Category: Spirituality

Yesterday I signed up for golf lessons. It’s amazing how you can think you’re doing everything right, yet have a fundamental flaw in your swing that the golf pro can spot a mile away. Apparently I’ve been swinging far too “inside” — across my body — rather than on a proper more vertical plane, and this is causing me to push shots right or hook them left. I have to retrain my body to bring the club back on the proper plane.

This is similar to spiritual life in many ways. How often do we feel that we’re doing well spiritually when in fact some of our fundamental attitudes and assumptions are wrong? Sometimes it takes an outside observer to help us see and correct such flaws.

We have family and friends, and of course the Holy Spirit, to perform this role. But I also think it can be helpful to intentionally seek out a spiritual “pro” or “coach.” There’s something about a coaching relationship that sometimes permits greater focus and candor than friends and family can provide. And, while the Holy Spirit guides individuals, God’s intention is that we live in community with other believers as the Spirit speaks to and through the Church, not that we each only follow our own “inner light.”

So, just as I’ve realized I need a golf coach if I’m going to improve my game, I realize I also need a spiritual coach if I’m going to mature spiritually. This is something I hope to seek out and find in the coming months.

I played golf yesterday and it was not pretty. Or, I should say, it was not pretty off the tee. I just couldn’t get the ball “out there” and frequently was in the woods to the left, which is unusual for me. When I played a copule of weeks ago in Florida, I was consistently hitting 200+ yard drives straight as an arrow right down the middle. The funny — or frustrating — thing is, yesterday my short irons were pretty good, and they usually are a problem for me. I hit several very nice, high, straight shots that landed softly on the green from around 115 yards.

So what does this have to do with real life? It seem so hard to get all the parts of the game working together. You make progress in one area only to regress in another. The goal of “putting it all together” to achieve your target score (at least for me) doesn’t ever seem to materialize.

And so it is (at least for me) with everything else in life. Progress in one aspect of work — in the old days, winning a case, or now, getting an article published — gets overshadowed by problems in other areas — bad results in a different case, mix-ups with the University administration, getting behind in lecture notes, a complaining student. Something positive in the spiritual life — a good stretch of consistent Bible study and intensive prayer, for example — is exploded by bouts of temper, lust, envy or anxiety. A quiet, harmonious day at home is interrupted by a silly argument. The game never seems to come together for that perfect score.

I know how to approach this: redefine success shot-by-shot; don’t think about the score; focus on each shot as it comes; put a bad shot behind you and try to make a better shot the next time. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matt. 6:34). Easy to say, hard to do.

Isaiah 58 contrasts true and false worship. False worship involves religious observance — “bowing one’s head like a reed” — but “ends in quarreling and strife” and evidences no concern for others. In contrast, true worship is reflected primarily in our actions towards the poor and oppressed:

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to lose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter–
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
(Isaiah 58:6-7)

Forgive me, O God, for bowing my head without also reaching out my hands to those in need.

My father told me a story yesterday I’d never heard before about my grandfather. In the early 1930’s, my grandfather was a 19-year-old German with no money, no prospects, and an abusive father. Rather than feeling sorry for himself, he decided to leave for America. This much I already knew.

At that time, immigrants from Europe were required to have sponsorship and at least $70. My grandfather had connections in a small German Bretheren church in New Jersey, and had saved just enough cash to buy a steerage ticket on a steamer bound for New York, with $70 left over. Like so many other poor Europeans, he boarded the ship and ventured towards the new world.

During the voyage, however, he lost $5 or so in a card game. On arrival at Ellis Island, he was a bit short of the required $70. This could have meant a one-way return trip to Germany — in which case he never would have met my grandmother in that New Jersey church, and my father, me, and my children would never have been born.

The story didn’t end there, of course. My grandfather changed his German money for dollars and asked for the exchnage entirely in one dollar bills, which he rolled in a wad. When the immigration clerk at Ellis Island asked for evidence that my grandfather possessed the required $70, he flashed the wad of sixty-five singles. The clerk, probably too tired, busy, or just lazy to count the singles, waved my grandfather into America.

And so, I owe my life to an unnamed civil servant at Ellis Island who neglected his duty to count grandpa’s money.

