The Right Thing Done Wrong

When they came to Nacon's threshing floor, Uzzah reached out to the ark of God and took hold of it because the oxen had stumbled.  Then the Lord's anger burned against Uzzah, and God struck him dead on the spot for his irreverence, and he died there next to the ark of God.  David was angry because of the Lord's outburst against Uzzah, so he named that place an Outburst Against Uzzah, as it is today.  David feared the Lord that day and said, "How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me?"  So he was not willing to move the ark of the Lord to the city of David; instead, he took it to the house of Obed- edom the Gittite.  The ark of the Lord remained in his house three months, and the Lord blessed Obed- edom and his whole family. (2 Samuel 6:6-10 NASB)

Sometimes God's behavior just doesn't make sense.  Sometimes there is simply no explaining away something He chooses to do.  So we need to make a choice.  It's sort of like a 'crisis of faith', but in another sense it's also an acceptance of a very obvious, but often overlooked, reality.  The fact is, there are no 'other alternatives'.  That's all in our head.

In John six, Jesus basically offends the people until they leave.  He then looks at his disciples left standing around, and says, "Will you leave too?" to which Peter answers, "Where will we go?  Who else has the words of life?"  Most of the time, we're not that smart.

It amazes me how people, including myself, believe that their obedience and faithfulness to God is somehow something we 'hold over him'.  As if we can modify and influence or control Him and His behavior by either promising to follow Him or threatening not to.  It's a behavior that, at its root, comes from a belief that the universe is all about me; and every 'me' is different, and all obviously wrong.

The inescapable truth is that there is only One God.  So what other options are there?  If we don't 'like' Him, it's not like we can simply follow another god or whatever.  There aren't any.  If we don't like Him or something He does, there's no sense in saying, "I'll never believe in a God who could do such things." Really?  As if there are other options?  What will we believe in if there's no God or we don't like the One speaking to us and doing these things?  I can choose to believe anything, that what I see is merely the projection into my dimension of something with other dimensions of existence.  I can choose to believe that blue is green, that read is black, and so on.  I can choose to believe anything, but that doesn't change what they are.  I can't change the nature of things through my belief.

God is.  He is as He is, and He is as different from us as we are from the clay pots and trinkets we make with our hands.  His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.  If this doesn't sound like it matters or makes sense, or helps accept the situation it's because it's so simple and obvious that we miss something equally as obvious but which we refuse to accept.

We are not at the center of the universe and this is not all about us.  God is not about us, He is for us.  There is a HUGE difference, and until we can wrap our heads and hearts around this truth we're hopeless.

God struck Uzza and killed him when what he was doing appeared good and right.  The whole thing was wrong though.  The Ark should never have been on a cart (the Philistines did it that way and they were pagans).  Uzza and his brother were not who was supposed to be tending it.  Uzza's death was not a sign of God's displeasure with David over all, but rather His displeasure of what David was doing at the moment.  David's response was to be angry, and to be afraid of God.  He then thought God did not want him to bring the Ark to Jerusalem, so he put it aside.  So, God blessed where the Ark was, just as He had previously blessed Kiriath Jearim where David was 'carting' it from.

The problem God has was with the 'mode' in which His Ark was being carried, and His solution was to strike Uzza for touching it.  That seems excessive, capricious, makes God a bully, a brute, an 'angry child' and so on.  The reality is that while we don't like the solution God chose, while such a Person may not be Who we would 'choose' to follow, believe in, or have faith in; He's the only One we have.  You don't like that God struck this guy with good intentions?  Tough.  You don't think you can trust a God who strikes down those serving Him in ignorance? Get over it. 

Face facts.  Get real. What we are missing is that we're afraid of God when He does such things.  We fear for our lives.  And that makes us very uncomfortable, unsafe, and insecure.  Part of God's point is exactly that, not to put us on the defensive; that's what we do because we believe we have a right to be safe, secure, and comfortable.  We don't any such right.  We should be uncomfortable, insecure, and afraid to stand in the presence of the One forming the universe out of nothing, creating stars, forming planets, and tracing the patterns of subatomic particles we haven't even found yet. 

Doesn't it seem odd that creatures described in such a way that to see them would so terrify us we would loose control of our bowels, spend all eternity declaring God's glory?  It does, but we don't pursue it.  We simply leave it at 'odd'.  If we were to pursue it we would be faced with Someone more magnificent than we can imagine.  We would be confronted with the God Creator, Warrior, Destroyer, and Savior.  If the creatures worshiping Him for eternity are frightening to behold, shouldn't we then consider that the One they worship would be terrifying?  Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  Yet we find all sorts of reasons to not be afraid.  Well, good luck with that.

We are Uzza when we worship without fear.  We are the ignorant servant well-meaning but doing the right thing wrong when we come so boldly before the throne of God we do so with contempt.  We risk death to do so, and yet we blissfully go along our way as if God has some sort of obligation to maintain our physical existence. 

