“Every God-begotten person conquers the world’s ways. The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith. The person who wins out over the world’s ways is simply the one who believes Jesus is the Son of God. “

As followers of Christ, we have already “won” in every sense of the word.  Feeling guilty over your past mistakes?  Jesus took care of that on the cross.  Afraid of death?  Jesus took care of that in the resurrection.  Worried about the future?  Wherever you go, Jesus promises to be there.  Win, win, win.

But many of us followers of Christ don’t act at all like we’ve “won.”  We act like we’re afraid of losing.

We act like Jeremy Brown running the bases – scared and scrambling back to first.

At the end of the movie Moneyball there’s a clip of Jeremy Brown’s mistake-turned-romantic-baseball-moment.  The magic of the internet will let you see it here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn7C6jgl0RI  As Peter says to Billy at the end:  “It’s a metaphor.”

I can think of at least two times when I’ve failed to live like I’ve “won” in Christ.  The first was during my early faith, when I focused heavily on my works as a Christian.  Works – what we do, how we live – are important, so I wasn’t wrong to care about them… but I put so much emphasis on what *I* did that I forgot the importance of what *Christ* did.  When I lived a “righteous” life I felt self­-righteous.  And when I messed up I felt unworthy and burdened by guilt.

I scrambled back to first, not realizing the home run was already hit.

Later on the concept of grace took root in me for the first time:  Thanks to the cross, all my sins are forgiven!  I’m good with God, no matter what!  My celebration of this epiphany turned into an over-indulgence in grace.  I slacked in my spiritual disciplines and lowered my standards for myself.  This, I think, was worse than Jeremy’s mistake; it was like I hit a home run and then just stood at home plate, doing nothing.  Christ calls us to follow.  The freedom from sin should inspire us to take great risks for Jesus, not get lazy for Jesus.  As they say in the sports world:  Go big or go home.

I want to go big.

Every day as a follower of Christ you and I can wake up with that home run feeling.  We have already won.  We are already safe at home.  So go big!  Live a life without fear.  Life a live inspired to do all you can for the Kingdom of God.

Live like you’ve hit a home run.

Communion has a way of reminding us that we, as the body of Christ, are a group of “many” made “one” in a similar way.

The cup represents Jesus’ blood of the covenant.  God started making covenants in the Old Testament:  with Abraham, with David, on Mount Sinai.  Those covenants were made for a few, the Israelites, God’s special chosen people.

But in Mark 14:24 we Jesus says his covenant is for “many.”

In English, “many” can have an exclusive kind of meaning, such as, “Many people went to the movie, but not all.”  But in Hebrew (the language of the Old Testament) and Aramaic (the spoken language of Jesus’ day) “many” has an inclusive meaning.  It’s more like, “Many people went to the movie, not just a few.”

The blood of the new covenant… for many.   Many as in whoever can crowd into the movie theatre.  Many as in anyone who chooses to follow Jesus.  Many.

But even as this covenant extends to a huge group of “many,” it has a unifying effect to it.   When we take the bread and eat it during communion, we literally put the body of Christ in us.  Individually we might be very different.  But there’s a huge thing we share in common, something way more powerful than the suspense of a Hollywood plotline:

Christ.

Communion reminds us that we are the people of God’s radically inclusive covenant.

Communion shows us that Christ is in each of us.

Communion turns our “many” into “one.”

Most of us over the age of 8 know that Communion is more than a mid-service snack.  But what exactly is it?  We’re taking three weeks at Morningstar to try and answer that question.  This week we hear from the gospel of Luke, the one book that shares these instructions from Jesus about the bread broken:

“Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19).

Translation:  Communion is an act of remembering.

Even without the first communion, the Last Supper would have been an evening of remembering.  That was a Passover meal, and Passover is remembering how God saved the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  The meal is meant to remind participants of that story:  bitter herbs symbolize bitter slavery, unleavened bread is a sign of leaving Egypt so quickly there was no time for the bread to rise.

