Monday Morning Music Ministry

4-30-12

I had a friend in college named Danny Platnick. A brilliant but very quirky guy. He never failed to surprise us, his friends, with flashes of brilliance and quirkiness, and sometimes the most random things, which often challenged us to be more random, usually unsuccessfully.

One day we were all talking in the dorm lounge about our homes and families and backgrounds. Our college was in Washington DC; Danny came from Bluefield WV, which seemed light-years farther away than the actual few hours’ drive. We all started to exchange photos of our parents and siblings and homes. Danny pulled a picture from his wallet and passed it around. It was a plain picture of the side of a house, only two windows showing. No front door or back porch. No particularly interesting landscaping.

“Is this your parents’ house?” we asked. “No, it’s the side of my neighbor’s house,” Danny replied. Everyone who had shared photos of front lawns, and fancy cars in the driveways, and swimming pools out back, asked how that snapshot represented his house.

“That’s what I see when I look out my bedroom window,” Danny answered. “This picture reminds me of home.”

I am embarrassed to admit that it was years before I realized that this was not quirky, but wise and almost profound.

My niece Liza – Elizabeth Jane Marschall – died this week. She was born almost 27 years ago with severe birth defects, including cerebral palsy that doctors reckoned froze her at a three-month developmental level all her life. She was not expected to live past a few years, but she did, nurtured by loving care and God’s mysterious grace. She experienced pain in her time; many surgeries and braces; and constantly was connected to tubes and monitors. Medically, she was not inanimate but was termed insensate. Yet she smiled, responded to her mom and to her caregivers, and to expressions of love.

Some churches call the death of a Christian a “home-going,” and so it is. Believers will not just begin the “journey home” to be with Jesus when we die; we already are on that journey.

Liza is healed now, happy, whole, before God’s throne. Unlike some Christians who, perhaps, think too much about certain things, she never had the ability to speculate about angels and wings and harps and being reunited with pets. But now she knows what Heaven is like, and we shall experience paradise for eternity too, some day. And it will be better than anything our imagination or scholarship can suggest.

“In my Father’s house there are many mansions,” Jesus assured us. “If it were not so, I would have told you.” This is recorded in John, 14:2. “I go to prepare a place for you.” Without much effort, I can almost imagine Jesus pulling out a snapshot of “home” – Heaven – and showing me a very, very comforting scene indeed. We need frequently to remind ourselves of God’s home, even if we are not quite there yet.

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One of the most beautiful messages, and tunes, you will ever hear – and one of the most touching performances – is “Going Home,” in this clip. The unlikely pairing of a classic musical theme (the Largo movement of Antonín Dvorák’s Ninth Symphony) and Negro spiritual lyrics, this performance is by the amazing Norwegian singer Sissel Kyrkjebø. Backed by an orchestra and church choir, she performed the song in Røros, a charming Norwegian town in the middle of a UNESCO Heritage area.

Click: Going Home

4-23-12

This week, two iconic figures of American culture, both of whom made their marks in the 1970s, died. Chuck Colson was a powerful political operative, convicted felon in the Watergate scandal, and then a leading force in the evangelical church. Levon Helm grew up in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas; played various – and “fused” – forms of country, folk, blues, and gospel music; was a major member of “The Band” that backed Bob Dylan; and became an inspiration to two generations of singers and songwriters.

There is no case to be made for “ideological bookends,” or the irony of two enemies in the culture wars: that is not the fabric I wish to weave. These two men did not face off 40 years ago; Levon, for instance, was not even a part of any major protest movement in the pop music of his day, otherwise a common association.

The lives of these two men, different as they were, offer, I think, powerful lessons for countrymen they leave behind. Their names were seldom paired in a sentence before this week, but should be in a certain way.

They showed us that how you live is important. But how you die is more important.

Colson’s story has become the stuff of legend (in fact, his autobiography, Born Again, was made into a movie): powerful Washington lawyer; connections; joined the Nixon Administration, where his official duties included communication with lobbyists and interest groups, and political strategy, and his unofficial duties included dirty tricks and monitoring “enemies.” He was involved in Watergate and the cover-up, but was convicted of complicity in a break-in and scheme to discredit an anti-war opponent. Colson served time in prison.

Having read C S Lewis’s Mere Christianity, he gave his life to Christ. He witnessed to other inmates in jail. Colson founded Prison Fellowship after his release, and ever after toiled for prisoners’ rights, visitation reform, assistance to families of prisoners, and chapel programs. He founded an institute to enable Christians to be informed and effectively work in today’s society. He became an ardent, and thoughtful, foe of post-modernism. Prison Fellowship, as an evangelical outreach, is active in 114 countries; my son-in-law’s father ministers weekly in Ireland as part of the team there.

