You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'The Cross' category.
Yesterday Katherine and I drove to Washington DC to enjoy the National Gallery of Art, a huge, two-complex structure that houses some of the most treasured historical collections from around the world. For over two hours we walked from room to room, discussing exhibits, sneaking sound bytes from tour guides, and critiquing paintings and sculptures of the masters. We saw Van Gogh’s famous self-portrait (pictured here), Picasso’s ‘cubism’ and Monet’s pastoral paintings, to name a few.
Unfortunately I’m one of those typical husbands that sees art as a spectacular game winning, toes-barely-in-bounds reception on the gridiron. For me it should be ‘so simple a caveman can do it.’ So if you were listening in it wouldn’t be a stretch for you to hear me ask Katherine, ‘What is that,’ or ‘This is good?’ You get the picture (though I didn’t)…
At some point I asked her how the value of each piece is determined. Is it that someone in some important artsy circle just says, ‘This is valuable!’ and then it is?
How does it work? Because for some of these folks’ works to be worth millions I would have thought that the faces could look a little less or a little more – something – I don’t know! Is it that an artist was the first to paint smiley faces on city scenes (you think I’m kidding…)? Can a can of Campbell’s Soup be that exquisite?
So, as we walked, we talked about it – about how some things had never before been done – how some artists stretched the limits, or were the first to venture into certain mediums, etc.
And then Katherine said something that immediately rang true – she said that these are not photographs that can be retouched or airbrushed – that the artists painted imperfectly and that there is something beautiful in their imperfect offerings.
Right there I knew that she got it right (either that, or she figured out how to finally shut me up). I still don’t get all of it – but I like the fact that history has attached value to the imperfect.
Because I’m imperfect as well as unfinished. And no airbrush can erase those broken and ugly blemishes that mark my life story. Only Christ can – and has. And He did it without asking or requiring me to first fix myself. All that mattered to Him was that in the Father’s eyes, and by His own intentions that I’ll never fully understand until I get ‘home,’ in His estimation I have great value (Deuteronomy 7:6 – “…The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.”)
What news could be better?
peace.
There are certain events that connect entire lifetimes, and one of those occurred this week. Susan Atkins, a participant in one of the most gruesome murders on US soil, died of brain cancer while incarcerated in California. She was arrested and tried in 1969 and had been imprisoned since 1970. Her part in the Sharon Tate slaying (among others), as a member of the Charles Manson gang, was firsthand. Her cold-hearted courthouse testimony of the murder was chilling, and sealed her as one of the most violent and heartless killers of all time.
Atkins was a lost soul before the events that led to her lifelong imprisonment. Her mother died of cancer when she was a child and her father, an alcoholic, farmed her out to family members. As a young teenager she ran away, entered into the drug scene and became a topless dancer in San Francisco to finance her addiction by the time Charles Manson (who remains in prison) stepped into her life and integrated her into his sex-crazed, drug-infested, violent commune.
This is the story we know – one of those parallel narratives that has accompanied my entire life and anyone who grew up in the same era. We grew up watching documentaries, reading headlines and being mesmerized by a made-for-TV movie entitled, Helter Skelter.
The temptation (and it is a subtle one) is to file Atkins under some kind of ‘beyond hope,’ or ‘not worth saving’ category, as we might some other notorious personality. We make such determinations based on our own social instincts, I think. In other words, as Christ-followers we are no less susceptible to the tendency to prioritize sin and sinners – and to be sure, there are some actions that defy all common humanness.
But, as often is the case, there is more to the story. While incarcerated Atkins met Jesus and became a Christ-follower. In the waning days of her life she and her husband, also a believer, attempted to have her released to die at home. The prosecuting attorney at the time, Vincent Bugliosi, argued on her behalf. During that recent parole hearing, she slipped in and out of consciousness, having endured brain surgery, relegated to a gurney, with one leg amputated, and too weak to argue her case.
After her conversion Atkins publicly repented of her sin and acknowledged that there could be no earthly repayment for what she had done against her victims. Her last words, spoken in unison with her husband, were, ‘My God is an amazing God.’ She had discovered that she was freer as an incapacitated, incarcerated, dying woman – in Christ – than she was in the ‘Free Speech,’ ‘Free Love,’ Tune In, Turn On & Drop Out movement.
