Crossing the Kidron

Nondescript places become famous for events they host. As I reread John 18 and pondered Jesus’ arrest and interrogation I was struck by Jesus crossing into the Kidron Valley. The Kidron Brook is a wadi. Most of the year it’s a dry creek bed, occasionally swollen with runoff water. Israel’s Kidron is not Italy’s Rubicon, the river over which Rome’s legions were forbidden to cross on pain of treason. But for Israel’s kings and especially kings with distinctively godly mindsets, the Kidron was a place of heartbreak and reformation.

King David crossed the Kidron after his beloved son Absalom betrayed him and staged a palace coup. Absalom’s coup fissured a kingdom that would eventually split north and south, ten tribes and two, restless kingdoms marked more often by God-loathing than God-fearing. Occasionally God raised up reform minded kings in Jerusalem. Asa led a reform, deposing the remains of idols – even the Asherah of his mother – into the Kidron. King Josiah would follow suit: the Kidron bearing away the shame of God’s people.

The reformations never endured. God’s people remained rebellious, ready to betray their true King, reluctant to hear his Word.

So God’s Son the Word finds them on arrival. Preoccupied with self-preservation their eyes were earthward, one on the Romans and another ready for threats to the status quo.

The Word preaches, pointing out the heart problem common to all and the solution presented by One. Sin remains the real enemy, judgment by God more to be feared than judgment by Rome. Good Shepherd purposes to take to himself the greater judgment so that Jew and Gentile can be reconciled to God, sons and daughters to a Father. The final King crosses the Kidron to experience betrayal by an intimate. Jew and Gentile – the world in microcosm – come across the Kidron to him. Weapons drawn and torches burning, the Light is discovered and darkness revealed. David’s betrayed descendent will go back across the Kidron, God’s holy legionnaire marching into a city accused of treason but determined to quell humanity’s insurrection. He will become the best that the Kidron embodied: a river of life, swollen to bear away the idolatries of God’s people.

~ DS

Born To Run

     My morning reading encompassed Mark 14, a chapter that begins ominously as leaders plot to kill Jesus and weaves between intimacy and intrigue. Jesus tenderly receives a woman’s anointing as her anointing him unto death. Judas enters the plot to betray Jesus before Jesus and his disciples share the Passover and the Lord’s Supper is instituted. Jesus predicts Peter’s denial. After Jesus’ arrest all of the disciples flee: the familiar names and curiously an anonymous young man (v. 51) following after Jesus who was seized but who escaped naked into the night, leaving his captors holding his clothing. It’s possible this anonymous young man is Mark the gospel writer himself. If so, Mark’s signature appearance in the gospel he pens is marked by fear and flight. By the end of chapter 14 Peter has not only fled from Jesus but denied Jesus three times.

     Contemplating the death and resurrection of Christ is a good time to observe the disciples’ running and reflect on our own propensity to run. Principally, the cross calls us away from false confidence in our own spiritual strength. J.C. Ryle’s comments on Mark 14 help our reflection:

 Let us learn from the flight of these eleven disciples, not to be overconfident in our own strength. The fear of man does indeed bring a snare. We never know what we may do, if we are tempted, or to what extent our faith may give way. Let us be clothed with humility.[1]

The annual recital of running feet reveals own hearts; often we seek to preserve our own lives instead of trusting ourselves to the only one capable of holding us steady. We sing in solidarity with the hymn-writer “prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” Owning my propensity to run fosters charity towards other Christians.  

Let us learn to be charitable in our judgment of other Christians. Let us not expect too much from them, or set them as having no grace at all, if we see them overtaken in a fault. Let us not forget that even our Lord’s chosen apostles forsook him in his time of need. Yet they rose again by repentance, and became pillars of the church of Christ.[2]

Among the first disciple-runners were future missionaries and martyrs and possibly a young man that God would grow up and inspire to write a gospel.

     Recognizing our propensity to run fuels our love for Jesus who neither ran nor runs away from disciples who disappoint him.

If there is one trial greater than another, Ryle notes, it is the trial of being disappointed in those we love. It is a bitter cup, which all true Christians have frequently to drink. Ministers fail them. Relations fail them. Friends fail them. One cistern after another proves to be broken, and to hold no water. But let them take comfort in the thought that there is one unfailing friend, even Jesus, who can be touched with the feeling of their infirmities, and tasted all their sorrows. Jesus knows that it is to see friends and disciples failing him in the hour of need. He is never weary of forgiving.Let us strive to do likewise. Jesus, at any rate, will never fail us. It is written, ‘His compassions fail not’ (Lam. 3.22).[3]

Good Friday and Easter are historical makers inviting runners to stop, stand still, and know the grace of forgiveness and welcome from our Savior who didn’t run. He stood still long enough to die for runners. Alive again, he stands to extend grace and forgiveness to those whose running has pained us. May Easter 2013 bring the joy both of knowing Christ’s welcome and extending it to the runners in our lives. 

DS

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[1]J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Mark (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1857; reprint, 2012), 255-256.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

The Power of Gratitude

This fall we spent several weeks studying how

Christ’s mindset makes God’s people sacrificially generous. In Philippians chapter 2 Paul commends his ministry partner Epaphroditus, whose ministry was entirely behind the scenes and massively difficult. Epaphroditus carried a gift of money from Philippi in Greece to Paul who was under arrest in Rome. The Philippians’ gift sustained Paul and allowed him to continue ministering in the capital city of the empire, his influence carrying even into the Emperor’s household.

Ephaphroditus’ journey consisted of a 360 mile hike (the distance from Dublin, OH to Chicago, IL), followed by a minimum 2 day boat ride from Greece to Italy and then another 370 mile hike. It might well have been a one-way trip, as Epaphroditus was carrying cash from Christians to a Christian and terminating at a prison where the recipient was imprisoned for being a Christian. His service could well have landed him in prison too. What did happen is that he got sick, and homesick, and once recovered Paul sent him Greece-ward with a command to the Philippian church: honor people like this!

I invited our congregation to apply Paul’s command by writing thank you notes to people who we saw serving behind the scenes. It was a simple enough task: avoid thanking paid staff, focus on volunteer servants, honor them. I received over 200 handwritten notes and emails. Many were sealed, but I opened a few of them (I said I would) to compile a composite representation of thanks for our annual Thanksgiving Sunday worship service. Reading the few notes I did was massively encouraging and humbling. Keeping in mind that I read just a sample of the notes, I was struck by:

• Our congregation’s readiness to see and express thanks for humble service. Seeing and thanking those who volunteer in the office, work in the nursery, run the sound system for worship, work with middle and high school students and do the hundreds of other things that make a church body dignifies servants and helps us grow as a gracious community.
• I was humbled in reading the notes to see how Christ-centered they were. Many of the note writers took time to identify spiritual gifts they saw in their recipient and to tell them how their behind the scenes service blessed them personally.
• At the end of two hours I came to view the wicker basket holding the notes as an offering basket just like the plates we use to collect funds on Sundays. This basket contained people’s gifts of time, talent, passion, skill, willingness to serve out of the way and without promise of recognition.
• I also realized that probably some servants got overlooked, not intentionally, but overlooked nonetheless. This made me grateful that Jesus is greater and more faithful to reward our service than a church’s best but feeble attempts to say thank you. I look forward to when these still-anonymous servants hear Jesus’ “well done, good and faithful servant.” 

In the meantime, thank you.