Levon Helm, in another corner of the culture, worked in many fields of music as a singer, mandolinist, drummer, and composer (“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”). His dedication to roots music began in the 1960s and ‘70s. He also acted in “Coal Miner’s Daughter” and “The Right Stuff.” Battling painful cancer of the vocal cords for more than a decade before his death this week, he continued to perform until a couple months ago. Sometimes without singing. Sometimes digging deep, from somewhere, finding the strength and the pipes to sing some lyrics. Amazing. As always.

More and more he came to concentrate on old-time country, gospel, mountain music, and rural blues. This son of a cotton farmer represented something I have long held about the value of tradition, race, and nationhood: no matter where you roam, or how much you explore, or what faraway places you might live in, the best journey is that whose end is right where you started.

Chuck Colson returned to his Savior. Levon Helm returned to his musical roots. What really united this unlikely pair, in my eyes, was that they each completely sold out to the things they loved and knew. Their passion knew no bounds. They each died in the saddle, so to speak – Chuck’s brain hemorrhage came while he was speaking to a church group; Levon performed at his house (“Midnight Rambles”) in Woodstock right to the end. How many of us have that passion… and live with that passion?

We cannot be too sad when people like this leave us. They lived worthwhile lives to the fullest, enduring much even amidst their joy. No less a person than William F Buckley, for instance, doubted and mocked Colson’s conversion at first. Helm felt betrayed by members of The Band and sometimes met resistance to his mixed bag of roots music. But in a sense, passionate fighters like these men did not just die – they LIVED. How they lived is important, but to the rest of us, how they died might be more important.

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A predictable number in Levon’s stage show was the great Carter Family gospel song “No Depression in Heaven.” Purposely, the lyrics were ambiguous about economic or emotional depression – because neither will be there, in God’s place. Here is a stage version from a couple years ago with Levon on the mandolin and the great Larry Campbell among backup, and Sheryl Crow on lead vocals. Great lyrics.

Click: No Depression in Heaven

4-16-12

The gifts of God. Spiritual gifts. The Bible talks about such things. Sometimes even dedicated Christians can lull themselves into thinking that spiritual gifts are activities we are drawn to, ways in which we like to serve, that we then ask God to bless. The twelfth chapter of First Corinthians, however, lists nine specific spiritual gifts of God. One is Faith. Now, if we have the Holy Spirit in our hearts, we have imparted faith. And we can summon faith, to an extent, in our own spirits. But… faith is also a GIFT. When we feel weak, it is not an admission of more weakness, but of assurance, to ask God to grant a gift, an extra measure of faith. He offers it, all the time.

My good friend Melanie Bayless Veteto is our guest today, with a special message on this special subject:

Today my daughter Hazel asked, “What gifts did God give you, Mommy?” She was probably talking about my ability to draw a rainbow with the colors in the proper order, or my highly developed skills that involve scissors, paper, glue, and glitter (both “gifts” particularly impressive to a seven-year-old whose favorite color is pink) but I was happy to interpret her question in a spiritual way. She got me thinking about our spiritual gifts.

Now, I have a sister with a Divine gift of administration, and another with an indisputable gift of helps. My husband has the gifts of evangelism and teaching (and yet, I’m the professional teacher in the family), and my mom has that of hospitality; both of my brothers have strong leadership gifts and my step-dad has the gift of mercy.

But me, my darling Hazel-girl? My gift is faith.

We are all blessed with this one, if we believe that the Holy Spirit lives in us. Even so, some of us have an extra measure of confidence in the One who guards our trust. We have an assurance that in the end, the wrongs will be made right because that’s the promise of the resurrection; we have an assurance that all things will work out for our good because in the end that’s what the scripture says; we have an assurance that what is unseen is the real story of our souls, and that what is seen is only a shadow of our lives. In short, we have the assurance that our faith in God is not misguided and our hope in His word is not misplaced. We know it. We believe it.

I vividly remember the day I received the worst news of my life so far: my father (biological) was dying of metastasized stage IV melanoma. In the events surrounding his final weeks and death I remember driving, driving, driving and desperately looking into every car, and on every face, hoping to see evidence that I was not the only one daily living out one of the worst human situations I could imagine. In spite of my very serious efforts, I never saw anyone else’s pain during those upended weeks. But today, on an ordinary day in my life, I see pain all around: I have a friend who is suffering the collapse of her marriage; another dear one who sits at the hospital bed of her severely handicapped sister, holding her hand and watching her heart fail; another whose daily life is centered around the care and whims of a contentious spouse; an inspiring former pastor who is battling cancer (the cancer seems to be winning); a family whose son is facing diseases that make adults grow weak in the knees; another whose world cannot seem to straighten out no matter what good is granted it, and . . .

