Monday Morning Music Ministry

10-7-24

Whether it is the logic of the issue’s presentation, or the frequent statements by Pro-Choice people, I have changed my attitude, and my stance, on the matter of Abortion. Count me as favoring the procedure.

This might surprise people who have known me, and are familiar with my views, but henceforth I will advocate against the so-called “Pro-Life” positions. In deference to people who have joined these contentious debates with me, as well as readers who might be interested in arguments that have changed – for they have, in society, for many people in many ways – I will present my reasons.

They are not new with me, for the Abortion debate has been engaged uncountable times. But I will summarize the salient points of my new home, Pro-Choice.

• In a democracy, the majority rules. And these days Abortion is accepted by many people; it is urged upon everybody; and is no longer a taboo procedure to be ashamed of. It seems like “Pro-Life” is in the minority.

• Besides the change in public “morals,” there are the advances in birth control. Abortion has been made easy, cheap, and widely available. And now, technology has brought us pills and liquids and various abortifacients that will do the job just as well as surgery.

• Since birth control is no longer a matter of opprobrium in society, Abortion ought be regarded as another, maybe after-the-fact, form of birth control. Over and done.

• In that view, we know from the scientific community that the earth is over-populated, and resources are being stretched thin. Going forward as a species, we need fewer, not more, people.

• There are many couples, married and unmarried, who simply are not ready to start a family. If we are free to express mutual love, we ought to be free of the burdens of parenthood. If you hated your parents, don’t become one yourself. Stop that life.

• In practical terms, again speaking of over-crowding, limited resources, and the convenience of family situations, we must frankly embrace the woman who inspired the contemporary Abortion and Family Planning “Enlightenment,” Margaret Sanger. She taught us that the lower rungs of society – especially the poor, the chronically unhealthy, and inferior groups like African-Americans in her view – ought to be thinned out.

• Not excluding teen pregnancies and “extra-marital” affairs, the majority of Abortions, and a higher percentage of Abortion clinics, are in neighborhoods of the poor, underprivileged, and African-Americans, already. This is a start, and should be encouraged.

• “Freedom” is an attractive, compelling word. It has persuaded me, and many others, in the context of the Abortion debate. Except for matters like murder and “hate speech,” the government should not adopt restrictive laws and regulations. Legalize Abortion, drugs, “mercy killings”; and then begin to restrict outworn traditional practices.

• Speaking of “hate speech,” all the familiar views and traditions of many cultures and peoples – views from Aborting babies to personal religious expression – ought to be banned too. Some enlightened countries imprison people who maintain cherished customs and practices, and we can look forward to doing so here, too.

On second thought…

Of course these are not my views. But separately or together, they are the views of many people in the United States. And only a few of those concepts are old, “outdated.” For instance, Margaret Sanger warred against “Negroes” who, she believed, had too many children. Today her followers might sound compassionate but still embrace the idea of thinning the “under-served.”

The American culture of consumerism, our throw-away mentality, and the ethos of Life Is Cheap, seduce many people to subscribe to the ideas I listed. “Everybody does it”; “Mind your own damn business”; and “Who does it harm?” have supplanted the 10 Commandments.

“Who does it harm?” is, of course, a dishonest question that many people are happy to ignore. Of course, Abortion harms the unborn baby. Pretty severely. It is easy to ignore the silent screams, isn’t it?

As to the points above:

… Democracy does not determine right and wrong. Too often it is a weapon to mask the evil that men do. God does not depend on our opinions of His Commandments.

… As to easy forms of birth control (hmmm, why is it not called “fetus control” or “blob control”?): Even if government imposed legality, why must the public pay for others’ Abortions-on-Demand? Why force doctors and nurses with consciences to participate in killing babies?

… Over-population can be addressed by resource-management. If a woman “gets in trouble” (what a bizarre phrase) perhaps kids can learn to stop screwing; perhaps parents, and schools, and oh yeah, the church, can remember how to wisely counsel decent behavior.

… The not-so-veiled racism of Sanger’s spawn merely proves the French saying that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

… In the end, we realize that Freedom is fungible, at least as we employ it. Freedom to kill babies is literally selective, partial-freedom at best. The Aborted baby is given no “Choice.”

How often do people think these things through? If a woman kills her baby, and the father objects, is it “fair” that he has no say in the matter… especially as the Law says he is obligated for Child Support otherwise. If a baby was aborted, do the parents wonder, years afterward, where and what their child would be like, be doing? A vast majority of babies with birth “defects” are Aborted these days… but have you seen a mother’s life that has been transformed, loving for that child she bore?

We have become a Culture of Death, no better than those “primitive” societies we read about in faraway places and ancient times, that practiced infant sacrifice. Today we sacrifice our children to the gods of convenience and pleasure. Science breaks its back searching for the Origin of Life… discovering new life-forms… and desperate to find evidence of Life in the universe. But science – and so many of us – have become callous to the practice of killing babies, snuffing out Life.

No matter the circumstances, God’s Word tells us that every child was known and “formed” by Him in the womb. His ways are mysterious to us, sometimes, but He is sovereign. Did Jesus come to earth to save souls, yet we destroy them first? That is the devil’s job, and joy. And our curse.

+ + +

By the way, if you are a reader, or have had this message passed to you, and are somewhere near my pretend-position here – and if you have been wracked with confusion or guilt or regrets – you must remember that even Abortion is something that God forgives. Repentance and cries for forgiveness “God will not despise.” He is the Lord and Giver of Life (yes, a reason we must not play God) and He yearns for fellowship with you… and helping minister to your problems.

+ + +

Click: I Hear Your Voice

9-9-24

“Something is happening in our world, and I want to be part of it!”

My friend said that to me as we recently discussed current events (“current” as in “high voltage”), and she took the words from my mouth, as it were. Our common point of view is not unalloyed, and I wonder how many readers agree. That is, some things are happening – many things are changing – and few of them are to our liking… but. We want to, we need to, be part of understanding them, resisting many of them, and rescuing our society. We can make things happen too.

Redeem our culture, that is. Protect our families. Defend our faith.

This will not be a political column. As politics have invaded every sphere of life these days, however, we must contend when necessary. Goliath challenged King Saul for 40 days until David stepped up. He recognized that the Philistines were a threat; he accepted that giants were real; and he acted. Neither politeness nor cowardice nor prudence nor excuses nor pride were availed: it was time to act.

Some things are happening in our world. I will list a few. Join me on a 30,000-feet view.

For all of Western civilization’s “progress,” a lot of our intelligence is artificial. I am turning that phrase around, to mean that myriad assumptions are swindles, despite our smug arrogance. After generations of societal life in many places and varied conditions, we believe that our world has evolved to a place where families are no longer sacred foundation-stones; where men and women do not have essential characteristics and functions; where faith must not play a vital role in peoples’ lives; where respect, sexual fidelity, and civility are irrelevancies; where traditions are not valuable tools for moving forward.

This nonsense is palpable, and dangerous. When we review history – which is a taskmaster, not merely a teacher; certainly not a gentle persuader – we see that every civilization that has veered toward these heresies has perished. Often in ugly and brutal fashion. Seldom has a culture chosen to embrace these suicidal tendencies as lustily as ours is doing.

Some other things are happening in our world. As I assured you, I am not getting political, but I will list some facts – largely obscure at the moment, even from a 30,000-foot overview.

Quietly but quickly there are changes afoot. They might be harbingers of a revolution of redemption; or they might be blips on the screen of the cultural decline; or they might be death throes of a world doomed to join past civilizations on the trash-heap of history.

In the major Western nations there are extreme shake-ups in politics (unavoidable to mention, except as “politics” represents many aspects within societies). During the US elections, former Democrats named Trump and Kennedy and Musk and Gabbard now control the Republican Party, or at least the presidential campaign. The Blue-Collar Billionaire and his new allies (and supporters) largely have embraced an agenda that embraces Christian values and conservative priorities.

In the United Kingdom, a four-month-old party named Reform garnered almost as many votes as the victorious Labor Party in recent Parliamentary elections. It is, like the new GOP, similarly small-government, low-tax, anti-immigrant in its focus. The rise of the National Front in France tells the same story. As the leaders of these parties have split from the mainstream and are political renegades, so does the popular leader of Hungary; he shares their platform views, and is a former ally (strongly former!) of George Soros.

In Germany, in recent days the rise of new parties – AfD (Alternative for Germany) and the months-old party of Sahra Wagenknecht – have captured almost half of the votes in two large states, Saxony and Thuringia. The new movements are in certain aspects right and left, respectively, yet they share general free-market, anti-censorship, foreign-policy views (including skepticism about Ukraine) that have observers foreseeing an eventual alliance.

“Horseshoe Politics,” it is being called – where right and left ultimately and nearly meet. New labels are applied – Protest; Populism; Common-Sense – but “Something is happening in our world, and we want to be part of it!”

What place is all this in a Christian essay, one that offers to “put a song in our hearts” to start our week? Well, nothing – if we think we are in fact doomed, too far down the tubes. I can be gloomier, by the way: I believe God has held His hand; that America and the West have rebelled and sinned to an extent that we deserve His severe judgment; that, searching End-Times prophecy, we discern no hint that there will be an America in the world’s last days…

Yet God has held His hand. We are called to repent, and not surrender. As we, individual sinners, may be redeemed, so can our nation find salvation. (I have learned this week that a new book, Write and Live His Answer Now, will reprint an essay I wrote challenging Christians not to plead for Revival, but rather to generate Revival.)

Regarding the political realignments I listed – is the Lord “shaking the nations”? Spiritual revival plays varied roles in all this turmoil, but… there are strange things happ’nin’ every day, as the old Spiritual goes. For instance, without assuming too much, the recent, and frequent, God-affirming testimonies of Robert F Kennedy Jr are surprising and encouraging.

Scripture tells us that especially in times like these we can’t feel at home in the world anymore. But something is happening in our world. We need to discern: maybe something new, and good. And we need to be a part of it!

+ + +

Click: This World Is Not My Home

9-2-24

Recently in these essays I have, without (my own) planning, shared thoughts on our personal interactions with God. “Be still and know that I am God.” Sharing the Good News. Keeping silence at retreats. Listening for His voice. “When God might say, ‘Shut Up!’”

Variations on a theme, I suppose. And I pray the messages might have inspired you, or prompted thoughts or actions, or (so to speak) less action and more contemplation. Anyway, I believe the Holy Spirit has me in this mode, and as some Christians like to say, there are no coincidences, only God-incidences.

I also have realized that my meditations have focused on being a “hearer of the Word”; seeking God’s will for my life (in fact, the title of a book that my friend and I have been discussing); finding new ways to listen and learn from all He has for me.

But then, in a manner of speaking, all this is only half of communion with the Lord.

Yes, there are myriad ways to hear from God. He sent the Holy Spirit to be Jesus living within us. He speaks to our hearts. We have His written Word. We have testimony of saints and martyrs and prophets through the ages. We are blessed with ministers, teachers, preachers, evangelists. We have the testimony of animate Creation. Humankind has been visited by anointed and yielded servants who – you have heard the saying – share the Gospel sometimes even with words.

But. Are these manifestations only half of the story? Half of our fellowship with the Lord? Half of… communication with God?

All the ways we are blessed to hear from God indeed add up to only half of the story. One of Scripture’s strongest and foundational themes is that God desires to hear from us, too. God did not only talk to Adam and Eve and Noah and Abraham and Moses and Ruth and David and Jonah and Daniel… He had conversations. Many times, through the Bible, in fact, He virtually chatted: not always thundering commands and lightning-bolts. The Book of Job – the first-written of all books in the Bible – is a virtual transcript of prayers and answers; discussions and pleadings. And so with prophets.

And so it also was with Jesus – He came to earth to teach and instruct; but also to listen and reason and encourage and persuade. Do we have examples of Christ with people shutting down an argument or attack? No, the Savior of Humankind listened, responded thoughtfully, and had conversations. As the old Gospel song reminds us, “He walks with me, and He talks with me.”

Why should it be different today? Is it? Of course I am referring to prayer.

What a gift prayer is! I could certainly imagine the Creator of the universe being so august that, yes, He might bless us with many things, even sweet salvation… but not necessarily a god lowering Himself to hear (much less solicit) our prayers. How many other religions through history and around the world have invented gods that invite conversations with them? Demands, yes. Threats, yes. Sacrifices, yes. But… chats?

Can we all take a survey of our own prayer lives? Do you pray every day? Did your children say bed-time prayers, and say grace at meals? If you attend a liturgical church, have you memorized prayers and creeds – if so, do you find yourself praying the words, sometimes, without “thinking” them any more? These questions might not have right-or-wrong answers, but can have regrets attached to them.

I similarly am troubled when I see clergymen on television read their prayers at events: it seems to me that addressing God seems less sincere in such cases than spontaneous, from-the-heart. I wonder, when I see athletes cross themselves, whether they actually pray the names of the father, Son, and Holy Ghost every one of those moments. I am not criticizing when I ask these questions! Too often, I myself have assured someone “I’ll pray for you” – when it would be just as easy, and more sincere, to take that moment and pray with them right there.

It seems sometimes that prayer is becoming a lost language in our culture. When I was in elementary school, we prayed in class (and read the Bible each week. Yes, in public school). Oh, what we have been saved from as a society… or see what we have become. Do we pray with our spouses? With strangers? – wouldn’t a quick prayer be more heartfelt, and efficacious with the Lord, than uttering “good luck to you”?

My daughter Heather used to pray, aloud, when doing housework or chores, but not formal prayers as most of us know them. She would have conversations with God – about her day, or challenges at work, “little” things – as if she were talking to her best friend. Which, of course, God is. What a wonderful prayer mode. “Pray without ceasing,” the Bible urges. And it’s not always about ASKING.

The Bible tells us that God can be a jealous God. Literally, he is jealous of our time and attention. He desires to hear from us. He wants to hear what He knows already – our burdens, our needs, even our gratitude – so we can be drawn closer.

It’s what friends do.

+ + +

Click: I Just Came To Talk with You, Lord

7-31-23

I have been thinking a lot about candles recently. Maybe it’s because it’s the wick-end. Maybe I’m just thinking of an old flame. Perhaps I am just waxing nostalgic…

OK. That’s out of my system. Honestly, I have been thinking about candles. I have a new friend who is “into” candles, for all the right reasons – in these hurried times, they represent serenity; they release fragrance; their glow is peaceful. And with other friends – and in my own moments of meditation lately – I have been longing for traditional, “older” forms of worship. Older for me; older in history’s unfolding.

Candles remind us of when churches were lit by candlelight. Of matins services, of Christmas-Eve candlelight worship, when the soft glow of many candles enveloped us in gentle light. I have been in cathedrals in Europe where the glow of uncountable candles is as central to the spirit of worship as the echoing strains of an organ, and the distant voices of a choir.

… complementing, of course the sharing of the Word, the message of a sermon, the presence of the Lord. No candles or choirs or architecture can substitute, only complement. But, oh, they do!

I increasingly yearn for quiet, reverent, may I say “glowing,” worship these days. I have been blessed by exuberance, unallayed joy, excited praise… but no less by seeking – and finding – the Lord in those quiet places.

There are some religious traditions that use candles in worship. Older faiths turn them into formal elements of service and even offerings. There are newer faiths that almost make fetishes of candles, creating “mystery” environments that are parts of multi-media experiences with video screens, smoke machines, and such. In both cases, worshipers ought be careful not to let candles or any other human-manufactured props substitute for the actual presence of the Holy Spirit; or the real, not symbolic, “mystical presence” of Jesus.

But let us return here to appreciate candles in all their variety and what they bring to our lives. What they can add! Yes, their moods and aromas and beauty; but what they represent too. For instance, it is not necessarily New-Agey to see tens of thousands of candles at a rally, or during a concert’s closing song, or during a patriotic moment, waving in unison. A single candle, placed in honor by a casket or during a memorial event, can be profound. Candles at home, or in a hospital room by a picture of a departed loved one, touch our hearts.

Moreover – you knew this was coming – we easily can see spiritual messages. Jesus told us, recorded in John 8:12, I am the Light of the world, and surely He is. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness.

You must know the verse too: Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:15,16).

I have always been impressed by this graphic truth: If you were in the blackest of black places, say the darkest night, no moon or stars – “pitch black” – you know that if a single candle, a dime-store candle, were lit, miles away, you would see it flickering, piercing the blackness.

But if you were in a place of blinding light – let’s say a parched desert under a midday sun – and you held up something dark, let’s say an open box on its side, you could not see its dark interior more than a few dozen feet away.

This little light of mine…

Remember that song? Yes, about candles… about light… and what we do with them. In the same way, about the flames of candles, another lesson:

As the wax melts away, candles might go out, but that is a function of the wax, not the flame itself. You can light candle after candle after new candle, “passing along” the flame of that first candle… and those acts do not shorten the life of that flame… nor dim the candle’s glow.

Be candles. Be light. Be the flames. Share your flames. Glow until others are lit too, and warmed. Be fragrant! Light the way for others. Pierce the darkness.

The Holy Spirit would have us do something more than just be lit, so to speak; or to shine only where we are. Step out of your candle-holder, climb down from your candelabra. Walk – no; run – into the darkness.

This world is a dark place, and growing blacker, darker, all the time. People are stumbling, lost; sometimes they simply cannot see. Light their way!

Carry your candle, run to the darkness

Seek out the hopeless, deceived and poor.

Hold out your candle for all to see it,

Take your candle, and go light your world!

+ + +

Click: Go Light Your World

Easter 2023, 4-10-23 message

There are many ways to think about Easter – including, I earnestly mean, ways for us to contemplate and meditate upon its significance.

Beyond its secular trappings and pagan associations, the eggs and candy and (once upon a time) Easter parades, and hunting for eggs. The bunnies. The “traditional” Easter menus.

Even, at our churches, the end of Lent with, for some Christians, its ashes and sacrifices, palms on Sunday and Good Friday observances. Even sunrise services and special hymns. Beyond all that…

I once had a Christian friend who was a faithful, lifelong churchgoer. An orthodox (but not Orthodox) Protestant. But to the extent he had a personal theology, he had some gripes with God. For instance, he always wondered how God could be a “God of love” who required that Abraham kill his boy Isaac as a sacrifice. Do you know the story? Neither did Abraham understand, but he obeyed. He took Isaac up on a mountainside and prepared to slay him. As we know, God intervened and told Abraham to let up.

The whole act seemed to my friend to be unbelievably cruel – from the strange command to the “tease” of calling off the bizarre command at the last minute. “God of Vengeance I understand,” my friend said about the “Old Testament” revelations of God; “Even a God of Judgment. But to torture a father in such a way, and to even present a scenario of preparing the boy to be killed… what kind of a God is that?”

Well, He is a God who evidently was not introduced to congragations over a lifetime of Sunday sermons. For between the lines of the Abraham-and-Isaac story is a God of love.

We can, perhaps, forgive my friend. Because despite the ancient Israelites always looking to the “coming Messiah” and receiving myriad signs and prophesies, very few of them understood the ways of the Lord. For that matter, even the Disciples who lived with Jesus for three and a half years, who witnessed miracles and listened to teachings, did not fully understand the message of the cross. Right down to the arrest and passion of Jesus; his crucifixion and death – even immediately upon His miraculous resurrection from the tomb – they did not fully understand what we are considering here: the meaning of Easter.

Jesus was God-Become-Man, the Incarnation. Not in order to live as much as to die.

His mission was only peripherally, however important, to teach and heal and bear witness to the Father. His mission was to be killed.

As the Christ he touched people’s lives as they happened to meet Him. But it was never meant to be that His life on earth would “draw all unto Me.” That was the purpose of His death, not His life – “If I be lifted up.”

The message of the cross and the meaning of Easter were in the sacrificial death of the spotless lamb, Jesus Christ. Unlike the sinless Jesus, all of humanity has sinned. And no one can stand sinless before a Holy God, “no, not one.” Rules, commandments, religious laws had not brought salvation to humankind. How many times a year (or a week, or a day) do you commit any sort of sin?

Jesus became that sin offering; His death is substitutionary. “Believe in Me,” Jesus told us, “and ye shall never die.” That is – life eternal, forgiveness of those sins, acceptance by God. We only have to believe it in our hearts, and confess it with our mouths.

After Jesus died for the punishment we deserve, He rose from the dead to show that, indeed, sin and death have been defeated on our behalf. Then He, 40 days later, ascended bodily into Heaven, to finally confirm His divinity. Then the Holy Spirit came to believers – as it does today – on the day of Pentecost, to be God-within-us.

It sounds simple. Maybe even crazy, but no crazier than Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son. It was picture, a foretelling, a prophesy, of the Lord God’s willingness to sacrifice His own Son. Indeed, it stood as His promise to do so.

“Life” was, perhaps, viewed a little differently in Old Testament days; infant mortality was common. And in today’s world (ironically, especially in “Christian” countries) life seems cheaper all the time, as our culture of death normalizes abortion and euthanasia, trafficking and abuse. Yet the slaying of one’s child, directly, or planning it, as God ordered the Passion of the Christ… is a different matter.

If God the Father ever wept, it was then.

And the meaning of Easter is not only Jesus’s death, but all He endured – for us. The unjust arrest, the false accusations, the mocking, the whipping, the physical abuse, the crown of thorns, the carrying of the rough cross through streets, the spikes through wrists and feet, hanging, bleeding, suffocating. And, in my imagination, the most painful aspect might have been the Savior’s realization of betrayal by His closest friends and followers.

“What kind of God,” as my friend might have asked, “would write such a script?”

The answer is the Easter message: A God who loves us to such an extent.

That Easter message, ultimately, is a love story. Nothing more; and surely nothing less. The hymns we sing are love songs back to God. The unified story of the entire Bible, its centrality the hours between the cross and the empty tomb, was God’s plan for His incarnate Son. And for us.

But it’s not over. Jesus does not “merely” live today. There is a lesson of a little boy playing Jesus in a Sunday School Easter pageant, in his bedroom robe, jumping from the cardboard tomb and yelling “Here I come, ready or not!!!”

