Extraordinarily Ordinary

 

Extraordinarily Ordinary

Extraordinarily Ordinary - Audio/Visual 

Jesus left that part of the country and returned with his disciples to Nazareth, his hometown. The next Sabbath he began teaching in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. They asked, “Where did he get all this wisdom and the power to perform such miracles?” Then they scoffed, “He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us.” They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him. Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.” And because of their unbelief, he couldn’t do any miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their unbelief. (Mark 6:1-6)

You probably woke up this morning to just another, ordinary day. A butler didn’t draw your bath and a maid didn’t lay out your clothes. Your eggs weren't Benedict, and your orange juice wasn't fresh squeezed. But that's okay because there's nothing particularly special about today. It's not like it’s your birthday, or Christmas or something. It's like most every other day – just an ordinary day. So, you went to the garage and climbed into your ordinary car. You've heard about executives and sheiks that are helicoptered to their offices, but you? A stretch limo may have taken you to your wedding reception, but since then it's been sedans and minivans – ordinary cars that take you to your ordinary job.

You take it seriously, mind you, but you wouldn’t call your job extraordinary. You're not exactly clearing your calendar for the President or making yourself available to appear before Congress. You're just making sure you get your work done before the evening rush turns the Interstate into a parking lot. And if you are delayed, be ready to wait in line at the freeway on-ramp – or the line at the grocery store, or the gas station. Now, if you were the governor, or had an Oscar on your mantel, you could probably avoid the crowds. But you’re not the governor, and you don’t own an Oscar. You’re ordinary. You lead an ordinary life punctuated by occasional weddings, job transfers, bowling trophies and graduations. Generally speaking, your ordinary, day-to-day rhythm is pretty much like the rest of humanity.

As a result, you could probably use a few tips because you need to know how to succeed at being ordinary. Ordinariness has its perils, you know. A face in the crowd can feel lost in the crowd. And you might think that you’re unproductive, wondering if you'll leave any kind of lasting contribution when you’re gone. Maybe you feel insignificant, too. “Do the ordinary rate in heaven?” you think. “Does God love ordinary people like me?” you wonder. Well, God answers those questions in a most extraordinary way. Because if the word “ordinary” describes you, then take heart. It also described Jesus.

Christ ordinary? Come on. Since when is walking on water, speaking to the dead or, better yet, being raised from the dead considered "ordinary"? Can we really call the life of Jesus "ordinary"? Well, for about 90% of it we can. For instance, when you list the places Christ lived, draw a circle around the town called Nazareth – a blip on the edge of boredom. Home to maybe 400 people, or about the size of present-day Bowlegs, Oklahoma. For thirty of his thirty-three years, Jesus lived a pretty ordinary life.

Aside from that one incident in the temple at the age of twelve, we have no record of what he said or did for the first thirty years that he walked on this earth. And were it not for a statement in Mark's gospel, we wouldn’t know anything about Jesus' early adult life at all. It's not much, really; just enough of a thread to weave a thought or two for those who suffer from the ordinary life. Now, if you hang out with NFL superstars and subscribe to Yachting Monthly, you can probably tune out. However, if you wouldn't know what to say to Peyton Manning, and have never heard of Yachting Monthly then this is for you. Here’s the verse: “He’s just a carpenter.” (Mark 6:3) See, I told you it wasn't much. And it was Jesus' neighbors who spoke those words, not his disciples or even his family. Apparently, amazed at his latter-life popularity, the townspeople were basically asking, "Isn’t this the guy who fixed my roof?"

Note, too, what the neighbors didn’t say: "Isn’t this the carpenter who owes me money?" Or, "Isn’t this the carpenter who swindled my dad?" Not even, "Isn’t this the carpenter who never finished my table?" No, those words were never said. The lazy have a hard time hiding in a small town, and hucksters move from city to city to survive. Jesus didn't need to. Need a plow repaired? Christ could do it. In need of a new yoke? "Well, my neighbor’s a carpenter; he’ll give you a fair price," they’d say. The job may have been ordinary, but Jesus’ diligence to the job at hand was not. Jesus took his work seriously. And although the town where he lived may have been ordinary, his attention to it was not.

