Monday Morning Music Ministry

12-17-18

Bells, presents, decorations, smiles, carols, parties… is there anything about Christmas that is not happy – or Merry, the inevitably paired adjective?

A few things, we note with sorrow and regret. It is commercialized to the point of smarm, almost everyone admits; but kitsch increases relentlessly. It is the time of year when the incidents of suicide spikes; remember, therefore, the lonely and “forgotten.”

The holiday (holy day) itself, however, has a DNA of sadness, even grief. The Bible tells us that King Herod, aware of the prophesies of the Messiah’s birth in his time and his domain, ordered the death of baby boys. This horror was visited on a grand scale and was, as we know, the reason that Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt with their Baby boy. Throughout Bethlehem and Judea there was widespread lamentation.

How can it be that a circumstance of God’s plan was not unalloyed joy? The simple answer is to help explain the complexity of God’s ways. As with Salvation itself, God’s gifts like the Incarnation of the Savior free, but not cheap or easy. Like a mother’s birth pangs, the world had to know the price of Jesus’s entrance into the world. Humanity ultimately would despise and reject Him; His difficult birth foreshadowed such sober reminders.

How can it be that a pagan ruler believed the prophesies about the Messiah – even if he rejected the theology in his heart – when many “Christians” 2000 years later question the Virgin Birth? Contemporary theologians, enablers of the secularists in society as they are, deny many divine attributes of Jesus. Surely Herod would not have ordered mass killings to forestall the coming ministry of a great teacher!

How can it be that the grieving, almost insensate, lullabies of mothers, their dead babies in their laps, or facing imminent slaughter, can reflect a matter of foundational faith? That is a question I cannot answer, as a man or as a reflective Christian. Yet the “Coventry Carol” tells the story of this awful occurrence in a way that is achingly haunting and beautiful.

Many people – many mothers – superficially think the ancient carol with its Old French roots of English, “By, by, lully, lullay…” is merely a bedtime song. Yet the lullaby (which word derives from the lament) is a reminder of what is aptly named The Slaughter of the Innocents, and commemorates the price, sometimes, of being a Christian.

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child, By, by, lully, lullay.
Lullay, thou little tiny Child, By, by, lully, lullay.
O sisters too, how may we do, For to preserve this day.
This poor youngling for whom we do sing By, by, lully, lullay.

Herod, the king, in his raging, Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight, All children young to slay.
Then, woe is me, poor Child for Thee!
And ever mourn and sigh For thy parting neither say nor sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

As with Good Friday – the awful price Christ paid, over and above the worst that humankind could assign, even the death of the cross – we can linger at the sad aspects of God’s mysteries. But, as with Easter, Jesus’s life and ministry should be our focus. His atoning gift of Salvation.

“The world received Him not…” Birth pangs indeed, but born not only into the world, but into our hearts. Every day, not just that holiday otherwise known for bells, presents, decorations, smiles, carols, and parties.

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Click: The Coventry Carol

12-10-18

Throughout my childhood, my maternal grandfather whom we called “Little Grandpa” called me to his side every Christmas. He was a man of rituals – stories and jokes at every turn (unfortunately only about six or eight of each, but I indulged the old-fashioned charm); tales of Old New York, which planted my own interest in such lore; playing sentimental ballads and show tunes on the piano from hundreds of old colorful songsheets he preserved.

The Christmas ritual occasioned my mother and grandmother to cry, “Oh, Daddy, not that again!” But I loved it, despite practically having memorized his lesson from annual rites, because I loved him, and I did love the message. Redolent of an earlier time, and rich in poetic truth, was what he read to me from a tattered old newspaper clipping, “Is There a Santa Claus?”

Known through the years by its line “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” it was first printed in the old New York Sun in 1897 as a response to a Letter to the Editor from an eight-year old girl, Virginia O’Hanlon.

As Little Grandpa would explain to me after reading the fragile clipping, children naturally wondered whether Santa Claus is real, the same way they sometimes wonder about sprites and goblins and angels and (when I was really young) the tooth fairy. But, he explained, everything that we think about Christmas and Santa is really supposed to remind us of Christmas and Jesus.

Today, more than ever, Christmas widely is under attack (including, this year, a school banning candy canes because, upside-down, they look like the letter J, which “obviously” stands for Jesus; and therefore must be forbidden). Many Christians find themselves in the position of fighting back, oddly defending the colors red and green, and pine trees, and cartoons of fat Santa as… symbols of Christianity.

They are not symbols of anything other than candy factories and Hallmark cards. But they can be reminders. Let us be open to reminding ourselves, and each other, to remember the Incarnation, God-with-us, the Messiah, and why Christ was sent to earth.

In that spirit, I will slightly edit and revise the warm and familiar words of that newspaper editorial written by Francis Pharcellus Church back in 1897, responding to the query from Virginia O’Hanlon of 115 W 95th Street in Manhattan, “I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Jesus…. Please tell me the truth, is there a Jesus?” (Remember, I am editing and revising in the spirit of the Story behind the story):

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be adults’ or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, we are as mere insects, ants, in our intellect as compared with the boundless world about us, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

No Jesus? Thank God, He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, He will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

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This familiar hymn’s tune reportedly was written by King Henry VIII, but to secular words, “Greensleeves.” Its Christmas message was appended in 1865 by the American William Chatterton Dix. Here it is performed by Rita Ora and the Kosovo Philharmonic Orchestra in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, Rome, Italy, where I often have visited, and wrote about recently here.

Click: What Child Is This?

12-3-18

The second group of thoughts – not “second thoughts” – about the Advent season. Many aspects of the Savior’s life were foretold in many Old Testament books. Some people call them Predictions (literally, “speaking things before they happen”) and some call them Prophesies. The origin of the word “Prophet” is “one who speaks with divine inspiration.”

The distinctions, oddly, seem to run slightly counter to Christian exceptionalism. Muslims and, say, devotees of Nostradamus claim that their heroes were prophets. Many prophets in the Bible, speaking as we believe with inspiration (literally, “breathed in”) of the Holy Spirit, predicted events, people, and places.

The validation of myriad Bible prophesies impress us as, literally, predictions that came true. It can be a futile game to persuade non-believers in the truth of the Gospel, or the whole Bible, on the sole basis of predictions that came true; the infinitesimal chance that they were all coincidences. Yet most of us have tried. Atheists and agnostics who want to reject the love and power of God are going to reject, period. Arguments or statistics will not change their minds; only supernatural intervention can – a better way to pray, anyway.

In the meantime, Christians are grateful for historical confirmations. Consider the many discoveries in recent years of Biblical sites, cities, and historical artifacts that “experts” used to laugh at. The “legends and fairy tales” of towns and temples, relics and records, kings and kingdoms, the skeptics told us to dismiss… are being affirmed by archaeologists and historians. Such discoveries warm our souls, but usually our faith did not hinge on such matters anyway.

But a chapter in the middle of an important Old Testament book, written by the prophet Isaiah, describes the life, ministry, passion, and death of Jesus Christ. Descriptions of His physical appearance are thrown in; elsewhere are also descriptions (not mere hints) of the complicated manner and dangerous circumstances surrounding the travails of Mary and Joseph, and the choice of Bethlehem in Judea. The Christmas story to the Easter story are prefigured through the Old Testament.

This can remind us – not convince us, unless we were in doubt – about the supernatural aspects of the Messiah, “God with us,” the Word made flesh Who dwelt amongst us.

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death. He was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Not written after Jesus’s time, this mini-bio… but 700 years before Jesus was born.

God’s Christmas present to the world, 700 years early.

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Click: Ave Maria

11-26-18

We enter the Advent season, the time preceding Christmas. It is not too early to think about some of the aspects surrounding the birth of the Savior… however, if we judge by shopping malls and newspaper ads, Christmas was upon us before Halloween.

It is never too early, or an inappropriate time, to contemplate the birth of Jesus, is it? But it is interesting to note that the ancient Church observed an aspect of Christmas more profoundly than it did Jesus’s birthday. Throughout most of Christendom for 2000 years, the Feast of the Visitation, or the Annunciation – when the Holy Ghost passed over Mary and the Savior was conceived – was regarded with more services, messages, and accompanying prayers and worship, than was Christmas. Oddly (it would seem to contemporary minds) Christ’s Mass was a minor observance.

Similarly, the Resurrection of Christ – named Easter after a pagan rite; and whose calendar date was fixed more by various secular customs than Biblical history – was a solemn observance, certainly. But Ascension Day, 40 days after the Resurrection, when Christ physically rose to the heavens, was an important day on the church calendar. Today it is barely noticed in many churches.

The Ascension, even more than the miracles of a Virgin Birth or rising from the dead, definitively affirmed the Divinity of Christ. He was sent by the Father; He fulfilled prophesies; yet in the Ascension He was again One with the Father.

Notice that we are talking about miracles in every case. Christians, I notice, can become jaded about such things. “Miracles? Of course!” but how many Christians actually believe that miracles of God still occur; and how many assume they are extinct? Some denominations teach that miracles were MEANT to expire in the “Apostolic Age” – to ignite the first generation of believers who could kick-start churches… but “no, not for today.”

If people don’t believe in miracles… they are not going to pray for them. If people think they are mere artifacts of millennia-old religious folks… they will start to believe that the Bible is not reliable, after all.

In a certain way, the Bible is a book of miracles – supernatural events, supernatural solutions, supernatural lessons.

I think of a list I read once: The Bible is a book about a man made of clay; a rib that turns into a human being; talking animals; a floating zoo; a talking bush; food falling from the sky; sticks that turn into snakes; 900-year-old lifespans; a woman made of salt; Samson’s magic hair; a man who lived in a fish; the Sun standing still for a day; blowing a horn and shouting at a wall, making it collapse; magically multiplying foods; healing mud made with spit and dirt; men walking on water…

Nonsense and legends… or true miracles? Shouldn’t we all have a more awesome regard of Scripture? Regarding the “dusty relic” or “naive legends” dismissals of Bible miracles, contemporary Christians who think they are too mature for such stories should think about this –

If you believe that Jesus was the Son of God, how do you square the fact that HE believed in Biblical Creation, and Adam and Eve, and Noah’s flood? Was He delusional? stupid? naive? … or was He God-made-Flesh, the Messiah?

We are talking about the Christmas season. The Visitation, the Annunciation – the Virgin Birth – is a fact not optional for believing Christians. It fulfilled uncountable prophesies, but, more, as is said about the Resurrection, if it is not true, our faith is in vain. Poof.

One of the most beautiful passages in Scripture is Mary’s prayer, when the Holy Ghost came upon her. I suppose many women would think they had a bad dream; or, alternatively, they might be boastful, unique among all women. But she was humbled to her core. She was not to be the Mother of God as she is sometimes called, but properly the mother of Jesus, blessed among all women. Mother of the Word made flesh who dwelt among us, destined to save His people.

Mary’s prayer is called “the Magnificat,” after a Latin phrase in the prayer (“My soul doth magnify the Lord”). Profoundly moving; with precise spiritual perspective in her heart… and, through the ages, in our hearts too. Her acceptance of a miracle speaks to us. Here is the prayer, found in Luke 1:46-55; and I offer perhaps the greatest of its musical presentations, by Johann Sebastian Bach.

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has looked on the humble estate of His servant. 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 for those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; He has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of humble estate; 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 offspring forever.

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Click: The Magnificat

11-12-18

The recent observation of Reformation Sunday – for those who did observe – sent me back to study some of Martin Luther’s works. I guess in the fashion that we review the stories of the Nativity and the Passion and Resurrection on their holy-days: not as often as I should.

My set of Luther’s works is eight volumes, mostly collected sermons, and his commentaries and fascinating “table talks” run to even more. They are fresh and constructive – instructive – today. I have also recently watched two German films on his life, Reformation and Luther and I. They can be seen on one of my addictions, the foreign-language cable channel MHz Choice, which offers hundreds of drams and comedies and mysteries and documentaries from European countries, all subtitled. (Not a commercial, but my recommendation!) The two new Luther films are separate – one is told through the life-story of his wife Katharina von Bora, and has a valuable feminist perspective – and clearly rank in excellence with two previous theatrical biopics.

Regular readers here will know that I was born Lutheran, graduated to Pentecostalism, but recently have experienced a tug back toward liturgy.

The liturgy – organized worship service, with regular modules including prayers and songs each representing a different aspect of Christ’s mission; and adaptations for different parts of the church calendar – grew cold to me as a child. Indeed much of the twentieth-century church peeled itself away from “old-fashioned” worship.

I noticed how people in my congregation memorized songs and prayers, almost by osmosis, and sleepily drifted through “worship.” In some other corners of the Protestant world, traditional music was abandoned. Folk music, southern gospel, Christian rock, Contemporary Christian Music, and pop filled the void. Many Catholic services sounded like coffee houses; and churches everywhere largely became come-as-you-are parties, even to pastors in Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts.

And so forth. These were all likely inevitable results of the American culture – increasingly secular as well as informal – and, frankly, the Reformation itself, five centuries ago. With people theoretically free to interpret Scripture for themselves, such things are to be expected, given human nature. In error? Not necessarily… if Christians adhere to Scripture as assiduously as did Martin Luther.

But Martin Luther was unique. A moody genius, hard on himself, a tireless scholar. He never meant to split from the Catholic Church, only to reform it… but it was not to be. He was excommunicated, fled for his life, translated the Bible from Latin (a heresy to the Pope), and his complaints, the 95 theses, and his sermons spread across Europe, attracting princes and peasants and all classes in between.

Eventually the Protest-ant movement fractured into theological divisions; some revolts took on social and political aspects. Luther had to step in against violence and desecration of icons. The side-effects of his reforms spurred literacy, publication of books and pamphlets, political liberty, and the Enlightenment.

But. We have to remember that Martin Luther called Reason the enemy of Faith.

In many senses he was the last of the Western World’s pre-Moderns. He must be seen, despite the intellectual fires he ignited, to have been of the Gothic world, not the Renaissance. To understand this, we must remember that his motto was “By Scripture Alone.” Therefore he directly runs afoul of the contemporary world.

As a dedicated Protestant, of whatever stripe, I cannot myself be comfortable with Mariology, veneration of saints, and other aspects that Luther beheld as extra-Biblical or anti-Biblical. However… what would he say about the Protestant church of the Western world today?

The religious straws that broke the back of the Augustinian monk Luther were selling indulgences to “purchase” the souls of dead relatives from Purgatory. There was no Purgatory; the coins of peasants were kept by corrupt priests, or expressly funneled to the St Peters Building Fund in Rome. Similar “works” were imposed upon the illiterate masses – penance, reciting words, good deeds, all ways to bribe God.

Luther had discovered the verse, “It is by faith, not works,” and it revolutionized his life. It became the ammunition to defy Rome’s corruption,

But 500 years later – widely, but not everywhere; I know – Christ’s church holds up works and deeds and programs as means to Salvation. “Seed faith” offerings… “Prayer hankies”… obligatory service… attendance, participation even in well-meaning charity causes… political correctness substituting for the Gospel… mandatory participation in social causes… pledge drives and vision statements… Relativism replacing relationships with Jesus…

How different are these things than the indulgences and man-made rules of the corrupt Roman church of the 1500s? Not much.

I am certain that Luther would be revolted by much of the church today, even among his own followers; but also, still, by the Catholics. When he argued for the “priesthood of all believers,” it was not for people to lord over each other, but to serve one another.

The Christian church today – at least north of the Equator, generally, and in “free” countries – is too often a collection of clubs or virtual museums or social circles, where the Gospel is obscured by materialism. If Christ Himself returned today, I suspect we often would find Him in bars, slums, and dirty malls, not Crystal Cathedrals and opulent mega-churches. He would not likely be joining in “Dirt Bike for Jesus” races or fried-chicken socials.

The point is – Luther’s point, just like Augustine and St Paul and other fervent exegetes – was that God created us; but we always try to create God, and His Son Jesus, in our image. That’s not how it works.

Ecclesia reformata semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei — “The reformed church, always being reformed according to the Word of God.”
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Click: Trust and Obey

11-5-18

It is axiomatic that the United States of America is not a democracy. At least it was not intended to be an open democracy by the Founders and Framers. In fact those gifted and wise people abhorred and distrusted straight democracy. But this axiom is not accepted by those who willfully dissent, or choose not to understand the distinctions and consider their implications.

Those who claim that the US is a democracy, or should be more so than it is, should realize that the government was established to be (at best, in their eyes) a representative democracy; but otherwise, and by direction, a democratic republic.

What both those terms mean is that our system was appropriate when established – a new people on a new continent established nevertheless along traditional bases of religion, morality, ethical behavior, justice, and good will – and appropriate now. With the exceptional foresight granted to them, they assessed the future. The Framers of our fundamental documents were not political theorists but sagacious architects.

In that view, there have been necessary additions and occasional repairs made to our American Home, but the structure has stood the test of time, at least until now when its stresses and fractures are most evident.

I recently bought a two-volume set of Alexis deToqueville’s Democracy in America, ancient books they are as I hold them, seemingly never read in more than a century since this edition’s publication. I was struck by two things as I read this iconic work: how brilliant this visiting Frenchman, in the 1840s, assessed the American spirit and ethos. He marveled at the bounteous natural resources, and the common virtues of the uncommon and diverse population.

DeToqueville dwelt on religion and its effect on the American people – specifically, the value of Christianity to the American “system” as Henry Clay meant it: the government and its laws. Earlier, Framers like Franklin and Jefferson, supposed “Deists,” revered the Bible and sought to employ its prescriptions for social comity and justice. John Adams predicted that an America without fidelity to Biblical principles would not – could not – long succeed.

The other factor that struck me about the book Democracy in America is that it is frequently cited and often quoted (or mis-quoted: deToqueville never wrote the aphorism “America is great because America is good”) – but is seldom read. When I determined to own a copy, it was difficult, even on used-book sites. The book is seldom assigned, scarcely read, and imperfectly understood.

Which describes, also, how our Constitution is regarded. Many people who yammer for the overturning of the Electoral College cannot discuss the valuable reasons for its establishment. The Framers thought people with a stake in the government ought be the ones who vote, and dissenters have a point of view. But that point of view approaches the irresponsible (in the view of the Framers, as well as me) when its alteration extended past women and former slaves to anybody with a pulse, including those, as advocated in some parts, who are not even citizens.

I think it should be more difficult, not always easier, to voter. I think the type of questions on citizenship tests should be administered every 10 years or so – not to new arrivals but to every voter. (And I believe many congressmen and senators would flunk a lot of those tests.) When voting costs nothing, not monetarily of course, it is worth nothing.

So for years I did not vote. I followed, and addressed, public issues, but generally I took the view that voting only encouraged the scoundrels. When I repeatedly heard my parents’ generation talk about “the lesser of two evils” every November – and then felt that way myself in the voting booth – I realized I was voting for evil, after all. When I thought that illiterates, felons, welfare cheats, and the uninformed had the same bit of influence I did (and more, counting those who are herded and directed to vote multiple time), I despaired at the futility of it all.

The United States has slid toward a new brand of despotism, perhaps difficult to discern, being in its very throes; a bizarre mixture of corporate syndicalism, finance capitalism, supported by a cabal of media elite and a quiet, sometimes informal, conspiracy of like-minded thought police in the government, bureaucracy, media, educational establishment, and even the church. Mind-control, intimidation, the “compassion” metrics, and the “hate speech” game comprise the New Orthodoxy. Shadowy, in some cases, but dangerous. It engages in a politically correct jihad that permeates every part of our culture, operating the greatest propaganda machine in human history.

So. Now I vote. I am no longer cynical, but a warrior. Do I remain pessimistic? … about our nation, our political system, out beloved Constitution?

Yes, I am pessimistic about their survival.

But that is not our primary concern. For those who call themselves Christian, our first loyalty is to Christ and Him crucified and Him risen. We must be concerned with our souls and those of our families, friends, communities, then our nation and the world. Our opponents with increasing ferocity would deny Christians their rights in the public square, in classrooms, in our very homes. If they succeed… we will still worship and fight, as uncountable martyrs have done for millennia; as uncountable persecuted Christians around the world do every day.

In so doing, we must “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” I believe Jesus did not restrict His words to coins. That is, if elections mean that we engage in politics… we must engage in politics. If we think abortion is the murder of babies… we oppose it as we would despise any murder. We must stop the acquiescence in secularists’ view that there is no God, and our traditions, or beliefs, should be merely tolerated (or, eventually, not)… and fight back: there IS a God; this is His world; He established the means not only for our salvation but our happiness on this earth. In the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.

I believe we can and should make alliances. We can debate tactics, but there is a man who is very flawed (can we qualify that word?) but who willingly aligns himself with the Christian community on an astonishing number of issues; who has delivered on many promises to Christians and Jews (and many ethnic groups previously taken for granted by politicians). I am not sure, frankly, that I would like Donald Trump as a next-door neighbor, but I daily pray thanks for what he is doing.

The imminent elections can confirm the rebirth of Christian commitment in the United States… or illustrate that the reclamation of “democracy in America” in the way deToqueville assessed and celebrated it, was a passing illusion. Polls do not lie, but polltakers, and those who fashion them, do.

The saving grace of democracy is that the masses can be manipulated, but when they assert themselves, defying their would-be masters… they must be listened to. We are beginning to see: we must be listened to.

