Jericho

Currently Listening to: Dying Star by Ruston Kelly

"At that time, Joshua invoked this curse:

May the curse of the Lord fall on anyone who tries to rebuild the town of Jericho."

Joshua 6:26

Yesterday, I came across a prayer I wrote a few years ago. True to my typical form, it was written on the back of a water bill envelope and crumpled into a well-worn planner. Although I wrote the words, they looked unfamiliar to me. Like I had seen them for the first time in that moment. But as soon as I started reading them, I re-experienced them.

"Father--

Surround me in your Spirit's siege.

Cut off all other resources.

Starve my fears until they are satisfied in your possibilities.

Remember Your way through these gates. And pass through them.

Unframe this fortress built by my own hand.

Demolish these walls of lifeless stone.

Silence them with my sound of submission.

Rebuild them. Renew them.

Replace them with Your presence.

Corner me in Your open fields.

Find me finding You."

At the time I wrote this, I had recently stumbled across the story of Jericho in the Old Testament. If I'm honest, I hardly know anything about this story outside of a Children's Church song. Most of my attention has always gone to Joshua and the Israelites and the beginning of God's promise being fulfilled as His people won their first battle in the Promised Land. But, this time, my mind could not get off the people of Jericho. What were they doing that was so wrong? Defending their own, protecting their city and their loved ones within it? Resisting strange intruders that kept walking around playing trumpets?

What was God telling them? What did their lives look like?

Of course, if you read through the entire story, you will find that after following God's strange directions, the Israelites conquered and destroyed Jericho. As quoted above, the story ends dramatically with Joshua putting a curse on anyone that set out to rebuild the city. But despite Joshua's creepy curse, Jericho was rebuilt and destroyed several more times. In fact, the gospels even tell us that Jesus passed through Jericho on the way to Jerusalem and, ultimately, his death. By that time, the city had become known as a gateway city, a pass-through oasis in the middle of the wilderness for travelers on their way. Old Testament Jericho had gone from a sealed up fortress to New Testament Jericho, an open gateway for Jesus to pass through.

A few days ago, Ruston Kelly's "Jericho" came on my shuffle (Here's a good rule of thumb - never next a Ruston Kelly song). I heard him sing the chorus,

"Rivers weren't made for drowning. Souls were never made to fail. I raised Jericho around me, but these walls were built to scale."

Jericho, Ruston Kelly

Just like that, I was summed up. Exposed. Exhausted.

I felt the weight of my walls, this fortress I had worked so hard to build. Each stone mortared in expectations, disappointment, fear, control. Each wall, scaled to the extent of myself. Each doorway locked, bolted, shut.

And then, it hit me. I had rebuilt Old Testament Jericho.

This Lent season, I've tried to be intentional with journeying into the wilderness of myself, like Jesus did. But I have only ventured farther into the distraction of productivity and performance.

I feel the weight of that fortress, tall and resolute, standing in the desert--asserting its purpose through stubborn walls and skeptical resistance. Choosing the shelter of the familiar over the vulnerability of the Lord's passage.

Here's the deal: there's a Jericho inside of me. I have felt it building my entire life, and I feel it now. Its biggest strongholds keep me standing upright and alone, strong from the outside but fragile and unwilling on the inside. Bricks of expectation piled upon bricks of expectation. Stacked against themselves in piles that feign strength but yield self-importance and confining control. The kind of walls that prevent a passage of the Lord.

I have not heard the empowering truths of the Father. I have not secluded myself away from the clutter to be baptized in the Spirit, to be awake to the possibilities of what it means to be a child of God. A follower of and participant in resurrection. My words are pointed toward obedience, but my feet are scuttling down the familiar stone-clad paths of my own way and my own effort.

I often ask God to be with me. In the morning, as I'm driving, as I enter into other people's stories. I ask Him to simply make me aware of His presence in a way that uncovers something new about Him. But lately, I feel God gently pushing back on that request.

"Alex, be with me. Make me aware of your willingness to receive."

It only makes sense that He would ask what is most unknown and uncomfortable. Rather than a command or call to action to do something, God's big asks of me are verbs that are passive--verbs that can only render me a beneficiary of the Father's presence. Not a sideshow presence, but a presence of empowerment, one that reminds and affirms a child of who they are and what they mean to their Father. A presence that silences hurry and ushers in a posture of surrender. Head bowed, hands open to the possibilities that come alive when you're with Him.

That's the wilderness I want to camp in. That's the desert I want to stand in.

Not Jericho, but Jesus.

