The Manner of a Man’s Walk

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The massive Rembrandt measures over eight and a half feet tall and six and a half feet wide, compelling viewers with a larger than life scene. “The Return of the Prodigal Son” hangs on the walls of the St. Petersburg Hermitage Museum depicting Christian mercy, according to one curator, as if it were Rembrandt’s last “spiritual testament to the world.” Fittingly, it is one of the last paintings the artist ever completed and remains one of his most loved works.

The painting depicts the reunion of the wayward son and the waiting father as told in the Gospel of Luke. The elderly father is shown leaning in an embrace of his kneeling son in ragged shoes and torn clothes. With his back toward us, the son faces the father, his head bowed in regret. Clearly, it is the father Rembrandt wants us most to see. The aged man reaches out with both hands, his eyes on the son, his entire body inclining toward him.

It is understandable that viewers have spent hours looking at this solemn reflection of mercy and homecoming. The artist slows our restless minds to a scene where the parable’s characters are powerfully at rest. The kneeling son leans silently toward the father; the father calmly and tenderly leans toward the son. But in fact, this is far from the scene Jesus portrays in the parable itself.

The parable of the prodigal son is far from restful, and the father within it is anything but calm in his embrace of the wayward son. Jesus tells us that while the son was “still a long way off,” the father saw him and “was filled with compassion for him” (Luke 15:20). Literally, this father was moved by his compassion. The Greek word conveys an inward movement of concern and mercy, but this man was also clearly moved outwardly. The text is full of dramatic action. The father runs to the son, embraces him (literally, “falls upon his neck”), and kisses him. Unlike the depiction of Rembrandt, Jesus describes a scene far more abrupt and shocking. It is not the son who we find kneeling in this picture, but the father. The characters are not at rest but in radical motion. The father who runs to his wayward son runs without any assurance of repentance; he runs without any promise that the son is even home to stay.

There is a line in Jewish tradition that would likely have entered the minds of the first hearers of this parable. According to ancient thought, the manner of a man’s walk “shows what he is.”(1) Dignified men in this ancient culture simply did not run. In order to do so, long robes would have had to be lifted up, exposing the legs, which was inherently shameful. And yet, this father runs to the son who blatantly disrespected him, and hurriedly embraces the one who once disowned him. This man’s “walk” shows a substance that is nothing less than staggering. All measures of decorum, all levels of expectation are simply shattered by this father’s love. It would no doubt have been a disruptive picture for the audience who first heard the parable; it remains a disruptive picture today.

The portrait Jesus offers of the Father in heaven is one of action and immediacy. The image of any father running to meet the child who had made a mess of her life is compelling. But that it was so outlandish in this ancient context makes this depiction of his love all the more stirring. It brings to the forefront an image of God as one who is willing to embrace shame on our account. It brings to mind the image of a Son who endured the cross, scorning its shame, that we would not grow weary and lose heart.

God is moving toward us with a walk that thoroughly counters any thought of a distant and absent Father and boldly confronts any move away from Him. In his radical approach of our hearts, the Father reveals who He is. However far we wander, the God who laments even one lost soul is waiting and ready for our return. More than this, He is the Father who runs to close the distance.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Arland Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2000), 78.

Ah, the Good Old Days

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Ah, the Good Old Days

Nostalgia is an interesting thing. It embellishes our memories and makes the past look and feel so much better than it really was. I have a relative whose skill as a storyteller is almost unsurpassed. Names, dates, and places are poured forth with an attention to detail that is astonishing. Listening in, one can smell the air, sense the mood, and really enter into the narrative being told. I love history, I love stores, and yet...

The writer of Ecclesiastes famously wrote, “There is a time for everything” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Whatever it is about time, we all manage it in different (and sometimes strange) ways. For some of us, we live perpetually in the past. We treasure those relationships, experiences, and places, those loves won and lost. For others, we are always hoping to live; the best is yet ahead, somewhere over the rainbow when things will be wonderful.

Is this a symptom of an inability to dwell in the present? In a recent book called Elsewhere USA, the author cites the challenges to living a focused or attentive life due to the invasive conditions of modern technology and the press of incessant demands. The writer outlines how many of us are seldom present in anything we do. We are not present to our spouses, not present to our friends, not present even in our imaginations as the desire of being elsewhere overrules all else.