So what do we do?  Do we enter into worship like we're about to be killed?  Do we walk around on 'egg shells', tip-toe around the One who may spontaneously obliterate us?  Read the rest of the chapter.  David dances in worship like a wild-man.  He pours out everything in his expression of the value of God to him.  God is all those things, including Savior.  Think of it!  The terrifying One worshiped by the frightening beings knows who you are, where you are, and sent His Only Son, Deity in flesh, to make sure we can have an eternal relationship with Him.  Grace means that we can worship Him at all!  So worship will all the power within us!  That meager expression of worship to such a One is His desire.  Every day, He takes a lunch for two and feeds 5,000; we just call it 'worship'. 

Being the Dish I Wash

I have a problem.  If you've been following this blog for any time, you would agree that is an understatement.  I have a host of problems, but I want to focus on one in particular today, that I tend to minimize or ignore.  Readers may have already picked up on it, so if it's obvious already...well, get over it.  It's new to me.

I have been neglecting my responsibility to cleanse myself and perfect or complete holiness in myself.  I should be doing this in fear of my Master.  As my ministry buddy, Paul, says in 2 Corinthians 7:1, as a result of the promises lined out in chapter 6, I should purify or cleanse myself (go through catharsis, which could also be emotional cleansing), and perfect or complete holiness in fear of God.  There is not a lot of wiggle room or gray area in this statement.  The promise in chapter 6 is the adoption by God which, as Paul puts it, God has already done.  So the cleansing and completing of holiness is in response to a promise we trust has already been completed on God's part.  Sounds good, doesn't it?  I'm not working to gain the promise, I'm working in gratitude for having the promise already.

I seem to not be all that honorable a receiver of the promise.  Having received the adoption by my Master, I then have not purified myself and do not consider holiness to be completed in me.  I have not done this in fear of my Master.  I still lust, I still speak negatively about someone without knowledge, I still consider hone my sarcasm and cynicism regularly.  These are not the actions which increase holiness, but rather the opposite.  These actions make me look like everyone else, and that means common or profane (in the sense as not set apart for special use by a deity, not in the sense of cussing or something).  Because these terms which are antithetical to holiness are so often used for using "bad" or four-letter words, the application of them to daily life is lost.  But it is actually more appropriate to use them for daily living than my language.  If I use a lot of "colorful" language, I don't talk like everyone else, I don't hear that language at work.  But if I act with a cynical attitude, then my attitude does look like those who have no relationship with Jesus, and that is profane, common, or vulgar, in their actual meanings.  They have been vilified to the point of uselessness in the development of holiness.

It would be great if I could blame my lack of holy development on semantics of antithetical terms, but I can't.  I may not be able to use those antithetical words for what I do normally, but I still understand that my actions and attitudes are not holy.  I know that my words and terms are more like the world I live in rather than my home world of Heaven.  I know those facts even if those around me do not.  That they do not notice anything different about me is what speaks volumes in support of my point.  I am not holy if there is nothing appreciably different about my demeanor than the agnostics, practical atheists, and utilitarians I work with.  If my actions do not declare that I know God exists, or I give the impression that I simply go with whatever works regardless of moral implications, then I cannot be distinguished from those categories of people around me who have no practical daily working relationship with the Master of the universe.  That's not an opinion, that is true by definition of holiness, of agnostic, of practical atheist, of utilitarian, and therefore of me when I fit those other definitions. 

I may not actually be those things, but no one knows my true character unless my actions support that character and make it known.  I may have been adopted by the Master of all space, time, and matter.  But it is a grand secret I keep until I perfect holiness in fear of God.  Perhaps I have tasted and seen that He is God, but if I keep it a secret, then I have not ritually purified myself for the special use of this One I serve (or am supposed to be serving).  If some random person were to survey my co-workers regarding my beliefs, would they be able to point to actions and attitudes on my part that support what they may suspect from sporadic claims I have made in the last five years?  Or would their answers approximate something more like, "Well he said that he believes in Jesus, but..."  Whatever follows the but is the verifiable part, and is more real in their minds than any claim on my part. 

Today, I will attempt to cleanse my mind, my attitudes, my actions, my speech from cynicism, sarcasm, and curb my imaginations desire to jump to conclusions without knowledge.  I will seek today to be more available to the special use of my Master.  Boy this will take a lot more than a shower.

A Third Sort of Fear of God

When I am told not to be terrified of God, but rather reverence Him, I just chuckle and shake my head.  Clearly those who say such things have never really met God face to face.  To do so is to need to change ones pants.  But until today, I had only considered those two options.  Today, I have discovered a third sort of fear of God.  It's not an earth-shattering discovery, it was there all along, and some might consider it in one of the two categories of either reverence or terror.  I discovered it in Mark 10:32.  After Jesus has kicked out another prop of their assumptions by claiming it was tough for the rich to get into His Kingdom, He leads them on the road to Jerusalem, and the ones who witnessed this are amazed, and the ones following Him are afraid.

This third fear is one that comes as the realization strikes home that Jesus is not Who I assumed He was.  He has refused to fit my assumptions, my paradigm, my desires for Who He should be, my underlying interpretive grid through which I filter Scripture and life events, basically everything that is of me and my ability to reason Him into a manageable box or framework (like this whole Trinity thing).  This fear is the result of the fracturing and collapse of all that rotten wood, bailing wire, and duct tape I had been using as a container for the Maker of the universe.  When I state it that way, the stupidity of the thing is really obvious, but in the process of constructing the facade, it seemed reasonable to have some "handles" to grasp in understanding this God loving me and calling me into a relationship with Him.  It made the relationship a bit safer to accept and walk into.