In fact, that is close to what Jesus says. It’s our turn now. “What kind of God” has been answered. Now the question is – What kind of people will respond?

+ + +

Click: Were You There?

4-3-23

This time of year we focus once again on Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Good Friday, Easter, the Resurrection, the Ascension. In fact we should meditate on these events – and the truths behind them – more often than once a year. What was a miracle on the morning called Easter is a miracle to cherish in summer, fall, and winter too, and every day of our lives.

In the same manner also I have learned to look “beyond the familiar,” regarding the events of this season, and all events recorded in the Bible, all passages that speak to us. To know contexts is to enrich the truths.

For instance, the story of Blind Man Bartimaeus has always been compelling to me. The setting is just before Holy Week as we call it; just before Jesus entered Jerusalem. We know from the Palm Sunday story that His reputation preceded Jesus. Multitudes of people thronged about Him – happy mobs, really. They knew of His miracles, heard about His teaching; shared in the popular adulation. We read of His entrance to Jerusalem, the crowds, the palms laid in His path, the Hosannas. (We know too how the mob turned, as mobs often do; that is for another time.)

On His way to Jerusalem Jesus passed through the city of Jericho. We know a little bit about Jericho – a city of sin and resistance where “Joshua fought the battle” and destroyed the walls; where, also and perhaps significantly, Jesus named it in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Three Gospels describe the “celebrity tour” (if we can picture it in today’s mode) of Jesus, His entourage of Disciples, and the cheering crowds, as they headed for Jerusalem.

In the midst of this hubbub, a lonely street beggar, blind and poor, became aware that Jesus approached; the Miracle-Maker from Galilee. Here I have always wanted to “go beyond.” There is so much to “unpack” in this seemingly simple story of one more of Jesus’s miracles.

Join me in the various examples of symbolism. “The rest of the story” as Bartimaeus was made to see, his eyes healed.

We can meditate on the significance: Physical blindness being a “type” of spiritual blindness. Even the Disciples, knowing Scripture and prophesies and hearing Jesus’ own references to His imminent fate, were themselves blind to the reality of what was about to happen… and its spiritual importance. Yes, we all need our eyes opened.

We can realize that what Jesus heard was not the poor beggar’s cries, but what Bartimaeus called out: not Jesus’s name, but His title: Son of David. This was (and not from the mouth of a temple scholar) the Scriptural identification of the coming Messiah. This was not Ancestry.com trivia, but an acknowledgment that this Jesus, passing by, was indeed the Son of God incarnate. Yes, we all need to acknowledge the Savior.

In some translations, the cry of Bartimaeus is “Have pity on me!” but in the original Greek it reads, “Have mercy on me!” (Thus Kyrie Eleison, “Have mercy on us,” in traditional liturgies.) Of course, both pleas are appropriate. The cry for mercy, however, speaks as much to the longing of his soul – for forgiveness – as for pity, concern for his physical state. Yes, we all have serious spiritual needs, no matter the condition of our health or comfort in life.

To me, an important lesson has been the nature of the Disciples’ efforts, as we read, to make Bartimaeus shut up. I can almost imagine them saying, “Who are YOU? This is the Master wanting to move on! (Implying, ‘WE are important too!’) Stop yelling out! We are trying to keep this parade organized…” But Jesus had other priorities, and other ideas about order and dignity. Yes, we all need to respond to Jesus Christ as He would have us do… not as people around us – or even people around Him – do!

In contemporary context, I will recall my own experiences. Growing up in churches where prayers – even “Hallelujahs” and “Hosannas” – were sleepily mumbled by writ, with no hints or feelings of joy. Many churches discourage “amens” and raised hands from the congregation when Good News is shared. At the seeming other extreme, some churches order joy and dancing, but likewise discourage weeping in conviction, or expressing needs for forgiveness

“Shut up, blind man! We’re having CHURCH here!”

Thank God, Jesus heard Blind Man Bartimaeus. And He stopped. And He healed. May we all call out to Jesus, laugh with Jesus, cry unto Jesus. Praise Him in whatever circumstance, and wherever you are. He is always ready to call out to us, laugh with us, and cry with us.

Jesus will even stop parades to be there for us.

+ + +

That was a meditation on what happened just before Palm Sunday and Holy Week. Here is a song about what might have happened just before Easter itself:

Click: The Night Before Easter

11-28-22

I was with friends for Thanksgiving, and one of the activities after the dinner was the teens getting their violins, violas, and cellos out, to play some Classical music and hymn tunes. Musical scores for choruses from Handel’s Messiah were passed out – one of the area churches will be performing it at Christmastime – and singing that supernal music.

Hmmm, I thought; not typical American teens, nor typical playlists of youth today. Another box checked in my mind: maybe there is hope for America.

But a thought came to my mind about that great oratorio Messiah, which I know quite well. I am like many people who know it and love it: we tend to play it, and hear it in malls, or on radio stations, or at church concerts… around Christmastime.

Yet Georg Friedrich Händel composed it (and Charles Jennens wrote the lyrics, incorporating Scripture) about the entire life of Christ. (In 45 days, be the way. A miracle on its own!) Not just His birth, but the prophesies. It closes not only with His death on the cross, nor the Resurrection, nor the Ascension, but promises of believers’ salvation, and the Millennium. The entire life of Christ; the entire scope, and point, of the Bible.

All of which would make it appropriate to listen to Messiah at Easter, too, or in August. In fact I sometimes think in these messages of posting some Christmas carols in Springtime or around the Fourth of July. Why not? Easter hymns around New Years!

My point is that the story – the Truth – of Jesus’s Incarnation is vital for us to think about every day of the year, not what Hallmark says. Even more, the Message of the Cross, and the power of the Resurrection, is essential to our faith, and should be in our thoughts every day.

This mode of thinking is really a plea for us as Christians, and also as citizens, to stop compartmentalizing everything in our lives!

Christianity is more than holidays!

Citizenship is more than elections!

Parenting is more than rules!

Education is more than quizzes!

Charity is more than tax deductions!

A profession is more than a job!

Marriage is more than a handshake!

Love is more than sex!

Life is…

Well, here, more than any other word in or out of the Bible, love has meanings, and nuances, and definitions, and suggestions, and poetic allusions, even more cynical aspects, than almost any other word. I cherish Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s reflection:

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

To me, the point that suggests itself here is that we ought to appreciate everything we can in their larger contexts and fuller implications:

Remember that Jesus’s suffering, death, and Resurrection were not merely His duties, or His assignments… but so we don’t have to bear the penalty for our sins.

Martyrs of the Faith died not only for their beliefs… but so that we don’t have to suffer persecution as they did.

In an American context, those who have gone before – patriots and soldiers – sacrificed their “lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor”… for us. People they never would meet, to live as we do today..

… to live as we do today? Is America worthy, today, of those sacrifices? What would those patriots and military servicemen think of the America they died for? Corruption, crime, abuse, drugs, deviance, consumerism, selfishness, hate, abortion…?

America… is more than that.

Martyrs of the church suffered persecution, torture, and death, so that the post-Modern church can distort Scripture to please sinners, instead of converting souls to salvation?

Christianity… is more than that.

Jesus died on the cross so that humankind can be saved. He offers salvation, yet we can reject it, and millions, sadly, do. The Message of the Cross, and His Resurrection and Ascension, are not squares on calendar pages. Except when they prompt us to meditate upon these things.

Jesus… IS that living sacrifice.

So please do not be “glad that Thanksgiving (or Christmas, or Easter) is over for another year.” They are “evergreen” – relevant every day, every moment of our lives.

Timing is everything.

+ + +

Click Video Clip: He Took Your Place

9-26-22

God forbid, to coin a phrase, but sometimes I take for granted the love of God, the power of the Gospel, the New Life offered by Jesus. I don’t lose faith, although my faith loses its savor and blessings are forfeited, but I allow the “newness” of salvation to become “old.”

Have you ever been there? “The joy of the Lord is my strength”… and we become weaker when we lose that joy.

Knowing this is error, there are a couple things I turn to after scolding myself and beseeching the Holy Spirit to get me back on track. I will share one of these tools with you.

I fix upon a familiar (“too” familiar?) passage of Scripture and change the pronouns. No, this is not a grammar lecture. When holy lessons are given to us, they should not be seen as stories about Job or David or Peter… but Words spoken for us, about us, and to us, also.

Some of your Bibles will have certain words of Jesus, in the middle of a sentence, in italics. Have you ever wondered why? In some of those cases, the translators wanted to emphasize that the events were centuries ago, but Jesus speaks in the present tense to us today, whenever and wherever we are.

So in that way I feel secure that I am not violating Scripture or God’s intentions… and I read things in a new light, receiving fresh inspiration.

Here is an example. Many of us have memorized the comforting 23^rd Psalm. We hear it often, not always in worship situations. It is intoned at funerals and memorial services. But when I am alone on occasion, I marvel how the most personal set of loving promises of God can open my heart to a greater awareness of His loving comfort, when I change the object of the loving assurances… and see it in a new light.

It is almost like, instead of hearing David’s confessional prayer, I become aware of God’s focus on me, His promises, and my proper response. See if it might speak to you that way:

The Lord is your shepherd; you shall not want.

He makes you to lie down in green pastures: he leads you beside the still waters.

He restores your soul: he leads you in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

Yea, though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you will fear no evil: for God is with you. His rod and His staff will comfort you.

He prepares a table before you in the presence of your enemies. He anoints your head with oil; your cup runs over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life: and you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

And I rejoice in the promise of “surely” as the Lord opens the eyes of my heart.

+ + +

Years ago when I was Director of Product Development at Youth Specialties, I proposed a book and video package, and training tracks, for instructional ways to approach the conducting of music worship; I approached some of the talent at our youth worker conferences, including Paul Baloche. The powers that be, or were, after Mike Yaconelli’s passing, nixed the idea, referring to Paul among others as being too old.

Well, Paul Baloche, neither then nor now, was too old. His song “Open the Eyes of My Heart” will always be a fresh call unto God… as fresh as the psalms of David himself, the Sweet Singer of Israel.

Click Video Clip: Open The Eyes Of My Heart | Paul Baloche

3-28-22

In these busy days, crowded about as we are with wars and rumors of wars, turmoil seemingly on all sides – the economy; trans-national health crises (or not); political and social recriminations; crime; challenges to traditional values that threaten to turn our world upside-down – a news item this week barely peeped amid the din. What it represents is in inverse proportion to its significance.

The poll revealed that for the first time, a minority of the population of the Netherlands claims adherence to a religious faith; membership in a church; belief in God. The majority claims to be atheist or agnostic.

To my suspicious point of view, this perhaps is the “first time” in the history of polling, but not in the history of our contemporary Western Civilization (what used to be called Christendom). We long have been living in a post-Christian society. I do not need to begin rants, no matter how valid, about “God being taken from our schools” or the Establishment’s war on Christian values, or the growing categorization of the Bible as “hate speech.”

I think what has been polled in Holland – the site of such fervent theological studies and activities in generations past, where English Pilgrims lived before sailing to the New World – is true throughout America and Europe these days.

The “Christian West” no longer holds Biblical truths as a priori components of society, government, law, justice, and relationships. This devolution seems to have happened during our lifetimes, but secularism, virtually a religion in itself, is a symptom, not the cause, of liberal theology, of pluralism, of modernity. The Enlightenment was not the first crack in our spiritual foundation, but actually the last gasp of the Theocentric view of life. Despite what many schools teach, the great Enlightenment thinkers were Christians who sought to reconcile, not separate (or “liberate”), the role of God in the world.

God’s place in the world has never changed, and cannot change. The role He plays can change, because it is what humankind practices and grants Him. When Nietzsche said that God Is Dead, he meant in the sense that society failed to acknowledge Him any more.

I frequently remind myself that Martin Luther, back when the Renaissance was evolving into Modernism, maintained that “Reason is the enemy of Faith.”

That is hard to accept. But it is impossible to refute. The intellectual anarchy from which we suffer is the result of 500 years of futility: the culture’s vain attempt, whether benign or hostile, to reconcile Reason and Faith. “Yes, but…” many people will be quick to say. But we must recognize that “progress,” as we routinely identify it, is difficult to define,. And it is a false god in any case.

Some truths need not be improved upon, because that reveals that… they are not truth at all. “Truth” – Biblical truth, Absolute Truth – is not conditional, relational, nor of any other qualification. The deadly temptation of humankind, and a sin of organized societies, is to think that we can without peril discard Biblical standards. Frankly, this started in the Garden: our problem is the sin of pride – our belief that we know better than God.

I write these words during the Lenten season. And part of my Lenten devotion brings these thoughts to my heart, more than usual.

Lent has become, to many Christians who even think about it, a vaguely religious version of New Year resolutions. At best, to some people, a way to remind us of Christ’s sacrifice. In fact that is not why Lent entered the Church calendar. I confess that this will seem glib, but it suggests that Jesus Himself, our model, might have avoided the cross by giving up chocolate for 40 days.

No, if Lent has real meaning and efficacy, it was commended to followers of Christ as a discipline in order to repent of sin. “Successful” denials of habits or entertainment can be, rather, celebrations of self. Even fasting can be self-centered, when we should seek to know God more than please God. Lent was meant to be a time to find Him anew, not hope that He will notice our obedience.

I am not disparaging motivations, but I do want us to focus properly. My own experiences includes a week once spent at a monastery. All comforts (like phones) were banished; silence was mandated; and I lived among monks. On the grounds were Stations of the Cross, and – as I hoped would be the case – I could do nothing day and night but pray, read, and meditate.

At the end of a week that was planned to draw me closer to God, I felt like I knew less about Him. However, I felt closer to Him than I ever had. A mystery, really — but with God many mysteries are to be cherished. The difference, perhaps – an important distinction – was that He seemed to draw closer to me, rather than vice versa. That is how I felt; the solitude and study allowed that.

Lent ought to be (and, God help us, not only confined to the Lenten season!) something like that experience. I am trying this year to meditate, contemplate, read the Word, and pray… and I realize more than ever how contemporary life robs us of quiet time and the ability to consecrate moments. “Yes, but…”

The Lord will manage, as He always has, with wars and rumors of wars, and all the challenges in the headlines. As if we can change, in major ways, the course of human events.

Christ came to earth – and Easter, which lies before us – not so we can save the planet, but so God can save us.

+ + +

These essays offer to “put songs in our hearts” to start the weeks. But not all songs are pretty tunes, much as such anointed music can bless us. During Lent, in the spirit not of duty but of humility, repentance, contemplation, spiritual sorrow, intimacy with God, re-dedication, and obedience, there are other forms of Christian music.

If there be a “song for our hearts” during Lent, we might adopt “Lachrimae,” a lute song pavane written by John Dowland around 1600. Its melancholy tune was set to words of a forlorn theme titled Flow, My Tears.

Click: Lachrimae: Flow, My Tears

3-21-22

We can think about Easter all year, and we should. But the Lenten season invites us, makes us ready. The Truth of Jesus’s incarnation… His teachings… His miracles and healings… His willingness – or determination – to be sacrificed for the sin-penalties we deserve… His arrest, imprisonment, and torture… His betrayal… His suffering and crucifixion… His death… His Resurrection… His Ascension: there are things that should be true to us on any and every day of the year.

I mean, Easter is not just for Easter; Christmas is not just for Christmas. The importance and relevance of every moment of Jesus’s life, and the Gospel, should burn to us and through us, every moment of our own lives.

So if we contemplate the details of Holy Week and Easter during Lent, it is a good thing. We can do the same thing around, say, May Day or Hallowe’en too; but here we are. I often find myself imagining what it would have been like to be one of the Disciples. The streaming series The Chosen – the fellowship of Jesus and His followers – is doing a good job of that.

It has always amused me when skeptics and agnostics say that they would find it easier to believe in Christ if only they could see Him; have some tangible proof that He lived and was the Son of God. Why am I amused? Because the Disciples themselves – never mind the multitudes who were taught, fed, and healed – lived every day with Christ. They saw Him walk on water, feed multitudes, heal the sick, raise people from the dead; more things than books could hold. For three and a half years! Day after day, week after week!

… and yet when Jesus was in jeopardy – as He even foretold, just days before – these Disciples fled. They scattered like dry leaves on a windy street. And we think that we would act differently?

I have further guessed that compared to the beatings, torture, whipping, thorns pressed down on His head and nails hammered through his wrists and feet… that the worst suffering felt by our Savior was the betrayal of His friends, their abandonment of Him.

We fool ourselves – and dare to fool God – if we believe that we would have been any different than the Disciples in those days before the Crucifixion.

“Different” is the operative word. Let us understand that Jesus chose the Disciples because they were not different. They had different talents and backgrounds, yes; but they were ordinary people – no celebrities, no dignitaries – and they were no different than you and me. So we can identify. We can learn from their experiences, admirable and cowardly and… human.

A great lesson, drawn from the actions of the Disciples that week, is presented by the different choices of two of them, Judas and Peter.

Judas, from the little we know, was sort of the treasurer of the little group, at least handling affairs as Matthew also did. As is well known, Judas betrayed Jesus by accepting a bribe from Roman authorities to reveal Christ’s whereabouts, and further to identify Him by embracing Him, on cue, before centurions. Jesus was then arrested and thus began His “trial” and execution.

He betrayed Jesus.

Soon remorseful, he scattered those 30 gold pieces and hanged himself.

Peter, during those same hours of turbulence, was asked by authorities if he were associated with the Man who called Himself the Christ. Three times Peter denied even knowing this Jesus. When he heard a rooster, he was thunderstruck and remembered that Jesus recently had predicted, “Before the cock crows three times, you will deny Me.”

He denied Jesus. He knew Him… but denied knowing Him. Was it much different than betrayal? I don’t think so.

Peter, to me the most impulsive, sometimes random, and always most human of the Disciples, was remorseful too. But he did not hang himself. It is not recorded that he was at the cross – Jesus’s mother, Mary, remained faithful – but we know that he huddled in fear after Jesus died, with the remaining Disciples. He endured, avoiding the self-abnegation of Judas and the skepticism of Thomas… and he met the Resurrected Christ.

From the accounts, he was the “same” Peter while Jesus showed Himself and ministered and preached and healed for those 40 days after the Resurrection, and before Ascending to Heaven. And he seems to have been the same Peter, huddling in confusion in the Upper Room where Jesus had told them to wait.

Wait for what?

The Holy Spirit is recorded to have come upon them, and others, “as a mighty rushing wind.” After that, people were transformed. They spoke in “strange tongues,” the languages of angels and of foreigners. They were imbued with knowledge and power… and wisdom.

After that experience Peter became a mature leader. He might have remained impulsive, but now it was to establish the Church and plant communities of believers. On that day, the Feast of Pentecost, the Church was born, and lives yet today.

Judas had betrayed more than Jesus; he betrayed the hope of Salvation and Forgiveness that easily could have been his. Peter denied knowing Jesus, but he exercised that glimmer of hope that redemption was drawing nigh.

Are you a Judas, or a Peter? I don’t mean betraying or denying Jesus… because when we sin, as we all do, we betray Him and deny Him.

It is our choice, however, how to react; to be remorseful and turn inward like Judas, or to wait upon Jesus and His promises, His Resurrected power, to come to us. To embrace the hope of Christ’s forgiveness.

Easter is about that hope.

+ + +

Click: Whispering Hope

1-3-2022

I have imagined that if God composed an employment search, it might read “Wanted: Nobody.”

Wait… what a way to start the new year. An ambiguous phrase. God doesn’t want Nobody (what another way to start the new year — ambiguous grammar). Properly stated, of course, God wants everybody.

He created us all, so it is obvious that He wants us all… to be saved, to commune with Him, to find joy, to experience salvation, to be free from the bondage of sin. Why else create us? He grants us free will… but we nevertheless rebel… and yet He offers us a way to redemption.

He loves us. So much that He allowed His incarnate Son to assume our sins unto Himself and pay the penalties we deserve.

Well, that is the Gospel message. It is His desire that not one should perish; “no, not one.” That the Creator of the Universe should care about you and me is astonishing. Yet astonishingly true. A New Year’s resolution for all of us (any year!) might be to contemplate, meditate, and appreciate that humbling but joyful truth.

So in His own way, thank God (um, literally) He doesn’t need Nobody — He is God, so can do as He pleases. (In fact, most of the people in Bible accounts are “nobodies,” not the powerful or celebrities, whom He chose to do His work. That can be another message.)

But He tells us that as much as we need Him in our lives… He needs us. He needs us. He needs us! Astonishing. Why else would He have created the heavens and the earth — and us? To watch us suffer and die? To cry and wander helpless? To curse each other and curse Him?

He desired instead to commune with us — to fellowship, in prayer and by service. To be an ever-present help in times of trouble. To receive the praise and glory that is due Him, and which will be our fondest desire for eternity. (I can’t wait to join THAT party!)

Yes. Shame on me. What I really mean is that, in God’s job search (so to speak) He wants EVERYBODY. Nobody is too lowly or too high. Nobody has messed up so much as to be out of God’s loving reach. Nobody is too dirty who cannot be cleansed and given a robe of pure white.

And, astonishingly, nobody is beyond Jesus’s sacrifice that serves to wash away all of our sins in God’s eyes. Best of all — you don’t need to take a bath in order to be washed by the shower of Christ’s work on the Cross.

Salvation is a come-as-you-are party!

Well, the proper wording for God’s “employment” search would be, and has been throughout history, Wanted: Everybody.

That is not ambiguous. And that is a way to begin the year, and every year.

+ + +

Click: You Needed Me

12-20-21

We know that the ways of God are mysterious. He works in mysterious ways, we tell each other, but His story, history, also overflows with blessings that surprise people, challenges that somehow bless people, and surprises that challenge humankind – always, mysteriously, drawing us closer to Him.

That He would “empty” Himself and “become flesh” and dwell amongst us is the greatest of mysteries. It was foreordained – prophesied in diverse ways by numerous people through the ages until the Incarnation itself. In Isaiah Chapter 53 Jesus was predicted and described; His place and manner of birth was foretold; His ministry was reported beforehand, as was His eventual suffering and death; the meaning of His life on earth was told, and His resurrection explained.