I don't know where you are or what the Lord has for you in this season of reflection. But I do know that he's telling me to stop building, and start being. And when the time to build begins again, build New Testament Jericho. The kind of city that Jesus passes through. The kind of city that is a gateway for the presence of the Father and an oasis of grace for its inhabitants.

Happy Lent, fam.

-Alex

// The Gospel of New Creation //

John 1:1-5 (MSG)

The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
    God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
    in readiness for God from day one.

Everything was created through him;
    nothing—not one thing!—
    came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
    and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
    the darkness couldn’t put it out.

There’s really nothing like the gospel. It always captures me, always convicts, always places me back in the space I belong. Throughout my life, it has never changed, but my understanding and realization of it has grown, shrunk, and shifted based on the experiences that have filtered my perspective of it. The older I get, the more it seems I am the one in the way of it, as if my ability to hold it affects its ability to be true. But, thankfully, I am reminded during this Christmas season that a gospel so easily affected by my hands is far short of the gospel of Christ.

The gospel of John is many people’s favorite account of Jesus’s life, mainly because it is beautifully written in poetic symbolism. The beginning of John’s account is no exception, as it is seamlessly aligned to be a new rendition of a new beginning—a new light emerging from nothing. A thread of God’s Creation power now extending from Genesis’s natural order to the insides of the human heart. And while the Christ child was a new chapter of creation, he was always an intricate part of the original creation story, too— always present, always promised, always coming. Even still, he is more than the end or beginning result. He is the process, the beautiful intentionality, the profound fulfillment of a promise we didn’t even see. In complete darkness, he creates. And what he creates distinguishes who he is from who he's not.

I think everyone would like our external realities to mimic the beauty that the Christmas holiday represents for our spiritual reality. But, more times than not, this is not the case. For many of us, this year has proven to be riddled with difficulty after difficulty after difficulty. It has cast a shadow on every flicker of light we’ve been fortunate enough to see, and the effects of that have been both tangibly and intangibly felt. But Bethlehem always reminds me that it is difficulty and struggle that birth the Savior we celebrate. It is difficulty and struggle that deliver the fulfillment of God’s word and promise. And it is that same difficulty and struggle that offer the most powerful realizations of God’s presence and faithfulness to those willing to experience and endure. Perhaps there is no better evidence than Mary and Joseph—we make the mistake of glamorizing their story too often. Their surroundings were difficult and bleak, and certainly did not seem to affirm the things that were told to them. But they believed anyway. As they were literally on the run to save the life of their coming child, the son of God— they chose to believe. They weren’t even where they were trying to go! They were in their own kind of darkness. But, as we know so well, the Life-Light blazes out of that kind of darkness. The voids are where God’s creation are realized.

I’m not sure about you, but I long for that kind of Creation story. I crave it. I have found myself looking around trying to let my surroundings affirm truths I have always chosen to believe. And it begs the question of myself, how little have I learned about who God is, that what I believe is shaken OR strengthened by my situations, by what I see? How much time have I wasted trying to create evidence of affirmation for my own story script? That is not the way of Mary. That is not the way of Joseph. That is not the way of any example we have been given in chasing after God. Try as we might, I am convinced day after day that God is the chaser. He has always been after us. From Genesis to John, he has gone before us and come after us. Wherever you are and however you got there is not big enough to change or stop that truth. Neither us nor our situations are powerful enough to overthrow the truth of that gospel.

I’ll be the first to admit this Christmas season has felt tired and weary for me. More like a burden, rather than a celebration. But when I read the above passage from John this morning, I am reminded that what we are celebrating is a second creation, a creation that redeemed the broken story of the first, and yet, at the same time was apart of the first, all the same. A story whose telling says so much just in the way it is told, a story that reminds us we are not bound to the bleakness of a hard year. What we celebrate tomorrow cannot be touched by whatever this world throws. What we celebrate tomorrow is truer than anything your eyes can see. The Redemptive Creation power of our Father. From the voids of a formless world, He creates. From an animal’s feeding trough in the middle of nowhere, He creates. From the tomb itself, He creates. In 2020, in the midst of pandemics, political strife, racial tension— He creates. There is no darkness that is an exception to his authority.

Merry, Merry Christmas, friends. Let us celebrate that we have a God who comes after us— he always has, and he always will. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness, and the darkness could not put it out. Amen to that.

-Alex

// Making Way - The Bethlehem Candle //

I’ll be honest— the Bethlehem Candle is my favorite of the Advent candles. The inconvenience and insignificance of the town has always resonated with me. Why would such a historic happening take place in Bethlehem? Why was it the place?

I’ll spare you all the answers you’ve probably already heard, as I try to steer myself in the direction of other questions. What if Bethlehem’s being the physical location of Christ’s birth isn’t really the most important thing about Bethlehem? What if it’s real importance rests in its characteristics? Its insignificance?

