Would I Have Mocked?

If I had been there on that day, as the Savior of the world hung on a Roman cross, would I have mocked him? Would I have mocked the strange work of God, this salvation in flesh tortured?

We read of more mocking than mourning at the Cross. The faithful are few, and they are the ones who are the misfits and the marginalized, the ones least likely to be heroes in the Kingdom of God. A crucified criminal. A cluster of women, a vulnerable group with limited rights and limited access to their own religion. The Gentile solider overseeing the execution, who can’t help but cry out “Surely, this man was the Son of God. Surely, he was innocent!” They are the ones who stood on the outskirts, but they are the ones who could see.

The disciples are conspicuously absent. Another criminal, slowly loosing breath and blood, scorns Jesus from his own cross. The chameleonic mass who had cheered Jesus only a week before throw insults at him. 

When Jesus prays, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,” so many faces could have been before his mind. The Roman soldiers, hardened by violence, who have no idea whose body they are breaking. The Jewish leaders, too blinded by their need to be right to see the prophecies fulfilled before their eyes. The crowd, who are aimless without a good shepherd. The disciples, too afraid to stand by him.

"Surely, we would have been different. Surely, we would have been faithful," we think.

But I wonder. I look at my own heart—the one that wants the easy way, the one that wants to be right and in control, the one that thinks I have the answers—and I wonder. 

We demonize the Jewish religious leaders, but I doubt we would have looked much different. They were the models of devotion. They took their faith seriously and meticulously applied it to their lives. They studied Scripture and had it seared on their memories. They knew their “theology” and had answers for the hard questions of faith. They knew how God worked. They were confident of their right standing with God and understood what it meant to be “saved.” They led respectable lives. They had it together. 

But at the foot of the Cross, they were the ones who could not see. For all the Scripture they had read and studied, memorized and applied, they mocked the One whose story filled its pages. The One they had waited for hung before them, his body broken, bruised, and bleeding, and their mouths shouted insults. They delighted in his downfall.

They couldn’t see God’s work in the foolish things, the weak, the lowly, the despised (1 Cor. 1:27-28). They couldn’t see victory in defeat. They couldn’t see that their need for freedom was greater than Roman occupation. They couldn’t see how small their comprehension was of who God was, of who He welcomed into His Kingdom. 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven…” Jesus said. Lord, may we find You in our poverty, our hunger, and our mourning. May we find You in the lowly things. Lord, help us to see.

Everyday Disciple: Danah

This post is part of an on-going Everyday Disciple series. We're celebrating here what it looks like to follow Christ faithfully in the day-to-day. I am thankful to share the stories of gracious friends and readers, and I have sought to preserve and honor their voice in the post below. I invite you to join me as we listen to their experience as an "everyday disciple."

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Danah is a precious friend. I appreciate her thoughtfulness and humor, her care for her students, and her esteem of the power of words. It also doesn't hurt that she often brings delicious tea and fluffy dogs in tow. I'm delighted to share her thoughts with you today. 

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I was originally a chemical engineer. I worked in bioengineering for a few years before going back to get my Masters degrees in teaching and in literature. I honestly don’t know exactly how I got here, teaching high school English at a Christian school. It’s the farthest thing from what I thought my adulthood would look like, but I have a strange and overwhelming sense of clarity in my understanding of how each and every step, intentional and accidental, that I took leading up to this point has been leading me to the job that I work right now.

I teach 10th grade World Literature at Lexington Christian Academy. Essentially, I walk a group of teenagers through a year of trying to understand, relate to, and interact with art and stories from people who are sometimes quite different from us.

I LOVE working with high schoolers. They are this hilarious, enigmatic blend of child and adult. Sometimes they are poignantly aware and insightful with regards to the world around them, and then, in the next moment, they are unexpectedly bewildered, lost, or overwhelmed. They make me laugh, they ask hard questions, and they are hungry to understand life.

There is also an element of my job that involves explicitly spiritual mentorship. Students will approach me to discuss their faith or personal lives, ask me to pray with and for them, and challenge the beliefs that are being taught.

Not only do I have to keep my disciplinary skills sharp, I have to always be ready to listen and respond to students who are wrestling with the reality of the Christian life in the modern world. I have to hear, understand, and relate to their very real experiences.

I learn a lot about my personal relationship with Christ by watching students navigate their faith walks and staying sensitive to how the Holy Spirit guides me to support their faith walks. I think I get a tiny, infinitesimal glimpse into what Christ must feel when I come to him lost and overwhelmed and confused. I take my inspiration on how to handle my students from how I feel Christ handles me in those moments.

Something I love about high school is that, in my admittedly small classroom, I am very tangibly molding the future of our country, our world, and our church. I am shaping the hearts and minds of the individuals who will one day take the reins of our society.

When the news overwhelms me with its stories of hate, judgment, and violence, I find my work satisfying and necessary because it feels like the only thing I can do. I may not be able to address the events I saw on the news, but I can talk about it in my class, read poetry about it, and predispose the hearts and minds of my students to be gentle, humble, and kind in similar situations.

