Day 3 in Mexico

I wrote this on Thursday but couldn't post it until today:

Today we went on a big outing. It was an all day affair, and along with us came Naomi, Liz, and David Gonzalez. David is one of the cutest 6 year olds I have ever met, and his mother Naomi and her sister Liz were warm-hearted. I enjoyed speaking Spanish with them, and they were very understanding and helpful.

David. He had me wrapped around his little finger.

David with his mother Naomi.

Liz is David's aunt and Naomi's sister.

After picking up the Gonzalez family, we drove up into the mountains until we came to the top of the pass over the mountain range. At about 9,360 ft., we stopped to have a picnic lunch in a meadow that Mark and Esther had been to before. Mark told me a story about the last time they went to this particular meadow with some friends from Mitla. They arrived to have lunch there at about 2:00 PM on a rare clear day during the rainy season. As soon as Mark pulled off the road, he felt his car sink down just a little. A few hours later, when they decided to leave, he got in the car, and as soon as he pressed the gas pedal the car sank in up to its axels. They didn’t get home until 1:00 AM.

Our experience was much more pleasant. I climbed up into a huge cactus plant and had my picture taken. David and I played catch with pine cones, and when he tired of that, Mark and I worked together to rig up a “columpio” out of rope and tow straps that Mark had in the Durango. David got endless enjoyment out of this makeshift swing, and I got endless enjoyment watching him (and pushing him). After a picnic lunch of tuna fish sandwiches, manzanas (apples), and jugo de mango (mango juice), we packed up to go down the other side of the mountain where we visited a trout farm.

I am standing in the middle of a huge cactus plant. What is amazing is that the plant pictured is nowhere near the biggest of these that we saw.

Mark pushing David on his columpio. "Mas alto! Mas!"

The trout have to be imported from a hatchery several hours away, and they are kept in various pools along a hill. There is a makeshift waterfall between each pool, which has something to do with the oxygen levels in the water I think. The restaurant where you can buy cooked trout was closed, and no one in the expedition wanted to carry home raw fish. Nevertheless, we all enjoyed watching David feed the trout.

David crossing the bridge at the trout farm.

We took a different route back down the mountain than we had taken coming up, so we got to go even higher (10,500 ft.) and passed through several small mountain villages. One of the villages was having their annual town fair. We heard several homemade fireworks go off, and we saw the men constructing a huge firework tower for the show later.

The trout farm.

Today was the first day that we used primarily Spanish for the whole day. Since the Gonzalez family didn’t speak English and I am trying to learn Spanish, all our conversation was in Spanish. It was exhilarating for the first few hours, comfortable for the next few, and exhausting towards the end of the day. It requires constant focus and mental processing to trace even the most simple of conversations. Nevertheless, I learned a ton, and I am looking forward to another month of exhilarating, exhausting, informative interaction in a country I am growing to love.

Beautiful pine forests at the top of the mountains.

I took this on the way back down the mountain. David leaned out the window to take everything in almost the whole way.

When we got back to Mitla, we went straight to the Gonzalez’s church for their evening service. It was much harder to understand the Spanish spoken during the sermon than the Spanish we had been using all day. For one thing, my brain was running on reserves. Plus, the pastor was from El Salvador originally and had a strong accent. Also, during the day I could use events and motions to guide me in understanding the conversation; the sermon was given with few useful motions, and my only guide was the fact that I was fairly familiar with the text of 1 Corinthians 11. 

The church we attended was located in this pavilion next to the Gonzalez's house.

At the beginning of the service we sang a few worship songs. I was able to participate pretty well, though I didn’t always know the meaning of the songs, because I could predict the melody pretty well based on the chord patterns and the lyrics of the songs were in the bulletin. When we finished singing, the pastor, Americo, split us into pairs. Each pair was assigned three verses out of 1 Cor. 11 to read and discuss. I was paired with an older lady, and I’m sorry to say we did little discussion. Still, our interaction was cordial, and when I saw her in the market today in Mitla, we exchanged familiar greetings.

