Four Bridges to Nowhere

[HKHaugan]

Part 1 Is There a Rainbow At the End of Rose Street?

When you come right down to it there are only two kinds of life, life with God spiritually centered in Him and life sinfully self-centered without Him. Life with Him is personal, spiritual and eternal. Life without Him is one big question mark, lonely, confusing, anxiety ridden and exhausting, ending with the last beat of the physical heart. Life with God brings clarity about what you can't see and clarity about how to handle what you do see. Life without God is at the mercy of the slickest salesman, the unpredictable emotionality of people in general and the cantankerous attitudinal spirits that wander in the unseen dimension. Life with God settles you into a stable, confident and forward looking approach that sees relational and spiritual fulfillment around every corner. This is the life Jesus offers when He says to all the weary and burdened people to come to Him.

The coming of Jesus brings a life with God we can see. He shows what personal, Spirit centered, eternal life looks like. It has everything to do with the heart, its attitude and the way it processes experience. His heart, His mind and His Spirit bear a balanced unity totally directed by His Father's will as found in His Word, Holy Scripture. He was born into the world to show how a relationship with His Father turns human life into a spiritual force for transforming its human environment (the world) and opening the path to eternity. When that human life is lived apart from God it becomes a self destructive force ending in death and a lonely grave.

Jesus makes this abundantly clear when He uses four distinctly different words to describe how human life apart from God can slowly disintegrate into that 'dark night.' Those words are find, save, keep and love. They are special words because they are based on His knowledge of human nature that since Adam has fallen into a chasm of separation from His Father and the Spirit. They describe the personal struggle of all of us for a destiny only God can restore. They are four bridges to nowhere.

First, find. Mt.10:39 “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” In Matthew an identity is found (Gk., euron) that then is lost. Bridge One.

Second, save. Mk.8:35-36 “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” In Mark a passion for life is saved, each moment rescued (Gk., sosei) and then lost. Bridge Two.

Third, keep. Lk.17:33 “Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.” In Luke a life is kept, a lifestyle hung onto (Gk., peripoiasesthai) and then lost. Bridge Three.

Fourth, love. Jn.12:25 “Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” In John a life is loved, indulged in pridefully (Gk., philon) and then lost. Bridge Four.

Each verse is directed at individuals. 'Whoever' (Matt., Mk. and Luke) and 'anyone' (John) are personal not generic. Jesus is speaking directly to where individual hearts and minds are in their earthly experience. Most of us probably think they say the same thing. That is true to the point that they speak about losing and gaining life. But He is speaking directly to each of us right where we are in our personal uniqueness. That is how He intends us to understand them.

And there's a bit more.

Each of those verses uses words that describe something deeper and more involved. In New Testament Greek 'life' is three-dimensional, physical (zoe, bios, your five senses and mind), self-aware (ego eimi---I am) and spiritual (psyche---soul). The core one is 'psyche', the one that drives the mind and heart. the one that either ends in death or is given to Jesus for rebirth in the Spirit. The way life (psyche, soul, spirit) is lost is different in each Gospel. Remember, it is life without God.

Already then, Jesus is saying there is more than just a sense of 'I' in a physical body. It is the spirit, the soul, in us that has been captured by sin that motivates how we use our body and mind. Sin is the problem causing our spiritual separation from God. Jesus is the answer not only to the switch from sin to faith in Him but also the one person we can trust to recover our balance with His Spirit. He was sinless, had no fear or anxiety and completely faithful. His mind, heart and spirit were in perfect balance. He has shown by His Resurrection from the dead that our dying spirit can be restored by faith in Him. He rose to give us spiritual life that never dies and we have it now through faith in Him. He gives us His life in the Holy Spirit. That means He is our life. He cancels the power of sin in us as we are willing to let Him be our conscious guide. Faith is the key to eternal spiritual life.