The city of Nazareth rests in a bowl created by a nearby mountain range, and a young, Nazarene boy probably couldn’t resist an occasional hike to the crest to look out over the valley below. Sitting 1,600 feet above sea level, the young Jesus could have examined the world he’d made. Mountain flowers in the spring. Simmering sunsets. Pelicans winging their way along the streams of Kishon to the Sea of Galilee some 11 miles away as the crow, or pelican flies. Fields and fig trees in the distance. Do you suppose moments like those were inspiration for his words later on? "Observe how the lilies of the field grow" (Matt. 6:28), or "Look at the birds of the air." (Matt. 6:26) The words of Jesus the rabbi were born in the thoughts of Jesus the boy.

And to the north of Nazareth lay the wood-crowned hills of Naphtali. Conspicuous on one of them was the village of Safed, known in the region as "the city set upon the hill." Was Jesus thinking of that city when he said, "A city set on a hill cannot be hidden"? (Matt. 5:14) The maker of yokes later explained, "My yoke is easy." (Matt. 11:30) The one who brushed his share of sawdust from his eyes would say later, "Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" (Matt. 7:3) He saw how a seed on the path took no root (Luke 8:5), and how a mustard seed produced a great tree. (Matt. 13:31-32) He remembered the red sky at morning (Matt. 16:2), and the lightning in the eastern sky. (Matt. 24:27) Jesus listened to his ordinary life. Have you?

Rain pattering against the window. The giggle of a baby in a crowded mall. Seeing the sunrise while the world sleeps. Aren’t these personal epistles? Can't God speak through a Monday commute, or a midnight diaper change? Take notes on your life. There’s no event so ordinary but that God isn’t present within it, always leaving you room to recognize him – or not. But the next time your life feels ordinary, take your cue from Christ. Pay attention to your work and to your world. Jesus' obedience began in a small-town carpenter’s shop, but his unordinary approach to his ordinary life groomed him for his extraordinary call: "When Jesus entered public life, he was about thirty years old." (Luke 3:23)

In order to enter public life, you have to leave private life. In order for Jesus to change the world, he had to say good-bye to his world. He had to give Mary a kiss and have a final meal in the kitchen; a final walk through the streets. Did he ascend one of the hills of Nazareth and think of the day he would ascend the hill near Jerusalem? He knew what was going to happen. "God chose him for this purpose long before the world began." (1 Pet. 1:20) Every ounce of suffering had been scripted – it just fell to Jesus to accept his part. Not that he had to. Nazareth was a cozy town. So why not build a carpentry business and keep his identity a secret? Or, return in the era of guillotines or lethal injections and take a pass on the cross? To be forced to die is one thing, but to willingly take up your own cross so you can be murdered on it is something else altogether. It reminds me of a story about the McIlroy’s.

The fact that they adopted two children is commendable, but not uncommon. The fact that they adopted special needs children is significant, but not unique. It’s the severity of the health problems that set the McIlroy’s story apart. Saleena was a cocaine baby. Her birth mother's overdose left Saleena unable to hear, see, speak or even move. Penny and Alan McIlroy adopted her at seven weeks old. The doctor gave her a year. Ruffling her hair or squeezing her cheeks won’t get a response however because Saleena will never be able to respond. Neither will her sister, Destiny.

In an adjacent bed, one-year-old Destiny lays equally motionless and vegetative. Penny will never hear Destiny's voice. Alan will never know Saleena's kiss. They'll never hear their daughters sing in a choir or watch them play in a soccer game. They'll bathe them, change them, adjust their feeding tubes and rub their limp limbs, but this mom and dad will never hear more than gurgled breathing.

What kind of love is that? What kind of love adopts disaster? What kind of love looks into the face of children, knowing full well the weight of their calamity, and says, "I'll take them"? When you come up with a word for that kind of love, give it to Jesus. Because the day he left Nazareth is the day he declared his devotion for you and me. We were just as helpless – in a spiritually vegetative state as a result of sin. According to Peter, our lives were a "dead-end, empty-headed life." (1 Pet. 1:18) But God, "immense in mercy and with an incredible love . . . embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us." (Eph. 2:4-5) Jesus left Nazareth in pursuit of the spiritual Saleena’s and Destiny’s of the world and brought us to life.

