Franklyn, the Pharisee**

The Word for today:
Luke 7.36-8:3

mark this: Luke 7:47
"I tell you, her sins – and they are many – have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love."

(Stand in the Rain today offers the raw, uncut, unfiltered version of the day Franklyn lost his spiritual bearings, and turned into the Pharisee described in today's passage. **Recommended for Spiritually Mature Audiences Only.)

***

I scratch my head over the Bible all the time. I've read every word uttered by Jesus about a billion times, but his words continue to catch me by surprise. Half the time, I don't know where he's coming from. But that's OK, because half the time neither does anybody else whom I've ever known, heard, or read.

Another baffling aspect of the Bible isn't within the Bible itself, but in the way that it's been "heard." It never ceases to puzzle me why certain Bible stories are so well known, while others get lost in the shuffle. We have an incident before us today, for example, which is absolutely central to the Christian life, yet it somehow remains obscure to many.

The story is about a woman, implied to have been a prostitute, who wipes Jesus' feet with her tears, then anoints them with a jar of costly aromatic oil. The thing the story is most widely known for is the mistaken belief that the woman is Mary Magdalene. (That's not her. Nowhere in scripture is it implied that Mary Magdalene was formerly a lady of the streets.)

But what's forgotten is the direct correlation that Jesus proclaims between sin and love: those forgiven the most love the most.

I see that correlation in effect all the time. The fervent and ardent lovers of Jesus Christ are those who sense the depths of their own sinfulness. Blessed by their poverty of spirit (1), they are shot through--all the way from their intellects to their hearts to the marrow of their bones--with the sense that without Jesus they don't have a prayer; that they are utterly lost without him.

Jesus is, without a doubt, a far bigger deal to those who know the depths of their depravity and how much, therefore, it must have cost for him to redeem them.

On the other hand are the cool, the diffident, the tepid--typified by the Pharisee in the story. His lukewarm love for Jesus is in direct correlation to his middling sense of personal sin.

*****

So much that we see in the church is explained by this story. It goes a long way toward explaining the oft-noted phenomenon of a cool love that churched-from-their-youth people can have for Jesus when compared to the enthusiastic and overt love of Johnny-come-lately's to the faith.

I will even go so far as to say that I can predict eventual Bible literacy by the sense of sinfulness--and thus the sense of forgiveness--that a given individual has. Those who think they have little to forgive don't seem to be as fascinated by Jesus, as hungry to chase his heart through the scriptures.

This is not just theoretical truth to me, because I have experienced the direct correlation between forgiveness and love. It was the most harrowing moment of my Christian experience: The Day That Franklyn Felt Holy. (Because of my fear that this subject can be misunderstood, I've previously conveyed this experience to only Shelley, but here goes…)

It happened that I was sailing through a Bible class. It was one of those days when I knew I was bringin' it; I was coming across with power and even a bit of style.

And why not. I'd had a good couple of weeks. I was "all prayed up," as Christian lingo phrases it. I had my besetting sins under control. I was on a spiritual winning streak. By God, I was feeling sanctified, I'll tell you.

And that's when terror struck. All of a sudden I was so clean I didn't need Jesus anymore.

My spiel continued, on autopilot, for the remainder of the class. But there were at least three times in those final 20 minutes when I came this close to quitting in mid-sentence. Not just quitting for the hour, or for the day, but forever.

Because at the core of me, I knew I didn't understand the cross any more. In fact, the cross looked like overkill. My sense of sin had escaped me, and what Jesus had done for me escaped along with it.

In a real and terrifying way, it was my "Why hast Thou forsaken me?" moment. The desperate need I'd had for him was gone--and along with my need went the Savior I had known.

I was pretty much a basket case--a sanctified, sanctimonious basket case for the rest of that day. I had come spiritually unglued. For the first time I understood this previously puzzling scripture concerning Esau:
He found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears. (2)

I thought that I would never be able to convey the cross again. If you can't convey the cross, you've got no business teaching scripture. I actually began typing a formal resignation.

Shelley told me to wait before I clicked "Send." She said I might feel differently about things in a few days. I am in the habit of taking her advice, so I did not "Send."

Two days later--thank the great and dear LORD--one of my besetting sins returned to proclaim, in no uncertain terms, that he was back. It was my old adversary, Pride, and he was back with a vengeance.