Yet Immanuel, God-Becomes-Man, is a mystery to us.

Humankind could have confronted its sinful rebellion by obeying laws, but didn’t.

God might have sent a Ruler in a burst of terror to confront the wicked, but didn’t.

Humankind might have understood a Holy warrior, a righteous reformer, a rebel with a cause. But God chose to come as a… baby.

Mysteries. It is useless to confront God for reasons and answers. And more useless to want to question His love.

Let us step back for a moment. Christmas cards and carols and gift wrap and pretty ornaments make us forget some of the truths of Christmas. Shepherds: why shepherds as the first to behold the Savior? A manger: rough straw with livestock spittle? Mysterious scenarios, yet God’s choice of arrangements.

Did the world welcome the Savior? – Of course not. Humankind’s inclination to sin was the reason God acted through the Incarnation. Our hearts are dark; such is humankind’s reaction to free will.

Was the “first Christmas” a time of rejoicing? – Hardly. The innkeepers turned Mary and Joseph away (I am tempted to think it really was because she was a pregnant virgin…). The Roman authorities, knowing Scriptural prophecy too, ordered babies younger than two to be slaughtered in the land. Mary and Joseph and Jesus fled to Egypt to escape a deadly and hostile situation.

And the birth of Jesus: was Mary full of joy? – Not completely, of course. As a mother she was blessed, yet she knew the sorrows, rejections, suffering, and death that lay ahead for her Baby.

Mysteries. These things had to be. Let us remember such truths.

Yes, we want to celebrate a Holy Birthday Party. Yet the seeds of a funeral were sown at His birth – in fact from the earliest events in the Garden. Jesus did not come to us to teach and do good deeds, tra la, before things went wrong for Him, despite His loving ways.

Jesus came to earth to die.

His ministry was to teach; His blessings included healing; He acted to fulfill prophecies; yes. But He came to die. As “fully man and fully God,” He would struggle with betrayals and pain and death – mysteries again, how God “emptied Himself” – yet He knew that is why He was born in human form.

Kids and trees and presents and smiles aside (and I am not saying to be forsaken), we should remember the Easter message, too, at Christmastime. I believe the baby Jesus did. When He first opened His eyes, I believe He looked into the face of His loving mother, and shepherds, and angels, and, yes, some lowly animals.

And I believe He also looked up from His mother’s arms and somehow – mysteriously – saw the cross too. And the (empty) tomb.

Let us rejoice for all these sweet mysteries of our loving God.

+ + +

Click: What Child Is This

12-13-21

Certain holiday songs are appropriate on certain holidays, naturally; and others seem inappropriate at any other times of the year. “I’m Dreaming Of a White Christmas” might soon be labeled as Politically Incorrect, but in the meantime would be out of tune, so to speak, if sung in the middle of August. But… we always can dream.

Similarly odd, or anomalous, is the incidence of songs that are relevant at any time of the year but are relegated to one season only. Shoved into the storage closet, as it were. Handel’s The Messiah is an oratorio about the entire life of Jesus, from prophesies 700 years previous to His birth (in Isaiah) to His Incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and Ascension. Its performance is appropriate at any, and all, times during the year. But it is consigned to the Christmas season, and seldom heard otherwise, even in parts.

And some holiday music, church hymnody, shifts outside its logical boxes.

One of the most significant musical pieces (and indeed, sermon topic or cited prayer) is what has come to be called, from its Latin name, the Magnificat. It is the very simple, very brief prayer offered by Mary concerning one of the most profound events in the history of humankind: the Incarnation. God became man to dwell among us.

The angel Gabriel visited Mary and told her she was chosen to to bear the Savior, who would be conceived as a miracle by the Holy Spirit. Overwhelmed, humbled, and full of Grace, she knew the prophesy that a virgin would conceive, and… her prayer was a reaction that the Messiah would be her son.

Her cousin Elizabeth, herself pregnant with the future John the Baptist, visited her. As recorded in the first chapter of Luke:

When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, [her] babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit… “As soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.”

And Mary said:

“My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, And holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him From generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.
He has helped His servant Israel, In remembrance of His mercy,
As He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham and to his seed forever.”

Many thoughts and blessings and lessons can be inspired by that simple but profound prayer. Imagine her thoughts… her humility… her responsibility… her coming sorrow (for she knew the whole of prophecy, from Scripture)… the favor of God Almighty.

One aspect we might note is how the unborn child in Elizabeth’s womb leaped for joy at the mention of the coming Messiah. A lesson, surely, to those who deny the humanity of the unborn.

I mentioned the “shifting” days of observance in church and holiday music; surely Mary had nine months until the birth of Jesus; yet Advent, properly named for what is profitable to contemplate, is an appropriate time to think about the Magnificat – how Mary confessed that her soul “magnified” the Lord.

Just as deceptively simple but utterly profound – in a musical context – is the Magnificat by Johann Sebastian Bach. If you are not familiar with it, and if you have ever listened to Handel’s The Messiah, I really urge you to open the video performance linked below. Very much shorter than Handel’s oratorio – surely an “oasis” you can find amid holiday busyness – it is a miracle composed by the greatest of humankind’s music masters.

I devoted attention to its multiple aspects in my biography of Bach (who has been called “the Fifth Evangelist,” and, had he been Catholic, would have been declared a saint). And I spoke about this work at the magnificent 150-year-old St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Flint MI at their Bach Festival some years ago.

As a musical genius but also as a Bible scholar, Bach’s exegesis of Mary’s prayer, employing no other text, sometimes focuses on one word (e.g., “Magnificat”) or two; “Omnes Generationes” takes Mary’s awe-struck realization that “all generations” will call her blessed. Groups within the choir sing “all generations” over and over, high and low, over each other, in tender harmony… and one has the impression of the hosts of Heaven raining down praises.

Any mere description is unworthy: it must be heard. Bach composed it in 1723, shortly after his appointment to St Thomas Church in Leipzig. Our video features a performance in an old church, and on period instruments of Bach’s day.

May I suggest, in this Advent season, assisted by the supernal music of Johann Sebastian Bach, that we pause to contemplate the miracle – and God’s miracle plan – of this season. The Creator of the Universe emptied Himself to become human, to remind us that He knows our sorrows and joys and hurts and hopes; and that He offered this Son as a sacrifice against the price justly required for our rebellion and sins.

No, I don’t fully understand it either. But God is LOVE, after all.

And when I hear it, I leap for joy too.

+ + +

Click: Magnificat

12-6-21

How can a loving God permit school shootings? … or genocide? … or painful illnesses? … or abuse, human trafficking, family turmoil, betrayal, cruelty…?

We hear these questions all time. And, perhaps, we often have asked these questions ourselves. We are only human.

“We’re only human” is part of the answer. When we choose to sin, or so often (and euphemistically) make mistakes, we are part of the old, old story of allowing corruption, enabling error, and inviting sin into the world around us.

The comedian Norm MacDonald died recently. He succumbed to cancer after a 10-year battle during which he told nobody about it. His death was a surprise even to his closest friends. He was brilliant, and presented himself as a bundle of contradictions. He pretended to be unlettered, but was an intellectual and well-read. He acted impulsively, but was a student of his craft. And despite occasional coarseness, he was a Christian who frequently professed his faith.

He did say that he struggled with the question of a loving God “permitting” horrors in our lives… this vale (valley) of tears.

Believe me, there are things I do not understand… but I have come to realize that God asks us to obey, not understand. Translation: to have faith. There is sin (brokenness, disease, corruption, heartache, tears) in the world because, well, we sin. If we ask “why?” to some of these dilemmas, maybe we should pray in from of a mirror, and “understand” a better perspective. Because when we pray such prayers at times of disasters, we are – in effect – blaming God.

Time out.

Job, who endured much personally; that is, not as an observer, nevertheless declared “Though he slay me, I will put my trust in Him.” God, after all, is not only God at the end of the storm, but through the storm. Yet, though we walk through the valley (remembering Norm MacDonald’s question) of the shadow of death… God is with us. Can He deliver us… can He plunk us on a mountaintop trail instead?

But His promise to be with us is the best. God not only promises the best for us, He is the best. We must trust in His plan for our lives. The beautiful, talented quadriplegic Joni Eareckson Tada once said to me, “God permits what He hates, to accomplish what He loves.” Her life proved Him; my wife’s ordeal and ministry lived that; by grace, through faith, believers are saved.

Have we answered the question about a loving God and school shootings or genocide? My soul is satisfied, despite many, many things in life I don’t understand. As much as I might regret it, I never will understand.

When we lost our first child near full-term, I didn’t understand it, nor how God “allowed” it. In my stupid rebellion, I did not stop believing in Him, but I remember praying defiantly, “OK, I will obey You, God, from here on; but I cannot love You any more.”

By His mercy, I failed at both promises. The first because I am human, and He granted me free will, mercy, and forgiveness; and the second, because He is that persistent, mysterious, tenacious lover of my soul.

Maybe we instead should ask, How can a righteous God permit flawed sinners like me to gain forgiveness and salvation? Huh?

+ + +

Click: How Can I Keep From Singing?

11-29-21

This essay might change your life, or many things about your life – your priorities, decisions, preoccupations.

Or, of course, not: I do not pretend that any thoughts of mine would have that effect on anyone. I mean my thoughts alone. But I do eavesdrop on God, so to speak, and take note, and notes, on what He said in His Word.

Have you thought about what your last moments of life might be like, if you “pass away” quietly? Perhaps strange, but I never really have – and here I invite you to do the same, especially if you never seriously have done so. It might, as I have suggested, cause you to make some life-adjustments.

I will suggest scenarios that might be easy to imagine.

Will an active, successful business owner think back on the deals he could have made; maybe one more sale or acquisition?

Will a sports enthusiast or athlete regret the one game or match that might have been won; that a little more practice might have meant another trophy?

Will a mom or dad think back in sadness over home remodeling that never was finished, landscaping plans unfulfilled, the car or vacation that didn’t happen?

Will a hobbyist regret the collectibles that never were bought? Will someone with “wanderlust” spend the last breath sad about never seeing Paris? Will a politician regret that one more law was not passed when there was a chance? Will the accountant or lawyer or doctor be bitter over not designing that new promotion that might have attracted new clients?

I think all these answers would be NO. And if any would be yes, please join me in feeling pity for lives that conclude with such regrets. And let us pray, further, that you and I die with no regrets of these kinds.

More probable, however – and this should sadden us all – is that many of us, in our last moments, might indeed have regrets of some sorts. But they would not be things of this world, because the list we just imagined would make little difference in the world, or, ultimately, those peoples’ lives.

What are the things many of us might regret in our last moments?

The extra times we could have told our children we loved them… or hugged our parents more often… or spent those additional times, or made phone calls, to parents and kids… or told someone we forgave them… or asked, sincerely, that someone forgive us… or materially assisted someone instead of “thinking good thoughts,” or letting the government take care of, well, everything… or helped a troubled teen or an abused mom… or withheld judgment when a hurting person needed an “ear”… or encouraged a child… or shared an experience of yours that might have brightened someone’s day… or actually prayed with someone instead of saying “I’ll pray for you”… or really asking God to bless someone instead of mouthing “God bless” in their direction…

God forbid if any of these regrets are things you would recall in your last moments.

Maybe people, maybe even family members or neighbors, are precisely those who populate lost opportunities. Strangers, too; you would not know… but God does.

He knows. And He has a plan for each of us that we can, and should, seek to know. He has a will for our lives. What we might realize at the “end” are things He knew all along – the things that are important, and things we should have known were not so important. As the song “Until Then” said – The things of earth will dim and lose their value; Just remember, they’re only borrowed for awhile.

Can we change our lives now? Should we, when we think about such things? Every day we face questions, as I opened above, about priorities, decisions, preoccupations. We deal with uncountable such questions all the time.

Is it time we have different answers?

+ + +

Click: Please Forgive Me

11-22-21

Many Bible passages provide blessings over and over – meanings that are fresh, have new relevance, no matter how many times we read them. After uncountable translations through the ages, the Word of God proves itself “inspired.” Literally, God-breathed.

As we are taught, it is alive and active, sharper then a sword… judging our thoughts and attitudes, but also encouraging us and uplifting. All things for all people, if we allow it to be.

My daughter once did an exegesis of Psalm 46:10, dividing and finding a separate meaning in each word or phrase, as well as the entire verse – Be. Be still. Be still and know. Be still and know that I Am. Be still and know that I am God.

This week, thinking ahead to Thanksgiving, I did a similar thing with the “Doxology,” the traditional musical prayer of the church, so named because it was Number 100 in an ancient hymnal. Meditate on it:

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him, above, ye Heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

My parsing of those words was a little different. I challenge you, too, to think what is the most significant word or phrase in the prayer. I will quickly say that there is no right or wrong answer, which is my point about God-inspired passages being multi-faceted.

What I dwelt upon was the word “all.” All blessings. God, from whom all blessings flow.

We need, I think (I need, all the time), to be reminded that God does not send only a certain percentage of the blessings we enjoy. Given our own tendencies, we think that some good news, windfalls, happy events, successes, are from our own cleverness… or someone else’s generosity… or good luck. Or dumb luck.

God forbid that we think that way.

All blessings are from Him. And as the Master of time, He knows what will flow (think upon that word too!), even before we pray. Or don’t pray. The Lord of the Harvest did not retire when most of His children didn’t need to physically plant and cultivate and gather, as in the Pilgrims’ day. We all still reap and sow, in every conceivable way.

All blessings… all creatures.

Thank God, too, that there are no “loopholes” or nuances in that truth. We are part of the Family of God.

And as His children, in this Year of our Lord, let us praise Him for His manifold blessings on our land… and remember to ask His forgiveness too for our many national sins. Could the Pilgrims, in that first formal gathering we envision, have looked into the future? Would they have given thanks for what America has become? Not our material harvests, for they are many; but our spiritual state? Do we offer praise to Him, as they solemnly did?

… Do we have that deep sense of Thanksgiving? Gratitude? Thankfulness?

And knowing Whom to thank?

+ + +

Click: Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow

11-15-21

Charles Dickens opened his book A Tale of Two Cities with the famous words, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” William Wordsworth assayed societies’ turmoils and wrote, in The Prelude, “Bliss was it, in that dawn, to be alive; but to be young was very heaven!” And the author of Ecclesiastes, probably Solomon, wrote “There is nothing new under the sun,” less philosophical than Dickens; and more fatalistic than Wordsworth.

We live in times now that are fraught with turmoil. From major power struggles around the world, “wars and rumors of wars” – to acrimony in Washington and even echoes of hatred and destruction in unlikely settings of school-board meetings and downtown neighborhoods.

Do we live today in such a zone of a dichotomy? – are these the “best of times”? Well, things are generally more prosperous than in the past; literacy has increased; medicines and procedures are saving lives. These things are mostly true in our country and around the world. We have sent humans to the moon and maybe, soon, to Mars.

Signs of progress are all around us.

But what word should we apply to other “signs of the times”? – unrest around the world; revanchist empires; slavery and human trafficking; genocide and abuse; religious and political repression; increased drug use; divorces, suicides, and homelessness; broken homes… REgress? Surely not progress.

Humankind needs a different yardstick, or a different dictionary – or a different value system – when science concocts ways to protect and prolong life… and develops means to end life before birth, and with the elderly, in advance of natural death. Governments seek life elsewhere in the universe, yet encourage the snuffing of lives in the womb. Or deny that a heartbeat in the baby is life.

And so forth. “Vanity, vanity; all is vanity,” Solomon continued in his indictment. “Meaningless.”

If we – humankind; not merely our immediate neighbors – ever are to redeem our species, what we call Civilization, it will require a revolution (or counter-revolution, actually) of our souls, our standards, our values. Values: what is valuable to us?

This week I was corresponding with friend Nicole LeBlanc, a gifted pianist, who issued challenges for people to list favorite works of Beethoven in several musical genres. Next came thoughts of the reasons for our affections; and then of the interpreters of his works. I have internalized such questions, the reason why I have several recordings each of all the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert. We respond to differences in instrumentation, tempi, dynamics, interpretation.

How can we listen to the musical miracle that was Bach, or be moved to tears by works of Mozart – who first composed at age five, and wrote supernal melodies as easily as other men perspire – and think that the world has progressed beyond them?

Such thoughts returned me, from a different route than beholding the spread of nihilism, to a consideration of “progress.”

Question: Which scenario leads to greater enjoyment, richer appreciation, more satisfaction to your soul and mind: hearing Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony (or insert any great work of art) only once in your life as often was the case in centuries past; or having access to DVDs and videos by the dozens, and listening to the music several times a year, for years and years? It is a challenging question, with implications.

In fact, in the question we can substitute any work of art, fine wine, or travel adventure. Does saturation equate with increased enjoyment, intellectual enrichment… progress?

I am a free-enterprise capitalist, and I endorse democracy (like Churchill, I suppose: democracy is the worst form of government unless you consider the rest. I suppose.) Yet since I recognize that human nature is corrupt, I regret civil architectonics such as capitalism and democracy that let humankind work its will. Eventually they must produce harm.

Potential great artists and composers spend their careers designing advertisements and writing commercial jingles to seduce our better judgments. Their works will remain in the culture about long as the fortunes they accumulate producing the ephemeral material. Ah! Some might say that daVinci and Michelangelo also spent their lives and their talents on commercials, too – advertisements for God, commissions for the church. Is it any different?

Yes, is the answer; yes.

We return to the question of standards and value-systems. It is worthwhile to devote your life to an ideal; a noble truth. It is the proper calling of humanity to praise God for the gifts He has given us… to return those gifts, in my view. We advance humankind by recognizing what is true, what is noble, what is right, what is pure, what is lovely, what is admirable. We should think about such things.

These things that are excellent and praiseworthy, and not selfish or short-sighted, these things will save the earth and benefit our fellow creatures. This is progress.

Finally, I return to “creativity.” In so many ways we are like the animals, but… we have the spark of creativity. And that is why it is a shame to waste it on the promotion of transitory things. We are to be “imitators of Christ,” Thomas à Kempis urged, writing of spiritual ways.

I wrote here recently that we actually cannot create anything, as God has created all, and this is a finite world: maybe we can only rearrange. Yet, in what we call creativity, we can in a way imitate God. A solemn privilege! We can imagine, we can dream, we can explain. We can take blank paper, white canvases, and rough chunks of stone… and bring forth works of art and beauty and understanding. We can not, and need not all be Beethovens. But we must, all of us, dream and “create.”

We too can touch souls, and change hearts. To appreciate other artists, and to translate God’s profound messages and love for others through our works – and not to cheapen our talents, throw them away, or use them for selfish and hurtful ends here in the 21st century – now, that would be progress.

+ + +

Surprise! You might be expecting a passage of Baroque music or a great poem. But I am going to share a country song, one that expertly captures the essence of creativity – from loneliness to sacrifice to devotion to resonance. We can all relate! The Christian songwriter sings of the iconic 16th Avenue in Nashville, home to studios, publishing offices, and dreams. The songwriters around him relate, too, by their expressions.

Click: 16th Avenue

10-11-21

One of the most familiar and quoted American poems of the Twentieth Century – after advertising jingles – is Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.”

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there / Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Frost’s poem, at least the first and last phrases, frequently are quoted. And it often is misidentified as “The Road Less Traveled,” which title lends an air of misty fatalism instead of melancholic speculation… or a dozen other meanings. Not that Frost intentionally invited more analysis than depicting an everyday happenstance common to humanity. But one scholar, Dr David Orr, wrote a whole book deconstructing the poem. At the other end of the spectrum (and not likely addressing Frost) Dr Yogi Berra stated his unique view: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

I have been thinking about Frost’s ubiquitous imagery and symbolism (for surely he intended to evoke larger contexts). In our contemporary world, especially in America, there is so much argumentation and accusations and anger that an observer might assume that neat and clear Divisions reign amongst us; that there are two camps continuously at loggerheads. Friends or enemies, black and white, right or wrong.

Yet society’s divisions are not bifurcations – not dealing with “two sides to every story.” In practice these days, many issues are rhetorical reticulations: multi-faceted, as discernible as little cracks in a windshield, as easy to trace as strands of cotton candy. To return to our analogy, roads in a yellow wood that are overgrown by tangled brambles and vines. Most “debates” I hear these days are subsumed by ferocious tangents.

I try to keep Christ’s example as my lodestar; not to be judgmental, but for discernment, or to learn new viewpoints, or perhaps have an opportunity to witness. Even, or especially, when non-spiritual questions arise. It’s not always easy. A friend this week asked my opinion about whether to attend the funeral of an estranged in-law. Two roads diverge? Ask Yogi Berra. Not all questions are right or wrong from a Christian perspective. We can try to apply that perspective, however.

More seriously, a dilemma was shared with me recently. A friend who is an airline pilot and opposed to the Vaccine is threatened with dismissal and all that would portend, if he does not submit. This is more than a question of conscience: it is a question of livelihood. Athletes on charter flights take off masks in the terminal, and on the field, as do tens of thousands of spectators. Their jobs are not threatened. Two roads diverge in a yellow wood.

His is not necessarily a Christian dilemma, although proponents of the two alternatives might make cases. America has gotten to the point where people argue about a thousand little things, then torture themselves over two clear choices. I have many friends, from congenital skeptics to my own doctor, who vehemently oppose the Vaccine. The System is forcing us to make excruciating choices despite ourselves. And we are threatened.

Some choices we make willingly or with insouciance, even on matters recently regarded as grave. Another friend whom I have admired, and assisted, on public issues we zealously pursued, just abandoned them because they “have not gained traction”… with hardly a test of traction. I cannot criticize those choices, when a hundred factors might be at play. People are choosing, in political matters, whether to compromise or resist. Increasingly, we come to roads diverging on our pathways that once seemed straight and clear.

