Polar Bear Punch!

Take that stupidly-designed-thing-that's-supposed-to-make-my-life-easier-but-doesn't!!

"Polar Bear Punch." 
This one might be my favorite card, it was certainly a hoot to do. If you're feeling a bit squeamish about the violence of these perhaps you could do what i do. Imagine that Willy is a metaphor for whatever stands against you. (i said, whatever, not, whomever. Willy is not your boss.) But he may be the embodiment of the sin which your boss or spouse or brother or sister or total stranger sins against you. :D He could be poverty or debt or that twenty pounds you still want to lose or child abuse or divorce or hate or politics-as-usual-divorced-of-the-fear-of-Yahweh. Willy could represent your own sin which you hate; he could be the physical representation of something in this world which soon will not be anymore. Evil. In which case, roll up your sleeves, tape your knuckles and put in the mouthguard. Cuz it's time to get punching!

Or he could just be a poor, fat little man who seems to run afoul of every one he meets. What do i know?

Violent Love

“36 One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. 37 And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, 38 and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.” (Luke 7)

Ta-Dah!  The violent taking the Kingdom by force!  Was this woman invited?  A woman?  A sinner?  To a pharisee’s home?  Are you kidding?  She is unclean!  She is impure.  No doubt our Pharisee, later named Simon, is thinking he is going to have to fumigate the whole place once this Jesus takes his rabble elsewhere!  He most likely only suffers her presence for the sake of his guest.  An odd concession since he has made no effort, beyond feeding him, to welcome Jesus into his home as yet.  Again we’re reminded of Jesus’ warning in Luke 13, “26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’”  You can have Jesus in your home and still not have him in your heart! 

But the woman.  We were talking about the woman.  Look at her.  I’m sure everyone in the room that day was.  Even those affecting to ignore her.  She is only named as a sinner.  What is her sin?  We don’t know.  Simon knew.  Apparently her reputation preceded her.  Small town.  Everyone knows everyone else’s business.  Like the Samaritan woman at the well, she feels the judging eyes all the time.  There is no anonymity.  There is no relief.  There is no forgiveness.  The best she can do is hide herself from them so as not to feel.  Maybe she drinks to numb the pain.  Maybe she indulges in sex to feel loved, even for a moment.  All the while, adding to her guilt in their eyes.  Adding to her shame.  We don’t know but we probably know many like her.  We might even know exactly what she feels ourselves.

Our modern culture knows.  We understand feelings of shame and guilt… and we have worked hard to abolish both.  No one, we have decreed, should feel judged by anyone.  How can this be accomplished?  By making everything anyone wants to do, perfectly acceptable.  Remove the moral standard or at least, lower it until it is meaningless and all can hold their heads up in pride.  You are the soul arbiter of right and wrong for you.  No one can or should or has the right to judge you.  It sounds lovely.  It sounds like Utopia.  So much so it has even crept its way into the church.  There is a strong resistance to God as Judge now.  Universalism is taking root.  There’s only one problem with it.

It’s a lie.

It’s like saying you can fly because you deny the law of gravity.  Like saying you are a cat because you believe you are a cat.  You can toss off clothes and bathe yourself with your tongue.  You can annoy your friends by speaking exclusively in meows and purrs.  You can even poop in a litter box but you are still just a person pretending to be a cat.  And we are now a culture pretending to be guiltless. 

And we know it.  There is a standard.  It exists apart from us and would be there even if there were no humans to think of it.  There could be no such thing as moral indignation without it.  And yet, when something heinous happens, we all feel it.  Instantly.  It’s not taught.  It’s not learned.  It’s innate.  We know instinctively what is fair and what isn’t.  We know there are things that are inherently “right” like sharing and hugs and M&M’s and we know there are things that are inherently “wrong” like hatecrime and kicking puppies and political ads.  Heck, we have words like “heinous” just because it’s there!  It’s the reason why those who believe most strongly that there shouldn’t be a universal moral code to judge by get so angry when one says there is!  The only thing you’re allowed to judge someone for is judging! 

The Jews in Jesus’ day had no problem with such questions however.  They had the Law of God and they believed it.  Some, like our buddy Simon, actually had the opposite problem.  In their pride, they not only thought they could do God one better by fencing the Law in even further, some thought they could actually keep it!  Some actually believed they could achieve the holiness of God!

Some however knew better.  The woman in Luke 7 is such a one.  She is not ill.  She is not lame or blind or deaf or demon possessed that we know of.  She does not come on behalf of a child or husband or sibling or parent who is.  She comes for healing yes.  But not for her body.  She comes to be healed in her soul. 