That is why to vote.

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Click: Looking for a City

10-22-18

This weekend just passed covered the day we celebrate — or should celebrate and commemorate; a good time to re-dedicate — Reformation Day. October 31, anniversary of the day Dr Martin Luther nailed his 95 These to the church door at Wittenberg, Germany.

These 95 points of “Contention” with policies of the Pope and the establishment Roman Church are regarded as the sparks that ignited the Reformation, and the Protestant movement. There were reformers before Luther – preachers, theologians and Bible translators who were persecuted, tortured, and killed. The English John Wycliffe died a century before Luther was active. Hatred against him, for daring to adapt the Bible to the language of the people, was that his bones were disinterred and burned after his death. The Bohemian reformer Jan Hus was burned at the stake for his reformist beliefs. His last words, tied to the stake, before the flames consumed him, were “in a hundred years, God will raise up a man whose calls for reform can not be suppressed.“

It was 102 year later that Luther nailed his challenges to that church door.
Luther was persecuted, chased, went into hiding, and translated the Bible into the language of his people, the Germans. He sought reform, not revolution, yet revolution occurred: half of Europe caught fire with the belief that faith alone, by God’s grace, actuated salvation; and that people needed no intercessor with God except Christ. He was excommunicated. He married. He preached and wrote lessons… and wrote hymns.

It is my belief that, as last year we observed the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the church — at least the Western Church, certainly the American church in virtually all its corners — is in dire need of reformation again.

More than that, we need to look to Martin Luther as a Hero of Conscience. He said when he was called on trial to recant his beliefs and writings,
“Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can not and will not retract.
“For it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience.
“Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.“

The time is coming in this contemporary world when Christians have it demanded of them to renounce their faith. That this is already a time of anti-Christian persecution, is abundantly clear. That, daily, believers suffer indignities and are asked to compromise their principles and forced to sublimate their voices, is a reality to committed Christians.

Some days soon Christians will have to suffer no longer in silence, or have the luxury of withdrawing into small groups and communities of believers. The Bible does not merely warn… prophets did not just threaten… but God promised this holy challenge to the saints of God in the End Times.

Can we, like Luther, have the spiritual strength to say: “For it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. “Here I stand. I can do no other” ?

I have two brief clips for Reformation Day: the first is the powerful “conscience” scene from the 1953 “Luther” movie starring Niall MacGinnis (nominated for an Academy Award).

Here I stand

The second is the “battle hymn of the Reformation” sung a capella by Steve Green. Myself, I can never sing this mighty hymn without choking up. Its final lines describe Luther’s trial… and foreshadow our own:
“Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever!”

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Click: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

10-22-18

This admonition, “Share the Gospel. If necessary, use words,” has been attributed to Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, and many others. Its meaning is clear and profound.

Its message is so fundamental to life and relationships that its application spreads to less – and to more – than evangelizing Christianity.

But it seems scarcely less significant, and somehow easy to forget, that in all matters we are being seen by our fellow human beings. Family, friends, strangers. When we do not realize it. Even when others do not intend to study our actions. But we are seen; we are judged; we are, often remembered.

The Bible tells us, in Hebrews Chapter 11, that we are always surrounded by a “great cloud” of heavenly witnesses, cheering us on in our faith walk, and runs, and life-challenges. However and moreover, our families, children, neighbors, and unknown eyes see us too. Watch us. And sometimes subliminally, sometimes directly, they learn from us.

This situation might be more vital than in any time of the history that we know. The faithful and secular alike realize that we live in a time when organized religion, the institutional church, and traditional spirituality in general are of diminished importance, at least in our Western culture. The reasons are many, and of disputed origin, but my purpose here is not to debate the Why. Let us deal with the Fact. And the Effect.

Character has been defined as what you do when nobody is watching. That is a useful aphorism too. But there are some people who do not care how they score on “character quizzes.” The point is that we influence others – beyond revealing our standards – whether we realize it or not. And that is something we should care about at all times and in all places.

We are all a part of society, and should be conscious that our roles extend beyond our selves. Our children surely learn more from noticing our actions than listening to our lectures. No different with spouses, neighbors, co-workers… up life’s ladder to God Himself.

A Biblical summary of these principles is found in James (1:22) – “Be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only.”

Sharing the Gospel is not a memory quiz. It should be seen as Performance Art.

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Click: Take My Life and Let It Be Consecrated, Lord, To Thee

10-15-18

A robust element of many stories in the news these days, and a subtext of many articles, particularly political stories, is the resurgence of socialism. Significantly, the church is at the center of matters.

Socialism has experienced an awakening, at least in debates as its governmental structure is being somewhat dismantled. Wasn’t it dead and buried after the Reagan years? Didn’t the failure and overthrow of Communist regimes around the world teach people that socialism was a miserable failure? Weren’t the statistics of misery, poverty, and oppression in socialist paradises enough to inform people of its toxicity?

Quite the opposite. In America, anyway, it has been more than resuscitated. More than acceptable again, it is fashionable and urgently desired by broad swaths of the public and media. The Fourth Estate has become the Fifth Column, and Americans are, among other means of propaganda, “guilted” welcoming the socialist agenda.

No less than politicians and media and wealthy foreigners and the academic-industrial complex, many contemporary church leaders – Catholic, Protestant, Jewish – are fervent cheerleaders. For neo-Marxism.

My problem with Marx, Engels, and Lenin, and Left-wing Socialism is that, at essence, it is anti-Biblical. Church Marxists will argue that Jesus was the first socialist because of His dedication to equality and peace and his rebuke of the wealthy and concern for the poor. They say that His Disciples and the early Church were examples of communistic communities.

Why are these viewpoints anti-Biblical?

Jesus was devoted to equality… but never did He pull people down. He always lifted people up. Equality was a thing to be desired, and all are born with equal opportunities (never in history more than in non-socialist states), but Jesus made references to the real world’s ambitions on one hand and charity on the other.

Peace? We all know that Jesus had a temper, yes, and let His righteousness take precedence over peace as the world might define it yesterday or tomorrow. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

Jesus’s attitude toward wealth? We know that He commanded to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s; and to “forsake all” and spoke of the rich entering Heaven as easily as camels passing through needles’ eyes. His distinction was not that “money is the root of all evil” but that “the love of money is the root of all evil.”

Were the early Christians prefiguring socialism in their communities of sharing? The answer is found in later, more organized Socialist states that have imploded thanks to inequality, wars and counter-revolutions, inflation, corruption, and – have you noticed? – suppression of religion.

In virtually every Socialist state, religion is oppressed; believers persecuted. In mild “mixed” socialist countries, church attendance and fealty to Scripture drastically has been diminished.

I think Christians should be opposed to socialism, moreover, because it is based on the state planning, state supremacy, or state control. Goods and services… economic choices… private enterprise… educational standards… prerogatives of daily life. When the population is reared on a socialist worldview, the government is assumed to be the ultimate answer to every problem, the ultimate source of every blessing, the ultimate judge of every challenge.

The government, not God, becomes people’s go-to resource. Google the proper agency instead of praying to the Lord.

Major culprits – wolves in sheep’s clothing – are “Democratic Socialist” or “Christian Democrat” or Democrat parties that substitute themselves for the church. How do they attempt to supplant the church? It is not always as blatant as pre-censorship of sermon notes, as the mayor of Houston attempted a few years ago; nor the many attempts to proscribe the Bible, and public monuments and celebrations, as “hate speech.”

It is more in the poisonous worldview of modern socialism: textbooks written by unelected secularists; the aspects of national health insurance that would discourage private and personal care, and force caregivers to sometimes act against their consciences.

The foundational aspects of the welfare state discourage (or attack) the concept so strongly commanded by Jesus that we care for one another as individuals. Massive taxes for a welfare bureaucracy allows people, or obliges them, to transfer their giving to the State – and in so doing, “free” them of the Biblical necessity to care for the poor and sick. Ultimately, allowing people to stop caring about the poor and sick.

I believe, as St Augustine believed and wrote, the real meaning behind “the poor you shall always have with you” is not that poverty is a futilely resisted pestilence, but that we need to be aware at all times of those who hurt. For their sake, and our souls’, not to check boxes on tax forms to fund some program somewhere.

Finally, consider: Marx spoke (supposedly) to the working class. Good at first glance?

But Jesus spoke to ALL.

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Click: Just a Closer Walk With Thee

9-17-18

“Don’t you know that Jesus Himself never claimed to be God?” Many atheists, or agnostics, or armchair theologians have challenged me through the years. In fact: Yes, He did. Often. In many ways. Plus, He proved it by fulfilling prophecy and doing mighty works. Hey, if you cite the Bible, try reading it first. To quote the Good Book (somewhere) (I think) shutteth thy mouth.

Jesus was “only a teacher”? Read His words… see His effects on uncountable multitudes through the ages.

A few decades ago there was a book that flashed in the pan, but persuaded some people whose itching ears were waiting for persuasion, titled The Passover Plot. It represented heresies that have popped up for a couple millennia arguing that Jesus was a fraud; that His miracles were staged; that He was either a charlatan or simply delusional. His disciples, too, were either political manipulators or likewise crazy.

Absurd on its face, even if only for the fact that very few people – certainly not all the Disciples; all the early Church’s martyrs; the persecuted who endured torture and death as Christianity spread; and millions today who die rather than renounce Jesus — would “die for a lie,” follow a lunatic.

The great Christian apologist C S Lewis posed the most profound of challenges to skeptics. To those who are familiar, you can hear it shared one more time.

For those of you who have not heard it, read carefully.

Jesus lived. He lives in the accounts of Roman governments; and of contemporary historians like Josephus, the great Jewish historian. Was He divine? Was He the Son of God… God incarnate? If you are mathematically inclined, you can figure the odds of hundreds of prophesies, written by dozens of writers, over many centuries, in different locations… all fulfilled in the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

OK. Perhaps that does not persuade you. Here is what C S Lewis proposed:

The historical figure of Jesus, heir to spiritual inheritance and a recorded lineage, was known to have taught and preached and healed. No one claims He was like a Greek god or mythological figure: He lived. So now we confront this Jesus. “Who do you say I am?” Before the rhetorical answer, Lewis confronts us with the logical choice… the only possible answers to Jesus’s claims about Himself.

One: He was a liar. And ringmaster of an elaborate conspiracy.

Two: He was a madman, claiming to be God, but able to convince multitudes.

Three: He was – is – who He says He is.

There is no other logical choice. Much of the world thinks about it – frankly, hardly at all – and bets on the Teacher thing; or the craziness of ancient shepherds; or maybe they bet on the kindness of a god, if there is one, who will tally their good deeds, or make allowances for “good hearts” and charity deductions on their tax forms…

But there is that nagging question: What if Jesus IS who He says He is?

Are you willing to bet? Do you like the odds? Would you bet your life?

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Click: What a Friend

9-10-18

She was sitting on the curb outside her apartment, the little apartment in the row of several small units on one of the rivers that feed into the Atlantic Ocean in central New Jersey. A hot summer afternoon, yes, and the little apartment has no air conditioning.

But mainly she was out there, alone – alone with her thoughts. It was the end of the month; benefits had run out, as had most of the food.

Actually, as I learned of this story afterward, it was not an unfrequent circumstance. But lately, in scenes like this, Barbara was not really alone; not only with her thoughts. She was praying. And her relatively recent and closer relationship with Jesus led her to pray. Jesus, her new best friend. When the New Life happens, you don’t only pray to God. The Holy Spirit inhabits and inspires your prayers. You pray with Jesus, not only to or through Him.

The Lord wants to know the burdens of our hearts, so we no longer feel selfish in asking for basics, big or small. The Word has promised – the Peace That Passes All Understanding bathes our troubled souls.

As she sat there lifting up those burdens, a neighbor from five doors down walked up. An old Black man named Victor, with a very young son or grandson whose puppy was on a leash, greeted her and said he thought she might like some crabs. Now, Victor lays crab traps outside his place on the river, and all along the coastline, selling Blueclaws to shops and restaurants. Blue crabs, common up and down the Atlantic coast and mostly identified with Chesapeake Bay, are interesting creatures with bright azure claws, back fins that act as paddles – they actually swim – and the sweetest, most tender meat you can imagine.

Many of my summer afternoons, on Jersey Shore childhood vacations, were spent in rowboats with my dad, my uncle Gus, and cousin Tommy, in Barnegat Bay. Fastening clunky wire traps with bait, usually mossbunker heads, we would lower the traps and pull them up almost immediately, with one or two crabs in each, all afternoon. On good days we would have several bushel baskets of those clacking crabs. In the evening our grandmothers, moms, and sisters would boil up innumerable crabs – no longer blue but scarlet red – to be turned out onto “tablecloths” of cut brown paper bags; cracking, poking, picking that sweet meat from every small corner and tip.

This history would explain why Barbara responded to Victor’s offer with a shout that could be heard across the Atlantic, maybe as far as to Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn: “CRABS??? Wow! Yes! THANK YOU!!!”

At that moment, the offer of a pack of saltines would have been gratefully met. But an abundance of fresh crabs – especially in these latter days when they are more delicacies in seafood markets and menus than results of lazy, sunburned afternoons in rowboats – seemed like a miracle.

When I heard the story, I knew it was a miracle on several levels. For Barbara – for anyone – to immediately thank God and give Him the glory, is often a miracle in itself, particularly when that spiritual attitude had not been traditional. But, more, she felt that prayer was answered. She acknowledged that God’s blessings often reflect his holy timing; being still and waiting, as the Bible says.

Further, the attitude of thanksgiving is essential. Was Victor an angel, sent with his kid and basket of crabs? Maybe, but she did know him from the neighborhood. The important thing is, as Christians, that when Christ visits His brothers and sisters, it is as He lives in the hearts of the mercy-givers.

Satan knows this. He hates us according to the amount of Jesus we open to Him in our hearts.

So when someone says, “that wasn’t Jesus – that was only a neighbor being nice,” the truth is, for instance in this story, that’s Jesus acting through our neighbors and us, to each other.

It’s what Christians do.

Questions about timing… about further prayers’ further effects… about the temptation to see prayers as magic wands… to wonder why God sometimes seems to say No…

These are still… questions. God did not promise that we would avoid the Valley of the Shadow; only that He would be with us. So there are, and continue to be, questions, challenges, and problems in life. But God answers prayer in His time and in His way. And He honors faith, and faithfulness (two different things) – and He will bless the grateful heart.

How many people, sitting on the curb like Barbara was that afternoon, would have “thanked her lucky stars,” shaken Victor’s hand, and told her friends about an amazing “coincidence” that just happened? I can tell you: a lot of people.

But the New Life brings something sweeter – well, let me say, some great complements and spiritual condiments – to steamed crabs, drawn butter, and Jesus at your table.

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Click: Lead Me To the Rock

8-20-18

NEWS ITEM: June 22, 2018 –
UN Chief ‘Personally Concerned’ about Return of Christians to Iraq and Syria
“I am fully convinced that after the stability of the situation in Iraq and Syria and the adoption of a certain political decision, it is very important to ensure the return of the Christians, in general, to the religious minorities, and the Yazidis themselves, to their homeland,” António Guterres told Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill yesterday.

NEWS ITEM: June 27, 2018 –
Slaughter of More than 200 People in Plateau State, Nigeria, Shocks Christians
Weekend attacks took place in the predominantly Christian villages of Xland, Gindin Akwati, Ruku, Nghar, Kura Falls, Kakuruk, Rakok, Kok, and Razat, sources said. The villages are in the two districts of Gashish and Ropp in the Barkin Ladi Local Government Area (LGA).

“In Nghar village alone, about 70 corpses of Christians were recovered and the entire village has been burnt down by the Fulani herdsmen,” area resident Thomas Chuwang, 45, told Morning Star News… adding that the victims there were members of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN).

NEWS ITEM: June 27, 2018 –
China’s “Underground” Churches Told to “Seek Guidance” from State-Approved Bodies
A newly implemented directive from the Chinese government forces Protestant “house churches” and Catholic “underground” communities to seek “guidance” from recognised religious organisations….

One hundred churches were closed in Nanyang, in central Henan province… “Christians who used their own church building for meetings were targeted, and their buildings closed.” Consequently… Christians had gone back to meeting in homes.

NEWS ITEM: July 10, 2018 –
Twenty Christians Severely Injured in Assault on Prayer Gathering in Northern India
International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that last Monday, July 2, 20 Christians were seriously injured in an assault on a prayer meeting in Raikashipur village, located in the Pratapgarh District of India’s Uttar Pradesh State. According to local reports, a mob of 35 Hindu radicals stormed the meeting and beat the group of over 150 Christians gathered for prayer. Following the assault, the Pradhan (village president) filed multiple false criminal charges against six of the Christian victims.

NEWS ITEM: July 27, 2018 –
Christian North Korean Defector Speaks Out against Persecution and Indifference
A Christian woman who defected from North Korea said the world cannot “just sit and keep watching” as North Korea persecutes Christians and others.

Ji Hyeona spoke at the US State Department’s Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom event at the Harry S Truman Building this week. She told her story of abuse and torture while trying to escape North Korea.

“Since I first escaped from North Korea in 1998, I have since escaped from the North a total of four times and got repatriated to the North three times until I finally came to South Korea in 2007,” Ji said. “In between, I fell victim to human trafficking and I was also subjected to abortion violently forced on me even with no anesthesia because the North Korean regime couldn’t accept what they call “mixed love”….

“We can not just sit and keep watching what they are doing because indifference is the most tragic tool that puts people to death and kills them,” she said, “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said: ‘The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.’”

NEWS ITEM: July 31, 2018 –
Assault on Christian Leader in Nepal Reflects Growing Threat
Pastor Sagar Baizu, 46, had finished one meeting and had an hour before the next one, so he decided to stop at a café on a major thoroughfare in Kathmandu, capital of Nepal, on July 19.

As he was about to sip a coffee in the crowded café at 2 p.m., six to eight men suddenly attacked the spokesperson and co-general secretary of the Federation of National Christians in Nepal (FNCN) from behind.

“They beat me for a minute and a half and suddenly fled the site,” Pastor Baizu told Morning Star News. “They said, ‘We will blast your church and all the churches with bombs and shoot you and all your leaders.’”

NEWS ITEM: Aug 1, 2018 –
Rwanda Closes More Than 8,000 Churches In Major Crackdown
More than 8,000 churches throughout Rwanda have been closed by the government as part of an alleged crackdown on unsafe structures, although religious liberty advocates say the government is closing congregations that should be considered acceptable.

Christians in the country fear the movement is a cover for the government’s drive toward secularism…. One church was closed during a wedding, with the guests “told to leave the church during the service,” World Watch Monitor reported.

Churches have only 15 days to make the required changes upon being reported by the government. The Rwandan source said in some instances, even house meetings are banned.

Pastors are now required by the government to have degrees from accredited institutions. Bible schools are mandated to teach science and technology in order to teach theology. Among the other rules, access roads to churches must be paved and inside walls and ceilings must be plastered and painted, according to World Watch Monitor.

NEWS ITEM: Aug 16, 2018 –
Atheist Military Group Files Complaint Against Decorated USAF General
CBN reports that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has filed a complaint against Brigadier Gen. E. John Teichert this week. The MRFF filed this complaint to Defense Secretary James Mattis requesting an investigation into Teichert, the newly installed commander of the 412 Test Wing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

The MRFF is claiming that Teichert’s website is violating rule against religious proselytizing that the Air Force and Defense Department have in place. On his website Teichert describes himself in the following way:

“John is an active duty Brigadier General who has served in the United States Air Force since 1994, and who was saved by grace through faith in Christ in 2004. He has commanded at the wing, group and squadron levels, and is currently serving as Air Force commander. The Lord has blessed his career while burdening his heart with the need for our nation to return to its Christian foundation. He serves alongside his amazing wife of 20 years and their three incredible children. It is their desire to fully invest their lives to maximize their impact on people and on our nation for the Lord.”

CBN reports that … the MRFF said Teichert “should be doing time behind prison bars, not commanding a wing wearing general’s stars.” The MRFF continued, saying Teichert was “a fundamentalist Christian tyrant and religious extremist predator.”

NEWS ITEM: Magic Show at Saddleback Church, Lake Forest CA –
Join us at Camp Hope and witness some incredible illusions performed by Scott Tokar. Scott will be performing for about 25 minutes directly following the 4 pm and 6 pm services. This will be a night you and your family won’t want to miss!

NEWS ITEM: “All Is Well” Yoga at Mars Hill Church, Grand Rapids MI –
These classes can assist you on your health, healing, and wholeness path by creating a space where you can encounter God while caring for your physical well-being.

NEWS ITEM: Authentic Manhood Class, Lakewood Church, Houston TX –
Authentic Manhood is a discipleship journey for men. This 24 session curriculum helps men understand their identity and shows them how to pursue authentic manhood. It offers a clear definition of what a man is and challenges each man to develop his own manhood plan. All men are welcome to attend this life changing class.

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Click: The Storm is Passing Over

Also in memory of Detroit’s Aretha Franklin

7-30-18

A birthday card for Leonard Bernstein.

