Wings of Eagles

 Spring is—finally—here.  We toss aside our jackets, put away our sweaters and head out to enjoy the sunshine.  Like most people, I love to see the grass become green again, flowers bloom, and trees come back to life.  But what I most enjoy about spring is the return of migrating birds and the resurgence of activity at our feeders and bird houses.

 

As I watch the birds do their Spring thing, I often admire their ability to fly.  I think how lucky they are that the Lord gave them the ability to fly, and I wish the Lord had created us humans with wings….  But as I have thought about this, I have come to recognize that the gift of flight comes with a stiff price: flight is hard work, and in order to facilitate flight, the body of birds is light and quite frail.  

 

While gliding on air currents requires little energy, take-off and wing-flapping are high calorie endeavors.  While there is a great variation in energy expenditure among different species of birds and in different activities involved in flight, estimates for general flight can be as high as 10,000 calories/day.  Along with flight comes the need for a continual search for food and rest.  Flight also involves risk.  Hollow bones and light bodies make flight possible but also make broken wings and crushed bodies a common occurrence.

 

It seems to me that the ability of birds to fly presents a wonderful parable for us as some of God’s wingless creatures.  Whatever gifts and abilities the Lord has given us requires continual, focused, and prolonged effort on our part if we are to use those gifts and abilities as He intends and to experience His deep and genuine joy in doing so.  There is risk involved as well: our sin-sick bodies are arguably as frail as those of birds.  But most of all, it requires trust and dependence on the Lord for His protection as He guards and guides us with His staff.  But it is worth it beyond measure!  

 

Please consider with me Isaiah’s proclamation about spiritual flight:

            Yet those who wait for the LORD

            Will gain new strength;

            They will mount up with wings like eagles,

            They will run and not get tired,

            They will walk and not become weary.

 

In his Gospel, John records these words of Jesus: I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.  C.S. Lewis observed that contrary to what we might think, the Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak.  May we learn to depend upon Him more and more as we deeply desire and energetically pursue the spiritual flight that He would have for us.

 

 

Resurrection Power!

 April has come, and Easter is coming…. This is the ideal time to consider, again, the magnitude of what Christ has done, and done for us.  Christ’s death and resurrection means that by faith, we are freed from our old life of sin and death and walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4).  Our celebration of Easter is a reminder to us that our loving Lord died for us so that we may live with Him in eternity; and it is a proclamation to the world that Christianity is not merely out of the ordinary, it is extraordinary.  God taking on flesh to live among us, dying to pay for our sins, and then being resurrected to return to heaven to await the arrival of the saints.

 

There are limitless aspects to the events commemorated on Easter weekend.  There are two, though, that I find particularly compelling.  The first is the unfathomable power of the resurrection.  Death is unavoidable, irrevocable, and irreversible in this fallen world.  But the Bible tells us that God—and God alone—has the power to overcome death, to reverse it.  There are a few instances in the Old Testament where we see prophets raise someone who has died by the power of the LORD.  Christ, when He walked on earth as God Incarnate, raised some victims of death back to life.  And then.  Christ Himself—the Creator and Sustainer of the universe—died on behalf of mankind and then was raised in power and glory.  The plot of the story is so familiar that we often do not give it much attention.  But we would do well to take time to consider the absolutely incomprehensible power represented by the resurrection.

 

The second aspect of Easter weekend that I find helpful to ponder is that the death and resurrection of Christ signifies and signals that He has made a way for newness of life for those who would believe in Him.  And the newness of life that He offers is characterized by the same resurrecting power that raised Jesus (and others) from the dead.  Believers have an abiding relationship with the indwelling Holy Spirit.  We have resurrection power within us, to strengthen us (Ephesians 3:16-20), and to equip and empower us to minister in the name of Christ (Colossians 1:28-29)!

 

There is a common denominator of these two aspects of Easter weekend: both demonstrate conclusively that God is God and we are not!  Only God has resurrection power.  Christ died and rose to do for us what we could not do for ourselves—restore our relationship with holy and glorious Godhead.  We now have resurrection power, by the Holy Spirit, to minister in the name of Christ.  And we look forward to our own resurrection, again by the power and grace of God.  Christ has done—and is doing—what we cannot do for ourselves.

 

 

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.  II Corinthians 4:7.

