“Then Simon Peter Drew His Sword”

“I could be wrong to swing this sword, but swing it I will! Try to arrest my Lord, if you will, but this sword says that there will be blood!”

Was something like that going through the Apostle Peter’s head when, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he drew his sword and swung it to defend his Lord?

An armed “detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees” (John 18:3), lit with torches and adrenaline, had come to arrest Jesus. It seemed clear to Peter that this was the time to cock his sword, take it off “safety,” and swing. Or something like that.

I don’t think he was thinking much, just taking what seemed like a natural and reasonable defensive action. If he’d been more soldier than fisherman, would he have swung harder and taken better aim? Would Malchus, the chief priest’s servant, have been headless instead of just shorn of his starboard ear? Was the swing half-hearted? Or full-out but ham-handed?

I don’t know. I do know that Jesus quickly told the big fisherman to put away his sword: “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” (18:11). And then the Lord miraculously, graciously, reattached the whomper-eared servant’s outer auditory apparatus. And that’s pretty much the last we hear about Malchus, his ear, and Peter’s sword.

I doubt that Malchus was a particularly bad guy. He was following the wrong leaders, but he had lots of company in that. He’d evidently done his job well enough that he’d risen to a position of responsibility. He must have been right amongst the front line of the arresters to have been such a readily available target for Peter’s blade.

I must admit that, from my childhood, I’ve always been glad that at least somebody that night did something that made some sense. Jesus will go quietly. He’ll let his enemies take him. He’ll be mostly mute while they lie about him, beat him, and taunt him. He’ll let them nail him to a cross and kill him. Before he dies, he’ll even ask his Father to forgive them.

I can’t imagine doing any of that. What I can imagine is joining Peter and adding to his sword any weapon at my disposal.

I can imagine feeling just as the disciples did. What we need is firepower! More swords!  Jesus had entered Jerusalem to shouts of “Hosanna!” Wasn’t it time now for the revolution to begin in earnest, time for Christ to publicly establish his kingdom?

But they didn’t understand. And, admit it, it’s hard to understand even now.

Swords and their modern equivalents are quite necessary in this fallen world. One day, swords will be “beaten into plowshares” (and tanks turned into tractors?), but not yet.

And it still takes something called faith, as we wait for God’s kingdom to come in all its fullness and “every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord,” for us to realize that the “rule and the reign” of Christ in our hearts can begin for any one of us at any moment. Right here. Right now. We can experience his peace and his presence whether we are treated fairly, or get all of our rights, or are healthy and wealthy and comfortable, and in charge.

Though I’m immensely thankful for the nation in which I live, Christ’s peace can be full and rich in the hearts of his children regardless of their earthly citizenship or any external circumstances. His kingdom is far more powerful, more real, and infinitely longer lasting than the best, or the most evil, of earthly kingdoms. His peace transcends any time, any place, any circumstance.

Oh, we want justice and truth, and, yes, mercy and fair play, all to hold sway. One eternal day, they will.

Until then, I need to think a lot more about what it means for Christ’s kingdom to come—already, yet again, each day—in my heart.

It seems to me that right now, especially during this Holy Week, some more thinking about that dark night in Gethsemane, focusing on our Lord, and, yes, even pondering a bit more about Peter and Malchus, might be my Lord’s way to teach me how to be a better citizen of his eternal kingdom.

My ear is fine. It’s my heart that needs healing.

You’re invited to visit my website, and I hope you’ll take a look there at my new “Focus on Faith” Podcast. At the website, just click on “Podcast.” Blessings!

Copyright 2021 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

“Lord, I Believe; Help My Unbelief!”

The people of faith who impress me the most are the people who are the least impressed with their own faith.

Folks like this are slow to throw down glib and easy answers to life’s hardest questions. They’re quick to be present, mostly in silence, as they put an arm around a friend facing one of life’s genuine tragedies and offer real tears, but they’re slow to show up to add verbal drizzle and plastic platitudes that, well-meant or not, make a horrible situation even worse.

One of the most impressive people of faith in the New Testament is the father in Mark 9 who is completely unimpressed with his own faith. He’s not one of those self-confidently “spiritual” folks who have all the answers, rock-solid “faith,” and are always the first to show up religiously with more nails at the site of any opponent’s crucifixion.

No, this guy is just an ordinary guy, and he knows it. (Oh, how much extraordinary courage we can see daily in the lives of ordinary people, if we just look!) But he’s long dealt with serious heartache as he’s had to helplessly watch his son being victimized by terrible affliction. His hope is almost gone; he’s just about down to empty, running on fumes.

And then Jesus comes.

