Easter Hope, Andreas Lubitz, Drew Pinsky and Katrina’s Testimony

In Taiwan, the only international news programs that are accessible are CNN and BBC. A popular commentator on CNN is Dr. Drew Pinsky. He is an attractive spokesman for the medical, psychiatric community. He offers some helpful insights into people's psychological condition and reveals properly that there are frequently medical, physiological reasons for psychotic behavior that led to Andreas Lubitz downing of the Germanwings flight. These conditions frequently require medications that can be helpful, but by themselves will not solve the deeper problems.

What will never be said in these programs is the role that human sin plays in these events. There are many unanswered questions about Lubitz’ motivation. Was it simply psychotic behavior? To what degree was he frustrated, angry with aspects of Germanwings corporate culture? Seemingly he was anxious that his psychological disorder would likely never permit him to be a senior pilot for an international airline. How much did anger, anxiety, self-pity nursed over many years exacerbate the medical condition for which he was being treated? Only the Lord knows and so restraint is needed when accessing the situation.

But there is a problem when a culture lacks a doctrine of sin. It can lead to a naive diagnosis of the problem of our humanity (“it’s simply a medical condition”),  and leaves us without the Biblical resources to deal with the deepest cause of our problems which is our rebellion toward God and insistence on making life work on our own terms. Without the diagnosis and remedy for sin, things just happen. It also leaves people ultimately without hope. We wander through life aimlessly and blind. People need more than a medical diagnosis and a medication. They need a sense that life has meaning--now and forever, and a hope that we can be saved from the sins and weaknesses that all of us struggle with.

Two Sundays ago, Katrina Shen shared her testimony of how she came to Christ. She is a brilliant Taiwanese woman who graduated from a prestigious university in England. She grew up in a traditional religious home in Taiwan that offered her no meaning for life. She decided to go into psychology thinking that perhaps if she could understand human personality better it would provide insight into the meaning of life. It did not. She realized that while she better understood human personality, it did not answer the larger questions of who made us, and why are we here on this earth. She was in despair.

At the same time, she was meeting intelligent Christians who began to shatter her image of Christianity. And then she went to Nice, France and met a brilliant young woman who was a Christian. This young woman (as in Pascal's wager) said,  "Why don't you try Jesus." So she did. She said immediately there came a new peace into her life. When she came to Taiwan she said nature itself seemed more beautiful and alive. She met Christians who grounded her in the faith both in England and Taiwan, and today she is a bright and shining witness of the power of the resurrection.

This is something that Dr. Drew will never be able to offer his patients and it saddens me. But on the last two Sundays, we were able to celebrate the resurrection which tells us that while we are sinners we have the hope of being rescued and healed through the cross and the resurrection of Jesus. The famous painting above shows Peter and John rushing with anticipation to the tomb to see if the rumor that Jesus is alive is true. May all of us rush to the empty tomb to find real and lasting hope for our lives, and our culture.

Before You Make Your Next Big Move

One of my most important jobs as a pastor is to help people find a good church when they move. Here’s why:

These are some of my recent conversations. One couple was going to move to Europe. He was going first, and she was going to follow later. They said, “Can you recommend a good church?”  I told them they needed to find an evangelical church (ideally reformed) that was welcoming, focused on outreach (a key indicator of health), and able to ground people in the gospel.

I asked them if they had found housing yet.  He said they had something temporary. We agreed that was good because the church shouldn’t be too far away (otherwise their participation would be limited). So we came up with a game plan. We agreed to look for good churches together and then they would look for more permanent housing.

Then I had this conversation with my brother-in-law. He mentioned that his daughter and son-in-law lived in Boston. It’s been a terrible winter—one of the worst ever. It’s also incredibly expensive. They thought of moving because of the cold and expense. But they had decided to stay because they had found a warm, energetic, evangelical church where they had gotten connected with friends, and were able to serve and grow in Christ.

And then I remembered  a young couple in another church years ago. They were building their young family on Jesus, and the Word in a vibrant community of faith. They were fairly young believers. He was offered a job with more money in a city a couple of hours away. Two years later they came back. They said they missed the church, hadn’t been able to connect well, and it was more valuable for them to have a good church, take a pay cut then to become spiritually apathetic.

This week I saw a news story in NPR News. The article was how often high achieving students from  low income families living in small towns often don’t apply to elite colleges.  However, the article focused on an exception to the rule. It mentioned Kristen Perez who grew up in the small town of Celina, Texas. Most of the community were migrant workers.

The family actually hosted a small Pentecostal church out of their home. It was Spanish language Pentecostal. Kristen’s father would lead worship on his red electric guitar. Kristen played bass and her sister played the drums. Her mother, Sandy, sat on the front row.