Let’s just face it head on—the story of Mary and Joseph is weird. It’s not one that will likely make the Hallmark movie list. Where else have you heard of a young girl getting mysteriously pregnant by the Holy Spirit? And an angel coming to her almost husband assuring him that Mary’s legit and she hasn’t been sleeping around on him?

WHAT THE WORLD. WEIRD.

We humans have such a curse-gift for dressing up stories in a way that takes away from their reality. Maybe we forget to consider that the preparations for Jesus’s birth might not have been full of joy and excitement. If I were Mary (and especially Joseph…), things would have been hard from all angles of the process. Family, friends, engagement— things looked different because of what was happening. And I think they both realized that things would never be the same again.

Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem symbolized so much. Each happening that turned them towards the city’s direction stripped away something from their old selves and their old lives. They were both pregnant with change— pregnant with something and someone that would bring an unwelcome light into an unwilling world. But it wasn’t until the couple were in their most humble and desperate state that the light was born. At an inconvenient time, in a barn suited for livestock, in a city deemed insignificant.

The questions for me this week are simple. Have I made the preparations that have been modeled by Mary and Joseph’s story? Is the Bethlehem birth story not more of a process than a place? Am I unadorned enough to receive the light of Christ?

It might be time to dress down whatever costume we’ve made of Christmas. Not on the outside, but on the inside— the parts of us that might be too concerned with the event that we’ve lost track of the preparation. We are not Mary and Joseph, and, yet, perhaps we are more than we think. If the road to birthing the change that Christ offers isn’t riddled with difficulty and humility, have we lowered ourselves enough to receive it? And are we willing to come out of the inn to find that change in an animal’s feeding trough?

Unadorn yourself so that you may be Bethlehem. Be present in the preparing. Be made low in the journey. I don’t think it should be easy. May we all feel the birth pains of the change the Christ story offers because we know the transformative power that is to come. Make way for it.

// Making Way - The Prophecy Candle //

Prophecy—It makes sense that such a powerful word provides the first light of the Advent season. It’s the heartbeat of Israel, the mantra of our forefathers, and the golden thread of promise that weaves the Old Testament into the New. From the very get-go of Genesis, we are met with the hope of prophecy through the promise of a Savior that would crush the serpent’s head. And that promise is reinforced throughout:

· The nations will be blessed through Abraham’s lineage (Genesis 12:3; Acts 3:25-26)

· God’s covenant with Isaac and his ancestors (Genesis 17:19)

· Jacob’s offspring (Genesis 28:14)

· The “scepter” will come through Judah (Genesis 49:10)

· David’s offspring will have an eternal kingdom (2 Samuel 7:12-13)

· A virgin will give birth and be called Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14)

· The Messiah will end up in Egypt (Hosea 11:1)

· Christ will be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2)

And then, we fast-forward to Jesus—the Messiah, in the flesh, as promised. And yet, the Jews (aka His lineage and people) aggressively reject Him, despite their extensive knowledge of the prophecies throughout the Old Testament. Jesus did not meet their expectations of the Messiah experience, despite his fulfillment of what had always been promised. He was not what they expected, and those expectations blinded them to the authority of the Scriptures they had studied their entire lives. That should terrify all of us.

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the way I approach Scripture. In short, it’s been an uncomfortable exercise, mainly because I find myself using it as a means for my own end too often. I have found myself using Scripture as a personal tool, instead of becoming its tool. More often than not, I defer to experiences when determining spiritual truths, and will sift through Scripture in hopes of finding a holy affirmation that reinforces my pre-determined thought born out of those personal experiences. There is a lack of submission to the text. I am hesitant to yield to its authority over my own ideas, experiences, and conclusions… Just like the Jews that were looking over Jesus’ shoulder for their prophesied Messiah.

It is unsettling to me that I find more and more similarities between the Jews of Scripture and Christians at large today. Exhibit A being me, more times than not. And if there is a bit of Pharisee in my heart, it begs the question—what is God doing right in front of me that I’m missing? What has He promised in His Word that I have chosen to refuse?

When I was in high school, I loved English—I mean LOVED it. I liked it because it was more than it was—the words and paragraphs were just windows into what really mattered about them. The magic wasn’t in the mechanics for me, but in the reason the mechanics were being used at all. There was a story to be told, and the way that story was discovered by its reader drastically affected the story itself. For some reason, it has taken me years to start seeing Scripture in a similar way—as literature. As a story. As something that someone told in a certain way, for an even more certain reason. The older I get, the more involved I am with that story, mainly because it seeps into everything. But no matter how much I study or how much I try to learn, I often wonder—would I recognize Jesus if he walked up to me? Am I more interested in using Scripture to affirm my own conclusions or would I be willing to yield to his voice if I heard him disagree with me?