 

The Lion and the Lamb

 March: In like a lion, out like a lamb.  We all know this saying.  March generally begins with cold temperatures and icy winds and then then often ends with warmer temperatures and gentle conditions.  The saying marks well the contrast represented by March as the transition month from winter to spring.

 

But from a Biblical perspective, the lion and lamb are not descriptions of opposites in the spectrum of weather conditions.  Instead, we read of Jesus as the Lion of Judah and the Lamb God who was slain for the redemption of the world.  The Lion and Lamb are not opposites but rather two aspects of the character of the second member of the Triune Godhead.  It is vitally important to keep those two aspects in balance as we walk before Christ in faith.

 

It is easy and understandable that each of us is inclined to emphasize one aspect of the Lord over the other.  Some find it easier and/or more natural to view Christ as the Lion: fearfully powerful and dangerous.  They carefully define and then obey the Bible’s commands to stay out of trouble and sometimes find comfort that those who are less obedient will encounter the strong winds of God’s judgment.  

 

On the other hand, there are those who focus on the Lord as the meek and gentle Lamb, led to the cross without protest, dying to redeem us.  They take comfort that Jesus is approachable and unthreatening and sometimes ignore or neglect His commands.

 

We know that Jesus is both Lion and Lamb: the all-powerful God of creation and final Judge as well as the meek God Incarnate who freely offered His life as a sacrifice for our sins.  These aspects of the Son of God are not opposites, and they are not in tension.  Rather, they give us binocular vision, so to speak, of our Lord and Savior.  He is the Mighty God who uses His incomprehensible power to love those whom He has created, to become the Lamb of God who freely offers Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of His creatures.  The sacrifice made by the Lamb of God then circles back, coming before the Lion of Judah’s judgement seat and acquitting believers of the sin charges against them.

 

Jesus is so much bigger than our minds can comprehend that He encompasses several apparent opposites: He is the Lion and the Lamb; the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End; He is full of grace and truth.  How can we live faithfully in that truth?  I believe that it is important to once again follow King David’s advice and ask the Lord to search us and know us, to reveal to us any way in which we serve ourselves rather than Him as Master.  Do we favor the imagery of the Lion of Judah or the Lamb of God as a self-serving shortcut in our walk of faith?  Can we seek to grow to embrace all aspects of our Lord and Savior?  May it be so….

 

Love in February

 February is a rather dreary month, which most likely contributes to the attention given to Valentine’s day.  As a celebration of romantic love, Valentine’s Day in February leaves something to be desired.  February is generally chilly and damp—not ideal for romantic walks and picnics!  Why do we celebrate Valentine’s Day in February?  And is it only about romantic love?  A very brief look at ancient history will help us understand a bit how we got here.   

 

St. Valentine was a priest or bishop who lived in Italy in the third century.  He is known for his efforts to evangelize folks in the Roman Empire and his ministry to believers who were being persecuted by the Roman government.  While visiting Rome, he was arrested for his evangelizing, tortured, and executed.  According to our sources, Valentine died on February 14.

 

If we return to Valentine’s Day, 2025, we have a couple of things to consider.  While the focus of modern Valentine’s Day (and even in history) has been on romantic love, St. Valentine himself is remembered for the agape God-love that he manifested to believers and nonbelievers alike.  Both romantic love and agape love have value, but it is easy to argue that agape love is the more significant and eternal.  The good news is that we can pursue and exercise our “love muscles” in both directions, taking time to love a special someone in a special way even as we pursue loving others as Christ loves them.

 

The calendar position of Valentine’s Day need not be disappointing or frustrating.  It can be an invitation to recognize that all forms of love are from God and go beyond circumstances.  Love is not confined to warm, sunny days.  We can love in all circumstances, all weather.  May we know the joy of the Lord as we do so.

 

20...25!

 January, 2025.  Happy New Year!  While the celebration comes and goes, the new year stays with us.  And so as we look into 2025, we can hardly avoid encountering the ever-popular new year’s resolution thing.  There is value in evaluating where we are and planning so that we can use the year in constructive ministry and growth.  But as I like to say at this time of year, the performance-oriented, self-improvement perspective of many a new year’s resolution is not particularly Biblical or worthwhile.