Recently I compiled notes and gathered thoughts for a memorial service I was asked to conduct for a dear friend, Stephane Irwin, who recently died of cancer. I do almost all my writing, drawing, and sleeping to background music, and on this evening I punched up YouTube on my big screen; found performances of the great funeral masses of Mozart and Fauré to help set the mood … and noticed a clip I had never seen – Leonard Bernstein conducting Mozart’s Requiem.

The Requiem was the last thing Mozart ever wrote (and in fact never was completed); which makes the Funeral Mass a little spooky, at least intriguing. This performance is astonishing. It was recorded in 1988, and by happy coincidence I commend and share it on the centenary of Bernstein’s birth.

“Lenny the Lion” was a kaleidoscopic character in American music. Composer and conductor, he was also a “popularizer” of serious music. When I was a child, I watched his series on CBS-TV, Young Peoples’ Concerts, in which he explained the history and musical essentials of pieces performed on the broadcasts (imagine that on network – or cable – TV today!). He composed operas (Candide), Broadway musicals (West Side Story) and symphonies. He conducted an array of music, and was largely responsible for the rediscovery of Vivaldi and Baroque music. He was a public figure, frequently recalled in a Tom Wolfe essay pandering, in plaid bell-bottoms at his posh New York apartment, to Black Panthers – “I dig. I totally dig.”

He was “out there,” outrageously talented and irrepressible. Many of his musical contemporaries, fellow Jews, were conflicted about performing in Germany after the war. Isaac Stern made a show of boycotting concerts there. Yehudi Menuhin (family name Mnuchin, by the way) and Daniel Barenboim were among those who were comfortable performing in that land of the great composers, to discerning and welcoming audiences.

Bernstein was in the latter group. He chose a relatively minor church in a small Bavarian town – short drives from Munich, Dachau, and Berchtesgaden – to perform Mozart’s sacred works. The church’s design is of the off-putting late-Baroque and Rococo styles of fluff, ornaments, and countless filigrees; but of Mozart’s own time. Other conductors, like Karl Bohm, recorded in the same church.

But my little guided tour here is about more than music’s universality, or Bernstein’s open mind, or Germany’s musical soil.

Note well Bernstein’s conduct as a conductor in this video. He always revered Christian sacred music so much that – when conducting in churches or cathedrals – he carefully explained to his musicians and his audiences that church music, not mere concert music, was the fare. He would broach no applause, before, during, or after the work.

More than that, you will see, he begins with head bowed and a long silence. Praying? Maybe so; his own wife died shortly before this Requiem mass was performed. He ends the performance again with head bowed and almost uncomfortable silence throughout the church. And between several movements, Bernstein paused for seeming prayer or meditation, at one point dabbing his eyes with his handkerchief.

This is sacred music, he said… and says the same to us through the years. Too much Christian music today is performed as, well, performances – with applause, curtsies and bowing, encores and whistling. In or out of church. Worshiping God? That priority largely has become obsolete.

So: in the presentation of 200-year-old Requiem masses, or cantatas, oratorios, or Te Deums – where is the reverence; the original, spiritual intentions? For that matter, in our contemporary churches and their worship services themselves, where is the reverence today?

How many of us attend churches where Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts are encouraged? Where people shuffle in and out, casually chugging from ever-present water bottles? Where – turning Bernstein’s ethos on its head – music is a literal concert performance, no opportunities for the congregation to sing lyrics or do anything other than clap and jump? Where services have the form of spontaneity but deny the power thereof; tightly managed? Where creeds and the Lord’s Prayer are never spoken?

Am I being legalistic? No; I don’t think there have to be neckties and below-the-knee dresses and strict reliance on old hymnals to get to heaven, or present meaningful worship. Or to commune with God among fellow believers.

But neither should 21st-century Christians feel like they are weird strangers to miss… reverence in church. What a concept.

How many of you feel this way; have been smothered by these things; miss the things that I miss? Many of you – I get mail. My messages on “When Worship Music Is Neither” elicit more mail than any other topics here. These are not matters of mere nostalgia. We miss – and, complicitly, make other people miss – the respect, the opportunities for contemplation, the privacy of prayer and meditation, the… reverence of worship services.

Not those of our childhoods, not of Bernstein’s time, nor of Mozart or Bach’s days, but of 2000 years of corporate worship. We can be exuberant, but the core of “reverence” is to revere God. Just because there are no prohibitions of dirty shirts and sandals… should not require us to make uniforms of such things.

Clear an hour, try to ignore the stupid YouTube commercials, and commune with the music linked here. And the liturgical settings. See if you agree how profound it is, and how the period-performance and setting the American Jewish conductor respecting a Christian mass in Mozart’s heimat, can teach us about reverence.

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Click: Mozart: Requiem
(click icon in lower right for full-screen)

7-23-18

At one time during humanity’s long march, whose trudging we cannot escape, death was almost too horrible to face for most people.

And Heaven was almost too wonderful to imagine.

The proper view (inescapable after all) is that life and death are part of the same Great Adventure… and this has led the devil to make this life seem like the end of everything. Evil forces try to persuade us that there IS no tomorrow – and therefore no consequences of this life’s choices; no eternal perspective; no judgment. No Heaven, no hell.

And when Heaven was marketed – yes, sometime by churches themselves – as too wonderful to be reached without those churches and their rules and additions and conditions and games and systems of bribing God – uncountable substitutes were invented.

Substitutes not only for Heaven, but for ways to become a citizen there, with God, for eternity.

Therefore, ironically, the devil and the church-system both have often lied to us. And the contemporary world, too, lies even more. The secular realms, all around us, have piled on. Everyone wants a piece; the contemporary world needs to reinforce the lie that contemporary life contains and offers all we need for happiness.

When humankind rushes to that message, it runs away from the Cross.

Peace? Healing? Reconciliation? Love? Forgiveness? Broken homes? Heartache? Disappointment? Addictions? Betrayal? Insecurity? Rebellion? Lack of respect? Loss of self-esteem? Pride? Failure, fear of failure? Loneliness? Rejection? Abuse? Discrimination? Grief?

Negative and positive; real or threatened; momentary or long-lasting… The secular, contemporary world tells us that these things, and more, and anything and everything, can be solved by dental work and face lifts; tummy tucks and yoga classes; diets and exercise; different clothes and newer cars; the right friends from malls and concerts; hotter obsessions in sports; cooler mastery of games; music, movies, TV series; political correctness; and, of course, drinks and drugs in general.

The bitter, bitter truth is this: the world jumps like a trained dog, believing that these lies from the devil are true about the afterlife – but they obviously, clearly, self-evidently are lies about contemporary life too. Today. Now. Music of this dance of death that people choose.

Who cares…

Who cares when your children split away from you? The music producers? Who cares when your marriage is on the rocks? Hollywood? Who cares when you feel horribly alone, maybe betrayed? Game designers? Who cares when you lose a job, suffer insecurity, are hit with loss of self-esteem? Brewers and distillers? Who cares when you need forgiveness? Celebrities and star athletes? Who cares when you endure abuse or discrimination? Superheroes?

Ah. The pharmaceutical industry. How could we forget them? Oh, and the politicians. Plus all those government bureaucrats, of course… they care. They all care, right?

That’s called a rhetorical question. The devil does not care, except to hate your soul. The glitterati do not care, except to exploit you and your misery. Even – as hard as it is to state the truth – in many cases we cannot even trust friends and family to care, when all is said and done.

But…

Jesus cares. We know He cares. When the days are weary, the long nights are dreary, our Savior cares.

Put aside your “theological” arguments, if you have any, resisting this love of the Savior. Evil hates us. Friends, even family, can be unreliable. The “world” cannot care because its motives are rotten. What’s left? Who cares? Jesus, lover of our souls.

But… don’t really put aside theological arguments! Think on these things. The very foundation of life, and the irreducible fact of our existence, is God’s love. Brought to us by Jesus’ care.

Someone is reading this – or might read it in the future, thanks to the permanent presence of the internet! – who needs to know it, not only for a minor challenge along the road. Or a major crisis that looms. But to confront life, see life, and live life in a new way.

To know, really know, that the Creator of the Universe cares. He cares. Who cares? No one, hardly, on earth… and surely no one in hell; nobody in hell cares about you like Jesus.

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of hell, a hell of Heaven. – Paradise Lost, I: 254-255

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Click: Does Jesus Care

7-9-18

I recently delivered the message at a friend’s memorial service. I was asked by her mother, who had only three months ago lost her husband too. Life and death are not supposed to run that way, mothers burying daughters. But I have learned of other sicknesses and deaths in my circle. And people who came to me after the service also shared many stories of recent sad news, deaths, and afflictions.

Life happens.

What should not happen is that we, God’s children, take comfort in fantasies of our own imaginings. Not that these things happened at the service, but we often hear and perhaps say – and I pray not believe – that so-and-so is now dancing with angels. Or reunited with his or her favorite pets. Or watching over us.

Such fables perhaps are well intentioned. But to describe Heaven, or to contemplate our own eternal lives, in such ways, reveal that we do not know the Bible. Or, if know the Bible, we thereby presume to know more than it says. Are we wiser than the revealed Lord? Will He turn the universe of His creation upside-down because we hope to act in a fictional play of our own desires?

Whatever we do NOT know of death and eternity – indeed, all of life’s mysteries – puts us in the position of wanting to create God in our own image. Let it not be so! The riches of His glory are so great, so literally indescribable, that we cannot begin to choreograph what He has in store.

Remember that truth, that whatever we cannot imagine is so much greater than that which we know. Trust God: there is a reason we do not know all. Trust Jesus: “In My house there are many mansions [prepared for you], if it were not so, I would not have told you.” Trust the Holy Spirit, who has been sent to lead us to all Truth.

Coping, as we must, however, with life’s challenges and griefs, and with all the mysteries of life, not to mention death, it is natural that many of us turn to books and tracts that collect Bible verses of comfort. They are sometimes arranged by category of concerns; otherwise a Bible concordance can serve the same purposes. They contain “God’s Promises.” Yes, from God’s word.

In all respect, literally, to God and to all of you, I say that we must remember that another “Promise Book” can be compiled from many proverbs, warnings, commandments, epistles, sermons, and exhortations in the Bible. These “other” promises are also God’s words, after all.

God, by His inspiration of writers and prophets and judges and apostles and disciples and missionaries, spoke of many things.

You might lose jobs; your family and neighbors might think you crazy; you will be a lone, and very lonely, voice defending the truth.

These are not threats or warnings, strictly. Coldly, these are promises of God. The way of a Christian is not easy… never has been… never will be. In God’s providence, He did not mean it to be easy. Jesus took up His cross, and we were told – yes, promised – that we must do the same to be worthy of Him, worthy of Eternity.

A downer? No! Even more Bible promises assure us that it is a privilege to die with Christ. We are His ambassadors here on earth. He lives within us, and His Holy Spirit empowers us… that we will be more than conquerors.

And those trials of life? Challenges, disappointments, rejections, fear? I ask you to look at the promise that He would never leave us nor forsake us, and remember some incidents.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could have been spared the fiery furnace if God chose to destroy it. Yet they displayed faith, and were protected through the fire. God could close up the Valley of the Shadow of Death… yet when we walk through it, we are protected by His rod and His staff; they comfort us. By faith, Abraham was even willing to sacrifice his son Isaac, yet the Lord stayed his hand, blessed Abraham and his descendants, and gave us a picture of Jesus’s sacrifice when God was willing. And so on – the list of God’s promises, and their fulfillment or puzzling postponement, that Mystery of His ways.

“God had planned something better… so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” We are parts of that “scarlet thread of redemption.” The powerful truths of His promises do not depend on our understanding of them! He asks only faithful obedience.

If you ignore the least commandment and teach others to do the same, you will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But anyone who obeys God’s laws and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 5:19).

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Click: Come Harvest Time

6-18-18

Thinking back on family scenes on Father’s Day, I was reminded of my parents’ story about days of my childhood, when I was too young to have remembered myself. Among the first words I spoke (that is, “words” and “spoke,” with qualifications) was “Hobbo-loody.” It seems I uttered the phrase often and emphatically, and to much consternation. How could mom and dad show off my skills to visitors (I was the first-born) if the sound was gibberish?

Howdy Doody? “A baloney,” as in sandwich? They finally solved the mystery as I jumped for joy when my father exclaimed, in another context, “Absolutely!” It was his frequent, if hyperbolic, word of agreement, or affirmation. “Yes” would not do; “I agree” apparently was too weak – “Ab-so-LUTE-ly!” he boomed. My immature fealty was “Hobbo-LOOdy!”

People do that today, saying “Absolutely!” even substituting the word for “you’re welcome!” when they are thanked.

Hyperbole and exaggeration in our time betray a conversational laziness, because we can remain detached but switch in some camouflaged emotional investment. Many times I hear toddlers in shops and malls say “Oh my God!” Besides the blasphemy, it is ridiculous to think that young children can so regard, say, a soiled gumdrop on the floor. My late mother-in-law dropped the phrase at the slightest turns until one day I asked her what she was saving for a presidential assassination or world war.

An additional feature of the word “Absolutely,” beyond its frequently needless employment, is what it really means. Absolute things are the “max,” unable to be topped, extended, or multiplied. On the other hand, something that is “absolute” cannot be diminished and remain absolute. Nothing can be LESS absolute, or modified, or qualified – because then it is out of the realm of the absolute.

In today’s spiritual world – that is, reality; not passing fads and trends in society – the word “Absolute” needs to be re-asserted. This is not a mere word-game.

God’s Word contains ABSOLUTE truth; in fact it IS Absolute Truth.

His promises are ABSOLUTELY true and trustworthy. Not “mostly”; absolutely.

When Jesus spoke, He had the authority of ABSOLUTE Truth, not – as relativists and liberal Christianity and Post-Modernists and Emergent church leaders say – “relative truth.” Or “relational truth.” Truth is truth: it is inherently Absolute. Any adjective other than ABSOLUTE unplugs the essence of what Truth is. (In lexicography, “Absolute” here is emphatic, not qualifying. Lesson over!)

This world, as it always has been but seems more so then ever before, is relativistic. “What’s right for me is right.” “Believe what you want, if it doesn’t hurt anybody.” “What’s true for you is not true for me.” “There is no right or wrong” – which sums up all the equivocations.

In the 1960s, Jean-Paul Sartre presciently maintained (with approval) that in the coming age, “authenticity” would be all that mattered. This is a cruel philosophical version of the advertising industry’s saying, “Sincerity! Once you fake that, you’ve got it made!”

Around the same time, Dr Will Herberg beheld the vaunted “New Morality,” and seeing no trace of respect for Absolute Truth, said it should rather be called, “No Morality.”

When there are no Objective Standards in peoples’ lives – that it, no respect for absolute truths in their core beliefs – there are no standards at all. Humans are wired to worship SOME thing, and when we neither recognize nor seek Absolute Truths, or standards greater than ourselves… we fall back, virtually, on worshiping ourselves.

Not a recipe for spiritual health or societal wellness. As the world slid toward more self-worship and less God-awareness, in the 20th century… well, we cured polio and put footprints on the moon, but slaughtered more people than in all previous centuries combined.

“You shall be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you” (Deut 5:32,33a). Oh, the world will ask about other Old Testament verses that seem cruel or obsolete… we will be challenged about rules that seem not to apply to post-industrial societies… and so forth.

The Bible confirms itself, almost endlessly, and those who confront us with seeming contradictions (there are none) or ancient cultural contexts (there are some), would better spend their time absorbing truths than straining to find loopholes. From mighty saints of God to, say, humble cake decorators (possibly also mighty saints of God) who regard the Truths of the Almighty as Absolute – not in ancient times or distant places, but right where they are – are all good and faithful servants.

Sorry, Dad – and others who use words like “Absolutely” a little too freely. You gilded the lily. When paired with the word “Truth,” we must obey.

Absolutely.

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Click: There Is a Balm in Gilead

6-11-18

This has been a week of tremendous news, emotional and important for everyone on every side of (seemingly) every issue. International diplomatic breakthroughs; daring trade confrontations; history-setting economic news at home.

“Winners” (for instance, those happy with the Supreme Court’s decision) should refrain from hyperactive victory dances. These days, spiking the ball can bounce back in our faces! We should prayerfully be grateful, but respect the debate if well-intentioned.

Of course, these days, well-intentioned discourse seems rare. Jack Phillips, the decorator at the modest mom-and-pop Masterpiece Cakeshop of Lakewood, Colorado, is not a raging bigot who barred homosexuals from entering his shop, as his detractors claim. Very few people can even cite his denomination, if he has such membership, and ascribe anything more than his fidelity to the Bible. (Many people do not know the origin of “Masterpiece” as his shop’s name. It is Ephesians 2:10 – “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.”)

But Jack’s policy at Masterpiece was based on conscience, informed by faith. The modest, flour-splotched baker is actually in the pantheon of Heroes of Conscience alongside martyrs of the early Church and Reformation; Luther; persecuted Christians around the world today, both notable and anonymous.

He is consistent, and willing to sacrifice for his beliefs. If that means closing on Sundays, so be it. If that means declining to decorate cakes with off-color themes or requests for sexy or violent images (his artistic talent could tackle any challenge, if he chose), or Halloween or homosexual messages; if his “bottom line” is decreased, so be it.

Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby close on Sundays too. In fact if Jack’s standards reduced him to selling only a few cupcakes to class reunions, he would proceed. God has given Jack a talent… and a conscience. He does not need to be loved by everybody, but he would like to be respected by everybody. And he does not NEED to be attacked by anybody, yet within hours of politely declining to design a homosexual message on the icing on a cake, the attacks started – organized protests; thousands of robo-computer e-mails; automated phone messages; vandalism; etc. In the name, you understand, of “love.”

My friend Penny Carlevato, also of Lakewood and in whose home we recently shared thoughts and lasagna with Jack, made a clever observation, that America was built on religious liberty, and has succeeded in large measure because of it; but ironically those who hate religion and our cultural heritage now use that freedom to attack the traditional foundations.

Jack and his family endured emotional distress, a down-sizing of his business, and other privations during the years of these trials (approximately six years). The Colorado Civil Rights Commission would have forced him to express messages contrary to his values; to accept a set of rules written by some external moral arbiters; to force his workers to undergo training sessions in “sensitivity”; regularly to report compliance to a state agency.

Some of his friends were slightly downcast as the nature of the Court’s “narrow” decision became clear – that the conflict between conscience and public accommodation was not solved. News flash – at the current stage of democracy’s evolution, it never will be solved; get ready.

No, the “narrow” aspect is that the Commission, on the first rung of this long ladder, exposed the virulent anti-Christian bias of two commissioners. Religion led to slavery, Jack was lectured before he could open his mouth; and Christianity was responsible for the holocaust.

The gist of the Court’s “narrow” ruling is that the government in this instance was NOT impartial; exposed a very uneven playing field; displayed prejudice against people of faith.

THAT, friends, is actually a silver lining of the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision. Because of it, every local board of self-righteous commissioners, every tyrannical town council, every petty school board, every legislative committee, every gaggle of unelected bureaucrats high and low, have been put on notice that they cannot act arbitrarily and imperiously. They cannot display bias against religious traditions, against people of conscience, against Christians exercising their faith.

In the future, at least for awhile, these little Big Brothers will think twice before imposing their secular agendas – their revolutionary stink-bombs, their Rules for Radicals – on the rest of us.

The martyrs’ hall of fame, those who died and those who fought for individual conscience, and the essential importance of one’s faith, has a new figure, as noted above.

If the media try to ask – “Such a big deal over WEDDING CAKES?” and “Is this really a Constitutional crisis, led by a neighborhood baker?” Let us recall what James Abram Garfield said when he was elected president. He left his position as an elder in his local church in Ohio to move to Washington, and he said: “I resign the highest office in the land to become president of the United States.”
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Click: I Shall Not Be Moved

6-4-18

You can discern the face of the sky; but can you not discern the signs of the times? This is a famous rebuke from Jesus to the Pharisees and Sadducees found in Matthew 16:3.

Christians in America and much of the West, and traditionalists at large, should be praying that these are the End Times, because sometimes it is hard to contemplate things being much worse. We are lulled by good economic news, and the general prosperity that envelops us – the culture’s “bread and circuses” taking our eyes from the signs of the times. Those signs flash, these days, as brightly as they ever have.

In Charles Wesley’s great sermon on this passage he notes that Pharisees and Sadducees often disagreed on many matters, but they came together to challenge Jesus; to test him; to ensnare Him in contradictions. Of course they failed, and He confounded them.

The fuller Biblical passage reads: The Pharisees also, with the Sadducees, came, tempting, requesting that He show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said, When it is evening, you say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather today: for the sky is red and lowering. O you hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky; but can you not discern the signs of the times?

There are several things to take away from this exchange, pertinent to today.

The first fact is pertinent but seems impertinent to many Christians today. And that is: Jesus rebuked his interlocutors. He often rebuked people. If we dig deeper, He tended to be silent with outright accusers – as during Passion week – but frequently rebuked those who played to the crowd; who devised trick questions they hoped would stymie Him; He angrily dispatched liars and those who would seek advantage in arguments… but not seek the truth.

