Waiting in the terminal.

Center Church is a massive and daunting read – akin to dining at the all-you-can-eat buffet serving only meat and potatoes – and I am not one who likes to take small bites and chew methodically.  Instead of taking theologically-dense works like this one and breaking it down into manageable portions, reflecting, and responding, I usually end up reading it twice in a row. After the reading, I sit there like a gluttonous mass of over-stuffed Christian and go into a catatonic state of digestion that will last days, weeks or months, depending on how much I was challenged, convicted, brought to repentance and empowered with boldness. 

I may have to read this one three times.

I really liked the picture that Keller created in my mind with this airplane analogy.

…keep in mind is that it is not the quality of the faith itself that saves us; it is what Jesus has done for us. It is easy to assume that being “saved by faith” means that God will now love us because of the depth of our repentance and faith. But that is to once again subtly make ourselves our own Savior rather than Jesus. It is not the amount of our faith but the object of our faith that saves us. Imagine two people boarding an airplane. One person has almost no faith in the plane or the crew and is filled with fears and doubts. The other has great confidence in the plane and the crew. They both enter the plane, fly to a destination, and get off the plane safely. One person had a hundred times more faith in the plane than the other did, but they were equally safe… Saving faith isn’t a level of psychological certainty; it is an act of the will in which we rest in Jesus. [1]

I am the wary passenger every single day of my life. 

Let me be totally clear with you: if it were not for the Holy Spirit literally lifting my doubting, hesitating legs and helping me take those precious few steps between “boarding” the plane and “on” the plane, I would not be on the plane. 

The decorum it takes for those of us who have a fear of flying to hold it together while waiting at the terminal at the airport really cannot be described. 

What I try to look like on the outside:

I’m only mildly interested in the journey I am about to take. I’m an old veteran, really. See me with my headphones and my games on my smart phone and a casual eye on other waiting passengers? I’m just half-listening to the flight attendant on the intercom. You can tell I do this so often that I don’t need to actively listen to hear my row announced. I just intuitively know. I’m in no hurry to get on, so I’ll just relax here casually while those uptight travelers crowd the counter waiting for their “MVP Gold” boarding call.

What’s actually going through my head:

There are two men under the aircraft with clipboards comparing numbers. Something must be wrong. Are you a terrorist? Are you a terrorist? Are you a terrorist? I see plenty of room under that jacket for a bomb. I don’t know much, really, but is there any way we’d survive a crash from 28,000 feet to even be able to use those flotation devices? I’m going to be up in the air. Miles into the air. Slides over the wings won’t do jack for me. Perfect time for me to remember the nightmare I had about colliding with another airplane midflight. Will someone please show me the results from the most recent safety checks on this craft?

Not exaggerating. I have so little faith that I will land at my destination when I board an airplane that even after I am at cruising altitude, beverages are being served and I’ve found a suitable distraction for the next hour, I’m still eyeballing the other passengers suspiciously and jumping at every change in the sound of the engine.

Praise God that this plane’s ability to land safely at its destination does not depend on my confidence in the plane, the crew, or the people I’m traveling with, or we would have crashed before we’d even made it through takeoff.

The problem arises when we try to perfectly comprehend, from an intellectual standpoint, Jesus and the Gospel before we will lay down our sense of control, our doubts, our lives. 

Let’s take the 737 for example – my vessel of choice flying to and from college in California years back.

I was, and remain, terrified of flying. I had two choices if I wanted to get home to my family each break: to either accept my doubts and fears and board the plane nonetheless, realizing that my fear did not gain me any more control over the plane than if I perfectly understood and trusted it, or to never board the plane in endless pursuit of total confidence in and understanding of the technology that was going to get me into the air and back down again in one piece.

I could have studied engineering and aerospace, read all the manuals on how a 737 operates and is piloted, interviewed the entire crew and reviewed their full list of qualifications and credentials. I could have meticulously inspected every nook and cranny of that plane. I could have, in some twisted and unlikely scenario, performed background checks on every other person who was going to be traveling on that plane with me.

In doing so, I would have missed the bigger issue at hand, which is that I actually believed all these things would have given me peace about the flight.

It’s not the plane with the problem. It’s not the crew, or the passengers. It’s me.

Dear friend, don’t get so tangled up in checking the wiring on the plane and examining every detail that you miss the journey of a lifetime.

