JESUS

Please tell me why God allowed over 6000 innocent people to be murdered on September 11, 2001?

Answer?

I don’t know.

Where was God?

I don’t know.

When Leslie Weatherhead, a minister in London during the Second World War, was asked by a member in his congregation where God was when his son was killed in a bombing raid, Weatherhead replied, »I guess he was where he was when his son was killed.«

And where was that?

I don’t know.

Isn’t »I don’t know« too ambiguous? Isn’t »I don’t know« an unconvincing way to convince young people Christianity is true?

Actually, »I don’t know« confirms one critical truth about Christianity…it’s a mystery!

Jesus loves us, right?

Of course.

So if he loves us, he protects us, right?

If he loves us…he is with us.

Jesus can heal, can’t he? And perform miracles?

Of course. Just not very often.

Why?

I don’t know.

What about God’s will?

My youth director says we’re supposed to seek God’s will. There are lots of verses in the Bible that tell us to do God’s will, aren’t there? God does have a will, right?

Absolutely.

Trouble is God’s will is not like a to-do list. It’s more like an undecipherable code. The Bible definitely gives us some clues about the code of God’s will, which means we can figure out part of it; but, because it’s God, we will never crack the code.

Clues?

Yeah, like, follow me, serve me, love me, live by my commandments, point people to me.

That’s it? Just follow me, serve me, love me and trust me?

That’s about it.

What do you mean »that’s about it?«

You don’t want to know.

Yes I do.

We get a cross.

Cross????? What does that mean?

I don’t know.

But God does heal people, doesn’t he?

Certainly.

And miracles do happen, don’t they.

Right.

So we can count on God helping us, can’t we?

We can count on God being God.

Which means…??

I don’t know.

And what does that mean?

It means we can trust God if we lost someone in the WTC or if they survived.

It means we can trust God when we have cancer and when we’re healed.

We can trust God if we survive a natural disaster or if we don’t.

We can trust God when we get a glimpse of Divine will and when we don’t.

We can trust God in the answers and the questions, in the good and the bad, in the light and the dark, when we’re winning and when we’re losing.

We can trust God even when the Truth doesn’t answer all our questions or leaves us with even more questions.

And, most importantly, just beyond our »I don’t know’s,« Jesus is waiting with open arms to snuggle us in the mystery of his love.

The tragedy of modern faith is that we no longer are capable of being terrified. We aren’t afraid of God, we aren’t afraid of Jesus, we aren’t afraid of the Holy Spirit. As a result, we have ended up with a need-centered gospel that attracts thousands...but transforms no one.

What happened to the bone-chilling, earth-shattering, gut-wrenching, knee-knocking, heart-stopping, life-changing fear that left us speechless, paralyzed, and helpless? What happened to those moments when you and I would open our Bibles and our hands started shaking because we were afraid of the Truth we might find there? Barclay tells us that the word used in the Bible for »Truth« has three meanings—a word used to describe a wrestler grabbing an opponent by the throat; a word meaning to flay an animal; and a word used to describe the humiliation of a criminal who was paraded in front of a crowd with a dagger tied to his neck, its point under his chin so he could not put his head down. That is what the Truth is really like! It grabs us by the throat, it flays us wide open, it forces us to look into the face of God. When is the last time you and I heard God’s Truth and were grabbed by the throat?

Unfortunately, those of us who have been entrusted with the terrifying, frightening, Good News have become obsessed with making Christianity safe. We have defanged the tiger of Truth. We have tamed the Lion, and now Christianity is so sensible, so accepted, so palatable.

Who is afraid of God anymore?

We are afraid of unemployment, we are afraid of our cities, we are afraid of the collapse of our government, we are afraid of not being fulfilled, we are afraid of AIDS, but we are not afraid of God.