In the story The Princess Bride, the hero Wesley says, “Life is pain... Get used to it.” While perhaps a bit overstated (it is a comedy), Wesley’s thought captures something of the struggle, the real hardships we all encounter in our journeys across time. Perhaps the present is indeed so saturated by real pain, tragedy, or emotional deadness that the only available option is to flee to the past as solace from the present. Whatever it is about time that we feel, perhaps it is our sense of contingency or the passing of time and of its inevitable end that grips us.

Ernest Becker addresses this issue of life’s brevity in his powerful book The Denial of Death, noting the manifold ways in which we avoid our mortality. “We repress our bodies to purchase a soul that time cannot destroy; we sacrifice pleasure to buy immorality; we encapsulate ourselves to avoid death. And life escapes us while we huddle within the defended fortress of character.”(1) Illustrating this tension between the force of denial and the reality of life’s end, the movie Generations of the Star Trek series depicts the sinister scientist Soren who wants to enter the Nexus (a place where life is immortal) at the cost of sacrificing an entire planet. The ever savvy Captain Jean-Luc-Picard delves into a philosophical discussion about time, life, and eternity. Speaking of our humanity he says, “It’s our mortality that defines us.” His attempt to persuade Soren is unsuccessful, but his point is an important one, isn’t it?

Writing to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul urged, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity” (Ephesians 5:15). Some translations render his instruction “redeeming the time.” I like that. It is a very Christian concept. To see all of time in the light of eternity, to see every moment and every opportunity as a chance to glorify God, to receive life and experiences for what they are, and most of all, to be present. That is, to be present to others, in love, service, and availability; to be present in what I am expected to do, with diligence, care, and integrity; to be present when needed, as my workplace, friends, or community may need my contribution.

I don’t mean in any sense to devalue the role of telling old stories or memories. After all, they are a huge part of what makes life rich. I do propose, however, that we be careful to not allow any view of time to eclipse our ability to be fully present to our God and those who need us most today. The wise preacher was right; there is indeed a time for everything.

Stuart McAllister is vice president of training and special projects at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Sam Keen in the forward of Ernest Becker’s, The Denial of Death (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), vii-viii.

Home and Homesick

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

A few years ago, directors of the newly commissioned airport in Thailand found themselves plagued with an interesting problem: there were people everywhere. But this was not to say the problem was too many travelers; the problem was that there were too many people who were not traveling anywhere. In addition to the number of travelers passing through Suvarnabhumi Airport each day—roughly 100,000—there were more than 100,000 people visiting the ultra-modern airport each day—with no intention whatsoever of getting on a plane. They were there to take pictures, explore the buildings, and eat their sack lunches. “So many people are coming for sightseeing, and we’re pleading with them to stop,” said the president of Airports of Thailand. “They’re eating here and there, parking their cars in a mess.” In the beginning, airport directors were happy to see people familiarizing themselves with the place, learning their way around, and generally taking pride in the new airport. But as one official noted of the situation, “[I]t’s no longer familiarization--it has become a picnic.”

I am often comforted by the verses in Scripture that remind me I am only traveling through this world; there are many. “Hear my prayer, O LORD,” pleads the psalmist, “listen to my cry for help; be not deaf to my weeping. For I dwell with you as an alien, a stranger, as all my fathers were” (39:12). In the book of Hebrews, amongst the testimonies of those who have gone before us, we are told that besides having in common a life of faith, the faithful shared the conviction that they were people living as strangers in a foreign land, journeying toward home. “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth” (11:13).

These verses become lifelines when I feel like I am drowning in homesickness, longing for the end I have in sight, but only see in part. Like a pilgrim clutching my ticket home, I live as one on my way somewhere else, aware that my time in the airport is merely a stopover. Peter puts it best: “[W]e are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13). Yet unfortunately, there is a risk in such moments of homesickness to live so focused on a new heaven and earth that I live oblivious to heaven and earth today. My attitude as a traveler can be one that finds the airport irrelevant and avoidable, which of course is not only irrational, it is problematic.

