Lenten Reflections: Ash Wednesday - Humiliation

 
"You are dust...." - Genesis 3:19

Ashes to ashes.  Dust to dust.

As Lent begins, we're humiliated. Lent is not joyful. Lent is not a season that we greet each other with glad tidings. Lent is dark. And as Advent culminates in celebration, Lent culminates in death. Advent is intricately melded into Christmas.  Lent is broken by a week of reflection, healing and preparation for the joy that resumes at Easter.

Ashes mark our foreheads, reminding us of sin and the deteriorating nature of this world. We are dust. The world is broken. And the dust that we come from will become our humiliation when it finds us again. When our mortal bodies breath their last breath, we are humiliated one last time in dust. We are dust. We are broken.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

The ashes also remind us that the God of the universe faced humiliation as well. By becoming dust and returning to it's embrace, Jesus was dust. Jesus was humiliated. Jesus was broken. The heavenly became earthly. The immortal became mortal, if only for a brief interlude of history.

He became humiliation so that one day our dust may life forever. We will cast off the dust. We will be fixed. 

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

As we begin the Lenten Season, let us remember that our healing of humiliation comes through Christ. By His humiliation, ours was lifted. By His temporary embrace of the dust, our dust thus becomes immortal. By the donning of ashes upon our heads, let us face our humiliation with the hope of resurrection. Through Christ, our ashes become beautiful. Through Christ, the broken is repaired. Through Christ, our humiliation becomes joy.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

Advent to Lent.

Birth and Death.

Beginning. Ending. Rising.  

Lord, as we begin this Lenten Season, humiliated by the ashes we receive, enable us to reflect on the sin that we so often try to avoid. Help us to remember that although we are dust, broken and mortal, we will one day rise with You, perfect and immortal. 

Amen.  


 

Coffee and Cancer

"Everything is meaningless."  I just ran into a friend of mine whose husband is dying of stomach cancer.  It's not pretty.  It's not pleasant to hear about.  It's not easy to talk about.  But she's my friend, she's hurting and her husband is dying.  He's suffering.  He's in pain.  From the look in her eyes, I could feel his pain emanating though her, even though he is currently miles away in a hospital room.  When talking with her, I felt how obvious, real and close their relationship is.  It was almost as if he was just behind her eyes, shaking his head in disbelief and pleading with me to help them both.  It was very real.  This is real.  It's life.  It's death.  It's pain, in a very real, raw and powerful form.

It hit me like a ton of bricks as I helped my friend carry some boxes to her car.  They are having to move from their home because of expenses.  She works at Starbucks and actually seems to enjoy what she is doing.  I think it gets her mind of everything, her life, her pain.  But how can serving coffee to fools like me pay the bills for such heavy expenses?  There was a time when her husband did very well in his career, but today it's different.  There was a time when they didn't worry about paying bills, didn't worry about hospitals, chemo and death.  There was a time when their plans of life did not include getting a nice case of stomach cancer, loosing a career, working at a coffee shop, watching a loved one die an agonizing death or spending their retirement days wondering how to pay the bills.  But it's life.  Their life.  And it brought me to tears just before I wrote this.

She was working just above me, at the counter, pumping coffee flavors into white paper cups.  I was banging away on my laptop, trying to write something, and watching her as well.  She gave me something to write about today.  I wonder if she knows that.  Sonny and Cher were singing "I Got You Babe" over the speakers above us.  She began to sing along.  Not just humming, but singing in a soft, beautiful voice that caused me to stop typing and start listen.  I thought of her and her husband.  I thought of another time when they were young.  I wonder if that song meant something to them years and years ago.  It was the way she sang it.  I could her her singing to him.  Maybe she's sing it to him when she gets to the hospital today.  "Then put your little hand in mine. There 'aint no hill or mountain we can't climb."

I was up early this morning.  My dog casually threw up on my bed as he laid next to me.  That kind of ended my goal of sleeping a little later this morning.  But everything has a reason.  I got to my favorite coffee shop to write and two men were talking about life and their faith.  I'm not sure exactly what their conversation was about, but one man said to the other, "This kind of crap makes no sense at all.  Why do these kinds of things happen to good people?  People that follow God?  People that always try and do the right thing?"   Prophecy for me maybe?  Was this conversation intended for my encounter with my friend?  She's not the one that uttered these words, although I'm sure that she shares that sentiment.   She works at a different coffee shop that is miles away.  I made my way there because my first choice was too crowed and loud.  But I was there.  I heard those words.  And I answer them to myself, even though my friend is not here to respond.