I can hardly begin to tell you what this meant to me. O happy day! God had sent a messenger from Satan to buffet me (3), as Paul says. Pride, my chief nemesis, had been allowed back in. But when Pride got in, he kicked my newfound sin -- self righteousness -- out.

I was a sinner again, a low-down, proud, egocentric, vainglorious sinner again. Franklyn was back!

And Jesus was back! And I was in rabid, stupefying, and ardent love with him again.

*****

I'm going to publish this little memoir as is. I'm not going to go back and polish it, or touch it up. I'll probably spell-check, but that's all. Then I'm going to hit "Publish."

I don't want this to come out prettified, or pasteurized, or sanitized. I am the notorious sinner in the story, but for a while I became the Pharisee instead. And the Pharisee chased the Jesus right out of my life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(1) Matthew 5:3; (2) Hebrews 12:17 (3) 2 Corinthians 12:7

"Should we look for someone else?"

The Word for today:
Luke 7:18-35

John the Baptist was the greatest person who ever lived--all the way from Adam up until Jesus Christ. He was as great, or greater, than Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Job, Daniel, or David. How do we know? Because Jesus said so:
I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. (Luke 7:28)

And yet John the Baptist had doubts that crossed his mind. How do we know? Because John said so:
And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to Jesus, saying, "Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?" (Luke 7:19)

I want to speak to the doubting and the disappointed today. If you've watched a child die, or if you've been overtaken by disease, or if you've watched a calloused spouse drive away with your heart in his suitcase,

despite prayer after to prayer to God, who could have saved, healed, and restored with just a word, if he'd cared to…

If that's you -- if that was your child, your health, your family, your heart -- that God left to die, to disintegrate, to shatter…

Then you've known John the Baptist, who was in prison because he had so faithfully served as God's spokesperson against evil; and because he had prepared the way for the great Messiah. He was in jail because he'd been obedient to God.

So where's the justice in that? And where was God? Where was the Messiah? No doubt John had prayed to be released, but Jesus was nowhere to be found. Could it be that he'd been wrong about Jesus?

***

Jesus replied with an astonishing display of power and purpose:
When the men had come to Him, they said, "John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, 'Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?' "
And that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight.
Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.
And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me." (Luke 7:19-23)

All those miracles, but Jesus did not free John from jail.

***

Could it be that you've been wrong about Jesus? Should you look for someone else?

Talk can be cheap in this regard, coming from someone, like me, whose life has not been marked by the profound depth of your tragedies. And so I offer answers not from my experience but from the experience of God,

who with a word might have stopped the crucifixion of His only son, but could not say that word.

Within that realization is the answer you're looking for. It might not, right now, specifically address all your questions, but it will put you in company with a great prophet who died wondering why; and with an even greater Prophet who'd readied himself to die, but not to die as He did,

alone, crying out to His Father, who returned only silence in reply.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jesus marveled

(by Pastor Joe)

The Word for Today: Luke 7:1-17

mark this: Luke 7:9
"When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith."

"I've never met a _______ that I didn't like."
Each one of us could fill in the blank with something different.
Maybe it's a candy bar or a type of clothing or a certain car or a something electronic.

The Bible, we never encounter a centurion that we don't like.
Think about it. In a book full of all kinds of unsavory or at least flawed characters, there is nothing mentioned negatively concerning centurions. We have good patriarchs and bad ones, good and bad kings, good and bad priests, good and bad prophets, even good and bad apostles (well, just the one that went rotten.) But nary an unfavorable word concerning centurions.

Centurions were the backbone of the Roman military. They, by hard work and leadership, were placed in the officer rank over a group of around 100 soldiers. But they certainly were not of the higher general rank. They would lead and then fight beside their troops in battle.

In the Bible, it was a centurion that spared the imprisoned Apostle Paul's life (1). In the Bible, the very first Gentile conversion in the early church is a centurion named Cornelius (2). In the Bible, it is not the priests or rulers, but instead a humble centurion who recognizing the crucified Jesus as "the Son of God (3)."

