This is the third post in the series Crossing the Threshold.

                                                 Homo Spiritus

Now we can start with our history lesson. Let’s take the year 1400AD. You can use “1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue” if it is easier to remember; a few years won’t make a difference for our purposes. In all the time before the year 1400, for as long as man existed on planet Earth he lived in a “sacred” world. By this I mean he had knowledge of something wholly other than himself, a different order of being, and a power before which he knew he was nothing. In other words a god. Opposite this god, this sacred, was the profane which simply meant darkness, chaos, an abyss. So it was natural that man wanted to live in as close proximity to the sacred as possible. Therefore he would consecrate every aspect of his life; food, sex, work, home, everything to his god.

Werner Herzog produced the documentary “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” in which he went deep into the Chauvet Caves in Southern France to film the oldest known cave paintings by Homo sapiens. Herzog says we really should call the early cave dwellers “Homo spiritus” (one spirit) rather than Homo sapiens (one knowing) for there is clear evidence of religious ceremony within these most ancient caves. Think of that; from the beginning of time man has been a worshipper and has lived in a sacred universe.

Thousands of years after the men painted the cave walls in Chauvet the Apostle Paul stood on Mars Hill in Athens and gave his famous sermon recorded in Acts Chapter 17. Speaking to all the Athenians he said “…I observe that you are all very religious in all respects” (NAS). This is not what is so typically thought of today as St. Paul making an “evangelistic” call to a crowd of non-believers so they can “get saved” and go to heaven. He is telling them that “yes you are all religious men ( for there is no other kind) and you live in awe of the gods because you have statues everywhere to please them…in all respects you make every part of your world sacred. Now let me explain to you, your own statue to ‘an unknown god’. There is only one true god who has now made himself known through the incarnation, death and resurrection of his son Jesus Christ. It is he that I proclaim to you”.

C.S. Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkein believed that the step from paganism to Christianity was not that great a step, for all men believed in a god, in the sacred, in something more than themselves. All men were worshippers. No the great chasm was the one that separated the Christian World of the Middle Ages and the Modern Western World. We must now explore that rift in order to bring us to the “you are here” star on the map of history.

This is post #2 of the Crossing the Threshold series.

                                                  The Sacred Secular Split

We live in a divided world. It wasn’t always this way. We will get to how it became divided shortly, but it is important to understand the division and how it affects your life today.

The Modern Western World has two basic compartments; the secular and the sacred. Some people try and live their entire life in one compartment or the other; most of us however go back and forth without ever thinking about it. Let’s take what you “do” for example. Work, school, entertainment, neighborhood activities, vacations, sexual intimacy, all go into the secular box while things like worship services, bible studies, prayer meetings, volunteering for the homeless, and mission trips all get thrown into the sacred compartment.

It isn’t just what you do that gets sorted into one box or the other. It affects everything in your life; the music you listen to, the art you appreciate, the books you read, the movies you watch, everything is labeled and sorted sacred or secular. I know some people whose voice changes depending on which box they are in at the moment!

You see the division is not just confined to the external world. No, the division goes deep into your internal world dividing you at the core of your being. Sensing something is not quite right you may try and bridge the divide by taking the sacred box into your secular world; saying a prayer at work for instance. Or you’ll bring your secular world into your sacred box by inviting someone to go to church with you. But neither of these constructs ever seems to work very well and there is a reason why. The world was never designed to be divided into compartments of sacred and secular. When you go along with this man made order you are going against the design of the world’s creator. You are going against God.

Several years ago I taught a class called Crossing The Threshold: A Journery into Transformative Worship. I wrote notes to go along with portions of the class and am going to be sharing them in the next few weeks on this blog . If you want to listen to the talks and see the other notes handed out in class they are all under the Teaching page on this site.

