Saturday, May 10, 2014

The Logic Of Forgiveness



     I finished my book today and its topic always makes me heavy hearted. “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak outlines the life a German orphan girl growing up in Nazi Germany. In the story her foster parents hide a Jew in their basement. I believe the author wanted to highlight the fact that not every German stood and saluted Hitler without reservations. My very big complaint about this very good read is that it doesn’t even approach the real issue of why a nation massacred thousands under one evil dictator’s world view. It doesn’t even come near the solution for the issue of the depravity in men’s hearts.
     I’ve been listening to Ravi Zacharias on you tube. I remember his voice from rides in the car with the family when I was little. You could hear a pin drop in those car rides because every time he spoke it was with such wisdom and profoundness. The fact that my parents even had that station on is yet another reason I am thankful for the family God put me in. How many children never get the privilege of being presented with blatant truth throughout their youth? By the state of this nation I would say there are many who have either missed out or rejected the message because they focused more on the messengers. I’ve never listened to anyone better at debating issues in order to counter world views that offer no hope to humanity. I can’t get enough because I have found the truth that Ravi has found. The cross of Calvary is the only solution for the depravity residing in the hearts of men.  I listened to this lecture he gave at Yale University as well as this one today.
It is a lengthy lecture so I just transcribed the part that really ministered to me especially after finishing “The Book Thief”.  Some of his lecture is what follows in italics:


Nobody likes to use the word sin.
     The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable fact even at the same time as it is the most intellectually resisted.
Take a look at the twentieth century when we were touting all these communication skills and everything when we killed more people in the twentieth century. More than the previous nineteen put together. What is it about the human heart? Here’s where I want to anchor it for you. Jesus never said your problem and mine is a moral problem. He gave us the parameters for moral reasoning but he said at the root of it is a spiritual problem. Not merely the rejection of the laws of God but the inability to even rise up to that which had been the standard of communion with God. When the pressure comes all of us are capable of the most heinous things when the heart is untamed and ungoverned. The problem is not merely moral the problem is spiritual. This is the unique distinctive teaching of Christ that your heart and mine is actually capable of limitless thoughts and acts and the Bible calls it sin meaning very simply it’s the violation of God’s purpose for your life and mine. He describes my moral frame-work but also describes my moral condition. He provides for you the cure for your malady. The answer isn’t in your education or your upbringing, the answer is in a radically new way of thinking and a changed heart. A heart that only God is big enough to alter and bring the change within you and me. That’s the Christian message. That no amount of moral reasoning is going to change this world. I remember in the 1970’s Ted Turner talking about the fact that with the presence of media and television and all of this we were going to have a brand new world out there. I have been criss-crossing this globe now for over thirty years. I have never seen more obvious hate and intolerance and impatience and uncertainty. I’ll be in audiences where anger erupts from somebody who’s determined to wreak havoc globally. And I stand back and I say, “Can we really change this?” Jesus’ answer may sound very simple but it is the most profound thing that I want to share with you. In the gospel the center-piece is the cross of Christ. And the reason it is the centerpiece is because of two things. That you and I need number one, His forgiveness, and number two, in learning to be forgiven also learning to forgive. The cross shows you four confluent ideas.
Justice
Evil
Love
Forgiveness
These four things converged on a hill called Calvary.
     What’s been going on for 5000 years is the logic of un-forgiveness. What if one were to take the logic of forgiveness and deal with it in a way that is willing to give up much else in order to love your fellow human being greater than you love just a portion of real estate? I say to you this, that in identifying the moral frame work pointing out to the cross He turns to you and me and says the problem being spiritual, the solution is for you to understand that you need a change of heart and only God is big enough to do that.
      To me the cross and my need to accept the love and forgiveness of Christ is the only thing that has brought healing to me. To me it’s the only thing that makes sense to bring healing to this world. Ravi continued and quoted the following poem scrawled out by a Vietnam soldier facing the realities of war:

Lord God I’ve never spoken to You
But now I want to say, “How do You do?”
You see God they told me You didn’t exist
And like a fool I believed all this
Last night from a shell hole I saw Your sky
I figured right then they had told me a lie
Had I taken time to see the things You made
I’d have known they weren’t calling a spade a spade
I wonder God if You’ll take my hand
Somehow I feel that You’ll understand
Funny how I had to come to this hellish place
Before I had time to see Your face
Well I guess there isn’t much more to say
But I’m sure glad God I met You today
I guess zero hour will soon be here
But I’m not afraid since I know You’re near
The signal. Well God, I’ll have to go
I like You lots I want You to know
Look now this will be a horrible fight
Who knows? I may come to Your house tonight
Though I wasn’t friendly to You before
I wonder God if You’d wait at Your door
Look I’m crying, I’m shedding tears
I’ll have to go now God goodbye
Strange now since I met You I’m not afraid to die

     Isn’t that beautiful? The hope that only God can give. I wish it for this world. I wish that novel pointed to this answer and the following major motion picture created based on the novel pointed to the answer. Shouldn’t this message be screamed from the hill-tops. Shouldn’t we care more about the only truth that changes the hearts of men and gives hope for a broken weary world. The cross of Christ?
     I know, this is deep. It has been a deep day for me with the exception of the following.
This morning’s video of fluffy baby geese and one angry poppa this morning:



     This video of Brewster beggaring for milk-ses quietly from above. I discovered him only because I began to have the eerie feeling I was being watched. I looked around and finally up to see this:


Then Wubs sent me the following two pictures.
This is the temperature of the freezer he has had to work in all day welding and switching out six valves:
 

This is him in his snow beast costume:

      He described to me what it was like trying to weld with his massive freezer gloves this morning. Apparently the inside lining isn’t attached to the outer lining in the gloves which creates wrinkles inside. I know how I feel when I have a wrinkle in my sock after I stuff it in a shoe. Off goes the shoe. The predicament with the gloves is he can only fix one of the linings so at least one of his hands has to live with the wrinkles. The fact that he took the time to describe all that to me shows you just how angsty that makes him.



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