The Tree Pulls

1 John 2:16

          Do you ever feel like you are getting pulled in different directions at the same time? We can find ourselves unable to make a decision because of the choices before us. So many choices, so little time. Some choices bring us closer to the LORD. Some drive a wedge or build a wall. And sometimes it can be hard to know if a choice is in God’s will. Many books have been written on the subject of finding God’s will for our lives.

          We are in a battle, a battle between what Scripture calls the world and the will of God.

          Our lives are filled with desires, lusts, many of which are God given desires. We desire food, clothing and shelter. We want connection with other people in meaningful relationships. We want laughter and pleasure. We want purpose and a sense of satisfaction. These are God given desires. But sometimes those desires get out of hand. We push them beyond what God intended. John defines three areas where the worldly desires bump up against God’s desire.

          The lust of flesh gets us in trouble when those desires are driven by the fallen part of us rather than the Spirit. These godly desires can go too far, are out of sequence, or expressly forbidden. This lust is the drive to do something apart from the will of God. We can take a good thing, something the LORD says is good, and take it out of bounds.

          Eating food is a God given desire. We need food in order to continue to exist. But when our waistline expands perhaps it has us in its grip. We yield control to the physical hunger and let it determine our portion sizes and frequency of consumption. Hunger becomes the driving force. We control other feelings by stuffing our face. We are no longer in control. The food controls us. This can be true for any natural desire. It can get out of balance, becoming the passion of our lives. It can become what defines us.

          These desires can also be out of sequence. Sex is a great thing, a God given thing. But when it is out of sequence it gets us in trouble. This is God’s sequence: date, marry, sex with only one partner. But when we mess up the order of things, then the desire takes over. We can rationalize almost any behavior, and our culture does. “We really love each other. We were going to get married eventually. It made more sense to save money and move in together. We found the perfect house. Everyone else is doing it. What’s the big deal!” But when you don’t do things in God’s timing, in God’s way, then you are asking Him to remove the blessing from your life and allow the natural consequences of sin to come into effect.

          And then there are some things that the LORD has specifically forbidden, like sex outside the safety net of marriage. We don’t have to search very long to find some of those forbidden things. And when you hear someone using the Old Testament dietary laws, personal hygiene or clothing laws as an excuse for not obeying the sexual boundaries, run away! They are trying to divert our eyes from their sinful behavior. Don’t fall for their deflection. Eat lobster, don’t have sex with your animals. Wear blended material in your clothing and don’t rape.

          The next area of the world that John defines is the lust of eyes. This is a drive guided by the eyes, searching for the new, the exciting, the extremes. It is the desire to have something apart from the will of God. I like to call it the “Something New Syndrome.” In the extreme it can turn into hording. But most of us don’t let it get to that point. But many of us are driven by the new this or that. We as a culture have lost the ability to make due, to repair, to let necessity be the mother of invention. Our storage units are filled with unneeded things, and yet we pay the rent every month. The corners of our homes are stuffed with stuff, yesterday’s bargains.

          The final area John outlines is the pride of life. This is driven by envy. It is always focused on what others think. Rivalry, jealousy, rank, and position are the bywords of this pride. It is the desire to be something apart from the will of God. We want our five minutes of fame. We are just keeping up with the Jones’. We want others to admire what we have built. Comparisons are the trading cards. With over 200 people added to the list of the world’s billionaires this past year, I can hear the chest swelling in pride.

          None of these desires must be followed. We have the choice to obey rather than yield to the desires. They can be brought into submission to Christ. These drives can never be satisfied. They will always leave us feeling empty and wanting more. Just because the desire is there does not mean it must be gone after and fulfilled. We might have the desire to hurt someone who has hurt us. We might want to take something that we deserve even though someone else has it. We might want to yield to pleasure because life has been so difficult and you deserve a little happiness. But we as Jesus-followers have an obligation to follow the Spirit rather than yielding to the desires of the flesh.

          I think that often we find excuses for not obeying the LORD. We find the one fuzzy area and argue about topics as a way to avoid the hundreds of clear areas that call for obedience. We deflect other’s attention away from our areas of disobedience. We become sleight of hand experts, getting the focus to change in order to stay in darkness. My challenge, both for my own walk and for yours, is to obey rather than yielding.

Missed Good News

Mark 14:28

      If you hear these words, “What do you want first, the good news or the bad news?” always take the good news! When telling people a combination of good and bad news, if the bad news comes first, most people don’t hear the good news. The bad news throws our brain into survival mode, often turning off our ability to process the good news. Take the good news first!

      The disciples have been told that they will deny Jesus. That is bad news. They have also been told repeatedly that Jesus is going to die. Also bad news. So it is not wonder that they haven’t been able to absorb the good news of His resurrection. They don’t hear that Jesus will meet them in Galilee. All they have heard is the bad news.

      But what would it mean to the disciples that Jesus would rise? We can look back and see that rising means an empty tomb on Sunday morning. We know that the women bumped into Him near the tomb. We know He met with the disciples on several occasions, ate with them, talked with them. We also know that Jesus ascended into heaven right in front of them, disappearing into the clouds.

      The disciples had experienced people coming back to life after death as a result of Jesus ministry among them. They would have also read about the three who were raised in the Old Testament. Both Elijah and Elisha raised sons of widows. One man comes back to life after being placed on Elisha’s bones.