"The same destiny ultimately awaits everyone, whether righteous or wicked, good or bad, ceremonially clean or unclean, religious or irreligious. Good people receive the same treatment as sinners, and people who make promises to God are treated like people who don't." (Ecclesiastes 9:2 - NLT)

And the wheels on the bus go round and round.
 
"I don't understand what's going on.  I hate my life!  Since either way it ends up the same, I can only conclude that God destroys the good right along with the bad." (Job 9:22 - The Message)

I don't understand either.  And sometimes I hate my life as well.  I don't have the answers.

God "causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:45 - NIV)

Ashes to ashes, we all fall down.  

"Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried; you started out as dirt, you'll end up dirt." (Genesis 3:19 - The Message)

I don't know.  I guess what I'm getting at is that God never painted a beautiful, blissful picture of what our lives were life.  We live in a culture that recoils at the thought of even the hint of pain and suffering, and we're shocked when it falls on us.  All the while, God gently whispers to our disapproval of life circumstances with a very matter of fact, "I beg your pardon.  I never promised you a rose garden."  Instead, the stark reality is that life sucks.  Plain and simple.  Bumper sticker philosophy.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble." (John 16:33 - NIV)

Translation: "Don't be surprised when the proverbial shit hits the fan.  I told you that it would.  I told you it would make a mess.  I told you that it would stink.  So, just accept it for what it is and move on, OK?" 

But the one thing that remains clear, and it's why I wrote this blog to begin with.  In the exact same verse Jesus say that we are commanded to "love one another".  Proverbs also tells us that "love covers over all wrongs."  And 1 John 4:8 tells us that God is love. 

There is so much hate in our world today, isn't there?  Don't you just feel like screaming, "Enough!"   So, I come to this very realistic, but sobering conclusion: when we love one another, we are in essence, showing God to one another, in a very real way.  He is manifest in the flesh through us, the Body of Christ, the Church and living as the Church is supposed to live.  And when we show others God, He covers over all the garbage and refuse that we walk around in every day of our lives.  And that is the equalizing factor that makes this life bearable.  That is the one aspect that brings unity among us all and gives purpose and reason to this sometime meaningless existence.  


"Love one another." 

Mike

Those of you that know me, know that I can be a rather melancholy person.  Because of that, I've always been somewhat obsessed with death.  It's always caused an inner conflict within me and I'll admit, some fear as well.  I've read verses like 1 Corinthians 15:54-58 and meditate on the words "O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” and thought to myself, "Really?"  I don't know about you, but I've felt the full sting of death many times.  There is an uncertainty with death, and  regardless of the depth of my faith, there are times when I think and wonder at the mystery of my existence.  If you say that you are 100% sure of what will happen to you when you die, you're lying, or you have some spiritual insight that I've not yet grasped.  Because regardless of how strong our faith in God might be, there will always be a hint of doubt.  That's part of what faith is about.    

My friend Mike died just over 13 years ago.  I'm not sure why I'm thinking about him today.  Maybe it's because my mind is wandering from excessive writer's block.  Maybe it's because Summer is coming to an end, kids are going back to school and change is in the air.  Maybe it's just because I'm feeling a bit nostalgic and yes, melancholy this afternoon.  Or maybe it's because I just read a blog posted by a friend of mine about loosing one of his best friends this week and the grief he is now experiencing.  Nah, that can't be it.

Mike died on the Monday after Labor Day in 1997.  He came to my house on Sunday for lunch, bringing with him his beautiful little daughter, Jordan who was only 1 year old at the time; the same age as my oldest son, Ian.  We cooked hot dogs for lunch, drank a few beers, ate Popsicles and filled up a little baby pool for the kids, and our feet.  It was a good day.

Mike was having a rough time with life, as well as his marriage, so we talked a lot.  He shared a lot of his struggles with me.  I listened.  It felt good to listen.  It felt good to talk.  When he left that afternoon, I walked with him out to his car.  After getting Jordan situated in her car seat, he looked me right in the eyes and thanked me for inviting him over.  I could tell that it meant a lot to him.  You could see it in his eyes.  Just before he drove off he rolled the window down and said, "Hey, let's going fishing tomorrow since we have the day off."  I thought about it, hesitated a few seconds and then declined the invitation.  I would have loved to have gone fishing.  We were fishing a lot back then and I was always looking for an excuse to go.  But for some reason, I felt the need to spend more time at home and with my family.  I had no idea how much more was going on by turning down his offer.

