Monday Morning Music Ministry

6-27-22

Certain events in my life have caused me to dread headlines – not every day; and for years as a newspaperman it was my business to write headlines – but we all have been conditioned to expect surprises. Weather, wars, assassinations, disasters. I was just beginning a new job in San Diego, living amidst boxes in my new home, when the TV showed the breaking news of what we now call 9-11.

That I knew that Manhattan neighborhood well, and had been to the top of the Towers, added but little to the shock. Even today, almost every time I turn on the TV news in the morning, I wonder whether a similar headline will confront me.

In a similar way, and not only as a student of history, there are events that I would happily anticipate as headlines – hopes and dreams that might be fulfilled some day. Usually these thoughts are futile. But sometimes they happen: dreams do come true.

I was astonished, for instance, that “the Wall fell,” and Communist governments not only collapsed across Europe – one after the other, like dominoes – but that hardly a drop of blood was shed! Oh, maybe someone hurt themselves as the Berlin Wall was razed; and excepting the Romanian thug Nicolae Ceauşescu and his immediate family there were no fatalities, either by regimes’ defenses or by freedom fighters. (Strangely, in college I briefly had dated the daughter of the government minister who fleetingly tried to assume power in the dictator’s wake.)

My point is that a headline, “Communist Governments Overthrown, Bloodlessly; Democracy and Capitalism Come to Europe,” was one I never expected.

A similar headline – “Roe vs Wade Overturned and Invalidated by Supreme Court” – is one I dreamed of for half a century, and simply never believed would happen. Indeed as with the subsequent “Casey” ruling, I was certain that America would continue down (!) the path of disrespecting and dismantling our cultural heritage. Declining. What I have called “The Culture of Death.”

My friends know that in the days of “Roe,” those almost nihilistic times, I was untroubled by the idea of abortion… unpersuaded by opposing arguments… and approving of its legalization. Those views and actions are never merely abstract in debates and events; when you choose sides in such matters you become a complicit enabler. There are few things from which I have reformed that have caused such bitter tears and prayers for forgiveness. So I became an activist on the “pro-life” side.

… and therefore I was, frankly, astonished to learn that Roe vs Wade has been overturned. And without violence or bloodshed (except, that is, for the 63-million babies that have been killed since the Court decided it).

Growing from my concern and activism, in 2005 I managed to secure a magazine interview with Norma McCorvey, the “anonymous” Jane Roe (a female “John Doe”) of the landmark case. She was famously reclusive and granted few interviews. Her own baby (of the case’s focus) in fact never was aborted, but was given for adoption. After her “win,” she worked in abortion clinics… was disgusted by what she witnessed… became a Christian… and then worked to counsel other women.

That interview will soon appear in a national magazine, and I will share it here, too, in coming weeks.

But let us not celebrate too soon or too enthusiastically. Just as Communist governments fell, but Communism lives on – in other governments; in academia; in the media; in “progressive” politics – so abortion will continue. Sobering facts to realize and remember:

• Overturning Roe and Casey does not end abortion in the United States. It merely lets states accept or reject the practice. Some do, some don’t; more will, more won’t. Just as drug laws are local, so will legal abortions be available here and there. I have been to “dry” counties and towns in Kansas and even California – where alcohol is outlawed – but people drive a little bit; and they will for abortions too. Vacation packages might be designed around abortions.
• Abortifacients will abound; “morning after” drugs probably will become more common than weed; and even in proscribed locales, “procedures” likely will become as common as Botox treatments. They always were, of course: what has really changed in our lifetimes is this: what people once whispered about, many people these days brag about. Savage, but true.
• Is the Court’s decision, therefore, futile? No. Societies define themselves by laws, art, and literature. So the “overturn” might in a larger sense be a codification of our nation’s essential standards. IF it stands, or holds. No sure thing.
• So the “fights” will continue, but in state capitals, in town councils, in local elections. That is the point of the Court’s reversal: the Framers meant that some matters (not only concepts and technologies they could not anticipate) are best decided in communities. Of, by, and for communities. We might not be perfectly united, but we are states.

There is another point that might not be appreciated going forward… but it is a lesson in democracy. For all the tumult and shouting about guns and abortions, and about election frauds and discredited stories about Russian collusion, “impossible” dreams do come true. Communist dictatorships did collapse. The guarantee of self-defense according to the Second Amendment finally seems secure. And contrary to social drift in America, and standards in other countries (our abortion policies are generally more permissive than dozens of other countries’ around the world)… we are in fact reading headlines that bring hope on the issue of infanticide.

Other battles remain to confront us: crime; abuse; drugs; the breakdown of the family; education reform… but we can sense redemption from pessimism!

And perhaps the most unlikely surprise among startling news is the “vessel” who successfully carried water on these issues. The Bible has many examples of unlikely or unknown or untested people who God used to exercise His will. In a future generation, Americans will read in history books, not only newspapers, the headline: “Orange Man Good.”

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Music Video Click: Unplanned

6-13-22

I’m not going to go Theological on you here. I will take a moment, however, to invite us all to consider a glaring matter (I believe to be a problem) in today’s churches.

The root of “Theology” literally is “the study of God,” so I might break my promise before I start, but I rather think in this matter we should study not God so much as contemporary worship, the practices of Western churches, and the evolution, yes, of denominations.

Simply: I think significant portions of Christendom – north of the Equator, generally, and in America especially – have sublimated important aspects of Christian doctrine. That is to say, the Church that Jesus inspired and the Apostles established.

Stick with me: Essential elements of Christianity, the accepted teaching over many centuries, and the foundational beliefs of Christians… are often ignored today. In Christian churches themselves.

Many Christians are being taught incomplete Gospels, if taught at all.

An incomplete Gospel is not the Gospel at all. Churches and their traditions and denominations used to proclaim “a full Gospel” and be dedicated to “know Christ and make Him known.” Now it is what has become convenient, or appealing, or uncomplicated. And I am not here referring to obscure debates or fine points of, say, eschatology or, you know, “how many angels can dance on the heads of pins.”

Those challenges are serious enough… and I suppose always will be. My concern actually is more basic, and can be illustrated by two recent days in the church “calendar” that are practically ignored in much of today’s church.

The first is Ascension Day. For centuries the Transfiguration of Christ – His bodily ascension to Heaven, witnessed by Disciples and accompanied by faith-heroes of the Old Testament – was a major event, celebrated by churches in a major way, observed for its major significance.

This Transfiguration of the Christ “closed the circle,” made complete His earthly Ministry. The fulfillment of a hundred various prophesies… the details of His life and many miracles performed… His suffering and sacrificial death… all were the varieties of signs and wonders that announced who He was. Of course, His miraculous victory over death, and 40 days of being seen, and preaching anew, were further signs that He was – as His followers were now believing – much greater than the prophets of old.

But Jesus’s bodily Ascension to Heaven, lifted to the clouds, welcomed by the Father… this was the final act in His ministry on earth. The Ascension confirmed, finally, that Jesus was Divine; that He was returning to the Father.

This act, this fact, was profoundly important to the early Church. And it remained a major element of teaching and creeds and church observances for centuries. Properly so.

Today (and believe me, I know and honor the pockets of exceptions) the mainstream denominations scarcely mention the event, the Day, its implications. A needless omission; a symptom of post-Modern disrespect for God Almighty and His plan for His church.

You might ask: Would clergy who undergo training, and people who build churches, really abandon the Faith??? The answer is found, sadly, many times throughout Biblical history. At one time (see Samuel II, chapter 6) the Israelites actually let the Ark of Covenant — delivered and designed by God Himself — be abandoned for three months. There is an example. (King David wanted to return it to Jerusalem, but instead consigned it to the household of Obed-Edom, appropriately, a Levite — and this, I believe, was a sign to us: “As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord!”)

Even more egregious, and more widespread, is what I call the “Duine God” who is worshiped and glorified, to the extent He is, by the contemporary church. (That is, opposed to the “Triune God” – the Trinity.)

Ten days after Jesus’s Ascension, a significant promise of His was fulfilled. As the Disciples and others “waited” as Jesus commanded, “there came a rushing sound as from a mighty wind… over the heads of the assembled crowd there appeared what seemed like tongues of flame… everyone began speaking, but in languages of others, and in unknown talk that sounded like gibberish…” (My paraphrase of the account in the Book of Acts.)

Happening on Pentecost (the “Feast of Weeks” on the Jewish calendar; subsequently known as Whit Day, sometimes Whitsunday) – the events of that day gave rise to the Pentecostal experience of believers.

That Pentecost event was the birth-day of the Church. Jesus had assured the Disciples that it was “better that He leave them, because One will come with power, so they might do all things He had done.” A miracle happened that day… and has not ceased. Nine Spiritual Gifts, as listed in I Corinthians and elsewhere, came upon those people, and are still promised to believers today. They include speaking, and understanding, strange tongues, “the language of angels.” Gifts of miraculous knowledge, and wisdom, and prophetic visions; and healing.

Not all “powers” at all times to all people: they are not magic wands. But they are gifts.

And I am astonished how few Christian churches believe in them today. Or seek them. Or accept them. Or teach them. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever… and so is the equal member of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit – God in us. Yet today’s churches are afraid to see the Gifts, and the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, as anything but a 2000-year-old religious relic. Tragic.

Some people today claim that this experience was “emotionalism.” But things changed, forever. Peter, for instance, had been an impulsive and sometimes foolish fan of Jesus. After Pentecost he became a wise, mature, and persuasive leader. Some people today claim that the Pentecostal experience was for that moment only, to “anoint” followers. However, it did not stop. Within decades there were Christian churches as far away as England, and in short centuries, Christianity was the official faith of the Roman Empire. The power of Pentecost!

I have experienced some of the Gifts; and friends have. Pentecostalism is the fastest-growing segment of the church, and south of the Equator is overtaking Catholic and traditional Protestant denominations in numbers. Holy-Spirit Christianity is outstripping Islam in Africa (the massacres you hear about in the news are routinely of Pentecostal communities).

These “holes in the Gospel” today I see as nothing less than a religious “cancel culture” of the post-Modern age, with dead, frightened mainstream skeletons behind pulpits of social clubs and mausoleums posing as churches. Churches that deny the Trinity.

That is harsh, but I think Christians need some spiritual tables overturned in church parking lots and courtyards. Would Jesus know His church if He returned today?

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Click: Altar Call – Baptism In the Holy Spirit

6-6-22

Prayer. It is a mysterious thing, really. A gift proffered by the Creator of the Universe to every one of His children – the invitation to have a conversation.

It can be a chat, for it is not supposed to be a one-way street. We let the burdens of our hearts be known; we lift our praise and gratitude; we sometimes cry in helpless confusion.

Other “gods” and figureheads of various religious traditions do not converse. How were they portrayed? They dispensed wisdom or rules. They demand tribute. They have no counterparts of the Holy Spirit, the aspect of God who lives in our hearts and is our Advocate before the Throne.

We are assured that God covets our prayers, and hears the prayers of the righteous; that His Word never comes back void; that the Holy Spirit – when we are unable to pray or might feel inadequate – will nevertheless “groan” on our behalf.

We often list our desires… but the Lord knows our needs. Thank God.

And that is part of the mystery, beyond the miracle that God knows even the number of hairs on our heads: He knows our needs. In fact He feels our pains and joys and burdens and petitions before we organize them in prayer. He knows, already. And He knows the answers.

So why pray? Why does He need for us to approach Him? Why does He “communicate”?

In prayerful communication, He speaks to our hearts; He sometimes speaks audibly; He brings “the peace of God, which passes understanding,” as is promised about prayer; He has assured us that fervent prayer “avails much.”

Part of the mystery should be clear – we are blessed by the act of praying, even before the answers come. Further, prayer is the most palpable form of obedience we can exercise: believing, approaching, trusting – the essence of faith. Prayer is the “key to Heaven, and faith unlocks the door,” as the Gospel song says. We are encouraged to pray for one another: such is our duty, and it pleases God that we fellowship with the saints. The Gifts of the Spirit, enumerated throughout the New Testament, include praying “in the Spirit,” surrendering our tongues and hearts to the language of angels, clearing worldly impediments to conversation with God.

Yet our natural minds still have natural questions.

Frequently asked by skeptics, and sometimes in corners of our own hearts: When we pray “fervently,” when we are “righteous” according to scriptural verses on the matter, when we “pray believing” as commanded, when we seem to be in accord with His Word, when we pray selflessly as we know how…

Why does God sometimes seem to be silent? Why does He sometimes say “no”? More – why does He sometimes seem to say “NO!!!”

An answer, as hard as it often is to accept, is that “no” is an answer. Prayer is not a magic wand. God is not an errand boy. But our response must encompass a deeper understanding than this. God is sovereign; He knows best. He knows better than our want-lists, even when our requests are sincere and righteous. As we agreed, we have our desires; He knows our needs.

Further, as obedient children of a loving God, we have to know that a “no” can really be a “not yet.” Or, “not in your way, but Mine.” Thus saith the Lord.

To reassure ourselves, let’s look at some notable things God did not do… yet, still, were answers to prayer, and examples of how He works His loving will toward us.

• Moses was leading the Hebrew children from the wrath of Pharaoh’s army. The Promised Land was far ahead, but the multitude was stopped at the Red Sea. A miracle-working God could have answered prayers by drying the waters. But God’s answer was to part the waters. There is a message for us in the way those prayers were answered: God makes a way.
• Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were condemned to death, to be cast into the dreaded “Fiery Furnace.” To honor their faith, God could have struck the King dead, or scattered the guards, or extinguished the flames. Yet prayers were answered when they survived unharmed (and in the presence of that “fourth man” appearing at their side). There is a message for us in the way those prayers were answered: God protects us.
• In the well-known Psalm of comfort, we are told to prepare for the “valley of the shadow of death.” If God chooses, He easily could set our paths on the mountaintops above such a valley. Yet we are encouraged to “fear no evil” because His rod and staff will comfort us… in the presence of our enemies. There is a message for us in the way those prayers were answered: God will be by our side.

In these examples, I think we all might have prayed urgently, probably expectantly, surely hopefully.

Naturally. But, hard as it would be to realize, those prayers would not be conversations. God’s lessons would be lost. Yet they happened, and were recorded, for reasons. We were the reasons; to learn the ways in which we can draw closer to God.

And to pray “Thy will be done” at the end, as well as the beginning, of our chats with God.

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Click: In the Night Shadows

5-16-22

According to the calendars, Winter is long past. Yet around these parts I was still turning on the heat overnight, and across swaths of the continent there have been strange late-season snowstorms. Where it hasn’t been chilly or snowy, we have had rainstorms and floods and, devastatingly, postponed baseball games.

Only last week a friend and I were walking, noting the lack of flowers and leaves and even buds on trees in the neighborhood. One of the joys of Spring is to see the light-green fuzz that appears like mists on seemingly dead trees and bushes. Spring fragrances in the air are overdue, too; like half of America perhaps they, too, have moved to Florida.

Winter has its charms, of course; but when it overstays its welcome it can affect our moods.

Perhaps my own mood is really affected by a confluence of events. Occasionally in these essays I have been inspired by coincidences: several friends enduring similar crises or illnesses; odd similarities in news stories; prayer needs for health or finances or family matters addressed to me.

Neither God nor the cosmos is trying to tell me something; certainly not at the expense of others’ lives. Sometimes, I believe, we all simply happen to notice things we otherwise overlook. And of course there are coincidences. So it is not morbid, but merely clinical, to mention that I recently have been aware of people dying, including more than during a typical week.

I am writing a book about the cousins Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Swaggart, and Mickey Gilley, and conducting interviews. This week Mickey, 86, died. A situation shared with me, a friend diagnosed with a brain tumor previously regarded as an eye affliction. The father of a close friend died this week, a few days after my friend and I had dinner. An old, dear friend who has devoted her life to caring for a daughter who was suddenly disabled decades ago shared that she faces her daughter’s seriously declining health. My sister called and urged that we discuss our wills, for logical reasons.

And so forth. There are other reminders. One becomes more aware of, not desensitized to, stories of homicides and suicides in the news; body-counts in foreign wars and breached borders; of statistics of aborted children.

But we have just come through a season where we contemplated death… and life. Easter, that is. Jesus’s willing sacrifice of His life, something fairly overwhelming to comprehend, was immediately assuaged two thousand years ago — and each moment we meditate upon it today: the affirmation of life.

He overcame death. He rose from the dead. He lives today.

We need to contemplate; we need to meditate. Do not “check the box” – “Yes. Son of God. Died. Rose. Miracle. OK, is Easter over?” How often do we miss the lesson of the Resurrection?

God planned this scenario not merely to prove the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The miracles suggested that, and His Ascension would confirm that.

The Resurrection of Christ occurred not only to show us that He overcame death… but to illustrate the promise that we can overcome too. Accepting Christ as your Savior promises that you, too, will “conquer sin and death.” Those who believe “will have eternal life.” More than life in Heaven’s Paradise, you will live in virtual mansions; Jesus promised, “If it were not so, I would have told you.”

Life is not the negation of death, but triumph over it.

The horrible aspects of this world will be left behind. And what awaits? Our loving Father; eternal peace; joy unspeakable. Also awaiting us will be the people we love. And have “lost.” Those loved ones, the Bible promises us, who suffered pain and disease and infirmity, will be whole again.

When we gain Heaven ourselves, we will not only see the King… but we shall see our loved ones too. In perfect bodies. Well, and whole.

People on earth, even His children, do not live forever. And, because there is sin in the world, there is disease. And corruption. And affliction. And suffering. Some of these problems brought on by ourselves; some because the physical realm which includes sickness, cruelty, and sorrow, makes war upon us. These are other reasons to look upon our great Hope and to trust His promises.

So we look to the Life ahead. We trust in God’s mercy and, as my friend I mentioned above reminded me, grace. It is a gift we cannot manufacture ourselves, but we can seek it and accept it. Grace, grace, God’s grace. What do some people call it?

Oh, yes; amazing Grace. Even the angels do not know Grace, for they have not overcome the trials of this life nor the bonds of death. But we can savor it!

Suddenly, today, I realized I heard birds chirping this morning at dawn. Nature’s alarm clock! I took another walk, and the air had that special fragrance of renewed life. There was green fuzz on trees and bushes. Welcome back! The grass will need mowing soon! Seemingly overnight, the dogwoods burst forth in their brilliant flowery branches.

Death might seem to surround us, but life always returns, life prevails, life embraces us. Like seedlings that emerge from cracks in giant rocks, life wins – examples of the promise we have, as that old Gospel song says…

“There ain’t no grave gonna keep this body down!”

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Click: Ain’t No Grave

5-2-22

The Shroud of Turin is back in the news. New scientific tests and findings; new “expositions” – displaying of the actual cloth and exact replicas; 3-D formations; analyses of the cloth, even minerals and pollen found in the fibers.

Old mysteries, new debates; old debates, new mysteries.

A summary for those who have not heard of the Shroud or followed its occasional appearance in news stories. The lengthy piece of cloth (approximately 14.5 feet by 3.5 feet) is reputed to be the burial cloth of Jesus, or in any event a man who was laid upon the cloth which then was brought forward to cover the front of the body. That is, not wrapped like a mummy.

The Shroud was imputed to be that of Jesus because there is a faint yet detailed image of a man fitting the details of a body abused as described in Bible accounts.

Mysteries immediately present themselves:

Why have people thought the man was Jesus? First, the man’s features are that of a Palestinian Jew, with beard and hair in the style of Jesus’s time.

Further mysteries: there are apparent bloodstains and wounds and hematomas, and many of them. That the Shroud did not hold an average prisoner or random tortured criminal (besides the fact that the condemned would not have been afforded careful and honored burials in such shrouds) is another evident mystery: a great number of the evidences of the man of the Shroud correspond to Jesus’s Passion and death.

The mysteries of those bloodstains: Bloodstreams from thorns thrust on the head. A wound on the side (Jesus was pierced with a spear between the ribs). Other “stripes” – evidence of whippings and scourging as recorded in the Bible. Bruises, particularly on the face, correspond to the accounts of how Jesus was beaten.

There have been accusations and suspicions of forgery which skepticism is a reason the Shroud is frequently in the news: the wounds where spikes would have held the body on a cross are through the wrists, not hands. For centuries, Christians traditionally assumed that nails pieced Jesus’s hands – which is only the case in a general or poetic sense, but not by correct anatomy. Relatively recently, researchers nailed corpses to crosses; through the hands, the body’s weight ripped through the hands and the bodies fell. But because the wrist has many bones, the bodies were upheld. The man of the Shroud shows nail wounds through the wrists. Ancient forgers, if there were, did not depict that; innumerable artists  of ancient times depicted the crucified Jesus with nails or scars in the hands.

The biggest mystery is the image itself. It is faint; it shows a man as described in the Gospels, brutalized and naked. Through the centuries, people wondered, however, why the image appeared in sepia tones and “almost” real. But somehow “backwards” or reversed. Why? When the Shroud was first photographed in the late 1890s, its photographic negatives startled the world: HERE was a virtual photograph of a man fitting the Bible’s descriptions.

A mystery: the Shroud was a virtual photographic negative! What? Why? How?

