by Elizabeth | Jan 18, 2013 | Learning Story
As I wrap up a chapter for the new Bible study on loving enemies, I am thinking again about how stories help in the process of reconciliation. When we share stories in community helps us forgive our enemies and embrace “strangers.” Whose story might you need to listen to today?
In the new heaven and new earth, every tribe, tongue, nation, and people group will join together to sing the praises of our Creator and Redeemer. The concept sounds great, but what it means is that one day we will worship with our worst enemies, and we will work side by side with people who wronged us or whom we wronged while living on this earth. Miroslav Volf, writing about the impetus for remembering wrongs for the ultimate hope of reconciliation, writes:
…the irreversibility of time will not chisel away the wrongs we have suffered into the unchangeable reality of our past, the evildoer will not ultimately triumph over the victim, and suffering will not have the final word; God will expose the truth about wrongs, condemn each evil doer and redeem both the repentant perpetrator and their victims, thus reconciling them to God and to each other.
(The End of Memory)
If we are going to live in the forever-kingdom reconciled with those we have harmed and those who have harmed us, we need to open ourselves to the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation in this world. What does it mean to begin now to live forgiveness and love of people who are different from us? We usually recognize our differences with other people pretty easily. Seeing the common core we have as created, sinful, and redeemed humans is sometimes a little harder. Knowing one another’s stories opens our eyes to how similar our hearts are to people we differ deeply with on the surface.
by Elizabeth | Jan 7, 2013 | Learning Story
I want to cover my eyes; I cannot help but look. That’s the way I feel about the gripping scene in the moving 2012 production of Les Miserables in which Jean ValJean, the central character, hauls a nearly dead young man through a sewer to safety. ValJean has sought out Marius after discovering that he and his daughter are in love. Finding him behind a barricade preparing to fight, ValJean works to protect him. When Marius is badly injured in battle, ValJean, a man of supra-normal strength, drags him to the underground hiding place to escape the soldiers. He then puts Marius on his shoulders and sloshes through the dark sea of sewage. Tom Hooper, the producer, draws the audience into the scene so fully that we feel we can almost smell the acrid stench.
Watching ValJean’s eyes and mouth traced in a bizarre mask of muck, I realized the vast cost he paid for a man he barely knew. He literally plunges into the mire of human filth to save the man Marius; he also risks his own life and safety to do so [I will leave that part of the story untold since it’s something of a spoiler]. As hard as it is to watch this spectacle, it provides profound insight into what Christ did for us – he took on the sewage of our sin, wearing it himself, as he delivered us not only to safety but to glory. When we fully know and submit to this sacrifice, we understand our calling to incarnate such love, moving into the world to embrace neighbors and strangers with a costly compassion that grows in us through the grace-work of God.
What about you? Have you seen the movie? The show? Read the book? Do you have a favorite scene?
by Elizabeth | Dec 13, 2012 | Learning Story
This year it happened on a live Christmas show that was watched the world over – Christmas at Rockefeller Center. Thousands of people wrapped themselves in scarves and warm coats to stand under a 10-ton tree studded with 30,000 lights and topped with a Swarovski crystal star and wait. Finally, after Michael Buble, Justin Bieber, and Victoria Swift belted out old Christmas favorites wrapped in 21st century music, after the Rockettes danced, after Billy Crystal made everyone laugh – just when I stopped paying much attention because I figured only commercials were left, everything got quiet. I looked up at the TV, and after that brief hush, the song began. All joined in. Singing, “Joy to the world, The Lord has come.” And on, “He rules the world, with truth and grace.” And on,”he comes to make his blessings known…far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found.” I was astounded. I thought, “Do people know what they’re singing?” And then the tree suddenly came alive with its 40,000 LED lights. Indeed, “He comes to make his glory known.”
by Elizabeth | Dec 12, 2012 | Learning Story
I’ve been reading and highly recommend to all John Piper’s e-book for advent…Here is an excerpt from today’s reading about the meaning of Christmas. You can find the book here.“This is what needs to be said today about the meaning of Christmas.