The next day was Labor Day.  Mike went fishing anyway, with another friend named Tommy.  I didn't know Tommy very well, but we had all fished together a few times.  I felt a little jealous that I wasn't the one who went.  It should have be me with him.  That morning I felt a twinge of regret, thinking how nice it would have been to be in the water, hooking a few speckled trout.  But the day went on.  We sat around the house and did as little "labor" as we could.  We watched TV and played around on the computer.  All in all, it was a pretty boring day, but it was good to spend time with my wife and son.  It was good to rest.   

Just after we finished lunch, I was sitting at my desk on the computer when the phone rang.  It was Mike's wife, Kim.  She said my name, paused and her voice began crackling.  I could hear her crying and my heart began to race, feeling that sinking feeling deep in my soul.  You know that feeling?  The feeling you get just before something bad happens?  That feeling that you are right on the border of a tragedy?  As soon as you step over the line of acknowledgement, everything in your immediate world is going to change, and you feel it.  You sense it.  Here we go.  Stepping over the line.  

My first thought was that Mike had left Kim.  Not too long before, Mike had run off to Florida to escape marriage problems and the stresses of life that were troubling him.  I imagined that he had again decided to temporarily escape, and Kim was naturally upset, and was calling in hoes that I would help her track him down.  That's what I was thinking.  I wish that had been the case.  Something so simple could have been solved.  Something so simple could have been worked through.  I would have been glad to have driven out to Florida to find him.  I would give anything to have the memory of finding him fishing or sitting in some beach bar drinking a beer.  I would have convinced him to come home.  He always listened to me.  We would laugh about it today.

That's not how things worked out.  After the phone fell to the ground, I remember hearing someone picking it back up.  I heard a voice that I didn't recognize.  "Jake, this is Kim's aunt.  Kim was calling you to tell you that Mike was killed this morning.  I'm so sorry."  I stepped over the line.  Everything changed.  My reality changed.  Everything looked different.  Everything sounded different.  It was as if I stepped into another dimension.  The sting of death.

"What?  What?  What?"  That's all I remember saying.  I looked around the room, back and forth in quick movements of panic.  She hung up the phone.  My wife Kelly was sitting on the bed across the room.  She knew that it was one of those phone calls.  It was one of those lines crossed in life that you can't cross back again.  She was crying.

Through tears she muttered, "What?  What happened, Jake?  Is it Mike?  Is he dead?"  I nodded my head and began weeping uncontrollably.  It was the kind of weeping that comes from deep inside your soul and you have no control over it.  My head fell into my hands and my shoulders began heaving up and down.  This was one of the rare times in my life that I've felt the full force of mourning.  I understand grief and the powerful clutch of it.  The cold embrace of death surrounded me and I felt empty.  I walked outside and on to my driveway, staring up at the sky.  What had just happened?  Why wasn't I there with him?  Why didn't I go?  Could I have saved him?  Would I have died as well?  Why, God?  Why?        

Mike was struck by lightning from a small isolated thunderstorm that popped up late that morning.  I remember seeing it pass just to the West of my house, thinking how strange it was. There was no chance of rain that day.  Mike had left Tommy and the boat at the shore, while he ran across the beach to get his truck.  Tommy didn't even know what had happened until the ambulance showed up.  He was killed instantly.  The thoughts ran though my head once again: It should have been me with him that morning.  Maybe I could have done something.  Maybe I could have stopped him.  Maybe my obsessive compulsive tendencies would have kicked in and I would have insisted on him waiting for the storm to pass.  Why wasn't I there?   

About a year before Mike's death, he became a follower of Christ.  Not many people know that.  I had been a Christian for a few years before him and he had always thought I had fallen off the deep end.  But we were close friends so he eventually began  to ask me questions about what I believed.  He didn't talk about his faith that much with others, but we had many conversations about spirituality and God.  One evening in particular, when Mike was having an especially rough time in his marriage, he called me.  "I don't get it!  I became a Christian just like you encouraged me to do, but my life still sucks!  Why?"