The guitar that was used during the service belonged to Liz, so afterwards I asked her if I could play. We ended up singing together and trying to find out which English worship songs had been translated into Spanish. The Gonzalez family came back to our place to eat, and on the way we stopped at “Taco Brown” to get some awesome tacos. After the meal we sang and laughed the night away.
I feel as if I have been here for a month already, but it has actually been just a few days. Tomorrow the rest of my time here will take shape as we return to Tlapa where the Weathers live and work. They will be translating during the day, and I will begin the work the Lord has for me to do here, whatever that may be.

Food from Taco Brown. Good food and great fellowship.

Day 2 in Mexico

I wrote this on Wednesday but couldn't post it until today:

My brain is tired! After only my second day in Mexico, my brain is exhausted from all the learning, but I am having such a blast as I meet new people, experience a new culture, and learn a new language. 

Whenever I see or hear a word that I don’t know, I try to ask Mark what it means as soon as possible, so my vocabulary is gradually expanding. In the next few days I am going to try to get out into the streets and speak with natives as much as possible. Each day I will have several phrases that I will try to use repeatedly, but I think that with the amount I know I can also just have some general conversations with people without too much trouble. People are so friendly, so as long as I say “Soy de Estados Unidos. Quiero aprender Espan~ol” or something similar they are happy to have a conversation with me and try to be cognizant of their rate of speech.

After sleeping only an hour and a half in the Mexico City airport on Monday night and going straight from the airport to visit the ancient ruins at Monte Alban, I crashed yesterday at about 4:30PM. I slept until 9:00AM the next morning, although I was awake for a few hours in the middle of the night. Even after all the sleep, I am ready to crash. Today was a full day.

Mark and I went today to see “hierve el agua,” which literally means “it boils the water.” To get there we had to traverse a 7500 ft. mountain via a dirt road. The views were spectacular; the ride was bumpy. It was well worth the trip. 

One of the sediment waterfalls.

The more impressive "sediment-fall."

For centuries natural mineral springs have been bubbling out of various holes in the side of the mountain. As a result, solid waterfall-like structures have formed from sediment deposits. It was quite a hike. When I get a faster internet connection, I will upload whole albums of this expedition and my trip to Monte Alban yesterday (pictured below).

Some of these structures date back to over 500 years before Christ. These ruins were truly incredible to explore on Tuesday.

We arrived back from hierve el agua at 4:00PM to our house in Mitla, which is known as the Miller House. It is a large house that used to be owned by a family of translators who were some of the first to work among the indigenous population near Mitla. Now the house is owned by SIL and has been divided into three apartments used to house various translators when they are in town. Soon thereafter we left to go and have dinner with Tim and Rebecca. This couple used to live in Tlapa. They work with the Southern Baptist Mission organization. Tim is involved in training church planters to use a method of evangelism that utilizes story telling. They lived in New Orleans for many years, and we had some wonderful jambalaya. 

Tim and Rebecca...sideways.

The whole dinner party!

Car rides seem to be particularly informative for me because I sit in the front with Mark and question him about Spanish and other things for most of the ride. Mark and Esther have forgotten more than I’ll ever know, so I figure if I keep my ears open I will learn a ton.

Well, I am exhausted. I am supposed to jog with Mark tomorrow at 6:45, so I will call it a night. Hasta luego.

First Post from Mexico!

I am sitting in el aeropuerto de la Cuidad de Mexico (The Mexico City airport).  I found some unsecured wireless signal from a local restaurant so I could get online.  It is currently 3:20 AM, and I leave for Oaxaca in about 4 hours.

On the plane, I sat next a very nice Irish gentleman.  He lives in Chicago but is traveling to  Mexico City on business.  We talked quite a bit, which was enjoyable.  In the airport I have had several successful exchanges with native speakers in which I understood probably 50% or more of what the other person was saying, which was good enough to get the job done, especially with gestures and body language helping.

