Good Friday

 

On this day, we remember the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and reflect upon a solemn, profound truth: it is through his sacrifice on the cross that we are saved. It is the death of Jesus that gives us new life. By his wounds we are healed.

The longer you think about the suffering we put Jesus through, the harder it gets to call this a “Good Friday.” After all, this is the day we saw humanity at its worst. There is nothing good about the betrayal of Judas or the cowardice of Peter or the duplicity of the chief priests and teachers of the law. There is nothing good about the mob mentality that saw Jesus condemned or the cruel contempt that same multitude of mockers leveled at him. There is nothing good about the state-sanctioned torture Jesus was forced to endure—the whips striking his back, the nails hammered through his hands and feet, the thorns piercing his brow, the asphyxiation of his lungs as he hung on the cross. That terrible day 2,000 years ago put the depravity of humanity on full display; it showed in the starkest terms how far we’d fallen from Eden.

But if that Friday was the ultimate proof of our wickedness, it was also the purest revelation of God’s mercy. For Jesus to give himself up for suffering when he could have called down a legion of angels for rescue, for him to go like a lamb to the slaughter, for him to suffer and bleed and die—for him to do all of that, and all for a humanity that had rejected him outright, is an unfathomable testament to God’s love for us. The moment humanity was at its worst was the moment when Jesus came into his glory.

By the grace of God, Jesus turned an execution into a sacrifice and a humiliation into a victory. He transformed scorn and mockery—the placard declaring him “King of the Jews,” the thorny crown upon his head—into gospel truth. He redeemed a tool of torture, making his cross the instrument of our salvation. Jesus took the worst we had to offer and somehow made it new.

Were it not for Jesus, this would be a day of shame and guilt, a day we’d like desperately to forget. But because of his redemptive power, our sin gives way to his forgiveness and our deserved condemnation gives way to his grace. Left to our own devices, this would be a day of infamy. But because Jesus is Lord, this is Good Friday.

March Reading Log

 

Two books. That's it. Two crummy books (well, one not-quite-crummy-but-certainly-not-great book and one excellent book.)

March was an exceedingly busy month, with a weeklong vacation, personnel decisions, several special events, and lots and lots of Easter prep. There were way too many mornings where I either 1) slept through my morning reading time, 2) worked through my morning reading time, or 3) mindlessly watched something on YouTube when I should have been reading.

So this month you get two books. Have a nice 3 minutes reading these reviews!

THE UNFINISHED PRESIDENCY by Douglas Brinkley

When it was announced on February 18 that Jimmy Carter was opting for hospice care in the face of his declining health, I knew I wanted to read another book about our 39th president,  a man of virtually unimpeachable ethics whose time in office was nevertheless considered a disappointment by friends and an outright disaster by opponents. The book I chose, however, was not about Carter's presidency, but his post-presidency, a period when, aided by his eponymously named Carter Center, he actively monitored international elections, helped broker peace deals, and served as the face and chief fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity.

In The Unfinished Presidency, Brinkley makes the compelling argument that Carter, despite his electoral drubbing in 1980, didn't really shift gears at all when he left the White House. The same things that he prioritized during his presidency—the environment, the spread of democracy, peace in the Middle East, and, most of all, human rights—were the passions of his post-presidency as well. With nothing to run for, Carter was largely freed of the concerns of public opinion and could essentially pick up where he had left off, stripped of the powers of the executive branch but still imbued with its bully pulpit.

And if his priorities were unchanged, so too were his best-known characteristics. Carter was still typically the smartest person in the room, he still didn't suffer fools, he still focused obsessively over details (sometimes to the detriment of the big picture), he still cared more about policy than politics, and he was still fundamentally a man of faith trying to do the right thing as he saw it. The same Jimmy Carter who almost singlehandedly brokered peace between Israel and Egypt at Camp David in 1978 was able to talk down North Korea's Kim Sung Il in 1994—and the same Jimmy Carter who Ted Kennedy regarded as a messianic blowhard was seen similarly by Bill Clinton 15 years later.