I would like to suggest that the Church become a place of terror again; a place where God continually has to tell us, »Fear not«; a place where our relationship with God is not a simple belief or doctrine or theology, it is God’s burning presence in our lives. I am suggesting that the tame God of relevance be replaced by the God whose very presence shatters our egos into dust, burns our sin into ashes, and strips us naked to reveal the real person within. The Church needs to become a gloriously dangerous place where nothing is safe in God’s presence except us. Nothing—including our plans, our agendas, our priorities, our politics, our money, our security, our comfort, our possessions, our needs.

The two men on the road to Emmaus knew they had been with Jesus because their »hearts burned from within.« The impotence of today’s Church, the weakness of Christ’s followers, and the irrelevance of most parachurch organizations is directly related to the lack of being in the presence of an awesome, holy God, who continually demands allegiance only to Him—not to our churches, our organizations, or our theology.

We believe in a God who wants all of us—every bit of us—and He wants us all the time. He wants our worship and our love, but most of all He wants us to trust Him. We have to be more in awe of God than we are of our government, more in awe of God than we are of our problems, more in awe of God than we are of our beliefs about abortion, more in awe of God than we are of our doctrines and agendas. Our God is perfectly capable of calming the storm or putting us into the middle of one. Either way, if it’s God, we will be speechless and trembling.

Our world is tired of people whose God is tame. It is longing to see people whose God is big and holy and frightening and gentle and tender...and ours; a God whose love frightens us into His strong and powerful arms where He longs to whisper those terrifying words, »I love you.«

In his famous book Mere Christianity, Lewis makes this statement, »A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg – or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.«
Who is Jesus of Nazareth to you? Your life on this earth and for all of eternity is affected by your answer to this question.

All other religions [such as Hinduism, Buddhism. Confucianism, Shintoism, and Islam] were founded by human beings and are based on man-made philosophies, rules and norms for behavior. Take the founders of these religions out of both their disciplines and practices of worship and little would change.

But take Jesus Christ out of Christianity, and there would be nothing left. Biblical Christianity is not just a philosophy of life, nor an ethical standard, nor obedience to religious ritual. True Christianity is based on a vital, personal relationship with a Risen Founder who is our living Savior and Lord

In 1990, my family moved from the United States to Israel. I was fifteen and had no idea that the most difficult time in my life lay ahead.

My parents, who are originally from Detroit, Michigan, are Jewish believers in Y'shua (Jesus). They came to believe during the »Jesus Movement« in the early seventies. Some years later, they moved to Seattle. Being the first of six kids, I was always the first to experience things—including Y'shua. When I was around twelve, we began going to a Messianic congregation to learn more about our Jewish roots. About a year later, I carried on an old family tradition by having my bar mitzvah, but began a new tradition by giving this one a Messianic flavor. My Haftarah* portion was Isaiah 1:18, »Though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.« It was only years later, though, that the true meaning of these words changed my life.

(*The traditional reading from the prophetic books of the Bible which follows the reading from the Torah.)

When we moved to Israel, we lived in a settlement called Neve Tsuf where I found only a handful of people my age. I was spiritually dry, and found myself seeking answers in an Orthodox yeshiva. Within eight or nine months, I was completely fed up and confused. I left feeling empty. The God I had once believed in seemed far away, if He even existed.

The following year, I was drafted into the Israeli Army and served as an armored transport technician in the paratrooper unit. However, my mind was on other things. I began playing music with Ofer, a great friend from Neve Tsuf. I was constantly playing the guitar and drinking whenever I had the time. I had moved out of my parents' home but they knew the kind of life I was living. They left literature about Y'shua around my room and asked many people to pray for me.

About a year after we were released from the army, Ofer and I decided to travel as most Israelis do after their years of service. Inspired by some old Jack Kerouac books, we flew to California and soon found ourselves roaming the country in an old Ford van with a couple of sleeping bags and some very strange philosophical ideas. I have come to believe that during that year, God miraculously preserved us from many hazards. One such miracle occurred in the dry hills of Arizona. I was lost with no water, and after searching for our campsite hour after hour in the sun, dehydration began causing hallucinations. I leaned against a rock in the scorching sun and lost consciousness for some time. When I woke, a basin-shaped stone filled with clear cold water was sitting right in front of me.

