Fellowship

Last month was my 21st birthday. I thought it would be fun to have a big dinner thing at a pizza place. Elisa made reservations, I invited everyone I knew. The big day came, I arrived 15 minutes late to find a completely empty pizza hall. I don't know I've ever been so bummed out. No one was coming to my birthday. However, my sorrow quickly turned to joy as almost like clockwork people started pouring in. People began filing in one after another until almost the entire party room was full! There were a good 20 people in there to celebrate with me. To top it off I was surprised by a dear friend of mine from Paradise who had come up just for the night to be there for my birthday. I felt so special. No one had ever taken the time to make sure I had a birthday to remember. (Thanks Elisa!)
Towards the end of the night, I started getting tired from all the amazing pizza I had eaten. I was sitting in a corner digesting, just sort of enjoying the moment, when it dawned on me. I wasn't personally engaging anyone at the time, but it brought me so much pleasure to know that everyone in that room had gathered because they wanted to be with me. It was incredible. 20 people who loved me all coming together for no other reason than to love the fact that I was born.
I think this is very much how God is. When we gather in fellowship, we may not mention his name, or our relationship with him, yet there is something so powerful about believers coming together simply to exist in the presence of their savior. God delights in it. He sees his children coming together just to eat and celebrate, and his heart lightens. His face fills with joy, and his laugh begins to shake the universe.

The Name

In the Bible times, the Hebrew people would name their kids based on either something God had done for them, or a characteristic of that kid. For instance, names such as Rafael. Rafa means healing, while El is a contraction of the word Elohim meaning God. So Rafael means "God is the healer". Or with Esau in Genesis, he was born very red and hairy, so his parents called him Esau or "Red Guy". Likewise, Malachi comes from the Hebrew word Malak which means messenger, and ai which would translate as my. Malachi at birth was proclaimed to be "My Messenger." The Hebrews had an understanding that their name was everything. That by the very nature of their name, you would be able to tell so much about a person. Your name was all important in the Hebrew society. Isaiah does something interesting when he writes, he names his kids based on what would come to happen in Israel. Even in the New Testament we see predictions about a person based on how they are named. Mary and Joseph were commanded to name their son, who would be born miraculously from a couple who had never consummated their marriage, Jesus. In Hebrew his name is Yehu-Shua. Yehu being a shortening of the divine name YHWH and Shua meaning salvation. Jesus' name was Joshua or the "Lord is My Salvation". It even says in Matthew 1:21 that "She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." Was there ever a more powerful name attached to person? The very name of Jesus proclaimed that God's salvation was present. The very core of his person was the salvation that God has to offer his broken creation. It is no wonder that his name is the Name above all names.

Life Is Good

I was realizing, that a lot of my recent blogs have been almost exclusively about how terrible life has been. Granted, this semester has sucked, there is still so much good in my life. Honestly, I feel as if I'm such a blessed man. I have been given some of the best friends in the world, like Nolan. Every time either of us feel down, we have some of the best guy time in the world. Or Jeef! even though he lives across the state, we're just as much roommates now as when we actually lived together. If having two of the best friends in the world isn't enough, I also have an absolutely gorgeous girlfriend who loves the crap out of me all the time. I've never felt more loved and honored than when I'm around her. Even when I do dumb things, she is so understanding and treats me with such respect. I've never felt more valued in my life.
If all that isn't enough, I have a God and Savior whose love for me is new every day and even though I don't feel super close to him, his presence in my life overwhelms me. It is a beautiful thing to look at where I've come from and be able to realize how much God has saved me from. He has really rocked my face in recently with how much he loves me.

I am truly blessed.

Global Economics

There was a day not too long ago, when I was walking and a nice young woman asked me if I'd like to try a free sample of milk. I, of course, said yes. I drank my milk and started to ask the woman what she was doing. She told me about how a prominent milk company pays her to promote their product. After some time, she told me that if I'd like I could take as much milk as I want. So I did, I took about 8 crates full of milk. In my mind, I had this beautiful vision of sharing my milk with everyone in my dorm, so I put it in the floor refrigerator so people could have equal access to it. I went about the rest of my day as normal and that night I decided I'd like some milk, so I went to the fridge only to find out that all the milk had been taken. I didn't understand how in only a few hours a fridge full of milk could be completely empty. I ended up discovering that the few privledged in the dorm who had mini fridges would go in and take as much milk as their fridges could hold. Of course those who had the means of storing it would take more than they needed when there was enough milk in that fridge for everyone in the whole dorm. On the same note, there are plenty of resources in the whole world for everyone to have their needs met. America alone grows almost enough food to feed Africa. I mourn for us as a people. I mourn the fact that we are so selfish that it is ok for us as a nation to be so grossly overfed while there are still people out there starving. Where is the justice?

