INCARNATION!

We saw King Kong yesterday—that’s right, this is another movie report from your favorite cinema aficionado.

So my brother, my nephews, and I made the pilgrimage to the local house of celluloid. The thing was three hours long. And loud (my brother complained that it was so noisy, he couldn’t sleep—his modus operandi in movie theaters!).

The mutant beast was fabulously and realistically portrayed by CGI (computer-generated imagery), with help from Andy Serkis (of Gollum fame). Remarkable the special effects achievable in silico! Very impressive. Like you’re almost in the presence of that fearsome creature.

The gargantuan gorilla was quite strikingly “human”—anthropomorphized, shall we say, portraying facial expressions, gestures, and, seemingly, even thoughts akin to those of the species Homo sapiens. Though not one of us by a long shot, KK appears, nevertheless, to have fallen in love with Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts)! And, if falling in love weren’t enough, the gorilla is privileged to sit on one of the apices of your classic love triangle—the other male in the tournament corner being Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody). Can’t get much more humanoid than that! Or … can it?

After one kinda gets used to the “persona” of Kong, the animal is, towards the end of the movie, killed atop the Empire State Building. I wasn’t sure if the storyline could correctly be labeled a tragedy, but it had all the ingredients of one. One almost felt sorry for “Mr.” Kong at the end. If only Ann and the rest could have communicated with it (him?) better …. If only those humans could have spoken gorilla-ese …. Or even transformed themselves into gorillas, at least temporarily …. Communication across species lines just doesn’t cut it: Ann dances, KK roars; she juggles, it grunts; the lady does cartwheels, the gorilla thumps its chest. Not much of a gripping tête-à-tête dialogue.

King Kong an appropriate theme for Christmas? You bet!

The amazing thing about our world is that once upon a time, about two millennia ago, God did invade it and become one of us! He burst into His creation, becoming fully human (skin, hair, nails, … —the works), and speaking human-ese, so that our own story wouldn’t crumble into an eternal tragedy. What an incredible scenario—God becoming man, eternity intersecting time—a plot that transcends all comprehension, that outclasses and outsoars by far, any other narrative of any kind, anywhere, any time!

God, Jesus Christ, became human, one of us—fully. And died on the cross and was resurrected, paying the price for our sins—fully. My sins. And yours.

“… you shall call His name Jesus,
for He will save His people from their sins.”
Matthew 1:21

He made Him who knew no sin
to be sin on our behalf,
so that we might become
the righteousness of God in Him.
2 Corinthians 5:21

For God so loved the world,
that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him
shall not perish,
but have eternal life.
John 3:16

For believers, eternal life with God is assured. A purposeful life now has begun. What movie can beat that plot! The Greatest Story Ever Told! Indeed!

Rejoice! He is come! And … He is coming again!

Have a blessed Christmas!

UNSAFE!

I had been expecting to hear it. Eagerly awaiting the first installment of The Chronicles of Narnia on celluloid, I’d been keenly anticipating hearing one of my most favorite lines in the entire seven-volume saga.

As I saw the movie yesterday with dear friends, the Morgan family, I waited, with bated breath, for Mr. Beaver’s classic line in reply to Lucy’s question as to whether Aslan, the Lion, was safe.

Here it is as C. S. Lewis tells it …

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. … “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

It wasn’t there! That line wasn't in the screenplay (unless you count Mr. Tumnus' somewhat truncated comment, towards the end of the film, that Aslan was no tame animal). Though I thoroughly enjoyed the movie—cinematography, computer graphics, great acting by the children, the queen, the professor—I was disappointed in the absence of what I consider one of the most significantly theological affirmations creation can ever make of the Creator.

As the prophet Malachi asked rhetorically (and as Handel affirmed so powerfully), “But who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appeareth? For He is like a refiner’s fire …” (Malachi 3:2).

God is not safe. But He is good!

Lewis comments later in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: “People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time. If the children [Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy Pevensie] had ever thought so, they were cured of it now.”

