John Fischer The Catch

This morning I’m thinking of Moses in bed – his veil, like Eleanor Rigby’s face, safely ensconced in a jar that he keeps by the door. His wife, who for many days had been sleeping in another room because of the glory on her husband’s face that kept her up all night, is now peacefully tucked in next to him, since that glow had faded away to next to nothing. She’s happy to have her husband back, but tonight, it’s her husband who isn’t sleeping. Moses’ eyes are wide open and focused on a crack in the ceiling barely visible in the pale moonlight. His wife’s rhythmic breathing, which should be a comfort to him, is only a reminder of the fact that he is no longer wearing on his face the visible evidence of being the only human being to have been as close as he was to the actual presence of God.

Tonight he’s wondering whether continuing to wear the veil is such a good idea after all. It was Aaron who first suggested it. Not that he hadn’t thought of it too, he just hadn’t had the nerve to voice it. It had been a decision he and Aaron had made originally for the best of reasons – not wanting the people to witness the fading glory and worry that God was leaving them as well. It was hard enough to keep their hopes up out here in the desert where even some of their worst memories of life in Egypt seemed better in hindsight than what they were currently experiencing in this dreadful place.

But Moses was now being increasingly bothered by how much his own ego was becoming involved. In his most honest moments, like this one, he was tired of living a lie. But the alternative was becoming equally undesirable: What would the people think of him? It was knowing that he had to address the whole nation that day that kept him up. What would it take for him to walk out there and leave the veil in its jar? He knew now the answer to that question and that’s what was bothering him. Though he knew what it would take, he didn’t know if he could do it.

First, it would take total trust in God that He was the true leader of the people. If God gave him the brightness, and God took it away, then God must know what He was doing. Perhaps He had another plan that Moses didn’t know about. If He did, Moses wouldn’t ever know what that plan was without taking the risk of facing the people unveiled. The problem was that whenever he convinced himself that he could take that risk, he was met with another obstacle: what would the people think of him? He would be a failure – a total flop. Not only that, they would want to know how long he had been fooling them by wearing the veil when he no longer had to. It was that last thought that made Moses walk out the door later that morning with the veil hiding his sleep-depraved, bloodshot eyes. And each day after that, the veil became easier to wear and harder to take off.

What Moses didn’t know is what you and I have access to today through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. We have the Spirit of God alive in us, so that He can be seen in and through our human frailties and weaknesses. Instead of wearing the brightness on our face, we have it in our hearts. We aren’t perfect; we are in process, but when we believe and keep our eyes focused on the Lord, He will be reflected in and through us, because the glory Moses once had on his face has become our permanent possession by faith.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

You don’t tug on superman’s cape.
You don’t spit into the wind.
You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger,
Or the veil over Moses’ skin.
– Jim Croce (and John Fischer)

…or something like that! (It actually sings pretty well!)

Of course we paid no heed to this warning yesterday when we reflected on Clark Kent saving people without his Superman getup. I remembered this song yesterday and it made me think of how we not only wear veils to hide our own fears and insecurities, we are expected to support everyone else’s attempt to do the same. Spiritual veildom is sacred ground not to be tread upon.

I’m referring here, for those of you who are new to this discussion, to Moses’ habit, as recorded in Exodus 34:29-35, of wearing a veil over his face at all times, and how Paul reveals in 2 Corinthians 3:12 that the purpose of wearing that veil changed dramatically over time, from protecting the people from the brightness on his face to protecting them from knowing that the brightness had faded away. Paul then goes on to point out how it is human nature for all of us to cover up our inadequacies when we are trusting in ourselves. “… for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read” (2 Corinthians 3:14).

There is one side of this that has to do with Moses trying to protect himself and the people he was leading from the truth, but there is also the angle of everyone else’s perpetuation of the lie. We don’t tug on the veils of those around us because it might threaten our own. It’s an unwritten rule to guard everyone’s tendency to hide. Who knows what horrible thing might happen if even one guy lets his guard down.

It’s the same thing in Christian circles today. When just one person in a group risks vulnerability, everybody is threatened. It makes you wonder if those closest to Moses knew that the glory on his face had long faded away, but God forbid they would be the one to divulge the secret.