It is not only COVID but dozens of issues. Local school board meetings have become battlegrounds, and our own government is calling concerned parents “terrorists.” The internet should be allowed to censor and spy? We are to be under suspicion for having more than $600 in bank accounts? Can we call politicians murderers when they want to allow babies to be killed? Oh, that’s hate speech… but all we’re doing is trying to love babies.

The Lord knows I do not condemn my friends with whose choices I disagree. I have made tough decisions, and probably am making some wrong decisions right now. That is one reason God instituted prayer; and a reason that we have friends, and cherish friendships. Let us be charitable and generous to each other in these awful times.

But for Christ’s sake, literally, let us think and pray when we come to moral forks in the road.

Do you remember that old saying about not understanding someone unless we can walk a mile in their shoes? We should imagine others’ choices, not only our own, when the roads of life diverge before us.

And maybe, more often than we are used to, we can walk down those roads together.

+ + +
Click: When I Get To The End Of The Way

10-4-21

Warning label; truth-in-packaging: I don’t have the definitive answer to this eternal question about God allowing evil in the world, but I believe I have come the closest I will ever come to being satisfied. It is, of course, a challenge that has confronted every person who ever has drawn breath.

We first must acknowledge that there is an aspect to the question Why does God allow evil in this world? that essentially is a word game. It is similar to the question Can God create a rock so heavy that even He cannot lift it? Those are questions framed, but also limited, by the constraints of logic. Logic is something we think is a tool that will explain all things. But ultimately it is a mere construct on a par with intuition, perceptions, deduction, traditions, and superstitions. Even Science frequently is disproven by Science; facts become fiction. The pertinent quickly can become impertinent.

Regarding questions that are as flimsy as a child’s curiosity about nature or as “profound” as a philosopher’s life-work of deductions – which, in their contexts, are questions of equal validity, substance, and weight – we must be humble. If we question Almighty God, or have questions about His sovereign ways, we can do no other than put on cloaks of humility.

A step toward clarity is to view the sweep of humankind’s history and recognize that life – Creation, the universe, the “in the beginning” – originally was innocent and perfect. And that life – the “New Creation,” the end of time, Heaven – will someday again be peaceful and perfect. Paradise lost and paradise regained. In between, it pleased God to created humankind, and it pleased Him to endow us with intelligence and free will.

You might have noticed that human nature, thus set free to follow its inclinations and choices, invariably has ruined the Plan. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. When everyone chooses rebellion, we can expect corruption in our world. Sin is a stain that spreads through individuals’ lives, and poisons the well of humanity in every aspect, every time, every place.

“Who is perfect?” and (after the Jesus-answer) people often think of Mother Teresa as a great example. St Paul called himself chief among sinners; as he wrote, “None is righteous, no, not one.” Martin Luther was overwhelmed by the consciousness of the sin nature. And Mother Teresa herself strongly disclaimed any special possession of righteousness as she would stand before God.

So between Creation and Heaven – when God left us in charge, so to speak – we humans messed things up, and still do. The devil only tempts, but does not force anyone to sin. And as God in His dispensation sent Jesus to be the means of redemption and salvation, the promises of humanity’s past and the promises of humanity’s future were manifest. And still, the world rejected Him.

To our original question, some answers include:

Jesus came to us, not to eliminate sin, but to free us from the bondage of sin and its punishment.

The Holy Spirit was given so that we might have the power to resist the devil and all his ways. (I wonder if “evil” is the root of “devil.” I mean in philology.)

Confronting the question directly – and allowing for the technicalities of language and limitations of our “logic” – it is not really the case that God allows evil. God allowed humans to make choices in life… and, by making choices to sin, WE “allow” evil. Again and again we allow it, exercise it, encourage it, perpetuate it.

How dare we blame God? He “allows” evil? He “permits” it? HE created it?

In further examples of impertinence against the Holy God, we invariably tend to judge Him by our puny standards (which is the sad aspect of human history, our pride being the subtext of the Bible’s entire story). By this arrogance we sin and expect no punishment. We permit evil and then blame God.

For misery and death, for disasters and sickness, there are indeed mysteries under a sovereign God… and the consequences of the corruption we ourselves have unleashed on the world. That God is Lord of all does not mean that He is the Master Puppeteer; He lovingly created human children, not robots.

For those of you who are mathematically inclined, think of how many times each day you might sin (“minor” or serious) or permit evil (allowing misconduct or tolerating injustice). It’s not hard to do – Mother Teresa herself calculated such things in her life. Then multiply that number by seven days; then by the weeks in a month; then by the months in a year; then by the years in your life. Those are a lot of sins; that’s a lot of evil.

How quickly will people then continue to maintain that God allows evil?

Not to avoid an answer to our question, but to draw closer to an answer, we should revisit what I mentioned about judging God by our self-righteous and self-delusional standards. We love free will until we need to shift the blame for the sins we commit and the evils we cause.

Let us not ask how God can allow evil in this world… but how we can allow it.

How and why do we allow evil? How and why do we permit the evils of sin, hatred, injustice, abuse, intolerance, unforgiveness? Throughout history a rebellious human race has blamed God, and not ourselves, for these things.

Why does God “allow” suffering in life? Let us think more, and more often and more seriously, how in the world we allow suffering in this life.

God Himself awaits our answers to this question.

+ + +
Click: Nearer, My God, to Thee

8-2-21

I was talking with a friend this week about canals and rivers and cruises; memories and bucket-list kinds of things; and how different our country would have been if canals had asserted their utility and prominence in the face of railroad and highways. (Cleaner, quieter, more picturesque landscapes, at least…)

I have been blessed to have traveled on the legendary Orient Express train; and to have enjoyed cruises through Europe, those that connect great cities and pass breathtaking scenery on fabled rivers). On my bucket list still is a barge trip through France. On first mention it might not sound romantic, but France is still crisscrossed with old canals; and barge excursions wend their way at slow pace through beautiful countryside. Your “pilot” will stop where you want, and go ashore to acquire local produce, meats, cheeses, and wines so every spontaneous meal he prepares is fresh.

My current research into Theodore Roosevelt’s career taught me about an active movement during his presidency. He was a proponent of something that might have been realized if he had served another term. Basically it would have connected America in imaginative ways – joining rivers, expanding streams, building canals. From the Atlantic Ocean to the foothills of the Rockies, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico; all would have fed into the Mississippi, making it – and all the other watery constituents – vast, interconnected routes for travel and commerce. Flood protection, irrigation, westward expansion, and trade would be beneficiaries. Locks, reservoirs, towpaths, and muleskinners were legacies.

In Roosevelt’s time a nationwide movement – actually scores of local initiatives, called, in one instance, “Fourteen Feet Through the Valley” – advocated an aggressive, coordinated policy. Unfortunately, lobbies of railroads and highway builders and unions were more aggressive and coordinated. There still are many miles of canals in America, and by greater proportion, around the world, but this grand interstate waterway was not to be. It could have been as consequential, a modern miracle, as Roosevelt’s Panama Canal proved to be. I eventually experienced a canal trip, between two Great Lakes at Sault Ste-Marie (where their levels are different, necessitating canals and locks). Not yet have I been to the Panama Canal.

I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. Isaiah 41:18

Otherwise on such subjects, and many others, I am naïve, and I will confess that I realized how provincial city boys can be (I was born in New York City) then when I visited the source of a river outside Angoulême, in the Charente region of France. There was a little lake from which flowed a little river, but it appeared to have nothing flowing into it. Except from below. There was a swell of water, as of a fountain, that revealed the point of the source.

I felt like a hick to be amazed at this. As a kid in New York, the only similar thing I ever saw was water swelling from broken sewer pipes or fire hydrants. Otherwise, I thought water came from… faucets. Oh, yes, upstate reservoirs. Oh, yes, magazine pictures of melting snows in mountains, and great waterfalls. But obviously there are many natural springs; we read about them. They don’t require drilling. Bottled water companies subsist on them. But I was 30 before I ever saw one of these underground springs.

There is a spiritual message; there always is (in life, not only here with me). In the Bible there are many “types” of the Holy Spirit, like oil and rushing wind. And water; frequently water. We thirst for Him; we need oases in life’s frequent deserts; we know these things.

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13,14

The Lord met a woman at Jacob’s Well and impressed her with knowledge of her sins and shame, and the explanation that the water she drew there was nothing compared to what He provides us. The TV series The Chosen remarkably captured that encounter.

Wells that are dug are smaller versions of springs that are sources of rivers. We can be amazed at such sources of water, but do we realize that unless we channel and direct them, neither the source nor the thirsty themselves know where they will lead?

In the case of water, it will flow somewhere. In spite of Greenies’ hysteria about imminent flooding of Kansas prairies, the earth holds just so much water – always has, always will. It might freeze or steam, become rain or alter its courses, even change locations from oceans to deserts over time, but water is finite in its volume. As springs well up, so do vast underground rivers ebb and flow.

As with water, so it is with all components of God’s world. We cannot double the size of the earth; we cannot invent new elements. I celebrate “creativity” but always try to remember the quotation-marks: only God the Creator can create. At best, even in the arts, humankind merely rearranges.

As with water, and springs of wells and rivers, the Source knows not where it will flow, or end, except in God’s omniscience and providence. With the Holy Spirit, the “springs of living water,” we can be refreshed and sustained… but having it become “a well of eternal life” is our responsibility.

Jesus offers to turn the deserts of our lives into gardens. How will we then live? Too many of us choose to become thirsty again, and again, and again, when we can be free of that; and never again be spiritually thirsty.

“There is a river that flows from deep within.” Come to that water.

+ + +

I could not decide which of three relevant video music clips to attach today. The inspiration flooded over me to offer three themed songs, of three different traditions.

Click: In the River
In The River (featuring Kim Walker-Smith)

Click: There Is a River
There Is A River – Heritage Singers

Click: Down In the River
Down in the River – Shenandoah Christian Music Camp

7-19-21

~~ A guest message by my friend Leah C Morgan, a gifted, spiritual writer whose thoughts always move me. ~~

They didn’t understand what he was saying, and they were afraid to ask him what he meant.

This verse from Mark’s Gospel is eye-opening: it exposes the faulty habits of communication we all share. The passage preceding this scripture tells us that Jesus wanted to get away from the crowd for a while, to spend time alone with his disciples, to teach them, so he kept their location quiet.

His plans were to set aside time for them. Teaching implies understanding.

But this special time apart became a one-sided conversation, Jesus talking and his friends not comprehending. And – does this sound familiar to you? – they didn’t ask for clarity. Whether out of fear or timidity, they did not seek to understand.

Watch the difference in Jesus’ methods. Immediately following this, they walked to a house where they would be staying and when they were settled, Jesus was not afraid to ask what they meant in their private conversation. “What were you discussing out on the road?”

“But they didn’t answer, because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest.”

What a difference between how Jesus communicates and how we communicate.

How did the disciples model communication? They avoided it:

•They communicated out of their fear. Don’t inquire, don’t seek understanding, don’t ask questions about things that are uncomfortable to talk about.

•They communicated out of their shame. Don’t respond, don’t divulge details, don’t answer, keep quiet about things that make you look bad.

How did Jesus model communication? He ran headlong into it:

•He set aside time alone without distraction. Away from other pressing and legitimate needs He committed to be fully present and to communicate his thoughts. He gave enough information to alleviate fear and to open the door for further discussion. Even when those closest to Him remained mute out of fear.

•He listened when others communicated. During their daily activities He waited for an appropriate time to bring up what he observed, and asked questions of them. Even when the closest to him remained mute out of shame.

Jesus healed the deaf and mute while those closest to him selectively chose too often to be both.

Have you ever said to those closest to you, “I don’t want to talk about that”? It is likely then that you need to talk about that. We continue to carry what we continue to bury.

Is there someone “being Jesus” to you, giving you space to ask questions and allowing an opportunity for you to give honest answers? Choose the uncomfortable now. The disciples were not able to avoid difficulties by avoiding to talk about them.

The disciples referenced were men. There is a culture around manhood that creates the lie: to speak is weak. Jesus dismantles this lie. It takes courage to be vulnerable. It takes incredible strength to talk about uncomfortable things. Look at His boldness, look at His honesty. Jesus is the ideal man; He both asked and answered hard questions.

Silence in conversation often is an effort to retain self-respect. We imagine that truthful engagement would cost us the respect we’ve worked so hard to create. But the more we cling to it the more we strangle it. The paradox is the “letting go.” Respect is earned when people have the courage to be real… not when they master the art of silence.

When these men were transformed by spending time with Jesus, it empowered them to survive the worst of times they weren’t prepared for. They learned to start talking about it!

John later wrote: “I have much more to say to you, but I don’t want to do it with paper and ink. For I hope to visit you soon and talk with you face to face. Then our joy will be complete.” (II John 1:12)

+ + +

The disciples’ reluctance to communicate – listen and speak – made them weak in the hour they needed the greatest strength. Here is a song about talking, sung by Sheri Easter. The camera also finds Jeff, her husband; and Reba Rambo, whose mother Dottie wrote this song. Taped at the Cove, Billy Graham’s retreat center.

Click: I Just Came To Talk with You, Lord

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us (Romans 8:18).

I take comfort from that promise, but I never have read it without thinking in my spirit that there is also a warning; it is consistent with Scripture to think that the “sufferings of this present time” are not the worst that we may face. We might not be close to End Times. Whether believers shall be spared the Tribulation or not, it is very possible that things in this world will get very, very, worse. Much worse.

I have been contemplating matters of sin, lying, false witness, deception, and disappointment lately. Happy thoughts, eh? Very personal to me. There is a book soon to be published about a situation much in the news in recent years. The victim in the story’s center is an unassuming Christian who stood up for his beliefs, was crushed in the mills of Political Correctness, and found his legal case in the highest courts of the land.

I reached out to him when the news first hit the fan. I proposed telling his story in a book, or ghost-writing, and he expressed interest in me. Over a couple years I flew cross-country more than once to see him and interview him; I prepared outlines and proposals; I talked to my publisher and agent (who also visited him); friends graciously hosted a dinner at which we all surveyed plans to collaborate; and countless friends, mutual friends, and church groups kept this project in prayer.

“Long story short,” as people say, he started to fade. He was on media tours and distracted, he told me. I finally said and wrote, “Jack, if you don’t want to do a book, or you want someone else to help you, I will stop bothering you.” “No, Rick,” he told me more than once. “I want to do a book, and I want you to write it.” I trust the word of a Christian brother.

Well, a book is due to be released; his book, not written by him. Nor me. And by my own publisher, of all people. In my archives are there are no notes of thanks or apologies, and I suppose I’ll wait on my own for the paperback or movie versions.

Whether I am hurt materially is immaterial to this essay. Spiritually I was wounded, I will confess… but it is what set me to thinking about this topic, these related activities of people, mentioned above. And what is the Big H?

My friend Donald Phelps, one of our generation’s greatest cultural critics and essayists, and in the great tradition of James Huneker and Whittaker Chambers, wrote a piece years ago about the “H” – hypocrisy – for an alternative magazine. He clinically but compassionately dissected the unique nature of hypocrisy, and I wish I could share it all here. In my own flailing-fish manner I would propose that lying is something we speak, but hypocrisy is something we do. They surely are not synonyms, by intention nor effect.

In a secular sense, hypocrisy probably keeps the wheels of society oiled, yet we know that “great” and “small” sins are alike to God. And yet…

Hypocrisy is a sin unlike any other sin, Donald wrote; first, because it is almost always a connective tissue, an integument, for other sins – notably envy, greed, and cowardice…. Hypocrisy represents an almost perfect symmetry of emotion and judgment, neither quite prevailing; this also sets it apart from other delinquencies… cruelty as well.

Donald visited hypocrites of drama and literature (Moliere even wrote a play called Tartuffe, the Hypocrite); of history’s many examples; and Biblical accounts, for instance the Pharisees and followers who condemned Jesus while twisting Scripture to the priority of their prejudices; and religious people who accept only a percentage (and we may think, even a great percentage) of God’s word – hypocritically. “Pick and choose” morality.

These thoughts might have value beyond my venting; and I pray they do as you read. However it all points to a major crisis in our society and our government these very days. And in the corporate church – organized religion.

I think of Joe Biden. We frequently hear evocations of “Joey, the choir boy”; Joey at the altar as a boy; and press photos of Joe crossing himself and attending mass.

Yet the public-show Catholic Biden, in one his very first acts after inauguration, approved taxpayer funding of abortion programs in the US and overseas. He reversed a Trump administration decision to ban taxpayer-funded research using the bodies of aborted children… which has long been condemned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In testimony from Planned Parenthood, its Dr Forrest Smith admitted that there is “no question” babies are being aborted alive so that their organs can be harvested. An associate, Perrin Larton, admitted under oath seeing aborted children with hearts still beating. She said that “once every couple of months” a baby would fall out intact during an abortion, and would then be dissected.

Pope Benedict XVI declared that a Catholic politician who would vote for abortion after being instructed and warned against it “must” be denied Communion, and if that politician still attempts to receive the Holy Eucharist, the priest must refuse him. Pope Francis confirmed this policy, declaring that Catholic politicians who support abortion should not receive Communion. As Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, he wrote in in the “Aparecida Document”:

[W]e should… be conscious that people cannot receive Holy Communion and at the same time act or speak against the commandments, in particular when abortion, euthanasia, and other serious crimes against life and family are facilitated. This responsibility applies particularly to legislators, governors, and health professionals.

So we have the “Public Photo-Op” Joe Biden crossing himself and partaking of the sacraments, presiding over the killing of babies, and forcing us to participate through taxes. And we have the Catholic Church with its volumes of teachings on the sanctity of life, and rules for communicants, on the other side.

Question: Who is the bigger hypocrite?

+ + +

Sinners seek forgiveness; wayward evangelists and politicians sin and repent; yet the very public choice of ongoing hypocrisy unfolds on the nightly news.

Click: The Darkest Hour Is Just Before Dawn

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ExzNNDhHHGs%3Findex%3D3%26list%3DRDCd1eGxNKdTY

12-28-20

It is sad and tragic – it “stinks” is the word I am searching for – that people who are alone on Christmas feel alone on Christmas. Yes, we know the associations of the holiday, and they must be real because we read the gruesome statistics every year about melancholy and even increased cases of suicides. Other words are “useless” and “ironic.”

If anyone pays attention to the meaning of the Incarnation – Jehovah, Messiah, Emmanuel, “God with us” – they should be reassured to know that Jesus is the Friend of all. When the world fails, Jesus is true. He is loyal, an ever-present help in time of trouble, and Someone Who clings to us closer than a shadow.

More, He came to minister to the lost and lonely. In fact nearly every aspect of His life as a human was… lonely. His parents were rejected all over the city, and my guess is that it was not really a challenge of overbooked inns. Do you doubt the Christmas story? King Herod didn’t: he had all young boys in his realm slaughtered to prevent a Savior’s arrival.

Seven hundred years earlier the Prophet Isaiah (Chapter 53) predicted in astonishing detail the facts of Christ’s birth, ministry, death… and loneliness. He was not handsome… He was called a Man who had no place to lay His head… He was “rejected, despised”… At the end of His life – after wise teaching, miracles, and uncountable healings – He was alone again. Unjustly accused, imprisoned, tortured, and put to painful death. I have always thought the worst hurts were the abandonment, betrayal, and disappearance of his friends and followers.

Jesus knew these things were coming, not just the days before, but as per Isaiah’s prophesies, just as others could have connected the dots.

He came into the world naked and alone; He left this world naked and alone. For those who feel alone at Christmastime, take a moment to imagine that the Holy Child looking up from the lowly manger – or the Man of Sorrows hanging from the cross – might have been looking for YOU… and looking AT you.

Are you there, looking at Him? Were you looking for a friend when you felt friendless? Others left Him, but He will never leave you.

+ + +

Click: God Walks the Dark Hills

For readers with hand-held devices, click or copy and paste:
God Walks the Dark Hills – Iris Dement – YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=0OGq4EXaXTM

(There is a “download spammer” that sometimes interferes with music and video downloads. It is not malicious or harmful; but it is annoying, Please just “refresh” a couple times to get our video download.)

4-27-20

Plandemic. That is not a typo.

I believe this current crisis, across the entire earth, touching health and finances and well-being and emotions is not random. I believe it has been planned.

We hear of “Acts of God” on the news and in insurance policies. To me, acts of God are not hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, nor epidemics.

Acts of God are love. And beautiful days. And happy families. And babies’ smiles. Generosity; charity; forgiveness; gratitude; joy.

These current hard times have us confused and worried. Soon, these emotions might turn into widespread bitterness, suspicion, anger. Maybe not soon, but… eventually. We do not know, now, how long this all will last. People read this message all over the world, and if there still is a world, might read these words ‘way into the future. Now, we see through a glass darkly, because that is as far as our eyes can discern today.

So I say that I am persuaded that this pandemic was planned. Readers who are not Christians might share my own immediate suspicions that China charted a war but without bullets or bombs. Lab-made or natural virus, it is plausible that the worldwide spread was not an accident. Our instincts tell us that, like children caught in the jelly jar, Communist China’s myriad stories, versions, corrections, cover-ups, disappearances, suppression of news, falsified statistics, denials of reliable assistance, arrogance toward truth-seekers… prove them as culpable as gunmen in a bank heist or drivers of getaway cars. If they act guilty, they likely are guilty.

Readers who are Christians may see this view as irrelevant. But I invite skeptics to consider the other evidence of “planning.”

I am persuaded that there is a God; there is a heaven and there is a hell; there is a Savior, Jesus, through whom we are reconciled to the Father. When humankind chose to sin and to rebel against God, yet He sent His Son to bear the penalty for our sins.

As part of our rebellion, for some reason people – even His chosen, those who know Christ – often think that sickness and sorrow are sent by God; and that events like epidemics and death are, oh well, just part of life; not part of Satan’s evil intentions.

Believers and skeptics alike still have to deal with the details, fine-print, and reality of such a worldview. But our 100 per cent understanding of the world and its woes would not change anything in the world. Including the dizzying array of theories and “solutions.” Especially we must deal with things like this awful, stark reality before us.

