The Circus King

There was a hush after he said it. Shouts and whispers stilled. The jaws of some clenched tightly with anger; others were silenced in awe. An explosion had become safe and sacred, and the meaning of it all was still falling into place. Every ear still echoed with his words, resounding so loudly that only a few noticed the lonely clink of one last coin, whose wobbly rolling came to a decided end in the corner of the room.

We felt as though we could hear him breathe. In, then out. The angry ones squinted fiercely, daggers in their eyes. In again, and then they fled. Swishing fabric, the muffled slap of sandals on bare floor, and a single thump as one of them dropped a bag of silver: they were gone.

He breathed in again, and then the silence began to bubble—not yet with words but with the quiet giggles of children, the exhale of the freed, and more swishing cloaks as the rest of those there gathered in.

The place still lay in shambles. Tables and benches were overturned. Coins had been spilled everywhere. Bits of parchment and broken wood were scattered clumsily over the floor, interrupted here and there by pieces of frayed rope, tufts of wool, soft feathers, and empty money bags.

But the crowd didn’t seem to care. For once in their lives, they weren’t here to observe the room’s starchy beauty or to ponder what it’d be like to be on the other side of those tables, wearing linen robes and making the rules since you, after all, were the only ones who could see God. They weren’t here to fear whether their measly sums would be enough to buy their own pardon, nor were they here to be told what other long list of infirmities kept them this time from being really clean.

No, they were here because the prophet from Nazareth let them in. 

“It is written,” he had said, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’”¹ The surly, teeth-clenched moneychangers had to leave; and the blind, the lame, and the outcasts were welcomed in.

Pretty soon the children were singing. A once-lame beggar was running in circles with his hands in the air. A once-blind man was running his fingers over the holy curtains, wondering at the colors and textures that illuminated his eyes. It seemed like the sound of laughter changed the heavy smell of incense into a reminder not of boundaries but of praise.

They had the place as theirs for awhile, until the noses of the priests came poking their way in. Shuffling around the edges of the rabble, they inserted their questions with disdain. “Do you hear what these children are saying?² ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’? What is this?”

“Yes, I hear them,” he replied. He picked up one of the children at his feet and set him proudly on his lap, brushing back the thick mop of hair so he could peer into the little one’s eyes. “Have you never read, ‘From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’?”³

Some more shuffling was paired with discontented grunts. They huddled together away from the troubling Rabbi, and the crowd filled in the place they left.

Pretty soon the work was done, and the Rabbi made his way out. The rabble followed. Silence filled the room again as the muttering priests and teachers realized their “problem” had walked out the door. Alone with the tables and piles of coins, they glared into the darkening night, watching him go. Beneath their furrowed brows, they wondered how much longer this insult would insist on overturning their world.

But the crowd that left with the Rabbi had the feeling that the world was meant to be that way. Their Teacher had said it himself: “‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”⁴

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¹ Matthew 21:13 (NIV, 1984)

² Matthew 21:16a (ibid.)

³ Matthew 21:16b (ibid.)

⁴ Matthew 9:13 (ibid.)

Original Artwork by Miranda Dupree (2021). Artwork Quotations: Song lyrics from “The Greatest Show” (written by Ryan Lewis, Justin Paul, and Benj Pasek, 2017). Lyrics source: LyricFind.

A Call for a Different Flag

Salaman: “You’re either with us or against us!”
Philip: ”I’m not with you, neither am I against you!”
Salaman: “Can he do that?”
Jack Sparrow: “He’s religious. I believe it’s required.”
           —Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

*****

I can’t say I was the biggest fan of the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but I can say that this quote has stuck in my head for the last 9 years (since I first saw the film). Jack Sparrow has an unexpected knack for wisdom sometimes, and I believe this is one of those times.

As I expand, perhaps I should clarify up front that, in this post, I aim to speak to the Church, to my brothers and sisters in Christ. The rest of y’all, I love you—but this message is for those who, like me, have called Christ their Savior and Lord.

