It Would Make the Greatest Graphic Novel

Movies based on comic books and graphic novels have become all the rage in the world of 2017. The Avengers series practically prints its own currency, but it's not the only comic series taking over main stream media. Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy was enormous for DC Comics, and they're hoping the Justice League series can have the same effect. Marvel Comics X Men Series has made massive money. Other big time comic and graphic novel movies include titles like: Sin City (phenomenal), Watchmen (wonderful), Constantine (so good), etc. and TV shows like: Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, The Walking Dead, Preacher, Daredevil, etc. And this is a modest list of comic inspired content. Spoiler alert: I really enjoy movies and TV shows and I think that comic books are an essential part of the modern viewing experience.

I'm sure that, unless you've been living in an alternate universe, very little of the information listed above is new to you. Whether you like these movies and shows or not is irrelevant to the point that you have probably heard of at least one of these. So why am I wasting your time talking about the impact of modern comics when many of you know that Batman has been around for over 100 years? That Superman had a TV show in the 1970s? And that the X-Men cartoon was a staple of a good 90s childhood? Well, when trends grow so rapidly, there is actually a lot to glean.

For example, my wife is an 8th grade Language Arts teacher. She loves teaching. I know this because I watch her spend hours searching for new material most nights as she tries her absolute best to find new ways to engage her students. She's always asking me what I think kids would like and if I think alternative methods could help them learn. One of the resources she has applied with some success to her classroom is... you guessed it: graphic novels and comic books. Why? Because young people like them. And, I don't need to do a Doctorate level research paper to know that people read more when they are interested in the material assigned. And I don't need to tell you that reading more, especially in the 8th grade, is a good way to improve reading skills. If it isn't clear, I think my wife is a pretty darn good teacher!

Side note: I know it became very popular in the mid 2000s to chastise people for reading Biblical translations other than the New King James version. Some thoughts on that...King James was British from the time around William Shakespeare, meaning 1500 years after the life and death of Jesus. The King James text is not the original text. Many people struggle reading Shakespearean English because it is complex, and it causes them to feel frustrated and/or confused when reading their Bible. This causes them to stop enjoying it. This causes them to stop reading it. This is a problem. The solution? Stop being mean to people who are trying to do a good thing. Stop putting rules and regulations on things you aren't in charge of. Have a little faith that the Holy Spirit will guide the reader regardless of the translation. After all, God is, by my thinking, powerful. If you prefer the poetry of the King James version, good for you. Others may not and, wait for it... wait for it... that's okay!

Now that we've cleared that up, let me get back on track. I used the Holy Spirit portion of the Holy Trinity when referring to God's guidance in the previous paragraph on purpose and for good reason. I find that the spiritual aspect of the world, the Bible, and Christianity in general, really makes people uncomfortable. I don't understand that because the gospels are very clear. Jesus was in the desert for forty days and was literally tempted by Satan (Matt. 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13). Jesus literally came across demonic spirits who trembled at the sight of him and he literally cast them into swine (Matthew 8:31-32). Jesus was literally healing the sick and casting out demons (Mark 1;34). Beyond all of that, at the very core of Christianity, is that we believe in Jesus, the living God, though we cannot physically see him. So where do we think he exists if not in spiritual places?

Side note #2: My wife and I were watching the movie "Heaven is for Real" on Easter and a line of dialogue burned me to my very core. Not a good burn, the kind of burn that raises your blood pressure and causes you to shake. I was mad! The line was, (I'm paraphrasing) Heaven and Hell have always been concepts that we use to scare, manipulate, and control people... Basically, the point being made was that people don't really believe in a literal heaven and a literal hell. The movie goes on to do a good job of changing the mind of the woman who made the statement, but it confirmed a belief that I have. There are people in this world who have attended church their entire lives that don't believe a large portion of what the Bible has to say. (Or, perhaps, even scarier than that, that don't know what a large portion of what the Bible says.) They don't have faith in the power of God, they don't believe in the afterlife, and I wonder if they actually believe in Jesus at all. That absolutely terrifies me!

