The End of Time -- The End

In my last post I ended with these words:

I have visited both ends of the line of tension which Schaeffer describes. On one end is a tomb filled with bones and filth. On the other end is an empty tomb.


Choosing between nihilistic fatalism and Christian hope does not alter the truth. The choosing might be a blind leap, or an inability to face nothingness. Fear and wishful thinking might drive a person to accept Christ; after all, why not add an insurance policy to your mental portfolio, just in case. The absurdity of existence without God does not negate the possibility that our existence is indeed absurd. Or worse, absurdity might be an artifact of consciousness itself.

It isn't the horror of nihilism which leads to the truth of Christ's resurrection, except for this: what is it in us which sees both the horror and the hope, and calls them such?

This is Augustine's argument, that God creates in our soul the capacity to know both horror and joy, and to receive His Holy Spirit so that we can live forever. We yearn to be with God, we desire fulfillment and meaning in our lives, we long for something more than sensual stimulation, but if we are only organisms and not souls, then why?

I am free to believe that the "God-shaped" hole in my soul is an artifact of the evolution of consciousness, or a Freudian virtual machine produced by the cumulative trauma of repressed childhood experience, or that it is insidious programming from some Sunday school teacher I don't even remember. The simplest explanation is that God created me for His purpose, to seek Him, to love Him, to worship Him, and to need Him so much that to be separated from Him is truly Hell, both for now and for all eternity.

A few years ago, I wrote this farcical graveside service in an attempt to apply the secular worldview to the context of the death of a loved one:

...strains of Devo playing in the background, the mourners gather beside an urn containing the ashes of what once might have been a disease ridden mass of protoplasm.

"And so my fellow units, we are today gathered to wish farewell to X. Those who were close to X engaged in simian behaviors which one might call friendship, but which we understand are nothing more than biochemical imperatives implanted in our cerebrum. Some of you may exude saline solution from your optical sensors; I urge you to engage in this behavior freely and without fear of social reprisal. You may be experiencing a sense of loss, but alas, you will be reminded that 'You' are only a construct of biochemical and electrical impulses which generate a sense of self which has no grounding in objective reality. Therefore, nothing is lost since nothing really was."

"I have 'known' X for many years. He engaged in socially normative parental behavior and trained his biological offspring to participate in a non-violent manner with the rest of society. He and his mate of 30 years continued to engage in courtship rituals which helped to preserve their relationship and furthered the socioeconomic compact which we call marriage. Each treated the other with 'respect', probably out of a deep rooted and quite unconscious fear of retribution, such that neither unit dominated the other."

"Now that his protoplasm has disintegrated and been rendered into this fine ash with bone fragments, we are reminded that we are all animated and fluid filled collections of ash and to dessicated ash we shall return. No matter, never mind."


If you are outraged at this parody, then thank God, the God who really is there, for instilling in you some small amount of common sense. Just remember that this is exactly what the secularists are selling you. It is altogether plausible, quite logical, and totally absurd. Our society is coming apart because of it. But even the absurdity of the secular worldview is not enough to produce faith in an alternative.

Ultimately, it is revelation which produces faith in Jesus. In Matthew 7:7-11, Jesus says:

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!"

This is not a blind leap of faith. It is a child asking her father for bread. Eat the bread and there will be no end of time.

The End of Time, Part 2

Jesus wept.

The shortest verse in the Bible has been the subject of many sermons, but the consensus seems to be that Jesus wept not because Lazarus was dead, but he wept at the misery which death causes even among the faithful. Jesus was scolded twice, once by Martha and then again by Mary, because He was not at hand when Lazarus became ill.

Why do believers cry at funerals?

If we take our faith both seriously and literally, we should only be crying when an unbeliever dies. If a believer dies, we should celebrate. No one celebrates. Whether you are a behavioral psychologist with cold detachment, or a devout Christian with your eyes fixed on Jesus Christ, you will weep at the death of someone you love. Not because they have suffered. Nor because they were "taken too soon", for what is too soon in eternity?

Neither atheists nor Christians want to look at the core of existential fear. In my previous post on David Horowitz book, The End of Time, I wrote:

Something deep within our soul hungers for immortality. We do not want to cease to be, so the approaching end of our time brings sadness. Yes, we can be noble, we can find dignity, or honor, or we can even pretend that life's worthiness issues from transience, but in our honest, deepest and most fearful heart, death is very, very ugly.

In Matthew 16:25-26, Jesus says:

For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

What makes an Islamic suicide bomber so repulsive to the Western mind? In a way, Christians should understand completely the logic behind blowing yourself and others to smithereens in order to launch yourself into Heaven for presumably serving God. Jonestown and Heaven's Gate make perfect sense if they are seen as passages to eternal life. If you were convinced that your death would take you to eternal paradise, what would stop you from killing yourself? Our thinking is inconsistent and incomplete, so when we are confronted with this philosophy, we call it madness. It is madness, but not because it is inconsistent, but because it is self serving.

True madness is the human condition. The secularist clings to a life without objective purpose while a believer clings to a life without eternal value. We remain sane by not taking things to their logical extremes. Regardless of our choice of intellectual tightrope, we live our life as though it has purpose and value, almost in denial of our adopted beliefs. Our beliefs degenerate into tradition and ritual, and the messages from our prophets don't penetrate our instinctive desire to live a good life.

