Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners…
– 1 TIMOTHY 1:15

There are a lot of reasonable justifications for the way I’m playfully mocked by my friends and family. Among the most abundant sources of material for their ridicule is my frequent attempts at finding MacGyver-like solutions to my everyday problems. I’ve “repaired” a toilet with a hair rubber band and a paper clip. I once built my own high-definition television antenna out of some old coat hangers and some spare parts. While it did look a lot like some kind of medieval torture device, it worked… Sort of. I made a car cell phone holder out of a large black binder clip. I don’t mind showing that one off.

In all of my tinkering, my aim, though seldom achieved, is to find the simplest solution to the problem ahead of me. Amanda, the wiser of the two of us, is quick to point out that the simplest solution usually costs around $4.99 in one of the bargain bins at TJ Maxx. But, where’s the fun in that? I’d rather spend four hours on any given afternoon and $32.86 in parts purchased at Home Depot than to concede to the power of “the Maxx.”

When I look closely at the Bible, I’m amazed how complicated I can make it. Admittedly, it is full of things that are indeed confusing. However, the biblical authors occasionally — as if they are struck with an acute awareness of their audience — attempt to make clear in the simplest of terms, some of the things onto which we ought to hold dearly. The apostle Paul gives us such a handle in his letter to his young apprentice, Timothy. Signaling to his audience that such an idea is ahead of them, he boils it down: “Here is a trustworthy saying…” Then, he continues, “…Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

In our sophisticated and thoroughly post-modern world the idea of Jesus “saving sinners” is a kind of passé notion, abandoned in the dusty fields of the tent revivals of the late 19th century. It almost seems as though we’re more apt to overly complicate this sentiment than to embrace it. The reason Jesus came — the essence of his ministry, his death, and his resurrection was a rescue. It was then, and it is now, the culmination of God’s work to bring people to the fullness of the life they were intended — to pull them from the experience of being stuck and liberate them to a whole, full, and abundant life. The idea of being “saved” is so much more than merely avoiding something undesirable after death. It is about the participation in God’s kingdom kind of life now and forevermore.

It means that old secrets and present shame are addressed with tenderness and compassion, ultimately left behind in the newness of a resurrection-life. It means that oppressed people can be unshackled from their oppressors, their addictions, and their fears. It means that our hard-wired need to find an object worthy of our worship is rightly directed to the one thing worthy of our hearts.

So, as we approach Palm Sunday and next week, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, consider who it is that may need to hear about the simplicity of God’s rescue mission. Are there neighbors who have given up on the church, who are maybe afraid of it (us)? Are there family members who have come to believe that Jesus most likely came to rescue people who didn’t need his help at all? Are there some people who are longing for a pathway out of a life that they can’t seem to find? Invite them to join you. This weekend, Doug Fields will be teaching — aiming our hearts toward Jesus this Easter.

See you soon,

Jeff

Yesterday, I watched a YouTube video of some people, mostly young men, freerunning through a variety of urban landscapes. It really is a stunning display of kinesthetic brilliance. Every movement is a confluence of explosive power and surgical precision. A banal plaza takes on a whole dimension of danger as the runners take to it. Planters become launch pads. The span between buildings becomes a place to showcase otherwise invisible wings. A twenty-five foot drop is merely the fastest way to the bottom floor of a building — staircases and elevators are for the amateurs. Every frame of the video is stunning and every moment a reason to cease breathing. The answer to the question:  “How is freerunning (or as it’s sometimes called, parkour) supposed to look?” was right before me. It was a display of virtuosity and control that was unmistakably brilliant.

Yet, the internet is also full of videos featuring imitators who lack not courage, but ability. Yes, there is a bit of schadenfreude within all of us – a not-so-admirable longing to see people suffer just a bit. We don’t want long term pain, nor harm. But, any person attempting to show off by jumping over a trashcan from the unstable platform of a plastic lawnchair may be begging to suffer a momentarily bruised ego. These imitators (at least in the videos that have captured their shortcomings) attempt something that is not executed in the manner it was intended. They demonstrate that there is a long way, often, between where we intend to be and where we actually are. That difference, in the case of failed parkour, is comically painful.

Even the rest of us, those who will never attempt a backflip from atop a fire hydrant or test how well we fly by throwing ourselves out of a second story window, understand the principle at work. In our relationships, like all things, we grasp how things are supposed to work. When they don’t work in the way they ought —  when the reality of the way things actually are is different than the way we imagined them to work, we experience pain:

When a girlfriend stabs us in the back… When a father’s love isn’t fatherly… When resentment and bitterness become the texture of what was once a marriage of intimacy… When sons and daughters run away… When fists and words poisonously laced with anger are wielded not with carelessness, but with cold skill… We hurt… because that (whatever that is) isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.

We need healing from those things. This week, we’ll wrap up our ART of RELATIONSHIPS series with a particular focus on healing and mending the brokenness of our past. We’ll acknowledge that it is God who mends broken things (like us). We’ll call on His power to accomplish the work we cannot do on our own. So, don’t miss this week. Bring friends who are in need of supernatural help and healing. Come eagerly expecting, hopeful God will work in the restoration of people in our midst – that things will become, if only by a degree, a bit closer to the way they were intended to be.

See you soon,
Jeff