What we do with this has more to do with our faith than it does hers. We can never know if any confession is the real deal, except for our own. The real question is whether or not we believe God can rescue the most heinous of sinners and redeem their broken lives. If we believe that, then we only need to look in the mirror and discover that He already has.
Friends, this is good news…
peace.
This past Sunday I told our church about my annual summer growth of facial hair. Such changes often become the center of interesting conversations and comments: ‘Hey, preacher, did you break your razor this morning?’ ‘What’s that growing under your lip there?’ All followed by good-natured laughs. One of my favorites comes from a stately woman in Miami, who would say (in all seriousness, I might add), ‘You look so handsome without that.’ But every summer, never fail, after weeks on the beach, and to some extent, to celebrate yet another year of pretending to live a surfer’s life, some form of facial hair is grown – sort of like my summer Mr. Potato Head arrangement – or that hairless man you style with ‘hair’ by navigating little shavings of metal with an accompanying magnet (that never gets old!).
The crazy thing is this – On Sunday, because my beard is where my hair has chosen to turn mostly gray, and because it doesn’t grow out very thick, no one even knew what I was talking about – they couldn’t see it! Within days, in interacting with people I realized this, as they would say things like, ‘Oh, you do have something there.’ Such affirmations of my manhood…
Actually this illustrates a truth from the Gospel – that we are far more than anyone can see by looking at externals. There is more to the ‘package’ than meets the eye for any of us. Each of us knows the ugliness that resides deep beneath the surface, and all have had that lousy feeling of being praised on the outside while grieving dark hearts and broken lives. We bear scars that most will never know and experiences that we hope will remain buried in time.
I’m fortunate – my wife and daughters like the attempts (and even the beard), so I’m safe where it matters most. But so many don’t feel safe with their secrets. They feel exposed even where none can see – because they know what is inside – for them it feels as though it is all out there. ‘If anyone knew…’ they think.
But God does know. In fact, the good news is that God knows what others don’t. The cold distances, bright lights and fast pace of life don’t obscure His view. He knows who we are and He loves us in Jesus. It’s that simple, really. The Gospel finds us unfinished and the God of the Gospel sees what others miss (1 Samuel 16:7) and loves us that way – until we get Home.
This is good news.
peace.
The Cross in this picture was taken at a local property that is being restored for the purpose of housing women in recovery who need a fresh start and a safe place to make it. The property is sprawling. One day the grounds will display a garden that will grow herbs and vegetables cultivated for the purpose of training in the culinary arts.
The buildings are a different story – they are historic and beautiful, and one day will be housing and serve as classrooms for these women, but for now they are also old and in near disrepair. Squatters filled the condemned halls that long went without water and electricity. What once was obviously a magnificent spread of stately edifices is now in ruins.
Work teams have been scheduled year-round for the purpose of restoration, and it was while a group from our church worked in one of the buildings that I saw the Cross. It was situated on the edge of two or three panels of dry wall that awaited their destined installation. How and why it got there is a mystery, yet somehow it spoke volumes to me.
It is Holy Week. We celebrate Jesus. In describing His death, we think and speak in terms of Sacrifice and Substitution – both packed with meaning. But this week I have been struck by the level of intimacy Jesus was willing to involve Himself in on our behalf. We celebrate that He came and entered into our mess. In Jesus God took on the human condition.
There are moments when I don’t like that intimacy – when I would rather the roof cave in and the walls decay, and the brush to become overgrown than for God to be so close to me that He can detect every nuance of sin’s ugly stain that runs so deep within. He knows – He sees – There is nothing I can hide – not only because He is God, but also, and especially because Jesus took on flesh and blood – His body to be given and His blood to be spilled – He became a hideous display because that is what humanity is – it is what I am. I don’t want Him to see me, and perhaps, more, I don’t like that He became me.
There is no sterile version, yet there is no more beautiful one either. Paul says, ‘God made him who knew no sin to become sin that we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Corinthians 5:21). The Cross is a supreme act of intimacy in which sorrow, rejection, death and love conjoined in one man – Jesus.
This is Good News.
peace.
SocialVibe