Moving to wordpress!

Hey everyone,

I have been convinced to move the blog to wordpress.

Join the conversation at stuffisaboutjesus.wordpress.com

Thanks!

-Jesse

Why is stuff about Jesus?

I wanted to clarify what I mean by the phrase, "stuff is about Jesus." The goal of this blog is to develop a vision of our reality, of all our relationships, hobbies, careers, communities, experiences - a vision which sees all these as pointing to Jesus. The reason any thing we experience is pleasant, compelling, fulfilling, or exhilarating is because it is a little bit like Jesus. Emerson says "all things with which we deal, preach to us." I am saying that this is very fundamental to our reality, that God has made images and pictures throughout all creation which proclaim his character. And because God's character is seen in and defined by the person and work of Jesus the Living Word, who is God himself (John 1:18), I am saying that all things are proclamations of Jesus. Everything is like a little model or sketch of Jesus.

What is absolutely crucial to understand is that none of these things are actually Jesus himself. This vision is quite the opposite of pantheism. Everything is not Jesus. Everything is about Jesus. The reason that things break down and get old is because they are not Jesus. The reason that Noah gets drunk and fails to fix the problem of sin in the world is because he is not the coming Messiah. He is just a picture of what the Messiah will look like (or a "type" of Messiah). The reason that boyfriends and girlfriends let us down (even though we can really convince ourselves that we have arrived) is because they are not Jesus. Jesus is Jesus. And Jesus is God. He is the great Bridegroom and the Church is his Bride (Eph 5:32).

This universal breaking down and failure of all things is the way the universe proclaims, "We are not Jesus, we are just a little bit like him." Analogies breakdown because stuff is not Jesus. Stuff is about Jesus.

Idolatry is when we worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. Idolatry is when we fail to observe this universal proclamation of all things. It is when we make these things out to be Jesus himself. We make our experiences, our relationships, our hobbies, careers, favorite bands, favorite authors, food and drink, sex, etc., - we make these things out to be ends in themselves, rather than signs which point away from themselves to Jesus. This is perversion. This is evil.

So this blog is an effort to raise an awareness of the fact that we are swimming in a world of signs which point to a world beyond this world; they point to God.

"He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:20-21).

And to answer my question, stuff is about Jesus because God wants us to know him and enjoy him in everything we do and experience.

Taking the time to articulate the way that things point to Jesus is so worth it. That's what this blog is about.

- Jesse

A Bit of Edwards from "Images of Divine Things"

If there be such an admirable analogy observed by the Creator in his works throughout the whole system of the natural world, so that one thing seems to be made in imitation of another, and especially the less perfect to be made in imitation of the more perfect, so that the less perfect is as it were a figure or image of the more perfect— so beasts are made in imitation of men, plants are [a] kind of types of animals, minerals are in many things in imitation of plants why is it not rational to suppose that the corporeal and visible world should be designedly made and constituted in analogy to the more spiritual, noble and real world? 'Tis certainly agreeable to what is apparently the method of God's working.

Espresso & Sanctification

If there is any method of coffee brewing most vulnerable to shoddiness, it is espresso. A perfect shot of espresso requires careful consideration of all aspects of the beverage: the beans, the roast, the coarseness, evenness and amount of grind, tamping pressure and technique, the machine, the water temperature and quality, the length of time extracting, the cup.

When pulling a good shot of espresso, you don’t want the grind to be too coarse or too fine. Likewise you don’t want to pack the portafilter too tightly or too loosely. Some liken it to pouring water through pebbles or sand. If the grind is like pebbles, the water flows through rapidly and the shot is under-extracted, lacking many components of its potential flavor profile. If the grind is like sand, the shot pulls too long and it is over-extracted. In over-extracted shots, there is an excessive bitterness. Too much of the flavor is pulled out of the beans. In an over-extracted shot, there’s some good that comes out, but the bad outweighs the good. An uneven grind always pulls inconsistent shots. 

God knows exactly what we can bear to make us holy. Instead of 23-28 seconds, it takes a lifetime. We are constantly being sanctified in order to prepare our hearts for eternal life with Him. If sanctification were easy, like a lightly packed pebble-like grind, we would suffer potential in understanding and loving God’s character, the weight of His sacrifice, and the richness of His grace. God presses us just perfectly.  Because He is good, He does not give us burdens larger than we can bear, which would bring out bitterness rather than understanding. Instead of finding in ourselves the beauty of His character, we would be over-burdened and sickened by His glory. We would drown ourselves in self-pity and bitterness. The bad would outweigh the good.

