Field Notes On The Jesus Way

​You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” – Matthew 1:21

I performed a wedding for a couple who lived in Tacoma’s hilltop area and they had a baby in which they wanted to name the child from the bible. Know what they named the little fella? Messiah. It’s in the Bible, alright. 

Ever wonder how Jesus got His name?

What does this naming event of Jesus tell us? In the Bible, a person’s name was never just a label. Kids never got names because their parents just liked the sound of it. Kids never got a name because the name was the name of the favorite soap opera character or of the mother or the father’s uncle.

 Whoever gives you your identity is your authority. Your name always shows you your purpose. It tells you what you’re to live for, what you’re here to do. If you know these two things, the Bible says, you know who you are.

 Now let’s apply it to Jesus. Who is Jesus’authority? The reason God will not let Joseph or Mary name this child is because they are not allowed to think they have authority over him. 

Do you remember when God brought the animals to Adam and said, “I want you to name these animals?”Was God just out of ideas? He says, “Creation is a hard work. I’ve named all the various botanical species and there are just thousands of them. But I need someone to name these animals. I’ve run out of ideas. Would you give these things labels?”

No, he wasn’t saying that. When he asked Adam to name the animals, he meant, “I want you to take charge of them. I want you to take care of them. You’re not here to exploit, but to care for. You’re responsible for these.”

Therefore, it was normal for parents to name their children, because at least in the early days of the child’s life, a parent was responsible, had authority over the child. But what we have here is God showing up and teaching us that Jesus Christ is not JUST a human being. No one has the right to name Jesus.

Because the minute he was born he was already older than his parents. He was not a mere human being. His parents were supposed to, from the beginning, recognize that. He is the King of Kings. He’s the Lord of Lords. No one has authority over him. 

What is Jesus’Purpose? We’re even told in the passage, “You shall call his name Jesus.”Why? Because of his life’s work. “…he will save his people from their sins.”His name was Joshua, and Yeshua breaks down into: “Ye,” the Lord; “shua,” saves. 

God saves. 

He is the Redeemer. He is the Restorer. That is His purpose. Think about it: Jesus had what today we call a strong sense of identity. Nothing rattled him …nothing. Whenever you read about him, you have this sense. He knew who He was. There are a lot of things Jesus wrestled with. He was a man of sorrows. He was a man who felt pain. He was a man who felt grief. He was a man who didn’t trust people. He experienced all these sorts of things, but the one thing you don’t see in the Bible at all is that he ever wrestles with his identity. He has the clearest sense of self you could possibly ask for. It unnerved people. It intimidated people everywhere. 

He knew who he was. Why? Because he knew these two things: He knew where his name came from, his Father, and he knew what he was about.

God wants to name you. What that means is as a Christian you can have a last name and a first name. 

Your last name is God’s family name.

 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.                                                                                            John 1: 12 

We must stop trying to name ourselves. What it means to become a Christian is to say, “Jesus is my Savior, my Redeemer, my Restorer, and my King.”

That is the foundation for your new identity. Your last name is not so much a label as it is an identity. Until you say, “Jesus is my Savior, my Lord, and my King. He is the One who gives me validation. He is the One who makes me acceptable. He has done it all for me. In him, the Father loves me and accepts me completely,”you’ll go on being unhappy. 

I wonder how many of us are Christ-followers but our lives are filled with angst and pain and worry and insecurities. Why? Because we have forgotten Whose we are. And we have tried to have too many names. I’m here to remind you of who you are. You have a last name: “You are the “Favored daughter or son of God—Beloved.”

Christians also have a first name. (Or as my Cajun friend Mark Hebert says, “Your Front Name”) 

The first name comes from finding your gifts and finding the kinds of people God wants you to help, finding the kind of ministry he wants you to do. The first name comes as time goes on. The longer you walk with God the clearer your “front name”will become. 

How do you find your first name? How do you find your niche in the kingdom economy? Only by getting down to obedience, getting down to serving. It takes all your life.

 Slowly, incrementally your first name is revealed to you. It’s only by obeying, it’s only by reaching out, it’s only by submitting to him completely and saying, “The most important thing is to serve you and know you,”do you find your first name, in increments. 