“…he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil…”
In dying, Christ de-fanged the devil. How? By covering all our sin. This means that Satan has no legitimate grounds to accuse us before God. “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies” (Romans 8:33). On what grounds does he justify? Through the blood of Jesus (Romans 5:9).
Satan’s ultimate weapon against us is our own sin. If the death of Jesus takes it away, the chief weapon of the devil is taken out of his hand. He cannot make a case for our death penalty, because the Judge has acquitted us by the death of his Son!
“…and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”
So we are free from the fear of death. God has justified us. Satan cannot overturn that decree. And God means for our ultimate safety to have an immediate effect on our lives. He means for the happy ending to take away the slavery and fear of”
Excerpt From: Piper, John. “Good News of Great Joy.” Desiring God, 2012. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.
by Elizabeth | Dec 3, 2012 | Learning Story
One of the most settling and centering things I do during Advent is to listen to and read lyrics of hymns that truly tell the story of the season. I found this beautiful rendition by the Civil Wars today.
Recipe for rest. 1.Read lyrics. 2.Listen and ponder. 3.Listen and thank God.
O Come O Come Emmanuel :Lyrics
O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o’er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times did’st give the Law,
In cloud, and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
12th C. Latin, author unknown
by Elizabeth | Nov 28, 2012 | Learning Story
Dietrich Bonhoeffer always challenges my preconceptions and misconceptions. Read this devotional from I Want to Live These Days with You and tell me what you think:
“Not everyone can wait: neither the sated nor the satisfied nor those without respect can wait. The only ones who can wait are people who carry restlessness around with them and people who look up with reverence to the greatest in the world. Thus Advent can be celebrated only by those whose souls give them no peace, who know that they are poor and incomplete, and who sense something of the greatness that is supposed to come, before which they can only bow in humble timidity, waiting until he inclines himself toward us — the Holy One himself, God in the child in the manger.
God is coming; the Lord Jesus is coming: Christmas is coming. Rejoice, O Christendom!….When the old Christendom spoke of the coming again of the Lord Jesus, it always thought first of all of a great day of judgment. And as un-Christmas-like as this idea may appear to us, it comes from early Christianity and must be taken with utter seriousness…The coming of God is truly not only a joyous message, but is, first, frightful news for anyone with a conscience.
And only when we have felt the frightfulness of the matter can we know the incomparable favor. God comes in the midst of evil, in the midst of death, and judges the evil in us and in the world. And in judging it, he loves us, he purifies us, he sanctifies us, he comes to us with his grace and love. He makes us happy as only children can be happy.”
![When’s the last time you highlighted your weakness?
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Cor. 12:10
All-Powerful God,
We confess,
we in Western culture
crave power, control, and independence.
The last thing we want
is to seem weak.
And yet, weakness is the way of Christ,
so it must be our way as well.
The apostle Paul understood that,
so in the face of accusations
that he wasn’t an apostle,
he countered the boasting of the “super-apostles”
with some boasting of his own:
“If I must boast,
I will boast of the things
that show my weakness” (2 Cor. 11:30).
And then he mentions how he was lowered in a basket through the window of a wall in Damascus, of all places,
a place he went to persecute Jews only to be knocked down on the road,
struck blind, by his Lord and Savior himself.
Paul shares many other weaknesses in 2 Corinthians,
a book that’s all about weakness as the way
of followers of Christ.
He asked that you would relieve him from a “thorn in the flesh,”
but you did not.
Instead, you said,
“My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in your weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).
Lord, we know we really are weak —
[for each of these areas, name any weaknesses you have]
weak in our bodies,
weak in our work,
weak in our wills,
weak in our faith,
weak in our hope,
weak in our love.
We believe
that you your power is made perfect
in and through our weakness.
Help our unbelief.
In Jesus’s name. Amen.
Read 2 Corinthians 11:30-12:10.
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