So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. ~ Genesis 4:16-17

Where did Cain’s wife come from?

It’s a fair question, one that’s been asked and debated for a long, long time — even, as I understand it, figuring into the testimony of the Scopes “monkey” trial and a mention in the plotline of Carl Sagan’s Contact.

Genesis 1:1-2:3 tells an epic story of creation, culminating with the forming of mankind, male and female, and God resting on that note of triumph.

Genesis 2:4ff, I believe, backs up to the third day of creation, when God formed a first man, a specific man, Adam – with the purpose of caring for the plants and animals of a garden He had planted east of Eden. When Adam yearned for companionship, He formed Eve from Adam’s rib (containing his perfect DNA and all the potential for great diversity — a guess on my part, given the reported age of many of those early patriarchs).

The sad story of what happened next — well, I’ve blogged about that before, and I’ve explained there why I believe this part of the story takes place beginning at that third day: because scripture takes great care to explain the conditions present. Nothing is said about animals at that point, so in the days that come, they are added: birds and fish on the fourth day; creatures that crawl on the earth the fifth.

Then four days after Adam’s creation — on the sixth day — God created many more people, mankind, and told them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

But Adam and Eve had a specific task and calling: to make a choice between obeying and disobeying God. Possibly He created more people — “mankind,” as some versions of the Bible render the word — because that perfect DNA given Adam and Eve had been corrupted by the fruit of disobedience and the genes for death … and could no longer provide the diversity needed to sustain the species.

Mankind was given the task of reproduction, providing progeny.

And this is where I give a nod to Cain and his wife, who hailed from among the people of the land of Nod. Perhaps those people were some of the “mankind” God created.

Those who told the story generations later would likely have had the same distaste for incest that we do. (Think about the dishonorable context of the account of Lot and his daughters later in Genesis.) That — in addition to the possibility of DNA damaged by sin and its byproduct death — makes it unlikely that Cain’s wife would have been his sister; another child of Adam and Eve. (And peculiarly, no one ever asks where Seth procured a wife, though he had a son named Enosh. I’m betting he didn’t bear the child himself.)

Immediate scripture doesn’t say anything about another child of theirs beyond Seth — which doesn’t preclude the possibility that she was theirs, but still seems odd. Genesis 5:4 does says that they were parents of “sons and daughters,” but does not make a connection to the spouses of their named sons.

As a story, I find the entire Genesis account consistent within itself, rather than two separate inconsistent accounts. The inconsistency, I’m persuaded, is our misreading the timing and identity of the characters and their days of inception: Adam on the third day and possibly Eve soon after; mankind on the seventh.

I know that a good number of well-intentioned people have predicated the answer that Cain’s wife was his sister or near-kin from the conclusion that all people descended from Adam and Eve. But that is a conclusion, and not something that scripture specifically says. We are of one blood (the NIV inaccurately translates Acts 17:26 as saying “of one man”), but that does not necessarily imply a single common ancestral pair.

In fact, to draw upon the consistency of the story, it could be argued that the bloodlines of “mankind” were destroyed in the flood in which Noah — a descendant of Adam and Eve — and his family were saved. And it may be that the “sons of God” referred to in Genesis 6:4 refer to the descendants of that special Adamic bloodline.

Once again, I must post a disclaimer that third-day Adamic creation is a theory; it is speculation; it has its strong and weak points. But after years of pondering it, this possibility makes more sense than the others I have read to explain some of the difficulties in the creation narrative of the Bible, and continues to refute the criticisms that there inconsistencies which render its story invalid.

The Bible doesn’t fill in the details of everything we want to know. It does, however, often hint at answers that we can seek to discern and discuss, and grow spiritually by doing so.

I can’t really wade into a long, deep discussion about hell, because my theological hip boots don’t go high enough.

The Bible doesn’t say a lot about hell, and in it, Jesus says more than anybody else.

That’s kind of how I’d like to leave it. Hell isn’t for everybody, we can be sure, and it doesn’t seem to have been designed for any of us mortals – but rather for the devil and his angels: An eternal place of punishment for eternally rebellious beings. That doesn’t describe us mortals whatever amount of rebellion we display; among us, one day, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess and rebellion will end. And for those whose rebellion would not end any other way: destruction.