But for the same reason no one wants to be revealed, everyone also wants to be free of the lie. If only one person comes clean, everyone else will be encouraged to follow suit, especially when we discover the liberty of being set free from trying to be something we are not, and the joy of discovering that God’s sufficiency is truly only found in and through the embracing of our own insufficiency.

Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant. (2 Corinthians 3:4-6)

Marti tells me she has trouble with the use of the word “adequacy” here. It just doesn’t convey meaning to her. So in case there is anyone else in that same boat, let’s try another way to say this.

What we’re talking about here, I think, is the source of our strength. If we are trusting in ourselves for what we need for life then we are going to have to face our fears and insecurities and come up with something clever to hide them. If we are trusting in the Lord, our fears and insecurities won’t matter, because He will be making us capable of being His servants in spite of ourselves.

The best illustration of this is the same one Paul used in 2 Corinthians 3: Moses. When Moses came down from being with God on the mountain, his face was glowing. It was so bright he had to put on a veil so he could carry on normal life in the camp. But when he found out that the brightness didn’t last, he kept the veil on anyway, because he didn’t want the people to see the glory fade and think that God had left them. So Moses was covering up his sense of inadequacy, shrinking back into himself and putting forth a false impression. Had he been able to trust as we can today in the new covenant, he would have realized it didn’t matter whether his face was shining or not, because God had given him everything he needed to lead the people. God would show up one way or another.

If we stay stuck in our fears and insecurities, we will never find out what God is capable of doing in and through us.

It’s all about the source of our strength: is it ourselves or is it the Lord? If it’s ourselves then we will have to come up with something clever to hide our weaknesses or insecurities. If it’s the Lord, those weaknesses or insecurities won’t matter.

This is what makes the new covenant so liberating. Whatever your excuse is doesn’t matter because it is God who is making you capable as His servant to do what He wants you to do. This is not about some magic genie that makes our fears and insecurities vanish. It’s the presence of God that makes us capable in spite of them.

It’s not that my sense of inadequacy goes away; it’s just that it doesn’t matter because God is making me sufficient for what He wants me to do.

It’s not that my fear goes away; it’s just that it doesn’t matter in light of the courage God gives me to step into what I’m afraid of.

It’s not that my shyness or insecurity disappears; it’s just that I possess a new boldness in Christ in spite of myself.

It’s like superman without the phone booth – Clark Kent without the cape. He still needs his glasses because his eyes are bad, and he’s still a shy person, but it doesn’t matter because he realizes he has the power to help people so he does it anyway. Wait a minute: You’re telling me that shy, insecure looking guy with the big glasses is stopping that train and saving all those people? How is he doing that? He’s doing it because God is giving him the strength to do it.

Are these just words or are they realities we can put to the test in the trenches of our lives? Well… only you and I can find that out.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

No I haven’t gone New Age. There’s just no way to understand the impact of grace on our lives without putting it in jarring contrast to what we formally know and expect as Christianity. Grace always upsets the applecart.

It appears that God set up a universe of laws and then stepped into that universe and brought a new world order.

On the one hand there is this exacting universe of cause and effect, sowing and reaping, rewards and punishment, wages and payment, and on the other there are the gifts of God, the grace of God and the mercy God, all completely undeserved and unearned.

To follow Jesus in the gospels is to discover another world inside the first. In this world things are not as they appear to be. In this world the last are first, losers are winners, the poor are blessed, and the hungry are filled. In other words, the last ones reap the benefits the first ones never got. No wonder the religious leaders of his day were upset at Jesus; He brought a whole new order that denied them what they had worked so hard to gain.

Imagine spending all your religious life exacting out every detail in order to gain your way into heaven and then finding out that all these other people you judged as uncaring and unfit get there on a free pass. And they get there following some young upstart preacher who came out of nowhere and yet claimed to be the fulfillment of all the laws and the prophets you based your life on. No wonder they wanted to string Him up.

You can call them what you want: two systems, orders, or covenants, but the important thing to realize is that both are still here today and still in full operation and constantly tripping us up.

