Personal Blog of Dr. Doug Varnado

I can almost recall the exact moment in Dr. MaFague’s Theology class in seminary when we discussed the following quote from the early 20^th century theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.

Give us grace to apprehend by faith the power and wisdom which lie beyond our understanding, and in worship to feel that which we do not know, and to praise even what we do not understand: so that in the presence of your glory we may be humble, and in the knowledge of your judgment we may repent, and in the assurance of your mercy, we may rejoice and be glad.           

-Reinhold Niebuhr Justice and Mercy

Not only was I uncomfortable with the words but I argued that I was certain I understood more of God than Niebuhr seemed to be grasping to find.  I had a pretty good handle on God and wasn’t at all hesitant to communicate that boastful position.  My wise professor simply looked at me with the gaze a teacher gives to a student who just doesn’t get it and declared, “Mr. Varnado, I will pray that you might receive the gift of humility and one day be awakened from yourself.”

Now, 30 years later, I not only embrace the quote but I cling to the reality and comfort of it.  It’s been my experience that most people struggle with questions all their lives; questions of why or how and the inability to wrap our heads around the bulkiness of those questions.

On the other hand, we’re bombarded with a theology of certitude.  But from Abraham, going out in faith not knowing where in the world he was being sent, to Jesus on the cross asking the Father for a better way, there was always more inquiring faith than conceited certainty.  It occurs to me that the seeker and the questioner’s response might be the most profound affirmation of faith we ever hear.

And so it is important to be reminded that there is in our own religious tradition a “deliberate and principled reticence about God” the most eloquent and oldest example of which is in the Exodus 33:12-33.  Across generations and centuries, God’s answer to Moses’ simple request for something concrete and tangible has been remembered:

When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.” –Exodus 33:21-23

The question of God is one every human being asks and, in one way or another, answers.  In the midst of my questions, what makes me a follower of Jesus Christ is the conviction that God has decided to reach across the gap between the transcendent and the mundane, the sacred and the human, and, in one whom we know as God’s own Son, to show us what we need to know about God.  “No one has ever seen God,” the Gospel of John says.  “It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” John 1:18.  That is where I ultimately place my trust and faith.  On that truth my questions are laid.

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There is a believer and a doubter living in all of us—especially at Easter.

“I believe; help my unbelief!” -Mark 9:24  

I think that may be one of the most important, most meaningful sentences in all of Scripture.  It’s certainly one of the most relevant for people who live in this bewildering, amazing time of ours when traditional religious beliefs seem to be challenged on all sides.  From sophisticated intellectuals advancing a new atheism to strident preachers who make us cringe with their outlandish pronouncements about what God is up to in the world.  “I believe; help my unbelief” is an important idea.

It’s also one of my favorite stories.  Found in the narrative of Mark 9:14-29, the story pours out in clinical detail.  My son has an evil spirit.  When it seizes him, it knocks him down, shaking all over, grinding his teeth, foaming at the mouth.

I know this father who brings his son to Jesus.  When your son or daughter hurts, you hurt.  When your child is disappointed so are you.  When your child is heartbroken, your heart breaks too.  And when one day you have to turn your child over to surgeons and nurses and watch as he or she’s wheeled into the operating room, that’s about as empty and powerless and vulnerable as it gets.  So I know this man.  He’s desperate.

“If you are able, have pity on us and help us” says this desperate father.  Notice, that’s not exactly a ringing affirmation.  “If you are able” – that’s an expression of skepticism born of a thousand failures.  This man’s tried everything, consulted with physicians, faith healers, gone everywhere there was an ounce of hope that someone might help his son.  “If you are able, have pity on us and help us.”

“All things are possible for those who believe” says Jesus.  And the father utters these two statements that may appear to contradict each other, but there is none of us that doesn’t experience both of them in ourself, “I believe, help my unbelief.”

