Tag Archives: red dawn

A Better Toughness

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I’ll admit, the news of Chuck Norris’s passing ten days ago in Hawaii hit pretty hard. While I wasn’t a devoted fan of all his films and television shows, I more than appreciated him. When I was younger, if one of his movies was playing, I watched it. Because he wasn’t just tough. He was emotionlessly cool in his toughness. I’m guessing that’s why he became a kind of cultural shorthand for invincibility.

I’m sure you’ve seen or heard the jokes. Everybody has. My wife, Jennifer, has a favorite. It goes something like, “Chuck Norris is so tough, he can pick an apple from an orange tree and make the best lemonade you’ve ever had.” Jokes like that one, while ridiculously silly, certainly do laud what a tough and determined man can achieve. For many, Norris seemed to embody what winning looked like.

That said, I’m also Gen-X. Regardless of the current generation’s memes, we owned Chuck Norris’s myth in real-time. For me personally, legends like him, especially the ones built around genuine toughness, don’t go quietly from my imagination. While not exactly the same, I felt the same way when Patrick Swayze died. I wasn’t a fan of his later films. But no matter how many times Hollywood remakes Red Dawn, Swayze will forever be Jed Eckert, the backwater nobody who led a group of high school kids against foreign invaders. Even today, when I experience a personal victory, you might hear me whisper a subdued shout, “Wolverines!” I have a sticker on my Jeep Wrangler that does the same.

Now, before I steer too far off course, again, I was genuinely saddened to hear about Norris. In a world that admires strength, he stood as a towering symbol of it, and for all the right reasons. Not only a cultural icon, but he was also a man of conviction—open about his Christian faith and intent on living it out before the world. That matters to a guy like me. If anything, it adds depth to his legend. It’s a reminder that behind the myth of his invincibility was a man who understood that, apart from Christ, he was nothing, regardless of his worldly feats. It seems that the real Chuck Norris knew that strength, real strength, isn’t always demonstrated as we’d expect.

Considering today’s date—Palm Sunday—the point resonates. Not every hero’s entrance looks like a victory parade.

Today’s the day the Church commemorates our Lord’s ride into Jerusalem. It begins His walk to the cross. The crowd shouts. The road is paved in their cloaks. The palm branches wave. In all of this, there is, unmistakably, a sense that something powerful is happening. And yet, a donkey? Where’s the war horse? The prophetic scriptures called this particular rider humble and lowly. Where’s the physical dominance? Luke’s Gospel tells us that Jesus was weeping as he entered. That’s not very manly.

So, what’s going on here?

Well, none of these details is incidental; rather, they steer us toward a particular point. What we see is a deliberate subversion of everything we instinctively associate with strength. Kings ride stallions. Conquerors arrive to chest-rattling kettle drums and banners. But Jesus comes lowly. He’s unthreatening, at least on the surface. Everything about Him threatens this world’s powers. Still, in His humility is the better strength and authority we need. We don’t need laser lights and smoke machine spectacles. We need someone to submit Himself into the lowliest station to bear our sins and take hold of a victory we could never grasp, not even in a million lifetimes.

I guess what I’m saying is that if Chuck Norris represented the kind of strength the world instinctively understands, Palm Sunday presents something altogether different. We behold a strength that refuses to serve the self, even when it could. This is part of the tension inherent to the moment. It’s easy to admire the man who cannot be defeated. It’s harder—and far more unsettling—to reckon with the One who chooses not to win the way we expect.

I suppose this is why it was so easy for the crowds that were shouting “Hosanna!” to grow quiet—and then hostile, and then complicit in our Savior’s death. They wanted Jesus to come into Jerusalem wearing a black belt, ultimately kung-fu-ing the Romans, overturning their earthly rule. But Jesus came to overturn something deeper. The crowds wanted mortal victory. He came for eternal redemption.

I’m so glad Chuck Norris knew this. I watched an interview shortly after his death in which he told the interviewer, essentially, how his mythic toughness was nothing compared to Christ’s unwillingness to yield in going to the cross. Wow.

