

As holy children of God and disciples of his Christ, we die every day. We participate every day in the eternal dimensions of Jesus’ death.

“I have been crucified with Christ…” ~Galatians 2:20

“I die every day — I mean that, brothers! ~1 Corinthians 15:31

“You died, and your life is now hidden with Christ.” ~Colossians 3:3

Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” We are called to participate in the death of Jesus. We don’t just stand around and ask questions about the death of Christ. We don’t just talk about it and marvel about it. We live it. The death of Jesus shapes everything about the way we live, how we believe and love, why we do what we do.

If we’re going to follow Jesus as his subjects — and we are! — then we’re going to follow him into the pain and darkness of Calvary where he faithfully and fully submitted to our Father’s will and gave his very life for the sake of the world.

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Tomorrow is Warrior Dash. And I’m not quite ready.

Warrior Dash is a 5K obstacle course highlighted by runs through waist-deep muddy water, climbs over cargo nets and 20-foot hay bales, crawls under barbed wire and through dirty ditches, and jumps over junk cars and pits of fire.

There are runs like this all over the place. Some of them are called Mud Runs. Some are called Jail Breaks. This Warrior Dash is held every year in Roanoke, just down the street from the Texas Motor Speedway. I’d never heard of this, or any other organized obstacle event, until last year when Greg Hardman and his daughter, Emily, ran it together with some of her college friends. His stories and his pictures were truly inspiring. I even used their experience to illustrate a sermon here last spring.

And several of us caught the fever.

Valerie and I made plans to start training in October. I was going to start eating right. I was going to start running more. (By more, I mean just start running. Period.) I was going to lose 15-pounds. I was going to lift weights and really be ready for this thing in April.

I’m not ready.

None of those things happened. Valerie and I have run together at the Northridge Middle School track a total of five times since the middle of February. We did two-and-a-half miles last night. We’re going to do three miles this evening.

We’re not ready. But we’re very much looking forward to it. Valerie has always been my little adventurer. She’s excited to be doing something so outrageous with her dad. And this will be something I’ll treasure with her forever.

There are at least a dozen of us from Legacy running the Warrior Dash in the morning: John & Suzanne, Bruce & Cathy, Mike & Lisa, Keith & Beth, Josh (who promises to stay right with me), Jason, Margaret, David and, from what I understand, a whole slew of our younger marrieds.

My goal is to finish in one hour or less. And to not have to be carried out in a stretcher.

Peace,

Allan

Good For The Soul

April 14, 2011 / / 0 Comments

G. K. Chesterton was once asked by a newspaper in London what was wrong with the world. He responded to the request with this short letter:

Dear Editor,                                                                 
What’s wrong with the world, you ask?
I am.
Cordially yours,
G. K. Chesterton

Humility and confession are the very first steps to genuinely following Jesus. Recognizing our place, admitting our shortcomings, owning up to our own faults is what allows our God to transform us into the perfect image of his holy Son.

What’s wrong with my family? I am. What’s wrong with my neighborhood? I am. What’s wrong with my church?

I am.

This kind of humility and confession allows us to throw away the guilt and frees us to live fully into the forgiveness and grace of God. It tears down the barriers. It obliterates the walls. It puts all of us together on the same broken plane where we rely not on ourselves, but on our Sovereign Lord.

There’s nothing wrong with your family or your neighborhood or your church that won’t get a whole lot better with some humility and confession. It opens us up and makes us available for God to use us as part of his great solution.

Peace,

Allan

Watch and Pray

April 13, 2011 / / 2 Comments

What does Christ want us to see in the Garden of Gethsemane? Why did he tell his disciples to watch and pray? Why did he take them with him that night? Why was it so important that they stay awake?

Jesus makes it very clear that night in the garden: he does not want to die. Jesus is sorrowful and troubled. He’s distressed. He’s in agony. He’s facing the most severe test of his life. God is handing him the cup of suffering and death and asking him to drink it. And Jesus doesn’t want to. He shudders in horror at the mission before him. He dreads all of it. His Father is in the process of making him who had no sin to be sin for us. Jesus is walking through the valley of the shadow of death. And he wants another way. And he asks for it.

What an amazing scene. Jesus is in great agony. He cries out to his God, “Deliver me!” He prays out loud to his Father, “Rescue me!” He begs, “Save me from this horrible assignment. Let’s do this another way.”

No dove descends. No thunderous voice from heaven assures, “This is my Son.” Only silence. Silence. God has already spoken. Now it’s up to the Son to obey.

