Jesus, the First and Last Word

So today we enter the Easter season...the festal season that lasts for fifty days, but is often seen as one long feast day. Joy!

Like many other Lenten and Easter journeys, Michael Card's songs have been playing through my mind and heart (and sometimes literally playing via CD or digitally). During different years, different ones come to mind most often. This morning, I woke up with "Final Word" spinning on my heart's turntable:

You and me we use so very many clumsy words.
The noise of what we often say is not worth being heard.
When the Father's wisdom wanted to communicate His love,
He spoke it in one final perfect Word.

He spoke the incarnation, and then so was born a Son.
His final word was Jesus, He needed no other one.
Spoke flesh and blood so He could bleed and make a way Divine.
And so was born a baby who would die to make it mine.

And so the Father's fondest thought became flesh and blood.
He spoke the living luminous word, at once His will was done.
And so the transformation that in man had been unheard,
Took place in God the Father as he spoke that final Word.

And so the Light became alive and manna became Man.
Eternity stepped into time so we could understand.

(~Michael Card)

I think this song, like many others, eventually moved onto his recording "The Life," which collected many of the songs that he wrote about the life of Jesus over the years. And I think I have typically thought of it as belonging more to his Advent and Christmas collection than Lent and Easter, since it speaks primarily of the incarnation.

But as my precious daughter pointed out so wisely this Lenten season, as she reflected on her feelings about both seasons, you can't have one without the other. Had Jesus not been born, he never would have experienced death.

In other words, had Jesus never taken on "flesh and blood," had manna not become Man, then there would have been no entry into Jerusalem, no upper room, no death on the cross, no third day and wondrous resurrection!

The song playing in my head yesterday was, not unexpectedly, Charles Wesley's "Christ the Lord is Risen Today." The verse that kept really speaking to me was this one:

Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won. Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids him rise; Alleluia!
Christ has opened paradise. Alleluia!

(~Charles Wesley)

What the Scriptures emphasize for us, over and over, is that Jesus, the incarnate Word, is truth and reality from first to last, from A to Z, Alpha to Omega. He is there from eternity ("He was with God, was God") and he spoke the first word ("Without him was not anything made that was made"). But he also spoke the last word. "It is finished." Which means, "Love's redeeming work is done. Alleluia!"

And yet...isn't it amazing that even after that ultimate, final word on the cross, he spoke again when he rose again in power? The decisive blow had been struck with great finality, and yet what it brought to fruition was a new world order, a new kind of life, a total newness of life that only Jesus could bring. Everything ended, and yet everything began again in a way that would never end.

Why Card can speak of Jesus himself being the "final word" is that no other word was needed. Old Simon in the temple knew it as soon as he saw the baby Jesus. He could finally die in peace because he had seen what he has spent his whole life waiting for: God had sent the promised deliverer into the world.

And Jesus would speak  through his whole life, from his first baby cries to the many words he spoke to those he ministered to and mentored, to the last words on the cross. And yes, to the post-resurrection words he spoke to his followers, promising them the Holy Spirit, giving them their charge to go into the world and make disciples. But all those words he spoke were just part and parcel of the reality that he himself WAS the Word, from first to last. The initiating word that spoke the world into being, ("Let there be light!") -- that brought into existence things that were not, to the ending word that brought life where death tried to reign, that made it clear he was the master of death as well as life.

This is the Word we are invited to embrace, to love, to sing, from our own first day to our last. It is so wonderful to know that it is Jesus the Word who has written our lives, created our stories, and breathed his Spirit into us so that we can become living letters, walking-around-epistles, for others.

Sometimes I think of us not just as letters (messages) but as actual letters, as in the letters of the alphabet. I imagine Jesus writing each one of us in beautiful calligraphic lettering, in the alphabets of every tribe and nation. I imagine how God the Father, the author and finisher of our faith, puts together all the millions and millions of individual letters to create words, sentences, stories that make sense, that reflect the true Story, that at their Spirit-soaked best can become miniature loving versions of his Son, the Word from all eternity. The Word of life and power. The Word who became flesh and dwelt among us and helped those who could not speak to speak anew. The Word that spoke at the very beginning and whose words have continued to keep and hold the world in being. The Word who has already spoken the decisive final word on the cross, in the moment when he died, who spoke again when he came out of the tomb, and will speak again at the end when he comes in power and glory to bring his eternal kingdom to total and complete fullness. One day we will see him face to face, and we will know the Story from beginning to end. And we will sing his praises forever.

The Martyrs of Ecuador

It was sixty years ago today, on January 8, 1956, that Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and Nate Saint entered into glory. They were killed while attempting to reach the Waodani tribe of Ecuador with the gospel. Amazingly and powerfully, their wives stayed on in the wake of their deaths and continued to share the gospel, which transformed the tribe.

