Perspective Is Everything

Perspective is everything. How different would my life be if I could see its trajectory from the outside?

I’m humbled by Jesus’ response to those who didn’t have His perspective. He was the Messiah, the one He claimed to be, the one they were waiting for. So why didn’t they see it? Why was it hidden from them? Jesus said they had ears but couldn’t hear, eyes but couldn’t see. The more I read how the religious leaders responded to Jesus’ authority the more convinced I become that there was no way He could have measured up to their Messianic expectations. Their perspective had become so ingrown and fractured that no one would ever meet the qualifications. Their system of religion was set up to disqualify the truth.

As Pilate said, “What is truth?” Indeed, what is truth? Their perspective had been so warped and clouded that when truth stood right in front of them, they couldn’t accept it. They were so blind that it didn’t even register as a blip on their soul’s radar.

Perspective.

So as Jesus hung on the cross, they mocked:

The crowd watched and the leaders scoffed. “He saved others,” they said, “let him save himself if he is really God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” The soldiers mocked him, too, by offering him a drink of sour wine. They called out to him, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” Luke 23:34-37 (NLT)

You are who you say you are? Prove it. Prove it to me, in the way that I demand you prove it. Fit your truth into my way of believing, my way of thinking, my way of living. Convince my inconvincible soul that you came to save it.

Perspective.

If Jesus had capitulated to their mocking demands would they have been convinced?

Perspective

The more life I live the more I see that we reject truth that causes change in our lives until we have no other choice. Until I experience that I am lost, I cannot be found.

Perspective.

Jesus was, in fact, saving Himself. By being obedient to the Father’s will, He was saving everything. Jesus knew His Father. He knew salvation was at hand. For You will not leave my soul among the dead or allow Your holy one to rot in the grave. Psa 16:10 The outcome was never in doubt.

Perspective.

Salvation at the point of completion, being mocked, “Save yourself”, the irony is tangible.

Heavier still is the realization that there are parts of my unrepentant heart that mock its Creator. You saved others, why can’t you save me? Do what my perspective demands that You need to do. Fit Your truth into my way of living, my way of understanding.

Perspective.

Without the Holy Spirit’s intervention, I cannot see the truth.

Perspective.

Jesus, let me see from Yours.

Lament

Truth and beauty seem but a rumor, a fleeting notion, a glimpse, a glance, and then vanished.

Love and peace seem but distant melodies, barely audible, a cry of the heart, beset with life’s noise.

Justice and mercy seem but a dream, a soul’s desire, rarely tasted, lost in the polarized confusion of “what is truth?”

Life, this ashen figurine, dancing just beyond the straining hand, collapses into dust on contact.

What Is Truth?

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What is truth?

A commodity to be acquired? Brokered? Bought and sold?
A weapon? Brandished at my enemy? Mastered to win arguments? Twisted for my own end?

What is truth?

A religion? Honored above all? Worshipped? Adored? Venerated?
The ultimate prize? A worthy pursuit? Eternal? Answering all questions?
Is it feasible? Always available? Affected by perception? Modified by additional information?

What is truth?

Who protects it? Where is its repository? Who owns the access codes?

What is truth?

Is it expressed in the reality of an eternal being? A person?

A relationship?

What is truth?

Your truth?


I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true. - Jesus

What is truth? - Pilate

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Maintaining Tradition for the Sake of Truth.

Some Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They asked Him, "Why do Your disciples disobey our age-old tradition? For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial hand washing before they eat."

I wonder if the law of entropy applies to the spiritual and intellectual world as well as the physical world. For example, when people value an idea, they seek to present that idea in a way that will have influence on the whole group. But over time the idea begins to lose its influence. It leaks, or as in the law of thermodynamics, left to its own, entropy takes over. Leaking begins as soon as the idea is embraced by the group and without continued input, entropy leads to a total loss of influence.

Because we live in a reality of decay, it is necessary to reenergize the disciples of the idea. We must work to maintain an idea’s influence. There is inherent danger in this reality. In our attempt to maintain the original idea, we lose the idea in our attempts to maintain it. As we, out of necessity, attempt to prop up the value of an idea, we risk that the prop will become more important than the idea.

Jesus replied, "And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commandments of God? For instance, God says, 'Honor your father and mother,' and 'Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.' But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, 'Sorry, I can't help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.' In this way, you say they don't need to honor their parents. And so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition.”

I’m pretty sure the Pharisees and the teachers of the religious law didn’t set out to lose the meaning of God’s direct command. They were passionate about maintaining its influence. No doubt a majority of them desired to please God and lead others to live right. Their lives revolved around fighting the entropy of God’s direct commands. Ceremonial hand washing was just one of the props used in the battle to reenergize an idea’s influence. Jesus takes the opportunity to show where their props had become more important then God’s direct command. It had become so convoluted and complex that the prop, like ceremonial hand washing, and not God’s direct command, defined their culture. Instead of being defined by the truth behind their traditions, they were now defined by those very traditions.