Books have been written, and will be; but I will try to condense and summarize the facts, doubts, proofs, tests, and… mysteries. Ownership of the Shroud could be traced back only to about 1300. It was either forged then, or, as claimed, was hidden, cherished, then kept from Moslem invaders of churches in Turkey that claimed to possess such a relic.

How was the image made? It is not of paint or dyes; the image does not permeate the cloth; and (years before the atomic age) the idea was advanced that at the moment of Resurrection, a supernatural burst of some sort scorched the Shroud, transferring the image we see.

There are strange patches on it today. They were sewn when a fire occurred in a church where it was housed centuries ago, and its silver reliquary melted and burned in the folded cloth. Speaking of its being folded, the Shroud might explain the mystery of “Veronica’s Veil,” an ancient legend of a cloth that mysteriously took on the face of Jesus when a sympathetic woman wiped his sweat as the cross was carried to Golgotha. The Shroud in ancient times evidently was displayed in folded form, showing only Jesus’s face… perhaps inspiring that legend.

So the Shroud evidently was seen and venerated for decades after the Resurrection… went missing through persecution and wars… and for a thousand years has been traced in castles and churches, now residing in a basilica in Turin, Italy.

Skeptics have demanded proofs; and even the Vatican is neutral about its authenticity. Historians, doctors, experts in geography, agronomy, fabric analysis, and forensic science have debated. On both sides. Mysteries arise and are stoked: disagreements on the types of cloth weaves… the explanation for pollens on the Shroud from the area around Jerusalem (that is, not in a European forger’s studio)… measurements of the anatomy of the man of the Shroud… explanations for the absence of paints and the presence of blood serum. And so forth.

Back in the 1970s, when many discoveries were made and hotly debated, I became very interested in the Shroud, and researched all I could. I acquired rare publications from the 1890s, when the world became curious; I purchased documentary materials and even delivered lectures with a slide show. “The Mysteries of the Shroud.”

The church’s handlers allowed for a small portion of the Shroud to be cut, and undergo Carbon-14 dating analysis… whose conclusion (without explaining the manner of the image’s transfer and other mysteries) was that the Shroud was about a thousand years old, not 2000 years. Yet mysteries were compelling.

For instance, new technology has enabled the formation of 3-D models based on scans of the image on the Shroud. I was present at its display – a perfectly formed body of a man, every aspect in perfect proportions. Imagery even identified details on the coins placed on the body’s eyes… but that are disputed by others. Pollen, tiny seeds, the fabric composition, so much more, was explained… or explained away.

Meanwhile, Carbon-Dating has been found often to be unreliable, and easily contaminated. Some mysteries might have been answered this week, from a new technology that has dated the Shroud as from the time, and place, of Jesus’s life. Specifically, almost an exact match with fabrics from the siege of Masada, 74-55 B.C., in Israel.

“Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering,” or WAXS, measures the natural aging of flax cellulose. A scientist from Bari, Italy, described its superiority to carbon-14 spectrology: “Molds and bacteria, colonizing textile fibers, and dirt or carbon-containing minerals, such as limestone, adhering to them, in the empty spaces between the fibers that at a microscopic level represent about 50 per cent of the volume, can be so difficult to completely eliminate in the sample cleaning phase, which can distort the dating.”

As I said above, we have old mysteries, new debates; and old debates, new mysteries.

I invite you to think about the mysteries as much as about the Shroud, compelling as that is. Whether old or half-old, authentic or forgery, plausible or impossible… it is a matter of faith. And what is that “matter” of faith? – only something that can excite our curiosity and engage our interest.

At best – and I write as someone who is quite persuaded that this actually held the body of Jesus Christ – the Shroud is a relic. An object. As a relic, let it not persuade you (as relics have, sadly, throughout history, persuaded people) that it is holy; that it can save your soul; that it can heal you; that you should venerate or pray to it.

I have been to many sites in Europe where relics are housed and displayed: fingers of saints; locks of hair; skulls of martyrs. A favorite church near my favorite hotel in Rome, the Basilica of St-Paul-Outside-the-Wall, as it is known, has a wall of boxes and shelves with many of these “holy objects.” If all the “pieces of the True Cross” in European churches were put together, it would look like a redwood forest…

If I am dismissive, why have I pursued and maintain an interest in the Shroud? Very simply, because it is a graphic display, miraculously detailed, of what our Savior endured for us. It illustrates how He was tortured. It reveals everything He experienced. It documents, life-sized, every detail of humiliation, rejection, suffering. Eyes closed, somehow at peace – released – it visually explains what He allowed Himself to go through…

… to suffer and die as a substitute for the punishments we deserve as sinners. I cry when I think about what Jesus did for us; I cry when I look into the face of the Man of the Shroud. I rejoice that it exists – to remind me of the Cross and what He did for us.

I believe the Shroud survived to be that Holy Reminder for us. It explains what the Bible’s words tell. A Forgery? If so, why, then, didn’t forgers manufacture dozens of fake shrouds, instead of only one? Skeptics says that the image on the Shroud must have been “borrowed” from the way Byzantine artists depicted Christ – meanwhile never considering that, on the contrary, those countless painters depicted Jesus according to what they saw on the Shroud. Mysteries, yeah.

The real mystery? To me, it is that people can keep themselves from being moved by the story of His death on the Cross. And it is a mystery that people venerate relics instead of the Truth behind them.

In these days between the observances of the Resurrection and Jesus’s Ascension to Heaven, contemplate what is not a mystery – that the Creator of the Universe loved you so much that He sent His Son to live among humankind to suffer like this, and miraculously rise to life again. And all of which we can understand more powerfully through the Shroud. It is, literally, the Message of the Cross.

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Click: Rise Again

4-11-22

By the reliable accounts, both historical and Biblical, there were few people gathered on the Jerusalem hill called Golgotha (“the Place of the Skull”) around Passover when three condemned men were put to death. Roman centurions, mostly; and scattered relatives of the criminals. Even friends generally were afraid to be present, as the condemned were outcasts sentenced to die by the most heinous manner the Romans devised – bodies nailed and hanging on wooden crosses – and guards likely were looking for associates of the criminals.

This day we now call Good Friday. Accounts differ about the name’s origin: an evolution of “God’s Friday,” or Good because it was, in fact, good that Jesus died for our sins.

As “fully man and fully God,” He could have halted the execution. He could have caused Pontius Pilate and the Jewish Elders to drop dead instead of their engineering His arrest and trial and torture. He could have summoned ten thousand angels to halt the crucifixion, and swept Him from the cross.

But instead Jesus submitted. It was, after all, the main reason for the Incarnation – why God became man and dwelt among us; why He fulfilled prophecies in uncountable ways; why He proved His divinity by wisdom, by miracles, by healings. Why He had to die.

In fact, for all intents and purposes, Jesus did not avoid, but figuratively climbed up that cross.

I have noted that experts consider crucifixion to be one of the most torture-laden forms of execution. Beyond the pain of spikes driven through the limbs, and hundreds of splinters slicing the body that hanged on the cross, the crucified victim actually died of suffocation, as the weight of their sagging bodies, and pericardial fluids, choked the heart and lungs.

Under Roman justice, the condemned usually were beaten or crucified, not both. Jesus was bound, whipped, tortured, spat upon, beaten about the face and kicked; and had a crown of thorns thrust on His head. He was flogged with the Roman whips that had sharpened bones or filed metal tips on the thongs, so with each of many scourges, the skin was shredded. Jesus was made to carry His heavy cross (the patibulum to which His wrists would be nailed) through Jerusalem’s streets.

When on the cross He suffered yet more. When He said He thirsted, a sponge with vinegar was thrust in His face. A mocking title was affixed over His head. He was goaded to save Himself, since He claimed to be the Son of God. I have written that the worst part of His suffering that Good Friday might have been the fact that His disciples, who had lived with Him for three years and seen the evidence of His divinity… deserted Him; hiding, not even around the foot of the cross.

Among the few there was His mother, Mary. “Behold your son,” He was able to say to her. Through tears, their eyes met.

If you and I could have been there, we would have seen how few people were present. Some artists, and recent movies like The Passion Of the Christ, actually have presented an accurate depiction of the ugly hill, the forsaken site, the three crosses (other condemned criminals on either side), the centurions, and scattered onlookers.

In a real sense, however, you and I were there. We, and all of humankind, were there during Holy Week, in fact. We would probably have welcomed Jesus on what we now call Palm Sunday; and we probably would have been part of the crowd several days later screaming for His crucifixion. Do you think you would have been any different than the average people in the city, driven to frenzy by lies, hate, and the leaders’ persuasion? The effects of “Cancel Culture” are not new.

Also, we probably would have denied, betrayed, and deserted Jesus just as the Disciples did. I received mail after I recently wrote that. “Not me!” some wrote… but even Peter, who had spent a thousand days at Jesus’s side, yet swore three times to officials that he didn’t know this “Jesus.”

No, you and I virtually were there, because when we sin, we offend God and justly deserve punishment. A perfect God cannot welcome us to His Heaven except that we are sinless… and that is what we become in His eyes when we accept Jesus’s substitution. A “Good” and loving plan of salvation for us… all the more exquisite when we realize the agony God designed by having His Son take upon Himself all the sins of the world. But in the meantime every sin is a nail through Jesus’s hand.

It is no stretch to picture ourselves as present during Holy Week; gathered around the foot of the cross. We were there. We can imagine, quite easily, that this miracle-man, the Son of God, looked down from the cross, and through the ages, at each one of us.

He meets our eyes. He knows us.

And we look up. We meet His eyes. Do we know Him? There are times in our lives we have avoided His gaze; we too have denied Him, even betrayed Him. He has knocked on the doors of our lives, and we have not always answered or let Him in.

But He offers forgiveness. All He has ever asked is that we believe He is God’s son and – as we see – is the sacrifice for our sins. And that He will be raised from death. His Blood, which we see in this imagining, is the payment for our guilt. This Calvary scene is, rather than awful, one of love – joy unspeakable and full of glory.

You have heard this: We ask Jesus how much He loves us; He says, “This much!” and spreads His arms wide; and then they nail those arms to the cross, and He dies.

An old Negro Spiritual recreates the scene, and the urgent message to our souls:

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?

Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

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Click: Were You There When They Crucified My Lord

3-21-22

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He betrayed Jesus.

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

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

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

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

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

Wait for what?

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

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

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

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

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

Easter is about that hope.

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Click: Whispering Hope

3-14-22

A friend woke up one morning this week more annoyed than usual with a nagging cough and heavy breathing. In quick succession: a visit to the doctor; diagnosis of a “massive blood clot” in her lung; and its dissolution that afternoon.

A new friend told me of a similar story, but in her case a persistent uncomfortable feeling. After diagnosis and almost immediate surgery to remove a “gangrenous gall bladder,” she was also told that a day’s delay might have meant death.

Another friend sustained a double-whammy when she suffered a stroke and was diagnosed with cancer of the spine.

This is not a pity-party, because into all lives rain will fall – not “might,” but “will.” And the Bible reminds us that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Life’s quality is regulated by how we respond to such things.

How do we respond?

There is not one way, no 12-step emotional program nor spiritual one-size-fits-all guide. The Heavenly Healer prescribes prayer, and trust, and faith, however. I have come to accept the ironic strength of an essential humility when we boldly approach God. He is sovereign; and I cannot think of sending my own list of demands to Him when I have seen Him work in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.

But I have seen miracles in answer to prayer – doctors saying they simply cannot explain a healing or the disappearance of a cancer. And then there are results that we could never anticipate but are blessings nonetheless. My friend learned that we can live, albeit with annoying adjustments, without a gall bladder… but in her case a new diet of healthy, fresh, and wholesome foods has been a remarkable blessing overall.

Another prescription is an attitude adjustment, and I learned about that in a roundabout way.

When my late wife was listed for transplants for her failing heart and kidney, she began a Bible fellowship for patients like her, waiting (and waiting and waiting) at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. Well, not every patient was like her, because in her life Nancy also endured diabetes, strokes, cancer, and celiac disease, among other ailments. The fellowship became a family ministry, with weekly services.

It emerged that through the years (because we continued the ministry after her transplants) of the many hymns and songs, one found special favor of the patients. The people were, of course, from all backgrounds, but the Gospel song “Leave It There” was frequently requested, and often evoked tears.

If your body suffers pain and your health you can’t regain, And your soul is almost sinking in despair,
Jesus knows the pain you feel, He can save and He can heal; Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

Leave it there, leave it there, Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.
If you trust and never doubt, He will surely bring you out. Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

A sermon in song, surely. After a while I discovered an amazing “coincidence” that none of us had known. That song, maybe a hundred years old, had been written only a few blocks from Temple University Hospital!

C A Tindley, the son of a slave, educated himself, moved north to Philadelphia, secured a job as janitor of a church… and eventually became its pastor. His large mixed-race flock of 10,000 enjoyed his powerful preaching and his moving hymns for years. (One of his hymns, “I’ll Overcome Some Day,” was transformed with different words and tempo into the Civil Rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.”) Tindley Temple United Methodist Church was his “home,” and today there is a C A Tindley Boulevard in Philadelphia.

And there we were, in his back yard, so to speak, being blessed – and in some ways, to souls and spirits as well as bodies.

Now we can fast-forward to other saints among us with physical challenges. Many people know of the husband and wife singers Joey and Rory. The Feeks seemed to come from nowhere and find great success in country and Gospel music. Simple country folks who shunned Nashville’s neon lights, lived off the land on their farm, and won the hearts of a growing number of fans.

Those fans rejoiced when Joey announced she was pregnant, and we briefly grieved when it was discovered that the daughter she carried had Down’s Syndrome. Unlike 90 per cent (these days) of mothers learning this news, Joey determined to keep, and love, her daughter named Indie (for Indiana). Then, soon after giving birth… Joey was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Rory kept a video diary of her struggles, her faith, and ultimately her death.

One of Joey and Rory’s best friends and performance partners was the amazing singer Bradley Walker. His deep, expressive voice emanates from a thin, still body in a wheelchair: Bradley has muscular dystrophy. This week’s video is of him singing Brother Tindley’s song “Leave It There” at Joey Feek’s humble gravesite.

How does a man with his lifelong challenges sing to the Lord, at the grave of a woman whose life took such unexpected turns? How did my late wife, how do the friends I have told you about, praise God in the midst of troubles?

How does a beautiful little flower sprout and grow between cracks in heavy rocks? How do “fragile” flowers thrive in harsh places? How do colorful flowers sprout and bloom in dark and ugly places?

If you trust and never doubt, He will surely bring you out.

Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

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Click: Bradley Walker – Leave It There

3-7-22

This aphorism has been attributed to, and claimed by, by many people. Likely first written by the Greek dramatist Aeschylus (550 BC), it strikes a universal chord. Yet for its wisdom, universally acknowledged, it seldom has guided those who could learn from its application, and routinely is shunned until the ashes of wars are sifted.

“Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise at the proper time,” Theodore Roosevelt famously said.

So, in the war raging on our TV and internet screens, and in the hearts and minds of the world, no less, the first and frequent casualties are truth once again. I am not referring to the most blatant examples – phony statistics, videos of carnage from a decade ago being presented as breaking news, the pledges of invaders being violated as the words are spoken.

These “casualties” are too predictable, and might be outright propaganda or the result of well-intentioned confusion. In the “fog of war,” since these factors are common, I suggest – unless we are victims ourselves, in the midst of bombs dropping – that we ought to step back. If the issues and images are compelling (and they are), and if we can somehow influence events (as we must attempt), it is better that we exercise objectivity.

How can we be objective when we see hospitals destroyed and grandmothers – and grandchildren – crying? Choosing objectivity and seeking truth do not obviate concern, passion, sympathy, and grief. There is enough hatred playing out on our screens without choosing to filter every development through hatred of our own; to determine winners, losers, victims, aggressors, the past and the future… before the news report is over; and from 5000 miles away.

My advice hardly will change things on the ground in Ukraine. But it might change things in our midst. Wars rage elsewhere; they do not need to rage in our hearts. If we cannot, by ourselves, immediately affect a war in Ukraine, we surely can, by ourselves indeed, affect wars that might rage in our own hearts. As a beginning, that would be nine-tenths of the proper time.

Perspective.

The brilliant Russian-born soprano Anna Netrebko was removed from the title role in the upcoming Turandot production at the Metropolitan Opera; general manager Peter Gelb announced that it was unlikely that she would ever perform at the Met again. Her crime was failing to sign a statement repudiating her association with Vladimir Putin, despite her public announcement, “I am opposed to this senseless war of aggression and I am calling on Russia to end this war right now, to save all of us. We need peace right now.” Nevertheless she was fired from other engagements, or withdrew from many other opera companies around the world.

I noted this situation, and a friend wrote that Anna was “less than a human being.” She did not raise a bazooka; rather raises her beautiful voice, and millions of dollars for charities, yet American haters can claim a victory.

Remaining in her artistic field, I am reminded that violinist Isaac Stern vowed never to perform in Germany – former Nazi Germany, of course – yet Leonard Bernstein conducted in Munich and Vienna; and violinist Itzhak Perlman has performed in Berlin. Are they naive, insensitive, stupid? (Surely they are not secret Nazis!) What is the expiration-date, or other mitigating aspects, on hatred?

Russia seems to be employing cluster-bombs and other instruments of mass destruction: worthy of war-crime prosecution. TV’s red areas on maps of Ukraine spread every hour, like blood on the carpet from a murdered corpse. The scenes we behold make me wonder if we might see incendiary bombs (those that cause widespread fire, sucking the air from peoples’ lungs over wide sections of a city), possibly killing upwards of a hundred thousand people.

… yet that happened, at least once before in history. Two months before World War II ended, the “art city” of Dresden, without defenses because it was a city of museums and no factories or barracks (in fact having become a city of hospital beds for refugees) was ordered fire-bombed by Winston Churchill. If England had lost the war, he would have been regarded as a war criminal, and even so within two decades some his pilots defied their orders never to discuss that atrocity.

Am I playing “Devil’s Advocate”?

Precisely the opposite. What is missing these days – and many of the days when wars rage – is people who will play “God’s Advocate.” Where are those voices? I don’t mean charitable groups like Samaritan’s Purse: God bless the dangerous and heroic and loving work of Christian organizations.

I refer to the consequential players, and, yes, each of us at a distance, if we can pray and act and influence the policymakers. Can we search for perspective first?

There is right and wrong; there is good and bad. There are monsters among us. Some of them might even call themselves Christians. There are reports (I don’t know, yet reports are numerous and long-standing) that Putin, in his public adherence to the Russian Orthodox Church, shares the vision of the Moscow Patriarch that all of “Mother Russia” be restored. No matter the cost?

I (knowing something of history) have a little hope, a little fantasy. In 1905 the forces of the Czar were suppressing protests all throughout Russia. In the port city of Odessa, Ukraine, sailors finally mutinied against their officers in bloody clashes. It was a spark that eventually led to the overthrow of the Czar. There are reports (can we believe the videos?) that anti-war demonstrations are taking place in a hundred Russian cities; that prominent citizens and celebrities have criticized the invasion; that many companies have refused to do conduct any more business with Russia; that Russians overseas have sacrificed some positions and privileges in protest…

Odessa redux? Can we hope? Can we pray? Can we act?

If we see our enemies not as madmen but, perhaps, horribly delusional and even evil human beings, we can find our way to confront this awful world better. We can pray, and seek God, with clarity. We need His wisdom.

God’s wisdom, after all, is reliable ten-tenths of the time.

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if you are using a portable device (phone or pad) then click:
this link

Click: “Mass in Time of War: Agnus Dei.”

2-14-22

Many regular church-goers, pious people, folks who study their Bibles and do devotions, who might belong to prayer circles and church fellowships… a lot of us do not fully understand everything in the Bible.

This is not bad, necessarily. At least regarding theology – literally, the study of God – we can study but not know everything… otherwise we would be as God. Even the angels do not know all, see all, nor can be present everywhere. God is God.

But beyond our comprehension and even spiritual and intellectual curiosity, I think we all accept some sentiments and words and traditions without fully understanding them. We find solace in some things as a result. Sort of spiritual security blankets, or comfort foods of the soul.

I am among such folks. Imagery, allegories, symbols… in some things I let the mystery be, because I trust the meanings of passages and the ways of the Lord. If there are texts whose precise meanings elude me… or prophecies that are “seen through a glass darkly…” well, God has made His will known so often and in so many ways, that I surrender to those occasional things God wants to keep wrapped in His poetry.

Yet we should not always exercise sweet surrender. Surely the Lord wants us to understand as much as possible, especially since every word has been imparted, inspired – literally, “breathed” by the Holy Spirit – for our instruction and for reproof. So… we can always try a little harder. That bread cast upon the waters never comes back void.

I was thinking about such things recently when singing the old hymn Holy, Holy, Holy, which has some verses that we sing perhaps automatically without fully understanding them: and the same for Bible passages from which the lyrics are drawn, in Revelation chapter 4.

The hymn:

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee, Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea. Cherubim and seraphim are falling down before Thee, Which wert and art and evermore shalt be!

Verses from Revelation 4:

Immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and One sat on the throne… And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold….And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne…

The four and twenty elders fell down before Him that sat on the throne, and worship Him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying,Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.

