Pre-Atonement Projects

You know your blog has lost steam and substance when posts only appear in conjunction with the calendar (Christmas and New Year’s, for instance).  Perhaps I’ve officially joined the ranks of the periodic drive-by commentator pounding out shallow remarks about contemporary events, complete with the obligatory pre-post apologies.  At least I’m just in time for a New Year’s resolution.

For several reasons, I’ve thought about endings and beginnings a lot over the past few years.  I serve in a semester-by-semester ministry which invites constant back-end evaluation and front-end vision; I’ve had many close friends leave the TMC ministry and many new friends join it; and I’ve personally thought often about regrets and goals and transitions.

I’ve learned that resolutions can be very helpful, but are also quite dangerous.  And as with everything in life and religion, it’s the nature of the thing that’s essential.

On the dangerous side, beginning-of-the-year resolutions tend to be motivated significantly by guilt and regret.  We’re not simply taking a memoriless look forward, gazing guiltlessly at the dawn of a new year and eagerly anticipating all the wonderful things that might be.  There’s a deep night before every dawn, and this is often true with our resolutions.

This means that when we decide to make concrete changes, we’re often a few steps down the road of sin > guilt > shame > regret, and looking for a good way to cover our tracks.  It might be low-level guilt over things like keeping a dirty desk or being habitually late to appointments, the kind of quasi-guilt that plays like soft background music in the mind.  It might be medium-grade shame over a temper that’s come out more often that we’d like in the past year.  Or it might be an overpowering sense of guilt and helplessness pounding in the conscience because of a voluntary enslavement to pornography or an inescapable self-awareness about our body-image.

Whatever the level of guilt or the significance of the resolution, New Year’s resolutions are often plans for success driven by memories of failure.

The problem is that the next step on the sin > guilt > shame > regret trajectory is atonement.  Somehow, some way, we must resolve the problem of guilt.  Whether we view it as a problem to be solved, a conflict to be reconciled, a habit to be transformed, an embarrassment to be covered, or a regret to be reversed, we know that what’s wrong needs to be made right.  We need atonement.

But not only do we sense the need to make up for our past; we also know ourselves well enough to sense that the future may not be too different.  What has been is often what will be.  Which means that we can see ourselves drifting toward the path of sin > guilt > shame > regret even as we strive to pull ourselves in better directions.  We know that old habits die hard, and that though the spirit may be willing, the flesh will always be weak.  What New Year’s resolver doesn’t already sense the fear of failure?

This is where resolutions all too easily become (or begin as) pre-atonement projects.  We begin attempting not just to atone for our past, but to pre-atone for our future.  In the same way that resolutions can easily be so many payments against the debt we’ve built up in days gone by, they can also serve as strategic moral investments against the debt we know we’ll incur in the days to come.  So we turn potentially good and humble resolves into a self-focused mission to pre-pay for sin and to preempt regret.

The fact is, there will come a day, whether it surprises us (like Christ’s coming or an unexpected death) or arrives predictably (like a slow, timetabled passing), when we will all stand before God seated high up on His throne of judgment.  And on that day all of our self-perceived merit and our well-developed habits and our yearly resolutions will melt in the light of His holy presence.  This is not to say that our grace-motivated, Spirit-driven pursuit of righteousness is unimportant in this life.  Only to say that that pursuit is not what I want to be standing on at the judgment.

Of course, there are many wonderful strengths and benefits to godly resolutions.  They are a valid response to God’s wonderful mercies that can direct our focus, channel our energy, and help us refine and renew our priorities.  It’s no more noble to wallow in selfish, fleshly habits than to pursue self-atoning, flesh-powered resolutions.

So do I make resolutions or not?  (And now I’m not talking about New Year’s, but about the life of faith.)

Satan seems to have at least three major ways of tempting us as we answer this question.  On the one hand, he wants us to be overly simplistic and even fatalistic about our priorities and habits so that we feel either enslaved or invincible, but either way blind to the labrynthal nature of the human heart.  On the other hand, he would be equally happy for us to be mentally entangled in an overdone sense of complexity, thinking that our success or failure lies in the precision of our spiritual algorithms rather than the deep simplicity of our connection with Christ the vine.  To resolve nothing out of foolish simplicity or to make endless lists out of self-trusting resolve are both good-looking options to the father of lies.