Jimmy Carter—in 1976, in 1980, in 1998 (when this book was published), and today—hasn't changed much at all, it seems. And because the promise which arguably got him elected, that he would always tell us the truth, has been kept for almost 50 years, we know exactly who he is. The Unfinished Presidency offers a detailed, journalistic look at the man and his accomplishments post-1980. And whether the stories are new to you or old news, I can just about promise you this: nothing you read about Jimmy Carter will surprise you. To paraphrase Dennis Green, Jimmy Carter is who we thought he was—for better and for worse.

ESSENTIAL KILLRAVEN VOL. 1 by Don McGregor, P. Craig Russell, et al.

The 1970s were a weird time at Marvel Comics. On the one hand, you had the big-name books—Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, etc.—treading water creatively even as they continued to hit the top of the sales charts month after month. On the other hand, in a little corner of the Marvel Bullpen, there was a cohort of new, young writers (many of whom were sampling every psychedelic drug they could get a hold of) who were toiling away on B-level titles, unafraid to throw crazy ideas at the wall to see what would stick. Some of these runs—think Jim Starlin on Warlock and Captain Marvel, or Chris Claremont on Power Man and Iron Fist—are now regarded as cult classics.

Killraven, whose 2-year run of stories in Amazing Adventures was piloted almost entirely by Don McGregor and P. Craig Russell, is not one of those. Or, if he is, I'm not part of the cult.

The idea for Killraven came from Roy Thomas, Stan Lee's protégé and Marvel's editor-in-chief in the mid-1970s. He envisioned a sequel to H.G. Well's class tale The War of the Worlds, a story where this time, having been expelled from Earth in 1901 by their inability to handle Earth's bacteria, they return 100 years later to finish what they'd started and conquer the world. Under this conceit, Killraven would be the leader of a band of freedom fighters seeking to overthrow the Martians.

Unfortunately, Don McGregor—not the most disciplined writer even on his seminal work, Black Panther—is all over the place when he takes the wheel early in the character's run. Rarely have so many words been put on a page to say so little. I was at least 5 issues into the run before I knew the names of Killraven's allies or understood what they were doing with him. I was probably 10 issues in before I had a handle on which of Killraven's enemies were Martians and which were traitorous earthlings. And at no point did I really understand what, from issue to issue, Killraven and Co. were trying to achieve beyond the overarching goal of "beat the Martians."

As for the art, it's equally enigmatic, with P. Craig Russell repeatedly employing experimental page layouts and collages to tell the story. These attempts come off more as pretentious than creative, and they never fail to confuse the storytelling. Panel to panel, he's a fine artist, but frankly, he's not special enough to get away with all of the weird stuff.

All in all, this book is a failure of storytelling, an excellent example of a sci-fi book where the worldbuilding overwhelms the plot and characters, leaving the reader to like the world without caring about the story being told. Many of the Young Guns' 1970s projects have been resurrected in the last few years by modern creators who grew up on those books; Killraven has largely remained a product of its time. There's good reason for that—Killraven, I'm sorry to say, is far from essential.

Just Another Day (Friday Devotional)

 

Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.

- Proverbs 3:3

Yesterday was one of the biggest days of the baseball season, Opening Day. Never do the skies seem bluer, the grass greener, and the hope realer than on Opening Day. Stadiums are decorated with bunting, former players return for pregame festivities, and fighter jets fly over at the end of the national anthem. The whole day is a celebration of all the game means to so many people.

But then today and tomorrow and the next day, for 162 games throughout the spring and summer, something will happen: there will be more games, day after day after day. Admittedly, a 3 PM game in June doesn’t carry the kind of pageantry that Opening Day does. Teams won’t sell out their tickets on a July weeknight the way they did yesterday. Baseball will feel more workaday and routine, less romantic and transcendent, by the time the dog days of August roll around. But even without the spectacle, the games will go on.

Sunday marks the beginning of a week full of a different—and more important—kind of celebration than Opening Day. On Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and, of course, Easter Sunday, Christians from around the world will tell the story of Jesus’ life and death and resurrection with special worship services, big meals, egg hunts for kids, and more. Pastors and staff members and volunteers will give their all to make this a Holy Week to remember.