The school that I work at espouses a belief that resonates with my own goals for my life. The belief centers around R.C. Sproul’s statement that “all truth is God’s truth.” We, and I, believe this in our core.

The literary discipline is all about the search for truth. What is true about humanity? What is true about our existence? When you respond emotionally, psychologically, or sometimes even physically to something you read or write, where is the truth at the heart of that? When we try to communicate with one another through our words or our compositions, what is true about how that communication works and connects us?

All of these things are the questions that drive my discipline, and so, in seeking after literary truth each day, I find that my days center around seeking after the nature and heart of the Creator of that truth. In reading words and images straight from the hearts of people from all over the world and carefully, respectfully mining those for truth, I am guiding my students through a process of finding Christ in the world around them. I am teaching them how to recognize truth when they see it, which, in my opinion, is one of the greatest spiritual disciplines.

I often hear people say things like ‘It must be SO nice to be able to use the Bible in your classes. It is a work of literature after all!’ It is nice to be able to be open about my faith, but I really don’t use the Bible that much.

I do work in a Christian school and I care deeply about my students’ faith lives, but I am not a Bible teacher or a spiritual life director. I am an English teacher. My job is to teach them to write and read well and to find God’s truth through those skills. Good readers and writers know how to find the truth in all great works of literature, and that is what my job is about.

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If you would like to be a part of this project, I would love to hear your story. Contact me for more information. 

Jesus, The Sorrowing Comforter

There are four simple black frames hanging in our bathroom, each containing a different verse of Scripture. I put them up shortly after we were married, so that each morning as we got ready for the day and each evening as we ended it, we would have little nuggets of truth before our eyes.

A few weeks ago, as I was drying off from a shower, I noticed that they are all from the Gospel of John. Perhaps his words particularly resonate with me. Or perhaps I find him to be particularly quotable.

There is one section of John that is disproportionately represented in these framed verses. It’s a part John’s Gospel I return to again and again because of the comfort and encouragement I have found there. And, because it’s Lent, it has me thinking.

I’m speaking of Jesus’ words in John 13-17. It’s the section of John that biblical commentators call the “Farewell Discourse” and the “High Priestly Prayer.” It begins with Jesus taking on the role of servant and washing his disciples’ feet, and it ends with a prayer. In John, we don’t hear Jesus’ words in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying for the cup to pass, sweating drops of blood. Instead, we hear Jesus’ prayer for his disciples then—and for all who would believe in him. We hear him praying for us.

In between these two moments, we read the words of Jesus on his last night with his disciples before he is arrested. In just a few hours, he will be handed over to the authorities, betrayed by one of his closest friends. He will be falsely accused, mocked, beaten. He will be sentenced to die a shameful and excruciating death on a Roman cross. He will take on his shoulders the sins of the world and bear the wrath of God.

Jesus knows what is coming, and as he stares down his impending agony, he sits with his friends—and he comforts them. I am overwhelmed by the love in this action. He is about to enter into the worst suffering the world has ever known, but his concern is for his disciples, these same disciples who will abandon him in terror.

Jesus himself would say that night that he was “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Mark 14:34). He could use some comforting and encouragement himself. But even in this moment, his eyes are on those he loves. He says to them…

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27)

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

These words have comforted many of us in our own times of suffering. But how much more precious are they when we remember that Jesus spoke them in loving concern for his friends who were about to see him killed.

In the midst of his own suffering, Jesus continued to serve and love. In these words of peace to his disciples. In his provision for his mother to be cared for, as he hung on the cross. In his words of pardon to a dying criminal, in his words of forgiveness for his executioners. Even as he took on the weight of atoning for sin, even as he fought for the redemption of the cosmos, his eyes were turned with love toward those he came to save. 

What wondrous love is this, oh my soul. What a Savior.

Waiting in Lent

Our community group studied the Triumphal Entry a few weeks ago. Many of you know the story. Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey, confidently entering the city as its rightful king. News had spread of the miraculous resurrection of Lazarus, and the crowds flocked to see this miracle worker. Surely, if he could restore a man to life, if he could breathe life into a decomposing corpse, surely he could restore life to Israel. Surely he could free them from Roman rule.

The crowd celebrates, waving palm branches in Israelite national fervor. The crowd is excited for a conquering Christ, one who will free them from the tyranny of the Romans, one that will restore the might of Israel, one that will rule.

Tragically, they didn’t know the sort of Messiah who had come to them. He did not enter Jerusalem to wage war or to start a revolution—at least not in the way they understood it. They could not, did not see that this Christ, who truly was their King, was to be the suffering Christ. They did not see that His victory would come through seeming defeat. They did not see that his eyes were not set only on the Romans but on the bondage of the entire cosmos. The “war” he waged was on a scale beyond their comprehension. Their vision was too myopic, too immediate, too victorious.

We aren’t much different. This is why the season of Lent is so powerful.

