Expecting God's Unexpected

They expected God to send a conquering king, someone who would set things right between the nation of Israel and the Roman Empire. Jesus constantly turned people’s eyes to an unseen world of unseen rulers.

They expected a visible ruler. Jesus appeared invisibly as an embryo in Mary’s womb. Then he walked among them humbly, exercising undisputable wisdom and power not to secure a visible throne but to conquer unseen demons and to destroy lofty opinions raised against the knowledge of God (see II Cor. 10:5).

They expected the Messiah to sit on the throne of David in Jerusalem, respected by everyone for his power. Jesus was lifted high...on a cross, hanged as criminal, disgusting to Jew and Gentile alike.

During Advent and Christmas we pause and re-live that first season of expectation, when the Messiah had not yet appeared. I’d like to suggest we also try to recapture that sense of what those in the first century were expecting. They had a narrative they had built, detailing the way God would be working “any day now.” They were sure of it. And then God moved, deliberately, decisively to do something utterly different.

JFA’s regular dialogue team after outreach at University of Oklahoma in October 2021: Paul Kulas, Tammy Cook, Jeremy Gorr, Rebekah Dyer, Kristina Massa, Kaitlyn Donihue, Mary St. Hilaire, Jon Wagner, Bella O’Neill, Andrea Thenhaus (Missing: Steve Wagner)

Click the image (or this link) to give a gift to JFA to support the work of these missionaries. Each (including Steve Wagner - see other picture) raises his or her support to be able to continue the work of changing hearts and minds on abortion and other important worldview topics.

Note: For a 2021 tax-deductible receipt, please give or postmark your gift by December 31, 2021.

It’s a sort of cautionary tale for us. Be careful of those things you expect with certainty. For God is at work, and his mind is many times quite different than our own.

Along with many others, I listened to the Supreme Court’s December 1 oral arguments on the Dobbs case. Dobbs concerns the Mississippi ban on abortion after 15 weeks which is causing the Supreme Court to consider overruling its landmark cases protecting legal abortion, Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). I reviewed the thoughts of various commentators before and after. Many expect the Court to overturn Roe and Casey. Many pro-life advocates are quivering with excitement about the potential that many states could then move forward with stronger restrictions against abortion.

Add to this the Supreme Court’s recent decision on Texas SB8, effectively allowing the law to continue to stand as it has since September 1, causing many Texas abortionists to cease doing abortions after a heartbeat is detected (at approximately six weeks from last menstrual period, or four weeks from fertilization – note that the heartbeat arises at about three weeks from fertilization but normally can’t be detected at that point). Many pro-life advocates in other states are monitoring the Texas situation and hoping to utilize the same type of law to curtail many abortions in their own states.

To be sure, even if the Supreme Court’s decisions in these cases result in the saving of one human being’s life, we will rejoice. Nothing I say in what follows is meant to take away from this.

Let’s remember the cautionary tale of the Messiah expected and the Messiah come: be careful of those visible outcomes you expect with certainty.

It is the same with these Supreme Court cases. Be careful of the visible outcomes you expect with certainty. Sure, the words of some commentators could turn out to be wise, even prophetic. Roe and Casey may be on their way out. The Texas law may survive other challenges and prove to be an effective strategy to stop abortions. These things may all be true. But God – God may be moving in spite of expectations to bring about some other results we can’t even imagine.

We look back at our first century Jewish counterparts and caution them in retrospect to look not for what they had come to expect from their Messiah and God’s plan and the meaning of redemption. We caution them to instead “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” (see Matt. 6:33). We caution them to “set their mind on the things of God and not on the things of man” (see Mark 8:31-33). We caution them to humbly pray for the strength to wait on the Lord, to know him more deeply, to do his will in this day, regardless of the visible outcomes he brings tomorrow. In short, we caution them to “walk by faith, not by sight” (see II Cor. 5:7).

In the same way, I encourage each of us to pray for the strength to seek to know God in this time, to be with him, even as we earnestly desire for all unborn children to be protected from violence. Our task is not to divine the decisions of the Supreme Court with a certainty we cannot reasonably have about the future; our task is to keep ourselves doing the things we know with certainty God has given us to do today.

The Gospel accounts and the Book of Acts tell the story vividly. Over and over again, the Jews were surprised by the way God was working out his plan. Perhaps we might even say that surprise is the dominant theme of those books.

