Cast out no more

Today is the fourth Sunday in Advent, the last Sunday before Christmas.  This morning I preached from Mark 1:40-45, where Jesus heals a leper.  To be a leper, or to have what in some translations call a "dreaded skin disease," meant to be cast out, completely, from the culture.  According the rules concerning leprosy in Leviticus 13:45-46, persons with this skin disease wore ragged clothing, had unkempt hair and they had to cry out a warning to others that they were approaching, so that they didn’t make direct contact with someone else and transmit their uncleanness to anyone else.  Verse 46 ends, "He shall live alone.  His dwelling shall be outside the camp."

Imagine waking up one morning with an itch on your skin, looking at your skin and knowing as you see it that you have this disease.  Immediately, everything in your life is changed.  Perhaps you are a mother or father, and instantly you are torn from your spouse and children.  You had a family and a home and now you are separated, watching them from a distance, at best.  And perhaps this situation goes on for years and years.  

This is the desperation of the leper as he approaches Jesus.  He comes and asks for Jesus to radically restore his life, believing that Jesus has the ability to do so.

"If you will, you can make me clean."

The response of Jesus is to reach out and touch him, the untouchable person, and say,

"I will; be clean."

Mark then says,

"And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean."

Just like that, at the touch of Jesus, the man is made clean.  He is no longer cast out from society but is in a place to be fully restored. 

This is a picture that helps us to see the work of salvation that is done as we come to have faith in Jesus as Savior.  When we come to Him in faith he reaches out and touches us, giving us the salvation and restoration with God that we long for but can’t do on our own.  He removes our sin, our uncleanness, every last bit, so that we can be in the presence of God. 

We may not understand our situation as clearly as the leper did his, but it is every bit as desperate.  Sinners, we are cast out from the presence of God, never to come in, unless there is some sort of miracle.  And that miracle is what we celebrate on Christmas.  The only one who can possibly heal us, who can possibly make us clean, comes into the world for exactly that purpose.   

May you know the saving touch of His hand in your life today, a hand that, when it touches you, holds you now and forever.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Inexpressible Joy

This morning, during worship at our church, our family read aloud the Advent reading and lit the fourth candle on the Advent wreath, the candle for joy.  We had been provided with the reading a few days ago and we looked it over with our daughter, who chose the last sentence as the one she would read.  She is a kindergartner and just learning to read.  The sentence she chose was the last one, which said, “And we are filled with inexpressible and glorious joy.” 

Inexpressible is a mouthful of a word, particularly if the one reading it is on the cusp of being six years-old.  Preparing our daughter to read this sentence in church had two parts.  The first part was teaching her to say the word.  My wife helped her break it into syllables and it didn’t take her too long for her to teach our daughter to be able to say the word clearly. 

But what does ‘inexpressible’ mean, particularly in reference to Jesus’ birth, to a six year-old?  We did the best we could to help her understand it.  A sense of joy that is so great that we can’t really say how excited we are about it.  The birth of Jesus makes us so happy that we can’t even say how happy we are.  The paradox of ‘inexpressible joy’ is that it’s such a marvelously good thing that it is a really hard concept to grasp and explain. 

This last sentence of the Advent reading was derived from 1 Peter 1:8-9, which says:

“Though you have not seen him, you love him.  Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

We have joy, inexpressible and glorious, not simply because of Jesus’ birth, but because of the reason for His birth, the salvation that comes to those who believe in Him. 

On Christmas we remember that God broke into the world in a powerful and unique way.  He arrived, in human flesh, so that through the means of His departure, as the crucified one bearing the punishment for human sin, those who believe in Him would be reconciled with God and receive the salvation of their souls. 

This Christmas may you know the inexpressible and glorious joy that is only found in Jesus.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Shamans and Christmas

This morning I had the opportunity for a quick trip to the coffee shop across the street from the hospital where I work.  It is sort of a cross between a national chain and an independent store.  The key factor in common with the local store is that there is a place to post ads for community events.  This morning one of those signs caught my eye.  It advertised an event called “Winter solstice and exploring the shaman within.” 

Now I know what the winter solstice is, being the shortest day of the year and marking the astronomical beginning of winter.  This year it falls on December 22^nd.  I also know that in the summer there are a variety of groups that attach spiritual significance to the summer solstice, perhaps the most well-known being the druids[1] that gather at Stonehenge. 

Being the curious sort I looked on-line for more information on this event and found it at the website of a local religious group.  The winter event intends to use a variety of means for the participant to go on a type of journey, a “journey to rediscover – the shaman within.”

Not really being sure of what a shaman is, I looked on-line again and found this basic definition:  Shaman – “a person who acts as intermediary between the natural and supernatural worlds, using magic to cure illness, foretell the future, control spiritual forces, etc.”

Whoa!  Being a Christian, that definition really got my attention, as a person who fits the definition of a shaman stands in direct opposition to what I hold to as being the truth, a truth many Christians are perhaps a bit more mindful right now, as the season of Advent nears it’s end. 

As we move through Advent we are reminded of what God his bringing to his people on Christmas, which tonight I will describe within the confines of the definition of the shaman.

In Advent we await a person, sent by God to serve not as “an” intermediary between the natural and supernatural, but as “the” intermediary.  Jesus came as God’s only begotten, or “fathered by,” son, of whom Paul testifies in these words, “concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.”  We don’t need to find some sort of “inner presence” and believe that we have a mediator because God has already provided us with the only mediator, a mediator who is also perfect in every way. 

Similarly, we don’t need a presence or person to use magic to bring healing, because in Jesus we already have a direct relationship with the only one who can heal all that ails us.  And while I fully believe that Jesus can heal any physical, emotional and spiritual wound I also know, and see every day in my work at the hospital, that the healing we may so often and ardently long for may never happen.  At least not in the way in which we desire it to be.  And that’s because the healing that Jesus will bring will be on his timetable and according to his purposes.  The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that our prayer is “your will be done.”  As hard as that may be to grapple with it means that we should long for the will of God, knowing that living within his will, and not ours, is what brings him glory.

The shaman’s other purported abilities are also not found within ourselves but are clearly present only in Jesus.  The Christian does not need someone to foretell the future because God has already revealed the future in the words of the Bible.  It may not be enough information for the historian or biographer but it is sufficient for the one who has faith in Jesus.   

While the shaman may believe that he or she can control spiritual forces, the Bible witnesses to Jesus’ power over the supernatural.  One example is in Luke 8:26-39, where a demon confronted by Jesus acknowledges Jesus’ power over him, saying “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?  I beg you, do not torment me.”

In the end, I find the “shaman within” to be empty, to be a fraud, something dressed in spiritual language but really just a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  People following this, or similar routes, in search of the spiritual will always come up empty. 

We who believe in Jesus have accepted God’s invitation to participate in something that is more wonderful, more amazing, more real, and more glorious than anything that the world or our own selves could ever produce.

If you are reading this and don’t believe in Jesus then I invite you to consider if God is calling to you, to consider if he is stirring within you a curiosity to journey with him.

John 1:9-13 beautifully describes what I, and Christians throughout the world await in Advent:

“The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

I am thankful that I am not on a journey looking within myself to understand the world and the cosmos and my place within them.  God’s True Light has indeed come into the world and claimed me.  By God’s work, and according to his word, I know that my life is in his hands and that my purpose is to live for his glory, now and forever.

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[1] I think that druids are an ancient and extinct group, so what we have today should perhaps more accurately be called neo-druids, or pseudo-druids.