...so when i was a kid it used to be an insult to say "yer grandma wears army boots"...it's pretty stupid, and i have no idea where the saying came from, but it stuck in my head.
lot's of junk get stuck in my head, much to my wife's dismay. But i've come to realize that Jesus wears army boots as well...at least in the picture that smacked me between the eyes on the cover of the NYT on May 29, 2007.
Now i don't really care where you stand on war...i could blog for a really long time on the just war theory and spin both sides...i've come to understand that the answer is, when asked "whose side is Jesus on" is "yes"...see, the Word says that Christ died for sinners at just the right time, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring glory to God (Romans 5:8)... so Jesus didn't die for the "good guys"...that's a flawed question for their are no "good" guys (1 John 1:8)..so since we all fell short, than that's who Jesus is for...us fallen folks (Matthew 9:12-23)
...so that's what went through my mind when i saw this picture...Jesus in full camo...letting some random kid hide behind him as he walked into the path of death...look at his eyes, see how he's not distracted by anything...that's Jesus....in the garden, on the cross...letting us hide behind him while he walks into the battle against enemies that we could never face...grace
we're called to do the same thing friends, you and I...to walk into harms way, into the dirt and fear of life where others run, and to let the scared, helpless ones hide and attach themselves to us...simply because that's what Jesus did for us...grace and mercy
.... i heard many times today as i spoke to friends; "bryan, you've got the guts to walk into places where i can't....you are fearless to ride the storms of life. i don't have that courage!"
...well, tonight let me tell you i have that courage either...i've been in the midst of a battle that left in it's wake death and pain, fear and anger, and yet i can still say "Lord, Lord"...and that is and understanding of a deep, deep truth that let's me do this.
two days after i graduated seminary, my wife went into labor with our first child. It was the "perfect" pregnancy....that's what we heard all along...we were poised to head out and replant a church in an area we where sure was ripe for our gifts...and then one night, things went really bad, really fast... triumph turned to tragedy in the blink of an eye
my wife went into labor, and we went to the hospital. The attending nurse at one point had a very difficult time finding our child's heart beat, and when the attending physician came in and saw our child's heart rate, he rolled my wife off for an emergency c-section...the last thing he said to me was "i'll see you in a few minutes with a healthy baby"...so i sat there by myself in the loneliest place i think man has ever been....in what seemed like eternity, our Dr. returned with another Dr. and they both knelt by my side and said words that parents are not supposed to hear; "where sorry, but your son did not make it".
...and they both put their hands on me and prayed...the story unfolds for month after month as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit ministered to us and to thousands of others in ways that defy words...but we learned through it all the answer to the question "where was God when.....?"
...."closer than our own breath....." that's where He was and is and will always be. No, we never said "that you Jesus for doing this to us....we said "thank you Jesus in the midst of this"...
...so when you hear my stories of walking into places where others won't go...or you say "I don't have the courage that he has"....let me tell you that i don't either...i just know that there is no place, height nor depth, that i can ever go where my precious Jesus has not been before me...he took the hit of all the attacks on me so i would only have to bear the shadows...you see the word for Hope in Biblical Greek is a noun, not a verb...it's a real thing, not an idea
so please, step in line behind me friends, for if Christ is for us, who can be against us?
in sure Hope
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