I want to pause again and apologize for how I circle from topic to topic. I know it can be hard to follow...But, of course, I appreciate your long-suffering.

Back on track...I heard the most amazing message on Sunday by Pastor Joseph Prince, who I absolutely love. If you have not ever seen his ministry, I highly recommend it. He understands God's grace on a level that very few people on Earth do. It was sermon # 286 if you want to find it on his website, and it was called "His Resurrection, My Justification." In the message, he went to a topic that is likely avoided in most ministries, because it is hard to fathom, and very hard to explain. He explained the entire conflict between God and the Devil very clearly. It was so good, and I think the sermon itself would have made a tremendous graphic novel, because of the imagery and because of the systematic way that it was presented. (I am aware that the entire Bible has been presented in illustrated and graphic novel forms, but I'm talking about graphic novels that follow specific teachings. Smaller, less cumbersome, easier to comprehend).

Here is my best attempt at a summary:

Pastor Prince opened from Matthew 27:50-53, when the saints of old rose from their graves and walked the streets of Jerusalem for 40 days AFTER the Resurrection. He explained that all of the blood sacrifices of the old testament were merely promissory notes that couldn't be cashed in until Jesus' blood was shed and he was raised from the dead.

Next, he explained that the Bible states that God made man (mankind) in his own image, but it never states that angels were made in God's image. Because of this, Satan, or Lucifer as he was known in heaven, is extremely jealous of mankind and makes it his goal to destroy humanity.

He goes back to the beginning, Genesis, where the serpent convinces Adam and Eve to eat the apple from the tree of good and evil, and their high treason causes their fall from God's grace. Then he explains the prophecy to Satan, that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent and that, at the cross, the serpent will bruise the heel of the seed. From this point forward, Satan knows that man will destroy him if he does not destroy man first.

Adam and Eve originally have two children, Cain and Abel. Satan turned Cain against Abel, convinced that Abel might be the one that God spoke of in the prophecy. Later, when Satan believed that Moses would be the one to destroy him, he convinced Pharaoh to throw all Hebrew(Jewish) first born children into the river to die. Later, when Satan knew that Jesus was coming, he convinced Herod(Jewish leader) to kill all first born Jewish first born sons. Jesus is the ONE, and at the cross, Jesus fulfilled the prophecy. This LITERALLY happened. This isn't a fairy tale!

Then, he read from 1 Peter chapter 3...Jesus LITERALLY went into Hell and proclaimed victory to the SPIRITS in prison. Those spirits, who God was long-suffering with in their disobedience in the time of Noah, made it to where God was only able to save 8 souls from the flood! Only 8!

And finally, he crossed back to Genesis chapter 6, where the sons of God mated with the daughters of men and their descendants were referred to as the mighty men of old. Meaning, Satan's legion of fallen angels tried to destroy God's greatest creation--humanity--by corrupting the bloodline. They created a super species known as the Nephilim. (In the King James, they are called giants). This was Satan's attempt to destroy humanity in its entirety. God wasn't pouring out wrath by flooding the earth; he was showing mercy on humankind by preserving it. He saved humanity through Noah and his family in the Ark.

My final side note (I swear): I was in college around 2006. I remember a good friend of mine and I were studying this chapter because God's destruction of the Earth through the flood seemed A.) out of character B.) drastic, C.) hard to wrap my mind around... And the passage about the Nephilim seemed random. (It's never a bad thing to question your faith. That's what makes it strong.) My friend consulted his minister at the time who told us that there was no special meaning to the Nephilim (meaning sons of God merely referred to followers of God and daughters of men referred to non-followers of God), that they had no bearing on the story of Noah (despite being the setup to the entire story), and that we didn't need to waste time focusing on it. Apparently, he wasn't aware that God thought so much of that species (Nephilim) that he (Jesus Christ) felt it necessary to seek them out in Hell to proclaim victory over them. But yeah, no big deal really. I wouldn't waste much thought on it...

