Dealing with our "faults"

   In computers, errors are a constant source of problems.  Almost every part of a computer tries to detect and even fix errors as they occur.  Your hard-drive stores a value called a checksum on every 4K byte sector and whenever that sector is read, a checksum is computed and compared to the value stored.   If there is a mismatch, the computer might try to re-read the sector again to fix the error.  Your computer memory can have Error-Code-Correcting bits stored to not only detect a bit flip (0 becomes 1 or a 1 becomes 0) it can actually determine which bit is wrong and fix it on the fly.  When your computer sends or receives data over the internet, its data is checked and re-checked along the way to make sure it arrives unchanged from the source.

   But there is one place in a computer where errors are hard to detect and fix.  That place is the microprocessor.  Often referred to as the "brains" of the computer it can't see where it's going wrong. If it adds 1+1 and gets 3, then it will always add and get the same number.  The only way for it to detect a fault is to compare itself to another CPU running the same code in parallel with the idea that having two-heads is better than one.  But even if it does see a mismatch with the other CPU, it can't determine who is wrong and who is right.

   We as humans are like these microprocessors.  We know we are not perfect and we look to find someone to compare our lives to in order to stay on track.  It might be a sports figure like Tom Brady or a Hollywood actor like John Wayne.   But these people are as faulty as we are and we are always disappointed in the end. 

   In Psalm 19:12, King David writes:

   "Who can discern his errors?
    Forgive my hidden faults"

    I remember when a friend of mine suffered a mental breakdown from the struggles of life.  I had not seen him in many years and he came back to our company to work with us.  We could tell something was wrong with him and at first just ignored it.   After a few weeks though it became very apparent to all that he was not right in his head.  He was sending out long winded emails to various people about things that had nothing to do with work.  He wasn't coming into work but was working from home.  My boss sent me to go talk to him and see what was wrong.   I went to his place and it was like a scene out of the movies "A Beautiful Mind".  The walls of his apartment were covered with newspaper and magazine articles and the floor was cluttered with empty bottles of Coke and boxes of pizza and Chinese food.  I tried to get through to him that he needed help but he was convinced he was fine and in need of no help.  He was sure that everything was going to be fine once he solved this problem he was working on for our company.

  Our brains, like my friends, are so fouled up with sin we cannot even see our own faults.  We may even think that certain qualities we have are "good"  when in fact they are "bad" for us.   We have hidden our faults so well we can't even see them anymore.   But God does see them and he has pity on us.

   Jesus said to the crowds below him as he hung on the cross

  "Father!  Forgive them for they know not what they are doing!"

He was not just saying that to the Pharisees that had come to witness his death, but also about us as well.   We think we know so much these days and are convinced that it's GOD that has it all wrong and not us.   We are fine and everything will be better once we fix these few problems we have.

  So where are we left?   Who do we compare ourselves to?  How do we make sure we don't go too far away from where we should be?

Jesus has the answer:

 "I am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE.  

   No one comes to the Father except by me"

I highlight the word TRUTH here because he is who we are supposed to be.  He is the benchmark.  Of course we can never measure up and he knows that.  That is why he credits our lives with his righteousness and atones for us.

No Shortcuts

My son when he has about 8 or 9 would often ask when we were driving somewhere "Dad? Do you know a shortcut?"  To his question I would have to reply "No Derek. There are no shortcuts".   

We are all like my son Derek.  We look for short cuts in life to make our lives easier in some way.  Some people who are scared of marriage think that living together is a way to "short-cut" the process.  Marriage seems to long and difficult and we want a way to "try it out before buying".  But all too often this only worsens the relationship when they do decide to get married because they have developed bad habits that are not conducive to a good marriage.  Some people never even get to the alter at all and waste many years trying to convince the other to take that final step.  

Other people who get addicted to drugs see drugs as a way to "short-cut" the process to feeling good.   Our brains develop their own opiates internally but it takes a lot of hard work to produce them naturally.   A pill form is so much easier of a process and many go fall for it's false claim.  We look for short-cuts in our jobs and careers.   It could be lying to customers to gain sales or lying to our boss to gain their confidence. Eventually these lies catch up with us in the end. 

