SIN IN THE CAMP

The Israelites had experienced a tremendous, miraculous victory at Jericho. After the great miracle to get across the Jordan River, they were terrified and considered the city impossible to take. But God appeared, gave them rather strange instructions, and won the victory for them.

There were perhaps 3 million people, and all of them obeyed the command of God to totally destroy the city. That is, all but one. Achan saw the gold and some valuable goods, and greed got the better of him. He took some and hid it in the ground near his tent. After all, the Israelites had plundered Egypt, Bashan and Edom. Why not take a little plunder here, too? One little compromise couldn’t hurt.

Israel, heady from their easy victory over a formidable city, saw the next town of Ai, and considered it comparatively easy to take. They would not need to trouble the whole community, but just send 3000 men there. Surprisingly, the men of Ai rallied and defeated them, and 32 Israelites died.

Once again going from elation to depression, Joshua asked God about the problem. Why was He not with them anymore? Did He not give them promises to defeat their enemies? Where was God now?

God’s answer was straightforward: get up. There is sin in the camp. That’s why you were defeated. Thirty-two families are grieving right now because of the sin of one man.

Joshua called a meeting, and God singled out Achan. Achan confessed his sin, to the glory of God. But that wasn’t the end of it. Achan needed to be stoned to death, along with the rest of his family. Does that seem harsh? If so, take it as an indicator that God is very, very serious about sin. He is probably far more aware and serious about sin than we are. After all, He was willing not only to have Achan and his family stoned to death, but God was willing to have Himself crucified. That’s how serious sin is. The wages of sin is death; either physical and spiritual, or the physical death of Jesus and our own voluntary spiritual death.

We like to think that we are pretty good people, that God loves us because we are worth loving, and that He just wanted to mop up a bit with our sin challenge, or to better improve our performance of righteous behavior. God was and still is serious about sin. Even under the covenant of grace, He proved that He still feels as strongly about sin in the camp as He did back then. Remember Ananias and Sapphira?

We have been going so well, blessed by God in so many ways. Why are we now struggling? Could it be because there is sin in the camp? Have we knowingly (or unknowingly) allowed someone who is in willful disobedience to continue in the church, without discipline taking place?

Have we become so complacent about sin that our consciences have become seared? Do we no longer fear God? I know that around the university, most of the students have experimented with “grown-up” talk of taking God’s name in vain and using emotionally-charged terms (“crap” is challenging “awesome” as the most-used word on campus). Somehow, we think ourselves to be more authentic by talking this way, but maybe we are just being more worldly.

Did we get there because we watch R-rated movies on a regular basis without even considering whether the content is affecting us morally? We see so much violence and steaming sexual scenes and immodest dress that we no longer recognize it as sinful. I could add TV, internet sites, radio and other personal entertainment devices (putting the “vice” back into “device”), and computer and video games.

And what about drug usage on campus and in our community? Increasingly, people are using drugs that are “technically” legal, (the most common of which are caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, or over-the-counter narcotics), but in our community many are also using illegal drugs, that are so common that we hardly think them to be wrong (marijuana and crack among them). We are whiling away our years, wasting our brain cells, amusing ourselves to death, having grown spiritually fat and lazy. What happened to watching and praying? Instead we are wasting and playing. But we’ve grown used to it. So in the name of openness and tolerance and unconditional love, we say nothing.

What about the sin of gluttony? Or the less popular sloth? The ancients designated sloth as a “deadly” sin, but we see it as the normal Christian life. Having lost diligence, are we drifting toward eternity with Jesus in our back pocket as fire insurance, caring not about self-control or self-discipline or holiness. Dallas Willard says that the word "sloth" could be translated "bored." Have we somehow become bored with God, unmoved by the Sacred?

We have forgotten how to blush. We wink at sin. We forgive it in ourselves, and forgive it in others. Jesus is our buddy, not our Lord.

The words of our worship songs do not convince me that we are focused on holiness. I think that we are more focused on ourselves, and on bringing Jesus as a boyfriend into our lives. We are the beginning and the end, and He is our positive self-actualizer.

How long, O Lord, until You put an end to this? We ask You for seasons of refreshing, but we neglect repentance in order to bring them. We stumble in the darkness, or at least in the gray of twilight, and then cry out, “Bless me, Lord, bless me!” Forgive us, Father!

IS THIS THE END OF THE WORSHIP FAD?

