Robin Williams and the Millenial Generation

Robin Williams.

He died yesterday.

It hits me as uniquely strange that he would die at this time. Why now? Think a little more about that.

The world, it seems, is spiraling out of control. Children are reportedly being cut in half in Iraq, Ebola has claimed over 1000 lives, the US has border issues and Gaza still be isn't at peace.

Then my millennial generation’s childhood escape and laughter dies. There is a collective sadness and a profundity to this particular death which, for some odd reason strikes a different heart string. Thousands are dying today. All deaths seem so terribly needless, but this one, this poor fellow seems so despairingly sad. “He was deeply depressed.”

It seems this sadness is simply and expression of the combined sadness my generation is feeling at the state of the world - we just have a place to express it now. We - us millennials - are learning what it is to be grown ups and it’s not what it was in the movies.

His death is pointing to our lack. That though even he's our beloved actor he still, as a friend tweeted, “couldn’t climb out of the darkness.” Now that the world is morning for Robin Williams it still didn’t nor couldn't save him. The need is for something not of this world.

Sadly Sobering

Today was the first day of orientation for seminary - lots of beginnings and meeting new people and neat professors/VP fellas. In so many ways this has been the point I’d looked forward to so many years ago when I graduated high school.

I remember dreaming about becoming a pastor while cleaning the offices of the church my family went to, almost longing for the day to come when I could start seminary. Thinking I could make a case for them to let me in early without a bachelor’s degree (young and dumb). It was an exciting day, having those thoughts run through my brain from years ago.

But it was a sobering day.

As my wife and I got home, we went to check our mailbox. One of the cooks from my two-month table-waiting job who lives in our complex was there. I asked how things were going there… He stuttered and stumbled and choked on his words to say the chief killed himself on Monday.

I know that guy. I knew that guy. He smiled and helped me a ton… My fumbling, ignorant, naivety he forgave and would say, “Don’t worry about it, it happens,” with a compassionate smile. I can’t tell you how many times in those two months I felt forgiveness and kindness from that in the kitchen or how often I thought I could do my job confidently because there was a guy willing to be forgiving of my waitering faults.

All day long I heard about the weighty beauty of the studies to come. All night long I’ll think of the reality of death and absolute necessity the kindness of the gospel is for broken people. “A bruised reed he will not break and smoldering flax he will not quench.” “Come to me all who are heavy laden, for my burden is light and my yoke is easy.” “All things work together for the good of those who are called according to his purposes…”

This is why we do ministry. To minister - shepherd and serve - those who are destitute and afflicted, storm tossed and heavy laden, shattered and broken, depressed and despairing, to love those only Christ in us could love, to have compassion on the wounded and destitute.

This is what we proclaim: certain hope in the salvation of Jesus and the coming redemption of our frailties, the perfect man in the place of our imperfections, the grace of God and the mercy of our Lord.

This is a sadly-sobering day.

The Death of Death

There is a place only he can go; there is a place where only love can lead; and there is a spot where we were bought.

It’s on the top of the Skull at the bottom of the pit, the bottom of the cup, which last draught he drank. That detestable liquid that sloshes around in the cup of pain, each drop mingled with eternity and temporary, each sip as unquenchable fire and every taste death.

Death, death, death his laugh is haughty and his smile grim, he sees the victim coming to his jaws, coming to his bite. His hunger is unquenchable and his desire is to rip and slash and tear his victim limb from limb and gorge himself on his blood. He plans it with pleasure and designs the whole affair to be one of maximum suffering, of complete and utter agony, of excruciating torment.

But lo, that victim he is consuming comes crawling back through the throat of that dastardly devil, he breaks out the teeth his enemy with sheer strength, he cracks and breaks the jaw of Death and puts his mutilated head under his bruised foot crushing his head in finality.

The death toll Death typical rung sounded out but with a new tenor, and a melody sprung forth. The sound of death had changed, for he had not rung the toll, no, there was another who began the new song. The one who death could not contain has sounded the first note in the chorus of his victory. The orchestra has been sent to play the tune of salvation; the band sings on and on and on the glory of salvation. The one who took down death and committed Death to his grave and paid the price in full, the price we could not pay.