Ordinary? Hardly. Or, well, maybe. Here’s Paul’s advice to the saints in Rome: “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him … and he’ll change you from the inside out.” (Rom. 12:1-2)

Turns out an “ordinary” life extraordinarily lived for God is worship. Who knew?

Grace,

Randy

It's Not Up to You

 

It’s Not Up to You

It's Not Up to You - Audio/Visual 

There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.” “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?” Jesus replied, “I assure you; no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. (John 3:1-6)

As much as I loved my dog, True, we didn’t always see eye-to-eye. The problem wasn’t his personality because you could not have found a bigger love than True – he saw every person as a friend, and every day as a holiday. So, I didn’t really have a problem with True’s attitude. My problem was with his habits – eating scraps out of the trash; licking dirty plates in the dishwasher; doing his business in the wrong places. And, occasionally, he would quench his thirst in the porcelain water bowl – if you know what I mean. That was the problem. It was True’s habits. Dog behaviors. True’s problem was not a True problem. True’s problem was a dog problem.

Apparently, it’s a dog's nature to do these things. And it was his nature that I would have liked to have changed, not just his behaviors. A dog trainer could have changed his behaviors, but I wanted to go deeper. I wanted to change who he was. So, I had an idea: a me-to-True transfusion. The deposit of a little bit of me into him. I wanted to give True a kernel of human character. Then, as it grew, wouldn’t he have changed? His human nature would have developed, and his dog nature would have diminished. We would have witnessed not just a change of habits, but a change of essence. In time, True would have been less like True and more like me, sharing my disgust for trash snacking, potty slurping and dish licking. He would have been given a new nature. Crazy, right? Perhaps. But not to God.

What I wanted to do with True, God wants to do with us. He wants to change our nature from the inside out. “I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.” (Ezek. 36:26-27) God doesn't want to send us to obedience school to learn new habits; he wants to send us to the ER to get a new heart. Forget the training. God gives transplants. Bizarre? Well, imagine how that must have sounded to Nicodemus.

Nicodemus is impressive. Not only is he one of the 6,000 Pharisees, he’s a ruler – one of seventy men who serve on the high council. Think of him as a religious blueblood. What the justices are to the Supreme Court, he was to the Law of Moses. He’s an expert. Credentials trail his name like a bride’s train. Nicodemus, Ph.D., Th.D., M.S., M.Div. Universities want him on their board. Conferences want him on their dais. When it comes to religion, he's loaded. But when it comes to life, he's exhausted. As a leading Jew, he's trying to obey the Talmud, which is no small feat. There are twenty-four chapters on the Sabbath, alone. Things like, “Tailors can carry no needles.” “Kids can toss no balls.” “Don’t carry a load heavier than a fig, but anything half the weight of a fig can be carried twice.” “You can carry enough ink to draw two letters.” “You can’t move a phonebook, unless it’s to be used as a booster seat.” Whew.

Can a scientist study stars and never weep at their splendor, or dissect a rose and never notice its perfume? Can a theologian study the Law until he decodes Moses’ shoe size, but still lack the peace needed for a good night's sleep? Maybe that's why Nicodemus came at night. He’s tired and he can't sleep. Tired of all the rules and regulations, he just can’t rest. Nicodemus is looking for a change, and he has a hunch Jesus can give it. And though Nicodemus doesn’t ask a question, Jesus gives him an answer: I assure you; no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. (John 3:3)

This is radical language – to see the kingdom of God you need an unprecedented rebirth from God. Nicodemus staggers at the enormity of the thought. "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?" (v. 4) Don't you just love those last two words? “Can he?” Nicodemus knows that a grown man doesn't reenter the birth canal. There’s no Rewind button on the DVR of life . . . is there? We don't get to start over . . . do we? A man can't be born again . . . can he? What made Nicodemus add those two little words?