For our attention here I have left out descriptions of beasts and wings and lightning and thunder and lamps, all wondrous – and mysterious – enough. We can study and profit from signs and symbols, and especially numerology and types, in the Bible; particularly in Revelation. And we can discern lessons from these passages, more-than-allusions and symbols as they are.

First, we must realize that, no matter how mysterious they seem, they are descriptions of the Heaven that is, and the Heaven that will be as we see it.

Second, the hymnologist’s use of “Holy” three times is citing the praises of God quoted throughout Scripture: Three always represents holiness. We know that numbers like seven and 40 are repeated in God’s story, all with consistent significance. We will join the angels in singing “Holy, holy, holy…”

Then, I believe the “glassy sea” is to tell us that, contrary to many examples of troubled waters and stormy seas throughout the Bible and in life, before the Throne of God the waters shall be not roiled. Untroubled, placid. A miraculous calm, in His presence. Like a mirror.

The Elders we might correctly assume are the prophets and apostles in Scripture; and perhaps saints and martyrs of the Church. Crowns? The Elders who wear them are worthy – in our eyes, and honored of God – for their service… but are we not told that the least among believers shall be the first? That (conversely, to be sure) that the smallest sin grieves God as much as what we might deem the grossest?

Do we understand that “Elders” earn crowns? Are those the (again) mysterious “treasures” we might store up in Heaven?

I believe the answer is what happens to those crowns at the moment this scene was revealed by Christ to St John. They were thrown down at the feet of God Almighty, the Elders declaring that He is worthy to receive Glory and Honor and Power. In other words, just like our own “robes of righteousness” in which we might cover ourselves, even the treasures and crowns of the most exalted saints are to be cast at the feet of God.

A picture of Heaven? Clearer, to me.

What else will Heaven be like? We have other imagery of shining stones and beauty and mansions and singing and… praising. We will join the angels in forever singing and praising His name. We will not think it boring, even for eternity; for He is worthy. Will we see loved ones? Will our bodies be made whole? Will there be “joy unspeakable and full of glory?”

Yes… but let us remember the “unspeakable” part! Beyond our current ability to understand.

For all the good intentions of believers here, when I hear speculation about how “old” we will be, or being reunited with pets… I find myself wishing that people would be as concerned with getting to Heaven as with what it will be like “over there.”

We can be sure of one thing as we look toward joining that throng of angels – the cherubim and seraphim – before the Throne. The joy we will have cannot be known by them, for they were never graced with life on earth, never able to experience the gifts of repentance and forgiveness, redemption and salvation. Those things are ours!

Holy! Holy! Holy!

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Click: Holy, Holy, Holy

2-7-22

A guest message by my friend Christine Eves, a talented writer and poet.

All of us exercise “human nature” when at one time or other (at least) we dread the trials of life. Many of our prayers are that God might spare us from facing trials, or when they come that He might deliver us from the trials. We are pained further when those we love experience difficult trials.

Yet the trials come.

One way to view the Bible is as a long story of God’s people facing trials… enduring, surrendering, or overcoming trials… and trusting God through the trials. This is life, after all; this is faith. Christine shares God’s wisdom in her poem:

There are so many things to thank God for,
But do we ever stop and say –
Lord, thank you for the trial
That you have brought my way?

Do we ever thank God for the rain –
Or the storms that life has brought?
What about the pain and heartache,
Or the battles we have fought?

If we never knew of pain,
Of heartache or of loss;
If we never went through trials,
Or felt the weight of our own cross;

If we never felt the rain
When we prayed for the sun,
Would we ever truly understand
All that the Lord has done?

He teaches us through trials,
He shows His strength when we are weak,
He catches us when we fall,
And gives us words when we can’t speak.

It’s when we lose –
That in God, we gain;
When we learn to find His Joy –
Even in our pain.

When we are at our very lowest,
And we have no strength left to fight –
When our world is at its darkest,
That’s when we truly see God’s light.

God allows all things for a reason,
And trials can be blessings in disguise.
We must endure pain to ever truly grow,
And go through blindness, to appreciate God’s eyes.

I thank God for all he’s done in my life –
For the sunshine and the rain;
Because I know His ways are best –
Even though sometimes they bring us pain.

When there is nothing I can do,
I know the Lord will see me through;
And when I’m in my darkest place,
I praise God for His love and grace.

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Click: Through It All

9-27-21

“The only things in life we can be sure of are death and taxes.” Well, those are not the only things. One more is that stupid, lying saying itself. We hear it a lot, which doesn’t make it truer.

We can be sure of many things. King Solomon said that there is nothing new under the sun, and he was famously wise for such clarity. We can be sure of death, yes; and sickness, disease, sin. Broken promises, lost love. Not so quick – we can also be sure of life, birth, new life, and re-birth. Love. Happiness, joy, innocence, forgiveness, redemption. Salvation.

The good side of the ledger is longer, and more profound, than the dark side.

We can read those good items off the list, and we can write them. We can live them, and share them. But none of it is automatic. Sometimes the gloomy list of things in life seems written boldly, in large letters. And sometimes – too often – the cheery words and promises seem hard to read… the letters small… the words smudged.

But they are there. Move your eyes closer; turn up the light; focus.

Focus. Things like death and taxes, hard times and false friends can seem indeed like the stark, sure things in life. And sometimes the blessings and good can seem distant and obscure. Well, God promised us many things, but not always a silver platter – we are better off when we focus, concentrate, pray, seek, and find.

I recently “discovered” a place called Pictured Rocks on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The UP is a strange and large place that once welcomed workers who felled all its trees (it is dense forestland again) and copper (mostly removed) and iron ore (largely mined). Now it is a remote and, despite its spurts of past exploitation, a sparsely populated forestland.

Its soil is not pure dirt, if there be such a thing. It still has traces and veins of copper, iron, and other minerals. But just as fermentation can be a curse or a blessing in foods, so do these random minerals in the soil – not enough to mine successfully any more, and perhaps annoying to farmers – “redeem” themselves. Along Lake Superior are sandstone cliffs, beaches, sand dunes, waterfalls, inland lakes, a deep forest, and a wild shoreline of cliffs. The minerals, exposed to the sun and air and moisture, present rainbows of copper-oranges and oxidized greens and all varieties of colors. Rust actually can be beautiful.

Dig a little and discover the good that lives in surprising places.

Yeast, wine, cheeses, black tea, penicillin, and a thousand things that “turn”… are transformed to good. As people, we can “turn” too; and even circumstances can turn to good. You know the song: tadpoles to bullfrogs; caterpillars to beautiful butterflies. Rusty rocks to unlikely rainbows.

Turn the pages of life if you have to. There is beauty everywhere in God’s world, and treasures in His plans. Focus; you will see them.

You can be them.

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Click: This Is My Father’s World

8-30-21

This week I called upon my personal prayer partners (not a closed group – adv.) to lift up a family of friends whose 16-year-old son had died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. Since I might minister in words in a small way, I also coveted prayers to fight through the fog of grief and anguish.

Christians never play one-upmanship in these circumstances, but a shared experience can be a palliative. A dear friend in Colorado has endured much, and wrote the line I use as the title of this essay. Actually her words were: “I am praying. I’ve written obituaries for my son, my daughter, my step mom, and now my little brother this year…. God is good but yes, life is terribly hard.”

The order of words has a shadow of meaning, but only as we recognize reflections of what our emotions see in our moments. Life is real, Longfellow wrote; life is earnest. But life ain’t nohow permanent, as Pogo Possum said. That is, God is eternal, and we are pilgrims and strangers passing through this world.

(Longfellow’s full quatrain was: “Life is real! Life is earnest! / And the grave is not its goal / Dust thou art, to dust thou returnest, / Was not spoken of the soul.”)

The service for Nehemiah, my young friend who died, was held this morning, as I write this. It was impressive and ultimately uplifting, as all “homegoing” services should be. A celebration. Nehemeiah is, after all, in the arms of Jesus – which was the fervent young believer’s goal and destination in his life.

Are we touched by irony? The degree of sadness and grief we experience when loved ones die, technically is selfish, no? We miss them; we think of what they could have been, where they might have traveled; we have only memories.

Well, these are not anomalies except in relation to our poor power to calibrate our lives to the ways of a God who loves us outrageously and with a depth and in ways we cannot fathom. But I am struck by another irony – speaking very personally, and asking your indulgence as I share theological questions during these days. AND I think, at the same time, of those lives lost in an instant in faraway Afghanistan.

Christians often speak at times like this of God “taking someone home,” and “God’s timing,” and “God’s purposes.” Speaking very personally, forgive me, but sometimes I wonder whether we occasionally give the devil a pass at certain moments. God welcomes His beloved home, of course. But “taking” them is something I struggle with.

It is the evil one who roams about as a roaring lion, seeking whom to kill and destroy and devour. There is evil in the world, the cause of sickness and disease, death and heartache. To acknowledge that a sovereign God “allows” things is a world of difference from what unfortunately many people persuade themselves to believe, especially in certain moments, that God ordains terrible things.

Theology that challenges us. But it is more useful – and correct, I believe – to rather turn to a proper exegesis of Romans 8:28: All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Yes, we must love God; yes, we must be attuned to His call on our lives. But this verse does NOT say that all things ARE good. Plainly, many things in life are not good – from a teen’s brain aneurysm to military personnel being killed by a car bomb as they help people escape to freedom. But it is our job to make all things work for good… for God’s glory; to the devil’s disgrace; to serve Jesus in the midst of trials. It is not the number of our days, but what we do in them, that matters. Jesus sacrificed all He had for us!

Yes, life is hard. But, yes, God is good.

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One of many uplifting moments in the service occurred when the question was asked, how many youth belonged to Bible Bee (a nationwide club and movement that challenges youth to memorize Scripture), as Nehemiah was a member. Perhaps 200 teens came forward, and sang a hymn. Joyfully.

Hope for tomorrow? Yes! How many communities have a young population with such spiritual dedication and commitment?

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I cannot fail to add – addressing sudden deaths at any age and by whatever cause – that we all must be ready at all times. Ready to receive salvation. Life is real; life is earnest, yes. This is a song (written in 1894) with a grim but loving reminder about our very lives being at stake. A few words from it… and please listen to the full vid clip:

I dreamed that the great judgment morning Had dawned and the trumpet had blown. I dreamed that the nations had gathered, To judgment before the White Throne.

And oh, what weeping and wailing As the lost were told of their fate, They cried for the rocks and the mountains, They prayed, but their prayers were too late

The great man was there, but his greatness When death came, was left far behind. The angel that opened the records, No trace of his greatness could find.

And the souls that had put off salvation Said “Not tonight, I’ll get saved by and by. No time now to think of religion” – But at last they’d found time to die.

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Click: The Great Judgment Morning

8-23-21

Mournful… weeping… tearful. There are translations of the Latin word that encompasses grief and bitter sorrow. It does not represent regret nor repentance, for those are emotions we might have brought upon ourselves, or can hope to solve as we are able.

When a person or an event is lachrymose it implies a helplessness, a situation reflecting doom in spite of ourselves; what secular poets have addressed as the world or universe being against us. And we are lachrymose in response; sad, full of sorrows, impotent.

You can tell that I have been casting about, trying to define my reaction to the “situation” in Afghanistan. Heartbreak, horror, anger are feelings we all share. But I might offer some new thoughts – at least aspects that the talking heads on TV have largely neglected.

Before you read on, or even afterward, I don’t expect you to agree with my points of view (although I can hope so, or 12 years of these essays have wasted a lot of electrons…). We all bring personal attitudes to complicated issues and events; and despite whatever foundational beliefs we might have, our opinions often change.

For instance, I bleed red, white, and blue, yet I was against the first Gulf War and every expansion of it; the United States has been wrong to transform itself from a Republic to a democracy to an empire; and American foreign-policy motives have not always been pure or noble. I was afraid that our adventurism in the Middle East would end up as Vietnam did – blurred mission; ultimate lack of support for our military on the ground; defeat.

Let me know how the latest chapter is turning out.

I stipulate that I am in awe of our people in uniform, their service and sacrifice. In awe. More so since the brass and civilian masters have transformed them into pawns and targets… which should make us all more cynical, and angry.

Bad enough, the lost blood and treasure. But the nature of America’s rout – unfolding hourly, and sure to continue as “breaking news” for months and months – is astonishing. And depressing. Lies, bizarre orders, abandoning partners on the ground, lack of basic communication with key allies… a nightmare from which none of us dissenters can take an ounce of satisfaction.

My particular focus these days, however, extends beyond servicemen and women, the widows and families, the disabled and disfigured veterans, the betrayed and abandoned allied governments and individual Afghans who chose to help us. (By the way, who can confidently assure any potential allies, or governments like Taiwan, to trust the United States now? Only fools would make that assurance; and only fools would believe it.)

My thoughts are with missionaries.

We hear virtually nothing of them on the news. In Afghanistan there are many Christian aid workers and missionaries, many of whom have been there for many years. If people with American passports, and Afghans who chose to be translators and aides, are being assaulted, dismembered, and killed – and they are – it is all the more likely that Christian missionaries are targeted by the Taliban. As we observe these blood-red horrors on our TV screens… come our lachrymose feelings.

So. How can I be against “nation building,” as currently defined, but support proselytizing and converting Afghans to Christianity? That is today’s easiest question.

If you had a cure for cancer, you would share it, earnestly, with anyone you could, especially those who might have the disease. If you believe Jesus is the only way to Heaven, you will orient your life, and your work, by that belief. Especially if you love someone; and even if your love extends to great numbers of the “lost.”

Inevitably, some people push back with the remark that “we” should not impose such values on others. A frequent response – from people who care more about rhetorical points than the souls of people. See my point about a cancer cure – and realize that sin, and separation from Jesus, is a cancer of the soul.

Further, it is my experience that people who condemn “imposing Christian values” on others often are the people who decreed that the “gay” flag fly from the US embassy in Kabul. And who demanded rights for women, and American-style “democracy,” and American town-hall “pluralism” on an ancient and traditional culture. As noble as policymakers in the US think those goals are… why should they be imposed, but missionaries condemned?

Jesus commanded that we go into all the world and share the Gospel. That is one-on-one discipleship. He did not command His followers to invade countries, topple governments, and turn traditional societies into American suburbia.

I have five friends who know or support missionaries in Afghanistan, as I do; all different families or missions, by the way. Many have texted or videoed the jeopardy they face. Most are determined to remain. One was able to return to the US, but wants to go back. These missionary-servants are marked for torture and death… and America has exacerbated and accelerated such fates.

I will not name my friends or contacts, nor the missionary organizations on the ground. I do not trust the all-seeing eyes of Facebook, or the government – the Taliban or the American. Our political establishment and the current Administration have earned that opprobrium. Things we share can lead to peoples’ persecution or death.

Very obvious groups who are open and effective can be trusted resources for news and assistance, however: Voice of the Martyrs and Open Doors and Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse.

And in the meantime – as China surely prepares to invade Taiwan, confident that America has lost its moral compass and its will – I ask you to follow these events more, not less. Do not let lachrimosa paralyze you. What can we do? Distrust our government, is at the top of my list. Support groups who can assist; double down on your support.

And pray. Pray for the believers, pray for the martyrs, pray for wisdom. Pray for that land; pray for our land.

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Click: Lachrimosa  (Please double-click on this title for full-screen video)

8-9-21

God can do many things – in fact He can do ALL things – but sometimes He chooses not to. Certainly not according to our schedules. We have desires, but God knows our needs.

When our prayers become demands, our hopeful perception of God might become that of an all-powerful wielder of a magic wand. The Holy Spirit is there to nudge us back to spiritual humility – the realization that God answers prayer on His time… or in ways we didn’t prescribe… or sometimes with a “No.”

Simply, God is sovereign. The fervent prayers of righteous people avail much, yes. Yet our priorities must be to bow to His will, not persuade Him of our views.

God forbid. And He does.

Yet many prayers are answered. Yet we pray in the Spirit. Yet we are told to pray without ceasing. Welcome to the wonderful waters of God’s love – water as a Type of His Holy Spirit; waters where we may bathe and be cleansed; living waters we can drink, never to thirst again. But… mysterious waters they are.

Very recently some of my dear friends have encountered challenges and crises of the sort that sometime cause skeptics to scoff at believers.

We regard God as a good-luck charm, scoffers say. We mostly pray when things go bad, they say. Our “trust” gets shaky when things we desire do not materialize, they say. We rely on feelings, not faith, they say.

What “they say” is too often true of Christians! Can we blame them if they see too many instances of inconsistent faith? Some of the rotten timbers of modern life are “outcome-based” assessments, performance, marketing, ethics, and education. No right, no wrong, only judge by results… which means, of course, pre-determined goals. Outcome-based.

God doesn’t work that way (and neither should we).

But as pilgrims and strangers going through life, we see the rain fall on the just and the unjust. We see sinners prosper. Yes, we seek to please God and not humankind; yes, we know our rewards are in Heaven. But, back to my anguished point, do the righteous have to suffer so much? Is God letting His children (or us, as observers – let’s be honest about our reactions) down?

Not that it would be gossip, but I will refer obliquely to some friends’ recent situations; their identities do not matter. God knows them.

A dear friend who has written a book and built a ministry around coping with a spouse’s fatal disease… has now contracted that disease too. Three different friends who seemed to have “1950s-TV perfect families” are dealing with ugly ruptures. A new friend shared the horror of her parents being murdered, and a few years later her daughter shot to death. A friend, the picture of health and activity, pillar of his church and a great husband and father, underwent emergency heart surgery…

I know that this could evolve into a contest of tales of people we all know, or of ourselves. My point is not how unfair these events are, or how rare. My point is that they are indeed common.

My point is also that such “rain” that falls into our lives should not make us shrink, or fade, or wilt. It is not WHAT happens to us in life, but HOW we deal with things, that matters.

I have shared, here, that my late wife endured trials in her life that would have tested Job, as the saying goes. Job, that is, if he were very sick. Nancy had diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, cancer, celiac disease, went virtually blind (before miraculous healing), broken bones, amputations, heart transplant, and kidney transplant. By God’s grace her faith was strong, and she could say through it all, “I would not choose to go through it again… but I would not trade the experiences for anything.” Why? How?

Her faith grew; her witness – an example to others – was strong; and she learned to lean on God.

“Does Jesus care?” is a question that to those crazy skeptics is at once pertinent, and irrelevant. In a world where we might be surrounded by a cloud of close friends, family, prayer warriors, medical experts, therapists – you name it – I’m afraid we can also feel VERY alone in times of crisis.

No offense to all those people, but humanity has limits. I believe God has programmed Life so that, at the most difficult moments, where can we turn but to the Lord?
“Caring” is a buzzword that can be as counterfeit as it is facile. A substitute for action, assistance, succor, substantial resources… and even then, with human limits. When Jesus cares – I mean, when we KNOW He cares, because He always does – we have peace that passes understanding; health to our spirits maybe more than our bodies; an ever-present help in times of trouble.

Knowing that the Creator of the Universe cares, really cares, about you, puts everything else in proper perspective.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty Hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him… for He cares for you (I Peter 5: 6,7).

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Click: Does Jesus Care?

8-2-21

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7-26-21

I do love mysteries. Books, stories, movies, real-life events. I think we all do; but there is a difference in our next steps. Some people, and I think humankind in general particularly in the past few centuries, love mysteries because there is a passion – almost an obsession – to solve them.

Is this a good thing, a natural impulse? Not necessarily. Mysteries, the unknown, deep challenges, dare us in many ways; and we accept the challenges. Answering the call, thus have diseases been conquered, new lands discovered, and faraway planets visited. Not bad things, and an aspect of humankind’s DNA that grows when exercised.

I regret some negative aspects that inevitably follow. We have been deluded into thinking that we can solve any mystery, in time; which is of course ridiculous. We lose sight of the fact that life often substitutes new challenges when some mysteries (diseases, plagues, natural disasters) are met; for nature and human nature seem immutable. And we tend to equate the passage of time with real progress. Some mysteries merely deepen: we solve mysterious sicknesses but insist on inventing better ways to kill each other. How’s that for a mystery?

No, I love mysteries because they are mysteries. We cannot know everything, or else we would be as God – and I admit my credentials are lacking. But I do not merely settle for being very human; I embrace the mysteries that place me apart from God; that is, subordinate.

His mysteries are wonderful, just as His ways are inscrutable. That leads me to the basis, the definition, of faith. There are things I don’t have to know, because God knows. There are things I don’t have to worry about, because He cares for me. If things seem out of control… I know He is in control. Martin Luther said that Reason is the enemy of Faith. Hmmm.

I embrace mysteries like birth, and the formed fingers and joyful smiles of babies. Of flowers that return after seeming to die; of seedlings that push through rocks. Forgiveness is a mystery. Salvation is a mystery I don’t understand, but I accept. And when all is said and done, love is a mystery.

If we dissect a butterfly to see how it can fly, we kill it in the process. Therefore, many of the mysteries of life – of God – I simply accept and embrace.

Parts of the Bible we need to understand; but parts of it present the mysteries of God without explaining them. That’s fine. “We will understand it better bye and bye.”

For instance, in the Book of Revelations – surely a book that reveals as many mysteries as matters of clarity – we read of the “24 Elders” who fall down before the Throne of God in Heaven, and cast down their crowns before Him. We read of treasures in Heaven. We read in two passages about this scene, the “glassy sea” before the Throne of God.