At a meal that remembers one of God’s great saving acts, Jesus instructed the disciples to remember God’s greatest saving act.

Communion liturgies (the words we say before we receive the meal) dating back to the 2^nd century include a time of remembering before eating the bread and drinking the wine.  The “Great Thanksgiving,” as this remembering is called, is the bulk of the communion liturgy even today.  It’s a thanksgiving not just in saying, “Thanks, God,” but in telling specifically how God has been good.  God’s goodness is remembered as events that took place in history.

God has been good to us:  through creation, through a promise to Abraham, through the Exodus, through the witness of the prophets.

But the story of God’s goodness doesn’t stop there.  We keep remembering.

The ultimate example of God’s goodness is remembered with a piece of bread torn apart.

A Son broken.

Jesus himself said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).  I would never contradict Jesus, but I’ll point out how he himself took it one step further:

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his child for his friends.

There are people in this world that I love so deeply that I might sacrifice my life for them without much hesitation.  But sacrifice my daughter?  You’d have to tear her out of my white-knuckled hands.  I’d go a special kind of crazy before I’d put her in harm’s way.

And yet, that’s what God has done for us.  That’s some kind of love.

A love worth remembering.

So when we take communion we remember how God has been good to us in the Old Testament stories and how God is good to us still today.  But most of all, God was radically, incredibly good to us on a cross.

Bread, broken.

***

Credit to Robert Louis Wilken’s book The Spirit of Early Christian Thought:  Seeking the Face of God.

If you’ve never heard of the TV show, I’m not sure what to tell you.  I watched every episode and I’m still not 100% sure what it was about.  Let’s just say this:  an airplane landed on a *really* weird island, and lots of mysterious stuff happened to the survivors.

My friends and I were hooked from episode one.  As our group grew over the years, our routine stayed pretty much the same:  We’d huddle around the TV each week hoping for some answers to some of our questions.  (“What is that light?  What about the black smoke?”)  During each commercial break we’d throw on “mute” and dive into theories about what was going on.  And with each commercial break we’d console ourselves by saying, “There’s 45 minutes left.  Plenty of time for a few answers.”

“There’s 30 minutes left.  I’m sure we’ll get some answers.”

“There’s 15 minutes left.  They could probably answer a few of our questions…”

And, inevitably, the show would end, leaving us saying something like, “NOOO!  A polar bear?  What does that mean?  What happens next?”

Then we’d have to wait an excruciating 7 days before we’d have any mysteries solved.

The worst, of course, was the season finale cliffhanger.  With great hope we’d gather for the 2-hour special, confident that 120 minutes of programming would surely bring some answers.  And usually, it did – but every time, in the last 30 seconds or so, there would be some twist that debunked everything we thought we knew about the island.

“NOOOO!  They’re back in time?  What does that mean?  What happens next???”

And for a painful 6 months we’d have to wait to find out.  6 months of wondering what that pirate ship was all about, 6 months of guessing who the “others” were, 6 months of obsessing like complete nerds.  I’ll admit it:  I even read some Lost blogs.  Those cliffhangers would haunt me.

If you’ve read the original ending of Mark, you already know that he’d make a great TV writer.  Mark knew how to leave us with a cliffhanger.

After hearing all about this awesome Jesus, who taught and healed and performed miracles, the story climaxes with him living again after a crucifixion sentence.  But then Mark ends things abruptly when an angel instructs the women to go tell the disciples that Jesus has been raised:

“So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (16:8).

What?  NOOO!  It can’t end there?  What happens next???

If you don’t remember this cliffhanger in Mark, it might be because of the longer ending, added on later.  In your Bible there may even be a note in between verses 8 and 9 like there is in mine:  “Some of the most ancient authorities bring the book to a close at the end of verse 8” (NRSV).

