real.faith blog

The makeshift memorial at Michael Jackson's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

This week has been a whirlwind of celebrity deaths. Death always reminds us of our own mortality
and causes us to enter a mood of deep reflection on the mysteries of life, but when a celebrity dies there is a communal feeling of loss and the questions and reflections seem to be amplified.

The fact that someone can be here one moment and completely gone the next just doesn’t seem right. The idea that Michael Jackson won’t sing or dance again, that Ed McMahon won’t laugh again and that Farrah Fawcett won’t act again is incredibly hard for us to fathom. It seemed as though these stars would always be around.

I’ve read several blogs and comments from Christians this week, particularly about the death of Michael Jackson. The Church doesn’t seem to know how to respond to a legend who died with blemishes on his record. Some have been quite harsh, others have paid tribute to his talent even if they couldn’t affirm his actions and a few have reminded us that compared to Jesus, Michael Jackson is nobody.

But how does Jesus respond in the face of death? What is the true Christ-like response?

The shortest verse in the Bible is just two words. “Jesus Wept.” When someone asks for my “life verse,” this is usually the one I quote. Anyone who spent a few weeks in a Sunday School class as a child knows this verse, but I’m not sure many could recall why Jesus is weeping in the story.

Jesus is weeping because His friend Lazarus has died. He is doing what comes natural when human beings come face to face with death. He is mourning and His emotions are seen through His tears.

Jesus knows the score and Jesus knows the future. He knows that in a few moments He will demand the stone be removed, He will call Lazarus out of the tomb and what was once dead will live again. But first— He weeps.

He didn’t turn Lazarus’ death into a protest about a political issue, as we’ve seen some churches do. He didn’t feel under a compulsion to remind people that compared to God’s glory, Lazarus is no one to cry about and He didn’t try to comfort people with platitudes such as “he’s in a better place” or “everything happens for a reason.” He wept.

Why? Because Jesus—more than anyone else—knows how unnatural death is. Jesus weeps because death is not the ending human life was intended to have. We are so far removed from the original design that we may view it as the natural end of our lives, but that’s not the reality.

The reality is we were created eternal and our collective rebellion against the Creator of the Universe has brought death upon all creation. If a person tries to live without water, they will be dead within a few days. If a person tries to live their lives without God, (which we all do,) they will be dead within about 100 years. Death is not natural, it is a consequence and this is why Jesus weeps in the face of death.

How should we respond to the death of a guy like Michael Jackson? We should mourn. Whether you were his biggest fan or his greatest critic, mourn because he came to the same unnatural, unholy and undignified end we all do.

photo credit: intellichick

The Church is not a social club;
It is a place for the broken who need healing.

The Church is not a corporation;
It is the hands and feet of Christ.

The Church is not a secret society;
It exists to spread the message of redemption

The Church is not a building;
It is a family, adopted by The King.

The Church is not an exclusive club;
It is open to all who are broken.

The Church is not a business seminar;
It is where we learn the richness of Christ’s love.

The Church is for you;
Just as Christ is for you.

I have read through the Sermon on The Mount more times than any other part of the Bible. The teaching and the thinking are so rich and revolutionary, it beckons me when I need a good lesson on thinking more about God’s Kingdom than my own. This particular time, I was using “The Message” translation, which brought to life a familiar verse. Here is Matthew 5:34 according to “The Message.”

“You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ and never doing it, or saying, ‘God be with you,’ and not meaning it. You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.”

I know this verse is usually applied to swearing and making oaths, but it did get me thinking about some of the frivolous religious phrases we use in the Church. It seems so often we cloak our feelings in spiritual platitudes and wonder why the world views us as inauthentic. In the spirit of truth and authenticity, here are a few such phrases we should cut from our conversations.

