So I can’t get Hosea off my mind.  Poor slob.  Was probably minding his own business when God came along and said, “Marry a whore…”.  Probably had dreams and ambitions.  Might have even been godly dreams and ambitions.  In fact, I would expect so… since he was so quick to obey the voice of God.

Yeah… poor slob.  Obeying God and all…  It really trashed his life.

And of course this was his proph-O-drama, his word from God to his brothers, the nation of Israel.  And so he gave his heart to a tramp who promptly broke it and trashed it, then he humbled himself and went down to the sex shop, where he bought his used, blow-up doll of a wife back and took her home to try to make her true.

In doing this Hosea lets us peek into the very depths of the broken heart of God!  What an amazing notion!!!  But apparently his own countrymen couldn’t be bothered, just like his tramp of a wife, to care or even try to be true.

What did following God get this prophet?

A broken heart and a trashed life.

Oh… and his name and story are in the Bible now too.  That’s pretty cool.  Too bad he ain’t here to notice.

No.  His sad days ended in obscurity, but it surely was not a happy day.  He surely died in ever bit as much sorrow and agony as he pronounced.  I bet it felt very, very futile to live that life.

God did not call me to quite so tragic a life.  If he did, then I failed to answer with obedience.  But following his lead brought me to blogging.  And there has been a small measure of joy in it.  In fact there have been a handful of really good blessings along the way, but they have nothing to do with this ministry except that blogging afforded me this sideshow blessing.

The blogging itself is futile as far as I can tell.  Or very close to it.  I had a reader in New Jersey late this past summer/fall who found my story through another reader (mutual friend?  hard to know).  The New Jersey reader took great comfort from the blog since experiencing wrongful church discipline for caring for the homeless as part of church ministry.  I must say, that put a pep in my step to know that I could be an encouragement for such a one.

It is nice to watch the counter on the blog.  I guess.  I think it makes for a neurosis really.  Please visit.  Now please “like”.  Now, please leave a comment….”

But really, in the big picture, WHO CARES?

There is no way around it; if the blog is to be any kind of success, It needs visits, and “likes” will help, and comments will be important too.  But in and of themselves, if that is all I get, it is just vanity.  And THAT, I don’t need.

I look at the long haul, and I think that is where Hosea gets his traction.  His life and word are canonized in Scripture.  I must presume that LATER Israel (Judah, actually) must have found his life and words to be of divine importance.  Hopefully, later Jews and Christians find LIFE in his prophetic work.  Its not so much about honoring Hosea, though.  But he does get to rest assured that while the lives of his wife and countrymen were actually the vain part, his life, in the end, was not!  And perhaps there is a hope like that for me in this blog too.

I have thought very seriously about walking away from the blog.  But I am not ready to do that just yet.  Instead, I want to streamline and focus more sharply on the goal – which is to serve Jesus on the streets of Lubbock and hopefully get the church to open the door to the homeless as if Jesus himself were knocking (Rev. 3:20 anyone?).

I am happy to report that I doubled my readership this year over last.  And I am grateful to all who have stopped by here.  I spent a good part of my summer/fall trying to shed readers, and I think I did.  I became something very close to offensive and caustic in an effort to shed all but the most serious followers here.  It is important to make a splash, to get the general idea out there in the market place of ideas, and I think I have done that.  But I need to get laser focused on Lubbock homeless and churches, actually.  So, I need to ditch every cumbersome vanity I can to do it.

If you want to keep reading here, be my guest.  Your continued likes and comments will be welcome.  And IF you see a comment on here from a street homeless person here in Lubbock, I invite you to leave encouraging words for them.

However, this new year, I resolve to stop looking at counters and stop reading other blogs.  I will no longer follow your blog, even if I like it.  I might poke in and say hi eventually, but I will not keep up this vain game of trading views with your blog.  I do not want to continue trading views as a blogger; it’s like trying to win some prize or primp in a mirror, or some political trade offs with no prize actually.  I have this free access to the world, and my vanity and ego have no part in prophetically proclaiming God’s word.  So, the days of Agent X following and liking your blog in hopes that you might support mine are done.

I expect this move to put the death nail in this blog.  But maybe, just maybe, God will breathe his own life into this dead blog.  And if he does, you are welcome to watch.  If he does not, you are welcome to watch.

I am not going away.  I plan to post still.  I just am done playing nice.  Your viewership is no prize to me, and I will not cater to it.