At the airport I used my phone card to call Mark Weathers to let him know that I arrived safely.  He told me that some friends of his family were going to visit some famous ruins outside of Oaxaca and that I would be welcome to join them.  I know I will be very tired, but I figure I can sleep anytime; I don't want to miss an opportunity like that!

Well, that's all for now.  I'll write again when I am safely in Oaxaca.

401KOs

I read the sermon on the mount, and I can't help but wonder if a Christian, in general, should have a 401K or other retirment fund.

Christ says things like, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on Earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. Store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven where moth and rust do not destroy and thieves do not break in and steal."

He also says, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?"

So, how is a retirement fund not storing up treasures on earth because of our worry about our life and body? Well, it is just good stewardship of the funds God has given, and we don't want to be a burden on our children or society.

I think that good stewardship of the funds God has given us would be giving all our excess (and maybe even sacrificing some things) to erradicate world hunger. Good stewardship would be putting our holy boots in AIDS' ass. Good stewardship isn't making sure we can afford an RV and gas when the time comes for us to hang up the overalls or the suit.

Now, the point about being a burden to children is somewhat more valid than the "good stewardship" argument. In the world we live in, retirment funds may be a necessary evil (though not entirely nor to the degree we use them). However, let me take a moment and paint a picture for you.

Imagine a church when every moment from first to final breath was spent in commitment to Christian community. Imagine if we lived as people of equal means no matter our salaries and made sure that no one in our midst was in need (and, in this global society, this may look like trying to ensure that no one in our world is in need). Imagine how freeing this would be. Every person would be about kingdom business his whole life, and would work to support the family as long as he was able. When retirement came (from a career, mind you, not from lay ministry), it would be the natural cycle of things that the community, particularly his loved ones, would provide for him. It would not be a burden; it would be a joy.

What a privilege to help provide necessary things that don't really matter to a person who has provided and continues to provide so many things that really do matter. And there would be no guilt on the part of the elderly, for when they were still working, they too had helped provide to the generation before them.

One final question that will be left unexplored at present, for I must go to bed: Are retirement funds and massive savings accounts an outgrowth of western individualism?

Jealous of the Moon

There is a song that has been stuck in my head all week. I've tried singing other things, but that is just a temporary fix. Some songs speak to the heart. They speak from the heart. They express the inner longings of the soul in ways that I cannot explain. This is the chorus of "Jealous of the Moon" by Nickel Creek:

Staring down the stars,
Jealous of the moon,
You wish you could fly.
But you're staying where you are,
There's nothing you can do,
If you're too scared to try.

There are times when I think I could be great, and at times I see this same greatness in my friends. My generation is full of legacy that is still potential but is longing to be set free, and, although I am generally optimistic, I do, at times, become fearful that we will fall far short of all we could achieve.

I suppose that every generation dreams big when they are this age, but why then do we fail to achieve? If generation after generation has dreamt of a radically different way of doing things, then why is our culture so static. The surface may change, but a millimeter underneath is the same mildew that makes the tapestry stink.

There are two voices that affect our mindset. Our soul speaks in flashing moments of truth when the haze is drawn away, the problems become real, and the solutions become reachable. Opposing this first voice is our mind, like the radio on in the background tuned to the mix station. It is saying, "Sure. Write a new song, and we'll throw it in with the same old mix." It tells us that our originality and daring are only recycling and youth, and it is a tempting lie. If this lie were the truth, as it so often becomes, then we could take a rest. We could settle into comfortable and forget the things we have seen and heard before we went blind and deaf.

The voice of our soul is like a sprint. It gets our blood pumping, our heart racing, and our endorphins kicking. Still we stop before we go around the curve.

The voice of our mind is like a marathon runner. Like the energizer bunny, it keeps going. It looks back at the sprinter stopping to catch his breath and laughs with the knowledge that slow and steady wins the race, or at least it has with few exceptions for the past 10,000 years.