I’ve been walking with him for over 50 years and am still learning my “front”name. But unless you let God name you, you’ll never find out who you are. 

Let me remind you that for all of eternity Jesus and His father had known divine intimacy and oneness. And, if you remember, in the Garden of Gethsemane he agonized over what was coming on the cross. Jesus said, Father let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will be done, but Thine. 

Then on the cross he cried out, My God, My God why has Thou forsaken me?”

He lost his name so you could find yours.

Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. Genesis 32:24

 “. . . together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat.” ~ Galadriel

Jacob is one of our ancestors in the faith who is in the fight of his life and this is a long defeat that becomes a profound transformational moment.

Jacob stood alone on the northern bank of the river: before him the roaring waters; behind him a wall of Nubian sandstone, perpendicular from its foot to the tangled black forest on its brow; right of him there was nothing except a stony, wet plateau; and left of him, nothing

Night was descending. The gorge grew gloomier, leaving only a path of sky above him, where stars filled the blackness with such tiny lights that he felt small and solitary.

It had been Jacob’s intent to make a private crossing of the Jabbok. But maybe he trusted the swimming stroke of his strong arm better in daylight than in the dark; and maybe the nigh fell faster within the walls of the gorge than he had expected. Whatever the reason, he did not dive into the waters. He did not move. He stood transfixed, surrounded by sound and soon by an absolute darkness—for even the tiny stars were suddenly swallowed as if by a beast of horrible size.

Jacob felt wind, then chill.

Someone came flying down the riverbank. Jacob felt what he could not see. Then someone attacked him, struck him to the stony ground, and began to wrestle with him. They wrestled by the river. They whirled and heaved each other against the sheer rock wall. In a breathless silence, they wrestled all night until a high grey dawn began to streak the sky.

Jacob’s adversary touched the hollow of his thigh and put his thigh out of joint. Jacob threw his arms around a huge waist and held on.

Crippled and bone-tired, in that liminal space between night and day, he sees the face of his adversary. And it is fiercer than the face of death itself—he discovers that he is looking at the face of love.

Darkness is the felt absence of God. This is when you do not see God working in your heart. This is when you are praying and praying and praying…and no answers. This is when you’re reading and reading and reading…and getting nothing out of it. It is completely bone dry. These are desert times. These are winter times. This is when God is painfully absent.

Could it be that your frantic struggle for approval; for someone to know you completely and still love you; your life-long wrestle for security; your desperate ache for love—at the bottom of that is an ache for God? Could it be possible that all your life has been leading and preparing you for this moment in the darkness to see the fierce face of love—God?

But it is in the wrestling with God that we have the invitation to realize that God is all that we need. If we have Him, we have everything.

God seldom massages me into maturity and transformation.; God wrestles me into spiritual maturity.

This is how it worked with Alexander Solzhenitsyn a Russian novelist, historian, and short story writer. He was an outspoken critic of the Soviet Union and communism and helped to raise global awareness of its Gulag forced labor camp system.

He was successful and cynical in his prime as a writer until he spoke ill of Josef Stalin privately to a friend who turned him in. He spent the next decades of his life in the Gulag in Siberia. Listen to his words about his struggle…

It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts…. That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: “Bless you, prison!”.

This is someone whom God wrestled into transformation. His darkness and struggle forced him out of his comfort and caused him to hang on to God for dear life.

Is it possible that in your darkest moments that the living God is trying to get a hold of you? Is it possible that the living God is graciously nearby? And there, in the dark, he allows you to struggle with Him; to ask your questions, and during those questions God, with a feather-lite touch, wrestles you into a transformed life.

That is a magnificent defeat.

For God is not the author of confusion but of peace… Let all things be done decently and in order. ~ Saint Paul

“Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.” ~ Alexander Solzhenitzen

Of two evils, choose neither . ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon 

This article will not change anyone’s mind about who they are going to vote for. If you are a Hillary hater or a Trump supporter, nothing I am going to say is going to change your mind. If you hate Trump and love Hillary, the same is true of you.

(Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up)

I will not be able to convince what we used to call Yellow Dog Democrats to change their vote. Yellow Dog Democrats was a political term applied to voters in the Southern United States who voted solely for candidates who represented the Democratic Party. The term originated in the late 19th century. These voters would allegedly “vote for a yellow dog before they would vote for any Republican”.

To be fair there are Yellow Dog Republicans too.

So this article is not for the Yellow Dogs or the single issue fanatics (pick an issue: abortion, climate change, gun control, trickledown economics, welfare state, etc.). I am writing more for myself than anyone else, but there is a growing group who are repulsed by both major party candidates and are tired of being shamed and put down with the false argument that to not vote for Hillary is to vote for Trump and vice versa.

To that point, the math is not valid that to fail to vote for candidate A means you are wasting your vote and by default you are voting for candidate B. Someone much smarter than me has written and excellent article about the math in that scenario. You can read it by clicking here.

Both major party candidates are flawed in their character and policies that are beyond the pale. You can read a much better article outlining that position by clicking here.

Here is my position: I cannot vote for Hillary because of her hubris to be President, her untrustworthy character, and her rabid support of even partial birth abortion is chilling. Her unequivocal support of extreme LGBTQ issues is a fundamental assault of the traditional family according to the Judeo-Christian values that I hold dear. Her entire public life is strewn with scandal after scandal. The ACLU’s support of her candidacy alone makes me shudder.

I cannot vote for Trump because he behaves like an immature twelve-year-old boy. (apologies to all twelve-year-old boys) He insults anyone who disagrees with him. He mocks women, speaks of and allegedly has assaulted women, mocks fat women, mocks the disabled. He is part owner of many casinos that promote the sin of gambling (remember when Christians were against that vice?) and inside those casinos are strip clubs where women are exploited and objectified. He brags about his infidelity while married. His equivocation on accepting the results of the election are unprecedented. (His extreme supporters frighten me.)

America’s white nationalists have spoken, and they’ve spoken loud and clear: Donald Trump is their presidential candidate of choice.

From former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke on down, the proudly racist fringe of the American electorate supports Trump.

Trump is unrepentant about his past behavior. He doesn’t believe he needs to apologize for anything.

My Christian convictions will not allow me to vote for either of these immoral people, platform or no; Supreme Court Justices or no; executive orders run amok, or no. Decency still matters to me. To vote for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil.

Christians, please. Stop viewing this election through the eyes of pragmatism and start looking at it through the eyes of faith. ~ Carey Green

I recently had a conversation that went as follows:

Big Church Pastor: Joe, don’t you think Donald beat Killary tonight on the debates?

Me: No. In fact, I think America lost in the debate.

Big Church Pastor: Don’t tell me you aren’t voting against Killary.

Me: I’m writing in a candidate I’d be proud to have as a president.

Big Church Pastor: By not voting for Trump, you will be voting for Killary.

Me: No. I will be voting for my candidate and sleeping with a clear conscience.

Big Church Pastor: You *purests* are going to hand her the election.

Me: If I’m a *purest* does that make you an impurest?

Big Church Pastor: ____________.

The other day Lynette and I were driving to town and she made a simple, but profound observation. She said there is going to come a day when God and history will look back on this election and see three columns on the ballot. One column will be all those who voted for Hillary. The second will be all those that voted for Trump. But there will be a third column who said to the Democratic party and the Republican Party and to the American people, “No!”

Then she said, “I want my vote to be in the third column; the column for decency.”

There is a painting in which Faust is playing chess with the Devil. Faust has only a few pieces left on the board and seem to be check-mated.  The expression on his face foretells his doom.  The Devil, who seems to be very much in control, has a sneer of glee.

Through the years people would come to the gallery where the picture was displayed and gaze and ponder the hopelessness of the situation.  As they would leave, most left with the sense that the artist had captured the essence of their own situation.

Then one day, a great chess master came into the gallery.  He stood for hours focused on the painting and specifically the chessboard.  Day after day, he would return studying the portrait.  Finally, with a shout that disturbed everyone in the gallery, “It’s a lie!  You still have a move.”

Our move is to sign our name in the third column.

Speaking of Faust…

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the White House, and lose his own soul?