From what I’ve read, it seems like the longer, nicer ending was added on to solve the cliffhanger.  Even the very early hearers of this gospel would have known that the story didn’t stop there.  The good news had spread.  Paul and Peter and the other disciples had carried on Jesus’ work.  The story didn’t end with the women afraid and silent; they must have told someone.  It would make sense to finish where Mark left off.

But what if Mark left it that way on purpose?

Maybe Mark wants to leave us wondering what happened next.

To leave us feeling like, “No, it can’t end there.”

To leave us with an urge to pick up where the women left off.

To inspire us to go and tell.

Last Sunday was Easter, and if you went to church (or even read this blog), you got told.  You know that Jesus died and raised from the dead.  You’ve heard of the miracle of the resurrection that brought us freedom from sin and new, eternal life.  You’ve been told.

So now, go and tell.  Take on the job that the women were afraid of.

Be inspired by Mark’s cliffhanger ending.

The story didn’t – and doesn’t – end there.

A cross, a means of execution…

made of bright spring flowers, a sign of life.

On Easter, we remember how God turned

death, the ultimate source of grief and fear…

into freedom from sin and new life.

Easter is the perfect example of how God brings hope into even the most hopeless situations.

If you find yourself needing hope this Easter season, look no further.

With God, there is hope everywhere,

always.

He is risen!

Although Jesus could work a crowd, he definitely liked his quiet time.  Mark 6:46 is one of many times when he ditched the disciples to go off by himself and pray.

Jesus also wasn’t one to toot his own horn.  He’d heal someone and then say something like, “Let’s just keep this between you and me – no need to tell the whole world or anything” (see Mark 7:36, for example).

Think of someone you know who likes his quiet time, or doesn’t often draw attention to herself.  If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking of someone (maybe even yourself) who wouldn’t want to stand center stage.

So it’s weird that Jesus decides – on the day we call Palm Sunday – to throw himself a parade.

It’s not as though Jesus walks into Jerusalem and an impromptu celebration begins, leaving Jesus saying something like, “Aw, guys, you shouldn’t have!”  No, Jesus sends his disciples out with specific instructions:  Go here, get the donkey, say this, bring it back.  Jesus is doing this very much on purpose.

Which means, Jesus is trying to teach us something here.

This event reflects a couple Old Testament Scriptures, but most clearly Zechariah 9:9:

“See, your king comes to you,

Righteous and having salvation,

Gentle and riding on a donkey,

On a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

The Hebrew word used here for “gentle” can also be translated as “humble” or “low.”

When Jesus enters Jerusalem in this way, he’s saying:

I am king,

I am salvation,

But I’m also going to humble myself.

After all, Jesus is entering Jerusalem for a humbling purpose:  The cross.

To be humbled, in order to be glorified.

To die, in order to live.

That’s the paradox that makes the Friday of Jesus’ death “Good” Friday.

Our sins died with him.

Our souls live in him.

Hosanna!

“Shame, boatloads of shame,

Day after day, more of the same.

Blame, please lift it off,

Please take it off, please make it stop.”

(See the whole thing at http://youtu.be/u3rXuT_oQp0)

King David, the singer/songwriter of his day, wrote similar lyrics.  The superscription to Psalm 51 tells us this was how David felt after Nathan called him out for envy, adultery, and murder over the beauty Bathsheba:

“Wash away all my iniquity

And cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions,

And my sin is always before me” (51:2-3).

So many of us carry around boatloads of shame; we can feel like our sins are always before us.  David certainly had every reason to.  He had royally (pun intended) messed up with Bathsheba-gate.  What’s amazing is that when David admits his mistakes he’s told immediately, “The LORD has taken away your sin” (2 Samuel 12:13).

But, we might say, David was God’s buddy.  *The* King David.  He was special.  Who are we to expect the same?

Thanks to the cross, we are God’s children.  Thanks to Jesus’ death and resurrection, we get that same kind of special treatment – every one of us.

Like David, we can say, “I’m sorry” and instantly hear back, “The LORD has taken away your sin.”

We can say, “Please take it off, please make it stop,” and God is ready and waiting to do just that.