And then, with a shutter and crash, the facade came down, and out stepped this Person for whom I was not ready.  Scripture painted a word picture of some Person, and as the line began to form, my paradigm began to crumble.  The Shining One of Bronze robed in white, the One seated on a throne of crystal, The One surrounded by terrifying winged creatures with tongs and burning coals, was hard enough to accept.  But then He pours out wrath on His people and destroys Jerusalem with pagans, who raze it for 40 days committing atrocities against the inhabitants.  Yet this is after over 400 years of warning, so even in the abundance of wrath is patience.  This One kills, destroys, punishes, and liberates.  Yet in the liberation He does not restore the former glory, but keeps those contained in a small, off-the-beaten-path city-state of Judah.  And then, after strife with invaders once again, after self-rule, and then the invitation to the Romans to throw off the native rule, in the midst of the frustration and chafing with that choice, this same God then breaks into the history of His human creatures, entering time and space to live, act, and, eventually, die.  To do so is weird, but to do so to make it possible for those creatures to relate to Him is weirder.  What problem does the slaying of Your One and Only Son fix?

I thought it paid the debt for my sin, which, in part, it did.  I thought it appeased the wrath of God stacked against me, which, in part, it did.  I thought that, with the suffering and death of Jesus, I could now relate to God, which, in part, is true.  But even combining all these truths together does not exactly get the whole picture of what happened, what Jesus was heading into on that road to Jerusalem.  Why were these guys afraid.  He had just challenged a rich guy to give it all up and follow Him (which was an offer He did not make very often), and that rocked their world view, and then He heads to Jerusalem, the home of those trying to kill Him.  He is getting rid of those who would help and be influential in a conflict instead of gathering them together.  He is heads off to Jerusalem as if He is anxious and in a hurry to get into that conflict they know is coming.  What is up with this guy?  Is He crazy?  Is He going to get us killed?  So, they follow, but with fear and some reservations.  This is the third fear.

This fear may not last long, only until the false props and facade are completely gone; just in time for Him to begin work on another set of props and facade.  I read four accounts of His death, and when I get to number four, the questions from the other three are answered in ways that crumble my own props and facade.  He goes to His captors, and even though they fall over He gets everyone up and moving; He has a date with a destiny no one understands but Him, and He will not be late.  He goes, leading those who are to lead Him away.  He goes willingly, even anxiously, in a hurry to get into it.  I read of the One in the garden Who prays to have the cup pass from Him, but not His will, but the Father's.  I read this and wonder what that was about, what was going on in Him, hearing sermons stating one thing or another, making it only crystal clear that no one really understands that.  And then, in John, He goes out to them, He faces them, and they fall back, to the ground.  These are not the actions of One who is afraid or unsure.  What was happening there in the garden before that day of His torture and execution?  I am afraid, because what I mean when I say those words, please let this cup pass from me, are not what He means.  I am afraid because this One does not fit my understanding of how things work, what my Master wants, nor Who my Master even is.  I am afraid because He heads into the most horrific experience I can imagine as if He is looking forward to it.

What is the wrath of God poured out on me?  Isn't it eternal separation from Him in the fires of Hell?  Is it the flames or the separation that make up the real punishment?  Is it the distance from that which has been permeated by the Maker of the Universe which truly constitutes Hell?  If so, then what was Jesus running headlong into?  Was it fire or something much more devastating?  Could it have been something the likes of which I cannot wrap my mind around?  Did this quality of God which is impossible to explain change on the cross of the execution of God?  Did something happen that cannot be accepted by my paradigms, props, and facades around God?  The person I fear suffered my well-earned wrath so I wouldn't have to.  And that wrath which was suffered separated the One who was the One and Only Son of God, Part 2 of the Trinity, the Agent of Creation, the Bright and Morning Star, Prince of Peace, King of Kings from His Father.  The earth shook, the ground split open, graves gave up their dead, and the separating veil in the temple was torn in two.  But while all that was pretty impressive, what really happened was not seen, nor felt by anyone but the Master of the universe, Maker of stars and galaxies.  He alone felt and suffered the effects of that wrathful event.

Yeah, I fear, and my assumptions about God are a shambles.  I had a comfortable set of handles to understand my Master, and He shattered them.  He refuses to do what I expect.  I fear because I know that I truly do not, nor cannot know Him.  He will never fit my frame-work.  He will never conform to my level of  understanding.  I know that intellectually, but discovering it experientially is shocking and terrifying.  It is the third fear, somewhere between reverence and terror.  This third fear lies low, and simmers in the depths of my mind, just out of reach of conscious reason, the necessary pieces for understanding are too few.  And so I just endure the problem of this fear until He finishes removing the debris of my former understanding.  This is not what I had expected while waiting, it's an odd form of worship, and it's not comfortable to walk about before One Whom I fear without understanding.