… you get the picture. Every day we face the worst situations we can imagine. The human condition is wrought with pain, suffering, and misunderstanding. We really don’t need to look too hard to find it. That is our story.

But here is our song: take heart. Have faith. The story isn’t over yet. Our souls can find strength when we hold fast to what we have been taught about God’s faithfulness, to what we have seen Him do in our past, and to what we have known deeply in our spirits, those assurances granted to us by the Faithful One. Wrongs will be made right, even if we don’t understand it now, and our gift of faith is especially proven in those moments of shadowy, earthly distress and discomfort. If we have faith enough to believe in a Savior, we can find faith enough to trust in His goodness.

My sister (the divinely administrative) sang this beautiful and favored hymn in a clear voice at our father’s funeral. Its message is hope. Its beauty lies in singing praises to the One who gives us song and voice during all our times, including (but not limited to) the run-of-the-mill and the dark and difficult. We sing because we know the eternal outcome is going to be all right.

Therefore, take heart, dear friends. Have faith. Be assured, blessedly, that though your story is difficult, messy, and human, your song will come as you hold fast the faith.

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One of the great gospel songs of the blind poet Fanny Crosby (of the 9000-or-so hymns and poems she wrote) is Blessed Assurance. Sometimes called This Is My Story, This Is My Song. This moving version is sung by thousands of attendees from around the world at the youth rally of Korean Campus Crusade for Christ 2007 in Busan, South Korea.

Click: Blessed Assurance

4-9-12

Happy new year! That’s one way to feel about the first day after Easter. “He is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” is how Christians of the first centuries would exchange greetings. All things are made new, after the Resurrection. But then, every day should bring the realization of a new life in Christ!

I have been thinking of the first times I heard about Jesus. Too early to remember an exact day, because I was fortunate to be born into a family of believers. “Church-goers.” As a child I had a standard faith – I use the term because it was only in my twenties that I came to an intense, personal knowledge of biblical truth and relationship with Jesus: born again. Yet, early on, seeds were planted; Bible stories were told; verses were memorized; prayers were said; hymns were sung.

Seeds. A good metaphor at Springtime. Not many committed Christians in our culture can say that they only heard about Jesus for the first time in the their twenties or forties. (Hearing the “hard truth” of the Bible, in this culture, is another matter… for another discussion). But almost every new believer will say he or she “returned” to the faith. Seeds, when planted, sometimes lay dormant, but can always sprout.

A “standard” church-going kid, I went through my wise-guy period of rebellion against God in my high-school years. Never an atheist, I veered toward agnosticism, and yapped a lot of skepticism in classes and to friends.

In the cafeteria, there was a kid who was kind of a loner. Not the newspaper-headline kind of loner, just a guy who always pretty much kept to himself. He was a pudgy kid, I don’t think an object of bullying or anything, just kind of private. One day he called me over to where he was eating, alone. I never really had talked to John Frost (what were his parents thinking?) before then.

I remember being impressed, a really nice kid, good conversations, a clever guy. Before I knew it, as natural as anything, he was talking to me about Jesus. He shared a little, but no grilling of me, no “decision” challenge. Every once in a while, thereafter, we would share lunch – I’ll admit that he did more of the inviting than I did – I would share dessert, and he would share Jesus.

I will tell you that Johnny’s quiet witness, as we can call it, had a greater impact than the substance of what he said… or so it seemed to me. The fact that a stranger would do this, non-confrontationally, randomly, bravely, and – what else? – in the purest form of Christian love, impressed me. Later on, it inspired me. How to be gently bold.

Seeds. Can you remember who first told you about Jesus? Most likely it was a parent or grandparent (am I wrong to want to suggest “mother or grandmother”)? Was it a random song on the radio or Christian cartoon on TV? Was it a Sunday School teacher? Almost all of the “yes” answers would still have to trace back to parents who placed us in situations where we could see or hear… where seeds could be planted. Parents, take note.

I certainly can remember the first “hymn” I learned. It is still one of my favorites, not only because of its profound though simple message, but because it always transports me back. “Jesus Loves Me” puts me in the place where God first said Hello to me, where I had an inkling of a loving Savior, where I could believe that I belonged to Him, and where a book called the Bible could hold answers to my questions. Yes, Jesus loves me!

Is that song one of the “seeds” of your faith? Can you remember who first shared Jesus with you? And early, middle, or late in life, did someone else come alongside you to nourish those seeds? In my case, it was a guy named Johnny – a real Spring Frost; maybe an angel – who chatted comfortably about the greatest truths of history, and the neediest needs of my needy heart, in the corner of a high-school cafeteria.