In honor of their legacies today, I thought I would repost my review of Steve Saint's book End of the Spear. I originally posted this on Epinions.com back in 2007. Steve was the son of the martyred Nate Saint, and his own dealings with the Waodoni were wondrous. So thankful for all the amazing ways Jesus works in our world.

*****************

 "Bringing your family, we say come and live here." In 1994, these were words spoken bluntly to Steve Saint, a North American businessman, by Dawa, a member of the Waodani tribe in the Amazon jungle. What had brought these people together? Why would she suggest to him that he and his family should relocate to the Amazon and live with her family?

Steve Saint wasn't your typical North American businessman. This was not his first time in the Amazon jungle. Far from it. He had, in fact, grown up in Ecuador. His parents, Nate and Marj Saint, were missionaries there in the 1950s. His father Nate was a first-rate pilot who flew for Missionary Aviation Fellowship. When Steve was only five years old, his father Nate and four other missionaries, while attempting to establish friendly contact with a violent, stone-age tribe, were brutally speared by members of that tribe. That tribe was the Waodani, the same tribe now asking Steve, not quite forty years later, to come and live with them. How could this be?

End of the Spear is Steve Saint's moving memoir of his relationship with the Waodani tribe, a group of little known, often misunderstood, and powerfully transformed people. What makes this memoir such a fascinating and riveting read is that the main part of the narrative, the Waodanis' invitation to Steve and his family and their subsequent move to the Amazon, is just one piece of a much larger and complex story, parts of it going back many years. By the time Dawa asked Steve this question, much had happened in both the hearts of the Waodani and the heart of Steve Saint.

The Transforming Love of God in a Violent Culture

The Waodani, once referred to by the denigrating name of "Aucas" (a term that surrounding tribes and other Ecuadorans used to denote their savagery) had almost killed themselves into extinction by the 1950s. Living deep in the jungle, their only communal rules had to do with vengeance and retribution. Tribal vendettas and ancient customs (such as burying one's live children with you if you were speared by another warrior) had claimed the lives of so many of their people that they numbered only in the hundreds. The tribe was also running into trouble with greedy Western oil companies in the 1950s, who wanted their lands. Nate Saint and his four missionary companions felt a sense of urgency to reach the "Aucas" with the good news of the gospel, realizing that time quite literally was running out for this tribe.

Their seeming failure (the brutal murder of all five men on a jungle river bank in 1956) might have been the end of the story. But God was not through moving in the lives of the tribe or the lives of the missionary families of the slain men. As Saint makes clear as he weaves his beautiful narrative, which is part theological reflection as well as memoir, the most painful moments of the story can now be seen in retrospect as part of an unfolding plan, far more beautiful and amazing than anyone might have guessed on that tragic day in his boyhood.

One Waodani woman named Dayumae, who had left the tribe and gone to live in the city of Quito, met Rachel Saint, Steve's Aunt (the older sister of his slain father Nate). She became a Christian, or as the Waodani would later term it, she "began to follow God's trail." Dayumae and Rachel became spiritual sisters, and Dayumae began to help Rachel learn the Waodanis' language. Since theirs was a completely oral culture, Rachel not only had to learn the sounds but find some way of transcribing them and turning them into writing. Once she had a Waodani alphabet, she could begin to work on translating the Scriptures, or "God's markings" into their language. In fact, Rachel dedicated her entire life to this task and became much beloved of the Waodani.

That's because Dayumae, following the massacre of the missionaries, helped bridge the chasm between the missionary families and her former tribe. Some of the widows of the slain men actually took their children and went into the jungle with Rachel and Dayumae, determined to continue the work their husbands had died doing. God used these courageous women to reach out to the Waodani with love and tender forgiveness. To a culture that believed in vengeance, it was unthinkable that a family whose members you had speared would not come after you with spears of their own. Instead, the women and children came vulnerably, wanting to live with them and befriend them. No wonder "God's markings," the story of the Bible, came stunningly to life for the Waodani! They saw its message embodied and lived right in front of their very eyes.

All of this is back story, prelude to the main story that Steve Saint sets out to tell. But he weaves it skillfully into the narrative. He himself was one of the children who went to live with the Waodani. He spent most of his boyhood and early adolescence with the tribe. Many of the Waodani (their name for themselves) embraced the gospel and became God followers. The result was an amazing turnaround in the lives and culture. Steve was adopted as one of them, learning to hunt and fish and survive in the jungle. As a young teenager, he and his sister were actually baptized in the same river where their father had been killed. Some of the warriors who helped to baptize them, who had become their elder brothers and fathers in the faith, had actually been amongst the spearing party that day.