I suspect that surprise will also continue to be the dominant theme of our work seeking justice for all. I don’t know what God will do with the law in 2022, but I am rather certain of one thing: He will surprise me.

So let us then keep our eyes fixed on God, earnestly seeking what he would have us do in this day. Let us earnestly seek to be with him in his work and to enjoy his decision to be with us in his Son, Immanuel, God with us.

With this in mind, our team is gearing up to keep doing in 2022 those things we believe God has uniquely gifted us to do. We will seek to change hearts and minds so that abortion is unthinkable, and so that love for women and children is kindled into thoughtful action that is unstoppable. We will train as many people as we can to create as many conversations as they can, in hopes of seeing God change the world in a way only he can.

Thank you for standing with us but also kneeling with us before the Father, as we tie all of our expectations and hopes to him and the surprising ways he is working in our midst.

Help JFA “Expect God’s Unexpected” in 2022

Thank you for your faithful support of Justice For All. There’s still time to give an end-of-year gift. Click the picture or click this link to donate or postmark your gift by December 31, 2021.

Pictured above is JFA’s outreach team during California events in November 2021: Andrea Thenhaus, Kaitlyn Donihue, Steve Wagner, Jon Wagner, Rebekah Dyer, Kristina Massa, Bella O’Neill

Please pray with us for every event and every conversation we create, looking with trusting expectation to see what results God is pleased to bring from them, even if he surprises us.

Merry Christmas!

Jesus Came in Weakness

Have you ever noticed that God often values different things than we do? As humans we tend to value strength, but so often God chooses weakness.

In the Old Testament, God chose weakness when he asked Gideon to send most of his troops home and fight with only a tiny minority of his army.

He chose weakness when He sent Elijah to ask for food from a poor widow (she only had enough food for one last meal) rather than to a wealthier individual.

In the New Testament, God chose weakness when He called fishermen and tax-collectors – the lowest of the low in society – to follow Him instead of calling the best and the brightest.

But more astounding than all of these stories, God chose weakness when He sent Jesus into the world. Jesus came into the world, not as an independent adult, not as a child, and not even as a baby. Jesus came into the world as an embryo. An embryo is weak. He is dependent. The God who created the universe and holds it together chose to enter His creation in the weakest and most dependent state possible.

That encourages me.

Our God is not looking for the best and the brightest. He is not seeking credentials. He chooses weakness. He chooses us.

Many of us feel like we can’t really be used by God. We are not talented or powerful enough. We don’t have a big audience or a lot of money. We look around and see other people whom we think God could really use – people with power, influence, talent, etc.

When we think this way, we are missing the point. God is not looking for talented, powerful people. He is looking for people who will trust Him to use them in their weaknesses and their inadequacies. God chooses weakness because in weakness, His strength is most clearly seen.

That is what Christmas is all about.

God came to earth in weakness in order to rescue those who are weak, you and me.

This year, as you celebrate Christmas, take time to be amazed afresh at the incredible reality that God came into the world in weakness to rescue us.

Great Interruptions

On the afternoon of Christmas day in 2019, our family of seven seemed a bit aimless, so we decided to pile into our mini-van and go surprise our friends with a bit of caroling.

In an era of text message arrangements, caroling is perhaps the last acceptable vestige of an important form of social interruption: dropping by. We were a bit hesitant, but we were reasonably sure that our caroling would be seen as a welcome diversion. We could simply sing a few songs on the porch and leave, after all. As it happened, our friends happily folded us into their Christmas day plans. They invited us in. The adults talked, and the kids played.

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Jesus heals the paralytic lowered through the roof. (Stained Glass, St. Colman’s Cathedral in Ireland; Image: Andreas F. Borchert, CC 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Note: The windows of the South Aisle featured in the Banner Image of this post also by Andreas F. Borchert and shared under CC 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

As we move through the Christmas season and into 2021, we need to make this sort of interrupting a habit, and not just when we’re caroling. The result might indeed be as positive as we experienced last Christmas, but it also might be awkward. We might inconvenience. Still, it’s important. COVID-19 may mean “dropping by” takes on different forms, but interrupting in some way is perhaps even more important given the current isolation most people are feeling.

Great interruptions are sometimes necessary to demonstrate great love.

Remember the four friends who let down their paralytic friend through the roof, interrupting Jesus right in the middle of teaching a crowd? This was a great interruption. Jesus took it in stride and, the Scripture says, “seeing their faith” he claimed to forgive the man’s sins. Then he proved that he had authority to forgive those sins by healing the man. He responded to the great love shown by the four friends by showing the great love of God in healing the man spiritually and physically. (See Mark 2:1-12 and Luke 5:17-26.)

