It’s not surprising to see the in-between show up all over the Bible. Maybe our lives consist of these spaces in between precisely because they show up in God’s story first. Take the lives of Isaac and Ishmael or Jacob and Esau, where blessings and inheritances live for a short time in between the oldest sibling: the rightful heir, and the youngest sibling: the unexpected inheritor. Or how about David’s anointing as the God-chosen king happening well before the end of Saul’s people-chosen reign? God moves in and through it, but there is a moment in time when both kingships are propelled forward simultaneously. Then there is the time when the prophets Elijah and Elisha overlap, one fading out while the other rises up. We even see it in the engagement period in the Song of Solomon — a space between the bride being chosen and being wed – the in-between is where most of the book’s drama unfolds. 

But the ultimate transitory space in God’s story can be seen in the lowly backwater town of Bethlehem. Jesus of Nazareth is born as poor and weak as any infant who had come before him, and yet his birth begins the transition from the old covenant born at Sinai to the soon-to-be-born, new covenant when his blood will pour down an old-rugged cross. It’s easy to forget how his life is one big transition, an “already, not yet” moment in time. It is the fleshing out of the book of Hebrews’ insistence that “what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (8:13). Before he dies, the Law hangs over the heads of God’s people, but Jesus methodically begins to dismantle its curse, urging his disciples to pick food for themselves on the Sabbath, touching and healing lepers and insisting that their cleanliness came from his mere word and not from the priest’s levitical rituals, and even stepping in between an adulteress and her law-demanded stoning.

These three years where he moved in and among not only the people of God but also the Gentiles is the space between the inhale and the exhale. The Israelites had spent thousands of years inhaling, hoping to take in enough air on their own in order to be able to live in the presence of a perfect and holy God. While the incarnated feet of God walked upon our earth, our breath was held, until it was irreversibly intertwined with the last breath of Lamb of God that trickled through his tortured lungs on the cross. And that’s when we could finally exhale too, but in a different way. It’s when we could release our white-knuckle grip on the idea that our salvation, our reconciliation to our Creator, was up to us.

The old gave way to the new that day, which led to a short but important transitional period where Christ lay dormant in his grave for three days. The power of sin and death had been broken, yet followers of Christ were left in the in-between space between death and life. Their encounters with the risen Lord would firmly place them in the “after”, forever closing down the possibility of going back to the “before”. 

And so we live our lives now, post-death and resurrection, but pre-full and complete redemption. Our sin continues to boil over, harming ourselves and those around us. We often find ourselves caught in the chaos of the “middle,” like Paul’s existential confession in Romans 7. Our desperate need for Christ remains, and always will. And yet, we can take comfort in this space because of how faithful our God has been in leading his people from one era to the next. Christ stepped willingly into the tomb, into this groundbreaking space in between. His willingness to breathe his last allows us to take our first breath on the other side, inhaling his grace instead of working our lungs to death in a fruitless attempt at making things right with our works. It is with our death in Christ, in our figurative burying of our old selves that we see in our baptism, where our final transition begins, which will end in the full light and embrace of the eternally scarred hands of who was, at one point in history, just a squalling child birthed by an unknown woman in an uncared for town. And so, all along we’re reminded that it’s not up to us to resolve the tension of the “in-betweens,” but to believe in the one who steps into it himself, who bears our “old” and who becomes our “new,” so that we can walk these last few miles on a road paved with the grace-filled blood of Christ, unburdened and unchained.

The post The Space In-Between appeared first on Red Tree.

Seminary’s main teaching strategy is to send you into the library to scour dusty books written by dead people, to evaluate and synthesize their ideas based on what the Bible says and why, and to bring all of this to bear on everyday life in all of its beauty and brokenness. The benefit of this process is that the ideas are not new and novel, but time-tested. In other words, they are “cold-takes” that have been through the ringer of real life. 

Which brings me to my five probably unoriginal “cold-takes” five years later:

1. Chronological snobbery will always be popular

C.S. Lewis coined the term chronological snobbery and it basically means the uncritical acceptance of the thinking climate common to our own age. In addition to being a great turn of phrase, chronological snobbery is helpful for seeing why all of us are pretty bad at having conversations about most things that are meaningful. It’s also why we desperately need a type of wisdom to come down out of heaven to us, rather than us thinking we only know how to progress based on our own intelligence.