You’ve all, I’m sure, seen enough of the news and of social media to agree that the cacophony of voices sounds a lot like that first line quoted above. Everybody’s yelling, “You’re either with us or against us!” Opinions rise like forest fires, and it seems like every day we’re bombarded not just with opinions on one cause but by brand new causes (or old causes that somebody thought needed emphasis now). We started with opinions on COVID-19, then we got opinions about stay-at-home orders and masks and proper ways to clean things and who gets to work and what it all means. And then came the opinions about racism and protests and riots and police and social justice and all number of other things that one person or another has decided relates to any of these topics. Then we got opinions about politicians and voting and...the list goes on.

And I’m sick of it.

Hear me well: It’s not the mass bombardment of opinions that disturbs me. That’s been going on for years—decades, centuries...keep on counting.

What bothers me is this: The bombardment of opinions and the aggressive—even threatening—demand for alliance to cause after cause is coming not just from the world but from Christians.

Guys. We already have a flag. And in our pursuit of other banners to raise in the name of justice or safety or whatever else has become the catchphrase of the day, I believe we have been letting that flag drag in the dirt.

Look, the world is doing its best to advocate for what it thinks is right and good. But it’s lost; it’s screaming for causes because it doesn’t know what else to do.

Why are we listening? Why are we caving to the demands of a world that can’t even see the battle that we wage as Christians every day? Have we lost sight of the fact that the real battle is and always has been one “not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12, NIV 1984)?

Don’t you see? The enemy is having a hey-day right now. He doesn’t care what cause you pick if it means he can get you to set down the banner of Christ in order to hold another flag. He doesn’t care what you fear as long as you fear something. He knows that every time we give into fear we’ve given him ground.

Every cause that’s being proclaimed right now has some element of good in it. But we know, don’t we, what happens when we make a good thing an ultimate thing? Any banner we choose to hold besides the banner of Christ is idolatry.

And I tell you as strongly as I know how: The banner of Christ doesn’t look like any of the causes that are being thrown around in this global tug-of-war.

What does our banner look like?

It’s a banner that says when we’re slapped in the face, we don’t go out and hold a protest. We turn our other cheek and let ourselves be slapped again.

It’s a banner that says we clothe our enemies with love.

It’s a banner that says we let people steal from us—no, more than that! We give them more than what they were trying to steal.

It’s a banner that never gives an ear to worry and never lets fear or concern for safety be a reason for any action.

It’s a banner that says righteousness is primary and that the humble get heaven.

It’s a banner that blesses the peacemakers and the ones who work out their salvation in their closets while still being lights to the world.

It’s a banner that says we don’t pay any attention when someone says, “Look, here is our salvation!” or, “No, salvation’s over there!” We know where our Messiah is, and we know that it’s the meek who get to see Him.

Ours is a banner that advocates death as the path to life.

Ours is a banner that advocates suffering as the path to virtue.

Ours is a banner that advocates the kind of love that the world will call pathological, self-sabotaging, and absolutely foolish.

Because it is foolish. It’s always been foolish. 

But I ask you—in tears—will you let that banner drop because the world says it is foolish? Will you let that banner drop because some other cause is ringing more loudly in your ears than your Master’s voice? Will you let that banner drop because you fear men who might kill or shame your body? Have you lost your fear of the One who holds your soul?

My challenge for you, my brothers and sisters—beloved ones who make up the Body of Christ, the Church—is this: Follow HIM. Please. I beg you. Look into His face. Listen to His voice. I guarantee you that His voice is not going to sound like any of the rampant, raging causes that are demanding your alliance. He is the whisper in the whirlwind. He’s the One who says there’s a lot more going on here than the world realizes, the One who’s asking us to pay attention to what He is up to, not to what the world is proffering on its idolatrous tables.

My call to you is, quite simply, what Peter says in II Peter 3:11-14:

Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with His promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with Him. (NIV 1984, emphasis added)

Friends, nothing else matters. Our mission is to point people to Jesus—our existence on this planet is for the sole cause of introducing people to Him, of bringing His Kingdom here, even as He did.