On high he reins flashing forth the glory of his fame.

Calling men and angels to proclaim the glories of his name.

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” they cry out, “our hope our trust our everything;

Our hope our peace our offering!

Once dead but alive, once abused and refused now victorious and glorious.

The theme of heaven and of earth, the song we sing of our new birth;

That Christ has come and killed Death, and the chains of our sin don’t bind us;

No, we are free to live and live and see that Christ has saved us."

The Title Explained: Why my blog is called what it's called.

I've never really explained why my blog is called "Aspiring Spurgeon," which, I guess, is a huge over sight in the realm of the blogger types. So I'd like to take a couple posts and explain the name. First, however, I want to give you a quote from one of his sermons, then later we can jump into why a blog has a certain name.

"... The more vile a man is, the more eagerly I invite him to believe in Jesus. A sense of sin is all we have to look for as ministers. We preach to sinners; & let us know that a man will take the title of sinner to himself, & we then say to him, 'Look to Christ and you shall be saved.' 'Look,' this is all he demands of you, & even this he gives you. If you look to yourself you are damned; you are a vile miscreant, filled with loathsomeness, corrupt and corrupting others. But look here - see that man hanging on the cross? Do you behold his agonized head dropping meekly down upon his breast? Do you see his hands pierced and rent, & his blest feet, supporting the weight of his own frame, rent well-nigh in two with the cruel nails? Sinner! Do you hear him shriek, 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabbacthani?' Do you hear him cry, 'It is finished?' Do you mark his head hang down in death? See you that side pierced with the spear, & the body taken from the cross? O, come you here! Those hands were nailed for you; those feet gushed gore for you; that side was opened wide for you; and you want to know how you can find mercy, there it is, 'Look!' 'Look unto me!' Look no longer to Moses. Look no longer to Sinai. Come you here and look to Calvary, to Calvary's victim, and to Joseph's grave. And look yonder to the man who near the throne sits with his Father crowned with light and immortality. 'Look, sinner,' he says this morning to you, 'Look unto me and be saved.' It is in this way God teaches that there is none besides him; because he makes us look entirely to him, and utterly away from ourselves."

I bet you're beginning to see why this preacher from one hundred years ago has made an impact on me. It's exciting to get to tell you how God used this man in my life so long after his death. 

A Breath

Imagine something with me.

You’re in a cave, dark (pitch-black), cool, and eerie. You know it’s a tomb, you know it contains a body; you know it contains what remains of the physical body of Jesus.

You saw him just a few days ago, hanging from a cross, looking more like a hunk of meat than a man. You heard him give up his spirit; you saw the spear go in and out of his side. You know he’s dead.

The silence of the tomb is overwhelming. So quiet it hurts your ears, so still, so full of death.

Then it happens. So small, yet so profound against the prevailing silence, a breath was just taken! There is life in that ‘dead body.’ Soft and steady breathing.

Jesus’ death was loud, it was violent, and it was gruesome and bloody and seen by many. The Curtain was torn in two, an earthquake happened; there was darkness at noontime. Shouts and hate and the final words of Christ, “It is finished,” the proclamation of proclamations.

Jesus’ resurrection was quiet, a breath in the dark. But what it accomplished is more resounding than the darkness or the earthquake or the shouts, “Jesus took in that breath and shattered all death with his life.”

Imagining forth to the peace we have in him, his breathing alone in the tomb secures our hope.

Jesus’ first breath in the dark of the tomb will resound for all eternity.

Response to the Colorado Theatre Shooting

How should a Christian respond to the dreadful shooting in Colorado?

As Christians, as people, there ought to be a sense of urgency about life. We don’t know when it’ll end. But we should also not be hardened by this fact.

Should we feel pain for the people who’ve lost? Yes. Should we pray for the man who did this? Yes. Should we weep? If called to, yes. Should we despair at the plight of the world and the evil we see all around us and in us? No. A firm and resounding no.

Why should we feel pain for those who’ve lost? Because they are our fellow man; we inhabit the same time, though we don’t know them they should be shown compassion.