Christians are in that situation today – the world is full of vicious opponents who work to steal, kill, and destroy our faith. Another class of opponents, making convenient alliance as haters of old, especially in our midst, use other means to attack us. Ridicule. False charges. Mis-characterizations. Guilt by association. Seduction by pleasures of the sinful world. Corruption. Regulations and laws. Dishonest values.

I recently was a speaker at a Christian conference where a round-table discussion was assembled to address the “crisis” of how Christians are perceived in contemporary society. I was rather in the minority, holding a) that the crisis is in the culture, not with Christians who resist its corruption; and b) that believers who judge their effectiveness by the world’s reaction, or approval, have lost the fight already; and likely do not even recognize the fight… or the stakes.

“Are we perceived as haters?” and “How do we counter that perception?” were the assigned questions. I received a lot of pushback, especially from two relatively prominent writers / teachers. The usual categories of those people determined to reject the Gospel were trotted out, and I was fairly accused of caring little about their souls.

I would like to think that my standard is that of Jesus: I love their souls so much that I desire to deliver the purest, least compromised truth, that I can. And I firmly believe – and plead with other believers – that if people reject the Truth today… we have nevertheless planted the seed. The Holy Spirit was sent into the world to finish the jobs we have been privileged to do, as per the Great Commission: preach the Gospel.

There was a dear friend in the audience that evening who was almost in tears, confessing to spending many nights in tears because some Christians talk about how terrible these times are. Can’t we see the “light”? Can’t we accept the workings of a loving God today?

I tell all such friends that I have in fact peeked at the end of the Book. Yep, God wins.

But does that mean America succeeds? For all our recent sins, do we deserve to “succeed”? to prosper? to get a pass from the judgments God has visited on other apostate peoples? Will revival come to a nation determined not to seek it… to not even recognize that it needs revival?

Why does it surprise us that schools have turned into so many drug-infested, values-confused shooting zones, when two generations ago Bible reading and public prayers were outlawed in their classrooms? Read other headlines – hospital workers who believe that abortion is murder, are nevertheless ordered to perform infanticide. Public airwaves have become cesspools of filthy language and filthy ideas, protected by “free speech” arguments (denied, however, to traditionalists).

One of the last countries in Europe votes to allow abortions, and vast oceans of people cheer the outcome in public squares. Not by the relatively few women whose medical conditions possibly were threatened, but by thousands of women – and men – who could otherwise be rallying against drugs and corruption and a culture of social hatred. No… blood lust. Back home in America, widespread angst about the legal fate of a baker who declined to decorate a cake with a message that offended his values.

That a nation of one-third of a billion people can be awaiting such a momentous Court decision that carries incalculable implications… turning, literally, on a vote of one or two people in black robes… is somewhere between ironic and absurd – but soundly a Sign of the Times.

It is a virtual reality these days that Christians wear Scarlet Letters. Or might soon, literally. A mark of the beast. Nonsense? Hester Prynne wore the letter A (for Adultery) on her forehead in the 1850 indictment of Puritanism in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel. Fewer than a hundred years ago, Jews across Europe often were obliged to display yellow Stars of David.

Signs of the times plausibly might include an obligatory red “C” (for Christian, anathema!) on nuns and doctors who refuse to provide abortions; on teachers who secretly allow students to read Bibles; to people praying in public (street-corner evangelism is already outlawed in some European countries); to bakers who decline to violate their beliefs when they decorate cakes.

If it were not for double standards these days, secularists, liberals, and relativists would have no standards.

I wrote above that I have two take-aways from Jesus’ famous rebuke. The first must be our willingness to rebuke evil – to defend, if not ourselves, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The second lesson is to simply be aware of the signs of times. Pray for discernment, wisdom, knowledge, then boldness as appropriate.

Like with the group at the round-table discussion, it is too easy for Christians to confuse peoples’ compliments for their convictions. Christianity is not a democracy: the number of preachers in backward collars, or church-attendance numbers “run” each Sunday, all mean nothing if people do not hear, do not understand, do not believe the Gospel. It is worse than nothing… because a generation is being coddled and lied to on their way to hell.

Jesus challenged His challengers. Three hundred years ago, Wesley asked, “How is it, that all who are called Christians, do not discern the signs of these times?” The question still burns today – even as the signs burn brighter in our faces.

Yes, we win at the end of time. But until then, God wants us to run the race.

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Click: Ain’t No Grave

5-28-18

Memorial Day. It is easy to get caught up, these days – or lost – in the homogeneity of patriotic holidays. Fourth of July? Veterans Day? Memorial Day? The culprits, if we forget the specific origins, are the general diminution of patriotism in America, and also the side-effect, the lack of teaching and remembrance. A disregard, frankly, of the importance of who we are as people… how we got here… and who paid the costs.

The Fourth of July, of course, commemorates our independence, and the spirit behind that independence. Veterans Day generally honors the veterans amongst us. Memorial Day, once “Decoration Day,” honors not so much the veterans who live, but those who died.

I wish we had few such holidays. Not because I want to wish away wars, and certainly not against the spirit of sacrifice. But just as “President’s Day” cheapens the immense honor due to Lincoln and Washington and few others, when officer-holders high and low are commemorated, so would more holidays. Especially when our contemporary age creates or re-fashions national holidays around weekends and possible commercial sales opportunities.

On Memorial Day, “we call to mind the deaths of those who died that the nation
might live, who wagered all that life holds dear for the great prize of death in battle, who poured out their blood like water in order that the mighty national structure raised by the far-seeing genius of Washington, Franklin, Marshall, Hamilton, and the other great leaders of the Revolution, great framers of the Constitution, should not crumble into meaningless ruins,” said Theodore Roosevelt in a Memorial Day address.

Speaking personally, I have opposed many of our wars, especially in my lifetime. I am a man of the Right, in Whittaker Chambers’ phrase, ready to die for the red, white and blue, but not always for the flags of strangers. I revere the American Republic; not necessarily the American Empire. But what I think is statistically irrelevant, and irrelevant in my slight role as an essayist with some followers.

My own ambiguity about foreign policies and priorities that result in shed American blood is put aside – cast aside – on these Memorial days.

I pray that we all share admiration and respect and honor for those Americans, especially in these days where the military draft no longer exists; those who did what they did for the heritage of our past, the reality of our present, for the hope of the future.

What were these men and women made of? They volunteered; they sacrificed; they died. They suffered nightmarish injuries. When able, many of them re-enlisted.

No matter what progressives, especially those of an earlier generation, say, our servicemen and servicewomen did not wear uniforms and train with weapons because they hated.

They loved.

They loved their comrades. They loved their flag. They loved their missions – the people whose situations they liberated, the people they rescued. They loved their families back home, believing that the sacrifices ultimately were worth it. They loved their homes and streets and towns; their way of life.

Even the least-schooled understood the inchoate but essential virtues behind the tattered flag – that America has stood for something. They fought, and were willing to die, for something greater than a village, or bunker that must be cleared. They were conscious of being children of a great tradition (even if they were recent immigrants in uniform)… and were conscious of being fathers and mothers of that continuing tradition.

I put aside the controversies surrounding our wars and rumors of wars. On this Day especially I stand, and salute, and visit graves at random, of men and women who did the unimaginable courageous things, often in dutiful and routine ways.

Because of who they were. Because of what America is. Or was, God help us.

We salute you.

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Click: Thank You

4-23-18

I was a guest on a couple of podcasts this week, most of the questions having to do with one of my “other lives” – in the cartoon and comics fields. I drew political cartoons, edited notable strips like “Peanuts,” wrote for Disney and TV animation, and was Editor at Marvel Comics.

Ancient history, but to many fans today superheros are a little like Holy Writ. The podcast interviewers sometimes asked questions about projects I had nearly forgotten! Previous to my time at Marvel (a different Marvel in those days) I had never been a big fan of superheros themselves. I explained that to Stan Lee, whom I admired (still do!) and had known previously.

Part of Stan Lee’s credo was that we were in the business of “suspending disbelief” – an aphorism credited to him but actually coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge about three centuries ago. Coleridge likened the concept to “poetic faith.”

I have come to regard the superhero ethos as rather unhealthy – the guys in the white hats (or white Spandex) always win? By power, force, and violence? “Morals” at the end of every story? Naw – any values divorced from biblical truth are counterfeit. Readers were being weaned on “New Gods” whist the old God was ignored, dismissed, and, most tellingly, disbelieved.

Disbelieved by fans and creators on this basis – get ready: I had many such debates, so this is accurate – “that stuff in the Bible can’t be true… those supernatural events and miracles are all fables… Jesus couldn’t have done all those things; get real, Rick.”

That reflects neither poetry nor faith.

‘nuff said, true unbelievers. I suppose I am supposed to find comfort in the saying that believing nothing is better than believing the wrong thing. Save that for fortune cookies, not life principles. It is a Super-Lie. (Not to mention the pragmatic imperative — a society with no core beliefs CANNOT, by definition, operate on any positive standards or values.)

In the parlance of today’s comics culture, Jesus was the greatest superhero of them all. He was sent to earth; He knew the past of prehistory and could foretell the future; he read peoples’ minds; He turned water into wine, fed a multitude by praying an increase over a basket of fish and bread; He walked on water and walked through walls; He raised people from the dead, and rose Himself despite agonizing torture and putrefaction in a tomb.

His costume was a simple robe, except for the holy Blood that covered Him according to uncountable prophesies and predictions. The greatest of His superheroic acts, in my eyes, is that He did this all for us sinners, while we were yet in our sins. But more of that another time…

This view of Jesus – certainly proper and very biblical – was scoffed at when I had discussions back during my comic-book life. Strange, it seemed to me, and it still seems strange.

However, Jesus was not a fictional character, but indisputably a historical figure. I knew Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who invented Superman as teenagers in Cleveland. “It just seemed like a fun character, a fun story to think about.” I asked Bob Kane how he came to create Batman. A similar story – at least no high-culture or pop-culture babble about cosmic forces of evil and revenge from him. “A fun idea,” not to mention, in each hero’s heritage, some fictional antecedents.

Motion pictures have reinforced a generation’s tendency to think of superheros as plausible, and their powers as virtual. Art imitates life imitates art. Yet Christianity teaches not the opposite nor the corollary – but the truth that Jesus was God-with-us (“Emmanuel”); that He had super powers; and that He still does. His miracles were not virtual but real.

Christianity is nothing if not about the supernatural. Welcome to Reality, not Fantasy!

Jesus, as a historical truth, is not a mere character in a story. His acts and teachings are not merely symbolic. And He is a Man who lives today. And confronts us. He looked at you from the cross; He looks into your eyes as He leaves the tomb.

More than a symbol, more than a character, more even than a superhero. You must confront Him in return; you cannot ignore Him. For, as C S Lewis said, this Man of history, after what He claimed and what was claimed of Him, was one of only three things: a deluded fool; a master charlatan; or… the Savior of humankind, lover of your soul.

All hail the POWER of Jesus’ name!

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The podcast interview referred to above: cbh-podcast-episode-17-rick-marschall-interview-part-1-newspaper-strips-to-marvel-comics

PLEASE watch this moving performance of a classic hymn, performed in praise and worship, and discernible singing in tongues —

Click: All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name

4-16-18

There are a lot of things in life we cannot control. Or so we tell ourselves, and believe. Self-evidently, there are things that happen outside our power to anticipate or escape or even plan.

But we also affect more things than we know. Our attitudes affect our altitudes. Our morale influences our morals. And all the other fortune-cookie sayings; cliches are cliches, usually, because they ring true. Heed them… and realize that the “little things” are really big things, or might be the seeds of big things to come. You know, “big oaks from little acorns grow.” That’s true too.

I have been thinking along these lines, lately, in moody moments when I realize how minor decisions made years ago led to major situations – places, jobs, friends. Choices have implications. Let’s say a casual choice about a job, or between two places to live, set us on paths with many implications. Sometimes complications, too; but that’s life.

Seemingly casual choices can affect your life situations, and those of your children too – places, jobs, friends. Spouses, of course.

None of this is to say that life is doomed to be a game of chance, casual in the extreme. No, it is said in Ecclesiastes that “Time and chance happeneth to all.” This is not a lesson to accept the dictates of a mindless universe; we are not ball bearings in a cosmic pinball machine.

Just the opposite. As we make life choices – and life seems to make choices for us – we do best to remember a couple of things.

Life is not so random, despite appearances. God orders our steps. He creates opportunities. The “trick” is to be open to His leading, and not fearful of a soulless fate.

Even when making choices, we should remain in prayer about the next steps, future opportunities, the fields beyond the horizon we can barely see. Fervent prayer avails much, especially when that prayer enables you to be intentional about your reality.

Putting yourself in a position to serve God, to please Him in whatever you do, will put yourself in a place of blessing. You will indeed find fulfillment, to see how your dreams merge with life’s joys and God’s Will.

Never mind what the world tells you about quantum physics, or the results of random choices, or a universe that operates on karma. These things will be assigned thanks or blame for this-and-that as long as you wake up every day, and have a pulse. Design your own filing system and use your own Post-It notes when you look back on life.

Chances are you will be wrong. We cannot ascribe a full life – or even short-term happiness – to random choices, or no intentionality. We are not leaves on streams, but human beings going through life.

Thermometers display temperatures, or our surroundings. They reveal… but only to a degree (ha). We are positions to be thermostats, however: to set the temperatures of our existence. Are we hot? Are we cold? How do we start the day? What choices will we make? What standards do we apply? What situations, among thousands of choices every day, will we face and consider and act upon?

God has given us minds and free will and, most importantly, a channel through which to seek Him; speak to Him; and listen to Him.

And at the end of our lives, when God takes our virtual temperatures – how we have lived and served Him and walked in His will – it is in our power to count our blessings… not count our regrets. Setting that course is something we can do now, and not wait until the end of our days.

Make that journey worthwhile and joy-filled. You have that choice.

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Click: When I Get To the End Of the Way

4-9-18

Three men meet by a well in a Jerusalem square. Around them, women draw water, men walk their sheep to market, people haggle at the market stands.

“Did you hear? More news about the Nazarene. First he came into the city and everyone praised Him. A week later, everybody wanted His blood…”

“And they got it!”

“Yes, they buried what was left of His poor body. And now I hear…”

“We are all hearing about it! They say He rose from the dead!”

“He did! I saw Him! I heard Him preach yesterday in the hills!”

“I saw Him too, walking past the temple. There were crowds of people following Him! More than when he was just a teacher.”

“My neighbors went to listen to Him preach. They say He looks like He used to… but more handsome, almost serene… except for the nail-scars in His wrists…”

“It’s just like it used to be. He’s preaching and teaching and healing and talking to people one-on-one too.”

“What do you think? He never really died?”

“Don’t be crazy. He could have faked death? What about the whip-marks and the spear-thrust and the crown of thorns and all the pokes and scratches and…”

“Right. His body looks perfect. Jospehus, the Jewish historian, saw Him and said the Nazarene came back to life just like He predicted.”

Another man, who had been listening, joined the conversation. “It was not only Jesus’ prediction, friends; it is just like the Prophets foretold.”

“Yes… He is reminding us of those Scriptures. Daniel. Isaiah. It is hard to count all the things that are happening just as the Holy Books said they would.”

“What now? Will He live forever? He speaks to multitudes; He visits the sick; He puts His arm around widows and the persecuted; He teaches and preaches; then nobody sees Him for a while… Does He sleep? Where does He go…?”

The stranger spoke up again. “No. He won’t walk these streets like this forever, like the man we remember. Remember, He told us, ‘It is better that I leave, for if I do not, the Helper and Comforter will not come to you. But when I go, I will send Him to Believers.’ That was also His prophesy…”

“But why stay here for a time?” one of the men asked.

The stranger said, “To bear witness to the Jews who demanded His death, and to be seen by the Romans who killed Him, to show His resurrected body even to His followers like Thomas, who doubted. To inspire accounts even among the heathen and those like Josephus… To silence the skeptics.”

“OK,” wondered one of the men, “But I wonder where He disappears to at times… where is He when the crowds go home, when He is not seen praying with a few or healing one by the gate…”

The stranger spoke up again. “He has proven Himself the Son of the Living God, and who Himself lives, having conquered death and hell… so I am not being disrespectful, or trying to put my thoughts on His actions…”

“Yes?” the others asked.

“It could be that, in His own way, Jesus is rehearsing for Eternity. Because just like He did in His ministry here, and just as He promised about the Holy Ghost to come… God walks the dark hills.

“… the ways, the by-ways. He walks through the billows of life’s troubled sea. He walks through the cold dark night, the shadows of midnight. God walks the dark hills… Just to guide you and me.

“God walks the dark hills, to guide our footsteps. He walks everywhere, by night and by day. He walks in the silence, on down the highway… God walks the dark hills… to show us the way.

“God walks in the storm, the rain, and the sunshine. He walks in the shadows, or through glimmering light. Helps us walk up the mountains so high, cross rivers, through valleys…

“God walks the dark hills… ‘cause He loves you and me.”

The men were silent for more than a moment. The hustle of the neighborhood’s activity continued on its way, however. When they looked up, the stranger was gone, but they looked at each other and agreed that their day’s business could wait. They wanted to find this risen Lord… to listen to Him more carefully… to remember the things He preached.

And somehow in their minds they knew that if they lost their way in life, if they strayed from the Truth… Jesus would would be walking the dark hills that sometimes surround us… and find them. We want to – we need to – look for Him. But, no worries, He is willing to walk the dark hills to find us where we are.

‘Cause He loves you and me.

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This haunting Gospel song was written by a woman in Oklahoma about whom little is known; and who, evidently, never wrote another song again. A gift…

Click: God Walks the Dark Hills

4-2-18

The arcane vagaries of the church calendar are not necessarily negative. Jesus was not born in December; and the observance of Easter is on different dates each year, and across various Christian sects. If the changeable dates oblige us to focus more on the events and their significance, and less on the secular-tending aspects – Holy days, not holidays – that can be a good thing.

Occasionally Easter coincides with April Fool’s Day, a secular day if there ever was one; a tradition devoted to pranks, whose origins are appropriately shrouded in obscurity.

There is another association between Easter and a silly practice that is more profound than would first seem.

The late Anthony Burger, remarkable Christian pianist, told the story of his young son in an Easter pageant in Sunday School. The boy had the unlikely role of Jesus – unlikely because he was probably the youngest of the children in the play; but his only acting assignment was to emerge from the tomb.

On the evening of the performance, the nervous parents and the curious audience waited – and waited – for “Jesus” after the Resurrection moment to walk out of the tomb. And nervously waited long moments more. Then, finally, in the portrayal of God’s miracle-working power, but also a testament of the beautiful innocence of childhood, the boy leaped from the cardboard tomb and yelled…

“Ready or not, here I come!!!”

Laughs, relief, sympathy. And – “out of the mouths of babes.”

In a real sense, Sunday-School pageants aside, that virtually IS what Jesus said when He conquered death and emerged from the tomb. Uncountable prophecies were fulfilled; He confirmed His role as Messiah; Satan was defeated; hope was extended to a humankind that had chosen sin and death; new life was proclaimed; eternal paradise in the presence of this resurrected Jesus was available to all.

Salvation is free, but a price must be paid. That holy anomaly is explained not only in the terrible sacrifice of the Incarnate Savior. There is a price still to be paid by you and me, beyond what Jesus “paid.” It is inherent in the ironic truth in the symbolic shout –

“Ready or not, here I come!” That actually is what Jesus meant; what He virtually said.

As the Bible teaches, we must believe in our hearts that Jesus is the Son of God; and confess with our lips that God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10: 9,10). Not as easy as it sounds, but… Ready or not, we must make those decisions.

To be a New Creature in Christ, we must be, well, new creatures. Changed attitudes, new priorities, a rebirth. Ready or not, we must make those decisions.

Believing, confessing, and forgiving – oh! Forgiving, as we need forgiveness ourselves! – and yielding to the tugs of our new best friend, the Holy Spirit who will guide us and inspire us and empower us. Ready or not, we must make those decisions.

So the child’s deceptively simple transference of the “Ready or not, here I come!” game teaches us a profound lesson.

During Lent, this year, there was another game in e-mail threads and social media that diverted eyes from the truth and power of the Resurrection, rather than focusing our proper attention. And this was frequently perpetrated by “Christian” sites and “experts.”

You might have seen them: articles about Who killed Jesus? Was it the Jews or the Romans? Have the Jews been smeared by anti-Semitic charges? What does the Bible really say? What have recent historical studies suggested about Roman law in their courts and Jewish rules in their temples…?

Academic pabulum, scholasticism that diverts.

God killed Jesus. To put it another way, Jesus virtually scrambled up the cross.
Jesus’s “killing” was God’s plan, set out long before. His Will was done, and Jesus the Messiah – even Jesus the Man – submitted willingly. A sanctified suicide, in its way, for our salvation. Nit-picking about Roman laws and politics, Jewish traditions and rules, does little but to move the focus from the Savior’s vicarious act to take our sins upon Himself.

These “experts” seek to persuade us that it was not that “God so loved the world…” but that “Roman authorities and Jewish leaders so shaped events…” This view is evil. We should not consider for a moment that the most heinous acts of cruelty and suffering, the shedding of Holy Blood, was – Ready or not, here comes the truth – anything but an act of love.