                                      Orientation

When you start out on a journey it is important to know the place from which you are starting; that is if you have any hope of finding the place to which you are going. Take the giant map in the shopping mall for example. You first need to find the star that says “you are here”. Once you discover it, you can orient yourself and find where you are and where you are going. Or remember how you spent an entire day of orientation in a new school, where you were given the lay of the land so to speak. After that day it was possible for you to navigate the maze of classrooms and winding halls. Even the most famous road trip, Dorothy’s trek down the yellow brick road to the Emerald City began with orientation from the good witch Glenda. It wasn’t enough for Dorothy to know she wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

To orient means to set right by adjusting to facts; to put oneself into correct position or to acquaint oneself with the existing situation. Unfortunately most people never receive an orientation lesson to life. No one says to you, here you are on the map of history and tells you what that means or why it should matter to you. After all history is just a boring subject often taught by boring teachers who rarely connect the subject to your personal life. It is flat, dull, in the past and irrelevant to your life in the here and now. Or is it? Could it be that history is more like a story with an author, a plot, a setting, a theme and characters? Christianity maintains that history is His story; God’s story. If that is true wouldn’t it be important to know where you are? To know what part you play so that when you step out onto the stage of history you can play it well?

Fellow pilgrim you and I are going on an amazing journey over the next few posts. This journey will take us out of the ordinary world, crossing the threshold into a very special world. We will meet interesting characters, cover vast amounts of terrain, have a few awesome encounters and return home like all good pilgrims do having been transformed by our adventure. But we need to know where we are. We need to find the “you are here” star on the map of history.

Years ago I went to a Christian counselor and one of the most helpful things I learned from him was what he termed "Styles of Relating". He had studied material from Dr. Karen Horney on the three predictable styles of relationships one adopts as a survival method to overcome pain in childhood. The three styles are: move away, move toward, and move against. The styles are pretty self explanatory. Move aways are people who detach in order to survive; they become independent, self controlling and self reliant. Move toward are people who have to have control of another relationship for their security and self worth. And of course move against are those individuals who have to dominate and rule whatever situation they are in.

I remember hearing a lecture by Dr. Neil Anderson where he gave the example of three sons born to an alcoholic father. Each son he said would respond differently. One would remove himself ( move away), one would appease or pacify ( move toward) and one would fight ( move against); hence the three styles.

The counselor I was seeing explained these are unhealthy styles of relating and the answer involved giving up my style and adopting a healthier life style by which I could respond to another person appropriately. Sometimes that would mean submitting, sometimes it would mean detaching, and sometimes it would mean over coming; in other words learning to do all three when appropriate.

But is it that simple? I think not. First let me say I found the understanding of these styles most helpful. It brought great clarity in my own personal life.However I think there is a better way of seeing these styles and more importantly a better way out of them.

As the counselor said these are "unhealthy" "neurotic" "compulsive" ways of relating. I would  say they are "fallen" ways of relating. These are the styles humans have succumbed to because of the Fall. They were never God's original intent for how we relate to Him or to one another.Yes I need to stop doing them but I don't think the answer is as simple as adopting " A healthy attachment to another whereby I can move away, toward or against when appropriate". Correcting fallen behavior by behavior modification never works. No matter how hard I may want out of my old move away self; all the moving toward and against "when appropriate" simply does not work.

The answer is I must die and be raised to a new life whereby I am adopted into Christ. This is what the Apostle Paul was saying when he wrote these words " I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me" ( Galatians 2:20).

So what does this look like really? And how might I better understand this?I think the first place to start is with the understanding of two narratives; The Ego Story and The Theo Story. You will live in one or the other.

The Ego Story is the fallen story ( narrative) we are all born into with the "I" at its center. The best definition of sin I know is incurvates en se....life curved in on self. I must die to this story and be raised in Christ to The Theo Story. It is important to note here the differences between the two.

Ego Story: Author- Me, Actor- Myself, Director- I

Theo Story: Author- God the Father, Actor- Christ the Son, Director-The Holy Spirit

The way in which I come into the Theo Story is by being adopted into Christ Jesus. I am restored to God the Father in Him. I become a Christian ( which means little Christ). This makes me a co-actor with Jesus. This is my part in the grand narrative. Its not all about me anymore; I have died and been raised to live in union with Him. It is His life....His story.

So how does this connect to the styles of relating?

The styles of relating are connected to my old fallen self. I need to understand that as a new creation in Christ I must now grow in Him, grow up  to His full stature. This will mean not only looking to him as an example but more importantly habituating his practices so they seep into my very being; transforming me and conforming me into His image.

