It's all in the face

Standing in a longer-than-necesary line at Walmart I began to play mental games.  I had chosen this line as the fastest due to the number is single young men in line.  My thought being that this type of person would be less likely to strike up a conversation with the weary elderly woman running the check stand.  I was also curious as to what the last guy in line had tucked under his arm.  I could see that it was a pink box, and I could see that he didn't want me to see what he had.  So I chose his line.  And that is when the game started.  Under his arm was a box on which I could only read the first two words, "Control Top...".  My spy game kicked into high gear.  Either I was standing in line behind one of the most whipped young men I have ever sort-of-met, or he was going to hold up a pharmacy.  My spy sense suggested the latter.  And so I studied his face, so that I could be the hero that was able to identify him from a line up.  Early twenties.  Dark complexion.  Military style haircut.  Funny looking earlobes.  He hasn't shaved for a couple of days.  All these little details I tucked away in case the cops needed my help.  And that is when I noticed the next guy's T-shirt.  It said "Super Villain".  Aha!  A conspiracy.  But before I could do anything more than learn the looks of this guys arm tattoo, he paid and left.  Either the two criminals weren't working together, or they played a pretty cool game in front of the laser eyes of the balding guy standing behind them.  Again, I suspect the latter.
Last Friday night my wife and I decided to stay up and watch an hour-long documentary about rendering a picture of Jesus' face from the Shroud of Turin.  It was fascinating and had lots of interesting history.  But the closer it got the big reveal of their picture of the Savior's face, the heavier my eyelids got.  And sometime right before the big moment, I gave up and fell asleep.  I have no idea if Jesus looks like history says he should or if he looks like a vacuum salesman.  Only eternity will tell.
On Saturday afternoon my family attended the local Passion play.  I don't mean to drop names, but I know Jesus personally.  Truthfully.  The man that plays Jesus is the math teacher in the next classroom at school.  I guess you could say that I'm pretty familiar with the face of Jesus.  But it wasn't Jesus that captured my attention during the play; it was my oldest son.  He had moved over to sit on my lap so he could see the action better.  His eyes were focused on the scenes as Jesus was scourged, raised up on the cross and came back to life emerging from the smoke-filled tomb.  I studied my son as his six year-old mind whirred with the questions that he would ask Jesus at the conclusion of the play.  I smelled his hair.  I felt his skinny little ribs.  I love this boy.
And then it hit me.  Jesus is the son of God!  Not that I hadn't heard it or contemplated it.  It just overwhelmed me.  God the Father had enjoyed eternal communion with Jesus.  His connectedness and love for Jesus are incomparable.  And then he had to look at the blood drenched, swollen features of his son as he endured the full wrath of God; because of me.  God's great love for me caused him to turn away from Jesus.  And while I think pretty highly of myself, as we all sinfully do, it became apparent that God longed to see the face of the pharmacy thief so badly that he would allow the torture of his only son, just to be able to pull the pantyhose from that man's face and enter eternal communion with him. 
And so as my boys grilled Jesus about the whip (yarn), the blood (fake), the nails (a U-bolt painted flesh tone) and seemed satisfied to have pried all the secrets from the mock-Prince of Peace, I wondered what it will feel like to gaze upon the face of Jesus.  Not the tennis coach-math teacher Jesus, but God's beloved son.  What petty questions fill my mind now about the nature of the universe and the challenges of life.  I'm pretty sure that when I see the face of my risen savior, I will no longer wish I had stayed awake to watch the conclusion of the History Channel show.  I'm pretty sure I will wish to stay awake and gaze at that face forever.

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Confronting evil at the Dollar Tree

I suppose it wasn't the fact that the little kid approached me, a complete stranger, that caught me off guard.  It was his response to my off-handed question.  My mind was lost in the swirling plastic junk imported from China also called the Dollar Tree.  We were wasting away a rainy, cold afternoon by letting the boys spend a dollar and find a treasure.  In order to pass the time, I play little games with myself.  One of my favorites is "Find something not made in China."  After mastering this game (hint: food products are an easy winner), I play "What is the weirdest thing I could spend a dollar on?"  Today's winner was a little knife-type product for opening plastic packaging.  The picture on the front was a man's face evidently embroiled in a mental meltdown from attempting to open plastic packaging.  The slogan on the back "This will be the last plastic packaging you ever fight with."  Not bad. 

But my game was interrupted by the bold kid, "My mom told me I could get this."  Holding out his little plastic bow and arrow set he looked at me, a total stranger for approval.  Jolted back into reality and a little surprised by his statement, I asked the boy, "Oh, are you going to fight evil with that?"
"No, I don't really have any evil at home."  And then in the same breath he added, "But I do have a step-dad.  I will fight him."