The most extreme form of punishment was endured so that we would not endure it ourselves at the hand of a Just God. For God so loved us. And when Jesus emerged from the tomb we were graced with the means to avoid eternity in hell – which brings up another fairy tale of this season, a church leader’s reported intimation that there IS no hell. This is for another discussion, but Jesus’s death and Resurrection were in vain if this were so.

In the meantime, welcome the risen Savior with open arms! But be “ready” for the implications of the New Life.

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Without denying the undeniable joy of the Resurrection, I have tried to suggest today that in the freedom of the New Life comes a spiritual responsibility that is profound, for our own souls and those of our families and friends. In that sense, the tears of former life are mirrored in the tears we shed as born-again believers for the unsaved, and tears of joy as New Creatures in Christ.

Therefore I chose this video clip, “Have Mercy, My God,” from Bach’s “St Matthew’s Passion.” Julia Hamari, solost; Otto Büchner, violin; Karl Richter conducting the Munich Bach Orchestra and Choir.

Have mercy, my God, for the sake of my tears! See before You heart and eyes that weep. Have mercy, my God. / Erbarme dich, mein Gott, um meiner Zähren willen! Schaue hier, Herz und Auge weint vor dir bitterlich. Erbarme dich, mein Gott.

Click: Heart and Eyes That Weep

3-26-18

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,
Heart broken, she feels all alone.

At the feet of a 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 from heaven comes breaking the night,
And death must bow to His will!

A stone moves, the Earth shakes, birds start singing!
The sun shines, the Earth warms for new life that’s bringing;
The little boy stops crying, the mother is smiling –
For death could not hold a King!

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We all know “The Night Before Christmas,” but have you thought about the night before Easter…?

These lyrics were written (and here sung) by Donnie Sumner, gospel singer. The nephew of legendary singer J D Sumner, Donnie sang with the famous Stamps Quartet, his own groups, and behind Elvis Presley. Caught up in show biz for a while, he overcame addictions to gain a powerful testimony, which fueled his “second career” as songwriter and minister.

Click: The Night Before Easter

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?

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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’?

2-26-18

Even since last week the “gun debate” in America has intensified, taken on a new tone. What’s next?

“We need to change hearts, not laws.” Cliches generally become cliches because they are true. Laws are useful; often necessary, but raise false hopes and can be cruel tricks if people believe they will bring Heaven on earth. And the extreme of firearm confiscation or severe restrictions will only remove hardware… not hate.

I can write a book, or deliver an hour-long sermon, but my counsel for ending gun violence and similar social maladies can be summarized simply. Not Washington; not Congress; not the President; not laws; not armed guards. Simple… but not easy:

America, stop glorifying violence. Hollywood, stop making movies that preach violence – and guns – as the tools of justice (and stop the hypocrisy of those same actors rallying against the violence that makes them rich). Christians, stop letting your kids go to such movies, and play such video games. Choose.

America, stop destroying your families. Girls, stop having babies and start having weddings; men, start respecting yourselves and your girlfriends – wait until they are wives. Churches, teach your children standards. Black Church, why are 75 per cent of your teenage moms single? White church, why are your divorce rates as high, or higher, than in the general population? Choose!

America, get off drugs, get off drink, get off the cell phones, start eating together. Guys, pull up your pants and wear your baseball caps straight, and not inside the house. Teenage girls, stop trying to look like women your moms’ age when you go to the mall. And moms, stop trying to dress like teenage girls. CHOOSE!

America, stop the secularization. Re-institute prayer in public places; return Bible readings to classrooms. I am not ancient, but I remember opening each day with Bible readings in the public school. Did it “save” anyone? Maybe not, but it implied “values” to all. The Jewish kids read from the Old Testament, and one Hindu girl read from her holy book; two kids from atheist families were allowed to read or stay silent or however they felt comfortable. Choices.

A nation that is raised – as ours now is, make no mistake – not on DIFFERENT values than previously, but taught that there ARE no values; that nation is doomed to die. And worse than die, its children are consigned to respect no rules but their own. When they do not respect themselves, they cannot respect others – which I believe is why there are so many PC Thought-Police today: at our core, we all still desire rules and standards, so secular nonsense is imposed by elites. “Do as they say…”

A generation ago, “stiff-necked bigots,” as we were called, predicted that if we disconnected God from our nation’s formal workings, our nation would fall apart at the seams. “Hurting the feelings” of minorities, atheists, etc., became more important than affirming our own standards. We predicted that if heritage and tradition became loathsome values… that we risked raising a generation of self-indulgent, morally loose, selfish kids who largely were more interested in pleasure, even drugs and alcohol and sex, than the earlier generations of kids who made American great, and sustained that America. Silly predictions?

The answer is easy. “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord” (Acts 3:19). Easy… but not simple. Holy behavior, often empty, is not the true way to Jesus, but Jesus truly is the way to holiness.

Do-able? America just has to decide between a return to morality and Biblical values; repenting of personal and social sins; giving up immorality and self-indulgence, leading to a safer, happier, more just society – or deciding for more of what America has become. Arguments, hate, lack of trust and respect. More shooting, more guns. If fewer guns, then more knifings. If fewer knives, then other forms of ugliness, pick ‘em. Hatred can be very inventive, as we see.

The answer is sincere changes of hearts. Brother Billy Graham, who recently died, was represented on TV by clips of his quotation of the simple Bible truth: “Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life” (Matthew 7: 13,14).

Without making such a simple choice, America’s fate is to endure more rot in society, more anguish, more mothers’ tears and fathers’ grief; more bitter fights within families. Worse Thanksgiving dinners and family picnics… more, and worse, school shootings.

These are the bitter fruits of the seeds we choose to sow.

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Click: Hide Thou Me

2-19-18

Another week, another school shooting. Or so it seems; the news media and politicians recently cited 18 deaths by firearms on American school properties in the first six weeks of this year.

Well, it turns out that most of those were parking-lot encounters after dark, between adults; or accidental discharges barely near schools, and so forth. Four angry, and ugly, assaults – but I am not saying “only four,” Any is too many.

The gun issue is one of many in contemporary America where hyperbole has overtaken rationality. Everyone – I think on both, or all, sides – readily adopts exaggerations and logical extensions and, lately, personal invective, to press their points.

What once was abstract is individual, and we see it in the “gun debate” as much as in any other area, and even among people who never encountered danger or grief. We can of course be passionate about issues without being touched personally. But I know the real root cause of our heated debates these days in America – that are more heat than debate.

It is the Slippery Slope. The term in logic indicates the danger of granting one point, in fear of losing the entire argument. To open the door a crack threatens to destroy the entire house, given time.

The Slippery Slope is more than a debating term. When it is used today, even when not called by name, people in effect indicate distrust of the opponent. In the gun debate, for instance, many defenders of the Second Amendment believe that any compromise will be seized upon, leading to… seizure of all firearms. “Give an inch; they’ll take a mile,” and it did not help rational debate when a Democrat officeholder a few years ago admitted that, yes, she would not stop at each restriction.

We can avoid slippery slopes by not even going near the slopes.

For instance, the solution to the “gun problem” in America is simple.

Not “easy,” but simple. Questions and answers:
For two centuries we have had virtually unrestricted access to firearms, and virtually no mass slayings and “senseless” attacks. Why?

Is it because guns are more sophisticated and deadly? Nonsense. Everything exists in the context of its time. Daggers are more convenient than dueling swords, yet there were not mass stabbings when they were readily available.

Speaking of knives, if the automatic reaction of many people – ban all guns – were a solution, should we look at the growing numbers of mass killings around the world by weaponized cars and trucks, and, yes again, random stabbings, and… ban cars and trucks and knives?

Such scenarios depend on slippery slopes, to propose and dispose… and will never lead to solutions.

It is self-swindling delusion to look to Washington for the answer to these problems, and almost everything, these days. “Why doesn’t the president act?” “Why doesn’t Congress DO something?”

Let’s explain something to America: Shut up. Washington is not the answer to everything… cannot be the answer to everything… and, as often as not, is the answer to nothing; unable to have the answers. Washington is not our savior.

We already have a Savior. And now we are face to face with our solution. Remember, I said “easy,” but not simple; not simple to make happen. Not in America, 2018.

Guns don’t make kids shoot. Hate makes them shoot. Listen to people shouting about laws and calling for more guards and more psychologists and more counselors. Where is Jesus in the middle of it all? Can you hear anyone calling for Him? For more God?

Some of the “simple” solutions in next week’s message.

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Click: Hard Times, Come Again No More

2-12-18

St Valentine is one of those saints who has become known as much for not having lived as for the sacred ascriptions to his disputed existence. The Catholic Church removed him from its calendar of actual saints some years ago, bowing to the back-canonical aspect of his legend. Like some other former saints, he might have been invented to fill a need.

Or, there having been several priests and martyrs named Valentine during Christianity’s first few centuries, the saint associated with love and high interpersonal devotion might be an amalgam.

In any case – and to the extent we keep in context the elements of remembering loved ones, and the power of love, and the encouragement to love – we can affirm the flowers and cards and hugs. Hallmark and ProFlowers and CandyGrams aside, it is good to revere love in the larger sense.

Love, actually, is not love if considered, and exercised, outside the “larger” context. People have tried to define the distinctions between humankind and beasts – laughing, cruelty, imagination, disco music – but Loving must be the predominant quality. We can receive love; we can offer love; we can act according to love, at least when we are not hating, and this explains a lot of history’s art and music and literature and poetry.

Can we understand it? Not fully, I say… but that is part of its allure and fascinating essence. I also think we are fated to only imperfectly express love: and even then only to the extent we can receive it.

“Love is patient, love is kind… ”

Which gets us face-to-face with God’s love. His love created the world – the universe and all therein. His love supersedes His vengeful aspects in that while we were yet sinners, He sent His only Son to become flesh and dwell among us, and take upon Himself the punishment we deserve for our rebellion. That is love.

As I asked above, Can we understand it? As I answered, not fully. We never will. But we can accept it.

Recently we shared thoughts here about unanswered prayer. Can a loving God say No to our earnest pleas? As God, fulfilling His job description so to speak, He knows what we need, even when we are persistent about things we want. The basis of that (as if He needs to justify Himself… but understanding this helps our faith) is… Love.

The heart is a fist-sized organ with fleshy tubes in and out, chambers, valves, and uncountable pulsations. How this hard-working bloody thing came to be associated by poets and painters, saints and sages, with the tenderest of often indescribable emotions is another thing I will never understand.

Yet we draw heart shapes when we are in love, despite the fact they don’t resemble hearts. We send drawings of them to those we love; we carve them into tree trunks. Even the worst characters in history have loved someone – a girl or guy; their mothers; a pet. It is a disease for which there is no immunity. Thank God.

On the other hand, the human race is not immune to the Broken Heart either. In a way, these sad experiences validate the positive truth and power of romantic love: it is not abstract, not an illusion. To paraphrase the poet: Love is real! Love is earnest!

Returning to the God-foundation of these matters (as He is the foundation of all things), even God has not escaped the reality of a Broken Heart. He identifies with our sorrow, our grief, and to the aspect of love that can “leave a hole” in our emotions.

God Himself? Yes, despite His plans and ordained Will, He knew – He knows – what it is like to lose a Son. But God so loved the world…

Please think of love, then, as more than the cheap theme for a holiday; and don’t let it ever become a cheap theme in your life.

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Click: Open the Eyes of My Heart

1-29-18

Any believer, whether casual or seasoned, whether a “baby Christian” or steeped in the faith, who does not have a “promise book” somewhere on the bookshelves, has not gone through a common stage of spiritual evolution. It is not necessary or requisite to have that book of life’s challenges and predictable crises, but it happens frequently among us. Arranged by category they are, with lists of comforting Bible verses, also instruction and encouragement.

Useful things, these promise books. I am in no way minimizing their value. If you don’t have one, get one; there are many you can find. A lot of them are pocket-size, to keep at the ready.

But. After a while their verses will make their way into your memory, at least as the Kingdom Principles of God – the uniform and unified major themes of scripture. The Bible says that we are to know the intentions of the Lord, and “hide them in our hearts.” Consistent study of the Bible itself results in this.

Perhaps the most dog-eared pages in those Promise Books are where the categories address Approaching God; Lifting Petitions and Requests; How to Receive; and Answers to Prayer.

There are verses in the Bible that we often distort. We presume when we should not. Devout believers in solitary prayer closets can do this, just as earnest televangelists speaking to thousands in arenas sometimes do too. “Say to the mountain, be thou moved”… “the faith of a mustard seed”… “greater works you will do”… you must know the verses.

Are they not true? Yes, they are true – God does not lie and can not lie.

However, the whole of scripture also reminds us that Jesus wept on occasion; that He left towns because the level of unbelief prevented even His miracles from being manifested. So… how to proceed? How to appreciate the context of verses?

We must be careful not to treat Promise Books like Wish Lists. Lifting the burdens of your heart to the Lord should not take the form of a shopping list. Even mature Christians can confuse requests with demands.

When you pray, believing, the first beliefs must be in the Sovereignty of God; of His love; and a trust in His will for our loves.

This brings us to an essential element of true faith. Lest I sound like like a skeptic in this essay, I once was persuaded by the “name it and claim it” variety of faith. I saw miracles, yes, and experienced some. My wife prayed healing for her failing heart, and was miraculously healed… by a transplant. And we gave God the glory. Two years later she was diagnosed with cancer, and she submitted to an operation… until the doctors confessed to one of those “we can’t explain it” situations. All traces of the cancer were gone. Answer to a largely unspoken prayer.

That God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform is a non-Bible verse that everyone knows; and is true. It is also true – and our faith is not weak when we accept it – that when God answers prayer, sometimes the answer is No. Sometimes the answer is delayed. Sometimes the answer is different than we hope (or demand).

But all the time the answers remind us that God is God.

It is He who hath made us; and not we ourselves. The same with prayer: we need to remember that when we pray in spirit and in truth – that is, in genuine trust – the Holy Spirit inhabits our prayers. In fact, the Bible assures us that when we are confused, weak, lacking confidence, the Spirit takes over! The Spirit will groan, if necessary, before the Throne of God, with the desires of our hearts.

And that principle is what should save us from ourselves, so not to approach God unworthily.

We know our desires, and want to lift them to God.

But He knows our needs, and will always meet them.

Our desires and our needs are two very different things. We cannot always know them… and we very often confuse them. God knows them. Trusting in His lovingkindness, sublimating our own view of things, is when Faith acquires meaning in our lives.

God reads our hearts anyway, so we don’t need prayers to “make points” with Him. Pray believing… pray trusting Him… and pray knowing that His whole book is full of those Promises.

He knows how to keep them.

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Click: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow

1-22-18

There is a verse in James that admonished us to be “doers of the Word, and not hearers only.” The Bible reminds us often that God sees all we do; and so do the “Heavenly cloud of witness” of Hebrews 11. Often we might be tempted to wear two hats – the secular (when we argue about politics) and the sacred (when we forgive all, forget all).

That is shameful. We all live at the intersection of Sacred and Secular. There is no forwarding address.

I offer this on Celebration of Life week, Sanctity of Life Sunday.

When the mists, or smoke, of current controversies are swept away, I believe the world will see abortion – the act, the arguments, the very concept – in a different light. Most likely the “old” light, history’s traditional attitude. I pray.

Of course, the attitudes of various societies have been mutable, little different than any stands on any controversy. Honestly, there has not been a straight line in manners and morals on monogamous marriage, infant sacrifice, slavery, the role of women, personal freedom and liberty, democracy, even monotheism until the Revealed God revealed Himself fully.

Despite infant sacrifice, with its essentially different set of foundations, abortion is an act that mostly has been regarded as anathema at all times and in all places. By whole societies and by single women. Its sanction, and its approval, have always been exceptions. Mostly it is regarded as something to be discouraged because of the implicit recognition that it is horrible, contrary to human impulses.

Until our generation.

The anguish and severe challenges presented by unplanned, unwanted pregnancies are significant. They represent dilemmas that are endemic to the human family, and – no matter how much abortion might be outlawed – they will take place. To recognize this fact is not to approve of it. But to accept it as the price of a community, a society, maintaining consistent standards and trying to codify a moral code, is, well, the price to pay.

A lot of the world preceded the US, or closely followed us, in the legalization of abortion. Today, we have been reminded this week, we “surpass” most of the world in providing free abortion services… and we are among the few human-rights garden spots like North Korea and China that allow late-term abortions, killing babies otherwise viable outside the womb.

We should not need numbers like almost 60-million American abortions since Roe vs Wade… nor photos of aborted babies… nor facts like the bigoted Margaret Sanger (Planned Parenthood founder) encouraging abortions in the black and brown communities especially… to come face-to-face with the horror of abortion.

Fifteen years ago I interviewed Norma McCorvey, the “Roe” of Roe vs Wade, who had regretted her manipulation, reversed her views, and became a Christian. Pro-Life. Her testimony confirmed my views, but did not change them. That happened earlier; for a long time I was indifferent to the issue, and saw it as more a matter of convenience than morality. I even took that point of view in public, and now am conscious of blood on my hands.

But one does not have to trade Pragmatism for Christianity to realize that abortion is murder.

Why is America so militant, now, about abortion? Why is it a litmus test in broad swaths of society – why does the Democrat Party, for instance, forbid convention speakers and candidate endorsements to “pro-life” people?

I return to looking forward to the mists parting. Whether we go deeper into self-indulgence, or return to traditional values, abortion WILL be the litmus test. One does not have to abandon feminism, or denigrate women, to oppose abortion. The Big Lie that women are pro-choice and men want disposable women and babies, is belied by the profile of marchers at Pro-Life rallies; by fervent advocates I have met; by counselors (like Pam Stenzel, a friend from Grand Rapids MI) who speaks to kids about pre-marital sex – herself a product of a rape, whose mother decided against aborting her at the last moment.

If you don’t like being a woman who is “wired” to bear babies, don’t conceive. You cannot reverse nature. A lot of times it stinks to be a man, but, whatever. People have intimidated the culture to an extent; but they cannot reverse nature. They can tinker with the plumbing, but we still are men and women. Period; no pun intended.

Therefore, abortion, as a litmus-test, is a symbol. It is the result, not a cause, of America having become a Culture of Death. Abortion, homosexuality, the decline of marriage, all are symptoms of impulses that resist life and the advancement of the species – which of course sounds clinical and impersonal. But the truth is VERY personal. We respect life, or we don’t.

And the debate continues, often distracted by questions of a once-in-a-decade death sentence, or war in faraway places. Those arguments are healthy; but in the meantime, many of us CAN do something about the Culture of Death in our midst.

When we have become desensitized to death, we have become desensitized to life.

There is a common impulse behind the totalitarian lockstep attitude some people have toward abortion. It is common to militant homosexuality, to gender-bending, to newfound “rights,” to sex-change operations. To the redefinition of “marriage,” not to welcome legal precision, but to make it socially meaningless. To the ubiquity of Political Correctness. The apparent anarchy of PC attitudes is really the New Religion – the replacement of God.

We are witnessing – and, God help us, enabling – the slow death of God… in the way that Nietzsche really meant his phrase: when God become irrelevant in a society, He IS dead to its people. God is not really dead, of course: if you listen quietly you can hear Him weeping.

And those other sounds, if you listen closer, whether from unmarked graves or hospital dumpsters, are the cries of millions and millions of babies.

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Click: Psalm 139 – Jesus Loves Me

1-15-18

Two good friends this week recounted some tough circumstances in their lives. Who among us does not have rough patches? The answer is None.

The difference between us, at these times, is how we react. My two friends each said that things are in God’s hands; that the Lord has a purpose. I pray that most people who say such things really have deep-seated trust and faith, as my friends do. But who among us does not occasionally fall back on such sayings as… sayings?

God forbid that we are not serious about discerning – and seeking – God’s will in hard times. And good times, too, no less!

I believe we have free will, and we all might believe that actions have consequences. Yet God orders our steps. A contradiction? Not at all. When we seek His will, God often answers in ways that are mysterious to us… and very often contrary to the shopping-list of demands that our prayers must sometimes look like to Him.

It is an essential element of faith, I think, that even if we let ourselves be virtual leaves on the stream of life, sometimes, God moves us, slows us, speeds us, and directs us – in spite of ourselves, sometimes, according to His will. If we love God, have faith, and accept the calling to His purposes.

Have you ever looked back on your life and realized how radically different things would be – family, profession, homes – if this, or that, had not happened?

I think of my dear daughter Emily, who lives in Northern Ireland now. When she was barely 10, missionaries visited our little church and told of their work in Central American villages. She was mightily affected, full of emotion, and dedicated her life, young Christian as she was, to work in the missions field, and serving Christ. Before, during, and after her college years, she joined missions trips to Mexico and Russia and Northern Ireland.

She had a heart for the hate-filled streets of Derry (scenes of the bloody “troubles” between Catholics and Protestants through the years) and returned there, for a longer stay. During that posting she made friends, fell in love with a guy from the local church, Norman. They married and attended Bible College together in Dublin, and have served in Ireland and Northern Ireland. And have “been fruitful and multiplied,” making this Papa proud of two grandchildren.

Ah! What if we, 25 years ago in Pennsylvania, had joined another church, or gone away the Sunday those missionaries visited? Would Emily have received that vision, found that passion? What if she had attended a different college here… or not made friends, when we lived in California, with our friend Paula who preceded her in that Northern Ireland missions program?

