My Only Comfort

I’m not sure I know how to write anymore. I sit down and try to get pixels on the screen, and my thoughts blur. My former life seems so long ago and I wonder if I even should write, what I would say, would anyone care, is there even a point…

Five years ago today, I created a small group of friends and shared with them a prayer request:

I’m just sharing this with a small group – those who are less likely to fill my page with adverts for essential oil and pressed juices…

Anyway, please pray for our daughter Margaret.

Right now she is in the hospital with seizures, pain, fever, headache, nausea – etc.

She’s also “altered” for want of a better word. Just not quite herself. She doesn’t respond like she normally does, and is very, very lethargic – mostly sleeping.

Just to explain one thing a little, she hasn’t checked her phone for about 18 hours.

Last night, she lost awareness of her surroundings and was unable to communicate with us for quite a while. That has come back, she knows we are here, but still isn’t really tracking.

Her fever stays high and they can’t find any cause.

She’s had 2 CT scans, EKG, EEG, tons of blood work, xray, etc, etc. and so far there is very little to go on.

Right now we are waiting for the Doc. Since she can’t advocate for herself, one of us is here all the time. Susan just went home to sleep and I am here now…We’ll tag-team it.

The admitting doctor suspects that she will be here through Sunday.

Five years ago. We didn’t know it at the time, but this was to be a long journey. For the next six weeks, we sat by her bed not knowing if she would live or die. All that the doctors could do was wait and see.

She had a virus that made its way into her brain and started killing off the tissues. About 40% of what used to be there is now just dead tissue. She had a 20% chance of survival.

But she lived, and now she has permanent brain damage. Many of you followed our journey.

Later on, one of the elders of my church rebuked me for staying by her bedside instead of keeping office hours.

He also told me that I asked for prayer too much, and that everyone had problems…

I wondered what it was about conservative, right-wing religion that hardens the heart so much.

I also started my journey into the mysteries of the brain and the personality and anxiety and regulation and holy crap how did we get so arrogant as to think that the problems of the world could be solved with making better choices?

Like I said – I don’t think I can write anymore. I feel shriveled and empty. My wife just thinks I need to take a break…but I try to process by writing.

So many things that I was so sure of evaporated during those 6 weeks, and the five years after that. I realized that behavior was far more complicated than our dogma declared it to be.

We mock the homeless and think that if they only weren’t sinners then they wouldn’t be homeless.

If single moms learned how to be chaste, they wouldn’t have to take my hard-earned money for food stamps (Yes, I actually heard that).

If victims quit being victims and just got on with life, we could all move on and pretend like everything was going to turn out all right.

What was she wearing? What were they eating? What were they drinking? Did they homeschool the kids, raise them right?

“Who sinned? This man or his parents that he was born blind?”

But watching my girl in the hospital I started asking myself questions.

What does one do when the part of the brain that interprets data isn’t there anymore?

What does one do when the part of the brain that takes in the stimuli from the outside world is twisted and inaccurate?

What does one do when the part of the brain that tells you that you are in danger gets stuck and you can’t unstick it?

What if you have no way to regulate shame, anxiety, worry, emotions and just end up screaming because you don’t know what is happening to you?

And through that process of thought, it occurred to me that the way the modern church uses the Bible is not the right way.

Let me explain – Jesus told the Pharisees this:

“You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”  (Jn 5:39–40.)

Humanity’s natural religion tells us that if we do good things, good things will happen. If we make good choices, everything will turn out OK. God blesses those who obey, and his curse lies on those who don’t obey.

It is deeply engrained in us for we are image-bearers of God, we were created that way.

The problem is, that we are fallen and subject to death. All of us have fallen short of the glory of God. The way to Eden is blocked and now we all are outcasts.

But we still think like Cain does. If we could just find the right formula, the right sacrifice, the right choice to make, we could enter into God’s favor again.

The Pharisees believed that as well. They would even say, “I thank God I am not like other men…” giving a nod to grace.

But ultimately everything is a transaction. Do this, and good with come. And that colored everything about how they read the bible.

Gay people? Stone them. That will fix it.

Adulterer? Moses said she should be stoned. What about you?

Transgender people? God made male and female. Obey. That will fix it.

Cut of the hand. Pluck out the eye. Chop off the foot. Drive them back into hiding.

Anxious people. DON’T BE ANXIOUS!

Worried people. DON’T WORRY!

I remember a minister in my former denomination preaching on spiritual comfort. He had a contemptuous sneer on his face while he called down shame on those who struggled with taking comfort in the gospel. “How dare you!” he would shout.

I think he thought that would actually work.

They searched the scripture. Found a verse to apply to the situation. Declared it to be fixed.

I saw an app the other day. You would look up your problem, and the app would point you to a Bible verse. That will fix it. If you are still angry, hurt, sad, depressed, discouraged, sick – then you must not have enough faith.