The purpose of the Law was to show us holiness.  True holiness.  This should have left us in tears!  For if even Moses could not look on the face of God then what hope did we have?  We only inhabit these bodies for under a hundred years.  What is that to eternity?  If dying removes the veil between God and us then we are undone and the best we could hope for is to be buried in the earth and hidden from His sight!  Simon the Pharisee doesn’t get this.  The disciples with Jesus usually don’t get this though Peter came close on his boat one day.  Here in Luke 7 we’ve seen a Gentile Centurion who did and we’ve seen the compassion of Jesus to the widow. 

Here, our sinful woman puts the two together.  She sees her sin.  She sees God’s Holiness.  She knows the great gulf between them.  She senses it as a black abyss separating her from all she’s wasted her life to find. 

And she sees Jesus.

She sees his mercy, his compassion, his worthiness.  By her act of anointing him with ointment, she calls him Christ, the ‘anointed one.’  Not just a messiah, but The Messiah!  The one who can save her from the chasm, from the dreadful separation!  The one who can forgive sins!  She does not wait.  She does not hide.  She does not preserve her dignity.  She barges in where she is not welcome!  She serves him in the most menial way possible, humbling herself to the dust in front of everyone!  Wasting not even her tears!  This is not religion.  This is not pride or denial.  This is not rite or ritual.  This is not waiting for God’s grace on your terms.  This is violent faith!  This is vehement love!  This is the only proper response to Jesus!  This is the Way.

Violence is the Answer

“11 Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12 From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” (Matt 11)

After a year and ten days in the darkness of the ark, Noah opened the door and blinked and squinted at a brand new world.  Everything now was different.  Everything!  A year ago, they had entered into the ark as just another family of peasants in a world full of people laughing at them.  Today, they exited that same ark as kings of all they surveyed.  The flood was an obvious pivot point in history.

The greatest pivot point in all history however would have to be explained to the folk living in it or it could easily be missed!  When Jesus came everything changed forever!  “And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Rev 21)  Everything the Law and Prophets pointed to was being fulfilled, the system God has set in place for men to approach Him was being fulfilled and now the Kingdom of Heaven had come!  The last prophet, the greatest prophet according to Jesus, had come and instead of pointing down the hazy road of history to come and saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.” (Mark 1) he pointed across the Jordan and hollered, “There he is!  The Lamb who takes away the sins of the World!”  Talk about your awkward moments!  How silent it must have been in the crowd that day?

And yet, here we are, at the most, only two years later and Jesus has to remind the crowds of it.  ““What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 25 What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in kings' courts. 26 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 27 This is he of whom it is written,

“‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face,


    who will prepare your way before you.’” (Luke 7)

Jesus has to frame it for them.  Some went to see the spectacle.  Some to hear something novel.  (Keep in mind, there were no televisions and Jews frowned on the Greek theater.  Before there was reality shows, there was reality.)  Some to ensure this new fellow wasn’t a heretic and threat to their power.  Some to ensure this new fellow wasn’t another rabble-rouser and a threat to bring Rome down on their heads.  Jesus however tells them what John was…

He was the End of the Beginning and the Beginning of the End!

And what proof does Jesus offer for his claim?  Look, he says, at what has happened since.  “16 “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it.” (Luke 16)  The “violence” that the Kingdom suffers is the good kind!  The “violent” are the thieves, publicans, harlots, poor, ragged and ill, the demon possessed, Gentiles and yes, a couple of fishermen, the outcasts of society who had not accepted what the “pious” said about them.  They had instead crowded to Jesus.  They forced their way into see him.  Sometimes tearing holes in roofs, sometimes forcing their way through crowds on hands and knees just to touch his clothes.  Sometimes barging into a house where he was a having dinner with his disciples to plead with him.  They climbed trees.  They dragged him to their homes.  They dumped perfume on his head and cried on his feet.  They followed him night and day.  This is not the picture of passivity.  Yes.  They are weak.  Yes.  They know their need and that need is what drives them to desperate acts!  And those desperate acts when directed to Jesus’ mercy are childlike acts of faith so richly rewarded!  For they become greater than John the Baptist and great in the Kingdom of Heaven!  ““If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” 36 And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”” (Mark 9)  Many were receiving Jesus.  “33 For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ 34 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ 35 Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.” (Luke 7)

Our faith is not a passive thing.  It is not a wait-and-see thing.  It is not a sudden shower of grace falling on us while we were doing something else!  It is a violent child-like, hop-on-Pop thing!  Children have no interest in niceties.  They are not concerned with their image or public opinion or manners.  They run and jump and yell over what excites them.  They run and jump and yell to who excites them!  Who loves them!  “23 And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ 26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’” (Luke 13)  It is not enough to hear the teaching and like some of the words.  It is not enough to “like” Jesus’ page on Facebook.  Our faith is not going to church on Sundays!  Our faith is not a part of who we are.  We are a part of it!  We are a part of Him!  Strive to enter!  Receive Him.  Accept Him.  Abide in Him.  Never stop pressing in!  Never stop desiring Him.  Never stop serving Him.  Then see if the flood around you changing the whole world isn’t one of Grace!

“14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1)