A Study in Contrasts

"But Jesus . . . knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”

The man came at night.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

He was an achiever in all that he did. A scholar, he was a religious leader who understood the law and kept it faithfully. He was also a politician, “a ruler of the Jews,” a member of Israel’s highest legislative body, the Sanhedrin. With age had come success, accompanied by much-deserved respect. Nicodemus needed nothing. But, still, he came at night. And it felt odd—calling a younger, uneducated man “rabbi,” asking questions rather than being asked, taking the place of a student. But he wanted to know about the miracles, so he came at night.

“But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."

The young rabbi made no sense. He spoke about being born again like a baby, about the Spirit behaving like the wind that blows where it wishes, about the ancient story of the snake-bitten people being saved as they looked at a bronze serpent lifted up on a pole. This one who did miracles from God spoke in metaphors of weakness. But the one who came at night was strong, capable, accomplished. And he left in the dark.

“He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” 

She came at noon. The sun beat down on the baked earth, and it was hot. But more unpleasant than the heat of the sun at noon were the glares and whispers of the other women. And so she came at noon to fetch her water, an essential, but dreaded, chore.

“For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”

And there he was, at noon, by the well, with the sun hot and bright, beating down on the baked earth. This Jewish man was asking an uneducated, immoral, unnamed Samaritan woman for a drink. The young Jewish rabbi made no sense. What was he thinking—asking a Samaritan woman for a drink and then telling her that if she asked, he would give her living water, and she would never be thirsty again? If he really had water like that, why would he ask her for a drink?

“The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

It sounded good—never having to come out again in the heat of the day, carrying the now heavy jar filled with water back to the house. And so she asked him to give it to her. But then he asked her to bring her husband. And this was what she was trying to avoid. This was why she had come at noon instead of when all the others were there. She worried that the deal would be off . . . and so she told the truth, kind of. “I don’t have a husband.” “That’s right,” he said. “You have had five husbands, and now you are living with a man who is not her husband.”

“He told me all that I ever did.”

She realized that this was no longer a conversation about water. She was speaking with a prophet from God. Could this somehow all be related to the coming of the Messiah? And then he told her: “I who speak to you am he.”

Poor, shunned, uneducated, immoral—he knew all about her and revealed himself as the Messiah to her anyway. In the light of the sun, she left her water jar behind and went to tell the people of the town about the one who had found her.

It's no coincidence that these two incidents occur back to back in John's gospel. Through a study of contrasts, John shows us that the gospel is for everyone—men, women, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, moral, and immoral—for whoever believes in him.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." 

To My Valentine

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I'm so glad that your hand holds mine,

And I will always belong to you.

Roses are red,

Violets are blue, 

God blessed me more than I could have asked or imagined

When He gave me the gift of you.

Many waters cannot quench love, 
      Nor can the floods drown it. 
      If a man would give for love 
      All the wealth of his house,      
 It would be utterly despised.


~Song of Songs 8:7  

Four

I sat down, pulled up the blog, and had just decided I had nothing to say. Not one thing. There are several things I've been meaning to write about but keep putting off until I have more time to be delving into topics that require more mental alertness and creativity than I have at this point in the day.

I remembered that it was about this time of year that I began my blog and started to wonder what date exactly I first entered the blogosphere. And what do you know? It was January 27, 2007--exactly four years ago today.

In 2007 I was a single mom with a fifteen-year-old daughter who was just learning to play around with her little camera and a thirteen-year-old son with a round baby face who couldn't remember ever having a dad. I was in love with my work as an editor at Discovery House Publishers, and--even though I was sick to death of dating--I was spending my Friday nights getting to know a mysterious, kind, reserved man named Henry who was different from anyone else I had dated. I couldn't really tell you at that point why I was saying yes to his dinner invitations every week. I was tracking the number of dates we had gone on in my planner, just wondering how many it would be before we had our last--an inevitable circumstance based on previous experience.