For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age?
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
1 Corinthians 1:19-20  

2. Grace is the change agent of life 

Religion creates a culture of suspicion everywhere it’s found. It’s easy to spot, because it always wears some form of “you have to do this in order to belong here.” Those who view themselves as ‘in’ have a tendency to master the transgressions in the lives of those who are ‘out.’ Unsurprisingly, this isn’t just found in churches, but everywhere where a code of behavior is required for membership, whether written or unwritten. 

Grace, on the other hand, is God’s change agent for life itself. It’s his one-way love to people who don’t deserve it. God’s clearest articulation of undiluted grace 2,000 years ago flipped the world upside down. The same message of one-way love reformed the church 500 years ago, and it continues to transform lives today – making people curious, not judgmental. 

3. Proclaiming is more effective than how-to hacking

Despite all our efforts, our quick fixes and DIY life hacks have failed to rescue us from our very real predicament. We are more anxious and depressed on the whole and less able to even hold a conversation with those we disagree with on important topics. Historically, preaching in the Christian church has not been about telling people how to behave. It’s almost the exact opposite of that – preaching is the proclamation of work that has been done by God. It’s about good news and it is for the afflicted, the downtrodden, the sick, and the broken. It heals precisely because it is not telling the drowning person to swim harder, but an announcement of rescue from God himself.

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Mark 1:14-15

4. The gospel is the answer

Tim Keller died of pancreatic cancer exactly one week before we walked at the commencement ceremony. He was a professor at the school and an example to many of us in ministry in more ways than can be counted. The drum he beat until his dying breath was that the gospel really does change everything and is the answer to our deepest problems. More Tim Kellers would be great but more people going all in on the gospel for all of life would be even better.    

5. Jesus loves you, this I know

Your job doesn’t love you, your achievements can’t save you, and that next thing you think will make you feel better will leave you just as empty and wanting as you are right now. But this is why the gospel matters so much. Indeed, the thing the Apostle Paul resolved to build his entire life upon, was the love that is greater than death in the finished work of Jesus on the cross. Jesus really does love you, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.  

1 Corinthians 2:2-5
For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.  I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.  My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

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Usually, conversations around these matters orbit around why we cancel plans (cue talks about introversion and social media). But I’m more concerned about plans that are canceled for us, by extenuating circumstances, with a tinge of a surprise to them. Why do those kinds of things often feel so refreshing, whatever generation we’re a part of?

An internet meteorologist I follow on Twitter helped shed light on this for me. He posted a forecast for rain, followed with: “I love a rainy morning sometimes. No pressure to save the world today. Just a good day to be lazy after a busy week.” His take, and I’d agree, is that unforeseen weather events lower expectations on us. They take the pressure off.

I used to spend a lot of time on the golf course. And as much as I enjoyed playing, getting rained (or, lightning’d) out would come with a sigh of relief, especially at a tournament, as there wasn’t any pressure to perform at a high level anymore. The stress of competition could wait for another day. “Until then,” the rain said, “go home and rest.” 

The meteorologist’s tweet probably didn’t mean to dip its toe into the theological, but it reminded me of when Jesus, not long before his arrest, predicted his disciples’ flight and abandonment, saying, “The hour is coming when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone.” There’s something about the sufferings of Jesus that send people to their homes, literally and figuratively, like a sudden crack of loud thunder (Lk 12:54-56, Jn 19:27). 

And there’s a reason for this. Every step that Jesus took toward Calvary made it all the clearer that he was accomplishing the salvation of the world on his own. Single-handedly. This is why it was so dark and stormy and even earthquake-y when Jesus was dying — because the cross is the loudest demonstration ever of “You don’t have to save the world today; Jesus already has.” It’s the great plan-canceler of history, for all ages and generations. It interrupts our efforts at saving ourselves and sends us to our homes — not onto great pilgrimages or perilous adventures, but to rest.

When it comes to salvation, it’s 100% better not to work for it than to work for it. And through Jesus, the one who makes it rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous, this is precisely the message the gospel brings to bear: the surprise rainstorm of the gruesome death of the Son of God gives shelter to the good and the bad alike, for it’s by his grace we’re saved, not by our works.

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But, at a recent media webinar, the now-38-year-old said (confessed?) that messes are now ok, due to a reshaping of priorities in her life. 