Why should we pray for the man who did this? Because by God’s grace he needs God. There was no discrimination at the cross for murderers, thieves, adulterers and deniers. We, the Church, have been shown grace beyond our understanding and therefore we should show grace beyond human reason. (But to hate the act, the sinful act, is to share in God’s hatred against sin.)

Why should we weep if called to do so? Because we ought to have hearts. Compassion yes, but more than that, we should have love. Which means that in our love for God we see his glory spat on in sinful acts (our own included). We should weep for the brokenness of the world and the devastating nature that the fall has brought about. We should weep because we see vividly the failures of men.

Why should we not despair? Because God has won. The evil around and within us is to be defeated, indeed it has been. Jesus did not die just for the salvation of sinners, no he accomplished much, much more. He died to defeat, to solidly defeat Satan, sin, and death.

The effects we feel and see (especially here) but we must know and believe that God was not caught off guard by a maniac with a gun. Not at all. Is God sovereign? Yes. But asking why God didn’t stop this is asking the wrong question.

We must not ask why he didn’t stop it; rather, we must ask why he planned it. He’s not a tame God, don’t commit the error of thinking him a cuddly bear, but he’s good, he’s a terribly good God.

We must not think too small of God - ever.

(AP Photo/Barry Gutierrez)

Friday's Thoughts

1) I sat in a funeral for a 61 year old dad and grandpa yesterday. The entire time I thought of my parents and praised God for them and their belief in Him.

2) Death, it's all around us.

3) The Decemberists "After the Bombs" is an amazing song.

4) "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy ladden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28 Amen.

5) "I'm a long time traveling here, I'm a long time traveling away from home." The Wailin' Jennys

6) This week has made me feel old - and tired.

7) Job 38- 41. Read 'em.

8) I choked on my spit yesterday in the funeral. Everyone stared at me. It could have been really awkward, but I'm a terrible judge of awkwardness.

9) It rained in downtown Wichita yesterday. The streets were dry 12 minutes later.

10) Another good song. ... and another

11) I saw Brave (twice), loved it. Bought the soundtrack too.

The Friend who Died.

5 years.

Seems like too much time and not enough time… at the same time.

It was a dreary day, a misty May morning. The whole morning felt off to me, like a ship about to be engulfed by a massive wave. How was I to know what was headed my way - our way?

I could see the look in our substitute Bible-teacher’s face as the office runner whispered in her ear. Her shoulders fell. Her eyes closed. Her lips went tight.

She asked for our attention. And spoke the words, which were the wave, the ones which cause my tiny boat to sink.

“He’s been in a wreck,” she said. “They don’t know if he’ll make it,” she finished.

10-minute break came. We stood around, not daring to hope, but not tempting despair. Unable to consider what might be. I hid in the Chemistry lab’s office, where the teacher let me cry.

The news came. I could think of no one else I’d rather of heard it from than Mr. Trombold, my Chemistry teacher.

“He didn’t make it,” he said, “He passed away.”

Tears came freely and we, as a class, hugged and wept and walked around not sure what to do…

My dad would tell you I changed that day. That in one son’s death another son came fully to life. Indeed I can look back five years and see that wave, the one, which sunk my boat, actually changed its course.

I won’t speculate on the reason God does what he does, other than his own glory. I can’t tell you he kills one and lets another live to make one stronger. Nor will I even claim to be strong, you see he was a lot stronger than me.

But now, now I cannot say I’m sorry for his death… I can say I’m thankful because it’s helped make me who I am. To his dad I said, “Thank you for willingly, and unknowingly, sacrificing your son so that I would preach Jesus.”

Death, you see, has lost its sting.

Altar of Propitiation

Today is the day we celebrate and remember a death.

Today is the day we fight to see clearly.

Today is the day we remember blood and gore.

Today we look at brutality and murder.

Today we look at lying and slander.

Today we look at our own hands covered in blood.

Today our hearts are pure.

Flogged, to the point of unrecognizable. Nailed to a piece of wood like a hunk of meat. Left to die in agony. This is the scene of salvation.

It’s not beautiful. It’s dirty.

It’s not cute. It’s hideous.

You don’t want to hug it.