What are His practices? They are what the church has called " The Three Offices of Christ"; Prophet, Priest and King. Every Christian whether they understand it or not is called in Christ to be a prophet, a priest and a king. It would take volumes to unpack the full meaning of what I have just written but for my purposes here I want to suggest this: The three offices of Christ are the reality to which the three styles of relating are the perversion of. Move away is a distortion of prophet, move toward is a distortion of priest, and move against is a distortion of king.

Now lets go back to where I started. The counselor tells me I am a move away so I need to learn how to move toward and against "when appropriate". What does that look like? If this is all I know may I not just do it all in a fleshly way using another fallen behavior to compensate or balance my move awayness? Does this not leave me in The Ego Story?

How much better it would be to say for instance; your weakness is in exercising authority and of knowing you have "a voice". You need to study how Jesus operates in his kingly office. Go through the gospels and pay careful attention to how he leads and exercises authority.

Practicing his offices is one of the ways we "put on Christ" ( Romans:14) or are clothed in HIm ( Galatians 3:27). We study him with the intentionality of a disciple. We leave the old ways of fear and control behind and step into the freedom of following the one True Human, in so doing we become truly human ourselves.

In 1998 I went to see the movie Titanic. At first I’ll be honest I didn't’t want to see the movie. I remember dropping my sixteen year old daughter and her girlfriend off at the theater and saying “I know how that story ends”! Eventually I succumbed to the pressure and went to see the movie….six times (lots of pressure). I was undone to say the least, and so were many others making Titanic not just a blockbuster but a phenomenon.

James Cameron did the impossible; he captured the epic sinking of Titanic while weaving a beautiful love story over it to capture the human heart and the human tragedy. From the haunting opening scenes of the actual footage of the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean to the touching scenes of Rose’s reunion with Jack at the end; the power of the movie was well for lack of a better word…titanic.

The Titanic was in the news the other day; it was the anniversary of the discovery of its resting place. This is not what propels me to write on Titanic today, no it’s another story much in the news these days. I am referring to the story of refugees from Africa and the Middle East seeking asylum in the West which has been so poignantly personified by the horrific tragedy of three year old Aylan Kurdi, whose lifeless body washed up on Turkey’s shore.

So what is the connection?

Titanic in its historical context was a floating palace; the symbolic culmination of the “Gilded Age” while at the same time being a technological wonder presaging what was thought to be a new epoch of material acquisition unknown to man. She was thus a metaphor for the world at the beginning of the 20^th century sailing along in a bright blue universe. And like that world she was divided into three classes; First-, Second-, and Third-class or “Steerage”.

To grasp the full meaning of the word steerage I quote from Wyn Craig Wade’s book The Titanic: End of a Dream:

“The Titanic carried accommodations for a potential 1,024 third-class passengers, the vast majority of whom would be emigrants. Depending on the booking, portions of third-class quarters could be converted to freight and baggage compartments--- a tradition lingering from the days when “steerage” had meant exactly that. In the 1860’s, for example, it had been legal to transport human beings to one shore and then carry cattle in the same quarters on the trip back. One shipboard notice of that era adjured first- and second-class passengers “not to throw money or eatables to the steerage passengers, thereby creating disturbance and annoyance”. Things had now changed considerably. American immigration laws still made it mandatory to keep gates securely locked between third-class and other passengers; the policy was intended to limit the spread of infectious diseases.”

If you have seen the movie Titanic you will remember those locked gates. The ship is sinking; those in steerage are desperately trying to escape the incoming flood and those locked gates are keeping them trapped in certain death. In one memorable scene Rose and Jack break through a wall and are told by the official steward in a neat and tidy uniform “That’s White Star Line property….You can’t do that”!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxiJ80lr3Mg

And there is the connection. Every time I hear the First-class Post Modern West say to those in “steerage” trying to escape the flood of death sweeping over the third world “You can’t come in here; you’ll have to go back”. I think of Titanic and those locked gates.

The “unsinkable” ship went down. She was a portend not to the heights to which man in his pomp could ascend but one to which man in his arrogance and greed must descend. Her corroded ruin on the ocean floor is a prophetic picture of the 20^th century’s descent into wars and destruction the likes of which the world had never known.

So here we are today in 2015. The Third and Second Worlds have been under water for some time. Those on the upper deck have ignored the tragedy below while taking tea and listening to music. But we cannot ignore it anymore; the flood is coming. This is not a religious, political, cultural, economic, or east –west problem. When a three year old boy created in the image of God washes up on shore like a piece of “steerage” it is a human problem. Something is wrong with humanity.