The truth is that Nick should’ve known better. He wasn't born yesterday, but maybe he wishes he were. Maybe he wishes he could be born today. Maybe those last two words “can he?” emerge from that part of Nicodemus that longs for strength and youthful vigor. A fresh start. New legs. A clean page. Nicodemus seems to be saying, "Jesus, my spiritual tank is on empty. So, how do you expect me to be born again when I can't even remember if figs can be eaten (or are they carried?) on the Sabbath? I'm an old man. How can a man be born when he’s old?" According to Christ, the new birth must come from a new place. I assure you; no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. (vv. 5-6)

Could Jesus be any more direct? "No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit." Do you want to go to heaven? Well, it doesn't matter how religious you are, or how many rules you keep. You need a new birth; you need to be "born of water and the Spirit." God doesn’t give sponge baths, either. He washes us from head to toe. Paul reflected on his conversion and wrote, "He gave us a good bath, and we came out of it new people, washed inside and out by the Holy Spirit." (Titus 3:5) Your sins don’t stand a chance against the fire hydrant of God's grace and forgiveness.

But God isn’t content to just clean you; he indwells you. God deposits within you "His power, which mightily works." (Col. 1:29) Washing the outside isn't enough for him. He places power on the inside. Stated differently, he places “himself” on the inside. This is the part that stunned Nicodemus because working for God wasn’t new – that’s his job; that’s what he does, or at least that’s what he thought he was doing. But God working in him? “I need to chew on that,” he thinks. And maybe you do, too. Because are you like Nicodemus? Religious as Saint Peter's Basilica, but feeling just as old? Pious, but powerless? If so, remember that when you believe in Christ, Christ works a miracle in you.

"When you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit." (Eph. 1:13) You are permanently purified and empowered by God himself. The message of Jesus to the religious person is simple: It's not what you do, child. It's what I do; I’ve moved in. And then, perhaps in time, you can say with Paul, "I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me." (Gal. 2:20) But if that’s true, and if we’ve been born again, why do we seem to fall so often? Well, consider your physical birth.

For instance, did you exit the womb wearing cross-trainers? Did you do the moonwalk on the day of your delivery? Of course not. And then when you actually started to walk, you probably fell more than you stood. So, should we expect anything different from our spiritual walk? “But I’ve fallen so often that now I’m even questioning my salvation.” Again, go back to your first birth. Didn't you stumble as you were learning to walk? And when you stumbled, did you begin questioning the validity of your birth? Did you, as a one-year-old, face-first on the floor, prop yourself up and think, “Well, that’s it; I’ve fallen again. I guess I’m not human after all”? No, you didn’t. A toddler’s stumbling doesn’t invalidate the toddler’s physical birth any more than a Christian’s failings invalidate the Christian’s re-birth.

See what he’s done? God, through his Spirit, deposited a Christ seed in you. And as it grows, you will change. It's not that sin has no more presence in your life, but rather that sin has no more power over your life. Temptation will pester you, to be sure, but temptation will not master you. So, to the Nicodemuses of the world, rejoice. It’s not up to you. Within you abides a budding power. So, trust him. Still struggling with this issue? All right, then consider this example.

Imagine that for most of your life you’ve had a heart condition. Your ticker restricts your activities. Each morning at work, when the healthy employees take the stairs, you wait for the elevator. But then comes the transplant. A healthy heart is placed within you. After recovery, you return to work and encounter the same flight of stairs you avoided earlier. By habit, you start for the elevator. But then you remember, “I’m not the same person anymore.” That’s because you have a new heart. Within you dwells a new power. So, there you stand. You have a choice to make, and you might say, "I can't climb the stairs; I'm too weak." But does your choice negate the presence of a new heart, or dismiss the work of your surgeon? No, it doesn’t.

Choosing the elevator would suggest only one thing – that you haven't learned to trust your new power. It takes time. But at some point, you’ll try those stairs. You’ll test that new ticker. You’ll experiment with the new you. Because if you don't, you’ll run out of steam again. That’s why religious rule keeping can sap your strength. It's endless. There’s always another class to attend, another Sabbath command to keep, another holy day to observe. No prison is as endless as the prison of perfection. Its inmates find work, but they never find peace. How could they? They never know when they’re finished.

Christ, however, gifts you with a finished work. He fulfilled the law for you. So, bid farewell to the burden of religion. Gone is the fear that having done everything, you still might not have done enough. You climb the stairs, not by your strength, but by his. And, contrary to Ben Franklin’s 1757 observation in Poor Richard’s Almanac, God pledges to help those who stop trying to help themselves. "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Phil. 1:6) God will do with you what I only suggested doing with True: change you from the inside out.

