theology | Elaine Olsen

Unseen Glances

May 23, 2008

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:16-18).

She captures my thoughts today. My Amelia Jane.

I probably don’t have to tell you why. A tragic ending to a fragile young life has made the national headlines, stunning the Christian community and forcing a family to deal with the unexpected and unwelcomed intruder named death.

Maria Sue Chapman, five-year-old daughter of singer/songwriter Steven and Mary Beth Chapman, has left the arms of her earthly parents to make her entrance into the arms of her heavenly Father. A life gone too soon. Five years of loving a child is simply not enough. It is a grief that struggles to reconcile fact with faith. A hard reckoning in my opinion, but one that becomes necessary for all who walk its candid and cold embrace.

My mind and my heart cannot frame it. It strikes a chord within me, as it has with so many of you. Death does that. It strikes. It resounds. It penetrates the silence with the deafening chorus of a truth better left unsung, or so we think. It is a truth that follows our entrance into this world. A truth that will mark our exit from it. A truth that simply and poetically scripts …

We were born to die.

From the moment we first breathed the air of our temporal, we began our journey home to our eternal. It is the way of things. Always has been. We shouldn’t be surprised by death’s arrival; still and yet, it almost always strikes an unexpected chord with a precision that leaves us to grapple with its certainty.

And unless the Lord returns in our lifetime, death will be our required portion.

The Apostle Paul asks us to keep our focus in times of trouble. To understand that our temporary afflictions are achieving, accomplishing, and producing an eternal glory that far exceeds are pain. To perceive the unseen and to believe that the unseen surpasses our current fracture. To keep heart, even though our hearts shatter and scatter with the winds of adversity that howl loudly and break hard.

Good truth.

A difficult striving.

For in our flesh, death always limits perspective. Our flesh cries out for the temporary…for the immediate…for the right now. A tomorrow’s work will have to wait because today’s tears are all that can be absorbed.

How can anyone begin to walk in an understanding that limits the “current” to seemingly nothing more than a monument to learning…to becoming…to moving on to a yet to be grasped perfection? How can death be parametered into a pill that swallows smoothly? What do we do with a grief whose bite seems lethal and whose gnaw continually chews? How do we fix our eyes on anything but the casket that currently cradles our sorrow?

How indeed?

Paul doesn’t ask us to turn away from a casket’s gaze. He doesn’t ask us to quickly get over our grief and move beyond. Instead, he simply and poetically asks us to gaze deeper into death’s frame. His thoughts are not callous or removed…a script meant for a stage some 2000 years ago. No, Paul’s words are exactly the words of comfort we need in times of sorrow because a human life is more than flesh and blood. Our fragile frames embody both the seen and the unseen…the temporal and the eternal.

God has created us in his image (Genesis 1:26-27) and set eternity into the hearts of all people (Ecclesiastes 3:11). This sets us apart from all of his other created works. So when Paul asks us to fix our eyes on the unseen and the eternal in times of momentary affliction, he gives us permission to mourn our loss. So does our Creator, for with our tears we acknowledge a human life for what it is.

A created flesh covering an eternal pulse. The seen cloaking the unseen. The momentary shrouding the never-ending.

This is why our grief is real.

This is why we can say good-bye to “things” with little fret, but when it comes to people, our fret is palpable and deep.

This is why we can find hope, even in the midst of a tremendous grief (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

For when death visits a life, perfection finds its home. The unseen begins when the seen embraces its end. The eternal breathes its fullest when the momentary breathes its last. The glory finds its brilliance when the temporary finds its dull. The heavens chorus its applause when the earth silences its song.

And while it’s true…we were born to die…the greater and final truth is this.

We die so that we can fully live.

Eternally. Without restraints. Without affliction. Without sorrow. Without endings. Without good-byes.

This is the perspective I need today as I live and breathe the truth of a family’s grief. Maria Sue has found her life, even as her fragile frame has found its death. It is the same for each one of us as we draw ever nearer to tasting a similar portion.

Let us not shrink back from dealing with our grief. Let us not hide from its bitter taste. Instead, let us bravely acknowledge the hope that pulses beyond every death. Let us fix our eyes on the Creator who created each person to breathe an earthly life’s span and then to breathe an eternal life forever.

He is where I’m headed, friends. And should we never meet face to face on this side of forever, I will meet you there where we will share in our Father’s happiness for always.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of his comforting and abiding Holy Spirit, I ask and pray and believe all these things in my heart. How I pray you believe them too.