I hope you understand.

God bless…

And I will keep saying it until it takes…

Remember that scene in Schindler’s List near the end as the Allies are liberating the death camps and Oscar Schindler can finally set his Jew/slaves free?  Yeah, right near the end of the movie after Schindler has moved from financial opportunist to caring human being… and he makes a farewell speech to his friends.  Yeah, and as he says his good-byes, he looks at his car, his watch, even the pin in his lapel and questions how many more lives he might have purchased and saved if only he had sold these items.

The anguish in his voice, in his face, as he realizes how selfish he still is at the cost of many human lives.  As much and as deep of a change as this man undergoes, there is still more he has not imagined.  And he feels so utterly awful in that moment at the prospect that he could have saved more people.

I ask my Christian brothers and sisters to consider Oscar Schindler NOW, while it is so cold outside and yet lives are still at stake.  You have come to know Jesus!  Good.  He has worked on you much and deeply.  Your imagination is expanded beyond all you thought possible.  But you drive past Jesus (the Matthew-25, least-of-these-brothers, Jesus) shivering out there on the side of the road as you go to worship.  What will you say to him in the coming Judgment (the Matthew-25, goats-n-sheep, Judgement) when he asks if you had a guest room that went empty tonight?

Won’t you join Schindler in his angst then?  We could have sold the car and saved….  We could have opened our guest room and saved….

Please, please, please!  Listen to Jesus!  Heed his words, and chuck that When Helping Hurts book and the life-robbing philosophy it promotes.  And you will have Jesus under your roof with you tonight!  Firmly taking up residence in your heart like never before!

…but I am still not satisfied.

Just got a great link from one of our deep cover operatives.  Check it out here:

https://mic.com/articles/86251/study-reveals-it-costs-less-to-give-the-homeless-housing-than-to-leave-them-on-the-street#.Lm7wEmlEP

Yeah, the study reveals what I have already known and proclaimed here at Fat Beggars for a long, long time.  And it absolutely flies in the face of the When Helping Hurts program!  And, sure, I admire the efforts of policies like Housing First for the tremendous success they have.  This kind of insight totally discredits the “conservative” thinking that has so long dominated – at least in Lubbock, Texas.  Yeah.  Just GIVE it to them!  It REALLY HELPS in tangible, measurable ways.

Still, all that being said, I must point out, that despite the power of this study, it appeals to Mammon as the measure of its success.  And sadly, even IF it catches on, I predict it will be reduced to that as well.

Sure, no other kind of program has legitimately boasted the kind of success we find in just giving away our charity.  But this world is God’s creation, and his answer to it is the LOVE of his church, not the power of Mammon.

I appeal to the church!  Stand up and do what you know is right!  Give freely, and forgive, and LOVE the poor as if they were Jesus himself!  And watch what happens to this second best scenario!  God will blow Mammon right out of the water!

If you have a guest room in your home and/or in your church building, invite Jesus in to it tonight!  You will save a lot more than money.  You will save your own soul and the world you live in.

Think about it.

Agent Z, Loiter Larry, and I have been studying some of the Old Testament (Canonical) Prophets recently.  These men lived painful, lonely lives for God – in order to share his word with us.  And I weep with Jeremiah and Hosea as I consider the personal cost they endure in his service.  Broken-hearts, they are.  And Hosea actually LOVES that whore, marries her and gives his heart to her as a proph-O-dramatic demonstration of God’s relationship with Israel.

I weep for Hosea, largely because, since I know Israel went into exile, he surely ended his days in deep anguish for both his lover and his country.  The girl of his dreams just kept straying from home, and even his countrymen were wiped out and hauled off into exile and obscurity.

But I find I must wrestle my own pride first.  I am shocked that Hosea would do that!  I know some whores, and that kind of love for them is certain doom!  You don’t have to be a rocket surgeon to see that.  What kind of an idiot falls in love with a hooker?  But what if that is what God calls out of you?  Then what?

And so today, it being cold and cloudy out, as I drove downtown to pick up one of my big kids, I drove past one of the main homeless hangouts, and I saw a handful of people standing around wrapped in blankets.  A few minutes later, since I had to wait until the foster kid’s appointment was finished, the older kid and I ventured into a trendy coffee shop where we sipped lattes for nearly half an hour.

I find coffee shops to be snooty places.