All of this, of course, begs the question of whether you will let him because Jesus didn’t die to start a religion; he died to have a relationship – with you.

Grace,

Randy

Watch Where You Step

 

Watch Where You Step

When he got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met him, and he had his dwelling among the tombs. And no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain; because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him and the shackles broken into pieces, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. Constantly, night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains and gashing himself with stones. (Mark 5:2-5)

A shock of a mop on his head. Maybe a beard, too. Blood-spattered. Furtive eyes darting in all directions – never able to fix on anything specific. Naked. No sandals to protect his feet from the rocks on the ground. No clothes to protect his skin from the rocks in his hand. He beats himself with those rocks. Bruises blotch his skin like ink stains. Open sores and gashes attract the flies. His home is a limestone mausoleum – a graveyard of caves cut out of the Galilean shoreline. He’s content to live among the dead, and that pleases the living.

Residents in the area are baffled. The shackles in shambles on his legs and the broken chains on his wrists are evidence of the fact that no one can control this guy. Nothing can restrain him. So, how do you manage that kind of chaos? Well, if you’re a traveler, you avoid the area out of fear. (Matt. 8:28) The villagers were left with a problem, and we’re left with a picture – a picture of the work of Satan. How else do we explain his bizarre behavior? Better yet, how do we explain our own? The violent rages of a father. The secret binges of a mother. The sudden rebellion of a teenager. Internet pornography. Sex slavery. Satan never sits still, and a glimpse of this wild man reveals Satan's goal for you and me.

It’s self-imposed pain – the demoniac used rocks, but we’re more sophisticated than that; we use drugs, sex, work, violence and food because hell makes us hurt ourselves. It’s obsession with death and darkness – even unchained, the wild man hung out with dead people because evil feels at home there. Communing with the deceased, sacrificing the living, a morbid fascination with death and dying – that’s not the work of God. It’s an endless restlessness – the man on the eastern shore screamed “day and night.” (Mark 5:5) Satan brings about that kind of raging frenzy. "The evil spirit … wanders …," Jesus said, "looking for rest." (Matt. 12:43) And it’s isolation – the man’s all alone in his suffering. Such are Satan's plans because "the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." (1 Pet. 5:8) In other words, fellowship foils his work. And Jesus? Well, Jesus wrecks his work.

Christ steps out of the boat with both guns blazing. "Come out of the man, unclean spirit!" (Mark 5:8) No chitchat. No niceties. No salutations. Demons don’t deserve political correctness. So, they throw themselves at the feet and mercy of Christ. The leader of the horde begs on behalf of the others, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me." . . . Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" He replied, "My name is Legion; for we are many." He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. (vv. 7, 9-10) “Legion” is a Roman military term which, during Jesus’ time, defined a group of around 5,000 soldiers. To envision that many demons inhabiting this man is frightening. But what bats are to a cave, demons are to hell – too many to count.

But the demons are not only numerous, they’re equipped, too. A legion is an armed battalion, including a small cavalry unit. In other words, Satan and his friends come prepared to fight. That’s why we’re urged to "take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm." (Eph. 6:13) And well we should, because Satan and his evil entourage are highly organized. "We are fighting against forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world." (Eph. 6:12)

Jesus spoke of the "gates of hell" (Matt. 16:18), a phrase that suggests a "council of hell." Our enemy has a complex and conniving spiritual army. So, get rid of those images of a red-suited Satan with a pitchfork and pointy tail. The devil is both strong and smart. But, and this is the point of the passage, in God's presence the devil is a wimp. Satan is to God what a mosquito is to an atom bomb.

Now a large herd of swine was feeding there near the mountains. So, all the demons begged him, saying, "Send us to the swine, that we may enter them." And at once Jesus gave them permission. Then the unclean spirits went out and entered the swine (there were about two thousand); and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the sea and drowned. (Mark 5:11-13) Hell's court cowers in Christ's presence. Demons bow before him, solicit him and obey him. They can't even lease a pig without his permission. So then how do we explain Satan's influence?

