Nurture Faith with Dr. Doug Hood

“When Pilate heard these words, he led Jesus out and seated him on the judge’s bench at the place called Stone Pavement. It was about noon on the Preparation Day for the Passover. Pilate said to the Jewish leaders, ‘Here’s your king.’”

John 19:13, 14

Via Dolorosa means, the way of the cross. Historians and archaeologist disagree over the precise route that awful procession would have taken; the route Jesus took to the cross. What is certain is that it would become a route marked with grief. But the route to the cross began from a place known as the Stone Pavement, part of the Tower of Antonia bordering the northwest corner of the Temple complex. It is here that Jesus is tried before Pilate. It is here that Jesus is sentenced to flogging and crucifixion.

Jesus walked the Via Dolorosa alone. The twelve men who shared in Jesus’ ministry, the twelve who shared a meal with Jesus only the night before, are not with him. What is likely is that they are hiding behind a locked door, questioning the abrupt arrest of Jesus and what that now meant for them. Specifics of their location are unavailable – only that they were not with Jesus. Perhaps they were experiencing shame, horror and disbelief. Their golden dream has now turned into a nightmare. 

N. T. Wright, that wonderful teacher of our faith says that the absence of the disciples is important. Jesus had to walk the Via Dolorosa alone. It is a major problem in Christian devotion, suggests Wright, that when we think of the way of the cross we so often think of Jesus as the great example, with ourselves simply imitating him. Actually, central to our faith is the conviction that Jesus must do for us what we cannot. An important point of the Via Dolorosa is that Jesus must walk it alone.

“Jesus suffers so that others need not; Jesus dies so that others may not”, observes Wright. Pilgrims who walk the Via Dolorosa today do so for many reasons. Some make the journey out of simple curiosity. Others wish to shop the endless souvenirs that are sold along the route. All jostle in the narrow streets and alleyways. But perhaps an authentic walk along the Via Dolorosa is one where we realize that here Jesus walked on our behalf, that this way of grief was an achievement, an accomplishment that could only be completed by God’s Son. This is a walk best completed in silence and reverence.

Joy,

Saint Augustine writes in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Restlessness is the dominant mood of Never Til Now, written by Matt Roy and Ashley Cooke and performed by Ashley Cooke; “I’m a walking definition of unsettled and restless. The needle in my compass points anywhere but home.” These lyrics speak to a relatively constant way of living: movement from one place to another, never finding contentment, never finding “home.” A bleak and disappointing existence settles in on the voice of the song, “I thought I’d always be alone.” And several stanzas later, “Never saw myself with a white picket fence dug into the ground.” Suddenly, the narrative shifts, “Never ‘til now.”

In this teaching from Philippians, Paul’s world has been turned upside down. Observance to the law of God had been used as the metric for separating the “clean” and the “unclean” – that is, those who were worthy in God’s sight and those who were not. Suddenly, Jesus walks into Paul’s life and the cross topples that religious distinction. Every element, every conviction of Paul’s former life has been called into question. Paul falls for Jesus; Paul falls hard and life simply will never be the same again. Former markers of status in Paul’s life and ministry are now empty – are “as sewer trash.” These prior riches have paled in compassion to Jesus. One thing matters to Paul, “that I might gain Christ and be found in him.”

Never Til Now captures the discouragement of a restless heart, a heart that seeks home but never finding, and celebrates the possibility of arriving at a place of rest brought by the love of another, “Out of all the prayers I’ve prayed. You’re Heaven’s answer.” The voice of the song initially denies unhappiness, “I never wanted to tap my brakes. I never wanted to settle down.” Yet, as though there is a Freudian slip, admits traveling through “hell” until that someone special “walked into that bar” and they danced until closing time. No longer the same person who walked into the bar alone, the voice of the song has become something new because of experiencing something new in another.

This is what Paul wants us to hear in Philippians, that when our restless hearts are nearly consumed in the flames of anguish, an encounter with Jesus becomes Heaven’s answer to our deepest longings. Each of us knows people who struggle through life without a deeply satisfying relationship with Jesus. Perhaps we are that person. They deny anything is missing in their life. They make an effort to convince those around them that they don’t need a church, don’t need to read the Bible, don’t need to cultivate a prayer life. Nonetheless, secretly their hearts remain restless. Paul’s life never lacked anything, he claimed, before Christ. The voice of Ashley Cooke’s song never thought about a different life. Then a great love walked into their lives. That is when “never” became, “Never ‘til now.’

Joy,

In the January, 2020 issue of Runner’s World magazine, a woman shares her struggle to complete the New York City Marathon. Halfway through the twenty-six mile run, personal resources ran out. Physical and emotional resources depleted, she would walk to the sidelines and drop out. Except, there were people on the sidelines. Strangers to her. Moreover, not one of them would let her stand with them on the side of the street. They were not rude. Rather, they shouted, and cheered, and pushed her forward with words of encouragement. Strangers would not allow her to quit. She finished the marathon in last place. However, she finished the race!