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Click: Jesus Loves Me, This I Know

4/7/2012

RE-POSTED BY REQUESTED. From March 29, 2010, a great Easter-Sunday message.

Here is possibly the most unique, certainly a most memorable, version of the Easter story you might ever see. A little account of a kid’s Easter pageant. Father and son; death and resurrection; humor and Truth.

It is pianist Anthony Burger a few years ago talking about his five-year-old in an Easter pageant. Ironically, not long after this, Anthony himself died, suddenly, at the keyboard on a gospel-music cruise. His life was a mighty testimony… and so was his little boy’s story.

Click: We Shall Behold Him

4-2-12

“Ecce homo!” Pontius Pilate stood on his balcony and addressed the blood-lusting crowd. “Behold the man!”

Without knowing it, Pilate was being theological. “The Son of Man” was how Scripture referred to the Christ; and so did Jesus, about Himself. “Fully God and fully man.”

More than theological, Pilate was attempting to be just plain logical. “Look at this man!” Pilate said, in effect. “This sorry, battered, silent, modest, individual… THIS is whose crucifixion you demand of me?”

In the words of The Living Bible (Matthew 27:24,25), Pilate had tried logical arguments… as far as his conscience would take him. He told the crowd: “I am innocent of this man’s blood. The responsibility is yours!” And all the people yelled back, “We will take responsibility for his death—we and our children!” [The original Greek the passage reads, “His blood be on us and on our children.”]

The Romans were masters of many things. Various manners and devices of torture were among them. When someone was flogged, the Romans used not a normal whip, but one with many leather straps. The flagellum had as many as 12 thongs. More, they had sharpened pieces of metal or bone woven into their ends. The effect was not whipping but scourging: the prisoner’s back was punctured, laced, and stripped of flesh. Romans knew their torture.

Before this, however, Jesus was subjected to beating and kicking. The crown of thorns was not made from rose-bush stems; the thorns were long and piercing, like filed nails, and this was pressed upon his head. Before this, He was dragged, humiliated, mocked, and spat upon.

The crucifixion, preceded by this tortured man carrying the heavy, splintery cross through the rocky streets of Jerusalem, was another Roman invention. Nails through the ankles and wrists (not the hands, forensics studies teach us, else the body’s weight would have pulled the spikes through the fingers) permitted the body to hang at the perfect angle to prolong life until suffocation of the lungs became the cause of death.

A pertinent fact about the suffering and death of Jesus is that most Roman prisoners condemned to death usually experienced one or maybe two of these trials… seldom all of them. It is plausible that Jesus suffered as much as any human being has ever endured before dying. “Behold the man.”

And yet the worst part of Jesus’ experience, I think, was the betrayal of friends, the rejection of those He came to save, the abandonment by His disciples. Let none of us, not you or me, ever think that WE would have been different; that we would have been with Him till the end. His followers lived with Him more than three years, and saw miracles, experienced His love. But they scattered like leaves in an Autumn breeze. Those whom He raised from the dead; the crippled whom He made walk; the blind who could now see… it is not recorded that they were at the foot of the cross. What significance that the two Marys – His mother; and the woman who received forgiveness of her sins – were there. Family and forgiveness of sins: a foundational lesson to take away from that Good Friday.

To segue again from the historical and logical to the theological, besides a few grieving friends, Roman guards, and the curious, someone else was at the foot of the cross that day.

It was you and me.

We were not there physically, of course, but Jesus saw us. He looked down and looks at you and me. He looks through our eyes into our hearts. He sees our shortcomings and sins. But that look on His face said to us, “I am doing this for you. Whatever separation you have created for yourself by sinning against God does not have to condemn you any more! The old practices of blood-offerings and sacrifices for sins are over. Now. Believe in me as the Son of God, and accept this sacrifice.” Behold THAT Man.

I also believe, impossible as it would have been, that if all humankind up to that moment had been sinless – that if you or I had been the only sinners in God’s creation – that Jesus Christ still would have willingly gone to the cross. He knew what He was doing. After all, the Bible says that He was the agent of Creation, that through Him all things were made. He knew the plan… and He was willing to fulfill it. For you and me.

Behold that MAN.

The old spiritual, “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” has countless verses, the traditional call-out structure that has resonated in worship songs among slaves, in bluegrass versions by singers like Wade Mainer, in folk renditions by Johnny Cash and others, touching millions.

Were you there? You were. Just as Jesus has been with us at all the times of our lives. Sometimes it causes me to tremble…

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This version of the old spiritual plaintively is sung a cappella by Russ Taff and a choir; with stark images from The Passion.

Click here: Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?