What if? What if?

Perhaps, when we think of these life-threads as we all can. God would have us wind up in the same places, but by different routes! More likely, it seems to me, we could be in different places doing different things. (I hate to think, as a father, that I would not have the children with whom God did bless me!)

This is not an essay, or ramblings, about the randomness of life: just the opposite!

As Christians we must rejoice in the fact that we are God’s; it is He who has made us and not we ourselves. We do not float through our allotted time willy-nilly, trying to remember to pray that we luck out in places we find ourselves. Rather we should earnestly pray to see God’s hand in our lives’ events… we must bathe every decision in prayer to seek His will (God promises never to leaves such prayers unanswered)… we must be patient to hear His voice and His leading… and we must pray for spiritual discernment to guard against crowding out His answers with our desires.

A current meme among Christians these days is, “It’s a God thing.” That phrase is used to explain “good” things, dismiss “bad” things, and is mantra for many occurrences in between. Some things ARE God things, yes. But a lot of things are also Satan-things; us-things; even dumb-things. We must learn to anticipate beforehand and discern afterwards.

Ecclesiastes 9:11 says that “Time and chance happeneth to all.” Let us not be fooled that God was explaining the randomness of life. Rather that we, His children, all have the same challenges; that we all are in the same boat. Or are the same leaves in the same stream of His care.

BUT. Just as important. God’s streams God’s streams have twists and turns and little spots where the water swirls unexpectedly. My way of saying that we need to be conscious of more than where we are taken, and what affects us. Just as often – in face, frequently – YOU might be the person, that random friend, a “missionary” telling a tale, even a stranger leaving an impression on someone. A daughter, a neighbor, a stranger, and perhaps the littlest word or action can wind up changing that person’s life.

Such things, indeed, happeneth to all.

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Please, please, listen to this moving song about this very subject. By Ray Boltz.

Click: Thank You For Giving To the Lord

1-1-18

There is a pop-music classic, and American show tune, that has been covered by every great singer, at least of the Jazz Age. Written by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen, and its first recording by Mercer – a terrific vocalist whose own singing has been neglected through the years – it has been a hit for many artists.

“You’ve Got to Accentuate the Positive” is sometimes spelled with the song’s lilting “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive,” but often referred to by its catch phrase, “Don’t Mess with Mister In-Between.” From a 1940s musical, the lyrics were inspired by, and made reference to, a revival sermon:

Gather ’round me, everybody – Gather ’round me while I’m preachin’, Feel a sermon comin’ on me. The topic will be sin and that’s what I’m against. If you wanna hear my story, Then settle back and just sit tight , while I start reviewin’
The attitude of doin’ right.

You’ve got to accentuate the positive, Eliminate the negative, And latch on to the affirmative! Don’t mess with Mister In-Between…

Performed in a variety of styles, many Americans today are familiar with it, and it lives in playlists and even commercials. It was background music in the movie L.A. Confidential, and Jerry Lee Lewis frequently uses the phrase – perhaps preaching to himself – in soliloquies at the piano. Its message is deeper than the lyrics of many show tunes, and has applications for revival congregations, moviegoers, and anyone with ears to hear.

Is it grist for a New Years essay? Like any good gospel message, its points are pertinent any day of the year – just as Christmas and Easter sermons ought to be re-visited in seasons apart from those holidays’ traditional festivals.

But if this is a time of year when we all look backward, look forward, and make resolutions (even if, like many promises and laws, they are made to be broken), then it is time indeed to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative… but most importantly, look out for Mr In-Between.

Why should Mr In-Between be avoided?

Jesus Himself provides the obvious answer – obvious and usually ignored or avoided by Christians – speaking to John in the Book of Revelation: And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

This advice is harsh because it cuts to the core of our souls’ sincerity, our position before God. We cannot be lukewarm about spiritual things!

Either God exists, or He does not.

Either Jesus is His Son, and believing in Him, confessing our sins, leads to forgiveness and eternal life, or not.

Either there is a Heaven and Hell, or there is not. Either Jesus is the only way to achieve salvation and eternal security, as He said, or not.

Don’t mess with In-Between. These things cannot be almost true; or mostly true. It’s like being almost pregnant. In the Book of Acts, Chapter 26, Paul’s appearance before King Agrippa in Rome is recorded. He defends himself against charges of the Jews; he relates his own persecution of Christians; his conversion; and his evangelism, the miracles he had seen; and the powerful presence of Christ in his new life.

Agrippa, listening and absorbing all this, admits to Paul that he was “almost persuaded” to become a Christian. This was meant as a compliment to Paul’s testimony.

But a preacher once said that to be “almost” persuaded is to be not persuaded at all; to be “almost” saved is the same as being totally lost. In these times we all seem to seek for compromise… the Golden Mean… the middle position, to satisfy everyone.

But Jesus would have us hot or cold, not lukewarm. To compromise with evil is to be evil. He will spit us out!

The American hymnodist Philip P Bliss heard a Dwight L Moody sermon on this subject, and wrote one of the powerful exegetical songs of the American church: Almost Persuaded.

At New Year, it is a good time to examine where we stand with God… with ourselves, our standing in Eternity. To be almost persuaded is to be certainly nothing. We fool neither ourselves nor our God. Be hot or cold – one of them! Choose today; do not be lukewarm in life. Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.

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Click: Almost Persuaded

12-4-17

In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts (Isaiah 26:1).

At this time of turmoil and fast-moving events – television news crews must think they are participating in triathlons these days; and viewers risk whiplash – we try to process wars and rumors of wars; economic upturns; legislative battles; scandals and daily surprises; government crises; terrorism; candidates rising and falling here and abroad…

Our lives go on, and I pray that holidays recently celebrated and coming soon are remembered as just that: holy-days.

In times when we feel adrift, even when some of us feel the thrill of change (for surely we all regret the changes just as often)… the anchor holds. The anchor MUST hold: we need to be moored and have security. It is useful not only to our bodies and peace of mind and our economies and our sanity, but our very souls.

A problem, if not THE problem, of our time is that too many people, and our culture itself, is ignorant of life’s anchors and their importance. Worse, contemporary society rejects the very concept of anchors – grounding, standards, Truth – and how essential they are to our lives. They are not options but necessary components.

With a great debate on taxes behind us, and despite other issues swirling about, the question of Walls will remain. It is not owned by one politician or one party, even if it seems so. Borders – as with language and culture – are elemental definers of a nation. The mightiest wall I have seen in my life surrounds the Holy City, the Vatican. There are others around the world. The Great Wall of China is so great as to be seen by orbiting astronauts; it was not ornamental, however, but an effective defense for centuries.

The White House has a secure fence, though sometimes porous. Museums have gates and Plexiglas shields. Bridge walkways have guard-rails – for safety; sometimes against suicide attempts. Liberal celebrities, despite their anti-gun and anti-wall positions, live behind armed guards and fortified walls. The estate of film producer Michael Moore, in my neck of the woods, has defenses that could repel many armies.

In the end, of course, walls are neutral structures. Like guns, or even votes, their usefulness depends on the functions for which they are designed, and the character of the owners. The strength and effectiveness of walls are not always gauged to keep people out, neither to keep people in: Ultimately, the strength of families, homes, and communities is measured by in what lives within the walls.

The operative factor, then, is not physical strength. Not weapons ready to attack, nor shields with which to defend.

It is righteousness, the God of our Fathers told us. It can be manifested in songs of praise.

At the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, the Levites… were brought to Jerusalem to celebrate joyfully the dedication with songs of thanksgiving and with the music of cymbals, harps and lyres (Nehemiah 12:27).

It is prosaic, perhaps, to seize upon the upcoming Holy Days of many faiths to pray that we can take a breath, or escape the maelstroms for a spell, and count our blessings. Too many of us, during overheated crises, take perverse joy in hating… or, at least, in fighting. Even when we think our cause is just – or convince ourselves that we are fighting HIS fight, not our own – let us not forget that “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails….” I Corinthians 13:5-8.

Love is a weapon too.

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Reminding us that walls are not exclusive but always have utility, this video clip is of joyful singing unto the Lord in Jerusalem, at David’s Citadel. The Isaacs; mom Lily and her children Becky, Ben, and Sonya.

Click: Hallelujah

10-2-17

This month is the occasion for a grand remembrance. The last Sunday in October traditionally is observed by Protestants as Reformation Sunday, when, on All Saint’s Day, Father Martin Luther nailed 95 Theses – basically, theological complaints – to the castle church door in Wittenberg, Germany.

Extra special is the fact that his act was in the year 1517, so the 500th anniversary is now observed. Half a millennium, roughly 25 per cent of the age of Christ’s Church on this earth. Even unchurched people know the basics of the revolution that commenced with those hammered nails – Luther’s nails ironically recalling the nails that Christ endured as He offered Himself a living sacrifice for us.

I wonder how the church will observe the “anniversary” of the Reformation. I have noticed that package-tour groups are available to cities in Germany and places associated with Luther’s life. More than that, I don’t know. I made a pilgrimage of sorts to Augsburg, Germany, in 1983, the place and 500th anniversary of his birth. In the Augsburg Cathedral I had reasonable expectations of a grand worship service, and a stirring rendition of his great hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”

There was, however, a small service attended by mere dozens of worshipers, in a side chapel and a charming but very modest, ancient free-standing pump organ.

Martin Luther is honored only in the breach, as they say, in many of the lands where his spiritual revolution once seized the hearts of men. The reforms of the reform-ation are evanescent; or in dire need of revitalization. Brother Martin is, possibly, in 2017 more of a historical than a theological figure.

I have said that unchurched people know something of his life. That is, to be precise, only to the extent that anyone knows much or cares much about history these days. To paraphrase George Santayana, those who have not learned from history are already doomed. The young Luther, training to be a lawyer, decided after what he perceived to be a life-saving miracle to join the clergy, and became an Augustinian monk. God’s hand might have been in that choice, because there are clear philosophical and theological lines from Platonism to the early Church fathers to St Augustine to Luther.

As a faithful clergymen he made a pilgrimage to Rome, walking from Germany. At the Vatican he was repelled by corruption and open scandals. Even back in Germany, the Roman church was becoming an agency of money-hustling, famously among other acts selling “indulgences” that promised poverty-stricken givers that souls of dead relatives would be boosted closer to Heaven in proportion to their “donations.”

Other offenses Luther identified, such as non-Biblical cosmology, veneration of saints, and Mariology, also led to the 95 Theses. Local Catholic clergy, representatives of the Vatican, and the Pope himself were much displeased, especially as Luther’s critiques gained currency. Germany was a land of greater literacy and ecclesiastical freedom than other corners of Christendom. Rome, already making a practice of suppressing and executing other critics (Luther was not the first voice of protest) sanctioned Brother Martin; demanded that he recant his many writings (including, strangely, those that were quite orthodox); excommunicated him; and sought to imprison him.

Luther was certain that Rome intended to kill him for his ideas, as it had done with previous reformers like Jan Hus in Prague and John Wycliffe (posthumous excommunication of desecration of his remains) in England. But the rising spiritual sophistication of German princes coincided with their growing desire to be free of the Catholic Church’s political and military dominance.

Religion, culture, and politics coincided. So did another great factor: Literacy. The average German could read better, and with more depth, than other Europeans to whom words and ideas were anathema, as so decreed by Rome. Largely proscribed from reading their Bibles and having to sit through Latin church services, Christians outside the German states beheld Christianity as dear to their hearts but largely alien relative to their daily lives.

My Catholic friends will dispute my characterizations of the fervor of Catholics of the day, or of the spiritual hunger of Luther’s fellow Germans and Scandinavians, yet two counter-arguments stand: Luther’s foundation-stone, based on Ephesians 2: 8,9: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God, Not of works, lest any man should boast,” which confronted the authority of the Pope and efficacy of indulgences and putative good deeds. And… the empirical evidence, the speed at which the Reformation spread through Europe. And the world.

A lightning lesson. We will visit some other aspects of the Reformation in coming weeks. When I refer to “literacy,” I mean more than Luther translating the Bible into German, and common believers having access to God’s Word. We must understand:

Suddenly, men and women could read the Bible themselves. And think for themselves. They could write, and publish, and exchange ideas. Literature, poetry, and philosophy flourished – contemporary works, and those of the past – and political ideas were exchanged. Luther became the patron saint of democracy and the Enlightenment (although he must be considered a Pre-Modern, just as his musical disciple J S Bach, two hundred years later, must be similarly regarded, theologically).

Not a Humanist, yet of the Age of Humanism; living during the Renaissance but not a typical Renaissance man, Martin Luther astonishingly bridged the worlds of total subservience to Word of God, and the absolute independence of the human spirit. The soul. By looking back, to the faith of Jesus Himself, he was able to portend the future.

Threatened in the Church’s kangaroo court in the city of Worms – knowing that torture, burning at the stake, and death awaited him – he nevertheless refused to recant any word he had written, any sermon he had delivered, any “thesis” in his list of complaints.

No.

“Here I stand,” he said. I can do no other.”

At that moment one of the great souls of Christianity, and one of the greatest figures in Western civilization, changed the course of history. Fortified by utter conviction, Luther was also secure in the fact that when when one stands by God, one never is truly alone.

Martin Luther challenged more than Rome – he challenged humankind. In the face of authority, in the face of injustice, he challenges us today.

How would we have responded? How do you respond today… because Authority and Oppression are ever present. No less threatening, even more dangerous.

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From the sublime to the ridiculous? Many readers might consider the knee-jerk reactions of football players during patriotic exercises, in relation to Luther. They kneel; he stood. Not an absurd contrast to discuss. We shall take it up.

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Protestantism has spread worldwide. More than one-fifth of South Korea, for instance, is Protestant. Here are the famous SoKo Christian singers “Golden Angels”: –

Click: Where No One Stands Alone

9-25-17

This weekend I had a conversation with Dr Bennet Omalu. He has been in the news lately and you will know his name as the doctor who identified, named, and fights the brain injury CTE. Or the man whose challenges are upsetting applecarts of the National Football League and network television because people have become acutely aware of the virtual certainty of long-term, debilitating effects of concussions. Or that he wrote a bestselling book, the basis of a popular motion picture, Concussion, where he was portrayed by Will Smith.

You might not know, but would not be surprised, that Bennet Omalu has received tremendous, vicious, and unrelenting pushback, even persecution, because of the discoveries he has made. Specifically, because his discoveries have rung true… and because he has been an effective advocate. Not just Big Money but favorite pastimes are jeopardized.

Anyone can have an opinion, but if they keep it to themselves, they will be of no consequence in life. You can spot a fire, but if you do not raise an alarm or help extinguish it, you are complicit when a structure burns down. If you have faith, but hide it under a bushel, as Jesus painted the picture, you betray the gifts God has bestowed.

So, you might not know, but should not be surprised, that Dr Bennet Omalu’s latest battle (or a variation of continuing as Valiant-For-Truth) is a spiritual battle. It is the theme of his new book, Truth Doesn’t Have a Side.

This is not a departure for Bennet Omalu, because he has been a committed Christian all his life. The ultimate harmony of the Christian life was reinforced to me once again when I chose the lamp-under-a-bushel allusion. Jesus’ parable is found in the Gospel account of another of history’s great doctors, St Luke!

This current chapter of the amazing Dr Omalu’s fascinating life is a logical extension of all that has gone before.

“I believe I was led to diagnose CTE [Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, the neuro-degenerative brain disease most often caused by trauma] by my faith. When I examined Mike Webster [the Pittsburgh Steeler player whose last years exhibited bizarre behavior] I saw me on that table.” Dr Omalu was aware that we are all made in the image of God, and that he, given other circumstances and life choices, could have been a similar victim.

He was motivated to dig deeper into “sports injuries” that were once the subject of jokes… but represent serious dangers. Football. Boxing. Rugby, Hockey. And lifelong conditions in the military and construction. Veterans and retired workers who were “punch drunk,” had “shell shock,” “took one too many to the head.” These phrases were not jokes to Dr Omalu: he saw serious problems, ruined lives, grieving families, and tragedy.

Possibly needless tragedy, he began to think. Spurred, and sustained by, his faith, he knew that naming the brain-trauma condition and conducting further research might lead him to conclude that some sports simply are not safe… no matter how many rules on the field are tweaked. Some games are not safe… no matter how many bionic helmets and industrial shoulder pads are invented.

And that many parents, first unknowingly but now – given the publicity of Dr Omalu’s discoveries – face hard choices… now aware that they commit virtual child abuse by allowing their children to participate in many contact sports.

We return again to Bennet Omalu’s faith, because he had to proceed in faith; and his faith has gotten him and his family though the tsunami of organized opposition and the multi-billion-dollar defensive playbook of the sports industry and entertainment colossus. For a while, he virtually was a lone voice.

But truth does not depend on the opinion of those who receive it.

Dr Omalu’s research, tenacity, and struggles in his profession, career path, and home life, were documented in Concussion. But the story of his faith – tested, tried, and triumphant – is brilliantly shared in Truth Doesn’t Have a Side. “My spirit is like a boat on the sea,” he says humbly, acknowledging that he trusts God and the Lord’s guidance.

The maturity of his faith is illustrated in his favorite Psalm, 27, an inspiring combination of humility and boldness upon which a believer can draw. I asked about coping with the pressures arrayed against him these days: “It is not easier now, no. But I have the elixir of daily faith exercises. I pray every morning, certainly every day; I read the Bible daily; the Spirit leads me to two chapters or passages that always speak to me in a special way. I am more conscious than ever of the Blood of Jesus!”

Dr Omalu does not speak in cliches. His message, like his whole story, is heartfelt, sincere, passionate. He chokes back tears when sharing letters he has received from people – often mothers – who have been touched by his message. And his conversation is frequently interrupted by unrestrained laughter that mirrors a joy only the believer can know.

I asked if he had an inkling, as a boy in Nigeria, that in some way or other he would grow up and change the world, even in a field he could not then know. I expected a rote answer about premonitions or ambition.

He laughed and said, “No! Not an inkling! I never imagined where I’d be!”

The world cannot imagine either where Dr Bennet Omalu might be in another 10 years. His intellectual and moral vision continuously surveys the horizons of life. “But ‘not my will, but Thine’ is how I have lived,” he says. “My middle name, given back in Africa, means ‘Life Is the Greatest Gift of All,’ and the Spirit reminds me of that every moment.

“I am not afraid to let people know I am a man of God. These days I speak to all sorts of groups – faith itself is not a religion! And so I am led to share. We must do everything we can.”

And everything in Dr Bennet Omalu’s case means in science, medicine, healthy life choices, and spirituality. For all of his crises and trials, and what the rest of us behold as a journey of boldness and bravery, he makes it all seem so logical:

“I follow the example of Jesus, who reminded us that He came for the sick, not so much the healthy!”

And he let loose another irrepressible laugh, this doctor who also ministers to the soul, the unlikely preacher who does not preach but who lives his Christian message.
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Dr Omalu’s new book can be found here:  Truth Doesn’t Have a Side

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Click: I Will Roll All Burdens Away

9-4-17

“Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

Many times we have heard those words of Jesus, recorded in Matthew 25: 40a. Almost everyone knows the parable, if not the full meaning, behind the story of the Good Samaritan.

Another little-understood passage is recorded in Matthew, Mark, and John, when Jesus said that we shall “have the poor with us always.” Almost always misapplied. It was St Augustine (in his Confessions, written around the year 400) who opened the eyes of my heart to this. Jesus was not being a defeatist, that poverty is inevitable in our midst. Nor did He sanction a spirit of resignation in His followers.

No, Jesus instructed us to keep things in proportion – that we need to keep our eyes on Him while we can; that even good deeds can distract us from salvation. Further, Augustine argued, God has a certain loving plan for us, that we cultivate a spirit of charity. We must care for the least of those among us; we must practice compassion… because God Himself is Love.

Can we do that if everyone were on the same plane as we are? just as secure? comfortable? healthy? No. We should be aware, and compassionate, toward the lame, the halt, the blind. So we should be aware that these live among us.

Thoughts like these occur to us especially in days like these, after natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey.

I share here an editorial I wrote this week in response to the responses to Harvey. In the form of a memo to President Trump:

MEMO TO PRESIDENT TRUMP

The flood area in Texas and Louisiana is larger than Lake Michigan, and larger than several of our states, combined. The devastation, by several metrics, is already the worst in American history… and getting worse.

As rains cease, flood waters continue to rise. After flood waters recede, the apocalypse of ravaged homes, buildings, roads, and bridges will have been visited on those lands; as will spoilage, irretrievable ruin, pollution, deaths, and displaced persons. And, of course, massive economic challenges.

We do not need a North Korea in the news to remind us that this aftermath will resemble the devastation of a war – maybe even a lost war – across a broad swath of land and a large population.

As there has been no real precedent, there likely will be no real replication of these conditions for quite some time, so this suggestion would not be activated with every “normal” hurricane or tornado in the future.

Mr President, you should treat the entire area, when this is “over,” like a virtual war zone. Take extraordinary measures of aid and mobilization. Cooperate with locals, but also get involved as if it is a national emergency… because it is.