Amen.

A Toast to Vintage

May 2, 2008

“‘I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. … This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.’” (John 15:5, 8).

They arrived this week. Packaged with care and wrapped in love. My vintage treasures.

from Liz at Kentucky Bound

A tea cup, a handkerchief, some lace, and embroidered linen. A decorative pin, a sewing basket, some needles, and some thread. A CD, a book, some candles and some tea. Old and new treasures given to me because the luck of the draw landed in my favor.

I’ve never received such a gift. Partly because of the giver—someone I have never met face to face but someone who is growing dearer to me with each blogging encounter—and partly, because of the gift’s contents. Somebody’s “old” became this girl’s “new”, and I am moved by the gesture. Not because it is the right and polite way to react but because there is something wonderfully significant attached to the owning of another’s treasure from, perhaps, another era in history.

The gifts that arrived on my doorstep used to belong to someone…used to matter to someone. Now they belong to me, and I am free to do with them as I please. And right now what pleases me most is the contemplation of their worth…of their vintage significance. Not with a dollars and cents kind of worth, but with a value that extends beyond an earthly understanding.

Vintage. A word that means…

“(1) the wine from a certain crop of grapes;(2) a year’s crop of grapes; (3) the season of gathering grapes and making wine; (4) outstanding quality, choice; (5) type of thing fashionable or popular during an earlier season.”[i]

And while definition #5 seems to define the treasure in question, I am struck by the originating definition of word which is represented in the other four definitions—the choice wine from a certain crop of grapes grown in season within a particular year, and usually sown within the soil of a selected vineyard.[ii]

With vintage comes specificity. Selective choice. Particular taste.

With vintage comes a seasoned approach to the cultivation of grapes, therefore leading to the production of a wine that is meant to be savored in seasons yet to come.

And while my vintage treasure doesn’t boast a bottle of fine wine, I see the connection between the two. My gifts are the treasures from a season past. Treasures that have grown more precious and, perhaps, more valuable as time has turned its clock. Ask the original owners of said treasures and they would most likely respond with something along the lines of…

I remember when my husband gave me that pin on our wedding anniversary. That sewing basket sat beside my bed. The lace once adorned my dresser. That embroidery? I needled that when I was ten. And that tea cup? Let me tell you about some of the conversations and prayers I had over that cup of seasoned brew.

Indeed, my vintage treasures hold some value. Not from a financial perspective, but from a seasoned perspective. They were first cultivated within the soil of someone’s past, and now they have made their way to the table of my current. I will savor their flavor for a season, and then, perhaps, pass them along for a savoring yet to come.

This is the simple joy of a vintage treasure. It retains its flavor beyond the era in which it was birthed.

Two thousands years ago, a Vine grew upon the soil of Calvary’s vineyard, the branches of which continue to bear fruit. You and I…we are those branches alongside countless others who have grafted their hearts within the Vine’s embrace. We are cultivated for vintage. For the pressing through and for the pouring forth of a choice Wine whose flavor is meant to be savored for all eternity.

Not all will partake. There are those who will sniff around its edges and deem His bouquet too potent…too aromatically displeasing to the smell. Their smells are otherwise inclined…bent toward a sweeter swallow. They forsake a drink of the Vintage for the drunken folly of fools, chasing after the immediate rather than pausing to savor the timeless. They refuse to consider his value because his value is cloaked in old…in yesterday…in a history meant for containment—for an era long gone and since forgotten. Or so they reason.

But this is the simple joy of a vintage treasure…God’s treasure. He has retained his flavor beyond the era in which he was birthed.

His is a continuing savor, grown in season—past, present, and future. His Vine never boasts empty and his cup never runs dry. If we, as his branches, refuse his cultivation, there comes along another to pour forth his cup. Jesus will never be fruitless because his wine poured eternal on the day that he hung within God’s selected vineyard and bled on our behalf. He was meant for the pressing through and for the pouring forth, and this day I am drunk with gratitude for the gift of God’s costly vintage.

Jesus Christ is the finest wine I have ever tasted, and so I pray…

Fill me Father, with the treasure of your Son. Graft me within the Vineyard’s embrace and grow me with specificity. And when harvest season arrives, pour me forth as a drink offering upon the soil of my current. Fill my cup to overflow so that a taste of your eternal spills forth into the hearts of men and women who long for a drink of something lasting…something treasured…something vintage. You have transcended the embrace of history to find your place at my table this day. You have become the savor of this girl’s heart. Humbly and with the deepest of gratitude, I receive my portioned cup. Amen.

