Freed from the fear of death

Another aspect of the salvation Jesus brings is shown in this passage:

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

from Hebrews 2:14-15

How does fear of death enslave us, and how did Jesus set us free?

We can be enslaved by fear in at least two ways:

1. by obsessing over it so we can't think about anything else; or
2. by being so afraid of it that we can't even think about it, and our thoughts about everything else are distorted whenever they get close to that fear.

For the past century in Europe and North America, #2 is more usual. According to Yalom's classic text Existential Psychotherapy, the way we deal with death anxiety (i.e., mostly by denying it) provides lots of patients with lots of interesting problems for psychotherapists. Here is the first principle from the first part of his text:

1. The fear of death plays a major role in our internal experience; it haunts as does nothing else; it rumbles continuously under the surface; it is a dark, unsettling presence at the rim of consciousness.

Irwin Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy
(Basic Books, 1980), p.27

This book explores several major themes: death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. The first section, and the longest (189 pages) is all about death. We spend a lot of effort avoiding this "dark, unsettling presence," he says, and these efforts are not always healthy; at best, they dull our enjoyment of life; at worst, they drive us to maladaptive choices that actually kill us sooner. What's worse, psychotherapists, being human themselves, also tend to ignore or deny their own death anxiety.

On the denial of death v. acknowledging and recognizing it, Yalom writes:

Recognition of death contributes a sense of poignancy to life, provides a radical shift of life perspective, and can transport one from a mode of living characterized by diversions, tranquilization, and petty anxieties to a more authentic mode.

Yalom, op. cit., p. 40

On the other hand, Yalom's book gives no indication that he knows the only real answer to the fear of death; he seems to think religious beliefs about a life after death (which Jesus bought for us) merely form a coping mechanism, another way to deny the reality of death.

But as this Scripture tells us, Jesus truly did set us free. How did he do that? We don't get a lot of detail here, but we have some hints. Earlier in the chapter, we're told that the grace of God enabled Jesus to taste death on behalf of us all. And this passage says Jesus shared in our humanity -- he became flesh and blood -- as part of setting us free, and breaking the power of the devil.

And what does that salvation from slavery mean -- how could or should it be evident in our lives? The apostles and the prophets give us some wonderful examples: "Our God is able to save us from the fiery furnace, O King, but if not, we will still not bow down and worship the statue." "The time for my departure is at hand." They lived fully aware that each day could be their last.

As should we! As the Psalmist wrote,

Show me, O Lord, my life's end
   and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting is my life. 

Psalm 39:4

May the Lord answer that in our lives, and may we live with "a sense of poignancy" and be transported "from a mode of living characterized by diversions, tranquilization, and petty anxieties to a more authentic mode."

The joy of fellowship

A high point for me last week was meeting with a small group of friends over lunch. We catch up with each other and encourage each other in our spiritual life. This week, "Joel" told us that someone at his church encouraged them to take ten minutes to listen to God. "But what does that mean?" he asked. "It sounds like some kind of meditation. Have you done that? Have you heard anything?"

I love it when this kind of question comes up. Joel trusted us enough to tell us what he was puzzled about -- he didn't pretend to have it all together, and he sincerely wanted to know what this was about -- it wasn't just idle curiosity.

After a brief pause, I offered that I'd never heard a voice, but that thoughts have sometimes come to me during prayer or while reading the Bible, thoughts that seem beyond the way I usually think.

"James" spoke up next, saying that his experience was similar. But if you just sit there, he said, all kinds of stuff might come into your mind. He mentioned the passage where Jesus says if you sweep out the house, an evil spirit might come in -- in other words, don't just empty your mind like TM tells you to do; you have to put something in. (James was referring to Luke 11:24-26.) So he suggested reading the Scriptures and thinking about them.

This made me really happy -- having a group of men who trust each other and help each other grow, and getting to witness a holy conversation.

And by the way, another member of our group, someone younger in the faith, was witnessing this, too, and learning. He saw brothers interacting sincerely with humility, asking questions that matter and sharing Biblical wisdom and life experience, all without pretense.

I love being part of the body of Christ!

More about salvation: Jesus our brother

Does that seem odd—to think of Jesus as a brother? This powerful and exciting passage from Hebrews says that he is.

[W]e see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.

Hebrews 2:9-11

This passage ties salvation to the following ideas:

• Jesus tasted death on our behalf.
  • He suffered death, and received glory and honor.
  • This suffering was part of making Jesus "perfect."
  • God's grace allowed Jesus's death to be on our behalf.
• This process brings "many sons" (male and female) to glory.
• This salvation has to do with making men holy.
• This makes us of the same family as Jesus, who calls us brothers (male and female).

The author makes a big deal of Jesus's dying on our behalf. In 20th/21st century America this death thing doesn't get much attention, which makes sense given Yalom's observation (in his landmark book Existential Psychotherapy) that we've got a lot of denial around death and death anxiety, even within the therapeutic community. But having recently been diagnosed with pneumonia, death seemed like it might be closer than I'd previously thought; it was good to reflect on that, and on my eternal future, guaranteed because my King died in my place. As it says in the old song,

Mild he lays his glory by
    Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
    Born to give them second birth 

and so for us death need not be the end. This is not all that salvation is, but it is something very important that is included in salvation. (There's more about death -- and the fear of death -- later in this chapter.)