The first one is calculated and measured out; the second one is dumped on you in full measure. The first one is earned; the second one is given. The first one gives death; the second one gives life. As such, the second one is always an offense to anyone living by the first and thinking they are getting somewhere following it.

And here is a true statement worthy of consideration: The first one is much more prevalent in the church and in our own lives than we or anyone else recognizes. Jesus came to put one to death and to start the other. “This cup is the new covenant in my blood…” (1 Corinthians 11:25) And we keep trying to resurrect the first instead of living in the power and resurrection of the second.

As we prepare in these next few weeks to remember the death and resurrection of Christ, think about two things. One was spoken from the cross over the first order: “It is finished” (John 19:30). The other deals with the second: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Teleconference Bible Study is Tonight!
When: 7 pm PST; 10 pm EST
Where: 218/237-3840 Access code 124393
What: Email Marti for advance Study Guide at [email protected]

Conflict is an inevitable part of life — a function of being connected to one another. If we were more open to embracing conflict instead of avoiding it we all would be a voice of reconciliation, showing those around us that conflict is more than an opportunity to learn and grow and often to grow closer, but also an opportunity to recognize the contrast of who we are compared to the Lord and his amazing grace. This requires us to recognize we are sinners — all of us — and not just minor sinners compared to the great big SINS of others; we have to recognize that we cannot be better people trying really hard to do good for God, but that it is through us real sinners that the Lord chooses to work.

Knowing all the while that to step into this reconciliation we must step into the unreasonableness of love. Yes, you read that right – God’s love is crazy, irrational, foolish and absurd, and makes little sense to us; while the law is typically logical, rational and makes perfect sense (even common sense).

Logic says that what you put out comes back to you: an eye for and eye or a tooth for a tooth, or as in the law of physics… every action is met by an equal or opposite reaction. Even Paul draws on the Old Covenant principle of reaping what we sow. These principles are easy for us to grasp because they have been with us from the beginning. They make sense to everyone with at least two left-brain cells in their head.

But the “law of love” interrupts this typical and obvious pattern and returns good for evil, reaping where no one has sown, grace for no reason at all and mercy for judgment. Those who would be on the side of reconciliation must become fully acquainted with this “new math.” Love just doesn’t follow the rules, and thankfully for us it doesn’t.

Not that law and logic disappear; they just don’t have the final say… and that’s the best news of all.

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? (Matthew 6:26)

Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

Wouldn’t you like to be like this? Wouldn’t you like to be around someone who was doing this?

I’m going to try and write down some practical things about prayer today, but please understand, this is coming from someone who barely understands this. Prayer is not my strong suit. I’m just a finder-outer talking about the process and hoping someone will find it helpful.

Praying without ceasing taken literally would mean simply that there is never an end to your prayers – never a time when you say: “Okay, God, I’m checking out now. I’ll be back in a while, when I think of it or when I’m desperate.” It’s about always keeping the lines open.

At the bottom of this is a kind of continual God-consciousness. It’s about remembering at all times what life is for – that in a sense, our whole life is to be a prayer lived out. That’s why prayer is at the center of these three things. Prayer connects us to God and if you live connected to God, you will always be able to find something to be happy about, and something to be thankful for.

This has nothing to do with a sort of holy piety – no halo (unless you’re at an Angel game), no folding of the hands. But neither is it a sort of mystical fuzziness without directing words and thoughts or concerns and burdens on your heart. It’s not just unction or a mindless repetition of things; it’s conscious and directed.

Lately, I’ve been putting words to my prayers while doing menial, non-thinking tasks like driving, walking, pushing a broom, doing the dishes, opening mail. It’s made a big difference in my heart, and I notice when I repeat that task and remember, “Hey, I can pray some more!” it brings me joy and some peace of mind.

Robert Browning’s oft-quoted lines, “God’s in His heaven/All’s right with the world!” are not flippant or childish lines. They are reminders of a rock solid source of peace. No matter what’s going down here, there is a place where God’s will is being done, and I am connected to that place in a very real way. That place is only a prayer away. Sometimes this is a pleasant reminder; other times it is the only thing holding me together. This… along with a real sense of connection to all of you, and the tangible expression of your gifts to us that tell us we are not alone are tremendously reassuring in this time.