To date, the most persuasive item I’ve read about hell is Edward Fudge’s The Fire That Consumes, and I understand that a more comprehensive edition has been released since the second edition that I read. Even so, it was more about hell than I wanted to read – and somehow, in high school, I struggled through Dante’s Inferno!

I tend to agree with his thinking, and did before I read his book, for I had already come to the same conclusion: Eternal punishment for temporal sin does not make sense as justice, human or divine. Scripture speaks of those who are rebellious as being destroyed, an adjective that in every other use in scripture implies a definite end.

For mortals, hell is a short though agonizing stop on the road to oblivion. It is nevermore in a nutshell. It is goodbye.

Going into the deep waters of that premise, Edward Fudge can employ a soteriological scuba suit, however — compared to my little yellow galoshes — and that suits me just fine.

Paraphrasing Karl Barth, I’ve often said that my theology rarely goes deeper than “Jesus loves me; this I know” … and it rarely needs to.

Which brings me to my point, since I said in the title that I’d try to be short.

I don’t like to think about hell. I don’t want it to ever become a motivator for my good behavior.

I want to go back to the childlike innocence that I had when (I can still remember) fighting back tears before the very first smack of a spanking or harsh word of reproval reached me because I knew I had disobeyed – and disappointed – someone I loved and respected.

I don’t want to even have to imagine looking up into the big eyes of the big God who loves and gives Himself for me – even to death on a cross – and knowing even for an instant that I’ve turned my back on that love and walked away; gone my own way instead of His; hurt people I love and whom He loves more.

I want that singular, hopefully microsecond of unfathomable regret to be hell enough for me, and forever enough for anyone.

So I’ll keep talking about what Jesus talked about, far more than hell or sin or failure or remorse: a Father in heaven who loves without ceasing and gives without measure and forgives without a second thought or the slightest capacity to hold a grudge.

I’ll keep on describing the God who gives His Son, His Word, and His very own Spirit to help us understand how good He is … and how good it is to give until you are nearly emptied of self and filled with His nature and character.

I’ll go on talking about the God who runs to the returning prodigal, shoulders the cross, receives the nails and breathes His last surrender to what we desperately need the most.

And I will also go on talking about hell, hopefully to the same degree and in exactly the same way that the Savior did. Why?

There may indeed be people who are at least temporarily beyond the reach of love, and must first be drained empty of self by the evil that is sucking life out of the world around us.

There may be people who need to understand the ultimate consequence of evil and insist on having the reality of sinleadstodeath sinleadstodeath sinleadstodeath rubbed in their own eyes and faces by their own hands until they have seen enough hell on earth to want no atom of it in eternity.

There may even be some who, to their dying breath, would echo Milton’s consummately selfish motto for Satan: “Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.”

But I sure don’t want to be one of them.

I’ve been sending out a little Twitter/Facebook reminder fairly faithfully at 3:00 p.m. (in whatever time zone I live) to call the faithful to prayer, apparently for about four years now. Someone sent me a kind response of appreciation today — which has happened many times before, from different folks.

But their message of encouragement got me to wondering: Why isn’t this the customary time of prayer for believers today?

Especially believers in my tribe, the churches of Christ, who pride themselves on restoring New Testament Christianity through detailed observance of what the church of the first century did?

Does the idea of having a time of prayer at some point or points in the day sound too Catholic (or, God help us, too Muslim) for us to observe in detail?

Or is the real reason that it’s an inconvenient time, and like the dying custom of giving thanks at the dinner table even when dining out, it embarrasses us in public (the reason) and might possibly offend some (the excuse)? Because I’ll admit there are days when my reminder doesn’t get sent because I am in a meeting and it’s perceived as impolite to fool with your iPhone in the middle of a meeting.

Or is it interpretational? Do we see this as a merely Jewish custom (Lord, forgive us if we did anything that Jewish folks might do, too) that the apostles participated in for merely cultural reasons?

Because it IS right there in scripture, Acts 3:1:

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon.