Anyway, I guess as I heard this powerful message on Easter Sunday, I thought of all of the incorrect teaching, and all of the delicate subject matter of the Bible that many are afraid to study and address. And then I thought about the spiritual nature of the message, and I thought of my wife and her 8th graders. Many of them would not only be fascinated by a graphic novel or a comic that followed the train of thought in this sermon, they would understand it completely, because it would be told in a way that would engage and entertain them. How much easier teaching would be if we would just try. Education shouldn't be reserved for certain people, or learning styles, but is a right of all humanity. Maybe it's time that we use new types of materials (and by "new," I don't mean things from the 1990s) that appeal to more types of people. And maybe, we (the Church) might start to really make an impact on a broken world. Not to entertain, but to better inform. Just a thought.

P.S. If anyone has ideas and would like to illustrate this message...I think that would be amazing and I would happily post those images (giving credit to their creator, of course). 😂 

More Than I Could Give

So I've mentioned on a few occasions that I have a young son. He is almost 2, or as I like to think of him, 581 days old. It has been the fastest moving 581 days of my life. I already look through "old" pictures of Jude and I'm blown away by how much he changes and so quickly. The craziest part is that I have absolutely no recollection of my life before he was born. Sure, I can vaguely remember aspects of it. For instance, I remember being happy. I remember the people that I spent the most time with when free time was a thing. I remember the movies I used to like when I had time to watch them. But to specifically pinpoint how my days were spent prior to August 13, 2015, I would be guessing or lying, because that world doesn't exist anymore. Jude Alexander Vance is my A.D. And that's wonderful!

I know you're dying to know more about Jude, so here are some crazy things about my son:

1. Sometimes, I feel like he looks exactly like me...But other times, he looks soooooo much like my beautiful wife! It's bizarre.
2. He's a person. He walks, he talks, he climbs, he runs, he makes me laugh, he has interests, and favorites, and is never far from my thoughts. 600 days ago, I was still guessing what he'd be like. He was alive, but I didn't know him. Now, I know him so well!
3. He walks on his tip toes. It's a really weird quirk and I'd love to say that I don't know where he gets that from except that I do. My parents tell me that I walked exactly the same way when I was his age.
4. He doesn't have to be taught in order to learn. He just observes the people in his world and he picks things up. It scares me that my one and a half year old is smarter than I am.
5. Whenever he says "Daddy," I feel an indescribable joy. Fortunately, I see the look on his mom's face when he says "Mommy," and I know that she feels it too.

And of course, any parents out there are reading and smiling and thinking about their own children and grandchildren. If you do not have children yet, don't worry, you'll feel it too. Also, nieces and nephews can have the same effect I've found. Take it from a guy who never thought he wanted children until Jude arrived--it's magical.

Last week, I was so fortunate to spend three full, uninterrupted days with Kayla and Jude in Branson, MO. Let me tell you, that's as close to Heaven on Earth as I have ever been and I can say, if Heaven is anything like that time with my family, count me all the way in. We swam. We played on a playground. We laughed. We went out to new restaurants and tried local foods. We went to a couple of animal parks.

Side note - Jude got to be about 30 inches from two different tigers. He loved it! The tigers loved it! And Kayla and I loved it! It was awesome!!!

Point being, I really love my son! I know, blah, blah, blah. But it's true, and he's on my mind a lot, so, he will be a recurring theme in these pages. Get used to it!

And, of course, if you know me or feel like you're starting to know me through these blog entries, then you know that everything causes me to think. And with Easter coming, (or Passover if you are of Jewish faith), of course, I've been thinking about that. What does Easter mean?

So what follows may seem scattered because I'm going to circle around to several ideas, but I promise, I'm going somewhere so please try to follow me. Thanks ☺

I was thinking about how wonderful Christmas is, and should be. The celebration of the Messiah being born, the fruition of ancient prophecy, the humble king born in a manger. And doesn't it feel good to decorate the house and buy presents and feel the anticipation of seeing someone open the thing that you hope they've been desperately wanting. And, of course, we give these gifts because wise men gave their gifts to baby Jesus. I love Christmas!

