Six Weeks Later

 Well, it turns out this Lenten season has been awful, just awful. I am normally a fairly disciplined guy; but of the 35 days of Lent thus far, I’ve completed my Lenten discipline on exactly 7 of them. I have felt “out of sync” – out of sync with God, with myself, with my surroundings. I have no doubt that these feelings are simply a function of where I am in the process of cross-cultural adjustment, and therefore nothing more than a storm to be weathered. But storms are just no fun, when they are happening inside you! It has been helpful to me to express my theological reflections, though. I’ve been pondering “The Cosmic Riddle” in the Scriptures for many years, and it’s encouraging to me to be able to see myself living it out in a small way. And for me, I often haven’t really thought about things until I’ve either spoken or written them … comes with the territory of being an extrovert, I guess. 

I wish I could lose my American cultural identity completely, honestly, for mixed reasons – some of which are healthy, some of which are not. I often feel like I’m a critical person, and I struggle with feeling critical of American culture. Part of this is just because of how the way things are, kind of like how Jesus said that a prophet isn’t without honor except in his own country. We are often most critical of things (and people) that are the most familiar. Part of this is from ways that I have felt hurt or misunderstood by American culture, which I think is common for Americans who are highly creative and artistic. On the grand scale of things, I don’t think that creativity and artistry are high American values. 

At the same time, there is much about American culture that draws just criticism. American culture values highly things like individualism, independence, efficiency, merit-based rewards, and, frankly, money. None of these things are exactly wrong, but I think they have all become too important within the culture. In my opinion, these values have gone amok and have made American culture arrogant and self-absorbed. People around the world tend to dislike Americans as a group, although people I’ve met who have made friendships with Americans generally don’t feel quite so strongly. I’m really not trying to pick on America, every culture has deeply-embedded problems. I’m only trying to be as honest as I can be about the problems in American culture. 

But strange as it may seem, this process of adjusting to cross-cultural living has been slowly changing my perspective toward American culture. I think I am healing, actually. There are some truly, truly wonderful things about American culture, and by being gone, I appreciate those things more and more. Thanksgiving is a thoroughly good and beautiful American tradition. I usually feel rather disgusted with politics in America, but the American political system is a sound one. I am profoundly thankful for the American judicial process of trial by jury. Living in Baltimore, I worked two jobs where I was one of the only light-skinned people around, and I was (and continue to feel) amazed at how genuinely welcomed I was into those communities despite my obvious differences, differences that went deeper than just skin color. I have worked several jobs in America where I got to know people vastly different than myself, and this is largely due to the American application of capitalist economic principles. There’s lots to like about America, and I’m learning to better appreciate the good things in addition to criticizing the bad things. 

The fact of the matter is, that regardless of how much I would like to shed my American cultural identity and assume an African identity, I can’t do either in totality. I will always have my light skin. American English will always be my mother tongue. My childhood memories will always be American memories. There are some American patterns of thinking that are so deeply ingrained in my synapses that I will never be able to change them. I will always be different than Africans. This is the plain truth, and I think I am learning to accept that.

Lenten Meditations on the Cosmic Riddle, Part 5

 Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, 

That the mountains would tremble before you! … 

For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, 
You came down, and the mountains trembled before you. … 

Yet you, LORD, are our Father. 
We are the clay, you are the potter; 
We are all the work of your hand. … 

Oh, look upon us we pray, 
For we are all your people. … 

Will you, O LORD, hold yourself back? 
Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure? 
-Isa. 64:1-12 


My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your ancestors lived. They and their children and their children’s children will live there for oever, and David my servant will be their prince for ever. I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I the LORD make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them for ever. 
-Ezek. 37:24-28 


Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling-place is now with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 
-Rev. 21:1-4 


God’s dwelling-place is in heaven, and our dwelling-place is on earth; and in between lies a great vault that divides us (Gen. 1:6-8). We are trapped here in on earth, prisoners of our own wickedness, and there is no escape. For who could cross from earth to heaven? Our only hope is that God might, somehow, come down and rescue us. But who would cross from heaven to earth? This is “The Cosmic Riddle.” 


And of course, Jesus is The Cosmic Answer. 


But our problem has not yet been solved! Before, we were in our proper dwelling-place (the earth) but separated from God. Now we have fellowship with God, but we are aliens in our own dwelling-place. We have been re-nationalized, and like Jesus, our citizenship is now in heaven. But Jesus, our Savior, came only for a short visit before returning to the heavenly realm from whence He came. We are still parted from Him and from our Father, although we are NOT (thanks be to God!) parted from the Holy Spirit. 