 In Psalm 139, David, a man after God’s own heart and King of Israel, invites the LORD to search him and know him, to reveal sin that needs attention.  That is an excellent place to start.  Unlike David, we have the indwelling Holy Spirit to search and know us, to convict us of sin and reveal areas in our lives that need growth.  But then what?  It is easy to take the popular route and to invest our focus and energy on fixing ourselves, to measure our progress by our performance, and to compare ourselves to others to measure our success.  Or, we can sit back, put our feet up, and expect the Lord to change us while we expend no effort.  Neither option reflects an effective, Biblical approach to change.

 

The path of change requires a collaborative effort between the Holy Spirit and us.  Please consider with me two portion of Paul’s epistles:

 

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.  Ephesians 2:8-9

 

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.  

Philippians 2:12-13

 

Paul’s words encourage us to appreciate the powerfully good news of the Gospel.  We have been saved by grace through faith.  We cannot earn our righteousness, our rightness with God, or our salvation.  We are blessed beyond measure.  But beyond our salvation, we are called to pursue a life that reflects our new life in Christ, and that requires confession, repentance, and obedience on our part as we depend upon Christ’s indwelling Holy Spirit.

 

The continuing good news is that as we seek God’s best for us, He takes even our feeblest effort and does His loaves and fishes thing: Just as Christ took the meager amount of bread and fish from His disciples to feed large crowds, He takes our small steps of faith and magnifies and multiplies them.  As we turn away from our self-focused desires and the counterfeit joys offered by the world, He works to conform our character to that of Christ.  We are able to love well and know deep and abiding joy.

 

We don’t have to change…. We get to change and be changed….

 

 

Christmas Is Coming!

 The beginning of December is unavoidably associated with the coming of the Christmas holiday.  It can be a time of stress, but it is also without doubt a time of anticipation.  And as I think about the upcoming celebration of the Incarnation, I am also thinking about God’s anticipation of this glorious event.

 

When the Triune God first created the world and the man and the woman, there was uninhibited relationship between human and Creator, and harmony among all parts of creation.  This was torn asunder with the fall.  Adam and Eve’s choosing independence from God replaced the intimacy they had enjoyed with their Creator with fear and shame.  The havoc their choice made echoed across all creation.  God wept, and all heaven grieved.

 

Genesis 3 tells us that in the midst of this tragedy, as God pronounces the consequences of their choice, He also makes reference to His plan of redemption: a seed of the woman will crush Satan’s head.  The promise of the Messiah becomes clearer as Hebrew history evolves, and the book of Isaiah is often known as the Fifth Gospel for a good reason: Isaiah proclaims with incredible clarity the coming Messiah.

 

And so the Hebrew nation begins a centuries-long wait for the Messiah.  I don’t think we often consider that God is waiting as well.  From the first, “Adam, where are you?” to His grief over His faithless people expressed by the prophets, we see in the Old Testament a God who hates the fall and its result.  He, too, is waiting for the fulness of time to bring forth the Savior of the world.

 

We also see a God who remains intimately engaged in His creation as He moves history forward toward the Messiah.  In fact, He is so committed that He makes “cameo” appearances.  Scholars call these Theophanies: visible appearances of God to humankind.  And many scholars speculate that those appearances are Christophanies: visible appearances of a preincarnate Christ to humankind.  The thread is strong enough that many commentators identify the phrase angel of the LORD in the Old Testament (not in the New!) as a euphemism—at least at times— for the preincarnate Christ.

 

And so the LORD and two angels appear to Abraham before the judgement of Sodom and Gomorrah.  He also appears to Hagar when she takes Ishmael and runs away from Abraham’s household.  He appears to Abraham again as Abraham prepares to sacrifice his son Isaac.  He wrestles with Jacob as Jacob returns to Canaan after running away from Esau.  And He appears to Moses in the burning bush.  

 

There are multiples instances in the Old Testament where it is at least possible and even quite likely if not certain that a pre-incarnate Christ inserted Himself in human events.  I can only interpret this as evidence that Jesus was as eager to come as we were for Him to come.  Our anticipation of Christmas can be a reminder that our Lord and Savior was as or more eager to take the step of the incarnation as His people were to have Him come.  And now, centuries later, we can at least speculate that as we look beyond our celebration of Christmas to the second coming of Christ, we can consider that He is as eager to bring the church—His bride—to His wedding feast as we are to come.

 

Come, Lord Jesus…!

 

Thought For The Day

"Let God have your life; He can do more with it than you can."

                                                              Dwight L. Moody