I didn't have an answer for him.  I agreed with him that life did suck from time to time.  I shared with him that I often felt the same way and even questioned my faith occasionally.  I also shared with him the good things God had done in my life.  Mostly I just listened.  I listened to the pain in his voice and tried to feel it with him.  I told him that I understood and he wasn't alone in his struggles.  I never judged him and I never questioned his faith.  I guess that I just tried to be who Christ would have been for him, if He was sitting with him that moment; the same Christ that sat with me when Mike died.  The same Christ that works through me when others grieve a loss and feel the sting of death.  And the same Christ that reminded me of Mike this afternoon, and reminded me that I'll see him again.  The sting of death is gone, life still sucks sometime and I still miss my friend.  See you soon, my friend. 

Faith

I spend a lot of time meditating on life and the world we live in. And when I think about it, I've been like this ever since I was a little boy. I remember sitting in my room, staring at the ceiling and asking questions like, "Why am I here?" "Why am I who I am?" "Why does this world exist?" "Why is there death?" As I developed a deeper concept of God, these questions began to make more sense, but I have to admit; even today, I ponder these issues probably more than most people. And probably more than I should. After all, the book of Ecclesiastes opens with the words, "Meaningless! Meaningless!...Everything is meaningless." Maybe he was on to something?

I guess you can say that I got a glimpse of the "meaninglessness" of life a few weeks ago. Let me share with you what happened on an ordinary day after getting my haircut. As I turned my car onto FM 518, I saw the familiar and peppy gallop of two dogs that I met and rescued just after Christmas. Trevor and Faith were trotting down the busy League City street in the familiar and aimless manner of dogs who are not at all street savoy. Afternoon congestion only caused confusion, as they blindly dodged in and out of traffic; for a moment darting off the side walk and then back on again. I instantly knew that I was going to have to intervene to keep these two out of imminent danger yet again.

I began to pull over, but before I could initiate a plan of attack, the two suddenly split up. Trevor, a terrior mix, sprinted down the sidewalk that parallels FM 518, and Faith, a black lab, dodged into an apartment complex, apparently limping as she listlessly hopped a parking lot curb. Assuming that she would be safe for the moment, I chose to try and round up Trevor as he raced East toward my neighborhood. Speeding ahead of traffic, I screeched into the next intersection, cut him off at the pass, and waited for him to get a bit closer. "Come on Trevor! Come on boy!", I yelled out, assuming he would recognize me. But much to my surprise, he quickly darted to the left, and fell into a full speed sprint through an open field.

Realizing that there was no chance of catching him, I quickly made an illegal u-turn, and backtracked to find Faith. Back at the apartment complex, I made my way through the back parking lot until I saw two people standing behind a few parked cars looking down at the grass. I asked if they had seen a black lab, and my heart sunk as a woman replied with tears in her eyes, "Yeah, she's right here! And she's messed up bad!"

Jumping out of my car, I raced over to where the people were standing. And there on the ground, laying in a grassy spot was Faith; gasping for breath and bleeding from the mouth. "Is she yours?", the woman asked. "No, but I know her and know where she lives. I saved her a few months ago and was trying to do it again.". I put my hand on Faith's head and whispered that it was going to be OK. You know, the way "dog people", like myself, find themselves talking to dogs? The other person was a man pouring cold water over her head and mumbled that she must be bleeding internally. We agreed and after a few minutes, we glanced at each other, shook our heads, and without a word, agreed that she was not going to make it. Unfortunately, our unspoken assumption was right.

As I rubbed Faith's head with my right hand, she laid her head on top of my left, gave one last raspy gasp, spit out some blood, closed her eyes and died. Just like that. We sat there, starring at Faith for a few seconds and it was very quiet. I wasn't unusually sad, but I suddenly felt very out of control. Not panic, anger or fear, but just a simple realization that I really don't have a lot of control in life. This elaborate system that God has created is complex and in reality, we are just a part of it. We don't control the system, we only live in submission to it or aimlessly attempt to manipulate it.

The author of Ecclesiastes goes on to say that "No man has power over the wind to contain it; so no one has power over the day of his death." Yes, you may be thinking that Faith was just a dog. And I guess an animal's life is not on the same level as that of a humans, but life is life. God grants it and He takes it away. He starts all the internal clocks of life and stops them when time runs out. We have no real control, and I think a large part of our healthy functioning in this system God has created, is just accepting that.