And then I think about what we give at Easter and why...It's strange, we give Easter baskets and bunnies and eggs and I like to believe that that is all fitting because it represents new life, like the Resurrection. But I sometimes wonder why we give so much at Christmas and so little at Easter when we (humanity) were given so much at Easter? And then I think about the things that I could never give. Guess what comes to mind first: Jude Alexander Vance. My 581-day-old, one and only son. I don't think there is anything I could give him up for.

And now we're coming to it...See this story starts when Abraham, an old man, who had been waiting his whole life to have a son with his wife, Sara. God had made a promise to Abraham that his descendants would outnumber the sands of the beach and the stars in the sky (See Genesis chapters 22 & 24). That's a lot of offspring. But as he (Abraham) approached the age of 100, still no offspring. He eventually grew impatient and had a child with a servant (Hagar) whom he named Ishmael (this is why Abraham  is also the Patriarch of Islam), and then, after Abraham got ahead of God's perfect timing, God finally told Abraham and Sara that they would have their own son together even in their old age. His name was Issac (this is why Abraham is the Patriarch of Judaism and Christianity).

Off topic, but being the father of three religions certainly fulfills God's original promise that Abraham would have descendants so numerous that they would outnumber the sands and the stars. Also, Sara forcing Ishmael and his mother Hagar to flee from them came with a promise from the Lord that God sees the injustice done to Ishmael (the Nation of Islam) and that Ishmael would fight his brother Isaac, but that Ishmael's descendants would also be blessed. Think of how clearly this defines the role of religion in our world and especially in the Middle East.

Anyway, back on track. Later, God tells Abraham to take Issac out into the woods and prepare a sacrifice (shedding innocent blood is the only atonement for sin). Abraham believes that God is asking him to sacrifice his son Issac (who is innocent) and Abraham is willing to obey. (I cannot even imagine this). When God see's Abraham's obedience, he stops the sacrifice and offers a new sacrifice...God offers up himself.

Flash forward to Jesus. The Messiah, born a Jew to a virgin teenager, delivered in a manger on the back side of nowhere with a Jewish leader, Herod, killing first born Jewish children to prevent them from taking his throne. A man without sin, found blameless by the courts, hated by his own (Romans 10, they were blinded so that we might be crafted in), offered up as a living sacrifice (Jesus' blood was innocent too; the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world), God's only son, Jesus of Nazareth.

At this point, if you are a Christian, you are probably waiting for the review to end and the point to land. If you are not, you might be wondering why in the world Christians believe in a deity, and moreover, why that deity would choose a virgin teenager to birth a child through supernatural conception, only to be brutally tortured and murdered, given up by his friends and condemned by his own race? And most of all, you, the non-Christian might be wondering how someone could believe such a fantastic and unbelievable tale...I'll answer the question of the non-Christian first with a paraphrasing of Paul Harvey's famous, "Christmas Story: The Man And The Birds," (see full text here) that I hope finds the mark, and then make my final point.

A wife asks her husband to go to church with her and their child for Christmas service. The husband refuses because of how unbelievable the whole story of Jesus is. He was in his chair, warm by the fire during a snow storm, when he heard a loud sound. It was birds tapping at the window, trying desperately to get in his house. Rather than let them freeze in the cold, the man decided to try to get the birds to shelter in his barn. He opened the barn doors wide, but they wouldn't come. So he went to get bread crumbs to throw in the barn, but the birds weren't enticed. He tried unsuccessfully to catch them and then tried to shoo them in, but they continued to flap helplessly in the cold snow. Then he realized that he frightened the birds because he was a big, foreign creature that they couldn't understand. "If I could only be a bird and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way into the safe, warm barn...But I would have to be one of them so they could see, hear, understand..."

I'll end there, but let me say that it dawned on him that there was a very good reason that God became man...Humans aren't gods and so they cannot relate with God. But when God became man, he could show people the way.

Now, to get to the point, I love my only son more than anything. There is no way that I could look around at the rest of the world and offer him up as a sacrifice for its wrongdoing. He's too sweet. Too funny. Too beautiful. Too innocent. And I love him way too much. There is no way I could watch him be beaten, ridiculed, tortured, and killed. But, as a Christian, that's exactly what I believe God did for you, and me, and the entire world from the beginning to the end. He took what was most valuable and poured out all of his wrath and judgement and punishment on Jesus, so that we could be saved, feel loved, and have eternal life. I get very emotional now as I finally understand the story of Easter.