How do we deal with things? For personal security, a current view is that we engage in social-distancing. OK, having chosen the professions of writer, historian, and cartoonist, my own decisions have put me closer to the “hermit” mode of daily life. I am a little primed, but believe me, I realize this is not for everyone.

First (among many perspectives) we must realize that, at the moment, it might be said that more disruption and misery has been caused by fear than by the virus itself.

I recommend to you not to surrender your spirit to this bizarre solo life of isolation. Rather, realize that as Christians – which I hope all readers are, or will be while there is time to deal with the Truth of the Gospel – we all actually are pilgrims and strangers in this world, already.

We are called to “be apart.” To be “in the world, but not of the world.” This world is not our home! And “I don’t want to get adjusted to this world.” “Be not transformed to this world.” We’re headed for the Promised Land!

I have used quotation marks here because I quote Bible verses and song lyrics – sermons in song, poetic and life-saving advice.

So you may follow the news and the advice about the virus. That is good! You might be curious about whether we are under attack by forces of flesh and blood. But be aware of the real enemy. Through boredom and annoyances and inconvenience, discern the enemy of your soul. Be aware – this is a war, whether we like it or not. Trust God, not headlines.

Spiritual terrorism is being waged against us. You might perceive sniper-fire. But Kamikaze attacks are what we face.

Oh, what a weeping and wailing,
As the lost were told of their fate;
They cried for the rocks and the mountains.
They prayed, but their prayer was too late.

The soul that had put off salvation,
“Not tonight; I’ll get saved by and by,
No time now to think of religion!”
At last, they had found time to die.

+ + +

On Easter, Lily Isaacs and her children Sonya, Becky, and Ben were quarantined, but recorded a message and song in the little chapel at Sonya’s home.

Click: I Have Decided… It Is Well

4-20-20

The late pianist Anthony Burger used to tell a story about his son Austin, at five years old, in his church’s Easter pageant. He was cast as Jesus, dressed in sandals and one of his dad’s old T-shirts.

The other kids in their little costumes beheld the empty cardboard tomb. The little girls acted sad, and when little Jesus appeared he told them not to be afraid, or to be sad. “I died, but now I am alive! I will never leave you!” Parents in the church audience were moved, and proud.

All of a sudden, Austin ran back into the tomb – not in the script! But right away he popped out and yelled, “Ready or not – here I come!!!”

Somewhere between parents’ embarrassment and the church’s laughter we might find – “out of the mouths of babes!” – some decent theology.

Ready or not, Jesus did leave that tomb. He conquered sin and death. He returned. To live among us.

He actually never did go back into that tomb. He just needed it for the weekend. He lives; He lives; Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with us and He talks with us, along life’s narrow way… We sing it, but are we ready… or not?

Jesus was ready, but are we?

We have to be ready. When a Savior dies – for us; and lives – for us, we cannot be indifferent. Life on earth was never the same again, and when we meet the Incarnate Lord, the Risen Savior… we cannot be the same again. Ever.

If you are not changed, you need some serious time with Jesus… but with yourself too.

Maybe, make use of the self-isolation these days.

Jesus used His isolation to live again.

Let us use our isolation to be born again.

Ready? Or not?

+ + +

Click:A Child’s Easter Story

4-12-20

The night was so different from all the rest,
And a silence covers the Earth;
The stars have no glimmer, the moon tries to hide,
For in death lies the Man of their birth.

The night was so different from all the rest,
And a silence covers the Earth;
The stars have no glimmer, the moon tries to hide,
For in death lies the Man of their birth.

In a room filled with sorrow, a mother cries,
For Jesus, her Son, now is gone;
Her Child sent from Heaven was taken away,
Heartbroken, she feels all alone.

At the feet of his mother a little boy cries,
Saying, “Mama, I don’t understand’;
I remember the look of love in His eyes,
That I saw, by the touch of His hand.

The King of all ages, the Giver of life,
For a moment lies silent and still.
But a power sent from heaven comes breaking the night,
And death must bow to His will!

The stone moves, the Earth shakes, and birds start singing,
The sun shines, the Earth warms, for the new life it’s bringing!
That little boy stops crying, a Mother is smiling,
For death could not hold a King!

+ + +

Every year it’s the same story – not the “same old story” – but the Story we need to hear again and again, not every year, really, but every day of our lives. Death could not hold our King. Spiritual death, emotional death, both symbolic and real. It’s about death… and life.

Every year since that first Easter, skeptics ask, “Yes, but…” or “That was Jesus. This is now…” This year the Coronavirus prompts the questions and doubts and fears. “Jesus said He came that we would have life…?”

Yes, He did. “… and life more abundantly.” While we are here we can have life, and it more abundantly. We don’t avoid the questions, because Jesus didn’t. Did He heal? Can He heal? Does He heal?

Yes, yes, and yes.

Then we demand to know, Why… this person? Why… these numbers of sick? Sometimes… Why me?

Yes, Why? If we knew, we’d be as God. It is very hard to say, and hard to believe, but God’s Hand is in all, and as the Bible says, “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” That is not the opening line in a debate. It is a fact. God does not demand that we understand all things; He asks us to have faith. He lovingly requires that we be obedient.

Just as “Jesus was obedient to the cross.” His sacrifice was God’s plan to substitute for the punishment we deserve as sinners.

But there is no point to the Easter story, by itself as it happened and was witnessed by many, even with all the ifs and buts through the centuries, unless the story does not include the next part.

Jesus overcame death. He promises us a new life. A new life. A new life.

Viruses – and broken bones, and infections, and diseases – are gruesome, and deadly, yes. And different but horrible, too, are sinful habits, and broken relationships, and hatreds, and abuses. I don’t suggest a game of comparison, but sometimes a broken heart is harder to mend than a broken bone. Sin can be deadlier than a virus. If we don’t stick to diets that help our bodies, can we commit to blameless lives for the sake of our souls?

Jesus came to help us with those dilemmas. Jesus died to save us from those weaknesses. Jesus rose to redeem us from our sins and weaknesses and failings.

The night before Easter – between His physical death and His resurrection – were the loneliest, most desolate days in humankind’s history. Despite the numerous prophecies, despite His disciples seeing uncountable miracles performed, and despite Jesus’s own words… there was despair and hopelessness. Even His Mother despaired; the earth was dark; heartbroken, they felt all alone.

But then…

The stone moves, the Earth shakes, and birds start singing,
The sun shines, the Earth warms, for the new life it’s bringing!
That little boy stops crying, a Mother is smiling,
For death could not hold a King!

+ + +

Click: The Night Before Easter

4-8-20

It is a Christmas tradition to burn the Yule log in the fireplace… or, more likely these days, watch a video loop on TV. Take a rest from preps, sack out with egg nog, stare at the log…

I suggest we do a similar thing this week, before Easter, but with more purpose and reward. Besides: we are quarantined. What I suggest is perfect for these days.

The Coronavirus has us in a contemplative mood, anyway — or should — and here is the perfect storm. To think about what really matters in our lives and families… and to think about the most important spiritual matters we can face.

I recommend two musical presentations of Holy Week — the “Passion” of Jesus Christ; His arrest, persecution, trial, torture, and death on the cross. As many people traditionally listen to Handel’s “Messiah” at Christmas, these pieces should be more familiar to us.
The St John Passion and St Matthew Passion were written by Johann Sebastian Bach almost 300 years ago. The greatest story ever told, by the greatest composer who ever lived. Utterly profound.

Bach used instruments, choir, and soloists to tell the story — narrators; singers in the roles of Jesus, Pilate, and all; but no costumes or drama… beyond the words themselves, many straight from the Gospel accounts. Matthew stressed the unfolding events; John focused on the personalities, and the love of Jesus.

I recommend these versions, maybe the best on video for all the unique reasons for contemplation: Karl Richter (with the Munich Bach Orchestra and Choir) was one of the supreme interpreters of Bach; famous and talented soloists; and… the video productions are works of art in themselves.

The “St John” interpolates views of the singers and musicians in church with ancient works of art depicting the events of that week.

The “St Matthew” is an astonishing presentation — a stark performance stage, with an huge cross hanging from the ceiling, subtly changing its position according to the portion of the story; changes from bright light to dark shadows; singers facing front or each other, and soloists mirroring their characters’ words throughout. Stunning and meaningful.

Both versions have English subtitles.

I wrote a book on Bach about a decade ago, joining a long line of people grateful that he ever lived. History has called him “The Fifth Evangelist” — not a pope; not Luther. He was a Bible scholar and teacher, not merely (?) the greatest musical figure of the human race. His music is supernal, still. And never more powerfully than in his two Passions (and his Mass in b minor) (and his Magnificat) (and more than 200 cantatas)… You get the point.

But try to set aside time, for yourself and your family, to watch, listen and meditate. Especially this week — to focus on the One who sacrificed Himself that we might not know death, but have eternal life.

St Matthew Passion: click here

St John Passion: click here

4-7-20

It’s me, again, God. Rather, it’s us.

You’ll remember us from Christmas. We prayed then, too; or repeated the prayers and sang those familiar hymns. Of course you’ll remember us – You’re God! I hope it doesn’t look bad that some of us only come to You on Christmas and Easter… or when things are going really bad down here.

Things are going really bad down here.

But here we are. I trust you to know us, Lord, like I said. I mean, when my kids were not perfect, and then they tried to hide, I just loved them all the more, and wanted to hug them and hear what was wrong. You’re a loving Father, too. I know that. There are some things I learned from Bible stories!

It’s a coincidence, maybe, this being Holy Week before Easter; and this awful virus sweeping the world. You don’t bring death and disease, but we have two reasons right now to run to you, and get hugs. Please open Your arms.

It’s a little weird. On Palm Sunday Jesus rode into Jerusalem, and maybe He knew what was coming, but His disciples didn’t. The people in the streets didn’t. And this virus thing… we don’t know what’s coming for us, either. We don’t, our families don’t, our neighbors don’t, our country doesn’t, the world doesn’t.

Can you read our hearts, God? Do you know that we’re afraid? Even if we don’t pray often, or pray enough, or pray fancy… You do read the prayers in our hearts, don’t You? When my kids on my lap could do nothing but cry, I loved them more and hugged them tighter. I think I was doing what You do.

I have another favor to ask, God. The other day, on the phone with a friend, I said that I trusted You. We were talking about this virus, and he said, “Well, you’d better trust masks and quarantines and soaps and doctors and scientists too!” Oh, sure, I said.

Later, I thought, do I trust all those things? No… actually, I only hope. Can I trust You and at the same time trust masks and vaccines too? Sure. If I put all my trust in them, does that mean I trust You too? I guess not.

Your people down here had it straight, once, or a little clearer. I mean, our coins don’t say “In Masks We Trust,” nor does the Pledge have the words, “One Nation Under Vaccines.” We knew where our strength and trust and wisdom came from. If you bless me – I mean all of us down here, please – with some of that strength and trust and wisdom, maybe we’ll be better children of Yours. Even before next Christmas.

As you see us through this epidemic.

In the meantime, God… hug us a little tighter, please.

+ + +

The marketplace is empty, No more traffic in the street;
All the builders’ tools are silent, No more time to harvest wheat..
– Holy Week, or our cities and towns today?

Click: The King Is Coming

3-23-20

To write of perfect days when every day lately – no, every hour – seems filled with dread. To ask us to stop and savor, or even search hard for, good news, good times, and a good tomorrow… seems naive or crazy these days.

Well, let us be crazy for a moment. It might keep us from going insane.

Someone threw the word psithurism at me recently. I will tell you, it is the precise and compact term for one of nature’s supernal gifts – the sound of a breeze rustling through trees. In Estes Park, CO, after the Christian Writers Conference, up the “hill,” every year I visit a grove of aspen trees whose wind-kissed sounds are like the tones of a distant organ. When winds sometime meet mountain snowbanks and desert sand dunes they produce eerie but beautiful sounds; music, almost. Where there are rock formations and in caves, breezes can bring forth heavenly chords.

Wondrous coincidences explained by science, or God’s messages – like rainbows – of His presence, His hand in creation, His reminders of lovingkindness? It makes no difference, which, to believers, because with God there are no coincidences anyway; but He ordered the moon and the stars and enabled such blessings.

Everyday blessing they are. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in “A Day of Sunshine”:

I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.

God is in all. Creation proclaims His glory. That means sunshine and shadow; rain and drought; good times and – sometimes – hard times. I do not believe God sends sickness or disease. He is not a child abuser. Yet we struggle to comprehend the “bad”…

We wonder why God “permits” viruses, plagues, epidemics. People ponder and pray these very days about this. It has always seemed clear to me that there is sin the world – nurtured further by humankind’s rebelliousness, evil acts, and, yes, our sin natures. Nature can be beautiful: the way God created. But we waste our gifts, pollute and corrupt, and wonder why nature, sometimes – creatures, weather, resources – “turns on us.” Do we deserve things like pandemics? We say no, especially about innocent victims.

But this is our world. Is it God’s will, any more than cancers or tornadoes? The Lord can chastise in many ways, but we should not look for lessons or punishment in every act like the Coronavirus. It might be so but rather we should look to the God who loves us and shows His love and mercy in so many other ways.

The clouds are stormy? Blue skies and bright sunshine still are above those clouds.

The agonies of birth pangs yet bring forth beautiful babies, miracles of life, souls to love.

The suffering and death of Jesus Christ had to be endured, as per prophecy, in order to bring Salvation to the human race.

We cannot see or understand fully, not all the time; in fact very seldom. The ways of the Lord are inscrutable. His acts do not depend on our understanding of them. His ways are not subject to our approval. His plans will not come up for our votes.

A sickness in our household, or a pandemic sweeping the globe ought to be no different in terms of our responses. God help us, let us curse the little virus less and trust in our mighty God more. And praise Him. Is not God bigger than a microscopic virus?

His sun still shines brightly behind those dark clouds.

+ + +

Click: The End Of a Perfect Day

3-16-20

The title here is from a story about London during the “blitz,” the bombing by enemy planes in World War II. Supposedly, Winston Churchill and an aide viewed the city on fire from some vantage point, and the aide supposedly said, “Maybe this is a blessing in disguise.” Churchill supposedly harrumphed, “Some blessing. Some disguise.”

The Bible says, Woe unto those who call evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20), but that wise warning addresses those who intentionally bend the truth to their own purposes. In a time of confusion and near-panic – may I characterize the Coronavirus situation that way? – there surely are forces who might be manipulating events, if not having conspired somehow to initiate them; as well as people who might profit. My suspicions and plausible scenarios aside, confusion and panic are the predominant emotions around the world right now.

And I invite us to take the long, long view of things. And woe unto those who think that my speculation about a silver lining to the Coronavirus pandemic means that I am indifferent to the suffering and deaths. Of course not, not any of us. But there is a future: let us wonder what it will be.

Do we know what is ahead, after “this too” shall pass? No, we don’t know, but we can ask; and we can guess. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know… (I Corinthians 13:12). Being a “Futurist” does not mean having flawless predictions but – perhaps rarer – knowing the right questions to ask. Let us see if that hat fits us.

First of all, in human history, disasters like plagues and wars often are followed, roaring, by comebacks and revivals. When I researched my biography of Johann Sebastian Bach, I learned that a monstrous plague and the Thirty Years’ War left one-third of Germany dead and displaced. Yet the middle-class resurgence, and literacy, and a culture that could produce Bach and Handel sprouted and blossomed in its aftermath.

It is not only culture and commerce and stock markets that rebound after calamities, but, somehow also the human spirit. If under-girded by a firm faith, human nature when fed by democracy and capitalism, gets up, finds the path, and races to the goal. And the next goal, and the next.

For several generations we have been advancing to a major re-calibration of societal interaction. This virus “dislocation” will actually cause an acceleration: a good thing. And a major thing; new and better ways of doing things.

If we are indeed headed for paradigm shifts, we should recognize that when such things seem “major” in our human existence, the most profound changes are, rather, the many minor things that weave themselves together as the basic fabric of our lives.

We already are at the advent of tele-medicine. I have interviewed hospital staffs who tele-diagnose from a great distance. Tele-procedures, operations conducted from other states, are here. Auto mechanics already diagnose, too, with computers in their garages. We are a step away from plugging under our own hoods and having mechanics diagnose from across town. Except for package delivery, most mail will be obsolete; we can sense that already.

Uber and Lyft. Transporting people, then restaurant orders; then groceries. Easy, socially distant… ultimately economical. Ford should transition to be a mobility and vehicle-sharing company. Someday cars will be like time-shares: Only when we need them.

Teaching at almost all secondary and advanced levels, maybe elementary too, will be by screens. Excerpt for labs and hands-on training, this is overdue.

Is anything counter-intuitive? Sermons, fellowship? In the 1950s California churches experimented with drive-in worship, like drive-in movies. It didn’t work – neither did drive-in movies survive – so corporate worship, fellowship, conventions, will not die.
“What about old folks? Those without web?” Neither will the “marginal” be marginalized. In the future, every house will be built, or equipped, with, basic computer terminals. As common as phones.

Drones were mere foretastes. They will be not only be for mischief or spying or wedding photographers but for crop analysis, mineral exploration, climate warnings.

Is there a danger of social isolation? Will personal interaction die? This already is a situation, if not a challenge, in contemporary life… but reunions, meetings, rallies, sports, all will be more special, when they happen, if they are less common. People will find ways. And maybe feel more motivated to find ways.

Sports without crowds? I have two visions: (a) – when the virus is history, stadiums will be packed again. (b) We will have adjusted, however, to crowd-less stadiums. I currently pay $129 a year to watch every baseball game played by every team for a whole season, at home. If tele-fandom becomes the norm and not the luxurious exception, I might complain as prices go up… but this will be the future for tele-fans, plain and simply. It is inevitable. Sing: “Take me out to the home-screen…”

Skype will become less “ghostly” and eliminate audio echoes. In the past, when I was a guest on, say, CNN, I was “happy” to drive two hours to Manhattan, tolls and parking, to be interviewed and on air for less than three minutes. Not in the future; we already see a lot of Skype interviews. Split screens will bring Q-and- As to virtual classrooms. In the same way, there will be no way to avoid virtual town halls with our politicians – not face-to-face, but screen-to-screen. A good thing.

Maybe those awkward and obligatory hugs will disappear from the bundle of social habits. Many readers of this essay – of this I am sure – will someday be explaining to their grandchildren what mailmen were, and school buses, and bank tellers; and driving to libraries or lectures.

Will baseball games, or concerts, or rallies, be outlawed? No… but they will seem more special, because they will be more special.

We already have to explain to our kids what polio was; black-and-white TV; and and having to ask telephone operators to “dial” numbers for us. My grandparents, as kids, did not know cars or planes or walking on the moon. Those changes came, and – hardly believable – they happened slower than the changes will come to us about things just on the horizon.

– a horizon, possibly, with a silver lining? Nothing to sneeze at.

+ + +

A classic Ira Stamphill song, written just after his wife was killed — for those who wonder about moving forward when a virus seems like a big problem. Sung by the amazingly talented and sensitive pianist / singer Sangah Noona.

Click: I Know Who Holds the Future

2-24-20

We humans – not me, but most of the rest of you – are inventing and innovating to the point where I wonder whether we are near the time when anything we can imagine will be developed, named, and available next week through Amazon Prime. Probably out-of-date the month afterward; but counterfeited by the Chinese next year.

I know that there are new microscopes that can see between the particles that orbit around atoms, those little atoms. And telescopes that can see hundreds of thousands of light-years away from us. All of this bemuses me, because I have questions in the face of such advancements like, Why can’t I see the fine print on my large-screen TV when commercials for medicines and lawyers flash by?

Well, I am not a scientist. Nor am I a theologian, but that doesn’t keep me from thinking about God and the things of God.

In fact, maybe it is a good thing that I am not a theologian, because those God-thinkers sometimes act like they have it all figured out. Since I don’t have it all figured out, I keep thinking about God and the things of God. Which is a good place to be.

Sometimes I feel like I live a little north of hell and a little south of Heaven, like most of us do at present. In the same way, knowing that I live somewhere between atoms and in a galaxy far, far away keeps me in perspective.

Thinking too much, or too hard, about such things can make one’s brain hurt. The real lesson in humankind’s inventions and discoveries is that we learn that there always is more, and more, and more that we don’t know. That is axiomatic, perhaps, but when we contemplate how much we don’t know – that is the beginning of wisdom.

To be tempted to think humankind can be close to solving all the mysteries of atoms and galaxies, is a self-swindling delusion. We might discover whether neutrons taste like vanilla, or whether distant planets have the internet… but can we ever know how many atoms are in, say, a piece of wood? Or how many galaxies there are? – astronomers vaguely estimate “millions,” but, then, each galaxy might have millions of stars and planets in them. And atoms!

But God knows these things.

Are they important facts? I suppose they are, to Him. Knowing the numbers of hairs on our heads, which the Bible imputes, is simple in comparison, hey.

To me, the most amazing aspect of God in a discussion like this is the astonishing variety of His ways. The abundance and assortment of His wonders.

For instance (thanks, scientists, for determining the truth of the following things!) –

There are no two snowflakes alike. Linus thought he captured two, but they melted. No, seriously, no two snowy doppelgangers have ever been found. And – now that those microscopes work so well – they are not all different, but each one is incredible, beautiful, symmetrically constructed. Every last one of the gazillions in every snowstorm.

No two cloud formations are alike. A heavenly display every day!

No field of flowers, even of the same variety, looks like another; nor the way one looked last week, or will look next week. Thank you, God!

No duplicated faces in the world… no smile is the same… every baby’s laugh is different – different every day; different than other babies’.

Let’s go one step further, thinking about the “uncountable” aspects of God. They are, in fact, reflections. Our God is a God of infinite variety. His universe is interesting and beautiful and compelling because He is interesting and beautiful and compelling.

Many are His ways. Uncountable, in fact.

If it were not so He would have told us. The gods and objects of veneration in other religions are statues and carvings and pictures and idols. Our God is of infinite variety because He lives with each of us, every day in every way. He is there every moment we need Him (and, by the way, also when we think we don’t). He came to earth and dwelt among us; He lives in our hearts.