• “Quiet Time:” If you were praying, say you were praying. If you were reading the Bible, say so. If you were singing at the top of your lungs and it wasn’t so quiet, let others know about it in those words. Why have we turned our time with God into a ritual with an obscure and silly name. In Heaven, we’re going to be raising hands and voices to God and it will be everything but quiet, why make it that way on Earth?
• “The Holy Spirit has laid something on my heart:” Sounds painful. You might want to go the hospital immediately and make sure that’s not a tumor. First of all, before you make a statement like that, you need to make sure you’re not blaming your personal anxiety on God. Second, just be clear. Say you think God wants you to do it, or that God is showing you the importance of something. Why all this weirdness with laying a heavy burden on your heart of hearts?
• “My walk with The Lord:” Where did we get this one? If you have a relationship with Christ, call it a relationship. If you’re struggling, instead of saying your walk is bad, say you don’t feel close to God anymore. If you’re getting better, say you’re praying more and getting to know Christ more. Don’t say, “My walk is improving.” Your walk should only be improving if you recently broke your leg and are recovering.
• “Ask Jesus into your heart:” Again with the hearts. Aside from the fact that this oft-repeated phrase is found nowhere in the Bible, it’s kind of confusing to an outside observer. Why cloak it? If you want Jesus to take control of your life, then say that. If you realize that you are completely deficient and that you need the life-changing love of God in your life then say it. Instead of saying “I asked Jesus into my heart when I was a teenager” tell your story. You’re missing an opportunity to be real with someone just so you can sound like you know the right words.
• “Prayer Life:” You have your real life, and then you have a prayer life? Is that kind of like Second Life? How about being honest. “I’m having a hard time praying lately” or, “I’ve started getting better about praying and it is really helping me.” Pray throughout your life, in good times and bad. Don’t make some loony separation like prayer isn’t real.
• “I’ve been so blessed:” I’m sure you have. But let’s not use this to talk about your new car, or your $400,000 house. Jesus says the meek, mournful and spiritually poor are blessed. If you’re thinking that new yacht of yours is a blessing, you wouldn’t want to be truly blessed by God, because His blessings tend to have eternal benefit, not monetary or material benefit.
• “Love Offering:” As opposed to a hate offering? Or did you want a giant group hug instead of money?
• “Spiritual Journey:” Again, we’re compartmentalizing. Christ did not come to change one aspect of our lives, but our whole lives. There is no such thing as a spiritual journey, the phrase you’re looking for is, “my life.”
• Small Group: Is it a Bible study? Call it that. is it a Sunday school class? Call it that. Are you hanging out with a group of friends discussing your shared faith? Call it that. “Small Group” is vague and connotes shame.
• Being Fed: Someone once asked my wife and I how we were being fed. Knowing my wife was not familiar with the term, I quickly answered the question and talked about the church we were attending and the role it was playing in improving our relationship with God. I wanted to say, “Well, we’re still in college, so the food is pretty cheap. If we eat at all, it is of prison quality.”
• Intentional: To be perfectly honest, I don’t even remember what we mean by “being intentional” anymore. I suspect it has something to do with making every move and comment relate somehow to “witnessing.”

Honerable Mentions:

• Saved
• “Take every thought captive”
• “Held in His hand”
• Hedge of protection

Got anymore? Add them by commenting.

…or are we just full of it? I don’t feel like writing an actual blog tonight, so just enjoy this hilarious bit of comic relief.

I don’t want to call myself pro-life. Not only has this label been abused by psychopaths who shoot people, it is a backhanded, insulting and divisive. No one is pro-death or anti-life. To call oneself pro-life is haughty and judgmental.

I don’t want to be called anti-abortion. That name glorifies abortion and makes it sound like anyone who doesn’t agree with it is on the wrong side of an issue that everyone should support.

I believe life begins at conception. This is a valid argument and worldview in and of itself that defies the self-righteous labels both sides have given themselves and others. Maybe we should call ourselves conceptionists.

Let’s take a brief and scary look at the worldview espoused by many of our southern “brethren” in the Lord…

• “Damn scientists teachin’ all that evolution crap. They don’t know nothin’.”
• “Damn journalists. They’re just all puppets of the liberal media. They’re just ignorant.”
• “Damn doctors. Who needs their voodoo medicine. God made natural herbs and treatments. We don’t need medication. We have prayer and if you have enough faith, you’ll be healed miraculously.”
• “Damn college professors. They don’t know nothin’ despite all their purty little degrees they got on that there wall.”
• “Damn politicians. They wouldn’t know how to run a government if King David himself came and taught ‘em how to. All they want to do is raise our taxes, steal our guns and keep us from buyin’ Jordan Rubin’s latest miracle remedy. What they need to focus on is Sunday alcohol sales. It’s an abomination, I tell ya.
• Now, that Pastor Billy-Bob fella out there at First Righteous Church, he’s got it together. He really knows his stuff. If Pastor Billy-Bob ran for president, he’d have my vote. Granted, he has no political experience and he didn’t go to no fancy seminary, but gulldarnit, God called him and he answered.”