Outside of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection, I know the word prophecy during Advent typically is used to point to Jesus’s second coming. The promise of his return is a direct result of his first coming. But, that is not my focus here. I don’t mean to say that it’s not important to think on the final things, and to consider what Scripture has to say about those prophecies. But it is painfully obvious that we can become so fixated in looking for what we expect that we miss exactly what is promised. We serve a God that comes. He came in Eden. He came to Abraham. He came to Jacob. To Moses. To the Israelites. To Mary and Joseph. To Paul. And He comes to you. Now.

Sometimes, I think we forget that God’s coming didn’t stop with what we wrote down in Scripture. Sometimes, I think we forget we have a God who comes after us—who saves us. But we must be willing to be taken by surprise—we must be willing to be wrong in the face of our Savior. We have been promised the power of the Holy Spirit now. We have been promised eternal life now. What are we doing with it?

I don’t have answers to many things, but I’ll share with you the questions that I’ve forced myself to wrestle with-- What prophesies have you fulfilled on God’s behalf in your life? Are you the one writing your own stories and conclusions? I assure you, no matter how colorful they may be, your stories and conclusions will pale in comparison to His.

This Advent, I have been reminded that I am not in the business of Way-making. I am in the business of submitting to a Way-Maker. In looking back at the story of the virgins in Matthew, I believe the smart virgins’ preparation was bigger than just a means to the outcome. We must tend to our lamps now because of what we know has been and is yet to come. I believe that process of preparation has God in it, too. The most powerful thing about seasons of spiritual anticipation is that we are actively waiting for God’s next move, but shouldn’t that always be our stance? The gospel is not just that God is, but that He comes. Let’s make way for Him.

// Advent 2019 Introduction: Making Way for a Way-Maker //

“God’s kingdom is like ten young virgins who took oil lamps and went out to greet the bridegroom. Five were silly and five were smart. The silly virgins took lamps, but no extra oil. The smart virgins took jars of oil to feed their lamps. The bridegroom didn’t show up when they expected him, and they all fell asleep.

In the middle of the night someone yelled out, ‘He’s here! The bridegroom is here! Go out and greet him!’

The ten virgins got up and got their lamps ready. The silly virgins said to the smart ones, ‘Our lamps are going out; lend us some of your oil.’

They answered, ‘There might not be enough to go around; go buy your own.’

They did, but while they were out buying oil, the bridegroom arrived. When everyone who was there to greet him had gone into the wedding feast, the door was locked.

Much later, the other virgins, the silly ones, showed up and knocked on the door, saying, ‘Master, we’re here. Let us in.’

He answered, ‘Do I know you? I don’t think I know you.
”

— Matthew 25:1-13

Come, Lord Jesus, come. What a bold, well-worn prayer—one that begs for God to do exactly what He has always done: come. A prayer that, particularly around this time of year, gets muttered and sung half-heartedly as a means to an end instead of the active anticipation it warrants. Perhaps Eugene Peterson says it best in describing it as a gospel verb, an act engrained in the character of God. The Christian message is not just that God is, but that he comes.

The past several months have been spiritually dry for me. I have found myself waiting, much like the “silly virgins” in the passage above. Unprepared, half-hearted, looking to others for tasks I should take responsibility for myself. But as the spiritual season shifts into a publicly recognized time of waiting through Advent, I feel convicted to actively wait—to see anticipation for what it is: a spiritual space to occupy and experience even apart from the longed-for event. A lamp that needs extra oil to provide an adequate light.

I have become more hesitant to share my thoughts the older I’ve gotten, maybe because I feel a growing responsibility for the words I put on paper. Maybe because I’m more hesitant, in general, or less sure of more. Regardless, I have been reminded recently how many others feel that same way—how countless amounts of believers and followers struggle with doubts, questions, and an expansive understanding of our inability to know and understand the most important thoughts and concepts. I hope that me sharing my own journey provides some comfort and encouragement to others who are also searching and waiting.

If you are one of those people, I’m here to remind you there is more community out there than you think. There’s no better time to find it than the season that celebrates the anticipation of God. The anticipation of a bride for her bridegroom. The anticipation for the one that comes. But we must prepare our own hearts to receive his arrival. We must make way for a Way Maker.

Over the next four weeks, I’m going to be looking at the four candles (and themes) of the Advent season. My hope is that we all will bring extra oil for our lamps so that we produce adequate light to see more of the one who comes.