Please bear with me here. The first half of what I have to say is going to be extremely uncomfortable, perhaps discouraging, and no doubt controversial. Those of us who are musicians have a very personal, and might I add, just as importantly, professional stake in the current heyday of music-as-worship. But I promise that if you stay with me, I have some words of encouragement on the other side.

For the past decade or more, “worship,” defined as the congregational music time, has enjoyed a heyday, but I sense that the popularity of worship, as we know it, is crashing to a halt. The evidence is all around that tells me The Sunday Morning Show is going the same way as the hula-hoop, the wethead, the dry look, pet rocks, and moon shoes. Bear with me, and I will tell you some of that evidence.

How We Got Here
A bit of history first. Peaking in the 1970s, evangelicals seemed to be incapable of anything that did not primarily emphasize evangelism, including worship. Songs that otherwise focused on the attributes and actions of God had to be turned in the direction of the lost: “Oh, friend, do you know Him?” was the final stanza of seemingly every chorus written in the early 1970s. (see my thesis) Youth ministers were the second staff hired, and church growth movement provided the buzzwords for believers.

Then came the worship fad. Evangelicals discovered the concept of singing of the attributes and actions of God in the Lord Jesus Christ, without having to tack a guilt-inducing invitation on the end, and the worship craze was underway. This trend coincided with the Boomer generation coming of age and setting a new direction for the church. The second member of a church planting team was most often a worship leader, and the number of full-time worship ministries has multiplied in the last two decades.

There are signs that it is over, and that perhaps quickly we will see it come to the ground. The next generation will not be as interested in either evangelism (as we have known it) or worship (as we now know it). A new generation will soon be seeking a new agenda. I’m not saying that worship songs will become as rare as a secondary dominant chord in a Top-100 Worship Songs collection, but I am predicting worship ministry’s loss of favored status.

Ironically, this trend is happening just as many of our churches are awakening to musical worship. My apologies to those churches who are in such a state, but please bear with me, and you may be warned of what may lie ahead.

What’s Wrong with “Worship?”
Here is the fatal flaw of the current “fad” of musical worship: Experiential-based faith, shored up by experiential-based worship, is destined to fall. I mean, how many times can you sing to an Invisible Being the words, “I want to see you, touch you, feel you near to me,” and not have it start to sound hollow after a while? The songs used to make (or help) us feel close to God. Music was the sacrament of this generation, in that music was what ushered in the mysterious presence of God. But a indisputable supernatural encounter never actually happened, physically. So it has begun to dawn on many that continuing to sing such songs is becoming shallow, almost mocking the very words that were being sung. In our top-down Sunday morning show, God has twelve minutes to show up, and then we move on, ready or not.

The ironies of The Worship Fad are all around us.

Perhaps the herald of the beginning of the end of the worship fad is the irony of the use of the song, “The Heart of Worship.” Of all things, we sing it, and have multiple well-rehearsed instrumentalists and scripted singers and pre-set slides projected on the wall, all to say that worship is more than music.

Or, maybe even more telling, is the fact that tomorrow morning I am leading a so-called worship set in which a group of musicians will join me in leading us all in some songs about grace.

And what’s with “worship concerts?” We have “worship musicians” selling pricey tickets for people to come and “worship,” meaning listen and perhaps participate along with the music. The musicians are celebrities, and they sell tee-shirts and they personally autograph CDs (just like the apostle Paul did) and coffee mugs with their names and pictures on them. Sooner or later, this commercialization of a very narrow definition of worship is bound to come crashing down.

You say, “Oh, yes, we have discovered that there’s more to worship than music. At my church, we have a liturgical dance team and a drama ministry, we often show video clips, and once we even had a painter create a work during the sermon.”

Can you see that such expansion of our very narrow definition of worship is still rooted in the performing arts? You may have put off the inexorable boredom or disillusionment by perhaps five years, but I expect that all worship that is solely dependent on the performing arts is also destined eventually to come crashing down in the near future.

What we sometimes have called worship renewal is really a rebirth of the arts. It is still driven by performance-based programs. So, of course, I am not heralding the end of worship per se, but the end of the Sunday Morning Show.