That is the business of the church! We encourage people not to give-up on the race. We shout words of encouragement. We urge them to continue, particularly when it is difficult. We do so in the certain confidence of God’s strength that never falters. Showing-up for worship is a shout from the sidelines. Serving in some ministry, alongside others, is a shout from the sidelines. Financial giving to ensure that the church continues to move forward is a shout from the sidelines. Paying attention to others, listening deeply, caring with an expansive heart, is a shout-out from the sidelines. Each is a real and meaningful means of urging people forward when they face every kind of struggle, difficulty, and challenge.

Some years ago, the distinguished Christian thinker and teacher, Lesslie Newbigin taught that the primary task of the Christian is engagement. Preaching is important. Teaching is important. However, the primary task of the Christian is deep and meaningful engagement in the lives of those we encounter every day. What the church preaches and what the church teaches is not the primary concern of most people. What is most urgent in the lives of the common person is the question “Is there someone who cares?” Authentic engagement in the life of another, championing them through difficulty, creates a ripple effect that changes multitudes of lives.

The single greatest mistake that Christians make is the assumption that their faith is a private matter. Such an assumption directs the believer down the path of selfishness. Comments such as, “I can be a good Christian without going to church” reveals that selfishness. As Newbigin argues – and as the apostle Paul asserts here in his letter to the Thessalonian Church – Christians are to gather so that they may mutually encourage one another. Demonstrations of care, support, and encouragement are shouts from the sidelines to those discouraged and defeated by life. These “shout outs” become enough for those whose own resources have become depleted to finish the race.

Joy,

 Sometimes it appears that the apostle Paul had a hidden charm that both protected him from discouragement and defeat while providing navigation for his ministry. With every possible force at work against him – every possible obstacle to moving forward – Paul was simply unbeatable. His journey seemed impossibly long, and there were lengthy stretches that he had to endure much hardship and loneliness. What’s more, Paul kept a careful journal of each difficulty encountered, every challenge he faced, and deprivation he endured. His purpose for recording each was simply to force the question – can anyone survive experiences such as these, one upon another, by their own strength, their own resources?

Paul’s answer is, “no.” Every difficulty, challenge, and deprivation presented an opportunity for Paul to proclaim available strength that was not Paul’s – the strength of the risen and active work of Jesus Christ. Storms are part of the normal climate and adversity is part of normal life. Paul utterly rejects the false notion that a formula is at work that shields us from the strong winds and turbulence of day-to-day life. Rather, Paul’s desire is to point to his own life and demonstrate a steadying hand that holds us and strengthens us in the storms. Life is full of annoying and costly interruptions and opposing forces that are bent on defeating us. Paul urges that we make the winds of opposition occasions for relying upon God.

That legendary football coach of Notre Dame, Knute Rockne once summoned his players before a game and said, “The team that won’t be beat, can’t be beat.” Rockne was not here proclaiming the strength of Jesus for his players. He was appealing to uncommon courage and strength and persistence that lie within each of us. Many of us engage the game of life without our best effort, settling for something just below our actual capacity. Tremendous effort to overcome life’s difficulties is rare, people often accepting defeat easily, naming what is possible as impossible. These are not the challenges Paul speaks of. Paul lifts his eyes to something higher still, to what is impossible were it not for God’s strength.

 Paul continues this discussion beyond the words printed above. He asks, “Does it sound as though I am bragging about all the challenges I have faced?” “I am!” Yet, Paul quickly states that he brags not to showcase his ability. Paul brags to demonstrate the wondrous work of Jesus through him. There are doors that we cannot walk through and storms we cannot endure on our own. That is when we make every difficulty an opportunity to lean into Christ and draw from Christ’s strength. The strength that sustained Paul through every force that sought to stop his ministry is available to every one of us. In our hearts we may ask, “Can I endure?”  Paul gives answer, “In Jesus, we are unbeatable.”

 Joy,

My son, Nathanael, once asked me why I enjoyed Country music. “The stories,” I answered, “the stories that often come from lived experience – stories that rub up against our own stories. Stories that articulate what we may have struggled to express. Stories that occasionally point us to a resolution from hurt, pain, or loss that once seemed elusive. Voices, written by Sara Brice and performed by Jana Kramer sparkles with insight on mastering your self-image, particularly one that has been poisoned from negative “voices” in your head. No stranger to pain, Kramer credits Voices as her saving grace, granting her permission to shut out the negative voices that, over time and a failed marriage, took-up residence in her head. “I’m fighting voices in my head. Voices in my head telling me that I’m not enough. I’m not pretty and I’m broken. I’m not worthy of love.”