So if my hope were in humanity to “fix” the problem I would be lost. But it is not. For just as James Cameron could not write a screenplay simply about the disastrous sinking of the Titanic and the loss of 1,522 souls, but had to write a larger story of sacrificial love; a love so powerful it transcended death….so did God.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:16-17

"Rescue won't come from anybody else! There is no other name given under heaven and among humans by which we must be rescued" Acts 4:12 NT Wright translation.

"For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves" Colossians 1:13 NIV.

Salvation in the Bible means rescue; rescue from death and the dominion of darkness. Unfortunately for many people today the word salvation in reference to Jesus Christ's death and resurrection has come to mean a religious conversion to Christianity, not a rescue from death.The word conversion implies the change of ones mind or belief. "I used to hate vegetables, now I am a vegetarian; I've been converted". Yes, a religious conversion can be a bit more dramatic but so can the conversion to becoming a football fan. " I used to hate sports but then I moved to Green Bay Wisconsin; now I'm a cheesehead". The problem is when we replace rescue with conversion we lose the full meaning of what it means to be saved from death and given a new life in Christ.

Jessica Buchanan was an American aid worker in Africa when she was abducted by Somali land pirates in 2011. She was held captive for over three months and then dramatically rescued by Navy Seals. In an interview with 60 Minutes's Scott Pelley she describes her ordeal. Watch the clip below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkkgSy2jPpY&feature=youtu.be

Jessica was betrayed by the person she entrusted with her safety. She was taken into the dominion of darkness and held in a helpless state. Her vivid description is powerful and leaves little to the imagination. Death surrounded her and held her in a tight grip.

This is the condition into which every human being is born. There was a betrayal which brought humanity into into the dominion of darkness and made it subject to death.

After three months of horrific treatment and inhumane conditions, a bodily infection worsened and Jessica's body began to rapidly deteriorate. She made a last call to tell the outside world she could not hold on much longer. She believed because she was , in her words," just an aid worker" she was not worthy of being rescued. However, to the President of the United States who was well aware of her circumstances, Jessica was not just an aid worker she was an American.

By analogy most people feel deep down they are "nobodies". Strip away all the glitter and false selves and most people feel they are of very little significance or worth. However to God the Father who created human beings in His own image they are of inestimable value and precious in His sight.They are His children. 

The President gave the orders to send in an elite team of Navy Seals to rescue Jessica. Her recounting of the operation is gripping and powerful. They knew who she was; she did not have a clue who they were. They had everything she needed; food, water, medicine. All of this was beyond her comprehension. They laid their bodies down over hers literally, to protect and save her.

If we could actually see into the spiritual realm when a soul is being saved from the dominion of darkness we might just see something like Jessica's rescue for :

" Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?" Hebrews 1:14

Certainly we would see the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep covering them with His body and blood.

After Jessica was on board the helicopter and it took off she broke down and began to cry. The Seals handed her an American flag. As she says in the interview, she had never been so proud to be an American as she was at that moment. It would be impossible for Jessica to live a life after her abduction, captivity, and rescue as if it had never happened. There would be no going back to the old Jessica, she had been forever changed by her ordeal and will forever be singing the praises of those who risked their lives to save hers.

Jessica was rescued not converted; so are Christians. "Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story---those he redeemed from the hand of the foe." Psalm 107:2

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Sometimes Christians speak in a language the world does not understand; a kind of Christianese if you please. Words like sin, salvation, redemption, baptism, born again, sanctification, and sealed with the Holy Spirit get tossed around lightly; and the assumption is made that everyone knows and understands these terms and their deep theological meaning. But the average person doesn’t have a clue about their “theological “ meaning and so when a Christian speaks in Christianese, well it just sounds like a bunch of religious gobbledygook and they want no part of it.

Jesus got this. He knew how to communicate the most profound truth in the simplest way and one which went straight to the heart…he told stories. So in the spirit of using the ordinary, common, everyday happenings to explain the beauty of salvation, please watch the story of Charlie.

http://www.lifebuzz.com/charlie/

Charlie the stray dog is found on the streets of Los Angeles he is homeless and ensnared with painful burrs. There couldn’t be a more powerful picture of what it means to be “lost” ……homeless and ensnared with something that brings pain. This is the human condition apart from God the Father; we are simply homeless and entangled in sin. You can see what this condition did to Charlie; fear and shame are in his eyes, his whole posture tells you he is unloved, uncared for, and without hope.