And if we claim to do what the early church did, that’s more precedent for us doing it than we have for a lot of other things we do.

So if it’s disregardable because it is a cultural phenomenon, what are the parameters for declaring a practice in the New Testament church binding for all time or cultural-and-therefore-optional-or-even-forbidden?

No, really. I’m asking.

We in churches of Christ generally make a big deal about celebrating the Lord’s supper every Sunday because of a singular example of it being done (or it being intended to be done) on a Sunday (Acts 20:7ff). So it’s not because this time of prayer was only mentioned once. Right?

And how does it work for fasting, which the disciples certainly practiced frequently, and certainly in times of great concentration on seeking God’s will and favor. Cultural? Disposable? Or should we be imitating the example of those believers much, much more often?

You see, this is my whole problem with viewing the scriptures through an exclusive lens of CENI — command, example, necessary inference — as if the only thing of value God wanted to communicate to us was what we’d better daggum well do, or else.

But let’s just go with it for the sake of argument. These are examples that could be followed, and there are lots more, whether believers buy into CENI as a hermeneutic for all scripture or not, or whether they value the Restoration Movement principle of mimicking the early church in every detail or not.

What makes some of these examples-of-church-practice and even some commands/instructions (greeting others with a holy kiss, for example) discardable, but others binding-or-else-hellfire-and-damnation?

And — please take a moment to read this soberly and slowly, and let it sink in — doesn’t pursuit of an answer to that question just put us right back into the mode of being led by the letter of the law to the extent that we’ll even write it ourselves, whether it’s what God has scripture saying to us or not?

Won’t we have to start making rules and categories about when and by whom and how each one is permissible, appropriate, divisive, binding, optional, beneficial?

Is that what we’re called to do? Write rule books where the Bible is silent?

Shouldn’t we rather be led by the Spirit to observe great examples out of the yearning of our hearts and the joy of experiencing what believers of Century One experienced, and ministering to the Lord and to others in ways that we’ve read and understood were tremendous blessings to the saints of old?

I don’t know why a customary time of prayer, and customs like fasting, and practices such as greeting each other with intimate affection have never caught on in a big way among churches of all kinds, and all over the world. I know there are pockets where they are as common as sand in the desert.

I do know that for the believers in those pockets, they are as great a blessing as God Himself can give.

And that’s reason enough for me to keep posting my little reminders when my iCalendar buzzes me at 2:45 each day.

Maybe even when I’m in meetings.

I know this is picking nits, but when the Gospel Advocate tweets something kinda off-the-mark, the ornery part of me wants to say something:

“@gospeladvocate: The Son of God came and commanded that all are to believe and be baptized in order to be saved (Mark 16:16)”

I don’t even have to go to Mark 16:15-16 (but I will) to know that what Jesus asked His followers to do was to go and teach the good news about Him:

“Mark 16:15-16: He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.’ “

Believing and being baptized are what people choose to do (or not) after they are taught. Being saved is what Jesus does for them. His promise is that they will be saved if they do. His warning is that they will not be saved if they don’t believe.

I can understand why someone who does not believe would not choose to be baptized. I have trouble understanding why someone who believes would not want to be baptized. (After all, Jesus Himself was – because it was fully the right thing to do; His followers practiced it and thousands who believed in those days experienced it.)

But I’m afraid I can sympathize a little when these two verses are interpreted only as commands, giving the impression that the One who died for all was in the habit of issuing ultimatums rather than bringing the best news ever about grace and forgiveness, as well as the all-but-priceless gift of choosing to accept it.

As I recall, He emphasized two commandments from the old law, then rolled them into one at the Passover table before He was arrested: To love one another as He had loved us.

He called it a commandment.

But it really doesn’t sound like one to me.

It sounds like the last request of a man about to die.

So I’ll get off my soapbox now.

I can’t apologize for my tribe of faith, but if someone from it has tried to intimidate you into obeying a command to be saved, I hope you’ll forgive them. And reconsider, looking at what the text actually says … and the nature and circumstances surrounding the One who said it … and the fact that being saved is a response of love to inimitable divine love, sharing a message of that love and an opportunity to choose it for life that not only lasts, but is actually worth living.