Other times, I live the opposite problem. Far from the kind of traveler who holds my ticket close and thoughts of home closer, I am wholly at ease in the airport. I may live as a pilgrim, but one who is at times content to stay put. My time as a traveler more resembles a picnic than a pilgrimage.

The stories of Scripture truly give voice to our urgent sense of homelessness. They also remind us repeatedly to be alert within the world we call home at present, to see the signs of the kingdom, and glimpses of God among us even today. Likewise, they urge us to look toward home and warn us when the airport has grown comfortable. “Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria” (Amos 6:1). Centuries later Jesus pronounced, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:20-21). And again, he declared, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going” (John 14:3-4).

The world around us is rife with signs of a God who ascends and descends, who comes near and fills the earth with the glory of a redemptive creator. This is indeed a place to explore, to take pleasure in, and to take care of, to see as good and impressive, and to live redemptively within its walls. Yet no matter how familiar we become with this world, no matter how fluent we become in its languages, we are still strangers in a foreign land. We are not here simply to picnic and remain forever content. Pilgrims without destinations indeed cease to be pilgrims.

In his book Reaching Out, author Henri Nouwen defines a stranger as someone who is “estranged from their own past, culture and country, from their neighbors, friends and family, from their deepest self, and from God.” I do not know any honest soul who cannot find himself in that definition in some way each day. At the sound of breaking news, in the silence of an anguished heart, even in the delight of beauty or the power of hope, there is a sense of alienation that wells up within us. But alienation only reminds us that we are aliens, and homesickness only tells us that we are not yet home, though we certainly live with glimpses. In this wonderful and terrible land, all is not as it will be; another kingdom is the end in sight. Until then, we relish the wonder of this place and look for signs of the kingdom among us; we long for promises in the distance and we wait estranged by hope. We move toward Christ as pilgrims and he moves toward us as King.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

There Is Still Room!

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

We typically fill our parties with people similar to ourselves. We invite into our homes those we work with, play with, or otherwise have something in common with. We celebrate with fellow graduates, entertain people from our neighborhoods, and open our doors to four year-olds when our little one is turning four. Psychologists concur: we socialize with those in our circles because we have some ring of similarity that connects us.

The man in the parable of the great banquet is no different. The story is told in Luke chapter 14 of an affluent master of ceremonies who had invited a great number of people like himself to a meal. The list was likely distinguished; the guests were no doubt as prosperous socially as they were financially. Jesus sets the story at a critical time for all involved. The invitations had long been sent out and accepted. Places were now set; the table was now prepared. All was ready. Accordingly, the owner of the house sent his servant to bring in the guests. But none would come.

Anthropologists characterize the culture of Jesus’s day as an “honor/shame” society, where one’s quality of life was directly affected by the amount of honor or shame socially attributed to him or her. The public eye was paramount; every interaction either furthered or diminished one’s standing, honor, and regard in the eyes of the world.

Thus, in this parable, the master of the banquet had just been deliberately and publicly shamed. He was pushed to the margins of society and treated with the force of contempt. Hearers of this parable would have been waiting with baited breath to hear how this man would attempt to reclaim his honor. But in fact, the master of the feast did not attempt to reverse his public shame. Altogether curiously, he embraced it.

Turning to the slave, the owner of the house appointed the servant with a new task. “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and the poor and maimed and lame and blind bring in here” (Luke 14:21). Returning, the servant reported, “Lord it has all occurred as you ordered, and still there is room” (v. 22). So the owner of the house responded again, “Go out into the waves and hedges and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled” (23).

The slave is told to do what he must to compel the masses to come, liberating the blind, the lame, and the excluded of their social status and stigma with an invitation to dine with none other than the master. It is a staggering portrayal of a God who is shamed by the rejection of his people, and yet continues to respond with unfathomable grace and profound invitation into his presence. The owner of the house has opened wide the doors. The feast is ready—and there is yet room.

The longing to belong in the right circles is a desire that touches us all. Even so, one only has to watch a group of kids on playground to see how easily our desire to belong is corrupted by our need to exclude. The inner circle is not inner if there are no outsiders. Lines of honor and shame are futile if the majority is not on the wrong side. But God has broken these lines of demarcation. The Father has forever challenged the notion that his house will be filled only with the rich or the righteous or those without shame.