God is good. He is the Perfect Barista. He deals with our lives wisely. He knows the precise grind, the precise pressure. His Holy Spirit flows through us, bringing out the best flavors which He grew in us. Sanctification is perfectly difficult in order that we can understand and reflect all of the beauty and vastness of His character. In the end, there’s a perfect cup of espresso. A shot made to testify to the greatness of its crafter. Every step of the process was ordered according to His divine wisdom. Unlike a perfect shot of espresso which loses its quality in exponential speed, sanctified beings are meant to eternally reflect the glory of their Creator.

Prayer of St. Gregory of Nazianzen: To the All-Transcendent God

O All-Transcendent God
(and what other name could describe you?),
what words can hymn Your praises?
No word does You justice.
What mind can probe Your secret?
No mind can encompass You.
You are alone beyond the power of speech,
yet all that we speak stems from You.
You are alone beyond the power of thought,
yet all that we can conceive springs from You.
All things proclaim You,
those endowed with reason and those bereft of it.
All the expectation and pain of the world coalesces in You.
All things utter a prayer to You,
a silent hymn composed by You.
You sustain everything that exists,
and all things move together to Your orders.
You are the goal of all that exists.
You are one and You are all,
yet You are none of the things that exist,
neither a part nor the whole.
You can avail Yourself of any name;
how shall I call You,
the only unnameable?
All-transcendent God!

Theology of Perspective

Good views compel us. Whether the scene is a city, a landscape, an ocean, the sky - we are always moved when our vision transitions from a position of constraint to a magnificent overview. Seeing the big picture is always aesthetically pleasing. I am amazed when I go west on the Max past the Rose Quarter with a constrained vision in the city, and come out into the open moving across the bridge over the Willamette. Suddenly the vision of the city is magnificent. Our hearts are captured by such views.

Similarly, we must work through all the smaller parts of a good story, or movie, novel, play, etc., until we finally grasp the big picture of the work and can appreciate it as a whole. There is a direct parallel between this and coming out of the trees to see the forest.

This is to help us understand that while we work through this life with constrained vision, God is an author writing one story. Every time we move outside of the trees and see the forest, every time we reach the goal of a hike and see the view, every time the Max comes out of the city onto the bridge over the Willamette, every time we reach the spot on SR 14 with that view of the gorge - all these are pictures of the time when the sons and daughters of God will reach a standpoint to view all of Creation and History perfectly and see the big picture, the final piece of art which God the Father is working to display the Glory and Beauty of his Son Jesus Christ. I believe that God the Father designed the concept of big picture perspective to be aesthetically pleasing to human beings and capture our hearts so that we would have an idea of what it will be like when we finally see the big picture of the entire cosmos.

Theology of Steady, Droning Noises

There is a kind of buzzing frequency to things such as washers, dryers, fans, microwaves, dust collectors, etc., which can go on unnoticed in the background. They produce a steady noise that you often don't even realize is there, unlike sudden noises. Yet they disturb the subconscious and may make us feel uneasy. When all of a sudden these turn off, we are quickly aware of the disturbance that was going on in our subconscious, and we experience a satisfying peace.

In the same way, Satan has subtly kept his evil going in our culture, buzzing along like a washer or a fan, and the world is unable to recognize it. Yet it affects our subconscious greatly, and disturbs us. The Holy Spirit awakens us to the reality of this evil, so that the church is aware of it. When someone points out a noise which has been there all along, it is hard to believe that we had never noticed it before. This is like the awakening of the Spirit through the preaching of the word. Likewise, when Christ returns, he will put an end to Satan's constant buzzing, and the Church will experience satisfaction and peace.

Another parallel is that when evil increases quickly in the culture, the Church - who might have been carried along with it before - becomes suddenly aware of it and resists it. When the steadiness of a washing machine is increased suddenly to dry the clothes toward the end of the cycle, you suddenly become aware that the washer had been droning all along. This is the way God sanctifies his Church. If they are unaware and hardened to an evil that is going on steadily, he will all the sudden increase the drone so that his Church wakes up to their foolishness.

This also happens on an individual level. At times we can harbor sin that we think is minor, and God may sanctify us by giving us over to demonstrate the foolishness of our sin. This is likewise sanctification to cause his people to wake up to the foolishness of their sin management.

So these things which have a disturbing but subtle, unnoticed frequency to them are an image of the subtle, creeping wickedness of Satan in culture, and the suddenness of their stopping and the peace that is brought about is an image of either the illumination and sanctification of the Spirit or the return of Christ.

Building Blocks

Life consists of people coming and going from their homes and their jobs. It consists of pilgrims going on journeys, of traveling, of hiking up mountains and then back down again. It is made up of entering rooms and leaving rooms, of walking through hallways, going up elevators, passing through wooded areas, of taking trips to the grocery store.