If you find any other flag in your hands, I suggest you drop it. Drop it, and start living in all things the sort of life that our Lord has called us to live: a life of humility, a life focused on righteousness and love, a life that reflects Him.

We’ve been given a Kingdom that heals sickness, casts out demons, dissipates social divides, and throws world systems on their heads through humility and forgiveness, not through uproar. We have nothing to fear. And, on top of that, we’ve got a world before us that is crying out in agony for help.

Let’s help it, then, not by abandoning our flag to take up its causes but by holding our flag up with more courage than we’ve had before. We help the world not by seeking its life but by calling for its death—by calling for repentance and surrender to the King and to the Kingdom that is truly life.

So let us look to Him, lay down all other flags, and hold up His. We are neither for the world nor against it. We are for Christ. And we’re religious, so yes, Jack: that’s required.

Belshazzar's Lesson

Clang! The brassy sound pierced my ears and caused quite an unfortunate jump in my poor arm, which had been up to that minute most expertly engaged in an elaborate pouring of wine into the three precariously-suspended goblets that swayed in the uplifted hands of my esteemed table guests. Fortunately, the nobleman whose lap I graced with a new splash of purple was already lost in such a wave of slovenly stupor that he didn't even seem to notice my addition to his wardrobe.

Deciding not to alert him of my mistake, I turned instead to see what had made the dreadful noise. It was easy enough to discover. The king had dropped his goblet. Another servant was already running over to amend the situation, but his efforts to restore the vessel to its master's hand were rejected by a loud hiccup and a drooling laugh. The king shoved the goblet away, and the servant's robe received a splash of purple nearly matching the one I had just given my guest. "Ahaha, not that one!" the king gurgled. "Leave it on the floor! I've got—hiccup—a better idea! Bring out the gold, the silver—all those fine goblets my dear ol' father stole from that blasted temple in Jerusalem! Ha! A toast to the fallen gods of Israel, let us say." He motioned carelessly to the servant still holding his old goblet. "Go, find them for me, will you? Bring 'em out, and we'll all have a toast!"

The servant hurried away. He was followed by four or five other servants who understood that the chore wasn't nearly something that could be handled with one set of hands. Not long after, they returned with the requested drinkware, and my ears received uncountable echoes of the first abhorrent clang as the king's thousand guests celebrated this new opportunity by throwing their own goblets onto the floor. Laughter and uproarious exclamations followed, each man trying to bend his drunken brain to yield some sort of eloquent monologue of support for the king's decision.

Trying my best to ignore the commotion—and to dodge the flying chalices—I focused my attention on gathering the old goblets and mopping up the puddles of wine that were most in the way of my fellow servants' frantic efforts to ensure the guests' new goblets were kept full through their series of toasts.

The king, now standing on his throne with two gold chalices raised in his hands (and wine tipping out of both of them), began a ceremonious soliloquy in salute of a long line of gods: gods of silver, gods of gold, gods of iron, gods of stone, gods of wood, gods of bronze...and some other suite of deities whose names were garbled in his slobbering speech.

Then suddenly his monologue was abruptly stopped—mid-word, I think (if the syllables he was saying at the time were actually going to become words at all). I looked up from my diligent wine-puddle mopping to see what had silenced him, and my heart froze. He looked as though he had seen a ghost. His whole body was stiff, unmoving. The blood had drained from his face, and even the drool that had been running down his cheeks seemed to halt in its tracks. His eyes were bulging out of his fat face, the lids growing wider and wider as he stared at something on the wall to my left.

I turned slowly to see what had summoned his terrified attention, and my own eyes widened in horror as I saw—on the wall right next to the lamp stand—a hand. A human hand, I mean—a hand unattached to any visible body—just a hand by itself, writing on the wall. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. I hadn't so much as tasted a drop of the alcohol I had been serving, but part of me wished I had, if only to give myself an excuse for the vision I was witnessing. But the hand remained, and it wrote a message on the plaster of the wall that was as illegible to my eyes as my king's jumbled speech had been unintelligible to my ears moments before.

