NorthStar Church Blog

Without lights, and with only the noise from the wind and insects, it’s really hard to stay up late. Likewise, it’s really hard to sleep in with the sun’s rays on your nose. The soft mattress cradled my back as I stared at the underside of the top bunk. By now, postcards from loved ones were tucked into every crevice I could find. And that familiar bell rang out again across the sky.

I knelt over my trunk, tossing items out like a dog digging in sand. There was only one shirt for today: it was my only collared shirt, and my only white shirt that didn’t have sports logos or cartoon characters on it.

As our cabin arrived at Morning Watch, we sat on two benches marked 26. A sea of white shirts with dusty imprints surrounded the makeshift cross in a half-circle. The chaplain gave a unique message. Normally, we’d hear about building character or some life lesson, but today was Sunday.

I didn’t go to church back home. Sundays at camp focused on God, and we would hear about Jesus. Throughout the week, we would sing songs mostly about being in the wild. Fire on the Mountain, Country Roads, and Rocky Top were all staples. But on Sundays, we sang about Jesus.

Why do we sing songs about Jesus, but not the disciples? What about some of the heroes of the faith throughout history? Why don’t we sing about Billy Graham? Or Martin Luther King Jr.? Or Mother Teresa?

Take a moment to really—I mean really—think about the following question: What does it mean to be worthy of worship? I do not mean mere admiration or praise, but being worshiped. Nor do I mean that people haven’t been worshiped. Plenty of musicians, athletes, actors, and politicians have been worshiped. But what would it mean for someone to be worthy of worship?

Worship is appropriate only if its object is morally perfect and unsurpassable. In other words, a being worthy of worship would have to be not only maximally great, but morally perfect. In this sense, God is the only being who deserves worship. God is, by definition, the greatest possible being. He is also morally perfect, including both perfect love and justice. This is the God we find in the Bible.

In Scripture, men and angels refused worship,* while Jesus welcomed it.** Think of the woman who wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair—or the alabaster jar broken open and poured out on Him. Jesus didn’t correct them by saying that only God is worthy of worship. Instead, He received it.

This is not, by itself, an argument for the divinity of Jesus. Rather, it reveals the radical nature of Jesus’ self-understanding. Jesus saw Himself as being able to stand in the place of God and speak. He forgave sins, modified Old Testament Law, and even received worship—all actions strictly assigned to God. Jesus saw Himself as God; it was what got Him crucified.

And while this alone is not an argument for Jesus being God, if Jesus was raised from the dead, then that is the ultimate vindication of these radical claims. If the resurrection occurred, we can have confidence that Jesus truly is worthy of worship.

So what is the best way to worship? In my own life, I’ve found it is by elevating God above all else. Whatever competes for your attention, tell Him He is greater.

God, You are more exciting than the vacation I’ve been planning.
God, You are more affirming than any raise or pat on the back from work.
God, You are more secure than any amount of money in my bank account.

Worship Him—because He is truly worth it.

* Revelation 19:10; Acts 10:25-26
** John 9:38; Matthew 28:9, 17; 14:36

There were a few rules to make summers more… wild at Falling Creek Camp. Clearly, there was a ban on any technology, and I was mostly fine with that. My Sony Walkman and Game Boy, as essential as they were, could live back home for the 27 days we spent in the woods. Most phones had cords back then, and you weren’t calling home. You could spend the silent period writing to your parents, but few letters were written. The rooms were broom-swept nightly—the floors bare and spotless, nothing out of place, nothing allowed to linger.

But the kicker was always candy. No candy, no exceptions.

I knew kids who had spent June building false bottoms in their trunks. At least the adults could tell they’d been paying attention in woodworking. Cary’s older brother and my cousin Hamilton even stripped the laces from a football to fill it with candy. He didn’t foresee the counselor asking for a pass on our arrival day. Hesitantly, Hamilton threw a perfect spiral across the cabin—when a Now and Later spun out as well. It slid to rest at the feet of Aunt Allison, who grew to a shade of red that matched the cherry flavor.

