To Un-Ring a Bell

Friday, February 28, 2020

Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.  Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me—now let me rejoice.  Don’t keep looking at my sins.  Remove the stain of my guilt.  Create in me a clean heart, O God.  Renew a loyal spirit within me.  Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.  Psalm 51:7-11[1]

According to some people (people who can think way beyond my capacity to understand…and thereby make my head hurt when I read and try to understand them), you can actually un-ring a bell.  It’s part of A-B theorem’s linear-versus-tenseless philosophy of time.  (I warned you it hurts to think like this).

Well, you cannot literally un-ring what’s been rung, but the thought is that whenever they figure out how to traverse the time-travel thing, you’ll be able to go back to before the bell was rung, and maybe not ring the thing.  Do I hear an amen from Outlander fans?

King David hated hearing the sound of the bell representing his sin with Bathsheba, and the ensuing coverup conspiracy resulting in the murder of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah.  David wanted to un-ring the indelible stain that had blackened his soul and spirit.  David was known for his integrity, compassion, and fairness as ruler; now his integrity was gone, as was any memory of compassion and objective judgment as a king.  David was damaged goods, and the misery was eating him alive.  If only time-travel could let him go back and un-ring his lust!

You cannot undo the past.  Even under the tenseless Box theory of time, where all moments of existence co-exist simultaneously, to re-enter another moment (and not split the balance of metaphysics into a gazillion faceted dilemma), you cannot alter the future from the past.  That being said I shall return to a less head-hurting consideration:  God can!  As Creator/author of time, and space, and us, God can do whatever He wills with time and space.

And so, this is where the rubber of David’s stained soul meets the road of God’s ability to un-ring the bell of our sin; His forgiveness does the unforgiveable.  God doesn’t remove an event from our past, but when we confess our sins to him in total faith and repentance, He restores to us the joy of a soul cleansed of guilt and shame.  This is what David means when he prays for God’s Holy Spirit to not be taken from him.  The restoration for which David prays is the return of right relationship with God.

For You Today

Time travel is too low a target, frankly.  Especially when timeless travel is available to those who will pray, trusting in the God of the ages, bowing at the throne in Heaven…and finding forgiveness and the blessing of a cleansed soul. That’s no theory of time, or un-ringing of bells; it’s the timeless demonstration of love that conquers whatever evil bell has been rung.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

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[1] For other posts on Psalm 51 see Repentance  and Lenten Walk - Part 21

Do WHAT?

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Then the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time:  “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you.”  This time Jonah obeyed the Lord’s command and went to Nineveh, a city so large that it took three days to see it all.  On the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds:  “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!”  The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow.  When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes.  He dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap of ashes.  Then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city:    “No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all.  People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning, and everyone must pray earnestly to God.  They must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence.  Who can tell?  Perhaps even yet God will change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.”  When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened.   Jonah 3:1-10[1]

Second chances come in many different areas of life.  Relationships, career, health, and even games.  Most of the time there is some forgiveness involved, or, at the least, a softening that gives us a chance to make it right this time.  Jonah had that.  He’d stumbled at the first call to go to Nineveh; this time he made it count.  The whole city repented and turned to God, including the king.

It’s a preoccupation of mine how many second chances people walk past.  Perhaps one of the more well-known second chances is the pan handler; it’s a bit uncomfortable, but if you avert eye contact you can usually get past that guy on the corner of the street with the sign that always includes anything helps – God bless.  What’s “second chance” about that encounter is not merely that guy, or one of his tribe, being on virtually every major intersection you pass, but that we become so adept at ignoring the second chance to love being involved in mercy. 

It is safe to say Jonah would welcome the opportunity to explain just how awful it is to enable that guy begging on the corner.  In a free country you’re supposed to work and provide for yourself.  While it’s probably true that there are some who bear those signs asking your help (and dollar bills) who just find it easier to beg than work, there are probably many more who have just come to the end of their rope, and the knot at the end of that rope is you; they’ve become too accustomed to holding on to that knot, or too afraid to let go.