[Don’t forget to put Wednesday night’s teleconference Bible study on your calendar for the week. It’s at 7 o’clock Pacific (10 o’clock Eastern). Call 218-237-3840 and use access code: 124393.]

While reflecting on Branson, Missouri and its clean-up in the aftermath of the Leap Day tornado that tore through the center of town, I am reminded of a time a few years ago when I shadowed Peter Herschend on the job. Peter is the co-founder of Silver Dollar City in Branson, one of the most successful theme parks in the country (which thankfully was untouched by Wednesday’s tornado).

On the way to “The City” one morning, Peter suddenly pulled the car over and picked up a pedestrian. In the car he asked this man about a number of things in his life of which Peter was quite knowledgeable. I later found out this man was one of his employees who walks to and from the park every workday. It’s a couple mile hike, but he enjoys it; and whenever Peter sees him going or coming home, he always stops and picks him up… and they talk.

Later that day, in a company meeting of all its employees, individuals were being applauded for milestones reached in their stay with the company. As each one stepped in line to receive an award, I noticed Peter got in line too. Well of course he’d been with the company the longest, he’d been there from the beginning, but that didn’t stop him from seeing himself as an employee as well as a co-founder. Jesus, in and through whom we were created, sees himself as one of us too. He got in line and received what was due. He joined the human caravan.

Little things speak volumes.

These are just two examples of the little things that can make a big difference in the marketplace. How we see ourselves and how we see others are basic to our interaction in the circles we run in, and they manifest themselves in ways that can make a huge difference in the lives of those we influence. Loving my neighbor as I love myself says I am loved and I see my neighbor as being worth loving, too.

Branson, Missouri is a small town that goes out of its way to entertain America. It has on display everything that makes this country great – charm, independence, initiative, creativity, humor, family values and faith. And now you can add to that list: resilience.

In 1894 William Henry Lynch bought Marble Cave on the outskirts of the town of Branson, renamed it Marvel Cave, and began charging visitors to see it. Hugo and Mary Herschend signed a 99-year lease to the cave and began hosting square dances there, capitalizing on the natural acoustics of its huge cathedral-sized cavern. Their two sons, Peter and Jack modernized the cave with electricity and cement staircases, and in 1960, the Herschends opened Silver Dollar City on the site, a recreated frontier town which has become one of the most successful theme parks in the country.

With a steady stream of visitors coming to town during the vacation season, it was only a matter of time that music would follow. The Presley family became the first to move their show to Branson in 1967 followed a year later by the Baldknobbers. Soon Highway 76 that runs through the center of town would become known as the “strip” containing more than 50 theaters boasting live, value-oriented music and comedy entertainment.

Tuesday night, an EF-2 tornado rolled across Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri, leaving devastation in its path, and in the first hour of leap year, it leaped upon the city of Branson doing significant damage to 5 or 6 six of more than 100 local attractions, along with 12-15 of the city’s more than 200 hotels. Not to belittle the devastating personal losses to homes and businesses, still, in the grand scheme of things, this will probably turn out to be no more than a hiccup in this year’s tourist season.

“We were blessed with several things,” said Mayor Raeanne Presley, “the time of year and certainly the time of day, when people were not in their vehicles or outdoors,” She noted that during Branson’s peak season, which is only days away from launching, up to 60,000 visitors would have been in the city on any given day and staying in many of the hotels that were damaged. Her comments are typical of the spirit of this place: a tornado smashes through the heart of things and the mayor is talking about being blessed.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because the Herschends have become dear friends of ours and friends of the Catch. They have also come to exemplify, in the way they run their entertainment businesses and treat their employees, everything that we trumpet here about taking Christ to the marketplace including a Christ-like compassion that was recently captured on an episode of the popular CBS reality show, “Undercover Boss” featuring Joel Manby, CEO of Herschend Family Entertainment.