Kramer shares that the song’s lyrics were exactly what she needed to hear, giving her permission to grieve the loss of a marriage and returning strength to move past a negative narrative that placed all the blame on her. In an interview with HollywoodMask.com, Kramer recalled listening to the demo Brice gave her on repeat for hours. The song got her so emotional that she would end up on the floor bawling and singing the song until she believed in it. Kramer recorded the song hoping that the song would provide comfort, hope, and healing for others just as it had for her. The resolution of the song occurs just as Kramer reaches exhaustion from the “voices” in her head that are defeating her: “Stop it, I can’t take another minute. I’m going crazy with these voices that are spinning in my head. Tell my head to listen to my heart. And my heart says, I’m done with voices in my head.”

Here in his letter to the churches in Galatia, Paul has become exhausted with the voices in his head, voices that question his authority to teach and preach, voices that confront him with falling approval polls for not holding a rigorous grasp upon sound Jewish ideology, voices that question Paul’s integrity – “Before God, I’m not lying about the things that I’m writing to you!” (Verse 20). In another letter, Paul confronts being bullied about poor oratory ability – “I know what some people are saying: ‘His letters are severe and powerful, but in person he is weak and his speech is worth nothing.’”[i] Tension builds between pleasing people and seeking God’s approval. The heaviness of Paul’s heart is on display in his failure to offer an expression of thanksgiving to the churches in Galatia so often found in his other letters. Paul’s heart now tells his head, “I’m done with voices in my head.”

Our thoughts, habits, and perception of ourselves must be informed by God’s claim upon us as God’s precious child, one for whom “nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38). Kramer identifies the moment she takes hold of the narrative that dominates her life: “Stop it, I can’t take another minute. I’m going crazy with these voices that are spinning my head. Tell my head to listen to my heart. And my heart says, I’m done with voices in my head.” It’s all inside each one of us – the capacity to take control of the driving narrative of our life. The image we carry around inside is the most important tool for self-esteem or defeat. Paul asks, in Galatians, a rhetorical question contrasting God’s approval with human approval. We must make the choice. Kramer concludes the song with her choice, “I am strong, I am beautiful.”

Joy,

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[i] 2 Corinthians 10:10 (Common English Bible)

“Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints, it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth. Love puts up with all things, trust in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (Common English Bible)

The other day I came across a piece written by Earl Nightingale that he titled, How to Be Miserable. He provided remarkable clarity about some of the things I have been wrestling with recently, clarity about self-inflicted misery. Nightingale writes, “The first step to real, professional-type, solid, unremitting misery is to get all wrapped up in yourself and your problems – real or imagined. Become a kind of island, surrounded on every side by yourself. By turning all of your thoughts inward upon yourself, naturally you cannot spend much or any time thinking about others and other things. And so, finally, the outside world – the real world – will disappear into a kind of Hitchcock-type fog.”ⁱ

Nightingale continues with a stinging observation that the type of person who chooses misery, who turns inward upon himself or herself doesn’t have much in the wisdom department. Otherwise, they simply wouldn’t do it. With the absence of wisdom, they turn inward and discover that there is not much there. There is a kind of vacuum, and they have to embellish perceived, or real, hurts and slights from others or invent things entirely. Negative – and harmful – behavior is then directed outward toward those who have caused them harm. This behavior may simply be for punishment, to cause pain equal to what they are experiencing, or to manipulate others to meet some relational expectation.

Where Nightingale provides an unpleasant portrait of a miserable person, the apostle Paul provides divine knowledge – or wisdom – for fleeing from misery: love others, particularly when that love is difficult. Paul beautifully expresses the very nature of love by its positive attributes – “love is patient, love is kind.” Paul provides additional wisdom by sharing what love isn’t and doesn’t do – “it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints.” What Paul provides is a different portrait from Nightingale, a portrait of a person who actively participates in the unity and well-being of relationships with another.

It is widely embraced that the Christian faith is less to do with right beliefs and more to do with right behavior. A person may have a grasp of the Holy Scriptures that is unparalleled, able to articulate a particular theological position with uncommon clarity and yet remain untouched by God’s transforming power – the transformation that deepens love for God and love for others. Such a faith is a lazy faith because it requires no effort. Love requires effort. Love demands that we struggle against an impulse to turn inward and compile a record of complaints against another. Such love “puts up with all things, trust in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things.” It is a love that knows no misery.

Joy,

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ⁱ Earl Nightingale, “How to Be Miserable”, Your Success Starts Here: Purpose and Personal Initiative (Shappensburg, PA: Sound Wisdom, 2019) 104.