But then on April 10, life will go on. We’ll put the lilies and the plastic eggs away, we’ll toss our Easter outfits in the hamper, and we’ll return to normal life. With all the spectacle of Holy Week behind us, we’ll move into the quiet but crucial work of daily discipleship.

So often, we get so fixated on the big days and significant moments that we discount what Eugene Peterson called “a long obedience in the same direction”—the uneventful, unrecognized, but nevertheless important opportunities for faithfulness in day-to-day life. Humble acts like feeding the hungry or praying for the suffering may not draw a crowd the way an Easter pageant will, but they’re just as pleasing to God—maybe more!

For the next 10 days, faith will be at the front of people’s minds—but when Holy Week ends, the next week will still offer countless opportunities for faithful living. After all, when it’s all said and done, Opening Day is just one game—there’s a long season still to come.

Needing Refreshment? (Friday Devotional)

 

He gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted, but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint 

- Isaiah 40:31

Now that spring has officially sprung, we’ve hit one of my favorite times of year: when I’m refreshed by the weather outside instead of recoiling at it. In fact, just the other day I was working in my office and fighting off a serious bout of boredom and sleepiness—I was having trouble concentrating, wasn’t feeling particularly motivated, and I really just wanted a nap. So what did I do? I stepped outside, basked in the warm sunshine and the nice breeze, and let nature do its work—by the time I’d finished walking a lap of the church grounds, I was refreshed and ready to get back to it.

Everyone faces those times—whether mere moments or prolonged seasons—where you don’t feel like your best self. Maybe you’re overwhelmed by everything on your plate, maybe you’re anxious about the future, maybe you’re downright depressed. Everybody needs refreshment at some point.

When those days come and you feel depleted, it usually takes more than a walk outside to get you back up to snuff. The Bible promises that if we’ll lean on the Lord in such times, trusting in his strength instead of our own, he will give power to the powerless, strengthening us to do his will. He is there for you when no one and nothing else is—the omnipresent Savior who is also the omnipresent Friend.

Sometimes the world is a cold, dark place, and it feels too tough to endure. Especially on those days, the cure may be simpler than you imagine: perhaps you just need some time in the Son.

Why I'm Not Supposed to Like Ted Lasso (and Why I Do Anyway)

As a pastor, I wish I could recommend to you Ted Lasso, the breakout hit from Apple TV+ about an American football coach who move across the pond to coach an ailing Premier League soccer club. More than any show I can remember, it tells compelling stories about inexhaustible hope, the power of compassion over cruelty, and love for your fellow man—the kinds of stories that make sermons sing. The titular protagonist is the sort of fundamentally decent human being that you’d love to have in your church, the kind you could easily imagine teaching middle school Sunday School or quietly picking up trash in the parking lot.

I wish I could recommend Ted Lasso, because on almost a weekly basis it shows people what Christlikneness looks like in 2023, what a radical thing it is to be earnestly good in a cynical and self-serving world. Take, for example, the climactic scene in season 1’s penultimate episode. Here Rebecca, the self-assured owner of the team, reveals a devastating secret to Ted: when she hired him, it was not because she believed in his coaching ability. In reality, she thought him a joke and was trying to sabotage the club’s prospects as an act of revenge against her ex-husband, the club’s former owner. Tearfully confessing the truth, she (not to mention the viewer) has every reason to expect that this man she has come to appreciate, value, and consider a friend will now reject her as a vindictive phony. But instead, Ted rises to his feet, looks her in the eyes, and matter-of-factly says, “I forgive you.” He puts his hand out to shake—she instead wraps him in a hug—and he sincerely affirms, “We’re ok.”

“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.” – Luke 6:37

Take another moment, this one midway through season 2, when we see Jamie Tartt, the club’s entitled, arrogant star, hit his lowest point when his cruel bully of a father strolls into the locker room and berates him in front of the whole club after an embarrassing defeat. Jamie, after trying numerous times to calmly get his father out of his face, finally punches him in the nose, and a coach hustles his dad out of the locker room before things can blow up further. Jamie is left standing in the middle of the locker room utterly broken, humiliated beyond measure, and that’s when Roy Kent stands up.