Then there’s an equally dangerous middle path, the one I find myself so often walking, where we eschew complexity and look with suspicion upon simplicity and assume that we can find victory in the decisionless middle.  Here we resolve to only resolve perfectly — with perfect motivations, flawless intentions, unquestionable methods, appropriate balance, and absolute follow-through — and when we cannot, we end up looking with self-righteous condescension upon the masses who are foolish enough to resolve or apathetic enough not to.

So tonight, as the clock strikes midnight in a quiet study in Oklahoma and the first decade of the millennium slips away, I find myself looking to the one who perfectly lived out all the complexities of God’s law with the simplest love of a Son for His Father, one who resolved in the power of the Spirit to do only the will of the One who sent Him, and one who kept all His resolutions to the very end even though it took sweating blood and stiffarming legions of angels to do it.  I look to His resolve, to His obedience, and ultimately to the depth and power of His love.  In Him I find forgiveness for the sinful resolves still fighting to reign in my heart, and in Him I find power to fulfill the righteous resolves that He has created within me.

And so, fixing my eyes on Him, I resolve that this year, as in every year, He is worthy of my faith, my hope, my love, and my worship.  You might object that the last sentence is more adoration than resolution.  That’s because I believe that He wants the first to precede, and then to empower, the second.  Resolve means nothing without adoration, and adoration cannot help but fuel our resolve.  May it be so this year for all of God’s children, and for all who will soon be called by His name.

A Thrill of Hope

From beneath a stunning Christmas Eve blanket of snow in Tulsa, Oklahoma, here are two spectacular versions of my favorite Christmas hymn to stir your heart and heat your worship.  Although lesser known by far, I like the second more than the first, because Celine Dion is a performer, while David Phelps is a worshiper.  The two rarely go together, but it is resounding when they do.  Because of the wonder of the incarnation, may your Christmas cheer have weight.

Joy to the World

I have realized that I cannot come close to expressing the joy I feel during the Christmas season.  Somehow, some way, for the past several years, the awe and wonder of the incarnation have multiplied exponentionally in my heart during the weeks leading up to Christmas.  I am especially taken with the beauty, depth, and power of so many traditional Christmas songs.  They are beautiful because they speak of the unspeakable humility of the incarnation; they are deep because they invite us to ponder incomprehensible mysteries; and they are powerful because they stand at the the summit of redemptive history from where we see the breaking of a new and glorious morn, a thrill of hope, and the spring of blessings that have begun to flow out as far as the curse is found.

Now, finally, joy has come to the world — because the Lord is come and because the Savior reigns.  This is no postmodern tribal narrative, true for your community but not for mine.  This is no cultural tradition, speaking only or even mainly to white middle-classers packing SUV’s with mall-bought gifts on Black Friday.  And it is no seasonal festival, only meant to bloat us with a deflatable holiday happiness that will slowly hiss away as we clean up the wrapping paper and pack up the ornaments and ring in the new year.

Isaac Watts published “Joy to the World” in his 1719 collection of poems entitled The Psalms of David: Imitated in the language of the New Testament, and applied to the Christian state and worship.  It was an expression of his meditation on Psalm 98 as he celebrated the glorious final coming of Christ into the world.  Joy has come to the world because the King has come, and is coming again.

We “sing to the LORD a new song” (98:1) because “the LORD has made known his salvation” and “has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations” (98:2).  Now from Africa to India to Vanuatu, “all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God” (98:3).  So “make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises!” (98:4).  Break out every instrument you can find, and let men their songs employ — “with the lyre and the sound of melody” and “with trumpet and the sound of the horn” (98:5-6).  If you have ears to hear — if you find that your favorite song is the song of praise to the King who has come and is coming again – then you will hear fields, floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeating the sounding joy.  Yes, “Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who dwell in it!  Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together before the LORD” (98:7-9).  If you hate injustice and oppression and you long for the mouths of the wicked to be stopped, for those in bondage to be freed, for the outcast to be welcomed, for the orphan and widow to be given a name and a home, and for light to overpower darkness — rejoice!  “For He comes to judge the earth.  He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity” (98:9).