Pressed further as to the reason for the shift, she says on her website, “Just after my older daughter was born, I felt unable to forgive myself for not being able to manage my life as I had before. But, with time, I eased up on myself; then, after I gave birth to my second daughter, I let go of my need for perfection altogether.”

Wait. What? Just like that?

This is quite the left turn (maybe more, a disheveling ransack?) for the Instagram-perfect and house-tidying world. But it’s not just Kondo’s shift in values, it’s the fact that this way of living was perceived, at least for some, as a deeply spiritual way to live. The one right way, in fact. Kondo was even known for “greeting” each house she tidied up, which looked like a prayer thanking the house for the chance to address the space.

What strikes me the most about all of this is the rationale behind it. The reason for the interruption of this religious lifestyle is her kids! You can almost hear the collective sigh of parents all around the world, saying, “No surprise here.” But for Kondo, this change didn’t just occur out of necessity. It came with a heart check. She saw her kids as a new spark of joy — more than that, an enduring flame — even though it made staying ahead of cleaning more difficult. Relationship broke the back of the rules. Love overcame her need for perfection. 

The story of redemptive history, as the Bible unpacks it, is remarkably similar. In the macro sense, it moves us from the vanity of work, as Ecclesiastes puts it, and the constant call to tidy up our lives, to a new place of rest in a relationship with God. We might also call this a movement from law to grace, from hurrying to stillness. In the micro sense, we see it in stories such as the two sisters, Mary and Martha. When Jesus was coming for a visit, Martha was concerned about the preparations and the work (Luke 10:40), but Mary simply sat at Jesus’s feet. His response was telling: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Maybe this is the type of minimalism that the Bible can actually get behind: the “one thing” of Jesus Christ and him crucified. A relationship with God through his son outpacing and rendering passé the old covenant of “Clean this up and then you will live.” And therein lies the hope, for all of us, no matter how tidy we like to keep our homes: life is better when we own our messes at the foot of the cross, when it’s by the never-ending, always-increasing grace of God that we live and find acceptance with our Creator.

The post Love Sparks Joy appeared first on Red Tree.

***Spoilers galore (and a little cussing) from Knives Out and Glass Onion.

Our family loves the Knives Out story. Mystery. Intrigue. Justice. Grace. Recall the plot. The patriarch, Harlan Thrombey–fully in control–orchestrates events that not only include his own death but simultaneously protect his beloved nurse, Marta, from incrimination. And, oh yeah, he bequeaths all his riches to Marta rather than the Thrombey kin. Why? His children and grandchildren are selfish, greedy, arrogant, reckless, heartless, and ruthless. It’s easy to root for the nurse while wanting justice (i.e. no inheritance) for the patriarch’s immediate family members. 

Now consider Glass Onion, the second Knives Out mystery. Recall the plot. Helen pretends to be her deceased twin sister, Andi, in hopes of identifying her sister’s killer. The entrance of Andi, ‘er Helen, ‘er “Andi” for her island reunion weekend confounds her sister’s so-called friends. As Blanc unfurls the backstory, we uncover the group’s dysfunction as well as the killer’s motive and identity. 

Mystery. Intrigue. Justice. … Grace?

Watching Glass Onion makes you wonder who you are cheering for. Miles Bron manipulates with money. His disruptor friends will “lie for a lie” before deciding to “lie for a truth”…which, despite this transformation, means they’re still liars. 

What about Benjamin Blanc – is he our hero? Before exiting, he becomes complicit (!) in criminal destruction by handing Helen an item used to destroy the Glass Onion – and the Mona Lisa! Even Helen, the formerly quiet, rural, 3rd-grade teacher, shirks justice in favor of retribution on her own terms. 

This film gives us some good laughs, an exciting adrenaline makeover with a thick plot twist, and a creative mystery that resembles the very title of the movie, but something is missing. At the end of the day, I finished the movie longing for something the first film provided that this one didn’t. 

Consider the last line of Glass Onion compared to that within Knives Out. In the former, Benoit Blanc asks, “Did you get the son of a bitch?” to which Helen replies, “Yeah.” Helen’s story is one of retribution. But in Knives Out, after all the horrendous mistreatment by the family toward Marta, she asks Blanc, “This family, I should care for them. Right?” Wow! The family’s treachery will not be met with revenge and this story will not end with Marta getting those SOBs. In short, Marta somehow (supernaturally?) tells a different story than Helen. 