Perhaps it’s just me, but all those strangers sitting around with their headphones on and their noses buried in laptops covered in stickers boasting extensive travels or some elitist consumer goods and with their eyes cued to other expensive devices while wearing their high dollar coats-n-boots, and acting too posh to greet one another (and certainly me), I feel like I am supposed to think I am lucky to even be in this fine company.

Don’t get me wrong, I dig the cool, trendy atmosphere these coffee joints create.  I feel pretty cool too, most of the time – at least if I happen to have a laptop (hopefully one that isn’t more than 3 years old).  I feel trendy too – almost (pardon my cheap coat and boots).  I would absolutely love it if someone – especially a small group – would come in and find me there and greet me and act like I was part of their elite little clique too.  It would be better than my old high school cafeteria!  (The food and atmosphere there sucked, so it goes without saying really.)

I find churches to be snooty places too.

It dawns on me how truly sad it is that so many of our churches are trying to recreate this kind of ambiance in the lobby of their sanctuaries.

Anyway, after reading some of these prophets in recent weeks and really feeling a sense of mourning for their pain, I suddenly remembered those homeless people I drove past just minutes earlier before heading down to that coffee shop.  At least two of them standing out there in the cold were wrapped up in blankets!

And just then I had a vision (from God???) of myself (and a friend or two???) wearing our Fat Beggars shirts wrapped in blankets going into those coffee shops and ordering lattes, sitting around looking dirty, but paying our way nonetheless and thus throwing a kink in the otherwise sleek ambiance.

But the vision didn’t stop there.  Suddenly I saw myself wearing the blanket as a coat when I shop at the Market Street or the Walmart or the Target too.  I mean looking the part of a homeless person, but going about my regular daily retail routine.  What kind of thoughts will that produce in other shoppers?  In sales clerks??  In security staff???

But the vision didn’t stop there.  Suddenly I saw myself (and a few friends???) wearing this get-up at church on Sunday morning too.  Again, looking the part, though not actually being homeless.  Will this cause my church to think new thoughts?  Will it open new conversations?  Is it worth trying?

Surely it is a self-humiliating thing to do.  I sense a taboo that needs to be broken.  I think Jesus would smash it!

A lot of the news from the streets that I get here at Fat Beggars comes from the local TV News.  Today this fantastic story appeared on TV, and it is a fine example of the good things Lubbock does for the homeless.

I only wish we could credit the church of Lubbock with this healing of sight.  But that would be nitpicking, now wouldn’t it?  It would be nitpicking Jesus to see him standing there watching a group of eye doctors restoring sight to the blind while he just sat back and said, “These fine doctors seem to have this under control”.

So, I won’t nitpick.  I will be thankful.  And I am.  I am deeply grateful for any grace shown to those living on the streets of Lubbock.  I mean it.

And so here is a link to the wonderful work being done out there this holiday season:

http://www.kcbd.com/story/37162220/lubbock-optometrists-give-homeless-free-exams-glasses

One of our deep cover operatives sends this in to Fat Beggars this morning:

I Just got in from picking up a man off the streets with all his belongings that had no where to go tonight. I couldn’t believe that he called his family and was turned away twice. Why don’t some people have a heart for others?? In this weather anyone can freeze to death!! I couldn’t leave this man out there. I didn’t know what to do so I prayed  and God heard my prayers and answered them quickly. This man was able to find someone that would give him a place to stay for the night. All I ask if you would keep this gentleman in your prayers, he was very sad and hurt and it broke  my heart to see him that way. I pray for Peace, Strength and Safety over him. 

Okay Anna… Your request is heard.  God bless you for caring!

Have you ever heard of that off-beat holiday where a homeless man crawls out of his hole first thing in the morning and if he sees his shadow it means there will be six more weeks of winter?

No???

That’s because I am telling it wrong.  Let me get this straight, and then you will recognize it for what it is.

It’s the day after Christmas, and actually there are about 11 weeks left of winter.  The long, cold night is only just beginning, and the photo ops for preachers and politicians at the soup kitchen are now done.  Thus, even those few, those precious few, who show concern for the homeless over the holidays are now all but evaporated.

But as the homeless man crawls out of his hole this morning, he looks down at his shadow and hopes he still sees in tomorrow too.

But, hey, for the rest of us, that is 11 weeks free of caring!

