Category: Miscellany

“Floaters” are bits of debris in the eye that resemble hairs when they enter the field of vision. They don’t hurt, but can be quite the nuisance: when I am at the beach, I frequently mistake eye-floaters for sand fleas.

When one looks up or across the floaters ‘jump’ to that side of the field of vision, then slowly ‘float’ down to the bottom. The more violently one looks around, the more quickly they race around the field of vision, like cats chasing a mouse.

Sin is sort of like floaters. No sooner do we look toward God than the sin-floaters race around to compete for our attention. Believers, then, should be constantly repenting, constantly turning away from sin (floaters) and constantly turning our gaze toward God.

The Old Testament system of sacrifices was a graphic and repetitive reminder of the severity of sin, and of the requirement that blood be spilt in order to obtain atonement and forgiveness. Since Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, offered himself as the unique and completely efficacious sacrifice that need not be repeated, there is no need for continued sacrifices.

Yet can we say that the need for men to be reminded of the severity of sin and of its drastic consequences — as well as the sufficiency of the gospel to repair the God/man breach — has been eliminated after the Cross?

If not, under the New Covenant in Christ what serves to teach men about sin?

Many will describe the appeal of the Christian life as ‘transformation,’ as in, “If God can transform the life of Paul, who persecuted and killed believers, he can transform your life, too.”

But reports of changed lives can be greatly exaggerated. For instance, I recently heard a pastor talking about the work involved in preparing sermons. Comparing his efforts before the advent of computer programs and afterward, he remarked “The computer changed my life forever.”

When we talk like that, we invariably cheapen the idea of transformation. It becomes not so much like the radical reorientation of a man’s soul as is described in Scripture, as it resembles more a late-night promo for ShamWow®, Mighty Mendit™ or anything else promoted by Billy Mays, where we all anticipate the ubiquitous “But wait! If you act now…” and the amazing deals and life-changing properties of the Awesome Auger™.

We are surrounded by promises of things that will ‘change your life forever.’ Most of them fail to deliver. And, most of the time when we claim something has ‘changed my life forever,’ what we are usually saying is that it has improved my life, at least for now.

Is personal improvement the company in which we should place the gospel, which is the ‘power of God for salvation’? (Romans 1:16) Or do we think the gospel is the promise of a ‘better life now’? And, that if you call in the next 30 minutes, streets of gold and a mansion made of pearls is thrown in for free?

The Bible does speak of transformation. But it is not the slickly marketed idea of change that we can put on our credit card for three easy payments. It is no less than the conforming of our sinful image into the holy image of the Lord Jesus Christ. And to receive Biblical transformation, modifying our outward appearance and behavior won’t do, for as the Bible says, we don’t need ‘transformation’ as much as we need resurrection, because we are dead in our sins until God makes us alive together with Christ.

The real issue, then, is not what will transform a man’s life, but what will create life where there has been none.

People go to great lengths in attempting to deal with the grief associated with death.

The cliché is the parents of a young child who keep his room perfectly preserved as a memorial. Such memorials are becoming increasingly public. We’ve all seen the makeshift crosses on the side of the road, indicating that somebody’s loved one died. Some announce the lifespan of a deceased friend or family member with decals emblazoned on their car windows.

Certainly we do the same thing with headstones, grave markers and even crypts in the local cemetery. But there, all the dead are assembled together, a macabre collection of memories available to whomever wants to take note at their own leisure. Roadside crosses and automobile obituaries are just the opposite: as we go to work, to church, to recreate we are compelled to take note. Whereas cemeteries are mass testimonials to the universal grip of death, roadside and mobile memorials single out one particular death, as if it – in contrast to the life that preceded it – was somehow unique.

Perhaps most indicative of an unhealthy relationship with death is the cemetery accoutrements I saw recently: a finely carved marble park bench matching the headstone it faced. A park bench in a cemetery is as useful, as they say, as a screen door on a submarine.

But all of these devices – roadside crosses, automobile obituaries, bedroom shrines, cemetery benches and even the pedestrian headstone – reveal the longing we all have to somehow remain in contact with those who have died. It reveals an inherent understanding that physical death is not final.

Yet instead of provoking us to cling to whatever wisp of reality remains of the dead, this understanding should encourage us to consider our own destination, to ensure our own post-material reality, when those who survive us have erected roadside markers, or drive around with car obituaries, or place park benches before headstones emblazoned with our names.

So last week one of the kids gets the stomach virus…all manner of vile things flying out of bodily orifices at blazing speed. She passed it to my wife, at blazing speed. I thought the dudes of the family were in the clear at this point, because we are usually the ones to kick off the sickness merry-go-round in our house.

Not so.

Around Tuesday I started feeling bad, then Wednesday could only manage a half day at work before coming home and crashing. Thursday I could not stand up without puking, Friday I could not stand up without…well, rushing to the toilet for disturbances at the other end of the digestive tract. I stayed in the bed almost 24 hours a day until Saturday

I noticed something about the flu, as I laid in bed marveling at how bad a human body could hurt.

