Witnessing

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete." 

John the Evangelist

"I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and 

your glory.
Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you."

King David

Followers of Christ have long borne the perplexing burden of "witnessing." This has been the source of angst. The word "evangelism" has become more of a metonym of the ugly side of the faith than what its truest meaning is: "declare good news!"  

The term "witnessing" evokes images of Jehovah's Witnesses ascending your front stairs, Mormons clad in slacks and white button-downs pedaling past on their bikes and sweaty middle-aged men wearing ill-fitting clothes as they blurt cliched platitudes and ultimatums over a tinny PA system. This picture is what led one author to say, "Both Christians and non-Christians alike have this in common: they're uncomfortable with evangelism!"

Or, as the prophet Jim Gaffigan has said, "I do want everyone to feel comfortable. That's why I'd like to talk to you about Jesus ... [laughter] Does anything make you more uncomfortable than some stranger saying to you, 'I'd like to talk to you about Jesus.' 'Yeah ... I'd like you not to.' You could say that to the Pope. 'I'd like to talk to you about Jesus.' He'd say, 'Easy freak. I keep work at work!'"

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

I believe in Jesus. I could be described as one of those narrow-minded types who really does believe he represents the only true faith. 

Nevertheless, what if we were to disentangle our thoughts of "witnessing" and "evangelism" from their cultural baggage and begin to consider their heart.

NYC Pastor Tim Keller addressed the issue of the repugnance of evangelism by saying, "When people tell you not to do it, they are really telling you to stop believing what you believe." What did he mean? Well, Christians believe that Jesus' life, death and resurrection represent the solution to every cosmic and human problem in a universal way. If you do believe this, then sharing it is only common sense. We share good news, especially with those who stand to benefit from it.

To those of you who are believers, ask yourself, "When I buck against the idea of 'evangelism' am I really bucking against anything other than what I believe?"

I heard an interview on NPR this week with an economist who spent the last year being lampooned on cable television for his doomsday predictions about the market, including that the Dow Jones would fall below 10,000. He was the traveling curiosity who played the punching bag on bullish money shows ... until the Dow dropped below 10,000 ... It almost dropped below 8,000! 

Prophets of doom only make good punch lines until the doom happens. What would Jesus have said about this?

"People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all." 

That makes me uncomfortable as I write! Hmmm. Maybe this post isn't working out.

Wait. What did David and John say at the top of this post? "We gotta tell folks about what we've seen!" 

Enter beauty.

Cy Twombly is an American artist. One of his works, a canvass painted entirely white, was recently vandalized. A woman was so struck by its simple beauty that she gave it a kiss. 

Her act of devotion irreparably altered the $3 million masterpiece. She was imprisoned and fined. The crime? A kiss of devotion. The verdict? The masterpiece was too pure even for her lips.  

Though beauty motivated the crime, it also necessitated the verdict. Had she kissed her own art or a loved one, there would have been no crime. Again, it was not the act, it was the object. 

I was mountain biking with my brother in law--who does not agree with my views on Jesus--a while back. Breathlessly we came over a ridge. The piney mountain air was invigorating! Our muscles burned and sweat poured down our faces. Sun gleamed through the aspen trees like stained glass. 

"Times like this make me realize that if we no longer had bodies our souls could live on joy and beauty indefinitely!" I said. My brother in law, always taciturn, simply nodded.

Back at the cabin I overheard him say, "That really is my religion." And it was true. But it is my religion as well. Only, like a bucket rising up from a well, I've determined what I believe is the source of my devotion.

The ephemeral tastes of beauty and joy always send us back for more. Yet these things always prove ephemeral, even as our appetite proves insatiable! 

Everyone of us recognize beauty. We delight in it. The artist and the porn addict alike are seeking the selfsame fare. The power of this desire ought to make us long for such a pure taste of its source. 

Still, in the depths of our heart arises a nagging question. Why should I deserve such a thing? It is not a matter primarily of justice or a sense of guilt. It is a matter of transcendent awe, and a penetrating sense that, in the words of Wayne, "We're not worthy!" Isn't that an odd thing for a cult comedy to identify? In the presence of beauty and majesty they spontaneously recognized their lack of worth.