Today was communion at my church. (We’re a non-denominational church with similarity to many Baptist churches, in that we observe the Lord’s Supper periodically rather than every Sunday.) As we prepared to start the service, I was sitting on the platform (getting ready to lead worship) behind the communion table. The scent of the grape juice somehow was quite strong where I was seated. It struck me that the fragrance of communion — the sweetness of the juice or wine, the flour scent from the wafers — is like the fragrance of the old burnt offerings given as sacrifices before Christ’s death.

The smell of bread and wine is part of the experience of remembering. It’s one of those almost intangible things that bind us together as the Christian community. It’s the same thing the first believers experienced in their house churches, or that the medieval monks knew in their cloisters, or that persecuted believers know in totalitarian countries throughout the world today. In a way, it goes beyond words, to one of the most basic and instinctive senses God gave us.

I believe He gave us this sacrament, with its varied sense experiences, in part as a symbol of the fullness of the gospel. We see the redness of the wine, we smell its sweetness, we taste its fruits and tanins, we feel its warmth; we see the roughness of the bread, we smell its earthiness, we taste its grains, we feel it crumble; we think about Christ’s death; and we know with all our being what the gospel means.

Tonight I had the privilege of leading worship for a men’s conference at my church. When it clicks, there’s nothing like leading worship. We had the usual technical problems and lack of rehearsal tonight, but there was a wonderful moment towards the end of the set when we were doing “Let it Rise.” The rhythm pocket suddenly got wide and deep, my Les Paul was chugging, the guys in the pews were singing out and clapping, a few were raising hands, the other singers blended and soared, and I knew at that moment I was doing what God placed me on this Earth to do. I’m deeply grateful for the chance to lift up His name in the company of His people.

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. . . . So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples….

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb….

When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. . . . But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.

So Peter and the other disciples started for the tomb…. Then Simon Peter . . . arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying.

Suddenly Jesus met [the women at the tomb]. “Greetings,” he said. they came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” (Matt. 27:5-10; Mark 16:8; John 20:3-7.)

I love the human touch in this most amazing event. Sin and death have been defeated, and the time has come for Jesus’ disciples to hear the glorious news. Soon they will be commissioned to spread the gospel to all the world. But first, God comforts the faithful women who had come to annoint Jesus’ body with perfumes and spices. Imagine their confusion and fear upon finding an open tomb and angelic messengers. Imagine their dismay when the disciples would not believe their report. And imagine their joy at seeing Jesus and hearing him say “do not be afraid.”

This is the heart of God. Do not be afraid of those who oppose you, do not be afraid of the size of the task, do not be afraid of the pervasiveness of injustice, do not be afraid of the arguments of the wise or the might of the strong, do not be afraid of unseen powers, do not be afraid of death itself. Victory is already achieved. He is risen! He is risen indeed!

The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment. Luke 23:55-56.

Jesus, the one they loved, was dead. They must have been exhausted, in shock, grieving. Yet they were faithful. They were faithful to him as they prepared the spices and perfumes for his body. And they were faithful to God as they waited and rested on the Sabbath. Perhaps they who had known him so well, who had seen him raise Lazarus, felt that something would happen. Or perhaps not. Either way, they remained faithful.

And so we too wait for Sunday, sometimes grieving, but trusting, going about the work we’ve been given, believing somehow the stone-sealed tomb is not the final word.

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:37-39)

Today we celebrate and remember that the curtain was torn. The curtain symbolized sinful humanity’s separation from a holy God. When Christ died on the cross, the curtain was decisively, completely torn, “from top to bottom.”

All of history hinges on the torn curtain. It changes everything, forever. God has opened the way to full relationship with Himself. We are now free to enter God’s holy presence through the way made by the cross.

Yet, because we are free to enter, we are not compelled. We can choose to remain on the other side of the curtain, or look for another way through. But the cross made the way; it is a beautiful way, and it is the only way.

This Good Friday, walk through the torn curtain into God’s presence by the way made by the cross. If you’ve walked this way before, give thanks and remember how much it cost God to bring you through. If you’ve never passed through the torn curtain, step through. Leave the weight of your sin and the despair of your separation from God behind. Enter into the joy of His friendshp on the day He tore the curtain for you.