Roy and Jamie have, to this point, never had a kind word for one another. Roy, first introduced in the show as a past-his-prime former star, resents Jamie’s attitude even as Jamie is jealous of the respect Roy has engendered with the team and the public. Throw in the fact that Jamie’s girlfriend winds up dumping him for Roy and you have a relationship where tension is the rule, not the exception.

So when Roy stands up in that locker room, no one knows what’s about to happen. Jaime’s horrible day is surely about to get worse. But Roy, the living embodiment of the word “gruff,” strides toward Jamie and, without a word, wraps him in a tight, reassuring embrace, holding him until Jamie breaks down sobbing. Their conflicts set aside for the moment, Roy shows his least favorite person in the world the kind of compassion he desperately needs.

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. – Matthew 5:44

One more example, this one from the new season’s premiere. In this episode, Ted and the club are humiliated at a press conference by his onetime assistant coach Nate, who betrayed Ted in the previous season’s finale by rejecting his mentorship and then taking on a role as head coach at the rival club owned by Rebecca’s vengeful ex-husband. Nate publicly mocks Ted in the press conference, adding to the perception that the club is a laughingstock bound for failure.

In the wake of that embarrassment, Rebecca pleads with Ted to fight back and take Nate to task in the same way at his own press conference. But instead, when a reporter sets Ted up for a counterpunch, he sincerely praises Nate’s coaching abilities and responds to the criticisms of his own with joke after joke at his own expense. Given the change to fight fire with fire, Ted instead puts the flames out entirely, sacrificing his pride for peace.

But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. – Matthew 5:39

These are just a few examples of the kinds of scenes that have won me and millions of other people over to Ted Lasso. The show is so often a masterclass in what countercultural kindness looks like, a testimony to what the world might be like if we actually did the things Jesus told us to do.

So as a pastor, I’d love to recommend Ted Lasso to you. But I’m really not supposed to.

Why not? Well, for one thing, it’s not actually a Christian show. While themes of redemption, grace, forgiveness, and compassion are the core of its story, those themes are never explicitly tied to Jesus. Ted is not (as far as we know) a professing believer, and there’s no climactic scene where somebody prays the sinner’s prayer and receives the gift of salvation. Unlike the films that Pureflix puts out each year, Ted Lasso is not part of the machinery of the evangelical industrial complex.

For another thing, sex happens in the show outside the norms laid out by Scripture. Ted has a one-night stand in season 1. Rebecca has a passionate secret relationship with one of the players in season 2. Roy Kent and his girlfriend, Keeley Jones, cohabitate. The show has no nudity and no sex scenes, but neither does it play by the abstinence-only rules of the religious right.

Finally, and most notably, characters in Ted Lasso swear—a lot. Like, seriously, a LOT. George Carlin would be amazed this show is allowed to air. If you counted Roy Kent’s f-words alone, you’d have enough to earn the show its MA rating 500 times over. While Ted himself rarely curses, the show is never afraid to let the profanity fly in the name of a laugh.

For those three reasons—secularity, sex, and swearing—Ted Lasso is a no-no in Evangelical Land. For me, a pastor, to recommend it to a fellow Christian is to risk scandalizing them. I can point them toward Jesus Revolution and The Chosen, but that’s it. All other worldly entertainment is a sign of our nation’s spiritual decline and our world’s fallenness, period.

But I’ve got to wonder—to misquote an old saying, what would Jesus watch? Would the friend of sinners recoil at Roy Kent? Would the man who dined with tax collectors and prostitutes clutch his pearls when sex outside of marriage is broached? Would Jesus refuse to listen to the show’s righteous message because he couldn’t get past its surface sins?

Or would Jesus look beyond the visible shortcomings, as he so often did, and see the heart beneath? Maybe, just maybe, Jesus could use a flawed vessel to carry living water. Maybe Jesus could redeem what we would rather reject. Maybe the one who is making all things new could turn water into wine once again.