The Son of God’s response to this great interruption highlighted an even greater interruption that he was carrying out: he had interrupted history by taking on human flesh so that he could completely interrupt the works of darkness, overturn the corruption of sin, and draw human beings into the life for which God created them. This is the great interruption we welcome as we celebrate Christmas.

Great interruptions are sometimes necessary to demonstrate great love.

As we reflect on these “great interruptions” (great in both senses), let’s consider our love for people, for God, for the truth, for those in danger (such as unborn children), and for those in distress (such as women confronting unintended pregnancy). Demonstrating love for each of these is worth interrupting the daily course of events. I encourage you to interrupt people’s lives with phone calls and visits, and even (if all else fails) text messages or social media.

Here’s one practical way you can interrupt: invite friends to our Love3 Online Workshops beginning January 18, 2021 (www.jfaweb.org/love3). Because the name Love3 refers to loving the woman in distress, the unborn child, and the person who disagrees with us, just the invitation can lead to a conversation about each of the things I’ve mentioned above.

Why Love3? Because God loves each of those people.

Why Love3? Because women and children and pro-choice advocates are intrinsically valuable image-bearers of God.

Why attend Love3 workshops? Because each of us needs to develop the skill of artfully navigating difficult conversations. Ultimately, we interrupt so that the love of God can cause a “great interruption” in the lives of every human being.

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Help JFA Create “Great Interruptions” in 2021

Thank you for your faithful support of Justice For All. There’s still time to give an end-of-year gift. Go to www.jfaweb.org/donate to give an online gift (credit card or electronic check) or postmark your gift by December 31, 2020.

It's in Our Nature

I remember seeing news stories about “The Miraculous Journey,” a massive 14-piece sculpture by Damien Hirst, when it was unveiled in 2013 in Doha, Qatar. I was amazed at the scale of this public dialogue tool, chronicling the development of the unborn from fertilization to birth. (I thought, “I wish everyone could see this. It would be sure to get people talking.” Indeed, you can use this link to Penny Yi Wang’s photos of the sculpture to get people talking!) Shortly after its unveiling, the sculpture was covered, and it mysteriously remained covered for about five years.

Just last month, though, the sculpture was “born again” and is now back on public display. It illustrates the nature of the early human being at work. His human nature moves him from comfortable dependence on his mother’s womb out into the harsh realities of a foreign world, and his human nature enables him to confront those challenges.

At this time of Christmas, we’re reminded of how the Son of God, possessing the divine nature as the second person of the Trinity, took on that same human nature and “lived in it” with perfection, as human life was meant to be lived. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, our human nature has been made new by faith:

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (II Cor. 5:17-21)

The Son of God took on a second nature to save us, and now a new set of activities can become “second nature” for us. Just as the nature of the early human enables him to accomplish all of his activities, our new nature enables us to bring the word of reconciliation as Christ’s ambassadors to lost people operating in an old nature based on old things.

As we celebrate Jesus this Christmas and come into the harsh realities of a new year, with all of its challenges to the smallest humans on earth and to women distressed by unintended pregnancy, this is our prayer for ourselves and for you:

“Loving Father, through Your Son Jesus you gave us a new nature to love and serve you. We trust you will strengthen us to live according to this new nature, as we seek to bring the word of reconciliation to every human being involved in unintended pregnancies.”

Thank you for partnering with us to help Christians discover the abilities of this new God-given nature through practical dialogue training. It is a joy to see them extend the word of reconciliation to those who so desperately need it.

Six Christmas Reflections

For an explanation, see my 2013 Christmas Reflection, "Tech-Getherness?"

A few days ago, I posted, "A Person Is a Wonder," the sixth in a series of Christmas reflections in which I think about the meaning of the Incarnation of the Son of God as I share some of my family's Christmas joys (like The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and Amahl and the Night Visitors) and my personal conversations on college campuses.  Here's a list of all six reflections:

• 2015: A Person Is a Wonder (read or listen)

• 2014: A Tale of Two Gifts

• 2013: Tech-Getherness?

• 2012: Presence - The Best Presents Don't Come in Packages

• 2011: Messing with the Pageant - Is Imogene Worth It?

• 2010: "Let Me Take Him My Crutch."