We need to feel the weight of the statement “Christ has died” before we jump ahead to “Christ has risen.” Instead of crafting a sheeny picture of a victorious, happy world, we need to see clearly Jesus, the God-man, who bowed low to walk with us through our pain, to bear the weight of it, to feel the bitter effects of sin. His victory came through sorrow, through defeat, through suffering. And often ours does as well.

We need space to sit in the sorrow and unanswered questions. We need space to be fully present to the brokenness of the world, the erring of our hearts, the myriad “not-yets” of our present reality. We need a reminder to not dismiss suffering in an attempt to jump to the happy ending.

Easter is coming. I speak not only of the church holiday we will celebrate in a few weeks. There is a Grand Easter coming—the final, complete Resurrection and Restoration, the final Victory. We long for this day.

But today, we sit in Lent—and we sit in the presence of our suffering Christ, the one who invited us to take up our cross and follow. We sit with His sorrow and suffering—and with our own—and we wait.

Everyday Disciple: Joel & Katy

This post is part of an on-going Everyday Disciple series. We're celebrating here what it looks like to follow Christ faithfully in the day-to-day. I am thankful to share the stories of gracious friends and readers, and I have sought to preserve and honor their voice in the post below. I invite you to join me as we listen to their experience as an "everyday disciple."

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It’s always a delight to come upon Joel and Katy at a local farmer’s market or festival. They’re quick to smile and eager to chat, tucked away behind a colorful array of soaps and candles. The creativity and care they pour into each aspect of their business is a beautiful testament to the creative and caring God they worship. 

They are the entrepreneurial owners of Joy Lane Farm, a small business specializing in handcrafted goat milk soaps, soy candles, lotions, and lip balms. It's a joy to share their thoughts with you.

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We were working at a Ukrainian orphanage when we decided to become business owners. I had recently completed my Master of Divinity, and our other choice, which made far more sense, was pursuing pastoral ministry. 

We spent months agonizing over this decision. I had felt called to ministry since I was 13, and one of my professors had charged Katy with making sure I never gave up preaching. Harder still, I’m not sure there was ever a clear moment when God said to do Joy Lane Farm, nor one where He said not to. Katy didn’t think we’d do it longer than six months, but here we are five years later.

Since orphanage and church work were our other alternatives, we were determined that—if we were going to build a company—we would build one that was worth building. We thought often about how we would view Joy Lane Farm at the end of our lives and whether the work would matter in eternity. To that end, our priority was distilling a simple set of values we could pour into every ounce of the company as we built it. These became our mantra: Live joyfully. Do great things. Celebrate family.

It’s easy to talk about Joy Lane Farm without talking about goat milk soap, lotion, or lip balm, because Joy Lane Farm isn’t about those things; it’s about cultivating meaningful lives. The reason we like making consumable, everyday products is that they touch lots of people. Making soaps that are good for your skin and pleasant to use gives credibility, and credibility is a sacred trust. We hope we use that trust well when we encourage people to rest instead of being busy and to care for the poor instead of pursuing the American dream.

Owning a business as followers of Jesus Christ has unique challenges. Often, our instincts tell us one thing, and the Holy Spirit tells us something different.

This week we’re finishing up our first t-shirt designs. At first, we considered putting our name and logo on the front. It would have been inexpensive, simple, and effective branding, but we felt God nudging us with the words, “Message first.” This meant investing a lot more time and money into our shirts, eventually landing on a design that downplayed our name and highlighted our mantra, the words that communicate how God has called us to live and follow Him.

Another hard decision was giving away 1% of our sales to Mercy Ships, an organization that serves the international poor. Except that wasn’t the hard part. The stomach churning moment came later when God told us to give the 1% based on our projected sales and to trust Him that the sales would happen. We live simply and frugally. We rarely do small things, like going out for breakfast, because we can’t afford them. Even though we remind ourselves often that we are rich, not poor, giving away a percentage of sales we hadn’t made took a degree of trust I wasn’t used to. God was asking us to give the first fruits of our labor as a sacrifice to him. Looking back, I’m not sure anything has so powerfully changed our hearts. Now, we firmly believe Joy Lane Farm belongs to God. He is the Provider for our family, and we are stewards who are tasked with loving the poor as He loved them.

My Dad did this well. He served on Mercy Ships for the last few years of his life before passing away last summer. His death was sudden, left our hearts in anguish, and made writing about joy difficult. It brought death very close to us.  Now, as we grieve, we live in a tension of knowing our toil is in some ways meaningless (Ecclesiastes 2), but also that we have been entrusted with talents that God expects us to use well on His behalf (Matthew 25:14-30). As we manage Joy Lane Farm, we think often about the missionary, Eric Liddel, running in the Olympics and saying, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast! And when I run I feel his pleasure.” The cry of our hearts is that Joy Lane Farm would bring pleasure to our Lord.  

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If you would like to be a part of this project, I would love to hear your story. Contact me for more information.