Humanity

Sometimes it's easy to think that as humans we've evolved in a sense. Looking at the advances in technology, political theory, relief work, and even the way humans interact. Take for instance the way the world responded to the crisis in Haiti. A 7.5 earthquake devastates the country, and the whole world comes to the rescue. But if things are progressively getting better, then how do we account for the pain that comes at the hands of other human beings? In Uganda, there are men kidnapping children to have them fight a bloody horrible war. Or in Burma, the National Army could literally go from village to village seeking out ethnic minorities in order to cleanse the national population. What about the men in Amsterdam who kidnap women and sell them into the sex trade to fill their wallets? How can humanity being progressing towards a grand Utopia if we are still so capable of causing so much pain on other human beings? It seems so obvious to me that Humanity itself is hopeless. Stuck here with no hope. Even nature seems to be taking part in the onslaught. It's so difficult to see God in the midst of such despair. Where can he possibly be when the very ones who glorify his names are the ones buried underneath 8 feet of rubble from a tsunami? Where is God in bloated black stomachs? Where is he when a woman's body is treated like a commodity to buy and sell?

The Cleansing

A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean." Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured. Mark 1:40-42.

Reading this, I begin to see and feel the compassion of my savior. By Jewish understanding, to worship Yahweh, one would enter into the Temple, and bring your sacrifice to the Lord. In Jewish law, it was a sin to enter into the temple if you were unclean. In that same law a person would be declared unclean by a number of things: Handling dead bodies; giving birth; having sex; or even touching a person who was unclean. Jesus reached out and touched an unclean leper. He Touched Him!! Unclean. Jesus cared so much about this man being restored into relationship with God he was willing to be made unclean to allow this man to worship. God's cleansing into his life. The leper for the first time in his life would be able to enter into the temple. He would finally be able to worship the way he'd longed to his whole life. His infirmities would no longer hold power over him. From now on this man would be a product of Jesus' restoring power. Christ would take on that uncleanliness so this man would be able to worship.

Ultimately that is what Christ offers. He lays down his position of authority and power, making a way for every man to be able to have what was lost that day in the Garden. Relationship. Christ embraced the uncleanliness of a leper and is more than willing to embrace the uncleanliness of every one of his followers in order to let them stand without blame before his father.

The Church

Tonight I had the distinct pleasure of being able to be a table host at a church-wide Christmas dinner. It was an outreach event geared towards the lonely and poor in the Paradise community, and I got to be the face of Jesus to whoever would sit at my table. With my passion for poverty, I had hoped to get a table filled with druggies and homeless, but as it usually happens in Paradise, my table was mostly elderly people. 2 of them had just had their 70th marriage anniversary, another was just a lonely old man, and the last was a elderly Mormon whose wife was in the hospital and didn't want to spend Christmas alone. But the thing that really caught my attention tonight was the table next to me. Sitting next to a bunch of elderly ladies was a lady obviously strung out on meth. Her hair was dreaded from neglect and she was wearing an Orlando Magic jacket from the 90's that couldn't have been washed since then. I began hurting inside to talk to her, I figured at this church people aren't used to poverty, so a woman like this would scare our little old grandmothers. I could not have been more wrong. I got to see over the course of the night these older ladies share their food and their lives with this woman. They didn't care that she smelled, or that she could barely speak in intelligent sentences, all that mattered to these ladies was that this lady was here and she needed some lovin'. It put such a smile on my face to see as she left each one of the ladies get up and give the homeless woman a hug, I knew they actually cared for her. I feel as if so often I don't give the body of Christ a chance, I tend to think of everyone as another consumer. Another person just trying to get their fix of religion, but tonight I got to see some little conservative old women be The Church.