Curse-Breaker

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Gen. 3:15)

These words from God come at a pretty dark moment in the book of Genesis. The darkest of moments, in fact. Adam and Eve had just eaten from the tree they had been commanded not to eat from, they have shamefully hidden themselves in the trees from God and feebly tried to cover their own nakedness from each other. God, the master of hide-and-seek, eventually finds them. (Of course, it is much easier when the person hiding yells answers when the seeker asks "Where are you?", the way Adam does in Genesis 3:10. Real smooth, guy.) And then God starts dishing out the curses: the snake who had tempted Eve would be forced to crawl on his belly and eat dust; the woman would experience pain in childbirth; and the man would have to work the ground in a sweaty mess in order to get food to eat. And in this moment of tragedy, the human race is cast from paradise, and the blessing they had experienced in Eden is replaced by these curses.

And yet, in the middle of all of these curses, there is hope captured in verse 15. The serpent doesn't win in the end. God promises a seed from the woman that would crush his head. There is a reversal of the curse in store. The damage done in the garden would be undone. 

For whatever reason, I always assumed that Adam and Eve knew that this descendant wouldn't come for a long time down the road. But the more I think about it, the more I think they may have very well expected it soon. After all, as the first man and woman, they had no real sense of lengthy historical process. In fact, it almost seems as though Genesis is written to bring out this sense of expectation. As you read the narrative, you run across certain figures that cause you to think, "Now could this finally be the one who is going to give the serpent a good, old-fashioned curb-stomping? 

However, as you continue through Genesis, even though there are some incredible figures of righteousness, this expected curse-breaker is not found. The first "seed" of Eve is Cain, and maybe she thought he would be the one to set things straight. But instead, he kills his brother and becomes a wanderer. So what about Noah? He's described as "a righteous man, blameless in his generation" (Gen. 6:9). Perhaps he is the curse-breaker come at last. But, even though his obedience preserves the human race, he also gets wasted and goes all natural in his tent. He's not the one. But then Abraham appears on the scene, and he seems like a good guy. God seems to show some favor on him, in any case. But he tends to deceive people in scary situations, and he struggles with believing God's plan for him from time to time. He's not the curse-breaker either.

You can go on down the line through Genesis, and through Israel's entire history, in fact. Isaac. Jacob. Joseph. Moses. Joshua. Samuel. Saul. David. Elijah. Daniel. Ezra. Good guys, for the most part. But they don't give the serpent the business. Mankind remains under the curse. From the very beginning of the Bible's story, there is an expectation for this promised curse-breaker, but no one who takes the stage ends up being the guy. 

Our society continues to look for a curse-breaker today. People work hard to find someone or something that can bring an end to the world's problems. "Maybe this presidential candidate will fix everything." "Maybe this medical treatment is the answer." "Maybe this business model will set the worlds to rights." "Maybe this version of the iPhone will make my life complete." 

We're still looking around for a curse-breaker. But the thing is, he's already come.

The Christian position is the the curse-breaking, serpent-stomping deliverer has already come in the person of Jesus. He's what the Old Testament expects, and he's what many in our world have missed. And while we continue to live in a fallen world that has a lot of problems, the curse is somehow set in reverse in Jesus. He brings a new kingdom. He talks about a new way of living. His Spirit lives in his people, bringing old dusty bones back to life. And he promises that someday, the creation will be made completely new and will be relieved of its "bondage to corruption" (Rom. 8:21). 

As a person of God, then, the responsibility of the Christian is to proclaim the end of the curse and the identity of the true curse-breaker--Jesus. We can stop worrying about pursuing the curse-breakers that our world promotes, because we've found the real thing. 

And that's a good thing, because I can't afford an iPhone 5 anyway.