Crowns and treasures that some might have? The rest of us will not? Aren’t we all to be equal, once saved? Maybe the Elders represent churches, or dispensations, or saints of the ages…?

It is true that forgiven and blood-bought Believers are no more, and no less, “saved,” or Children of God, which is confirmed many times in Scripture. In the same way as the vilest sinner on earth might gain Heaven by confessing Christ at the end of his or her life. Or the most generous charity worker might go to hell if he or she never believe and confess Christ. These things fight against our own logic, but are not mysteries. They are God’s honest truth.

About those treasures and crowns, I have always thought that in God’s plan there have been saints or martyrs, perhaps, who have a place of distinction, not greater favor, in His sight… but before the Throne of God, nothing else will matter except bowing before Him, praising Him forever, gathering with other saints around the river and the beautiful, calm, glassy sea; and placing at God’s feet whatever honors there might be.

Greater service, greater perseverance, greater love will seem like nothing when we behold Him. In proper perspective, we will lay everything before Him.

Heaven – we try to imagine. Do you want to see loved ones again? You probably will. Children want to see their pets? If that thought pleases them here, it might happen there. But our minds cannot for a moment imagine the riches that await us in glory. The words of a great hymn attempt a picture:

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee, Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea; Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee, Who were and are and evermore shall be.

Does this make sense? No matter; let the mystery be. We will see these things.

Some “emergent” churches claim to embrace mystery, but in my experience they embrace candles and incense instead.

For now we see through a glass darkly; but then, face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know (I Corinthians 13:12)…

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This hymn of church was a poem by Reginald Heber later set to music by John Bacchus Dykes. The “Holy, Holy, Holy” from Revelation reminds us that the Bible’s frequent use of numbers is significant – three for perfection; seven for completion, etc. Not clues for lotteries, but lessons to learn from. Here, worship with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir:

Click: “Holy, Holy, Holy” sung by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

( If you are reading the blog on a mobile device and have problems downloading, please copy and paste this link — https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=MFdObQIE4tA — into your browser. )

6-28-21

Whoo, what a week. Surely it was not this way with every visitor or reader here, but it seems like everyone I know was coping with problems, challenges, and crises that are somewhere between bad and worse. Friends, myself, acquaintances.

I didn’t make a list, because I don’t have enough pencils, but… relationships; health; financial; a child in peril; employment; betrayal; bitter gossip; a neighbor child’s drowning accident; breakup of a family; addiction; clinical depression. Friends shared so many things with me, helpless but not hopeless; and I cried on a couple shoulders too.

Amazing. Maybe Satan is getting out of the lockdown too. I want to be careful not to wallow in self-pity, and, certainly, I despise “negative confession.” There were blessings this week, too – for all of us – and I, for one was refreshed and encouraged on the faculty of a (Zoom-virtual) Christian Writers Conference. Fantastic reports, the glow of fatherhood, about my son and daughter doing well in their callings.

We must always have clear eyes and remember the right priorities.

If there are times we don’t feel like praising God… let me state the truth, not if but when the times come when we don’t feel like praising God, THEN is when we must do it. Praising Him for, maybe, little and mundane things will lead us to remember greater blessings; and then we will humbly thank Him for the uncountable and unspeakable glories He has gifted us with; and – every time – we will soon enter into His courts with praise.

I have always thought that’s what that phrase means in the Bible – the “sacrifice of praise.” It does work. When you don’t feel like it, DO IT, and you will feel like it, very soon.

God’s arithmetic can be funny – naw; not funny, inscrutable. God’s ways are His own, and unknowable. And, frankly, having to seek the Everlasting Help in Times of Trouble; or trust Him when we cannot know what awaits us… keeps us on our knees, so to speak. Reaching out. Trusting. Exercising faith. Crying “Daddy!”

Here’s what I mean about His arithmetic. As I write this, called away from the closing session of the Writers Conference by the pinging-alarm on my cell phone, I learned there was a tornado warning in my town. I realized, then, I had been hearing unusual sirens. Subconsciously I must have thought that some oaf at town hall had flipped a wrong switch, but it was real. A friend a little south of me called and said there were car parts and a TV set strewn about his area; and a new warning (not watch) has been issued.

At such times we pray, “Keep me safe till the storm passes by,” literally and figuratively, right? And, as the challenges of my friends and me will pass – altogether, or slowly, or barely – it made we wonder how often do we thank God for the problems that never present themselves in the first place? Tornados that don’t touch down? Accidents that don’t happen? Relationships that don’t rupture? Hurts that don’t hurt? Hurtful gossip that is never spoken? Storms that pass by?

Well, it is next to impossible to thank God for things we don’t see in the first place.

… except when we praise Him for all things, seen and unseen; joy unspeakable, as we are promised, and full of glory.

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Click: Till the Storm Passes By

6-14-21

Do you ever have the feeling that life has slipped its moorings? Not necessarily your personal life, but the world today; tradition and stability. Sanity! Do events sometime seem out of control? Or… maybe more than “sometimes”?

Do not check your personal “check engine” light. Life has slipped its moorings.

There are times we are in charge of our own fates. And many more ways in which we are not. It has always been thus, and always will be. I am not a defeatist, nor fatally pessimistic. Mathematically, we are individuals in a big world, crowded with people. If we are, in many ways, pilgrims and strangers, or a leaf in a stream, we can feel helpless… but never should feel hopeless.

We balance – or we must balance – the secular and the sacred. This world is not our home, we believe; we are only passing through. Yet, even with the Celestial City in view, the passage can be rough. We have been warned; hard times should not surprise us.

I invite us all, having framed these thoughts, to take a long look at humankind’s history, a very long overview. Civilizations and societies have had distinctive periods, and “we” have responded in very different manners to some challenges that are very similar in nature.

In primitive times, up through pre-Modern civilizations, when societies felt helpless, they turned to superstitions, or to religious hopes, and finally to reliance on the revealed God.

In subsequent Post-Modern and Enlightenment eras, societies tended to become reliant upon “progress” and science, education and literacy.

In the Post-Christian, self-oriented, nihilistic age we now endure, societies have become reliant on “self” (instinct and appetites) and chance – which really means trusting to blind luck, the inertia of daily life, seemingly confirmed by prosperity.

The next stage, whenever we slide there, cannot bring anything but unprecedented dislocation, change, and misery. And, probably, expressions of surprise from those who ought to have known better.

Anyone can reckon that in a state of such drift, something – a nation, a movement, a philosophy – will fill the void. Secularism? Communism? A revanchist and aggressive China? It will be something malign: we cannot assume, as many observers have done, that through all history’s changes, one thing that evolves positively is a steady “progress” – a march toward ever-expanding personal freedom and profitable responsibility.

This is self-swindling nonsense. Every phase of humankind’s history, whether in small primitive pods or in continent-wide empires, has revealed a common impulse whose name is Domination.

And, I suggest, stronger than the need to dominate is humankind’s ultimate need to be dominated. It is a genetic imperative, a cultural inclination, a social excuse… a choice, even if inchoate. Of course, this trait is universally and rhetorically denied.

People look toward, and for, leaders. Humans organized under caesars and kings; they needed space, and placed rulers over themselves. When restive, they reorganized as serfs and subjects, but loving to love a sovereign. The spread of churches was quickly under control of popes, bishops, and metropolitans. In Post-Modern times, organization and centralization were behind the facades of freedom and liberty. Constitutions drafted to protect citizens from government are being used to enable government intrusion and control. America, having “thrown off the yoke” of royalty, reveals in uncountable ways – celebrity mania, hero-worship, blind trust placed in the “influential” – that we are a people eager to find a boot to place upon our heads. The internet heralded unfettered freedom, but is, rather, intrusive, agencies of spying, favoring lackeys but censoring everyone else. The web and Dark State know what we think, and tell us what to desire. Things to crave. And whom to hate.

This is not moral progress; nothing at all resembling a positive evolution toward freedom and responsibility.

We must acknowledge the mechanistic truth that humankind instinctively does not seek liberty. Subconsciously, I believe we all desire to choose, if we can, whom we will serve; not really that we be free from servanthood. Whether the boot will be velvet-covered, or full of hobnails. Like infants as they grow, actually desiring discipline and direction? Yes.

We all desire a leader; and we all need a Savior. In that way humankind has not changed over the world, over the millennia.

If it were possible, in the world’s current state of moral anarchy, toxic materialism, and social anarchy, to throw this vehicle called Western Civilization in “reverse” gear, there would be a chance. It is a slim chance, of course, because the evolution-chart indicates that human beings do not usually make choices in our own self-interest. When we don’t… we invent terms and philosophies and lies to fool ourselves that we have learned lessons.

The general solution has been available for many millennia; and specifically available for 2000 years. We know that.

The God of Judgments can seem harsh (He is not, but His judgments are; your choice). And His Son, the Creator of the Universe and Savior of your soul, softly and tenderly is calling us home.

It is returning “home,” to God’s teachings and promises; and not charging off toward new promises, philosophies, and chimeras, that will have us secure in our moorings – where we, subconsciously perhaps, have always wanted to be.

“Know today whom you will serve.”

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If you can tolerate the Alberti Bass, let Will Thompson’s old musical plea, and Jesus’, touch your heart:

Click: Come Home – Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling

5-24-21

One of my favorite passages in the Bible… Wait, I always feel funny when I start a conversation or a lesson that way. Every passage in the Bible ought to be as important, meaningful, and “favorite” as every other. Right? It’s all God’s word! I remember once thinking about those “red letter” Bibles, that every verse, every chapter, every book, should be in red, since it’s all the word of God.

Well, tangents aren’t in red, so I’ll go on. A Bible passage that speaks to me in many special ways is one that has many aspects and nuances and applications, but has become a favorite scene that attracts my attention.

It is the story of Blind Man Bartimaeus, the last (recorded) miracle of healing performed by Jesus, as He passed through Jericho on the way to Jerusalem where He would be arrested, tortured, and crucified. There was a crowd with Him and the Disciples. Luke 18:35-42:

Then it happened, as He was coming near Jericho, that a certain blind man sat by the road begging. And hearing a multitude passing by, he asked what it meant. So they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he cried out, saying,“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Then those who went before warned him that he should be quiet; but he cried out all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be brought to Him. And when he had come near, He asked him,saying,“What do you want Me to do for you?”

He said,“Lord, that I may receive my sight.”

Then Jesus said to him,“Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.”

When I read commentaries on this wonderful account, I am always impressed at the various messages or meanings that people take from it.

Some people relate physical blindness with spiritual blindness, and how Bartimaeus reached out and saw the Truth in his soul as well as his eyes.

Some people note that the term by which Bartimaeus addressed Jesus – “Son of David” – was a significant awareness of Biblical prophecy, and attracted Jesus’s notice.

Some people contrast the helplessness of a blind beggar outside the gate, his status in Jewish society, and the majesty of a King passing by.

Some people bless the modesty of a beggar, who might have pleaded for anything, like raiment of money or food or shelter, but was content to beg for open eyes.

Some people wonder if there is significance that this is the second account of blind eyes being healed by Jesus; or His last miracle recorded; or that Jesus, knowing the need of Bartimaeus, yet asked him to speak it; or how it was that a blind man would know the powers of this miracle-worker who passed by in the midst of a crowd; or…

… or many other lessons. I do not disagree with any meaning one can glean. Like a faceted gem, God’s truths have many messages in them; many applications.

But the meaning that has always seemed specially important to me is one that is seldom discussed. And I think it has special application today, in our lives, our churches, in our culture.

As I picture the scene described in Luke (also in Mark’s gospel) beyond the healing power of Jesus that still can be pleaded, and all the lessons others see, is this detail:

This was a crowd scene before a city gate. Jesus, Disciples, followers, the normal public about their business. Bartimaeus, however, inquired, and knew that Jesus was near. He called out – he acted. He yelled, by necessity, loudly. The Disciples and others tried to shut him up! They “warned” him to be quiet.

I can imagine them saying – even amid the hubbub – “Silence!” Maybe, “Don’t bother the rabbi!” Maybe, “You, down there — be dignified!” Maybe, “Jesus has an agenda. Mind your own business!” (Remember, the Disciples recently had argued about who between them would be “first” and “last” in the coming kingdom.)

Today, would they say, “We’re holding church here! Don’t raise your voice!” Or, “You should have checked with us for permission to call on Jesus!” Or, God forbid, would some say, “Be quiet! Jesus has more important things to do!”

The point is – or the points include – that the persistence of Bartimaeus was honored by Jesus. The “dignity” of the moment, an artifice anyway, was obviously meaningless to the Lord. And the “rules” of the followers – hangers-on, bureaucrats, managerial types – were nothing in the eyes of the Savior. Nor in the “eyes” of the blind man.

Applications today? “All of the above.”

But chief among them – yes, my favorites – are these:

In your personal life, never let tradition nor insecurity nor ignorance prevent you from crying out to the Lord when you need Him.

In your family and church-community life, never let rules and customs keep you from crying out, singing out, laughing, challenging, asking, pleading, confessing, and seeking God’s face. Let no one hush you up! That’s Jesus – and He’s listening for you!

And in your country, what’s left of it – remember Blind Man Bartimaeus as your role model. Speak up. Speak out. Don’t let “officials” tell you to keep quiet. Don’t be quiet!!!

If Bartimaeus had kept quiet, obeyed arbitrary rules, avoided speaking out and speaking up for himself, and missed the opportunity of making contact with holiness in his presence… he would have stayed as one more forgotten blind beggar in the dust. Dignified. Quiet. Polite. And lost.

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This is an old and rough video from a few decades ago, but a great example of worship services when Jesus passes by.

Click: Hymn Medley

(For readers with hand-held devices, copy and paste the following link in your browser: )

https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=SIIrwtST8QM

5-17-21

A disease of the 21^st century – frankly, a second pandemic – is what categorizes itself as Fact-Checking.

The name is really a pseudonym. False identity. Camouflage.

Going back to the Age of Legends, it does not represent Diogenes, who with his lantern forsook all earthly possessions and searched the land for an honest man. My friend Bridgette Ehly reminds me that Diogenes is regarded as an actual figure in history, not mythology; and more’s the pity, someone pursuing such a futile goal.

Rather, the practice of “Fact Checking” today resembles the Trojan Horse, something impressive in appearance, but hiding saboteurs and swarming with enemies. It started a few years ago when Important newspapers had “ombudsmen” who kept their staffs honest. You know, The New York Times had a little box on page 2 noting “corrections.” Like “In yesterday’s Travel Section, page C17, the height of Mont Blanc was stated as 15,407 feet. In fact that is its prominence; its height above sea level is 15,777 feet. We regret the error.”

(Whatever a “prominence” is.)

Readers even got the impression that the wayward reporter likely lost vacation privileges at Camp Nawakwa on Lake Sebago up in New York State that summer.

Today, of course, that paper, and the Washington Post, and the three network news departments, and TIME and Newsweek if they still exist, and cable news channels, offer regrets and apologies to readers if they happen to say something positive about President Trump or Christians.

I am exaggerating. But I think they do hand out demerits for mentioning same-sex couples and heterosexuals without describing them as haters.

I think we all have been victims of “Fact Checkers” who lurk on the internet, and watch us all closer than than our parents did when we got our first cell phones. I have a theory about why those spying tricks are called “Al-Gore-Rhythms,” because we know what Big Brother, Big Tech, and Big Pain do. In fact they know what we do, before we do things. Get on the web, mention a country in an e-mail, or do a Google search on the name of a tropical bird you once saw, and within five hours, you will be bombarded with pop-up ads for flights to that country, and recipes for roasting that bird.

It was once confusin’, then amusin.’ Then annoying. Then paranoia-inducing. Rightfully so.

And it was an easy step, especially in the Trump re-election and the plandemic, to be de-platformed, warned, censored, or – at Zuckberg’s kindest – have our posts and messages and blogs slapped with banners pasted over our words with the announcement that “independent” “fact-checkers” have “already” “reviewed” the content and “determined” that… fill in the blanks. We are judged guilty of discussing unproven facts; or spreading rumors; or – worst of all – “violating community standards.”

What “standards”? What “community”? Not a community we want to live in. Yet… here we are. From the guard towers, someone yells through a bullhorn: “You! In that blog post!!! Shut up, and get in line!” Achtung.

Headlines tell us enough. “Christian hate” and “Trump’s Lies” are never conditioned with words like “alleged” or “supposed” – just offered as “facts.” A journalistic crime.

All this is bad enough – very bad – as we surreptitiously are being fitted with ankle chains and GPS-location devices under our skin or by vaccines. But far worse is the censorship and cyber-persecution of Christians.

Almost overnight, sermons about Biblical views on marriage and sex have had pastors arrested and churches closed. A religious perspective on topics in the news is deemed as “hate speech.” Traditional hymns are condemned.

And all this is bad enough when the “community” and press and government and schools and the courts are the storm troopers. But organized religion, heads of denominations, and “mainstream” faith leaders are often the worst offenders. Goons in backward-collars and robes.

So “religion” itself imposes “facts” on those of us they hate. (Aha! Now we get to the real “hate speech”!) The New Puritans are on witch-hunts, and their exclusive possession of Facts are their deadly weapons.

Well, this all is a wake-up call to Christians and conservatives and patriots. Yes, we think we recognize the Truth, but we seek to persuade people, not cancel them. And in the largest sense – life is not about facts. The “keepers” and enforcers of Facts ignore the history of Facts, even “scientific facts,” which often have changed and been proven untrue and abandoned through the centuries.

More valuable is Truth.

We can believe facts, even knowing they sometimes will change. We should trust Truth; and when it seems unclear, we are elevated by seeking truth.

Compulsive fact-checkers, and weaponized fact-trusters, are the totalitarian-minded who have always plagued humanity. On the other hand, truth-seekers, and the hope-filled, have cared for humankind, and want to join the upward paths.

Memo to you brainiacs who invent facts to control the lives of the rest of us: God does not require that we know and accept all your facts. He does require more important things: that we trust and obey. They are the fastest pathways to Truth.

Check that fact, Jack. (And, if this helps, Jesus said, “I am the Truth.”)

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Click: Looking For a City

5-10-21

I have been reading, and re-reading, classic novels and old books lately. I don’t really live in the past, although these days I find myself wishing I could.

But as I get older I realize how much I have missed of life, and in life. Rather than regret this, I make up for that lost time – reading, as I say, the classics. And I discover music of the Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, and Classical periods of music; and even have been enjoying music of the early Romantic period that I previously disdained. How odd that music of the 1840s can be “new.”

I know that not everyone will have the same tastes that I do, but my point is that we have a vast heritage that most of us never explore and appreciate, much less know. There is an old Italian saying that we cannot move forward without looking back. Truth in irony. “What’s past is prologue.” The greatest application of this view is that it is difficult to know the Savior, and gain Heaven, without a grounding in ancient scripture.

Well. A few of the old books I lately have read have surprised me in startling ways. Two were by Oscar Wilde. In a Christian essay, yes, I will mention them.

First, a true story about him. Near the end of his life, after surviving two brutal years in prison (for morals offenses) he encountered a friend on the sidewalk. The friend knew of Oscar’s impoverished state and the shabby room he rented. He asked how Oscar was doing, and the reply was, “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.”
Ever ready with an epigram, Wilde suggested that he was near death, and knew it; and the comment was a stereotypical remark of a fastidious homosexual. It was his flouting of Victorian sensibilities in the 1890s, and affairs with famous men, and libel suits, and public scandals, that resulted in his two-year sentence at hard labor.

Some day, here, I shall write more, but pertinent to my topic are the two books he wrote while in prison. The Ballad of Reading Gaol (that is, the Jail near Reading Town) and De Profundis (“From the Depths”) are extremely moving short works. They are introspective confessions, not of his acts, but of larger matters of the soul and God’s loving justice – not what one might expect. He dwells upon the Savior, and understands Scripture, and speaks with clarity through the moral fog and fetid world to which he presumed he justly was consigned.

In his philosophical anguish we finds his lines that Some do the deed with many tears, And some without a sigh: For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die.

There are some people yet today who debate whether Oscar Wilde’s last days and last writings were searching for Christ and forgiveness. Yet his earlier fairy tales clearly were Christian allegories; and indeed on his deathbed he had a friend summon clergy that he be baptized, and made confession.

Not the impression history has of Oscar Wilde. Similarly, I have just finished reading three very thick, and fascinating, volumes, the complete letters of Vincent van Gogh. How he produced such an abundance of paintings in his short life, much less the massive amount of letters, is astonishing. History tries to tell us that he was a tortured, odd man, hermit-like and obsessive.

The van Gogh of his letters has constant money troubles, but chats with his brother, encourages other artists, comments on illustrators and cartoonists (!) in England and America, dwells on artistic scenes and painter’s tools… and he talks about God. In his youth he considered becoming a minister; he visited a rescue mission in London; and he was a Christian. Doubters today search for evidence of his occasional doubts, sigh, but once again, history paints a distorted picture.

My theme here is that there was a time not so long ago when Western Civilization – and I mean the arts; not only “common people” – believed in God, belonged to the church, accepted Christ. Of other recent “reads,” probably more than half of Hans Christian Andersen’s many tales have Christian themes. Robinson Crusoe as a character constantly dwells on Christ’s mercy and the ways of God. Mozart’s letters, to his father, and to his wife, frequently referred to God in the most natural way.