Atoms, galaxies, water-into-wine, are nothing. He could change your life and everything you hold dear. He did it for me; that’s how I know. And the love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star, and reaches to the lowest hell.

These facts can make your brain hurt… but can make your heart glow.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8,9).

+ + +

Click: The Love of God

2-18-17

Many events, even minor ones, can inaugurate profound changes in our lives. How often do you play the mental game of What If? If you hadn’t joined that one group… If you hadn’t gone on that date where you met your eventual spouse? If you had decided against taking that job…?

When it comes to our faith life, each of us has a different story or stories.

All believers have a story, and sometimes many more than one, about our “walk” with the Lord. I ask these questions, and answer these questions, of myself, all the time. What were the wellsprings of my Christian faith?

Prayer? We prayed at home, every meal, when I was growing up.

“Explaining” Jesus? My mom would always answer the myriad of questions kids always ask, in the context of Jesus, His teachings, and what she thought He would say. If the theology was not always precise, she taught me to seek Him first in every way.

Teaching? I remember, at about age four, my Sunday School teacher, Mabel Schwartz. At Covenant Lutheran in Ridgewood, Queens, she communicated Jesus, also as Vacation Bible School leader, and she gave me my first Bible, with her name in it. I still have it and use it.

Hymn? My favorite Gospel song has always been “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know.” Also the first I remember hearing. In the same way, my favorite “church hymn” was always “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” Both still bring tears to my eyes, as much from the essential memories as the words.

Faithful Perseverance? I was conscious of moral commitment, a heartfelt pledge when it came home to me that my Godmother, Aunt Mildred, prayed for me, even through my skepticism and rebelliousness. God honors such prayers… or, rather, He answers such prayers. And He makes sure that we are conscious of the effective prayers of righteous people.

… and so on. I invite you to ask the same questions of yourself. If you are a fervent Christian, it will be good to remember the great cloud of witnesses who cheered your faith as it grew. Be grateful to those who cared, and maybe even sacrificed (including prayer and praise time) for you. Let your thoughts dwell on the people, the churches, the fellowships in your past – and think where you might be today if those encounters never happened.

Think back, too, and remember when you were a “new Christian,” and how often you prayed, how hungry you were for the Word of God, how exciting was faith in the Lord. Has time dulled those emotions? How long has it been?

And if you are reading this and are not a committed Christian, there are memories you can summon of someone – a friend, a tract, a sermon overheard on radio or TV – who shared the Good News of Jesus. Maybe you were curious for a moment; maybe you studied some, or read things afterward; maybe you still wonder what this Jesus thing is all about. Even those memories still live.

First encounters are never snippets of time that will die. They are all planted seeds, no matter when you first heard them, or from whom. Recently some seeds from Egyptian mummies’ tombs were planted, watered, and… have grown into plants. A mere interregnum of 4000 years.

Similarly, our memories can sprout. Our little lifetimes are nothing in comparison. How long has it been?

Let us all to cultivate the memories of when Jesus and His salvation were new stories to us. When our faith was fresh. When the Gospel message moved us in powerful ways.

And then, go forth and be your own Mabel Schwartzes and Aunt Mildreds. Plant this seeds!

Someone did that over your life, once upon a time.

+ + +

Click: How Long Has It Been?

1-20-20

Regrets, I’ve had a few. Yes, something in common with Frank Sinatra. But those of us without regrets simply have not lived long, or even well. It’s part of life.

We seldom regret things that have happened to us, but rather things we did or didn’t do; opportunities we could have seized; what ifs; personal woulda-coulda-shouldas; errors of omission, commission, even remission.

Theodore Roosevelt, in a philosophical moment, once wrote: It is not being in the Dark House, but having left it, that counts. What we do with regrets can determine what kind of life we lead – I refer to our emotional equilibrium. And, of course, our spiritual serenity.

I have chosen, for the video clip below, a performance of the old “plantation spiritual” first printed in a hymnal in 1899: “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” The haunting lament of the Black church asks a rhetorical question. Yes… you were there. We all were there, because our sins sent Jesus to the cross.

He went there willingly, yes; but it was to suffer punishment we deserve. Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. You? Our sin-consciousness should make us tremble… and be filled with profound regrets!

However, a message of the cross is that we should come away from our culpability in the Passion of Jesus trembling for joy, ultimately. That plantation song is an Easter tradition, but it is a shame if we do not meditate on it all year long. It’s not just for Easter. On the contrary.

After Jesus died, Judas was so filled with regrets that he hanged himself. After denying Jesus, Peter instead was transformed by the Resurrection, and led a reformed, joyful, powerful life.

We have those choices to make, about everything that causes regret in our lives. I confess that I am very jealous of one of God’s attributes – that He is able to take our sins, or anything else, and throw them as into a “sea of forgetfulness.” Can God Almighty not do something??? Yes, when He chooses, He can forget things, in the process of forgiving us!

Good trick, Heavenly Father. Beyond our abilities, of course: we are not God. So it remains for us, rather, to deal with our regrets. Not to be warped… not let them haunt us.

My friend Kent Kraning is a pastor at Friends Church in Yorba Linda CA, and he recently wrote a book about parenting – more, about father-son relationships; but even more, fairly overflowing with wisdom about family life overall – and he asked me to lend an editorial eye to it. It is called Dirt Bombs, from one of the book’s anecdotes of many stories that resonate. Stay alert on Amazon for it.

Anyway, Kent wrote a casual line in the book that had great impact when I read it. I would nominate it for plaques on family room walls, bumper strips, or Bible bookmarks. It is a better single sentence than my whole essay here, I think:

Swim toward tomorrow, or you will drown in yesterday.

Have you made mistakes? Learn from them. Do you have regrets? Don’t repeat those things you regret. Is there something you think God can’t forgive in your life? News bulletin: You’re wrong. He aches for the chance to forgive.

You might come face to face with Jesus, and have feelings that you are unworthy, and regrets that you might have failed Him. For a moment you may tremble, tremble, tremble. But then, as He will tell you if you will only listen, you can rejoice for the forgiveness and new life He offers. You will tremble, tremble, tremble in joy.

And – even if the current seems strongly against you at times – swim toward tomorrow!

+ + +

Click: Were You There?

12-9-19

I have been blessed to be in some of the world’s great places of worship. I mean Christian churches, mostly – cavernous cathedrals; ancient basilicas; rough-hewn Gothic, grand Renaissance, and gaudy Baroque; story-telling tapestries, stunning mosaics, stained glass windows that are miracles of art. Many small side-chapels, or the seemingly endless nave and chancel and ambulatory expanses themselves, crossed by mighty transepts.

They inspire awe, and wonder, and worship because they were designed to do just that.

A profound experience of mine was in France almost 20 years ago. Near Angoulême it was, in the Charentes. I was taken as a guest to the Abbaye of St-Marie de Maumont, I think it was, a Benedictine abbey of sisters devoted to worship, prayer, service, and outreach. Mostly, however, it is what a Protestant American expected of a monastery or nunnery – an ancient site of worship; silence and reverence; modesty, sisters in cowls going about their business. And that business was, indeed, largely prayer – almost constant prayer, private and public – and worship in song.

My friend sped that evening along narrow rural roads between Bordeaux and Angoulême, on winding roads without lights on a moonless evenings… perhaps I was already in a prayerful mood. In truth I was not at all prepared. In an old candle-lit chapel, the sisters sang worship, hymns, and liturgy for four hours; in Latin, French, and Old French. Words I seldom recognized but did understand. Free to sit – observe – in the pews, what is left for the visitor? To worship. Pray. Reflect.

In this setting, enveloped by all that heritage, the sense of God’s presence, and His manifestation in the art and lives of that place; the essence of what it means to surrender and serve; to dig deep into self and reach high unto God; to feel – and be – a million miles from the world’s distractions… that is the kind of worship and contemplation, allowing the purest of Christ-centered meditation, that we seldom know in contemporary life.

I was visited, during those four hours, by past sins. I knew afresh the forgiveness of God. I met again my Savior Jesus. I was lost in the forests of a forgotten corner of Christendom, yet felt at home as if in Heaven, already.

There were no steeples, no mighty organs, no golden chalices. On the other hand – speaking as an American evangelical – there were no drums and electric guitars; no words projected on a screen; no clapping; no Starbucks in the lobby; no announcements of Holy Jazzercize on Tuesday night.

There were perhaps 60 souls there that evening, but, really, one heart beating. As I cried and as I laughed in my pew, I realized something about Christianity in the centuries since the Early Church – past the Age of Cathedrals – to our Age of Praise and Worship shows.

God touches us – or, perhaps differently said, we feel better able to touch Him – when worship experiences are at variance with the worlds we inhabit. In the “Dark” Ages, when poverty and disease were common, Christians devoted every ounce of their talents, ambitions, and resources into building astonishing cathedrals that reached up, up, up to Heaven and sought to reflect His glory.

In our day, when our multi-media world bombards us with every sensation; when celebrities have replaced heroes and sinners are elevated over saints; when the consumer culture insists on telling us what to like abd what to hate, what to believe and what not to believe… maybe people need to reject the hype by simply getting lost in Christian glitz and entertainment.

Holy bling is not my cup of tea. But, then, even tea is not my cup of tea.

Perhaps our souls need to find God by realizing that He is different than we are, and our worlds. And He speaks to us in different ways, at different times, in different places. I have heard something like that somewhere.

I just wish that people in our time can discover what used to be profound in the earlier phases of human history. “Get thee to a nunnery”? I have heard that, somewhere, too. All of us should at least taste of those experiences. After all, they were what eventually brought civilization to where we are now.

+ + +

Click: Chant

Some things that occurred to me during Thanksgiving week, and things that happened to happen, as things do, that had me thinking about ordinary things in a new way.

I called the local homeless shelter in nearby Flint – as close to a soup kitchen as we can have these days; run by a ministry, like an old-fashioned revival mission – to ask if they needed a volunteer to serve, prep meals, or clean up on Thanksgiving. “No thanks,” a man said with a chuckle. “If you want to come by and help… it would be to help eat all the food we’re going to have.”

He explained that volunteers often are needed at many times during the year (duly noted) but on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, they have more offers of volunteer help than they can accommodate. “I’m sorry.”

He said he was sorry. A turn of phrase, but I know what was behind that. “There is a season, turn, turn,” goes the famous passage from Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3.

In King Solomon’s words, or the folk song based on them, it does not say that there is a time to pity… although we know that we should have charitable impulses. It does not say that there is a time to “ignore,” of course: when things come our way but do not “go” our way, that is when it is our time to address them. That is what’s called Life. In Biblical perspective, lives well lived.

If we serve the poor, we should do so not out of pity, but out of love.

If (like my friend Becky Spencer and her Grand Staff Swaziland outreaches) (I will call friends I admire to my mind here) we work in overseas missions, it is not because it is easy or glamorous, but because it is right.

If spouses, children, or parents care for sick family members, the world might remark about burdens, but we know – only as we can know – that somehow such service is a blessing, not a burden.

My sister had a daughter with severe cerebral palsy, cared for her, and went through very hard times before losing Liza… but says she never could know the depth or precious quality of love except for the “crisis.”

My wife endured diabetes, heart attacks, kidney failure, strokes, cancer, amputations, and heart and kidney transplants… but never felt sorry for herself. She said till the end that she would not choose to go through it all again, but would not change it for the world. From the increased faith and reliance on God, she asked how she could be sorry for that?

Jesus, on the cross, was not sorry for Himself, but for the thieves on the crosses to the left and right. And He even forgave those who persecuted Him and hung Him out to die – for “they knew not what they did.”

The singer Bradley Walker, whose muscular dystrophy has consigned him to a wheelchair all his life, does not complain but asks sympathy rather for the family of his songwriting partner Tim Johnson who died at a young age. And the singer Rory Feek who lost his wife Joey, after she gave birth to their Down Syndrome daughter Indie – neither Joey nor Rory nor anyone who knows them feels sorry for them.

“Sorry.” It is a strange concept, stranger the more we contemplate. When we say we feel sorry for someone, it is really a form of sanitary self-pity? We will miss them, for instance?

It has been said – and it is a good lesson in perspective – that we are more fortunate than the angels. How? We can almost feel sorry for them, because as sinners seeking forgiveness, accepting Christ, and knowing the glory of salvation – we can sing, and angels simply cannot sing, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me!” In a way, I feel sorry for them. “I once was lost, but now I’m found!”

So let us go forth – yes, on days that are not Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter – and serve others and serve God, not out of obligation or pity or sorrow (the root-word of “sorry”) but out of a willing heart, love, and joy.

+ + +

Click: I Feel Sorry For Them

10-14-19

Some day I want to put together a new version of the Holy Bible. Ambitious, yes. But I believe that the Bible is a Book that many people know, but not everybody understands.

There is a human tendency to assume, to take for granted, things that largely are familiar to us. And you know what often happens when we assume. Familiarity does not always breed contempt… but it can lead to indifference. Hard truths, even when brilliantly expressed, can grow trite when we are intellectually careless.

My version of the Bible would be called the NSL Version – Not Saith the Lord.

If we can remind ourselves of familiar verses and passages of Scripture, and really – No: REALLY – think about them, and their meaning; their application to our lives… they can burst on our consciousness like thunderclaps. Sometimes as if we had never heard them before!

I know, because it has happened to me.

I will revisit this idea, going forward, and solicit nominations of verses and passages from you.

Here is one instance. “Give us this day our daily bread…” Yes, yes, “provide for me, please.” I think too many of us focus (if we focus at all as we rush through the Lord’s Prayer or the “Our Father”) on the “Give” and “us” and “bread” and what they represent.

But when Jesus outlined the perfect prayer, or topics to include when we approach God, I believe He wanted, in this passage, to remind us of the “daily.”

The Lord provides for us, we know and trust that. As with the sparrows, as with the lilies of the field. We seek it, and He indeed provides, spiritually as well as materially.

But how often does God provide? Not occasionally… not in crises alone… not only when we are desperate. But, daily. Daily “bread.”

That is not merely a petition of wanting, but is worded to remind us to be thankful that God does provide. Daily!

In fact, between spiritual and material matters, so much, so often, so “daily,” that sometimes we take His provisions for granted.

So when you next pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” you can remind yourself of how much more than bread He hath provided (and we “shall not live by bread alone,” right?). But have your mind focus too on His daily, constant, reliable provisions.

His gifts… before we know we need them! Indeed, great is His faithfulness.

Our daily “bread”? Be bold to ask… be grateful to receive. Thus saith the Lord.

+ + +

Click: Great Is Thy Faithfulness.

9-9-19

One of the confirmations of Christ’s divinity is the number of times He is mentioned, and was prophesied and predicted, in the Old Testament. And not just vague associations: the Bible overflows with specific references, made previous to His incarnation, regarding Jesus’s life, ministry, and activities. Every one was fulfilled.

So the names and attributes of Jesus are interesting. And they are instructive to our Biblical understanding, and to our mature faith. Jesus was His given name; Christ was His title… but there were, and are, many other names by which He can be known, and which explain His numerous facets and roles.

You know them, from the Old Testament and New Testament both. Among them are: Almighty; Alpha and Omega; Author of Salvation; Bread of Life; Chief Cornerstone; Creator of All Things; Deliverer; Faithful Witness; Firstborn From the Dead; Good Shepherd; High Priest; Horn of Salvation; Image of God; King of Kings; Lamb of God; Last Adam; Light of the World; Lion of the Tribe of Judah; Living Stone; Lord of All; Morning Star; Only Begotten Son of God; Passover Lamb; Precious Cornerstone; Prince of Peace; Rock; Savior; Son of David; Son of God; Son of Man; The Stone the Builders Rejected; Truth; The Way; Wonderful Counselor; The Word…

The great evangelist R W Schambach frequently referred to the Savior in a unique (and correctly theological) way – “My elder Brother Jesus.” This not only delineates a sweet fellowship with Jesus; it explains the precise relationship of our New Life after the Born-Again experience.

When Jesus walked out of that tomb, He greeted the world as the risen Son of God, yes, but in effect He said to all of humanity: “I was God-with-you, and now you are with Me – my brothers and sisters.” If Jesus reigns in your heart, God sees Him when He looks at you. Hallelujah!

So. Should this make us happy? Yes! But I wonder why many church services resemble funerals and not celebrations. I have got to thinking about how people refer to God and Jesus these days, especially when we have so many options. A list of some:

God d*** and Jesus Christ! (when uttered as curses). Of course these are not what I am seeking as examples. But I wonder whether “taking Names in vain” are spoken more frequently among us, if we could count, than in prayers or spiritual respects. For shame. And it strikes me, even, how many people who are not even nominal Christians use “Jesus” and “Jesus Christ” or “Christ,” as curses. I have rebuked friends and strangers, sometimes asking them to be more polite about my Best Friend.

Jesus H Christ and Jesus, Mary, and Joseph – as “antiseptic” curses. As if the humorous (?) twist will not offend the One who suffered and died for our sins. Or offend us, when in their midst.

The Man Upstairs. Really? The Man upstairs?? This is usually a coward’s way of appearing spiritual without (gasp) actually mentioning God. Also shameful. Would you refer to your spouse as “that dark-haired person who lives down the hall and watches TV in the evening”?

“I’m sorry, but religion is too personal for me to discuss.” How about that? The most important thing in your life – or should be – is something to avoid talking about? Not all of us are evangelists, OK; but to hide Jesus from view likely indicates a fateful unfamiliarity with Him… a fatal lack of knowledge of God’s ways… and an insecure realization of what Jesus requires of believers.

If you had a cure for cancer, would sharing that knowledge be “too personal” to talk about? Those who have no knowledge of the basic tenets of being a Christ-follower, frankly, condemn themselves. Jesus’s own Entrance Exam, so to speak, was easy – To believe in your heart that He is the Son of God; and confess with your mouth that He rose from the dead.

Yes, that simple. But “confess with your mouth” precludes “too personal for me to discuss.” Can’t do both. If parents are followers of Christ but let their children “decide for themselves” matters of faith… it means they are comfortable with the chance their children will go to Hell. Don’t believe in Hell? Well… Jesus did; and you believe in Him, right?

You can see the many implications and responsibilities that attend the use of “mere” words and proper titles. They are the markers on the meter of your soul.

Your everlasting soul, as a child of God, a brother or sister of Jesus, seeking to do His will and, more, desiring to share Him.

To know Christ and to make Him known. That is not a task: We should love to be doing it.

+ + +

Click: What a Friend We Have in Jesus

7-22-19

Among the memories of the Moon Landing this week are the realizations I have learned through the years that certain words like “moon” have common sounds and spellings in myriad languages and cultures scattered across the globe. “Sun” is another; “mother” and “father” also. What sort of coincidences are these? Pilgrims in ancient days, in small groups or tribes, traversing swaths of land or ocean expanses?

If that were the answer, why were not cultural objects, or tools and utensils, or more words and alphabets, also transplanted? Why only those elemental words? Is it because these are more concepts than mere words? If we ever are to learn the answers to these compelling questions, I think it will have more to do with common physical touchstones, urges, and expressive emotions, than with linguistics or semantics. (For instance, some social scientists think that the “M” sound as in Mama and Mother derives from babies’ physical need for nurture, an expression of hunger.)

In any event, “home” is not only a place but, indeed, a concept. Its name, and of course its essential idea, is common to all people, all classes, all ages. Among nobility and peasantry, in democratic societies and autocracies, the home is sacred. Taken further, the kitchen as the home’s heart is common too.

When we think on these things, we realize more than perhaps we often do, the real distinction between house and home. A house is where we get our bills, a song once said; home is where we live.

The Bible has many verses about home, both literal and figurative references. The same is true of poetry, songs, literature… think about it, every aspect of life. “Homemade,” the best you could want. “Home-going,” a term now in vogue in some churches, instead of a funeral or farewell. “Home town” usually obviates the necessity for an explanation of things honest, pure, accepting.

In college I had a friend, a bit of a strange guy, on the dorm floor; but maybe he was wiser than all of us. One evening we were all talking about our hometowns or neighborhoods where we grew up. And we shared photos, if we had them. Danny pulled out a photo from his wallet – a rather unremarkable snapshot, really, of the side of a house. No distinctive flowers or trees, fancy back yard, or a landscaped front yard and porch. Odd?

Danny explained that the photo was not of his house as we had assumed. It was his neighbor’s house. It was what he would see, looking out his bedroom window. When he woke up; when he went to sleep. That’s what he saw, and carried with him, the neighbor’s house.

“And that reminds me of home,” he said.

Yes. Of course. So logical we seldom think that way.

What reminds you of home? Your parent’s address; where you grew up? One of multiples places you have lived? A location in the “old country”? We need (anyway, I know that I need!) to think a little more – a lot more – of what God means by home.

When we “go home” at the end of life’s journeys – life’s troubles and trails, as we often confront them, or interact with people who do – we have opportunity to contemplate. I have a friend with three small girls whose husband, a pastor, recently died of cancer; another friend watching a neighbor’s husband dying day by day before their eyes… We can all supply et ceteras.

We can think in these moments about the Bible’s reassurance about home; about God “calling us home.” When you think about it, home is not somewhere strange and alien you go to for the first time. A home is something to which you return… that comfortable place that is waiting, in fact prepared, for you.

We can know we are on our way home, and it does not have to be not a strange journey, but a warm reunion.

+ + +

Click: Going Home

7-15-19

I think contemporary folks see a wall of separation between knowledge, belief, and faith. Not necessarily hostile camps of the mind, mutually exclusive; but different provinces. Maybe like summer and winter: hardly the same, but both are “weather.”

However, knowledge, belief, and faith – and other versions of our core convictions; trust, security, even firm hope, you know them all – are really just words, words, words for the same thing. I can know the lamp will turn on when when I flip a switch; but that knowledge is based on a belief that a lot of people know how to make that happen. And I have faith that they will do so, tomorrow too.

These are not superficial distinctions… and they apply to, yes, our core convictions.