God gives us forgiveness and the strength to change.

And in the place of shame, we find grace –

Boatloads of grace.

Complaining, of course, isn’t something that’s unique to teenagers.  We modern day Americans are almost artful about it.  I think comedians are a great example.  If you’ve ever listened to some of the comedy stations on Sirius or Pandora, maybe you’ve noticed that most of their material is negative.  There’s something really fun and funny about complaining.

As Christians, you might say we come by our complaining honestly.  (That’s a southern expression that means it’s in our DNA.)  Our fore-fathers and fore-mothers in the faith – the Israelites – are the masters of complaining.  They seem to complain their way through 40 years in the wilderness.

For example, the first time the Israelites complain during their wilderness journey shows up in Exodus 15:24; the water is bitter, “So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, ‘What are we to drink?’” (15:24). Any guess what happened right before that, in Exodus 14?

God’s dramatic deliverance after hundreds of years of oppressive slavery, culminating in the waters of the Red Sea parting for the Israelites but crashing down on the Egyptians.  Then in Exodus 15:1-21 Moses, Miriam, and the Israelites praise God in song (nothing shows you’re really excited like bursting into song).

And then… the complaining begins.

It’s usually against Moses, or Moses and Aaron (Moses’ brother).  But not in the case of this week’s Scripture.  This time, the Israelites “spoke against” someone new.

God.

Which resulted in the venomous snakes that make this story so memorable.

This tells me two things about complaining.

First, even though complaining can seem harmless, after a while it does damage to our relationship with God.  We can complain because it’s fun, or because we have nothing better to talk about.  We can complain because we actually have something to complain about.  But if we continually focus on what’s bad, eventually our souls turn toward what’s bad – and away from God.

Complaining isn’t harmless.

But for many of us, we’ve been building on the habit of complaining for a lifetime.  It can be really hard to break that habit.  That brings me to my second observation about complaining:

The damage can be the cure.

In this story about the Israelites, the snakes are both the damage and the cure.  In order to be healed from their punishment of snake bites, they need to look at a snake.

I think that can be the case for us, too.  If we become more aware of our patterns of complaining – especially, how much we’re doing it – we can get better control of it.  So my suggestion (borrowed from http://www.acomplaintfreeworld.org/) is to wear a rubber band as a bracelet (or, order one of their cool purple ones).  Every time you complain, move that bracelet from one wrist to the other.  Do it for a week.  See if you can go a day without having to move it.

Then, two days.

Then, a week.

Slowly, we can turn ourselves away from the bad and instead focus on the good.

And with Easter Sunday drawing closer, we have something wonderfully good to turn toward.

If you know me at all, you probably already know that I worked for Wilderness Trail (a backpacking ministry) for a long time.  And you may already know that this past summer, I got to take my youth here at Morningstar on one of the week-long backpacking events with Wilderness Trail.  This involves 5 days on trail – and 5 days of hiking will give you plenty of cool things to look at.   There’s views to behold, trees to appreciate, weather to look for, and side trails to avoid.  It’s a good thing to look around when walking in the beautiful southern Appalachians.

But I always end up looking down.

It’s out of necessity at first.  There’s lots of roots and rocks that a clumsy person like me can trip over.  You’ve gotta look down a little bit.  Then I get tired and it’s somehow physically and emotionally easier to just keep my head down.  And what do I have to look at (besides roots and stumps)?

Someone’s calves.

There they are, walking in front of me, keeping our pace.  Muscles twitching as they work.  Mud collecting on the inside.  Sometimes a hitchhiking bug.  It’s kind of… mesmerizing.  In my younger days (when I’d stay up too late around the campfire), I swear I’d sleep-walk just by keeping an eye on the pair of calves in front of me.

Left, right, left, right.

Wherever they go, I’ll follow.

And what I needed was someone to tell me

LOOK UP!

You’re missing things!  What about that view over there?  Or that really weird shaped tree over here?  Or that side trail that led to a big boulder?