Enjoy a nice cup of cocoa or coffee by the fire, perhaps even read a nice devotional book about your purpose driven existence, and don’t pay the homeless man another thought – unless it’s filled with contempt.

There.  Does that sound familiar???

Mark it on the calendar, and be sure to celebrate it by driving past a bum and looking the other way.

(The following is the Fat Beggars traditional Christmas Eve post.  May it prompt readers to open their homes tonight.)

It’s Christmas eve now.  A night filled with expectation.  Expectation of God.  Expectation of LOVE.  The candles lit, the stockings hung, the Christ-child is in his manger, and all through the house… not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse.

This is Christmas – ground zero.

Camp Jesus: Ground Zero

And my heart hurts for anyone who does not have a home to be in tonight.  For anyone who is not with their family.

I really want you here with me, celebrating.  We have a fire.  We have some hot chocolate.  There is room for one more.

It might be meager, but if you ain’t too proud, you can fit in here.

I am thinking of you just now, as the flames burn low and dim the light on mistletoe.  I pray that like that child in a manger when there was no room in the inn, God comes into our world and expresses himself though you tonight.  I pray that through your lonely suffering, we all see God and open our hearts to let you in.

It’s a cold, hard world out there.  And as soon as we learn to let you in, that can change.  And then maybe, just maybe, we will have peace on earth and good will toward men (and women).

May the shepherds find you.  And if not the crew, then may the Good Shepherd come to your aid tonight.  I pray your heart open toward him.  I pray he bring his Christmas miracle into your life.  I pray you are humble in his presence and can see it and receive it.  I pray you be healed.  And I pray our hearts be made soft toward you.

Merry Christmas… to those of you who are OUT THERE tonight.

And may God be with you.

Come LORD Jesus.  COME SOON!

Amen.

It is possible to be homeless and not be Christian.  Some homeless people are Atheists, Jews, Muslim, or even pagan and everything in between.  So, I don’t want it to seem like my post is ALL inclusive; it’s not.  But for those claiming faith in Jesus, this post is for you.

Look at yourself in the mirror.  You were created in the image of God.  You are a human being.  God wants to live in your heart.  And if you are a street-homeless person, then you have a lot be be humble about.

Sorry if that fact hurts, but it’s true and neither your denial of it nor mine is going to help.

But that is a good thing really.  Embrace the humility.  It’s okay.  God looks for humble hearts to inhabit, not proud.  And so the homeless God of creation seeks your heart to live in this Christmas.  And when he moves into the heart of a homeless person, that person bears the image of a homeless God.

And that homeless person bearing the image of a homeless God is, ironically, one of the most important creatures in all of creation.  Don’t let it go to your head, but if God is living in you, then you are a HOUSE of God in and of yourself.

So here is the thing:

If I, a church-going Christian, drive past a homeless-image-bearing-HOUSE-of-God, then what should I do?

What is the appropriate thing for anyone to do in the presence of the Living God???

I should CARE.

Perhaps beg forgiveness for not having hosted you in my guest room already.  After all, I want Jesus in my heart too.  And how can I ask Jesus in my heart but not let him in my guest room???  I want him in my church, too.  How can I ask Jesus in my heart but drive past him on my way to church?

Think about it.

And Merry Christmas to my fellow image bearers on the streets of Lubbock.

The following is a reproduction of the interview type conversation between Loiter Larry and Agent X.

Loiter Larry (LL): I read your series of posts where you published your study guide called “Proph-O-Drama” a few weeks ago, and I thought it was great stuff.  You were biblical all through it, and really opened my mind and imagination regarding prophecy

Agent X (AX): Thank you for reading it and responding.

LL: Sure.  Glad I was given the opportunity.  So, anyway, your book raises some questions for me.  I will probably read through it all again and ask specific questions in the comments section of the blog following each lesson.  However, there are other areas I am curious about as well, and so I wanted to speak to you personally about broader things and maybe even behind-the-scenes things.

AX:  Sounds good.  What are you wondering about?

LL:  In the book, you gave some general description about how you moved into prophetic ministry over time – how you started taking communion to the streets in a spiritual warfare type ministry and how that began moving more and more into prophetic areas, and then you ended the book describing your wedding to Mrs. Agent X.  I am wondering what kinds of things you have learned from your experience with prophetic ministry.  Do you have knowledge of God and of ministry now from experience that you did not gain from the Bible per se?

