Captain, My Captain

“but as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come.” “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” ~ Joshua 5:14-15 (excerpts)

    Walt Witman wrote, “O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,” in his moving tribute to Abraham Lincoln. Witman lamented with the entire nation that its leader who brought them through a war that divided the country and shed a generation’s blood on its soil did not live to see the end. 
    Now consider the Captain of the LORD’s hosts who intercepted Joshua as he prepared to take the Promised Land. It is immediately apparent that Joshua is encountering God the Son, who does not shun His worship as an angel would, even declaring that the ground is made holy in His presence. This Captain informed Joshua that His armies would fight the battles ahead under His leadership. 
    Joshua reminded the people of this repeatedly as he declared, “Be strong and courageous!” As the people moved toward God’s Promise and acted according to God’s precepts, they witness incredible, miraculous victories. When they disobeyed God and presumptuously pursued their own objectives, they suffered and failed. The simple truth is that, when that followed the Captain of the Lord’s hosts, they joined Him in what He was doing. When they failed to listen, watch, and wait to see where the Captain was going, they suffered the consequences. 
    Joshua and Israel’s Captain is our Captain too. He is our Savior, the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Unlike Walt Witman’s captain, our’s is alive and will see the completion of the civil war of Heaven (Revelation 12). Even when our Captain breathed, “It is finished” on the cross, He only meant that the battle of redeeming lost sinners completed. When he breathed the Holy Spirit into His disciples, the Captain welcomed them onto the “holy ground” of His Father’s house. Now, like Israel on the banks of the Jorden, we stand ready to follow our Captain as He methodically moves to put down the rebellion. Our Captain will either change the hearts and minds of the enemies or utterly defeat them. 
     Having had our hearts and minds transformed through repentance and new birth, we are no longer His enemies but His brothers and sisters. As such, we are charged to follow our Captain and join Him in whatever He is doing. When we obey His teaching and follow His lead their will be miraculous victories over evil and sin. However, when we impulsively disobey and willfully follow our own paths, we too will suffer the consequences. 

The Lord Bless You and Keep You

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.. ~ Numbers 6:24-26

After giving detailed guidance for life and worship, God instructed Moses to have priests end worship with a blessing from the LORD. This beautiful passage reminds God’s people that they are blessed. It plainly states God’s desire to do so. God did not say it because anyone asked, but because of God’s own initiative. While reading the seemingly tedious pages of direction for matters ranging from athlete’s foot to national repentance, these instructions ultimately lead toward God’s blessing. 

Countless ancient Israelites and present-day worshipers succumb to the temptation of exercising the disciplines frivolously and failing to see that obedience is better than sacrifice. Obedience results from respect and trust, while public displays of piety can serve other masters apart from the LORD. God’s precepts for the wandering Israelites were given to offset their general ignorance and/or the abominable influence of their Egyptian oppressors. Ignorance and counterfeit holiness result in separation from God as surely as overt disdain. 

See how the LORD desires to bless and keep you. God wants to show the full extent of God’s favor. God saved the people from oppression so that God could grant them both heavenly and earthly riches according to God’s authority and administration. Likewise, God saved them from slavery so that they would be bound to God by love - as the wedding vow says, “to have and to hold.” The covenant is sustained by faith, hope, and joy rather than by the threat of violence or withholding of necessities. 

See how the LORD desires to make His face shine upon you? God’s glory is so great that Moses could only glimpse God passing by him while he hid in the cleft of a rock. Even so, Moses was visibly changed in appearance as a result. The high priest could endure God’s presence only after being thoroughly prepared, and only for a moment. Yet, God eagerly seeks to show God’s face to God’s people so they can know God’s matchless grace. Grace, or unmerited favor, is God’s gift to people God had chosen, even before time. 

See how the LORD desires to lift up His countenance upon you. It is not enough that God wants to be seen face-to-face; God would have God’s people know God’s heart and mind, even to commune with them in their hearts and minds. God wants to give God’s people peace, even peace that passes all understanding. Peace among fallen peoples and ethereal beings is unattainable. Their master is the author of chaos. Therefore the peace that God seeks is a blessed assurance. The satisfaction of God’s precepts was meant to make the way clear for the peace with and of God.