Never doubt the ingenuity of young boys with a sugar addiction.

We were in our favorite period—skipping. My trunk sat in the middle of the cabin, surrounded by Frank, Hamilton, and two boys whose names I no longer recall. I do remember what was on the trunk: Starburst, Warheads, Jolly Ranchers, Skittles, and Airheads. I reached for a playing card from a pile. As I shuffled, I looked up—and everyone’s eyes were as wide as the pile in the middle of the trunk.

Twigs snapping, leaves crunching, and the heavy, methodical pace of someone—or something—was approaching. Hamilton and the other two dove underneath the bunk beds, ditching their cards, as Frank and I froze in the middle of the room. The screen door slammed open.

Our counselor had a clean buzz cut, and the sleeves of his T-shirt stayed rolled whether he meant them to or not. He spoke little, but his stories always started with where he was sent, not why. He gazed around the room as cards fell to the floor. I don’t think Frank or I actually breathed as he scanned the room, perhaps acting on animal instincts, hoping for camouflage.

He knelt beside the trunk of candy and locked eyes with me. And without even looking, he reached under the bunk bed and grabbed Hamilton, flailing like a freshly caught fish.

I once heard a definition of “love” that says to love someone is to “will the good for them.” If that’s the definition, it raises a question: how can you love God? God isn’t just Himself good—God literally is the standard for what is good. How do you will the good for… the good?

No matter how much we told the counselors we appreciated them, even loved them, disobedient actions seemed to stick out more than mere words, didn’t they? It seems to me the primary way we show love toward God is by aligning our will with His, similar to what John said in his epistle: to “keep His commandments.”

Jesus took aligning His will with God’s will so seriously that He even conditioned His request not to go to the cross with, “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

Rules about candy and technology may feel arbitrary—probably good ideas for young kids. But suppose the rules were created by a perfect, infallible being? What if every possible consequence of those rules could be known—and not only known, but known to lead to good? Whether that good was for the person the rule was prescribed to, another, or even the rule-giver Himself. Adherence would be wise, good, and loving.

Today, know that God loves you. And following what He commands is how you can say, “I love you,” back.

In the distance, the echoes of a bell shook the morning air. I popped up, barely missing the OSB board above my head, on the soft mattress. Bodies scurried through the cabin, alternating through the lone bathroom. A handful of two-minute showers, mismatched outfits, and cursory toothbrushing later, our group was herding itself down a dirt hill toward Morning Watch.

Mornings were usually the same. Morning Watch came first, an inspirational message delivered from benches facing a cross made of branches from the forest floor. Breakfast followed, a family-style meal with the entire camp. You stood behind your chair, hat in hand, for the morning blessing:

Gracious giver of all good,
Thee we thank for rest and food.
Grant that all we do or say,
In thy service be this day.
Amen.

Humorous skits and songs on the deck were the last thing before periods began: riflery, archery, canoeing, fishing, rock climbing, or skipping. My cousin Frank and I chose the latter. Walking down to an empty shack, he threw his arm in front of my chest. We hid behind a tree as an adult passed. We snuck into the hut and closed the door.

A pen about the size of a queen bed had a sign above it that read Bowser. Inside was the largest turtle I had ever seen. I could’ve ridden on his back like the horses up the hill at the farm. Frank was unamused.

“He’s dead.”

“No he isn’t.”

He grabbed a wooden broom from the corner, something in his eyes changing. Holding the bristles, he slid the handle slowly toward the beast’s face. It didn’t move. It didn’t blink. It didn’t even seem to breathe. Maybe he was right. He began bouncing the broom tip on its snout, and I began to believe him, until we heard footsteps outside.

As we peered through the slats in the door, a crackling sound rang out. Frank pulled up half a broomstick. It hadn’t snapped off the tip; the turtle had reached up as we looked away, and a clean cut broke the broom in half, right near Frank’s hands.