Christian theology teaches a message of low anthropology. This means that, despite our best intentions, we can be just as selfish, greedy, arrogant, reckless, heartless, and ruthless as the Thrombeys or Miles Bron or any one of the “s—heads.” We may not blow up buildings but we light fuses with our biting criticisms. We may be spared the sense of resentment against a loved one’s killer but who isn’t familiar with resentment toward a parent? A spouse? Your child mid-tantrum? Benjamin Blanc solved the case but couldn’t solve the human condition. He soberly and yet fittingly concludes this “just stinks”… kind of like an onion. 

In stories and in life we long for a hero who doesn’t just look at our circumstances with a diagnosis. We long for one who addresses and even resolves the “just stinks” nature of the human condition. The Bible tells the story of one who came to do this very thing.  

Recall the plot. Jesus diagnoses the brokenness of our world, those parts of life which just reek, and brings resolution – even declaring, “I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5). God the Son–fully in control–orchestrates events that not only include his own death but simultaneously protect his beloved–his church–from incrimination. And this gift is not only for the Martas of our world, those described as having “a good heart.” An invitation is extended to the most selfish, greedy, arrogant, reckless, heartless, and ruthless Thrombeys of our world. In his story, Jesus doesn’t stop at mystery, intrigue, or even justice; he ends with grace…for you and for me.

What is more, this grace transforms us. Those who have been given an inheritance, scandalously, apart from their work and expectations, tend to consider others in a new way. They, like Marta, instinctually start to ask, “This person, I should care for them. Right?” Yes. Because Jesus has cared for us at the highest of levels.

What a story Jesus tells! Mystery. Intrigue. Justice. Grace upon grace. Our family loves this story.

The post More Than A Plot Twist appeared first on Red Tree.

One inflammatory opinion gets tossed to the other side of the table and before a reasonable response is given time to form, another grenade is lobbed from the adjacent corner. The contrasting viewpoints suck the air out of the room, but the reason for the title of the skit is soon revealed when a savvy child steps over to the radio and blasts Adele causing the group to break out in harmony together, bonded by a song about heartbreak and relational debris. Perhaps, it takes a child’s eyes to see how only weakness is powerful enough to tear down the walls that divide us. 

What is it about gathering around a table with people who have different views than us that creates such inner instability? Why do we feel a need to put on armor or dig a trench when an opinion is raised we disagree with or find offensive? Maybe we’re afraid of being wrong, exposed, or found out. Maybe that article we read or video we watched that convinced us about the right opinion to hold isn’t even sturdy enough to handle the scrutiny of our delirious uncle. 

Nick Cave, the author of the title track for the famous mob-show on Netflix, “Peaky Blinders,” has a newsletter he started which answers questions from fans, but perhaps is moreso his effort of making sense of the world in light of the grief the comes from being human. Cave is familiar with grief as one has undergone the indescribable pain of losing not one but two children. In a more recent response to the question of whether or not someone should speak up or hold their tongue, he writes about good faith conversations:

“A good faith conversation begins with curiosity. It looks for common ground while making room for disagreement. It should be primarily about exchange of thoughts and information rather than instruction, and it affords us, among other things, the great privilege of being wrong; we feel supported in our unknowing and, in the sincere spirit of inquiry, free to move around the sometimes treacherous waters of ideas. A good faith conversation strengthens our better ideas and challenges, and hopefully corrects, our low-quality or unsound ideas.”

We are prone to unsound ideas because we can never see the whole picture on any topic. By recognizing we all start from the same foggy position of not having everything figured out about anything (see 1 Corinthians 13:12), we can begin to build something with the people we talk with, and bypass the common conversational cancers of seeking to win, inform, or instruct. 

Conversations aren’t math problems. The purpose of a discussion is not to bring our previously discovered right answers to the table and then prove our work in front of others. When we make this mistake, and we all do, we buy into a lie as old as time that we can garner admiration (and even love) by how correct we are – but in reality, we only feed a dynamic of superiority that always breeds disconnection and distance. 

At the end of the day, what we want is to be wanted at the table with no one to impress and nothing to prove. There is an obscure story in the Old Testament that shows us how. In 2 Samuel 9, King David is looking for descendents of Saul, the former king, who had previously made assassinating King David his full time job. Viewers of any big name dramas involving a throne would expect ill will in David’s hunt for a rival challenger to the crown.