Have we ever been in Narnia? Do we know a God who is “unsafe,” “terrifying,” … and good? God’s goodness we are eager to make capital out of. But may we, at the same time, never forget that this is the God of whom the writer of Hebrews labeled “a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29, quoting Deuteronomy 4:24 and 9:3).

How is it possible, one wonders, to love a God who is not only good, but also one whose wrath is renowned for its incendiary nature, directed against sin, and Satan and his hordes, the final end of which unholy alliance will be consummation in a ceaseless conflagration?

It is a strange dialectical tension, indeed, paradoxical and enigmatic, but believers are called both to love and to fear God. Deuteronomy 6 makes that clear:

You shall love the LORD
your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Deuteronomy 6:5

And not many verses thence ….

You shall fear the LORD your God ….

Deuteronomy 6:13

Good and unsafe! Gracious and jealous! Loving and wrathful!

We welcome the first and wince at the second, don’t we? But the biblical balance must be maintained, the dynamic respected, the contraries equipoised. We must see with Narnian eyes that a thing can be “good and terrible at the same time.” We must love God, and we must fear God—reverentially, respectfully, with awe, with adoration.

He is Father. He is also almighty God, the supreme Creator, the self-existent Sovereign, infinitely Holy! As Mr. Beaver proclaimed, He is the King!

May we learn daily to love and to fear Him. Good, but not safe!

FOCUS!

Some time ago, Warren asked me, in the middle of a conversation, “Any ministry opportunities out there in Scotland for you, Abe?”

I replied, rather ruefully, “No. I’ve been here less than three months; they don’t know me from Adam. Why would anyone give me a ministry opportunity?”

That snippet of dialogue, however, got me thinking.

I don’t know if you’ve had the experience of a “dislocating” move. Dislocation it sure was, for me, this September. It’s not like I was passing through a foreign land; it was not like I was taking a brief vacation; it was not like I was on temporary assignment. I had moved … to live here! And I’d no idea what I was doing.

I had trouble understanding the language (English?)! I couldn’t recognize the coins and couldn’t keep track of my change. They wouldn’t let me open a bank account: I had no credit, they said. I still haven’t gotten used to the weather. Driving on the left side of the road. Fumbling with writing the dates first, and not the month. Confused with electric switches that turn “on” the “wrong” way. I didn’t even know how to make a phone call!

Lost. Bewildered. Muddled. What was I doing in a foreign land?

After two plus months, I’m still struggling. You should have heard me yesterday trying to negotiate my way through the process of obtaining car insurance. I must have had to spell my name, all my particulars, the license plate number, and the details of the car a million times to that dear lady, who was, thankfully, patient and tolerant. Indeed, because I couldn’t understand her, she had to spell everything out for me as well. Sounded like we were having a spelling-bee between ourselves.

At my wits’ end. In the dark. Beyond my depth.

(And no JIF!)

All this to say that I was completely out of my element, conducting a nonplussed, JIF-deprived, clueless existence. And the consequence? A loss of identity. Who was I? No longer a dermatologist. No more a preacher. No teaching for me. I have to wait for days to get an appointment to see a general practitioner to obtain a prescription for a steroid nasal-spray for my sinuses. And no one’s asking me my opinion of a sermon, either.

This is where I’m supposed to have ministry opportunities? Me? A “nobody”?

Who am I really? Is my identity all wrapped in my profession, my ministry, my DFW persona?

Or am I truly a “child of God,” an identity in comparison with which all other criteria and parameters, all other achievements and priorities, pale into inconsequentiality? So much so, the child of God can assert, “I am only, exclusively, this—a child of God; all else that I purport to be in this temporal life is dispensable, negligible, nonessential, in the light of eternity. In Christ!

Made me think, it did. Thanks, Warren.

And if I am only a child of God, then what must I be doing in this place, far away from it all? How am I to live?