In 2011 I'm married to the mysterious (not so much now), kind Henry--who isn't so reserved once you get to know him. We still go out on dates on Friday nights, except during Jonathan's basketball season. Marriage has brought with it a different house, church, and a whole new set of great friends. The daughter is in her second year of college now, and the camera play has taken a much more serious turn since she's a photojournalism major. The equipment is a little more expensive too. The boy--now 17--knows what it is to have a dad who makes him shovel the sidewalk and mow the lawn, teaches him how to shave and tie a tie, and talks politics and watches World War II movies with him. The baby face has to be shaved on occasion, and the somewhat longer legs can be found running up and down the basketball court at Tuesday and Friday night basketball games.

I still love being an editor--but I'm doing it at Reformation Heritage Books, and there are different adventures in books, new authors, and a range of responsibilities that makes my head spin some days. And my hair is just a little bit longer now than it has been--a quite daring move for me.

So happy birthday, my blog. You came into my life at a time when I've had lots to write about. And if there isn't quite as much now, that's okay too. Having a somewhat uneventful life that looks a lot like everyone else's may not make for great blogging material, but I don't think I mind having nothing to say.

Words, Words. Words

POLONIUS: What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET: Words, words, words.

POLONIUS: What is the matter, my lord?  

HAMLET: Between who?

POLONIUS: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.

Words have been in the news a lot recently. Most of the time we don't think about them much. We throw them around here and there, letting them fall where they will--sometimes biting and stinging, sometimes soothing and calming, Sometimes our words provoke thought and response; sometimes they have about as much substance as marshmallow cream.  Sometimes the words directed toward us, like sticks and stones breaking our bones, hurt us. Sometimes our words are like junk mail. We send them out to anyone, anywhere and hope that someone will notice and buy. But the words most of us remember and hold dear have come like elegantly wrapped packages, and we store them someplace safe so that we can revisit them when we need to.

Words are certainly powerful things,even though we're not always conscious of their power when we're using them. And that's why they've gotten a lot of attention of late. Soon after news got out of the tragic shooting in Tucson that left six people dead and others, including a state representative, wounded, words came under attack. "It was the violent language of the ultra-conservative political pundits that we hear on radio and television that incited the shooter to violence," some said. If only the words they use against those who disagree with them politically weren't so hate-filled, so full of metaphorical violence, this tragedy never would have happened. And in a great show of sensitivity, the Republicans responded by renaming their repeal of Obamacare "job-destroying" rather than "job-killing" because everyone knows that destroying is much nicer than killing. And all of this fuss over words when so far no evidence suggests that the words that are being blamed influenced the shooter in any way at all.

NewSouth Books has made news too. The publisher is releasing an edition of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, one of the great masterpieces of American literature, without the words "nigger" and "injun." "Nigger" will be replaced with the word "slave." The book has been banned from many school libraries and classrooms through the years because of its use of  politically incorrect language that many find offensive. The editor of this new edition believes that now teachers will feel more comfortable using Huck in the classroom, and students will be able to enjoy all that the book has to offer. With a master's degree in English, as a former teacher who frequently used this novel in the classroom, and an editor, everything in me screams NO to this ridiculous attempt at political correctness. One thing is sure: the students who use this edition of Huck Finn will not be enjoying all that this book has to offer because one of the great themes of this novel is the young boy Huck's growing consciousness that Jim, the character in the novel often described as a nigger, is a noble man who loves his family and is more of a friend and father to Huck than the white people in his life. Twain's message is anti-racist, and to draw attention to and remove language that a young boy would likely have used in the pre-Civil War South is to miss the point entirely.

It would be foolish to argue that words have no power, that we can use the language of violence and racism without consequence. But it's just as foolish to believe that if we only eliminate the language, there will be no more racism, no more violence. The words are just a reflection of what is in our hearts, and we know that hearts are full of hatred and violence, "desperately wicked," the prophet Jeremiah tells us. And so we must be careful not to oversimplify and blame words themselves (especially if the words themselves aren't to blame) for what lives deep in all of our hearts.

But the good news is that there is a powerful Word that was in the beginning, that was with God and was God. And that Word, in the most perfect way, reveals the Father's heart to us. Those who know this Word know the beginning of the end of violence and hatred. This Word--and not simply the elimination of words--is the solution to hatred and violence. In fact, this Word will both kill and destroy all that is evil, so that words will only ever communicate all that is good.

An Obsession?

Via: Online Schools