We also want shortcuts when it comes to our faith too.  Do I have to go to church?  Can't i just listen to the sermon when I have nothing better to do?  Do I have to give money to the church?  Can't i just tweet or give a Facebook share once and a while?  Do my kids really have to spend 2 years in confirmation?  Can't they just go on a weekend retreat and cover everything they need to know?  Do I have to forgive my brother or sister who sins against me?  Can't i just send them a text on their birthday or something?

In Matthew that when Jesus was about to be crucified they tried to give him wine mixed with gall which was a type of pain killer to help make him less resistant to them nailing him.  Jesus instead spits it out and refuses to drink it.   Here is Jesus being given a pain killer to help get him through it and he refuses to drink it.  One wonders what the soldiers thought when they saw this.  I hate pain so much I would be just the opposite here and drink as much as I could, but not our Savior.  No one was going to be able to point at him and say later, "He didn't feel a thing!".  He was determined to take all of our suffering on him.

Jesus never took a short-cut to saving us and we should never take short-cuts in our relationship with him or with each other.   

WHY

   The word "why" seems to be one of the first words children seem to learn, right after "momma", "dadda" and "no".    This word can drive a parent to near insanity on long car rides.

Why is the sky blue?
Why is the grass green?
Why can't I drive the car?
Why do we need to go on vacation?
Why can't we stop for ice cream?

The questions seem unending to a young parent.  This line of questioning would put a CIA operative to shame who must resort to water-boarding to inflict higher levels of pain and mental distress.

Some questions of "why" we can answer, but the child is too young to even understand our answer if we gave it to them.   We know that such answers would only be open to 10 more "why" questions that we don't have the time or energy to answer.  To this, we often resort to our simple answer:  "Because it just IS!",  This answer will hold a 5 year old for about 10 seconds before they bellow out a loud "WHY?" from the back seat of the car.

On Good Friday, while Jesus is hanging on the cross he screams out a question for God the Father to answer:

"My God! My God!  Why have you forsaken me?"

Christ, suspended on a cross between two worlds: earth and heaven.  Rejected by the earth and forsaken by the Father.

Why?

Why is often the hardest question to answer in stories like this.  Journalists can give you the Who, What, Where and How, but often they struggle to come up with the WHY.    When a crazed husband shoots his wife at her school and 2 other children we are left empty when we search for the reason of WHY.  Or when a soldier sees his friend take on heavy fire from the enemy and dies so he can crawl to safety we are left empty as we search for the answer to WHY.

The answer to Jesus' question comes to us earlier in the book of John

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life"

The answer is because he loves us.

All to often we get too caught up in answering the other questions that we overlook (or maybe we just don't want to face it) the most important of questions.  Knowing HOW Jesus died, WHERE Jesus died, WHEN Jesus died won't bring you any closer to God.  Today we are blessed with great cinematography and actors who can portray Christ's suffering in great detail and almost make you feel like you are standing right there under the cross.  But that won't save anyone.  Only when they come to face the question of WHY... are lives changed.   When we see that it was for US that Christ died.  He acted as the mother stepping in front of her child to shield them from the oncoming bullet to protect them.

I have often found it amazing that the one thing you can say to a child that you will never get a WHY question for is this:   I LOVE YOU!

Children just get it.  They accept it.   They know they are not perfect, but they accept the love of their parent as irrefutable and will often immediately respond with "I LOVE YOU DADDY!"

God loves you too and all he asks us to do is to accept it and not ask WHY.

Take up your cross and follow me!