We don't give gifts at Easter because there is no gift that could ever compare to the gift of the cross...And what's even better is that, because Jesus Christ is God in flesh, his power showed in the Resurrection. He conquered death, Hell, and the grave. He is Lord! He is love! His arms are open to everyone of us! All because he gave what I could never give.

Life is a Vapor

With the recent U.S. air strikes in Syria, I can't help but think, what does it all mean? I don’t care about the politics of it; if you do, good for you. As I've stated before, I'm a Christian so I view world events through that prism, and in Christianity, there is a belief of an end-of-world scenario. Damascus, Syria is very much a part of that scenario. But that view isn’t unique to Christianity. Jewish and Islamic Religions (Abraham’s other descendants and their cultures) believe in a similar end-of-the-world scenario, but there are others as well. Mayan culture predicted an end, Hindu culture predicts a more cyclical end and new beginning, Norse mythology had similar beliefs, and even modern science offers various hypotheses of an end of the earth as we know it.

Point being, regardless of what you believe, air strikes that take place in the Middle East with countries the size of the United States and Russia involved should get your attention.

So, my reaction to our current events is to turn to my Bible. As I did, what did I find? In the Old Testament book of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 17, there's a prophecy regarding the destruction of the city of Damascus (the capital of Syria). In the Old Testament book of the prophet Ezekiel, it talks of a Gog of Magog war, where the Gog of the north, Russia, gets a hook in its jaw and is drawn to a war. I look at the time since 1947 when Israel was formed in a day or in 1967 when Israel won a war against all of its surrounding enemies in a matter of days. This is straight out of Ezekiel 37 and 38.

When I searched online, I found that many are looking to the skies and predicting that fulfillment of Revelation 12 (The Woman and the Dragon) will take place on September 23, 2017. Astronomers are confirming that there are constellation alignments that haven’t been since the time of Adam and Eve. If you haven't seen this, please look up videos of these things on YouTube. And then I found video about a series of 12 Biblical scholars from the 1730s through the 1880s (tribulation-now.org) who believed and showed evidence pointing to a time around 2016 as the time of Armageddon.

And to non-believers, think of it this way... Donald Trump holds the office of Commander in Chief in the United States of America!?!?! Who'd have ever thought that? Global warming is on the lips of every scientist in the world. And regardless of the religious tone of the strikes in Syria, a nuclear war could wipe humanity off the face of the earth. Even Leonardo Di Caprio felt strongly enough about the state of our planet that he made a film imploring us to take care of it before it's too late. And on and on and on...

And as interestingly terrifying as all of that sounds, that's not what I want to talk about. Wait, what? But I've just spent all of that time... Exactly! Setting the stage for what I'll say next.

Regardless of where your beliefs are, there is an unrest in our world that is unprecedented historically. World War III could start tomorrow and no one would be surprised. So, I ask, what are we doing? I mean really... survey your life and ask yourself, what am I doing?

Are you planning? Are you growing? Are you enjoying it? Are you learning? Are you desperate to reconcile with loved ones, or better yourself, or join a cause? What are you doing every day? Is it important? And then, as I write this, I look in the mirror and ask, "Nate, what are you doing?"

This blog is small, for now. But it's my place to have a voice. It’s a part of what I'm doing. And, for the second post in a row, I'm going to turn my writing over to ask my fellow Christians a simple question: if these are the last days of life as we know it, what is truly important?

So ready or not, here we go.

What is "the church?" The Bible describes it as the body and the bride of Christ. Jesus called Peter the Rock, and used him to help establish his church. That church is to be the love of Jesus's life (his bride) and his grand masterpiece! It is an interconnected community of believers in the life and death of the Son of God! But I look around and think of my experience in churches and I don't remember masterpieces. What I remember is as follows:

1. More denominations than I can count. Mostly bad-mouthing each other and competing for members.

2. People who waste time majoring in minors (carpet colors, dress codes, work days, hurt feelings, etc.)

3. Very little collective interest in loving and modeling Christ to a brokenhearted, hurting world.

4. Extremely poor training. (Seriously, school teachers are required to have Master's Degrees in Kentucky, but most ministers aren't required to have a Bachelor's degree. Many more haven't even read the entire Bible.)