The marvel is that the father didn’t really have much to bring to Jesus: his partial, flimsy faith; his concoction of belief and unbelief; his vacillation between a grateful faith one day and the next day, nothing.  All he had to bring to Jesus was the deepest, most powerful, and holiest thing in his life, his love for his son, and it was enough.  “Bring him to me.”

Somehow word got around that if you have doubts you need to get them resolved before you go to church.  Somehow the word got around that if you have honest doubts about the truth of the gospel, the relevance of Christianity, the existence of God even, you don’t belong in a church.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Faith isn’t the absence of doubts but “trusting God in spite of our doubts.

The marvel of this little story, and the good news, is that while the father didn’t have much to bring other than his love for his son, it was enough.  You can bring what you have—your questions, your doubts, your fears, your hopes and dreams, and your deepest, holiest love.  It will be enough.

Just as I am, though tossed about; with many a conflict, many a doubt.

Fightings and fears within, without; O Lamb of God, I come.  I come!

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When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Luke 19:37-38

The first disciples knew a whole lot more about Palm Sunday and the rest of this week than we do.  They were there, experiencing it all as participants.

It had been almost 200 years since Jerusalem had seen a parade like this.  The Greek conqueror Antiochus Epiphanes had overrun Jerusalem and with contempt, desecrated the temple by sacrificing a pig on the high altar.  Years later Judas Maccabeus, the son of the Jewish High priest led a revolt against those who had profaned it and restored the Temple to its former prominence.  When the Jewish liberator entered the city, the crowds laid palm branches before his horse and sang Psalms to God giving thanks for their deliverance.  When the crowd placed palm branches before Jesus as he entered the city, it was a reenactment of that event, and they were expecting Jesus to be their next liberator king.  Expectations and Hope.

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines an expectation as a preconceived idea of what should happen.  If we could take our places among that crowd that lined the path to Jerusalem we, too, would cheer so enthusiastically for Jesus and declare him king.  But that’s because we, too, would have expectations and preconceived ideas of what this king should do for us.

What do you expect of Jesus?  Do you expect him to make your life better, healthier, less lonely, or more meaningful?  Do you expect him to fix your children, or your spouse, or your job?  And what will you do when Jesus disappoints your expectations?

Jesus didn’t come to tell us what we want to hear.  Jesus came to be our Savior.  And among the things from which we most need to be saved are our expectations.

The whole world, even the earth itself, is passionately waiting for a hopeful story.  Yet we keep confusing hope with expectations.  Expectations define what the future should look like by looking to very specific, preconceived events.  Anything short of these expectations leaves us disappointed.

Hope though, is focused not on desired events but on a desired person—Jesus Christ, whose ways aren’t our ways.  Since hope trusts only in Christ and not in a particular expectation of the future, it never disappoints, but it often surprises.  It may not look like what you were expecting at all.  It may leave you confused.  That’s when you have to decide if you’re worshiping Jesus or what you thought he would do.

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Today marks the inaugural mass and installation of Pope Francis, the first pope from Latin America and the first outside of Europe in a thousand years.  The 76-year-old former Argentinean cardinal and Jesuit scholar was elected last week by the College of Cardinals.

By all appearances he seems to be a breath of fresh air.  Brilliance and humility were words that quickly surfaced last week to describe the heart of this man.  In his former role, he chose to live in a small apartment instead of the archbishop’s palace, and travel on the bus instead of in the church limousine.  As a cardinal he showed real compassion for HIV victims, and he sternly rebuked as hypocrites those who refused to baptize children born to single mothers.  In addition, his message and life demonstrate an intense love and concern for the poor; a passion for redistributive justice for those without a voice.

Perhaps the most stunning quote from the new pontiff was a direct reference about clerical privilege and insular church hierarchy when he said . . .

We have to avoid the spiritual sickness of a self-referential church. It’s true that when you get out into the street, as happens to every man and woman, there can be accidents.  However, if the church remains closed in on itself, self-referential, it gets old.  Between a church that suffers accidents in the street, and a church that’s sick because it’s self-referential, I have no doubts about preferring the former.