I noticed what I did NOT think about. That is, the flu had my attention, and all other concerns seemed to fade away. For instance, I did NOT think about Barack Obama. Not even a little bit. I did NOT think about his opening stem cell research, or relaxing abortion restrictions, or socialistic stimulus bills, or earmarks, or how many of Obama’s administration candidates have had to withdraw because of ‘vetting’ problems.

Nor did I think about the blogosphere. I did NOT think about which Calvinist was being skewered, today. I did NOT contemplate how to make a statement on a comment string and actually have others address what I said, rather than what they wanted me to say so that they can stand proudly on their soap box and opine vociferously into the digital abyss about how evil Calvinists are. I did NOT wonder how all the other guys get such cool page designs.

I did NOT think about the stock market. Or Bernie Madoff. Or housing starts. I did not obsess about how long it could possibly take to sell our house, although I did briefly imagine that I overheard the following:

Agent: Notice the open floor plan, and how there is plenty of space
for every sick member of the family to lounge around, with his own
sick bucket close at hand.

Buyer: Where is the
laundry?

Agent: It’s upstairs, with the bedrooms, which makes
it very convenient to collect all of the linens contaminated with vile
things flying out of orifices at blazing speed.
Buyer: Is this
the Master?

Agent: Yes, and notice how the great lighting lets you almost SEE the
flu virus circulating around the dad as he lays in bed, NOT thinking about
Barack Obama or the
economy.

Buyer: I’m sold! We’ll
pay full price…in cash!

The flu, it seems, is a great clarifier of mind, when it is not inducing hallucinations about selling houses in a buyers’ market. (It’s also an excellent crash diet – I’ve lost 10 to 15 pounds each time I’ve had it).

Oddly, while there was so much I did NOT think about, there were a couple of things that simply would not leave my head. Psalm 23 and Philippians 2:1-11, to be exact. For almost 48 hours straight of my bed-ridden stupor I mentally prepared sermons on these passages. Introductions, conclusions, main points, transitions, illustrations…you name it. I preached those sermons at least 10 times each to myself, my agent, and our cash buyer, as they discussed the relative merits of our home amongst themselves. They were some of the most interactive sermons I’ve ever preached.

Why don’t the sermon preparation experts talk about this?

I park my truck close to several pine trees, which are prone to drop needles in copious quantities throughout the year. Birds sit in those same pine trees, and those birds are prone to drop…well, other stuff in copious quantities.

We are familiar with the phenomenon of bird poo on the windshield. It always lands right in the middle of your field of vision, so instead of seeing that traffic light turn from green to yellow, you see partially digested berries and such. So we try to remove the poo: Squirt washer fluid; turn on wiper blades; observe that poo is now thinly spread in an arc across the driver side, like a macabre rainbow, promising things much different than that the earth will not be destroyed again by flood.

After several weeks of drought conditions and copious needle dropping, I noticed another phenomenon during the next rainy drive. A pine needle under my wiper blade. All drivers know what that means. But I distinctly recalled that when last I operated my wiper blades, all was clear, which raised the immediate question of how the needle came to be in its present location, notwithstanding popular notions of evolution and natural selection. After deliberating whether it placed itself there by dint of will or if someone with a wry sense of humor — knowing my tendency to over-analyze completely meaningless phenomena — placed it there, and after briefly entertaining the notion to exit the vehicle and remove the offending needle, I decided instead to let it be, knowing (so I thought) the rather fragile nature of pine needles, the laws of friction and motion, that I would get wet, and that even if I didn’t see the yellow light, some other driver would surely honk his horn.

A month or two later, the needle persists.

Not that I haven’t tried all I could think of to remove it (save exiting the vehicle). Intermittent wipers, at all the various speeds. High speed wipers. A flood of washer fluid. Defroster. Excessive wind shear (I’m not admitting anything). Yet there it sits, clinging sadly to my wiper blade. It is, to be sure, a bit worse for wear, faded, tattered, limp. But it still blurs my vision on rainy days. And each time I curse its tenacity.

I learn much from the needle.

Trevin Wax, blogging at Kingdom People (www.trevinwax.com), has joined the hordes of Top 10 aficionados and devised his own top ten books of 2008. He has upped the proverbial Top 10 ante, however, and is giving away a complete set of his 2008 favorites, together with a copy of the ESV Study Bible (http://trevinwax.com/2008/12/15/kingdom-people-christmas-giveaway/). Let’s see David Letterman match that.

All this listing of favorites and bests and so forth is compelling me to devise my own list, not necessarily of books that were published in 2008, but ones that I read this year (I tend to be somewhat behind the curve in this respect). So, of the books I’ve read this year, here’s a list of my favorites:

1. The Sovereignty of God (A.W. Pink).

2. He is Not Silent (R Albert Mohler, Jr).

3. The Cross of Christ (John Stott).

4. Speaking the Truth in Love (David Powlison)

5. Christless Christianity (Michael Horton)

Don’t count on me to do a giveaway of my list just yet. When I hit the big time like Trevin Wax, we’ll see.