Jonah got a second chance to deliver God’s message of judgment and mercy.  Nineveh was promised destruction if they didn’t let go of the knot at the end of their wicked rope.  What was so unusual was the way they believed the message of God and repented…from the throne room to the brothels and barns.  The message of judgment brought change and a mission of mercy.  All Jonah had to do was let go of his own knotty rope of hatred towards the Ninevites and do as God had directed.

For You Today

Truth is you know that guy with the God Bless sign as well as I do.  And you have probably heard this message before about Jonah, and the Scripture I want us both to have annoying us today as we drive past the man or woman holding that sign with one hand, and the knot at the end of his or her life’s rope with the other:

No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.  Micah 6:8

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

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[1] For other posts on Jonah 3 see When the Land is Desolate  and Once Again - Slowly this Time and The Face of Rebellion  

Pyxis Points

By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made.  For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.”  Genesis 3:19(NLT)

On Ash Wednesday all over the land people flock to churches to have ministers take ashes mixed with oil and smear it on their foreheads.  It’s a not-so-subtle reminder that we were made from the stuff, and someday we’re going back to it. 

It’s Important to Remember that we are dust…

Ashes are an ancient symbol of our humanity.  In Genesis, we read that God formed human beings out of the dust of the earth ^{(Genesis 2:7)}.  The Hebrew word translated dust is occasionally translated ashes elsewhere.

When Abraham felt the need to acknowledge the difference between him, a human being, and the infinite God, he referred to himself as dust and ashes.  He said, I who am but dust and ashes ^{(Genesis 18:27)}.

It’s Important to Remember that to dust we shall return

Our humanity also calls to mind our mortality.

After expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the first human beings are told by God, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” ^{(Genesis 3:19 NRSV).}  We know the day is coming for each of us when we will return to dust.

We wear black as a sign of mourning.  Ancient people wore ashes.  For example, a priest named Mordecai puts on sackcloth and ashes to grieve the many deaths he sees coming from an order King Ahasuerus gives to kill all Jewish people ^{(Esther 4:1-3).}  The prophet Jeremiah later calls the people of God to “roll in ashes” as a way of mourning the coming devastation from an opposing army ^{(Jeremiah 6:26)}.

Receiving the imposition of ashes is a powerful way to confront our humanity and mortality.  They remind us that we are not God, but God’s good creation.  In these ashes we recognize that our bodies will not last forever; we come face-to-face with the reality of our eventual death.

It’s Important to Remember to Repent

Ashes also signify our sorrow for the mistakes we have made.  People in ancient times wore sackcloth and ashes as a way of expressing their repentance of sins.

When Jonah reluctantly preached to the people of Nineveh after the giant fish spit him up on the beach, the King and his people put on sackcloth and sat in ashes.  God saw this act of repentance and spared the people ^{(Jonah 3:1-10)}.

In the New Testament Jesus mentions this practice.  Warning the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida Jesus said,

if the miracles done among you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have changed their hearts and lives and put on funeral clothes and ashes a long time ago. (Matthew 11:21 CEB).

When we participate in the service of ashes, we confront our sin.  We recognize our inability to live up to all God has created us to be, and our need to be forgiven.  No matter how often we go to church, nor how far we have come in our spiritual journeys, nor how accomplished we may feel, each of us has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God ^{(Romans 3:23)}.

The container holding ashes is called a Pyxis.  Pyxis is a small and faint constellation in the southern sky.  Abbreviated from Pyxis Nautica, its name is Latin for a mariner's compass.  In Greek the word literally means “box”.[1] 

The ashes are our life’s compass-points contained in a box, reminding us of that from which we’ve come and that to which we are going.  It reminds us to repent, remembering and rejecting the life that led us away from close fellowship with God.  It helps us remember the cost of rising again from the dust and ashes!