It’s fairly clear that each of us grows in wisdom over time. But how in the world does Jesus, being both God and man, increase in wisdom? God is omniscient. He knows everything. Isn’t that a contradiction?

Borrowing an example I’ve used before, and timely with the third film’s release, Avatar can be a helpful illustration (the word avatar literally means “descent” or incarnation). Jake Sully is a disabled soldier who enters the body of a Na’vi through a mind-body connection and futuristic technology. He thus has two natures, a human nature and a Na’vi nature. In his Na’vi body, the first thing he does is run outside the lab to sprint through the fields of Pandora.

So which is he, disabled or ambulatory?

This is the same problem theologians face with Jesus, and they’ve come up with a way of talking that is helpful. They use the phrase “with respect to.” So to answer the previous question, Jake is handicapped with respect to his human nature, but he is ambulatory with respect to his Na’vi nature. No contradiction.

Similarly, Jesus was omniscient with respect to his divine nature. He never lost that. But with respect to his human nature, he was limited in knowledge. He wasn’t acting when he said he was unaware of the date of his second coming; he was being honest. And in that sense, Jesus truly did grow in wisdom.

I doubt Jesus ever poked any Mediterranean turtles with a broomstick. But just like twelve-year-old me, he experienced the wilderness in a truly human way. And that makes him truly relatable to us.

There was no comfortable way to wear my headphones. The flimsy foam barely kept the hard metal from pressing into my inner ear. The windowsill bumped my head again, and I ripped them off. I didn’t really need another round of Michael Jackson anyway, and the cassette needed to be flipped.

“The sign says left, Tom,” my mom said, pointing up a steep hill.

The sedan slowed, then straddled the shallow valley carved into the middle of the road. A few more miles and we stopped. A group of teenagers in green caps and white coveralls lifted a gray trunk from our car. We were waved down another hill into a parking lot, and suddenly, we were there.

As I looked around, I saw two lakes, one perched slightly above the other. A dock, mostly crooked trees with a few Home Depot boards mixed in, stretched across the upper lake. An A-frame building with a wraparound porch stood nearby, game tables tucked underneath. I started walking toward the water when I heard a shriek.

“She’s gone!”

“Who?”

“Cary. She was here. We visited the cabin and then I… she just disappeared.”

My aunt Allison is not a quiet person. Within minutes, hundreds of parents, counselors, and directors were combing the woods of North Carolina. They searched the lower lake, then the upper lake. The dining hall. The dock. Every single cabin. Only to find Cary asleep in the back of the car.

The first three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are often grouped together because they tell Jesus’ story in similar ways. They’re called the Synoptics, meaning “to be seen together.” John stands apart, written independently, with a different style and focus.

Because Mark was written first, it’s sometimes argued that Matthew and Luke simply copied him, leaving us with fewer independent accounts of Jesus’ life than we think. But the historical method lets us see more than literary dependence. Both Matthew and Luke contain material that does not come from Mark and reflect independent sources behind their Gospels.

Scholars often call these sources M (unique to Matthew) and L (unique to Luke). Luke’s L material is especially intimate, family-centered, remembered, and personal. Many scholars believe it preserves testimony from women who were present from the beginning, including Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene. One such memory, found only in Luke, is the story of Jesus being lost at age twelve.

And that makes sense, doesn’t it?

That story is told from a parent’s point of view. The fear. The frantic search. The relief mixed with confusion. Just like my aunt Allison. Just like any mother. Mary never forgot losing her child.

So much of our eyewitness testimony about Jesus centers around his ministry and Passion Week (and rightfully so). But Mary gives us a tiny glimpse into a time erased by history. Jesus was a baby, a toddler, and a young boy before he was a man. He truly grew in the same way we do.

If life feels messy today, remember this: Jesus grew too.

Even the Son of God had to grow.