Here then is what we must do: We must discipline our sprinting soul. Slow down without losing the edge and take steps instead of leaps. We must become distance runners for change. If ever we do this, our souls will match stride with our minds, and we will find that the power of the two working in tandem is enough to break the mold. It is enough to churn the pond that has long been stagnant.

If we will discipline the part of us that longs to do great things, the part of us that longs to make things the way we see them on a clear blue day, then we will stop getting winded before we go anywhere.

The Canvas

God spoke into the silence and where there was no meaning before, He created meaning. Out of silence He spoke and created light, separating it from darkness. Out of silence He created nature with the sound of His voice. Out of silence He created everything that was to be. And so, whether by setting into motion the process of evolution or by creating a developed universe, God entered the nothingness and began to fill the silence with meaning.

Silence is the canvas on which the masterpiece of existence must be painted. It is the nothing that allows for an actual something. In the same way that light is only conceivable because there is an opposite, darkness, meaning is only meaningful because there is a lack of meaning, silence.

So, in this way, silence makes meaning clear. It is therefore opposed to a corruption of meaning which we commonly call noise because noise serves the opposite purpose. Noise distracts from meaning. It is the stray marks of a shaky brush that muddle the picture by covering the contrasting canvas.

Why then do we fill our lives with so much noise? I believe it is because noise, a feint at meaning, is considerably easier than the real thing. Creating meaning may require hours of staring at a blank canvas, whereas anyone and anything can sling paint on it with little effort and little time.

A&E aired a special a few years ago the purpose of which was to criticize modern art and modern art critics. They gave an elephant a paint brush, let him sling paint onto a canvas, and presented it to modern art critics as the brilliant work of an up and coming artist. The critics took the bait and began to rave about symbolism brilliant use of color, and originality.

The point is this: everything can make noise. Even elephants make noise; in fact, they are probably better at that than humans. But what makes humans unique is that we will spend countless hours, often lifetimes, trying to create meaning out of noise because we are so scared of a blank canvas.

A blank canvas is the only road to meaning. Every moment spent trying to make sense out of stray brush marks is time that could be spent carrying out our God-given role to create meaning.

All this to say:

Turn off the TV.

Silence the cell phone.

Close the book.

Close your mouth.

Stare at the canvas for a while.

Now paint.

Son of Man

The following is sermon which my best friend, Richard Winford, and I wrote earlier this week:

“God had come near. He came, not as a flash of light or as an unapproachable conqueror, but as one whose first cries were heard by a peasant girl and sleepy carpenter. The hands that first held him were unmanicured, calloused, and dirty. No silk. No ivory. No hype. No party. No hoopla. Were it not for the shepherds, there would have been no reception. And were it not for a group of stargazers, there would have been no gifts. Angels watched as Mary changed God’s diaper. The universe watched with wonder as The Almighty learned to walk. Children played in the street with him. And had the synagogue leader in Nazareth known who was listening to his sermons… Jesus may have had pimples. He may have been tone-deaf. Perhaps a girl down the street had a crush on him or vice-versa. It could be that his knees were bony. One thing’s for sure: He was, while completely divine, completely human.
For thirty-three years he would feel everything you and I have ever felt. He felt weak. He grew weary. He was afraid of failure. He was susceptible to wooing women. He got colds, burped, and had body odor. His feelings got hurt. His feet got tired. And his head ached. To think of Jesus in such a light is – well, it seems almost irreverent, doesn’t it? It’s not something we like to do; it’s uncomfortable. It is much easier to keep the humanity out of the incarnation. Clean the manure from around the manger. Wipe the sweat out of his eyes. Pretend he never snored or blew his nose or hit his thumb with a hammer.
He’s easier to stomach that way. There is something about keeping him divine that keeps him distant, packaged, predictable. But don’t do it. For heaven’s sake, don’t. Let him be as human as he intended to be. Let him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let him in can he pull us out.”

