The Last One

“It is done!” – Revelation 21:6

We are here! Today is our last day in our one-year Bible reading plan (a few days short of an actual year, due to some glitch in the adaptation). There is a particular sense of accomplishment in a task finished, isn’t there? When you pull a cake out of the oven, turn over the last page in a book, put the final touches on a drawing. There are probably far too many projects in life we don’t finish, the life-equivalent of TLDR (Too Long, Didn’t Read). Our good intentions too often run out, reflections perhaps of the fact that we didn’t really care enough, or that we simply lacked the perseverance or resources it would have taken to complete what we started.

 

God never leaves a project undone. “I am sure of this,” Paul writes in Philippians 1:6, “that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” This day comes so beautifully here in the last two chapters of Revelation. The proclamation of God that his work is finished occurs three times in the Bible: at creation (Genesis 2:3), on the cross (John 19:30), and here, at the re-creation of the world. Creation, redemption, and re-creation: God never intended to leave the story unfinished, and we carry the hope of knowing how it will end. 

 

How was this Bible reading experience for you? What is your reading plan for tomorrow? For the point, after all, was never to finish the year, but to develop a lifetime habit of daily Bible reading. My plan for continuing is pretty simple: stick a bookmark at the Old Testament, Psalm, Proverbs, and New Testament, and read through one chapter of each a day—I like how this plan chose from those sections, but this way I don’t have to look up exactly what verse to read to, which is fine given there’s no pressure to finish in a year anyway. But your plan might be different; the point is to find something that works. 

 

And if you can, try writing something every day: one thing that stood out to you from the reading. One verse you can scribble down to think on throughout the day. One point of application. One short prayer. Writing helps you consume what you read. It pushes you to read more actively. It takes the seed of the word and burrows it down deeper into the soil of your heart and mind so that it can grow.

 

To all those who are still seeing these posts a year out: thanks for reading! Your invisible presence has encouraged me immensely. May we continue reading and talking about what we’ve read together!

Robbing God

“But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.” – Malachi 3:8-10

I can think of people in my life—Dave would be among them—who have the gift of generosity. Who just as easily give away money as keep it. But that is something I’ve historically struggled with. It’s ugly to admit, but I tend to feel entitled to what I earn. A while back, I wrote a piece to myself entitled, “Why does God own everything?” and listed four main reasons: because he created it (“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,” Psalm 24:1-2). Because he can take it away at any time (“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away,” Job 1:21). Because we can’t take it with us after we die (“For we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world,” 1 Timothy 6:7). And because he enables me to earn what I do. It is only by his grace that I was born a woman in the late 1900’s and not the late 1800’s; that I had a supportive family and educational opportunities; and so on. Deuteronomy 8:17-18 says, “Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth.” 

 

God owns everything, and this should change how I live. It does not negate the need for financial wisdom and prudence, but it frees me from anxiety and the desire to control money as a primary means of security. It shoots down my pride. It should lead to greater contentment, freedom from the need to compare what I have with others, and an even greater ability to materially enjoy what I do have. And it should lead me to give willingly, because what I have is not mine but God’s. He means it when he says we rob him when we keep for ourselves what should be accounted as his.

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Earthly goods are given to be used, not to be collected… the disciple must receive his portion from God every day. If he stores it up as a permanent possession, he spoils not only the gift, but himself as well, for he sets his heart on his accumulated wealth, and makes it a barrier between himself and God. Where our treasure is, there is our heart, our security, our consolation, and our God.” My old pastor put it more succinctly: “Money is like manure: if you spread it around, it helps things grow. If you hoard it all in one big pile, it stinks.” Sometimes it’s good to be reminded of these not-so-self-evident truths.

Binding Wounds

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” – Psalm 147:3

On the inpatient surgical service, wound dressing typically fell to the medical student or intern during morning rounds, whoever was lowest on the totem pole. The team would stride in, the senior resident asking the patient a few questions while the junior resident did “single-point” auscultation (placing the stethoscope at the lower sternum to hit up heart and abdomen at the same time—notoriously sloppy but efficient). One of them would peel back the dressing, examine the site, then orders would be issued and entered while the team strode off to the next room, leaving the student or intern to redress the wound.

 

Those were the quieter moments on rounds, taking out packs of gauze and paper tape from my white coat pocket, fielding residual questions from the patient. If you think about it, the binding of a wound is an intimate and thoughtful act. It says, I see your hurt, your imperfect places, the things you might not show other people, the places you’ve been wounded or where you carry pain. I am reaching out to touch those places so they can be healed.

 

People like to talk about giving yourself compassion, about forgiving and being kind to yourself. But really, I have nothing to give myself. The only way I can bear my brokenness is to turn to a God who binds up my wounds. Who offers grace when I expect judgment, who sees and understands the depths of my struggles as no one else can. To give myself compassion is merely to receive the compassion He gives to me. I must see myself as forgiven because He has forgiven me. I must be gentle with myself because He is gentle with me. I must have the strength to heal and go on because that is the unspoken purpose in bandaging anything at all. 

 

And He is no minion, no minor member of the team. The next verse says, “He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.” How jarring: this would be like the attending, the director of the entire surgical service, showing up on morning rounds just to rebandage some patient’s incision. But this is precisely how God uses his power. May we encounter this Healer who “lifts up the humble” (verse 6), who reaches out to touch us in our brokenhearted places. 

Worship In Numbers

“Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.” – Revelation 19:6

What is the biggest group you’ve ever participated in vocal worship with? For me it would probably be singing with two thousand people at an Urbana conference twenty years ago. Yet even that pales next to what John experiences here. Can you imagine so many people worshipping that the sound is like the roaring of water or pealing of thunder? 