And so forth. Not Sunday-School lessons, not religious tracts, but much of popular literature and the arts, and “common” life, revolved around God and the Bible and Jesus Christ. Once upon a time.

Is it like that that today? Remotely? Speaking of “remote,” just take TV, for example. Condense the plots or jokes, the “situations” of situation-comedies, the premises of dramas and… realize how far we have fallen.

We can use another barometer. The man serving as president promised to appoint a cabinet that represents America, but has more transsexuals than professing Christians. An avowed Catholic, on his first day in office he directed that taxpayer funds be used to promote the killing of babies in foreign countries.

And this week’s “National Day of Prayer” proclamation did not mention God once.

We may expect God to respond accordingly.

Even the contemporary culture’s perfunctory “God bless,” uttered as if to say, “Have a nice day,” and unfortunately common with Christians, was not tossed into the proclamation when read to cameras.

In the West, we once devoted ourselves, even in the arts, to seeking, knowing, and explaining God. Today we seem to work hard at avoiding, ignoring, defying, insulting, and denying God. We have crossed the line of even pretending to be Christians any more.

God, You are real. God help us. Forgive us. Help Thou our unbelief.

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Click: Help Thou My Unbelief

I Believe, Help Thou My Unbelief

5-3-21

There is something about the life of Jesus that especially attracts my interest, partly because the church at large – indeed, the world – has neglected. It is, specifically, the life of Jesus after he rose from death. His life after Resurrection. He lives today, of course; but I mean the 40 days that the Bible records (as did many witnesses and contemporary writers like the Jewish historian Josephus) when the Savior walked and talked and preached and healed and was was seen by multitudes.

We have very few records of that, compared to the details of His ministry and the events of Holy Week. That is what is intriguing to me, and why I keep returning to it. Further, Ascension Day, at the end of those 40 post-Easter days, when Jesus rose bodily to Heaven, finally affirmed His Divinity. Once a major day on the church calendar, it is observed far less today.

The last verse of the last Gospel’s last chapter (John 21:25) tells us, Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.

Let us imagine Palestine in those days, similarly mysterious because we have been told so little. For 40 days Jesus showed the world that He lived again. The Sanhedrin had called Jesus a blasphemer, and others claimed His miracles were of the devil… but His 40 days in Jerusalem and surrounding areas, being seen by multitudes, was scarcely disputed at the time and afterward. A few generations later, the writer Eusebius interviewed many people who had known people who saw Jesus during these days, told of miracles, even cited sermons and letters of the risen Jesus.

In other words, some people might not have joined the Christ-followers – although believers multiplied rapidly, even in the face of persecution soon thereafter – but very few people disputed that He rose from the dead. They certainly were active days.

Yet as busy as He must have been, I have a picture in my mind of Jesus alone, also; maybe when darkness fell, down lonely paths, maybe through storms and cold silences, walking the dark hills, not always responding to the curious crowds, but sometimes seeking out the troubled and the hurting individuals.

This is a plausible picture, because Jesus still does this today.

It was in His nature: Remember the “ninety and nine,” and the one lost sheep the shepherd sought. Remember Christ’s words, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock”… and how often do we think of how patiently He waits and knocks and waits and knocks? Remember His story of the father rejoicing over the prodigal son who repents and returns and is restored. Remember His admonition to be “fishers of men.” Remember Him weeping over Jerusalem. Remember the promise that “Whosoever” believes should not perish but have eternal life.

He walks the dark hills, looking for us – piercing the gloom with a joyful hope that may be ours. He seeks us out.

And, continuing to reconstruct an image of what Jerusalem and surrounding areas must have been like those 40 days, abuzz with talk of the Miracle Man, let us also remember that we don’t have to respond to a shout from the street – “Come! They say that Jesus is down by the river! Let’s see Him!” No… He will come to us.

And it is especially the case, I believe, if you are one of those people who is skeptical, or has “heard enough,” or cannot crack the shell of hurt or pain or resentment or rebellion or fear, or all the other hindrances that prevent you from experiencing the love of Christ. Know this, He is closer than a shadow, no matter what you think, or what you might prefer to believe. He will not leave you, even though you ignore Him.

“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.”

The risen Savior, Lord of Creation, walks the dark hills, seeking out… me? and you? where we are? in our hurts, in our messes? That’s the real miracle of the Miracle Man, to me, still –- that He loves you and me. Looking for us; finding us; hugging us; loving us; healing us; teaching us; saving us.

Those 40 days were a practice run for eternity – His and ours.

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A favorite gospel song is the haunting “God Walks the Dark Hills,” embodying mystery even in its own origin. It was written by a lady named Audra Czarnikow, who lived in Liberty, OK. Little is known about her; she apparently wrote no other hymns or songs. Small groups sang her song, and others recorded it; eventually it became a signature song of the Happy Goodman Family; here it is sung by the appropriately haunting voice of Iris DeMent.

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Please listen to this message’s reflection in this song and video:

Click: God Walks the Dark Hills

https://youtube.com/watch?v=0OGq4EXaXTM%23

4-19-21

Life goes on.

Easter is over; Memorial Day is next; Summer begins; will the lockdowns end? Oh, those politicians. Oh, those riots, Oh, those headlines. Best if I ignore TV news for awhile. Before we know it, school will start up again… or will it? I wonder if we’ll get more free checks by then?

It doesn’t always take “bread and circuses” to keep us distracted. Modern life, even without pandemic frenzy and political upheavals, presents a full agenda.

Life goes on; the sun rises, we tend to business, the sun sets, and we sleep till tomorrow. Things please us, and things alarm us… but there’s always tomorrow to worry, and, maybe, fix things. It has always been that way, right?

Just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also [in the last days]: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

Jesus looked ahead to our times, and (in Matthew and, here, in Luke 17) spoke about complacency, sin, self-delusion, and people taking false comfort in the meme “life goes on.” Who did He think He was, the Son of God or someone, thinking He could prophesy? What gave Him the authority to warn people?

How much worse it will be for those who never really know the Truth – never heard it, or honestly never had it presented to them. But for Christians who came through Easter, who have known the Truth, who have “accepted” Jesus, how many go through the year in effect saying, “Jesus died… Whatever.” Or “He rose from the dead… Whatever.” Or “I’ll go to Heaven, no worries” … and then eat, drink, marry, give in marriage. Whatever.

The suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus gave humankind, in effect, a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card. That is so casual a view as to be near blasphemous, unless we realize how basically profound it is. As the saying goes, Salvation is free, but a great price was paid.

What Jesus said about the days of Noah, and our days, is that people putter about, doing this and that, when great things portend, if we would only see them. But we don’t.

Did Jesus die for your sins? Act like you know it, and thank Him!

Did Jesus rise from the dead? Act like it transforms your life too!

Did Jesus send the Holy Spirit? Act with guidance, wisdom, and power!

The Atonement was Jesus trading the punishment for your sins for the chance to live a life of love and service. The greatest deal in history, excuse my casual language again. It does not deserve a “Whatever” from those who have been redeemed.

If you do not act like your life has been transformed by Christ’s grace then, in fact… you have not been transformed.

One of the few things Jesus asked in a response was that we share the news of what He did. Can it be possible, then, to share without showing great enthusiasm? If you had a cure for cancer, and a friend or stranger had cancer, would you not share that? Even if it were “uncomfortable”? Even if they ridiculed you for trying to save their lives?

“Whatever”… and shrugging your shoulders cannot be your response.

We can have a thousand responses. But I suggest three:

1. Come (again?) to know the Truth – Jesus embodied the truth: “I am the way, the Truth, and the life.”

2. Repent of your “Whatevers.” In the St Matthew Passion is the prayer “Erbarme Dich” – Have pity, my God, for the sake of my tears!
Look here, how bitterly my heart and eyes weep before you.
Have pity, my God.

3. Share! “Go tell it!” Love others. Stay above the mundane. Rebuke the Whatevers. “Go into all the world…”

Life goes on. Act like it!

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Click: Have Pity on My Failings
J. S. Bach – “Erbarme Dich, Mein Gott”

4-12-21

Lately a lot of politicians begin their answers with the word, “Look…” or “Listen…” appearing to say something clear and direct. It usually is the opposite; a deflection. Like “C’mon, man” – a way to substitute for an answer.

But we all do it, or similar things. We tell our children to “look away” from something harsh or rude, usually correctly. We might claim to “look in the other direction” when confronted with unpleasant facts, or decisions we want to avoid. Body-language experts watch our eyes, the way we look up or down, or glassy-eyed, to discern our actual intentions.

“The eyes are the windows to the soul,” Jesus paraphrased in Matthew 6, citing Proverbs 30:17.

We draw too quick a conclusion, however. If we look away… refuse to acknowledge things… maybe, then, pretending things don’t exist, we can fool ourselves. Perhaps fatally.

Are we ostriches who hide their heads in the sand? If we look away do we become immune, and escape the consequences of that we avoid?

Of course I am not talking about a household accident, or a lesson a child needs to learn, or wise advice when we can offer it, even if uncomfortable. I address those like me who perceive that we are living an extraordinary times – extraordinarily troubling and dangerous. In society, within families, in the culture, in education, in politics, in the church world… many of us are shocked and grieved and anxious about the trend of events.

Argue back. Fight back. Lose friends, make allies. Pray. And, for many who have grown weary, sometimes the best (easiest?) (safest?) (holiest?) thing to do in the face of a tsunami of attacks is… to look away.

Doesn’t the Bible talk about a “remnant”? Should we gather our children as a mother hen gathers her chicks? Should we only fellowship with the saints?

Those are answers, but sometimes the wrong answers. I will return to “looking,” and the eyes God has given us – spiritual sight as well as physical vision.

Recently we discussed Easter, and how the miraculous Jesus looked down from the cross and, I believe, looked into my eyes, and yours, and humankind’s, into our souls. The crowds who greeted Him, then screamed for His death, scattered before Calvary – not caring to look.

When Jesus came out from the tomb, defeating death, he immediately began looking. For you and me. I wrote this week, in effect, He was saying “Here I come, ready or not!” He looked for people to forgive in the weeks that followed, and invited witnesses to look upon Him.

On Ascension Day, when He was seen to rise to Heaven and be seated at the right hand of the Father (confirming His divinity) it was required that witnesses look upon that transformation.

We should not look away from some things. We cannot look away from all things. We must look at more things, good and bad, straight-on. They will happen anyway. So, continuing the metaphorical part of this, don’t turn away from some challenges and problems. Look at them, understand them. Deal with them.

Go a step further, you and your eyes. Look FOR things. If we indeed live in parlous times, seek what is evil, what is harmful, what carries dangers. It is the first and best step to protect your and your family. And redeem the culture. And honor God.

LOOK! Don’t “look away.” Seek and ye shall find… the courage, the strength, the answers. You will find Jesus, if you look for Him.

Why do I think these details are important? I am afraid that we too often take Jesus for granted. Yes, God’s Son. Yes. rose from the dead. Yes, forgives our sins. But nobody can have a relationship with someone with looking that person in the face. Right?

A helpful hint. When things are strangely dim, or confusing no matter how hard you focus, or “look” hopeless; when things seem too dark; and maybe you don’t even know where to look…

Turn your eyes upon Jesus. He has been looking for you, and at you, all along. Meet His eyes.

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Click: Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

4-4-21

He’s Alive.

Those two words are the most consequential in humankind’s long history, or ever will be.

He’s Alive.

For Christians, these words overshadow everything, for if there be no Resurrection, our faith is in vain.

He’s Alive.

For believers in any, and every, other religion, there is not one founder or leader about whom it is claimed that once dead, that figure came back to life.

He’s Alive.

For agnostics and atheists, you simply must confront the Biblical record, eyewitness accounts, and words of people like the historian Josephus, who recorded acts of the risen Christ.

He’s Alive.

For the skeptical, if you think the life, ministry, and resurrection of Jesus was a hoax, tell us how Christianity spread like wildfire after the Resurrection; and why so many people – including 11 of the Disciples – would endure their own torture and death… for a hoax.

He’s Alive.

For the wise, study His words, and explain how Jesus was anything but one of these: a brilliant swindler; a delusional fool; or… the Son of God.

He’s Alive.

For the logic-minded, calculate the odds of multiple hundreds of prophecies and predictions, written over centuries by many hands in many lands, that came true to the finest detail and timing.

He’s Alive.

For those who don’t “believe in miracles,” like the acts He was recorded as performing, or that He fulfilled by rising from the dead, start counting the number of other things you can’t explain in life, but “take on faith.”

He’s Alive.

For those who are tempted to think that this God or this Jesus might have been real once upon a time, and acted 2000 years ago, but not now…

Talk to someone whose life has been transformed;

Talk to someone who suffered awful depression, but now lives joyously;

Talk to a sinner who has turned from his or her ways;

Talk to someone who endured a fatal disease or injury… and has been healed;

Talk to an addict who now is “clean”;

Talk to someone who hated… and has learned to love;

Talk to someone who could not forgive, and was touched by someone else’s forgiveness;

Talk to someone who carried oppressive burdens of guilt, but now feels free;

Talk to that little baby who smiles back at you;

Talk to…

Well, talk to Jesus. He will answer you if you listen. He will lead you if you need. He will love you as if He has known you all along.

… because He has. He’s been waiting. When He left that tomb, by some sort of miracle, He came out looking for you.

He’s alive.

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Click: He’s Alive

3-29-21

I hope the words of that title, and the kiddie-pop version of all we hold dear does not remind you of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.” But in our cultural cocoon it would not be surprising if some children grow up thinking that the Easter Bunny was at the manger scene; or Santa Claus went to the cross.

Exaggeration, perhaps, but I will not cop to sacrilege… except as our whole culture has become sacrilegious; secularized; post-Christian. And include most of our churches themselves as complicit in the apostasy.

Palm Sunday used to be universally celebrated in Christian churches. Now it is barely observed. Catholics would burn the palms and save the ashes for the subsequent year’s Ash Wednesday. When I was a boy our church and Sunday School were festooned with palms that were distributed at the end of services; and in our house, anyway, we arranged them behind the picture frames with Jesus and Bible scenes.

Why palms? They were symbols and reminders of the palms – and flowers and garments – laid before Jesus as He entered Jerusalem for the Passover. No power to salvation, they survived the centuries as spiritual Post-It Notes: This is how the people received Jesus as His power and glory became known in that city.

For three years he had performed miracles. Walked on water. Healed the sick. Raised the dead to life. Read minds. Forgave sins.

He had followers, slowly growing in numbers. The word spread, just as the Word spread. Yet through the small towns in the region of Galilee, after more than three years of such ministry, His adherents were numbered as a cult following. Skepticism? A lot of it. Suspicions, too, that he was a magician or prophet at best. Or the “miracles” were exaggerations or coincidences or swindles…

By the time He entered Jerusalem, Jesus knew it was His final visit. He knew the word-for-word prophecies from Isaiah and other Scriptures that would be fulfilled a hundred times over before the week was out. Followers, even Scribes and Pharisees, did not connect the dots.

The city fairly went crazy to welcome Him. A virtual parade. His path strewn with elements of welcome. Music and cheering; crying eyes; workers and housewives taking time to welcome the Messiah.

But my question today is, Do you ever think back, either because of (or in despite) Jesus movies, or Sunday-School bulletins? Have you imaged the scene? “Why is He on a donkey?” “He asked for one!” The mystery was lifted when people eventually realized that it was another puzzle-piece of prophecy from 700 years earlier.

If you have thought about that jubilant scene, you likely did not see yourself as a scoffer or skeptic or hater. These types were hard to find! As we know, the Roman officials tried to ignore the whole “Jesus thing.” The only opposition, and bitter it was, came from the religious leaders. Not the Jews in general, not at first, because the cheering crowds were Jews. It was the religious Establishment who hated Him.

Rejecting Jesus as Messiah, but also nervous about their own positions and security, they ignored Scripture and colluded with the political Establishment. As we know.

You might have pictured yourself in that adoring, welcoming throng. Of course! But how often have you pictured yourself in that crowd beneath Pilate’s balcony only a few days later… screaming for Barabbas to be pardoned and Jesus to be executed?

Have you pictured yourself as a member of the mob who watched, approving, as Jesus was scourged to a bloody pulp?

Have you pictured yourself as someone in the crowd along the Via Dolorosa, as Jesus was forced to carry His cross; were you, too, jeering, spitting on Him?

And after your love had turned to hate, were you then so indifferent to this innocent Man’s suffering that you wandered away from Golgotha? – Probably so, because most of the Disciples were not there at His feet with His Mother Mary.

WHY would any of us think we would have been any different that the population of Jerusalem? Happy welcome? Join the party. “Crunch time”? Spit on the Great Pretender. Fair-weather faithful.

Manipulated by the mob… when you are part of the mob. Swayed by the Establishment… and its version of the news of the day. Knowing Scripture… to the extent it could be cited to justify your changing but comfortable notions. Doubting, disbelieving, rejecting. God forbid we do such things again!

I have been asking if you ever pictured yourself “there” during Holy Week. But you don’t have you. Jesus Himself pictured you there. At every event that week, from jubilation to tortured death. He looked into the crowds, but saw the faces of you and me.

Beyond our faces, He looked – and still looks – into the hearts of you and me.

On Palm Sunday, however, we commemorate His entry… into Jerusalem; into fulfilled prophecies; into our lives. No turning back! And, for us, no ignoring Him.

More audacious, really, than a Virgin birth, or the astonishing miracles, or the timeless wisdom He left us… is the very thought of the Incarnation: that the Creator of the Universe became flesh and dwelt among mankind. That He LOVED that much.

That He LOVES that much. Humankind should rush toward Him, yet He came to us.

They sang “The King is coming!” But He is still coming, still wanting to enter our lives, our minds, our hearts. He’s coming for you. Will you welcome Him? Can you picture that?

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Click: The King Is Coming

3-22-21

Last week’s message on addiction excited a greater number of responses than I usually receive. I hoped that it would present a somewhat different perspective on this topic than we routinely hear; and perhaps that struck a chord.

I had not thought of this until I wondered at the feedback, but in a society where “victimhood” virtually has become a religion, it is refreshing to assert that we often are responsible, ourselves, for “challenges” we face. And, as should follow, that we can take responsibility as well for their solutions. Such resolutions represent more than coping, but rather liberation… second chances… new starts… a fresh excitement about life.

Several readers, and friends I have made in recent years, surprised me (and were glad to do so) with stories of their own redemption, of kicking addictions. My way of putting it with friends: moving from Alcoholics Unanimous to Alcoholics Anonymous; and, of course, other things than alcohol, which was the larger point of my essay.

There is another story about my unnamed friend from years ago whose situation inspired that message, and I will share the follow-up again, in a way of closing the circle.

It is a little more personal, to me that is. There was a tough period some years ago for my family – toughest most of all for my late wife Nancy. She had faced health challenges (what euphemisms we use) most of her life. She was an early diabetic, and that was the source of many ills, but not solely. When we met she monitored blood-sugar levels with test strips, and she (or I) would administer insulin shots by needle.

Eventually pumps and remote monitors were developed. During that technical evolution, her physical problems, some caused by the diabetes, raged. She virtually lost her sight twice; a miracle restored it once (unquote, incredulous doctors) and another by laser treatments. She had several heart attacks; and several TIAs, or minor strokes. She developed celiac disease, and had to avoid wheat, oats, rye, and barley; besides sugar, of course. The diabetes attacked more places than her eyes, and she had toes amputated. Cancer was discovered in her thyroid gland, and although one lobe was removed, it was devoid of cancer cells (another miracle, doctors could only call it). There were more medical problems too, like broken bones – all these before and after a heart transplant and a kidney transplant.

Nancy worried, more than about herself, for our three children. But they took strength from her faith and strength. We started a hospital ministry that lasted almost seven years… and might have have blessed us as much as the patients and their families.

We were without insurance, with me as a freelancer and she having (duh) pre-existing conditions. Things were tight, and emotionally stretched. At this time (while Nancy was in hospital, listed for compatible organs) my mother was dying, in hospice, in Florida, and I made the difficult decision to be there in her last hours. Driving to the train station in Philadelphia, my car was T-boned at an intersection and totaled. I was OK, and two days later I took that train. My mother lingered longer than expected; I returned home for Christmas, and got the message that she died while I wended north.

The transplants went well – in fact, she was almost like a poster child; no rejections, and living 16 years instead of the projected extra five. Until I could get a new car, our pastor lent us his van. Friends helped with watching the kids, and with meals. Neighbors helped with housework and chores. Our ministry continued, and my freelance schedule enabled me to take Nancy to the many follow-ups and lab visits.

We return here to my friend who starred in last week’s message, and was mentioned above. I related this litany to him with the appropriate “thank Gods” and gratitude to friends and neighbors. The whole “before and after” tale.

Ever the skeptic, he took the opportunity to teach me a lesson, to shake me back to reality. “You’re always thanking God for this and that,” he said. “But listen to yourself. It wasn’t Jesus who took your kids in when you had to go to Florida. It wasn’t Jesus who lent you that van. It wasn’t Jesus who brought you meals and cleaned your house… They were just friends and neighbors!”