Matthew. “Whoever finds their life...” The issue is identity

Here the Greek word is 'euron' to find. It has to do with getting into the world 'to find myself.' What more descriptive parable than Jesus telling us about the Prodigal Son? He left His father and home to search, look for what it means to be human and what happened? He 'wasted his substance in riotous living.' He tried to find himself through what his body and his mind dictated. Inevitably he sees himself and knows finally he belongs to His father and his father's household.

There are all kinds of search mechanisms the world offers to appeal to identity seekers. Gangs, clubs, teams, religions, occupations, neighborhoods, offer an identity in this world. Years ago we went to New York to see a musical. It was a present for our daughter. We arranged a place to stay that was like a B&B in one of those suburban towns north of the city because it was cheaper than staying at a hotel in the city. It was also a quick ride on a commuter train. The people who owned it lived on a favored street in that town. As we got to know them they talked about their life on Rose Street. One end of this street was lower to middle class and the other end was upper. They shared that they had successfully been able to move from the lower end to the middle and that now their eyes were set on the upper end and it would be possible within a year or two since people there hung on to their address so they could say they lived there. Their goal in life was to reach the end of Rose Street which to them was their 'somewhere over the rainbow.' It also seemed that half the people on Rose Street had the same goal. They had chosen Rose Street as their identity.

Rose Street may be like the proverbial rainbow with it's promised pot of gold. The reality of rainbows is their disappearance the closer you get to where they hit the ground. The rain, which the sun uses to blossom its myriad colors, ceases at that point. It's the sun that makes the rainbow. The rain is merely the medium through which its beauty is displayed. It's so easy to get caught up in Rose Street. It becomes the idol promising that pot of gold. This is the promise of the fake rainbows the world without God offers. There is no idol and there is no pot of gold.

Apply this to faith.

If your focus is on the sun when you see a rainbow you know that the real treasure is the beauty of God and the consequent beauty of what He has created for us to enjoy where we are. And it is in the sharing of the beauty with someone else who may be looking for Rose Street who might be missing the beauty of the life and people on their present place on Rose Street. It's also a reminder of the promise God made when He put a rainbow in the sky after the Noah's flood that He would never again destroy all people who live on the earth.

But even more beautiful is how the sun is also a reminder of the Son through whom the sun came into being. It is His spiritual reminder of the majesty with which He colors the universe and shows real life coming not in how hard we search to find it but to relish the life we have been given that can be used to glorify Him, love others and become eternal through His Holy Spirit. There is the rainbow fully spectrumed and it's not over there but right where we are.

If your treasure is your identity then how far will it take you? You can see this search in some of the Alaska series on TV where people believe in wilderness living either as an escape or to find themselves. Reality shows like these are identity seeking in the raw. Why did they leave and go there? What were they leaving and what did they hope they would find? The song “My Elusive Dreams” tells that story. As you read the words ask the question “What is the 'it' they were looking for?”

“I followed you to Texas, I followed you to Utah
We didn't find it there so we moved on
I followed you to Alabam', things look good in Birmingham
We didn't find it there so we moved on
I know you're tired of following, my elusive dreams and schemes
For they're only fleeting things, my elusive dreams
I had your child in Memphis, you heard of work in Nashville
We didn't find it there so we moved on
To a small farm in Nebraska, to a gold mine in Alaska
We didn't find it there so we moved on
And now we've left Alaska, because there was no gold mine
But this time only two of us moves on
Now all we have is each other and a little memory to cling to
And still you won't let me go on alone
I know you're tired of following, my elusive dreams and schemes
For they're only fleeting things, my elusive dreams
For they're only fleeting things, my elusive dreams.”
(Songwriters Curly Putman and Billy Sherrill)
The 'it' every heart is aching for is that eternal relationship with God in Jesus.
Jesus tells the story of the man who finds treasure in a field and buys it “for where your treasure is there will be your heart also.” What field are we looking in or already plowing in, searching for identity? If we find a way, a principle, a method outside of God that seems to work, it won't last. Put it in the 'Rose Street' column. Next, we'll see what Mark has to say.