Vampire Lust

Apologies to the one or two of you out there who have been following this blog for the long hiatus. Most of my "spare" time has been diverted to family, church, and my other blog this past month.

I came across this thoughtful piece written by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan in today's NY Times. The writers opine about why our culture is obsessed with the subject of vampires in film, television, and literature. It struck a chord with me because my wife recently discovered the Twilight trilogy of books. We've been discussing the books almost every night. The concept of vampires stuck in an unending undead existence as teenagers tickles us.

Tracing the modern legend of vampires back to 1816, Hogan and del Toro identify some similarities between then and now. The birth of the vampire legend came out of a time of famine when people were deprived of basic needs and faced with a sense of their mortality. As Hogan and del Toro trace the social conditions behind the birth of vampire lore, they observe:

"in contrast to timeless creatures like the dragon, the vampire does not seek to obliterate us, but instead offers a peculiar brand of blood alchemy. For as his contagion bestows its nocturnal gift, the vampire transforms our vile, mortal selves into the gold of eternal youth, and instills in us something that every social construct seeks to quash: primal lust. If youth is desire married with unending possibility, then vampire lust creates within us a delicious void, one we long to fulfill."

The New Testament Greek word for "lust" is epithumia, "over-desire" (Gal. 5:16). This word describes a desire that controls us. According to the Bible, our "over-desires" do not fill a void; they create one.

One common theme in vampire lore is tragedy. The tantalizing promise of immortality in these tales comes with a heavy price. The truth is that an immortal existence with nothing to occupy us than our obsession with our own desires does not a satisfying and peaceful life make. The answer is not in the rejection of all desire either. Desire is truly a human emotion.

The good news is that God has provided us with someone who can satisfy all our desires through eternity: himself! While vampire lore encourages us to fantasize about the nearness of immortality (anyone can be bit by a vampire), the Bible shows us that immortality is far beyond the reach of the best of us. Yet God came down from heaven, was born as a man, not to become a vampire who feeds on human blood, but to become the God-Man who dies on the cross and rises again so all who believe in him can feed on him in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper (Matt. 26:26-29). Jesus reconciles us with God, renews and strengthens us by his word, spirit, and sacraments, and he will bring all who believe in him into eternal glory to enjoy him forever.

I don't think I will stop watching vampire movies. They're just so entertaining! But I find deep comfort in knowing the difference between fantasy and reality. I give thanks to God that the good news offered to me in Jesus Christ is not the stuff of myth, but the counter-intuitive message that exposes human mythology for what it is.

On your baptism

My wife and I have a tradition of writing a letter to our children when they are baptized. Here is the letter we wrote for our daughter Lois on her baptism, June 28, 2009.










Dearest Lois,

You are sleeping quietly in your bassinet as I write this. Tomorrow you will be baptized. Baptism is a holy sacrament. What is a sacrament you ask? A sacrament is a sign. Tomorrow Pastor Joshua Lee will sprinkle water over your head. This water is a sign of your death and resurrection in Christ (Romans 6:4).

Lois, your baptism shows you that you belong to Jesus. He lived the life of perfect obedience, devotion to God, and love for his neighbors that you could never live because you have a sinful nature. You were born guilty. You are your father's and mother's daughter. We are guilty sinners too. We come from a long line of guilty sinners say back to the first father and mother. But God rescued us by sending us Jesus. When Jesus died for our sins, he died not only as the perfect human being. He died also as God. In his one death, he paid for all the sins of his people: past, present, and future. When Jesus rose from the dead, he rose not only as God, but also as our Savior to give us eternal life.

Your baptism shows you that because Jesus died for you on the cross, you have already died with him. It has only been sixty days since you were born, but death has no power over you now. The sting of death is gone. Your death is in the past, nailed to a cross over 2,000 years ago. You have been buried with Christ. You can not die again.

Your baptism also shows you that because Jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, you have also risen with him in his resurrection. You are only two months old, but you can already taste the benefits of eternal life. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. You have been seated with Christ in the heavenlies.