      They would have seen the widow’s son at Nain brought back to life, and Jairus’ daughter taken by the hand and raised. And they were there when Jesus spoke to Lazarus and he came walking out still wrapped in his grave wrappings.

      The one thing these returns to life have in common is the presence of a great person of God. Elijah, Elisha and Jesus played the key role in the return to life. But if Jesus dies, who is going to bring him back to life? What will the agency be to bring Him back from the dead? Someone of importance has to be involved.

      So when Jesus tells the disciples about rising, I am sure it was a puzzle to them. And to add to the puzzle, to speak about meeting them in Galilee must have been a puzzle piece that had not box picture to match. I don’t think they would be able to process this information. None of the individuals who they drew as examples knew they were going to die and return to life again. None of them had made plans after their death to meet friends in another area of the country.

      It can be very difficult to come to grips with things completely outside our realm of knowledge. And this is exactly what the disciples had to do in order to hear the good news of Jesus return to life.

Caught in the Trap

Mark 6:26-29

      The words we speak can become a trap. So it is better to never speak again than be trapped? Of course not! But our words can get us in trouble. I notice this most when people are caught in a lie. I mean when they are really caught, evidence in hand, and then they lie. These are the worst webs of potential traps around. They are so complicated that it is impossible to keep all the lies straight. Most of the time the liars don’t even try. They just convince the other person that they must be crazy, that their memory is faulty, that they didn’t say or do this or that.

      The main character in our text today has been caught in his words. He made an impulsive promise in front of his important and influential guests, and now the words have come back to bite him. His scheming wife has finally gotten what she wanted. She has held a grudge and now she is getting what she wanted.

      I am sure there were many heated arguments when John the Baptist first went public with his condemnation of their marriage. He wanted him alive, and she couldn’t kill him fast enough. She lost those earlier rounds, but she got what she wanted in the end.

      The king’s pride trapped him. He gave his promise in front of his guests, and there was no backing down now without looking weak. And a ruler could not afford to look weak, then or now. Weakness means overthrow.

      So, even though the king regarded John as a holy man, and as someone to be protected, he follows through on his promise. He sends the executioner to behead John and return with his head on a platter. Can you imagine the kitchen help’s reaction when the request for the platter comes? They want a platter for what? I doubt there was a “head carrying” platter in the dining room dishes inventory. And when they got news of what was happening, you can bet the news pulsed through the whole palace staff in a flash. I can bet there were servants peaking from behind every possible vantage point when the head was returned to the dinner guests. They wanted to get a look. Disgusted though they might be, their morbid curiosity would have driven them to be in on the event.

      And the young girl carries the platter back to her mother. Can you imagine carrying a human ahead, fresh blood and all, back to your mother and handing it to her? I can picture her carrying it almost straight-armed in front of her, turning her face, trying not to breathe the smell. The servants along the way would have opened doors to speed her travel. And then to see her mother's reaction of joy when the head arrives, mother ignoring the pain and disgust of her daughter.

      Meanwhile John’s disciples also find out through the grapevine. Instead of morbid curiosity driving their movements, they are overcome with grief. Herod had been protecting John. What could have gone so wrong so fast? We talked with him just the other day. How could he be gone? So out of respect for him, they go and gather his body from the palace morgue, and they have a quiet burial. Probably no fanfare was involved, no stream of dignitaries, no finger foods, no entertainment. The prophet of God had been killed.

Unwitting Partner

Mark 6:21-22

      Have you ever waited for just the right moment to ask someone? I remember several of these “right moment” experiences in my life. And if you ask my wife, she will tell you that I am not very good at keeping secrets, at waiting for the right moment. I almost always tell before the event has arrived. Maybe the right moment was about asking for a promotion at work, or a pay raise, or a date invitation. Or maybe it was about asking for a favor, or confessing a mistake. Finding the right moment can be difficult.

      The king’s wife, Herodias, has held a grudge against John the Baptist ever since John called her out in public and revealed the sin of her current marriage. Some people just don’t like public humiliation! What’s up with that!

      So Herodias has plotted and schemed of getting even with John for some time. She wants him dead for what he said about her marriage. Talk about a bad sport! Wanting to kill someone for what they said seems a bit extreme, doesn’t it? Words are just words, unless they prick your conscience and bring on guilt. That seems to have been what happened. John had spoken and it hit right at the heart of Herodias’ guilt. And she had held onto the pain in hopes of revenge.

      The King is throwing a big banquet for all the important people in the kingdom. It would be equivalent to a Whitehouse Dinner. Anybody who was anybody was there. And the queen knew the king. She knew his weaknesses. She had used those weaknesses in the past to get what she wanted. Now she was going to use them against him to finally get revenge.

      And the plot involved her daughter. I guess Herod must have had a lust problem. Perhaps he liked younger women. Perhaps Herodias had been one of those young women who had caught his eye previously. And she uses this to her advantage. Talk about sexual exploitation! Her mother uses her daughter. Yikes!

      Another weakness that she knows about her husband is that he values what other people think about him. If she can get him to commit to a course of action in front of the crowd, he would feel compelled to fulfill it, or he would lose face before his guests. His reputation would be on the line.

      The last thing the king’s wife knew about her husband is that he is impulsive. In the heat of the moment he makes rash decisions. He lets his feelings get the best of him. He will commit to things and then later regret it.

      Herodias has studied her husband and now uses these traits to get what she wants. She doesn’t do it directly, that would be to straight forward. She instead uses her daughter. She can’t confront him directly, so she uses the kids.