In the way of announcements, one of my favorite power-couples, Chris and Monica Hengge, recently started up a new blog. It's titled "Hengge Heads and Hearts," and you can check it out by clicking here. Each of them possesses both a head and heart much more developed than my own, and I'm excited to glean as much as I can from their insights. So be sure to check them out, follow them, subscribe to them, leave them comments, and maybe even send them a nice present in the mail. And don't forget to do the same for me, too. Except a better present. After all, you just met these two.

Make the Most

I have one simple motto in life, and it is this: There is not better day to bring your blog back from oblivion and irrelevance than today.

It's been a while since I've written anything, and for that, I apologize. Or, if you really hate my writing, I guess I apologize for kicking it back up. Of course, if you hate it that bad, you probably stopped reading after the first line, so there's no need for me to apologize to you since you didn't get this far. In fact, I can insult you and harass you now, and you would never know it. You suck, man. I hope you walk out to your driveway tomorrow to discover you have a mysteriously flat tire. Next time you go to Chick-fil-A, I hope they're all out of polynesian sauce. So there.

Normally after taking a hiatus from the blog, I come back with some excuse about why I didn't write. But this time, I don't really have one. I was just lazy and apathetic, and rewatching episodes of The Office online for the upteenth time felt like a better use of my time. But I'm glad to be back here with you, even though this may be the most anonymous and impersonal way to communicate. In any case, we're tight, right? Good.

Not long ago I was telling a group of people one of my favorite stories to tell. I won't recount the story here, because it's much better in person, and I may have very well included it in a blog post before. All I'll say here is that it involves Starbucks and a word-vomit that set my life on a path that led to me eating eating frozen pizza alone in my apartment two different nights this week. Anyways, telling the story caused me to think of how frustrating it can be to live with memories of missed opportunities, and that in turn made me think of the words of the apostle Paul in Colossians 4:2-6:

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

The passage urges the reader to make the most of every opportunity. This is of course built on the assumption that there are opportunities in the believer's life to serve God in some way. The reason that many Christians do not bear the type of fruit that they probably should is not for lack of opportunity. It's because too many of us fail to recognize and take advantage of the opportunities when they come. The more I think about it, the more I believe that every person is presented with opportunities to magnify Christ and to love and serve others, probably every day.

What I find especially interesting about this idea in Colossians is that, when Paul is writing this, he is sitting in a Roman prison. He reminds the Colossians of this fact by throwing in the comment that he is in chains for the gospel. Now I've never been in prison, but I would imagine that most would assume incarceration would limit one's opportunities to minister to the gospel. But Paul didn't see it that way. He understood that no matter what situation he was in, God could present him with opportunities to share the gospel, so he wanted to make the most of these opportunities by declaring the message boldly. In Philippians 1:12-14, he explains how his time in prison had served to advance the gospel. For Paul, prison walls couldn't contain the gospel and could not extinguish God-given opportunities for service and ministry.

I think that many Christians might feel as though they have no true opportunities to serve God, and this may be for a number of reasons. A person might feel that their situation, giftedness, relationships, location, job, schedule, or whatever else limits or even removes all such opportunities. But Paul understood that God can use his people regardless of what situation they might find themselves in, and the duty of the believer is to be on the lookout for these God-given opportunities and then to boldly make good use of them.

That may be why prayer is so strongly emphasized in this Colossians passage. In order to make the most of every opportunity, we need to see our days the way that God sees them. Such vision comes from prayer--from taking time to align yourself with the will and mindset of God. Prayer is more than present God with a list of requests; it is a chance to come before him and say, "God, help me to see things as you see them. Give me your vision. Allow me to perceive the opportunities that you set before me today, and grant me the boldness and the courage to act when I see what you would have me do."

My encouragement, then, would be to begin each day with a prayer like that. In Crazy Love, Francis Chan points out that many people talk about discovering God's purpose for their lives, but that perhaps a more helpful exercise would be to seek God's purpose for your day. The opportunities are there. The only question is what we'll do with them.

And by the way, they do have more than coffee at Starbucks.