A sacrament is also a pledge of God's Covenant of Grace. The water sprinkled over your head is God's promise that he will truly save you from all the guilt you ever feel, all the mistakes you ever make, all the misery you ever experience, all the troubles of this passing evil age, all for the sake of Jesus Christ. God's salvation is a free gift. He promises through baptism that it is yours only by believing in Jesus and turning away from your sins.

Some people only receive baptism after they have already come to fully understand and believe that Jesus is their Lord and Savior. God has come to you in this baptism before you could clearly understand or believe. It is a powerful reminder that you will not find your greatest hope within yourself, but outside yourself in God. God has been pleased to bring you up in a Christian home with two Christian parents who are deeply flawed and sinful but saved by his grace. Lois we pledge to love and nurture you as a precious daughter of the King of kings and Lord of lords. We will pray for you and with you. We will teach you from the Bible. We will share our faith in Christ with you through all of life's joys and sorrows. Today, you are also joining the Body of Christ. From this day forward you will always have a spiritual family in the Church. Beloved Lois, our greatest dream for you is that one day we will worship Jesus together with you in full sincerity and faith through all eternity.

Love,
Daddy and Mommy

Church Planting

I've been away from this blog for the past month helping my wife care for my newborn daughter and preparing to lead the birth of a new church in Fremont, a suburb of the San Francisco Bay Area. I've been asked many times about whether Fremont really needs another church.

We live in a culture that values individualism. We cheer for the person who is able to defy the naysayers and succeed by digging deep within. We celebrate those who challenge the establishment and stand against the majority. We distrust the authority of popes and princes.

A recent study shows that 71% of American adults say that they are "more likely to develop my religious beliefs on my own, rather than to accept an entire set of beliefs that a particular church teaches."

The problem with individualistic religion is that while it may feel more "authentic" it can not possibly be more true. Everyone can not possibly be equally right, especially when they hold contrary views about matters of ultimate importance like God, morality, meaning, and purpose.

Even while breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church, the protestant reformer, John Calvin understood how indispensable the church is to the spiritual well-being of believers. He did not make the mistake of rejecting the human authority of a pope for an individualistic religion where each person is his/her own pope. Calvin wrote,

"For there is no other way to enter into life unless this mother conceive us in her womb, give us birth, nourish us at her breast, and lastly unless she keep us under her care and guidance until, putting off mortal flesh, we become like angels. Our weakness does not allow us to be dismissed from her school until we have been pupils all of our lives...By these words God's fatherly favor and the especial witness of spiritual life are limited to his flock, so that it is always disastrous to leave the church."

At one point in Jesus' ministry, he asked his disciples who they thought he was. Simon Peter brazenly answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!" Peter was convinced that Jesus was not merely the messenger of salvation, but the Savior. To this, Jesus responded, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." Then Jesus declared, "...on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18).

Some have interpreted this to mean that Jesus was establishing Peter to be the first pope (after all Peter comes from petros, Greek for rock). Notice, however that Jesus did not give Peter the credit for his profession of faith. Jesus gave credit to his "Father who is in heaven." The church would not stand on human authority, but on God's authority.

If the church is just another human institution, there are way too many churches in the world today and I don't want to have anything to do with it. But I believe Jesus when he says that he will build his church. Like Peter, the church's authority does not come from within (its human leadership), but rests on God's Word and Spirit. I can disagree with other believers about which church is interpreting and applying the Bible most faithfully, but I can not imagine life as a believer apart from the church.

In an age of individualistic religion, I believe in one holy catholic [universal] and apostolic church. That is why I am taking my family and leaving a secure pastorate at a church that we love to establish a new church in Fremont. You can read more about this church planting project at my other blog.

How have you resolved the tension between the authority of the church with the fallibility of the people leading them?

Resting with Purpose

It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.