You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, 'These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’”

As always, Jesus obliterates the prop and lances the heart. I place myself in the Pharisees’ shoes. As one who had given his life to the protection and expression of God’s truth, what would it be like to have this bombshell dropped on your soul? These men took their worship seriously. They took their desire to seek after God seriously. Deadly seriously. What must it have done to their souls to have the Rabbi tell them that their worship was a farce?

Let me make it a little more real. Having been called pastor in the past, I’ve desired to protect and uphold the truth. I’ve desired to live in such a way that people would be pointed to Jesus. I’ve given my life to that idea. So my first response to these words of Jesus is to assume that it’s not me. I’m not a Pharisee. But If I’m honest, I have to say that the main reason I don’t think I’m a Pharisee is because I desperately don’t want to be one. Not really foolproof reasoning.

So I let these words into my own soul. What does the Holy Spirit look at in my life and say “Your worship is a farce”. Where am I teaching man-made ideas as commands from God? What props have I used in an attempt to uphold God’s truth? Where in my life have I tried so hard to follow God that I’ve developed traditions that have become more important than God’s truth? Am I willing to let the Holy Spirit tear down what needs to be torn down without fighting to save the traditions on which I’ve based my life?

Unloveable

When the hour came, Jesus and His apostles took their places at the table. He said to them, “I have really looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you. I wanted to do this before I suffer. I tell you, I will not eat the Passover meal again until it is celebrated in God’s kingdom.”

After Jesus took the cup, He gave thanks. He said, “Take this cup and share it among yourselves. I tell you, I will not drink wine with you again until God’s kingdom comes.”

Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world. It was time for Him to go to the Father. Jesus loved His disciples who were in the world. So He now showed them how much He really loved them.

The evening meal was being served. The devil had already tempted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon.

He had told Judas to hand Jesus over to His enemies.

They also started to argue. They disagreed about which of them was thought to be the most important person. (taken from Luke 22)

What an intimate portrayal of the heart of Jesus. This was the beginning of the end. The hour had come, it was time to finish the work His Father had sent Him to do. He had "set his heart on it" (epithemeo) -really looked forward to. His sharing of the cup was His giving fully of Himself to them. I like to believe that He was fully emotionally investing in them. Sharing with them His emotional well being. Letting them into the deepest part of Himself. Freely opening up and inviting them into deepest relationship. One would think that it would be a wonderful experience. That His disciples might begin to understand or at least be drawn into the fact that something eternal was going on. This should have been like the mount of transfiguration for the entire 12. Instead of the pinnacle of following Jesus up to that point, it seems to be the pinnacle of the revelation of their self-centered, sin-twisted soul.

Judas fully gives into the temptation to betray Jesus. The rest begin to argue as to who was thought as the most important person.

In my limited view of how I follow Jesus, I would think that if Jesus was this intimate with me then I would hope to see it for what it is, to embrace what it is He is trying to share and grow from it and for it. I would like to think that it would be a positive, pleasant experience. Yet I've walked enough with Jesus to come to this realization. All too often Jesus' best and most precious gifts reveal the worst of my sin-twisted heart.

I used to stop here and beat myself up for being so "bad" when Jesus is so "good". But if I look at the totality of the lives that Jesus invested Himself in, they did honor Him. They did follow after Him. They did great things to advance the Kingdom and bring glory to the Father. So I have to stop and wonder out loud: is it possible that we're supposed to go through a time where God's love reveals the depth of our ugliness? Is there a time where Jesus say, "I have set my heart on sharing this time with you because I want to show you how much I love you" and to have that time do nothing but bring to light the depths of our self-centered , self-glorifying, self-preserving, self-promoting self?

And if Jesus' expression of love to me shines the light of truth on my soul and reveals that I'm unworthy of that love, does that make His love for me invalid? Or does that disqualify me from embracing as my own this expression of love? Am I supposed to keep Jesus' love at arms length until I no longer have expressed in my life what the light of that love reveals?

I have come to this: If my life is to truly change, I must allow Jesus' love to reveal in me my "unloveliness". I must come to terms with the truth that Jesus' love will first reveal who I really am. I must come to terms with the fact that this is okay. I must come to terms with the fact that Jesus' love does not depend on my "lovable-ness". In truth, when Jesus expresses love to me, one of the purposes of this type of love is to root out of me that which is not lovable. That's why Jesus expresses love the way He does. And if that is truth, then when this love is expressed, not only is it okay to embrace it, to experience it, to claim it as our own and live in it, not only is it okay, it is necessary to do so if we are to grow up into mature Jesus followers. If we want to mature beyond what that love is revealing, it is necessary to experience Jesus' love at our deepest point of "unlovable-ness". Instead of rejecting love until I can "get myself cleaned up". It's the embracing of that love that does the cleaning.