MAJOR emergency housing, relocation, funding, rescue, cleaning, new infrastructure. Not “normal” sandbags and box lunches and temporary shelters, but renewal as if the whole area had been flattened by an enemy. Because (damn you, “Mother” Nature) it was.

Do I suggest a “statist” response, a federal takeover of others’ functions? No – this response would fulfill one of the few legitimate Constitutional duties of the federal government.

Would cabinet secretaries and current federal departments be stretched too thin with these extraordinary “marching orders”? Borrow from your predecessor and appoint “czars” and “civilian generals” to take charge, category by category.

If Texas and Louisiana had been hit by thousands of bombs and instead of trillions of gallons of water, such a plan would be in place immediately. Move alongside the excellent local and regional (and private!) agencies… do not supplant, but partner… be forthcoming with more than checks, even blank checks, from across the continent.

In an odd way, this might be one reason why you, with your background and instincts, were elected to do.

Trump the Builder and Kelly and the military guys… could do this. Heck, it is what the US military has been doing for 15 years overseas, in places we can’t pronounce and most of us can’t find on maps – planning, building, rebuilding, paving, irrigating, cleaning, planting… even providing kids with hundreds of thousands of laptops.

Why not Texas and Louisiana?

Well, who knows what the President will do… however, already, my first impressions of his first acts are hugely positive. The same with state and local officials. And various agencies. And – not to quantify the acts being performed, because as Portia said in The Merchant of Venice, “The quality of Mercy is not strained” – the uncountable random rescuers we see on TV.

Spontaneous, courageous, sacrificial – these angels of mercy have come from down streets (or, now, rivers) or from across the country. Shoulder-deep in water, paddling makeshift crafts, hoisting old folks, pets, and children. Awe-inspiring. No less is the impressive outpouring of donations – money, food, furniture, meds.

And a hurricane – no, a tsunami – of prayers.

Despite my call for federal action, almost a military response, however, is an unshakable belief I have that is underpinned (I think) by the words of Jesus, and by Shakespeare, while I’m at it.

The government can help in these situations. As I said, however, these situations are among the few actually assigned to the federal government by the Constitution. It is our job, our duty, to respond as individuals. Our hearts, hands, resources.

One of many things I hate about Socialism and the paternalistic state is that they wean us from reliance on God; they persuade us that we should turn to the ubiquitous government for every answer; the State substitutes itself for faith, genuine cooperation, a real sense of compassion… and a true spirit of charity.

“Why do any of these things ourselves, when the government is there? Isn’t that why we pay taxes?”

We do not pay taxes in order to absolve ourselves of the (glorious) burden of helping our fellow travelers along life’s road. Thank God those basic, biblical impulses were not washed away in the flood waters of Hurricane Harvey!

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Click: He Reached Down

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.

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Click: From the Rising Of the Sun

8-7-17

The sweetest things you will ever hear from Christians might be “prayer reports,” testimonies, shared experiences of answered prayer – sometimes accounts of miracles, breakthroughs, heavenly surprises. Even (in a phrase you hear a lot these days) that something has been a “God thing.”

I am not here to question whether God answers prayers. He has answered prayers that I have lifted with an anguished heart; the same with family members and friends. We have witnessed miracles.

I am one hundred per cent certain that God answers prayers. Let the skeptics be in no doubt. God promises that He will do so, and He delivers. Many times the Bible cites it in great specificity, for instance that “The fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much.” God does not lie. He cannot.

But His children – you and me – are flawed. Even after we are saved, we make mistakes and suffer from misunderstandings. Naturally! Not even the angels know all, and certainly cannot answer prayers. Poor things, they can praise, but cannot pray. That is among the attributes that make us different from angels, and special in God’s eyes.

No matter how favored, we are not little Gods. We must be “imitators of Christ” the best we can; we must seek guidance, which is one reason the Holy Spirit was sent to Earth when Jesus ascended; and we must pray. “At all times and in all places.”

Too many Christians – well-meaning, mostly, bless our hearts – believe that prayers will be answered according to our desires. Yes, yes… according to His will; but we misinterpret being “in His will.” There are preachers who teach that it is God’s will to answer our prayers as we pray them, and imply that our faith is weak when “answers don’t come.”

There are pastors who quote (as a promise of God) “mountain, be thou removed,” but have caused no earthquakes or tremors themselves. Or precious few metaphorical mountains, by the way.

There are leaders who pray among their audiences for healing, yet they wear glasses and have progressively slower steps, themselves, in their lives.

But. God answers prayer. All the time.

Except for prayers offered as insincere shows, or with unworthy knowledge of the gospel, God hears our prayers, and answers them. God promises that He will, and He delivers, as a wise man once said (whoops, that was me, a little bit earlier).

My point, though, is deadly serious, because we frequently rob ourselves of blessings. I am trying to encourage faith, not cast doubt.

God is not an errand boy, and prayer is not a magic wand.

Try to think of all the prayers you have prayed for things you want… not things you need.

If we truly trust God, in all His wisdom and love, why are we dissatisfied (even quietly, too often, discouraged) when “nothing seems to have changed?

God is a sovereign God, who loves us. Can we not understand that sometimes the answer is “No”? Sometimes His reply is “Not now.” Sometimes He says “That will be bad for you, trust Me.” Sometimes He tries to remind us that His ways are not our ways. Sometimes – He knows – our faith needs to be strengthened, and sometimes that comes through trials, further prayer, and even chastisement. (The Bible says that God exercises that only on those whom He loves. Take heart.)

How often do circumstances like a job or a relationship or finances seem “right” to desire? And our prayers about them can be summed up like: “This is clear to me, God – can’t you see it?” I have a suspicion He is seldom moved by a recitation of our deeds; and maybe less so by a list of promises we make… if the prayer is answered the way we want.

I know it is hard to operate on these truths. I have scars on my soul from the times I have come to this understanding only slowly and often kicking. However, true faith – a stronger, healthier faith – can come from dealing worthily with what we used to call unanswered prayer. All together now: “What we USED TO CALL unanswered prayer.”

Our faith will grow when we pray believing. Believing that God hears our prayers. Believing that God answers our prayers, always. And believing that in His loving care it is HIS answer, not ours, that will be our path forward.

As hard as it seems, we must learn to praise God when it is clear that OUR script was not followed by Him… but that He is the Master, the “Author Of All Creation.”

Listen, I know that prayer is a mystery. The Bible keeps us on our toes, right? Should we pray for something once, trusting? Should we pray without ceasing? Do we accept His will, but stay ready to be startled by an “answer” when we least expect it?

Yes, yes, and yes. But that is when prayer is a conversation, not a message to be left on God’s answering machine. Keep talking… and keep listening.
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In 1887 at a Dwight L Moody revival, a man stepped forward and said that he did not quite understand the gospel message, but he decided to trust God and obey God. One of the musicians, Daniel Towner, took those words and sent them to hymnodist John H Sammis. The man’s name has been lost to history – yet his transparent honesty and declaration has touched more souls since then, than have many preachers, because of the song that resulted.

Click: Trust and Obey

7-9-17

I am reviving this message today from Ireland, where, among other peregrinations, I am visiting my daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildrem Elsie and Lewis.

I noted a few years ago that we frequently tend to think about times we have gone through, and days facing us. About short-term anxieties and losing sight of God’s long-term blessings, and His care. Headlines about good economics news… and anxiety about our finances. “Have a good week!” is the implication of sharing messages on Monday mornings, and is a common wish we speak to each other. Almost (too often) like a mantra: “Have a good day,” “Have a nice week,” even a vague “Have a good one.”

My friend Chris Orr of Derry, Northern Ireland, put these pleasantries in perspective to me a while ago. He wrote, “It is great to start the week knowing that time does not exist to God. He already has seen the end of the week. Because of that, He has no worries at all about any of His children… so why should WE worry? … and, after all, we are only given one day at a time.”

Chris’s insight made me think of the hymn Abide With Me — a musical prayer that God be WITH us, that we be blessed by the realization of His presence, every moment of every day, right now and in the limitless future.

It was written by Henry Francis Lyte in 1847, as he lay dying of tuberculosis. Once again, the Holy Spirit strengthened a person at life’s “worst” moments with strength enough for that person… and for untold generations to take hope from it. Many people have been blessed — often in profound, life-changing ways — because of this one simple hymn.

Mr Lyte died three weeks after composing these amazing words.

I urge you to watch and listen to the wonderful Hayley Westenra’s performance of Abide With Me … and then return here and read the full words to the hymn.

… and then ask God to abide with you today, and this week. And ever more.

Abide With Me

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

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Click here: Abide With Me

6-26-17

Be not deceived, God is not mocked.

That familiar verse – or maybe not familiar enough – is from Galatians 6:7. The rest of the verse is: A man reaps what he sows. And another translation of this verse reads, Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked.

This is one of the most profound verses in the Bible. In a way, a chilling spiritual threat by God Almighty. Throughout the Bible God is revealed variously as a God of Mercy and Anger and Love and Vengeance and Compassion. He is, and has been through all of humankind’s history, all those things.

As humble believers and fallible souls, sinners yet saved by Grace… the aspect of God that might concern us the most is when He acts as a God of Justice.

For it is just that we deserve punishment. We fall short. We are sinners in the presence of a Holy God. Yes; saved, we are covered by the Blood; God does not expect perfection, but He demands that we seek perfection. Yet… surely, as bold as we can be to approach the Throne of Grace, we may fear the justice of that Holy God.

What is it to “mock God”?

If you know His Commandments, but willfully rebel,
Be not deceived, God is not mocked.

If you are a regular church-goer, and pay your tithes, and can list good deeds; and think that you therefore deserve Heaven,
Be not deceived, God is not mocked.

If you were a fervent Christian, but have “back-slid,” yet still have good Christian friends and think your membership the local church, or your kids in Sunday School, are enough to please an “understanding” God,
Be not deceived, God is not mocked.

If you are a leader; or a pastor, priest, or rabbi, with a hidden sin, yet think that influencing the community for good will tip the scales in your favor,
Be not deceived, God is not mocked.

If you believe that Jesus was a great teacher but not necessarily the Son of God; or that the Bible is book of well-meaning myths and stories but with powerful lessons; if you believe this,
Be not deceived, God is not mocked.

This is all to say that we humans have an infinite capacity for self-deception… but in vital cases like these, our “selves” are the only people we deceive – maybe a few weak minds around us – but certainly not God.

There is a God; He is Holy and He is just; He does not require more of you than that of which you are capable. Many people think that applies only to grief or temptation or worries… but it applies to obedience too.

Do not plan to discover loopholes or plead extenuating circumstances:
Be not deceived, God is not mocked.

In Glory we will discover the ultimate fate of ancient peoples, or faraway tribes that never hear the gospel. That has nothing to do with you. We cannot know what we cannot know, but in the meantime, in this land of many churches, and ministries on all airwaves, even atheists cannot claim never to have heard the invitation of Christ. Skeptics cannot say they never were confronted with arguments about sin. Believers in other gods have still heard the claims of Christ.

These people might maintain that, thanks to their willful cocoons, they never actually heard that Jesus is the Son of God; that He died to spare us the judgment for our sins; that He conquered death; and that belief in Him assures us eternal life. You can you say that you never heard these things in the past… except that here, at least, you have just heard them.

And if readers share this message, or reproduce these words, other folks who claim ignorance of the Good News can no longer avoid the consequences – the choice God presents.

And then, be not deceived:

Neither can God be deceived. And God does not countenance being mocked.

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Click: Abide With Me

6-12-17

A guest blog essay this week by my old friend Pastor Gary Adams of the Kelham Baptist Church in Oklahoma City. Gary and I went to high school together in Old Tappan NJ and shared, among other things, an admiration for William F Buckley. I could quote Bill, but Gary was able to add a dead-on impersonation and the distinctive pencil-tapping of the conservative hero.

Our most memorable adventure was the afternoon we got booted from Mr LaFemina’s Economics class. Our crime? Gary made a joke, and I laughed. The teacher was actually the funniest person in the entire school, so this must have been a bad day for him. Silver lining: we were banished to the History Department Office… where I cleverly (?) engaged its chairman, Mr Newman, in a discussion of our favorite scenes in Mozart’s Magic Flute.

We turned an embarrassment into a plus; climbed from the valley to a mountaintop that afternoon. Well, sort of. This is a segue to Gary’s guest column here, inspired, he suggests, by our Monday Ministry blog last week about life’s valleys. He wrote this for his church’s newsletter, Kelham Korner, and he packed a lot of Biblical history and Christian wisdom into an e-mail’s confines, better than I did.

In last week’s blog, titled “Are You Tired of Living in the Valley?” Rick mused on mountaintop experiences and mentioned a song by Dottie Rambo, “In the Valley He Restoreth My Soul.” The song notes, “Nothing grows high on a mountain, so He picked out a valley for me.”

I had never really considered that.

Some quick research revealed that in Colorado’s mountain communities “only three non-indigenous species (not native to the area) were found thriving above nine thousand feet,” the Piñon pine, Rocky Mountain juniper, and Green Ash. Food crops that grow at high altitude include leafy greens (lettuces, spinach, collards, turnip greens); root vegetables (carrots, beets, radishes, turnips, potatoes); peas; broccoli; cauliflower; Brussels sprouts; as well as various herbs. Some growers have had limited success with varieties of corn and pumpkins and Russian tomatoes (under cover). Food crops generally grow poorly on the mountaintop. Too little moisture, harsh conditions, and limited space to plant contribute to the difficulties of growing enough on which to survive when living on top of a mountain.

Mountaintop experiences draw our attention in the Bible: Noah and his family landing the ark on top of Ararat (Genesis 8); Abraham offering Isaac and receiving God’s promise of a Lamb (Genesis 22); Aaron and Hur holding up Moses’ arms (and staff) in the battle against Amalek (Exodus 17); Moses receiving the Ten Commandments (Exodus 32); David buying the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite (2 Samuel 24); Elijah and the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18); Peter and James and John with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration (Matthew 17). All draw us into visible signs of God’s presence.

Each mountaintop experience comes surrounded by valleys. The ark rested on Ararat after the greatest worldwide disaster in history in which all but eight people died. Abraham journeyed to Moriah knowing God had called him to sacrifice his only son. Moses’ experience against Amalek came after the people of Israel were on the verge of stoning Moses for having no water.

While Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments, the people of Israel were in the valley building and worshipping a golden calf, and three thousand Israelites died as a result. David bought the threshing floor to build an altar to God to stop the plague that came as a result of his foolish numbering of the people. Elijah’s confrontation with the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel came in the midst of widespread idolatry and suffering (a drought of three and a half years) and was followed by Elijah fleeing to the cave in the desert where he heard God’s still, small voice call him back to complete his service.

And Peter and James and John’s experience on the mount of transfiguration followed Jesus’ announcement of his coming betrayal and crucifixion, followed by rebuking Peter for acting in the place of Satan.

Then there was Mount Calvary.

Truly, that was a great mountaintop experience for us. We sometimes forget it was preceded by Jesus’ sweating “as it were great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44) in the garden of Gethsemane. We forget that on Mount Calvary our Savior paid the horrendous price of bearing our sin. Could Jesus have borne the sufferings of Calvary without the prayer of Gethsemane?

Just as few crops grow on the mountaintop, we cannot live on the mountaintop. Rambo’s song says, “The Lord knows I can’t live on a mountain, so He picked out a valley for me…. Then He tells me there’s strength in my sorrow and there’s victory in trials for me.”

While we might prefer the mountaintop, the conditions for growth lie in the valleys. If we were never tested, we would never know God’s strength. If we were never tried, we would never know God’s faithfulness. If we were never broken, we would never know God’s ability to remake us and mold us into His image.

Craig Curry’s song, Still, is a declaration of faith in the faithfulness of God affirming that we will still trust, we will still praise, even when we are broken and wounded and in the valley, because “we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. … to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:28-29).

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Click: Still

6-5-17

Mountaintop experiences. We yearn for them. Many of us have experienced them. Ministers promise them.

Significantly, Jesus did not promise them, not all the time; very seldom, in fact. His ministry was about meeting us where we are, as we are. When we are spiritually transformed we are not promised a transfiguration to a mountaintop except, perhaps, in poetic terms. But even then, it it clear that the Lord wants us, when called, to stay where we are, or go where He wants us, and do His work… sometimes to live and work in places far removed from any semblance of an exalted mountain top.

This will not be an invitation to exult in sorrow, as some religious extremists seek to do, thinking that self-willed suffering proves their faith. In both earthly destinations – the bright mountaintop and the dark valley – we dishonor God if we substitute residency for seeking and accepting His will.

We should be careful, naturally, if we send ourselves into dangerous overseas missions or domestic ministries – or if we send our zealous children – without fervent prayer. But my real concern today is with people who long for the “mountaintop experiences,” and, sometimes prodded by certain preachers, think they are missing God’s favor, or out of His will, if instead they continue in circumstances generally regarded as “living down in the valley.”

You know it… and probably have felt it at times. Never able to get out of financial challenges. Unlucky in love. Frustrated at work. Suffering aches and pains.

“Is such a life a good witness, to the world, of what a Christian’s life is?”

Maybe.

Actually, I will add to that. It has little relation to what a Christian’s life is.

What the world looks at – what God looks at – is not where you are but how, as a Christian, you deal with it. If you are there for a reason, if He has given you a task or even a burden, you insult God Almighty by lusting all the time for that shiny resort up on yonder mountain.

Dottie Rambo wrote one of her most profound gospel songs with the following lyrics:

When I’m low in spirit, I cry, “Lord lift me up, I want to go higher with Thee!”
But nothing grows high on a mountain, so He picked out a valley for me.

Then He leads me beside still waters, Somewhere in the valley below.
And He draws me aside to be tested and tried, In the valley He restoreth my soul!

Dark as a dungeon, the sun seldom shines, And I question: “Lord why must this be?”
But He tells me there’s strength in my sorrow, And there’s victory in trials for me!

Then He leads me beside still waters, Somewhere in the valley below.
And He draws me aside to be tested and tried, In the valley He restoreth my soul!

Yes, more things grow in the world’s valleys than on the highest mountains’ tops. And that can include you and me, growing. I have been in both environments, literally and figuratively. Oh, there is beauty, and great perspectives, from the heights; and we should never disdain the upward trail.

But in the meantime, the valleys can be special places.

Let us remember – a propos the valleys of life – that even the most horrible valley described in God’s Word, the “Valley of the Shadow of Death,” is not a place from which our loving Father promises to spare us, no!

Psalm 23 assures us, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.”

We can not avoid such places in our lives. We can not escape such moments in our “walks.” Rather, we should trust God; lean on the Everlasting Arms. He does not promise to find detours for us. He promises to be with us, protect us… and comfort us, when we are in those dark valleys.

When Jesus gave the Great Commission, neither did He send His disciples to the mountaintops of all the world, but to all the world.

One more perspective, based on personal experiences. I have been on mountaintops – high above the “pine line” in the Rockies, with friends after Christian Writers conferences in Estes Park. We behold the vistas and have been moved to sing, “This Is My Father’s World.” Moving. I have also been so high in the Alps that nothing grows but lichen, that moss-like composite of fungus and algae (yes, this IS my Father’s world! Who could imagine that hybrid organism, not a plant?) – wondrous and mysterious and ancient. Yet… moss-like.

At the other extreme, to find something indigenous, think of the beautiful, fragrant, colorful Lily. “Of the Valley,” as it is known and loved.

There is victory in trials, the song reminds us. If mountaintop people never have trials, they can not lean on the promises of God; or savor His protection; or experience His sweet comfort.

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Click: In the Valley He Restoreth My Soul

5-22-17

The worst prayer – the worst kind of prayer – that a Christian can pray begins from the attitude of “Forgive me, a poor sinner”; or “Unworthy!” or “Lord, I am not fit to approach Your Throne of Grace”…

We do need forgiveness, all the time. We are poor sinners. We are unworthy and not deserving of being in His presence. These things are true…

Except for the factor of Jesus. The Person of Jesus. We are less than worthy, but we are more than conquerors.

I do not contradict myself although, like Walt Whitman, I sometimes say, “Very well, I contradict myself!” But not as to what the Bible teaches – the core of Christianity. Above, I said that prayers offered with those ATTITUDES are mistaken. If we see ourselves in those relational positions, we reject the Truths of God to whom we pray. We insult the work of Jesus on the cross. We insult the Holy Spirit of God, who is sent to be our Helper, our Guide, our Counselor.

What do people think – what do Christians think – God sees when He looks at them?

Through history, many Christians have thought, hoped, and operated on the belief that He sees our good deeds. He does… but scarcely the totality of what He sees.

Many Christians take comfort that He sees their charitable activities, missions works, volunteer efforts, even the merciful acts performed. Surely the case… but, I submit, not the main things He looks for.

There are Christians who are confident, even in spiritual modesty, that their sacrifices and their service, their sweet spirits of forgiveness, please God. Of course these “fruits” please God… but we are told that such things are as dirty rags to a Just and Perfect God if we believe that they guarantee our home in Eternity once God sees them.

The Bible is full of believers who were at the other extreme of spiritual modesty: presumption. We know of “whited sepulchres”; of show-off givers; of those who pray loudly in the temple to be noticed; of hypocrites and vipers and wolves in sheep’s clothing. Of these types God will say… “Be gone, I never knew you! Depart from Me!”

