“Why do you seek the living among the dead?”

“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:1-5 ESV)

After the sabbath was over, and very early in the morning, the women went to the tomb prepared to anoint the body of the their dead savior. It all seemed so terribly wrong. He was dead and buried; it was over. Yet when they arrived, something amazing had happened. In other gospel accounts it mentions how the women wondered how they were going to move the stone as it was very large, but in Luke’s account he skips that detail and gets right to the amazing fact that the stone is already moved. The women come and find the stone rolled away and not only do they not find Jesus’ body, but they find in the tomb two shinning men. The question they ask the women has great application for us. The angels asked, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”

Imagine That Look

We are currently reading through the gospels together as a family and we are just finishing up Luke. I have often heard it said that Luke is the more detailed of the gospel accounts because Luke was a doctor and would have been more detail oriented. Whatever the reason, it has been interesting to notice some of the intricate details that Luke records that are not found in the other gospels. In reading chapter 22, there was a detail Luke includes in Peter’s denial of Christ that I had never really caught before, but that jumped off the page at me this time through. Luke’s account is as follows:

Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house, and Peter was following at a distance. And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. (Luke 22:54-62 ESV)

An Open Letter to my Son

Dearest Andrew,

You are precious beyond words to me.  I think you know this, but I can’t resist another opportunity to tell you.  You are the only, beloved child God saw fit to bless us with and perhaps that makes you an even dearer and sweeter treasure of my heart.  I know your father already took the time to have a big talk with you on some grown up themes like sex and purity and manhood this summer, but as King Lemual’s mother wrote a letter to her son in Proverbs 31, I wish to do the same.

You are growing up so fast.  I now look up to you, for you stand several inches above me.  I have seen so much maturity in you this past year.  It was sad to me to stop homeschooling you.  I will always look back on those years as so incredibly special, but it was time for you to go to school.  A young man does not need to spend the greater part of his day hanging out with his mother.  Yet I am grateful that I still get to be so intimately involved with your education. The philosophy of education at your school is one that I wholeheartedly embrace.  I am on the faculty of the school you attend.  We go to school together and come home together.  I am friends with your teachers and get to really know your classmates. And you have been a sort of big brother to my third grade students; they light up when you come around and give them fist bumps! I get to see you around the school, and you are sweet enough to always give me a smile and a hug.  A school setting has helped you grow in responsibility and in respect for other authorities besides those of your parents.  You have learned to be organized and responsible for completing homework assignments and keeping track of test dates, to pack your own lunch and make sure you have a clean uniform everyday, and to even be a blessing to your school by helping out with morning carpool. I have seen such growth in your life, and I am grateful.

Surprised by Joy

I just finished reading C.S. Lewis’ autobiography, Surprised by Joy. You may have noticed that a couple of my recent posts have reflected the reading of this very  interesting book. As autobiographies go, it reminded me some of John Bunyan’s Grace Abounding. Lewis wrote the book to answer how he passed from Atheism to Christianity, and as a master storyteller, Lewis keeps your attention through the setting up of the book as he describes his early years to lay the foundation of how he first came to be an Atheist. As Lewis writes in the first chapter, the central story of his life is “that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.” It is what he calls Joy as I mentioned in an earlier post. The events of his life take him on a journey to satisfy a desire that he comes to realize is outside his ability to satisfy on his own. A good portion of the book takes you down the roads that Lewis traveled to get where he never wanted to get in the first place. However, rather than discuss each chapter here, I leave you to read the book for your self and will move on in this review to the climax.

God is Unscrupulous

I am still reading through C.S. Lewis’ autobiography, Surprised by Joy, and I came across this interesting quote about his first reading encounter with G.K. Chesterton:

In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere- “Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,” as Herbert says, “fine nets and stratagems.” God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.”

-Surprised by Joy, p. 191

The Idolatry of Good Things

On the heels of the CS Lewis quote on joy that I just posted and in light of some conversations I have recently had with my wife and others, I thought it would be good timing to write some thoughts on the idolatry of good things. We have a tendency in our Christian culture to make idols out of good things, to take what is good and make it ultimate. We think that we find our “joy” in these good things, but as Lewis writes of Joy, it is “a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure.” There is only one thing that can cause Joy and that is God, himself. It is in God only that we find that “unsatisfied desire.” It is in God only that the intense longing for more is ever really satisfied. As the Psalmist says, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11 ESV).

God alone must be our sole desire, and all that we have in this life is good only in that it points us to Him and our satisfaction in Him. When those things get in the way, when they obstruct our view rather than point the way, they are a hindrance to our growth in godliness as they become ultimate things thus replacing the Ultimate One. So what kind of good things can we make into ultimate things that replace the Ultimate One?

Joy: An Unsatisfied Desire

I am currently reading C.S. Lewis’ autobiographySurprised by Joy and I was challenged and encouraged by this attempt at a definition of joy:

it is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again. Apart from that, and considered only a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But then it is a kind we want. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is.