[i] Thorndike & Barnhard, “vintage,” Scott, Foresman Intermediate Dictionary (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1979), 1014.
[ii] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vintage

a gracious Much

April 16, 2008

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus… .” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

What did your prayers sound like this morning? Here’s a glimpse into mine.

I prayed for a life that boasts…

The boldness of Peter. The reasoning and eloquence of Paul. The wisdom of Solomon. The spirit of Elijah.

A prayer simply spoken from a heart that believes in the sure probability of its fulfillment. A prayer deeply spoken in reverence for those who have gone before and finished the race marked out for them. A prayer confidently spoken to the one God who hears and who is faithful to respond.

I didn’t ask for minimal. I asked for much. And the God who created me for his glory has always been about my much. For within his blessing of my much, he stands to receive some glory…some praise…some of his much returned back on him as the Author of such a sacred plenty.

If God is willing to give much, then I bow ready to ask and to receive.

There are some saints of old…sixty-six books worth of saints…that compass my prayers. The lives that they lived were meant for our examination–for our strengthening and for the fortification of the lives that now cloak our flesh and frame our steps. Their much was, indeed, a healthy portion of their Father’s gifting. Without such abundance, it is unlikely that their stories would have found their home on the pages of holy writ.

God scripted each of their stories into his Word, not as an example of an unattainable life, but rather as a true measure of what he intends to give all of his children—the much that is available to each one of us. You and me…as we come to the table of his grace to receive our portion of such promise.

There are days when I have prayed for the patience of Job. For the courage of David. For the love of John and for the dedication of Dr. Luke. Seasons when I have asked for the faith of Abraham. For the trust of Hannah. For the strength of Mary.

Prayers I have voiced for the…

the commitment of Ruth.
the expectation of Zaccheus.
the surprise of the shepherds.
the tenacious drive of the wisemen.
the acceptance of Joseph.
the willing surrender of the boy with loaves and fishes.
the __________________________________.

Each saint in Scripture authors a sacred characterization that is worthy of our pause. Their much is meant for our now, for they are the great cloud of witnesses that hover around us in whispered tones to remind us that while our race is not yet finished, our race can be finished well. Finished with much from the same Almighty God who crowned each of their steps and walked them home to their forever.

I don’t want to finish this life with minimal expectation and mediocre existence. I want to run my race in abundance. I want to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of me, and a minimal grasp will never accomplish such a maximum finish.

And, my friends…I am after big. Much. Far much more than what I am due, for what I am due is hell. What I have been given is life. Abundant and overflowing…brimming with the sure probability of a saint’s existence—my very own chapter scripted within the annals of faith that boasts a story and a characterization that stands worthy of a Father’s pause.

Thus, I pray boldly this day for a portion of Peter’s boldness. For a voice that boasts some of Paul’s eloquence. For a mind and heart that thinks with Solomon’s wisdom, and for a life that exudes the fragrance of Elijah’s spirit.

They are mine for the asking because it is to my Father’s great glory and good pleasure to bestow my feeble flesh with such an anointing. He, too, wants me to finish well and to find my place amongst the cloud that houses the saints of old. He wants the same for you.

And so, I ask you again. What did your morning prayers sound like? How about the prayers of your right now? Are you praying for the minimum or for the much of God? Who amongst the great cloud of the saints stands as a witness to your greatest, current need? What portion of his or her much is your needed requirement for this day…for this running and for this finishing of your race?

I welcome you to add your prayers to mine by posting them in the comment section below. Be specific with your needs. Your Father wants to bless you with the same measure of abundance that he bestowed upon his saints in Scripture. Your need is specific, and our God is specifically concerned for that need. May we all walk in the bounty that is promised us because of his love that reaches beyond the reasonable and that extends further than the outer edges of our understanding. And so I pray…

Give us this day, Father, what we need to flourish…to live in the “much” that is promised us through the power of you Word and the presence of your Spirit. Remind us of the great cloud of witnesses that surrounds our every step and that beckons our participation in the race that will count for all eternity. Let us throw off everything that entangles…everything that minimizes the maximum that you long to accomplish through us. Forgive us when we limit your abundance. Keep our feet to the fire. Keep our hearts to the sacred journey, and keep our wills to the conformity of your will. Now and forever, until we cross our finish line and join the saints of old in the cloud above. Amen.

