“And being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” – Philippians 2:8
Here Jesus endured the powerlessness that many feel. At any moment, Jesus could have chosen to free Himself from the cross, but He actively maintained His powerlessness for hours through the torture for our benefit. Any time we think power is the answer, we must consider this.
Journalism, particularly newspaper journalism, is sometimes referred to as “the first rough draft of history.” This phrase is usually attributed to Philip Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post. It’s a useful phrase because it is flattering to journalists to know that their work is important and meaningful, but also a reminder that their work is inherently imperfect and in need of later revision. Particularly under deadline pressure, it is impossible to know all the relevant facts and potential angles of any story. Unavoidable and expedient choices and compromises must be made. The saying came to mind when I recently read Psalm 33:10-11, which says:
“The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
The counsel of the LORD stands forever,
the plans of his heart to all generations.”
As I’ve written before, total objectivity is “theoretically impossible for anyone but God Himself.” The best any news reporting can do is cover a tiny piece of what happens in the world, screening it using whatever judgment they decide to use, and applying imperfect ethical standards. As I’ve also written, “The dots of the pointillistic narrative are never the full picture and sometimes aren’t the right color.” Thus is the “counsel of the nations” – incomplete by necessity, biased by choice, and morally imperfect by nature.
In contrast, what God says is true is always true, unlike the 24/7 news cycle where truth is constantly under revision. The “counsel of the LORD” contains everything we need to know about His plans, is designed by His choice to benefit those He loves, and morally perfect because His nature is holy. If better counsel existed, He would know about it. His counsel reliably informs us about how He wants us to view the events of the world, rather than the other way around. His plans frustrate and overcome the “plans of the peoples”, rather than the other way around.
When Jesus said on the cross that “it is finished,”[1] His payment for our sins was complete. He lived a perfect life in our place, so that He could be a perfect sacrifice and atone for all the sins of His people in all times and all places. This was not a rough first draft, but the flawless consummation of God’s plan for salvation “to all generations.” Jesus made no flawed choices for the sake of expedience, and His work can be trusted at all times. Whatever you see in the news today, the Good News of the kingdom of heaven is more important, more trustworthy, and provides comfort for your soul.
His Story is the first draft, but it is also the only draft because none other is needed. His Story needs no revision.
Therefore:
“Our soul waits for the LORD;
he is our help and our shield.
For our heart is glad in him,
because we trust in his holy name.
Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.” – Psalm 33:20-22
[1] John 19:30
The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah faced immense opposition, and in Jeremiah 36:20-25 is recorded an interesting story of King Jehoiakim’s attempts to destroy the prophet’s words, and by extension, God’s words. The king was unable to get his hands on Jeremiah, whose allies helped him to hide, so the king takes a different approach:
“So they went into the court to the king, having put the scroll in the chamber of Elishama the secretary, and they reported all the words to the king. Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it from the chamber of Elishama the secretary. And Jehudi read it to the king and all the officials who stood beside the king. It was the ninth month, and the king was sitting in the winter house, and there was a fire burning in the fire pot before him. As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the fire pot, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the fire pot. Yet neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor did they tear their garments. Even when Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah urged the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them.”
This wasn’t an impulsive, knee-jerk reaction to God’s word, but a deliberate, sustained act of rebellion. This took time, and there’s almost a ceremony to it, as if daring God to stop him. Many Christians today would be outraged if they witnessed something like this. People in positions of authority disrespect God regularly, but imagine if the head of your country burned the Bible publicly on TV, and nobody stopped them, or even objected? Sure, in modern times, people might object on their blog, on social media, or even on smaller TV and radio outlets, but in Jehoiakim’s example, nobody was able to challenge him. He “got away with it.”
This brings up the question of: why does God allow things like this to happen? I’ll suggest a question in response: Would it be a stronger testimony of God’s sovereignty if He had struck King Jehoiakim dead on the spot, or is it a stronger testimony that Jeremiah’s words still exist today all around the world? If the second option is better, the next question is why do we sometimes feel such outrage and lash out (perhaps on our own blog or Facebook page) at such acts? Do we trust God to deal with it, or do we worry that Jehoiakim is right – maybe God doesn’t care?
Part of the scroll Jehoiakim burned may have included these words of Jeremiah about the king himself: “With the burial of a donkey he shall be buried, dragged and dumped beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”[1] And “He shall have none to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night.”[2] Therefore God knew both that justice would be done to Jehoiakim, and also that his burning of the scroll had only symbolic and temporary effect. In contrast, God’s justice and God’s word are eternally immutable and effective. As Isaiah said: “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”[3]
There’s also another question for us: if God had chosen in His sovereignty to redeem Jehoiakim, would we be angry like Jonah at the repentance of Nineveh[4], or would we praise God for His profound and measureless grace? The same grace that brought Jeremiah’s words back from the futile fire pot of King Jehoiakim. The grace that was purchased by Christ on the cross.