Truth be told, Christ’s disciples had shown up first, attempted a healing, and failed so miserably that they had just about exhausted the patience of their Lord (read about it in Mark 9).

But this ordinary man bypasses the failed apostles and goes right to the top, desperate: “Lord, if you can do anything . . .”

“‘If I can do anything?’” Jesus replies. “Everything is possible to him who believes.”

Then comes from this ordinary man a statement, a pattern, I think, of real faith: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” He humbly asks, and Jesus heals.

I like this guy. I like his “lack.” He knows that his faith is lacking, but I like his lack of pretense. I like his lack of whatever were then the popular pious phrases of the “spiritual” folks. I like his lack of guile. I like his lack of reliance on the self-help “mental gymnastics” some folks equate with faith as they try to snooker themselves into “belief” that if they work hard enough to believe enough, the Lord will give them just the answer they want. I love this man’s simple request. And, yes, I love the Lord’s answer, the Son’s healing of the son.

It’s rather amazing how little of what we hear about faith describes the real thing. Skeptics are religious about charging that it’s devoid of reason. That simply is not true.

And, far too often, believers twist it into something more akin to magic than real faith. Say the right words in the properly worked up frame of mind and we can manipulate the Almighty? I doubt it. Real faith means allowing God’s love and power to act on us; it is not a tool we can use to act on him.

I have a great deal to learn about faith. I need more faith to pray for more wisdom. I need more faith to pray for more patience when my prayers are not answered as quickly as I like or in the ways that I like. I need more faith to pray that the Lord will help me to understand that often what I ask for is not what I need. I need more faith to pray to be less impatient and less angry when the answer seems not to come at all or comes in a package I’d very much like to “return to sender.” And I need more faith to pray for eyes to see the memercy-filled answers that have already come and a heart to be filled with gratitude for the wonderful answers that will come.

Even when faith questions and prayer perplexities drive me nuts, I need to remember what my Father has done, that he is always good, that he is always loving, and that I am always his. I need more faith to know that, while I may be in a difficult chapter, the end of the story the Author has in mind is utterly delightful.

But, yes, what a great prayer for a father at the end of his rope and a child like me: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

You’re invited to visit my website, and I hope you’ll take a look there at my new “Focus on Faith” Podcast. At the website, just click on “Podcast.” Blessings!

Copyright 2021 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

“Roused, Am I Waked, Woken, or Woke?”

I am a self-confessed English major. And I’m choosing words carefully here, words that in our present cultural climate serve as—take your pick—solemn and grim warnings, red stop signs surrounded by flashing lights, cease and desist orders complete with dire penalties lawyer-littered in pages of small print.

I am [pause here for display of deep emotion as a substitute for rational thinking] concerned.

I am [pause here for display of deep emotion as a substitute for rational thinking] troubled.

I am, yea, verily [pause here, well, you know, but wait for the ominous pronouncement by which I stop you in your tracks and transport you into self-loathing, guilt, and endless soul-searching for ways to make some small, ineffectual atonement for your general wretchedness and that of your horrid ancestors] offended.

As an English major, what offends me at this very moment, though goodness knows the whole universe is too small to contain the list of items and ideas sensitive people like myself might be offended by these days . . .

What offends me presently is yet another attack by “progressives” on an upstanding and honorable word that has done nothing to merit such sullying, such besmirching. I won’t list many examples, lest anyone else become more concerned, troubled, or offended than a tender human soul could, these days, be expected to bear. But how long ago is it now that we could sing on a fine Yuletide that phrase in “Deck the Halls” about donning “lively and exuberant” apparel and not snicker? I snicker not, that sweet little word deserved better before it was plucked and had its primary definition plundered.

By contrast, the word I’m thinking of now, I must admit, has long been something of a problem child. The conjugation of the English verb “wake” has always confused me. Add “up” to it, and it gets worse. Throw in English usage versus American usage. Even worse. (Google it, if you want your brain to bleed.)

The “simple indicative past” conjugation is simple: I woke; you woke; he, she, or it (or whatever gender said entity woke up feeling like today) woke; etc. But get much past that and you’ll soon find yourself amongst a head-boggling variety of forms: “waked,” “woke,” “wakened,” etc. Whoa! No, woe.

Already complicated, the poor word has been twisted dreadfully by the incredibly religious self-righteous fundamentalists of political correctness (IRSRFPC?). Trampling roughshod over the English language and this poor word, they call themselves “woke.” Why not “the awakened”? They’re an incredibly loud lot to be so hazy and sleepy intellectually, albeit completely confident in their wokeness, waked-up-ness, awakedness. Of all generations, wisdom and virtue have finally found a home in them. The woke. The waked. The awakened. They’re—sing it to an Elvis tune—“all waked up, oh, yeah!”