If you do things right, all will be well.

The problem is, as Jesus told the Pharisees, they missed the point of the whole thing, because they missed Christ. Jesus didn’t come to lead us to Moses.

How can anyone read the purity laws of the Old Testament without fear and terror? Who will escape the stoning? Who will escape the slaughter, the shame, the horror. Does the book of Leviticus fill you with love and peace and joy? Or does it cause you to look for a Redeemer?

Do you know how many animals were killed when Solomon dedicated the temple? Do you know what that would have smelled like?

Which parent would take glee in denouncing their child and casting the first stone against him? Do you want killing fields outside of your town?

Do we gather the townspeople together to watch the public burnings, brandings, disfigurements, amputations?

The curse of the law is exactly that – Satan’s weapon against humanity. And before Christ came into the world, the world delighted in law and order.

Impalings, tortures, crucifixions, beheadings, scourging…

Which one of us would be able to stomach a crucifixion or a stoning? Jesus said, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone.” And that’s the problem, isn’t it?

What kind of cruelty drives the heart that wants to bring back the law? Will it excuse you? The stones that you throw today turn against you tomorrow.

Which law will you pass that will put an end to gayness? Transgender people? Broken sexuality?

Can people just decide not to do it anymore?

Why would we delight in driving people back into hiding when God says, “Where are you? Come out. Talk to me.”

The law brings death. The curse of the law is a weapon in the hands of the One who Enslaves Humanity – Satan himself. He temps us to sin, then denounces us with the curse of the law. HOW DARE YOU – he shouts.

And the other side of the coin – if we could just free ourselves from the sinners, all will be well. No matter what the problem is, you will find a verse in the Old Testament that calls for it to be put to death.

I’m reading the law again. It is good for me, because it points me to Christ. But it is hard going. Who wants to live in a world without Christ?

Who wants to live in a world where stoning, impaling, crucifying, floggings, degradation, shame, are used as weapons under the guise of law and order?

Moses didn’t bring about a world that anyone would want to live in. Moses showed the world what the curse of the law looks like, in all of its ugliness and shame. And even then, with the “perfect law”, every still died. Everyone went into exile. Everyone suffered as slaves.

It’s like God was saying to all of us – you want to follow the religion of Cain, the religion of “Do this and live”? This is how it ends. Read the end of Judges. Read the end of the Kings. This is how the curse of the law ends.

And then Moses showed us Jesus in pictures and stories, and taught the faithful how to yearn.

“O that salvation would come out of Zion!”

Because all scripture points to Christ. The impalings, the stonings, the shame, the pain, the death – he touched it and took all of it on himself and crushed the head of the serpent, putting an end to the curse of the law.

So why would anyone want to go back?

I told you I had a problem getting my thoughts down. Bear with me…

If righteousness could come by the law, the Christ died in vain.

Jesus lived a perfect life on this earth, without sin. And it didn’t turn out well for him. He was crucified, he died. He was buried.

This is the result of the curse of the law, and he bore it all. He took Satan’s weapon on himself, and through it crushed the Enemy’s head, and took that weapon away.

And then he rose from the dead.

We don’t need more people shouting “How dare you” at us. We need a resurrection.

Our brains are far more complex than we imagine. The motives, the desires, the longings, the wiring, the experiences and the culture that human beings dwell in effect everything about us.

I think, in my meandering way, winding along a river of thought, that Maggie illustrates this pretty well. There were those who told her everything she needed to do to get better. Just be productive. Quit being anxious. Pray more. But those things just lead to death.

She can’t process any of that. She still blacks out. She still has panic attacks and anxiety. She still is physically hurt when lights go on suddenly or sounds hit the wrong frequency. She still has Tourette’s and tics and vocal noises. And none of this can be fixed by anything under the sun. She doesn’t need the law or its curse.

She needs a resurrection.

Just like all of us.

And now, five years later, we get small glimpses of future resurrected Maggie when the light shines through. When the age to come bursts through the age of death that we are in. It comes in the moments when she sits on the lawn in her special spot singing hymns to her bunny. When she waters the flowers for the fire fighters across the street. When she bakes cookies for the police department. When she says, “I pray for youuuuu”.

And when she cries and lashes out and wants to die and does it all publicly on Facebook, it is easy for many to think about the law, and maybe wonder why she doesn’t make better choices. And then, you shamefully see (maybe) that those things are not the heart of Maggie. Those things are the Powers that hold her in bondage, waiting for the Lord of Lords to cast them out and set her free.

And so, like everyone else, we wait for the resurrection and long for the Groom to come and claim his bride. We wait for his embrace, just like everyone else.

We make our choices. Some are OK. All are tainted with sin. We have moments of light in the darkness. And we have pain and suffering and loss. And those things won’t go away until Jesus casts the powers of darkness and the curse of the law into the lake of fire where it belongs, and what is left is Love.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.