This word of God will stand as well: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ To the contrary, ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” – Romans 12:19-21
Do we believe it?
[1] Jeremiah 22:19
[2] Jeremiah 36:30
[3] Isaiah 40:8
[4] See my earlier, short post on Jonah’s anger.
Do you ever get so frustrated with the world that you just want to check out? I certainly do. For example, as a blogger who posts to both Facebook and on WordPress, for me it is a lot easier to keep up with WordPress, since I can choose to see only what I want to see. Facebook, on the other hand, exists to sell advertising and sometimes the best advertising is the kind that sparks emotion – even (or especially) bad emotions.
While Facebook is great for keeping up with friends and family, but sometimes you get lots of posts with statements like one I saw that said, “The time is coming when good people will have to do bad things to very bad people.” There are lots of examples of other sarcastic, angry, and bitter political posts. Like many, I like to have my comfortable space where I’m in control, and I didn’t want to be on Facebook while knowing they were trying (and, sadly, succeeding) at manipulating my emotions. I started feeling sarcastic, angry, and bitter, which was by their design. Sometimes I ask myself why I am even there?
Some surprising advice comes in Philippians 2:6-8, where Paul writes about Jesus that, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” In times when I want to check out from the uncomfortable parts of living in this world, these verses remind me that Jesus, as God, might have taken an attitude of preferring to stay in a comfortable space where He could be in control, but instead He jumped into the mess that is this world we see every day to show the world what love is.
Another verse that calls this to mind is the familiar John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
When I’m struggling to face the world as I see it, I ask about John 3:16, “Exactly which world did Jesus love enough to die for?” The answer is this one. The world He died for is the one where sex, anger, bitter tribalism, and political partisanship sells. The one with a lot of sarcastic, angry, and bitter people. The one with a lot of people who are more like us than we’d usually like to admit. The one where it’s easy for our love to grow cold if we focus on the problems, and not on the cross, where God took the punishment for all of it.
To be continued tomorrow…
The phrase “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” which Jesus spoke in Luke 20:25 is likely a familiar one. I had a friend in college who worked at Little Caesar’s pizza, and he showed up at Bible study with some pizza from there one night. We had agreed to split the cost, so when he walked in he said “render unto Caesar!” We all got the reference and a couple of us laughed (I admit one of them was me).
The “render to Caesar” saying comes from a time where some scribes and chief priests tried to get Jesus in trouble, as they often did, trying any means necessary to condemn Him. In this case, they first flattered Jesus, trying to catch Him off-guard, then asked Him, “Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” They thought if Jesus said yes, it would upset the Jews who wanted their Messiah to overthrow Rome, and that if He said no, it would upset the Romans and perhaps they would arrest Jesus as a revolutionary. They thought they had Him trapped, but His answer quoted above was unexpected by them, yet truthful and insightful.
Often the lessons taken from this story have to do with Jesus’ ability to thwart the attempts of His enemies to catch Him in His words, or with the Christian’s obligation to pay taxes, or with something about the relationship between the Jews and Rome. There are several good applications.
Another important application that’s key to the story, can be highlighted if we shorten the saying to “render…to God the things that are God’s.” This last part of the quote is where Jesus subtly tells those trying to catch Him that they weren’t giving to God the things they should be. Although they were the religious leaders of their day, they were focused on the wrong things, like their money and their resentment against the government. Or even their obsession with arguing with Jesus.
What are the things that are God’s and that we should render to Him?
Paul helps answer this in Romans 12:1, which says “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
Here Paul says that the thing we should be rendering to God is our very selves, and Jesus implied this when He said “render…to God the things that are God’s.” This answer said to the Jews, and everyone listening, that their Messiah wasn’t only going to overthrow Rome, but He was going to overthrow all kingdoms, including those we build in our own hearts and minds. From an eternal perspective, the many flaws of Roman rule under which the first-century Jews lived were minor inconveniences, including the paying of taxes and other, real abuses. Jesus wants us to focus on the real challenge: what to do about mankind’s rebellion from God? This is the real mission of the Messiah.
Luke follows the “render to Caesar” story with a question some Sadducees asked Jesus about the resurrection, also to try and catch Him saying something wrong. The story was not put there by accident, but in the sequence, I think we see that there is in fact a resurrection, and that our resurrected selves will be much different than our current selves. Our new selves will be able to perfectly worship God, and we will be able to fully offer our “bodies as a living sacrifice” while we can only do so imperfectly now.
In the meantime, we don’t get a free pass to do what we want because we aren’t perfected yet. Every day and every moment, we are to “render…to God the things that are God’s” in ways the religious leaders of Jesus’ day (as well as the audience of most of the Old Testament prophets) failed to do.
In closing, I’ll quote the OT prophet Micah, who differentiated between the animal sacrifices of ancient Israel from the “living sacrifice” God requires:
“With what shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:6-8)
Today, “render…to God the things that are God’s.”
Driving Toward the Morning Sun 