Job understood this simple concept. And when he found himself in in the midst of the deepest grief and despair in the death of his sons and daughters, he lifted up his hands toward God and cried out from the depth of his soul, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." Job knew that life is in the control of the hands of God, just as the wind that blows and cannot be contained with feeble human hands.

Sure, I could look at this experience and say to myself, "Hey, Faith was just another dog that got hit by a car. It happens everyday". But I chose to dig into the moment and focus on what was really happening. God's system of creation is constantly moving around us and for the most part, it functions better than anything human hands have developed. Life is an amazing thing and seeing life end from time to time helps us to realize how incredible each breath of it really is.

Getting to Know You

A few weeks ago, like many people in the Houston area, I heard about a tragic bus crash that killed at least 15 people around Sherman Texas. A group of 55 Vietnamese Christians were on their way to a Catholic religious festival in Missouri when the bus blew a tire that sent it smashing into a guard rail and flipping it onto it's side. It was 12:45 a.m. and people were just dozing off to sleep. I began to think about this. I imagined a carefree atmosphere as these folks were on their way to a much anticipated time of worship. I imagined many of them asleep. Many of them talking quietly, maybe discussing faith. I'm sure that many of them had been waiting for this trip with great anticipation. I imagined that many could not sleep as they meditated on their adventure.

Then I imagined many of them awakened to the sound of the tire blowing out, the sound of twisting steel and the crash of the bus on the side of the road. I imagined the terror that these people must have felt. I imagined the fear that suddenly rushed through their bodies as the adrenaline suddenly surged. I imagined the screams. The cries for help. The helpless feelings as they felt themselves becoming airborne throughout the bus. The dark wave that came upon the survivors as they realized that many of their friends had died.

A week after the accident, I discovered that one of the people on board the bus was my tailor of some 10 years. Unfortunately, she was one of the people who lost their lives. As I read the local newspaper article, I was somewhat shocked. I just saw this woman a few weeks ago. I can see her face very clearly. I know who this person is. How am I supposed to react to this? I found myself wondering and asking myself something very strange. Should I be crying? I know that sounds odd, but I found myself in the middle of the road and wondering if my acquaintance with this woman warranted my tears. And I asked myself why? I've know this person for over 10 years, and I'm asking myself why a tear is not welling up in my eyes? Come on!

But then it hit me. I knew this person, but I didn't really know her. Yes, I knew her name and she knew mine. We recognized each other and probably would if we ran into each other in a restaurant or at the mall. We knew of each other, but did not know each other. Don't get me wrong. I was, and still am very saddened by this woman's death. As I dropped off a card for her husband at the alteration shop, I felt a coldness from not seeing her behind the counter. The shop felt empty, like part of it was missing. But to be honest, I moved on with my day. I went about life without much of a hitch. My question is this; "Should this have affected me more? Had I taken only a few minutes on any given day and talked with her, really talked with her, would I have found a tear in my eye? Would I have wept. Is that all that separated me from knowing her? Just one more conversation.

I don't know. I don't know if a few more words would have made any difference. The point is that there were over 10 years of opportunities to build more of a relationship and they were never taken. There were over 10 years to really know this woman, and they were wasted. It makes me think about the people we run into during the course of our days. We pass them at the store. We wave. We might say "Hi", and then ask ourselves, "What was her name? Don't I know that guy?"

John 11:23 records the shortest verse in the New Testament: "Jesus wept". As Jesus realized that His friend Lazarus has died, he is overwhelmed with grief and weeps. Someone that He knew had died. We know nothing of the relationship between Jesus and Lazarus. All we know is that Jesus wept. Maybe Jesus and Lazarus had spent many hours together talking. Perhaps they walked along the banks of the Jordan or the Seas of Galilee, Lazarus intently listening as Jesus went on about the kingdom of Heaven. Maybe they just sat together, shared a meal and joked about the Pharisees. Whatever it was, they knew each other and the loss of his friend brought Jesus to that point where the lip quivers, the throat tightens, the eyes well up and we can control it no longer. Jesus knew this man, and now he was gone. Jesus, the man, had a very close friend that died and He felt the loss deeply. He shed tears, as He would later shed blood. He was a man. He felt. He grieved. Lazarus had really died. Jesus really hurt. Jesus really wept. Jesus and Lazarus really knew each other.