Maker of the Redwoods

When my sons were growing up our family camped every summer in the coastal redwoods of California. We loved the state parks – Big Basin, Patrick’s Point, Prairie Creek, Portola, Butano, Grizzly Creek, Henry Cowell. 

Being in an old growth redwood forest is like being in a cathedral. You are humbled by the scale of these trees – both their height and their age. They tower 200 feet above you, and some of them are over 2000 years old.

Radioactive

Maybe you saw the report last week of a truck hijacking in Mexico. It would have been a pretty routine story, I suppose, except for the fact that the thieves ended up with a capsule of cobalt-60, a radioactive isotope that will kill you if you open it up to look in. The lead-lined protective container was found abandoned in a field.

Exposure for even a few minutes to cobalt-60 would be fatal. Various articles predicted the death of the thieves within a couple days. Understandably this worried the 4,000 people in the farm town near where the truck and the isotope were found.

The latest report I saw claims the cobalt-60 has been secured by government officials, who now say there was no threat to the residents. (Riiiiiiiight!) 

It probably sounds strange, but that ominous story made me think of Christmas.

Remember how afraid people were on Mt. Sinai when the Lord came down to deliver the Ten Commandments? (My emphasis added in the following...)

First Sight

What must it have been like for the newborn Baby Jesus to open His eyes for the first time? Newborns' eyes work just fine, but it takes a while before their brains can process what they see.

But would that have been true for Jesus? When the eternal Son of God opened His eyes as a baby, did He see the colors and lights, the shapes and shadows of the world He created? Was it beautiful or disappointing? More like an impressionist painting or HD television?

What did the newborn think and feel as He saw for the first time with human eyes this planet He had created, now groaning in its fallen agony?

But there was another “first time” when Jesus opened His eyes, and for me it is even more amazing to think about. What must it have been like for the Savior to open His eyes again after three dead, sightless days in the grave?

When He stepped out of that tomb, did He see the glory of the broken creation made new, the future He guaranteed by His sacrifice and victory?

And then that makes me remember how His resurrection triumph carries you and me along in its wake. John reveals Him as “the firstborn of the dead” (Rev. 1:5). “Firstborn” means He is first in priority and position, the first of many to come.

It’s true that when Christians die, they go immediately into the presence of the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8). But that’s not the final glory. Like our Savior, one day we will open our long-dead physical eyes again, and the world's transformation, like our own, will remind us why we love Him so.

The first time He opened His eyes they were the eyes of earth’s weakest and most vulnerable creatures—a newborn baby. The second “first time” He opened His eyes, He was the King, Conqueror of death, hell, and sin.

Dependency?

I admire Jesus' willingness to depend on God. 

Which seems strange since He is God. But you keep running into verses like this one: And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit… Luke 4:14

That comes right after He fasted for 40 days and resisted the onslaught of the devil's temptations. So He came back to His hometown in the Spirit's power.

But why was He not returning "in the power of His own spirit?" He is perfect Man as well as perfect God, after all. And aren't men supposed to develop their potential, strengthen their inner selves, become independent, strong, and powerful? Isn't that what we're often told, sometimes by pastors and Bible teachers?

Apparently Jesus had not consulted the positive-thinking, inner-strengthening gospel. As the perfect Man, He did not exemplify independence or autonomy. Instead He depended upon His Father's guidance, and relied upon the Spirit's power. He even learned obedience by what He suffered (Hebrews 5:8). He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing..." (John 5:19).

Evidently human perfection is really about obeying  and depending upon Almighty God. No one can deny that the Lord Jesus Christ is a man's man. He is fearless, focused, and strong. But He walked, not in His own strength, but in the power of the Spirit.

Covered in Mud

I grew up on a farm in Western Colorado, and I followed my dad everywhere. One January morning I came with him to feed the cattle, penned up to keep them close to the barn in those cold winter months. I was five years old, dressed by my mother in a bright red snow suit.

Dad fired up our old Farmall tractor and hitched it to the flatbed. He drove it over to the haystack and tumbled bales down onto it for the cattle. I got to ride on the back for the short trip to the corral.

It had been a wet winter, and melting snow combined with the natural alimentary output of the cows produced a thick layer of brown ooze. As Dad slowly drove through the corral gate, the tractor lurched forward. I lost my footing and landed in the “mud.” I sank down to the middle of my chest, nearly buried in cow poop. It was one of the more disgusting episodes of my life, made worse by the fact that Dad apparently found it hilarious.

That rude experience, wherein my snowsuit turned from red to brown, makes me think of the Lord Jesus when He entered the human population.

One of the things I so admire about Jesus is that He always loves righteousness and always hates sin. “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness” (Hebrews 1:9a, ESV).

What must it have been like for Jesus to walk among His sinful creatures—all of them so flawed by Adam’s fall and by their own? He loved righteousness, and found none among the best of us. He hated wickedness and found it everywhere.

Did He feel like He was sinking in filth? Did He long to shed His human nature like clothes suddenly stained? Did He question the wisdom of the Incarnation? Did He ever dream of changing course and abandoning the redemptive plan because it was too caustic and too disgusting for His soul?

How He continued, persevered unto death in the face of revulsion for the wickedness He saw, I do not know.

I am so thankful to Him that He did. And that in loving righteousness He imputed His to me.

Friend of Sinners

Jesus Christ is a great friend. That means everything when you know how badly you need a friend.

But He was vilified for being a friend to the wrong people. Jesus reflected on this with some irony when He addressed the Pharisees:

For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ (Luke 7:33, 34, ESV)

Guess who would think being a friend of sinners is a bad thing? People who don’t see themselves as sinners! But if you are a sinner, it’s great to have a Friend like Jesus!

Usually the lonely, needy people are the ones seeking friends, and the contented, satisfied people already have plenty. If you’ve ever been an outsider in a new community, one where relationships are established and stable, you know how hopeless that can feel.

Christ has no need for more friends. The fellowship of the Trinity was and is eternally satisfying. But still He came to establish friendship with those who were by nature His enemies (cf. Jas. 4:4).

There’s never been a Friend like Jesus, and how grateful I am that He drew me into His circle.