   As Christians, we have all read Jesus famous words, "Take up your cross and follow me!"   We think about them when faced with adversity or painful suffering for the faith.  I am sure that the people who were standing there listening to Jesus must have had their eyes bugging out of their heads when they heard it.   They knew EXACTLY what Jesus meant.  They had witnessed the brutal Roman execution method hundreds, if not thousands of times.   The Romans had used it on a group of Jews who had tried to start a rebellion and had lined the roads leading to Jerusalem with their crosses as warning to anyone thinking they could secede from Rome.  To Christians living today in countries where paying this ultimate sacrifice is as likely as a snow day in Miami, its hard to put into perspective.   We sometimes carelessly use this phrase when we face some sort of minor adversity, "Oh well we all have our crosses to bear!"  ( I have never liked this use of this verse )

    But I think Jesus was not only referring to the ultimate cost of being a disciple, but also the physical act of forgiveness.  One reason I believe this is because of one little word we overlook in the verse we quote,

3 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 

   That little word "daily" says it all.  For if Jesus was talking about carrying a real cross, then you certainly would not be able to do that "daily".  While, yes, we do suffer insults and harsh criticism for being a follower of Jesus, we don't often take on martyrdom for the faith.  However we must look more at this verse and ask ourselves this question: what was Jesus doing on that cross for us?   He lovingly picked up that cross-beam and carried it to Golgatha so our sins can be wiped clean before God.   He took the beatings, whippings, flogging and crucifixion so we would not need to.  He bore our sins for us to repair the relationship between us and God.

   So how does that relate to us?

   Jesus often talked about the need for us to forgive one another as we have been forgiven.  This forgiveness is not cheap.  It comes at a price.  It can be painful.  It can be difficult.  We are called to pick up our sin-bearing crosses as well for those who have sinned against us!   We don't do this grudgingly but are called to have the same mindset of Christ himself who

"For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God

   Forgiveness is often hard.  The pain that others have inflicted on us from their carelessness and lack of love for us .... hurts.  That pain is inversely proportioned to how close they are to us.  The closer the more painful it is.  

    Peter asks Jesus a "hypothetical" question when he asks:  "Lord how often should I forgive my brother?  Seven times?".   Sometimes I wonder which "brother" Peter had in mind when he was asking this?  Was it one of the disciples?  To this Jesus replies, "Not seven times, but SEVEN TIMES SEVENTY!"   This was akin the Buzz Lightyear phrase:  "To Infinity and Beyond!"

    The "sins of a brother" are more sinister than just the sin of a stranger.  The stranger has no desire to be in a relationship with us.  Because of this, those sins hold no power over them.  The sins of a brother are from someone who wants to be in a relationship with us, therefore they give us power over them.    We can dangle those sins in front of their faces when we want or need something from them. But that is not what Christ wants from us.   Christ was faced with the same problem.  The sins we have done against God were against him.  Yet he did not hold onto them.  He carried them to the cross and left them there.

   The other aspect that Jesus confronts with forgiving a brother "Seven time Seventy!" is that because we are in relationship with that brother/sister they WILL sin against us again.... and again.... and again.  It's been said that it's often easier to forgive a total stranger than it is to forgive a family member.  The stranger will be gone a few minutes from now, but a family member is near you constantly.   The stranger's offense is a one-and-done sin (like a bee sting) that hurts for a short while.  But a person close to you will hurt you on a daily, if not hourly, basis.   Like the scourging Jesus received from the Roman soldiers.  It can feel like it will never end.  You might think it's over (the time between offenses) like Jesus might have felt between the beatings.  But it's not!  The person was just reloading.  

   The easy way is the way Peter was hoping for.  He was hoping for a limit on forgiveness that would allow him to end the relationship and thereby end the pain they  might inflict on us.  You can almost hear Peter pleading with Jesus as he offers him his "seven times?" bargain hunting expedition.  Ending the relationship is always easier.  The problem is that we end up cutting all ties to everyone.  CS Lewis wrote in his book, "The Great Divorce", about driving through hell where people were separated from each other by light-years of distance.  They were not separated like that by God but by their own doing.  They would rather live all alone than be possibly hurt by their interaction with other people.

  That is not how Christ wants us to be.  He ended the separation between US and GOD.  We, as well, should take up our cross of forgiving others for the JOY of having them back in relationship with us. So we too should join him in his endeavor to heal broken relationships by taking up our crosses of forgiveness of those close to us as well.