REFLECTIONS

When Peter (sometimes called Simon) first begins his ministry work with Jesus, it’s in a fishing boat (Luke 5:1-11).  After speaking to some crowds from Peter’s boat, Jesus commands him to take the boat to deeper waters, and there challenges him to cast his nets for fish. Having tried all and caught nothing, Peter is skeptical at first.  But he receives the challenge and casts his net. He and his partners hauled in so many fish that the boat began to sink! Jesus had performed a miracle. It stunned Peter, James and John. Peter’s response sums up their shock well.  “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” Of course, Jesus ignores that command, and tells Peter to follow him, and that he will become a fisher of men. Peter obeys.

Whenever we receive a challenge from God, we may at first be doubtful, but if we follow through with it, we will find the miraculous — perhaps in shocking ways — and we will be entered into new fields of work.  After that miracle, Peter left his fishing job and followed Jesus. It changed the world forever. It is fair to say that there is not a major aspect of your life — regardless of whether or not you are a Christian — that has not been impacted in some way by Peter’s obedience to the direction of Jesus.

Later, after Jesus has been crucified, buried and resurrected, he appears to Peter again (John 21:1-14).  And again Peter is in a boat with other disciples. But this time Jesus is on shore. And once again, Peter works all night to catch fish, but fails.  They don’t recognize Jesus early the next morning as he calls from the shore, “Friends, have you any fish?” When they answer, “no,” he challenges them to cast it on the right side of the boat.  They try this, and the load of fish is so heavy they are unable to haul it in! At that moment, Jesus is recognized, and Peter jumps in the water fully clothed and swims to shore. Jesus reminded Peter and his fellow disciples of the truth that they are to continue with their duties to him by hearkening back to the original miracle. In an interesting metaphor that points to our status in Heaven, they dine with Jesus on the shore, away from their work, with a meal that he has prepared for them! When we accept the challenges of Jesus, then we begin to serve him as our master, and he serves us as his family. Those challenges also grow us. Later in the text, Jesus gives Peter an even greater duty – to disciple his followers (John 21:15-17). Peter will become a teacher himself!

What challenges has God extended to you, and how are you meeting them?

To forsake something is to to abandon that thing entirely. It sometimes means removing that thing completely from your presence. But more often, it means to remove yourself completely from its presence, and to no longer care about it, or even to be aware of it. It is an acutely harsh action, and it’s harshness lives almost entirely in its deliberateness.  It is impossible to accidentally forsake a person, place or thing. When you abandon ship, for instance, you make an intentional choice to forsake that ship and do nothing to try and save it from whatever demise it faces.

People experience abandonment all of the time. Soldiers sometimes feel forsaken by their country. Wives feel forsaken by their husbands, and husbands by their wives. Tragically, children feel forsaken by parents, and perhaps even more tragically, parents by their children.  If you are reading this, you have either experienced it, or you have tasted something close enough to it that you can imagine it well enough to understand that to be forsaken is a terrible thing.

One of the strangest moments in the bible is when Jesus is dying on the cross and utters to God “why have you forsaken me (Matthew 27:45-46).” It’s strange because Jesus was holy, had done nothing wrong, and was being abused by evil men who had not only done many wrong things, but who likely possessed hardened and evil hearts. It seems odd that God would forsake a holy and pure man, who is now known to be his very son. But it isn’t so strange when you consider God’s love for the human race (John 3:16) along with his need to mete out wrath upon the race which had voluntarily destroyed his perfect creation (Romans 5:12, Colossians 3:25). Since God is both holy and just, a consequence must be given for sin and evil to satisfy that justice. The human race deserved that punishment.  But God put that punishment on himself by allowing his son to represent the human race and to receive in our stead the consequence we deserved. God forsook Jesus so that we will never have to experience being forsaken by him. Ever. With full intent and the purest love, God abandoned Jesus to die on the cross and to receive the shame, abuse, and spurning that was due to us. Then Jesus rose again to prove to us that we were not forsaken, and to give us assurance that we will also live, even if our bodies die.

As a teenaged boy, I spent many nights lying in the middle of a suburban street outside of Houston, Texas, staring at the sky. My best friend at the time would often join me.  We’d imagine building spaceships and one day taking them to far away solar systems — a dream I still at times wistfully entertain. Often, we would sit in my driveway, and using my paper star charts, we’d try find some distant celestial object. Frequently, we would attempt to train my telescope on the furthest heavenly body we could find. This proved to be very difficult because in the Houston sky stars are sparse, and distant stars are faint. City lights are so numerous, and so bright that their noise drowns out the glimmer and twinkle of all but the brightest stars. In Houston, the night sky is mostly an unwrinkled sheet of drab charcoal gray punctuated by dim, flickering points here and there.

