Old Blog, New Blog

Blogs come and go as bloggers' and readers' needs change. Notes from the Northland is headed for a slight change. Instead of blogging the results of my reading and thinking and praying, I'd like to try blogging the process. I'm reading and praying through the book of Mark. The very nature of pastoral ministry, the administrative and leadership demands, seems to inevitably draw my heart and attention away from Jesus and on to the needs, actual and perceived, that surround all of us. In and of itself, being sensitive and available to the needs of others is not a bad thing, but right now, having just turned 50, facing the needs of aging parents and dispersed family, attempting to be meaningfully present in the lives of a church and a community, right now, I miss Jesus. I miss the time spent with him, just thinking about the immensity and purity of his person, the glory of his purpose, and the love of his intention. I miss being around him and experiencing the overflow of his heart into my worldview and my hope. I find myself often just sitting and longing to be with Jesus.

So that's what I'm going to do here. I'm going to just sit and be with Jesus, and, Lord willing, I'm going to do it "out loud," so if you want to, you can come and sit here with us and enjoy him too. I'll record my thoughts, my prayers (some of them), the struggles of life that I so much want Jesus to enter into with the eternally adequate wisdom he offers. But in the end, my desire is that Notes from the Northland will not be about me, or about you, but about Jesus.

This morning I was sitting in Rooster's Coffee and Cafe in Arab, Alabama (where my wife's parents live). I've been trying to lay out a preaching schedule through the book of Mark for this summer. I opened my Bible (the one with half the book of Revelation and all the concordance falling out) and realized I'd skipped the final event in chapter five. A man, the ruler of the local synagogue, comes to Jesus with a request that Jesus come and minister to his twelve year old daughter who is deathly ill. On the way Jesus is pressed by the mob. A woman reached out in faith and was healed of a disease she's suffered with for twelve years. Jesus stopped to minister to her soul and her position in the community, and there are so many lessons in grace, and compassion, and mercy to be gained from their interaction. But while he was ministering life to this woman, news came that the young girl they were headed to see had died.

That's where my thoughts picked up this morning. People come from the synagogue leaders house. They say to him, "Your daughter is dead. Why bother the Teacher any further?" I have so been there, haven't you. I haven't lost a daughter, but I have seen a long time dream die before my very eyes. I have seen hopes dashed. I have seen confidence and security terminated. You have too, haven't you? Some of our most precious things, dearest to our hearts, come to an end and are taken from us unexpectedly. And what advice do we hear? "Let it go. Move on. Get over it." Without realizing it these advisers diminish the value of our dreams AND the value of Jesus and his love for us and the things that are precious to us.

Jesus, however, gloriously, does not support these worldly advisers. He says, "Do not fear, only believe." At the end of our dreams, in that moment when hope teeters at the edge of the abyss, Jesus offers himself as our eternal hope. "Do not fear, only believe." Loss makes us afraid. Loss makes us aware that death lurks in the shadows and nothing we hold in this world can bear the passage with us. Loss makes us afraid not only of its coming, but of its repeated return. So Jesus says, "Do not fear." Why? Why, "do not fear?" Because he is permanent, unchanging, eternal. He won't get lost and he won't lose those who trust and believe in him. In Jesus loss no longer threatens, for what is gained through faith cannot be lost. So he says to fear-filled us, "Do not fear, only believe."

I think it is reasonable to ask, "Believe what?" It is a question to which Jesus responds, "You believe in God, believe also in me." Believe in Jesus' love. Believe in his good intent. Believe in his plan. Believe in his power. Believe in him and let your hope be in him. Believe not merely in what Jesus can do, as you might believe a trip to Walmart will stock the pantry shelves, but believe in him, the Savior, the Son of God, very God in human flesh full of grace and truth and fully committed both to revealing God the Father to us and drawing us through that revelation into the Father who loves us and sent his Son to die for us.

"Do not fear, only believe," and keep walking in faith. Jesus spoke the words to a man who had just received the most life jarring news a father can receive. I see that scene in my mind. To my heart's eyes Jesus lays his hand upon the man's shoulder and looks deep into the eyes now brimming with tears. The pressure of his hand urges the man homeward. The look from his eyes steadies the man's heart.

They arrive at the ruler's house where Jesus finds a crowd of people and great commotion, people "weeping and wailing loudly." You just have to love the audacity of Jesus that is born out of his relationship with the Father. "Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping." Stop a minute and consider what Jesus has just done. Jesus enters a room and describes the reality not as perceived and experienced by the gathered crowd, but from the wise, thoughtful and loving perspective of heaven. These people know death. They've seen it, experienced it, suffered from it, and survived it, but no one's come back from it. They know death. Jesus knows life.

The people laughed at him when he said the girl was sleeping, but they weren't laughing when that little girl emerged from her room sound and well a little while later sound and well. How wise we would be if we would just let Jesus describe our realities from his perspective rather than assuming that whatever we perceive is final. We see death. He sees rest. We see hopelessness. He sees opportunity. We see defeat. He sees victory. We see things as we think they are. He sees things as they really are. We perceive through limited experience. He understands through infinite wisdom. We see things that are not as though they cannot be. He sees things that are not as though they are. Why then do we laugh when Jesus challenges our perception of our life experience? Why do we put forth no faith when he offers great grace? Why do we assume we must "bury our dead" when he appoints us to life?

Do you think you cannot have hope? Why? Do you think that conditions and situations cannot change? Why? Have you discerned Jesus' perception? Do you know the Father's mind? Do not say, "Well, this is how things always are," because Jesus may very well respond, "Do not fear, only believe."

Today there are several situations in my life under which I have written the caption, "I don't know." I don't know what to do. I don't understand the real nature of some circumstances. I don't know how to respond, or if the responses I imagine are appropriate or not. I race around in my mind trying to conceive every contingency and I arrive time and again at the starting point under the banner, "I don't know." Jesus, I need you to describe the reality of my situation for me, because I am not confident that I see clearly. Please help me know. Please help me fear not and believe.Take ahold of my distress, and brokenness, and fear, and concern, and ignorance, and selfishness, and let Your resurrection power flow into them.

Jesus offers resurrection power which flows from God through him. He took the little girl by the hand and spoke the sovereignty of God into her life. "Little girl, I say to you, arise." I expect he had to speak definitively to her or else every little girl that ever died would have come forth at the power and authority of his word! In fact, had he simply said, "Arise!" (which he will one day) every person that ever lived would have answered the call!

In this instance, though Jesus calls one little girl back to life, he demonstrates the power and the love that brings forth hope and life and dreams that have died in me and in you but still have the potential to to serve his purposes and bring him glory. The girl's parents, and the disciples who were there, were "immediately overcome with amazement." When was the last time you were amazed with Jesus? I want to be amazed with him. I do not want to be one of those pragmatic people who dismiss him as someone who should not be bothered with my deepest hurt or greatest need. I don't want to reject him as unable to understand my current heart experience. I want to be amazed because my heart and life are open to him and he proves himself amazing. I want to be amazed with Jesus every day, not because he constantly has to prove me wrong, but because he proves himself so loving and willing to one whose life is a constant battle to "fear not and believe"