AX:  That’s an interesting question.  As you know, I strive to think biblically.  That is a complex notion, actually because lots of people might use a phrase like that to mean different things.  And I am not at all sure that I can say something scholarly and succinct that will fully capture my own meaning of that.

For instance: I was in a Bible study recently where the group leader used a lot of Scripture, in fact recited a lot from memory, but he was all over the place.  He kept insisting that we listen to the Bible, and not just trust him, but then he snatched a verse from this book and another from that and strung them together to make his points (which to my mind remained somewhat vague).  But over the course of his presentation, he must have used well over a dozen verses gathered from eight or ten books.  Some of Matthew, some of Paul’s letters, and some from Old Testament prophets.

There is a very real sense in which he was being “biblical” by doing that.  I would not fault the guy for being un-biblical.  He used a lot of Bible alright, but he kept lifting passages out of context and plugging them into some esoteric context that he had constructed to support a point he wanted to make.  This is what we normally call “proof-texting” and/or atomizing the text.  For all I know, his point was valid, actually, and even the Bible itself seems to sometimes engage in this kind of thing.  I think of how Mark’s Gospel opens with a mishmash of quotes from Isaiah and Malachi.  But, some of us astute Bible students think we detect in those instances allusions to larger context in which those quotes are found.  I got no sense our teacher was thinking of that in our small group.

But here is my point: In broad terms, I think he was being “biblical”.  But not in the sense that I strive to be “biblical”.  And actually, even I am learning and refining my own ideals about this all the time.

LL:  Wow!  That is complicated.  Surely you don’t think the average Christian on the streets has that all figured out.  Do you?

AX:  No.  Of course not.  But I aim to help people learn to think more biblically all the time.  Here is an example of that:  I belong to yet another regular Bible study group where, again I am not the leader, but where many of us in the group present our observations, and in that setting, every time I get a turn to speak, I link the passage under consideration to other passages that help to illuminate the one we are discussing.  Over time, my observations seem to have won a fair bit of respect among the others gathered to study because the find my method usually carries some weight they had not expected on their own.  I seem to be afforded personal deference in the group because of this.

And I model my thinking processes for the group.  They see why I say what I say when I say it, because I explain it.  And… well, recently one of the gentlemen in our group made an observation that at first blush seemed disjointed except that the passage under consideration made him think of another passage where some similar wording is used in a different part of the Bible.  He did not have a clear conclusion to this observation, but he sensed that with some more research and meditation, he might really be on to something.  And that is largely how I do it.  I praised the brother for making the connection and encouraged him to spend some time with it.

So, no, I don’t expect everyone to see the Bible in all its complexity as I do, but I do my best to share with others what I find in it, and how I found it.  Sometimes others begin to catch on.  And actually, my approach is not necessarily the best, but it seems to be the most fruitful I have found in many years of study.

And so, anyway, back to your original question about learning from experience, I do, actually, but I always try to filter it through this knowledge I gain from “thinking biblically” as I understand it.   And, that said, I should hasten to add that I don’t always have good biblical framework for every thought.  There are times when I make sense of certain theological views by way of examples outside the Bible.  There are a few questions I encounter where I have a sense of the answer, but I must TRUST some teacher who had guided me at some other point in my life, or maybe it even just “feels” right based on other views I already hold.  In fact there are a few times I refer to C. S. Lewis rather than Bible to explain some theological view I hold rather than Bible, not because I prefer Lewis, but because I have not found a biblical basis.

Yet. And this is very important, I hold such views rather tentatively and humbly – always searching for a Bible passage that will either confirm or challenge those more tentative views.  And well, I put my knowledge of prophetic experience in that kind of a status.  So anything I might say that I have learned from experience, I would seek to back it up with Bible if and where I can – or even let it go if it appears contrary to God’s Word.

LL:  Okay,  I think I am with you on this.  It helps that I can talk this out with you face to face.  I might not follow all this if I just read your blog or your book.

So what stands out in your experience?

AX:  I have a much deeper appreciation for “schools” of prophets.  We actually see them in the Bible, really.  They follow Elijah and Elisha and others too.  And in fact, I think this is what we find in Jesus and the Twelve.  Yes, the Twelve represent the tribes of Israel.  Absolutely.  But they also follow their rabbi and see themselves as part of a group.