Like his namesake Francis of Assisi, this Francis has declared a priority of reverencing and worshiping God which is so very different from doing the same for the structures and hierarchy of an institution.

There are enormous challenges and even serious problems that the church faces.  Many will require openness and honesty, accountability, repentance and reconciliation – I’m not at all denying that.  But that’s not the focus today.  Today, I invite you to center on the first thing that Pope Francis asked the world to do: pray for him.

May he have strength and courage to lead.  May his heart be inclined to break for the things that broke the heart of Jesus, and embrace all that our Lord loved and held dear.  And may each of us, as Pope Francis said this morning, demonstrate grace and mercy to all mankind that can “change the world and make it less cold and more just.”

Today let that be our focus.

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Among other things, the book of Revelation was written to provide us a clear vision about the end of the story.  The most important claim it makes is that God’s already written the ending, and it doesn’t end in horror and destruction.  “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord. “I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (Rev. 22:13).

Why do believers stand in a world that’s being torn apart by violence, disease, and loss and yet still insist on hope?  Why do we still speak of vision, mission, and dreams?  Why do we get up the next morning and continue with our lives even when tragedy finds our homes?  Because we know how the story ends.  It ends with the triumph of Jesus’ Kingdom, with the City of God descending to mortals, with the death of death, and with every tear being wiped from every eye.

History, the history of the world, history of your life, is not running loose.  It began with the decisive act of what God created; it finds its decisive center in the God who became flesh in Jesus Christ; and it is moving toward a decisive fulfillment called the Kingdom of Christ.

From the beginning to the end, all the decisive events are controlled by a Savior.  It’s the easiest thing in the world to say that things are getting bad, or the political and military options aren’t working, or those devoted to violence just keep coming.  Yes, all of that is true.  But we’re not writing the story of our lives.  God is, and we haven’t yet arrived at the ending he’s already determined to give us.  And since God has already written down the end of our story, there’s nothing we can do to screw it up.  It will come.

According to Revelation, our end looks like this: “The angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb.  On either side of this river is the tree of life, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Rev. 22:1-2).  That’s how the story ends, with striking similarity to its beginning.

The hope that we have in Christ doesn’t promise that life will soon improve for you or for the nations.  What it promises is that the Lamb of God still walks down every city street making it holy and filled with possibility.  Hope promises that, from the beginning to the end, Christ the Savior is at work calling us out of our tombs.

The end of the story is beautiful.  If life doesn’t seem beautiful to you, then you’re not at the end.  Amen.

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It was between the first and second world wars that William Butler Yeats wrote his famous poem “Second Coming:”

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world….
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Those were prophetic words for the early part of the last century, but these days few are worried about the center holding.  Most gave up long ago the notion that society even has a center.  We’ve grown accustomed to the familiar anarchy loosed upon the world.  We have no idea who “the best” are anymore, and as for the passionate intensity of the worst; well, that’s why we have Homeland Security.  No, the world doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that is hardly a revelation.  Most of us aren’t really trying to make sense of the world anymore.

If the world or your life looks empty, and the center appears to have given way a long time ago, God invites you to come back to the central firm ground where you can stand.  Author Lloyd Douglas tells the story of visiting a sick old music teacher who was blind and homebound.  When Douglas asked him how he was getting along, the old musician hit a tuning fork and said, “That is middle C.  It was middle C yesterday.  It will be middle C tomorrow.  It will be middle C a thousand years from now.  The tenor upstairs sings flat, the piano across the hall is out of tune, but that is still a middle C.”  When life gets out of tune, or flat, what tunes your soul to middle C?

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord.

“In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being…. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  That is what I believe.  I don’t believe in theological speculations about God.  I certainly don’t believe God is whatever or whoever you choose Him to be.  I believe in the person who was revealed as the God with us.  That’s my middle C.  That is the one Root that will capture and ground me.  That’s what centers the world, and your life.

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