There’s really no point in denying it.

I want to be changed. Transformed. Broken down and ground up into powder and mixed with water and remolded and reshaped into the image of Jesus, the Christ. Then fired in the kiln so I won’t shape-shift again. If that’s what it takes.

And that’s always what it takes.

I want that for everyone.

I won’t lie about how much it hurts to give up self and dreams and what-I-want. I’ve been experiencing the long slow process of it for the better part of fifty years now. Trust me on this. It hurts.

Still I want it for everyone.

Because the life it leads to is so much richer than the one with all the “me” stuff. The one that ends with having and achieving and compiling and dying.

And I want to be an agent for as many who are willing to make that change along with me.

So I will run into opposition from those who don’t want to change. Those who know better than me. Who already have everything right and whose churches have everything right. Who don’t need to reconsider anything because there’s no possibility that they’ve been wrong about anything.

But that’s all just silly.

Change is what becoming a follower of Jesus is all about.

What do they think “repent” means?

Change doesn’t happen all at once. It isn’t over when the confession of sin and Jesus’ lordship leaves our lips. It isn’t complete when the last droplet of baptismal water evaporates from the skin. It’s a lifetime of growth, learning, seeking, finding, studying, questioning, reasoning, praying, meditating, listening, loving, living, forgiving, acting, doing, trying, failing, and trying again. Then dying to self. Then really, really living.

Part of that process is traveling with others, conversing, sharing, challenging, being challenged, agreeing, disagreeing, being accountable to, confessing, needling, prodding — and being willing to accept all of that.

It’s treating everyone with respect, cherishing equality, acting justly, loving mercy, walking with humility, loving deeply, trying very hard not to judge, seeing a father God in the faces of everyone you meet, refusing to discriminate because of anything different from self. Anything.

So that’s what I try to do.

Failing frequently, but still determined to try.

That makes me a change agent.

And that’s okay with me.

As Roadie and I walked a few minutes ago, we passed little Webster Methodist Church across the street from my house. There, in the tiny garden beside it, congregants had gathered in a circle inside the perimeter of its white picket fence. They had gathered for a sunrise service, but no sunrise was in evidence. Standing in their pastels with sweaters and jackets against the chilly fog, they were singing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” in unison, with increasing volume at each verse. Inside, a piano plinked away the harmony through open windows.

I wanted to pull out my phone and take a picture, but it was too sacred a moment to capture in a photo or a vine.

“Christ hath opened paradise!” they sang, and awakening songbirds joined in.

Roadie alerted and mumbled as if he would like to join in, too.

At the center of the tulip-graced garden is a path in the shape of a cross, lined with timbers and paved with wood chips. From it, there is really no place to go but up.

No miracle happened. The sun did not break out of the clouds. The chill did not give way to warmth. All over town, graves remained closed.

But they sang a song of faith that sometime, all that will change.

And it will.

This post originally appeared as an article in the February, 2012 edition of New Wineskins.

Let’s cut to the chase.

Fellowship is a choice that we make; we choose whether to extend it or not. And to make that choice, we use our judgment.

Judging people is not acceptable. Jesus teaches this unequivocally in the sermon on the mount:

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” ~ Matthew 7:1-2

The verses that follow are clearly relational; they are about relationships with others. We are not to judge others. It is just as apparent in His sermon on the plain:

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” ~ Luke 6:37

These instructions are more specific iterations of the golden rule (Matthew 7:12), if you think about it.

Yet they are monumental challenges to us because …

We all judge.

We live in a culture of judgment. We elect government officials; we root for sports teams; we pull for beauty contestants, bachelors and bachelorettes; we try to guess the next decision by Judge Judy; we hope people will be voted off the island.

It’s been that way for a long time. Paul put it this way:

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” ~ Romans 2:1

Some believers – among them, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Greg Boyd who builds on Bonhoeffer in Repenting of Religion – have proposed that a key element of Eden’s original sin was judging: God was judged untrustworthy with His warning about the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It’s difficult to argue with their logic.