-Max Lucado

When Lucado says that Jesus came to pull us out, he isn’t talking about something insignificant. Christ isn’t the guy who inconveniences himself slightly in order to help someone change their flat tire. He, the King of the World, the divine Word which has always been and through which we are created, left glory for us.

For centuries humans had been ignoring, mistreating, and killing the messengers of God. Still, His love is not something that can be measured on human scales. There is no limit to the ‘inconvenience’ God is willing to endure for us. Even knowing how we had treated his servants and how we would treat his son, God offered that which was most precious to him. This offer is the clearest demonstration of God’s love in human history – that Christ became flesh. In fact, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sin.” If that sounds familiar, it is because John, the disciple who Jesus loved, wrote it.

Imagine that you are God the Father, looking down on someone who is so a part of you that he can only be described in human language as actually being you. You watch him as he is born in a shameful setting. You chuckle at Mary and Joseph as they try to parent him. You watch the humble town you chose as his hometown reject him despite the way you allow him to heal the very people who will one day lead him to Calvary. Then, as Christ hangs on that cross in the ultimate display of self-effacing love, you turn your face away from a piece of your own heart because of your desire to see the heart’s of all men made whole again.

“God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…” Jesus became human because of God’s love for the world. It is an immense love, a love that according to Paul, “surpasses knowledge.” Nothing can separate us from love – “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That is the key: “the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is only through Jesus, the son of God, made flesh that we can actually enter this two way love relationship with the God who has always loved us.

One raw winter night a farmer heard an irregular thumping sound against the kitchen storm door. He went to a window and watched as tiny, shivering sparrows, attracted to the evident warmth inside, beat in vain against the glass.

Touched, the farmer bundled up and trudged through fresh snow to open the barn door for the struggling birds. He turned on the lights and tossed some hay in a corner. But the sparrows, which had scattered in all directions when he emerged from the house, hid in the darkness, afraid.

The man tried various tactics to get them into the barn. He laid down a trail of Saltine cracker crumbs to direct them. He tried circling behind the birds to drive them toward the barn. Nothing worked. He, a huge, alien creature, had terrified them; the birds couldn't comprehend that he actually desired to help.

The farmer withdrew to his house and watched the doom sparrows through a window. As he stared, a thought hit him like lightening from a clear blue sky: "If only I could become a bird--one of them--just for a moment. Then I wouldn't frighten them so. I could show them the way to warmth and safety.

At that moment, another thought dawned on him, He had grasped the reason Jesus was born.

Before we can begin grasping and understanding Christ's humanity, we must answer why He became human in the first place. After creating a world of wonder and amazement God desired more. He created Himself a companion--Adam--to accompany Him for eternity. Someone to share in this glory and awe. Of course, sin's arrival became the kitchen glass isolating man from the warmth of God's all consuming Love. In order to solve this, God devised plan after plan to save His sparrow of Adam. He created a Law of cracker crumbs to direct them into Salvation; He sent Prophets and Judges to get behind His people and drive them toward Him. Finally, God went to such a great length to communicate to these sparrows, his people, that he actually became one of them. Christ's humanity is a direct revelation of His love for us. God willingly left the comfort of His heavenly kitchen, taking on the very nature of a lowly sparrow and forced himself into a cold world where He would be taunted, cursed, despised, killed in order to bring the news of perfect warmth, the news of perfect Life.

I’m going to ask you a couple of questions that actually need responses. This is the talkback portion of today’s show, so please, you know, talk back.

Let’s say your car won’t work. Who do you get to fix it?

Let’s say you’re very sick. Where would you go? Who would you expect to help you?

Would you ever have your car fixed by someone who had no experience with cars? Would you ask for medical care from someone who had never been to medical school? Of course not. The fact is, there are many problems that require professional help.

Now, you may be able to figure out what is wrong with your car with relative ease. It won’t start. It isn’t hard to tell you are having chest pain or trouble breathing. We go to see a mechanic and a doctor in order to get these issues resolved.