Witnesses of the End of an Era?
Is the paid ministry the main culprit? What does a minister do? Shepherd, or administer? Every airline in America has struggled financially, especially since the crisis in late 2001. But they were going bankrupt before airline use dropped dramatically, largely because they had become top-heavy structures that were too expensive to maintain. For every pilot in the air, there were two in retirement, still receiving benefits from the company. For every person at the counter working with travelers, there were two in upper management, generating paperwork and layers of red tape. Only the new, lean startup airlines with low overhead have avoided bankruptcy. In the same way, churches have become top-heavy machines, whose purpose seems to be to perpetuate their own programs. House churches and other emergent churches seem much more efficient and somehow more authentic. I mean, when the man who tells you that the Bible says you should tithe to the local church is receiving his salary from that church, it smacks a bit of self-serving conflict of interests.

I have a friend in his 40s who is the worship leader of a large church out west who wonders if he can continue with the kind of pressure that he lives under every week until retirement age. He is seriously considering finding a small church and preaching for a little group of people, where he administers less and ministers more.

I have another friend in his 30s who was a successful worship leaders of one of the largest churches in the brotherhood. It is a seeker-driven church, and the pressure on him was to watch Saturday Night Live every Saturday night of his life, and to listen to top-40 radio in order to keep his finger on the pulse of secular culture. When his children came along, somehow it seemed wrong to explain how daddy had to watch R-rated movies to do the work of Jesus. He has left the paid ministry and is living a peaceful life in a small town now.

Another friend in his 20s has been leading worship at a high-impact church plant. He has been designated as an up-and-coming church planter himself. But somehow doing the high-risk, high-impact church with a Sunday Morning Show has disillusioned him. He has concluded that he would rather open a coffee shop and start a small group in his home.

Another friend recently graduated, and could be hired by any number of churches as a worship leader. But his heart is in being part of an emergent church in an urban area. He suspects that he might never receive a salary from a church, or for that matter, ever make much money doing something else for a living, but he will be able to live with his conscience.

All of these conversations with friends have happened in the last few months. They leave me wondering if we are beginning to experience a disenchantment of music-driven worship ministry.

My friend and colleague, Gary Gregory, teaches a course in the Theology of Worship at CCU. The other day, because we were talking about these matters, he asked his class to brainstorm a list of their worship values. They then compared it to Robert Webber’s list in The Younger Evangelicals (p.189) and they mentioned most everything on the list. Only one person said anything about music. And this was a class full of musicians. Interesting. Here is Webber’s list:
a genuine encounter with God
a genuine community
depth and substance
more frequent and meaningful experience of Communion
challenging sermons and more use of Scripture in worship
participation
creative use of the senses; visual (our students did not mention this)
quiet, characterized by the inclusion of contemplative music and times for quiet personal reflection and intimate relationship with God
a focus on the transcendence and otherness of God

Obligation does not work as a motivator anymore. A generation ago, good Christians went to church on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, to Bible study or prayer meeting on Wednesday night, and the really dedicated ones came to Tuesday calling night. That doesn’t count softball team and youth group and Bible Bowl. The programs kept everyone busy, and gave the impression that they were growing spiritually. Many of the younger generation are not interested in that kind of “bubble” living, dedicating oneself to the organized programs of a church. So it’s not just “worship” that is taking it on the chin, but really all of the programs of the traditional church.

So, What’s Next?
Death of one fad means birth of another. What’s next?
Community. Acts 2:42-47. Relationships don’t need worship (public performance)
Love. Family reunion doesn’t require quality program.
Prayer. Stop singing about talking to God, and start just talking to Him. The Sunday Morning Show eschews silence.
Alt.worship. More than music.
Creativity
Liturgy. Depth.

I’m not talking about creating another program, or another way of approaching The Sunday Morning Show. Rather, this is an entirely different ministry philosophy, an ancient/future approach to life in Jesus. We know we are beginning to arrive when people stop arguing about the style of music that is played, fussing about who is leading or how long it goes, when we stop looking to paid professionals to take us into the Presence.

HEARTS ON FIRE

Where does the coldness of heart come from? Day after day I live among the Holy Things: theology, the Bible, worship, ministry, Jesus. And even in this season I focus on The Passion of the Christ: His journey, betrayal, prayers, service, Last Supper, beatings, scourging, mockery, Crucifixion, , burial, resurrection. Then, in daily interaction with people I deal with the concept of confession, repentance, baptism, heart change, spiritual rebirth. Why am I less and less moved by it all? What has become of my cold, calloused heart?

Have I compromised? Have I begun to assume that I have somehow merited grace? Am I just tired, or perhaps depressed? Is there a physiological reason for complacency?