My response came immediately, inspired by Someone else, because I wasn’t that clever myself: “You’re wrong. It WAS Jesus… working THROUGH our friends and neighbors.”

This truth is a way that God works, and a way that He often chooses to work. Not a fallback, but His intention. It is the reason Jesus came to earth… and, more, the reason He left.

But I tell you I am going to do what is best for you. This is why I am going away. The Holy Spirit cannot come to help you until I leave. But after I am gone, I will send the Spirit to you (John 16:7). And we yield to the Spirit.

We should be reminded here of bumper-strip theology that can have impact as it distills the Truth:

~~ You might be the only Jesus people ever know.
~~ Always share the Gospel – sometimes even use words.
~~ Be doers of the Word, not hearers only.
~~ Love one another, even as I have loved you,.
~~ Be imitators of Christ.

Of all the experiences, trials, and acts I have mentioned here, none is too big for us to assume it need not be done. And none is too small to have a life-changing, eternal impact. It’s funny how God works that way.

Especially when it’s through us.

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An example of “how small” an act can be is in this song by Ray Boltz. It reminds be of a visit by a missionary family to our little church, and their slide-show about their work overseas. My little girl Emily was so affected that she decided then and there to go into missions work. Which she did.

Click: Thank You

This message, and this song, would seem like orphans if I didn’t invite you to visit the site of Grand Staff Ministries Grand Staff Ministries – Becky and Tracy Spencer’s remarkable missions program to the people of eSwatini (formerly Swaziland) in Africa.

3-15-21

I have a friend who once – in fact frequently – talked about his wife. “Unburdened himself,” to use an old and somewhat curious phrase. Complaining? Actually, no. We all need someone we trust on whose shoulder we can cry, or at least provide a pair of ears now and then.

Counselors charge a lot of money; sometimes a good friend is all we need.

Anyway, his story was about a marriage where his wife chain-smoked; and then gave it up. Then she took up drinking to embarrassing excess and disappearances and blackouts. And then she quit, cold turkey. I am forgetting the order of these problems, but in between there were various drugs; and then no drugs. She also cheated on my friend on and off – more often “on,” that is, serial affairs. He knew that his three children were not his. If you wonder about bulimia and anorexia, you’re right: those too.

The first time I heard this long litany of his endless heartache and her virtually suicidal pastimes, I asked why he didn’t leave her; get a divorce.

“Because I love her,” he said.

I could end this essay there, because there is a spiritual message, or at least a picture, or a parable, or example, somewhere in there. Maybe like the story about the boy digging through a pile of manure in the belief that “there must be a pony in there somewhere!”

Maybe. Surely there are elements of unconditional love and forgiveness in his story. My friend was not a Christian, yet he reflected some of the ways our Heavenly Father treats us.

… or (we hope and pray) that He treats us.

We all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God. We know that because the Bible tells us so. But do we believe it because we genuinely know it? How often do we change the tense and to reflect that “we all sin and fall short of the Glory of God”? — that is, we still sin. But if we have accepted Christ, the “falling short” of God’s Glory cannot be measured any more.

After all, “while we were yet sinners,” Christ took away the punishment that our sins deserve.

“Because I love them,” Jesus would say.

I want to dwell a moment on how much we are all like my friend’s wife. Yes, all of us, in all ways. She was addicted – to this, and that, and the other. Serious, deadly, ugly, dangerous, smelly, stupid, harmful. In truth, it was not nicotine or alcohol or sex or cocaine. She was addicted to being addicted.

And so are we all. We know some of our habits are bad, yet we remain in them. We apologize to enablers… yet hope they will continue to enable. Are serial cheaters looking for the perfect match, or are they in love with being in love, as if they really know what that means?

Our addictions – our continuous problems and failings; our weaknesses; our broken promises to others and to God – can be summed up in one word: sin.

We all have heard stories of people breaking from the grip of specific addictions. Haven’t we? I pray you have heard such testimonies from people. The percentage of deliverance from various addictions is astronomically higher in faith-based programs than from secular therapies. No surprise: if addictions are a reflection of a spiritual problem, they can only really be healed by spiritual means.

I want to leave you with one more thought, as, possibly, your mind is racing through the challenges you have, or a friend or family members has, or an experience you survived. We know Jesus taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” words that we realize are almost a confession of our weakness.

So we do pray for things like losing some desires we have; or that we be  gifted with a stronger will; and reminded to live responsibly. In other words, how often do we think the best place, with God’s help, is to be in a spiritual place, a morally responsible position, where we can say, “OK, God! Thank you! I’ll take it from here!”

That is not spiritual maturity. It is spiritual self-delusion.

Our Heavenly Father does not want us to be independent. Everything in God’s Word, all the lessons of saints and martyrs, the many works of Christ, point to the truth that He desires that we be dependent.

Spiritual maturity is when we confess our inability to save ourselves. Christianity can be defined as achieving victory through surrender. No other construct works that way. We cannot dance and jump for joy and run to embrace the Lord except while on our knees. Neat trick, but it’s God’s plan. He is not as much impressed by our deeds as by our obedience.

Jesus performed miracles, and God still performs miracles. We know that the earliest recorded miracle of Jesus was turning water into wine at the wedding feast. The songwriter T. Graham Brown wrote a song during the “lowest of lows” of his alcoholism. It would be a miracle, drunks know, to be freed from the desire to take that one more drink – miracle enough. But he cried out uniquely to save his life: Could God just turn the wine back to water?

A miracle is a miracle! And that perspective actually admits the dependence – at the end of a spiritual rope (have you ever been there?) – instead of seeking a miracle, maybe as a crutch.

Despite our strengths or weaknesses, deliverance is the real miracle, however God takes us there. But let us pray that we can be enabled by the Holy Spirit to invite one more addiction – to be addicted to God’s Word and God’s Will.

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Music Vid: “Turn the Wine Back Into Water”

Every few weeks, some guy hacks the music-video link. WordPress is not helping us. Either hit “refresh” a couple times, or cut and paste this URL — the song is worth watching! (Also for some readers with hand-held devices) Copy and paste link: ) https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=nKTdbqcjogg

Click: Turn the Wine Back Into Water

3-8-21

Some years ago I was talking to George Beverly Shea, the “singing voice” of Billy Graham crusades, between shots of a project we worked on together. He told me a story, or remembered a story he had heard, about a husband and wife, riding in their car on a trip. The wife noticed the space between them on the front seat and asked, a little sadly, “Do you remember when we were dating and we used to sit real close together?”

Her husband, behind the wheel, looked at the space on the seat, looked at her, and asked, “Who moved?”

Most of us, believers in Christ, had a period when we fell in love with Him – sharing the experience of a fresh faith; thirsting for the Word; the desire for close fellowship with other followers of Jesus.

It frequently happens later in our “walk” that we have crises of all sorts. Yes, the devil might attack us more; and the skeptical world is determined to challenge us. But ironically, as our faith matures we often lose that vital, on-fire, passionate faith.

Has the hunger been satisfied? God forbid. Was that “first blush” of belief counterfeit? God forbid. Have we checked all the boxes of a full knowledge of the Gospel? God forbid; and that is not possible anyway.

If we remember any of God’s promises we know that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is our ever-present strength in times of trouble. He is the author and finisher of our faith. He is the image of the Father. He is the Lamb of God, Who gave Himself for our sins. He is our Savior.

Who moved?

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Click: Near the Cross

https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=8ljJKkmEmL0

2-1-21

When you “accept” Jesus – and His invitation; when You believe He is the Son of God; that He died to take the punishment for your sins upon Himself; that God raised Him from the dead –

What brought you to that moment?

Were you guilty beforehand? Regretful? Remorseful? Curious? Troubled? Desperate? Lonely? Confused? Hungry? Unforgiving? Weary?

At that moment, God never says –

“It’s about time!”

“It took you too long!”

“OK, it’s a good start.”

“Let’s see if you are serious…”

“You have too much baggage.”

“I can’t overlook some of your sins.”

“Here are things you must now do…”

“You’re too late!”

He just says –

“Welcome home!”

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Click: Softly And Tenderly

1-4-21

Regarding the pandemic that has been plaguing the world, many references are made to the Spanish flu of 1918-19. That wave of influenza devastated Europe and North America, overlapping the devastation of history’s bloodiest war to date.

We can note two things. One, as with the Spanish flu, many of the world’s most horrible plagues, epidemics, infections, pandemics, and deadly forms of death, have been accompanied by wars and violent societal dislocations. It is grim logic to suggest that plagues can precipitate disruptions among populations, and just as easy to suppose that, say, the de-populations caused by some wars (more than half of some towns during the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, for instance) brought about changes to arable land, differences in public health, even reforestation and climate change.

Then, some of history’s most famous plagues and diseases (many with bizarre, color-related names like Black Death, Yellow Fever, “Ring Around the Rosy…”) proceeded in some years to kill half the people in Europe.

The other aspect we may note, after the gruesome partnership of malignant effects on physical health and societal health, is the relatively few respites the world has enjoyed from these plagues. When the Spanish flu of a century ago is mentioned, few people realize what a blessing it has been – relatively speaking, of course – for the world to have been spared major health disasters for a century. The swine flu, the bird flu, the Asian flu, and few “Biblical” or Medieval-type epidemics, have been visited upon us for a century.

A very long list of major plagues, mostly in the northern hemisphere, mostly emanating in the Far East and moving westward, can be compiled starting in the 1300s. Some were localized to mere wide swaths of land; some covered entire continents. The effects on people? Obviously, adjustments in migration and living patterns. Clearly, books like Boccaccio’s Decameron and Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year. Less clear is whether waves of religiosity and piety, or skepticism and humanism, were peoples’ direct reactions.

A history lesson is salubrious, no? There will be no quiz next week, but knowledge is power. I am not a fear-monger, and after almost a millennium we should as desperate for lessons as we are for cures.

On the brink of vaccines whose palliative properties, and side effects, we can in no wise predict, I am persuaded that a look backward, and not only forward, is healthy too. The future is hazy; the past is clear. 2020 vision, I am tempted to invite… except farther back. In fact we may profitably adopt some manners of inquiry that have been considered outré for a long time; regarded as anti-science, even superstitious. But scientists generally ask how something started and how it might be treated; doctors ask how to treat and cure things.

But students of the Bible, believers in God, and theologians ask (or they should ask) why. Many of the judgments of God – I should say the laws and requirements that brought judgments under the Old Testament – were answered by the Person and the work of Jesus at Calvary.

Yet we are not free to sin. Although the law has been fulfilled, the commandments were not made to be broken.

Which mean that I think it is legitimate – no, imperative – for Christians to ask whether God can bring punishments, warnings, lessons, on His children. And the answer is “of course.” The Bible even tell us that God chastises especially those whom He loves.

Uh-oh.

Have we, in the Christian West, plausibly have earned His disappointment, His anger, even His wrath? In this generation, this century, the “advancement” of civilization? Are we serving Him better, are we more faithful… or less so? Has society – has the Church itself – grown closer to the Word; or more secular, more humanist, more relativist?

Do we, perhaps, deserve His chastisement?

Can you picture that a Holy God might grieve over a perverse and lost generation? Wouldn’t you? God has not threatened us, as much as explained to us, that chastisement will come in the case of spiritual infidelity. And as Lincoln quoted and believed to his core, quoting Scripture, “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” Can something as horrible as COVID be sent by God as a judgment?

The answer has to be found in another citation by Lincoln that “the Almighty has His own purposes.” And we remember the very plausible fact  that humans often bring problems upon ourselves.

Whether we ever find a cure for that tendency… leaves us wondering. We have not learned yet. Have we learned, alternatively, that when such problems come, as they will, that our first tendency should not be to look to governments, or drug laboratories, for help, but upward to our Heavenly Father, for forgiveness?

And inward, to our flawed souls. To this lost and perverse generation.

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A friend came around, Tried to clean up this town; His ideas made some people mad. He trusted his crowd, So he spoke right out loud; And they lost the best friend they had.

Click: Sin City

12-14-20

“It’s your fault!” “No! It’s your fault!” “You started it!” “No, you did!”

We hear exchanges like these yelled back and forth in the schoolyard, or playgrounds.

Or in diplomatic debates. Or on bloody battlefields.

Humankind seems not to have “advanced” much through the centuries; and neither between childhood and adulthood. We congratulate each other, and fool ourselves, that “progress” is the hallmark of our times. Yet the bloodiest death toll from wars, in any century of the earth’s existence, was in the Twentieth Century. We brag that we – “civilizations” – have finally ended the scourge of slavery; yet there is greater slavery today than ever in human history. The numbers now are not the faces that flash in our minds, but children, women, minorities, homeless, voiceless, migrants, the anonymous.

As long as there are power elites; as long as greed outpaces love; as long as hypocrisy can always find a better name, humankind will be (in the Bible’s phrase, Proverbs 26:11; II Peter 2:22) like dogs returning to their vomit. Think about what changes have occured, really, when science develops new ways to save lives… as it also invents new ways to end lives. What a spectacle, when people march to save baby seals and whales, and march for the right to kill babies.

Well, Merry Christmas!

Is society’s spoken wish of the season an empty phrase, or is there a spark of hope when we manage to pause, or think, or sing, or worship around the meaning of that word, that concept – God With Us.

Once it was manifested, only briefly, in a unique setting; and it is largely forgotten by history. Do you know about the Christmas Truce, a virtual miracle during the first Christmas of the “Great War,” World War I, surely the most useless of history’s many useless wars?

It was only a few months after war was declared in Europe, by almost every great and tiny nation. But by Christmas almost a million soldiers were already slaughtered. In trenches that were to become so established that for more than two years the battle line never moved more than 30 miles one way or another, a miracle did occur.

Minor details differ but the dispositive facts are acknowledged: Peace broke out.

Soldiers of Germany, England (Scotland, actually), and France, at night, spontaneously sang Christmas carols… and were joined by “enemies” who could hear across No Man’s Land… nervous soldiers climbed from trenches to greet their foes, and shake hands… gifts were exchanged, even little trinkets, but also pastries and wine from home… they shared pictures of wives and children… more hymn singing… fireworks, intended to illuminate battlefields to focus cannons, were now shot skyward in celebration… tentative, but successful, attempts to communicate.

Of course they communicated. The languages that night were hymns and Bibles and chocolates and cigars. Handshakes and smiles and tears.

A Merry Christmas. A Holy Christmas. Peace on earth… at least in that narrow 27-mile-long battle line, south of Ypres and east of Armentieres, site of the song about les Mademoiselles, that night.

A British soldier recalled the Christmas Truce almost two decades later: We stuck up a board with a Merry Christmas on it. The enemy had stuck up a similar one. … Two of our men then threw their equipment off and jumped on the parapet with their hands above their heads. Two of the Germans done the same and commenced to walk up the river bank, our two men going to meet them. They met and shook hands and then we all got out of the trench.

We and the Germans met in the middle of No Man’s Land. Their officers were also now out. Our officers exchanged greetings with them. … One of their men, speaking in English, mentioned that he had worked in Brighton for some years and that he was fed up to the neck with this damned war and would be glad when it was all over. We told him that he wasn’t the only one that was fed up with it. (Frank Richards, “Old Soldiers Never Die,” 1933)

Another history records: [The British] Brigadier General G.T. Forrestier-Walker issued a directive forbidding fraternization: “For it discourages initiative in commanders, and destroys offensive spirit in all ranks. … Friendly intercourse with the enemy, unofficial armistices and exchange of tobacco and other comforts, however tempting and occasionally amusing they may be, are absolutely prohibited.” (Stanley Weintraub, “Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce,” 2001)

How much different would the world be today – how much different even the next day, back then – if the Truce had held? And please note that chocolates and cigars were only the presents. The GIFTS were hymns and Bible verses – they brought the soldiers out of trenches; not the prospect of snacks or a soccer game in the snow.

Christmas. God did not intend for Jesus’s incarnation, the spirit of that Christmas Truce, to be a one-time miracle, but to be everyday life.

He intended that we know-and-show that love and fellowship can be normal, not rare.

We can be changed by the Holy Day, not be annoyed by another holiday.

“You started it!” “No, you did!!!” Wouldn’t it be great if we all exchanged those words happily, about starting love, sharing affection, and living in Heavenly Peace?

Who “started it”? God did.

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Please do not cheat yourself of watching a moving and superb movie clip dramatizing that Christmas Truce.

Click: Joyeaux Noel

9-28-20

I am old enough to remember when every morning, in public school, we would have Bible readings. They were rotated among students who were willing to read and lead; and most of the readings were Old Testament Psalms, in deference I suppose to the Jewish kids in class.

I am old enough to remember being confused and resentful about the prohibitions, when such things became illegal.

And I am not too old to still feel sad about the “enlightened progress” achieved by that “reform.” I was not too young to realize – because I asked them, actually – if the Jewish kids minded the readings, or the once-a-week recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. No, none of them did. I even had a classmate whose family was “artsy” and forthrightly atheist. Kyra never minded, nor appeared warped by hearing Psalms read; certainly she never spray-painted graffiti on the school, or set fires in the library.

But the war against prayers and the Bible were only the early signs of America’s suicidal tendencies. I knew, despite my youth, that some adults predicted that these impulses would lead to, some day, attempts to eliminate any form of religious expression; a generation of young people rejecting traditional values; the denigration, not only of religion, but of patriotism, “family values,” mutual respect, and civility.

Will those times ever come; will those prophets ever be able to say, “I told you so”?

Oh, wait…

From people “offended” by Christmas displays in front of town halls, to objections to saying “Merry Christmas” to strangers (by the way: So what?) to arrests of Christians, and firings from jobs, many dots are being connected in many ways along the slippery slope.

This summer, committees at the Democrat National Convention made a show of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and pausing… silent… where “under God” would have been spoken. Almost every evening, for months, we have seen people on the streets of American cities and towns burning and stomping on the flag.

I call the current situation the “Purge of Allegiance.”

Disloyalty to the American flag and our larger nation and Constitution might technically be legal – sometimes I too am sick of what this society has become – but I would be willing to suffer the approbation and consequences. The street scum today might be aware of Patrick Henry: “Give me liberty or give me death.” Their version is, “Give me a sandbox to soil.”

Renouncing allegiance to one’s country is a step away from having no allegiance to a religious faith or cultural traditions at all. While you are thinking about that, anarchists are leaping to agree. Next on the downward spiral: Having no standards means just that – no standards of right and wrong. Going back to Aristotle and heretics and Relativists of recent centuries, “What’s right for me is right,” period. Anarchy.

American churches, with some exceptions, have bought into this new way of thinking. It is not new, of course – lies as old as the Garden of Eden. We are smarter than God, you see.

The American political system is surrendering to these forces in a hundred large and small ways. Patrick Henry never said, “Give me licentiousness…”

The American culture not only welcomes these awful events, but encourages them and profits from them. An actual curse of capitalism.

Let us think about what the Obama Administration ridiculed only a dozen years ago, those of us who “cling” to our guns and Bibles. While we still can. And thinking, further, about that ragged old flag and the time-honored Pledge…

How close is America becoming, at its (new) core, something that we, too, regret and despise? God forbid.

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Click: Johnny Cash’s “Ragged Old Flag”

9-21-20

Growing up, to the extent I did, in suburban New York City, in the little town of Closter NJ, I remember that at the corner of one of our parks was an enormous bell, probably used in Colonial times to warn residents of British troops approaching (a Closter farmer was our own Paul Revere) or to call volunteers to fight a fire.

It was not a bell whose shape probably comes to your mind. It was circular, metal perhaps five inches wide, like a gong but without the gong-bell in the center. This was an enormous metal ring, like a circular (rather than triangular) dinner bell that must have been heard for miles. My friends and I could never find anything big enough that we could lift that would sound a tocsin, as alarms were called.

Through the centuries, communities relied on substantial bells like that for various reasons; and the frequency or pattern would provide signals to residents. Churches, of course, ring bells to call people to worship, and during the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer are lifted. Carillons were invented to play music in concerts. Eventually electricity brought alarm clocks, amplified sirens, cell-phone alerts, and other efficient saboteurs of the good old days.

But the concept of “alarm bells” lives on in culture, in literature, in our consciousness. Sometimes we view events as they seem, but sense that they seldom are hopeful harbingers, but dangerous signals. Predictors of bad things ahead; seeds that will sprout ugly weeds, not beautiful flowers.

“For whom the bell tolls.” Ernest Hemingway took the title of his novel from an essay by the mystical theologian John Donne (1572-1631). Donne, in his Meditation XVII, “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions,” addressed the ambiguity. Events, customs, announcements, traditions, expectations might be very different than we confidently think… and different observers will have different opinions and conclusions.

We all have separate views of life, and therefore, Donne (who was near his own death when he wrote these words) reminds us of two things. The surety that God is in control, and all will see Him, followed by the end of delusions. Second, Donne’s famous aphorism that “no man is an island.”

By the first point he reminded us (even if Hemingway neglected this aspect) that our understanding is insignificant compared to God’s omniscience. In the second point he observed that the human race is organic; that when something dies or is degraded in one place, the rest of humanity suffers. When reforms and enlightenment and “progress” occur here, people there, so to speak, also will benefit.

