Tag: Way of Jesus

For Those Who Cry Out For Mercy

When I was a kid, we had a huge backyard. One summer my dad put together a jungle gym for us four boys. We had loads of fun climbing it and especially jumping off of it.

One afternoon we were inspired to play superheros. I jumped off with a big shout, “Superman!” When I landed my mouth was full of blood – I had bit my tongue while shouting and landing. I had a hard time calling out for help, but my mom quickly figured it out and mercifully took care of me.

Sometimes when people get hurt, they have a hard time asking for help. Not just because of bitten tongues, though. Sometimes people are wounded in such a way that they drive away the very people who could help them. Sometimes we can know how to help them, but they make it really hard to do so. What to do?

In the gospels we read that Jesus came across a man calling out for mercy, a dangerous exile who had terrorized the region, who was tormented within. The authorities tried to bind him hand and foot with chains to keep him out of sight and sound. His cries echoed off the hills as he cut himself with the ragged stones. What would you do with a dangerous man like him?

Jesus musters up his power and commands the tormenting spirit to come out of the man. It resists, begging Jesus not to torture him. Jesus asks him, “What is your name?” he replies, “My name is Legion for we are many.” The demons beg Jesus not to be sent out of the area, and so he casts them out of the man into a large herd of pigs feeding on the nearby hillside.

When Jesus cast Legion out of the exiled man, he was not only healing him, but giving him a glimpse of what can happen when his kingdom comes. Mercy is is how Jesus subverts the rule of tormenting spirits, and mercy is how the tortured are transformed. Mercy is what triumphs in Jesus’ kingdom.

Everyday we come across people who are crying out for mercy in some way. They may not necessarily use those words, but deep in their soul that is what they cry for. The tormented man who met Jesus on the shoreline was confrontational, anguished, and bleeding. It was not an easy encounter for Jesus. But mercy is what Jesus does. And it’s what he calls us to do.  Mercy transforms both ways.

Roman legions had tormented this region for many decades. Rebels were commonly crucified along the highways, reminding the people to submit or die. The pigs of the region were likely sold to the soldiers, thus catching the local citizens in a merciless trap – they made their livelihood off of feeding their enemies.

No wonder the people were afraid and pleaded Jesus to leave immediately. If Jesus was regarded as a king, and he had just sent the legions food-stock into the sea, they feared this was a politically motivated terrorist act. Reprisals would be swift and brutal.

Jesus understood, and he left as they asked. But when the healed exile asked to come with Jesus, he was given a mission: “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”

The man healed by Jesus’ mercy was given a mission of mercy: go back to the ones who beat you, chained you, exiled you and proclaim the mercy of God upon them. Teach them the kingdom way of mercy, help them learn to be merciful to their oppressors, just as the exile is doing to his exilers. Mercy transforms both ways.

Whoever you meet, even if they are a difficult person, look to extend them mercy. With patient resolve and firm kindness, through the merciful power of the Spirit of Christ, don’t misunderestimate the healing you can bring to them through listening, being present, even fighting for them. It’s often the least of these that need mercy the most; and it is here where we will find Jesus. Mercy that heals, frees, and sends.

You Become The Christmas Music You Listen To

Ha! If that were literally true, we’d see a lot more talking snowmen and flying reindeer around town. But on another level, it’s profoundly true. What we hear shapes who we become.

My mom always use to say, “Garbage in, garbage out; but good stuff in, good stuff out.” This applied to the music I listened to, the movies I watched, and the friends I hung around with. Parents, researchers, and advertisers know that words and music are powerful shapers of identity.

During these weeks leading up to Christmas, if you’re like me, you’ve had a lot of holiday music playing in the background – maybe in the car while out shopping, or home while baking or doing chores, or at work while getting stuff done. Because it’s background noise, we don’t think it’s a big deal. But: if we became the Christmas music we listened to, what kind of person would we become?

Jesus has a cryptic parable in the gospel according to Mark, in it he says: “Consider carefully what you hear.” Maybe this is starting to sound petty or picky to you. Jesus, though, goes on to say in the parable: “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you – and even more.” This is both a blessing and a curse. It’s also really similar to the laws of thermodynamics. You get out of it what you put into it – but more so.