And he does. “Not my will, but yours be done.” Jesus overcomes the silence, he fights off the temptation to do what he wants and, through open and honest prayer, he obeys his Father.

“Watch and pray.” “Stay here and keep watch with me.”

Jesus tells his disciples, “Do this with me. Experience this with me. Watch me. If you’re really going to follow me, you’re going to need to know how to do this.”

Jesus wants us to be awake and present and obedient to the way of the Son and the will of the Father. He wants us to accept trial. He wants us to undergo testing. He wants us to say “no” to the temptations to abandon the cross aspects of our calling. Afterall, it’s so much easier to turn our backs on the crown of thorns and just go to church. It’s so much easier to just settle into our pews and into the comforts of our status quo and potlucks and baby blessings.

If we’re going to follow Jesus as his loyal subjects — and we are! — then we’re going to follow him into the garden. It’s in the garden with Jesus, praying these agonizing prayers, where we really express our trust in God. We trust God in the darkness of our sufferings because God walked through the darkness himself.

God wants us to be in fellowship with the sufferings of his Son and the sufferings of his world. Fervent and faithful prayer is where God equips us and empowers us to do it. A stiff upper lip isn’t going to do it. A fierce resolve won’t cut it. New Year’s resolutions won’t work. It happens through open and honest prayer; raw, from the heart, transparent communication with the Father.

After a night of agonizing prayer, Jesus is ready. “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”

Watch and pray.

Peace,

Allan

Not Of This World

April 5, 2011 / / 1 Comment

My King is not like the rulers of this world. His Kingdom is not of this world. He tells us that. And he shows us that his ways and his methods and his forms are nothing like those of this world.

So why do we keep wanting to use the world’s ways and methods and forms?

Why do we think politics is the way to get things done for God’s Kingdom? Why do we think power and force and voting and petitions and boycotts and campaigns and rallies and protests are the way to accomplish our God’s plans for his creation?

All Christians have to vote Republican because Jesus is against the gay marriage position of the Democrats. No, all Christians have to vote Democrat because Jesus is against the war policies of the Republicans. No, the Church has to support the Republican party because of Jesus’ teachings against abortion. No, the Church has to support the Democratic party because of Jesus’ teachings against the gap between the rich and the poor.

If we’re going to think and talk and act this way, we might as well start waving palm branches like the crowds in Jerusalem who wanted Jesus to overthrow the Roman oppressors and establish an earthly kingdom in Jerusalem. Those people wanted to use Jesus for a political revolt. They wanted national and social and economic revolution in the name of the Messiah. They wanted Roman blood to flow in the streets. Gird your loins and grab your swords! God bless Israel!

If we think and talk and act this way, we’re forcing the children of God to choose and then pledge allegiance to the lesser of worldly evils. Jesus did not come so we could be a part of a refurbished and renewed version of the kingdom of the world. Jesus came so we could be a part of the all-new eternal Kingdom of God!

Jesus will never be President of the U.S.A.

One, because he’s not running. Two, because you wouldn’t vote for him if he were running.

Think about Jesus’ platform. Sell everything you have and give it to the poor! Love your enemies! If Jesus had bumper stickers on the back of the donkey he rode into Jerusalem they would say “Be Last!”

“Vote for Jesus! We’re Going to Die!”

Of course, our King doesn’t come with T-shirts and stickers and buttons and hundred million dollar campaigns. He doesn’t save the world with armies and markets and policies. He saves the world through sacrificial love and suffering and service and grace.

Yes, Jesus came to be King. But instead of being crowned with a gold-plated headdress of jewels, he was crowned with painful and penetrating thorns. He did not bear a warrior’s sword or a royal scepter; he was beaten with a whip and a rod. Instead of sitting on a cusioned throne and ruling, Jesus hung on a tree and died. Jesus willingly, deliberately, goes to his own suffering and death for the sake of the world.

If we follow this King as his subjects — and we do! — then we, too, will follow him into Jerusalem to the place of suffering and sacrifice and death. We will say ‘no’ to status and position and glory and wealth and say ‘yes’ to the giving of our own lives. We will reject power and violence and force and accept God’s will and God’s way even in the midst of terrible personal agony. We will refuse to consider our own needs and, instead, be much more concerned with the needs of those around us.

That’s what it means to follow Jesus. To watch him and imitate him. To determine to be right behind him no matter where he goes.

Peace,

Allan

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