The hand vanished when its message was complete, but the writing remained. I turned my gaze back to the king. He was still standing, frozen, on his throne. His body was shaking now, and the drool on his lips had been wiped away. A glance at the rest of the room showed me that all the others had seen it too. All were silent, still, gripped by terror.

Then suddenly the king spoke up again, clearly this time: "The enchanters! Call them. Call them now. Get the astrologers and diviners—all the wise men of Babylon. I want all of them here now."¹ His gaze never left the writing on the wall as he spoke, but three servants dashed out of the room to fulfill his wish as the king muttered on, "Whoever reads this writing and tells me what it means will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around his neck, and he will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom."

The servants returned in record time with all the wise men they could find. Trembling with fear, these respected folk gathered around the writing on the wall, their eyes wide and their faces tense. After a few moments, I could hear them whispering, and soon they had to tell the bewildered king: Not one of them had the slightest clue what the writing said.

At this, the king sank into his throne. His whole body was shaking miserably, and his face became even whiter with worry. The thousand nobles around him were of no more help than the wise men. They stared at the wall, blinking in helplessness. The whole room was baffled.

Then, suddenly, a flash of bright movement caught my eye near the door where the wise men had just entered. If my eyes could have widened more than they already were, they certainly did. It was the queen. Her beauty on a normal day was striking, but in this terror-stricken scene, she seemed other-worldly. Her jet black hair and graceful manner sparked a strange hope in my soul even before her steady voice broke the silence of the room.

"O king, live forever!" she said. The king's gaze darted her way, and she strode up to him with poise, not flinching as the attention of the room shifted from the ghostly writing to her regal face. "Don't be alarmed!" she continued. "Don't look so pale! There is a man in your kingdom who has the spirit of the holy gods in him. In the time of your father he was found to have insight and intelligence and wisdom like that of the gods. King Nebuchadnezzar your father—your father the king, I say—appointed him chief of the magicians, enchanters, astrologers and diviners. This man Daniel, whom the king called Belteshazzar, was found to have a keen mind and knowledge and understanding, and also the ability to interpret dreams, explain riddles and solve difficult problems. Call for Daniel, and he will tell you what the writing means."

The king sat up. "Daniel? Yes—um, call for Daniel. You!"—he pointed at me—"Go and find this man."

Leaving my wine-soaked towels on the floor where I had been kneeling, I stumbled to my feet and darted out of the room. Daniel was not hard to find; his quarters were nearby, and he was there. To be honest, he half looked as if he had been expecting me. I had not looked very deeply into his face before, but in my desperation for an answer in this puzzling state of affairs, I found myself searching his features intently as I related to him the matter for which he was being called. His dark eyes were gentle; his face was worn and webbed with soft wrinkles which betrayed that his usual expression was a peaceful smile, though he certainly was not smiling now. No, now there was instead a grim resolve. His eyes reddened with tears, and his jaw set, but he did not cry. He merely placed a steady hand on my shoulder and quietly nodded, "Let us go."

I returned to the banquet hall to find the king attempting an air of nobility that, on any other occasion, would have looked perfectly comical. He had straightened his robes and given both of his gold goblets to a servant to hold. He was seated, half-reasonably, on his throne, but the peculiar tilt of his head and the white-knuckled grip of his hand on his scepter betrayed that he was still quite drunk and had not in the least gathered his wits.

Daniel entered the room gravely. He looked at the wall briefly, seeming unsurprised but not delighted at the writing he saw there. His gaze then settled on the king as he awaited the latter's permission to speak. His solemnity and submission to the king's authority—even his authority in that drunken state—struck me. How is it that an old Jewish exile—let alone an old Jewish exile who's spent years among ambitious magicians and conniving astrologers, serving under the whims of king after king—could look unrattled, noble, and even sane as he stood in the middle of a room in which the king's wisest wise men were huddled and unnerved in a corner, the king's most regarded friends were slobbering and hiccuping in wide-eyed and drunken terror, and the king himself was frumpishly seated on his throne, feigning the appearance of sobriety while drool began to trickle down his chin once again?