And then one day he is picked up off the streets, given a new name and an incredible transformation. Someone loves him enough to see there is something more to Charlie than the ugly coat and the painful burrs. It is a fast forward film project that shows the removal of the painful burrs and the old fur, the washing and cleansing of all filth, and the immergence of the brand new Charlie. The finishing touch is the scarf put on in slow-motion as if to signify his complete transformation. And Charlie feels it, you can see in the way he holds his head and the brightness of his eyes.

This is a salvation story and the reason it resonates with human beings and brings people to tears is because at some deep level they  are seeing what salvation looks like…..the lost are found, cleansed, healed, restored, loved, sealed with a symbol of ownership and given a home. Sometimes, its that simple.

I went to see Nebraska yesterday....well I got there in a round about way. I actually went to see Her but that lasted all of five minutes before I had to exit the theater. Nebraska was just starting so I slipped into the only seat available ...front row..not my favorite but it was better than Her!

 Nebraska like other Alexander Payne movies is painful to watch. Painfully slow yes but more than that just painful; yet they all are popular, so what's with the pain? Well Payne ( no pun intended) knows just how to take you into painful reality; he did it in About Schmidt, and Sideways ( which won the Oscar) and now he does it again in Nebraska ( nominated for an Oscar). These are people you know and recognize and too often you see something of yourself in one of them and that is perhaps why it is so painful.

In his latest story a son accompanies his elderly father on what everyone would call a ridiculous road trip to collect a million dollar prize which everyone knows is a scam...everyone except the old man. And that is part of his story; this old man once had a good heart and believed people and was taken advantage of (you get this in remembrances not flashbacks)and now he believes what he reads in the certificate which proclaims he is a million dollar prize winner. He is going to Nebraska come hell or high water and he is going to get his prize.

When he sees he cannot stop his father, a faithful son comes along on the road trip more or less to protect the elderly man and in so doing he learns more about his father in a few days than he has learned in his life time. That is the point; we live with people and we think we know them and we make terrible judgments about them( like the wife and other son do) BUT we really do not know their story and we don't really know them.

Of course this is a road trip where the son learns who his father was and how he became who he is. Of course there is a climatic scene where the father is taken back into his painful past and is mocked by his old arch nemesis and the son stands up for justice. Of course they reach the journey's end and there is no million dollar prize. Of course.

But the best part of the entire movie and so worth the long slow road to get there is the ending. The million dollars wasn't really what the father was after. What he really wanted was to right an old wrong ( stolen compressor), buy a new truck ( the symbol he was still a man), and leave something for his sons. I would guess this is all most men really want ( its a guess because I am not a man)! He confides his three desires to the faithful son...the right person to confide in.

Unlike just about everyone else in the father's life the son does not mock, berate, ridicule or use the old man; he loves him. And the best way to demonstrate his love is by sacrificing himself and giving his father his dignity back. He trades his own car in for the newest truck he can afford putting the title in his fathers's name. He buys a new compressor and loads it up and then lets the aged man drive down the main street of his old home town one more time.

The movie is painful yes but it is also powerful. I have tears now thinking of that scene; why? Because there really isn't a person male or female who cannot be touched by it. Everyone has lost their dignity ( their worth); that comes with a fallen world. And all the self help, self esteem, self improvement, c--p won't give you your dignity back! Dignity must be bestowed; it comes from outside the self.

And I suppose that is what I liked least about the movie in all honesty.I saw too much of myself in the other characters and not in the faithful son. I saw how more often than not I will take away another person's dignity in order to protect my own self interests and it was right there before me, way up close in yes, painful black and white.

This morning I sat down and was reading the Gospel of John but with new eyes. I was seeing it through the lens of Nebraska. There was the Son and what was He doing? ......Bestowing dignity; to a woman caught in adultery, to a blind beggar, to a woman he met by a well, to a young couple on their wedding day, and on it goes. The one faithful Son walked a road bestowing dignity; a road which led right up to a cross where He willingly  sacrificed all of His. And maybe , just maybe all He asks of us is to go out tomorrow and just walk a road and whoever we come across try and bestow a little human dignity on them even if it costs us something.