The banquet is ready and there is a call to fill the house with the lost and unworthy, the homeless, the blind, and the out-of-place. The invitation of Christ is wide enough to scour the darkest of hedges and the depths of the city streets. Whether we find ourselves outside of the circle because we have rejected him or at the table communing with his guests, it is a good word to digest: the kingdom of God is like a great banquet. God’s compulsion is our nourishment. The feast is ready and there is still room.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

Striking Peculiarities

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Moving from the East Coast to the West Coast this past year presented a unique cross-cultural opportunity for me to experience. I discovered in my new neighborhood that there are many unique individuals. From tattoos and piercings to dreadlocks and dungarees, the streets are filled with what can only be described as peculiar people. Judging simply by appearances, individuality seems to reign supreme.

And yet, as I’ve gotten to know some of the wonderful people out here, I have discovered that there are as many different ideas about what makes someone or something peculiar as there are peculiarities. Depending on one’s point of view, generation, and locality, piercings and dreadlocks—or blue blazers, starched collars, and striped ties—might make for peculiar ornamentation. Whatever the case, peculiarities set people or individuals apart, making them different and distinctive in ways that make us pay attention and notice.

As often happens with language development, somehow we have come to associate the strange with the peculiar. In fact, the word derives from a Latin root word that identified private property from what was commonly held. To be peculiar is to possess as a characteristic something uniquely special or particular.(1) In other words, when we call something or someone peculiar, we are identifying the special, unique, or particular quality about that individual or thing.

In our day, unfortunately, to be peculiar is to be strange, different, or set apart in a way that keeps others out, or to distinguish oneself in a way that is defensive in posture or stance. It is certainly easy to understand how defensiveness might arise when peculiar values, attitudes, or lifestyles once deemed inviolate come under attack. But if peculiarity is reduced simply to defensiveness or exclusion, it loses its more winsome character.

The Amish community once served as the paradigm for many of the more winsome features of peculiarity. Who hasn’t wished, at times, for a more simple life? Who hasn’t wondered, at times, what it might be like to share in what appears to be a close-knit community? And who didn’t wonder, after hearing the news about the horrific violence leveled against the smallest and the weakest among them, at their peculiarly poignant response of forgiveness and grace extended to the family of the perpetrator?(2) Peculiar as it may seem to us, through the extension of forgiveness, the Amish sought to reconcile what had been torn asunder and to restore what had been devastated.

In light of the striking peculiarities of others, one cannot help but ask, “What makes me a peculiar person?” Indeed, for those who claim to follow Jesus, what makes us his peculiar people? Jesus had just as many options as we do today for demonstrating his peculiarity. He could have gathered just a few individuals around him and run away to the desert to form a peculiar society for just a select few. He could have been a revolutionary against the Roman government rallying the troops around him to overthrow his oppressors. He could have aligned himself with the religious authorities of his day, laying down with rigid enforcement the peculiar laws for strict observance by a peculiar people.

He did none of these things. Instead, Jesus forgave those who sinned against him, welcomed outsiders, dined with sinners, and healed those whose diseases made them peculiarly unwelcome in worship spaces. In the horror and violence of his own crucifixion, he prayed “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

As a result of Jesus’s peculiar life, death, and resurrection, those who follow after Jesus are now “a chosen race, a royal priesthood a holy nation, God’s own people” (1 Peter 2:9). Those who claim Jesus’s kind of peculiarity are now the ones “who declare the wonderful deeds of God who called us out of darkness into the marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). Our peculiarity is that rejected people are now God’s people; we who once had not received mercy, now have received mercy. We are now the people of God and we bear the name of the one we follow who leads us to God. Indeed, the title “Christian” means “little Christ.” It marks us as his peculiar people.

As such, we should often evaluate the ways in which we “pick up” on Jesus’s peculiarities. Do our peculiarities match his? Are we merely observers of the externals or do we seek to emulate his character? What are those qualities that uniquely set us apart as his followers? Are our lives bearing the fruit that marks us uniquely as God’s possession? Oh sure, we might endure ridicule as being odd or strange, but might our lives bear witness that we are God’s peculiar people set apart and marked as his.

Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

(1) Etymology and definition from Merriam-Webster’s On-Line Dictionary, www.merriam-webster.com.
(2) Charles Roberts murdered five young children in an Amish schoolhouse October 2, 2006.

Compassion in Decline

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Headlines continue to bear the daunting blows of a world in financial crisis, and charitable organizations are not dodging the punches. By some estimates, giving to non-profit organizations has fallen as much as ten percent, which is in many cases compounded by an increase in the need for the service the organization provides. Homeless shelters, for instance, dependent in part on state budgets and corporate donations which have largely fallen away, are struggling simultaneously with growing needs from people losing jobs and homes.

As difficulties escalate and financial securities globally plummet, it is not unfeasible that charity would also be on the decline. It seems reasonable to expect that one’s circumstances would affect the way he or she is able to respond to the circumstances of others. Yet, there is no such distinction made in the great stories and statements of compassion and charity in ancient Judeo-Christian thought. In fact, there is no such distinction even made in the words themselves. The literal meaning of the word “compassion,” which derives from the Latin compassus, is to suffer together with, to feel with another. It is our neighbor’s circumstances that are elevated; our own conditions do not enter into the equation. Similarly, the Latin word caritas,used throughout the Vulgate as a translation of the Greek word agape, refers to a radical selfless love, the kind of love the world had simply never seen before Christ. Quite profoundly, this is the rich history of our English word “charity.”

Yet regardless of the rich association of charity with the life and sacrifice of Christ, critics of Christianity are quick to point out the often uncharitable nature of Christ’s followers, pointing to images of the church at its very worse, Christians preferring safety to sacrifice, control to compassion. Our history is indeed rife with examples, and Christians do well to concede these images with sorrow and remorse. But it is also important to recognize that such examples of avaricious, uncompassionate, or self-seeking behavior are not at all in keeping with the words and ways of Christ. Where a Christian fails to show compassion and charity—whether in the midst of defending a difficult truth or beside a neighbor in need—it is a departure from the Christian worldview and not an outworking of it.

Nevertheless, the great majority of the life and history of the church significantly demonstrates an outworking of this rich vision with which we have been entrusted. The social vision of the Old and New Testaments, radically realized in the person of Christ, commend a way that is entirely contrary to the self-protecting, self-concerned message of the world. The same God who commands the Israelites to welcome the foreigner in their midst dynamically shows us in Christ a new understanding of human love, commitment, and responsibility. The poor and the marginalized are not only to be valued and defended, but every neighbor regardless of circumstance or offense is to be seen as one made in the image of God—and cared for accordingly.

This call of Christ to charity and compassion indeed reverberates in the Christian’s treatment of the entire world, such that even those who vehemently disagree with the Christian worldview have taken notice. Michael Shermer, president of the US Skeptics Society, admits that for every tragedy aggravated by the church “there are 10,000 acts of personal kindness and social good that go unreported.”(1) British statesman and atheist Roy Hattersley notes similarly: “It is impossible to doubt that faith and charity go hand in hand.” He adds, “Men and women who, like me, cannot accept the mysteries and the miracles, do not go out with the Salvation Army at night.”(2)

In the Christian worldview there is indeed a staggering, compelling gospel for which the secularist has no means for duplicating. For the Christian, compassion is not a luxury to expend simply when times are good, but a spirit for all circumstances, exemplified in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Nor is charity an act to bolster our own sense of virtue or moral aspirations; rather, it is the very outworking of an identity found in the self-sacrificial love and person of Christ. (And this is perhaps why recessions have historically had little effect on Christian giving.)The Christian worldview not only gives us a mandate to be compassionate to our neighbors regardless of our own situations, it gives us Christ, who gave an unknowing world the very depths of his person, emptying himself in the form of a servant, becoming obedient to the point of death, for the sake of life. In his name and example, we do likewise.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Michael Shermer, “Why People Believe in God: an Empirical Study on a Deep Question,” The Humanist, Volume 59, Issue 6, November 1999: 20.
(2) Roy Hattersley, “Faith Does Breed Charity,” The Guardian, September 12, 2005.