Yet there Daniel stood in perfect calm, awaiting the king. The king did not make him wait long. He sat up and leaned forward anxiously. "Are you Daniel?" he asked. "One of the exiles my father the king brought from Judah?" Daniel did not respond, but the king continued: "I have heard that the spirit of the gods is in you and that you have insight, intelligence and outstanding wisdom. The wise men and enchanters were brought before me to read this writing and tell me what it means, but they could not explain it. Now I have heard that you are able to give interpretations and to solve difficult problems. If you can read this writing and tell me what it means, you will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around your neck, and you will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom."

Daniel met the king's gaze and answered, "You may keep your gifts for yourself and give your rewards to someone else. Nevertheless, I will read the writing for the king and tell him what it means.

"O king, the Most High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and greatness and glory and splendor. His high position made nations dread him and men fear him. He killed whomever he wished to be killed, spared whomever he deemed worth sparing. He promoted whomever he liked, humbled whomever he hated. But he was riddled with arrogance, hardened with pride. And don't you remember? He lost his throne because of this; his glory dissipated. He was driven away from people and given an animal's mind. His home was with the beasts, his body was soaked with dew, he went absolutely mad—and all this until he acknowledged that the Most High God is King. All this until he recognized that the Most High God is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and sets over them anyone He wishes.

"But you, Belshazzar his son—you knew all this, you surely remember it well. But you're walking the same line. You have not humbled yourself either. You've set yourself against the Lord of heaven. Those goblets you had brought in—those were from His temple. And you knew this. Yet you drank freely from them, and your nobles and wives and concubines all drank from them too. You used them to toast a long list of gods who are not gods, mere 'names' who neither see nor comprehend. But when it came to the Living God, the One who holds your life in His hands? You have not honored Him.

"Therefore, He sent the hand and had written this inscription: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin.

"Here is what it means, O king:

Mene: God has numbered your days. Your reign is at its end.
Tekel: You've been weighed on His scale. You're wanting.
Parsin: Your kingdom is divided. It is given to the Medes and the Persians."

As Daniel finished his interpretation, the king's face was unchanged. The blood that had drained from it at the hand's appearance kept its distance still. His whole countenance was pale, expressionless. He made no reply to Daniel's words, yet he kept his promise and commanded that Daniel be clothed in purple, that a gold chain be placed around his neck, and that he be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.

I was dismissed from the room at that point. We all were—I mean the servants, anyways. Apparently the wine spills could be cleaned up later. I don't know what happened in the room after we left, and I don't know what became of any of the drunken nobles or the drunken king for the rest of the day. But that night, Daniel's words came true. That very night, Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain. And that very night, we got a new king: Darius the Mede. The writing on the wall, in all its shock and all its splendor, rang true.

*****

In the face of crisis, it seems that there are always some whose mouths stay open, whose minds are clear, and whose actions are direct and weighty, as if they saw the storm coming and know exactly how to walk through it. I am grateful for those leaders, grateful for their willingness to step up and lean in, laying their own uncertainty and fear aside in their effort to make sure the rest of us—the stragglers—make it up the mountain, whether they know what's at the summit or not. They simply know we've got to keep going, and they give all they've got to get us there.

I'm grateful for them for many reasons. One of the biggest: A lot of times, I'm not that kind of leader. I want to be, of course. But that desire proves flimsy in the face of some waves. In the face of this wave—this crisis into which our nation and our world have been plunged the last few months as we wrestle between our fears of virus and death and our wild agonies at the thought of isolation and time—in the face of this wave, I have not been that kind of leader. I've felt more like one of those "splat" balls that you can win with arcade tickets or purchase at a kiosk in a mall—you know, the ones that fly with boundless energy into the air before colliding with a wall in an epic "splat" (hence the name) and stay there in all their sticky glory until gravity gradually peels them off the wall and sends them diving to the floor. This crisis froze me. I hit walls I never expected to exist and found myself flattened against them, stuck in goo while the rest of the world shifted and adapted and kept moving forward as best it could.