I smirked and nodded in approval as my mind jumped into his living room where the hunt for the "evil" step-dad was in full swing.  The Chinese-made plastic bow was stressed to the max with the suction cup arrow trained right on his step-dad's unknowing forehead.  Yes, fighting evil indeed.

I suppose we are all looking for a little evil to fight.  Somehow I am of more value if I can overcome some evil, cartoon-like force.  Yes, I wish I had some evil to confront.  Maybe a dragon.  Or maybe a slave-trader.  A drug lord.  Something like that.  But I am a church person.  The people I associate with are church people.  I have never met a slave-trader and seriously doubt the existence of dragons.  And so my quandary waits.  It waits until I am examining my newly shaved head in the mirror at home.  And suddenly I am faced with real evil.  It is me!  The guy that grew up at church camp, who has more pastors in his ancestry than he can count, who went to the Christian college, who married the Christian girl, who has the Christian sons, that works at Christian school and has a lizard named Tebow.  Pure, unadulterated evil.  My black heart is the dragon.  And I can do nothing about it.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is a gift of God - not by works so that no one can boast."  Ephesians 2:9-10 (NIV)

So my ability to slay the dragon has nothing to do with me.  In fact, the slaying was a gift that I received because I was God's workmanship.  Dang.  I wanted to do the slaying so that I could get the fame and then tell people about it.  Almost like boasting.  And so I am left staring at the balding 34-year-old dragon in the mirror that is totally dependant upon God to win. 

And I sit in church with all the other black-hearted-yet-redeemed souls and listen to the testimony of some of my close friends.  And now I remember why this inability to slay the dragon and confront evil is not such a problem.  It is in my reliance upon Christ that I truly begin to see what I was made for.  Take a few minutes and watch this testimony.  It is powerful. 

And so with my sin nailing Christ to the shameful cross and Him in turn becoming my joy, I now see that the evil that I felt so compelled to fight has already been destroyed.  There is nothing left for me to do, but to step out and see the good works that God prepared in advance for me to do.  And do them.

There is something in the pool

It was the first time time that I ever had a first hand experience of this sort at the pool.  I suppose I've always known that it happens, but somehow those potent chlorine fumes numb my mind and make me push the thought away.  The lifeguard's whistle blew and she ordered everyone out of the pool.  All the kids with their questioning faces moped toward the edge, the parents herding their anxious children away.  I overheard one child ask the lifeguard, "What is happening?"  Her answer was rehearsed and adequately vague. 
"Oh, we just need to get 'something' out of the pool."
Enter the lifeguard who had drawn the short straw.  She was armed with an over sized goldfish net and a red bio-hazard bag.  The other lifeguards were searching and pointing as the offending "something" floated down the lazy river.  The bio-hazard lifeguard was wading into the red zone.  I could almost feel her eyes burning as she didn't want to blink, lest something bump into her leg or get under her toes.  She scooped with precision and confidence and nabbed something, slipping it into the red plastic bag.  All eyes were locked onto the activity and I could see kids asking their parents the question that they didn't want to answer.
And then it happened.  I made a phenomenal sociological discovery.  As the lifeguards raised their hand and blew the "all clear" on their plastic whistles I watched as the crowd become segregated.  The children charged back to the water.  Not caring or understanding what they had just witnessed, the children plowed back into the water.  But there was a separate population; the parents.  Even the dad with the Yosemite Sam tattoo on his shoulder didn't charge wild west-style back in.  I could feel the adults weighing the options in their minds.  How long have we been here?  Could we just go home?  How effective is chlorine, anyway? 
I turned my boys toward the locker room.  "Time to go, boys."
The next day I drew a startling parallel.  I was sitting in church and listening to the series leading up to Easter concerning the cross.  The pastor noted that there was no other logical, acceptable, or appropriate sacrifice besides that of Christ to redeem the fallen world.  God's own son, who had no part in the sins of the world condescended to human likeness, lived a perfect life, and took the wrath of a wholly just God on his shoulders.  And he did it so that I could have community with him forever.  My mind flashed back to the pool. 
That poor lifeguard had not chosen to be the one to enter the tainted pool.  She had drawn the short straw.  She hadn't made the mess, someone else had.  She was probably only getting paid a little above minimum wage to hunt down the "something" in the pool.  And immediately after she had paid the price to clean the mess, the kids were ready to wade right back in. 
Christ didn't want to bear the sins of the world on his human shoulders.  But he valued the will of his Father over his own.  Jesus didn't make the mess, he continually pointed us away from it.  And he paid the ultimate price to clean it up. 
How will I respond?  Will I hop right back into the mess and wallow with the youth?  Or will I take my family by the hand, turn away from the filth, and see what He has done for me outside in the fresh air. 
Fresh air never tasted so sweet.

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