I drank, was refreshed and before long, I found my campsite. I knew that God must have been with me. Soon after, while attending a musical performance, I suddenly became aware of an evil presence. Most of the lyrics were putting down Y'shua and His message. I realized as never before that evil forces exist, and that they react for some reason to Jesus. I recalled that the day before we left Israel, a believer had told me, »You need to make up your mind about Jesus, because if you're not with Him, you're against Him.« That really shook me up.

Upon returning to Israel, I realized that if God loved me, I wanted to be with Him. I told Him that if Y'shua could help me overcome my sin, I would follow Him always. Guess what? Y'shua not only wiped my slate clean, but He enabled me to break free of my bad habits. Only then did I understand the words of Isaiah that I read in my Haftarah portion many years before. Not only that, I discovered that my best friend, Ofer, had made an independent commitment to Y'shua as well.

Since then, I have been blessed with the most amazing wife, Vicky, and great relationships with my family members. Most importantly, I have a personal relationship with God and want to share His love with others.

Coming Home
by Barbara Davidson
Born in post-World War II Germany of Polish holocaust survivors, my longing to find an earthly place I could call home began early in life. My parents, victims of Hitler's atrocities, had been thrust from their homes and forced to find new ones. Germany was for us a place we were but temporarily transplanted. From there we would eventually sail to the United States to establish more permanent roots. And so the Bronx, New York, became our new home. But we soon learned that anti-Semitism hadn't ended and, of course, never could end merely with the collapse of Hitler's regime. The Nazis had ceased abusing my father, but the same satanic spirit resided in my pseudo-Christian Gentile neighbors, who on several occasions beat me up simply because I was Jewish.

While we had made a home, we were not home. In time, though my parents remained in the Bronx, I left--first, to the faraway island of Manhattan. Later, as a blossoming flower child of the late '60s, having embraced Yoga and Eastern religions, I responded to the beckoning of India and Ceylon. But my anticipation of spiritual ecstasies was dampened by the pervasiveness of abject poverty. How, I wondered, could such so-called enlightened philosophies engender such darkness? Cutting short my stay at a yoga retreat in Ceylon, I headed for Israel--eager, yet at the same time, very reluctant. I had had my fill of Judaism. Its empty rituals were tiresome, and Jewishness was a source of shame to one as assimilated as I had aspired to become. (I had forbidden my mother to speak Yiddish to me in public. I wanted so much to be a Gentile that the highest compliment anyone could bestow upon me was to tell me that I didn't look Jewish.) Consequently, all that really interested me about Israel was the prospect of experiencing communal farm life on the kibbutz.

But God had other plans. (Was it mere coincidence that the night before leaving mostly Buddhist Ceylon, the only movie in town was »The Ten Commandments?«) Flying into a breathtaking, golden, Jaffa orange Israeli sunrise, I was overcome with emotion. But why was I, who rarely cried, crying? Why did I feel like kissing the ground? This was not my country. I was an American.

My intended brief stay turned into ten months. I loved the kibbutz life, and I thought I might return to live in Israel after completing my college education in the States.

But I felt so uncomfortable among the Orthodox Jews at my college that the very idea of living in an all-Jewish State was abhorrent to me.

Still determined to find a home, I then fancied that the West Coast would provide me with what I was looking for. It wasn't. Meanwhile, a subsequent return trip to Israel in 1977 convinced me that it still was no more than a nice place to visit.

In early 1982, however, everything changed. I received a pamphlet on a street corner in New York. It was put out by Jews for Jesus, and I felt compelled to write a letter to them. I soon received a phone call from a Jewish woman who invited me to attend a service. It was a fascinating experience seeing very Jewish people singing praises to Jesus. I stopped running away from my Jewish roots. That was when I found my Messiah. With his abiding love, he set into motion the process of my discovering my true home.