Thanks be to God, the precepts, or Law of God is fulfilled by and in Jesus Christ. His atoning sacrifice cancels the ritual killing of innocent animals. His walk to Calvery replaces the parade of ritual feasts and the economy of religious culture. Through Christ, we are bound to God by love just as love bound Him to the cross. We are blessed and kept by the greatest love ever to be known. The LORD’s face shines upon us through the Son of Man. The LORD extended amazing grace through the death and resurrection of the child of Mary. He who is the heart and mind of God imparts His essence to us as the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we are like the Son of God who now calls us kindred. The Son and the Spirit say, “Come. Love where I prepare a place for you.” Whether in the corrupt flesh or unfettered in His paradise, Christ has made peace with the LORD our home.    

Perseverance, Character, and Hope

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. ~ Romans 5:3-5

A year ago today, I went to bed knowing that my father was dying. In his late eighties, he had battled numerous life-threatening ailments over about three years. Up to that point, Dad was the hardest working man I ever knew. Many people work long hours and pay the price for success, but he wasn’t among them. Dad always put his family first. He was well known for his work ethic and devotion to family, faith, and friends. Dad was gregarious and generous with his time and resources. He was always willing to help his kids, grandchildren, and friends with projects. In his retirement years, which came a little early because he chose family over career, he worked several part-time jobs. They all started as favors to friends who valued Dad’s exceptional business acumen. He worked at his last job up to a few days before his passing. His love language was sacrificial service. Dad gave of himself in a Christlike manner that warrants admiration. 

Like most of us, Dad had his demons to battle. He chose to go in a radically different family rearing direction than what he had known from his father. Therefore, it was unexplored territory. While learning about himself, his wife, and his children, he navigated through unforeseeable circumstances and struggled to find the correct response when faced with areas where he wasn’t naturally gifted. In one of his written retirement musings, Dad described the ominous sounds of a troopship plying the North Sea as icebergs deflected from the hull. I think marriage and parenting were often like that for him. When he felt insecure or lacked confidence, Dad plowed through the icebergs. 

As Dad’s fourth child, I presented him with numerous opportunities for testing and at a time when many stressors passed through his life. He valued outward signs of his moral standards and disdained indications that he might be failing. If I walked a half-mile to the bus stop to meet him after a long day at work in the city, it reflected well to his friends on the bus, and I was loved and praised. If I acted silly, loud, and rambunctiously in a public setting, it embarrassed him, and he projected that shame on me. Anything that affirmed his fear of failure brought negativity. Dad often battled depression and anxiety, and it created strain in our home up to the days before his death. Nevertheless, his love was apparent most often, and his sacrificial service was consistent. Dad’s usually good nature was best known through his relentless sense of humor. He often said that good comedy came down to good timing . . . Sometimes, his timing was better than at others.

A year ago, when my mother called to tell me that Dad died, I immediately thought, “Dad’s in Heaven now, and he is understanding himself and others in a new way as he walks in the LORD’s presence.” My dad’s spiritual life was rich, and I often say that he was the best example of Catholic Christianity I ever knew. Like all of us, my dad carried a lifetime of psychological and physical scars that impede natural movement. Freed from those, Dad now experiences God’s grace to the fullest extent. He now enjoys shameless life and unfiltered light. 

I remember a day long ago when my dad and his good friend, Sam, and I worked all day fixing some significant problems in Dad’s father’s house. We eventually stood by my invalid grandfather’s bed to say goodbye before returning to our home hundreds of miles away. Dad and Pop, both men who were uncomfortable with expressing feelings, looked at each other for several seconds. It seemed to me that Pop was trying to project regret and appreciation, maybe love. Dad may have been thinking similarly. I don’t know. But, if his love language of sacrificial service spoke then too, I’d say he found the grace to forgive and love his old man.

In the passage above, the Apostle says that God pours His love into us. He also says our sufferings produce character. Therefore, it is not uncommon for one, deeply loved, to suffer trials and temptations that strengthen his personality. It is most evident in the largely unseen moments of genuine compassion for self and others. 

I, too, have chosen a different path of self-care, marriage, and parenting. At times it is not so far from my father’s way. Sometimes, it is radically different. Even so, I am grateful for all the ways that God blessed me through my parents, especially today, my dad. Today, I choose to remember what I will miss the most while I wait to see him again. I prefer to reflect on all the positive ways he helped shape me into a man after God’s own heart.