Natalie must have asked that question a thousand times. In the list of characters for a modern-day exorcism story, her name is near the top. She was raised in a tormented world. The community suspected nothing, however. Her parents put up a friendly facade. Each Sunday they paraded Natalie and her sisters down the church aisle. Her father served as an elder there, and her mom played the organ. The congregation respected them. But not Natalie. She despised them. To this day she refuses to call her parents "Mom" and "Dad." A "warlock" and "witch" don't deserve that distinction.

When she was six months old, Natalie’s parents sexually sacrificed Natalie on hell's altar, pledging her as a sex slave to be exploited by men in any place, and at any time. Cultists bipolarized her world: dressing her in white for Sunday services and, hours later, stripping her at the coven. If she didn't scream or vomit during the attack, Natalie was rewarded with an ice-cream cone. Only by "crawling down deep" inside herself could she survive.

Miraculously, Natalie escaped the cult, but not the memories. Well into her adult years, she wore six pairs of underpants as a wall of protection. Dresses created vulnerability, so she avoided wearing them. She hated being a woman; she hated seeing men; she hated being alive. Only God could know the legion of terrors that tormented her. And God did.

Hidden within the swampland of her soul was an untouched island – small but safe – and built, she believes, by her heavenly Father during the hours she sat as a little girl in that church pew. Words of his love, hymns of his mercy – they all left their mark. She learned to retreat to this island and pray. And God heard her prayers. Counselors came. Hope began to offset horror. Her faith increasingly outweighed her fears. And although the healing process was lengthy and tedious, Natalie – by God’s grace – was victorious, eventually culminating in her marriage to a very godly man.

Of course, Natalie’s deliverance didn't include cliffs and pigs. But make no mistake about it – she was delivered. And thus, we’re reminded that Satan can disturb us, but he can’t defeat us. The head of the serpent has been crushed. In fact, I saw a picture of that in my own backyard.

My wife and I have a patio off our bedroom where, during the summers in particular, we liked to sit outside with our dogs and enjoy the view. One evening, Sandy asked me if the lawn sprinklers were on. “No,” I said, “I ran them yesterday.” The dogs hastily alerted, and that’s when we realized it wasn’t the sprinklers; it was a rattlesnake. We quickly put the dogs in the house (our Cocker was adorable and as smart as a whip, but our Lab, although a huge love, was not the brightest crayon in the box – if you know what I mean), and I ran to grab a shovel.

By this time, the rattler was plenty agitated and acting just like the sprinkler we thought he was – hissing and ready to strike. So, with my wife shining a flashlight on the reptile, I used the shovel to severe its head – an act which, now looking back on it, was probably more bravado than brains. We then stood back and watched as the now-headless rattler writhed and twisted in the soft dirt nearby.

Inspirational? Probably not. Hopeful? Well, maybe. Because that summer’s eve is a parable of where we are in life. Isn’t the devil a snake? John called him "that old snake who is the devil." (Rev. 20:2) And hasn’t he been decapitated? Not with a shovel, mind you, but with the cross. "God disarmed the evil rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross of Christ." (Col. 2:15) So how does that leave us? Confident, I hope.

The punch line of the passage, of course, is Jesus' power over Satan. One word from Christ and the demons are swimming with the swine, and the wild man is "sitting there fully clothed and perfectly sane." (Mark 5:15) Just one command. No séance was needed. No hocus-pocus. No chants. No candles. Hell is an anthill against heaven's steamroller. Jesus "commands . . . evil spirits, and they obey him." (Mark 1:27) The rattlesnake in the garden, and Lucifer in the pit – both met their match. And, yet, both stir up dust long after their defeat. Because though confident, we still need to be careful.

Satan, though venomless, still has a bite. He spooks our work, disrupts our activities and leaves us thinking twice about where we step. Which we need to do. We need to be careful where we step. "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." (1 Pet. 5:8) So alertness is needed, but panic is not. The serpent still wiggles and intimidates, but he has no poison. He’s defeated. He knows it, and “his time is short." (Rev. 12:12)

"Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world." (1 John 4:4). Believe that. Trust the work of your Savior. "Resist the devil and he will flee from you." (James 4:7) In the meantime, the best Satan can do is squirm. And unless you’re a herpetologist, who likes snakes, anyway?

Grace,

Randy