Passover

The table is set before you
As you are guided to your seat.
The invigorating aroma of delightful food
Oh, how excited you are to eat!
The table is set formally,
But you frown as you have not dressed as such
Will you be given the same food?
Or just not quite as much?

You look around at some of the guests
With their façade of makeup and coverings
As pigs with pearls in their snouts
You know you aren’t as becoming.
Will you be moved to another seat, yet another place?
Is this seat a mistake?
Isn’t your place with the dogs
Who beg for food from plates?

However, you do not fear
For you know the owner of this table!
He does not play favorites, He loves us all
And welcomes the willing and able.
For He gave you a ticket,
An invitation,
To come to His majestic table.
And that ticket is your justification
So that you will not be mislabeled.

How many are here without a ticket?
Do they not know the hour is coming?
Or are they deaf to reason and logic
That this table did not come from nothing!

Oh, you try to bridge a conversation
To a person without a ticket
They respond,  “Oh, gosh! You are antiquated!
There will not be any condemnation!”
How do you know and are you sure?
That is what you ask
They respond, “Because there are no rights or wrongs!
It is just cultures that make moral statements.”
You ask, for which culture is forward, which one is backward?
Which one is going the right way?
They scowl and turn their face
And then tell you to go away.

Then the overhead light flickers
The owner has come home!
Some guests seem not to even notice
The majesty of His throne.
Nothing we do compares to His holiness
No grandiose coverings will due
For the Lord knows the depths
Of our moral turpitude.
So the meal is set before you,
It is the Passover lamb
Your invitation then turns to blood
And you know that you can stand.

But for those who are at the table
Sitting in their relativistic worldview stance
What will they say to the owner?
Are they willing to take that chance?

 

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The Highest Law of the Land

The Tucson sun beat in through my double-pane office window, I could the feel the heat attacking them.  The late spring time temperature was soaring close to the triple digits.  Thankfully, the spring mornings are relatively cool, almost teasing your body and mind.  I turned back my attention to the student in my office, my indifference easily readable to even the most absent-minded passerby.  My gaze met the student’s eyes for a mere second and I knew the delay in my response was causing the tears to further well into their eyes.  “Good, they deserve that feeling,” I coldly thought.  I pressed into the student then, thwarting down their vain attempt to improve on their failing grade.  “You will fail, regardless of what occurs here,” I surmised. My insinuation leveled their tears and brought forward a sterner disposition.  Pleasantries were offered and the conversation promptly ended.

That was in 2003, when the unsettling discourse and struggles of my own academic life started to powerfully ooze into my interactions with students.  I was a starved shark just looking for a minnow.  The momentary power-trip, albeit rare, was elating, providing a momentary lift from my personal frustrations.

How do we weigh the damage that was inflicted and inevitable caused?  How many future students does it take to offset the destruction of just this one? Was there a law that I violated, punishable by our judicial system?  No. But does that it make it right?  No. What other wrongs have we committed that are outside of our judicial system?  Is something wrong/right just because our judicial systems says it is?   Heck, on the Vegas strip prostitution is legal.  Binge-drinking is not outlawed nor is smoking, albeit how damaging it is to your own health. Laws will inevitably be passed, it is up to the individual to realize the ultimate totality of truth that they may hold.  However, where does the selection of our morality stem from?  In other words, there is a set of actions, say A and B.  Who chose A (do not rape) to be the just and right one? If our morality purely stems from an undirected evolutionary design, if the process was repeated would B (rape is acceptable) now be selected? Or does the process need direction, guidance to obtain A again.  What information is then needed and where does that stem from? At an even higher level, why is justice preferred over injustice?  Why is altruism deemed honorable, while selfishness dishonorable.  Why choose such virtues as correct and true?

It reminds me off Psalm 40:8, ‘I desire to do your will, my God;  your law is within my heart.’  I, like you, strive to do what is right, to follow the law within my heart, yet I, like the apostle Paul, do the very things that I know are wrong (Romans 7:24).   I am guilty of an uncountable amount of crimes to the law written on my heart, who will save me? If justice exists then I am guilty, but the loving judge does not wish to seek the punishment on me.  However, justice must be satisfied, someone must pay the penalty.

‘I’ll pay,’ is what Jesus says to my heart and I accept that forgiveness.

Praise you God for offering forgiveness.  Offering the only path to redemption and justification.  For I am a glass of water tainted by oil and my ‘good’ works only put more water in without ever removing that dirty old oil.

A Reversal

A video (and poem) Courtesy of  Deo Volente Media —- Video Link

I live my life according to these beliefs.
God does not exist.
Its just foolish to think
That there is an all knowing God with a cosmic plan.
That an all powerful God brings purpose to the pain and suffering in the world
is a comforting thought however
It is only wishful thinking.
People can do as they please without eternal consequences.
The idea that
I am deserving of hell
Because of sin,
Is a lie meant to make me a slave to those in power
“The more you have, the happier you will be.”
Our existence has no grand meaning or purpose.
In a world with no God
There is freedom to be who I want to be
But with God
Life is an endless cycle of guilt and shame.
Without god
Everything is fine.
It is ridiculous to think
I am lost and in need of saving.

And that’s how I felt before Christ opened my eyes, changed my heart, and reversed my thinking.

I am lost and in need of saving.
It is ridiculous to think
Everything is fine.
Without god
Life is an endless cycle of guilt and shame.
But with God
There is freedom to be who I want to be.
In a world with no God
Our existence has no grand meaning or purpose,
“The more you have, the happier you will be.”
Is a lie meant to make me a slave to those in power.
Because of sin,
I am deserving of hell.
The idea that
People can do as they please without eternal consequences.
It is only wishful thinking
It is a comforting thought however
That an all powerful God brings purpose to the pain and suffering in the world.
That there is an all knowing God with a cosmic plan.
It is just foolish to think
God does not exist.
I live my life according to these beliefs.