It’s wrong, but we do it anyway. Judgment has become so integral to our culture, we have superimposed it on religion and many are convinced that man’s judgment of others is absolutely essential in order to be righteous and preserve righteousness. To a certain degree, that’s understandable, because ….

In scripture, we’re called to judge and use judgment.

“Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” ~ John 7:24

We are, as was the crowd to whom Jesus spoke in this passage, expected to judge whether He is the Son of God.

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” ~ Matthew 7:15-16

We’re warned to discern when people claim to speak for God and lie.

“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?” ~ 1 Corinthians 5:1-2

We are adjured to put immorality out of the assembly.

“If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people?” ~ 1 Corinthians 6:1

We are challenged to adjudicate small claims within the church.

And on and on – to shun indolents and moochers (2 Thessalonians 3:6ff); preachers of gospels that aren’t (Galatians 1:9); deceivers and antichrists (2 John 1:7-11); obstructors and dividers (Romans 16:17, Titus 3:10); those who are guilty of any of whole litanies of sins that stain a church’s reputation (1 Corinthians 5:9-11).

It sounds like there was a whole lot of judging going on in the church of century one.

How do we square that with what Jesus said?

Not all judging is the same.

Stay with me: this is not a matter of semantics, but of grammar. The verb “judge” requires an object. You don’t just judge. You judge something. Or someone.

When Jesus forbids judging as quoted above, He forbids judging people. He said that even He did not walk this earth for the purpose of judging people:

“If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day.” ~ John 12:47-48 (See also Luke 12:13-15; John 5:22-30.)

There will come a time when His words will judge them, but while He walked among men it was not the right time. (Even though He knew their thoughts and the motives of their hearts – see Matthew 9:4 and Luke 9:47 – which we certainly cannot.)

There will come a time when believers will judge the world and angels, too (1 Corinthians 6:2-3) – possibly part of a reign with Him (2 Timothy 2:12; Revelation 20:4-6), but not yet. Not in this world.

We, like Christ, walk this world to save others. We do so by leading others closer to Him.

Furthermore, He says that if we do not judge, we will not be judged:

“Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. ~ John 5:22-24 (emphasis mine)

When He tells people to judge, it is for themselves and to judge what is right (Luke 12:57 – in the context of recommending reconciliation rather than taking a civil court action).

So, may I propose that when we search the epistles and find instructions for us to judge, these are instructions to judge – not people – but their words and actions to determine whether wrong has been done.

In virtually every instance,* the things which are being judged in these cases are, in fact, things and not people. They are sins. They must be judged, weighed, considered, and identified as sin because Christ also did not come to bring law but grace (John 1:17; Romans 6:14; Galatians 2:21; and 5:4).

There was never an intention for the New Testament to be written, collected and regarded as new law. The concept is foreign to scripture entirely. So there was not a pair of stone tablets or even a collection of written scrolls in Jesus’ handwriting filled with commands, exceptions, qualifications, and encryption/decryption codes. Instead, He taught and lived every day what it meant to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves. All other applications could be deduced (with the assistance of His present Holy Spirit) and judged from that.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” ~ Matthew 18:18

Jesus isn’t talking just to Peter here. He did say the same thing to Peter a couple of chapters before (16:13-20), but here He is in the middle of a discourse about church discipline. He’s thinking ahead. He’s speaking to us, as well as the disciples around Him at that time.

We are called to judge what is sin in this world and what is righteousness; between wrong and right; between exclusive love for self and love for God and for others as surely as self.

We are not called to judge people. We’re not required to assess others’ moral character; just our own. We do not determine others’ salvation. Judging people is not our job. We’re not good at it. We’re not qualified to do it. We’re not authorized to do it.

Yet we must be competent and willing to discern right from wrong because we have a responsibility to fellow believers and to those who have not a clue about Jesus to help them understand Him better and know what He taught, lived, and died for. It’s not an option. Jesus instructs it.

If we are to judge correctly – make righteous judgments, as we are encouraged to do (Luke 12:57; John 7:24) – then we must judge for ourselves what is right (and therefore, what is also wrong). But Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 18 (above) and Matthew 5:23-24 also burden us with the responsibility to help others judge wisely, too.