Did Jesus weep because Lazarus' life was cut short? Was he too young to die, or had his years been fulfilling? What exactly was the tragedy of a man who had lived a good and holy life, who had been friends with the very Son of God, and who was now in Paradise, and why was he called back to this lesser existence, filled with suffering and sin? What must Lazarus have thought when he awoke in his graveclothes, and what stories did he tell to his family? Who would want to return to this life after tasting Paradise?

Francis Schaeffer wrote about this tension between how I live my life and the logical extension of my worldview. A secularist cannot live consistently with his belief because the good life requires some standard of goodness which a secularist cannot accept. He thinks he knows the standard, but when he is asked to objectively define it, he says that it is only convention. Schaeffer draws a horizontal line to represent the tension between how I live my life and what I believe. The two extremes on this line represent the secular world view and the Gospel, and a person finds a place on the line with which he is comfortable. Schaeffer suggests that the secularist will not hear the Gospel message unless he is pushed to the logical conclusion of his belief system. He calls this "taking the roof off", that is, exposing the individual to the consequences of absurdity. This is why we cry at funerals and in hospitals. The proximity of death removes our roof and exposes us to the absurdity of temporal existence. But wait a minute, if I have been saved then what is death except a doorway to Heaven? I have come full circle.

If I weep, it is from the weariness of fighting the enemy. I weep because I see the weakness in myself and my neighbors. I weep because they are weeping. Jesus either rose from the dead or He is a big lie. If He is a lie, then I will cry at the cruelty of a life without hope, and I will cry because life is absurd without eternity.

On this Easter morning, there is only one needful thing. I have visited both ends of the line of tension which Schaeffer describes. On one end is a tomb filled with bones and filth. On the other end is an empty tomb.

Dinner with Friends

Revelation 5:9-10

They sing a new song: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth."


People who know me well also know that I enjoy wearing my hairshirt. In another age, I would probably be dragging my decrepit carcass from one little German burg to another, lashing myself and crying out "Unworthy!". This kind of tortured humility contains an even more refined arrogance, like a black core inside the pearl inside the oyster. As with all psychological games, anyone who plays loses. The tortured soul wants to own and control the torture apparatus. I'll hurt myself before anyone else gets a shot at it. I win even when I lose. Like the previous post, it is my suffering, all mine, it belongs to me.

Last night I had dinner with friends. Our church participates in a program for helping people who have lost their home or apartment and need a place to live until they can get their act together again. Since this was our week in the barrel, we have been providing meals and a place to live. I met the families last night at a restaurant buffet and had a wonderful conversation with them, but I received more than I gave.

Having dinner with complete strangers does not come easily for me, but have you ever noticed how easily we engage in very profound conversations with people we do not know. Is it because we think we have nothing to gain or lose? Is it because we will probably never see the person again?

There were three moms and seven kids plus moi. I was sitting across from a young woman, perhaps in her mid to late twenties. She had a beautiful daughter, probably five years old, and as I always do, I wondered how they had fallen into this kind of financial jam. In spite of my desire to just enjoy the evening, a part of me was rising above it, watching and analyzing, passing judgement, creating artificiality where there should be sincerity.

As she spoke, I could tell that she was an unabashed and unreserved Christian. We talked about our faith journeys, since both of us had been atheists and now believed in Christ. I kept reminding myself that all of us at the table were children of the same God, even though our circumstances were apparently so different. It was not long after thinking this that she said to me, "You know, you are a child of God." I mentally noted a coincidence, but I listened more carefully now. A few minutes later, with equal intensity, she told me, "You are a king. You need to remember that." I was still watching myself from afar, playing along, listening to this zealot in suppressed embarrassment. She continued to quote Scripture, and I continued to nod and assent.

At the end of the meal, we were opening fortune cookies. One of the women read her cookie, "Things are not always as they seem." Then she gave us all a faked look of suspicion and we all laughed. I wondered to myself, "What is really going on here?" Then it was time to go home. They were all so grateful for the meal and the company, and it was an emotional goodbye. They would be moving on to the next church and another week of struggle.

As I drove home, the message I had received from God really hit hard. I am a child of God, I am a king, but by no merit of my own. Why did I need to hear this? I went to minister, and I was ministered. I went to help those less fortunate than I, and I wondered if this was really true? Do I walk in faith, or do I depend on my own resources? How did a single mom with hardly a penny to her name zero in on the wound in my soul? How did she know, or did she know? Am I that obvious?

The simple answer is the one rejected by the world. God always finds the weak spot in the armor around our hearts. I am proud of my melancholy, and proud of the intellectual agony of my own unworthiness. Amazing Grace is my favorite hymn, and Romans 7 is my favorite chapter. Woe is me and woe is the world gone to Hell. Thanks be to God for yanking me from the slime, but please Lord, let me slither in it a while longer so that I can be even more unworthy.

Then an angel comes to tell me, "You are a king." I don't want to be a king. I want to be pitiful and unworthy. "You are a child of God." And so, I am an inheritor of His Kingdom, and part of the royal priesthood of Jesus Christ.

The angel gave me another message, although when I heard it I did not realize that it was part of the whole. "I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." We die each day, but the zombie in which I reside still hangs on my new self like a suit of armor. If I am a king, then I take my royal robe reluctantly, not because I am ungrateful or unworthy, but because I prefer my own rags. After all, they are mine, all mine.