- Psalm 127:2

I am busier than ever these days. I long for rest. But I don't just want a vacation. I don't want to get away from it all. I want to tend to all the things competing for my attention at this moment. I want to devour the "bread of anxious toil" so I can say that I am in control.

The pursuit of control is such vanity. No matter how early I rise nor how late I rest the works of my hands will not last. Yet God says to me that he gives sweet sleep that the bread of anxious toil can never offer. This sleep comes from the knowledge that I am his beloved. I rest in God's arms safe and secure like my newborn daughter rests in her mother's embrace. I rest knowing that my rest will not be in vain for God is at work in me. He has fulfilled all that I need and desire in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. He assures me that all that I am to do flows from this rest in my Savior. I rest to work, not work to rest.

Thank God for this Gospel rest for my tired and weary soul; this Sabbath rest from my works (as an imitation of God's own rest from his own work of creation) redeemed for me on the cross where Jesus declared "it is finished!"

Psalm 139

My wife gave birth to our third child (Lois) this past Thursday. She and the baby were discharged from the hospital yesterday and home has been a place of wonder, exhaustion, and sweet affection. As my wife and I transition to a zone defense (like a champ my wife is playing with injuries right now) to navigate two toddlers and an infant competing for our attention we are being continually stretched and humbled. Through it all we are grateful that our Father in heaven does not tire or slumber. More thoughts to come on the miracle of life. For now, I will leave you with Psalm 139.

O LORD, you have searched me and
known me!
You know when I sit down and when I
rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying
down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it
altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful
for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your
presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are
there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the
sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, "Surely the darkness shall
cover me,
and the light about me be night,"
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for the darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my
mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you.
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the
earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of
them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there were none of them.

How precious to me are your thoughts,
O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I would cound them, they are more
than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.

Oh that you would slay the wicked,
O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
They speak against you with malicious
intent;
your enemies take your name in vain!
Do I not hate those who hate you,
O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up
against you?
I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way
in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting!

Did God actually say?

The first words of the devil recorded in the Bible form the question, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?'" Casting doubt on the reliability of God's word (misinterpreting it to boot), this question has reverberated in the hearts and minds of people everywhere throughout history.

How do we know that God has spoken? Can we trust any sacred writings to actually contain the inspired, infallible, and inerrant word of God? Even if we grant that God has spoken, how can we be sure that the Bible of all books contains the word of God? Finally, if we grant that the Bible is the word of God how can we be sure that all of the Bible is God's word?

The Bible has a simple answer to this question,

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."

In other words, the Bible simply states that it is the inspired, infallible, and inerrant word of God because it says so. The Bible itself is the greatest proof of its own reliability. You might look at that and say that it is no proof at all; but that is only because you've already made up your mind that the Bible is not the inspired, infallible, and inerrant word of God.

People have raised tons of objections about the reliability of the Bible throughout history. Some have compared it with ancient mythology. Others have pointed out its antiquated worldview. Many have fished out "inconsistencies" throughout the text. More recently people have tried to revive the long dead Gnostic religion by co-opting the Bible with extra-Biblical writings like the so called "Gnostic Gospels". There are tons of reasonable, academically honest, and historically accurate responses to these objections (a subject for another post). But in my experience there is a fundamental belief driving every intelligent point and counter-point that anyone can make about the Bible.

I love the way that Bryan Chapell put it in his message at the Gospel Coalition conference in Chicago this past Wednesday:

"The danger with believing that part of the Bible is true and part of it is not and we'll just make our judgment as we go through is that ultimately there will be that moment of darkness in your life, in which you will cry out into the darkness, 'doesn't somebody have a word of truth for me greater than my own understanding?!' And the only voice that will echo back in the darkness is your own. Because you have become the word of God, the judge of it and the only one supplying wisdom. God says, 'I rescued you from that.'"

Our popular culture often demonizes those who live with the belief that God has spoken through the Bible. People who actually believe that the Bible is the word of God are often portrayed as intolerably self-righteous and judgmental people. Sadly and ironically the Bible declares that is precisely the sort of attitude from which Jesus came to rescue us.