Another very important concept included in salvation is: it makes us (the recipients of salvation) holy; it brings us to glory. So salvation makes us holy—it sets us apart for God's use and saves us from corruption; it also sets us on a path to glory, something I surely want, and I think we all do—to be something beautiful, respectable, worthy of honor, as I've written about before.

And yes, this passage says Jesus is our brother; we're in the same family.

Which is good news for me! I hope it is for you too.

This is a comedy?

So we signed up for this blockbuster.com movie thing -- it's kind of like netflix but you can also go to your neighborhood Blockbuster and "trade in" the movies you're returning for whatever they have. We are not making heavy use of it, but that's not what I'm here to tell you today.

The thing that we are finding odd is that a lot of these movies are called "comedy" but they're just sort of, you know, dramas. Tonight we watched "Friends with Money" and it was interesting but I didn't think it was comical. Sure there was some irony, but these were desperate people who had no idea what their lives were about. There were some other "comedies" we saw in the past few months, but they were mostly sad!

Is our sense of humor that out of sync with what Hollywood thinks is funny?

And if so, is that a good thing? This is starting out to be a weird century -- as if 9/11 and Iraq weren't enough....

Something about salvation

I'm doing a thought-experiment. Suppose we were living in the 1st century and had, say, Mark's gospel (probably the earliest written) in hand. Then we got a copy of Hebrews. What would we think the Good News was? What would we think "salvation" meant? Over the next few weeks (or months—let's see how it goes) I'll be writing down some thoughts on that.

By the way, in doing this experiment, I'm not going to use any theological dictionaries, but rather try to figure out what the word means by looking at how it's used in this letter (I got this approach from Sumner's excellent Women and Men in the Church). So today let's look at this part near the beginning of chapter 2:

Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. But there is a place where someone has testified...

from Hebrews 1:14-2:6

So the first thing I notice about this that salvation is something inherited, not something earned. This means that getting saved isn't a matter of being smarter or wiser or more moral or whatever. There's nothing to brag about.

It also means that somebody had to die in order for us to receive salvation (whatever that is).

And help from angels seems to be part of the deal.

Next, the author doesn't seem concerned about our rejecting this salvation outright, but rather he's concerned that we might ignore it, that we might "drift away". So whatever it is, salvation requires our attention. And apparently "drifting away" is the easiest thing in the world -- it's something we must counteract by paying attention.

Now we have another clue about salvation: it's something that our Lord announced. What is the very first thing that Jesus announces, according to Mark's gospel? Something about the kingdom of God. In fact, "kingdom of God" appears appears 15 times in Mark, and more in Matthew and Luke. In those days, people were living under the kingdom of Caesar, which was not all that friendly toward Jews or Christians. So the coming of God's kingdom, where God will assert his rule over the earth, would be good news to these people, and this would line up with the concept of salvation from Old Testament times. In those days, "salvation" meant that God would do something on earth -- part the Red Sea, destroy an army invading Israel, this sort of thing. He would do something like that, and then leave. So having God's kingdom come, where God is ruling all the time -- well, that's something to be excited about.

Then, signs and wonders and miracles and gifts would be considered confirming evidence for this salvation. That seems to go along with my guess in the previous paragraph.

So far, the idea of salvation seems to be oriented to this world; there's not a lot of "so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good." But then we come to this part: "the world to come, about which we are speaking". So salvation is not just for this world, but also about the world to come -- whatever that is.

From this passage, I think we have the following about salvation:

• It's inherited; it's not earned. Someone had to die for us to get it.
• Angels help those receiving it.
• It's easy to drift away from (the author doesn't seem much concerned about outright rejection, but more about neglect).
• Something the Lord announced -- maybe the Kingdom of God.
• Signs and wonders, etc., are considered confirming evidence for it.
• It's also about the world to come.

This book of Hebrews is really rich -- there's a lot to learn here, and a lot to be happy about, too.

Kitchen remodeling: the good and no-so, Part I

We'll probably do Part II after construction is done.

First, the good: Based on a referral, we worked with a kitchen designer who lives in San Jose. We sent sketches and measurements and photos, and our wish lists, and she produced a very nice design. But she's quite busy (she teaches at a small college and she also has young children) so it took several weeks. She's a private individual and I don't want to put her contact information in a public place like this. Leave a comment or send me email if you want to use her for your kitchen.

Another thumbs-up goes to Quesco for friendly professional staff, terrific service and great prices. I review them on yelp here.