In the beginning God created a perfect world with a perfect man and woman to rule over it. He walked with them daily in perfect relationship. He gave them everything they could ever want with only one restriction.

Then, according to Genesis 3, the man and woman sinned. This brought perfect relationship with God to an end. At this point, because of the sin of Adam, sinned infected all of humanity. There were many serious consequences for this first sin, but the most drastic was the fouling up of man’s love relationship with God almighty.

There you go. We all now know what is wrong with us. Sin is wrong with us. Sin is what is still fouling up our relationship with God today. Just like when we deal with a car that won’t start or a heart that isn’t working right, we have to seek professional help. Except in this case, it is much more important because we are talking about eternity. We are talking about life and death.

In Romans 5 Paul says, “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.”

Sin is wrong with us. Sin won’t let us start. Sin is that pain in our chest. God, in His infinite wisdom did not refer to someone who doesn’t know the problem. He enrolled his son in a special training seminar. Jesus experienced a world full of sin. He hung out with the most sinful people. If Jesus hadn’t been human, it would all have been for naught. Hebrews 2 says, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death… For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.”

So I ask you today, have you been to see your mechanic? Have you been to see your doctor? Recognize that you have a problem just like everyone else, a problem called sin, and if you haven’t yet, go see the professional, the one who can fix the problem.

Frequently when we begin to understand Christ’s identity we place him upon this pedestal out of our reach. We view Christ with wonder and awe. We start our prayers with innumerable amounts of adoration and praise glorifying His power and might. We constantly focus on his divinity in comparison to our depravity. We place Him upon this lofty throne barely in sight. Don’t get me wrong, this is not even the beginning of how much Honor and Glory He truly deserves, yet at the same time, we must understand that He has the ability to relate to us right here, right now in a way that boggles our minds. We focus on Jesus being completely God, yet forget He was completely man. He understands us; he relates to us. He knows our emotions, not merely because he created them, but because he experienced them. The Gospel of John is one of the most beautiful descriptions of Jesus’ Divinity, yet in Chapter 11 after hearing the news of the death of Lazarus, we see a grief stricken Jesus. He is not merely crying but rather weeping. He experiences pain. We turn to Mathew 21 in which we see an enraged Jesus furiously throwing out the money changers. He shows us compassion towards the woman with the alabaster jar; He shows us frustration with His “you of little faith,” to his closest brothers after calming the wind and the waves. Through studying His life we do not see the stoic and reserved Jesus of brown hair and blue eyes usually depicted in our minds but rather a man who laughs and cries, comforts and rebukes, attracts and offends. A man of complete humanity. He understands our emotions. He has experienced them allowing Him to relate to us on a completely human level even though He doesn’t dwell with us in the physical.

We place Christ on this pedestal for our comfort. As long has He is up there, out of sight, out of mind, we control the relationship. Though we may declare this all for Him and claim our lives as His, as long as we view Him strictly as a Kingly figure He cannot affect us. It’s easy to encounter a god only once or twice a week. As long as Jesus’ Divinity is the only thing examined He has become completely out of reach for us. As long as Christ remains only as God, we refuse to allow Him complete access. It is only in embracing the humanity of Jesus can we free ourselves.

Accepting Christ as human is so hard because it ruins all of our excuses. We all know we must live lives that reflect Jesus' life. We understand this need to live in holiness, yet we still slip up and fall whenever temptation rears its ugly head. As long as Jesus is strictly divine and supernatural we accept His sinless nature. Whenever we slip up, we can throw out the excuse "I'm only human." "Christ is divine, He can handle temptation, I'm merely human, I'm not expected to live a flawless life." Once we realize that Christ is human; He feels exactly what we feel, He understands us completely, including on a human level, we lose this excuse. Jesus was fully man and remained sinless, aren't we called to live lives striving for the same? Jesus handled the temptation thrown at Him, yet I fail, so many times, Wes fails so many times, Jeremy fails so many times. Where do we turn to strive for the life Jesus calls us to?