Saint eventually moved back to the United States for college. He discovered the difficulty of learning to bridge cultures and how ill at ease he felt in his "own" culture. But he adjusted. Eventually he got married, started a family, and became a successful businessman with dealings in Ecuador. But he never forgot the Waodani and they never forgot him. When he went back in 1994 to bury his Aunt Rachel (who had lived with them her whole life) their expectation was that he would naturally want to continue the deep ties between the tribe and the Saint family. Of course he and his wife and children would come to live with them.

"Now I See It Well..."

End of the Spear is the story of how they did just that. It's an amazing story for the testimony it provides to God's faithfulness and leading in people's lives. It's also a humble story, the story of a man who didn't always see his own role clearly in the greater plan that he sensed was being woven by the God he loved. Part of the wonder of following along in Saint's journey is seeing how he finally realizes how his skills can benefit the Waodani in a precarious season of their tribal life. For by the 1990s, the Waodani could no longer avoid contemporary culture, which had begun to penetrate their own culture more and more.

Although their numbers had increased dramatically, they were now in danger of becoming dependent on "outside" culture and losing their own indigenous identity and skills. Steve Saint began to realize that he was uniquely placed, because of his own abilities to walk within both cultures and because of the deep spiritual bond between them, to help the Waodani learn to master skills they would need to survive and flourish. He didn't want to go in and give them "things." As they had once taught him how to navigate in a new world, he now wanted to help teach them to navigate in a new world. He would help them to learn to do things for themselves (flying a plane, running a store and pharmacy, becoming health promoters) so they could have a viable economy and maintain their own identity and dignity as they learned to care for themselves and their people. He knew that although they could not read or write, they were intelligently and highly skilled within their own environment. Much of the narrative explains how he began to explore technologies and ideas that would work in the jungle and would be things he and others could teach the Waodani to do.

End of the Spear is a book that can be read on so many levels. It's a theological reflection, one that looks long and hard at the violence at the heart of all of us, and one that delves deep into the providence and sovereignty of a loving God. It's a tribute to the lives of Saint's missionary family, and a tribute to the ancient and yet still emerging and changing culture of the Waodani. It's a love song to God's love and power. It's a reflection on cross-cultural relationships, taking a humorous look at the mistakes and misunderstandings that can happen when people of disparate cultures try to work together. It's a testament to deep friendships, especially the friendship of Steve with Mincaye, an elder of the tribe and a devout God follower, and the one who actually killed Steve's father. It's an adventure story about what it's like to live in the Amazon (eating monkeys and avoiding snakes).

Taken all together, it's a riveting story, told simply and well by a man who lived it...and is still living it today. It's seldom that one book makes me laugh, cry, and think as much as this one did. I highly recommend it.

End of the Spear
by Steve Saint
SaltRiver, an imprint of Tyndale House Publishers, 2005
ISBN 0842364390

Note: "End of the Spear" was made into a feature film in 2006, following a documentary "Beyond the Gates of Splendor" made in 2005. Both are good, but understandably much more narrow in focus than the book, telling only snippets of the overall story. I'd almost recommend seeing the feature film first as it provides visuals of the jungle and gives one some clues as to the pronunciation of Waodani names.

Inside a Theology Major's Brain

You know you've studied theology when...

you see that a friend has given a photo album the jaunty title of "Summa Pictures," and your first thought is: "Photographs of Thomas Aquinas?"

(Go ahead. You are now free to picture Aquinas on vacation -- water-skiing, picnicking, and making bunny ears behind a friend as they pose in front of the Washington Monument.)

Pondering Good and Evil (And So Very Thankful for All That's Good)

In the wake of the tragedy in Boston yesterday, a number of people have been posting comments and quotes on Facebook. That’s not a bad thing. I’ve begun to realize that FB is truly becoming a place where people gather to grieve, to get angry, to try to make sense of complex, crazy things happening in our world. While the quotes and captions nearly always over-simplify any complex event, they can act as springboards to help us think and pray through what’s going on around us.

Social media also often gives us comfort  – even on days when people are grieving and angry over something that has just happened, there are blessed reminders that life goes on and blessings still abound. People still post beautiful pictures (of their grandkids, their cats, the place they wish they could travel). People still post recipes of good food that they’re thinking of making for their family, or creative ideas about teaching their children. And it can give us a sense of confluence or serendipity as people post reminders of this day in history – it might be the birthday of someone inspiring, or the anniversary of an important event.

Today, for instance, happens to be the 50^th anniversary of the day that Martin Luther King began writing his letter from the Birmingham Jail. The confluence of that memorable moment in history and the tragedy of yesterday have coalesced in such a way that it seems to make sense to turn to MLK for wisdom, comfort, and strength. The letter, which points to the importance of non-violence resistance in the face of evil, seems as pertinent now as it did then, because evil never entirely goes away in this world – it just takes on different forms and tries different tactics. And as the Christian vision reminds us, it’s still on its way to ultimate defeat.