You don’t want it on your carpet.

Yet it is the supreme center of all of our reality. Hope of all our lives. The salvation of our souls.

It’s more important than our clothes, and more impactful than our friends. It’s more gorgeous than the stars, and more empowering than positive thinking.

While breaking it makes whole.

While turning upside down it turns us right side up.

While making us weep it makes us laugh.

While showing our failure it shows us our righteousness.

Here, on the Alter of Propitiation, the Lamb is slaughtered. All his blood is poured out until his veins run dry. Everything he ever was, all his perfection and goodness is extravagantly spilled to assuage the right wrath against sin.

Messiah, the longed for Deliverer.

Christ, the coming King.

Jesus, the Son of God.

Today, he is publically portrayed as crucified.

Black & White Clouds

Down the street from my house is a church. The church has a beautiful garden in the front; it’s dedicated to someone who died.

Often when I need to think I’ll sit on one of the three benches around the outskirts of the shrubs, on the one hidden from the streetlight by the waterfall. It was particularly pungent this time.

The person who died was one of my closest friends growing up.

The garden is in their honor.

There are three kids in my memories. One was just married this weekend, and it was my pleasure to be in the wedding. The other is beholding the glory of God with an unveiled face. The last is myself.

I didn’t know it was this garden that bore their name when I moved in it wasn’t a planned thing. But now I’m glad I’m near their last physical memorial.

Death, the final pang of the fall, the last twinge of the fight of faith, the bittersweet road that must be traveled by all, it is the end.

Spiritually, death is beautiful.

Physically, death is tragedy.

Memorial-ly, death is falling snow.

Never again will the memories of those gone be as pure as it was when the person was there to shake away the constantly falling snow. But the snow never stops, and as soon as they’re gone the snow begins to distort the real them, soon they’re what we want them to be, all the good and none of the bad (C.S. Lewis).

Yet, this applies to more than the dead. It applies to every relationship we’ve ever been a part of. Either we remember only the bad, or only the good. We’ll never get the whole picture right. The situations are too complex for our minds to remember ever little piece, too many subtleties, too many.

But we can still learn from the memory. We can still look to the breaker of the curse. We can still be fond of those gone.

And we can celebrate the friends we still have, those ones which marry and laugh, the ones who’ll be there tomorrow, the ones who text in the night. Because all of life isn’t death, and all of eternity isn’t sorrow, because there is Jesus.

Sitting at Death's Door

There’s a chair, it’s a big soft one, sitting in the corner of the coffee shop. It’s inhabited by all kinds of folks throughout a day. Youngsters reveling with friends, older men reading the paper, a man receiving news of a relative’s death.

He’d probably just been to the hospital or nursing home, saying his final goodbye. Coming here to get away and, ‘work,’ which was really just an excuse to not be in the room at the same time as Death.

He’d probably met Death before in some dark alley a world away or in an open street fighting a war for someone else’s freedom explaining his reticence to be around it when it came knocking this close. Trying to forget the final gasps, trying to loose himself in something, anything else.

His phone rang, sounding like a funeral march in his ears. He answered. It was done. They were gone. There was nothing left for him to do but to marvel at the sun that shown on his back and feel the heat of the day, the warmth of life.

The same call had been made before, the call of death.

But instead of being made with a phone it was made with nails and a spear. The thud of the hammer and the thrust of the spear spilled and spelled certain seemingly unalterable death for its victim.

The family wept. The friends sat in their chairs and stared in unbelievable disbelief at some unfocused distant point.

But soon they would know what the man in the chair at the coffee shop knew death isn’t a vault anymore, it’s a revolving door. The one they wept for would shatter the vault’s door leaving alive and free to reign.

Two Pairs One Table

They were father and son, the father near ninety his son in his sixties. Both bedecked in hats, the father with his bolo tie and boots, the son in a simple jacket.

The gentleman at the table next to them complimented the father’s tie; he said he got it from his wife for their 25th wedding anniversary and the ring on his middle finger she’d given him for their 50th anniversary. The son simply listened to his dad’s tale.