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…Let it be so!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

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[1] Wikimedia

The Return of Joy

Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love.  Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins.  Wash me clean from my guilt.  Purify me from my sin.  For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night.  Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight.  You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just.  For I was born a sinner—yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.  But you desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there.  Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.  Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me—now let me rejoice.  Don’t keep looking at my sins.  Remove the stain of my guilt.  Create in me a clean heart, O God.  Renew a loyal spirit within me.  Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.  Then I will teach your ways to rebels, and they will return to you.  Forgive me for shedding blood, O God who saves; then I will joyfully sing of your forgiveness.  Unseal my lips, O Lord, that my mouth may praise you.  You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one.  You do not want a burnt offering.  The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.  You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.  Psalm 51:1-17[1]

Twice in this Psalm David prays for joy to return.  The first joy is personal, the relief from his pain of living in rebellion against God’s will and commandments.  The second is a desire for the return of the joy of participating in God’s salvation, that freeing experience of being able to proclaim loudly for the sake of others how everything the heart craves is bursting his insides with light, love and peace.  For anyone who has ever confessed to God, there is no adequate explanation for this sense of joy – both personal and communal.

When David prays for a clean heart, he’s looking for that assurance of God’s acceptance; he’s looking for a miracle.  The miracle of God’s forgiveness would be like having a stage four metastatic cancerous tumor suddenly disappear.  David knew the Scriptures.  He knew of Cain’s sin, and how it was too great to bear; he knew how sin eats a person alive from the inside out.  That was his tumor, and only the joy that accompanies God’s forgiveness could reach that far.

For You Today

Are you still having a difficult time thinking your sin is that one God can’t forgive?  Was it as horrible as David’s?  David, who was the sweet, God-loving, God-trusting shepherd boy who became king, who became a sexual predator, who became an adulterer, who became a conspiring murderer, and coverup expert?

This Psalm was the prayer of one who was in a position to understand the night and day difference the rescue of God’s forgiveness makes to those who are broken, but still believe.  Let’s hear David’s final word in his prayer of confession:

Unseal my lips, O Lord, that my mouth may praise you.  The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.  You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God. 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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[1] For other posts on Psalm 51 predicament see Repentance  and Lenten Walk #21 and The Face of Rebellion   

A Broken Prophet

Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

There he came to a cave, where he spent the night.  But the Lord said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”  Elijah replied, “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty.  But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed every one of your prophets.  I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.”  “Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him.  And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain.  It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind.  After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.  And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper.  When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.  And a voice said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”  He replied again, “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty.  But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed every one of your prophets.  I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.”  Then the Lord told him, “Go back the same way you came, and travel to the wilderness of Damascus.  When you arrive there, anoint Hazael to be king of Aram.  Then anoint Jehu grandson of Nimshi to be king of Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from the town of Abel-meholah to replace you as my prophet.  Anyone who escapes from Hazael will be killed by Jehu, and those who escape Jehu will be killed by Elisha!  Yet I will preserve 7,000 others in Israel who have never bowed down to Baal or kissed him!” 1 Kings 19:9-18[1]

Salmon swim many hundreds of miles to return to the birthplace of their hatching.  Some species live up to a dozen years, others only two or three…IF they manage to avoid hungry bears and make the full cycle.  It seems kind of a pointless existence, hatch, swim, spawn, die. 

And that may have been Elijah’s problem.  He’d had the courage to stand toe to toe with 850 false prophets of Baal and Asherah on Mt Carmel.  Then he realized the head of the serpent (Jezebel) was still sharpening her fangs.  Elijah managed to hack eight hundred bad guys like Rambo on steroids, but he spooked at the thought of one evil woman.  And he felt alone, like John the Baptist, a lone voice crying in the wilderness.  He ran like a frenzied daughter of mine used to run from anything with 8 legs.  Huffing and puffing Elijah returned to his place of safety…God’s mountain…and hid in a cave, shivering more from fear than cold. 

God spoke to the prophet once he settled down enough to hear the small voice after the thundering storms, earthquake and fire.  Whispering, God instructed Elijah how to wind-down his ministry and set the stage for God’s next cycle.  Elisha would take over, and the other kings Elijah anointed would accomplish God’s plans.

A few timeless lessons today from Elijah’s faith (and faults):

1.     God always has His people, no matter what it looks like

2.     No life is worthless when the knee has been bent in reverence to the LORD.

For You Today

So, if you’re facing a fang-bearing queen, or 850 false prophets, here’s the game plan:  make it a fair fight; tie both your hands behind your back, kneel and bow your head, and laugh in the face of all of it; God’s got this, your job is to trust Him!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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[1] For another post on Elijah’s predicament see Chosen...Still!