Sorting Things Out

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

“Do not love the world, nor the things in the world” (1 John 2:15). These are strong words, and when I first heard them as a young Christian they were given more weight than they might be in certain quarters today. As a new believer, I sought guidance on how I should then live, and was duly rewarded with an appropriate set of prohibitions. The instruction was largely of the “don’t do this” or “avoid that” variety. I quickly grasped that the main agenda was to avoid contamination. This is what Dallas Willard describes as “the gospel of sin management.”

Armed with my first burst of enthusiasm and zeal for my newly born faith, I took to the “not doing” and “avoidance” with a missionary zeal that would have put William Booth to shame. I read books on the exchanged life; I was stirred to ask why revival tarries. I was sure that the sloppy, half-hearted, and mediocre life I was living was a denial of true Christianity and a mockery of the real thing. Yet my focus on withdrawal, personal holiness, and “my” purity became, however subtly, a distraction. I was more occupied with me and less with Christ. My internal state, feelings, and spiritual condition (as I saw it), totally filled my horizons.

The great reformer Martin Luther suffered similar preoccupations in his time. He obsessed about sins, he feared God’s wrath, he longed for a divine welcome. His awakening to what he called an “alien righteousness” (something provided by another for him) shattered his self indulgent illusions and opened up a world rooted in God’s amazing grace and mercy. Luther learned what so many have had to learn since; namely, that salvation is the gift of God’s grace. We can’t earn it, work for it, wrestle it to the ground, or fight for it. It is God’s gracious, merciful gift (cf. Ephesians 2:8-9).

Now, the yearning for righteousness, Christlikeness, and a devout life is an admirable goal; indeed, it is an essential goal! But the great mistake is to somehow assume that this demands withdrawal and isolation from culture and society. Not so. As the French theologian Jacques Ellul said, “The yearning for holiness is not at odds with the desire for relevance. For while holiness sets us apart unto God, it is God who calls us into the world.”(1) We are called to God and sent by God into the world.

Os Guinness captures the necessary tension between our need to pursue holy lives and the desire to connect meaningfully with our culture and those around us. He speaks of “prophetic untimeliness” and the sense that the man or woman of God lives by the eternal in time. Likewise, Richard John Neuhaus, former editor of First Things magazine, suggested we are to be “in the world, not of the world, but for the world.” The danger for many of us is to live the extremes in either direction. I so love the world that I embrace its ways, values, attitudes, and delights uncritically—thus, losing any sense of distinction and prophetic edge for the gospel. Or I so withdraw from the world that my life may seem pure (to the audience of oneself), but exists in splendid isolation; thus I may end up (perhaps) morally distinct, but socially irrelevant.

Must we embrace such a dichotomy? Surely the example of Jesus in his incarnational ministry is far superior? Or the model of the apostles and the early church who took to the streets, the forums, and the places of civic discourse? They lived, loved, and preached in all of these diverse places and were themselves the better for it.

As Eugene Peterson suggests, “The world is no friend to grace.” This is sound insight; it is also the context where our lives and ministries take place. Perhaps today we can fix our eyes on the author and finisher of our faith, and in that faith—rather than fear—embrace the one who said, “As the Father hath sent me, so send I you.”

Stuart McAllister is vice president of training and special projects at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Charles Ringma, Resist the Powers (with Jacques Ellul) (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Pinon Press, 2000), 171.
(2) Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 15.

The Rest of Our Days

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Oscar Wilde thoroughly resented the power of modern calendars to remind us that each day which passes is "the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.” He would no doubt be further troubled to know we are currently in a season the church calendar calls “Ordinary Time.”

There are actually two intervals of Ordinary Time within the Christian church year. The first interval begins after Epiphany (the arrival of the wise men to the birthplace of Jesus) and continues until Lent (the forty days leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus). The second interval of Ordinary Time begins at the conclusion of Pentecost (the coming of the Holy Spirit) and continues until Advent (the coming of the Christ child). We are currently living within this second interlude of Ordinary Time, waiting for the approach of Advent. But this is hardly to say that the day before us is ordinary.