It is the practice of the Eskimos never to carry the day’s evil experiences, its troubles and its quarrels, over into the next day. Two Eskimo hunters might become engaged in a violent dispute over the division of the game which they had taken, and heated words might even bring them to blows, but once the sun had set and they had retired to sleep, all memory of the quarrel would be erased from their spirits, and the next day they would greet each other as brothers. If you were to exclaim in surprise: “But I thought you were enemies. You were fighting yesterday!” they would answer: “Ah, but that was yesterday and we live only today.”ⁱ That is living in the present tense!

Mark Twain, with his characteristic humor, once commented that he has suffered many things most of which never happened. Doctors tell us that much of our anxiety, which often results in physical, emotional, and spiritual unease, is located in tomorrow, a preoccupation with fears of the future. Consequently, our fears of tomorrow rob us of the opportunity to live fully and abundantly today. Naturally, wise and reasonable decisions and personal behavior must shepherd us in the present day. Careless spending today will result in debt tomorrow. A word carelessly spoken or a relationship betrayed may negatively impact all of our tomorrows. Not all of us have been nurtured in the Eskimo culture!

Jesus’ invitation in this teaching is to locate our hearts in God. Worry and anxiety is all about trying to avoid something, about trying to get away from something. The strain of worry is indicative that we don’t trust the future. Jesus asks that we approach life from another perspective. Rather than fleeing what we fear most, Jesus asks that we run toward God. As Augustine once said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”ⁱ Jesus asks that we live in the present tense, free from the regrets of yesterday and the fears of tomorrow. That is possible after we have accepted God’s forgiveness for the past and trust in God’s care for the future.

Thomas Long writes that there is a kind of worry about the coming day that is normal, even healthy. “Tomorrow’s chemistry test or job interview is bound to provide concern, and this command ‘stop worrying about tomorrow’ is not an invitation to finesse the exam or to waltz into the interview unprepared. Rather, it speaks to the deeper, more basic fear that something is out there in the future that can destroy our basic worth as a human being, something finally stronger than God’s care, some silent killer shark swimming toward us from the future.”ⁱⁱⁱ Jesus asks that we cling to God in such a manner that we can affirm that whatever tomorrow brings, it also brings God.

Joy,

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ⁱ Clayton E. Williams, “Living Today Forever,” Best Sermons: 1955 Edition, edited by G. Paul Butler (New York, London & Toronto: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1955) 106.

ⁱⁱ Thomas G. Long, Matthew (Louisville & London: Westminster John Know Press, 1997) 76.

ⁱⁱⁱ Long, 76.

“Everybody who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise builder who built a house on bedrock.”

Matthew 7:24 (Common English Bible)

How does a person start to be a Christian? For many in the church, it is a startling question. It is startling because so little thought has been given to the question. Christianity has been reduced to joining a church, worshipping on Sunday morning when convenient, faithfully completing a financial pledge card once a year, and an occasional appearance at a congregational dinner. The notion that there is anything more escapes them. What also escapes such people is any vital relationship with Jesus Christ. And  a vital relationship with Jesus will remain absent until behind every conventional practice of faith a person goes directly to Jesus, listens to the teachings of Jesus, and puts those teachings into practice in their own life. A person gets started with being a Christian by endeavoring to live as Christ lived.

Simply, being a Christian is something to be done. Christianity is not consent to a particular theological creed, belonging to a church that self-identifies as Christian, or practicing a set of rituals. Christianity is doing what Christ does. In every account of Jesus calling particular men to be his disciples something is absent; what is absent is a requirement of a theological education, or a seminar on the basics of the faith, or a new member class. The only thing that Jesus asks is, “Will you follow me?” We will never understand everything that the church teaches. And there may be some teachings that we understand but we simply cannot believe. Jesus doesn’t ask for either. Yesterday, and today, Jesus asks one thing: “Will you follow me?”

In the second place, though we begin where we are – with little understanding of Jesus or no understanding of Jesus – we do not remain where we are. Following Jesus is a continuous journey of listening to all that Jesus teaches and appropriating what is understood into the daily practice of life. As this is done, each week, each month, and each year brings clearer insight and a deeper assurance of Christ’s presence and strength for our lives. Faith matures as the season changes from spring, to summer, to fall, to winter, and finally back to spring with all the new growth each new spring brings. As we pay increasing attention to Jesus, learn more from him, and think harder how to walk as Jesus walked, we make progress toward a more confident faith.

Getting started with Jesus is not difficult. Remaining on the walk will be one of the most difficult challenges of life. That is because of all the distractions and temptations to walk a different path, a path that promises quicker satisfactions and pleasures. But what God already knows – and what many of us discover by our own experience – is that every other path ends with disappointment and loss. But strength is available to those who wish to remain on the path of Jesus. That strength is found in the daily reading of the Bible, regular prayer, and the use of helpful devotional material prepared by trusted followers of Jesus Christ. By these resources our confidence in God, in Jesus Christ, and the available help of the Holy Spirit grows upon us.

Joy,