The Bible declares that those who believe in the Bible need to be saved by God just as much as those who do not believe in the Bible. We all have been duped by the greatest myth of all: that God has not actually spoken (see Tim Keller's excellent message on the Gospel as "The Grand Demythologizer" from the same conference). Yet God did not remain silent. God reached down through the Holy Spirit and inspired fallible fallen people to write down the infallible and inerrant Divine Word. Then as if that were not enough, God came down to speak to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. God did all this to rescue us from the darkness.

"On Fire" and Burnt Out

All it took was three consecutive baskets. Three consecutive baskets, and your player was "on fire" in the '90s arcade classic, "NBA Jams." A player "on fire" could run faster (unlimited turbo), block more shots, and make more baskets. Kids across the country (including the short Asian kid who grew up to write this blog) were able to live out their dreams in this video game.

Christians sometimes talk about being "on fire" for God. This usually refers to an experience of unusual religious excitement, a deep emotional sense of the closeness of God, and sudden radical life change demonstrated in tangible life decisions. Christians "on fire" for God feel like they can do anything, spiritually speaking.

When I first came to believe in Jesus, I lived to be "on fire" for God. Being "on fire" was evidence to me that God is real. It helped me feel good about myself. No matter how much I struggled with living for God during the week, I could count on the religious experience of being "of fire" to help me feel like I was still a good person.

The problem was that being "on fire" did not really change me at all. It did not make me really love God any more throughout the week. It did not help me understand God. It did not help me love others more. In fact, it really made me obnoxious and judgmental more than anything else. If people who are "on fire" for God scare you, I would have really freaked you out back in high school. Worst of all, when the fire was smothered by the bleak realities of life, I grew bitter, cynical, and burnt out. There is something about the pursuit of a life "on fire" for God that can be as fanciful and self-absorbed as playing NBA Jams (fun for a video game, but harsh for life).

During the 1800s a wave of revival was sweeping the country, and people who wanted to live lives that were "on fire" for God were walking down the aisle to sit on an "Anxious Bench" where a preacher would pressure them to change their lives. John Nevin wrote about this new wave of religious excitement that was sweeping the church during the 19th century in his book The Anxious Bench. A harsh critic of this movement, Nevin observed:

"Religion is not regarded as the life of God in the soul that must be cultivated in order that it may grow, but rather as a transient excitement to be renewed from time to time by suitable stimulants presented to the imagination."

A life in pursuit of being "on fire" for God is really not a life that requires faith in God at all. Dressed in the guise of religion and spirituality, being "on fire" for God is really neither about trusting God nor pleasing God; it thrives from a deep desire to trust in ourselves and to please ourselves.

There is Good News for people burnt out from the pursuit of a life "on fire" for God (or for other things that we would place in God's place). There is someone who gives us a reason to have hope when we can find no more reasons to have any hope in ourselves. The Gospel declares to us that God is "fired up". In fact, he is a consuming fire who will burn away everyone who fails to measure up to his moral perfection. Yet in Jesus Christ, this same God has delivered us from ourselves and made us part of a world without end by sending his Son to suffer and die in our place on the cross and rise again to eternal life. If we are faithless, he remains faithful - for he cannot deny himself.

In a world filled with "how to" messages that leave us feeling guilty, worn out, inadequate, or obnoxious, self-righteous, and judgmental; God gives us a Savior. The life of faith in Jesus Christ really does change our lives. But Jesus does not change us through fleeting excitements. Jesus works slowly and steadily in the hearts of those who believe in him through their set-backs and backsliding, calling them through his Word again and again to turn away from themselves and trust on him. This is "the life of God in the soul that must be cultivated in order that it may grow." This life comes from the careful study of Jesus' words in the Bible in the church - a community of broken people that he calls to himself so they may build one another up in the Gospel and exalt their God and Savior.