// Out of the Ashes //

“As the ashes take away our sins, new growth happens. We start our life anew, just as a forest does, after it, too, has been touched by the fire of sins.”

— Anthony T. Hincks

I’m convinced trees have life more-or-less figured out. Seriously, I have come to appreciate what they have to teach us along our own spiritual journeys (thanks, Brian Ford). They are dependent on and patient with what they are given— a tiny seed placed in something so much bigger than itself. Rooted in the present, while all the while aware of a higher-arching call. At the will of their provider, for better or for worse. And, perhaps most importantly, willing to submit to the dangerous process of blooming, despite whatever costs might be associated.

It has always been strangely comforting to me that death is used to breed life. I’m not sure there can be a more powerful beginning than one that comes forth from an ending— like a sunrise that breaks the grip of its darkest night or a plant that must shed itself to truly bloom. There is strength in their submission. There is a prolonged power in their letting go.

Ash Wednesday will forever be one of my favorite events on the spiritual calendar. There is no better teacher of intention than the compelling seasons of spiritual transition. Year over year, I find the most valuable growth to rest in the in-betweens of the big moments, the phases of life that are designed to prepare you for something specific. And for me, to feel a finger of cold ash on my forehead brings me back to the very beginning of myself, to the place where I am only ash of the Earth— a place where I cannot be my own Savior. A place touched by the fire of my sins.

Lent is a rare season, in the sense that it is a publicly observed occasion where intention and submission meet with warm embrace. It is an active submission to the gospel personally enacted. We are called to remember our sin-drenched heritage, while simultaneously remembering the inheritance of freedom alive in Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection. It is truly Christ pulling us out of the ashes, and into a glorious resurrection life like no other.

I don’t pretend this picture and analogy are reserved for the few weeks of the Lenten season. God has been enacting this same story of resurrection not only over the course of my life, but over the course of human history. He didn’t and doesn’t leave us as the dirt from whence we came— he continues His promise to breed life from death over and over again. Day after day, month after month, year after year. And I, along with every other believer, have experienced this redemption narrative personally, more so recently than ever. The story of Lent has permeated every moment of my past 3 years, as my story has embraced transitions that have created new life within me. Even more significantly, new life with a person I am covenanted to as we chase the Heart of God. It is in that covenant I realize the gospel more fully, as I become more aware of what marriage between man and woman has to teach us about the marriage between God and His people. My Cliff’s Notes so far?

Apart from who God is and what He has done for us, we are not worthy of the privilege and call of covenant. Apart from His presence and promise, we cannot breed life out of our own ashes. Every effort to do so will find us in the same place we began— in dust and in ash.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Lent and Daylight Savings happen during the same time of year. Days are longer and nights are shorter, almost as if to encourage each of us to do more with the light we have been given. We are gifted with the hope and light of what Christ has accomplished on our behalf, a light that has the ability to breed life out of death. But that life can only be experienced in the face of dying to your own way— a voluntary death and submission to a throne you don’t sit on. An active submission to the gospel personally enacted. It is there, we rise. It is there, we regain our place in the Presence of The King, at the feet and will of The One who breeds life from death.

“There's a garden in the ashes
There is beauty in the mess
If we embrace our imperfections
I know love will do the rest.”

-Steffany Gretzinger, Sing My Way Back

We all know the Story of Eden to be the setting of mankind’s downfall— the place where we chose our own way over God’s way. That story will always be stained with a foundational sin of putting our own desires and interpretations over God’s, which, unfortunately, continues to haunt us in our day-to-day. But, just as the Steffany Gretzinger song describes, There is a Garden in the Ashes. Eden is not our End Game. When we find ourselves at our own end, in our own dust and ash, we also find the garden of God’s provision— Round 2 of Eden. Where, because of Jesus and what He has achieved on your behalf, you have the option to choose God’s way over your own. Get out of the Ashes. Get into the Resurrection.

“Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can’t believe that, believe what you see—these works. The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. You can count on it. From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I’ll do it. That’s how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it. Whatever you request in this way, I’ll do.” -John 14:12-14 (MSG)

We forget the bold claims of Jesus so easily, don’t we? We are the people he’s referring to— the same people He says will do even greater things than Him! BECAUSE of the things He did. The same people who start off as dust and ash end up carrying on Christ’s legacy of resurrection. His death breeds everlasting life, a life that abundantly waits at the end of ourselves. Life that is unlocked through an active submission to the gospel personally enacted.

Do not fear the ends at the expense of the beginnings. In every season of life, God has promised us more. There is strength in submitting to Him and power in letting go of your own grip for His.

Out of the Ashes,

Alex