Today's passage (also found in Matthew 8) we see another centurion highlighted. It begins like so many of the healing accounts found in the Gospels. You know, a person or persons with an urgent physical need come to the "miracle maker" and Jesus provides healing and restoration.
In this account, the unnamed commander is greatly concerned for a servant of his, and he sends a delegation to make the need known to Jesus.

Jesus does agree and, indeed, heals the servant. But that is where the similarity with the other healing stories ends. We know from verses 4 & 5, this centurion was a real, stand-up guy. But what stands out even more is just how big and accurately he saw Jesus. He recognized that Jesus could help his sick servant, and he took action that brought that request to Jesus. But even beyond that, he also recognized that he was not deserving of even hosting the Son of God. He recognized that Christ's power was not limited to certain proximity. All his life he had been a part of the Roman authority structure, with Caesar at the top. Now he recognizes that one greater than any Caesar is here, whose very words bring life and hope and restoration.

The results are remarkable. Not only is his servant well, but we see a unique reaction and commendation from Jesus Himself. Jesus marveled, was amazed, astonished. The only other instance in all the gospels of this kind of reaction from the Lord comes from the blatant "lack of faith" of the people from his hometown (4). This story involving the centurion provides us with not only a great example of Jesus' miraculous ability, but also a great example of what it means to trust Jesus for salvation.

Like the centurion, we are not worthy or deserving to even welcome Christ anywhere near us.
Like the centurion, we depend solely upon His word.
Like the centurion, we recognize that Jesus alone has the real authority over life and death, Heaven and Hell.

So if you find yourself weak in the areas of faith and trust, don't try to artificially inflate yourself with bigger faith. Instead, follow the example of the centurion and come to understand a bigger Jesus- the only thing worth marveling over.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Acts 27:43
(2) Acts 10
(3) Matthew 27:54, Mark 15:39, Luke 23:47
(4) Mark 6:6

never, no, never, no, never

The Word for today:
Luke 6:37-49

mark this: Luke 6:47-49
Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.

When I was seven, I learned this song at summer camp:

The wise man built his house upon the rock,
The wise man built his house upon the rock,
The wise man built his house upon the rock,
And the rains came tumblin' down.

Oh yes, the rains came down and the floods came up,
The rains came down and the floods came up,
The rains came down and the floods came up,
And the house on the rock stood firm.

But…

The crazy man built his house upon the sand,
The crazy man built his house upon the sand,
The crazy man built his house upon the sand,
And the rains came tumblin' down.

Oh yes, the rains came down and the floods came up,
The rains came down and the floods came up,
The rains came down and the floods came up,
And the house on the sand went WHOOSH!!

It was wacky and funny and at the end when the house blows away, we yelled out the "WHOOSH" with all our might!

It would be a while before I found out that the lyrics were by Jesus. I thought the words were just words…

until many, many years later, when the words of the song turned very, very true. They turned so true that it wasn't even funny any more. "WHOOSH" is putting it mildly.

Then after the Whoosh--quite possibly because of the Whoosh--I sought out the author of "The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock." He was right about the Whoosh, so I wanted to see what else he had to say.

After reading his book, I built another house. But this time I built on a different foundation. As I was building, I came across a grown-up version of that old camp song. It goes like this:

1. How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

2. "Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand."

3. "When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress."

4. "When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply.
The flames shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine."

5. "The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake!"

Jesus wrote the lyrics to this song, too (1).  Don't make the mistake I made, when I thought His words were just take 'em or leave 'em words. His words maintain a different standard than man's words often will; His yes means yes, His no means no (2), his Whoosh means Whoosh.

And when he says he will "Never, no, never, no, never forsake," he means never, no, never, no, never.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Each stanza of the hymn emphasizes a different promise (see 2 Pet. 1:4) in God's Word:
Stanza 1: see Luke 6:47-49 (above)
Stanza 2: Isaiah 41:10
Stanza 3: Isaiah 43:2
Stanza 4: 2 Corinthians 12:9
Stanza 5: Hebrews 13:5

(2) Matthew 5:37

you don't have to sit so far away

The Word for today:
Luke 6:12-36

(As I write this, I'm in sort of a lovey-dovey mood, it being Valentine's Day and all, so I'm going to roll with it while I've got it. Heaven knows it might be a long while before this mood strikes again.)

***

Little nuances that outsiders would scarcely notice make a big difference in the language of love.