I suspect that the source is a seared conscience. Little compromises, mostly in allowing sin in and around me, freeze me into not being shocked anymore by sin. Call it the postmodern funk, or the Emergent Malaise. But my faith has lost its sense of wonder, of simplicity, of comforting naivety. Belief has become this complex set of words and philosophic concepts. But I have grown tired of it. I need radical discipleship to once again grip my heart. I want to be broken, and to have it soak down (or up) to my emotions.

The trip to Israel has helped to renew me. Watching The Passion and celebrating the penitential season is sensitizing me again. Reading my Bible is certainly a help, as is daily prayer with Ellen and our children. I am hoping for a collective renewal among the lead worshipers and musicians in the next couple of weeks. I would like a full night's sleep, and to get caught up at work. But still my soul is searching to get back what I have lost.

"LORD, awaken my sleepy heart. Let me see my sinfulness, and let me see the beauty of Your sacrifice and Your grace. Let me love You with every fiber of my being, and let me serve You with joy and humility. I don't want to be just a pretty good fellow, helping other pretty good folks do a little better. I want to join the fellowship of the broken and restored. Break through my pride and let me love Jesus as I so desperately wish to. Amen."
-ker

REFLECTIONS ON ISRAEL

Dare I pray it, God? Let me see Israel as You see them. What is Your heart concerning Israel?

Oh! No! I see but a glimpse and it is too much! Much too beautiful! Far too painful! I weep. Is this what You see?

Let me see no more. No, yet I want to see it. Beautiful. Painful. The Bride of Christ. Your love for her. Your chosen people. Their rejection. Your rejection. Your love. Your broken heart.

The songwriter says that Your tears grow into the hands that serve the outcasts. As I join You in Your broken heart, what will spring from my own tears?

I pray for the Kingdom! I pray for the Arabs, (more than a third of the population, but less than 2% are Christians). I pray for righteousness and justice to flow down like rivers in this place, or for God to discipline the very-secular state of Israel (most here are atheists). I pray for the believers to flourish. I pray for peace. I pray for repentance. I pray for the message of Jesus to go out to all (not just to Israelites). I pray for the Armenians. I pray for the Bedouins. I pray for the Arabs. And I pray for the Jews. Above all, I pray for You to do Your will, whatever that looks like, as You wish.

Secular Israel needs us to pray that they will see the end of their headlong pursuit of financial prosperity and their obsession with military security. Lord, may they see that the so-called freedom they see embodied in America is only a ruse, and that they are in to their flesh: modern art, immoral lifestyle, diamonds and guns. Let them find the Prince of Peace and the Spirit of Holiness.

Religious Israel needs us to pray that they will see the futility of trying to please a holy God through keeping the Law. They love the written law, which is good, but they have not yet seen that the Scriptures are what speak of Jesus! Prayers have substituted for the sacrifices, but without the shedding of there is no forgiveness. They need atonement, Lord, and they need You to take the load of their sin problem. Their Messiah came to deal with sin and guilt, but they have looked for political deliverance for all these years. Deliver them, Jesus!

Oh, Jerusalem
Hear Yeshua cry over you again
May the Glory fall on you like rain
Jerusalem
Oh, Jerusalem

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem
Pray that love and justice reign in her
That God will heal the divisions of men
And gather all His children to her

City of God that bears the Sacred Name
The Prince of Peace, your King of Glory came
You stoned the prophets, your Messiah died alone
And now your wounded history lies within these stones

You have fallen for my good
As God said you would
Yet rising from the dust
Springs a covenant of love!

REFLECTIONS ON NAZARETH

Nazareth may have been an unimpressive little place--an unwalled village of maybe 200 people.
But it was a great location for growing up. The town was about the size of my home church as I was growing up. Jesus and His family lived there for about 25 years, and the culture was not as transcient as ours, so pretty much the whole town knew young Jesus, Mary's son. His teachers, His mentors, His family, His friends and peers, they all lived right here.

As I say, the location couldn't be beat. Just on the edge of town is a cliff overlooking the Jezreel Valley. I imagine that young Jesus was taken there often by His Sabbath School teacher. From that spot, He could see the entire history of the saints of old unfold before Him.

On this ridge, we are facing south. Off to the left is the Jordan River, and to the right is the Mediterranean Sea. You can practically see both bodies of water from here, the whole land is so compact and rich with the history of the saints and sinners of the ages.

