AnderspeaK
BEYOND THE ACCUSERS
By the time you read this, the ordeal surrounding Brett Kavanaugh will be more or less resolved, one way or the other. The accusations—whether you believe them or not—will have either taken their toll or will be sloughed-off by history. Either way, we need to be mindful of the power of accusations and accusers.
We all know injustices. Certainly every one of us has been wrongfully victimized in one way or another by something. We may have raised complaint to parents, teachers, administrators, or even judges—yet been left with no further recourse than to absorb the evil done to us. There are true victims in this fallen world and for every one of them there remains a constant awareness and expectation for further injustices. As a nation and as Christians, we should stand by these people and publicly advocate for them.
There are also professional victims—people who use injury as a personal crutch to manipulate others—these are those who seem incapable of taking personal responsibility for their own lives and the pursuit of their own happiness.
Wherever legitimate victims stand up for justice, we can expect to see a long line of professional victims forming behind them. Discovering and knowing the difference determines whether we act in justice or simply cave-in to a form of mob rule.
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The American idea of justice is that our courts are empowered to execute cases of private vengeance. The old cowboy movies got it all wrong: we don’t string up horse thieves even when we catch them red-handed and feel outraged over our losses. Instead, we turn them over to our courts where rational, dispassionate justice is arrived at through due process.
In this #MeToo era we may find ourselves caught between justice and the accusations for not knowing the full details of a particular case, which means we are thrown back onto our own feelings and experiences of justices/injustices past. If I’ve been hurt or abused, I’m likely to invest emotionally in the accusations; If I’ve been wrongly-accused in the past, I emotionally invest against the accusations. Either way, I’m working with too few facts and details to reasonably invest my emotions at all. Better to stay cool and find out more.
The very name Satan can rightly be translated The Accuser. Satan can be thought of as the prosecuting attorney in the heavenly courts, whose role it is to bring to the Judge’s remembrance the sins of the accused. The Accuser abhors the idea of mercy or forgiveness. The Accuser is eternally outraged by the idea of grace—undeserved favor and mercy—and he abhors the way love can change a rightful prisoner into one who is redeemed as a child of God.
You and I carry an Accuser within us. In each of our hearts and minds, there is a voice that says, “You’re not good enough,” “You’re a fake!” “Why would God love someone like you!” “You don’t deserve Heaven!” For most, that voice leads to darkness and potential despair. You and I do very well to reject that voice as the very voice of Satan, for it is the voice of the Accuser.
Instead, we have the voice of The Comforter, The Holy Spirit. Yes, we sometimes think or do what is wrong, but the Spirit does not accuse us; the Spirit reminds us that we belong to Christ and have been forgiven. “You are his child!” says the Spirit, “so walk into your inheritance, beloved of God!”
That means we are not to beat up ourselves for our sins (Christ absorbed all of that for us), but we live out of grace, loving and serving truth. The good news of Jesus means that we live our lives beyond the Accusers’ reach—voices inside and out—and we need never fear this world’s injustices because the price for them all has already been totally absorbed on the cross.
If you’ve been wronged, it is right and good to pursue worldly justice, but if this world doesn’t satisfy (here’s a clue: it will not), then turn your injuries over to The Lord, who has promised to bear them for you. The Lord will judge, and unlike the courts or frenzied passions of this world, the Lord will judge perfectly. †
Getting Ready for the 40th
Getting Ready for the 40th
Noel Anderson, Class of 1978
It started in April. Upon completing my sixteenth marathon, I entered our beach house in Laguna shirtless and somewhat tired. My supermodel wife said, “For a man in his late 50s, you are extraordinarily ripped!” “Thanks, Hon,” I said, “I guess twelve years of daily boot camp workouts have helped.” “But you can’t go to your 40th reunion looking like that!” “What do you mean? What’s wrong with how I look?” She rolls her eyes: “Your tenth, maybe, but nobody likes the guy who comes back to his 40th in perfect shape.”
Considering how desperately I want to feel accepted by my old classmates, I embarked upon a campaign to ready myself for our 40th—no more marathons, no more working out, and a rigorous sabbatical from my strict veganism. With some luck and persistence, I figured I could get into proper shape by October.
“You need to add 50 pounds—40 at least,” said my wife. My strict regimen: waffles every breakfast, pasta and junk food for lunch and dinner, and ice cream as often as possible. I adhered to it religiously, though I did slip and worked out by mistake a few times.
By mid-September I was looking good: pasty, 35 pounds heavier (there’s still time), and sporting a texture more like moist bread dough than muscle—I was feeling ready for the reunion.
“You’re not ready,” said my wife, “what about your hair?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“It’s too full, too dark—I can’t see any gray yet.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Are you kidding?”
We experimented with gray coloring, but nothing seemed to work; the gray coloring just wouldn’t stick.
“What if I just shave my head like those guys who try to hide the fact they’re losing their hair?” Bingo, problem solved.
Next, we went through the yearbooks to see if I could pass the Kavanaugh test. Said my wife:
“According to Chuck and Bruce, you and your Swedish exchange student Bjorn were desperately oversexed, but from all I can see it looks consensual.”
“At least I can’t be cited for toxic masculinity.”
“Or masculinity at all, as I read. You were Treasurer of the Drama Club—were you also President of the Interior Design Club?”
“Secretary.”
“What are you going to do if someone brings up your Pulitzer nomination?”
“Good Lord! No one even knows about that and I’m certainly not going to bring it up.”
“Good, you’ll want to keep it that way.”
Two days away and though I feel ready on the outside, my heart roils with anticipation. Beneath all the preparation, beneath all the acquired externals, beneath all my California skin beats a heart grown and geared in Omaha, bearing the tattoo of an eagle with the letters CHS in its beak.
After 40 years of wandering, it is as though a hidden, implanted homing device has sounded its alarm and we are compelled to return, to reconnect, to remember, and to re-immerse ourselves in the foundational affections of our blessed adolescence. It is a true homecoming, and this eagle, for one, is excited beyond words to see its old nest and the convocation of ’78