You sit down to take your End of Course exam for the most challenging and difficult class of your life--this isn't easy stuff like Calculus or Linear Algebra. In fact, this material makes Differential Equations and Quantum Physics seem elementary. You walk in to take the test. You're no longer in high school where you have about 100 other grades to balance this out. This is college and this one test is everything. You walk in, sit down. Your professor tosses a 100 page block of paper in front of you. A stern voice echoes out "you have an hour; begin." You're doomed.

In life we don't have all of our "trials and tribulations" set before us during out last hour of life. We have individual questions thrown throughout the course. We have the "I-shouldn't-see-this-movie" question, or the "I-was-up-all-night-working-on-Bio-so-I-need-the-Algebra-answers" question. Guys, how about the "dude-she's-really-hot-you've-got-to-come-see-this" question; ladies, the "I-can't-believe-the-two-of-them-are-dating" question? When we think about it, we really are doomed. Unlike in college, we have someone who not only took the course and taught the course, but who actually created the course sitting right next to us whispering every answer in our ear. We have an open book test where we can use the aid of the peers around us, yet most importantly the instructor Himself revealing to us each and every answer.

There was a professor who taught a course on logic and reasoning and, like a lot of college courses, limited his grades to one final at the semester’s end. He warned his students throughout the year of this one horrendous test. The class period before the final he handed out one piece of white paper to every student in the class. He explained that they could bring in this one sheet of paper on the test day and use whatever was on it. Immediately the students scrambled and began writing in microscopic print along the edges and corners trying to use every square millimeter of space. One of the students in the back smugly picked up his paper and left the room. On test day all of the students began comparing their blackened pieces of paper filled with almost unreadable notes. The one student walked in with that same sheet of paper completely blank and set it down on the floor next to him as the professor began handing out the exam. A minute before the students were to begin, in walked one of the professor’s former students currently working on graduate work regarding logic and reasoning. He walked over, stood on the blank piece of paper and began telling the paper’s owner each and every answer.

In our lives we have the opportunity for God the Father has provided Christ to stand next to us and provide us the answers in order to pass through our temptations. When we face these temptations, we must accept this divine escape and acknowledge Christ who is at our side whispering the answers and providing us the confidence to avoid the cleverest snares of the enemy.

Let’s consider a phrase that we often read, “Son of Man.” We often simply substitute “Son of God” in for this phrase just like we have learned to since our first day of Sunday School. Tonight, instead of making this substitution, let’s look at the history of this phrase.

All throughout the Old Testament, “son of man” was a reference to mankind or the whole of humanity. In Genesis God tells Abraham, “And I will multiply your seed like the dirt of the earth which no son of man can count.” In Psalms, David writes, “What is man, that you think of him? The son of man, that you care for him?” God commonly addresses Isaiah and Jeremiah as ‘Son of Man.’ Throughout the Old Testament, as well as in many other ancient pieces of literature, son of man is used as a generic phrase to refer to a human being or to sum up all of humanity into one phrase. Yet when we see Jesus refer to himself as the son of man, we allow our knowledge of his divinity to blind us to the power of his humble self-reference.

Put yourselves in the shoes of the people Jesus was addressing. They had no idea that he was the Son of God. They couldn’t even understand his parables, and they were in constant amazement at his miracles. Jesus didn’t address them as if they had it all figured out. He didn’t refer to himself as the son of man because he had decided that was a good way to call himself God. We associated this phrase with divinity because we know who Jesus was, but he did not say it to reference his deity. He said it to emphasize his humanity. Jesus constantly reminded everyone around him that he was just a human, the son of a human being. Even when talking about glorious things like the fulfillment of prophecy, his death, his resurrection, and his return to take home the saints, he emphasizes his humanness by referring to himself as the son of man. Jesus did this for a reason.