Our contractor is a personal friend -- Art Prindle of Art Prindle Construction. He has done several projects for us

• bathroom repair/remodel
• installation of ducting and a forced-air furnace, including redoing a bedroom closet
• garage conversion including
  • a loft (his design idea -- we love it!)
  • half-bath and laundry room
  • roof reframing
  • roof re-sheathing (whole house)
  • replacing the den's flat roof with a pitched one
• pocket-door installation (small project)

He's done great stuff for us and we recommend his services without reservation. But we are not unbiased :)

In the dog-house: sears.com and bizarre model numbers

For the not-so-good part, it's the sears.com website and its brother searspartsdirect.com. So here's my whine. You go to Sears and order some appliances -- an oven, a warming drawer, 'fridge, dishwasher, etc. On the receipt you find two or three numbers related to each appliance: a 5-digit model# (e.g., 77542), an 11-digit item number (e.g., 04677542000) and possibly some other number that might be similar to the "item" number.

If you search the sears.com website for further information (like dimensions, clearances, etc.) the above numbers might help, but in this case (for the 'fridge), neither of them was good for anything. The sears.com website doesn't confess to knowing anything about this model number. (A google search turns up a sears.com reference -- and I could see it in google's cache. But no specs or dimensions were available -- just the overview.) And you can just forget about finding a manual using either of those numbers.

No, what you need is the model number, which in this case is 79577542600. Actually it's the "full model number". With this full model number, you can search searspartsdirect.com (not sears.com!) and find a link to a manual. Owner's manual (or "use and care manual") though -- no installation manual. To get the manual you have to create an account on searspartsdirect.com -- give them your email address and create a password (just what you needed, right?) and then you can look at the manual on your screen.

I sent them email, which got me an answer that was almost completely off the point. "Look at the model# on the back of your appliance and use that 9-12-digit model# on searspartsdirect.com" or something like this. After some email exchanges, somebody sent me the full model number for the oven.

Meanwhile I also called; I heard this was the supported way to get the full model number. It took a call to the parts number, getting transferred to home delivery (why??) -- where they couldn't match up my order to my phone number (even though I was calling from the same phone# that appears on the invoice), and explaining my situation maybe 3 times on the phone.... The good news is that I did eventually get all the model numbers of interest.

The way this should work is like the Whirlpool website. I ordered a cooktop, a whirlpool GJC3634RP, and if you search for it on whirlpool.com you'll get here. If you click on "back to GJC3634R" you'll see this page. Click "Guides + Literature" and you can see manuals.

Or like GE's: if you have a model number in mind, you can google for it and see a "geappliances.com" website. Go there, click on "Product Documentation," and you'll see installation instructions, use/care guide, etc., available for download. Click the appropriate one, and you'll see the installation guide or whatever.

Maytag's website is not as nice as the above. Many of their pages require a macromedia plug-in (Dude, I just want the manual!), and this google search didn't lead me to a manual. This one offered up some sites from www.manualnguide.com, which doesn't seem to resolve any more:

$ host www.manualnguide.com
Host www.manualnguide.com not found: 2(SERVFAIL)

However, it did lead me to http://www.insideadvantage.com/catalog/product.jsp?categoryId=37&productId=2090 which offers a trilingual user guide, but no installation manual...

So if you're going to order appliances for a new kitchen, and you really have to have Sears, then get the sales guy to find the "full model number" for you if you can. If you can't, then you can call Parts, but they might transfer you to Home Delivery. Anyway, explain that you need the full model numbers. You will need to do this more than once, but they'll eventually get you someone who can tell you.

Then go to searspartsdirect.com and feed it the full model number. You should get at least one result; if needed select one, and then look on the right-hand side for the manuals link. This sends you to yet another website (managemysomething.com) where you have to have a login (email address, "screen name", password) to download the manual.

And other things being equal (check consumerreports.com for frequency-of-repair records, etc.) my suggestion would be: Figure out the model number you're interested in, and see if you can find the installation manual on the web, because your contractor or cabinetmaker will need that information.

More later....

Prophet and Priest and King

I've been struck yet again by how much the letter to the Hebrews says about Jesus; it seems to me that this book might be the grand-daddy of New Testament theology. Chapter 1 begins with this astonishing statement:

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

Hebrews 1:1-3 (NIV)

From this we see that Jesus is

• Prophet: God spoke to us by Jesus. This is what prophets do -- they speak on God's behalf to wo/men;
• Priest: he provided purification for sins. Priests do this too (per chapter 5): they represent wo/men to God;
• King: He's the heir of all things, and is seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

This sets the tone for the whole book; as I've noted before, this author loves to talk about how great Jesus is.

As followers of Jesus, as his brothers (per chapter 2), I think we play these roles to various degrees. We are to be prophets when opportunities arise to tell the truth and we act as priests whenever we pray for anyone. And though we are not kings, we were created by God to rule over creation.

So, although I don't think we should take ourselves too seriously, we need to remember that in this world we have roles and functions related to God: representing him to our fellow-humans; representing them to God; and acting as regents over the earth. We are prophets and priests and kings.

Therefore our lives mean something; they don't mean nothing. And each day is a gift -- it's something important, not something meaningless. It matters. You and I matter. And that too is a gift.

written on the train this morning