Behind the locked door

If you look just beyond the crowd of tourists in this picture, you'll see a set of steps and a small door. The door is locked. From a different angle in the room, you can see a small, high window sharing the wall with the door. The shrine in which we were standing was built much later.

No one is allowed to access that locked room, the traditional site on Mt. Zion of both Jesus' final Passover meal and then, 50 days later, Pentecost. (Interesting note: the site of King David's tomb is almost directly below this site.)

Those who attend congregations using the church year calendar to structure their times of corporate worship will be celebrating Pentecost tomorrow. Just prior to His ascension, the resurrected Jesus had instructed his disciples to hang around Jerusalem for a few more days to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. They'd been counting the days from Passover to Shavuot, and they were going to need to be in Jerusalem to celebrate Shavuot, one of the key feasts ordained by God for His people.

The cataclysmic events of Pentecost fulfill the joy of Shavuot. The holy day marks the day God spoke to His pilgrim people with The Ten at Mt. Sinai 50 days after they'd been delivered from Pharaoh. The tablets transformed them from a tribe who had patriarchs who'd spoken with God to a people with whom the Creator spoke. Each one of them could know His character; each one could know how to honor their Deliverer with their lives.

We know the difference between "could" and "actually did" was why Christ came for us - and it is what makes what happened in that upper room so stunning. The Holy Spirit came just as Jesus promised, and transforms our stone-cold hearts:

"This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people." (Jer. 31:33)

We often focus on the amazing gift - God Himself, breathing in us - on Pentecost. We love the heaven on earth of signs and wonders; we pray to speak with the same tongues of fire that translated God's glory to Jews gathered for Shavuot in Jerusalem from every nation under heaven.

There was a divine purpose in sending the gift of the Holy Spirit to baptize Christ's followers in that plain room, in that location, on that specific day. The joy of receiving the law on Sinai is both amplified and fulfilled on Mt. Zion on Shavuot/Pentecost. May the connection between the two intoxicate you just a little bit today with the wonders of God.

Memorial Day Q & A

These questions were asked of us today by our 5-year old grandson. How would you answer them?

1. What does a soldier do?
2. Is Memorial Day for Kasmir Pulaski? (Illinois residents will understand this one.)
3. Where is heaven?
4. What kind of punishment did Jesus get?
5. Why can't I see Him right now?
6. Can I have a blue and green bike?

Peace that passes understanding?

My friend's husband has been gravely ill for months. After a couple of extended hospital stays and multiple surgeries to save his life, he was transferred to a long-term care facility to begin the healing process in earnest. A few days ago, he got sick again - a scary step back into life-threatening illness.

Everything has changed for this family, from the mundane (lawn mowing tasks are being handled by someone else this spring) to the once-in-a-lifetime (my friend's oldest daughter is getting married in mid-June; having dad walk her up the aisle has taken on a completely different meaning for the family). The future they were all expecting has been radically, permanently re-scripted by this experience.

When I checked in with her yesterday, I was struck afresh by the kind of peace my friend was experiencing in the midst of this terrifying battle.

Was she exhibiting an eerie emotional placidity (think Ghandi on Xanax)? Was she able to disconnect from her grieving, scared, exhausted emotions so she could walk through this long valley as if she was taking a nature hike on a sunny day? Not at all. Actually, her emotions are quite understandaby all over the place right now. But there was a deep sense of surrender to God's eternal purposes, and a singular, ravenous desire to cling to each word He is speaking into her life right now. She is at peace, even though she is living in the middle of a war zone.

What does "the peace that passes all understanding" really mean? This favorite Christian phrase is often shorthand for "an irrational sense of emotional calm". Is Jesus talking about our emotional state here?

"All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." - John 14:25-27

On one hand, yes. He emphasizes his promise of peace with an imperative encouragement not to be afraid, not to allow turmoil to reign in our souls. However, if you look at the order of His words, you'll see that Jesus is not turning the reining in our of panicky hearts into a behavioral goal, but an expression of a life in unbroken communion with the Holy Spirit.

The Comforter comes to teach us, to bring to active remembrance all Jesus has told us. The Spirit expresses to us all the Son has said because the Son has put an end to our long war with His Father. This is no truce. My friend is being held inside the embrace of the Trinity. It is a place of true shalom. She is whole, she is safe, and she is experiencing eternity's shalom in each roller-coaster moment of her husband's battle.

She is at peace.

Book review: The Hole in our Gospel

Saved by faith. Saved for works.

Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision, describes the relationship between faith and works in his compelling book The Hole In Our Gospel (Nelson). I expected the president of World Vision to take on the Western church's blindness toward both the practical and spiritual needs of the rest of the world. What I didn't expect from this readable book was the gentle humility with which Stearns writes. He is not a compassion superstar. He is a guy who thinks and talks like most of us. His honesty about his unwillingness to make a lifestyle change drew me into the book.

He thought he'd paid the cost of discipleship by being involved at church, being a generous donor, keeping his kids enrolled in Christian schools, and sponsoring a few World Vision kids. He was living an upper-class suburban Christian life in his position as the CEO of Lenox, the china company when a headhunter overseeing an executive-level search on behalf of a non-profit called him.

Stearns recounted the phone call:

"The way I see it, you seem to be looking for someone who is part CEO, part Mother Theresa, and part Indiana Jones, and I don't know anyone like this. You might find two out of three, but probably not all three. But I'll keep my eyes and ears open, and if I think of someone, I'll be sure to call you." I was kind of hoping to keep this call as short as possible. It was dangeous.

But then came the other standard question headhunters tend to ask: "What about you?" he said. "Would you have an interest in this job?"

"Me?" I laughed uncomfortably. "I don't think so. I am not qualified, not interested, and not readily available." What did I know about the poor anyway - didn't this guy remember I was running a luxury goods company? This was crazy.

It turned out not to be crazy at all. It turned out to be God's calling - and the messy process of uprooting his family, taking a huge pay cut, and having his heart broken with the things that break God's heart form the structure for this worthwhile book. When Stearns quotes data about poverty, AIDS, or the need for clean drinking water, it is tied to his own learning curve as a Christ-follower. The stories he tells will stay with you (the story of Margaret forgiving the man who mutilated her still haunts me, days after reading it).

The book comforts, confronts, and invites - and is a worthwhile read for anyone who is disquieted by the words in the book of James:

"What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.But someone will say, 'You have faith; I have deeds.' Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do." - James 2:14-18

And that "anyone" should be each one of us who calls themselves a Christ-follower.

(Note: My copy of The Hole in our Gospel was a review copy from the Thomas Nelson book bloggers program.)

Ritual

My parents made me come home from college to participate in my high school graduation ceremony. I'd finished high school a semester early so I could dive into college life, and the thought of getting on a train and heading home for a stupid ceremony commemorating a milestone I'd passed a month earlier really annoyed me. I went, of course, striding across the John Hersey High School auditorium stage on a snowy January night in 1977. I went because my parents insisted. The whole thing seemed pointless. Why did I need to pause my my new life as a college student so I could march across a stage in a ghoulish black robe and hideous piece of headgear that steamrolled my mini-Afro?

That's what almost all high school students say. (OK, maybe not the ones who don't sport a Mod Squad hairstyle. And if you have to ask what Mod Squad is, you probably don't have the `do.) Many college students, especially at large state-run schools, stay away from their graduation ceremonies in large numbers.

When Bill got his Masters' degree a couple of years ago, I had a bit of an "ah ha!" about the importance of these ritualized rite-of-passage events in our lives. Every person at graduation - the professors, the administrators, the friends and families, and the students themselves - came to honor something bigger than ourselves, and bigger than the individual lives of any one of them. Each one had completed an expensive, difficult goal. All of them had completed the goal at the same place and time. I realized that the stiff, starchy corporate ceremony emphasized the impact of each individual's accomplishments. Hearing Bill's name read and seeing him cross the stage to receive his (empty) diploma (case) was one of the nicest moments of my life to date. It was a surprise to discover such joy inside what I'd always thought of as a dry ritual.

Our son Ben graduated from North Park University this weekend, magna cum laude in both Creative Writing and Philosophy. He could have handed us his transcript and we would have been extremely proud of him. But seeing him garbed in his gown, mortarboard and gold honors tassels hallowed the moment for us in a completely different way. It was another of the most joyous moments of my life.

Talkin' `bout my/your generation

A good percentage of us boomers who came to faith in Christ in our teens are the the Jesus Movement's direct offspring. But we know that our offspring are increasingly distancing themselves from the kind of faith practice that grew in the rock-n-roll soil of this hippie-style revival. (Check out the trippy chart accompanying this sad, sobering blog post that tells the story of nextgen faith migration.)