Love notices the slightest alterations--in a mood, or in the texture of a smile; in body language, or in spoken language. Love measures the pressure in a hand; the linger in a look; the empty space between a couple, sitting on a park bench, in the dwindling twilight of a dwindling summer.

Some commentators can be so academic about biblical matters that it makes you wonder whether they've ever been in love with God. And if we're not careful, we can get sucked into that sterility, too. Pretty soon we can catch ourselves going on and on about covenant and dispensation and law and election and explication and implication. We can reduce the chemistry of love to the periodic table of the elements.

I, for example, am often a reactionary writer. (Don't worry, there's a support group for that, too.) That means I often write against, instead of for, something. Reacting against a matchstick Jesus, I have made it my imperative to write and teach the infinite attributes of an expansive Jesus who is Light itself.

But in the glare of my cosmic creator's light show, I can lose sight of the Suffering Servant whose single purpose was to close the gap--the great gulf fixed (1)--between God and man.

***

That's precisely why God gave us four gospels, each of them stressing a different Jesus who is, paradoxically, always the same (2). In Matthew, for example, Jesus is presented as the King, the Lawgiver. Fittingly, his genealogy traces his royal lineage through his legal father, Joseph.

But in the gospel of Luke, Jesus is one of us--the Son of Man. Thus his genealogy, tracing his bloodline, is taken from Mary's side of the "wedding aisle."

In Matthew, the King delivers the Magna Carta of the Kingdom from high atop a hill. We call his proclamation the Sermon on the Mount:
And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." (from Matthew 5:1-6)

Here in Luke, the Son of Man speaks similar words, but in a different tone. You could call it the Sermon on the Plain:
And He came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem.
Then He lifted up His eyes toward His disciples, and said:
"Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you, and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man's sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! For indeed your reward is great in heaven, For in like manner their fathers did to the prophets." (from Luke 6:17-23)

***

The heart will note the subtle shift in forms of address--from the regal, third-person "they" in Matthew to the pointedly personal "you" in Luke.

Which means, of course, that you don't have to sit so far away from the Son of Man.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Luke 16:26/NKJV
(2) The gospel of Mark presents Jesus as the Servant, while the gospel of John presents Jesus as the Son of God. Fittingly, neither of these gospels give a genealogy: the Servant's only credential is his work; the infinite Son of God has no beginning to trace.

"Unclean! Unclean!" -- part 2

The Word for today:
Luke 5:27-6:11

mark this: Luke 5:12-13
Behold, a man who was full of leprosy saw Jesus; and he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean." Then He put out His hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing; be cleansed." Immediately the leprosy left him.

(Today we conclude a two-part article on the subject of leprosy, which is the Bible's most prevalent--and most instructive--picture of sin. Yesterday we concentrated on leprosy as it was depicted in the Old Testament.)

***

Immediately after the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus was descending the mountainside, a faint "Unclean! Unclean!" began to be heard through the din of the crowd. As if the prow of a boat were moving through he throng, the leper made his way to Jesus as the people fell back, fearing contamination. He fell with his face to the ground.

The leper epitomizes the teaching that begins (Matt. 5:3-4) the Sermon on the Mount:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn.
In this leper, the Word becomes flesh--and the Beatitudes become prophecy.

Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.Aware of his condition, He did not ask for healing. He asked to be made clean. If he'd had any illusions of wholeness, all he had to do was hold the remainder of his hand before his eye and his illusions vanished. He saw himself as perfectly hopeless, apart from a divine work. There was nothing he could do to help himself.

"Unclean! Unclean!"
In another of the Bible's absolutely upside-down ironies, the leper's cry has shaped his whole psyche. He knows what he is, he knows he's helpless--and thus he is in the perfect posture to receive grace. God doesn't come to the self-sufficient, to those who perceive no need.

If you would come to Christ today, you would come by saying, 'Unclean! Unclean!' If you were to say, "I'm only partly unclean" or "I'm 25% clean," He will not receive you. That is the great tragedy of the comfortable today--we cannot accept that we are unacceptable. That is why the gospel is such an offense and a reproach. People don't want to be told that they're lepers.

Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.
He'd heard about what Jesus had done. He'd heard Jesus' words. There was no doubt in his mind that Jesus was omnipotent and sovereign. The only question was--Would He do it for him?

