In the Time of Tears

In Jeremiah's day Jews had to learn how to live as exiles in Babylon. The New Testament refers to the baptized as citizens of heaven who also have to learn how to live as exiles in Babylon.

When asked about the resurrection, Jesus spoke of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as being alive to God. If we think carefully about this, it has enormous theological implications on how we understand when resurrection occurs.

John the Elder tells us that the world under the sway of the evil one is driven by pride, greed, and lust. (Think of how much advertising appeals to pride, greed, or lust.) This world (prophetically called Babylon) cannot be harnessed for good—even though religious ambition for political power imagines it can. The task of the church is not to reappropriate the engines of pride, greed, and lust, but to be something altogether different—the kingdom of Jesus Christ energized by faith, hope, and love.

"The nuns taught us that there are two ways through life—the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you will follow. Grace doesn't try to please itself, accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked; accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to Lord it over them, to have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it, when love is smiling through all things. They taught us the no one who loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end. I will be true to you whatever comes."- The Tree of Life

Job was a blameless man caught in a contest between the divine and diabolical that he knew nothing about. He lost his wealth, his health, and all ten of his children. His friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar come to comfort him but end up accusing him. Job defends his integrity in a series of poetic debates that lasts for 27 chapters. Then Elihu enters the story...

Job is a poetic book probably written in the fourth or fifth century BC, possibly written in Persia. The authors (there appears to be more than one) were almost certainly Israelites—but the story itself occurs outside of Israel and doesn't appear to have Jewish characters. The book is a poetic exploration of the problem of suffering and our response to it.

The prophets and psalmists of lament show us how to find faith and hold on to hope in the time of tears.

“I believe” is a powerful statement. When we express our faith in Jesus we are not saying one thing, but four things. The shape of faith is made up of four sides: belief (what we do with our minds), confidence (what we do with our hearts, trust (what we do with our bodies), and allegiance (what we do with our will). Growing as people of faith requires growing in all four areas. 

Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God primarily in parables. These parables are not folksy illustrations to help us better understand the point—quite the opposite in fact. The parables of Jesus are often deliberately disorienting. Jesus wants to throw us off balance so that we might stumble into a previously unknown world—the world of God’s grace where many of our most common assumptions are subverted.