Our world is made out of flowers and butterflies. Flowers begin as seeds which "die" and are buried - just like Jesus, just like people - and which blossom into new, beautiful, fragrant life. Butterflies start out as caterpillars, and then they come up out of Egypt and pass through the Wilderness and become butterflies.

Light exists. Bread and water exist. Snow exists. Rain exists. Sun exists.

Rivers exist. Oceans exist. Fountains exist. Plants exist. Honey badgers and squirrels exist.

Life consists of songs and stories, which are made up of tension and resolution, just like the people who come and go from their homes, just like butterflies, just like flowers. We set out, we study, we labor, we cry, we argue, and then we sleep at night.

Life consists of a million little narratives, which can each be broken down into smaller segments, or lumped together into larger segments. This is the infinite depth of life. No thing is not made up of many things which make up one thing. And each of the many smaller things are likewise able to break down into even smaller pieces. And any group of things can be lumped together to make up one thing. This is the possibility of human art. This connection of things creates meaning. When all things are connected, when all things are lumped together - everything in the universe and all moments in history - what is the meaning? What is the picture this Mosaic creates?

Life is utterly ironic and the universe constantly turns itself on its head. The loser often wins. And you often backtrack to get onto the freeway which in the end will save you time. And sometimes you hurt your knee when you try to run and then you can't run at all. And sometimes people realize that they are humble and become Pharisaical. You would expect the clergy to be guilty of pride, but in this world the layman makes a parade of the fact that he's a layman, and the Gentiles need to be warned that their non-Jewishness, their unworthiness which has brought them to a place of faith, is precisely what would cause them to think that they are something significant in themselves, and what will sever them from the vine.

Leverage is ironic. You push down to create an upward force. Manipulation is ironic. Instead of an explicit imperative, you fake a "poor me" sort of self pity (push down), and you get what you want (upward force).

Batman is ironic. He is a bat-man, a man of the night, yet he will fight for justice in the face of enemies like the joker, who wear goodness and cheer on their face as they blow up hospitals.

Pornography exists. It is like a spider, like a snake, like a tape worm, like cancer, like leprosy, like disease in general, or any such thing which amounts to perversion, evil, lie, and nonexistence which somehow creeps into life as a tangible, concrete manifestation. Pornography is like an evil clown that wears a smile from ear to ear called marriage and purity. A thing is only as evil as it ought to be good, right, just, and beautiful.

And music exists. There is rhythm. There is harmony. There is many, and there is one. There is tension, and there is resolve. And i-pods and MP3 players exist. We like taking these little stories with us.

In the early 20th century, guitar amplifiers would create a clean sound. But rebellious rockers pushed their amps, cut them, dipped them in water - they were literally breaking their amplifiers to get the distorted sound they wanted. Now amplifiers are designed to have such a broken sound, and nobody would think twice when they heard the tone on the radio.

I wait in the rain for my friend to climb in his car and unlock my door. Again, I wait in a dark hallway as he struggles to get his keys out of his pocket. I wait in line for coffee. I wait in traffic. I wait until the bell rings at 330 and my shift ends. I wait until my teacher finishes his lecture so I can talk with the girl sitting in front of me. I wait until I get my test back. I wait for my food to cook. I wait for Josh to finish his shower so that I can take my own. I wait until I get my license, until I graduate high school, until I get a girlfriend, until I get married, have kids, get my Masters. I wait for this movie to get over, so I can more politely tell my friends goodnight.

We hate waiting because we aren't wise or observant, and the thought just never occurs to us why the sovereign Father would create such a world. And the truth is, we are just really idolatrous people who think that these things will satisfy us. We are pragmatic, impatient people trying to make do in a world of signs and images; these signs and images actually do mean something more real than themselves.

We hold dear these little pictures, much more than the real thing.

"All things with which we deal, preach to us." - Emerson

Stuff Is About Jesus

Stuff Is About Jesus is a blog dedicated to seeing our world through the lens of the Living Word. Nothing in this life is neutral. Nothing is arbitrary.  The world is created as if the Father was painting pictures, composing songs, writing poems - all in view of the glory and majesty of his Son. These paintings, songs, and poems make up the created world; they are the building blocks of this universe. And nothing escapes this reality. Nothing is marginalized, because Jesus was marginalized, and he is at the center. There are no detached caveats or irrelevant tangents. The earth is Yahweh's, and the fullness thereof. "Creation is as full of images of divine things as a language is full of words." "All things with which we deal, preach to us." There is no corner of the universe where their voice is not heard. "Let the world become our school if we desire rightly to know God."