In Western civilization in the 21st century, “progress” has freed us from the necessity to have faith any more in many things once requiring faith. Of course this goes beyond religion: and I mean, very much, to have us realize how rudderless, value-less, we have become. We have been coddled into thinking that so-called progress, and intelligence, and science, are sufficient in all things; indeed, that vital aspects of traditional faith… are obsolete. Impediments. Relics of the ignorant.

But we still exercise faith – more than ever. Only in different things.

Governments, politicians, scientists, heroes, philosophies, secularists, the “mind” of the “universe.” Superstition. Self-help courses. Gurus, not God. At the end, however, we all still believe in things; we all have faith in something. Or other.

It surprises some people to know that the mighty Reformer Martin Luther, during the Renaissance and at the cusp of the Age of Enlightenment, declared that Reason is the enemy of Faith.

As we fight against the greatest surge of slavery in history; as we face oppression and abuse and heartache in our midst; as we wipe our hands of the blood of the previous century’s myriad slaughters… let us think for at least a moment where Human Reason, unleashed for 500 years, has gotten us.

Another figure of faith, an example of embracing faith in the face of the world’s certainties, and hostility, also speaks through the centuries:

To sacrifice what you are, and to live without belief, is a fate more terrible than dying.
– Joan of Arc

+ + +

Click: I Believe; Help Thou My Unbelief

5-13-19

Another holiday over. Now we can get back to normal. It’s not as bad as Christmas, with those countless little decorations. Maybe more like Thanksgiving. After that one, it’s “turkey this” and “turkey that” until we’re sick of it. Now, a few Easter decorations, but leftover ham isn’t bad, and, well, deviled eggs and egg salad for a couple weeks will never kill anybody.

I wonder who those new people were at church on Easter. Actually, they didn’t act new; everybody seemed to know them. Maybe they joined since we were last in church… what? Last year? 

Such thoughts go through a lot of minds in this land of many churches.

Some churches have nicknames for certain worshipers, or perhaps we can call them audiences. “Chreasters.” Folks who show up in the pews twice a year, Christmas and Easter. Which is better than no weeks per year… isn’t it?

God doesn’t need your fannies in the pews. He wants them… but He does not need them. The same with your offerings: your money, your talents, your resources? He wants your heart, not your pennies. It is about what you want to give, not anything He needs.

The spiritual fervor during Lent and Holy Week and Easter Sunday is good; good for our souls as we contemplate, meditate, hide the meaning in our hearts.

But we cannot deny that for the most part, society and our culture are little changed – as they really ought to be changed – after Easter. This is not totally attributable to human nature, the natural inclination of our wayward hearts. Not in the year of our Lord 2019; not in Western civilization as it has evolved; not in contemporary churches.

I believe the reason that the Resurrection means so little today is that we live in a culture of death.

• How can we truly celebrate the victory over death when we have legalized abortion and infanticide; when states vote to allow killing unwanted babies after birth?
• Wherever there is a problem in life these days, it seems like the first instinctive response is violence; death-oriented, not life-affirming. Not only on TV and movies (usually produced by anti-gun crusaders!) but from random urban street-corners to countries that oppress and kill their minorities or neighbors.
• Why should a Born-Again experience seem desirable when society teaches that what’s right for you is right; when there is no such thing as sin; when there are no standards but what everyone chooses for themselves? When Heaven is generally regarded as a legend?
• What is truth? – when the culture rejects Absolute Truth, and operates according to Relativism, “relative truth”? When Jesus said, “I am the Truth and the Life,” and we take it as merely His opinion, the rantings of a Nice Man?

When did we become a Culture of Death? What are the signs? – among many signs are legal abortion and mercy killings (excuse me, “assisted death”) of the elderly; the promotion of homosexuality, which obviously is antithetical to life and procreation; same-sex “marriage,” by the same standard; the ubiquity and toleration of drugs, which is a suicidal tendency; the prevalence of divorce, abuse, and illegitimacy; the de facto abandonment of Christian principles in homes, schools, the public square.

Of the rear-guard battles fought by Christians today, we really ought to surrender “under God” in the Pledge, and “In God We Trust” from the currency. Is America one nation under God? In God we trust – really? Do we?

Easter Day has passed… but is Easter “over”? Did Jesus rise… or not? If He lives, does He live in America? Does He live in your heart? Is this a nation of Life… or a Culture of Death?

Ask yourself, and look into the hearts of loved ones:
Do you rejoice over the New Life?
Do you return to the old ways?
Do you care?


+ + +
Click: Miserere Mei

12-31-18

The French have a saying, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. It often seems apt, and is of course a variant of a Biblical principle (God usually nails it, right?) found in Ecclesiastes – “There is nothing new under the sun.”

These sort of thoughts occur to many of us around New Years, or I might say, specifically after New Year’s, when our resolutions wither and die. The French phrase translates to “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

This is not necessarily white-flag defeatism, but rather a reflection of human nature. And January received its name from the Roman god Janus, the two-faced god of endings and beginnings.

Many of us do not merely make (and break) resolutions around now. And we will not address that famous “road to hell” that is paved with good intentions, because pledges to improve, or reform, or lose weight, or clean the office, are fungible; and at least reflect proper impulses. We also, at this time of year, often grow nostalgic… remember friends… regret mistakes… miss family members… plan to renew old acquaintances. Also proper impulses.

Perhaps the fatal flaw with intentions and resolutions is that ol’ human nature. It seems wiser to pray that the Holy Spirit equip us to be tender and resourceful and sympathetic, rather than relying on our own lists and computer calendars and strings around our fingers.

Implicit in New Year’s resolutions is a whole lot of Self – we can discern; we can assign; we can choose; we can self-motivate; we can mark the dates and goals.

We can… but we often don’t.

I am thinking of this week. Most people are happy (surveys say) with the course of the economy and “optimistic about the future.” Unemployment numbers are good … and so forth. How many people have a bounce in their step as the new year unfolds?

In my own little world, I am happy enough, and grateful to God for my blessings. But just in the past few days, I have learned, or been reminded, of friends and relatives with radically different prospects. A friend whose happily married daughter is… not so happily married. The sudden death, perhaps from meningitis, of 26-year-old commentator Bre Payton, a rising star. A friend whose daughter and grandkids went into hiding because of an abusive husband. A friend whose husband has been ill for months, in pain and not eating, wasting away. A friend whose daughter has been estranged for two years, rejecting outreach and severing relations with grandsons caught in the middle. A friend whose only child is mercurial to the point of heartbreak, variously cheerful and abusive. A friend who has just gone on Hospice.

Is everything seen, all of a sudden, as the “glass half empty”? (– or half-full? I never understood the proper term or distinction of that). No. Of all my friends above, with one exception where “negative confession” is her reaction of choice, these people do count their blessings, and are mindful of silver linings. Another friend whose daughter impulsively got pregnant, got married, and got separated in mind-numbing and sad rapidity, nevertheless praises God for clarity and rededication… and so does her precious daughter. My friend on Hospice is in a situation that would make people cry, yet is full of life and enthusiasm that is inspiring.

We must always remember, or realize, that behind every storm cloud the sun still shines brightly. Storm clouds pass, but the sun shines always, after storms and after dark nights.

Our job as Christians, trying to live as Christians – and maybe to be, or to reflect, that sun to others – is, if I may put it this way, how to order the gloomy news and the hopeful news. Joy… BUT? or horrible news… BUT!

But there is hope; but there is redemption; but there is the bright day ahead.

So, here we go again, in January. Rather than relying on our own “Do-Better” lists, why don’t we all make a New Years Resolution to let God order our ways, light our pathways, and inhabit our praise?

+ + +

For all the friends with challenges and grief I listed here – and for each other – let us pray. Farther along, we’ll know all about it…

Click: Farther Along

11-19-18

This will be a very personal message – sharing some feelings (more, that is, than only thoughts) and inviting you to feel, and think, with me.

I have had some intense spiritual experiences in my Christian life, and I pray that you have too; many. There are “mountaintop” experiences, and God truly wants to lift us from mountaintop to mountaintop. Valleys there will be, but even then He promises to walk with us and comfort us, never leave us.

For some reason I have been looking back on my Christian “walk” this week. I recall many moments: my mother and my grandmother praying with me; my godmother telling me, when I doubted, that her prayers and the prayers of many would see me through, though I did not know what she meant at first. When I was aware of salvation; when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues; challenges and breakthroughs, crises and spiritual resolutions; when I was parched and thirsty for the Word; when, in ministry, I was able to “pray people through,” finally understanding.

When I first practiced (still learning) to share the Gospel; when I learned the power of answering, “I don’t know!” when seekers cried out to me, “WHY?” (prayer and the Word takes over). When I was gifted to pray in the Spirit, the language of angels.

But having been in uncountable exuberant worship experiences; people dancing in the Spirit; mega-churches with organized programs; ultra-informal small groups… my memory kept returning to the opposite, at least in forms.

– Traditional hymns, ancient settings. Surrounded by stained glass, Christian symbols telling Biblical stories, and by quiet. Silence; quietness; modest singing; patient waiting.

– Days spent in mission chapels in California, almost four centuries old. Contemplation, solitude, feeling God’s presence.

– A week at an abbey where silence is required, except in worship; but even when eating and studying. No electronics; sparse bedrooms; a vast library and beautiful grounds with the Stations of the Cross to walk through, and think through.

– Other profound moments and sites. In Italy, at the Basilica of St-Paul “Outside the Wall” in Rome, where the Apostle is believed to be buried, I was deep in prayer one afternoon until I became aware of children singing… there was no service… I recognized the song… but it was not in English… angels?? I looked up, and discovered it was a small student group visiting from South America, and the song they sang in Spanish was a familiar praise-and-worship song from back in America. I had an intense realization of the “family of God” that day.

– A friend took me to a convent in rural France one evening. The public was allowed into the sisters’ Vespers service – an ancient rite of pure and extended chanting. Four hours long! A darkened church, nothing spoken, just sung, Latin words occasionally familiar to me as parts of liturgy. Nothing to do but listen, take it in, meditate, pray, reflect… and, not inevitable for everyone or even me, but I found myself sobbing. No sins rushed back to mind, but an ethereal awareness of the presence of God.

As in that old Mission, and precious few other times, for me, I came face to face with the glory of God. My insignificance, yet overwhelming gratitude for how He loves me and what Jesus did for me. Burdens for unsaved loved ones. The “scarlet thread of redemption” – that heritage of Christians who have gone before us, what they sacrificed, how precious are the things of God.

The… mystery of God. We can know Him, and surely know His will for our lives. But ultimately His attributes, His glory, can scarce be comprehended. Observed, but hardly understood, even to the angels. Well, He is God.

Too often our contemporary world, our churches, paint God as a Holy Pal. I suppose He can be that, but how often do we put ourselves in places where we can be in stricken awe – lovely, frightening, sweet-smelling, mysterious – of His powerful glory?

Not often. Not my experience. Thank God, often enough to have been touched, and to desire more. Some groups feel the lack of things like this, and construct services with guitars and candles. To me, they often seem to worship guitars and candles more than the Savior, when all is said and done.

We are the same Church, the same Bride of Christ, that He instituted when He ascended. … or we should be. Half the churches and denominations in America seem obsessed with being “inclusive,” yet they seldom include the holy traditions of the holy church. They want to be “open” to “others” – but “others” never seem to include the saints and martyrs and faithful of the ages who have gone before us. Modern theologians seem more interested in connecting with sociologists and political activists than with the writers of the Gospels and Epistles.

These are indictments of a religion that is committing spiritual suicide. A faithless faith.

I am heartened by a movement in Europe, spread to America, known as Taizé, after the French border town where the ecumenical seed bloomed in the 1940s. Founded by Brother Roger, a German Reformed pastor, the movement eventually attracted clergy, workers, and worshipers from Catholic and many Protestant traditions. Their services are meant to supplement, not substitute for, the churches of pilgrims. There is mystery, contemplation, chants, and communal worship.

Pilgrims. One visits a Taizé service, but only for a visit, to return home refreshed and renewed for the other 51 weeks of the year. The quietude, and the trappings of 2000 years of Christian signs and symbols, sounds and songs, bring one closer to God.

They have brought this one – me – closer to God. I invite you search a little, and find a similar worship environment, via a getaway or at a regular sacred spot. Rediscover reverence. It is not on the endangered species list, not quite yet.

And rediscover that precious verse, Psalm 46:10: Be still and know that I am God.

+ + +

Click: Mon âme se Repose – My Soul Is At Rest

10-1-18

Statistics don’t lie, we are told; but statisticians do. More dispositive is that our perceptions often are more aggressive than the biased sources. The corollary is true, I fear – that our biases filter our perceptions. It was not always the case in our culture, not to the extent from which we suffer; and my view is that the Media-Industrial Complex has forced people to be discriminating.

This is not unique in human history, and is famously prophesied in the Bible – we have become a people with “itching ears.” Sometimes wisely picking and choosing; but many people only hearing what they want to hear.

This could be regarded merely as abstract: a society of people withdrawing to their own groups and self-interests. Tribalism, really. But it is more, a crisis of the old order. The West is too integrated, too inter-dependent to allow us to function as myriad separate islands.

History has placed us in a chess tournament, and we cannot pretend it is checkers. We can yearn for simple melodies, but the musical score before us is a complex fugue.

Drift and dissolution are swift. A stark barometer informs us. I observe that a year ago, the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court evinced hand-wringing, angst, and gloom from opponents in the press and politics. The nomination of a man with fairly identical credentials and prospects, now, is met with apocalyptic frenzy.

In 2018, so many geniis have been let out of bottles that a virtual fog surrounds us. It seems impossible to imagine that any Supreme Court nominee henceforth will not be a pawn in bloody wars between right and left.

Or that football and other professional sports will ever again be unaccompanied by contentious politics.

Or that the entertainment world, especially as exemplified in awards programs, will ever be free of political statements and attacks.

Or that town councils, school-board meetings, indeed school textbooks and curricula, will never more be bloody fights between opposing worldviews.

This is the inheritance of an amazing civilization – a culture rich in material goods and intellectual promise, of spiritual foundations but ultimate philosophical drift. Shakespeare wrote in King Lear, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” America is populated today by thankless children, ignorant or even dismissive of the precious heritage vouchsafed to us, arrogant in assumptions, and increasingly intolerant.

You might agree with me, or not. However I think everybody will agree that the battlegrounds I describe are real; and are many. That these are relatively recent phenomena in America does not mean that they will be fleeting.

Polls and statistics can frighten us, and of late there are so many gloomy assessments that our senses are dulled. It is ironic that in the midst of so many encouraging economic signs – are we getting of winning? – the social signs are dropping like rocks. Notice that the areas of controversy I have listed above are philosophical.

The state of our society is increasingly schizophrenic. Yes, economic signs are positive. Social signs are… disastrous. This ought to trouble us quite enough, and demand our attention and action. But when accompanied by the philosophical disagreements we have listed, it is a crisis, not a challenge, that confronts us.

A bewildering complexity of horrible situations, however, need not defeat us.

History provides the detailed stories of cultures and civilizations – societies and empires – that have crumbled and dissolved. Even disappeared. We could learn lessons. Self-realized revival has been a scarce commodity throughout history, however.

But despite what History tries to teach us from complicated narratives, the Bible provides the simplest of solutions. It has the answer to all of life’s problems – rather, it is the answer to all of life’s problems. In this Age of Anxiety, it is tempting to distrust the wonder-working power of the Prince of Peace, who still speaks through His Word.

“Yes, but…” One negative aspect of education, especially Christian education, is the tendency to think that if we know the answers, we have the answers. With proper stress, that WE have the answers. And that maturity – spiritual or civic – is charging off as lone crusaders.

As Abraham Lincoln wisely noted, it is not important that God is on our side; what matters is that we be on His side. As Grace gives us that sight and perspective, we may proceed to redeem our households, our communities, our culture.

We can put on “the whole armor of God,” but must realize that the Bible’s fashion guide in that passage points mostly to how we may be protected. Once equipped, we can do the Lord’s work.

It seems counter-intuitive, but I think the righteous in America today don’t need a mighty army. Boldness has its place, but so does humility. We might win – or lose – votes, but America might be coming to a place where we wonder what we defend these days. We cannot argue that it is impossible for the secularists, the Left, to impose values bureaucratically downward… only to assume that we can.

Our own hearts, our own households, our own children, our own churches and communities, our own priorities, must change before our own nation can. One person, with God at his or her side, can be mightier than any army. We don’t need to be superheroes: That is why the Holy Spirit was sent. Jesus said that our yokes will be light when He assumes them.

Humility demands that we think less about how bad “others” are; but how we have not been good enough. We are not saviors; we already have One. In the meantime, where have all the average people gone?

+ + +

Click: Where Have All the Average People Gone?

3-5-18

I recently returned from the wonderful Writers On the Rock conference in Colorado. I was one of several speakers, conducting a couple of classes, and meeting a lot of great new friends. I also was reacquainted with some old friends.

I managed to squeeze in some private time. My friend and I visited Breckenridge and Vail and thanked God frequently for His amazing handiwork. We visited historic sites in Denver with our hosts Penny and Norm Carlevato – you can thank Norm for the faithful appearance of this blog; he has been the web-master for years.

The Christian writers’ conference was attended by almost 200 people, a majority of whom were aspiring writers, and many who had published one book or some blogs, still looking for tips to advance further.

There were many writers, even the aspirants, who had something or other in print. When you want to write, you write. And write. And read and write. It’s what you do because you are wired that way. Which is a good thing! God has inspired us; planted seeds of creativity; and God bless (He will) anyone who exercises those gifts.

I told the organizer, Dave Rupert, how often I heard people before and after classes, in the auditorium and lunch room, in hallways: “Did you read what I wrote since last year?” or “Have you read my book?”

Never boasting, these questions were asked by people from justifiable pride, and every writer’s sub-textual intention – hoping that people notice and understand your message; affected by what you have to say.

It struck me afterwards, especially since this was a Christian-focus conference, that the frequent question – “Have you read my book?” – might indeed have been the de facto theme. “Up above our heads”; all around us; and a part of everything we did, everything to which we dedicated our careers… in a very real sense, God Himself also asked “Have you read My Book?”

Of course He asks that every day.

He asks us, not to read the Bible every moment of every day, but sometime during every day, as many of us do. A passage, a chapter, a book. It is not an unreasonable request – but a request is inherent in the question – as God’s admonitions never are unreasonable.

The Bible is what we know of God. Yes, there is nature – I know well enough from our mountaintop experiences in Colorado. Agnostics who pose, and Christians who are lazy, can say that they can know God from communing with nature.

Wrong. That is one of the ways we can see God, even feel Him. But to know Him, we must read His book.

He meant it to be so. We have the Ten Commandments… written. We have Jesus’s teachings… recorded and written and published. I recommend visiting the new Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. I saw its substantial portions when it was on tour (in Colorado a few years ago!), and a lesson for believers and skeptics alike is that, for the hundreds and hundreds of texts from different countries, different scribes, different languages, different centuries, the texts of the Holy Scriptures vary hardly at all. The Holy Spirit “dictated” to the hearts of many writers, and oversaw the consistency of God’s Words.

Words.

Jesus communicated God’s love for us. And words, books, scripture, communicate Jesus to us.

The Bible says we are to “hide His word in our hearts.” How better than through study of those words? They are precious. I shared with an attendee at the conference that, even when I read a Bible passage for maybe the hundredth time, some new revelation dawns on my heart.

How much Bible reading is proper? Are some passages obsolete? II Timothy 3:16 tells us, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”

Have you read His book lately?

+ + +

Stephen Hill (1956-2012) Was a Baptist preacher and session singer before he launched his own gospel-music career. This is a song he sang when he and Woody Wright were invited to perform in the Netherlands. A moving song; you will be impacted in spite of the overlapping Dutch and Norwegian (he was very popular in Europe) subtitles. Words!

Click: Will He Look At Me and Say ‘Well Done’?

12-25-17

I want, as I am wont to do sometimes, to offer a different point of view on topics. Sometimes we, as Christians, need a reminder that matters of faith are more joyful than we realize. When I was a young boy, it struck me how worshipers reciting prayers or the liturgy, or singing hymns, spoke “Hallelujah” as if it were a funeral dirge. No smiles, nor louder voices.

And sometimes we need to realize that things that we celebrate – or observe – and about which we prepare in festive modes… are far more serious than we think, or don’t think. I am not saying they are grim; but are worthy of spiritual contemplation. Those second thoughts, deserving of meditation, is what I aim for here.

So. Not a “downer,” not at all. But if we realize some things about Christmas, for instance, that we seldom think about, we might appreciate the day in a new way.

It is interesting to note that Christmas – “Christ’s Mass” – was not a major holiday in the church for most of its history. Yes, it was observed; it was a holy day (holiday); but it did not eclipse the other church holy days as it does today, with the exception of Easter. Ascension Day, marking the absolute confirmation of Christ’s divinity, scarcely is observed in most Christian churches, and is more significant. Despite the Magnificats and Christmas oratorios, Christmas had not the dominance it does today.

Cards, children’s activities, and commercialism changed a lot of this beginning about 175 years ago. I have a dear friend who works for Hallmark Cards, and I truly appreciate the role of greeting cards, seasonal cheer, and the “sentiments” they generate in Kansas City… but they and Norman Rockwell and Haddon Sundblom, illustrator of the Coca-Cola ads, likely have shaped peoples’ impressions of Christmas as much as the angels and shepherds did.

Do we realize that the birth pangs of the first Christmas were not Mary’s alone? Herod believed the Prophecy of the Savior’s birth – even if people today are more indifferent – and decreed that all baby boys in a wide perimeter of Bethlehem be slaughtered? Historians’ numbers vary wildly on the number of slaughtered sons – from triple digits to multiple thousands, mostly based on population estimates and the area stipulated in Herod’s sweeping decree – but it was a frightening time, whether mothers hid in fear or mourned. Birth pangs that accompanied the Nativity.

The haunting Coventry Carol is not a beautiful lullaby but a mothers’ lament for their slaughtered babies… what history records as the Slaughter of the Innocents.

