Hope Springs Eternal

PLAY BALL!

Okay... I admit that I am excited that baseball season has started. The Seattle Mariners began yesterday with a win; so for now at least I rejoice over a team that is in first place and undefeated. Closer to home, my son's little league team has their first game this week too.

So, I thought I'd post here an article I wrote for the Calvin Presbyterian Church newsletter last month. Here it is...
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“Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” wrote the 18th century English poet, Alexander Pope. I wonder if Pope was a baseball fan, since hope is also the indomitable springtime sentiment of those longing to hear the crack of the bat and the call to “Play ball!” It doesn’t matter which team you root for this time of year; it is a season of hope for everyone. Right now, everybody’s unbeaten. Regardless of what their record was last season, every team gets to start fresh this season. And that kind of new beginning, quite frankly, is something we all hope for.

Perhaps that’s why professional baseball’s spring training resonates with a place deep inside me. There’s something spiritual to it. When I look back over the last season of my life, with all the wins and losses, a couple of home runs, and more strikeouts than I’d like to admit, I yearn for a fresh start. Something in me cries out for a “do-over,” a chance to swing for the fences once more. Can you relate to that? Is that something you hope for?

After one of the most dismal seasons in the history of God’s people, when they were swept away by a visiting team from a true evil empire (not the Yankees but the Babylonians), the prophet Jeremiah continued to hold out that hope springs eternal. Listen to his cry:

Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:
The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in him!”

Mercy delivered fresh to your door every morning – I like the sound of that! This is Good News: God’s love for you and for me isn’t conditioned on last season’s performance. God is powerful enough to give us a fresh start today, and God loves us enough to do it. So, like the ballplayers in Arizona and Florida this time of year, we too can begin a new season.

There’s another parallel between spring training and spiritual training that intrigues me. Spring training is a time to return to the fundamentals in preparation for the new season. Even grizzled veterans and future Hall-of-Famers go through the most basic of drills. Again and again they will practice running the bases, laying down bunts, hitting the cutoff man, or turning a double play. The goal is for these basics of the game to become routine and reflexive, a foundational part of how they’ll play the game throughout the season.

In this way, spring training is a lot like Lent. Lent consists of the forty days before Easter (not counting Sundays which commemorate the Resurrection), and traditionally been a time when Christians have heeded Jesus’ example by practicing the discipline of fasting and other forms of self-denial. In other words, Lent is a time to get back to the basics, specifically the fundamentals of our faith. During these weeks we remember that God in Christ embraced our pain and absorbed our sin and death on the Cross. We need to grasp for this truth and wrestle with its personal implications. Lent is a time for deep reflection. Acknowledge your brokenness before God. Confess your sin. Meditate upon what is means to die to yourself that you might live with Christ. And remember that as we share in His sufferings and become like Him in His death, we will also share in His glory and resurrection (Rom. 8:17; 1 Cor. 15:20-23; Php. 3:10-11).

If a faithfully observed Lent is like spring training, then Easter becomes opening day! On both of those days, hope fills the air with a sweet fragrance—either fresh cut grass or lilies—and the future calls us forward. For Christians, Easter morning, with the celebration of our Lord’s resurrection is the ultimate experience and celebration of hope. But like a full season of major league baseball, it is best when we prepare for it. Yes, hope springs eternal. And the name of hope is Jesus.

Did You See Him?

In yesterday's Easter message, we reflected on the two disciples who have an encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24). As he did with those two on the road, I believe that Jesus still reveals himself to ordinary followers in ordinary places; still seeks us out and comes to us; still rebukes us for being slow of heart; and still reveals his true identity to us at just the right time.

But that wonderful story also makes me ask, "How often am I standing face to face with the Master and I totally miss him? How often does Jesus go unrecognized in my day-to-day life?"

By way of illustration, I shared this story:

On January 12, 2007, a seemingly ordinary thing happened in a Washington, DC metro station during the morning rush hour. A young man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a Washington Nationals baseball cap positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money and began to play. For 45 minutes he played six classical pieces. Most people didn’t even notice him.

But this was no ordinary violinist. It was violin virtuoso Joshua Bell who was there as part of an experiment put together by the Washington Post. And he was playing no ordinary violin; it was a 1713 handcrafted Stradivarius violin reportedly worth over $3 million. Three days earlier, Bell had played to a full house at Boston’s Symphony Hall, where fairly good seats went for $100. But on this day, he collected just $32.17 for his efforts. And of the 1,097 people who passed by him, only 7 stopped to listen, and just one person recognized him.