In August, 1982, I was able to return once again to Israel--this time to help with the Lebanese war effort. As a volunteer with the Israeli Army, I was blessed with the opportunity to spend an entire month with the courageous defenders of that tiny country that is God's earthly promise to the seed of Abraham; to clean tanks and machine guns; to pack duffle bags; to help my people; to learn about the agony and the heartache of continual war; to help protect my country.

How strange, yet how comfortable was this new feeling of love and loyalty which overcame me. God had certainly changed the heart of this would-be Jewish anti-Semite. For the first time in my life, I felt that I was truly home. Indeed, from God's point of view, I was home:

»But you, O mountains of Israel, will produce branches and fruit for my people Israel, for they will soon come home.« (Ezekiel 36:8, NIV)

My return to New York was difficult because I now knew what had motivated my search for an earthly home: I was in the Diaspora, outside of God's promised land, and in exile. At the same time, however, I realized that before coming to know Y'shua, I had also been in a spiritual Diaspora--cast out from God's promises by my unbelief. But God, by His abundant grace, was true to His promise:

»I will put my spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land.« (Ezekiel 37:14)

He put His spirit in me, and I came alive, and subsequently settled into my spiritual inheritance through my faith in the Messiah of Israel. Although still living in New York, I pray that one day soon I will also physically settle in the land of my forefathers. But in the meantime, I know for certain that wherever I am on this earth, I am at home in the Lord.

What characterizes Christianity in the modern world is its odd-ness. Christianity is home for people who are out of step, unfashionable, unconventional and counter-cultural. As Peter says, »strangers and aliens.«

I pastor the slowest growing church in America. We started twelve years ago with 90 members and have un-grown to 30. We’re about as far as you can get from a »user friendly« church—not because our congregation is unfriendly, but because our services are unpredictable, unpolished and inconsistent.

We’re an »odd-friendly« church, attracting unique and different followers of Christ who make every service a surprise. We refuse to edit oddness and incompetence from our services. We believe our oddness matters. We want our service filled with mistakes and surprises, because life is full of mistakes and surprises.

One Sunday morning, during the time for prayer requests, a member began describing the critical illness of her father. Because she was close to her father, her request for prayer was frequently interrupted by tears. Those around her reached out a hand or nodded with sadness. Some found their eyes filling with tears as well. The woman finished her request as best as she could.

Seated in the front row was Sadie—a young woman with Down’s syndrome. Sadie stood and walked up the aisle until she saw the woman in the middle of her row. Stepping over the feet of other people in the aisle, Sadie reached the woman, bent down on her knees, laid her head on the woman’s lap, and cried with her.

Sadie »inconvenienced« an entire row of people, stepped on their shoes, and forced them to make room for her … but none of us will ever forget that moment. Sadie is still teaching the rest of us what the odd compassion of Christ’s church looks like.

Someone said »you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.« Whoever made that statement understood what it means to be a follower of Christ. Followers of Christ are odd. Oddness is important because it’s the quality that adds color, texture, variety, and beauty to the human condition. Christ doesn’t make us the same. What He does is affirm our differentness.

Oddness is important because the most dangerous word in Western culture is »sameness.« Sameness is a virus that infects members of industrialized nations and causes an allergic reaction to anyone who’s different. This virus affects the decision-making part of our brain, resulting in an obsession with making the identical choices that everyone else is making.

Sameness is a disease with disastrous consequences—differences are ignored, uniqueness is not listened to, our gifts are cancelled out, and the place where life, passion, and joy reside are snuffed out.

Sameness is the result of sin. Sin does much more than infect us with lust and greed; it flattens the human race, franchises us, attempts to make us all homogenous. Sameness is the cemetery where our distinctiveness dies. In a sea of sameness, no one has an identity.

But Christians do have an identity. Aliens! We’re the odd ones, the strange ones, the misfits, the outsiders, the incompatibles. Oddness is a gift of God that sits dormant until God’s spirit gives it life and shape. Oddness is the consequence of following the One who made us unique, different … and in His image!