But the good news? I feel like I've finally peeled off the wall and made it to the floor—yes, admittedly, for another disgraceful "splat." But on the floor at last, I feel as though I'm rising again to my feet, and my tongue found words at last to ask the Lord, "What are you doing? What are you saying to your people?"

He gave me, in response, a verse and a story. The story you have read. The verse follows:

"...[I]f my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." —II Chronicles 7:14 (NIV, 1984)

He gave this promise to Solomon long, long ago as He repeated the reality of His covenant with the people of Israel in response to Solomon's prayer of dedication for the temple he had built.

Our nation doesn't have that sort of covenant, but the principle, I think, stands as steadfastly as we could hope. Finding words at last to respond and to lead in the midst of this crisis, this is what is on my heart:

Belshazzar realized too late that every breath he had been given was a chance to honor the God who held his life in His hands. He ignored the knocks on his door until the writing on the wall declared his time was up. But we're still breathing.

Whatever this crisis is, whatever this time means, the fact that we're still alive means we've still got a chance. By God's grace, we've still got a chance to lay off our toasts to gods who are not gods. We've still got a chance to acknowledge that it really doesn't do for us to trample on the things that the Living God has called sacred. We've still got a chance to open the door, to heed the knock. We've still got a chance to ask with every breath, "Lord, how might I honor you today?"

I don't know where you're at right now in the flood of fears and dreams and confusing tensions. Maybe you feel like a "splat" ball too, or maybe you're the leader who still has words in your mouth that you're hanging onto as if your life depended on it.

Wherever you are, may the Lord touch you there. May He grant you the grace to look into His eyes, to set at His feet the load you've been carrying and the gods you've been toasting. May He set at rest your wild wishes to see the future and anchor you in the present, teaching your heart in each minute to keep asking, "Lord, how can I honor you now?"

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¹From this point forward, the quotations of the characters in the story are either copied or paraphrased from Daniel 5, NIV (1984).

Wonder at Life

A couple weeks ago, I found myself in that disorienting stagnancy we call "being sick"—you know, the kind where you're just going to have to resort to staying put because moving hurts and standing...well, standing's more like falling when you're dizzy, isn't it?

And so, on Day 2 of "staying put," I found myself stuck on the couch in the living room of my apartment, watching the whole season of Planet Earth 2, a BBC show I discovered on Netflix that takes you through different regions of the earth to introduce you to the various animal species that manage (against the odds, of course) to live in them. It had just enough going on to engage my weak attention; but the stunning scenery, the soothing pulse of the narrator's voice, and the slow pace of the show itself brought a peace to my mind. I could just sit there and look at the beauty, watch the animals, learn some cool facts, and rest. 

By the end of it, my mind drifted to that elementary-school question on which I'd been taught to wonder probably every time my lessons involved science in any degree: So this is creation, I thought. What does it reveal about God? What does it reveal about its Creator?

A common question, isn't it? I'm sure I've pondered it hundreds of times. How often I've stood before the ocean and marveled at the might of its Maker. How often I've stared at science-book pictures of the delicate intricacies of an eye, dumbfounded at the brilliance of its Designer. I've gazed at the mountains in the distance and imagined giant hands carving out their enormous slopes. I've scooped up snow in mittened hands and gawked at the microscopic perfection of the innumerable flakes on my fingers. We've got tiny ants and tinier amoebas—and planets and stars so gigantic and far away that the numbers surpass our ability to grasp them, even if we do talk about dumping golf balls all over the state of Texas. 