Here’s what we propose you can do for the people of Branson who have sustained this natural disaster: plan to go there this spring or summer for your vacation, take your family and loved ones with you, and enjoy yourself. Turn it into their best season ever. We guarantee you will discover what indeed is the mission of Herschend Family Entertainment: “Creating Memories Worth Repeating.”

It’s February 29, a day that only comes around every four years. If you were born on this day, this is the year you get to celebrate on your actual birth day. I have to separate “birthday” into two words for emphasis there even though my computer speller desperately wants me to put them together. This isn’t just your birthday; it’s the day in our calendar that corresponds to the actual date you were born.

This tells us that our calendar is just a manmade form of measurement; it’s not the actual thing. The actual thing is that our world is flying around our sun at a rate that is slower than we can measure evenly in days, months and years. Our measurements don’t equal the way things actually are so we have to make adjustments or we’d be getting ahead of ourselves. There are not 365 days in a year; there are actually 365 ¼ days in a year, so we have to add a day every four years to adjust for this, making this a 366-day year. I also remember reading about one additional adjustment needed every hundred years or so to make this all come out right.

The discrepancy is only in the measurement. This deserves some reflection, because I think there are lots of things we artificially (and in some cases inaccurately) measure that we would be better off just experiencing.

If you lived in a place or time that wasn’t advanced to the point of measuring its days and years, you would take life a day at a time. It wouldn’t even be Wednesday or Thursday, it would just be another day. Think a little about living this way, because there is something about this that is truer than our measurements. This is Wednesday, and we have lots of things we are doing that are associated with the fact that it is Wednesday. It’s a work day; it’s laundry day; in some circles it is still prayer meeting day; it’s the day you go to dance class, or yoga, or it’s the day you call up our teleconference Bible study (I hope you do!); but at the same time, it’s just a day – a day to do all the things we were meant to do – a day to realize why we were put on this earth – a day to open your heart to live, love and celebrate.

What really matters are the people who touch our lives and whose lives we touch every moment of every day. There’s no way to measure that or make it special; it just is. Think about making this a day we don’t measure what is: we live it. Happy Leap Day!

I already know it’s going to be a short night and Marti is sending me up to the attic to find a dress for this morning’s Women of Vision breakfast. We have one closet that serves our whole house, so I have half of Marti’s and my stuff in wardrobe boxes in the attic. Usually we do a big summer to winter/winter to summer switch-out twice a year, but this year we haven’t gotten the winter clothes out yet necessitating a trip up a rickety ladder and an inordinate amount of time searching through three U-Haul wardrobe boxes with a flashlight for a dress she doesn’t even know she wants until she sees it.

“Can’t you give me an idea what to look for?”

“I don’t even know what’s up there.”

Figures. Chandler is still up and he’s going to have to get up early to go with us before school. This is not working out well for me, I’m thinking as the night wears on. Outside it’s blustery at least for southern California standards. I like to gauge southern California temperatures by Big Bear Lake on my iPhone and it’s 19 degrees and snowing a little over an hour away. Here we’re getting hail, and from the attic it seems like it might penetrate the shingles. I’ve already brought down a few things with no luck.

“If you can find the pencil skirt that goes with this top that will work.”

It’s the first piece of good news I’ve had in half an hour. Now if only the skirt was where the top was. Not gonna happen. I’ve never realized how everything looks the same with only a flashlight for light. Two more trips up and down the ladder and we finally have a match leaving Marti happy and three hours of sleep for me.

“You need to get another perspective,” Marti says as she senses my frustration. “See it from my point of view.”

Suddenly for some reason I am thinking about the women at Isaiah House, especially the ones who sleep outside. There is a covered patio area that sleeps I’m guessing twenty. Most of the year it’s the place to be, but on a night like this, it has its challenges. I check my phone for Santa Ana and find 39 degrees. Lower still, I’m sure, with the wind chill and blowing rain.

Suddenly I’m thinking about perspective and remembering one of the patio women who showed me her spot and then pointed out under the roofline to a place between trees that opens to the sky. “Sometimes I can lie here and see the moon right there.” Marti’s right. It all depends on your perspective.

Stuck in a homeless shelter, or “Second star to the right, and straight on ’til morning.”