What you listen to and who you become will be made evident – it will be experienced by the people closest to you, and by those affected by the decisions you make. “Consider carefully what you hear.” This is about more than just what kind of Christmas music you listen to, obviously. Jesus wants you to hear him, his words of hope, joy, peace, and love.

If we don’t put much of our listening-heart into Christmas, we won’t hear much from Christ. Same goes for our relationships. But it gets worse: if you don’t listen, it’s not just that you lose out, you lose what you had. This isn’t an arbitrary punishment, this is how it works in real life. When you don’t listen to people, it’s not just that you don’t hear them, you start to lose them.

Jesus opens up the parable with this observation: “For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.” He’s saying what we know to be true: if you don’t listen to people, if you don’t listen to God – it’ll come out sooner or later, in this lifetime and after.

You become like who you listen to, and what you listen to. Of course it’s fun to listen to songs about old St. Nick and chestnuts roasting over an open fire, of a holly jolly Christmas and how it’s the most wonderful time of the year! But we want more than fun in our holidays, we want joy that lasts, peace that endures, hope that prevails, and love that heals. There is music towards this end, “if anyone has ears to hear, let them hear.”

In this fourth week of the Advent season, a time when we remember that Christ will come again to finish what he started at Christmas, let us keep our ears open to the words of the Lord.

May we do the work of listening, of loving, of being light.

May the measure we use on others be measured back on us – and more so.

How To Be Joy To The World

I’ve got a few favorite Christmas carols. How about you? (And no, Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman, and Here Comes Santa Claus does NOT count! haha!) One of my favorites is O Holy Night– I really love belting out the second verse:

“Truly He taught us to love one another
His law is love and His gospel is peace
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother
And in His name, all oppression shall cease
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we
Let all within us praise His holy name.”

I also really like O Little Town of Bethlehem (this version by Kari Jobe) and Hark the Herald Angels Sing (especially by Charlie Brown and Friends). My second favorite carol, though, is Joy to the World especially the opening lines:

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.”

Here we are, the third week of Advent, remembering that Christ will come again someday to break our chains, and that all creation will sing sweet hymns of joy – even heaven and nature will sing with us! We don’t realize how potent, powerful and real are the lyrics we’re singing! All that is glorious and beautiful about Christmas will be fulfilled when Christ comes again –  it’s what we work towards everyday. Merry Christmas indeed!

To use an agricultural metaphor, we might think of Christmas as a perennial kind of plant, the ones that come back year after year. But it seems to me that Christmas is more like an annual, a flower that has to be replanted every year in our hearts. We change so much from year to year – so much happens in those twelve months that at least for me, I need to replant the seeds of Christmas inside, again.

Jesus tells a parable in the gospel according to Mark about a farmer who went out into his field to sow seed. Some of the seed falls on the hard ground, where birds come and snatch it away; some of the seed falls in rocky ledges, where it grows but with shallow roots, such that it can’t withstand the heat of the sun.

Some (seeds of Christmas) fall in among thorny ground, and the worries of this life, deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things come in and choke it out. But some of the seed falls on good soil, and it produces a bountiful crop of joy and peace for all.

For some of us we hear the Christmas songs and they go in one cynical ear and out the other. Some of us listen to the carols, but once the season is over, we forget about them until next year.

Others sing the songs with gusto, but then when suffering strikes, we sadly wonder – are the lyrics rooted in reality? But some hear the carols with a trusting heart, and then work to live them out in this world as it really is, all year round. Who are we this Christmas?

How to be joy to the world? Believe what you sing! Live what you sing! Hear Christ’s word to you in these Christmas hymns. Join in song and soul with others who hear these words of joy, accepting them as true, and become open to a heaven and nature that sings!

What’s a Christmas hymn that you could really pay attention to this season? One that you could let the gospel of Christmas get sown into your soul? What’s one carol that you could dwell in, inspiring you to work Christmas joy into your everyday life?

How to be joy to the world? Make room in your heart for joy- even if it’s space for a seed – for the poetic, lyrical, beautiful words of Christ Jesus the Lord, by which he teaches us to love one another.

“Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.”