Remember Adam, the perfect man who messed things up? Well, Jesus is reminding us that he isn’t just God, he is man, the way we were supposed to be. And he is able to be this perfect man, the example for everyone who bears witness to his ministry, the example for all of us, because he dwelt while here on earth in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. I’m not talking the warm fuzzies you and I get when someone asks the Holy Spirit to come into this room and we start singing some David Crowder song. I’m talking about an indefinable union of body and Holy Spirit, an overarching submission of will to divine guidance that actually affects behavior.

Then Jesus left. He left so that the mantle of the Holy Spirit could pass from him to us and that we could follow his example still.

Jesus thought it was pretty important that he be seen as the son of a man. It is so important because as much as we talk about worshipping God, submitting to his will, obeying him, and letting him be Lord of our life, we all know that we need someone to show us how to do it. We need someone we can relate to, the son of a man, to show us how to be love and to be loved, to show us how to live with strength and humility, to show us how to change the world.

It is essential, if we plan to follow the example Jesus set, that we be very familiar with his life and teachings. Jesus did countless actions which we should all strive to do. Daily he withdrew by himself to spend time with the father. He was patient with his disciples; he was bold in confronting hypocrisy. Still, perhaps the most lasting mark on history, the most intense word of truth that Jesus' life speaks into our lives, is his indelible love for the least of these. Tonight we must ask ourselves the question, "How, through the power of the Holy Spirit, will we follow the example set by God the Father and God the Son?" Who are the least of these around us, and how do we love them?

A million times we have heard the sermon about picking up our lunch trays and sitting with the person who is all alone. That is not what I am talking about. That is a watered down faith in action; it reeks of self-righteous and is bereft of a true change of heart. Jesus didn't go and 'minister to' the prostitutes, tax collectors, blind men, and simpletons; he lived among them in true community with them. He didn't keep a gang of Pharisees on the side to be his true friends when he had finished doing his good deeds among the lower class. Often times we confuse our goal of loving the unlovables with a mandate to make them as popular and accepted as we are. However, we need to take a serious look at the values behind this imaginary mandate. If we follow the Son of Man's example, we will see that we are called to submerge into the unpopularity and rejection in order to love them with a love that puts no stock in human judgments.

In November, a recent college graduate named Mike Yankoski came and spoke at ACU. He recently authored a book called Under the Overpass chronicling he and his best friend's personal experiences on the streets of 5 major US cities. Between their sophomore and junior years at Westmont College, they decided to take 6 months off and live on the streets. They had been considering Jesus' radical call to self-denial and unconditional love and decided that they needed an eye-opening experience. Mike tells a heart-wrenching story about a man he met on the streets. As he passed the unshaven, unkempt man, he saw the precious human being underneath. He asked him a simple question, nothing profound. Something like, "How is your day going?" The man teared up at the sound of his voice. He turned to him and said with a look of gratitude and love, "It is so good to hear your voice. Of the crowds that pass me by every day, you are the first person who has been willing to speak to me all week."

A couple of weeks ago I attended a Christmas Party through my church in Abilene. At this party a bunch of Christians, mostly college students from ACU, came to spend an evening dancing with the mentally-handicapped from a local Christian group home. The organizers advertised it as the 'Jesus Party.' After a night spent with the most precious of God's creation, people we often ignore or blatantly reject, I realized how fitting the name was. If Jesus lived today, he would have been at that party. He would have taken it a step further. He would have actually made the emotional commitment to become intricately involved in their lives.

I hope that tonight you will contemplate Jesus' challenging life. I also hope you will reflect on his radical teaching. Listen to some of His teachings we often like to sweep under the rug. "Give to everyone who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you." "Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you." "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." "Whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done for me." Finally, in a quote that speaks directly to following God's example, Christ says, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."


After this, I spoke for another ten minutes on a text in Mark 8 and we listened to the song 'Glory of it All' by David Crowder. If you have the time after reading this long entry check it out on youtube.