I don’t think Ted Lasso is a Christian show. But I do think we too easily miss the forest for the trees when we’re scandalized by profanity and debauchery while shrugging our shoulders at cynicism and idolatry. I do think if we’d stop loudly condemning the world for a second—something Jesus specifically said he didn’t come to do—we might be better witnesses in it. I do think Ted Lasso has something to teach us—if we’ll listen.

Ted Lasso isn’t going to save souls. Ted Lasso isn’t going to bring about revival. Heck, Ted Lasso isn’t even a Christian show. It’s simply an imperfect work that’s trying its darnedest to shine light in the darkness.

Thing is, that sounds a lot like me. So I'm going to keep watching—and pastorally, I recommend you give it a try too.

Training for the Big Moments (Friday Devotional)

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

- Colossians 2:6-7

For the last few days, my family and I have been spending our spring break in sunny Phoenix, Arizona. We’ve gone to the Musical Instruments Museum, we’ve eaten Indian fry bread, and we’ve (mostly) kept our laptops stowed away so we could truly vacation instead of working in our downtime. But primarily, the last few days have been devoted to watching Major League Baseball’s Spring Training, the annual rite of passage when players make their way to Florida’s Grapefruit League and Arizona’s Cactus League for daily practices, workouts, and exhibition games in preparation for the upcoming season.

For those who don’t care about baseball, the idea of this being a spectator experience is inexplicable. You drove 1,000 miles with two small kids in tow to watch players practice? Well, yeah. After all, even when the games don’t count for anything, these are still the greatest players in the world. And there’s something special about watching them hone their craft when the cameras are off.

When we think about some of the heroes of the Bible, we’re immediately drawn to climactic points in their lives, those miraculous moments when their faith was rewarded with a clear and present display of God’s glory. When we think about Joshua, we think about the walls of Jericho tumbling down; when we think about Daniel, we think about his rescue from the lions’ den; when we think about Mary, we think about the day an angel appeared in her living room. The titanic figures of the biblical narrative are, in our memories, defined by singular moments.

But when the Bible talks about the life of faith, it is clear that a relationship with God is not just about the moments you’re in the spotlight, but also about the moments when you’re toiling away on the backfields. Scripture repeatedly refers to discipleship as a “walk”—something slow and methodical and continuous, defined not by showy surges of sanctification but by daily growth.

We long for biblical theophanies and historic revivals, for our spiritual lives to be as cinematic as the ones we read about in the Old and New Testaments. But remember this: just as the Major League season is built upon spring training’s foundations, the next Great Awakening will be built upon prolonged, quiet seasons of faithfulness. God isn’t just there when the cameras are rolling—he’s there during practice too.

Worthy of Honor (Friday Devotional)

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

- Isaiah 64:6

 

Just the other day, I was walking through a local long-term care facility to visit one of my church members when something caught my eye. On one of the hallway’s walls was a large sign declaring that area to be the “Wall of Honor.” Perhaps the intention was to recognize stellar employees or favorite patients, or maybe donors to the facility. It’s unclear—because beneath the sign was nothing but an empty wall.

 

More than likely, the Wall of Honor is a work in progress and there will be names or pictures up there soon enough. But its present emptiness did get me thinking about the human tendency to dole out accolades, prizes, and trophies for those who achieve a certain level of prestige. We love a good awards show, any opportunity we can find to crown a winner.

 

But Scripture offers a humbling reminder that, in a spiritual sense, the Wall of Honor is an empty place. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; there is none who is righteous, no, not one. However much you might like to perceive yourself as a ‘good person’ in the eyes of the world, that standard still falls short of holiness.

 

But there is one who is worthy to be praised, one who is worthy of blessing and glory and honor. And, by the grace of God, he came to this earth to offer hope to the unworthy, a lifeline for the spiritually dead. Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, lived and died and rose again so that any who believe in him can become part of the family of God themselves, adopted as sons and daughters of the King.

 

The truth is that there’s nothing we can do to earn our place on God’s Wall of Honor. But by grace through faith, we can end up there anyway—not because of what we do but because of what Christ has done.