Last summer I spent some time talking to a church/business consultant. He showed me a graph he uses to depict the life cycle of a church or organization ( kind of scary ....I know). It is the typical mountain graph where you start at the bottom with an idea....grow the idea while climbing the mountain with the peak as your goal. Then starts the decline....all going downhill ending in the demise of the group whereby you need another new idea or vision to start a new climb.

Well it doesn't take a genius to see where this "life cycle" graph comes from. It is the cycle of life most people believe in ...and live in ( scary I know) ! You are born, and you start to grow and all the while you are heading up in the world. At some point you "make it" to the top ( or as far as your ever going to) and suddenly you are "over the hill" and you start the long sure descent into loss and decline ending of course in the grave. Period end of story.

For me there are lots of problems with this "life cycle" graph; the greatest one being that it promises something it cannot by its very nature produce...LIFE. Face it climbing the mountain to get to the top of anything can be very hard....it is even harder to arrive at the top thinking you have it "made for life"...only to find out it is all falling apart and your over the hill! Going down with only death to look forward to is no picnic, no wonder so many people and groups who believe this cycle is life are totally depressed! I would be too if that is all I had before me.

So what is the alternative? What should the graph of LIFE look like? Well I think it follows the very pattern of Life Himself....Jesus Christ (John 1:4). Jesus was born into this world and from the moment of his birth his life was on a descent....down into Egypt....down to a no name place called Galilee....down into a carpenter shop....DOWN not UP! His face was set for his ultimate descent into Jerusalem where he would be lowered into a pit ( Psalm 88) the night before his crucifixion only to go down further and be nailed to a Roman cross ( that is as low as one could go). This was the ordeal of going down into death which his entire life had been focused on. And because he was faithful there is not and end of story but a beginning...not a new idea but a new Life and a new Creation( 2 Cor. 5:17).

Easter should be the greatest day of the year because it proclaims Resurrection; death does not win ...the grave was empty! So what does this look like for us two thousand years after the Resurrection; after Jesus' victory over death?

Well, let's follow Christ on his journey...the true hero journey. We are born and cross a threshold into this world and the truth is from that moment we are descending into the valley of the shadow. There are lots of tests and trials along the way( can I hear an amen?); we meet allies who come along side of us but we also encounter enemies. We are following Christ's life but we are not alone for He gives us a mentor, the Holy Spirit; who provides us with spiritual gifts and the wisdom we need on this perilous descent. Finally we come into an ordeal, the likes of which we have never known...the inmost cave of the journey, ( the bottom of the valley). There is a deep truth to be revealed in this place where we have arrived and feel so lost and alone; it is unique to each and everyone of us. There is a truth the Father and Son want us to know; perhaps it is the revelation of just who we are ( think Simba seeing his father in the water); or a task which we have been appointed( think Frodo in Rivendell). Whatever it is it will require a death...a death to self ( Galatians 2:20).

Having come through the ordeal we are on the road back; we are living a resurrection life and we carry an elixir with us that can bring life and healing to others. ( Remember now, Jesus' victory over death was left to the church to be implemented by the church...John 20:21-22)This is the time of ascent...think of coming up the other side of the valley. Our physical "death" is not down into a grave of eternal nothing, it is crossing the final threshold and a glorious ascension into the presence of the Lord.

If you want to see a great visual of this go to see the movie Gravity. ( Spoiler alert...don't read the rest of this paragraph unless you want to!) The most glorious scene in the movie is Sandra Bullock's return to earth...glorious balls of fire...she passes through a threshold and is baptized ...removes the old garment and comes to new life in new creation...on Earth! This is the glorious promise of the gospel....we shall all be changed in the twinkling of an eye...( 1Cor. 15:51-52) receiving our new resurrection bodies....which will be GLORIOUS! ( As you can see we can't get enough of glory, neither could Jesus, His glory was revealed on the cross.)