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A Mary Weeping

March 22, 2008

“Don’t cry mom. Jesus died a long time ago. You weep like Jesus’ mother, Mary, weeped.”

These were the words spoken from a seven-year-old boy to his mother upon witnessing her tears this morning. My tears. A steady stream of salty, pouring down my cheeks as I watched a portion of The Passion of the Christ via YouTube.

It caught me off guard. Sandwiched between an Easter egg hunt and a three mile run, I had a few moments to peruse some of my favorite blogs, one of which featured a snippet of Mel Gibson’s masterful adaptation of Jesus’ final hours. I first saw the film upon its release four years ago. I have never allowed myself to revisit its witness until today.

I remember the tears that I wept as I sat in a packed theatre with others offering their own audible sounds of grief. The movie mediated its way into my soul and profoundly altered my thoughts regarding Christ and his cross. A few hours later, I would put pen to paper and write, what has become, one of my favorite reflections. It includes the movie coupled with words from my then, three-year-old son. The same son who spoke to my tears this morning. I want to share it with you, but not today; perhaps tomorrow. Today belongs to today. To the tears and the words of today.

“Don’t cry mom. Jesus died a long time ago. You weep like Jesus’ mother, Mary, weeped.”

You could birth a theology from those words. But there is no need. One already exists. One that says…

The tomb stands empty, and only the depth of a mother’s tears are worthy of its remembrance.

I cried those tears today. A Mary “weeping.” A weeping that issues forth because of a shared intimacy with a Son. A weeping that acknowledges the painful surrender of a Son. A weeping that willingly embraces the death of a Son, knowing that life will emerge on the other side of such consecrated submission.

Life does emerge on the other side of the tomb. Tomorrow, I will remember and celebrate my resurrected life in Christ. But tomorrow belongs to tomorrow. Today…I will remember Jesus with my tears. I ask for them to come like Mary’s, for a mother’s tears are sacred and are meant for lavish expression.

If I am going to weep over Jesus, I want to weep deeply…like Mary. I never want to get over what Christ has done for me. If it takes a movie to move me to such a place of thankfulness, then these eyes are ready for the viewing. If it takes the tender words of a child, then these ears are ready for the hearing. If it takes the tortured cross of the Son, then this mind is ready to conceive and to receive the promise of such an extravagant grace.

I pray for you a moment of tears this day. Maybe tears aren’t your thing. For whatever reason, they have stopped their flow in your life and in your heart. There is a hardness on the surface that breaks for no one—a calloused thinking that has little time for remembrance, much less a Mary kind of weeping.

If this is you, then this is the day for you to revisit the cross. Over 2000 years ago, Christ came to his knees in surrender for your heart. It wasn’t a simple thing. It was everything…the one thing that stood between heaven and hell. An obedient surrender.

Today, I come to my knees on your behalf for a surrendered heart. Right now in this little sanctuary I call my bedroom…for those of you reading and those who will read somewhere down the road. These knees were made for prayers, and as God’s fellow worker and privileged servant, I receive his grace not in vain. Rather, I fall to my knees for you and pray that the words of the Apostle Paul transcend the pages of scripture to become a “now” word for your needy estate.

“Now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor. 6:2).

Today. Not tomorrow, for tomorrow belongs to tomorrow. And we are not promised one moment beyond this one. There is no better time than today to surrender to your tears and to receive the unfathomable surrender of the Son who hung on your behalf. It is the one surrender that stands between your heaven and hell. And so I pray for you…

Father, right now as I am on my knees and typing these words, I pray that the gift of your cross makes its way into the hearts of my friends. They maybe strangers to me, but they are not strangers to you. As you hung upon the tree, you knew their names. You knew this moment would come…this day when they would read these words and be forced to grapple with your Truth. Release the hardness that surrounds the heart. Tender their soil for the seed of your Word. Let today be the day when their tears begin to water the soil of their need. Write your love upon their lives and surround them with the unshakable reality of Who you are and exactly why you made the pilgrimage to Calvary on their behalf. Where there is unbelief, replace it with sure belief. Where there is hopelessness, replace it with heaven’s hope. And where there is the darkness of a tomb, shatter it with the illuminating light of Easter. Today is the day of salvation. You, alone, are worthy of a Mary weeping. And so, I remember your grace…I cry a mother’s tears…and I ask that you fill the eyes of my friends with a similar portion.