Just off to the left, hiding the river, is Mt. Tabor. It is a very noticeable mound over the valley. Jesus would be Transfigured there, and the disciples would see the Kingdom come with power. Just beyond the hills behind Nazareth is Cana, and then Galilee, where Jesus would spend much of Him ministry. Ahead and over the mountain range is Jerusalem, where He would finish it all.

Swinging around just a bit is the place where Deborah rallied the people of Israel to great victory, and striaght ahead is the battlefield where Saul and the Israelites were defeated and Saul and Jonathan were killed.

Slightly to the left is also Mt. Gilboah. At its foot Gideon had the men drink from the stream, and God delivered Israel right out here with only 300 brave men. It is also the area where Jezebel died in Jezreel. Mt. Carmel is over there to the right, where Elijah bravely and miraculously withstood her prophets.

Across the valley, just over the hill is the town where Elijah brought a young man back to life. In this side of the hill is the town of Nain, where Jesus would likewise bring a young man back to life.

Megiddo is off to the right of Nain, just a bit. It has always been a crucial city, constantly fought over. Armageddon will be the final scene of a showdown between the nations and the Lord, and the armies will fill this huge valley. The Lord Almighty will win.

They say stories like that make a boy grow bold. Stories like that make a man walk straight.

Oh, and this cliff? In Luke 4, we are told that Jesus began His public ministry and all the people of Nazareth spoke well of Him. He had just turned 30, and I imagine this was to be Jesus' first sermon in the synagogue of His hometown. The entire town was there, smiling and proud of their miraculous and well-mannered (if a bit peculiar) homey. Every eye is on Him. He reads from Isaiah and says that it is fulfilled this day! Such gracious words! We are so pleased!

Then the message of Jesus takes a turn, as Jesus quotes two Old Testament stories of how God chose to bless Gentiles. There was the widow in Elijah's time, and Naaman the leper. Was Jesus saying that God chooses Gentiles? They are suddenly infuriated. He is not our little boy-turned-prophet, but a terrible heretic, worthy of death. As one, they grab Jesus and rush Him to, you guessed it, the cliff.

There, they surround the young man Jesus. His back is to the edge of the cliff as He gazes at his mentors, his teachers, his family and his friends. They look at Him, and then beyond Him to the valley of history. In my mind's eye, the crowd is awed to silence by this scene. Somehow, they cannot move to act on murdering this One who quotes stories they had told Him, even though they don't understand.

Later, when a woman is caught in adultery, Jesus would have a similar showdown with the religious leaders. One by one, they are silenced by his silence, and, while there is not repentance or resolution, at least there is a stalemate. Jesus slips through the crowd and left them.

Nazareth had been a great place to grow up. But the Prophet much eventually move on to Jerusalem to die.

REFLECTIONS ON BETHESDA

"Do you want to get well?" He asks. "If so, then be well. Act on it. Take up that palet and go home."

Peter sees Jesus from the boat. "Invite me to join You," Pete asks. "Come," the Lord invites. "Step out and walk. You can, you know."

Jesus takes two loaves and five fish. He sees 5000 men. And in faith, our Lord gives thanks and begins to distribute the food.

The principle is ripe for the plucking:

No, you don't know how to.

No, you never have before.

Yes, it makes no sense. But God has whispered something to you, hasn't He? Act on it.

I'm not describing a mail-order, name-it-and-claim-it religion. But I'm describing what Jesus did.

Some call it faith.

REFLECTIONS ON GALILEE

He went on foot or by boat wherever He went, so it makes sense that He didn't travel far.

Yet, the region seems more like a neighborhood, by our standards. Like the Greater Cincinnati area. Even the big trips to Jerusalem were more like travelling from Mason to Dry Ridge, or the Ohio River to Dayton.

So how did this itinerate Preacher make such an impact in such a small, insignificant corner of the world?

He did it by turning religion on its head.

He did it by living His message.

He did it by fully equipping a few men to keep it going.

He did ti by the signs and wonders He performed, right here, signs that still bring pilgrims here to wonder at their Creator. You can stand in Capernaum, or go out to the middle of Lake Galilee and see it all.

He really healed a paralytic right over there at Peter's home.
He really walked on water, right there, and had Peter join Him.
He really taught from, slept in, and calmed the storm from that boat, right over there.
He really healed this demoniac from Gadarene, and the pigs died right over there.

Too many witnesses, too fickle a crowd, peace-loving disciples who changed the world, not through aggression, but through faith working itself out in love.