Only one descendent is found. His name is really hard to pronounce (Mephibosheth), and he’s a crippled man who is unable to make a living for himself. He is summoned to the palace, and as he is placed before the king, he trembles in fear as one found to be on the wrong side of history. 

But instead of receiving the guillotine, he is shown supernatural kindness. The king restores to him the fortune that would have been his, had his grandfather Saul not perished, and he even receives a nameplated seat at the king’s table for the rest of his life! 

What does this have to do with Thanksgiving turbulence, Adele, and good faith conversations? Everything. In the New Testament, King David is shown to be a small picture of what King Jesus is like ahead of time. This means our place in the story is not the one who wears the crown but is instead the crippled man who is an enemy of the throne. We are uncertain of our lot in life and afraid of the King whose allegiance we betray. But the former enemy of the king, whose physical incapabilities resemble our human incapability of knowing all things and justifying ourselves, is brought into the dining room of royalty to eat with and enjoy the company of the king for the remainder of his days. 

God’s kindness is extended to the treasonous. He prepares a table before the presence of his enemies and makes them family. He bleeds and even dies for traitors so that their invitation to the table is irrevocable and everlasting. 

Jesus was nailed to a tree naked and exposed, absorbing our great fears of being the same. The need to self protect has been dismantled and replaced by the unshakeable safety that there is now nothing to prove, things are settled. Heaven’s heart broke when God himself was crucified, but it became a song that unites enemies of every stripe. We can even take a deep breath and be proven wrong at the dinner table, then go throw more stuffing on our plates. Happy Thanksgiving!

The post Afraid At The Table appeared first on Red Tree.

As dramatic as this scene sounds, all of us suffer under the very same stressors. What is this force that moves us so? We may not (often) physically throw things across the room when life doesn’t fit neatly in the cutout of our expectations, but the same inner turmoil is present. There’s an emotional pandemic that leaves us trying to claw our way upward through life, well acquainted with a sense of isolation and shame when we get anything wrong. It’s the subtle, but powerful work of anxious perfectionism.

Anxious perfectionism fosters a pervasive lie within us: “If I can’t do it perfectly, I won’t do it at all.” The phrase might come across as overly binary, and perhaps even childish, but we see variations of this innate idea all the time in others regardless of age. Hearing friends and people I work with identify and process this force in their experiences serves as a mirror to understanding my own. 

I might argue anxious perfectionism is, in fact, a product of the fall. A product of the law. Rules and standards create expectations of perfection. I have valued the wisdom of a friend of mine on a similar topic: “Children are great listeners but terrible interpreters.” From an early age, we learn to guard our sense of self and our sense of pride closely. We pick up on little things here and there that reinforce two false, internal beliefs:

1. What others think dictates who we are
2. What we do dictates who we are

We start to enact perfectionistic tendencies early – just like our four-year-old friend who threw up the puzzle because he felt his failure – because if what we do impacts who we are then when we fail, we are failures. And our fragile, child hearts can’t handle the feelings we associate with failure. Unfortunately, this childlike fragility doesn’t dissolve when we become adults. 

The pervasive nature of anxious perfectionism has gotten me wondering: if we do this in nearly every part of life, do we also do this in our reading of scripture? Do we try to perfect our scripture reading, and if it isn’t just right, do we stop altogether?

Let’s take me as a case in point. As a woman in what I would describe as the intermediate, maturing years of her faith (no longer a “baby Christian,” leading out in ministries, but not yet walking with the Lord longer than I haven’t), I have been through many phases of reading scripture and exposed to many different “correct” ways of reading it.

I went through my passionate phase: reading scripture all the time, hungry for more and more because the words of life were brand new to me, not having any theological clue, but relying on the Spirit to enlighten me. Too quickly, the “newness” of scripture wore off and my callous heart got bored. So, I started to learn there are actual tools for reading. Books on Christian living. There is even something called “Theology” and several subsets of theology within Theology. [Insert mind-blown emoji.]

I also learned how bad theology hurts people and I began to love learning and using new tools to glean as much as I can from the Bible. However, because of my sin that distorts beautiful things, these good, useful tools (to protect against this hurt) became rules. Consider a few of the following:

1. Don’t do the blindfolded, finger-pointing approach where you open up the bible and pick a verse and start reading. A verse taken out of context is bad news.
2. Don’t read the Bible emotionally. Jesus isn’t your boyfriend, and the bible isn’t a self-help book for you to get your daily pick-me-up.
3. Do study the text in its historical context.
4. Do consult commentaries, but do not only read commentaries, theological books, or Christian living books– you need to love Scripture the most.