How do we judge sin without judging people?

Have you ever heard the expression, “Hate the sin; love the sinner”? Our judgment must be like that; we judge the sin (whether acts and words are wrong) but leave judging the person to the Lord at the proper time.

First of all, be sure that you have judged correctly that what the other person has said or done is, in fact, sin. You can discuss a difference of opinion, but you can’t correct someone about a matter on which scripture is silent. Become overly familiar with Romans 14. Not every person who impresses you as wrong is morally wrong – or even necessarily holds a wrong opinion. Not all churches are Corinth or Sardis.

Investigate thoroughly those scriptures cited above which describe the sins and circumstances that require judgment. If the matter before you is one of those, you have good precedent to proceed. If it isn’t, you may not. If the severity of the matter doesn’t begin to approach the severity of those sins and circumstances, ask for the Spirit’s help in discerning (Luke 11:11-13; 1 Corinthians 2:14).

Is the matter before you a matter of sin? Or a matter of opinion? If it’s a question of words, interpretations and/or opinions, remember 2 Timothy 2:23 and Titus 3:9.

Second: be humble. None of us is perfect. None of us is sinless. Those whom we would lead closer to Christ are keenly aware of that. We need to be constantly conscious of it too: we are saved by grace through faith; forgiven yet still sinners. All of us – those who know Christ and those who don’t – will be judged by what we have done (Matthew 25) and what we have said (James 3:1; 2:12) — with the exception noted above: those who do not judge others.

If you judge a person — rather than the person’s actions or words — then the way you view them and the degree to which you are willing to love them changes. You’ve decided that they’re not good like you anymore; they’re bad. You begin to feel that you have God’s own authority to judge and your heart begins to crave that power for self over others. You begin to feel – in the words of the old Saturday Night Live character “Church Lady” – “a little bit superior.”

If you judge words and actions, leaving the person out of it, you are free to continue loving them as Christ loves. You can correct them in humility and grace — and probably in tears (Acts 20:31; 2 Corinthians 2:4). A different, more effective approach than berating and condemning. It requires a different heart; the heart of Christ.

Third: love others.

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” ~ 1 Peter 4:8

By odd coincidence, so does bringing back someone who has wandered from the truth (James 5:19-20). I can’t help but think that the two belong together. Guiding the errant absolutely must be done – and done gently (Galatians 6:1; 2 Timothy 2:25).

Applying discipline without love rather than correcting others who sin with love is the difference between telling your son he is a bad boy or telling him he is a good boy who did a bad thing. One destroys self-esteem and the other reinforces the child’s awareness of a parent’s deep love.

How do we leave the other person out of it and focus only on the actions and words that are wrong? We have to find a way, and it’s vital to remain loving, supportive and humble.

May I make a few suggestions – examples, really – about doing that?

• “It’s been said that you (said or did something). Is that true? The only reason I’m asking is – not to judge you – but because I care for your soul. If it’s true, something is coming between you and God.”

• “You know I love you, brother. And when I see or hear you (doing or saying this sin), I see it killing you a little bit more each time. And it’s killing me to see it.”

• “I struggle with (the same sin; or a similar one), sis. I know (or “I can only imagine”) it’s hard to deal with. But I’ll make you a deal. I’ll pray for you and you can pray for me.”

• “I know when people say, ‘Don’t judge me,’ what they really mean is ‘Don’t stop loving me.’ At least, I do! Please trust me: That ain’t a-gonna happen. I am not going to stop loving you. And even if I have a stroke and stop being me and start saying hateful things, God will never stop loving you. His mercies never end.”

These are just a handful of suggestions. You can probably come up with more and better.

No judgment about moral character, human worth, eternal destiny or fellowship in Christ is required to say these things. They are appropriate to say to those who believe and those who do not. And for the believer who loves others (whether they are in Christ or not) and cannot bear to see them hurt by sin, words like these should fall from their lips like gentle rain from clouds too full to contain it.

_{*The singular exceptions I have found are 1 Corinthians 5:12-13, where Paul is referring to specific people whose sins threatened the reputation of the church, and 1 Corinthians 4:3-5, where Paul has been judged by some at Corinth as an inferior apostle. The latter, obviously, is not something that he encourages.}

 

I don’t know what to think.