This is not a shallow season, and it is not a shallow festival.  Our songs, if nothing else, are telling us that.  So, no more let sins and sorrows grow, because the curse is being uprooted, and because the magnificently humble dawn of hope in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago has demonstrated that God is fulfilling His promises in Christ, so that all the nations will see the glories of His righteousness and all His children will know the wonders of His love.

Gratitude in Community

In recent meditations on gratitude, the Lord has led me to consider how personal gratitude impacts the surrounding community.  Most of these are not direct goals of gratitude, but some of the significant side effects.

1. Gratitude exposes complaining.  Get around a thankful, positive, hopeful person, and your negativity will be exposed.  Be a thankful, positive, hopeful person, and you will indirectly expose the negativity of others.
    
2. Gratitude suffocates negativity.  It stifles criticism and confronts slander.  There is a time and place for critiquing and evaluating.  But gratitude in community has a way of suffocating habits of negativity, and tearing down patterns of destructive criticism.
    
3. Gratitude encourages obedience.  Expressing gratitude to others encourages them to continue obeying Christ and walking by the Spirit.  At times, a word of affirmation and thanksgiving can be worth ten words of rebuke.  You can motivate others by telling them how far they have to go, or by telling them how far God has brought them.  There is a time and a place for both, but sometimes the latter can be harder (and can take more humility) to see and say.
    
4. Gratitude flavors trials.  Your gratitude will give your trials a certain flavor that others can taste.  And when your trials are flavored with joy and thanksgiving, you will point people to the providence and goodness of God.  I’m not talking about a plasticky professionalism that knows how to gloss over suffering and hurt with a few proven theological euphemisms.  But we must reject the fearful attitude that restrains ourselves from expressing sincere gratitude in the midst of trials because we’re afraid that others around us may think it cliche.
    
5. Gratitude exemplifies humility.  Do you want to be humble?  Be grateful.  Do you want to teach humility?  Be grateful.  Do you want your humility to be true and sincere instead of counterfeit and stilted?  Be grateful.  Gratitude is one of the purest forms of humility.
    
6. Gratitude opens eyes.  Thankfulness opens people’s eyes to what God is doing, and it opens people’s eyes to what God can and will do.  Gratitude highlights what someone else has done, which reveals that person’s heart, ability, and actions.  When we are ungrateful, it is not because God is doing nothing worthy of our gratitude.  It’s because our eyes are closed and our hearts are hard.  Gratitude is a signpost that lifts our collective eyes to the attributes and actions of God.
    
7. Gratitude shifts perspective.  Gratitude in an individual creates a perspective shift.  Where others see an obstacle, your gratitude will make them see an opportunity.  Where people see a requirement, your thankfulness will help them see a privilege.  Where your brothers and sisters see a trial, your thankfulness can make them see an opportunity to grow in faith and endurance. Where friends see a critic, your gratitude can help them see someone whom God will use to teach you hard but good things.
      
8. Gratitude teaches theology.  When you express thanksgiving about who God is and what He does, you instruct those around you.  You tell them who God is, in an indirect yet impactful way.  You can tell someone in the midst of their pain that God is working it all for good, or you can tell someone in the midst of your pain that God is working it all for good.  Both are necessary, but the latter has a unique impact.
    
9. Gratitude stirs up gratitude. Gratitude is contagious, just like negativity.  It is difficult to be around grateful people without becoming at least a bit more grateful than you were before.
     
10. Gratitude proclaims God.  You can teach and instruct and challenge and encourage and speak into people’s lives six days a week and twice on Sunday.  But gratitude has a unique way of humbly proclaiming God.  No one can look at you and say, “You’re gifted.”  They will only see the God you are thanking.  Gratitude is a pointer quality. It always points elsewhere, and never to the grateful person.