But of course, that is thinking biblically.  From experience, I find having a group is so important for its value in fighting loneliness.  I suffer terribly from loneliness.  It is my Kryptonite, so to speak.  And well, prophetic ministry so often means taking a lone voice.  But when I sleep on the ground with fellow worshipers outside a locked up church building, I feel strong.  I find Jesus in the two or three gathered together, and I take heart.  That is something I learn from experience.

LL:  Wow.  So is prophetic loneliness a thing?  I mean is that a cost of discipleship that should be counted, you think?

AX:  Yeah.  I think so.  It may not be everyone’s Kryptonite, but there is no such thing as a “lone ranger Christian” but speaking a confrontational message to the others is a time-honored prophetic thing to do.  And until the wayward flock repents, the voice calling them to repentance takes up a lonely place in the process.  And since that is a weakness to me, personally, I am highly sensitive to learning it.

LL:  Cool.  I wonder what other things experience teaches you.

AX:  Well, prophetic ministry… especially endeavors in “proph-O-drama” have me looking for substance where there is no substance.  I am sure that is a confusing statement; I suppose I should unpack it.

LL:  Yes.  Please.

AX:  Okay, so in my church heritage, we have a history of reducing faith to private personal piety and getting into heaven when you die.  There is no need in concerning yourself with polluting the planet, after all (according to this view) it is all slated to burn up in Judgment fires at the Great Day of Judgment.  So, why care about it?

Well, if that is your worldview, then you don’t care.  And your faith only matters as far as getting your soul (whatever that is) into heaven at The End of all things.  Now, of course there are a lot of competing views about what that looks like, but the broad strokes are pretty much the same for everyone who holds this type of worldview.

But here’s the thing, if you view the world as though God created it and is redeeming it in Jesus his Son, then you must factor in the dolphins and the trees and the mountain streams and so forth.  And once you do that, you must work out just how it is that a crucified Jew from over 2000 years ago has anything to do with saving dolphins.

Now of course we might note the words of the Great Commission which sends us into all the world preaching the gospel to every CREATURE – which includes dolphins, but we can do that with simple proof-texting and still not have any biblical understanding beyond that.  And that is fine, really, but experience in prophetic ministry pushes me into the mist of such mysteries, and I think I am finding new wind for my imagination.

When Jesus dies on that cross, it is a proph-O-drama.  He is prophetically dramatizing what it looks like when the God of Israel returns to his people to be crowned King of the Jews.  It looks nothing like what anyone was expecting.  In fact, it looks almost completely opposed to expectation.  And really, it is just a really crazy dead Jew UNLESS God really takes that execution and turns it into a coronation.  And if that happens, this most ludicrous of all events, in fact this most ludicrous of all ideas, becomes the hinge point of all of history.  This is confirmed if Jesus is bodily raised from the dead to new life.  IF all that happens, then it impacts the very cosmos and that includes the dolphins.  They too shall be renewed.

This has me thinking, as a prophetic minister, that I should be taking my bit of the world, the small bit over which I have even a particle of influence, and preaching the gospel to it.  This word of faith is not just about my private personal piety or yours, but it confronts politics, imagination, even cancer and heart disease.  When I take communion, that is when I eat the Jesus-meal, I am declaring a new world order of new creation over the old.  I am prophetically joining the present evil age to God’s future redemption and doing it on faith.  In fact, I am moving mountains!

I think it is incredibly easy to see Jesus’s death as just another tragic execution of yet another uppity Jew.  And I think everyone who witnessed it, with the possible exception being the Roman Centurion confessing him as Son of God at that exact point, probably sees it as being of no real substance.  Just tragic.  But we Christians have dared to say otherwise.  And if we really believe otherwise, then we too can and should engage in this imaginative process where we usher God’s will for his world in to it through our very lives too.

So often, we Christian types just address the world’s problems with all the usual answers.  Vote for a certain candidate or raise a lot of money.  But those things never really manage to deliver what they promise – not really, and they can be quite disappointing.

So I have begun confronting powers and principalities with the Word of God – enacted with the same KIND of faith that Jesus shows when he dares to prophetically dramatize what it looks like when the great God of the universe returns to his people to be crowned King there.  He takes a common execution and turns it into a coronation.  It don’t look like much to a scientific worldview, but to a worldview of faith engaged with the creation God made, it makes daring sense.  But you really have to expand your imagination to see it.  And I find that the more I engage in it, the broader my imagination expands.

LL: Yeah.  Me too.