I don’t know how to think.

I don’t know how to feel.

Life just seems jumbled-up, shaken around in its puzzle-box, disconnected, senseless and out-of-place.

Very little in that life feels known, dependable, familiar, friendly, solid, in-focus, or colorful.

Blogs are supposed to be the place where you tell everyone what you think, even if you haven’t had a thought worth sharing with your own dog for years.

And I can’t. I feel a need to write. There’s an urgency behind it. There’s a frustration with the way the world is. There’s a sense that I used to have an idea what it was all about, but I’ve either forgotten or never really knew.

Or that I was just plain wrong.

Right now, life is a Piet Mondrian painting rendered by Rene Magritte, an Apple device designed by Salvador Dali, an Alberto Giacometti sculpture done by Fernando Botero, a play by Samuel Beckett enacted by Jonathan Winters, a “Matrix” movie directed by Terry Gilliam.

I can’t even begin to describe what it feels like, and the temptation to just not feel at all. Wall it off. Shut it down. Go Vulcan.

It does not compute.

So I don’t know what to think.

And I don’t know what to feel.

There it is, folks: your messed-up friend Keith, in a nutshell, trying not to become a nut.

What do you do with that?

If you’re me, you write.

Sometimes it helps.

Do you think it might be that the reason God is sometimes silent is that there are simply no words to say?

Is it possible that the Lord is silent for 36 chapters of the book of Job because He is so grieved over what has befallen His faithful servant that He can say nothing, do nothing, but mourn in silence?

God permitted what happened to Job. He instigated the conversation with the accuser and deliberately drew Job into it. Intervening in any way to relieve Job’s suffering would have broken the terms of agreement about what the accuser can do to Job and would have affected the outcome of Job’s faith — the faith of a servant in whom God has placed His own faith.

All that God can do is weep in silence at the undeserved suffering of His servant Job.

Until it is time to reveal His own justice and restore what has been unjustly ripped away.

Are there words for God to say when David — confessedly guilty of lust, murder and possibly rape — begs for the life of his unborn child even when God has told the king through Nathan that David’s sin will result in the child’s death? The words have been said. Of all people, the king of God’s people must understand the consequences of sin.

All that can be left is for God to mourn with His servant David, in hopes that the silence will bring peace to his soul.

Until the time when Nathan’s words “Your sin is forgiven” are confirmed through the birth of a son and heir.

And in the garden where Jesus prays the same prayer for His own life, three times, sweating blood in recognition of the injustices, beatings, scourgings and crucifixion to come — what could God say? Jesus had set His face resolutely toward Jerusalem. He had predicted many times what was to come. God had already spoken publicly, twice, to identify Jesus as His Son — with the instruction to those hearing that they should listen to the Son. And one more time to confirm that He had glorified the Name, and would glorify it again.

So God watches and listens to what Jesus had committed to suffer as it unfolds in utter sin, rebellion, self-will and hatefulness on behalf of mankind. To have sent twelve legions of angels to rescue this perfect, sinless Son would have undone all the good the Son had lived to accomplish.

There were no words. Not even darkness, earthquakes and the rending of a temple veil between what is holy and what is not could express the immeasurable depth of God’s broken heart.

Until the time when He restores all things to the way they should be in heaven and on earth.

Sometimes I believe there are no words.

And even God is silent.

What can I say on this dark, rainy Holy Saturday about the resurrection of Jesus Christ that has not already been said, and more eloquently?

Probably nothing.

But I continue to repeat — to myself and to others — sometimes like a mantra of comfort:

“For my family and me, at this time of challenge, the resurrection is the single unique fact in all of human history that can bring us hope.”

In it, God shows His power, desire and passion to turn death into life, pain into bliss, tomb walls into gardens, darkness into light, hope into glory.

When all other alternatives are exhausted through human failure, He stands by the rolled-away stone in the divinely-perfected form of His Son and assures us:

“It is accomplished.

“It’s not over.

“It’s just beginning.”