You have two options. Get on the plane, or spend your whole life figuring out a reason not to get on the plane.

Whether you’re sweating and shaking uncontrollably, or calmly walk onto the plane with your head held high and pretend to have absolute certainty of your destination, the plane will do what it was intended to do.  And when you get on the plane (because I know you will) recline your seat, put in your headphones and rest.

Rest, rest, rest. You need it.

 

 

[1] Keller, Timothy J. (2012-09-04). Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (p. 36). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

My Easter.

“… Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’” Romans 7:7

Law

Easter before Jesus – frivolous, fun, but empty as the hollow spot in my chocolate bunnies. I remember candy and stuffed animals and baskets and dyeing eggs. And I remember the first time I consciously coveted and had to endure the consequences of my sin.

I remember the clucking Cadbury bunny on my TV screen. And marvelous, ooey gooey chocolate shell spilling candy egg. How do they do that? How do they make eggs chocolate? I just had to know. Chocolate on the outside. Egg on the inside. It was ingenious. But for whatever reason, the Easter bunny never brought me Cadbury cream eggs.  Didn’t he see them? They were right there, every year, at the end of the checkout counter at the grocery store. It would be so easy to just pick one up and put it in my basket.  Alas, I was going to have to get one for myself if I was ever going to know what made these eggs have chocolate shells, for I had a feeling the bunny had not picked up on my keen interest in these little mysterious candies.

Of course, it was as easy as asking Mom. Why wait? The next time we were at Albertson’s getting groceries, I saw the beautiful foil-wrapped goodness sitting on the checkout counter. “Can I have a Cadbury egg, Mom?”

“Not today, Brittany.”

What? No? Didn’t she realize how unfair this was? How the mystery of the chocolate-covered eggs had been taunting me for weeks on the commercials? I waited until her back was turned and snuck my hand over the smooth ledge and plucked an egg out of its cardboard holder, pocketing it quickly and discreetly, without a second thought. 

Upon arriving at home, I hopped up the stairs quick as a rabbit and shut my bedroom door and sat at my little plastic activity table.  Long-awaited bliss! At long last! I would finally know what was really inside that chocolate shell! Hastily, I unwrapped the egg and popped it into my mouth. I bit down.

Hmm… well, it’s not as gooey as it looked on TV. Wait… and it doesn’t taste like egg. It tastes like sugar.

The realization slowly set in. So stupid of me. All that fuss and work and all for a stupid candy egg. What had I been expecting? Realistically, my five-year-old self was expecting a lot more than that. I’d expected something marvelous and unique. It had looked so tantalizing and mysterious on the commercial.  And all along, it was just colored sugar.

The mystery was over. Bitterly disappointed, I crumpled up the wrapper and tossed it into the cubby underneath the tabletop, quickly forgetting all curiosity and the hasty, careless actions I had taken, and went on with my day.

Grace

“Brittany, what is this?”

Oh shit.

No, I’m serious, those exact words went through my head when my mom held out the crumpled wrapper to me.

Excuses poured out of my mouth.  Tears and blubbering confessions burst out of me as disappointing as the filling in my Cadbury egg. I had wanted that stupid egg. She had clearly and specifically told me no. I defied her. I said yes. I took the egg. 

Without delay, she instructed me to dump out my piggy bank. Loaded into the car, tears streaming down my face, we traveled down the hill to Albertson’s.  We walked into the store and she asked for the manager.

Shame overwhelmed me. Pure embarrassment. I was going to have to confess what I had done. Here was the boss himself – a kind-faced, middle-aged Asian gentleman – the one who had put the egg in the store for paying customers to enjoy, and I was going to have to tell him I had stolen it. To his face. I wanted to hide, to go anywhere and be anywhere but there. Instead, my mother stood behind me and made me stand face-to-face to him and admit to my crime.

I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. I knew from TV that when bad people like me stole from stores, they went to jail. That was justice, simple cause-and-effect.

To my shock, the manager acknowledged my crime and that I had done wrong. He gave a little wink to my mom. He accepted my apology. And he sent me home with the request that I be a responsible, law-abiding citizen in the future and always pay for what I take.

