God is good, but not like you. He wounds and heals, kills and rebirths, breaks and molds anew, severs and rejoins.
His people will stubbornly look you in the face and say, “God is good.” At caskets and ICU’s and refugee camps and Holocaust memorials.
We don’t even quite understand what it means for God to be good, but enough to say it:
“God is good.”
To my son John Caleb and daughter Lydia, I “mock” the earth in showing just how small it is compared to the wider universe, which is itself small compared to the “bigness” and beauty and power and ultimacy of God himself. This isn’t to deny the inherent beauty and largeness of the earth, or the universe, or to deny that God himself did not give the earth its beauty, but it is to put things in context.
Listen to God himself mock idolatry in Isaiah 44:12-17:
“The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water and is faint. The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
This passage sits within a large context of serious courtroom drama. God has called all the witnesses of the nations to testify of their gods, and he triumphs over them in boasting of how great he is compared to them. He alone is the true God. He alone is the Most High. And in this flow, God, before the witnesses of these nations, even employs mockery. If we condemn such mockery, I think we are taking ourselves too seriously.
Humor seems necessary, even mandatory, for the Christian life, inasmuch as it means not taking ourselves too seriously: God is big, and we are little compared to God’s bigness. Complaining about the scuffs on our new iPhones deserves mockery. Life is short, heaven is forever. Losing this perspective, we become like Pharisees. We make the big things small, and the small things big. Christian humor helps us put these things back into perspective. A holy mockery, satire, ridicule of the absurdity of sin, seems fitting for people who love what is most lovely.
I “mock” Joseph Smith’s re-rendering of Romans 4:5 — after all, the whole context of Romans 3-4 is about God’s grace in light of the ungodliness of humanity. Smith didn’t merely botch it, he royally screwed it up, turning the meaning on its head. When we read the JST of Romans 4:5 — “But to him that seeketh not to be justified by the law of works, but believeth on him who justifieth not the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” — we should drop our jaws. We should be aghast. We should lose our breath in dismay. And then smile, and laugh! WHAT?! He did THAT?! What scorn we have for such an abuse of the text! What derision we have for a such an awful and tragic and horrific perversion of the text! Why have this attitude? Because we love the gospel! Because we love the truth! Because we love Romans!
It seems to me the main issue behind the ethics of “mockery” is whether it comes out of a deep love for what is good, true, and beautiful. If I love God and the gospel and the Mormon people, I ought to think belittling thoughts and, ultimately, have a condescending attitude toward the LDS temple. Why? Because we know just how supreme Jesus is in his fulfillment of the temple! Because we know just how silly it is to say that the LDS temple is an authentic restoration of what went on in Solomon’s temple! If my mockery of the LDS temple comes, however, out of a belittling of the dignity, value, and beauty of the LDS people, out of a lack of love for their well-being, out of a bitter contempt for the individuals, made in the image of God, then that is a whole different matter.
Ecclesiastes: God intentionally frustrates and so orders human life to show that he is God and we are not.
Sleep itself reminds me of this. It is the body’s daily submission and surrender. It is the body’s way of saying, “You win, God.”
“God has breathed life into all of Scripture. It is useful for teaching us what is true. It is useful for correcting our mistakes. It is useful for making our lives whole again. It is useful for training us to do what is right.” (2 Timothy 3:15-16, NIrV)
Implication: Scripture is useful for these things even when we can’t identify how it is useful for these things. God uses the word, by the Spirit, to wash us, in known and unknown ways.
I love how peaceful and quiet early Saturday mornings are. It’s like a little Sabbath for me.
“We have to be continually reminded of what we believe.” – C. S. Lewis
Five reasons not to “shut down” when someone wants to show you evidence that purportedly contradicts what/who you believe:
1. Curiosity. Curiosity is virtuous and healthy, and the only faith worth having is a curious faith. Faith seeks understanding. Faith should increase curiosity, not squelch it.
2. Humility. Humility implies a posture of, “I don’t know all of what I don’t know, I don’t know all of what I need to know, and I should be open to learning things people think I need to know.”
3. Faith that honors. To honor something as trustworthy, you don’t endlessly protect it in the dark — you let it demonstrate its trustworthiness in the light of scrutiny. Honor what/who you trust by letting it “come outside” and endure the examination.
4. Love for neighbor. The love-ethic of Jesus (“love your neighbor as yourself”) requires that we be interested in understanding and knowing and empathizing with our neighbor, even when — especially when — our neighbor disagrees with us.
5. Love for the one you trust.
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” (C.S. Lewis)
A thought-experiment:
Imagine a “heaven” where you first sit down and watch a great movie. After each movie an even better movie is played. And so on, in a never-ending succession of ever-increasingly more wonderful, more enthralling, and more enjoyable movies. With every movie you watch, you have the assurance that the next movie will be ever better.
But soon it hits you: This is all this “heaven” will ever be. Not even never-ending, ever-increasingly enjoyable movies is good news. A feeling of dread settles over you. This is all of what your existence will ever be. And it is nothing but vanity, or meaninglessness, and breath in the wind. Not even this never-ending, ever-increasing joy is enough to satisfy the cavernous heart of yours. You were made for something so much greater. Something is still missing.
The outlook in Ecclesiastes is even worse. The book assumes the finality of death and does not assume a resurrection (although it logically implies one at the end). And not even the conclusion, to fear God and keep his commandments, is clearly a solution to the problem the book laments.
Jumping ahead, this is the solution: “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3) The solution is this personal relationship. Without it, our existence is ultimately a lonely and meaningless breath in the wind.
A story to go with this song. God had used Waterdeep to minister to me deeply, like medicine to my struggling soul. I remember some very sweet moments with me, God, and a Waterdeep CD.
I heard Waterdeep was coming into town for a performance, so I took Stacie to this very small place downdown in Dayton, Ohio. There was this other band playing before Waterdeep taking forever to finish up. So I walked up to this random lady and asked her, “Hey, do you know when Waterdeep will play?” She said, “Oh, probably in about 5 minutes.”
Well, five minutes later, she got up on stage with Don Chaffer. She was Lori Chaffer, the female singer. I felt dumb, not recognizing who she was! But then they played one of the most beautiful songs. This was it. Over the years Stacia and I have enjoyed singing it together.
“Doing missions when dying is gain is the happiest life in the world.” (John Piper)
“Laziness pretends to yearn for rest, but what sure rest is there except in the Lord? Luxury would gladly be called plenty and abundance, but You are the fullness and unfailing abundance of unfading joy. Promiscuity presents a show of liberality, but You are the most lavish giver of all things good. Covetousness desires to possess much, but You are already the possessor of all things. Envy contends that its aim is for excellence, but what is as excellent as You? Anger seeks revenge, but who avenges more justly than You? Fear shrinks back as sudden change threatens the way things are and fear is wary of its own security, but what can happen that is unfamiliar or sudden to You, O God? Or who can deprive You of what You love? Where is there unshaken security except with You? Grief longs for those delightful things we’ve lost because it wills to have nothing taken from it, just as nothing can be taken from You.” (Augustine, Confessions, Book 2)
“The reasoning of those who distort or suppress reality, or alter historical manuscripts to protect the delusions of the simple believer, is similar to that of the man who murders a child to protect him from a violent world.” (Frances Lee Menlove)
“Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.” (Henry David Thoreau)
I Am Aaron Shafovaloff 