Side note – I’m very fortunate to have a father with multiple degrees in science, education, and theology and who has been ordained by multiple denominations. I was also fortunate enough to have an excellent grounding in the Bible through my Catholic schooling. Most church attendees are not so fortunate.

5. Always asking volunteers to do work rather than paying money for quality and contributing to the economy.

6. Constantly arguing over politics (national and religious).

7. Allowing gossip and judgment to point out how much better the churchgoers are than the non.

8. An extreme lack of faith in God's power.

9. People who need to feel scolded to feel like they've "had Church." (Just, wow!)

10. A total mess...

I’ve found Christian people can be the meanest and unhappiest people I've ever met. There are exceptions, of course, but these angry, religious zealots have given the world a false picture of Jesus Christ. The church, as it was designed, doesn't even exist in modern society. It can't because of how fractured it has become. This group doesn't agree with that group and this doctrine is different than that. And then there is this rule and that rule. If everyone could be honest, the truth is that they, whoever they are, want it to be hard to be Christian. Why? Because humans want to be better than each other, and if it’s hard to be right, then being right makes you the best. And that's the point of religion. News flash, Christ didn't die for us to have more religion, in fact, he spent quite a bit of his time on earth challenging religious leaders. He died for relationship with humanity! All humanity!

So, if we're supposed to be a unified body, then we've missed the mark. It's odd, my arms don't hate my legs. My hair doesn't hate my foot. In fact, my hair seems to love all of me; a little too much sometimes. So does the Church really function like a body? Not that I've seen...and a better question, why does it seem so hard to be Christian? Well, John 3:16 says, "For God so LOVED the World that he GAVE his only son that WHOEVER believes in him should not perish but have EVERLASTING life." Sound too easy? Maybe the next verse is where God tells the real story about rules and wrath and judgement and discord. In verse 17, it says, "For God did not send his son into the world to judge the world, but that through him it might be saved." Oh wait, there’s no talk of how angry God is, or how happy he is to punish. Actually, in the follow-up, there is an even more definitive statement of God’s love and intentions. But how can it be that easy to follow Christ through simple belief? I guess, maybe, just maybe, God’s not mad, and Christianity isn’t about wrath and judgement but exists because of Gods incredible LOVE! Not his rules. Not his doctrine. Not his angry, unapproachable nature. Just his unfailing love!

I'm sure you're waiting for a point and I promise it's coming. In my last post, I said I was developing a better bulb to shine a brighter, more effective light. This is a very simple start. I want you (myself included) to think of every person you care about that might not believe in Christ or know him or whatever their story is. Now, think of what they hear you say, see you do, or if they know what you believe. Think if they would be in heaven if Jesus did return in 2017. If not, what is your role in that? Do you spend time praying for them? Do you shine a light for them to see? Are you a representation of Jesus for them? If not, why? Before you go out here and try to just tell people they're living in sin and need to repent, READ THE BIBLE AND SEE HOW JESUS DID IT! Your job is not to be God, but to show people who God is through your actions, words, etc. God is LOVE. God = Love.

Are you a part of the church? Or are you a part of a local church that acts more like terminal cancer to the body than a healthy, functioning organ? Do you see positive impact on your community from your body? Have you seen people be hurt and leave the church? Have you asked them to forgive you for your role? Have you asked them what it was that hurt them so bad in the first place? Have they been loved ones? Does your attitude reflect the love of Jesus? If you and I don't like our answers, then it's time we shake things up. It's time to reach out to the world with the loving arms of Christ. It's time to shine light rather than condemn darkness. It’s time to grow up and start acting like a healthy body--the masterpiece that Jesus envisions us to collectively be.

Why?

Because, believe it or not, life is a vapor. It appears for a time and then vanishes away. So, start shining a bright light in your world now... soon it will be gone, one way or another.