I think as human beings, we have a tendency to get lulled into the way we’ve always done things, especially when we get together as a group.  Like, maybe, as a church, we might have the tendency to put our heads down and just keep walking and following, and miss something new that God is calling us to do.

Maybe that’s why Jesus went around flipping over tables and whipping animals in the Temple at the beginning of John’s gospel.  This is pretty dramatic.  If you go to church, imagine someone coming in, throwing down the coffee (noooo!), turning over the pews, and knocking over the altar table.  You were just here for another week of worshipping in the same way you’ve done every Sunday for your whole life!  Why would someone do that?

Jesus answers that by pointing to his death and resurrection.

I think by reeking chaos in the temple, Jesus was trying to send out a wake up call.  “Look up, people!  I’m about to do something new!  Get ready!  Change is coming!”

We make a mistake if we look back at those faithful Jews and think they’re so different than us, that Jesus’ actions were only for them.  I think they’re for us, too.  Jesus is saying

LOOK UP!

Be ready!  Change is coming!

I did something new in my death and resurrection.

Now I want to do something new in you, all the time.

“Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me” (paraphrase of 8:34).  To make it even more difficult, this kind of “deny yourself” is not the “giving up chocolate for Lent” kind, but the “disowning, renouncing” kind.  Remember when Peter denied Jesus three times by saying he didn’t even know the guy?  That’s what we’re supposed to do… to ourselves.  How in the world do we do that?

“If you want to save your life, lose it” (paraphrase of 8:35).  For Mark’s original audience – most likely Romans living in the decade between 60 and 70 AD – this would have been literally true.  They were under persecution from Emperor Nero, who blamed the Christians for the great fire of 64 (a fire he probably started himself).  Losing their lives was a real possibility.  How do we live out this call to “lose our lives” as modern Americans?  Does it even apply to us?

We might feel tempted to say Jesus intended these words for just the loyal few, or a small group… but Mark tells us that Jesus called a whole crowd over to hear what he had to say (8:34).  Unfortunately, this appears to be a teaching for everyone.

So how do we deny our very selves?  How do we lose our lives for Jesus?

I think it starts with seeing things the way they really are.

Our culture loves individualism and hard work.  We like to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and believe that we can be anything if we work hard enough.  That sentiment can trick us into thinking our lives are more our own than they really are, when the truth is, we all came from a Creator.

It’s like owning a house.

Alan and I bought a home together in 2007 (what a great time to buy a house, huh?).  We tore up the carpet and re-finished the hardwood floors.  We moved our stuff in and worked on the yard.  We made payments every month.  We signed papers.  It sure felt like OUR house.

But it wasn’t, really.  It was the bank’s house.  What we owned was a big pile of debt.

Our lives really feel like we own them.  We can tear things up and make improvements.  But one day, as the Ash Wednesday words say, “To dust we shall return.”  There’s no amount of hard work that will make these lives, these bodies, last forever.  That is the work of our Creator.

So how do we deny ourselves, lose our lives?  We stop trying to own them and let go.

It’s like learning to water ski.

I first tried water skiing on a backwater lake near the Georgia-Alabama line.  I have a mean competitive streak fueled by what George Lucas loves to call “delusions of grandeur,” so on my first attempt I fully expected to succeed.  My dad pushed down the throttle, the boat took off, and – of course – I lost my balance and toppled over.  But, because I wanted to keep fighting to get up, I did not do the thing you MUST do when you fall while water skiing…

I didn’t let go.

So, gallons of lake water going up my nose, I drug behind the boat.  It would have been a lot easier to let go sooner, but I was determined to make it on my first try – and I didn’t know any better.  Finally, I couldn’t hold any longer; my grip slipped and I let go.

And I immediately felt much better.

It takes a leap of faith to deny our very selves, to lose our lives in Christ, to let go.  But hanging on isn’t getting us anywhere.

God is already holding on to you.

Let go.