Awe, I guess, is the theme here. I suppose awe is the theme every time I encounter creation and wonder at its Creator. It was the theme as I watched this show too. Repeatedly, I find creation to be magnificent. It is fantastically diverse, unbelievably full of perfect detail. It is bigger, grander, and wilder than my imagination of it, every time. All I can do is stare in awe of the God who created it. He seems so vast, so great, so far beyond me or us.

And then some flamingos form a parade, or a bird of paradise fluffs out its bright green neck feathers for a potential mate (after, of course, hiding all the green leaves from the spot so they don't steal from his brilliance). A fish leaps out of a stream, a lizard licks condensed water off its eye, a lion cub pounces on his mother's tail...and then I find myself amazed again. Somehow the great One, as distant as He is in His splendor, still meets us in His laughter. "Let's create a fish with a transparent forehead!" He chuckles. "How about the fluffy tail of the fox next? And—oh!—the neck of that giraffe can surely be stretched longer. Just wait 'til they see the smile of the two-toed sloth!" 

It all made me smile too. But then I realized something. Yes, the show portrayed creation as beautiful. Yes, it was awe-inspiring, humorous, intricate, warm. But there were dark sides too. Snow leopards fought. Field mice were eaten. Birds got caught by the thorny seeds of a tree. Baby marine iguanas were snatched by snakes. Lions took bites out of buffaloes. Extreme weather affected them all. Creation is beautiful...but it is also violent—undeniably so. And then I wondered: What do we do with that? What does that say about the Creator?

The answer wasn't far behind the question: It says He's not afraid of death.

Ohhhh, great, I thought. Conclusions were far too easy to draw. That probably means He's not afraid of my death either...

I wasn't moving much in general that day, being dizzy and all, but I can assure you that I moved even less as I pondered this. I froze and wondered, What does it mean to surrender to a God who isn't afraid of my death—who isn't afraid of me getting shredded like that buffalo's hide? One doesn't need to apply much logic here. It means death, obviously. And has He not promised as much? Aren't we, after all, following His Son?

His Son... I sighed. It would seem easy to flinch away from this kind of God until we remember that. For this God, in His fearlessness of death, died Himself. He died on a blood-soaked cross, with nails in His hands and feet, thorns shoved into His brow, and a back ripped and bruised by the whip which struck and tore at Him thirty-nine times. His death was the most gruesome of all. 

Pause and breathe, will you? We thought we could thrust our fists into the air and argue at the agony of the falling of sparrows. We thought we could protest the pain, the decay, the food chain. We thought we could convince Him of the injustice of the death in our own lives. But our fists drop, and our voices give out, as we look at the cross. This is the God who is not afraid of death. And we cannot accuse the One who has died Himself. 

Not afraid of death, is He? But another look at His creation will show us why. The caught fish gives life to the bear. The bird buried by the tree's thorns gives life to all the plants which grow around its grave. Fungi make decay their food. And one giraffe, if ever killed, can feed a lion's entire pride. There's something, you see, about the way that this whole universe is wired that loudly defies the way we think about death. As odd as it seems, creation resounds with the melody of death repeatedly resulting in life. It's almost as if death just gets washed over. Real, yes. Painful, of course. But death's not the end. 

We serve a God who doesn't fear death because He has, by His own death, written the ways of the universe such that death is not an enemy power but an exquisite potential. His was the most gruesome death—His also the most abundant life. Life doesn't stay in the grave. Life lives. And Life gives life to all who were once dead, that they also might live. And in this power, in this abundance, death itself is lost, washed over in the flow of a universe precisely wired to circle back to life every time.

As we look at creation in this way, I think we wind up in awe once again. And I think we realize that, as frightening as it is to think of surrendering—of choosing to follow the God who said His path is the cross—this is a path that will, most certainly, lead to life. 

And suddenly we can join in with the God who doesn't fear death. We can join and sing, for Christ has been raised, and we will be too.

"...'Death is swallowed up in victory.' 'O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Cor.15:54c-57, ESV). 

Amen. So let it be. Life has won.