The mosque on the hill reminded me of Jesus

When you survey the seven rolling hilltops surrounding the city of Kampala, Uganda, you’ll see different landmarks perched on each one. In fact…that was the whole original idea…

Each hill was to be “conquered” by a different perspective…Catholicism, Anglicanism, Islam, royalty, etc…

Now, that’s actually not much of a novel idea. Beginning with Rome, the adage “City of Seven HIlls” extends to over 50 cities around the world.

But something interesting struck me today as Blake Thompson and I climbed into the prayer tower for a panoramic view from the top of the Kibuli Mosque perched proudly on the third hill of the city.

When I was younger, my brothers, friends and I would play a game called “King of the Hill.” Maybe you’ve also played it. It’s a very sophisticated game where you find a dirt mound and try to stay on top as long as possible while everyone else ruthlessly attempts to remove you by any means necessary. Nary did the game end without injury. Like I said…sophisticated.

Interestingly enough, that game was supposed to prep us for the “real world”.

The world where that’s just how things work…

Kill or be killed…

Conquer or be conquered…

Stake your claim or someone else will…

And, for good reason, the hilltops always seemed to be the prime real estate. It is after all the best play to be seen, feared and protected.

However, as I peeked through the pointed arches, past the star and crescent and to the city below, a couple things really churned to the surface.

1. We are called to be a city on a hill for the purpose of refuge and rescue, not rout or rule.
2. Jesus shouldered a cross to climb a hill only to tell the waiting conquerers that He had arrived to lay down His life for them instead.

These two simple things that I’ve heard and known since I was a small child are still all too often foreign to the way I live my life. Growing up I would have never sacrificed myself so someone else could be “King of the Hill”…that would have been stupid…yet, Jesus exchanges His life for mine willingly and then invites me to live on the hill with Him.

To light the way for others to also find their way up the hill…and not to have to battle to the death when they get there because the King is actually waiting with open arms instead of a drawn sword.

Now, there is a major conquering element to the story of the cross, I certainly don’t want to leave that out. But, the only thing that was conquered the day Jesus stretched out His arms to absorb all the crushing blows of the world, was the need for any of us to ever have to climb the hill to battle for our place again.

It was finished…and it still is…

Through a brutal, willing, overwhelming grace that showed death the way down and untethered the limits of true life, Jesus set a new standard for how each of us should live on the hill.

The temptation to conquer is strong. The world grooms us for it.

The call to bring life instead of death is stronger. Our Savior has created us for it.

Jesus already climbed the hill to die on so we might meet Him there and live.

Kibuli Mosque, Kampala

Why I wanted to make my wife cry

Part 1 of some thoughts on love…Wednesday is part 2

————–

I’ve always counted myself to be something of a romantic. In fact, when my wife and I began our collision course toward marriage, I developed a plan where I’d pull off so many legendary moments of courtship bliss that her tears of appreciation would be as plentiful as coins on Super Mario Brothers.

That…did not work out. Mostly because I expected her to melt each time I gave her a Hallmark card, and she turned out to not be much of a crier.

One night at the end of a date, I took her by the church where I led worship. The entire stage had been decorated with a hundred various candles, and a soft blue spotlight lit the grand piano in the center.

This is it, I thought, After I finish singing her this love ballad I wrote, she’ll be a puddle on the floor.

So I sang to her.

When I finished, I looked at her with an incredible imitation of “the smolder” from Tangled, fully expecting tears to be pouring down her cheeks.

Instead…she looked back at me (completely dry-eyed), smiled and said, “That was beautiful, thank you.”

Are. You. Freaking. Kidding. Me?!

That was so romantic that I almost cried!

Why was she resisting my powerful gestures of love?

She wasn’t. I simply had a huge misunderstanding of the purpose of love.

The whole time I had been trying to use love as a weapon to garner a particular response. I was treating love like a stock; if I bought enough shares, at some point surely it would begin paying dividends. In a strange way, it was as if I was seeing her as an option in a vending machine…all I had to do was drop in the right amount of love coins, press a few buttons, and voilà! She’d be mine.