We all get this. That is why most men who seek to be suiters to Hollywood celebrities receive restraining orders. They really aren't worthy. 

The obvious realization should be that this applies on an infinite scale to God. This is the bad news, but to ignore it is the spiritual equivalent of reading People or watching porn and actually concluding that we have some type of intimate relationship with these "beautiful people." Folks do this every day, but we'd all probably agree that they are deluding themselves.

Are you deluding yourself thus with The Beautiful Person?

Only the Christian message makes any sense of this. All other views are a variation on two themes: (1) god just isn't that particular or (2) we're all not that unworthy for we can make ourselves presentable enough. None marry our soaring hopes with our innate sense of being unworthy, and none portray a god who is so beautiful that he would bridge the gap of our worthlessness and make us worthy. A God who has enough beauty to spare. 

Unlike our celebrities who escape to remote islands, Jesus washes up on our own shore. At times he is almost crushed by the throngs of crowds. He goes up on mountains and out in boats so as not to expire prematurely. Finally however, he is crushed under the load of our ugliness. When he rose from the dead, his hands and side were still pierced. They had become a new kind of beauty.

"Who has believed our message 

and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer."
The Prophet Isaiah, writing 500 years before Jesus' birth.

"Have you never read in the Scriptures:
'The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes'?"

Jesus

May we consider anew the marvelous, often overlooked beauty of this message; of this God. Maybe then our friends will be persuaded to adore him with us through reverent belief.

Selah.

God Shines Forth

Scripture tells us, "Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth." (Ps. 50:2) Did you hear that? God describes His dwelling place as "the perfection of beauty." What does that tell us? To come face-to-face with God is to come face-to-face with beauty; unadulterated, untainted, breathtaking Beauty.

In a culture consumed with style, we may think we know beauty when we see it. I would suggest we do not. We know the glitz and glamor of style, but beauty lies in the substance.

The knees of all my pants wear out quickly. Why? Because I crawl on the floor with my two little girls every day; messy evidence of a beautiful life (speaking of "substance" I won't mention the substances that find their way onto my clothing, but--as gross as they can be--they, too, smack of sheer beauty).

Does this make sense?

In the library of Alexandria there was found a fable called "The Warmstone." It tells of a stone which could turn any substance to gold (viz., the alchemist's "Philosopher's Stone"). This stone was distinguishable from every other stone by its--you guessed it!--warmth. You would know it because warmth radiated from it.

A young man, desiring to possess such a stone, sold his every earthly belonging and set forth to find the Warmstone. He camped along the seashore and began systematically testing every stone--casting them into the sea when they proved to be mere stones, so as not to inadvertently re-examine any one stone.

One evening, bleary-eyed and sore-of-arm, he found it! Warmth radiated from its core unmistakably, and he cast it into the sea. 

Habit. 

Our friend had become so accustomed to casting away stones that he failed to obtain the very pursuit of his life.

Ted Turner was recently asked to name something he was thankful for. "My health; that I can get up and do the things I enjoy." Life was about simple pleasures for one of the world's wealthiest men. He had obtained wealth and found it wanting; so too women (at least 3), fame, prestige, experiences, et al. He had conquered every frontier--Vēnī, vīdī, vīcī--yet had concluded that all rapturous promises are hollow. Life was was about simple pleasures, because soaring expectations only lead to crushing disappointments.

Jesus make a soaring promise. "I have come that you might have life to the fullest!" (Jn. 10:10) Where does this promise fit into our minds and hearts? Does it radiate heat? Will we cast it away before we're sure?

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."

What is gold but beauty or the means for attaining all things beautiful? What if the Source of all beauty was put within our grasp? What if it could flow beautifully through our lives? Would we recognize it? Would we recognize its results and rejoice thus?

This blog will be a series of meditations on beauty and beauty lived out. It is my hope that, through it, we might all feel the warmth of the stone or, put another way, recognize the treasure when we see it. 

"From Zion, the Perfection of Beauty, God shines forth."

Selah.