I invite you to view the long-brewing but sudden-occuring nihilism and violence, destruction and death in American cities and towns, and see them hear them, as alarm-bells.

The “demonstrators” (what kinds of fools are we to be persuaded by the media’s gentle characterization of vandals and criminals?) might indeed think that the alarm-bells they set off are announcing a brave new world. I am sure that their ringleaders and puppet-masters do. Aldous Huxley’s dystopia, that is; not a pending utopia.

Here are Donne’s passages, in contemporary words:

Perchance the bell tolls for someone so sick or so deluded that he doesn’t even recognize that the bell announces his impending death. Maybe I am that deluded person, deluded that I am better off. Others see me in reality, know I am ill, and have caused the bell to signal my own death, but I am ignorant of it.

Are we dying – as a culture – and do not realize it?

And then:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were.

Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Rioters and vandals, attacking statues of Jesus and Mary and saints, are not offending brass and stone, but storming Heaven. That is how they see it. Why do Christians not see it, too, and erupt in defense?

Looters and shoplifters vandalize stores, and empty them – often minority-owned shops – and are not stealing sneakers they need; but flail at capitalism itself.

Those who terrorize a city for a hundred days, and occupy police stations… are telling the truth when they declare that your police, your homes, your lives are next.

These things look like news clips and headlines, but they are alarm-bells.

The veneer of historical bad guys’ statues is long gone. When churches are covered in obscene graffiti; invaded and set on fire, the object of these domestic terrorists is not some dead general, but the Living Savior.

Hear those bells? Do they toll for them… or for us?

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Click: When They Ring Those Golden Bells

9-7-20

I have told this story before. On this Labor Day weekend, I remember a simple BBQ, but one of the most profound days of my life. A holiday far away from my home… but very close to my heart. It happened on a Summer holiday more than 20 years ago.

Is this an America that is disappearing?

I was working on a book back then, a three-part biography of rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis; evangelist Jimmy Swaggart; and country-music superstar Mickey Gilley, all first cousins to each other. My good friend Maury Forman offered me his unused condo in Montgomery, Texas to get away for a bit of a personal research and writing. Since Lewis lived in Mississippi, Swaggart in Louisiana, and Gilley in nearby Pasadena Texas, it made geographical sense.

Once settled, I took out the Yellow Pages (remember them?) to chart the location of nearby Assembly of God churches, intent on visiting as many as I could through the summer. East Texas was in every way new to me, and I wanted to experience everything I could.

Well, the first one I visited was in Cut and Shoot, Texas. That’s a town’s name; you can look it up. A small, white frame AG church was my first stop that summer… and I never visited another. For one thing – coincidence? – I learned that a member of the tiny congregation was the widow of a man who had pastored the AG church in Ferriday, Louisiana, the small town four hours away where, and when, those three cousins grew up in its pews. She knew them all, and their families, and had great stories. Beyond that, the pastor of the church in Cut and Shoot, Charles Wigley, had gone to Bible College with Jerry Lee Lewis and played in a band with him, until Jerry Lee got kicked out. Some more great stories.

But there was more than that kept me there for that summer. In that white-frame church and that tiny congregation, it was, um, obvious in three minutes that I was not from East Texas. I was born in New York City. Yet I was treated like family as if the folks had known me three decades. A fellow named Dave Gilbert asked me if I’d like to go to his farm for a barbecue where a bunch of people were just going to get together and “do some visitin’.”

I bought the biggest watermelon I could find as my contribution to the pot-luck. Well, there were dozens and dozens of folks. I couldn’t tell which was family and who were friends, because everybody acted like family. When folks from East Texas ask, “How are you?” they really mean it. There were several monstrous barrel BBQ smokers with chimneys, all slow-cooking beef brisket. (Every region brags about its barbecue traditions, but I’ll fight anyone who doesn’t admit low-heat, slow-smoked, no sauce, East-Texas BBQ the best) There was visitin,’ surely; there were delicious side dishes; there was softball and volleyball and kids dirt-biking; and breaks for sweet tea and spontaneous singing of patriotic songs.

I sat back in a folding chair, and I thought, “This is America.”

As the sun set, the same food came out again — smoked brisket galore; all the side dishes; and desserts of all sorts. Better than the first time. Then the Gilberts cleared their house’s porch. People brought instruments out of their cars and trucks. Folks tuned their guitars; some microphones and amps were set up; chairs and blankets dotted the lawn. Dave Gilbert and his brothers, I learned, sang gospel music semi-professionally in the area. Pastor Wigley, during the summer, had opened for Gold City Quartet at a local concert, playing gospel music on the saxophone. But everyone else sang, too.

In some churches, in some parts of America, you are just expected to sing solo every once in a while. You’re not expected to – you want to. So into the evening, as the sun went down and the moon came up over those farms and fields, everyone at that picnic sang, together or solo or in duets or quartets. Spontaneously, mostly. Far into the night, exuberantly with smiles, or heartfelt with tears, singing unto the Lord.

I sat back in the folding chair, and I thought, “This is Heaven.”

I have grown sad for people who have not experienced the type of worship where singers and people who pray do so spontaneously. From the congregation. Moving to the front. Sharing their hearts. Crying tears of joy or conviction. Loving the Lord, freely. If you have not… then visit a church where this is commonplace. Even witnessing it is an uplifting balm to the soul, where there is freedom and joy in singing spontaneously.

I attach a video that very closely captures the music, and the feeling – the fellowship – of that evening. A wooden ranch house, a barbecue picnic just ended, a campfire, and singers spontaneously worshiping, joining in, clapping, and “taking choruses.” Smiling, hugging. There were cameras at this particular get-together, but it took this city boy back to that holiday weekend, finding himself among a brand-new family, the greatest barbecue I ever tasted before or since… and the sweetest songs I know.

And I think to myself, nervously shedding a tear… “THIS is the America we are losing.”

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Click: The Sweetest Song I Know

6-2-20

God’s message for the time of plagues, lockdowns, economic distress, international strife, riots in the streets.

I tell you I am going to do what is best for you. This is why I am going away. The Holy Spirit cannot come to help you until I leave. But after I am gone, I will send the Spirit, the Comforter, the Helper, to you.

We think we are going through strange times, rapidly changing events of great magnitude. Prosperity. Then suddenly the world stops spinning and millions are out of work; schools and shops are empty. The stock market breaks records; commerce is humming. Then suddenly a plague threatens to kill millions. The world’s major trading partners are at odds, then break relations; exchange deadly threats. Hong Kong, reveling in tastes of freedom… waving American flags… singing Christian hymns in the streets… brutally is suppressed and taken over by the Communists. In America, peace in (weirdly empty) streets, then suddenly major cities and towns are in violence, its (savagely crowded) streets aflame.

All within a few months; some things changing overnight.

Jerusalem once was like that. Jesus, that street preacher with a healing ministry, enters the city amidst celebrations and hosannas. Suddenly, in less than a week, He is framed, accused, jailed, tortured, sentenced, and killed. All in five days. The government is repressive, the religious leaders defensive. This Jesus is dead and His followers weep, also fearing for their lives. Earthquakes; the temple veil spontaneously rips in two; the environment is dark. Suddenly Jesus comes back to life. His broken body is perfect. Thousands see him, even skeptical Romans confirm the events.

All within a few days; some things changing overnight.

Jesus did return. He communed. He preached. He explained. People saw. People understood. People believed.

After a whirlwind 40 days – that frequent Biblical number – another change. Jesus left again… lifted up not on a cross but bodily into the heavens. From the Mount Of Olives this Ascension, as we discussed last week here, was the final, supernatural, confirmation that He was God; returning to the throne to sit at the right hand of the Father.

Father? Son? One God? Ah, the mystery of the “Godhead.” God chose to reveal Himself in three ways to His children. He could have chosen two, or two dozen. The Trinity is His choice, all God in three natures. (If we could fully understand, we would be Gods.) Like water, ice, and steam.

The third “person” of the Trinity? That is the Holy Spirit. Present and referred to in the Old Testament. But specifically promised and explained by Jesus before the Ascension. “It is best for you that I depart… The Holy Spirit cannot come until I leave. But after I am gone, I will send the Spirit, the Comforter, the Helper, to you.”

Who is this Holy Ghost?

The world still asks this. The Holy Spirit is the most misunderstood, and the least accessed, member of the Trinity. When Jesus left this earth in order to send us the Holy Spirit… it is almost like disobedience that we do not welcome the Holy Spirit more, seek its wisdom and guidance and power and comfort.

Fifty days after the Resurrection, Jesus’s followers, men and women, met for the celebration of Pentecost in Jerusalem. They were praying, and as recorded in the second chapter of Acts of the Apostles, something like a mighty wind came through the room. What appeared to be flames rested on peoples’ heads. They all began to speak… in unknown languages. Foreign tongues, unknown words, unbidden.

They ran to the streets. People heard; some understood; some thought they were drunk.

But “they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance”; that is what was going on.

And this has been “going on” ever since.

Given the broad expanse of time, this Holy-Ghost experience that has occurred again in these last days – perhaps close to the End of Time – is also a relatively brief and crowded time. In only a century, marked from 1906, Pentecostalism counts a half-billion people around the world, second in numbers only to Roman Catholicism among Christians.

It is a movement that adheres not only to the Bible, in literal terms, but to the practices, power, mystery, ecstatic worship and closeness to Jesus, and miraculous gifts that all Christians experienced on the First Century churches.

Of those “gifts” there are nine listed in the Bible, available to us. Pentecostals (and Charismatics) seek and accept them, and they change lives. I will finish this three-part discussion in the next message – not to be as a schoolmarm lecturing about history, but to share what I have joyfully come to experience.

However, in these troubled times – these very days, these troubled and confusing and dangerous and evil days – I think the Holy Spirit holds more help, and hope, that we can know. And what better time to know that we are not alone. I will share practical Biblical truths. For times such as these, the Holy Spirit was sent to us.

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Click: Sweet, Sweet Spirit

5-4-20

“Where Is Jesus?”

Some people in these troubled times call this out to the heavens, to God, to Jesus Himself as they deal with challenges to health, family, income, sanity.

“Where is your Jesus now?”

That is a question that friends – skeptics, cynics, and non-believers, especially – ask in times like these. To certain people in this post-Christian culture, it is a rhetorical question, a taunt.

This causes me to remember a challenging time of my own, and my family’s: years ago my wife was listed for a heart and kidney transplant. Both organs were failing, and she was wasting away in hospital. My mother was near death in Florida, and I simply had to be there with my father. Driving to the Amtrak station, my car was T-boned and totaled at a Philadelphia intersection. My kids were staying with friends, but other challenges, including financial ones, loomed.

Mercifully, a family of friends was watching my children; neighbors helped with food and bills. My pastor loaned us his SUV until we could get back on our wheels.

And so forth. I could not be there for my mother’s actual passing – which was hours after I left Florida to come home for Christmas. Nancy received her transplants on Valentine’s Day, and lived another 16 years. Things worked out, in unexpected ways.

When things returned to “normal,” I gave thanks to Jesus in a conversation with a writer friend who was one of those skeptics. He said, “Why do you thank Jesus? Listen to yourself! It was friends who took your children in. It was relatives who helped with meals. It was your pastor guy who loaned you the car… Not your Jesus.”

I never had articulated the perspective properly before; but I quickly answered, “Those things were Jesus. He was just working through friends.”

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We are grateful, always, for gifts and givers. And we bless and thank recipients too, because they provide us opportunities to exercise charity. Not only to do love, but to be love.

That is what God desires for His children, even if “getting there” seems awkward to our little selves and our expectations.

Let God run His world. He doesn’t  always require that we understand everything; just that we be obedient.

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“Where is your Jesus now?” skeptics ask now in these troubled days.

Of course a single death is grievous; and if it could have been prevented, tragic. But in the long view, I think this pandemic has caused more trauma, anxiety, dislocation, and grief, from fear than from deaths; or possibly more than negative aspects of plagues in the past. Apart from things we cannot now know, like possible manipulation and skewed statistics and overreactions, we suddenly live in a dystopia, the opposite of a utopia. This revolving planet has come to a standstill!

Where is our Jesus? Of course He is still present. Behind the black storm clouds, the sun still shines. The One who created the entire universe is greater than microscopic viruses. Of course. Is there sin (and therefore death and disease) in the world? Yes.

Is a tiny virus, sweeping across continents, much different, really, than giant tornadoes, or massive floods, or unexpected earthquakes? No. Can plagues be prayed away? Sometimes, but mostly our duty is to cleave to the Word of God and trust Him.

“Though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, fear no evil, for I will be with you.” He does not promise a detour from that valley; or avoidance of what lies in the shadows… but for me, trusting that He is with us is a real and present help in time of trouble.

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“Where is Jesus?”

There was a poignant time in history when that question was cried with intense emotion.

Actually, back to back: after Crucifixion, Christ was in the tomb for three days. Jews mocked. Romans dismissed. The followers of Jesus, despite having seen Him perform miracles and manifest the Incarnation, despaired. Even His mother grieved.

“Where is Jesus?”

Then He rose. Came back to life. In a restored body. As by a speedy miracle, as the word spread and people saw Him, the hundreds of prophecies became clear. He had foretold of His Resurrection, and by rising proved His divinity.

“Where is Jesus???”

Then for 40 days He roamed the land preaching. People saw Him; listened and believed. The skeptic called Thomas doubted, and was invited touch the wound that still graced His side.

Where is Jesus? WHERE IS JESUS? “Let’s go down to the river and see the man who conquered death!!!” Until the Ascension, Jesus spoke, ministered, and encouraged multitudes, as historical accounts affirm.

Between those appearances and rallies, He must have had quiet moments. He had to go from place to place. It was His practice during His earthly ministry to seek solitude at moments, and commune with the Father.

I have a little idea that during the quiet moments, maybe in dark nights between towns, He roamed alone… looking, perhaps, for individuals. Not crowds, but solitary souls wandering, maybe spiritually lost, who needed a touch of the Master’s Hand.

In fact He is still doing that – seeking out lost souls who need the touch of the Master’s Hand.

You might be one of those. In fact, we all are, at least at one time or another.

Where is Jesus? Closer than you think.

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Click: God Walks the Dark Hills

4-7-20

It’s me, again, God. Rather, it’s us.

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

Things are going really bad down here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As you see us through this epidemic.

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

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

Click: The King Is Coming

3-30-20

Three events this week seemed connected in a way I think God would have us see. The unifying factors are these: that God has plans for us that occasionally look anything but good at first glance; we seldom can predict these life-adjustments, or even recognize them at first; and, number 3, God wants to use us. Yes, you and me. He gives us assignments for His work.

* In no particular order. I first will address the Coronavirus pandemic. Of course we have enormous sympathy for the deaths and dislocations – businesses closed and savings gone – that are resulting. But last week I listed some of the new priorities and redundant traditions that are good to be cleared away in a single season, instead of over a generation.

This social (not medical) craziness is bringing out the best in people, and I pray it lasts through and beyond the lockdowns. Acts of charity; innovative ways to care; new initiatives. My daughter Emily, in Ireland, was close to opening a restaurant and making other arrangements for her new food business, just a few weeks ago. She could have been locked into a horrible arrangement, as shops are hard-hit there as in the US. Instead of stewing (ha), she came up the idea of operating a “food pantry” to deliver food to doctors’ offices and hospitals, for those weary workers on extra shifts and unable to enjoy home-cooked food. The community is responding, in her city and elsewhere. Pallets of packaged foods; restaurant surpluses; volunteers; contributions.

Her inspiration was Jesus feeding the 5000. It’s not about her; she calls the initiative the National Health Service Pantry. For “Front Line” workers – what we would call medical first-responders and staffers.

Good will come from this plague. In myriad ways. That’s what Christians should make happen. God does not want people to catch and die from a virus. But in the midst, He has plans for us all while it is here. There’s at least one plan for you – just find it!

* Then I was reminded that the Feast of the Annunciation was this week. Forty weeks before Jesus’ birth. Mary woke up one day a lowly handmaiden; was visited by an angel; and went to sleep knowing she would give birth to the Savior of the human race. Quite a day!

Which means we cannot, usually, predict or expect or recognize events. We think such things are rare, but plagues and storms and wars often surprise us; and things are “never the same”… yet life goes on, doesn’t it? And for the good things too – blessings, gifts, visits from angels. Like Mary, as recorded in her prayer called the Magnificat, our souls magnify the Lord. We are humbled. We need to understand His lovingkindness. Those are acts to undertake. Just find one!

* Finally, did you notice in the news this week that Roger Stone, the perennial political dirty-trickster who was swept up in the “Russian Collusion” hoax, and sentenced to prison, attended a Franklin Graham crusade and gave his heart to Jesus? A little like Chuck Colson, the Nixon operative who was born again and founded the Prison Fellowship ministry.

Is it a legitimate conversion? I have a view of the matter. Many years ago I worked with two partners of his, just before the three founded a Washington lobbying group. More to share in a future column, but this born-again story – and a viral 25-minute video interview on CBN – caught my attention. And it ties in to my third “coincidental” inspiration for this week. Just think —

God has plans for us that are not always clear to us at first. His messages and callings usually are things we could never have expected. But… God wants to use us.

Use us. He doesn’t have to. He could use your neighbor. Or a stranger. Or nobody, and wave His hand over situations; He is God. But He issued a challenge to Emily’s faith… He blessed Mary with an unspeakable privilege… He broke Roger’s heart of Stone. He challenges, we respond. That’s how God works.

These things came together this week, amid good and bad health and financial news. The same message is delivered to us all – be open to God; welcome His surprises; and be willing to be used.

Just listen. Just see. Just act.

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Click: The Unseen Hand

2-18-17

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Click: How Long Has It Been?

2-10-20

Orson Bean died this weekend, killed in a “pedestrian accident” in Venice CA, hit by one car and run over by another. A ubiquitous presence on TV game shows and talk shows since the 1950s, he was, I remember, my grandmother’s favorite comedian – and mine, and millions of others.

He was 91, so he had a long career, but of the most unconventional arc: stand-up comedy; live theater; motion pictures; TV series; community playhouses. He was a polymath – serious actor, too; author; raconteur. His movies included Anatomy of a Murder and Being John Malkovich. Stage: Never Too Late and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? TV: hundreds of appearances on The Tonight Show (a hundred as guest host for Johnny Carson), I’ve Got a Secret, What’s My Line, and To Tell The Truth, also The Twilight Zone, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, Desperate Housewives, Two and a Half Men, Modern Family, and How I Met Your Mother. Recordings: Charlie Brown in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Bilbo and Frodo Baggins in the 1977 and 1980 animated adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Books: M@il for Mikey. My contact came through his role as a founder of Sons of the Desert, the Laurel and Hardy appreciation society, whose other founders were friends.

He met his third wife, Wonder Years actress Alley Mills, who played his love interest on Dr. Quinn. Mills, 23 years his junior, and a former Buddhist and devout Christian, married him in 1993.

Orson’s was an exceptional talent, taking him, and his fans, along a wildly unorthodox career. A Communist girlfriend got him blacklisted for a while. And when he turned conservative, he then was blacklisted by Hollywood leftists. The comparisons with his noted son-in-law Andrew Breitbart, the gonzo conservative, are eerie: both converts to conservatism, both died on streets – Andrew while walking his dog, it was reported, one night in 2012. Orson once said, “It’s harder now to be an open conservative on a Hollywood set than it was back then to be a Communist.”

But Orson Bean had another conversion. From a blacklisted actor to a familiar face; from obsessions with sex, alcohol, and drugs to being “clean”; from a trendy skeptic to a born-again Christian. His is a great story, one he recounted in the extremely engaging book, M@il for Mikey.

Even his Christian-conversion story was not “normal.” We hear many converts say that they developed an “emptiness within,” or created a “void” in their souls by their bad choices. Orson had a very different, and very unique, variation. Blue-ribbon theology, really, from this vaunted wit. From a column he wrote called “An Emptiness Only the Holy Spirit Can Fill” (for one of the Breitbart sites!) he posited:

[When people have used up the temporary highs of sex and drugs and booze and fame and wealth,] they’re still left with a hole in the middle of them that the Creator stuck there, knowing that eventually they’d feel the urge to fill it and do what they had to do to seek Him out.”

In other words, God PUTS this void, this longing, this emptiness, in us all… so that we will seek Him.

One of Orson Bean’s revelations came through reading C S Lewis’ Mere Christianity. Another astounding exegetical book of the 20th century is John Stott’s Basic Christianity, a similar book of intellectual blessing, where he wrote, Every Christian should be both conservative and radical; conservative in preserving the faith, and radical in applying it.

So was Jesus. Conservative and radical. And passionate enough to stick it to evil and sin and death, virtually climbing up on the dirty cross and die for us. Orson Bean was careful to specify Jesus Himself, as the answer to the “hole in the middle of us all.” Not works or mystical gods or “being spiritual,” but Jesus. Oh, this rotten world: Jesus became such an important part of Orson Bean – a “hole” that was filled in his life – yet very few newspaper stories about his death mentioned that.

Orson Bean’s life should be an inspiration about self-awareness and using God’s gifts. Among those gifts – or tools; weapons – can be humor. It’s “funny,” when all is said and done, how we can deliver, and embody, “serious” truths. Being a follower of Christ, and passionate about every serious part of salvation, does not preclude humor as a mode, or a way of life.