Sin controls people through two opposing lies.
The first is to say, "I'm pretty good, I don't have any need; I can make it."
The other is to say, "I'm so bad I'll never make it--I'm beyond the reach of grace. I am such scum that God can't do anything with me." But write this down: God is in the business of healing lepers.

The touch of exchange.
Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man.
Perhaps it had been twenty or thirty years since he'd known even one touch. His life had been lived at a distance. Skulking and lurking, he'd watched his children grow up from a quarter-mile away. But the separation--from man and God--was now over.

Why did Jesus do this--when he'd healed without contact before?
Christ's pure hand on the rotting leper is a parable of the incarnation and the cross: Jesus took on flesh, became sin for us, and gave us His purity: He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Cor. 5:21)

The healing was sudden and complete:
Immediately the leprosy left him.
The toeless, ulcerated stubs that were his feet were suddenly whole. The knobs on his hands grew fingers before his eyes. Hair, eyebrows, eyelashes returned; and skin, supple and soft.

This is what Christ does today. In a split second of belief, the healing of Christ in salvation from sin is instantaneous and complete: The blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from every sin (1 John 1:7).

He himself bore (your name)'s sins in his body on the tree, so that (your name) might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds (your name) has been healed (1 Peter 2:24).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Unclean! Unclean!" -- part 1

The Word for today:
Luke 5:12-26

mark this: Luke 5:12-13--
Behold, a man who was full of leprosy saw Jesus; and he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean." Then He put out His hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing; be cleansed." Immediately the leprosy left him.

(Over the next two days, Stand in the Rain will range between Old and New Testaments in order to look closely at the subject of leprosy, which is the Bible's most prevalent--and most instructive--picture of sin.)
***

Leprosy is illustrative of the hopelessness and stench of sin. Of all diseases, scripture uses leprosy, more than any other, to represent sin.

The Messiah has power to deliver from the effects of sin.
Jesus healed physical disease in order to show before the scribes that he could forgive sin:
Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"--he said to the man who was paralyzed--"I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home." And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God. (Luke 5:23-25)

Two birds: The ritual for cleansing lepers. (See Leviticus 14:4-7, 49-53.)
The first bird is slain: Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin (Heb. 9:22).
The blood is then poured into an earthenware vessel--a jar of clay. (See 2 Cor. 4:7)
The second bird, dipped in the blood of the first, flies free.
[The Bible student will see a prophetic picture of the gospel--the death and resurrection of Jesus--in this ritual (1 Cor. 15:3-4). He will also see himself here--as the leper upon whom the blood is sprinkled.]

Full of leprosy. (Luke 5:12)
Leprosy is a painless hell. Leprosy--today known as Hansen's disease--is not a rotting infection. Hansen's disease destroys the body's warning system--the pain. It is an anesthetic that numbs the nerves, so that the leper might wash his face with scalding water, or grip a tool so tightly that a hand is traumatized, or reach into charcoal embers for a baked potato. Then infections take place and pretty soon the appendages are damaged. In third world countries, vermin will chew on lepers without their knowing it.

The poor man in Luke 5 had not been able to feel for years, and his body, mutilated from head to foot, was foul and rotting. If we could see ourselves apart from Christ, we would see that sin has invaded every part of our being.

"Unclean! Unclean!"
The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!' As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp. (Lev 13:45-46)
Apart from Christ, we are excluded from the fellowship of the family of God. (See Eph. 2:12-13.)

Dead men walking.
Lepers were treated as if they were the dead. But the leper is no more sinful than anyone else.

According to Ephesians 2:1, we are dead in our transgressions and sins. The spiritual world sees us shot through with the horrifying effects of sin. Even our righteousness--our three-piece suit, so to speak--is as filthy rags and makes us waste away (Isaiah 64:6-7).

The featureless, faceless, anonymity of sin.
The ears and noses and fingers of the leper would fall away.
Sin is neither distinctive nor self-expressive. It robs beauty, uniqueness--and lumps us in with the rest. The extremities of the unique individual fall off, leaving an indistinguishable middle, a stump.

And God saw that it was not good.
Sin is life by man's design, man by his own hand. So death is by man's design, by his own hand.

(to be continued tomorrow...)