I have made the point (my own imagining, really) that Bethlehem surely had rooms during the Census, but were told, as the Bible relates, that there were no lodgings. I have a suspicion that that couple were denied rooms because Mary, likely still unwed and at any event a young teen very pregnant, were not respectable to innkeepers. The manger, despite the fluffy, antiseptic setting in Hallmark cards, was a trough of straw from which animals ate, therefore full of bugs and spittle.

Mary and Joseph had to escape the slaughter by fleeing ignominiously to Egypt. Christians seem little concerned about that escape or the subsequent years (although Anne Rice has written interesting speculative fiction about Jesus’ boyhood there). Much in the Bible is symbolic, even down to numbers (3, 7, 40 – you must notice), certain metals and woods, and of course symbolic places: the Promised Land, Crossing Jordan, and the Land of Egypt. The world Moses left and where Jesus found escape.

And so forth. Other symbolism we might draw ourselves, without being in Bible concordances or commentaries. For instance, we might – I say we must – consider more carefully the Slaughter of the Innocents.

We can look at the symbolism to the Slaughter of Innocents today. The abortion nightmare kills babies too – in a scenario crueler than under Herod. Today, mothers sanction the murder of their own babies. Today, these deaths occur not to accompany the birth of a Savior, but to reject His saving power, His miracles, His ability to bless in the face of hopelessness. I am in no way callous to the angst of these mothers when they make tortured decisions; believe me I am specially tender, but always opt for life.

Can that view of the widespread slaughter of babies not be a learning experience from the Christmas Story when we stop, in this busy world at this busy time? To open (metaphorically speaking) the greeting card, beyond the pretty manger scene, and think of the many other implications of the Christmas story? …what really happened back then? …and what can happen in our hearts today, seriously, because of that Birth?

Look to the Bible, friend; not to greeting cards.

+ + +

The lyrics Coventry Carol were written in 1534 for the Pageant of the Shearman and Tailors Guild in the English town of Coventry. The mother’s soothing words over a sleeping baby, “Lully, Lu Lay,” are the basis of “lullaby.”

Click: Coventry Carol

8-28-17

It is that time of year again. What time? End of summer? Labor Day? Back to school… off to school… off to military service? Well, yes; but also the time of year I think again about that season when kids leave home.

A friend and I have been talking about the situation generally known as the Empty Nest. In popular parlance, it means when kids go off to school… and some parents feel pretty darn sad on the first day of kindergarten, much less college, a job or the service, or marriage.

I was always a little upset that when my three kids first ran to their school buses at the commencement of their school lives… and that they all climbed aboard cheerily. No looks back; no tears. Except mine. Oh, well, merciful for them.

And there ARE different varieties of empty nests. My friend and I compared notes and agreed that the phrase is more appropriate when used when the home is (especially) empty after the death of a spouse. Or when a disagreement has given separation a new meaning: “Apartment” is not simply a place you live; “loneliness” is far different than being alone.

But just as the sadness we feel at the death of someone close is essentially a selfish impulse – not negative, just self-ish – so is the Empty Nest not always a bad thing.

Don’t get me wrong: it can feel bad, and we can hurt. Very much. Ultimately, however, with children, we ought to remember that we have reared them precisely to spread their wings… which means, to fly. Away. Usually it is amicable, thank God; and close families grow closer, somehow, by multiplying.

When separation is not amicable, however, barring ugly or inexplicable situations, even that is part of life, and family members must trust God, and trust the seeds of proper rearing. Parents, trust your children, and those “seeds”; Children, trust God, and believe in answered prayer. God’s language is recorded in teardrops.

I think – among many, many examples that come to mind – of a dear friend, a Monday Ministry reader in Kansas who had precious Christian relationships with two of her children; saw those relationships, at different times, shatter in rebellion. But today she enjoys better-than-ever loving relationships with each. Answered (multitudes of) prayer; God’s Grace.

Have I strayed from my subject? Yes, but only to a degree. I think of Empty Nests at this time of year and remember a song I heard before my eldest started high school – but I knew it would make me sad when she left for college. Well. All three children have started high school, graduated from college, and two have families of their own. Yet the song, about a child leaving home, still tugs.

I am not claiming that these thoughts, or any here today, are exclusive to me; or to either of my friends here cited. No, these thoughts are about the most elemental of human emotions… and why I can claim that even the seemingly unpleasant can be “good” in life’s schema.

Ecclesiastes 9:11 reminds us that The race is not to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong, Nor bread to the wise, Nor riches to men of understanding, Nor favor to men of skill; But time and chance happen to them all.

Time and chance happeneth to us all.

These are the words of the song I remember each year, “Letting Go” (the music video follows):

She’ll take the painting in the hallway, The one she did in junior high. And that old lamp up in the attic, She’ll need some light to study by.

She’s had 18 years to get ready for this day. She should be past the tears; she cries some anyway.

Oh, letting go… There’s nothing in the way now. Letting go: there’s room enough to fly. And even though she’s spent her whole life waiting… It’s never easy letting go.

Mother sits down at the table; So many things she’d like to do – Spend more time out in the garden, Now she can get those books read too.

She’s had 18 years to get ready for this day. She should be past the tears; she cries some anyway.

Oh, letting go… There’s nothing in the way now. Letting go: there’s room enough to fly. And even though she’s spent her whole life waiting… It’s never easy letting go.

+ + +

Click: Letting Go

8-14-17

The Eclipse will come. And go. A magnificent coincidence of nature, it is virtually a mathematical impossibility that our earth, sun, and moon are of such sizes. The moon, occasionally in its orbit, can precisely blot out the sun, like two stacked quarters. Or that, between the sun and moon, the earth’s shadow occasionally covers, neatly and precisely, the entire moon, without even a crater rim peeking out.

Well, you know those facts, and many more, because of the Eclipse-mania that has filled the news lately. This excitement about science has itself eclipsed the concerns about possible nuclear war, government scandals, and protesters killing each other. For a moment, anyway.

I have noticed that, more and more, people marvel at scientific wonders AS scientific wonders; mathematical improbabilities; freaks of nature. Less and less do we hear average folk discern the Hand of God… or even His marvelous Fingerprints. So to speak.

That three large and ancient celestial objects can align so precisely is… chance?

Maybe so, maybe so. But skeptics would also have to believe (and they do) in other pseudo-scientific fairy tales like the Big Bang. I’ll stop there. Apart from the fact that the Big Bang Theory sounds suspiciously like a counterfeit Genesis Creation description, what – without God – was there the moment before the Big Bang? Who created matter, whether size of a proton or of a huge volume? Where does the universe end? – and what, then, is beyond it?

Secularists say that questions difficult to answer do not, in themselves, prove the existence of God. This is true. But neither does their ignorance prove the non-existence of God. Myself, I am more concerned with the Rock of Ages than the age of rocks. I know God exists because He lives in my heart; I have met the Savior.

To return to the Eclipse for a moment, I have a friend who read all the dust-up about one of the last Great Eclipses (they seem to come every 12 years ago or so, always advertised as the last of its kind we shall see for 320 years…). Anyway, she read all the warnings against looking directly at the sun; about the dangers to the eye; advice about making pinholes in cardboard, and what kind of smoked glass to look through; and so forth.

During that Eclipse, I was in California and I can still remember the sudden and very strange purplish semi-darkness that overtook, and then vanished, from San Diego. My friend in New Jersey, on the other hand, burned holes in her retina.

She read the advice about making pinholes in cardboard. She got the cardboard, she made the pinhole. Then (obviously missing the rest of the directions) she thought the pinhole was to use in order the look at the Eclipse. She held it next to her nose, squinted toward the sun in the sky. Brrr-zap.

I kid you not, as Jack Paar used to say.

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” This is not a Bible verse, but was written by Alexander Pope, who also wrote “To err is human, to forgive divine,” which also is somewhat applicable here.

In ancient barbaric cultures, eclipses caused people to panic. Wise men and priests reacted in mad ways, even ordering child sacrifices. Today, we know more about science… and, contrary to the secularists, this has drawn us closer to God, not further from Him.

The Eclipse specifically reminds us that behind the darkness is light. That truth can be hidden, but only for a while. That, whether from nighttimes or eclipses, the sun is always there. Just like rain clouds – even in the worst of storms, the sun still shines, above those dark clouds.

Yes, I mean the storms of life, not only rainstorms or strange Eclipses. We poor creatures might panic or fret or fall prey to confusion, even burning holes in our eyes. But the sun still shines; God remains steady, immovable; and He is in control.

+ + +

Click: From the Rising Of the Sun

3-27-17

The title I have given to our thoughts here is, on its face, presumptuous. I do not mean to dislodge anyone from their verse or passage of personal affection or wellsprings of faith and strength. Nor is there is there any reason to intrude on the essential symbolic and subjective value of a Bible passage any person holds dear.

In a larger sense, objective rather than subjective, I have often held that Red-Letter Bibles contain unconscious irony. “The words of Jesus in red,” the title page reads. But in a true sense the entire Bible should be printed in red type, no? Every word is inspired by God; dictated, as it were, by the Holy Spirit.

“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work” (II Timothy 3:16 NLT).

Another pitfall in addressing “favorite” verses, or being too mechanical about them, is my recollection of a youth group getaway when I was young. A few of us snuck off to the chapel one night to read the Bible together. We had fervor, but we had nervousness too. We went around the circle, reading our favorite passages. I prayed for God to back me up, and trusted to share whatever page’s verse I opened to. It turned out to be one of the interminable lists of “begats.” Not only endless and, in that context, thin of relevance… but I scarcely could pronounce any of the ancient Hebrew names in the genealogy.

There is the story, too, of the businessman who had escaped debts by declaring bankruptcy. He cited the Bible as his inspiration – that he opened the Book one night, pointed his finger at random, and saw it was on the words “Chapter 11.”

But to be serious, John 3:16 is often claimed as a favorite verse, and surely it is a foundation stone of our faith, or the essence of the gospel message. Other verses and passages sum up the law; or the doctrine of Grace; or the distinction between works and faith; or promises about healing, salvation, or eternal life.

At one point in my life, enduring measures of distress, I heard the passage about God feeding even the sparrows; three times in one day, from three different sources – radio, TV, and a friend. That day I knew that God was shouting, not whispering, a reminder of that promise to me. And that has become a favorite passage.

But my suggestion of a verse that could join every believer’s list of favorite verses is what Jesus said on the cross as He breathed His last earthly breath:

“It is finished.”

The verse demands more attention than most of us give; and it deserves more contemplation than most of us exercise.

Some teachers explain that it was Jesus’s way of saying was dying. Like, “I am finished.” To graft a Message sort of street-parlance contemporary version, “I’m outta here.” Please forgive the unplugged spirituality – or in evitable worldly devolution of the Bible’s sacred aspects. But, Jesus was not saying at that moment that He “was finished” as a man, or even as Emmanuel, God-with-us. Neither was He saying that His earthly ministry was finished, although this is closer to the implications of His words.

“It.”

What was “it” that was finished?

Especially, now, during Lent, as we should be looking forward to the significance of Holy Week, it helps if we think of the Easter season – the rejection, suffering, sacrifice, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord – as the nexus of history. Before then, everything looked forward to the Jesus moments. God’s love; God’s forbearance of His people’s rebellion; God’s commandments; God’s wrath; God’s forgiveness; God’s laws and requirements of sacrifices; God’s miracles; God’s prophesies; God’s promises, ultimately, of a Saviour.

Then came the events, foretold uncountable times in written and oral history by many and diverse writers in prose and poetry and song, looking toward the plan God always had – the salvation of humankind. The means to be reconciled to God. The only way to avoid damnation for our sins. The only path to communion with the Holy God. The plan of forgiveness. “It” is the gospel message.

All of humankind’s history turned during those days… centered, as it were, on the cross itself, literally where His heart was. All Heaven and Creation listened, and all of us, afterward, hang on those words, even as He hung on the cross.

Or… we should hang on those words. Favorite Bible verse of ours or not, the meaning of “It is finished” can be cherished as the perfect synopsis of the Bible’s gospel message – the entire history of God and man in one phrase.

Because with His sacrificial death, “It” was more than the ending of His ministry — No more healings? No more miracles for the Palestinian locals? His teachings were finished? All these things were true, but He had already promised that the Holy Spirit would come, enabling and empowering believers in Christ to do great things as He had done. However, none of those factors is the “it” Jesus meant.

Returning to Red Letter Bibles, I will note that older translations have verbs in italics, in many passages. This is because original texts wrote of events that HAD taken place, or WERE of earlier prophesies, but written in the present tense. Not “were,” for instance, but “are.” Or “will be.” Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It could be confusing to readers, but the original texts spoke of spiritual matters of their times, or earlier times, in the present and future tenses.

In the same manner also, Jesus did not live – He lives. As my friend Rev Gary Adams of Kelham Baptist Church in Oklahoma City has pointed out, “tetelestai,” the word for “It is finished,” grammatically is the perfect tense. Completed action! Jesus dies for us every day… present tense. And we must die to self, and live for Him, every day.

When Christ said “It is finished,” he was not referring to a chapter that closed when He breathed His last earthly breath. He means that at that moment that a new chapter begins. A chapter about each one of us, chapters in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

Comprised of many favorite verses!
+ + +
Click: It Is Finished

2-13-17

I heard about one of those Management Consultants who conduct weekend seminars, telling a story about his advice to a trainee.

“There are two… essential… things… never to forget…” and he paused some more – “when you set out… to navigate your… career.”

Annoyed by the strangely lugubrious rollout, the trainee insisted, “Yes? YES? Well???”

The instructor replied, “Patience.”

Point taken. But the trainee pressed on. “What’s the other thing???”

Before he could finish the question, the instructor interrupted: “Timing.”

Good advice, if we think about it. (By the way, you just saved two whole days, and a $300 registration fee, for the seminar!) (You’re welcome.) Like most good advice, the best source is not a Management guru, or even Life’s Experiences, but the Bible.

The famous verse – so famous that even irreligious people often quote it during their marriage ceremony – from I Corinthians 13, offers “patience” as the first of the words that define Love: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” Wow. “Patience” leads the list.

A verse we all should remember when things are wrong, or insecure, or bleak, or threatening, or dangerous… and we fret – “Be still and know that I am God.” How much simpler can an assurance of God be? My daughter Heather meditates on Psalm 46:10 by parsing its words individually: each phrase brimming with meaning.

“Be.” “Be still.” “Be still and know.” “Be still and know that I am.” “Be still and know that I am God.” Thus comes spiritual patience.

Then there is the closely related virtue, a sense of timing. Many of the Israelites’ woes, and their leaders’ mistakes, came from disobeying God’s directions, being impulsive, jumping the gun, so to speak.

Many Christians do this from mistaken confidence that they have God’s Will; are full of the Spirit; when often it is old-fashioned Pride.

Peter walked on water as his Savior did and instructed him to do… until he looked down. Impulsive.

Of all the Apostles, I identify the most with Peter, I must admit. Impulsive, sometimes too eager to please God, when all He asks is obedience. The “other side of that coin” concerns Peter, again, and those who were told to “wait” for the Disciple to replace Judas. They were impatient… they substituted THEIR timing for God’s… and drew straws. A guy named Matthias was chosen.

I describe him that way because we never hear of him again in the Bible. He was chosen by 11 men holding an election. But the Holy Spirit, in God’s timing, would APPOINT the successor: Paul.

Peter was an impulsive, bumbling, flawed follower of Jesus. After swearing he would never do so, he denied Jesus three times, leading to the crucifixion. But in God’s timing, Peter soon became a wise, inspirational, strong leader. A great Manager, in fact, of the early church, it could be said. On his confession of Jesus as Lord, the church had its foundation.

What changed? Obedience to God’s timing. In that timing, baptism played a role in the step-by-step timing we are to obey, ourselves. When Peter and the Disciples had been baptized in the Spirit – and as other converts were to experience in a tidal wave of belief after Pentecost – the promise of Zechariah 4:6 was confirmed: “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, said the Lord of hosts…”

Jesus Himself had no earthly ministry we are told about, for the first 30 years of His life. Then he was baptized in the River Jordan, according to God’s timing. The Holy Spirit came upon Him, and His heavenly ministry commenced.

Patience is a virtue. And timing? Always remember to set your clocks and watches to God-Standard Time.

+ + +

Click: Waiting On the Lord

12-26-16

One of the things a lot of us like about Christmas is the comforting security and tradition of it. Right? The one time of year, we are wont to think, when conflicts and arguments are suspended; when families gather; when people go to church for time-honored services and familiar hymns bathe our souls. Even if it is the only day of the year that some people go to church.

I am not going to be Scrooge here, but the Christmas we know so well would have been a mystery in many ways to history’s generations of Christians.

Christmas cards really commenced, in thoughts and printed versions, in the 1840s. The image of Santa Claus as we know him – know him?? – dates from about the same time. Thomas Nast depicted the basic Santa we know; illustrator Haddon Sondblom created the definitive version for Coca-Cola ads in the 1940s. Many familiar Christmas songs were written in the past few decades; and the “old favorites,” with only a few exceptions, were unknown before two or three centuries ago – a blip in 2000 years of Christian worship.

Most of us know, even if we do not dwell on the facts, that Christmas trees, red-and-green, probably the exchange of gifts, and certainly the date of December 25, all are of pagan origins. “Gifts” can be grafted onto God’s purpose of the Incarnation; and various Christian faiths disagree on the date of the Christ’s birth.

But the actual observance of Jesus’s birth was for centuries one of the Church’s minor festivals and commemorations. Easter was, of course, a focal point of belief and believers. At one time Ascension was – I think properly – the major holy day that Christmas was not, quite. Pentecost, also.

So, am I a Scrooge after all? I have no problem, at all, with observing all the “traditional” cultural trappings of Christmas. Yes, I am glad that many people feel free to say “Merry Christmas” again. I never stopped; and I am fine with the presents and the colors and the decorations and the food. Street lightings in October, and radio marathons, annoy me.

What annoys me a lot, however, is the mandatory cheer of this “season.”
If some people, some Christians or well-intentioned revelers, try hard to be cheery at Christmastide, it is not bad… but only to the extent that we should always be charitable and exercise good will to men.

But we should all – all of us – temper our cheer. Stick with me. There are many aspects of Christmas that should turn us contemplative, not into elves with frozen smiles. The Incarnation was the most incredible miracle of God, the greatest gift to humankind. And we should be joyful. Scrooge has left the building, OK?

But. God became flesh and dwelt among us… because the human race was corrupt and lost, headed for damnation, loving sin more than God. That is sobering, especially because so many of us are still lost in sin; still needing a Savior after 2000 years.

Hallmark cards have sanitized the Birth story. I personally am persuaded that there was “no room in the inns” because inn-keepers rejected providing rooms to teenage girls who conceived before marriage. Abuse and calumny likely followed Mary and Joseph through the streets of Bethlehem.

The stable was “humble”? Certainly, but it was less than that. The manger is where animals’ food was placed, so the Baby Jesus lay amongst old food scraps and the spittle of various animals. If frankincense were needed, it was then… because that stable undoubtedly reeked of excrement.

The advent of Jesus into a needy and hurting world was, sadly, akin to the birth pangs of a mother, all mothers in painful labor. Herod knew of the prophecies about a Savior (isn’t it odd, by the way, that even Herod believed, in his way; yet millions of our contemporaries think that Christianity is a fairy tale?) – and Herod, fearing a rival to his authority… ordered the deaths of boys under age two, throughout his realm.

That is what history came to call the Slaughter of the Innocents. One of the most beautiful-sounding Christmas tunes is the lullaby we know as the Coventry Carol. Mother sings to child, “Bye, bye, lully lu-lay,” a transliteration of ancient French. It is sweet, certainly; but many have forgotten that the mother in this lullaby is whispering good-bye to her son, about to be slaughtered.

And so forth. We dishonor God when we willfully neglect the full meaning of Christ’s Mass. We are happy to assert that Jesus is the reason for the season: just so. But the ancients pondered the truth that “God, with a heavy heart, His Son did impart.” Heavy heart? Yes… God was Incarnate in order to suffer and die for us.

At least we humans have learned much in these two thousand years.

No… we haven’t. That is what I have been arguing. We have managed to sanitize, subvert, corrupt, and disguise Christmas. We make it about our memories, not God’s meaning. The Lord made it all about His Will; and we make it all about our wants. Ultimately, His focus was on us, His beloved children, and our salvation; and we make it… also all about us. Something’s not right.

Indeed, something is not right. After two thousand years of “doing” Christmas, this is still – perhaps more than ever – a needy and hurting world. More Christians were persecuted, tortured, and martyred in the last century than in all the centuries, combined, since the Holy Birth. Around us, here at home, we are beset by hate, injustice, infidelity, apostasy, self-delusion, materialism, and corruption.

Abroad – well, we can just look at the lands where Jesus was born, walked, preached, died, and rose. And loved. Let us just look at Aleppo, where the world has been looking… and looking away. Again, slaughter of innocents.

The “Middle East” is comprised of countries where Christians recently have been in the minority, but sometimes in substantial numbers. Those numbers are depleted, diminished, decimated now. “Ethnic cleansing,” refugee purges, forced conversions and rapes, beheadings and slavery.

Herod was an amateur.

After 2000 years we still await a Savior without really knowing why; or knowing He already has come. Or how to greet Him if we were to meet Him.

If Jesus showed up at your house for Christmas dinner, would you set Him an extra place at the feast, or would you fall at His feet? Would He have to remind you why He came to earth? Would we rethink just what it is we celebrate? Should we accept the present of His Birth… or make a gift of our lives and hearts? And would we cover it up with wrapping paper and fancy ribbons?

+ + +

This video is dedicated to all displaced children and in particular Assyrian children who have suffered the most by war and bloodshed in the Middle East. The familiar carol is sung here by people of Jesus’s neighborhoods and languages, Assyrian-Aramaic. These faces like Jesus knew, loved, and was.

Click: The Coventry Carol (Acapella)