But oh my goodness! When you go to the top of a mountain in Colorado, the view is different. There are no city lights blaring out an unrelenting whitewash to cover uncountable glinting shards and sparkling diamonds set in black velvet or midnight blue. The beauty cannot be described. It can only be experienced.  And the only way that you can experience it is to separate yourself from the city. Ironically, this isn’t because the city lights are brighter than the stars. The stars are millions of times brighter than the city lights. You can see some of those stars from your city, but you would not be able to see any of your city lights from those stars. It isn’t that the city lights are bigger than the stars. The stars are many, many times bigger than our planet. It isn’t that city lights are more beautiful than the stars. A trip to the top of the mountain proves it.  Its your proximity to the city lights that keeps you from seeing the stars. The closer you are to the city, the more engulfed in its light you become.

This is partly why we as followers of Christ are called to be separate from the world (2 Corinthians 6:17). When we are part of the world, it’s harder for us to see God’s light. We are so close to the wrong light source, that we are no longer able to see the narrow path that God is lighting before our feet (Psalm 119:105), and we begin to follow instead the broad path that our city might want us to follow (Matthew 7:13-14).  And if our light is drowned out by the city light around us, then we cannot be the lighted city on a hill for others to see and find that we have been called to be (Matthew 5:14-16).

These days when we hear the word “bipolar” we usually think of it in clinical terms.  The first thing that might come to a person’s mind is someone diagnosed with a manic depressive disorder whose mood cycles between opposite poles of elation and sadness. Clinicians chose that term because it was easy to understand, and aptly described the condition. The word simply means “two poles.”  A lot of things in our universe are bipolar. The planet we live on is bipolar. It has a north pole and a south pole. And unless something goes terribly wrong, the north pole will never sit side by side with the south pole. Magnets also have two poles. In fact, there’s a really interesting quality to magnets. If you put the north pole of a magnet next to the south pole of another magnet, the two will strongly attract each other. But if you put a the north pole of a magnet next to the north pole of another, the two will scoot away from each other. They must be in proper alignment for the attraction to occur.

Your spiritual life is a little bit like those bipolar magnets. If you have something in your life called sin, then a repellant force will cause you to scoot away from God whenever he comes near. But unlike those magnets, there will be a repellant force between your south pole (that is, any sin in your life) and God’s north pole (his holiness and virtue). Also unlike those magnets, God will not move away from you. It will always be you who moves away from God. Because he finds sin to be disgusting, this is an amazing character trait of God, and an evidence of his love for you.  The prophet Isaiah likens sin to open wounds (Isaiah 1:4-6) as well as to a stain (Isaiah 1:18). Paul compares sin to a defilement or contamination (2 Corinthians 7:1). Jesus argues that sin pollutes a person (Mark 7:20-23). Despite all of these befoulments, God loves you enough to send his spotless and unpolluted son into your polluted world to clean you up (John 3:16). Unfortunately, just as God finds sin disgusting, a sinner tends to be repelled by holiness. Because of that repellant force, sin causes people to move away from God. Your sin hides God’s face (Isaiah 59:2), and it keeps good from you (Jeremiah 5:25).  Your sin pushes you away from God. When Adam and Eve sinned they hid from God when they heard him walking in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:8). Sin is opposed to God. It is at the opposite end of the spiritual pole.

If we allow God to cleanse us, then we become more like God, more attracted to God, and more useful for his purposes. We become new creatures attracted to a new pole (2 Timothy 2:21 and 2 Corinthians 5:17-21).

An altar is a place of devotion because it is a place of sacrifice and consecration. It is central to worship. In old testament times, an animal would be sacrificed on an altar. This was done for many reasons — sometimes to cover a person’s sins, and sometimes to declare something holy, and sometimes to consecrate or set apart something for special use.  It was always done as a recognition of God’s sovereignty over man, as well as a symbolism of man’s devotion to God. The sacrifice on the altar always had to be with something of worth. One time Israel came under the judgement of God partly because of the sin of King David. When David realized his offense, he wanted to build an altar and make sacrifices to remove his sin and stay the hand of God (2 Samuel 24:10-15). A man named Araunah freely offered his property, supplies, and livestock for the purpose of David’s sacrifice. David refused the free offer and instead purchased those things from Araunah, famously declaring that he would not make sacrifices that cost him nothing (2 Kings 24:24).

Occasionally, an altar would fall into disrepair because the people were not using it. And sometimes, an altar would sadly be torn down in favor of another god’s altar. During Elijah’s time, the people of God began to worship the Baals, and began to sacrifice to those gods. They tore down God’s altar. Before defeating the 450 prophets of Baal atop Mount Carmel, Elijah repaired it. He chose twelve stones to represent the twelve tribes of Israel, and used those stones to build a new altar (1 Kings 18:30-40). Perhaps he was trying to symbolically unify his people around a sacrificial altar and properly center their hearts for return to true worship.  

Of course, the costliest sacrifice was made by God, when he sacrificed his perfect son on the altar of the cross. This allowed us to never have to make physical sacrifices again (Hebrews 10:10).

Today we sacrifice at the altar terrible things that we have valued.  We lay down our sins there. We lay down portions of our lives at the altar that displease God. We even lay down good things that we have valued more than God. We do all of this to consecrate ourselves to his service, and so that his image in us can be restored. Where is your altar? Does it have a central place in your worship?  What have you sacrificed on it?