Instead of trying to hold power over people by fighting against gay marriage, maybe we should come under and beside homosexuals and love and serve them. Show them their unmeasurable worth in God’s eyes. Allow God to transform hearts and minds. That’s what he does. Instead of telling homeless guys to “get a job” (or at least thinking it), maybe we should pull up a chair and spend time with them. We can find ways to get them work and a safe, warm and dry place to stay. Maybe even restore some dignity in the name of Jesus.

See, it is a lot easier to protest and petition than it is to love. It is alot cleaner. No one is saying we can’t believe in a cause or vote for what you believe, but have we tried to reach out to those people we rail so hard against? I know we say we love them and it isn’t about attacking them, but let’s put ourselves in their shoes. Jesus didn’t fight and protest against the tax collectors, prostitutes, outsiders and sinners. He embraced them. He served them. He showed them their unmeasurable worth. Do we look like Jesus?

Listen to what Dr. Greg Boyd has to say about the subject. “The distinctly kingdom question is not, how should we vote? The distinctly kingdom question is, How should we live? How can we individually and collectively come under women struggling with unwanted pregnancies and come under the unborn babies who are unwanted? How can we who are worse sinners than any woman with an unwanted pregnancy - and thus have no right to stand over them in judgement - sacrifice our time, energy, and resources to ascribe unsurpassable worth to them and their unborn children? How can we act in such a way that communicates our agreement with Jesus that these women and their unborn children are worth dying for? How can we individually and collectively sacrifice and serve women and their unwanted children so that it becomes feasible for the mother to go to full term? How can we individually and collectively bleed for pregnant women and for unborn babies in a way that maximizes life and minimizes violence?”

It makes our lives alot more messy. It isn’t so clean and neat. How can we apply those same thoughts and ideas to others in our culture lost and dying? How to love people in such a way that they can understand and see they are valued by God. How do we need to live our lives to make that possible? I am starting to get a true idea of what love is. If God is love and we are to be imitatators of God, then love looks like Calvary. No really. Calvary. Love is self-sacrificing and unselfish. It is humility, patient, kind, not envious, does not delight in evil but in truth, not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrong. Always protects. Always trusts, Always hopes. Always perseveres. Love never fails.

See, Love looks like Calvary.

First off, most of us European Americans fled our countries in search of freedom from our oppressors. The pilgrims were in search of religious freedom from the church of England. Even our Mennonite ancestors sought out freedom. Dutch, Swiss, German and many others were seeking solace and safety in a new land. It wasn’t as if this land wasn’t occupied already. Of course, we all know that there were indigenous people here long before we ever arrived.

Yet, without as much as a green card, we steam rolled our way across the country, practically wiping out whole people groups. We threw up our flags and claimed this land as our own. Even after states were established, the government steam rolled over their sovereignty as well. Welcome to the new Promised Land.

So now, we have established ourselves over this land and we have become a nation that welcomes immigrants. We are a nation of immigrants of course. Yet, the very people we took the land from (and yes we purchased some) are not welcome here. Sensors, border patrols, fences and walls barricade us from the coming onslaught of “illegal immigrants”. We worry about the economy, safety and sovereignty of our land. Is it ours to begin with?

We feel this land slipping away from us. Our identity as a nation is being compromised. We feel threatened and out of control. Sounds familiar. I do not believe in karma or fate. I do believe in the justice and rightness of God. Is there a time for all things to be made right? To become a nation, a lot of blood had to be shed. Not just the blood of the revolutionaries, but of those who lived here before us as well. Are we paying for the sins of a past generation? We can’t go back and undo it. But we will still reap the whirlwind our fathers before us have sown.

I always grew up believing that the world was going to end one day. Jesus is going to come back and lay utter waste to this world and everything in it. I have been challenged to examine why i believe that, and what that means for us as followers of Christ. Let’s look at some of the scripture i am wrestling with.

Romans 8: 19-21
“The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage of decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.”

When God liberates, like in the exodus, he doesn’t do it by destroying them. He does it by asking them to be the people God intended them to be. He restores them back. Is God liberating the world so it can be what God intended it to be? It doesn’t sound like it’s awaiting it’s destruction. It’s sounds… hopeful.

I have been trying to take a look at Revelation and I am suddenly hopeful, not afraid. I see the final judgement on Babylon and the bringing down of the nations so God can rule them with an “iron sceptor”. The beast is defeated, Satan is vanquished and the dead are judged. There are some theologians who believe that this has already happened. I haven’t made that leap yet. I understand that though and have not ruled it out. Look how this all ends.

But THEN I saw “a new heaven and a new earth”(ch. 21), for the first heaven and the first earth passed away. The Holy city of the new Jerusalem came down and a loud voice from the throne said… now check this out. this is amazing. “Look! God’s dwelling place is among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”

Read Isaiah 65: 17-25

How does it “end”? With Eden restored(ch.22)! The beginning of God’s narrative starts with the fall and judgement in and on Eden. It ends with the restoration of it. It gives me hope, that God too, is restoring us. His people. We are being restored and made into God’s image, so we can live with Him in His holy city for eternity.

Amen. Come Lord Jesus.