In this region, there are grim reminders everywhere you look that this area is a hotbed of violence. Matters are settled by intimidation and outsmarting the wiles of your enemy. Jesus is as stark a contrast to that way of achieving peace as can be imagined:

He let Himself be wronged, let Himself be cheated, didn't even try to rescue Himself or cast blame. He showed mercy to the fallen (Remember Mary, from Magdala? That's just right over here, the next town around the lake. Saven demons!), and the only ones He criticized were the religious leaders, whom He called hypocrites. But then, considereing where He lived and what He taught, it's easier to see the contrast with their pompous behavior. They were so removed from (above?) the common folk that their hypocrisy was easy to see, once it was pointed out.

Then there are these wind-andwaves, storm-and-peace, shining-robe, walk-on-water miracles that only the disciples saw. That was a part of their training, too, I suppose, to believe in what seems impossible.

REFLECTIONS ON BETHLEHEM

In Galatians 4:4, the Bible says "In the fulness of time, God sent forth His Son . . .."

I remember learning in seminary from Lewis Foster that there are two Greek words for time: Chairos and Chronos. Chairos means a moment of opportunity. Chronos means a set point on a calendar or watch. He said the word used here is Chronos. In other words, God had set a time in place, and He sent Jesus when the time was right. The circumstances were also right, but they were not a happenstance opportune moment, but were aligned with the time set by the Sovereign One from the foundation of the world.

And so, Adam was created, Noah survived the Flood, Abraham was called out, Jacob had twelve sons, Moses led them back from Egypt and gave them the Law, David and Solomon built a great kingdom and Temple, Assyria destroyed ten of the tribes and turned back, Babylon conquered all of Assyria plus took the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem into captivity, Persia conquered Babylon, and Cyrus sent the captives back to rebuild the Temple and repopulate the land, Greece Hellenized the entire Western world and gave them a common language to propagate the Gospel, Rome conquered Greece and ushered in the Pax Romana, the Maccabeans revolted but never shook free, Herod rebuilt the Temple and claimed to be the king. And then, and only then, was it the fulness of time.

Jesus, You chose to come to earth. Such a planet of unworthy idolators! Why us?

Jesus, You chose to come as a Jew. None of them were, or are, saints, You know. Why them?

Jesus, You chose to come to Bethlehem. Not a prominent town by any stretch. Why there?

Jesus, You chose to come in the fulness of time. Stars and planets aligned to provide a sign; Greeks, then Romans, united the world; the Temple, the priesthood, the Forerunner John, the census, the slaughter, the king, the empire, the Law, the language, it all aligned in the perfect time and place.

I don't know why You have chosen this planet, these people, this land, at this time. But in the fulness of my own time, I have also been born and was introduced to You. We were meant for each other, You and me, but I'll never know why.

Such a small place. Such an unimpressive entrance.

But then again, that's how You entered me, too. Thank You that You came at just the right time.

REFLECTIONS ON JERUSALEM

Jerusalem is a microcosm of the ironic world that Jesus came to save.

Jesus came to save worldly hawkers in a dirty, narrow city, selling baubles and trinkets to spiritual pilgrims-turned-souvenier shoppers, all hardened to the historical holiness of their surroundings.

Jesus came to save people with a prevailing spirit of religion (however well-intentioned) that all but cancels out the simple grace of God by its elaborate embellishments to straightforward truths. In an effort to make a holy spot seem somehow more profound, it becomes obscurred under layers of ritual, tradition and decoration.

But here is truth: This is the very world that Jesus entered, knowing full well what damage they would do to Him and to His message. And He came anyway. And still does.

He came to an elaborate temple, with decorations, drama and festooning that had nearly obscurred the sacrifice that rolled back sin.

He came to the religious leaders, who loved their dress and their positions. They were proud of all they had done for God, of their religious spirit, and of themselves (not necessarily in that order).

He came to those selling their wares and making their money in that Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, hardened to the holiness of their surroundings.

I knelt in the midst of the organized rubble, and kept asking, "What have we done to You, Jesus? Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do."

And yet,

With all of the speculating and profit-taking, the truth remains that Jesus really was here. Right here. Born, lived, suffered, died, rose, and ascended, right here in these streets. It's a powerful experience I want my postmodern friends to have--Jesus is not just a Good Story, but God in the flesh--Emmanuel, God With Us.

And He still is today.