One of the quotes I’ve seen today is this: “When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love.” This quote is being attributed to MLK, and out of curiosity, I went to look it up. I haven’t been able to find a source for it yet (if anyone knows, let me know please) but at any rate, whether he said it or not, it’s understandable why it would surface today. There’s a lot of good to chew on in that quote, but I think we need to be careful with it too.

A quote like this is clearly snipped from a larger piece of rhetoric. It sounds like a speech or sermon. (Again, frustrated I can’t find its context.) As such, it reads in a rhythmic way, paralleling good and evil and contrasting what they each do. Evil plots, burns, bombs, shouts hatred. Good plans, builds, binds, commits to love. Yes. I find myself feeling a little cautious though, about using this kind of speech within every day conversation. I think what the quote is saying, in a sense, is that this is what evil looks like when it is manifested in a person’s actions. If someone is committed to evil, he or she will do these things. And this is what good looks like, when manifested in a person’s actions. If a person is committed to good, he or she will do these things.

The truth of the gospel is that we’re all sinners, lost and broken, in need of healing. At our best we are sinners saved by grace. While it’s true that certain actions most definitely deserve the adjective “evil” – an accurate description to cover what someone did yesterday in Boston – I do think we have to be careful when throw around evil as an adjective to describe people. It can too quickly turn into a picture of “them” and “us.”

It’s not that the adjective is not sometimes accurate or deserved. We’ve all done it, called someone “an evil person” if we see that their habitual commitment to darkness and cruelty earns them such an appellation. We’ve also done the reverse. “He’s a good man,” we will say about someone who has shown a long commitment to compassion and care and decency. But just as our saying “he’s a good man,” doesn’t negate the fact that the person we say that about is still a sinner, prone to human frailties and mistakes, our saying that someone is evil, even if they have truly committed awful acts, cannot negate the fact that they may actually still have it within them to do something good. Or, more importantly, we cannot let ourselves forget that such a person is still within the reach of mercy and redemption – not unless we are willing to say that evil is stronger than grace and forgiveness. Which it is most emphatically not.

If I’m meandering here, forgive me, but this is something I think we need to work through on real heart levels as Christians. Naming evil for what it is – yes, that’s important. Realizing that people can truly become corrupted by darkness and sin – yes, that’s important too, not least because it helps us guard our own hearts. What we commit our hearts, minds, and lives to can shape who we become, in the direction of good or evil.

But we are not intrinsically “evil people” or “good people.” We are all people created in the image of a very good God, but that image has been corrupted in us. How far it has been corrupted (or redeemed) will show forth in our acts, our words, our lives. What – and mostly importantly who -- we choose to commit our lives to matters.

One thing I have been heartened by in the response of many people to yesterday’s tragedy is how quickly they have gone on to say it’s time to overcome such evil with good. I think that must be the impetus behind sharing the quote above and others like it. That’s a deeply Christian response, and yet I am seeing it – in various forms – from people who don’t self-identify as Christians, as well as from those who do. There seems to be some sort of latent understanding, even in our post-Christian culture, that to give into the power of hatred and evil by trying to combat it with its own methods is not only misguided and short-sighted but ultimately just plain wrong. It won’t work, and even if it seemed to (in the short run) it runs the risk of moving us and shaping us in the very direction of the evil we abhor.

What I find myself longing to say to well-meaning friends and acquaintances longing for peace is that it’s not just enough to commit ourselves to well-meaning hopes, or even to kind and loving actions, as important as both of those things are. It’s not enough because ultimately, in our human sinfulness, we will fail in those commitments. I know this, because I fail in them dozens of times a day in small ways, and sometimes in big ways. It’s why I keep needing to confess my sins against God and my neighbors. We need more than just good will and pretty pictures and inspiring captions (as seriously helpful as all of those can be) to keep us committed to light and love and impossible seeming forgiveness in the face of heinous evil. We need the empowerment of someone outside us (and within us) who *cannot* and *does not* fail in little ways or big ways when it comes to loving and forgiving. We need the Holy Spirit.

Without him, without the triune God who is love at work within us to love, we risk become noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. We may be clanging “love” and ringing “peace,” and those are good words and important things to be making noise over. But without him, we may find ourselves falling into understandable anger and despair at the many awful things we see in the world, and yes even in people, around us. We need God to turn to, not only for the empowerment and strength he gives us to stay committed to light in a world that can feel awfully dark sometimes, but because we need loving ears that will listen and strong arms that will hold us when we really do need to lament and grieve and shout out against the darkness. (See the Psalms.)

More on this as I continue to ponder. And please, feel free to ponder with me.