Gore and Horror

You can call me a bad Christian if you want, or somewhat less of a disciple if you choose to use that language, but I have to admit something to everyone today. This is a difficult thing for me, and I would hope to have everyone’s understanding and discretion in this matter.

I didn’t see Passion of the Christ until just a few weeks ago. In fact, until then, I don’t remember ever watching any of the great passion movies that have been made.

I know. I’m supposed to be this example for our children. I’m supposed to be the guy on the cutting edge of culture and how media interacts with the gospel and spiritual things. And I demonstrate such an epic fail in this area. How can I call myself a student minister? How can I assume any place of leadership in our church?

The fact is, I don’t enjoy gory movies. Especially when I feel an emotional connection with one of the characters. When Mel Gibson made The Passion of the Christ, I knew what was in store. I knew that the graphic violence of crucifixion would be displayed for all to see. And given the connection I feel with Christ, I knew that by the end of the movie I would be a basket-case. And I was right.

Maybe I was a coward. The movie was released in 2004, and it took 6 years to bring myself to watch it. I have friends who sat in the theatre parking lot for an hour after they saw it, just weeping.

To be honest, I didn’t want to see it. I was comfortable with the imagery I’d built in my mind of what Jesus experienced when He died for my sin. In many ways, my imagination was cleaner and more pleasant than the movie portrayed, and the movie couldn’t even capture the fullness of terror and gore that surrounded the crucifixion.

I don’t like violence.

I would be totally comfortable with a non-violent atonement. Some have built theologies on this idea that Christ either didn’t really die in such a violent manner, or that God accomplished our reconciliation by some other means. Unfortunately, sin=death. In any circumstance, believer or not, where there is sin, there is death. Enter the violence of God’s redemption.

Christ died a violent death, unbelievably violent, so that I could taste this redemption. Christ experienced separation from God so that I could be reconciled to Him. So, while I still don’t prefer gore and horror, I recognize that it was these things that enable me to have eternal life with my Creator.

And there’s always the happy ending, when Christ shattered death by His resurrection. Well, that was just awesome.

Affections & Motivations

I remember a commercial from years ago, I don’t even remember what it was for, in which a director is attempting to get a moody actor to cooperate with the script. Instead of cooperation, however, the actor storms off to his trailer after saying, “What’s my motivation?” It was funny at the time.

One school of thought in acting is that if an actor is to truly capture the essence of a character, he should discover the motivations of the character he is playing. He does research into the life of the character, finding out everything he can so that he can match as closely as is possible the reactions, expressions, and movements of the person he is playing.

A different approach is to depend on the writers to take care of the expressions and movements, and allow the natural talents of the actor to interpret the character. These actors play the script well, but don’t always know much about the character they are playing. They feel if the writers have done their job well, it’s not necessary to know anything beyond the script. They may even play off their own life experience or make up some similar emotional motivation to act the character well.

I think if we are honest with ourselves, we would admit that there are times when we disguise our true motivations, or we even deceive ourselves to make our motivations seem more noble than they really are. This was often the case with the Scribes and Pharisees in their seemingly well-meaning questions. On the outside they appeared to be searching for truth and learning from a great teacher, when they were really seeking to trap Jesus in His words. Like when the Sadducees asked about marriage in the after-life, when they were really convinced there was no resurrection.

I think it’s a valuable thing for us to evaluate our motivations for the things we do. Is this move really because it’s best for my family, or is it for my ego? Is this activity really for the kids and their good, or is it for my pride? Am I really not feeling well, or do I just not want to go? Is this purchase a need or a status symbol? I don’t mean to imply that any of these motivations are inherently wrong or sinful, but that we should be honest with ourselves when we make choices. Why am I doing this? Why did I just say those words? Am I being honest with myself about what is driving my words and actions?

Jesus had harsh words for the Pharisees as pertaining to their worship:

Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said,

‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their heart is far from me,

and they worship me in vain,

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

Matthew 15:8-9

When it comes down to it, the Bible, while it holds out rewards as a strong form of motivation, seeks to draw our motivations to love for God. It’s our hearts He wants. When David was confronted with his sin with Bathsheba, he said this:

Certainly you do not want a sacrifice, or else I would offer it; you do not desire a burnt sacrifice. The sacrifices God desires are a humble spirit O God, a humble and repentant heart you will not reject.

Psalm 51:16-17

There is no greater motivation than love for God. Join me as I seek to set my affections on God and, hopefully, my motivations will follow.

Why yes, it IS love, actually.

I once heard love defined as giving someone what they need the most when they deserve it the least. Have you ever had to work really hard at loving someone? Have you ever known someone who was difficult to love, but you loved them anyway? It may have been a challenge, but wasn’t it worth it? They may have never returned your sentiments, but the love you showed them not only increased your own capacity for love, it gave you a picture of God’s love for us.

You see, our culture has adjusted our thinking about love. We have made love into a sentiment, a fuzzy feeling deep inside. So when the ooey gooey feelings go away or when difficulties come, we chalk it up to a love lost or irreconcilable differences and walk away. Or we choose to exist in a community of fractured relationships, friendships lost to disagreements and hard feelings.

Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy ooey gooey feelings. I hope this doesn’t diminish my manliness in your eyes, but I really enjoy a good Romantic Comedy. Jane Austen and Lucy Maude Montgomery were two of my favorite authors before I was told they couldn’t be. For all you manly men, they were the authors of Pride and Prejudice and Anne of Green Gables, respectively.

I have these kinds of feelings toward my church. I’ve written before about how grateful I am to be here, how well you take care of me, and the way you love me and my family often overwhelms me.

I don’t mind telling you that I often have ooey gooey feelings toward my wife. Why shouldn’t I? She is a terrific and talented woman. And funny. I’ll stop there.

But what about when I’m tired? What about when the demands of work and family intersect and I feel like I have nowhere to turn? What about those times of conflict that make those positive feelings seem like distant memories? Is the love gone?

It is in these moments that love shines the brightest. It shines when we choose to love. It shines when we are patient when we don’t feel like it. It shines when we show kindness to someone who has just made us feel like dirt. It shines when we hold our tongue when we feel we have that zinger that will destroy someone and make us look better in other people’s eyes. It shines when we choose someone else’s interests over our own, when we build someone up who doesn’t deserve it. When we choose to let go of our offenses and refuse to exact revenge, but instead search for the truth and rejoice in it, that is when our love is tested and proven.

For more on love, see I Corinthians 13

The Law of Love

And to us who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us in the gospel, how unutterably sweet is the knowledge that our Heavenly Father knows us completely. No talebearer can inform on us; no enemy can make an accusation stick; no forgotten skeleton can come tumbling out of some hidden closet to abash us and expose our past; no unsuspected weakness in our characters can come to light to turn God away from us, since He knew us utterly before we knew Him and called us to Himself in the full knowledge of everything that was against us. "For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee."

A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy

Read

Matthew 5:43-48

Think

The previous paragraph on nonresistance/non-retaliation flows easily into the Law of Love. How easy is it to love our friends and hate our enemies. That is natural. We love those who love us. We love those who are like us. But when someone comes along who is different, or who expresses distaste or hatred for us or our beliefs, we naturally revert to hatred for them. That's what you'd expect of anyone, isn't it? If for no other reason than self-preservation, you avoid people who hate you. Yet, Jesus shows us that the true fulfillment of the Law is not just to love our neighbor, but to love our enemy as well. In the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus tells us that even our enemy is our neighbor.

But it goes even beyond that. Jesus says that in order to be sons of our Father, we will love and pray for our enemy, for those who would love to see us dead. We are to pray and act for their good.

A true son looks and acts like his father. So let's look at how our Father acts. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

We were enemies of God. But He acted in love toward us. How can we do anything but extend that same love and grace to absolutely everyone we encounter, even those who would chase after us with guns and imprison us for no other reason than our faith? It is easy, even natural, to extend love to our friends and family. It is Christ-like to extend love and grace to absolutely everyone, especially our enemies.

Fortunately, with the last phrase we are brought back to the underlying theme of this entire chapter, achieving perfection. Unless our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, we will not enter the Kingdom. This is fortunate, because in myself I am incapable of this kind of love. I must depend on God's work in me to even have a shot at life with Him. I must depend on Christ's sacrifice to make my character like God's. So without Christ, I am unable to love this way, but with His love overflowing in my life, my enemies become my friends and I see those who are different from me through an entirely different lens.

Pray

Ask God to help you see people the way He sees them, with tender mercy, kindness, and unconditional love.

Do

Befriend someone you would normally avoid. Get to know them and extend the same love and grace God extends to us.

Gift Giving

I’ve never been one to accept gifts easily. It probably goes right along with my tendency to refuse to ask for help. Something inside tells me that I am not worthy of the gift, or that I should have an equally nice gift to exchange with the other person. On Gary Chapman’s list of 5 love languages, gift giving is not mine. It also follows that I am not much of a gift-giver. If you’ve ever gotten a gift from me that you just thought was perfect, Misha probably picked it out.

So you can imagine that this time of year challenges this tendency of mine to balk at receiving gifts. I have been getting better as the years go on, especially since Misha’s family is really good at giving you exactly what you want or need. And they love to do it. After years of practice, I’ve been getting better at showing outwardly the gratitude I feel on the inside. Rather than awkwardly squeaking out a “thanks” and turning to run the other way, I’ve learned to openly enjoy the gift and adequately express my gratitude right there in front of the person. I still have twinges of guilt, though, when I haven’t thought to get that person a gift, or when all I have to offer is a gift that pales in comparison with the one I’ve just received.

I find myself in that situation quite a lot at BBC. It seems a regular occurrence for someone to offer a gift to me when I have little or nothing to give in return. And I’m not just talking about the tangible gifts of material things, although that happens often. As I pray with my kids before bed, I thank God for people who we love and who love us so well. I think maybe Paul felt this way about the Philippians when he said in Philippians 1:3-5, I thank my God with every remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now.

That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? We give because we have received. God has given us such a great gift that we can’t help but share that gift with other people. And because people delight in giving us good gifts out of the overflow of their love for us, just like God does, we receive their grace whether or not we have anything to offer in return. In doing this, we act out on a very small scale our relationship with God, except with Him, we only have to offer what He’s already given us.

So I want to thank my church family for the tangible gifts of stuff and the intangible gifts of love and service, neither of which I will ever be able to repay. And, thanks be to God for His indescribable gift. (II Cor. 9:15)