But that’s not how love works at all.

Actually, learning how to love will end up changing us far more than it ever changes anyone else.

Whenever you see a command for us to love mentioned in the Bible, it’s always associated with sacrifice.

When we love…we are changed.

Love chips away at our fear…

Love lays waste to our selfishness…

Love erases expectations and grudges…

Love requires us to give our lives away…

As C.S. Lewis so poignantly explains, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

The aptly named “Love Chapter” (1 Corinthians 13) is bluntly honest about what love should and shouldn’t be like.

The summary is this: love is generous. In authority, in service, in discipline, in difficulty, in hurt, in relationships.

Of course, the most incredible picture of this is shared in what must be the most famous verse in all of Scripture…John 3:16…

”For God loved the world so much that he gave…”

Before you even existed, He gave. Before you ever knew you needed Him, He gave.

In the same way, the story of our lives should be…

Because we love…we give.

——————–

Who needs you to personify that today?

Is the cross or the sword your weapon of choice?

We tend to place different levels of significance based on our proximity to important events when they happened.

Where we were on 9/11…

When an earthquake killed 200,000 people in 30 seconds in Haiti…

While hurricane Katrina tore through the Gulf Coast…

As revolution rocked Tahir Square in Egypt…

Being one of the “lucky ones” to have a seat in the courtroom when Casey Anthony was acquitted…

If you weren’t close to any major events, then the hunt is on to find the stories of those who were.

Even if it’s by proxy, we desire to be connected to the epicenter. We have a need to be near the action.

I’ve often wondered what it was like to be Malchus, the slave to the high priest, who for whatever reason ended up on the military detail sent to arrest Jesus.

As the drama of the disciples’ sleeping through prayer meeting, Judas’ betrayal and Jesus’ impending rigged trial was building, an obscure event happened that no doubt left a man changed.

Call it being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Malchus gets his ear cut off by an over-zealous Peter who is feeling the need to prove himself. Instead, Jesus temporarily shuts down the arrest party, puts Malchus’s ear back on, and tells Peter, “Put your sword away…those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”

The rest of the story plays out, ending with Jesus allowing what his followers considered unthinkable: the cross.

If you search the life of Jesus, you’ll notice that Malchus’s story isn’t necessarily unique. Again and again people came to Jesus for one thing, but came away with what they actually needed.

Why?

Because Jesus engaged them.

He asked them questions, He spent time in their homes, He cared for their needs, He saw past the mess of their lives, He didn’t write them off. He invited them to be a part of the center of things.

He gave them a front row seat to a movement that has turned the world upside-down.

Words are important, but our actions always reveal just how much stock our lives have invested in what we say. We will not always live what we profess, but we will always live what we believe.

What Jesus SAID to Peter was, “Those who live by the sword die by the sword.”

What Jesus SHOWED Peter was, “Those who die by the cross will live.”

For me, it’s easy to say I will carry the cross, but when it comes to actually living, the sword is much easier to grab. It’s lighter, cuts faster. Puts more pressure on others. Certainly easier to carry.

And although I do enjoy a friendly swashbuckling match from time to time, when I say sword, I’m speaking figuratively…as in the way we wield our words and actions.

When I discipline my children. When I work through a tough issue with my wife. When I engage people around me (especially those who don’t see things as I do).

The sword forces others to sacrifice. The cross asks me to instead.

The sword is coercion. The cross is an invitation.

The sword breaks someone else. The cross breaks me.

The sword wounds. The cross heals.

On the night of His arrest, Jesus tells Peter to put down his sword, but just a few chapters earlier, Jesus had told his disciples to take up the cross.

There is never a reason to be sorry we carried the cross instead of the sword when we head out the door every morning into the mosh pit of society.

If you want to be near the epicenter of everything, then live near the cross.

Because it’s the cross…not the sword…that changes the world.

—————–

Do you live in the tension of the cross and the sword in your own life?

Does the way you engage people around you change depending on which one you carry?

More to come.