“She’s gone now.” Said the father, the son gently nodding in agreement. Neither pain, nor regret hindered his voice; just the simple fact that she’d moved on was all that could be read in his voice. Finishing their drinks they moved on because, “There are people to see and places to be.”

A few minutes later a couple took the seats at the same table. His salt and pepper hair was in stark contrast to the conversation they were having and the pictures she was holding. A sonogram, a little blip on the picture indicating a baby.

They launched into a discussion rather happily, both leaning closely over the little Starbucks table, of how to break the news to their family. “Should we do Christmas day or Christmas Eve, over e-mail or Skype?” His Scottish brogue said so nicely.

The little table heard & saw both pairs. With what might be the father’s final Christmas, and what is a baby’s first days of life. The discussion of a father and his son, the love between soon to be parents while the world whizzed by in the chaos of shopping, these moments will be remembered more than trifles and gifts.

While the father will lavish his great-grandchildren with presents and his son with the respect of age and the love only his tried wisdom can bestow; while the parents will prepare for the child to come with beautiful little trinkets. The relationships will never be as fresh as they are now.

For the chasm of death will separate both pairs eventually, but it doesn’t now. So conversations and memories are being made and one day the chasm will be no more and the bonds of fellowship will be picked up in perfection more vividly than they were five days before Christmas.

Stingless Death

“My God, how many are my fears
How fast my foes increase
Conspiring my eternal death
They break my fleeting peace.
Arise, Oh Lord, fulfill your grace
While I your glory sing;
My God has broke the serpent’s teeth
And death has lost his sting.”

Death is unknown to us, and reasonably so, for none who has traveled it successfully has returned to tell of the subtle nuances of it. In many respects it is the final journey. Faced alone. “Alone into the unknown.”

But imagine this, for those who are believing the gospel, the burdens shouldered for their entire life will be finally removed on those other shores of eternity. The weight of sin rid of completely. The thorn in the side ultimately eliminated.

The fears and the foes, which increase, those conspirators of death, usurpers of peace have been beaten back to the gates of hell, and will be forever locked in the depths of their ‘kingdom’ for the serpent’s teeth are broken and death has lost it’s sting.

Though the flesh may fail our Jesus did not. Though the heart might faultier our Rock remains firm. For God will give the poor in spirit his Kingdom; comfort to the mourner; the earth to the meek; righteousness to those who thirst for it; mercy for the merciful; himself to the pure in heart; & his kingdom to the persecuted. He is & must forever be the strength of our hearts and our portion forever. He is enough. He is good. (Ps 73:23-26; Matt 5:1-12)

“But you my glory and my strength
Will on my tempter tread
Will silence all my threatening guilt
And raise my drooping head.”

Death is Grace

What do we think of when we think of death? Often, I assume, we think of caskets and crying widows, Psalm 23, or the manner in which a friend died. Driving by graveyards with our breath held because it was a fun game when we were 10. Viewing the, “Homecoming Escort,” as both annoying and morbidly intriguing.

We usually steer clear of the discussion of dying. And, to be honest, we rightly do so, for it is a vast unknown. Some have faith, and some have science, but both are not 100% sure what will happen.

As one being saved by Jesus I would fall into the category of faith of an afterlife and an eternity with God. But sometimes I have my doubts. And sometimes I want nothing more than to be there now, and it of this I wish to write.

‘Longing’ might be a good word here, longing to die. To be free of earth and sin and myself, to look beyond that vast unknown chasm knowing what it felt like when my last breath was gone.

(Now, I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Get this dude a psychotherapist because the suicidal thoughts in the post are everywhere.” Societal thought has made death taboo however it’s just as much apart of life as love and we can talk about that without need of psychotherapist all day long).

But here’s my point: when we feel and understand so deeply our revulsion to sin we are, in that moment, screaming at the top of our hearts, “O death where is your victory? O death where is your sting?” And it is then when we see death as a grace not as a monster.

For what good God would let his loved creation wallow in the self-deprecating pitiful state that is Falling Short? How could a loving God be loving if he sat aside and let all men trudge along rather than bringing them away from the monotony? How could a glorious God be glorious if he did not eventually show his awful power and beautiful splendor to those he made to behold it? You see, death is a grace.