While many low-income families would never think of applying to an elite college, Kristen was an exception. She applied to and was accepted at Dartmouth College. With scholarships, she will only pay around $5,000. But here is the last line of the article, “The first thing Sandy Perez did when she heard her daughter had been accepted was to look up churches in the area for Kristen to attend. She found one!”

Three cheers for Sandy. She knows over the long haul what will be more important than going to a prestigious school is continuing to  grow in Christ and making him lord of every aspect of your life. The Lord never intended for us to “go it alone.”  He died partly to create a community of people focused on Himself and His Word. It’s one of God’s gifts to help us keep first things first in our lives. When you think you might make a move, stop by my office or call and let’s help you find a good church first.

Listening to the News and Reading the Bible

One famous theologian said that in one hand he read the newspaper and in the other he read his Bible. I feel a bit like that (even though newspaper reading has fallen out of fashion). I’m always interested in the news, but in recent months I’ve become almost manic. The tragic events happening in the Middle East and Nigeria have captured the world’s attention and my own.

And then this is also the 100 year anniversary of World War 1. Recently, I began to realize that I barely understood the events that led to World War 1. I began reading Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August. She described how hubris, human pride, vanity, self-pity in the hearts of  Kaisers, Presidents, ordinary people was at the heart of the events that unfolded in August, 1914. She talked about a world that was filled with the philosophy of Nietzsche and Hegel and motivated by ideas of human grandeur, nationalistic ambition, and wounded pride.

Today, I saw a report on CNN where a Russian hell’s angel said that he loved Putin so much because finally the country had a president that they could be proud of, a president who would deal with the national shame of having declined as a superpower.  He said some of his Hell’s Angels had gone to the Ukrainian front to fight with the rebels and that some of them had died. He was described as having almost religious devotion for Putin. His comments were  tinged with the same wounded pride and self-pity that people in Germany felt in the 1930’s when Hitler promised to return the country’s grandeur.

As I reflected on all this--particularly the atrocities of ISIS, I felt like the Psalmist when he cursed his enemies and asked the Lord to vindicate His name and bring justice and judgment on them. And on the other hand, I could also hear the whisper of doubt coming into my own heart, “Lord where are you? How can you let these things go on?” I’m glad that the Psalmist gives vent to all our emotions while continually bringing us back to the Lord.

As I reflected further, I was sobered by the fact that the roots of the same sins that lead people to warfare and murder are in my own heart—everyone’s heart. We all have roots of self-pity, envy, anger, lust, and sloth where we basically just want to live safe, comfortable lives.  In short, I could see that we all have disordered loves that are a disease of the heart, and that these disordered loves if allowed to grow will make themselves public in our lives.

But then  I thought I’m a pastor. I have to give people the good news of the gospel. It’s Thursday and Sunday is coming. If you are a pastor, Sunday is always coming. So I needed to keep my footing for both of us. Here is what helped me:

1. There is no such thing as “the good guys and the bad guys”. Jesus when talking to the disciples said, “If you who are evil know how to give good gifts, how much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” Such audacity! He called them “evil”, and by inference all of us. But I accept the Lord’s verdict. If he could call the disciples “evil”, then certainly I am as evil as well. This actually brings a lot of hope. It saves us from my judgmentalism, comparisons and pride. We can’t look at any group of people--no matter their race, their political affiliation, their religion or their sin and smugly declare that they are the bad ones and we are the good ones. We can also have the same hope of salvation for them that we have for ourselves.  The doctrine of original sin and the cross levels us all.
2. As for the question, “Where is God in the midst of these atrocities”, what we do know is that God has not let himself off the hook. He has entered into human suffering in the person of Christ--who was tempted and tried more than any of us can know--and yet he was without sin. He has also said that ultimately everything that is sad will become untrue. Romans 8 (where we are at present) says that in the end all will be be for good, nothing can separate from his love and the best is yet to be.
   Reading Romans, the Book of Revelation and the Psalms have been good medicine. I know who ultimately wins, and I find that the Biblical authors struggled with the same questions but found their trust in God (see in particular Psalm 73). I also reminded myself that it was time to seriously read Augustine’s City of God which was written at the time when Rome was being sacked by the barbarians. While Rome falls, he sees the enduring kingdom of God.
3. Get on with the business of preaching the gospel and planting churches. That was the thrust of a recent Gospel Coalition article that took up some of the same questions. The article reminded the readers of Paul preaching the gospel in the first century. While he was preaching the gospel, the Roman and Jewish war took place between 63 and 73 AD. At the end, Rome raised Jerusalem to the ground (just as Jesus prophesied). Shortly after there was the beginning of the great persecutions under Nero, and Diocletian.
   So what did Paul do--he endured everything to preach the gospel and to plant churches. So I got up and worked on the next sermon, contacted my best church planting friend to get together so we could think more clearly how the gospel can be multiplied in our city through church planting, and began to pray how we could better support our brothers and sisters who are paying for their testimony for Jesus at the cost of their blood.