Far from announcing days that are commonplace or mundane, Ordinary Time is a season of anticipated living. The term actually comes from the word “ordinal,” which means that it is time “counted” or “numbered.” Though the Church’s festive banners may have come down after the celebrations of Easter and Pentecost have ended, the startling realities of life under the banners of a resurrected King and the presence of a Holy Comforter have begun. We live expectantly between the power of the resurrection and the assurance that Christ will come again—as a babe in a manger, as Christ the King.

Though Jewish feasts and holy days were a major part of the lives of Jesus and his disciples, the same was true for them as it is for us: the majority of their time together was the time between holy days. Yet far from being described as the lull between holidays, their “ordinary time” was spent healing and feeding crowds, proclaiming the kingdom, raising the dead, and learning at the feet of the Son of God. More often than not, the disciples were genuinely surprised by the one in their midst. In the everyday lives of Christ’s followers there is an expectant quality within each moment. It is time counted, time that matters.

It is appropriate that the first signs of Jesus’s identity and the last signs of his divinity were both displayed in the stillness after Passover had ended. After the hype of Jerusalem had settled and the last of the festivities were waning, long after the villagers who had traveled far were on their way home, twelve year-old Jesus had stayed behind, though his parents were unaware of it. Three days later they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And “everyone who heard him was amazed” (Luke 2:47). Likewise, the resurrected Jesus appeared before Mary in the quiet of the morning after the Passover feast. The festivities of the weekend were finished, the Passover lamb had been consumed, and ordinary time was forever marked by the extraordinary.

While the calendar may seem to set us up to live from one major holiday to the next, there is far more to expect from the rest of our days. Our holy days mark events that dramatically shape our worldviews, but our ordinary days give us the space to live these events out. In the repetitive rhythm of the church calendar our hearts are compelled to beat expectantly of a greater kingdom. And ordinary time is never ordinary, as God’s presence always involves the unexpected.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

One and Only

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

“I shut my eyes in order to see,” said French painter, sculptor, and artist Paul Gauguin. As a little girl, though completely unaware of this insightful quote on imagination, I lived this maxim. Nothing was more exhilarating to me than closing my eyes in order to imagine far away exotic lands, a handsome prince, or a deep enough hole leading straight to China!

In fact, like many, imagination fueled my young heart and mind. After reading C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, I would walk into dark closets filled with warm winter coats fully expecting to be transported like the Pevensie children into foreign and wonderful land. Charlotte’s Web took me to a farm where I could talk to my dog, like Fern talked to Wilbur, or to the spiders that hung from intricate webs in my garage. Pictures on the wall came to life and danced before me; ordinary objects became extraordinary tools enabling me to defeat all those imaginary giants and inspiring me toward powerful possibilities fueled by vivid imagination.

Sadly, as happens to many adults, my imagination has changed. I don’t often view my closet as a doorway to unseen worlds, nor do I pretend that my dogs understand one word of my verbal affection towards them. Pictures don’t come to life, and I no-longer pretend my garden rake or broom is a secret weapon against fantastical foes. Often, I feel that my imagination has become nothing more than wishful thinking. Rather than thinking creatively about the life I’ve been given, I day-dream about what my life might be like if... I lived in Holland, for example, or could back-pack across Europe, or lived on a kibbutz, or was a famous actress, or a world-renowned tennis player, or any number of alternative lives to the one I currently occupy.

Sadly, the imagination so vital in my youth doesn’t usually infuse my life with creative possibility, but rather leads me only to wonder if the grass is greener on the other side. Mid-life regrets reduce imagination to restlessness and shrivel creative thinking to nothing more than unsettled daydreams. Rather than allowing my imagination to be animated by living into God’s creative power, I allow it to be tethered to worldly dreams of more, or better, or simply other.

The psalmist was not in a mid-life imaginative crisis when he penned Psalm 90. Nevertheless, this psalm attributed to Moses, was a prayer to the God who can redeem imagination for our one life to live. Perhaps Moses wrote this psalm after an endless day of complaint from wilderness-weary Israelites. Perhaps it was written with regret that his violent outburst against the rock would bar him from entry into the Promised Land. Whatever event prompted its writing, it is a song sung in a minor key, with regret so great he feels consumed by God’s anger and dismayed by God’s wrath (Psalm 90:7-8).