Like the prophet of ages ago, we still yearn for God, our Father, to rend the heavens, and come down, and be with us, His people. Attend to this word carefully, because I find it deeply satisfying. I don’t think that the strongest groanings of our human heart are to leave the earth behind and be with God. God has created the earth for us, and us for the earth. Despite being citizens of heaven, the earth is still our proper dwelling-place. We belong on the earth, and our heart knows it. You see, the problem is not that we aren’t in our home. We are IN our home. But we’re not AT home, because God is our home, yet He is not here. 

No, what we really long for is for God to come down to us, to be with us in our dwelling place. Wouldn’t that be “the best”?!? We don’t contemplate this very much, and I think the reason is because we have so thoroughly taken for granted how thoroughly ruined by sin this earth has become. We have wrecked it so much that it seems beyond repair. And let us be clear; without God, this is exactly the state of affairs here on earth. But what if it could be repaired?


What if there was a specific city where you could go with any offense done against you, stand before a perfectly righteous King who always dispensed justice with perfect grace and perfect fairness, and plead your case … being assured that perfect justice would be done?  

What if every seed anyone planted grew and produced more than enough food to eat … for everyone on the planet?  

What if you could live with your family, and your spouse’s family, and your entire extended families, and Republicans, and Democrats, and Mexicans, and Russians, and Iraqis … in perfect harmony, with no fear of ever feeling hurt?  

What if you could create any piece of art, build any kind of structure, study any subject, prepare and eat any food, accomplish any feat, play any game, talk to any person, see anything you ever wanted to see, and do anything you ever wanted to do?


This is exactly what Scripture promises will happen at the end of time. We will not “go to heaven.” Rather, heaven will come to us. Just as God the Son came down in the person of Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost to remain within His people, so at the final resurrection God the Father will come down and make His eternal dwelling on earth.  God With Us.  And He will wipe every tear from our eyes. He will be our God, and we will be His people. And there will be no more mourning, no more death, no more crying, no more pain. 


Finally, at long last, we will be at home, in our home.



[The End]

Lenten Meditations on the Cosmic Riddle, Part 4

 But our citizenship is in heaven.  And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

-Phil. 3:20-21


If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.  So it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit." ... The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven.  As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven.  And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.
-1 Cor. 15:44-49


[Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham] were still living by faith when they died.  They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.  People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.  If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.  Instead, they were longing for a better country -- a heavenly one.  Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
-Heb. 11:13-16


This is the post I've been really looking forward to writing.  And I'm really excited about it!

Now, if you've been tracking with the flow of thought since the beginning, the very first sentence in the Philippians 3 passage should be a surprise, if not a shock.  You should be saying to yourself, "Wait ... what?!?  That's not right at all.  What is Paul talking about?!?"  Citizens of heaven?  God is a citizen of heaven.  The angels are citizens of heaven.  Humans are decidedly NOT citizens of heaven.

Now you're getting it.

When a person places saving faith in Jesus Christ, something cosmic happens inside that person.  Actually, it's something extra-cosmic, but heaven lies outside our cosmos.  We are transformed, a new creation.  We -- i.e. the real "us," not the physical body, but our soul or whatever it is inside us that makes us who we are -- are made citizens of heaven rather than of earth.  We instantly become expatriates, foreigners, aliens.  The world is NOT our home any more.  And it's always been like this for people who placed saving faith in God, even Abel and Enoch and Noah.  We've been made like Jesus, at least in part, who was also a citizen of heaven and a stranger, a sojourner, a temporary resident while on earth.    

What does this mean?  It means that every Christian is a cross-cultural traveler, just as every Christian is a missionary (the only question is what kind of missionary you are).  I may still have my white skin.  I was still born in Mauston, WI.  I still carry an American passport.  The American government still considers my body to be American.  But I -- the real me -- is no longer an American citizen.  I am a citizen of heaven.  And one day, at the resurrection, my body will catch up with the "real me."

As we grow in Christ, we ought to feel a greater and greater sense of disconnection from this earth, I think.  But not just because our home is in heaven.  Remember, "home" is not just a "what" but a "who."  Our home is with God and in God; even as Jesus is "God with us," and the Holy Spirit is "God in us."  

Just contemplate that for a second.  God With Us.  Isn't that a wonderful thought?


[to be continued]