You are everything to me. Today. Tomorrow and the next. Let it be so for us all! Amen.

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a Cup that would not pass

March 19, 2008

“Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.) Jesus commanded Peter, ‘Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?'” (John 18:10-11).

We all have them. Allowed cups. Cups that come to us through the plans of man and through the hands of self. Cups that come to us through the will of God. Some are sweet. Some are bitter. Some make sense. Some extend beyond reason. Regardless of their taste, they become our portion of drink. God has allowed them to touch our lips, and sometimes the aftertaste lingers long and hard on the palate of our will.

Cups of joy and cups of suffering, coupled together within a life’s embrace.

Cups of …

Love. Acceptance. Purpose. Security. Contentment. Family. Prosperity.

Cups of …

Hatred. Rejection. Abuse. Disease. Solitude. Poverty. Death.

Cups of… _______________________________.

What is the cup that boasts your lips this day? Yours is not mine and mine could never purposefully fill yours. Still and yet, Christ allows them to find their presence at our tables. The choice to drink them is up to us.

Long before Christ knew the confines of his cross, he made a decision to embrace the cup of the cross. To drink of the suffering that his Father had assigned to him before the foundation of the world. This cup would not go down easy, but it would go down. Deep down. All the way down from his head to his feet until love’s redeeming work was done.

Jesus’ decision to drink the cup was based upon his knowledge of what stood to be lost by his rejection of it.

Us.

We stood on the other side of his hard surrender. We were the purpose behind his unparalleled obedience to partake of the cup that carried our salvation. A cup that would pass from our lips onto his because our lips are not capable of such sacrifice. Our blood bleeds temporal. Christ’s blood sheds eternal.

No wonder his stern rebuke of Peter’s misguided devotion and unbridled emotion.

“Jesus commanded Peter, ‘Put your sword away! Shall I not drink from the cup the Father has given me?’”

A given cup…portioned out by a good God…to a Son who chose to do a gracious thing. A grace-filled suffering portion of sacred drink poured out for you and for me for the forgiveness of our many sins. A mysterious and wonderful gift that I cannot fathom, and yet one that I want to readily receive.

“Want to” I say, because so often I don’t. Like Peter, I am quick to draw my sword and voice my objection.

Not you, Lord. You will never die a criminal’s death. You will never wash my feet. Your feet and hands were meant for more than suffering nails and a servant’s basin. You will not wash me. You will not bleed for me. I will bleed for you. I am well armored, and I will fight to the finish. This is not how it will end. This cup will pass from you. I stand ready to make sure.

And as I chorus my plan, a rooster finds his tri-fold chorus, reminding me that God’s plan is better. Fully complete without fault or blemish. Nothing I could say or ultimately fail to do would keep Christ from his cross. It is what he came to do.

And so I put my sword back in its sheath and stand aside. I walk with him to the cross, and offer my own nails for his suffering. I stand alongside others and take my turn with the hammer. I position my body beneath the weight of his surrender, and I pause. … Waiting for my cleansing is a difficult obedience. It is a hard cup to swallow. But, slowly it comes. His blood. The shower of his redemption begins its flow over my frame, and I am engulfed by his love.

Perhaps, today, you are thinking about the cross–about Christ and his assigned cup. It is our season to remember. Time is well spent when time is spent thinking about him. We all approach Calvary with different cups pressed to our lips. Some of us are living in a season of suffering. Some of us with inexpressible joy. Some of us with both. Whatever your current cup, there is one cup you have been spared. Only Christ’s lips were worthy of its embrace. His surrender to it has been your salvation.

As we come to Good Friday, I ask you to take a few moments to ponder the question that Christ asked of Peter almost 2000 years ago.

“Child…daughter…son whom I love…shall I not drink from the cup the Father has given me?”

Linger in sacred contemplation as you position yourself beneath his cross. Your response determines your steps. And so I pray…

Yes, Lord…drink! Drink from your assigned cup. Let not my will nor my wants keep you from doing what you came to do. Calvary’s work is finished; yet so often I want to revisit the issue. I want to be the keeper of my salvation. I want the surrender to be mine and not yours. Thank you for showing me that mine would never be enough. Yours alone stands the test of grace. Humbly, I bow for the cleansing. Thank you for embracing the cup of the cross. May I never lose the wonder of your magnificent gift. Amen.

peace for the journey~elaine

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