I resolved to myself: Since I am here for a singular purpose, may God give me the grace to focus on that individual goal, that solitary aim, with all my being, to the best of my ability, for the glory of God. Everything else—confusing coinage, unintelligible utterances, insignificant “identity,” jarring JIFlessness—is not for me to worry or perseverate about.

In Christ, our call as believers is to be focused on serving Him, everywhere, always, and in everything we do.

… I am single-minded:
Forgetting the things that are behind
and reaching out
for the things that are ahead,
with this goal in mind,
I strive toward the prize
of the upward call of God
in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:13–14

Therefore we also have as our ambition,
whether at home or absent,
to be pleasing to Him.

2 Corinthians 5:9

“Pleasing to Him.” Our ambition. One ambition. Only ambition.

Not “ministry.” Not “identity.” Not being “somebody.”

But pleasing Him. Let that be our focus. All the days of our lives!

COINCIDENCE?

The strangest thing happened to me the other day.

So here we were, four of us students, this particular Tuesday, congregated in the hall in front of Prof. Francis Watson’s room, waiting for it to strike 4:00 before barging in for our weekly Hermeneutics Seminar. David joins us, bringing with him a fellow-Irishman, a childhood friend of his.

“Guys, this is Mark; he’s looking into doing a Ph.D. here in Aberdeen,” announces David.

The rest of us respond in amiable fashion, welcoming the new “chap.” “I’m Rich.” “Tom.” “Jake.” And, I too, declare my identity: “I’m Abe.”

There was a sudden flash of recognition in Mark’s eyes; he pointed at me and said, “Abe, I know your brother, A.K.”

I was stunned, to say the least. I hadn’t realized I was famous (or was it infamous?). Here in another continent, where I knew no one and no one knew me (or so I thought)! And, at least as far as I could tell, until now, I didn’t know anyone here who knew my brother!

It was 4:00. On to Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana. But I ... I am perplexed and flummoxed. “He knows my brother?”

It was not until an hour-and-a-half later that the wraps were taken off Mark’s sphinxian and enigmatic proclamation.

Mark, though Irish, had moved to the U.S. with his family several years ago … to Greenville, S.C.! Where he had been attending North Hills Community Church! Where my brother, A.K., is an elder! And it also so “happened” that A.K. and his family were among the first ones Mark met there. Mark had since moved to Chicago but, apparently, he had heard of my planned move to Aberdeen, and upon my being introduced to him now, he had made the connection. “Wonderful family,” Mark gushed about them, several times. (They must have fed him, I thought: good Indian home-cooking can do that to you!)

Seriously, he had a lot of good things to say about my sibling, my sister-in-law, and their two boys. They had clearly made an impression upon Mark, in the few years he lived in Greenville. It was evident he thought much of them. Their magnanimity, generosity, and hospitality had had a striking impact upon this young man.

A good name, they had made for themselves.

Ecclesiastes 7:1 tells us A good name is better than a good ointment (and I could tell you a thing or two about ointments!). The Book of Proverbs adds its voice, extolling the value of a good name, urging us to seek it.

A good name
is more to be desired than great wealth,
Favor is better than silver and gold.

Proverbs 22:1

I wondered why the Sage would exhort his readers to aim for something so “secular” and “worldly” as a good reputation.

A cursory search in the Bible for “good” and its juxtaposition to “name” revealed that God was the only one who possessed a “good” Name.

I will give thanks to your name,
O LORD, for it is good.

Psalm 54:6

And I will wait on Your name, for it is good....

Psalm 52:9

No wonder Solomon was challenging us to develop honor and esteem. This was not some people-pleasing endeavor to title, fame, popularity, and credit. Not at all. To have a “good name” was to be like the One who alone, bless His Name, is GOOD!

To be like God and adopt His goodness. To have “a good name.” Not only in God’s eyes, but also in the eyes of our fellowmen, as we seek to live in the will of the only one with the Good Name.

Let’s be good … and be called “good”! Like Him!