Whether prompted by deep regret, disillusionment, or a simple admitting of reality, Moses reflects on the brevity of life. He compares it to the grass “which sprouts anew. In the morning, it flourishes; toward evening it fades, and withers away” (Psalm 90:6). Indeed, he concedes that “a thousand years in God’s sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night” (90:4). Before we know it, our lives are past, and what do we have to show for them? Have we lived creatively? Have we used our imagination to infuse our fleeting, one-and-only lives to bring forth offerings of beauty and blessing?

Imagination, like any other gift, has the potential for good or for ill. It has power to fill my one and only life with creative possibility, or it has the potential to become nothing more than wishful thinking. As the psalmist suggests, our lives can be full of creative possibility when we desire hearts that seek to live wisely, live joyfully, and live gladly before the Lord, the God of infinite imagination and creativity.

Imagination built upon a foundation of gratitude invites us to live our lives with hope and with possibility to imagine great things for our God-given lives. “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard....all that God has prepared for those who love him” (Isaiah 64:4; 65:17). Can you imagine it?

In light of our transience, we have the choice to live creatively and imaginatively or wishfully longing for another life. We can choose to dwell in the presence of the God of infinite imagination for what our lives can be or we can choose to waste our time peering over to the other side. Yet we only have one life to live, “so, teach us to number our days, that we may present to you a heart of wisdom....that we may sing for joy and be glad all of our days....and confirm the work of our hands” (90:12, 14b, 15a, 17).

Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

Breaking Headlines

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Swedish chemist Alfred Bernhard Nobel was once largely known as a maker and inventor of explosives. In 1866 Nobel invented dynamite, which earned him both fame and the majority of his wealth. At one point in his life he held more than 350 patents, operated labs in 20 countries, and had more than 90 factories manufacturing explosives and ammunition. Yet today he is most often remembered as the name behind the Nobel Prize, the most highly regarded of international awards for efforts in peace, chemistry, physics, literature, and economics.

In 1888 a bizarre incident occurred, which seemed to have afforded Alfred Nobel an unlikely opportunity for reflection. Many believe it was this event that ultimately led to his establishment of the Nobel Prize and subsequent change in his reputation. When Alfred’s brother Ludvig died while staying in Cannes, France, the French newspapers mistakenly confused the two brothers, reporting the death of the inventor of explosives. One paper’s headline read brusquely: “Le marchand de la mort est mort”—the merchant of death is dead.

I cannot imagine reading the headlines of my life written at the hands of my harshest critic, but I do remember laboring over an assignment in middle school in which I was required to write my own obituary. Some of the class was given the task of writing it as if they died well in their eighties; others had to write as if they died that year. The assignment was meant to incite reflection, and in most of us it did—particularly those of us who were designated early deaths. As in the case with Alfred Nobel, my premature obituary suggested headlines I did not want to live with; that I was the one writing them made this all the more sobering.

In a very real sense, I am still (as is each of us) the writer of my own obituary. But I am no longer thinking about the words and headlines in the way I was thinking about them in middle school. As I struggled to find the words, it seemed I had so little with which to work—no graduations, no family, no accomplishments worth mentioning, no overarching purpose for my life. I was imagining all the things I had not done and feeling quite insignificant about the things I had. At that point in time, it seemed clear that a few more years were necessary in order to make a meaningful headline.

Today I realize that a life well lived is not about time at all. The writers of Scripture seem less concerned with the reputation we leave behind as they are with the reputation we are moving toward. “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:1). There is the sense that our hearts hold the words of an obituary that no one here will fully see. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).

The headlines we write on earth are printed on pages that will eventually fade and crumble. But there is one who reads the words imprinted across our hearts, engraved on the lives we have affected, stored up as treasures in a greater kingdom. As he stood with his tempter high on a mountain taking in the kingdoms of the world and all of the splendor that was being offered to him, Jesus considered the reputation of God and not his own. As he hung on the Cross, scorning its shame, he took death instead of glory; he bore the disgrace of man instead of the splendor of God. His obituary was insignificant to all but a few. And then he rose from the grave, forever rewriting the headlines of all who would believe.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.