 

There is something about corporate, vocal worship that cannot be replaced. John does not hear in heaven the sound of thousands of people joining a zoom call, or putting together their thoughts on a google doc. He hears their voices together, bodies together, celebrating the marriage supper of the Lamb. It hit me while reading these verses how much I miss that. There is a power, an awakening, an assurance, even an active element of sanctification, that happens when we join in physical deed and voice with others in worship of God. There is a preoccupation with Jesus and his glory that happens when we lose ourselves in a group. There is a particular kind of testimony that is proclaimed when we congregate and proclaim words in unity. There is a speaking that happens not just to God, but to each other. There is a doubling of joy when we share our own joy in God with others. Martin Luther once wrote, “In my own house, there is no warmth or vigor in me, but in the church when the multitude is gathered together, a fire is kindled in my heart and it breaks its way through.”

 

I feel sad that we can’t do that right now. The loss of physical corporate worship must be grieved, and I will certainly not take it for granted when it happens again.

 

At the same time, livestreamed worship is still corporate worship. We’re still singing words of praise at the same time, still united in worship and prayer before God. In fact, learning that we are part of a larger body even when we can’t see or feel the members of that body is an important spiritual skill. Hebrews 12:1 says that we are “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses”—do you realize that all the believers who have gone before us are watching us, right now? They are joined with us in a very real way, in worship and perhaps even in prayer, whether or not we can see them. And even when we were meeting as a physical congregation in our church sanctuary, the spiritual reality is that we were also joined with all the other believers in all the other churches in our city and around our world in worship of God. One day, we will be able to see these invisible truths in their physical reality. One day, we will be able to meet again in person in our church sanctuary. One day, we will meet all the saints, and all the believers around the world, in the very throne room of God, and hear our voices mingle with theirs in a great roar of joyful worship.

Prophecies and Pottery

“And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. Then the Lord said to me, ‘Throw it to the potter’—the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord, to the potter.” – Zechariah 11:12-13

The book of Zechariah, set after the Israelites’ return from exile, reads like a “wild ride” full of non-linear narrative and startling imagery (see Read Scripture video). The first eight chapters are a series of nighttime visions set in a chiastic structure; the last six are a series of Messianic visions. In fact, about 54 passages from Zechariah are echoed in about 67 different places in the New Testament, with the majority of those found in Revelation.

One prophecy I had never caught before occurs in this enacted parable in chapter 11. Zechariah becomes a shepherd who is rejected by his peers and paid out by sheep traders who plan to slaughter the flock. It’s a tragic story with a startling detail: Zechariah gets paid thirty pieces of silver to leave, the same amount that Judas got paid to betray Jesus. Lay this passage out next to Matthew 26-27, and other similarities emerge: there is haggling over the price (Zechariah 11:12, Matthew 26:15), an attempt to return the money by casting it into God’s house (Zechariah 11:13, Matthew 27:5), and ultimately the money’s use towards the potter (Zechariah 11:13, Matthew 27:7).

What is all this about the silver and the potter? Thirty pieces of silver was the amount paid if a slave was gored by an ox (Exodus 21:32)—it was what a slave, a damaged piece of goods, was worth. Zechariah speaks of it as a “lordly price” in sarcasm. A potter’s field was an area where clay was extracted, or a dump for broken shards of pottery—either way, it was cheap land. Zechariah experienced through this story what Jesus did: coming as the true shepherd who loves his sheep, only to be rejected and devalued. 

Ironically, Jesus was gored, by the nails and the spear. He died priced as a slave, his life worth only enough to buy a chunk of cheap land. Zechariah breaks his staffs of Favor and Union in this first parable only to take up the “equipment of a foolish shepherd” in the next, a shepherd who destroys and devours the sheep (Zechariah 11:15-17). We all follow some kind of shepherd. The question is which one: the shepherd who brings a favor and union that leads to life, or the one whose end is destruction?

Steadfast Love

“The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” – Psalm 145:8

One thing I feel acutely aware of these days are the limits of my emotional reserves. If I begin each day with a certain amount of emotional capital, then I make withdrawals every time I exercise patience while teaching the kids, buffer an emotional outburst or negative mood, or address an iceberg issue. These things take a forbearance that costs something, and the cost is higher if I am physically tired or meeting simultaneous needs at once. 

My reserves are not unlimited. When there is a good flow of input as well as output, I don’t notice this so much, but make nothing but withdrawals for long enough, and the limits of my patience become clear. Eventually it feels like I have to dig deeper and deeper to find the composure that the moment calls for. I need to replenish those reserves through respite, through receiving emotional care from others and from God, in order to keep going.

The Bible talks over and over about the chesed love of God. This word doesn’t really have an English equivalent—it is translated “steadfast” or “unfailing” love—but it basically marries two ideas, the idea of love, and the idea of commitment. God’s love for us is not based on us. It is a setting of the will to love, regardless of how we respond to him, and regardless of how He feels. It is as if God greets us each day with an unlimited reserve of love. His forbearance, his patience, his longsuffering love towards us is absolutely without limit or qualification.

Something as simple as the sun rising every single morning, without fail, reflects this chesed love of God. Walter Brueggeman reflects on this in his poem “At The Dawn”:

      Our first glimpse of reality this day—every day—is your fidelity.

      We are dazzled by the ways you remain constant among us… 

      Now, at the dawn, our eyes are fixed on you in gladness.

      We ask only that your faithfulness

         permeate every troubled place we are able to name,

         that your mercy

         move against the hurts to make new,

         that your steadfastness

         hold firmly what is too fragile on its own.