So which life pattern would you rather be living? The world's "life cycle" or the Life Journey of Jesus Christ? For me there is no comparison. I will be turning 65 next week. I can feel from the "world" their interpretation of what this age means....your old, your diminishing, your way over the hill, all you have to look forward to is loss and death, your done....the end. But I am living in a very different story because of Christ. I have great joy. Joy is the life of heaven which means I am present tense receiving life from the age to come. Since I am already in the Kingdom I am not diminishing but actually increasing in....yes...glory. I feel very much like one of those flaming balls passing through the final threshold and on a wild ride. ....which again is glorious. Will things begin to shake, rattle and fall apart? You bettcha! That is part of the ride...but it all ends in Glory! And that ending is only the beginning..............

I watched the news last night even though I really didn't want to. I knew it would be filled with endless accounts of Monday's shooting spree at the Naval Yard in Washington DC. Sure enough they started releasing the victim's identities and showing interviews with their loved ones. A daughter's tearful testimony grabbed my attention....she did not want her father remembered as a victim of some crazy shooter...he was her father, her dad and she wanted that story to be his legacy not the one which tragically took his life.

This is a powerful statement. What she was in essence saying is that her father had a story....one she and her sisters and her mother had been privileged to inhabit. She knew him as a person not a mug shot. Her memory banks are filled with treasures of golden moments of life shared with this man. Her body was imprinted with his hugs from the moment she was born and she grew up learning to read his face knowing what every little expression meant. She knows the kind of cologne he wore and will spend the rest of her life being taken off guard when she suddenly captures a whiff of it on a stranger.

She lived in his world, his story and what she was so tearfully trying to communicate was how this world filled with so many different dimensions; not just the five senses of taste, touch, sight, smell and hearing, but a world with dimensions of love, life, memory, and joy had now in an instant all been reduced to a mug shot on a screen. A robust life flattened out into something she could not even begin to grasp; and so her tearful plea to remember him as a dad not a victim.

Her words are true and good and precious. We should honor them but we should understand that this truth of "a person not a mug shot" goes far beyond the victims of tragic events. This is the great tragedy at the heart of a fallen world. This is what death does....it takes all the dimensions ( and we cannot possibly know how many) of what God originally intended for His children, all the fullness of life and flattens it, crushes it, extinguishes it....leaving at best only a mug shot; a grotesque caricature of the real person. We have a lot of walking mug shots wandering around. I would bet money that the perpetrator of this tragedy had been a dead man walking for quite sometime.

So what are we to do? Just roll over and say eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die? Are we just to throw our hands up and turn off the news like I wanted to because we don't want to be confronted with more senseless acts of violence? Are we just to accept that tomorrow there will be another tragedy and the next day another and so let's all just numb ourselves with the painkiller of our own individual choice? ( We are numbing ourselves....one hundred thousand mug shots have come out of Syria and we hardly blink an eye.)

No I say emphatically we are not. Why? Because God did not leave His world, His creation in a fallen state. On the contrary He entered in to it, in a Person, in a Story, in a Life, and that Life walked straight into the deepest darkest Death for us all. The Resurrection of the Son of God Jesus Christ is the sign that death has been defeated and a new kind of life ...eternal life is now being infused into the broken fragments of this world bringing New Creation ( 2 Corinthians 5:17).

I know for some of you the moment you read the name Jesus Christ your heart sank......"Oh you're getting religious...Darn!!!!" That is Death speaking...for death always tries to reduce Jesus Christ to a mug shot not a person and certainly not God in the Flesh.

So here is the point to all of this.... you have to get back into your Father's Story and inhabit it and not believe the lie that it's over. I write this not just to the "lost" but to the "saved" as well. Let me say it again....you have to get back into your Father's Story and inhabit all the dimensions of His glory, His grace, and His love. I can promise you this....if you get to know Him as intimately as this daughter knew her father wonderful things will begin to happen to you; not least of which you will begin to see the other as your heavenly Father see him or her and always has....as a person not a mug shot.

Jesus bestowed the dignity of personhood on broken, crushed, flattened out individuals. He listened to their stories....He was acquainted with their sufferings; he bore their grief and carried their sorrows. We who are called "Christian" are called to do no less. So perhaps the very first step is to turn off our television ( or other screen devices) and starting right in our very own home, neighborhood, or workplace begin the journey of following Jesus and becoming the means by which He continues through the power of the Holy Spirit to bestow the dignity of personhood; the means by which He continues to defeat death and bring LIFE!