His inherent point was that the world actually needs the Lord’s kind of strength more than the muscle of any action star. We certainly need regular people of strength who can step into the world and take control. But we need the otherworldly kind that removes threats, settles scores, and makes things right in ways that matter for eternity. Sin, death, and the devil have us surrounded. Christ comes to our rescue. He does this by His humble submission to the cross. It looks like defeat. But it isn’t. Chris enters Jerusalem bearing the exact kind of toughness we need most. It’s the kind of toughness that’ll keep fighting even as it’s entirely misunderstood. It’s a toughness that’ll keep going, even when it’s rejected. It’s a toughness that makes its way into and through, not away from, an unspeakable suffering, the likes of which no one has ever experienced before. And ultimately, it’s a toughness that lays down its life for enemies, doing so to make them friends.

In other words, what looks like weakness is, in fact, the most unassailable strength imaginable. Perhaps more importantly, it has in mind a very simple premise. Christ, the Son of God, does not lack the power to end a world of enemies. He could obliterate everything with a wink. The thing is, He’s motivated by divine love. He has not come to destroy sinners, but to redeem them.

I should add, regardless of Christianity’s strength through the ages, what I’ve just described is the reason the cross, not the sword, has always been the defining image of Christianity. It’s not because Christ lacked strength. It’s because His strength was of an entirely different order. It’s cruciform strength. It gives rather than takes. It endures rather than escapes.

The world likes stories of men who cannot be beaten. But there’s the simple truth that no mortal man can outwit or outmaneuver death. It is, as Saint Paul said, “the last enemy” we all will face (1 Corinthians 15:26). Chuck Norris faced it recently, and like everyone else before him, could not outmuscle the reality.

But then again, in a sense, Norris did outmaneuver it. Well, he didn’t. But his Lord did, and by Christ’s strength, just as Norris believed by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Gospel, he was not beaten. Death had no final say for Norris because it had no final say for Norris’s Lord. That must be the last word here.

Action movie legends like Chuck Norris are strong in so many ways. They can take on armies carrying two Uzis and donning perfectly feathered hair and a well-groomed beard. But in the end, there’s only ever been one kind of strength that could carry the weight of this world’s sin. Behold, he comes to you, “righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).

The Wind Just Keeps On Blowing

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Isn’t it strange how we do what we do as humans, and still the earth just continues to spin, doing what nature does?

I live in Michigan where it can get pretty cold in the winter. But just a few days ago, the wind chill was registering at -35 degrees, and because so many were forced to run their furnaces non-stop, the entire state was facing a natural gas crisis of catastrophic proportion. The whole scene reminded me of a line in one of my favorite movies as a kid, Red Dawn. During a brief moment of quiet from what has already been a long and exhausting war to take back their home soil from invading forces, the character Matt says to his older brother Jed:

“It’s kind of strange, isn’t it, how the mountains pay us no attention at all? You laugh or you cry, and the wind just keeps on blowing.”

The wind just keeps on blowing.

During those very cold days, while I managed to make it out and around to visit a few folks, I found it necessary to be home with my family to help tend to their needs. During the quiet times, I took the opportunity to do something I’ve been meaning to do for a very long time.

I tackled the ever-piling messages in my email inbox.

I spent an entire afternoon reading through countless email notes, many new and just as many old. I saved some. I deleted most. To be honest, across three accounts, I deleted no less than six hundred or so.

There was one older message I discovered that I decided not to delete—and I don’t think I ever will.

The message I saved was from a dear friend, Lorraine Haas. She sent it on January 26 of 2017, and it was in response to the eNews she’d received the day before. Little did I know that a few weeks later I’d be preaching and presiding at her funeral.