So I wonder...what is the legacy of the Jesus Movement?
CCM?
Church buildings that look like corporate office parks and function like religious community centers?
A presentation of the gospel that relies more on making the sale instead of changing a life?
Therapy?
A faddish approach to Christian spirituality that generates a lot of sprinters but relatively few marathoners?
One leader after another after another caught in sexual sin?
Goosebumps as a spiritual gift?
The desire to experience Malachi 4:6 in our families without anyone to show us how because we'd learned that no one over 30 ("suits" and authority figures) was to be trusted?
The Republican Party?
Lifestyles that mirror the ugliest parts of our culture instead of the counter-culture that initially beckoned us?
Power hoarded and spent on ourselves?

My soul cries out, "I don't want my faith in Christ to be a hiccup in the long history and future of my family, a one-generation "experience", an abberation. This is not what I signed up for."

Asaph the psalmist, sang these words as a declaration to the generation up and down the line from himself. This song is a bit of an antithesis to Jesus Movement values:
O my people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in parables,I will utter hidden things, things from of old-what we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us.We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD,his power, and the wonders he has done. (Ps.78:1-4)

A few weeks ago at a local prayer conference, I had the privilege of teaching a workshop on the parable of the persistent widow. About 75% of the people in my workshop were there because they had prodigal kids. Maybe a better way to put it was that there were a lot of us in that room whose kids weren't buying the kind of faith our generation has been peddling. The sobering reality that the malnourished generation behind us is eschewing the empty calories of boomer faith culture and is in search of something substantial. Something like the kind of sustenance Asaph encouraged his peers to feed to their children: parables, testimonies, demonstrations of God's power. The call was to introduce children to the wonder of God Himself instead of a diet of spiritual Twinkies, disposable trinkets and forgettable experiences.

At times, I have been guilty in my own family of participating and promoting Christian sub-culture instead of Christ - and I grieve this. I mourn my willingness to be parented by my peers (a core value of the Jesus Movement) instead of learning to be a part of a kindgom community with older, wiser voices who could sing Asaph's lyrics in my life. And at the same time, I bless the work of the Spirit, the messy and miraculous way He was moving among an entire generation of lost children like me.

As I move toward my 50th birthday, I wish only one gift for my kids and for all of their generation: Faith that will save them from their sins, and from the consequences of ours.

Agree? Disagree? Why?

Waiting at gate C-8 at Ben Gurion Airport

- Did you know you can get corn on your pizza in Israel?

- The day before Israeli Independence Day is a solemn day known as Yom Hazikaron (Israeli Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism Remembrance Day). At 11:00 AM, the air raid sirens sounded. Everything in the country comes to a halt. Cars stop. People freeze in place on sidewalks and in office buildings. They stand at attention, in silence for two minutes. Remembrance is personal in the country, a present-tense reality instead of the domain of the old gents down at the VFW on the US Memorial Day.

- Looking at the Israeli faces on the streets around Jerusalem, both Arab and Jew alike, and then visiting some of the Catholic and Orthodox shrines erected on the places where Jesus ministered gives me a bit of a disconnect. He and His disciples (and His mama and papa) are depicted in such gentile ways. I've always felt it, but this visit to Israel amplified the dissonance. Lots of history and reasons for this - most all of it very sad and shameful.

- If you want to see modern Jerusalem in action, nothing beats the people watching on Ben Yehuda Street.

- Even with all the prayer and religious activity going on across Jerusalem (Jewish, Muslim and various stripes of Christianity), the best moments with God for many are found when they tuck themselves into a corner and simply connect with the deep longing for Him that saturates every atom of this place. The cry, "The Spirit and the Bride say come" animates that desire for believers.

- In Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum, there was a single plaque mentioning 2,000 Jews who had "converted to Christianity" who were herded into one of the ghettos along with all of their other Jewish brethren. I would like to point this plaque out to those who have told me over the years that my faith in Jesus trumps my heritage/ethnic identity/religion, and remind them that it is not so simple. If there is another wave of persectution (and there will be), the one-two combo of my faith and my heritage will get me a place at the front of the line. Lord, may I be ready to stand for You today, and in that day.

- On both trips here, I have been asked by Israeli security if I had another passport besides my U.S. one. (Bill has not.) Not sure what to make of this question.

- The Caspari Center (www.caspari.com) has cataloged all of the newspaper articles from the mid-1970's on relating to Messianic Judiasm in Israel. It is a goldmine for historians are tracing the growth of the Messianic movement here in the land.

- We met an Arab born-again Chrstian man named Isa running an olivewood tchotchke shop in the Old City. As we discussed our shared faith in Christ, we embraced and laughed and prayed. This sweet, joyous moment was a highlight of our last day in the city.

- I can't wait to come back. I leave a piece of my heart here. Or maybe it was here all along, and I found it during the two wonderful visits I've had this year.