And on and on. These rules, and more, have played on repeat in my mind. Then, I feel stuck. I don’t use any of them. I don’t even pick up my Bible sometimes because I fear if I choose one, I may be offending or not doing the other correctly. There’s a sense of worry that I will be wasting my time because I won’t actually encounter Jesus in my time reading because I think there is a “right way” for me to get to him. Further, both of the false internal beliefs spin out in a way that makes me question my sense of worth and value.

The first one, “what others think dictates who I am” proclaims: If I read and interpret using one of the wrong methods, I will be disappointing one of the people who taught me said tool, and if I disappoint one of these teachers, then I will be a disappointment! If I am a disappointment, then I am worthless.

Or the second internal belief that “what we do dictates who we are,” chimes in even louder: If I read and interpret using one of the wrong methods then I will be doing it wrong.  And if I am doing it wrong, then I am incapable of doing it right, indicating I, myself, am incompetent and even inadequate.

So yes, even in reading scripture, I tend toward wanting to make myself right by what I do and of my own accord. I create new laws to achieve my desired end of being perfect. And perfectionism says, “you can’t do it wrong.” Then anxiety pulls the thread further: “Just don’t do it at all.” 

Here is where Jesus brings a better word to anxious perfectionists like me. 

After his resurrection, he appeared to his disciples and said to them, “These are the words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures” (Luke 24:44-45, italics added). We could use every good and useful tool, read every theological powerhouse book under the sun, even earn a Master’s in Divinity, and yet still have a veil up to understanding the true meaning of the Bible. But, Christ himself is the Word, and his death tore the veil to the barrier of understanding scripture. He was torn on the cross for us, in order to mend our separation from God; and not only is the separation removed, but he actually walks towards us, just like he does the two guys getting this Bible lesson in Luke 24. He doesn’t hide behind the correct tools or interpretative rules, waiting for us to get it just right. He wants to be known and is actively revealing himself now through the Holy Spirit, just as he did to the two men on the road 2,000 years ago. 

When we trust in Jesus and not our perfected reading of scripture, our approach to reading the Word might even manifest itself in surprising ways. In this season of my life, one of the ways Christ has been meeting with me and healing my anxious perfectionism is through The Message (a loose paraphrase of the Bible written by Eugene Peterson). The Message has been a balm to my hard heart and has helped my mom-brain settle and receive Christ. While far from perfect, and not even considered a legitimate translation, it has helped me experience the gospel and move away from simply having a cognitive understanding to having an affective, heart understanding.

If you’re in a season of drought from reading the Bible due to having too many tools in the tool belt, or perhaps don’t feel equipped with any tools at all and don’t know where to begin, hear this: you don’t need to read the Bible perfectly. Take my word for it. My contribution to Bible reading is anxious perfectionism. But the gospel tells me I’m not the only one present when I open up these pages. Jesus is alive and his non-anxious presence casts out fear through blood-bought love. He desires to be known, therefore, you don’t need to employ every tool you’ve ever learned every time you open the Bible. Instead, take up and read knowing that the veil has been torn. He is our rest, even when it comes to reading the Bible.

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I’m a big fan of Marvel. I have watched all the movies, shows, and end credit scenes. I love the thrill of watching one of them for the first time. They bring a certain assurance with them. I know they’ll be exciting, maybe even a little sad, but the end will be happy. The good guys will ultimately win the day. You’ll leave the theater feeling capable and light because good always triumphs in the end. 

But that’s not really the case with Doctor Strange 2. The movie, while peppered with the usual sarcastic flair that makes Marvel movies fun to watch, is unlike any other in the line-up. The line between good and evil is blurred, and you are given no clear, happy resolution. I was uncomfortable watching it, and it took me a little while to figure out why.

Perhaps you’ve seen the spectrum of responses to the movie. Some people love it, others hate it, but all agree it is a dark first leap for Marvel into the horror genre. I had heard quite a bit about the witchcraft involved, the zombie appearances, the gore, etc. I knew it was going to be different. But these aren’t the things that made me squirm in my theater seat. The problem was with Wanda.