So I continue to ruminate... What would I have done? I'm quite sure I would have just walked on by. But if I and so many others can miss the presence and beautiful gift of a master violinist, how much do we miss the presence and beautiful gifts of the Master of the universe?

O Lord, "I pray that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened in order that I may know the hope to which You have called me, the riches of Your glorious inheritance in Your people, and Your incomparably great power for us who believe." - Ephesians 1:18 (TNIV personalized).

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If you want to see the full article from the Washington Post, click here.

Selfless Repentance?

I've been reading Dark Night of the Soul, the classic of Christian mysticism by St. John of the Cross. With my ruminations on repentance this Lent, one of John's comments stood out. At this point, he is talking about those who are what he calls "spiritual beginners" and how they (we?) become overly sad when they see themselves fall into sin. John attributes this to their thinking themselves to have been saints already. Then he adds:

"Thus they become angry and impatient with themselves, which is another imperfection. Often they beseech God, with great yearnings, that He will take from them their imperfections and faults, but they do this that they may find themselves at peace, and may not be troubled by them, rather than for God's sake; not realizing that, if He should take their imperfections from them, they would probably become prouder and more presumptuous still."

All of this sparks questions and reflections for me.

First, do I think of myself as being more saintly that I am? On one hand, I can affirm that I am already a saint in Christ. Because his holiness becomes my holiness as we are united by the Holy Spirit, I am a saint. But, on the other hand, my sanctification is far from complete. Do I, with the spiritual pride to which John of the Cross refers, think of myself as being farther along than I really am? Do I expect more holiness and less struggle with sin than I should expect at this stage?

Second, is it so bad to ask God to remove my imperfections because of a yearning for peace? I believe such a desire is God-given. It is hardwired into us. It is a desire for the peace of Shalom -- that wholeness that comes as things are as God intended. That it is good. But still, John of the Cross points to a motivation that I confess I often lack, a motivation that is deeper and more profound. Which leads to a third question...

Third, when I confess my sin... when I repent... when I yearn for God to take away my "imperfections and faults," do I do that for God's sake? If I understand John of the Cross correctly, my repentance needs to be less self-centered. The yearning to be freed and forgiven from sin should grow out of desire to love the One who first loved me. My sin is an offense to God's holiness and glory. Yet that is seldom in the forefront of my mind when I make my confessions.

I think of King David's famous confession: "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight" (Ps. 51:4).

I'm going to have to keep ruminating on this!

Aslan Rescues Eustace from Himself

Recently, I was reminded me of the scene in The Chronicles of Narnia where Eustace recounts his encounter with Aslan, when Aslan frees him from being a dragon. His description captures the notion of repentance and transformation powerfully. Do you recall this part of the story?

“Then the lion said—but I don’t know if it spoke—‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.
“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know – if you’ve ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is fun to see it coming away.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.
“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was, lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became so perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again."

I have to admit that I wept some as I reread that. C.S. Lewis captures the repentance, mortification and vivification, resurrection, baptismal washing, regeneration, etc. that I long for.

Lent Thoughts

At the start of Lent, I started posting on Facebook quotes on repentence that I had been reflecting on. Eventually, I started including reflections on love and grace too. As a way to save them and perhaps include fuller texts, I figure I'll post them here too.

"He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone...You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner you are, to God who loves you. He wants you as you are; He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"The usual notion of what Jesus did on the cross runs something like this: people were so bad and so mean and God was so angry with them that he could not forgive them unless somebody big enough took the rap for the whole lot of them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Love, not anger, brought Jesus to the cross." - Richard Foster

"We must ask whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution. And is not the reason perhaps for our countless relapses and the feebleness of our Christian obedience to be found precisely in the fact that we are living on self-forgiveness and not a real forgiveness?" - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Repentence always brings a man to this point: I have sinned. The surest sign that God is at work is when a man says that and means it. Anything less than this is remorse for having made blunders, the reflex action of disgust at himself." - Oswald Chambers

"Christians find it is easier to believe that God exists than that God loves them. / In human beings, love is a quality, a high-prized virtue; in God, love is His identity." - Basil Hume / Brennan Manning

"What is your only comfort, in life and in death? That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil." - 2nd Helvetic Confession

"Batter my heart, three-personed God; for, you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force, to break, blow, burn and make me new." ~ John Donne

"Beloved, true repentance is sorrow for the sin itself: it has not only a dread of the death which is the wages of sin, but of the sin which earns the wages. If you have no repentance for the sin itself, it is in vain that you should stand and tremble because of judgment to come.” - Charles Spurgeon