So, what does God see when He looks down (or up, or over, or through) us? Many Christians will say, “He looks at our hearts.”

Yes, He does look at our hearts. He knows us better than we know ourselves. I happen to believe that if there is a choice – however, this is not a choice in life – but if there had to be one direction of “knowing the heart,” we should desire more that that we seek after God’s own Heart, and fear that He sees ours. Which is the point of this message.

Yes, when God sees us, He sees and knows our “hearts” – our thoughts, motives, desires. But that is STILL not what sees first, last, and most important when He looks at us.

I want us all to be reminded, and take comfort, and seize for dear life, the spiritual truth that when God looks at a Christian, a believer, a Christ-follower, those who believe in their hearts that Jesus is the Son of God, and confess with their mouths that God raised Him from the dead…

And when we are in that proper relationship with God… He does not see our deeds or our merciful works or our sacrifices or our forgiveness or our offerings or loud prayers or our memorials and names on church buildings or seminary dorms…

He sees these things, and He sees, yes, our hearts.

But what God sees first and, I believe, most importantly – He sees the Blood.

When we accept and confess Jesus, we are “covered in the Blood.” As surely as its foreshadowing – the blood on the doorposts of the pesach lambs, so the Angel of Death would Pass Over – the believers in Christ are shielded from judgment.

Those who truly believe on the Saviour can be free of guilt and shame and fear. Because when God sees you… He sees your elder brother Jesus, His only-begotten Son. The precious Blood was shed in order that God’s judgment would pass over your sins and shortcomings and failings. “Do not fear,” as Jesus so often said to people.

And the precious Blood also completes what you started, in faith and hope at your best times, in areas of charity and sacrifice and forgiveness. Jesus “finished” many things on the cross, among them the spiritual assignments we accepted when we first believed.

Thank God we did not conceive these things in our puny minds, but by the Great Commission He would have us undertake. We cannot really do them except by the teachings and directions of the Christ. We cannot find the required strength and wisdom but by His Holy Spirit.

Hallelujah, when He sees us, God rather sees the Person and the Blood of Jesus. What does God see in you? He sees the Blood covering you, and the Christ in you. The proper relational understanding of God, and the confidence we can gain, should give us confidence in the ATTITUDE of the prayers we raise to God!

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Click: Come Thou Fount of Blessing / Nothing But the Blood

5-8-17

I recently talked to a friend about the issue of bullying, which has become a big issue in our society and a major concern of contemporary life.

Whether bullying is more prevalent these days, or only more reported and discussed, is to me an open question. If incidents with kids are in fact more numerous, I ask the same questions I do about autism: Why now? Why so common? Does it merely have a new name? Is there something in the environment that precipitates these things?

There is a question, too, of whether the “bullying” issue among kids is a matter of rougher behavior and victimization; a culture of wimpiness that has fastened itself on American life, its children in particular; a predilection to raise fusses over things formerly overlooked… or is something in the middle of those triangular points.

Autism and the alphabet-soup of children’s emotional disorders, if caused by factors in the environment, will someday be discovered and solved. Bullying, such as we understand it, might also be blamed on the environment – but its case would be more in the moral environment. Insensitivity… video games… violent entertainment… dissolution of the nuclear family… lost values?

My friend and I decried a common response, especially among some Christians, to advise children to “turn the other cheek,” to love the bully until the offensive attitude adjusts itself. That is, to make these responses automatic, even autonomic. Ignore causes, outcomes, right, or wrong: just yield.

Every case is different, of course, but since Jesus was quoted here, His famous admonition should be seen in context. “Do not respond in kind,” a paraphrase, can be God’s will – no; we can agree it is God’s will – in certain situations. There are many, many times we need to show the world Christ’s love; how we are different; what new wine fills our old wineskins.

We are to be, in the words of Thomas à Kempis, imitators of Christ.

But, without composing a concordance of verses here, we recognize that sincere and observant Christians can both support and resist non-violence. There are biblical injunctions against anger, revenge, and unforgiveness. And scriptural admonitions – in fact, actions of our Holy Role Model – to strike back, put people in their place, overturn tables in temple courtyards.

Jesus scolded Peter to sheath his sword against Roman soldiers in the garden, yet also said in Luke 12: 34-36: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.”

Is God intentionally ambiguous about rules for our lives? Does every commandment have a negation elsewhere in scripture? Is the Lord a God who hedges His bets?

No ambiguity in the word of God. No negations in scripture, but rather confirmations and supporting verses. The Lord does not bet; rather, we take a deadly chance when we ignore of deny His word.

When we reach times when we fall short of true understanding, even to matters that confound us or that have caused schisms in the past… I believe that God intends those junctures to be teachable moments, for us to search the scriptures, to pray and seek wisdom. Then, to pray more.

Short, perhaps, of those extreme spiritual questions, are matters whose exegesis seem easier. Context. Which also prompts us to “empty ourselves,” try to substitute God’s wisdom for our own prejudices – our own natures – and dig deep in the Word.

Back to bullying. And to transition, as my friend and I did, to larger challenges that face contemporary Christians. Kids often are bullied these days for their lunch money, their sneakers, or their faces – meaning, mindless hatred. Christians, the church at large, are being bullied too. It is not new, and was in fact foretold (one might say “promised”) often by prophets and Christ. Prejudice; opposition; persecution.

But it is different today – also a feature of the End Times – and it requires different responses by Christians and the church. In some instances there are no cheeks to turn. Believers must stand their ground, and even be aggressive when defending ourselves and the faith. And we must positively disciple and evangelize.

I argue that Mohatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King practiced non-violence as political acts as much as spiritual acts. In any event the results were political, surely consistent with their hopes and dreams. Properly so.

In the 19th century there was a term, Muscular Christianity. It did not mean punching non-believers in the face; it meant knowing Jesus and making Him known. It meant not being ashamed of the Gospel. It meant transferring one’s faith into action: being a Christian every day in every way. Representing Christ. And defending His church.

These qualities are in retreat today. Like recessive genes, the abandonment of such traits surely will lead to mutation and death. Not of God’s Truth, which is everlasting to everlasting, but of His body – the church on earth. And, no less, our nation, our families, our souls.

America is a Christian nation, settled by Christians, claimed for Christ. Affirmed in foundational documents. Called so by the Supreme Court (1892). Should we proscribe immigration by other faiths? No. Should we persecute other faiths? No.

However – like people who buy homes near airports and then file lawsuits seeking noise reduction – neither should people of other faiths proscribe, persecute, and exercise prejudice against Christians. Every week in the news we hear of government edicts, court orders, and media pogroms against Christians. Not “people of faith,” because Muslims and of course atheists routinely are coddled, but Christians.

The body of believers – the remnant? – in the Year of our Lord 2017 need to carry “swords”; to risk “variance” with family, friends, and neighbors; and not submit to being bullied.

Do we choose to defend ourselves? Pray for wisdom. Must we defend God, His people, His church? Yes. Push back against the cultural and spiritual bullies. Overturn some tables in the temple courtyard!

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Taped at the Wartburg Castle, Eisenach, Germany, where Luther translated the Bible from Latin; and the birthplace of J S Bach.

Click: Stand Up For Jesus

5-1-17

Recently we noted that throughout history, pagan observances and celebrations often were co-opted by the Roman church, roughly conterminous with the expansion of the faith. And when expansion was not tractable in lands or with peoples, organized-Christianity found ways to incorporate the names of tribes’ festivals, or certain practices, or pagan gods with new names. Theories abound about the word “Easter,” for instance, and the calendar-date of Christmas.

Such traditions of organized religion better can be filed under “marketing” more than theology; ecclesiology more than evangelism.

Christendom since the Reformation has split in two ways in this matter too. Generally, Protestant peoples of northern Europe have revived Springtime pagan observances, often calling, and sometimes believing, that they are mere celebrations of Renewal, Nature, and Fertility. Holidays run the gamut from countryside dances to dedications of animals, seeds, and celebrants’ resolutions for the year ahead. Catholic lands often have named or invented saints who overlook the prospects of farmers and planters; Harvest Festivals in advance.

From back in hazy pre-history, May 1 was the date agreed upon as the appropriate day, regarded as the beginning of Spring (advent of Summer in some ancient cultures). It is roughly halfway between the Spring equinox and the Summer solstice.

The fertility goddess Maia, a figure in both Greek and Roman mythology, inspired the name “May” and other related words in many languages. Springtime celebrations of fertility were common to all societies. Singing, dancing, special pastries, and the presence of flowers, as in the May Pole, were common to all. So were bonfires, whose smoke was deemed to have protective properties. Faces were sometimes washed in the day’s morning dew.

In Nordic lands, Walpurgisnacht festivals still are held – nighttime activities including bonfires, wreaths of flowers, planting of seeds, and burning of branches, lending a pagan veneer that even an attempt to retroactively honor a patron saint cannot dispel (Saint Walburga is claimed to have introduced Christianity to German lands… but history bestows that honor on St Patrick). In countries like Estonia and Poland, May 1 – Walpurgis Fest – is a national holiday. In Germany, people still gather around bonfires and dance around May Poles festooned with Spring flowers.

In Ireland and nations of Celtic origin, “Beltane” is honored still, even in sight of ancient churches. Neopagans and wiccans have revived the old practices, often adding incantations. Italians harken to pre-Christian days, celebrating Rebirth in its larger senses as “Calendimaggio,” but retaining pagan rites of the ancient Etruscans and Ligures… whose languages are lost to us, but whose superstitions endure.

In Catholic lands, statues of Mary frequently are adorned with wreaths of Spring flowers. (She is the “Queen of May,” to the uninitiated.) In Britain, Morris dancing, decorating May Poles with garlands of flowers, and such outdoor rituals date back to Anglo-Saxon fertility fetes when May was called the “Month of Three Milkings.”

There is another May Day with which we are all too familiar. Known alternatively as International Workers Day, many people assume its own origins are also shrouded in the musty past and in obscure lands, or at least as a holiday of Socialists and Communists, the progeny of Karl Marx or Soviet conspirators.

The red May Day, however, was inspired by an event in America, as recently as 1886, thereafter adopted by Bolsheviks around the world. Disaffected radicals – workers and farmers, anarchists and socialists – agitated for a national strike in 1886, but in Haymarket Square, Chicago, things turned ugly when a bomb was thrown by persons unknown. When the smoke cleared, police and strikers were dead, many injured. The radical Industrial Workers of the World, the IWW or “Wobblies,” was founded there soon afterward. The Haymarket Riot inspired Communists to commemorate it with labor’s May Day.

From the Soviets’ Moscow to Beijing to Havana to Pyongyang to Harvard and Berkeley, that traditional has continued.

The other May Day we know about is the international distress signal. It is only about a century old, displacing wireless telegraphy’s SOS soon after it was first implemented by the sinking Titanic. “May Day” was the vocal shorthand, as the Morse Code was superseded, for emergencies, probably the transliteration of the French “m’aider” – “help me.”

I am not sure whether towns and schools, in the US anyway, have May Day events any more – at least not like when I was a schoolkid, when there actually were dances around Maypoles, threading garlands of flowers; and assigned essays about Spring, and we were allowed to mention God. Now, in this brave new world that is realizing the dreams of Socialists, from Europe on the brink to major forces in the US, every day is May Day.

But the May Day that has the most relevance – that is, immediate import – to Patriots and Christians, is the international Distress Signal.

We are indeed adrift and in distress. As a society, as a culture, we need help. We need to be rescued. “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).

IFs aplenty. We need revival, but we cannot pray for God’s magic wand. He has never worked that way. We cannot effect it without the Holy Ghost; but God will not bring revival if we do not repent.

Unlike the distress call that went out when the Titanic was sinking, we have the ability to influence our rescue. We can save our lives as He heals our land. But May Days will end sometime. Help us, Lord.

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Click: Help Me

4-17-17

“And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Easter is complicated enough in its significance without us poor humans festooning it with spiritual irrelevancies and celebratory ornaments like bunnies and painted eggs. The early church, which practiced forms of marketing, perhaps named it Easter after pagan fertility rites (Springtime; the rising sun in the east; the fecundity represented by rabbits and eggs); perhaps after the Egyptian fertility goddess Isis or Mesopotamian fertility goddess Ishtar; perhaps the Anglo-Saxon tribes’ goddess of the dawn, Eostre. Names, not substance, of course.

Easter is at once the densest theological concept, its history and meaning easy to reject by the skeptic; and the easiest message to accept by the lost, the hurting, the confused, the hungry, the searching souls of humanity.

That is to say, the truth of the gospel is audacious in its simplicity. Too good to be true, we are tempted to think. It is welcomed, and has been for 2000 years, by all but the hard-hearted and stiff-necked.

It takes more hatred and more hostility to dismiss the gospel, than it requires an open mind and an open heart to believe.

It requires more skepticism to reject the incarnation, Jesus’ ministry and atonement as concentrated in the events of Holy Week, than the faith required to believe it – the countless prophecies precisely fulfilled; the accounts of many eyewitnesses; the life-changing testimonies… Well, I am not writing to convince skeptics today, but rather to be persuasive with those who identify as Christians.

The world asks, “What if the Easter story is not true?”

To contemporary Christians, I ask:

What if the Easter story IS true?

Can people see a change in your life?

Do you forgive?

God became flesh and dwelt among us. He taught wisely, but did not come to earth primarily to teach. He performed miracles, but perhaps largely to confirm His divinity. The details of His life, as we have said, fulfilled prophecy to levels of mathematical improbability… confirming to a doubting world that He was indeed the Messiah.

Jesus did mighty works modestly and He did loving acts mightily. He performed miracles, raised the dead, healed the sick, read minds, walked on water, produced food for the hungry, calmed the wind and troubled waters. What manner of man was this?

As Emmanuel – God-with-us – He emptied Himself of His divinity when He chose. He wept for the lost. He allowed Himself to be ridiculed, rejected, betrayed, persecuted, accused, tortured, jailed, humiliated, killed.

Sacrificial lambs never did have an easy time of it.

We should see the events of Holy Week not as rituals Christ had to endure, as pages of a script. They were the mightiest of His miracles! To do all that for us – when He could have waved away enemies and soldiers, even Satan – were mighty miracles. Even mightier, to a lowly observer like me, was forgiving those who did these things during His last earthly days. Forgiving me, like Paul, chief among sinners; dying for us all while we were yet sinners.

Indeed, What manner of man is this?

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Click: He Lives

4-3-17

A guest essay by one of my favorite writers, Leah C Morgan

Winter serves its purpose necessary for cycles of life and growth. Including sorrow and darkness. But no one mourns its departure. There are no weeping farewells, no fierce clinging to its coattails. Winter’s last cold breath could easily be mistaken for a communal sigh of relief.

But Spring. . .

Spring is like hope, often suppressed by doubt and crushed by fear before finally bursting out of the barrenness with such lush beauty we would think it audacious if it were a woman crossing the landscape.

Or a dream on the horizon.

But Spring is so universally pined after, we allow her to paint the town in pastels and festoon it with flowers. To declare a new season and prophesy a resurrection of all dead things. We are so in need of warmth, we want to believe.

Snow comes just as we’re tempted to forget coats and gloves; and we’re buried again in self-doubt, certain that winter is eternal. And that second chances, green buds, and fresh starts are myths.

Then the smallest patch of sunlight shines its way indoors, warming our faces. A song of warbled notes reaches our ears, and the perfume of living things wends its way to our senses. Our hearts thaw. Something flutters within and pushes its way forward like a new beginning.

And there we are against all odds, in spite of the dead branches and brown grass, joining the parade, waving banners, and getting all caught up in the longing. We believe in the getting up, in the rising again.

If forgotten bulbs buried beneath the frozen ground can resurrect their remembrance, and dormant plants survive long months of deprivation, if distant birds are spurred to make lengthy migrations in expectation of better days, and insects lie quietly in wait for a feast about to commence, how can the human heart settle for dearth? The very bowels of the earth offer up an invitation to rejoice. To hope. To muster up enough courage to try again.

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Spring is the season to put away the wool and furs, the weighty things that make for despair.

It is the reminder that buried things are not always dead things, and that dead things can live again.

Spring is the occasion to pray for the miraculous, for rebirth and resurrection. It is the opportunity to enjoy perpetual youth. Nothing is so young as new life, and new life can sprout in the faith of a fertile mind, coming to life in a fresh idea. It can spring up in the purpose of heart, taking the shape of brilliant creativity.

Buried talents, forgotten intentions, failed attempts – they all want to be born again, and Spring makes the yearning reasonable. If daffodils can fan out their pretty bonnets after keeping still for a year, what unexercised muscle of faith might be stretched out in the light of understanding?

The time for understanding has come. Flamboyant Spring steps forward on a pale, monochromatic stage to pantomime the Gospel in living color. The Old Man Winter is past, and now a light shines in the darkness, its transformative power producing new life. The fields and forests are born again, their naked knolls and branches clothed in glorious wardrobes. They develop, mature, producing fruit and dropping seeds. The seeds are buried, left to die and decay, before shedding their form to be resurrected, coming forth from the ground in a new body.

“Sown in weakness, raised in power” (I Corinthians 15:43). How we begin is not how we’re destined to remain.

A sweet, scented breeze is blowing, whistling a melody. And a voice that sounds a lot like Spring sings:

My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

 The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away” (Song of Solomon 2:10-13).
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Click: Rise Again

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!
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Click: It Is Finished

2-27-17

There was a wise saying that was popular in the time of the Jesus generation, the Born-Again movement, and I am a great believer in it, as in most every example of bumper-strip theology. “God gave us two ears and one mouth! Try listening!”

A wise aphorism. A life lesson. Indeed, a rule to live by. I stink at math, but I understand the irresistible logic of this saying. Two ears, one mouth.

A friend recently employed a variation of this. Whether it is an old saying I never heard before (very possible) or new to this clever friend, its logic is also irresistible and powerful.

“God gave us all two hands, two eyes, two ears… but one heart. That makes it our job to find that other heart, to complete the picture.”

That can have poetic and romantic, even mystical, applications, but also spiritual relevance. Just as the actor-comedian-author Orson Bean, a late convert to Christ (and, incidentally, Andrew Breitbart’s father-in-law) said, “We were all born with a virtual hole in our middles, in our hearts, by God’s design, because the Holy Spirit was sent to fill it.”

And nothing other than God’s love can soothe our hearts; nobody other than Jesus can save our hearts; nothing else than the Holy Ghost can fill our hearts.

In this world, we are ultimately lonely people in a lonely place. It does not have to be so, but often it is. Finding love is rather a rare thing. Facebook unintentionally teaches that we can have a lot of “Likes” and “Friends,” but there is no category of “Loves” in its galleries. On dating sites, profiles ask “Who I seek,” but not “Who I need.”

I realize that every person, especially the emotionally needy and vulnerable, would be reluctant to expose their neediness.

On the other hand – and to continue the spiritual aspect of these common but seldom-discussed truths – we humans are different in uncountable, sometimes radical ways. Different sexes, different colors, different talents, different sizes, different values and attitudes…

But there is one common element. We share one thing, whatever other things are different —

We all need a Savior. We all are sinners. Each of us… has one heart. And like the poetic, romantic, mystical imperatives to which my friend referred, our spiritual hearts are lonely too. Even pagan savages look to heaven; inchoately desiring something greater in life; and – as do the most “civilized” amongst us – instinctively know that a greater power exists.

Paganism does not stop there. And how sad that there are so many superstitious and secular and paganistic people with whom we interact every day. Not in far-off jungles, but our neighbors, in this land of many churches.

But that “greater power” does not have to be a mystery, as many people make it. He is Almighty God, Creator of the universe and lover of our souls. He revealed Himself, becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us. When Jesus ascended to heaven, He said that it was better that He leave, because One would follow who would be the Comforter; and that greater things we will do when the Spirit comes.

Into our hearts.

In that way, we find that “second” heart; our hearts are joined as one with the Lord’s. In the same manner as the promise that whenever two or more are gathered in His name He will be in our midst, that union of our lonely hearts with His perfect heart… makes us complete.

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Back when I was Director of Product Development at Youth Specialties, I conceived a project wherein some performers at our Youth Workers Conventions could work on two print and video projects for us. One would be for them to write new music, or least new performance versions, of classic hymns and gospel songs. The other would be to devise lessons and demonstrations for worship leaders and church music directors.

Too often, contemporary worship leaders would sing random songs, randomly repeating lines, aimlessly segueing to other music. Sometimes this was blamed on “Holy Spirit leading” but mostly it was lack of discipline… spiritual discipline. Chris Tomlin was great at intentionally building ascending keys and tempos, knowing when to pause for prayer, and be sensitive to worshipers’ reactions, and so forth.

For various reasons that never happened while I was at YS. Some singers and bands subsequently have done these things in published formats and in seminars. I am not claiming to have planted any seeds, at all, but I am grateful for the discussions I had with Chris, with David Crowder, and with Paul Baloche.

Paul is truly gifted as a composer, writer, musician, and worship leader. His ability to communicate his inspirations is impressive. Maybe his most beloved worship song is “Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord.” Listen in the context of today’s essay.

Click: Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord

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.

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Click: Waiting On the Lord