Wanda Maximoff is one of my favorite Marvel superheroes—her powers are born from loss and pain, both of which seem to torment her relentlessly. Wanda’s primary role in the Infinity War/End Game movies is to lose the love of her life. Then again, the cold grip of loss and pain steers the story in the Disney+ series WandaVision. But throughout the stories, she is the good guy, the hero who ultimately tries to right the wrongs and resist the evil forces seeking to dominate our world. She makes bad choices, but they are born from grief, and therefore feel excusable. But in Doctor Strange 2, Wanda rides the black horse. She is the aggressor, the one who chases. She hunts her prey, unintimidated and unstoppable. Out of all the Marvel villains, she terrorizes her way to the top as the most brutal, the most powerful. She embodies unfettered inescapable evil. The stuff reserved for nightmares.

Marvel has not hesitated to show the flaws in its heroes. That’s a huge part of the joy of watching them. We get to see the cracks in their armor, and yet they (almost) always prevail. Sinking into the Marvel universe is actually quite a lovely escape from reality. There, good will triumph. Good will be on this side, and evil will be on that side. Flawed does not equal evil in the other Marvel movies. Flawed equals more relatable, it tells us we are allowed to be flawed and yet still be the good guys too. We get to come away feeling like we are and always were on the side of Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man. We root for the good guys because we are the good guys. Marvel becomes our rose-colored mirror, our filtered “good guy” selfie.

But in this movie, Wanda the good guy becomes the Scarlet Witch, interrupting the balance. There is no point at which you can watch her doggedly and unapologetically limping after the heroes and not be terrified. There is no redemption waiting for her at the end, no caveat that will make her wicked pursuit forgivable. Death must bring her painful story to an end. There is no room for us to relate to her and still come away from the movie feeling good about ourselves. Wanda strips the rose tint off of our mirror and replaces it with blood. A character many of us relate so strongly to has just pulled the rug out from under us. And the discomfort in the movie theater didn’t come from feeling like I could no longer relate to her. The discomfort came from the realization that this tirade she was on was, in fact, uncomfortably relatable. This nose-dive to the belly of evil is something I understand, but seek to avoid about myself. We much prefer being able to relate to a flaw and then have it quickly outnumbered and forgotten by all the good things that we do as our own types of superheroes. I can ignore the impatience I have with my children because I packed stellar lunches for them. I can turn my eyes from the selfishness I show in my marriage because of the other ways in which I serve my husband. One outweighs the other, right? This unending onslaught of my darker reality was not what I signed up for in going to a Marvel film. 

As I sat watching this movie, it was as if I was seeing a picture of myself for who I truly am: a blood-soaked, unredeemable sinner, who unflinchingly hurts others in order to achieve her own goals. My fingers black, my eyes red, my gaze wild. There’s no saving me. I’m too far gone.

Except.

Where this fictional story ends, with the Scarlet Witch bringing her temple down on top of herself, mine does not. 

My Scarlet-Witch-self deserves it, but unlike Doctor Strange who could not save her, my own savior stepped into the chasm with me. In his own Samson-like way, Jesus took my place under that crumbling temple while my redeemed, unstained, undeserving self walked away alive and forgiven. 

It’s not often that the world gives us such a clear picture of our own hearts, where a seemingly “good guy” peels back the layer and shows the rot underneath with no chance for a cure. I am thankful for the discomfort that I felt in the theater because while I ate the popcorn, I got to see just how amazing it is that Jesus looked at these Wanda-esque, unredeemable qualities in me and still came running down the mountain for me. 

While this was not the normal Marvel experience I anticipated, I found this discomfort was, in the end, perhaps even more of a balm for my weary soul than the rose-colored “everyone is a hero” mantra we normally seek after. It allowed me to unclench my fists a bit (except, you know, during the jump-scares) and relax into this unbelievable grace that is so freely offered at the foot of the cross. 

The post Riding the Dark Horse appeared first on Red Tree.

Fashion trends come and go like the wind, and if you’re concerned with trying to keep up, you find yourself needing to buy new clothes much more often. It reminded me of this little thing called planned obsolescence, and how it might be partly to blame for the unwelcome cycle of replacing things at high rates of frequency.

Planned obsolescence is “a policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete and so require replacing, achieved by frequent changes in design and the use of nondurable materials.” We see it in things like the lifespan of lightbulbs, irreplaceable batteries in tech products, short-lasting printer ink cartridges (ugh!), and even major appliances. My wife and I have replaced our dishwasher 3 times in the 16 years we’ve owned our home. That’s…not awesome.