Being a follower of Jesus is supposed to be fun, after all; and it is fun. We will smile every minute of eternity when we enter Heaven’s portals. And I hope Orson Bean will be one of the first smiling faces I see there.

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Click: Coming Home

2-3-20

We tend to think that our times are special, I have noticed: our moments in the long timeline of history; or events in our lives. A natural attitude, not really selfish. We just see most things through the perspective of… our selves. I am trained as a historian, yet I realize that, while not impossible, it is difficult to be separate from our ancestry, our cultural heritage, our environments.

In historical matters, it is wise to remember how many things are not new – Solomon told us, correctly, that there is nothing new under the sun. In spiritual terms, of course, human nature does not change. There has been sin, there is sin, there will be sin. Short of salvation, which frees us from the eternal consequences of sin, that will not change either. A big step forward would be humankind’s recognition of that fact so that we at least might alleviate the misery of life around the edges.

In personal terms, 21st-century people tend to think they are the first generation to discover compassion and curiosity, rights and reform. Yet – especially regarding the bloody century we barely escaped – “rights” are proving malleable, and compassion often is weaponized and selective. In the balance, has “progress” been more a matter of calendar pages than substantial improvements in our lot?

Answers to these questions are debating-points. I don’t think there are definitive answers. Nor should be: let us keep questioning.

In very personal terms, thinking about where “times are special” or unique, I have observed lately that we pass some sort of milestone in life when our thoughts of the past start outnumbering thoughts of the future. Not something that happens on every birthday, but, well, eventually. Again speaking in spiritual context, I am assured of my future home, and trying to realize that my experience is not at all special – but part of the Bible’s “scarlet thread.”

I imply, without being certain, but am more and more persuaded, that humankind’s life is not better, and not worse, considering the sweep of history. All things considered, we generally are in about the same situations as earlier generations, and other civilizations. Medical advances are blessings, but we devise better ways to destroy life (and give those destructive innovations acceptable names). Societies grow more prosperous, but foster crime, misery, divorce, addictions, abuse. Wars were fought to end slavery… but there are more literal slaves on earth now than ever before. Nations are “free,” but totalitarians and corrupt cabals proliferate. We might be kinder to animals, but we are crueler to unborn babies. And so forth.

So far, I say, in the game of life – again, except for the game-changing fact and factor of Jesus – the balance-scales have not changed much through history.

Lately, I have met two people whose fiancees died. It is hard to imagine a crueler time to suffer such a loss (other than… well, you know). Seriously, in the bloom of a relationship, planning for unknown and exciting things… oof. How awful.

My wife had been sick for years, so – as the cliches go – it was merciful and expected when she died. At the end of my mother’s life she was sick and bounced back a couple times. Then she was listed in hospice, and lived another year. Each time I traveled to Florida to say good-bye. I was grateful for her “bonus time,” of course, but I do remember running into one of her neighbors. Sympathetically, she said, “It must be hard to lose your mother…” Almost unconsciously, I replied: “It’s almost impossible.”

But in some situations when we are “left” alone, or to pick up pieces, I think it takes a superhuman strength – or a Holy Spirit enablement, the only way I know – to move on.

The best example I think of is that of the singer Eva Cassidy. She lived in the Washington DC area all her life. She loved to sing and play the guitar. As an amateur she hung around Blues Alley, a little club in DC, and she sang. She met other aspiring musicians and got noticed locally, and then by scouts. Nobody did not love Eva Cassidy, but there was a little bump in the upward road when frustrated record people could not classify her.

Neither could she classify herself. Eva loved all kinds of music, and sang them: folk, country, pop, gospel. She just kept on singing, recording two albums and being recorded, occasionally, by friends on video cams (this was the early 1990s). Then, strange back pains revealed bone cancers, also melanoma spreading quickly. Before people knew it, Eva Cassidy died at the age of 33.

A couple years later one of her songs was played on a London radio program. Yes, an “overnight sensation.” Her few songs have seldom left the charts; her albums have been mastered and re-mastered; she is a major star through recordings in many countries; and American critics have said she had one of the great voices in American music. Her version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is amazing.

A video is attached here, and I return to my subject. As tough as it is for others to deal with death, the emotional dynamic always has been the same. Unique, wherever and whenever, and whoever. Harder – of course, and I am not joking – when it is ourselves, and we know death approaches.

Superhuman coping, I have said. When death was close, Eva performed at Blues Alley. With no tears, she sang a song she hoped was someone’s favorite, and she sang it beautifully – “What a Wonderful World.”

What a Wonderful World??? Was Eva’s world wonderful? She was in pain, dying, and she knew it. Was she nuts? No… she was blessed. She trusted God, and somehow… Well, hers were probably the only dry eyes in the room. Watch the clip.

Are our lives special? I would say that’s up to us… and to God, for when He sees Jesus in us, He does regard us as special. In the meantime, in this vale [valley] of tears, we remember that “life is real, life is earnest,” as the poet said.

There is a time to cry, a time to weep. It can be hard, but there is a time to smile, a time to laugh.

And, yes, there is a time to sing. And that is special.

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Click: What a Wonderful World

1-20-20

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Swim toward tomorrow, or you will drown in yesterday.

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

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

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

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Click: Were You There?

11-25-19

I am usually reminded of the same things each Thanksgiving. That is human nature, or perhaps an infertile imagination. But I don’t mean the Pilgrims and Indians, no. I do mean intentional reflection on God’s grace-filled blessings on me and mine, yes. On us all.

But I have also noticed (some would say that I am obsessed, to which I plead guilty) that “Thank you” and “Thanks” are still breathing in our conversations; however, “You’re welcome” has been displaced, or deleted. On television interviews, in phone calls, in chats around town. “Thank you” is sometimes responded to by silence – that is, not at all. Or “Thank YOU,” or “No problem,” or “You bet.”

Watch and listen; you’ll see. If you wind up thanking me, I will say, “You’re welcome,” I promise. But this development seems to be more than a conversational tic. I believe it manifests a basic unraveling of courtesy in our culture, even the loss of appreciation and thankfulness.

I also reflect on the validity of turning around the order, if not the meanings, of “Thanks” and “You’re Welcome” at this time of year. Yes, we thank God for His blessings. But can it be valid to think that, in the Pilgrims’ case for instance, when they praised God, dedicated their land to Him, and operated the colony by His precepts as a way of thanking and honoring the Lord… that His blessings and bountiful harvests were God saying, “You’re welcome”?

“He loved us, in that while we were yet sinners, He sent His Son to die for us.”

As unlikely as it would seem to be – and remembering that Grace is unmerited favor – perhaps God thanks us preemptively for our humble acts of praise and gratitude.

Circular reasoning can remind us of the miracle of God’s love, and of His wondrous ways. Those wondrous ways include uncountable things we do not understand. And we should not try to, because “such are the ways of the Lord.”

I recently came across the news about Madison Shyanne Keaton, a member of the large and talented Keaton and Collingsworth families. Below is a link to a family gathering, around the piano in the their sun room, exactly one year ago, at Thanksgiving. 

Shy, a beautiful 24-year-old, speaks very briefly about her life – running away from home at 15; drugs and sex; losing her baby and fiancee. She was also in and out and in and out of rehab. With the prayers and help of her friends and family, as she says in the moving video link below, she ought to have died, but did not. Straight and clean, her face beams with joy and faith. As everyone sings “Bigger Than All My Mountains,” she drops to her knees in… thanksgiving.

Only a few weeks ago, Shy was killed in an accident, when a car ignored signals at an intersection and hit hers. 

How can we “Thank”? Where is the “You’re welcome”? Did God have a purpose? – I always answer quickly to such questions at such times, “no, the devil had a purpose.” Our responses to these horrors in life – yes, even an aspect of our thanks and praise – is to remember the verse that “all things work for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.” NOT “all things are good,” but “all things work for good”… and that is our job: to turn things around on the devil, and toward the glory of God. 

It is not only the random moments in life when the ways of God are mysteries. Much about Him is mysterious – although He surely has shared a lot in scripture! – but we would be, not as angels, but as God Himself if we understood everything. So we should not try. Rather for us, then, the living, to… have faith. That’s what faith is – the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.

The “sacrifice of praise” is something He desires, that we acknowledge His goodness even when we don’t feel it. 

And maybe the essence of Thanksgiving is to thank Him when sometimes it is tough to summon gratitude. It is easy, after all, to say “thanks” when everything is rosy. But you mean “Thank you” when you have to dig deep in order to acknowledge His love and His ways. And that’s when the Master of our souls gently says, “You are welcome, my child.”

And if we don’t quite understand, we have a greater gift, God’s cycle of gratitude. Thanks for things seen and unseen.

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Bigger Than Any Mountain – Shy’s Testimony

10-21-19

Recently I have visited churches, worshiping away from home, and have been reminded of when I lived in California. What rang bells in my personal belfry is not exclusive to the Golden State. (And Larry Gatlin had it right about all the gold in California, but that’s for another time…)

There is a “trendency” in the American church that probably began in California, probably with the “Jesus Movement” of the late 1960s and early ‘70s. It is the stranger side of the welcoming “Seeker” type of worship. Come as you are… God does not require three-piece suits and long dresses and heels (for women and men, respectively… although we do have the California context)… dress codes can be intimidating… God is interested in your heart, not your wardrobe.

You have heard these things; maybe even believe them or have been persuaded; or, of course, might bristle at the non-rules. The other extreme is formalism that makes formality a form of Godliness, more extreme than dress codes. I have been in churches where women (in head coverings) are segregated from male worshipers; where my son and I were forbidden Communion because we had not first met with the church’s pastor (our actual denomination, but a different synod).

As I say, God knows our hearts after all. But in the church I visited last Sunday, the pastor who introduced himself already stood out… as the person in the dirtiest flannel shirt; in the jeans with the most rips in them; in the most beat-up work boots. In many churches today, leaders nor worshipers dress formally, despite perhaps clean T-shirts or jeans. Many pastors perch on stools, wear Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts. “Worship leaders” seem required to wear uniforms of grunge.

Is all this a reaction against a generation of pastors and televangelists who wrapped themselves in three-piece suits and blow-dried hair? Perhaps. Is it legitimate to resist formalism? I say yes… as long as it is not confused with formality.

Taking that further, there are differences between formalism, as I say, and formality… a difference between rules and the law, and legalism… a difference between liberty and license… a difference between unity and uniformity… a difference between reverence and rudeness… a difference between respect and dirty jeans when worshiping Almighty God.

The fact that God does not require you to wear ties and jackets, or modest dresses or slacks, does not mean that you have to dress in your cleanest dirty shirt, to quote Kris Kristofferson
.
Will these things keep you out of Heaven? Of course not. But I just wonder at the level of respect – I despair at the disappearance of reverence – when we have lost the impulse to approach God, and God’s people, in a little different manner than we do people in the supermarket, ball field, or work weekend.

Does the Bible have a suggestion for a dress code? As with everything else… yes. Stick with me:

Take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand your ground on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand. Stand firm therefore, by fastening the belt of truth around your waist, by putting on the breastplate of righteousness, by fitting your feet with the preparation that comes from the good news of peace, and in all of this, by taking up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

These are well-known words from the sixth chapter of Ephesians, and only partly are dispositive here. The advice is for a spiritual wardrobe, not how you would show up to church, clanging breastplates and swords. Metaphorically, what a well-dressed Christian will wear the remainder of the week.

However, there is one more item whose preparation is important to how we present ourselves before others… and before God.

How about your heart? Is it right with God? As Bennie Tripplet wrote in that great Gospel song,

People often see you
As you are outside;
Jesus really knows you,
For He looks inside.

Those are the rules for the Believer’s fashion show.
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Click: How About Your Heart

8-12-19

Conversation in the doctor’s waiting room. A woman next to me said, after reeling off her worries, “… but as the Bible says, God never gives us more than we can handle.”

Me: “You know, the Bible does not say that.”

“It doesn’t? I’m sure it does!”

Fortune cookies, yes. Greeting cards, yes. Even sermons, yes. But the Bible – prophets, poets, kings, disciples, Jesus? – no.

In fact, if we think about it, troubles and sickness and problems usually are attacks from the devil, or the results of our own folly… but not “sent” by God. He doesn’t “give” us more than we can handle. That is not how He works. He “gives” us hope. And strength. And faith. And wisdom. And, yes, deliverance.

But He does not visit us with bad things, even temptations. That’s in the devil’s job description, not God’s.

A proper understanding of this can change our lives. We should be free of the pagan superstition that God pushes us to the edge all the time. We are His children, and He is not a child abuser.

He did not tempt Jesus in the wilderness. That was Satan.

Let’s dig deeper into these ideas about challenges and God. I say He does not “give” junk to us. The world will ask, “If He is a loving God, then why doesn’t He prevent those problems?” A question that seems logical. He could have plucked Jesus from the cross. He could have put out the fire in the furnace before the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar ordered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to be tossed therein. The “valley of the shadow of death”? Why didn’t God promise simply to keep us away from the cursed valley?

Well, those actions are not in God’s job description.

He never promised us a trouble-free life. Some people never quite understand that! In fact, it is guaranteed that troubles will come our way… and the more Jesus there is in our hearts, the more the devil will attack. Stone cold, that. So what does God promise? Let us re-visit the three examples:
Jesus was on the cross to fulfill God’s plan, and to demonstrate His love for us. He would not interrupt that.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not avoid the fire, but were saved in the midst of the fire. Brought through. And manifested the “fourth man” who appeared with them, the pre-incarnate Jesus. Lesson delivered.

Walking though the valley of the shadow of death? God promises to be with us… not to slap us down a detour. We learn (or should learn) trust and faith, because He is with us in those times.

As Andrae Crouch wrote and sang, “I thank Him for the storms He brought me through, For if I’d never had a problem, I wouldn’t know God could solve them… I’d never know what faith in God could do.”

God always “gives” us exactly what we need.

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Click: Through It All

8-5-19

I am writing this in the first week of August, a time that once, and elsewhere, carries more significance than a new calendar page. In the 19th century, a lot of magazines published “Mid-Summer Numbers,” observing some sort of moment in the earth’s cycle, like taking a breath. In Europe – France especially – the entire month of August is devoted to vacations; trips far away from home. Some streets in Paris are virtually empty except for unlucky waiters and gendarmes.

For me, August reminds me of summers growing up outside New York City, in New Jersey. The Jersey Shore? Palisades Park? No, as an eternal foodie, my memories are of the best corn and the best tomatoes on earth. It is futile to seek such quality elsewhere, but these weeks beat Spring flowers and Fall harvests in many ways. De gustibus and all that…

It requires no stretch to see a spiritual aspect to the unique time between planting and harvest. We make plans, we live in hope, we anticipate; we pray. Planting seeds is a metaphor for being intentional about life, and commitments, our directions. Harvest? We anticipate the results of our work and plans. And prayers.

This week my son Ted, my daughter Emily, and I coincidentally went through separate but similar experiences, all related to the work we do. We praise God (always) for His leading, and His hand, the calling on our lives. But sometimes – without stopping to acknowledge God as the Master Farmer – it seems like we plant soybeans and we harvest alfalfa (or whatever those two plants look like; have mercy on this City boy; this is still a metaphor).

That growth period is just as important as Planting and Harvesting.

When Emily was very young, missionaries from Central America visited our little church and made a presentation about their work. Somehow their stories, their passion, affected her. As young as she was, she was overtaken with emotion and tears and… a conviction that she would serve in the missions field when she grew up. She eventually went to Bible College, joined missions trips to Mexico, Russia, and Ireland. And Ireland again. Her heart was joined there – in two ways; as she fell in love with Norman, attending a Bible college in Dublin, marrying, and being fruitful and multiplying. Still serving the Lod, of course.

Would all this have happened without that impactful visit of a missionary family decades ago? Maybe, or maybe not in the same way… but as a father I am awestruck at the growth (and nurture) of certain seeds that are planted in lives.

My friend Becky Spencer (writer, missionary, singer, songwriter) and her husband Tracy run a B+B and a Thrift Boutique in Kansas, to help finance their longtime work in Swaziland, now eSwatini in Africa. (I’m sorry, but the country’s new name sounds more like a video game to me…) It is a land with many challenges of health, poverty, disease, and education. And more. These past weeks has seen her crew from GrandStaffMinistries (.com, you know) experienced some family crises among relatives before they left America; financial challenges of course; a stolen passport at a stopover airport; stolen credit cards and money at another airport, followed by crazy rules and balky “facilitators” when help was needed; a ton-of-bricks debilitating infection to Becky herself… and so forth.

[And just as I write this, I received an emergency message from Becky in eSwatini that their facilities have caught fire that is spreading. Please pray, friends!]

Hard truth: when the devil attacks, it often means that you are doing something right. But when missions work – schools, clinics, worship centers, food sharing, teaching – is savagely attacked… is this God’s harvest for work well planned?

Well, yes, it is. For the overall accomplishments and victories of Grand Staff Ministries; for the work Emily has done and the blessings she receives; for the results of yieldedness that unfolds for Ted and me (and multiplied other testimonies), God does not bless our agendas. It’s about His plan, not our ideas of what His plan should be. He knows where we are headed. (Pssst – I can share a secret about how to know it: It is where He wants us.) And, almost always, He does not ordain where, and in what form, that harvest will be manifested.

Excuse me: He does ordain it. He just seldom shares it with us. And if we do work as unto the Lord, there are no “good” results or “bad” results; only God-results.

In fact I believe there is an aspect to spiritual planting-and-harvesting that we seldom think about. We offer ourselves as living sacrifices to serve Him, by serving others; we understand that, and we obey (not often enough, most us, but that’s another message). But our Sovereign God can use other people and other methods. But… the fact that He chooses us is a reminder that He cares about us as much as the people we serve.

It is truly the case that God wants to do a good work in us, not only in third-world kids or starving villages or abused women. By sharing Christ, sharing resources, and sharing ourselves we do not only do favors for the “lost”… but for ourselves.

And that is good theology. God will not take our lives, or our souls, for granted, as we do good. He cares about us as much as the people we serve.

Mary did not merely honor and bless Jesus by anointing His feet. She was blessed, and received honor and blessing from the Savior, for the choice she made. “The poor ye shall always have with you.” St Augustine saw that not as an admission of futility. He recognized that God wants to encourage in us, not only our loving targets, the reality of His love.

Not something only to deliver, but something to live, ourselves. Harvest time approacheth.

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Click: Thank You For Giving To the Lord

7-29-19

There is a story about the late gospel singer J D Sumner, once cited by the Guinness Book of World Records as possessing the deepest bass voice ever recorded. He performed as a member of famous groups, and even backed up Elvis Presley for a time. Variously gruff and given to broad humor, this story showed a side of him that displayed, appropriately when all is said and done, Biblical wisdom.

J D held sway in parts of the South, and one Christmastime he persuaded local authorities to release a prisoner whom he befriended and witnessed to, from jail over the holidays. The inmate would visit and stay with his own wife and kids.

The singer-comedian Mark Lowry was a neighbor of J D and when he heard this news he asked what the prisoner had done; what his offense had been.

“Does it make a difference?” Sumner replied in his other-worldly deep drawl.

How much do we really appreciate Forgiveness and Pardon? When Don Adams’ catch-phrase in the old Get Smart TV show entered the language, “Sorry ‘bout that” became everybody’s euphemistic apology. A substitute, really. Once upon a time, “Excuse me” and “I beg your pardon” were more formal ways of expressing formal apologies, perhaps until dulled into irrelevance.

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” This is the best-known reference to Forgiveness in our language; and, again, perhaps blunted by uncountable recitations. But we must realize that Jesus, when offering this “model prayer,” suggested a deal of sorts. He suggested that God’s forgiveness is granted in some relationship to the forgiveness we show others.

But isn’t God’s forgiveness, as an aspect of His love, unconditional? Yes, if we repent He will forgive our sins.

But we should be prompted – by gratitude if not basic theology – to forgive unconditionally, in the same manner as God does, those who have sinned against us. Wronged us, offended us, harmed us. “But, Rick, that’s hard!” (By the way, talk to God, not me…) Yes, it is hard. Almost impossible. But as God reads our hearts, He does not count the results of our forgiving spirit, but the number of times we exercise it.

“Forgiveness,” “Pardon,” “Second chance,” and all those related impulses, elevate our spirits. Indeed they open our ability to receive God’s forgiveness… more accurately to be aware of it and savor it. No longer an aspect of a spiritual bargain as we might be tempted to think, the Spirit of Forgiveness is blessed liberation you cannot imagine until employed fully and without strings.

There are very few things the Bible suggests that God cannot do. But it says that when we are Forgiven, God takes our sins and figuratively “throws them into a Sea of Forgetfulness.” I return to my question up top – how much do we appreciate Forgiveness?

Here is what I mean: have you ever done something, or thought something, that made you feel guilty? Did you repent and pray for God’s forgiveness? And again, and more times, reflecting your remorse and guilt?

You can understand Forgiveness a little better if you realize that after your first sincere prayer you are only telling God about something He already forgot.

Forgive… and forget. We have a great Role Model to show us how.

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Click: Forgiven

7-22-19

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Click: Going Home