What an odd religion. A faith all “woked” up but with eyes sewed tightly shut.

It’s nothing new. Just the latest iteration of the idol worship and the chanting worshipers the Apostle Paul wrote about who “claiming to be wise, became fools” (Romans 1:22).

I need a nap. Wokeness (who knows these days if that’s a word?) is not only tedious, mind-numbing, ignorant, boring, and tiresome, it’s incredibly tiring.

Please wake me up in thirty minutes, and I’ll jump up singing, “I’m all waked up!” Or is that “all woke up”? Let me sleep on it.

You’re invited to visit my website, and I hope you’ll take a look there at my new “Focus on Faith” Podcast. At the website, just click on “Podcast.” Blessings!

Copyright 2021 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

“True Confession: I Am an English Major”

I am an English major.

I am an English major who wears many hats in my work and the various aspects of it, but most of them are colored by the fact that, as I mention yet again just before I step off a verbal cliff and fall into triple redundancy, I am an English major.

My wife married me anyway. She says that as a young lass she’d always thought she’d marry a preacher or a farmer. I’ve long wondered why a girl would dream of a life almost guaranteed to produce very modest financial gain. And to set those last four words in boldface type, she chose a preacher/English major. For a wise woman who is now a judge, this choice seems evidence of a serious lack of judgment, but I am eternally thankful for it.

I love words. I like working with them, choosing them, hunting them, bagging them, and lining them up. Except for working with foul and voracious deadlines always hounding, drooling hot-breathed down my neck, I like living a life where I write sermons, columns, essays, devotional magazine copy, and an occasional book. I write them, edit them, proofread them, stack them, lay them out in lines of print copy, design pages for them, and live with them. When words are not driving me crazy, eluding me, mocking me, and making my brain bleed, I am in awe of them, their friendship, and their magic.

I often wonder why so many people who seem bored or perplexed or tired don’t open a book and look for the words that will launch them into a great story, soul-growing refreshment, and even impart a little, or a lot, of wisdom. Such words are readily available. Yes, I know that it’s easy to fall into a cesspool of verbal sewage. Just as you can join very foolish people poisoning their souls with “music” boasting “explicit lyrics” and a nihilistic view of life leading, predictably, to despair, you can choose worthless and/or vile words. But you don’t have to. Music infused with beauty and joy is still available.

Likewise, many wonderful word-streams, sweetly teeming with life, still flow. Yet too often we blindly trudge on, heads down, eyes glued to the phones that own us. We are twits tweeting and texting on, parched with thirst, complaining that we live in a desert when water is everywhere; we are making such good time on the road to nowhere that we just won’t stop to drink.

Words, to change the metaphor, are a time machine to jail-break us from the tyranny of living always blinded by the foolishness of our own era; they are a highway to the wisdom of the ages. They are a view through the eyes of the most amazing people who have ever lived and whose innermost ideas still speak; we do well to listen. 

But back to the earthly for a moment. Are you tired of this world? For heaven’s sake, then, why spend all of your time in it? Feeling locked up in, say, a funk or maybe the occasional pandemic? Pick the lock with a book! Go to Middle Earth, or Narnia, or any of a million marvelous places. Want to go to Mars? Why wait for NASA or for Elon Musk to build (as he will, I think) a starship that doesn’t explode? I’ve been to Mars many times with paper and ink or an e-book as the only launch vehicles. No astronaut training required. No English degree, either. Just the ability and desire to read and launch.

I do admit that English majors can be an eccentric lot. I have a t-shirt emblazoned with the words: “The Oxford Comma: Fighting ambiguity, confusion, and bad grammar since 1853.” I love that shirt and feel deeply about its message. You, too, can order one. Amazon lists it under the sub-category “nerd shirts.” But how one handles commas used in words in a series matters. (Just do an internet search for “Oxford Comma.”)

English majors have strong feelings about such issues. I’m sure bar fights have ensued. The stakes are crucial: “Let’s eat Grandma” versus “Let’s eat, Grandma.” You see? Commas can save lives.

It is no accident that God’s Son himself is the Word incarnate and that the Father chose the written word as an amazing way to reveal to us his Son, his will, and his deep joy in his children and in all of his creation.

Yes, I love words. Most amazing, though, is that the Word loves us.

You’re invited to visit my website, and I hope you’ll take a look there at my new “Focus on Faith” Podcast. At the website, just click on “Podcast.” Blessings!

Copyright 2021 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.