The idea is that if things fail quicker, then people will be forced to replace them or buy the updated versions at a faster pace. Is it legal? Depends on who you ask. But from a business standpoint, it makes sense how companies would benefit from designing products that don’t last forever. Why not create a felt sense of need between you and your customer base that pads your pockets? 

So, planned obsolescence is a bad thing for consumers. What’s interesting, though, is that the Bible spins this idea in a positive light. Not with lightbulbs or iPhones, but with covenants.

Hebrews 8:13 says, “By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.” The author of Hebrews is referencing Jeremiah, an Old Testament prophet, and essentially saying that even 700 years before Christ, the old system — epitomized by “Do this and then you will live” (Lev 18:5) — was, itself, growing old. It was starting to fade. So God promised a new one that dawned with Christ’s first advent, culminated in his death and resurrection, and has been opening up like a flower under the sun ever since.

God wasn’t surprised by any of this. Jesus wasn’t his plan B. He designed the first covenant to fail. He planned its obsolescence. The laws and ordinances that stood between God and Israel, wrapped up with their conditions, “if-thens,” and associated judgments, were always meant to give way to a new and better design. They served a purpose for a time, exposing humanity’s faults like a mirror, pointing ahead to greener pastures. But now those pastures are here, pastures that would be defined by grace, one-way love, and divine self-sacrifice.

That’s good news. See, it’s not just the old system proper that’s disappearing, but what the system precluded. God, through Jesus Christ, has “outdated” our attempts at proving ourselves, since his atoning death has purchased our forgiveness. He has made obsolete the need to wash up before we enter into his presence since we are cleansed not by our actions but by his. He has shown our acts of piety to be “nondurable” since his Son’s blood has spoken a much sturdier word, the word of his own suffering.

And so we’re left with only one product to buy — the new product — but we don’t have to spend anything for it. It’s free. More than that, it will never go out of style. It’s built to last forever because it’s built on God himself and his “better promises” (Heb 8:6), not on us. Maybe that’ll take the edge off the frustration the next time we need to hop on Amazon to buy printer ink (yet again). All things are like grass, meant to wither, even the old works-centered covenant itself so that we might get outside ourselves and long for that which truly lasts.

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This post originally appeared on mbird.com

The post The Planned Obsolescence of the Law appeared first on Red Tree.

A grizzly bear might actually be preferable to people because the vulnerability of actually being known so often becomes a weapon wielded against us in judgment. But God plays the long game with us in his task of “look[ing] past your protective façade” and revealing the true contents of our hearts. I’m convinced the Old Testament is as long as it is and contains as many stories as it does to communicate, without much room for debate, the universal and consistent human problem of self-deceit leading to self-righteousness. If we were to simply be told from above, “you are deceived,” we’re not as likely to take the idea very seriously. However, if we see thousands of years of human history play out like a Netflix drama, our guard is let down a bit and we begin to see ourselves as we actually are — that is, we are far more often the problem than we are the solution. Despite our best efforts, we’re usually not that awesome to one another.

If we are so often self-deceived, seeing the faults in others almost comes naturally. Jesus asked: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” This question is one of many invitations to see how often we buy into the Great Lie of Criticism, believing we will feel better once we verbalize the fault we find in others. Instead, we never arrive because criticism can’t lead to the intimacy and enjoyment we all long for — especially in our relationships with other people.

What then are we to do with our cocktail of self-deception and scrutiny? For starters, we can lay down our critical observations and start treating people as God treats us in Christ. This is not only easier said than done, but it’s actually impossible. That is, until we see God doing it to us today, and every day.

Isaiah says that God’s thoughts and ways are not like ours,; they are higher than our thoughts and ways. In other words, he sees us but does not recoil or lash out. He operates on a different playing field, not treating us as our faults deserve, but instead always moves toward us until in his death on a cross, he loves the hell right out of us.

Jesus died for our self-righteous fault finding. If this is true, than we are free to no longer measure, assess, and scrutinize others. In him, it is possible to interrupt the laws of nature and feel a true sense of benevolence toward someone we might not be all that excited to see. This isn’t something we’re meant to fake or make happen on our own — we need Jesus, the one who is removing the plank from our eyes to see ourselves as we actually are: simultaneously sinful yet loved and justified by God. Only his good news lets us hug the attacking grizzly bear of truly being seen.

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This post originally appeared on mbird.com

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