The thing is, Lorraine responded to almost every single eNews message she ever received from me. Had I kept all of her messages throughout the years, I’d have hundreds. And what was common to them all (at least the ones related to what I would initially send to her) is that, firstly, she commented on this or that news item, making sure that I knew that she’d read the entire email; and secondly, by her words, she was sure to have a brightness of commendation for all the great things the Lord was allowing her home congregation to do. She was a perpetual encourager of the Gospel. She knew all of the volunteers and staff were working as hard as they could to accomplish the mission, and with that, she never spoke a negatively critical word.

Well, I should probably rephrase that. She never spoke a negatively critical word by way of an email. In private, face to face, and with a little bit of whisky in our glasses, she more than shared her mind on things. I always knew what mattered to Lorraine. But still, the written word remains for far longer than the spoken word. I’m pretty sure Lorraine knew that, and so whatever she put into print, you could be assured that it would always be an uplifting bit of phraseology meant to make your day better and not worse.

This particular (and unfortunately only remaining) email I kept from Lorraine was very short. I share it with you exactly as I received it. Visiting with it, I know why I’ve kept it sitting in my inbox for so long. It’s only a few sentences long, but it’s a tome of God’s grace.

And the Lord be with You also dear Pastor. May God Bless and Keep You, with Courage and Strength in the coming Day. He loves You, and Me and our Church. His Church! Blessings dear Pastor, and to your dear Family! Lorraine

It’s kind of strange, isn’t it, how the mountains pay us no attention at all? You laugh or you cry, and the wind just keeps on blowing.

Actually, no. The mountains, as sturdy as they are, will pass away. The winds of this world will eventually cease. The laughing and crying of this life will one day be left to the archives of what once was. But the Word of the Lord stands forever. Even now, by way of an email sent by a friend who died years ago, that Word of the Gospel alive in her continues to breathe life into a guy like me—and now into you, too.

It’s as if it reaches to us from the sphere of the divine. In a sense, it does.

Analyzing her sentences, I sometimes wonder if she capitalized words for the same reason I capitalize certain words. I do it in sermons all the time. I tend to capitalize words that are either incredibly important or are in some way an extension of God’s divine work. For example, in a sermon, I always capitalize the letters “d” and “s” in the words “death” and “sin.” I capitalize them because they’re no small thing to us. They’re dreadful powers in this world. If they weren’t, then Jesus’ work on the cross would be less needful to any of us. Equally, I’ll sometimes capitalize words like “redeem” or “love” or “salvation,” especially when they are connected to the person or work of Jesus.

I could be overanalyzing Lorraine’s note, but I wonder if she did the same thing for similar reasons. For example, she capitalized words like “bless” and “keep.” She also emphasized the first letters of “courage” and “strength.” Most interestingly, she capitalized the words “day,” “you,” “me,” and “church.” Why? Well, as peculiar as it may seem, I’d say that each of those words is an offshoot of the vine of Christ. He blesses and keeps us. The courage and strength we need from day to day come from Him alone. And with that, each one of those days belongs to Him. Each one holds the promise of His great love that is carrying you, me, and the whole Church to the Last Day.

With this perspective, go back and read Lorraine’s message one more time. Take it in carefully. I’m sure you’ll get a sense of the ever-living faith that surpasses all understanding, a faith built upon and strengthened for eternal resonation by the powerful Word of God that keeps hearts and minds in Christ Jesus; a Word so powerful that, in fact, not even death can silence it.

Yes, the wind just keeps on blowing. But the war will eventually end. And when it does, when the wind rustles its last leaf, we’ll be gathered into the nearer presence of Christ. In that place, we’ll see all those who’ve died in the faith—all those for whom we’ve shed a tear while the mountains looked on with disinterest and the breezes continued to blow.

I’ll see Lorraine again.

Most importantly, we’ll all see our Lord, the Giver of Life, and it’ll be a face-to-face encounter. Until then, as long as I can help it, I’m never going to delete that email from Lorraine. I’m going to store it away with a few others that are like it that I’ve received from another dearly departed friend, Reverend Dr. Jakob Heckert. As Gospel-driven notes, these messages are far too valuable as divine sources of encouragement to end up in the virtual trash bin.