 

“The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.” Hebrews 7:18-19

The Imperfect and the Perfect

Every single Easter from that year forward, I remembered that the manager at Albertson’s let me off the hook for taking that egg. I still cannot go a year without remembering my crime and the grace I was shown. Of course, at 25, I laugh at the whole thing now. Not because stealing is not a serious crime, but because I am free to laugh. Had I received an appropriate punishment for breaking the law, it would be no laughing matter. But today I laugh about it! What a foolish child I was!  I was, after all, only a child. I didn’t think twice before snatching up that egg. I didn’t carefully weigh my actions before grabbing it. It doesn’t negate that in that very moment I grabbed it, my actions were criminal; rather, it emphasizes how little we grasp the severity of our actions as children. It clarifies what we deserve, and therefore, what we really need. 

When Jesus looked down from the cross upon His creation, He looked up into the heavens and pleaded for His children: “Forgive them, Father, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Did I know I was doing wrong when I took the egg? Of course I did. My mother had given a standard for that moment in the grocery store: no chocolate egg today.  I chose my way instead: yes, there will be a chocolate egg. 

But this is not about the law. Or, perhaps, it’s about the law only in that it has done its work already in that it has made me guilty.

In fact, this story doesn’t even do truth justice in that I was sent out from the store with the expectation that I would be a good, law-abiding citizen from that moment forward. I was given a moment of grace, but this moment is nothing like God’s perfect grace.

Before I understood what Christ had done for me – that Christ bore the punishment I deserved for stealing that chocolate egg by enduring the cross – I thought that Christianity was a set of rules you put yourself under to be a good person, and if you simultaneously believed that Jesus was God and died for your sins, you would go to heaven.

No, no, no. And I celebrate Easter this year and every year because of that no.

Here’s the truth: there is no both/and. In Jesus, you are free. Free to laugh and free to dance and free to think on your sins and smile. It’s absolutely scandalous, but it’s true.

Because what happened is that my Father in Heaven knew I was going to steal that egg. He knew I would lie about doing my homework. He knew I would talk on my cell phone while driving.

Let’s take this even deeper. Let’s forget the past and think about today.

He knew I would covet my friend’s baby who slept through the night at one month. He knew I would resent my husband for choosing to watch TV instead of help me around the house. He knew I would whisper insults under my breath (ok, He knew I’d yell…) at the driver who cut me off. He knew I would be endlessly impatient with my needy cat, my neighbors, my family members.

Jesus stood before the crowds and outlined various facets of the law in the sermon on the mount.  It was there He gave the command that rendered all of humanity past, present and future utterly helpless:

“Be perfect.”

I can’t stop sinning. I know these things are wrong even more so now that I know God’s law, and I can’t seem to go a day where I have kept it completely. Having the law has not made me perfect. No, it hasn’t even made me better. What is the point of the God’s law and commandments if I can’t even keep them?

Let me ask this differently… did God give the law with the intention of gaining man’s obedience, or was it for some other purpose entirely?

Why do Christians ask the world around them to submit to God’s law (also known as “standing up for God’s institutions” or “defending the truth” or whatever) when they themselves have violated it with just as much vileness and rebellion in their own hearts?

We have the gospel – we know that none of our works will justify us when we stand before Jesus – and yet we ask the world to conform to a law they will never be able to keep. And the law was never meant to be revered; it was only a means of affirming the guilt of every person before a Holy God.

Or in other words…

“All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags…” Isaiah 64:6.

And also…

“For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” James 2:10

As for me, Jesus gave me something better at Easter. He didn’t give me “grace” then tell me to be a good little girl and send me out to tell everyone about the law. He didn’t give me grace just to give me more law.  No, the words I hear in my head every Easter go something like this:

“Brittany, I have given you a special gift:

You are beautiful because I am beautiful. You are worthy because I am worthy. You are holy because I am holy. You are righteous because I am righteous.  You are alive because I am alive.

You are perfect. Because I am perfect. I loved the Heavenly Father perfectly when you couldn’t. I loved your neighbor, your family member, your friend, your enemy, perfectly, when you couldn’t. When you faced the temptation to covet and gave in, when you stole, I faced the same temptation and yet I did not steal.

You did not deserve it – you will never deserve it – but here is My perfect record in place of your sinful one. Just say thank you, and smile, and dance. You are free.

Jesus”

An enormous gift that I could never have understood until I knew how badly I needed it. I never would have known how badly I needed grace had I not first seen my sin illuminated by the law.

Law’s true purpose. It’s so much better than we ever imagined.  To reveal God’s perfect righteousness and the reality that I can never be that on my own.

“But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.” Romans 3:21-31